Microstory 2790: Spoiler Alert: It’s a Parachute

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They’re moving everything out of the backyard. It’s the only space big enough for what they need to do. Lawn chairs, the table, the cornhole game things; it all has to go. Jande asks Ersence if she can go around stripping everyone’s bed. Some might not be so happy with that, and she doesn’t care what people think, so she can still get it done. Jande carries the sewing machine downstairs himself and sets it on the patio. The point where it gets the best faux sunlight is too far from the wall outlet, so he has to go around looking for an extension cord too. He sets everything up, Ersence gets all the bedding in a pile, and they should be ready to go. He doesn’t know how long it will take, though.

“Why are you asking me?” Dare questions. Everyone’s looking at him.

“You’re the sewing expert,” Jande tells him.

Dare winces. “What the hell gave you that idea?”

“The sewing kit was under your bed,” Jande points out. “Aren’t you a sewer?”

Dare rolls his eyes. “I took the kit because I wanted to learn how to sew. I didn’t even get a chance to try because we got wrapped up in getting rid of the smart dust.”

“Well, shit,” Jande laments. “This whole plan is contingent upon someone being able to sew all these sheets together.” He lifts his head. “So who here can do it? Come on, don’t be shy. Even if you’ve only done it once, at least that’s somewhere to start.”

Ximena raises her hand. “Um...no, not me, but, uh, Mayor can.”

“Mayor,” Jande echoes. “The guy currently playing footsie with Death. He’s the only one with any experience sewing? How did that happen? Was this all planned?”

“Haoran, how is he doing?” Ersence pushes. “Can he move? We could set him up in a chair so he only has to move his arms and hands. There’s a pedal. If he needs someone to hold a pedal down, well, I can certainly volunteer for that.”

Haoran stares at her blankly. “There is a torn shirt in his stomach that reads Y2K Princess. No, Ersence. He can’t move. Best I can do is carefully drag him to the patio.”

“That might be enough,” Jande decides. “He can instruct one of us how to do it.”

Haoran shakes his head, very annoyed. “If he needs to sleep, he needs to sleep.”

“We’re doing this for him,” Tamerlane reminds him. “If he wants to live, he’ll stay awake long enough to teach the sewer. I saw an epinephrine injector in the med kit—”

“You are not giving my patient epinephrine, you fucking psycho. He’ll bleed out in minutes.” Haoran makes himself calm down a little. “Though...I could theoretically...crack it open to control the dosage myself, and get some lucidity out of him. But only for a crash course. We’re talking about a sewing machine here, not a quantum terminal. Once he’s done teaching, he goes back on the sedative to recover.”

“Don’t use too many sedatives,” Kool warns. “We probably won’t get more.”

“And who else needs them?” Haoran questions. “They’re not recreational.”

“I’m not talking about myself,” Kool reacts. “I’m just saying...”

“I’m just saying,” Jande interrupts, “that we need to decide who is the best person for the job. It should be someone with nimble fingers who picks up new skills quickly.” He scans the crowd again. “Really? Still no takers. Do you all want Mayor to die?”

Still no response. No one is guilted into volunteering. They probably don’t want something to go wrong and be blamed for someone’s death. Death is so rare these days.

Jande sighs. “Fine. As a farmer, I guess I have decent hand-eye coordination. But we all have to contribute. Nap time’s over, people. Someone other than me or Mr. Gao, go get our patient, and carefully carry him out here so he can see the machine. There’s a lot of fabric here. I’m going to need help wrangling it. I’ll sit at this little chair, and control the section I’m working on as needed, but it will be a group effort.”

Jande sits down while everyone else is getting ready. He wants to study the sewing machine before he tries anything to maximize the time he has with his injured teacher. It looks relatively simple, but the real danger could be messing up after Mayor falls back asleep, and not knowing how to fix it.

Once Jande actually begins, he soon finds that it’s not as simple as moving the fabric and thread in the right way, and pushing the right buttons. It’s tiring. After twenty minutes, his body has kind of already had enough. He doesn’t keel over and pass out, but he starts making little mistakes which could cost whoever uses this thing their life. It doesn’t have to be pretty, but they only have so much thread, so they have to make sure it holds. Fortunately, he wasn’t the only one paying attention.

A few others tag in so they can cycle the responsibility. It’s like a firing squad. If it tears somewhere, they won’t know whose fault it was. In fact, realizing this, Tamerlane suggests that everyone gets a turn on the machine, so they don’t end up being able to zero in on one person. Of course, they hope it holds together anyway, which is why everyone’s work gets checked and stress-tested, but it has to be fair.

Now comes the time when they have to decide who the hell is gonna use this thing. Van declared that whoever showed up would get the antibiotics that Mayor needed, but also that there would be a second prize. Of course, to maintain that tension the producers love so much, he didn’t say what the prize would be. It could be as simple as a slice of pizza, or the chance to name an opponent to be kicked out of the race entirely. That was Zanele’s random idea, and she shouldn’t have said it, because now the producers can use it, assuming they didn’t think of it before.

Jande has been the de facto leader throughout a lot of this, but not all of it. He literally has the loudest voice, except for Mayor. That’s really the only reason. Right?

“Wait, why would I be in charge of deciding?” Haoran asks.

“You don’t have to decide,” Jande says, “but you have to at least decide how we decide. You’re the doctor. You’re the only one who can’t go. The rest of us are fair game.”

“It sounds like you still wanna lead, like you did the sewing challenge,” Haoran reasons. “Candidates vote for themselves every election. So get on up here, big guy.”

“Hold on.” Pryce shakes his head with a chuckle. “We don’t need a moderated debate. We can just vote. All in favor of Jande being the one to go, raise your hands.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. How did I suddenly become the only one in contention? That’s not fair. Who votes for Pryce instead?”

No one raises their hand, not even his literal wife. So Jande has to trust the parachute that he was primarily responsible for putting together. Which actually is somewhat fair. It’s not as bad as he thought. The ride down is cold as hell, but mostly boring. The annoying part is as soon as he lands, the house does too, having been lowered safely on the hydraulics. It was timed perfectly to make him look like a chump.

Van walks over with his microphone. “Welcome to the next challenge! We lied. Before you get the antibiotics, you have to compete in our Sudden Death round. Whoever kills Jande Ter Avest before the timer runs out becomes the Superintendent. If Jande survives the day, we keep going. Okay, three, two, one,” he rattles off, “go!”

Microstory 2788: You Can See Smart Dust With a Flashlight in a Dark Room

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When they’re not running through challenges or going to funerals, the candidates live in a single house together. They’ve not actually competed in anything else since the platform event, but more are theoretically coming. Until then, Tamerlane Pryce believes that the house itself is just as much part of the contest as any formal game.

“Back even before my time, reality shows were blowing up,” Tamerlane explains. He’s standing in front of everyone in the communal living area like a college lecturer. “They weren’t documentaries that maintained boundaries to adhere to cinéma vérité rules. They were money-making machines, designed to get viewers hooked, and advertisers drooling. The primary purpose was to put a bunch of people together in stressful scenarios, and generate friction. Some shows didn’t even have challenges. People were just there, letting their conflicting personalities produce the entertainment.

“These kinds of shows died out—not because broadcast networks decided to be more ethical, or because viewers wanted more intellectual programming—but because tensions gradually died out naturally. It’s a cliché for a reason. Transitioning to a post-scarcity economy didn’t only end poverty overnight. It took away a lot of perfectly healthy societal conflict too. It’s okay to argue with your neighbors about whether your trash bins should be left on corners of the driveway, or on the curb, partially in the grass. But when everyone moved to megastructure arcologies, those problems disappeared, because now everyone has the same trash chute in the same place.”

He’s right about that. People mostly don’t have little personal problems anymore because everything they genuinely need is provided. Things only get hairy when your ambitions call for something greater, like, say, a ship, or the superintendency of a whole planet. So why is it that they’re being filmed when they’re just trying to live together in this big—but still, paradoxically, a little too small—house? Or even are they? The candidates can’t say for sure, because the whole point of smart dust is that it’s hard to spot. They have been stripped of more than their advanced substrates. They don’t have access to the kind of technology they would need to be certain of anything. They need to find the exact text of whatever contract the coordinators think they signed.

“Are you on your way to reaching a point, or are we trapped in a circle?” one of the Eyrenlanders snarks at Pryce.

Pryce smiles like he appreciates the question. “The point is, I think the smart dust question is just another challenge, which is why we’ve not been pulled out for something else in the last few days. I don’t know what they had planned for the funeral. I’m guessing no one predicted that little Pickpocket would crash the party, but we have to assume that everything is a test. We can’t move on unless we solve this.”

“Well, you’re the genius, aren’t you?” a different Eyrenlander asks. Jande is refusing to learn any of their names. If any of the non-Eyrenlanders gets the job, it could be okay, but he doesn’t trust any of the five—or rather, the four remaining. “I mean, that’s why you were in prison, because even before people could download knowledge into their brains, you became the father of consciousness transference, right?”

Tamerlane nods. “I admit, this is a blind spot for me. I was hyperfocused on that technology, and essentially ignored all other fields, such as covert surveillance. So if there’s a way to detect smart dust without a literal smart dust detector, I don’t know it.”

Dare Finnian has been slouched on the couch as he’s listening to this, drinking a beverage known as a soda. Van and the other producers must really be getting their cues from 21st century broadcasting because soft drinks haven’t been popular since pretty much back then. He sighs, downs the rest of his drink, and crushes the can against his forehead before standing up. I’m gonna get another. Anyone want one?” He pivots on his hips back and forth. “Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Cool.” He walks off.

“Like nanotechnology, smart dust has to be powered by something.” It’s the blonde girl who tried to leave, and had to complete the first task on one leg. Her name is Priscilla Kool, but everyone calls her Kool. “You can’t make a fusion drive small enough. The containment components alone would be at least the size of a fingernail. Something in the house has to be providing wireless power. All we have to do is shut that off.”

They can hear Dare bangaranging in the kitchen.

“It’s probably just powered by the house,” Ersence reasons. “Even if they gave us access to the main power source and any auxiliary sources, we need that power. I need light to shave. I’m not going to stop shaving. There are some transhumanistic enhancements that even my people don’t shun. That was one of them. I hate body hair.”

More banging around from the kitchen.

“Can we help you find something?” Jande shouts. “Did you forget which one was the refrigerator? It’s the big silver one.”

Dare starts coming back into the room. “No, I hope what I’m looking for isn’t in the fridge. It would be a stupid place to put it. Though, looking at you lot...” He runs back out to the kitchen, then runs back fairly quickly. “No, not in there.”

“Perhaps if you told us what it was?” Jande offers.

Dare starts to open drawers and cabinets in this room now, which are mostly empty, though some contain boardgames or extra blankets. “Did I ever tell you why I became a hermit? Why did I leave society to go live in an asteroid all by myself?”

“You did it for the same reason everyone else does, I’m guessing,” Ersence says. “The individual no longer requires help from the tribe to survive. If you have the common core elements and at least one nanobot, you can make anything.”

Dare nods as he’s continuing to look. “There you are.” He takes out a giant flashlight, and starts to mindlessly hit his palm with it as he talks. “It’s not that I didn’t require people; it’s that other people are a danger. They are uncontrollable variables, which threaten each and every one of us. I ran away from people because I suffer from extreme paranoia, and the drugs didn’t work. They just made me paranoid that I wasn’t being paranoid enough to protect myself. I never felt safer than when I was alone.”

“So why come back?” Kool presses. “Why sign up for this competition?”

Dare smiles. “That’s a story for another time. Right now, we have to find that smart dust. That’s where this thing comes in.”

“The problem is that it’s small, not dark,” an Eyrenlander argues. “It’s not hiding behind corners, or in the carpet. It’s floating all around us...if it exists at all.”

“The darkness, my good man...is precisely what we need! I believe in a thing called love. Madam Tridali, would you please do me the honor?”

Ersence realizes where he’s indicating. She reaches up and switches off the light.

“Regular dust is dull. Smart dust...sparkles.” Dare sweeps the area with the torch.

Okay, there’s the smart dust. Now. What are they going to do about it?

Microstory 2786: The First to Fall

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Tamerlane Pryce. That is the name of the mysterious last-minute addition to the candidate pool. Jande knows that name. Everyone on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida knows it, and probably beyond. In the early days of colonization, he was responsible for an ambitious—but ultimately abandoned—planetary project. Back on Earth in the ancient days, they used to have these things called zoos. They locked animals in cages, and let people gawk at them. Over time, various state regulations attempted to make these facilities more and more ethical, and that pattern never really stopped.

Zoos were eventually outlawed, replaced with less harmful methods of using animals as entertainment, but these weren’t all that great either. They were a lot better, but still dangerous, and in some cases, still exploitative. Space colonization sat on the cusp of basically doing away with the animal entertainment industry altogether. It was ultimately replaced with simulated environments, but the early Bidans didn’t know that at the time. They figured the best way not to disturb animals was to pretend to be them.

Pryce was placed in charge of cataloging every species on the planet, and developing the mind transference technology that would allow a user to become whatever creature they wanted, and live amongst the native population. The project didn’t last long. There was such fierce backlash that they shuttered the program, and transitioned the world to a less invasive culture. Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida is what it is today because early settlers were very deliberately trying to avoid Pryce’s vision. They live in harmony with the fauna now. Many believe they owe Pryce everything, but that’s a bit of a stretch. The question is, where has he been all this time?

“I’m not the Pryce you know,” Tamerlane explains as Van is introducing the rest of the contenders. “It would be hard to explain to you, but in your terms, I’m a dupe. I never did what the history books said I did. That was all someone else. But I was informed that I have always been entitled to a piece of the pie, so I’m here now.”

“And finally,” Van announces, “Jande Ter Avest!”

Jande steps forward and waves at the crowd and cameras. What is he doing?

“As you can see folks,” Van goes on, “they’re all very confused. To them, it has only been a few hours. That is by design. We want them to be disoriented. We want them to be a little shaky. It will make them want it more. And what is it they want?”

“Oversight!” the audience yells, as if they rehearsed it, which they probably have.

Jande is getting the feeling that this is not the first episode of this reality show. They probably produced a whole introduction while the candidates were dead.

“Oversight, that’s right!” Van agrees. “They wanna be the fabled Superintendent. Now, lots of cultures have this rank. It scales however high you want. But from what we read in the charter, Bida does things a little differently.” He’s a lot more charismatic than he seemed when Jande first met him. “Most Superintendents are there just in case. They’re all about staffing. If someone gets out of line, and bureaucracy is too slow to correct them, they can step in and push them out. This means that a Superintendent has to be above reproach, so it’s pretty important that deciders get it right.

“It’s even more important for us, because the Bidan Superintendent will have a great deal of responsibilities, and even more power. We’ll get to that as the competition heats up. Hint-hint, wink-wink. But for now, candidates...we need to see where you stand.” He waits a moment. “Seriously, look down. Where do you stand?”

Jande looks down at the floor. A glowing number 1 is now under his feet.

“Say it out loud! Say it proud! Where do you stand!” Van encourages.

Most of the candidates call out their numbers, and they are all weird. They don’t go from 1 to 11. They go as high as 815, which is where Dare Finnian sits.

“This is your qualified rating, or QR. Now, we’re really excited about the QR, because it’s not actually in the charter. It was very vague about this, but we came up with a scoring system between one and eight-fifty. Everyone is starting in a different place, because you all have pasts. As you can see, the Quiratani are ranked significantly higher, but they won’t stay that way for long.” He lowers the mic and looks over at the closest drone camera, which is of a different design than the others. “Can we drop ‘em?”

Part of the floor starts collapsing into nanites, leaving only circular platforms underneath everyone. One of the Eyrenlanders is too far away from his number, and he slips over the edge. He has to grab on for dear life, or he’ll fall to his death.

Dare hops over to Pryce’s platform, then to the Eyrenlander’s, and helps him up.

“Ah, look at that!” Van notes. “They still think they’re friends!” He nods, and looks up at a leaderboard that has appeared in the sky. “Survey says...850! This is a competition, people. If you die, you’re done. There is no helping. There is no empathy. There is no mercy,” he adds in a grittier voice. “Hey, I don’t make the rules.”

Dare jumps back over to his own platform, head literally held high, unashamed.

Van waits for him to finish up. “Okay. That will not be the last time we see someone go over. The first challenge has just about begun. Candidates, I recommend you move to the centermost spot. It’s simple, but deadly. The game is called Still Hunter. The more you move, which doesn’t include blinking, swallowing, or facial tics, the more your platform will fall away. Eventually, you run out of platform, so don’t...move. The challenge doesn’t end until our first death. I’ll give you a few minutes to scratch your itches and do a little stretching, and then we’ll start the clock. Oh, wait, what’s this?”

A woman who is neither Quiratani nor Eyrenlander has jumped off of her platform, and grabbed onto someone else’s shaft. She survived, and is now sliding down.

“Looks like we have a runner,” Van explains. “I’ll have to confer with my associates so we can figure out what we’re gonna do here. In the meantime, I hope you’re all situated, because the clock starts in four, three, two, aaaaaand go!”

Jande does not remember the escape artist’s name, but he’ll learn it because she never leaves the arena. She walks back in an hour later with her head hung low. “They won’t let me quit. I failed to read the fine print.” She goes back to her post to suffer a penalty for trying to leave. She has to stand on one leg for twice as long as she was gone.

The gamemakers probably expected the challenge to last a lot longer than it does, which is what you get for only making it last until the first person falls. One of the cocky Eyrenlanders cannot stop moving. He appears to be particularly not well-suited for a baseline human body. He unwillingly chips away at his platform little by little. It turns to dust and sloughs off in inconsistent volumes. Only five minutes after the attempted quitter’s return, he loses his footing, and plummets to his death.

The competition has taken its first casualty. At the end, Jande has retained his rank, having barely lost any of his platform. Dare, on the other hand, lost none of it at all, and jumped up to second place with a new score of 24. He is the biggest threat now.

Microstory 2481: Treasure Hunting Dome

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This is like a cross between a race and a treasure hunt, but multiplied by a thousand. Obviously, if there was only one hunt going on at once, it would immediately become impossible to complete, like a million or more players trying to golf on one course. The surface under this dome has plenty of room, so they take it up. Of course, there are different levels of difficulty, and different lengths. You can choose a hunt that only typically takes a couple of hours, or one that can last for days, or even weeks. Like a real treasure hunt—or one you might find in media—you solve clues, or solve puzzles to get more clues to solve. Like a challenge competition, some of the clues can be earned through otherwise unrelated tasks. You might have to complete a Rubik’s Cube in order to unlock a secret hidden inside, or you might have to figure out how to milk a genetically engineered cow that’s as big as a house before an android will hand you your clue. One of them necessarily leads to the reward, while the other is arbitrary, and could theoretically be anything. This isn’t a criticism, just a clarification that there’s a healthy mix of tasks to complete, and while some of them might seem silly, or make you feel embarrassed, they’re all meant to be fun. It gets even more complex, because you’re sometimes working alone, and sometimes with a team, and sometimes against others, and you don’t always get to choose your team. If multiple people arrive at the same challenge or puzzle, you may be required to work with them, or compete against them. It really just depends. And those other people may be on the same treasure hunt with you, or on an entirely different one, which just so happens to intersect at this same point. You can also select a hunt that involves being on a team already, and even that sometimes goes up in the air, because they may make you compete with each other for individual rewards. They always tell you what you’re meant to do, though, so don’t worry about getting overwhelmed by the rules. They obviously won’t tell you how to complete a given challenge, but they’ll make sure you understand it well enough to at least make an attempt. As I said, there are all sorts of different ways of going about this, and you have the power to choose your own destiny. I’ve run four hunts at this point, and I can recommend all four, but I can’t recommend any hunt that I’ve never been on. No one can. I doubt there’s even time for any given person to try every single variation, because I think they’re intending to retire some to make space for brand new ones. It changes all the time, just like life itself. One final note. There are some out there who believe that there is some sort of overarching plot here, and a secret hunt which will lead to genuine, valuable riches. I don’t know anything about that, but my advice would be to stick with what you’ve been given. You can’t get into this dome without choosing a particular hunt, and they’re gonna keep you on task. Even though you’re expected to figure things out on your own, it’s not a free-for-all, so don’t even try.

Microstory 2479: Glaciadome

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Brr, chicken! That’s what my dad used to say. Brr, chicken! It’s cold up here. There is not much dihydrogen monoxide on Castlebourne—compared to say, Earth or Europa, but there is some. Some of it is in the form of water ice, and some of that in the form of glaciers. The largest of these is called Sanaa Glacier. I’m not sure where the name comes from, but I’m guessing this Sanaa woman isn’t too happy about it. The Sanaa Glacier is up there in the northern hemisphere, not too far from Aquilonian Deep. It’s about 2.16 million square kilometers in area, which makes it the largest region on the planet that is not covered by domes. That is for an obvious reason, which is that glaciers, by definition, are always on the move. They move very, very slowly, but they are not still. They’re never still. You can imagine that erecting a dome on top of one is difficult at best, and quite risky. Yet they did it. Glaciadome sits right in the middle of Sanaa, which is the most stable part of it. It’s not immune to the glacier’s movements, but it’s your safest bet. It’s unlike any other dome on the planet. It’s totally unique. Instead of being made out of the usual graphene composite, its frame is instead composed of carbon nanotubes, which can be made to be more flexible. That’s why we use them for space elevator tethers. Instead of diamonds, the panels are made out of a more flexible polycarbonate. This allows the dome to shudder and shake as the glacier flows, and against the extremely heavy winds outside. There’s an old saying, if it doesn’t bend, it’ll break, and that’s true. Glaciadome will survive over time because it’s designed to withstand the stress of movement without buckling. It’s not completely impenetrable, and it’s not nearly as strong as the other domes, but it does its job, and it does it well. You can tell that it works too, because while you can’t physically feel the glacier’s flow unless you’re an advanced lifeform with the right onboard sensors, you can certainly hear it. It’s always screamin’ at ya while the ice breaks and slides. Why do this? Why build a dome on top of something so unstable, in such a hostile environment? Well, what the hell are we doing here if we’re not engineering megastructures for the sake of the challenge. Do you need any other reason? I surely don’t. Researchers live here to be closer to what they’re studying, such as the geologic history of this planet, the composition of the water and ice, and of course, the glacier itself. There are also some winter sports here, like dog sledding, and cross-country skiing, but it’s not as comprehensive as Winterbourne Park. A lot of it has to do with the novelty of the experience. You can live in an igloo, or an ice palace. You can go cold-weather camping, or just make snow angels. It may not be as exciting as one of the adventure domes, but it gives you what it promises. And for me, that’s enough.

Microstory 2450: Stairway to Heaven

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Not to be confused with Heavendome. I’m callin’ it, this is the largest staircase in the entire universe. Some aliens eighteen billion light years away may have a large one of their own, but I doubt it beats this. The stairs go all along the perimeter of the dome, spiraling up from the surface until you reach the zenith, which I’ll talk about when we hit that point in the story. Let’s start with some stats. Each dome has an 83 kilometer diameter. Ignore topographical variations. A line from one end to the opposite end crossing through the exact center is 83 kilometers long. Since these domes are hemispheric, that means the distance from the surface to the top is 41.5 kilometers. Again, ignore varied topography, like mountains and valleys. If you were to climb a ladder from the bottom to the top, you would be climbing 41.5 kilometers. They’re considering including that as well for an even more extreme test of your mettle, but I can’t review eventualities. It’s important to note, though, because the spiral staircase is necessarily longer than the total vertical distance, due to the tread length of each staircase, and the length of the landings. There are 207,500 steps. Every 19th step is a landing, which gives you a little room to stand when you need a break. Some of these lead to pitstops, while others lead to full-on campgrounds for daily rest periods. If you can’t make it to the next campground, they’re not going to let you stay the night at a pitstop, so you best recognize your own physical abilities before you even take the first step. You will go on practice hikes before your trek—that’s what the surface is dedicated to—and this training program takes about as long as the climb, so expect to dedicate two months of your life to this adventure. There are no transhumanistic enhancements or cybernetic upgrades here. You’re given a traditional human body between 1.5 and 2.1 meters tall with average muscles. You do get to choose your height, and it can look like your residual self image, but don’t expect the superkidneys, or the unidirectional respiratory systems that you’re used to. I heard some complaints from people who didn’t understand the spirit of the hike. If you don’t want to work, take an elevator. But not here, the periodic exit elevators are only for people who had to quit in the middle. There’s no judgment from me, by the way. You make it more than 50 flights, and I’ll say you’ve accomplished something impressive. If you do make it the whole way, it probably took about a month, covering a few kilometers each day. That may not sound like much, but gravity hates you, and your fight with it will never end until you beat it...or it beats you. Some will do it faster, others slower. How you lived your life prior to this will impact your performance. When you get uploaded into the new substrate, you don’t just end up on equal footing with everyone else. If you were a mech before, you’re not gonna be used to the energy expenditure. If you were mostly biological, it should be easier to adapt to the new body. I met one climber who was born 24 years ago, and never received any meaningful upgrades. Guy did it in two weeks. He works out to stay fit, and pretty much always has. His experience was a major advantage. 10,922 flights for a total of 84.44 kilometers is a huge achievement whether it takes you that month, or double that, and it comes with a reward. It’s a party. Unlike other domes, there’s a nipple on the top, which is reached by your last flight. You stay as long as you want, talking to other climbers, comparing stories. Eat, drink, be merry. You’ve done something that few before you have, and few will probably try in the future. I think I’m gonna keep this body, keep working out, and see if I can do it faster next time. Good luck.

Microstory 2409: Mizmaze

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The mizmaze. This is an interesting one. I didn’t know what to expect. They told me how big these domes are, and when they told me that this maze covered the entire surface of one of the domes, I didn’t really believe it. That’s over 1.3 million acres. We’re all from different places, so I can’t really give you a clear frame of reference on the sheer scope of this thing, but it’s the biggest maze ever created. Don’t talk to me about VR, those are self-perpetuating; what we have here is a work of art. So here’s how it works. You walk into the intake building, and tell them that you would like to do a maze. They ask you a bunch of questions, first and foremost being how much time do you have to spend on it? Of course, the entire point is that you don’t know how long it will take to get through, but that’s why they ask you these other questions. They’re about your sense of direction, and your problem-solving skills. How much stamina do you have when you’re walking, how many supplies can you carry with you? Some of these mazes can literally take weeks, even if you’re really good. Remember, the scale. On the longest routes, there are supplies along the way, but you don’t just pick it up from a table. You have to complete tasks to get what you’re after, and you may lose out. Someone else might get it first, or you’ll just lose the minigame. There are mystery boxes which may be good, or bad. There are obstacles in there, which are definitely bad, but you have to get through them, or find another way. Some of it is made of hedge, other parts made of concrete. The mazes here aren’t like the ones that you’re used to. In most mazes, you have to stay on the ground, or you lose, but there are no real rules here. If you can figure out how to climb, go ahead and climb. Your sense of accomplishment is entirely your own. If you say that’s good enough, then it is. People may judge, but whatever. I stayed on the ground, and did the second-hardest route. The hardest ends with a grand prize. You aren’t even told what that is unless you agree to do that one. The walls move with that one, I don’t know how anyone completes it. I never heard about anyone who did, but the droid staff was mostly cagey about it, like just the very idea about whether anyone finished should also be a secret. Mine took just a hair over two weeks. I had to take the tram clear to the other side of the dome to start it, and ended up not too far from the main offices. The routes criss-cross each other, so I was in underground tunnels some of the way. I’m pretty proud of myself. I had trouble locating resources, but I didn’t get too tripped up by the hazards. I think I shouldn’t tell you what they are. It’s all meant to be a surprise for you, and I’m not sure how much variety there is across the board. Highly recommend. If you’re unsure, try a day maze, and if you like it, you can level up.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 8, 2398

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The guards followed Leona’s orders by transferring this mysterious Meredarchos to a lower level with no contact with the outside world. It apparently has plumbing, electricity, and a reserve of survival food that can last one person ten years. He shouldn’t be of risk to anyone unless whatever power he has is even stronger than Arcadia knows. She doesn’t know a whole lot. What she discovered after commissioning the creation of the LIR Map is that it’s not only capable of illuminating the entirety of the spacetime continuum for the universe it’s in at the time, but also the entirety of the bulkverse when it’s outside of any universe. With it, she could find any and every brane in all of reality, of which there is an infinite number. It was far too much information for her, but before she folded it back up, and shoved the overwhelming memory deep down in her mind, she noticed one thing. Branes exist in neighborhoods, drawn together for various reasons. The neighborhood they live in formed at the hands of people like Vearden Haywood while in possession of The Crossover, but there are other forces at play. Meredarchos hails from his own neighborhood, in a dark corner of the bulk. He’s either the improbably lucky lone survivor of a cataclysm, or the cause of it. Either possibility makes him a threat.

They’re not going to do anything with him until they have a better understanding of what they’re up against, or if they’re against anything at all. Until then, the team is trusting Arcadia to not try anything fishy. While Vearden leaves Ramses’ unit to start using Delaney and Andile’s, Arcadia is moving into Leona Reaver’s old apartment. They will read her into every pertinent situation, and let her contribute to the decisions, but she has to be honest with them. In turn, they will be honest with her, which they were worried about doing, since they know things about her future, but she dismissed these concerns. Nothing they had to say ought to have any terrible repercussions on the timelines, even the bomb they dropped about her father raping her mother. She said that it would be all right, that she would be able to act like it was all new information when the time came. If the Prestons aren’t even aware of the Third Rail, then keeping it a secret against as many people as possible could be paramount.

Mateo walks into the common area, where Heath is reading a book about Easter Island, and Arcadia is staring at the LIR Map. “Are you still at it?” he asks her.

“It’s psychic paper. It knows what I want. It’s just not listening.”

“No, it doesn’t have any power. You’re basically trying to watch a television that isn’t plugged in.”

“Mateo I used to watch the timeline play out through still paintings.”

“Baudin explained that to me once. Those weren’t still paintings, they were transdimensional viewscreens with fancy golden frames. And unless we can find some temporal energy, that thing doesn’t have a working battery.”

She sighs, and finally looks away. “I know. Maybe you could get me some?” She bats her eyes at him. She’s not allowed on the second floor, nor anywhere on the first floor besides the lobby, and the elevator.

“We don’t trust you that much.”

She shrugs with her chin, but not her shoulders. “That’s fair. Do you see anything on the map?”

Mateo goes over to try. “Nope. Still blank.” This is a lie. He’s currently seeing the location of all of his friends, including sketches of what they’re doing right now. Most are somewhere in the building, but Leona is at the fusion factory, and all the McIvers are at the black site with Erlendr. They fully understand that the girl they see in the prison cell is not their sister, Trina, but they still can’t bear to be away from her. The guards have been instructed to prevent any attempt at visitation. They can’t even speak to him. All they can do is watch him through the one-way mirror. He’s also reading a book about Easter Island, which Mateo finds quite alarming.

“You’re lying!” she exclaims.

“No, I’m not.”

“You went into your head,” Arcadia says. “You only do that when something triggers you, and a blank piece of paper isn’t going to do that. What did you see?”

“It’s none of your business,” he tells her.

“Is it a picture of your naked wife, because I saw all that the last time I took a shower.”

“Why does everything with you have to be confrontational or controversial?”

Her smile drops into a frown. “I don’t know, but I don’t know how to stop.”

Mateo ponders the problem. “Think of it as a challenge. You love those.”

“I do,” she agrees. “I really do.”

He ponders some more. “You’ve never had a job in your life, have you?”

“That’s not true. I had a huge job, protecting the timeline from choosing ones.”

“You were born for that. You were literally made to do it. Why don’t you try something that doesn’t come naturally to you?”

“You say that like you have something in mind.”

“Come on.” Mateo spins around three times for show, and then stumbles out of the room as Arcadia smiles and follows. He takes her down the elevator, to the first floor, where Angela just so happens to be setting up the welcome screen for the lobby. “I heard you were looking for a receptionist.”

Angela looks up at him, and then over at Arcadia. She quickly guesses the purpose of the remark. “Do you have any experience with that sort of thing?”

“You mean with...people?”

“I’m not interested,” Angela decides.

“No, please, just give her a chance.”

“Look, Matthew, I don’t know her that well. Most of your dealings with her were before my time, so I don’t harbor any resentment. What I do have are two ears, and they have heard a lot of not-so-great things about her. This new business is really important to me, so I can’t just let anyone sit in that chair over there. They have to be friendly and helpful. They have to have experience.”

“All I’m asking you to do is train her,” Mateo asks. “That’s what you do, right; counsel people who are struggling?”

“Oh, you’re playing that card, huh? You know I have a thing for the Level Threes,” she says, referring to the prisoner class of people in the afterlife simulation.

“I would consider it a personal favor to me,” Mateo adds.

“All right, all right,” Angela concedes.

“Hold on, hold on,” Arcadia interjects. “I’ve not agreed to do anything.”

“You’re doing it, or I’m putting you back in the Insulator of Life,” Mateo warns.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 21, 2398

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There is something that Andile didn’t even tell Alt!Leona. When the latter first came to this reality, they were surprised to see each other again. Two women out of time, there under different circumstances, and having already known each other. Upon hearing Andile’s new story, Alt!Leona realized how focused on herself she had been this whole time. She hadn’t asked Andile much about what she had gone through. She only knew the basics of the event; not the details. And she hadn’t made much effort to change that. But that doesn’t mean Andile didn’t lie. She could have volunteered the information, back then, or at any point over the course of the last year.

“How do you feel about this?” Leona asks her husband when they wake up the next day.

He’s had time to sleep on it. “It won’t be the first time. It’s not even the first time meeting this version.”

“You don’t know that it’s the same one from Dardius,” Leona says, not believing it herself.

“Let’s be real. He told Andile that he just came from what he called a Death Race. It’s the same guy.” Back in 2251, Mateo and a handful of his friends were living on Tribulation Island. There were once more people, but their then-enemy, Arcadia Preston was tormenting them with expiation challenges. Every three years, she would remove another person from the timestream. Only Mateo and Lincoln could remember that they even existed in the first place; the former quite intentionally, and the latter because knowing everything is his whole thing. One of these challenges involved Mateo street racing a different version of himself. This other Mateo lived in what was once known as Reality One, and has been commonly blamed for Leona Reaver’s death. Mateo’s niece, Dar’cy sacrificed herself by sending both her and Alt!Mateo back to Reality One, just before his death at the hands of Horace Reaver. Dar’cy had a hard time returning home, but once she did, she never mentioned that anything special had happened to Alt!Mateo, so everybody just assumed he died like he was meant to. Apparently, he survived.

Leona and Mateo left the safehouse after the news to let Andile and Alt!Leona discuss the secret in private, but now it’s time to get back to the matter. They have to find this other Mateo, and figure out what makes him so damn special. Marie wants them to hold off, and maybe get back to their other issues, but that sounds like a mistake. They’ve had so many missions since they’ve come here. Most of them were impromptu, and most of the rest were sidetracked…sometimes by one of the impromptu missions. They really need to stick to the plan for this one, and follow through. It’s important. The other stuff is important too, but there is no point in going to Easter Island if the other Mateo gives them all the answers they were looking for.

As the two of them are getting dressed, there is a knock at the door. Angela is already up, so she answers it. To everyone’s surprise, it’s Andile and Alt!Leona. They explain that they’ve decided to abandon the safehouse, mostly because a covert branch of the government set them up with it, which sort of pretty much negates the whole safe aspect of it. The condo isn’t safe either, but at least it’s more comfortable. There’s not exactly room for everyone there, but Ramses woke up hours ago, as he has been for the last few days, to continue working on their space issue.

“You know where he is?”

“I do,” Andile answers, not elaborating.

“Go ahead and tell them,” Alt!Leona urges.

Andile still hesitates.

“Where?” Mateo asks, not understanding the hold up. “Topeka? Croatia?”

“Utah.”

“A prison in Utah,” Alt!Leona adds.

“Lemme guess,” the other Leona begins, “this nice little place outside of Vernon.”

Andile pulls out her device, and checks her map. “Uh...yeah, that’s the closest town. You’ve been?”

“We’ve broken people out of there,” Mateo explains.

“Could you do it again?” Alt!Leona questions.

Leona shrugs. “Probably not. We had a certain time advantage back then, and access to detailed plans. I doubt we could get any of that here. Does the government know he’s in there?”

“No, he’s using a fake name,” Andile tells them. “The government knows one of his aliases, but not the one he was using when he was arrested.”

“What’s the alias that the government recognizes?” Leona asks her.

“Leon Delaney,” Andile replies.

They can’t help but laugh. This other version of Mateo knew the other version of Leona, of course but they weren’t together. She was with Horace. Perhaps this suggests that maybe he was in love with her even then, though?

“And the other one?” Mateo asks. “What’s the one that he’s using in jail?”

Andile smirks. “Andy Dufresne.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 8, 2338

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In the year 2008, in one reality, day rewinder, Horace Reaver accidentally killed his best friend, Dardan Lusha. The former was only six years old, and the latter only seven. Knowing he was capable of it, Horace went back in time at the end of the day, and prevented himself from making the same mistake again. This was when he realized that other people only got one shot in their lives, and also when he knew that the two of them could no longer be friends. Dardan moved on with his life, never knowing what had happened to him. But Horace’s future daughter, Meliora knew, and she was worried that Dardan would always be in danger. She built a place called Sanctuary on a planet millions of light years from Earth. Here, normal people who were negatively impacted by time travel could live out the rest of their lives, protected and in peace. A fifteen-year-old Dardan was her first resident, but he was nowhere near its last. Even as travelers continued to change the timeline, Meliora rescued as many people as she could, always starting with Dardan Lusha. In one timeline, soon after him, she agreed to rescue a few more.

Starting with Ramses Abdulrashid, and ending with Jeremy Bearimy, seven more people were brought to the Sanctuary hotel in its very early days. There defeat Anatol Klugman. Though this enemy yet remained, the vacation was over. It was time to leave Sanctuary, and make a jump to over 300 years into the future. Mateo, Leona, and Kivi would be waiting for them to finish this once and for all. It was predetermined that when they arrived in 2338, the final battle would ensue. They could put it off as long as they wanted, but there was no avoiding it altogether. The duel had to take place, and the winner would decide both their own fate, and that of their opponent.

“That’s a beautiful story,” Anatol said in disgust. “Why don’t I remember any of it? I mean, I know how it happened. What I don’t understand is how you managed to overpower me, and let Tertius Valerius manipulate my memories.”

“We didn’t have to overpower you,” Mateo began to explain. “You agreed to forget about the challenge as long as we eventually got to it.”

“Why did I agree to forget about you friends, though?” Anatol pressed. “I still don’t remember those people.”

“We had him take a little bit more from your mind than you agreed upon. We figured you would circumvent the agreement yourself, so we at least wanted to protect them from your wrath.”

“Wait, you’re telling me you were worried I would betray you...so you betrayed me first?”

“Exactly,” Mateo confirmed.

“I know I’m supposed to be mad, but right now, all I feel is respect for your decision,” Anatol admitted.

“Thank you,” Mateo said. “It was actually all my idea. I had to make up for years and years of being all but completely useless, and having to rely on much smarter people.”

Anatol would have done a spit take if he had been drinking. “Do you believe you have accomplished this goal?”

Mateo looked over to his wife, who was on the other side of the sandstone monolith. She was warming up for the duel, supported by their people. Mateo felt bad about The Warrior being alone, and came over to at least clarify what was happening, and why. “Not in the least.”

“Indeed,” Anatol agreed. “Even today she fights for you as champion.”

“She trained for this,” Mateo said. “I never would have made it through that training. She has a knack for learning new things.”

“Do you honestly think that she can beat me? Keep in mind that you are no longer protected by the powers that be, and that I have already demanded Uluru not let anyone else on the battlegrounds. That is the only reason you beat Zeferino Preston, and I will not let you so easily come at me through a loophole.”

“Where is Zeferino, by the way? He was with you at the theatre, and then we never saw him again,” Mateo pointed out.

“I put him back in his reality,” Anatol answered. “He wasn’t fun to work with anymore.”

“Indeed,” Mateo responded simply.

“Is there a point to you being over here?” Anatol questioned.

Mateo placed a hand on his enemy’s shoulder. “Whatever happens today, just know that I still believe in you. I still believe you can be redeemed. All you have to do is take that first step. The second one will be easier, I promise.”

Anatol rolled his shoulder away. “It’s always mind games with you. People think you’re this helpless little moron who hides behind his friends, but I know the truth. I know that you’re the most dangerous of the bunch. But what makes you dangerous isn’t your intellect, or your muscles. It’s your ability to make even the most steadfast of people feel like they’re making a mistake; like you know something that they will never quite understand, not even once the fight is over. I believe that you are an undiagnosed psychopath.”

Mateo chuckled once, like a high school student who knows the middle school student will know better someday. “Catch you on the flippity-flop.”

Unlike the duel he had with The Cleanser those many years ago, there weren’t many people in the audience. Only Leona’s friends would be there to take witness. No other family, no people from their future, no bulkverse travelers. It was a private affair, and it was much simpler, which was why it was taking place on the Uluru rock formation, and not in the Colosseum replica. Uluru, the man, approached the center of the grounds, and began his opening remarks. “This is a physical duel, with swords as exclusive weapons. All temporal powers and patterns are temporarily suspended. Death is not required to indicate defeat, but it is also not against the rules. The winner may spare the loser, but in order to be considered the winner, they must be in a position where a final blow would end the battle, and the loser must be without options. Both of you have been trained...trained under different circumstances, but trained just the same. You know the difference between winning and losing, but if there is a dispute as to who wins, I will step in and make judgment. Does everyone understand?”

The two duelers walked towards him.

“I do.”

“Yes.”

Uluru looked from one to the other, assessing their fitness for the fight, and then he gracefully stepped back. “Have at it.”

The two of them began to clash. Anatol had been training for this sort of thing for more than his entire adult life, which was likely longer than most. They didn’t know if he was immortal, or if he just managed to pack in a whole lot of life during his prime years. He did look older than he did when this first began, but maybe Mateo was just imagining that. No matter what, he was a career fighter—which was what earned him the right to be called The Warrior in the first place—and Leona was not. She only trained for three years; by one of the most skilled fighters in two realities, but practice makes perfect, and Leona’s experience was limited. Still, Anatol was not overconfident, and he did not underestimate his opponent. He went at her with full force, and he clearly respected her. A lot of time travelers were from the past, during a time when women and minorities were considered less than. Yet nearly all of them embraced the wokeness of the future, either because they came to see it as superior, or because they never really bought into the racism and sexism of their day. Dr. Hammer posited that backwards-thinking time travelers necessarily did not exist, because if they were too tied down to the culture of their given day, they would never learn to escape it. Perhaps social responsibility was an important prerequisite. Anatol was evidently no exception, and unfortunately, that only lowered Leona’s chances of winning the duel.

Leona managed to hold her own, though. She just kept striking back, never letting him get any significant advantage over her. They swung and slashed and hit and kicked. The audience could see the fatigue setting in as the battle continued. If a scene in an action film were to go on this long, the audience would grow bored, and probably stop caring who won. They weren’t hopping off of rocks, or sweeping the legs. They were just desperately trying to cut each other with the blades, and never getting close enough. It would seem that Anatol’s advanced age, and Leona’s inexperience, made for quite an even match. Six minutes later, it was still going, which might not have sounded like a long time, but for this kind of combat, it was an eternity.

It was then that Mateo decided to break the rules, and step in. He walked right up to the duelers with his arms up, knowing that either of them could hurt him instead, whether by accident, or with malicious intent. Upon seeing him, they both dropped their weapons, and took a step back from each other. They were both grateful for the break. “Okay, okay, okay.” He smiled, not because it was humorous, but because it was absurd. “What the hell are we doing here?”

Anatol had to speak between breaths. “I made a challenge, and she accepted.”

“That was a long time ago,” Mateo pointed out, “for all of us.”

“Time ain’t nothin’ but a thang,” Anatol replied with the old adage.

Mateo didn’t know what he was going to say, so he just winged it. “The challenge was a duel, which has now taken place. There was no rule about someone needing to win, or how long it needed to go on. So let’s just say it’s done, and move on.”

“Someone needs to win,” Anatol argued, “or how will we decide what happens to the lot of you?”

“Is that really what you want, to be in control of powerless people? Is this the warrior’s way? Is this where you saw your evil plan going? There must be a reason they don’t call you The General, or The Lord High Commander.”

“I haven’t always won my fights,” Anatol began, “but I’ve never had a tie. It cannot end in a tie. This is not football.”

“No, you’re right,” Mateo agreed. “We can’t tie, because in a tie, both teams lose. I’m talking about a win-win situation. You walk away now, and the timeline will remember you as a merciful warrior, who fights with honor. You keep fighting my wife, whether you win or not, you’ll be forever known as a villain, not because she’s a hopeless girl, but because she is indisputably a good person, and everyone loves her.”

“You can’t control that,” Anatol contended. “You can’t decide how people perceive me, especially not in both directions of time.”

“We’ve done it before,” Mateo reminded him. “We restored the reputation of Nerakali Preston, Gilbert Boyce, and Horace Reaver. Hell, I’d like to think we even helped make Zeferino Preston look a little better. The jury’s still out on Arcadia; there are too many conflicting versions of her, and the noblest one doesn’t live in this universe.”

“All I have to do is walk away,” Anatol echoed.

“Might sound too easy to you, but remember where this offer is coming from,” Mateo said. “We are not known for being petty or vengeful, are we?”

“I suppose not.” Anatol considered it for a moment. He had long ago caught his breath, and was standing straight. He could go another round if he needed to, and so could Leona. Chances are, it would last another six minutes, and end just as inconclusively. “Very well.”

The three of them looked over to Uluru, who couldn’t care less about the results for this particular battle, and didn’t seem perturbed by the interruption.

Anatol picked up his sword, and jammed it into a crevice between himself and Leona. Assuming it was her turn to do the same, she followed suit. They shook hands, and then the Warrior dropped his Cassidy cuff, and disappeared. It would be the last time that anyone on the current Matic team would ever see his face.

“Well. That plan worked,” Mateo noted.

“I’m glad you rehearsed the speech,” Leona said, relieved at how well it went.

He didn’t rehearse nothin’. “What do we do now?” he asked. “We didn’t plan anything past the draw, and I imagine it’s only a matter of time before the next antagonist decides it’s their turn to torment us in what they believe to be a new and creative way.”

Leona retrieved her sword, wiped it off, and sheathed it. She picked up the primary cuff too. “Ya know what? I didn’t really like skipping from the 16th century to the 17th, to the 19th, and so on. I grew rather comfortable on the Bearimy-Matic pattern. Let’s put our cuffs on, and go back to that pattern.” She turned, and began walking towards their friends to tell them her idea.

Mateo, meanwhile, reached down and pulled Anatol’s sword out. He turned it up, and admired the craftsmanship. He wasn’t much of a swordsman—or any kind of swordsman at all—but this could come in handy one day.

“Put it down!” Leona ordered without turning back. “You’ll hurt yourself!”

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