Microstory 2468: Internal Security Dome

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I can’t say too much about this dome. It wouldn’t be secure. But I can assure you that security personnel have ears and eyes everywhere while still managing to protect your privacy. Internal institutional domes like this one don’t typically have a review section for obvious reasons, but my boss asked me to write something up after my audit in order to maintain at least some connection to the public. I don’t work in ISD, but in Castledome. An unattached intelligence will periodically be sent to any given dome at any given time to assess productivity and general soundness of the facilities in question. Of course, each dome handles its own internal audits, but it’s always good to have a second opinion. It’s not that we don’t trust our various branches and divisions. We’re not trying to catch them in any mistakes, but you know, things break down, and procedures start to drift. Or they can, rather. The system overall on this planet is quite robust, full of non-wasteful redundancies, and resource-efficient protocols. The security is good. I only suggested minor improvements, but that is to be expected. There are more people on this planet today than there were yesterday, and there will be more tomorrow. The number of people who visit far outweigh the number of people who leave. We have a very low turnover rate in general, and that makes security an ever-changing beast. It is not easy to keep up with it, but our security team manages to do it with flying colors. I kind of wish that I could keep auditing it myself, but as I’ve explained, that would defeat the purpose of it being impartial, and having fresh eyes. It’s the only one that gets these evaluations on a very strict basis, but now I have to move on to something else, and let one of my colleagues handle the next one here. I’m sure they’ll pass the test just as well next time. I have full faith in these intelligences.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 14, 2435

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If Vitalie went back in time, presumably to Ex-741, why didn’t she prevent the planet from being destroyed? Well, there was a logical answer to that, though there was no way of knowing whether it was the right answer. The world suffered a massive matter-antimatter reaction, worse than the one that decimated the refugee world that the team tried to stay on in the Fifth Division. This one was catastrophic enough to tear the whole thing apart, so there was no reason to believe that anyone survived it, and since the chain reaction was obviously triggered by their arrival, they had every reason to suspect that their deaths was the ultimate goal. Perhaps any vessel that tried to land would have triggered the reaction, but since the Exins would have proverbially gotten away with their oppressive ways if it weren’t for the meddling kids, the team decided to assume that they were the specific targets. So they were almost certainly dead, their means of survival being so outrageous that the Exins would not have even considered it as a possible outcome, and the best thing that Team Matic could do was to stay dead. To make that happen without just running away, or pointlessly orbiting a star for years on end would be to start hiding in plain sight.

The old ship that Vitalie apparently programmed to meet them on the asteroid was rather small. Perhaps old wasn’t the word for it...certified preowned, maybe? They didn’t find any auto history report in it, though, so they couldn’t tell what it had been through. Ramses found a database of information in the central computer, but it didn’t say anything about how the vessel was used in the past. It just provided him with the technical specifications, and the implication that it was very, very old. Oh, and they also knew that it was called The Dorsch. It was not a rustbucket, but as mentioned, it was small; smaller than the Dante, though still larger than the little unnamed thing they were using that was just destroyed a few years ago. Ram spent the rest of the day affixing the pocket dimension generator to one of the doors, as well as making some other retrofits. The rest of the team had school.

While the Dorsch was going to shapeshift using exterior holographics, the rest of the team needed to do the same. Fortunately, they were all capable of changing their appearances. The power was replicated from Alyssa McIver, though none of them had used it much. Leona was the most experienced, but the rest had only tried a few times, so she spent most of the day teaching them how to hold convincing and sustained false images. They couldn’t lose focus for a split second, or it would totally undermine the ruse. The next day, only Marie and Angela were excelling at the new skill, so it was decided that the others would not yet face any of the locals at their next destination. So only the three of them would be part of the outreach program.

Mateo and Olimpia went off to find Vitalie!613, but that didn’t take long at all, so they zipped back up to the Dorsch, where Ramses was working. The holographic projectors were not yet ready, but that was all right, because the idea was to always show up to each new planet looking different, and they had never been anywhere else looking like this, so it was fine to use for this trial run. They still didn’t know if their new modus operandi was going to work in the short-term, let alone the long-run. “How long are you gonna wait?” He was tweaking something on some device.

“I’ll wait several months,” Vitalie!613 decided. If she started butting into lives of the Ex-613 natives right after this mysterious trio of women showed up, they might make a connection between them, and if they did that, they may start to suspect some connection to Team Matic, which would invalidate this whole revised plan.

“What are you gonna do in the meantime?” Ramses pressed.

“I’ll just find an island somewhere, and have a nice vacation. That is, unless you can give me your little illusion power, so I can blend in with them.”

“It’s not that easy,” he said apologetically. The truth was that he didn’t want this power spreading like a virus. Eventually, everyone would be able to look like anyone, and then the entire concept of trust could be vanquished from the universe. Was it selfish to hoard the ability, and keep it just within the group? Probably, but he wasn’t going to apologize for it. He would only apologize for the other reasons. “I couldn’t just give it to you as you are. I would need to clone you, and transfer your consciousness, and I don’t know enough about your current powers to replicate those as well. It’s a delicate balance. You can’t just copy and paste powers. You would end up being more than the sum of your parts, and the consequences of that condition are too unpredictable.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Vitalie!613 said. “I don’t just have Andromeda’s, Saga’s, Camen’s, and Étude’s powers separately. They’re all mixed in with each other. Étude wasn’t born with the ability to teleport. She was given the ability to be teleported, by the powers that be. The fact that she retained any level of it always felt like a mistake to her. She thought that the PTB forgot to take it away, because they would normally pass it on to someone else, but she was last, so it slipped their minds. I bet if we compared notes, we would find that the way I teleport is different than your way.”

Ramses was working this whole time, but he stopped now to look up. Then he turned to face her as he was lifting the lenses of his magnifying specs. “That’s a good idea. Let’s compare notes.”

“That sounds time-intensive, and it doesn’t look like you have time. I’m not leaving this planet, and you’re not staying.”

Ramses flicked the lenses back down. “Well, we’ll see. Leona may determine that this world is a two-dayer.”

Meanwhile, down on the planet, Leona, Angela, and Marie were pretending to be three survivors from the north. They found two major settlements on the surface, which were on the same continent, but thousands of kilometers from each other. They were not connected by any roads, and the level of technology that they exhibited did not suggest that air transport was a thing here. In addition, multiple mountain ranges separated them, making foot-traffic unlikely, albeit not impossible, which would explain how these three strangers made it all the way here. The northern settlement was in ruins. They found bones, but no evidence of an attack. They probably died out in an epidemic of some sort. All of this gave them a hopefully believable reason why the southern settlement had never seen them before.

“So, you don’t want a parade?” the Director asked them.

“Why would we get a parade?” Leona asked him.

“We always put on a parade for new arrivals,” the Director explained. “The only person who never got a parade was the first one here. She’s the one who planned the parade for the second person. But I guess if you’ve been living here, you already got your parade...unless they don’t do them up north.”

“Uh, we’re not sure,” Marie responded. “We never arrived here,” she lied. “We were born on this world. Our parents might have had parades, though.”

He narrowed his eyes. “We were sterilized. We’re not supposed to have children.”

“It must not have worked for them,” Angela reasoned. “The two of us are twins. She’s our younger sister.”

“Really? She looks older.”

“I’ve had a harder life,” Leona said. They couldn’t make themselves look like one of their friends from the stellar neighborhood, because any of them could be just as famous as the members of the team. But they each knew plenty of people from their pasts that had no connection to salmon and choosers. The easiest way to form a skintight hologram of someone like that was to let your subconsciousness do it for you. Leona didn’t even remember who this person was that she looked like now. She could have been a fifth grade art teacher, or a mother she stood behind in line in the grocery store once. If she looked older than the inspirations that Angela and Marie’s subconsciousnesses chose, it was nothing more than a coincidence.

Marie sighed. “Here’s what happened. She and I were born, and we lived up north. Before we were old enough to keep memories, our parents had to leave. The theory is that everyone else died. We don’t know how. Along the way, she was born, which meant that she was always on the move, and never benefited from the stability of a true home. That could be why she’s aged a little faster. We have been heading this direction our entire lives. Our parents died along the way, and now here we are.”

“Did you see any other resorts?” the Director asked them all.

“Resort?”

“Yeah, that’s what this is. It’s a resort. I am the Resort Director.”

“Oh.” Marie faced Leona. “It was a resort. If it was anything like this place, our parents lived in a resort.”

Leona nodded. “They were so cagey. They refused to tell us much about where we came from. That’s why we’re so confused and uninformed. Please forgive us.”

“What is the purpose of this resort?” Angela asked, doubling down on their excuse to be ignorant.

“It is a reward for a job well-done. We all came from different planets. Every year, the Empire evaluates the merits of every planet under the domain. One planet is selected which has exemplified the values and spirit of the Exin Way of Life. At the same time, a potential winner on each planet is found after its own rigorous evaluations. If the planet wins that year’s round of evaluations, the planet’s winner is transported here from there. On the planet where I’m from, the local winner receives consolation prizes if that planet is not chosen as the above-all winner. On some planets, if the planet doesn’t win that year, the individual winner wins nothing. They just go on with their lives.”

“I see. So you’re all just living here together. All of your needs are provided?” Leona asked him.

“Absolutely,” the Resort Director replied. “We always suspected that there were other resorts, but we have no communication with them. This is big news.”

“Do you have any problems? Any crime?”

“No. Like I said, we’re all chosen after rigorous evaluations. No one with poor psychology, or proven bad behavior, is allowed in. Everything’s perfect. I see no reason why you can’t join us. No one can be here if they don’t belong, so you must belong.”

“Thanks. We’ll, uh...can we talk in private?” Leona asked.

“You may have the room,” he offered before leaving.

“I think we just got our Vitalie back,” Marie determined.

“Why?” Angela asked.

“They don’t need a Caretaker,” Leona figured. “This place is...inconsequential. No one needs to be saved. They don’t need to be stopped from doing anything bad.”

“Leona, Angela, Marie,” Olimpia began through the comms. “Get back up here.”

They all teleported back up to the ship.

“We’ve been listening,” Olimpia went on. “What were you gonna say, Vita?”

“I think I should stay,” Vitalie!613 believed.

“What would you do here?” Leona asked her.

“I would gather information. That’s what you need, right?”

“Well, yeah, but...”

“You have a star chart. You know the numeral designation of every planet you go to, but you don’t know anything about it, do you? They might need your help. They might be trying to destroy the galaxy. You just don’t know. Let me find out for you, so you can prepare for the mission. There could be one person from every single planet in the Empire here. I’ll talk to them, gain their trust, and then relay information to you. Just give me one of those little communication discs.”

“That’s not your mission, though; your self-appointed purpose. You replicated yourself to take care. You’re the Caretaker.”

“Eh, things change,” Vitalie!613 mused. “Have you noticed when you’ve met other versions of me that we all act a little bit differently? Because of stasis, it hasn’t necessarily been very long since we diverged. Before the OG Vitalie started replicating herself through time travel, she prepared herself psycho-emotionally. She essentially trained herself to be flexible, adaptable. Every one of me that you meet is different because the situation is different, because you’re coming at me with different attitudes, based on your own background, which shifts with every new experience that you have. Yes, I came here to be a caretaker, but now as you’ve pointed out, Ex-613 doesn’t need that. It needs a spy.”

“I dunno,” Leona said. “You’re not invincible. People train in spycraft for years. You don’t just wake up one day and start doing it. Infiltrating one person’s life is difficult enough, but you want to infiltrate—and gain the trust of—an entire population. That is a tall order for anyone. Forgive me, but on Dardius, you operated primarily on brute force, because no one could stop you. Subtlety is not something that you needed before.”

“Okay, so let’s start small. I’ll insert myself into the life of one person. What’s the designation for the next planet you’re going to?”

“I have the list,” Olimpia announced. She pulled up her tablet. “The next one over is Ex-666. Hm. Does that have the same connotation for you as it did in my time?”

“Yes,” Angela and Marie answered simultaneously.

“I’ll find someone who lived on Ex-666, and tell you about it,” Vitalie!613 continued. “I’ll have months to get the information out of them gradually before you come back into the timestream. Give me a chance. I can take care of myself. Pun very intended.”

Leona thought about it, and eventually agreed. “But don’t forget that we can come back for you. Not at any moment, but...”

“Thanks.”

The next year, they learned that no one on Ex-613 originally came from Ex-666, and later that it was not given that number randomly. It was a penal colony. Maybe the numbers did mean something.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 15, 2398

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Marie gets out of the shower with a yawn. She looks around to make sure that no one saw it. Fortunately there’s no one else in the room, except for one person making some noise in the locker area. She wraps her towels around herself, and heads that direction, where her locker is anyway. Esmé is going through a lock-and-load montage. “Officer Sharrow, what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m gearing up.”

“Gearing up for what, war?”

“We don’t know what we’re going into. I like to be prepared,” Esmé reasons.

“You’re our diplomat, did no one tell you that?”

Esmé sighs, annoyed. “You haven’t been with the division in a while. I don’t trust Nero anymore. He’s lost his edge.”

“Specialist Cleary has passed all of his recent evaluations. I asked him to tone down the weaponry. Perhaps that’s what you’re picking up on.”

She shakes her head. “It’s more than that. It’s before you came back. ”

“He was—forgive me—cleared by his superiors, and that’s good enough for me. It should be good enough for you too. Respect the chain of command.”

“Like I said, you weren’t there. He made a bad call in the field, almost got his partner killed. I don’t expect you to understand since you’ve obviously gone soft as well.”

That was out of line. She’s the team leader here, and the expert on their targets. Esmé can’t talk to her like that. She slams Esmé’s face against the locker in front of her, denting the metal. Esmé tries to elbow Marie back, but she sees this coming, and ducks. They continue to fight for the next minute, Esmé trying to pull all of her weapons back out, only to be disarmed immediately. Finally, Marie slams Esmé’s back against the bench, and knocks the wind out of her with a heavy blow to the chest. She puts her lips right next to Esmé’s ear as she’s trying to regain her breath. “You wanna go work as a disposable in the Military Authority, I’ll put in the transfer papers myself. You wanna do something that matters, you’ll follow my orders. This is my team, this is my mission, these are my people we’re approaching. Some of them are bad, but most of them are good, and if you go in there guns blazing, they will freak out! You may find yourself sitting next to your internal organs if one of them has the power to teleport them there, so don’t give them a reason. You’re the diplomat, so be diplomatic. Am I understood, Officer?” Disposable is an offensive term for an enlisted officer in any military branch, particularly someone who fights in the infantry.

Esmé continues to struggle with her breath, but she manages to eke out the affirmative. She stands up, and starts to gather the scattered weapons for armory return.

“I’ll see you in the briefing room.” Marie puts on her clothes, and then leaves shortly after Esmé.

Specialist Cleary is already waiting for them in there, as is Kivi, who Marie goes up to. “You’re not joining us, are you?”

“No, but sort of,” Kivi answers. She takes out a tablet that’s showing a map of the world, indicating all the last known location of the errors from Ramses’ global brain scanner. “Winona wants us to always be nearby, in case you need backup. I’ll be using my psychic power to find whoever it is my mind wants to find, but if you need me, we’ll be there. All you have to do is decide where we’re going first.”

Marie doesn’t look at the map. She’s unsure about all of this.

“I won’t be there to babysit you. It really is just a contingency. My team’s mandate is to find people. The orders don’t say anything about who to find. People go missing everywhere, so they figured we might as well work in the same city at the same time. We won’t even be sharing a safehouse.”

“Okay.” Marie looks down at the map. Any destination seems fine, they have little reason to choose one place over another. Someone appears to be in Giza, which makes sense, given what they know of the pyramids. There’s a whole diplomatic issue with Egypt, though, especially if they’re going to be shadowed by a tack team. One target appears to be on an island in the Philippines, while another is just in the middle of the water. Unless, is that...? It is, it’s the Mariana Trench. That makes sense as well, but unless they’re at or near the surface, it’s a no-go at the moment. They just recently asked for a submarine, and it didn’t work out so great for the people who loaned it to them, so asking again would seem heartless. It would probably be met with a belly laugh, and a resounding NO. Perhaps they could ask someone else.

Their investigator, Agent Doric Filipowski comes in. “Where are we headed? I may need to prep field assets.”

Marie looks up with a stalling smile. She quickly takes one more glance at the map, feeling the need to make a decision before it starts to look like she doesn’t know what she’s doing. “Paris. We’re going to Paris.”

“Mais bien sûr!” Doric declares. He pats Esmé playfully on the shoulder.

Esmé winces.

“Are you okay?” he asks her.

“It’s fine, I slept on it wrong,” Esmé answers. “J’ai toujours du mal à dormir avant une mission.”

Marie almost feels bad about their fight. Almost. Before she can dwell on it, her phone rings. She looks at it. “Holocall from the AOC.”

“Let’s go in here,” Kivi suggests, pointing to the executive office.

As Kivi is closing the door behind them, Marie magnetizes her device to the wall, and answers. She steps back to get in frame. “Leona, what’s going on?”

“Have you spoken with Mateo?” Leona asks.

“Not since he told me about Fairpoint’s transfer. Why, haven’t you?”

“You have the map of the errors handy?”

“Right here,” Kivi says, stepping forward.

“Zoom into the Mariana Trench, go back two days in the data timeline, then step through the history.”

“Okay.” Kivi does as she’s asked, letting Marie see the screen. They watch as the error appears, disappears, stays gone, and then reappears. The AOC passes over the spot every ninety minutes. Sometimes it detects this specific error, and sometimes it doesn’t.

“This error wasn’t there before,” Leona says after they step through history a few times, “back with that first scanner. It only showed up two days ago.”

“Is this a pattern?” Kivi questions. “It’s not every other orbital pass, or...”

Marie looks away to think. “It’s morse code. Every time the error appears means a dot and every time it’s gone means a dash.”

“What does it say?” Kivi asks.

“Were I you,” Leona replies. Mateo is the error.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 14, 2398

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Leona stands on the edge of the field as the helicopter drops from the sky to land on the grass. Leaves, loose blade, and other debris assault her face, but she remains steadfast. Her colleagues are more easily flapped. “Aren’t you nervous?” one of them asks, trying to whisper above the noise.

“Why would I be?” Leona asks.

“It’s a United States senator, coming here to evaluate your work.”

Leona waits until Senator Honeycutt is within earshot, and the bird quiets down a little. “He’s just a man; not someone to be feared.”

Her colleague is even more scared now.

“Thank you for taking the time, Dr. Matic,” Senator Honeycutt says, ignoring her remark in the way a statesman should.

“Same to you,” Leona replies sincerely. She does recognize that he’s busy, and the tour will eat into his schedule significantly. She genuinely appreciates it. “Follow me.”

She leads him across the grounds, and into the building. This is not the underground lab where the rocketship was constructed, nor the little lab that the Honeycutts gave her and Ramses. It’s a decommissioned muscle car factory about an hour from the KC metro, which came ready with the space, ventilation, and powerload operationalization potential that they require for this venture.

Petra is in the lobby, and only didn’t greet the senator on the lawn so she could present all the team leaders in a neat, orderly row, like the children in The Sound of Music before bedtime. They seem to be standing in order of height, though that may be a coincidence. One can only hope. It’s nice that he’s here, but Leona wasn’t being facetious when she said that he was just a man. He nods appropriately as Petra lists off the team leaders’ names, and each time she does, that leader runs off in a show of work ethic that suggests they barely have enough time for even a moment such as this.

“Could I please see the staging area?” Melville asks.

Petra is perturbed. She had more grandstanding and fanfare to go through.

Leona saves it. “Of course, sir. Right this way.” He follows her onto the mezzanine that overlooks the factory floor below. They walk along it, to another section.

Most of the space has been devoted to part fabrication. The area where they will all be put together into the form of a working fusion reactor is small. Early reactors in the main sequence were gigantic because they had to be to get anywhere close to net positive output. Leona has decided to not worry about doing this. She considered starting them off slow, but she promised them a fusion-powered rocket, and she may not be around long enough to see it through if she doesn’t jump right to real progress. Hopefully the Prime Directive isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

All businesslike, with a brilliant poker face, Melville looks down at the space. He snaps a few photos, and nods. “How long does it take to build one reactor?”

“One year for the first one,” Leona replies. “With staff experience, we’ll cut that down to seven months for the next one...should you want another.”

“Oh, we’ll want more,” he says. “We’re currently scouting eighty-two more sites which...” He makes a quick calculation on his handheld, “...based on your estimates, means phase two manufacturing will take less than four years for all major U.S. cities.”

Microstory 1805: Field Work

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Like any young girl with parents who taught her to be independent and powerful, I dreamed of joining law enforcement. No, I know, that’s not a universal dream, but it sure felt like it back then. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. As I grew up, my passion for the work only grew stronger. I wanted to be out there in the field, making the tough calls, and actually seeing the people I was helping. While I was still in college, my personality began to change. I still wanted to help others, but I no longer seemed interested in field work. Fortunately, I knew that there were plenty of jobs that didn’t require me to do anything like that. I won’t get into specifics about the path I took, but I ended up becoming a Threat Investigator for the government. It was my job to process calls from civilians who were reporting crimes and of course, threats. I occasionally had to go out and speak to people in person, but that only ever happened when the potential threat was nearby. Most of the time, I asked questions, and determined next steps, which generally involved contacting local authorities, or my branch’s local offices. It could be rewarding, but it was also stressful. It would be terrible if I downplayed a threat that turned out to be a really big deal, and it was almost as bad if I sounded the alarm about a threat that ended up being nothing; maybe even a hoax. Citizens from all over the country counted on me to accurately evaluate each situation, and decide the best course of action from the information I was given. I made mistakes, and I lived with regrets, but nothing was bad enough to warrant a disciplinary response...until it was. I made the wrong call, and people got hurt. No one died, but they very well could have. I should have taken it more seriously, even though the caller sounded unconvinced himself, and a background check made it look like he didn’t have much credibility. I wasn’t fired, but I couldn’t let anything like it happen again. Then I received my last call.

It was from a young man who lived in my city, or rather on the outskirts of it at the time. He was a member of a militia who was supposedly planning an attack on the capitol. The more I spoke with him, the more I realized that this guy actually joined the militia with the intention of taking them down from the inside. Apparently, his family was more into the anti-government stuff, and he had been forced to pretend to be like them so he could blend in, and stop his life from being so hard. Now he was in way over his head, and he needed my help to get him out of it. I went out into the field, and investigated the threat myself. Suddenly, I found myself in over my head. It wasn’t against protocol for me to go out there for a visit, but things snowballed so quickly, and I was captured and detained by the aggressors. Well, this proved that the threat was real, but there was nothing that I could do about it, at least not on my own. Fortunately, the self-appointed mole in the organization wasn’t found out himself, so I was able to sneak him a message, which he bravely took back to my superiors. They sent a strike team to raid the place, and I would like to tell you that they successfully prevented the attack, but I honestly don’t know one way or the other. It turned into a bloody mess just as the year was coming to a close. The bad guys realized immediately which among them ratted them out, and we were both executed in an attempt to show the agents that they meant business. Again, I can’t tell you what happened after that, but I can only hope that some good came out of our sacrifice, and they weren’t able to commit any further acts of violence.

Extremus: Year 21

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Three people are in the room with Halan. One is the ship’s primary counselor, the other is the Consul, and the third is Dr. Holmes. The Consul, who is generally responsible for maintaining the wall that separates right from wrong, is leading this phase of the review. He sets the video sphere on the table between them, and begins. “This is the one-year post-upload certification interview with Probationary Captain Halan Yenant. I am Dvronen Vatal. To my left is current ship counselor, Madam Thora Adebayo, and to my right is Medical Administrator, Dr. Holmes. This is the fourth of nine planned periodical check-ins, which are being used to assess the subject’s ongoing fitness for his responsibilities to the pangalactic generation ship known as The Extremus. They will continue for the next five years, or until such time that the subject is declared undoubtedly competent to continue his role on the ship, whether that be as Captain, as Admiral, or in any other capacity. Dr. Ima Holmes has already performed the most recent medical evaluation in private. Madam Adebayo will be handling the psychological phase immediately following the conclusion of this session, also in private. First of all, Probationary Captain, how are you feeling?”

“I thought you were going to stop calling me that.”

“You’ll assume your full rank after today, assuming this goes smoothly.”

“When does it ever not?”

“I’m just trying to do my job, sir,” Dvronen contends. “No one here has any personal bias against you.”

“Or for you,” Thora adds. She practices a thing called radical honesty, having decided during her studies that anything short of full transparency is conflict waiting to happen. She believes that the only reason anyone ever gets hurt is either because they were hiding something, or someone was hiding something from them. Halan is sure it’s more nuanced than that, but he doesn’t argue with her. It’s part of the reason he prefers to seek guidance from Grief Counselor Meziani, but Madam Adebayo doesn’t know that, because he’s not radically honest. As far as he can tell, this lie is not causing her harm.

Dvronen decides to go on, “I was informed that both you and Probationary Lieutenant Eckhart Mercer ceased your physical therapy shortly after your six-month certification.”

“We don’t need it,” Halan explains. “Physically, we’re fine.”

“But not psychologically?”

“Is anyone ever perfectly emotionally healthy? I was allowed therapy before my death.”

“I’m not judging,” Dvronen assures him. “I obviously cannot access your therapy records, so I’m asking you to provide as much information about that as you feel comfortable with. If that means nothing, then I can accept that. It might be easier to certify you for the next year, though. That will be the longest period of time without one of these interviews you’ve had since the incident. I need to make sure you’re ready.”

“I’m confident that I will be fine,” Halan says. “I’ve been doing the job, and no one has reported any incidents to you, have they?”

Dvronen looks just a tad bit uncomfortable, like he’s not sure he’s going to bring up whatever happened that has him so worried about Halan’s fitness as the Captain.

“Spit it out, Consul,” Halan urges.

“Tell me about December 4, 2289,” Dvronen prompts, still uncomfortable.

Halan has always had a very good memory, but he’s traditionally used it to recall people, rather than events in the past. If you know everything that any given individual has been through, you probably have a pretty good idea of who they are. Once there, you can start to understand them. You won’t ever reach a hundred percent understanding, but it should be enough to see their worldview, and appreciate their flaws. Halan can’t do all that, though. It would be an invasion of privacy, and impossible to try for everyone on the ship. Short of this full understanding, being able to remember too much of that past can actually be a hindrance. Yes, yes, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, but it can also make it more difficult to move on. Halan hates to hold grudges, so when people around him screw up, it’s better for everyone if he distributes consequences immediately, but then forget about it, and not hold it against them later. Ovan was a huge exception. December 4, 2289. That was just over a month ago, and while that doesn’t sound like very long, the date doesn’t live in the front of his mind.

“Are you having memory problems?” Dvronen asks after it takes Halan too long to respond. He has his pen ready to take note of this in Halan’s personnel file, and his whole tone has changed for the worse.

“Just give me a second.” Yeah he remembers that date. It’s nothing. “It was nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“According to eyewitness accounts, a child asked you to marry her.”

“I’m the Captain, such sentiments are not uncommon. Children look to me as an authority figure, and they mistake respect for love.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Dvronen promises. “I’m questioning your response to her.”

“Well, she caught me off guard. We were in a room full of people, what did you expect me to say?”

“I don’t know,” Dvronen replies. He zooms in on his tablet. “But maybe not—and I quote—‘perhaps one day, when you’re older, and I haven’t aged.’ Do you still feel as if that was an appropriate response?”

“It was a joke, because I’m a clone now, and many people believe that I don’t age, when actually I still do. I’ll die at around the same time as I would have if I hadn’t been murdered.”

“Do you think the child understood such nuance?” Dvronen pressed.

Halan rolls his eyes. “Probably not, but when she does grow up, she will.”

“I’m not convinced that’s the case. This interaction concerns me.”

He rolls his eyes again. “Have you ever heard of Santa Claus?”

“Ancient Earthan superstitious figure. He gave people cookies, or something.”

“He gave presents, to children, who often gave him cookies.”

“Whatever. Where is this going?”

“Well, he was a lie, just like the Easter Bunny, and Jesus Christ’s ghost, and an honest lawyer.”

“Oh, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”

“My point is that that little girl might right now be dreaming of marrying the captain of the ship, partially because of what I told her, but then she’ll get older, and realize I wasn’t being at all serious. And she’s not going to hold it against me later, because she’ll be an adult.”

“Maybe not, but in the meantime, she’ll have trouble forming romantic relationships with others, because her heart will be with you until such time that she grows up,” Dvronen reasons. His tone grows graver still.

“You don’t know that,” Halan argues.

“Well, if you—”

Halan interrupts him, “You’re here to make sure that the transference of my consciousness to this new substrate has not negatively impacted my job here. It is not your responsibility to criticize my leadership style in general. I was selected as captain over two decades ago, so I must have done something right to prove to the council that I was the best choice. I feel like myself. I am myself. And I would have responded to the girl’s proposal the same way as I would if Ovan had never shot me. Well, I mean, it would have been a different response, because I wouldn’t be in a clone body, but it still wouldn’t necessarily have been something you would approve of. But I did not require your approval before, and I shouldn’t require it now. That is well beyond your scope.”

Dvronen tries to speak again, but can’t get a word out.

“Nothing has changed about who I am, and how I lead; nothing important, anyway. This is just a new body. I’m still the same person I’ve always been, in my mind, which is all that really counts. I even look as I did before I died. If you hadn’t made my condition public, neither the crew, nor the passengers, would have noticed a difference. The only reason the good doctor didn’t upload us two years ago is because it took time to grow the clones in the pods, and people noticed my absence, as well as the Lieutenant’s. Now, I’m going to keep coming back to these things every year, as I promised to. So unless you have some undeniably objective evidence that I’m not competent to continue, continuing is what I’m going to do.”

Dvronen takes a moment before replying, not out of respect for Halan, but as a passive-aggressive tactic to make sure he knows how little sense that little monologue made. “I have the power to strip you of your rank, and begin the succession process.”

“You can’t, she’s too young,” Halan contends.

“Who? The little girl who wants to marry you? She is not up for consideration.” Perhaps the Probationary Captain really has gone crazy.

“You don’t have to consider anything, you’re just a lawyer. I’m talking about Kaiora Leithe.”

“I don’t know who that is,” Dvronen admits.

Halan goes on, “she was the first baby born on this ship.”

“Okay...what about her?”

“She’s on the captain’s track, but she’s too young. She won’t be ready until 2294, which just so happens to coincide with my planned retirement. If you force my replacement now, she’ll never get the chance.”

“Are you saying you’re going to rig the selection process?” Dvronen questions.

“I won’t have to. She’s top of her class, and has been the whole time. She’s forgotten more about this ship than I’ll ever know.”

“I don’t take comfort in that, if true.”

“It’s an expression. Even if she doesn’t get the job, she has plenty of competitors who are also too young, or otherwise not yet ready. You wanna get rid of me? I don’t like it, but I recognize your perspective, and the complexities of this whole situation. But don’t punish the people who are working hard to be worthy of the title one day, and hastily replace me with someone inferior.”

“We wouldn’t have to do that,” Dvronen says. He pulls the bylaws up on his tablet. “Interim leadership. We’re allowed to institute that for a maximum of four years, at which point a new full-shift captain can be found, just as it would be if you served out your own shift.”

“You’re trying to fire me,” Halan figures. That’s why his tone changed, because he was tired of pretending that this charade was anything but an extended exit interview. “Four year interim. You know how hard I would fight against it if we weren’t exactly four years away from my shift change. You’ve wanted this the entire time, but you also need my cooperation.”

The Consul drops all pretense. “It will be so much smoother if you just let this happen. I already have a short list, and since you know literally everyone on the Extremus, you can help us choose the right one. I’ll give you full veto power, and once it’s done, you’ll ascend immediately to the admiralty. We’ve been lacking in that department too. You can even be more involved than Thatch was.”

Dvronen’s logic isn’t bad, and Halan really does see where he’s coming from. Annoyingly, where he’s coming from has placed the Captain in a terribly awkward position, because if he fights it, he’ll look like another power-hungry tyrant, just like Ovan. He can’t simply dismiss this out of hand. There has to be some loophole, though. He wants to keep his seat until his shift is officially over. He doesn’t want there to have been more than nine captains before this is all over. He doesn’t want to step down. He doesn’t want to lose this battle of wills. The incident with the girl was obviously just an excuse for Dvronen to do what he’s wanted to do all along. Maybe Halan can turn things around, and use that against him. He knows what buttons to push. He doesn’t like manipulating people, but he’s done it before, and he can do it again.

“Well...?” Dvronen has to prompt again. Halan spends too much time in his own head.

He’s about to use his silver-tongue to his advantage again, but his words betray him. “Okay.” He can’t get nothing out of this, though. “But I don’t want any more evaluations. This is the last one, or I don’t step down.”

“Okay.”

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