Microstory 2468: Internal Security Dome

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I can’t say too much about this dome. It wouldn’t be secure. But I can assure you that security personnel have ears and eyes everywhere while still managing to protect your privacy. Internal institutional domes like this one don’t typically have a review section for obvious reasons, but my boss asked me to write something up after my audit in order to maintain at least some connection to the public. I don’t work in ISD, but in Castledome. An unattached intelligence will periodically be sent to any given dome at any given time to assess productivity and general soundness of the facilities in question. Of course, each dome handles its own internal audits, but it’s always good to have a second opinion. It’s not that we don’t trust our various branches and divisions. We’re not trying to catch them in any mistakes, but you know, things break down, and procedures start to drift. Or they can, rather. The system overall on this planet is quite robust, full of non-wasteful redundancies, and resource-efficient protocols. The security is good. I only suggested minor improvements, but that is to be expected. There are more people on this planet today than there were yesterday, and there will be more tomorrow. The number of people who visit far outweigh the number of people who leave. We have a very low turnover rate in general, and that makes security an ever-changing beast. It is not easy to keep up with it, but our security team manages to do it with flying colors. I kind of wish that I could keep auditing it myself, but as I’ve explained, that would defeat the purpose of it being impartial, and having fresh eyes. It’s the only one that gets these evaluations on a very strict basis, but now I have to move on to something else, and let one of my colleagues handle the next one here. I’m sure they’ll pass the test just as well next time. I have full faith in these intelligences.

Microstory 2183: Held My Fate in Their Hands

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I’ve been spending all day conducting phone interviews with the first wave of applicants. It wasn’t just me, though. Jasmine took part of the list, as did my colleague who has been helping me prepare for the in-person interviews that will come later. As I was about to make the first call today, I realized that I should have also taken some time to practice these, not only because they come before the face-to-face meetings, but because I don’t tend to be too great on the phone. I have trouble picking up on social cues, but at least when I’m in the same room with someone, I can do my best. It’s so much harder on the phone. They could be muting themselves, and giggling at how I stumble over my words, or gesturing their boredom with the blah, blah, blah hand gesture. These possibilities start swirling around in my brain, and I start to lose my train of thought, which only makes things worse. I sometimes hang up the phone having kind of blacked out, and being unsure whether anything I said made any sense whatsoever. That all being said, my colleague’s training helped with these too. I did okay, and I think the candidates were receiving me pretty well. I asked the right questions at the right time, and remembered that one major reason for phone interviews is to give candidates time to ask questions of me. Hiring managers might forget that it’s not just about us choosing them, but them choosing us too. This is meant to be a new business partnership, or in the case of internal candidates, a change in that relationship. Just because someone needs a job, doesn’t mean that they’re desperate for it, or that they ought to be desperate, or that they should be thankful that we’re even bothering to consider them, or that we have the right to exploit them for all we need.

It’s important to me that I never forget what it’s like for people in their situations. I don’t know everything that they’re all going through, and I shouldn’t be expected to, but I should try to empathize anyway. It wasn’t too long ago that I was in jail, and before that, I was on the run, and before that, I was unhoused. I didn’t get to where I am by being brilliant and hardworking. I relied on a lot of other people giving me a chance, and putting their trust in me, and not being judgmental. Long ago, in my home universe, I was in between jobs, but it hadn’t been too long yet. An interviewer asked me how long I had been on the search. I was afraid that she wouldn’t consider me if I told her the truth, because someone who had been searching for longer was in more need, all things being equal. What my mother told me later was that it was the opposite; that if you’ve been looking for too long, they’ll assume that something’s wrong with you. That’s bullshit, and I won’t tolerate it. So I’m not going to ask people how long they’ve been out of work, or why. It’s none of my goddamn business. I more than anyone know how hopeless it feels to be treated like everything bad that has ever happened to you is your own fault. People deserve better. They deserve the benefit of the doubt. Now, I’m mostly hiring highly experienced and specialized workers for my team, as we have no entry level positions available on the team, but I’m still going into it with this attitude, because I don’t want to become everything I’ve hated in people who held my fate in their hands. I want to take my personal experiences, and make them better for others. So if you applied, and you feel like you’re being mistreated, or if you have stories to tell about your issues with other employers, send me a message. I’m always looking to improve, even if I’m not the only one who should hear what you have to say.

Microstory 2182: Interview Completely Naked

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I had a couple of interviews today, with people who already work for the company. I don’t mind admitting that they did not go so great. I’ve been on the other side of the proverbial desk before, but not as often as you might guess based on how many places I’ve worked. I became a lifeguard after the guy who trained me just signed the paperwork. No interview necessary. I don’t recall interviewing for the maintenance work I did either. I think they just needed warm bodies. Most of the time when I was looking for work, I couldn’t even get past the application step, which I guess says something about my skills as an interviewee. I didn’t get them all, but looking back on it, my success rate is pretty high, as long as you ignore all the times my app just got thrown in the trash. It tended to go okay once a hiring manager actually bothered to give me a chance. Anyway, my dad worked in human resources, so I picked up a thing or two from him, along with my own personal experience. For instance, I know not to ask people for their greatest weakness, or what kind of animal they would be. These are stupid and pointless questions that have no business in a serious job interview. Even so, I didn’t do the best job. I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was. They weren’t the worst ever, and the candidates themselves did fine, so it will be okay, but I really need to work on it before the next round begins. One girl worked in the same department as I did before, so I had heard of her, but we had never met, because we weren’t on the same team. She picked up on my inexperience issue, so she only applied to give me the practice, and I’m grateful for that. She’s offered to keep helping me with practice interviews, and her boss has approved to loan her out to me for that for just a couple of days. She’s been really getting into it. She started a video chat while not wearing pants, and that’s something that I may have to learn to deal with Apparently that’s a common problem in the telepresence community. My instinct tells me to not care, because personally, I don’t. They could show up to an in-person interview completely naked, and it wouldn’t bother me in the least, whether they were attractive, or not. But there are all these policies and laws that we have to follow, so I have to pretend to be a normal person, and react like a normal person would in some of these less typical situations. I’m curious to see what she comes up with our next dry run. I’m sure she’ll be fully clothed, but she may be dressed as a clone, or insist that she already has the job, which is also a thing.

Microstory 2139: It Was the Crystals

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Oh my God, it’s finally over. My fungal infection is clear, and I’m cleared to go back into jail tomorrow. A part of me thinks that the real therapy session I had is what fixed me, like it was my own hang-ups that were preventing me from recovering completely. It may seem stupid, and I would have agreed with you back in the day, but I’ve seen a lot of things across the bulkverse, so the ability for my brain to alter my physiological condition actually doesn’t seem so weird anymore. Now, I’m not saying that it is definitely the explanation. New agey people do that all the time. They take antibiotics, and also pray to crystals, and when they get better, they decide to believe that it was the crystals, instead of the real medicine. But it’s not impossible either. To be sure, in this universe, where my immortality is gone, I’m disinclined to believe in anything but provable science, but I remain open to other possibilities. Maybe special abilities are perfectly acceptable in your world, and there’s some other reason why I’ve lost it. Anyway, I still think it’s best to not leave my apartment just yet. I would rather sleep on it one more night to make sure that it’s all been flushed from my system. It’s not like I have anywhere to go. I’m still working hard at work. I’m almost to the point where I can do my job effectively without having to reach out to colleagues. I always get in my head about that. It’s like this little game I play, where I try to go as long as I can without having to send someone an instant message. It’s always a relief when someone else messages me first, as long as they’re not pointing out an error that I made, of course. I would like to get to the point where I don’t have to say nothin’ except to ask them how they’re doing. I think that’s pretty much it today. Nothing else is going on in my life right now. You can follow me on social to hear about the baby birds living above my balcony. Besides that, peace and namaste, or whatever.

Microstory 2132: Don’t Have Anything Special

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The thing about being in prison all day and all night is that nothing about your situation changes. I promised that I would only use my computer for work and to update this blog, and I’ve held to that. You don’t know how hard it’s been to not sneak a peek at the news, or watch a funny video while I’m on a break. I don’t, though. When I’m not busy with something, I just go over to my bed and sit down to stare at the wall. I’m not even allowed to have anything to read, because books can’t be disinfected. The warden said that it would be okay if I read something on the computer, and that he would be more bothered by videos or games, but as I said, I made a commitment. I’m not going to go back on my word just because my life is now even more boring than it was before. I made the conscious decision to leave Kansas even though I was meant to stay put, and regularly report my goingson. If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been anywhere near the warehouse where I contracted the fungus in the first place. That’s on me. The work I’ve been doing has been interesting enough, but I can’t tell you about it, since it’s privileged information. The rest of my posts this week are going to be short, I’m sure, unless something crazy happens, like if Michael Scofield suddenly showed up through a hole behind the toilet, and told me that we’re breaking out. That’s a reference to a TV show that you don’t have in this universe. Maybe that’s what I’ll do every time I don’t have anything special to tell you about my day; tell you more about how my homeworld worked, and how it’s different than yours. We’ll see. For now, I’ll just end this here, and implore you to use me as a cautionary tale. Things might not seem that bad, since I’ve been given so many accommodations, but my story is not typical, and it still sucks here. If I had the choice between prison or jail, or being completely free, I would choose freedom every day of the week.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 13, 2398

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As far as anyone knows, there are no special temporal locations in or around Munich, Germany in any reality. This is just one more step towards their goal of Croatia. They don’t want to be spotted in this area at all. It would defeat the purpose of having Angela pretend to be Marie, safe and sound stateside. This is just part of a contingency plan. Yes, maybe Marie Walton was in Europe, but it’s not because she was having an abortion. She was just enjoying some time off, and maybe she and her husband are having some marital problems, and this was just a little break from each other. Again, hopefully no one finds out, which is why she’s walking around in a sort of casual disguise, but there may come a point where fessing up to one lie is the only way to protect the true lie.

The trio checks into the hotel, where they’re given a three-room suite this time. They agree to do their own thing for the rest of the day. None of the landmarks interest any of them. Actually, Marie already had a vacation here two years ago, and saw just about everything she wanted to. She’s remaining in her room, meditating on what she’s about to do. Ramses is buried in his work, analyzing the data from the Bermuda Triangle water, and whatever else he has up his sleeve. That leaves Mateo to wander the city, hoping to get lost for a few hours. That’s precisely what happens, but just because he’s lost, doesn’t mean he can’t be found. Across the street, he spots a familiar face, staring back at him with serious eyes. For half a second, as a bus passes between them, threatening to spirit the vision away, he questions his own sanity. Then the vehicle moves on, and the light turns green.

She maintains eye contact as she crosses, and approaches. “How was your flight?” she asks him in a suddenly British accent. “Or did you stay on the water?”

“What happened to your voice, forger?”

“This is my real voice,” she responds. “Not many hear it. I never needed anyone being able to narrow the search for me using superficial characteristics, like my place of origin, or natural hair color.”

“Why would you let me hear it?” he questions.

“Because it’s time you learn the truth about who I am, and why you’re here.”

“Why I’m here has nothing to do with you,” Mateo insists. “Please leave.”

“No, you chose the location, and I respect that. We were hoping you would end up in Türkiye, but we can work with this. There’s an important enough mission in this area too. I would like more prep time to pull it off, but based on your experiences with the traffickers, I believe you can get up to speed quite quickly.”

He rolls his eyes. “You’re intelligence.”

“Not exactly. You’re intelligence, and so is your wife. I’m just adjacent, which is why I was able to place the two of you in your respective positions of authority. I have my own background, though, which prevents me from making certain moves—”

“Blah, blah, blah, you needed an outsider. Blah, blah, expendable. Something, something, something dark side.”

She smirks. “That’s a reference, isn’t it?” She sticks her tongue under her upper lip. “You’re from the future.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s why you don’t have an identity. That’s why you struggle with pop culture, but seem to have a set of your own. You and your friends are from the future.”

Mateo drops into a paranoid demeanor. “Clever girl, not many have found out. Timey-wimey, wibbly wobbly. But if you know, then you’re now in more danger than you can imagine. I’m one of the good ones, but we’re not all like that. If they find you, they will kill you, or worse...erase you from existence.” Okay, this is all actually somewhat plausible. Such forces are real, but it’s just that they don’t seem to live in this world. “I can get you to safety, but you have to do exactly as I say. Do you have any aluminum foil?”

She looks down her cheek at him. “Oh, you had me for a second, you sly dog. You sexy, sly dog, you.”

“Sexy?”

“What? Did you think my attraction to you was just part of the act?”

“One can always hope,” he replies.

“It is you who should come with me and learn the secrets. We have a job for you to do, and there is no time to waste. You will meet the team.”

“Yeah, you seem to be pretty convinced that what you say I should do is just what I’m going to do, as if choice has nothing to do with it.”

“It really doesn’t,” she says.

He stands there a moment, considering his options.

“We really must go,” she urges.

“You have a man on the inside.”

“Inside what?”

“That merc team who had the plan to free the refugees. Either they’re all your people or at least one of them is.”

“Yes, that’s how we know what happened to you. You didn’t think that a bunch of ex-soldiers randomly approached you, and forced you to help, did you?”

He shakes it off, “fine. My point is that you read a report. You know what we did.”

“Okay, yeah...” she trails off.

“But you don’t know how.”

“No, we were hoping to debrief you, perhaps after this next mission.”

“Oh, I can just tell you right now.”

She’s intrigued. She’s very intrigued.

He tips his forehead towards her, and beckons her to do the same with one finger. When she leans in, he looks around to make sure they’re not being watched, and drops into a whisper. “We’re willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, even if it’s unsavory...”

“Yeah,” she presses.

“Even if it hurts.” With that, he slides his pocket knife into his gut where his left kidney used to be before he gave it to an alternate version of Leona. He gasps, but doesn’t scream. He leaves the blade in, and applies pressure. He turns around, arches his back a little, and stumbles away from her. It’s not long before passersby begin to notice that something is wrong, and then they see what is wrong. Good samaritans try to help, a couple of them catching him by the shoulders as he collapses to the ground. The crowd grows and grows. Somebody calls emergency services. He can’t see it, but he assumes that the mysterious forger-but-not-really is executing an exit strategy.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 12, 2398

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Angela rolls out of bed at 7:59, and right into the chair. She wheels over to the desk, and switches on her computer. She’s logged on by 8:01, making her technically on time, which she can prove with the little green dot next to her name that shows her status as available. She rolls her eyes when her co-worker sends the first message immediately. It’s a little flirty, but she’s centuries old, so she knows what real flirting looks like. He’s just pretending to be interested, when really he’s trying to micromanage her. The other guys around the office are just trying to get into Marie’s pants, but he couldn’t care less. He likes to know when people are screwing around, so he can get them in trouble. Instead of trying to excel at his own job, he figures the best way to win is to just get rid of everyone else. Unfortunately for him, Angela has a secret weapon. She removes the memstick from its case, and unleashes it on the machine.

There are two sides to Marie’s job. One is the major jobs, which often involve writing entirely new programs for clients. The others are smaller scripts, which link to preexisting programs, and automate various tasks. She uses a workflow application, where clients send her these small jobs that ask her to simplify their jobs. For instance, a data entrist has been tasked with cross-referencing datestamps on a social log with fluctuations in consumer behavior. That is, he’s the first step in a team that’s looking for possible causes between what people are talking about online, and what people are buying in the stores. The synthesis of this data may require higher-level thinking, which nascent AI cannot yet fathom, but the cross-referencing itself is really just about brute force. The requestor is hoping for an easier way to input this data, and adjust it to account for the time lag between social media posting, and real world purchases. It’s now Angela’s responsibility to make those two programs talk to each other, and dump all relevant information into a well-made report. At least, that’s what her alternate would do. Angela has it even easier, because she has also outsourced her work.

When the team was down in The Constant, looking for any information they could find on what happened to The Concierge, Ramses found something. He discovered the source code for the artificial intelligence inside the system that was programmed to serve guest needs. Other AIs were in charge of controlling lights and life support, and whatnot, but this particular one had to be smart enough to understand personal requests, and seek solutions. If somebody asked for a fried egg with a square yolk, the kitchen devices could handle it, but only if an intelligence explained it to them. This AI is complex and adaptable, which is vital to any situation it might have never encountered before. That’s what makes it perfect to do Angela’s job for her. It’s the thing that she plugged into the external memory port. The AI will read the workflow manager on her behalf, understand the script requests, and write the code itself. All Angela has to do is test it out, and her work is done. Even though this greatly increases her productivity, she’s intentionally making it a slow process, because no one can know that it’s happening. Only Ramses knows the truth; they didn’t even tell Marie that Angela has been using it since training ended. She would probably not approve of the risk.

Now that the AI is running, she gets back in bed. But then another message dings. It’s that guy again, claiming that the bosses would like to speak with her immediately. She growls, puts on some pants, and practices her smile. Then she activates her camera.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 9, 2398

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As planned, the six of them spend the entire day together, though Leona and Angela each have to take a few minutes every once in a while to confer with their employers. The latter is doing well in her new position. She expected at least one person from the office to sense that something was up, but everybody treats her like Marie, which is to say that some of them are nice and respectful, while others are misogynistic and hateful jerks. Leona is doing okay. She’s delivering her work on time, and the people at the top are pleased with it. They’re not asking questions, which is in everyone’s best interests. She’s trying not to be too preoccupied with her secret suspicions of Heath. She has a plan to drop tidbits of information to him to see whether outsiders catch wind of it. Then she’ll know that he can’t be trusted. That’s for later, though. For now, she just wants to think about the travelers. This won’t be the longest she’s ever parted from Mateo, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy.

At the end of the day, they retire to their respective rooms, the other four knowing full well that the Matics are about to spend one last night together. “What’s up?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me what’s going on with you. What are you feeling?”

She looks at him, but doesn’t say anything. “Give me your phone.” She takes it from him, and places it in the EMB bag, along with her own. Then she pulls out a bug scanner, and begins to wave it around the room.

Mateo sits on the bed, and waits patiently for her to finish. Once she does, he steps into the bathroom, and begins to fill the tub. He turns the water on high enough to make a lot of noise, but low enough to make it last. They sit on the edge of the tub to talk, and he drops into a whisper. “You can’t speak freely around the others?”

“Not around Heath,” she answers in an even lower whisper, “and by extension, not Marie either.”

“Yeah, I’m sensing a pattern. All the people we’ve met who have been given some information about us either aren’t too surprised by what they learn, or they have a connection to Heath. He’s even the one who first met Alyssa McIver. I mean, you and I both know that she’ll be a friend of ours in the future, but it’s still odd.”

“Yeah,” Leona agrees. “Plus, how did that forger know what I was planning? She was all ready with my new secret agent paraphernalia; it was just too perfect. I don’t know. He’s been so good to Marie, but maybe he’s been playing the long game.”

“I assume you have a plan?” Mateo figures.

“I have...the notion of the plan.”

“A baby plan. That’s what my father, Randall used to call it when we had something big to do, but didn’t really know how we were gonna do it. Sometimes we would plan something to the last minute, and sometimes we just sort of winged it. That worked out for us about half the time, I’d say.”

She smiles. “You don’t talk about your parents anymore.”

“You don’t either.”

She nods. “I guess it’s complicated. I have five parents, you share two of them with me, and then you have two more. Can anyone else relate to our bonkers family tree?”

“Yeah, but not in the same way, sis.”

“Oh, gross!” She’s laughing, though.

Mateo looks behind them at the rising water, which is about to start spilling into the drain. “I know we started this for the white noise, but we might as well take advantage. Wadya say?”

“We can’t do that, though,” she says in a cutesy voice. “You’re my adopted brother.”

He double palms his forehead, and tries to stifle the laughter. “Jesus! Now I see how weird it is, being on the other side of the joke.”

She pulls him into the water with her, clothes and all, like a romcom couple in the second act. “You don’t wanna roleplay?”

Microstory 1888: Dead Army of Ants

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I once worked in a cave. It was there that companies kept a great deal of their legacy parts and equipment. This was for when they couldn’t sell them, couldn’t reuse them, or just didn’t know how to get rid of them. It was a convenient way to hold onto these things without them clogging up their normal warehouses. Very, very occasionally, one of our clients would send a request for a part to be picked, and it was my job to go do that. It was an entirely different team that stored them on the racks in the first place, but honestly, I don’t know why my specific job existed. Most of the time, I just sat in the office, reading a good book. It was the easiest job I had, comparatively speaking, and I only quit, because I needed to start a family and the pay wasn’t enough to support this goal. It was perfect for me alone, but not me with children. Besides, there were other reasons for me to seriously consider a career. One day, I was finished with the only book I brought with me that day, so I decided to go on a walk. It was surprisingly clean for a cave, and set to a comfortable temperature, unlike what you may be imagining. I ended up in a corner that I didn’t go to very often, because the client who rented out that space didn’t ever need anything. I looked down at my feet and saw an anthill in the crack of the cement. I looked over a little, and saw another. And another, and another. The place was littered with anthills, and rivers of ants traveling between them. I wanted to leave them there, but taking care of the grounds was technically part of the job description, so I had to report it. An exterminator came out to kill everything, but what we learned he didn’t do was clean them up. So those ant rivers were still there, they just weren’t moving. It was an army of dead ants, and seeing their lifeless bodies lying there felt like an appropriate metaphor for life. We were the ants.

They didn’t know that they were going to be wiped out, but they had a concept for death. Or at least they had a concept for failure, or otherwise, they would not have pursued their goals. When the spray came for them, they didn’t scurry into their tunnels, or hold a conference about what to do. They didn’t study the spray, or try to clean it off. They just kept going until they succumbed to the toxin. I guess I don’t know that, I don’t know how fast the spray worked. I just remember it being so surreal, staring at that pile of death. Combined, the ants wouldn’t even make up the mass of a single person, but from their perspective, it was a slaughter. It was genocide. I started thinking about what sorts of things could come for the human race. What kind of proverbial spray could wipe us out? Climate change? Maybe. An asteroid, sure. Then I realized that the spray was a disease, which could probably pretty easily spread from an infected ant to one which had originally escaped the wrath of the nozzle. That could happen to us, godlike exterminator not required. A pathogen could destroy us all, and while doing it, leave everything we created intact. Even our bodies would still be there, littering the streets, and our homes. So I went back to school to ultimately seek a degree in epidemiology, so I could do everything I could to prevent this eventuality. Though it started as a desperate whim, it was the best decision I ever made. It’s where I met my future wife, and an army of colleagues who all wanted the same thing. Once we graduated, we went off to fight against what we believed to be the greatest threat our species faced. Because we didn’t want to not see it coming. We didn’t want to be ants anymore.

Microstory 1863: Magnetic

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I’ve met, and heard about, voldisil before. There seems to be a consensus that each one of them is born with two spirit abilities. One is whatever specific special thing they can do. The other is simply knowing that that’s what they are. If I’m a voldisil, then I only have the first thing, and not the second. I’m not inherently conscious that there’s something different about me, but there must be, right? I mean, no single person can run into this many unusual people over the course of a lifetime. My home life was normal. My parents were normal, my half-brother was normal, my neighbors were normal. In high school, I started asserting my independence, which is very normal. As a result, I began to regularly leave my bubble behind, and met all sorts of—let’s call them quirky—characters. I think the first time I noticed it was when I was in psychology class. I had this thing where I would sit at the desk in the far corner of the room on the first day of school. The more interested I became in the subject, the farther up I would move, sometimes to great annoyance to the students who had already chosen their spots, and wanted to stay there. So it was the second day, and I still didn’t think I would want to move, when another kid sat next to me who I guess skipped the first day of school. He seemed to think that we were kindred spirits, even though we didn’t know each other. His big thing was serial killers. He signed up for that course so he could learn all about them. Fine, whatever; to each their own, but he wouldn’t stop pestering me about it. He wanted us to share in the passion for the topic, and I wasn’t into it. I found it difficult to move on the third day. People knew I did that by then, and even though I went in early to get a different seat, they kicked me out. But he was just the first. The first of many.

I could not go on a single blind date, or even a non blind date, without that date deciding that I wanted to hear their weird ideas, like how the stars weren’t real, and if animals don’t wear clothes, why do humans? One of them didn’t like to eat bread, which I’m sure doesn’t sound too crazy, but for me, it’s a non-starter. I met this one guy at a party who thought that water was trying to talk to us through the bubbling and jetting in fountains. A neighbor of mine when I got my own place kept sleepwalking into my unit. I even had the super change the locks, but that guy always managed to get in. Come to find out, he happened to be a thief, and while he wasn’t trying to steal from me, muscle memory occasionally drove him to break in to any door he saw. When I finally got a job, all of my coworkers were bizarre in their own special ways. I began to wonder if they were hired as part of some charity for flat-earthers and autistic people. I know, that sounds really insensitive, but it made me question my sanity, because if I was saying such things about them, what did others say about me? Were they the normal ones, and I was the weirdo? What if none of those people even existed, and I just made them all up in my padded cell? This continued throughout the rest of my life. I met a lot of regulars, to be sure, but the ratio of people I couldn’t understand or relate to seemed higher than it should be. Well anyway, I don’t think I have any superpowers. I don’t think I’m voldisil. I think it’s either dumb luck, or I’m particularly judgmental, and it’s something I never got over. Or it’s like my mom said, everyone’s a little strange, and part of what makes me unique is my tendency to pick up on people’s special traits. Yeah, that makes me sound kind of nice. I’m gonna go with that. I’m not a crazy person magnet. I’m a niche detector.