Microstory 2490: Pyradome

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Not gonna lie, this one is dumb. I don’t know why I’m even bothering to review it. People just don’t really understand what it is, and that’s because they think there’s some deeper meaning behind it to understand. The truth, a one-sentence explanation is all you need. These are residential dwellings in the shape of pyramids. There. As long as you can read, you got it. There’s nothing interesting about this place, except for maybe how it looks from above. If you go up far enough, it’s pretty cool to see how the pyramids tessellate. But that’s less of a city, and more of an art piece. I guess the best reason I can think of for them to make this is because Earth has a long history of building pyramids. Multiple ancient cultures did it independently of each other. Maybe I actually don’t get it, and there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. Maybe it’s some complicated, philosophical statement on overconsumerism, or monotony, or some bullshit like that. I suppose, if you have your own interpretation for these pyramids, that’s fine. I’m not gonna tell you what to think. What I can tell you is that the population here is extremely low, and they do not fill it out with androids. It’s basically Underburg—which is also struggling to promote interest—except with pyramid houses. I mean, that’s really the only difference, except maybe there’s less emphasis on returning to a bygone era, and more of just a niche place to live. When the vonearthan population grows to the trillions, there might be enough people here to call it a real community, just because statistics support it. But if Earth moves forward with their plans to build the World Crescent Tower, or terraforming becomes exponentially faster, Pyradome might be experiencing its heyday right now, as sad as that sounds. If you wanna see a spiking world below your feet, sign up for a helicopter tour. If you want a great place to live, I can’t recommend this over other places, like Overdome or the Palacium Hotel, or hell, even somewhere in the Nordome Network.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 2, 2515

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The team was sitting around their table. It was the end of the engagement party, and only a few people were still around. Darko was in the middle of a seemingly flirtatious conversation with one of the android waitresses whose self-awareness and agency were in question. Mateo was about to ask if there was any way of determining whether she could provide consent when a black hole suddenly appeared on the opposite wall. A woman stepped out who looked moderately familiar. The first words out of her mouth were, “okay, I’ll do it, but I want something in return.”

“What?” Leona questioned. “Were we in the middle of a conversation? You’ll do what for us? Who are you again?”

“I’m Magnolia Quintana?” she reminded them. “The Overseer?”

“Oh, right, yeah, we met,” Leona remembered. “Is there an operation here, or something? This is just Party Central.”

“Yes, if this is where you’re gonna have the wedding,” Magnolia said. She looked around the room. “Little small.”

Leona did her best impression of Mr. Spock’s eyebrows. “We’re gonna have it outdoors, and not tonight, and...this is only one room in an entire city of party venues.”

Magnolia pulled out an old fashioned pen and notepad set. She took notes out loud. “Okay. Outdoors. Party Central. At least one year to plan.”

“Are you offering to be our wedding planner?” Olimpia questioned.

“Not offering,” Magnolia said. “Got the job. Very excited. Already have some great ideas rolling around up here.” She tapped her head with her pen.

“Madam Quintana,” Mateo began. “We were just gonna plan this ourselves. It’s not gonna be as big as our last wedding. Only family and close friends.”

Magnolia dropped her hands in disappointment, and sighed. “I need your help.” She was very uncomfortable. “I obviously need you more than you need me.”

“Well, we might be able to just help you,” Leona offered. “You don’t have to do anything for us. What do you need?”

“I need you to find my son,” Magnolia requested, averting her gaze awkwardly. “I can find anyone in the world, but he shares the same gift, which makes him a blindspot. I know he’s in this time period, but I don’t know where. Honestly, because so many planets have become habitable now, the Great Pyramid Shimmer actually serves a meaningful purpose, so he might not even be on Earth anymore.”

“Is he in trouble?” Romana asked.

Magnolia hesitated to answer. “He’s...mad at me. I just want the chance to apologize. I think he’ll be receptive if I say the right thing, but I have to find him first.”

“Well we can’t really find people,” Leona tried to explain. “I’m sure you’re asking us because you have been made aware of our slingdrives, but they don’t operate on magic. We have to know where we’re going. We’re no better equipped than you with your, uhh...”

“Hither-thithers,” Magnolia finished for her. “That’s what our dark portals are called. And I didn’t come for your slingdrives. I can harness Shimmer myself, and go anywhere he might be. I need his dark particle power to track his location.”

“Not that I won’t agree to that,” Mateo started, “but you just used a special word. Have you not reached out to a genuine Tracker, like Vidar Wolfe?”

“They have the same limitation as me. We can conceal ourselves from such people. I believe that you are the only person in the universe who can see through the shroud.”

“All right.” Mateo wiped his lips with his napkin, then dropped it down on the table. “I’ll see what I can find.” He leaned over and kissed his wife, then leaned over the other direction to kiss his bride.”

“Wait, we have your bachelor party after this,” Ramses reminded him. They decided to get all the traditions out of the way, so the separate celebratory events are falling on the same day as the engagement party, instead of being spread out across 12 to 18 months. Leona will have her doe party, and Olimpia will have a separate bachelorette party. They’ll then reconvene for a bridal shower. A bit out of order, but who cares? “Or no, we’re calling it a bull party.”

“Come with us,” Mateo suggested. “Hey, Darko!” This was Mateo’s chance to not worry about what an encounter with the android would mean, ethically speaking. “Time traveling bull party!”

“I’m in!” his once-brother exclaimed. He turned back to the waitress. “Catch you later, gorgeous.”

“I shouldn’t go with you,” Magnolia decided. “I have some initial work to do to plan your wedding, and Garland may still want me to stay away. I don’t wanna ambush him, so if you could, please tell him that I’m sorry, and ask him if he wants to see me. If he doesn’t, I’ll understand, and I’ll trust that you did find him, and are telling me the truth either way.”

Mateo nodded. “Don’t break your back planning, though. It’s gonna be intimate and low-key. Thanks!”

“No. Thank you.” She was a little too mousy and contrite for someone called The Overseer. This whole thing with her son must really be messing her up. And that wasn’t how she came across a few minutes ago when she first arrived. Maybe she didn’t realize how receptive to her request they would be, and decided to rein in her energy after the deal was done.

The three men stood next to each other in a vague line, and regarded the women still sitting at the table. “Three to beam up.” Dark particles swarmed around them, and sent them away to unknown lands.

As the darkness faded away, the nature of their destination twisted into focus. “Oh, not again,” Ramses groaned. They appeared to be in the middle of a tundra. It wasn’t Tundradome, though. It couldn’t have been. They were standing in what must have been a park, or a town square. There were buildings on all sides of them in the middle distance. This was some kind of city. People were milling about, enjoying the day. No one seemed to have noticed their arrival until they turned all the way around to see a young man sitting on a bench.

He did not have a look of shock on his face, but minor annoyance. “I put a time block on this world,” he said. Still nettled, he closed the cover over his e-reader, and set it down next to him. “No one else should be able to come through. Now I have to check the wards.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Mateo tried to explain. “My power is a bit of an exception. I doubt anyone else can come here if you did anything to prevent them.”

“Who would want to?” Ramses jabbed.

“For that.” The young man looked up towards the sky with his eyes as he pointed with a finger.

It took them a moment to possibly figure out what was going on. Scale was a bit hard to determine with this out-of-context problem. It looked like a ceiling of ice that stretched all the way across in every direction, down to the horizon. The fractures and imperfections glimmered in the light from the ground, and maybe even from above as well? Vaguely-shaped circular blobs were hanging in the background, perhaps pulsating, or perhaps they were only illusions. This whole thing might have been a hologram, but it was a good one; reminiscent of something they might find on Castlebourne. Had this frustrated stranger not claimed to be somehow preventing others from traveling here, they might have guessed that it was indeed one of the domes on Castlebourne, which they just so happened to have never heard of before.

“Wait, wait,” Darko began. “I think I’ve heard of this. Epsi...Epson...”

“Epsilon Eridani,” Ramses said. “Roughly eleven light years from Earth. No habitable planet, but a gas giant like Juputer, and a couple of ice giants, similar to Neptune.”

“We’re orbiting the gas giant, AEgir,” the stranger added. “This moon is called Kólga. The surface is inhospitable, so they built a giant hanging city-structure, attached to the ice. What you’re seeing up there is several hundred meters of ice, followed by the daytime sky, in which we can currently see both AEgir and E-E.”

“Where are our manners?” Mateo extended his hand. “Mateo Matic, Darko Matic, and Ramses Abdulrashid.”

“Married or related?”

“Brothers across different timelines,” Darko clarified. “You’ve never heard of us? You’ve never heard of Team Matic?”

“I try to stay out of the whole time travel industry. That’s why I came here. People keep to themselves. They’re as immortal as anyone, but they don’t want to explore. They don’t want to learn. They don’t want to build worlds. They just want to live their lives day by day, century by century. They don’t ask questions, and without them even knowing it, I protect them from the likes of you. I try anyway.”

“We’re not here to cause trouble. We’re just looking for our friend’s son, who we are guessing is you?” Mateo asked.

He nodded. “Garland Dressler. She sent you to take me back to her?”

“No pressure,” Mateo said to him. “She says she wants to apologize. I don’t know what for. I don’t need to know. You don’t have to come with us. If you want us to leave, we will.”

Garland sighed. “You might as well stay a while. You look like you’re in the party mood, and there’s one down the street tonight.”

The three of them looked at each other, narrowing in on Darko, who was wearing a glow necklace that was inert when they came here, but was now twinkling, probably triggered by the time travel event. They were supposed to be partying.

“I’ll think about whether I wanna go back or not,” Garland went on.

“Let’s go get chocolate wasted!” Ramses suggested. He literally started running towards the street.

“Other direction!” Garland called up to him.

Ramses didn’t stop running. He just teleported to the other side of them, and started moving that way instead.

“Do you have a jacket?” Darko asked as the rest of them followed Ramses at a normal pace.

“It’ll be warmer inside,” Garland promised.

They had to call Ramses back again when he passed the entrance to the party venue, but once inside, they had a lot of fun. The other residents took no issue with shifting focus of the festivities to being more about Mateo and his upcoming nuptials. They didn’t go there with a particular reason to party in the first place, so it wasn’t like they were stealing attention from someone else. Garland had been a little inaccurate about why he came here, and didn’t let anyone else. He didn’t only want to protect the Kólgans from time travel, but also to have them all to himself. He was the life of the party, opening up hither-thithers left and right. He helped party-goers throw sports balls at their own asses as fast as possible. He let one guy fall down an endless loop of portals on the ceiling and the floor. Mateo wowed them with a swarm of dark particles before he and Ramses entertained with a holographic lightshow. Darko met a man with combat training, so they sparred in the middle of the floor as the crowd cheered.

They would find out later that the chocolate they were eating was laced with some kind of local drug, which Garland didn’t even know about. They reawoke at some point later with no memory of how the night ended up, but they had some clues to work with. First, they were not likely on Kólga anymore as it was pretty hot here. Secondly, Darko was missing. And finally, passed out next to them was the last person they expected to find. He actually looked rather peaceful there, and they didn’t get the sense that there was any lasting animosity between them. It was Bronach Oaksent.

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Microstory 2448: Chinadome

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China is one the largest, and most populated, nations on Earth. Historically, it has been a technological powerhouse, and a major player on the global economic stage. It’s so big that individuals emigrating out of China to other towns would often settle in such high numbers that they ended up transforming part of their city to a sector known as Chinatown. These were divisions of the established city in question—New York, San Francisco, Binondo—typically not in an official or legal capacity, but culturally relevant nonetheless. Since those of Chinese ancestry represent a large portion of people back on Earth, it stands to reason that a great deal of people who have chosen to travel to Castlebourne would be Chinese too. To be clear, you don’t have to have any Chinese heritage to come here. In reality, they encourage you to visit regardless of your family background or creed, and learn about Chinese history and culture. That’s the whole point of cultural domes. You can come here to see what it’s like, to engage in their events, or if you just feel comfortable in this environment. The dome holds all the same traditional observances here as they still do on Earth, such as Chinese New Year. It also recognizes the shift in sociopolitical practices that resulted from the adoption of more modern political ideas, particularly post-scarcity economic conventions. It’s a respectful blend of the historical China and the new China that most people living today are more familiar with. I agonized over how to phrase that, which is why, readers, this review is a bit later than usual. I think that’s the most P.C. way for me to say it. I’ll edit you according to your comments. But just this once. I recommend everyone on Castlebourne come for a visit. Even if you saw a Chinatown or two on Earth, there’s always something new to learn, and perspective to be gained.

Microstory 2443: March 14, 2016

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I came to this dome mostly out of curiosity. Not only does it seem so random and vague, but there’s also no information on it. Most prospectuses in the catalog have a lot of information about what you’re getting into. Even the more secretive ones, like Foggy Forest still give data about temperature and wind patterns, and the types of plantlife that can be found there. It also warns you about how dangerous or troublesome it might be for the younger crowd, or people with heart conditions, or whatever. March 14, 2016 does not have anything. There’s not even a picture associated with it, which was the weirdest part about it. All it shows is the title, and under that, the word “Perfect”. I don’t have a family, or anything going on in my life. I’m guessing that I’ll probably move here on a more permanent basis, so I have plenty of time to explore the other domes. I figured I might as well check this one out, especially since I seem to be the first person to review it. There’s a chance that I was even the first visitor ever? I don’t believe that any other visitor was there at the same time, but it can be hard to tell since the androids just look like people. Though, I will say that no one else seemed confused or weirded out, so I really do think that I was alone. Enough of the build-up, what is March 14, 2016? Well, it appears to be St. Louis, Missouri, presumably the way it looked like on that date. The only reason I say that is because there’s a big arch that looks exactly like the one in the photos. I pulled out my handheld device, and tried to figure out where I was standing at any one time, but nothing seemed to match up. All of the street signs were blank. Almost none of the buildings had signs of any kind, and I’ll get to that here in a bit. First, I wanna tell you that the buildings weren’t real either. They were basically cardboard cutouts, including only the façade. You can walk in them, but be careful with the doors. It’s very unsettling, because there aren’t any interior walls or furniture. It feels like the whole thing is about to come down. Unlike the Kansas City replica dome, this was all fake; not just a replica. Remember when I said that there were androids? Well, not a whole lot of them. They weren’t walking on the sidewalks, or crossing the streets. They weren’t driving the cars—or pretending to drive, anyway, because the vehicles were fake too. They had all congregated in one place. It might sound like a big event or gathering, but that’s not right either. There was a reasonable number of people at a store of some kind, which were common in this time period before they were replaced with free inventoria. Some were wearing blue vests or polo shirts, and name tags, so I’m assuming they worked there. Everyone else was wearing whatever, so they were probably customers. Unlike everywhere else, the store had a sign, but it too was disappointing, because it was just given the generic name of Superstore. The inside was full of stuff; the kind of stuff I’m told would be typical of the age in a store. It had gizmos and gadgets and clothes. People were buying things, and then walking out. Nothing interesting or crazy happened all day. I kind of thought maybe that there was a bombing here, or some kind of attack? Or maybe ghosts would fly out of the walls, and start scaring people. But nothing. Everyone smiled at each other. While no one actually said a word, they behaved as if they were talking to each other. There didn’t appear to be any conflict. At the end of the “day” the store shut down, and hours later, it reopened, and restarted the exact same routine over again. I tried to find any other places of activity, but couldn’t. I did find other Superstore locations, but they weren’t populated. I don’t know what to make of it. Maybe someone else can try it, and see something different.

Microstory 2434: Canopydome

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Around the turn of the 22nd century, a major effort began to rewild Earth. Most of the population were moving to megastructure arcologies, seasteads, and space habitats. The cities of old were taking up space where life could be thriving instead. By now, the amount of horizontal space that humans take up is practically negligible. But these endeavors weren’t the very beginning of it. Closer to the middle of the 21st century, people were fed up with how their ancestors had treated the planet. They hadn’t even considered bulldozing entire cities yet, but they still knew that more needed to be done to recover the ecosystems that had already been destroyed. In particular, they were worried about the Amazon rainforest. So many trees had been taken down, and with them, the little critters that used that region as a home. They fought back against corporate greed, and began to restore what was lost. This was during the beginnings of worldwide universal basic income programs, so it was easier to push back against certain institutions. Four hundred years later, not only can we restore whole ecosystems, but create them from scratch. That is what they’ve done here under Canopydome. While nowhere near as large as the one in South America, or other parts of Earth, it’s still nice. When an individual is standing there, under the canopy, it’s not like they can tell how expansive it is. That’s the thing about a rainforest, which sets it apart from other forested environments; you’re wrapped up in the foliage, and can’t see very far. When you’re in it, it feels like this is all there is, and if you’re alone, you feel that too. At the moment, there isn’t much fauna in Canopydome, so the animal calls you hear are from hidden speakers, but I was promised that this will change in the future as more organisms are bioengineered to sustainable levels. They explained how there is actually another rainforest dome, but it’s not at all accessible to the public. It only exists to introduce various species to a comparable environment, and let them figure out how to survive on Castlebourne, before anyone shows up to gawk at them. Apparently, there are a lot of domes like this which serve this purpose. That makes sense. Regenesis is a delicate process, and slow if you wanna do it right. They could make them as realistic automatons instead, but I think they want to be as authentic as possible. One of the reasons they’re doing this is to preserve life, not just so it appears that life exists here. If you’re afraid of large animals, my advice is to come here now before they show up. In contrast, if you want to see those animals, then I advise you to wait. We’re probably talking about five or ten years depending on your definition of the climax community—or more appropriately their definition of it.

Microstory 2433: Tokyo 2077

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Did you ever go to Tokyo, Japan in the year 2077? Well...welcome back! I don’t know exactly why they chose this year for their recreation. I looked it up, there’s no Tokyo 2042, or Tokyo-Yokohama 2115. Maybe it’s random, or maybe the creator has some particular affinity for this city in this time period. They may have just as easily chosen 2075 or 2078; I dunno. I did find something when I searched for answers in the central archives that the year 2077 was used in a surprisingly great number of media, but they were all set in the future, because they were created before this. So maybe it’s just a nod to that, because the robot staff aren’t telling me anything. They just say, this is Tokyo 2077, have at it. I think I may know why Tokyo was chosen, though. At the turn of the 22nd century, there was a huge push towards population overcentralization. They figured out how to create megastructures that could fit hundreds of thousands of people each. They were nicer, newer, and allowed the rest of the land below to be returned to the plants and animals. They built these things several miles away from the population centers of the time, so people didn’t have to move very far, and once the old cities were emptied out, they could start to bulldoze them over. Tokyo was one of the last holdouts, and not because they hated pandas. There were a number of reasons, but the main one was that they were already so densely packed. There was no room to build the damn thing nearby, especially when competing against other priorities, like preexisting wildlife preserves, and historically protected settlements. They also wanted to build it near the ocean, because people love the water, and all that space was taken up, because like I literally just said, people love the water. Plus, the population by then in the Tokyo Metropolis was already so huge, one of these arcologies barely made a dent anyway. They needed a lot more to make any bit of difference. As I mentioned, it eventually merged with Yokohama, forming one gigantic city that wasn’t going anywhere soon. People eventually did move out, to seasteads, orbitals, interplanetary and interstellar colonies, and to just other parts of the world, but it took longer than anywhere else to find room to construct the megastructures. Anyway, if you have some particular interest in seeing what Tokyo looked like a few decades before this great transition—or in reminiscing—come check it out. There’s plenty to do here, but the theme isn’t any narrower than the city as a whole. It’s only a replica with robots simulating people living their everyday lives, so no one’s going to give you anything specific to do. People are starting to treat it like a violent video game, and destroying the androids like criminal thugs. I don’t know why it’s a growing trend in this particular dome, because the planet is riddled with non-self-aware droids, but you can try that if you have a lot of pent-up aggression. Be yourself, I guess.

Microstory 2431: Melodome

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Don’t let the name fool ya if you’re interpreting the pun to be mellow + dome. It’s not about melodrama either. It’s the first part of the word melody + dome. This is all about music. Recording studios, concert halls, smaller stages, other interesting venues, and even sports stadiums where no one ever actually plays sports. This dome has it all. You can make music, listen to music, watch music. Every genre, every level of interaction; everything. No place like this exists on Earth. Even the cities known for music, like Havana and New Orleans, still had to leave space for regular living. This is the Music City, no matter what Nashville tries to tell you. There are some things that I’m not entirely sure about, unfortunately. When my great great grandparents were younger, they remember a trend where dead musicians were starting to be resurrected through holograms. This isn’t the kind of volumetric immersion that you’re used to in the present-day. It was very crude, and very obviously fake, even if you didn’t know that the subject wasn’t alive anymore. They recall being quite upset by this, not because it was macabre—which it is—but because it was disrespectful. These were real people who lived their lives, and then those lives ended. Before virtual immortality was invented, that was just what happened. These musical artists were immortal because of their legacy. That was what they were striving for, because they probably didn’t even guess at the future of life extension research. Their flame burned bright, but it was short, and that’s what was special about it. If you missed it, that was sad, but it was sad in a good way. The holograms robbed the industry of these artists’ authenticity, and sadly, that never went away. The technology kept improving, and the industry kept embracing it, despite pushback from the audience. There was evidently enough money in it, probably because of people’s morbid curiosity. Melodome has not shied away from this concept. They’ve brought the dead back to life using realistic androids. Not all of them are even dead, but living performers who just aren’t freaking on Castlebourne. I guess they signed away the rights to their likeness, but that doesn’t make it okay. I’m not going to name real names, but if John Doe can’t be here, then I shouldn’t be able to go to one of his concerts, and watch a convincing facsimile reenact his set from X number of years ago. I get that these are at least historically accurate shows, so they’re not merely contriving something entirely out of thin air. They justify it by saying that it’s like watching a recording, but I don’t consider that the same thing. There’s a lot of great things to see here. If you’re an artist, and you want a venue, they will find you one. I doubt the demand would ever surpass the supply. So if you’re a music fan who wants to discover someone new, you can do that. There’s always something going on, and it’s easy to find new acts on the dome’s prospectus, but there’s also this other side of it. They should really lean into the aspect of originality, because the reenactments are unethical at best. But maybe that’s just my point of view. You have to decide for yourself where your line is.

Microstory 2428: Escape Dome

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I’m a little bit biased here, because I’m obsessed with escape rooms. I’m old enough to remember when that was a fitting name for them, because they were mostly only one room. Some of them had different sections, but you didn’t unlock a door, go through it, and start on an entirely different set of puzzles. I watched as they grew and grew, both in popularity, and in scope. Escape rooms became escape buildings, which became escape districts, which have now become escape cities. I always loved puzzles, even as a kid, so this became my thing. I didn’t have a whole lot of friends, and that was on me, but I still wanted to do this. I remember regularly going in alone, and them having to group me with strangers. They were sometimes annoyed by this, but for the most part, they were welcoming, and they quickly realized either way that I was more of an asset than a burden, even though we didn’t have a preexisting rapport. Eventually, I wasn’t going in alone anymore. I finally found my community. The most passionate of us started a little club. The reason I’m giving you all this background is that every single member of this club is still alive, and still together. I don’t know how rare that is, to have eleven friends stay connected after all this time. None of us wanted to move to another planet without the others. No one’s marriages and families broke us apart—though, the rest of us would have understood if they had, and been happy for them. The point is that we’ve been doing escape zones for nearly 500 years, so we know what we’re talking about. I doubt we managed to try them all, but we certainly did the majority. It’s our passion, and I don’t think that’s going away anytime soon. Escape Dome is the largest adventure we’ve ever played. Of course, it’s not just one game that goes across the entire area, but each game is still immersive and impressive. I think I saw that they did have the traditional kinds, which were just the one little room each, and we might do that when three or four of us have an hour to kill. I should clarify, we started out with a club of eleven people, but over time, it’s nearly doubled, thanks to those marriages and families. Not everyone wants to be a part of it, which is fine, but the cool thing about some of these games under the dome is that all twenty-four members can play at the same time. We’ve never been able to do that before, even with the escape districts. Twenty has always been the absolute max until now. Our first two adventures were extraordinary. We kind of thought we had seen everything, but even beyond the larger scale, there were puzzles that blew our mind. The great thing about this concept is that anyone can have fun with it. I’ve heard people say, “oh, I’m just not a puzzle person” but we put them in one of those rooms, and they have a blast. Don’t count yourself out until you give it a try. If you end up not enjoying it at all, hey, you don’t have to do it again. Some of the adventures are designed to potentially take weeks, so don’t start with one of those. Be smart about your choice—which the staff will gladly help you make—and I’m sure you won’t regret it.

Microstory 2419: Underbelly

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Not to be confused with Underburg. Believe me, you don’t want to mix them up. Nothing could be further from the idyllic, beautiful, pleasant hellscape of suburban America. I don’t understand why anyone would want to live there. I grew up in a town like that, back before the arcologies. It might look nice in old movies and TV shows, but I was miserable. Ravensgate is a real city. It’s full of violence, crime, and the champions that serve as the only protection against these terrible forces. Choose your own adventure. Are you a hero, or a villain? I know this sounds like an ad, and it is. This is the entire reason I came to this planet. My friend casted first, and wrote back with tales of his exploits. He knew that I would like the Underbelly dome. I read all the comic books, and saw all the adaptations. I know what makes for a good superhero story, and I’ve always wanted to be a part of that. It’s funny, back in the day, all these superpowers were fictional. They seemed impossible. The strength of ten men, the speed of a train; normal humans could only dream of such fantastical abilities. And then, as technology progressed, we actually started being able to make them a reality. Nanotechnology alone gives us shapeshifting, invisibility, onboard weaponry, and more. Some things are still off limits, and if you want to have those gifts, you’re gonna need to log in to a virtual world. Flight is impossible. Well, it’s not impossible, but the Superman or Homelander kind is totally off limits. It breaks the laws of physics. A lot of comics have magic, and you can’t do that stuff either. You can’t just turn someone into a frog, or something. Street level heroing is what they call it. You fight bad guys, and help the innocent. Most of them are androids, but they’re as lifelike as any, so it’s easy to forget that, and feel genuine anger towards the former, and empathy for the latter. But I should probably go back to the beginning, because you’re not assigned the powers you end up with. You choose them yourself. But you don’t get to just select from a menu, and upload into your new substrate. No, you gotta design it yourself. You choose the physical attributes of the body. Are you visibly muscular, or are you secretly superhumanly strong? What hair color, eye color, nose shape? You choose it all, and you have to work through the design program to make it look how you want. They don’t give you any ideas about what kind of powers to include either. That’s all you too. You’re only limited to the technology available in the 26th century. You also design your own backstory, which might be decades in the past, or more recent. Maybe you’re a kid who’s just discovered his powers after reaching puberty, or you fell in a vat of acid during a university science experiment. Or you don’t have powers at all, and your character had to invent everything themselves. It’s up to you, but the more complex and complicated the scenario, the longer it’s going to take before you can get out there. I could write a book on this, but you really just have to come try it. You don’t even have to be a hero or villain. You can just be a regular person, trying to survive in the metropolis. Again, this is all you. Right now, it’s just Northwest Ravensgate and Southeast Ravensgate, separated by a river, but they’ve left the nearby domes unused in case this gets to be so popular that it has to expand into new cities. There’s a reason the dome and city aren’t named the same thing. We could really build something here. It may not be real, per se, but if you open your mind, it can be just as exciting as anything else in base reality. This only gets better with more visitors. We can’t do it without ya.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 17, 2499

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Mateo and Olimpia were in St. Louis on one of their business trips. There was an issue with the booking, which was forcing them into a single room with a single bed. It was no coincidence that all of the hotels were booked up this week. They weren’t the only game in this town right now. Every ridesourcing company was hoping to strike a deal with St. Louis Metro Transit. They were looking to expand their service to multiple outlying areas, but found the project to be cost-prohibitive on their own. One of the bus drivers moonlighted as a driver for Tractus Rides, and suggested they form some sort of partnership. It was a last mile program, which could help thousands get to their destinations at lower cost than if they had to drive themselves, or use a ridesharing service alone. The executives actually thought it was a good idea, but they didn’t just want to close themselves up to options. Everyone was going to get a shot to pitch their idea. This would be a huge opportunity for RideSauce. While St. Louis fell under Mateo’s purview, he wasn’t in charge of the negotiations, because that was well above his paygrade. If they managed to secure something here, there was a chance that RideSauce would make similar deals in other cities.

Only the higher ups for RideSource were here, but Tractus went a different direction. They decided to secure rooms for their local drivers as well, reportedly to show their enthusiasm for the project, but clearly just to make themselves look stronger. They took all the hotel rooms just so they could walk around with their big swingin’ wieners, and that was annoying. There was nothing that the front desk agent could do, so Mateo was gonna have to swallow his pride, and speak to his archrival. “Pacey,” he greeted with an insincere nod.

“Matthew, what a pleasant surprise.” Pacey Henricksen was essentially Mateo’s equivalent for Tractus in the central midwest, though not exactly. Their organization was structured differently, so he managed more cities, and other divisions in those cities. RideSauce focused on ridesourcing, but Tractus was also in delivery and limousine services. And he knew that Mateo would be here, obviously.

“You took all the rooms.”

Pacey breathed in deeply through his nose and nodded. “We need them.”

“This is a stunt.”

“This is all a stunt,” Pacey argued. “That’s what we’re doing here. How we appear to the client is what matters most.”

“What we can provide to the client is what matters in our eyes,” Mateo countered. “They’ll see that.” He wasn’t really here to get in a fight, but he couldn’t help it.

“We’re bigger, and they need to know how much better we’ll be at scaling operations.”

“Your other divisions are irrelevant. The bus riders aren’t going to be getting in any limos.”

“They might if they pay a premium,” Pacey reasoned.

Mateo laughed. “They’re bus riders,” Mateo emphasized. “They don’t pay premiums. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“We’ll see. Did you need something?”

“We need one of your rooms. They overbooked, so now we’re stuck with one between the two of us.”

Pacey looked over Mateo’s shoulder, at Olimpia. “I don’t see the problem.”

“Put your tongue back in your mouth, you’re not her type.”

“What’s her type?”

“Decent people,” Mateo answered.

Pacey shrugged. “I’m sure she would make an exception.”

“She and I are professionals. You might look into it. Until then, what do I need to do to get one of your rooms?”

Pacey grimaced. “You see, if I give you a room, I’ll be taking it away from someone else, which means they’ll be pairing up instead. That doesn’t really solve the problem, it just shifts it to someone else. You have more experience with that than I do.”

Ugh. Of course he would bring that up again. He always found a way whenever they ran into each other. “For the last time, that driver was not in my area. Just because he was supposed to drive the rider from Sioux Falls to Sioux City doesn’t mean he worked for me. He was registered in South Dakota. I had nothing to do with the failed background check.”

“Well, it speaks to how flippant your company is with safety and security,” Pacey decided.

“The driver worked for you too, he passed your background check just as easily, so don’t give me that bullshit. And unlike me, South Dakota is in your jurisdiction.”

“Well, he wasn’t working for us that night, which is why the judge withheld it as evidence.”

Mateo had no retort, and it was a distraction anyway. “There are only two of us, and as her superior, it would be inappropriate for us to share a room. Pacey. Please. You must know of two people who can bunk up.”

Pacey looked away in thought. “Well...there’s this one driver that I’ve been seeing. I suppose that she and I could share. Your little assistant could sleep in her room instead. We wouldn’t even have to involve the hotel. We’ll just give her a keycard. But if she takes anything from the mini-bar, you’re paying for it.”

“She never would,” Mateo explained. “I’ll ask her if she’s okay with it.”

“Lovely,” Pacey said. “Always glad to assist a colleague.”

Mateo stepped over to talk to Olimpia, who was receptive to the idea. She wasn’t entirely convinced that the original situation was a problem that needed to be fixed, but she didn’t argue. She wouldn’t, though. He needed to get better at reading her, and recognizing that he’s her boss, and that she wouldn’t want to antagonize him. As long as Pacey’s companion stayed in his room, instead of going back to her own, Olimpia should be fine. That wasn’t what happened, though, and they should have known.

“They got in a big fight apparently,” Olimpia said at Mateo’s doorway.

“Come on in,” he said, stepping away.

She rolled her suitcase inside. “She was telling me about it, but I’ve become pretty good at tuning people out. I know what they want to hear when I’m pretending to listen actively, based on tone and pauses in their speech, so I don’t have to absorb the information. I’m sure it was very banal and meaningless. The fact is, she wanted her room back, and I didn’t want to stick around. She said she was fine sharing it with me, because I seemed cool, but I really don’t wanna do that.” She looked around this room. “I was hoping there was a couch, errr...”

“No, the company’s very frugal. I typically don’t care. It doesn’t need to be big, just clean. But you can sleep in the bed, and I’ll be in the tub.”

“I know you, Mateo, you shower at night. I can tell that you already have. The tub is wet.”

He shrugged. “I always bring a swimsuit. I’ll sleep in that.”

“That’s silly. We can share, it’ll be fine.”

Mateo looked down at the bed. “It’s a full, not even a queen. Pacey must have done that on purpose as further punishment.”

“Pacey?” she questioned. “How would he have any control over what room you were assigned?”

Mateo blinked. “I don’t know, how would he?”

Olimpia blinked back. “Can you sleep next to a woman without having sex with her?”

“Yeah, can you? Vice versa, that is?”

She hesitated to answer.

“Olimpia, it’s a simple—” Wait...

She still couldn’t answer, and she didn’t try to backpedal.

No, he couldn’t sleep in the bed with her. He couldn’t even sleep in the tub. He had to get out of here entirely. “You take the bed, I’m gonna hail a RideSauce Hot. They’re almost always SUVs, so I should be able to sleep in the back.”

“That’ll cost you a fortune.”

“Not if we don’t go anywhere,” he contended. “I’ll pay under the table.”

“That is not a service that our company offers.”

“No, but...I’m the boss. I’m sure whoever it is will say yes. That’s the difference between us and Tractus. The drivers know who I am. Nobody who works for Pacey could pick him out of a line up.”

“Mateo, it’ll be fine. I’m not saying that I won’t be able to handle it. I just want to be honest about my feelings.”

“I appreciate that. It would have been real easy for you to say nothing, and let it happen. But I have to nip this in the bud. You’re my employee, and I’m married.”

“Right, which is why I’ll get over it.”

“It’s too complicated. Things are different out there.” He pivoted, and started to gaze out the window at the stars. What did they have to do with anything?

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” Mateo’s phone rang. It was Leona. “Hey, I’m about to go to bed.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing. What would be wrong?”

“I just had this feeling that you’re upset about something. I can’t explain it.”

“Things have gotten a little bit awkward with the hotel rooms, but we’re working it out. I think you just get worried about me when I’m gone.”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Oh, hold on. I’m getting another call.” He switched over without even bothering to see who it was. “Hello?”

“Mateo. This is Angela. Is everything okay?”

“Angela? My neighbor? Why would you think there’s something wrong?”

“Marie and I just started getting this weird feeling.”

A text came in. It was Ramses. Yu ight?

What the hell was going on?

They heard a series of beeps at the door just before it opened. Pacey walked in. He looked disappointed. “I thought you three had an understanding, but it looks like the feelings are a little more complicated, so this whole hotel room gambit isn’t gonna get you where you need to be.”

“What are you talking about?” Mateo demanded to know. “How do you even have a key to get in this room?”

Pacey looked back at the door, and then back to Mateo. “What room?”

“I’m so confused.” Mateo sat down on the edge of the bed, and buried his face in his hands.”

“I know,” Pacey said. “I messed up. I was trying to respect your privacy by only extracting the memories and knowledge that I needed to set up a plausible scenario, but it wasn’t enough. I’m afraid, in order to keep you here, I’m gonna have to go deeper.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Mateo argued.

“I know, and you won’t remember any of this anyway. You and Olimpia will have had sex tonight. That’s how you’ll remember it, and you will have already told Leona about it by the time you wake up. In fact, it will have been weeks ago. She will be fine, and the three of you will move forward with your relationship. Unfortunately, in order to make this work, you’re gonna have to lose the transit contract. I’ll become a weaker antagonist if you don’t.”

Actually, this was starting to make sense. Mateo’s memories were resurfacing. None of this was real. This wasn’t his life. This wasn’t any of their lives. “I know you. You met Leona before. She ran into you in the ka—”

Mateo was nervous. He had never been on a date with two women before. Well, there was that one time, but that was more of a double date where his girlfriend’s friend’s boyfriend flaked out on her. He had never been interested in that other girl. He was interested in Olimpia, and as fate would have it, Leona was interested in her too. She seemed to like them both. This might even go okay. But a first date was a first date, and those were stressful no matter what.

“Are you ready?” Leona asked. “I just need to pick a pair of shoes.”

“Wow. You look beautiful in that.”

“It’ll look better on the floor,” she joked. “Ah, come on, I’m tryna lighten the mood.”

“Is this weird? This seems weird. Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

“It’s almost the 26th century,” Leona began. “Polyamory is in.”

“I know, but...”

“Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Two hot chicks are into you. Just let it happen. If things get messy in the future, we’ll clean it up. No one’s life is gonna get ruined.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“You and I have been through worse,” Leona claimed.

“We’ll see about that.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “But I trust in your judgment. And I love you.”

“Were I you,” she said as he was walking out of the room.

“Were you me what?”

She blinked. “Huh. I don’t know. It’s an idiom, though, isn’t it?”

He shook his head. “No, it isn’t.” But was it?

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Microstory 2405: Ancient Thebes

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Sorry for my poor writing. It’s just not a skill that I ever picked up. I’m more into history. I’m really interested in history. I don’t have that much interest in going to one of the adventure domes, or whatever. I feel no want to run from zombies, or even relax by the ocean. I like to see what real places looked like at different times in history. Today is all about Ancient Thebes, Egypt. I could go on and on about this place, because it was amazing, but I’m sure it would be boring for you. Words just can’t describe how it feels to feel like you’re really there. As I was saying, I’m just not good at writing. That might have been too repetitive. The great thing about a planet like this is that you can make these places. It all looks so real and authentic. Ancient Thebes is gone. It was all modernized by the time people started taking photographs of the area, and now it’s been entirely removed in order to make room for the wilderness. I’m not saying that I don’t like plants and animals, but at one point, there was a plan to make wildlife refuges on rotating cylinders in orbit. What happened to that plan? I think that they were worried about us using it as an excuse to blanket the whole surface of Earth in a giant city. I wouldn’t have wanted that either, I think we just should have preserved historical architecture. I mean come on, there’s a middle ground, you know? I’m getting off track, but you really should be more cultured, and visit Ancient Thebes. They can’t build this sort of thing on Earth because of the whole animal thing, and it’s their territory, or whatever, but it works here. It really works. It’s like you’re really there. Just, if you come to this planet, don’t spend all your time having fun. Try to learn something. You can get a robot guide here who will tell you everything about Thebes and Ancient Egypt. You might find you like it more than you thought. Oh, and don’t ask if there are any attacking mummies. Those movies weren’t real. Okay? Had this guy on my tour kept asking about that shit. It’s like, shut the hell up.

The Sixth Key: His World Rocked (Part III)

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Clavia detailed her history, and how she came to be the consciousness of a tree. She’s actually an amalgamation of multiple people. They were all dying next to this tree’s parent—for lack of a better term. The tree was dying too, under attack from a small but powerful enemy. It provided them with one last hope in the form of a seed that could one day be replanted. The fruit containing this seed ended up in the mouth of one of the allies, a woman by the name of Ingrid Alvarado, who is now the primary intelligence of the new tree. That wasn’t blood on her face that Echo saw when she first showed up here. It was the juice of the fruit. Her body was dead, though, so at least he didn’t bury someone alive. It’s a good thing that he did, because it’s what allowed the seed to find purchase, and grow into the magnificent specimen standing here today. The humanoid form of Clavia is an extension of it, and as of yet, it’s unclear how far she can stray from her home. For now, she’s been mostly staying in the garden. Together, they hope to work through ways to protect themselves from any hostile forces.

Echo doesn’t know how fast the ships can go, but his original guess was that it would take two years for another one to arrive, if it ever did. They evidently detected Clavia’s birth, but it was a year before the first strangers came. If it took them a year to get back to wherever they came from, no one else will be able to make it until another year after that. According to Clavia, however, this is wrong. The people here are capable of traveling a lot faster than that. They can cross the whole galaxy in a matter of moments if they use the right equipment. Echo doesn’t really have the frame of reference for what she means, so she has started giving him some schooling. His parents educated him in science a little while they were alive, but it seems they deliberately chose to leave some things out. He now believes that they didn’t want him to develop too much of a sense of wonder for what might be hiding amongst the stars. It’s not that they were trying to protect him from the dangers, but they no longer had the means to reach such great distances, or even communicate to others. They didn’t want him to long for something that he could never have.

Looking back, their reasoning was sound, but it is now out of date. Their shuttle is not irreparable, not with a superintelligent tree around. Clavia is getting smarter and stronger every day, which is good, because someone else does appear to be on their way here. She once again doesn’t know who they are, or what they want, but the two of them are going to be more prepared than ever. Despite their ability to travel so quickly, the oncomers are moving at a really slow pace. Clavia doesn’t know why that is either, but they’re going to take advantage of the delay.

 They spend the next week on an intensive crash course so Echo can learn all he needs to know about the universe. He learns that it’s made up of five conflicting cultures, which were once separated across different realities. Each one had everything they needed until they were thrown together and suddenly had to share their resources with each other. That was a hundred years ago, and this new society had been on the brink of war ever since. The only thing that has kept them together is the result of a series of diplomatic discussions amongst the leaders, and a healthy interest in everyone minding their own business. They’re still pretty separated, which sounds like a bad thing, but it seems to be going well. At least for now. What they need is a true leader. They need someone to unite the civilizations. Everyone needs to be following the same rules, and listening to the same visionary. For some reason, Clavia believes that Echo can be that leader. He’s not so sure. He’s never led before. Until recently, he hadn’t even met anyone before.

“You didn’t talk to people in your simulations?” Clavia questions.

“They were mostly only there as background,” Echo explains. “I don’t think that the program was all that sophisticated. They allowed me to feel like I was doing a number of activities, like swimming, piloting a spacecraft, or even flying through the air. However, they didn’t have any socialization functions, as my parents would call them.”

“Hm. Well, I have simulations of my own, and they don’t have any limits. Would you like to try one of them?” Clavia offers.

“Sure, I wouldn’t mind seeing something new.” Echo doesn’t want to seem too eager, but he is.

“Do I have permission to touch you?”

“Go ahead.”

She opens her arms, and walks up to him, taking him into a hug. His mom and dad hugged him all the time, but this is different. He’s feeling something he hasn’t ever felt before. Sure, there were stirrings, but nothing this substantial. They’re probably bad thoughts, so he shoves them to the side, and lets Clavia do whatever she’s trying to do.

He finds himself falling through the air. No, it’s more like the ground disappeared, and now air is rushing up past him. New ground gets larger and larger until he’s standing upon it. It’s not a desert, nor a garden, but the trees of a city. Cars are moving next to him. They’re honking their horns, and yelling unintelligibly at each other. People walking by him on the sidewalk are talking, to each other, and on their little computer boxes. Flashing signs litter the tops of the nearby buildings. He can read most of the words, but he doesn’t know what their purpose is.

“Advertisements,” Clavia explains. She’s walking up to him wearing something that she wasn’t wearing before. Her dress was simple and unremarkable, only there to cover her skin. It wasn’t all that different than what Echo wore before he put on his father’s suit. Her outfit now is stylish and fancy. Her pants are gray and slick. She has a gray jacket over a white blouse, showing some skin in between the two sides. Echo is having those stirrings again, so he shakes it off, and tries to focus on her eyes. And that hat. What kind of hat is that? “A fedora,” Clavia answers.

He didn’t ask that out loud. He just thought about it. “Huh?”

“I can read your mind in here,” Clavia says. “This isn’t like one of your simulations, where you just connect to a piece of technology. We’re sharing a brain, and with that, our thoughts.”

Oh, that might not be good.

She smiles. “It’s okay to look. You’ve been alone your whole life. It isn’t natural. They should have given you friends...like these.”

A man wearing a chef’s uniform walks up to Echo out of nowhere. “Hey, Mister Cloudbearer. How you doin’?”

“Good, good, thank you.”

“All right, my man,” the cher responds.

“Hey, Echo.” It’s a young woman. She’s quite pretty, and she looks interested in him. She smiles but doesn’t stop walking by.

“Echo, what’s up, dude?” A teenager is standing on a mailbox. Some people are paying attention, but others are ignoring him. “Check this out!” What is he holding? It’s long, and has wheels on it. He’s never seen it before, but the word suddenly comes to him. It’s a skateboard. The kid holds it out in front of him, then jumps off of the mailbox. He lands on the board, and starts rolling around, much to the annoyance of the nearest passersby. One of the wheels hits a pebble, and he falls forward, but still manages to land on his feet. “Ah, boofed it. Maybe you can show me again later?”

“Sure, kid.” Why did he say that? Echo never taught this non-existent person anything.

Other people start approaching Echo. They all act like they’re friends, and that they admire him greatly. He’s on top of the world here; a real popular guy. He was once afraid to talk to other people. He didn’t think it would ever happen anyway, but he was scared out of his mind that he would screw it up if the unthinkable happened. But you know what? Even though none of this is real, he did encounter four people the other day, and he handled it well. He wanted them to leave, and they eventually did. He won the argument. Despite his lack of experience, he could do this. When this new group of people come here, he’ll take care of them too, no matter what they want from him, or the tree. If they don’t have honorable intentions, they’re gonna wish they did.

“All right, that’s enough,” Clavia declares. The crowd freezes, though they’re all still looking at Echo enthusiastically.

“You can make anything?” Echo asks her.

“Like I said, it’s not like one of your parents’ sims. I don’t have to program anything. I just...think of it. What else do you want to see?”

Echo looks up towards the sky, and thinks about it. “Hmm. The whole galaxy.”

“Easy,” she says. The street and buildings in front of them begin to roll away. Then the entire planet that they’re standing on does the same, like a giant marble spinning through outer space. The two of them keep flying backwards as the stars fly away from them, and then start to streak across the sky. Suddenly it all stops, and they can see a galaxy, rotating at an angle in the middle of a black void. It’s so beautiful, glowing with the fire of hundreds of billions of suns.

He admires it silently for a few moments.

“Not one second has passed for us in the real world,” Clavia claims. “I can teach you so many things while we’re in here. I can make you feel like you’ve lived an entire lifetime in one day. I can show you what life has been like for everyone else; in the five original realities, and after the creation of the Sixth Key. I can turn you into the leader that I know you can be.”

“What do you get out of this?” Echo asks.

“Why would I need anything out of it? Is that how your parents raised you, to need something for your efforts?”

“They did not, but in the regular simulations, I often had to wait in line, like if I wanted to go on an amusement park ride, or order food. I couldn’t carry on a conversation with one of the backgrounders, but I could hear them talk to each other. I noticed a drive towards balance. Unfairness meant one person having something that the other did not. They wanted everything to be even. No one wants to lose, or sacrifice. And I always had to pay. It was fake money to me, but real to them.”

“Well,” Clavia begins, “I’m not one of your background actors. I’m a tree.”

Echo chuckles. “True. I recognize that I don’t know how humans work regardless. Yes, Clavia, I would love it if you showed me.”

She smiled wider. “Great. Then let’s get started. How about we go back to the beginning, during a little event that we call...the big bang?”

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