Microstory 2775: Course Correction

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The lab that Elise was in with Miracle and Reagan disappears, and is replaced with Elise’s own apartment in Abodome. The first thing she sees is the front door closing. Someone seemingly just left, so she needs to find out who. She sprints over to it and opens it back up. She looks down the hallway and sees herself. Well, she sees the back of her own head. She recognizes the outfit too. This is it. This is the day that she and her friends officially began their hunt under Treasure Hunting Dome. She has gone back in time, just as Rae and Mir said she would. The question is, though, what now?

They didn’t actually give her any instructions. They didn’t say what she was supposed to change. She doesn’t have any experience in this, and they know that. Or they will know that, because at this point in time, she hasn’t met either of them yet. What they did to her was isolate her from everyone she cares about. There is no one she can trust without risking the timeline, and even if there were, they wouldn’t be able to help her anyway. She’s going to have to figure this out on her own. First things first, treat this like any other challenge on the hunt. According to Rage’s explanation of how they typically go, the last challenge often involves memory. You have to keep track of where you went and what you did, and regurgitate that in some way.

Elise tries to sit down at her computer, but her chair isn’t designed with wings in mind. She has to use the kitchen stool, which isn’t comfortable either because she still can’t lean back, but at least she’s not leaning forward. She opens a new file and starts to retrace her steps. She starts more general, and becomes more specific, adding the minutest of details to get a full picture of what happened once the hunt began. She color-codes it by actions she took, actions others took, and actions done to them by the game. She then goes in and adds even more information, about things that she wasn’t there for. She lists things that other hunters did, and tries to guess what Hrockas and Azad were doing in the meantime. She makes it a full, comprehensive bible of the whole ordeal, from start to finish. She even goes back to include events leading up to minute one, even though some of it is already in the past from her current perspective.

There is one interesting development; a mystery which they never solved. When the hunters were circling the desert, looking for their next clue, Minotaur went missing. They said someone in robes grabbed them and they tried to get away and lost their jacket, but the attacker quickly caught up to them. Elise looks over at her bed where she laid the robe that Reagan hung over her at the very last second. She goes over to it and picks it up. “Could this be it? Was it me the whole time?” But if so, she’s not come back to change the past. She can’t; it’s inevitable. She’s merely following in her own footsteps. Nothing will go better this time, because this isn’t a different time. Unless there’s a third Elise around here somewhere. She suddenly starts to feel like she’s being watched.

Elise paces the room. “What was it Miracle said once about time travel? If you don’t have proof that something didn’t happen, there’s a chance it happened.” She stands there and ponders that for a moment. Then she goes right back to her timeline document and reads the part about the desert again. “If you don’t have proof it didn’t happen, it might have happened,” she whispers. She nods, a little excited and more determined. “Right there. That’s my shot. I don’t have to change it if I assume it’s already happened.” She grabs the robe, drapes it over her body again, and disappears.

Elise has spent weeks practicing teleportation and flying. She has worked out every day to build up her strength. She went to a biotailor to improve her substrate even more. They reinforced her wings and increased the density of her muscles while lowering the density of her bones. It’s a trade-off, but she needs to be both strong and light. Her mission doesn’t necessarily involve being better than she already was, but why waste this opportunity? She has to do something while the timeline catches up.

She learned a few things about her temporal abilities. She can teleport from the real world to the Facsimile at will. It takes an extra boost of energy, but not as much as she figured at first. She also learns how many jumps she can do before she runs out, and she learns that she can actually increase her numbers by being more efficient, and even processing more temporal energy from wherever it comes from. The time for training is now over, though. This is the show. She packs the essentials, some of which she had to...borrow from a secure location, throws her robe back on, and heads off to work.

She is in the desert now, and has been for a couple of days. She intentionally came a little early in case something went wrong, but she also isn’t entirely sure when her past self and her friends will show up. They didn’t have timepieces with them at the time. She knows where they’ll end up, however, so she’s on her belly, watching that spot with binoculars. The robe can shift colors, as most clothing can in the modern world, so she just looks like a crest in the sand dune. She has learned to be still and patient too. She didn’t set out to do that, but it came naturally with all of her other training.

They’re here. Elise watches Azad transport them all before leaving with Hrockas and Telman. Now it’s just the hunters. She can’t hear, but she knows what they’re talking about. She waits until they spread out, triggering her window. She teleports directly to Minotaur, and after a brief struggle, relocates them to the rocket maze. Then she returns to her perch to wait for her next move. She sees them reunite and argue about what to do, and she sees Miracle teach her how to take control of her body. She watches as her past self gets trapped on the surface with Colley, where they both surrender to their budding romance, only to be caught by the others after they complete the underground maze. They all then go back down there to learn the truth about Rage.

This is it; it’s happening. Elise knew that she would be successful with Mino, because it already happened to her, but this is the real change. This is what she’s been actually training for. The ship blares as it begins to ascend. The ground shakes and gives way. Future!Elise has to start hovering to keep from slipping down the dune like an ant in an antlion’s pit. She slowly gets closer to get a better look, still worried about being spotted by someone. Past!Elise is now trying to hang on to both Colley and Zelda, but she’s not strong enough yet. Colley volunteers to let go, but Zelda beats him to it.

Future!Elise uses her friend-finding ability to teleport to exactly where Zelda is. She grabs her by the waist, and jumps them both back to the inside of the rising rocket.

“Whoa! How did you do that?” Zelda asks, trying to orient herself. “How did you do that? What are you wearing? How is your hair green now? Where’s Colley?”

“He’s fine.” Elise replies. She takes out two vacuum suit cartridges, placing one on Zelda’s chest, and the other on her own. The nanites emerge from the cartridge and wrap themselves around them to protect them from space exposure. She did it, they won. Didn’t they?

Microstory 2770: Pitstop on the Way to Nowhere

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The sun is beginning to disappear. They still don’t have water, but at least it’s cooling down. Elise and Colley don’t know what they’re meant to do here. She has no sense of direction. She was able to think about her people, and teleport to them, but that doesn’t mean she knows where they are. They could be on the other side of the planet right now. Walking in any direction could be taking them farther away. The maze could even be directly under their feet, perhaps several meters down, or several kilometers.

“I didn’t hear, did Miracle say how your power replenishes?” Colley asks.

“No. She said temporal energy was really just time, so maybe I only need to wait until it recharges on its own,” Elise replies. “Before you ask, I can’t tell it’s there. It’s not like I feel a surge of electricity throughout my body, which is now missing. I couldn’t even tell that I could do what I did.” She sighs and sits down. “I don’t know if I should keep trying, or if every time I do, even if it doesn’t work, I drain my battery again.”

“Logic says to wait.” Colley sits down across from her. “Before ambient wireless charging and nanofusion reactors, electronics had to be recharged by leaving it attached to the wall. You weren’t really supposed to use it while that was happening, especially not with older models. I say we sleep on it and try again in the morning.”

Elise shivers. “If we survive the night. I’m already missing that sun.”

Colley nods solemnly. “Yeah, it’s gonna get colder. This pink and black jacket is nice to have for extra covering, but it’s not going to be enough, not for the both of us.”

“We obviously need to share and conserve body heat. Pull your shirt over your head, but don’t take it off. We want to minimize the insulation between us, but we still want insulation around us.” Elise demonstrates what she means with her own shirt, which is difficult with her wings, but she makes it work. “Take off your pants, but keep the belt in the beltloops. Drape the pants behind your back and rebuckle the belt around your waist.” She pulls her adventure shorts off entirely. The same trick won’t help her that much, so she decides to do something else with them. She starts to giggle.

“Oh, funny prank.” Colley’s pants are tied behind him like a low cape. His shirt is stretched behind his neck like a gun holster, but in an awkward, almost sexual way. Elise’s shorts are on his head like a hat since he doesn’t have as much hair.

“No, it’s not a prank,” Elise insists. “It’s funny, but this is what we’re working with.” She opens her wings and quivers them to generate some heat. She lays the extra racing jacket on the sand and lies back on it. “Get on top of me. Come on.”

Colley hesitates, frowning uncomfortably.

“I studied survival,” she reminds him. “I know what I’m doing.”

Colley reluctantly lowers himself upon her and hugs her. He’s gentle at first, but quickly tightens up when his instincts react to the increase in warmth.

Elise envelops him in her wings to complete the seal. She continues to quiver them as they hold each other. It’s working. It’s actually working. They still may not make it through this, but it will not be for lack of trying. The temperature continues to drop.

Colley starts to breathe heavily, which is okay for now. But then he suddenly stops. “I’m sorry. I normally program a governor switch for certain, uhh...physical responses, but this temporary one comes with the standard hardware.”

Elise smiles kindly, but realizes that he can’t see it. She reaches into the extra jacket’s pocket and retrieves the homing beacon, which has a dim light on it. She lays it on her chest and switches it on. “You don’t have to apologize. It’s perfectly normal, and we should be comfortable enough with each other to not feel bad about such things.”

“It’s not that I feel bad, it’s just.” He starts breathing too heavily again.

“Hey,” she whispers. “It’s okay. Shivering can warm you up, but it can also strain your muscles. If you don’t relax too, you’re probably gonna end up with neck pain.”

“I’m sorry,” Colley replies. “This is just a tough situation. Because...you know, with you... I, uh—if it were anyone else on the team, even Miracle, I would still...”

“I mean it,” she tries to comfort, “it’s okay. You can tell me anything.”

“I think I might be falling in love with you,” he finally admits. “And I don’t want you to think it’s about your body, or how we’re situated right now. I’ve been developing feelings this whole time. I mean, we work so well together. We complement each other’s skills, and while we sometimes argue, we don’t fight. I’ve never gotten mad or annoyed at any of you. When I thought you were dead, I was heartbroken. I was worried that even if we found each other on the other side of this, if we didn’t remember any of what we went through, we wouldn’t be able to recapture the magic. We’ve put so much effort into surviving, there’s been no time to really sit with my thoughts, but in this moment...”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Elise tells him. “Not in so many words, but...” She pauses and considers it. She didn’t exactly give up on love, but she has definitely been deprioritizing it for most of her life. It’s no surprise that feelings have sprouted amongst them. Rage eventually explained that she spent months locating the team, and vetted dozens of candidates before settling on the five of them. One of her criteria was a lack of attachments. She didn’t want to take anyone away from a family, because that would become the driving force of their actions, rather than the goal itself. That was probably the right call, but it’s complicating things now. “Let’s ignore the words.”

They kiss. They can’t help themselves. In the movies when people have to share body heat like this, it always happens, and that’s because it’s totally plausible. You can’t be intertwined with someone and not feel something. Hugs release endorphins and other pleasurable chemicals. That is an evolutionary fact. Group that with skin-to-skin contact and a pair of sexy wings, and you have a recipe for a powerful love scene.

They keep kissing, and it starts to feel like this could go even further. Elise unwraps her wings and rolls Colley over to his back so she’s straddling him now. Before anything else can happen, though, a light begins to shine in her face, and it’s not from the beacon that fell in the sand. It looks like a headlight, it’s so bright. She sits up and tries to shield her eyes from it while also trying to discern the shapes behind the light.

“Lower that, Zelda,” Rage instructs. “Jesus. Actually, just put it in lantern mode.”

Zelda does as she’s asked, so now the whole area is illuminated. The entire team is back. They look dirty and exhausted, but they have all survived. Jolanda steps closer with a canteen as Elise is climbing off of Colley, and they’re both standing back up.

Elise takes a few sips first before handing it to Colley. “So you made it out of the maze. Was there an actual monster, or was it something more complicated?”

“Oh, it was a monster,” Minotaur replies. “It was a minotaur. I reasoned with it, and we found our way out. The exit is not that far from where we are now.”

“You thought there might be an interim prize?” Elise goes on. “What was it?”

The other hunters exchange looks with each other. “It’s not exactly a prize,” Rage answers. “It’s more of a challenge which could lead to a prize. It’s a ship. A spaceship.”

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 2768: Next Time on Lost

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Elise thinks that she only passes out for a few seconds. Arms carefully wrap around her body, but she keeps falling. She looks up and sees Azad. He’s looking as cool as ever. It doesn’t last long. The wind somehow causes Elise to accidentally reopen her wings. Before he can save her, Azad loses his grip, and they tumble apart from each other. He teleports again, but doesn’t aim right. Now he’s below her. She’s scared. She doesn’t want to lose these memories. She doesn’t want to go back to not having wings. Her surviving self will not know what she’s missing. She won’t seek to improve herself.

She fights to get back to Azad, but she doesn’t know how to do that. In moves, they tighten themselves up like missiles, but her wings aren’t cooperating. She’s afraid they’re gonna snap off. The ground is coming up fast now. If this doesn’t happen soon, it will be too late. Suddenly, the ground disappears. It transforms into sky. She’s still falling, but now towards the clouds, and slowing down. Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. No, she’s “falling” upwards, and not from flying. Her wings are still out of control. She comes to a complete stop, but only for a second before she reverses. She hasn’t stopped herself from crashing; she has only delayed it. She has to try to recreate whatever just happened. Before she can fall much farther, she concentrates on one word: teleportation. The next moment, she’s standing on the ground, safe and sound.

Azad appears next to her. “How did you just do that?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know that I could,” Elise says truthfully.

“It’s the chrysalis bioprinter,” Miracle determines. “You saw me and Azad teleport, and at least a part of you wanted to try it. It’s the same reason you’re now part moth. Your subconscious mind knows what it wants. This is dangerous stuff, Rocky.”

“Don’t call me that,” Hrockas requests. “And you’re right. It’s why we restrict it.”

“Are you going to take it away now?” Elise asks, trying to display puppy dog eyes.

“We may be struggling to figure out what our laws should be,” Hrockas begins, “all the way out here in the Charter Cloud, but one thing we and the stellar neighborhood can agree upon is that bodily autonomy is non-negotiable. That substrate is yours now. But there is no fundamental difference between teleportation and time travel. And if you’ve seen any movie about time travel, you’ll know the risks. If you find yourself with the ability to go back in time, I urge you to exercise caution. It’s not illegal here, as it is in other cultures, but I’m considering it. It’s only not written into the laws because the general population doesn’t know about it in the first place.”

“And because you would have to draw a line somewhere to allow your boy, Azy here to teleport as needed,” Miracle points out. “Among others,” she adds

“Yes, that’s true,” Hrockas admits. “Now Miss Perkins is in the same boat. Speaking of which...” He looks over at Azad expectingly.

Azad begins to tap on his wrist interface. He then raises his arm and bathes everyone in a rainbowish light. It’s not the kind of rainbow that you would spot from a rainstorm. It’s more like what you would see in an oil puddle. It actually looks a lot like oil, and even feels like it too. After a flash of light, they’re transported to a desert.

Without another word, Hrockas and Telman converge upon Azad. All three of them teleport away, leaving the hunters to figure out the next challenge on their own.

Jolanda stretches her neck up as high as possible and rotates like a periscope. “I don’t see anything. Elise, do you think you could fly up and scout the area?”

“She should not do that,” Miracle argues quickly. “Elise, we don’t know enough about how your wings work. Mine were always specifically designed to be strong and resilient. They only appeared to be delicate, because that was the aesthetic I was going for. For a real moth, this environment would be a death sentence. You have to assume you’re on the brink right now. In fact, how are you feeling? Dehydrated?”

“I’m hot, but okay,” Elise explains. “Maybe I could teleport around instead, unless that’s also sensitive to temperature or other environmental factors.”

“It’s not usually,” Miracle says, “but I could conceive of a salmon with arbitrary limitations. I knew a guy who could only travel in the rain, and once he did, if he wanted to go again, he would have to dry off entirely, and potentially wait for another storm.”

“All right. Whether we’re moths or not, our bodies are gonna die here if we don’t find water and shelter.” Rage inhales and exhales. “Let’s hold off on teleporting for now. There are seven of us. One needs to stay exactly right here. If you want to dig for clues, that wouldn’t be the worst idea, but you could also conserve energy. The other six will pair off, and begin a concentric circle search. One pair should be at 50 meters, one at 100 and one at 150. Once you complete your circle, move out 150 meters, and complete another circle. Does that make sense?”

“Who is going to stay here?” Colley asks. “Elise if her body is more fragile?”

“She shouldn’t be alone,” Miracle warns, “even if it means walking.”

“I agree,” Rage says. “El, you’re with me. Mir and Zelda, Jolanda and Colley. Minotaur, you okay staying alone to be our Touchstone? We don’t have compasses.”

“Fine with me.” Minotaur gets on their knees and starts digging like a dog, shoveling sand between their legs. They’re gonna get tired going that hard for too long.

“Okay,” Rage goes on. “There are dunes, so visibility will be difficult. That’s why Mino is staying. If you think you’re lost, get up high, and look for their racing jacket.

“Here, take mine,” Jolanda offers. “It’s pink and black, so it will be easier to spot.”

“We’ll only do this for three hours,” Rage continues. “At that point, finish your circle, then come back to our Touchstone. When you’re searching, look down, and both ways. Look up every once in a while, in case there’s a drone, or something. Questions? Comments? Concerns?” She claps her hands in the silence. “All right, then let’s get at it.”

Elise and Rage walk for the agreed upon three hours. It’s grueling work. None of them is dressed for this, especially not Elise, who is still mostly naked from having recently been born. The sand is coarse and uncomfortable between her toes, and even hotter than the sun, so there’s no point in her trying to sit down and rest. She doesn’t want to be more of a burden than she already feels. They had to put the hunt on pause just because she died and came back to life. She has already taken so much, she just wants to be helpful, and not ask for anything, like a layer of Rage’s clothing.

They finish their circle and head back. Rage has an excellent sense of direction despite everything looking the same around here. She grows frustrated when she can’t find Mino. Elise tried to keep an eye on them, but they ended up so far down a dune that it became unreasonable to keep backtracking. This has to be where they began, though. They can see the claw marks from where Mino was digging. The other two groups show up after only about twenty minutes, and agree that this has to be it. They’re not lost; Mino is. They’re missing. They spread out once more, but don’t go too far this time, only about ten meters in every direction. Elise finds a pink and black racing jacket.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 31, 2544

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Nothing interesting happened by the end of the day in 2543, except for some unusual environmental readings that Ramses was getting, so they made plans to leave. To give Romana time to finally come to a decision for where they were going to go next, and to maximize the time they had to actually do that, they decided to wait a year to leave. Those unusual readings turned out to only be the start. When Trinity Turner founded this colony, she did so with the benefit of future knowledge. She knew how much work would go into making it habitable for humans, so she continued to travel through time to make it happen. She had the ability to transport anywhere that she could see. This could be as short as the other side of the room, or as far as across intergalactic voids.

Because light travel wasn’t instantaneous, when she looked at a distant star, she was looking into the past. Indeed, this was how it worked for everyone. This meant that Trinity could end up as far into the past in years as her destination was away in light years. But she could also just land in the present, if she so chose. It was a fluke of her ability that no one could explain, but she did not take it for granted. For untold amounts of time, she would jump back and forth, ferrying experts from the timeline to help terraform this world. One thing that they never understood was the gravity. It was the biggest mystery in space colonization that people kind of did take for granted. The only reason it hadn’t been the top headline every day for the last 300 years was because a sort of religion formed around it. Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida was a very spiritual place. Science wasn’t outlawed by any stretch, but it just wasn’t done. Even though the implausible gravity couldn’t be explained, people were simply not putting that much effort into studying it. Not even Leona truly knew how Trinity did it. But perhaps she should have asked, because things were going wrong now.

“So, is it going to hurt when we teleport outside?” Olimpia asked.

“We’re fine,” Ramses assured her. “I designed our bodies to withstand a lot heavier gravity than this. It could go all the way back up to where it should be, and we would still be all right, but will it stop there? I don’t know. I don’t know what’s causing it, because I don’t know where the artificial gravity comes from.”

Leona was looking at the data. “It did not increase suddenly, or a lot of people would be dead, but it’s been rising all year.”

“Actually, it’s been rising since we arrived,” Ramses corrected.

“The whole planet?” Mateo asked.

Ramses sighed. “Yes, but not evenly. I hesitate to call this region the epicenter, because it appears to move anisotropically, but...um...” he trailed off.

“But it’s us,” Leona finished what he was unable to say. “We’re the cause.”

“I don’t know how, but I don’t see any other plausible trigger,” Ramses agreed.

“Should we leave then?” Romana offered.

“The damage is done,” Ramses explained. “I believe it was our arrival with the slingdrive. We interfered with the natural order.”

“There was nothing natural about this,” Leona told him. Everything artificial requires maintenance. Hell, natural processes experience constant change. We call it entropy.”

“Whatever was keeping this planet human-compatible, we interfered with it,” Ramses argued. “Natural or no, it’s our fault, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“We’ve been to a ton of places with the slingdrives,” Marie put forth. “Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

“We’ve never been anywhere with planetwide artificial gravity,” Angela responded.

“Yes, we have,” Leona said. “We were just on Varkas Reflex. That’s where this tech was born. Hokusai Gimura invented it while she was living there.”

“Well, we can’t just pop back there and see how they’re doin’,” Ramses reasoned. “That could make it worse for both worlds. I’m calling it, no sling travel until further notice.”

“We don’t have to go there physically,” Romana contended. “Let’s just read the news.” She created an interface on her wrist with her nanites, and connected to the quantum network. No one else did the same, they just watched her as her face fell. “It’s happening there too. It’s further along. They’ve consolidated to certain buildings which apparently have their own gravity generators, but most of the surface has become inhospitable to normal human life. Fortunately, there aren’t many of them left anyway. A lot of people are as sturdy as we are.”

“But these are two of the four main hubs for human colonization,” Leona pointed out. “Proxima Doma is the closest to Earth, Bungula and Bida have been terraformed. Regular humans love Varkas Reflex’s VR. In fact, after Doma fell, a lot of people started migrating to the other three.”

Mateo looked at his wife. “Well, out of all of us, Leona, you were the only one on Varkas when Hokusai created artificial gravity. How did she do it, and could it be the same way they did it here? Did she give it to Trinity?”

“I don’t see how,” Leona replied. “It’s not genuine artificial gravity. It’s transdimensional gravity. You open a two-dimensional portal to a region of space with lower gravity, and set it in superposition just under the surface of wherever you want to stand. When I was there, they were struggling to build single buildings with efficient gravity regulators. Evidently, they have expanded across the globe, but that should have taken years at best. This planet had it as soon as we landed, only a few years after we left Varkas. It’s just not possible.”

“Unless you account for time travel,” Marie reminded her. Trinity might have conscripted Future!Hokusai for help a decade or two in the past. That was her whole modus operandi back then, wasn’t it?”

“That’s true,” Leona admitted.

“It sounds like we need to find Trinity,” Olimpia determined.

“We need to find Trinity and Hokusai,” Marie added.

“No,” Leona began. “Ramses and I can do this. We can fix it.”

“No, I can’t,” Ramses argued. “I’ll just screw it up, like I have everything else.”

“We can…together,” Leona reiterated.

Ramses just shook his head.

“You said it was happening anisotropically,” Leona went on. “Let’s map that. However Trinity lowered gravity here, she didn’t do it by magic. There must be something changing the gravity, and also maintaining it, so let’s find whatever it is, and repair it.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Ramses, no moping,” Mateo ordered. “Let’s get to work.”

“Let’s?” Ramses echoed.

“Well if you’re so dumb that you’ll screw this up then I might as well help you, because I’m dumb too,” Mateo reasoned, completely aware that this did not make sense.

“Well, I mean...it’s not really that—”

“Not really what? True? Oh, you might be on to something. Maybe you and LeeLee should just try without me, see what you find.” He shrugged. “Start there.”

Ramses sighed. “Okay, I’ll make a map.”

The normies stayed in their shared space while the smart ones went into Ramses’ lab. They only had to be in there for less than an hour. “We’ve done it,” Leona announced as they came back in. “The gravitational failure is not random.” She threw up a hologram of a globe of Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. They are centered on these thirty-two evenly spaced locations.” Chevrons appeared on the surface, all around the planet.

“Actually, they’re specifically outside of these points,” Ramses clarified. “These particular spots are suffering less than elsewhere when it comes to the gravity issues. Fortunately, we noticed that they coincide with population centers. Which we found interesting and alarming, because Trinity could not have known where people would settle. But then we realized—”

“He realized,” Leona corrected.

Ramses smirked. “They’re not random either. If you zoom in to any of these points, you will find sacred ground. Trinity chose these thirty-two sites, probably to some degree of randomness, but well-distributed for maximum efficient coverage across a sphere. In math, it’s called the spherical covering problem. If they use transdimensional gravity—which is the only means of artificial gravity that I know of—it stands to reason that the regulators were installed in these places. And since there appeared to be preexisting infrastructure when the first colonists showed up, they....gravitated towards them due to their significance. So their religious interpretation did not come out of nowhere. There’s something there, probably underground, but also probably detectable.”

“Gravity is failing all over the world due to some unknown issue with these regulators, but it’s going to fail closer to the regulators last,” Leona finished.

“Do we know the cause?” Marie asked them.

“Well, it’s not us,” Leona argued. “Rambo, you’re off the hook. It was happening before we showed up, for a few years. We just didn’t know, because it started in more remote regions, and we didn’t look up the news. People have actually been migrating because of it, and the problem has just now reached this area. No one has been doing anything about it, because they don’t know what to do.”

“What can we do?” Mateo asked. “There are thirty-two sites. Is one of them the central command maybe?”

“Not that we can tell,” Leona replied. “I wouldn’t think so anyway. We might be able to interface with all of them if we go to one. We’ll know more when we get down there.”

Romana suited up with shiny body armor, showing her usual amount of cleavage that Mateo didn’t like. “Then let’s get on it. Boot ‘n’ rally!” She disappeared, only to return a few seconds later. “Sorry. Sync up ‘n’ rally! I’ve already chosen the chevron.”

They followed her to the site she had picked out. Ramses began to sweep the area to find the signal that would lead them to where they were actually trying to go.

“Guys,” Romana called out from around the bend of the cliff that they were next to. “You should see this.”

They all went over there to meet her. She was staring at the cliff face, where a gargantuan stone monument had been embedded in it. It was at least two stories tall, perhaps three. MATEO MATIC MEMORIAL ESCARPMENT. HE LED A LIFE OF LIFTING OTHERS. HERE HE FELL. NOVEMBER 18, 2256. Below the words was a non-volumetric hologram of Mateo Matic himself,standing tall and looking outwards at an angle. It made him seem like some kind of hero head of state; like he was a modern-day Abraham Lincoln. It made him feel rather uncomfortable.

“Jesus,” Angela said in a breathy voice.

They all stared at it for a moment, but then shifted their gazes to Mateo. “I didn’t know they put this here,” he said.

“Me neither,” Leona concurred.

Romana reached out and took her father in a hug. He kissed her on the forehead.

Ramses’ wrist sensors beeped. “Sorry. That just means it found it.”

Mateo turned away from his monument. “Then let’s go.”

“We can wait a moment,” Olimpia suggested, taking hold of his arm.

“That won’t be necessary.” As Mateo continued to walk away, her grip slid down his arm, into his hand, and then back out of it.

“Are you sure?” Ramses asked.

Mateo glanced at his friend’s interface. “Yes.” Then he teleported to the coordinates. He was in an underground lab now. The transdimensional gravity regulator stood before him. That was what he assumed it was anyway. He heard the erratic hum of fluctuating power. It was trying to hold on, like a dying lightbulb. Each time one of the others appeared, the machine reacted with a surge of energy. “Wait, don’t come yet! Just hold on!” he cried into his comms, but it was too late.

Once Romana appeared, a wave of light spread out from the machine and engulfed them all before they could teleport away. It was blinding, even for them with their advanced substrates. It took a couple of minutes for their vision to return. They were no longer underground, but in a high desert. Shrubbery kissed their feet. There were buttes scattered about in the distance. And a beetle. An absolutely gigantic beetle, towering over them, but paying them no mind. “Whoa,” Romana said as it slowly skittered past them.

“Who are you?” came a voice behind them. They turned around to find a gun pointed in their general direction.

“We’re not here to hurt anyone. You don’t need that,” Mateo told the stranger.

“Teleportation is highly regulated. So who are you?” he repeated. When they started to introduce themselves, he put his weapon away. “I’ve heard of you, you’re okay. I’m sorry for the mix-up. Welcome back. My name is Lycander Samani.”

“Welcome back where?” Leona pressed. “Where are we?”

“Castlebourne,” Lycander answered, “specifically, Gientodome.”

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Microstory 2594: Renata Slides Most of the Outfits to One Side of the Rack

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Renata slides most of the outfits to one side of the rack. She slides some of them back the other way before taking a smaller fraction, and trying again. She’s not seeing anything that would fit her, not stylistically, that is. She looks over at Demo. “I’m more of a sexy, but still professional, business casual, or a black catsuit and a gun, kind of gal. This stuff just isn’t me.”

“It doesn’t have to be you,” Demo explains. “You just have to look the part for tonight. Where we’re going, we’re not trying to stand out.” She glides over and picks up a sparkly silver dress, holding it up against Renata’s body. “This is what everyone else will be wearing.”

“Why do you even have all these costumes? Do you go to a lot of fancy parties?”

Demo smiles. “The set diagram of the wealthiest among us, and the most crooked, is practically a single circle. They care a great deal about appearances, which is why...” She tests another dress, but decides against it, “...they always hold these grand, expensive parties.”

“Why do we have to infiltrate this party at all?” Renata questions. “Can’t we just wait until it’s over? Talk to him in the morning?”

“Time is of the essence,” Demo reminds her. “Your mother could be searching for you from outside the network, like a god. And The Provider prefers to step away to do business during his events. He doesn’t want to seem desperate by spending all of his time in the spotlight.” She tests another dress. “This one.”

Renata accepts the outfit with a sigh. “The Provider,” she echoes. “That’s such a dumb name. Is he like me...or like you?”

“We’re not allowed to talk about it, so I don’t know. If he’s a visitor,” Demo continues as she’s taking it upon herself to remove Renata’s clothing, starting with her tank top, “he’s a very old one. I’ve been here nearly since it opened, and he was already well-established in canon.” She tries to unbutton Renata’s shorts.

Renata pulls away. “That’s okay, I can dress myself.” She finishes changing her clothes. She then steps over to look at her reflection. The image is corrupted by dust and mirror rot, but she gets the idea. She’s wearing a floor-length emerald dress made of satin. It’s showing a meaningful amount of cleavage, which is fairly typical of her, but there’s also a slit along her left leg, which is not so typical. She looks quite pretty, and she has to admit as much, but it feels awkward just the same. Still, Demo is right. This is part of the job. Had she made it past one day in the program, her training would have prepared her to be a chameleon anywhere, rather than just a shadow in the shadows. It’s too late for that training now, though. She’s in the deep end.

“Whoa,” Quidel says as he’s staring at her from the top of the ladder.

Reneta looks back at him via the mirror. “Are you allowed to be attracted to a synthetic person? That is, is it socially acceptable?”

Quidel finishes climbing up to the loft, and approaches her. “Absolutely. That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you. You may not be human, but you’re still a person.”

Demo starts to unbutton her own shirt before shifting gears to untying her boots. “You’ll see once you’re on the outside. You will not have a hard time finding friends and mates, if that’s what you’re interested in.”

Lycander is walking up the ladder now, paying close attention to the rungs as he’s talking. “Okay. The car is all filled up with the odorized water that we’re supposed to pretend is petrol.” He finally looks up. “Whoa.”

“That’s what I said,” Quidel jokingly complained. “Get your own interjection of intemperate awe.”

“Right,” Lycander says. He checks his watch. “If we were to leave now, we would be on time.”

“Then we’ll leave in half an hour,” Demo decides.

The four of them continue to get ready, putting on makeup, and adjusting their snazzy formalwear. Exactly 29 minutes later, they’re all in the car, thankfully with the top up to block all the sand that they’re about to kick up. “Check the glovebox,” Demo suggests to Renata.

Renata opens it to see a little gun holstered in a garter belt. “It’s cute.”

“My good one, which fits a larger gun, broke. That’s only my backup, so don’t fire too many shots, or you’ll run out.”

“This is for me?” Renata presses.

“Of course. If I die, I wake up in one of my safehouse eggs. If you die, we have no idea what happens to your memory. The answer is usually, don’t think about it, but right now, I would say that you’re a more valuable asset than even that weird techy thing in the back.” She starts the drive.

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you.” Renata lifts her leg to wrap the holster around it. The slit on the side opens pretty wide. She can feel Quidel’s gaze. She looks back at him with a smile. “Stay on mission, soldier.”

“Good point,” he says. “Lycander, I should be on car duty with the device. You go in with them instead.”

“The assignments have been set, Mr. Jespersen. Figure it out,” Lycander replies without any hesitation or self-doubt.

They drive across the desert, and pull up to the lavish mansion. It is hard to miss out here in the middle of nowhere. The valet tries to take the keys, but Lycander takes them from Demo instead, insisting that he’ll find his own parking space. They don’t really like to do that, but they’re programmed to be accommodating. He drives off while the other three walk up the steps, and into the lights and sounds. They mingle for a little bit before Demo spots the man that they’re here to see, inconspicuously pointing him out to the other two across the room.

Renata takes a deep breath and tunnels her vision onto his face. She was assigned to make first contact, so she must remember to not be pushy, or try to get down to business right away.

As she’s walking towards him, he looks up and notices her. “Ah, Miss Granger. How lovely of you to join us.”

He knows her already? “Mister Provider,” she says with a polite nod, as instructed.

“I believe you two have met?” He claims with a smirk as he’s helping the woman he was talking to turn around.

It’s Libera. Maybe they should have arrived on time.

Microstory 2592: Renata Jumps Out of the Emergency Exit, and Falls About One Story Down

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Renata jumps out of the emergency exit, and falls about one story down. She lands on her feet, bending them to absorb the shock, and stopping herself from hitting her face by holding her hands out at her sides. Quidel is clear at the back of the plane, still by the ramp. He runs over when he sees her do that. “Are you okay? What the hell were you thinking? Just because this thing was never in the air, doesn’t mean you weren’t high up.”

“I’m just testing my limits,” she answers casually as she’s brushing the dust off of her hands.

“Well, you’re not invincible, and you can still feel pain.”

“I can’t feel pain if I don’t want to, and just be glad I didn’t jump out of the crew door.”

He looks up at the cockpit, which is closer to three stories high. “You would break your legs. Even an android can’t survive that, unless it’s specifically designed to, which you’re not, because that would be a waste. This isn’t Underbelly.”

“I don’t know what that means.” She looks around at the desert. They are in a very remote region of Osman, miles and miles from the nearest city. They’re not trying to go anywhere in particular here. They’re just trying to keep this device far away from Libera. It’s not that she can’t get to this dome, but perhaps she won’t find them here if they’re well-hidden. That’s Spycraft 101. Lycander says that the dome has security cameras that allow beings on the outside to monitor progress, but the don’t cover everywhere. They don’t see everything. Even Ambients don’t permanently record what they see. That would be too much data to track and manage, especially since most of it is innocuous. So they should be safe enough running into a local, and not thinking that their coordinates are going to leak out. “Where is this MIS contact of yours?”

He looks over her shoulder, so she turns around to see a roofless off-roader heading their way. “She’s right on time, as per usual,” he says. She looks back at him. He’s smiling. He likes this girl. That could be dangerous. Relationships are always a risk, whether they work for the same agency, a different one, or if they’re a civilian. That’s Spycraft 101.

“She’s pretty,” Renata notes as the car draws nearer, but not near enough to make out enough detail for her to make that claim.

“For the last time, androids do not have telescopic vision. It’s not necessary. It just adds bulk and complexity to an already overengineered design. Why are you lying?”

“I’m a spy. It’s what we do,” Renata explains.

He sighs. “Since you were fishing, I’ll bite anyway. Yes, she’s beautiful. But you should know that we’re not supposed to be friends. Some spies are players, and some are not, and we’re not supposed to distinguish each other. We’re to treat everything as real, and not talk about the outside world.”

“Fair enough. I won’t mention anything about how my entire reality has just crumbled, and I don’t know what to believe anymore, and I’m having a massive internal existential crisis that I can’t talk to anyone about because I can’t trust anyone who knows the truth too, and I have never felt more alone.”

He gently tugs at her shoulder so she’s facing him again. “Is that true?”

Renata scoffs. “No. Take a joke.”

He knows she’s lying.

“What joke?” Lycander asks as he’s walking up from the plane, having secured it appropriately.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Hello, it’s nice to meet you,” Renata says as the Elbin agent pulls up. “My name is Renata Granger.”

The agent steps out of the car, and peers at her over her sunglasses, sizing her up. She chuckles at Quidel. “Found another one, huh? she asks him in a posh Elbin accent. Or maybe it’s actually British?”

“The first one, I think,” Quidel replies.

The Elbin woman smiles. “The one you’ve really been after this whole time.” She takes her sunglasses off completely, and gets a better look at Renata, like a vet examining a pregnant cow. “She understands where we are?”

Quidel notices Renata’s confusion. “That’s what I was trying to tell you, but had only gotten to the background info. You can be open and honest with Martina. She’s helped me move other conscious Exemplars and Ambients to safe places.”

“Call me Demuri, or just Demo,” she says, shaking Renata’s hand. “I chose to use a different name when I came to Spydome, but like he said, we’re all friends here now.”

Quidel nods approvingly. “She is not why we’re here, though. We need to secure a package. The person who’s after it has god-tier powers.”

Demo takes her glasses off again, and looks at him incredulously. “I don’t know what that means. Is that some kind of codeword that I was supposed to have memorized?”

“No, she has actual magic powers. According to these two, she disappeared before their eyes.”

Demo shrugs. “Holograms. Easy.”

“We were on a catwalk. They should have detected her footsteps. Before I killed my last substrate, she did show up suddenly, so I should have heard footsteps while I was still there with them.”

“Okay, well neither invisibility nor teleportation is a thing, in any dome. Not even Underbelly, which is designed to give you superhuman powers, can break the laws of physics, so I don’t know what they think they saw, but they didn’t see that.”

“I sure hope you’re right,” Quidel says, shaking his head. “I just wouldn’t bet on it. I trust them. I trust their perspectives.”

“I’ll accept that,” Demo acknowledges. “Regardless, we need to get to the safehouse. Fair warning, they are not luxury accommodations.”

“I’m a robot, so I can sleep anywhere,” Renata says.

“I wish I hadn’t ever said that to you,” Quidel complains.

“I’m glad you did,” Renata contends. “That’s when I finally started waking up.”

Microstory 2483: Campodome

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Camping has never gone out of style, but it’s had its ups and downs. Once our ancestors invented computers, they realized how disruptive it was to be away from their devices. People in the 19th century were basically, like, “camping is just living without being in a building, and peeing in the woods”. Over time, the gap between regular urban living and camping in a tent widened. Then we started developing better portable energy storage, and more prolific satellite connectivity, and it started going back the other way in many respects. You could go out to the middle of the woods, and enjoy nature, while still maintaining a connection to the outside world, to just about whatever degree you wanted. There were snobs, of course, who said that you really shouldn’t have anything, and to a certain extent, I agree. Glamping is what they called it when you basically lived in a tiny home with no sacrifice of amenities. Really, what’s the point? The leaders on Castlebourne couldn’t answer that either, so it doesn’t exist here. There are all kinds of other camping formats, though. Forest, prairie, desert, even wetlands, and snow camping. What people don’t realize is that each dome is large enough to be fully capable of supporting a diverse multi-biome ecology. You just have to tailor the terrain to fit what you need, and maybe add a bit of scientific intervention. Colder regions are near the top of a mountain range, as you might expect it on Earth. It doesn’t have seasons, since the kind of engineering that would require is just a little beyond what’s practical. It’s not impossible, but it’s more logical to divide climates up by areas. You choose where you wanna camp, and how you wanna do it. Some people go out there and totally rough it. They have no supplies, no food, maybe not even clothes. There’s a subculture of people who go out there totally naked and alone, and survive on their skills.

As I said, there are no seasons, though these survivalists can replicate them by moving to different spots. I will say that that’s not quite right, because if you really wanted to start your journey in Spring, and see how you fared when the weather changed, you would build your shelter as well as you possibly can, and wait for it to become necessary. That’s not a feasible option when your campsite has to shift in order to account for that journey. So maybe they can improve upon that. I know it’s not easy, and maybe they shouldn’t try. After all, that’s why the flying spaghetti monster made Earth, because it already has everything you need, and the cycles kind of take care of themselves. I’ve not mentioned it yet, but there are hiking and backpacking routes, if you like to stay on the move. Some of them are pretty long, but nothing that compares to the grueling trek of the Pacific Crest or Appalachian Trails. There’s just not enough space. There might be a dome out there that winds you around enough times to cover that distance, but it’s not here. This is mostly about the camping and again, some things probably should be left to the homeworld. We didn’t spend decades rewilding the surface exclusively to leave it to nature. We still allow ourselves access to that nature, and are encouraged to camp when we feel like it. So, is this place better at what it does? No, I shouldn’t think so. You’re still in a snowglobe. You will always know it’s artificial. And it’s nothing we don’t have elsewhere, unlike say, the waterpark in Flumendome, or the realm in Mythodome, but it’s still pretty nice. I certainly wouldn’t cast your consciousness here with the express intention of coming to this dome, but it’s a great option if you’re already here, and need to take a break from civilization.