Microstory 2720: They’re Not Afraid Anymore

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Chief Asset Manager Pribadium Delgado is sitting across the table from the seemingly self-appointed leader of the so-called Doma Tertians. His name is Sora Shimizu, and he has already proven difficult for her. He doesn’t like what she’s wearing, claiming that the shine offends his eyes. She does tend to favor the sleek and glossy aesthetic, and this is the sort of thing she normally wears, but she can be flexible. She taps on her wrist interface to shift her outfit to a matte purple.

Sora looks down at the purple scarf around his ankle. “That won’t win you points with me. I wear this in honor of a loved one. It was her favorite color, not mine.”

Pribadium has her limits. Without saying a word, she taps on her interface again, reverting back to her usual shiny suit as she folders her arms. Now she’s in his head.

Sora grits his teeth. “Whatever you’ve come to say, you should know that I know my rights. I know that we are legally allowed to settle on any celestial body massive enough to coalesce into a meaningfully spherical shape. No party may stake singular claim to an entire legally categorized terrestrial planet at the expense of other settlers—”

“I know the law,” Pribadium argues. “I helped write the most recent amendments.”

“Did you know that these laws apply to all neighborhood planets, and that the potential for sole ownership only begins outside of the bounds of a fifty light year radius from Earth?” Sora presses.

“Of course I know that,” Pribadium reiterates. “I wrote them! You obviously didn’t read or comprehend them. Those laws only apply to colony worlds. The Gatewood Collective was not categorized as a colony world. It was a military outpost for centuries before being released to a special asset distributor, which I run. The planet that we are on right now was deemed excessively inhospitable, and unfit for colonization. Squatter’s rights do not apply, because no one is allowed to settle on it. We are not settling on it either. It has been scheduled for obliteration. The process has already begun, and cannot be undone. If you stay, you will die when the pulse arrives.”

“We do not accept that decision,” Sora contends. “We might have landed after you fired your big gun, but we are here now. We know that there are ways for you to deflect the beam. You either do that, or count yourself responsible for the permanent deaths of hundreds of colonists who are also refugees. You will lose your job.”

“First of all, it’s a job, not a calling. If I lose it, then fine. In a few thousand years, no one will remember this. Secondly, we won’t come out looking bad. You were informed of the facts. You chose to stay. Everyone will know that. I’ll be fine. Gatewood will be fine. Thirdly, we can’t deflect it. It’s moving at the speed of light.”

Sora folds his arms now. “I know you have your ways. You can’t fool me.”

Oh, he’s just crazy. She knows that she shouldn’t use that word, which is why she doesn’t say it out loud. He’s clearly not mentally well, though. He might have been born that way, or the horror he faced on Proxima Doma changed him. This is gonna be tough either way. Then again, she does have the ability to manipulate time. There’s no way he knows that, right? I mean, if he were a time traveler, he would just speak with her honestly about it. He has to be bluffing, and her status is a complete coincidence. Right?

Sora chuckles softly. “Take all the time you need. We survived the destruction of our planet. It turned to soup underneath my feet. We are not afraid anymore. Are you?”

Microstory 2719: Previously...on Gatewood

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About six light years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus, there is a small red dwarf named Barnard’s Star. Four planets orbit the host, and since they are all so close to it, they are affectionately known as hot rockies. Due to its local inhospitability and its proximity to Earth, it was assigned a very special job. Earth is the seed and heart of life and civilization. Everything in the Sol system belongs to those who live there. Until Castlebourne came along, it was assumed that Sol would remain the central hub of the galaxy. It only makes sense. In order to preserve their resources, early colonial coordinators decided that Barnard’s Star would be a giant celestial junkyard.

For centuries, the Core Worlds have enjoyed a post-scarcity economy, where every basic need is met, along with many not-so-basic needs. It is entirely plausible and easy to live quiet comfortably without spending a proverbial dime. But it is still an economy, and it is based on a currency of energy credits. Every day, each citizen accumulates a baseline amount of credits, just by existing. Many leave these credits in their private accounts, and don’t do anything with them. Others donate to those in need—not those who need it to survive, but those who want something more.

If you find someone to donate their credits to you, or if you contribute positively to society, you can earn extra credits. Citizens elect the legislators who determine how much a contribution is worth, but it doesn’t really have to have all that much technical value. You could be, hypothetically speaking, the worst painter in the world, but if you paint a piece of art, and provide it to the public, you have made a positive contribution. Even if no one likes it, it is something that you created and provided, so it counts, and you will receive credits for that. It probably won’t be much, but it will at least blip above the baseline. Bigger contributions lead to bigger payouts, and importantly, combining credits with others results in a total that is more than the sum of its parts. Because sharing and cooperation are, on their own, considered positive contributions.

Since most amenities are provided by the state for free, what do energy credits give you? They can pay for two major things: building something at significant scale, or traveling somewhere of significant distance. That is precisely why Barnard’s Star was chosen as the junkyard. It is relatively close, so getting there is fairly easy, and once you’re there, you can go just about anywhere else. There is always an interstellar cycler on its way there, so you won’t have to wait long. You spend your credits on a ticket to the junkyard, and then you’re free to apply for your own transportation. Upon approval, rather than using up Sol’s resources, you take what raw materials you need from Barnard’s Star. The celestial bodies which orbit it are called the Gatewood Collective.

Very few entities live in the Gatewood Collective on a permanent basis. Most are waiting for their applications to go through, or are actively engineering their vessels. These parties may range from an individual to entire fleets of colonists. Only the staff stick around. It’s there job to decide who gets what, and to make sure colonists are doing what they’re meant to be doing. They are the coordinators and the police. All of this stuff is mostly free, so there is no reason to be greedy, and more to the point, there is no reason to stay for any longer than you have to. Build what you need, then bug out.

Not everyone follows these terms, even if they agreed to them before they left their prior homes. That is where the police contingency comes in. So far, it’s been mostly okay; just a few conflicts. Definitely nothing major. There are hundreds of billions of stars in this galaxy alone. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect one of them to be limited to this one use. As previously stated, the planets are far too difficult to colonize. It’s not entirely impossible, but it’s fundamentally ludicrous. And yet, some are trying.

Another six light years from Barnard’s Star is another red dwarf called Ross 154. There is nothing special about it either, so there wasn’t any interest in colonizing it. In the middle of the 25th century, construction began on a stellar shotgun around Ross 154. This was no weapon, though. It was designed to harvest the violent forces of the flare star, feeding into a massive capacitor. It took about half a century to build, and about another half to charge. Once the energy was at its peak, they fired the weapon, not towards Barnard’s Star, but those four hot rockies. The pulse is traveling at the speed of light, which means it will take years for them to arrive. In preparation for this, all other shipbuilding has been relegated to safer regions of Gatewood.

Once the pulses hit their marks, each target will break apart in a matter of only a few days. Anything attempting to live on it will be utterly destroyed. The whole reason it took so long for them to build the stellar shotgun in the first place is so they could run extremely extensive tests on the possibility of life on the hot rockies. They found none. Even extremophiles don’t want to live here. But some humans do. A group of refugees from Proxima Doma made their way to the Gatewood Collective after their own planet suffered a world ending cataclysm. They came to find a new home, and they didn’t want to go far. They were told that Barnard’s Star was the perfect destination, but they failed to recognize or respect the rules. They want to stay here, which would already set a dangerous precedent, but not only that; they want to live on a planet, as they had before.

It’s not everyone. Plenty of migrants from Doma have come, and started work on their ships. Many didn’t bother coming this direction at all. Gatewood is more for people who want to leave the stellar neighborhood. The majority of the refugees wanted to stay close by, and since the destruction of their homeworld was not their fault, the government agreed to ferry them anywhere within 25 light years.

This one small group of rebels, however, don’t like that Barnard’s Star is only meant to be a pitstop. They think that the legislators should treat it like any other Core star. But if they had, there would be no conflict. If they had given it the same colonial designation, no one would have wanted to live here; not if they were so gung-ho on planets. They are all uninhabitable, and the star itself is nothing special. They only want it because they can’t have it. And that is no good reason at all.

The pulses have been sent, and there is no stopping them. The reason it’s taking so long is because of how powerful they are. They’re designed to obliterate planets. Even if the government wanted to back out of this mission, they would be physically incapable of it. The process has already begun. They’re just waiting for the results to come in, and it will not be long now. Chief Asset Manager, Pribadium Delgado should not be entertaining these people’s complaints. If they don’t leave Barnard’s Star e in the next few weeks, they are going to die. That is a certainty. Now, she could remove them forcibly, but that would be a PR disaster. Squatter’s rights were a thing back on Earth when there was such a thing as homelessness, and they still exist today, just on greater scales. Simply landing on their tiny little settlement is incredibly taxing thanks to the heat and terrain. But here she is, trying to negotiate a peaceful solution. The former Domanians are not having it. And now, they’re trying to take her hostage. Hilarious.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 17, 2561

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The team spent less than a minute on Ramosus in 2561 before agreeing to jump right to the coordinates of their newest mission. They were on a space station orbiting a star that was 299 light years from the Core Colonies. It would have to be a relatively fresh settlement, being this far out, and so newly reached by the Project Stargate quantum seeder module. This placed it well within the Extended Bubble, which meant it received no protection from Teagarden. Whoever was here would have to claim and defend it on their own, using whatever means they felt necessary. And if that meant violence, that was their choice, and it was looking like the choice that they made.

Team Matic found themselves on some kind of station or ship. There were two separate groups of people, standing opposite each other on either side of the room. They were all completely silent, confused and nervous, likely from having just witnessed seven strangers randomly appear through the technicolor burst of the slingdrive. Leona looked back and forth. “I am Leona Matic from a world known as Ramosus. I’m the captain of an outreach program, attempting to provide volunteer services for worlds that lie outside of Teagarden jurisdiction. How can we help?”

After some more silence, everyone began yelling. They were looking at Leona for the most part, but also at each other. It was completely unintelligible, but it was clear that the two groups weren’t preparing for a set dance. They were at war.

“I’m sorry,” Leona cried. “Did you think I could help you if you talked to me like that? Don’t answer that. Raise your hand if you are a leader of any faction in this room.” She raised her own hand as that applied to her as well. She nodded when two others did the same. “Well, that is much more manageable. You two, step forward, and tell me what the problem is. One at a time.” She pointed. “You first.”

“You’re right, I was first,” the man claimed. “This is our star. They are intruders.”

“We came here fairly, just as you did,” the woman from the other side argued. “It’s not our fault that you failed to lock out the quantum terminal.”

“We did lock it out! You snuck in through a different terminal!”

“Oh, don’t you use that word. There was no sneaking. When we were searching for a destination, we saw your lock, but then we saw another terminal, and thought that maybe the other one was damaged and replaced. We didn’t know you were here!”

“Wait,” Leona interjected. “There are two terminals. Who built the second one?”

“The automators,” the woman answered. “We think that it was damaged en route, so the nearest neighbor sent a replacement, but then somehow, the first one fixed itself, and went back to its implementation procedures. He’s on a moon; we’re on an asteroid. Now we’re both trying to colonize the unaccreted zone.”

Mateo looked through the nearest viewport when a large manmade object appeared. It was an expansive, complex space station. “How long have you been here?”

“Six years,” the man answered. “We just found out about each other two days ago.”

Mateo shook his head. They came here separately, and didn’t know it. It didn’t seem crazy to him that it could have happened in the first place, but that they could have spent quite this much time not realizing that it was happening. Did they not ever detect each other’s radio signals, or did they all stay pure quantum? Those weren’t necessary to answer. The solution was simply, though probably hard on principle. “Space is big; even the space within a single solar system. Have you ever thought about sharing the star?”

They all acted like they hadn’t thought of that before, but now the conversation could begin. The first thing they needed to do, however, was sit down and relax.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 16, 2560

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The team decided to leave before midnight central so they wouldn’t have to explain their end-of-the-day disappearance. They were determined to hunker down and really figure out who in this galaxy might actually need their help. The larger colonies could have huge problems, but the infrastructure and procedures to deal with them. The single-person sites were harder to pinpoint, and populated by people who were typically there because they wanted to be alone. It was the sites like Patsy Richelieu Best First Quarter Star colony that were likely most in need. Of course, this particular colony didn’t need anything from them. It was wild to see, though. They would kind of always expect a colony to either be the fruits of a grand cosmic exodus, or only one person looking to disconnect from society. There was a lot of middle ground, though, and they would probably meet others like Patsy and her cake-loving friends.

“What we need is some kind of monitoring system,” Mateo suggested, not knowing exactly what he was going for. “Like in movies where aliens are here to protect us. I guess they don’t have to be benevolent. They just have to know a lot about us, and have spent time studying us without giving themselves away.”

“It sounds like you’re talking about invisible probes,” Leona offered. “Movies often don’t explain how they remain hidden, but it would be something like that.”

“Invisible probes, I can do,” Ramses decided. He jumped over to the nearest workstation. “It can stay optically invisible using holography, and shield its waste heat signature using a miniature hot pocket. It would be able to move on its own power, and teleport when necessary. It would send signals exclusively through the bulk, so only we receive the data. It keeps watch over establishments throughout the year, and compiles a report for when we return.” He was getting really excited about the possibilities. “I wish I had thought of it myself. We keep jumping from place to place when we just need to let the information come to us.” He looked up to find everyone staring at him.

“Go on,” Romana encouraged. “What else were you thinking?”

“That I should work alone,” Ramses said. He reached over, and squeezed the band of his watch.

After he held the button down for a few seconds, the whole team vanished.

“Did he just kick us out of his lab?” Angela questioned.

“Wow. Rude,” Marie joked. “But it’s smart for him to have that, for security.”

“It might take a few days,” Leona estimated. “He won’t just be designing the new probe, but testing for failures and black swan events. In the meantime, I think I would like to consider building something for us all that is in this dimension, instead of our pocket dimension habitats. Nothing against them, but they’re more for mobile use.”

“I agree,” Mateo said. “If our enemies are right, and this is going to be an important planet in the future, then I imagine we stay here for a long time. Or not. Perhaps, like all the other things we’ve had in the past, we’ll hand this off to someone else, while we move on to something else.”

“I believe what Ramses is doing will keep us busy for quite a while,” Romana pointed out. “There is probably a lot going on in the galaxy that we simply do not know about, so it seems boring. We lack data, and we’re about to get it. But yeah, I’m in.”

They sat down to start drawing up plans for residences fit for an interstellar capital—not too gaudy—they were not trying to play themselves as gods. By the end of the day, however, Ramses was finished with his probes. They sent a small test batch out to some past establishments. They returned to the timestream the next year with a hit.

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Microstory 2707: Walking Out With the Door

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It’s been another year now. Leif knows his own name, and responds to it. Isavet has taken quite a liking to him. She doesn’t quite understand what Talus did, but she knows he was a bad boy, and seems to be trying to compensate for him. Ronan and Gia often talk about how close they might have been to Talus doing something to her. They grew up together as babies, so he never would have seen her as a threat to his status, but he might have held hate against her for some other reason. They don’t know what was going on in his head. They never will, and they have decided to take this as a blessing. For the most part, they don’t talk about Talus at all, especially not openly.

Ronan’s mind drifts outside the dome when he’s alone, often towards Talus’ new place on Varkas Reflex. He thinks about him from time to time, wondering how he’s doing. He’s probably having the time of his life. A significant portion of the population chooses such a life on purpose, and stays forever. Ronan could get everything he has here in there, but it wouldn’t feel right. He would always know it’s not real. He’s clearly not the only one. It’s why Castlebourne is the fastest growing colony in the galaxy, when it really should be Varkas Reflex, or it shouldn’t matter since you can technically do VR anywhere. One day, Castlebourne may sport the highest population of all. That will be an interesting time. According to projections, he will be done with this particular simulated experience by then, but who knows? The winds could shift.

They’re thinking of moving, just to separate themselves from the community. It has grown since they first arrived. A few other people have settled land near their farm. And they all know what happened, to some degree, so the looks Ronan and Gia get can be really uncomfortable, and take them out of the Norse experience. It wouldn’t be narratively unreasonable either. People moved all the time in this culture. But there’s one thing that would be hard to take with them. Ronan isn’t sure if he wants it, though.

“I think we should do it,” Gia says. “I think we should take it with us. You built that very nice wagon for us. If we moved far up to another beach, it wouldn’t be too difficult of a trip. It will take us several days regardless.”

Ronan keeps staring at it. “I built this house around this door. I did it for Mayumi. I did it for...” He trails off, not wanting to say his name.

“It’s our door now,” Gia points out. “It may be worth more than anything else we have combined. Some rich person was very upset, but has had nearly a decade to get over it. But the fact that you’re agonizing over it leads me to believe that you’re ready?”

Ronan looks at his wife now. “I think I’m ready. It’s time. This phase of our lives is over. How does Isavet feel about it? Is she attached to this house?”

“She might want to leave more than any of us,” Gia explains. “She may understand more about what happened to Leif than we thought. I catch her sometimes, staring at his crib when he’s not in it. She moves it to where it was when...” She trails off too. “Vith can’t find a wife here. We should look somewhere else.”

Ronan chuckles. “Vith doesn’t want a wife.”

“He does if he wants to stay immersed,” Gia says.

“He may not want to do that either,” Ronan calculates. “He’s changed more than any of us in some ways. He may be ready to leave too, but go in a different direction.”

“Well, we’ll let him decide that, and I won’t ask him about it. You shouldn’t either. Now come on, we are not packing up today. Dinner is almost ready.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 15, 2559

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When no one else stepped up, Marie decided to choose their next destination. She consulted the bulk map, and cross-referenced it with an updated copy of the central archives, landing on a colony once more thanks to its funny name. The database listed it as the Patsy Richelieu Best First Quarter Star. Not even Ramses or Leona understood why it would be called that, and they decided not to bother trying to figure it out before they left. It seemed innocuous enough. They weren’t going unprepared, however. Ramses designed a go-bag filled with essential survival items, like multitools, a first aid kit, and a dayfruit starter pack. It also contained hardened, but dormant and shielded, electronics in case they ran into another issue. The chances of what happened on the last planet happening again weren’t high, but they were not zero. He wanted to be prepared. Romana wanted to carry it, still feeling guilty about last time.

They slung to the coordinates, finding themselves falling towards some kind of planet. “Not habitable,” Mateo announced, looking at his sensors. “Not naturally.”

“I’m not picking up any artificial structures on the surface,” Leona said, “but we can’t see the other side. Still, there are no radio signals, which makes some sense. It’s a super-terrestrial. The surface gravity is highly variable, but about 8.7G.”

“Maybe we ought to jump to that manmade object up there,” Angela warned, “unless we want to plummet to our deaths in the atmosphere.”

They jumped to the ship, but not inside of it. Leona cleared her throat after she opened a channel. “Orbiting vessel. This is Captain Leona Matic of Team Matic. We mean you no harm. Could we have permission to board?”

A woman’s voice replied, “come on in! I made bundt cake!”

An airlock opened. They floated inside, and waited for the hatch to close behind them, then for the airlock to repressurize. The inner door opened.

The woman was waiting for them, holding her plate. She was wearing a white tank top and a tennis skirt, like an off-duty college cheerleader. “Welcome to our home, new friends. My name is Patsy Richelieu. I’m in charge around here.” She took another bite. “How did you arrive? My logs didn’t record someone using the quantum terminal, though it is open to public access, so maybe I set the preferences wrong. I’m not an engineer.”

“I can check it out for you,” Ramses offered. “You probably have it set right. We came in through a nearby terminal, then flew here manually.”

“Oh, what fun,” Patsy decided. “Hungry?”

“We could eat,” Mateo answered. Everyone out here just wanted some intelligent connection, didn’t they? No one needed saviors or rescuers. Just good old fashioned human conversation. “Could we ask...the name of your star?”

“Oh, haha,” Patsy began as she was leading them down the corridors. I started a new job as a saleswoman in July of 2026. I had no experience; even fibbed a little on my résumé, but I was a natural talent. I had the best first quarter on the job of anyone in company history at the time. My boss awarded me with this star at the company retreat.”

“Oh, it was one of those name-a-star scams. I mean—sorry,” Leona apologized. “You obviously managed to convert it into a real claim after five hundred years.”

Patsy giggled. “Don’t you fret. I thought it was stupid at the time too, but it did mean something, because the company didn’t approve it. My boss had to pay for it with her own money, and the closer stars are much more expensive. They made me feel at home, which I honestly didn’t expect. I had been searching for a job, not a career. I ended up retiring from that same position after 44 years of service. Do you know money? Were you alive back then?”

“We were,” Marie answered.

Patsy nodded, then went on, “then humanity invented AI, net positive fusion, and anti-aging technologies, and it started to feel less ridiculous. Over the centuries, I kept this place in the back of my mind, and once Project Stargate reached this far into the galaxy, I decided I might as well lay claim to what a piece of paper and a $250 bill said I already owned.” It didn’t validate the entire scam, but at least this one person got what she paid for. Pretty cheap for an entire solar system. It looked like there was nothing for them to do here either, though. Their new paradigm of not being useful would continue. They could eat cake, and that was about it. Nevertheless, if this woman was lonely, maybe that would be enough.

As they were following her down the corridors, they started to hear chatter. A set of doors slid open, revealing a huge crowd of people in a mess hall, also wearing surprisingly sexy outfits, and also eating cake. They started cheering, and saying things like “hey, Patsy! and “Patsy’s back!”

“Forgive me,” Leona began, “but are they NPCs? I don’t mean to be rude.”

“No, they’re independent,” Patsy assured them. I have a lot of friends. I’m very friendly. I met most of these people on the quantum boards. They all wanted to do something weird, and there’s nothing weirder than living around a star called Patsy Richelieu Best First Quarter. Like I was saying, I have an open-door policy.”

“So, you don’t need anything?” Mateo pressed. “Everyone’s okay?”

“Yeah, why? What did you hear?” Patsy asked as she was licking the last of the frosting off of her fork.

“Nothing. That’s just what we do, going around making sure the colonies are all right,” Mateo answered.

She smiled, as she twirled the fork against her teeth. “Why, you’re even friendlier than I am, aren’t ya?” She faced her people. “Hey, everyone! These guys are part of some kind of volunteer colony outreach program! Isn’t that sweet!”

They cheered again.

“Well, we don’t need anything,” Patsy explained, “but we could always use a few more smiling faces. That’s the only rule. You have to smile.”

The seven of them kind of already thought they were smiling, but they forced themselves to make it more blatant.

“We’ll work on it,” Patsy decided. “Go, sit down. It’s time to eat!”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 14, 2558

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After a couple of hours, close enough to midnight central for the sling to factor in their timeskipping, Team Matic left Tartarus, and returned to Ramosus. They found themselves just standing there, blinking at each other, but not talking. While it took longer than expected, their experience on the colony was mundane, and didn’t amount to anything. The fact they were researching aliens was interesting, but the research itself was kind of boring? “Why do I feel so weird?” Mateo asked. “I felt a little weird there, but coming here has suddenly made it actually weird. Fully weird. Weird, weird.”

“I know what you mean.” Leona looked over at Ramses. “I think we need to run some times.” She breathed deeply, and couldn’t help but yawn. “Tests. Run tests.”

“Maybe it’s the cold?” Marie suggested. “Has the cold made me...”

“Loopy?” Leona suggested. “We would have other symptoms, like frostbite. We wouldn’t be able to stand if it were cold enough to affect us like this.”

“I’m sorry, guys,” Romana said. “I made the wrong choice.”

“No, no,” everyone said. She had nothing to apologize for. They would never know what was on the other side of the sling. It could be interesting, it could be boring, or it could even be dangerous. Whatever they found, they would get through it, and they would do it together. They were starting to feel like explorers, after all.

They all went to the medical wing of Ramses’ lab to get themselves checked out. They discovered something mild, temporary, but very strange about their neurochemistry. Ramses relied quite heavily on his automated machinery to do the work for him, because he wasn’t in a state of mind to operate them himself. “Um. I can’t read the data myself right now, so I’m going to rely on the summary to explain it to us.” Ramses tried to point at the screen, but gave up. He was too weak. “Basically, what it thinks is that our brains were running at optimum efficiency on Tartarus. If we had stimuli, we might have been able to be really productive. But since the environment was pretty much just snow, we didn’t have any problem to solve. I mean, we were lost, but we didn’t have any tech to work with, so our brainpower was wasted.”

“So it’s like a drug?” Angela figured, “and now we’re in withdrawal?”

“Yes. That’s the word the computer thing said,” Ramses agreed. “Don’t worry, though, I don’t think we’re dependent. It would be like if you went to your college quantum physics class, and they handed you a kindergarten math sheet. It’s easy, and takes the cognitive load off, and you might get a little lazy if they keep giving you the same silly tests, but you’re not going to get addicted to it. The day they hand you a real test, you’ll need a little time to readjust—which is what we’re doing right now—but you will ultimately be fine. Because in this scenario, you knew quantum physics before, so you know it now. It will just take time. Sleep too.”

“Is there anything we shouldn’t do in the meantime?” Olimpia pressed. “Should we not have sex, or should we not eat carbs, or should we get warm, or get cooled off?”

“Carbs would be very good for your prefrontal cortex right now,” Ramses answered. “Sex would be fun, but you might find yourself disinterested. Just listen to your body. If you’re cold, warm up. If you’re hot, cool down. It knows what it needs.”

So they left the lab, and returned to their separate abodes. They were mostly still sleeping in their joint pocket dimensions, because they didn’t have any better ideas. They certainly weren’t going to come up with any today. The next year, they woke up totally okay, and actually rather enthusiastic. They were all ready for the next adventure.

Romana asked not to pick this time, though.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 13, 2557

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While Marie and Angela were exploring the area, they came across what looked like an even more intricate ice cave system. It just so happened to be roughly in the direction where they were headed now. They didn’t want to walk a thousand kilometers, and didn’t have time to do so anyway, but unfortunately, it appeared that they were being watched. If they wanted to teleport, they had to do it in secret. So they went into the caverns, waited until midnight central hit again, and then jumped pretty close to their destination, hoping that it wouldn’t be recorded. It was still freezing and snowy here, but not below them. Deep in the valley, they could see snow-free land, as well as a fairly small structure in the center of it. “X marks the spot,” Mateo mused.

They walked down the rest of the mountain, and approached the oasis. Before they could set foot on it, a man ran out to a balcony. “Stop!” he cried. “You’ll wake them!” He pointed to their right. “Over there!”

They looked over to see a bridge a couple hundred meters away. They climbed up the steps, walked across the bridge, and entered the building, where the man was waiting for them. “Hello. My name is Captain Leona Matic. We appreciate your hospitality. Could we ask, who is asleep? Who are you worried about?”

“My name is Gunther Lank,” he said. “I was left on the surface to study these creatures. We have no name for them yet. I was thinking of naming them after myself, but I don’t want to seem pretentious.”

“I think it would be fine,” Leona said. “May I ask, if they only live in the tundra oasis, why not build somewhere on the snow? Then you wouldn’t have to be so careful.”

Gunther shook his head. “There are two major lifeforms on this world. One of them lives in the oases, the other the snow. The former are predators, who respond to sound and movement; the latter prey who react to electrical signals. Our technology confuses them. Like electric eels, they use it for their mating rituals. I’m studying them too, but I have to be more careful. They vastly outnumber the sand creatures, and I believe they will attack en masse if they feel threatened. That is why we jam all tech.”

“Are they like those things from Dune, or those things from Tremors, or that thing from that episode of Sliders that was a ripoff of Dune and Tremors?” Olimpia asked.

“I do not know the references,” Gunther admitted.

“So, how do you get off the planet, and join your friends in orbit?” Romana asked.

“I don’t,” Gunther replied. “This is my home now. In a few centuries, either the snow will overwhelm the oasis, or the oasis will expand as the snow melts. I’m watching it happen from here. My colleagues are watching from orbit. We need both to get a clear picture.” He looked around. “We cobbled this facility together using dozens of dropships that they manufacture up there. We try to disturb the surface as little as possible.”

“So...” Marie began, “...bottom line is you don’t need any help with anything. Neither you nor your colleagues want to swap places, or receive new supplies, or anything like that? You’re good? You’re set?”

“We’re good, we’re set,” Gunther replied. “Is that why you came here?”

Leona nodded. “We have dedicated our lives to traveling to various colonies that exist outside beyond the Charter Cloud. We’ve come in an experimental, and extremely energy inefficient, new type of drive. Now that our technology has been turned back on, we can leave. So unless you need anything, we’ll be moving on to the next colony.”

“Well...” Gunther hesitated. “Maybe you could stay for tea?”

“We can do that,” Leona agreed.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 11, 2555

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Ramses had something else to show them, which he had evidently been working on at the same time as Operation Starframe. That was on the moon. This was down on the planet, in their main, branch-themed, dome. It felt like he invented something new every day, so while he wanted to show them, it wasn’t done with any fanfare. He just summoned them all to one his labs, and showed him the new thing. “It’s a slingdrive pad. Or a slingpad. Or something like that. Instead of you taking the whole thing with you, it just sends you to the destination alone. Since it’s ground-based, it doesn’t need a coherence gauge. It always has as much power as it needs. We will still need our arrays to come back, or go somewhere else, but this will let us do that instantly, instead of waiting for our own gauges to recharge. They stay topped up for the first trip.” It was pretty big, much larger than they would need for just the seven of them, even if they each had to return with two guests.

Perfect, they had themselves a real operation. Now they only needed to figure out how they would determine where they were needed. The galaxy hadn’t gotten any harder. Their top candidate was the Goldilocks Corridor, but that was a delicate situation. They had that treaty, and while individual interference didn’t technically go against it, they didn’t want to complicate matters too much. They could leave that all to Team Kadiar. “Great,” Mateo said. “Thank you. We’ll be able to breathe easier, knowing we have a full tank of gas every time we go out. The question is, where are we going?”

Romana separated herself from the audience, and stood next to Ramses. “I took the liberty of compiling a list of candidates.” She flung the data to their devices. “There aren’t any specific needs that we know about, but it’s time we ignore the stellar neighborhood for the most part, especially the Core Worlds. They’re mostly doing fine on their own as they have plenty of infrastructure and systems in place. It’s the 26th century. Colonists have made a lot of claims in the Charter Cloud, but many don’t have very useful charters. They benefit from almost no protection or emergency services. They’re also pretty deep into the Extended Bubble, which were given no resources, except for what they could afford from Gatewood. We don’t know who is out there, or what they’re lacking, but if anyone could use our help, it’s them. I know I’m the navigator, but I’m asking for your input. Should we throw a dart and pick one?”

Leona stopped looking at the spreadsheet. “I don’t care how you do it. You choose one, and send us there. I’ll even let you select the team. It could be all of us, or only three. You can put yourself on it, or not. It’s all up to you today. We’re all ready, right?”

They all nodded in agreement. They were itching to be productive.

Romana was pleased. “All right.” She swiped through her lower arm interface. “Okay. This colony is called Tartarus, which I find both interesting, but also worrisome enough to maybe investigate in case there’s something weird going on? It’s 290 light years from Earth so they don’t have to follow any rules. The colonists were set to arrive a few days ago.” She turned to Ramses. “Do you need to stay to monitor the equipment?”

“Nope,” he answered. “I’ve already tested it with a bunch of probes. “It’s ready.”

“Lovely,” Romana said. “Then we’ll all go. Boot ‘n’ rally.”

They arrived to find that it was either named ironically, or something got lost in translation. It was incredibly cold, snowy, and windy. And for some reason their suits wouldn’t work, so they didn’t have access to their slingdrives either. They were stuck here. No one else was around.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 31, 2544

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Nothing interesting happened by the end of the day in 2543, except for some unusual environmental readings that Ramses was getting, so they made plans to leave. To give Romana time to finally come to a decision for where they were going to go next, and to maximize the time they had to actually do that, they decided to wait a year to leave. Those unusual readings turned out to only be the start. When Trinity Turner founded this colony, she did so with the benefit of future knowledge. She knew how much work would go into making it habitable for humans, so she continued to travel through time to make it happen. She had the ability to transport anywhere that she could see. This could be as short as the other side of the room, or as far as across intergalactic voids.

Because light travel wasn’t instantaneous, when she looked at a distant star, she was looking into the past. Indeed, this was how it worked for everyone. This meant that Trinity could end up as far into the past in years as her destination was away in light years. But she could also just land in the present, if she so chose. It was a fluke of her ability that no one could explain, but she did not take it for granted. For untold amounts of time, she would jump back and forth, ferrying experts from the timeline to help terraform this world. One thing that they never understood was the gravity. It was the biggest mystery in space colonization that people kind of did take for granted. The only reason it hadn’t been the top headline every day for the last 300 years was because a sort of religion formed around it. Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida was a very spiritual place. Science wasn’t outlawed by any stretch, but it just wasn’t done. Even though the implausible gravity couldn’t be explained, people were simply not putting that much effort into studying it. Not even Leona truly knew how Trinity did it. But perhaps she should have asked, because things were going wrong now.

“So, is it going to hurt when we teleport outside?” Olimpia asked.

“We’re fine,” Ramses assured her. “I designed our bodies to withstand a lot heavier gravity than this. It could go all the way back up to where it should be, and we would still be all right, but will it stop there? I don’t know. I don’t know what’s causing it, because I don’t know where the artificial gravity comes from.”

Leona was looking at the data. “It did not increase suddenly, or a lot of people would be dead, but it’s been rising all year.”

“Actually, it’s been rising since we arrived,” Ramses corrected.

“The whole planet?” Mateo asked.

Ramses sighed. “Yes, but not evenly. I hesitate to call this region the epicenter, because it appears to move anisotropically, but...um...” he trailed off.

“But it’s us,” Leona finished what he was unable to say. “We’re the cause.”

“I don’t know how, but I don’t see any other plausible trigger,” Ramses agreed.

“Should we leave then?” Romana offered.

“The damage is done,” Ramses explained. “I believe it was our arrival with the slingdrive. We interfered with the natural order.”

“There was nothing natural about this,” Leona told him. Everything artificial requires maintenance. Hell, natural processes experience constant change. We call it entropy.”

“Whatever was keeping this planet human-compatible, we interfered with it,” Ramses argued. “Natural or no, it’s our fault, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“We’ve been to a ton of places with the slingdrives,” Marie put forth. “Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

“We’ve never been anywhere with planetwide artificial gravity,” Angela responded.

“Yes, we have,” Leona said. “We were just on Varkas Reflex. That’s where this tech was born. Hokusai Gimura invented it while she was living there.”

“Well, we can’t just pop back there and see how they’re doin’,” Ramses reasoned. “That could make it worse for both worlds. I’m calling it, no sling travel until further notice.”

“We don’t have to go there physically,” Romana contended. “Let’s just read the news.” She created an interface on her wrist with her nanites, and connected to the quantum network. No one else did the same, they just watched her as her face fell. “It’s happening there too. It’s further along. They’ve consolidated to certain buildings which apparently have their own gravity generators, but most of the surface has become inhospitable to normal human life. Fortunately, there aren’t many of them left anyway. A lot of people are as sturdy as we are.”

“But these are two of the four main hubs for human colonization,” Leona pointed out. “Proxima Doma is the closest to Earth, Bungula and Bida have been terraformed. Regular humans love Varkas Reflex’s VR. In fact, after Doma fell, a lot of people started migrating to the other three.”

Mateo looked at his wife. “Well, out of all of us, Leona, you were the only one on Varkas when Hokusai created artificial gravity. How did she do it, and could it be the same way they did it here? Did she give it to Trinity?”

“I don’t see how,” Leona replied. “It’s not genuine artificial gravity. It’s transdimensional gravity. You open a two-dimensional portal to a region of space with lower gravity, and set it in superposition just under the surface of wherever you want to stand. When I was there, they were struggling to build single buildings with efficient gravity regulators. Evidently, they have expanded across the globe, but that should have taken years at best. This planet had it as soon as we landed, only a few years after we left Varkas. It’s just not possible.”

“Unless you account for time travel,” Marie reminded her. Trinity might have conscripted Future!Hokusai for help a decade or two in the past. That was her whole modus operandi back then, wasn’t it?”

“That’s true,” Leona admitted.

“It sounds like we need to find Trinity,” Olimpia determined.

“We need to find Trinity and Hokusai,” Marie added.

“No,” Leona began. “Ramses and I can do this. We can fix it.”

“No, I can’t,” Ramses argued. “I’ll just screw it up, like I have everything else.”

“We can…together,” Leona reiterated.

Ramses just shook his head.

“You said it was happening anisotropically,” Leona went on. “Let’s map that. However Trinity lowered gravity here, she didn’t do it by magic. There must be something changing the gravity, and also maintaining it, so let’s find whatever it is, and repair it.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Ramses, no moping,” Mateo ordered. “Let’s get to work.”

“Let’s?” Ramses echoed.

“Well if you’re so dumb that you’ll screw this up then I might as well help you, because I’m dumb too,” Mateo reasoned, completely aware that this did not make sense.

“Well, I mean...it’s not really that—”

“Not really what? True? Oh, you might be on to something. Maybe you and LeeLee should just try without me, see what you find.” He shrugged. “Start there.”

Ramses sighed. “Okay, I’ll make a map.”

The normies stayed in their shared space while the smart ones went into Ramses’ lab. They only had to be in there for less than an hour. “We’ve done it,” Leona announced as they came back in. “The gravitational failure is not random.” She threw up a hologram of a globe of Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. They are centered on these thirty-two evenly spaced locations.” Chevrons appeared on the surface, all around the planet.

“Actually, they’re specifically outside of these points,” Ramses clarified. “These particular spots are suffering less than elsewhere when it comes to the gravity issues. Fortunately, we noticed that they coincide with population centers. Which we found interesting and alarming, because Trinity could not have known where people would settle. But then we realized—”

“He realized,” Leona corrected.

Ramses smirked. “They’re not random either. If you zoom in to any of these points, you will find sacred ground. Trinity chose these thirty-two sites, probably to some degree of randomness, but well-distributed for maximum efficient coverage across a sphere. In math, it’s called the spherical covering problem. If they use transdimensional gravity—which is the only means of artificial gravity that I know of—it stands to reason that the regulators were installed in these places. And since there appeared to be preexisting infrastructure when the first colonists showed up, they....gravitated towards them due to their significance. So their religious interpretation did not come out of nowhere. There’s something there, probably underground, but also probably detectable.”

“Gravity is failing all over the world due to some unknown issue with these regulators, but it’s going to fail closer to the regulators last,” Leona finished.

“Do we know the cause?” Marie asked them.

“Well, it’s not us,” Leona argued. “Rambo, you’re off the hook. It was happening before we showed up, for a few years. We just didn’t know, because it started in more remote regions, and we didn’t look up the news. People have actually been migrating because of it, and the problem has just now reached this area. No one has been doing anything about it, because they don’t know what to do.”

“What can we do?” Mateo asked. “There are thirty-two sites. Is one of them the central command maybe?”

“Not that we can tell,” Leona replied. “I wouldn’t think so anyway. We might be able to interface with all of them if we go to one. We’ll know more when we get down there.”

Romana suited up with shiny body armor, showing her usual amount of cleavage that Mateo didn’t like. “Then let’s get on it. Boot ‘n’ rally!” She disappeared, only to return a few seconds later. “Sorry. Sync up ‘n’ rally! I’ve already chosen the chevron.”

They followed her to the site she had picked out. Ramses began to sweep the area to find the signal that would lead them to where they were actually trying to go.

“Guys,” Romana called out from around the bend of the cliff that they were next to. “You should see this.”

They all went over there to meet her. She was staring at the cliff face, where a gargantuan stone monument had been embedded in it. It was at least two stories tall, perhaps three. MATEO MATIC MEMORIAL ESCARPMENT. HE LED A LIFE OF LIFTING OTHERS. HERE HE FELL. NOVEMBER 18, 2256. Below the words was a non-volumetric hologram of Mateo Matic himself,standing tall and looking outwards at an angle. It made him seem like some kind of hero head of state; like he was a modern-day Abraham Lincoln. It made him feel rather uncomfortable.

“Jesus,” Angela said in a breathy voice.

They all stared at it for a moment, but then shifted their gazes to Mateo. “I didn’t know they put this here,” he said.

“Me neither,” Leona concurred.

Romana reached out and took her father in a hug. He kissed her on the forehead.

Ramses’ wrist sensors beeped. “Sorry. That just means it found it.”

Mateo turned away from his monument. “Then let’s go.”

“We can wait a moment,” Olimpia suggested, taking hold of his arm.

“That won’t be necessary.” As Mateo continued to walk away, her grip slid down his arm, into his hand, and then back out of it.

“Are you sure?” Ramses asked.

Mateo glanced at his friend’s interface. “Yes.” Then he teleported to the coordinates. He was in an underground lab now. The transdimensional gravity regulator stood before him. That was what he assumed it was anyway. He heard the erratic hum of fluctuating power. It was trying to hold on, like a dying lightbulb. Each time one of the others appeared, the machine reacted with a surge of energy. “Wait, don’t come yet! Just hold on!” he cried into his comms, but it was too late.

Once Romana appeared, a wave of light spread out from the machine and engulfed them all before they could teleport away. It was blinding, even for them with their advanced substrates. It took a couple of minutes for their vision to return. They were no longer underground, but in a high desert. Shrubbery kissed their feet. There were buttes scattered about in the distance. And a beetle. An absolutely gigantic beetle, towering over them, but paying them no mind. “Whoa,” Romana said as it slowly skittered past them.

“Who are you?” came a voice behind them. They turned around to find a gun pointed in their general direction.

“We’re not here to hurt anyone. You don’t need that,” Mateo told the stranger.

“Teleportation is highly regulated. So who are you?” he repeated. When they started to introduce themselves, he put his weapon away. “I’ve heard of you, you’re okay. I’m sorry for the mix-up. Welcome back. My name is Lycander Samani.”

“Welcome back where?” Leona pressed. “Where are we?”

“Castlebourne,” Lycander answered, “specifically, Gientodome.”

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