Microstory 2575: Renata Emerges from the Train, and Approaches the Confident Stranger

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Renata emerges from the train, and approaches the confident stranger. She looks him over, and then around the platform as the train races away to pick up new travelers. It looks just like any other station, except the stairs that should lead up to the surface are missing. Instead, a half-flight leads to what looks like a fairly open area. It’s lit by a soft green light. She can hear the activity of other workers, but it’s fairly quiet. “You hijacked my train.”

“No,” the man contends, “you stepped onto my train.”

“A hundred and eighth and Deliverer?”

“That’s just to get you on the right train. But enough about that.” He gestures for her to follow him up the steps. “I will not be telling you my name unless and until you pass the first test. Whether you expected it or not, your entry into this program is determined by a practical test, which you could not have studied for, unlike the written exam that got you here in the first place. We are a secretive organization, obviously, and we’re not going to trust you with those secrets until we find out what you’re made of. In the old days, we would have our candidates sit in a waiting room, where a contrived disaster would strike, and they would have to solve the problem in whatever way they thought was best. They were in no real danger, but they thought they were, so they acted accordingly. Of course, some failed, and some excelled. We’ve since changed tactics.”

“Changed tactics to what?” she asks him.

He holds his hand up in front of the open door, offering her to walk in first, to a room where two other people are waiting. “We decided that it’s okay to warn you that it’s coming.” He places his hand on the handle, and prepares to close it with him still on the outside. “The danger is real, Miss Granger. If you fail, you could die. Good luck, you three.” He shuts the door.

Renata spins back around, and begins to assess the room. The other two were sitting, but now stand and tense up. So many potential threats here. The floor is a metal grate, which could be housing hidden flame-throwers underneath. The vents could release a noxious gas into the air. The sprinkler system on the ceiling could drop caustic acid onto their skin. Or the pipes are just holding water, and that loose wiring hanging from the broken outlet is primed to electrocute them. There’s a cot, a table, two chairs, and a small dresser or nightstand. There’s also a sink, but she doesn’t know if it’s functional yet. They have no idea what’s coming, but protecting themselves from as many things as possible is paramount right now. The other two look like lost little puppies, so she’s gonna have to take charge. “Strip the bed. It looks like we have a fitted sheet, a top sheet, and a pillow case.” She steps over to the sink to test it. Water comes out. It smells fine. It doesn’t sting the back of her hand. It’s room temperature. “Hand them to me.”

The two others do exactly what she says without question.

She runs the sheets under the water, and hands two of them back while she keeps the pillow case. “Drape them over yourselves. Breathe through them in case there’s smoke.”

They comply again.

“Get on the table.” As they’re doing that, Renata checks for poisonous creatures underneath the mattress, then climbs onto the bed. “Okay. Any minute now.” It turns out to be that very minute. They start to hear the screeching of metal. The pipes on the opposite wall begin to shake. A scent wafts over from them, which assaults her senses. She can’t place the smell, though. It reminds her of rotten eggs. What is that? What smells like rotten eggs. The other two begin breathing through the fabric. Whatever the poison is, these sheets are probably not going to do them any good. She drops her pillow case to the floor while she jumps over to one of the chairs. The floor could still be dangerous, so she best not risk it.

Renata hops like a bunny over to the broken outlet. She takes out the gum that her mother gave her, and smirks. They didn’t expect her to have this on her person. She unwraps one stick, and lets it fall, because she only cares about the wrapper. She forms it into a bow-tie shape, and prepares to place it between the wires.  “Stay covered,” she orders. Just as some kind of powdery something or other bursts out of the pipe, she completes the circuit. Electricity surges through the wrapper, and sets it on fire. Knowing that it’s going to burn out before she can use it, she uses it like a match to set the rest of the pack of gum aflame. It’s not going to last long either, but just long enough. She hops off the chair, and onto the nightstand. She holds it up to the sprinkler system, and before the flame can burn out, the water is released. It’s not acid, so that’s good.

She smiles as she watches the water make contact with the powder, assuming that it’s neutralizing it. It doesn’t seem to quite be doing that, though, or at least not good enough. She’s now seeing a gas begin to fill the room. Was it always there, or was the water somehow creating it? Then she starts to cough, as do the other two candidates. It gets worse and worse as she starts to feel like she’s going to die. Then she falls off the nightstand, and lands hard on the floor.

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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The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 23, 2200

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For centuries, civilized humans struggled for their rights and livelihoods. Life was a long and violent land rush that only ever ended in death. You took as much as you could, and hoped the heads you stepped on didn’t rise back up and retaliate. The sooners were the rich, and stragglers the poor. But as time wore on, people started realizing that there was no real point to this. Having a lot of money, and a lot of things, were unfulfilling exercises. As the old guard died off, their descendants began looking at life differently. They found that having everything they wanted was not more enjoyable just because there were those without. They still slept well at night in their comfortable beds knowing that others were doing the same; better even. Priorities shifted from the individual to the common good. It started to feel more rewarding the less poverty there was as a whole. Perhaps it was the promise, or threat, of an alien encounter, that only drew nearer as the years went by. Perhaps children are generally just better people than their parents. Whatever the cause, the reality was clear: money was a waste of resources.

Crime plummeted exponentially once society realized that the majority of them were perpetrated by those who felt slighted, underappreciated, and wanting. Early signs of this peeked through the global consciousness in the 21st century when superior paid services were chosen over inferior or illegally free ones. There was little place for illegal online downloads, for instance, when great content was affordable and easy to access. But it would take decades to truly see the potential of a world where labor and capital were not valued more than the benefits they provided. Still, crime was not entirely extinguished, for need was not the only reason. There was just no way to safely satiate the hunger of those who just want to hurt others. Virtual reality simulations alleviated some of this, but without a real sense of risk, they could only take it so far. Terrorists, rapists, serial killers, and the like, still felt the need to explore their impulses, and no amount of placating would be able to stop them.

Étude Einarsson was born with a destiny, to save the lives of strangers. Her predecessors had extremely strenuous careers, but hers was relatively easy. The world just wasn’t all that dangerous anymore. Deadly accidents were almost exclusively the stuff of legends and histories. The real danger came from operating in outer space, which was outside of The Savior’s purview. Even that was becoming safer anyway. And so the biggest problem positively contributing members of society faced was human nature. The Last Savior’s Last Save was seen firsthand by a couple hundred people, though nearly all invisible. A special choosing one named Sanela Matic had the ability to travel through time as witness to historical events, but was unable to interact with it. As The Screener, she could present an event to others, like a four-dimensional film. Normally she did this on an individual basis, but this was an important moment in time traveler history, and the powers that be wanted it to be shared. She and her audience were not the only ones there, though. Loa recorded the entire thing in her own brain, which was a secondary skill she had been working on for years. She would now have it for her lifetime, and anyone capable of contacting her would be able to request a viewing.

At the very last fraction of a second, Étude was teleported between the would-be killer, and his intended victim. He was reportedly not a well man, who became obsessed with murder mysteries as a child. He had apparently grown up studying these crimes, ultimately deciding to make a plan to see if he could get away with it, even in this day and age. At the end of the 22nd century, it was hard to do anything without people knowing about it. They accepted the lack of privacy since it was replaced by a deep sense of apathy. Just about anything one does could be discovered by others, but few worried about it, because—unlike the olden days of ubiquitous social media—few cared enough to do so. With the population of the solar system quickly approaching the first hundred billion, there just weren’t that many public figures. If you wanted to be famous, you had to agree to a level of transparency formally considered absurd. Even without fame, the hopeful murderer was easily caught by authorities, shortly after failing to hit his target. The bullet harmlessly struck Étude’s distribution vest, and that was that.

When Leona returned to the timeline, she heard Étude had been given a real identity, and was presently testing her way into medical school in one of the midrange circles. There weren’t many human medical professionals anymore. While other fields had plenty of room for people who just wanted to expand their knowledge, humans were too dangerous and inefficient at medicine. It was typically illegal to practice medicine without a certain threshold of operational upgrades. Even then, most patients preferred fully automated treatment, so not even many transhumanists had much work. The less advanced regions of the planet, and less developed offworld colonies, were the only ones willing to stoop to that level. Étude was supposedly sick of being limited in her movements to the one world, so it was believed her intentions were to travel to one of the exoplanets, where she could theoretically have plenty of opportunities to demonstrate her skills.

Brooke and Ecrin had been recruited into an elite task force, or something, overseen by the aptly named Overseer. They were jet setting around the solar system, investigating crimes, and rescuing people during classified missions. There were rumors that they were leading a team of people who helped destroy Ulinthra, as well as the timeline she had created when taking over the world. If true, revolutionary Holly Blue would surely be part of the team as well. Paige left without saying where or when she was going. Vitalie was finally starting to grow up, having been fully removed from Leona’s pattern. It was unclear as of now what kind of lifestyle she was planning to lead, and whether she would ultimately choose to die like a normal person.

The two remaining were presently sitting in their apartment, finishing up breakfast, when someone knocked on the door. Leona opened it up to find someone she recognized. “Kivi Bristol. How nice to see you.”

“You know me?” Kivi asked.

“Of course not,” Leona lied without skipping a beat. “Come in, though.” Kivi was an interesting person, whose temporal circumstances no one seemed to understand. There were multiple versions of her, born under completely different conditions, at different time periods, who were each generally unaware of her counterparts. She always had the same name, always looked the same, and was always about the same age. There was no telling how long she would last, and once she disappeared, it was sometimes a while before anyone remembered she had been there, and realized she was gone.

“Thank you, I’ve been walking for a while. Yours was the first place in this circle that opened when I knocked.”

Leona nodded. “Yes, people are having fun in their virtual environments, even here. Where are you from?”

“Center circle.” She tilted her head, not in pride for her answer, but willingly prepared for what she assumed would be the inevitable ignorant questions. The outer circle was the most advanced of all, though still less so than most pockets of civilization on Earth. Each further circle was more backwards than the last, until reaching the center. Some people there lived like ancient pioneers, with no electricity, or even the simplest of comforts, while others stayed in shelters they fashioned out of the materials in their environment. They weren’t, strictly speaking, isolationists, but they did reject technology. They warmly welcomed visitors, but not if they came with too many distractions. It was also a no-fly zone. Drawing on memories of Amish and Mennonite Rumspringa, residents of the center circle are encouraged to go out and see how people lived in the other circles. Unlike Rumspringa, this happens at different ages—sometimes as late as the last legs of life—and sometimes involves multiple trips. Conversion to the lifestyle was also a lot more prevalent, so their numbers balanced out, and remained pretty consistent.

“So, what can we help you with?”

“I was hoping you had some water.”

“Sure, I’ll get it,” Vitalie offered.

Kivi continued, looking directly at Leona, “and I was hoping you had some clue as to why I recognize your face from a recurring dream I’ve had.” She graciously took the water, and started gulping it down, but maintained eye contact.

Leona shrugged. “Eh, time, right?”

“Pardon?”

Leona sighed, not knowing how to get into it. How do you tell someone they’re not as unique as they may have thought? “Vitalie, you’re the only one who can explain this. Why don’t you sure her what you got?”

“Really?” Vitalie wanted to confirm. “Do we just do this for everyone we meet?”

“I already know her,” Leona explained. “She’s not just some random center circler. Please.”

Vitalie created a projection of herself on the other side of the room. It smiled at waved, then quickly segued into a not impressed expression. People in the future tended to be fairly receptive to the truth about time travel. A lot of science fiction tropes ended up becoming real, so there was a little less wonder in the world. This did not always work, though. Kivi looked between the two Vitalies in shock. She seemed confident this wasn’t just a hologram, possibly because she had likely never seen one of those either, and it caused her to faint.

She didn’t wake up when she fell to the floor, but something did fall out of her pocket. Vitalie picked it up, and opened it. “What is this?”

“It’s the Compass of Disturbance,” Leona replied as she was dragging Kivi to the couch.

“That sounds morbid.”

“Temporal disturbance,” Leona added. “It finds and stabilizes tears in the spacetime continuum. It’s a tool.”

“Why does this girl have it?”

“I do not know.”

“Should I splash water on her face?”

“Should I even answer that?”

“Well, we do need answers.”

“She’s not dead. We’ll get them. Help me clean the table while we wait.”

Kivi woke up a few minutes later, and drank more of her water, but couldn’t say anything at first.

“Are you feeling okay?” Leona asked.

Kivi nodded “Yeah, I was just...surprised. I’ve never seen anything like that before. We don’t even have television.”

“Where did you get this?” Vitalie asked her, not wasting any time.

“My friend gave it to me,” Kivi answered. “She said to walk towards the outer circles, and not stop until I started seeing double. I didn’t know she meant it so...literally.”

“Who’s your friend?” Leona asked.

“A million bucks says you’ve already heard of the person she’s talking about,” Vitalie bet.

“She didn’t say anything about you two,” Kivi said. “She just gave this to me as a gift, and told me to keep moving. I needed to go on my walkabout anyway, so I didn’t question it.”

“What’s her name?”

“Shuhana. Shuhana Shenare.”

“Never heard of her,” Leona admitted. “You owe me a million dollars,” she said to Vitalie.

“I would seriously doubt it,” Kivi said, finishing the glass. “She’s just a humble shepherd.”

“Wait, is she a shepherd, or The Shepherd?”

“Hmm,” Kivi began. “Ya know, she does seem to act like she’s the only one in the universe.”

“Scratch that, Vitalie,” Leona said, eyes fixed on Kivi. “I owe you.”

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