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While he was spending time with his son, Echo—when they weren’t going on
missions with Leona—Ramses was also working on Operation Starframe. Echo
offered to conquer the whole galaxy in the main sequence with a wave of his
hand, but Senona said that they would not allow it. The Superintendent
forced him and Clavia to leave Salmonverse for a reason, and it wasn’t to
come back at will, making sweeping changes to the galactic starscape. Ramses
felt like he agreed with this, instead wanting to complete the project on
his own. Still, he let his son give him a few pointers. Ramses was glad that
everything was ready to go, because there wasn’t much time. Senona dropped
them back on this planet with only moments to spare. He teleported into
outer space alone with his forge core, and dropped it on the smaller moon in
orbit just before his jump into the future.
After the rest of the team returned to the timestream a minute later on
September 7, 2551, they joined him up there to take a look at the massive
shipyard that had been constructed in their absence. Hundreds of new ships
had been built already, and the design was not unfamiliar to them. About 300
years ago, Leona was on Varkas Reflex with some of their friends, but she
needed to get to Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, because that was where Mateo was
going to end up. Hokusai Gimura designed the prototype for the reframe
engine for her. The Radiant Lightning was only capable of traveling 22 times
the speed of light, but that was faster than anything back then, except for
certain time travelers. It was a tight fit. Both Leona and Sanaa were there,
so it really only worked because Leona skipped over the entire trip due to
her pattern. Ramses figured that the same basic design was perfect for this
situation because the Outriders—as he was calling them—didn’t require life
support. They just needed the ship itself, ancillary components, and a
little standing room just in case someone had to get inside for maintenance.
Ramses picked the forge core back up. “You guys don’t need to be here. I
just need to look through the logs, and make sure everything’s on schedule.”
“We were hoping to give you the fifty-cent tour of our new planet,” Angela
told him. “The one that I named after you?”
Ramses patted his hips and chest. “I’m a little short.”
“So you’re not mad?” Angela asked him.
He took a deep breath. “I know better than to argue with you. If that’s what
you wanna call it, I’ll accept.”
“I built a giant tree,” Mateo added. “That’s what the word means;
branching. If you prefer, that’s what we’ll tell people. It’s just
Latin, and has nothing to do with you. Nothing more than a coincidence.”
“I appreciate the exit clause,” Ramses said. He lifted his forge core a tad
bit with his wrist. “I really do need to get back to work, and it’s going to
be boring.”
“The tests,” Marie reminded him. “We need to know how small an establishment
can be to work as a slingdrive target.” They had to be extra careful to not
interfere with the galaxy’s natural development. The Outriders themselves were
surely good enough to serve as the targets, but Ramses wanted to make them as
small as possible. They still needed to find that threshold.
“I have that covered,” Ramses explains with a smile. “I’ll use the Outriders
themselves. Different ones will be programmed to paint different sized
targets, at different distances. No one else needs to do anything for that.
It really wouldn’t work to make short testing slings ourselves, because I do
think distance is a factor. Farther locations probably need bigger targets.
But we’ll see. I appreciate the offer. Olimpia, Leona, you should go see how
Ramosus has changed. This really will be super boring.”
“Call us if you need anything.” Mateo placed a hand on his friend’s back.
Hours later, after touring the other structures on the surface of the
planet, they were back inside the capital dome, standing on top of a water
tower. It was deliberately made smaller than the standard size of 83
kilometers. With a diameter of only 11 KM, The walls were still visible to
the naked eye, rather than being obscured by the internal atmosphere, and
the way light scattered. This was important, because the panes didn’t
tessellate evenly like they did for the standard domes. They used what the
dummies left behind to work on this discovered was known as a voronoi
pattern. It showed up in nature all the time, particularly with certain
insect wings, and the native trees which inspired it. It was random,
beautiful, and more importantly, structurally sound. It made the capital
dome look less rigidly constructed, and more naturally grown, even though it
wasn’t. It was still made of diamond and metamaterials, like graphene. But
instead of fading into the background, ignored in favor of holographic
imagery, it could be seen in its full glory. At certain times of day, such
as right now at sunrise, the light passing through the panes created
criss-crossing rainbows that couldn’t be found anywhere else in the galaxy.
It felt like they were in the fairy realm.
“This was a brilliant idea,” Leona noted as she admired the view. “You
didn’t just take what was already in Ramses’ forge core. You built something
new.”
“Well, the AI did it all,” Mateo admitted. “It already had templates for
fractal branching. We just tweaked the details to fit our specifications.”
“That’s what Ram does,” Leona argued. “You think he writes the code line by
line? He didn’t even make the AI himself. He took the base code from
multiple AIs, and used them to write something new, but not original or
unique. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a genius. We still need him for things like
this most of the time, but look at Linwood Meyers. He’s not particularly
smart, but he doesn’t have to be. He just needs to know what he wants, and
how to ask for it. And if he doesn’t know what to ask for, he’ll ask what to
ask. Anyone can build something like this, but it’s impressive that you did
it in a couple of years with your level of education. No cerebral
enhancements, no neuro-educational downloads. Just you and your imagination.
You should be proud. I still don’t know what we’re gonna do with this world,
but at least we have something that no one else does.”
“Thanks, my love.”
“I like the rainbows,” Romana said, pointing.
“Castlebourne has those too,” Leona explained. “You just can’t see them
through the holograms. Missed opportunity, but good for us.”
“Welp,” Olimpia began, “I’m pretty tired. I think I’m gonna go to bed.”
“Okay,” Leona said.
“Are you a little tired, Leona? And Mateo?”
“No, it’s only been a couple days for me, remember?” he reminded her.
“Yeah, but I think maybe you’re a little tired,” Olimpia tried to claim.
Mateo wasn’t getting it.
“Just go,” Romana requested, “so I stop hearing the deafening subtext.”
“Oh. Okay,” Mateo said, realizing what they meant. The three of them
disappeared to go be gross together.
“I think I’m gonna go meditate again,” Romana decided.
“You’ve been doing that a lot,” Marie noted. “Is there anything that we
could do for you, or is it purely an internal issue?”
“No issue at all, just trying to stay centered. Call me if you need
anything, but please don’t need anything unless you really need it.” Romana
teleported away too.
“Well, now it’s just the two of us,” Angela said. “We can’t do what the
Matics are doing, nor Ramses, and we don’t know what Romana is up to.”
“I know what she’s up to,” Marie contended.
“You do? What? How?”
“I was a superspy for four years, and she’s not hard to figure out, but I
shouldn’t tell you. She is entitled to her privacy.”
“Okay,” Angela conceded, agreeing at least on that last point.
They stood in silence for a good amount of time, watching the sunrise
twinkle the rainbows all over the land.
“Do you wanna build something?” Marie suggested. “We still have that extra
forge core, with all the templates in it.”
“I think we need permission to make a lot of those things, like the space
elevator, or the quarantine dorms.”
Marie shrugged. “Let’s do something small...just for fun. It won’t interfere
with anything else we have here, or will have in the future.”
Angela squinted, and tried to look through the panes, to the outside of the
dome. “That reality portal, which Echo used to come here. Is that still
there?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Sounds like a vulnerability to me,” Angela decided. “Maybe that shouldn’t
be out in the open where anyone we bring here could come along, and fall
into it, or be attacked by an interdimensional alien.”
“It’s not under a dome,” Marie reasoned. “A normal human wouldn’t be able to
breathe near it anyway.”
“Better safe than sorry. Most people have upgraded substrates, like ours.”
“True, and it shouldn’t be too hard. Okay, let’s go build a big door for the
portal. If the others get mad, it will not be that hard to tear down.”
The Walton sisters snatched the forge core from its stand, then teleported
back to the little hill where the reality portal was still swirling around.
They were careful not to approach too close. Angela sat down with her
tablet, and began to add components to their shopping cart. She selected a
template that was specifically designed to sit on a raised surface. Marie
walked around the entire thing, holding her sensor array out to scan the
terrain. The hill was actually fairly even, making the template only need to
add two minutes to the total estimate for complexity. This wasn’t only to
keep people out, but also in if someone were to cross over who wasn’t
supposed to, or expected. So they included a life support system, as well as
enough rations to last a handful of people a full year. If even more than
that showed up, the supplies were self-sustainable to a degree.
They knew they could add more to it later, like sharks with lasers on their
heads, or a lava moat. For now, this was all they needed. Given the
relatively minor complexities, it only took forty-two minutes to finish the
whole thing. The nanites did all the work themselves, since it was a small
job, instead of building larger automators to complete the work. They were
nearly expended by the end, but that was fine. The core could be replenished
with more. Ramses would have to build out his own lab however he wanted it,
but they built him a barebones facility with just the basics, including
nanotech fabrication.
It wasn’t an aesthetically pleasing facade, but a nice little cylinder with
an asymmetrical dome on top. It looked a little like lipstick, with its
black and red theme. After they both got a good look inside, Angela stepped
out, and Marie stayed in. She tried her hardest to teleport out, but was
unable to. Meanwhile, Angela fought to teleport back in, but was
equally blocked. The teleportation suppression field was holding. The
geothermal generators that it was drawing from couldn’t supply enough
sustained power, though, so they switched it off. The field would only turn
back on when someone attempted to break through it. Until then, this was
just going to sit here and look pretty. They inspected the foundation
together, walking all along the perimeter, until getting back to the main
door.
They felt a jumpscare when they noticed someone staring at them from the
door. They were wearing a creepy red cloak, their face concealed by
darkness. They were shaking the door at the handle, trying to get out. The
figure lifted their arm, keeping their hand in their sleeve. They drew it
across their neck threateningly, but did not say a word.
“Who are you?” Marie asked.
The interloper reached into their collar, and pulled out a gargantuan knife.
They stuck it into the opposite sleeve hole, and when they pulled it back
out, it was covered in blood. They scratched into the window with the tip,
sometimes going back to their own arm for more blood, until the simple
message was complete.
“Bro?” Angela questioned. “You’re someone’s brother?”
“Nah, he means Broheim or Bro Montana,” Marie joked.
The creepy figure knocked hard next to the word with their still hidden
fist.
“Sorry, we don’t know what you’re trying to say,” Angela responded.
Angrily, the figure slid their blood-soaked sleeve across the glass to draw
a line right underneath the word they had written.
“Bro,” Angela repeated.
They immediately hit the glass again.
“Knock,” Marie said. “Oh.”
The Waltons exchanged a look.
“Oh, shit.”
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