Extremus: Year 57

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Everything is back to normal. Tinaya snuck Lataran, Omega, and Valencia back into the Bridger section. She was able to repair and reconfigure the brain sharing machine to put the latter three back to how they were. Tinaya herself, however, did not put on one of the helmets. She left her brain in its new and improved state. Who needs school when all the knowledge you ever need can be downloaded into your memory cortex in a matter of moments? Omega and Valencia were not pleased with her decision, but there was nothing they could do about it. This technology was not legal, so pursuing the matter would necessarily endanger their own freedom and reputations. They decided to just drop it, and leave it be. The two of them went off to live their own immortal lives, and Lataran went back to school. She was behind, but as planned a long time ago, was able to start back up right where she left off. There is no age limit to education, so while the majority of the students were younger than her, she wasn’t the only one who had put it off. Some kids just aren’t ready for college until they’re older.

Tinaya is living her best life, at least for now. After all that time caring for the saplings, she’s taking a year off to focus on her own needs. She’s refusing to deal with Avelino or the Bridgers. She’s not stressing out about her lack of formal education, or her future. Captain, not the captain; whatever. She’s on holiday. There aren’t a lot of vacation spots on this ship, but they do exist. She frequents the Starsight Restaurant. It’s not what it sounds like. There are no real viewports on the ship. Well, there are, but they can’t be used while in transit. Traveling at these high speeds welcomes in a literally blinding light from the outside, which is known as the doppler glow. Instead, the walls, ceiling, and floor of the restaurant serve as giant holographic projection screens, making it feel as though the tables, chairs, and patrons are floating in space. Even the surface gravity is lowered to about 20 percent normal to enhance the immersive experience.

Tinaya also plays mini-golf, and destroys objects at the therapeutic rage room, but she spends most of her time at the spa and hotel. She sits in the hot tub, and swims in the pool. She gets massages, and she relaxes on the beach facsimile, which is very obviously not located by a real ocean, but it’s close enough to get the effect. It’s better, actually, because there aren’t any sand fleas or broken beer bottles to contend with. She’s not been at the spa in nearly two weeks, though, because it’s better to take breaks from her break, or it stops feeling special. She’s having trouble getting back in today. “What do you mean that I’m not currently allowed in?”

“It’s your contribution score, sir,” the desk attendant replies.

“My contribution score?” Tinaya spits. “I never check that thing. It’s always been fine; what’s changed?” Extremus doesn’t have any form of currency. Money need not be exchanged in order to enjoy amenities. But that doesn’t mean everything is completely free to everyone. One must be a productive member of society. A contribution score is a number that places a value on the amount of effort a resident of this ship exerts. It basically calculates how good of a person you are, and how much you deserve whatever you’re asking for. Going to school, getting a job, not committing crimes; these all add to your score, and not doing anything with one’s life can lower it. That appears to be what has happened to Tinaya.

“I’m sorry, sir; I don’t have full access to your background information. All it tells me is that you’re sitting at a score of 83, and that is below our threshold for enjoyment of our facilities. You are not permitted to reenter the premises until you reach a score of at least 140.”

“I don’t understand how it works. I’ve never worried about it. That’s something adults think about. But it’s my birthday, and I want to celebrate it. This used to be my favorite place to go, but that is quickly changing.”

“Oh, it’s your birthday?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I...I’m not so one hundred percent sure about it either. I have a regular job, and that sort of gets me a pretty high score, so I’ve never given it much thought but I do believe there’s an age thing. I can get my supervisor up here to discuss it.”

“Yeah, that would be great. Thanks.”

A couple has been waiting in line behind her. One of them mutters something under his breath.

“Excuse me, what did you just say?”

Neither one responds.

“Don’t be scared. Say it out loud. Say it to my face.”

“I said that you were a Karen.”

Tinaya is rageful for a second, but she quickly slips into embarrassment and shame. She is being a Karen, isn’t she? She still doesn’t know how her score works, but it should be no surprise that it’s gone down. She’s not done anything for the ship. Perhaps a year-long sabbatical wasn’t the best idea in the world.

He senses the transition of emotion in her face, and his own changes. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s not my place to judge. I know that I don’t know what you’re going through. I hope...you get your score back up.”

“Thank you.”

She’s about to leave when the desk attendant’s manager comes around. “I understand that you’re having an issue, sir?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tinaya says. “It’s my fault.”

“I can help you,” he says comfortingly. “Why don’t you come into my office?”

“Okay.” She follows him into the back, and sits across from him.

He pulls her info up on the screen, which Tinaya can only see from a steep angle. “Okay, looks like you have a score of 83.”

“I thought that was all right.”

“It used to be pretty good for someone like you, but two things happened shipwide this year, and one thing happened in my industry. Number one, beginning on January the first, the maximum score was raised. The highest used to be 120, but it is now 216. Now, of course, everyone’s score was lifted to account for that. In fact, I believe there was a short clause in the new bill that gave most citizens the benefit of the doubt. So if you had a score of 108, you would end up with...” He plugs in the math. “...194.4, which they would have just bumped up to 195, because they don’t do fractions.”

“Okay...so now 83 is extremely low, but I was here two weeks ago, and there was no problem, so why wasn’t mine raised?”

“Because of the other two things,” he begins. “Last week, our internal policies changed. We now require a minimum contribution score of 140, which under our old policy, accounting for the new maximum possible score that the government came up with, was only 120. For a short window, yours was probably sitting at around 150, but it’s not your only issue. Your score would have been all right yesterday, however, it’s your birthday. It is, in fact, your twenty-third birthday, and on this ship, you no longer enjoy a boost in your contribution score from your parents. You are no longer in school, you do not hold a job, and you have been spending a lot of time at the spa. That has finally caught up to you. You should have been warned of this, and that is something that I could have done for you. I should have probably guessed that you presently do not have anyone else to help you through this. For my part in the lack of communication, and the misunderstanding, I apologize. I can point you to some resources that can help you raise your score. You could find a job, maybe you can go back to school.”

“I can’t go to school. I wasn’t accepted.”

The manager nods slowly. “I understand the awkward position that you’re in, Miss Leithe. Or rather I understand that I don’t understand. Word gets around, even to private citizens, like me. They say that you were gonna be a member of the crew, but something happened. It’s not my place to question it, and I certainly can’t help you get back to a place of honor. I might be able to find you a job, though. It’s not going to be particularly glamorous, but if you work hard, and you keep your head down, you’ll to 140, or at least close.”

“I don’t know...”

“As manager of this spa, I would be capable of making an exception if your score has improved enough, according to my own judgment. As long as you cleared it with your new supervisor, you could come back here, and take a rest. But staying for weeks at a time, several times a year, is probably a practice that is behind you.”

“It was never going to last forever. I’ve just been dealing with a lot, and I wanted to stop going so hard. We’re traveling at the speed of light, and I was trying to...slow down for once in my life.”

He chuckles, and spreads his arms demonstratively. “Look at where I’m workin’, Miss Leithe. Believe me, I understand slowin’ down.”

She nods appreciatively. “What would this job be?”

My sister works in the civilian government. She’s not someone you would have heard of, but her job is secretly important—”

“I don’t want secrets. I’m sick of secrets.”

“I just mean that she’s not famous. She’s not a politician; she’s a civil servant. She does good work, I think you’d like her. She’s too busy, and I can’t get her into this spa to relax, because there’s too much work to do. Though she won’t admit it, she needs an assistant. She’s entitled to one, but she’s never asked for it, and I’ve been pushing for it more than her superiors have because they don’t care about her like I do.”

“If you’ve already been trying to get her to get an assistant, what makes you think she’ll take me?”

“You’re a lost little puppy. She would consider it a favor that she’s giving to someone else, rather than something that she’s taking. I just have to frame the proposal the right way.”

Tinaya thinks about it for a moment. If it’s a low enough office, it won’t disqualify her from being Captain one day, and Second Lieutenant Velitchkov did say that they liked her for her ability to make her own choices. This is probably not written in the stars, which is exactly the kind of decision she ought to be making. Plus, it’s time to stop feeling sorry for herself, and actually do some good for the ship. The contribution is inherently rational, rather than arbitrary. “Okay. Could you set up an interview?”

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Microstory 1627: For a Favor

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Most worlds progress in about the same way. Sure, there are plenty of notable differences, but they generally have a lot of things in common, and there are some things that just won’t happen, because they do not support that species’ survival, whether speaking evolutionarily, or socially. A species that can’t, or won’t, protect itself, won’t last very long, because nobody else is going to do it for them...most of the time. Guardian races do exist, and I’ll get to one or two of those in the future. The universe I’m talking about today didn’t have guardians, but the humans of one planet still managed to remain quite peaceful throughout their pre-singularity struggling period. That’s  probably not what you would notice if you went there during that time, though. You would probably first realize that the people of Whrweh never had any standard form of currency. They maintained a barter economy until they no longer needed to exchange goods and services with each other, when automation took over. They managed this by sticking to isolated pockets of civilization. They lived underground, and figured out how to build tallish structures pretty early on, which allowed them to remain confined in a smaller area, and leave more space between each region. They didn’t need to spread out too much, and they didn’t want to. They had recycling, and minimalistic principles, and they did not like waste. Surprisingly, this form of isolationism never led to war. In fact, though they did experience some violence, it was nowhere near what most civilizations had. They had no use for it, because everyone always had their own resources, and left others alone. Each pocket was pretty self-sufficient, and with little occasion to reach out to other pockets for help, there was also less of a chance of encountering conflict.

One thing they did to keep the peace was to have a sort of unwritten policy of sharing knowledge with each other. When a pocket made a breakthrough in science or technology, they wouldn’t be obligated to actually give the results to other pockets, but they would give them the tools they needed to develop it on their own. When someone invented the plow, they told everyone else about it, and pretty soon, everyone had a plow. Then, when someone else realized they could hook a plow up to a work animal, they told everyone about that too, and now they all had better plows, including the person who invented the first version. This had the added benefit of lessening their negative impact on their environment. By giving all new information to everyone, they were assured that someone would quickly discover downsides, and deeper solutions. They skipped right over using fossil fuels to power their vehicles, and other machines, because they soon learned that electricity was cleaner, and more efficient. This all just kept going until the whole planet was so advanced, there was no longer any need to stay separate. Technically, they were living in independent regions, but they were already one peoples, so coming together officially was a no-brainer. Once robots and artificial intelligence were created, everything fell into place. They shed their surface and underground dwellings, and flew off into the sky, to live in something called an orbital ring. It’s exactly what it sounds like, a giant ring that goes all around their planet, like you might find around Saturn or Neptune. Except this is artificial, solid and continuous, and capable of housing their entire population many times over. They did away with the bartering system for the most part, though elements of it are still there. You are allowed to have anything you want, as long as you contribute in your own way. Your peers are responsible for determining whether you contribute enough to be worthy of any given amenity, and for the most part, this works out with no terrible disputes. A second type of bartering was created in order to handle external interactions. Some humans left their home world, and went off to live elsewhere. Humanoid aliens also developed on their own worlds, and formed their own systems of government. When dealing with these people, the Whrwehs always ask for a favor, in exchange for whatever it is they’re asking for. This favor is never something they actually need, but they believe it’s only fair that the other side make some kind of effort, or even a sacrifice, in order to receive something in return. This was all great, and it protected them from Ochivari invasion, but it would not last. While time travel was not possible within the bounds of this universe, that rule does not extend to external forces, and one little mission changed everything about everything.

Microstory 557: Tissue & Organ Replacement Prices Dropping

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A long time ago, scientists and health professionals realized that we were headed towards an unfortunate future when it came to organ health. About the only good thing that comes from anyone’s death is their ability to disseminate their organs and tissues to living patients in deep need of them. But this is not a sustainable method of trade. Unlike the exchange of labor, goods, services, and currency, organ donation inevitably leads to diminishing returns. As advances in science make people healthier, they’re less and less likely to be able to donate their organs after death, and the demand for these organs begin to greatly outnumber the supply. Similarly, we’re making cars and traffic safer, which is great for people on the roads, but not so great for people who rely on those deaths so that they may live. Nor do we want to live in a world where someone has to die in order for someone else to live. We want everybody to live, and if possible, we want them to live forever. So what can we do? Well, the very concept of organ transplantation carries with it significant issues. Humans didn’t evolve to share organs and tissues, or even blood. We are fortunate that it’s even possible in the first place, but no two people (twins notwithstanding) will ever be as compatible as we would like. So we’ve come up with a solution. Let’s cut out the middleman and just grow all the organs we need in a laboratory.

Stem cell research, genetic mapping, three-dimensional bioprinter development, cryopreservation, and other related fields can give us everything we need to provide the population with all the biological parts without the need to grow them in living beings. First, we need to know how to predict, isolate, and treat a given patient’s given disease. Then we need to know how to grow the organ that will need to be replaced in them. Then we just print that part, and store it in a tank, and implant it in their body as needed. Significant strides have been made in these respects. Just last year, the number of lab-grown implants surpassed the number of semicompatible transplantations, either through living donors, or deceased donors. The prices for these implants are dropping significantly month to month, and soon, securing a new organ will be as simple and trivial as purchasing a new land vehicle. In fact, some believe every citizen will one day invest in an organ chamber that keeps one, or possible two, extra copies of each of their own organs, developed by using the exact molecular structure found in their natural biological substrate. Some take it even further, promoting a future where entire replacement bodies are kept in these chambers. When our current body fails, for whatever reason, we’ll simply transfer our consciousness to the replacement substrate, and leave the old one behind entirely. That’s a future that may never come, but for now, we’re happy with just having a way to solve our organ crisis, and make life a little easier for everyone.

Microstory 543: Ashil to Become Site of First Off-world Settlement

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Ever since the discovery of faster-than-light plex travel was made public, everyone and their mother wanted to take a ship to a distant star system. Many of these endeavors have been fruitless. Nearly, if not all, stars carry with them daughter planets, but not all planets are at all amenable to life. Some are too small, some are too large. Some are too far away from their parent star, some too close. Some have no life, some have dangerous life. Still, as the mapping of the galaxy is increasingly crowd-sourced, some hidden gems have also been found. One of the first systems to be explored was that of a blue hypergiant not too terribly far from the homeworld (in cosmic scales). Scientists were not expecting to find any life in this system, as blue hypergiants are generally too unstable to support it. They also tend to burn hot and die young, remaining stable over the course of only millions of years, rather than billions. The scientists were shocked to learn that this star was as old as the universe itself, and provided single-cellular life to an eden. They constructed an outpost there to study it in more depth, and named it Old Blue. After that came Lai and Dolinarad, the latter of which was claimed by the infamous Meekas family. Just six years ago, we finally found Ashil. Ashil was no better than Lai in terms of its similarity to the homeworld, nor was it better than Dolinarad. It has, however, been determined to be the site of the first permanent human settlement beyond the homeworld.

Though Lai would like this title, they unfortunately did not in time qualify for certain criteria. To be considered a permanent settlement, a significant number of passengers must have immigrated there. These passengers must have no present intention of leaving, and they must lay down permanent structures for housing, and other basic community needs. An autonomous governing body must be established, along with everything that goes with it; its own currency exchange, public services, etc. Though referred to as a settlement, there must actually be at least two settlements, and these must be geographically separated from each other, in order to count. There are a few other minor details that Lai simply did not achieve, though they are expected to by the end of this year. They are also reportedly working on legal arguments to contest this decision, and attain the honor of first exoplanet colonization themselves.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 13, 2037

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Thank God Leona’s mind processed information at the speed of light. With only seconds to think, she switched on both of their jet packs. Though they were not designed to operate within the atmosphere, they did the job in a pinch. Their descent was slowed enough to keep them from splattering onto the ground below. The problem was that they also weren’t designed to work in tandem like that. Had they had enough time, and had Mateo been born smarter, they could have done it on their own, but since Leona was pulling all the weight, she wasn’t able to exercise full control over their movements. The jets propelled them over and back up and down and all around, like a rebellious firehose. She was finally able to keep them pointed towards the water long enough to stave off their death for one more second. She switched off the jets and they fell, only to begin sinking into the depths.

Feeling the need to contribute something to the effort, Mateo tore off their spacesuits and pulled them back to the surface of the...lake. It was definitely a lake. And that tree looked familiar. Yes. It was Sherwood Lake. They were back in Topeka. As he was crawling up the beach, he saw a pair of legs run past him. A set of arms that belonged with the legs reached down and helped Leona to her feet. Her own legs were shaking, and she was having trouble standing up. He had always seen her as the strong one in the relationship, but this showed that she had been just as traumatized by the event as he had.

“Thanks, dad,” she said.

Mr. Delaney began to help her take more pieces of her suit off while his wife ran down and wrapped a towel around her. “I have her. Check on the boy.”

“No, I’m fine,” Mateo insisted. “Just a little out of breath.”

“I have a towel for you too,” she said.

“My mother? Samsonite?”

“Oh, yeah. We need to call them.” She took out her device and stepped to the side.

“What happened to them?” Leona asked of her father.

“They both lost consciousness in the water,” Mr. Delaney explained. “Don’t worry, they’ve alive, and suffered no brain damage. But the old fisherman who pulled them into his boat couldn’t remember exactly where he had found them, so we separated to look for you.”

“They’re on their way,” Leona’s stepmother said.

“Call Theo too.”

“Oh, right.” She went back to her phone.

“I don’t know how much you know,” Mateo said, accepting a bottle of water. “But there was an android woman who saved us.”

Mr. Delaney nodded, indicating that Mateo didn’t need to continue his question. “Her nanites are in the water, but they apparently lost their...cohesion or something. They tell us that she would be, for all intents and purposes, dead. I’m sorry.”

Mateo nodded understandingly. “Figures.” He looked to Leona. “How did Mirage pretend that she jumped with us?”

“I was thinking about that,” Leona replied. “She wouldn’t have been able to turn invisible, but she could have separated her nanites quick enough to make it look like she was disappearing.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

They engaged in the latest of their long line of reunions. Leona noted how much larger Theo had grown since she last saw him. Normally, that would be a cliché, but it was relevant in this case due to the time difference. He was now 18 years old, and indeed taller than his older sister. Mateo’s mother and Samsonite, on the other hand, had not changed a bit. They were as young as they had been when he first caught back up with her seven years ago. Advances in medicine in cosmetics might have accounted for such a thing, but Samsonite posited a mathematical factor. Because of Mateo’s cousin, Danica, they already knew that the powers that be were capable of immortality. And Aura and Samsonite were on a specific timeslip pattern, broken only to allow them to switch from jumping backwards to jumping forwards. According to that pattern they, along with Theo, were due to remain within the present timestream for another 300 years. They assumed the last two centuries would be finished up by their corpses, but their feelings of vitality now suggested otherwise. Theo called it their gift for following the rules for so long. Samsonite was curious to find out the truth about it. Aura was suspicious.

They drove a car that was registered to a friend of a friend of a friend, so that they were far enough removed from the prying eyes of Reaver. Paper money was still a thing that existed in some circles. It was so rare that it was relatively easy to trace, but only if you knew where you were looking. Mateo’s and Leona’s family had spent the last year turning themselves into ghosts by converting their cash to other currencies, buying innocuous goods at random places, and bartering in rural areas. They moved to the most remote place they could find in the middle of Wyoming.

While Reaver had lost control of his own company and was currently awaiting trial for his latest blunder with the exploding space probe, he was still a threat. As much trouble as he was in, he surely had friends on the inside of the outside, and they were a risk to Mateo and anyone close to him. It made him want to run away again, but this time actually do it right. Leona seemed to sense this and convinced him otherwise. She explained to him in no uncertain terms that every major attempt at his life had occurred while Mateo was isolated from his family, or only with Leona. They were all better off sticking together, even if it meant Leona’s father and stepmother had to destroy their old lives. None of this was their fault, and he should have been more careful about keeping them out of it. It was actually surprising how safe they had been throughout the years. It was only recently that they were really in danger. Though, Leona was right. Reaver wasn’t interested in hurting his family and friends, if only to get to him. Mateo seemed to be Reaver’s one and only purpose.

“But see, that’s the thing,” Leona said of this after finding some privacy in their very own cabin in the woods. “You first encountered Reaver more than a thousand years in the future. He had already been dealing with you, but you hadn’t even met him yet from your perspective.”

“Right,” Mateo said, prompting her to go on.

“In fact, every time we’ve encountered him thus far, he was already pissed off with you.”

“Yeah, I still don’t know why.”

“He hasn’t even bothered to tell you. We’re already pretty sure that you and I and any other salmon are capable of altering the timeline. That’s probably what we’re doing here. Either he’s a complete moron, or there’s some reason why he hasn’t so much as attempted to ask you for help with changing whatever has been done to him.”

“That’s true. I don’t know what I did, and he has to know that. There must be some reason he’s keeping his past-slash-my future from me.”

“And what’s his pattern? Is it random? Does he have control over it? If so, why doesn’t he jump out of jail? Is he a rogue member of the power that be? Or worse,” she started, “is he not rogue?”

“These are all brilliant questions.”

“We have to ask them,” Leona said, straight-faced.

“Yeah,” Mateo chuckled. “Wait, what?”

She drew closer and lowered her voice, even though the nearest people were in a separate cabin. “Maybe you were right about running away.” She weathered a brainstorm in her own head. “He’s not going to stop. He can’t. And we can’t stop him. He might not be convicted of any crime. He may retake his company. He might even be able to teleport out of jail. Hell, he could go back in time and kill your mother before you’re born.”

“What are you saying, Leona?” Mateo asked.

“We have to take the fight to him. We have to get our answers, and barring any sudden conversations with the puppeteers of all this bullshit, we have to get those answers from him.”

“We could contact the Delegator.”

“How?”

“Danica?”

“We’re not allowed in the Constant. Not even Theo can get back in. I think we’ve been put on the naughty list.”

“This sounds reckless.”

She kissed him with both the passion of a new relationship, and the ease of an old marriage. “We’re time travelers. The world could plan for an asteroid heading towards us, but we would be falling down the crater tomorrow. Reckless sounds like a casual stroll in the park to me at this point.”

Mateo yawned. “Let’s talk about it next year. We can’t do anything today. Like you said, we could jump to our death tomorrow, and none of this would even matter.”

To spite their exhaustion, Mateo and Leona finally consummated their twenty-year relationship that night.

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Microstory 66: Business Review

The other day, I was invited to tour the Fostean Galaxy. They were trying to assure me that they had changed their ways. And I admit, they had...to an extent. The following is a review I wrote of a business on a planet called Dikaio that gave me trouble when I tried to buy something:

I walked in here with no intention of buying anything, and I think the vendor could sense that. According to him, “browsing” is taboo in the entire galaxy, which is ridiculous, because I spent hours in the Great Mall of Poreia and didn’t buy a single thing. Just to get him to stop bothering me, I grabbed a pack of gravity gum. That seemed to insult him quite a bit. I told him that I couldn’t buy anything too advanced because I live on Earth, and the Martians would confiscate it anyway. He was perturbed by that, but he finally rang me up. I gave him my visitor card to pay and he acted like he had no idea what to do with that. He insisted that I pay with my skincode. Again, I’m from Earth. I don’t have one of those. The Core has a deal with Fostea that allows Lacteans to purchase items with visitor cards, and in return, the Core shares technology, supplies, and military training. The vendor pointed out that that’s because most Lacteans live in a moneyless society. And that’s true, but there is no conversion rate from Earthan money to Fostean indexa. He said he would take “one of those thousand dollar bills” for it. I explained that the gravity gum is nowhere near worth so much. He pulled a weapon on me, so I was forced to shoot him. The government gave me permission to eliminate any threat I perceive. Don’t go to this store. It has been permanently closed.