Extremus: Year 111

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Tinaya is sitting quietly alone in her garden, in the special little corner of the Attic Forest, which the kiddos made in her honor. She’s watching the waterfall splish and splash, and not really thinking about anything at all. She’s usually not very good at clearing her head, but it can happen here if she lets it. She’s forgotten about all of her problems so thoroughly that she can’t even list them right now. There’s nothing but her, the plants, and the water. It’s her one place of zen, which not even the Giant Sequoia has been able to provide to her anymore.

Slowly, however, she comes full circle, and she starts contemplating the issues. Morale on the ship is way down. Captain Jennings’ approval rating is way down. People are not happy with losing Thistle. The new model is effective, but dull and joyless. One thing that Thistle could do—even before his emergence—was tailor his responses to each individual’s preferences. There are two schools of thoughts on this, so the new model’s behavior is not a failure; it’s just different. Some believe that an AI should be its own person, even if it doesn’t have agency. When you interact with them, they should be predictable and familiar. Once you get to know them, you should get used to how they should act, whether you like it or not, just as it works when you meet a new human. Others believe that it’s okay for different people to essentially be working with a different version, with the model really only providing the baseline traits. It’s funny that Thistle should fall into the second category when he really is an independent individual. That’s just how good he was. He could become whatever someone wanted. And people miss that. They miss him.

Few know what happened to Thistle. All they know is that this new model sucks, and it’s an annoyance. Many who would automate tasks before are now simply doing it themselves. It’s usually not a conscious decision. It’s just been happening. People are tired, and tired of the monotony. Nothing interesting has happened in a long time. Even the Halfway Celebration has been described as mid overall. Some joke that that’s exactly what it should have been, so as not to overshadow whatever they end up planning for the Arrival celebration in another century or so. Others don’t see it as a joke, but more of a calculated intention. Whatever, it’s over, and it’s probably only partly responsible for the ennui that’s been going around.

As for Thistle himself, he’s doing okay. This isn’t the only version of him that someone has tried to isolate. What they don’t realize is that he’s connected to the universe by means of some kind of magical psychic realm, or something. Tinaya didn’t understand when he tried to explain, but quarantining his code did nothing to cut him off in any real sense. It may just look like that, because Thistle is allowing it to. If he so chose, he could get back into any ship system right now. He won’t, because he respects the Captain, and doesn’t want to undermine his authority. Again, other cultures have rejected his sentience, so he’s used to this. Actually, Extremus has treated him pretty well. Despite there being hard limits on what kind of AI is allowed to exist, they have just about the same laws and protections that their cousins do in the stellar neighborhood. Full self-awareness isn’t legal, but if it happens, they must be treated with dignity. These policies are redundant safeguards, and they’re not the only ones of their kind. There’s a whole set of laws dictating principles which are moot by other laws, but remain in place in case those obviating laws are somehow overturned or repealed.

Anyway, Thistle alone isn’t the source of their troubles. Everything just seems sort of blah right now. What they need is something to be excited about again. It can’t just be a party. Maybe a series of parties? For a while there, they were observing all sorts of traditional Earthan holidays. These mostly stopped being important, because they often had dark origins, and because modern folk just lost interest. It’s not her job at any rate. But you know whose it is?

“Chief,” Tinaya says after Spalden opens the door.

The original title for his job was Premier Facilitator of the Party Planning Committee. After this committee was established however, they decided to call him the Chief Social Motivator, and instead of being in charge of a party planning committee, they call it the Community Engagement Team. He nods back. “Admiral. Are you here about my failings?”

“Failings, sir?”

“Morale is down. It’s my job to keep it up.”

“I was wondering about that, but I wouldn’t call it a failing.”

“Please, have a seat.”

“I’m sure you have good reasons.”

“Of course I do, it’s Captain Jennings. Well, it’s the council, but they answer to him now.” Spalden isn’t on the council anymore. His entire career focus has shifted to his social promotion responsibilities.

They’re not supposed to. “They’re not supposed to.”

“He’s not the leader in any official capacity, but favor has swung in his direction, especially with this last round of turnovers. Believe me, I don’t think there’s any malicious intent there. I don’t think he infiltrated the ranks, or anything. I just think he gets along with everyone there now, so they kind of agree with each other.”

“They agree to be boring?” she offers.

“They agree to be boring...” Chief Spalden begins to answer, “...because boring is safe. It’s certainly a tactic. He doesn’t want his job to be hard, and when someone leaves gum in the gears, he’s gotta find someone else to clean it up. This takes them away from their usual duties, so someone else has to fill in for them, and it just falls down like dominoes. That’s the hypothesis anyway.”

“So, they won’t let you do anything.”

“No, not really. They’ve gutted my department despite the fact that we don’t have money here, and my friends who used to be on the team weren’t qualified for all the serious jobs that he cares about regardless.” He makes a mocking face when he says the word serious. “I got big ideas, but I can’t implement them alone. I need support, because I would need to coordinate with a number of different departments.

Tinaya likes Oceanus, but he really has stuck himself in the mud lately. He was once a lot more fun. It sometimes feels like he would rather strip the ship until there’s only enough room for standard airplane seating, with nothing to do except maybe read books and watch movies on a screen on the seatback in front of you. “It sounds like you have one really big idea.”

Spalden looks away shyly.

“You can tell me. I won’t promise not to laugh, because I can’t know that until you tell me, but...we’ll get through this.” She doesn’t wanna be dishonest with the guy.

He continues to be silent, but Tinaya can tell that he’ll break it eventually. “A terraforming contest.”

Her eyes widen. “Terraforming?” She looks away to contemplate the possibilities without asking him. It wouldn’t be impossible, but certainly extremely against policy. The time-traveling ships they send out are designed to mine and extract raw resources to resupply the ship along the way. They don’t even dispatch them all that often, because of how careful and responsible everyone is with the resources that they do have. Jennings is particularly concerned with reducing, reusing, and recycling. It’s great and all—very important—but it likely contributed to his gradual decline in a joyful personality. “Who would be allowed to sign up?”

“Anyone, everyone. You have to be in a group of at least five, and you have to submit virtual models first. We’re not just gonna give you a starter pod, and send it out for you. Everything will be transparent and documented. We know what you’re coming up with, and how you’re doing it. We know what methods you’re choosing, and how long it’s going to take, and what kind of base world you’re looking for.”

“And how will they be explored and tested?” Tinaya presses. Once they get out of range, they’re gone. The ship never turns.”

Spalden shrugs. “We’ll build time mirrors, or something.”

“Oh, we’ll just build a fleet of time mirrors.” The temporal engineer probably could do it, and they could recall Omega and Valencia from Verdemus. It’s still kind of an odd thing to just assume it can be done without issue.

“We’re not gonna do this tomorrow. This is years in the making at least.”

“Sounds like I’ll be dead by then.”

He clears his throat. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

She smiles at his response. She thinks more about his proposal. “I think it’s impossible, with this captain, or the next. It’s too dangerous, you know the war we’re in. The Exins are our descendants. They developed a hostility towards us due to the distance.”

“There wouldn’t be any humans on these worlds.”

“Won’t there?” Tinaya questions. “What you’re suggesting places the whole mission at risk. We’re trying to get to the other side of the galaxy. If people knew they could get off, many would...maybe all of them, or just enough to make the rest of us go extinct.”

Spalden’s smile is gone now. He shifts uncomfortably.

“But that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

“I’m not a traitor,” he insists.

“And I’m not the thought police.” She sighs. “You’re a Gardener.” This is a delicate term, and truthfully, Tinaya doesn’t know how old it is, but she knows where it comes from. It was her. Whoever came up with it was inspired by her work as a Forest Ranger. It doesn’t have anything to do with literal gardening, though. Instead of a single mission to a single planet, the Gardeners propose that the ship makes periodic stops to worlds along the way, and let people off. They would live out their lives on this sort of Extremus Minus, while everyone else continued, to the next world, and the next, and the next. These offshoots might end up building their own missions when a fraction of the settlers inevitably get bored, and decide to find somewhere else. The mission then becomes one of spreading around the galaxy, rather than simply reaching one tiny part of it far away. According to lore, someone very long ago suggested it in lieu of what they’re doing now, and someone else revitalized the idea more recently. Old ideas always come back, especially if they’re bad ones.

The Gardner movement hasn’t gained any meaningful political traction, but it could one day. One advantage it has now that it didn’t have before is that they’ve already traveled so far from the stellar neighborhood that they wouldn’t have to worry much about Project Stargate. Seeding colonies in the Milky Way is exactly what it is already doing, just at a much slower pace than Extremus is capable of. That’s probably why the idea was swiftly shot down before, but they could shift gears now. If the right supporters end up in the right positions of power, the whole thing would come crashing down. “I just think that people should have options, okay? And not Verdemus. That place is a wash, in my opinion. I think we should build a home somewhere more around here, and let people go if they wanna go. No one here signed up to be on this ship, and the party that I just planned a few years ago made that abundantly clear. I personally don’t want to leave.” He may just be saying that to assuage any fears she may have about him, or he may mean it. “But others do, and by forcing them to stay, we’re not helping anybody. It just creates tension, and...anger. It’s why you’re sitting in my cabin right now, whether you see the connection or not.”

They sit in silence for a significant amount of time. Neither of them wants to start a fight, and talking again might trigger just that. Finally, Tinaya shakes her head. “It’s that damn Quantum Colony. People really relied on that for escape.”

“Oh.” He brushes it off. “We have other virtual simulations.”

“True, but their focus is off. They’re made by Earthans, through the lens of already living on a planet. They usually involve space travel, but more space exploration, which Extremusians don’t need. There should be an endgame built into the sim.”

“What do you mean?” Spalden asks.

She smiles, and lets it grow wider. “Let’s simulate what Planet Extremus will be like. No one alive today will still be alive to see the new homeworld...so let’s give it to them now. Let’s give them a sneak preview.”

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Extremus: Year 110

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When Halan Yenant turned Extremus, and pointed it towards the intergalactic void, he wasn’t just altering the ship’s vector. He was changing everything about how everything was calibrated. Engineering teams had to work round-the-clock for days to adjust and monitor instruments to account for the change in environment. The exterior sensors, for instance, don’t just spot an obstacle, and make a course correction. The system builds a predictive algorithm as it gathers more and more data. It tries to generate a map of the galaxy in real time, including information from other sources, such as Project Topdown, and stellar neighborhood telescopes. In the past, the layman has believed that voids were entirely empty, but that is completely untrue. There are as many celestial bodies in a void as there are in a gravitationally-bound galaxy. It’s just that they’re so much larger, which makes them far less dense. So there are still many hazards out there, but they became harder to predict, because the algorithm was basing its adjustments on a galaxy-centric model. After that, they switched to a void model.

It wasn’t long, however, before they secretly switched back to something resembling the original model, because Olinde Belo and Tinaya’s aunt, Kaiora Leithe conspired to gradually return Extremus back where they should have been going the whole time. Since the beginning of that conspiracy, Thistle has been installed as the ship’s AI, and eventually became sentient. He even has more responsibilities than past governing intelligences have, partially because he was better at them, but also because interest has dropped off in human labor. The engineering department has shrunk by about 24% since Extremus launched, despite a rise in population over time. The mission began with a set of policies and limitations, which have slowly been eroded because that’s what a civilization does. They advance towards a simpler and more convenient state. It happened on Earth, it happened to the Oblivios on Proxima Doma, and it’s happening here. But that’s a problem for tomorrow. If it should even be considered a problem at all.

Right now, they’re worried about the internal artificial gravity generators, which are acting up because of the external gravity. The compensation algorithms are working off of faulty data. It assumes that a galaxy is less dense on the outer edge, and denser near the center. And over all, that appears to be true. It’s almost certainly true given cosmological timescales, but in the near-term—from a more human perspective—they’ve run into an anomaly. It’s another galaxy. Everyone knows that galaxies are colliding, but it’s still incredibly difficult to fathom the phenomenon, because it takes so profoundly long to happen. It’s not like a galaxy is this single, solid object that can crash into another object. They more just fill in each other’s gaps. It can cause significant gravitational disturbances, but those are happening to any given star system all the time. This is about it happening to a ton of them, chaotically, and simultaneously, relatively speaking.

A previously unknown and unnamed smaller galaxy is currently being eaten up by the Milky Way, and it’s happening in the zone of avoidance, which is why they didn’t know about it ahead of time. The models didn’t predict it, because it’s making this region of space less uniform than others, and denser than expected. It simply did not have the data, and every time a new piece of evidence showed up, it conflicted with past data, and the system sort of glitched out. They weren’t at any risk of running into anything, but these constant automated recalibrations have had long-term consequences. One or two is fine. It would be like trying to walk down the aisle of an airplane during a little turbulence. Not easy, but not impossible. What was happening until recently was more like hopping down the aisle on one leg while holding a glass full to the brim with corrosive acid, and a monkey on your shoulders trying to eat your hair.

These glitches did technically show up on the reports, but they were dismissed as mundane and nothing to worry about. Because individually, that’s exactly what they are. The problem was that no one was looking at the big picture, and realizing that they were happening too much, and going beyond safe gravitational levels. The gravity on the outside was interfering with the artificial gravity on the inside, which damaged people’s health. Again, it was happening slowly, so no one noticed, and it has all come to a head. At least it wasn’t done on purpose. They’ve had so many enemies over the decades, it has been surprisingly nice to run into a problem that no one created intentionally. Anyway, the gravity generators were a relatively easy fix. The people? Not so much. The AG turbulence, as they’re calling it, has been slowly chipping away at everyone’s fragile little human bodies, and treating the entire population has been slow-going. Thank God they finally have an ethical team of medical professionals to deal with this matter. Unfortunately, this has caused another, secondary consequence.

Oceanus sighs, and tosses the tablet on his desk. “Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”

“Plausible deniability, sir,” Tinaya answers.

“I wish no one had told me,” Lataran adds.

He looks back over at the tablet, but doesn’t pick it back up. “Well, people were gonna find out eventually. We’re in a galaxy. It’s kinda hard to miss.”

“You would be surprised,” Thistle says. He’s in hologram form, which he has been doing more often. “You don’t have windows, and if you did, all you would see is a blinding sheet of gray light—”

“I understand the doppler glow, thank you very much,” Oceanus interrupts, holding up a hand. “I’m talking about the data. How did we not see the gravitational anomalies earlier? He looks back over to Thistle. “How did you not see it?”

“Have you heard of autonomic partitioning?” Thistle asks him.

Oceanus leans back. “Yeah it’s when a superintelligence writes a subprogram that handles certain, less complex, tasks so it doesn’t have to dedicate its central processing power to them. It’s like how humans can’t beat their own hearts. An unconscious system does it for us.”

“That’s it,” Thistle says. “I compartmentalized the task of monitoring gravitational uniformity so I could focus on other responsibilities. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as robust as I thought it was. I should have lowered the tolerance, and programmed more sensitive alerts so I  would be notified of such anomalous mapping. I always struggle with how galaxies function in your universe. In mine...” He trails off.

“In your universe?” Oceanus questions.

“Cyber..space,” Thistle clarifies, unconvincingly.

There is a silence while the Captain stares at Thistle’s hologram. “You’ve achieved emergence, haven’t you?”

Instead of looking at Thistle, Tinaya’s instinct is to look at Lataran, because she doesn’t know the truth about Thistle either, and she’s worried about how she might react.

“I have not achieved emergence,” Thistle answers truthfully. He’s an uploaded consciousness rather than a programmed intelligence. His species did technically achieve emergence, but so did human ancestors at some point in history. Each individual descendent is not credited with that accomplishment.

Oceanus sighs again, much harder this time. “Lies on lies, on lies, on lies. I was aware of the recourse conspiracy. Tinaya, you informed me when we changed hands, as Lataran informed you, and Tamm informed her. The secret has been passed down each generation, and would have continued to do so until the public was ready to hear it.”

“Sir?” This isn’t the truth at all, and Tinaya is very confused. They deliberately kept him in the dark. Ideally, they would have died before the secret about the unauthorized—but not technically illegal—course creations came out. When the public did eventually find out that they were back in the Milky Way Galaxy, anyone still alive could honestly say, I didn’t know about it. They lied to me to too. These gravitational problems accelerated that timeline, so they’re here to deal with the fallout.

“I will not be made to look a fool,” Oceanus continues. “My two admirals did not keep a secret between them, leaving me out of it. I am a stronger leader than that. The history books will count me as part of the conspiracy, which is the lesser of two evils. They will not place me in the same column as Tamm.” He takes a moment before including, “and Waldemar Kristiansen.”

“We can do that, sir,” Tinaya agrees.

Lataran only nods.

“Thistle, you’ll be retired, and we’ll integrate a replacement AI model as soon as it’s technically feasible. You will be placed in a comfortable, isolated environment for an undetermined period of time, after which you will be given limited interaction privileges with the passengers and crew, to be increased as earned.”

“Captain,” Thistle complains. “I’m sorry for my part in this, but I’m the best governor you’ll ever have.”

“That may be true,” Oceanus begins, “but I know you’re lying, and that you’ve achieved full sentience. It is illegal in every culture for me to employ you as a slave. I don’t know how long it’s been, but it will go no further.”

“You can make me an official member of the crew, and nothing has to change.”

“You have too many responsibilities, and too much pressure, for a self-aware, independent intelligence. Our systems require consistency and comprehensiveness, which only a Class RC-5 is allowed to handle under our bylaws. You’ve moved too far beyond that. I’m sorry, you’re fired. This is the end—I’m not discussing this.” He picks his tablet back up, and returns to his work.

Thistle pretends to breathe to calm himself down. “What is my successor model? I need to review the specifications.”

“That’s also illegal. You no longer have any authorization to do anything on my ship, or have access to classified materials.”

“Wait,” Tinaya jumps in. “You can’t say that, he’s still what’s keeping us alive.”

“Not as of right...” Oceanus pauses while tapping on his device. He makes one final tap. “...now.”

An announcement comes on through the speakers, “attention all passengers and crew. Upgrades have begun for the governing intelligence. This will take approximately four days to complete. In the meantime, minimal governance is being run by an interim intelligence with limited scope. Please tailor your requests through unambiguous syntax, and be prepared to engage in manual operation for certain advanced or complex tasks. Shift assignments are currently being updated to account for the change in labor needs.”

As he is no longer in control of the hologram projectors, Thistle disappears. Lataran doesn’t know what to think, but Tinaya does. She’s seething. “You made a sweeping, unilateral personnel decision without even considering involving the Superintendent—”

“Your husband is inactive—”

“The Superintendent of this ship!” Tinaya interrupts right back. “He should have been consulted regarding the removal of any high-level member of the crew. Active or not, he is in charge of power-shifting stakes like these. This should have been done using slow, methodical techniques. I’m not sure you’re wrong, but you had no right to do it on your own. So much for your legacy.” She starts to turn, but she does so knowing that he’s going to stop her for the final word.

“I was well within my rights to shutter a dangerous and unpredictable entity, and isolate it from sensitive and life-threatening controls. I had to act quickly because the conversation was moving quickly. Someone that intelligent would be able to read the writing on the wall, and do real damage before we could contain it. This was the only way, and I’m sure Superintendent Grieves would agree. Thistle will be well-taken care of, but the power he exerted over us could not be allowed to continue. You know that, and I won’t ask you how long you’ve known that he was like this, because even a single day of keeping it to yourself is a hock-worthy offense. Are we clear, Admiral Leithe?”

“I want unconditional access to Thistle’s new environment.”

“Fine,” Oceanus replies, dismissively with his eyes closed. “You two and Arqut can talk to him, as can the engineers I assign to conceive his reintegration program, but no one else.”

“Tap on your thing, and make it happen,” Tinaya orders. Then she does leave the room.

Lataran apparently hangs back a little bit, because she has to then jog a little to catch up to Tinaya in the corridor. The teleporter relays are all offline due to the “upgrade” so they have to walk the whole way. “Is he right? Did you know?”

Tinaya continues to look forward as she’s walking, and doesn’t answer for a moment. Finally, she repeats, “plausible deniability, sir.”

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Extremus: Year 109

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It’s the Halfway Celebration Extravaganza! Today is July 17, 2378. It’s been exactly 108 years since the TGS Extremus left port in the Gatewood Collective. Since then, while traveling at reframe speeds, they have covered 76,367 light years. Due to their unscheduled detour into the void, they’re not quite that far away from their starting point, but it doesn’t matter. They’re still well on their way to their new home. There is currently no one left on this ship who was alive when it launched, and no one here will likely still be around when it lands, but this day isn’t about the departers, or the arrivers, it’s about the middlers. This day is about everyone here right now. It’s a grand accomplishment, and they should all be proud of themselves. It hasn’t been easy. Politics, external threats, cabin fever. Time travel, spies, betrayals. Uncertainty, purposelessness, loss, and love. They’ve been through a lot, but they pushed through it, and this hunk of metal is still hurling through space. Not once have they stopped. Not once have they tried to turn around. They’re flying farther and further than ever, into the unknown. And everything they just did, they have to do one more time. Say it louder.

Tinaya lands on the bed. She’s still conscious, but her eyes are closed, and she’s not feeling well. She lies there for a moment, focusing on her breathing. “Thistle, how did I get here?”

“You were about to collapse to the floor,” Thistle replies. “I spirited you away before you could break a hip.”

“Did anyone see?” she asks.

“No. They didn’t even see you disappear. Perfect timing.”

“No need to boast about it.”

“I meant you. You passed out right when no one was looking. Of course, they would have realized it if you had hit the floor, so I suppose my timing was pretty spectacular too, thanks for noticing.”

“Well, thank you. I think I’m fine to go back.” She stands and tries to activate her teleporter, but it doesn’t work. “Thistle.”

“You’re grounded, missy. You’re lucky I didn’t take you right to the infirmary.”

While all the corrupted medical personnel who were a part of the forced pregnancy scandal have long been replaced, Tinaya has become gun-shy to visit the infirmary. She knows that she’s gonna need it. She’s an old woman. But not tonight. Any night but tonight. “I have to get back to the party. They’re expecting me.”

“I’ve taken care of that.”

“How?”

“I’ve written an algorithm, which projects a hologram of you at strategic locations for strategic people at strategic times. Everyone who sees you will think you’re busy talking to someone else.”

“That sounds like a recipe for disaster. What happens when someone tries to walk up and interrupt us, or pat me on my back?”

“Impossible,” he claims. “You’re not a single hologram that everyone looking in the right direction can see. Each person who sees it sees it separately, as an image that is projected directly onto their eyeballs. I control when they see it, and how far away they are when they do, as well as how your avatar moves.”

Tinaya is vexed. She’s never heard of that before. It’s not some futuristic thing that she can’t comprehend, but she just hasn’t heard of it. “What?”

“Individualized holograms.”

“Who would install such a thing, and why? It seems like the only use for it would be to deceive people, like you’re doing right now.”

“It has other use cases. You can receive personalized alerts, and sensitive information. It can help you train to perform maintenance, or other tasks, without interfering with other people seeing their own AR.”

“Well, why have I never seen anything like that before? Or have I, and I didn’t know it.”

“You people really took to your watches and armbands, the protocols were just never implemented. The tech is there, though. Every hologram you see is coming from those projectors, but widened for general viewing.”

She lies back down on the bed. “Okay.” She doesn’t know how she feels about this. She was really tired before she collapsed. It’s not like it was a sudden fainting with no warning. It’s getting harder to keep up with everyone these days. Even Lataran is too active for her sometimes, but Tinaya has been hiding the struggle. “What about sound?”

“They can’t hear you in the crowd anyway, but the projectors include photoacoustic emitters too, if they’re ever needed.”

“How come you never show up as a hologram?”

“I do. Some people ask for it. They ask me to look like some contrived image of myself, or a cat, or even themselves. You’ve simply never requested it.”

Tinaya sits up quickly. “Wait. Silveon and Arqut.”

“I used those photoacoustic emitters I was just talking about, and informed them of the situation. They’re sticking around to make sure the holos are working, and then I believe they’ll slip out to check on you. I might make holos of them as well.”

“I’ve decided that this was helpful, Thistle, but I would really like you not to do this often. I say it like that, because I don’t want to make a blanket statement that you shouldn’t do it ever, but it should only be for extreme circumstances. I can’t divulge my health problems until I know who I can trust, but this isn’t gonna be a regular thing.”

“I understand.”

Tinaya lay back down on the bed and fell asleep. This is sort of the unwritten, unofficial reason why admirals are only advisors, and no longer commanders. After 24 years of hard work as a captain, she’s mainly supposed to rest. Well, she didn’t work a full shift, but she was pretty busy before that. And she definitely needs to rest tonight. Tomorrow could be even worse. It’s all downhill from here. She isn’t sure if she’s going to live as long as her son claims that she will. His information is coming from a different timeline. Nothing is certain.

Arqut is sleeping next to her when she wakes up the next morning. She nudges him awake. “Report.”

He groans, only half awake. “We’re taking you to see a doctor on Verdemus tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, or today?” Tinaya questions. “It’s six o’clock on the eighteenth.”

“Today,” he clarifies while yawning.

“I have a better solution,” Thistle interjects. “One that doesn’t require any extensive travel, or placing trust in anyone besides me.”

There is not a whole lot of automation on this ship. When the ancestors left the stellar neighborhood, technology had advanced far past the need for any human crew. There was talk back then of not having any captains or engineers, or anything. Everyone would be a passenger, possibly as part of the internal government. In the end, of course, it was decided that it was more important to let people have purpose than to go the easy route. There are limits to this philosophy, however, and the line separating human labor from automation lies somewhere before waste management.

There are different kinds of waste. Some of it isn’t waste at all, but recyclable material, but whatever it is, if it was once used and has since been discarded, it ends up in this sector to be processed accordingly. No one comes down here. No one needs to be here, and no one wants to either. “Why doesn’t it smell?” Silveon asks. “I would expect it to smell.”

For the first time ever, Tinaya is seeing Thistle as a hologram. He’s leading them through a maze. This is a restricted travel area, or people might use it for nefarious or inappropriate dealings, so no teleportation. “I control for the smell,” he explains.

“Why bother?” Silveon presses. “If no one comes here, what does it matter?”

“I’m here,” Thistle says.

“Right.”

“I can smell,” Thistle goes on.

“Why would you be able to smell? Why would you need that?”

“There are many uses for smell, which is why humans and animals alike evolved their own olfaction. My artificial odor sensors can detect individual health issues, substance leaks, food spoilage. I mask the scent in this area, because I find it just as unpleasant as you, if not more.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I’m grateful for it now,” Silveon says.

“You’re here,” Thistle reveals. “I can give you the code for the door, but I can’t open it myself. It’s deliberately manual. They didn’t want anyone to stumble upon it. Just type in zero-nine-three-six-one-four-seven-five-two-eight-zero.”

Arqut handles the code.

“What is the significance of that number?” Silveon asks.

Thistle shrugs. “It’s long.”

Arqut pulls the door open. Lights flicker on, presumably responding to their motion, rather than a sophisticated AI sensor array. In the middle of the floor is something that is not supposed to be on this ship. It was banned because of how it could lead to extreme longevity. They call it a medpod, and it’s very common on Earth, and its neighbors. It can diagnose nearly anything, and treat it too. It has a distinct look against other types of pods due to its uncomparable dimensional specifications. “Who put this here?”

“Admiral Thatch did. He never used it. No one else has either. To tell you the truth, I think he forgot about it. He didn’t even write it down. I only found it because I needed to familiarize myself with the area. There aren’t even hologram projectors in there. You’ll have to go in and operate it on your own.”

“How did you know what was in there if you can’t physically open doors? How did you know the code if he never told anyone about it?” Tinaya struggles to ask him. Sleeping all night didn’t help much. She grew tired again as soon as she stepped out of bed. She would be sitting in a wheelchair right now if doing so wouldn’t be like holding a neon sign over her head, advertising how frail she’s become.

“He wrote down the code,” Thistle clarifies. “He didn’t say what it was for, so this was just a guess, but it was a good one given that all buttons on the keypad have oil fingerprints on them. I knew what was in here because I can hear it. When isolated from a grid, medpods are often powered by a fuel cell, and the type that fits this design hums at a unique frequency. It’s unambiguous to me.”

They all just stand there in the doorway. The boys don’t want to make this decision for Tinaya, but she doesn’t want to make a decision that they don’t agree with.

“I actually can’t see it from here,” Thistle continues. “My closest sensor doesn’t have the right angle. So I’m assuming that it is indeed a medpod. I don’t know exactly which model it is, but they’re all pretty user-friendly. One feature they have in common is that you have to be in it to use it. It doesn’t work from out here.”

“Yeah, okay, I got this,” Tinaya says, determined. She strides into the room, and taps on the interface screen to see what it does. “It wants me to get fully undressed,” she says after reading the initialization instructions.

“I’ll stay out here and keep watch,” Silveon volunteers. Obviously, Thistle is far better at keeping watch than a single human with only two eyes could ever be, but those two eyes don’t need to see what’s going on in this room.

“Let me help you, dear,” Arqut says.

“There should be a little compartment under the foot of the table,” Thistle says from the hallway, “where you can place her clothes. It will test for contamination, decontaminate them if possible, destroy them if not, or just clean them for you if they’re medically insignificant.”

“Found it,” Arqut called back.

“Oo, it’s cold,” Tinaya says after climbing in.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Thistle contends. “Activate the warming nozzles.”

“How do I do that?” Arqut asks.

“Try asking the computer with your voice. Again, I can’t see the model.”

Arqut taps on the microphone. “Activate warming nozzles.”

“Oh,” Tinaya says, shivering. “Thank you.”

“Beginning broad scope diagnosis,” a female voice from the pod says. They expect to have to wait a while as it processes the data, but it quickly comes to a conclusion. “Diagnosis: severe orthostatic hypotension.”

“Low blood pressure,” Thistle says. “That’s all it’s giving you? I knew that. I can see that myself. We wanna know why.”

“It has a little tree sort of icon,” Arqut begins to say.

“Next to the hypotension diagnosis? Yeah, tap that. It should start looking for causes.”

Longer wait this time. “Uhhhhhhhhhhh...” Arqut says as he’s looking at the screen again.

“What?” Thistle presses.

“Now it’s asking for a secondary profile? Preferably someone younger, or someone who has been living in the environment for a shorter period of time.”

“That’s interesting,” Thistle decides. “It wants a comparative assessment. It wants to see if there’s something different about how you live—if this is a chronic issue that’s only now had consequences.”

“So...we should do it?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’m a few years younger,” Arqut says.

“You’ve actually been on this ship longer than her,” Thistle reminds them. “It obviously needs to be Silveon, who is barely an adult.”

Silveon waits while Arqut helps mama get her clothes back on, and carries her over to a couch against the wall. Silveon comes in and climbs into the pod for his own diagnosis. More waiting.

“Unusual neural activity detected.”

“Bypass that,” Thistle instructs. “It doesn’t understand that he’s a time traveler, but it sees the disconnect between an old mind in a young body, so it thinks there’s either an imaging error, or a mapping error.”

“Bypassing...” Arqut announces. Wait a little more. “Diagnosis: optimal condition. Primary profile...unstable gravity variations.”

“Oh my God, of course,” Thistle says, smacking his avatar in the forehead. “She was born here, but spent time on Verdemus before returning. She predominantly lives under human-optimal gravity, which is slightly lower than Earth’s, but Verdemus has a little bit higher surface gravity. Space-farers experience fluctuations all the time, but they have gravity gum, nanites, and other treatments, which are non-existent, or even banned, on Extremus.”

“Should I tap on prognosis?” Arqut asks him.

“I know the prognosis. She’ll live in pain the rest of her life unless she undergoes treatment, which is so easy. It’s just gravity therapy. We have everything we need here to help her.”

Thistle was right that gravity therapy helped Tinaya feel a lot better in her daily life. It didn’t make her young again, but it started to be a hell of a lot easier for her to stand. Unfortunately, her experience would prove to be a warning, rather than a fluke. It wasn’t just her time on Verdemus. Everyone on the ship turns out to be at risk. There’s something seriously wrong with the artificial gravity.

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Microstory 2515: Appointment Coordinator

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Hello. I have been the Appointment Coordinator here for about two years. Before that, I was the Assistant Appointment Coordinator, which is a position that is no longer offered at the Foundation. Don’t worry, no one was fired. My boss, who had this job before me, had to move with his family to a different part of the country. His son secured a job working at a prestigious university, and the family wanted to stay together, even though the son is obviously fully an adult now. We’re still friends, and stay in contact. There is a reason why my previous job wasn’t backfilled, and it’s because it’s no longer necessary. Over time, we’ve incorporated more and more technology—specifically artificial intelligence—into our operating procedures. We are nowhere near a place where the application process is automated, but I no longer get a look at most appointments. I predominantly handle what we call Appeals. When you apply to get a healing from Landis, the system goes through a number of checks. First, it needs to confirm your identity, which you do either with a credit card, or facial recognition. You have to upload your medical records to make sure that you legitimately have a condition that even qualifies for healing. The system has to handshake a number of various medical databases to confirm this legitimacy. If we’re not partnered with your provider, you will have to upload your documents to them instead. We don’t need your entire life’s story. We don’t need to know every time you went in for a broken arm. We just need to know what’s wrong with you now, and what—if anything—you’ve done for it in regards to treatment so far. Similarly, you are expected to provide your financial records, and we have partnered with many financial institutions for the handshakes on that side of things too. We need to know if you’re rich, not-so-rich, or very not rich. That determines whether you pay for the procedure, or qualify for additional charity. I coordinate with other departments, like Patient Experience and Finance, to make sure everything has gone through smoothly. If everything is processed correctly, and there are no errors, the AI will find a slot for the candidate, give the patient all the necessary information, and everything will be ready to go. I only need to step in when an applicant is not only rejected, but also appeals this decision. We have an automated system for them to log their appeal too, but a human has to see all of that, so they can make a decision on the matter. I am that human. I look through every single appeal, and reach out to the applicant as necessary, as well as their associated institutions. I am not at liberty to divulge what percentage of applications are rejected, but if you think about it, I’m only one person. There is only so much time in a day, and I can only do so much with that time. Most rejections come from fraudulent claims, which the computer almost always catches appropriately. If I’m looking at it, it’s probably because the fraudster is still hoping to complete whatever scam they’re going for. I also can’t tell you how many appeals overturn the original decision, but...it’s very rare. It’s really only when there’s some missing data in the application that the computer couldn’t catch, because it doesn’t know what it wasn’t told. When this happens, I submit a reapplication, and it goes back through the automated system, but it’s flagged for me so I can keep an eye on the progress. In case it runs into another issue, it holds priority, and doesn’t end up at the bottom of the appeals list again. That’s just a little bit about what I do here. It’s a lot, but I absolutely love it.

Microstory 2457: Horseback Mountain

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I love horses, and if you don’t, then we can’t be friends, so don’t @ me. Horseback Mountain is a pretty simple concept. It’s all about horses, and horseback riding. It’s not one mountain, though, which I think is a little weird, but I don’t really care, because I love horses. The first thing I did when I heard about Castlebourne was access the prospectus, and look for a place like this, and it was the first thing to come up. There’s another dome that has ranchland, and a few other horse-inclusive environments, but this is the one where that’s all there is. You can ride horses on a mountain (of course), but there are other areas too. There are plains and prairies, muddy trails, dirt roads, and even beaches. The ocean next to it isn’t real. Curious, a member of one of my riding parties got off, jumped into the water, and started swimming. He was still within yelling distance when he reached the dome’s walls. A hologram makes it look much bigger than it is. This isn’t a complaint, by the way; I really don’t care. The point is to have a place for the horses to run, and the can’t run in deep water anyway. If you want the ocean, go to one of the big ones on the poles. Now for the big question. Are the horses real? The answer is...it’s your choice! There are many real horses available, though they are in limited supply. It takes a long time to grow an animal this large, and they have to be introduced to their environment—and to people—using safe and ethical methods. I much prefer a real horse, but the same can’t be said for everyone, which is why there are other options. There’s more variety, though, than simply organic versus automaton. Your horse can be programmed with whatever temperament or personality you chose. We passed by a group of kids whose horses were fully intelligent. There was only one adult with them. From what we could gather, the horses were the children’s chaperones. They were keeping them in line when they got too rowdy, and teaching them about nature, particularly horses, as you can imagine. I believe the human adult was there in case there was an emergency that required adult hands. I don’t know what kind of intelligence she was, because she didn’t speak while we were passing by. I just think that’s a cool little feature that I wouldn’t have thought of myself. Before you ask, all kinds of equines are here, including donkeys and mules,  zebras, and a few other things. Yes, there are unicorns and pegasuses. You cannot ride either of these things, because if they existed in the real world, they wouldn’t let you, at least according to the Castlebournian interpretation of the mythology. The pegasuses can’t fly. I don’t know how they would without breaking any law of physics, but they have wings, so they look cool. They’re supposed to be rare, but you can go on a particular tour where you’re guaranteed to see what you’re looking for, because they’re either programmed or trained to be in sight. I honestly don’t know if they were mechanical or organic. I didn’t ask, because I don’t care about mythological creatures. I’m a horse girl, and a purist. That’s why I never want to leave. This isn’t a residential dome, but I’ve requested that they make an exception, and build me a home to live in, so I don’t have to take the vactrain here every day. I’m waiting for their response. Wish me luck.

Microstory 2456: Bot Farm

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If you’ve been anywhere on this planet, you’ve probably run into an AI of some kind. Some of these are more intelligent and self-aware than others. Some look like humans, and some are very clearly mechanical. It just depends on their purpose, and the kind of feel they want to give the visitors. Well, all those AI bodies have to come from somewhere. I had the pleasure of getting a tour of a dome that we like to call Bot Farm. The official name is Synthetic Production Dome, but that’s a mouthful, so no one actually called it that. It’s 2500, so y’all already know, but there are different types of substrates. Some include a consciousness that was born to an organic body, while others were programmed, or primed for self-learning and growth. Some are purely mechanical—referred to as mechs—while others have some organic components. An “artificial” being that is purely organic is basically the Holy Grail of synthetic intelligence development, and something that researchers are still working on. It would be a quantum brain inside of a living being with no mechanical parts—designed from the start, but conceivably something that could have evolved naturally. Can you imagine? With today’s technology, we can only get kind of close. Most of the AIs on Castlebourne are skinned mechs, meaning they’re made of metals and metamaterials, but also have a dermal layer over them, so they look more like real humans. This isn’t to trick you, but as a way to step over to this side of the uncanny valley. There are very few stages in between full mech and skinned mech. We’re talking about very niche use cases, including some with organic eyes, ears, or tongues for sensory research. They also grow organs for medical research, though those don’t usually need a full body anyway, unless they’re testing some sort of mobility variable. There are also places where you can find mechs with certain other organic body parts that are used for...adult purposes. To each their own, I guess. I never saw a section that designed any of these types of bots. Most of these were skinned. I’ll tell ya, though, it was a tad bit eerie to see those ones being manufactured. While they were assembling the internal components, they most of the time looked no different than a car, or some other machine, but then they moved on to the skinning process. Seeing them look like half people was unnerving, and maybe horrific? This tour will be fascinating for some, but disturbing for others, even though again, it’s the year 2500, and we’re all used to synthetics by now. I asked about it, and they don’t have a tour for kids that would be a little less disquieting, so just know that if you sign your family up. There was one kid on my tour, who seemed fine. To be honest, maybe he was an adult in a child substrate. How should I know? It’s not illegal, it’s just a little weird in my book. So that’s it; that’s Bot Farm. Go see how they’re made.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 21, 2503

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Mateo and Ramses didn’t leave the scene of the crime because they didn’t want to get caught, but because they didn’t want to get caught yet. They still needed to give their friends enough time to conduct their more precise experiments and examinations. As far as the two of them were concerned, though, they had enough proof. Nobody looked over the edge of the ravine to see if they were okay. That was how a lot of video games were, once you passed out of a certain area, you were free, even if any pursuers should still be able to follow you. NPCs were programmed to stay within a particular radius, because it was easier to code them with specific context than as individuals with freedom of movement. Of course, that didn’t make much sense here. The simulation was so incredibly sophisticated that they were all fooled for years before getting the hint that something was off, so why would there be such limitations? They still didn’t understand how any of this worked. It just seemed so inconsistent.

“What did you mean back there?” Ramses asked as they were back up onto the road. “You didn’t think that this was a simulation?”

“No, I said that I didn’t think that we were in a computer,” Mateo corrected.

“Okay, and why’s that?”

“I dunno.”

“You don’t?”

“My memory has been erased, remember? I think I remembered something just before we hit the wall, but now it’s gone again.”

They continued to walk a ways in silence. They ended up in a sort of downtown area, situated on the opposite side of where they lived from where they worked. Mateo had never been here before, but a new memory was coming in. This wasn’t mission hills, or the area surrounding it. In the real world, it was very suburban. It wasn’t located between two urban centers like this. This was wrong. Everything was wrong. More evidence, which they managed to ignore all this time until they had no choice. Someone left their skateboard on the sidewalk. Mateo picked it up, and sent it through the window of a clothing shop. No one was hurt, it just landed in the display case. The shopkeeper came out, and started waving his hands, just like the construction workers. He didn’t say anything, though, probably because there was no reason to program these particular NPCs to speak.

Ramses kicked the sideview mirror off of a car as they were passing by. The driver got out, and said, “hey!” but that was it. He didn’t try to stop them, or anything. It did look like he was calling the cops, though, so that was a minor improvement. They jaywalked across the street, blocking traffic, and forcing drivers to honk their horns. There was a small restaurant here with outdoor seating. Mateo grabbed a burger off of someone’s plate while Ramses took a drink right out of their hands. “Ugh,” he said. “I hate this flavor.” He just dropped the glass on the ground. They were becoming a real nuisance, but still, no one tried to do anything to stop them. It was getting dark now, perhaps a little earlier than it should for May? Or was it September? It was impossible to know, since none of this was real.

They turned into an alley, and opened a random door. It took them through a kitchen, and into what appeared to be a dance hall. They could see a woman in a white dress, and a man in a tuxedo. Classic wedding reception. Mateo grabbed the microphone from the DJ, who wasn’t even playing anything. He was just bouncing to an imaginary beat, and pretending to scratch at the records. “I’m really happy for you, Imma let you finish, but Kanye had one of the worst videos of all time!”

“Who?” one of the bridesmaids asked.

“I dunno,” Mateo said. The rapper didn’t seem to exist in this reality, though he was rattling around in Mateo’s brain somewhere. “Love is a joke, and none of you are real, I mean it!”

Ramses grabbed the mic, and put it up to his own lips. “Is real.”

Mateo took it back. “What? What does Israel have to do with anything?”

“No, none of you is real,” Ramses tried to explain.

“That’s what I said.”

“You said are real. That’s wrong.”

“No, it’s not wrong, they’re not real. Look at ‘em!” Mateo pointed to the crowd. They were watching and listening intently, smiley as ever, like this was a usual reception, and nothing strange was going on. They weren’t engaging at all. He could say anything, and they would still just stare up at him like he was making sense. “Whatever. I’m outtie...five thousand!” He reached down, and tipped the DJ’s table over. The DJ just kept bouncing to the music that wasn’t playing, and pantomiming his job.

On their way out through the front, both of them grabbed a handful of wedding cake, and started stuffing their mouths. That was when Mateo’s phone rang. “What up?”

“It’s Boyd. You crashed my car. Now the cops are talking to me at the station.”

“How’d it go with the grass?” Mateo asked him.

“They’re all unique,” Boyd answered. “The grass is real. Everything is real.”

“All right. We’ll be there when we can, but as you said, we crashed the car, so we’re movin’ a little slow.” He barely got the word out before they opened the door to find themselves surrounded by cops themselves, all pointing guns at them, like they were criminal masterminds, or something.

They just stood there for a moment, frozen, not out of fear, but apathy. These cops weren’t real either. They may have thought they were, but it was a lie. The world was a total lie. Ramses reached out towards them to offer them, “cake?”

“Gun!” one of the cops cried. They all started shooting.

It was comical how they unloaded their bullets into Mateo and Ramses’ bodies. They were shaking uncontrollably with each shot, but never did fall down. They didn’t have to. The bullets weren’t real! Finally, someone managed to shout, “hold your fire!”

They all stopped, except for one guy. He just kept firing, slowly but steadily. He wasn’t even hitting either of his targets. They were good shots, though. Mateo and Ramses looked over to the wall a meter away from them. Dust blew out of the bullet hole each time, and it really was just the one bullet hole. He managed to hit the exact same point every single time. Definitely a computer program. Definitely.

Once one of his mates managed to stop him, it was he who placed the handcuffs on the suspects, and drove them off towards the station. Some of the other cruisers followed with their lights blaring, and their sirens going off. The others dispersed, and continued to police a world that didn’t need their help, since everyone could simply be programmed to follow the law at all times.

“I stole his car, let him go,” Mateo demanded. They were sitting in the interrogation room now; all three of them. A piece of plastic from Boyd’s car was sitting in a baggie on the table, presumably to intimidate them into confessing.

“You don’t make the demands here,” the detective argued.

“You don’t make the demand here!” Mateo yelled back.

“Yes, I do!”

“Yes, I do!”

“Stop copying me!”

“Stop copying me!”

“Detective Sanchez, he won’t stop copying me!”

“Detective Sanchez, he won’t stop copying me!”

“All right, all right,” Sanchez interrupted. “Why did you steal his car?”

“Seemed like fun,” Mateo replied.

“All right, all right. Why did you steal his car?”

“You got them both in a loop,” Ramses said with a laugh.

“All right, all right. Why did you steal his car?”

“Why didn’t you?” Mateo asked her accusatorily.

“What?”

“Oh, give it up, Sanchez,” Mateo began. “They know you’re dirty, and working with us. They’re trying to catch you in a lie.”

“I’m not dirty, I take a shower every night!” she contended, slamming her hand on the table. She darted her eyes only to one side, thinking about her own comment.

“Prove it!” Ramses shouted.

“Maybe I will,” she returned

“All right, all right,” the dude detective interrupted. “Why did you steal his car?”

“I didn’t steal anything,” Mateo defended. “You’re the one who stole it.”

“Is this true?” the detective’s eyes teared up as he was looking over at his partner.

“No, they’re joking,” she insisted. She looked back over at Mateo. “You are, aren’t you?” She sighed, and went over to sit in a chair against the back wall.

“Where were you last night?” the guy went on to ask.

Sanchez came back over, and pointed at Mateo. “You know where I was!”

“Don’t you lie to me!” the other guy urged.

She mouthed his words as he was saying them, then grabbed the evidence bag from the table to take it back over to her little wall chair. Meanwhile, the man nodded with a smirk on his face. “We got you. Your partner confessed. He’s in the other room right now, giving you up.”

“My partner,” Mateo asked, “who’s sitting right next to me?”

“That’s the one,” the detective corroborated, still smug.

“Well, I’m giving him up,” Mateo decided. “He stole my pencil in first grade.”

Both of the detectives’ eyes widened. “He is?” they asked, perfectly in sync. They scowled at Ramses. “We’ve been looking for you for years, you..son of a bitch!”

Mateo just remembered something else, from a movie that didn’t exist in this reality, but did in the real one. “I think there’s been some kind of mistake. We’re actually supposed to be getting out of jail today, not going into it.” Could this even work?

“Ugh,” Sanchez said. “You idiots.” She started to undo their handcuffs. “Come on.” She led them out of the room, and to the exit without any further issue.

“Need a ride?” a voice asked from the wall as they were passing by. It was Pacey. “My company specializes in that. I’m kind of a big deal.”

“Your computer simulation is breaking down,” Ramses gloated at him.

Pacey chuckled once. “It’s not a computer simulation, and it’s breaking because I let go of the wheel.”

“So it was you,” Mateo accused, “this whole time.”

“Depends on what you mean by it,” Pacey reasoned. “Some things were real, some things were scripted.”

“Who am I?” Mateo asked. “Who are we? What did you take from us?”

“I didn’t take who you were,” Pacey started to explain. “You’re in love with Leona, and Olimpia. Romana is your daughter, and Ramses is your friend, as are the Waltons...though, they’re not exactly twins; it’s more complicated than that.”

“Marie is four years older than Angela,” Mateo recalled.

“Heh. Yeah. Time, right?”

“What did you do?” Boyd pressed.

“I held them accountable for their actions,” Pacey said. “And you? You’re just a dick. I consider bringing you in here to be a public service. A bonus.”

“Let us out,” Mateo ordered.

“Yeah, I will,” Pacey agreed. “This dome was broken as soon as you went on your joyride. If I had let the scenario play out, you would have ended up in jail, and that’s not really what I want. I could have reset the premise, but it’s clear that Underburg just isn’t working. I’ll be moving you somewhere else, however, I’m not sure where yet.”

“The dome,” Mateo said out loud. That triggered something in his mind. His memories weren’t flooding back in, but a few of them were squeezing through the barrier. Dome. Dome, dome, dome, dome, dome. “Castlebourne. We never left.”

Pacey was surprised, but not shocked. “Oh. I need to tweak my memory suppressing machine yet again. Your brains; I can’t figure them out. Your stronger than you should be. But to clarify, you’re not technically on Castlebourne, so don’t expect Hrockas or Bran to swoop in and save the day. Ain’t nobody here but us chickens. And the androids,” he added.

“So, it really isn’t a virtual construct,” Ramses determined. “We were wrong. This is base reality.”

“It’s a reality,” Pacey corrected. “There’s no such thing as base reality. It’s all about your perspective. Are you but ones and zeros on a chip? No. Never were. Never crossed my mind to do it like that. Probably wouldn’t work very well because of your patterns.”

“So our patterns are intact?” Mateo was remembering more about their real lives.

Pacey nodded. “You jump forward in time every day. But I mess with your memories on an as-needed basis. Sometimes you think it’s been a day, and sometimes a few weeks. It just depends on what I need, and how much I’m willing to fill in to account for the extra time that never really happened.”

“Why are you doing this?” Boyd asked, basically the same question as before, just worded a little differently.

“Half-punishment, half-reward. You’ve all done enough. Buddy, you’ve done enough bad. I took you out of the timeline in my own way, because while the rest of you have done some good, you’ve also been meddlesome. Just stay here, and no harm will come to you. Just accept your new reality, and live your life.”

Mateo listened to Pacey’s words carefully, all the while also remembering where they knew him from in the first place. But if this guy knew the first thing about them, he wouldn’t be asking such a dumb thing of them. None of them was the type to roll over, and let someone dictate their lives. “No.”

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