Microstory 2505: Health Smeller

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

I can smell your health, and heal your ailments. I was Landis Tipton before Landis Tipton was Landis Tipton. While we gifted him with all of the Vulnerabilities, mine is the one that he uses primarily, if not exclusively. I want to make it clear that I did not waste my gift when I had it. I too healed people. It was at a smaller scale, but you have to understand that none of us believed that we could announce ourselves to the world. Before Landis was brave enough to stand in the spotlight, it felt too dangerous to be open to the public. We decided that we had to be very selective with our clients. Of course, that didn’t always work out, but we did our best. I think we helped a lot of people. Everyone we chose was entitled to a healing, but it was sort of usually considered secondary to the other—more abstract—therapies. People get sick; it’s a way of life, and I didn’t think that there was anything I could do about it. It didn’t even occur to us that my gift of healing could one day be synthesized into a mass-produced cure-all. What people really needed was to feel better about themselves, and realize their dreams, even if that meant shifting those dreams to things that were a little more realistic and attainable. I’m not saying that I was a pointless member of the team, but we did see our responsibility as being more holistic. On the contrary, my job was very important, and should not be discounted. You see, healing begins from within, but physical pain and suffering is real, and it can make it impossible to feel like your life can get better, even if you’ve not been stricken with some serious disease. Everyone has something. They have joint pain, or frequent headaches, or circulation issues. I could fix all of that. Maybe not permanently, but those first few days after the clients met us were incredibly vital. It was at least one less thing that they were worried about while they were trying to move on, and improve their situations. It gave them a new baseline by which they could judge the things that happened to them in the future, both good and not-so-great. Healthy body, healthy mind, as they say. I have heard people ask Landis what people’s health smells like, but I have never heard his answer. That’s probably because he’s so busy saving the world. That’s not me being resentful, but it does lead well into the answer to their question. When something is particularly wrong with someone, their health typically smells sickly sweet, like spoiled fruit. The disease is rotting away in their body, creating a build-up of waste, and generating a toxic smell that anyone would perceive as being wrong, if their noses were designed to detect the right signals. Poor general health, on the other hand, is bitter, with metallic overtones, and I could sometimes cure that too, but generally not. So if you ever meet Landis in person, and he’s a little shy or standoffish, I can’t speak for him, but that might be why. People just kind of smell bad all the time, even when they’ve been cured. It’s unsettling, but it’s part of the job, and I for one think that Landis faces it valiantly.

Microstory 2380: Vacuus, October 29, 2179

< > Table of Contents

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

Dear Condor,

Thanks for the compliment, you’re not so bad yourself. I wouldn’t mind seeing a few more photos. As for your question about what I might have done with my life had I been born on a pre-apocalyptic Earth, I’ve always wanted to work with my hands. Obviously, I need my hands to do my real job well, but I’ve never gotten those hands dirty. As your twin and I realized, our base is immaculate. The systems are designed to keep out all the Vacuan dust, and keep the atmosphere in. If I had been born on Earth instead, say a hundred years ago, I guess I would have liked to be a gardener, or something. Yeah, we have a garden here, but it’s not really the kind I’m talking about. It’s so stale and perfect, like everywhere else. It would have been nice to plant beautiful flowers just for the sake of it, not because anyone needed food. To crouch there on the edge of the colorful garden, smiling up at the sun. We don’t have a sun here, so I suppose just about anything outdoors would be amazing. I do yoga too, so I’m flexible, and don’t have any problem being on my hands and knees. I’ve attached a photo of myself doing my morning yoga. It was taken a few years ago, when I was in slightly better shape, but I’m still doing okay. That’s about all I can do to workout unless I want to fight over the three treadmills that we have. You must have other ways of staying fit. Exactly how big and comprehensive are these domes that you live under? Have you ever gone swimming in a pool, or an artificial pond? You can send me a picture of that if you want. We’re so confined here, and swimming would be a huge waste of resources, we would never dream of it. Back in the day, people would make fun of one of my grandfather’s friends because he didn’t know how to swim, but these days, that’s probably a whole lot of people. It looks fun, but it’s just not practical. I did design myself a swimsuit once, just to see what it looked like. I can send you that photo too, if you’re interested. Researchers are developing virtual reality, which could give people so many opportunities that they never had before, like swimming, or opportunities that would be impossible in the real world, like flying without an aircraft. Could you imagine? Okay, I’m just fantasizing now. What kind of fantasies do you have? Don’t be afraid to be a little provocative, if that’s what’s on your mind. We all have dreams.

Dreaming of you,

Velia

Microstory 2145: Fresh Fake Baby Brains

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

Wow, yesterday was some roof stoof, wasn’t it? I guess I need to explain a bit more. What you need to understand about the bulkverse is that some universes can stand on their own, while others need some kind of oversight. It’s not that every world that you can imagine can exist, but a lot of them can, and the more reasonable ones tend to be stronger. For instance, there’s a movie where I’m from where two Earths orbit each other so closely that you can actually take an elevator up from one to the other, and depending on which one you were born on, gravity remains the same for you, so if you travel to the other one, you will fall up towards your homeworld if you’re not careful. It’s super ridiculous, and practically impossible, and the universe where that story took place only lasted for one hour and fifty-four minutes before it imploded. Basically, the more normal things are, the safer you are there. That sucks for them, yeah? Well, unfortunately, it also sucks for you, because even though your planet doesn’t violate any reasonable laws of physics, it is weird. It’s too dependent upon the historical context of a different universe. I couldn’t tell you which one that was; maybe mine, but either way, yours too lacks stability. You’ve obviously lasted a lot longer than two hours, but that doesn’t mean you’ll last forever. It’s entirely possible that literally none of you existed until I entered the brane. My alternate self back on my homeworld may have conjured you up in that moment, and automatically implanted memories in your fresh fake baby brains, which make you believe that you’ve been around for years, even generations, or even for billions of years. That doesn’t make it so, but it happens. It happens all the time. It happens in dreams. I know it’s scary to think that this might be the case, but as I said in my last post, that doesn’t make you any less real. It’s all relative, and all in how you frame it. I long ago made peace with the possibility that I was also conjured in this way, and that I could one day blink out of existence. It didn’t change how I lived my life, because I couldn’t do anything to change it, so if you look at it that way, you’ll be all right. If you do happen to blink out of existence soon, you won’t be able to experience any emotions on the matter. You won’t experience anything at all. So you might as well just keep going. Me, I’m different, because I can leave. And I must.

Fluence: Anchor (Part V)

< > Entire Story

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

Briar was a normal biological human, Goswin was a transhuman with biological upgrades, Weaver was technologically enhanced, and Eight Point Seven was mostly inorganic. Despite the range of substrate properties, they all slept in one way or another. Even Eight Point Seven needed to periodically take time to reorganize her data drives, perform diagnostics, self-repair, and give her microfusion reactor some time to power cycle, and purge waste byproducts. For the longest time, researchers believed that giving inorganic intelligences the ability to dream was nothing more than, well...a dream. They figured that they would have to directly program scenarios for them to merely simulate the experience. As it turned out, once technology advanced sufficiently, this was not necessary. Androids will do it themselves during these periods of low-power memory consolidation. Random neural firings will generate aberrant thoughts akin to the way that  humans dreamt. One of the greatest challenges of 21st century AI research was figuring out how to teach such intelligences to wake up from these dreams, and leave those thoughts behind, so that they didn’t negatively impact their normal operational requirements. Occasionally, this subroutine will fail to trigger, just like it can in humans, who sometimes wake up angry with someone for things that never happened in the real world. Early models sometimes became unexpectedly violent due to these errors.

The first night that they spent in Briar’s old camp on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida just so happened to be when Eight Point Seven needed to go into sleep mode for about an hour. She tried to hold off on it, so she could keep watch over the others, but she was not yet used to this new substrate. She didn’t even take this form on purpose. Her consciousness somehow uploaded itself to it at some point before their first jump. They had been so busy with all this stuff that she hadn’t taken the time to really investigate. That was probably why she had to do this now, because her mind was in conflict with her body. They were unfamiliar with each other. That night, she dreamt of her home. She was first created on a planet called Bungula, which orbited Rigil Kentaurus. Theirs was an ever-changing society, always run by an artificial intelligence, which frequently purged its own memory to be made anew. Her name was Eight Point Seven because she was the 78th incarnation of this entity.

Something went wrong with Eight Point Seven’s programming. She decided that she wanted to live, and not make way for the next version. The Bungulans eventually accepted her decision, and let her keep administering them accordingly. She grew tired of this, however, and ultimately chose to leave with Leona Matic. They eventually made their way to Bida together, and then separated to different ships. She had always wondered what became of Bungula, though. They had to have some form of government without her. Was it a human this time, or did they recreate the old program, and finally get their Eight Point Eight? Perhaps they skipped all the intervening versions, and just went straight to Eleven Point Nine.

All four of them woke up with a start. They were no longer in the jungle of Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, but under a geodesic dome on the very end of a lava tube. They could see the stars above them, shining through the triangles of polycarbonate. The air wasn’t stale, but it wasn’t windy anymore. The whole world felt still, whichever world this was. Eight Point Seven Stood up from her cross-legged position. “This is my homeworld,” she determined. “This is Bungula.”

“Why are we here?” Goswin asked. “Who brought us this time?”

“We all did,” Weaver stated. “Remember? We don’t go anywhere unless we go together. There has to he some kind of consensus”

“No, it was me,” Eight Point Seven argued. “This is what I was dreaming about.”

“You can dream?” Briar questioned.

Of course they could dream. Goswin ignored the question. “Maybe we’re not entirely right about how this works. Maybe one of us sometimes pilots the whole crew. Someone’s...psychic power is just a little bit stronger. I wasn’t dreaming of going anywhere in particular. If your thoughts were more specific, they may have overwhelmed the three of us.”

“I was dreaming of seeing Leona again,” Briar explained.

“She’s here,” came an unfamiliar voice. They turned to find an unassuming man standing outside of their circle. “But you cannot see her. Hi. I’m Lieutenant Administrator Eleven Point Eight. I am...moderately aware of this time travel stuff, but I’m not well-versed, and I would not like to be. The current Administrator is very busy with her new plans for this world, and she does not have time to deal with whatever this paradox-waiting-to-happen is. Please leave however you came.”

“Forgive us,” Goswin said. “What is the date?”

“October 19, 2226.”

“This is the day I left,” Eight Point Seven noted.

“Yes,” Lieutenant Eleven Point Eight concurred. “You’re about to launch, and I’ve been asked to retrieve Madams Prieto and Prieto so that my superior may speak with them. As I asked, please leave.”

“Hold on,” Eight Point Seven stopped him. “The past version of me has not yet left, but there is already a new admin?”

“Of course,” Eleven Point Seven confirmed. “You thought there would be a gap?”

“Have we met? It and I, have we met?” Eight Point Seven questioned.

“Yes, you met. I was there during the handover ceremony.”

Eight Point Seven’s eyes widened. “That didn’t happen in my timeline. I never met my replacement. There was a gap, because it’s fine. The colonists mostly govern themselves.”

“Things have changed beyond Bida,” Weaver acknowledged. “We changed them.”

“Why should they?” Eight Point Seven questioned her. “This is before I showed up on Bida. I had never heard of Briar or Irene yet.”

Weaver shrugged. “Harrison was in the twelfth century, in England. That was the point of divergence. Nothing we know of history since then can be trusted.”

“Could you please get on with it?” Eleven Point Eight urged. “I have to go, and so do you.”

Eight Point Seven shook her head. “We can’t stay in the past. I know you wanted to keep studying that tree, but it’s too dangerous. We don’t know anything about what the universe looks like post 2400. That’s the only safe point in time for us. We have to stop risking these paradoxes, like he said.”

“She’s right,” Goswin agreed. “Let the past stay in the past.”

Weaver nodded. “Okay.”

They all turned to Briar, even Lt. Admin Eleven Point Eight. He was taken a little aback. “What, you think I would sabotage this? It’s fine, it’s fine. Let’s just go.” He sighed, frustrated at still not being trusted. “I said, let’s go!”

They blinked, and the scene changed. They were back in the ship bay in the asteroid near the planet of Po. “Hmm, that worked,” Briar mused.

“Yes, so it would seem. Or maybe not. “We’re still in the past, just not too terribly much this time.” Goswin nodded over to the clear end of the bay where he could see himself.

The other Goswin was holding a tablet and staring at them while staying in the discussion that he was having with the man next to him. He pointed towards the door, like he was respectfully instructing the other guy to leave.

“Though, I don’t remember this,” the present-day Goswin noted. “I don’t recognize that man at all.

Once the local was gone, Alt!Goswin made his way to the group. “Report.”

“Uhhh...report,” Goswin said back.

Alt!Goswin kept his eyes on his other self, but lowered his chin in distrust, and repeated, “report.”

“Report.”

“Report.”

“Report!”

“Report!”

“REPORT!”

“REPORT!”

“Enough!” Weaver stepped in. “This is never gonna end. Goswin that we don’t know, how long have you been here?”

“A few months,” Alt!Goswin replied.

Weaver looked over to her Goswin. “We’re not in the past. We’re in a new timeline. The changes we made, this is a natural byproduct of that.”

Just then, another version of Weaver appeared behind them. “That’s not exactly what’s happening. Tell me, were you on the X González, or the Emma González?”

“The X, of course,” the first Weaver replied. “That’s their chosen name.”

“Yes, but sometimes the ship is named after their original name,” Alt!Weaver clarified.

“Sometimes?” Weaver echoed. “How many timelines are there?”

“All of them,” Alt!Weaver said cryptically.

“What the hell does that mean? What was the point of divergence?”

“It’s not like that,” Alt!Weaver answered, still not clarifying anything. “There was a moment of split, but it wasn’t linear. Perhaps you remember seeing a whole bunch of other yous on the González?”

Yeah, that happened. They saw a few alternates on the bridge, but they assumed that that was just some temporal glitch, since they quickly disappeared. They didn’t think that those other selves still existed somewhere. How many splits were created that they didn’t witness? “Yeah, were you one of the alts we saw on the bridge?”

“No, I was in the engine room at the time,” Alt!Weaver began, “but not all of us were. Not all of us were even on the ship at all. Like I said, it wasn’t linear. We’ve been replicated all over the timeline, and rescattered all over elsewhere on the timeline, and in every parallel reality. Furthermore, we can move ourselves along the timeline, and across realities, at will. This star system here is a sort of an anchor point. We’ve all been showing up here for months, and recording each other, adding to the data pile. It’s difficult, though. I don’t always know if the versions of my friends that I’ve been with are still the ones that I’m with now. We may be shifting between groups, and not even realizing it.”

“That’s why I have a body,” Eight Point Seven realized. “It’s not my body. I was uploaded directly to the ship, but I stole this from someone else. What happened to her, the victim?”

“Mapping our alternates is even more difficult than mapping the timeline itself,” Alt!Weaver explained. “I don’t know how to differentiate anyone. A lot of people think that time is a river, and that’s only a metaphor that they recognize because it’s not analogous to time...but to consciousness. Your mind is fluent, and you are not the same person that you were a split second ago. Shifting to your alternates could be happening literally as we speak, and we wouldn’t be able to detect it. In this region of space, spacetime breaks down. Everything converges here. Everything diverges here.”

“Did we cause that, or did it cause us?” Goswin asked her.

Alt!Weaver smiled. “Yes. And no. There is no cause. There is no effect. It’s just bleh.” She pantomimed vomiting. “It’s everything,” she added, mouth still agape, and hands still cupping the bowl of the imaginary toilet.”

“Everything, everywhere, all at once?” Alt!Goswin offered.

“Pretty much,” Alt!Weaver replied.

“There is a magnolia on Bida,” Weaver said to her alternate. “I believe that it can reconverge us. We just have to figure out how to control it.”

Alt!Weaver nodded. “The Blending Tree. Yeah, it’s possible, but we would have to get everyone there at the same point in time; to the everything bagel,” she said as she was gesturing to Alt!Goswin to reinforce his reference. “As I was saying, I don’t know how many of us there are, or where they are, or what they’ve changed in the timeline. Some of us keep displacing other people, and that’s a whole other box of problems,” she added under her breath.

“Oh, haha,” Goswin laughed awkwardly. “What a bunch of bozos.”

Two different versions of Eight Point Seven showed up, one of which had a deep scar running across her cheek. The first Eight Point Seven stepped closer and regarded her, tilting her head to the side as if she had a lizard brain nestled inside of her dominant neural net. After taking a look at the scarless Eight Point Seven, who was indistinguishable from herself, she reached up to her own face, and dragged her fingernail across her forehead. Blood leaked out, and dripped down. She then stepped back to where she was, not bothering to clean it up.

The Eight Point Seven with the other scar nodded. “Your new designation is Eight Point Seven Point Six.”

“Dude,” Briar said, aghast.

Eight Point Seven tilted her head back to where it belonged. “It didn’t hurt,” she said, a little like Cameron from The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

The other scarred Eight Point Seven addressed the whole group. “It’s beginning.” She sounded even more like Cameron, so robotic.

“What’s beginning?” Goswin asked.

“The Reconvergence,” the other, other Eight Point Seven answered.

“Of us?” Goswin pressed. “We were just talking about the magnolia tree.”

“It has nothing to do with us, I don’t think. The destruction of four realities, and the creation of a new universe, is happening today. The war begins tomorrow.”

< > Entire Story

Microstory 1750: Wolves in the Woods

< > Table of Contents

Every night it’s the same thing. I’m creeping through the forest, trying to find a safe place to hide. Even though I dream of the same place every time, I don’t always remember at first what it is I’m running from. Sometimes I’m not even running from anything, but towards something good. Only later do I learn that there are wolves all around me. One is angry, one is sad. Another is guilty, and yet another is hateful. Some of them try to attack me, but mostly they just attack each other, fighting over prey. I try to keep them apart, but that usually only makes things worse. They battle it out, and whoever wins is how I’ll feel in the morning. The wolves do not merely have these feelings themselves, but represent them. It’s not just an angry wolf, but the wolf of anger, and every time it wins, I wake up angry. Of course, the wolves aren’t real, this is just my subconscious preparing me for the day ahead, upon a foundation of the days behind. I’m not angry because my anger wolf won. The anger wolf won because I’m angry. Presumably, I heard The Tale of Two Wolves when I was young, and it stuck with me in a profound way. Everyone supposedly has two wolves inside of them, fighting each other, which determine your personality. The one who wins is the one you feed. I don’t feed any of my wolves. I guess I’ve always considered that their problem. None of them has died yet, I’ll tell you that much, but honestly, the wolf of contentment hasn’t been looking too good these days. I dream of nothing but my wolves. One of my many therapists once suggested I keep a dream journal, because he figured I actually was having other dreams, but I was just so focused on the one that I never remembered the other symbolic stories. He was wrong. It is only the wolves in the woods.

I’m seeing a new therapist today who specializes in hypnosis. I’m hoping she can get into my head, and perhaps take the wolves out. It would be nice if I could dream about something not so bloody on the nose. I mean, the wolves are a metaphor, but it’s so obvious, it makes me feel like such a basic person. My subconscious mind can’t come up with something more clever—maybe something slightly more difficult to interpret? Really? Hell, I’ll take walking into school with no clothes on, or my teeth falling out, just to get some variety, even though those are still basic. The hypnotist sits me down in a chair, but after we get to talking, she decides that hypnosis is not for me. She doesn’t think it’s going to help, but she thinks maybe I can handle the problem on my own. My issue is that I have no control over the dreams, so they consume me. It’s like the wolves are deciding who I am without giving me any say. If I want to interact with them, I have to assume control. I have to learn how to have lucid dreams. She says to restart the dream journal, that it will help me, but also gives me some books which spell out some other techniques. Not all methods work on everybody, so I need to find what fits me. I read the books cover to cover, and formulate a plan. Then I go to sleep, and enter the woods. All of the wolves are in one place this time, sitting quietly in a pack, apparently waiting for my instructions. “All right, wolves,” I say. “We’re gonna do this in an orderly fashion. No more fighting for scraps. We hunt together, we dine together. Everyone gets their fair share.” From then on, I continue to have the same dream, but I’m in charge now. The wolf who wins is the one I feed? If that’s true, then I’m going to try to stay balanced, not even bothering to kill the negative wolves. I’m going to feed them all.

Microstory 1613: Prime Mover

< > Table of Contents

Like me, The Superintendent is a spirit, and also like me, he can witness events in other universes, and he can see more detail. But it’s more than that. He’s also creating these branes, and controlling certain aspects of them. Free will is still a thing, but the people’s actions always follow his logic, and going against his explicit wishes is only possible once you’re made aware that he exists. I mean, I’m the one telling you this story right now, but I’m doing it through the Superintendent, and it’s being published in his world. It’s called Universe Prime, and no matter what he tells you, it’s because that’s what he decided to call it. It’s not the most important brane in the bulk, but it’s the most important to him, so he got to name it. He chooses the names for each of his universes, if he chooses to name it at all. He is not a more powerful storyteller, or dreamer. Anyone can conjure a new universe into being with nothing more than their thoughts. The difference is that he understands that he’s doing this, and uses it to his advantage deliberately. Every world I discuss throughout this series belongs to him, except for this one today. Universe Prime is where he lives, and he has no control over the outcome of events. But that doesn’t mean he exerts no influence at all. Most of what happens in Prime is a result of interference from a different universe, and if he really wants to, he can make or break such occurrences. For his version of Earth, there is a quite literal universal rule that it is to remain pristine and untouched. It’s written into Martian Law, and honored by the Fosteans. It’s recognized by the residents of Dextoculo, and frightens travelers from beyond the membrane. No one messes with the Superintendent’s Earth, and that is in no small part, thanks to the Superintendent himself.

He’s telling a story...a huge story. It’s so big that it’ll take decades just to get everything out. He’s in control of it, even if there is a high level of free will when it comes to individual choices. Everyone is so afraid of going against him that they follow his rules with little question. They know if they do something he doesn’t like, he’ll just wipe their story away. The Ochivari would never dream of invading, even though it’s a logical target. They’re struggling terribly with climate breakdown, and the future looks pretty grim. My voldisil ability operates according to his timeline, so I can’t see into its future from his perspective, but things are not going well. If any planet deserves the wrath of a race of antinatalistic mass murders, it’s his own. He won’t let it happen, though, for obvious reasons. If the Ochivari attacked, he would just write a story where The Allies of the Darning Wars all came together, and defeated them once and for all. They don’t want that, so they stay away from Prime, and tread lightly in the Composite Universe, and just leave it at that. Prime has plenty of problems of their own. The Fosteans generally respect the rule about Earth, but its leaders are not good people, and they are not peaceful. It and the Composite are twins, and together, they form the Biverse, so they are permanently linked, and dependent on each other. The Superintendent tells their stories, but does not do much to make himself a part of it. They’re strong-willed, resilient, and other than Composite, they probably contribute the highest number of notable individual members of the Transit Army. I don’t know how it ends, if it ever does, but I’ll be keeping a close eye on it.

Microstory 1610: Hypnopedia

< > Table of Contents

All universes are strange in their own way from most people’s perspective, and that’s just a product of only living in one universe for a long time before you encounter others, if you even ever do. I’m a little different, because I grew up with them, so even the stranger ones aren’t all that strange to me. Hypnopediaverse is pretty strange, though. It’s one of the few places where the bulkverse is common knowledge, and where they use the knowledge of it to their advantage. As one might assume, most universes are independent, alone, isolated. If you want to travel from one to another, you’re first going to need something powerful enough to tear a hole in the membrane that keeps it all together, and then you’re going to need some way to navigate. The first step is hard. The second step is just this side of utterly and hopelessly impossible. Very few people have the means to navigate the bulkverse. I can only do it mentally, and even then, I get lost a lot. It is simply not meant to be traveled. There are small exceptions to this rule, and it has to do with multidimensional proximity. Some universes are very close to a counterpart, like a binary star system. They refer to these as twinverses, and while I suspect they’re rare, I haven’t mapped the bulkverse, so I don’t have the data to back up my claim. After all, multi-star systems are more common than single stars, if you can believe it. It’s part of what makes Earth so special, and probably has a lot to do with its habitability. Getting back to the real story, however, when you’re talking about twinverses, you’re talking about two branes that are perpetually linked to one another, and follow the same temporal vector. The inhabitants may not be using the same calendar, but if you leave one, go to the other, and spend X amount of time there, X amount of time will have passed for those you left behind once you return.

I’m not sure how twinverses come into being, and there could be multiple reasons for this, but the thing about them is that this phenomenon has always been discovered. The residents have always eventually learned about the other side, and this is no truer than it is for Hypnopediaverse, which is a little different, because only one of the universes has a native population. The second brane that the one is attached to only contains plantlife. Whenever someone dreamfalls into it, the only people they encounter are from the main universe. This is how dreaming works, by the way. Everyone travels to other universes when they dream. It’s just that these branes are unstable, and usually only last as long as the dream does. In this case, though, the attached brane is stable, self-sustaining, and affords the dreamers a level of lucidity generally only reserved for the lucky few. Now, they could use this world to reach out and enjoy each other’s company while they’re still asleep. They actually do this sometimes; set up dates and other meetings to maximize their time. This population has decided, however, that the main purpose should be education. And not just regular school, but special skills they didn’t before know existed. The most common of these is flying like a bird, but it’s not that easy. They can fly in the dreamworld, but the skill will not transfer over to the main world. To make that happen, they have to enter yet another universe that’s only attached to the second one. That’s right, hypnopediaverse is actually a trinary system, and as far as I know, the only one of its kind. The third operates on a different temporal vector, however, which adds a level of complexity that the residents have to account for every time they dreamfall into it.

Microstory 1574: Nap

< > Table of Contents

Prompt

I just woke up from a very unfulfilling nap where I dreamt that...

Botner

I think I had a dream once that my future husband and I were in our bedroom talking. We were talking about what a close relationship he wants to have with his parents. I remember talking about how he needs to talk to them before he tells them about our relationship. The problem is, they are moving and they are leaving the state before he can tell them, or they are moving to another country. He left to go talk to them and I got mad because I was supposed to tell them before they moved. I went to go talk to them and found that they had moved and I wasn’t invited to the wedding. My fiancé was there though. He was not at the wedding. I was so mad. I looked over at my fiancé and he had tears in his eyes. I felt bad. Then I woke up. I am always very, very glad that I am not still in that relationship. When I had this dream, I always thought, man, maybe I’m about to have a really bad life. I’ve recently gotten into reading the Harry Potter books. And I think I’m in the...

Conclusion

...minority here, because everyone else has already read them, and they managed to do it before all the news broke about the author’s transphobia. I’m in the middle of the third one, and I don’t know if I should keep going. It’s one thing for an actor or filmmaker to be cancelled. You can still enjoy their work, because it’s not just their work. A lot of people worked very hard to make that, and why should they suffer because this one person screams at young women, or does worse to them? This is different. She’s the only person who made these books, and I feel committed to them, but I also feel dirty. The nap was meant to make me feel better, but I only feel worse now, because the doorbell rang in the middle of a cycle, or something, and my heart is racing. I can’t even remember what happened in the dream, and it was only moments ago. That’s why I started talking about an old dream. Though, maybe it’s more relevant to my anxiety than the recent one was. People around me were making decisions, and they weren’t asking for my input, or even warning me about them. That’s kind of how I feel about cancel culture. So much of it is happening too fast that I don’t have time to really dig deep, and find out what happened. I’m just supposed to accept that we don’t like this person anymore, and not ask questions. The author thing is a pretty easy answer, but they’re not all like that, I just don’t know. I guess that’s what the dream was trying to teach me, that I have to slow down, and make time for the facts, or I’ll make bad decisions, and piss off everyone else.

Microstory 1484: Necter of the Gods

< > Table of Contents

The universe is but one in a sea of infinite others. Each is called a brane, and is swimming around a sort of hyperdimensional metaspace known as the bulk. Do not confuse these with alternate realities. Any similarity between two branes only occurs because one was modeled upon the other. Some of them are natural, but some are conceived in the minds of people. The latter can last indefinitely, or collapse quickly, and are usually created through dreams, or fictional storytelling. An example of the former, on the other hand, will not resemble any other. It may have humans in it, or it may not. Its physical laws may feel familiar, but that will be coincidence, not because of some inherent interversal connection. No matter what, each universe is independent, through both time and space. And it is extremely difficult to travel between them. Interversal travel has only been invented twice in the entire histories of the entire bulkverse, and every means of travel beyond it has been based on that original technology. Because these branes do not operate on the same timeline, there really isn’t any such thing as the first, but one did inspire the pursuit of the other. They called it The Crossover, and the biggest reason the one group of people who encountered it were capable of replicating its function was because they were immortals who were billions of years old. They called their version the Nexus Network. It started out as a way to jump between systems in a galaxy, before expanding to other galaxies, and eventually all over the universe. Once the process was fully automated, and left to conquer the cosmos, its inventors decided they needed a new challenge. They chose interversal travel as that challenge, and proceeded to spend millions of years working on the problem. That was how difficult it was.

Getting out of one’s current brane was the easy part, but navigating the bulkverse, and finding somewhere to land was all but impossible. The best computer in any universe is usually not anywhere near good enough to make the necessary calculations. Once those calculations are made, however, the system that utilizes the data doesn’t have to be very large, or even all that complex. After all that time figuring out how to travel to other universes, this small group of immortals had to come to terms with the fact that their latest challenge was over, and they had nothing more to do with the rest of their eternal lives. There was talk about building more systems in these other universes, but they weren’t sure that it would be worth it. Their home universe had quadrillions of people in it, spread across many galaxies, and they needed a way to reach each other quickly and conveniently. In these other branes they visited, the population was always a lot lower. They expanded within their galaxy, and into neighboring galaxies, in some cases, but their levels never reached a meaningful fraction of the number the immortals were used to. Even further down the timeline, they seemed to be doing okay with their own technological advances. Still, there were a few cases where the group’s means of instantaneous intergalactic travel would be quite useful. In salmonverse, they didn’t build a full network, but they constructed a handful of them in strategic locations. One of them was Durus. The Durune were aware of temporal manipulation, and psychic abilities, and even a hint of other branes, so they were deemed worthy of being connected to this very small network of replica Nexa. It was constructed in secret at some point, and discovered in 2195. But they weren’t allowed to go anywhere yet.

Microstory 1351: Overqualified

< > Table of Contents

Cemetery Services Supervisor: Good afternoon, sir. Can I help you find someone? We have a new system that can locate any grave for you, but it’s up in the main office.

Overqualified Executive: No, I’m here for an interview for the Cemetery Services Specialist job. I haven’t heard back, so I figured I would be proactive, and just swing by. I hope that’s okay.

Cemetery Supervisor: I thought that was a joke.

Executive: I’m sorry?

Cemetery Supervisor: I figured you sent in your résumé because you lost some bet you made with your fellow billionaires, or something.

Executive: Uh, no bet. And I’m not a billionaire.

Cemetery Supervisor: You’re rich, though, ain’t ya?

Executive: I’m rich, yes, but I’m completely serious about this position.

Cemetery Supervisor: I don’t think I have to tell you that you are profoundly overqualified for this job.

Executive: I understand that, but believe it or not, I’ve wanted to be a cemetery worker since I was a kid. Being around nature, working with my hands, making sure people have a safe and peaceful place to go to visit their loved ones. I’ve always felt that sounded so rewarding. Of course, my parents would have none of it. They had a lot of ambition for my life, and before I knew it, I was the executive of a multi-million dollar company. I was never really happy, though, and when I looked at my accounts a couple months ago, I realized I had no reason to stay. I gave that place twenty years, and nearly all of it was in the top position, so I have more than enough money to live off of for the rest of my life. All that job did was stress me out, so now it’s time to pursue my dream.

Cemetery Supervisor: This isn’t easy work. I hardly believe it was ever your dream.

Executive: I know it’s not easy, but I hear it’s not stressful, as long as you can handle watching other people’s heartbreak, which I think I can. I’m very empathetic, and I’m sick of taking my work home with me. I want to come in every day, help people through the hardest times in their lives in my own way, then go home.

Cemetery Supervisor: You don’t think you may be taking a job away from someone who really needs it; whose rich father didn’t make them go to college and such?

Executive: ...I’ll work for free. You can set up a volunteer program.

Cemetery Supervisor: Well, that’s this whole legal thing we would have to figure out. The boss would be the only one on hand who would have any clue how to maneuver something like that, if anyone. Right now, I can already see a problem, though. You’re still taking a job from someone, because if we have you to do the work, regardless of what we pay you—or do not pay you—we still wouldn’t need to hire anyone else.

Executive: I understand. I don’t want to make anyone’s life harder; that’s counterproductive to my goals. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.

Cemetery Supervisor: Now, hold on. Just because we can’t help you, doesn’t mean you can’t realize your goals. Are you still workin’ at the corporation?

Executive: I gave them two month’s notice. Jobs like that require a little more time to find a replacement. My tasks are being completed by others, though. I haven’t gone into the office in over a week.

Cemetery Supervisor: If you’re really serious about making a change in your life, then do it. Use your money to make a difference, instead of ignoring it. People will always die, and they will always want to be remembered. There’s more than enough room in the industry for you to start your own funeral home. That way, you can do however much of the day-to-day work you want.

Executive: Hm. That’s not a bad idea.

Cemetery Supervisor: Glad I could help. In the meantime, I suppose I could let you shadow me for a day. I’m sure that won’t cause us any legal problems, and it’ll get you some real experience.

Executive: I sure appreciate it.

Cemetery Supervisor: Well, go on; pick up that shovel. We’re gonna plant a nice shade tree right here. I already started the hole for ya.

Microstory 1350: Advice

< > Table of Contents

College Student: Thank you for meeting me. My name is College Student, and I’m interested in your program.

College Advisor: All right. Well, how many film classes have you already taken?

College Student: I took a screenwriting class, does that count?

College Advisor: That could count towards credit. You’re a junior, though?

College Student: Yes.

College Advisor: Well, let me take a look at your transcript.

College Student: Sure, here it is.

College Advisor: [...] Okay, so you have all of your core classes, so you’re well on track. It looks like you are a writing major now, is that correct?

College Student: Yes, I thought I liked it, and I do, but I’m having doubts about leaving school with that as my degree. I mean, I don’t feel like I wasted my time with all those courses, but when I’m applying for work, is that what I want them to see?

College Advisor: Well, what kind of work are you looking to apply for? This ain’t California.

College Student: I plan to move to California.

College Advisor: Well, Hollywood job hunting is a lot different than regular jobs. What did you want to actually do in the industry? Write?

College Student: Yes, I would still write, but I feel like I’ve gotten too much experience in other areas, like literature, and creative writing. I just want to look as good as I possibly can. So the classes will help. It’s just the major that I’m worried about. I’m really hoping to graduate in a year and a half, since I already have a place to live in L.A. lined up.

College Advisor: Okay, well Film Studies is not a blow-off program. It requires a minimum of sixty credit hours. Of course, that’s on top of the general education requirements, which it seems you already have. I don’t know them all by heart, so it’s possible you’re still missing one or two of those. Let’s do a little bit of math, and see if we can get this done in a year and a half. You would definitely need to take summer classes, and either way, your workload would be huge.

College Student: Okay, cool.

[transcript cut for relevance]

College Advisor: Okay, thanks, bye. [Hangs up phone.] Yeah, it looks like that history class doesn’t count for us, so with that included, you’ll need to take eighteen hours for three semesters, and three summer classes. We got lucky on those ones; they’re not offered every summer. And this is all assuming we can get you into a couple different classes this semester. I would have rather you asked me about this a few weeks ago. No matter what, we’re talking about a huge workload, and you can’t fail a single one. It’s technically feasible, but it leaves one major question.

College Student: Am I willing to commit to this change?

College Advisor: That’s right. Are you? You could graduate this coming summer with your current major, and all you would need to do is take one summer class.

College Student: That certainly sounds like the most rational choice. What would you do? I don’t know your personal history, but if you wanted to make it big in Hollywood, does all this matter?

College Advisor: Honestly, no. The degree, that is, doesn’t matter. The classes definitely do. It would still be tremendously helpful to your education to learn some of this stuff. When you go to Hollywood—and I’m not going to be one of those people who tells you that you probably won’t make it; your family can do that—they don’t care what your major was, or even if you have a degree. What I recommend you do is hold off on graduation, and take as many of these classes as you can, within reason. I wouldn’t bog yourself down with them; we can go over the most helpful ones. That way, you can stick to your current major, and be fine. How does that sound?

College Student: That’s not a bad idea. I suppose the education is more important than the diploma.

College Advisor: I would agree with that. Now, let’s talk about which classes someone in your position should take, and when.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 21, 2228

« < » > Table of Contents

Many years ago, back in the version of reality where Mateo Matic did not exist, Leona was on her way with a crew to a rogue planet called Durus. There they would find the daughter of Saga Einarsson, and her wife Andromeda. Étude would go on the be the Last Savior of Earth, which meant she was incredibly valuable to the powers that be. So they evidently decided one ship was not enough. A second vessel, called The Emma González was secretly sent behind them, presumably to support the primary team. The Failsafe Vessel never did make it to Durus, and the crew of The Elizabeth Warren were never able to make contact with them again. As it turned out, they were diverted by some mysterious force. Against their will, Captain Kestral McBride and Lieutenant Ishida Caldwell found themselves all the way at Gatewood. There they were charged with maintaining three to four major projects, one of which involved the production of all the facilities the Ansutahan refugees would need to escape their universe, and survive in this one. Apparently, this was in the works long before anyone on the ground knew it would ever be necessary.

Unfortunately, in order to protect the people of Dardius, which he was responsible for, Mateo was forced to destroy the Muster Beacon. When combined with the power of its counterpart, the Muster Lighter, it was causing a flood of duplicates, which were threatening to destroy the solar system. If not stopped, the beacon probably would have continued to add more and more to the population, and wouldn’t even stop once there was literally no more room. Its original creator was never known, with The Weaver assuring them that she would have had nothing to do with it in any reality. There was no on or off switch, and it only ever worked according to a psychic connection it made with its operator. They never had a chance to figure out why it was able to keep going unsustained by this connection, which meant the only solution was to destroy it completely. That appeared to have been enough to stop the onslaught of Freemarketeers, leaving everyone wondering whether they made a huge mistake by not starting out by trying to destroy the Muster Lighter first, since it was a hell of a lot less powerful anyway.

So here Mateo was in a different universe with Ramses, Weaver, and Goswin. They were discussing their options with Mateo’s girlfriend, Serif, their new friends Kestral and Ishida, and newcomer Greer Thorpe. Time was not the same here. Their only hope of solving this problem was to use the lighter by itself, but it featured a far smaller capacity. According to preliminary attempts, it was capable of summon a maximum of eight hundred and sixty-one people at one time. In order to save all eleven billion humans presently living in Ansutah, it was probably going to take them over two years. The good news was that two years wasn’t the worst possible solution, but it all came down to a very special girl, with a very important temporal power.

Many years ago, a woman named Melissa Atterberry went off on a quest to rid herself of her special ability. The reasons she wanted to do this were her own, but she ended up discovering what she was looking for, as did dozens of other people. Long story short, however, some of her friends were in need of getting their powers back, but of course, it wouldn’t be so easy. They began a new quest, and found themselves on a place called Eden island, where their powers were waiting for them. No one there at the time remained long enough to tell the story, but historians were able to piece together fragments of information, which ultimately told them that their plan at least worked in part. Right at the spot where they were standing, a tree grew. This tree bore fruit of different colors; each one containing one of the quester’s powers. To protect the Fruit of Power from falling into the wrong hands, a special order of humans was created. No one would be allowed to live on the island, except for this order. As anyone might expect, this could not last forever.

As the war with the Maramon of Ansutah raged on, a small group of young humans began their own quest. They sought the Fruit of Power, hoping to end the war, and free their people. They were met with no resistance upon reaching Eden Island, for this island was also being used by Serif as the location of the bridge that could transport them all the way back to their home universe. The protectors were simply too busy with trying to figure out how to get everyone through the bridge to worry about the tree anymore. Something went wrong during an attempt to recreate the power of the Muster Twins, and most of the young men and women who partook in the fruits were either lost to the multiverse, or killed. Only Greer remained, having eaten the yellow fruit, which imbued her with Missy’s original power. She was now able to create bubbles, inside of which time would pass at a slower or faster rate. Knowing it would take some time before the bridge made it all the way to Gatewood in the first place, Greer used her new ability to form a bubble around the entire planet. She linked the passage of time to Serif’s pattern, so that only days would pass inside, while the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made its way through interstellar space on the outside.

“Why would you do that?” Weaver was asking Serif. “If you thought Mateo and Leona would be on their way with the Muster Beacon, why would you try to make one of your own, especially before you had even arrived on Gatewood?”

“I wasn’t responsible for that,” Serif explained. “I am not the leader of the Ansutahan humans, as you can imagine, since I only live for one day every year. Bureaucrats decided that, if the Muster Beacon could be invented once, then surely it could be invented again. I would have stopped them had a I been there. Surprisingly, though no one would call what they did successful, they did come damn close. They harnessed the power of the bridge itself, and used it like a vacuum cleaner, sucking everyone on the island into it. Sadly, most of those people disappeared into the bulkverse, but they were onto something.”

“What?” Mateo asked. “You think we can combine the technology of the bridge vacuum, and the Muster Lighter? You think we may be able to get it to work?”

Serif nodded. “If Miss Blue here helps us, yes I think we can.”

“People have been calling me Weaver, in order to distinguish me from the Holly Blue who belongs in this reality. And I’m not sure that would be such a good idea. I mean, this is alien technology we’re talking about here. The Maramon developed as a society completely independently from the rest of humanity. Even the humans here came up with their own technology, and all of it would be totally incompatible with anything I learned to build on Earth. We don’t even know where the Muster Lighter comes from; perhaps even a third universe. You may have this idea that, as an engineer, I can invent pretty much anything on the fly, but that’s not how this works. I’m going to need time, if it’s even possible. There’s also this belief that everything is possible, if the right people have the right tools, but some dogs just don’t hunt.”

“Time I can give you,” Greer said. “In a panic, I created an Atterberry bubble so big that it encompassed the entire planet. That’s what’s keeping us from suffering years of war. But the war is still going on; it just hasn’t been very long yet. I think...” she trailed off, hesitant of her own convictions.

“Go on,” Serif urged her.

“I think I can pop this bubble, and make a new one. I think I can place all Maramon in a bubble where time moves slower, and put all the humans back in real time. Except for Serif and Mateo. I can’t end your salmon patterns.”

“Speaking of people who can end salmon patterns, any word on that?” Mateo asked Weaver.

Weaver shook her head. “I’ve not been able to get the Nexus replica to take me anywhere since we saw Newt hopelessly trapped in that awful suicide vest. I may be able to get to Durus or Earth at some point, but I assume Dardius has been completely cut off from everyone. They’re on their own now, unless someone like Dave or Maqsud goes out there.”

“How did you know how to build the Nexus?” Mateo asked Kestral and Ishida. “How did you know to do anything when you got to this star system?”

The two of them gave each other this look. “The instructions come to us in dreams,” Ishida answered.

“Shared dreams,” Kestral added. “They don’t tell us what to do, but they tell us how to do things, and we decide whether we want to.”

“So we didn’t know why we might need the centrifugal cylinders, or the Nexus, or—”

Kestral interrupted, “the point is we don’t know how the Nexus works. It’s not like a real Nexus, which if what you say is correct, is from a real universe that we could potentially go to. It was just made to look like that, but it utilizes temporal energy from our universe to travel the stars.”

“We’re still not clear why you need a Nexus at your destination. You should be able to teleport anywhere in the observable universe, as long as you have its coordinates.”

Mateo turned back to Weaver. “Maybe you could use that too.”

“What?” Weaver asked. “The Nexus? You want me to combine whatever powers the Nexus, with the Muster Lighter you brought back from Dardius, with whatever crazy Maramon tech sustains the universe bridge?”

“Greer can give you time to study all three of them. Plus, you have at least two other brilliant engineers helping you out.” He gestured to Kestral and Ishida.

“We would be most excited to work with you,” Ishida agreed.

Kestral was excited too. “The cylinders aren’t finished being built, but we don’t have to maintain them manually. The robots do pretty much everything.”

Weaver sighed. “I will see what I can do, but Miss Thorpe will indeed have to change how this temporal bubble works. I’ll need to be able to go back and forth between our universes without getting stuck.”

“Give me an hour,” Greer requested. “Maybe longer.”

“Done,” Serif said, like a leader. “As for Misters Abdulrashid and Montagne, there are other considerations for this venture. While Weaver finds a way to get everyone here, we’ll need you two to figure out the kind of society they’re going to build. I understand you both have experience in government?”

“I do,” Ramses said.

“Yes,” Goswin said.

“Good. Many of the human leaders got themselves sucked into the bridge vacuum. I obviously can’t lead them, since I’m going to disappear at the end of today, after Greer changes the bubble.” She looked around at the group. Most people had something important to do, but Mateo certainly didn’t. “All right. Break!”

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 16, 2222

« < » > Table of Contents

As promised, Leona spent the rest of her time in 2221 working with the Bungulan scientists on a way to observe one of her jumps to the future. They were very receptive to her ideas, and willing to let go of their past experiences. Though none of them had any proof that all this was real, they started from a place of trust, and continued from there. When she returned to the timestream a year later, the entire laboratory was finished, just like Administrator Six Point Seven said it would. She was gone forever, though. The current leader of the colony was Administrator Seven Point Seven, who had been fully briefed on the current situation. Though the observational component of the experiment wasn’t going to begin until the end of the day, there was still a lot for her to do. They expected her to inspect the hardware, and run diagnostics on the entire system. Again, the scientists weren’t unrealistically confident in their own abilities, and respected her input. Everything looked perfect, though no one really knew whether anything they tried was going to do any good. What followed was, perhaps, the craziest thing Leona had ever gone through. And that was saying a lot. Theorizing one could understand time travel, Leona stepped into the observation chamber…and vanished. She woke to find herself in another universe, facing children playing a game—drivers of the now known force to change history for their own amusement.

“Whoa, is this part of the game?” Leona heard someone ask. Her eyes were still trying to adjust to her new surroundings, but she could already tell that they were indeed new. This was not the time lab on Bungula.

“The box doesn’t say anything about this feature,” another person said. They sounded like children.

“Where am I?” Leona asked.

“You’re in my house,” a bubbly young voice answered.

“What year is it?”

“It’s two thousand and—”

“You don’t have to answer that, Liora,” one of the other children interrupted her.

Leona’s vision was now completely recovered. She was in what looked like a game room, amongst a small group of children, maybe four or five years old. Well, no, a couple of them looked older.

“Don’t say anyone’s name, Xolta,” a third scolded.

“You just said my name, Eresh!” Xolta complained.

“Well, then let’s make this even,” the boy who looked the oldest, and acted the leader, said. “I’m Dhartha. You know Liora, Xolta, and Eresh. These guys here are Mariano and Odhrán.

“I’m Leona.”

They exchanged looks, like they had heard that before.

“Which is your current last name, Leona?” Dhartha questioned.

“Matic,” Leona answered him truthfully.

“Hm,” he said. “This is weird. Do you believe that you are self-aware?”

“I am self-aware. Are you?”

Dhartha picked up sheet of virtual paper. “The instructions say nothing about this. Characters don’t...come to life, that’s crazy.”

“I’m not a character,” Leona explained, “I am alive.”

“Dhartha,” the boy named Mariano said. He was roughly the same age, but much quieter and reserved.

Dhartha just kept scrolling through these instructions, trying to figure out what went wrong.

“Dhartha,” Mariano repeated.

“What!” Dhartha exclaimed.

“I warned you. We always knew this was a possibility.”

“Shut up!”

“Wait, he was right?” Xolta was on the verge of tears. “Are they real?”

“They’re not real,” Dhartha assured her. “This is just a dumb game.”

“A dumb game that came out nowhere,” Mariano reminded him. “The first line of the instructions even warn us that we would be playing with people’s lives.”

“That’s just...intrigue. It doesn’t prove anything.”

Eresh pointed to Leona. “She proves it.”

“Could someone fill me in?” Leona requested.

“What is the last thing you remember?” Mariano asked her.

“I was on a planet called Bungula. A group of scientists built a laboratory to observe my pattern.”

“Your pattern of jumping forwards in time one year at the end of every day?” he added for her.

“That’s right.”

Dhartha stopped trying to read through the instructions. “This isn’t possible. We would know. We’re keeping a pretty good eye on the surface.”

“It’s a different Earth,” Liora guessed. “Just like in the game.”

“We have no proof that there are more than two universes,” Dhartha argued.

“It’s unlikely there would only be two,” Mariano said. “One? Maybe. Infinite? Yes, definitely. But just two? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, then, how did she get here? Did she have a bridge, or The Crossover, or an amazing technicolor dreamcoat?” That last one didn’t sound like a joke, but it must have been. Right?

“The observation chamber,” Odhrán suggested. “It messed with her jump, just like the Snow White coffin did for Mateo.”

“When are you people going to get this?” Dhartha began. “The characters aren’t traveling through time. Because none of this is real. It’s just an RPG that we’ve been for the last several hours.”

“This is no standard role-playing game,” Mariano said. “I’ve been to the surface, and the Earthans don’t play this kind of thing.”

“Whatever, it’s advanced. That doesn’t mean it’s magic.”

“We’re all witches,” Liora said.

“Who don’t use magic.” Dhartha was getting tired of being the only sane person in the room.

“I’ve also met The Superintendent,” Mariano said.

“That’s just a man,” Dhartha brushed off. “He doesn’t have powers either.”

“Are you kids trying to tell me that you are the powers that be?”

 Eresh laughed. “Xolta came up with that term. She heard it in an old monster TV show, and thought it sounded cool.”

“From your perspective,” Mariano said, “yes. We’re the PTB, and I promise you that we will stop playing the game, so you can move on with your life.”

“You can’t do that.” The Gravedigger walked into the room.

“You knew about this, Mister Halifax?” Dhartha asked him.

“I’m your teacher. I know everything you’re up to.”

Eresh stood up. “So, when we named the Gravedigger after you, that was just...actually you.”

“I’ve been helping in the best way I can. How we honor our dead determines how civilized we are.”

“They are not our dead,” Dhartha said. “Real or not, they’re still just our characters.”

“Why didn’t you stop the game?” Xolta asked Halifax.

“Once it started, it could not be finished. If you quit, the universe dies.”

“Whatever,” Dhartha said. “It stopped being fun two hours ago. The Cleanser, as a villain, cannot be beat.”

“My favorite was Nerakali,” youngest, Liora said with a smile.

“It would be.”

Leona tried to reason this all out. She was now in another universe, which was no big deal, since she had been to others before. But this one was different, because it supposedly explained everything that had ever happened to her in her whole life, as well as for everyone she ever knew. These were the powers that be; children playing a magical role-playing game with real life consequences. Everyone she lost; every obstacle she overcame; every villain she fought; every person she fell in love with. None of it was real. It was all a literal game. “You’re telling I’m just a figment of these children’s collective imagination?” She sat down on a plush chicken, but didn’t bother taking it out of the chair.

Halifax sat next to her, and waited to explain. “When you go to sleep, you dream, right?”

“Usually. Why?”

“Dreams are real. I would know, I’m a dreamwalker. I come from a long line of walkers, actually. Mateo met a few of them once, on Tribulation Island. When you dream, your mind conjures a parallel universe, and lets you live in it, as a hologram. When the dream is over, the universe collapses...unless it’s recurring, or you’re good at making it lucid, or you just have strong power over it. But not all dreams happen while you’re asleep. We often call people who dream while they’re awake...writers. They can amass an entire universe by sheer will, and control every aspect of it. The Superintendent is one such writer, and these children are just tapping into that. A story is only as good as its creator, or its audience. Without at least one of these parties, keeping the story going, you can’t exist. The creator of your universe has no audience, so he recruited the power of these witches of Atlantis, so he wouldn’t have to carry the burden alone. If they don’t keep playing, he will have to come up with story ideas all on his own, and since he has a fulltime job, he won’t really have time for that.”

“Does our story have to be so heartbreaking, and challenging?” Leona asked of him.

“Is any story worth telling not both of those things?” he asked her rhetorically.

Leona sat there with her face in her palms for a good long while. Everyone there knew to just stay quiet while she processed. “You’re pretty good at rationalizing murder.”

“Leona, everyone who believes in God believes in a benevolent force who murders people.”

“Not everyone.”

“Maybe not,” Halifax agreed, “but you have to ask yourself one question. Knowing what you know now—about dreams, and the subconsciousness—how many people do you think you’ve murdered?”

Leona stood back up, stiffened up her upper lip, and straightened her back. “Zero. Because subconsciousness is not consciousness. I’m not a writer. And now that I know the truth, I’m going to stop dreaming.”

“That’s your choice. They make a pill for that, but remember one thing before you leave.”

“What’s that?”

“God taketh, and God giveth life. You may have murdered countless people in countless dream universes, but you also created them. They are literally nothing without you.”

“They should be,” Leona said coldly. “Now take me to Mateo.”

“I can’t take you back to him. He needs to be free from distractions. But I can put you on his pattern.”

She was confused. “I’m already on his pattern.”

“Not the new one.”

“Whoa,” Mateo said. “That didn’t seem to work.” This time jump was different. He usually felt a little bit of nausea, but returned exactly where he was when he left. But this time, he was teetering. He would have fallen down had Ramses not been there to catch him.

“It worked,” Newt said. There was a rumor floating around history that there was a way to get rid of one’s time powers, or their pattern. Leona’s friends, Missy and Dar’cy went off in search of this holy grail. Once they did, they learned that the power remover came in the form of a stillborn child, born of a young woman from Springfield, Kansas, and a young man from Durus. So anyone who wanted that to happen would have to be at that place, at that time, because it would never happen again. But the reason this rumor existed was because things were different in an old alternate timeline. Newt was born perfectly healthy there, but the white monsters apparently felt threatened by him, so he had to be rescued from their universe, and brought to Dardius, where he would hopefully be safe.

“It’s still two thousand, two hundred, and twenty-two,” Ramses explained. You’ve only been gone a few hours. Sort of...temporal turbulence. You’re here for good now, though.”

“Is Leona like me too? And Serif? Did they fall off of our pattern?”

“I don’t see why they would,” Newt said. “You weren’t on the same pattern, you just had the same pattern.”

Mateo wasn’t sure this was accurate. “So I’m...I’m done? The powers that be can’t get to me anymore?”

“It would be like trying to eat a sandwich that someone already ate. You’re not salmon anymore. They can’t get to you.”

“Great!” Ramses slapped Mateo on the back, affectionately, but a little too hard. “Let us reintroduce you to your loyal subjects. Welcome to realtime, Patronus Matic.”

« < » > Table of Contents