Microstory 2373: Earth, October 6, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

I’m relieved that you’re feeling better, but I’m still worried about you. What are your message quotas? Maybe you could send me daily updates? Yeah, I’ll always be a week behind, but I’ll feel better if I can count on something coming in every day. Or maybe that would be even more stressful, because what if you’re too busy, or you forget? It might make me start freaking out. I dunno, you decide. I just want you to be okay. Who else do you have in your life besides Bray? Does Velia help too? Is she someone you can rely on when things are rough? It’s so frustrating being so far from each other. Okay, I don’t wanna be too pushy or overprotective. You live your life however you think you should. In school, we learned about the dangers of living in space. They told us how risky it is just being out in the vacuum, and how lower gravity can impact bones and muscles. But they didn’t say anything about the pathogens that do—or more important, don’t—start going around. You’re in such a controlled environment, which sounds like a good thing, but I guess there are consequences. We’re probably going to experience the same thing here on Earth, with our giant dome habitats. Or maybe the giant part is a good thing.  Perhaps they’re big enough where it’s basically like living on Earth before the poison gases. I don’t know anything about this stuff. Have they done studies on it? Do space colonists have weakened immune systems because they’re not exposed to random environmental foreign contaminants, or whatever? Perhaps someone should be comparing twins for this instead of behavioral differences. I shouldn’t say that out loud, give anybody any bright ideas. For all I know, that was part of what they were trying to study in us.

Thinking of you always,

Condor

Microstory 2252: No Dutch! No Dutch!

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Dear Dudes, Dutch. Doy. I asked to fill in for Nick today, instead of Kelly. It’s not that she couldn’t write it for him, but I’ve been a little bored, and I wanted something to do. I don’t know what we’re gonna do tomorrow, because the hospital still won’t want him working, and his website is his job, so I may write the next one too. We’ll just have to wait and see. If you don’t read his socials, then don’t worry, he’s okay. He’s not back here for a medical issue, but because he had his surgeries. They took out his index, and some of his bone marrow. Funny thing about that first thing, when I went to another universe, the scientists who studied me wanted to see if there were any physiological differences between me and them. They did all sorts of tests...consensually, and discovered that everything was the same. We all got ten fingers, one heart, and two butt cheeks. They also mentioned that the appendix was about the same. And I’m, like, “what the hell is an appendix?” That’s what they call the index. Apparently, their ancestors thought that it was a useless organ that doesn’t do anything. Which is strange, because back then, they also thought that a magical God created humans. Why would they think such an omnipotent entity would think to include something so strange and pointless? Anyway, I just remembered that, and thought it was funny.

Welp, I think I have a little extra time, so maybe I’ll spend the rest of it telling you how I got my name. Most people assume that it’s only a nickname, but no, it’s real. Both in this world, and the other one, learning it has made people chuckle, or hold back chuckles. The Dutch are people from Nederland, or the language that they speak. My family is not from Nederland, nor even the area. Here’s the story. When my father was a child, he used to watch this old television program. Of course, as Nick has pointed out, we don’t have much of a library of fiction on this Earth, but this one was scripted, and said to have been pretty good at the time. I can’t remember what it was called, but in the first season, there was a younger brother in the family. They got rid of him in later seasons without an explanation, but he kind of became synonymous with the show anyway. The character was very protective of his toys and other belongings. Whenever anyone would come into his room, or try to do anything with his stuff, he would yell “no touch! No touch!” But he had this sort of babyish accent, and it sounded more like Dutch than touch. My father, being of about the same age as this kid, started imitating what he saw and heard. He’d walk around the house, yelling that catch phrase over and over again, emphasizing a D sound even more than the actor did. My grandmother tells me that it was annoying, but at least he didn’t really understand what the words were supposed to have meant, so he wasn’t actually ever trying to stop people from touching his stuff. Then he grew up, and forgot about all of this. But years later, as an adult, he watched some old home movies, and saw himself yelling that. His own dad was gone, but his mother was still alive, so he asked her about it, and she explained what that was. So my dad, being the jokester that he is, just started doing it again. He’ll periodically yell, “no Dutch! No Dutch!” usually at very inappropriate times. I think you can guess the rest. It became part of his personality, so when he and his future wife had a kid, naming him Dutch just made sense. I get my brains and good looks from my mother, but I got Aderyn ‘No Dutch’ Haines’ sense of humor. I think it’s a pretty good deal.

Microstory 2251: Happened Only After They’ve Happened

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The surgeon has decided that going ahead with the surgeries still makes sense, even after my poisoning. The specific poison that my attacker used didn’t have any direct impact on my bone marrow, or my index. They were probably just trying to kill me as fast as possible, so the medical examiner would determine that there was nothing worth salvaging. I dunno, that’s for the district attorney, or whatever, to decide, I guess. I’m not going to busy myself with worrying about them too much. I need to move on, and live my life. We’re still taking precautions. I’m not going to tell you when my surgeries will be, and I certainly won’t be telling you where. You’ll know that they’ve happened only after they’ve happened. In the meantime, my posts will sound like everything’s normal. The move-in is going well. The house is mostly furnished now, but we discovered that we have to do some renovations/repairs in the downstairs full bathroom, so the security people are sharing Dutch’s in the basement. He says he’s cool with it, and I believe him. That’s pretty much it for today since I apparently can’t say much about my life anymore without raising the alarms. In my free time, I’m trying to commune with my alternate self, asking him to send help. He’s definitely getting my messages, because he’s him, but I’m not getting his yet. Maybe he’s just toying with me.

Microstory 2239: Marrow and Index

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A private citizen with a whole lot of money—who I shall not name—has offered me a substantial amount of money for a sample of my bone marrow, and my index. Not just a biopsy of it, but the entire thing. I didn’t want to do anything like that, but I feel like I have no choice now. The FBI can’t be responsible for us for the rest of our lives, and it’s not going super great. Someone broke into the house that we were just living in. We’ve been moving around for security reasons, but if the suspect had been a week earlier, this might not have had a happy ending. Instead of trying to hide, and stay out of danger by remaining inconspicuous, I think a better strategy would be to be out in the open, but to become so well-guarded that I’m virtually untouchable. That’s how world leaders do it. We all know where the President of the United States lives, that doesn’t mean attacking her would be easy. This will obviously require significant capital. The procedure wouldn’t be simple, nor safe, but it would be relatively quick. I’ll only have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days, and only be in recovery for about a month as I regain my strength. I don’t know for sure what the backer thinks he’ll be doing with my marrow and index, but I explained to him that my immortality is gone, and it’s not something that can be studied in this universe. He’s willing to take that risk, and if we’re being honest, I don’t know with certainty that his researchers won’t gain any insight with it. Doctors have been taking samples for weeks, but never this much. So I think I’m gonna do it, to help myself, and my friends, and for the possibility that it helps everyone else.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 6, 2398

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Power went out in the whole building, and it took a few minutes to come back on. Once it did, Leona and Ramses were pretty sure that the deed was done, and it was safe to go back down to the basement. The first thing they saw there was little Trina, lying motionless at the bottom of the stairs. The four adults who were trying to send their consciousnesses to the past were also on the floor, and not moving, which was to be expected. Mateo tried to scoop Trina up in his arms, but Leona stopped him. If she had a broken neck, they shouldn’t move her. She ordered Marie to call emergency services. While they were waiting for the paramedics, she told Mateo, Vearden, and Heath to carry the other four bodies into The Olimpia. They didn’t have an idea of what they were going to do with them, but that wasn’t important now. They just couldn’t let people see them, and start asking questions. The story was that Trina was exploring alone when she fell down the stairs, and no one else had anything to do with it.

As it turned out, Trina had a few broken bones, but her neck and head were fine. She didn’t require any major surgeries, and is presently in her hospital bed, still unconscious. She does read as asleep, though, instead of dead, or a coma. The instruments are detecting a clear heart rate, and even brain activity. She’s still in there, apparently having been knocked over by the blast of the transfer, but not taken by it. The other three McIvers are sitting bedside, with Carlin now passed out in his chair, head and arms on the bed at Trina’s feet. One hand is affectionately wrapped around her uninjured ankle.

Only family is allowed to stay with her at these hours, but Mateo has been permitted to come in every hour to check on the lot of them. He sits in the waiting room otherwise. It’s just past 2:30 when young Moray sends him a text message, alerting him to Trina’s greatly anticipated reawakening. He explains the situation to the nurse sitting at the desk, who allows him to go back off schedule. When he reaches the doorway, the doctor is just finishing her examination.

When the doctor steps aside, Trina see’s Mateo’s face. “My, my, my,” she begins in an unfamiliar tone. “Mateo Matic, how long has it been for you?”

“A few hours,” he underestimates.

Trina narrows her eyes. “You only lasted a few hours before you regretted overwriting me?”

Mateo gasps. “Doctor, are you able to give us some privacy?” he asks.

She looks over at Trina. “Five minutes. Then I need to run some tests.”

“Very well.” Once she’s gone, he addresses the McIvers, “step away from her.”

“Her?” Trina questions.

“This is our sister,” Alyssa protests.

“She’s sick, so get your other siblings away from her right now.”

Trina looks at them, confused. She lifts her hands up, and regards them curiously. “Do you happen to have a mirror?”

Mateo takes out his phone, and opens the camera app. He holds it in front of Trina’s face. She lightly touches her own cheek, just to make sure that it’s actually hers. “This is...disgusting.”

“What?” Alyssa questions, scared.

“This is a person whose body you’ve stolen.”

“Hey, I didn’t steal anything. I don’t know how I got here.”

Mateo turns his lizard brain. That almost sounded sincere. “What is the last thing you remember? Be honest.”

“You were deleting my consciousness, and replacing it with someone else.”

“Then you just woke up here.”

“Yes.”

“What is going on, Mateo?” Alyssa demands to know. “Why are you talking to her like that? Why is she talking like that? Is this some kind of time disease?”

“This isn’t your sister,” Mateo explains. “This is the mind of a very bad man. Though, I suppose man is a bit of an overstatement. He’s more of a monster.”

“Assuming I believe you,” Alyssa begins, “how do we get her back?”

“With help,” Mateo answers, realizing something. “He dials the phone, and puts it to his ear. “Leona? Have the bodies awakened?” He waits for a response. “Lock them up,” he says when she reports that they haven’t. “Where? Well, that’s a good question.” They should have thought to prepare for this eventuality. A jail. Why didn’t they think of that? It would have been quite easy to lay the concrete blocks, fabritate the bars, and install the locks. They have so many enemies in this reality, and every right to hold them against their will. It’s so obvious now. Life has gotten so ridiculous. “I don’t know—just, they may wake up, and they may not be friendly. Erlendr Preston is here.” He shakes his head. “No, I can handle him. Watch out for the others.”

Erlendr is making Trina’s face grin. “You can lock me up, but you can’t hurt me. You care about this person too much.”

“You need to help me figure out how to get your consciousness out of her body,” Mateo insists.

“Why would I help you?” Erlendr asks him. “You just tried to kill me. I don’t know how long ago that was for you, but it was only minutes for me.”

“You’re going to help me, because I saw your face when you realized where you were. This is a little girl, and as evil as you, you don’t relish the idea of staying here any longer than you have to. What happens when she has to go to the bathroom? Are you comfortable with that?”

He scowls. “What year is it?”

“It’s 2398.”

“Perfect,” Erlendr decides. “Just transfer me to a clone.”

“It’s 2398...in the Third Rail,” Mateo clarifies.

“I don’t know what that is,” Erlendr claims.

“It’s what you wanted The Parallel to be. There’s very little time travel here. We kind of have to make our own.”

“Okay...I don’t need time travel, I need mind uploading.”

Mateo rolls his eyes, knowing that this is what smart people feel like when they talk to him. “Without help from time travelers, society progressed at a slower rate. It’s more like the 2050s here. There’s no mind uploading.”

Erlendr frowns, and struggles to get out of bed. “You always manage to screw things up, don’t you?”

“Don’t move,” Alyssa instructs.

“I’m fine,” Erlendr argues.

“I said. Don’t. Move!”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 25, 2398

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Marie and Heath don’t spend long in Gothenburg. It’s as boring as it looks when you search the web for it. They see no signs that there’s anything special about the area, or that a secret time travel pitstop facility has been buried underneath. They didn’t even erect a sign that designates it as the center of the country, like they did for Lebanon, Kansas in the main sequence.

They’re in Belle Fourche, South Dakota now, which doesn’t mean much in any reality, but especially not here, what with the different national borders. That’s fine, they heard that there were some lovely hiking trails around these parts, and being out in nature is precisely what they both need right now.  They’re not talking, though, which neither of them believes is healthy, but they don’t know what to say. Should they talk about the abortion? Should they pretend it didn’t happen? Should they fight? Should they reaffirm their love? It’s just so awkward that the moderately treacherous terrain is the only thing keeping their minds occupied.

She stops to catch her breath. “Okay, can you tell me what you’re feeling?”

“I’m a little tired, but I’m okay to keep going. Did you want to make camp right here?” Heath proposes.

“I don’t mean about the backpacking, I mean about what happened.”

“We’ve been talking,” he sincerely believes.

“Yeah, but...”

“Do you want to tell me what you’re feeling?”

“That’s all I’ve been doing, telling you about my mixed feelings. You haven’t been giving me your opinion.”

“It was your choice.”

“I didn’t ask you what I should do, it’s done. I’m asking how you feel about it now!”

“Why is this turning into a fight?”

She sighs. “I don’t know, I don’t want it to.”

He steps closer, but doesn’t touch her. She still doesn’t want to be touched yet. “I’m proud of you, Marie, for making that decision. I know it wasn’t easy. And I know how easy it is for me, never having to do the same. You want to know how I feel...I’m sad. I miss the baby that never was. You know how my mind wanders, it’s why I keep buying fancy things, like The Olimpia.”

“Yeah.”

“I knew what you were going to do, even while I was fighting against it. I knew you would go through with it, because you had to. My brain, however, was insistent that it go over a hypothetical life that I had with that child. It chose a boy for me, and named him Ferris, after my great grandmother. I taught him about the world, and you taught him about cyberspace. He became a teacher, like me, and lived only a few miles away from us with his family. I don’t resent you for preventing this fantasy, so I don’t want you to think that that’s what I’m saying. It’s just been—” He’s struggling to continue.

“It’s okay, you can say that this has been hard on you. You have a right to that.”

“It has been hard. I feel like I knew him, and lost him. And when I think about the fact that I didn’t lose anything, it just makes it worse.”

She takes his hand. “I’m sorry you’re going through that.”

Heath shakes his head, and looks away.

“I mean it. This did happen to you, in a different way, but you’re not this removed observer. I’m sorry you couldn’t be there too. That probably hasn’t made it any easier.”

He nods, but says nothing more.

“Let’s keep going,” Marie suggests.

She lets go of his hand, and begins to head farther up the hill, but she loses her footing, and slips off the edge. They’re not on a cliff, but she tumbles down pretty far, and she can’t stop herself. She only does stop when a partially buried rock gets in her way. It cuts open her hand, and breaks at least a few bones. She’s holding her now limp wrist with her other hand, and trying to breathe through the pain as Heath runs down as fast as he can. He’s aware that he could fall down too if he’s not careful. By the time he gets all the way down to her, the pain is still there, and so is the blood, but her hand is otherwise totally fine. She’s able to move it.

“What the...?”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you, I can heal now. It’s a temporary consolation prize.”

Microstory 1751: Spirit of the Lynx

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When I was a boy, I had no identity. All of my classmates had some kind of online persona, which represented who they were, and what they enjoyed. Their usernames reflected these attributes, be it a love for football, or all things Star Wars. I didn’t care about anything in particular, or have any special way of setting myself apart from others. I suppose that’s what it really comes down to, that I was not special. Ya know, I liked watching the news, and not because I wanted to become a reporter when I was older, but I’ve always been more interested in the goingson of real life than fiction, or other forms of entertainment. But NewsBoy1994 seemed like a dumb and boring name that I didn’t want to use. One day, I was flipping through my favorite news and documentary channels, hoping to learn something new, when I came across a nature show about the lynx, and it gave me an idea. Maybe I am a lynx. And not because of the animal’s particular behavior, or the way that they look. Maybe it’s just arbitrary. I could call it my spirit animal, and claim to others that I just really like lynxes. I felt like a fraud, but no one else appeared to have any problem with it. He likes lynxes. Whatever, doesn’t matter to me. I didn’t get ridiculed or questioned, and everything went well. Over time, these creative online identities faded away. Social media allowed you to connect directly to your friends and contacts, but also just say things for the world to absorb at will. Real life has become trendy. People can read your posts if they want to, and on their own time. Many are using real identities now, because for most, it’s the closest we’ll get to fame, and we don’t want to hide ourselves under a layer of anonymity. Our friends can’t find us if they don’t know enough about us. Even then, is PermaLynx94 the guy you’re looking for, or some random stranger who also happens to like lynxes?

I shed my lynx identity, and moved on with my life. It was a lot easier for me than for others, I imagine. Some still probably weren’t too butthurt about it, since they were no longer so obsessed with the pastimes of their youth, and were glad to grow up. I didn’t care at all, because I never really cared about lynxes. It’s probably better now that people have to look deeper than my name if they want to know who I am. I got into hiking, which is something I never thought I would do. I probably would have tried to figure out some kind of clever walking pun back in the day if I had realized who I was at a younger age. I still like the news, and don’t care for fiction. I don’t have a problem with it on principle, but I watch Star Wars, and just don’t feel a damn thing for those people. This week, I’m backpacking alone in the woods, in the freezing cold of Canada. This is where I find my zen, away from people, and all of their noises. Things are going fine until I slip on a wet rock, and over the edge of the cliff. I hang onto a root, just hoping it doesn’t give. The drop is bout about six meters down, so I’ll live, but I’ll break bones, and not be able to leave. I have to find a way to lift myself up. Now I wish I had once identified as PullupDude69. As I’m hanging there, mere moments from a slow death, a lynx trots up and stares down at me. We study each other’s eyes, and don’t move a muscle. Suddenly, I’m no longer on the brink, but in some kind of tranquil and balanced serenityscape. We watch each other for an eternity, and then my spirit animal graciously provides me with the strength I need to pull myself up, and survive.

Microstory 1228: Baudin Murdoch

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Though he erred on the side of decent, Baudin Murdoch was a fairly neutral choosing one. His greater power afforded him immense respect amongst his colleagues. People tended to be nice to him for fear of retribution, even though he didn’t have a history of exacting revenge on others. He belonged to an extremely rare class of temporal manipulators known as builders, and the other two were related to each other. As far as time powers went, theirs was perhaps the most convoluted and hard to explain. Want to turn invisible? Well, bending light itself is impossible, but you can only trick people into seeing what’s behind you, rather than you, so that’s the workaround. More interested in traveling to other star systems? That’s also a rare ability, but at least it’s just teleportation with extreme range. These things don’t require much thought. A sufficiently-abled user only need think about what they want as an end result, and if they’re capable enough, it will happen. Building, on the other hand, requires assembling objects that would never go together naturally, and a deeper thought process. Each piece needs to be considered individually, and as a whole, so that all of them together will ultimately form the desired structure. Not everyone with this power would be able to use it with such precision and skill, and in fact, Baudin wasn’t ever even the best. When The Rogue took over Baudin’s body, he could do what Baudin could, but not nearly as well. It took him years to build Sanctuary, whereas it would have taken Baudin a couple days, on his best week. Étude Einarsson was also never as good as him, or the best ever, her mother, but that was okay, because she wielded plenty of power beyond that. Also known as The Constructor, Baudin hailed from a very old timeline, surviving into each newly created reality using protective temporal objects. He treated his ability like a business, though he never demanded payment for his services. He almost always held meetings, consulted with other professionals, drew up contracts, and did just about everything else a normal builder would do to get the job done right. He didn’t actually love the construction itself, though. It was boring, and required too much attention. Unlike Andromeda, whose work could be completed in minutes, he did still need a little bit of time to finish. So he came up with an alternative.

Inspired by the automation movement in the human realm in the 20th and 21st centuries, Baudin created a tool that could channel his power, and build the structures he wanted without him being around the entire time. Unfortunately, a tool like this came with a literal sacrifice. He commissioned the help of a woman named The Weaver. She could normally invent objects using regular parts, made of metal and plastic, but in this case, she was unable to replicate Baudin’s power with tech. The only way to do it was for him to provide a significant specimen for her to work with. He chose to use the largest bone in his body: the femur. And thus the bone stake was created. Those who knew about it called him foolish or insane, but they weren’t taking into account future medical technology. It was no big deal for him to replace his own leg with a prosthetic if it meant his job would be easier, and indeed it was. As a bonus, the bone stake could interface with computers—generally his trusty tablet—and essentially grow a building using a model designed in software, by him, or even someone else. Once the design was set, and the bone stake in place at the construction site, Baudin could leave, and do whatever it was he truly wanted. He could feel it doing its thing remotely, and he was still limited to the same point in time while it was operational, but it didn’t drain him of his energy in the way using his power had before, and it left him more time to meet with clients, or design new projects. He was an important man, known for having been at least partially responsible for a number of important buildings used by salmon and choosers alike, throughout all of time and space.

Microstory 888: A Letter Home

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Hey, honey, I miss you, and I can’t wait to see you when we finally get back. I’m having a lot of fun here, but I wish you could have come with us. This trinary system is more interesting than we thought. We went to this one world that you are not going to believe. The scientists gave us this long-winded explanation that I couldn’t follow. She said something about the temperature of the planet, and the composition of the atmosphere. She hypothesized that the ocean didn’t form like this exactly naturally, but somehow transformed from fermentation brought upon by evolutionary fascinating microorganisms that she can only postulate exist. She wanted to stay and study the phenomenon more, but it was a pretty hostile environment, and we weren’t really equipped for a long term survey. Besides, there weren’t any resources, so it wasn’t like we would have gotten much out of it. She was allowed to take a few samples back to the ship, though, so maybe we’ll learn a thing or two about how the universe works. I wanted to take a few samples of my own, because I think it’s cool that that we found an ocean made of alcohol, but the captain ordered us to stay away from it. I imagine she’s worried I’m going to try and drink it, which would be outrageous, but I understand where she’s coming from. So we moved on. The next planet we came to—the one we’re still orbiting right now—showed unusually specific signs of civilization. We found no ruins, nor any ancient artifacts. There weren’t any petrified specimens, or bones. We only know that someone must have been there at some point, whether it was that species’ home planet, or not. We only found a single structure on the entire surface, or underneath at a depth of fifty kilometers, so we guessed it served as some alien outpost at one point. The rest of it appeared to be completely untouched by anything beyond some weird plantlife. There were computers and other instruments in the structure. They allowed us to not only control the weather, but also the composition of the atmosphere. We turned up the oxygen to help us breathe a little easier, but there is still so much to learn. Oh my God. Oh my God, sweetie, that’s it. How did we not think of this before? We need to move these machines over to the alcohol ocean planet. That’s the one with an atmosphere that needs to be adjusted. Okay, I gotta go, but I’ll send you another message tomorrow. Love you, don’t cheat on me!

The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 10, 2187

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When Leona Matic first started helplessly jumping through time, one of her first thoughts was of her loved ones. If she couldn’t stop what was happening to her, she would lose them all in a matter of months, from her perspective. Her heart was filled with such dread knowing that she would one day blink, and someone she cared about would suddenly be gone. And that process would be repeated until they were all dead. Everyone would be dead by the time she had a hankering for Chinese food again. But that wasn’t what actually happened. Ever since her first jump, family and friends would die, not of a long life long-lived, but at her responsibility. She never had to watch any of them grow old without her, because every single time, through her action or inaction, they would be killed before that was possible. She tried to run away from them once, with Serif, hoping to just leave them out all of this. She should have stuck with that plan. She should have tried harder. If they had just gone off on their own, all these people would either still be alive, or passed in peace, including one Paige Turner Reaver-Demir.

Paige was at least a hundred and seventy-five years old at the time of her death, though the exact length was difficult to discern when attempting to account for the time travel variable. She stayed alive as long as she did by utilizing biomedical developments, as well as other technological advances. She had not been fully human for a long time when Ulinthra struck her down with what could be best described as a power overload. Many would count her age as a blessing. She surpassed the conventional human lifespan by a century, at least as measured by the time period of her birth, but Leona recognized that this made it worse. As terrible as it might sound, killing a mortal is not as bad as killing someone like Paige. If you were to end the life of a normal eighteen-year-old human, for instance, you would at most, be robbing that individual of maybe ninety more years—as erred on the the side of exaggeration. If you were to end the life of an eighteen-year-old immortal, on the other hand, you would be stealing eternity from them. Kill a four-thousand-year-old immortal, and you’re still taking eternity. Because we don’t punish murderers for taking the memories of a person’s experiences. We punish them for stealing the memories that their victims can now never make.

While Leona felt guilty for everyone who had lost their lives because of the decisions she had made, Paige belonged to a special category of dead people whose deaths were directly tied to her inefficacy. Leona was at fault, for how she had handled the Ulinthra situation, and no one would be capable of disabusing her of this assertion. Fortunately for her, no one was interested in disproving her. They didn’t outwardly blame her for it, but they didn’t sugar-coat it either. They just stayed there with her in solidarity, having already spent a year grieving for their loss during Leona’s interim year. And then, as if called to action by a great psychoemotional need, Vitalie Crawville suddenly showed back up to help, reportedly on break from the year-long bicentennial celebrations.

Though she didn’t have the time to get particularly close to her, something about Vitalie reminded her of Paige, and she couldn’t help but break down crying when she saw her face. Vitalie didn’t say a word, but held Leona close for as long as she needed it.

“How did you know to come?” Leona was finally able to ask through the last of her tears.

“I just kind of got this feeling; not that Paige had died, but that you needed me,” Vitalie answered. “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other anyway. We were due for a five-year reunion.”

“I’m just so tired of losing people. It would be one thing if I had a job to do, or some kind of calling, but I’m just...here. Camden is a secret agent, Saga starts revolutions on other planets, what do I do? Nothing. I just keep getting forced into these situations, and the only real goal in place for me is to get out of those situations.”

“That’s kind of how life is, though, isn’t it? Most of us don’t have what one may call a purpose. We just do the best we can to survive to the end of the day. Then we wake up and do it again.”

“I guess that’s true, but those people exercise control over their lives. I’m salmon.”

“Everyone has their limitations. A poor person can’t go to the best college, get the best job, and buy the best house, unless maybe they’re really smart. Maybe. A celebrity can’t scratch their ass at a grocery store without making headlines. And you can’t leave Panama until you defeat Arianrhod. That’s your calling. Right now it is, so answer it. When you’re done with the...conversation, as it were, hang up. Then answer the next call.”

“I can’t defeat her,” Leona complained. “She’s too powerful. Everything we try, she’s already seen, because we can never know whether we’re living through the first time she experienced this day, or the second.”

Vitalie sighed. “That’s true, it’s a crapshoot, but didn’t you do this before, in another timeline? Didn’t you stop a man with the same powers? What did you do then?”

“I garnered help from The Gravedigger, who’s so obviously hiding that he’s one of the most powerful choosers I’ve ever met; and I met someone who created an entire universe.”

“Well, let’s call the Gravedigger again.”

“It won’t work this time. There was a warrant out for his arrest, and that’s not the case here.”

“What did he do to get into trouble that Ulinthra isn’t doing. If taking over the world doesn’t get the powers that be to step in, then I don’t know what does.”

“It’s complicated,” Leona said. “Way I understand it, Beaver Haven isn’t just a prison for people with temporal powers who are also criminals, or even the ones who use their powers for bad things. It’s just for people whose actions threaten the security of the rest of us. As far as the powers are concerned, Ulinthra can do whatever she wants, as long as she doesn’t expose us.”

“Then let’s do that,” Vitalie suggested vaguely.

“Do what? Expose us?”

“Get her to expose us.”

“How would we do that?”

Vitalie shrugged. “Dunno, but there’s gotta be a way.”

“I think if you tried something like that,” Brooke said from the doorway, “you would just end up getting yourselves locked up.” She walked into the room. “We’re in mixed company.”

A stranger in a uniform walked in behind her, followed by a hover sled, on top of which was some kind of chamber. “Where do you want this?” he asked.

“Just in the corner, over there,” Brooke directed him.

“What is that?” Leona asked, grateful that she had finished crying before Brooke returned.

“It’s my stasis pod. If I don’t get into this by midnight central, I die.”

“What?” Leona scrambled up from her seat. “Die from what?”

“I don’t know what it is, but Ulinthra infected me with something. This pod is scheduled to close at the end of every day I’m awake, and will keep me alive for a year, until I wake up and do it all again.”

“What are you talking about? What did I miss?”

“Vitalie, you should go,” Brooke said to her, “lest you be caught up in this.”

“It is too late,” Ulinthra said, walking in from one of the bedrooms, like a creeper.

“What is this about? I demand answers,” Leona said angrily.

“A few months after Paige’s death,” Ulinthra began to explain, “Brooke and Ecrin tried to go after me. They succeeded the first time around, but then time reset for me, and I did better on the next go. My problem was not that they tried—it was actually impressively courageous of them, if not bonker balls—it’s that you weren’t there. You and I have a history; several histories, actually. In only one of them do we get along. Even when you were married to Horace Reaver, we were rather cold with each other. As much as I remember about these things, I couldn’t tell you why we almost never have a good relationship, but I can tell you why we were friends in one of the realities.”

“Get to the point already.” Leona rolled her eyes.

“We were friends,” Ulinthra continued after she was so rudely interrupted, “because in that timeline, I gave you the greatest give I have.”

“And what was that? Your suicide?”

“Morbid much? No, it was my powers.”

“What?”

“I made you like me. Permanently.”

“Why would I have wanted that?”

“You were bored. You were just a human then, but I gave you a way to have fun. Together we wreaked more havoc on this planet than a giant groundhog on amphetamines, and when midnight hit, we’d go back in time and relax.”

“I don’t believe you. In no reality am I anything like you.”

“Well, I guess I can’t ever prove it to you, except to say...dougnanimous brintantalus.”

“We’ve established that my secret time password has never been a secret.”

“True, but I want you to start thinking about whether it’s possible that I’m being totally honest. You can do it while you’re on the table.”

“On what table?”

Ulinthra smirked, and motioned towards Brooke’s stasis chamber. “I had that built, because Brooke is pristinely ungifted, and I have not been able to find a way around that, even by using her umbilical cord pendant. Sorry about that again, Brooke.”

Brooke was showing her blankface.

Ulinthra went back to facing Leona. “I destroyed it while I was studying it. I didn’t do it on purpose, though. We all make mistakes.”

“You can go back in time and erase all your mistakes.”

Ulinthra pretended like this hadn’t occurred to her, but purposely in an unconvincing way. “I could have done that, couldn’t I? Damn.”

“You still haven’t gotten to the point.”

“Right, Ulinthra said. “Ecrin and now this young woman here, whoever she is, will be permanently placed on your temporal pattern.”

“Vitalie, go, now,” Leona ordered immediately.

“You think I didn’t know you’d say that?” She looked over at Vitalie, who was making no attempt to escape. “You won’t make it down the hall if you run.”

“I gathered,” Vitalie said.

“Good. I need your bone marrow,” Ulinthra said to Leona. “Blood can work, but it’s unreliable, and short-lived. I need the marrow to make Ecrin’s and Vitalie’s bodies generate your salmon juice on an ongoing basis.”

“You don’t even feel a little bit bad about killing Paige,” Leona pointed out.

“That was a non sequitur, and no, I suppose I don’t. To paraphrase Captain Malcolm Reynolds, someone ever kills you, you kill ‘em right back. Paige saw me threaten you with a knife on a security camera on your day a year ago. What I didn’t realize is that removing her life extension upgrades would reactivate her spawn power. That was my bad, and I paid for it with my life. Needless to say, Paige needed to die, so that I could be saved. Now go take a sonic shower. I want you clean so you don’t pass on some disease.”

“Should I even bother pleading for you to reconsider, or for you to at least give me one day to mourn?”

“You can mourn tomorrow with everybody else, but no one cares about your feelings. Now go. You can fight me on it next year when it no longer matters.”

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Microstory 861: X Gratia

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Most people around here grew up wanting to be medical professionals. They played doctor when they were children—and I’m not talking about exploring each other’s bodies; they legitimately pretended to treat patients. I’ve never had a problem with blood or broken bones, but I also never considered a career in the field. It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood, working as a faceless engineer for a gigantic corporation that I started getting itchy. I saw a post on social media advertising for a free Emergency Medical Responder course. I had never heard of it before, and had always called knowledge that fell between first aid and EMT second aid. My role-playing game team recently disbanded when two of us moved out of town at about the same time, so I was looking for something else to do with my evenings. I signed up for the class, thinking a little extra education couldn’t hurt. I didn’t find out until later that my company provided a minor pay differential for intermediate medical training, because it allowed me to be a designated first responder in the office. That would have been good enough for me, because the worst that could happen in an office is a paper cut, or maybe a hot coffee accident. But then I started getting really into it. I didn’t realize how rewarding the training would feel, how satisfying it was that I knew something my friends and coworkers didn’t. Even if I never changed careers because of this, I felt comfort in knowing that no matter where I was, at least one person in the immediate vicinity would be able to help in an emergency. If no one better trained was around, at least I would be there. Once the class was over, and I was fully certified, I started looking into EMT training, while not being sure whether I would be accepted into a program if I had no intention of applying for a new job, and starting to drive an ambulance. Then the war began, and none of that mattered anymore.

Things got real bad real fast. My city was evacuated, and we were rushed to a refugee camp in the middle of nowhere. As I was sitting in the processing area, the intake counselor asked me for my profession, but I was not paying attention. All I could focus on was the triage canopy down the way. She told me to try to ignore the screams, and that the people there were doing everything they could. “I need to help,” I found myself saying. She asked me if I was a doctor or nurse, and I said no, but that I had to do what I could. So without permission, I jumped out of my seat, and ran over. I told them the limits of my knowledge, thinking there was a strong chance they would tell me to just take a hike. But they were happy to have the help. While the people with real expertise were busy treating patients, I could easily help with assessing newcomers, and assigning color tags. I also ran around to find fresh water, and helped unload emergency supplies. I wasn’t saving anybody’s life, but I was helping, and that was exactly why I continued my classes. I was finished cleaning the blood off one of the cots, and no one had told me to do anything else, so I went up to the nearest nurse, and offered my help. Before she could answer, the head of the patient she was treating burst open like a soda can in the freezer. Blood and brain matter oozed out, and I swear I could see some kind of gas leaking from the opening. I heard the nurse yell to the doctors that it was confirmed they were dealing with sudden onset intracranial pressure, brought on by a bioweapon that the enemy was using. I asked what the treatment was, and he just handed me a scalpel, telling me that I had to relieve the pressure manually since an EMP had fried all the drills. He ran off to help others before I could remind him that I was barely beyond a Boy Scout. I whispered to another nurse that I had no idea what I was looking for, or what I was doing, so she said that everyone in this canopy was in the same mall during the attack. They all had it, and would die if we didn’t help them. Then she showed me how she was doing it, carving the letter X in her patient’s forehead. So I gathered all of my courage, and got to work. And wouldn’t you know it, I was great at it? I should have started studying this years ago.

Microstory 525: Savons Are Barely Not Human

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Ever since savons, elves, dwarves, and hiniaur were reintroduced to the world, scientists have been eager to learn more about them. We don’t know exactly where they came from, or how they came to be. All we know is how different they are than us. Elves are generally leaner, taller, and top-heavy when compared to humans. The bones in their upper body are denser than ours, which is why they are unable to swim. They can’t get their heads above water in order to breathe. What they lack in the water, they make up on land. They’re faster, stronger, tougher, and possess a greater amount of endurance. On the superficial side, they also have an almost silvery, powdery, tint of purple eyes and hair. Like elves, dwarves are known for their stamina. They require very little sleep, and are particularly adept at manual labor. They are, however, short and stout, and are technically capable of swimming. They’re nothing when compared to hiniaur, though, which are at their best in the water. Every hiniaur is born with gills, but not always in the same place of the body. They’re capable of walking around on land, but require considerable amounts of salt in order to survive. They will carry little pouches of salt around their necks in case they ever find themselves too far from saltwater. It is often unsettling when first meeting a hiniaur. They grow up normal to an adolescent stage, but then they stop aging. They’ll live nearly another 120 years, but will show no outward signs of it. Biologists believe they were created long ago in an attempt to cure aging; one that failed...but not completely.

Perhaps simultaneously the most interesting, and the least interesting, of the new races are the savons. They are noted for their tendency to speak in riddles and noncontextual metaphors. More research needs to be done, but they claim to have some kind of insight into the future; one that may or may not rival that of prophets. As far as their biology goes, they can possibly be considered the opposite of hiniaur. Their bodies age extremely rapidly for several years, before hitting a plateau, and appearing elderly for the rest of their lives, which will likely be somewhat longer than humans. Despite their advanced age, they are indistinguishable from humans, and some have even been hesitant to believe that they exist. Geneticists have found this to be not too far from the truth. Testing has shown that savon genes so similar to normal humans that results are often negligible. They appear to have such minor differences that it is almost not worth treating them as a separate human subspecies. A full report will be released to the public next month.

Rogue Possession: Absolute Corruption (Part IV)

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Gilbert Morley Boyce was born in the District of Columbia in 1987. His parents were both low-level civil servants, providing support for a number of different politicians. He saw them work their asses off every day for very little. In his teenage years, he began to feel angry about the government. He believed in taxes, but not in the way they were actually implemented. Rich people had too many loopholes, and not enough responsibility. Meanwhile, the lower classes suffered, sometimes even being unable to maintain even simple law-abiding lifestyles.

One day in his college literature course, he learned the truth behind the legend of Robin Hood. As it turned out, he wasn’t simply stealing rich people’s assets and giving them to the poor. He was stealing from the government and redistributing tax money to the people who had originally paid it. This inspired Gilbert to right the crimes he felt the government was making. But he couldn’t put on a mask and ransack Fort Knox. Nor did he have the taste for the political life, and he had already made certain decisions in his life that prevented him from being a successful candidate anyway. His only option was the private sector. But in order to succeed in the business world without starting at the bottom and doing a bunch of work, he knew he would need capital. He didn’t have any particular skills, nor was he born into a wealthy family. He needed to get creative. Quite simply, he became a burglar.

For years, Gilbert would break into rich people’s homes when they were not at home, steal whatever cash he could find, and leave. He did this all over the country so that they couldn’t be connected, never worked with a team, and never got caught. During the FBI’s investigation, and the court’s trial, nobody ever uncovered evidence of his origins. Even to his dying day, not a single person who wasn’t some kind of time manipulator ever discovered his life as a petty criminal. He had told almost no one about it. Once he had enough money to start his company, he hired a hat-switching hacker who went by the name of Micro to cover his tracks and make it look like the money came from legitimate sources. Only she had any clue as to who he really was, but not even she knew exactly where the money had come from.

After careful research, Gilbert decided that the most lucrative and economically beneficial industries would be healthcare, and hospitality. He founded H&H&H Holdings. Through takeovers and mergers, he would go on to ultimately provide employment for hundreds of thousands of people in hospitals, hotels, and housing developments. All and all, he should have been richer than Horace Reaver, but he was not. Instead, he chose to lead a minimal lifestyle, and pour all personal capital into his organization. He formed an unusual business model where most profit not used for expansion was rerouted back to the employees in the form of raises and bonuses. Employees were made aware that, because of the unpredictable nature of the market, all wages were subject to constant raising and lowering. Most of them were okay with this, because they were still generally making at least ten percent more than national average for the position.

This was all well and good, except that a not insignificant amount of all this maneuvering was actually illegal. He managed to stay out of the crosshairs of the authorities for as long as he did because he did not resemble the average white-collar criminal. In the end, he wasn’t taking any money for himself, and so no one really suspected that he was doing anything wrong. Still fed up with the government and tax law, Gilbert took every chance he could find to screw over the man. Despite all the raises, they were making more money than they knew what to do with. Well-paid workers tend to have high morale, and do their jobs better, which in turn satisfies customers, which encourages them to return and spread the word, which raises profits. Knowing that at a certain point, you’re just paying your workers too much for the job their doing, and potentially damaging the economy, Gilbert took new risks.

He started funneling profits into various charities, attempting to hide his practices by spreading the wealth so thin that no one would notice. Except that people did notice, and he was ultimately sent to prison for his crimes. What he did was noble, but still fraud. And though his methods contributed to a boost in the nation’s and world’s economy, it had done little to actually change the way the law handled tax brackets.

Gilbert thought his experiences as a businessman would be invaluable once he became a powerful chooser, and possessed the body of President Donald Trump. It was true that this made it easier to pretend to be Trump in the first place, because he could understand what people around him were talking about. His knowledge, however, much like with the real Trump, was not sufficient for helping the populace. Still locked in a struggle with the original inhabitant of his new body, he failed as a president more often than he succeeded. He managed to stop Trump from dismantling everything that previous president, Barack Obama had accomplished, but this left him no energy to accomplish much of anything himself. By all accounts, he was a terrible president, but he did get through it. In the year 2019, he announced that he would not be running for a second term. This was met with no argument from the real Trump in the back of his mind. He honestly was not capable of being a 77-year-old head of state. On January 21, 2021, just to be safe, Gilbert Boyce finally left Donald Trump’s body, and started looking for a new life.

Years passed from Gilbert’s perspective. He continued to jump into random people’s bodies across time and space, not really bothering to focus on a certain destination. He never even considered trying to go back to his own past and correct his mistakes. He wasn’t worried about destroying the continuum, or creating a paradox, he was just ultimately content with how things turned out. He was dead and reborn, and that was good enough. After spending a literally unknowable amount of time in the body of a salmon who uncontrollably perceived time so quickly that he couldn’t make out objects, he found himself in the possession of The Apprentice. “What makes him an apprentice?”

“He’s not an apprentice,” the woman explained. Gilbert didn’t always choose to keep his presence a secret, and this person clearly didn’t care one way or the other. “He’s the Apprentice. With practice, he can actually learn to adopt other people’s temporal powers.”

“Kinda like me.”

“Kinda...but he gets to keep his body and personality, as well as his new powers.”

“If he’s learning, then that makes you the teacher. What are you teaching him?”

“They call me The Weaver. I can make objects adopt temporal powers, so that conceivably anyone could use them.”

“That sounds like a recipe for disaster,” Gilbert said.

“It can be, which is why I’m extremely selective with my creations. We can’t have every Tom, Dick, and Mateo runnin’ around with a time mirror.”

“You know Mateo?”

“I know of him. He’s not been born yet. You, my friend, have leapt into the late nineteenth century.”

Gilbert took a look around at his surroundings. “That explains your rustic dwelling.”

“This is just for show. My true home is significantly more advanced. I’ll never show you, though. That is for me, and my apprentice.”

“That’s fine. I could also possess you.”

“Not while I’m wearing this.” She pulled her shirt collar down to reveal a symbol he recognized tattooed on her chest.

“That’s from Supernatural. It keeps demons out.”

“I repurposed it. The truth is, the design of the tattoo wasn’t important, just that I was the one who did it.”

“Interesting. I wish I could do that. Though, I suppose, if I remain in this body, that’s exactly what I’ll eventually be able to do.”

“I highly recommend you not do that. You don’t wanna test me.”

“All right, all right,” Gilbert stood down. After a pause, he continued, “I’ve seen people use objects before. Do you make all of them? What is that spike thing that I used when I was the Constructor? I never did figure that out.”

“It’s not a spike, it’s a bone stake.”

“What’s a bone stake?”

“It’s a stake made out of bone.”

“Couldn’t you have just made it out of wood?”

“It’s true that I had a hand in the creation of the bone stake, but I could not have done it with just anything, like the tattoo. The Constructor is of a special class, so it had to be bone. It had to be his bone.”

“You took out his bone?”

“Yep. His femur. Replaced it with a metal implant from the future.”

“Why would you do that?”

“He wanted me to. He could be the Constructor just on his own, but having a tool like that allows him to do so without expelling so much time and energy on his creations. After all, that’s what tools are for.”

“Yeah, but...still. A bone. That’s messed up, dude.”

“Well, we can’t all be Meliora Rutherford Delaney-Reaver.”

“No,” Gilbert agreed. Then he had a thought. It was not just his own thought, though. After so much time as Donald Trump—and so many other people with hopes and envious desires—his mind had become corrupted. He was aware of this issue, but could do nothing about it. The ability to possess the body of the most powerful people in spacetime was far too intoxicating. There was no way he was giving that up, even when the main reason he felt that way was because of the issue itself. He had actually once tried to possess Meliora, hungry for her power. Like Trump, she was strong enough to prevent him from taking over, but unlike Trump, she did so effortlessly, and never gave in. There was no way he was breaking that barrier, not in a million years. In the end, he was glad for this, though, because she was an important force for good, and corrupting her legacy might have been the worst thing he ever did. Still he needed to feel her power, and his only option was this body he already had.

The Weaver picked up on his intentions, and was not happy about it. “You are going to leave this body, and you are going to do it now.”

“Or what?”

“I am prepared to destroy it, if only to prevent you from keeping it.”

Gilbert reached deep into his new heart. With enough thought, he could figure out what power the body he was possessing at the moment had, even without asking someone else, or just guessing. It was true that the Apprentice carried with him a great deal of power, but he only needed one at the moment. “You’ll never be able to catch me.”

He teleported away, and began a lovely stroll down Central Park. Then he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and turned around. The Weaver was chasing after him.

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