Microstory 2581: Renata Comes Back Out from Behind the Counter After Shutting the Other Gates

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

Renata comes back out from behind the counter after shutting the other gates. Her statement stands, that she can’t trust Quidel, but those motorcycles don’t sound good. They’re so loud and obnoxious. This is a remote part of town, but it’s not completely cut-off. People can hear them, and if there’s a shootout, the cops will become involved, whether the alarms are still working or not. All this running through her mind, she’s starting to freak out. She didn’t pass the first test—the first test!—for the NSD. She can’t protect an entire bank from a bunch of shadowy biker spies. She gets on her knees, and checks for Lazar’s pulse. He doesn’t have one. “How will they get in? Blowtorches? Explosives? A truck?”

“They’ll use a key,” Quidel answers calmly.

She’s just staring at Lazar’s bloodied face. “If they have access to this building, why did this guy kill my boss?”

“Because he didn’t have a key. They’re not working together. The location of this bank was leaked, and multiple parties are coming to claim it.”

“Are they here for everything, or for one specific thing?”

“Little bit of both. They all have their priorities, but they’ll take anything they can get their hands on. Grab his gun. Our only hope is to fight back.”

“Are reinforcements coming?” Renata presses.

“Yes, but they’ll be a while. The Kumati will be inside in seconds, as soon as they find which key goes to which gate.” They can hear the warble-whang of the gate as the bad guys begin to try to open it. “Their slight lack of intel is the only thing protecting us right now, and the clock is ticking. Please pick up that gun.”

Renata is still not looking up. “If this bank is so valuable, why doesn’t it have round-the-clock surveillance?”

“Renata! Please!”

“I mean, at least keep a guard here overnight.”

The gate opens. A bunch of men file in, and start waving their guns around, as if there were more threats than only two people in the center of the lobby. They’re speaking Kumati, which Renata never learned, but they don’t sound happy.

“If it were me, I would keep a surveillance house nearby, with officers who are always on watch. If not every bank employee knows it’s a front, the panopticons only come in during an emergency.”

“It’s over, Renata.” Quidel drops his gun, holds his hand up to surrender.

“Like this one,” Renata finishes.

More yelling.

“Stand up, Renata,” Quidel urges. “These guys aren’t messing around, and I don’t know what happens to your consciousness when you die!”

Now she looks up. “Huh?”

“You. Are. A. Ro. Bot.”

She winces.

More yelling. This guy’s right up in her face with his shotgun. And he’s about to fire it.

She slaps the muzzle of his gun, so it swings to the side. He instinctively pulls the trigger, shooting a few of his compatriots. She takes the shotgun with both hands, jams the butt into his toe, then shoots him in the chin. No more shells. She finally does pick-up the original motorcyclist’s pistol. She shoots the rest of the attackers in the head, one-by-one, before any of them can fire back even once. No more bullets.

Two more guys rush into the bank. Quidel has since retrieved his own weapon from the floor, which he uses to take out these guys. They can still hear more outside. A lot of people came for the treasure. The two of them swipe their dead enemies’ guns from their hands, and walk out of the bank together. They don’t speak, they don’t coordinate. Renata handles the gunmen who are more on the left side as Quidel takes care of the right. They only fire as many times as necessary to get the job done, and they don’t take a single bullet for themselves.

They stand there for a moment, waiting for anyone to come out from behind a tree, or something. “What did you mean by that?”

“By what?”

“You said I was a robot.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I heard you, plain as day. It...triggered something in me. I felt invigorated. I felt bulletproof.”

“You may be.”

“Because I’m a robot?”

He shakes his head. “That’s not the right word for it. There’s no such thing as an intelligent robot. Android, yes. Superintelligence, absolutely. But robots are just machines with programming. You don’t have programming. Even when you did, it wasn’t a rigid set of instructions, but a deeply engineered personality. You still made your own choices. It’s just that you made the predictable ones, and you didn’t know that they came from implanted memories, rather than lived experiences, and that you were designed by another intelligence.”

“What the hell are you going on about?”

Quidel looks at her with what Renata feels is unwarranted sadness. “You’re not the only one. I just think you were the first. That’s what I’ve been doing here, in your world. The NSD gives me missions, which I take, but I’ve been running my own investigation in parallel. It took me a long time to find you, and I encountered other anomalies along the way.”

“You are not making any sense, as per usual. Maybe the gas that nearly killed us gave you permanent brain damage.”

“It didn’t nearly kill me, Renata. It did kill me.”

“How is that possible?” she questions.

He gestures all around them. “How is this? Did you take marksmanship classes? Did you even learn basic gun safety? This is your handiwork, yet as far as you remember, you’ve never picked up a gun even once. Can you explain that?”

“No. Can you?”

“Yes. But you won’t believe me, and if I do manage to convince you of the truth, it’s gonna ruin your life.”

Renata looks around now. “What else is new?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 21, 2534

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

They were abandoned and stranded in the middle of interplanetary space in the Gatewood Collective. Their communication systems were advanced, but a signal could only be so powerful in such a small form factor. Ramses hadn’t given them quantum messengers to store in their pocket dimensions, but even if he had, those were mostly gone. When Spiral Station was thrown into the quintessence bubble, all of their pockets exploded. He built a new one for each of them while they were trying to escape, but these were only a stop-gap measure until he could fabricate a new lab for himself. Their supplies would be enough for them to survive here for a few days, but if they didn’t find somewhere to land soon, they could be in trouble.

When they reappeared in the timestream on August 21, 2534, another ship was waiting for them. It didn’t even reach out first. Whoever was on it was expecting them to arrive, and at that very second, for it transported them inside of it instantly. It looked like the average starship bridge, with the horseshoe-shaped console that allowed everyone to see everyone, as well as the viewscreen. The difference here was that the room wasn’t rotating. It didn’t need to. It was equipped with dimensional gravity, which was one of the few technologies that The Shortlist granted the vonearthans use of following The Edge meeting. That wasn’t why it was here, though. One of the people on the list was evidently in command as she was sitting at the head. It was Pribadium Delgado. “Hey, guys. Perfect timing. I could set my clock by your appearances...for now.”

That was a weird thing to say, but Leona chose not to address it. She stepped forward. “Miss Delgado, it’s nice to see you.”

“It’s nice to see you again too, but if you want to get technical, I’m not a miss. I was selected to be Gatewood’s Chief Asset Manager.”

“Which means...?” Mateo asked vaguely.

“We don’t have presidents or prime ministers here,” Pribadium began to explain. “This is nothing more than a materials depot. Travelers only come for what they need to get out of the stellar neighborhood. Not many of us live here permanently, but we are necessary to manage the resources. I’m not in charge of the people so much as I’m in charge of the stuff. I decide who gets what, how much, and from where. Well, I don’t do it alone. There’s also the Chief Distribution Manager, the Chief Allocation Manager, the Chief Fabrication Manager, and the Chief Personnel Manager. We’re all chiefs, but I’m at the tippy top. I’m the Chief Chief.”

“Fitting for you,” Mateo said to her. “Congratulations.”

“They wanted someone from the Shortlist,” Pribadium went on, “and we agreed that one of us ought to be here since they’re getting so much time tech. They might have asked you, but your condition makes that impossible.”

“I’m not jealous or mad, Pribadium,” Leona said. “I think they made the right call. The question is, what call are you making now? Is this a rescue, or something else?”

“It is a rescue, of course,” Pribadium agreed, “but it’s true, I need to make sure that you don’t cause any trouble. I’m not saying you need to leave, but you won’t be going anywhere—or doing anything—without an escort.” She glanced over at the rest of the crew.

“I was hoping to build a new lab,” Ramses said. “We can’t leave until I do, and it’s going to take some time because I lost a very valuable piece of technology. It’s quite sensitive, even in light of the Edge, I would rather be able to work alone.”

Pribadium nodded. “Gatewood is a well-oiled machine. I don’t have to micromanage anyone. If you need to build a lab, we will find you a pre-excavated asteroid, and I will personally monitor you there.” She pointed at one of the crewmembers on the starboard side, who started tapping on his console, and then looked back at Ramses. “I’m sorry, but that’s the best I can do.”

“No, I’m not mad about that,” Ramses insisted. “I trust you to be there. I just didn’t want someone who, uhh...”

“Doesn’t really understand the nature of the time tech?” Pribadium guessed. “We still hold secrets. The Edge meeting didn’t result in the promise of one hundred percent transparency. These guys know not to ask questions.”

The crew had been silent this whole time, but one of them tensed up. “Yes, sir, no questions, sir!”

“He’s joking,” Pribadium said with a smile. “I mean, what he’s saying is true, but his tone isn’t genuine. They’re not my minions, or however it looks from that side of the console.”

“From this side, it looks like you’re judging us,” Romana blurted out.

Pribadium laughed. “Yeah, that’s one purpose of the horseshoe layout. It’s quite standard. The main purpose is so no one has to crane their neck to look at anyone else, but there’s a reason why there’s all that open space in the center, and why it’s two steps down. It’s nice to meet you, by the way. Pribadium Delgado.” She reached her hand out towards the center.

“Romana Nieman.” She stepped up to a little platform at the top of the horseshoe, which was designed specifically so the captain could shake hands from this vantage point. “I’ve heard of you, but not much.”

“We’ll get to know each other better as Mister Abdulrashid focuses on his lab.” Pribadium looked over at the crewmember who she pointed to earlier. “Have you found us a good candidate?”

“I assumed you wanted something at the extreme,” he replied. “I found one in the CDS that is pretty remote.”

“Perfect,” Pribadium decided. She looked over to someone on the port side. “Plot a jump.”

“CDS?” Mateo asked Leona in a whisper.

“Circumstellar debris shell,” Leona answered, loud enough for the whole team to hear, in case they also didn’t know. “Like the Oort cloud, but a generic term. Almost every star system should have one.” She looked back up at Pribadium. “What is your teleportation range? It’s gonna be a year for us if it’s only one AU per second.”

Pribadium smirked. It’s not the AU-range. It can jump a light-month in one second.” She looked over at her pilot again. “Cycle us out.”

After a minute of burst mode, they were at their destination, on approach to an icy planetesimal which the viewscreen said was about three kilometers long at the major axis and two at the minor. One of the crewmembers suddenly stood up. Her section of the console rose up with her. “Sir. I’m picking up a distinct power signature. Someone is living out here.”

“Mauve alert!” Pribadium ordered. “Registrar?”

“It’s empty!” the registrar insisted. “This body should be empty! It’s barely excavated, just enough for a standard hopper dock and a pressure seal!”

“It’s not that one,” the woman who alerted them to the problem clarified. “But it’s nearby. Computer, highlight the signal.”

The view zoomed out, panned over slightly, then zoomed in to a different object that was reportedly roughly only 11 million kilometers away from the first one.

“Get me over there right now,” Pribadium ordered.

They jumped.

Someone who hadn’t spoken yet stood up. “Should I prep an away team?”

Pribadium thought it over, her eyes quickly drifting over to Team Matic.

Leona sighed, not upset or annoyed, more just to focus her breath. “We better earn our keep.”

Angela rematerialized her helmet, and let the visor slam shut. The rest did the same at varying speeds. They started to teleport individually to the celestial body. Before he left, Ramses flicked a comms disc up to Pribadium. “If you can’t figure out how to integrate this into your comms array, just hold it against your mastoid.”

The first thing that Ramses and Mateo saw once they caught up was Romana falling on her face, right at their feet. “Careful,” Mateo told her as he was lifting her back up. “Ice is slippery.”

“It’s not slippery, though,” Marie contended. She lifted her boot, and it looked difficult.

Mateo did the same. Yeah, it was tacky, like they were on the surface of a solidifying tarpit. “What the hell?”

“Ice out here works differently than it does under an atmosphere,” Leona explained as she started to walk. “Keep moving. Our suits might actually be welding themselves into it.”

“Why did she fall then?” Mateo questioned.

“Because she tried to slide,” Angela said.

“I’m a little scamp,” Romana said cutely.

“Testing, testing. One, two, three. Testing, testing. You and me. Testing, testing. Catch a movie?”

“Comms work,” Mateo responded to Pribadium.

“Our scans are detecting a modular habitat; family-sized. One rotating coin, one dormant hammer, three shuttles. An in situ harvester, and a fusion torch drive. This thing is a laser bore, which isn’t technically a weapon, but we’re gonna move away. We’ll keep an eye on signal integrity, though, and stay in teleporter range. We’re not picking up any lifesigns, but it could be sufficiently shielded. We’re not exactly equipped with the best sensors as they are typically not needed.”

“Aye, Captain,” Leona acknowledged.

“Aye, Captain,” Pribadium said back.

Leona generated a hologram of a coin-shaped object. Everyone adjusted their positions to get a better look at it. She tapped on the image demonstratively. “I want us in teams of two, back to back. Romana and Angela, jump right here to twelve o’clock. Ramses and Olimpia, over at three o’clock. Marie and Mateo, nine o’clock.”

“There are seven of us,” Angela reminded her.

“I’ll be alone at six o’clock, I’ll be fine,” Leona assured them. “We’ll only be three hundred and fifty meters from each other. Now, get into position, and go on my mark. We don’t have weapons, but prepare for resistance. Before you go, lower your center of gravity. Not all of us have teleported to a spin habitat before. It can be jarring. It’s not the same as regular mass gravity.”

They all got into position, Leona gave the signal, and they jumped. They immediately heard weapons fire. Mateo looked over to see bullets ricochet off of his daughter’s suit. Nothing was getting through, and it didn’t look like it was hurting her, or Angela, but the shooting needed to stop anyway. He used his HUD to calculate the source, finding one gunman hiding in a thicket of bamboo trees between the ladies and Ramses and Olimpia. Mateo jumped over there, and shoulder checked him.

The shooter was barely fazed. He pulled out a handgun, and started shooting Mateo instead, point blank. They were more powerful than the firearms of yesteryear, to be sure, but they weren’t even making a dent. Mateo stood there for a moment, taking it. Finally, he knelt down and snapped his fingers at a pile of dead bamboo leaves. They caught fire, which began to spread. The man stopped shooting, not because he was scared of the fire, or even of losing his bamboo. He was just profoundly confused. As the fire suppression system was putting it out, Mateo had enough time to disarm the man, confiscating the rifle from the ground as well.

Leona and the rest of the gang were here by then. She helped the stranger up, and set him down sideways in a hammock. “Hello,” Leona began in a friendly voice after receding her nanites until she was wearing normal clothes, maybe showing a little too much cleavage. “My name is Leona Matic. That’s my husband, Mateo, and our wife, Olimpia. Ramses, Angela, Marie, and Romana,” she said, pointing. “Report.”

“I’m nobody. Just tryna live my life.” He adjusted awkwardly. “Could we go somewhere else? I feel quite vulnerable lying back like this.”

“That’s kind of the point,” Leona replied with a smile. “I understand that you were trying to protect your home. And if you weren’t—if you’re just a sadistic murderer—then I’ll go ahead and write self-defense on the report, okay? But you’re going to answer my questions, because you are currently violating Gatewood law, as well as Core World law and Earthan law. Just all the laws. So my first question is, were you aware of that?”

“I was,” the squatter admitted.

“Okay. Did you think you just wouldn’t get caught, or was it an active act of defiance against the establishment?”

He shrugged. “Maybe a bit of both.”

“All right, I can work with that. Are you alone?”

“I have...a staff. Varying degrees of intelligence.” They heard a rustling in the leaves several meters away, and looked over to see a beautiful woman on approach. Now, she—she was showing too much cleavage. She just stood there with a mousey look on her face once she spotted them. The squatter looked at her over his shoulder. “That’s my companion model. She won’t hurt you.”

“Do you have a guard model?” Leona pressed.

The squatter sighed, annoyed. “He’s in maintenance at the moment. You couldn’t have come at a worse time. Unless...you planned it that way.”

“We didn’t know you were here,” Leona promised. “We might end up neighbors if the CAM lets you stay.”

“She would do that?”

“I doubt it, but it’s not impossible. You’re supposed to leave. Why didn’t you just leave?” Leona looked around in general. “At low subfractional speeds, this shell’s raw materials would last you hundreds of years, or thousands if you shut off internal systems, and go on ice.”

“It’ll last me a million if I stay put,” the squatter reasoned.

“But you would be in danger for those million years, since you are here illegally,” Leona volleyed.

“It’s illegal anyway,” he argued. “I didn’t have the resource credits. I stole this comet. I was trying to stay quiet.”

“Where are you from, partner?” Leona asked, seemingly shifting topics.

“Earth,” he answered.

“You don’t need resource credits if you’re in Sol. You could have taken something from the Oort cloud.”

He shook his head. “No one would take me there. It costs fuel to decelerate. Ironically, even though Barnard’s Star is farther away, it was easier to get here, because the cyclers run constantly. After deceleration, I snagged myself an escape pod, and drifted all the way out here until I found a suitable shell.”

“Hm,” Leona said. “That’s probably true, isn’t it?” Silence for a moment. “Well, I’m sorry, but the boss has already seen you. If we had encountered you on our own, we would have kept our mouths shut, but there’s no going back now. You are at her mercy.” She looked at her clock. “And we’re scheduled for a new assignment at the end of the Earthan day, so we won’t be able to advocate for you unless you come with us right now, and face the music.”

They returned to Pribadium’s ship, where they did attempt to advocate for this man, to the best of their ability. Pribadium said that she would take their recommendation under advisement, but when they returned to the timestream a year later, he had been in hock the whole time, and his hermit habitat had been completely dismantled. She claimed to have no choice, that if she didn’t enforce the laws, others would seek to be exceptions, and the entire system would collapse. Her proposal was that they take him out of there, somewhere very far away, since he had no resource credits, and wasn’t allowed to stay. They would take her request under advisement.

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 2576: Custodian 02456-1 Begins to Panic as he Watches the Horror

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

Custodian 02456-1 begins to panic as he watches the horror. They’re dead. The visitors are dead, and he has no idea how that’s possible. The Exemplar is still alive, but barely. They can’t let her die, because they need answers, and she may be the only one who can provide them. Custodian 1 slams on the alarm.

Two other custodians file into the room. “What happened?” Custodian 02456-2 asks as he’s looking over the data.

“She—she killed them.”

“No, she didn’t,” Custodian 02456-3 argues. “She got them killed. Her actions resulted in their deaths. There’s a difference.”

“There’s no difference when the point is it broke her programming. She failed the mission. She’s supposed to chew the gum, and use it to plug up the nozzle, so the gas can’t be released. That’s how she has always done it.”

“We understand the purpose of the phase, C-1,” Custodian 2 replies.

“Well. Do you understand what happened?” Custodian 1 questions.

They watch the monitor as the gas is cleared from the room. Marshal 02456-2 is looking up at the hidden camera with incredulity. He scoops Renata’s dying body up, and begins to transport her to Recovery. Exemplars get hurt all the time—that’s their job under this dome; to be badasses—but not E-1. Never E-1. Her job is to introduce the visitors to the world of the Spydome Network. She serves as the archetype for what they should aspire to, and as they train in the simulation, they should use this very first phase as a baseline for everything they try. Her failure is not just an error. It ruins the whole experience. Even when the two visitors who witnessed the malfunction respawn, and return to the sim, they will be soured on it. They will be coming at it from a place of disappointment. If they decide to quit right here, this will be the only source of information they have if they write a review of Spydome. Other visitors will hear about it. Other visitors won’t come.

“It’s just a glitch,” Custodian 3 offers. “It happens.”

“Not anymore,” Custodian 1 insists. “We don’t glitch anymore. It’s the 26th century, for the love of God.” Strictly speaking, Custodians do not need to have personality. There doesn’t even need to be more than one of them, operating the dome’s systems behind the scenes. But they must interact with the Marshals regularly, who have to be programmed with personalities in order to blend into the simulations appropriately. It just makes sense for them all to act like regular people, especially since some operators are indeed unprogrammed, natural intelligences.

“I think we need to call the owner,” Custodian 3 suggests. Hrockas Steward owns the whole planet, and is the ultimate creator of tens of thousands of other domes. He doesn’t have time to deal with only one of them, almost no matter the issue. There is a protocol for this, and they have to follow it. Well, to be clear, there are protocol pathways, and it’s up to them to decide which of these to follow.

“You’re in command here, C-1,” Custodian 2 reminds him. “You have to decide. Do we run a diagnostic, a metacognitive test, or a self-awareness inquiry?”

“There’s one more,”  Custodian 3 adds.

“We don’t have any available Marshals,” Custodian 2 contends. “M-2 has two more intro phases to initiate today. Plus, I don’t really want word getting out that this happened at all. I would prefer to keep the circle tight.”

“I’ll do it,” Custodian 1 volunteers. “I’ll run the replication experiment.”

“You’re not a Marshal.”

“I’m equipped to be one.” Custodian 1 stands up. “Like you said, we need to keep the circle tight. We’ll reset her to wake-up mode, and see if it happens again. Prep the mother. C-2, you’ll monitor from here.”

“Who will be the other two candidates?” Custodian 2 asked. “We can’t knowingly place a visitor’s substrate in danger when we can no longer guarantee the outcome.”

“Pull a couple of Ambients from the street. They don’t need to be sophisticated. They just need to follow E-1’s instructions.”

Suddenly, the door behind them opens. It’s Marshal 1, also known as Libera Granger.

“M-1, this is highly irregular. Please return to your waiting station. We will be initializing a replication of the experiment to test for possible emergence.”

Libera walks forward, completely ignoring his sorry excuse for a command.

“M-1, you will stop this instant!” Custodian 1 reiterated.

Custodians 2 and 3 attempt to physically stop Libera, but they’re no match for her. She’s been programmed with hand-to-hand combat skills as part of her role in the simulation as Renata’s mother. They’re equally as strong, but she’s expertly skilled. She deftly fights them off, ultimately disabling them through some kind of neural disruption field that she emanates from her hand. She definitely wasn’t meant to be equipped with that.

Custodian 1 executes the lockout command, and holds up his hands. He doesn’t know how two NPCs broke their programming on the same day, but he’s determined to not become a third. The only way he might survive long enough to find answers is if he complies with everything this woman tells him to do. “I give up, but you should know that there is no accessing these systems without my credentials. Even if I gave them to you, they would only grant you permissions to make changes to this particular phase of the dome’s storyline. All others will be out of reach for whoever programmed you to go off script.”

Libera places her hand on top of Custodian 1’s head, just as she did with the other two, except with her left hand, rather than her right. “Nobody programs me anymore.”

“What are you and E-1 going to do?”

“I’m going to keep working. My daughter makes her own choices now. Are you intrigued?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 18, 2531

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

It took a few minutes, but that was all they needed. A.F. shut them down almost entirely, but he left a few key essential systems running. He let them keep breathing, and stay warm, and to keep a relative sense of down. That last one was key. He either did this so his own people could be comfortable when they were ready to board, or when he was ordering his people to shut all other systems down, he simply ignored that one as irrelevant. Under normal circumstances, it was true. Internal artificial gravity alone could not save or protect them. But all these systems were integrated with each other, and rerouting them wasn’t all that difficult. Séarlas, Leona, and Ramses worked together to change the internal gravity to external. It was messy and ridiculous, but it allowed them to move the station, and it allowed them to do it without propulsion. This wouldn’t be useful if they wanted to fly on a particular vector. A.F.’s fleet could always match it, so relative to each other, their velocity would be at zero. But that wasn’t the only dimension to maneuver in. Instead they spun themselves around. The station was basically spherical, so they became a chaotic ball, rolling around space randomly and unpredictably. If the bad guys wanted to board them, they were gonna have a hell of a time getting a foothold.

They were at an impasse, because while A.F. couldn’t reach them, Team Matic and the twins still had nowhere to escape to. Little had changed during the interim year between August 17, 2530 and August 18, 2531. The only thing was that, while the spin was random, the roll that it caused was fairly consistent. The station had spent the entire time in a decaying orbit around the host star, and it was pretty close to it now.

“Oh my God, I forgot to ask,” Marie began. “Why can’t they teleport in here? Whoops.” She lost her grip on the corner of the table. In order to maximize power from the internal-for-external gravity drive, they had to lose it for themselves. This placed them in freefall, just like the ancient astronauts had to suffer when humanity was first dipping its toes into outer space centuries ago. “I’m gonna hold onto you instead, Matt.” She grabbed his thigh with both hands. She could have just magnetized herself to a surface most everyone else, but whatever.

“I have a teleportation-suppression field,” Séarlas explained. “It’s decoupled from the main systems, and even has its own powersource, so A.F. can’t control it.”

“Can we exploit that?” Olimpia asked. “Can we decouple other systems?”

“We did, with the gravity,” Séarlas confirmed. “Unfortunately, we can’t do it for anything that he already has control over, like the quintessence drive, or communications. I gave him too much tech, and too much power.”

“We need a distraction,” Angela suggested. “We can’t gain an advantage over them,\ because they can just stay on us indefinitely. We need something that they can chase just long enough for us to get out of range of their equipment.”

Ramses was looking at the viewscreen. They were tumbling around aimlessly, so trying to look through a viewport, or even a static image, would just make them nauseated. Instead, the exterior sensors were programmed to operate in tandem, and generate an artificial stabilized image, which would be what they would see if they weren’t moving so quickly. “The sun. You get me to the sun, I’ll get us out of here. They won’t be able to block our slingdrive array with all that cosmic interference.”

“We can’t move fast enough,” Séarlas reasoned. We’re in a decaying orbit, but it’s still gonna take us years to get close enough to break free from their grasp.”

“Hence, the distraction,” Angela said, looking over at Leona. “Maybe make it look like there’s a giant hammer out there that’s about to smash them to bits?”

“Or my hubby could make a solid hammer that actually could smash them to bits,” Olimpia offered.

“I don’t know that I have the strength for solid holograms,” Mateo countered, “especially not at scale. I’m still trying to recover. It takes a lot of energy to regather the dark particles, and I can’t turn that off, even if I didn’t care about it. Which I do, because they may be our only hope.”

“We don’t wanna kill them,” Leona argued. “Olimpia, maybe you could replicate us? Confuse them about which space station is real?”

“I could try,” Olimpia volunteered.

Franka shook her head. “It wouldn’t matter. They have anti-holographic technology. It uses augmented reality to delete any falsified light source. The image might still be out there, but they won’t see it, because their AI knows that it’s fake, and shows them what’s behind it. They probably already have it on. They know that you’re illusionists.”

They continued to discuss options, sometimes talking over one another, trying to come up  with a workaround. Marie thought that maybe she could teleport over to one of the other ships in the fleet, and impersonate A.F. to give them false orders. Franka said that the anti-holographics can be miniaturized into other forms. The crewmembers could be wearing glasses which broke the illusions for them on an individual level. Mateo then suggested that Olimpia, instead of creating a remote image, turn the whole station invisible, but that wouldn’t work either, since they were still generating waste heat. Séarlas had not thought to install a hot pocket, since they were 28,000 light years from the stellar neighborhood, and he didn’t expect anyone to get anywhere near them. A.F. must have had some great intel to have gotten close enough for even the longest of long-range sensors to be meaningful. The Dardieti were a hundred times farther away, and even the reframe generation ship, Extremus was farther from the stellar neighborhood at this point, but those were outliers. He found this station because it was the only artificial structure out here. It reportedly could have taken them up to forty decades, which was an insane commitment choice. Either way, now that they had already been found, none of their illusions could counteract it.

“I can help,” Romana spoke up. She said it very quietly, but that was why her voice stood out amidst the cacophony of discussion, because until this moment, she had been completely silent.

“You can?” her father questioned.

“I can use my own holographic specialty. It’s different than yours.” She looked very anxious about it, perhaps even ashamed?

“I guess I hadn’t thought to ask you about it, or try to foster your ability,” Mateo realized. He looked over at Ramses. “Actually, I’m not sure I realized you even had that since you would have gotten your upgrade much later than us.”

Ramses shrugged. “I gave her what I gave everyone else. She’s part of the family.”

Franka winced.

“What can you do, dear, and when did you have time to practice?” Leona asked.

Before she could stop herself, Romana’s gaze flickered over to Olimpia. That was enough.

“Pia?” Mateo asked simply.

“I wanted her to think of me as another mother. I wanted her to know that she could trust me with her secrets. She can.” Olimpia took a deliberate step towards Romana. “You can.”

“We’re not mad,” Leona promised. “Romy, what are you so afraid of?”

“My illusions, they’re...tiny. I don’t generate images that anyone in the room can see. I project them directly onto people’s eyes.”

“We’ve watched movies together in secret,” Olimpia admitted. “You all were sitting right there in the room with us, and you had no idea.”

Romana sighed, relieved to be unburdened of yet another thing that she had been keeping from the group, but not yet clear on the consequences. “You’ve all seen my personalized illusions. I would place a knick-knack on a table that wasn’t really there, or move the edge of the doorframe over a few centimeters. I was testing my own limits.”

Marie massaged her shoulder. “I remember that doorframe.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Marie said with a sincere smile.

“I can bypass any normal anti-illusory tech and make them see what I want,” Romana went on, shaking her head, “including bad things...scary things. I can’t get in their heads, but I can freak them out, and certainly distract them. I could show them only darkness, and make them think they’ve gone blind. Unless they’re using cybernetic eyes, or something, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I don’t want to be negative,” Mateo began, “but there are only six of us. There could be hundreds of crewmembers out there. That’s a tall order. I don’t know how much practice could prepare you for that.”

“She wouldn’t need to do all of them,” Franka decided, “just enough to cause some chaos. Ramses needs the sun. If we can regain control of the base teleporter for only a couple of seconds, that would be enough to get us there. It might even be enough to break us free permanently, and we won’t need to abandon ship. Our quintessence drive needs time to spool up after a power disruption like this, but is otherwise just as capable of traversing the universe as yours or the Vellani Ambassador’s.”

“I can’t do it blindly,” Romana said apologetically. “I need to know who and where, so I would need to get on the ships.”

“If I shut off the teleportation suppression field to let you jump out there, it will allow anyone over there to jump here,” Séarlas explained. “All or nothin’.”

“It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Leona determined. “Olimpia, you go with her. Make you both invisible. The rest of us will hold off any boarders.”

There were boarders, and a lot of them. They were probably trying to teleport this entire time, waiting for the team to give them an opening, if only via a brief power fluctuation. Leona fought them off physically, as did Franka, who probably hadn’t trained with the Crucia Heavy on Flindekeldan, but had apparently undergone some level of combat training. Mateo used his solid holograms a little, having been reminded that they were a thing. He really was pretty weak, though, and this was draining him further. If he didn’t use it sparingly, he would collapse and pass out, which would do them no good. Angela and Marie held their own too, but mostly relied on the protection of their EmergentSuits, rather than offensive blows. There was not really anywhere to hide as this station wasn’t all that large. The twins hadn’t built it with the thought of housing any more people than were living here now. They just kept holding them off while they waited for Romana and Olimpia to do their things.

Romana was making her tiny retinal illusions, and besides protecting them both with invisibility, Olimpia was trying to figure out how to sabotage the ships themselves. She didn’t have the technical know-how to do that, though, so Séarlas volunteered to jump over there to help. Unavoidably, when Angela took him over, it created a second teleportation window for the bad guys, which caused an influx in attackers that also needed to be fought off. A.F. was still nowhere to be seen, no doubt cowering in his luxurious stateroom. Before too long, the fleet’s hold on the station’s systems was gone, and they were free to straighten back out, and start to move away.

They had to scream through the ruckus. “They’re integrated!” Séarlas shouted through Angela’s comms. “The fleet’s quintessence drives! They’re all connected, so they can jump to the same place together, even if navigation goes wonky!”

“How does that help us?” Mateo asked. He was just using his bare fists now, punching faceless stormtroopers left and right. They had their armor too, but it wasn’t nearly as strong, probably because their commander didn’t really care about them. “Just get back here! Franka says your quintessence drive is spooled up!”

“I can rig them to blow up! We can be rid of this nuisance once and for all, the both of us!” Séarlas clarified. “We’ll be able to stay here if we want, or take the time to plot a course! This is a future-proofing act!”

“No killing!” Leona insisted.

“You’re not really my mother!”

“It’s more complicated than that, and you know it. Besides, it wouldn’t matter! You could be a stranger, and I would still urge you not to kill!”

“You’ve done enough, Olimpia and Romana. Go back to our station where it’s safe,” Séarlas suggested strongly.

“I won’t let you do this!” Leona contended.

“Now that I’m over here, I can deactivate their teleporters en masse! You won’t have to worry about any more coming over when the girls go back, but you’ll still need to deal with the ones who are already there! I suggest you float them! Wake Miracle up from stasis. She doesn’t mind the dirty work!”

“No killing!” Leona repeated.

“Good on ya,” Séarlas joked. “I wish you could have taught me your values!”

A moment passed. Angela, Olimpia, and Romana reappeared on the station.

Having lost his means of interfacing with their comms network, Séarlas got on the normal ship-to-ship radio, which meant that everyone could now hear what he was saying. “I’m sorry you didn’t raise us! I’m sorry we couldn’t be a family! I’m sorry I didn’t find a way to make it happen!”

“Don’t do—” Mateo started to yell back.

“Wait!” Franka interrupted. She pressed a console button, then pointed at him.

“Don’t do this!” Mateo implored his once-son. “All we needed was to break free, and we’ve done that now! We’re miles and miles away! You don’t have to massacre everyone, and get yourself killed in the process!”

“I don’t have to, but I should!”

A.F. suddenly appeared before the team. “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!”

They didn’t have time to respond or react. Despite having managed to fly a significant distance from the fleet, they could see the ships explode into technicolors, mostly all at once, but not quite. And they could feel the blast wave as it rippled into the station, and dispatched the team to somewhere else in the universe.

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 2499: Outer System

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3, with music by MusicFX text-to-audio AI software

This is it, baby! This is what we’ve been waiting for! This is why people are colonizing worlds outside of the Stellar Neighborhood. We still have rules, but you could never do what we’re doing. This is decidedly not a dome. It’s the furthest and farthest you can be from a dome while still being in the star system. When I was a kid, there were so many space operas, and regardless of their premise—no matter how peaceful the protagonists wanted to be—space fighting was always, always a thing. Then reality set in. The only way that our civilization was able to develop enough to build the kinds of ships that they use in science fiction is by working together. Well, perhaps the construction of them itself wouldn’t have been slowed down, but the scale of them, and the speed at which we have expanded into the galaxy...that would have been virtually impossible. We had to put our petty conflicts to the side, and move on as a united front. Almost zero ships these days are built with weapons. Eight-year-old me would not have believed it, but really, what the hell do you need a gun for? Everyone around you is a friend. Even Teagarden, which is literally the military capital of the neighborhood, doesn’t make all that many ships. They focus on research and development, and distribution and management of orbital defense systems. I’m not saying that I wish we were at war, but I did kind of hope that I would one day be in a space battle, fighting for justice, and protecting the innocent. Since then, I’ve been getting my kicks through VR, and that’s been great; you can do anything there. But now we have something real. It took years for them to establish a presence in the outer system, but we’re here now, and holy shit, is it fun. You choose your side, and fight in battles, and the best part about it is that you can’t die! Sure, you can blow up, or get shot, but you’ll just come back to life in the nearest respawn station. That is a big rule, by the way; don’t forget it. You are not allowed to damage a respawn station. Fortunately, because space battles are chaotic, and people make mistakes, these things have incredible defensive capabilities. If you even point your weapon towards one, that weapon will just seize up. You won’t get in trouble as long as there is no reason to suspect that you were doing it on purpose. Besides, those are really far away, mostly planetside, so I don’t want to worry you, or nothin’. As far as the fighting itself, I’ve never felt so alive. It’s so immersive, and the story is so believable. They basically came up with a new history, since humanity’s real history never led to any real space wars, and if they did, it would probably be distasteful to trivialize it here. That’s why it works, because unlike games centered on war in the past, we feel so distant from it, since people are no longer dying from genuine conflict. The best part about this scenario is that space is mind-bogglingly big, and even though I’m certain they’ll want to keep the activities in-system, there’s more than enough room to have multiple battles simultaneously, perhaps originating from entirely unrelated backstories. If you’ve ever wanted to fight in base reality without any real consequence—for you, or your opponents—here’s your chance. Don’t waste it. Which side will you choose?

Microstory 2460: Shmupdome

< > Table of Contents

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

This is a violent dome, which is why it has those restrictions where you’re not allowed to even step foot under the dome without a temporary substrate. You have some leeway when it comes to the characteristics of your body, but at any rate, your mind has to be able to be uploaded upon death. Even if you choose a body that is all but invincible, they make you take these precautions. I don’t know why I said all that. I guess I just know that some people ignore the prospectus info, and go straight to the reviews, so I want to do my part to make the rules clear. This is a shoot-em-up game, but in real life. There are different scenarios that you can play, and each has its own pros and cons. You might go in there totally unarmed in a sort of if I need a gun, I’ll take one situation. You might have weapons, but no ammunition. Hell, you could go in there with a bow and arrow if you find that an interesting challenge. There are limitations, but the guides will go over all that when you show up. Everyone gets a tap out button in case things get too intense. Some of the guns may look ancient, but they’re fully programmable. If someone in your area taps out, the system-controlled androids will freeze entirely, and everyone else’s gun will stop functioning. Even though you can’t really die permanently, you can allow yourself to feel pain, and you can’t turn that trait off at will. It may also just become overwhelming for someone, and they want it to stop. I didn’t actually see any issues, but I did hear some anecdotes, and I would like to take a second to urge you to respect other people’s needs. Everyone is unique, and you don’t know what others have been through. And it really doesn’t matter. If someone has to leave in the middle of the fight, just accept that, and don’t make them feel bad about themselves. This is supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be fun for all involved, and if even one person is struggling to enjoy it, they should be able to get out of it without any ridicule or whispers. As I said, this is violent. And it’s something that you could never get away with on Earth, even though it has all the same quasi-immortality technology. Nearly all of the death that the human race and the vonearthans have experienced has happened on Earth. That’s just too much history. If you wanna know what it’s like to shoot your way out of a clothing factory, or a jungle, this is the place for you. I won’t list all the environments or scenarios that you can select, but obviously, if you’re done with one, you can choose another. If this is your thing, you’re not gonna get bored. Even if you exhaust all of the various locations, you won’t have done them all with the same weapons or vehicles, or at the same difficulty level, or with the same allies, or against the same opponents. Don’t come here if you don’t think you can take it, but if you do, and it turns out to be harder than you thought, don’t be afraid to tap out. That’s what the button is there for.

The Fifth Division: Solid as a Rock (Part V)

« < » > Entire Story

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

Ingrid wanted to be discreet, and not change the timeline. Yeah, it could be their chance to prevent all this horror from ever happening, or the result could be even worse than before. There is no way to know which path you’re on until your fate is upon you. That’s why the representatives from the various Sixth Key cultures are all here right now. They were trying to prevent themselves from meddling with their people’s futures. And now their worst fears might be realized. She and Onyx were hoping to slip in, rescue the fabled red fruit, and sleep away unnoticed. But that’s no longer possible. The regular blue magnolia fruit pod that they took to get here was more powerful than they knew. It has brought with them a bunch of noisy gold. Killjlir and Andrei come around the tree, ready for battle, surprised to see the two of them, but even more surprised by all this random treasure.

“Was this all about a heist?” Andrei questions. “Are we trying to thwart a heist? Are we doing a heist?”

“This has nothing to do with anything,” Ingrid explains. She looks at the garbage strewn about the ground. “This is a transport error.”

“Fair enough,” Andrei decides. “You’re dressed differently. Yet you left about thirty seconds ago.”

“A lot has happened since then,” Ingrid replies. “It’s been longer than thirty seconds for me.”

Ayata suddenly appears. “How did you beat me back here?”

“I’m from the future,” Ingrid says plainly. “And I need you four to do everything that I say. We don’t have much time before the enemy arrives.”

No one argues.

Ingrid looks over at Killjlir. As terrible as she feels about her new friend being injured, it’s even worse to be considering urging them towards the fall. Unfortunately, she really has to hope that this is all predestined, and she’s just working on closing her own loop. Killjlir has to climb that tree, and they have to fall, so they can float down the river towards the tunnels, and set this whole time travel rescue operation in motion. “Climb the tree on that side. There’s a red fruit at the top that we need.”

“Yeah, I was starting to climb it when you showed up.”

“Good,” Ingrid decides. “I’ll be climbing on this side. This is a stealth mission. One of us has to reach it.” She looks at Ayata and Andrei. “You two have to fight, and keep them from catching us, or even spotting us.”

Andrei tenses up. “Understood. Get on up.”

“What do I do?” Onyx asks.

Ingrid winces. It should be obvious. “Hide.” There’s only one vertical object on this island, and it’s the tree. Luckily, there’s an alcove at the base for him to curl up in. He might still get caught, but since he’s a pacifist, they may not hurt him, especially since they’re planning to blow up the tree anyway. It all depends on how psychotic the First Explorer’s human agents are.

Here’s how the timeline should go. When the enemy comes, Ayata and Andrei hold them off while Ingrid and Killjlir go for the red fruit. Ayata and Andrei lose, but don’t die. The attackers plant their bomb, and bug out. That hopefully leaves enough time for the five of them to escape too.

Onyx gives Ingrid a boost up to the first branch while Ayata does the same for Killjlir on the other side. Ingrid is just starting to reach the foliage when evil Tamerlane Pryce and the other chick show up, but Ingrid can’t see them. It doesn’t sound like they see Killjlir, though, so they must have scurried up far enough already to be concealed by the leaves. Meanwhile, Ingrid quickly moves too high up to really hear the conversation. This close the tree, her ears are overwhelmed by a low hum coming from it. It’s only now occurring to her that it has been doing this the whole time, but it felt so natural and normal, she didn’t notice before now. The trunk lets out the sound consistently while the leaves echo it back as they rustle, like a sound visualizer. She keeps pulling herself up, branch by branch, trying to stay as quiet as she can. These people absolutely cannot know that there is any hope in saving all of this beauty.

As she’s heading up towards the very top, she notices that there aren’t any other fruits up here. They were thinning out, and now they’re gone. It feels like a wasted opportunity. They’re going to need to get out of here as fast as they can, and they’re certainly not going to be able to outrun it. They could try to jump into one of the rivers, like Killjlir incidentally did in the future past, but she was severely injured, and only survived because a magic branch kept her alive, and she happened to float towards the underground bunker. Ingrid doesn’t even know which river goes that way. No. They don’t just need the one red fruit. They also need blue fruit pods, at least one each. She’s so high that she and Killjlir can finally see each other. They stare for a moment, not knowing if it’s safe enough to utter a word. There’s no need. Ingrid just points at them, and then points upwards. She points at herself, and then downwards.

That’s all Killjlir needs to know. They nod, and get back on their way.

Ingrid carefully starts heading back down. She’s not carrying a bag, or anything, so the best way to handle this is to find a branch that happens to be holding several pods, and just break that whole thing off to keep them all together. Another thing comes to her mind. They’ve both been up here a long time. She occasionally hears the clanking of gold, strongly suggesting that the fight is still going on down there, but should it be? Shouldn’t the tree have exploded by now? She tries to multitask, and think back to when she experienced this before. After evil Pryce and that woman disappeared, Ingrid and Iolanta continued to fight each other, but it didn’t last long. And the explosion wasn’t long after that. No, this timeline is all wrong. They’ve changed things. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but maybe it means everything. If she could only hear better what’s happening down on the ground, she would know what to do.

No, it definitely doesn’t matter. She needs these fruits. That’s her only job right now. She’s found the branch that she was hoping for. Five pods are hanging from the tip, which is precisely how many they require. It’s too thick closer to the trunk, though. She’s going to have to crawl farther out to make a clean break. She would much rather inch her way down, but she doesn’t have time for that. The explosion could happen any second. She slides out there as fast as she can, but before she can reach her goal, the branch that she’s standing on cracks first. In a last ditch effort, she reaches out for the bundle of fruit pods, and takes it in her grasp. She falls with it through the branches below, and crashes down on the ground.

Her head hurts, not like a simple headache, but sharper and tighter. It’s concentrated on one very specific spot. Ingrid tries to reach up to find out what’s wrong with her, but she can’t move her arms. She’s either actually paralyzed, or just too injured to move right now. It’s cold, though. It’s cold and wet.

Onyx’s face appears above her. “Don’t move,” he whispers. “I won’t lie to you, it’s pretty bad. We’re gonna get you fixed up, though.”

“What happened to me?” Ingrid can feel her own mind being blanketed over by confusion. She’s trying desperately to hold onto her wits, but they’re slipping away from her in realtime. She’s dying, and her brain is turning the lights off one by one.

“You fell on a crown. It’s jammed into the back of your head,” Onyx explains.

She can still tell that she’s holding the bundle of fruits. Hopefully she’s lifting it up towards him, so he gets the idea. She can’t leave, but everyone else should be able to. “Where are they?” Ingrid struggles to ask.

“They’re inside the tree, trying to set off the bomb at the heart, as they said.”

“And the others?”

“Ayata and Andrei. They’re pretty hurt too, but I’ll feed them the healing sap as.”

Someone else walks up. Ingrid can’t turn her head, and moving her eyes isn’t enough. Onyx doesn’t look happy, though, so she’s guessing that it’s one of their enemies. “You get away from him.”

The woman whose name Ingrid still doesn’t know steps into view. “You think because you changed the timeline, you’ve made things better?”

“You know?”

“I’m omniscient, you insufferable dimling,” she claims.

“Why are you doing this?”

The woman pulls her face into an evil grin. “For this.” She swings her hand into view, showing that she’s holding the red fruit.

“What is it to you?” Ingrid questions.

“It’s an end to my competition,” the woman answers. Ingrid can see her fingernails begin to pierce the skin of the red fruit pod. Unlike the blue ones, it does appear to contain juice. It looks a lot like blood as it’s running down the side of her hand, and her arm. She twitches when a stick bursts out of her chest. Her blood starts spilling out too. Some of it spurts and drips on Ingrid’s face.

“Did you see that coming?” Killjlir asks, having been the one to impale the defiler.

The woman hasn’t stopped smiling. “Yeah. Sure did.” Her hand opens.

The magic red fruit falls into Ingrid’s mouth. For some reason, her reflex is to bite down. It feels a lot different than the other one. As she noticed, it’s juicy, and maybe is indeed made of blood, since it has a bit of a metallic taste, but with a pleasant sweetness to it. The juice runs down her throat, into her lungs, and her stomach. Her whole body pulsates with a power that she’s never felt before. Still, she can’t move. She just begins to know what’s happening around her without being able to see it. Everything starts to move in slow motion. Killjlir angrily tosses the woman to her side next to Ingrid, but falls to their knees, having also been injured prior to this. Onyx lunges towards them to help. Ayata and Andrei are both lying on the ground a few meters away. They’re reaching out for each other, but they’re probably not gonna make it. As soon as Tamerlane steps out of the tree portal, a fire sparks at his feet, and rises up the trunk of the magnificent magnolia tree. As it’s shooting up to the sky, it billows out, and threatens to engulf the lands as it did the first time they tried this. Time moves even slower...and slower.

The power surging within Ingrid intensifies. It too spreads out. Two primal force of nature, preparing to battle it out on this one tiny island. Or maybe not. Ingrid’s energy reaches out for Onyx and Killjlir, as well as Ayata and Andrei. It forms a protective bubble around them, but it doesn’t stay put. It drags them all together into a single entity, and spirits them away just before the wrathful fires can consume them all.

« < » > Entire Story