Microstory 2786: The First to Fall

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Tamerlane Pryce. That is the name of the mysterious last-minute addition to the candidate pool. Jande knows that name. Everyone on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida knows it, and probably beyond. In the early days of colonization, he was responsible for an ambitious—but ultimately abandoned—planetary project. Back on Earth in the ancient days, they used to have these things called zoos. They locked animals in cages, and let people gawk at them. Over time, various state regulations attempted to make these facilities more and more ethical, and that pattern never really stopped.

Zoos were eventually outlawed, replaced with less harmful methods of using animals as entertainment, but these weren’t all that great either. They were a lot better, but still dangerous, and in some cases, still exploitative. Space colonization sat on the cusp of basically doing away with the animal entertainment industry altogether. It was ultimately replaced with simulated environments, but the early Bidans didn’t know that at the time. They figured the best way not to disturb animals was to pretend to be them.

Pryce was placed in charge of cataloging every species on the planet, and developing the mind transference technology that would allow a user to become whatever creature they wanted, and live amongst the native population. The project didn’t last long. There was such fierce backlash that they shuttered the program, and transitioned the world to a less invasive culture. Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida is what it is today because early settlers were very deliberately trying to avoid Pryce’s vision. They live in harmony with the fauna now. Many believe they owe Pryce everything, but that’s a bit of a stretch. The question is, where has he been all this time?

“I’m not the Pryce you know,” Tamerlane explains as Van is introducing the rest of the contenders. “It would be hard to explain to you, but in your terms, I’m a dupe. I never did what the history books said I did. That was all someone else. But I was informed that I have always been entitled to a piece of the pie, so I’m here now.”

“And finally,” Van announces, “Jande Ter Avest!”

Jande steps forward and waves at the crowd and cameras. What is he doing?

“As you can see folks,” Van goes on, “they’re all very confused. To them, it has only been a few hours. That is by design. We want them to be disoriented. We want them to be a little shaky. It will make them want it more. And what is it they want?”

“Oversight!” the audience yells, as if they rehearsed it, which they probably have.

Jande is getting the feeling that this is not the first episode of this reality show. They probably produced a whole introduction while the candidates were dead.

“Oversight, that’s right!” Van agrees. “They wanna be the fabled Superintendent. Now, lots of cultures have this rank. It scales however high you want. But from what we read in the charter, Bida does things a little differently.” He’s a lot more charismatic than he seemed when Jande first met him. “Most Superintendents are there just in case. They’re all about staffing. If someone gets out of line, and bureaucracy is too slow to correct them, they can step in and push them out. This means that a Superintendent has to be above reproach, so it’s pretty important that deciders get it right.

“It’s even more important for us, because the Bidan Superintendent will have a great deal of responsibilities, and even more power. We’ll get to that as the competition heats up. Hint-hint, wink-wink. But for now, candidates...we need to see where you stand.” He waits a moment. “Seriously, look down. Where do you stand?”

Jande looks down at the floor. A glowing number 1 is now under his feet.

“Say it out loud! Say it proud! Where do you stand!” Van encourages.

Most of the candidates call out their numbers, and they are all weird. They don’t go from 1 to 11. They go as high as 815, which is where Dare Finnian sits.

“This is your qualified rating, or QR. Now, we’re really excited about the QR, because it’s not actually in the charter. It was very vague about this, but we came up with a scoring system between one and eight-fifty. Everyone is starting in a different place, because you all have pasts. As you can see, the Quiratani are ranked significantly higher, but they won’t stay that way for long.” He lowers the mic and looks over at the closest drone camera, which is of a different design than the others. “Can we drop ‘em?”

Part of the floor starts collapsing into nanites, leaving only circular platforms underneath everyone. One of the Eyrenlanders is too far away from his number, and he slips over the edge. He has to grab on for dear life, or he’ll fall to his death.

Dare hops over to Pryce’s platform, then to the Eyrenlander’s, and helps him up.

“Ah, look at that!” Van notes. “They still think they’re friends!” He nods, and looks up at a leaderboard that has appeared in the sky. “Survey says...850! This is a competition, people. If you die, you’re done. There is no helping. There is no empathy. There is no mercy,” he adds in a grittier voice. “Hey, I don’t make the rules.”

Dare jumps back over to his own platform, head literally held high, unashamed.

Van waits for him to finish up. “Okay. That will not be the last time we see someone go over. The first challenge has just about begun. Candidates, I recommend you move to the centermost spot. It’s simple, but deadly. The game is called Still Hunter. The more you move, which doesn’t include blinking, swallowing, or facial tics, the more your platform will fall away. Eventually, you run out of platform, so don’t...move. The challenge doesn’t end until our first death. I’ll give you a few minutes to scratch your itches and do a little stretching, and then we’ll start the clock. Oh, wait, what’s this?”

A woman who is neither Quiratani nor Eyrenlander has jumped off of her platform, and grabbed onto someone else’s shaft. She survived, and is now sliding down.

“Looks like we have a runner,” Van explains. “I’ll have to confer with my associates so we can figure out what we’re gonna do here. In the meantime, I hope you’re all situated, because the clock starts in four, three, two, aaaaaand go!”

Jande does not remember the escape artist’s name, but he’ll learn it because she never leaves the arena. She walks back in an hour later with her head hung low. “They won’t let me quit. I failed to read the fine print.” She goes back to her post to suffer a penalty for trying to leave. She has to stand on one leg for twice as long as she was gone.

The gamemakers probably expected the challenge to last a lot longer than it does, which is what you get for only making it last until the first person falls. One of the cocky Eyrenlanders cannot stop moving. He appears to be particularly not well-suited for a baseline human body. He unwillingly chips away at his platform little by little. It turns to dust and sloughs off in inconsistent volumes. Only five minutes after the attempted quitter’s return, he loses his footing, and plummets to his death.

The competition has taken its first casualty. At the end, Jande has retained his rank, having barely lost any of his platform. Dare, on the other hand, lost none of it at all, and jumped up to second place with a new score of 24. He is the biggest threat now.

Microstory 2768: Next Time on Lost

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Elise thinks that she only passes out for a few seconds. Arms carefully wrap around her body, but she keeps falling. She looks up and sees Azad. He’s looking as cool as ever. It doesn’t last long. The wind somehow causes Elise to accidentally reopen her wings. Before he can save her, Azad loses his grip, and they tumble apart from each other. He teleports again, but doesn’t aim right. Now he’s below her. She’s scared. She doesn’t want to lose these memories. She doesn’t want to go back to not having wings. Her surviving self will not know what she’s missing. She won’t seek to improve herself.

She fights to get back to Azad, but she doesn’t know how to do that. In moves, they tighten themselves up like missiles, but her wings aren’t cooperating. She’s afraid they’re gonna snap off. The ground is coming up fast now. If this doesn’t happen soon, it will be too late. Suddenly, the ground disappears. It transforms into sky. She’s still falling, but now towards the clouds, and slowing down. Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. No, she’s “falling” upwards, and not from flying. Her wings are still out of control. She comes to a complete stop, but only for a second before she reverses. She hasn’t stopped herself from crashing; she has only delayed it. She has to try to recreate whatever just happened. Before she can fall much farther, she concentrates on one word: teleportation. The next moment, she’s standing on the ground, safe and sound.

Azad appears next to her. “How did you just do that?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know that I could,” Elise says truthfully.

“It’s the chrysalis bioprinter,” Miracle determines. “You saw me and Azad teleport, and at least a part of you wanted to try it. It’s the same reason you’re now part moth. Your subconscious mind knows what it wants. This is dangerous stuff, Rocky.”

“Don’t call me that,” Hrockas requests. “And you’re right. It’s why we restrict it.”

“Are you going to take it away now?” Elise asks, trying to display puppy dog eyes.

“We may be struggling to figure out what our laws should be,” Hrockas begins, “all the way out here in the Charter Cloud, but one thing we and the stellar neighborhood can agree upon is that bodily autonomy is non-negotiable. That substrate is yours now. But there is no fundamental difference between teleportation and time travel. And if you’ve seen any movie about time travel, you’ll know the risks. If you find yourself with the ability to go back in time, I urge you to exercise caution. It’s not illegal here, as it is in other cultures, but I’m considering it. It’s only not written into the laws because the general population doesn’t know about it in the first place.”

“And because you would have to draw a line somewhere to allow your boy, Azy here to teleport as needed,” Miracle points out. “Among others,” she adds

“Yes, that’s true,” Hrockas admits. “Now Miss Perkins is in the same boat. Speaking of which...” He looks over at Azad expectingly.

Azad begins to tap on his wrist interface. He then raises his arm and bathes everyone in a rainbowish light. It’s not the kind of rainbow that you would spot from a rainstorm. It’s more like what you would see in an oil puddle. It actually looks a lot like oil, and even feels like it too. After a flash of light, they’re transported to a desert.

Without another word, Hrockas and Telman converge upon Azad. All three of them teleport away, leaving the hunters to figure out the next challenge on their own.

Jolanda stretches her neck up as high as possible and rotates like a periscope. “I don’t see anything. Elise, do you think you could fly up and scout the area?”

“She should not do that,” Miracle argues quickly. “Elise, we don’t know enough about how your wings work. Mine were always specifically designed to be strong and resilient. They only appeared to be delicate, because that was the aesthetic I was going for. For a real moth, this environment would be a death sentence. You have to assume you’re on the brink right now. In fact, how are you feeling? Dehydrated?”

“I’m hot, but okay,” Elise explains. “Maybe I could teleport around instead, unless that’s also sensitive to temperature or other environmental factors.”

“It’s not usually,” Miracle says, “but I could conceive of a salmon with arbitrary limitations. I knew a guy who could only travel in the rain, and once he did, if he wanted to go again, he would have to dry off entirely, and potentially wait for another storm.”

“All right. Whether we’re moths or not, our bodies are gonna die here if we don’t find water and shelter.” Rage inhales and exhales. “Let’s hold off on teleporting for now. There are seven of us. One needs to stay exactly right here. If you want to dig for clues, that wouldn’t be the worst idea, but you could also conserve energy. The other six will pair off, and begin a concentric circle search. One pair should be at 50 meters, one at 100 and one at 150. Once you complete your circle, move out 150 meters, and complete another circle. Does that make sense?”

“Who is going to stay here?” Colley asks. “Elise if her body is more fragile?”

“She shouldn’t be alone,” Miracle warns, “even if it means walking.”

“I agree,” Rage says. “El, you’re with me. Mir and Zelda, Jolanda and Colley. Minotaur, you okay staying alone to be our Touchstone? We don’t have compasses.”

“Fine with me.” Minotaur gets on their knees and starts digging like a dog, shoveling sand between their legs. They’re gonna get tired going that hard for too long.

“Okay,” Rage goes on. “There are dunes, so visibility will be difficult. That’s why Mino is staying. If you think you’re lost, get up high, and look for their racing jacket.

“Here, take mine,” Jolanda offers. “It’s pink and black, so it will be easier to spot.”

“We’ll only do this for three hours,” Rage continues. “At that point, finish your circle, then come back to our Touchstone. When you’re searching, look down, and both ways. Look up every once in a while, in case there’s a drone, or something. Questions? Comments? Concerns?” She claps her hands in the silence. “All right, then let’s get at it.”

Elise and Rage walk for the agreed upon three hours. It’s grueling work. None of them is dressed for this, especially not Elise, who is still mostly naked from having recently been born. The sand is coarse and uncomfortable between her toes, and even hotter than the sun, so there’s no point in her trying to sit down and rest. She doesn’t want to be more of a burden than she already feels. They had to put the hunt on pause just because she died and came back to life. She has already taken so much, she just wants to be helpful, and not ask for anything, like a layer of Rage’s clothing.

They finish their circle and head back. Rage has an excellent sense of direction despite everything looking the same around here. She grows frustrated when she can’t find Mino. Elise tried to keep an eye on them, but they ended up so far down a dune that it became unreasonable to keep backtracking. This has to be where they began, though. They can see the claw marks from where Mino was digging. The other two groups show up after only about twenty minutes, and agree that this has to be it. They’re not lost; Mino is. They’re missing. They spread out once more, but don’t go too far this time, only about ten meters in every direction. Elise finds a pink and black racing jacket.

Microstory 2767: Spread Your Wings and Fly Away

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A former Custodian from the Spydome Network is processing Elise’s upload to a new substrate. His equipment is unlike anything she has ever seen before. Before she died, she was in her tenth body. She usually chose to look about the same as she did before, only sometimes making a tweak or two. Telman says that she can look like anything. When she asks which design software they’re using, he claims that they’re not using any at all. She apparently decides what she wants in her head, and the bioprinter converts it into DNA. She has a hard time believing this, because while brain-computer interfaces are old hat, what he’s describing is a whole different animal. Her brain is not capable of consolidating every single detail. She can only ever conceive of a general idea.

Telman assures her that it will work. The machine doesn’t need her to know exactly what she wants. She just has to have the finished product in mind. The way she sees it, she’s living on borrowed time anyway. They were told that if they died during the hunt, their backup bodies would be reactivated on their behalf, having never received any recent updates. So despite her disbelief, she follows through with the plan. She doesn’t have any hands, she kind of has to let people do whatever they want anyway. She watches as Telman locks her head into the mechanism, and shuts her down.

It’s the reawakening redux, though the process is faster this time. Instead of a pinprick, her consciousness returns just about all at once. She remembers everything leading up to the upload, including the gaps in her memory from before the decapitation. The first thing she does is wiggle her toes. It’s not easy, but that’s because her movement is limited, not because there’s something wrong, or because she doesn’t have any toes. Her memory focuses on one thing, which happened at the beginning of this. She’s in another chrysalis. She wriggles her whole body now, trying to look for down, like she did last time. It feels different, though. It feels...softer, more stringy.

She doesn’t vomit like she did before. She doesn’t feel like she has to. She’s stronger now. Without hardly doing anything, she feels stronger than she ever has her whole life. That’s one thing she shied away from before. Superstrength is a pretty easy characteristic to give a new body, but she never went overboard. It didn’t seem necessary. It could have been really useful centuries ago, but life just isn’t that hard anymore. That’s why they built Castlebourne in the first place, to simulate struggle.

This isn’t much of a struggle. She pulls the fibers apart, but she doesn’t slip out onto her head. She rotates her whole body so she can gently lower herself feet first. She deftly lands on the floor. It’s less gooey than the chrysalis, which may or may not make sense. Looking at it here from the outside, she decides it’s more like a cocoon.

“Oh my God, what is that?” It’s Rage’s voice behind Elise.

Elise turns. As she does, her back and shoulders move in a way that she’s not used to. They’re stiff, a little sore, but not something she won’t get past eventually. Wait, no that’s not it. It’s so much more than that. There is something hanging off of her back. What is that? What the hell is that? “What the hell is that?” She spins, trying to see it.

“Here, there’s a mirror,” Colley explains. He cautiously takes her by both hands.

Elise looks at herself straight on. Her breasts are larger now, but that’s about all that’s changed. Oh, and also her skin is a totally different color, and she has wings!

“That is quite the change,” Zelda points out. “How does it feel?”

Elise turns to see herself in profile. She shrugs her shoulders one after the other and back again until she understands which new muscles she needs to work. The wings extend farther than she thought they would. She has to step away from the wall to open them both. Like her skin, they’re a beautiful cool green and fuzzy. She admires herself, which is not like her, then looks over at the cocoon. “I’m a moth.”

“You’re the Ladymoth,” Minotaur says. “That’s what you said before.”

Hrockas, Azad, and Telman are standing off away from the group. Telman clears his throat. “I hope you’re pleased. If you’re not, that’s why this technology has not yet been made public. People are complex. They may not know what they want.”

“Oh, I want,” Elise says. She giggles as she flaps her wings lightly. She looks around and finds a door near the opposite corner. “Will that take me outside?”

“You want to fly?” Telman guesses. “Already?”

“Maybe you should take a moment to get used to basic movements,” Hrockas suggests. “You wouldn’t want to overdo it. The way the tech works, you are still not streaming anywhere, and we did not save a recent backup of you. If you fall out of the sky and perish, you won’t remember any of this.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Elise says to him. “Door, please.”

Hrockas sighs. “I understand. But before you go launching yourself off the ground, let’s travel to the nearest body of water, so you have a softer place below you.”

Elise accepts his suggestion. It’s not a bad idea for her to learn to walk around with all this mass first. Her body is definitely strong enough to manage it, but it’s teetering a little bit as she gets used to weight distribution. Some of them walk on ahead while others take up the rear. She’s walking beside Miracle for obvious reasons. “Did you use the cocoon to make your wings, or standard accelerated cloning?”

“I used bioprinting,” Miracle explains, “but I don’t have access to this. It’s next level. I hope you know how lucky you are. They use it on the Tangent, but it’s incredibly rare, and most of those people have no imagination. You did quite well.”

Elise flutters her wings a bit, but it’s awkward. She needs practice. “You like it?”

“I’m so jealous,” Miracle replies. “You have an amazing body.”

“Maybe I’ll give you a ride, if I’m capable. Moths are strong in some ways, but not in others. I may be quite fragile. We’ll just have to see.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Miracle insists. “I’ll get my wings back soon enough. I did want to ask, though, why a Luna moth?”

“Okay, we’re here,” Hrockas announces. “Get ready to save her, Azad.”

As everyone is spreading out to watch, Azad checks for threats.

Elise gets into position and prepares herself mentally. She takes a deep breath before looking over at her friend. “Miracle. You asked me why a Luna moth. Because when they fly, they look like this.” She leaps into the air and flaps her wings. She’s not awkward anymore. Her wings are completely in sync, and her navigation is on point. Wherever she wants to go, her body goes. She glides gracefully up, down, and all around. Now Elise understands why Miracle chose it, and she wonders why there aren’t more. There are flying humanoids on Altair, but it should be widespread. This feels like the natural progression of the human experience. She wishes she could share it. She wishes all of her friends could be moths, or have any wings of their own.

Elise flies higher and higher, several kilometers in the air. And then she falls.

Microstory 2757: Point of No Return

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Jolanda tries to walk out the door into the empty city, but Rage warns her off, saying that something is still wrong. They must have assembled the puzzle incorrectly. Perhaps it poisoned them and caused them all to lose time, or there’s just something weird going on that none of them can explain.

“I can explain it,” Miracle says as she walks right outside. “We are in a Facsimile.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Rage is in the doorway to protect everyone else.

Miracle rolls her eyes, and waves her arms like she’s parting the Red Sea. “Would you please? I need everyone to see and hear me.” She sighs. “I didn’t know we would encounter time travel on this journey. I thought it was possible, but I guess I gave Hrockas too much credit. I don’t have the time or bandwidth to explain everything, so let’s just go over the basics. Has anyone seen an old show called Stranger Things?”

A few people raise their hands, including Colley.

“There’s an evil world in that show that looks just like ours, except there aren’t any people in it, and it’s horrific. There are all sorts of vines and mold covering everything, and toxic particles float around all the time. Spoiler alert, what they eventually discover is that this copy of the world was created on a particular day in the past, like a snapshot of a single moment. That is basically what this is, but without the horror overtones. Well...there was that one time when zombies and other monsters were fabricated here in secret so they could be let loose on the populace—”

“I remember that,” Zelda jumps in. “I was trying to relax in Mildome when a serial killer from Bloodbourne suddenly attacked. They weren’t too hard to kill, though.”

They all look at her like she’s crazy.

“What? I don’t only spend my time in Adrenadome. I like bees and butterflies.”

“Well,” Miracle continues, “now you know, this is where they came from. I can’t tell you not to worry about lingering monsters, but let’s hope not. The person who controlled them no longer has control over this place. He was sent away. We actually fought alongside each other against a bigger threat, but he never returned. I’m just trying to give you an idea of where we are, and what we’ll find. Any questions so far?”

“Yeah.” Rage raises her hand. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Miracle sighs again. “Hrockas can force me into any substrate he wants, but he can’t stop me from using my powers. Those are based on my neurology, so he would have to kill me to get rid of them.” She squares her shoulders and makes sure that everyone is watching. She disappears, simultaneously reappearing on the ground a few meters away. She screams in agony as she holds her head. “Ah, you son of a bitch, what did you do?” More screaming.

A gargantuan holographic screen resolves in the sky. It’s Hrockas again. “Nuh-uh-uh. No time powers. You think I didn’t plan for that? This world is littered with temporal suppression fields. Good luck turning them all off.” He blinks away.

Elise helps Miracle back to her feet. “Don’t do that again. We get the idea.”

“I’m still not sure I believe it,” Rage reasons. “I can think of four major explanations off the top of my head for what she just did.”

“I have seen people do what she just did before,” Jolanda admits. “I was born on Proxima Doma. Before you ask, I wasn’t on the surface or in low-orbit when it was destroyed, but I did become a refugee. They ferried us to Gatewood where we could choose our final destinations for free. I ultimately opted to transmit my consciousness here, but not before I witnessed a riot that had to be quelled by a bunch of teleporting cops. I don’t think they were faking it. What would have been the point?”

“I’m sorry you went through that.” Minotaur gives Jolanda a hug from the side.

Miracle nods. “The faster-than-light technology some ships use now? Researchers didn’t simply finally figure it out. People like me gave it to them. They had this big meeting in the year 2400 with the, uhh...sort of council. I had nothing to do with it because I’m not on the Shortlist, but there’s a very low chance that your life has not been impacted directly by a time traveler one way or the other, for good or bad.

“Miss Shin, if you were a refugee, you probably spent some time on The Tangent, or at least you saw it. Their artificial gravity was a gift from that council. Hrockas has a number of friends with powers and patterns. A team of them was instrumental in making Castlebourne what it is today, and he continues to employ others. For the most part, they try to keep the tech more conventional, but there are some things normal physics can’t handle.” She gestures at the world around them. “This is proof of that. I’m betting they keep it up and running just in case they ever need it, for times like these.”

“So, what are we facing?” Zelda asks Miracle. “How dangerous is this tech?”

“You’re not actually listening to her,” Rage complains. “We can’t trust her.”

“I’m not trying to be your leader,” Miracle defends. “I’m only giving you the facts. What are we facing? No way to know, but throw your rule book out the window, because it no longer applies. Time travel is a very loose term, and a misnomer. Many who can manipulate spacetime don’t simply move forwards or backwards. Some can turn invisible by basically showing you what’s behind them instead of them. Some can duplicate themselves by pulling from microrealities. Hrockas may only be using this dimension to separate us from gen pop, but he also might be planning to throw temporal obstacles at us. Rage, you can listen to me or not, but if it’s that second option, I have an incredibly unfair advantage, because I’ve seen this stuff before.”

A deafening silence falls, making this city even more a liminal space than it was when they first set foot out here. Miracle could be wrong. The people they saw before might have been volumetric images. Or the dome they were in simply spun around to the other side, which was made to be a replica of this, but never populated. There are other explanations for what happened to them, but on the off-chance that Miracle isn’t mistaken or lying, they have to pay attention to her. Trust, but verify.

Elise stands over by her friend. “Rage is the leader. That’s not changing. Miracle, let’s call you the advisor.” She gestures to her main teammates. “We’ve been working together for weeks, and we know what each other has to offer. We’ve settled into our respective roles, so that can be yours. But until further notice, we must all be in an alliance together. Do you disagree, Miss Brighton?”

Miracle smiles. “I do not. Like I said, I don’t wanna lead. Advisor feels right.”

“Rage?” Elise asks, hoping that the tensions don’t escalate.

“Very well,” Rage decides. “I’ll listen to you, Miracle, but I promise nothing regarding my actions. If I want to make a different call, that’s what I’ll do.”

“Sounds good.” Miracle turns around. “Now. First thing we need to do is check for—” She takes a step forward, and suddenly disappears. A few seconds later, they hear her screaming from the heavens, right before she splats on the ground. “...Time mines.”

Microstory 2756: Skull and Bones

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The conveyor belt is heading for another void. This game has had so many chances already to kill them. If this is another attempt, it would be difficult to avoid. There is no way off this ride. Still, there may be a non-lethal obstacle in the darkness, or on the other side of it. Elise gets on one knee, and plants her other foot firmly on the belt. She holds her hands up defensively, prepared for anything. Well, almost anything.

She passes through the darkness, and catches a glimpse of the opaque dome they’ve entered before the belt ends, and sends her over the edge. She falls a couple of meters before landing on her feet on a mound of human bones. The others are starting to help each other up from the piles of thousands and thousands. It’s maybe a hundred meters wide, dimly lit, and getting dimmer. It’s noticeably cold, but not deathly so.

Elise spins around and opens her arms so when Zelda falls too, she can catch her.

“My hero,” Zelda says in a breathy voice from Elise’s arms.

“Just doin’ my job, ma’am.” Elise is really coming out of her shell now.

“Are these the previous secret hunters?” Minotaur asks, picking up a skull. “Does everyone die in here? From what? More acid rain? A deluge? A furnace?”

“Hold up,” Colley says. “Here, help me push these bones out of the way.”

Jolanda and Rage pull the bones between their legs to give him some space.

Colley gets on his hands and knees and examines the floor below. He then grabs a random femur, and snaps it in half. He puts on his loupe specs to examine the inside.

“Wait, how do you still have those?” Elise questions. “Isn’t this a new body?”

“They were in my locker,” Colley explains as he’s changing lenses. “They’re not my regular ones. They upgraded me.” He looks carefully. “Fake. They probably all are.”

“Plastic, or something else?” Rage picks up another bone and breaks it.

“No, they’re organic,” Colley answers. “The layering is asymmetrical, which is how the best machines do it, but it’s definitely bioprinted. They forgot to include the tendon entheses, and there’s no remaining viscera on the floor, or even residue.”

Elise wades through the bones to get to the wall, not grossed out anymore. “Look for an exit, or signs of Miracle’s friends. They may have already escaped.”

“Those bozos?” Miracle questions. “Not a chance.”

“I found a door!” Jolanda shouts. She’s on the far side of the dome.

“Don’t open it until we’re all over there!” Rage commands. “Elise, take safety.”

Because any door has just as much chance of being a trap as being their salvation, one player is always chosen to stay behind as the designated survivor. It’s also possible that they’ve been doomed, if the door has a time limit, and can’t be reopened, so the role is risky, rather than necessarily safe. Rage has a plan to cycle through the roster fairly.

Elise climbs up to a particularly high bone hill to have a better vantage point, and give her more time to survive if opening the door, say, also opens a drain in the floor.

Once everyone is in place, including Miracle and the strangers, Jolanda waves her hand in front of the entry panel. The door slides into its pocket, revealing...a second door. This one is different, though. Even from here, Elise can see that there are indentations on the door face that are vaguely in the shape of a human body.

“It’s a puzzle,” Colley decides. “We have to fill in the gaps with a full skeleton.”

“Rule number three,” Rage begins. “Don’t try to unlock a door that’s already unlocked.” She nods at Jolanda. “Go ahead, Jo.”

Jolanda takes hold of the knob, turns it successfully, and opens the door.

On the other side is what looks like a city square. Elise climbs down to get a better look. People are milling about, preoccupied with their own lives. They’re dressed in traditional early 21st century garb. Only two things look out of place. A man and a woman wearing the same blue shirt are balancing two bananas each on their head while they sing a song quite poorly. Two other women wearing the same purple shirts are running past them, and opening a mailbox that is conspicuously sitting out in the open.

“Other hunters,” Elise determines as she draws nearer. “This isn’t right.”

“This is obviously our way out,” one of Miracle’s people says.

“Hrockas Steward said that we wouldn’t be hunting around other people,” Minotaur reminds him. “Why break one of his few rules right at the beginning?”

“Who cares?” he asks. “I’m exiting and checking that mailbox for our next clue.”

“I don’t think we have clues,” Colley postulates. “We’re not racing, we’re not being eliminated per leg. I think we only have one goal, and we’re supposed to go straight to that. No, Elise is right. This is a red herring, or some kind of trick.”

“It’s a choice,” Miracle corrects. “If we walk out this door without solving the skeleton puzzle, we’re forfeiting the game. That’s probably where those two assholes ended up. They don’t know what they’re missing. Don’t follow in their footsteps.”

The guy sighs. “Okay, boss. We solve the puzzle.” He steps back in.

Jolanda closes the door back up, and everyone spreads out.

The puzzle is harder than it looks. They’re not just looking for a single copy of every bone. They’re all slightly different sizes, just like they would be if these once belonged to living beings. Each puzzle bone can hold in place on its own on the board, even if the one below it hasn’t been found yet, but only if it’s the correct one. Otherwise, it just falls out. Elise deduces that they used magnets. She turns out to be right.

Like Colley with his spectacles or Zelda with her parachutes, Minotaur never goes anywhere without their multitool. They found it in their locker too, and it includes a very small magnet. It’s not powerful enough to sweep the area for the right bones, but it’s easy enough to test one quickly and toss it aside before moving on to the next.

They created an open space kind of near the door, where they carefully stack the duds. That way, they don’t accidentally test the same ones multiple times. It’s Elise and Jolanda’s job to keep the used stack away from the untested piles by pushing bones around, and maintaining enough space between them at all times.

It starts getting dark in here, and no one has a light, so they open the door just so the natural light comes in for them. Unrelated hunters periodically come up, thinking that it’s important for their race. It’s Rage’s job to back them off by simply saying, “parallel play”. This is a known phrase that warns players that their games are intersecting, and that if they try to find a clue here, they will end up on the wrong track.

After several hours, they finally have the last piece. Fittingly, it’s the skull. It’s a good thing they’re done. The streets are still bustling, but it’s now dark outside too.

“Colley, you do the honors,” Jolanda offers since he served as their puzzle master. She closes the door again, allowing him to ceremoniously place the skull in the last slot. The whole skeleton glows, and they hear a whirring sound. Once Jolanda reopens it, they see the same street again, but now, even though it has only been a few seconds...it’s completely empty.

Microstory 2755: Please Don’t Hold the Handrail

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Two of Miracle’s guys don’t hesitate for a second. As soon as that door cracks, they’re running right for it. They evidently have no loyalty to their teams. Elise doesn’t know how long they’ve been training together, but she’s not finding it so easy to leave them behind. She didn’t even always want to do this. The only reason she agreed is because of the team. If they’re going to take that from her, what reason does she have to go on? She’ll have to think about this first, and ignore that door in the meantime.

Minotaur jumps out of their seat too. They only manage to intercept the second guy, body-checking him against the wall as the first one slips over the edge right on the other side of the door and plummets to his death. Minotaur stands up and catches their breath. They’re not used to an analog body either. “You’re welcome.”

Miracle stands from her own seat and casually walks towards the lethal exit. She stands before her former teammate as he’s catching his breath too. She slaps him hard.

“I’m sorry, boss. You just talked so much about the prize. He and I started coming up with what it could possibly be. We think it’s unlimited energy credits. We could go anywhere. We could do anything. You know what, I’m not sorry,” he goes on as Miracle spins around and places her back to him. “What did you expect, pulling me out of Bloodbourne like you did? Running for my survival is what I do best. That’s why you—”

Since she turned around, Miracle has been mocking him with her facial expressions, and by mimicking mouth movements with her hand. She suddenly donkey kicks him in the chest, sending him over the edge to fall to his death too. She takes a deep breath, and half a step forward. “Does anyone in this room need me to define the word alliance for you, or are you at least slightly smarter than a panda bear?”

Rage calmly stands now, in just the same way Miracle did before. She approaches her slowly before suddenly jamming her forearm against Miracle’s clavicle and pinning her to the monitor, cracking it. “I know what an alliance is, but I don’t work with killers. You stay out of our way, and we’ll leave you alone too, but if you ever treat any one of my people like you did your own friend, you will wish you had jumped out too. Savvy?”

“Savvy?” Miracle echoes in an accent. “Are ya lost, love? This isn’t Piratedome.”

“Do. You. Understand me?” Rage reiterates, squeezing her chest even harder.

“Ooo, buy me dinner first, and I’ll understand whatever you say, Mistress.”

Rage angrily lets go and turns away from Miracle. She has spoken about this with the team before. It is absolutely crucial for her to temper her anger so her nickname remains firmly ironic, rather than simply not technically accurate. She centers herself with her eyes closed for a moment. “Zel, you’re up. Remember, they know what we’ve done. The tricks you used last time probably won’t work in this place.”

Zelda gets out of her seat and picks the sconce that Elise used to free her up from the floor. “I need silence,” she announces before she drops it into the pit. “Fifty meters.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Elise determines. There was something wrong about the way the sconce sounded compared to the way the men did. Their shouts actually didn’t sound right from the start, but she initially shrugged it off because she doesn’t know the acoustics of this room, or the pit. Now she suspects they’re vastly different than they appear to be. The void before them might not exist at all.

Elise takes her shirt back off, and uses it as a glove to remove a shard from the monitor that Rage broke. She sets it on the floor, reflective side up. She then gently nudges it towards the blackness to get it in the right place. Once it’s partway into the dark, she pays especially close attention to the way the light bounces off of it at the threshold. She bends down and starts to retie her shoes while she speaks. “A few years ago, I took a course on volumetric emitter placement. These days, an AI will decide where to place them for optimal image projection, so it’s become a lost art, but designers, architects, and engineers used to have to plan it carefully.

“Which of you has seen the movie Thunderbolts*?” Elise asks the whole group.

Colley raises his hand. “It’s a perfect example of combatting historical superhero fatigue in the early to mid-21st century media by actually lowering stakes.”

“Remember the elevator scene?” Elise presses.

“You don’t mean...” Colley begins.

“I need you,” Elise encourages. “You’re the only one who doesn’t need me to say it out loud, which might skew the results for us. Get over here, we’ll be fine.”

Colley walks over to join Elise. “Up or down?” he asks, sighing.

“Sideways,” Elise answers him. She turns him around then turns around too so they’re back to back. “Leading foot is one, trailing foot is two. Ready...one.”

Colley plants his left foot against the wall while Elise plants her right one.

“Now two.” They both step fully off the ground, holding themselves up by applying pressure to the walls with their feet, and each other’s backs. They begin to chimney walk through the darkness. One of them always makes sure their leading foot has something to press up against before the other tries their side. They could always end up with a wider hallway, or some sort of opening that completely destroys their plan, at which point they would have to go back. They can see nothing in this void.

They don’t end up having to go too terribly far, though. After only a couple of meters, they are out of the holographic void, and into the hallway on the other side. A people mover is running at incredible—and incredibly unsafe—speed below them. That’s what it was. The men who were sent over the edge merely fell on this, and they cried bloody murder because they were being suddenly dragged away into the unknown after believing that they were gonna fall to their deaths. This doesn’t explain the sconce, and it doesn’t explain why their friends aren’t responding to their shouts now.

“We’re gonna have to go back,” Colley determines when they give up.

He’s right. The belt is moving far too fast for their puny human legs to carry them the wrong direction to explain it to the others. If they don’t chimney walk back, their friends will assume that they fell to their deaths too. They prepare themselves mentally, call upon a second wind, and make the hard return journey to the chrysalis chamber.

Once they reappear from the void, Jolanda and Minotaur help them get off the walls safely so Elise and Colley can explain the situation. Rage then conceives the plan.

Elise should feel tired, but she’s wired, so she volunteers to be on carrying duty. She and Zelda hold each hunter by the shirt and pants, low to the ground. They toss them into the void from that position, allowing them to fall onto the belt with a far lower center of gravity. It isn’t painless, but those first two guys probably had it much worse.

Finally, only the two of them are left. “How do you wanna do this?” Elise asks.

“I’m strong enough.” Zelda picks Elise up and drops her onto the belt on her own.

As Elise is flying down the hallways on her ass, she looks back to see Zelda surfing on it like a pro. What a total badass. Elise may be falling in love.

Microstory 2753: Dropoffs Only

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The football match started right after this Miracle Brighton woman claimed that she and her team were interested in the same thing in Treasure Hunting Dome. Rage didn’t have a chance to talk to her afterwards, because they were separated into different locker rooms, and then she couldn’t locate her again. Rage says that she’s not entirely surprised. The possibility of an ultimate secret prize isn’t something that she randomly came up with on her own. The rumor has been around since Treasure Hunting Dome first opened. Over the decades, with no proof that anyone ever won it, however, most have lost interest. They assume now that it doesn’t exist. Perhaps the rumor was started by the planet owner, who wanted to build hype, or it started organically. The fact that nothing has ever come of it has only served to intrigue Rage more, and Miracle evidently had the same idea. They try to find her on the local network, but no luck.

They train with each other in the Sandbox warehouse for about another week, but they have to be careful, because their efforts are not being made in secret. If they wanted complete privacy, they would have needed to go to a different planet. No one has ever said anything, but it’s plausible that the Custodians who run the game will use the team’s experience against them. If they get really good, for instance, at driving on the right side of the road, they might end up with a task where they have to drive on the left. And if they practice both, they might not get any driving challenge at all, and it will have been a waste of time. There’s no way to know, which also means there’s no reason to keep doing this indefinitely. They all agree that it’s time to dive in head first.

Before the big day, they check into the Apex Suite at the Palacium Hotel for a good night’s rest. Minotaur was able to secure it for them on short notice because they know someone who knows someone who knows someone. They would have been—

Smoke. Smoke and fire. Elise wakes up to find her room ablaze. She checks her consciousness stream and finds that it’s been severed. Her last upload was three hours ago. If she doesn’t get it turned back on, and dies here, the person who boots up in her backup body won’t really be her. It will only be a copy who thinks she’s Elise. How can this place be on fire? Things don’t catch fire anymore. It just isn’t done.

The door bursts off its hinges, and falls to the floor. Jolanda scrambles back up. She scoops Elise off the bed, and carries her out to the common area. It’s on fire too.

“I’m not streaming!” Elise warns.

“None of us is!” Jolanda is still carrying her as she finds her way across the room.

Zelda is holding a chair, pounding the leg against the edges of the window.

“We’re two kilometers up and that’s security glass!” Elise warns. “It won’t break!”

“Not without some help!” Zelda says. “Stand by Mino, Jo!” She keeps pounding.

“I think you can put me down now,” Elise tells Jolanda.

“We agreed that I would be the one to take you out,” Jolanda replies.

“What?” Elise questions. “What do you mean, take me out?”

Rage appears to their left, holding Colley like he’s also a little baby.

Zelda stops striking the glass, and puts her steampunk goggles on. “Ready?”

“Do it,” Rage orders. She grips Colley tighter. “Everyone turn off your lungs!”

Zelda takes Minotaur in one arm, then reaches out with the other to grip the doorknob of what’s either a bathroom or a closet. She yanks it open. It explodes.

Fire rushes out of the room, and crashes into the window. It’s destroyed instantly, and in that same instant, all six of them are sucked out.

Jolanda never lets go, but now she looks more worried than ever. Even though she has less experience skydiving, she doesn’t have none. They wouldn’t have done this if they weren’t each packing the right equipment, like parachutes and/or wingsuits. Why does she look so scared? She holds Elise tighter with one arm while she maneuvers her other one, hovering her watch above Elise’s face.

It takes a second for Elise to realize what Jolanda is trying to show her. Their altitude is about 35,000 meters and falling. They should not be anywhere near that high. That’s damn near the apex of the whole freaking top. Despite its name, that’s not where the Apex Suite sits. It’s just at the top of the building. She turns her head enough to look back up, but whatever they just fell out of has now been covered by clouds. She can see the other two pairs, though. Wait, four—no, six. Other people are also falling alongside them, presumably from some nearby suite that was also on fire. What is happening?

They keep falling for about a minute before Elise gets her head turned enough to see land below. It’s coming up fast. If Jolanda doesn’t do something soon...

“You can turn your lungs back on!” Jolanda shouts. “Or don’t, you don’t need them! But you do need to hold on tighter, with your arms and legs! I need to pull!”

Elise tightens up and buries her face in Jolanda’s neck. She may be falling in love.

Jolanda pulls the ripcord. The parachute flies out of the back of her belt. Elise’s legs slip off, and begin to dangle, but Jolanda wraps her arm back around her to compensate. After a few seconds, the initial shock wears off, and now they’re just floating. They’re actually going to be okay. They’re going to survive this.

Elise gets another look around now, and starts to run attendance. Rage, Colley, Zelda, and Minotaur; everyone’s here. She looks in the other direction, at the strangers. They’re actually not strangers. She recognizes Miracle’s face. She’s holding the girl who did a backflip on the football pitch. Instead of a parachute, they’re staying aloft via Miracle’s white feathered wings. Which is all sorts of crazy, but it’s clearly working.

As they’re drifting towards the ground, Elise feels something bite at her arm. Some kind of bug? She can’t get a look at it to check. She’ll just have to tough it out. But then she feels another bite on her other arm. She also sees rain begin to fall all around them, which doesn’t feel like a coincidence. She looks up in horror to find holes forming on the parachute above them. The holes are growing as something begins to shred the material. Rain plus stinging plus tearing equals only one thing. Acid rain.

Either someone is trying to kill them, or they’re just having a little fun, and they don’t know that the team isn’t streaming properly. The fact that they were somehow moved to the very top of the dome leads her to believe that this is attempted murder. Hours from now, when the unscheduled data gap triggers emergency resuscitation procedures, her latest backup will wake up with no idea what went wrong. She will have no reason to suspect foul play, but at least some version of Elise will exist. With that, there is a modicum of hope for justice.

After only a few seconds, the parachute can’t take it anymore. It violently rips apart, sending Elise and Jolanda away from each other. Not that it matters. At this height, even their advanced substrates won’t survive it. Elise keeps falling and falling until she runs out of room and splats on the ground.

Microstory 2749: Mind the Gap

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After Elise and Rage get dried off and cleaned up, the former follows the latter to the vactrain station where they head for a dome called The Sandbox. Rage evidently wants the team to meet each other on neutral ground. Before they embark on the treasure hunt, it’s prudent for them to get to know each other first, and learn how to work as a team. Rage expects them to be here for the next few weeks. She hasn’t yet explained why this particular dome. Elise has never heard of it before. She still isn’t sure why she was picked for this at all. She hasn’t excelled at the skills she’s attempted. She just likes to try new things. It was time for a break, though, so she’s not complaining.

It might seem like overkill, but according to Rage, this will be an important crucible. If anyone decides to quit, it’s a lot better if they do it before they begin the hunt. Losing a member doesn’t immediately disqualify the remainders from moving on. Everyone could leave by the end of it, and as long as the last remaining player sticks around, they can succeed. But obviously Rage doesn’t want that. She wants them to be perfectly in sync. She told Elise that she doesn’t know what that looks like, but that will precisely be the point of the exercises.

It’s making Elise a little nervous, all this uncertainty, but knowing that she doesn’t have to commit to anything right away has taken some of the pressure off of her.

After the vactrain lets them off at their destination, they take a smaller one to the other side of the dome, to an entrance where no one else is around. Also weird, so Elise checks her consciousness stream to her backup bodies, and they’re all fine, so she presses onwards.

They have to walk across a meadow before they get to a big warehouse in the middle of nowhere. It feels even more remote now. There’s not even any other infrastructure, and it doesn’t match the normal institutional architecture of Castlebourne. Is this where Rage lives? What is the Sandbox even for?

Elise steps inside when Rage holds the door open for her. As she’s scanning the antechamber, spotting the other people here, she hears the door close behind her. She turns around and tries to open it but it’s locked. She tries for a few more seconds, but it’s hopeless.

“She locked us in?” one of the strangers questions. She’s wearing a graphic t-shirt and baggy camo pants. She, along with the others, look just as confused and anxious.

“I don’t suppose anyone has superstrength?” Elise asks.

“No,” the guy replies. “Rage told us to come with standard human substrates.”

“It’s a trap,” someone else determines. They’re sitting on the edge of a metal table, one foot propped up on a chair, and the other dangling loosely.

Elise tilts her head. “I’m still connected to my backups. If she wants to kill us, it’s not going to work on me at least.”

The person who figured that it was a trap stands up and takes a knife out of their pocket. “I can kill anyone who wants to get out of here the easy way. I can’t promise to make it painless, but it’s an option.”

“Let’s look for a bloodless way first,” a girl in a yellow shirt suggests.

Elise looks back down at the handle. It doesn’t have a keyhole, but it looks like the one on the other side of the room does. She walks over to it. “I can pick it, if anyone has something I could use. Whatever is on the other side could be worse, though.”

Graphic tee girl pulls a bobby pin from her hair and hands it over. “If you’re going through hell...keep going. Winston Churchill.”

“Unverified attribution,” the guy counters.

“Then I’ll take the attribution—Zelda Frances,” she self-cites.

“Colley Rochelle,” he returns.

“I’m Elise Perkins,” Elise adds as she’s finishing unlocking the door. She doesn’t open it, though. She straights back up, and hands Zelda her pin back.

“Can’t do it?” the girl in yellow asks.

“No, it was easy,” Elise answers. “We just need to all agree to open it.”

“As long as we’re streaming, the danger isn’t real.” Knife-wielder heads for the door without waiting for permission. “I go by Minotaur,” they add as they’re opening it.

Elise has to grab Minotaur by the shirt collar when they slip right over the edge. It’s dark inside; they can’t see how deep the drop off is, but Elise won’t be able to hold on alone much longer. Colley runs over, and reaches down to pick up some of the slack.

“Rule number one,” Minotaur says as they’re standing back up. “look before you leap. I’m humiliated. This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered a trapdoor.”

“I think we all realize by now that this is a test,” Zelda says. “Rage wants to see where we are, so she knows how to train us.”

“She doesn’t need to be tested too?” Elise questions. She puts her flashlight gloves on, and cautiously reaches into the room. The pit is wide and deep. Her lights don’t have the range to show her the bottom, which means it’s too far for them to dangle and fall safely. She gets a look around at the rest of the open area. At least two packs are hanging on the wall, over a very narrow ledge. “I think they’re parachutes,” she announces.

Zelda gently moves Elise out of the way so she can peek around the corner, holding Elise’s hand up to control the flightlight. Without saying a word, she leaps over to the ledge, and holds one of the packs to brace herself. She opens a zipper and takes out a glowstick. She cracks it in her teeth with one hand so the other hand can keep holding on. “I need quiet, please,” she requests, even though no one is talking.

Zelda drops the glowstick down into the pit, listening for it on the bottom. “Thirty meters. We would never make it. There are only two packs anyway.”

“So they’re just there to tease us?” Elise asks her.

Zelda looks over her shoulder. She cracks a second glowstick, and tosses it behind her. It lands on the other side of the pit, which is at the same elevation. She smirks.

“No,” Elise says. “You can’t be serious.”

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Zelda recites.

“You shouldn’t try it,” Elise warns. “That’s at least fifteen meters, probably more!”

“It won’t be my first time.” Zelda takes her belt off and anchors it to the hook where the pack was hanging. She bites down on the belt to stay aloft, leaning backwards over the pit while she puts the parachute pack on. “I’ll find out what’s on the other side. There must be a drawbridge or something, or there would be a pack for each of us.”

“Or we’re meant to share,” Colley offers.

“Not possible with this maneuver.” Zelda holds onto the hook with her index fingers as she crouches on the ledge, facing the wall. After preparing herself mentally, she pushes off like a cricket. At the perfect moment, she releases the speedchute, using the force of the deployment to propel her just far enough to cover the gap. Hopefully.