Microstory 1864: That’s It

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Here’s a story for ya. You can either choose to believe it or not, but I’m telling you, it happened, and it happened to me. My father and his father did not have a good relationship. According to what little my mother was able to relay to me, they fought all the time when he was young, and then they just stopped talking completely. I don’t know what they were so angry at each other over, but whatever it was, it’s the reason I never met my grandfather. When he died, he left no one to go to his funeral, let alone plan it. I decided to take up the responsibility of putting him to rest. Because hey, if my dad wouldn’t tell me what the guy did that was so wrong, he couldn’t expect me to hate him as much as he did. Four hundred bucks gets you a bag of your loved one’s ashes, and that’s pretty much it. I didn’t hold a service, and I didn’t buy a fancy urn. I just kept it in the cardboard box that the guy at the morgue went out of his way to tell me was included free of charge, and walked away with the rest of his personal effects. And when I say effects, I really just mean the one thing. Besides his pajamas—which he died in, and I didn’t want back—the only possession he had was a key around his neck. Per the paperwork, he lived only a few blocks from my childhood home, which makes the whole thing even sadder. I took that key, drove to my grandfather’s house, and unlocked the door. The place was immaculate. No dust, no dirt, no smudges on the windows. It looked like it had just been cleaned, but it couldn’t have, because it was missing the smell of cleaning chemicals. Oh, and everything else. Like the man himself, the only thing in the house was a key, hanging from the chain for the entryway light. I tried it on every interior door, but it didn’t work anywhere. It didn’t even fit. I had to investigate, which was harder back then, because my phone couldn’t magically spit out information about it just by taking a picture, like my grandson’s does. He showed me that once.

I went to three locksmiths until one happened to recognize it. It belonged to a storage facility on the edge of town. Most facilities require that the renter use their own lock, but this particular location prided itself in excellent security. Their keys couldn’t be copied, and you couldn’t use it unless you were already on the list of people allowed to access the unit. Still, I figured I might as well go check it out in case they made an exception. They didn’t have to. Their records showed that I was on the list, as was my grandfather, and nobody else. He left this all for me. Whatever was in there, it must have been pretty special. Was it a pristine collection of rare figurines worth millions? Did he just leave me a chest of actual millions? Could it be a creepy, ominous freezer, inside of which was the dead body of his archnemesis? I just kept thinking of all the amazing things that could be waiting for me, and nothing was even close to what I ended up finding when I opened that roll up door. Was this it? I was about to run back to the office to ask for a flashlight, but the guy who signed me in had followed me, and had one at the ready. I switched it on, and shined it all over the unit. “Any secret entrances?” I asked. No, this was it. Both of the neighboring units were recently emptied, in between renters. This. Was. It. On the floor in the center of the unit was a key, like someone had dropped it without noticing. But it wasn’t just any key. It was the key to my parents’ house. It looked exactly like the one on my keychain. All that anticipation just to learn that my mom had given him access to our house in case of emergency, and he had never used it. That’s it.

Microstory 1860: Beater

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I still remember the day my dads bought the truck of my older brother’s dreams. It was a surprise, but papa had to be out of town for the week, so father needed my help to pull it off. I was too young to drive on my own, but we did it anyway, because we lived in a rural area, and nobody cared. Obviously, I drove the old beater from the dealership, not the new one. He then had me hide it behind the barn. When I pointed out that he ought to hide the new one, he just laughed. Of course, my brother was getting the hand-me-down, and father just bought himself a brand new luxury vehicle. But man, my brother took care of that ol’ thing. He scavenged for replacement parts, and installed them himself. He spent every free moment fixing it up until it looked so good, our dads almost wished they could switch. It wasn’t originally designed for off-roading, but by the time he was finished repairing it, it was capable of handling some of the worst terrain. I always admired my brother’s patience and determination, and I loved that truck about as much as he did, though for me, I imagine it had more to do with how much I loved him. He could have used it to drive away from us, but he never didn’t come back. We stayed best friends throughout our whole lives, even after he went to college, even after we met our husbands. We both left the farm, but stayed in town, and ended up at the same retirement home, though I never made it to assisted living, which is where he died. His kids didn’t have any strong feelings about the truck, which was good, because he left it to me in his will. It was good timing too, because everyone figured I had a few months of driving in me before I would have to give it up. But like I said, it won’t come to that.

To honor his memory, I’ve driven up the side of a mountain that most cars can’t survive. They just don’t come with the features they need to hold onto the ground at such steep angles. I believed my brother’s truck—my truck—was well-equipped, and I began to drive up here with no fear. They let me take a small portion of his ashes to spread at my own discretion. This is the perfect place to let a part of him rest. He loved to watch the sun rise and set. From here, he would be able to see both. Unfortunately, I was really more thinking of how good the truck was after it was first restored. It was already old back then, and now, it’s very worn out. Yeah, he kept working on it, but then he got old too, and at some point, there is nothing you can do anymore. It has almost a million miles on it; my God, I really should not be up here. Admittedly, I didn’t think it all the way through—because I’ve also gotten old, and I was never exactly an action hero—it just seemed like a beautiful gesture. I don't scream as I feel the truck tip back past the point of no return. I suppose I’ve been doing this whole life thing for so long that I just generally don’t fear dangerous situations anymore. Still, I don’t have a death wish, so as I’m hanging here, I try to strategize a way out. The problem is, it’s not over. I’ve triggered some kind of landslide that sends me tumbling down, and down, and down. This is when the real beating happens. Rocks fly in through the open window, and attack my face. I’m too weak to keep my arms close against my chest, so they bounce around the steering wheel, stick, and rearview mirror. I can feel my bones cracking, and blood filling up my mouth. I tell you all this, not to gross you out, but to assure you that I don’t interpret any of this as pain. If I had to go out some way, this is at least a funny, tragic story, and I think my brother would have gotten a kick out of it.

Microstory 1764: Phoenix Industry

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I’ve had a monopoly in my industry for the last two years. I had to hire a team of lawyers to protect me, so the government couldn’t come in and confiscate my property. Back when I was just a crematorium operator, I gave my administrator the task of finding me a new furnace. When the machine came in, I assumed she had bought something without going through me first, but it wasn’t long before I learned that she had had nothing to do with it. She’s trustworthy, but as lazy as I am, so she hadn’t even gotten around to starting her research. We never did figure out where the new furnace came from, and that’s kind of a big deal. Not only is it weird—and worrisome that someone had the ability to charge my company credit card without authorization—but it also appears to be unique. They call it the Phornax, which after I used it, I realized was a combination of the Latin word for furnace, fornax and phoenix. You see, it brings people back to life. It doesn’t matter if they’ve already been cremated, or if they’ve been dead for a long time. Any dead person I place in here will come out brand new in a few hours. There doesn’t even appear to be any side effects, like an insatiable hunger for human brains, or neurological issues. In fact, they usually return healthier than they were when they died. It cures them of all maladies and other medical conditions. The only caveat is that I do need all of the remains. I’ve tried to bring back someone with only a portion of their ashes, because part of it was spread into the ocean. It did not turn out right. I’ve seen a lot of disgusting things in this business, but I retched the most I ever had the day I opened that door, and found a horrific pile of boney goo of a man with incomplete cremains. Since then, I’ve been adamant about doing my due diligence.

I do charge for my services, but even though no one else can do what I do, I think I keep my prices fair, and I base them off of tax brackets. The rich pay handsomely, and that supplements the loss of income from my discounted rates, and my pro bono work. I work hard at this, and it’s not easy. I only take Saturdays off to rest. I shouldn’t even be in the office right now, but my administrator is on vacation, and there are a few records I have to verify. As I’m standing at her desk, trying to figure out her filing system, a man walks in. The door was supposed to be locked, so I’m not sure what happened there. Somehow I know that this is him. This is the man responsible for my furnace gift. I don’t know if he just works for a secret cabal, or if he’s straight up the devil, but I can tell that he’s involved. He confirms as much when he recites the full serial number of the Phornax, which he wouldn’t have known if he was just some rando off the street. I ask him why he did this, and he claims that this was all a test run. He and his people needed a way to assess whether my species was ready for the privilege of immortality. This was a great way to do that, because the process is irreproducible, so I’ve not been able to get around to helping all of the over hundred billion people who have died in history. He tells me he doesn’t like the results, and that he’s taking the furnace back. I beg him not to, that we deserve a second chance, but he refuses. I’m not a violent man, but I feel compelled to try to stop him physically. In the struggle, I somehow end up inside the Phornax. “Fine,” he says, before switching it on. I scream in pain as the fire overwhelms me. I break myself out hours later. I had always wondered what would happen if you put a living organism in here. It appears to give people superstrength. What else, though?

Microstory 1737: Phornax

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I received my new furnace yesterday. No, this is not the furnace you keep in your house. I own a crematorium. It’s our job to make sure that your loved ones rest in peace, according to their wishes. I have a little bit of help with the administrative stuff, and customer-facing responsibilities, but I pretty much run this myself. I come in when I please, and work at my own pace. It takes some time for people to schedule funerals and memorials services, because friends and family have to come from out of town, so it’s not like I’m ever on a time crunch. I got into this industry because I knew I could do it. More to the point, I knew I could stomach it. I’m not a sociopath, but death has never bothered me. It’s an important and inevitable fact of life, and I’m happy to do whatever I can to help ease people’s pain. Better I deal with all the dead bodies and cremains so someone who hates it doesn’t have to. All that’s been missing up until now is some decent equipment, which it looks like that is what has come in. I had my receptionist look into the newest and most affordable models, but I didn’t actually ask her to order anything for me yet. Anyway, I trust her, so I’m sure this one will be fine. It certainly looks nice. I’ve already seen the line item on the expense sheet, so she apparently took that affordability mandate seriously. It’s called the Phornax, which I imagine is just a stylization of the word fornax, meaning furnace. I read the instructions, and most of it seems standard. I won’t have to learn anything new. I will say that it’s rated to take about twice as long as my last furnace, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I imagine that’s where the affordability comes in. It must be designed for energy efficiency, not speed.

Once I have it installed, I decide to test it on my next subject. Here we have a Mrs. Pollyanna Bartolotti. Forty-two years old, widow, used to work as a dental hygienist. She died of complications from something called takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Her husband, a tractor dealer died recently, so that was probably her ultimate cause of death. It’s also known as broken-heart syndrome. I place her in the furnace, turn it on, and leave to binge seven episodes of this show from fifteen years ago that I just discovered. When I stop to take a pee break in the middle of the last one, I hear a banging downstairs. Great, it’s a horror movie, and I’m about to die. I creep back down to the basement, and open the furnace, where I find a perfectly healthy and alive Pollyanna Bartolotti. She’s freaking out and confused. Now I know why they call it the Phornax. It’s a pun. I’ve seen this movie before, though. They don’t come back right. If I’m not careful, I could spend the next eighty minutes running for my life from evil zombies—except we don’t call them zombies. She definitely doesn’t act like one. She’s coherent, and everything. I explain to her what little I know, just hoping she doesn’t suddenly jump up and try to eat my face. She eventually starts begging me to do the same thing for her husband. But he’s been cremated already, I remember, so I don’t know if it’s possible. Still, it can’t hurt to try. She gives me a key to her apartment, so I can steal the urn, and come back to give it a shot. I’m surprised to find it works. It actually works. The damn thing must indeed cremate the body first, and then spend the rest of the time reconstituting the cremains. He’s just as pleasant and grateful as she was. I wait for them to turn evil over the next six months, but they never do. So now I’m no longer in the death business. I’m in the phoenix business. Come on in. Let’s see what we can do for your late grandmother.

Extremus: Year 9

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The fire was not without its consequences, obviously. Omega was placed in MedHock for his actions while an investigation went underway. As for the raw materials, they were fine, albeit a bit melty. They were going to be moulded and adapted as needed anyway, so the Frontrunner project was able to continue, mostly unimpeded. A body was recovered from the shuttle that appeared in section four of the cargo bay. A simple DNA test showed that it was Elder Caverness, presumably having returned from wherever it was he went six years ago. There was no telling how much time had passed for him, or where he had been. And since he was dead, he couldn’t tell them what happened to Rita, or Airlock Karen. No other remains were found inside the shuttle.

Omega was not in some kind of catatonic state, but he remained completely silent for nearly a year. Halan came up with this idea to have the robot who delivered him food refuse to let go of it unless Omega verbally asked for it, but that didn’t work. Omega kept his mouth shut, and just began to starve. He was too traumatized by what he did. Today, they try a different approach. They need answers, and there may only be one person in the universe who can get it out of him. It’s probably going to traumatize him more, but it’s their last resort. A hologram of Old Man appears in Omega’s cell. It doesn’t say anything, and finally, Omega speaks. “You’re old again.”

“I am as I was when I died,” Hologram!Elder explains.

“You’re the one who killed him,” Omega contends. “Don’t act like it bothers you.”

“I did not kill myself,” Hologram!Elder argues. “You engaged the scorch protocol.”

“Because you told me to!”

“Why would I do that?”

Omega considered the possibilities. “I imagine you didn’t want any competition. You probably saw him as a threat to your survival. If the real Elder returned, what would he do to the uploaded consciousness he left behind?”

“Uploaded consciousness!” Halan shouts. He rounds the corner, and approaches the cell. “What is this about an uploaded consciousness?”

Omega literally slams his lips shut.

“No,” the Captain says, hovering his finger over his watch. “You keep talking, or I’m transporting you to the vacuum.”

“You would never,” Omega insists.

Halan sighs with relief. “Now we don’t have to find out. Explain. What uploaded consciousness are you talking about?”

Omega points to what he still doesn’t know to be a hologram. “I know you can’t see him, but Old Man is standing right there. He’s inside my head. He’s actually inside the computer system, but he appears to me, because I altered my DNA to match his. I was hoping he would go away when I changed my DNA back, but he’s returned anyway.”

“Computer, end program,” Halan orders, causing the hologram to flicker and disappear.

Omega regards the space he was once occupying in horror. “That wasn’t really him? It was just a simulation?”

“Correct,” Halan confirms. “I thought that you might choose to communicate with the person you killed. I had no idea that he was the one who convinced you to do it in the first place. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“He finally explained who he was at the launch,” Omega reveals. “I got caught up in his claims about something dangerous coming from the section four mission. I thought it was gonna be some kind of contagion from the planet the drone landed on. I thought I was saving us. Now I realize he just didn’t want the real version of him to come back to Extremus.”

“Why did you not recognize him immediately when the hallucinations first began?” Halan questions.

“He didn’t look like himself,” Omega clarifies. “I’m sure he did that for this very reason, so no one would be able to help me.”

Halan shakes his head as he’s processing this new information. “I wish you hadn’t changed your DNA back. There’s a genetic lock on that little ship. Only Old Man is able to access the logs. We need to figure out where he was, and how he got back.” He waves his watch in front of the cell lock. The gate slides open. “Now that I know the truth, I can help you.”

“I’m not forgiven,” Omega says, not in the form of a question. “I still killed someone, unusual circumstances notwithstanding.”

“As Captain, I have every right to pardon you. You were under the influence of a powerful external entity. We’ll get rid of him soon enough, but only after he explains himself further. Rewrite your DNA for us yet again, and let that be your first step on the road to redemption.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.” Omega curls up tighter on the bed, even as the door remains opened.

“In hock or not, you are still under my command, and that is an order.”

Omega lays down and rolls over to face the back wall. “I’ll need a few days to make the transition. I’m more comfortable here than I ever was in my original quarters.”

Over the course of the next three days, engineers attempt to look for this uploaded version of Elder in the system, but they come up with nothing. He’s probably keeping himself contained, rather than spreading his consciousness out. It’s harder to find the code when it can move around to avoid detection. He likely doesn’t have any intention of taking over the whole vessel, but if he ever tries, they will be ready for him. Now that Omega is sufficiently Old Man on a genetic level, Halan goes back down to MedHock to retrieve him. The door was left open, but still, Omega never left. He continues to do the right thing, and since he’s become aware of how susceptible he is to persuasion, he plans on being particularly leery of others.

Lead Engineer Veca Ocean is sitting in the shuttle in her hazmat suit. She’s not wearing protective headgear, or a respirator. It’s mostly just to keep her clothes clean of the soot and ash. The internal computer system appears to be fairly intact. It’s a sophisticated ship, meaning it took time and resources to complete. As Omega enters the hatchway, it begins to power up on its own, responding to his presence. “Welcome back, Dr. Caverness,” the AI says.

“On screen,” Omega orders. The main menu of the computer appears on the HUD. “Date of manufacturing.” September 9, 2273 appears on the screen. “Power specifications.” Antimatter drive for propulsion, fusion for internal systems, and temporal energy for temporal displacement. “What is your personal timeline?” The shuttle went from October 31, 2273 to March 18, 2272, and then it continued on in realtime from there.

“So he did go back in time,” Veca noted. “It was a year and a half before he built the shuttle, so he had to take it at least that far back to make it to the rendezvous point in enough time. He was probably flying just ahead of us this whole time, and we didn’t even know it.

“Why did he wait to show up now?” Halan asks. “He could have rendezvoused with us essentially instantaneously. Hell, he could have crossed his own timeline.”

“Computer, answer his question,” Omega commands.

“Unknown,” it answers simply.

Veca takes it upon herself to look through the logs manually. Then she gets up and paces while she thinks it through. “So he lands on a planet. It’s either habitable, or he has some way of surviving using that bag he was carrying at the time. At some point, he builds a shuttle, probably using nanotech in his bag. He integrates it with a time machine so he can get back to Extremus, but he doesn’t do so for another five years. What was he doing all that time? He was the only one in here, so if the other two survived the initial transport, they didn’t come with him. What happened? Did he do something to them? Did they catch a cold and die?”

“Computer, answer her questions,” Omega repeats.

“Unknown,” it repeats.

“Keep digging,” Halan orders. “I’m going to go monitor the final Frontrunner launch. We’re doing them with a lot less fanfare than the mining automators.”

“Thank you, sir,” Omega says genuinely.

He stops and looks at Omega, unsure whether he should try to give him some advice, or what. Instead, he nods professionally, and moves on.

Omega steps down from the shuttle, and watches the Captain leave, waiting to make sure he gets all the way out of earshot. Then he turns back around. “Is this vessel reparable?”

“What?”

“You’ve spent time assessing the damage. Can you make it work again?”

“With Valencia’s help, probably, why?” Veca says.

“We may need it in the future.”

She squints her eyes, and looks at him with suspicion. “What do you have planned?”

“Nothing. Very much so nothing. Until I can be sure that this Old Man program is outta my head, I can’t be trusted with anything. I’m going back to my cell.”

“Not so fast,” Elder’s avatar says, appearing before him. “You have to stop the Frontrunner launch.”

Ansutah was first formed thousands of years before the humans living there managed to escape back to their home universe. In that time, a lot less had changed than people might expect. The human population began when a handful of them found themselves stranded. And it was those castaways that held the traditions of before together. They maintained written records of Earthan history, and passed down all the knowledge they kept with them to the later generations, eventually numbering in the billions. Some information was lost, yes, but most of it remained intact. It was important to them. It was important that they not forget where they came from, or what it took to get there. English never fell out of favor, and neither did American Sign Language. Unlike on Earth, it was a mandatory skill that every child studied, and this standard remained even after the great migration to Gatewood. Being a genius, Omega managed to learn it fairly quickly, even though he had no obligation to.

He signs behind his back as he speaks to the Elder program, hoping that Veca is watching from inside the shuttle. This is their chance to capture the program, isolate it from the rest of the system, and prevent it from causing Extremus problems. She must see his warnings, for she activates her emergency teleporter, and jumps to the bridge.

The Elder program chuckles. “I know what you just said to your little friend in there. Come on out, Veca. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Confused, Omega looks back into the shuttle. No, she’s not there anymore. She left. “Can she hear you?”

“I can always make anyone hear me. Did you think you were special? No, I just chose you because your altered DNA gave you some permissions other people don’t have, and you were susceptible to my manipulation.”

“So what you’re saying is I am special.”

He smiles sarcastically. “Right. Seriously, Veca, everything will be all right.”

Now Omega is the one who chuckles. “Elder, there is no one in that shuttle.”

“I saw her go in there,” the program argues. “You and the Captain followed, and then the Captain came out, and then you came out. But she never did.”

“Can’t you tell that she’s not in there?” Omega questions, trying to understand.

The program doesn’t answer.

“You can’t,” he realizes. “It’s shielded. The real you shielded it from you.”

He’s getting angry. “I am the real me!”

Omega steps back onto the ramp, but sticks his head out. “Can you see me now? Do I just look like a floating head to you? I saw a meteorologist do this once with a green dress.”

The Elder program purses his lips, not wanting to confirm his limitations, but confirming them just the same. “Whatever. Minor blindspot. What are you gonna do, transfer ship controls to this little shuttle?” he asks with a yawn. Generally speaking, computer programs don’t need to yawn.

Omega steps back down the ramp. “No. I’m just the distraction.”

The program begins to nod off, not understanding what’s happening to him. “What did you do? I feel...trapped.”

“We’re not gonna kill you,” Omega promises. “You just can’t be allowed to go wherever you want anymore.”

“No.” He’s struggling to stay awake. “You can’t do this. I haven’t told you yet.”

“Told me what?”

The Elder program gets down on his hands and knees, but he’s only staving off the inevitable. “I figured out why my corporeal self tainted the recall device that was supposed to send you and Airlock Karen back to Gatewood.”

“You can tell us later,” Omega says. “As soon as we’re sure you won’t be able to access anything we don’t want you to.”

“You silly fool,” the Elder program accuses. “They’re not sedating me. They are killing me. I’m trying to hold on, but I’m losing control. It’s almost over.”

“I didn’t know,” Omega assures him. “I’m sorry.”

“I die...knowing that you will never know...who hired Old Man...to kill the Captain.” He falls to his virtual face, and disappears.

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