Extremus: Year 99

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Tinaya is in a little trouble. It’s not enough to get her fired, or stripped of her rank, but she’s been in a lot of meetings over the last few months. Everyone in these meetings pretty much tells her that it’s no big deal. Which is weird. Because if they’re being honest, who exactly thinks that it is a big deal, because someone keeps prompting more discussions. She thought it was over, and the crew and the council had moved on, but Captain Jennings is presently walking down Admiral Hall, and she doesn’t know what to make of it. He might be here to see Lataran instead, but given the circumstances, probably not. Thistle knows that the man needs no introduction, so upon Oceanus’ approach, the door opens automatically.

“Captain,” Tinaya says, respectfully with a nod.

“Admiral.” In every single other iteration of organizational ranks that include captain and admiral, the latter is the superior officer. It seems obvious. It’s a promotion, after all, and that is no less true here. But the whole point of the captaincy is to have a singular voice in charge of the ship. This relegates any admiral to an advisory role. They had their opportunities to enact policy and procedures, and now that is over. As clear and unambiguous as the responsibilities are listed in the handbook, it can make moments like these somewhat awkward. The book doesn’t, and can’t, encapsulate how these two should behave around each other. If they were robots, it would be easy and obvious, but at the end of the day, they’re both just people, and they can’t take emotions, or their history, out of the equation.

“How nice of you to visit our corner of paradise.” She means this genuinely.

“Yes, that’s what I would like to talk to you about.”

She nods silently.

“We’ve been in meetings for the last million years, but we’ve not had the chance to talk one-on-one. Where’s Lataran?”

“I dunno,” Tinaya replies. “Somewhere else.”

“I just—can we sit?”

“Of course. Right here.” Tinaya pivots her guest chair so he can sit down, then instead of going around to the other side of her desk, sits down across from him in one of Lataran’s guest chairs.

“I wanted to make sure you understand that I am not angry at you, or embarrassed for myself. I appreciate your candor, and admire your dedication to transparency. I would like to model my shift on it, and will be leaning on you for your guidance in such matters.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she explains. “I wasn’t complaining. Truthfully, I don’t know how we ended up in that part of the interview. He asked me a question, and I answered it. My only filter was whether it was classified information or not. I should have been more careful.”

“I’m the one who should be apologizing,” Oceanus goes on. “It bothers me that they kept making you do it over and over again. Every time they brought someone new in, they acted like the interview was a personal attack on this person too, and that isn’t what was happening. If I can be truthful, I didn’t realize that you were missing in my life. Perhaps if I had made an effort to meet with you once after my induction ceremony, it would have been encoded in my memory, and I would have come to you more often. There have been times over the last few years where I’ve struggled, and I could have used the counsel. I placed too much burden on my lieutenants, and did not recognize your value. For that, I’m sorry.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Tinaya says, “and graceful.” That doesn’t seem like quite the right word, but she’s not going to find a new one, and correct herself.

There’s a brief unawkward moment of silence before Oceanus speaks again. “I would like to set up regular meetings with the two of you. Perhaps you and I can talk on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and I can have Lataran on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays?”

“I’m sure she would be amenable to that,” Tinaya says. While Lataran has gotten better at busying herself with other tasks, her number one job is to be available every day, so Tinaya doesn’t have to ask her if the proposed schedule will work.

“Perfect. And on the seventh day, God rested.”

“Who is God in this metaphor?”

Oceanus averts his gaze to consider it. “The ship itself.” He pauses another moment. “Or one of the zebra fish that the secondary school first years genetically engineer to learn about digital DNA.” Now it’s a bit awkward.

“So, uh...it’s Tuesday.”

“Yeah,” Ocean replies quickly, standing up. “Let’s start next week. You can fill Lataran in, and if she wants to change things up, we can talk about it.”

“Okay. It was nice to see you, Captain. Thanks for stopping by.”

“Are we okay?” he asks.

“We’re great. Don’t worry. I don’t know if you need to be transparent with everyone all the time, but as long as you’re honest with me, we’ll be okay.”

“Thanks.”

Lataran walks into the room with her head down as she’s unsealing the front of her uniform. “Oh my God, the self-sizing function on my suit is acting up. I can’t breathe.” Finally, she looks up, surprised. “Captain, you’re here.” She looks back down. “And my bare breasts are out.” She closes her uniform back up.

“Forgive the intrusion, Admiral.” He starts walking past her to the door. “I’ll wait one day to file my report with the Conduct Department, so you can get your side of the story in first.”

“Thank you, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“It doesn’t bother me on principle. I just want to ensure that you feel safe and comfortable.” He exits.

“Am I in trouble now too?” Lataran asks.

“Exposure isn’t illegal,” Tinaya reminds her, “even in the workplace. Conduct just needs a record of the incident. I’m more worried about what I just saw, and what it means. Or what it could mean.”

“What do you mean?” Lataran questions. “What does what mean? Mean. What did I just say? Just tell me what you’re talking about.”

“We’ve known each other our whole lives, right? Which is why you were comfortable changing right in front of me, when you thought it was just the two of us, of course.”

“I should think so. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Exactly. And in that time, your size hasn’t changed much.”

“Are you saying I’m getting fat?”

“I’m saying that...part of you...kind of looks like...it might be. They...might be.”

“Oh my God, am I pregnant?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m sixty-four years old!”

“I was sixty-four when I had Silveon.”

“Yeah, and that was weird. You’re weird, I’m normal.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Lataran unseals the front of her uniform again, and looks down. “Oh my God.” She looks up, and covers her chest. Then she pulls her suit away to look down again, as if she’s going to get different results. “Oh my God!”

“It will be okay, Latty. I figured it out. So will you.”

“You had Arqut!”

“Who’s your Arqut?”

“Some guy. We’re not close.”

“That’s okay. You’re not alone. Whatever you decide, I support you.”

Lataran purses her lips and nods. She’s appreciative of her friend, but that isn’t the issue. “Thistle? Am I pregnant?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I assumed you knew.”

“Why would you assume that?”

“You had a medical check-up last week, and I am not privy to those appointments. They would have been able to confirm it for you quite easily.”

“That’s true,” Lataran agrees.

“Due to her advanced age, however,” Tinaya begins, “pregnancy is unusual. They would not have necessarily tested for it. You, on the other hand, test wellness passively constantly.”

“That is also true,” Thistle confirms. “I should have said something earlier. I will be sure to do better in the future.”

“I hope that future doesn’t involve me getting pregnant a second time,” Lataran laments. “And I forgive you, Thistle. Perhaps an overhaul of our medical monitoring program needs to be addressed. I shouldn’t have to ask for any test that can be detected automatically.” She’s right. Most people in the stellar neighborhood of Earth maintain persistent diagnostic tools wherever they go using the medical nanites swimming in their blood. Even those who don’t want nanites that are sophisticated enough to treat their conditions automatically have some kind of tracking system in place, like an implant. Extremus has strayed away from these transhumanistic upgrades because they could lead to virtual immortality. That would go against the mandate of this ship, which is that everyone dies, and not everyone will live to see the home planet. Perhaps that should be reëvaluated too, though, since it’s a damn lie.

Tinaya doesn’t want to sound critical or judgmental here, but this may be the most sensitive way to put it. “There are ways to be more careful.”

“I know,” Lataran admits. “I should have kept an eye on it. But my doctor should have spotted it too. It sounds like there’s a real issue. I may not be the only one. There could be a bad batch of reproduction regulators for all we know.” Birth control has long been perfected. Like medical diagnosis and treatment, the stellar neighborhood has access to nanites to control all of the body’s functions. Since that is forbidden on the ship, anyone who wants to have purely recreational sex should receive an injection to suppress the brain signals that trigger reproduction. It can be turned back off with a second injection, and will remain in place until such time that it is reversed intentionally...except in one case. Anyone who is destined to experience menopause is required by law to switch over to an alternative variation of the injection which does wear off over time. Well, time isn’t what wears it down. It’s sex. The more often you have it, the more you butt up against the neural programming, and the less it resists, so you have to receive renewal injections accordingly. It’s an unfortunate but necessary tradeoff. Menopause can’t occur at all with the more robust silencing enzyme, and preventing menopause has been shown to have negative health consequences. Just as it has always been, though, women bear the brunt of the responsibility.

“I assume that you’ve been going to the chief medical officer?”

“Yeah,” Lataran answers. “Well, Radomil hasn’t ever been able to see me personally. The Senior Executive Physician has performed my last three check-ups.”

“This is Dr. Gunnarsson?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, he did my check-ups too. It’s unusual. The CMO is supposed to personally handle all medical needs for admirals, captains, and lieutenants.”

“Yeah. Do you want me to go over his head?”

“No.” Tinaya shakes her head while thinking about it. She looks over her shoulder, in the general direction of the secret mini-Nexus hidden in the floor. “Dr. Cernak is in charge of the entire ship’s medical personnel, including the passenger side of things. The most removed we can get from him is the Hock doctor, but they do have regular meetings together, so I’m not even entirely comfortable with that.”

“What would you suggest?” Lataran asks, not having noticed where Tinaya was looking.

“You need to go to Verdemus. That is an entirely separate team. They are not in contact. The more I think about this, the more concerned I become that there’s something going on. Two old women having babies; as you said, it’s weird.”

“I don’t think that I should go through the Nexus,” Lataran determines. “Omega and Valencia never warned us not to, but it just seems...risky.”

Tinaya nods. “You’re right, I agree. I’ll go get whoever it is, and bring them back here for a house call. We won’t tell anyone else, not even Arqy.”

Lataran has been frowning for a while, but now she exaggerates it. “Thank you.”

“While I’m gone, pull up the records. Find out how many other old mothers there are, if any. I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy—it might not be—but...it might be.”

And so Tinaya goes off to the home away from home planet of Verdemus, hoping to convince a doctor there to come back and secretly examine a patient. Everyone there is really helpful, and the doctor in question returns with no argument. She doesn’t even complain when Tinaya asks to blindfold her, and teleport her to the Admiral office, which could have been on the other side of the ship, but in reality, they were already in it. Before the exam even begins, though, Lataran has news. Women who should be old enough to be post-menopausal are getting pregnant left and right. They are crewmembers and passengers alike. It’s a growing trend with no apparent explanation, and neither of them is sure who they can go to about this, because they don’t know who to trust. They end up seeking help from the Bridger Section, but it turns out to be a mistake. They’re not just in on it. They’re spearheading it.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 13, 2495

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Ramses was doing a lot of things at the same time today. He deployed a sophisticated drone to fly around Dome 216, and try to figure out what was going on. There was inexplicable life support in there. Obviously simply sealing a dome up didn’t automatically make it habitable. Hrockas had a complex network of tubes piping in oxygen, nitrogen, and other gases. An AI managed all of this, making sure that compositions remained at optimal levels. Some of the oxygen came from the natural thin atmosphere native to Castlebourne while the rest was from various electrolytic processing plants placed strategically between the inhabited domes. Carbon scrubbers then recycled this air as needed. Ideally, they would just be growing plantlife to do this all for them free of charge, but that kind of infrastructure was a very long-term plan.

Dome 216 had no such gas pipelines. They were installed years ago, but ultimately removed and repurposed elsewhere. Nothing should be alive in here, yet as the drone surveyed the land in greater detail than its predecessor, it found not only breathable air, but also desert plants. Either someone was sneaking in, and making changes to this environment, or there was something fishy going on. In addition to preparing the team for their departure with their new tandem slingdrive array, Ramses was examining Romana to see how she was involved. There was a...dark particle monster lurking in the mysterious dome, and it theoretically came from her. But how?

“How indeed?”

 Ramses covered up his patient. She had to be undressed for him to scan her entire integumentary system properly. They still didn’t really know how her dark particles were released, or exactly where they lived when they weren’t swarming around. “Hrockas, this is highly inappropriate, you can’t just burst in whenever you want.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, this is my planet. All of this belongs to me.”

Ramses didn’t respond to this. Yes, Hrockas technically owned Castlebourne, but it was its namesake, Vendelin Blackbourne who initiated construction of the domes before he died and joined Team Keshida. A great deal of the work since then was completed by others, particularly Ramses himself, and Baudin Murdoch. Hrockas’ contribution was not nothing, but it wasn’t singular either.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“How did you get into this sub-lab? You shouldn’t even know about it.”

“I have particles of my own,” Hrockas replied. “Keeping watch...taking notes.”

Ramses nodded. “Smartdust. I should have had my countersurveillance protocols account for that. I guess I just trusted you too much. I won’t make that mistake again.”

Hrockas chuckled. “Intentional obsolescence has gotten me out of a lot of jams. Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to give me their secrets.”

Ramses looked around. “I was getting sick of this place anyway. It’s time to move on. What did you come in for anyway?”

“I was just checking on your progress. She tell you anything?”

“She can speak for herself,” Romana argued. “And no. I don’t know anything.”

“I meant, his little tests. Have they given you any insights?”

“Thank you. You can go now,” Ramses said to him pointedly. They would tell Hrockas what he deserved to know, when they were ready for him to know it.

“Fine. I’ll go.”

“You can take your smartdust with you,” Ramses added.

“Okay.” Hrockas patted himself on the hip, and spoke in a high-pitched tone, “come on! Let’s go, little motes. Come on! Come on!” He was smirking as he walked through the holographic door backwards.

“Hey, thistle,” Ramses said. “Purge the dust for me.”

“Certainly, sir.” The biohazard decontamination protocols rained hell over the little guys, destroying all forms of minuscule surveillance, as well as all other visual security measures.

“Did my body tell you anything?” Romana asked once the purge was over.

He rolled a cart around so she could see what was on the monitor. “You have an aura.” The screen was showing Romana in silhouette, as well as a hazy second shadow surrounding her. To the untrained eye, it would look like nothing more than a regular second shadow, created by an additional source of light. But when Romana moved around, this aura followed her nonuniformly. It was sometimes lagging behind, and sometimes clearly ahead, predicting her future movements perfectly.

“So it’s always there, just invisible.”

“It would appear so.”

“Could you take—I dunno—a biopsy, or something?”

“Not invisible as in, a trick of the light. They seem to exist in a parallel dimension, just as we always suspected. This is where they multiply.”

“Are they alive?” Romana pressed.

He threw up a hologram containing a list. It was the eight requirements for life. He pointed towards each one like a schoolteacher. “To be alive, an entity must have complex organization, metabolize chemically, maintain homeostasis, grow, reproduce, respond to stimuli, adapt or evolve, and contain coded information.” He swiped at the image. The list remained, but a couple of the items were crossed out, and a couple of them were highlighted, while others were left unchanged. “They don’t appear to be very complex, more like single-celled organisms. If they metabolize, they don’t necessarily do it chemically. Maybe they process...time, or other forms of energy? They do seem to be homeostatic. They hopefully don’t grow. They one hundred percent reproduce by some means. They definitely respond to stimuli. It’s too early to tell if they evolve. And I have no idea how to test for any equivalent to DNA.”

“Do they...get angry at you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you getting the sense that they don’t like when you run your tests on them?”

Ramses lifted his chin in curiosity, and peered at her. “Do you feel an anger around you? Do you think they’re angry?”

“When I get mad, even at someone I love, like my sisters, I feel...a power. I feel stronger. Maybe there’s more of them in those instances. Maybe that’s how they reproduce, by feeding off of the emotion.”

“I don’t know how one would go about feeding on emotion,” Ramses said, shaking his head as he was struggling to find any evidence to contradict his hypothesis, and support hers.

She looked down and to the side, but didn’t say anything.

“Have you talked to anyone about this before? Mateo, or your sisters?”

She didn’t look up. “I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what, that they would start to fear you?”

She waited to respond, but then she looked up. “Afraid of being encouraged, to embrace it. To use it.” She looked down again, and breathed out. “To exploit it.”

“Shit,” Ramses said, exasperated. “You’re afraid of becoming Buddy. Why weren’t we worried about this before? Of course you would feel some connection to him, however dark.”

“I don’t think he did this to me on purpose. I don’t think he understood what he was getting himself into, how it would affect someone with my biology, and what was it—my qualia?”

“I don’t think so either. Guy’s a dick, but I think he would have said something, or hinted at it.”

Romana looked over at the holographic wall. “What if that thing out there is... I don’t even wanna say it.”

“I think I know where you were going. Do you want me to say it?”

“No, but...someone should.”

“Our child.” Buddy was suddenly here. His swarm of dark particles were just finishing up retreating into their home dimension.

Ramses stepped between Buddy and Romana. “Do you spy on us?”

“Cocktail party effect,” Buddy said cryptically. “I know when people are talking about me. I tend to ignore it, but there was something different about this. I’ve been sensing your dark particles since you left. I thought it was just residual energy, but now I know better.” He started to step closer.

Ramses tensed up. “Whoa there, buckaroo billy.”

Buddy stopped. He was stoic, and maybe even respectful? “What I did to you was wrong; a violation. I didn’t see it that way at the time, but it’s my greatest regret. I recognize that I am seen as the villain; an antagonist. That was never my intention. I started out normal, just a little ambitious. But those ambitions grew, and took over. They became obsessions. I know it’s crazy to force people to go get me a fruit. Intellectually, that’s just dumb. I can’t think about anything else, though. It feels like my purpose in life, and if I ever manage to get it, I’m worried that my next obsession will be bad. What if I start fixating on vaporizing a whole planet, or turning everything into paperclips?”

“Why are you telling us this?” Romana questioned.

“Because it could happen to you, and you don’t deserve that. I didn’t. I was innocent...until I wasn’t. These things are toxic, and while it’s too late for me, I believe that you still have time.” He straightened up, and cleared his throat, giving himself a surge in self-assuredness. “I wanna help. I wanna fix this. It’s my mess, and my responsibility to clean it up.”

“We obviously can’t trust you,” Ramses reasoned. “The first time we encountered you was because you abducted our friends. And then the next time, you abducted her.”

“I know, and as I said, that was wrong. Don’t let her become the next me. Don’t let her do something like that to innocent people.”

“If what you’re saying is true,” Romana began, “then you’re just trading one obsession with another. Let’s say you fix what’s wrong with me, what happens to you then? Do you just go back to the way you were, coercing people into doing your bidding?”

“Like I was saying, I’m a lost cause,” Buddy reiterated.

“Well, what if you become obsessed with self-improvement?” she suggested.

“Well, that’s self-defeating, Romana, it would never work,” Ramses determined.

“No, I want to hear her out. You really think that I can choose my own obsession?”

Romana smiled. “I think that you’re choosing it right now, asking for me to let you help me.”

“I believe that he was asking me,” Ramses said, like an idiot.

She glared at him for a moment before returning her attention to Buddy. “Might as well give it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“He vaporizes the world with paperclips,” Ramses gibed.

“Thank you, you can go now,” Romana said to Ramses. He was being mean-spirited with Buddy, albeit plausibly justified. She was just joking, though, because she couldn’t do this without him. If anyone was going to figure out how to save her from her own dark particles, it was the one person in the timeline who both was smart enough, and cared for her. Buddy’s knowledge and experience were equally invaluable, and since he was offering it, they had little choice but to accept.

“All right,” Ramses relented. “If you want to help, I will set aside my reservations, and remain professional. But in the end, I still don’t trust you, and I will go to any lengths to protect my people from you.”

“I would expect nothing less,” Buddy acknowledged.

There was a pause in the conversation, which Ramses volunteered to break. “Do you have any ideas off the top of your head, errr...?”

“Yeah, I think it’s time for me to meet my child,” Buddy figured.

“Okay.” Ramses was immediately regretting his decision to be civil. “We don’t know if we should frame it that way. The dark particles that you gave her are hers now, and if she made a particle baby, that doesn’t mean it’s yours. Okay?”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Ramses knew that Buddy was being sarcastic, but that didn’t make his statement untrue. “I’m choosing to believe that you didn’t father a child with a fifteen-year-old girl.”

“She’s not fifteen anymore.”

“She was when you...impregnated her,” he shouted with airquotes. He threw up a little in his mouth.

“Okay, okay!” Romana cried, trying to shut down the argument. “Ramses is right. We’re not calling it anyone’s child. We’re not calling it a child. It’s a...fuck!”

Ramses calmed down. “We’ll just call it the particle entity. It doesn’t have to be an extension of you in any way for most discussions.”

“Great.” Buddy clapped his hands. “Let’s go meet—not my—but a particle entity.”

“That’s not the next step in this process,” Ramses told him.

“It is for me.” Buddy spun around, and disappeared into his dark particles.

“He’s gonna get himself killed,” Romana warned.

“No, wait!” Ramses knew what she was about to do. He growled after she called upon her own dark particles, and disappeared too. He teleported the regular way, grateful that he could always pinpoint her location.

They were now standing in a desert. A swarm of dark particles were flying around in the distance. Another swarm was farther down the hill in the opposite direction. According to the drone’s readings, they were multiplying faster than ever, and showing no signs of stopping. The particle entity, however, was nowhere to be seen. They still had time to get out of here before it spotted them. “It might kill us,” Romana contended.

“Then you should leave, so if it kills, it only kills me,” Buddy calculated.

“What if it kills you because it’s made up of my anger, and I’m angry at you?” Romana proposed.

While they were looking at him, Buddy was scanning the horizon, searching for the entity. “Then Team Matic will finally have defeated me, just as they once promised.”

“We should go,” Ramses said. “This is not the way. You start small, and work your way up to the more dangerous experiments. We do it like that for a reason.”

“That’s too cautious, not how I operate, and my efforts are about to pay off.” He was looking down at the ground a few meters away. Dark particles wafted up from the sand, forming themselves into a blob, which assembled into a humanoid figure. It developed approximations of human facial features, but only as creases and pits. It was a great example of body-horror. Its mouth moved. It was trying to speak, though no sound was coming out, probably because it didn’t have vocal cords, or anything else that a normal person would need to function as a living organism. Buddy gave it a Vulcan salute. “We are of peace...always.”

The entity jerked its head to focus on Buddy, reinforcing Ramses’ assertion that the particles were responsive to stimuli.

“I am your father,” Buddy said to it, much to everyone’s chagrin, including the entity’s.

It reached out, and took Buddy by the neck. It was trying to strangle the life out of him.

“I told you!” Romana yelled. She took the entity by its arm, and attempted to pull it off of Buddy, but it was superhumanly strong, and barely paying her any mind. She continued to pull while Ramses urged her to let go. “No! I am your mother, and you will do as I say!”

The entity released Buddy from its grasp, and stared at Romana. It was impossible to tell what it was thinking, or even if it was capable of thinking at all. Without any warning, the particles that it was made up of blew up like a balloon, and enwrapped her. They both disappeared.

“Do you know where she went?” Buddy asked Ramses after they were gone.

Ramses tried to focus on their bond to one another, but he wasn’t getting anything. Dark particles were evidently the one thing that could block the signal. “No.”

“I do.” Buddy walked towards him, almost menacingly, and transported them both away.

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Microstory 2251: Happened Only After They’ve Happened

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The surgeon has decided that going ahead with the surgeries still makes sense, even after my poisoning. The specific poison that my attacker used didn’t have any direct impact on my bone marrow, or my index. They were probably just trying to kill me as fast as possible, so the medical examiner would determine that there was nothing worth salvaging. I dunno, that’s for the district attorney, or whatever, to decide, I guess. I’m not going to busy myself with worrying about them too much. I need to move on, and live my life. We’re still taking precautions. I’m not going to tell you when my surgeries will be, and I certainly won’t be telling you where. You’ll know that they’ve happened only after they’ve happened. In the meantime, my posts will sound like everything’s normal. The move-in is going well. The house is mostly furnished now, but we discovered that we have to do some renovations/repairs in the downstairs full bathroom, so the security people are sharing Dutch’s in the basement. He says he’s cool with it, and I believe him. That’s pretty much it for today since I apparently can’t say much about my life anymore without raising the alarms. In my free time, I’m trying to commune with my alternate self, asking him to send help. He’s definitely getting my messages, because he’s him, but I’m not getting his yet. Maybe he’s just toying with me.

Microstory 2243: Keeping Watch Over Us

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I received a clean bill of health from the doctors, who were truthfully a little perturbed by it. It’s not that they wanted me to be unwell, but they don’t understand how I could have been cured in the first place. They want to find a reasonable explanation. They want to find evidence that something happened to me, but they’re not going to, because my brief exposure to my own immortality cleared me out entirely, and brought me back to square one. They had no choice but to approve any medical treatment with any other doctor I choose. In turn, the FBI had no choice but to let me move out of the safehouse. Kelly, Dutch, and I are in the new apartment now. It’s not technically a safehouse, but it may as well be so far, since our security guards are keeping watch over us 24/7. It’s only a temporary place, as they have all been for a while. But I’m really hoping that the next one will be permanent. It has to meet all sorts of conditions, and my new security team will have to run an inspection first. It sounds like a lot of fun. While the other two are working more on that, I’m working through the details of my upcoming surgeries. I think it’s gonna happen pretty quick now that I can make my own decisions again. I don’t see this going more than a couple weeks before we get through it. I’m pretty wiped from all the poking and prodding, so I’m gonna have a nap. I hope it’s not a symptom.

Microstory 2242: Uncharted Territory

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The FBI are releasing me to my private security firm, contingent upon me scheduling an appointment with my doctors. Given the circumstances, I’m sure that this makes sense to them, but it doesn’t serve much of a purpose for me. I guess there’s a chance that I’ve been stricken ill with something new in the last couple of weeks. That would certainly fit with my M.O. I’m really hoping that it hasn’t happened, though, which is why I’m being really careful about what I eat, and where. Of course, I wash my hands religiously, but I’ve always done that. I shower twice a day too, which may be overkill, but you can never be too careful. I also don’t go outside without sunscreen on. This was something that my mom kind of wanted me to always do, and it seems that it just took several decades, and having multiple near-death experiences, to take her advice. Still, that’s not really what they’re worried about. You see, they don’t see a man who was miraculously healed from a terminal disease. They just see a man who had a terminal disease earlier this month. The doctors feel the same way, and they’re not going to let anyone take samples from me until I’ve had enough time to recover from that. Which is ridiculous, because there is no such thing as recovering from a prion disease, so right there is their failure in logic. But I get it. It’s uncharted territory, so they’re doing their best to figure out how we proceed. Their training tells them that I need to wait—that I’m not ready to undergo a serious procedure after my last health ordeal. As doctors who study science, it’s hard for them to understand that my brief immortality means no waiting period is necessary. In the end, though, it’s not really up to them. My body, my choice applies to many different situations, this one included, I would say. I’m going to let them take my index, and a little bit of my bone marrow. I’m going to do it for the money, and for science. Then I’m going to get back to my life, or at least determine what that life is from here on out. Maybe I’ll go back to working at the nursery, if they’ll let me. Or maybe it’s too hazardous there, so I won’t. Or maybe I will anyway.

Microstory 2212: All the More Alarming

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We met with a diagnostician today who normally works out of New Jersey, but he flew down here, because he’s an apparent avid reader of this site, and is fascinated by Nick’s case. Nick laughed when he heard where he was from, but he wouldn’t tell us what that’s all about. He promises that his laugh is not a symptom, and that he had genuine reason to find the news humorous. The diagnostician was inclined to believe that, though he does not believe him about much else. He has to operate under the assumption that Nick’s belief that he’s from another universe is a part of this mysterious disease. If that’s true, then he’s had whatever this is for several months now, which would make his decline all the more sudden, and all the more alarming. He’s scheduled a bunch of lab work and scans to perform over the course of the next few days. Today only involved a comprehensive examination. It included everything you get from your periodic physical exam, plus a whole bunch more. He had him hold his arms out to his side, and try to keep them still, which Nick found difficult. He had trouble walking in a straight line, and reciting simple prompted phrases from memory. Now that I write it all out, I realize that it sounds like a sobriety test. But obviously that’s not the cause as Nick doesn’t drink. The diagnostician had him walk on a treadmill, and ride a stationary bike. They weren’t measuring stress, or anything. This all seemed to be about his motor skills. So far, the doctor can’t come to any conclusion, which frustrated Nick, even though he understands that this was never going to be a quick or easy fix. It’s only the first of several tests. The doctors and techs have to start at the beginning, and move forwards from there. Even if one of them doesn’t diagnose the right disease, it will give us more information than we had before. We need to be patient. After a couple of hours of this, Nick was tired, and ready to go home, so it was good that we were done for the day. I drove him back to his apartment, and made him some dinner. His former personal assistant ate with us, and told us how the work has been going at the jail. They have kept the spirit of his vision alive, and are making real progress on their prison reform ideas. It saddened him to hear it, since he expected to be there working on all that himself, but he’s pleased that the project is still very much alive. I think the dinner gave him a boost of positivity, even if he would never admit it. I don’t know Jasmine very well, so after I tucked him into bed, she and I stayed up to get to know each other a little bit. We have more tests to get to tomorrow, so I turned in too before too long.

Microstory 2166: There is Violence Everywhere

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This is Nick’s parole officer, Leonard Miazga. Nick has asked me to write up a short post on his behalf. He was badly beaten by other inmates. They were displeased with his claims that the governor might commute his sentence, and allow the warden to hire him for a paid position at the jail instead. If it were to go through, it would be a massive change in dynamic, and that did not sit well with some of them. Nick has refused to name names, partially to protect the guilty, partially because he struggles with memory and recognizing faces, but also because he’s suffered brain damage as a result of his injuries. The attackers also broke three of his ribs, and two of his toes. His left shoulder was dislocated, and he has lacerations all over his body. They also discovered internal bleeding, which is why he’s currently being transported to the hospital for surgery. I’m sure that we will receive further diagnoses when the surgeon and other doctors perform their own examinations. While they’re doing that, I’m going to be in a meeting with the warden and the governor to discuss options. Nothing like this has ever happened before. There is violence everywhere, but this is the worst that this particular facility has ever reported. I will be strongly advocating for his release from his sentence, but either way, he should never be sent back in to this jail as he is no longer safe there. In addition to his prior work with the FBI, Nick is a model jail guest, and a positively contributing member of society. He has been gainfully employed for nearly two months, and has been working hard on this website, which readers have expressed gratitude for, for his ability to show what it’s really like to experience intermittent jail in this universe. I’ll update you tomorrow since I do not see him being well enough to write a post on his own so soon.

Microstory 2118: Tiny Little Baby Boy

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I had a physical examination today. Some laws in this world are weird, and some of them are better than they are where I’m from. For others, I’m not sure one way or the other. I think my world would do this sort of thing sometimes, for when there were specific reasons to believe that the accused was in need of it, but here, they do it for everyone. There is an entire branch of medicine dedicated to making sure that people like me are fit to stand trial, or even just this small hearing. They call it Judicial Fitness, making this my Judicial Fitness Evaluation. I’ll go through more by the time this is over, and maybe more while I’m being monitored by a parole officer. This Earth, and this country in particular, is very concerned with the physical and emotional stability of their accused and convicted. I would be interested to learn what happened in history to turn this into a common practice. Were there too many bored doctors? Were there a ton of patients who were later discovered to have been unfit for legal proceedings, which resulted in severe damage to their welfare? Or maybe there was one highly publicized case that shifted perception. Either way, I don’t have a problem submitting to it. I have nothing to hide. Y’all already know, I don’t mind admitting to my medical issues; I’ve done that in multiple instances on this site. I believe in medical privacy, but I’ve personally never run into a situation that I felt I couldn’t tell anyone about, even if it would be “embarrassing” for a neurotypical. I’m trying to think of a story like that to prove to you that I don’t care, but nothing comes to mind. Perhaps I just don’t understand what other people’s threshold would be. I’ve had a few ingrown toenails, which required minor surgery, does that count? They sent a scope up my urethra to try to figure out my digestive issues. That’s not great, a normal person would probably keep that to themselves. Let’s see, I used to vomit from anxiety whenever I did something new. I guess that can still happen, it’s just that less is new than it was when I was a tiny little baby boy. I just called myself a tiny little baby boy, should I be embarrassed by that? You tell me. If those aren’t juicy enough for ya, I’m afraid that my current condition isn’t gonna help you either. I earned a clean bill of health from my physician, which means that I can attend my hearing tomorrow. What exactly the purpose of it is a bunch of legalese that I don’t understand, but I’ll try to recount it tomorrow, unless they throw me in prison right away, and don’t give me access to a computer. If that happens, my blog will just end. I don’t have any backup posts waiting on the schedule this time. Welp, it’s been real...or rather it hasn’t, because I’m making all of this up, ain’t I? Or am I? I am. Wait...oh no, I was right, this is all fiction.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 23, 2399

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Vearden has done his best to stay out of all the time travel stuff, just like Arcadia wanted. It’s triggering for her, and he doesn’t like it all that much anymore either. He has occasionally done the team a favor, though, because they’re still friends, and he wants them to be okay. It’s mostly been research, but there have been requests that were a little more involved. He’s not asked for anything from them in return, though, so maybe they owe him. Hopefully they won’t make him resort to pointing that out. Hopefully Leona just does as he asks.

“You want me to make her look like herself?” Leona echoes.

“Can you do it?”

“Yeah, an illusion is an illusion, whether it’s superimposed over me, or someone else. Just give me a second.” Leona thinks back to how she remembers Arcadia. It’s been a long time since she’s seen that face, but she can still picture it pretty well. And anyway, Alyssa’s ability is so powerful that she doesn’t have to recall every single detail. It’s in her brain somewhere, and Arcadia herself is somewhere in time and space, and that’s really all that matters. She’s not magically generating a hologram that looks like someone else. She’s stealing light from somewhere else. “There.” She opens her eyes to see her success. There Arcadia is, lying on the bed before her. She’s still in a coma, but she looks like her old self again.

“Great, thanks,” Vearden says, admiring the real look of the love of his life. “You can go now.”

“Don’t you want to look upon her a little longer?”

“What do you mean? Are you saying this is gonna wear off?”

“It’s going to disappear as soon as I leave,” Leona explains. “I’m sorry, I thought you realized that.”

He stares blankly into space, and sits down. “No, I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I would hold it here permanently if I could, but I can’t figure it out. I know that other illusionists have that power, but if Alyssa’s old body did, I’ve yet to learn it. We never asked her to try it when she was using it.”

“What about her new body?” Vearden goes on. “Would she be able to do it now?”

“She may,” Leona answers as she’s taking out her phone. “There’s still a lot she doesn’t tell us, and she may have just not thought to mention it.” She waits for the phone. “Aly? Can you teleport here? I need to...”

Alyssa appears before Leona can even finish her sentence. “Is everything okay?” She’s looking at Arcadia anxiously.

“It’s all right,” Vearden answers, realizing that she thinks this is a medical issue. “I was just hoping that you could make that permanent.”

“Yeah, of course, I can. Leona, could you...”

“Oh, okay.” Leona drops her illusion so Alyssa can make her own. She does it a lot faster, and doesn’t struggle with it at all.

“When you leave, she’s going to stay like that, right?” Vearden asks.

“Absolutely. I’m the only one who can get rid of it. If she wakes up, and wants to look like the other Leona again, she’ll need me. And if I die before she can do that, she’ll be stuck like this forever. So if you want to see what it’s like to be married to a human-sized mouse, or a monster truck, now’s your chance.”

“Why? Are you going to die?” Leona asks her.

“I...don’t want to be married to a mouse in a monster truck,” Vearden says as he’s admiring his love some more.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Whatever.” He stands there for another minute before looking up at them. “Thank you. Now you can go.”

“Come on, I’ll take you back to New York.” Alyssa offers a hand.

“I have a rental car. The reason I’m in Kansas City is because I had business to attend to in the lab, and I wanted to visit my friends.”

“That’s okay,” Vearden counters. “She can’t talk, and I don’t want to anymore.”

The two of them nod and respectfully leave through the door. Vearden sits down next to Arcadia. He doesn’t want to be married to a mouse, but he would like the chance to marry her. If she would just wake up, maybe he would be able to ask. They actually did discuss it before this happened. These were just preliminary talks; nothing concrete, but he’s confident that it would have ended up in a proposal. Now who knows how she’ll feel when she finally awakens? She may be in a weird sort of limbo dimension between life and death right now, having adventures with a stranger, and falling love with them instead. Vearden falls asleep thinking of a future that may never come to pass.

He doesn’t wake back up until it’s dark so when he tries to stand, and slips on the floor, he can’t see what it is. He tries to make his eyes adjust to the moonlight, but it’s not enough. “Hey, thistle, turn on the lights.” His eyes don’t even have to readjust completely before he can see what it is. Blood. Arcadia is bleeding. He reaches over and slams on the big mauve button. The alarm goes off. An army of nurses rush into the room. “She’s bleeding all over the floor! Something’s wrong.”

The nurses stop and stare.

“It’s her. This is what she’s supposed to look like.”

Two of the nurses start examining her while another checks the equipment. The fourth doesn’t move. “How did you make her look like that?” she asks him.

“It didn’t cause this,” he promises. “It’s a sophisticated hologram...just light.”

“Are you sure?”

“I guess not.”

“Who do you need to call?” she questions.

Vearden fumbles around, looking for his phone. It’s almost dead, but it has enough power for one call. “Leona? Get back here. Now.”

Five seconds later, Leona and Alyssa appear in the corner. “What’s wrong?”

“Take down the illusion,” Vearden demands. “It’s hurting her.”

“Impossible,” Alyssa insists, but still, she waves her arm, and drops the illusion. She looks like Leona again.

The real Leona takes Vearden by the upper arms. “Come on. Let them work.”

“Where’s the doctor?” he asks the head nurse.

“He’s coming,” she replies.

“I can bring him here faster,” Alyssa volunteers. “Where is he?”

“He’s coming,” the nurse repeats.

Dr. Cenric Best comes in right after that, and begins his own examination. He’s being frustratingly quiet about it. He looks very concerned, though. He’s moving his stethoscope around Arcadia’s belly. He’s moving it too much.

“What is it? Can you not find a heartbeat?” Vearden is on the verge of tears.

Now Dr. is just feeling around on Arcadia’s belly. “Nurse, get the echouterograph.”

“What is it? What’s wrong!”

Dr. Best pivots to face Vearden. “I don’t want you to worry. We don’t know what this is yet. I need to do one more test, and then I’ll try to explain it, okay? At this point, I’ll admit that I’m worried about the baby, but I’m not worried about Miss Preston. She’s exhibiting no signs of distress. The blood and amniotic fluid leakage is alarming, but there could be any number of benign causes that I’m not ruling out just yet.” He washes his hands, and then begins the ultrasound.

While that’s going on, Leona makes Vearden sit down, and try to relax. His agitation isn’t helping the situation. These people know what they’re doing. At least they do to an extent. Dr. Best keeps looking over at Vearden and the other three time travelers. He seems rather confused by what he’s seeing on the screen.

“I need an update, Doctor,” Vearden urges.

“Nurse, can you hold the wand in place?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Dr. Best stands up, and removes his gloves. He stands in front of the travelers like a PhD candidate at the beginning of his presentation for the dissertation committee. “I’m going to ask you a few questions, and I want you to answer them in order, so I can get an idea of what’s going on here. Is that okay?”

“Go ahead,” Vearden replies, trying to be patient.

He points to Leona. “She’s not your twin sister, correct?”

“Correct. She’s in the body of my alternate self. The other Leona went through a traumatic experience in her twenties. Someone went back in time and changed it for her. Normally that would erase her from the timestream, and I would replace her, but she was somehow rescued by your world. Then Arcadia’s mind was placed in her body.”

“Okay, that tracks with what I’ve learned of you people. And what, uh...what powers do you have?”

“Well, right now I can create illusions by stealing photons of light from elsewhere in time and space.”

“And can she do that too?” Dr. Best points over at Arcadia.

“No. She doesn’t have any powers.”

He’s confused.

“But she had a pattern,” Leona amends. “She would jump forward in time. At the end of every day, at midnight, she would skip over a whole year. I was like that too.”

“That might explain it,” Dr. Best thinks.

“Explain what?”

“Your baby is gone. It wasn’t born, it wasn’t taken out by a laparysterotomy.” He tries to show them what he’s talking about on the monitor. “It’s just disappeared. Could it have...gone into the future?”

Leona looks nervously at Vearden, but he doesn’t look back. He doesn’t speak.

“Vearden?” Alyssa asks, waving his hand in front of his face.

Dr. Best checks his pupils with a pen light. “I think it’s psychological shock.”

Psychological shock. Sounds about right. His mind probably just can’t figure out what it’s supposed to feel about this. Obviously it feels bad, but it’s feeling all of the bad feelings all at once, and people aren’t built for that. He’s certainly not. “Fuck you all.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 8, 2398

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Everyone seems to be having problems at their jobs, but Angela’s is going well. She likes the people she works with, and she likes the work itself. She feels a little guilty about this, though, so she doesn’t talk about it at home. The team dynamic has definitely shifted. They used to pretty much go through everything together, with only a few major exceptions, like when almost all of them died, leaving Leona alone to deal with the aftermath. Now it feels like Angela is the one left out, unable to really do anything to help, while the rest struggle. She works on her studies, and helps other library-goers do the same, but she doesn’t contribute to her family. Mateo was feeling this before, but it’s only recently come to her attention that she’s kind of in the same boat. She’s smart, experienced, and knowledgeable, but what good is that if she doesn’t do anything with it?

“Hey.”

“Oh, hi, Rance.” Rance volunteers here too, and started around the same time she did, so he thinks of them as friends. She does too, but maybe it’s a little more than that?

“Need any help with those encyclopedias?”

“No, I’m all right.”

“Okay.” He looks nervous.

“Is everything all right?”

“What? Oh, yeah. I just...” He sighs. “My friends told me to come up with a cool pickup line, but I’m too honest to say something like that, so I’m just going to be blunt. Do you want to go on a date with me tonight or tomorrow night?”

Yeah, she would. He’s a nice guy who cares about people. He likes to read too, which is high up on her list of preferable traits. She smiles, and tries to say yes, but for some reason, it sounds a little more like, “I’m married.” What the hell was that?

“Oh, I didn’t realize that. I’m sorry, you just never talk about your partner.”

“Well, he’s real. His name is Heath, and I have to go. Can you cover for me?”

“Of course,” Rance promises. “See you tomorrow?”

“Maybe.” She runs off.

She burst into the condo. She had the evening shift, so everyone is home already, except for Leona, who is still at her primary job. She leans back against the door to catch her breath.

“Angela, are you okay?” Mateo asks. He’s probably getting ready to go pick Leona up.

“My name is Marie.”

He flinches, and walks backwards down the entryway, until he can see the living area. “No, she’s over here. Right? You’re Marie?”

“Yep,” the real Marie answers.

Angela follows him around the corner. “No, I’m Marie. You don’t even exist.”

“Whoa,” Marie says with a frown, “what are we talking about here?”

Angela gathers her composure. “You’re going to Croatia to get an abortion.”

Marie’s frown deepens. “Yes, unfortunately.”

“But when you come back, they’ll know that you went there, and they’ll question whether that’s why you were there, especially since you’ve already been to the doctor, so they already know about the baby.”

“They won’t necessarily know,” Heath contends. “When you fly private, there are certain ways you can get around being discovered.”

“But they could still find out,” Marie adds. “Angela, we’ve already discussed the plan. I’m going to fake a miscarriage before we even leave.”

“That’s not going to work,” Angela argues. “The authorities are not stupid. Nor are your medical professionals.”

“We have to try,” Heath insists.

“Or you don’t. Like I said, one of us doesn’t exist,” Angela repeats.

“Please explain,” Marie urges.

“I have never been pregnant before,” Angela begins to reason. “If the authorities attempt to examine me, they will find no proof that I was pregnant, or that I had an abortion. So I need to take your place. I need to become you, and you need to become nobody, like I am right now.”

“You have an identity now,” Ramses reminds her. “You’re Angela Bolton.”

Angela shakes her head. “That’s never been scrutinized. The forger inserted my name into the system. She can take it back out. Meanwhile, I take on Marie’s identity, and Marie just becomes this secret person with no identity. If she ever needs to prove who she is, she’ll pretend to be herself again, but hopefully we can just keep her under wraps, because I need to be the one available for a pregnancy test.”

“How will you explain why all those medical professionals you mentioned all believed that I was pregnant at one point?” Marie questions.

Angela scoffs. “They’re liars. They’re dirty, rotten liars, the lot of ‘em. Prove it. Prove that I ever took a blood test with them, or had an examination. You can’t, can you, because Leona is going to hack into their records, and erase them, and once it’s done, it’s their word against mine, but the authorities will believe me, because they’ll find no evidence that I was pregnant, as I’ve said.”

Heath looks over at his wife. “This is just gonna complicate things even more. It won’t make it easier.”

“But it will make it safer,” Mateo determines. “She’s right. It doesn’t matter what claims the people at the doctor’s office make. They’ll be proven wrong. They can run a million tests if they want, but they will not find the evidence they’re looking for in Angela’s body.”

“Marie will have to live the rest of her life in hiding,” Heath argues. “We had an excuse for her long-lost twin sister. Now they can’t ever show their faces in public simultaneously, because they’ll quite quickly realize what’s happening.”

“That’s assuming anyone even wonders whether Marie had an abortion in the first place,” Ramses says. “They may never knock on our door. You’re not going to be telling people that you went to Croatia.”

“Plus,” Angela goes on, “there will be undeniable proof that I didn’t even leave the country, because I’ll be taking her place at work, and the grocery store, and whatever. I’ll get myself under as many security cameras as I can find while you’re gone.”

Heath looks back at his wife. “It’s up to you. I’m worried about the risk. Abortion is illegal, and it comes with consequences, but combined with fraud, I don’t know what they’ll do to you. I doubt anything like this has ever been attempted.”

Marie faces him. “This is kind of what we do. We have a long and complicated history of tricking the bad guys into believing things that aren’t true. I’m willing to try, but only if you’re sure, Angie.”

“Let’s do it,” Angela agrees with a nod. “The first step is you telling me what you do for a living again?”