Microstory 2487: Skilldome

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Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

I don’t want to speak for you, but I’m guessing that your life is pretty easy. Everything you need is handed to you, along with a few things that you might just want. There are those who spend their whole lives holed up in their modules, connected to VR or the network. Dayfruit growers provide them with food. Drones deliver their feedstock. Their electricity and water is piped in, and their waste is shipped out. Their personal robot does all their work. I’m not criticising people who live like this. This is just a preamble so you’ll understand what purpose Skilldome serves. So many things that you may or may not take for granted were either not cheap for our ancestors, hardly available, or outright didn’t exist. Obviously, different time periods came with different limitations, and over the years, there are skills that we’ve lost to automation, and engineered simplicity. I’m not saying that you’ll become a better person if you learn how to drive a car with your hands and feet. I’m just telling you that the skill is something that this dome offers. You can also learn how to churn butter, command an animal to plow a field, or write something down with a pencil and paper. It’s hard to describe what these activities are, since there’s such a broad range, but it’s basically everything that people used to have to do to be productive that we don’t anymore. To be sure, there are some things that still hold some merit in our world. You might not have access to a medpod or healing nanites, even today, so knowing how to perform first aid is one of those skills that some people have maintained anyway. But for those of us whose minds it didn’t cross to do it before, if you’re on Castlebourne, come on down and take a class. As far as skills that are less practical in the synthetic era go, like stuffing mail in envelopes, or coding a program in an obsolete computer language called C++, you can do it just for fun, or to have a greater appreciation for modern living. Or come up with your own reasons. There are no requirements on what you have to do when you come here, but if you do come, and you do choose a particular skill, it is asked of you to use the tools you are given, and not “cheat”. If you’re taking a math test, only use one of those old basic calculators that they will provide you with. Don’t just ask an AI to do it for you. That defeats the purpose. I actually saw a guy do this, which was so stupid, because no one was making him take this otherwise pointless test. What you get out of coming here is entirely up to you. Ain’t nobody gonna hold your hand. Nor should they have to.

Microstory 1576: Time Off

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[Note: Inferkit appears to be down today, so I had to switch to a different text generator from DeepAI.org. I knew I should have worked ahead. That’s what I get for relying on others. As you’ll see, this one is so much worse, and makes so much less sense.]

Prompt

I hate taking time off of work, because it doesn’t lighten my load. All it means is that I have to work ahead before I leave, and catch up when I return.

Botner

The best part is that I don’t have to leave work if I find one in the near future. This is going to cost you money. I’ve had the luxury of getting a few hours of training this summer, especially since I found out how to write JavaScript. I’ll be working on a rewrite of my JavaScript, on time, at the same time I run errands and make plans for the season, and if I’m out at all I need to get off schedule, all at once. That means the most important thing now, is to be able to do everything I want and still come out tomorrow. What’s the best part about working here? You’ll be much better at your job. Your time and work. So much more productive stuff. Why don’t you work at your school? It sounds silly, but if you want to know how to do something or say something—as opposed to waiting for a deadline and learning a new vocabulary—at your school, I can talk you through how to get started. And because I know a lot of people, I can get started. Also, if you are reading this, your mind is going to be more focused if you spend longer, more time, and more time doing...

Conclusion

...whatever you can to get your point across in the most concise and understandable way. You can’t just jumble your ideas together, and spit them out, expecting everyone to make sense of the mess. The last paragraph was an example of what can go wrong when you try to convey a thought without truly thinking about it ahead of time. I left work last week, confident that everything was finished. But it turned out my boss unloaded a bunch of other stuff for me to do while I was gone. He claims he came in at 4:59, but I don’t leave a second sooner than 5:01 every day, so I know he’s lying. Even if he had showed up before I left the room, he knew I had to leave for my sleep study. I couldn’t stick around this time. Besides, none of this garbage is time sensitive. We’re scanning records that no one will see, and we’re winding down the project, so I have plenty of time. I imagine he wants me to finish as quickly as possible so he can let me go. I’m not a temp, there’s supposed to be more work waiting for me in a few weeks, but this company doesn’t like to do things that way. They got a lot of bad publicity for converting most of their workforce to temps, so they didn’t have to provide benefits. So their solution was to hire permanent workers, and just let them go before the benefits cost them too much money. I don’t think they’re doing that math right, but every time they fire someone, and onboard someone new, their proverbial accounting calculator resets, so they can’t tell how much their new method is costing them. They’ll be sorry in the long run.

Microstory 934: 3D Printing

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3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, sounded absurd to me when I first heard whispers of it years ago. Objects are made of so many different kinds of materials, so it seemed impractical to keep each one on hand in raw form at all times. As that one guy in The Graduate says, in one of only two scenes I’ve watched, “plastics.” Plastic is manufactured from a myriad of chemical compounds, and formed in a multitude of ways. It is widely available, cheap to make, and capable of assuming any form. It also lasts for thousands of years, which is why it’s so bad for the environment when wasted. Despite its issues, plastic may be our best hope to combat scarcity and inequality. One day, I believe everyone will own two 3D printers; one for synthesizing food, and another for clothing and household items. Certain places will use other types. Every hospital will be equipped with artificial tissue synthesizers, in order to replace bodily organs. Construction companies will utilize specialized mega-printers to build skyscrapers in a matter of days. The average consumer will never have to leave their housing unit to shop. Goods will be selected online—or rather, the technical specifications for them—and printed in minutes, maybe hours. Entire companies will be shuttered, and replaced by those in the business of processing raw plastic cartridges, and delivering to end users via automated drones. This, combined with other societal advances, such as universal basic income, will render jobs virtually irrelevant and unnecessary. I won’t speak more on that, though, because if you’ve been following, you know how excited I am for this future. As of now, most people have no use for a 3D printer of any kind, but in fewer than thirty years, they will be as ubiquitous as microwave ovens. It may sound crazy now, but in the same span of time, the idea of owning a tiny computer the size of a calculator, with access to the whole world, was the stuff of science fiction.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: August 24, 2170

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Things were really intense when Leona and Serif woke up on the day of arrival. Brooke and Paige were stationed in the cockpit, working and reworking calculations, formulating contingencies, and running diagnostics. Missy was zipping around the whole ship, checking all other systems, over and over again. Dar’cy was just hanging out in the lounge. She could sense what kind of danger they were in, but didn’t have the education to really understand what they were in for. Serif joined her, wanting to stay out of the way of the rest of the crew. Before Leona could go help, she first had to go back to the room, and throw up. This wasn’t the first time she was on a spaceship. Hell, they were probably in the best shape than the others, since everything was so far going according to plan, but that didn’t make her any less anxious. When she entered the cockpit, everyone looked at her like she was the leader. They weren’t expecting her to give them orders, but she was chosen for this mission for a reason, because as advanced as the transhumans were, they couldn’t hope to match her skills at systems thinking. She knew everything that could go wrong, and knew how to fix it. Computers were really good at solving problems individually, but the human mind was better at understanding the problem as a whole.

She sat down at her interface terminal, and got to work checking everyone else’s math, including The Warren’s. A couple hours later, the alarm went off. Nothing was wrong, it was just alerting them that they were approaching Durus, and thusly their point of no return. “Please secure your belongings, and prepare for arrival,” The Warren commanded.

The other three crew members came in, two of them freaked out. “What’s going on?” Dar’cy asked.

“It’s fine,” Leona explained. “This is meant to happen.”

“I tried to tell them,” Missy apologized. “We need to find a seat.”

“There are jumpseats back there.” Paige jerked her head towards the corner, but kept her eyes on on the screen.

“Why can’t we see out the windows?” Serif asked.

“It’s not worth it,” Brooke said. “We’re still dealing with debris, so it’s better to protect the hull than to watch the approach. You can already see the planet, though. That screen rotates away from that wall.”

Missy pulled the viewing screen away from the wall, so the three of them could watch.

“Shouldn’t you be doing something?” Serif asked. “In the movies, they’re always frantically pushing buttons, and flipping switches.

“The aerocapture maneuver is automated,” Paige answered instead of Brooke, “just like everything else on this ship. They’ve done all they can to prepare of it, but The Warren should be able to take it from here.”

Dar’cy happened to be sitting at the communications console when it blooped. “Uhh, we’re receiving a message. Text only.”

“The González must be telling us good luck,” Paige assumed.

“It’s not from the González,” Dar’cy said. “It’s from the surface.”

“What does it say?”

Dar’cy read from the screen, “Brooke, put on your necklace.”

Leona and Brooke just gave each other this look.

“Who knows about your necklace?” Missy wondered.

“You should do it,” Leona recommended.

“I already have it,” Brooke replied. “Of course I have it on. I’ll need to be able to survive in an emergency atterberry bubble if the ship breaks apart.”

“Why would the ship break apart!” Serif shouted, louder than she probably wanted.

“Murphy’s Law,” Paige said simply.

“Not helpful.” Leona looked to her love. “Serif, everything’s going great. I’m not just saying that. We’re right on course.”

The ship lurched and shuttered.

“What’s that?” Missy asked. “It’s too early for atmosphere.”

“We’re off course!” Brooke called out. Now she was frantically pushing buttons, and flipping switches.

“Oh, God!” Serif prayed.

The Warren continued to violently shake around. Leona tried to figure out what was wrong with it, but the readings didn’t make any sense, and sensors fluctuated erratically. One thing she could tell was that the planet was coming up at them at a really bad angle, not unlike the one Nerakali thought they would use when she put Leona in one of her virtual constructs. She, Brooke, Missy, and Paige shared information, but no one knew what was happening, or what they were going to do about it.

“Missy! Make a bubble!” Paige ordered.

“I’ve been trying!” Missy complained. The gravity well is screwing with my powers! I think I could make us go faster, but not slower!”

“Wait, what is that?” Brooke asked the aether, but received no answer. The entire computer system shut off. Primary lights snapped off, and were replaced by emergency yellows. The gravdisk immediately stopped spinning, which likely meant that it had broken off the ship. Serif and Dar’cy were still crying and screaming when the shuttering stopped, and everyone else realized they weren’t moving anymore.

“Nobody ask if we’re dead, we’re not dead.” Paige must have hated that trope.

“So...that’s not an angel?” Dar’cy asked.

Everybody turned in their seats to see a woman standing in the doorway. “I’ve been called worse.”

“Who are you?” Paige stood up, and stepped forward to protect her crew.

“My name is Hokusai Gimura. Let me be the first to welcome you to Durus.”

“Are we on the surface already?” Brooke asked.

“You’re floating in the middle of a cylicone.”

“Where have I heard that before?” Serif asked.

“Anisim’s boat,” Leona remembered. “That’s what got us to the mainlands of Dardius from Tribulation Island so fast. It’s some kind of temporal amplifier.”

“That’s right,” Hokusai said. “I built this as a landing pad, in case anyone else needed to come to Durus. Then last month, I get word from a seer that that’s exactly what’s going to happen. I’m glad I did, too. It needed some repairs. I kind of forgot about it.”

“We had a way of landing,” ever-suspicious Paige said to her.

“I realize that, but this was safer.”

Missy had been looking through some things on her terminal. “Are you sure about that? The gravity disk broke off.”

“What?” Hokusai was shocked. “No, my calculations were perfect. You should be completely intact.”

Leona checked on her terminal. “Well, we’re not. It’s gone.”

“Shit,” Hokusai said. “I should have warned you what I was going to do. You could have decelerated the disk beforehand, and it wouldn’t have been a problem. I’m so sorry. I’ll help you fix it.”

“We have all year,” Paige said. “Leona and Serif can’t leave until then anyway. In the meantime, perhaps you can help us find our friend?”

“Who are you looking for?” She asked with a customer service-worthy smile.

“Her name is Saga Einarsson.”

Hokusai went right back into a frown. “That might be rather difficult.”

“How so?” Paige asked. “Do you know her?”

“I knew her, but I haven’t seen her in a year. Ever since her wife died, and her partner...” she trailed off. Then she continued, “I’ll help you look, but she really doesn’t want to be found.”

“Again. We have a whole year.”

“We can leave your ship in suspension,” Hokusai said, turning around. “If you don’t have the kind of lockout protocols I did with my ship, we don’t want it sitting on the surface, where any curious cat can get to it.”

“We’ll have to clear out,” Brooke said. “Another ship is coming in seventeen days.

Hokusai looked confused. “It shouldn’t be. No, the seer was very clear. One ship. Only one. The next one won’t arrive for another few decades.”

Paige turned to Missy. “Send a message to The González. Tell them to run a full diagnostic on their systems, and rerun their simulations. They might be in trouble.”

“Will that get to them in time?” Dar’cy asked.

“Maybe,” Paige said. “I don’t know what goes wrong.”

Hokusai spoke into a communication device. “Loa. Do you have a teleporter on your hands?”

“I have a telekinetic,” came the reply.

“That’ll work. Can you have them pull the ship out of the cylicone lander.”

“Aye-aye.”

Brooke disengaged the window shields so they could see themselves being pulled out of the cylicone, over the edge, and gently down to the ground.

“Telekinesis is real?” Leona asked. “I’ve never heard of that.”

“It’s more like extremely precise and rapid teleportation. My wife will set you up with some nice quarters. I need to go meet with that seer again to find out what’s going on with your companion vessel.” She took something out of her pocket.

“Thanks,” Paige said, almost out of character. “For saving us. We don’t know whether the aerocapture would have worked.

She frowned a third time. “It didn’t in the other timeline.” She pushed a button on her device, and disappeared.

In her place appeared another woman. “I’m Loa. Let me be the second to welcome you to Durus.” She took a hockey puck-looking thing out of her bag, and tried to place it on the wall.

“What is that?”

“This world is dangerous for visitors. Everyone is going to want something from you. Some might want whatever technology is in here. Some will want your weapons.”

“We have no weapons,” Dar’cy said defensively.

“Some Earthans will want to go home.” Loa glanced around. “You do not have the space for them.”

“That doesn’t explain what that thing is.”

“I’m going to be giving each of you an emergency evac clip. Push it, and it’ll teleport you right back here. This thing here is just the beacon. It’s harmless. I’ll give you one to tinker with, if you want.”

“That would be great,” Missy said excitedly.

There was silence for a bit.

“I hear you have somewhere we can stay,” Paige put forth.

“I do,” Loa confirmed. “They’re quite nice.”

Paige turned to the crew. “Missy and Brooke, I need you to stay here and make sure no one but us can get into The Warren. Serif and Loa, we’ll be leaving you at the hotel, or whatever it is. Dar’cy, you and I will be doing some recon.”

Everyone nodded with formality.

“Are we just going to be sitting in the room? Leona asked.

Paige addressed Loa, “do you have some sort of...historical database, or something?”

“We have the metanetwork. It’s like your Earthan internet. There’s a terminal in your room.”

Paige went back to Leona, “research this planet. I wanna know what I’m dealing with here.”

“Understood.”

“Then get some rest. I don’t know what you two will be waking up to next year.”

“Next year?” Loa asked, confused.

“Don’t worry about it.”

They left the ship for the first time in days/years, which meant it was less of a relief for Leona and Serif than it was for the others. At first she thought she was hallucinating when she walked onto the surface of a rogue planet, but no, it was apparently real. There was a sky, with a discernible sun, and a raging stream a few meters away. She had heard they had some kind of an atmosphere, but this was crazy. She was glad to be assigned the task of figuring out what this place was.

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: August 23, 2169

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As predicted the temporal dimension closed up when Leona and Serif reached their next scheduled date of August 22, 2368. They were unable to get any decent sleep while stuck in the dimension, though, so they had to catch up on it at that point. Fortunately, nothing was going on. All of their problems had seemingly been solved. Of course, no one talked about this, for fear of others claiming they jinxed their relative good luck. Superstitions, being what they were, which was nonexistent, turned out to be irrelevant, for come 2169, the two of them discovered they had lost one of their people back home. Xearea Voss died on the twenty-first of November of last year. She was seventy-nine years old, and is survived by her brother, Agent Camden ‘Centurion’ Voss. If all went according to plan, the new savior was conceived on the following day. “Where there is death, there is also life,” Missy recited from what was essentially a powers that be slogan she heard once regarding the role of Saviors.

“How did she die?” Serif asked.

“The Gravedigger arrived to give us the news, and pay his respects,” Paige told them. “Evidently after sending us on our mission to find her replacement, she was retired. She was much older than other Saviors have been before retiring. She died of heart disease, like any other old person who wasn’t transhumanistic.”

“If she not only retires, but also dies, before her replacement is even born, what does the world do without someone for that...uh,” Serif began to ask.

“Nineteen years,” Leona helped. “They use interim Saviors, don’t they?”

“Indeed,” Missy confirmed. “They’re usually salmon who normally do other things, but they occasionally ask help from choosers. I’ve done it a few times myself. We think that the powers made a mathematical error. In the beginning, there was only one Savior, because the population was so low. As the population grew, their numbers increased, and they decided to stagger their births, so the world was never without at least a few. They maintained this dynamic, even after returning to the one Savior at a time thing, which causes these gaps in service.”

“Okay, so,” Paige began.

“Cheese,” Serif blurted out reflexively.”

Paige ignored this comment. “Leona, I would like to ask you a favor.”

“Go ahead,” Leona said.

“The gravity tower altered our schedule. We were meant to arrive during your interim, as you know. When you returned, you should have appeared on a ship already set on Durus.”

“But now that’s no longer the case?”

“It is, but Dar’cy had an idea.”

“I did?” Dar’cy asked.

“Yeah, remember, you said how it would be nice if Leona was here to help land the ship?”

“Yeah, I guess...”

“Well,” Paige said, “Brooke, Missy, and I all agree that this would be a good idea. So we’ve been gradually altering course even more, trying to make this happen. We think we’re almost there, but we could use your amazing brain to check our math.”

“You have an artificial intelligence,” Leona said, referring to The Warren itself.

“You have a superior intelligence,” Brooke returned.

“I mean, I’ll look at it. I must say that I would not have recommended this course of action. It was too risky.”

“I agree,” Paige said. “Still, we started it, and if we don’t finish it, and get it exactly right, it will have been a waste of time.”

“Very well.” Leona grabbed a meal bar, and headed for the cockpit. She spent the next two hours going over their calculations, consulting starcharts, and going over the calculations again. At this rate, they would arrive at Durus the day before Leona returned to the timestream. She would have to make one slight adjustment to push it back by only a few hours. If she pushed it too far, though, it would be late by one day, like Paige said, it will not have mattered. Before she actually changed heading, she decided to simulate it. “Computer, model our arrival now.” Wow, two days off. She pulled back a little. “Model again.” It was too close to midnight on the twenty-fourth. She needed to be there for whole thing. “Model again.” No, that was two close to midnight on the twenty-fifth, which was even worse. “Model one more time, please.” There. Without requesting permission, she dropped speed by a fraction of a fraction, and they were on the right track.

Bloop!

“What was that?” Brooke had returned.

Leona slid her chair over to the communications panel, which was built despite the fact that there was no one out here to communicate with. It was part of the original plans, so they included it, but never thought they would need it. Leona was confounded. “Uhh...looks like a ship.”

“Another ship?” Brooke asked. She came over, and literally pushed Leona out of the way, so she could investigate herself. “It’s another ship.”

“It’s within realtime comms range?” Leona asked.

“Computer, mauve alert,” Brooke ordered. The lights turned a shade of purple, and an alarm rang out.

“Is that necessary?” Leona asked.

“I don’t know,” Brooke said, “which always means yes.”

Paige ran in. “What is it?”

“A ship,” Brooke answered. “It’s...it’s following us.”

Bleep!

“It’s hailing us,” Brooke said.

Everyone just stood there.

“Well, answer it,” Leona suggested.

Paige closed her eyes in support. Brooke opened a channel. “Audio only.”

“Chaperone Vessel Warren,” came a voice from the speakers. “This is Failsafe Vessel González. Are you in trouble?”

“We are not,” Paige answered professionally. “Who are you?”

“This is The González. Are you having trouble reading me? You’re five by five.”

“No, just...what are you doing out here?”

“We’re following you. Why have you altered course?”

“New schedule better coincides with staffing arrangements.” Paige contorted her face, not knowing how to answer the question without saying something about Leona being a time traveler.”

After a beat, the voice responded, “what?” She went on, but it sounded like she was talking to someone else in the room, and had accidentally left the channel open. “Who?—Leona Matic, yes.—And when will that be?—That’s our scheduled arrival. We weren’t supposed to get there at the same time, that defeats the whole frelling purpose.—No, they didn’t know.—I know, but I had to find out what was wrong! They could see us anyway.—Okay, I’ll ask.” She cleared her throat, and then said nothing.

“Failsafe Vessel,” Brooke echoed through the silence, but just to everyone on The Warren. “I’ve heard of tho—”

The voice came back, “...how to do it, I just had the toggle switched. Goddammit. Warren, can you hear me?”

“This is The Warren,” Paige replied.

“I guess the cat’s out of the bag,” The González said. “We have been following you. In the event that you should be destroyed, or incapacitated, we were meant to complete the mission in your stead.”

“We always said we wanted redundancies,” Missy pointed out.

“Yes,” Paige agreed. “I suppose I’m most upset about being kept in the dark about it.” She nodded to Brooke, so she could address the other ship. “What is your name? How many are on your crew?”

“I am Captain Kestral McBride, pilot and engineer. My first officer is Lieutenant Ishida Caldwell, engineer and astrophysicist. Say hi, Ishida.”

“Hi.”

“You only have two crew members?”

“Do we require more?”

“I suppose not,” Paige answered. “And I suppose you don’t need us to introduce ourselves.”

“We have your manifest,” Kestral replied.

“How far away are they?” Paige asked Brooke.

“Three hundred and eighty thousand kilometers behind us...and change.”

Paige stood up straight to open her diaphragm. “González, please adjust your heading to arrive on Durus seventeen days after we do. If you would like, I can have my own astrophysicist perform the necessary calculations to accomplish this, and relay them to you.”

“Does she have to follow your commands?” Serif asked of her.

Paige shrugged.

“Seventeen days. Confirmed,” Kestral answered. “We can perform the calculations ourselves, but would welcome a third opinion.”

“Leona?” Paige requested.

“Yes, Captain. I’ll get right on that.”

As Leona was sitting down at a terminal, she saw Dar’cy pull Paige aside. They were whispering, but she could make out some of the words: trust, security, mission, safety, and weapons.”

Leona spent the next hour working with Missy, Brooke, and the two González crew members, to make sure everyone was on the same page with what was going to happen. They had to wait until later that night to make an course corrections, though, because that was just how the math worked out. They used this time to get to know each other better. Kestral and Ishida were just regular humans, who had gotten minimally involved with time travelers. They met when they were both assigned to help design the probe ships that would be sent to the most promising nearby star systems, and were still around to see the ones that left for Proxima Centauri and Rigil Kentaurus. At present technology, these vessels would not arrive at their destinations until the 2180s, but current trends suggested the nanofactory ships sent later would make the trips much faster, and the colony ships after them faster yet.

When the time came, The González broke formation, and set about on their own schedule. Eventually, they were so far away, the delay between messages made further communication impractical. It would be another two years before Leona and Serif encountered them again. But for now, they needed to focus on the task at hand. Come tomorrow, they would have to hit the ground running, and land this piece of machinery without killing everyone on board. It was time for some more sleep.

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Microstory 756: Bullet

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No one ever accused Kavita Lauritz of being normal, or of conforming to the way most people do things. She always knew she had the gift of foresight, but she could never understand the context of her visions. She was utterly convinced that the things she was seeing in her mind were predictions of the future, but these events were so far into that future that she was also fairly certain that she wouldn’t actually be there to witness them come to pass. She could never predict what was going to happen tomorrow, next year, or anything at all that pertained to her life. And calling them visions wasn’t quite doing her ability justice, because they were more like feelings. She just had this sense of what was going to happen to the universe; major, paradigm shifting occurrences that would seem small to most, if they had any way of recognizing them. The culture she was born into was completely on board with the possibility that there exists people in the galaxy with special abilities, but since she could provide no proof that her truths were real, few believed her. But there were those few, and they followed her—worshipped her, even. Unfortunately, this cult following would not be created until after her death. Though all of her predictions were important, there was one that refused to be suppressed to her subconscious. After careful thought, she realized that she was capable of having an effect on the outcome, even though it would not happen for millions of years. This would not be easy, though, for it required careful consideration, and considerable calculations. She spent years learning extremely high-level math in order to understand the problem, missing the first window in the trying. By the time she figured out what her second window of opportunity would be, it was but days away. She would not have time to plan it out very well. As it turned out, an important galactic leader was speaking on the space station where she needed to fire the weapon. Though she had no intention of harming the leader, or anyone else on the station, she was arrested for conspiracy, and placed in prison for life.

Kavita spent the rest of her life calculating the third window of opportunity, which would likely be the last. She scratched her formulas into the walls, and drew them in the dirt, only later being allowed paper and pen. This one was proving to be far more difficult. The celestial movements would have to line up perfectly in order for it to work, much more so than with the other two chances. Astral travel was increasingly interfering with stellar activity with each passing year, stretching her predictive capabilities to their limits. Before her death, she discovered that the third window would not arrive until long after her death. All hope was lost, and she died believing everything she had worked for was meaningless. Centuries later, however, her plans were discovered. Believing her on faith alone, a cult was born with the sole mission of carrying out her final wish. They purchased land on the moon in question, and remained there so they would not be bothered by anyone. After another few centuries, the cult had all but died out, along with the rest of civilization, which had warred itself into oblivion until there was almost nothing left. Only one member was still alive. Fighting against his death throes, he made sure the aiming instruments were aligned correctly, cleaned his gun one last time, and set it in its place. Sweat dripping from his brow, death calling him to sleep, he waited patiently for his alarm to signal at the exact right second. He fired into the vacuum, and died. The Bullet of Causality started on its journey, which would last millions of years, ultimately hitting its target in a distant galaxy.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 29, 2022

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The woman at the train station ticket counter gave Mateo a hard time about his identification. But since the train was leaving in less than 15 minutes—and he had purposely made himself look like a nomad—she gave in. He scooped up his bag and ran for the platform, boarding just in time.

He found his seat on the upper level and sat down. He took out a map and a calculator. When he was in Las Vegas, he jumped at midnight according to the central time zone, which meant that it was only ten o’clock where he was. The map said that the train would get into Salt Lake City at 11:05. That was five minutes too late. He would have to get off at Provo instead. Which was fine. He didn’t know much about Utah, but one city didn’t sound any better than the other, and they both existed within the “loci non grata” category. The trip was incredibly boring. Everyone else around had tablets and phones to play with, but he had to shed himself of such things. He didn’t know how easy it was for people to track him with technology. Leona would normally keep him up-to-date on world progress. He was missing out on so much. He decided to make a habit of going to the library every day and find a recap of each passing year. Perhaps he would just live at the library. It wasn’t like anyone could logistically stop him, and he would have to sleep somewhere.

Throughout the ride, they had to make frequent stops, and not just at other stations. They would wait, sometimes for nearly an hour at a time in the middle of nowhere. Freight trains held priority over passengers. No wonder people didn’t take the train anymore. It was an absolute nightmare. He was growing more and more concerned. The longer they were taking, the farther he would be from his stop when he had to get off. He shuddered to think what might happen if he were on a moving vessel during the timeslip. But then he had an optimistic thought. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to jump at all. Maybe whatever force was causing him to go through this would keep him tethered to the timestream in order to protect him. Afterall, you can’t throw someone through time if they’re dead; or rather, it would be pointless. In the end, it wasn’t worth the risk, though. He kept his map out and pulled back his departure station by station as necessary.

A voice came on the intercom after a particularly long wait. “We do apologize for the inconvenience. I would just like to mention that we are all in the same boat, so to speak. The crew is tired and hot and miserable, just like you.”

The man on the other side of the aisle laughed. He and Mateo locked eyes. “The difference between us and the crew, is that we are paying for the misery, while they are being paid.”

“So true,” Mateo replied.

“What is your final destination?” he asked.

Mateo had to think about his answer. He couldn’t say anything about Salt Lake City, or Provo. He tried to remember which station was his last before midnight. It wasn’t in Utah, this much he knew.

“I didn’t know it was a trick question,” the man said jokingly.

“No, sorry. It’s Grand Junction, Colorado.”

“Business or pleasure.”

Mateo breathed in deeply. “New life.”

“Ah, interesting. Running from, or just running to?”

He tilted his head and thought this over for a second. He wasn’t trying to get away from his family so much as he was trying to keep them away from him. And he had no real destination. His life was completely meaningless at this point. Part of life was dealing with the consequences of your actions day to day. But for him, each day was a pit stop before the next. There was no connection between them. He was in a constant state of flux. As a Catholic, he believed in hell, but had never trusted the depictions of it in art. It was at this moment that he realized what was really going on. This was his hell. If he died of old age, it wouldn’t be for another tens of thousands of years. Would humans even still exist? Would he spend most of his time alone on the planet, statistically likely to skip over any disaster that might consume the population? He took another deep breath and exhaled. “Both.”

“Well, I’m rooting for you. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“Thanks,” Mateo said genuinely. The train finally started moving again. “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a physicist. The name is Duke Andrews. I assume you don’t have a career at the moment. What’s your name?”

“Mateo.” He smiled. “I don’t have a last name anymore, though.”

“Full commitment,” Duke smiled back. “I respect that.”

There was one more delay a little while later. All in all, they were almost nine hours behind schedule. He looked back at the map and determined that he would have to get off at the next train station in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. As he was double-checking his math, he could feel himself nodding off. His eyelids felt so phenomenally heavy. He couldn’t keep them open. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d last slept; at least a couple years.

He jolted awake after what felt like only a few minutes.

“Welcome back to us,” Duke said. He was holding a newspaper.

“Where are we?” Mateo asked in a panic.

“Don’t worry. You haven’t missed Grand Junction yet,” Duke answered in a fairly comforting voice. “You can go back to sleep. I promise to wake you up.”

“No, I made a mistake. I meant Glenwood Springs. I’m supposed to go to Glenwood Springs!” His voice woke up other people in the car, including a now crying baby.

“Oh, well you’ve missed that. But it’s okay. You’re starting a new life. Does it matter where? You won’t be that far off course either way.”

“What time is it?” Mateo pulled his sleeve back and looked at his watch. It was a couple minutes before the jump. “Oh my God. It’s almost midnight.”

“No, it’s eleven o’clock.”

“I mean a different midnight!”

Duke looked like he was about to tell Mateo to calm down, but he didn’t get a chance. The train screeched to a halt. “We apologize once more,” said the voice on the intercom. “We’re not sure why the train stopped this time, but we are looking into the matter and will have you back on track in no time.”

“I have to get off!” Mateo screamed.

“You won’t be able to,” Duke said. “We’re on a bridge over the Colorado River.”

“I’m still on the upper level!” He was making the rest of the car very nervous. He tried to pull his bag from under the seat, but it was stuck on something. He gave up on it and ran for the door. But it was too late. At midnight central time, he jumped forward. The train disappeared and he started to fall several feet, breaking his leg upon landing. He cried out in pain. He looked up and could see lights approaching. The year 2023 train was headed right for him.

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