Castlebourne Capital Community

Here by Default (Part I)

Frame generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

The year was 2521. Dreychan didn’t agree that it should be, though. He had the idea to stop tying themselves to the Earthan calendar, and form their own identity. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that popular of an idea, and one of the reasons was that a lot of people living here didn’t have a very decent grasp of the passage of time anyway. On some homeworlds, it wasn’t necessary. They produced what they were indoctrinated to believe should be produced for the Empire, and that was just how things were. You didn’t need to know what day it was. The transport ships would come and grab what they demanded on their own schedule. As long as everyone kept up with quota, everything was fine. They weren’t living in the Goldilocks Corridor anymore, however, and were not subject to the Exin Empire’s rule. They needed to assimilate into this region of space while somehow forming a new, distinctive culture. That was no easy feat, and it wasn’t Dreychan’s job to do that. Perhaps in the future, when the war is over, they will be able to focus on their own self-fulfillment. For now, though, they just needed to survive.

Everyone was arguing over each other, and Dreychan was staying out of it. He didn’t have much choice. They never listened to him anyway. They called it the Council of Old Worlds. Everyone here represented the planet where they once lived, and were elected by their constituent refugees, according to whatever methods they chose. Of course, a ton of people didn’t even understand the concept of voting, so it took some time, and a lot of education, but they all figured it out. Dreychan was different. You might even call it special, but be careful who you say that to, or they’ll laugh you out of the room. He was the only person from his planet who agreed to come to safe harbor on Castlebourne.

Ex-777 was one of the few places where the residents didn’t suffer. They were the ones benefitting from all the labor that the slaves on the other planets performed. The only known world more desirable was Ex-999, or maybe Ex-69, depending on your priorities and proclivities. The rest of the Council hated Dreychan, which he thought was ridiculous. He was the one person who defected. If anything, they should revere him. They escaped to a better world, but for him, it was a lateral move, but not even that, because he was too busy to enjoy all the recreation that Castlebourne had to offer.

Ugh, he should stop feeling sorry for himself. Yes, he was only on the Council by default, and yes, he deserved to have his voice heard anyway, but it wasn’t irrational for them to ignore it. He wasn’t representing anyone, but that was exactly why they did need to listen, because this council shouldn’t exist. They shouldn’t be maintaining their old world connections. They should all become one peoples. How could he get through to them?

“What do you think?”

Dreychan just sat there, and yawned a little.

“Drey,” she urged.

“What? Are you talking to me?” They weren’t usually talking to Dreychan.

“We need your opinion.” What was her name? Ex-777ers were all born with names, but just about everyone else only had a number. It was a way for the Empire to dehumanize its subjects. Once they came here, they were told that they could start using names now, and there were various ways of choosing them. He just couldn’t recall hers right now, which was very bad of him. She was actually quite nice, and didn’t seem to hold the same grudge against Dreychan as the others.

“What was the question?” Dreychan asked awkwardly.

“Oh my God.” Now, Dreychan knew Maaseiah. There was no way he was gonna forget a name like that. The Corridor was 16,000 light years away, and actually predated Earth’s bible times due to time travel, so none of Earth’s religions existed there. This meant that Maaseiah had to do a ton of research to decide on the most obnoxious name he could possibly find. He seemingly wanted to put his delusions of grandeur on full display, and he freakin’ nailed it. “Do you want to be a part of this, or not?”

The lovely woman sighed—Lubiti! That was her name. He didn’t know why she chose it. He was remembering now that she was from Ex-883, which manufactured spaceship shielding plates, and really that was it. “Calm down, Masy.” She always called everyone by a nickname. It was exciting to learn that names could be unique and interesting, and even more exciting to learn that each one came with variations and alternate spellings. She turned to face Dreychan again. “We’re trying to decide whether we want to move Castlebourne closer towards the Core Worlds, or stay out here in the Charter Cloud.” This was a fascinating concept. The closest colonies to Earth were the most cohesive, and the farther out you went, the less familiar the culture and laws became. These were divided into three-dimensional bands. The Charter Cloud wasn’t the farthest, but it was beyond the stellar neighborhood, which meant they were afforded no protection from hostile forces. They had to protect themselves, and the decision was already made to simply leave the area entirely.

“Hrockas needs an answer,” Maaseiah explained. Hrockas literally owned this whole planet himself. He was the one who built the domes, and filled it with all the fun and interesting things to do. He graciously let the refugees live here when they had nowhere else to go. He was even more powerful than the Council. “He said he needed it yesterday, which I suspect was metaphorical, though he might be expecting us to send a message back in time, which we will need to look into. Teemo, write that down.”

Teemo wrote it down. He was from a world with very few refugees, so it was relatively easy for him to be elected the council representative, though unlike Dreychan’s case, the ones who chose to stay behind did so because they were too scared. They were right to be, given Castlebourne’s predicament now.

Dreychan had already thought of this, because he was good at being ahead of the game. He just didn’t have all the facts. “If we move closer in,” he begins, “will we join the neighborhood? Will our status amongst the other worlds change?”

“No,” Lubiti answered.

“So we’ll be...weird. There might be colonies farther out than us who are better protected due to us being an anomaly.”

“I don’t agree with that interpretation,” Maaseiah countered. “To get to one of the other colonies, they might have to pass by us. In fact, I propose we intentionally place our star close to another colony, so we can receive some ancillary protection from them. From what I gather, the Teaguardians volunteer their firepower to protect the colonies. Surely if we ask for help, they will just help us, even if we’re not technically entitled to it. It would be a lot easier if we were only a couple light years away when we ask, though.” Teaguardians were battleships that came from an outpost called Teagarden, which orbited Teegarden’s Star. They evidently didn’t stray far from the root word. They were only obligated to provide protection to the Core Worlds and the stellar neighborhood. Castlebourne didn’t qualify, and it was sounding like it never would, even if they moved themselves closer.

“The whole point of moving our host star is to not have to ask for protection,” Lubiti reasoned. “We’re trying to hide, which is why we should limit the number of people who know where we are. Our location has already been leaked. Let’s not let it leak again, because we don’t know if we’ll be able to move again. Hrockas never told us how it’s going to be accomplished in the first place. It may be a one time thing.” She was so right about that. “Do you agree?” she pressed Dreychan.

“I do,” he said, and not just because she was pretty, and he never did find someone to love on Ex-777. “We must stay in the Charter Cloud. Our anonymity is our greatest strength. We can swing quite far from here, and still stay a hundred and eight light years from Earth. Hell, we could go a little farther.”

“We can’t go farther,” someone else contended. Dreychan didn’t know his name, but he used to work out of Ex-741, which was a giant spaceship manufacturing plant, so he understood all this light year/special relativity stuff. “I mean, we technically could, but we shouldn’t. Castlebourne serves as a recreational hub for the entire colonial sphere. Everyone wants to come here, and the population is rising exponentially. Now, quantum communication allows them to make their connections without knowing our coordinates, but vast distances are more difficult than closer ones. It’s called coherence. Hrockas will not want to make the casting equipment work harder than it has to. If anything, we should get a little bit closer, but I agree that we ought to stay in the Charter Cloud, and mostly move laterally, relative to the Core.”

“We must remember that it is not our call exclusively,” Lubiti jumped back in. “Hrockas is asking for our input, not our decision. He probably will want to move a little closer, but stay in the Cloud, because that’s what gave him the freedom from the establishment. And don’t forget that we have our own defenses. We don’t need the Teaguardians. If the Oaksent finds us again, and we can’t get away, we can fight back. We will fight for our new home.”

“I agree with Biti,” Dreychan said.

“Of course you do,” Maaseiah spat.

Dreychan ignored that outburst. “If for no other reason than to stay in his good graces, we should give Hrockas the answer that he prefers. What is easier on him and whoever has this power to move a sun? What do they want to do?”

“Okay.” Council Chair Rezurah stood up. “I think it’s time for another vote. If we can secure the supermajority right here, I will be able to meet with Hrockas today to determine the particulars. Worst case, we will get back to you tomorrow morning for Council approval. If all goes well, we should be traveling at relativistic speeds by the end of the month. I urge you to vote wisely, as this decision could mean the difference between staying hidden, and being discovered by the enemy. Teemo, you’ll count this time, as you have not done it in a while.” They rotated this responsibility to make it fair, and to make sure that no one would have more than one opportunity to cheat.

The vote went in favor of Lubiti and Dreychan’s plan. Well, it wasn’t really theirs, and very much not his. Around half of the people agreed with it before they even started, and half of the rest had come around. Rezurah went off to her meeting with Hrockas, which she was already late for, and the Council meeting was closed. Dreychan was just going to return to his habitat, as he did every day, but Lubiti stopped him in the hallway. “Hey, a few of us were going to have some fun in 2.5Dome. You interested?”

“I don’t know what that is,” Dreychan responded, when he really should have just politely declined, since he didn’t like anyone who might be going besides her, and he wasn’t really the fun type. All his old peers were surprised that someone chose to give up paradise to become a refugee, but not surprised that it was him. He liked the boring life.

“It’s hard to explain. You just kinda have to see it. Come on!” she encouraged.

He did want to spend more time with her, to maybe see if his sudden feelings were just because she was the only person in the world who would give him the time of day, or if they were more substantial. “Okay. Sure. Why not?”

They sat alone together in a vactrain pod. The others had evidently either already left, or would be meeting up with them later. Despite Lubiti’s mild protests, Dreychan ended up looking through the prospectus for this adventure dome. There was reportedly a time when video games on Earth were so unsophisticated that they were two-dimensional. The player could move up or down or side to side, but no other direction. In fact, a lot of them apparently wouldn’t even let you move your character backwards, if there was something you missed before. The other half dimension was because the playspace was in base reality, so it was still technically 3D. Still, they would be in a very narrow field of play, and had to make it through the level without falling, or being killed by something. Both the prospectus and Lubiti assured him that the dome came with a number of different varieties. Most of this world’s visitors could die and come back to life in new bodies, so they could actually fall into a river of lava and be fine. For people like them, who only had one life to live, the levels were a lot safer, though the reviews promised that they were still fun. Good for her, not great for him.

The train stopped. They stepped off, and approached the counter for registration. “Froenoe, party of three. We already filled out our info, and signed consent forms.”

They did? That was news to Dreychan. He certainly didn’t sign anything. Whatever, he trusted her. But hold on, party of three?

Lubiti sensed his confusion. “It’s better in small groups. The others will be running their own game nearby.”

“Yes, I have you here,” the registration bot said to Lubiti. “Your third is already at the entrance.” He set two green bracelets on the counter between them. “These are your security bands. If you ever run into issues, squeeze that button, and a door will open up on the side wall, where you can step out onto a platform that follows you around the whole time.” Scary, but at least there was a theoretical way out.

“Thanks,” Lubiti said. She took the bands, and then they listened to a little more about how safe it was, that no one has ever been permanently hurt, and all that stuff.

They then took another train to their playspace, where they found none other than Maaseiah waiting for them. That was the most surprising development today. He and Lubiti didn’t seem to like each other, and he really didn’t like Dreychan. “Is he ready?”

“No. That’s the point,” Lubiti replied. Something had changed in her voice. She was no longer smiley and light, but overserious, and maybe a little angry? It was so confusing, Dreychan didn’t understand what was happening.

The three of them stepped through the entrance, and onto the first platform. It was very narrow. They would be able to pass each other, but only if they squeezed by, facing the restrictive walls, one way or another. After the door closed, a third wall slid across in front of it, and then began to make its way towards them. Yes, this was one of the ones that didn’t let you go backwards. Lubiti and Maaseiah walked a few meters forward. There weren’t any obstacles yet. They must have wanted you to get acclimated to the environment first. Shockingly, they exchanged a nod, then pressed their emergency buttons at the same time. Two doors opened up next to them.

“What’s going on?” Dreychan questioned, laughing, trying to sound friendly.

“We can’t trust you,” Maaseiah contended. “We can’t trust you to know where Castlebourne will move to. For all we know, you’re the one who leaked our location in the first place.”

“I didn’t,” Dreychan insisted for the umpteenth time.

“And now you never will.” Lubiti took one step through her special exit.

“You know I have one of those too,” Dreychan reminded them, shaking his green bracelet for them to see. It glowed a little in the dim lighting.

“Press it all you want,” Lubiti replied with a shrug. “I broke it.” She left, as did Maaseiah.

Dreychan pressed his button. He pressed again and again, but she wasn’t lying. There was no escape. The moving wall hit him in the ass, forcing him to move forward. He just stood there, letting it slide him down the path, ready to fall into the next foam pit or water tank. But it wasn’t foam, or water. It was lava. He could actually die here.

Council Criminal Conspiracy (Part II)

Frame generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

If this wasn’t the most difficult game in 2.5Dome, Dreychan absolutely did not want to see whatever was. What Lubiti and Maaseiah didn’t—couldn’t—understand was that this wasn’t anywhere near the first game he had ever played. His homeworld of Ex-777 didn’t have work. People played around all day. It was basically Castlebourne, but without the domes. They were lazy and hedonistic, and while he preferred a more quiet life, it wasn’t like he spent every waking moment curled up with a book. He had never played a game quite like this, but he did have some experience. Even his muscle memory had some idea what to do, because virtual reality was ubiquitous on 777. So he survived. He ran through the level, avoiding every obstacle, jumping over every gap. It wasn’t easy, and he was exhausted throughout the whole thing, but he did make it. And once he finished that first level, he went on to the next. And the next, and the next. He kept trying to escape, either by taking small moments to try to repair his emergency bracelet, or by just looking for a weak point in the walls. He also screamed for help, but no one responded.

He never found respite, except for a few minutes between the levels. If he managed to get significantly ahead of the moving wall, it wouldn’t have to catch up to him. A new wall would simply slide in place, and start coming for him instead. Sometimes, he had to figure out how to open a door, but it was never too complex, and he was a pretty smart guy. They had underestimated him, and that was their first mistake. He was at the final level now, and about to finish the whole thing. The one thing left to do was to defeat the final boss. How hard could it be?

Oh my God, so hard. It was this giant sort of skeleton creature that could spin its whole torso around on an axis, which it used to try to slap Dreychan away. There had been a sword in the eighth level, which he failed to retrieve. He knew that would come back to bite him in the ass, but there was no fixing it. A normal player could have let themselves die to try again, but he didn’t have that luxury. Any death would mean the true death, so he kept having to cut his losses, and press forward. That one mistake could not be what ended him here. He could do this. He had no choice. It wasn’t only because he obviously wanted to live in general, but seeing the looks of horror on Lubiti and Maaseiah’s faces when he confronted them—he couldn’t lose that opportunity.

He was on the ground, though, on his back. The skeleton creature towered over him. It usually moved fast and violently, but it was slow now, confident that it had Dreychan beat. It didn’t have that much in the way of a recognizable face, but it might have even looked like it was smiling? It reached back with its giant lanky arm, and prepared to smash Dreychan into the floor when something stopped him. It was the hammer from level seven. Dreychan had noticed it on the wall, but it had been receded into a pit, and looked more like decoration. After he spotted the sword, he figured that the hammer was just a distraction. Maybe not, though. Dreychan looked up to see Teemo wielding it. Teemo?

Teemo screamed through gritted teeth as he reangled his weapon so he could press against the bottom of the handle, and push the skeleton’s fist back. The skeleton was confused, and surprised at finally encountering an enemy who might actually defeat him. Teemo made one more push to knock the skeleton off balance for a second, which was enough for him to regrip the hammer, and smash the skeleton’s toes. The skeleton began to hop on one foot as it massaged its metatarsals and phalanges. Teemo didn’t stop there. He hopped over to the other foot, and swung to the side to smash into its ankle. That was enough to tip the monster over to his back. Teemo took a breath, and looked over at Dreychan, who was only now getting back up to his feet. Teemo expertly threw the hammer upwards, letting it slide between his fingers and thumb, catching it once his hand had reached the metal. He pointed the bottom of the handle towards Dreychan. “Care to do the honors?”

Dreychan stepped forward. “How are you here? Why?”

“Do you want to ask questions, or do ya maybe wanna kill the monster first?”

Good point. Dreychan accepted the weapon, found his own grip on it, and smashed the giant skull into a dozen pieces. After all this time, the doors finally opened.

A few days later, Dreychan was all rested up, and ready for the next Council meeting. According to Teemo, the plot to have Dreychan killed wasn’t limited to Lubiti and Maaseiah. More people were involved, but unfortunately, he didn’t know who, or how many. The only reason Teemo knew about it was because Maaseiah underestimated him too. Teemo didn’t explain why he helped Dreychan, but that obviously wasn’t the concern right now. They needed to identify the other conspirators. They had one chance to curate that list, or maybe not even that. If Dreychan had actually died in the game as he was supposed to, they probably would have heard about it, so their surprise might have faded by now. Or, they deliberately shielded themselves from the potential of hearing such news in order to extend their plausible deniability for as long as possible. He was about to find out. Teemo was already in there, recording the Council in secret. Dreychan was waiting in the ancillary hallway so no one would spot him.

They had been waiting for one straggler, but she was here now. Dreychan took a deep breath, walked back over to the main hallway, and stepped into the Council chambers. A hush fell over the room, which was weird, but he just kept walking, not looking. Teemo was recording, he had to trust that. He really wanted to see how Lubiti and Maaseiah were reacting, but he would be able to watch the footage later. Teemo would run it through a special program that was specifically designed to detect surprise, even if someone was trying to hide it. Dreychan casually strode over to his seat, and sat down as he always did. He looked up at Council Chair Rezurah because she was about to call them to order.

“Uh, uh...um.” She was so flustered. Why was she flustered? Was she looking at him? Holy crap, she was looking at him. She was part of this too? She shook her head quickly, trying to loosen up and get back on track. “Thank you all for coming. Um, I—I was able meet—to meet with Mr. Hrockas, I mean Stewart—Steward! Mr. Hrockas Steward. Hrockas. And we came up with the specifics of a plan. We’re gonna move our star 83 light years away, a little bit closer to Earth. We will end up 83 light years from Earth. Now, I know that might be confusing for some, but you have to remember that space is three-dimensional—”

“Sometimes it’s two-point-five!” Teemo interrupted. He stood up, and started walking towards the dais, holding his tablet down by his hip.

“Mister Teemo, you will wait your turn!” Rezurah demanded.

“I’m afraid I don’t have to wait for shit!” Teemo fired back. “You are all under arrest!” He looked over at Dreychan. “Except you, Drey.”

“But all of them?” Dreychan questioned. “Every single one of them?”

“Every goddamn one,” Teemo confirmed as he looked back up at Rezurah.

“You do not have the authority to arrest anyone, and you don’t have any proof whatsoever,” Rezurah argued. “You’re just a scribe.” She looked down at Maaseiah. “I thought you said he was one of us.”

“He was,” Maaseiah replied before standing up himself, and looking Teemo in the eye. “You helped us scrub the security footage.”

“No, I didn’t,” Teemo explained. “Because I am not Teemo.” He lifted his tablet, and started tapping on it. His face began to flicker before disappearing entirely, revealing his true face underneath. “My name is Dominus Azad Petit of the Castlebourne Charter Contingency. Teemo has already been placed in holding, you will all be joining him shortly.” Azad made another tap on his device. A bunch of masked soldiers suddenly appeared. They began to secure the perimeter, and place cuffs on people. “No, not him,” Azad ordered the one who cuffs Dreychan. “He’s not guilty.”

“We’re not either!” Rezurah shouted. “We had an obligation to protect our people, and the planet! We did it for you!”

Castlebourne Owner, Hrockas Steward appeared next to Azad. The man escorting Rezurah met him halfway in the middle of the floor. “I brought you here. I gave you a home when you had none. You didn’t even know what a home was. I gave you everything you needed to live happily and safely.”

“And we’re grateful for that,” Rezurah insisted. “Nothing has to change.” She scowled at Dreychan. “Except him. He’s a danger to us all. You have this whole thing backwards.”

Hrockas shook his head. “My team investigated Mr. Glarieda for months, and found no evidence of him leaking information. You, on the other hand; we have evidence of your crimes.” He jerked his head at her escort, who began to shuffle her away.

“You impersonated a Council leader, and infiltrated our private meetings! You have no right to do this! The people will rise up! There are more of us than you!” She trailed off as she was being pulled out of the room. The rest of the detainees were taken out behind her.

“Sir,” Azad began, “why didn’t you just teleport them all into holding?”

“I want people to see,” Hrockas answered coldly as he watched the last of them go. “I want them to see what happened here today.” He spun around. “Mr. Glarieda, on behalf of Castlebourne, and its executive leadership, I would like to extend my deepest apologies to what you have endured. Your experience has illuminated a number of security flaws in our system, particularly in 2.5Dome. You never should have been able to step through that first door with a broken emergency beacon. I want to assure you that the entire dome has been shut down, and will not be reopening until we have secured a more robust set of guardrails. Furthermore, I have called in a third party to audit our system overall to identify any flaws or room for improvement. As everything on this planet is free, I can offer you no compensation for your suffering, but...” He looked around at the now empty chambers. “The Council is yours for now. I try to stay out of politics. I only stepped in because it was a conspiracy to commit murder. That’s rare these days, and I cannot allow a permanent death to overshadow what we’re trying to build here. Not to sound callous.”

“I understand,” Dreychan responded sincerely. “I’m grateful for the assist. Particularly to you, Dominus Petit.”

“It’s my job,” Azad said. “You almost had that skeleton. I would have been there sooner, though, but we could not get the emergency exits open. I know that sounds bad, but it’s what we’re gonna use to nail these guys. They hacked our system, which means they left a trail for us to follow.”

“Yeah,” Dreychan agreed with the silver lining.

“Well, we’ll leave you to it,” Hrockas said. “I have to get back to work.”

“Wait,” Dreychan said before they could disappear on him. “I don’t know what I’m doing. You can’t have a council with one person. We need to fix this, and I’m not qualified to do that alone. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I will need to maintain a line of communication with my...murder conspirators. They may have tried to kill me, but I recognize that they were doing it to protect ex-Exins. They will help me.”

Hrockas nodded. “Azad can make arrangements for visitation. They will be monitored, however, so the expectation of privacy that this council enjoyed before has been undone. You’ll get it back once you backfill the positions, and I’m satisfied that there will be no repeat of this incident.”

“I appreciate that, sir,” Dreychan said.

Hrockas disappeared.

“What the hell just happened?” Dreychan asked rhetorically. This was crazy. He couldn’t run the Council, even to find all of its replacements. Even with help, he was not the man for the job. He didn’t even ask to be on it in the first place. He simply didn’t have any choice. When they first arrived, and started establishing their rules, Hrockas insisted that every old world had representation. It made sense at the time, and Dreychan agreed because the Council was so big, he could disappear into it. Now it all fell on him, and he wasn’t prepared for it. Goddammit, why wasn’t there just one other person who didn’t try to kill him the other day?

Azad started to breathe deliberately. “Just breathe, Drey. Like this. In. Out. Slowly. You can do this. You’re not alone, even if it might feel like that. You can reach out to the Expatriate Protection Bureau. As far as we know, they weren’t involved in this. The EPB was the internal police force that the former refugees created. It too was separate from Hrockas and the other planetary executives, but also operated independently of the Council. They were there to check and balance each other. Yeah, they could help. Perhaps they would be able to simply take over.

Dreychan breathed. “Thanks. I’ll be okay. Things are getting easier. The Vellani Ambassador returns every day with fewer and fewer refugees. There are fewer decisions to make than ever.”

“That’s a very positive way to look at things,” Azad said. “He tapped on his tablet a few times, and then tapped the corner of it against Dreychan’s watch. Contact me whenever you need. A Dominus commands hundreds of thousands of troops, but we are presently technically in peacetime, since the Exin Empire threat is only that; a threat. And it will be my job to lead them, not train them now. So I have a lot of time on my hands.”

Dreychan glanced at his watch to make sure his contact card came through. “This has your quantum signature. You planning on leaving this region of space?”

Azad smiled. “Light lag is still a problem even if you’re not light years away. I’m helping develop a new adventure that’s not actually under one of the domes. It’s on the edge of the solar system.”

“Oh, interesting. Well, I’ll let you get to it. I appreciate your support.”

“Any time. It was nice meeting you.” Azad disappeared.

Dreychan was all alone, in the literal sense anyway. He was in charge here now...of the chairs, and the tables. They better get in line, or suffer the consequences. That was his first order of business. He walked around the tables, and straightened the chairs out so they would look nice. Some of them had been knocked over in the kerfuffle. As trivial as it was, it made him feel a tiny bit useful. It was unreasonable to begin any real work today. The only item on the agenda was to approve the plan for the stellar engine, and there was no longer anyone here with the right to make that call. There was certainly no need for a vote. Once people were found to backfill all of these many positions, at least the room would be clean and tidy. Hell, the other original council members might even ultimately be totally acquitted, and return. He didn’t know. So to prevent any kind of future conflict, he just took the day off, and went back home. He would come to regret it.

The Man Who Refused to Die (Part III)

Frame generated by Pollo AI text-to-video AI software

The Castlebourners were mad, and they had every right to be. Dreychan didn’t commit a cardinal sin, but he did screw up. As soon as the rest of the council was arrested for conspiracy to commit murder, he should have addressed the people. He knew how to do that. At any one time, they were spread all over the world, but he had the means of contacting them separately from all the visitors. These visitors mostly didn’t know that the refugees were from 16,000 light years away as that went against everything they understood about physics and space colonization. The lie that they spread about a closer empire was weak at best, but it was the only lie they had. At some point, the full truth about time travel was probably going to get out to the general public, but for now, Dreychan should have used the news bulletin protocol. But. It had only been one day, and it didn’t spell the destruction of the whole planet, so everyone just needed to chill out.

He finally escaped the angry crowd of wannabe journalists, and ducked into the council chambers. His speech to them wasn’t half bad, if he could be so bold as to evaluate it himself. Perhaps they felt otherwise, or this was just such a crazy situation that no one knew what to think, or how to react. He took a deep breath as he leaned his head against the door, still hearing them rabble rabble in the corridor. No one else was allowed in here. He used to dread coming to this room, now it had become his one place of respite. How had things changed so much in only a matter of a few days? He breathed through the inner turmoil, and turned back around. “Who are you?”

The elderly woman wearing what appeared to be a robot costume stepped forward, and extended a hand. “Yunil Tereth, big fan.”

“How did you get in here?” Dreychan questioned. “It’s DNA coded.”

“Twins have the same DNA. My sister was on the Council. I always could have walked in here. I just never had the occasion.”

“Who could possibly be your twin sister?” There were some fairly old people on the Council, but none of them quite this old. He was surprised that she could even stand up on her own.

“Lubiti. Now, I know what you’re thinking...why don’t we have the same last name?” She giggled. “We never really got along, so when we chose our names, we deliberately distanced ourselves.”

“I was actually thinking...” Was it offensive to bring up her age?

She giggled again. “When I heard the news, I was in Perspectidome, where you spend time in someone else’s proverbial shoes, to better understand what their life would be like. This is only a temporary substrate. Thank God I chose to make it my older self, instead of just any old lady, so my DNA works. Pay no attention to the outfit. My character had a backstory that was out of my control.”

“Okay. Well. You’ll forgive me if I don’t tell you anything since I can’t really place my trust in that. When it comes to mind transfer, you can’t trust anyone. That’s one reason why I stayed normal. I’m always me.”

Yunil nodded. “I understand. We can meet again, with me in my own body. I decided not to take the time to transfer back before coming here now, because my usual face is...”

“Infamous now?” he guessed.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll tell you what. I don’t know what you want, and I believe it’s best not to say at this time. Next time I see you, I not only want you to look like Lubiti, but I want to see you two at the same time. She’ll confirm if you’re real or not. She’ll know if you’re just a liar in a meatsuit.”

“Fair enough,” Yunil agreed.

“I assume you have my contact card?”

“I do.”

“Send me yours so we can coordinate. I have to reach out to schedule visitation.”

“I’ll do that.” She started tapping on her device. “Also, can I go out the back?”

“Go ahead.” While she was leaving, Dreychan pulled out his own device. Her contact card came through while he was navigating to Azad’s. He took a moment to think about what he wanted to write. Good morning, Dominus Petit, I—

“What’s up?”

Dreychan spun around to find another surprise guest. “Dominus. I was just writing to you.”

“I know,” Azad replied. “I get an alert whenever anyone so much as opens my card.”

“That’s...a little frightening.”

“It’s a security thing. We need to know who’s thinking about us in case it’s an assassin, or something worse.”

“I see.”

“There is a workaround. What you do is take a photo of the card using another device, and consult the image whenever you want. Don’t just take a screenshot, though, because I, uh, get alerted when that happens too. This works for anyone with a spy-ping trigger.”

“That’s good to know.”

They stood there awkwardly for a moment. “The trigger doesn’t alert me to the reason you were looking me up, though,” Azad went on.

“Oh, right, sorry.” Dreychan gestured towards the back door. “I was just visited by a...old woman who claimed to be Lubiti’s twin sister, but just in a different substrate. I can’t verify that, so I need to speak with Lubiti sooner than I expected to ask her about it. And I would like this Yunil to be present.”

Azad narrowed his eyes at him. “You spoke with her here? Please tell me you were stupid enough to let her in, and not that she walked in herself.”

“It was the second one.”

Azad sighed as he started tapping on his wrist device. “I’m choosing to believe that the sister is okay, but if she breached using her shared DNA with Lubiti, it clearly means that Lubiti could come back in as well. Presumably, so could any other former member of the Council. Even if they’re locked up, that is a huge security flaw that we’ll need to cover. I’m sorry, I can’t grant visitation, to you or her sister, until we figure this out. For all we know, this whole thing has been a plot to break her out, and clearly, that could cause problems. I’ll call you with updates as appropriate.”

“That makes perfect sense. Do what you gotta do, and take your time.” After Azad disappeared, Dreychan also slipped out the back, and headed for the senior vactrain hub, which he now had access to thanks to his higher status on the Council. The reporters wouldn’t be able to follow him there, so it was another source of protection from the onslaught of questions, though a sterile and boring one. They shouldn’t be able to accost him at home either, but perhaps that too was unsafe. There were plenty of places to sleep here. He could apply for a temporary unit in Overdome maybe. That was so weird and random, no one would think to look for him there. “Yunil?”

She looked up from her device. “Oh, hello again. Just waiting for my train.”

“Oh.” Super awkward.

“Oh no, what happened?”

He couldn’t say anything. If he explained what Azad just said about the access flaw, it might give her an idea that she didn’t have before! Argh, no! Get him out of here!

Yunil smiled knowingly. “You don’t have to tell me anything. If you’re not busy, perhaps you can accompany me back to Perspectidome, where my real body is waiting for me? I’m not thinking that that will be enough to get you to trust me, but if you see the records which prove that it’s my primary, maybe that gets us one step closer to trust.”

“I suppose I have nothing better to do.” The train zipped through the tube before them, and the doors opened. The both of them stepped onto it, and let it take them away. They were alone in the pod, which was good. This time was usually busy with people coming and going, but the council shake up must have rippled across the population, and altered other people’s personal schedules. It wasn’t long before they were at their destination. Dreychan looked around, confused. “We didn’t have to stop at a Conjunction. I didn’t know that was ever a thing.”

“Don’t need one, with that handsome face of yours. You’re now not only a senior traveler, but an executive senior traveler. Every train has become an express train. We probably did go through a Conjunction, but we didn’t have to stop and switch tracks. And yes, Perspectidome is relatively close.”

The doors reopened, and let them out. They proceeded to the intake plaza, where Yunil informed the bot that she was picking her primary substrate back up. They processed her biometrics, and let them into the transfer room. “This is the weird part.”

“What’s weird about it?” Dreychan asked. “Besides everything?” He knew very little about how all this body switching stuff worked, and didn’t care to know. She could tell him that a microscopic creature was going to crawl out of her ear, and into the one of the body she was trying to move to, and he would believe it, because he really just did not know.

“This body isn’t just temporary. It’s disposable, and is actually required to be disposed of. It’s going to melt, which might be unsettling to watch.”

Dreychan stared at her. “If you’re going to disrobe, I’m not going to be watching anyway.”

She laughed. “No, the clothes are biosynthetic, so they’ll just melt too.”

“Still, I don’t think I’ll watch.”

“I can appreciate that.” She pointed at the side door. “My primary is in that room. It is unclothed, but it looks nicer, and it’s not going to melt. You can wait for me there.”

He went into the other room to find a motionless body that looked just like Lubiti. It was floating in this big vertical tube against the wall, in some kind of bubbly amber fluid. Within minutes, her eyes popped open. She took a moment to get her bearings before settling into eye contact with Dreychan. She smiled at him kindly before reaching down and turning some kind of wheel on the floor. The fluid started to drain away. Once the tube was empty, she slid the hatch open and climbed out.

Dreychan had noticed a towel sitting folded on the table between them. He picked it up now, and tried to hand it to her.

She smiled wider now. “I have to wash up first. It’s basically amniotic fluid.” She glided over to the shower, which didn’t even have a curtain. So he wouldn’t keep staring, he went over to the machines, and started looking at the various components, as if his observations alone would give him any understanding of how they worked.

“It’s okay,” she said while she was still in there. “I switched on the holo-partition.”

He looked back over, but it was a lie.

“Sorry! I’m a bit of a trickster.” Yunil did this weird hand gesture where she tapped the tip of her own fingers with her thumb and flicked her wrist a little. The hologram appeared now. It was rather translucent, and barely tall enough to cover the important bits, but he didn’t want to argue anymore, so he just kept his eyes on hers. “Don’t be so uptight. You treat your own body as a vital part of you, but for people like me, it’s just a husk. You don’t cry for your clipped fingernails, do you? I’ve met people who look like rabbits, mythological creatures, and even machines. There’s a dome here where you transfer your mind to a vehicle, and drive. It feels like you are the vehicle, not like you’re just sitting in one.”

“I don’t cry for my nails,” Dreychan explained, “but my body is not something I can lose. It would be more like the body loses me. We call that death.”

“Well, that’s your first problem. You see death as inevitable. The vonearthans see it as an anachronism.” She sighed. “I’m gonna have to walk through the hologram to reach the towel.”

He looked away again.

“Oh my God,” she said. “It’s not me. It’s her. Do you have a thing for her?”

He took one little peek. The towel was now keeping her covered. “She was nice to me. It’s over now.”

“I’m nice to you, and that’s not over.”

“What are you saying?”

“Drey—”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“Okay.” She didn’t see it as a big deal. “Your video was leaked, did you not know that?” She opened a drawer, and pulled out a set of clothes, which she set on the counter between them.

“Of me in 2.5Dome? No, I am indeed aware of that. Many of the reporters’ questions had to do with how I survived the ordeal.”

“You don’t understand. No one has ever made it through that whole game in one go. It’s only supposed to be for people like me, for whom death is but a temporary setback. The loudest people are mad that you didn’t make your announcement right away, but most of us are extremely impressed, and that is quickly overshadowing any resentment we feel about the lack of immediate transparency. I came to you because I wanted to meet the man who refused to die. I wanted to meet the man who my sister underestimated. You want my body, you can have it. You want me to jump to another one, and have that instead, just say the word.”

“That’s not what this is about for me. I don’t feel emotions for bodies. I feel them for people. And we just met.”

“We can take it slow,” she said with a shrug as she tossed her towel into the material reclamator, and started slipping on the outfit. “But maybe not too slow. After all...if you’re planning on dying in less than a century, you better get on it. You don’t have as many opportunities to find happiness as almost everyone else in this part of the galaxy. I admire that in people like you, but...not if you take it for granted.”

“I don’t need you to feel any particular way about me. I just want you to tell me what you really want. And don’t say it’s just about sex. I don’t believe that.”

“You told me you didn’t want me to tell you yet.”

“I changed my mind.”

She nodded. “I’m part of a group.”

“Oh, shit.” That word. His brain instantly associated it with other, less innocuous ones, like rebellion, insurgency, or traitor.

“Don’t be like that. We’re not violent. We’re connoisseurs of Earthan history. Ya know, our ancestors were grown in test tubes by a madman, who stole them from a ship, which originated in the Gatewood Collective, and whose passengers were once refugees from another universe, which were the descendants of runaways...from Earth. Yes, our peoples have a longer history of fleeing oppression and strife than you might know. But while we don’t call ourselves vonearthan, we are all technically sourced from there. My group studies the homeworld, because we believe it is the absolutely most important aspect of our lives, now that we even know it exists. I came to you, Dreychan, because if you want to know how to formulate the new government of Castlebourne, you have a perfectly good model to base it on. Earth spent thousands of years trying to figure it out. Don’t reinvent the wheel. My friends and I will show you what works. It’s been working for centuries. That’s how they were able to build this paradise.”

“Hrockas built it to get away from Earth.”

“No, he was assigned this planet because while it is naturally barren, it’s stable, gravitationally healthy, and the host star is relatively similar to Sol. Its distance from the Core Worlds is the product of cosmic statistical probability, not a design feature.”

“What are you trying to say now?” He was getting confused.

“Don’t think that you need to rebuild the Council back to how it was. You might not even need a council. All I’m saying is get yourself educated before you start making any decisions. I’m here to give you whatever you need, and I don’t just mean access to my body. My brain is pretty great too.”

Dreychan’s watch beeped, so he checked the notification. “No more express trains for you. You’ve been locked out of government privileges. Or rather, Lubiti was.”

Yunil rolled her eyes. “DNA locks are so stupid anyway. All I need is one hair, and I can grow a passing clone in a matter of months without setting off any alarm bells. It should be brainwave-locked. I know they have that technology. You should demand it.”

Dreychan breathed deeply. “I still can’t trust you. We need to set up that meeting with your so-called sister.”

She chuckled. “That’s not the first time she’s been called that. I call her that. And yeah, I’m down for the meeting whenever. I cancelled all future dome trips, so I’ll just be sitting at home whenever you’re ready. I will be able to leave at a moment’s notice.”

“I’ll talk to my contact again,” Dreychan said. “But right now, I’m exhausted, so I think I’m gonna go home. Maybe we don’t share a train again?”

She shook her head. “We’re not going to the same place anyway. I live in Underbelly.”

The Monsters We Make (Part IV)

Frame generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

Dreychan and Yunil were standing in the visiting room, waiting for the latter’s sister, Lubiti to be escorted in. They will be separated and protected from her by a nigh impenetrable window, but they were both still pretty nervous. They really shouldn’t be. Even if they were in the same room together, she was likely not physically dangerous. She and her buddies had concocted a plan to get Dreychan to die in what was meant to look like an accident. They had no reason to believe now that she would suddenly jump up and attack him if given the chance. Still, it was incredibly awkward. Dreychan as of yet did not know if the woman next to him even was Lubiti’s sister. That was mainly why they were here, but also to ask her why she did it, besides the obvious reason that they all thought he was a mole.

“You know we’re holding hands, right?”

“Oh, sorry.” Dreychan tried to pull away.

Yunil grabbed tighter. “No, I prefer it. I think Lubiti should see us like this. Even if it’s not real, we’re better off with her thinking it is.”

“Okay.” He didn’t mind it.

The door on the other side of the glass slid open. Lubiti walked in, looking up at the ceiling and walls. She looked calm, probably remorseless for her actions, and maybe thinking of a way to escape. She didn’t have the skills for that, though. She wasn’t the one who survived one of the hardest games in 2.5Dome. Her eyes finally settled on the two of them, standing there like they were going steady. Her neutral face fell into a frown. She walked farther into the room, and angrily placed two palms upon the glass. “What are you doing here?” she asked, focusing on Yunil.

“I—” Yunil began.

“Bup-bup-bup,” Dreychan interrupted to warn her. He needed to speak first so he could get an uncorrupted answer from Lubiti. He looked back over to Lubiti after Yunil nodded respectfully and quietly. “Why does this woman look like you?”

“Uh, because she’s my twin sister, dumbass.” Lubiti responded. “You’ve never heard of twins before?”

“Are you sure?” he pressed.

“Am I sure?” Lubiti echoed. “Yeah, I’m sure. You think I’m the idiot here?”

“Don’t talk to him like that!” Yunil shouted at her.

Lubiti scowled back. With a quieter voice, she asked, “so, what? Are you two together now, or something?”

“So what if we are?” Yunil questioned.

“I don’t care,” Lubiti replied self-assuredly. “It’s not my problem anymore. As far as I go, The Oaksent can come wipe you all out now. I’ll be here, looking like an enemy of Castlebourne. I’m sure he’ll welcome me back into the fold.”

“What the hell?” Dreychan asked. “You tried to kill me—”

“No,” Lubiti interrupted. “I didn’t try to kill you. I put you in a position where you may or may not have been in danger. What you did with your circumstances was your own business.”

Dreychan laughed. “If that’s your legal defense, I’d say it needs work. My point is the irony, that you should intentionally put me in a position where I could die for allegedly working for the Oaksent, and now because it backfired on you, you’re ready to start working with him instead? If you were in my position today, would you send you to 2.5Dome for revenge? Should I place you in the same danger that you made me face? I mean, you only thought that I was a traitor. You’re openly admitting that you are. How is that not worse?”

“I’m just trying to survive. My values have not changed. I place my fealty with anyone who can keep me alive. I once thought that was the Oaksent, then I thought it was Castlebourne. Now it’s possible that I was right before. I don’t want to have been right, but you have left me with few options.”

“No one is trying to kill you here,” Yunil reasoned. “That’s why we were right to seek refuge with the Vellani Ambassador, because our god would absolutely have killed us for any insubordination. The people here are different, and if you don’t understand that by now, why didn’t you ask to be taken to New Welrios instead, or Outcast Island?” New Welrios was an independent planet back in the Goldilocks Corridor. It was well within Exin Empire space, but it was protected by an extremely powerful engineer, and a population of isolationist rebels. A portion of them were the first to try to escape the empire’s grasp before they were located, and quite nearly destroyed. They ended up on Ex-324, where they eventually persuaded the locals to declare their independence as well. And Outcast Island? Well...they didn’t talk about Outcast Island. But it wasn’t really an island, at least not according to the dictionary definition.

Lubiti scoffed. “Did you come here for a decent reason, or just to shove your relationship in my face, because I really don’t give a shit. I never liked you, Dreychan. I was just assigned to get close to you.”

“This has nothing to do with that,” Dreychan answered. He will never tell her about the twin test. Lubiti would probably just turn it around and claim that no, Yunil actually wasn’t her twin sister, but an impostor. “I just wanna know if my origins are the only reason you thought I ratted us out to the Empire, or if it was something else I did.”

Lubiti looked up and to the side, feigning thoughtfulness. “Well, you were a loner; very quiet.” She made eye contact. “You were only on the Council because you had to be. You never participated.”

“That—” Dreychan started to argue loudly.

It was Yunil’s turn to interrupt. She did so to say what he was about to, but in a more articulate way. “He wasn’t a loner! He wasn’t quiet! You made him that way! You ostracized him from the very beginning. You didn’t even give him a chance. You just assumed that he would betray you, so you stifled his voice, and you turned up your stupid little noses. You created this monster in your head who didn’t exist, but the more you talked about it—the longer you believed it—the bigger that bogeyman grew, until you were so afraid, you lashed out at a perfectly innocent man who was just trying to protect his people.” She lifted their adjoined hands, and shook their fists at Lubiti. “Why are we together now? Because after all you put him through, he hasn’t frowned or become angry even once. He has been calm and determined. Did they let you watch his statement to the press?”

“It was a little late, I couldn’t help but notice,” Lubiti pointed out.

“Did you watch it!” Yunil repeated.

“Yes! They let us have access to the news and media!” Lubiti fired back.

“Did you notice that he didn’t even fucking blame you? He said he understood that you were just trying to do what you thought was best for ex-Exins, and all Castlebourners. He spoke of you with a level of respect and compassion that you could never reciprocate, and sure as shit don’t deserve! So you will stand trial, and throughout the proceedings, you will show remorse, because what you people did wasn’t just attempted murder. It was conspiratorial. It was coordinated and cold. Remind you of anyone?” She took a beat. “And now you have the audacity to suggest that you might run back into the arms of that genuine monster, like what we endured throughout most of our lives was fine as long as while he was oppressing us, he promised to keep us alive? You make me sick. I should have left you a long time ago. I have no sister. Rot in hell.”

With that, the scene completely changed. Dreychan and Yunil found themselves suddenly back in Council Chambers. They turned around to find Azad there with them, sitting comfortably in one of the audience seats. Did he only exist within these six walls? “What just happened?” Dreychan asked.

“We were monitoring your interaction with the prisoner. Number one, things were escalating quickly. While you were perfectly safe on the other side of the partition, it’s best not to let either side grow too angry. We like a calm, happy planet. That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to feel what you feel, but we believe that it would have been unhealthy for you both to stay there much longer. We don’t think that any positive progress would have been made.” He stood up, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Also, your speech was quite impactful and thought-provoking. I made the choice to pull you out at that particular moment because I didn’t want Miss Froenoe to have the chance to rebut. Would you agree?”

“Yeah, that was a good time to do it if you were gonna do it,” Yunil decided.

Azad nodded, satisfied with his choices. “Well, I better return to my usual duties. Call me if you need anything. Enjoy the chair.” The chair? He remained for two more seconds in case they needed to protest, and then he disappeared too.

Yunil took a deep breath, and faced Dreychan. “Well, that was a weird conversation. I mean with my sister, not with—”

Another interruption. Dreychan lunged forward and tackled her. He held her in a warm embrace, as tightly as he could without crushing her bones. She hugged him back, and then pulled away a little. They stared into each other’s eyes before she kissed him deeply on the lips. They made out for a minute or two, or maybe it was for a few years. Once they finally let go, neither one of them knew what to say, but thankfully, there was something there which allowed them to change the subject. “Was that here this morning?”

Yunil turned to look. “I would have noticed, but I know what it is.”

“What is it?”

“A brainscanner,” she replied as they were walking towards it. She ran her hand along the armrest. “Specifically, it’s a baseline imager, which means not only can it read someone’s neural patterns, but save them in the central database. This is how you control access to government areas and information.” She started fiddling with the touchscreen. “It looks like this is the main system, so all the workers who weren’t fired for conspiracy to commit murder are still on here. All you need to do is decide who—” She stopped. “I’m sorry. I don’t have the right to look at this.” She physically stepped back. “This is for your eyes only. You’re in charge.”

He placed a loving hand underneath her chin. “I want you with me on this. I trust you now. You just earned that. No one has ever said anything remotely as nice about me as what you said in that prison. No one has ever defended me like that.”

“Well, they should have,” Yunil said.

They kissed again. When they separated, they both looked down at the apparatus. It was mostly a comfortable-looking padded chair with a footrest, and an adjustable helmet, which was presumably what would read a person’s brainwaves. The screen was to the side of the helmet, and could be operated from an upright chair that sat perpendicular to the subject’s seat. Dreychan sat in this one, and started looking through the menu. “There are two notifications here already.” He tapped on the bell icon. “Dreychan Glarieda has been tasked with accepting an invitation for higher access privileges.” He looked up at Yunil. “Why wouldn’t I already have that? I can use the executive senior trains.”

“That might have been temporary while they questioned the detainees. This is probably official and permanent,” Yunil seemed to guess. “Tap to learn more.”

Dreychan looked back at the screen. “Let’s look at the other notification...Dreychan Glarieda is tasked with initializing and processing new user Yunil Tereth. Hmm. It looks like they already know that you should be involved.” He tapped on Learn more this time. “There’s a lot to fill out here. I have to decide on your job title and your responsibilities, and grant you access to all these places. Your basic info is already here, so that’s nice.”

“I probably shouldn’t be here for this,” Yunil decided. “I don’t want to sway your decisions one way or another.”

Dreychan brushed her worries away. “I’m gonna give you everything, I’ll tell you as much right now.”

“Including access to your private office?”

“I have a private office?” he asked. “Where do you see that? I don’t see that.”

“I just know you have one if you’re gonna be, uhh...Council Leader, or whatever job title you give yourself. That’s why you needed to find out more about the other notification. You have work to do for both of us.”

“Hm,” Dreychan began. “That’s a good point. What should our titles be?”

“We can worry about that later,” Yunil said. “I wanna see you in this chair.”

“I’m in the chair.”

“The other one,” she clarified, tugging him up by his underarms.

“The one at the dentist’s office looks like this.”

She aggressively threw him down in the subject’s chair, and straddled his lap. “Then open up for Dr. Tereth.” She started making out with him, this time for longer than before. Unable to control themselves, they ended up having sex too, which was highly inappropriate for the setting. Fortunately, while the chair was obviously never intended for sexual activity, it did have a self-cleaning function, which made sense, because it needed to be sterilized between uses.

Later on, Yunil was lying on her back on one the audience benches. Dreychan was looking through the chair interface again. It had everything here: every meeting recording, every bill they passed; everything. He could access it all. It would be a great resource to get up to speed with all the stuff he didn’t know about because he hadn’t been on any smaller committees, and who knew how many times they all met in secret without him to discuss their plans to kill him?

“I think I’ve figured it out,” Yunil said, still lying down.

“What’s that?”

“What do you think of Superintendent?” Now she sat up. “And I could be your deputy.”

“I love it. I’ll type it in right away.”

Castlebank (Part V)

Frame generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

For the next few weeks, Castlebourne was essentially being run as a police state. It wasn’t as bad as it was depicted in movies. The Expatriate Protection Bureau had no intention of holding onto power. They didn’t even want it in the first place, because it stretched their resources thin. They had a mandate, and they wanted to return to it exclusively. But restarting the real government was taking time. Dreychan held at least one press conference every day to remind the public of this, and to inform them of their progress. He was walking a fine line, exuding the confidence that everyone expected to see, but being clear that he never wanted any of this, and didn’t have the experience for it. This was such a tricky little dance, because while it was true that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, he didn’t want to create any unrest or rebellion. Everyone just needed to be real patient while they figured this out. He also needed to remember to forgive himself for his deficits.

One thing he was unambiguous about was what his job entailed. As Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent respectively, Dreychan and Yunil were not in charge of the public. They were only responsible for finding and securing the leaders who would be. They needed some help with this as none of the ex-Exins had ever lived in any sort of democratic society until recently, and even then, because of the way the council was structured, it wasn’t all that democratic either. There were better ways, and people living here who straddled both worlds could help them come up with them. Some of the highest ranking members of Hrockas’ Executive Administrative Authority had once lived on Earth; some of them centuries ago. Yunil and her little faction of academics had studied Earthan sociopolitics, but these others had experienced it first hand. They understood the nuances, and historical shiftings, which the central archives could only describe in an objective sense. They provided insights that the two of them were using to decide what to do here and now.

In its current state, Earth and its nearest neighbors were what they called a scalar representative council democracy. It was infinitely scalable, and could go all the way down to a household of two people. A given independent population would elect or select a representative. There were different ways of going about this, but it had to be agreed upon. Anyone who felt it was unfair could appeal to a higher class, and ask for help. With each higher class of population range, one representative would act on their behalf, with other leadership chosen to aid in the administration of policy. The representatives in a given class also sat on a committee together. These committees only met when they had to; when they needed something from other communities, or couldn’t enact changes on their own. But being self-sufficient and independent was the goal most of the time. There was no need to get the whole planet involved when a single settlement could handle their own business. It was a complicated array of committees and subcommittees, banding together in temporary federations when required, and disbanding when the work was over.

This was all well and good, but it only existed in the stellar neighborhood, and the farther from the Core Worlds you went, the looser the structures became. A colony forty-two light years from Earth did not typically ask for aid from Earth because that aid would usually be at least forty-two years away. However, it was certainly possible, especially in terms of Teaguardians, which were always posted nearby. Castlebourne was a single planet, with no meaningful light lag, and a relatively small planetary population. The visitors did not count. They followed guest law. Only the refugees needed representation. So perhaps the scalable representation model would not really serve them here. Perhaps they needed to reach further back in history, to the advisory-administrative model. That was what Dreychan thought they had agreed upon.

Yunil had a different idea that she was only now suggesting. “Wait, why are we only including the refugees? Why not the visitors?” she posed.

“That’s how it was before,” Dreychan answered. “The Council of Old Worlds held no sway over the visitors.”

“That sounds arbitrary to me. This is the capital of Castlebourne, so let’s have the new government lead the whole planet...of Castlebourne.”

“Well, visitors aren’t citizens,” he reasoned. “As soon as we stepped foot on this rock, we became citizens of it. It was by default, because we had no other real home. Visitors belong to wherever they hail from. They could stay a hundred years, and they still wouldn’t be true citizens.”

“Why shouldn’t they be? Why shouldn’t we allow them to become citizens?”

It was clear to Dreychan that she was not asking him these questions because she didn’t know the answers, but because she was preparing to explain how those answers were inadequate, and the plan ought to be changed. He didn’t want to make it easy on her. “Well...that’s not how Hrockas has it set up. This is a tourist destination. He didn’t design it for us; he just accepted us when we needed somewhere to go. We can’t change that without his authorization.”

She wasn’t satisfied yet. “What are we getting as citizens,” Yunil pressed with airquotes,” that visitors aren’t?”

“Um, erm...” he teased.

She didn’t think that he would ever get there this time, so she skipped to her thesis. “I looked it up. It’s energy credits. We get a daily stipend of credits, which when saved up enough, could theoretically allow us to go to other planets. Except, it’s hardly anything. You would have to save up for a thousand years to even travel to the next star system over. It’s not like that in the stellar neighborhood. Their credits let them go places. They often have to get a job to earn extra, but the two of us have jobs, and neither of us has saved up enough. Not nearly enough.”

“What are you proposing, that we make them all citizens, and increase this energy budget?”

“There are tens of thousands of domes here, which require an immense amount of power to run. They obviously have the energy. Let’s incentivize people to become full citizens, and participate in society. Right now, there’s no reason for an Earthan to move here permanently. They still earn their stellar neighborhood stipend. It’s not much, but it’s free money, and it gives them the option to cast back to that region of the galaxy, and travel somewhere else. Let’s start our own bank and give people a reason to exchange their currency. We could call it Castlebank.”

“Wow. Did you come up with that just now off the top of your head?” he joked.

“Shut up,” she said with a scoff.

Dreychan sighed. This was her M.O. She had her ideas, and she wanted them heard, but she didn’t want to pitch them unprompted. She wanted the conversation to end up in a place that made those ideas inevitable and unavoidable. He was on to her little games, and rarely let her get there like that anymore. He knew that she was always trying to steer him, and this time, he knew where. Good thing she was so cute. “Enough tricks. Let’s see your proposal. You always write one up, don’t deny it. If it makes sense, we can submit it to Hrockas to see what he thinks. As of yet, we don’t have the power to implement some sort of Civil Access Support Trust, or whatever we might call it.”

Her eyes widened. “How did you...” She thought about it for another half second. “Oh, you already read my proposal.”

“I did,” he admitted. “We both have full access to each other’s stuff. I also looked a little back at your revision history. You came up with a lot of names for it, but you clearly wanted the acronym to be C.A.S.T.”

“Well, it makes sense. This planet is called Castlebourne because the first structure under the first dome was a castle, but also, the most common way people travel here, by far—even accounting for the refugees who came via the Vellani Ambassador—is quantum casting. I’m not sure who came up with the name, or whether they realized the double-meaning, but it’s there. Let’s use it.”

“You don’t have to sell me on it. I think it’s a fine idea. I just don’t think Hrockas will go for it. He’s sort of a king. He may actually prefer that most people remain visitors, because that way, he can institute whatever rules he likes, and if the visitors don’t like it, they can leave. If they become citizens, the expectation will be that they will stay unless something changes. In order to prevent these changes, or rather changes that they don’t care for, they will demand representation. He’ll no longer be a unilateral voice. He may even lose his power altogether if all the new citizens ultimately vote him out. I’m not calling him a tyrant, but he’s clearly a control freak.”

“Well...” Yunil began, only trailing off for a matter of seconds. “Well, let’s polish this up, and devise some counterarguments. He probably won’t come out and say it’s because he’s a king, though, so we’ll have to be on the lookout for the subtext.”

“Oh, you think this is about his power?” Hrockas was too busy, so the next day, they requested to pitch their new idea to one of his staffers. Angelita ‘Lita’ Prieto was the Director of Transition for the Department for Cultural Transition Assistance. She was the one who greeted all the refugees, and helped them get acclimated to their new situation. She explained how Castlebourne worked, but also how the free galaxy as a whole functioned. She and her team were the ones who taught them to no longer fear the Oaksent’s rule, and that they would be safe here. Most people loved her because of her lessons, and because so far, she had not been proven wrong.

They had it all worked out; how the government was going to operate, and who would fall under its purview. Visitors would have the opportunity to become citizens, converting their current energy credits to a Castlebourne equivalent at a ratio of 1:1.1. This 10% bonus was necessary, because at the moment, the only happening place to be this far out in this direction was Castlebourne. It would be a long time before the circumstances changed. Once a citizen, they had voting rights and representational power, meaning they would have to declare a home. They never had to spend any particular amount of time in this home, but it helped determine who represented them. And it couldn’t be any random dome. If you were a little odd, you could lie down and sleep every night in The Wasteland, but it was not officially categorized as Residential, so it didn’t count. They had some ideas about how to manage votes from people who were spending extended periods of time in character, like in the Spydome or Nordome networks, but this was the gist of it.

“Sorry,” Dreychan said. “I didn’t mean to imply that he didn’t have the best interests of your people at heart—”

“This is about the sun,” Lita said...weirdly.

“What about it?” Yunil asked.

“Well,” Lita began, “it needs to be moved, remember? We’ve not been able to do that, because your government fell apart. We can only ethically return to the possibility after you set up the new one, but if that new one gives voting privileges to everyone on the planet, it’s going to take even longer, or fall through entirely. What if the former visitors overwhelmingly don’t want to move? They don’t understand the stakes. Do you know how many warships we built that we literally never used because we stopped going to war? This is before the Teaguardians, which are primarily defensive, and while they are indeed manned, they hardly do anything either. The visitors don’t know about the Exin Empire. They don’t know why you fled. They don’t know how powerful The Oaksent is, or that magical time powers exist. They don’t know anything. We’ve had to lie to them since they got here, and that would have to stop. Are you prepared for the fallout?”

“That’s a good point,” Dreychan admitted. “I don’t want to exclude the visitors, and I think it would be great if they became citizens, but they’re too ignorant. That’s not on them, it’s on us, and even as Superintendent, I certainly don’t feel like it’s my right to give them the whole truth.”

“What if we just delayed it?” Yunil asked. “Not the stellar engine, but CAST.”

“You need some form of government now,” Lita argued. “Someone has to agree to the move, and they have to do it in an orderly, structured fashion.”

“But it’s like we say in the plan, this model is scalable. We could start out with a smaller scale—just the ex-Exins—and incentivize citizenship enrollment later, when we’re already well on our way.”

“That...isn’t the worst idea,” Lita acknowledged. She looked up to consider the proposal. “You certainly can’t get mad about a law that was passed before you became a citizen. I mean, you could, but you would have no leg to stand on.” There was a silence for a moment before she looked over at the lawyer. “What say you?”

“No, no, no, you’re right,” Jericho replied. “You clearly know what you’re talking about, I don’t know why you bothered inviting me to the planet, let alone this meeting. The visitors have no legal recourse. It happened before they became citizens. Of course, it’s not a problem that we were contemplating the two transitions at the same time; the physical move, and the citizenship naturalization process. We can certainly argue that they’re not connected, and that the 10% bonus should not in any way be construed as hush money, or some kind of preemptive out-of-court settlement, or anything like that. Everyone would believe us, and it would all turn out totally perfect and happy, and I have..no notes.” Jericho Hagen was a snarky little shit sometimes. Everything he did seemed to be against his will. To be sure, he was on Castlebourne of his own accord, but he harbored resentment regarding some things that went down many years ago, which pulled him into all this timey-wimey nonsense, and it seemed as though he still hadn’t gotten over it. Dreychan and Yunil were not cognizant of the particulars.

“What would you propose?” Yunil pressed him.

“Decouple the decisions. Move the sun now, like we need. I don’t remember how long that’s gonna take, but just go ahead and do it while you’re legally in the clear. You don’t have to wait until we’ve reached our final destination to open your little CAST program, but I recommend at least twenty years, maybe more.”

“It will evidently take about sixteen or seventeen years to get there,” Lita reminded him.

“Perfect,” Jericho decided, looking at Dreychan and Yunil. “That gives you a full three years to have supposedly and reportedly come up with the completely separate proposal to integrate the visitor population into the community as full, legal voters.” He looked over at Lita. “I recommend we scrub the meeting notes from the record. We never talked about this.”

“Is that legal?” Lita questioned.

“On Castlebourne, yeah,” Jericho promised. “The reason we’re in danger with moving the planet and signing up new citizens, is because it involves the rest of the galaxy. We are not fully beyond the laws of the core worlds. Our charter forces us to have some liability, and places us under some scrutiny. We have the latitude to make our own choices, though, as long as it doesn’t impact anyone else.”

“Okay,” Lita said. “Draw up the revised proposal,” she suggested to the ex-Exins, “removing all mentions of citizenship, and let me look over it before we submit it to Hrockas together. We will establish the new government, step one; move the sun, step two; and then begin CAST, step three.” She and Jericho left.

Dreychan and Yunil buckled down, creating the proposal yet again, and really getting all the wrinkles ironed out. It was a masterpiece, if they could be so bold as to declare. Lita loved it, Jericho tolerated it, and Hrockas accepted it. They spent several weeks advocating for the new governmental plan to the people, and setting up a voting schedule. It was another couple of months before the first candidates came out to campaign for themselves. After nearly a year since the fall of the Council, the Castlebourne scalar representative council democracy was officially implemented. Dreychan and Yunil were able to step back, and let the gears turn smoothly without them. The representatives’ first order of business was to hold a referendum on the stellar engine plan. Instead of letting the Council and Hrockas alone decide, they opened it up to everyone’s opinion. And that opinion was overwhelming. The current citizens of Castlebourne did not support moving the sun.

First Rule of Warfare (Part VI)

Frame generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

Two aspects of the scalar representative council government that carried over from the advisory-administrative model were the main leaders of all the councils combined. If your community were to join the federation, these two would be at the tippy top. The Moderator and Facilitator weren’t policy-makers per se, but they did make sure that everyone was on the same page about the policies. Having democracy didn’t mean that everyone was on the same level. It was prudent to have people who managed and directed the conversations. They were never meant to be unilateral nor tyrannical, though, hence the titles.

Facilitator Abascal walked into Dreychan and Yunil’s shared office after they unlocked the door from Dreychan’s desk. Yunil was sitting on his lap. They weren’t doing anything untoward, but they should probably be more professional. They were just tired, and ready to be done working. That was the point anyway. She climbed off of him and stood at his side. He stayed seated. “Amazine, how the hell are ya?” he asked.

Amazine reportedly lived on Castlebourne for years before anyone pointed out that the name she chose for herself simply sounded like the word amazing. She felt so embarrassed, but she didn’t want to change it, because it felt right to her. Like so many others, she had spent most of her life as nothing but a number. In the end, it was a decent name. It sounded nice on its own, and it made her unique, which was an unheard of characteristic in the Goldilocks Corridor. “We need to talk about Vip.” Vip was Amazine’s direct superior. Now, Vip...Vip chose his name quite deliberately. It was a mononym, and it stood for very important person. He would deny this if you were to ask him about it, but he came here with a complex, just like Maaseiah, though maybe to a lesser degree. Then again, Maaseiah was still in prison, and Vip was the Moderator of the Castlebourne government, so who had the highest aspirations here? He wasn’t evil, as far as they knew, but Azad called him a populist candidate, which Dreychan still didn’t understand, but he was told it wasn’t a compliment.

“Are you suggesting that I remove Vip from his position, and replace him with someone else?” Dreychan asked, absolutely knowing that this was not at all what she would suggest to him.

“Wull...no, of course not. We’re not there yet, but—” Amazine began.

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Dreychan said, holding his hand up. “My job as Superintendent is not to settle your internal disagreements. My job ought to be done.”

“Our job,” Yunil corrected.

“Right,” Dreychan agreed. “Our job was to start the government. It’s supposed to be able to run itself. My position is a failsafe against tyranny, but if all goes according to plan, I should be able to sit on a beach in Polar Tropica, and not worry about anything anymore. That’s how our Earthan ancestors designed the system, and it is a characteristic that we have chosen to maintain.”

“I understand that, I just...”

“You mostly wanna vent,” Yunil guessed.

“Yes,” Amazine admitted. “You may not technically be above me in the org chart, but you’re certainly not below me. Everyone else is. I don’t have anyone to talk to about his bullshit, or I’ll appear weak and unfit for office. I just thought..maybe you would have some ideas. I know it’s not your obligation, but maybe you could save beach day for tomorrow?” A look of horror spread across her face. “Oh my God, that was so rude. I am terribly sorry, I was out of line.”

“It’s all right,” Dreychan said to her calmly. “I’m not offended. And you’re right, there’s no need for us to be lazy. Maybe we should be available to people who need our guidance. The problem is...”

“That’s not really where his strength lies,” Yunil explained. “I, on the other hand, give great advice.” She glided around the desk, reaching out towards Amazine. Once they made contact, she wrapped her arm around her shoulders, and started leading her back towards the door. “Let’s go off somewhere to talk. Have you ever heard of Christmas?”

“No,” Amazine replied.

“Oh, it’s this delightful little Earthan tradition. We can have a cup of hot cocoa in Holidome. Have you ever heard of hot cocoa?” Yunil asked her.

“No,” Amazine repeated.

“You are going to love it.”

Dreychan stayed in his office, glad that Yunil stepped up for this one. His sense of relief didn’t last long before Moderator Vip showed up.

Vip was just as annoyed at Amazine as she was at him. “She is undermining me at every turn. She’s talking to Dominus Petit behind my back, ya know. I was this close to convincing him that I need to be in charge of the military, but she screwed it up, saying all this nonsense about peace, and the..middle way. I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about.”

“Why would you be in charge of the military?” Dreychan questioned.

Vip flinched like it was obvious. “I’ve been studying Earth history. The most powerful country was called The United States, and their leader was the Commander in Chief. He ran the civilian government and the military at the same time. It just makes sense.”

“That was a democratic republic,” Dreychan argued. “That’s a completely different model. You’re here to moderate, that’s why you’re called that. And besides, the military isn’t an ex-Exin contingency. It’s managed by the Executive Administrative Authority. They’re not going to give you anything. I’ve known Azad for almost a year now. He and his superior officer aren’t going to give it up, to you, or anyone.”

Vip shook his head. “The Governor. That guy’s even softer than Petit. I’ll tell you what, you should superintendent his ass out of here.”

“That’s not my purview,” Dreychan said. It wasn’t the first time he had to explain what his job was to this guy. Dreychan would not have picked him for this role, but there were two sides to Vip. He was charismatic and well-spoken to the public. In private, he was temperamental, contrary, and sometimes downright dumb. Dreychan and Yunil could have designed the government so that they could move members around with impunity, but that wouldn’t have been very democratic. They bowed to what the people wanted, and the people wanted Vip. That was why it was so important that they maintain the council federation structure, so he wouldn’t have any actual power. In that way, they were a lot alike.

“Whatever,” Vip mumbled.

Dreychan sighed. “Vip, why do you want control over the military? What would you do with that?”

“I would protect our home from the Exin threat.”

“Defensively or offensively?” Dreychan pushed.

“The first one, obviously. Wait, which is the one where we go out and murder as many of our enemies as possible?” He feigned an evil grin. He did have some sense of humor, albeit a rather dark one, so at least that was one redeeming quality. “I don’t know what I did to make you all think that I’m some power-hungry moron bent on destruction. But you have largely stayed out of the military’s dealings. I’ve been paying attention, and I see the issues. Drey, they’re not doing anything. They’re barely training, they’re relying far too much on their robots. Have you seen them? Each soldier has this whole compliment of bots that follow them around. They have this animal-like one at their side that carries all of their gear. I think Azad said it looked like a dorg, or a duck, or something, I dunno. Then they have their hawk, which flies above to look out for future obstacles. And then there’s this flutterby thing that—I don’t know what it does, but it’s small enough to fit in my hand, so it can’t possibly help.”

“What the hell is your point?” Dreychan asked.

Vip sighed. “They need someone to lead them...inspire them. Governor Whinawray is not up to the task. The way I hear it, he just sort of fell into the role because he happened to be on the planet when the Charter Contingency was born. I strongly believe that we need to grow our numbers, and what, are they gonna promote him to Ligament or higher? I don’t think he can handle it. I don’t think he wants it.”

Dreychan slammed the side of both fists on the table.

“Oh, no, I’ve said something else that you don’t like,” Vip quipped.

Dreychan tapped on his desktop device, and pulled up what he needed. He spun his monitor around to show Vip the resignation form.

“I don’t wanna quit.”

“Well, you don’t wanna be here, doing this. A Moderator needs to be non-violent by nature. He shouldn’t be looking to grow an army, or train its officers. He shouldn’t be disparaging his colleagues’ names, or complaining that soldiers are safer and better equipped than they have ever been because of their bot pack. And the flutterby, by the way, is for stealth recon. It’s that lack of attention to detail that tells me that you really shouldn’t be responsible for our military, and you probably shouldn’t be the Moderator either. So go ahead, go on, resign. I’ll find someone who wants to do it. The planet will be fine without you. And hey, if you’re really serious about aidsmanship, there’s nothing stopping you from signing up. But you won’t be starting at the top, like you think. Whinawray didn’t start where he is today, and neither did Petit. They’ve been at this for literal centuries. So you’ll train first. Maybe spend a year in Mêléedome. Or two. Or a few decades. I don’t care where you go, or if you quit at all. Just for now, get the hell out of my office. I need to focus on garnering support for the next vote on the stellar engine.”

Vip was trying to hold it together. “Ya know, I voted against that.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t campaign for the opposition—I was a good soldier—but I voted with my heart. I think we should stay here and fight.”

“And if it were just us here, I might agree with you,” Dreychan admitted, “but the visitors outnumber us almost 230:1 at last count. A million new visitors are arriving every week. Unfortunately for them, they are not capable of voting, so it is up to us to ensure their safety. We do that by running and hiding, not by subjecting innocent people to our problems.”

“Why didn’t you say all of this before?” Vip questioned.

“Because we underestimated the opposition. We won’t make that mistake again.”

Vip’s face changed, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. He seemed to be absorbing the information, and processing it in some way. “Let me help.”

“You voted against it.”

“You’ve changed my mind.”

“Just like that?”

“You’re very persuasive,” Vip explains. “You should have been more involved in the discussions. You underestimate yourself, but people listen to you. They want to hear your opinion.” He looked around at the office. “Don’t just hide out here. You decide what your job entails. Tell me how I can help.”

Dreychan sighed and glanced over at his inbox. Still no messages. Well, he had a ton of messages, but not the one he was looking for. “The primary voice of dissent. I messaged him yesterday, and he still hasn’t responded. He seems to like you, so maybe you can talk to him.”

“Well, where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Check the tracking system.”

Dreychan didn’t budge.

“We all know you have access to that. The prison is allowed visitors. People talk, especially members of the Old Council of Old Worlds. Just look him up, and point me to him. I make no guarantees, but I will give it my best.”

Dreychan sighed again and checked the tracker. Once he saw where the guy was, he leaned back in his chair and tapped on his lips.

“What is it?” Vip asked. “If you feel uncomfortable with telling me, that’s fine, or if you feel guilty about using this tool in the first place, that’s okay too. I’ll just send him my own message, and see if he responds to me instead.”

“It’s not that, it’s...he’s in XDome.” XDome is probably the most controversial one of all. Azad hinted that Hrockas agonized over whether to include it way back in the day. In the end, he approved the idea when the AI he placed in charge of coming up with most of the dome concepts produced its master list. The truth was that sex was a part of life, and a necessary one, though technically no longer a required activity in a galaxy of gene splicing and artificial gestation. Still, it was a primary human motivation, hard-coded into most organic people’s DNA. Even the most enhanced of transhumans typically kept that trait, because life without pleasure was just survival. Ignoring it as a fundamental component of happiness wasn’t going to make it go away. People were going to have sex, and those who couldn’t find anyone to do it with them—or who couldn’t find their ideal partner—were going to do it with synthetics. At least, by creating a central hub for all sexual fantasies, it kept it fairly isolated and contained. It was easier to keep it out of reach of children and asexual individuals when there was one best place to get it above all, and access to that place was easily controlled.

“Yeah, I’m not surprised. You’ll notice he hasn’t joined the military either. He doesn’t want to fight, he just wants someone else to do it for him. Do you know where he’s from?”

“Slain?” Dreychan asked rhetorically. “I don’t actually.”

“You didn’t know him?”

“Huh?”

“On Ex-777?”

Oh. Dreychan’s face went numb. “Oh. That explains it.”

“That explains it,” Vip echoed

Dreychan didn’t keep up with the refugee manifests. It would be too many people to keep track of anyway, but as far as he knew, he was still the only former 777er. So if Slain was also from there, he must have come to Castlebourne really, really recently. Why were people listening to him? Why were people following his lead when only a year ago, Dreychan was quite nearly murdered for being from the same Old World?

“I bet I know what you’re thinking,” Vip began. “My hypothesis is that it’s your fault. People hated you because you were from a luxury world, but you proved them wrong. You proved your worth. I think they’re overcompensating in their heads, and deciding that maybe ex-Ex-777ers are the best amongst us. That is why you need to make your voice heard, and not just play in the background. People need to know that it’s not because of where you’re from, but despite it. They need to hear a voice of reason.”

Dreychan leaned back again, and tried to rethink the strategy. Maybe they were going about this all wrong. The reason the so-called opposition won out was because, as Vip was just saying, the voice of reason wasn’t strong enough. He had thought it made sense to try to convince Slain to change his mind, and do the right thing, but Ex-777ers were not known for their open-mindedness. And honestly, Dreychan didn’t want the rest of the refugees to start seeing 777 as some kind of hot bed for the intellectually enlightened. It was full of entitled assholes who didn’t understand the danger of war and struggle because they had never faced it before. They were living in a post-scarcity civilization before anyone on Earth had even dreamed it up. “Scratch that. I don’t need to talk to him. We need to talk against him. You’re smarter than I give you credit for.”

“I am?” Vip asked. “I mean, I am.”

Dreychan laughed. “The first rule of warfare: the bigger the gun, the more compelling your argument is.”

“Okay...” Vip didn’t know what he meant by that.

Dreychan stood up. “So let’s go recruit some bigger guns.”

The Man Who Finally Died (Part VII)

Frame generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

It was done. They proposed a new referendum, which was basically just like the old one, but tweaked enough to be considered original. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Dreychan Glarieda, Yunil Tereth, and all of their friends, including even Vip, they were able to sway people’s votes. Slain kind of became a pariah on Castlebourne. He was so well-liked, but they eviscerated him in the media, so to speak, and he was not happy about it. He didn’t speak out in public, though. He aired his grievances to Dreychan and Yunil in private, but he didn’t poke his head out of his hole. He was too embarrassed. He shouldn’t have been. People had short-term memories. Many were glad to be done with the political decisions for a while.

When the refugees first came to this world, they were super hesitant to enjoy themselves, because there weren’t as many opportunities to do so in the Corridor. They had pretty much gotten over that, though and loved their recreation now. To them, the government was there to do their job, and stay out of their hair. No more voting, no more referendums, just do whatever you need. So they were all out of the spotlight by the time the sun actually started moving across the galaxy. None of them was allowed to know any details about it, or how it was being done. The sun-mover evidently wanted to maintain their anonymity, and that was fine. Perhaps Dreychan and Yunil could do the same, and finally rest. Or maybe not.

Someone yanked the dark hood off of Dreychan’s head, and pulled the bandana out of his mouth. He looked to his right to find Vip and Amazine. Yunil was to his left. They were all on their knees, with their wrists tied behind their backs, and still gagged. Amazine was scared, but the other two weren’t. He realized why. Like him, she was undigitized. If she died here today, that would be it. Yunil and Vip would be fine, so why were they here? What were these assholes trying to prove? He looked up, and didn’t recognize the scowling thugs, but he did know the smirking thug boss sauntering over behind them. “Slain. You do understand that that’s a dumb name, right? It means that you’ve died, not that you kill. Perhaps you meant to call yourself Slayer?”

“My name is my name,” Slain contended. It really wasn’t. After discovering that Slain was also from Ex-777, Dreychan did a little research. Like Dreychan, he was born with a regular name, instead of a number, but it certainly wasn’t Slain. So he made it up too. He must have thought it sounded cool.”

Slain crouched down so he was at eye-level with Dreychan. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“Judging by the design and decor, I’m guessing you’re putting us on trial?”

“A tribunal, actually.” Dreychan didn’t know the difference. Slain probably didn’t either, it just sounded cooler. He stood up, and started pacing around with his own hands behind his back, mocking them, but also giving off the impression of levity and ease. “Do you recognize where you are? We’re not in the Capital anymore.” Dreychan didn’t, but wouldn’t have had the chance to answer anyway. “Of course not. This is the three-dimensional Winner’s Hall of 2.5Dome. It’s where you would have gone had you played your game fairly, and won without cheating.”

Dreychan didn’t say anything. Even claiming to not care about that would imply that he actually did have some strong feelings on the matter, when in reality, he was totally over that, and absolutely never cared about the inherent value of winning. He had just been trying to survive.

Dreychan’s indifference angered Slain, so he had to work hard to keep it together. He pointed to one of the camera operators who was presently at rest. “The tribunal will be broadcast, but if you think that means someone’s gonna come rescue you, you got another thing coming.”

“Another think coming,” Dreychan corrected.

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry about it, little dum-dum.”

Slain was fuming. “You will show me respect. By the end of these proceedings, you will be begging me for your life, I guarantee you that!”

Dreychan was silent again. He just made himself look calm and disinterested.

Slain didn’t want to point it out, so he just moved on. “You are here to answer for your crimes against the Castlebourners. I’m not talking about the visitors, by the way, I couldn’t give a flailing fuck about those people. I’m talking ‘bout us; the real Castlebourners. You manipulated the people, and you rigged the referendum, and I have the proof. You will answer to the people of this great new nation, and more importantly, you will answer to me!”

One of his thugs batted an eye at his last claim. Perfect. This wasn’t one big happy family. There was a way to exploit that, he just needed that thing out of Yunil’s mouth, so she could use her silvertongue to do that. He gave her a look, and she winked back, still unfazed.

Slain notices this. “Oh. Oh, I see. You think you’re safe? I assure you, you’re not. No one knows where we are. The cameras won’t show any distinguishing characteristics, the signal will be bounced around different quantum servers, or scrubbed of its metadata, or whatever my expert did to hide us. When it’s your turn to speak, you can see 2.5Dome all you want, but my other expert will be censoring all that shit during the built-in delay, so it’ll just make it look like you’re cussing a lot on one of those old Earthan TV shows where they weren’t allowed to say certain words to the public.” He gestured at the walls in a general sense. “Even if they do find us, they’re not getting in. No teleporting in or out. You see, that’s why you don’t get. We are from all over. One of us worked on the teleportation field research labs. One of us is a carpenter. One a computer scientist. You just sat around and played games all day. My people know how to work.”

“I must have been misinformed. I thought you were also from Ex-777.”

Slain shook his head. “Not everyone who lived there was wealthy like you. Some of us worked for people like you.”

Dreychan scoffed. “Not true, they were bots. Our planet was specifically designed to keep all human workers out, so they weren’t even close to the luxury.” He looked around at the people with guns. “If he told you he was a workin’ man, he lied. They simply didn’t exist.”

Slain bolted back over, and backhanded Dreychan across the chin, causing his head to fall into Vip’s lap. “I told you to show me respect!”

“You gotta earn that,” Dreychan replied. “But I don’t like your chances. I don’t have much respect for the dirt on the bottom of my shoe, or even my own fingernail clippings.”

Yunil giggled.

Slain turned his head to her. “You think that’s funny? You’re only so calm because you think your safe. But my carpenter, teleportation expert, and signal technician aren’t the only geniuses I have on my side. We can also suppress quantum consciousness transference. Your last backup stream was just before you crossed the threshold into this dome. Even if you’re not one of those people who philosophically rely on continuity of thought, your backup substrate is in no safe place either. While we’re talking, my people are out there, destroying any extra bodies you got lying around.” He leaned in closer to her. “We’re tuned in, sweetheart. We didn’t do this on a whim.” He forced a kiss upon her lips, and then booped her in the nose. “Boop!”

“You should not have done that,” Yunil said firmly. “Sexual assault is no joke.”

Slain led into a laugh from a scoff. “Relax. We’re all friends here, aren’t we? Or aren’t we?” he posed, as if that was some justification for this kangaroo court.

Slain wasn’t worried. He straightened his knees out, and went back to pacing around menacingly. “Now. Before you get all up in arms about me being judge, jury, and executioner, let it be known that I am only the first one. The panel of your peers will be composed of people who know firsthand what it’s like to be slighted by the great Dreychan Glarieda of Ex-777. Come on in, folks!”

And they did. Dreychan recognized every single one of them. They were former members of the Old Council of Old Worlds. Teemo, Rezurah, Maaseiah, and Yunil’s sister, Lubiti were all there, as well as everyone else who had gone to jail for the conspiracy to kill Dreychan. They didn’t look happy, though. They weren’t smirking, or even smiling. They look kind of perturbed. Which was weird. They had all somehow been freed from prison, yet they could not be more annoyed. “This is why we’re here?” Lubiti questioned. “You want us to judge this man?”

“I figured you would want to take your shot at some justice, since you’ve been waiting for it for a year now.”

“We have not been waiting for that,” Maaseiah argued. “We have been doing our time. We have been repenting for our sins.”

“What are you talking about?” Slain was so utterly baffled. “He’s right there! The guy who put you all away—the man who you hate with such profound disgust—this is your chance to exact revenge. Take it!”

“So this was never going to be fair?” Yunil asked. “You weren’t even gonna pretend to be impartial?”

“I said it’s a tribunal, not a trial!” Slain argued. He looked back over at the councilors. “Come on! What’s your problem? He ruined your lives!”

“No, we did that ourselves,” Rezurah said. “We tried to kill him, and regardless of our reasons, that was wrong, and we all recognize that now. We have said this on the record. We have done interviews. Did you not watch them?”

“I thought you were playing for the camera,” Slain explained. “I don’t understand, you forgave him for real?”

“There is nothing to forgive,” Lubiti reasoned. “He didn’t do anything to us. He didn’t even call the authorities. They conducted their investigation without his knowledge. Like Rezurah was just saying, we are the architects of our own demise.”

Slain shook his head. He could not wrap his mind around this. He expected to win today, and he was losing steam by the minute. His thugs weren’t outwardly going against him, but they didn’t seem ready to start a firefight either. It was looking like no one was going to get hurt today. Enraged, he let out a primal scream. “Argh! You dumbasses aren’t going to take this from me!” He pulled out a knife as he was coming around to the other side of Dreychan. He held it against his neck, letting it dig in enough to make it bleed.

“Now, hold on,” Lubiti said, trying to keep him calm. “This isn’t going to get you anything. Right now, it looks like you’ll be done for kidnapping, trespassing, and maybe some hacking, or whatever. That’s not great, but it’s not murder. You can still get out of this. The laws are rigid, but the punishments are fluid. There’s not much crime anymore. No one really knows how to handle it all the way out here. You might just get exiled. They may send you to Outcast Island. You would probably prefer it there anyway. Dreychan’s a good guy, I’m sure he would advocate for you. Right, Drey?”

“Yeah, I don’t care,” Dreychan confirmed. “I don’t hold grudges, and I’m not the vengeful type.”

“You know who else isn’t the vengeful type?” Slain asked. “Dead people!” He tensed up, and cut into Dreychan’s neck deeper. Okay, this was really starting to hurt.

“Don’t. Do it,” Maaseiah urged. “I regret my actions here last year. Don’t make the same mistake we did.”

“It’s not the same,” Slain argued. “You failed. I’ll succeed.”

Lubiti breathed deliberately, presumably hoping to get him to mirror her subconsciously. “The fact that you’ve not done it yet tells me that you don’t want to. If you go through with it, no one here is gonna hurt you. So if you’re not on the fence, what have you been waiting for?”

“Good point.” And with that,” Slain dug into Dreychan’s neck deeper. He didn’t just pull it clean across his throat. He sawed at it like a cellist. It was bloody, and messy, and gruesome. He didn’t just want to kill Dreychan. He wanted to make it hurt, and it wanted to put on a show. His fun didn’t last forever, though. When he could no longer bear Dreychan’s weight. He dropped him to the floor, and let his victim succumb to the black.

Dreychan broke through his chrysalis and emerged anew. It felt weird. He didn’t know what was happening, or where he was. He just had the urge to escape. He had the impulse to move upwards. So he jumped up, and started to fly. He didn’t know how he was flying, but he certainly wasn’t very good at it. He was bumping into all sorts of things. The walls were soft and mushy, so it wasn’t really painful, only disorienting. It was pitch black except for a pinprick of light, which Dreyhan thought might have been an illusion. Still, he went towards it. He focused his thoughts on flying towards it. He kept scraping against the gooey walls, but never stopped. The pinprick grew larger and larger until he finally reached the exit. The light was blinding, so he started flying more erratically now. He was so confused and lost, but he didn’t know whether there was anywhere safe to land, so he didn’t.

He tried to blink, but he didn’t seem capable of it. So weird, having wings, but no eyelids. Was this heaven, or just a simulation? Whatever the answer was, the real question, was why? His vision adjusted, and he was finally able to see where he was. As it turned out, he hadn’t moved. This was still the kangaroo court. Everyone was staring at him, equally confused, but there was something else different. Oh right, they were giants. They watched as he fluttered about, small enough to fit in one of their hands. There was Yunil, standing up now and rubbing her wrists, no longer bound. She was smiling at him, not in shock, but in triumph. She did this. She turned him into a flutterby. But still, why...and also how? He was growing a little tired, so he landed on her shoulder.

Yunil gently petted Dreychan’s wings and giggled. She turned to face Slain, whose arms were now being held behind his back by two of his own people. They never wanted any of this. No one was on Slain’s side anymore. “I didn’t know that you were going to suppress consciousness transference, but still, this is a handy backup plan. It’s not always prudent to transfer your mind across vast distances. Some people just store their own backup, sometimes in the form of a fairy, and sometimes, a flutterby like this. I’m told holly blue is the most popular model. He’s quite pretty now, don’t you think?”

Dreychan wanted to say something to her, but he couldn’t speak. Insects didn’t have vocal cords. So he sat there patiently on her shoulder, more in love with her now than ever, even though he had always been afraid of transhumanistic upgrades.

She peered at her new little pet. “I’m sorry I did this to you without your consent. I just couldn’t bear to lose you. For the record, I fed you a sort of seed, which grew into this in the lining of your stomach. It didn’t require any surgery, or anything.”

Dreychan still couldn’t say anything to her, so he launched, and playfully fluttered around her. He then flew over, and started fluttering around the former council members. They seemed to get the idea, because they were smiling, and reaching up with the palms down, hoping that he would land on their fingers. He chose to land on Lubiti, who let him flitter back and forth between her hands. It wasn’t for another few days when they were able to have a real conversation again. That was when she and the others apologized to him directly.

Slain was taken right to jail for murder. The prosecutor wasn’t going after him for reckless substrate destruction, or consciousness back-up endangerment, but full-on murder. He had no idea that Dreychan was backed up by any method, and in fact, had strong reason to believe that the destruction of the substrate equated to true death. Time would tell what became of him. The same could be said for the former councilors. As it turned out, Slain’s movement had run deep enough to reach the prison. He had them released under the guise of a legitimate criminal forgiveness program. He kept them isolated from each other until the day of the tribunal that never was. They willingly went back to their cells immediately. The terms of their respective parole schedules were currently being revised to account for their swift voluntary return, evidence of their remorse and self-improvement, and overall good behavior. Meanwhile, the new government was holding strong. Vip and Amazine continued in their positions, and the representatives under them were representing their people admirably.

And Dreychan and Yunil? They finally got their break. The former was provided with a new human body, but he didn’t always use it. He let her teach him to switch as appropriate, when he needed something different for a certain dome, or just on a whim. The superintendent protocol was suspended since it was no longer needed. The two of them left the Capital, but could come back later, if their services were ever required again, or they could pass their power onto someone else. Meanwhile, the host star and all of its celestial bodies were on their way to a new region of the Milky Way. As for the war...well, Castlebourne wasn’t out of the woods yet.