Tangent Point: Lift a Hand to Help (Part I)

« < » > Entire Story

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

Executor Reed Ellis stood in the back of the room, not afforded a seat. He was of too low a station to be officially part of the discussion. That was not going to stop him from participating, however, whether they liked it or not. He was rolling his eyes as they put forth all of these pointless suggestions for how they could help. They could drop down food and other supplies. They could spearhead cleaning up the orbital debris. All of that was well and good, and they should absolutely do that, but their neighbor’s planet was dying. They didn’t need help on the ground, they needed help getting off of it. The rocket equation was tyrannical. It would be prohibitively expensive to send them rockets, and then attempt to launch the refugees over and over again until they were all up. There was a reason people didn’t really do that anymore. There was a reason Earthans invented space elevators, and why they had become the most common launch method in the stellar neighborhood.

He couldn’t take it anymore. “Enough!”

“Executor Ellis!” The Mediator spat his name out like it was a bad taste in his mouth. “You will wait to be called upon. We recognize that you have been in close contact with the Proxima Domanians, but we all have the data. We all know what they need.”

“Do you?” Reed questioned. He stepped forwards. A security officer took a step too in reaction. “Really, son? Don’t forget your rank.” He kept walking forwards, aware that the officer was still tensed up, and would not hesitate to take him down to protect the diplomats. “We have to get our friends off that world, and we have to go now, because it is going to take weeks just to get there.”

The Mediator stood now. “It is not a viable option. The equator is fully liquefacted now, and no space elevator is designed to operate at a pole.”

Reed shook his head. “Just because it wasn’t designed to work that way, doesn’t mean it can’t do it. The Tangent can handle it. We’re gonna have to keep the fusion torch array affixed to it just to traverse the distance anyway. If you feed them isotopes, the platform will maintain station. It won’t have to do it forever. My people have been running the numbers. With the proper coordination, we can evacuate one pole in only—”

“Executor Ellis!” The Mediator shouted again. “We have read your proposal. The decision has been made. The Tangent will remain where it is, the christening will commence tomorrow, on schedule, and we will provide aid to the Domanians in the best way that we are capable. You were invited to this forum as a courtesy, but you do not have the right to be here. One more outburst from you, and you’re gone.”

Reed stared at him as he stared back. He would actually prefer to leave. This was the committee’s final chance to do the right thing, and it was clear that they were not going to. He would have to take matters into his own hands, so being in this room had become a distraction now. He might as well go big. “You son of a bitch, you can’t just abandon these people!” He lunged—and not even that far—but still, the security officer straight up shot him in the head. What an asshole. Talk about overkill.

Reed woke up in his backup substrate feeling inconvenienced and annoyed, but otherwise all right. His best friend and assistant, Shasta Clifford was there, looking impatient and panicked. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“They put a hold on your respawn,” she began to explain. “They thought you might do something during the ceremony, so they sentenced you to one week deferred reinstantiation.”

Reed flew out of his pod. “It is illegal to make such a sentence in absentia.”

“They’ve gone crazy,” Shasta decided.

“So we’ve missed our window,” he assumed.

She shook her head. “No. I figured, if we were going to stage a mutiny, breaking someone out of blackout hock would be the least illegal thing we did. The ceremony is starting soon, if it hasn’t already.”

He shook his head now. “There’s no time. I need to talk to our people. We need to make plans.”

“Everyone is already in place,” she assured him. “They know the plan. We’ve been talking, and we all understand what’s at stake, and what you need from us. We’re ready to go, Executor. We just need to get you on that bridge.”

“There’s no time to make it. I can’t get up to the Tangent with enough time to execute the plan. I would have to be on the maiden lift, and there’s no way security is letting me through if I’m meant to be in the buffer.”

Shasta smirked. “You think you’re on Bungula right now?” She opened the door. On the other side of the hallway was a viewport showing outer space. “We’re not even that far from our destination, in super-synchronous orbit with the Tangent. A shuttle is waiting for you to make the intercept.”

If they were in super-synchronous orbit with the Tangent, it meant that Shasta had activated the terminal in a scrapper, which was made to wander around in a graveyard orbit, reclaiming plausibly reusable components from dead satellites. He only put an extra body up here in case he ever needed to bug out from Bungula, or even Rigil Kentaurus entirely. “This is, like, my eleventh back-up terminal.”

“And the one that made the most sense, given our constraints,” Shasta said. “Still, we gotta get going.”

“Okay.” He started to bounce on the balls of his feet. “I just need to do my acclimation exercises.” He stretched, and cracked his knuckles and neck. It was proving to be a little difficult, so he checked the mirror. He massaged his chin and cheeks. “There was something wrong with the stasis field. This body is agèd.”

She was waiting for him impatiently. “It makes you look distinguished and regal, and maybe anyone who knows you’re not supposed to be there won’t recognize you. Now let’s go!”

They walked briskly down the corridor. Reed occasionally tipped over, and had to catch himself on the wall, but he didn’t stop. There was no one else here because material salvage was a fully automated task. At the end of their journey, they did meet a bearded man, who reached out. “Hello, I’m Trilby, and I’ll be your pilot today.”

Reed looked uncomfortably at Shasta.

“Oh, don’t you worry, sir,” Trilby went on. “I have no allegiances, and I am no friend to the Bungulan government. I don’t care what you’re doing, and will never have any reason to rat you out. I just push the autopilot button and keep my head down.”

“We’re only trusting him to get us there,” Shasta explained to Reed.

Trilby picked up on Reed’s sustained trepidation. “Look, if you wanna dock with the planet’s newest space elevator platform without being captured on the sensors, you’re gonna need me. I know how to spoof our signature so we just look like a hull maintenance drone coming in for a charge.” He stepped to the side so they could see into the shuttle. “That’s why this thing is so small. It only fits two, so I hope there’s no sexual tension between you two, because it’s gonna be a tight squeeze.”

There wasn’t, which was actually what made it so awkward. Reed saw Shasta like a daughter, and she saw him as a father figure. It was weird to have her sitting on his lap, but it only took an hour, so they survived it. “Where are you going to go now?” Reed asked Trilby once they were in the maintenance bay, and out of the shuttle.

“I actually do need to charge up to make it to my next run, so I’m gonna sip some power from this very spot.”

Reed was still nervous to trust someone who wasn’t already a part of the plan, but this guy needed to understand why he couldn’t hang around too long. “You need to go now. This station isn’t staying where it is. That’s...sort of the point.”

Trilby winked, clicked his tongue, and pointed finger guns at Reed. “Gotcha. I’ll be gone before you know it. Oh, one more thing,” he added as he was reaching to the other side of his seat. “I was told to hand you this.”

It was a standard operational uniform, except there was something different about it. The signifiers were all wrong. “No, this isn’t mine. I’m only an Exec—”

“That’s what my ground contact gave me.” He pushed the button to make the hatch close. “Have fun with your insurrection, or whatever...Captain!” the hatch closed.

“Was this your idea?” Reed asked Shasta.

“No,” she replied, “but I agree with it. The Tangent must be led by a captain.”

“You can’t just declare a promotion, Shasta.”

“Frock that, of course you can. There’s historical precedent. It’s called a brevet.”

He was shaking his head, very uncomfortable with this.

“I was wrong, what I said before,” Shasta began. “Breaking you out of blackout hock isn’t the least illegal thing we’re doing today. This uniform violation is. So put it on, get to your station, and let’s do this thing! For Proxima Doma!”

He sighed, and echoed, “for Proxima Doma.” They had only been planning this takeover for about a week, but that phrase had sort of become their group chant. And that was really what this was all about. They had an obligation to rescue their neighbors, and if that meant masquerading as someone with a higher rank, then that was what it took. He was going to be court martialed either way. What was one more charge? He dressed himself in his new uniform, and they headed out.

They didn’t go straight to the bridge. They had to make one stop first. This was the main armory of the platform, but it was not busy at all. War was a thing of the past. They maintained a military and ranking system for efficient organization and coordination. They kept it for the structure. But people did not walk around with guns anymore. The integrated multipurpose suits that most people wore regularly were not designed with weapons. In fact if you wanted to carry one, it had to include a special utility adapter since the IMS didn’t even come with holsters. Captains often didn’t wear IMS units. It wasn’t required not to, but many wanted to give the impression of fearlessness and steadfastness. They would go down with the ship, if it came to that. Though, to be fair, their minds were probably streaming to a safe back-up anyway, so it didn’t matter. The advantage it gave Reed today was that it was easier to conceal a weapon within the loose fabric of traditional clothing.

The weapons officer was on their side, and unlike Trilby, Reed could personally vouch for her. She removed the gun from its holster, and presented it to him. She wasn’t being patronizing. He hadn’t ever seen this model before, and while he passed the requisite marksmanship tests just fine, he wasn’t very experienced in firearms. “This is an autophasing maser gun. You can toggle it between stun and kill, but that is not recommended, and if you do that, it will be logged. Even if you don’t actually fire the weapon, simply switching on manual mode will send a report to the relevant ranking officials, which I guess is you now.” She eyed his new signifiers.

Reed looked down at himself. “These are just temporary.”

“Right.” She went on, “when autophasing is active, it will assess a target, and determine their substrate status. If the individual has a quantum consciousness backup stream, it will gladly just kill them.”

“I experienced that yesterday,” Reed said.

“Yes, we remember. To be blunt, sir, that was foolish. It made our infiltration much harder.”

“Aletha, know your place,” Shasta scolded.

“No, it’s fine, I want honesty,” Reed contended. He turned back to Aletha. “I regret it. I was just trying to get out of that room, and dying felt like the fastest way.”

Aletha nodded. “If the individual is not streaming, it will automatically switch the setting to stun mode. That’s why manual mode is not recommended, because you don’t know whether the person you’re targeting will come back or not. Now, they are developing eyewear that will show you the substrate data, so you can make an informed decision on the fly, but they are having syncing issues since it is very possible to point the gun at one target, and be looking at another.”

“Okay,” Reed said. “Just so I can be completely careful, does it have a decoherence setting?” Decoherence weapons were mostly illegal mostly everywhere. If your consciousness was streaming to a back-up, or multiple back-ups, decoherence would be able to disrupt those signals, and prevent reinstantiation, possibly even permanently. In a civilization with ubiquitous and fairly easy mind uploading, this was a way to bring back the true death. A sophisticated enough decoherence transmitter could destroy all signals and all back-ups.

Aletha stared at him blankly. “This doesn’t have that feature. I do have access to weapons that do. It would require executive clearance, but I could probably subvert that.”

“No. I’m asking because I don’t want it, not because I do,” he clarified. “I wouldn’t want to do it accidentally.”

“That’s not a concern,” Aletha promised. She reholstered the gun, and handed it to him. She handed another to Shasta. “The rest of our people are armed with their own already. When you leave, I will be locking this room down so no one else can arm up.” She gestured to the lockers behind her. “So if you see anything else you like, you’ll need to check it out now.”

Reed scanned the lockers for anything that might be of use to their cause, and would not be unethical to employ. “I think we’re set. Thank you for this, Aletha. It will not make your life easier.”

“For Proxima Doma,” Aletha declared.

“For Proxima Doma,” he echoed again.

“I’m going to use the range in the back for target practice,” Shasta told him as he was leaving. “I shouldn’t join you on the bridge anyway. I would just make you more recognizable.”

“Very well, Shasta. I’ll see you on the other side.” He left.

When Reed stepped onto the bridge, he found himself in good company. While the Tangent did have its own captain, a lot of people here were captains themselves, visiting from their respective vessels, here to celebrate the accomplishment. He blended right in, and no one was paying much attention to who he was, or whether he belonged there. The Head Architect of the platform was on a little circular stage that likely wasn’t usually there, though Reed didn’t know much about it. The Tangent was of a unique design, so the general shape of the bridge was already different than what he was used to. The architect was going through their spiel, talking about how this was a passion project of theirs, and how proud they were to see it finally come to fruition. The hologram next to them was showing the interior feed of the elevator pod, where all of the diplomats and dignitaries were sitting for the first trip. Some were gazing out the window. Others were chatting with each other inaudibly. A few seemed to be busy conducting business.

The trip was going to take a while. They were traveling at express speeds, but still needed to cross tens of thousands of kilometers, so it was never going to be instantaneous. Reed consulted his watch. They were waiting to begin the takeover until after the pod passed out of the planet’s atmosphere. If all went according to plan, they would sever the tethers just under the pod, and let them drift down to the surface. The pod, meanwhile, would be stuck with the Tangent, and when they commandeered the platform, all of those very important people could serve as hostages. It wasn’t going to be pretty or nice, but he wasn’t going to hurt anyone; not permanently, anyway. He just needed the authorities to think that he would, so they wouldn’t blow them out of the sky.

“Boss,” came the whispering voice of one of his compatriots through his earpiece. “Clear your throat if you can hear me, but you are in mixed company.”

Reed cleared his throat.

“There is a problem in engineering. I’m hiding behind a coolant tank, but the others have been caught. I’m blocking all outgoing transmissions except for mine, but they are about to send someone out of range, and call for help. What do we do?” This was too early. They weren’t ready yet. That elevator pod absolutely had to come with them. There were some rather important people here already, but the ceremonial travelers were vital to counteract the fact that they were slower than everyone else. If a Teaguardian got in the fight, without leverage, it would be over in seconds.

Reed quietly separated himself, and found a humming auxiliary power monitoring station to sort of dampen his voice. “Lift control, are you in position?” He heard a long beep, a short beep, another long beep, and another short beep. That meant yes. “Okay,” Reed replied. “Your job has become more important than ever. Take control. Take it now. Don’t let that pod stop or reverse. We have to move up the timetable, so—”

“Hey!” someone shouted on the bridge. “Hey, he’s not supposed to be here! Yeah, you, Ellis! You’re not a captain!”

“Everyone execute your directives!” Reed ordered hurriedly. “Go now! Go! Take the platform!”

The fight began.

« < » > Entire Story

Castlebourne Capital Community: The Man Who Refused To Die (Part III)

« < » > Entire Story

Generated by Pollo AI text-to-video AI software

The Castlebourners were mad, and they had every right to be. Dreychan didn’t commit a cardinal sin, but he did screw up. As soon as the rest of the council was arrested for conspiracy to commit murder, he should have addressed the people. He knew how to do that. At any one time, they were spread all over the world, but he had the means of contacting them separately from all the visitors. These visitors mostly didn’t know that the refugees were from 16,000 light years away as that went against everything they understood about physics and space colonization. The lie that they spread about a closer empire was weak at best, but it was the only lie they had. At some point, the full truth about time travel was probably going to get out to the general public, but for now, Dreychan should have used the news bulletin protocol. But. It had only been one day, and it didn’t spell the destruction of the whole planet, so everyone just needed to chill out.

He finally escaped the angry crowd of wannabe journalists, and ducked into the council chambers. His speech to them wasn’t half bad, if he could be so bold as to evaluate it himself. Perhaps they felt otherwise, or this was just such a crazy situation that no one knew what to think, or how to react. He took a deep breath as he leaned his head against the door, still hearing them rabble rabble in the corridor. No one else was allowed in here. He used to dread coming to this room, now it had become his one place of respite. How had things changed so much in only a matter of a few days? He breathed through the inner turmoil, and turned back around. “Who are you?”

The elderly woman wearing what appeared to be a robot costume stepped forward, and extended a hand. “Yunil Tereth, big fan.”

“How did you get in here?” Dreychan questioned. “It’s DNA coded.”

“Twins have the same DNA. My sister was on the Council. I always could have walked in here. I just never had the occasion.”

“Who could possibly be your twin sister?” There were some fairly old people on the Council, but none of them quite this old. He was surprised that she could even stand up on her own.

“Lubiti. Now, I know what you’re thinking...why don’t we have the same last name?” She giggled. “We never really got along, so when we chose our names, we deliberately distanced ourselves.”

“I was actually thinking...” Was it offensive to bring up her age?

She giggled again. “When I heard the news, I was in Perspectidome, where you spend time in someone else’s proverbial shoes, to better understand what their life would be like. This is only a temporary substrate. Thank God I chose to make it my older self, instead of just any old lady, so my DNA works. Pay no attention to the outfit. My character had a backstory that was out of my control.”

“Okay. Well. You’ll forgive me if I don’t tell you anything since I can’t really place my trust in that. When it comes to mind transfer, you can’t trust anyone. That’s one reason why I stayed normal. I’m always me.”

Yunil nodded. “I understand. We can meet again, with me in my own body. I decided not to take the time to transfer back before coming here now, because my usual face is...”

“Infamous now?” he guessed.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll tell you what. I don’t know what you want, and I believe it’s best not to say at this time. Next time I see you, I not only want you to look like Lubiti, but I want to see you two at the same time. She’ll confirm if you’re real or not. She’ll know if you’re just a liar in a meatsuit.”

“Fair enough,” Yunil agreed.

“I assume you have my contact card?”

“I do.”

“Send me yours so we can coordinate. I have to reach out to schedule visitation.”

“I’ll do that.” She started tapping on her device. “Also, can I go out the back?”

“Go ahead.” While she was leaving, Dreychan pulled out his own device. Her contact card came through while he was navigating to Azad’s. He took a moment to think about what he wanted to write. Good morning, Dominus Petit, I—

“What’s up?”

Dreychan spun around to find another surprise guest. “Dominus. I was just writing to you.”

“I know,” Azad replied. “I get an alert whenever anyone so much as opens my card.”

“That’s...a little frightening.”

“It’s a security thing. We need to know who’s thinking about us in case it’s an assassin, or something worse.”

“I see.”

“There is a workaround. What you do is take a photo of the card using another device, and consult the image whenever you want. Don’t just take a screenshot, though, because I, uh, get alerted when that happens too. This works for anyone with a spy-ping trigger.”

“That’s good to know.”

They stood there awkwardly for a moment. “The trigger doesn’t alert me to the reason you were looking me up, though,” Azad went on.

“Oh, right, sorry.” Dreychan gestured towards the back door. “I was just visited by a...old woman who claimed to be Lubiti’s twin sister, but just in a different substrate. I can’t verify that, so I need to speak with Lubiti sooner than I expected to ask her about it. And I would like this Yunil to be present.”

Azad narrowed his eyes at him. “You spoke with her here? Please tell me you were stupid enough to let her in, and not that she walked in herself.”

“It was the second one.”

Azad sighed as he started tapping on his wrist device. “I’m choosing to believe that the sister is okay, but if she breached using her shared DNA with Lubiti, it clearly means that Lubiti could come back in as well. Presumably, so could any other former member of the Council. Even if they’re locked up, that is a huge security flaw that we’ll need to cover. I’m sorry, I can’t grant visitation, to you or her sister, until we figure this out. For all we know, this whole thing has been a plot to break her out, and clearly, that could cause problems. I’ll call you with updates as appropriate.”

“That makes perfect sense. Do what you gotta do, and take your time.” After Azad disappeared, Dreychan also slipped out the back, and headed for the senior vactrain hub, which he now had access to thanks to his higher status on the Council. The reporters wouldn’t be able to follow him there, so it was another source of protection from the onslaught of questions, though a sterile and boring one. They shouldn’t be able to accost him at home either, but perhaps that too was unsafe. There were plenty of places to sleep here. He could apply for a temporary unit in Overdome maybe. That was so weird and random, no one would think to look for him there. “Yunil?”

She looked up from her device. “Oh, hello again. Just waiting for my train.”

“Oh.” Super awkward.

“Oh no, what happened?”

He couldn’t say anything. If he explained what Azad just said about the access flaw, it might give her an idea that she didn’t have before! Argh, no! Get him out of here!

Yunil smiled knowingly. “You don’t have to tell me anything. If you’re not busy, perhaps you can accompany me back to Perspectidome, where my real body is waiting for me? I’m not thinking that that will be enough to get you to trust me, but if you see the records which prove that it’s my primary, maybe that gets us one step closer to trust.”

“I suppose I have nothing better to do.” The train zipped through the tube before them, and the doors opened. The both of them stepped onto it, and let it take them away. They were alone in the pod, which was good. This time was usually busy with people coming and going, but the council shake up must have rippled across the population, and altered other people’s personal schedules. It wasn’t long before they were at their destination. Dreychan looked around, confused. “We didn’t have to stop at a Conjunction. I didn’t know that was ever a thing.”

“Don’t need one, with that handsome face of yours. You’re now not only a senior traveler, but an executive senior traveler. Every train has become an express train. We probably did go through a Conjunction, but we didn’t have to stop and switch tracks. And yes, Perspectidome is relatively close.”

The doors reopened, and let them out. They proceeded to the intake plaza, where Yunil informed the bot that she was picking her primary substrate back up. They processed her biometrics, and let them into the transfer room. “This is the weird part.”

“What’s weird about it?” Dreychan asked. “Besides everything?” He knew very little about how all this body switching stuff worked, and didn’t care to know. She could tell him that a microscopic creature was going to crawl out of her ear, and into the one of the body she was trying to move to, and he would believe it, because he really just did not know.

“This body isn’t just temporary. It’s disposable, and is actually required to be disposed of. It’s going to melt, which might be unsettling to watch.”

Dreychan stared at her. “If you’re going to disrobe, I’m not going to be watching anyway.”

She laughed. “No, the clothes are biosynthetic, so they’ll just melt too.”

“Still, I don’t think I’ll watch.”

“I can appreciate that.” She pointed at the side door. “My primary is in that room. It is unclothed, but it looks nicer, and it’s not going to melt. You can wait for me there.”

He went into the other room to find a motionless body that looked just like Lubiti. It was floating in this big vertical tube against the wall, in some kind of bubbly amber fluid. Within minutes, her eyes popped open. She took a moment to get her bearings before settling into eye contact with Dreychan. She smiled at him kindly before reaching down and turning some kind of wheel on the floor. The fluid started to drain away. Once the tube was empty, she slid the hatch open and climbed out.

Dreychan had noticed a towel sitting folded on the table between them. He picked it up now, and tried to hand it to her.

She smiled wider now. “I have to wash up first. It’s basically amniotic fluid.” She glided over to the shower, which didn’t even have a curtain. So he wouldn’t keep staring, he went over to the machines, and started looking at the various components, as if his observations alone would give him any understanding of how they worked.

“It’s okay,” she said while she was still in there. “I switched on the holo-partition.”

He looked back over, but it was a lie.

“Sorry! I’m a bit of a trickster.” Yunil did this weird hand gesture where she tapped the tip of her own fingers with her thumb and flicked her wrist a little. The hologram appeared now. It was rather translucent, and barely tall enough to cover the important bits, but he didn’t want to argue anymore, so he just kept his eyes on hers. “Don’t be so uptight. You treat your own body as a vital part of you, but for people like me, it’s just a husk. You don’t cry for your clipped fingernails, do you? I’ve met people who look like rabbits, mythological creatures, and even machines. There’s a dome here where you transfer your mind to a vehicle, and drive. It feels like you are the vehicle, not like you’re just sitting in one.”

“I don’t cry for my nails,” Dreychan explained, “but my body is not something I can lose. It would be more like the body loses me. We call that death.”

“Well, that’s your first problem. You see death as inevitable. The vonearthans see it as an anachronism.” She sighed. “I’m gonna have to walk through the hologram to reach the towel.”

He looked away again.

“Oh my God,” she said. “It’s not me. It’s her. Do you have a thing for her?”

He took one little peek. The towel was now keeping her covered. “She was nice to me. It’s over now.”

“I’m nice to you, and that’s not over.”

“What are you saying?”

“Drey—”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“Okay.” She didn’t see it as a big deal. “Your video was leaked, did you not know that?” She opened a drawer, and pulled out a set of clothes, which she set on the counter between them.

“Of me in 2.5Dome? No, I am indeed aware of that. Many of the reporters’ questions had to do with how I survived the ordeal.”

“You don’t understand. No one has ever made it through that whole game in one go. It’s only supposed to be for people like me, for whom death is but a temporary setback. The loudest people are mad that you didn’t make your announcement right away, but most of us are extremely impressed, and that is quickly overshadowing any resentment we feel about the lack of immediate transparency. I came to you because I wanted to meet the man who refused to die. I wanted to meet the man who my sister underestimated. You want my body, you can have it. You want me to jump to another one, and have that instead, just say the word.”

“That’s not what this is about for me. I don’t feel emotions for bodies. I feel them for people. And we just met.”

“We can take it slow,” she said with a shrug as she tossed her towel into the material reclamator, and started slipping on the outfit. “But maybe not too slow. After all...if you’re planning on dying in less than a century, you better get on it. You don’t have as many opportunities to find happiness as almost everyone else in this part of the galaxy. I admire that in people like you, but...not if you take it for granted.”

“I don’t need you to feel any particular way about me. I just want you to tell me what you really want. And don’t say it’s just about sex. I don’t believe that.”

“You told me you didn’t want me to tell you yet.”

“I changed my mind.”

She nodded. “I’m part of a group.”

“Oh, shit.” That word. His brain instantly associated it with other, less innocuous ones, like rebellion, insurgency, or traitor.

“Don’t be like that. We’re not violent. We’re connoisseurs of Earthan history. Ya know, our ancestors were grown in test tubes by a madman, who stole them from a ship, which originated in the Gatewood Collective, and whose passengers were once refugees from another universe, which were the descendants of runaways...from Earth. Yes, our peoples have a longer history of fleeing oppression and strife than you might know. But while we don’t call ourselves vonearthan, we are all technically sourced from there. My group studies the homeworld, because we believe it is the absolutely most important aspect of our lives, now that we even know it exists. I came to you, Dreychan, because if you want to know how to formulate the new government of Castlebourne, you have a perfectly good model to base it on. Earth spent thousands of years trying to figure it out. Don’t reinvent the wheel. My friends and I will show you what works. It’s been working for centuries. That’s how they were able to build this paradise.”

“Hrockas built it to get away from Earth.”

“No, he was assigned this planet because while it is naturally barren, it’s stable, gravitationally healthy, and the host star is relatively similar to Sol. Its distance from the Core Worlds is the product of cosmic statistical probability, not a design feature.”

“What are you trying to say now?” He was getting confused.

“Don’t think that you need to rebuild the Council back to how it was. You might not even need a council. All I’m saying is get yourself educated before you start making any decisions. I’m here to give you whatever you need, and I don’t just mean access to my body. My brain is pretty great too.”

Dreychan’s watch beeped, so he checked the notification. “No more express trains for you. You’ve been locked out of government privileges. Or rather, Lubiti was.”

Yunil rolled her eyes. “DNA locks are so stupid anyway. All I need is one hair, and I can grow a passing clone in a matter of months without setting off any alarm bells. It should be brainwave-locked. I know they have that technology. You should demand it.”

Dreychan breathed deeply. “I still can’t trust you. We need to set up that meeting with your so-called sister.”

She chuckled. “That’s not the first time she’s been called that. I call her that. And yeah, I’m down for the meeting whenever. I cancelled all future dome trips, so I’ll just be sitting at home whenever you’re ready. I will be able to leave at a moment’s notice.”

“I’ll talk to my contact again,” Dreychan said. “But right now, I’m exhausted, so I think I’m gonna go home. Maybe we don’t share a train again?”

She shook her head. “We’re not going to the same place anyway. I live in Underbelly.”

« < » > Entire Story

Microstory 2268: Change is My Status Quo

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

Welp, yesterday, while you thought all I was thinking about was my meeting with the President, I was actually out doing volunteer work. I was once again rolling up my sleeves, and building houses with Homes for Humankind. I didn’t tell anyone that I was going to do that, because I didn’t want there to be yet another media frenzy, and I’m happy to report that it worked. I put in the work with everyone else, and for hours, didn’t have to worry about all these threats to my life. My security team was there, but instead of standing around in suits and sunglasses, they wore regular clothes, and volunteered too. All of the other volunteers knew who I was, and who my friends were, but they didn’t give me any crap about it. They didn’t give me preferential treatment, or ask me a bunch of questions. Everyone has a story, and it was nice to listen to other people’s, instead of thinking about my own. Some of them really understand a desire for anonymity, so no one leaked information. Still. I feel lucky that we never got caught. Wow, saying that, it makes it sound like I was doing something wrong. This is stressing me out, seeing threats at every turn. I don’t know that I’ll be able to pull it off again. Is that part of my life just over? Will I never be able to just go out and contribute to my community without it ending up on the news, or having to avoid that by going in disguise? Kelly says that I should accept that my life is different than it used to be, and pointed out that change is my status quo. She’s probably right. I’ve complained about rich people only helping others by donating money, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe that’s all I really can do without simultaneously shifting focus to me instead of the cause.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 11, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

Training. Before Ramses started to have to devote all of his time to trying to get Trina back, he was working on a way to give people their time powers back permanently. The immortality water injections worked really well for a few uses, but they wore off quickly, and it would be nice to not worry about procuring more. It was never that high on the list of priorities since teleporting is a convenient alternative to traditional means, it isn’t usually necessary. It’s mostly a luxury that most of them spent most of their lives not having anyway. Angela and Marie could do it in the afterlife simulation once she reached Plus status, but she didn’t exercise the right very often. It wasn’t because she was used to a life without it. It’s that after you die, the time it takes to accomplish something the hard way doesn’t seem as bad as it once was.

Alyssa McIver was born in a reality that didn’t allow temporal manipulation, except for certain exceptions, apparently. But they know that she has time powers, which allow her to create illusions, which she may or may not use primarily to generate disguises for people. There is a chance that she gets such powers later in her personal timeline, but they have every reason to believe that she was born with them. She should have them now, though they would have been suppressed her entire life up until this point. The team was content to keep her in the dark regarding her destiny. If they couldn’t prove it to her, there would be no point in saying anything. But things have changed. They need disguises. They need McIver hats, if that’s even possible with the state that she’s in.

“It’s not working,” Alyssa says. Her eyes are so closed, so what does she know? Anyway, she’s right, it’s not.

“Do you feel anything different?” Ramses asks, tablet in hand, ready to take notes on how the experiment is going.

“Nothing. I’m still not sure that I believe you.”

“Perhaps that is your problem,” Mateo says. “If you believe you can’t do it, then you can’t, so why not try believing that you can?”

“You can’t just decide to believe something,” she contends. “Something has to convince you, and that usually comes from the outside.”

“We showed you the McIver hat.”

“Stop calling it that.”

“That’s what it is,” Ramses reasons.

“I didn’t make no hat, and you didn’t show me using any special power. You showed Marie changing herself into famous actors, and other celebrities. I have seen no evidence that that has anything to do with me. The hat is amazing. I’m unremarkable.”

“That is certainly not the word I would use to describe you,” Mateo argues.

“We have been at this for hours,” Alyssa begins. “We’ve not made any progress. You haven’t even seen my cheek bubble as the illusion tries to form. Nothing has happened. It’s useless.”

“It’s not useless,” Ramses tries to explain. “It’s all part of the process, and it’s all leading up...to this.” With the final words, he reaches into the box, and pulls out the McIver hat that Marie got from The Dealer, handing it to Alyssa.

“What am I meant to do with this thing?” she questions.

“You don’t know where hats go?” Ramses jokes.

She chuckles voicelessly. “I thought this was for other people who want to borrow my power.”

“Generally, yes,” Ramses says, “and it can do that because there’s power in it. Yours. It doesn’t work with everyone, because not everyone has the ability to harness it. The Dealer doesn’t, but Marie does, and I’m presuming that you’re more like her.”

“Someone told me that Marie has some of that immortality water in her system. They wouldn’t tell me what kind, or why it’s lasting longer than normal. But instead of these injections, why don’t you give me some of that stuff?”

Mateo and Ramses exchange a look. Marie still has Health and Death water in her system, because they were used to perform an abortion. This is a medical condition that cannot be replicated. “She has private reasons for that. It won’t work for you,” Mateo says as vaguely as possible, hoping to not elicit any followup.

“Go on and put on the hat,” Mateo suggests. “It’s like jumpstarting a car.”

She sighs, a tiny bit frustrated, but mostly tired. “I don’t know what that means.” Oh yeah, this world hasn’t used petrol cars in a long time.

Ramses doesn’t say anything, he just nods at her encouragingly.

She sighs again, and gives it a try. Her facial expression changes just from putting it on. She still looks like herself so far, but she’s clearly feeling something, maybe a surge of energy?

“Report,” Ramses requests.

“I don’t know,” she answers. “I can’t describe it. It’s...it’s like a light? What would light feel like if it didn’t feel like heat? I dunno.” She shakes her head, trying to come up with a better way to word it.

“That’s good, that’s good.” Ramses taps some notes down. “Okay, now I want you to do it the same way we practiced, except now there’s a zero percent chance that it won’t work. Think about someone you want to look like. Visualize an image of them standing in front of you. Then turn it around, and pull it back until the image is wrapped around you, like a suit.”

Alyssa closes her eyes and tries again. They can see her struggling with it, but in a way that makes it look like it might actually be working this time. Her cheek doesn’t bubble, like she said it might. Sharp beams of light appear out of nowhere, and shoot across her face and body. She slowly disappears, and then faster and faster, until she’s been completely replaced. It’s the current President of Russia.

“Okay,” Ramses says, smiling widely. “You’ll probably always have to wear the hat, until we fix the time power suppression problem for this reality, or get you to the main sequence, but I think we have something here. It’s a great start.”

Alyssa doesn’t seem to consider it a problem. It’s a comfortable enough hat, and it disappears when she transforms into someone else anyway. She’s more concerned with the mission itself, which is perfectly understandable. It won’t be a walk in the park. A part of her always thought that none of this would work, and she wouldn’t have to participate. Now it’s all too real. Ramses calling it a start is a nice thing to hear, though.

“A start?” Mateo asks. “I would call this more than a start. She looks exactly like him! I can’t tell the difference!”

“Take a step to your left,” Ramses tells her.

They see the President step over, but not all of him moves at the same time. It looks like a bad censorship job, not quite synced up. Okay, so he’s right; it’s only a start.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 18, 2398

« < » > Table of Contents

They’re sitting in the bunker again, just as helpless as they have been most of this week. Fairpoint has not gone back on his word, but it’s Saturday now, so he can’t get in to see Heath and Angela-slash-Marie until Monday. All they can do is wait and hope. God, Mateo hates relying on other people to get things done. Fairpoint is not part of the team, and he can’t be trusted. In the future—and Mateo isn’t sure if he remembers why he knows this already—there will be a new member of this team that can disguise others using her temporal power. When they look at each other, they’ll see their real faces, but when others look at them, they’ll see whoever the team wants them to see. They will be able to turn themselves into anyone, which is a power that he could use right now. He would waltz into that police station, looking like the president of the United States, and order them to release his friends. Then he could end religious war, racism, and all the other global issues. Yeah, it would probably be that easy.

“He doesn’t want kids,” Marie says out of the blue, breaking the silence. She doesn’t look anyone in the eyes, though. She stares straight ahead.

“Heath?” Leona asks.

“It’s like Fairpoint said, Heath is not a zealot,” Marie goes on. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t religious at all. In his culture, certain people are allowed to have children, and certain people aren’t.”

“What’s...the criteria?” Leona asks tentatively. Is that okay to ask?

Now Marie faces her friend. “Skin color. He’s too light. His bloodline ends with him, because it’s been diluted.”

“That’s...not okay, Marie,” Leona says.

Mateo and Ramses decide to stay out of the conversation.

“I know. Believe me, it was rough learning that about how he was raised. Lighter skinned people have a place. They have responsibilities. So it’s not like he was shunned. Genetics is really complex. It’s not as easy as saying, you can’t have a baby with a white person, though they do say that. And before you think they’re the worst of the worst, plenty of white denominations have similar rules, and some of them are pretty horrific about it. There’s been a history of...I don’t even wanna say the word.”

“It’s okay, we get it,” Leona assures her.

“Anyway, light-skinned babies come from dark-skinned parents all the time, and they just have to assign them certain roles because of that, and disallow procreation to keep the rest pure.”

“How do they feel about you?”

“They’re fine with me,” Marie insists. “They don’t have a problem with white people—though, they would change their minds if they knew my father was a slave owner, as was my arranged betrothed. He promised them he wouldn’t have any kids, and they accepted the risk.”

“What will happen to your baby?”

Marie is silent for a long time, and nobody tries to force her to continue. “I do not have a baby,” she explains. “I have a clump of cells in my uterus.”

“Marie...” Leona doesn’t know what else to say. There is probably nothing she could say.

“I’m not going to carry it to term. I’ve told you I’m happy, but that’s only because of him. I’m not happy here. This is the worst reality we’ve been to. At least the warmongers in the Fifth Division were honest about who they were. They didn’t hide behind divine mandate, or passive aggressive pseudo-tolerance. You’ll see. Stay here for another few months, and you’ll see.”

“We can get you out,” Leona told her. “You and your baby, we’ll get you out of here.”

“And then what?” Marie questions. “Heath can’t come with me down the fourth dimension, so I’ve lost him. There is no guarantee the baby will be like me either. I wasn’t born like this, and we don’t really understand how all that works. I didn’t even think I could have children. I told him as much. I didn’t lie, but I suggested he would have nothing to worry about. Now I have this thing inside of me, and I can only think of one halfway decent outcome.”

“I’m not going to try to convince you to make any particular choice,” Leona begins. “But I’m going to tell you that if you decide to have that child, I’ll love and protect it to my dying breath. Mateo and Ramses can make the same assurance, as I’m sure Olimpia would. Angela has already proved as much. It’s important you know this.”

“Thank you,” Marie says. “I’m pretty convinced already, and I plan to make an appointment with the doctor once I get my identity back, but it’s nice to know you’re by my side.

Leona leans forward, and opens her arms, but doesn’t initiate the hug. She waits for Marie to make that choice too. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

“Were I you,” Mateo says to all of them.

Microstory 1661: Leader of the Psychic Army

< > Table of Contents

Even in universes where they did not have human confederates to deploy as the infiltration force, the Ochivari were surprisingly good at keeping covert. They wore hoods, and stayed in the shadows, and kept their distance. This tactic did not work very well in Psychoverse. There were different classes of psychics on this version of Earth, and varying levels within the classes. One class in particular was simply good at detecting people around them, and maybe a little bit of information about them. They couldn’t feel emotions, or read minds, but could sense a few key characteristics about others, such as age, general health condition, and basic mood. They could tell when someone was happy, angry, or sad, and that was pretty much it. This was enough when it came to the Ochivari, though. They exuded strange readings, which alerted one individual that there was something strange going on in her town. Rattlesnake, Kansas was an interesting place to live. The population was low enough to be considered a small town, but the residents acted like a large city. They were anonymous with each other, choosing only to associate with those in their friend group, and ignoring the rest. This was how people liked it here, as it was low pressure, and high privacy. Psychics weren’t outlawed, but they were strongly discouraged, because they, of course, invaded this privacy. Psychics didn’t bother fighting against this, because they didn’t really care. There were better places to live anyway. The presence detector was allowed to live there without any grief, though, since it was her hometown, and she didn’t disturb anyone. It was a good thing they did, because the small town anonymity vibe was exactly why the Ochivari figured it would be a good idea to spy on the native population from right there in Rattlesnake. This psychic’s ability was nonnegotiable, meaning that it wasn’t something she could use at will, and not use when she didn’t want to. It was always on, so when strange figures in robes started walking around at night, most didn’t pay them any mind, because it wasn’t their business, but she knew there was something off about them. She decided to investigate on her own, even though she made a promise that she would kind of just leave others alone. When she learned the truth, she knew that she couldn’t just let this go, so she contacted a psychic associate of hers who could read minds. He came to Rattlesnake, and helped figure out these aliens’ intentions. Once they confirmed that the Ochivari had sinister plans for the world, the two of them formed a resistance army of other psychics. They defeated the infiltrators rather quickly, and then transformed the town into the capital of the defensive force. More psychics came, some with strong offensive abilities, and the original psychic whistleblower suddenly found herself at the head of one of the most powerful armies in the world.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Wednesday, July 29, 2144

« < » > Table of Contents

Shortly after they woke up in 2144, their cuffs beeped, indicating that they had a transition window to get to. It was weird, getting back to this kind of mission. This was what they were meant to be doing, but they had just spent so much time on tangents that they had almost forgotten about it. The map was directing them back to Tribulation Island, so they requested Nexus transport, and headed off.

At the resort, they only found one person. The rest had been returned to the main sequence for Mateo and Leona’s wedding. “Mom!” Mateo shouted. He knew this version of her was not exactly his mother, but he didn’t care. He had to hug her. It had been so long since he had seen her. She was surprised at his shock, and not quite as shocked herself, for she had no memory of him as her son, and had only not seen him for a few years. That was nothing in time traveler time.

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” she said, graciously hugging him back.

The window opens up over there in a half hour,” Leona said, pointing. “It’s outgoing.”

Mateo looked at Leona, and then the direction of the window, then at his once-mother, and finally back to Leona. “Nerakali is letting her go to our wedding.”

“You’re getting married?” Aura was shocked at this.

“We already did,” Mateo answered. “This is the past for us. We didn’t know you were there, but...you must have been disguised the whole time.”

Bran stepped forward. “Or invisible.”

“We’ve never tried to borrow your...power?” Leona wasn’t sure whether it was a power, or a time affliction.

“We call it a condition,” Aeolia clarified. “It depends on how you look at it, and how you use it.”

“Who are you talking to?” Aura questioned.

Leona reached into her bag, and retrieved one of the extra Cassidy cuffs. She handed it to her never-mother-in-law. If this works, you could be standing right in front of someone, and they will not be able to see you. Or rather, they will, but they’ll forget you so fast, that it will be like you’re not there at all.”

“Oh, interesting.” Aura put the cuff on without need for further discussion.

“They have to teach us how to do it,” Angela pointed out. “We have about twenty minutes.”

“Okay,” Bran said. “Shouldn’t be too hard since...it happens for us automatically, and we have no control over it, and we’ve never learned anything about it.”

They asked for help from the Nexus technician who greeted them here. They needed someone who wasn’t wearing the cuffs, so they would know when their borrowing of Bran and Aeolia’s condition was working. It took them nearly the whole time they had to get it right, but just in time, the technician stopped acknowledging their presence, and walked off to get back to work, having forgotten why he had left his post in the first place. They each tried to get his attention, but nothing. Jeremy commanded him to walk the rest of the way on all fours, which he complied with, though he didn’t know why. Now that they were right invisible, for all intents and purposes, they ran back to where the map was leading them, and jumped through the transition window together.

They were standing exactly where they were before on the island, but now in the main sequence of realities. To their right, people were walking into the head of the trail that would lead them to the Colosseum replica, where the ceremony would be held. To their left, things were weird. People were waiting in line for their turn at a booth, where someone was handing out hooded robes, but that wasn’t the weird part. They were already obscured, as if they were paintings, and someone had carelessly wiped their faces off with the charcoal. When the person at the front of the line received their robe, and started putting it on, their face was briefly visible until the hood was all the way over their head.

“Don’t look at them,” Leona ordered. “There’s a reason we’re not meant to see who they are, and that reason is probably similar to ours.”

“Well, you don’t need that,” Aeolia said, glad to be contributing to the group.

“We should get them anyway,” Jeremy determined. “What if a cuff runs out of battery, or someone can break through, and takes it off of us. It’s not worth the risk. Better to be redundant than sorry.”

“Good idea, let’s get our own,” Leona said.

They waited in line for a fairly long time. Whenever someone else got in it, they weren’t able to even detect that the seven of them were standing there, so they cut in every time. That was fine, and probably for the best, as this was just for extra protection, and if there weren’t enough robes for everyone, they should wait to be last anyway. As it turned out, they were totally right about that. Only one robe was left after everyone had gone through it, and the booth operator was preparing to close up.

“You take it,” Mateo said to Aura. “If Arcadia catches you, she’ll be pissed, and possibly violent. The rest of us are okay, even Leona.”

“No,” the man at the booth said. “This is for Leona.”

“Wait, you can see us?” Bran asked.

“Yes,” the man replied. “Though not for long. I too flipped the retgone coin, but mine landed on tails. I remember no past, and have no future. All I know right now is that I flipped a coin...and that I’m supposed to hand these things out to those who need them.” He lifted up the last robe, and presented it to Leona. “And that this one belongs to you. I don’t know why I know this, I just know it. Please take it before I forget why I’m here.”

Leona took the robe, and started putting it on. The man with no memory blinked, and looked confused. He didn’t seem to be able to see them anymore. He just left the booth, and wandered off.

“That’s why you don’t flip the coin,” Bran warned. “You might think it sounds awful not being able to be seen by others, but it’s so much worse being alive with no ability to form memories.”

“Come on,” Mateo said. “Let’s go to our wedding for the third time.”

They followed the trail to the Colosseum replica. Pretty much everyone else had found their seats. Most of them were dropped off closer than the beach. Jeremy noticed someone in the crowd. It was the man who saved him as a baby, Lowell Benton. “I would much like to talk to him, if I could. We didn’t get a chance before. I guess I should say, we didn’t take our chance.”

“He looks very confused,” Leona said. “I’ll drop my invisibility for him, and lead him away from the crowd. I don’t actually need to see the ceremony again.”

“I need to,” Aura said.

“Yes,” Mateo said. “You, Bran, Aeolia, and Angela can go find seats. The rest of us will talk to Lowell. We’ll meet back up later.”

“I love you, Mateo,” Aura said. “I’m not supposed to, but I do.”

“I love you too, mom.”

They hugged again, then went their separate ways. Leona figured out how to make Lowell remember her, but kept her robe on, so no one would recognize her. Bran and Aeolia’s condition was an all or nothing kind of thing. They couldn’t control who remembered them, and when. Leona had some control over it because it wasn’t really her condition at all. This was probably why she had to wear the robe, instead of Aura, who had never met Lowell before. She took him aside, and found an isolated part underneath the Colosseum. Mateo recognized it from way back in 2079, when he was forced to watch a bunch of strangers kill each other. This was the room where The Cleanser kept them before the slaughter. That was in an alternate reality, though, and never technically happened, so all those people lived to eventually become his friends. There were surely around her somewhere.

Now that they were safely alone, Leona lifted her hood. “Don’t worry, I’m an alternate version. The Leona who’s supposed to get married has no idea I’m here, and won’t become me for a while. You and I have already met.”

“Right,” Lowell said, but he didn’t look like he believed it.

“We have already met, right?” Leona asked. “I mean, you shouldn’t have received an invitation unless we knew each other. No one here is a stranger, even if we haven’t met them according to our respective personal timelines.”

“Yeah, of course, we know each other. Lona.”

“Who the hell are you?” Leona questioned. “You’re not Lowell.”

The person pretending to be Lowell exhaled sharply. “No, I’m not. Sorry. My name is Dalton Hawk. I am salmon, and I am not possessing your friend on purpose.”

“Okay...” Leona started to say. “So you don’t recognize any of us?”

“Any of who?”

Mateo and Jeremy temporarily deactivated their Cassidy cuffs, placing them on a timer for thirty minutes.

“Uh, no. Sorry, don’t know you. Can you turn invisible?”

“Sort of. We don’t know a Dalton either,” Mateo said. He looked over at Jeremy, who was disappointed about not being able to meet the real Lowell.

“I do.” Arcadia was walking down the ramp. She placed one hand on her hip, and the other on her forehead. “Once I ran into you after the ceremony, which is about to start, I decided to go back in time, and find out if there are any more of you. It turns out, there are. There are four versions of Mateo here, and five of Leona!” She side-eyed Jeremy. “I don’t know who you are, but I’ve only seen one of you, so congratulations on that, I guess. Why do you keep coming back to your own goddamn wedding! You’re only supposed to do it once!”

“Wait, did you say there are five of me?” The version of Leona here was only the third one. And why was Mateo not with her for one of the other two times?

“I don’t care which version of you you are! I just need you to get the fuck out here!” She made one step back towards the ramp, and pointed up to it. “Are you all the people in hoods? I haven’t checked them, because I respect their temporal privacy, but maybe I should!”

“I don’t know who the people in hoods are. Yeah, they could be other versions of us, but either way, you should continue to respect that privacy, because you, of all people, understands what happens when you mess with the timeline!” If there were going to be multiple versions of her, they could call this one Bold!Leona. “Your sister brought us here, and she’s more powerful than you! So you’re gonna let us be, and not make us do some extra challenge, or something, and you’re gonna get the fuck out of here! A lot has changed since we last saw each other, and we are not simpatico.” Presumably by summoning Nerakali’s abilities, Leona suddenly teleported a few meters forward, and promptly pushed Arcadia to her ass. “I’ve changed.”

A seething Arcadia got back up to her feet, and pressed her fist against her mouth. She blew into her palm, and disappeared, but not all at once. An afterimage of her middle finger lingered for a few seconds before fading away.

“Wow,” Jeremy said. “I’m glad we’re on the same side.”

“Am I on the same side?” Dalton asked.

“You are now,” Leona said, taking him by the hand. “Turn your invisibility back on, and teleport to our team’s location. I’ll stay visible, and act as a link to the homines memorias.”

They landed in their seats just as the ceremony was starting. They watched it all yet again, and then afterwards, during the reception, they danced.

« < » > Table of Contents