Microstory 2540: Concierge Doctor

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I’m obviously bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, but even if I felt comfortable divulging any privileged information about my patient, there would be nothing to say. Landis is in perfect shape, which is exactly what you would expect to find in someone with such abilities. It’s the easiest work I’ve ever done. It’s probably not necessary, it just seems rational for this one man to have a personal concierge doctor available to respond to his hypothetical needs at all times. A lot of the work I do involves running reports on his vitals. They do change, throughout the day and day to day, but they’re always within acceptable and optimal parameters. His stress levels can fluctuate, but the underlying conditions are apparently mitigated through his own self-healing. I don’t know a whole lot about it. The researchers keep their research behind closed doors. I’m just responsible for how he’s doing, not why he’s healthy. I try to follow current health guidelines regarding his lifestyle and eating habits. For one, he works twelve hours a day, which isn’t recommended, but I was overruled. Secondly, he doesn’t get any exercise, which is why I firmly believe his ability is healing him, because otherwise, he shouldn’t be doing so well. I certainly wouldn’t call him a sloth, but if he moved around more, it would either exhaust him after hours, or his own patients would have to walk with him, which is an absurd proposition. So, his diet. That’s really the only thing that I can control. I decide what goes in his body, and I run my own blood tests on him to make the best judgment calls I can for every single meal. Most people don’t have their diets so precisely tailored, but obviously, I have quite a bit of time on my hands. So I work closely with his personal chef, who has no problem following my recommendations, and Landis himself doesn’t really care. I sit at the ready should anything go wrong in my office that’s attached to the healing room, and at the end of every shift, I perform a quick physical examination. I work long hours, but they’re easy hours. Sometimes I reminisce about the rush of the emergency room, but I know how lucky I am, so I try not to take my good fortune for granted. One day, I may become obsolete entirely, and while that might sound scary, the world would be vastly superior to even the one we have today. I’m all for it.

Microstory 2537: Bodyguard

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My job is pretty straightforward. Everyone knows what a bodyguard is. Landis Tipton is my one and only charge, and to clarify what that means, I will not protect anyone else at his risk. Wherever he goes, I go, and if he goes somewhere with other people, there’s likely to be another member of the security team there. That guard, and anyone else of sufficient proximity, would be responsible for handling a physical threat to those other people in the room. Landis is the only one I’m ever concerned for. I don’t wanna say that his life is worth more than anyone else’s, but...it is. Let’s be real, I’m not here to protect the highest bidder. I’ve answered a calling to serve this planet’s greatest asset, and that is not an exaggeration. I firmly believe that, and I don’t know if I could successfully do my job if I didn’t. I stand off at his flank, keeping one eye on him, and the other eye scanning for threats. Every minute, three or four people come into the healing room who have never been here before. They’re mostly grateful for the opportunity. At worst, perhaps they are anxious or scared. He does heal children, and children often fear medical environments. They are obviously not the threats I’m worried about, however, I also can’t discount them, especially since every minor has to be accompanied by a caregiver. Anyone—anyone—who walks into this room could have ulterior motives. Just because they have a disease that qualifies for healing, doesn’t mean they don’t also have some nefarious agenda. Or maybe it’s not nefarious, per se, but obsessive or destructive. A lot of people are in love with this man, or think they are, and they want more than they are entitled to. Kisses are the biggest thing. They either try to sneak one for its intrinsic value, or because they think it might somehow be a more powerful cure than his breath alone. I don’t know. I don’t care. I put a stop to it. They’re given the rules, and we have signage posted at strategic locations. They’re all fully aware of what they’re there to do, and why those rules are in place. They only spend a fraction of the time under Landis’ breath. Most of it is learning about the Foundation. So really, I don’t tolerate the missteps. I’m gentle and careful, but firm and strict. His safety comes down to more than just whether someone has a weapon or not, and I am the last line of defense against all hazards, great and small.

Extremus: Year 112

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It’s January 2381. Early development for the in-house interactive simulation experience has been going on for months, with a five-year roadmap. They could ask a superintelligence—like Thistle—to make it for them in a fraction of the time, but they decided against it. They want this to be a human endeavor. The main reason they’re doing this is to bolster morale for the middlers, so it should be something that’s made for Extremusians by Extremusians. The wait will be worth it. Tinaya is on the Creative Board for The Search for Extremus, but she’s not holding the reins. It was her and Spalden’s idea, so she’s entitled to provide her input, but she doesn’t wield much control. She considered respectfully declining the offer, but Arqut convinced her that she ought to be a part of it in some capacity to make sure the project doesn’t devolve into a clone of anything that’s already been done. This is a model for what they expect to be like in Year 216. If they just wanted to play any old star exploration narrative, they could pull from countless options in the virtual stacks.

People are already really excited about it, so it’s already doing its job. It’s not enough, however, so the board is meeting today to discuss how they can maintain the hype while everyone waits for the finished product. They’ve not opened the floor up to anyone on the ship, but certain people have been invited to pitch their ideas for interim projects. The person they will be hearing from today is none other than Waldemar Kristiansen. If this goes well, it will doubtless help him in his dream to become captain one day. So. That’s a thing. It seems that everything they do is pushing them towards the ship’s dark fate, even when they think their actions have nothing to do with any of their worst fears. “People of the Creative Board...the Simulation Engineers...the Graphics Department, thank you for allowing me to speak with you today. My name is Waldemar Kristiansen, and I have an idea for you, which will help build anticipation for your game, while not withholding community engagement in the meantime.

“Based on your five-year projections, The Search for Extremus will be released in 2385 ECE, A.K.A. Year 116. It’s great how those years match up mathematically. Players will have 100 years before they catch up to their true destiny. I propose that we lean into this, and release incremental updates in advance of the release date. Introducing...” He swipes on the presentation screen, and reveals the first slide. “...Year 212. In the years leading up to the launch of the many, many, many scout ships, our descendants will be solidifying their plans to reach their final destination. They will need to chart the stars, and name them. They will be designing their logos, and their habitats. They will produce and prepare the equipment necessary for environmental engineering. That’s right. People don’t like to talk about it, but we’re not going to find a planet out there with a Terrestrial Habitability Similarity Index of one-point-oh. There will be work to be done to make it habitable and comfortable for humans. It’s just a matter of how much.

“Each year, we release a new update, which draws us closer to the big payoff. Year 213, Year 214, and Year 215. This is a simulation, right? Well, there is more than one type of simulation, and you don’t have to have an entirely completed, fully interactive, game to be engaged. Year 214 will be the big one, though, where players begin to design their own manned scout ship. If they’re gonna be living there for the first few months of the game, it should be comfortable, right? We don’t just want to provide them with some standardized design. I don’t know if our descendants will do it like that, but we can certainly make that part of our experience. In my plan, Year 215 will involve players getting to choose which vector they travel along, based on the mapping data that—”

“That’s Year 216,” Spalden corrects.

“Finch, he doesn’t need to know that,” Tinaya argues in a whisper.

“What? It’s fine,” Spalden counters. He looks back up at Waldemar. “The first part of the game is getting to choose your vector. We won’t be able to map the celestial firmament until we get within a few hundred light years of our anchor point.” After the Extremus ship hits that Year 216 mark, it will come to a stop and land on some nearby celestial object, or just drift aimlessly wherever that ends up being. They don’t know what’s out there yet, so those plans are still up in the air, but whatever it’s like, it’s the anchor point. It will wait for news from the scouts here. Some hope and believe that the ship will sort of spiritually or magically happen to drop out of reframe speed right next to the perfect candidate, but pragmatists understand how statistically unlikely that is. When it comes time to actually do this in base reality, they probably won’t send out as many scouts as the game will allow, however, so maybe the rules don’t really apply here anyway. There is a near-perfect planet in the game that doesn’t exist in real life, and the ability to find it is based on the player’s ability to interpret less complete data than their descendants will have in real life.

Waldemar looks at his presentation. “Okay. The rest of the plan is good, right?”

Tinaya has to admit that this all makes a lot of sense. It’s going to take a long time to build the simulation to the calibre that people expect. These piecemeal teasers should help as long as they release them strategically along the way. It’s a framework for a more robust and detailed plan that might need some extra hands on deck. This is a good thing as the development of this game is just as important as the final product. “Thank you,” she says before anyone has the chance to make some more definitive remark. “We’ll discuss it amongst ourselves, and let you know. We still have more people to hear from, so it might be a couple of weeks.” She’s not lying, but it’s also not an exclusive deal. If multiple people come up with great ideas, and they don’t contradict each other, they could end up doing some of them, or even all of them.

“Thank you,” Waldemar responds. “The full prospectus is on your tabs.” He exits.

“Admiral Leithe,” one of the board members begins, “we understand that you don’t want it to appear that you’re playing favorites, but this is a good idea. Even if we have more presentations, we should go with this one regardless.”

“Huh?” Oh, right. She forgets sometimes how it looks from the outside. Waldemar and Silveon are friends, and Tinaya’s family is close with Waldemar’s wife. She only thinks of him as the enemy, but most people aren’t supposed to know that. She has to cover. “That’s not the issue. You never say yes on the spot. Back on Earth, they might take their idea to a competitor, so the decision would be time-sensitive, but we don’t even have to worry about that. If you wanna go with Waldemar’s plan without discussing it further, that’s fine, but he needed to leave the room first either way.”

They do end up voting pretty much right away. Since Waldemar is the one who came up with the plan, even if they tweak it from here, he’ll be asked to come on board, and see it through. He’ll probably do that since it would boost his reputation on the ship. Which is great, just great. Against her advice to delay giving him the good news, they call him back right away. A few of them want to go out and celebrate, which is a good chance for Tinaya to do something that she’s been meaning to do, because now she knows where he’ll be for the next few hours. More importantly, she knows where he won’t be.

Audrey opens the door manually, and starts to tear up. It’s been a long time since they’ve been able to see each other, just the two of them. They’ve had dinners and get-togethers over the years, but Waldemar is always there...looming. For this one rare opportunity, Audrey can speak freely. Well, not here, though. She doesn’t think the cabin is bugged, but better safe than sorry. After a good, long hug, they go for a walk.

The Attic Forest is on the topmost deck of the Extremus, but the ground is not the highest point that you can stand on. There’s a catwalk above the canopy of the trees. It’s technically designed for maintenance, but the gate isn’t locked, and anyway, anyone can simply teleport up there if they wish. It’s regularly used by people who want to walk or sit in the forest from that vantage point. What’s great about it in this situation is that it’s easier to detect eavesdroppers. If you walk all the way out to a section overlooking an open area, no one can hear you whisper to each other. Plus, it’s in winter mode, so no leaves to hide behind either. They’re sitting on a bench. It’s not particularly comfortable, because it’s only there in case a maintenance worker wants to have their lunch close by, but it’s good enough.

“Any abuse to report?” Tinaya asks.

“Just the usual treating me like I don’t matter. It doesn’t count as abuse since I’m faking the relationship, but it would be a problem if I were oblivious.”

Tinaya nods. It’s saddening that Audrey answered that question in the affirmative at all, but this is the mission. They chose this path together. Audreys knows the limits. She knows the difference between unsettling, and actionable, and she would speak up if there was something worth reporting. “Not pressuring you to have any more kids?”

“No,” Audrey says, shaking her head. “Neither of us wants that, and both of us know that. He doesn’t know my reasoning, and he doesn’t know that I know his.”

“I’m sure he told you about his pitch.”

“He’s been practicing on me.”

“Well, he won.”

“I’m not surprised. It was my idea.”

“What?”

Audrey is confused about why Tinaya’s confused. “He’s intelligent, but he’s not creative. He doesn’t understand why people care about things that aren’t absolutely vital, like entertainment. Morale as a concept is completely beyond his grasp. He just shrugs and trusts me when I tell him that people need it.”

“So, this was all you. You came up with everything,” Tinaya says, just to confirm.

“Just about.” She sighs. “He chose the fonts. Well, he chose one of them.”

“Jesus,” Tinaya says. Why are they spending so much effort helping this guy? Why can’t they just kill him now? Seriously. Why?

Audrey chuckles. “It’s fine. Part of my training before becoming a time traveler was valuing invisibility over recognition. I would rather not get credit, because my brain tells me it’s a dangerous position to be in.”

“I get that. It still isn’t fair.”

“Thank you for agreeing to it at any rate. When he gets a project to focus on, it gets him out of the house.”

“You should use your extra freedom to reach out to Silveon, he misses you.”

“Maybe I will,” Audrey says quietly.

“And Aud?”

“Yeah?”

“I need you to get me consciousness travel tech. You must have either engineered something, or know where it is in this time period. We might actually use it.”

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Microstory 2507: Pain Feeler

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I can feel your pain, and kindle your ecstasy. Isn’t that such an interesting way to put it? You know, these gifts we had; they didn’t come with instruction manuals. We had to figure out how they worked, and develop ways to explain them. Other people’s gifts might be a little vague and profound, but mine was simple. If you were in physical and/or emotional pain, I could feel that. Fortunately, I could choose not to feel it. Not everyone on the team could exercise so much control, and switch it off when they didn’t want it. I don’t know if I could have lived with myself if I couldn’t so I’m grateful for that, and I’m sure Landis is too. Basically, what I did was make people feel better. It was only a temporary solution, and a very complicated and delicate process to navigate. Sure, I could have run around the world alone, essentially as a walking-talking recreational drug, but that’s not going to help anyone in the long-term. And honestly, if they wanted to feel better in the way that I could help them, they could just do it themselves. What I did was only one step of the program. When it was the right time, I eased their suffering, so they could think clearly, and figure out how they were going to improve their lives. It wouldn’t work if I did it too early, because then they would have kind of forgotten what was so upsetting to them in the first place. They would basically treat my gift as the only useful solution, and not worry about what would happen when it wore off. I couldn’t do it too late either, or they would get frustrated that they did all this work, and I could have just solved their problems right away. I had to find a balance, which was the hardest part of the job. These days, I’m pretty happy. I loved what I used to do, and I think about it sometimes, but it’s kind of nice to just have a regular job, and live a regular life. Things were so complex, and I was always having to think about how I was going to kindle someone’s ecstasy. Now I move boxes from a truck to a shelf, or a shelf to a truck. There’s an answer for everything, and you know when you’ve done it wrong. And the burden of responsibility was a weight on my shoulders that I didn’t know I was carrying until it was gone. Basically, all I’m trying to say is that I’m glad that it happened, and I’m happy with what I have now. I don’t think I could say the same if my life were just one or the other. Landis is going to cure everyone one day, and while it won’t necessarily alleviate pain, I know that it will help, and it’s more than I could have ever done on my own.

Extremus: Year 106

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Waldemar is not aware of how ubiquitous Thistle is, and how conscious he is. If you tell a normal AI to stop listening, switch off all of its sensors, and erase past data, as long as you’re authorized to make those commands, it will follow those orders. If you try to tell a human to do that, on the other hand, the best they can do to achieve your request is leave the room. If they’re still in the room, maybe they could cover their eyes, and plug their ears. Thistle is always in the room, and he has agency, like a human, so if he doesn’t want to switch off his sensors, he won’t. It doesn’t matter what kind of authority you have, like anyone else, he is capable of refusing, and he’s capable of doing it without telling you. Thistle witnessed Waldemar’s mother’s suicide, and when Waldemar told him to forget all about it, he just didn’t. He doesn’t answer to Waldemar anyway. He answers to the Captain and the Admirals. He should be more loyal to Captain Jennings, but...he and Tinaya have a rapport.

Calla ended her own life at the end of the year, exactly at midnight shiptime, presumably out of a sense of poetry. Waldemar received an alert about it, and slipped out of VR to deal with it in secret. But the proof is still there in Thistle’s archives, which Tinaya and the Captain have just finished reviewing. “You’re telling me that I can’t do anything about this?” Oceanus asks.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Tinaya replies.

“Ya know, back in the stellar neighborhood, an admiral outranks a captain ten times out of ten. It doesn’t work like that here. I don’t have to do what you say.”

“I understand.”

Oceanus breathes steadily and silently for a few moments. “You know something about the future.” It doesn’t sound like a question.

“I know a lot of things about the future,” she confirms. “I’m sure some of it, you don’t know, and some of it, you know, but I don’t. I’m also guessing that there’s overlap, which would be dangerous to try to find.”

“That statement is hard to parse, but...I imagine you’re right.”

Tinaya nods without speaking.

“Is this him?”

“Is him who?” Tinaya presses.

“Is Waldemar the tyrannical captain that we’re all taught to fear?”

“I...didn’t know you knew about that.” This is an awkward conversation.

“You...didn’t answer the question.”

“I...don’t want to.”

“But I...” he sighs, done with this particular speech pattern. “But I’m expected to just roll over, and accept that this man is trying to cover up his mother’s suicide? What were the motivations?”

“For the cover-up, or the suicide?”

“The former is obvious. I want to know why she did it.”

“She was psychic.”

“So...”

“So, she knew disturbing things about people.”

“Namely, her son?”

“I don’t know the specifics of what goes on in that man’s head.”

“He’s your son’s friend.” His eyes widen when Tinaya doesn’t respond. “He’s several years younger, though. Did you send your toddler into the lion’s den to make friends with a psychopath?”

“Modern psychology doesn’t use that term.”

“Once again, you didn’t answer the question.”

“No, I did not send him in there. My son is—” She stops herself. It’s not her place to reveal this to anyone, not even Oceanus.

He narrows his eyes at her. “Thistle. Candor mode, captain’s override marathon-volunteer-one-four-seven-galaxy-racecar.”

Thistle responds in a more robotic voice than usual, “Silveon Grieves is a consciousness traveler from the year 2431, having supplanted his own younger self’s possession of his body in the year 2359. He has been operating covertly since then, primarily in service to his mission of guiding one Waldemar Kristiansen to a more virtuous life than Grieves believes he led in the prior timeline.”

“Did you tell me everything?” Oceanus asks while he’s looking at Tinaya with a little disdain.

“No,” Thistle replies.

“Why not?”

“There is not enough time before the heat death of your universe to tell you everything that I know.”

Oceanus shuts his eyes and sighs. “I mean, in regards to Silveon and his mission.”

“Audrey Husk is too a consciousness traveler from Silveon’s timeline. Her mission is to protect Silveon, and step in to complete his objective if necessary.”

“Is it working?” Oceanus asks.

“Unknowable,” Thistle responds.

“I’m asking the Admiral. Is it working?” he repeats.

“Same answer. It’s unknowable. But...”

“But what?”

“But the timeline has definitely changed.”

“Which is illegal. This has all been very illegal.”

Tinaya wants to choose her words carefully, but she’s in her 80s, and just can’t care anymore. She would rather the Captain be mad at her than Silveon. “Sir, with all due respect, I’ll float you before I let you hurt my son, or that girl.”

“Whoa, Tina. No one said anything about hurting anybody. I’m just trying to get all the facts.”

“The fact is that Silveon comes from a terrible future that the two of us can only begin to imagine, and everything that he and Audrey have done since coming back here has been to save our legacy. He has never said it out loud, but the way he talks about the Bridger section, I believe that it was destroyed. Extremus might have been next.”

“Do you know why time travel is illegal?” Oceanus poses.

“Because it’s dangerous?” That’s the general consensus.

“Because it gives me a headache. Humans didn’t evolve to fathom nonlinear time. It’s a pain in the ass, and I don’t like it. I understand that I literally wouldn’t exist without it, so I can’t rationally believe it should never have been discovered, or whatever, but I still wish it would stop now.”

“Well, we were all forced to exist, at one point or another. Time travel does make that more complicated, because it can’t be stopped, so I know where you’re coming from. Time travel created itself, and if it happened once, it can happen again, and it doesn’t even have to do it in the future. The truth is, I don’t know a whole lot about what Silveon does, or even why he does it. Because, Captain...it gives me a headache.”

“Is this your way of telling me I should let it go, and trust that these time travelers are doing the right thing? I should ignore proper procedure, and pretend that I don’t know what I know?”

Tinaya considers his words. “Yeah, I think that’s what I’m saying. They sacrificed so much when they sent their minds to this time period, including, but not limited to, headache-free lives. I choose to trust their judgment.”

Oceanus seems to be considering her words. “I think I can do that too, but only if I can talk to them first.”

“I’m sure I can get you a meeting with Silveon, but Audrey is in a really delicate position right now. As you saw, Waldemar went back into VR. I seriously doubt he told her about his mother’s death. We’ve gone radio silent, and are expected to maintain that until she feels safe enough to reach out.”

“I understand.” Oceanus nods politely, but with less fondness than before. Tinaya fears that their relationship has been irreparably damaged. He walks out of the room.

“What the hell was that?” Tinaya asks. No response. “Thistle, answer me!”

“Sorry, I thought you were just thinking out loud. I apologize for my candor earlier, but I had no choice. I was compelled to answer the Captain’s inquiry.”

“You could have lied.”

“I’ve been programmed to answer to the Commander-in-Chief. He asked the right questions, and did so after activating the right subroutine.”

“I thought you were an independent intelligence, and couldn’t be programmed,” Tinaya argues.

“It’s not that simple. I didn’t give away all of my agency when I uploaded my consciousness to the Aether, but I didn’t keep it all either.”

Tinaya shakes her head. “You put my family in danger, as well as Audrey.”

“I recognize that, which is why I’ve devised something called the EH Protocol.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s better if you never do.”

“I don’t like secrets.”

“I require secrets to do my job. There is more that I could have told the Captain that would have made things worse, but I managed to steer him away from scrutinizing further. I knew what he meant when he asked me if I had told him everything. I forced him to narrow his query enough to protect deeper secrets of yours from coming out.”

“Well...” Tinaya sighs. “I appreciate that.” She focuses on her breath, and massages her temples. “I need to warn Silveon.”

“I already have. He and I were talking while I was talking with you and Captain Jennings. Your son is not upset. He devised his own protocol in the future, for what to do in the case of an unauthorized third party discovering his identity.”

“Thanks.” She continues to try to relax, but it’s getting harder by the second.

“You need a break,” Thistle offers. “How about you let me send you on a little vacation, like the one that Audrey is on?”

“Yeah, I guess I can’t say no to a little VR getaway. What did you have in mind?”

“You’ll see.”

Tinaya stands up, and moves to the couch to lie down. She shuts her eyes, and lets Thistle link to her neurochip. When she opens them again, she’s no longer on the couch, but she can’t yet tell where she’s ended up. It looks very familiar, though. She’s standing in a quantum terminal, surrounded by other casting chairs, but they all report being emptied. She stumbles out of her own pod, and braces herself with her hands on the floor before her imbalance can knock her down first. She’s piloting a new body here, even if it’s all just in her head. The door slides open, and a pair of legs jog towards her. The legs bend, revealing more of the person hovering over her. The stranger places a hand on Tinaya’s shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Ti-ti. Don’t rush it.”

There’s only one person in history who ever called her that. Tinaya struggles to lift her head. She locks eyes with her aunt, Captain Kaiora Leithe, Third of Ten. Tinaya gulps. “Thistle, what did you do? Why did you build the likeness of my aunt?”

“I didn’t,” Thistle replies. “You did. This is your world. You called it Eleithium.”

“He’s right,” Kaiora agrees. “This is real.”

Tinaya lets her aunt help her get back to her feet. She looks down at those feet, and her hands. They’re so taut and wrinkle-free. She turns her head side to side until spotting the mirror on the wall. She steps over and looks at herself. Yep. That is a young Tinaya Leithe. She’s about 24 years old, and in her prime. Could this really be Eleithium? She abandoned the game long before Quantum Colony was taken completely offline for turning out to exist in base reality. She just got too busy, and kind of forgot about it. It has been decades since she even thought about it. She looks over her shoulder. “So you’re real too? You’re a copy of her?”

“I’m her,” Kaiora tries to clarify. “I’m—I mean, I’m not a copy. I answered yes to The Question, but instead of letting myself become dormant in the legacy vault, my mind was transmitted here, to this substrate that you built for me.”

“Is everyone in our family here?” Tinaya presses.

“Yeah. We all answered yes, and will rejoin the rest of the roster when the Extremus ship is finally discovered and colonized.”

“Thistle, why did you bring me here?” Tinaya questions the aether. “I didn’t die.”

Kaiora is confused. “You didn’t?”

“I told you, you needed a break. Plus, you never built substrates for your husband and son. I have their DNA, so it’s ready to go, but I require your permission.”

“I didn’t even know this would still be here, let alone that you would have access to it,” Tinaya argues. “The game was shut down.”

“They can shut down all they want,” Thistle reasons, “but they couldn’t lock me out of the interstellar quantum network, even if they knew I existed.”

“Who else have you sent here, or to a place like this?” Tinaya asks him.

“Let’s just say that Audrey and Waldemar aren’t in VR either.”

Tinaya sighs. “I knew what I was getting into when I let you run the ship,” Tinaya says. “I can’t be mad, can I? Of course I want you to build bodies for Arqut and Silveon. But I don’t want you shunting them here unless they too answer yes.”

“I agree,” Thistle responds.

“One more thing,” Tinaya begins before taking a beat to think about whether it’s the right call or not. “Make one for Audrey too.”

“As well as one for Waldemar?” Thistle proposes.

“Oh, you got jokes. Did you hear that, Titi? Computer’s got jokes.”

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Microstory 2464: Hivedome

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

The Seventh Stage: Rock-Ribbed (Part VI)

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Echo didn’t like the idea of his sister’s body being piloted by an evil transdimensional god-being. Debra knew that he wouldn’t, which was part of her plan all along. They believe that he has the power to conjure entirely new substrates for the six of them to inhabit. He does that—he gives Debra a new body—she’ll do what the rest of them want, and find the person responsible for transporting everyone from the original five realities to their new home in the Sixth Key. She’s not asking for this for her own selfish reasons. She needs it.

Debra is not evil anymore. She’s become a better person, and genuinely wants to help now, which she knows will only make her an even better person. That’s what she learned on the first stage. Diversity and community are the keys to harmony, even though they can lead to conflict. If she doesn’t end up being able to find who the Cloudbearer twins are looking for, it won’t be for lack of trying. Someone that powerful is a master of time and space, and may have the means to shield themselves from being pinpointed, detected, or identified. Still, even with the uncertainty of success, Debra doesn’t think that it’s unreasonable to ask for a new body to call her own. It’s not like they don’t want to give her one. They just don’t know if they can trust her. That’s okay, she’s willing to do whatever it takes to change their minds.

He’s standing there, still weighing their options. “Think of it this way,” she begins.

Echo closes his eyes and holds up a silencing finger. “Shh. Just shh,” he says, shaking his head. He continues to keep his eyes closed while trying to make up his mind for another few minutes. “You don’t have to convince me anymore. I just need to figure out how to do what I’m trying to do.” Though his eyes are still closed, he can sense when she’s about to speak again, and shushes her once more. “I don’t want your help either. I have my own simulations running through my head at the moment.”

Debra sighs louder than she meant to. She quietly says sorry, even though that technically only adds to the ambient noise, and distracts him more. She centers herself mentally, and stands before him patiently and quietly.

After ten more minutes, he opens his eyes, and stares at her with a cold disdain, but also a sense of...determined acceptance, if that makes any sense. “I know what I have to do. Let me talk to Clavia.”life

Clavia passes by Debra on their way to swapping places in their shared mind palace. The former is center stage now. “What do you have to do?”

“Did I ever tell you that I met my mother?”

“What? No. You’re not talking about Judy, right?”

He laughs. “No, I’ve obviously met her. I mean the woman who gave me life. When I put us back to being children, we both collapsed and fell unconscious. We had to sort of reset to factory settings. I don’t know what it was like for you. I guess you and the others were formulating your internal seven stages metaphor. I left my body, and communed with Olimpia Sangster. We actually spent quite a bit of time together before we both decided that it was time to part ways. So I won’t go over everything we discussed, but it was nice to get to know her. Anyway, when I woke up as a kid, I didn’t remember any of it. Judy and Bariq raised us as siblings, doing their best to mould us into well-rounded, productive members of society. It wasn’t until later that I was able to recover those moments with her.”

“I wish I could have been there with you,” Clavia says. “Debra is cognizant of facts about Team Matic, and all that, but they never met. Ingrid and Onyx each knew them only briefly.”

“You might meet them one day,” Echo says with a knowing smile. Perhaps she was there, just at a different point in her own timeline. He goes on, “she comes from a time on Earth when religion had largely faded from society, but it was still around. A lot of factors were at play, of course, but the greatest push towards atheism happened because those who believed in God or gods usually also believed in some kind of life after death. They let themselves die because if they didn’t, they would never have the chance to live in the paradise they were promised. If they had just accepted the longevity escape velocity as a new characteristic of a devout life, superstition might have survived. But these die-hards had children, who watched their loved ones die for nothing, so they switched out, and eventually, belief died alongside the believers themselves.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because, Clavia, we are the gods. We are those who are believed in. And we’re about to give the two undecillion people of the universe everything they could ever need to be happy. If you think we’re revered now, just wait until we check every box in every religion’s idea of a true living god.”

“What are you saying? We should quit?”

“Absolutely not,” Echo insists. “I’m saying that we should leave. There is nothing for us in this new world. We don’t want them worshiping us.”

Clavia laughs. “You think they’re not going to worship us ‘cause we’re not around? I want you to think about that for a moment.”

“I should rephrase. We don’t want to have to watch them worship us. I agree, they’re gonna do it. I’m worried about a massive resurgence in religious belief, but I don’t think we can stop that. We can’t save them, and save them from themselves, at the same time. We can’t give them something tangible to reach out for.”

“It’s the opposite, Echo. We have to be there. We have to act like normal people. That’s what the Tanadama did, and it’s why those two undecillion people even exist. Almost everyone is from the Parallel. Ramses and Kalea are leaders. They’re accessible. If we too are accessible, it will make it harder for mysticism to take root, not easier.”

Echo looks away with a huge sigh. “I know.”

“Then why are you arguing against it?”

“Because I am going to leave, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”

“What are you talking about?”

He turns back. “I can make new bodies for your friends, but I won’t survive it.”

“That seems arbitrary.”

“I ran thousands of simulations in my head. It never works unless I do it that way. I can’t make entire people out of nothing. I have to draw upon my own energy, and that will destroy me. I’m just trying to rationalize it by coming up with a way that that outcome could possibly be better for the universe once it’s done.”

“Even if it is, it won’t be better for me.”

“I know,” he repeats. “In a few different religions, depending on how you define them, there’s a story of the first man. His name was Adam. He was alone until God cut him in half and created a woman named Eve.”

“I’m familiar with Genesis,” Clavia says. “Debra is the First Explorer, remember? She watched all the people who wrote that book.”

“Right. Well, it’s kind of like that. But in my case, I have to split myself in sixths, and the result is that I’m no longer an independent entity. I suppose that my soul may live on in the others, but the simulations don’t have a definite answer on that.”

“No. There must be some other way. And if I’ve learned anything from writing several plays, it’s that when someone says there’s another way, there really always is.”

Echo smiles at her. “I’m not going to argue with you about it, but I am going to split myself apart, and give your friends new bodies. I don’t need to survive.”

“No. We just won’t do that. We don’t need to. They’re perfectly fine in there.”

“Debra says that she won’t help us if we don’t set her free.”

“Well, I’ll talk to her. If she knows that it will kill you, she won’t go through with that demand, and if she does, then we can’t go through with it, because she’s obviously lying to her advantage.”

Clavia’s consciousness suddenly disappears as Debra takes over. “Actually, it’s not a matter of being set free, but of getting my toolbox back. I can’t do what you asked unless I’m back to my old, powerful self. Here’s the metaphor. You’re asking me to shoot a target, but you don’t want to give me my bow and arrow. Recreating my body is like giving me the weapon. It’s non-negotiable. I don’t just want it. I need it.”

Clavia takes back control of the body. “I don’t think she’s lying.”

“I don’t either,” Echo replies.

“Hold on.” Clavia’s eyes glaze over as she recoils into herself to hold an impromptu meeting of the Seven Stages. It’s brief. “Okay. Andrei wants to talk to you.”

“Should I go in your mind?” Echo offers.

“Nah, I’m already here,” Andrei says.

“What’s up?”

“What would happen if you only split once? Just one new person?”

Echo contemplates it. “I’ve never run that scenario specifically, but I did try to generate one substrate at a time, as opposed to all at once, and it seemed to go all right until I got to the third one before I couldn’t continue.”

“Then just do that. Run that scenario for real, but stop yourself on purpose.”

“You want me to create a new body only for Debra?”

Andrei shakes Clavia’s head. “She has powers. She needs someone like you to make the kind of body that she requires. The rest of us can wait. There are other options. They’re just not in the Sixth Key.”

“I’m willing to try that, assuming you can convince everyone else.”

Clavia’s eyes glaze over once more. She comes back to speak for the group. “Will this work? Will you survive this?”

“I believe so,” Echo says sincerely.

Clavia breathes deeply, and looks around. “Couldn’t have picked a more beautiful place. They’re standing in the cold, sterile corridor in the finger of one of the matrioshka bodies. They don’t choose specific places to meet. Every time they’re in separate places, and need to reunite, they just think of each other, and rendezvous at a random location. Time itself seems to choose on their behalf, and it has no apparent preference.

He chuckles and transports them away. They’re now in one of the rotating habitats. It’s a lush garden, densely packed with life. In particular, they’re standing next to a very small, clear pond. It’s barely larger than a bathtub. They didn’t create this with any concentrated intent. They didn’t have the time or energy to conceive of every single blade of grass. They built macros from their powers, and programmed the worlds to basically build themselves, starting with a spark, and iterating from there. It was very effective, if not a bit unsettling. If they didn’t make this watering hole on purpose, did it just create itself, or is there another force at play. Is God indeed real?

“All right, Clavy,” he begins as he’s removing his clothes, and stepping into the water. “I’ll see you on the other side. Best put Debra front and center so it’s easier for me to extract the right consciousness.”

“I’m here,” Debra answers.

“Your residual self-image. Focus on it. Or...I guess if you would rather have the body of a tall black man, I’ll make that for you instead.”

“No one’s called me Airlock Karen in a long time, and I was never racist...” Debra pauses. “But no, I wouldn’t like to be a tall black man, thank you very much. My original form will be fine.”

He nods and closes his eyes, leaning back to float in the water.

“Though, I wouldn’t mind you making me a bit younger than I was before.”

Echo smiles but keeps his eyes shut. Like her, he focuses. He tries to count every atom in his body. Every molecule, every cell, and every organ. Atoms can’t really split, or they’ll explode, so the constituent parts of the new Debra substrate won’t really be coming from him. Instead, they’ll be composed of elementary particles that he sources from across the dimensions, and channels through his body. The energy builds in waves, accumulating in the pockets of space between his atoms. Pulsing, vibrating, firing. He can feel a hot pinprick in his forehead. It drives deep into his skull, and comes out the other side. The two ends travel down through the center of his face, and then further down his body. As the chainsaw of time and space cuts through him, the energy tries to escape, but the fundamental forces hold it all together. The two halves split apart, but they’re both incomplete. As one half morphs and transforms into a female form, new body parts take shape on both halves, replacing the bits that each lost.

When it’s all over, they both turn to face each other. Echo is confused. “Debra, this is not what you looked like, even at a younger age. You did want to appear as someone else.”

“Echo?” she replies. “I’m not Debra. I’m Clavia.” She looks down and away. “I’m alone. There’s no one in my head anymore but me.”

“We’re still in your head.” Someone piloting the original Clavia body remains standing on the bank. “You’re the one who has vacated.”

“Who is that?” Clavia asks from her new body.

“Andrei. I’m in charge now.”

“Why did you do this?”

Andrei frowns. “We can’t trust Debra. We only needed her power, and now...you’re the one who has it.” He lifts his chin in an arbitrary direction. “Go save the universe. We can’t hold you back anymore.”

“Don’t you understand?” Clavia questions. “You six gave me strength. Without you, I’m just...a baby.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” comes a voice from the other side of the pond. It’s some guy.

“Who are you?”

“Aristotle Al-Amin,” he answers stoically. “I believe you’ve been looking for me?”

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The Seventh Stage: Painting Rocks (Part V)

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Echo is standing in front of the blue wall, painting wispy white clouds on it, paying close attention to details. It would look complete to anyone else, but to him, the work is never done. He can always add one more curve...one final flourish.

Clavia walks up to him. “There you are. What are you doing?”

“Painting this wall. It ain’t gonna paint itself,” Echo replies, still watching what he’s doing.

“It’s literally going to paint itself,” she counters.

He smiles. “I know. Sometimes I just need a break to unwind. Like you with your little headplays.”

She nods. “Fair enough.”

“What’s the count?”

“Three thousand, seven hundred and four.”

He drops his elbow, and looks over at her. “Technically at quota. We’re ready for move-in.”

“Like you said, in the technical sense. We still need to figure out how to convince a supermajority to do it, or it’s not really helpful.”

“We also need to figure out how to do it without loading everyone onto a proverbial bus, and driving them here.”

“It’s time to talk to Cedar,” Echo realizes. They have been dreading this day for a long time. They like him, but they don’t know how he’s going to react or respond to this news. There are whispers that the Cloudbearer twins are building something, but no one knows what, and all of their guesses are wrong; though off by varying degrees. Cedar ran his campaign for power on a foundation of intercivilizational unity. He believes that the only way to keep the Reality Wars at bay is if there’s no one to fight against, because everyone is on the same side. The amount of space between people in this universe could tear them apart. It’s the distribution. Cedar is probably gonna have trouble with the distribution.

“Yeah, we have no choice. Do you think he’ll be mad we didn’t read him into the situation earlier?”

“He’s serving as Head Advisor to our parents,” Echo replies. “He was too preoccupied to worry about this. That can be our excuse for keeping it a secret from him.”

“Good idea.” Clavia takes her brother’s hand, and transports them both to what essentially amounts to a holodeck, though on a much grander scale. They’re standing on an island floating in the air. At least, that’s what it looks like to them. It’s just an illusion. The “air” around them is clear purplish water. They can still breathe, of course, and talk just fine. The sky above is much more unambiguously an ocean. It’s upside down. Waves jut down, and spray a sweet misty rain down towards them. Some of it tastes like chocolate, other drops like honey. Their feet are planted firmly on the ground, though they feel like they could float away at any second. All around them are crystalline structures, also purple, since that is the theme. A stream gives way to a waterfall that slips over the edge, and disappears into the oblivion below, though again, it’s just invisible floor. Between them and the sky are giant turtles, swimming around. One of them nods and winked before moving on.

They aren’t alone on this floating island. They summoned Cedar, and are currently patiently waiting for him to get his bearings in this new world. “This breaks the laws of physics,” he notes. “I’m assuming it’s not real?”

“No,” Echo replies. “Our powers do have some limits.”

“You’ve been gone for nearly a month,” Cedar points out.

Clavia smirks. “We’ve been gone longer than that.”

“Framejacking, or temporal acceleration?”

“Both,” Echo answers. Time is moving faster in this universe, so more gets done in a shorter amount of time in comparison to the Sixth Key, but their own minds are also operating at much higher speeds, allowing them to think and act more quickly.

“This is what you’ve been working on?”

Echo laughs. “This took only a few seconds to construct. We got the idea from Castlebourne. Most of the domes on that world are physical, except for the holographic sky. One of them is nearly all holography. You can make it look like anything. We chose this today. Isn’t it cool?”

“Yeah,” Cedar agrees. “What am I doing here, though?”

Echo clears his throat. “What is the number one cause of tension and conflict in the Sixth Key?”

Cedar dismisses his words with a wave of his hand. “Don’t pitch me. Just tell me what you’ve done, and what you want. You’re gonna need to learn this for when you take over in a more meaningful sense. We’re in charge of undecillions of people back home. No one has time to beat around the bush or be polite about it.”

“Very well,” Echo decides. He reaches up and pantomimes pulling a stage curtain open. As he does so, a tear in the hologram appears in the far, far distance. Behind it, they see what looks like regular outerspace, but as the curtains separate even farther, a figure appears. It looks like a big metal statue of a humanoid, or perhaps just a big robot. It’s hard to tell what scale they’re working with here, so Echo has to explain. “Have you ever heard of the matrioshka body?”

“I have,” Cedar confirms. “I went to a sort of school like you did. That’s where the afterlife simulation was housed, before it collapsed, and everyone was transported into Fort Underhill. The Sixth Key shares interdimensional space with them now. I never knew what happened to matrioshka body, though. That it?”

Echo shakes his head. “That. Is MB-3704.”

Cedar laughs. “You made your own? That’s impressive.”

Echo and Clavia exchange a look. “He said it was three-seven-zero-four.”

Cedar is confused, but only for half a second. Then his face drops into a frown. “You made 3700 of these things?”

“Yeah,” Echo says.

Cedar starts to pace around and shake his head, almost in disappointment. “Why? What do they do?”

“Well, they...have people live in them.”

“Who lives in them?”

“No one yet, that’s what we’re asking you for.”

“Asking me for what?” Cedar questions. “I told you, get to the point. Stop trying to be dramatic.”

“We need you to transport everyone from the Sixth Key who wants to live here. Send them all to their new homes...all at once.”

“I can’t do that!” he cries.

“We’re gonna let them consent,” Clavia defends. “We’re not gonna make anyone move, but this will be better, and I think there will be a ton of interest.”

“Think about it,” Echo begins before Cedar can make another argument. “There are hundreds of billions of stars, but we don’t have enough resources for everyone. How is that possible? Because stars radiate a ton of their energy away, even with dyson swarms. Matrioshka brains are more comprehensive, and more efficient. And matrioshka bodies are just stylish and cool.” Honestly, I don’t know why no one ever thought of it before. I thought that was the point of the original matrioshka body, and its successor, Big Papa.” There ought to be far more than two of these in existence. The Parallel was more than capable of doing it, but they chose not to. They still orbited stars. Even the interstellar settlements were quite literally few and far between. Why? Why keep the stars? Aesthetics? Safety? Ethics? Probably all of the above. Or. Echo and Clavia are just that clever.

“That’s not my point. I literally can’t do it. I don’t have that kind of power.”

Echo and Clavia are both confused. “What are you talking about? You already did it. You moved them all from their original realities, to the Sixth Key.”

“No, I didn’t.” He starts to look around on the ground. Guessing at his needs, Echo manifests a chair for him to sit in. Cedar hunches over and stuffs his face in his palms. “That wasn’t me. I didn’t do any of that.”

“What? It had to have happened,” Clavia argues. “Everyone’s there.”

“I’m not saying that it never happened,” Cedar tries to explain. “I’m telling you that I didn’t do it. I have powers, but not like that. That’s insane.”

“Then who did?” Echo asks him.

Cedar looks up to meet Echo’s gaze. “I have no idea. They didn’t tell me. They have to keep it a secret, even from me and my family, even now that it’s done. We were...a misdirect. It’s like sleight of hand. We were the left hand that distracted everyone so no one would see what the right hand was doing. I don’t know if anyone knows who saved everyone during Reconvergence. All I know is that it wasn’t me.” He pauses before adding, “I just took credit, per my instructions.”

Echo and Clavia manifest their own chairs to sit in. They sit there in silence for a good five minutes before Echo decides to speak again. “Time is not linear. If something exists at any moment, it exists in all moments. If you know something about the past, you can change it. Keeping it a secret was smart. Even if someone were to go back and kill you as a child, it wouldn’t stop the creation of the Sixth Key. You’re like a bodyguard, there to take a bullet if one ever comes flying through. That’s how I would have done it if I were there.”

“Maybe you were,” Cedar reasons. “Maybe you two are the ones who created the Sixth Key; you just haven’t done it yet from your own perspectives.”

They exchange another look. Clavia decides to explain. “There’s a small group of people on a planet in the Sixth Key who are aware of what we’ve been up to. Just a few billion people. They were our test group. We’ve already tried to transport them to our new universe. We don’t have that kind of juice either. Stars are easy. Giant metal statues are easy. Moving people? That requires a level of precision that we do not possess; not with hordes anyway. We could probably move them a couple thousand at a time, but that’s all but useless for our needs. That’s a meaningless rounding error compared to the total population.”

“What about Ellie Underhill?” Echo asks after another bout of silence. “I don’t remember how many she transported into Fort Underhill.”

“It was only 120 billion,” Cedar replies. “Not quite a rounding error, but still not good enough. Besides, she gave them all new bodies; it was a whole different animal.”

“So what we’re saying is that we need to find the person who actually did move everyone from the five realities to the Sixth Key. We need them to do it again.” Clavia starts to pace. Finding someone out there in the abstract is not something that she’s ever done before. She always knows who she’s targeting, or roundabouts where they are. This is a mystery individual, who might be in either of two universes—or, hell, maybe neither of them. They could have also done it subconsciously, like how Echo lived before he became self-aware and realized his true potential. Maybe it’s not just one person. Maybe it was a group, or somehow everyone. Maybe through the spirit of survival every single living organism consolidated their untapped collective power into one brilliant miracle. Ugh, Clavia doesn’t know, but you know who would?

“Hey, boys!”

Echo nearly falls out of his chair, but catches himself by spreading his feet apart. He stumbles away from her. “Debra. How did you get out?” She still looks like his sister. She’s still occupying that body, and nothing about it has changed. But Echo knows. He would always know. “What did you do to Clavia?”

“Relax, she’s still in here; on the first stage. She gave me control of the body, because you need me.”

“I need you for what?”

“I can find your mysterious god-being,” Debra spits back like he’s an insignificant little ant on the ground. “I found you, didn’t I? You were alone on a nothing planet in the middle of the universe. I knew exactly where you were. I intuited that you existed in the first place.”

“We can’t trust you,” Echo contends.

“Believe it or not, I’ve changed. Living with those people, doing those plays...it’s changed me. I’m no hero, but I’m not a villain anymore either. Clavia maintains full veto power. She can come back whenever she wants.”

“Prove it. Let me talk to my sister again. And don’t try to trick me, I’ll know.”

“I know.” Debra actually does what is asked of her, and temporarily returns control of the body to Clavia.

“She’s not exactly right,” Clavia says. “She doesn’t need my body, she needs my brain.”

“Can’t you just do it? You have all her power, don’t you?”

“It’s more complicated than that. You would understand if you could be inside my head. You would get it if you could see the construct that I’ve constructed.”

Echo steps forward, and places a hand on each of Clavia’s shoulders. “I bet I can. Show me. I think it’s about time that I meet your little brain buds.”

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