Microstory 2759: Sunk Cost

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash 1.1

Elise is the last person to emerge from the depths. She practically begged one of the other hunters to come with them, but they refused. They said they didn’t want this anymore, and would be finding a way back or out. The implication was that they would kill themselves, but Elise didn’t ask any more questions. It is not her job to protect strangers. Suicide isn’t impossible these days, but it’s much harder for most than it used to be. A version of them will survive out there somewhere unless they don’t want it to.

So she went into the fountain behind the others. She didn’t have to put any effort into swimming. It was like the water sucked her down before pushing her back out at full speed. It was really hot for a minute there too. Now she’s in the torrent of the open water with no land in sight. She appears to be completely alone.

She feels a pair of hands on her chest. “Elise! We thought you were lost!”

Elise can’t even tell who it is amidst the chaos of the storm raging above them. She turns around to find Colley. “Where are we? Where are the others?” she cries.

“Get on my back!” he shouts back. “We found something!”

After she climbs on and straddles his hips, he breaststrokes away. They end up traveling pretty far. It’s a wonder, really, how he managed to find her at all.

At last, she sees the others. They’re huddled together, and staying together, which must mean they’re holding onto something. It’s too dark to see it. Only when Colley pulls her right up and helps her get a handhold does she realize where she is. Or she can guess, anyway. It appears to be the crow’s nest of some kind of wooden ship. Minotaur and the Bidan girl are standing in it, on either side of the pole thing. Everyone else is holding onto the railing thing so they at least don’t have to waste energy treading.

The irony is that Elise was just about to start learning how to sail one week after Rage found her in Skilldome. She saw underwater basketweaving as a cute transition to it. After she mastered a regular basket, she was intending to weave a model of a ship, and then she would take it with her to the docks. It was going to be this whole thing. To be fair, she was going to learn 21st century sailing at first, and only maybe make her way down the centuries after that, but it doesn’t matter, because now she knows nothing. It’s a pole thing and a railing thing until someone tells her exactly what they’re called.

They spend hours there, because there’s nothing else they can do. Before Elise arrived, Zelda reportedly climbed up to the very tippy-top to get a look around, but the waves were too big and the moon too obscured by clouds. There are some waterfronts in Treasure Hunting Dome. There are plenty of challenges to be completed involving the water. But it doesn’t have anything like this. Elise knows that because Rage made them memorize as much of the layout of the dome as is publicly available. You need space to make the kind of storm and angry sea that they’re dealing with right now, and where they were before simply doesn’t have it. But two domes have exactly that. One is called Polar Tropica. It’s a gargantuan resort. The other...is Aquilonian Deep.

Miracle must not have been lying. Time travel is real, and they just came out of a portal. They didn’t simply jump into the fountain and sink to another level of Treasure Hunting Dome, or even the next dome over. They were sent halfway across the planet in the short amount of time they could hold their breaths. Now anything’s possible.

The seven of them take turns standing up while everyone else holds onto the sides. They are able to yell a few things at each other, but it’s too loud to have full on conversations. Elise explains that she stayed behind to try to convince the other hunter to come with them. Zelda confirms the time travel when she explains that she was here alone for a few minutes before the next person bobbed up. Each time someone new appeared, they reported that only seconds separated them at the fountain, even though minutes passed for those already here. They ultimately waited almost an hour before Elise came. When she asked them how they knew she was there in the first place, they said lightning would strike the spot where they were just about to come up. But Elise knows the truth. The lightning wasn’t marking the spot. They were riding the lightning.

The storm passes, and the sun rises in the sky, no doubt programmed or controlled by Hrockas or his Custodians. They’re dead tired, but still alive, and everyone here still wants to fight. This whole time, ever since the locker room, no one has brought up the fact that only one person can win. What’s the point? Except for one person now, they’re all friends. And the Bidan, Laise LeMaire, is quickly becoming part of the team too. Whatever the prize is, they can surely share it one way or another. It doesn’t help to become cutthroat now, especially not since it will take all of them to survive this.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” Laise says. “I’ve been trying to remember the stories I was told from my home planet. I lived in a particularly advanced region, but many others were intentionally rustic. Some had boats like whatever we’re on top of right now. They never sank, because while they looked antiquated, the underlying structure was more modern. But I used to date one guy who grew up on one of these ships, and he talked about the real past—I’m giving you way too much background. I’m saying they had ways to lift sunken boats. It wasn’t easy, but it didn’t require gizmos or gadgets either. But we do need a lot of barrels, and even more patience.”

Without even asking for Laise to elaborate, Zelda volunteers to dive down to see how many barrels the boat has, if any. They don’t know this woman yet, but they trust that she wants to survive as much as they do, even if she has stopped caring about winning. Elise volunteers to go down too, because while she never had the chance to learn to sail, she absolutely knows how to freedive. It was one of the first things she practiced when she came to this planet. They search all over, but only find twenty.

“That’s not enough,” Laise says, shaking her head. “You said there were cannons down there too? That’s not enough. We would need at least twice that.”

“What if we got rid of the cannons,” Colley suggests. “While we’re at it, get rid of the chains and the big metal grate thing. Take out everything unnecessary.”

“I am not good enough at math to know whether that would work,” Laise admits. “The guy said forty. I guess I don’t really know what kind of boat he was talking about.”

“What exactly do we do with these barrels?” Rage asks her.

Laise sighs. “We attach them to the bottom of the boat, and then we pump the water out. Once they’re all filled with air, they should lift the boat out of the water.”

They stare at her like they can’t believe their ears. It sounds insane, and insanely grueling. Elise saw where they are, though. They’re sitting on the edge of a sea shelf, and there is no other land in sight. Their only hope is to get this bucket out of the water so they can stand. They’ll figure out how to move it after that. If this doesn’t work, they could die from exposure. But not starvation or scurvy. The barrels are evidently filled with fruit. There’s no drinking water, though, so they take a vote. Either they go for it, or let themselves die just to escape and give up. It’s unanimous.

Microstory 2758: Headwater

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash 1.1

The survivors look up at the sky, expecting Hrockas to reappear to announce Miracle’s death, like this is some kind of dystopian survival game. He doesn’t do that, though, and doesn’t need to. They all saw it. Miracle’s first teleportation could have been a weird trick of the mind, but it’s harder to explain it away this time. It looks like various forms of time travel are possible, and that one of these forms killed her. She will survive, or at least one version of her will. She will have no memories of her life after she was taken from her hotel room, and thrown out the window at the start of this. It’s unclear what she’ll think happened, or what she’ll do now. She may try to fight her way back, but if they really are in another dimension, that might be impossible.

The stakes have officially been raised. Death is plainly on the table, and the traps might be unpredictable, and even inexplicable. They have no idea where any other mines could be hiding. Hrockas wouldn’t have let them get this far if there were no way out, though. If he actually didn’t want them to find the treasure, he probably would have simply erased their memories. That’s not illegal here in the Charter Cloud of the galaxy.

“This is another escape room,” Rage determines. “I’ve even played one very similar to this before. They were regular land mines, of course, but the trick is finding the only safe path between them. We need to get to higher ground.”

“I will take care of that,” Zelda volunteers. She tries to jump up to a beam attached to the outside of the dome, but she can’t get that high in her tiny frame.

Minotaur helps her up. They’re taller, so they follow on their own with less issue.

They can’t climb up too far because they’re constantly curving away from the street, eventually reaching a point where they would lose the perspective advantage.

“See anything notable?” Rage shouts up to them. “Darkened squares? Anything?”

“There’s nothing!” Zelda cries back. “Minotaur is getting nauseated!”

“Come on back down!” Rage tells them. “It’s not safe!”

Everyone has been looking up at them, of course, but Elise has just now realized that Colley has been looking in the wrong direction. His eyesight is darting back and forth across the sky, and he sometimes turns completely. “What is it?” she asks.

“Has anyone here been to Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida?” Colley asks.

“I have,” says one of the only two remaining hunters from Miracle’s team. Elise has not even gotten the chance to learn her name yet, even though it would have been plastered on her locker at the starting line. “I was born on a stasis ship that was part of the original fleet because my parents were awake the whole time as Shepherds.”

“Do you know Bida’s constellations?” Colley presses. “Because I don’t...except for that one.” He points. “That’s the feather duster, which is how I know this is a clue, because we’re a hundred light years from Tau Ceti. It has to be on purpose.”

The girl looks up as well. “Umm...I think you’re right, but I’m not much into the astrology. Unlike Earth, my ancestors never needed stars to navigate. Colonists contrived constellations for fun, according to what I remember. I think that might be the River Dhel, though. It’s the most important one for many of the world’s superstitions because it reflects the real river for a brief window every night.”

“When is the window?” Elise asks her. “And does anyone have a watch?”

“I have a watch on my multitool,” Minotaur says as Jolanda is helping them back down to the ground. “Why do we need it? What did we miss while we were up there?”

“The window depends on what day of year it is,” Colley explains. “We would need a Bidan calendar, and we would need to know what time it is—”

“We don’t need a Bidan calendar,” the Bidan girl argues. “I know we don’t need it because we don’t have it, and had no chance of taking one with us. I just need to know what time it is right now. It doesn’t even have to be the right time according to anyone in the outside world. Hrockas would have accounted for that when programming it.”

“She’s right,” Elise agrees. “You have a timekeeper because he wanted you to.”

“It’s 20:42,” Minotaur answers. “It’s true, I don’t know what planet.”

“For now, it’s Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida,” the Bidan decides, “and we’re too late. The reflection happens at the same time as the lunar culmination every year on the same night between 20:24 and 20:31. It’s a holiday. We took too long to figure out the clue.”

“Point out the river again,” Colley says. He moves over to stand next to her. They quietly work out exactly which stars make up the constellation while he looks down at the ground, a little off to the side, away from Miracle’s still dead body. “We got it.”

“You remember where the stars were fifteen minutes ago?” Rage asks him.

Colley clicks his tongue and taps on his head. “Hrockas can force me into any substrate he wants, but he can’t stop me from having an eidetic memory,” he echoes Miracle from before she hit an apparent teleportation mine and fell to her death.

Rage takes a breath. “Okay, we’ll draw for lead. Colley, you’re out of the running this time since you have the map. Our new Bidan friend is too for the same reason.”

“No, please don’t draw,” Jolanda says. “I’ve not been contributing anything to the hunt, and need to feel useful. I’ll take lead. I had a conversation with myself shortly before my consciousness stream was cut. I’m prepared to wake up without memories.”

“Okay, we have a volunteer.” Rage looks around at the group. “Any objections?”

No one objects, so Jolanda stands in front. Colley stands behind her, but far enough away to be hopefully safe from the blast of a land mine. It will hopefully not happen at all, but they’re not too naïve to be prepared for it. Everyone else walks in a single-file line behind him and the Bidan. Colley directs Jolanda slowly. The assumption is that the river mouth ends at the fountain in the center of the square. It’s less likely that they would have to walk the entire length of the river in order to perfectly replicate what the believers on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida would do during their special annual holiday. They seem to be correct once they reach that fountain and no one has died yet. Assuming this will lead them further down the path to their prize, there’s now another puzzle to solve, though. And they don’t know where to begin.

Zelda sticks her face in the dark water. She then slowly starts diving deeper and deeper until only her feet remain, which Rage and Elise have to hold onto so she doesn’t sink to the bottom. After a few more seconds, she taps on her own hip, which they take to mean it’s time to pull her up. “It’s bottomless.”

“You don’t know that,” the other non-team member contends.

“I think we’re supposed to get in,” Zelda figures. “A leap of faith.”

The Bidan nods. “In my planet’s origin story, which we all know someone made up, the creator God takes a leap of faith in the River Dhel where she finds the energy she needs to conjure the star.” She points to a sculpture. “She is represented by a fish.”

That’s all Zelda needs. She jumps in headfirst. Nearly everyone else follow.

Microstory 2757: Point of No Return

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash 1.1

Jolanda tries to walk out the door into the empty city, but Rage warns her off, saying that something is still wrong. They must have assembled the puzzle incorrectly. Perhaps it poisoned them and caused them all to lose time, or there’s just something weird going on that none of them can explain.

“I can explain it,” Miracle says as she walks right outside. “We are in a Facsimile.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Rage is in the doorway to protect everyone else.

Miracle rolls her eyes, and waves her arms like she’s parting the Red Sea. “Would you please? I need everyone to see and hear me.” She sighs. “I didn’t know we would encounter time travel on this journey. I thought it was possible, but I guess I gave Hrockas too much credit. I don’t have the time or bandwidth to explain everything, so let’s just go over the basics. Has anyone seen an old show called Stranger Things?”

A few people raise their hands, including Colley.

“There’s an evil world in that show that looks just like ours, except there aren’t any people in it, and it’s horrific. There are all sorts of vines and mold covering everything, and toxic particles float around all the time. Spoiler alert, what they eventually discover is that this copy of the world was created on a particular day in the past, like a snapshot of a single moment. That is basically what this is, but without the horror overtones. Well...there was that one time when zombies and other monsters were fabricated here in secret so they could be let loose on the populace—”

“I remember that,” Zelda jumps in. “I was trying to relax in Mildome when a serial killer from Bloodbourne suddenly attacked. They weren’t too hard to kill, though.”

They all look at her like she’s crazy.

“What? I don’t only spend my time in Adrenadome. I like bees and butterflies.”

“Well,” Miracle continues, “now you know, this is where they came from. I can’t tell you not to worry about lingering monsters, but let’s hope not. The person who controlled them no longer has control over this place. He was sent away. We actually fought alongside each other against a bigger threat, but he never returned. I’m just trying to give you an idea of where we are, and what we’ll find. Any questions so far?”

“Yeah.” Rage raises her hand. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Miracle sighs again. “Hrockas can force me into any substrate he wants, but he can’t stop me from using my powers. Those are based on my neurology, so he would have to kill me to get rid of them.” She squares her shoulders and makes sure that everyone is watching. She disappears, simultaneously reappearing on the ground a few meters away. She screams in agony as she holds her head. “Ah, you son of a bitch, what did you do?” More screaming.

A gargantuan holographic screen resolves in the sky. It’s Hrockas again. “Nuh-uh-uh. No time powers. You think I didn’t plan for that? This world is littered with temporal suppression fields. Good luck turning them all off.” He blinks away.

Elise helps Miracle back to her feet. “Don’t do that again. We get the idea.”

“I’m still not sure I believe it,” Rage reasons. “I can think of four major explanations off the top of my head for what she just did.”

“I have seen people do what she just did before,” Jolanda admits. “I was born on Proxima Doma. Before you ask, I wasn’t on the surface or in low-orbit when it was destroyed, but I did become a refugee. They ferried us to Gatewood where we could choose our final destinations for free. I ultimately opted to transmit my consciousness here, but not before I witnessed a riot that had to be quelled by a bunch of teleporting cops. I don’t think they were faking it. What would have been the point?”

“I’m sorry you went through that.” Minotaur gives Jolanda a hug from the side.

Miracle nods. “The faster-than-light technology some ships use now? Researchers didn’t simply finally figure it out. People like me gave it to them. They had this big meeting in the year 2400 with the, uhh...sort of council. I had nothing to do with it because I’m not on the Shortlist, but there’s a very low chance that your life has not been impacted directly by a time traveler one way or the other, for good or bad.

“Miss Shin, if you were a refugee, you probably spent some time on The Tangent, or at least you saw it. Their artificial gravity was a gift from that council. Hrockas has a number of friends with powers and patterns. A team of them was instrumental in making Castlebourne what it is today, and he continues to employ others. For the most part, they try to keep the tech more conventional, but there are some things normal physics can’t handle.” She gestures at the world around them. “This is proof of that. I’m betting they keep it up and running just in case they ever need it, for times like these.”

“So, what are we facing?” Zelda asks Miracle. “How dangerous is this tech?”

“You’re not actually listening to her,” Rage complains. “We can’t trust her.”

“I’m not trying to be your leader,” Miracle defends. “I’m only giving you the facts. What are we facing? No way to know, but throw your rule book out the window, because it no longer applies. Time travel is a very loose term, and a misnomer. Many who can manipulate spacetime don’t simply move forwards or backwards. Some can turn invisible by basically showing you what’s behind them instead of them. Some can duplicate themselves by pulling from microrealities. Hrockas may only be using this dimension to separate us from gen pop, but he also might be planning to throw temporal obstacles at us. Rage, you can listen to me or not, but if it’s that second option, I have an incredibly unfair advantage, because I’ve seen this stuff before.”

A deafening silence falls, making this city even more a liminal space than it was when they first set foot out here. Miracle could be wrong. The people they saw before might have been volumetric images. Or the dome they were in simply spun around to the other side, which was made to be a replica of this, but never populated. There are other explanations for what happened to them, but on the off-chance that Miracle isn’t mistaken or lying, they have to pay attention to her. Trust, but verify.

Elise stands over by her friend. “Rage is the leader. That’s not changing. Miracle, let’s call you the advisor.” She gestures to her main teammates. “We’ve been working together for weeks, and we know what each other has to offer. We’ve settled into our respective roles, so that can be yours. But until further notice, we must all be in an alliance together. Do you disagree, Miss Brighton?”

Miracle smiles. “I do not. Like I said, I don’t wanna lead. Advisor feels right.”

“Rage?” Elise asks, hoping that the tensions don’t escalate.

“Very well,” Rage decides. “I’ll listen to you, Miracle, but I promise nothing regarding my actions. If I want to make a different call, that’s what I’ll do.”

“Sounds good.” Miracle turns around. “Now. First thing we need to do is check for—” She takes a step forward, and suddenly disappears. A few seconds later, they hear her screaming from the heavens, right before she splats on the ground. “...Time mines.”

Microstory 2756: Skull and Bones

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash 1.1

The conveyor belt is heading for another void. This game has had so many chances already to kill them. If this is another attempt, it would be difficult to avoid. There is no way off this ride. Still, there may be a non-lethal obstacle in the darkness, or on the other side of it. Elise gets on one knee, and plants her other foot firmly on the belt. She holds her hands up defensively, prepared for anything. Well, almost anything.

She passes through the darkness, and catches a glimpse of the opaque dome they’ve entered before the belt ends, and sends her over the edge. She falls a couple of meters before landing on her feet on a mound of human bones. The others are starting to help each other up from the piles of thousands and thousands. It’s maybe a hundred meters wide, dimly lit, and getting dimmer. It’s noticeably cold, but not deathly so.

Elise spins around and opens her arms so when Zelda falls too, she can catch her.

“My hero,” Zelda says in a breathy voice from Elise’s arms.

“Just doin’ my job, ma’am.” Elise is really coming out of her shell now.

“Are these the previous secret hunters?” Minotaur asks, picking up a skull. “Does everyone die in here? From what? More acid rain? A deluge? A furnace?”

“Hold up,” Colley says. “Here, help me push these bones out of the way.”

Jolanda and Rage pull the bones between their legs to give him some space.

Colley gets on his hands and knees and examines the floor below. He then grabs a random femur, and snaps it in half. He puts on his loupe specs to examine the inside.

“Wait, how do you still have those?” Elise questions. “Isn’t this a new body?”

“They were in my locker,” Colley explains as he’s changing lenses. “They’re not my regular ones. They upgraded me.” He looks carefully. “Fake. They probably all are.”

“Plastic, or something else?” Rage picks up another bone and breaks it.

“No, they’re organic,” Colley answers. “The layering is asymmetrical, which is how the best machines do it, but it’s definitely bioprinted. They forgot to include the tendon entheses, and there’s no remaining viscera on the floor, or even residue.”

Elise wades through the bones to get to the wall, not grossed out anymore. “Look for an exit, or signs of Miracle’s friends. They may have already escaped.”

“Those bozos?” Miracle questions. “Not a chance.”

“I found a door!” Jolanda shouts. She’s on the far side of the dome.

“Don’t open it until we’re all over there!” Rage commands. “Elise, take safety.”

Because any door has just as much chance of being a trap as being their salvation, one player is always chosen to stay behind as the designated survivor. It’s also possible that they’ve been doomed, if the door has a time limit, and can’t be reopened, so the role is risky, rather than necessarily safe. Rage has a plan to cycle through the roster fairly.

Elise climbs up to a particularly high bone hill to have a better vantage point, and give her more time to survive if opening the door, say, also opens a drain in the floor.

Once everyone is in place, including Miracle and the strangers, Jolanda waves her hand in front of the entry panel. The door slides into its pocket, revealing...a second door. This one is different, though. Even from here, Elise can see that there are indentations on the door face that are vaguely in the shape of a human body.

“It’s a puzzle,” Colley decides. “We have to fill in the gaps with a full skeleton.”

“Rule number three,” Rage begins. “Don’t try to unlock a door that’s already unlocked.” She nods at Jolanda. “Go ahead, Jo.”

Jolanda takes hold of the knob, turns it successfully, and opens the door.

On the other side is what looks like a city square. Elise climbs down to get a better look. People are milling about, preoccupied with their own lives. They’re dressed in traditional early 21st century garb. Only two things look out of place. A man and a woman wearing the same blue shirt are balancing two bananas each on their head while they sing a song quite poorly. Two other women wearing the same purple shirts are running past them, and opening a mailbox that is conspicuously sitting out in the open.

“Other hunters,” Elise determines as she draws nearer. “This isn’t right.”

“This is obviously our way out,” one of Miracle’s people says.

“Hrockas Steward said that we wouldn’t be hunting around other people,” Minotaur reminds him. “Why break one of his few rules right at the beginning?”

“Who cares?” he asks. “I’m exiting and checking that mailbox for our next clue.”

“I don’t think we have clues,” Colley postulates. “We’re not racing, we’re not being eliminated per leg. I think we only have one goal, and we’re supposed to go straight to that. No, Elise is right. This is a red herring, or some kind of trick.”

“It’s a choice,” Miracle corrects. “If we walk out this door without solving the skeleton puzzle, we’re forfeiting the game. That’s probably where those two assholes ended up. They don’t know what they’re missing. Don’t follow in their footsteps.”

The guy sighs. “Okay, boss. We solve the puzzle.” He steps back in.

Jolanda closes the door back up, and everyone spreads out.

The puzzle is harder than it looks. They’re not just looking for a single copy of every bone. They’re all slightly different sizes, just like they would be if these once belonged to living beings. Each puzzle bone can hold in place on its own on the board, even if the one below it hasn’t been found yet, but only if it’s the correct one. Otherwise, it just falls out. Elise deduces that they used magnets. She turns out to be right.

Like Colley with his spectacles or Zelda with her parachutes, Minotaur never goes anywhere without their multitool. They found it in their locker too, and it includes a very small magnet. It’s not powerful enough to sweep the area for the right bones, but it’s easy enough to test one quickly and toss it aside before moving on to the next.

They created an open space kind of near the door, where they carefully stack the duds. That way, they don’t accidentally test the same ones multiple times. It’s Elise and Jolanda’s job to keep the used stack away from the untested piles by pushing bones around, and maintaining enough space between them at all times.

It starts getting dark in here, and no one has a light, so they open the door just so the natural light comes in for them. Unrelated hunters periodically come up, thinking that it’s important for their race. It’s Rage’s job to back them off by simply saying, “parallel play”. This is a known phrase that warns players that their games are intersecting, and that if they try to find a clue here, they will end up on the wrong track.

After several hours, they finally have the last piece. Fittingly, it’s the skull. It’s a good thing they’re done. The streets are still bustling, but it’s now dark outside too.

“Colley, you do the honors,” Jolanda offers since he served as their puzzle master. She closes the door again, allowing him to ceremoniously place the skull in the last slot. The whole skeleton glows, and they hear a whirring sound. Once Jolanda reopens it, they see the same street again, but now, even though it has only been a few seconds...it’s completely empty.

Microstory 2753: Dropoffs Only

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash 1.1

The football match started right after this Miracle Brighton woman claimed that she and her team were interested in the same thing in Treasure Hunting Dome. Rage didn’t have a chance to talk to her afterwards, because they were separated into different locker rooms, and then she couldn’t locate her again. Rage says that she’s not entirely surprised. The possibility of an ultimate secret prize isn’t something that she randomly came up with on her own. The rumor has been around since Treasure Hunting Dome first opened. Over the decades, with no proof that anyone ever won it, however, most have lost interest. They assume now that it doesn’t exist. Perhaps the rumor was started by the planet owner, who wanted to build hype, or it started organically. The fact that nothing has ever come of it has only served to intrigue Rage more, and Miracle evidently had the same idea. They try to find her on the local network, but no luck.

They train with each other in the Sandbox warehouse for about another week, but they have to be careful, because their efforts are not being made in secret. If they wanted complete privacy, they would have needed to go to a different planet. No one has ever said anything, but it’s plausible that the Custodians who run the game will use the team’s experience against them. If they get really good, for instance, at driving on the right side of the road, they might end up with a task where they have to drive on the left. And if they practice both, they might not get any driving challenge at all, and it will have been a waste of time. There’s no way to know, which also means there’s no reason to keep doing this indefinitely. They all agree that it’s time to dive in head first.

Before the big day, they check into the Apex Suite at the Palacium Hotel for a good night’s rest. Minotaur was able to secure it for them on short notice because they know someone who knows someone who knows someone. They would have been—

Smoke. Smoke and fire. Elise wakes up to find her room ablaze. She checks her consciousness stream and finds that it’s been severed. Her last upload was three hours ago. If she doesn’t get it turned back on, and dies here, the person who boots up in her backup body won’t really be her. It will only be a copy who thinks she’s Elise. How can this place be on fire? Things don’t catch fire anymore. It just isn’t done.

The door bursts off its hinges, and falls to the floor. Jolanda scrambles back up. She scoops Elise off the bed, and carries her out to the common area. It’s on fire too.

“I’m not streaming!” Elise warns.

“None of us is!” Jolanda is still carrying her as she finds her way across the room.

Zelda is holding a chair, pounding the leg against the edges of the window.

“We’re two kilometers up and that’s security glass!” Elise warns. “It won’t break!”

“Not without some help!” Zelda says. “Stand by Mino, Jo!” She keeps pounding.

“I think you can put me down now,” Elise tells Jolanda.

“We agreed that I would be the one to take you out,” Jolanda replies.

“What?” Elise questions. “What do you mean, take me out?”

Rage appears to their left, holding Colley like he’s also a little baby.

Zelda stops striking the glass, and puts her steampunk goggles on. “Ready?”

“Do it,” Rage orders. She grips Colley tighter. “Everyone turn off your lungs!”

Zelda takes Minotaur in one arm, then reaches out with the other to grip the doorknob of what’s either a bathroom or a closet. She yanks it open. It explodes.

Fire rushes out of the room, and crashes into the window. It’s destroyed instantly, and in that same instant, all six of them are sucked out.

Jolanda never lets go, but now she looks more worried than ever. Even though she has less experience skydiving, she doesn’t have none. They wouldn’t have done this if they weren’t each packing the right equipment, like parachutes and/or wingsuits. Why does she look so scared? She holds Elise tighter with one arm while she maneuvers her other one, hovering her watch above Elise’s face.

It takes a second for Elise to realize what Jolanda is trying to show her. Their altitude is about 35,000 meters and falling. They should not be anywhere near that high. That’s damn near the apex of the whole freaking top. Despite its name, that’s not where the Apex Suite sits. It’s just at the top of the building. She turns her head enough to look back up, but whatever they just fell out of has now been covered by clouds. She can see the other two pairs, though. Wait, four—no, six. Other people are also falling alongside them, presumably from some nearby suite that was also on fire. What is happening?

They keep falling for about a minute before Elise gets her head turned enough to see land below. It’s coming up fast. If Jolanda doesn’t do something soon...

“You can turn your lungs back on!” Jolanda shouts. “Or don’t, you don’t need them! But you do need to hold on tighter, with your arms and legs! I need to pull!”

Elise tightens up and buries her face in Jolanda’s neck. She may be falling in love.

Jolanda pulls the ripcord. The parachute flies out of the back of her belt. Elise’s legs slip off, and begin to dangle, but Jolanda wraps her arm back around her to compensate. After a few seconds, the initial shock wears off, and now they’re just floating. They’re actually going to be okay. They’re going to survive this.

Elise gets another look around now, and starts to run attendance. Rage, Colley, Zelda, and Minotaur; everyone’s here. She looks in the other direction, at the strangers. They’re actually not strangers. She recognizes Miracle’s face. She’s holding the girl who did a backflip on the football pitch. Instead of a parachute, they’re staying aloft via Miracle’s white feathered wings. Which is all sorts of crazy, but it’s clearly working.

As they’re drifting towards the ground, Elise feels something bite at her arm. Some kind of bug? She can’t get a look at it to check. She’ll just have to tough it out. But then she feels another bite on her other arm. She also sees rain begin to fall all around them, which doesn’t feel like a coincidence. She looks up in horror to find holes forming on the parachute above them. The holes are growing as something begins to shred the material. Rain plus stinging plus tearing equals only one thing. Acid rain.

Either someone is trying to kill them, or they’re just having a little fun, and they don’t know that the team isn’t streaming properly. The fact that they were somehow moved to the very top of the dome leads her to believe that this is attempted murder. Hours from now, when the unscheduled data gap triggers emergency resuscitation procedures, her latest backup will wake up with no idea what went wrong. She will have no reason to suspect foul play, but at least some version of Elise will exist. With that, there is a modicum of hope for justice.

After only a few seconds, the parachute can’t take it anymore. It violently rips apart, sending Elise and Jolanda away from each other. Not that it matters. At this height, even their advanced substrates won’t survive it. Elise keeps falling and falling until she runs out of room and splats on the ground.

Microstory 2752: Foul Trouble

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash 1.1

Zelda and Jolanda both do a lot of exhilarating activities. Framed one way, they sit on opposing sides of the spectrum. Zelda likes to lose control. It is absolutely possible to be bad at an extreme sport, but once you learn how to do it, a lot of it involves letting go, and allowing the forces of nature take over. Gravity is a big one for them. Jolanda’s thing is all about taking control. When she’s inside of the car—or when she literally is the car—she makes every decision about where it goes, and what it does. For both of them, the work is very tough and strenuous, and they’re all sports, but a certain kind of sport. What they’re doing right now is exploring one of the other kinds.

“Fellow treasure hunters, please allow me to be the first to welcome you all to...Sportsdome,” Rage says dramatically. It’s a surprisingly unpopular dome. That might be a harsh word to use. It’s not as popular as it would be if you picked the whole 83-kilometer diameter dome off of Castlebourne, flew it to Earth, and dropped it somewhere. The problem with this dome is it’s simply a collection of all sports fields of play. There’s nothing innovative about it except the fact that it’s all consolidated. You can get each one of these games anywhere, and for much cheaper than the energy credits it takes to travel to this world. Basically, if sports are your thing, you’re probably better off staying put wherever you already live. Castlebourne is for niche experiences.

“I played one of the ancient games once,” Colley says. I think it was called bolleyball. And I think I only played it because it rhymed with my name.”

“You’re thinking of volleyball,” Jolanda corrects. “I’ve played a ton of these, but only in VR. A lot of people hate that because it isn’t pure, but if you have a halfway decent physics engine and synaptic integration, there’s really no difference these days.”

“What are we doing here?” Zelda asks. She sounds and looks bored.

“Zel, I would have thought you loved this stuff,” Elise points out.

“There are too many rules,” Zelda complains. “I don’t like rules. I mean, back when dying once meant dying forever, I understood the rules for safety. And I even understand them today for the purposes of continuity, pain aversion, and convenience, but these little sports have such arbitrary rules. They’re all, like, you can’t bounce that with two hands, or, it’s gotta bounce once and inside of these white lines. A lot of the rules have to do with bouncing and dropping. I just don’t find it exciting.”

“We’re not here to be excited,” Rage clarifies. “We’re here to learn the mechanics of gameplay. Some of you use your minds, some of you use your bodies. Traditional sports marry the two. Those rules you hate, Zelda, are part of that. You have to remember where the ball goes and how to get it there. You have to see the obstacles in real time, and find a way around them. Half the audience is cheering you on, half of them wanna see you fail. None of you has done activity on behalf of someone else. Even I, who has usually been part of a team, sees an escape room as a private accomplishment. I share the joy of accomplishment with my team, but my mind leans on what I personally got out of it. Sports athletes can’t think like that. Their sole job is to serve the team, even if that means sitting on the bench during a play and encouraging their teammates. That’s why I signed us up for the Total Lifestyle Experience.”

“What’s the total lifestyle experience?” Elise asks as Rage is walking off. She and the others rush to catch up. “Hey, what’s the total lifestyle experience?” she repeats.

An hour later, the six of them are standing on the grass field. They expected a big fancy arena, but this place looks like it’s been neglected. They’re wearing the same uniform, which is a shirt, short shorts, tall socks, and spiky black shoes. There’s another team of six people here, Combined, they’re standing in a triangle shape, using the wall as a third side. At the top point is a scraggly white-haired man. His shorts are even shorter, and he has a whistle. It’s impossible to not notice his whistle.

He’s been whistling this whole time, apparently communicating with the bots who are running around the field, moving equipment around. Now he finally turns to sneer at the players. “So you think you’re good enough for league football, do ya?” he asks in an English accent. “You’re the sorriest lookin’ excuses for players I ever saw this side of the meridian!” He looks at one of the other team’s members. “Your shirt is on backwards, ya wanka! What’s the matter, ya never worn clothes before?”

The youngish-looking girl tries to pull her elbow in to turn the shirt around, but is too embarrassed to keep going, so she ends up pulling it off all the way.

The boss guy, whatever his job is, shakes his head. “Girls in the league. What are we gonna have to let in next? Billy goats!? I long for the days when men were men!”

One of the other women on the other team begins to walk away.

“See, that’s my point. Women can’t handle the stress of being in a real club. What’s your problem, young lady? That time of the month?” He laughs and slaps Minotaur’s shoulder because they’re standing the closest, expecting them to agree.

“I have a vagina too,” Minotaur snaps back, shutting him up.

The blonde woman comes back with a football. Without saying a word, she tosses it towards the girl who was wearing her shirt backwards. The girl does a backflip, kicking the football behind her. As she lands on her feet, the ball ends up square in the goal, which is halfway down the field. “Any questions?” the blonde asks.

Somehow, the old man shuts up even harder. He does eventually have to continue, though. “I have to go make sure there’s no scheduling conflict with the pitch. In the meantime, you can either run drills or talk about your fee-fees.” He walks off.

The blonde from the other team, who appears to be in charge, smirks at the hunters. “We’ve got you on toast. Who do you even play for? I earn your life in a week.”

“Did you have to look up football slang, or does being an arsehole come naturally to you?” Rage volleys.

“Rage, what are you doing?” Elise questions. “What’s happening here?”

“I told you,” Rage begins. “I signed us up for the total experience. We’re a ragtag group of eclectic misfit underdogs. They’re the jerk pros who everyone knows is gonna win the big game until the last second when the shyest and least confident player on our team uses a random, seemingly unrelated, skill from their life for a complete upset.”

The treasure hunters stare at Rage, still not quite understanding the point of it, but also not getting the point of playing football in the first place, so they might as well lean into it. Elise looks back over at the blonde boss. “Wankuh.”

The blonde laughs. “Not quite how you pronounce it, but I’ll take it. Before we play the big game,” she goes on with airquotes, “you should know that we’re after the same thing. There’s a deeper level to Treasure Hunting Dome. We’re gonna find it first.”

Rage looks extremely surprised and distressed. She clearly had no idea.

The blonde smirks again. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Miracle. Miracle Brighton.”

Microstory 2750: Directions

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash 1.1

Now that she realizes there’s another platform on the other side of the gap, Elise can make out the edge. Her flashlight gloves aren’t illuminating Zelda, though, and neither is the glowstick over there. She tries to scan back and forth, but nothing. “Zelda!” she cries. “Zelda, did you survive that? Keep shakin’ that bush!”

“If she fell to her death, we should have heard her screaming,” Colley reasons.

“Not necessarily,” Elise returns. “Some adrenaline junkies die so often that they don’t even have the reflex to scream in fear anymore.”

“You said there was another chute?” asks the girl in the yellow shirt, whose name Elise still doesn’t know.

“That’s what it looks like,” Elise answers. “I would sooner throw my body against the exit than try to do what Zelda did. If she couldn’t make it, I could never.”

“Such a compliment,” Zelda’s voice comes. She’s upside down, hanging over the doorway.

“How are you back on this side?” Colley questions.

“Rule number two,” Zelda begins, “in an escape room, there is always a second way. Come on, I’ll pull you up one by one. The catwalk is narrow, but doable.”

Elise goes up first. She and Zelda then help the others up too. They walk single-file along the three walls until making it to the other side, where they find another door. This one opens up to a garage. It’s barely big enough to fit the land vehicle that’s parked here. Unlike the last room, this room is pure white and glowing. It’s pristine in an eerie sort of way. There are no other doors. The vehicle has nowhere to go. It’s also locked.

“If there’s one thing I know from the few escape rooms I’ve tried,” the yellow-shirt girl says as she’s sidestepping around the car, “is that if they give you a lightswitch, you always flip it.”

All these people have done escape rooms before. Elise has never tried. They take skill, but not definable skills. They’re not in Skilldome.

She flips the switch. The lights turn off for a few seconds before being replaced with blacklights. The walls are absolutely covered in graffiti. “I’m Jolanda, by the way. I don’t remember if I said that.” She’s looking at the writing and images, as is everyone else. “I saw this in an ancient show once. He hurt his leg real bad.”

Colley sidesteps around the car now, going the other direction, and looking at the graffiti carefully. “I see the pattern. It’s a coded language.” He runs his hand along the paint. “It’s actually not that complex.” He points at various sections of the walls with both hands like he’s making connections in his head. “I’m guessing Rage doesn’t want us to spend days in here. Just give me a few minutes to compile the vocabulary.”

“What’s your specialty again?” Minotaur asks him.

“Anthropology, history, linguistics, culture,” Colley answers as he’s still looking over the imagery. “I cracked the mystery of Empty Planet in record time.”

“I’m not familiar with that one.” Elise is probably showing how sheltered she is.

“You pretend you’ve landed on an alien world where all the aliens have disappeared. You have to figure out what happened to them, and where the om—never mind, that’s saying too much.” He looks over at Jolanda. “Is there a keypad on that car?”

“Yes,” she responds. “It’s alphanumeric. Did you crack this code too?”

“Not yet,” Colley says. He’s staring up at the very center of the ceiling, where a circle about half a meter in diameter is suspiciously blank. “I’ll be asking you to turn them off and on again in a particular sequence. Always flip when I say to, with no delay.”

“Okay.” Jolanda gets into position.

Colley is still staring at that blank spot. As he instructs her when to turn the lights off and when to turn them on, he deliberately changes tempo. She has to flip them at the right speed for the new images to appear one by one. Elise doesn’t recognize the glyphs but Colley seems to know exactly what he’s seeing. “Stop, I got it. Here’s the code. One, seven, three, four, six, seven, three, two, one, four, seven, six, castaway, three, two, seven, eight, nine, seven, seven, seven, six, four, three, temple, seven, three, two, volunteer, seven, three, one, one, seven, eight, eight, eight, seven, three, two, four, seven, six, seven, eight, nine, seven, six, four, three, seven, six.”

The door opens. “I’m driving of course,” Jolanda says, getting in the driver’s seat.

Everyone else gets in too, even though they don’t know how to get out. Elise is in the back. She watches Jolanda stare at the console, evidently not knowing what to do.

“Uhh...I don’t see a start button. Machine...go!” Jolanda attempts.

“Here.” Something Elise actually knows. She leans forward and flips the visor down. The keys fall out, so she catches them in her other hand. She sticks it in the ignition, and turns it. She tilts her head when it revs up. “Hm. Either this is gas-powered, or it’s simulated to be. To be safe, we better open the door.”

“How do you do that?” Jolanda asks.

Elise reaches up again and presses the button on the garage door opener.

The wall in front of them recedes from them, splits in half, and slides to either side. Jolanda smirks when she sees the traffic on the expansive roadways ahead of them.

“We don’t technically have to drive,” Colley points out.

“Yes, we do,” Jolanda and Zelda say simultaneously as if having rehearsed it.

“Hold on to your butts,” Jolanda warns.

“Samuel L. Jackson,” Colley cites, “circa 1993.”

“Wait!” Elise interrupts. “Those straps are called seatbelts. You put it around your chests, and buckle them securely to keep your body in place.”

“You may have learned how to drive safely,” Jolanda warns as she grips the steering wheel, and decidedly doesn’t put her seatbelt on. “I learned how to drive well.” She slams on the accelerator, and shoots them onto the track.

Immediately, a robocar nearly collides with them, but she doesn’t let it. Each time Elise thinks they’re about to die, Jolanda finds a way out of it. She doesn’t ever turn her head. She can watch straight in front of her while knowing everything else that’s going on around them. It’s a wild ride. Elise can’t help but keep checking her mind stream. She trusts that Rage chose this driver for a good reason, but Jolanda was right; Elise only knows how to drive safely. She has to try to relax and let the chips fall where they may, so to speak. After ten minutes, they find themselves right back where they started.

“How the hell did that happen? Is this another puzzle?” Jolanda questions.

Elise unbuckles, leans forward again, and retrieves a map from the glovebox.

“Give that to me,” Minotaur requests. They spend a minute looking it over. “Okay, I know the route. You can drive the same speed, but follow my instructions.”

Microstory 2749: Mind the Gap

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash 1.1

After Elise and Rage get dried off and cleaned up, the former follows the latter to the vactrain station where they head for a dome called The Sandbox. Rage evidently wants the team to meet each other on neutral ground. Before they embark on the treasure hunt, it’s prudent for them to get to know each other first, and learn how to work as a team. Rage expects them to be here for the next few weeks. She hasn’t yet explained why this particular dome. Elise has never heard of it before. She still isn’t sure why she was picked for this at all. She hasn’t excelled at the skills she’s attempted. She just likes to try new things. It was time for a break, though, so she’s not complaining.

It might seem like overkill, but according to Rage, this will be an important crucible. If anyone decides to quit, it’s a lot better if they do it before they begin the hunt. Losing a member doesn’t immediately disqualify the remainders from moving on. Everyone could leave by the end of it, and as long as the last remaining player sticks around, they can succeed. But obviously Rage doesn’t want that. She wants them to be perfectly in sync. She told Elise that she doesn’t know what that looks like, but that will precisely be the point of the exercises.

It’s making Elise a little nervous, all this uncertainty, but knowing that she doesn’t have to commit to anything right away has taken some of the pressure off of her.

After the vactrain lets them off at their destination, they take a smaller one to the other side of the dome, to an entrance where no one else is around. Also weird, so Elise checks her consciousness stream to her backup bodies, and they’re all fine, so she presses onwards.

They have to walk across a meadow before they get to a big warehouse in the middle of nowhere. It feels even more remote now. There’s not even any other infrastructure, and it doesn’t match the normal institutional architecture of Castlebourne. Is this where Rage lives? What is the Sandbox even for?

Elise steps inside when Rage holds the door open for her. As she’s scanning the antechamber, spotting the other people here, she hears the door close behind her. She turns around and tries to open it but it’s locked. She tries for a few more seconds, but it’s hopeless.

“She locked us in?” one of the strangers questions. She’s wearing a graphic t-shirt and baggy camo pants. She, along with the others, look just as confused and anxious.

“I don’t suppose anyone has superstrength?” Elise asks.

“No,” the guy replies. “Rage told us to come with standard human substrates.”

“It’s a trap,” someone else determines. They’re sitting on the edge of a metal table, one foot propped up on a chair, and the other dangling loosely.

Elise tilts her head. “I’m still connected to my backups. If she wants to kill us, it’s not going to work on me at least.”

The person who figured that it was a trap stands up and takes a knife out of their pocket. “I can kill anyone who wants to get out of here the easy way. I can’t promise to make it painless, but it’s an option.”

“Let’s look for a bloodless way first,” a girl in a yellow shirt suggests.

Elise looks back down at the handle. It doesn’t have a keyhole, but it looks like the one on the other side of the room does. She walks over to it. “I can pick it, if anyone has something I could use. Whatever is on the other side could be worse, though.”

Graphic tee girl pulls a bobby pin from her hair and hands it over. “If you’re going through hell...keep going. Winston Churchill.”

“Unverified attribution,” the guy counters.

“Then I’ll take the attribution—Zelda Frances,” she self-cites.

“Colley Rochelle,” he returns.

“I’m Elise Perkins,” Elise adds as she’s finishing unlocking the door. She doesn’t open it, though. She straights back up, and hands Zelda her pin back.

“Can’t do it?” the girl in yellow asks.

“No, it was easy,” Elise answers. “We just need to all agree to open it.”

“As long as we’re streaming, the danger isn’t real.” Knife-wielder heads for the door without waiting for permission. “I go by Minotaur,” they add as they’re opening it.

Elise has to grab Minotaur by the shirt collar when they slip right over the edge. It’s dark inside; they can’t see how deep the drop off is, but Elise won’t be able to hold on alone much longer. Colley runs over, and reaches down to pick up some of the slack.

“Rule number one,” Minotaur says as they’re standing back up. “look before you leap. I’m humiliated. This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered a trapdoor.”

“I think we all realize by now that this is a test,” Zelda says. “Rage wants to see where we are, so she knows how to train us.”

“She doesn’t need to be tested too?” Elise questions. She puts her flashlight gloves on, and cautiously reaches into the room. The pit is wide and deep. Her lights don’t have the range to show her the bottom, which means it’s too far for them to dangle and fall safely. She gets a look around at the rest of the open area. At least two packs are hanging on the wall, over a very narrow ledge. “I think they’re parachutes,” she announces.

Zelda gently moves Elise out of the way so she can peek around the corner, holding Elise’s hand up to control the flightlight. Without saying a word, she leaps over to the ledge, and holds one of the packs to brace herself. She opens a zipper and takes out a glowstick. She cracks it in her teeth with one hand so the other hand can keep holding on. “I need quiet, please,” she requests, even though no one is talking.

Zelda drops the glowstick down into the pit, listening for it on the bottom. “Thirty meters. We would never make it. There are only two packs anyway.”

“So they’re just there to tease us?” Elise asks her.

Zelda looks over her shoulder. She cracks a second glowstick, and tosses it behind her. It lands on the other side of the pit, which is at the same elevation. She smirks.

“No,” Elise says. “You can’t be serious.”

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Zelda recites.

“You shouldn’t try it,” Elise warns. “That’s at least fifteen meters, probably more!”

“It won’t be my first time.” Zelda takes her belt off and anchors it to the hook where the pack was hanging. She bites down on the belt to stay aloft, leaning backwards over the pit while she puts the parachute pack on. “I’ll find out what’s on the other side. There must be a drawbridge or something, or there would be a pack for each of us.”

“Or we’re meant to share,” Colley offers.

“Not possible with this maneuver.” Zelda holds onto the hook with her index fingers as she crouches on the ledge, facing the wall. After preparing herself mentally, she pushes off like a cricket. At the perfect moment, she releases the speedchute, using the force of the deployment to propel her just far enough to cover the gap. Hopefully.