Microstory 2776: Jump

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash 1.1

The air escapes the rocket since they have no way of closing the bulkheads. Elise and Zelda strap themselves into the nearest seats as the inertial dampeners either don’t work, or don’t even exist. Elise feels her face collapse into itself as the apparent gravity increases. Back when she was much younger, high gravity training was required for space travel, even if you were just going into orbit. As the technology became more reliable, and redundancies were reinforced, they stopped treating everyone like an astronaut, and the first true passengers emerged. It has been centuries since she’s felt this, and she does not care for it. She turns her head to Zelda, who is, of course, loving it.

Several minutes later, the rocket has made it into orbit. The trembling stops, and the gravity stabilizes. They can finally relax and speak. Elise catches Zelda up on everything she missed after she was presumed dead. Their best guess is that this is not a new timeline, but the same one with more information. The girls sit there together, waiting for something special to happen, but it never does. This is a problem, because while the vacuum suit cartridge has its own carbon scrubber, it’s not the most efficient kind, and is only meant to be used in emergencies. That’s exactly what this is, but they should really get a more reliable source of air if they’re going to be here for a while.

Maybe this isn’t the final challenge, and never was. Maybe it was simply the hardest one yet, and the team has so much more to get through in any timeline. Elise doesn’t even really care about that anymore; she was only trying to save Zelda’s life and memories. If the hunt is going to continue, they have to get the rest of the team back somehow. Short of that, they have to reunite back on the real Castlebourne, and scrub the whole thing. But for now, all they can do is sit here and wait.

“There’s more we can do,” Zelda contends. “This is the same alien language that Colley encountered in the Empty Planet simulation, and the same one we’ve seen pop up every once in a while on this hunt. He figured it out eventually, so we can do the same.”

“Keyword is eventually,” Elise responds. “He beat Empty Planet because language and culture are his thing. I don’t know if we have time. He didn’t teach us.”

“We may as well try,” Zelda reasons. “One of these buttons shuts all of the bulkheads, and another one reestablishes air circulation. Or maybe a few of them, I don’t know, but the puzzle is here, we just have to solve it. We can do this, Elise.”

Elise sighs. “It’s alien. Maybe it doesn’t have the right atmospheric comps.”

“Then we’ll make it work. The hunt would not have led us here if it were impossible. The escape pod is a failsafe to get you out of the game, but you’re not supposed to take it. You’re supposed to be in here, and survive. Whatever we’re waiting to happen, it probably can’t happen until we turn on life support,” Zelda reasons.

Elise nods. “You’re right. There must be a way. The language is translatable.”

And so the girls start trying to understand what they’re looking at. They start by tracing the exposed cables from less dangerous systems to their controls. They figure out what turns the lights on and off, and which buttons open and close the panels. That gives them a baseline for what the alien symbols mean. From there, they incrementally learn what everything on the bridge does. It takes them hours, but they do figure it out.

Meanwhile, they start to understand what the ship is doing on its own. It doesn’t remain in a circular orbit. They’re climbing to a higher altitude. For what purpose, they don’t know, but Delta V will be lower farther from the planet’s gravity well, so it could be preparing to activate an ion drive, or something else, to leave Castlebourne entirely. They can’t let that happen, but none of these buttons says that there is a way to cross back over to the main dimension. The aliens probably couldn’t do that. The Facsimile is just the Custodians’ way of allowing the hunt to take the hunters anywhere in the world without interfering with the normal goings-on. It’s not actually part of the story.”

“Wait, I think this will do something,” Zelda says. She flips a switch.

An alien voice would occasionally make announcements through the speakers, particularly when they made some change. Knowing how to read the symbols, and understanding their spoken words, are not the same thing, so they have never been able to comprehend it. Until now. Now it’s all being said in plain English. Zelda flips the lights on and off a few times to confirm. “Lights on, lights off. Lights on, lights off—”

“Okay.” Elise pins Zelda’s hand down gently. “It works. That was the last piece of the puzzle. Now we just need to wait forty-two more seconds until that periodic announcement we keep hearing triggers again, and finally find out what it’s saying.”

“I think it’s counting down,” Zelda explains. “The second part is always the same, but the first part is always different.”

Elise nods. “That would be my guess too.”

“Eighty-three seconds to reintegration,” the voice says, confirming their guess.

They both widen their eyes. Reintegration? What exactly does that mean?

Eighty-three seconds pass. Sensors start going off. Proximity alert after proximity alert after proximity alert. They look through the viewports to see another space station. They’re fine—they’re not going to collide with it—but they’re clearly back in the real dimension. This is precisely what they were hoping for.

Elise opens her bag and grabs one of the communicators that she packed.

“Activating reframe engines in eleven minutes,” the computer announces.

“Is that the thing that makes a ship move faster than light?” Zelda questions.

“Yes,” Elise replies in a panicky voice. She opens a channel. “Laise, are you there? Please respond, Laise. This is Elise Perkins. Please respond!”

“Laise here, go ahead.”

“Have you been tracking the team? Do you know where they are?” Elise asks.

“Yes, they’re in a highly secure facility,” Laise answers. “I’ve been trying to break them out for an hour. I’m only at Step 2. I could really use your help.”

“If it’s secure,” Elise realizes, “then it probably doesn’t allow teleportation.”

“That was my thinking,” Laise agrees. “That’s why I’m shutting off the power.”

“Good girl,” Elise says. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

“Sending the coordinates now.” A brief pause. “Power will take a few minutes.”

“I can’t jump that far in one go,” Elise explains to Zelda. “I have to start now. She affixes the communicator onto her nanite vacuum suit, and seals most of it up, leaving only the visor open. “You stay here. If you can delay FTL, do it, but don’t stop it.”

“Aye, Captain,” Zelda says. “And Captain,” she adds when Elise tries to turn away. “One more thing.” She takes Elise by the helmet and kisses her passionately.

Elise lets her go and smiles. “I love you.” She drops her visor and teleports away.

Miracle called this burst mode. She can only jump about a thousand kilometers, so the first time she does it, she’s still in the middle of outer space. She immediately jumps again. Then again, and again, and again, until she’s back down on the surface. She’s standing next to Laise now, who is still waiting for Castledome’s power to turn off.

Laise salutes Elise, then shifts her fingers to count down. “Four, three, two, one.”

After all of the lights shut off, Elise picks Laise up, and teleports away.

They’re deep inside the castle now, in what looks like a dungeon. All of their friends are chained up on the other side of metal bars, which Elise is somehow not able to teleport through. They must be on auxiliary power. Azad is here too, dressed in medieval garb, instead of his usual heavily armored IMS unit. He draws his sword.

“I don’t have time for this,” Elise complains. “The ship is about to disappear.”

Azad jerks his head towards another sword leaning against the stone wall. “Then you better hurry. Because I’m the only one keeping that cell locked.” He tenses up.

Elise doesn’t move. She looks over at her friends, who are watching them, but not speaking. She can’t do this. Obviously, if she wins, Azad will either heal in this body, or transmit to a backup. That’s not really even the problem, though she might feel differently if she does put that weapon in her hands. The real issue is that she doesn’t want to transfer. She likes the body she’s in right now, and she was so preoccupied with training that she never went in to duplicate her current DNA. She will lose her wings, she’ll lose teleportation...she’ll lose everything. But her friends need her.

While Elise is frozen like a coward, Laise picks up the sword. She attacks Azad instead, and damn is she good. Elise didn’t take the time to get to know her, or ever ask why Miracle conscripted her for her team in the first place. This might have been the reason, because she is kicking Azad’s ass. He might be letting her win because he secretly wants them to complete the hunt, but he’s making a good show of it at least.

After a few minutes, Laise manages to knock the sword out of Azad’s hands.

Elise runs over to pick it up, because they never do that in movies, and it often leads to a final blow by the villain. She’s not going to use it herself, though.

“Do I have to kill you?” Laise asks Azad sternly, the tip at his neck.

“The gate is on a deadman’s switch,” Azad replies plainly.

Laise nods. She looks away, then quickly drives the blade into Azad’s throat. At his final heartbeat, the gate slides open, leading to hugs and kisses all around.

“Uh, Elise?” Zelda asks through comms. “You better get back here. The ship enters reframe speeds in three minutes. I couldn’t slow it down, or stop it if I tried.”

Elise frowns at her friends. “It’s too late. We’ll never make it in time.”

“We could try to compound our temporal energy,” Miracle suggests.

“I don’t know what that means,” Elise says, though she can hazard a guess.

“We don’t have time to get into it,” Miracle begins, “but when you cross the streams of two sources of temporal energy, it can create a feedback loop, pulling more than they normally would on their own. It’s dangerous, though. We could miss our mark, which we absolutely cannot do since you’re the only one with a vac suit.”

“We have to risk it,” Jolanda decides. “If worst comes to worst, we’ll each end up in our respective backup bodies, and miss the window. I would rather try.”

“We vote,” Rage says. “Raise your hand if you wanna risk it.” She looks over at Laise when everyone raises their hand. “Are you back in? Are you with us?”

“Damn right,” Laise says. “I regretted leaving the second I did.”

“Do it,” Rage says to Elise and Miracle.

There’s really nothing for Miracle to teach Elise. The latter already knows how to build her energy for longer jumps. She’s never been able to reach 8,000 kilometers before, and certainly not with any passengers, but she has the idea. She can feel it. As she’s holding Miracle’s hands, she can feel the power. It’s intoxicating. With every wave of energy, it feels like they’ve reached their limit, but then they let more and more in.

Elise focuses on Zelda again. She is their target. If they can get close to her, they’ll all be safe. The power feels good, but they may be reaching an actual limit, because the pressure is also getting to be a little much. She keeps pushing, though, no matter how much it hurts. They build until their hands are shaking, and then they build more until their whole bodies are shaking. A glowing white light starts bursting from their eyes, and their pores. If they don’t try this now, they could quite literally explode, and since we’re dealing with time travel, they might not all end up in their backups.

Now.

Elise wakes up on the floor. The architecture suggests that she’s back on the alien ship, but it’s nowhere she’s been before. It is definitely not the bridge. She stands up and wobbles a little before catching herself on a chair. She takes deep breaths to regain her balance while she stares at the door. Once she’s ready, she exits.

The others are in the corridor with her, having seemingly just woken up as well.

Minotaur leads them back to the bridge where they find Telman standing there patiently with a cool poker face.

Telman waits for everyone to file in. “Welcome...to Level 2.”

Microstory 2771: Three-Two-One Liftoff, Jetpack, Shoot Into Space

< > Table of Contents

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

Elise and Colley learn that the maze the other team members were making their way through is a rocket buried in the ground narratively from crashing. It’s heavily damaged, and not likely spaceworthy, so they’re pretty sure that their goal was never to learn how to pilot it. It is of apparent alien design, based on the mysterious writings and glyphs all over the place. One particular room off of what they believe to be the bridge is calling out to them, like path funneling in a video game. It just looks important. This is partially because it sits opposite the exit that led them back to their friends on the surface. This hunt is all about movement. It must be the next step in their journey.

They came across other locked doors, but they served mainly as dead ends for the maze portion of the challenge, because if the ship were real, it probably wouldn’t have actually been designed as a maze on purpose. This room is different, and they think Colley may be able to figure out how to unlock it. Their best guess is that it’s a puzzle.

Colley is standing at the door now, looking at the symbols carved into it, having already examined the writing on the consoles. Elise stands a little to the side. She has no idea what the symbols mean, but she’s watching Colley’s facial expressions closely. He doesn’t look like he’s studying them. His face is solemn and reflective. At times, it’s unclear if he’s looking at anything at all, or simply staring into space. After a moment, he pivots 45 degrees to look over at Rage. “You’ve always known.”

“What?” Rage questions. “I’ve always known what?”

Colley quietly looks back at the door. “You’ve always known we would end up here. Or maybe you thought this time would be different...that you could change it.” He looks back over at her again. “Which is it? Hope, or inevitability.”

Rage looks as confused as before, but then her face falls into cold understanding. “I did what I had to do. We’re so close. Next time, we’ll make it all the way, I know it.”

“What is going on?” Jolanda questions. “What are you two talking about?”

Colley begins to look around. “The door is dead. We got here too late.”

“There’s power,” Zelda reasons. “We can figure out how to reroute it to the door.”

“No,” Colley contends, shaking his head. “It’s not that kind of door. It’s powered by time, and the clock ran out before we even stepped foot in the maze.” He faces Minotaur. “Do you have any idea who brought you down here? Did you catch a glimpse? Any clue whatsoever?”

“No, why? I assumed it was Azad, or a programmed Ambient, like those pirates.”

“I don’t think they were supposed to grab you,” Colley begins. “I think someone was trying to help us get down here faster. It turned out to not be enough because of the other delays we faced, like Elise’s death, and Miracle’s surprise return. Rage knows more about it. She’s been here before. Haven’t you, Rage? You’ve been through all of this.”

“It’s not like that,” Rage says. “They give us different challenges every time. Even this last one is different. It’s the same crashed ship, but the path is always changed. That’s why I started recruiting Mino, so they would help us get through it faster. But like the man said, it wasn’t enough. The countdown has already begun.”

“Explain,” Minotaur presses. “What do you mean you started recruiting me?”

Rage sighs. “I don’t have the whole history, because I’m not always the designated survivor, but—you have to understand that at first, a part of me thought they were just dreams. When I could remember past attempts, I thought my brain was just making it up, because the memories don’t really feel like mine. The more time passes, the more I realize that they’re real, and I start actively trying to change things.”

“Ah,” Miracle says. “You don’t store all of your thoughts in the network. You learned how to keep them in another dimension. I probably taught you how. Though, if I did, why would I not have those memories?”

“Because you have to be the one who survives,” Rage explains. She points at the mysterious door. “Once we open that, two things will happen. The ship will ascend, and bathe this whole dome in exhaust and radiation. The dome is smaller than it looks. A single-person pod will unlock, and allow one of us to survive. That person’s consciousness alone will continue, go back to the beginning, and recruit everyone to try again. It’s usually me. We vote and agree that it will be me since I’ve become the one with the most context. I think I sometimes just don’t make it this far so you have to pick someone else. I have been trying different ways of winning, but delays add up. Speeding through it won’t work either, because it usually just ends up getting everybody killed. I made one huge change this time which got us closer than ever.”

“What did you change?” Zelda asks.

Rage looks over at Elise. “I recruited a seventh hunter. She was the missing piece. If we go one more time, I know that we can make it. You just have to let me get in that pod one more time. Once I regain access to the right equipment, I will send my consciousness back in time, like I always do, and restart. Please, trust me.”

“How can we trust you?” Colley questions. “You have been lying this whole time. Did you ever think of reading us in, and maybe we would work through it better?”

“Of course I’ve tried that,” Rage contends. “Those iterations go worse than any. We get in our own heads, and we get in our own way. Placing my trust in you is what gets us far, as well as thinking outside the box, like when I found Elise.”

“Why can’t we just walk out here right now?” Elise asks. She dips her head a little. “I can still see light coming in through the executive exit. We’ll go back to the desert, armed with water this time, and make our way to the wall. We won’t win the hunt, but all of our memories will remain intact, rather than only yours.”

Rage shakes her head. “We’ve tried that too. As soon as one person steps over that threshold, the ship takes off and burns them alive before they cross the desert. Anyone who manages to hold on and stay inside when that happens asphyxiates once the ship reaches altitude.”

“Well, we could teleport,” Elise turns to face the person who knows the most about all this time travel stuff. “Miracle, I’m surely charged up by now, aren’t I?”

Miracle nods. “You probably are, but you can only take two people at a time.”

“Yeah,” Rage agrees. “Miracle managed to retain her own powers in one iteration but that didn’t work either, because the ship launched, and I guess triggered some kind of teleportation suppression field. That’s when she taught me how to send my consciousness into the past. We were hoping to subvert the challenge changes, but we later decided that we decide what challenges come up, based on our dynamic and capacity for teamwork, which changes constantly. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I was trying to keep everything as predictable as possible.”

“But you said that I’m new,” Elise reasons. “You made a change, but also tried to keep everything the same? Which is it?”

“It’s both,” Rage answers. “It’s complicated. I’m sorry. It’s gonna happen again.”

Elise shakes her head. “What if I flew people out of here?” Elise asks. She turns to Miracle again. “I think I’m strong enough. The ship has to escape the dome somehow, right? It is a spaceship, after all, and there’s no outer space inside the dome.”

When Miracle defers to Rage, the latter goes on. “I once climbed into the escape pod, but intentionally didn’t escape right away, to see what would happen. Yes, it does fly all the way into space. You’re not strong enough to carry six people, though.”

“She won’t have to carry all six,” Miracle claims. She begins to stretch and roll her neck. “There’s a reason I’ve been so subdued since Hrockas made me come back in a different body. I’ve been focusing on induced limb growth.” She tenses up like she’s having a baby, and hunches her back. Two beautiful white angel wings sprout from her shoulder blades, and unfold before their eyes. It looks a little painful, but once it’s over, she smiles and breathes. “Ahhh, loophole!”

“Oh my God,” Zelda says. “That’s bad ass. You have to teach me how to do that.”

“There’s a problem, though,” Miracle says as she’s flapping her new wings, presumably to get used to them. “I couldn’t will myself to have superstrength, and it doesn’t sound like Elise has it either. I reckon we can each only take two passengers.”

“Someone’s going to have to stay behind,” Zelda realizes. “There’s apparently usually only one survivor, but this time, there will be one death. How poetic.”

“I’ll do it,” Colley volunteers. “Before you say anything, I don’t have any special argument in favor of it, but the way I see it, I called it first, so I win. I shouldn’t have to explain myself. I don’t have this big speech about what I learned, and what will happen to my alternate self when he wakes up with no memories. This is just gonna be what happens. So go on and yell all you want, but I’m not budging.”

Rage looks at him like he’s an idiot. “There’s still an escape pod,” she reminds him. “It’s got my name on it. I’ll take that. You take the ride.”

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” Colley agrees. “But we have to time it right.”

Everyone gets into position. Rage prepares to open the door with the code while the flyers stand at the exit, their respective passengers on either side of them. On Rage’s mark, they fly out of the hatch as fast as they can. Miracle gets going quickly, which triggers the launch sequence. Elise is having more trouble. Her wings may not be as fragile as a real Luna moth’s, but they’re not made of carbon nanotubes either. They’re still organic, and she still has limitations.

They’re only a few meters over the surface, and Elise is fighting just to stay at that level. She just can’t reach elevation. As she’s flapping her wings as hard as possible, they look down and see the sand slipping away from them like an hourglass. She’s not getting higher; the ground is getting lower as the ship displaces it with its initial lift off. The boosters are just about to fire and burn them to death. They have to go now.

“I guess I am gonna sacrifice myself!” Colley yells, obviously preparing to let go.

“No!” Elise cries. “Just hold on! I can do this!”

“There’s no time!” Colley shouts. “Don’t argue with me! Save Zelda!”

“Save Zelda?” Zelda questions. “I was born for this.” She lets go and plummets towards her death. “Wooooo!” They lose her amidst the rain of sand below.

Now there’s really no time...no time to mourn, no time to dwell. Elise tightens her grip on Colley, and flies up towards the zenith as flames nip at their heels.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 24, 2568

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

The technology that Leona used to boost Kayetan’s merging ability was the same she used to get him back home. That way, they didn’t have to make yet another sling there. Once he did return to Earth, though, he would not be able to return. They were many light years away, and he couldn’t usually travel that far. Of course, he was at hers and Mateo’s wedding, where he managed to merge people from all over the bulk, so how was he able to accomplish that? She forgot to ask. They’ve changed realities and timelines so many times since then, though, so he might not have even ever done that.

As it turned out, the fire that burned down the crops was a total accident. There was technically an arsonist, but it was part of nature. The team didn’t have much time to study it, but there was a special type of alien beetloid which could start fires by rubbing its legs on stones. It must infuse the right kind of metal into its diet, and spark a reaction through some kind of chemical that it also produced. It might do this to clean, or mark its territory, or maybe as part of a mating ritual. Some of the endemic plant life could handle it by dispensing a natural fire suppressant. It appeared to be a symbiotic relationship, actually. The beetles cleared the brush for whatever reason they had, and the fire-resistant plants got to keep all of the soil’s nutrients for themselves, against the burnable competitors. The grapes would obviously not survive over in their territory.

The solution? Plant the grapes on the other side of the river. This caused some uproar in the population, but they agreed to it, because it was the only answer that made any sense. And it would probably help in the long run. Since they now had no choice, this was where they were going to live. Everything Ramses’ computer was afraid of, with two factions growing apart from each other, was no longer an issue. Well, it could still happen, but it would not be because of grapes. They would survive this crucible at least.

When they finally reunited on Ramosus in 2568, they found themselves trapped in the in-house slingdrive. Romana was on the other side of the plasma barrier, holding her hands up defensively. “Now, I know that you’re mad, but don’t you feel fulfilled? You completed your tasks. That’s all we’ve been wanting, right? You’re not here to seek out new life and new civilizations. You’re volunteer fixers. I just gave you a little nudge. I know you didn’t want to do it like this, but I’m hoping you’ll forgive me one day, if not outright thank me. I just...I wanted you to stop worrying about me, and to move on.”

Mateo tried to push his hands through the plasma. It gave, but it didn’t break. “Why are we locked up in here? Did you think we were gonna hurt you?”

“No, I didn’t think my parents, aunts, and uncle were going to physically cause me harm, but I thought you would punish me. I wanted to see Boyd again, and you wouldn’t let me. I figured I would feed two birds with one worm. You six get the satisfaction of saving two colonies from themselves, and I get to spend time with the one person who is only for me. The barrier is just so I could gauge your reaction upon returning.”

Leona placed her hand on the barrier too, but to try to reach out to Romana, not to escape. “Our reaction is that we love you, and that the Boyd program is dangerous until Ramses makes sure it’s safe from the dark particle corruption. It was never permanent.”

“Well...” Romana seemed bashful now. “That wasn’t all I wanted to do with Boyd.”

“What did you want to do with him? Meet him in immersive VR?” Mateo pressed.

“No.” She opened her arm to present a young man who was walking into the lab. “Ladies and gentleman, may I present to you, Boyd Nieman...literally in the flesh.”

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 2747: Staged

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash 1.1

Pribadium doesn’t have Sugar board the Teaguardian. Instead, she does what she said she would, and programs it for a relativistic loop to keep them busy. That way, they can’t interfere with their important demolition work. Pribadium and Sora then teleport over to Sugar’s ship so they can learn about what happened after the bulk portal closed.

Years ago, Tau Station was forcing its way through a haphazard breach in the membrane of the universe. They were trying to enter something known as the bulk. There are an infinite number of universes, known as branes, floating around this “hyperspace” where time has no meaning. Everything that happens within it is happening at the same time. Everyone who is crossing over using their own methods—the Crossover, the time knife, Ochivari wingsinging—it’s all happening at this exact same moment, relatively speaking. The bulk sees time as a spatial dimension, rather than a temporal one. So when Sugar, Runaway, and all of the survivors of the dimensional collapse, are floating around, trying to continue to survive, time is really only an illusion.

Not all of the space station made it through, but fortunately, every section that had life in it did. They were congregated in the auditorium. The tear in the spacetime continuum wasn’t large enough, and didn’t last long enough, to keep the rest of it intact. It came out on the other side twisted and mangled. The surviving section doesn’t even have any means of propulsion, except for a few stationkeeping thrusters, but they can’t naturally be controlled from here. Sugar and Pribadium have had to jury-rig a way in. In the meantime, the survivors have been getting by on the emergency food synthesizers. Metabolism is supposed to stop while you’re out in the bulk, but you will still get hungry, depending on how shielded you are from the equilibrium.

“We need supplies,” Runaway points out. “We need to be able to move. We need to look for a home for these people. Whatever we end up doing, we can’t just leave them here for all of eternity.”

“I agree,” Sugar says. “But the thrusters aren’t powerful enough. The amount of force required to move an object of this mass through an equilibrium isn’t a reasonable expense. We need to siphon that energy into a small vessel, pilot that out of here, and go look for help. The station will simply stay where it is while that’s happening.”

“So we need a ship?” Runaway questions. “We looked, there is none.”

“There are industrial fabricators, though. I can build one,” Sugar promises.

“You can build something large enough to carry all these people?” Runaway asks.

“Again, that would be a waste of power. This would only be a small shuttlecraft, for me and me alone. You will stay with your progenitors, and keep them safe.”

“I don’t like you going off alone,” Runaway admits.

“We gotta keep it tight,” Sugar explains. “I can do everything myself.” She pats Pribadium’s forge core, which she has hanging off her hip. “This has all of our research, some of which postdates my last memory as the original Pribadium. It also has an AI.”

“That’s not good enough,” Runaway contends. “I want you to have a corporeal person by your side. If you have to leave the ship in a brane that you visit, someone should be standing next to you. Now stop arguing, and let me find that person.”

“Huh?”

Runaway shuts her eyes. A moment later, she reopens them and walks over to one of her progenitors. She escorts him back, arms interlaced like a date. “Sugar Delgado, Vantu Hidayat.”

“Or Van. I was told you wanted help with something?” he asks.

“She will be going on an away mission, and needs a lieutenant. You are a jack of all trades. You’ve studied engineering, medicine, even temporal sciences, despite the fact that you’ve never heard of real time travel before.”

“I know all of that stuff myself,” Sugar tries to explain to Runaway.

“He’s not going because you need him to do things for you, but to do them with you. I thought we already went over that. I just didn’t want to saddle you with a moron like...never mind. Van is perfect. I don’t even need to let him answer whether he wants to go. I know him well enough to know that he will. That’s why I picked him.”

Van smiles. “I wasn’t planning on stuffing a habitat into an asteroid, and retreating into a virtual construct. I was building myself an exploratory vessel. I want to visit new worlds in base reality. I was told that aliens didn’t exist, but I had hope anyway. Now you two tell us that they’re real, they’re just in other universes. I am so in.”

“Well, it’s going to be a couple of weeks,” Sugar says. “I don’t have the ship yet. I suppose I can add one more seat to the design. But there will only be one bathroom.”

“Not a problem,” Van replies sincerely. “I can help fabricate too, not because you need it, but just to take some of the tedious burden off your hands.”

“Very well,” Sugar decides. “Let’s get to work.”

“And so we built the ship,” Sugar says, finishing her story to Pribadium and Sora. “We departed, ultimately finding a new universe with tons of resources, and a very friendly technologically advanced peoples, who helped build us this thing.” She indicates the capital ship they’re on right now. “I chose it because of its modular properties.”

Pribadium nods. “It can be a transport vessel as easily as a cargo ship. Then it can become a warship or a hospital. Why come here, though, instead of returning to Tau?”

“We tried to at first. Tau Station was different when we got back. Its...meta-time had changed, it’s so weird. It was attacked, boarded, and overtaken.”

“By who?” Sora pressed. “Aliens?”

“Yes, basically,” Sugar confirms. “The Maramon. They came in higher numbers and superior firepower. They wanted Tau Station for themselves, but they didn’t like what it was called, so they changed it to something else. Van and I barely got out of there alive, but we’re pretty sure the Maramon either killed the human survivors, or transplanted them across the bulkverse. We came here to seek your help finding them.”

“We have our own problems right now,” Pribadium tells Sugar. “Sora’s Doma Tertians still need a place to live, and as we all know...” She glares at Sora, lovingly but not too playfully. “...they can’t live here. They need to be transplanted too.”

“That can be arranged.” She used a finger sequence to call up a monitor, which switched to the feed from the hangar bay, where a smaller transport ship was sitting. A man, presumably Vantu, was running an inspection on the exterior.

“That’ll do.”

“Wait, you skipped something,” Sora points out. “What do they call the station?”

Sugar nods. “They call it...The Stage.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 21, 2565

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

Things were awkward and tense on Ramosus, though it was no one’s fault. It wasn’t even Romana’s, though she definitely felt like it was. They were in a holding pattern. Ramses believed he had successfully cleared all the corruption in her by flushing her system of all foreign bodies, but they still weren’t going on missions, even though they received two pings from the alert system. They were all saying it was because they were burnt out, but they just wanted to stay and support Romana. Yet that was exactly what she didn’t want. She didn’t want to be coddled or protected, because it just made her feel worse. She clearly had other things on her mind anyway.

Romana was brushing off their concern. She seemed to be more worried about Boyd at this point, which was fine. Mateo would be fine. Ramses had a lot of data on who he really was, and what separated him from any data corruption. Boyd, on the other hand, was a threat—to them, and to himself. She wasn’t even allowed to talk to him.

Mateo was in her room now to check on her. “Hey. I’m not gonna ask you how you’re doing.” He coolly sat down on her bed next to her. “Instead I’ll say...what’s up?”

“We have already talked,” Romana said. “We do not need to go over it all again.”

“That’s why I asked that question,” he pointed out. “You decide on the topic.”

“I wanna talk about those outstanding pings,” Romana decided. “You should go.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Mateo insisted. “Before you say anything, I know you don’t need to be cared for like a little baby, but I think you need to be distracted, and it’s easier to do that if the distraction is being created and controlled by someone else. If you spend all day dwelling on what happened—even unintentionally—it will eat away at you. You run the risk of it becoming part of your personality. You don’t want that, do you?”

“Guilt and regret are facts of life,” she responded. “They serve a necessary function. They prevent future potential mistakes. I don’t wanna dwell, but I don’t wanna forget either. I’m going to spend the appropriate amount of time reflecting on it.”

“I respect that,” Mateo admitted. “And if you really don’t want to do something with me, like play a boardgame, I won’t force it. But I still need to be here as an option, not off on some colony, helping aliens decide where to plant their grapes, or whatever.”

“Someone should respond to the pings,” Romana reasoned. “It might not be the problem of low-stakes garden design. It could be really serious.”

“No, that’s the actual problem,” Mateo explained. “It’s a grape conflict. They don’t know which side of the river is the best, and don’t have time to observe the seasons.”

“Why would the system flag that?” Romana questioned. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Because the computer calculated a high probability of it leading to what will initially appear to be a compromise by planting on both sides. But this grape species is high maintenance, so they will have to live in two separate communities. Years from now, the computer thinks it will start a war. It has apparently run a lot of simulations.”

Romana was annoyed. “So you should go. Why are we arguing about this?”

“That could take decades,” Mateo dismissed. “They will still be there a few days from now. I’m staying here. Again, we don’t have to do anything, but I’m not leaving.”

She sighed. “Yes, you are.” She reached up and slapped the back of his neck.

It stung. He tried to pull it out, but whatever it was burrowed into his skin.

“Boyd helped me build that. You won’t be able to return to Ramosus until you’ve completed whatever task you went there to do. This is my decision as navigator.”

He teleported into the on-base slingdrive, which powered up on its own, and sent him away, along with Ramses and Angela. A second trip took the other three.

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 16, 2560

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

The team decided to leave before midnight central so they wouldn’t have to explain their end-of-the-day disappearance. They were determined to hunker down and really figure out who in this galaxy might actually need their help. The larger colonies could have huge problems, but the infrastructure and procedures to deal with them. The single-person sites were harder to pinpoint, and populated by people who were typically there because they wanted to be alone. It was the sites like Patsy Richelieu Best First Quarter Star colony that were likely most in need. Of course, this particular colony didn’t need anything from them. It was wild to see, though. They would kind of always expect a colony to either be the fruits of a grand cosmic exodus, or only one person looking to disconnect from society. There was a lot of middle ground, though, and they would probably meet others like Patsy and her cake-loving friends.

“What we need is some kind of monitoring system,” Mateo suggested, not knowing exactly what he was going for. “Like in movies where aliens are here to protect us. I guess they don’t have to be benevolent. They just have to know a lot about us, and have spent time studying us without giving themselves away.”

“It sounds like you’re talking about invisible probes,” Leona offered. “Movies often don’t explain how they remain hidden, but it would be something like that.”

“Invisible probes, I can do,” Ramses decided. He jumped over to the nearest workstation. “It can stay optically invisible using holography, and shield its waste heat signature using a miniature hot pocket. It would be able to move on its own power, and teleport when necessary. It would send signals exclusively through the bulk, so only we receive the data. It keeps watch over establishments throughout the year, and compiles a report for when we return.” He was getting really excited about the possibilities. “I wish I had thought of it myself. We keep jumping from place to place when we just need to let the information come to us.” He looked up to find everyone staring at him.

“Go on,” Romana encouraged. “What else were you thinking?”

“That I should work alone,” Ramses said. He reached over, and squeezed the band of his watch.

After he held the button down for a few seconds, the whole team vanished.

“Did he just kick us out of his lab?” Angela questioned.

“Wow. Rude,” Marie joked. “But it’s smart for him to have that, for security.”

“It might take a few days,” Leona estimated. “He won’t just be designing the new probe, but testing for failures and black swan events. In the meantime, I think I would like to consider building something for us all that is in this dimension, instead of our pocket dimension habitats. Nothing against them, but they’re more for mobile use.”

“I agree,” Mateo said. “If our enemies are right, and this is going to be an important planet in the future, then I imagine we stay here for a long time. Or not. Perhaps, like all the other things we’ve had in the past, we’ll hand this off to someone else, while we move on to something else.”

“I believe what Ramses is doing will keep us busy for quite a while,” Romana pointed out. “There is probably a lot going on in the galaxy that we simply do not know about, so it seems boring. We lack data, and we’re about to get it. But yeah, I’m in.”

They sat down to start drawing up plans for residences fit for an interstellar capital—not too gaudy—they were not trying to play themselves as gods. By the end of the day, however, Ramses was finished with his probes. They sent a small test batch out to some past establishments. They returned to the timestream the next year with a hit.

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 14, 2558

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

After a couple of hours, close enough to midnight central for the sling to factor in their timeskipping, Team Matic left Tartarus, and returned to Ramosus. They found themselves just standing there, blinking at each other, but not talking. While it took longer than expected, their experience on the colony was mundane, and didn’t amount to anything. The fact they were researching aliens was interesting, but the research itself was kind of boring? “Why do I feel so weird?” Mateo asked. “I felt a little weird there, but coming here has suddenly made it actually weird. Fully weird. Weird, weird.”

“I know what you mean.” Leona looked over at Ramses. “I think we need to run some times.” She breathed deeply, and couldn’t help but yawn. “Tests. Run tests.”

“Maybe it’s the cold?” Marie suggested. “Has the cold made me...”

“Loopy?” Leona suggested. “We would have other symptoms, like frostbite. We wouldn’t be able to stand if it were cold enough to affect us like this.”

“I’m sorry, guys,” Romana said. “I made the wrong choice.”

“No, no,” everyone said. She had nothing to apologize for. They would never know what was on the other side of the sling. It could be interesting, it could be boring, or it could even be dangerous. Whatever they found, they would get through it, and they would do it together. They were starting to feel like explorers, after all.

They all went to the medical wing of Ramses’ lab to get themselves checked out. They discovered something mild, temporary, but very strange about their neurochemistry. Ramses relied quite heavily on his automated machinery to do the work for him, because he wasn’t in a state of mind to operate them himself. “Um. I can’t read the data myself right now, so I’m going to rely on the summary to explain it to us.” Ramses tried to point at the screen, but gave up. He was too weak. “Basically, what it thinks is that our brains were running at optimum efficiency on Tartarus. If we had stimuli, we might have been able to be really productive. But since the environment was pretty much just snow, we didn’t have any problem to solve. I mean, we were lost, but we didn’t have any tech to work with, so our brainpower was wasted.”

“So it’s like a drug?” Angela figured, “and now we’re in withdrawal?”

“Yes. That’s the word the computer thing said,” Ramses agreed. “Don’t worry, though, I don’t think we’re dependent. It would be like if you went to your college quantum physics class, and they handed you a kindergarten math sheet. It’s easy, and takes the cognitive load off, and you might get a little lazy if they keep giving you the same silly tests, but you’re not going to get addicted to it. The day they hand you a real test, you’ll need a little time to readjust—which is what we’re doing right now—but you will ultimately be fine. Because in this scenario, you knew quantum physics before, so you know it now. It will just take time. Sleep too.”

“Is there anything we shouldn’t do in the meantime?” Olimpia pressed. “Should we not have sex, or should we not eat carbs, or should we get warm, or get cooled off?”

“Carbs would be very good for your prefrontal cortex right now,” Ramses answered. “Sex would be fun, but you might find yourself disinterested. Just listen to your body. If you’re cold, warm up. If you’re hot, cool down. It knows what it needs.”

So they left the lab, and returned to their separate abodes. They were mostly still sleeping in their joint pocket dimensions, because they didn’t have any better ideas. They certainly weren’t going to come up with any today. The next year, they woke up totally okay, and actually rather enthusiastic. They were all ready for the next adventure.

Romana asked not to pick this time, though.

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 22, 2535

« < » > Table of Contents

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

Ramses and Leona were going to have to spend all of their time in the new lab. Since the former lost his forge core, he wasn’t able to build everything they needed in only a year. He kept a data chip on his person too, which at least stored all of the equipment specifications, but it couldn’t build anything, so the process was slow. There wasn’t much waiting for them when they returned. Most of the resources available out here had been used to excavate and habitize the celestial body itself, so the lab would even have a place to sit. Instead of dragging him to some central location, Pribadium opted to lock the prisoner up here, so part of the work was dedicated to constructing that as well.

Not useful in the lab, Mateo decided to go visit the prisoner. “How are they treating you?”

“They’re fine.” He was down, and couldn’t look Mateo in the eye. This facility was entirely automated, so he probably hadn’t spoken to a human-level intelligence in almost a year.

“Linwood, right?” Mateo asked. “Linwood Meyers?”

“That’s what they called me, back when they called me anything.” His accommodations weren’t just some tiny cell with concrete walls. It was a luxury condo, not much worse than the coin habitat. The psychological toll of not having a choice, however, was the real problem, and there were probably missing amenities.

“What did you have in your personal crabitat that you don’t have here?” A crabitat was a kind of habitat that hermits lived in. Just a bit of play on words.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I wanna help. What are you missing?”

“Well, I didn’t just sit on my ass on the beach all day,” Linwood said. “I spent most of my time in simulations. My coin was just to keep me alive while I did that, and the planetesimal was there for raw materials.”

“And armor.”

“And armor,” he acknowledged.

“So, they didn’t let you keep your VR setup. Do you know why not?”

“Takes power,” Linwood admitted. “There’s plenty of it here, but I wouldn’t be able to manage it myself. They would have to let me have a dedicated bot to do it, and that’s just giving me too much. I have a holoscreen, with basic entertainment, but nothing immersive. And also...”

“Also what? You can tell me,” Mateo encouraged.

“I wasn’t always in sims, and even when I was, I wasn’t always alone. There’s a reason why I built myself a staff.”

“You need companionship,” Mateo realized. “They destroyed those too? They destroyed life?”

“They boxed their consciousnesses, and are storing them somewhere. They only destroyed the substrates.”

“Harsh system they designed here. Why did you choose Gatewood? Why not Proxima, or the Alpha system?”

“I wanted to be alone. Those are too heavily populated. I know it seems ridiculous. In any case, I would be millions and millions of kilometers away from civilization, but I want to be very isolated. I’m afraid of people.” He gestured at his environment in general. “I was right to be.”

“Well, you’re not dead yet, which should really be your only concern.”

“I’m not entitled to life extension procedures here either. Reactive medicine only. I will die eventually.”

Mateo nodded. “Well, that settles it. The Gatewood establishment wants us to take you away from here, so that’s what we’ll do. You’ll get your dwarf planet, and all the equipment you need to hermit back up, including your staff.”

“I don’t need a dwarf planet,” Linwood said, “I’m not greedy.”

“My wife says that you can live off the in-situ resources in a dwarf planet for around a hundred billion years or longer.”

“They’re too valuable,” Linwood contended, shaking his head. “No one would let me keep that.”

“We can take you somewhere so far away, it won’t be another 150,000 years before anyone can reach you. In all that time, you can burn some hydrogen going into the intergalactic void, where you’ll never be found.”

“Well, it’s not really practical to move a dwarf planet...”

“That’s your call. Burn bright and fast, or slow and long. Either way, you’ll have that choice, and like I said, you’ll also have tens of thousands of years to change your mind. Change your mind a thousand times, whatever. But the only option you won’t have is coming back to the stellar neighborhood. At least not quickly. We can take you out, but we won’t come back if you get bored, lonely, or homesick.”

“How do you have the power to do this? How do you have FTL?” Linwood questioned.

“We’ll place you in stasis, and not wake you up until we’ve arrived. You will never know how we did it.”

“Do I get to choose the direction, at least? So I at least have some idea of where I’ve ended up.”

“You’ll be on the other side of the Zone of Avoidance. Someone else will work out the particulars with you.”

“Not that I’m not grateful, but why would you do all this for me? I tried to kill you when we met.”

Mateo winced. “That was a year ago. I’m over it.” Obviously, it hadn’t been a full year for the team, but he genuinely wasn’t holding onto any grudge. The guy was trying to protect his home, and the bullets were no match for their armor. Not a big deal.

Linwood narrowed his eyes at him. “Are you...aliens?”

Mateo thought about this for a moment. “We’re all aliens now, aren’t we? It used to be that there was only one dominant species. You could carry on a conversation with another human, and that was pretty much it. Sure, you could engage in some basic communication with your pets. Elephants buried their dead, dolphins handed people their phones back, but by and large, it was just us. Now, I doubt there’s an official record of how many species there are. How could there be? You could genetically engineer yourself to be quite literally unique, making you incompatible with anyone else. So either alien needs to take on a new meaning, or simply be retired as a concept. I know what you’re asking, if I came from an independent evolutionary line, and the answer to that is no. I was born on Earth, in Kansas. But the true spirit of your question is why should you trust me when I’m behaving in a way that you don’t understand? In that sense, yes, I’m an alien, because my experiences in this universe have diverged from your own in unprecedented ways. You don’t have to understand, just accept the gift.”

“I accept the gift.”

“Great! In the meantime, as it will take another year at least before we can leave, I’ll speak with Pribadium about better arrangements. I get that she might not what to build you a master escape artist who can get you out of here, but you deserve companionship. That is a basic human right. Or whatever you identify as, if not human.”

“I would appreciate your assistance. That’s quite magnanimous of you.”

Mateo returned with a tight nod, and then left the visitors area.

Pribadium was standing just outside the door. “Making promises that you are not authorized to keep?” she asked.

Mateo looked back into the little prison where Linwood probably heard that. He closed the door behind him now. “All he wants is his favorite entertainment, which keeps him occupied in there, and some companionship, which keeps him from going insane. This doesn’t have to be punishment, which is what prisons were back in the dark ages of the 21st century. You’re just trying to keep him from roaming free, so what exactly is the problem?”

“The problem is optics,” Pribadium said. “We can’t have people thinking that our response to illegal possession is getting whatever they need to live comfortably anyway.”

“No one is coming all the way out here, stealing an entire icy body, making it a home, hoping that you will give them a different home. They’re not unhoused. They just want to leave wherever they already were before. You cannot provide them with anything that they couldn’t get on their own somewhere else without all the headache of dealing with your rules, and the risk of being locked up like this.”

She shook her head. “I’m not trying to torture the guy, but I have to draw lines somewhere. You’re right, this won’t inspire a bunch of people to come here with the hopes that I will give them free room and boarding, but they might risk stealing material because they know that getting caught isn’t a big deal. We’ll give them whatever they need until we can get rid of them, and they’ll be fine.”

Mateo sighed. “Those cameras in there. Are they for security, or a reality show?”

“Huh?” She was confused about the sudden shift in the topic, and the topic itself.

“Is it to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself or break out, or is his life being broadcast for people’s entertainment?”

“They’re just for security, of course, I’m not a monster.”

Mateo nodded. That wasn’t what he was thinking. He knew what the answer was, but getting her to vocalize the answer was necessary for him to prove his point. Or rather, it was better that she walked the path with him, instead of him just jumping there. “We are taking him clear across to the other side of the galaxy. Who the hell cares about the optics? You don’t have to tell them about it. Like I said, the VR keeps him inside. He’s not making phone calls or anything.”

Now Pribadium sighed. “I appreciate your point of view. It’s just not as easy as you say. You have no idea the kind of pressure I’m under, running an entire solar system of resources. I am being scrutinized by everyone; not just the other core worlds, but everyone, because this is where everyone comes to get their shit. Even if it’s a state-sanctioned colonial mission, we’re only six light years away, so Earth usually chooses to come here for their resources too. We’re the biggest store in the universe. Practically a monopoly.”

“I know what it’s like to be scrutinized,” Mateo argued. “It wasn’t technically an entire star system, but there were billions of people who were looking to me for guidance in their everyday lives. And that’s people, not assets. I didn’t have the benefit of much established institutionalism. They expected me to help come up with the new laws. That’s why I was there.”

She put her tail between her legs. “I kind of forgot about that part of your life. Running Dardius must not have been easy.”

“It wasn’t, but it was rewarding, and everything was so much easier when we were able to be generous and hospitable to people, rather than restrictive. I know, you have your laws, and I respect that. Just don’t become a tyrant. Not only is that bad for people, but it’s bad for you. It doesn’t ever end well.”

“I appreciate your advice.”

Mateo smiled awkwardly. “I’m not trying to mansplain your job to you. I apologize if I strayed in that direction.”

“It’s okay. Mansplaining isn’t much of a thing anymore as gender isn’t as important as it was in your time.”

“Right.” They stood there in silence for a bit. “It’s been a long time, and I don’t feel like we ever knew each other all that well, but would you be amenable to a hug?”

“I would like that.”

They hugged.

“Do you know how it’s going in the lab?” Mateo asked once they released.

“I never gave you an answer on whether I was gonna give the guy VR and his companions back.”

He turned his chin up thoughtfully. “I know you’ll do the right thing. You’re not a monster, right?”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “The lab people are fine. I offered my assistance, but he, uh...”

“Doesn’t know you,” Mateo finished, knowing full well that it wasn’t what she was going to say.

“Yes, let’s go with that.”

“Does he think that we’ll be ready to go by the end of the day next year?”

“I would assume so. I also offered to make his lab better during his interim year, but he declined. I think he’s treating this as quite temporary, so he’s limiting his projects to only what he needs to get you guys out of here. You should know, though, that you are welcome to stay. I do have some leeway. I can essentially put you on the payroll without actually giving you any jobs, which would allow you to live here. Plus, not existing for most of the year works in our favor. For the optics.”

“That’s very kind of you, but it looks like you have everything well in hand, and we typically try to go where we’re needed.”

“I understand. I just want to make sure that our relationship remains healthy.”

“We’ll always be friends,” he promised. After a proper beat, he continued, “I’m gonna go check on my wife.”

“Which one?” she asked after he had already passed her. “You dog,” she joked.

He looked back with a wide smile. “Why, you wanna split me into thirds?”

She shrugged. “I’ll consider it.” It almost didn’t sound like a joke.

« < » > Table of Contents