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Weird things have been happening on the ship. Waldemar’s support system has
been shrinking. People have turned up missing, while others have died under
mysterious circumstances. His most loyal followers and sycophants are just
going away, and life on Extremus has become bleaker than ever. Waldemar
himself doesn’t seem fazed. He remains steadfast and ambitious. It’s become
clear to all that he is planning to hold onto the captain’s chair through at
least the next shift. After that, he might be too old to continue, unless he
finds and unlocks immortality tech. It’s weird, really, that he doesn’t seem
to be pursuing that. Is there something he knows that Silveon doesn’t? Well,
obviously there is, because his people keep dying, and he doesn’t seem to
care.
“He doesn’t care, because he thinks they betrayed him,” Sable starts to
explain.
“What do you mean? A couple of these guys have been with him since the
beginning,” Silveon points out. “I hardly think they would betray him now.”
“That’s because they didn’t,” she clarifies. “I just told him that they
had.”
“Why is he listening to you? You’re his girlfriend, not the devil on his
shoulder.”
“I may as well be,” Sable contends. “He asked me to use my time tech to spy
on the entire ship. It’s completely untraceable and unhackable, because
there aren’t any surveillance devices anywhere. All I have to do is remotely
view wherever I want.”
“And you’re feeding him bad information from that illegal surveillance?”
“Oh, one hundred percent.” She walks over to her closet and opens the door.
She presents her wardrobe flamboyantly as if it’s a prize on a gameshow.
Then she closes it, performs some kind of maneuver which Silveon can’t see
from his vantage point, then opens it again, but this time from the hinged
side. Instead of clothes, there’s now some kind of fancy contraption. There
are indicator lights and interface screens on it, but none of them is lit
up. “I don’t even turn it on.”
Sable takes out her handheld device, which is a fairly rare thing in this
culture, and tosses it to him. “I had the AI write me an algorithm to decide
our next victims. I couldn’t go after the big fish on day one. I started
with low level—but wildly enthusiastic—fans who Waldemar was already
suspicious of. Each time he found a new enemy, it reinforced his paranoia
that no one can be trusted, which told the algorithm who to pick next.” She
plops down on her couch, pleased with herself. “Impressed?”
“I’m scared.” Silveon sighs. The logic is sound, but it’s still wrong. It’s
an abuse of power, and exactly what Waldemar would do if he were in their
shoes. He can’t stop her, though. She’s too powerful to go up against, and
he doesn’t want to be on her bad side too. He may yet be able to reason with
her, though. “You’ve become him. It’s not—” He stops and shakes his head,
not knowing how he could possibly get through to her. “We were never worried
about Waldemar Kristiansen himself. Waldemar Kristiansen is only a man. What
Audrey and I were worried most about were tyranny and fascism. And anyone’s
name can be attached to those concepts. I think you just attached yours.”
Sable stares at Silveon with cold, dead eyes. She turns her hand so her palm
is facing up. A glass appears upon it, already filled with a brown liquid.
“Do you know what this is? It’s bourbon.” She examines it like a scientist,
and doesn’t drink. “Waldemar’s mother used to drink this stuff all the time.
She was a telepath...worse than her son, because she could hear people’s
coherent thoughts. There was one difference between her and Waldy, though:
this brown junk. She internalized her dark thoughts, which protected the
rest of us from her. But alcohol is illegal, and even though Waldemar
obviously doesn’t care about the law, it never occurred to him to
self-medicate.”
She chuckles. “This isn’t a replica. It was actually hers. It disappeared
from her hand in the year 2354, because I stole it...just now. Don’t worry,
I piggy-backed off of a different time travel event, so the sensors will
dismiss it as a minority report.” She sets the glass down on the table. “She
was so drunk, she won’t even notice. She’ll think she merely blacked out for
a few seconds while she drank the whole thing, and threw it in the material
reclamator. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Silveon questions, more scared than before.
Sable leans forward sinisterly. “Because if I took the glass the day before
or the day after, I might have been caught. You have to pick and choose when
you do what you do. It’s the same reason you didn’t murder Waldemar in his
sleep when he was a kid, and why Mateo Matic only assassinated Adolf Hitler
after the holocaust. It seems cruel. Why wait that long? Why let so
many people die? Because believe it or not, in the void left behind when
Hiter died as a teenager in an old timeline, a worse threat took power. He
was the lesser of two evils. He saved the human race.”
“That is a despicable thing to say about history,” Silveon warns her.
Sable doesn’t flinch. She reaches down and picks the glass back up to take
one little sip. Now her face contorts. “Now that is despicable, and
disgusting.” She clears her throat. “I lied to you earlier. I turn that
machine on all the time, but instead of spying on my brothers and sisters, I
use it to wander the past and future. I’ve seen all of reality with that
thing, and I’m the only one in the universe who can handle it.” She closes
her eyes to correct herself, “besides, like, Lincoln Rutherford.”
“I’m having trouble following you. Are you Hitler, or are you the worse
threat?”
Sable takes a deep breath. She takes another one, and another. “Waldemar is
Hitler.” She pauses again. “You are the worse threat.” She snaps her
fingers.
Waldemar appears in the room. He’s confused. “How did you summon me?”
“Don’t worry about it, babe. I brought you here to show you, I found the
last dissenter. I figured you would want to handle it quietly.”
Waldemar looks down at Silveon. “I’ve always known about him. He was eight
years younger than me—a baby—and we had playdates? It never made any sense.”
“Of course you knew.” Sable stands up and kisses the captain on the cheek.
“You’re a genius. But I used that machine to see what would become of this
ship if he were allowed to live even one day more. Now is the time to end
it. You can’t put it off any longer, and I don’t think you want anyone else
to know about it. Fortunately, he’s no longer in the public eye, so covering
up his death shouldn’t be too hard.”
Waldemar looks back at the man he once called his friend. “Why? What is this
all about? You have been trying to change me my whole life? What was the
point?”
Silveon turns his chin up. “What does it matter? It didn’t work.”
“It did work, though,” Sable argues. “I used the machine, remember? I saw
your timeline, and I see the future in this one. You thought you were
trying to stop him, but you were actually helping him reach his full
potential. And your job is done. It’s my turn now.” She looks at her
boyfriend. “You should kill him here. One clean head shot. This is a dead
zone. No sensors will log it, and then I’ll clean up for you.”
“You will make a good wife,” Waldemar tells her. He takes out his sidearm,
trains it on Silveon, and squeezes the trigger.
Time stops. Silveon is staring at the explosion coming out of the gun,
frozen in space and time. Silveon can’t even move, except for his eyeballs.
Sable gets down on her knees underneath the bullet, and frowns at Silveon.
She leans forward and kisses him passionately on the lips before placing her
mouth near his ear. She whispers, “meet me in Montauk.” She then puts her
three middle fingers on his forehead and violently tips him backwards.
When Silveon opens his eyes, he finds himself lying on the floor of an
unfamiliar room. He grasps at his head and winces with a hiss.
A woman is sitting at her desk. She turns around when she hears him.
“Report.”
“Just tell me the date please,” Silveon requests.
“It’s August 15, 2311.”
“Can you turn off the light please?” He can barely open his eyes, it’s so
bright.
“Do it,” the stranger commands the AI.
“August 15, 2311,” Silveon echoes. “Did I piggy-back off of a time travel
event?”
“Probably,” she replies. “There was one only minutes ago, well within
the margins of error for the ship’s sensors to ignore your arrival. If you
wanna go back, though, you should do it quickly, though, or it
will be detected.”
“I don’t know why I’m here. She told me to meet her in Montauk.”
The woman seems taken aback by this. “Here.” She helps him off the floor,
and onto the bed. “Are you thirsty?” She hands him a glass of water. “I’ve
not had any yet.”
Silveon accepts the water and drinks while she goes over to the opposite
wall. She slides a cabinet door out of the way, revealing a huge collection
of old media. He can’t remember whether they’re called cassette tapes or
DVDs because they are so ancient. She scans the library with her finger
before settling on one. She pulls it out, looks at the cover herself, and
then kneels down in front of him, setting the item on the floor. She puts
her hands on his knees, almost affectionately. “Either the person who sent
you here really loves you...or really hates you.” She smiles sadly, and
hands him the box.”
Silveon looks at it. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” He
flips it over to read the description, but stops. “Is it supposed to jiggle
like that?”
“No,” she says with a shake of her head. “Open it.”
He lets the big black thing slide out of the box. It doesn’t look right. It
looks like part of the outer casing has been pried off. Inside of it is a
ring. He picks it up and lets the media fall back to the floor. He takes the
stranger by the hand and compares the ring that’s on her finger. “They’re
the same.”
“Twins,” the woman says. “It’s fitting you should come here. I had to use
mine to save my life during that time travel event, when someone tried to
kill me.”
“Someone’s trying to kill me,” Silveon admits, “with a gun.”
She nods. “That can save you, but you don’t have enough time to learn how to
use it. It creates temporary pockets of space, allowing you to adjust
something’s trajectory.”
Silveon thinks about it. Then he gently places the extra ring in her hand.
“Then it’s not for me. If I survive in my time, on that day, I’ll only be
putting off the inevitable. My...frenemy wants me to do this, which means I
don’t think I should. I should die.”
The woman drops the ring back in the box. “That’s your choice, and I respect
it. I don’t know what you’re going through, but have you heard of The
Question, by chance?”
“Yes,” Silveon replies.
“You’re meant to answer yes or no, but did you know there was a third
answer?”
Silveon returns to his present, and lets himself get shot in the head.
