Microstory 2761: Into the Drink

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This boat isn’t very big, so the crew isn’t a legion of men, but they’re still outnumbered. In the chaos of the initial attack, it’s hard to tell by how much, but fortunately, they have some fighters on their side. They trained as much as they could in each other’s fields, but Zelda and Jolanda are still the best, and have to take the brunt of the combat. Elise has done some martial arts in her day, but doesn’t have any experience fighting moving opponents. Colley is a pacifist, but can defend himself, or someone else. He hides in a corner with Laise, who has absolutely no fighting experience whatsoever.

Meanwhile, the only means of making any headway in this fight is getting the zombie pirates over the edge, and keeping them at bay. They don’t drown, they don’t die, but it does take effort for them to try to climb back aboard. So once they’re over, the living humans end up with the upperhand. The zombies are relentless, however. They also don’t get tired. Their only hope is that this is a nighttime problem. After all, why did they only attack at nightfall on the day they finally lifted the boat? Once the sunrise comes, they’ll cower back to the depths, and the hunters will finally be able to rest.

There it is, that reddish-orange glow over the horizon. Elise can’t stop glancing at it even though she knows she’s meant to be keeping an eye on her sector. She’s holding an oar from the rowboat, and has to keep swatting pirates away. Any second now, there should be enough light. They’re like vampires. In some franchises, it just takes a little more time. The sun has to be a little higher. It often depends on the dialogue.

Three hours later, they’re still at it. Funny enough, despite their collective fatigue, they’ve all kind of grown used to the job. They fight in shifts. Five of them man their sectors of the boat while the other two sleep or rest below deck. They started out with a sixth person down there on high alert, but the zombies never tried to somehow break through, so they categorized it as a non-threat. It’s almost time for Elise’s break. Her eyelids are low as she almost carelessly bonks the zombie on the head again. It’s not scary anymore. Part of it is the sunlight, but part of it is the sheer tedium of it all.

There has to be some way out of this. There’s always a way. There is always a loophole. They may have a random, bizarre weakness that is impossible to know unless you came across the lore earlier, or you have to fix something for them in order to break the curse. The hunters need time to figure it out. They can’t just keep fighting. Maybe Elise can call upon her research skills during her break to search the cabins for any clues. Maybe the zombies simply have unfinished business, and they can help finish it, symbolically or physically. Oh, but that bed down there looked so good. It was short and narrow, and probably not soft, but right now, it might be the best thing in the world. Maybe she’ll just lie down for a quick nap, and then get to work.

Thirty minutes pass, which is twenty minutes after she should have been relieved.

The zombies aren’t geniuses, but after they get knocked down, they realize that that’s where a hunter is, so they move to try a different spot. The hunters sometimes use that to their advantage if they need to get closer to one another. It takes time to control where the next intrusion will come from, but it’s possible. Rage has done that. Now she’s within better speaking distance of Elise. “Where the hell are Colley and Laise?”

“Iono.” Elise can’t even bring herself to say all the words separately. “Laise was s’pose ta take over my spot.” She stands there with a puzzled look on her face.

“What?” Rage questions. “What is it? Do you see something out there?”

Elise swats another zombie. “Her name is Laise. My name is Elise. Do you think we’re related?” The zombie has managed to take hold of the oar, and is trying to wrestle it from her, which they do from time to time when she gets too complacent and lazy. She mindlessly pulls and pushes on it while she waits for Rage’s answer.

Rage is only staring at her. “No, Elise, I don’t think you’re related.”

“Oh, okay. Fair question, though,” Elise decides.

“You’re tired,” Rage argues. “Go ahead and sleep. I’ll take care of two sectors.”

“That won’t be necessary!” Colley cried from the top of the steps. He and Laise have pulled a big sack up from below, and are starting to drag it across the deck. “I know you’re all tired, but we have a way to end this once and for all so we can all sleep!”

“What is that?” Rage questions. Then she has to turn around and fight because a zombie has made it over the bulwark. Laise runs up and provides assistance.

“A mouse trap,” Colley explains once the zombie is taken care of. “Everyone huddle up, and put your backs together! We need to get the zombies into one place!”

“You want us to let them onto the boat?” Jolanda questions from the stern.

“They’ll just keep coming unless we take control! I can say no more than that, because I think we all know that the zombies are smart enough to understand us ! Trust me, we’ve been quietly discussing, and secretly preparing, for this for hours!”

They decide to trust the two of them. As they’re huddled together, the zombies climb aboard. They’re moving slowly now. They might be tired too, or Colley is right and they understand the humans well enough to know that something is up. They’re still not too smart, though, because they naturally group into a single mass, presumably to prepare for the next onslaught.

“Rotate counter-clockwise a little bit.” Laise is in the middle of them. “Perfect,” she says once they’re done shuffling. “Rage, Minotaur, you’re the tallest. You feel what’s at your feet behind you?” After they both confirm, she adds, “you know what to do.”

“Ready...!” Colley begins. “Everyone, run to the closest side to get out of the way!”

After everyone else scatters, Rage and Minotaur run forward holding the corners of a huge heavy net. They raise it over the heads of the zombies and pass them as fast as they can, managing to snag all of them all at once. Colley and Laise take this opportunity to start punching and kicking the zombies so they end up on the floor. The others join in too, of course, even though they still don’t know what the endgame is.

Laise goes around and starts shackling the zombies’ ankles one by one. The chains are already tied to the net, so even if they escape, they’ll be dragging a whole lot of weight. It’s still not enough, though, which is where that sack comes into play. Per Colley’s direction, all seven of them work to hoist the heavy sack up and over the railing. Elise is in back, and not really helping that much, but the job gets done. She touches it enough to know that it’s filled with cannonballs. Once the sack falls over, the net drags all the zombies across the deck, and over the edge too. Now there’s no escape.

Oh, no, it’s not over. “Guys,” Elise says, looking behind them. “Guys!”

When they turn around, they too see what she’s looking at. One of the zombies—the captain, by the looks of it—is still standing there. He’s holding his ooey gooey sabre, and standing on one leg. He cut off his own foot! And he’s got a gun.

A hot blonde girl flies out of nowhere on angel wings. She snatches the evil dead captain up, soars back up in the air, and drops him in the ocean kilometers away.

Microstory 2760: Heave Ho

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The way Laise described the traditional means of lifting a sunken ship sounded exhausting and time-consuming. Their ancestors would have sunken barrels and tied them to the bottom. To make them buoyant, they would push buckets down and transfer air pockets little by little until the last barrel was enough to lift the boat. They didn’t have time for that. They had no freshwater, and as it turns out, no food. The barrels weren’t airtight. Each had a hole on the side, presumably to let air through, but when the boat sank, they all flooded with seawater. Most of the fruit had spoiled before they even showed up. The coconuts were okay. They floated on their own, so once that barrel was opened, they were easy pickings. That was what they ate during their break periods.

The first thing they did was rip all of the heavy metal and other unnecessary pieces off of the vessel. They pushed them over the side, and let them drop down to the shelf that the boat was on. This made it as light as it could possibly be.

After clearing the spoiled fruit mush, they tied ropes around the barrels one at a time, and created a makeshift pulley system around the bulwark and other parts. Then they stood on the crow’s nest and pulled the barrel up. Once it was on the surface and full of air, they closed it back up and plugged the bunghole securely. Now they had to reverse the process, which was even harder. The air-filled barrel wanted to float, so five of them had to stand on—or even hang off of—the crow’s nest. That was as many as they could fit before they ran out of leverage. The sixth person freedove down with the barrel, and held it in place so it didn’t wobble around like a watermelon.

While the pullers tied off the rope to hold it in place, the freediver came back up to recapture air for themselves. Then they would go back down with the seventh person to tie the barrel to the bulwark, and untie the original rope. Each barrel took about an hour, factoring in break times and errors. They were so tired, blistered, achey, hungry even with the coconuts, and absolutely thirsty. Rain would make their job harder, but it would at least give them something to drink to survive another day. They were able to learn from their mistakes and get into a good rhythm, but they were also losing energy with each one, so they never ultimately sped up the process. It took them two days to get through the lifting phase, but man was it worth it. As soon as that sixteenth barrel was in place, before the pulley rope could even be removed, the boat let go of the shelf, and rose. The people who were on the crow’s nest all jumped off to make it that much lighter, and watched the mast fly up above them. It was  glorious to behold.

Now the boat is close enough to the surface to stand without drowning. It’s still totally filled with water, but bailing it out will be the easy part. At least they think it will. They obviously start with the wet deck, which is the most appropriate term for it today. They think it’s going pretty well. Some water is splashing back in since the surface is so close to the railing, but it seems to be working. Then they realize their mistake. The boat didn’t simply sink on its own. There must be damage. Sure enough, when they swim down to a small storage room, they find the hole. It’s not particularly big, but it has to be patched first. That isn’t even their biggest problem, though. They’re about to tip.

“Three people on starboard side and three people to port side!” Rage orders.

Five of them run to one while Elise is alone on the other. Rage stays in the center.

Rage points. “That’s starboard, and that’s port. Minotaur, Zelda, join Elise. Okay. The water is out but the boat is unstable. Does anyone have any idea why?”

Jolanda raises her hand. “I don’t have any sailing experience, but I’ve been on more than one boat. One thing they all have in common is this thing called a ballast. You don’t actually want it to be super light, unless it’s a speedboat or jetski. You want some weight to keep it in the water so you don’t tip over. Modern boats use water itself. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe in the olden times, they used metal.”

Rage looks over at the water. “We just sank our metal to make it lighter.”

“I did not want to do a seventeenth barrel,” Minotaur contends. “Dumping our heaviest stuff was the right call. We just need to bring some of it back up. I wouldn’t mind having some chains anyway. Chains come in handy in mazes all the time.”

“Well, I’m glad we dumped everything onto the shelf, instead of the depths.” Rage sighs and centers herself. “Okay. We did this once, we can do it again. Zelda, Colley, please stay on the boat on opposite sides to maintain balance. Hopefully that will be enough. The rest of us need to get in the water so we don’t literally rock the boat.”

“Our pulley rope has been through quite a bit by now,” Laise says. “I don’t think it’s gonna make it. It might snap. We need to use a different rope.”

“We don’t have more rope,” Rage points out. “We’ve already snapped two.”

Elise looks up. “Take it from the sail. It’s long enough that we can double up and distribute the stress. Then we’ll put it back up where it belongs.”

“So many concessions and compromises,” Rage laments. “Very well. Do it.”

So they add another phase to the work even though they thought they were done. They pull up the bars and grates, but they leave the cannons. Their combined strength isn’t enough to make that happen, and the rope probably isn’t strong enough either. They’re into their third day before they feel like they’re ready to learn the ropes, so to speak. Laise knows some history of sailing, as does Colley, but none of them knows how to sail. They spend the rest of the day trying to figure it out methodically. They still don’t have any regular water, but they’ve been drinking coconut water, and it won’t matter how long it takes to find land if they sink or crash before they even get there. It’s smarter to take their time, and do this right. Everyone is drained, but they’re not stopping.

“We don’t even know where we’re meant to go,” Minotaur reasons. “I’m not used to that. I mean, of course I’m used to being lost, but I always have something to orient myself. This dome has a diameter of 3,300 kilometers, and we could be in the very center of it. Sure, if we sail in one direction, we’ll eventually hit the wall, but that’s assuming we don’t die of thirst, starvation, or exposure before then. Everything else is ocean or an island, and those are notoriously hard to target, even with a map.”

“I have a map.” Jolanda is climbing up from below deck holding a piece of paper.

Colley doesn’t have to ask, she hands it to him. He examines it a little before looking up at the sky. “We’re gonna need to orient ourselves again. For that, we need the stars back.” He returns to the map. “Narratively, I know where this thing set sail, and I know where it’s going, but it may have gotten knocked off course. Even if it didn’t, I have no idea how far the original crew supposedly made it before they sank.”

“Rest up,” Rage instructs. “We set sail tonight. Once again, I hope it rains.”

It doesn’t rain, but that night, they are given an opportunity to find out what happened to the original crew when their ghosts appear. Or they’re zombies, or something else like that, because they can make physical contact with the living. That’s exactly what they do by attacking too, because as one might expect, they were pirates.

Microstory 2730: Time Spent

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Time may be an important factor. It is hard to tell how delicate their position is. The dimensional barriers could snap under the gravitational and quintessential weight as the two opposing forces fight each other for supremacy, with the Gatewood Collective caught in the middle. Pribadium!Two believes that their laboratory sits on the very edge of the unique spatial bubble that the star system is in. She selected this secret location specifically because of its distance from everyone and everything else.

“Why wouldn’t it be in the center? This is where the time machine is,” Sora notes.

“Exactly,” Pribadium!Two agrees. “It was not omnidirectional. The spatial warping spread out from here, towards the gravitational barycenter of the system, which is in Barnard’s Star. That’s why half the system isn’t in the pocket universe.”

Sora regards her in disgust for a moment before redirecting his attention to Pribadium!One. “So you just let her out of her cell, and we trust her now?”

“She’s helping us. We need her,” Pribadium!One explains. “Sorry to brag, but two heads are better than one if they’re both my head.”

Sora scoffs. “She’s the one who told me that I couldn’t speak with Elke.”

“For now, it’s true,” Pribadium!Two starts to say.

Sora holds up a dismissive hand. “I was talking to the real Pribadium.”

“She’s right,” Pribadium!One explains. “It’s not just a calibration issue. If we disturb the balance that we have managed to achieve here, it could all fall apart.”

Pribadium!Two nods. “Yeah, and—”

“Zip it,” Sora interrupts again. “What exactly does that mean? What happens if it falls apart? Do you mean we all die? Because you don’t seem too distressed about it.”

Pribadium!One sees how Sora is treating her alternate self, but she feels compelled to ignore it, and answer his question. “People here will be fine, as long as the star stays inside of the pocket too, which I don’t see why it wouldn’t. It’s holding every atom together so the quintessence doesn’t pull it apart. What we’re trying to do is create a permanent equilibrium, and to do it in an extradimensional realm called the bulk.”

“I don’t care about that. I want to see Elke again, I want to reunite with my people, in whatever reality it is, and I want us to settle down in a new home,” he reasons.

Pribadium!Two starts to talk as quickly as she can. “And you can still do that—”

“I don’t wanna hear from you again!” Sora shouts. “Your opinion doesn’t matter!”

“Hey,” Pribadium!One jumps in. “Sora, I know you got some rest, and that put you back to your old self, which I find...incredibly annoying, but I have seen a kinder version of you. You have it in you to show respect at all times. You’re not Mr. Hyde.”

“I don’t know who this Hyde guy is, but this is the real me,” Sora contends. “This is who I am. The man I am when I’m tired is weak, and a pushover. I hate him. He’s—”

“Thirteen months,” Pribadium!Two interrupts, giving him his own medicine.

“What?” Pribadium!One questions.

Pribadium!Two looks directly at Sora. “We were together for thirteen—I mean, we weren’t together. We...well, we weren’t nothing. I just mean...I didn’t know how much time we needed to fix the past, so I intentionally overshot it. We spent over a year making sure that the Teaguardians never had any reason to destroy Doma Tertia.”

“Then where am I now?” Sora pressed. “You never did say. I find that—”

“You’re dead! You sacrificed yourself!” Pribadium!Two breathes. “For me.”

Microstory 2726: Calm, Patient, and Empathetic

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The alternate version of Pribadium was exhausted, dirty, and hurt. She never got a chance to explain exactly what she went through, and how she came to be in this reality. The Pribadium from this reality put her in a medical pod to recuperate. While she fell asleep, it cleaned her up, treated her injuries, and kept her relaxed.

Pribadium!One has been sitting next to her for the last hour, thinking about what happened. Concurrent realities can exist. That’s how it worked when there were five parallels, before most were destroyed in 2400. But that’s just it—still no one seems to know what caused them to collapse. Keeping this one may prove to be a real problem.

“Can she hear us?” Sora asks in a whisper, sitting down next to Pribadium!One.

“No,” Pribadium!One explains. She eyes him curiously. “You’re a befuddling man, Mr. Shimizu. When we first met, I would have been in the right to call you an asshole, but now you’re calm, patient, and dare I say, empathetic. What changed?”

“Nothing changed; not really,” he says. “I get this way when I’m tired. I’m always so antsy and anxious, but I eventually run out of energy, so I kind of shut down. Plus, you remind me of someone I once knew.” He points to Pribadium!Two. “She reminds me of her even more, with her tattered clothes and worn face. No offense.”

“None taken. She’ll recover.” She pauses. “Have you tried always being nice?”

“Well, sure. When something makes me angry, I try to let it go. I’ve tried everything, short of medical intervention, which I don’t want to do. There was a span of a few years where I intentionally kept myself fatigued so I would be more likeable. I was told it wasn’t healthy for me, so it’s just a trade off. I can be nice or alert, but not both.”

“Is it the woman you wear that scarf for?” she asks. “Is that who the other Pribadium reminds you of, and who told you to be more healthy?”

Sora smiles. “You caught me. I don’t like to talk about it, because it’s...”

“You can be honest,” Pribadium!One encourages. “You can be vulnerable.”

“It was unrequited. I was in love with her, but not she with me. A lot of us Proxima Domanians, you know, are mortals. Organic, undigitized, and bound for death. Many think that it’s crazy. If you could live forever, why wouldn’t you want to? I was probably going to make the transition eventually, but I guess I wanted to test myself first. Our ancestors never had that choice. You lived, you died; that was it. I wanted to see if I could make it, and if I didn’t, then maybe I didn’t deserve it. But anyway, since I grew up with people more like me, that’s mostly all I knew. Until she moved in. I was in my twenties, and so was she...or at least that’s what I thought. I think she was 428 years old the last time I saw her. It made me angry. She looked like a peer, but she saw me as a child. No, she saw me as an ant. But, ya know, one of those friendly ants who you can hang out with. That is what we did, and I fell in love with her a little more every day.”

“What happened to her?” Pribadium!One asks. “You act like she died, but...”

“She did. That stream-blocking tech I used on you? It was hers. She came up with it herself. I didn’t know why until it was too late. Before we met, she systematically murdered every single one of her clones. She was on Doma to kill herself. She spent all that time, secretly under the signal jammer, so even if she was backed up somewhere, it would have been woefully out of date. Then one day, after years of watching me pine after her, she kissed me, went into the bathroom, and slit her wrists.”

Pribadium!One nods and sighs respectfully. “Do you want to see her again?”

Microstory 2725: When Branes Collide

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The time machine draws a lot of power. If you utilize it, that energy gets used up for the trip, but if you don’t, it builds as waste heat. There is no point in letting it run if they’re not going to be able to travel back in time in the foreseeable future. They have to first find out who this other Pribadium is, and what she wants. So Pribadium!One shuts down the machine while Pribadium!Two gets comfortable. She looks exhausted.

“I did what you were planning to do,” Pribadium!Two begins to explain. “I went back in time, and successfully saved Doma Tertia.” She gestures towards Sora. “We both did. He did most of the talking. But then things started to go wrong. The Teaguardians were asking a lot of questions. They showed us astronomical and astrophysical data that pointed to something being wrong. I don’t know what we thought when we decided what tech we would give them, and what we would hold back. But obviously the government started developing their own tech. They can evidently detect shifts in reality. It’s crude and unreliable, but I saw the data. They were right. So I went back to my lab, and spent time figuring it out. I barely made it here in time to stop you. If you had been allowed to go on, you would have created a runaway domino effect. Infinite realities, piled on top of each other, siphoning cosmic energy, withering away. The destruction of the universe.”

“Wait,” Pribadium!One says. “Are you telling me that you’re from a parallel reality? It’s concurrent with this one; not just a previous timeline?”

“That is correct,” Pribadium!Two confirms. “They finally got rid of all the other concurrents, and shunted the survivors into a new universe. Then I went and made a brand new parallel. There’s no name for it. I think I’m supposed to call it the Ninth Something, or other, but I don’t know what that would be, or if it’s my job.”

“How could this happen?” Pribadium!One asks. “We’ve traveled through time before, and it’s never caused this. Countless timelines are being collapsed and replaced every day, and it doesn’t happen. Why now? Why us?”

“It’s because we are different,” Pribadium!Two claims. “We don’t travel the same way. We access the bulk. And it was a one in a trillion coincidence that we did it today.”

Pribadium always knew that her method was different, but it has never resulted in this. How should she feel about it? As unsettling as it is that the timeline you leave behind collapses behind you, at least the changes you make definitely matter. “What is that coincidence?” she presses her alternate self. “And how long will it last?”

“How long will it last?” Pribadium!Two laughs. “Forever, I think. Had it happened on its own, no one would have noticed, but the proverbial stars aligned, and now we’re stuck. We’re literally stuck against the membrane of another universe. They were supposed to collide, cause a little chaos, then bounce off each other. But we linked them in a way that’s never been done before, and now we’re joined at the hip.”

“So, is that the parallel reality?” Sora asks. “This neighboring universe?”

“No, it’s different.” Pribadium!Two talks with her hands. “Our universe collided with another at the exact moment that you and I used this machine. The universes got stuck together, and in between them is an extra layer of reality. That’s where you are.”

“Wait, us?” Pribadium!One questions. “We’re the ones in the new reality?”

“That’s correct,” Pribadium!Two says.

“What does that mean?” Sora asks innocently.

“I don’t know,” both Pribadiums say at the same time.

Microstory 2664: It’s Like a Caucus

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Rumors spread across the island fast, but it’s only been a few hours, so there are still a lot of questions. Resi is dead tired, because he hasn’t slept for real since two nights ago. The Kidjum is an induced sleep state, which keeps the mind active, and doesn’t result in any rejuvenation. Indeed, it’s one of the most tiring experiences in an islander’s life. Catching up on rest is one of the first things a graduate usually does once they choose their House, right after a nice, big meal. Because of his unique position, he never had that luxury. He has to speak with the next batch of sixteen-year-olds, who spent their whole lives thinking that they were going to decide their own fates on this day. If the world doesn’t go Proxima Doma and explode in the next decade or so, having five Houses will become the new normal, but for now, he can only imagine what they’re feeling. As shitty as he thinks his own situation is, there’s an argument to be made that they’re worse off. Some of these kids are only a few hours younger than him. What gives him the right to choose for them?

It’s a relatively small class this time, with only twenty-four kids. Two of them are going to be sent off to House Ilah, specifically to live with Resi’s birth family. Whoever these girls are, they’re not going to like it. He’s determined to ask everyone where they would like to go, but those two could become terrible exceptions. Or maybe not. Only eight of them are girls, so the chances that any two will want to volunteer aren’t the best, but maybe he’ll get lucky. He’s looking at the roster now. Only one of them is originally from Ilah, but that is no big surprise. Each House celebrates a different fertility season, so birthdays are not evenly distributed throughout the year. Most are from House Maing’aing, which is where Resi’s older sister is now. He needs to broach the subject delicately. If this girl—oh, no, she’s looking at him. Shit, they’re all looking at him. How long has he been standing here, not saying anything? “Welcome to your Kidjum.”

“It’s not a Kidjum anymore, is it?” one of the boys asks. Fair point.

“It’s true, you won’t be going to the cots tonight to commune with your subconscious minds,” Resi admits. “But that word really only means sleep. Our ancestors on Earth didn’t practice House reassignments. They didn’t even have Houses. So Kidjum has already changed meanings. I see no reason why it can’t change again.” Whew. He really pulled that one out of his ass. In reality, he didn’t have time to think about whether they should start using new terminology. He isn’t a linguist at any rate, and wouldn’t know how to go about finding a good replacement. Why did they choose him, and why did they make him start immediately? That’s right, he doesn’t believe that this had anything to do with his subconscious. He thinks it was all orchestrated. In fact, he’s doubting now that anyone here makes their own House decision. Was it all a lie?

“I don’t care what you call it. Just tell us what’s gonna happen.” It’s the one girl from Ilah. Her arms are noticeably uncrossed. Most of the others are guarding themselves, even the guys. They’re wearing unnecessarily thin cotton...sheets. There’s no special name for it, but that’s literally what it is. You’re handed a sheet, and it’s up to you to tear the holes for your head and arms. Some forget to be mindful of the arms, and it makes for some rather awkward interactions. She remembered how many tears to make, but she made them too large, so she’s showing more skin than she should be, and doesn’t seem bothered. Fortunately, she dried off rather well, so it’s okay that she’s not trying to cover herself up so much.

Should he pull her aside and ask if she wants to stay? Probably not, because he still needs one more girl anyway. Could he talk to all the girls separately? No. Transparency. If this has been one giant conspiracy, then he needs to actively combat that by being as honest as possible, and giving them all the information that he has about it. Geeze, it’s hot in here. Has it always been hot? What is this, the fire ceremony, am I right? He clears his throat, only to find that it’s only made it worse. He should have grabbed some water beforehand. “Believe it or not, you all probably know about as much as I do,” he struggles to say. He clears his throat again. Nope. Even worse. Cool.

His sister walks up from behind him, and slips her water bottle into his hand.

He takes hold of it. “Thanks, little one.” He made the right choice, bringing her along. He drinks then looks back at the crowd. “As I was saying, I was not given a handbook for this job. The Assembly hasn’t even reached out. I’m gonna do my best, but I’ll need your help. I don’t know what you expect here, but I’ve been told that everything is my decision now. You don’t get any say. Your subconsciousness doesn’t even have a voice. Well, if that’s true—if I’m really as powerful as they want me to be—then I can choose not to choose. It’s estimated that 83% of dreamers end up in the House that they thought they wanted before they went into their Kidjum. Most of you know what you want, so let’s lean into that. Tell me. What do you want?” Two girls. Please let there be two girls who want to go to Ilah. That’s all he needs. Make it easy on him. Hell, he’ll take two guys, and maybe negotiate with Father. It’s the 26th century, it’s not like there’s a real difference between boy work and girl work. That’s all just nonsense tradition.

The room is quiet. No one is answering. Okay, that’s on him. He didn’t make it a very orderly vote. “Um...” he begins as he’s looking around. “Okay, yes.” He goes over to the two tables that were used for handing out the sheets, and separates them from each other. He grabs the leftover sheets themselves, and walks them over to a separate corner to throw them on the floor. Then he starts to point. “Enaiyo, Maing’aing, Naino, and if you stay where you are, you’re choosing House Ilah. There. It’s like a caucus. Have you heard of those? Doesn’t matter. Just, uhh...go.” He waves his arm to release them. When they still don’t move, he balks. “You all want Ilah?” Holy shit, this is gonna work out. “Or do you not understand the assignment? I get it, this isn’t what you trained for, but they didn’t give me any of the elixir. We literally can’t do a real Kidjum. I’m sorry, but—”

“You forgot one House,” another girl says. “You forgot Kutelin.”

He’s so thrown off by that. “Well, I...it’s just...” Huh? “I didn’t think anyone would want to join that. We don’t have anything. I have an apartment that I’ll be sharing with my sister. But we don’t have any farms or infrastructure. That might sound like it means no work, but the work families do isn’t random or arbitrary. It provides for them. I’ll be eating from the Market Collective. I don’t know that they’ll afford you the same courtesy. We don’t know where this is going. Like I said, they’re being real cryptic about it.”

“We’ve already talked about this, the Ilah girl says. “We didn’t have a fifth choice before. We wanna start something new.” They aren’t in a Fold together, but since birthdays are a matter of public record, they all know each other. Many groups who share the day, until their Kidjum, operate in a very Fold-like way. If this is what they want, he can’t deny them. They answered his question. So all right, the first members of House Kutelin. But wait, what about Father’s demand? No, screw that, Father can sow with his toes. Resi has a Fold of his own now. He has a family. He has protection.

Microstory 2520: Guide

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Once you walk into the building, and get checked in with one of the greeters, you can ask me for help. There are a ton of us, patrolling and stationed strategically around the floor, ready to provide assistance. There’s at least one in every waiting room, one in the auditorium, several in the mainline. Outside, inside, topside. If you’re thirsty, we’ll get you water. If you don’t know where the nearest restroom is, we’ll escort you there. If you were in line when you had to step out, we’ll have a queuer keep track of where you were, and put you back in it at the right place. We can also answer questions about the history of the Foundation, and behind-the-scenes information. We know where you need to be, and where you’re going, and who you will be dealing with. Guides are friendly, knowledgeable, and always ready to take action. We get a ton of steps, so there’s one advantage. Since our job requires moving around so much more than others, we enjoy a very special exception. We’re entitled to injury healings. Hold for gasps. For the most part, Landis does not handle cuts and broken bones. They may hurt, and they may even be life-threatening, but because of the acute time constraint involved in the most severe cases, the responsibility falls squarely on traditional medicine. It will get your application immediately rejected, even before you upload your medical and financial records. Some applicants have actually gotten real upset about that, because they also had a chronic illness, and figured they should include the normal injury along with it to be the most accurate. Don’t do it. Anyway, that’s not really the point. I’ve kind of made it sound like guides and queuers are getting injured left and right, but really, it’s more like a benefit in our insurance package. It’s there if we need it, and while it has happened before, we rarely need it. Mostly, the only people who ever had to use it were either exhausted or dehydrated. I recall one guy who twisted his ankle, and another was straight up punched in the face by a patient companion who was trying to defend her mother against another patient. But those were extreme circumstances. If necessary, we are allowed to cut in line to get it completed, but that’s only when we can’t continue our shift without it. Since it almost never happens, it might seem like a small thing, but I think it speaks to the culture of our organization. The leaders understand that there are exceptions to every rule. It’s important to maintain order and fairness, but that doesn’t mean being overly strict and inflexible. It’s also just kind of cool being a little bit more special on a staff of a very special Foundation.

Extremus: Year 109

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It’s the Halfway Celebration Extravaganza! Today is July 17, 2378. It’s been exactly 108 years since the TGS Extremus left port in the Gatewood Collective. Since then, while traveling at reframe speeds, they have covered 76,367 light years. Due to their unscheduled detour into the void, they’re not quite that far away from their starting point, but it doesn’t matter. They’re still well on their way to their new home. There is currently no one left on this ship who was alive when it launched, and no one here will likely still be around when it lands, but this day isn’t about the departers, or the arrivers, it’s about the middlers. This day is about everyone here right now. It’s a grand accomplishment, and they should all be proud of themselves. It hasn’t been easy. Politics, external threats, cabin fever. Time travel, spies, betrayals. Uncertainty, purposelessness, loss, and love. They’ve been through a lot, but they pushed through it, and this hunk of metal is still hurling through space. Not once have they stopped. Not once have they tried to turn around. They’re flying farther and further than ever, into the unknown. And everything they just did, they have to do one more time. Say it louder.

Tinaya lands on the bed. She’s still conscious, but her eyes are closed, and she’s not feeling well. She lies there for a moment, focusing on her breathing. “Thistle, how did I get here?”

“You were about to collapse to the floor,” Thistle replies. “I spirited you away before you could break a hip.”

“Did anyone see?” she asks.

“No. They didn’t even see you disappear. Perfect timing.”

“No need to boast about it.”

“I meant you. You passed out right when no one was looking. Of course, they would have realized it if you had hit the floor, so I suppose my timing was pretty spectacular too, thanks for noticing.”

“Well, thank you. I think I’m fine to go back.” She stands and tries to activate her teleporter, but it doesn’t work. “Thistle.”

“You’re grounded, missy. You’re lucky I didn’t take you right to the infirmary.”

While all the corrupted medical personnel who were a part of the forced pregnancy scandal have long been replaced, Tinaya has become gun-shy to visit the infirmary. She knows that she’s gonna need it. She’s an old woman. But not tonight. Any night but tonight. “I have to get back to the party. They’re expecting me.”

“I’ve taken care of that.”

“How?”

“I’ve written an algorithm, which projects a hologram of you at strategic locations for strategic people at strategic times. Everyone who sees you will think you’re busy talking to someone else.”

“That sounds like a recipe for disaster. What happens when someone tries to walk up and interrupt us, or pat me on my back?”

“Impossible,” he claims. “You’re not a single hologram that everyone looking in the right direction can see. Each person who sees it sees it separately, as an image that is projected directly onto their eyeballs. I control when they see it, and how far away they are when they do, as well as how your avatar moves.”

Tinaya is vexed. She’s never heard of that before. It’s not some futuristic thing that she can’t comprehend, but she just hasn’t heard of it. “What?”

“Individualized holograms.”

“Who would install such a thing, and why? It seems like the only use for it would be to deceive people, like you’re doing right now.”

“It has other use cases. You can receive personalized alerts, and sensitive information. It can help you train to perform maintenance, or other tasks, without interfering with other people seeing their own AR.”

“Well, why have I never seen anything like that before? Or have I, and I didn’t know it.”

“You people really took to your watches and armbands, the protocols were just never implemented. The tech is there, though. Every hologram you see is coming from those projectors, but widened for general viewing.”

She lies back down on the bed. “Okay.” She doesn’t know how she feels about this. She was really tired before she collapsed. It’s not like it was a sudden fainting with no warning. It’s getting harder to keep up with everyone these days. Even Lataran is too active for her sometimes, but Tinaya has been hiding the struggle. “What about sound?”

“They can’t hear you in the crowd anyway, but the projectors include photoacoustic emitters too, if they’re ever needed.”

“How come you never show up as a hologram?”

“I do. Some people ask for it. They ask me to look like some contrived image of myself, or a cat, or even themselves. You’ve simply never requested it.”

Tinaya sits up quickly. “Wait. Silveon and Arqut.”

“I used those photoacoustic emitters I was just talking about, and informed them of the situation. They’re sticking around to make sure the holos are working, and then I believe they’ll slip out to check on you. I might make holos of them as well.”

“I’ve decided that this was helpful, Thistle, but I would really like you not to do this often. I say it like that, because I don’t want to make a blanket statement that you shouldn’t do it ever, but it should only be for extreme circumstances. I can’t divulge my health problems until I know who I can trust, but this isn’t gonna be a regular thing.”

“I understand.”

Tinaya lay back down on the bed and fell asleep. This is sort of the unwritten, unofficial reason why admirals are only advisors, and no longer commanders. After 24 years of hard work as a captain, she’s mainly supposed to rest. Well, she didn’t work a full shift, but she was pretty busy before that. And she definitely needs to rest tonight. Tomorrow could be even worse. It’s all downhill from here. She isn’t sure if she’s going to live as long as her son claims that she will. His information is coming from a different timeline. Nothing is certain.

Arqut is sleeping next to her when she wakes up the next morning. She nudges him awake. “Report.”

He groans, only half awake. “We’re taking you to see a doctor on Verdemus tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, or today?” Tinaya questions. “It’s six o’clock on the eighteenth.”

“Today,” he clarifies while yawning.

“I have a better solution,” Thistle interjects. “One that doesn’t require any extensive travel, or placing trust in anyone besides me.”

There is not a whole lot of automation on this ship. When the ancestors left the stellar neighborhood, technology had advanced far past the need for any human crew. There was talk back then of not having any captains or engineers, or anything. Everyone would be a passenger, possibly as part of the internal government. In the end, of course, it was decided that it was more important to let people have purpose than to go the easy route. There are limits to this philosophy, however, and the line separating human labor from automation lies somewhere before waste management.

There are different kinds of waste. Some of it isn’t waste at all, but recyclable material, but whatever it is, if it was once used and has since been discarded, it ends up in this sector to be processed accordingly. No one comes down here. No one needs to be here, and no one wants to either. “Why doesn’t it smell?” Silveon asks. “I would expect it to smell.”

For the first time ever, Tinaya is seeing Thistle as a hologram. He’s leading them through a maze. This is a restricted travel area, or people might use it for nefarious or inappropriate dealings, so no teleportation. “I control for the smell,” he explains.

“Why bother?” Silveon presses. “If no one comes here, what does it matter?”

“I’m here,” Thistle says.

“Right.”

“I can smell,” Thistle goes on.

“Why would you be able to smell? Why would you need that?”

“There are many uses for smell, which is why humans and animals alike evolved their own olfaction. My artificial odor sensors can detect individual health issues, substance leaks, food spoilage. I mask the scent in this area, because I find it just as unpleasant as you, if not more.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I’m grateful for it now,” Silveon says.

“You’re here,” Thistle reveals. “I can give you the code for the door, but I can’t open it myself. It’s deliberately manual. They didn’t want anyone to stumble upon it. Just type in zero-nine-three-six-one-four-seven-five-two-eight-zero.”

Arqut handles the code.

“What is the significance of that number?” Silveon asks.

Thistle shrugs. “It’s long.”

Arqut pulls the door open. Lights flicker on, presumably responding to their motion, rather than a sophisticated AI sensor array. In the middle of the floor is something that is not supposed to be on this ship. It was banned because of how it could lead to extreme longevity. They call it a medpod, and it’s very common on Earth, and its neighbors. It can diagnose nearly anything, and treat it too. It has a distinct look against other types of pods due to its uncomparable dimensional specifications. “Who put this here?”

“Admiral Thatch did. He never used it. No one else has either. To tell you the truth, I think he forgot about it. He didn’t even write it down. I only found it because I needed to familiarize myself with the area. There aren’t even hologram projectors in there. You’ll have to go in and operate it on your own.”

“How did you know what was in there if you can’t physically open doors? How did you know the code if he never told anyone about it?” Tinaya struggles to ask him. Sleeping all night didn’t help much. She grew tired again as soon as she stepped out of bed. She would be sitting in a wheelchair right now if doing so wouldn’t be like holding a neon sign over her head, advertising how frail she’s become.

“He wrote down the code,” Thistle clarifies. “He didn’t say what it was for, so this was just a guess, but it was a good one given that all buttons on the keypad have oil fingerprints on them. I knew what was in here because I can hear it. When isolated from a grid, medpods are often powered by a fuel cell, and the type that fits this design hums at a unique frequency. It’s unambiguous to me.”

They all just stand there in the doorway. The boys don’t want to make this decision for Tinaya, but she doesn’t want to make a decision that they don’t agree with.

“I actually can’t see it from here,” Thistle continues. “My closest sensor doesn’t have the right angle. So I’m assuming that it is indeed a medpod. I don’t know exactly which model it is, but they’re all pretty user-friendly. One feature they have in common is that you have to be in it to use it. It doesn’t work from out here.”

“Yeah, okay, I got this,” Tinaya says, determined. She strides into the room, and taps on the interface screen to see what it does. “It wants me to get fully undressed,” she says after reading the initialization instructions.

“I’ll stay out here and keep watch,” Silveon volunteers. Obviously, Thistle is far better at keeping watch than a single human with only two eyes could ever be, but those two eyes don’t need to see what’s going on in this room.

“Let me help you, dear,” Arqut says.

“There should be a little compartment under the foot of the table,” Thistle says from the hallway, “where you can place her clothes. It will test for contamination, decontaminate them if possible, destroy them if not, or just clean them for you if they’re medically insignificant.”

“Found it,” Arqut called back.

“Oo, it’s cold,” Tinaya says after climbing in.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Thistle contends. “Activate the warming nozzles.”

“How do I do that?” Arqut asks.

“Try asking the computer with your voice. Again, I can’t see the model.”

Arqut taps on the microphone. “Activate warming nozzles.”

“Oh,” Tinaya says, shivering. “Thank you.”

“Beginning broad scope diagnosis,” a female voice from the pod says. They expect to have to wait a while as it processes the data, but it quickly comes to a conclusion. “Diagnosis: severe orthostatic hypotension.”

“Low blood pressure,” Thistle says. “That’s all it’s giving you? I knew that. I can see that myself. We wanna know why.”

“It has a little tree sort of icon,” Arqut begins to say.

“Next to the hypotension diagnosis? Yeah, tap that. It should start looking for causes.”

Longer wait this time. “Uhhhhhhhhhhh...” Arqut says as he’s looking at the screen again.

“What?” Thistle presses.

“Now it’s asking for a secondary profile? Preferably someone younger, or someone who has been living in the environment for a shorter period of time.”

“That’s interesting,” Thistle decides. “It wants a comparative assessment. It wants to see if there’s something different about how you live—if this is a chronic issue that’s only now had consequences.”

“So...we should do it?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’m a few years younger,” Arqut says.

“You’ve actually been on this ship longer than her,” Thistle reminds them. “It obviously needs to be Silveon, who is barely an adult.”

Silveon waits while Arqut helps mama get her clothes back on, and carries her over to a couch against the wall. Silveon comes in and climbs into the pod for his own diagnosis. More waiting.

“Unusual neural activity detected.”

“Bypass that,” Thistle instructs. “It doesn’t understand that he’s a time traveler, but it sees the disconnect between an old mind in a young body, so it thinks there’s either an imaging error, or a mapping error.”

“Bypassing...” Arqut announces. Wait a little more. “Diagnosis: optimal condition. Primary profile...unstable gravity variations.”

“Oh my God, of course,” Thistle says, smacking his avatar in the forehead. “She was born here, but spent time on Verdemus before returning. She predominantly lives under human-optimal gravity, which is slightly lower than Earth’s, but Verdemus has a little bit higher surface gravity. Space-farers experience fluctuations all the time, but they have gravity gum, nanites, and other treatments, which are non-existent, or even banned, on Extremus.”

“Should I tap on prognosis?” Arqut asks him.

“I know the prognosis. She’ll live in pain the rest of her life unless she undergoes treatment, which is so easy. It’s just gravity therapy. We have everything we need here to help her.”

Thistle was right that gravity therapy helped Tinaya feel a lot better in her daily life. It didn’t make her young again, but it started to be a hell of a lot easier for her to stand. Unfortunately, her experience would prove to be a warning, rather than a fluke. It wasn’t just her time on Verdemus. Everyone on the ship turns out to be at risk. There’s something seriously wrong with the artificial gravity.

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Microstory 2214: With an Autopsy

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There was a bit of a misunderstanding. Due to Nick’s sleep issues, the EEG test needed to be able to measure his brain activity while he was awake, and also while he was asleep. I asked if we should reschedule it for the nighttime, but Nick was confident that he would be able to fall asleep given the right conditions. To make it happen, they packed his hospital room with a number of medical staff who weren’t too busy with other things. For almost thirty minutes, he was the center of attention. They asked him questions, mostly not about his medical issues. He had to talk about the universe where he’s from, and all the adventures he went on after he left it. It didn’t matter whether they believed him or not, or even if they were listening. Being around crowds of people is exhausting for him, and it’s even worse when they’re paying all their attention to him. By the end of it, he had little trouble sleeping. The doctor rechecked the electrodes, shut off the lights, and left the room. I asked to stay by his side, but he insisted that Nick be alone, which admittedly made sense. I don’t want to say that these results were inconclusive, like all the others, but they were. Best guess at the moment is that he’s suffering from some form of dementia. The MRI would seem to support this possibility, but only as a possibility. That is to say, it doesn’t rule it out. Unfortunately, the best way to know for sure that that’s the case is with an autopsy, which is obviously not in the cards at this stage. I suppose it might one day give his survivors some sense of closure, but it doesn’t help Nick now, and I’m still holding out hope for a turnaround. As for the lumbar puncture, we have only received a few preliminary results so far. His cell count and glucose levels are totally fine. The diagnostician said that his protein levels were suspicious, but he couldn’t elaborate on that. My schooling did not go over any of this kind of stuff, and he’s aware of that, so he didn’t bother elaborating. He did seem pretty cryptic about it, though. He said that he needed to send the data off to a special lab, but that it could take up to a week to get more answers. I’m really worried about it, so I’ve decided to not tell Nick about that just yet. It will only cause him more anxiety, and it might also end up being nothing. That’s it for the tests for now. We have nothing planned for tomorrow, but I’ll probably get him back to his physical therapy to help him stay as independent as possible for as long as possible.

Microstory 2127: Too Tired to Relax

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I accepted one of the jobs, and respectfully declined the others. I’ll be working from home, which is something that I always wanted to do before all this time travel and universe-hopping. It saves on gas, and other transportation, and it allows me to work for anyone in the world. I thought I was going to be able to tell you what I’ll be doing, but my employer doesn’t want me to divulge such information. They may allow me to say certain, carefully crafted things at a later date, but for now, I should just treat it as privileged information. They didn’t make me sign an NDA, but I’m obviously going to respect their decision. All I can say is that I’m allowed to work whenever I want unless I’m scheduled for a meeting or a call, and it’s by the week, rather than the day. So if I get all of my work done at the beginning of the week, I can take a couple of days off, and still get paid the same, because I covered my hours, and was sufficiently productive. We’ll see how it goes. Before I left my original universe, people were pushing for a four-day workweek, but I’ve always believed that it would be better to work shorter hours across more days than to get entire days off. I would rather take minimal breaks in between than work my butt off non-stop until I crash on the weekend. I’m too tired to relax at that point, ya know? I know that sounds dumb, but if you’ve ever been there, you understand what I mean. Anyway, most of my last several posts have been on the longer side, so I think I’ll just do a little of that relaxing that I was talking about. I’ll have more to say tomorrow, because my new job isn’t the only thing I have going on. I’m this close to selecting an apartment. I found a nice complex with fully furnished units, but new, so I don’t have to worry about others having gotten their grubby little hands on the furniture—or worse—smoking around it. I’ll still clean everything. I’ll also need to tell you what my therapy was like, because I’m writing this prior to my evening session. I think I’ve already told you that, as a patient, I’m none too worried about the confidentiality of psychological and medical treatment. I expect my provider to respect my privacy, but I’ll say whatever I want about myself, so you’ll be hearing about my progress in the next coming months.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 4, 2399

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Mateo and Ramses are still not back yet from dropping the boys off on the AOC. Aldona has not even bothered to think about long-range communications systems, because it’s not priority. They have to build the ships and satellites first, then they can worry about all that stuff. All Leona can do is hope that they wanted to have a longish conversation while going relativistic speeds, and that nothing is actually wrong. She’s been trying to keep her mind busy with her work, but it has not been easy. She’s been distracted, and not even by her husband’s absence. It’s something else. Something has been gnawing at her, and it’s not the loneliness, nor the exhaustion, though both of those have become real problems. No, she’s realized what it is. It’s the Constance!Five android they tucked away in the antarctic. She’s still a threat. She’ll continue to be a threat until she’s gone forever.

Aldona knocks on the door for her two hourly check-in, which she apparently thinks Leona has not noticed. “Hey, what’s up? Could you check these numbers for me?”

Leona accepts the tablet, and gives them a cursory glance. “They look great.”

“You barely looked at them.”

“I’m that good. You are too. Stop asking me for input that you don’t need.”

“Measure twice, cut once,” Aldona muses.

“That’s what the computer is for.”

Aldona sticks the tablet under her armpit, and folds her arms.

“Is there anything else?”

“You want to ask me for something.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Once a day, you ask for something extra. Resources, access to something. We’re nearing the end of the evening, and you’ve not done that yet. So, out with it.”

She stares at her for a few seconds. “Okay, you’re right. I was hoping to borrow one of your rockets.”

“What is it this time?”

“There is something that we need to get into space.”

“Okay. Because...?”

“Because...that’s where the sun is.”

“And what do you need with the sun?”

Leona scrunches up her lips, and shakes her head rapidly. “We may or may not need to allegedly throw something into it.”

“You need to throw something into the sun...like garbage?”

“That’s a word for it.”

Aldona narrows her eyes. “Are you trying to murder someone?”

“That...is a word for that.”

“Talk to me, Leona. Tell me what I need to know.”

“We call her Constance!Five. She can make herself look like anyone. We trapped her in a stasis pod, but it’s only a matter of time before she breaks out.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me this? That’s who’s trying to kill Cedar.”

“I know, but not everyone believes that all’s fair in love and war.”

“If you have a version of Constance, I want it gone. Permission: granted.”