Microstory 2442: Recursiverse Immersive Experience

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That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? If you don’t know, Recursiverse is one of the most popular franchises in history, spanning several books, dozens of TV series, and hundreds of movies (depending on your definition). It follows thousands of characters living fantastical lives in two parallel universes. In the modern age, the fantastical elements that they explore in the stories can be recreated using real technologies, but back when they were first being written and distributed, they were exciting to a huge audience. There’s still some soft scifi in there that we can’t do for real in this dome network. That’s right, it’s not just one dome. You couldn’t fit all this in the area covered by a single dome, so it has to spread out. I don’t even know how many domes there are, because you don’t always know when you’ve moved. You can travel to other planets with vastly different geographies, and you do this using faster-than-light technology that doesn’t allow you to see exactly how you’re moving in realspace. I think you’re sometimes moving along the z-axis, onto upper levels hidden behind the holographic sky on the ceiling of the layer below, which isn’t as high as it looks. I’m not going to go into any specifics, because it won’t mean anything to you if you’re unfamiliar with the canon. But there are alien races, and they’re perfectly recreated by the androids. You can also choose your own substrate, and it doesn’t have to look like you, or even human at all. Other domes do that, but this was once protected intellectual property. The creator gradually began to release his rights to the public, so others could explore the stories and themes that he conceived. The law didn’t require that he do that. He’s still alive today. By current laws, he could still retain the rights. That’s assuming he continued to make new contributions, or he would have lost them eventually. Some of them would be under the public domain regardless, though, as he shared his rights to them with a corporation, such as a movie studio. They never retain their power for long, especially not since all those financial-based companies are now dead. I know it sounds like I’m getting off topic, but it explains why this is such a big franchise on this planet. By the time the creator published a single word of his work, Recursiverse was a well defined universe—or biverse, as it were—full of a solid foundation of rules, conventions, and histories, and even contingencies. The creator could have made every decision, but he chose to let them be free, first by collaborating directly with others, then by deliberately relinquishing his control. If you want to enjoy this dome network in full, you’re gonna wanna catch up with what has come before, but I promise that it’s worth it. I don’t ever want to leave.

Microstory 2435: Bloodbourne

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This dome is scary, even though you know that you’re technically safe. I won’t go into specifics, but it’s heaven for fans of the horror genre. While Zombie Dome has its niche, due to its broad appeal, Bloodbourne takes care of everything else in the genre. Ghosts, goblins, evil demons, and other monsters. If you’ve read about it in a book, or saw it in a movie or show, it’s here...somewhere. Lurking. Waiting to pounce. Some are trying to kill you, some are trying to scare you, and some have more bizarre motives. Bear in mind that the safeguards are extremely strong here. If you go in there with a regular human body, nothing is going to hurt you. I even think they’ll lower the scare level so they won’t even give you a heart attack, though I don’t know how they ensure that when everyone’s personal constitution is different. If you’re wearing a sufficiently mechanical or strong substrate, you’re fair game. The monsters can kill you, and they will. They follow whatever rules they’ve been programmed to follow, based on their nature in the source material. If you see a guy in a mask holding a knife, you better run, or try to fight. That’s another important note. Even though you may be in a mechanical body, it’s not superhumanly strong. You will not be able to bat the hostile force around like a cat with a ball of yarn. You’re meant to be in a simulation of what the horror would be like if these characters were real, and that goes for the victims just as much as the bad guys. Your body is capable of bleeding, and it’s capable of dying. Of course, you’re consciousness will survive, but getting back into the scenario is difficult. I think it should be easier. They could treat it as a learning experience, where you get to try new tactics, but I guess they think you should have to choose a different scenario to keep going. That could change in the future. That’s why feedback like this is so important. I hope they read them. Now here’s the question, can you play one of the bad guys yourself? No, you can’t. I think that’s a shame, and they should change that too. My mind can just as easily be uploaded into the body of a psychopathic killer as a scream queen. I wonder if they just have an issue with potentially targeting people who are already psychopaths, and just haven’t had the pleasure of living out their wildest fantasies. People have been debating these things for centuries, because virtual reality affords us the same opportunity to be our sickest selves completely free from punishment or other consequences. We still haven’t found an answer, though some black market stuff can be really disturbing, so I think we kind of have settled on some boundaries. There’s something very different about doing it in base reality. Maybe that’s just taking a step too far. I’m not sure. See? This is why the debate is still raging after all this time. Draw your own conclusions. In the meantime, enter the scariest place on Castlebourne...if you dare.

Microstory 2422: State of the Art

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Isn’t that a funny name for a dome? State of the Art. Since art is so subjective, that term is so often used to describe scientific advancements, which is essentially the opposite of what we’re talking about here. But in this case, they’re calling the entirety of the dome a state, and its purpose is art. Have you ever seen a show from a long time ago called The Peripheral? It only lasted one season, but in that, they feature sculptures that dot the skyline, which are larger than most buildings around it. They never talked about them, or gave any history, but it was set in the audience’s future. I’m not sure if the Castlebourne people were specifically inspired by this, or if it’s a coincidence, but either way, they have those here. These things go up two or three kilometers in the air, and can sometimes be just as wide. It’s really cool to stand on the balcony level, and look down at the whole thing. You’re a few kilometers up yourself, but there aren’t any clouds that low, since they can control all that stuff. Not every dome has one of these second levels, but I think it’s really important in this case. I certainly think that you could extend it more along the perimeter, or even build more layers, but maybe there was a reason why they stopped it here. I just worry that there won’t be enough room once the planet and the dome become more popular. That’s assuming it does. I know you’re all running from your zombies, and wasting each other in the wasteland, but it’s important to learn to be cultured and quiet. That’s what my mom taught me. She was old enough to remember a time before the longevity escape velocity. To them, art was a way of continuing on an individual’s and culture’s community. A piece of visual art or musical piece is a snapshot in history, showing in the most genuine way what life was like—what life was like for the people making the art, and for the people around them. We’re taught that a painting, for instance, comes from a distinct period in time, and it’s important to understand that. You paint a pond of water lilies in 1840, it evokes a different feeling than someone painting it in 2040. Lives change, lifestyles change. Those two people see the world entirely differently, and recognizing the beauty in that is an important human trait that I think we’ve lost as we’ve developed. We still make art, but it’s a reflection of who we are today, and it means nothing if we can’t remember that. Go back to the past, and learn from it. You can visit one of the Babeldome libraries and read about it, and I definitely wouldn’t discourage you from doing that, but don’t forget about the art. Never forget about the art. It speaks, so listen closely. Be cultured and quiet.

Microstory 2285: How Unproductive

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I know that I’ve said this a few times before, but I really mean it this time. I’m getting back into writing. I spent all day writing a fictional story. I won’t tell you what it’s about yet, but I’ll keep you in the loop in the future. Inspired by myself (lol), I started working on a real schedule for my daily life moving forward. After calculating out my physical therapy, eating, spending time with my friends, and all that, I determined how much free time I would have to dedicate to my work. I know, I make it sound like it’s not that much, but of course, since I don’t have a real job, it’s quite a bit. I’m not gonna lie to you, and try to make it seem like I just can’t do all the things that I want to do with my life. I’m the type of person who needs to know what his schedule is going to be, or I’ll waste away the day on nothing, so it was really important for me to really do the math. That’s actually what I realized, how unproductive I’ve been since I got out of surgery. I have to find something to pass the time. If I were back on my home world, I could watch TV and movies all day, but you don’t produce enough interesting stuff to keep me occupied for an extended period of time. But don’t fret—I still love ya, Boreverse. I’ve completely given up on trying to find a way home; that should tell you enough about my perspective and priorities, right? Anyway, it’s the end of the week, so you’ll have to wait until I make another exciting addition to my life story. If you can’t tell, I’m being sarcastic. This is only interesting when something bad is happening to me, so because of how terrible that sounds, I’m seriously considering letting this site go. Let me know what you think.

Microstory 2265: Be One Small Part of It

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I’m glad that I waited, because what I’ve learned is that I’m not really allowed to tell you hardly anything about what’s happening with my upcoming interview. I can’t even tell you the date that it’s happening. All I can say is that the local part of the local talk show is going to be stretched pretty thin for just the one episode. Well, stretch is a bit of a stretch. (Ha, that’s funny.) They’re just not going to be local at all. Apparently, the whole station is part of some kind of group of dozens of other local stations. They call it a Regional Network Cooperative, and while I can’t totally explain what they do, it’s not that they’re owned by a parent company, but they do enjoy some kind of collaborative relationship. I think the biggest benefit of this is that, if one region comes up with a certain segment—say a fun game for their guests—another region can use it too, and even call it the same thing, without worrying about a legal issue. They may negotiate advertising deals too, though don’t quote me on that. Anyway, they would like to try something new with the episode that I’ll be on, which involves simulcasting it in other, or maybe even all, regions in the cooperative. If this pans out, it’s going to take some time to coordinate, because other regions may have special segments that they’ll want to include. It’s not like I’ll be on there for several hours on end. I’ll still only be one small part of it. Obviously, this only puts more pressure on me, but who am I to decline? I’ll just keep practicing with my interview specialist, and hope that I don’t screw this up. Or if I do, hope that I can leave this world eventually, and escape from the humiliation. Whew, that kind of sounds a little like suicide. Sorry, I meant that I might literally leave this world, and travel to another, which I’ve done before. No violence here. Carry on. I’ll tell you more about the thing when the legal department says that I can.

Microstory 2252: No Dutch! No Dutch!

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Dear Dudes, Dutch. Doy. I asked to fill in for Nick today, instead of Kelly. It’s not that she couldn’t write it for him, but I’ve been a little bored, and I wanted something to do. I don’t know what we’re gonna do tomorrow, because the hospital still won’t want him working, and his website is his job, so I may write the next one too. We’ll just have to wait and see. If you don’t read his socials, then don’t worry, he’s okay. He’s not back here for a medical issue, but because he had his surgeries. They took out his index, and some of his bone marrow. Funny thing about that first thing, when I went to another universe, the scientists who studied me wanted to see if there were any physiological differences between me and them. They did all sorts of tests...consensually, and discovered that everything was the same. We all got ten fingers, one heart, and two butt cheeks. They also mentioned that the appendix was about the same. And I’m, like, “what the hell is an appendix?” That’s what they call the index. Apparently, their ancestors thought that it was a useless organ that doesn’t do anything. Which is strange, because back then, they also thought that a magical God created humans. Why would they think such an omnipotent entity would think to include something so strange and pointless? Anyway, I just remembered that, and thought it was funny.

Welp, I think I have a little extra time, so maybe I’ll spend the rest of it telling you how I got my name. Most people assume that it’s only a nickname, but no, it’s real. Both in this world, and the other one, learning it has made people chuckle, or hold back chuckles. The Dutch are people from Nederland, or the language that they speak. My family is not from Nederland, nor even the area. Here’s the story. When my father was a child, he used to watch this old television program. Of course, as Nick has pointed out, we don’t have much of a library of fiction on this Earth, but this one was scripted, and said to have been pretty good at the time. I can’t remember what it was called, but in the first season, there was a younger brother in the family. They got rid of him in later seasons without an explanation, but he kind of became synonymous with the show anyway. The character was very protective of his toys and other belongings. Whenever anyone would come into his room, or try to do anything with his stuff, he would yell “no touch! No touch!” But he had this sort of babyish accent, and it sounded more like Dutch than touch. My father, being of about the same age as this kid, started imitating what he saw and heard. He’d walk around the house, yelling that catch phrase over and over again, emphasizing a D sound even more than the actor did. My grandmother tells me that it was annoying, but at least he didn’t really understand what the words were supposed to have meant, so he wasn’t actually ever trying to stop people from touching his stuff. Then he grew up, and forgot about all of this. But years later, as an adult, he watched some old home movies, and saw himself yelling that. His own dad was gone, but his mother was still alive, so he asked her about it, and she explained what that was. So my dad, being the jokester that he is, just started doing it again. He’ll periodically yell, “no Dutch! No Dutch!” usually at very inappropriate times. I think you can guess the rest. It became part of his personality, so when he and his future wife had a kid, naming him Dutch just made sense. I get my brains and good looks from my mother, but I got Aderyn ‘No Dutch’ Haines’ sense of humor. I think it’s a pretty good deal.

Microstory 2223: Goodbye

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People are evidently fascinated by my story, and have a morbid curiosity for my terrible prognosis. They want to know what it’s like, living with this day to day, and knowing that my life will be over soon. Well, it’s actually kind of boring. Since I don’t have the freedom to move around where I want to, and everything I do need to accomplish has to be planned out in advance, I mostly just repeat the same routine every day. I wake up at 07:15. For now, I can brush my teeth on my own, because my arm tremors don’t prevent me from doing it, especially not so early in the morning. It gets to be problematic later in the day, when my arm starts to kind of flail about more unpredictably. I guess the prions need time to wake up too. Anyway, after I take my first round of medicine, Kelly helps me with some physical therapy exercises for about an hour. After that, I need a break, so she plants me in front of the TV for maybe a couple of hours. At that point, I’m getting hungry, so she makes me something simple for lunch, usually a sandwich or a wrap, along with fruit and vegetables. I’ve never eaten so healthily, but that was always my problem, having to be inconvenienced by preparing the food myself. I’ve never cared that much about the taste or quality, it was always just easier eating something prepackaged, or delivered right to my door. That’s probably the best thing about having an assistant, be it a medical professional, or no. Then after lunch, Kelly takes me for a walk in the wheelchair, or if she’s being a big meany, the walker. I’m joking, I know that it’s good for me to stay active and mobile. There will come a day when even sitting in a wheelchair will feel like too much. The walk takes as long as I can handle it, because I’ve always needed a nap right after it, and in some cases, during. She usually has to wake me up to take more pills, and then I just stay awake for more TV, more physical therapy, dinner, more pills, and more recently, writing these posts. Finally, it’s time for bed. That’s pretty much it. Exciting, I know. It’s so interesting, in fact, I think I’ll start a vlog about it, so a company can offer to sponsor me, then get mad when things don’t work out (probably because I’ll be dead). So. You’ve all been writing me letters, and that’s a very lovely thought, but I’m not going to tell you where I live, I do not have a publicist, because it’s a waste of money at this point, and the jail shouldn’t be worrying about them. They have enough on their plate. Here’s the deal, if you send more letters addressed to me, they have been instructed to literally throw them away. They’re not even gonna open them. So please, stop killing trees for no reason. If you want to say something to me, you can send a quick message below, or catch me on social. I still might not be able to read them, though, because it’s getting harder and harder for me to keep my eyes open in front of screens. And my lifecare assistant isn’t getting paid for all that extra stuff. Thank you for understanding. Goodbye.

Microstory 2135: Maybe it Changed His Life

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I’m feeling better today than I have in a week. I’m still not allowed to go into jail this evening, but I can’t imagine that I won’t be able to get back to our regularly scheduled programming next weekend. I’m still frustrated that I’ll have to extend my sentence because of my medical issues, but this is where procrastination helps. People all my life have told me that I should be more responsible, and to just get things done once I know that they need to be done, rather than sitting around, and putting them off. But that’s not always true, they just might not realize it. One time I had to replace my door in my house, and then I was left with this extra door that I didn’t wanna deal with. I put it by the curb, and waited for someone to pick it up. After a while, my mom started to nag me to bring it into the garage, so we could do something else with it, but The Walking Dead was on, so no. That sounded like a job for Future!Tav. Days later, a guy knocked on my door to ask if he could have the old door. I don’t know how important it was to him. Maybe he just broke it up, and used it for firewood for one day. Or maybe it changed his life forever. I’d like to imagine the latter. There have been other times when procrastinating has helped me, and I’ve felt lucky that I didn’t waste my time. Timing isn’t always about early versus late. It’s a lot more complicated than that, and no human is capable of fathoming the profound complexities of cause and effect. All I’m saying is that maybe it will end up better that I have an extra 64 hours of jail time. I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason, which suggests that there’s some god-like critter that’s moving us around like chess pieces, and trying to attain some goal, but maybe everything will at least end up all right, if only through 20/20 hindsight. While I wait, I’m just gonna keep doin’ my thang. I’ll see ya next week.

Microstory 2132: Don’t Have Anything Special

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The thing about being in prison all day and all night is that nothing about your situation changes. I promised that I would only use my computer for work and to update this blog, and I’ve held to that. You don’t know how hard it’s been to not sneak a peek at the news, or watch a funny video while I’m on a break. I don’t, though. When I’m not busy with something, I just go over to my bed and sit down to stare at the wall. I’m not even allowed to have anything to read, because books can’t be disinfected. The warden said that it would be okay if I read something on the computer, and that he would be more bothered by videos or games, but as I said, I made a commitment. I’m not going to go back on my word just because my life is now even more boring than it was before. I made the conscious decision to leave Kansas even though I was meant to stay put, and regularly report my goingson. If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been anywhere near the warehouse where I contracted the fungus in the first place. That’s on me. The work I’ve been doing has been interesting enough, but I can’t tell you about it, since it’s privileged information. The rest of my posts this week are going to be short, I’m sure, unless something crazy happens, like if Michael Scofield suddenly showed up through a hole behind the toilet, and told me that we’re breaking out. That’s a reference to a TV show that you don’t have in this universe. Maybe that’s what I’ll do every time I don’t have anything special to tell you about my day; tell you more about how my homeworld worked, and how it’s different than yours. We’ll see. For now, I’ll just end this here, and implore you to use me as a cautionary tale. Things might not seem that bad, since I’ve been given so many accommodations, but my story is not typical, and it still sucks here. If I had the choice between prison or jail, or being completely free, I would choose freedom every day of the week.

Microstory 2114: Dream to Fiction

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Let’s set aside for the moment the fact that I’m a traveler from another universe, and that all of the characters that I’ve written about are real people, living somewhere out there in the bulk. Let’s suggest that I’m just a normal creative storyteller whose stories come out of his mindbrain, just as they would for anyone else. Let’s talk about how this process began and developed over the course of more than two decades, and let’s pretend that I never left my world of origin. I was thirteen years old when I officially became a writer. My local radio personality would say that I shouldn’t be allowed to call myself that because I’ve not published any books. But that’s not the definition of a writer. That’s the definition of an author, numbnuts. I was struggling in eighth grade science class, specifically the chemistry portion, which was particularly disheartening, because I wanted to grow up to be a biochemist. Seeing that letter F on my report card told me that I would never realize my dream. It was unrealistic, and I would have wasted a lot of time, energy, and money on the fruitless pursuit. Fortunately, I had this other idea of telling stories, so I started really leaning into that. About two years later, I started work on my canon. I didn’t understand that I was doing that, but the story I came up with in the summer of 2002 has survived today, so I ended up retroactively marking this period in my life as the beginning of my franchise. It was about a boy who was on a boating trip with his fellow scouts. He gets separated from them after the tragic deaths of all of the parents on board, as well as the crew, and ends up on an island full of mythical beings, like elves, dwarves, and mermen. It was quite derivative in the beginning. I’ve rewritten the majority of this book at least four times, and revised it any number of times in between. It’s taken as long as it has to finish because I have never stopped growing as a writer, and perfecting my skills, technique, and personal voice.

As I was saying, I wasn’t familiar with the concept of a canon in the early years of my work, but I did have this compulsion to tell stories that exist within some kind of established continuity. They might be thousands of years apart, or even in different dimensions, but the potential for crossover had to be there, whether it ever actually happened at all or not. I came up with the premise for dozens of stories over the course of the next several years, nearly none of which remain today. The ones that have survived have transformed so much that they would be unrecognizable to anyone who happened to hack into my computer to read the originals. I never published a word, of course. In 2004 or 2005, I came up with a book and its television follow-up that I don’t even want to talk about, because they were rooted in my anger and violent tendencies. I wouldn’t even mention it, but I feel that I have to, because that was my first TV show, even though I wish it wasn’t. My second show, which I conceived of in 2007, was about a group of people with special powers, and from there, the universe expanded. By then, I had already decided that the dimensions from my original concept would be temporal, instead of spatial. That is, they just happened at different points in the long history of a single world. I came up with several other shows that fit within the timeline on the one planet, and then I came up with several more which took place on nearby star systems, and in other galaxies. It was 2012 when I came up with The Verge Saga, which took place billions of years ago in another galaxy. The number of TV shows that I had created effectively doubled overnight to around 60.

For a couple of years in my adult life, I had a recurring dream. Well, maybe that’s not the right word to use. Continuous would be a better choice, because I wasn’t just reliving the same thing every night. The story kept going. I could wake up, go about my day, and then go back to sleep to revisit the characters right where we last left off. I don’t know about you, but I’m only in about half of my dreams. A lot of the time, I’m observing other people’s lives, and this particular one felt very much like something that could be adapted to fiction for public consumption. I even had the perfect title for it, but the problem with it was that it inherently took place on Earth, where that established continuity I’ve been talking about bars such world-changing events from occurring. Basically, if I wanted it to take place on Earth, it had to be a different Earth. This was when my canon exploded. I suddenly had access to a dozen new universes, which could have their own independent histories that I didn’t have to worry about conflicting with each other. My list of TV shows approached 80, and I was unstoppable. That’s when Salmonverse was created, but that’s not when I thought of my first story for it.

On December 27, 2012, my first dog, Sophie Love was put to rest at a 24-hour animal hospital after a short but brutal and cruel battle with liver disease. Shortly thereafter, I had a dream (not again; this one came first). I woke up to find my dog alive downstairs, where she should have been all along, and then I realized that I had traveled through time to before her death. Of course, my dream turned into a nightmare when I jumped back in time again to not only before my dog was born, but also before we lived in that house. Someone else was living there, so I had to escape without disrupting their lives too much. Samuel Bellamy took over this role when I converted this dream to fiction, making him the first ever resident of Salmonverse, but like I said, I didn’t come up with that until 2015. Everything I wrote until I built my website just sat there in my files, never to be seen by anyone but me. That’s why these things have weird temporal values, because I regularly come up with a story, or only a premise, or even just one character, without having any place for it yet. I guess normal writers conceive an idea, and then just with it until it’s done. I often develop all aspects of a new story all at once before I so much as write the first word of the actual text. This process might inspire sequels, prequels, multimedia follow-ups, and crossovers that I will also work on without necessarily having written anything substantial. I dunno, maybe I’m doing it wrong, which is why I’m over here with a personal website that no one reads, and George R.R. Martin is a millionaire. He too has taken forever to write his latest book, but people are actually waiting for it. Hopefully I’ll finish the new edition soon, but I’m pretty busy. Unlike how it is for Martin, this isn’t my only job, and as aforesaid, I don’t make a dime off of it.

Tomorrow, I’ll get more into the details of my website; how it got started, and how I prepare for upcoming stories. There’s a lot. It takes a lot to keep this thing running. Like, you don’t even know. Slipping back into character, I’m surely in jail now, awaiting trial, or whatever step comes next. I scheduled this to come out just so I don’t leave you with nothing, but I’ll eventually run out of these too.

Microstory 2074: Those Who Come in Late

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I am super tired, so I’m not going to say much today. It’s okay, but I wish my new boss had told me that I was going to be working whole days for the next four days at least. She wants me to understand how to open, and how to close, but also what it’s like to be immersed in that environment throughout the day. She wants me to get a feel for the difference between customers who come in early, and those who come in late, along with everyone in between. I didn’t get enough sleep last night, so I didn’t really get much out of that yet, but I trust her. I’ll be super prepared for it tomorrow. But I can’t do that unless I pretty much go to bed right now. It’s a good thing there’s never anything good on TV. Back on my home world, I was often too distracted to manage my time well.

Microstory 2064: Naïve and Trusting

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I had a phone call with a guy who claimed to also be from another universe, and it was pretty interesting. Out of respect for his privacy, I’m not going to tell you his real name. He hasn’t consented to me talking about him. Though, I think he would kind of be okay with it. How can I put this? He’s the opposite of a conspiracy theorist? He isn’t paranoid about the government, or anything like that. He’s very naïve and trusting, which is why he responded to my ad in the first place. As it turns out, he’s been looking out for any message like mine, which is why he receives the Kansas City Post even though he lives in Chicago, among reportedly tons of others. Surprisingly enough, I’m not one hundred percent certain that he’s not also from another universe. Have you ever heard of the Mandela Effect? Of course you haven’t. You’re too boring to come up with psychology terms like that. Basically it refers to a phenomenon where people believe something is true that is not, like maybe that a particular mascot has always worn a hat, when in fact, the hat never existed. Maybe you remember a character from an old TV show having a brother, when what you’re probably thinking of is an episode where he pretends to be a neighbor’s brother so they can get a discount at the arcade. I just made those up, but you get what I mean. That’s essentially what may or not be happening with my new Chicago friend. He wasn’t talking about all these crazy differences from where he supposedly grew up. There are lots of little differences, like street names, and the biggest companies in the world. All of these can be attributed to poor memory, or more severe mental health issues, but they could also mean he came through Westfall, and for some reason, is aware that it happened. I will need to speak with him more to get a better understanding of what he’s been dealing with. No valid conclusion yet.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 15, 2399

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Imani didn’t say much more about her religious faith, and how much she thinks it does, or doesn’t, have to do with time travelers. By the sound of it, some of the Word of Dalton is drawn from real life, and some of it is ripped straight out of pop culture from the main sequence. For instance, he tells a story that Leona recalls from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as if it were real. Similarly, this reality never had a version of Adolf Hitler, so Dalton apparently felt totally comfortable using hitler as an adjective to describe someone evil, or literal daemons from the bad place. Yes, he stole IP from The Good Place too. They probably should have read over the prooftext months ago, since it could have clues. Leona would do that now, but she’s busy.

Imani wanted a tour of the Superscraper, but didn’t have enough time for it, and still doesn’t today, which is good, because Leona scheduled an unrelated meeting. If she wants to turn the building into a refugee sanctuary, then she needs to get help from people who already work with refugees, and actually know what the hell they’re doing. They seemed amenable to the possibility of collaborating on the phone, but it was audio only, and they could have just been being polite. Been being? She needs to make sure she doesn’t talk like that during the meeting. She’s entering their offices now. Game face, Leona. Wait, stop! She didn’t mean that literally, but her ability interpreted it that way. That’s not her game face. That is Chief’s tight end and four-time Super Bowl champion, Travis Kelce. Leona face, Leona. There we go. Okay, now open the door, and if anyone saw,  pretend that it was just an optical illusion.

“Hello. Welcome to Homes for Humankind. Do you have an appointment, or would you like to volunteer?”

“I have a meeting scheduled with Yulian Văduva.” She checks her watch. “I’m about ten minutes early.

The receptionist blinks. “Hold on, I know who you are.”

“Yes.” Leona ran into a celebrity once, and she’s not talking about Juan Ponce de Leon, or the time she was on a fake cooking show with James Van Der Beek. In the reality where she didn’t meet Mateo until later in life, she found herself in front of comedian and actor, Heidi Gardner in line at Richard and Allen’s restaurant in the Plaza. There was no one else there at the time, and that was before that version of her found out that it was a hangout spot for time travelers. Heidi shook her hand politely and said hello, but Leona didn’t ask for a selfie, or anything like that, and Heidi didn’t offer. She seemed to want to be left alone, and Leona respected that. She was very nice to Richard when he took her order, and ate quickly, surely because she had to return to her busy life. Leona didn’t think that she would ever have to deal with anything like that. She’s famous in certain circles, like the planet of Dardius, but she’s never felt every eye in the world on her; not when the people whose eyes they belong to don’t know about time travel. This is so surreal. She’s being bashful about it.

“And you’re meeting with the big kahuna. Lucky you. A word of advice, don’t say anything about the Daltomist who visited your country yesterday. He’s not a fan of organized religion.”

“Don’t worry,” Leona said. “Neither am I.”

He nods. “I’ll let him know that you’ve arrived. You can have a seat over there.”

Leona barely has time to sit down before Mr. Yulian comes down from on high. “Mrs. Matic? It’s nice to meet you. Right this way, we’re in the big conference room today.”

“Okay,” Leona said. She follows him to the room, which she expects to be entirely empty. She thought it had something to do with the other rooms being booked, but nope, it’s completely full of people. They all look up at her when she stops in the doorway, some having to spin their chairs around to see. “Hi. Forgive me, I wasn’t prepared for this. It seems that our wires were crossed. I was under the impression that it would just be us, and maybe one associate of yours.”

“Wires were crossed,” he echoes. “Heh, I like that. I’m gonna steal it from you. Why don’t you have a seat? Yeah, right there at the head. Go on. Are you thirsty? We have water or tea.”

“I’m fine, thanks.” She sits down awkwardly in the incredibly comfortable chair. A conference room chair has no business being this soft. This is a place of business.

Yulian walks to the other side of the room, and flips on the TV. “Before we get to the pitch, I would like to show you something.” He presses a button that reveals the feed from the front door security camera.

Leona’s heart sinks. She really needs to get a handle on her new illusion power.

“Before every meeting with a potential partner or donor, we like to have a little internal pre-meeting. We leave the feed up to play in the background so we know when someone shows up. We never expected to see this.” He prepares to press another button.

“You don’t have to show it. I know what you saw.”

“Okay,” Yulian says with a smile. “Then I’ll show you this archive footage instead.” He changes the screen to a different camera. It’s high up on the roof, and showing the New York City skyline. “Wait for it...wait for it...” The Superscraper appears out of nowhere. “I assume what you did at the front door has something to do with what made this thing suddenly spring into existence?”

“It’s...maybe.”

“So there are others who can do the same thing?”

“...maybe,” she repeats.

He widens his smile. “We’re prepared to defect to your nation, and maybe even expand its borders. Did you know that you could do that? The original owner once owned a modest apartment complex in that spot where he provided a different kind of sanctuary; one that was designed to protect the worst criminals the U.S. has ever seen. He bought more land so he could spread his bullshit message to the masses, and now that it’s yours, you could do it again. But you could do it for the right reasons.”

“I can’t build another building like that,” Leona says. “I didn’t build this one.” She paused, and bobbed her head indecisively. “Or I did.”

“What does that mean? Do you have memory issues?”

“Actually, I think I’ll take that water now.”

The woman next to her slides her own glass over. “It’s clean. I didn’t take a sip of it yet.”

Leona took the glass, and downed it.

“Are you okay now?”

She clears her throat. “I don’t have memory problems. I’m a time traveler, and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Future!Me constructed that building.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 7, 2398

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Leona is sitting in her wheelchair while Mateo is sitting up in her bed. He’s mindlessly flipping through channels on the TV, but it’s impossible to find something good. He’s sure there are plenty of great programs here, but they always make him a little uncomfortable. It feels like Third Railers are on a slightly different frequency than normal people. Their idea of entertainment isn’t wrong or even weird, it’s just a little too different than what he’s used to. It’s hard to explain what he doesn’t like about it, but he can only stomach about ten minutes of it before it makes him shiver, and he has to change it to something else.

“I’m getting hungry,” Leona notes.

Mateo checks her watch. She’s not allowed to wear jewelry while she’s checked in as a patient, in case they need to take her out for tests. It shouldn’t matter now since no one is running any tests of the sort, but they don’t want to piss the hostage-takers off any more than they already are. “Rations were meant to come an hour ago.”

“I hope they’re late because patients in critical need of nutrition are taking priority, and not that they’ve decided to starve us.”

“Want me to go out there and check?”

She shakes her head vigorously. “Nope. I don’t want you to draw attention to you or us at all. Maybe you could sneak back over to Cheyenne’s room again, though?”

“Okay.” He peeks his head through the doorway. The coast is clear—too clear, like a scene in a horror movie that you think is maybe a dream sequence, but it turns out the killer’s not dead, and he’s found her, and the hospital floor is totally empty only to increase tension, despite how unlikely that is. Mateo slinks down the hallways, and slips into Cheyenne’s room.

Marie is in there with her. They’re playing a card game across the bed. “Problem, or is she still just worried?” Marie asks.

“The second thing,” Mateo answers. “Have you heard anything? Are they going to let us out anytime soon?”

“It depends on what you mean by soon,” Cheyenne replies. “Santiens are pretty hardcore. They won’t stop until they’ve purified everyone they deem to be unclean.”

“Yeah, and you’re sure that doesn’t mean they’re going to kill them, right?”

“Positive,” Cheyenne assures him.

A group of heavily armed people belonging to a religion called Santienism took over the hospital when they learned that a group of Suiliens were involved in a bus crash, and were brought here for treatment. According to Carlin and Moray’s research, the two sects were once one, but Santiens broke away when they became obsessed with using natural remedies to cure disease. This caused the Suiliens to both metaphorically and literally dig into their own beliefs. They sleep in the dirt, and don’t ever bathe, believing that nature is the closest thing to divinity. Neither one of them believes in real science, and members of both sides get sick a lot because of their unhealthy habits. When their medical issues become too much for them to bear, they will go against their convictions with real doctors, but they are not meant to visit the same facilities due to a self-imposed policy of segregation. These are extenuating circumstances.

They have locked the building down so that no one can come in, and no one can leave. They have installed signal blockers to prevent communication to the outside world, which is why Mateo and Leona were unable to make their rendezvous with Ramses. They don’t know if he and Alyssa left without them, or if they’re still waiting in that park upstate. All they would have had to do, though, would be to check the internet for current events in the area. This isn’t national news by any stretch, as things like this happen from time to time, but it’s noteworthy enough to be reported on locally.

It’s been two nights since this debacle began, and now it’s early morning. How long exactly does it take to purify a bus full of your enemies, whether that means killing them, or not? Mateo looks towards the door, but that’s not what he’s thinking about. This is a team of action. They don’t do well just sitting around, waiting for other people to make things happen. His instincts are telling him to go out there, and make the situation better...or maybe make it worse instead, but brief.

“Don’t do it,” Marie urges him, knowing him well enough to predict his impulses. “This isn’t our problem.”

“We’ll be out of here by the end of the day,” Cheyenne believes.

“No, you won’t, and it’s your problem now.” One of the hostage-takers is standing in the doorway, aiming a gun at them from his waist like a buster in a film noir.

“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Marie protests.

“What religions are you?” the man with the gun asks, stepping closer menacingly.

“Unaffiliated,” she replies.

“The marker on your door indicates that you’re Caducean.”

Cheyenne leans forward to look at the faith indicator, but she can’t read it. “I hadn’t noticed. My friends must have put that there. Caduceans tend to receive priority treatment.” Caduceans do believe in science, and most medical professionals affiliate.

“Lying about your faith is an offense.”

“It’s not illegal.” One might think it would be, but not as long as the lie isn’t accompanied by other crimes. Still, some find the practice irreverent. In this case, he should just let it go as he obviously has more important stuff going on right now.

He relaxes his hand, but keeps his gun at the ready. “There are too many people in this room. One visitor at a time. One of you has to go back to your room, or downstairs with the other non-patients, depending on which one agrees to leave.”

“I’m going,” Mateo says.

“No, I’ll go,” Marie insists as she’s standing up. She gives Mateo a look that hopefully means don’t bring Leona into this, just stay here, because that’s how he’s interpreting it.

Ramses suddenly appears out of nowhere. “Oh. You have company over. I’m so sorry to disturb you.”

“Where the hells did you come from?” the gunman questions angrily.

“Umm....the bathroom?”

“The bathroom is behind me.”

“We don’t have time for this.” Ramses takes Mateo and Cheyenne by the hands, and teleports them to the rendezvous point in the park. Leona is already there, as are Winona and the AOC. Ramses makes one more jump to the hospital for Marie.

“What’s going on?” Mateo asks Winona.

She shakes her head and sighs. “Those guys who bombed the studio; they only did it to steal money, but nobody knows that yet. Someone was inspired to try to fix what they thought was a mistake. There is a bounty on Leona’s head. We had to act.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 23, 2398

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Leona has been at a retreat for the last five days since she was forced to accidentally kill Solomon Powers, the star of the hit talk show, Balance of Power. She didn’t technically have to kill him, but she lost control, and hit him too hard against the side of the head during their fight, and that was that. Now she’s in control of a broadcast program that she doesn’t want. They have reportedly been running repeats until she comes back out the woodwork, and gives them direction, which she’s not interested in doing. She certainly doesn’t want to host it. She just wants to go back to the way things were before, whatever that means. Winona has her tucked away on a special patch of land that serves both as the training grounds for intelligence department recruits, and a safe haven for furloughed and retired operatives, officers, and agents.

It’s been nice, but it’s time to leave. Her people need her, especially Mateo and Ramses, who will be returning from the Facsimile dimension in a couple of days. “Wait,” Winona says after Leona explains as much.

“Wait for what?” Leona asks.

“Ugh, I was hoping you would stay at least one more day, so we could clean it up for you. It’s ready to fly, though, and I suppose that’s what counts.”

“What’s ready to fly?”

“Come with me.” Winona leads her across the ranch, into one of the hangars. There’s only one aircraft there at the moment. It looks strikingly similar to The Olimpia.

A man is looking it over, and tapping on his tablet. “Oh, I thought we had until tomorrow. I’m so sorry, sir, I must have screwed up somewhere.”

“You didn’t,” Winona assures him. “She’s decided to leave early. I had to move up the presentation. Agent Matic, this is yours. We heard what happened to your last one.”

The engineer nods. “Same overall dimensions as your old model, but it sports a more streamlined and accommodating interior. More private lofts, no cubbies. Less room in the cockpit to leave more space for everything else, but that’s okay, because more systems are automated than ever before.” He pauses while Leona takes a quick look at the inside. “It’s also vacuum compliant.”

“It can launch into space?” Leona questions.

“It can self-propel from a fusion reactor,” the engineer clarifies. “It has to be launched as a payload on something else, though. Apparently you have your own special engine too? Mr. Abdulrashid left us in the dark for that part of the design.”

“Ramses knows about this?”

“He asked for an upgrade,” Winona reveals. “He’s been planning this for a while.

He always has a lot of irons in the fire. Leona nods at it. All she can think is how much Heath would like this. She didn’t kill him, but she is responsible for it. She feels responsible for everything. Being the captain is great until you count up all the pain it’s caused. She should step down and disappear. Wouldn’t everyone be happier?

“What do you think?” the engineer asks, proud of his work. “We still need to clean it, but it’s sky-worthy, and space-worthy. And subaquatic-worthy, and—”

“I love it. Thank you.”

“What are you gonna name it?” Winona asks. “Not the Olimpia again, right?”

“That’s not my call. My team needs to become more of a democracy.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 8, 2398

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In general, the afterlife simulation was cut off from base reality. Pryce made this decision with good reason, it wasn’t just to keep control over the residents. As great as the virtual construct was, it wasn’t real by most people’s standards, and having a link back to the people they left behind could be psychologically detrimental. There were eleven status levels that one could earn or lose, though the bottom level was true death, and the top was incredibly rare resurrection. So really there were nine; each level up affording the resident more privileges. Level Seven Pink Elite was the best for the majority of people. The upper levels demanded a level of responsibility that not everyone valued. But within this level were sublevels. Just because you reached it, didn’t mean you had everything. Only a select few were given insight into the events down on Earth, and in later years, outward to the stars. Angela was one of these people, having proven herself worthy of the honor.

Near the beginning of the 21st century, a certain television series premiered, featuring a shady intelligence agency known as SD-6. She described it to the team, but Heath shook his head, not thinking the two had anything to do with each other. No such show existed in the Third Rail. The version of SD6 to which Leona apparently now belonged was probably as secretive, but not as nefarious. It wasn’t really one organization, but six—hence the name. The National Intelligence, Domestic Affairs, National Police, National Military, Court Agent, and Transportation Regulatory Authorities came together for a joint task force that kind of had carte blanche for any mission necessary to protect the country’s interests. For the longest time, the existence of this task force remained only rumor for the general public, but it now features an overt director, which holds press conferences, and the occasional accessible budget or ethics hearing. Still, this is a big deal. Leona is a big deal. More to the point, if her credentials are as good as they seem, this forger’s powers are greater than they thought to consider until now.

“Oh, I got a little six-thing in the corner too,” Mateo says. He hadn’t really looked at his own new badge until this morning.

The others hadn’t checked it either. Marie takes it from him, and inspects it carefully. “Commandant in the National Military Authority. Mateo, this is, like, five ranks higher than you were before.”

He shrugs. “You know me, I excel at everything I do.”

“What does she want from you?” Marie asks, shaking her head in disbelief.

“What does she want from us?” Angela corrects.

“She never asked anything of the two of us when we first got Marie her new identity four years ago,” Heath explains. “What’s so special about you? No offense, because I know you’re special, but how does she know that?”

“Maybe it doesn’t really have anything to do with us,” Mateo suggests. “Maybe she has a gambling problem, and lost all her money the day before we walked in her door. Maybe her brother’s been locked up in a federal prison, and she wants us to get them out. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”

Leona is grateful that her husband came up with an alternative to her theory that Heath is a mole. “That’s really creative, honey, but we don’t have the luxury of believing in coincidences. I haven’t seen a coincidence since 2028.”

“Trying to figure out what she’s up to isn’t going to do any good unless we can speak with her directly,” Angela believes. “For now, we have to plan tomorrow’s events.”

“Tomorrow’s events?” Marie questions, confused. “We’re not leaving until Wednesday.”

“Yes,” Heath begins, “so we’re going to spend the whole day together, just the six of us. We’ll have a special breakfast, a special lunch, and a special dinner, along with a few other surprises.”

“Don’t worry,” Angela continues, “we’re not gonna parade down the streets. We’ll just secretly see you off. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” Marie replies with a smile. “That’ll be great.”

Microstory 1711: Giorgia Giraffe

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Dear City Council,

I have a pet giraffe. Well, I’m pretty sure it’s a cousin to the giraffe, but it just looks like a baby giraffe. It’s even smaller than a dwarf giraffe—closer to the size of a large dog—and as far as I know, it’s the only one of its kind. I don’t know where she came from. She just wandered into my backyard one day and started drinking out of the birdbath. I thought about contacting the authorities about her, but I grew too attached in only the few short hours since we met. She seemed to grow attached to me too. She kept following me around the yard. I tried to look up what kind of leaves giraffes eat, but the internet listed all these trees I had never heard of, and they didn’t appear to be native to North America. She took a liking to bamboo leaves, so that’s what I’ve been feeding her all this time. I have a little naturally grown ceilingless hut up against the fence. All I did was plant bamboo in the shape of four walls, and it gives me this private little area where I can go to enjoy nature. I have an outdoor television in there, and a minifridge for snacks and water. I even buried the extension cord inside some PVC pipe to protect it from damage. It’s a pretty sweet setup, and I spend most of my time there, especially since the pandemic allowed me to work from home. It wasn’t originally designed to accommodate a tiny giraffe, so I cut down some of the bamboo, and planted more to make it bigger. This is where Giorgia sleeps. I bought a smartspeaker so she can listen to sounds of the jungle all night long, and she loves it. She loves me, and I love her.

The neighborhood kids like to come over and play with her, but she has a tough time with crowds, so I limit visits with a schedule so it doesn’t stress her out. Most people are overjoyed to see her, but not everyone is happy that I have a mini giraffe. Five blocks down—which no one in their right mind would call part of the same neighborhood—lives a middle-aged grump who stopped working when he started to receive disability checks, along with a settlement he won in civil court. He has nothing better to do with his time than complain about his neighbors. If the people on his street don’t have each blade of grass cut to an untenable range of length, he puts up a stink. I’m sure you have all noticed how annoying he is. I was able to keep Giorgia off of his radar for a good long while, but he’s recently learned of her, and now he can’t let go. Animal control came by last week to investigate, and a few days later, a decision was made to remove the animal from my property, and lock her up in a cold and heartless cage. I always knew it was illegal to keep a wild animal at my house, but I don’t think she qualifies. She’s gentle, trained, and not doing anyone any harm. I beg you to return Giorgia to me. The city had no right to take her from her loving home. There must be better things that you can be doing with your time than harassing a law-abiding citizen, and traumatizing an innocent creature. Attached is a petition to #BringGiorgiaHome, signed by over 300 of my closest friends, who all believe that she is better off with me than in some laboratory.

Thank you,

Sir Niall Muller Jr.

Microstory 1700: Introduction to Constellations

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Ah, constellations. What good are they? Well, they’re great for navigation. Before GPS, I don’t know how people got around, especially not across the sea. Yet they somehow figured it out. I’ve never been that interested in the concept myself, however, as I was born in 1987, and I’m not a sailor. I couldn’t look up at the sky, and name a single constellation for you. I don’t know where the big dipper is, or how close it is to the little dipper. I really don’t know much. As a science fiction writer, they’re not that useful to me. My stories take place on many planets, all over the galaxy, and beyond. Constellations mean nothing at that point, which is my main gripe with my favorite franchise, Stargate. The stars that you see as being lined up aren’t necessarily anywhere near each other, unless you pretend that the celestial sphere is two-dimensional, and only when looking at them from a particular point in space, which has traditionally been Sol. In the future, they’ll become just as insignificant to us as they are to an alien race. Obviously they hold significant historical value, and they’re really important to a lot of people, so I can’t just act like they’re not at all meaningful. They’re just not meaningful to me, because I don’t see shapes when I look up at the night sky. I only see dots. The series you’re about to read is inspired by the 88 modern constellations, as codified and standardized in the 1920s. I did have to add an extra thing called a dark nebula to reach the weekdays left this year.

Anyway, each one probably comes with its own mythological story. This demi-god did that, and as punishment, his father glued him to the sky, so he’s forced to suffer whatever torment for eternity. I don’t care much about these stories either. So I’m going to make up some of my own, based predominantly on the names. There appears to be multiple names for any one constellation, which gives me some options, in case one of them doesn’t inspire anything in me. The stories may be canonical, or they might not be. The first one, for instance, is called Andromeda, and I already have a character with that name. I named her partially because of Lexa Doig’s character on the titular scifi series, and partially because I like it. So I may write a new story about her, or I’ll come up with a company or place that shares the name, and have it be completely unrelated. I could also just call it Princess of Ethiopia, and use that as my jumping off point. Nothing has been decided. The point is that you shouldn’t get hung up on what you know about these constellations, or the preexisting stories that supposedly explain how they got up there. This has nothing to do with any of that. This series will get us to quite near the end of the year. Afterwards, there will be a very special standalone microfaction story that will tease you with some major changes that will be happening next year, and through much of 2023. I tell you this so you know that I don’t just make things up as I go along. My long-term plans are longer than the ones that Marvel Studios makes. It’s like a shared universe, except that there’s no one else to share it with, not even an audience. Assuming you do exist at some point, though, please enjoy these starry originals.