Microstory 2769: X Marks the Spot

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Elise instinctively teleports back to Rage holding the jacket that they last saw Minotaur wearing. She’s on the verge of hyperventilating. There were no clues where she found it, at least none which was obvious. She takes Rage by the arm, and jumps back to that spot with her friend in tow. “Over here, guys!” she cries out to the rest of the group.

Together, they start to dig in the sand, looking for any sign of Minotaur, be it evidence they left behind, or—if they were taken—a deliberate clue left behind by their captor. They cover a ground of a few square meters, but there’s nothing. There’s no trapdoor, which would be the most likely explanation, or maybe something less manmade, like a hidden hole. If something had taken them away in the air, someone probably would have seen it. Rage tells everyone to stop digging as she narrows in on Miracle. “This looks like the work of a teleporter. Besides Azad, who else can do it?”

Miracle shakes her head. “There are far too many to list, and remember, we’re generally called time travelers. They could be from the future, or the past, or a parallel timeline. There are too many options to use that knowledge alone to locate them.”

“Well, are any of them bad?” Rage presses. “Do you have...villains?”

“Sure we do,” Miracle confirms. “I...was technically one for a bit, though we tend to use the word antagonist amongst each other because who’s to say which is which?”

“This isn’t helping,” Rage argues. “You’re not giving us anything.”

“I’m sorry,” Miracle begins, but she doesn’t get the chance to finish her thought.

“Can I find them?” Elise interrupts. “Just now, I wanted to jump to Rage, and so that’s where I went, instead of several kilometers away. I didn’t even know exactly where she was, on her hands and knees behind that ridge. I thought about her, and it happened. Could I do that with Minotaur? I don’t wanna try without understanding it.”

Miracle sighs. “Have you ever seen the 12 Monkeys movie, and have you ever seen any of the Back to the Future movies?” she asks weirdly.

“Not recently,” Elise answers. “What’s your point?”

“They follow different rules,” Miracle begins. “In the former, time travel is a contained loop. It’s called predestination. It doesn’t matter what you do, you can’t change things. Whatever happened always happened, and you’re just following a preexisting path, blind and in the wrong order. In the latter, you can change the future, and they, in fact, do it multiple times. Those stories aren’t contradictory because they take place in different universes. They have nothing to do with each other.

“In our universe, there are—well, no, it’s not like there are no rules—it’s that we have all the rules. Can you teleport without being able to see where you’re going, or beyond some distance limitation? I don’t know. We all have our different abilities and restrictions. It’s utter chaos. I can teach you how to try to jump to Mino, but I can’t promise it will work. I can’t even promise you won’t end up kilometers away this time, or dead, stuck halfway through a wall. It’s a crapshoot. Most are born the way that they are, and discover what they can do intuitively. People who are transformed into travelers typically have a harder time. They’re usually older, and have developed more traditional coping mechanisms, which makes their new skills low access.”

“Then you’re not doing it,” Rage decides. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Wait, you could teleport before,” Zelda says to Miracle. “You said that Hrockas couldn’t take that away from you because it was in your mind, not your body.”

Miracle nods. “He figured out how to suppress it when he gave me a new, new body. I’ve already tried since I returned, and have not been able to do anything.”

“Then I’ll do it,” Elise insists. “Before you say anything, Rage, this is my body, my choice. Hrockas just told us that counts here a few hours ago. You can’t stop me.”

“I can’t,” Rage acknowledges, “but I don’t wanna lose you too.”

“Borrowed time, remember?” Elise asks. She faces Miracle. “Tell me what to do.”

“I’m inclined to agree with our fearless leader,” Miracle says. “It’s risky.”

“Then we vote,” Elise offers. “Who here thinks I shouldn’t do it?”

Everyone raises their hand.

“Just kidding, it’s my body! Tell me what to do, or I’ll try it on my own!”

“Very well,” Miracle agrees. “But I’m not responsible for what happens to you.”

Everyone pays close attention when Miracle explains how the process of using teleportation to find someone might work. They’re just as curious, even though they can’t do it themselves. Finally, it’s time to try. Miracle suggests she practice first, but she also said one thing about potentially running out of something called temporal energy, so talk about a risk. Elise closes her eyes as Miracle instructed. At first, she focuses on her whole family, but most of them are already here with her. She only needs to concentrate on one person. She visualizes Minotaur’s face, and considers how they make her feel. It seems that Elise is falling in love. She does realize she keeps thinking that.

The air was hot and dry, but now it’s cool and humid. Though Elise’s eyelids were closed, she could see the light penetrating her skin. Now that’s all gone. She opens them to find herself in darkness, with only red emergency lighting. It’s enough for her to see that she’s not alone, and she can even tell who it is. “Mino.”

Minotaur is startled. They spin around and desperately grab Elise’s mouth. “Shh,” they whisper. “I don’t know how you ended up down here too, but this is a maze...and we are not alone. I’m going to let go of you now, okay? Just whisper.”

Elise nods, and once she’s free, whispers even quieter than Minotaur, right in her ear. “I teleported to find you. Do you know who took you, or where we are?”

“No idea,” Minotaur answers. “I didn’t see who took me. They were totally robed up. I managed to push them off and run away, but not too far, and I couldn’t scream. That’s when I felt the sharp pain in my neck. I was hot before, but then I felt like I was burning up, so I took off my jacket while I was passing out. Then I woke up here. I’ve been trying to navigate the maze this whole time. I figured you were all taken too.”

“I think this is mostly about you,” Elise figures. “There is no way they could have set this all up after they found out that I could teleport. They expected you to find your way out, and for us to find our way to you. We’re cheating. I don’t know if that’s okay. But I’m just gonna go with it. I teleported in, so we can teleport out.”

“No,” Minotaur argues. “There’s something here. The monster is guarding something. Trust me, we want it. I’m glad you’re here, but I don’t want to cheat any further. Let’s play this straight, and find the way to the prize. Are you up for it?”

“We’re a team. We should all do it together.”

“Yeah, if you can gather everyone, then go for it. Just tell them to stay hushed.”

Elise transports most into the maze, but before she can do the same for Colley she evidently runs out of temporal energy, leaving them both stranded on the surface.

Microstory 2763: Steady as She Goes

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The storms return, which gives them the freshwater they need, but are hell to sail through for a ragtag group of non-sailors. They knew that there would be skills which none of them possessed, but they didn’t think it could be this. Regular domes aren’t big enough for these long-haul trips. Sailing seemed like such an unlikely challenge. They figured they would be literally separated from the rest of the hunters—as they indeed are—which would limit the amount of space they had to work with under Treasure Hunting Dome. It didn’t occur to them that they would end up in a place like this.

They’re making a lot of mistakes, but at least they’re not getting killed for it. They just need to find land. Even if it’s not where they’re meant to be, it would be nice to have a break from the water. Four days of this would be hard on anyone, even genuine sailors.

They do manage to fish during lulls, which is where Elise shines since that was one of her early skills. She has never fished in an ocean setting, but it’s not too hard to adapt. While these creatures are fully organic and edible, they are not real fish. They literally don’t have normal complex brains. They were very simply programmed to swim pseudorandomly and react to stimuli, such as each other and the light. It’s only the basics of cognitive function. They don’t even feel hunger or pain. Hopefully not.

Minotaur and Miracle find even that almost too far past vegetarianism but they’re too hungry for their pride, so they partake as well. One thing is they’re not entirely sure it’s true in this case. That was Elise’s experience, and how it works in most of the galaxy, but it’s entirely plausible that these are regular fish. That would not be illegal, whether on Castlebourne or in the stellar neighborhood. However, she doesn’t think they are because they don’t fight the catch as hard as something which evolved to survive would.

Finally, after the relentless struggle, they see something. It’s not land that they can stand on, but they rise above the surface. Tall rocks, looking almost like fingers, are scattered all over in their path. A fog rolls over the water, but not so thick that they can’t see how eerie the obstacles are, nor the means of avoiding them.

“It looks like we could go around,” Jolanda muses, looking at Minotaur.

Mino stands on the bulwark and holds themselves up via a rope. “That’s the question. If this were a movie, there would be some contrived reason why the characters have to go this way. That’s where the MacGuffin is. But the audience would be screaming at them to not be stupid. So far, this hunt has felt very movie-like. While the challenges have not been specific analogs to any story we’re familiar with, at times, it does feel like we’re meant to play into the tropes, rather than try to outsmart them.”

“Should we take another vote?” Jolanda offers. “Be safe, or follow a path?”

“I will warn you,” Minotaur goes on, “something bad will probably happen if we go in there. We’ll shipwreck, or someone will fall overboard. These early consequences are designed to show how high the stakes are, so the audience feels something for the survivors. How much loss there is after that depends on the subgenre and age targeting. I’m not saying we should vote against that, but we still don’t know what we’re looking for, so the motivation to go this way is a little bit lacking from my perspective.”

Their fearless leader stares at the horizon and at all the deadly, jagged rocks. It does look like an obstacle course that the gamemakers expect them to play straight. But the possibility that subverting those expectations actually gets them what they need is a tempting offer. Elise can see the debating raging in Rage’s eyes.

“What are ya thinkin’, boss?” Miracle didn’t seem like the type to defer to anyone else, let alone another person with a strong personality, but since she came back with a new face, she’s been a team player. She doesn’t have an ego anymore. Elise almost wonders if it’s not really her. While researchers tried in the early days of mind- transference development, they never figured out how to prove identity when anyone can look like anyone. It’s a risk you live with since the technology couldn’t be stopped.

“We came here for a goal,” Rage begins. “We each signed on not even knowing what that goal was. Not only is it possible that that’s exactly where it’s waiting, but if we take the safe route now, we’ll be defeating the entire purpose. We decided to go north, let’s not head east or west now. I’ll hear arguments against, but I don’t wanna vote.”

No one says anything. Colley doesn’t look like he agrees, but he’s also missing Laise, which may be making it hard for Elise to read his facial expressions.

They raise anchor once more while Zelda is climbing back up to her perch. She continues to direct them as they begin to navigate the deadly rocks. To the starboard side, Elise sees something moving in the fog. She moves over and squints. At first, she sees several heads bobbing around each other until she realizes that it’s a single monster with multiple heads in the distance. She has heard of this before. Colley once spoke of the famous story. She runs over to the port side where she sees the second monster, or part of it, anyway. A dark mass is swimming in circles just under the surface. Neither is making any attempt to attack the boat. For now, it appears they chose right.

“What?” Jolanda questions. “What is it? Do you see something?”

Elise looks up to Zelda, who is regarding the underwater monster with her spyglass. She lowers it and meets Elise’s eyes. Then she quietly returns to her work.

“Nothing,” Elise replies to Jolanda. “It’s just beautiful here.” Why did she choose not to tell anyone about it? What did it matter? If the monsters aren’t going to attack, why not prove that this was the right call? Maybe because they don’t know that yet, because straight ahead could end up much worse. After all, those monsters look pretty casual for having missed a meal. Or maybe she just liked keeping a secret with Zelda.

They continue sailing between the rocks. It isn’t easy, but they keep a close eye on that water at their respective posts, and don’t ever run aground. They go slowly so the fog never obscures something they can’t avoid. Gradually, they realize that it’s lightening up, and they can see better with each passing moment. Then comes the cave. The opening is more than large enough for them to sail right on through, which means that is exactly where they need to go, as scary as the darkness might look from out here.

“What are we thinking?” Miracle asks. “Is there a monster waiting for us?”

“No, there’s no third monster,” Elise slips up and says.

“What do you mean?” Rage questions, a puzzled look on her face.

“Nothing,” Elise answers. “Steady on, or...whatever you’re meant to say.”

“Steady on!” Rage shouts up to Minotaur, who has been steering lately.

They enter the cave. It becomes so dark, they have to navigate with lanterns. But then they see a glow up ahead. Is this it? It can’t be it. Hrockas wouldn’t have offered to get them out if there were only two more challenges ahead. It’s pretty significant, though. It’s a gargantuan pile of treasure. Real, physical, golden treasure.

What a disappointment.

Microstory 2756: Skull and Bones

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The conveyor belt is heading for another void. This game has had so many chances already to kill them. If this is another attempt, it would be difficult to avoid. There is no way off this ride. Still, there may be a non-lethal obstacle in the darkness, or on the other side of it. Elise gets on one knee, and plants her other foot firmly on the belt. She holds her hands up defensively, prepared for anything. Well, almost anything.

She passes through the darkness, and catches a glimpse of the opaque dome they’ve entered before the belt ends, and sends her over the edge. She falls a couple of meters before landing on her feet on a mound of human bones. The others are starting to help each other up from the piles of thousands and thousands. It’s maybe a hundred meters wide, dimly lit, and getting dimmer. It’s noticeably cold, but not deathly so.

Elise spins around and opens her arms so when Zelda falls too, she can catch her.

“My hero,” Zelda says in a breathy voice from Elise’s arms.

“Just doin’ my job, ma’am.” Elise is really coming out of her shell now.

“Are these the previous secret hunters?” Minotaur asks, picking up a skull. “Does everyone die in here? From what? More acid rain? A deluge? A furnace?”

“Hold up,” Colley says. “Here, help me push these bones out of the way.”

Jolanda and Rage pull the bones between their legs to give him some space.

Colley gets on his hands and knees and examines the floor below. He then grabs a random femur, and snaps it in half. He puts on his loupe specs to examine the inside.

“Wait, how do you still have those?” Elise questions. “Isn’t this a new body?”

“They were in my locker,” Colley explains as he’s changing lenses. “They’re not my regular ones. They upgraded me.” He looks carefully. “Fake. They probably all are.”

“Plastic, or something else?” Rage picks up another bone and breaks it.

“No, they’re organic,” Colley answers. “The layering is asymmetrical, which is how the best machines do it, but it’s definitely bioprinted. They forgot to include the tendon entheses, and there’s no remaining viscera on the floor, or even residue.”

Elise wades through the bones to get to the wall, not grossed out anymore. “Look for an exit, or signs of Miracle’s friends. They may have already escaped.”

“Those bozos?” Miracle questions. “Not a chance.”

“I found a door!” Jolanda shouts. She’s on the far side of the dome.

“Don’t open it until we’re all over there!” Rage commands. “Elise, take safety.”

Because any door has just as much chance of being a trap as being their salvation, one player is always chosen to stay behind as the designated survivor. It’s also possible that they’ve been doomed, if the door has a time limit, and can’t be reopened, so the role is risky, rather than necessarily safe. Rage has a plan to cycle through the roster fairly.

Elise climbs up to a particularly high bone hill to have a better vantage point, and give her more time to survive if opening the door, say, also opens a drain in the floor.

Once everyone is in place, including Miracle and the strangers, Jolanda waves her hand in front of the entry panel. The door slides into its pocket, revealing...a second door. This one is different, though. Even from here, Elise can see that there are indentations on the door face that are vaguely in the shape of a human body.

“It’s a puzzle,” Colley decides. “We have to fill in the gaps with a full skeleton.”

“Rule number three,” Rage begins. “Don’t try to unlock a door that’s already unlocked.” She nods at Jolanda. “Go ahead, Jo.”

Jolanda takes hold of the knob, turns it successfully, and opens the door.

On the other side is what looks like a city square. Elise climbs down to get a better look. People are milling about, preoccupied with their own lives. They’re dressed in traditional early 21st century garb. Only two things look out of place. A man and a woman wearing the same blue shirt are balancing two bananas each on their head while they sing a song quite poorly. Two other women wearing the same purple shirts are running past them, and opening a mailbox that is conspicuously sitting out in the open.

“Other hunters,” Elise determines as she draws nearer. “This isn’t right.”

“This is obviously our way out,” one of Miracle’s people says.

“Hrockas Steward said that we wouldn’t be hunting around other people,” Minotaur reminds him. “Why break one of his few rules right at the beginning?”

“Who cares?” he asks. “I’m exiting and checking that mailbox for our next clue.”

“I don’t think we have clues,” Colley postulates. “We’re not racing, we’re not being eliminated per leg. I think we only have one goal, and we’re supposed to go straight to that. No, Elise is right. This is a red herring, or some kind of trick.”

“It’s a choice,” Miracle corrects. “If we walk out this door without solving the skeleton puzzle, we’re forfeiting the game. That’s probably where those two assholes ended up. They don’t know what they’re missing. Don’t follow in their footsteps.”

The guy sighs. “Okay, boss. We solve the puzzle.” He steps back in.

Jolanda closes the door back up, and everyone spreads out.

The puzzle is harder than it looks. They’re not just looking for a single copy of every bone. They’re all slightly different sizes, just like they would be if these once belonged to living beings. Each puzzle bone can hold in place on its own on the board, even if the one below it hasn’t been found yet, but only if it’s the correct one. Otherwise, it just falls out. Elise deduces that they used magnets. She turns out to be right.

Like Colley with his spectacles or Zelda with her parachutes, Minotaur never goes anywhere without their multitool. They found it in their locker too, and it includes a very small magnet. It’s not powerful enough to sweep the area for the right bones, but it’s easy enough to test one quickly and toss it aside before moving on to the next.

They created an open space kind of near the door, where they carefully stack the duds. That way, they don’t accidentally test the same ones multiple times. It’s Elise and Jolanda’s job to keep the used stack away from the untested piles by pushing bones around, and maintaining enough space between them at all times.

It starts getting dark in here, and no one has a light, so they open the door just so the natural light comes in for them. Unrelated hunters periodically come up, thinking that it’s important for their race. It’s Rage’s job to back them off by simply saying, “parallel play”. This is a known phrase that warns players that their games are intersecting, and that if they try to find a clue here, they will end up on the wrong track.

After several hours, they finally have the last piece. Fittingly, it’s the skull. It’s a good thing they’re done. The streets are still bustling, but it’s now dark outside too.

“Colley, you do the honors,” Jolanda offers since he served as their puzzle master. She closes the door again, allowing him to ceremoniously place the skull in the last slot. The whole skeleton glows, and they hear a whirring sound. Once Jolanda reopens it, they see the same street again, but now, even though it has only been a few seconds...it’s completely empty.

Microstory 2755: Please Don’t Hold the Handrail

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Two of Miracle’s guys don’t hesitate for a second. As soon as that door cracks, they’re running right for it. They evidently have no loyalty to their teams. Elise doesn’t know how long they’ve been training together, but she’s not finding it so easy to leave them behind. She didn’t even always want to do this. The only reason she agreed is because of the team. If they’re going to take that from her, what reason does she have to go on? She’ll have to think about this first, and ignore that door in the meantime.

Minotaur jumps out of their seat too. They only manage to intercept the second guy, body-checking him against the wall as the first one slips over the edge right on the other side of the door and plummets to his death. Minotaur stands up and catches their breath. They’re not used to an analog body either. “You’re welcome.”

Miracle stands from her own seat and casually walks towards the lethal exit. She stands before her former teammate as he’s catching his breath too. She slaps him hard.

“I’m sorry, boss. You just talked so much about the prize. He and I started coming up with what it could possibly be. We think it’s unlimited energy credits. We could go anywhere. We could do anything. You know what, I’m not sorry,” he goes on as Miracle spins around and places her back to him. “What did you expect, pulling me out of Bloodbourne like you did? Running for my survival is what I do best. That’s why you—”

Since she turned around, Miracle has been mocking him with her facial expressions, and by mimicking mouth movements with her hand. She suddenly donkey kicks him in the chest, sending him over the edge to fall to his death too. She takes a deep breath, and half a step forward. “Does anyone in this room need me to define the word alliance for you, or are you at least slightly smarter than a panda bear?”

Rage calmly stands now, in just the same way Miracle did before. She approaches her slowly before suddenly jamming her forearm against Miracle’s clavicle and pinning her to the monitor, cracking it. “I know what an alliance is, but I don’t work with killers. You stay out of our way, and we’ll leave you alone too, but if you ever treat any one of my people like you did your own friend, you will wish you had jumped out too. Savvy?”

“Savvy?” Miracle echoes in an accent. “Are ya lost, love? This isn’t Piratedome.”

“Do. You. Understand me?” Rage reiterates, squeezing her chest even harder.

“Ooo, buy me dinner first, and I’ll understand whatever you say, Mistress.”

Rage angrily lets go and turns away from Miracle. She has spoken about this with the team before. It is absolutely crucial for her to temper her anger so her nickname remains firmly ironic, rather than simply not technically accurate. She centers herself with her eyes closed for a moment. “Zel, you’re up. Remember, they know what we’ve done. The tricks you used last time probably won’t work in this place.”

Zelda gets out of her seat and picks the sconce that Elise used to free her up from the floor. “I need silence,” she announces before she drops it into the pit. “Fifty meters.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Elise determines. There was something wrong about the way the sconce sounded compared to the way the men did. Their shouts actually didn’t sound right from the start, but she initially shrugged it off because she doesn’t know the acoustics of this room, or the pit. Now she suspects they’re vastly different than they appear to be. The void before them might not exist at all.

Elise takes her shirt back off, and uses it as a glove to remove a shard from the monitor that Rage broke. She sets it on the floor, reflective side up. She then gently nudges it towards the blackness to get it in the right place. Once it’s partway into the dark, she pays especially close attention to the way the light bounces off of it at the threshold. She bends down and starts to retie her shoes while she speaks. “A few years ago, I took a course on volumetric emitter placement. These days, an AI will decide where to place them for optimal image projection, so it’s become a lost art, but designers, architects, and engineers used to have to plan it carefully.

“Which of you has seen the movie Thunderbolts*?” Elise asks the whole group.

Colley raises his hand. “It’s a perfect example of combatting historical superhero fatigue in the early to mid-21st century media by actually lowering stakes.”

“Remember the elevator scene?” Elise presses.

“You don’t mean...” Colley begins.

“I need you,” Elise encourages. “You’re the only one who doesn’t need me to say it out loud, which might skew the results for us. Get over here, we’ll be fine.”

Colley walks over to join Elise. “Up or down?” he asks, sighing.

“Sideways,” Elise answers him. She turns him around then turns around too so they’re back to back. “Leading foot is one, trailing foot is two. Ready...one.”

Colley plants his left foot against the wall while Elise plants her right one.

“Now two.” They both step fully off the ground, holding themselves up by applying pressure to the walls with their feet, and each other’s backs. They begin to chimney walk through the darkness. One of them always makes sure their leading foot has something to press up against before the other tries their side. They could always end up with a wider hallway, or some sort of opening that completely destroys their plan, at which point they would have to go back. They can see nothing in this void.

They don’t end up having to go too terribly far, though. After only a couple of meters, they are out of the holographic void, and into the hallway on the other side. A people mover is running at incredible—and incredibly unsafe—speed below them. That’s what it was. The men who were sent over the edge merely fell on this, and they cried bloody murder because they were being suddenly dragged away into the unknown after believing that they were gonna fall to their deaths. This doesn’t explain the sconce, and it doesn’t explain why their friends aren’t responding to their shouts now.

“We’re gonna have to go back,” Colley determines when they give up.

He’s right. The belt is moving far too fast for their puny human legs to carry them the wrong direction to explain it to the others. If they don’t chimney walk back, their friends will assume that they fell to their deaths too. They prepare themselves mentally, call upon a second wind, and make the hard return journey to the chrysalis chamber.

Once they reappear from the void, Jolanda and Minotaur help them get off the walls safely so Elise and Colley can explain the situation. Rage then conceives the plan.

Elise should feel tired, but she’s wired, so she volunteers to be on carrying duty. She and Zelda hold each hunter by the shirt and pants, low to the ground. They toss them into the void from that position, allowing them to fall onto the belt with a far lower center of gravity. It isn’t painless, but those first two guys probably had it much worse.

Finally, only the two of them are left. “How do you wanna do this?” Elise asks.

“I’m strong enough.” Zelda picks Elise up and drops her onto the belt on her own.

As Elise is flying down the hallways on her ass, she looks back to see Zelda surfing on it like a pro. What a total badass. Elise may be falling in love.

Microstory 2721: What Are You in For?

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Pribadium is in what passes for a cell around here. She thought this might happen, but she ordered her people to make no attempt to rescue her. It’s not like they can do any real damage. Even if she didn’t have a secret means of escaping, they would be dealing with a virtual immortal. Her consciousness is streaming to a backup body on her ship. Well, it’s not streaming at this very moment. They were at least smart enough to install a signal jammer. Which is illegal, of course, and more than enough grounds for her to remove them with prejudice. She still doesn’t want to do that, though. She sees this as a challenge now, and solving it means more than the outcome itself.

She could teleport out, no problem. If it were anyone else, she probably would. Time travel isn’t entirely a secret anymore, though most view it through a technological lens. This guy acts like he knows something about the biological component. That’s one reason she’s sticking around, because it’s the best way to get Sora to explain what he knows. So she will stay here and play the prisoner as he asserts his dominance. And while he believes that he’s gaining the upperhand, she’ll learn what she needs to know.

He opens the cell door. “Are you ready to talk?”

Pribadium yawns. It wasn’t part of the plan, but it’s a nice touch, so she doesn’t fight it. “Close the door, you’re letting all the darkness out,” she jokes.

She imagines that he’s frowning, though she can’t see his face. He shuts it, and doesn’t open it back up for another four days.

Pribadium has barely moved a muscle. That’s what people like her can do. They can statue themselves up, and remain almost perfectly still for days on end. She still has to breathe, and blood continues to flow through her veins, but she doesn’t need food or rest, and she certainly doesn’t need to talk to him, so when he asks her again, she remains silent. He is so mad that he leaves her in there for eight more days.

When he opens the door again, he doesn’t say a word. He gruffly walks over to the wall that she’s been leaning against, scoops her up, and drags her back to the diplomacy room, which has been altered to make it look more like an interrogation room. The artwork on the walls is gone, and was replaced with a mirror. It might be an actual two-way mirror, or it’s just designed to resemble that. If these mortal humans are young kids who were only born a few decades ago, they might not understand how that technology works. “Why have you not tried to escape yet!”

“You locked the door,” Pribadium points out.

“How would you know?” Sora questions. “You never even checked it.”

“I guess I just assumed you weren’t dumb enough to keep it open. Was I wrong?”

“Of course not, but it pisses me off that you just sat there the whole time.” This is the thing about mortals. Two weeks is long for them. It takes time out of their short lives. She remembers feeling like that when she was normal. She doesn’t anymore, and these people have the same choice. Why are they not exercising their rights?

“Well, I wouldn’t want to piss off the man who is keeping me locked up in a room, now would I?” she snaps back. “Tell me, what’s your endgame here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sora asks. “When your weapon of mass destruction shows up, you’ll be killed too. They’ll have to act, and then we’ll have the tactical advantage, and before you say anything about your backups, we took care of those. No version of Pribadium Delgado will survive. So stop smiling, and answer my goddamn questions!”

Extremus: Year 134

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The fairytale dream is over. Waldemar no longer feels emotions, but he is not back to his old self either. That experience has changed him, and he’s having mixed feelings about it. No, that’s obviously the wrong way to word it. He’s having contradicting thoughts. On the one hand, it’s familiar, so he’s much more comfortable again. This is how he grew up, and it seems right. It was working before. People weren’t happy, but he didn’t need them to be. Still, it’s not like the end of the year of empathy means that he can revert. He’s now living in a paradox. The logic in how he behaved, and the kinds of decisions he made, are still in his head. They still make a lot of sense. The darkness is fueling his rage, but it’s also...intoxicating, and he doesn’t want to give it up again. Because, now that he has spent time without it, he realizes that that’s what it is. It’s fuel. It makes him feel strong and powerful. There’s that word again, though.

He’s standing in his bathroom now, staring at the mirror. He’s looking at himself in disgust, not because that’s what he’s feeling, but because he knows others would if they knew the truth. He slaps himself in the cheek. “Feel something,” he urges.

He feels nothing.

He slaps himself harder. “Feel something!” he cries.

Nothing.

“Feel something!” he screams at the top of his lungs.

“Stop that,” comes a voice from behind him. “Stop hitting yourself.”

He turns to see his late wife, Audrey Kristiansen. “Where have you been?” He declared her dead, but he never knew what happened. When he didn’t feel anything, he didn’t care, and when he did, he wanted to leave her alone if she wasn’t really dead.

“I like the new place. I would have felt more at home here when I was alive.” During the empathy year, he downgraded himself to smaller quarters to look more like the common man, and he didn’t regret it. It didn’t really matter.

“You know I don’t like to repeat myself,” he told her.

“And you know I don’t like to be ordered around. I’m not one of your crewmembers. I was your wife, and you treated me like shit.”

“You knew who I was when you married me,” he pointed out.

“Yes, I did. That’s why I did it. I took that bullet so no one else would have to. And I died for it. Now you are at a crossroads. You are starting to believe that the only way you can get respect from both sides of the imaginary political line is if you align yourself with a new belle. I’m here to tell you that you don’t. You don’t have to be the ruthless dictator, and you don’t have to be a squirming bleeding heart. You just have to follow logic. And logically, hurting people has never made any sense. Yes, you have a darkness. You can’t ignore it, so I’m not going to try to tell you to. But it doesn’t have to define you. The year that you felt something taught you what others experience all the time. Don’t try to get it back, but don’t let it go either. Learn from it. Be better.” She paused for a moment. “And stop with the self-harm. It makes you look weak.”

“I am not..weak!” he cries, lunging towards her with the anger of a magnetar.

She doesn’t blink. “Prove it. Get out there, and do your job. Lead the people. Don’t tell them what to do. Tell them what needs to be done, so they can decide. If you don’t know what needs to be done, then lean on advisors. That is what they’re there for.”

“You’re not really here. What are you?” Waldemar questions.

“That’s not the question you need to ask yourself, Captain,” she begins. “The question is...who are you?”

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Microstory 2642: Darkest Fantasies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t understand.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Microstory 2424: Aquilonian Deep

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Why do they call it that? I don’t care. It’s an ocean. You ever see an ocean before? It’s just like that. I mean, the way my buddy hyped this up, I expected to find giant sea creatures lurking the dark waters, like a krakken, or what’s that thing from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? I never read it, I just heard about it. But mermaids. And sirens! You could do so much with this, but it’s pretty much just a giant-ass ocean. I could get that on Earth. It’s got islands too. Are you incentivized yet? No, because again, it’s just an ocean under an invisible dome? At least Polar Tropica has sun and sexy ladies in bikinis. That’s all I got to say about this. It was a nice idea, but they totally botched the execution. They told me that I would never be bored on this planet, but I was bored. I just sat in the boat, and the waves were crashing, and it wasn’t a fun experience. No one else around me seemed to be enjoying it. Sure, they were smiling and laughing, but I know what they were really thinking. Get yourself some monsters to escape from, and we’ll talk. Until then, I’m going back to one of the Lovecraftian domes. They got what I need.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 15, 2497

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Like a bunch of idiots, Team Matic lost the plot. Ramses and Leona were absorbed in trying to understand neutrinos, and everyone else was just relieved to have their friends back. They totally forgot the only question that mattered. Who was the scary neutrino monster, and how were trillions of neutrinos sentient? As simple of an explanation as there was for their profound overestimation of the intelligence of these subatomic particle clusters, that thing’s awareness of its surroundings could not be in doubt. It was shaped like a person. It moved like one, and at one point, it was reportedly trying to communicate. It had a mind of some kind, perhaps as a disembodied consciousness that attracted, or could control, the neutrinos, like Buddy. They had to go back to Dome 216 for more answers.

“It’s...gone,” Olimpia stated the obvious. They were standing in the space between domes, exposed to the harsh environment that was Castlebourne’s natural state. There should have been a geodesic dome here, but it was just a deep crater under open space. They didn’t know that it was going to be like this. Out of an abundance of caution, Mateo insisted on taking Romana back to Castledome for medical treatment. She was only exposed to the vacuum for a few seconds before her suit automatically formed itself around her to protect her, but she wasn’t expecting it, and could still be suffering from the effects. Hers wasn’t an upgraded substrate designed to withstand such deadly conditions unaided.

“This is it,” Leona said. “We’re where it once was. Hrockas completely destroyed it somehow.”

Ramses was checking his sensors. “No radiation, so he didn’t blow it up.”

“Could they have dismantled it?” Marie asked. “I mean, it’s been a whole year for everyone else.”

“Baudin could have taken the dome itself down relatively quickly,” Leona explained. “That’s not the problem. The question is what would have left this crater. Maybe they dug it out to be certain that all of those dark particles were gone.”

“We could go ask,” Angela offered.

“I already tried, we’ve been cut off,” Leona contended,

“What? Why?”

“It’s nothing personal,” Leona went on. “He just has to focus on the upcoming grand opening event. We’re no longer in the inner circle. We claimed to be leaving a few years ago, so he wasn’t expecting us to still be here.”

“So the neutrino monster is his problem now,” Marie decided, “and we can finally leave.”

“I still have questions,” Ramses complained.

Leona patted him on the shoulder. “You always will. This isn’t our home. We’ve overstayed our welcome, and we gotta go.”

They didn’t leave right away. Leona allowed Ramses to take some soil samples, and other residual readings. Everyone else on the team spent the rest of the day seeing their loved ones one last time. Mateo focused on his other two daughters, but also spent a little time with his once-parents, Aura and Mario, his once-brother, Darko, and Darko’s daughter, Dar’cy. She showed up a couple years ago, but never reached out to them, for whatever reason. They didn’t even know if she still had all her special powers, which Dubra lost when her consciousness was transferred to her new body.

Goodbyes were always hard, and they never seemed to last long enough, but at some point, they just had to decide that it was over. They congregated on the outside of Ramses’ lab. To protect it, he trapped it in a temporal bubble, sunk it into the ground, and disguised it as an unremarkable rock formation. These weren’t holograms, but solid objects. People knew that it was around here somewhere, but perhaps they would forget precisely where, and after being unable to find it, give up, and move on. Or they would indeed make their way into the rooms, and cause some damage. The team couldn’t live their lives in the what-ifs, so they washed their hands of it, and teleported away.

They were floating in orbit now. Well, they weren’t really in orbit. They were just fully outside the atmosphere, and in freefall. Since they had no means of propulsion, they would eventually burn up in the atmosphere and die if they didn’t leave. They could hang here for a moment, though, and admire the planet from such an amazing vantage point.

“Do you think we’ll ever come back here?” Romana asked. She was all better now. Space exposure was an easy fix these days.

“It’s almost inevitable,” Ramses mused. “We always go back.”

“Really?” When’s the last time you were in Egypt?”

Ramses pointed. “I think that’s Giza.” It was impossible to tell from this elevation, but it could have indeed been the replica of the Great Pyramids that Baudin built under one of the domes.

Some of them chuckled. Then they continued to fall, and watch the ground get just a little bit closer. “Y’all ready for this?” Leona asked, knowing that they didn’t have much time left before it became unsafe even for them.

“I’ve been running diagnostics on the tandem slingdrives,” Ramses said. “They look good. We’re in the violet.”

“Okay,” Leona said. “Yalla.”

They decided to follow through with their plan to fly blindly by merely activating the slingdrives, and letting it send them wherever. They weren’t going to navigate, or think about where they wanted to go. They wanted fate to take over, come what may. The web of technicolors formed around them, and sent them away.

They emerged from the quintessence cocoon in a room. It was dark, with the only lights appearing over what looked like an altar on the far wall. There were other objects around them, like tables and glass cases, but it was hard to make anything out. There weren’t any dark particles flying around them, though, so they were presumably not in the neutrino dimension again. Ramses looked at his arm interface. “Atmosphere: Earth perfect. No toxins detected.” He collapsed his helmet back into his neck. Everyone followed suit, so to speak.

As soon as they were exposed to the air, an alarm blared, and a red light flashed. They all passed out at the same time, and fell to the floor.

Mateo Matic woke up in his bed. He gently lifted the blanket and sheets off of his body so he wouldn’t wake up his wife, but it was too cold in the room. Most women preferred it to be warmer than men, but Leona was the opposite. She kept turning the thermostat down. Part of him thought that maybe she did it so he wouldn’t sneak out of bed every morning. She was right about that. He quivered, and put the covers back down. Five more minutes wasn’t gonna hurt anyone. Besides, what was the boss gonna do? Fire him? He was the boss!

Leona groaned and turned over. When she saw that her husband was still there, she smiled and nuzzled his neck. Then she grabbed him by the shoulders. “I’ve trapped you!”

“Oh no!” he cried jokingly. “What can I do to escape you?”

“Kiss me.”

He kissed her.

She took her lips off of his, and tilted her head all the way back away from. “No! I know what that kiss means! That’s a goodbye kiss!” she complained.

He really did have to go. He was onboarding a new assistant today, and needed some time to get some actual work done before she came in. They didn’t make him Fleet Commander of the Central Midwest because he couldn’t make it to his destinations on time. “I promise to be home in time for dinner.”

“Good. Romana’s cooking, and she’ll be disappointed if you don’t make it.”

“I’m sure it’ll be great.” He gave her another goodbye kiss, then jumped out of bed, shivering all the way into the bathroom.

Once he was finished getting ready, he ran downstairs to catch his ride. Of course, as the big man on campus, he could absolutely afford his own car, but he wanted to support his own business, and stay in touch with his people. He always called a driver so the public would know that he believed in his company. He wasn’t famous, per se, but if he were ever to be interviewed—say, by the local news—hopefully this would help his image. He didn’t know, maybe it was stupid, but it was important to him.

“Dad, you’re missing breakfast again.”

“Sorry, I gotta go. Boyd M. is coming, and you know how obsessed he is with his q stats.”

“Wait, give me a kiss,” Romana urged, tapping her own cheek.

When he leaned it to kiss her, she faked him out, and stuffed a piece of toast in his mouth. “Thanks, honey,” he said, grabbing it with his hand so it wouldn’t fall to the floor.

“Most important meal of the day!” she said as she was running back off to the kitchen. “Your tea is by the door!”

Mateo’s watch dinged. “Thanks again!” He ran outside to find Boyd M.’s car waiting for him on the street, next to the driveway.

“Hi, neighbor!” It was one of the Walton twins, digging around in her flowers. Actually, they were his flowers, but she had a lot of time on her hands, so he never complained about her crossing the property line. He could never tell her apart from her sister, mostly because they lived together, always matched their outfits, and acted like the same woman. If he hadn’t ever seen them both at the same time, he would think she was just a crazy person who sometimes wanted to be called a different name.

“Hi...you.”

“Say hi to me too!” the other twin asked after appearing from behind a bush.

“Hi to me too!” Mateo joked. He walked over to the car, and shook his head. “We talked about this, Boyd. You’re only gonna be here for thirty seconds. Park in the driveway. If someone needs you to move, you move!”

“Your door is on the left side of your driveway,” Boyd defended. “Studies have shown that they prefer to step into our cars from the passenger side.”

“Okay, I personally don’t care about walking around, but a solution would be to take a moment to back in.”

“You got it, boss.”

“Great.” He opened the front door, and climbed in. A regular customer wouldn’t do this, but Boyd was his employee. They needed to be on the same level here. It was about respect. Speaking of which, Mateo noticed that Boyd was looking around Mateo’s head, back at the house. Mateo turned to see the curtain in the parlor fall back into place. “She’s sixteen,” he reminded him.

“What? I was just admiring your flowers. Tulips?” Boyd cleared his throat uncomfortably, and began to drive away.

“Daisies.”

The regional RideSauce branch wasn’t too far away. Once he secured this promotion, Mateo could pretty much live wherever he wanted within this region, and they would find affordable office space to accommodate him. Not every region had a local office, but it was growing in popularity in recent years. That was what set them apart from their competitors. They only had corporate offices. They didn’t care about their drivers, and never reached out to the communities. Their drivers weren’t even considered real employees, but contractors. There was this whole lawsuit surrounding the status of their personnel, which cost these other companies millions. RideSauce managed to avoid all of that by treating their workers with the respect they deserved from the very beginning. It was why they were now number one in this country, as well as in many others. Boyd stopped in front of the door, and let him out.

“Thanks! Five stars!” Mateo found his new hire waiting at the door. “Miss Sangster, you’re early.”

“If you’re early, you’re on time; if you’re on time, you’re late; if you’re late, you’re fired.”

Mateo smiled as he was starting to unlock the door. “We don’t operate like that here. We’re more chill. But I appreciate the initiative.”

Before he could manage to unlock the door, it opened. His engineer, Ramses was on the other side. “You’re a bit late, boss.”

“Then I guess I’m fired.” He gave Olimpia wink. “Come on in.”

Before this, Olimpia was living in Lincoln, Nebraska. Until today, they had only ever spoken on video chat. So she needed a tour of the offices. It didn’t take long. He took it seriously, but still casually. “This is the congregation area, where we can talk to drivers if there are any questions, comments, or concerns. This is the front desk, you’ll probably spend a lot of time here. Kitchenette to the right, bathroom to the left.” He gave her the side-eye. “Sorry, there’s only one, but there are only three of us, so we should be fine. That back there is the server room, which is Ramses’ workspace, and that’s my cubicle. There’s technically a basement, but we’re only allowed to use it in case of a tornado emergency. It connects to a store next door called Pregger Craves, which uses it for storage.”

“Pregger Craves? What does that mean?”

“They’re open 24/7, and only sell foods that are most commonly associated with pregnancy cravings. You got your ice cream, but you also have...pickles.”

“Oh, that’s what that smell is.”

Mateo chuckles. “I give it a year.” There was a short awkward pause. “Well, you can drop your bag down anywhere. Rambo, please make sure her computer is set up how she wants it.” He turned around while he was taking a sip of his tea, and gazed out the window. “Let’s keep the Midwest moving,” he said to himself.

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