Microstory 2408: Sportsdome

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Sports. Have you heard of them? Well, I like them. I’m pretty old. I was, in fact, one of the oldest people still physically capable of being upgraded enough to stick around back when life extension was in its relative infancy. I remember taking the train all around the country to see baseball games. I managed to see at least one major league game in every stadium. As the centuries went by, I watched as they faded from popularity. Some of them were outright banned—or effectively neutered—due to laws against violence. Remember hockey? That was basically just an excuse to fight on the ice. The whole act of hitting a puck into a net was more secondary to that urge to express one’s aggression and manhood. I never liked it, but they got it here on Castlebourne. They have every single sport somewhere here. Name one, they got it. Even the really obscure or really old ones that I hadn’t even thought of when I was growing up, still believing that I would die one day. Anyway, I think this dome is pretty cool, and I intend to spend a lot more time here. Unfortunately, nearly all of the players are androids, because we’re still in the early days of this planet, and like I said, sports in general have dimmed in popularity. It’s kind of creepy, because there was this glitch when I first showed up. They weren’t expecting me, and they didn’t sense my presence right away. Obviously, these things aren’t just playing games for no one to watch. They only do it when a visitor is around to see it. So there I was, walking onto the football pitch, and the androids were just standing there, staring into space. Of course, they weren’t staring, they were in dormant mode, but since they’re so lifelike, it looked really scary and unsettling. So that was just a little issue that I think will get worked out if people actually start to come here and see what all this stuff is about! Really try to give it a chance. I know it sounds so quaint. I mean, how interesting could it be to watch 22 people kick a ball back and forth? It’s a lot more nuanced. Just because you’re not in a virtual reality where the rules to some random game some random guy randomly came up with take ten years to learn doesn’t mean it’s not fun to watch. If you swing by, I’m sure we can find you something that you’ll like. For now, I’m going to see what jai alai is like. We didn’t have that when I was a young one.

Microstory 2097: I Even Did Poorly in English

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What have I done with my life? Well, a lot of things. I have a ton of interests, but I’ve never really wanted to be an expert in anything, save for writing. But first, here’s a list of things that I’ve done that I didn’t like, or at least don’t anymore. I was a gymnast from childhood, up until my senior year of high school. I didn’t like to compete, and eventually only kept going because that’s what I was used to doing. I regret not being more self-aware, and realizing how it was a really good excuse to work out. Maybe then I would have continued to do something to keep my fitness up after graduating. I played baseball for a few years too, but I absolutely hate sports, and I quit as soon as my parents let me. I took golf lessons later, and ran a mile outside of a school program. Apparently, my parents were trying to find my skills and passion, and I was not smart enough to tell them that these things weren’t it. I would go on to run a 5K as an adult, but that was to lose weight, and I never wanted to do it again. I was on the dive and swim team all through high school, which my parents considered a natural extension of my experience as a gymnast, but I hated that too. After my first practice, I got in the car, and asked to let me quit right away, because the coach was making all divers swim to fill out the team. By the time my high school career was over, I preferred to swim, but I was literally the only diver on the team by then, and I guess I had to finish what I started anyway. I’m not a musician either. I played the piano for several years, and quit when my teacher died. My excuse at the time was that I didn’t want to think about trying to find a new teacher, but I think I can admit now that I always hated it as much as anything, and I was never good at it. I severely regret the amount of money my parents spent on a piano that’s no longer used, however much that was.

I was terrible in school, and that was annoying, because I wasn’t cool either, so everyone assumed that I was a nerd, but I wasn’t anything. I even did poorly in English, and related subjects. The way I see it, I’m more of a storyteller than a wordsmith. Words are just my medium, because I also have an ugly voice, but I think I would prefer to produce movies on the creative side than literally write the screenplays. After I graduated from college, in pursuit of my writing career, I started to do a lot more research, and branch out into subjects that I never thought I would try. I like architecture. Before I ended up here, I would use software to design spaceships, and other structures, from my stories, even though I never planned to release these illustrations publicly. I found it to be a soothing task, even when it was frustrating. I like to watch educational videos online for futuristic and technological subjects, and also some more grounded topics. Power generation, conversion, and storage; engineering; anatomy, physiology, medicine, psychology, and neurology; especially evolutionary biology; and even economics are some of my other random interests. I’m particularly invested in ethics, because I see bad ethics all the time, and also logic, because neurotypicals are so wrong so much of the time. I like to study these subjects, and pretend that I can retain the information presented to me, but honestly, I don’t remember hardly any of it, so they’re mostly good for killing time. Of course, I’ve done lots of other things, but these are the basics. Join me tomorrow, where I’ll discuss where I’ve lived, and where I’ve been.

Microstory 2059: What If I Invented Football

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I think I made a mistake, committing myself to writing a new blog post every week day. If this were any other world, it would have been fine. I could have had enough adventures to last a lifetime. But not here. There’s nothing to watch, nothing to read. The garden hasn’t called me back about a job, and I’m resisting the urge to call them about it. I know you’re allowed to do that at some point, but I can’t remember what my father taught me is a good waiting period. Even if I could recall, this is a different Earth. They have different conventions. I would ask my landlord, but she’s been at work for the last few days, and medical professions tend to function differently than other industries anyway, so she might not know the answer. They don’t do many sports here, if you even have a concept for what I’m talking about. You have competitions, usually in the racing variety, but nothing more than that. I absolutely hate sports, but I would make an exception just to break up the tedium. Besides, it speaks to how boring this place is. I’m going to have to occupy myself with things that you can do anywhere with an atmosphere, and enough space to move around. The geography must be the same, so hiking is number one priority right now. Even if no one else on the planet does it too, they can’t stop me from it, and it will be just as fulfilling as it would be anywhere. I used to do a lot of walking for exercise. Once I’ve stimulated my mind enough, maybe I can branch out into other things. What if I invented football? How would these people react to it? That’s not the issue, I don’t know how to make things like that. What shape is on the balls? Hexagons? Pentagons? Whatever, I’m goin’ out. Don’t wait up.

Microstory 1859: Life Coach

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When you were a kid, did anyone ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up? I’m sure at least one person did, it’s such a common question. This world is so obsessed with placing value on people based on what they do for work, how hard they work at it, and how far they go because of it. I never put much stock into this, to use a relevant metaphor. If the idea behind it is to make the money you need to live a happy life, then I get it, but work itself has no value. And what should it matter what your actual job is, as long as it’s positive, and you’re generally satisfied with your life—because, or in spite of, it? I was first asked this question when I was pretty young. Most of the kids answered with the usual suspects; astronaut, rockstar, professional athlete. A few others wanted to own their own businesses, but even those were predictable, like an ice cream shop, or a dance studio. I guess that second one’s pretty cool, and if I recall correctly, he actually went on to do that. Me, I had trouble giving my answer. Back then, the phrase life coach wasn’t a thing, so even if I had come up with the term myself, my teacher wouldn’t have been able to understand. It was my dream to help others realize their own dreams, in whatever form that might take. Fortunately, this wasn’t a graded assignment, for if it had been, I surely would have failed, because I just could not explain the idea. Of course now, it’s really easy. You may not garner anyone’s respect if you tell them that’s what you do, but at least they’ll grasp the concept. I’ll tell you, though, that I’m not one of those new age, meditate into the universe, and it will return what you want kind of people. I require my clients to have realistic and clearly defined goals in mind. I can’t promise fame and fortune, but I guarantee reasonable results.

Starting out was really tough, and I relied on my parents’ help to survive while I was getting off the ground. They were more supportive of me than they should have been, but also not blindly accepting. They helped me make it a reality by setting clear expectations for myself. People sometimes say that I was the first life coach, but my mom would have to assume that title, because she coached me on how to coach others. As I said, people back then didn’t know what I was selling, so word of mouth was the only way it got going. My first few clients were women who were looking for a nice man to marry. I didn’t explicitly spurn the idea of just being a matchmaker, but I didn’t want to let that become my whole business. I wanted a diversity of clients. Then I met a guy who changed everything. All he wanted to do was be better at communicating with people. I imagine he would have been diagnosed with a social disorder had he been born later in the timeline. He found it quite difficult to socialize with other people, and to sit for job interviews. He needed to learn basic skills that other people take for granted, and that was perfect, because I had no trouble with those, and I knew I could teach him. He ended up being so good at these things—because he really just needed to slip out of his shell—that he created more and more business for me. I shed my potentially dangerous identity as a matchmaker, and started pulling in all sorts of clients. One of them wanted help finding a trustworthy math tutor for her son. Another needed to raise funds for a guitar, so he could learn to play. I did a lot with education. Back then, you couldn’t just search the internet for a teacher. There’s no end to this story; this is just what I did with my life, and I can go to the big sleep now, fulfilled and grateful to the world.

Microstory 1817: Vector

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A lot of people think I’m a dumb meathead, but just because I was good at sports doesn’t mean I didn’t exercise my brain. I’m actually really smart and well-read, but I chose not to go to an Ivy League school, because my family didn’t have the money for it. Of course now we know that I could have taken out loans, and had them paid off after my first vector season, but we couldn’t run that risk. Besides, I ended up becoming a professional vector player because of a series of events in my life, starting with birth, and being admitted to my state school somewhere in the middle. So no, I don’t walk around with that prestige, but I’m happy with my choices, and you can’t argue with the results. There was a reason that I did so well in sports. I possessed a naturally high degree of precision. I could hit or throw a ball exactly where I wanted it to go, at least as long as it was within an acceptable range. I didn’t have all that much strength, so yeah, I could throw it towards the moon, but it would never reach it. I did not exactly choose Vector so much as it chose me. I liked to play a lot of different sports, but when it became clear which one was on the path of least resistance, I took my opportunity. I worked really hard to show the scouts that I had what it took to do this for real. I could play every position, but I was mostly a grabber. For those who don’t know, the grabber is the one that’s blindfolded much of the time. I had to take direction from the caller, and find the balls scattered throughout the field. At that point, I could remove my blindfold, and pass it to the wielder. I did things a little differently, and built up a nice reputation.

Here’s the thing, the opposing team’s jacker is watching you at all times, and as soon as they see your eyes, they know you have a ball, and they come after you. If they reach you before you can pass the ball, you lose that ball, and have to find it all over again, and good hiders do not make that easy. That’s why I just never took my blindfold off. It’s a strategy that had never been employed until then, and one that no player replicated quite as well after I started it. Man, I knew where my wielder was, and the jackers, and even the shielders, even though I didn’t need to know that information. I kept my ear on the whole game, and could give you the play-by-play later even though my eyes were covered the whole time, and I was busy with my own job. I could covertly pick up that ball, and toss it over before anyone could stop me. I was sneaky about it too, sometimes pretending to have a ball when I didn’t. If a jacker tags you, and your pocket is empty, they incur a penalty, so they better be right. They learned to be real careful when I was on the other side, but it still didn’t usually do them any good. Yeah, I was a great player, but like all good things, it was destined to come to an end. My game partner, the caller, was my best friend. We had to have a good relationship, and a secret language, in order to communicate effectively without anyone else knowing what was going on. One night, he took me to dinner to tell me that I ought to think about stepping down, and letting a new generation take over. It was tough, being told that it was time for me to leave. I felt like I had a few good years in me. I chose to go through with it, and I think my fans respected my decision. Looking back, I'm grateful for the honesty, and wish I had told him as much. I loved being the star of the show, but he was right. There were so many great kids whose chances I was stealing just by sticking around. I kept enough money to live comfortably, then gave the rest to charity. I never married, nor had kids.

Microstory 1423: The First Mage Games

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Later Mage Selection Games would come with better organization, and a better understanding of how to measure a competitor’s potential to become a great town mage. That didn’t mean, however, that the first one went terribly. Well, at least it could have been worse. There were some bumps, and some mistakes they wish they could take back, but in the end, it got the job done, and all the winners went on to prove to be good choices. The source mages were careful to plan it out, so things wouldn’t just fall apart. They spent a great deal of time working on coming up with appropriate challenges, because they were going to have less help with it than they did for other aspects of the new government. While the Mage Protectorate was definitely going to be a democracy, that didn’t mean everyone had to be able to express their opinion about everything. They chose not to ask the people how they wanted to handle this competition. They didn’t even consult their experts all that much. If they alone couldn’t figure out what made someone worthy of being a mage, then they were not worthy of being mages either. Besides, letting a regular person design a challenge could put the entire process in danger. If the fastest runner on the high school cross country team, for instance, suggested every town mage had to be able to run a mile in five minutes, well, that person was obviously just setting themselves up to win. The source mages were the only ones entirely ineligible to compete, so they were the only ones capable of engineering it.

The contest would last the whole day, and be composed of a series of challenges, each testing various aspects of character. They didn’t come up with a list of character traits, though, and try to match each challenge with one trait. A given challenge could allow a competitor to exhibit multiple traits, and in different ways from each other. Some of them were physical in nature, while others were academic, and some were psychological or emotional. The scoring system proved to be, by far, the most difficult component to specify. Was athleticism more important than intelligence? Maybe, maybe not. They needed experience to understand which influenced time power aptitude the most, or if neither of them mattered. They didn’t have very many examples to go on, and they didn’t want a bunch of test subjects running around with powers, who had never gone through the competition. So, without this data, their best guess seemed to be their only option. They kind of had to surrender to the fact that the second time they tried this, in twenty years, was going to be better than the first. The town had to understand this as well, that nothing was going to be perfect. Even ignoring these issues, they didn’t know if they ought to only award points to the winner, or winners, or if losers simply received fewer points. The answer was obvious to most of the mages; just because a competitor wasn’t the best, didn’t mean they weren’t good at all. Few should be so bad at something that they received zero points for their effort. Still, how many points was a challenge worth, and how would they determine the increments of scale, and how they would rate a competitor’s performance with very little in the way of comparison? Standards. How would they set a standard, and how exactly would they know when someone reached, or surpassed it, and if someone surpassed it too greatly, did that just mean they needed to reexamine the standard? All of these questions took months to answer, and even then, as previously mentioned, the system proved to be less than ideal, and more importantly, not entirely fair. So the first Mage Games actually took place over the course of two days, which were separated by a month of repreperation time. They should have known that the best way to see how well the competition would go was to do a dry-run ahead of time. Even though history would remember the Mage Protectorate as having held four games total before it fell, there were technically five, but most agreed that the first one didn’t count.

Microstory 1325: Sports Man

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Sportscaster: I’m here with legendary athlete, Jools Hooper, a.k.a. Sports Man. He earned his nickname in 1987—by an avid fan, and six-year-old daughter of his new general manager—when he started playing for the Kansas Titanium. It was his third major league team over the course of his career, but he didn’t stop there. Many have attempted to interview Hooper, most to no avail. He’s always been too busy with his work, but he has an important announcement to make, and he’s agreed to let me...be the vehicle that transports his words to all of you. It is an honor just to be in your presence, Mr. Hopper.

Sports Man: Thank you, Sportscaster. I’m honored to be here as well. I’m a huge fan of your work.

Sportscaster: Oh dear me, Jools Hooper is a fan of my work. Did you hear that, everybody? Did you get that on camera? Ha-ha-ha. Anyway, before we get to your announcement, I would like to ask you a few questions, so the audience will have a better understanding of your background.

Sports Man: Certainly. Shoot, so to speak.

Sportscaster: After playing college basketball for Hillside University, you were immediately drafted into the Kansas City Cougars, right?

Sports Man: That’s right. I played for them for nine years. Basketball is my main game.

Sportscaster: What made you move over to association football?

Sports Man: Well, Sportscaster, that’s exactly why I haven’t done any interviews since. I literally don’t remember. That whole time in my life is a haze. I was doing a lot of drugs back then—no athletic enhancements, mind you—but I was well out of my mind, which is why I only played soccer for two seasons. I don’t recall why I switched sports, or how I joined the team, or anything about it. It was probably for a stupid reason, like a bet, or a prank that got out of hand.

Sportscaster: According to reports, you sobered up in 1984, but you didn’t start playing Vector until three years later. Tell me about that.

Sports Man: Recovery is a long process, and it never ends. I didn’t feel comfortable doing anything with my life until that billionaire announced he was founding an entirely new sport. I just knew I had to get into it. It’s funny; all that fame and applause got me into drugs when I was a baller, but sports helped me stay out of it later in life. I haven’t touched the stuff since.

Sportscaster: Well, that’s great. We’re all very glad you made your comeback. I know, when I’m having a bad day, I’ll throw on a tape of your 1993 tournament performance. You were so amazing.

Sports Man: It was a team effort; we all had to be really in sync.

Sportscaster: Of course. Moving on, you retired from Vector in 1999, at age fifty. Everyone thought you were done for good, but then you surprised us with a tennis run.

Sports Man: I loved tennis. It was such a new experience, ya know? I had always been on a team, but suddenly it was just me out there. Honestly, it made me really uncomfortable, which I think made for a great watch, which is why I stuck with it for five years. I like to entertain. I probably only quit that, because I was getting a little old.

Sportscaster: That’s when you discovered golf.

Sports Man: Yep. I went from two huge team sports to one that’s a little more individualistic, but still requires teamwork, to a completely individual sport with an opponent, to one that doesn’t require an opponent at all. Golf has been really great for me. It’s slow and methodical, which has been good for this 70-year-old.

Sportscaster: So, what’s next for Sports Man, Jools Hooper? I believe the general assumption is that you’re here to announce your retirement from sports altogether.

Sports Man: That is the rumor I’ve heard, but if that’s what you were hoping for, I’m afraid I will have to disappoint. I am indeed retiring, but not from sports; just golf. I’m going back to basketball. I aim to be the oldest player in association history. I’m currently a free agent, and I have a message for all managers...come at me.

Furor: Five People With Different Ideas (Part IX)

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Before they knew it, the City Frenzy was right upon them. There were a few things that needed to happen to prepare for the day of the race. Ace needed to separate himself from the group a little bit, so he could be ready to meet—supposedly for the first time—a very young and naïve Serkan Demir. This version of Serkan was living a normal life in Kansas City, oblivious to all things time travel, and trying to get ready for an athletic competition he had not trained for. Because of his current notoriety, the older and wiser version of Serkan had to be extra careful to stay out of sight, lest the camera collective notice a paradox of presence. Meanwhile, Slipstream was coordinating all the tracers, including those in the reserves, to clear the streets as much as possible. For a few years, they were the de facto police force in the metropolitan area, which had no official unifying force of its own. After they had helped remove gangs from power, and dramatically lower gun violence, they turned control back over to the real cops. Still, that wasn’t too long ago, and many civilians still recognized the tracers’ authority. Paige was responsible for protecting Serkan’s ignorant family. And Jesi was missing.

At the moment, Ace was tending to his future boyfriend. He had fallen on the ground the night before while training for the City Frenzy race, using unauthorized, and unethical, visual hindrance technology. He was only now waking up. “Where am I?”

“My apartment,” Ace said.

“Why am I not in the hospital?” Young!Serkan asked.

“Because they would have held you back, in case you had a concussion. You have a race to run.”

“How do you know about that?” Young!Serkan was getting nervous.

“You’re famous.” Ace directed his attention to his home automation system. “Thistle, turn on all screens.” The wall transformed from a blank, to a few different views. One screen was showing salmon spawning up river, while another a time lapse of clouds rolling overhead. A third had the news on mute.

“Could you unmute that?”

“Do what the man says, Thistle,” Ace said.

The news anchor was already in the middle of her story, “...like it’s going to be a lovely sunny and cool day for the ninth annual City Frenzy event. Hotels were booked up solid for weeks, as this will be the highest number of visitors ever recorded for this occasion. One of the biggest related stories is that three-time winner, Serkan Demir is returning for one final push before he ages out. He registered as a late-comer, here to fill in for his younger brother, who has reportedly fallen ill.”

“Mute that,” Ace said, deep in thought. That wasn’t right. Old!Serkan recalled the news story with pretty high detail. The news reported on odd weather events, reminiscent of the 2024 debacle with Keanu ‘Ōpūnui. Young!Serkan was also supposed to have gotten himself in a pre-Frenzy obstacle course race with a professional rival, who was then supposed to have become injured. Something had changed. This proved that history could be rewritten. Perhaps whatever Rothko Ladhiffe was going to do wasn’t actually ever going to happen after all.

“Thanks,” Young!Serkan said. “I don’t really like hearing people talk about me, even if it’s all good things.”

Ace was having trouble listening. “Yeah.”

“Well...you obviously already know my name. Could I have yours?”

“Horace Reaver.” He generally just went by Ace, but he was still trying to figure out how they changed the future, and what that meant for their mission to send Rothko back to prison.

Serkan wanted to say something else, but was interrupted by Ace’s phone ringing.

It was Slipstream, but he couldn’t say that in front of Young!Serkan. “Bo. What is it?” Jesi was finally back. “You found her?” Yes. “I’ll be right there.” What was he going to do with Young!Serkan, though? “He is, yes. I’ll take care of it.” He needed to usher the kid out of here, so he could go deal with this. “He’ll be fine. I’ll explain later. Where are you?” Back at the house. “Okay.”

“I think you’ll be okay,” Ace said to Young!Serkan, shutting his phone. He quickly started shoving some of his world-famous into a baggie. “You need some energy if you wanna win. I’m afraid I have to go take care of some business. You better call a car to Frenzy headquarters, or you’ll be late.”

“I understand,” Young!Serkan said, getting out of bed, and massaging his head.

“Whose blood is that?” Ace once he was back at the house.

Jesi reached down the neck of her shirt, and pulled the dog tags from her cleavage. They were even bloodier than her face. “I think you know.”

“What did you do?”

“I took the revenge that you couldn’t. I know you can’t thank me for it, but my soul is already damned, so I took care of it for you. I consider it a gift. I get that you don’t, and I think we should leave Paige out of it.”

“Ladonna threatened my child,” Ace began, “but she was a human being, and we don’t kill those.”

Jesi breathed deeply. “I..do.”

“I suppose you were wearing that terrible thing at the time, and it can’t be undone.”

“Dead is dead is dead is dead,” Jesi said.

“Take it off right now,” Ace ordered her.

Jesi started taking off her shirt.

“Not that,” Ace stopped her. “Well yeah, you probably should wash up if you ever want to go out in public, but I mean the Hundemarke.”

“Why would I ever go back in public again? I broke the rules. I left the time period, I hurt someone. Aren’t you sending me back to Beaver Haven?”

Ace decided to just take the dog tags back for himself. “I can still use you.” He tossed the deadly object back into the lockbox. “And when we’re done with Rothko, you and I are taking a trip back to, uhh...that crater place, and destroying the Hundemarke before it hurts anyone else.”

Jesi did start stripping completely. “Fine with me, as long as we keep it with us long enough to stop Rothko, should it come to that. Do I have permission to use your shower?”

Ace just gestured towards the bathroom.

Slipstream hadn’t said a word this whole time.

“You think I’m letting her off easy?”

She chuckled. “I made a lot of deals, with a lot of devils, when I was working for the Gunbenders. I wasn’t always proud of who was in bed with, but it got the goddamn job done.” True, conventional wisdom dictated you didn’t want to be on her bad side.

Ace’s phone rang again. “Serkie, you’re on speaker.”

“It’s already starting!” Old!Serkan shouted at them. “Things are getting weird downtown! Every door to every building north of eleventh street is missing!”

Ace went over and banged on the door to the bathroom, where the shower was running. “Sorry, you gotta cut this short, Jesi. We’re leaving right now.”

“I’m here,” Jesi said, walking into the hallway from the kitchen, fully clothed, and clean.

“How did you...?”

“I’m still in the shower,” Jesi explained. “I’m from twenty minutes in the future.”

“Does that mean...”

“I don’t know what happens,” she interrupted. “I was relaxing the whole time. Let’s go.”

The Jesi that was still in the bathroom yelled back, “I’ll be out in twenty minutes!”

The ride to downtown was awkward and slow, as this was one of the worst days for traffic of the year. They had to park several blocks away, but Slipstream had a monthly pass to a garage from an apparent real job she had in Crown Center, and a designated parking space of her own. “Who are you?” Jesi asked of her as they were stepping out of the car.

“I don’t know how to put this,” Slipstream replied, “but...I’m kind of a big deal.”

“Do you guys feel that?” Ace asked the group. “The air feels thicker.”

Jesi sniffed and smacked her lips. “It’s a little vegetably too. Is vegetably a word?”

“That’s not vegetables,” Slipstream realized. “That’s weed. The air is laced with marijuana.”

“Shit. Is everyone getting high? Even children?”

“Weed makes me slow, guys,” Slip warned them.

“It’s makes everyone slow.”

“Yeah, but like, speed is kinda my thing. It’s going to take us forever to get downtown.”

“I can help with that.” It was Doctor Mallory Hammer, whom Ace had only met in a parallel dimension. She was holding a medical bag in one hand, and a little plastic case in the other. She removed three injectors from the case, and tapped her finger under her chin. “Place it right here, and push the button on the other side. It’ll counteract the effects of the drugs.”

“You had these ready?” Ace asked, taking the injector.

“Mister Ladhiffe has been contaminating the air everywhere he goes for days, so Baxter and I have been working on it.”

“He wants the people to be docile and compliant,” Jesi explained.

“Well, on the bright side,” Dr. Hammer said, “the traditional cover-up story that there was a massive gas leak is almost true this time ‘round. I gotta go deliver more of these to key people. Stay safe.” She walked away.

“Can you two run?” Slipstream asked them.

“Can you run slowerly than usual?” Jesi asked in return.

“Done it before.” She ran off, forcing the other two to catch up.

Twenty minutes later, they were in the heart of the city. Serkan’s description didn’t really do it justice, or maybe things had gotten much worse since they last spoke. A restaurant was melting like a stick of butter in a microwave. A group of children’s hair was spontaneously shifting colors. They weren’t particularly bothered by it, but there parents were. Most of the cars were sliding down the street upside down, totally out of control of their drivers. A few wild animals were chasing each other up the side of a skyscraper, and a cloud looked like it was literally falling towards them. Two Frenzy racers Ace recognized, but couldn’t name, were struggling to wade through the sidewalk, which still looked like concrete, but moved like quicksand.

Ace, Slipstream, and Jesi stopped running now. The further they went down Walnut, the worse things got, so this was no time to be hasty. Most people were trying to get away from the chaos, so when the man at the center noticed three people heading right for him, he smiled villainously.

“Jesimula Utkin,” Rothko said, “It has been so long. How are you, my beautiful girl?”

“Even more beautiful than when we were kids,” she answered.

“That is the truth. You’re no Savitri, but I wouldn’t mind—”

“You best not finish that sentence,” Ace advised.

Rothko didn’t like being interrupted.

Slipstream stepped slightly in front of Ace, to protect him, wielding the special power-dampening cuffs.

“I was gonna say I wouldn’t mind taking her on the Bamboozler,” Rothko managed to say. That was some kind of ride at the amusement park. “Why don’t we go right now?”

With but a thought, Rothko turned the entire intersection into a thrill ride. The ground beneath Ace’s feet start spinning him around in a random pattern. Slipstream was spinning on a different path, as was Jesi. The few humans who hadn’t found a way to escape were experiencing the same thing. Several people just sliding along the road, criss-crossing each other, and sometimes falling down. Serkan suddenly appeared from up the street to join the ride, but only along the perimeter. He was locked in a cage, and never got within fifty feet of Rothko. He was holding the teleporter gun, which Hogarth had supposedly programmed to send any target directly to the intake area of Beaver Haven Prison. Every time he tried to target Rothko, though, he would unwillingly spin around, and lose tracking. He finally just decided to take a shot, and he might have hit Rothko too, but the time bullet started weaving around, just the people were. There was just no stopping the man. At least not without a secret weapon.

Paige used her power to teleport to appear out of nowhere, right in Serkan’s cage. She held up the Paradox Ticker, which was evidently designed to alter reality. In this case, she was using it to put things back to how they were meant to be. The cage faded away, freeing Serkan to run right up to Rothko, and finally suppress his powers. Everything stopped, leaving everyone to return to their original location before the ride began. Ace saw the time bullet Serkan had shot from the gun shift direction as well, and head right for Rothko. Unfortunately, Rothko saw it coming too, and used Serkan as a human shield. The love of Ace’s life disappeared, but not before Slipstream had covertly run up to him, and placed the cuffs right on his wrists before he could start using his powers again.

“Good,” Jesi said. “Let’s end this.” She removed a secret gun from her waist band, and pointed it at Rothko’s head. She walked forward with purpose.

“Jesi, don’t do this,” Ace begged her. “It’s over. He’s going back.”

“That’s not good enough,” Jesi said. “He’ll get out again.”

“You don’t even have the Hundemarke. This can all be—”

Jesi pulled the dog tags out of her cleavage once more. “I broke the rules again. I really am sorry. Well, I’m sorry for betraying you, but not for doing this.”

“You need to learn to work with a team. Things aren’t always going to happen how you want them to.”

“We’re not a team,” Jesi argued. “We’re just five people with different ideas.” She was about to do it.

“Wait,” Ace said. “Take this first.”

“Take what?” Jesi asked, but she had the thing in her hand before she knew what it was.

Ace squeezed her fingers shut, which activated the home stone. But he was touching her at the moment, so he went back in time with her.

« < » > Entire Story

Microstory 142: Tracy Wickham

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All anomalies were the result of ancient genetic manipulation followed by centuries of evolution’s attempt at stabilizing their makeup. The fairies that ultimately created them performed each experiment deliberately, and in order to fulfill a specific purpose. Most of them were attaching properties of animals and various natural phenomena. The team that resulted in Tracy Wickham was interested in genetic memory. Genetic memory was usually responsible for instinct and intuition, but they wanted to figure out whether it was possible to encode more complex information. On the surface, Tracy displayed no special ability. Both of her parents were extremely athletic, with experience in archery, firearms marksmanship, foot racing, and parkour. Whenever they encouraged her to pursue an interest of their own, she showed impressive aptitude. She even presented skills found as far back as her great grandparents—however, there was a quantifiable decline in her skill according to how many generations that skill went back in her family. The worst side effect of this was the fact that she struggled with skills not found at expert level within the family. She received poor marks in the majority of her classes, and wasn’t even able to graduate from tertiary school. Her brain was so full of generational information that she had an inescapable failure to gather new ideas. Out of frustration, Tracy left home upon adulthood and fell into the hard-to-find world of drugs. She was eventually discovered by a small group of people who were aware of anomalies. They performed further experiments on her in an attempt to make her the perfect soldier; one who wasn’t intelligent enough to break from orders and form her own decisions. Most of their experiments failed, however, they managed to enhance her physique. They gave her superhuman speed and strength, and her most noteworthy feature was how high and far she could jump. Others, like Setsuko Kawaguchi, grew hateful and bitter as a result of these experiments, but not Tracy. After she and her partner, Phaedra Wirth escaped from the facility, she joined Bellevue, which later assigned her and her team to protect the entirety of Europe. They even eventually developed techniques that allowed her to learn at a more acceptable level.