Microstory 2464: Hivedome

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

There are all kinds of hive minds, and some are more dangerous than others. According to the Core World definition, however, all hive minds are dangerous, because they have the potential to destroy all individuality in the entire universe. I used to think that that was an exaggeration, but I feel differently now. I am a former member of the Baileribo Colony. Founded by a man whose last name you can probably guess, the Baileribo Society first formed in the year 2062. At the time, mind uploading and consciousness transference were still in their infancy, and a true hive mind was beyond our grasp. Archaea Baileribo died before his dream was realized, but the hive mind honors his name to this day. I used to believe in that, but what I didn’t understand was that I didn’t believe in anything. The collective believed in it, and I was forced to agree. I won’t go too much into what my life was like before, but I was born about 300 years ago in a libertarian lunar base. It was a hellscape, and I wanted to get out. Everything was about individual liberties, but nothing was about community. I yearned for something better. Then along came a group of Baileriban recruits, and I was instantly hooked. The promised to take me out of the dystopia, and into paradise. I believed them, I trusted them. Now, I’m not saying that Baileribo is an evil entity, just that it could stand to be more honest and transparent. I didn’t have the chance to learn all the facts before it was too late, and at that point, I wasn’t myself anymore. The Baileriban are telepathic, but the means of telepathy is not something that can be genetically engineered. I don’t know why. It wasn’t my department. That might sound paradoxical, but I’ll get into that. In order to join the collective, they implant a special telepathy organ called a baileriboport, which allows forces you to share your thoughts with everyone. It takes a few weeks to get used to, but then it’s a magical sensation. I won’t lie to you, I was the happiest when I was connected. Then I saw something that I wasn’t meant to. The hive mind isn’t the only entity in Hivedome—which I should have told you before, we fled to recently to avoid persecution by the Stellar Neighborhood establishment. It’s only one layer of the lie. It’s run by a group of individuals who can share their thoughts with each other, but don’t have to. They can block their own signals, keep secrets from each other, and can even disconnect at will. They are the elite. They make all the decisions while making it seem like a group idea. They were walking amongst us without the rest of us knowing. Seeing this truth broke my brain, and allowed me to override my own baileriboport just enough to start behaving erratically. They didn’t know why I wasn’t conforming, but it was disruptive, and I had to be stopped. I wasn’t the first to exhibit idiosyncratic conduct, and I won’t be the last, but I do believe that I’m the only one whose memories weren’t successfully erased after expulsion. Again, I don’t think that the Baileriban have any plans to hurt anyone, and they don’t technically coerce recruits. But they certainly don’t tell you everything. The Castlebourne government has granted me this opportunity to write a review of this permanently isolated dome which no one else has been allowed to speak on, because anyone who knows anything wouldn’t dare reveal our secrets. I implore you, if a recruiter comes to you, remember that they’re not really part of the hive mind. They’re just part of the people who control it from the outside. They can’t be trusted.

Microstory 2433: Tokyo 2077

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

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 2318: Earth, September 4, 2178

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google ImageFX text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

Dear Corinthia,

I hate that you were so anxious about my reply. It definitely didn’t help that you had to wait a whole week. Damn this blasted light lag! Rest assured now, though, if you keep talking to me, I’ll keep talking back. By the way, I do realize that I sent two messages by the time you could respond to the first one. I’ll try to be better about that in the future. It’s just that I had an update, and I was too excited to wait, so I didn’t really think about it. I don’t know anyone else in space, so every message I’ve ever tried to send has arrived at its destination almost immediately. I hear that researchers are currently trying to figure out how to send superluminal signals, but I don’t know how close they are to realizing that dream, and either way, people like us will probably be stuck with regular radios for the foreseeable future. It would be really cool, though—wouldn’t it—If we could talk to each other as if we were in the same room together? Surely it’s a pretty big priority. We’re not the only two people having this problem. You said that you don’t know much about Earth, but do you know about any of the other colonies? A lot of the rest of the solar system has been colonized by now too. I believe that they were already developing these other bases when your ship was launched, though we were babies, so maybe no one has thought to bring it up to you since then. I remember asking our dad once if we could move to one of the outpost worlds, and if any of them would be better, but he says that life isn’t any easier anywhere else. That makes sense, and now that you’ve described how hard it is in the habitats, I fully believe it. Earth was perfect for us, and fixing it wouldn’t be any more difficult than starting somewhere new. I guess there are no good places left. But we find little pockets of happiness where we can. Because of my father’s respectable position with the dome’s leadership, we’re afforded a larger private cabin. I won’t send any photos now, if you don’t want to send your own, but perhaps we can swap? I would sure like to get a better idea of where you are. Who knows? They might be strikingly similar. Let me know what you can do.

Sorry about the extra message,

Condor

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 17, 2438

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

When the team stepped on board to familiarize themselves with their new ship, they were surprised to find out that the holographic generator that was meant to keep it invisible while it awaited the return of its original crew was not the only nonoperational component. The reframe engine was also broken. It was literally cracked. Trying to start it up could have vaporized them all, which was why it was so important to always run a preflight check before launch. Mirage didn’t know how this could have happened since the thing was fully intact the last time she saw it. Her best guess was that the Empire had somehow detected it, even while it was all cloaked up, and engaged it in battle. How it managed to ultimately avoid capture, and rendezvous with Mirage on Ex-666, was a question that this theory could not answer, but it was designed with its own AI, which could come out of dormancy as necessary. Its flight logs did not say anything about an attack, but maybe it erased this information on purpose, which Mirage said it might do if it suspected the risk of a temporal paradox.

As far as Mirage herself went, Niobe Schur managed to convince her to stick around to help formulate this new anti-Exin army. If the Empire was going to be destroyed, they were the ones to do it. They wouldn’t necessarily be staying here to work on this revolution, and they decided that any need they had to make some noise on other worlds would help Team Matic avoid being discovered. The fact that a new group of rabble rousers showed up once a year, generally a light year away from where an apparent different group of them showed up, was always a flaw in their plan. Everyone knew what the team’s pattern was, and even if they knew nothing about holographic disguises, they would eventually start to see that pattern shine through. Perhaps if others took up the mantle at the same time, the pattern might get drowned out as just one of many rebel factions spreading throughout the Corridor.

“Vitalie!613 has sent us the information that she was able to gather on the planets that we might be going to,” Leona said to the group. “Someone from just about every planet was sent to the resort recently enough to know what we could be in for. A few worlds are missing from the data, presumably because nobody from there ever won the competition, but that’s not a problem yet. Rambo?”

“Ex-811,” he began. “You could call it FarmWorld. So far, we’ve not seen a whole lot of automation going on, but this place wouldn’t survive without it. The whole surface is covered in crops, livestock, or oceans, lakes, and rivers of creatures. The people who work there are meant to keep the machines maintained, and to make executive decisions about the work. It is they who decide where the produce is going, and how much of it. There are some incompatibility issues going on with species that didn’t evolve alongside each other, so it’s also their responsibility to figure out how to return the ecosystem to homeostasis. Apparently, the people who used to work here, who now live on Ex-612, talked Vitalie’s ear off about it. They loved to brag about how they used to live here, that it was the best planet in the Corridor, besides the luxury worlds for the elite. I don’t know if that’s true, but I also don’t know whether there’s anything we can do here. What mission could we go on, besides finding Vitalie!811?”

“We could burn the crops.” When everyone frowned at Marie like she was a serial killer, she frowned back. “There are no bad ideas in brainstorming!”

“We don’t want the...Corridorians to starve to death,” Mateo told her. “But maybe we need to look at those distribution schedules. If someone isn’t getting enough food, either unintentionally, or as some form of oppression or punishment, we could maybe alter them?”

“That’s a good idea,” Leona agreed. “Though, that would be a long-term mission, and one thing we know about this region of space—and about ourselves—is that we are not built for the long-term. If we do something like that, our only hope is to sneak down and reprogram the automated delivery ships, and somehow make it so that the supervisors don’t realize that it’s happening.”

“Well, we’ll have to leave at the end of the day,” Marie began, “but maybe we can insert a ringer into the team.”

Leona nodded. “Vitalie!811. We could set her up as a new...President of Distribution, or something. Ram, do we have the necessary intel to put someone undercover like that?”

“Yeah,” Ramses answered, consulting his tablet. “We have a pretty recent roster. There may be some discrepancies from the time lag, but Distribution President is not a preexisting position, so I believe we could justify making it up.”

“We’ll have to find Vitalie!811 first, and then hope that she’s up for it.”

“That could be tricky,” Ramses said. “Those automators have tons of sensors. They’re not designed to detect sneaky humans, but they would see us anyway.”

“Maybe it’s time for us to do something different, ya know, instead of looking like celebrities,” Olimpia suggested. “We’re supposed to be able to turn invisible.”

Leona nodded. “That’s technically an ability that we have, but it’s complicated. “Time powers are ingrained into the neurology of the person who was born with them. And the way they specialize is not well understood. There are different flavors, even among people with the same thing. One teleporter, for instance, but only be able to make a jump by literally jumping into the air, while another doesn’t have that quirk. We’ve met other people who can manipulate photons, like Vito, but Alyssa McIver is not Vito Bulgari. He’s better at invisibility, she’s better at impersonation. I don’t think any of us has time to learn something new, at least not reliably.”

Olimpia smirked knowingly. “What are you talking about? I’ve been invisible during this entire conversation.”

“What are you talking about?” Leona questioned. “I’m looking at you right now.”

“Are you?” came Olimpia’s voice from behind them.

Everyone jolted their heads to find her leaning casually against the doorframe. They looked back to see the other Olimpia, still perched next to them on the couch. Mateo reached out, swept his hand through one shoulder, out the other, and back again. Yeah, she was just made of light.

The standing Olimpia giggled, and shivered intentionally. “Oo, Mateo, you just touched my boobies.”

Leona stood up and approached what was presumably the real Olimpia, and peered into her eyes. “You can throw a perfect image of your likeness. That’s very interesting. I’ve made external holograms before, but nothing quite like that, not something that moves fluidly enough to make someone think that it’s me.”

Olimpia shrugged slightly. “You’re the Captain, and Second Engineer. I’ve had more time to practice. I’ve actually been doing it in my spare time for a while now. The other day, when you were teaching us, I was faking low proficiency until I was ready to show off this level of sophistication.”

“We might use that in the future,” Leona acknowledged. “Thanks for letting me know, Loki.”

Olimpia smiled. “It’s nice to finally be able to contribute in some small way.”

“Thanks,” Mateo said. “Now I’m back to being the only useless one around here.”

“We’re not gonna have this argument again,” Leona told him.

“Can you turn others invisible?” Angela asked Olimpia.

“I’ve never tried, because I wasn’t telling anyone about it.” Olimpia glided over to her friend, and extended a hand to help her out of the chair. “One thing I do know is that I have to initialize it with a passionate kiss.”

“I don’t really care for PDA,” Angela muttered.

“Well,” Olimpia muttered back, “if you don’t wanna turn invisible, okay...”

Angela rolled her eyes, and let Olimpia kiss her in front of the group, leading Ramses to squirm a little in his seat. “All right, enough games” Angela insisted. “Let’s get on with it.”

Olimpia looked towards the floor, and started to take a deep breath, which incidentally transformed into a yawn. “Okay, I’m ready.” She shut her eyes, and continued to breathe deliberately. Beams of light began to shoot through her body. They weren’t really going through her, but striking a spatial field that she had formed all around herself, which teleported the flux of photons to the other side, and then let them continue on their way. The beams grew and merged with each other until she was fully gone. Now she could begin to put Angela through the same thing, but it was slower, more erratic, and prone to being undone. The beams would shrink, and unmerge after they had already come together. The light flickered, and parts of Angela’s body began to appear randomly all over the room. They could hear the grunts of frustration in Olimpia’s voice.

“It’s okay,” Leona said. “Ramses and I can come up with a different way to fool the sensors. We’ll find Vitalie!811, even if we have to stay here for a couple of days. We’ve done it before. There’s no rule that says we have to leave within 24 hours.”

“No, no!” Olimpia protested. She sighed and gave up trying to make Angela disappear, but she stayed invisible herself. She started to speak again through Holo!Olimpia on the couch. “It’s true that I won’t be able to figure this out today. I need more practice holding two flux fields up simultaneously, which as I was saying, I’ve never tried before, because I was keeping this all a secret. That doesn’t mean this can’t be done. I’ll just go down to the planet on my own.”

“No,” Leona argued, “we don’t go anywhere alone. I’m pretty sure that was your idea, Oli.”

“It was? Well, great. Then I can change it. I’m going alone.”

“No, you’re not. That is an order.”

“Leona,” Olimpia said calmly.

“What?”

“I’m already gone.”

“How is that possible?”

“I can throw sound particles too. That’s part of the deal, I guess.”

“Number one, no it’s not. Number two, they’re not particles; they’re waves, which is Physics 101. It’s deeply concerning that you think you’ve mastered this technique when you don’t even understand the basics of it.”

“Well, I don’t know how my heart pumps blood throughout my body, yet I’ve never accidentally stopped doing it, have I?”

“Mateo, she listens to you. Will you please talk to her?” Leona pleaded.

He tilted his head down to the side, kept it there for a few seconds, and tilted it the other way. “Olimpia, you go, girl.”

“Goddammit, Matty!”

“You can’t do everything, Leona,” Mateo contended. “We are a team, and we have to trust each other to help in our own special ways. I don’t know if you’re just jealous that she’s the best now, but it gets kind of annoying that you are always the end-all, be-all. You’re the leader, the scientist, the computer hacker, the master schemer. You’re the whole package, which tends to sideline everyone else. I don’t know if she’s gonna succeed down there, but I’m gonna let her try. And if something goes wrong, any one of us can jump down and save her. You can find your faith in us...or you can sulk in private, but you need to remember that you’re a captain, not a king.”

Fuming, but not about to blow up, Leona stuffed her fingers in Ramses’ pocket, and pulled up his magical clicker device. She pointed it at the Holo!Olimpia, and made her disappear with the push of a button. “The guy we’re trying to stop can do exactly what she can, but he can reach across light years. Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know,” Mateo admitted.

“Me neither, and that scares the shit out of me. What we’ve learned about our friend today presents us with two possibilities. Either it’s a coincidence, or that girl down on the planet ends up giving that man out there power. Everything we’re doing right now could just be a loop that we’re closing, which leads to the greatest tyrant the timestream has ever seen gaining everything he needs to accumulate the power he has now, but in the past. I have no proof that that’s what’s happening, but it’s a possibility. It always is. It’s happened to us before. Horace Reaver terrorized you at the beginning of your journey, because you ruined his life in another timeline. Zeferino Preston moved us around like chess pieces in a game that he had all but already won. I don’t want to be the cause of my own effect.”

“That’s a good point.”

Leona tapped on her neck. “Olimpia, don’t talk, it’s not safe. Your life is first priority. Finding Vitalie is only second priority. You understand me? I mean...I know you understand me, still don’t talk. If she’s down there, she’s been asleep for centuries, and she can stay that way for another few years while we focus on the mission at large. Get back up here safely by EOD, whether The Caretaker is in pocket, or not. If you do understand...send me some love.”

They all five felt a lot of love coming from Olimpia.

Leona couldn’t help but smile from it. “I love you too.” She tapped on her comms disc to close the channel. “Now. Ramses, please look back through the data that Vitalie!613 sent you. Start working on a new food distribution plan. If this entire planet is covered in crop and livestock, there’s more than enough to go around, even if every other planet is as densely populated as Earth. An army marches on its stomach. Prepare a disc for Vitalie too, because we may have to amend the plan later.”

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 16, 2437

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image Duet AI software

Finding the Vellani Ambassador was easy. Mirage had programmed it to follow her wherever she went while invisible with a space-warping generator on the hull, but something must have undone that at some point, because it was out in the open, and available to the public. The locals of Ex-666 had never entered the ship, but it was not clear yet whether they had ever tried, or if they deliberately stayed out of it. Because they had begun to revere it as a religious icon.

The government was a little too busy to return Mirage’s ship to her right away, though they did want to respect her ownership over it. They just really had to worry about preparing to go to war. The team was busy too, helping them take control of the eye in the sky. It was surprisingly easy. They were worried that there was some kind of catch that would come back to bite them in the ass, but the Chief Ascendant was convinced that no escape attempts had been made in the last 150 years, which probably caused some level of complacency.

Not much had actually changed about the world over the course of the last year. The armada from Ex-182 was not yet here. Some of the so-called prisoners were former fleet members, who knew enough about the ships that the empire used to tell them that they were mostly powered by reframe engines. They had built their vessels to be quite large, however, and scaling of the technology came at a cost. While regular fusion reactions were perfectly suitable to make the engine work for a smaller ship, like the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, capital ships demanded too much power. Not even a larger fusion reactor could compensate for the loss. The only way they could get up to maximum reframe speeds was to use matter-antimatter reactions. No one here knew enough about it to understand why that was a problem these days, but Mirage did.

“It was us,” she shrugged.

“You stole their antimatter reserves?” Leona asked her.

“Far as I know, it’s still there,” Mirage began to explain, but it’s hard to get to. It exists as a fully formed antistar, sitting out there alone in the void. Getting close enough to it to extract only as much antimatter that they need when they need it is a delicate dance. My team and I were tasked with engineering a containment megastructure. We were on schedule to completing that mission when I was separated from them, and captured. I knew that it was going to happen, so I made arrangements to halt all production and construction. If they returned to the project themselves, it’s going to take them a hell of a long time. I scattered my barges in all directions. Just getting them back would probably take longer than starting over from a new source of raw material.”

“Why were you helping them in the first place?” Mateo questioned. “Did you not realize that you were working for the bad guys?”

“We suspected from the beginning,” Mirage replied. “But we weren’t sure, we weren’t sure what level of technology they had—though it could have been vast considering their remoteness from the Earthan stellar neighborhood—and also we felt bad. We were the ones who destroyed their first antistar. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, they maintained a link between this region of the Milky Way, and Alpha Centauri. That’s how we ended up this far out in the first place. We were just going to Toliman to pick up my ship, which I had programmed to build itself years prior. There was something very wrong with that whole star system, so we blew up our asteroid to prevent anyone else from trying to investigate, and that’s what destroyed the star. It and the antistar annihilated each other.”

Leona winced. “Toliman has not been destroyed.”

“No, it had to have,” Mirage insisted. “What else could have happened?”

“I don’t know,” Leona contended, “but if Alpha Centauri B didn’t exist in this day and age, I would have heard about it.”

“Someone must have gone back to fix it,” Mirage guessed, “maybe me.”

“I don’t know how you would do that,” Ramses said.

“I have some ideas,” Mirage responded. She looked forward again, and sighed. “Looks like they’re nearly done.”

While Mirage was in the sixth circle of hell, the natives had transformed the site of the Vellani Ambassador into a sacred one. They didn’t worship the ship, nor whoever may have brought it here, but they conceived stories about how it might one day open for them, and a great savior would step out of it to rescue them from their damnation. It was only hitting them now that this was their very first sign of religious doctrine in this sector of the galaxy. The team hadn’t even noticed before, because vonearthan culture had managed to transcend its superstitious origins, so religion wasn’t much of a thing anymore. But the Goldilocks Corridor was apparently seeded with life thousands of years ago, and many of the worlds were severely underdeveloped. So it seemed rather odd, not that some evil religious order wasn’t controlling the masses alongside the evil empire, but that no one on the planets they had been to so far had taken comfort in the mystical. Was this agnosticism enforced...or incidental?

The religious leadership was dismantling the decorations and offerings that had been placed on and around the ship.  Some of them believed that Mirage was indeed their savior, and that their belief that she would literally come out of the Hope Chariot, which was what the worshipers called it, was just a matter of detail.

Why didn’t you have them do this before?” Angela asked. “You could have left before.”

“I figured I would give them one more year with it,” Mirage answered. “I knew that you would need that whole time to come back, and that kind of waiting means little to me in the long-run. I’ve developed high patience. Now they’ve had time to say their goodbyes.”

“Did you explain that it was just a regular ship, and not god, or whatever it is they believe?” Olimpia asked her.

“I don’t know if they believe me. Some think I am indeed the savior they’ve been waiting for, and others think that I’m just the one who is going to unlock it so the true savior can be released from it. This is a prison world, and while they’ve thrived here, they have not forgotten that. So if there’s a god of Ex-666, perhaps they’re a prisoner too, and maybe they’re trapped in the...Hope Chariot. It would explain why this deity hasn’t saved them yet.”

They had an interesting way to express respect here, at least as far as the religious people went. They would stretch their arms out wide, dip their nose down towards the ground as low as possible, and balance themselves out by raising one leg behind them as high as possible. Only the elderly members no longer flamingoed, but they still airplaned their arms, and lowered their head into a regular bow. The younger ones made the move with the most enthusiasm, and they did not care if they fell over in the attempt. “Hmm, it’s basically Warrior 3,” Marie noted, having tried yoga in the afterlife simulation in the early 19th century, before it was cool in the western world on Earth.

The Elder Priestess was the last in line to pay her respects to Mirage and the team. She made no attempt to bow, but smiled as wide as Mona Lisa, and nodded. As she passed by, she placed a comforting hand on Mirage’s shoulder, and walked down the hill to join the rest of the main group, who were watching from there. A huge crowd had convened behind them to witness the magic. Not everyone in the world believed, but surely there were plenty here who just wanted to see what happened. Fortunately, they were in an open expanse in the desert, which fit the instructions for the Ambassador to avoid populated areas, so something like this wouldn’t happen. The settlements here only sprung out as a result of its sudden appearance.

Mirage lifted her hand, and said in reference, “allons-y.” She snapped her fingers, prompting the back hatch of the ship to engage and lower. To her surprise, someone actually did step out. It was a young woman, perhaps in her early- to mid-twenties. She was completely ready for this, coming into the light with confidence and self-assuredness. The crowd went wild. A lot of them dove to the ground in a full Downward Facing Dog bow of intense unwavering loyalty and faith. The woman walked right down the hill, and approached Mirage. “Do you recognize me?”

“Niobe. You’re older now. How long have you been in there?”

This was the girl who was with Maqsud Al-Amin and Lilac’s son, Aristotle. She was a slave-child on Ex-324, but she originated on the Extremus planet of Verdemus. She smirked, and looked over at the team. “A few minutes.” She winked.

“Why?” Mirage asked.

“These people need someone to follow. They’re never going to let go of their convictions, at least not until they win the war. The Chief Ascendant is going to continue to run the state, but they are transitioning from peacetime, and they are severely underestimating what that is going to do to their culture. Someone else needs to be there to guide them. Now, I’m not going to explain why I’m the best person for the job, but it has to do with what I’ve experienced since we last saw each other. Just know that this is the right thing to do, and I’m not going to abuse my power. If you would like to be sure of that, you can stand by my side, Mirage. This team needs your ship more than you do.”

“What about...”

“Ex-10?” Niobe guessed. “Let it go, he means nothing. Do not be fooled by his low numerical designation. It’s a trick. Everything that Oaksent does is a joke, a smokescreen, or a mistake. So, how about it? Are you with me?”

Mirage looked back at the crowd, and let out her signature emulated sigh. She switched her gaze to Leona, who had made herself look like the real Iman Vellani. “Leona’s Rules for Time Travel, Number Fourteen, do not form, or inspire, a religion.”

“Leona is just a person,” Niobe reasoned, “not a god.”

“Nor are we.”

“We won’t act like one,” Niobe continued. “We’re there to help. They understand where we come from, but you were about to open this ship, and I saw an opportunity. I won’t apologize for that. I really am trying to help. The Empire must fall, and while I have limits to what I’m willing to do to accomplish that, this does not cross the line. You have to decide where your line is.”

Mirage shook her head as she thought about it. “Give me the rest of the day.”

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 15, 2436

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

The new ship was done. The holographic projectors were up and running, making them look like something else entirely. Reminiscent of holodecks from the Star Trek franchise, a magnetic field of equivalent dimension gave it the impression of physical size, for when light was not enough. If someone, for instance, were to shoot a missile at a section of it that didn’t technically exist, it would not simply pass through it, but interact with this field, reinforcing the lie that they were bigger than they really were. In honor of this inspired technology, Ramses chose the USS Defiant from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as their first hologram. It was a warship, so it looked a bit menacing, but was also relatively small. They couldn’t make it look as large as something like the Death Star, because the truth would be too easy to detect. There were a few other fictional ships that Ramses, and other members of the team, wanted to try, but they would eventually transition into original models. It wasn’t super likely that anyone in the Exin Empire had ever seen anything of these things, but there was always a chance.

This was an important test, because while the resort planet they just went to had no orbital infrastructure, Ex-666 did. It wasn’t much, but it was there, and it was trying to destroy them. Leona and Ramses both stayed on board so they could outrun it. For now, they were doing just fine with that. The defense satellite was apparently not designed to attack, but to prevent unauthorized entry. With this clearly being a penal colony, that made a hell of a lot of sense. So they were just going to keep away from it, and only fight back if the situation grew tiresome. Generally speaking, they did not operate on ships with weapons, but the Dorsch had an offensive system that they could use if they had no other choice. Ramses still had his eyes set on something brand new, advanced, and tailored specifically for their needs, but they weren’t going to find help on Ex-666, so that was still a dream for another day.

The rest of the team took the dropship down to investigate the surface. They didn’t want to teleport while they were being so closely watched, because they still didn’t know how ubiquitous such abilities were in this region of space. It could look too suspicious. The satellite may have called in reinforcements from somewhere, and who knew how quickly that would happen? Their only real concern was finding Vitalie!666, but it seemed ridiculous to not at least try to communicate with the locals. They were worried it would go terribly, and now was the moment of truth. “Good evening, folks. We are refugees from Ex-741. Have you, perchance, heard of it?” Mateo asked. At present, he looked like James Van Der Beek, because that was the only form he found himself able to maintain for extended periods of time for some reason. Again, hopefully no one here knew enough Earth pop culture to recognize him.

“We’ve heard of Ex-741,” one woman replied. “Why would you need to be a refugee from there? Weren’t you just engineers and technicians?”

“They were technicians,” Mateo lied, pointing to Angela, who looked like her finishing school teacher, and Marie, who looked like Marie Antoinette. “I was a janitor. She was a singer,” he added, pointing to Olimpia, who looked like a woman she had a crush on while she was still living in society on Earth.

“Singer? The dockyard had singers?”

“We need entertainment too. Anyway—” He had this whole explanation about how Ex-741 was going to be destroyed, and they were the last to escape, but they got lost in space, but these people didn’t seem to care.

“Sing something,” the woman insisted.

“Well, she doesn’t have to do it on comman—” Mateo started to say, but he was interrupted yet again.

“No problem.” Olimpia started to sing, using that positively gorgeous voice that the other five had forgotten she had, because she did not do this often enough. The locals were just as enamored by it. More started walking up when they heard it. They all clapped profusely after she was finished singing Ex:Re’s The Dazzler.

The woman from before smiled and nodded. “You’ve landed in the right place. This is where the Chief Ascendant lives. He’ll want to meet you.” She looked over to a teenager nearby. “Go gather some wagmen.” The young man ran off, and when he returned with five men who were rolling a wagon by hand, the woman rolled her eyes. “I meant pedal wagmen, son. These are honored guests.”

“Wait,” Mateo said, stepping forward. “You don’t have automobiles, so you get around by people who walk or pedal?”

“That’s right,” she answered. “Our technology is limited. You’ve fallen on a prison world. I’m sorry.”

Mateo shook his head. “Just tell us where the Chief Ascendant lives. We can walk there on our own. Really, we’re built tough. We insist,” he added when he saw that she was going to argue.

“Very well. It’s not far, just up the road.” She pointed up the hill.

The four of them nodded, and headed that way. Once they were at the sort of castle-looking building, the guards opened the gates with no questions, and let them through. They were wearing headsets, likely connected to radios, which meant that their technology wasn’t evenly limited. Who knew what other anachronistic things that they used in their daily lives?

They expected this Chief Ascendant to be lounging around on a bed full of pillows, and a harem of women, but he was behind a standing desk, along with other people. They were looking through papers, and discussing matters of state. “Ah. You are the freemen, aren’t you? Welcome to Ex-666.” He didn’t stop working. He kept signing declarations, and approving memos, or whatever else his staff was asking him to do.

“You’ve built yourself a nice society here, haven’t you,” Mateo put forth.

“Yes, well, we share a common purpose. We all hate the Exin Empire. I don’t know who told them that they should throw all of their insurgents onto one world, but we are probably the most successful one in the region. We work together, and if you’re here to disrupt our way of life, we will fight back.”

“That’s not why we’re here,” Mateo insisted. He was doing all the talking today. That was probably fine, for now. My colleagues are up in our ship right now, avoiding the ire of your orbital defense satellite.”

The Chief Ascendant laughed. “It’s not ours. It’s part of what keeps us here.”

“Do you want us to destroy it for you?”

The Chief Ascendant stopped, and raised one eyebrow at Mateo. “You came here in a warship?”

“It has weapons. It’s not a warship, but my engineer assures me that they can do it. They just don’t know what the consequences will be.”

“They’ll send an armada from Ex-182.”

Mateo sighed. “We can’t protect you from all that.”

“Could you...gain control over it?”

Mateo smirked, and turned his head slightly away to listen to Leona’s response. “Yeah, they surely could. They just need to get on board.”

“You could have anything you wanted,” the Chief Ascendant began, “if you did that for us.” He placed his elbow on the desk, and pointed to the sky. “That thing has an energy beam that can shut off all systems from hundreds of ships all at once, and then draw them in. If we had control over it, instead of the Exins, we would beg the armada to come, so that we could steal it.”

Mateo cleared his throat, and faced the group. “What do y’all think?” The conversation over comms was short, so he turned right back around. “Any enemy of Bronach Oaksent is a friend of ours.” He looked at the twins. “Go help them.”

Angela and Marie nodded. Angela tapped on her chest twice. “Two to beam up.” They both teleported away.

The crowd gasped. “You have some wild technology.” The Chief Ascendant noted.

Mateo chuckled. “They destroyed our planet on purpose, and since they didn’t wanna be destroyed along with it, they ran off a long time before it happened. We were left behind, with no oversight, so we stole all the tech we could, and flew off in the opposite direction.”

“Yes,” the Chief Ascendant agreed. “Their inability to organize, and our ability to do so, will ultimately be their downfall.”

One of his men sidled up to him, and whispered in his ear, “sir? What about the True Prisoner? They could help with her too.”

“Who is the True Prisoner?” Mateo asked, having easily heard his remark.

“This whole planet is a prison,” the Chief Ascendant began to explain, “but it is lush with vegetation, and other useful resources. We can’t leave, but most people don’t feel the need to. They’ve built a life for themselves. They entrust me to protect them, and to prepare to fight in their stead, which you’ve agreed to help us with. The point is, very few of us actually feel like prisoners. For the most part, things are better than they were before we came here. More would probably come on purpose if we could get the message out to them, letting them know that crime actually does pay. Only one of us is in a real prison. We, uhh...have been trying to get to her for decades. We don’t know anything about her; who she is, what she did to anger the Empire so much, or how she is able to survive the extreme heat and noxious fumes.”

“Extreme heat, and noxious fumes?” Mateo echoed. That sounded familiar to him. “Is she in a volcano?”

“You are quite perceptive. Yes, she is. It’s quite a distance to this volcano, but if you can teleport, you can get there quickly, and maybe even get her out. We would sure like to finally meet her.”

“Show me.”

The Chief Ascendant called for a map. His Prime Cartographer explained where they would be going, and went into more detail about the temperatures involved. Someone also called ahead to let the people who lived closer know that visitors would be arriving, and would need firesuits. Mateo thought about arguing against the need for such things, but decided not to bother. “Uhh...two more to beam up,” Mateo said awkwardly, trying to replicate Angela’s fake request for a technological solution. Unfortunately, he tapped on his chest after his request, instead of before, which would mean that their team wouldn’t have even heard it. That was stupid of him, but there was no undoing it now. He and Olimpia just let it go, and disappeared.

They found themselves in the magma chamber, standing on a solid rock formation. The heat was intense, as were the fumes. They could see a manmade structure shimmering in the distance, sitting upon its own rock island. It had a metal frame, but most of his was transparent, surely made of some kind of heat-resistant polycarbonate material. Mateo and Olimpia looked over to their left as someone was slowly side-stepping towards them in a shiny suit. They were holding an extra firesuit in their hand, and struggling in the attempt to give it to whoever was willing to take it. They were clearly finding it difficult to move in the thing, full stop, and the two of them didn’t need all that dead weight. Mateo dismissed the helpful volcanologist’s help, waving him away politely. He took Olimpia’s hand, and they made a jump into the cell. It was better inside, though not by much. Now that they were closer, he could see that this was no ordinary prisoner. He took her in his arms, and jumped them both to safety.

“Took ya long enough, James Van Der Beek!” Mirage exclaimed.

Mateo instinctually dropped his hologram, and turned back into himself. “Mirage Reaver, how the hell long have you been in there, dude?”

“That’s not my last name. What year is it?”

“It’s 2436.”

“I’ve been in there for eighty-three years,” she answered. “I did get one break thirty-six years ago, but then I had to go back.”

“Argh! God, it’s been so long!” He stepped back into her, and gave her a big hug. “I can’t believe you’re, like, all into this whole thing.”

“I’ve been doin’ my own thang, man. I know people. I’ve had adventures. I’ve traveled through time.”

“Not all it’s cracked up to be, eh?”

Leona appeared next to them. “Mirage. It’s nice to see you. Last we saw each other, you were on Altair.”

“You knew that she was back in this dimension?” Mateo questioned.

“I don’t tell you everything.”

“Are we cool?” Mirage asked Leona.

“We’re cool,” Leona confirmed. “Ramses is alive and well.”

“Thank you for getting me out of there. That place sucked. And also, hello.”

“Hi, I’m Olimpia.”

“Olimpia Sangster. It’s nice to finally meet you in person. I helped you once. You didn’t know it was me.”

“Thank you,” Olimpia replied graciously, not asking her to clarify.

“So.” Mirage clapped her hands together. “This is a prison world. My ship is nearby, and it’s invisible, so if you need a way to escape, you can come with me.”

“Where are you going?” Mateo asked her.

“I have a score to settle.” She looked at her bare wrist. “I just hope he’s still alive.”

Leona was too curious. What kind of vessel would an entity like Mirage build for herself? “What’s the name of your ship?”

“It’s actually a module called the Ambassador. It can detach from, and propel itself independently of, the main ship, which I named The Iman Vellani.”

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 12, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

Apparently, the radio tower they were hoping could put them in contact with someone who might be able to help them is more of a decorative piece. It worked at one point, but the locals never used it, and didn’t maintain it through storm after storm. Now it’s so damaged that Ramses probably couldn’t cobble together a fix, even with parts from The Olimpia, or the other way around. He didn’t really even want to try. The more they thought about it, the riskier the idea felt. They don’t have any allies out there, except in the penal colony. In order to protect Amir, and his whereabouts, they have to get out of the region themselves, and they pretty much have to do it in secret.

Ramses decided to keep trying to fix the Olimpia to get them closer to home, or at least so far away from Amir that no one thinks to look for him in the village. He takes this as an opportunity to try out his new lantern as a source of light when looking into an access panel, and that’s when he makes a startling discovery. The lantern illuminates everything around it uniformly, but there are also points of light in various places. One wire here, a circuit there. When he checks these places, he notices an issue that’s contributing to all the problems that they’re facing with the full operation of the vehicle. As he works through it, the points of light adjust in a pattern that he’s had to learn to understand, which guides him to a solution.

The lantern is obviously special, but he doesn’t know exactly how. He’s tried to come up with a temporal explanation, but there isn’t one. Nothing about time and space would lend itself to such a function, and nothing about the advancement of more traditional technology would either, except maybe some very fancy augmented reality. That has to be it, even though he’s never encountered such tech before. The locals of this little bit of land on this island obviously know more than they have conveyed, though it’s unclear if they’re intentionally keeping secrets, or if the language barrier between the two parties is simply too hard to see over.

Marie has kept trying to communicate with them, using body language drawings in the dirt, and demonstrations. From what she can gather, a boat comes around from the cities on the other side of the island once a month to deliver supplies, and occasionally transport people. They could get on it, and from there, make their way to anywhere in the world. This would be a great option—despite the sadness that would come from having to abandon the Olimpia—but the problem is that it’s not due for another two weeks, and sometimes, when the weather is bad, it ends up having to skip a month. Unfortunately, that may be their only hope if Ramses can’t get the Olimpia back in full working order. Even with the lantern, he might not have the tools he needs to accomplish this. There are a lot of missing parts here, strewn all over the North Pole.

Mateo climbs down to the engineering section with a certain smile.

“What?” Ramses asks, knowing that look.

“Nothing. Just. What are you missing? Like, what’s a part that needs to be replaced? A cable maybe, or a bolt?”

Ramses picks up a small, clear object. “This is called a crystalatis. It’s supposed to be glowing blue—”

“Yeah, I don’t care,” Mateo sets the crystal-thingy on a step, and stabs it with his new knife. A blue-glowing duplicate of it pops out of the handle. “Ta-da!”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 11, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

It wasn’t easy, but they were able to get The Olimpia moving. They weren’t traveling at normal cruising speed, but they were making decent time. Three days later, they can finally see land again. It’s exactly where Ramses said it would be. They have to get pretty close to see any sign of civilization, but it is there, just without any skyscrapers or roads. The people who live in Vertegen reportedly like the quiet life, far from the hustle and bustle of everywhere else, but they’re not completely cut off. There’s a radio tower. The team hasn’t been able to learn too much about them, only as much as the blurb on the map can tell them. Ramses is missing some key parts that were lost to the deep in the crash, and the communications system was damaged the most. It’s unclear who they would call, though, considering that their friends are all locked away in a penal colony, and Amir Hussain is hiding from the U.S. government. They would rather meet someone who can help get the Olimpia back in the air, but it’s not going to happen. That’s okay. They weren’t holding out hope for a mechanic who can work on a vehicle that quadruples as a car, boat, submarine, and airplane. They just need to contact someone who may be able to help, and as remote as this settlement is, they have that. But who can they trust?

The people of Vertegen are trying to speak to them in a language that they don’t recognize, let alone understand. They seem to be able to tell that the four of them are speaking English, but none of them understands that. Ever the counselor, Angela takes over the responsibility of fostering communication. She points to themselves—particularly their lips—and says, “English.” Then points to the local, and raises her eyebrows to suggest a question.

The local points to himself, and the crowd behind him, and says, “Rakripa.”

She nods. “Rakripa.” Now they’re getting somewhere.

They learn a few more things as their ambassador is showing them around. He picks up a cup, and says “pani.”

At first they think he’s just trying to teach them a few words, but then he keeps trying to give it to her, so she accepts, and drinks.

“What is it?” Mateo asks.

“It’s just water,” she answers. “It’s nice and cold, though.”

The man smiles, and hands her another cup. “Panijiben.”

“Panijiben,” Angela echoes. She accepts the drink as well.

He gives her one more cup or just plain water, which they all think is a little strange, but who are they to judge these people’s rituals?

He says, “momma” and hands Ramses a small lantern. It’s then that they realize these aren’t lessons, but gifts. This becomes clearer when he presents Mateo with a beautiful knife, and calls it a “kjuro” but much less clear when he smiles at Amir, opens his arms wide, and says, “keri.”

“Keri?” Angela tries to decipher the code.

“Keri, keri,” the man repeats enthusiastically, gesturing to Amir. He points at one of the tents, and says it again. He indicates the whole settlement one more time. “Keri.”

“Home,” Amir realizes. “He wants me to stay.” He turns to face the group. “I think I’m meant to be here.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 10, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

They’re not sure why there was a time limit to literally get through the door to get processed out of Birket, but it turned out fine. They all made it through, and walked across the desert to the Israeli border. It was there that they waited for almost the entire day before transport to Cairo came for them. People obviously weren’t in any hurry to help them. They weren’t on the road for long before darkness fell, and their driver had to stop and check into a motel for the night. He didn’t secure any rooms for them, of course, and clearly didn’t care, so they were forced to sleep under the stars on the beach in a coastal town called Taba, Egypt. Fortunately, it was pretty nice weather, and they were all glad to be free at least. So far, there was no indication of how exactly they were going to get back to the states. Their devices were confiscated from them, and never returned—wiped clean upon any attempt at unauthorized access—and no one in Taba was willing to let them use a phone.

They woke up this morning, all reporting having slept well enough, and made their way back to the motel. Neither the driver nor his bus could be found. Amir asked the front desk about it in Arabic, and learned that he checked out early, and took off. That’s very weird. It’s his job to get them to a special final processing center in Cairo, not just to help them make it all the way home. They’re expected to exit the region according to policy, which entails either meeting their sponsor, or an approved representative, in country. Now it’s going to be much more difficult to do that, and might even get them sent back to Birket. Maybe that’s what someone has wanted all along, and is driving these obstacles. Still, no one lends them a phone.

“How long will it take us to walk?” Kivi asks.

Amir laughs. “At least a week. That’s if we walk for several hours each day, which we won’t be able to do, especially not without any water.”

“Why won’t anyone help us? Do they not have any taksis, or anything around here?” Leona asks.

“I tried asking,” Amir begins, “but just because we speak the same language, doesn’t mean they like me. They know what we are, and while Egyptians don’t have any particular distaste for colonists—or freed colonists, like ourselves—there is some local annoyance that they’re being used as a waypoint for us. Their government struck a deal to make it happen after Israel and Jordan both refused, but regular citizens don’t like it. It’s not the only deal that Egypt has regarding refugees. It’s a huge political issue.”

“Is that why the driver abandoned us?” Marie asks him.

“Probably, yes, but it doesn’t make much sense. He could still get in trouble for it, because now it’s worse. The only thing Egyptians hate more than processing refugees is wayward refugees who are stuck here, and can’t be processed out.”

“What about Saudi Arabia?” Kivi presses. “How do they feel about us?”

Amir looks to the south. “You’re not getting across the Red Sea, and you’re not getting through the two borders between you and Saudi Arabia on land.”

“It was just a thought,” Kivi says, shrugging.

“Keeves, maybe you could find someone to help us?” Leona asks her.

“I’ve already asked,” Amir protests.

“Keeve?” Leona urges, not wanting to explain what makes her method different.

“I can try,” Kivi replies, uncertain of her own skills. She steps away from the group, as before, trying to seek an ally. Her stride is wider than normal, reminiscent of a wedding party gracefully drifting down the aisle. She periodically alters direction, hoping to catch a scent, for lack of a better term.

“What is she doing?” Amir asks Heath in a whisper.

“Honestly, I don’t really know,” Heath answers him, probably not lying.

It feels like she walks all over town, encountering each one of the 10,000 people who live here. She doesn’t get the sense that any of them would tell them the time, let alone help get them out of the country. Amir talks to a few more people himself, and receives the same cold welcome. They’re starting to think that they really should get themselves out of the area as fast as possible. If they tried to walk to the next town over, it might only take them two days. Of course, water and food is still a problem. If only Birket gave them small samples of Energy water as parting gifts, they would be able to survive just a little bit longer. As it stands, they may die here like a flower in drought.

They don’t end up walking anywhere. They just go back to the beach, and sit to watch the waves come in. Marie suggests that they fish for food, which she surely learned how to do at the master level in the afterlife simulation. Amir informs them that he saw a sign back there, forbidding all shore fishing. Hours later, a fleet of helicopters roar towards them from the horizon. “Those are American,” Amir exclaims.

“We better go,” Leona determines.

Once more, they head for downtown, where they find a bunch of soldiers spread out, trying to take control of the populace. People are scared, but cooperating, and it doesn’t look like things are going to escalate to true violence. A woman who looks in charge spots them coming towards the crowd. She orders a group of her soldiers to escort us over. “Agent Matic?” she asks when they meet her halfway.

“That’s me,” Leona responds reluctantly. She doesn’t want anyone to know that she’s a secret agent, and only partially because she isn’t really.

“Miller Dennard. Why didn’t you call?” she demands to know.

 “We don’t have phones,” Leona explains. “No one would let us borrow theirs.”

She’s fuming, but not at them. She’s staring daggers at all the locals. “Follow me. We’re taking you straight to Frankfurt, where you’ll board your connection, like you were always supposed to.”

Leona nods to the others that they should accept the ride. “What prompted you to come for us?” she asks the Miller.

The Miller puts on her sunglasses. “Orders from high.”

“How high?”

Miller Dennard turns away to head for the helicopters herself. “All the way up!”

Leona sighs, recognizing that while this looks life a gift, it only makes things more comfortable. Every person who knows that they’re special makes their lives that much more complicated. Still, they have to get back home if they have any chance of getting back to their real home, so she runs over, and gets in the aircraft too.

Miller Dennard places her headset on as their launching, and turns towards one of the other helicopters. “Put an A-bomb in that water!” she orders.

Horrified, they watch as an object slides out of the other helicopter, and drops into the Gulf of Aqaba. Stillness until the water shudders and ripples all at once, as if a powerful electrical charge had been sent through it. They fly away.