Castlebourne Capital Community: Castlebank (Part V)

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For the next few weeks, Castlebourne was essentially being run as a police state. It wasn’t as bad as it was depicted in movies. The Expatriate Protection Bureau had no intention of holding onto power. They didn’t even want it in the first place, because it stretched their resources thin. They had a mandate, and they wanted to return to it exclusively. But restarting the real government was taking time. Dreychan held at least one press conference every day to remind the public of this, and to inform them of their progress. He was walking a fine line, exuding the confidence that everyone expected to see, but being clear that he never wanted any of this, and didn’t have the experience for it. This was such a tricky little dance, because while it was true that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, he didn’t want to create any unrest or rebellion. Everyone just needed to be real patient while they figured this out. He also needed to remember to forgive himself for his deficits.

One thing he was unambiguous about was what his job entailed. As Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent respectively, Dreychan and Yunil were not in charge of the public. They were only responsible for finding and securing the leaders who would be. They needed some help with this as none of the ex-Exins had ever lived in any sort of democratic society until recently, and even then, because of the way the council was structured, it wasn’t all that democratic either. There were better ways, and people living here who straddled both worlds could help them come up with them. Some of the highest ranking members of Hrockas’ Executive Administrative Authority had once lived on Earth; some of them centuries ago. Yunil and her little faction of academics had studied Earthan sociopolitics, but these others had experienced it first hand. They understood the nuances, and historical shiftings, which the central archives could only describe in an objective sense. They provided insights that the two of them were using to decide what to do here and now.

In its current state, Earth and its nearest neighbors were what they called a scalar representative council democracy. It was infinitely scalable, and could go all the way down to a household of two people. A given independent population would elect or select a representative. There were different ways of going about this, but it had to be agreed upon. Anyone who felt it was unfair could appeal to a higher class, and ask for help. With each higher class of population range, one representative would act on their behalf, with other leadership chosen to aid in the administration of policy. The representatives in a given class also sat on a committee together. These committees only met when they had to; when they needed something from other communities, or couldn’t enact changes on their own. But being self-sufficient and independent was the goal most of the time. There was no need to get the whole planet involved when a single settlement could handle their own business. It was a complicated array of committees and subcommittees, banding together in temporary federations when required, and disbanding when the work was over.

This was all well and good, but it only existed in the stellar neighborhood, and the farther from the Core Worlds you went, the looser the structures became. A colony forty-two light years from Earth did not typically ask for aid from Earth because that aid would usually be at least forty-two years away. However, it was certainly possible, especially in terms of Teaguardians, which were always posted nearby. Castlebourne was a single planet, with no meaningful light lag, and a relatively small planetary population. The visitors did not count. They followed guest law. Only the refugees needed representation. So perhaps the scalable representation model would not really serve them here. Perhaps they needed to reach further back in history, to the advisory-administrative model. That was what Dreychan thought they had agreed upon.

Yunil had a different idea that she was only now suggesting. “Wait, why are we only including the refugees? Why not the visitors?” she posed.

“That’s how it was before,” Dreychan answered. “The Council of Old Worlds held no sway over the visitors.”

“That sounds arbitrary to me. This is the capital of Castlebourne, so let’s have the new government lead the whole planet...of Castlebourne.”

“Well, visitors aren’t citizens,” he reasoned. “As soon as we stepped foot on this rock, we became citizens of it. It was by default, because we had no other real home. Visitors belong to wherever they hail from. They could stay a hundred years, and they still wouldn’t be true citizens.”

“Why shouldn’t they be? Why shouldn’t we allow them to become citizens?”

It was clear to Dreychan that she was not asking him these questions because she didn’t know the answers, but because she was preparing to explain how those answers were inadequate, and the plan ought to be changed. He didn’t want to make it easy on her. “Well...that’s not how Hrockas has it set up. This is a tourist destination. He didn’t design it for us; he just accepted us when we needed somewhere to go. We can’t change that without his authorization.”

She wasn’t satisfied yet. “What are we getting as citizens,” Yunil pressed with airquotes,” that visitors aren’t?”

“Um, erm...” he teased.

She didn’t think that he would ever get there this time, so she skipped to her thesis. “I looked it up. It’s energy credits. We get a daily stipend of credits, which when saved up enough, could theoretically allow us to go to other planets. Except, it’s hardly anything. You would have to save up for a thousand years to even travel to the next star system over. It’s not like that in the stellar neighborhood. Their credits let them go places. They often have to get a job to earn extra, but the two of us have jobs, and neither of us has saved up enough. Not nearly enough.”

“What are you proposing, that we make them all citizens, and increase this energy budget?”

“There are tens of thousands of domes here, which require an immense amount of power to run. They obviously have the energy. Let’s incentivize people to become full citizens, and participate in society. Right now, there’s no reason for an Earthan to move here permanently. They still earn their stellar neighborhood stipend. It’s not much, but it’s free money, and it gives them the option to cast back to that region of the galaxy, and travel somewhere else. Let’s start our own bank and give people a reason to exchange their currency. We could call it Castlebank.”

“Wow. Did you come up with that just now off the top of your head?” he joked.

“Shut up,” she said with a scoff.

Dreychan sighed. This was her M.O. She had her ideas, and she wanted them heard, but she didn’t want to pitch them unprompted. She wanted the conversation to end up in a place that made those ideas inevitable and unavoidable. He was on to her little games, and rarely let her get there like that anymore. He knew that she was always trying to steer him, and this time, he knew where. Good thing she was so cute. “Enough tricks. Let’s see your proposal. You always write one up, don’t deny it. If it makes sense, we can submit it to Hrockas to see what he thinks. As of yet, we don’t have the power to implement some sort of Civil Access Support Trust, or whatever we might call it.”

Her eyes widened. “How did you...” She thought about it for another half second. “Oh, you already read my proposal.”

“I did,” he admitted. “We both have full access to each other’s stuff. I also looked a little back at your revision history. You came up with a lot of names for it, but you clearly wanted the acronym to be C.A.S.T.”

“Well, it makes sense. This planet is called Castlebourne because the first structure under the first dome was a castle, but also, the most common way people travel here, by far—even accounting for the refugees who came via the Vellani Ambassador—is quantum casting. I’m not sure who came up with the name, or whether they realized the double-meaning, but it’s there. Let’s use it.”

“You don’t have to sell me on it. I think it’s a fine idea. I just don’t think Hrockas will go for it. He’s sort of a king. He may actually prefer that most people remain visitors, because that way, he can institute whatever rules he likes, and if the visitors don’t like it, they can leave. If they become citizens, the expectation will be that they will stay unless something changes. In order to prevent these changes, or rather changes that they don’t care for, they will demand representation. He’ll no longer be a unilateral voice. He may even lose his power altogether if all the new citizens ultimately vote him out. I’m not calling him a tyrant, but he’s clearly a control freak.”

“Well...” Yunil began, only trailing off for a matter of seconds. “Well, let’s polish this up, and devise some counterarguments. He probably won’t come out and say it’s because he’s a king, though, so we’ll have to be on the lookout for the subtext.”

“Oh, you think this is about his power?” Hrockas was too busy, so the next day, they requested to pitch their new idea to one of his staffers. Angelita ‘Lita’ Prieto was the Director of Transition for the Department for Cultural Transition Assistance. She was the one who greeted all the refugees, and helped them get acclimated to their new situation. She explained how Castlebourne worked, but also how the free galaxy as a whole functioned. She and her team were the ones who taught them to no longer fear the Oaksent’s rule, and that they would be safe here. Most people loved her because of her lessons, and because so far, she had not been proven wrong.

They had it all worked out; how the government was going to operate, and who would fall under its purview. Visitors would have the opportunity to become citizens, converting their current energy credits to a Castlebourne equivalent at a ratio of 1:1.1. This 10% bonus was necessary, because at the moment, the only happening place to be this far out in this direction was Castlebourne. It would be a long time before the circumstances changed. Once a citizen, they had voting rights and representational power, meaning they would have to declare a home. They never had to spend any particular amount of time in this home, but it helped determine who represented them. And it couldn’t be any random dome. If you were a little odd, you could lie down and sleep every night in The Wasteland, but it was not officially categorized as Residential, so it didn’t count. They had some ideas about how to manage votes from people who were spending extended periods of time in character, like in the Spydome or Nordome networks, but this was the gist of it.

“Sorry,” Dreychan said. “I didn’t mean to imply that he didn’t have the best interests of your people at heart—”

“This is about the sun,” Lita said...weirdly.

“What about it?” Yunil asked.

“Well,” Lita began, “it needs to be moved, remember? We’ve not been able to do that, because your government fell apart. We can only ethically return to the possibility after you set up the new one, but if that new one gives voting privileges to everyone on the planet, it’s going to take even longer, or fall through entirely. What if the former visitors overwhelmingly don’t want to move? They don’t understand the stakes. Do you know how many warships we built that we literally never used because we stopped going to war? This is before the Teaguardians, which are primarily defensive, and while they are indeed manned, they hardly do anything either. The visitors don’t know about the Exin Empire. They don’t know why you fled. They don’t know how powerful The Oaksent is, or that magical time powers exist. They don’t know anything. We’ve had to lie to them since they got here, and that would have to stop. Are you prepared for the fallout?”

“That’s a good point,” Dreychan admitted. “I don’t want to exclude the visitors, and I think it would be great if they became citizens, but they’re too ignorant. That’s not on them, it’s on us, and even as Superintendent, I certainly don’t feel like it’s my right to give them the whole truth.”

“What if we just delayed it?” Yunil asked. “Not the stellar engine, but CAST.”

“You need some form of government now,” Lita argued. “Someone has to agree to the move, and they have to do it in an orderly, structured fashion.”

“But it’s like we say in the plan, this model is scalable. We could start out with a smaller scale—just the ex-Exins—and incentivize citizenship enrollment later, when we’re already well on our way.”

“That...isn’t the worst idea,” Lita acknowledged. She looked up to consider the proposal. “You certainly can’t get mad about a law that was passed before you became a citizen. I mean, you could, but you would have no leg to stand on.” There was a silence for a moment before she looked over at the lawyer. “What say you?”

“No, no, no, you’re right,” Jericho replied. “You clearly know what you’re talking about, I don’t know why you bothered inviting me to the planet, let alone this meeting. The visitors have no legal recourse. It happened before they became citizens. Of course, it’s not a problem that we were contemplating the two transitions at the same time; the physical move, and the citizenship naturalization process. We can certainly argue that they’re not connected, and that the 10% bonus should not in any way be construed as hush money, or some kind of preemptive out-of-court settlement, or anything like that. Everyone would believe us, and it would all turn out totally perfect and happy, and I have..no notes.” Jericho Hagen was a snarky little shit sometimes. Everything he did seemed to be against his will. To be sure, he was on Castlebourne of his own accord, but he harbored resentment regarding some things that went down many years ago, which pulled him into all this timey-wimey nonsense, and it seemed as though he still hadn’t gotten over it. Dreychan and Yunil were not cognizant of the particulars.

“What would you propose?” Yunil pressed him.

“Decouple the decisions. Move the sun now, like we need. I don’t remember how long that’s gonna take, but just go ahead and do it while you’re legally in the clear. You don’t have to wait until we’ve reached our final destination to open your little CAST program, but I recommend at least twenty years, maybe more.”

“It will evidently take about sixteen or seventeen years to get there,” Lita reminded him.

“Perfect,” Jericho decided, looking at Dreychan and Yunil. “That gives you a full three years to have supposedly and reportedly come up with the completely separate proposal to integrate the visitor population into the community as full, legal voters.” He looked over at Lita. “I recommend we scrub the meeting notes from the record. We never talked about this.”

“Is that legal?” Lita questioned.

“On Castlebourne, yeah,” Jericho promised. “The reason we’re in danger with moving the planet and signing up new citizens, is because it involves the rest of the galaxy. We are not fully beyond the laws of the core worlds. Our charter forces us to have some liability, and places us under some scrutiny. We have the latitude to make our own choices, though, as long as it doesn’t impact anyone else.”

“Okay,” Lita said. “Draw up the revised proposal,” she suggested to the ex-Exins, “removing all mentions of citizenship, and let me look over it before we submit it to Hrockas together. We will establish the new government, step one; move the sun, step two; and then begin CAST, step three.” She and Jericho left.

Dreychan and Yunil buckled down, creating the proposal yet again, and really getting all the wrinkles ironed out. It was a masterpiece, if they could be so bold as to declare. Lita loved it, Jericho tolerated it, and Hrockas accepted it. They spent several weeks advocating for the new governmental plan to the people, and setting up a voting schedule. It was another couple of months before the first candidates came out to campaign for themselves. After nearly a year since the fall of the Council, the Castlebourne scalar representative council democracy was officially implemented. Dreychan and Yunil were able to step back, and let the gears turn smoothly without them. The representatives’ first order of business was to hold a referendum on the stellar engine plan. Instead of letting the Council and Hrockas alone decide, they opened it up to everyone’s opinion. And that opinion was overwhelming. The current citizens of Castlebourne did not support moving the sun.

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Microstory 2361: Earth, August 1, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

It’s Pascal again. Thank you for being so patient with me. It is now August 1, and communication restrictions have finally been lifted. It was such horrible timing. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, and it’s very rewarding, but it does come with downsides. I hope it’s okay that I’m writing you now. I know that your connection to your brother has only gotten stronger since my first letter, which was my last one. So if you only want me to speak when spoken to, that’s totally fine. I want you to drive this relationship, or even decide whether it is a relationship, or not. I won’t take up too much of your time until you decide, but allow me to give you a few updates on what I’ve been up to. Our deal with the Australian dome has been a great success. Since we live on the ocean, we’ve gotten pretty good at using our resources sustainably, but we still have to trade with land-based regions more than they have to trade with each other. We have less space here for such infrastructure, and we’re not equipped to handle certain crops. Everyone has vertical farming now, but so many fruits and vegetables can’t be grown in these tight, efficient environments very well. We grow tomatoes and herbs just fine. Lettuce and green beans? We got those. But we have no way of planting trees, and even if we did, they have not had enough time to grow to maturity since we were established. So many others just don’t work with the techniques that we are limited to using in the confined spaces on this boat. We can’t exactly carry tons and tons of dirt over the sea. It is for these reasons that we lack fruits like apples and peaches, sprawling plants like pumpkins and cucumbers, and roots like potatoes and carrots. In exchange for some of their food, we agreed to take a number of immigrants on board. Since we’re so new, we still have plenty of space to grow as a human population. Others are running low. The funny thing is, as helpful as it is to the Australian dome for us to take those people, it’s actually good for us too, because that is what we need. We want to establish our own nation, and to do that, we need citizens. That’s probably why it’s gone so smoothly, because we’re all winners here. All right, I’ve taken enough of your time already. Just get back to me when you can. I understand that you’re busy.

With affection,

Pascal

Microstory 2101: I Won’t Live a Lie

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I’m out! I’m hiding from the authorities...somewhere. For obvious reasons, I’m not going to tell anyone where I am. When I first showed up in this universe, I didn’t have any identity, so instead of finding one on the black market, I procured it through the proper channels. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but I’ve ruined it now. I had no choice. I got a parasitic infection, which messed up my brain, and started making me act crazy. After the body doctors cleared it all up, the mind doctors came in, and tried to convince me that everything I’ve been doing and saying has been crazy, and they wanted to keep me there for psychological treatment. The little committee I had to talk to twice before I could be released from the hospital brought up the discrepancy in the timeline. If I was infected in early February, why is it that I’ve been talking about being a bulk traveler on my blog pretty much this entire time? Well, some of them argued that the viral and bacterial infections I had before that could explain all that away. Others argued that maintaining the same symptoms across three completely different infections didn’t make much medical sense, and I don’t know everything that they talked about after I left the room, but in the end, I got out of there. It wasn’t enough, though. I was living around people who didn’t believe me, and didn’t trust me, and I couldn’t stay there anymore. I’ll always be grateful to my landlord, and my boss, and I know that none of this was their fault, but I have my reasons. I spent years pretending to be someone I’m not. I pretended to not be autistic. I pretended to be straight. I pretended to like Blink-182! I won’t do that anymore. I won’t live a lie. Even if I have to sleep in squalor, I’m going to live my truth from now on. So long, Boreverse Kansas City, I’ll never forgive you for the way you treated me. Now more than ever, I know that my only goal in life should be to get the hell out of this universe. Even if I never find my friends again, at least I won’t have to deal with you people anymore. For those of you reading this who are on my side, don’t you worry about me getting caught. I’ve got that covered. Some friends helped me set up a shadow workstation. As long as I always post from the cage, I can’t be traced, and as long as I don’t mention any specifics about my location, I can’t be found. I have to go now. I booked a boat ride on the Chicago River. As I said before, don’t look for me. I’m a ghost.

Microstory 2042: New York

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As I said before, the state of New Jersey worked really hard to find out if my parents were still alive in Ethiopia. They were unable to find them, or any other family that I might have there, which is why my fathers were allowed to adopt me. When I was 7 years old, though, that changed. A special charity organization flew to Ethiopia, and started offering free DNA testing. Anyone in our country can send in a sample so a computer can study their DNA, but it’s not that easy in other parts of the world. An aunt of mine participated in this special program, and when they uploaded the information to the big worldwide database, they found that I was a match. My fathers did it for me early on after I first met them, because they wanted to know whether there were any medical issues that they should be worried about. When they found out that I did have some family in Africa, they decided that we would all three fly out there to meet them. As it turns out, my birth parents were dead, but my aunt had a husband, and they had a bunch of kids, who were my brand new cousins. They were happy that my papa and dad were now my parents, so they didn’t want to take me away, but they did want to have relationships with me. So my fathers worked really hard to help them get to the United States. It has taken years since 2019, but they are finally living here, and on their way to becoming U.S. citizens. I wish my papa was alive to see it. Oh, and we had a really long layover in New York while we were waiting to fly to Africa, so my papa was able to see it.

Varkas Reflex: Vacuum (Part VI)

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Hokusai didn’t know what was wrong with this planet, or why it suddenly needed her help. She made a point of staying out of its business, requesting that Pribadium not bother her with such matters while they were working, or visiting. She was worried, though, that someone had decided to use her technology for evil, or maybe even just something misguided, which could have similar negative results. Katica led her down the hallway, out of the lab, across the way, and into the Capitol building.

Councilor Gangsta Dazzlemist was waiting for them in the lobby. “You were right. She got here fast.”

“May I ask what this is about?” Hokusai looked around at the walls, as if this were a trick, and the building would collapse in on her like something out of a space war movie.

Gangsta breathed in deeply, and Hokusai wasn’t sure what he did with the air, because it never seemed to come out. “I’m retiring from public service.”

“Congratulations,” Hokusai said to him sincerely.

“We need a replacement,” he went on.

Hokusai nodded. Now, she was literally a genius, and her intellect wasn’t limited to knowing how to calculate the Roche limit, or observational time through relativistic speeds. She picked up on social cues much easier than the average person, allowing her to tease out an individual’s subtext, and know when someone was lying. So when Gangsta told her they were looking for a replacement, she immediately understood he wasn’t just posting an update about his life in person. His microexpressions, coupled with the fact that they had lifted her exile, meant that she was here for a very specific reason. They were asking her to be that replacement. She didn’t know why, though. “I don’t know how I could do it. I live twenty-two parsecs away.”

He pointed at her with an upwards-facing palm. “Obviously not.”

“It’s this whole thing.”

“I understand,” Gangsta began, “that you did not simply stumble upon dimensional gravity, Madam Gimura. No one has ever done anything like it. They weren’t even looking for it. I don’t know what you are, and I don’t know how many others there are like you. I don’t really care. You’ve given us so much, and we gladly accept it. But please, do not think me a fool. I know you’re more than just a scientist, and that your expertise goes far beyond artificial gravity. I am in so much awe of you, and I will not tell anyone what little I know of your secret, including your ability to teleport between star systems.”

“It means a lot, hearing you say that,” she said, again, sincerely.

“You are not only my choice to replace me. You’re almost everybody’s.”

“How’s that?”

“Someone leaked your trial,” Katica explained. “They know who you are, and what you’ve done for them.” Leak was a strong word. The governments decided a long time ago that court cases should no longer have audiences. They were still mostly public record—unless the transparency endangered lives—but without the spectacle, those involved generally found the process to be fairer. Still, the information didn’t need to be leaked. It just required someone with the motives to raise their voice loud enough for people to hear it. Combined with artificial intelligences, there were now tens of billions of “people” in the stellar neighborhood. So being a loud voice was pretty hard. A public figure with as many fans as the most famous on Earth in 2016 would be barely considered a local celebrity by today’s standards. Any rando capable of getting a whole planet—even a low-populated colony—to listen was impressive.

“They’re asking me to become a councilor?” Hokusai questioned. “Because they think it was unfair that I was exiled? That’s a bit of a stretch.”

“It’s not because you were exiled, though that does help your popularity factor,” Katica said. “It’s because they know what you did for them decades ago. They know you’re responsible for artificial gravity, and for repairing our habitats before the colony vessels arrived.”

“That wasn’t me; that was my friends, Leona and Eight Point Seven.” The first human to set foot on Varkas Reflex was Leona Matic, when a mysterious quantum force commandeered her ship, and brought her here to fix some problems with the nanofactory.

“Close enough,” Katica contended. “You’re a hero, regardless, and the people want you to lead them.”

“That’s not really my thing.”

“We know,” Gangsta said. “We think it should be, though.”

She sighed. “I don’t even like how you run the government. Don’t get me wrong, to each their own, and I’ll gladly come back to live here, but it’s too informal. I appreciate that you wanna be laid back, but you could be so much more, if you were more motivated.” She repeated her point with an exaggerated accent that a high school math teacher she once had used to get his students interested in algebra, “motivaaation. Motivaaaaation.”

Gangsta smiled. “That’s what we’re counting on. The people aren’t looking for a new councilor. They want you to be Superintendent.”

Hokusai caught half of a chuckle before it escaped her mouth, but couldn’t stop the first half. The Superintendent was essentially the term choosing ones used to describe God. It was more metaphysically complicated than that, which was exactly why the word god was avoided in the first place. In this case, Gangsta was referring to a governmental position for someone who possessed questionable decision-making scope. A superintendent wasn’t responsible for running the state, but for managing the people who were responsible for running the state. They were staff managers, human resource representatives, the occasional conflict mediators. On the surface, they appeared to have the most power of all, since they were in charge of everyone, but they still answered to the people, and they couldn’t just fire and hire other leaders willy nilly. They had to remain reasonable, and accountable. Every colony but Varkas Reflex started out with a superintendent, but most stepped down after two or three full election cycles, because they were useful when starting out, but usually obsolete once the engine got going. Only Earth held onto their superintendent, because theirs was the highest populated world. It was just funny that Varkas was finally deciding to get on board with convention.

“You’ve been in your head for a good long while,” Katica pointed out. “Do you have a response?”

“My initial thought is no,” Hokusai answered.

“That makes sense,” Katica said. “It sounds like you. But you’re the one who hates how they run the government. What better way to fix it than to be the one in charge of coming up with a new one?”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Hokusai admitted. “While I believe what you’re doing now is not sustainable, I know that you don’t want to convert to a full mediatorial tetracameral legislature, and that’s the only one I know, because it’s the most common.” This type of government was composed of four parts. The population representative congress was there to speak for the needs of the civilians. They expressed their grievances to the two delegators, who met with separate advisory boards in order to come to decisions. Much like separate arbitration panels in the adjudicative system, the idea was, if both delegation boards came to the same conclusion, without talking to each other about it, it was probably the right one. The delegators then delegated the implementation of their decision to whichever administrators were in charge of whatever this change impacted.

This was all really complicated by design. Complexity often equaled more exploitable weakness, but also greater overall resilience. Maybe you could bribe one delegator to do what you wanted, but the other? Even if you did that, their irrational behavior would alert the mediator between them, so you would have to convince them to fall in line as well. Even so, the advisors would question why the delegators and mediator weren’t heeding their advice. The administrators would question their orders, and finally, the people would rise up against the injustice. And those people had the power to make swift changes to leadership personnel. It was practically impossible in Hokusai’s time to impeach a president, let alone remove them from office. Here, not so hard. If they wanted someone gone, they were gone. No one was entitled to power, and no one was entitled to maintain that power, once it was granted. These changes were positively unavoidable in modern times. No matter how good a leader was, there was too much risk of their control growing, well...out of control, over time. When accounting for immortality, this control could theoretically last for literal aeons, and that was probably not a good idea.

“You’re in your head again,” Katica warned her.

“Sorry, I was just going over what I would do if I were superintendent, and it always ends in disaster.”

“I don’t believe that,” Gangsta argued. “We’re not asking you to have all the answers today. Nor are the citizens. We just want you to get the process started. We all have immense faith in your ability to be fair, thoughtful, and sensitive to this planet’s unique needs.”

“Of course you may decline,” Katica started to add. “I urge you to give it some thought, though. Remember what happened the last time you made a rash decision, without knowing the consequences.”

Hokusai had never asked Katica to take responsibility for her own involvement in the memory wipe that was accidental from Hokusai’s side, but not from Katica’s. She glared at her now to remind her of this truth telepathically.

“Someone has to take care of us, and I can’t be the one to do it. Nature abhors a vacuum,” Gangsta quipped.

“Why do people always say that?” Hokusai questioned. “Nature loves a vacuum. It’s called entropy, and it’s kind of where everything in the universe is trying to get to.”

“Just think about it,” Katica requested. “In the meantime, you’re expected on the balcony.”

“The balcony?” Hokusai didn’t know what she was talking about. “Who’s on the balcony?”

“No one,” she answered. “You’re the one who’s expected. They’re waiting for your fence speech.”

“What the hell is a fence speech?” Hokusai asked.

“You’re on the fence, right?” Gangsta asked her.

Not really, but Katica was right that she should at least think about it. “You want me to go out there, and tell people I might consider maybe starting to almost kind of theoretically think about one day possibly entertaining the idea of hypothetically accepting a potential offer to perhaps, perchance, try to run for Superintendent?”

“Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but yeah, I guess,” Gangsta confirmed. “As I said, they’re expecting you.”

“You shouldn’t have told them I would be here.”

“We didn’t,” Katica said. “Like we’ve been trying to explain, it wasn’t our idea; it was theirs. They have been waiting for you.”

“Demanding, even,” Gangsta corrected.

“Yes.”

Hokusai massaged the bridge of her nose. “They’re expecting a...fence speech?”

“Yes,” Katica confirmed. “They are not anticipating that you will announce your intention to run today. If you go out there, and humor them for five minutes, they’ll finally go away, and move on with their lives. They will want you to make a final decision within the week, though, so keep that in mind.”

“Fine. I’ll go talk to them, but I promise nothing.”

“That’s all we ask,” Katica said gratefully.

“If it’s a five-minute speech, I will need ten minutes to write it.”

“That’s okay,” Gangsta said with glee. “I’ll go back out and stall them with another attempt at playing the gravity organ.”

By the time Hokusai finished delivering her fifteen-minute long speech, she had already decided to run. She did so unopposed, and obviously won.

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Microstory 1349: Citizenship

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Father Garcia: He’s coming here now. He skipped the Martins, just like he did the Wilsons. He was at the Washington’s, though.

Mother Garcia: That doesn’t mean anything, dear. Perhaps they filled out the Census online. That’s how it’s done these days. He has a satchel, he could be legit.

Father Garcia: How do you know he’s from the Census? He’s not wearing a uniform, or anything.

Mother Garcia: It’s hot, he’s probably allowed to wear whatever he wants.

Census Taker: Good afternoon, folks. My name is Census Taker, and I’m conducting census surveys for the 2020 census.

Father Garcia: Uhuh.

Census Taker: Are you, by any chance, Father Garcia?

Father Garcia: Maybe.

Mother Garcia: Don’t be rude. Yes, he is, and I’m Mother Garcia.

Census Taker: What are your ages?

Mother Garcia: I’m fifty-four, and my husband is thirty-eight.

Census Taker: Oh, that’s...

Father Garcia: That’s what?

Census Taker: Never mind. How many children do you have?

Father Garcia: We took the 2010 census. You should already know that we have more than zero, if you really are who you say you are.

Census Taker: We’ve been trained not to ask any leading questions. If I could just get a number, that would be great.

Father Garcia: Three; all over ten.

Census Taker: Great. And how many people are living in your household total, including yourselves?

Mother Garcia: Five.

Census Taker: Do you rent, or own, this property?

Father Garcia: We own it.

Census Taker: What are the genders of your children?

Father Garcia: What does that matter?

Census Taker: I don’t decide which questions go on the survey, sir. I’m just doing my job.

Mother Garcia: It’s okay. One boy, one girl, and one nonbinary.

Census Taker: Umm, what was your third child’s sex at birth.

Mother Garcia: I’m not answering that.

Census Taker: All right, fine. Their ages, in the same order, please.

Mother Garcia: Fifteen, seventeen, and twelve.

Census Taker: Are you of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?

Father Garcia: Yes, all of those things.

Census Taker: Okay...

Father Garcia: Are we almost done here?

Census Taker: Almost, sir. How long have you lived in this country?

Father Garcia: We already gave you our ages.

Census Taker: That’s not what I asked.

Mother Garcia: Don’t get mad.

Father Garcia: Don’t get mad? Don’t get mad! I am mad. I need to see some official identification.

Census Taker: Sure, here ya go.

Father Garcia: No, don’t just flash it in my face. Hold still, so I can actually look at it.

Census Taker: Are you a legal citizen of the United States of America?

Mother Garcia: Get out, get off of our property right now!

Father Garcia: We read the news; you’re not allowed to ask us that question. Who are you? What the hell are you doing here?

Fake Census Taker: You come over to our country—I don’t give a crap if you’re second generation, or dreamers, of whatever—you come over here, and you take our jobs, and you live off of welfare and social security, which we pay into, and you don’t contribute anything!

Mother Garcia: Hey, idiot. Undocumented citizens with jobs do pay social security. The government takes it out of their paycheck every period. But since they don’t have real social security numbers, they don’t get any payments out when they come of age. So actually, undocumented people contribute more than you do!

Fake Census Taker: You need to get out of my country!

Father Garcia: I’m calling the police.

Fake Census Taker: Build the wall! Build the wall!

Father Garcia: [slams door]

Fake Census Taker: (Build the wall.)

Microstory 1191: Aimo Lahti

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Aimo Lahti was another one of the source mages. His parents raised him to be generous, and actually gave him a name they thought meant just that. As it turned out, it translated better to ample or full. Plus, there was already a historical figure who shared his exact same name. That wasn’t that strange on its own, but the fact that Aimo’s father was so far removed from his family’s heritage that he wasn’t even made aware of their Finnish origins until he was an adult was odd. Aimo took to his upbringing well. He would have probably flourished back on Earth in a soup kitchen, or some other social justice organization. He was always looking out for others, especially if they weren’t strong enough to take care of themselves. The planet of Durus didn’t have any money during the despotocracy, or the adhocracy, but it did often have a chaotic bartering system. He was all about fairness, and grew angry with people who tried to take advantage in a business dealing. He was extremely outspoken against allowing the mages they created to sell their powers to others, or for having a monetary system at all. The candidates would be selected based on their drive to protect their town, and they would be provided the resources to do so. He didn’t think they should be angling for anything more, nor should anyone else. The Mage Protectorate would feature no money either, but instead be based solely on labor. Anyone who worked or studied was a citizen, and anyone who didn’t work was immediately—if only temporarily—stripped of that citizenship. Special educational programs became necessary during transitional periods in people’s lives, so they wouldn’t lose their rights. Some saw this as punishment for not being constantly employed, but Aimo saw this as a good thing. He believed in an educated populace anyway, so it was kind of a win-win situation, according to him. Sadly, his generosity weighed on him as the years passed. People were more than happy to take what he had to offer, but they were always reluctant to emulate his behavior, and give. He became frustrated, jaded and a little angrier every day. He put so much effort into making the world a better place, and still, humans were just as selfish as they were in the stories of them on Earth. He gradually moved to the other side of the spectrum, and kind of decided he was entitled to a life of comfort. He started to see the source mages as kings to be revered and followed, rather than a gift to be cherished. He never outright demanded fealty from others, but he sure did a lot to imply it. In the end, he wasn’t remember too fondly, and he died with what essentially amounted to nothing, because no one believed in him anymore.