Microstory 2748: One One Cocoa Full Basket

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Elise Perkins has dropped her rapping iron again. All of her tools can float except for that one. It keeps sinking to the bottom of the pool, and every time she dives down to retrieve it, she ends up pushing all of her other tools away, so she has to swim around to get those back too. She has taken so many courses here, but has never found a class called Keeping Track of Your Stuff 101. She did find underwater basket weaving, though. She knows it started as a joke, but she’s having fun with it, despite the drops.

Her basket is fairly complete at this point, so she uses it as a little liferaft for her other tools while she very carefully sinks below the surface herself, and slowly swims down to find the rapping iron. It’s an awkward shape, so it doesn’t always land right below. The chlorine stings her eyes as she’s hunting for it. She could have designed a body for herself that doesn’t feel that kind of inconsequential pain, but she wants to immerse herself in the culture. She wants to feel what her ancestors felt when they were doing these kinds of things. She wants to be authentic.

She spots it. Huh. It’s right next to another one. Wait, no. That one isn’t a rapping iron. What the hell is that thing? No one else is in the pool right now. Did they really drop something earlier, and it was never picked up? It’s not like the droids to make such a mistake. She swims towards it, but before she can catch it, the second metal object latches itself onto her iron and they both begin floating upwards. She keeps grasping at them, but they’re moving too fast. She follows them up to the surface, only noticing then that someone is standing on the pool coping. Are they trying to steal her tool? Who the hell would do that? It’s not worth anything. They can get their own!

Elise makes one final push. She takes hold of her rapping iron, as well as the magnet, and the string it’s attached to. She yanks it away, which causes the figure to totally faceplant into the water. Serves them right. But now there’s a problem. What if this stranger is a serial killer? Now she’s in a very vulnerable position with a person who she has just royally pissed off. She breaks the surface quickly, and swims the rest of the way to the wall so she can pull herself up. She hears a bunch of splashing behind her.

The stranger is flailing about, trying to keep their head above water. They’re panicking, and can clearly not swim. Well, maybe it’s not so clear. They could be faking.

This is ridiculous. Elise is immortal, and there’s security all over the place. She doesn’t have to be afraid. So she jumps back in, thankful that she learned to become a certified lifeguard not two months ago, and rescues the non-swimmer.

The stranger is still panicking as she scrambles out of the water, and lies on her back on the deck to catch her breath.

Elise stands there patiently, wringing water out of her hair, and adjusting her bikini, which magnet girl nearly tore off of her during the struggle.

The woman rolls over to her side, and stands back up. She stares awkwardly at Elise. “This is not how I wanted this to go. How embarrassing that I should not know how to swim. I just...didn’t think you would pull me in.”

“I didn’t think you would try to steal from me,” Elise replies.

“That was only my way of introducing myself. I thought it would be funny.”

“Well, it wasn’t. It was just confusing, and honestly, a little scary for me. I change substrates when I feel like it, but I never let my body die. I have an aversion to pain.”

“I get it,” the woman says. She takes a deep breath, and holds out her hand. “Hi. I’m Ciaragie Benetton, but everyone calls me Rage. Don’t worry, it’s ironic. It might not seem like it, but I’m typically very cool under pressure.”

“My name is not important,” Elise replies. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I would like to get back to my basket.” She starts to scan the surface because now her tools will have scattered all over the place. She sees her basket first. It is completely mangled and broken. She looks back over at Rage. “You ruined it. I’ll have to start over.”

“I’m sorry, Elise. I should have said just hello, like a normal person.”

“How do you know my name?” Elise questions.

“I came here to find you,” Rage explains as she’s stripping naked. “I’m putting together a team to compete under Treasure Hunting Dome. I believe that there is a secret, hidden level to be played. I believe there is a prize which no one has ever heard of, let alone attempted to locate. I’ve been going around, finding the best of the best from people who have experience in other domes. I myself have spent decades in Escape Dome. But I also have a navigator, and adrenaline junkie, even an anthro—”

“I’m sorry, what the heck does this have to do with me?” Elise asks. “I’m not the best of the best at anything. I spend my time learning archaic skills, like underwater basket weaving, and bricklaying. You must have me confused with someone else.”

Rage shakes her head. “No, you’re who I’m looking for. I don’t know what you know about Treasure Hunting Dome, but the challenges often involve exactly things like those skills. Some are inherent, like digging through a haystack to find a data-needle which contains your next clue. But for some of them, completing the challenge is just what tells the Exemplar that you deserve the clue, so they hand it to you.”

Elise sighs. “It’s not really my thing. As I was saying, I enjoy the quiet. I don’t wanna go on an adventure. When I’m not here, I’m reading classics in Branch of Babel, or relaxing on a boat in Raindome. I don’t do fun. I don’t do challenges.”

“You don’t wanna do anything with what you’ve learned,” Rage presses. “So you can weave a basket underwater. So what? It’s not like the world needs more baskets. You don’t even need a basket. You could print one in minutes.”

Elise points to the water. “That was supposed to be mine. It was going to be something that I made myself. No, I don’t need a basket, but I want a basket that’s one hundred percent unique. It wasn’t programmed, it wasn’t generated. It would be mine. My house is filled with things that I have created with my own two hands. I made the house itself...on my own...from scratch. That’s what makes me happy. I do it for me, and no one else. I don’t expect someone like you to understand that.”

“I understand,” Rage argues. “Oh, I understand better than you think. The prize for winning an escape room is getting out of the escape room, which you already were before you voluntarily went in. We collect the same things. We collect experiences.” She holds her hand out again, but this time not to shake. “Come with me. Let’s experience something neither of us has before, which I believe no one in the universe has. You might not be able to put a physical object in your home, but you’ll never forget it.”

Elise stares at Rage’s hand with a frown. That’s a pretty convincing argument, she has to admit it, if only to herself. “I’m not promising anything, but I am willing to listen. Tell me more about this Treasure Hunting Dome.” She doesn’t take her hand.

Rage smiles as she drops her arm. “Let’s meet the team first.”

Microstory 2472: Anadome

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Let’s talk about the Amish and the Mennonite communities. First, actually, let’s discuss what they’re not. They are not people who simply reject all forms of technology. After all, the plow is technology. It’s millennia old, but its novelty was never the concern. The only concern that these Anabaptists have is whether something supports their community, or harms it. Does it please God, or does it pull you away from Him? Vehicles, for instance, are not the issue. It’s whether that vehicle will be used to take a driver away from their family and community. If it’s being used to transport their wares to buyers, they’ve never had a problem with it, but that is why they held onto the horse and buggy for so long, because it would have been an impractical form of escape. Their way of life has changed over time, but their goals and principles have not. Work within the community, serve God. It’s a pretty simple concept. While religion has all but died out in the galaxy, the Anabaptists have persisted, and that’s because their beliefs inform their practices to a degree that other religions and sects could never have hoped to replicate. Sure, if you were Catholic, you went to service once or twice a week, and you performed your rituals. And maybe every night you prayed over your bed. That’s all well and good, but you didn’t live Catholicism. You just did things here and there, and while your convictions could inform your behavior in general, they couldn’t necessarily survive across the generations, because children come up with their own relationship to God. That was usually encouraged, but it was also the source of religion’s ultimate fading from the world, because people focused less and less on it, and it became less vital to how they lived their lives, and the choices that they made.

Anabaptists were always different, because God lives at the core of their ideals, and their daily patterns. In the past, the Anabaptists were able to maintain their practices by having a symbiotic relationship with society in general. They sold us their goods, and used our payment to support their communities. Centuries ago, however, currency disappeared from modern society, as we transitioned to a post-scarcity economy. A new relationship was developed to prevent the Anabaptists from going extinct. Instead of selling what they make to us, they barter it. In return, we give them whatever they require to survive, be it medicine, protection, transportation, etc. We don’t ask for a certain amount of goods in order for them to get a certain amount of return. It’s not simply symbolic—their customers benefit from the human touch and the craftsmanship, which is hard to find these days—but it’s not perfectly ratioed either. We take care of them regardless of the price. If one community gives us ten chairs one month, but can only make five chairs the next, we still give them whatever they need. That’s not us being generous. That’s how we operate internally anyway. We don’t ask a whole lot out of our citizens, so why would we ask anything out of these fine folk? Over a century ago, some of the Anabaptists decided that they wanted to found a new community on Castlebourne. They wanted to start from scratch. Till new lands. So Castlebourne made room for them. You can’t visit Anadome, and gawk at them. I’m here as an anthropologist, to educate you on what this community is all about. Click below for my full report.