Microstory 2617: Leave it Alone as it is Neither Useful Nor Worth It

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August 24, 2526. The passengers are wildly impressed with how easy it is to walk over the land. The Integrated Multipurpose Suits aren’t just fancy, thin vacuum suits. They are made of multiple layers, one of which is specifically designed for muscular support. It’s composed of extremely strong threads, woven together to mimic the arrangement of natural muscles. You can feel yourself taking it step by step, and it’s not like it doesn’t burn any calories at all, but it definitely feels like your arms and legs are tied to an invisible friends who is doing the majority of the work for you. So, it’s great. Despite the fact that the world is ending, everyone mostly feels like they’re going to make it. There is just one other little problem.

What the guy in the other rover was feeling was claustrophobia, but being outside like this has not diminished that. They’re all experiencing a very common psychological phenomenon called encapsulation anxiety. In order to be able to move around freely while being protected by the IMS, the user must inherently sacrifice their freedom within the suit. That’s actually why it became more common for people to just wear them all the time. Even if you don’t use your helmet and gloves unless you need them, experts recommend growing comfortable with your suit; even sometimes emotionally attached to it. The passengers here do not have that luxury. This is their first time, and it’s freaking them out. Luckily, there are safeguards in place, which stop them from being able to start removing components on their own in such a hostile environment, but a few of them have tried, driven purely by their panic and instinct.

These two aspects of the journey are at odds with each other. The muscular support layer, and other lifesaving features, are allowing them to keep walking for an extended period of time. The cleithrophobia, however, is making it hard to do that psychologically. They have had to take multiple breaks just to let people move around less encumbered. There were two vacuum tents in the rover. One of them fell out of its case, and was damaged in the wreck, so they only have one, but it’s better than nothing. They can all technically fit in it at the same time, they just have to take turns stretching and sprawling. They need to sleep anyway, though, so Breanna has decided to take these frequent stops as an opportunity to encourage a segmented sleep schedule. None of them has done that before—except for Cash, who worked many split shifts on the Sentinel—but everyone has napped, and they understand the stakes, so they’re figuring it out. They have no choice. They would still rather find transportation.

“I see something up there.” They’ve been walking in a sort of random formation. Just like the caravan, Breanna and Cash aren’t always in the front.

“What is it?” Breanna asks.

The passenger is up on a ridge while everyone else is still behind it. “Uhh...the magnification on this head up thing says two kilometers. I don’t know what that means, and I can’t actually tell what it is. The little man in here says it’s artificial because of ninety degrees?”

“Yeah, nature doesn’t really make ninety-degree angles,” Breanna explains. “It’s probably a manmade structure of some kind. It could be a permanent outpost, or it could be debris that got thrown around, just like we did. Is it in the same direction that we’re headed?”

“It’s a little out of our way,” the passenger replies. “You’ll have to decide whether we go for it, or keep trying to find those connecting spine things that the domes have.”

Breanna makes it over the ridge, and looks out at what he’s seeing. She squints her eyes, but it’s obviously not going to help. If the sensors can’t identify, she’s certainly not going to be able to. “This is one of those voting times we talked about yesterday. Everyone needs to get up here and take a look. Then we’ll raise our hands for who wants to go check it out. “We don’t just need a majority, but a supermajority. That means eight out of the ten of us need to agree.”

She waits for everyone to get a good look at the difference between the main quest and the side quest, and then they take a vote. It’s unanimous because it’s not too far out of their way, and it could lead to their salvation. The answer turns out to be rather complicated. Once they reach the object, they find that it’s a partially sunken, dusted over rover. A quick link-up shows that it was one of the ones from the caravan. There are no bodies inside, alive or dead. The assumption is they got stuck, and had to get out. The question is whether the other rovers let them distribute amongst them, or if there forced to go on foot, just like Breanna’s ragtag team. Optimism says the former, of course. That’s one reason why they deliberately grouped Breckenridgers and Levins together. They wanted everyone to have some kind of connection to every other vehicle, so if some crap like this happened, no one would get screwed.

The other feeling of optimism is that the caravan managed to get out at all. It might have just been this one vehicle, and maybe another, but one can hope that all of them survived the thermal cyclone, and are continuing northwards where it’s safe. That is what Breanna and Cash are choosing to believe right now. They’ve been growing close over the last couple of days. As harrowing as their adventure has been, the walking portion has been rather uneventful. You have to spend your time doing something. Some people are just watching TV on their HUDs, but the two leaders have been talking, and wishing they were friends prior to this. Maybe something more? Breanna knows that it’s not the time to push for anything like that right now. Survival is paramount.

“Can it be fixed?” one of the passengers asks.

“You know this stuff better than we do,” another adds. “Maybe they abandoned it because they didn’t know what they were doing.”

“We’re not mechanics either,” Breanna admits. “So we’re not the ones to ask. There’s one among us who would know best.” She chuckles when they look at Aeterna, the weird immortal. “Not her. Thistle, damage report.”

“The vehicle could be repaired, but it would have to be dislodged from the mud first. There is no equipment available to perform such a maneuver. Recommendation: salvage anything left inside, and return to the trek.”

“Thank you, Thistle,” Breanna says. “I’m overriding that recommendation,” she says to the people. “Our friends who were in this car weren’t stupid. They would have taken anything valuable, and I can’t vouch for the stability of this thing. So we leave it alone, and leave. I’m not taking votes on it this time. It is not worth the risk.”

“We might need to vote on this, though” the guy they rescued from the other rover says, looking out on the horizon.

“What is it?”

“More ninety degrees...and far out of our way.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 24, 2399

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During World War VI, Captain Tarboda Hobson was an active member of the air force, serving by dropping supplies into quarantine camps so no one would actually have to go inside. When a new vaccine was released, he would drop that in too. Of course, a new strain—or an entirely new pathogen—was coming into power seemingly every day back then, so he never took any time off. Even that seems like nothing compared to what he’s doing now. He’s taking advantage of his new chance on life, and trying to help as many people as possible. What he’s been doing is technically against global law, but it’s a gray area when it comes to Leona’s nation. Of course, he’s utilizing resources from the U.S. government, but he’s just pretending that that’s not really happening. It’s not his job to be concerned with the politics anyway. He and his new team have one objective, which is to rescue people who are being trafficked all over the world, and to relocate them to Leona’s magical new building. He forgot how much he loved doing this, not worrying about making the decisions. He flies, that’s what he does. It’s all he does. Well, he sometimes pilots in boat mode.

Today is different. He’s being temporarily reassigned to a new mission. While Leona does whatever it is she’es doing stateside, he’s on his way to the Island of Madagascar. The religion of Daltomism supposedly originated here. According to Mateo, who’s here with him, this might not be completely random. If you drew a line from Kansas straight through the center of the Earth, and came out the other side, Madagascar would be the nearest landmass. These are called antipodes, though the place where they’re going is not the exact opposite point. The exact opposite would be in the middle of the ocean, as it usually is, since the Earth is mostly water. This was close enough, and it is Leona’s belief that Dalton chose this region because it was the farthest from The Constant in what is now Kansas. That’s where all the mysterious immortal people live that Tarboda hasn’t dealt with directly yet.

“Don’t we think this is all happening a little too quick? Word around the government water cooler is that Leona’s about to announce something big.”

“It has to happen fast,” Mateo explains. “The Reality Wars are starting early next month. Dalton Hawke is the last piece of the puzzle. If this is where he founded his religion, we have to know about it.”

“How did you find this place specifically?”

“Our new friend, Imani gave us a copy of Word of Dalton, Book II, which she can evidently get in a lot of trouble for. Vearden was researching it for us before his...” Mateo trails off. “He thinks it describes this part of the jungle.”

“What do we think, there’s a hidden temple somewhere around here?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, we may find out soon.” Tarboda slows down, and shifts into hover mode. “We’re at the coordinates you gave me.”

“Is there, like, a camera on the bottom of this thing?” Mateo asks, looking at the floor. “I would like to see what’s directly below us.”

“Is there a camera?” Tarboda echoes with a laugh. “Ha!” He engages erasure mode, removing the floor entirely, showing them what it would look like if it didn’t exist, and they could just float in the air.

“Whoa. I’ve seen stuff like this before. I have an idea of how it works, but it’s still trippy to stand here. Can you scan for structures, or whatever?”

“Uhhh...” Tarboda taps through the manual on the built-in screen. “Scan. Here we go.” He presses the button. Nothing happens that they can see, but the computer says that it’s scanning. “It didn’t find anything. No ruins.”

“That’s not surprising, or someone would have found it a long time ago. I’ve always wanted to do that thing where we—”

“Wait.” He looks at the screen. It’s detecting radiation from that body of water.”

“Bad radiation?”

“Slight radiation.”

Mateo has to duck his head down to see the lake through the floor. “Does that mean we can’t do the thing?”

“What thing?”

“Sliding down to the ground on ropes hanging from the helicopter.”

“No, we definitely can’t do that.”

Mateo hangs his head.

Tarboda smirks. “Because this is not a helicopter. I’ll get the gear. That button over there will open the center floor hatch.”

Mateo goes over to open it. The floor reappears, but only in that spot. The hatch drops a little, then slides under like a pocket door. Tarboda drops the lines, and starts to get himself fitted with the climbing gear. He looks over the edge to see that the lake is closer than it was before. “What the hell? The jet has been moving on its own.”

“It has? You didn’t move it?”

Tarboda drops the gear, and runs back over to the cockpit and looks at the screen. The scanner didn’t find much before, but it’s found something now. All sorts of debris and wreckage is down in that water. It’s much deeper than it looks from a distance. “Close the hatch!”

Mateo slams on the button again. The floor starts closing back up. Just as it does, the jet tips over, sending him slamming against the back wall.

“You okay?” He asks.

“I’m all right!”

“I’m tryin’ to get us out of here!”

“Something’s pulling us down?”

“Yeah,” Tarboda calls back. “Hold on, we’re gonna start pullin’ some Gs!” He engages the thrusters, but whatever invisible force is tugging at them is reacting in kind. It won’t let them go, and it’s stronger than his beautiful new plane is. They gave this to him to please the team. They’re not going to give him a second one. “Try to climb back up here! I can’t get us out!”

“No! Jump, Tarboda!”

“What!”

“Jump down here! Trust me!”

These people brought him back to life; he has to do whatever they say. He undoes his belt, hangs between the seats, then lets go. They’re not perfectly vertical, so he slides on the floor, heading right for Mateo, who has his wrist up to his face. Suddenly, the jet is gone, and he’s tumbling on the ground. He gets himself to his feet and looks up to see the jet being sucked into the water, but not before it implodes.

Alyssa’s here with them. “Crushed it.”

Microstory 1779: Telescope

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I forgot my telescope on the bridge. It’s this hopelessly useless little thing that can’t see the sun on a clear day, but I still wanted the Captain to autograph it for me, and I’m so proud of myself for having been brave enough to ask. She signed it with a smile, and didn’t even blink out how difficult it was to write on a cylinder. It was an honor just to be there, but the fact that she spoke to me personally was more than I could ask for. I can die happy now. I was so relieved that it all worked out, and excited to be up where the action was, that I left the telescope on top of an auxiliary console. By the time I realized my mistake, something had gone terribly wrong in the ship. I don’t have access through the doors myself, but an engineer was running out just at the right time, so I slipped back in and hoped not to bother anyone. I just wanted to grab it, and get out of everyone’s way. Things escalated quickly. We had apparently come out of plex too close to the planet, and were unable to compensate. The ship was being torn apart by the tidal forces, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Our vessels are at their weakest when they collimate back to realspace. The strain from faster-than-light travel is not enough to vaporize us, or anything, but couple it with the sudden gravitational pull of a celestial object, and you have yourself a recipe for disaster. I’ve always hoped to be a pilot one day, so I’ve been studying all of this stuff. I really shouldn’t be here right now, though. I try to leave, but the doors are blocked by the hustle and bustle. I think it’s best if I just try to stay out of the way. I grab my telescope, and stick myself in the corner, where nobody notices me. It’s not long before they all begin to evacuate. They’re heading for the escape pods, as are the rest of the passengers like me. Meanwhile, I’m frozen.

I can feel the ship cracking from the gravity, and I know that I have to get out of here too. Hopefully I can squeeze in one of the pods before they all leave. I don’t make it. This ship’s bridge was designed as an actual bridge, which overlooks the crew observation deck below. As I’m running along the railing, an explosion from the side pushes me over the edge, and I begin to fall towards the floor below. I watch it crumble, and escape into the vacuum of space before anything hits me. I’m sent into the black as well, where I expect to die quickly...except I don’t. I’m still alive, for some reason. I’m not breathing, but my blood isn’t boiling either. I’m just there, conscious and watching the debris flying chaotically around me. I don’t hang around for long before I fall towards the atmosphere of the planet. I was supposed to live here for the next year while I finished school. Now I’ll die here. It doesn’t happen yet, though, as I continue to fall. I can see the fire around me, but I don’t burn up. This doesn’t make any sense. This is not what’s meant to happen when an object falls from space. I’m not built to survive. What the hell is going on? I feel like I’m suspended in place while the ground flies upwards to greet me. As it becomes larger, I see more detail. The indistinct terrain, the road that cuts through it, the vehicles, the people walking to the beach, their eyes. As fast as I was moving, and as quickly as I stop, I don’t even die on impact. I land, awkwardly but safely, as if I simply hopped out of bed a little too hard. I still don’t understand this. Then I look up and see a flat piece of debris falling down right over my head. It’s too large for me to get out of the way. And then I crash onto the floor of the observation deck, and die as the rest of the ship is ripped apart around my body, telescope still in hand.