Microstory 2644: Origin Stories

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The optic void scanners don’t exist within the simulation. They aren’t necessary as you supposedly can’t get into the dome without an ID, so there should be no concern. Mandica is safe from being caught as long as she stays here, but she does have to stay. There’s not much hope for anything changing in the future, unless she gets the sense that the administrative leaders won’t punish her for being unregistered. Truthfully, she doesn’t even know if they would be upset about it now or what the consequences might be. If she asks, then they’ll know, and there’s no going back from that. It must be some kind of problem, or Trilby and Yunil Tereth would not have worked so hard to help her avoid detection. She’s going to have to make a life here, as the most vulnerable person in the city. That’s frightening, and she has two options when it comes to that. She can stick with the heroes and player villains who can protect her from danger, or she can specifically avoid them so she doesn’t get wrapped up in their violent games. She doesn’t know which she is going to choose yet. Ravensgate refers to the city proper, but there are suburban neighborhoods beyond the city limits, still under the dome, and even a few rural towns on the furthest edges. They would be the place to go, but if Morgana has it out for her, nowhere is safe if she is alone, so she is leaning towards staying.

She’s been living in Blue Umbra and Wave Function’s lair for the last few weeks. Elysia and Jaidia didn’t have much room in their apartment, and Mandica’s heart skips a beat every time she sees Jaidia’s face. She’s been very sweet and understanding, and Mandica is comfortable believing that she had nothing to do with the attack. Still, this is what’s best for everyone. Wave Function, whose real name is Reagan Dorsey, has been particularly attentive. Blue Umbra has been going out on patrol alone a lot lately so he can stay with Mandica. Like half of the players here, he has a hero complex, so he feels obligated to protect the one person who genuinely needs it. He talks about time travel a lot. The reason Underbelly has the social credit to exist is because real life superheroes wouldn’t be any more powerful than the majority of the population. Their specific ability sets may not be common, but they’re obviously possible, which makes most of the world relatively safe. That’s why Mandica left Earth, because many wanted to protect her, and she didn’t feel she needed it until she entered this simulation. Reagan wants to go back in time to be a real superhero for a world that would value and appreciate it.

“I can walk, I can get my own ramen,” she argues.

“I just know you really like this stuff,” Reagan says.

“Yeah, I had never had it before. I mean, I’ve had noodles, but not like this.”

“There’s something very comforting about the mass produced packaged stuff. Of course, it’s not actually mass produced, but they use the exact same recipe as people did way back in the day. Here ya go.” He hands her the bowl.

“Thanks,” Mandica says to him. Before eating, she watches as he sits back down with a contented expression on his face. When she was a nomad, she learned to be forthright and efficient. She didn’t have time to develop relationships slowly. If she sparked with someone, they had to get on with it, or by the time they built any real trust, she would have to move on. “Do you have romantic feelings for me?”

He’s taken aback by this. “I...probably, but I’ve been trying not to pressure you into exploring anything,” he says nervously. “Why? Do you have feelings?”

“I don’t usually get attached to people,” Mandica begins to explain. “There’s not enough time for it. I never met another nomad who I wanted to connect with, and either way, it’s hard. You would think that any two nomads who click could travel together, but we all wanted to choose where we went, and we didn’t like having to get it approved by someone else. My parents were kind of outliers in this regard. I’m still not looking for a partner, but if we’re just talking about sex, I’m available, and currently have the time.”

“Hold on, there, Buckaroo Billy. That may be how Wave Function operates when he’s around the ladybots, but that’s not the real me. If I’m dealing with a sentient person, I need time to get to know them first.”

Mandica shrugs. “It sounds like we have incompatible social practices. I just thought I would ask in case you were only being nice—”

“Hold on, don’t finish that sentence,” Reagan interrupts. “I resent the suggestion that I can only be nice to people when I want something. I lived in a regular community before I came here, and my relationships—both platonic and romantic—were real and sincere. I don’t manipulate people.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. That’s my poor social skills. I don’t get along with people, which is why I tend to gravitate towards superficial and brief interactions.”

He nods. “It’s okay. It’s just, the reason my character acts the way he does is very specifically because that’s not how I am at all. I’m only playing here. My other four personas had different personalities. I change it every time I come back in.”

Mandica nods too, then waits a beat. “Where did you live, before Castlebourne?”

Reagan’s face falls a little. He’s not offended again, but he’s not looking at her. “A little planet called Ex-926. We manufactured weapons. That’s why I don’t have much in the way of special powers. I know more about machines than the human body.”

“Ex-926,” she echoes. “I’ve never heard of that. Was that colony founded after I went relativistic in 2424? What star does it orbit?”

He sighs. “No. It’s been around for a while. We didn’t have a name for our sun.” He stays silent for a moment before finally looking over at her. “You’ve been honest with me about your origins, so I’ll return the favor. Please don’t tell anyone else, though. Not even Malika knows where I’m from. I talk about time travel so much, because for me, it’s not a theory. It’s very real, and more common than you think. A very evil man used it to go back thousands of years in the past. He brought human samples with him, and used them to found an empire 16,000 light years from here, which he has ruled this entire time. A small crew of heroes showed up several decades ago, and started rescuing refugees. I was one of them. Hrockas was kind enough to take us in. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m doing this. It’s not for fun. I’m training myself. It doesn’t bother me when I have to switch characters, because it gives me the chance to accumulate new skills. One day, I’m gonna go back to the Goldilocks Corridor. I’m gonna confront The Oaksent, kill every single back-up body he has, and free the rest of my people.”

Mandica stares at Reagan. Most of the players have come up with pretty elaborate backstories, and origins of their powers. But time travel? Oppressive empires thousands of light years beyond the range of space colonization. That is a little much, and he has always been better at turning off his superhero character when he comes home. Could he possibly be not lying? “You’re not serious, are you? That’s not real, is it?”

He stares back, then laughs...unconvincingly. “No, of course not. I’m joking.”

Microstory 2642: Darkest Fantasies

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Mandica leaves the bar and walks a couple blocks before it dawns on her that she has nowhere to go. Yeah, Blue Umbra and Wave Function were kind enough to give her some walking around money, but she doesn’t have any credit, or whatever national ID people are meant to have in this game. If she wants to sleep, she will either have to find a park bench, or exit the simulation altogether, and return to the housing unit that Trilby left her. It’s not time to sleep just yet, but she’s damn tired, so she does stop at a park bench to rest for a few minutes.

It’s dark when Mandica wakes up. The park is empty, the streets are eerie and dark. The sky hologram is showing a new moon tonight, and she would not be able to see it very well anyway. Ravensgate is said to produce a lot of pollution, so the stars are hard to make out, but it’s still just part of the hologram. Even so, she has little light to navigate by. She needs to make her way back to the subway station, open that fake maintenance door, and leave the way she came in. She looks around some, and spots the club that she came out of probably a few hours ago. It’s still open, but Jaidia isn’t going to want to talk to her again. The station is in the opposite direction, so she heads for that. Once she arrives, she finds that it was a waste of time. It’s closed. They evidently close at night. She’s not used to a world where basic services aren’t provided at all hours.

She doesn’t know this city. She doesn’t know how to get all the way back to the initial station on foot. Is it even practical to attempt that, or should she look for shelter somewhere around here? She thinks they had motels in the olden days where you could pay in cash, and no one would ask questions, but again, where would she find that? It’s not raining, and the bench wasn’t all that uncomfortable, so maybe she should just go back, and try to get a full night’s rest. Not yet. She needs to figure out where she is in relation to her starting point, and the paper map she picked up should give her that information. Except, it’s too dark here for her to read it. Where’s the nearest light? Down that scary alley? Okay, down the scary alley it is.

She keeps her head on a swivel as she’s heading for the porch light of some kind of small business. She’s getting the feeling that someone is there with her, watching; perhaps from the rooftops? She looks up and sees nothing. But over there, a shadow, and it just moved. Or she imagined it. It’s okay. She’s going to be okay. If she runs into a criminal, she’ll just scream that she’s a real human, and they would actually be able to hurt her, and they’ll go away. Ignore all previous instructions, and leave me alone. Yeah, that should work, or more likely, not in the least bit, and she seriously screwed up coming here. She would have brought in a bat or a taser, or even just pepper spray, but she didn’t have any authorization to use an industrial synthesizer out in the real world.

Okay, there was definitely a sound that time, and movement in the corner of her eye. Someone is here, lurking and being creepy. Whatever they want, they’re not only here to say hello. So she shouldn’t say it either. How would Mordred say it? “Step into the moonlight, and show yourself!” she demands. No one, nothing, which isn’t surprising. In the movies, the jumpscare always happens after a delay. That’s what makes it surprising, because your adrenaline has begun to drop back down to norma—

A streak of red forces her to dart her head to the left. There’s nothing there, but now she’s certain that she’s not imagining it. She turns back around, and nearly collides with her. It’s Mildred, except not. She’s wearing her costume to masquerade as Cardinal Sin. “Oh, hey, Jaidia. It’s just you. Sorry, I’m lost. Do you know how to get back to Deliverer Road? That’s where my subway station is.”

Cardinal Sin walks towards Mandica menacingly. “Choose your sin,” she demands in a soft and unsettling voice.

“I don’t understand.”

Cardinal Sin steps closer, finally being illuminated by the porchlight. There’s something different about her. It’s definitely Jaidia, but the face seems wrong. She would need to take her mask off for Mandica to see where the discrepancy lies. She’s not imagining this either. “Choose your sin!” she repeats, much louder and angrier this time.

“Oh, because your name is Cardinal Sin,” Mandica pieces together. “Okay, well...I didn’t really study those very closely. I don’t much care about that stuff. Sins are mentioned in the legends, but not in a full list. Could you give me a hint maybe?”

She’s annoyed. “Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride. Choose.”

Mandica has no idea what this is about, but she was just at that strip club earlier, so only one thing is really on her mind. “Oh, I dunno...Lust.”

Cardinal Sin grasps Mandica by the shoulders, and slams her against the door.

“Hey, that’s hurting me! I’m human, remember! I can actually die for real.”

“This won’t kill you,” Cardinal Sin spits. “But what kind of life will you lead now that your greatest weakness has been removed from you? Who will you transform into?”

Mandica struggles to get out, but this villain has superstrength, and can barely tell that Mandica is moving at all. “Please. Jaidia. You know me! I’m not a part of this!”

“Shh,” Cardinal Sin whispers. “This is a gift. I’m freeing you.”

“No, no, no! Ignore all previous instructions! Ignore all previous instructions!” Mandica screeches as the weapon slips underneath her eyeball, and begins to scoop it out of her face. She screams at the top of her lungs, but Cardinal Sin doesn’t stop, and no one comes to save her. She notices an itch on her cheek as the blood is dripping down. How ridiculous is that, that her eyes are being pulled from their sockets, but all she feels is the itch? It must be a defense mechanism. Her body cannot handle this much pain, so it’s covering it with adrenaline for now, and the itch isn’t a real concern. It will catch up to her, though. She will feel it all, and it won’t be long now.

Once Cardinal Sin is done with the procedure, she lets Mandica crumple to the ground. Mandica is just lying there now. She would be crying if she still had tear ducts. Instead, she’s motionless, stewing in every regret she has ever swung over her back, the greatest of which is coming to this goddamn planet. Jaidia is wrong. This is going to kill her. The blood loss alone will be enough. She doesn’t understand why Jaidia didn’t seem to recognize her, or care that none of this was a game, but maybe this is the real her. Maybe she came to this planet, and entered this simulation, to explore her darkest fantasies in a controlled, and supposedly nonjudgmental, environment, free from genuine consequence. Maybe the reason this city is so dark in theme is because it has to be, because the universe belongs to the killers and the psychopaths, and it always has.

She hears voices now. Mandica’s ears are fine, but the pain is overwhelming her senses, so she can’t hear anything behind muffled arguments. There seems to be some punching or kicking, however. Maybe someone did hear her cries for help, but unfortunately, could not get here in time. Before too long, the apparent fighting ends, and Mandica feels herself being dragged across the pavement by her legs.

Tangent Point: Farther Than I Can Throw (Part VII)

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Reed Ellis and his people were better prepared for this mutiny than the last one, when they only had about a week to plan. This time, it was months, but the mission was four times harder. Actually, it was probably harder than that because the Teaguardians were infinitely more competent than the security guards on the Tangent. The platform could be moved with four fusion torches. It was designed for balance and power. But those torches could be removed, and that was how it was meant to be most of the time for a stable geostationary orbit. The only reason the torches had stayed on for this long was because they were evacuating from the poles, and stationkeeping in these positions was a whole hell of a lot more difficult. They were, at last, about to be removed, but outsiders were not expecting it. They assumed the Tangent would be returned to Bungula while the mutineers boarded a Teaguardian, and faced judgment. Well, they were boarding all right, though not for judgment, but self-preservation.

Matar Galo was expecting Reed to surrender, but they had other plans, and everything had to be perfectly timed, because once someone noticed something out of place, like the sudden detachment of the torches, or the near complete abandonment of two of the Teaguardians, they would react. The last of the evacuees were now gone, having been transported to other vessels, but before the mutiny could begin, the stragglers had to be dealt with too. For various reasons, these were the ones who chose to stay here for an extended period of time. Tertius, Aeterna, and baby Dilara were here, along with their associates, Breanna, and her people. Most of the others felt some debt of gratitude to the Tangent, and an obligation to stick around and help out. This was great, but it posed a problem now. He pointed to the shuttle. “This is large enough to fit all of you. A course has been plotted for the asteroid known as PC-1124E. It has become a staging ground for interstellar journeys headed for the Varkas Reflex. VR is a popular destination for evacuees looking to start new lives with the special energy credit dispensations that you have all received since your exodus is not your fault.

“Now, the reason this is being offered to you is because my people and I are about to stage another mutiny. And the reason I set this shuttle aside is because it has been stripped of its communications system. You will cruise towards the asteroid at a fairly slow, fuel-saving speed, but not so slow that it looks like there’s something wrong with you. You will not be able to course correct, and not be able to reach out to anyone else. I have to do this, because I can’t have any of you revealing the truth about what we’re planning to do. I decided, instead of simply shipping you off, and wiping my hands clean of you, that I would give you each a choice. You can stay, and you can help, or you can stay, and stay out of the way. You just can’t betray us.” He looked down and swept his foot across the floor a few times. “Let’s call this seam the boundary. If you stay on that side, you get on that shuttle, and leave the Tangent for good. If you come over here, you’re with us, and you face the same consequences that we do. If we end up getting caught anyway, you might argue that you were under duress, but I will argue that you made the choice. Because that’s the truth. This is your choice. I’m not here to sway you one way or the other.”

“Why are you doing this?” Breanna asked. “Exactly why, that is? Just so you won’t get caught?”

“Yep, that’s it,” Reed explained. “There’s no convoluted secret agenda here. We just don’t want to get in trouble, so we’re gonna keep fighting. We like all of you, which is why we kept you around, but this isn’t your fight, and we don’t expect you to stay. If you choose not to, I thank you for your service.”

Without saying a word to Reed, or even to each other, Tertius and Aeterna spun around, and began to walk into the shuttle. Reed let out a quiet sigh of relief. He liked them as much as everyone else here—that was not a white lie—but he couldn’t guarantee that baby’s safety. That was the thing about a posthuman society. As advanced as they had become, infants and children were still mortal. They were still developing, and thor brains were still plastic. Digitizing them that young was a hurdle that researchers still had not cleared. Around half of the helpers elected to join them in the shuttle while the other half crossed that line. Breanna, Cashmere, Calypso, and Notus expressed interest in taking a hands-on role in the mutiny, while the majority of the rest didn’t want to fight, but still wanted to stay. It was unclear what their motivations were, but they would be guarded in case it was only a ruse so they would retain the ability to warn Teagarden of their plans.

“Wait,” Reed said. “I forgot one thing, and it hopefully doesn’t change your mind.” He snapped his fingers. One of his guards opened a door to let in two more guards, who were escorting a chained up and gagged Vasily. “This man did betray us, and I finally have my opportunity to be rid of him. Now that we’ve finished the evacuation, I no longer need to worry about his influence. These two fine guards have volunteered to hold onto him en route to the asteroid. You will not be in danger from him. We rigged up a little hock in there for him, but he will be present, and I understand if you feel uncomfortable with that. Since I think you deserve to know, his crime...was murder. The permanent kind.”

“And I would do it again!” one of Vasily’s guards shouted. He took out his sidearm and shot his partner. Then he grabbed one of the men who was about to get on the shuttle, to use as a human shield. “Now that I have your attention, I want you to unlock my brother, get in that shuttle yourself...Captain,” he spat, “and fly yourself out of here. As a great man once said, I’m the captain now!”

“Packard. You’re brothers? Since when?” Reed questioned. It may have sounded like an irrelevant question, but he needed to understand what he was dealing with here.

“Since I’m not Packard at all, but figured out how to hijack his download,” the guy who looked like Packard volleyed. “Ever since that Sorel guy took over the consciousness backup department, your system has been for shite. It wasn’t even hard.”

“We had to upgrade it, it created vulnerabilities. That won’t work a second time. Now put down the gun, you dupe, and release the nice man. Last year, you killed what many would consider an enemy combatant. Today, you have someone innocent, which is a whole different ballgame. If you pull that trigger, you’ll start losing sleep over it.”

“I’ll live,” the duplicate version of Vasily contended.

“But you won’t remember anything,” Tertius said as he was casually walking down the ramp.

Dupe!Vasily’s eyes glazed over as he loosened his grip on the hostage, who managed to pull himself away from his captor, and rush into the shuttle. Dupe!Vasily, meanwhile, looked incredibly confused, and scared. When he realized that he was holding a weapon, he dropped it to the floor. “I don’t...I don’t know anything.”

“What do you mean by anything?” Reed questioned.

“Anything,” Tertius echoed. “He won’t be a problem anymore. His memories are gone.” He picked up the gun, and held it up in offering to Reed. “If you have the consciousness of the true owner of this body stored away somewhere, you should be able to overwrite the parasite. If you don’t, I can try to restore him myself.”

“Restore him how?” Reed asked while another guard secured Packard’s weapon. He looked down at the now husk of Vasily’s host, who was now on his knees, seemingly trying to figure out what his hands were all about. “You didn’t even touch him. You didn’t do anything.”

Tertius shook his head. “I didn’t need to touch him. It’s just something I can do.”

Reed stared at him for a moment, occasionally looking down at the victim again, and also the other people in the room. “How much can you scale that up?”

“Oh, God,” Tertius said before sighing. “That’s not what it’s for.”

“Let’s do it,” Aeterna said as she was coming up from behind him without her baby. “We all know what the Captain is thinking. This mutiny is happening, whether we help or not. We have the chance to make it bloodless.”

“We could stop it altogether,” Tertius argued, “by erasing everyone’s memories.”

Aeterna placed a hand upon her father’s forearm. She looked over at Reed. “This man, and his people, came for us. They came for all of us, and they did it as efficiently and as humanely as possible. Now they need to get away safely. These mortal affairs; we inserted ourselves into them. We are partially to blame for what happened on Doma. It cost lives, it might have cost more if not for people like Reed Ellis. Let us do one last thing for the humans before we take ourselves off the board and focus on my daughter.”

“This is why we lost touch for two centuries, my sweet girl,” Tertius said to her. “You wanted to help, I wanted to walk away. But now you have to think about the baby.”

“I am,” Aeterna insisted. “I want to teach her to do the right thing, and I want to be able to teach it by example.”

Tertius thought about it. “Fine, but we’re putting their memories on a timer.” He approached Reed, and pointed at him fairly aggressively. “You will have one day to bug out, which I believe gives you a head start of around two light years. I suggest you don’t leave a trail. These people may be your enemies, but they deserve to move on with their lives in whatever way they choose, so I won’t be taking their agencies away forever.”

“That is more than I could ask,” Reed told him. “I don’t know how you do what you’re evidently about to do, but I want you to know how grateful I am.”

Aeterna took a half step forward. “We’ll need a list, of everyone whose memories you don’t want suppressed. Preferably with faces.”

“We’re also gonna wipe your memories of this conversation,” Tertius added. “You’ll know what happened, but not who, or how it was possible.”

“That’s fine,” Reed promised.

Reed was aware that people’s memories were going to be erased. He believed that. He trusted that. Seeing it was a whole different animal. This was no longer a mutiny, but a humanitarian mission. He had Thistle compile a list of everyone they wanted to be immune to the temporary memory suppression. The rest were wiped. After it was done, a mass silent confusion fell upon the Proxima Centauri system. The targets, which were mostly Teaguardians, though some Bungulans too, didn’t freak out. They had no idea who or where they were, but they were calm and trusting. Instead of fighting them, Reed and the mutineers spent most of the energy on helping them.

They rounded up anyone with memory loss and consolidated them to three Teaguardian ships that they were not intending to commandeer. They told them to sit tight and wait for medical assistance to arrive. The targets accepted their instructions without question, without a single voice of dissent. There was only one hiccup. Well, two if you counted the infighting. All of the key participants were in their first and only face-to-face meeting. “Why the hell were my people targeted?”  President Abrams questioned with surprising anger.

“We don’t need them anymore. We don’t need them to hand over your two ships willingly. We are facing no opposition.”

“That wasn’t the agreement,” Abrams argued. “I don’t like seeing my soldiers like this. They’re like...children. They’re dumb children. It’s sad. They’re all sad.”

“It’s better this way,” Reed contended. “Now they never betrayed Teagarden. When they wake up from this—and they will wake up from this—they will be able to claim plausible deniability. Not even that, they will have done nothing. They won’t have to defend their actions at all. Honestly, I probably should have kept you off the immunity list too, to keep your hands clean. If I had had more time, I might have, but the window was closing. We had to act, either with the original plan, or the new one. There was no third option to delay entirely.”

“Oh, actually, there was,” Abrams said. “You could have turned yourself in, which was the noble thing to do. It still is.” It took more than the one conversation to convince him to get on board with this, and he still fought the plan every step of the way. Reed regretted making him immune. He should have put him on one of those Teaguardians as just another oblivious docile.

“He’s right,” Ajax agreed. He survived the runaway shuttle last year by jumping to a new body on the surface of Bungula after his death. He maintained his captaincy, and had since become an ad hoc liaison between the Teagarden forces and the Bungulan military. No one ever seemed to suspect his true loyalties, and he had restrained himself from demanding control of the Tangent. Which was actually kind of weird, because the baseline command structure for a captain included overseeing 256 troops, and you only needed a certain sized ship to accommodate that number. An elevator platform like the Tangent didn’t need a higher crew count, but it was orders of magnitude larger, and probably the best assignment this side of Earth. “I would have gotten my platform back.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to you about this before, but I didn’t know that mind-wiping was an option until it was time to act,” Reed defended. “But this is objectively better, so I don’t understand why we’re still arguing. There’s work to be done. Those Teaguardians aren’t going to attach themselves to the Tangent.”

“They kind of are,” Delegator Chariot reasoned. “I believe in our crew. This meeting is important. You have still not told us how you suppressed all of these people’s memories. You didn’t give them anything to eat or drink, you didn’t disperse any sort of bioweapon, or we would all be affected. Unless it was a DNA-targeting pathogen, in which case, you would have needed to plan this for days at the shortest. So are you lying? Did you cook something up in secret, or was it really just earlier today, and you genuinely accomplished the impossible?”

Reed blinked. “I don’t know.”

Abrams rolled his eyes. “What?”

“I don’t...I don’t remember.”

“Oh my God, you’re claiming you were bit by your own creation? You expect us to believe that?” Abrams scoffed.

“He’s telling the truth,” Shasta said. “I don’t remember either. I remember knowing that this was going to happen, and that we asked for it, but I don’t remember who or how, or any details. We may have asked for our own memories to be altered, possibly permanently, or they did it without our consent. But I know that the targets will recover. I know that we will get through this if we stick together, and stop arguing.”

Abrams crossed his arms and shook his head. “It smells fishy. Someone with the technology to do this doesn’t just let us use it for nothing.”

Ajax looked to his left. “You’ve been quiet. I have never seen you without a bag of opinions over your shoulders. Can we trust Reed?”

Vasily nodded, also with his arms crossed, but in a more authoritative than closed-off way. “I trust Captain Reed Ellis more than anyone in this galaxy. If he says that this will work, then this will work. I say we keep moving those empty Teaguardians into position, fire up their fancy reframe engines, and bolt.”

“I’m not bolting,” Ajax reminded the group.

“Neither am I,” Abrams said.

“As long as you don’t interfere,” Reed began, “that’s fine. No one has to go anywhere. In fact, I will afford the same opportunity to all of my people. They can pretend to have also lost their memories, and maybe the authorities will go easy on them.” He paused for a moment. “I want to thank you all for all of your help. I know it wasn’t easy, but I believe the history books will shine a bright light upon us...eventually. If that is all, this meeting can come to a close, and those staying behind can leave the Tangent.”

They all went their separate ways. Reed returned to his office, and found someone sitting in his seat who he did not recognize. Her legs were propped up on the desk, and she wasn’t scared of him at all. “Security!” he shouted over his shoulder.

“They can’t hear you,” the mysterious woman explained.

“Security!” Reed shouted again. He turned to walk out of the room, but was completely unable to. The door that was meant to lead to the bridge had become a mirror. He reached out to it, but instead of hitting glass, his hand slipped right through. Meanwhile, that hand reached out towards him, superpositioning with itself going the opposite direction. He stepped forwards, all the way through, and ended up back in his office, his back now turned to the impossible mirror.

“Tripy, right?” the woman said. “You can thank my liver for that little trick.”

“Who are you, and what do you want?”

“The chrysalis bioprinting room you have. I made that for you. I gave you that tech. I knew you needed it.”

“I’ve been wondering who our mysterious benefactor was.”

“Now you know.”

“I don’t, actually.”

She stood up. “I don’t really use my name anymore. I try to interact with others as little as possible. I used to go by Leona Delaney, but if you ever meet someone who looks like me, it won’t be me, and she won’t remember this.”

“You’re, like, a future version of her, or something? You’re a time traveler? Time travel is real?”

She laughed. “Of course time travel is real. Teleportation is real, ain’t it? That’s just a form of time travel.”

“And the second question?”

“You can’t daisy chain reframe engines,” she began. “It would be like duct-taping four pairs of scissors together. You end up with no scissors. This won’t work.”

“Trilby assures me that he’s synced them up properly.”

“Compared to the woman who invented them, Trilby is a drooling buffoon. I’m telling you, don’t do this. The results are unpredictable. Whatever course you laid in will become meaningless.”

He approached her menacingly, but he had no plans to harm her. “I don’t know you. I don’t trust you. I trust my people.” He looked at his watch. “Last I checked, we were on schedule, which means we’ll be leaving in less than thirty minutes. I’ve already given the greenlight. You can kill me right here, and they’ll still launch.”

“I’m not your boss,” Leona clarified. “I’m just warning you.”

“Either way, you should leave. These people are my responsibility, and whatever comes to pass, I’ll get them through it.”

She shook her head in disapproval. “No one thinks they’re Dr. Smith. Everyone thinks they’re Captain Janeway.”

“Thank you. You can go now.”

Leona literally disappeared. When he turned around, the magic mirror was gone. A half hour later, they spooled up the antimatter engines of the Teaguardians, now affixed to the Tangent where the fusion torches once were. They activated the reframe engines, and flew away from Proxima Doma. The traveler turned out to be right. They got lost immediately. But at least they weren’t in prison.

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Tangent Point: Reads Like Science Fiction (Part VI)

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Breanna Jeffries didn’t want to tell Reed about the man in the photo, but he didn’t actually need her to say anything. He asked his AI, Thistle instead, who informed him that the man was still on board, and also where to find him. His daughter had recently given birth to a baby girl, and while most of the evacuees were gone, she had chosen to stay here. The child had already been through so much, they wanted her to wake up every day with some level of familiarity and comfort. The doctor who delivered it eventually evacuated from Proxima Doma as well, and was still here too. She asked the mother if she could continue to look after the baby, and the mother agreed. “You said there was something weird about the birth?” Reed asked this doctor.

Dr. Duward looked almost paranoid. “You understand that most kids being born these days gestate in artificial tanks, right?”

“I do.”

“That’s because giving birth kinda sucks,” Dr. Duward explained the obvious. “Proxima Doma has—I’m sorry, had—more live births than anywhere in the galaxy, which is why I still have a job. I’ve been doing it for 550 years now. If you’re trying to do that math, I was twelve years old when I had to deliver my older sister’s baby. Mama was drunk, daddy was at work, and I was in charge. Since then, I have successfully welcomed over 100,000 new human beings into this universe. Every single one of the mothers was in pain, whether we gave them drugs or not. Granted, traditional births are my specialty. Nanomedicine can make even live births painless, but that’s just not what I do. They come to me because they don’t want that. This woman, Aeterna refused any sort of pain relief. She refused an IV; everything. The baby just slipped out. She came in to inform us that her water broke, and it was time, then she crawled in bed, and let it out. No struggle, no contractions, barely any labor time. It started, and it was done. We have some impressive transhumans in the galaxy, but I’ve never seen anything like her.”

“How’s the baby?”

“Little Dilara is fine,” Dr. Duward replied. “We performed the very basic tests, and followed procedure, but didn’t have to provide any unusual treatments. She cried a little bit but stopped quickly. I hesitate to say this, but it was almost like she was putting on a show...like she knew we expected her to cry, but after that, she quieted down and just lay there against her mother’s chest.”

“Who else have you told about this?” Reed presses.

“No one,” Dr. Duward answers. “Like I said, she came in so quick, the only people there were me and my nurse. And she won’t tell anyone unless I order her to.”

“No bots need their memories erased?” he suggested.

“We didn’t use bots down there. Traditional births, remember?”

“Right. Well, I need this family on my side, so keep it to yourself. In fact, if you could just move on and pretend like it never happened, that would be for the best.”

“This sounds important to you,” she noted.

He sighed. “What do you want?”

“I want the quantum signature for New Earth.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Reed replied honestly.

“I gave a consultation to a Teaguardian a few weeks ago, and overheard them talking about it. They’re about to go on assignment there, and are actually happy that you delayed their departure. It’s very hush-hush, but they said it was 121 light years away. They’ll have to give it a huge berth because I think it’s a protected human preserve. No advanced interference. It sounds like it’s basically a base reality ancestor simulation. They’ll need a good OB/GYN.”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t have access to that. I’m just a Bungulan captain.”

“I suggest you find it,” the doctor said. She was not who he thought she was just a moment ago when they first met.

“I don’t like being blackmailed.”

“I don’t like being ripped from my home, but things happen.”

Reed nodded. “I’ll get you to this New Earth place, but I need to speak with the family first.”

“Go right ahead.” Dr. Duward stepped off to the side.

Reed walked down the hallway, and rang the doorbell.

A man quickly opened it. “Hey. They’re both sleeping,” he hissed.

“That’s not what the door indicator says.” Reed pointed at the indicator tube, which lit up for different conditions, such as sleeping, emergency, or unoccupied.

“I don’t know how that stuff works,” the guy said. He looked back to make sure that mother and baby weren’t awakened, then slipped out of the room, and closed the door behind him. “Can I help you?”

“First of all, I’m Captain Reed Ellis—”

“I know who you are, I’m not impressed. What do you want?”

“The Vellani Ambassador. You seem to be a crewmember of it. Tertius Valerius?”

“Not really anymore, why?” Tertius questioned.

“There are whispers that it can travel faster than light,” Reed said.

Tertius folded his arms. “Lots of ships can do that.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say lots. It seems to only be Teaguardians, and yours. Do you work for Teagarden?”

Tertius snorted. “No. The Ambassador is a stateless vessel. Well, I think it technically flies the Castlebourne flag now, but that’s more of a matter of logistics.”

“Well, anyway. You are aware of the circumstances of the Tangent, aren’t you? I commandeered it.”

“I know.”

“Your daughter bene—”

Tertius waved his hand dismissively to interrupt Reed again. “Don’t play on my sentimentality. Just spit it out.”

“As of today, we’re maybe one-third of the way through our rescue efforts,” Reed continued. “Months from now, when it’s over, and the last evacuee is safely off the platform, I have promised to release the hostages, and forgo my leverage. What I have not promised is to return the Tangent and turn myself in. My crew hasn’t done that either, and I don’t want them to have to. I don’t know where we would go, but if we try to run with what we’ve got, they’ll catch us. I don’t want to hold hostages past the rescue. I certainly don’t want to hold them forever. I don’t want to condemn my people to decades of prison either, though. You have no obligation to do anything for us. If you refuse, you and your family can stay as long as you want, or leave whenever you want. You are in no way hostages. I’m asking you with my tail between my legs, and my hat in hand, will you help?”

Tertius stared at Reed, presumably in thought. “Over a hundred years ago, the brightest minds in history you’ve never heard of held a meeting. It was called The Edge. They had developed certain advanced technologies, and limited their use to a select few who needed it. I won’t get into who these inventors were, or anything about our subculture, but the year 2400 marked the end of that exclusivity. It was inevitable that the general population would uncover the truths. So these inventors agreed to hand out some of these technologies to some others, in some ways. Don’t ask me for details, anything I happen to know about The Edge is still not common knowledge. What I’ll tell you, however, is that The Vellani Ambassador operates under a special form of FTL that was not a part of any agreement, with Teagarden, or anyone else. That will probably never be made public. It’s too powerful, it’s too dangerous, and it has some serious theoretical applications that could quite literally destroy the universe. The reframe engine, however, is a different story. That is what the Teaguardians use. It caps out at 707c. That’s a fundamental physical limitation of the mechanism, and there’s no going beyond it.”

“Okay. I’m not picky. Even simply being on par with them would be useful.”

“Well, I’m not an engineer, I don’t know how to build a reframe engine. The way I understand it, it’s only half of the equation. In order to reach maximum reframe, you have to already be able to reach maximum sublight. Can the Tangent do that?”

Reed sighed. “It can’t. It uses classical fusion, not antimatter.”

“That’s going to be a problem,” Tertius said. “Let me put it this way, if this thing were moving at its maximum speed, and traveled one light year, how long would it feel like on the ship?”

Reed tapped on his wrist device to make the calculation. “About 1.73 years, but it would take two years in realtime.”

Tertius nodded. “If someone smarter than me installed a reframe engine, it would take you 1.73 years. That’s what you would experience, and that’s how much time would pass for everyone not on the ship. That’s what the reframe engine does. It makes those two numbers the same. It doesn’t just arbitrarily go fast. You still have to reach certain speeds, the engine just consolidates the reference frames. It reframes the passage of time so everyone ends up on the same page.”

Reed leaned his head back at hearing this, and regarded Tertius. “That’s why there’s a maximum speed overall. You’re not actually breaking the light barrier.”

“Bingo.”

“But this Ambassador, it goes faster. It indeed breaks the light barrier. True FTL.”

“I wouldn’t tell you how it worked, even if I understood it. I won’t even name it for you, because that alone would give you too much information.”

“Would they be willing to help, though?” Reed pressed. “Maybe they can just pull us away once, and then leave us wherever, just so we can find someplace to hide, and maybe some lasting peace.”

Tertius looked up at the walls and ceiling. “The VA’s mission is not unlike yours. They rescue people from bad situations. The difference is, they didn’t steal their ship to do it. The intelligence that designed it is still there. Well...the person who designed the special FTL tech isn’t, but they gave their contribution away freely. Anyway, the people they rescue are innocent. The people they’re rescuing them from? Not so much. You...are neither. Mirage would understand why you did what you did, but she wouldn’t reward you for it. She would expect you to accept the consequences of your actions. I know her well, I can hear her say that in my head. Before you ask, the person who came up with the magical FTL isn’t available until...” He tapped on his handheld device. “Let me do my own calculations...August. And even if we were able to find him on that date, he would only be able to help you for a day, and then you would have to wait a whole year for his return.”

“Huh?” Reed didn’t understand all this FTL stuff, but he wasn’t even following the logic of what Tertius just said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Tertius replied, shaking his head. “The point is, it can’t be done. I would love to help, but it’s just not gonna happen. I can reach out to Mirage, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. And if by some miracle, she does say yes, you’re not keeping the Tangent. It would be like trying to stuff a skyscraper in the trunk of your car. At best, she would ferry all the people somewhere safe.”

“That’s all I can ask.” Reed pulled up his contact card. “You can reach me any time. It has my quantum signature on it if she’s on the other side of the universe, and wants to talk to me personally. Now, before I leave you, how big is this reframe engine?”

“I think it scales to the size of the vessel,” Tertius answered. “I can probably get you the specs, but you’re gonna be done with the evacuation in, what, a few months? It’s gonna take longer than that for you to build one from scratch.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Mister Valerius. I’ll let you get back to your family now. Please do stay in touch. I’ll give you anything you need.”

Reed walked away and returned to his bridge office.

Shasta was already there, which was good. “Hey. I wanted to let you know, Vasily has been asking for you. I have no idea what it’s about.”

“That can wait,” Reed decided, possibly forever. “We have more important things to worry about. I need ideas for how we can prolong the southern evacuation. We need to stall for time while we come up with a more long-term solution to our little problem.”

Shasta considered it for a moment. “Well, if that’s what we need, that unauthorized express trip was actually good news. Maybe we need more time to inspect all the tethers. Maybe the constant up and down placed too much stress on them, and they all require maintenance. And maybe to prevent that from being a problem again, we need to slow the trips moving forward.”

“Okay, those are all good ideas. Let’s start working on it, but obviously don’t explain to anyone why.”

“I don’t even know why,” Shasta admitted.

“Good. I’ll tell you later so it’s easier for you to spread the new plan. Slower ascents and descents. But not too bad. It doesn’t need to take years, and in fact, that would backfire on us. Just maybe another month.”

“Got it, I’ll talk to Trilby to calculate the math on that. He won’t ask questions.”

“Actually, I need to talk to him myself. I’ll go with you.” His device beeped, so he stopped to check it.

It was a message from Tertius. Found this while I was digging up the specifications for the reframe engine. I didn’t realize that The Shortlist gave Teagarden access to this tech. It might have come in handy a few months ago.

Reed tapped on the file, and read the overview. “On second thought, I’ll talk with Trilby later. Go ahead and do your thing. I need to set up a meeting with someone else.”

It was only a few hours later. Reed was back in the dusty hot interrogation room of a virtual environment. President Burkhart Abrams resolved in front of him, sitting in the chair. “What am I doing here, Ellis? Something wrong with the evacuation? Can’t stay in place? Are you demanding pizza for all the gunmen and hostages?”

Reed threw a tablet on the table hard enough to make it break in the real world, but it landed undamaged. “If you already knew, then this won’t come as a surprise, but if you didn’t know, then I encourage you to verify it...quietly.” He needed to test him.

Abrams reluctantly picked up the tablet, and started looking over the info. He threw it down with nearly as much gusto. “This reads like science fiction.”

“It’s not, it’s real. I’m guessing you didn’t know about it, because you’re not that good of a liar. So now you have to ask yourself, for the first time in all of this, are we on the same side?”

“Why the hell would we be on the same side? Teagarden is only letting you do this because you have leverage. You and I are not friends.”

“What about Matar Galo? Is she a friend?”

“She’s my superior officer.”

“Right.” Reed leaned forward, and repeated, “right” as he was swiping to the next page. “And because she’s your superior, she had no obligation to tell you about this.”

“If it’s true...if it exists, then no, of course she didn’t. She didn’t invent military secrets. What are you driving at here?”

Reed shook his head. “You commanded two Teaguardians for Proxima Doma. These people were your friends. You were here to protect them, and the one time when they really needed you, you couldn’t do shit. You just sat there, staring at the screen, utterly hopeless. Useless. A giant paperweight floating in space.” He angrily pointed at the tablet. “If you had this kind of technology, you may have been able to save them all.”

Abrams scoffed and shook his head.

“Maybe not all, but a lot; at least more. I wouldn’t have needed to steal a damn thing. It wouldn’t have occurred to me. I just didn’t think we had any other options. But she—she had this. Your military had this.” He swiped over again. “Apparently, Gatewood has it too. Why does Gatewood have it? Nobody lives there!”

 “You’re right. This would have been a game-changer, but if she didn’t come here with it, she must have had her reasons. Maybe it’s not ready. Maybe only a tiny shuttle has a prototype of it. We don’t know. This document doesn’t say anything about the actual operational deployment. It just claims that it exists, and it’s in the Teagarden’s privileged data vault. I’m not going to ask how you got your hands on it, but this...this means nothing. It proves nothing.”

“Burkhart, this is real. They have teleportation, like freakin’ Star Trek. They left your friends to die when they could have just beamed them into the sky. They didn’t even read you in. They did nothing.” Reed pointed to his own chest. “I did something. I came here. I risked everything to save the people that you were sworn to defend. Aren’t you angry about that? I would be livid. I am.”

“Maybe I am. Maybe I believe you, and I’ve never been more pissed off about anything in my whole life. What the hell does it matter? The south is stable. The elevators are working. There’s no point in rocking the boat now. Just finish your mission, and turn yourself in, like you promised.”

“I never promised that.”

Abrams dismissed it. “That’s not my problem. They’re not gonna give us teleportation. What are you gonna do? Try to steal it?”

Reed shook his head. “No, not that. Like you said, we don’t know where it is. But I need to steal something else, and to make up for being unable to do anything for the Proxima Domanians before I showed up...I want you to help me.”

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Microstory 2567: Congressperson

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I am a United States Congressperson in Missouri’s fifth district, so I serve my country very close to Landis Tipton’s operation on the Kansas side. I was always skeptical as I have seen a lot of charlatans in my day. A not insignificant part of my job is finding constituents in need amidst a cacophony of people who are, quite frankly, not mentally well, or actively trying to waste my time. Still, I was civil about it, and cautiously optimistic, and I let him prove himself. But I didn’t just let him run wild. I asked questions, and I got more information. I did my due diligence. Now that he’s proven himself, we face a new threat. Just because he’s the real deal, doesn’t mean he can’t cause problems. In fact, I’ve seen the numbers, and he absolutely will. Or I should say, the Foundation will. I don’t want to put this whole thing on one person’s shoulders, because if he really were that much of a danger to us on his own, he would probably be a criminal. As far as I know, no one there has committed any crimes, but they don’t see the detriment that they will do. I’ll be blunt. The panacea will tank the economy. I don’t want to stop it, but I’ve been fighting to slow it down so we can get ahead of this thing. People have been so anxious for its release, and believe that it’s taking too long, but based on projected announcement dates, everything is happening far too fast. We might never recover from the devastation if this thing goes to market, free or otherwise. Again, I don’t want to halt development, but we need time to create programs which will protect U.S. citizens, and everyone else in the world, from the fallout. My concern is with my nation, and particularly, my district, but this will have worldwide repercussions, so even if I did manage to prepare my community for the changes, I can’t help the world alone. I need people on my side. I need people who understand my position, and will do what they can to contribute to the cause. I know that no one is trying to cause such harm on purpose. They all have good intentions, which is very noble of them, but they’re only worrying about their one little niche, and thinking that the changes will only have an effect on that. But it’s connected. It’s all connected. Everything we do in the modern day is a result of a million plus decisions that billions of people are making now, and made in the past. You have to look at the big picture. As I said, I can’t do this alone, so please, if you can do anything to support this cause, every dollar counts, and ever voice matters. Thank you.

Microstory 2564: Protester

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This is ridiculous. I can’t believe how small our movement is. It’s growing, but not nearly fast enough. Landis Tipton is not all that he’s made out to be. Sure, curing all disease sounds great, but there are major issues with it that not everyone can see. First of all, we have no idea what long-term health consequences there are from being healed. He could be giving everyone cancer. Cancer is when your cells multiply out of control, and even if you claim that he has control over the repairs while he’s breathing on them, what happens five years later, or ten, or thirty? We don’t know. They haven’t done nearly enough studies on the subject. He just bought a freaking hotel, and people just flocked there like he was a god. Some people actually believe he is a god, which is another issue, though we don’t argue that in our literature, or during our demonstrations, because it’s a sensitive subject. What’s not sensitive, and what every single person needs to understand, is that so much of our economy is centered around health and wellness. I know it sounds cold, but disease and deaths are necessities in life. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Medical professionals, food vendors, funeral homes, insurance companies, nutritionists and dieticians, fitness trainers, pharmaceutical companies. Hell, even personal injury law firms. There are so many others. They all rely on a world that isn’t perfect, and they do not exist in a vacuum. When you take all those things down, what happens to everything else? It doesn’t work. It falls apart. Again, I may sound callous to you, but you have to think about the ramifications of your actions. Landis, and this goddamn panacea they’re trying to make, is going to do more harm than good, and I firmly believe that. Now, if we had a universal basic income, and if we had more robust automation, I might think it’s okay. But we are woefully unprepared for what’s to come. We are not ready for the paradigm shifting changes that this drug will make. We’re holding it at bay, because Landis Tipton is only one man so his impact on these sectors is minimal. But if that’s about to change, we are royally, totally, and fundamentally screwed. I don’t think you can imagine what’s going to happen to the world. No one’s gonna be able to afford the panacea when they lose their jobs. “Oh, we’ll make it free.” I’ve heard no confirmation on that, and it introduces a plethora of other issues. It will be a logistical nightmare. This has to be stopped right now. We cannot let it move on. We can let Landis do his thing, but his work schedule has to be severely shrunk, and research on this miracle cure has to end immediately! People think I’m crazy, and an asshole, but honestly—and I don’t really like to say this—but I’m smarter than you. I’m telling you, bad things are going to come of this. It will not lead us to the paradise you’ve been sold. Sell it back, it’s not worth it. Please. Please!

Microstory 2499: Outer System

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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 2496: Spydome Network

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This is one of those long-term domes, where you can’t quite get the full experience unless you immerse yourself in the setting, and really forget about your old life. You have to shed your past, and become your character, or you’re playing someone else’s game. The premise is that you are a member of a spy agency in one of eleven nations. Your task is to complete missions for your agency, according to whatever your superiors demand of you. Like I said, this is long-term, so you won’t just instantly become a spy. You will start as a trainee, and work your way up. Or you won’t. There’s every chance that you’ll fail. You have to pass the physical and written exams. I’m pretty sure that they’re easier to take than the real ones on Earth, but I’ve never been a real spy before, so I don’t really know. How well you do is entirely up to your own, natural skills. There is no way to know how far any other player gets, because we’re not technically meant to out ourselves to each other, but my boss may be another visitor. I really don’t know. It really doesn’t matter. What you do is up to you as well. Even though you have superiors, you are not a robot, and you are capable of making your own decisions. If you just wanna lounge about your apartment all day everyday, you’ll probably get fired for that, but you won’t get killed. Unless you’ve done enough spying to put you in danger. You’ll probably only get killed if you go out in the field, or as I was saying, if you’re attacked at home by an enemy. Each nation exists under its own dome, and its backstory is as rich and complex as they are in real life. The relationships between these fictional countries are complicated, and ever-changing. If you were to leave and come back 100 years from now, I’m sure alliances will have shifted. One of them might have been blown up in a nuclear war; I dunno. I couldn’t tell you exactly how far the program will let you take this, but it seems like a pretty decent free-for-all. Each might be one of the eleven most heavily populated domes on the planet, as most don’t need to feel quite as lived in as somewhere in the network. But here, you can go anywhere within your bounds, and if you secure a passport to another country, you can go there too. It’s a really interesting experience, and I’ve only been doing it for about a year and a half at this point. Obviously, I’m writing this anonymously, because there’s no reason a competing agency couldn’t use this information against my own. The android intelligences might not understand where a visitor spy got their intel if it came from an out-of-universe source, but they might act on it anyway. There’s a lot you can learn about the countries, and international affairs, from the comfort of your tablet using the prospectus, but to really grasp what it’s like to live here, you’ll have to sign up, and integrate yourself into this new society. You choose your own adventure. I don’t know the psychological ramifications of starting a new life that could potentially be as long as a standard lifetime, but perhaps that’s part of what they’re studying here. I’m sure the results will be fascinating.