Microstory 2397: Earth, May 5, 2182

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Dear Corinthia,

I regret to inform you that my son, Condor Sloane has been missing since January 4, 2180. I was made aware that he was hired for a new job working with a global outfit that has since been defunct. They were trying to restore this planet to its original health before the toxins, and while they were moderately successful, they have since lost all steam, and talent. Condor could have been a great asset to them, but he never made it to their rendezvous point in the North Queensland Dome. The initial suspicion was that his truck broke down on his way out there, and he succumbed to the environment after life support ran out, or that he crashed, and lost life support right away. I spent weeks combing the desert, looking for any sign of him. I searched the road, I searched off the road, I searched detours, I searched everywhere. And once I had finished searching everywhere I thought he could possibly be, I began to search everywhere else. I heard reports of someone spotting him somewhere near Bowen Orbital Spaceport, but when I went to investigate there, I couldn’t corroborate the witness’ story, and when I tried to reach out, this witness was nowhere to be found either. I’m sure it was just a prank. For the last two years, though, I’ve kept searching. I’ve run down every lead. He didn’t just disappear into thin air. I thought maybe my old neighbor had gotten to him, or Condor’s old nurse. They have both lied, and maybe there was more to the study that Condor was on the verge of discovering, and they had to shut him up. Or maybe they just wanted to study him again. Maybe us asking all these questions only served to renew their interests in the endeavor. I found nothing. I found no evidence of anything. My best guess at this point is that he ended up in the water, somewhere along Australia’s eastern coast. It would be impossible to find him under these conditions. It could have happened anywhere from Old Brisbane to the Blackbraes dome. I wish that I had better news, and I wish I could keep going, but I buried my son. I held a funeral for him, and everything. I’m an old man now, and can’t keep traveling like I used to. I’ve recently settled in a region that was once called Ecuador. The poisonous gases are still here, and it’s still deadly to go outside, however, this close to the equator, the sunshine is able to break through. You can see the sky from the ground during the day, and shortly after nightfall, you can even make out a few stars before the particles recongregate, and it fogs over once more. It’s a highly coveted place to live, and a great place to retire. Condor would say that I’ve earned it, and I’m trying to honor him that way. I’m sorry. I know he meant a lot to you. It was a lovely service, you deserved to be there. I should have recorded it for you. I just wasn’t thinking. I’ve attached the program, though, so you can imagine having been there.

Bittersweet to hear from you again after all this time,

Pascal

Extremus: Year 89

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Tinaya has done something unusual, but it’s not illegal. It’s a bit of a gray area when it comes to her son, because he can’t consent to the link, but as long as they don’t perform a medical procedure, there shouldn’t be a problem. That’s how Tinaya and Arqut made their connection to each other. It’s called a spatio-temporal tether, and just as it says on the tin, it connects two people spatially and temporally. There are different kinds, though. The two of them have the most intense version, and their respective tethers to little Silveon are somewhere in the middle. If he’s ever lost in space and-or time, Tinaya will automatically travel to that location with him, no matter what method is used, even if he grows up, and does it on purpose. Arqut, meanwhile, will know when and where they went, and can make efforts to bring them back, should they need it. Or he can send himself off to join them. If either Arqut or Tinaya is transported somewhere, the other will become cognizant of their partner’s location for retrieval or reunion, while Silveon will remain safely wherever he is. They obviously decided to do this after Arqut’s disappearance, which neither of them wants to happen again. But the rest of their family isn’t sure they agree with how extreme they took it.

Arqut and Tinaya joined together in something called a lifelink, which connects two individuals on a biological level. Not only will they always be able to find each other across spacetime, but what happens to one will happen to the other. If she gets a paper cut, so will he. If he gets the flu, she’ll start to suffer as well. When it comes time for one of them to die, the other will succumb as well, even if they are otherwise perfectly healthy. This is a fairly rare dynamic that only the strongest of bonds—or the most reckless of ones—have led to. You really only wanna do it if both partners are at about the same age, and neither one’s daily life is particularly dangerous. There’s also a rigorous evaluation process, which even the Captain and Superintendent had to go through. They have chosen to keep it a secret from the crew and the passengers for now, but everyone will figure it out eventually when they keel over dead at the same time.

This is a risky situation, because it will leave their child alone, regardless of the circumstances of death, which explains why they haven’t told very many people about it. At the moment, should something unfortunate happen while Silveon is still too young to care for himself, their families will obviously take up the responsibility. The law will accept and honor this. But it’s time for them to come up with a real plan, and select at least one designated guardian. They actually have two in mind, but as these two are not in a relationship with each other, it may take some convincing.

Arqut’s half sister is fully 29 years younger than him. His mom did not have a tether to her husband, so after he died, she was able to live on, and fall in love again. She and her new beau never got married, but they had a daughter together. Zefbiri and Arqut are not the closest of siblings, due to the huge age gap, but they love and trust each other. They’re just at such different stages of their life, so she feels more like a daughter, or maybe a niece, to him than anything. She’s currently unattached, though that could change in the future. One reason they would like to select her as one of Silveon’s designated guardians is that she already knows the truth about Verdemus. While Omega and Valencia are both immortal, they are also really busy and unreliable. A team has to be responsible for the Nexa at all times, so knowledge of it must be passed down the generations, just like every other system on the ship. Zefbiri is currently in the process of learning every square micrometer of this building. She’s here now, doing her thing, but she has time for a break.

“Have you met Niobe Schur?” They’re sitting in the Nexus cavity at the moment for lunch. People aren’t really supposed to eat in here, but as long as they’re not sloppy, it should be fine, or really even then. This machine was designed to transport people across millions of light years. A little salad dressing shouldn’t be able to do any damage.

“Uh, I’ve heard of her,” Zefbiri replies. “We’ve never met, though.” She takes a second bite of her sandwich. She doesn’t know what this conversation is about yet.

Tinaya switches breasts for Silveon, which she doesn’t typically have to do this early in the feeding process. Hopefully there’s nothing wrong with her supply. “Well, we would like you to meet her today. We’ve already time mirrored her, but we were hoping to make a holo-call. I believe it’s her dinner time.”

“Sure, that’s fine. The more the merrier, as the Earthans say,” Zefbiri decides.

Arqut taps on the control tablet, and initiates the call. Niobe is suddenly sitting next to them. “You started without me?”

“Sorry,” Tinaya replies.” Silvy was impatient.”

Niobe smiles. “It’s fine. So, what’s up?” She sits down at her own table

“Are you alone on your end by chance?”

“Vaska,” Niobe calls up towards the control room as she’s starting to stretch. “Vaska!” She has her hands against the back of her head, and she’s pulling her muscles apart as far as they can possibly go. “Get out!”

There is no way to know if Vaska really has left, or if anyone else is lurking. A crowd of a dozen people could be watching them in secret from outside the perimeter of the cavity, and as long as they stayed quiet, the people on the call from the ship would never be able to tell. They have to trust Niobe, which is why they’re here. Tinaya leans her chin forward like a baby bird so Arqut can slip her some soup. She likes to keep hold of her baby with both arms while he’s nursing. “Listen, we brought you two together, because we ain’t gettin’ any younger. Arqy used to be older than me, that’s how crazy the world we live in is. Anything could happen at any moment. Zef already knows this, but I need to explain to you, Niobe, that he and I are linked. We will both die at the same time, and since we had this little guy when we were so old, there’s a chance that he’ll still be quite young when that happens.”

“You two are also young, but old enough to care for a child,” Arqut continues. “The only question is if you would be willing to take on that responsibility, should the need arise within the next couple of decades. We would like to ask you both to agree to be Silveon’s designated guardians. I know it’s a lot. How do you feel about it?”

Niobe was setting up her meal, but she stops short. Zefbiri stopped eating when Tinaya started talking, but she still had the sandwich in her hand. She unwittingly loosens her grip too much, and it falls to the floor. She doesn’t notice it right away, but then she looks down, and freaks out. “Oh my God. No, I’m sorry.” She desperately reaches down, and begins to put the pieces back together. “I promise, I would never drop your baby. Oh my God, no!” She’s even more desperate now, trying to wipe up every bit of mustard.

“Zef. Zef.” Arqut gently takes her by the wrist, and lifts it up. “The sandwich isn’t a metaphor for our baby. It’s all right. Relax.”

“I’m sorry,” Zefbiri still isn’t really getting that the food accident has nothing to do with their decision.

“Really, don’t worry.” Arqut pauses for a moment. “So, is that a yes? Do you want to be Silveon’s guardian?”

Zefbiri looks over at Niobe, who is still in shock. “Are we a package deal?”

“No,” Tinaya answers. “We wanted to ask you together, but if only one of you wants to sign the papers, that’s okay. Please look into your own hearts, and decide for yourselves.”

Niobe lets out a prolonged squeak, like someone with sleep paralysis who’s screaming in their head, but barely audible in the real world. “I would be honored,” she finally manages to articulate.

“Yeah!” Tinaya shouts. She high-fives Arqut. “One down, one to go! Give me some soup.” She accepts another sip off the spoon.

“Okay,” Zefbiri begins. “I don’t want this to sound like I’m being ungrateful, or anything, but if she and I are going to be in this together, then I think it only makes sense that we meet each other for real. I mean, when something happens—if!” She corrects herself. “If something happens, then either I’m going to move to Verdemus, or—”

“You’re going to move to Verdemus,” Niobe decides without discussion.

Zefbiri turns her head back away from her, and tries to work it out in her head. “Right. I would move there,” she agrees, seemingly not knowing the logic in that, but not wanting to be a contrarian.

“Actually, Niobe,” Tinaya says. “As complicated as it is with you not being on the Extremus manifest, we could figure out how to swing that. What we can’t do is let the dead Captain’s son mysteriously disappear forever without an explanation. You would have to come live here instead. Given this clarification, if you feel the need to change your answer, we totally understand. We chose you both...despite your current interstellar disassociation, because we love and trust you both. That was our only concern when we were making the list, who do we think could handle this responsibility? Others fit the bill, and live at the same place, but the problem with them is that they’re...”

“Of the older persuasion,” Arqut finishes her thought for her again.

“Exactly,” Tinaya confirms. “You two are of the perfect age.”

Niobe stands back up, and starts to pace around, occasionally stepping out of the bounds of the holographic cameras. “I’m still in,” she eventually says, “but if that’s a requirement, then I think I should just move here now, and establish myself as preexisting member of society. We wouldn’t want me to show up on day one, and have the Extremusians question who the hell I am, and where I came from. Like you said, we would need to make an identity for me, but that’s better done now than later.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Arqut replies. “We just didn’t want to throw too much at you. We’re already asking so much.”

“No, it’s everything I ever wanted.”

They all look back at Zefbiri, who has yet to give them an official answer. “Okay, so I thought I would feed two birds with one worm, but I still...I...”

“What is it?” Arqut asks.

“I’m still hoping to go to check out Verdemus. I’ve always wanted to go.” Her gaze switches uncomfortably between Tinaya and Arqut, and the floor.

Arqut chuckles. “I think that can be arranged, sister.”

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Extremus: Year 88

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For her first year as Captain, Tinaya lived with a lot of anxiety. It was eating her up from the inside. She was keeping so many secrets, and she just wanted to forget everything. She used to be grateful that at least she wasn’t dealing with a bunch of other tangible problems. Omega and the Verdemusians were protecting them from the war, leaving the Extremus free to continue on its journey. The crew and passengers were getting along, and there weren’t any major crises to solve. Her therapist would say that if she were working through those kinds of captainly issues, she probably wouldn’t have much space in her brain for anxiety, and that might be true. Whatever the case, all of that disappeared the day that her husband, Arqut did. Tinaya didn’t see it herself, but one person happened to be in the corridor with him at the time. He didn’t just blink away, which is the most common form of temporal or spatial travel. No, if he had done that, then the witness probably would have just assumed that he had gone away on purpose.

The way the passerby described it, Arqut was looking rather sweaty. Then he started spinning around like there was a bug on his back, and he was trying to get ahead of it. The witness apparently tried to reach out to help, but missed his opportunity when the spinning seemed to start to happen on its own. He vanished in a haze of dark particles, which gradually faded within seconds. Current temporal engineer Sabine Lebeau had never heard of anything like that before, and it wasn’t in any database that she could find. The uncertainty scared Tinaya more than anything. This was no accident. Someone wanted Arqut, and for the last three months, had yet to return him to her. Unfortunately, her means of investigating were severely limited.

Most people on the ship could not know that he was missing. He disappeared once before, but that was in pursuit of getting Tinaya back. If she admitted that this time was not a planned departure, it would raise too many questions. Only a few people were allowed to know what was going on, and were sworn to secrecy. The witness agreed to his silence in exchange for a minimum on his contribution score. Basically, no matter what he did now, his score would never go below a certain threshold. It was a small price to pay, as long as he didn’t try to use this advantage to become a serial killer, or something. But even if he did, no deal with the captain would protect him from retribution. After that matter was settled, she started to work through the investigation, mostly on her own, though she couldn’t let it interfere with her regular duties either. That would raise questions too. But she wasn’t completely hopeless. She couldn’t make a big fuss about it publicly, or risk other truths coming to light, but there were still ways to conduct this investigation both vigorously and quietly at the same time. She made a list of suspects, and started running down every lead. She started by accusing the Bridgers of having something to do with it, but they denied it, and even let her return to the Bridger section to see for herself. He wasn’t there, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t show up in the future, or hell, the past.

Today is not a good day, though. All of her leads have dried up. She has no one left to talk to, no test left to try. He could be lost forever. It’s worse than it was when she was the one trapped on the outpost planet. She knew where she was, and she knew where Arqut was. The uncertainty; what could she do to remedy that? She’s supposed to be discussing her problems with her therapist at the moment, but instead, she’s retching into the toilet in her stateroom.

“How are you doing, Tinaya?” Most people would not be able to just start talking to her like that without waiting for Tinaya to answer first, but some people have special communications privileges, such as medical staff.

Tinaya spits into the bowl. “I’m fine.”

“Come back, I need to talk,” Dr. Lebeau requests. That’s right, another Lebeau. Tinaya would normally use the Executive Psychologist for her personal needs, but Sabine introduced her to her sister in order to enact a sort of loophole. While any therapist would respect patient confidentiality, the EP is obligated to report meeting times to the ship’s council, so they can make sure their captain isn’t isn’t showing signs of not being able to handle this job. A private therapist, on the other hand, is under no such obligation. Tinaya can talk to her all she wants, and do so at their joint convenience. Plus, Virve Lebeau already knows many secrets that not even the EP does.

“I’m a little busy.” She spits again.

“I can tell. I can help.”

“Fine, one second.” Tinaya flushes the toilet, and washes her face. Then she teleports back to Dr. Lebeau’s office. “What is it?”

Dr. Lebeau is holding her watch between her thumb and index finger.

“It’s your watch. Okay, are you scolding me for wasting your time? I’m sorry, next time I’ll use your bathroom, and talk to you about my feelings in between forcing last night’s dinner out of my stomach.”

“No, it’s not about that, Captain.” Dr. Lebeau walks forward, and drapes the watch over her opposite backhand, as if presenting it as a prize for a gameshow. “See these little dots under here?”

Tinaya is confused. “Uh, yeah, those are for blood tests. They spring microneedles to take samples on the fly. Why are you asking me about them?”

“These are necessary when the user doesn’t have any sort of medical implant that could test twenty-four-seven,” Dr. Lebeau goes on. “Obviously, though, you can’t program the watch to poke you whenever it wants. You have to tell it to do it. You have to decide when you’re ready for an update.”

“Are you saying that I have a virus, and I should test myself for it?” She’s still so confused. “Okay, I’ll find out. I think it’s just acid reflux, though. Stress-induced, I’m sure; we can talk about that, if you want.”

“Not a virus. I think you’re pregnant.”

Tinaya chuckles. Then she does it again, but louder. She manages to stop at that, though. “What? I can’t be pregnant, I’m in my sixties!”

“Did you ever go through menopause?” Dr. Lebeau questions.

“I think so.” This isn’t a dumb answer. Thanks to advances in medical science over the centuries, menopause still happens for those who were ever biologically capable of birthing young, but it’s far less pronounced than it was for ancient humans. The same is true for pregnancy and the menstrual cycle as a whole. These conditions are not nearly as uncomfortable as they were back in the day. It’s not that uncommon for people who lived particularly physically rough lives to not even notice that menopause has come and gone for them. If they’ve ever been on advanced chemical or implantable birth control too, it’s really easy to lose track of the cycle due to persistent interference in the body’s natural scheduling.

Dr. Lebeau raises her eyebrows, and looks down at Tinaya’s own watch.

“Y...you want me to test right now? Fine.” She swipes the screen to the appropriate menu, and releases the microneedles. Once it’s done, she self-assuredly bobbles her head a little bit while they wait for the results. After the beep, she takes one look at it, and shows it to the doctor. “See? Look. Pregnant. Pregnant? Fuck.”

“Congratulations,” Dr. Lebeau says to her, rather unconvincingly, one might add.

“I can’t be pregnant.”

“You can. You receive some of the best medical care in the galaxy. Many don’t experience the change until their seventies. You don’t read that in the reports.”

“Virve, I can’t be pregnant. The Captain. Can’t. Be pregnant!”

“There’s no law that says a sitting captain can’t be pregnant. It’s just never happened before,” Dr. Lebeau reminds her.

“For good reason. It splits attention. I must be fully committed to the operations of this vessel, and the safety of its crew and passengers. That is literally my only job.”

“If that’s how you feel about it—”

“I can’t have an abortion either. It’s not illegal, of course, but it’s...unbecoming.”

“Sounds like you’re in a tough spot. I can help you through it, but you have to be willing to explore all options. And you have to be patient, with me, and yourself.”

“Those are my only two options. I mean, what the hell else am I gonna do?” She starts to pace the room. “And yeah, I know, I could put it up for adoption, but that would be scandalous too. That kid will grow up knowing that its mother was just too busy for it, not that she was genuinely incapable of caring for a child. Adoption doesn’t hardly ever happen here, because nobody dies before they’re old! And they don’t have kids after they become old, because that’s nuts! I mean, if Arqut were here, maybe we could make it work together. He could take care of the baby, and even when I’m there, I would be able to teleport at a moment’s notice when duty calls, and I could always argue that that’s an option when anyone tries to criticize me for going through with the pregnancy. But is that enough anyway? Because it’s not just about the perception that my priorities are split. It’s about them actually being split. How can I look out for everyone on the ship, when there are only two people I truly care about? Then again, I am the only Captain who has ever been married at all, so that’s always been a lingering criticism, even though I’ve never heard anyone say that to me, I’m sure that plenty of people feel that way. And now he’s missing, and I can’t even tell anyone about it. I have to claim that he’s on a new mission. But then once people find out that I’m captaining for two, they’re gonna wonder why the father of my child hasn’t come back for his family. Then some are gonna realize the possibility that he’s not the father at all, and there will be a cheating scandal that isn’t even true, but do you think people even care about the truth anymore? That’s all we’ve been talking about; perception, and there’s nothing I can do about that. And either way, this whole thing is gonna get people wondering where Arqut has been this whole time, and they’ll start asking questions, and they’ll all find out that he’s missing, and that we’re been course correcting for decades, and that Verdemus wasn’t destroyed, and why aren’t you trying to call me down!”

“I think you need this outburst,” Dr. Lebeau explains. “It sounds cathartic.”

“Well...” She starts, prepared to argue. “I think you’re right, I appreciate it.”

“Captain?” Tinaya’s First Lieutenant asks through her watch.

“What is it, Faiyaz?”

“It’s Arqut. He’s back.”

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Microstory 2089: To Break Me Out

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I made a mistake. I left a hard copy of my map, and other pertinent information regarding the mysterious slew of missing persons, in my attic room at my landlord’s house. She found it, and called the cops on me. They say that I’m a danger to myself, and possibly to others. I was able to stop today’s disappearance by destroying the Westfall portal, but I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow if I can’t get myself the hell out of here. They’ve locked me in this all white room. It’s not padded, but we all know that they think I’m mentally unstable. Fortunately, they never found my emergency social box in my special underpocket. It’s a USB stick-sized computer with a small screen that only works through voice transcription. It takes a really long time to make sure that neither I nor the device has made any mistakes. It has two buttons. One opens up transcription, while the other accepts other commands, like punctuation, and moving the cursor. A wheel on the side scrolls through the text and menu items for file management. Forgive me if I ended up missing something. I bought this at the internet cafe a long time ago. Posting here is a secondary function of the device, but it was mostly invented for protection. If you’re mugged, and they take your regular phone, this will allow you to make a call, or send a text message without all the proverbial bells and whistles. I don’t need to send a message to anyone, though, because everyone I thought I could trust has turned against me. I just need to get my story out, and maybe one of my readers can do something about this total misunderstanding. I’m not crazy. I really am from another universe, and I really do need to stop others from accidentally being spirited away from it. Please, you have to break me out. I’ll do anything; pay anything, even if I have to do it in installments. I don’t belong in this room!

Microstory 2088: Ill Keep Fighting

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I didn’t go into work today, and I didn’t ask for anyone to fill in for me. I just have so many lives to save, I couldn’t think about anything else. Here’s a summary: I saved someone’s life yesterday. I don’t know who it would have been, but I finally broke the pattern. A missing person a day, but I stopped it. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen again, though, or my work would be over. The pattern can easily start over again, which is why I had to do the same thing today at the next location in the pattern. Fortunately, now I know what must be done. I have the prior missing persons plotted on a map, which is how I noticed that they always disappear in a spiral formation, which means it’s relatively easy to predict where the next disappearance will happen. It’s a not insignificantly sized radius, but I don’t have to worry about staking out the whole thing. All I have to do is find the epicenter. As soon as I step into it, the portal to the interversal conduit is ripped apart. My current theory is that I’m contaminated. The bulk doesn’t like me anymore. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve traveled to so many worlds already, or because I used to have superpowers, or maybe because Westfall decided that I should be here, and I’m not allowed to leave. It doesn’t really matter, but I put a bad taste in the mouth of the cosmos, which now gives me the power to destroy portals. I’m a pathogen, and it’s immune to me now. This is good for this situation, because that way no one else can accidentally fall into it.

After I did the same thing today that I did yesterday, I went back to the neighborhood from yesterday. I started knocking on doors, showed them the pictures of a few people who have already gone missing because of all of this, and asked them if they knew where their loved ones were. Like I said, there’s no way to know who it might have been taken if it turns out I failed. A lot of people slammed the door in my face, but that’s okay. They don’t have to tell me. Even the possibility that someone they care about has gone missing will force them to check. If any of them had come up short on their respective headcounts, I would have heard about it by now. Nothing has been reported, which means that I’m succeeding. All I have to do is keep doing what I’m doing with the portals. Even if I have to do it forever, I won’t have to keep canvassing, because I’ll eventually be confident that I’m successfully putting a stop to the disappearances. My boss called, but I didn’t pick up. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back to my real job. I’ll scavenge for food in dumpsters if that’s the only way I have to survive. This is all my fault, and I can’t take any breaks. I’m the only hope that these innocent people have. I’m not much of a cartographer, nor any sort of artist, but I’m working on a way to upload the future disappearance locations, so you can share it with everyone you know in the area. Ill keep fighting, but it would be even safer if people just stayed away from the danger zones entirely anyway. It’s just like when the bomb squad is called in to disarm the bomb, it’s not like they stop evacuating the building, right? Well, this is a bomb, just like any other, except it only ever claims one victim. I’m trying to bring that number down to zero in the future, but I could use some help.

Microstory 2087: Into the Epicenter

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I went to the place where I knew someone was going to disappear mysteriously, and immediately started getting a weird feeling. The more I walked, the stranger I felt. I eventually passed out of the blast radius, and had to turn around. Through a little trial and error, I was able to determine the center of everything. There was nothing there but empty space in the middle of an alleyway, and I didn’t think that someone would necessarily disappear from that exact spot. They would have to be incredibly unlucky to happen to pass over it at the perfect moment. It was going to happen, though, and I was the only one who could stop it. I realized after standing there for a few minutes, keeping my head on a swivel to see if anyone else was in the area, that I had already felt this before. It’s what I felt when I first came to this universe. The incident was being replicated, one person at a time. This could either mean that they were going to Havenverse, which is where I last was before this world, or somewhere else entirely. This was Westfall. I mentioned that in an earlier post. It’s one of the things that takes people back and forth through the bulk. Most people don’t even realize that anything has happened, because they end up on a version of Earth sufficiently similar to their own. I have no clue how often this occurs, or in what universes, but this seems excessive. There always seems to be a purpose to it. The person who’s taken has something to accomplish in the next world over, even if they don’t understand it. It’s unlikely that this need perfectly matches up with the spiral I noticed on the map. No, I did this. I have caused Westfall to malfunction, and as I was saying, I have to stop it. Not knowing what else to do, I stepped into the epicenter, where I felt a rush of energy sweep upwards from my feet, and dissipate in the air above me. The strange feeling that’s indicative of Westfall went away with it. I think I destroyed the interversal conduit just by stepping into it. If there’s a way to escape, it could be through one of these, or it could be that I’m the only one in the world who can’t access these conduits. I don’t know, but there have been no new reports of any missing persons today. It may take some time for a loved one to realize it, but I have high hopes that I fixed it. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen again tomorrow, though, so I’m going to do the same at the next spot. This is going to become tedious and tiresome, but it’s my responsibility.

Microstory 2086: And Even Chaotic

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I have been trying to figure out, not only where my co-worker went, but also where everyone else has gone. One person has mysteriously disappeared from Kansas City every day for the last month and a half. None of them showed signs of wanting to go somewhere before their disappearance, they leave no trace behind, and the authorities have not categorized any of them as suspicious. One thing they seem to have in common is that their respective friends and family aren’t extremely surprised by the development. The cops eventually stop investigating entirely, because none of them is a child, or someone else at high risk, like a dementia patient. They’re all self-sufficient adults who have been known to be a little bit flaky and unpredictable. They also come from different jurisdictions, so no one but me has any hope of seeing any of this as a pattern. In some of the stories I was writing before I disappeared from my own world, I came up with this organization called the Kansas City Metro Corps. It’s a police agency that operates in all of Kansas City, even across state lines, which to my knowledge, is not something that exists in the real world. There are federal agents, of course, but no one that can carry out investigations regularly between only two states. They might do it occasionally, but in that case, two different departments will have to liaise with each other, which can be complicated, disorganized, and even chaotic. They don’t have anything like the KC Metro Corps on this Earth, so no one is talking to each other, or seeing the connections.

I have been doing my own investigating, and I’ve come to a startling discovery that made me throw up in the middle of my shift. Don’t worry, I made it to the bathroom in time, because I was already in the break room, but I don’t know if I can live with myself anymore. It’s me. I’m the cause. I don’t know how I’m doing it, but it’s definitely me. Tracing the disappearances have been difficult, because no one witnessed anything strange happening, so their true locations aren’t so cut and dried, which is why I didn’t see it before. But if I add myself to the map along with all the others, and adjust for people’s hypothetical movement after the last person to see them loses sight of them, then I am at the epicenter. Every disappearance happens from that point, and has continued outwards in a spiral formation. The pattern would be beautiful if it weren’t so sickening. They all happen early in the morning, which makes sense, because that’s when I first arrived on this world. So I’ve already missed today. I’ve not heard anything yet, but I’m sure whatever mysterious force is causing this has struck again, and I have an idea of where. I can’t save that person, or anyone else we lost before, at least I might not be able to, I don’t know. But I know that there’s a chance for me to save whoever is meant to go missing tomorrow. I’m taking the day off, which is something that I didn’t want to do this early on at my job, but I don’t think I have any other choice. I’ve asked the high school girl to fill in for me, since it’s Teacher Planning Day. I’m going to the store today to gear up. I don’t know what I’ll be going up against.

Microstory 2085: Passing a Hat Around

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We’re all pretty bummed at work today. Like I told you, I have a co-worker who has gone missing. I actually never had the pleasure of meeting him. He wasn’t on the schedule on my first day. He was on it for my second day, but he never showed up, which is why it was so crazy and hectic for me. You never wanna be short-staffed when you’re trying to train someone new. For the last couple of weeks, the police have been investigating his disappearance, though investigate is probably a bit of a strong word. The way I hear it, he wasn’t the most responsible dude, but he wasn’t the type to just skip town, and not tell anyone. My boss believes that he might—might—be the type to skip town, but make contact afterwards to apologize, but even that’s a stretch. He reportedly loved working at the nursery. They think he may have had some debt issues, though, which is why they’ve decided to drop the case. Their current theory is that he just decided to leave at the beginning of the month, and start a new life somewhere else. He doesn’t appear to have any family; in the area, or otherwise, so he would have found it easy to leave everything behind. The rest of us aren’t so sure. It’s not just that he wasn’t showing signs of wanting to run. He was looking forward to a party last weekend, and he was a month away from finally paying off his car. His friends don’t think that he would miss out on the satisfaction. It doesn’t add up. I’m pretty upset about it myself. I don’t exactly know why. It could be that I have a general disdain for injustice and unfairness, or because I had to call the man a million times to try to get him to come into work. Even though I had no way of knowing, I feel bad about the whole thing. Knowing what I know now, it seems so petty to have been so anxious about his absence. I’m thinking about passing a hat around to collect money for a private investigator, but I do not want to overstep. I’m still so new, to the company, and to the world itself.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 10, 2431

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Once everyone was back in the ship, Ramses plotted a course to Ex-42, and launched. As they were standing there, Mateo looked over at Vitalie!324, who seemed to be deep in thought. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, or even what she was feeling, since she wasn’t part of the empathy circle, but he took a guess. “We’re going the wrong way.”

Ramses was taken aback. “Leona, could you check my math?”

“No, your math is fine,” Mateo started to clarify. “I mean, I don’t know that it is, but it always has been. I just mean, I think we’re going to the wrong place. How many populated planets did you say were on the way to Ex-42?”

“Thirty-one,” Leona reminded him.

“That’s thirty-one planets who could all do with a little extra...vitality.”

Vitalie hadn’t been paying that much attention, but she recognized the play on her name. “Wait, what? No, you don’t have to stop at all those other worlds on my account. Let’s go find your bad guy.”

“Hm,” Leona said. “Thirty-one worlds means an extra seven days on our mission. That’s not that big a deal.”

“Well, who knows what you’re gonna run into on the intervening planets?” Vitalie argued. “One of them might end up stopping you from being able to reach it. No, the safest course of action is to go straight there.” She shoved her open hand forwards from her nose.

“It could be a trap,” Angela reasoned. “Maybe that’s not where the archive is at all. Maybe it’s an inescapable prison planet. Going to the other worlds is strategically logical. We can’t lose the information that we have. We can only gain more.”

“That’s true,” Leona agreed. “So we wouldn’t be going just for the other versions of you, Vita. There are other reasons to make stops. Again, it’s a week out of the way.”

“It’s seven years,” Vitalie argued. “I think you lot tend to forget that. Everyone else moves on without you, and a lot can happen in that extra time. Ex-42 might be destroyed by the time we make it there if we go on every detour available. Hell, the Prime Minister might have sent a relativistic kill missile to beat us there.”

Marie shrugged. “If he sent a missile tomorrow, it would beat us there anyway. Hell, he could be on the quantum phone with them right now, instructing them to detonate their self-destruct, and then we would end up the whole twenty-four years too late. Time jumps or not, it’s a risk.”

Mateo placed a hand on Vitalie’s shoulder. “We’ll make one stop every day. There, we’ll resupply, if needed, maybe help a few people, and yes, we’ll also find your alternate self’s stasis pod, and let her out. If not us, then who?”

“Don’t think of it as being selfish,” Olimpia reasoned. “They’re not really you anymore. You’re helping your sisters.” She gestured towards Angela and Marie, who were also alternates of the same person, but now thought of each other as twin sisters.

Vitalie nodded in concession. “Okay. Where are we going instead, then?”

Ramses pulled up the map. “Ex-548. Gah, I can’t figure out the pattern here. It’s buggin’ the shit out of me,” he lamented

“Ex-548 ho!” Mateo declared, standing tall, and pointing towards the back wall.

They all stared at him. Leona glanced over at Ramses, and nodded slightly. Ramses went over to the controls, and altered course. The Goldilocks Corridor was named such that the stars with habitable planets were all laid out in a relatively straight line, so he only had to adjust a little bit.

A year later, they were in orbit over Ex-548. During the interim year, the ship took readings of the surface. No signals were being sent out into space, or within the atmosphere. There were signs of civilization, but no sign of movement. This planet was either abandoned, or the inhabitants were living underground.

“Or they’re all dead,” Olimpia offered.

“Yeah,” Leona agreed. “They could be dead. Mateo, you found Vitalie!908, so I’ll look for her this time. Olimpia, you wanna come with me?”

“Sure,” she answered.

“Hubby, it’s your turn to stay on the ship. Marie, you know enough about this stuff to stay with him in case something goes wrong up here. The rest will go down and see what’s up with what apparently used to be populated areas.”

“There are-slash-were five major settlements here,” Ramses reported. “We can split up, and—”

“Nope,” Leona interrupted. “Ram, Vitalie, and Angela, go together, and stay together. You have the most dangerous job, so I don’t want to shrink the numbers any more than they already are. We’re getting faster at finding the stasis pod, so I’m sure we’ll join you pretty quickly.”

“Ready...” Olimpia began, “...break.”

A couple of hours in, Leona and Olimpia were still trying to triangulate the stasis pod, having underestimated how difficult it would be. In his spare time, Ramses had been trying to figure out how to track them directly, but they weren’t designed to be located like a GPS beacon. It was also possible in this case that word had gotten around about the team’s interference in the goings-on of the Exin Empire that someone decided to dig her up, and do something else with her. Maybe they tossed her into the host star, or just released her, and then shot her in the head. They would keep trying all day either way.

The settlement group was on the ground too, looking for an explanation for why no one seemed to live here anymore. When they were last here, the natives were living under turn of the 21st century Earth conditions, though they weren’t anywhere near that population size. Each settlement was the size of a town small enough for rumors to spread faster than sound, but large enough for a resident to meet someone as an adult who they had never heard of before. They were thousands of kilometers apart, on separate continents. None of the homes appeared to be locked, so they entered a few to get an idea of what may have happened here. There wasn’t any rotten food on the dinner table, or showers left running. There were also no signs of struggle, or hurried packing. Whatever the cause, it wasn’t sudden. The people had time to leave the lights off, and the doors closed. They left on purpose, and based on the level of dust, the computer estimated that it happened about a year ago. The interesting part was that all of the settlements were left in the same state, which meant that they all agreed to leave at the same time. The team just kept looking for answers.

Meanwhile, up on the ship, Mateo and Marie were in realspace, instead of the pocket dimension. They were lying down back to back in the tiny habitable section, admiring the view through the ports. “Hey, are your comms off?” Mateo asked.

“Output is off. Input is in cocktail mode.” Cocktail mode kept the conversations silent for the user unless someone else on the network used any out of a list of preselected keywords, like their names, or emergency.

Mateo didn’t continue right away. “Do you ever think about...?”

“Think about what?”

“Heath?”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, if that’s too sensitive of a topic.”

“No, it’s okay. I know I don’t talk about him enough. I mean he’s still my husband, and I should think about him more. I just...I don’t. I don’t know why. I know we left things in a bad place, but I think if I let myself dwell on it, I’ll see that I’m the bad guy. I left him long before he left me. I was never really committed to that relationship. I just never realized it until he had the courage to walk away. Don’t get me wrong, I still love him, but I’m a part of this team, and he’s not. He never wanted to be. He stayed as long as he did for me, but he has his own life to live. Could we have reconciled, and gotten back together?” She sighed. “Probably. Neither one of us tried very hard, and then we both all but died. It just seemed...like that chapter was over. I wanna be here, with all of you. I have no clue how he feels about it at this point. I hope he’s okay.”

“I hope so too.”

“Sometimes I wish I had just been alone during the four years before you showed up. It would have been easier. No attachments, no complications. I’m not blaming him for anything, but how would things have turned out if we could have just come back together as a team?”

“It could have been worse,” he pointed out. “I mean, I know it would have been worse if you had been alone. If you had ever recovered from that isolation, it still would have weighed on you for the rest of your life. I think, in the end, it was a good thing that you met him, even with the complications. I doubt our shared experience in the Third Rail for that year would have been improved by deleting him from the roster.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” she agreed.

“You’ll see him again. We always do.”

“Really?” She chuckled. “When was the last time you saw—I dunno—your mother, or that nanobot intelligence who tried to kill you near the beginning of your time traveling?”

He laughed with her. “Mirage? It’s been about since back then. I suppose you’re right; we don’t see everyone from our past again.”

“Is everyone on?” Olimpia asked through comms.

Everyone confirmed according to a predetermined order, so they would not talk over one another.

“Jump to our location, including Group Breakthrough. The ship will be fine on its own. There’s no one here. Not anymore.”

Leona and Olimpia were found standing next to Vitalie!548’s stasis pod in the middle of nowhere. It was leaning slightly to the left, open and empty, with dirt and sand piled up inside. “Now we know why it took us so long to find it.”

Ramses nodded. “It’s inactive, which incidentally shrinks its networking capabilities to a smaller radius. No reason to place two empty pods in sync.”

“Why were you able to find it at all?” Angela asked them.

“It’s still powered on, just enough to maintain coherence for this message, of which we only watched the beginning.” Leona reached in, and pressed a button.

At first, nothing happened. Then a hologram of Vitalie appeared from outside of frame, and turned around. She composed herself, running a finger through her hair as if she had intended to edit the very beginning out before uploading the final cut. “My name is Vitalie Crawville. I came to this planet long ago, and placed myself in stasis while I waited for the world to be populated. Unfortunately, someone else got to me before the population could. He overpowered me, and put me back in permanently. At least, I think it was supposed to be permanent. Later, probably due to geological activity, my pod was exposed enough to be discovered by the natives. They figured out how to free me, and I explained to them that my purpose here was to be their Caretaker.

“This was a peaceful world. For the most part, they didn’t need me to take care of them. Yet I stayed, and did what I could. It’s not like I had anywhere else to go. This was my only purpose. As it turned out, I was not the only thing that the Leighstens had found. They were a curious bunch, and as it happens, every inhabited world in this sector contains a hidden central computer, regardless of the level of advancement they are allowed to attain. Apparently, the Leighstens were an early experiment to make sure that the seeding process was viable. I have reason to believe that the godking who did this started a couple of similar experiments before he got it right, so you may encounter those during your travels. Once an experiment was over, he would abandon the project, because to him, the survivors were insignificant. We do not contribute to the Empire in any way, not anymore. I suppose we should be glad that we weren’t simply exterminated. Most of the details that would illuminate the full story were encrypted, but the computer was made to receive some news from other worlds, so we were able to keep up with current events.

“Team Matic, I know that you’re the ones watching this. Only you would have been granted access to this file. Out of concern for the Leighstens’ safety, I have made drastic arrangements for their protection. You will not find us, and more importantly, neither will Bronach Oaksent. Do not look into this matter further. I am doing my job. I am taking care of them. It hurts my heart to say that I would not be able to accomplish this if I didn’t keep them away from you. You are...irritants. You shuffle shit up and you make changes. You do it everywhere you go. Sometimes you succeed, and sometimes...you just make things worse. The Exins will retaliate, and that may result in a scorched policy. Honestly, Oaksent is nothing if not unpredictable. We’re not the only ones getting the news feed. They know you’re here now, and each next world will have one year more than the world before to prepare for your arrival. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do whatever it is you’re trying to do, but I can’t let the Leighstens get caught in the line of fire. Please leave now. This pod will self-destruct in five seconds.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Leona assured the team. “The first thing I did was disable the triggering mechanism. We’ll still blow it up, but I know that Ramses likes to scavenge for parts.”

“No,” Vitalie!324 insisted. She turned away. “Destroy it all please.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: December 12, 2398

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Mateo is up to his old tricks, though with a new twist. Every twenty-four hours, he and Danica are spirited away from their current position, and returned to a version of the time machine in the Constant. Instead of jumping a year into the future, though, they end up in a different parallel reality. They believe they have made their final jump now. They first went to the Fourth Quadrant, then the Parallel, then the main sequence, and finally the Fifth Division. There are only five of them total, so this ought to be the Third Rail again. Right? It has to be.

They leave the room, and head down the dimly lit passageways for Danica’s office. She tries to summon Constance, but she never replies. She tries to speak to whatever personality the AI in charge of this version may be, but no one else responds either. Either they’re in the right place, and there’s something wrong with the systems, or it’s a reality they were not previously aware of. “There’s one way to find out,” Danica says as they’re entering the office. “Help me move this.” She sticks her fingers underneath the edge of the back table.

Together, they carry it away to reveal nothing but an empty floor, and a papered wall. “Odd choice, I must say.”

She rolls her eyes, and peels most of the wallpaper away. Behind it, written on the wall in permanent marker, is a long-ass series of numbers and letters. “Yeah, that’s right. We should be home. So where is everyone?”

“This is some kind of code?” Mateo asks, mildly kicking the wall.

Danica starts to point at each number to explain them. H for heads on a coin, eleven for the outcome of a roll of two dice, six for the roll of one die alone, Queen of Hearts.” She takes a half step to finish. “I pulled six numbers for the lottery, five balls for bingo, and this...” She rips the rest of the wallpaper off to reveal a photograph of a lava lamp. “This is what that lamp over there looked like from my chair once I was done with all the other randomizations.”

Mateo nods. “So all of these variables are correct? This is indeed your version of the Constant?”

“It must be,” Danica decides. “The chances that every single outcome is the same in any other reality, especially when accounting for the lava lamp, are profoundly low. I’m not just talking about parallel realities, but other timelines.”

“Got it. So where is everybody?”

She regards him with distrust for a moment, having a debate in her own head, no doubt. Then she nods, and concedes. “Okay, follow me.” She leads him to a secret section of the facility, where they end up in a stasis chamber. This must be where she and the people she actually cares about were staying. It’s empty, as are the individual pods.

“There was always room for me in here with you,” Mateo notes.

She frowns. “You were never supposed to be here.”

He clears his throat. “Does the Omega Gyroscope prevent time travel?”

“Yes, that’s how I wanted it. That’s how we wanted it,” she corrects herself.

“Does it prevent time travel,” Mateo repeats, “or does it prevent altering the timeline?”

She looks away, clearly starting to see his point, but she doesn’t want to admit it.

He continues, “as long as that thing was working, I was always destined to travel back in time, and meet up with you. Your insistence that I’m not worthy of your time because of my intrusion is bullshit. You just don’t like me.”

“That’s not true, I don’t know you. No version of me knows any version of you very well. We’re salmon, the powers that be designed it that way.”

“The powers that be don’t have any jurisdiction in this reality, or over me anymore anywhere.”

“I know,” Danica acknowledges.

He sighs. “Can you get a time and date from one of these things?”

Danica taps on the screen a few times. “It’s dead.” She looks around. “Everything is dead. This is emergency lighting.”

“We seem to have life support.”

Danica looks towards the door, and thinks. “Or we don’t need it anymore.”

They jog down the hallways, and up to the main area for more information. They stop when they see the elevator shaft, which is no longer a shaft. Well, it still may be a shaft, but the wall behind it is gone. It leads to a short hallway, and a set of doors. “Has that always been there?” Mateo asks.

“Definitely not. This has been remodeled.”

They shrug at each other, and exit the building together, opening the double doors in sync. They have to blink when sunlight flies down to attack their eyes. They can obviously tell immediately that they’re in a breathable atmosphere. It’s the future. When they regain their site, they find themselves on a concrete trail, surrounded by lush vegetation, under a blue sky. A waterfall splashes pleasantly into the river or lake below. They’re not alone. Others are enjoying the day, casually strolling around the valley. Mateo notices an interesting symbol on a fencepost sign. It’s five keys in a 3D circle, with a sixth key in the center, larger and more prominent than the others. Danica spins around, and pushes the vines out of her way to try to open the doors again. “Locked.”

“That’s okay, I think I can teleport here, which implies that your precious gyroscope doesn’t last forever.”

“Well, prove it,” Danica suggests.

“There are too many people around,” he says. “We don’t know what they know.”

“It’s okay,” a familiar voice begins. “If you need to teleport somewhere, no one around will mind.” It’s Cheyenne. She’s smiling at them like a local before a couple of tourists. “As long as you take care not to disrupt the plants.”

“I’m sorry, have we met?” Mateo asks her.

“No, I don’t believe so. I have a pretty good memory.”

He nods. “Could you—and this may sound odd—tell us what year it is?”

“It’s December 12, 2398, according to the new Clavical Calendar.”

“Never heard of it,” Mateo says. “But it’s nice to meet you.” He offers his hand, which Cheyenne shakes. This seems to be when and where she’s from.”

“Even if you’ve spent your whole life on this world,” Cheyenne continues. “Surely you would have heard of the Clavical Calendar.”

“Why do you say that?” Danica asks. “What’s so special about this world?”

“It’s close to a black hole,” Cheyenne explains as she’s still shaking Danica’s hand. “A minute here is equal to about an hour out there.”

They disappear. They all disappear.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 112,398

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Abigail Genifer Siskin Pryce. Daughter of Tamerlane Pryce and Genifer Siskin. In at least one timeline in the main sequence, Tamerlane found Genifer by some means—be it by people database, or somehow by happenstance—and procreated with her. Theirs was an unusual arrangement, the particulars of which are known only to them. She wanted a child. He wanted a child who he could nickname Abiogenesis. Genifer raised Abigail throughout most of her childhood, but was forced to leave her one day to protect the universe from Tamerlane’s megalomania. She abandoned her. She sacrificed her. It was for the greater good, and at least one version of Abigail turned out all right, but it was no less tragic.

Abigail has a destiny beyond the boundaries of this universe, so it’s unclear where in the timeline this one originates. Bhulan didn’t want to ask for fear of disrupting the proper order of events, so she helps Abigail out of the time machine, provides her with clothing, and shows her where she can sleep. Bhulan wakes up Asier so she’s not the only well-adjusted and vetted resident of the Constant. Danica and Mateo still have not returned. Tamerlane is wary of Abigail, for she is not his daughter, and she is smart enough to understand that. This is not helping his recovery from his mental breakdown, though, as he sees her as the representation of yet another mistake that his alternate self made. After two weeks, Abigail agrees to go into stasis herself, so that her once-father can pull himself together. He manages to do so, and after a few months, they all end up back in their own separate pods. Bhulan, Tamerlane, and Asier come out every once in a while, but they leave Abigail in for ten thousand years, under a similar arrangement to the one they had with Mateo.

Now it has been 50,000 years since Danica disappeared, which marks the end of the waiting period. When Team Triple Threat—as Tamerlane liked to call them—were first starting out over a 100,000 years ago, they divvied up responsibilities, and agreed upon a hierarchy. Danica was at the top, with Bhulan as her number two. Anyone who came after Tamerlane would be ordered according to how trustworthy they seemed to the originals. So far, they’ve shown up in a reasonable order, making Danica’s father, Asier number four, and her cousin, Mateo number five. But none of them is allowed control over the most important object in the Constant, which is the Omega Gyroscope.

Danica placed a timer on it, like a dead man’s switch. If she ever lost contact with it for a duration of 50,000 years, possession over it would automatically switch to the next in the line, which is currently Bhulan. The responsibility falls to her now, to protect it, and curate the timeline. This should not be a problem; they all agreed to the parameters a very long time ago, and they were incredibly detailed, so she is not worried about making any bad decisions. She’s worried about what happens if she ever disappears for too long, because she’s not sure if she can trust Tamerlane anymore, and she’s honestly unclear as to what happens if something should happen to him. She doesn’t know if Asier was ever formally placed into the line of succession.

“No,” Asier answers, having evidently already discussed this with his daughter. “If Dani ever disappeared, and you disappeared, and Tamerlane disappeared, the Gyroscope would go on autopilot until the true number four showed up, which could be soon thereafter, or in billions of years.”

“Who is it?”

“That I can’t answer. I believe, now that the Gyroscope belongs to you, that you can find out who it is destined to be.”

Bhulan sighs, and looks at the thing. Then she looks at her watch. “If it’s been programmed to make the switch down to the minute, then we have about a minute to go, based on when Danica disappeared through the time machine.”

Asier nods. “Are you ready? Is something going to happen, or do you know?”

“Danica felt a power when she laid in the initial psychic instructions, and she believed I would feel the same, though to be fair, she didn’t think this would ever happen. I mean, 50,000 freaking years. Who would have thought that any of us would be gone for that long? It’s unsafe to be in stasis all that time, and there’s nowhere else to go in the universe! Plus, she’s immortal...” Bhulan shuddered as she felt a chill crawling all over her body. The Omega Gyroscope always glows, but now it’s especially bright. “Oh my God.” It feels like the glow is inside of her. Power is an understatement.

Asier grimaces. He and Bhulan aren’t related, but they’ve known each other for thousands of years, this certainly seems wrong, and makes him uncomfortable. It looks too pleasurable. “Should I leave.”

“No, no, it’s okay. It’s over. Now I’m back to being myself, except it’s like I have this extra body part. I can feel it, always there. Not pressure, nor pain, but a weight. It hangs from my whole body, like an extra layer of skin.”

“Is it...talking to you?”

“No, it’s not conscious. It’s my new skin, and I’m its new brain. I have to tell it what to do.”

“Surely there’s information encoded in it,” Asier figures.

“Yeah, I think I can interface with it.”

“Maybe you should lie down first.”

“Yeah, okay, thanks.”

He helps her onto the couch, and then steps back, ready to break her out of her trance, or mop up a psychic nosebleed, or help with whatever is about to go down.

Bhulan closes her eyes, and focuses on the Gyroscope; on listening to what it has to say, if anything. After around twenty seconds, she feels herself slipping off of the couch, and into a pool of water. She floats around a little before landing at the bottom. Only now does she open her eyes. Glowing curved beams are flying over her head, and underneath the transparent floor. They look familiar until she realizes that, d’uh, she’s in a giant gyroscope, and those moving curves are the gimbals. A silhouette forms before her, out of the glow. It’s not long before she recognizes the figure as Danica, but it’s not really her, it’s just a 3D recording, but not even that, because all of this is just in Bhulan’s head.

“Yay, Bhulan!” Danica cries, hanging onto the spin axis like it’s a stripper pole. Okay, so she may be more of an uploaded consciousness, and less of a recording.

“Are you real?”

“I’m as close as you’re gonna get, because if you’re here, the real me is probably dead. Ask me anything.”

“What is the airspeed velocity of the unladen swallow?”

“That’s an easy one. Eleven meters per second. What do you really wanna know?”

“Who is fourth in line for succession of the Omega Gyroscope, after Pryce?”

“That’s even easier,” Ghost!Danica says with a wide smile. “It’s Leona Matic.”