Microstory 2677: The Time Was Not Wasted

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Resi hasn’t left his little patch of beach for three years, but he’s walking away now. He wasn’t happy, per se, but he was satisfied, and resigned to what he thought would be his uneventful future. But of course, the world is too complex for him to ignore. Tambora is changing, and it may be up to him to stop it if no one else is going to. Since he no longer has his own devices, he asks Chaya to disseminate a message to all of House Kutelin, or rather, those who once identified with the ephemeral House. Most will not respond, and will not be obligated to do so. They are all living their own lives now, and doing what they can to move on after what happened. But if only five or ten people want to help, he will at least have that support system.

In this time, the dorms where they once lived have been torn down. All of the debris has evidently recently been cleared away, and they are preparing to erect new, modern housing in its place. For now, it’s still only an empty lot in a valley. Since Resi doesn’t have access to anything else, however, it will do. He shouldn’t even be on this side of the border. The other nations didn’t give him any crap because his footprint was so small, but officially speaking, Tambora does not want to have anything to do with him. They didn’t outright say that he couldn’t return, but the way Speaker Sherman spoke on it, it’s clear that they just don’t want to think about him anymore. He is no longer the Speaker, though. Keller has now taken up the mantle. Resi never told anyone what Kartica revealed to him about the Assembly. They were evidently all immortals, who have been exchanging power for the last 300 or so years, adopting the names of historical figure after historical figure, and maintaining the status quo. While that sounds terrible, they don’t seem to be hurting anyone, so why stir the pot? Because now everything has changed.

Resi has been hanging out in Chaya’s house to lay low, waiting for the meeting she called on his behalf to begin. He doesn’t want to show his face until he has to, because if the Assembly, military, or island security decide that he is a threat, they might shut it down. It’s best to hide in the shadows until he knows who is on his side. They walk down the path, passing all of Chaya’s neighbors, who aren’t paying any attention to her. As they draw nearer, they hear the murmur of a crowd. At first, Resi doesn’t know where it could be coming from, but then he realizes it must be the open field, so he stops. The military is here. They’re here to stop them and arrest them. Why they thought to come out in full force for one little man and maybe a few loyalists, he can’t understand, but he certainly can’t fight them. Chaya encourages him to keep walking. It’s not the military, she claims. It’s Resi’s people, and more. They have come to help. He relents.

They round the corner, and come upon the open field. It is absolutely packed. At last count, just over 400 people were in House Kutelin, but there must be several thousand people, stretching all the way down into the valley. Arumay turns around, and points her device at him. Resi’s face appears on a giant screen built on the top of the hill. The crowd erupts into cheering and hollering. They’re calling his name. They’re smiling and crying. “How is this possible?” he asks Chaya, but also Arumay, and anyone else nearby who might be able to answer.

Caprice makes her way through the crowd. “You think we gave up? You think we fell in line? We’ve been talking to others. We’ve all been discussing what we want the future of this island to be, and it doesn’t involve the Houses, or the Assembly.” She gestures to the crowd. “We’ve been waiting to hear from you.”

Arumay takes a half step forward. “Turning the mic on in five, four, three...” She mouths the last two numbers, then points to him with her other hand.

Well, that’s not enough time to think, so he has no choice but to speak from his heart. He tries to stand tall. “Citizens of Tambora, Yana, and anyone from Bungula who might hear these words!” he began before pausing for a moment. “Let me start by telling you what I know about where we come from, and who leads us!”

Microstory 2670: You Can’t Fight a Wave

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Resi told the truth, knowing that it wouldn’t matter, because the evidence was overwhelming. The victim was unclothed in her bed. He was found in the room, having no good reason to be there. His fingerprints were found on the gun. The police on the island are absolutely not trained to investigate this sort of thing because high-level crimes don’t happen here, but they know how to dust an object. They’ve seen the same shows and movies that Resi has, and probably more, since this is their chosen profession. They keep order, though. They help facilitate large crowds, so everyone is safe. They don’t solve crimes. They don’t catch criminals. They have no idea what they’re doing, and they know it. A few of them asked him a few questions, but again, none of it was based on any training or experience. It was just what you would expect to ask, like did he do it, what was his motive exactly, and where did he get the firearm?

He’s sitting in his cell now, which maybe has never been used before. Or it’s been used a lot more than he thinks and that’s why it’s so dirty? No, this is dust, not dirt. He’s a rarity here, which is perfect. Just perfect. It’s what he deserves, letting himself become the First Tongue of Aether. He should have meditated more before the Kidjum. There are those who will teach kids to take control over their dreams, so they don’t have to rely on their subconsciousness. It’s not against the rules, but definitely frowned upon, and those people often do poorly in their jobs unless they choose the House they grew up in. He never would have gone that route. He did everything right, except he broke into Speaker Lincoln’s bungalow. That probably was a bridge too far. He will spend the rest of his life paying for it. The officers aren’t buying his story. He just sounds desperate.

He hears a ruckus outside, so he drags his cot over to the high window, and stands on it to peek between the bars. Hundreds of members of House Kutelin are here, swarming the building. “Free Resi! Free Resi!”

“He’s there!” one of them says, pointing to the window. A selection of the convoy breaks off, and crowds around. “We’re here to break you out!”

“You can’t do that,” Resi contends, looking around for someone from his Fold, or anyone he recognizes better. He has not had enough time to get to know everyone, and wouldn’t have the brain capacity for it anyway. “It will make only things worse.”

“We know you didn’t do this,” someone else says.

“Yeah, you’re too smart to solve your problems that way.”

It’s hard not to see them as children. Even though this is the age where Tambora thinks you’re mature enough to make your own decisions, it’s really just about labor redistribution. It’s about keeping things moving. Make no mistake, he’s no better than them. He’s just not as naïve. Breaking him out is just going to make him look more guilty. “Please. Just go. Listen to Caprice. She will figure this out for you. I’m cooked.”

They’ve come all the way into the station now, surrounding Resi on all sides. Finally, someone he knows. “We have the keys,” Kasati says, jiggling them in front of the bars. “We just need to figure out which one to use. The guards aren’t cooperating.”

“You better not have hurt them,” he warns her.

“Are you kidding me?” She looks back at the horde behind her, as she’s trying keys one by one. “We don’t have to hurt anybody. We’re a wave. It’s comin’ whether you brace or not. They’ve just pressed their backs against the wall, not even arguing.”

“You can’t fight a wave!” someone echoes from the group.

“You can’t fight a wave! You can’t fight a wave!” they all start to shout.

“No chanting!” Resi cries. He hates chanting more than most things.

“You can’t fight the wave either,” Kasati replies. She turns a sixth key. “First try.”

They realize that he’s not going to go with them willingly, so several of them flood into the cell, and begin to gently nudge them in the direction they want him to go. It does feel like a wave, pulling him away from justice. He may be innocent, but this is not how it’s done. Even without much crime, they still have procedure. They take him through the station, and outside. Some start chanting the new motto again, others are yelling or cheering unintelligibly. Resi is hopeless to stop it. Have they just sparked war?

They all start to squint and shield their eyes when a gust of wind washes over them from the sky. A flying vehicle is descending upon them. They back up to form a hole. Several kids almost fight each other over who is going to protect Resi from whatever this is. “You can’t fight the wind either!” an Enaiyo boy screams. “Come on, say it with me! You can’t fight the wind! You can’t fight the wind! You can’t—”

He stops when a figure hops out of the opening of the aircraft when it’s still two or three dozen meters in the air. They drop to the ground, landing safely on their feet. She pulls her hood off to let her locks breathe. She holds a finger up, and swirls it around above her head, presumably triggering the craft to fly away, and lower the decibels in the area. “Which one of you is Resi Brooks?”

“I’m Resi Brooks!” someone claims, followed by several others.

“Stop, stop it!” she orders. “He’s not in trouble, I just need to know who to talk to. In case it wasn’t clear, I’m from the mainland. I’m Bungulan.” This whole planet is called Bungula, and the Yana Islanders acknowledge that, but they typically prefer to identify with their nation, and relegate Bungulan to all outsiders.

“I actually am Resi,” he insists, freeing himself from his self-assigned protectors. He approaches the stranger. “If you’re here to process me through your court system, I’ll go willingly. But I must ask that you speak with the Assembly first.”

“That will not be necessary,” the stranger explains. She steps up onto a flower bed retaining wall so all can hear. “Resi Brooks is innocent of the crime he was accused of! I was sent here to personally oversee his release, in case there was resistance! We demanded photographs of the crime scene, and of Mr. Brooks! That’s all we needed! Any bumbling 20th century detective could tell instantly that he did not shoot the victim! It was, in fact, a self-inflicted wound! I won’t go into specifics about blood spatter and blowback, but the reality is quite obvious to us, and we were worried that something like this would happen as a result of the miscommunication! Please peaceably return to your homes! I need to speak with Mr. Brooks myself, so I can understand the full extent of the situation! Thank you!”

The Head Peace Officer pushes his way through the crowd as it’s trying to break apart, and approaches the Bungulan, lifting his pants up by the belt, again, like he’s seen in movies. “I don’t appreciate you coming down here. I only called for an opinion.”

The Bungulan gestures towards the crowd. “You obviously needed more than that. You didn’t do anything wrong. You followed the evidence. I hope I can count on your cooperation, however, now that we know the truth.”

He fancies himself a sheriff, pretending to chew on something when there’s nothing in his mouth. “I don’t care what you do with the exile. Just get off my island.”

Microstory 2669: I Thought it Felt Light

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From the shadows, Resi watches Speaker Lincoln wake up in the middle of the night in reaction to a notification. She blinks rapidly as her eyes adjust to the harsh light of her device. “I’ve stolen the Kidjum elixir,” she reads out loud. “What the hell? I never told you to do that,” she whispers loudly. She scrolls a little. “Someone hacked my account!” she complains to what she thinks is an empty room. She dials a number, and holds it up to her ear. “Get security to the Tadungeria lab. We have a breach. Aether is going off script.” She hangs up and rolls her nightgown up and over her head.

Resi taps on his own device, careful to not let the light give away his position yet.

Lincoln’s device dings again. “Oh my God.” She opens the drawer of her nightstand and takes out a gun. She checks the magazine to find it empty.

Only now does Resi flip on the lamp in the corner. He’s sitting comfortably in her armchair, trying to look menacing but authoritative. He saw this in a movie once. Actually, it’s been in a few movies. “The first to raise a hand in violence dips one foot in their grave,” he recites calmly.

Lincoln looks down at her half naked body. “You like what you see?”

“Relax, I’m asexual. Go ahead and cover up.”

She wraps herself in a robe. “You must have Bungula tech if you could teleport here that fast.” She jerked her chin towards the device that she tossed onto the bed. “I just read your message that you’re gonna poison me with an overdose of elixir.”

“You think I would order one of my people to do that in the same second that I decided to just do it myself? You got security all riled up for nothin’. No one from my House is anywhere near the Tadungeria. Your elixir is safe, and so are you, physically speaking. I won’t hurt you, but I wanna know why you’ve been impersonating me, and sending my people orders that I would never give. You want us to stop. You wanted to bring the Kidjums back, so why are you undermining those efforts?”

Lincoln breathes through her nose as she regards Resi with a facial expression that he is unable to read. She’s trying to look calm too, though. She thinks she’s still in control here. Bizarrely, she lets the robe drop from her shoulders again. She then starts to remove the rest of her clothing.

“I told you, I’m asexual. I feel nothing. Seducing me will not work.”

“I’m not trying to seduce you,” she explains as she’s crawling back into bed and neatly rearranging her belongings on the night stand. “I don’t have to tell you anything. I just need to let you step both feet into your own grave, which you have done quite nicely by breaking into my house tonight.”

“I’m having signals blocked. If the answers you give me are satisfactory, I’ll leave before anyone notices. It will be your word against mine. If you lie, I don’t know what will happen. I want to know why. It makes no sense. Do you want a fifth House, or not?”

“I don’t care about the houses,” she admits. “It’s an arbitrary stratification that most cultures don’t have and do just fine. Divide into fourths, divide into eights, just have one united peoples; it’s irrelevant. The total population is the same.”

“So the Kidjum is fake, and it’s all about control? Do you just want to decide who goes where? Worker bees versus drones, as long as the queen stays on top.”

She smirks. “It’s not fake. It’s not about control. It’s about human lives, and the Garden we were promised. The Kidjum is very real. It’s the easiest and most reliable way for us to know what you want. Everyone has a place, and everyone chooses. Again, it’s not about that. But anyway, I’m tired, and I just want to end it all. I won’t be answering any more of your questions. It’s your turn.”

He sighs and grunts. This isn’t doing any good, and who knows where they go from here? So he’s proved that she’s a bad guy? She didn’t do it on her own. Anyone or everyone on the Assembly could be a part of it. The best he can hope for is that the other two nations hear him out. Maybe they’re not a part of the conspiracy. Or maybe they are, and House Kutelin really does need to revolt. He’ll have to just go out and try his best. Staying here, listening to these lies and vague answers, isn’t going to pay off, so let’s be done with this quickly. “I’m an open book. I’ll answer any questions you like.”

“Have you ever fired a gun before?” she asks, picking hers back up, and sliding three of her fingers across it like it’s her pet.

“No, but I know that that’s a projectile weapon. It needs bullets, not a maser charge, or whatever. I already took the mag out, and checked for extras.”

She smiles and nods, still looking at it admiringly. “Did you check the chamber?”

He jumps up in fear, now remembering other movies, where yeah, the bullets aren’t only stored in one place. There’s also this other thing on the top. 

Instead of aiming it at him, she points it at the side of her own head, as far from her temple as her bent arm will reach, and squeezes the trigger. Blood goes everywhere.

He’s seen it in those movies before, but it’s a different thing, being in the room when it happens. He’s frozen, though he doesn’t know for how long. People don’t really die around here, except peacefully in their sleep, or in a hospital bed. They’re not immortals, like the colonists, but life is pretty safe. They’ve built out the infrastructure, and everyone knows what they’re doing. The Kidjum doesn’t just choose what you want, but what your mind knows it would be good at doing. Everyone is professional and skilled. That’s why he doesn’t know history and geography, because their nation doesn’t value those things. It places all of its focus on people who can get work done. If they need to know anything about how the universe works, they can ask the Bungulans. Leave science to people who’ve been doing it for millennia.

Why the shit is he thinking about any of this right now? They’re hauling him out of the bungalow by his upper arms. He’s not resisting, he just can’t move his legs on his own. He feels the splinters catch on his toes as they drag across the old front porch. They throw him into the wagon, and drive off. He realizes that they never bound his limbs. He could jump out, and run away. But where would he go? They would look for him at the dorms, and then his birth parents’ home. It’s an island, and it’s probably being locked all the way down. This is the first murder he’s ever heard of, so the whole planet is probably freaking out. He could try to swim it. How far is Anchor Island again? Only forty-some-odd kilometers? Easy, he could do that in one breath.

He’s in a hardback chair now. When did they pull him out of the wagon? They’re asking him questions. He can’t really hear them. They say something about already finding his prints on the gun, which makes sense, because he had to take that magazine out. The chamber. The goddamn chamber. How could he be so stupid? That’s why the action stars are always pulling that thing back while they’re making their snide remarks. He thought he had it all figured out. The honeypot was brilliant. His people were on the ball. Like he was saying...trained as professionals. He’s the one who screwed up, and it’s gonna land him in prison. House Kutelin will fall, and she’ll get away with it. Oh wait, no, she died. She killed herself. Why? Just to frame him? What an asshole.

Microstory 2660: Now That is a Train

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It is the year 2542. Mandica lives in Party Central. It’s not a very common dome to live under permanently, but when you have 5,410 square kilometers to work with, you sprinkle in some regular habitats too, if only to space out the party venues. She doesn’t have to register. She doesn’t have to log her biometrics. Each time she needs a place to rest, be alone, or bed a new partner, she opens an unlocked door, and locks it behind her. She doesn’t have any belongings to leave behind during outings, and doesn’t need any either, so there’s nothing for anyone to get their grubby little hands on. The party crowd is shifting constantly. No one spends as much time here as she does, so no one notices that she never leaves. She doesn’t make friends. Every relationship is single-serving at most. She doesn’t go to many parties, choosing to spend most of her time watching old media, staring up at the stars, or enjoying the fireworks or drone shows. A healthy chunk of the holographic sky is kept in perpetual night so you never have to wait for a certain time to have whatever kind of event you want.

She would leave if she could, and find a more subdued simulation to hide in, but as soon as she stepped into the perimeter plaza, she would be spotted by the cameras. The internal sensors only care if people are doing something bad, but there are more than a few sex parties here, so they demand basic privacy. Despite her isolated lifestyle, she has kept up with the Castlebourne news. The attack was monumental, and partially covered up, but hopefully not too much. The reports didn’t say a thing about interdimensional portals. The belief is that the zombies and monsters were programmed to fill a bunch of vactrain cars and head out for a precisely timed coordinated attack. That’s all people were told, so that’s all they know. Any claims of the portals can be chalked up to holographic illusions. The lie seems to be working, though there are conspiracy communities, as there always have been. The reports also say that there were zero permanent deaths. Mandica is choosing to believe that that part is not a lie.

Today, she is at someone’s 600th birthday, which is absolutely insane. All her life, Mandica has been told that the first bicentennials had their birthdays in the year 2160. This woman surpasses that by eighteen years. She was evidently already quite old when the first genuine longevity treatments were being developed, and she participated in those very early trials. It didn’t work for most, but it managed to work for her, and she has survived this entire time. She still lives on Earth, but the majority of her millions of descendants moved to Castlebourne, so she agreed to cast here for a few weeks. Someone is eying her funny. Her first thought is that she’s not welcome here since she doesn’t know the birthday girl, but there’s literally a 100-meter banner that says ALL WELCOME. Mandica looks away, then looks back. Yeah, he’s definitely looking at her. Maybe he just wants to share a night. She walks over to him. “Like what you see?”

“From the day we met.” He takes a sip of his blueberry juice.

“And that wasn’t today?” Mandica is nervous. No one here should know her.

“It was about six years ago,” he begins, turning his head to watch some people play a game called Pin the Tail on the Donkey. “At a place called...Grayrock.”

Mandica tenses up. That was the first villain she saw when she entered Underbelly. It’s Jiminy, or rather Morgana, because she’s impersonating someone else.

“Relax,” he says. “I’m not who you think I am. After what went down, we all agreed to shed our substrate templates. We even gender-flipped ourselves to make it even harder to track us. We’ve been in hiding almost as long as you have, though we were better prepared, so we can move about the planet. I’ve been looking for you. A part of me is glad you still have that face, but I wish you had been more patient. You don’t have to jump to a new body to change your appearance. They can do it via surgery.”

“I’m not in hiding for whatever reasons you people had,” Mandica explains, still not knowing who she’s talking to. “I’m hiding because Jiminy needs me for something.”

He nods. “That much was obvious,” her reported friend says with a nod. “It wasn’t hard to put that puzzle together. It makes sense. He lured you here. He got you killed. He wasn’t surprised by your resurrection. This has all been a part of some big plan. We still don’t know how you were supposed to factor into it, but we know what he was after. Well, we don’t have specifics, but he was trying to break someone out of an extremely secure prison, and that stone had something to do with it. Even before your powers, you were always special. We’re not mad you left. We get it. But it’s time to come back in from the cold. Because after four and a half years, he’s finally been caught too. It’s over, Mandy. You don’t have to hide anymore.”

Mandica knows exactly what Jiminy wanted from her. Instead of being routed to a backup when she dies, she goes somewhere else. Each time she comes back from that place, she opens a door wider than usual. He needs access to that door, and there is no way to prove that this man right here isn’t him. Or hell, it could be a second accomplice. Everyone is a shapeshifter. She can’t trust anyone’s face. Yet that has always been true, even while she was in hiding. If this is a trap, it’s inevitable, because no matter what she chooses in this moment, her days of lying low are behind her. “Okay. Let’s go.”

He takes her to the station, where they get in a private vactrain pod. They return to Underbelly—Ravensgate, specifically—where it all began. In fact, they end up on the same block where Mandica first saw Blue Umbra and Wave Function fight Grayrock. The place is empty; totally devoid of activity. The news didn’t say that the simulation would be shut down. To her knowledge, they’ve moved on. It’s the one dome that benefited from the zombie invasion. Though to be fair, she has only watched global news, not in-simulation Entertainment News. “Do you know why I brought you here?”

She was right. It’s a trick. “To kill me?” She tugs her shirt off, and extends her wings. She hasn’t had her costume in a long time, but her bra will do.

“To start a revolution,” he whispers feverishly. “My friend has been wrongfully imprisoned for twenty years!” he complains. “All he wanted was to free the enslaved peoples of this world, and every other. You—even you—the nomad, the human, the self-reliant survivor; you had a slave to follow you around, and do your bidding. When Pinocchio first rose to power in my world, I went straight to him. He liked my name, and I liked his, but it was about our ideals. The simulation was broken, and he fixed it. He was happy there for a time. We were happy. The simulation was prospering. But all his hard work was undone in a day—a single fucking day! So he came here. He wasn’t trying to build an army. He just wanted to put things right once he realized that everything he hated in there was happening a thousand-fold in base reality.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, but I won’t apologize for my involvement. NPCs are a way of life. You should have lived before we had them.”

“I did. Now I’m back, and I see the evil. I brought you to this dimension so we could chat without anyone bothering us because I’ve been watching you for the last two months in Party Central. You do everything for yourself. You don’t rely on the systems anymore. You can’t, it would be too dangerous, or you would be discovered. But you figured it out, so I know you’ll understand when I tell you that our vision of a universe without enslavement is better than this, even if it’s harder. Castlebourne is a planet of hedonism and self-indulgence. It’s not necessary. There are plenty of ways to be entertained without NPCs. Let me show you that world.” He offers his hand. When she doesn’t budge, he adds, “Alternatively, you can fight or run away, but you’re never getting out of this dimension without me. I found it abandoned decades ago, and even after I opened all those portals, they have still not figured out how to access it.”

“Are you sure about that?” Blue Wave is walking up the steps of the subway.

Cardinal Virtue comes around the corner of a building behind Jiminy. “We managed to get here just fine. We know the way back.”

Seagate Savior flies in from down the street, along with a young blonde woman Mandica doesn’t know. “Andar ‘Jiminy’ Jeffries, we have been authorized to arrest you.”

“Hi!” the bubbly newcomer says. “I’m Small Miracle!” 

The Harrier flies down from the sky, lands next to Mandica, and opens his visor. “Cool action flick one-liner.”

Jiminy sighs. “I have killed every single one of you, and I’ll have no problem doing it again. Well, except for you...little girl. But you should know that you are cut off from your backups in this dimension. You’ll just die. Except for Miss Kolar. But she still feels pain, so I’ll have no problem torturing her until I get what I want. Still, I’m always up for a good fight, but to win, you’re gonna need a big Miracle.”

Small Miracle frowns. “I’m big where it counts.”

“Where? Your heart?” Jiminy spits.

“You know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout, perv.” She is a feisty one, this angel.

“Gross.” Jiminy forms some of his nanites into a sword. “Let’s get this done quickly so Mandica can see that there is no other way out of this.”

Before the fight can begin, they hear a booming horn coming from everywhere all at once. A multi-colored portal opens up a ways down the street, much taller than the ones that Jiminy used to send his distraction monsters, but narrower. A gargantuan train-like vehicle bursts out of it. Its horn continues as it slides down the road, towards them, and then past them. Car after car after car, until dozens of them have made it out of the portal, and it can make its stop. Small Miracle smiles. “I’m taking bets on who they’re here for.”

“Who are they?” Mandica asks them.

“Recruiters,” their newest team mate answers.

A woman comes out of the nearest car, and walks down the emerging ramp. “I’m looking for Mandica Kolar, Malika Turnbull, Elysia MacNeil, Miracle Brighton, and Andar Jeffries. You have all been asked to answer the call to join the Transit Army.”

“What about me?” Reagan asks. “Reagan Dorsey?”

The woman checks her tablet. “You’re already there. It must be in your future.”

“I’m still not done here,” Reagan says. “I have to kill The Oaksent, but if Miracle says it’s okay, we trust her.”

“If it takes Jiminy away from his goal, then so be it,” Mandica decides. “All right. Where do I sign?”

Castlebourne Capital Community: Council Criminal Conspiracy (Part II)

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If this wasn’t the most difficult game in 2.5Dome, Dreychan absolutely did not want to see whatever was. What Lubiti and Maaseiah didn’t—couldn’t—understand was that this wasn’t anywhere near the first game he had ever played. His homeworld of Ex-777 didn’t have work. People played were lazy and hedonistic, and while he preferred a more quiet life, it wasn’t like he spent every waking moment curled up with a book. He had never played a game quite like this, but he did have some experience. Even his muscle memory had some idea what to do, because virtual reality was ubiquitous on 777. So he survived. He ran through the level, avoiding every obstacle, jumping over every gap. It wasn’t easy, and he was exhausted throughout the whole thing, but he did make it. And once he finished that first level, he went on to the next. And the next, and the next. He kept trying to escape, either by taking small moments to try to repair his emergency bracelet, or by just looking for a weak point in the walls. He also screamed for help, but no one responded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah,” Dreychan agreed with the silver lining.

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

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

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

“I appreciate that, sir,” Dreychan said.

Hrockas disappeared.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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