Microstory 2448: Chinadome

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China is one the largest, and most populated, nations on Earth. Historically, it has been a technological powerhouse, and a major player on the global economic stage. It’s so big that individuals emigrating out of China to other towns would often settle in such high numbers that they ended up transforming part of their city to a sector known as Chinatown. These were divisions of the established city in question—New York, San Francisco, Binondo—typically not in an official or legal capacity, but culturally relevant nonetheless. Since those of Chinese ancestry represent a large portion of people back on Earth, it stands to reason that a great deal of people who have chosen to travel to Castlebourne would be Chinese too. To be clear, you don’t have to have any Chinese heritage to come here. In reality, they encourage you to visit regardless of your family background or creed, and learn about Chinese history and culture. That’s the whole point of cultural domes. You can come here to see what it’s like, to engage in their events, or if you just feel comfortable in this environment. The dome holds all the same traditional observances here as they still do on Earth, such as Chinese New Year. It also recognizes the shift in sociopolitical practices that resulted from the adoption of more modern political ideas, particularly post-scarcity economic conventions. It’s a respectful blend of the historical China and the new China that most people living today are more familiar with. I agonized over how to phrase that, which is why, readers, this review is a bit later than usual. I think that’s the most P.C. way for me to say it. I’ll edit you according to your comments. But just this once. I recommend everyone on Castlebourne come for a visit. Even if you saw a Chinatown or two on Earth, there’s always something new to learn, and perspective to be gained.

Microstory 1952: The Office

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Myka: Are we really doing this?

Reese: Too late to back out now.

Leonard: Couldn’t we quit, just like any other job?

*they look at him incredulously*

Leonard: Let me guess, it doesn’t work like that on your world.

Reese: You signed a contract. You are required to give your employer one month’s notice if you intend to quit. I’ve never heard of a job that doesn’t work like that.

Leonard: How much notice does my employer have to give before firing me, ha-ha.

Reese: Two months.

Leonard: Oh. Where I’m from, it’s common courtesy to give your boss two weeks, but they don’t have to give you anything. They can have security escort you out immediately.

Myka: That’s sad. Anyway, Reese, this place is nice. I love how you lord over everyone from your perch up here. Did you have any say in how these offices would look?

Reese: Only a little. And this is your perch too. Leonard, your office is the one on my right. Myka, that’s yours on my left.

Myka: I still don’t know what I’m here to do. I’m not an agent, am I?

Leonard: I don’t know the answer to that question either.

Reese: None of us is an agent. Those will be provided by the government at a later date. I believe some of them are presently in training. Leo, they’ll probably ask you to join them at some point, as you will be in charge of the agents and operatives.

Leonard: I thought you were in charge.

Reese: I’m in charge of everyone. Once the paperwork goes through, you’ll be the Supervisory Special Agent.

Leonard: That is quite the step up from where I was. Whew. Okay, it’s good to have a little time to wrap my brain around that.

Myka: And me?

Reese: Facilities. You’ll supervise IT, building management, cleaning, kitchen... Basically everything that keeps the building itself running, you’ll be responsible for that.

Myka: So I should have been consulted with the layout?

Reese: *laughing* They used to use this place for something else. You can choose the layout of the bullpen, and other things, but you probably can’t tear down, or build any new, walls. I want everyone to understand that, while we’re doing this in preparation for a possible alien invasion—or some less obvious form of it—it could happen any day. We want to be ready to work as fast as possible. We may be making a lot of temporary decisions until something more sustainable can be put in place. We already have two fridges and freezers in the break room, though, and this...is a metal government credit card with no spending limit. Myka, buy what you think an office will need.

Myka: *takes the card* I’m on it.

Reese: And Leonard? Tell me what you think about this.

Leonard: *takes it* A new badge. Hm. It’s a lot heavier than the one I had before.

Reese: This is even heavier. *hands him a gun*

Microstory 1951: Leader de Jure

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Reese: SI Eliot! Wait up. I’m glad I caught you.

SI Eliot: Is this urgent, Parsons? I’m about to step into a meeting with the Director.

Reese: It’s about the jobs you offered Mr. Miazga and Miss Tennison?

SI Eliot: You can just call them Leonard and Myka, Agent Parsons. We all know that you’re friends with them. I assume that you’re worried about what our angle is. I assure you that there is no nefarious purpose to our offers. Very few people know what we know, and we would like to keep it that way, at least for now. We believe that the two of them possess valuable skills and knowledge that we may need in the future.

Reese: Well, what about the others; the other three freewomen, and the escapees?

SI Eliot: They have received their own job offers.

Reese: Really?

SI Eliot: Yes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must get in there.

OSI Director: It’s all right, Hisham. This meeting is about him, after all. He may as well be there. It’s not like I need your permission to proceed.

SI Hisham Eliot: Very well. After you, Agent Parsons.

Reese: *stepping into the conference room, and sitting down* This meeting is about me? In what context, may I ask?

OSI Director: How long have you been on loan to us from Fugitive Services?

Reese: A few months.

OSI Director: And before that? How long were you in FS?

Reese: About eleven years, sir.

OSI Director: That’s a decent run. *pauses* How would you like a job here?

Reese: I thought I did a job here, don’t I? My tenure was marked as indefinite.

OSI Director: That’s what I’m saying. Let’s define it. Let’s decide that you’re no longer on loan, but a fulltime permanent employee of the Office of Special Investigations.

Reese: This is...unexpected. I always assumed that I would go back. I never thought about doing anything else. I barely unpacked my belongings in my office here.

OSI Director: That’s probably for the best. If you agreed, we would give you a new one.

Reese: Sir?

Hisham: She wants you to lead the staff of a new department of national security, incorporating personnel and resources from a number of other branches and divisions. You would not be in charge of the office itself, but you would be managing the employees, which would include your friends, and the other...consultants. The National Commander has been discussing doing something like this with us, and the Assembly, for a while now. Officially, the name of this department would be the Department of Exogenic Affairs. Since there’s already a DEA, it would be known as DExA for short.

OSI Director: Does that sound like something that you would be interested in?

Reese: Again, this is quite the surprise. I suppose I should have guessed that something in government would change as a result of these developments, but I never thought I would be considered for a leadership role. I only have de facto experience.

OSI Director: We believe that’s enough. Why don’t you think it over, and get back to us in two days, okay? NatCo wants to get the ball rolling by the end of this month.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 8, 2398

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In general, the afterlife simulation was cut off from base reality. Pryce made this decision with good reason, it wasn’t just to keep control over the residents. As great as the virtual construct was, it wasn’t real by most people’s standards, and having a link back to the people they left behind could be psychologically detrimental. There were eleven status levels that one could earn or lose, though the bottom level was true death, and the top was incredibly rare resurrection. So really there were nine; each level up affording the resident more privileges. Level Seven Pink Elite was the best for the majority of people. The upper levels demanded a level of responsibility that not everyone valued. But within this level were sublevels. Just because you reached it, didn’t mean you had everything. Only a select few were given insight into the events down on Earth, and in later years, outward to the stars. Angela was one of these people, having proven herself worthy of the honor.

Near the beginning of the 21st century, a certain television series premiered, featuring a shady intelligence agency known as SD-6. She described it to the team, but Heath shook his head, not thinking the two had anything to do with each other. No such show existed in the Third Rail. The version of SD6 to which Leona apparently now belonged was probably as secretive, but not as nefarious. It wasn’t really one organization, but six—hence the name. The National Intelligence, Domestic Affairs, National Police, National Military, Court Agent, and Transportation Regulatory Authorities came together for a joint task force that kind of had carte blanche for any mission necessary to protect the country’s interests. For the longest time, the existence of this task force remained only rumor for the general public, but it now features an overt director, which holds press conferences, and the occasional accessible budget or ethics hearing. Still, this is a big deal. Leona is a big deal. More to the point, if her credentials are as good as they seem, this forger’s powers are greater than they thought to consider until now.

“Oh, I got a little six-thing in the corner too,” Mateo says. He hadn’t really looked at his own new badge until this morning.

The others hadn’t checked it either. Marie takes it from him, and inspects it carefully. “Commandant in the National Military Authority. Mateo, this is, like, five ranks higher than you were before.”

He shrugs. “You know me, I excel at everything I do.”

“What does she want from you?” Marie asks, shaking her head in disbelief.

“What does she want from us?” Angela corrects.

“She never asked anything of the two of us when we first got Marie her new identity four years ago,” Heath explains. “What’s so special about you? No offense, because I know you’re special, but how does she know that?”

“Maybe it doesn’t really have anything to do with us,” Mateo suggests. “Maybe she has a gambling problem, and lost all her money the day before we walked in her door. Maybe her brother’s been locked up in a federal prison, and she wants us to get them out. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”

Leona is grateful that her husband came up with an alternative to her theory that Heath is a mole. “That’s really creative, honey, but we don’t have the luxury of believing in coincidences. I haven’t seen a coincidence since 2028.”

“Trying to figure out what she’s up to isn’t going to do any good unless we can speak with her directly,” Angela believes. “For now, we have to plan tomorrow’s events.”

“Tomorrow’s events?” Marie questions, confused. “We’re not leaving until Wednesday.”

“Yes,” Heath begins, “so we’re going to spend the whole day together, just the six of us. We’ll have a special breakfast, a special lunch, and a special dinner, along with a few other surprises.”

“Don’t worry,” Angela continues, “we’re not gonna parade down the streets. We’ll just secretly see you off. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” Marie replies with a smile. “That’ll be great.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 7, 2398

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Leona opens the door without knocking, a little surprised to find it unlocked, but not showing it. The forger has security cameras around the outside, so she always knows when someone is coming. That’s not what it is this time, though. She’s not here at all. The whole place has been completely cleaned out, and cleaned up. Leona rubs her index finger on the counter. Not a single mote of dust, grease, or anything else has been left behind. It smells of bleach, implying that the one who once called this her office has left, whether it be because she was getting too involved with their team, or for other reasons. Perhaps the authorities are on to her, or she’s paranoid about the possibility. Or maybe this is just something she does every now and then. Either way, it suggests that she’s out of their lives forever, and Mateo won’t have to pretend to be a federal agent, or find a way out of it. Leona is about to leave when something catches her eye.

A gray something or other is peeking out from around the corner on one of the lockers towards the back. More curious than anything, she goes over to check it out. It’s a pantsuit, fit for a woman of her measurements. Developing the sickening feeling that she’s going to regret it, she opens the locker to find six more like it, of various designs. On the little shelf above is a badge and gun. Cardinal Agent Miriam Salinas of the National Intelligence Authority. There’s an oddly intimidating logo in the corner that looks like a numeral six, with a line against the right side, and a curve flowing the opposite direction on the bottom.

Leona stares at her picture on the left side of the ID. She glances to the sidearm occasionally, and also the wardrobe. This is what she wanted. She wanted to keep Mateo out of it, and take on the burden. The problem is, how did the forger know that? As she’s staring, she thinks about all the people they have been in contact with since they came to this reality. She hasn’t found herself with the ability to trust even one of them. Even Heath is suspect. He just happened to catch wind of Marie’s supernatural arrival, and chose to keep it secret, and now they’re married? She hasn’t said anything, because they seem happy, but who is this guy, and why is he so cool about all this? If anyone’s a mole, it has to be him, because no one knew that Leona was planning to take Mateo’s place except for him, and the team. Ramses hasn’t stopped checking the condo for bugs since he first freaked out about the possibility.

This is okay. It’s going to be okay. While three of them are off on their special mission, Leona can keep an eye on this Heath Walton fellow, and decide whether he could have some kind of ulterior motive. She sticks the badge in her pocket, hooks the holster to her belt, conceals it with a blazer, and gathers the rest of the suits. In her first timeline, she would play secret agent with a neighbor kid. This experience is evidently about to become useful.

What she didn’t know as she was having that last thought is just how right she was. As she’s walking back to Heath’s car, another car pulls up. She catches the glint of red and blue in the grill, which tells her that it’s an unmarked law enforcement vehicle of some kind. She has enough time to pop the trunk, and toss the wad of clothes in, but if she tries to do the same for the gun, they’ll just see it. It’s much better if she leaves it hidden, and hopes that they don’t find a reason to search her person. A woman gets out of the driver’s side, and a man gets out of the passenger seat. They’re both wearing suits, and approaching like cops who aren’t presently afraid of their situation.

“Agent Collar. This is my local police liaison, Detective Horton. Mind telling me what division you’re with?”

Now, Leona knows what division she’s with. Her badge says so. The problem is, she doesn’t know how a real agent would say that, or really what she would say in this situation, full stop. Would a real agent say the whole thing, or would she just say NIA? Would she throw around a proverbial ruler, or be all nice about it? Maybe she ought to just let the badge itself do the talking. She pulls it out, which reveals the gun on her belt, which is probably not secured according to regulations.

The agent’s eyes widen in—is that horror, or deference? “Oh, SD6. Sorry, sir. I had no idea. We got a tip about this spot. What would you like us to do?” Deference.

Recalling the mumbo jumbo she’s heard on TV, and hoping this reality uses the same nomenclature, Leona nods once. “Get forensics down here. It’s been scrubbed, but maybe there’s something here that they missed.”

“Right away, sir.” She clears her throat suggestively to her liaison.

He’s a little slow, but gets the idea, and goes back to the car to radio the station.

“Any leads?” Agent Collar asks.

When Leona first put on this blazer, she noticed something rather light tap against her chest. She kind of ignored it, because it didn’t seem too important. Now she realizes that it’s just a pair of sunglasses in the inside pocket. Still thinking about how someone in her position might act given the circumstances—as seen through the lens of a highly stylized and melodramatic police procedural—she suavely places them on her face, and jerks her lapels down in a commanding sort of way. “I’ll run them down myself. Just secure the scene. I’ll call you if I need backup.”

Agent Collar nods respectfully, and lets Leona get in her car, but then realizes something. “Oh, wait. Let me give you my card.”

“I can find your number if I want it,” Leona tells her coolly just before slamming the door shut. She drives off under the speed limit. Shit, did that just work?

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 18, 2376

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A message popped up on the table hologram, showing a series of symbols that Mateo did not recognize, as well as diagrams and graphs. Leona and Ramses squinted their eyes and studied them for a moment. Angela and Olimpia tried to do the same, but they couldn’t interpret it any better than Mateo, so they eventually gave up too. “It’s a math problem,” Leona decided. “Really simple too, just not in Arabic script.”

“L-O-L, it’s pi,” Ramses said. “Reply in pi, use Arabic.”

“Yeah,” Leona agreed. She quickly typed out the answer. “Fifteen digits should be more than enough to satisfy this little test.”

“Are we sure we want to respond to these people?” Olimpia asked as the voice of reason.

“If they’re the type to fire upon a helpless six-person ship for giving the right answer, they’re surely the type to fire upon us for not answering, or giving the wrong one, for that matter,” Leona reasoned. She did wait a moment before pressing enter, in case there were any further objections.

A few seconds passed before the hologram changed into the image of a human being. “Greetings from The SWD Investigator. We do not recognize your vessel. Where do you come from?” the little guy asked.

“Greetings to you too,” Leona replied. “This is Captain Leona Matic of the stateless private vessel known as the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. We hail from Earth, but the ship was constructed on Proxima Doma, Proxima Centauri.”

The hologram looked confused. “Earth, you say?”

“Indeed. There may be a time discrepancy.”

“Quite,” the hologram agreed. “It is the standard year 22,376.”

“Hmm,” Angela noted. “Twenty-two thousand years exactly into the future.”

“We don’t know that,” Ramses pointed out. “We were scheduled to restart the calendar in two centuries. Who knows how many times they do something like that?”

The man had been listening to them politely as they spoke amongst each other. “Is your ship capable of light year burst mode?”

“It is not,” Leona responded. They were too far advanced for her to lie and risk ending up on their bad side. “We operate at a maximum speed of seven-oh-seven-c.”

“Interesting. You may dock with us, and we will transport you to the Wanderer.” He closed the transmission, leaving the hologram with an image of the space above them, where his ship was opening up to accept them.

“That must be the W in SWD,” Olimpia figured.

“Do we run?” Mateo asked. “Serious question.”

“We don’t,” Leona answered. “Trust, but verify.” Leona activated the teleporter for a single jump into the belly of the beast.

No one came to the docks to speak with them, so they just waited until the hatch opened up again, and a clearly automated voice instructed them to, “please exit the Investigator, and follow the highlighted route.”

The presently personality-less AI of the AOC accepted the coordinates, and transported them to the surface of an even larger vessel, which Leona and Ramses explained was probably an understatement. They couldn’t quite tell how massive it was, but it appeared to be larger than a star.

Now a woman was waiting for them when they exited their ship, and climbed down the steps. “Please follow me to the Office of the Director of Alien Affairs. She will be...extremely pleased to meet you. If you are telling the truth that you are stateless, you’ll be the first true alien we’ve ever met. We would be interested to know why you look so human.”

“So would we,” Mateo said. He had a pretty good idea why, though.

They entered a teleportation closest, and transported down to the deepest, darkest, section of the whole facility. Of course, they didn’t really know that was what it was, but it sure felt like it. It was dark anyway. “There ya go,” she said with what looked like a slight shiver. She reentered the closet before they could ask any more questions.

They walked down the rest of the corridor, and knocked on the only door they saw. A hairy animal that resembled an ape of some kind opened the door, and looked them over. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“We’re, uhh...” Leona began, “aliens.”

“How do you know?” the ape questioned.

“We’re from Earth,” Leona added.

“This is Earth,” the ape contended. “What’s become of it at least.”

“We’re from the original Earth,” Leona clarified. “When it was a planet?”

The ape sighed deeply. “Come on in, I’ll run some tests.” She began to mutter under her breath. “Can’t possibly be aliens. Time travelers, sure, but I don’t know how they got past The Barricade.” She squeezed them all onto a couch that would not have been fit for three adults. She tried to scan them with a device before realizing she was pointing in the wrong direction, and had actually been scanning herself.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Ramses asked.

“And I suppose you do?” the ape spat back.

He scoffed lightly. “I’m the engineer, Ramses Abdulrashid. This is our Captain, Leona Matic, First Officer Mateo Matic, and Crewmen Angela Walton and Olimpia Sangster.”

“Titles and ranks TBD,” Mateo said. Not once had anyone ever referred to him as the First Officer.

“Whatever,” the ape said dismissively. “I am Salufi.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Salufi,” Ramses said politely.

She closed her scanner, and carelessly tossed it onto a chair. “This damn thing can’t tell what you are, but what makes you think you’re an alien? Earth hasn’t been a planet for tens of thousands of years, but you’re still one of us. You’re an ancestor, I guess.”

All this time, Leona had been staring at something on the wall, chin resting in a palm attached by an arm to an elbow resting on Mateo’s knee. “I keep seeing that symbol. What does it mean?” It was a fairly simple graphic. A large arch was on the outside, followed by a second arch inside of it, which would be identical to the first, except it was broken down the middle. Inside of that was an arch broken into three parts, and then four, and then five.

Salufi looked over at it like it wasn’t important. “It’s The Fifth Division. That’s how our culture got started.” She scoffed harshly. “That symbol has existed long before you would have been born. If you have your own ship, and know how to use it—”

“We didn’t tell you we had a ship,” Angela argued.

“I knew you were coming,” Salufi explained. “You think I didn’t know? We’re not idiots around here. Do you wanna know about the symbol, or not?”

“Go on,” Leona urged.

“In the beginning, there was unity. One peoples, on Earth. Then a small group of them decided that they wanted to go back in time to—I guess—rule the world, or something. They call this The First Division. Well, about half of them wanted to go back only a little bit, while the other half wanted to go back thousands of years. They call it The Second Division. We don’t know what happened to the less ambitious half; their existence was probably negated by the people who went back further. Those people stayed there for a little bit, grew their numbers, and then decided to go to another dimension. Some of them—very few of them—chose to stay. They call it The Third Division. We don’t know what happened to those who stayed, they probably just lived their lives, and died pointlessly. In that other dimension, the people I think did rule over all of reality, making changes. Or no, wait, they were undoing changes that other travelers were making. Yeah, that was it. Well, apparently they got bored, so nearly all of them left; went back down to Earth. The Fourth Division. Finally, some of them chose to stay there, and do whatever. The rest, well, they went back in time again. We don’t know how far back, but either way, it certainly negated everything that had ever happened to them and their ancestors. It was they who developed the civilization you see before you. We call them...The Fifth Division. That’s their symbol.”

“Easter Island,” Leona said cryptically. “She’s talking about The Gallery.”

“The Gallery, yeah, yeah,” Salufi realized. “The other dimension was called the Gallery.”

“That’s where the Prestons lived,” Leona explained to the group when it was clear they didn’t know or recall what she was talking about. “A bunch of people used to work there, but when they left, Athanaric Fury had to keep things running with a skeleton crew composed of the couple, their three...clay children, and himself.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Mateo said. “We met the Prestons. They weren’t erased from the future by these Fifth Division travelers.”

“No, they wouldn’t have been able to,” Leona said, getting excited. “The creation of the Gallery dimension was a fixed moment in time. It could not be undone. If they wanted to create a timeline where it didn’t exist, it would have to be concurrent with the main sequence. We’re in an alternate reality; just like The Parallel. We probably didn’t even jump forward in time. This is probably still 2376, except as Ramses assumed, it’s a different calendar, because an advanced peoples created one long before the one we used could have been standardized.”

“We are aliens,” Ramses declared. “Being from an alternate reality counts.”

Leona nodded in agreement. The rest of them weren’t so pleased. What fresh hell awaited them here?

“Okay,” Salufi said, slapping her knees. She stood up, and lifted the Fifth Division symbol they were all talking about from the plaque on the wall. This revealed a big red button. She pressed it, sounding a terrible alarm throughout the room.

“I am not going back to jail,” Angela said definitively.

“I’m tired of being locked up too,” Leona agreed.

“Sync up and jump,” Ramses said as he literally took a stand.

Leona synced their cuffs, and tried to jump them back to the AOC. They could see it before them, but it didn’t stay where it was meant to be. It quickly disappeared, only to be replaced by the wall in Salufi’s office. Then it returned. They just kept flickering back and forth between the dock and the office, dozens of times before Salufi engaged some special temporal device, and permanently pulled them back into the office.

“You think you can just teleport wherever you want?” she asked rhetorically. “Time powers are heavily regulated in this reality. You’re gonna stay here until the authorities come to scoop you up. My department handles aliens who evolved somewhere else in the universe, of which we have so far found none. Soon, you won’t be my problem anymore, and I’ll go back to my nice life of not doing a damn thing all day, which is why I pursued this career in the first place. Until then, sit your hairless asses back down on the couch!”

The authorities did come to scoop up the team. They didn’t lock them up in a cell, though. They just quarantined them in their ship until they could figure out whether they were a threat. They wrongfully figured they would have at least one day to wait.

“We have one shot at this,” Leona said. “Can you do it?”

“Yes,” Ramses said. “We can attach ourselves to any object. Usually, we don’t want to do that, because we want to stay on the celestial object we’re already on, but just because we’re inside this matrioshka brain doesn’t mean we have to stay here.”

“Still,” Leona continued, “I want to be as unpredictable as possible. “Olimpia, you remember how to set the ship to burst mode?”

“Yes,” Olimpia replied. “Six bursts, six AU.” Hull integrity was predicted to degrade past that.

“Angela, time battery?”

“Fifty-six percent,” Angela answered.

“Ramses?” Leona asked simply.

“We won’t be stuck in one place when we’re done, but we still won’t have a power source to replenish our reserves.”

“I wish we had asked for them before they knew what we were,” Leona lamented. “Okay, we’ll build that bridge when we get to it. Mateo.”

“Yes, boss?” he said, hoping to contribute in some way.

“Were I you,” she said.

“Were I you,” he echoed.

“Okay,” Leona decided. “Timing is everything. We’re coming up on midnight. The stellar engine is operational. They should be far from this location by the time we come back a year from now. If all goes according to plan, they will assume we found a way to escape, not that we jumped to the future.”

A few minutes later, everyone was ready at their action stations. Angela was monitoring communications and ship systems, ready to report if the natives realized what they were up to. Olimpia was hovering her hand over the button, ready to activate the teleporter for six fairly short jumps. Ramses was down in the engineering section, ready to do whatever. Leona was there to coordinate. Mateo was making tea. “They should have never underestimated you people,” he pointed out. He sure got lucky, falling in with this good lot of people. His life could have ended up a lot worse.

Leona began to count them down by the second. “Six, five, four, three, two, one, mark!” They jumped into the future, as did the AOC. Olimpia sent them six AU away, just to be safe. The matrioshka brain was gone, but that didn’t mean they were alone.

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Microstory 1778: Bullsh

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I was a terrible liar when I was young. I would keep doing bad things, and trying to hide it from my parents, and they always realized right away that I wasn’t telling the truth. I just kept trying, and they kept seeing right through it. My father would get angry about it, and my mom was always disappointed, but not in the way you think. She too was a liar, but an expert at it. Over the years, I learned more about who she was, and what she did behind everybody’s backs. She shoplifted, pulled mean-spirited pranks on complete strangers, and cheated on her husband more times than want to think about. I was basically just like her, except that I wasn’t good at keeping secrets. Seeing my potential, she took special interest in me, but you wouldn’t know it if you were looking from the outside. She treated our lessons just like she did anything else, as nobody else’s business. Mother was a grifter before she met dad. He was the first man she met who she didn’t want to screw over, so she gave up that life, and settled down. She couldn’t let go of her compulsive habits, but she was no longer taking thousands of dollars from her victims. He provided them both with more than enough money, and that was really all she cared about, unlike the con artists you see in the movies, who apparently mostly do it for the thrill. She couldn’t be sure I would grow up to be a functioning member of society with a decent job, so she felt that she needed to teach me her old ways so I would have something to fall back on no matter what. It wasn’t normal, and it wasn’t moral, but she taught me that everyone has to come up with their own set of morals, and I believed her without question, because I couldn’t tell when she was lying. I’m better at spotting it now that I’ve gone through all my lessons, so I know that she legitimately believed that. Before she passed, she lived her life with no regrets, and she wanted me to live mine the same way. I have, but not as she imagined. I use my powers for good.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has an entire division dedicated to fraud, and that’s all well and good, but they don’t do what I do. They investigate crimes with forensics, by hunting for, and searching through, evidence. They don’t know what a grifter looks like. They just know what their victims look like when they’re done with them. It’s really obvious too, when a corporate executive turns out to have been embezzling, or cheating their customers out of the product or services they paid for. How do you find out which ones are bad, and which ones are good? Simple: they’re all bad. Every single one of them is a devil, and they’re not even in disguise. What I do is go after the people that are in disguise, or who work in the shadows. They make small scams here and there, which add up to a lot, and ruin a lot of people’s lives without anyone ever knowing their true identities. I can practically smell when someone is getting scammed. There’s a certain lightness in the air that most people can’t detect. I can teach you to find these people too. I believe everyone at this continuing education seminar can help me grow my team of investigators, which focuses on stopping the fraudsters that aren’t out in the open, and don’t ever end up in the news. I know I can do this for you, because I...do not even work for the FBI. I made this badge in the bathroom this morning, after waking up and deciding on a whim what I was going to do today. I’m that good. Your real teacher will be coming in soon, but don’t tell her that I was here. She’ll ground me for a month if she finds out that I snuck into her building yet again. Parents just don’t understand, right?

Microstory 1374: Internal Candidate

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Internal Candidate: I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. I understand that people like me aren’t normally given the opportunity to apply for this position.

Hiring Manager: People like you? I want to assure you that our company does not discriminate against a candidate or employee based on race, gender, age—

Internal Candidate: I mean an internal candidate. You always hire at this level from the outside.

Hiring Manager: Do we?

Internal Candidate: Uh, it’s my job to examine and understand trends. Yes, you definitely do. You’ve never promoted someone to this—or a comparable—level from the inside. Employees call it the promotion ceiling, because, as you said, it doesn’t seem to be based on protected classes. You regularly promote people all the way into my current level, but for the next one, you always look for external candidates, and then continue to promote from there.

Hiring Manager: Really?

Internal Candidate: Yeah, you don’t even post this on the internal job listings.

Hiring Manager: I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this. I don’t normally conduct these interviews personally. I’m just the one who’s in the office right now.

Internal Candidate: Yes, because I requested this meeting via email, since I wasn’t allowed to apply through the system.

Hiring Manager: You couldn’t have just found it on one of the job board sites?

Internal Candidate: The questionnaire asks whether you or a family member works, or has worked, for this company. If you check yes, it will disqualify you from consideration shortly thereafter. It doesn’t technically say that’s why, but...I’m pretty sure that’s why.

Hiring Manager: We use a contractor, of course, to manage our listings. I was not aware of this problem. I assure you that this is entirely an error. At least, if it’s not, I was somehow left out of the decision-making process.

Internal Candidate: Yeah. So, does this mean you’re willing to interview me?

Hiring Manager: I think I already am.

Internal Candidate: Okay.

Hiring Manager: Have you noticed any other issues like this? Have you seen discrimination of any other kind, or unfair disadvantages, or other weird things?

Internal Candidate: Well, in terms of the hiring structure, not really. I’m sure there’s plenty of discrimination happening we don’t know about; either because the manager doesn’t let on that they’re doing it, or they don’t even realize their prejudices themselves. I do know of one thing that’s frustrated our customers, though.

Hiring Manager: Oh, please, what is it?

Internal Candidate: Well, we have a product return policy of sixty days. You can request an extension, starting on day sixty-one, and ending on day ninety. It’s a form you fill out online, and an actual person has to review these every single time.

Hiring Manager: Yes, I am aware of this policy.

Internal Candidate: Well it’s fine, except I guess the system has some sort of software bug. To fill out the form, you have to input the order confirmation code, of course, and if the order was placed sixty-two days ago, the form just won’t submit. Which obviously just defeats the purpose, unless you happen to be precisely one day late. Customers have been forced to print out the form, fill it out manually, and either fax it in, or send it through snail mail.

Hiring Manager: Oh, that’s terrible. I don’t remember the last time I sent a fax, or used the mail service for anything short of a package.

Internal Candidate: Same.

Hiring Manager: I suppose it’s at least good that they do have some kind of workaround.

Internal Candidate: Yes, and no. The fact that there is a workaround has prevented us from correcting the mistake. If it just didn’t work at all, we would be flooded with complaints, and someone probably would have done something to solve it. Though, I have heard anecdotal evidence that some customers just give up, and keep the tools they don’t really want.

Hiring Manager: That’s a good point.

Internal Candidate: Yeah.

Hiring Manager: So, you’re applying for a management position in the marketing department?

Internal Candidate: That’s right, sir.

Hiring Manager: As a hiring manager, I have the authority to contrive new positions, within any department in this division. I can, however, speak with my counterparts in other divisions, and increase that scope.

Internal Candidate: I’m sorry, I don’t understand.

Hiring Manager: I’m formulating a plan. I think the company as a whole would benefit from a job—or even an entire department—that’s solely responsible for catching these types of errors, and coming up with solutions. How would you like to get a real promotion, and really break through this ridiculous promotion wall?

Internal Candidate: Wow, um...yes.