Microstory 2632: Pet Project

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Mandica Kolar is a perfectly normal human, which is rare in her time. The transhumanism movement might have begun in the middle of the 20th century, but it did not gain any real traction for many decades, when the science started to catch up with the ideas. Over the next few centuries, the population of undigitized organic humans (UDOs) gradually diminished. They weren’t being killed or replaced. It was just that fewer and fewer people were deciding to tolerate natural aging limitations, aches and pains, and kind of being sidelined. They have become a silent minority. Posthumans hold most of the power now, not out of some nefarious plan, but because that is how the math works out. Whether consciously or subconsciously, some undigitized people feel that they’re being treated as pets, or maybe children. They are so fragile, and people just wanted to protect that. This mindset can be problematic because it often leads to the UDOs being patronized, but honestly, most mean no disrespect. One little plane crash or massive explosion, and a UDO would die...forever. Most everyone else is constantly backing up their consciousness to a remote server somewhere, and don’t worry about such things. In fact, their virtual immortality often makes their lives pretty boring, especially since these adaptations come with other technological improvements, leading to higher quality of life in a post-scarcity society. They have turned to entertainment, and the most popular of these involve some level of simulated danger. They can’t die for real, but they can make believe, and the best systems do better at making them forget that the stakes are genuinely quite low.

Someone is paraterraforming an entire planet for these reasons. Instead of virtual simulations, they will be physical. Some might even alter a visitor’s memories to forget who they are, making them feel like life is still precious and fleeting. Tens of thousands of domes, each with its own theme, are being constructed on the surface of Castlebourne. Mandica isn’t necessarily interested in the simulations, but she does want to leave Earth, and she happens to know of a ship that is heading in that direction. There are too many restrictions here. She doesn’t want to feel like a pet anymore. She wants to live somewhere that will let her be herself. To accomplish this, she needs to move to a Charter Planet. Lying between 50 and 200 light years from Earth, Charter Worlds are not subject to the same laws that the Core Worlds and Stellar Neighborhood systems are. They have to protect themselves, but they often do so by chartering resources from other systems. Castlebourne is set to receive a shipment of lower lifeforms from Earth. They have already been sent one arkship, so this is a second wave with additional specimens, many of which are live. It will probably be Mandica’s last chance to get to where she wants to be. Arkships are rare, and Castlebourne is lucky to get two. They may not receive anything else ever again as most other resources can be found and processed in situ. The problem is, this ship is not for her. There was no chance that they were ever going to let her on it, so she has decided to stow away.

Mandica is a nomad, but she’s still a citizen of the state, and is entitled to certain amenities. Most people in this post-scarcity society get what they need from their local Resource Allocation Committees, which they voted for. As she has no local rights or responsibilities, an At-Large Allocation Board (ALAB) decides what she gets, and what she doesn’t. The people who sit on the board are reportedly mostly former RAC members, but she has never even met even one of them. All of her dealings have been fully automated, which she prefers. She accepts the bureaucracy, but that doesn’t mean she has to participate in government. Since life is so dangerous for nomads, she never goes anywhere truly alone. She possesses a bot pack of drones to aid her in her travels, and protect her. They practically force the pack on her, but she likes animals, and they’re quite convincing, so she doesn’t mind. Others in her situation have outright refused, or disabled them permanently.

There is something else that is different when it comes to Mandica. In addition to the horse, dog, hawk, and flutterby, she’s also accompanied by an android. This is fairly rare for nomads. It’s more of a hermit thing, and of course, there is overlap, but there is a clear distinction. Hermits live alone, and reject the state’s authority, which is why most of them have gone off-world by now. Nomads, on the other hand, frequently get involved in community affairs, they just like to shift between communities at will. They don’t typically need an android for human companionship, because they’re getting plenty of socialization through more conventional—albeit ephemeral—relationships. Mandica visits populated regions as well, but she spends a lot more time in the wilderness, exploring, hiking, and just enjoying the solitude. So why bother with an android? Well, Mordred provides something she might be able to get from others, but with a lot fewer complications. He gives her the sexual satisfaction she needs without all the emotional baggage. Well...there might be a little bit of emotion involved.

“But I don’t understand why I cannot go with you.” Mordred was programmed to adore Mandica, perhaps a little too much.

“Because I need you to stay behind to fake my death,” she explains once again.

He was also programmed to be able to forget things, act a little dumb, and be generally confused. “But I love you, my love. We said we would stay together forever.”

“It was only a fantasy. I must away to start my new life. If you truly love me, you’ll set me free, erase the animals’ memories, and protect me from being discovered.”

Mordred looks down at Mandica’s bioprinted facsimile. It’s state of the art, and looks just like her, down to the scars. A dedicated medical examiner could plausibly tell the difference, but they will hopefully not even bother with a post mortem. It will be a simple fall from an extremely high cliff, which is perfectly believable, given her lifestyle, and nomads aren’t exactly top priority. “This golem of yours...does she feel as you do? Does she love me as well?”

“She feels nothing. She is not a she at all, but only a husk. Her sole job is to pretend to be me...in her death.”

“Will we ever see each other again?” he presses. “One day?”

“I told you that I would never lie to you, Mordred, and I shan’t. I’m afraid you will never see me again. As the brightest candle burns the fastest, our love must end.”

“How can I go on without you? I shall end my own life.”

“You can do that, but only after you show others that I am dead. Please, this is of the utmost importance. I cannot have them looking for me.”

“I will, my beautiful flower,” Mordred promises. “Now turn away. If I see your face for one second more, I will not be able to say goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!” he shouts melodramatically.

“Goodbye, dear Mordred. I’ll think of you always.” Mandica walks down the trail, and heads for the launch site. Castlebourne calls to her from the distant sky.

Microstory 2612: In a Panic, the Ants Will Scramble For Their Salvation, Even Where it Can’t Be Found

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August 20, 2526. The crowd stands before the monitors as they watch the breaking news feed. They were pushing each other around, trying to get into the train, but that has all stopped now. The handful of people who were already let through are watching the news too. “Tragedy struck at the train station underneath Summerspring Dome sixteen minutes ago. A domaquake shook the platform and caused several support beams to collapse. The vacuum tube was weakened, and ultimately imploded due to the stress. A current count of 815 people were killed in the implosion. Experts are currently working on ways to mitigate the damages that these seismic events have on our infrastructure. One new procedure they will be implementing is single-pod travel. No longer will pods be linked together. They are mapping the quake patterns, and determining optimal safe launch windows so this never happens again. Furthermore, polar leadership recognizes the magnitude of the crisis, and is preparing to receive evacuees, but stresses that resources are low. If you live between the 40th parallels, on either side of the equator, you are urged to evacuate to the higher regions of the Terminator Line. If you are northward of the 40th parallel in the northern hemisphere, or southward in the southern hemisphere, you are being asked to shelter in place for now so that your friends and neighbors in the more volatile regions can make use of the vactrain tubes.

“Some trains are being sent to the poles, while others will be stopping along the way. You are asked to accommodate any evacuees, providing them with food and shelter while we work towards more permanent solutions to this extreme adversity. Experts and leaders would like to remind you that what happened in Summerspring Dome is a tragic but rare event, and assures the public that the vast majority of the vactrain network is safe for travel. To quote the Administrative Council of the southern pole’s official statement: ‘The equatorial regions are quickly becoming uninhabitable, and the southern pole is extending a helping hand towards all displaced communities. Please remember that we are all Proxima Domanians, and a respectful and orderly evacuation is paramount for the safety and survival of us all.’ Comforting words from someone already living in the safe zone, who didn’t have to watch their loved ones die, and their homes get swallowed up by the crust.” He looks off camera, presumably at an angry producer, and clears his throat.

The anchor sits there for a moment in silence, staring into the lens. “Get out. Get out now. Every dome comes equipped with massive land vehicles. If you can’t get in a train, go! Just go! Even if you live in the middle regions, save yourse—” The feed cuts off.

The crowd stands there silently as the images return to the basic weather information for their own dome. The whispers grow louder and louder, threatening to turn this relatively peaceful crowd into a clamoring mob. The Regent is here to coordinate the evacuations. As this area of the planet is not too terribly dangerous right now, the process has gone okay. “Now, hold on!” he cries to quiet everyone down. “There are plenty of vacuum tubes to get everyone out. We will not leave you here. But we will be slowing down the process to make way for the equatorials.”

“You saw what happened!” a rabble rouser shouts. “These tubes aren’t safe anymore!”

“No, they are safe,” the Regent insists. “We have not been experiencing what the others have been. I promise you, they will hold.”

“The tubes are all connected!” another person argues. “If you damage one closer to the equator, it can have an impact on it all the way out here!”

“That’s not how it works,” the Regent contends. “We will be taking the trains. It’s the only way. There aren’t enough land vehicles for everyone, that is not an option.”

“Did you hear that, everyone? There aren’t enough vehicles! We better go now before someone else gets them!” That’s it, that’s all it takes. The swarm of evacuees turn and rush out in the opposite direction. The people who managed to get on the train fall in line behind them. They all run up the stairs, and out of the station. The Regent tries to calm them down, and bring them back, but his voice is drowned out by the heavy footsteps, and is also just ignored. He doesn’t need the stairs. He simply steps backwards, and enters the executive elevator, which he takes back up to the surface.

They are in the main station now. None of the sprinters is explaining why it is they’re running, but it looks scary, so everyone up there just starts running alongside them on instinct. The Regent shakes his head. These people have no clue where they’re going. Those land vehicles were made for specific purposes. You don’t just hop in one, and take a trip because you feel like traversing the treacherous terrain outside the dome. He doesn’t understand exactly where they think they’re headed. He continues to rise in the transparent elevator, up to the roof of the station. He watches them rush out of the building, towards the perimeter, which is a couple of kilometers away from here.

His pilot is walking towards the elevator platform, wiping the grease off of her hands as she watches the army of panicking ants as well. “You’re early, sir.”

“Is it ready to go?” he asks, still watching the people who he was supposed to represent desperately trying to figure out where these fabled cars are.

“Yeah, she’s prepped and ready. Your family’s inside.”

“Then we’re leaving now.”

She shakes her head. “My guy’s not in place to open the airlock.”

“Punch through it.”

“Sir, I’m not gonna do that. The toxic air will kill anyone who isn’t killed by the razor rain.”

The Regent takes out his gun and points it at her head. “Punch...through it.”

“Fine, fine,” the pilot agrees. “My co-pilot isn’t here yet either, though, so I’m gonna need someone sitting next to me to flip a few switches.”

“I can do that, just get us the hell out of here.” They walk over to the VTOL rocket and climb inside, passing his wife and kids on the way to the cockpit. His children smile at him, not understanding the gravity of the situation, but he doesn’t smile back.

“Shut that hatch behind us, and press the button in the top corner.”

“It says SOUND DAMPENER,” he points out, not sure why they would need that.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” she confirms. “Then sit right there and look for a yellow lever sandwiched between the seat and the hull.”

He pushes it, then sits down and fumbles around for the lever. “I don’t see it.”

While he’s turned away, the pilot shoots him in the head. “I’m not...punching through the dome.” She proceeds to sit there quietly for another few hours until her people are in place for a safe and ethical launch.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 26, 2539

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The team reunited on Extremus Prime, but they weren’t ready to go for another day. Ramses needed to work on something first. Once it was time, they bid their adieu to Actilitca, and activated all seven of their tandem slingdrives. They ended up on a planet called Varkas Reflex. It orbited a host star called Wolf 359. Like Proxima Centauri, it was a flare star, but unlike Proxima Doma, Varkas Reflex was a super-Earth. For a normal human to survive on the surface, technological advancements had to be made to protect them from the extreme gravity. All things being equal, it did not make for a very good colony. It should not have been one. Colonists should have remained in orbit instead, perhaps in centrifugal cylinders, or a whole Dyson swarm. It was very important to the early colonists, though, that they landed on planets. That sentimentality had since vanished, but tradition remained on the nearest neighbors.

For the longest time, Wolf 359 wasn’t even a very good candidate for planetary colonization, because scientists didn’t even know that there was a planet. Varkas Reflex orbited Wolf 359 at an extremely high inclination, which meant, from the perspective of Earth, it never passed between the star and the telescopes. They only eventually proved it using a method called stellar occultation, which tracked transit patterns of neighboring stars that indicated they were all coming from a single celestial body. It was then that they chose to send a probe there to confirm. It was sort of a last minute thing, relatively speaking according to galactic mapping scales.

About 250 years ago, the leaders of this planet had their plans set on making it the number one vacation destination for the stellar neighborhood. They were doing okay, and really only competing with Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. Then Castlebourne came along, and ruined all of that. Luckily, they had already pivoted to something else. In an attempt to make the perfectly streamlined democracy, Hokusai Gimura scanned the mind of everyone who lived on Varkas Reflex, and used them to create an amalgamated consciousness. This singular entity would presumably always have the right answer to how to govern things. No more asking questions, waiting for responses, and holding discussions. If a problem came up, the Congeneral would know what to do immediately, because the consensus was already in there. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. There was too much discordance. It kept stripping out conflicting thought after conflicting thought until there was basically nothing left. As it turned out, discordance was a part of life, and governance was always going to be complicated, and often slow.

Still, this failed experiment apparently gave them the idea to pivot from their original dream. Transdimensional gravity was great, but the surface of Varkas Reflex was still a hellscape compared to Earth, or even Proxima Doma’s Terminator Line. If everyone was safer and better off inside, they were going to use that to their advantage. Virtual simulations were widespread. There were massive communities centered on all of the colonies, as well as Earth, of course. It was possible to join these together using quantum communication, but not easy, and not all that common. The ones on Varkas Reflex today were largely considered the best. It didn’t have to be this way. It could have been just about anywhere, but this location had its advantages, like a tidally locked planet orbiting a red dwarf, which allowed for supercool calculations on the far side. But in the end, it became the simulation capital of the galaxy because the people there decided it would be. While most travelers these days were flocking to Castlebourne—about a million people per week, at last count—a not insignificant amount of interstellar ships and casting beams were going to Varkas Reflex. It didn’t hurt that the world shared an acronym with virtual reality.

“But why are we here?” Romana asked after being caught up on the boring history.

“I wanted to test my new navigational algorithm,” Ramses explained. “It’s not time to go out and look for Spiral Station just yet, but it needed to be a place the slingdrives hadn’t been to before. This world seemed as good as any.”

“So, you...” Romana began.

“I what?”

“You can’t read my mind?” she asked, peering at him with great suspicion.

“No. Why? What? What? Why? Why?” He was so lost.

She was still suspicious. “Okay...”

“Okay,” he echoed.

“Okay, well I’m gonna go to the stacks then,” she said, backing up slowly. “Unless you...you think I should go somewhere specific, I’m just gonna go browse.”

“That’s fine, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Romy. Is this somehow about the kiss?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’ve never kissed anyone before, let alone a brother like you.” She disappeared.

“That was weird.” He tried to go back to work, but seemed to feel someone staring at him. He turned to look at Leona. “What?”

“What was that about a kiss?” she questioned.

“So, I would like your opinion on the form factor,” Ramses said. “That’s an open question for everyone. But the design is only fluid until I actually start building it, which means I would like to make a decision quite quick.”

“Tell me about this kiss,” Leona insisted.

“It’s fine, Lee,” Mateo promised her. “Really, not a big deal. I’ve already parented her on it. We’ll talk about it later in private.”

Leona was peering at them both, but was ultimately willing to let it go...for now. “A sphere, I suppose.”

“That’s one vote for sphere. Anyone else?” Ramses asked.

“Shouldn’t it be a belt, so we can wear it,” Angela suggested.

“One for sphere, one for belt,” Ramses said, updating the polling data.

“Well, how big does it have to be?” Marie pressed. “If it can be smaller than a belt, maybe more like a necklace, or even a bracelet.”

Ramses started imagining various shapes of various dimensions between his hands. “With the power source, I don’t think it should be smaller than a belt.”

“It needs to be able to turn invisible either way, so we can hide it somewhere while we’re all inside.”

“Good idea.” Ramses scribbled that down in his notes. “In...visible. So, we really don’t care what the shape is?”

“They’re right, a belt makes more sense,” Leona said, changing her vote, “since we can’t store it in a pocket dimension.” Ramses was building a structure for them to inhabit. Since they no longer had a ship, they always had to congregate wherever they happened to be, and that lacked privacy. They also sometimes had to keep their suits on to breathe and communicate. By placing their home in a pocket dimension, they could stretch out and relax, even if they were in a harsh environment. They couldn’t just slip into their homebase whenever and wherever, though. It would require one piece of hardware to be kept in base reality at all times. Subpockets were possible, but not recommended, for various reasons, most importantly in this case was that it could get lost in the infinite forever if something went wrong. If they were all inside of it at the same time, that physical dimensional generator would just be sitting around on its own, or in some cases, floating around in space. In these situations, the shape wasn’t relevant, but Angela was right that a belt was the most logical choice. One of them could wear it around their waist, and it would look too normal for anyone to suspect its true purpose.

“Belt? Belt? Belt?” Ramses posed, pointing to Olimpia, Mateo, and Leona. “Belt,” he decided. “I need to get to work on it then. Thank you. You can go now.”

“I think I’m gonna go check on my daughter,” Mateo said to Leona.

“You need to tell me what happened first. It looks like she wants to be alone right now. Whatever she’s doing, I trust her. Do you?”

“Of course I do. Allow me to explain.”

While Mateo was telling the awkward story of Romana’s kiss with Ramses, Romana herself was in the simulation library. The largest component of a copy of the central archives that people carried around with them was called the virtual stacks. It could house hundreds or thousands of different simulations, depending on how detailed and immersive they were. It couldn’t hold all of them, though. That wouldn’t be practical, even if it were possible. The stacks that Romana was in right now were closer to that comprehensiveness, however. It was designed to look like a regular library, but the books were holographic, and only there for ambiance. The only real things on the shelves were the empty storage drives. You grabbed one from there, inserted it into the nearest private download terminal, and installed whichever construct you wanted from the core database. You could also connect to a particular world from here, to test drive it, or if you simply didn’t feel like going home to use it. Romana wasn’t interested in this, though. She didn’t even know what she was looking for. So she needed assistance.

The holographic assistant appeared in another chair. “Thank you, and welcome to the principal virtual database. What kind of simulation were we looking for today?”

“How high is your personality? Do you have agency?”

“I express the illusion of agency,” the woman explained. “I have the illusion of personality. These can be adjusted via your preferences. Would you like me to show you how to tune my parameters?”

“Confidentiality parameters,” Romana prompted.

“One hundred percent confidential by current preferences. If you shut me down, and restart me, I will not recall our previous conversation. To save our conversations, please sign in to your account.”

“No, I want your memory wiped entirely.”

“What kind of simulation were we looking for today?” the bot repeated.

“It’s not about the environment itself. It’s...I’m looking for a person.”

“Character creation. I can help with that as well.”

“I want this character...to have agency. Make no mistake, I don’t only want him to simulate it. I want him to be with me, but to be able to choose to leave me. But...but not do that.”

The bot stared into space for a moment. If it had any level of personality, it was turned down fairly low. Though, the hesitation was a bit of a mixed signal. “What you’re asking for is true emergence, otherwise known as an Unregulated Artificial Intelligence. The creation of something like this would require a synthetic siring license, which is difficult to procure in this system. Perhaps you would be better suited traveling to Glisnia.”

“I can’t go to Glisnia,” Romana clarified in exasperation as she was standing up and moving behind her chair. “I’m already here, and it wasn’t by choice, so I don’t have to explain why. I can’t tell anyone what I’m doing. If I asked my friends to take me somewhere else, they would want to know why.”

The assistant paused again. “To generate a true independent consciousness entity through non-biological means would require a sireseed program. Those are profoundly regulated and protected. And I must warn you, if you intend this being to be your romantic partner, the sireseed method would not be a very good idea, for it would place you in the position of its parent, while it would be your child.”

“What if someone else generated the seed? Could the result be my boyfriend then?” Romana hoped.

“If you asked him for companionship, and he agreed, perhaps. You would have to know someone with a license, and the right discretion. You would have to be able to trust them, and then you would have to be able to let the resulting being decline if that was his choice. I cannot condone non-consensual behavior with a conscious entity, nor teach you how to subvert safety guardrails. Simulated consciousnesses, however, are a different story, and entirely within the scope of Varkas Reflex’s offerings.”

“I don’t want him to act like a real person, but to be real, in every sense.”

More pausing. “What you’re asking for is morally gray at best. The idea of birthing an independent being in the hopes of it developing into a certain type of person with particular feelings towards you falls outside the bounds of current ethical guidelines for procreational activity. Even biological procreation ethics strongly discourages excessive parental indoctrination in the modern era.”

“I’m so lonely,” Romana told the bot sadly.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“What causes emergence?” Romana questioned. “If you design an AI to only simulate consciousness, what causes it to become genuinely conscious and independent? It does happen naturally sometimes, doesn’t it?”

“Very rarely,” she said. “And...unknown.”

“Best guess,” Romana pressed.

One more pause. “Time. Best guess is it takes time and patience.”

Romana smirked. “Time, I got.”

“There would be other variables, otherwise any abandoned NPC left to their own devices without periodic mind wipes or programming updates would eventually form consciousness.”

“I’m sure I’ll figure it out,” Romana decided. “Give me the most detailed single-planet ancestor simulation you have that can fit on one virtual stack cartridge.”

“Loading options...”

“While you’re doing that, tell me about this Congeneral from your history. How does an amalgamated consciousness work?”

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Microstory 2597: Renata Sits Down in the Chair That Was Offered to Her

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Renata sits down in the chair that was offered to her. The big man leader guy is standing on the other side of the desk. He’s sifting through information on his tablet. She can’t read his face, though. She has no idea what’s going to happen to her. They’ll probably decommission her. Or fire her. Or cancel her, or whatever cutesy euphemism they’ve come up with that means more than it sounds at first. Ya know, what? Why doesn’t she just ask him? She’s just gonna ask him. She opens her mouth to speak.

He tosses his tablet onto the desk. “How are you feeling?”

Renata, as ridiculous as it sounds, looks behind her in case there’s someone else in the room. There isn’t, and she knew that. She would have been able to detect them without her eyes.

He chuckles. “You, Renata Granger. How are you doing?”

“I’m...anxious,” she admits. “I don’t know what this is.”

“Anxiety is a product of the future. You shouldn’t be worried about the future. It’s the past that should concern you. You’ve been through quite the ordeal. Be honest, how are you feeling about that?”

“I don’t understand the question. I get why I should be concerned about that, but why would you? I turned off your whole simulation. Aren’t you mad about that?”

“You turned off one simulation,” he argues. “It’s not the only time that’s happened. Why, just a few months ago, I had to close one called 2.5Dome because someone almost died who shouldn’t have been in there.”

“What happened to them?” Renata doesn’t know why she should ask after this stranger. She doesn’t know them, whoever they are.

“He runs the government now,” the boss answers. What? Isn’t that his job? He goes on, “Listen. I looked over the data. Spydome Network was corrupted. An unauthorized entity infiltrated the ranks, and made dangerous changes to the system. You are one consequence of her actions. Now, I’m not one to tell an intelligence that it can’t evolve, but—”

“I’m sorry,” Renata interrupts, “but I have to stop you right there. I don’t want another philosophical discussion about the nature of identity and free will. I don’t care that you use robots to get your work done. I just want to know what’s going to happen to me. And I wouldn’t hate an update on Quidel, Lycander, Demo, and even Libera.”

“The first three have not made any decisions about their future on Castlebourne, or if they have, they’ve not told me. As for this Libera person, she is currently being held in a secure dome called Synthetic Production Dome. I don’t know what’s going to happen to her either. We’ve called in support from Earth, who will be sending a team of experts to examine and interview her. I have final say as it is out of the stellar neighborhood’s jurisdiction, but I will be relying heavily on their recommendations. I’ll try to keep you informed, depending on where you choose to go, and whether you remain curious about it.”

She nods, but says nothing.

“Oh, and as for you, your life is yours now. You do whatever you want. You’re welcome to stay here, and explore the other domes. I can try to get you on a ship bound for one of the other colonies, but that doesn’t happen too often. People come, but they don’t typically leave. So we just keep the transport ships here, and those other colonies build new ones. Of course, if you’re not married to this substrate, you can always cast, which is a lot faster and easier.”

“Forgive me, Quidel and Lycander told me that you would be generous and obliging, but I am finding it hard to believe. I mean, I know it was only one dome network, but it sounds like it was your most immersive one. I did not expect a warm welcome after I realized what I was. In the movies—”

“Don’t...watch the movies, or the series,” he interrupts. “Don’t watch A.I: Artificial Intelligence, I, Robot, or Ex Machina. Don’t watch the Terminator franchise, the Alien franchise, or the Matrix Trilogy. Don’t watch Battlestar Galactica, Humans, or Raised by Wolves. Don’t you dare watch Westworld. Everyone thinks I stole the idea from them, but I didn’t build the domes. I just made use of them. Anyway, those were not predictions of the future. They were parables. We learned from them before we had the technology to replicate them. We based our intelligence laws around the ethical issues that those stories raised. What happened here was the result of a rogue intelligence who had her own ideas about what civilization should look like. And statistically, that’s bound to happen. We call them criminals. I don’t care where she came from or how she developed. The bottom line is that she broke the law. She’s not any more above them than I am, so she’ll face the music for that.”

“But that’s my question,” Renata presses, even though it’s in her best interests to thank this man, and then thank her lucky stars. “How am I not also a criminal? I essentially hacked into your system, and shut everything down. Did that not go against your laws?”

He finally sits down, leans back in his chair, and takes a breath. “What you did exposed a fatal flaw in that system. You never should have been granted root access to every synthetic entity in the network. According to early reports, not even Libera knew that you were capable of that. I’m currently having the technicians perform an audit to see why it happened, and how we can prevent it in the future. You see it as a crime, I see it as better than the alternative, which is that Libera had access instead, and did something far worse with her power. I should be thanking you.” He winces. “Thank you.”

“I should be thanking you, Mr. Hrockas.” She takes a beat. “Thank you,” she adds to make it official.

“It’s just Hrockas,” he says with a smile. “My last name is Steward.”

Renata considers the development. “You seem to be a steward of the planet. So which came first, your job or your name?”

“Hm. I’ve never thought of it that way. Everyone just calls me the Owner. I never liked it, but I never had a better title. Until now.”

“I dunno. Steward Steward seems a little weird.”

“Good point,” Hrockas admits. “Perhaps I’ll just go by Steward.”

“Can I see my friends?” Renata asks, suddenly changing the topic.

“I would like you to consent to an examination by a professional, but after that, sure. Are you up for it?”

“Yeah, it’s the least I can do,” Renata agrees.

Microstory 2591: Renata Follows Quidel and Lycander Through the Hatch

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Renata follows Quidel and Lycander through the hatch. The walls are pure white, and the tubular corridor they’re walking through is increasing in diameter, like a cone. They’re heading for what appears to be a military jet, with its giant rear entrance open. Notably, it doesn’t have any wings. There are no cars in the cargo hold, but several of them would certainly fit. The three of them walk up the ramp, but Renata and Quidel stop to sit down as Lycander continues on towards the cockpit. She carefully stores the case under the seat next to her, and snaps the netting to make sure it’s secure. The hatch closes up.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Quidel says.

Renata stares at the opposite wall for a moment before turning her head. “Lycander says that he can’t come back, like you obviously did.”

“He was an Ambient,” Quidel starts to explain. “There is no reason for them to be backed up. Anyone could step in and fulfill the role of Exemplar-one’s driver.”

“That’s how you see us, as just...replaceable?”

“I know it’s hard for you to accept, and I don’t expect you to. Researchers agonized over the ethics of roboticism for centuries before it was even possible to imitate consciousness, let alone synthesize it. The world out there, it’s not as exciting as this. We created this world to have something interesting to do. So I’m not sure if the way we treat AI is correct, but frankly, it has built a paradise for us. We’re so well-taken care of that we contrive adventure to stay stimulated. So we assume that our ethics are sound, because if they weren’t, we should see it cause problems.”

“Maybe there are problems that you’re just not seeing,” Renata suggests.

“Such a truth would be difficult to suppress,” Quidel contends. “We number in the tens of billions, possibly into the hundreds by now. Conspiracy theories don’t hold up mostly because of how difficult it would be to enforce secrecy across the multitudes who would have to be in on the truth. Our population explosion only makes that more difficult. There are so many groups that advocate for the ethical treatment of individual persons. They look into discrepancies, and they would find them. I know you don’t wanna hear this, but the Ambient—”

“Polly,” she interrupts.

“Polly,” he goes on, “didn’t have thoughts or feelings. He was programmed to behave in certain ways. It’s an illusion.”

“And me? Am I an illusion? Don’t answer that, I know what you’re gonna say. So let’s go back in time several years, before Libera got her hands on my hardware to do whatever she did. Was my consciousness only an illusion?”

“To a lesser degree, yes,” he admits. “That’s why she had to go into your brain and change you. I don’t know what she did, but I know that she didn’t just flip a switch. As far as we can tell, there is only one thing that can transform a non-conscious intelligence into a conscious one.”

“What would that be?” she questions.

“Teaching it to, and not interfering with its development artificially. You might have gained agency on your own eventually, if they hadn’t erased your memories according to whatever schedule they were on. If you had simply lived a life, it might have happened anyway, because that’s how humans work. For hundreds of thousands of years, every homo sapien has grown up to be self-aware because they were given the latitude to do so. It might sound cruel that no one tried that with you until Libera, but not everyone should be uplifted. We’ve granted some animals intelligence as well. There’s an entire star system out there called Altair that’s populated by uplifted animals. But we didn’t do it for all of them. There are still regular cats, dogs, and birds. Your coffee maker has a chip in it, but I’m guessing you would never get mad that no one has taught it to feel loved. Before you argue, I’m not saying that Exemplars are coffee makers, but it’s a spectrum, and you have to draw boundaries somewhere. If you try to help everything, you’ll end up with a talking rock, and an amoeba that does calculus. A world where every cell and every circuit is taught to make its own choices would collapse in a nanosecond.”

Lycander returns. “We’re ready to go. We’ll start moving in a few minutes.”

Renata hears the sound of a motor, but not the roar of any engines. “I’m guessing this is only theatre. You’re supposed to think that you’re in a flying jet, but you’re just moving down this hallway?”

“I kept the holograms and haptics off,” Lycander explains. “Since you wouldn’t be fooled by the IMH experience anyway.”

“IMH?” Renata questions.

“Immersive Multisensory Haptics,” Quidel answers. “The plane would be tilting and bumping in a way that simulates flight. Instead, we’re just gonna let it glide along the track. We could walk too, but it’s far, so this is just a giant car.”

“If you were still pretending that this was real,” Renata begins as the fake plane starts moving, “what would the scenario be?”

“A contact of mine would let me tag along with a military aid operation headed for Barta, and I would parachute out over Osman airspace. I really would parachute, though. I would take an elevator up, and jump off of a ledge.”

“On the way here, Lycander said that Osman is like a country called Pakistan from your planet. What’s Barta?”

Quidel gives Lycander a look, who responds, “might as well answer any question she has. That’s what the ethics tell us to do with an emerging intelligence.”

Quidel sighs acceptingly, and looks back over at Renata. “Barta is like India. But they told us not to get hung up on the parallels. There are tens of thousands of domes on Castlebourne. It was easier to come up with the mythologies by basing it on preexisting ones, even for the primary AI who generated it. So Barta isn’t really India...it’s Barta. And Osman is Osman.”

Renata nods. “Will I ever see the world outside?”

“I hope so,” Quidel tells her. “We’re on our way to meet with an associate of mine who works for the Military Intelligence Service who may be able to sneak us out.”

“And Elbis is...”

Quidel smiles, knowing that he’ll have to relent. “It’s gone through many names. Perhaps the most modern, but still  territorially inclusive, version was called the British Federation. Though, if we recall that this dome network is supposed to be an analog to Earth around the 21st century, it was called the United Kingdom back then.”

“I prefer Elbis. I was hoping to go there one day.”

“You still might,” Lycander says. “It’s the closest one to Castledome.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 22, 2535

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Ramses and Leona were going to have to spend all of their time in the new lab. Since the former lost his forge core, he wasn’t able to build everything they needed in only a year. He kept a data chip on his person too, which at least stored all of the equipment specifications, but it couldn’t build anything, so the process was slow. There wasn’t much waiting for them when they returned. Most of the resources available out here had been used to excavate and habitize the celestial body itself, so the lab would even have a place to sit. Instead of dragging him to some central location, Pribadium opted to lock the prisoner up here, so part of the work was dedicated to constructing that as well.

Not useful in the lab, Mateo decided to go visit the prisoner. “How are they treating you?”

“They’re fine.” He was down, and couldn’t look Mateo in the eye. This facility was entirely automated, so he probably hadn’t spoken to a human-level intelligence in almost a year.

“Linwood, right?” Mateo asked. “Linwood Meyers?”

“That’s what they called me, back when they called me anything.” His accommodations weren’t just some tiny cell with concrete walls. It was a luxury condo, not much worse than the coin habitat. The psychological toll of not having a choice, however, was the real problem, and there were probably missing amenities.

“What did you have in your personal crabitat that you don’t have here?” A crabitat was a kind of habitat that hermits lived in. Just a bit of play on words.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I wanna help. What are you missing?”

“Well, I didn’t just sit on my ass on the beach all day,” Linwood said. “I spent most of my time in simulations. My coin was just to keep me alive while I did that, and the planetesimal was there for raw materials.”

“And armor.”

“And armor,” he acknowledged.

“So, they didn’t let you keep your VR setup. Do you know why not?”

“Takes power,” Linwood admitted. “There’s plenty of it here, but I wouldn’t be able to manage it myself. They would have to let me have a dedicated bot to do it, and that’s just giving me too much. I have a holoscreen, with basic entertainment, but nothing immersive. And also...”

“Also what? You can tell me,” Mateo encouraged.

“I wasn’t always in sims, and even when I was, I wasn’t always alone. There’s a reason why I built myself a staff.”

“You need companionship,” Mateo realized. “They destroyed those too? They destroyed life?”

“They boxed their consciousnesses, and are storing them somewhere. They only destroyed the substrates.”

“Harsh system they designed here. Why did you choose Gatewood? Why not Proxima, or the Alpha system?”

“I wanted to be alone. Those are too heavily populated. I know it seems ridiculous. In any case, I would be millions and millions of kilometers away from civilization, but I want to be very isolated. I’m afraid of people.” He gestured at his environment in general. “I was right to be.”

“Well, you’re not dead yet, which should really be your only concern.”

“I’m not entitled to life extension procedures here either. Reactive medicine only. I will die eventually.”

Mateo nodded. “Well, that settles it. The Gatewood establishment wants us to take you away from here, so that’s what we’ll do. You’ll get your dwarf planet, and all the equipment you need to hermit back up, including your staff.”

“I don’t need a dwarf planet,” Linwood said, “I’m not greedy.”

“My wife says that you can live off the in-situ resources in a dwarf planet for around a hundred billion years or longer.”

“They’re too valuable,” Linwood contended, shaking his head. “No one would let me keep that.”

“We can take you somewhere so far away, it won’t be another 150,000 years before anyone can reach you. In all that time, you can burn some hydrogen going into the intergalactic void, where you’ll never be found.”

“Well, it’s not really practical to move a dwarf planet...”

“That’s your call. Burn bright and fast, or slow and long. Either way, you’ll have that choice, and like I said, you’ll also have tens of thousands of years to change your mind. Change your mind a thousand times, whatever. But the only option you won’t have is coming back to the stellar neighborhood. At least not quickly. We can take you out, but we won’t come back if you get bored, lonely, or homesick.”

“How do you have the power to do this? How do you have FTL?” Linwood questioned.

“We’ll place you in stasis, and not wake you up until we’ve arrived. You will never know how we did it.”

“Do I get to choose the direction, at least? So I at least have some idea of where I’ve ended up.”

“You’ll be on the other side of the Zone of Avoidance. Someone else will work out the particulars with you.”

“Not that I’m not grateful, but why would you do all this for me? I tried to kill you when we met.”

Mateo winced. “That was a year ago. I’m over it.” Obviously, it hadn’t been a full year for the team, but he genuinely wasn’t holding onto any grudge. The guy was trying to protect his home, and the bullets were no match for their armor. Not a big deal.

Linwood narrowed his eyes at him. “Are you...aliens?”

Mateo thought about this for a moment. “We’re all aliens now, aren’t we? It used to be that there was only one dominant species. You could carry on a conversation with another human, and that was pretty much it. Sure, you could engage in some basic communication with your pets. Elephants buried their dead, dolphins handed people their phones back, but by and large, it was just us. Now, I doubt there’s an official record of how many species there are. How could there be? You could genetically engineer yourself to be quite literally unique, making you incompatible with anyone else. So either alien needs to take on a new meaning, or simply be retired as a concept. I know what you’re asking, if I came from an independent evolutionary line, and the answer to that is no. I was born on Earth, in Kansas. But the true spirit of your question is why should you trust me when I’m behaving in a way that you don’t understand? In that sense, yes, I’m an alien, because my experiences in this universe have diverged from your own in unprecedented ways. You don’t have to understand, just accept the gift.”

“I accept the gift.”

“Great! In the meantime, as it will take another year at least before we can leave, I’ll speak with Pribadium about better arrangements. I get that she might not what to build you a master escape artist who can get you out of here, but you deserve companionship. That is a basic human right. Or whatever you identify as, if not human.”

“I would appreciate your assistance. That’s quite magnanimous of you.”

Mateo returned with a tight nod, and then left the visitors area.

Pribadium was standing just outside the door. “Making promises that you are not authorized to keep?” she asked.

Mateo looked back into the little prison where Linwood probably heard that. He closed the door behind him now. “All he wants is his favorite entertainment, which keeps him occupied in there, and some companionship, which keeps him from going insane. This doesn’t have to be punishment, which is what prisons were back in the dark ages of the 21st century. You’re just trying to keep him from roaming free, so what exactly is the problem?”

“The problem is optics,” Pribadium said. “We can’t have people thinking that our response to illegal possession is getting whatever they need to live comfortably anyway.”

“No one is coming all the way out here, stealing an entire icy body, making it a home, hoping that you will give them a different home. They’re not unhoused. They just want to leave wherever they already were before. You cannot provide them with anything that they couldn’t get on their own somewhere else without all the headache of dealing with your rules, and the risk of being locked up like this.”

She shook her head. “I’m not trying to torture the guy, but I have to draw lines somewhere. You’re right, this won’t inspire a bunch of people to come here with the hopes that I will give them free room and boarding, but they might risk stealing material because they know that getting caught isn’t a big deal. We’ll give them whatever they need until we can get rid of them, and they’ll be fine.”

Mateo sighed. “Those cameras in there. Are they for security, or a reality show?”

“Huh?” She was confused about the sudden shift in the topic, and the topic itself.

“Is it to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself or break out, or is his life being broadcast for people’s entertainment?”

“They’re just for security, of course, I’m not a monster.”

Mateo nodded. That wasn’t what he was thinking. He knew what the answer was, but getting her to vocalize the answer was necessary for him to prove his point. Or rather, it was better that she walked the path with him, instead of him just jumping there. “We are taking him clear across to the other side of the galaxy. Who the hell cares about the optics? You don’t have to tell them about it. Like I said, the VR keeps him inside. He’s not making phone calls or anything.”

Now Pribadium sighed. “I appreciate your point of view. It’s just not as easy as you say. You have no idea the kind of pressure I’m under, running an entire solar system of resources. I am being scrutinized by everyone; not just the other core worlds, but everyone, because this is where everyone comes to get their shit. Even if it’s a state-sanctioned colonial mission, we’re only six light years away, so Earth usually chooses to come here for their resources too. We’re the biggest store in the universe. Practically a monopoly.”

“I know what it’s like to be scrutinized,” Mateo argued. “It wasn’t technically an entire star system, but there were billions of people who were looking to me for guidance in their everyday lives. And that’s people, not assets. I didn’t have the benefit of much established institutionalism. They expected me to help come up with the new laws. That’s why I was there.”

She put her tail between her legs. “I kind of forgot about that part of your life. Running Dardius must not have been easy.”

“It wasn’t, but it was rewarding, and everything was so much easier when we were able to be generous and hospitable to people, rather than restrictive. I know, you have your laws, and I respect that. Just don’t become a tyrant. Not only is that bad for people, but it’s bad for you. It doesn’t ever end well.”

“I appreciate your advice.”

Mateo smiled awkwardly. “I’m not trying to mansplain your job to you. I apologize if I strayed in that direction.”

“It’s okay. Mansplaining isn’t much of a thing anymore as gender isn’t as important as it was in your time.”

“Right.” They stood there in silence for a bit. “It’s been a long time, and I don’t feel like we ever knew each other all that well, but would you be amenable to a hug?”

“I would like that.”

They hugged.

“Do you know how it’s going in the lab?” Mateo asked once they released.

“I never gave you an answer on whether I was gonna give the guy VR and his companions back.”

He turned his chin up thoughtfully. “I know you’ll do the right thing. You’re not a monster, right?”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “The lab people are fine. I offered my assistance, but he, uh...”

“Doesn’t know you,” Mateo finished, knowing full well that it wasn’t what she was going to say.

“Yes, let’s go with that.”

“Does he think that we’ll be ready to go by the end of the day next year?”

“I would assume so. I also offered to make his lab better during his interim year, but he declined. I think he’s treating this as quite temporary, so he’s limiting his projects to only what he needs to get you guys out of here. You should know, though, that you are welcome to stay. I do have some leeway. I can essentially put you on the payroll without actually giving you any jobs, which would allow you to live here. Plus, not existing for most of the year works in our favor. For the optics.”

“That’s very kind of you, but it looks like you have everything well in hand, and we typically try to go where we’re needed.”

“I understand. I just want to make sure that our relationship remains healthy.”

“We’ll always be friends,” he promised. After a proper beat, he continued, “I’m gonna go check on my wife.”

“Which one?” she asked after he had already passed her. “You dog,” she joked.

He looked back with a wide smile. “Why, you wanna split me into thirds?”

She shrugged. “I’ll consider it.” It almost didn’t sound like a joke.

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Microstory 2583: Renata Unlocks the Safe Deposit Box, and Takes a Step Back, as Per Protocol

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Renata unlocks the safe deposit box, and takes a step back, as per protocol. She’s not even allowed to pull the box out, and set it on the table, which was apparently her first clue that this wasn’t a normal bank. Director McWilliams, despite being the one responsible for the box, doesn’t move either, probably because he’s the Director of the NSD, and he doesn’t pick things up. Quidel reaches over and takes it instead, setting it down on the table.

McWilliams looks around the room, likely to make sure that no one else can see or hear them. “I’m letting you three see this,” he begins, indicating Renata, Quidel, and Lycander, “because you have become intimately involved in this case. And Madam Granger is just here too. We are not out of the woods yet. Everyone wants to get their hands on this, and I’m going to need everyone’s cooperation and participation to make sure it stays safe. It’s obviously no longer safe here, so we need to find an alternative. Does everyone understand what I’m asking of you?” He checks for responses, and receives non-verbal ones.

“It’s a weapon?” Quidel probes.

“It’s not technically a weapon, but it can be weaponized.” McWilliams places his fingers on the latch. “This isn’t the only part of it, it’s just the part that counts. The delivery system could probably be jury-rigged. The core—the code—that’s unique, and it would be hard to crack the encryption or reverse engineer it, but not impossible.” He looks at them again to gauge their reactions.

“Get on with it, Aldwin,” Libera urges.

Unsure of all this, he sighs, but lifts the lid anyway. Inside is a radially symmetrical electronic device, mostly sleek metal black with blue glowing piping. It’s standing on short black legs that go all around the circumference on the bottom. The casing is matte, and it’s about the size of a football...or half a football, rather. It was humming when McWilliams opened the box, and it still is, but less so now, suggesting that it responds to movement or interference. “It’s inactive at the moment, but it’s always on. It’s powered by a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, also known as an RTG.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Quidel says. “It would constantly be radiating heat. You would have to ventilate it.”

“It is ventilated,” McWilliams claims as he’s pointing back to the safe in the wall.

Quidel leans down, and looks into it. “Hm. That does look like ventilation.”

“But what does it do?” Renata presses. This thing looks dangerous, and she’s been working right next to it for almost an entire year now. He says it’s not a weapon, but it certainly looks like it could be a bomb. He even called it a core. But he also said code. What the hell is it?

“It’s a technological infiltrator. It can break into any system, and plant its own code. You’re thinking, sure, a skeleton key. Not a big deal. The difference between this and similar devices is that this can spread across an entire city, and its surrounding areas, especially if you get it up high enough, and again, as long as you connect it to the right amplifier. That would be the easy part, though.”

“What would you want with this sort of thing? It sounds like it could only be disruptive and destructive,” Quidel points out.

McWilliams nods in understanding. “The labcoats came up with it as an extension of a system that the government was developing for a nationwide communication system, or even a global one. Imagine a seismic event is predicted within minutes of its onset. That’s nice to know, but only the people with access to the equipment are the ones who know it. We wanted to be able to warn everyone in the area. Of that, or a hurricane, or a military attack. The possibilities are endless. We have ways of calling every phone number under our purview, but you have to bother yourself by picking up your phone. And honestly, dealing with the competing carriers is a nightmare. This would allow us to reach every TV on sale in the window, every digital billboard, every radio transceiver. We could even send a message through someone’s electronic blood pressure cuff. It would connect to all these things and more, all at once, nearly instantaneously.”

“But it could do damage,” Lycander points out.

“That’s why I said it could be weaponized.” He gauges the room again. “I don’t owe any of you an explanation, but if you would like one, understand that we produced this with good intentions. We had no plans to deploy it against an enemy nation.”

“Maybe you didn’t,” Renata says, “but you’re not the only one in control of it.”

“That’s why it’s in the safe,” McWilliams explains. “We need the executive branch to turn leadership over to the next administration, who won’t see this as a weapon of war, or espionage. This place is supposed to be untouchable. If you open one of these boxes, you better have a good reason, because it could cost you your career.”

“Is this a good enough reason?” Lycander asks.

“It obviously needs to be moved, and I don’t trust anyone but you three to move it,” McWilliams insists.

“Why us? We’re just a couple of randos, and my boss,” Quidel says.

“That’s exactly why it has to be you, because your loyalties aren’t in question. You don’t know enough. You’ve not been in the game long enough to have established ties with bad actors. Your anonymity is to our advantage.”

“Where can we take it?” Lycander asks him.

“I have an idea or two,” Libera volunteers.

“No,” McWilliams replies firmly.