Microstory 2781: Oh, He’s Gonna Take the Job

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The atmospheric black hole definitely could have happened at a worse time. The busy season is now over, and many of the crops aren’t growing anyway. The eyren are a year-round event, however. The uquira and uquirapods adapt well to the changing climate, and in fact, as it cools down, there are more chances to plant eyren. The trick is being able to find the clumps amidst the fallen leaves, and later, the precipitation. That takes manpower, or technology, which sort of goes against the community’s practices.

Everyone is struggling. Jande’s story is not unique as many farms suffer attrition. There are tens of billions of organic people in this galaxy, so it’s not hard to find someone willing to take a century out of their lives to farm on Bida, but it’s hard to keep them. Quiratan has shrunk in recent years because of it, mostly with smaller farms being absorbed by neighbors, but a few have shut down entirely. The AKBH, along with the ongoing threat of future singularities, has only expedited the downfall.

Jande has to recruit more people if he wants to keep his culture alive, and not only by finding partners for himself, but also for others. This is the best time to do it. Last season’s dead crops have been tilled back into the land to replenish the nitrogen content, which is best done early so the microbes have time to complete the process before next planting season. It was hard work, but he’s all caught up now, so he can sit down and find more people. But first, his parents want to talk with him.

He’s sitting in front of them now, bouncing his knee impatiently while they half-smile and sip their tea. They have always been like this. Even when there’s a ton of work to do, they drag out the conversation, especially the beginning of it. They come from an era where a legal lifetime was literally about the maximum amount of time a human would live, yet they’re always wasting the minutes on...dramatic effect. “Could we be quite quick?” Jande asks. “I need to get back to the boards.”

“Your father is retired,” his mother begins. “It was unexpected, but it can’t be undone. His body is younger than yours now. How do you feel about that?”

“This is how things are done,” Jande replies. “I knew this was gonna happen one day, I just didn’t know it would be now. He’s been taking it in stride. I mean it, Father, you have accepted your new life admirably. I hope to mimic you when it is my time.”

Mother nods as she’s listening to Jande. “When the shed came down, you were trapped under the entrance. Your body could not move, so you transferred to a bot.”

“You don’t have to recap, we all know what happened,” Jande contends.

“What you don’t know,” Father goes on, “is that we had a forensics expert survey the scene and confirm which of us died first. As I was under a heavy beam in the barn, my body expired instantly. Your body survived long enough for you to induce suicide. For a few seconds, you had inherited the role of Head of Household.”

Jande narrows his eyes, at the both of them, but particularly at his father. “What are you saying, that because of a technicality, I retired immediately after you, and I have no right to continue farming the land? This body is weak. It is not an upgrade. It is not a retirement model, and I have been toiling for the last couple of weeks.”

“Have you noticed the outsider who patrols our perimeter?” Mother asks him.

“You mean the one from the giant metal shuttle, which can be seen even from here?” Jande asks rhetorically. “Yes, I think I did notice him. Why?”

“He’s here to protect us from the Eyrenlanders,” Mother continues. “They want to come in and farm these lands themselves. Meanwhile, you are perusing the network, looking for a spouse or two at a time to fill only a few slots to reach the bare minimum.”

“This is our way,” Jande reminds her. “Quiratan is not an interstellar business. We are family farmers. To work, you must be part of a family. Scale is not the goal.”

“That’s true,” Father agrees. “If the Eyrenlanders were allowed in unconditionally, they would likely expand within the next decade until they reached the same size that Eyrenland was before the black hole showed up and destroyed it.”

Mother places a hand upon her husband’s knee to take the floor. “Perhaps, son, it is time for that. The Eyrenlanders left us alone when they had everything they needed. They were able to provide the eggs for the galaxy’s demand. Now things are different. Now Quiratan has become the single source of authentic eyren. I mentioned the forensics report to give you an easy way out. You retain the honor of not retiring intentionally, but benefit from the accident by accepting it as retirement. No one would blame you for it. We’ll tell them it was your father’s insistence. In his last act as Head of Household, he declared the end of the bloodline, and the end of the farm.”

Jande balls both of his hands into fists and trembles in seething anger, holding himself back from exploding. “You want me to quit, and you have found a bad loophole that, if our ways had been codified into law, would never hold up in court. And you think, after years of raising me to take over your legacy, that I would take this offer?” He stands abruptly. “You do not know me at all, Mother. This farm is mine now. I was going to farm it with you next season, but it is clear that you are planning to retire soon too. So why don’t you just do it and leave? Follow Suki to Castlebourne, or Evers to Varkas Reflex. I will take five, six, seven husbands and wives if that’s what it takes! I’ll not abandon my birthright, and I cannot believe that you of all people would suggest I do!”

His parents stay calm. His father clears his throat. “We were not suggesting that you retire offworld. There is a way for you to gain control over, not only the farm, but all of Quiratan. There is an ancient rank known as the Superintendent. If you reinstitute this role, it would be you who decides who works what farms. Eminent domain, easements, and the like; you would have power over all of it. You would be able to transition Eyrenlanders into more traditional Quiratan obsolescent practices. And once the positions are filled to your satisfaction, you could turn away the excess.”

Jande sits back down. He has spent his whole life learning about this world. He has mostly focused on agriculture, but he studied history as well, and he has never heard of a superintendent. If it’s true, that would be an interesting development. “How would I go about this? Would I walk down main street with the biggest gun, and announce that I’m in charge now, or is there some kind of ceremony or election, or what?” This doesn’t mean he’s gonna do it; he’s just asking questions. There is no harm in asking questions.

Mother smiles, pleased with herself and Father for managing to get through to him. “Superintendents are in charge of elections, placing them above the bureaucracy. There are no guns, and no election. But there is a series of tribulations. It would not be easy, and we would need to find someone to moderate and judge.”

“But, son,” Father begins. “Once you open the floodgates, you will not be able to control what else flows through. Others will surely challenge you for the job.”

Jande nods and relaxes a little in his chair. “Tell me more.”

Spaghetti West: A Space Odyssey (Part IV)

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After the Atmospheric Kugelblitz Black Hole event, Sugar had to sit down with Liselot to understand what they lost, and why it was more important than it sounded. Near the equator of Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida once lay a country called Eyrenland. They named it after the indigenous wildlife, or more specifically, what they produced. The uquira and uquirapods had an evolutionarily interesting dynamic.

They didn’t adhere to Earth’s rules of biology and taxonomy. Some were plants, and some were animals, but only as the closest analogs to human comprehension. Their reproductive cycle was multi-faceted, but what the locals and consumers cared about were the eyren. They most closely resembled eggs. They had a shell—which was iridescent and beautiful—a white—which was actually more tan—and a black yolk. The yolk actually kind of looked gross and rotten, but it was perfectly healthy, and irrefutably tasty.

When the yolk was touched by a tongue, it didn’t simply taste like whatever it tasted like. It reacted with the taste buds, providing them with whatever they preferred and desired most. It behaved less like a food, and more like a drug. It activated pleasure chemicals in the brain, creating a sense of euphoria and peace without limiting the user’s faculties, or inhibiting their judgment. It was a miracle food, and the most popular import across the stellar neighborhood. For centuries, philosophers believed exporting and importing would be irrelevant at interstellar levels, but people were determined to make it make sense, and the eyren trade was the result of those efforts.

Sugar asked why these special eggs couldn’t simply be reverse-engineered in a lab. Technically they were, but that defeated the purpose. Everything was composed of chemicals; nothing was made of magic. Anything that existed could be recreated from scratch. And to be sure, there were plenty of people who got their hands on the formula so they could do exactly that. But transhumans could also just flip a switch in their brains and release whatever hormones they wanted. They could literally trigger an orgasm with a single thought. That wasn’t the problem. Consumers wanted real eyren because they valued authenticity. The bounded source and finite supply were precisely what gave it its value. And now that was almost all gone, thanks to the AKBH.

Eyrenland served as the intake region for the whole world. They had a few space elevators for redundancy purposes, but the default was to come through here, specifically so they would be close to the uquira. They did it for the same reasons ancient museums often placed their exits in the gift shop. The refugees from Proxima Doma and Doma Tertia were given a patch of land to start their new lives here, so they lost their homes for a third time, which would be profoundly hilarious if it weren’t so sad. When they showed back up on the ship that brought them to this planet in the first place, they were pissed to say the least. They would have rioted had their numbers been greater.

That wasn’t to say the non-refugees were any happier. They just lost their homes, and they demanded to know why. The Interim Axiom of Eggs and First Axiom had to teleport up to Sugar’s ship to keep them calm so Axiom of Astronomy Liselot could explain what went wrong. Until today, they had no reason to believe that a KBH would enter the atmosphere. She strongly suggested that they be grateful for their lives. Not everyone there was streaming their consciousness to backups, and they would not have 

survived had Sugar not stepped in. Even then, some assumed that it was somehow her fault, only because of the suspicious timing.

There was a secondary source of eyren, clear on the other side of the world. Researchers were still trying to figure out how two separate populations of uquira/uquirapods managed to evolve so far from each other. Sugar could find out relatively easily with a bit of time travel, but she didn’t bring that up because she didn’t care and had more pressing matters on her mind. The Eyrenland farmers insisted that Sugar teleport them down to Quiratan, but that did not seem like the right thing to do.

Farmers were already living there, and were evidently more concerned with preserving the ecology. They harvested eyren too, and exported what they couldn’t consume themselves, but they didn’t scale to meet demand. They mostly stuck to themselves, and didn’t participate on the world stage. Vantu became extraordinarily protective of the Quiratani after being asked to basically use their immense power to kick the locals out. He took a shuttle down to show any would-be invaders that they would do well to stay out. For now, Axiom of Eggs Antinan and the Eyrenlanders were heeding the warning, but Van had to remain, leaving Sugar mostly alone on the ship.

It was fine, everything was automated. It wasn’t like Sugar had to babysit all the equipment. The KBHs were still arriving, but they were incrementally improving warning times, and none so far had appeared as close to the planet as the AKBH. They did not believe it would likely happen again. There was just too much other space, and while a pattern had not yet presented itself, lightning proverbially never struck twice. Fending them off had become routine to the point of monotonous, which was not good. That was why it was so important to complete that modified defense grid. Their ship was the only one capable of reaching the source, and it was now time to do just that.

While they were predicting and deflecting the onslaught, Sugar was also trying to track where they were coming from. She thought, with enough data, she would be able to determine the answer, but it wasn’t there. There was no interstellar signature, or anything. She had come to realize that the only way to locate it would be to push one back through its portal, like she did with the AKBH, but this time, follow it through.

“That’s suicide,” Liselot warned. “And don’t argue that you’re backed up like everyone else; it probably doesn’t work like that. We were recently discussing the signal interference that it was causing. You will not likely beam back here. You will simply die.”

Liselot did not know about the afterlife simulation, which could capture one’s consciousness from anywhere in the galaxy, and Sugar didn’t think it was wise to tell her. There was a reason the architects kept it a secret. People were only meant to go there if all else failed. Still, it meant Sugar couldn’t explain why she wasn’t worried about the mission. She would have to make her case another way. “I’ll be fine.” Oh, how clever.

“I’m going with you,” Liselot insisted, “and I will not be arguing with you. I know you have the power to magically send me back down to the surface, but that would violate my autonomy. I’m still upset that you tried to convince me that Van was a hologram when we first met. I want to go, and I want you to respect that.”

“I don’t want to argue with you either,” Sugar began, “but you literally just said that I was gonna die. So am I the fool for going, or are you for coming with me?”

“Both,” Liselot answered. “Where I’m from, we believe that every day past 120 years is a gift. Our ancestors could only dream of reaching such ages, and for the vast 

majority of human history, that was close to the hard limit. If I die now...” She shrugged. “Well, I’ve surpassed it many times over, so it’s nothing to cry over. If it’s my time, I’m ready.”

Sugar shook her head. “I won’t violate your autonomy, even though as captain of this ship, it is well within my rights to decide who boards and who doesn’t.” She looked over at the screen showing a KBH’s pending arrival. “You have a couple minutes to change your mind, though.” She tapped a button, causing a bridge escape pod to open. “This will teleport you clear of the event horizon through burst mode until it makes it back to the space station. The ship, meanwhile, will be so close to the singularity, that even when I push it back, the gravity will be too strong for me to escape.”

Liselot nodded and stepped towards the pod before turning around to face Sugar. “I made up my mind before you told me what you were gonna do. I knew you would do it eventually. Don’t think I came to this decision on a whim.”

“Very well.” Sugar teleported the whole ship to the next arrival point. While they were waiting, she walked around the console holding her new device. “It’s preprogrammed, but if you’re coming, you need to get in here too. It’ll be a tight fit.”

“What is it?” Liselot asked, looking at the unfamiliar gizmo.

“Personal equilibrium generator.” Sugar attached it to her arm, activated it, then hugged Liselot tightly. The small egg-shaped energy field began to emanate from it. She held Liselot even tighter once they saw quite how small it was. They held onto each other and watched as the KBH appeared out of nowhere, and the ship began to shake around them. They couldn’t feel a single thing; it was like they weren’t even really there.

Sparks flew as inessential systems crashed under the weight of the gravitational disturbance. The ship lurched forward as it fell towards the center. Attitude control worked overtime to make sure the particle beam continued to focus on its target, with a little bit of leeway compensated with a gyroscope. The black hole fell back into its portal, dragging the ship along with it. Within seconds, they were in the wormhole. It took a surprisingly long time. Wormholes weren’t instant—they both obviously knew that—it was just taking longer than expected.

At last, they flew out of the tunnel, back into normal space. The ship stopped shaking, so Sugar deactivated the equilibrium generator. Sensors which had been gathering data the whole time were blinded for a moment while they recalibrated. Once they determined that it was safe, the viewscreen turned itself back on, and showed them where they were. They were entering orbit around a planet. The sensors still didn’t know where it was, or how far they had traveled from Tau Ceti. That was odd too, because a simple star chart reference should have come up with an answer rather quickly. It was picking up infrastructure, though. Whatever world this was, it was clearly inhabited.

An unknown vessel came up and matched the ship’s vector. The strangers opened their weapons...and fired.

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Microstory 2780: Nothing Will Stop Her From Leaving Him

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At the moment, the two most popular planets in the galaxy are Varkas Reflex and Castlebourne. The former handles virtual simulations very well while the latter is the only place with extensive and comprehensive base reality sims. Earth is special because it’s the seed of civilization, but its population is still decreasing. Some are leaving because they want what those other worlds have, others because they want to return Earth to the wild. Incidentally, Gatewood is technically popular too, but only as a pitstop for other colonies. Most other colonies are niche or family-owned; not central hubs.

That leaves Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. It is the only other Core World which naturally supports complex life. A human can survive on the surface in the open air with minimal bioengineering. A baseline human can survive with the right life support tech. That used to be a huge draw, but other breathable worlds have since been found, and it’s just not that important anymore. Life under a large enough dome is indistinguishable from a genuine sky. Virtual constructs are perfect, and can be programmed with any environment imaginable. Bida, despite its recent gravity problems, simply isn’t that special anymore. And those gravity problems are pushing it over the edge.

Everyone is leaving, including possibly Jande’s sister, Laise. She is missing, and it’s highly unlikely that something went wrong with her consciousness transmission. Bida may be known for its minimal use of tech, but they’re not backwards like Proxima Doma. They’re efficient, and death is an inefficient use of thought. That was engraved on the arch over the entrance to the Welcome Center below the primary space elevator, and above the door to the central substrate inventorium. Laise should be back by now.

In the weeks following the destruction of Eyrenland, the community has suffered from all sides. The whole planet has been wrecked. The people survived, but many are choosing not to rebuild their lives here. They’re going to those other places to live out their dreams. Some may end up doing exactly what they were doing before the cataclysm, just elsewhere. Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida is dying. It started quick, but it’s gonna end slow. Their way of life is being threatened by something that was entirely out of their control, and their own laws. Even Jande’s wives can’t take it anymore.

“Evers, please. Don’t leave,” Jande begs. “We’re building a life together.”

“This world is no longer safe,” Evers argues. “The black holes are still opening up all over the star system. I don’t want to be here when the next one shows up. What if it’s in the core of the planet? What if it’s in our backyard?”

“There’s a fancy ship up there,” Jande reminds her. “The Axiom of Astronomy is on it. The galaxy’s top scientists have cast themselves here to figure this out.” He sighs. “They’re gonna figure it out. The farm needs you, more than ever. I need you.”

“I’m not going to ask you to leave with me. I know that you have to stay, especially since your father...” She trails off just so she doesn’t have to finish the sentence. “You have your ways, and I thought I knew what I was getting myself into when I joined this community and married you. But I didn’t sign up for this.”

“There are ways around this,” he insists. “We can get a long-range backup relay. If your body dies, you can be on the other side of the solar system in seconds, clear of any black hole that may or may not open up here. This doesn’t have to be the end.”

Now Evers is the one to sigh. “And what if that deep space backup is destroyed too? I’m not going to risk it. This is an unprecedented threat.”

“Please, just give it another few days. They’re gonna announce something—”

“What are the divorce procedures?” Evers interrupts.

Jande doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to answer that question.

“Come on, I know they’re different when the marriage ends entirely, instead of remaining partially intact after only one leaves, so I can’t just utter the dissolution line, like Suki. You either come with me, or it’s over. What do I have to do to divorce you?”

Jande shakes his head. “You’re the one ending the marriage, and I’m the victim. You have to cut down a tree with an axe, and I have to cut one down with a knife.”

Evers stares at her still-husband for a minute. “Is that even possible?”

“Eventually, yes. It will take time out of my extremely busy life, but you can begin leaving before that. It will take hours, if not a day, for you to finish your own tree, get to the elevator, ride it up, and fly off. I promise to be done by then. The tree isn’t gigantic.”

“The trees we planted on our wedding day. We have to cut those ones down?”

“They symbolize our union, so yes,” Jande confirms.

“So older couples have a harder divorce. What if one of the trees is already dead?”

“Well, ours are still alive, and you’re leaving the culture completely, so what does it fucking matter?” Okay, he has shifted his emotions away from sadness now.

“I want to understand what’s happening to us, and I have the right to. I won’t push it, but I do want to know, what of Suki’s tree?” Evers questions.

“I have to take it down at some point, when I have time,” Jande explains. “It doesn’t have to be ceremonial or grueling, though. I can use a laser saw, or whatever.”

Evers frowns at him. “I was hoping to cast my mind to Varkas Reflex. I mean, if I’m gonna become incorporeal anyway, I might as well travel there without this body—”

“Goddammit!” Jande pushes past Evers and walks around to the back of the house. He pulls out his sheath knife and starts to slice against the trunk of his tree, at the narrowest section he can find, grateful that it doesn’t have to be at a particular height. He’s already making good progress, fueled by his adrenaline.

Evers walks up next to him. “I never wanted it to end like this.”

“But you wanted it to end,” Jande points out. “Good, that’s great. I’m so happy for you, you’re finally getting the life you wanted. I’m so sorry that I trapped you on the most beautiful planet in the universe. You must have been miserable.”

“I was never miserable,” Evers begins. “I’m just scared. I don’t think you see how dangerous this has become. Our ancestors prepared for everything—everything!—when they started to explore outer space, but they never thought of this. I know you think what you’re doing is important, but it’s not worth your life. It’s not worth mine, and there was a time when you would have agreed with me. Just...think about it.”

Jande stops working for a second to catch his breath. He looks over at her. “I don’t have time to cut down my tree and help you find the axe in the rubble that was our shed. You better go look for it so you can finish this quick enough to cast away in time to catch that sweet VR wave, dude. Hang ten.” He goes back to cutting.

He can see her nod quietly before she walks off.

She is so inexperienced with the axe, he almost finishes his tree before she finishes hers. They don’t say another word to each other for the rest of time. She takes a shuttle to the temporary Welcome Center tent, and leaves him forever.

Microstory 2779: Nearly Everyone Dies

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Jande Ter Avest wakes up and yawns, louder than he wanted to, which serves to wake up his wives. They were going to have to wake up soon enough anyway, though, so it’s fine. He rolls over and gives Evers a kiss, then lifts himself up and over her to kiss Suki. Second Autumn is coming to a close, so it’s the first morning that it’s still dark out when it’s time to get to work. He starts to leave the house as he is, as he normally does.

“Jan,” Evers says. It doesn’t even look like her eyes are open. “You need clothes.”

“It’s not cold enough, I’ll be fine,” Jande assures her.

“Put on clothes,” Evers reiterates. She’s still drowsy and annoyed.

“Put on clothes,” Suki echoes.

“Put on clothes, put on clothes, put on clothes.” They know he hates chanting.

“Fine, fine. I’m putting on my clothes,” Jande reluctantly agrees. “God.”

“Yay,” Suki replies as she buries her face in her pillow.

“Yay,” Evers concurs, just as exhausted and grumpy.

Jande does as they ask, then goes outside. He can never admit that they were right. It is unseasonably cold already. He didn’t bother to check the forecast, but they must have. He ends up stepping back inside real quick to grab a coat too.

He shivers as he’s walking towards the barn. Across the way, he sees his sister walking towards it from her own house. Her pet uquirapod is waddling alongside her. They wave to each other and smile, but don’t speak. It’s too early to speak. He doesn’t hate his life, but he doesn’t love it either. One day, when his parents’ bodies are old enough, they’ll retire, and it will be up to him and Laise to carry on the legacy.

As long as Laise doesn’t run off to find her own way, Jande’s workload will only double, and if he doesn’t have kids eventually, it could last indefinitely. He doesn’t mind doing it for the duration of a legal lifetime if it makes his family happy. He has his whole immortality ahead of him, which he can spend doing whatever he wants. It’s not that hard of a job anyway, it’s just kind of silly to him. One day he’ll look back, and this will only be a blip. His mind lives in that future. He thinks Laise’s mind does too.

She holds the door open for him, and they both walk in. Their father is leaning back in his chair, fast asleep. If he’s not careful, he’ll tip over and fall on his head.

When Laise clears her throat, Father is startled awake. He instantly looks up at the two of them, and says, “you’re late!” like he had the complaint in the chamber.

Laise gets on her knees and rests her hand on Father’s knee. “It’s time, Father. It’s time for you to leave this body behind, and move on.”

Father winces and looks down at himself. “I’m still young enough to beat you.”

“Beat me in what?” Laise asks him with a chortle.

“Name a challenge. A foot race, a milking race; whatever you want,” Father urges.

Laise smiles at him. “You’ve been doing this for a hundred and ten years. You suffered through a lot of harsh winters, and if we’re being honest, your body wasn’t designed perfectly. There is no shame in retiring early. You’ll head west and start a new life. We can take it from here, we promise. Mother wants to be done too, I know it.”

Father shakes his head. “Neither of you married invested workers. You underestimate how hard this job is. You will not be able to handle it just between the two of you. Our way of life must be upheld. You both need to find new partners.”

“We married for love, Father,” Jande explains. “They still help, they just also do other things with their lives. That’s what I love about Evers and Suki.”

“That’s why I love Adora,” Laise agrees. “Our generation doesn’t believe in hard work simply for the sake of it, but that doesn’t mean we’re not committed. It’s no secret that we plan on integrating slightly more technology into the processes. Father, you have not tried to dissuade us from this. We’ll still be farmers, just more modern ones. Holding on for ten more years will not preserve tradition, it will just make your joints achy.” She gently removes the tablet from his hands. “Why don’t you let me handle assignments today? You go take a nap to sleep on it.” She looks down at the device. “Jande, you’re on eyren duty. I’m doing carrots and parbread.”

“Oh, I thought I was gonna do carrots,” Jande says. “Evers was asking to learn more about eyren harvesting, but I told her she could sleep in today.”

“Go ahead and prep the harvesters,” Laise decides. “I’ll get Evers for you.” She looks back at Father again. “Is this okay with you, that I supervise the workers? It’s late in the season, there’s no need for you to get worked up. It’s okay to take a break.”

“Yeah, maybe I’ll take it slow today,” Father relents as he’s yawning.

While Laise is walking across the lawn to Jande’s house, Jande walks over to the shed to retrieve the equipment for harvesting eyren. As he’s loading the supplies on the cart, he sees both of his wives following Laise to the barn. They’re in the middle of a conversation, so he doesn’t interrupt them. He would later wish he had stopped them.

As soon as they step foot inside, the whole barn collapses. Jande does too. He lands on his hands and knees as the gravity pulls him down harder than usual. This happened a couple decades ago, but it was more gradual, and most buildings were reinforced in case it happened again, but they left the barn alone, because it’s just a barn. The shed buckles too and crashes down on top of Jande, pinning him against the soil. It lets up a little bit, but then the ground begins to shake. Jande tries to get up, but his spine has presumably been severed. He tries to crawl out, but he can’t move.

This body is wasted, it’s not going to heal; certainly not in enough time. It hasn’t killed him, so he’s going to have to do it himself. He doesn’t want to transfer his consciousness to a normal backup, though, because they’re too far away. Without telling anyone, Jande programmed a failsafe in his brain, which allows him to jump to the neighbor’s service bot. They are also farmers, but they use more advanced tech to make their lives easier, allowing them to focus more on the crops. Jande closes his eyes and triggers the suicide protocol. Everything goes dark for a few seconds. He’s not sure how long this is going to take, though, because he never tested it.

He doesn’t have to open his eyes again. The image simply renders in front of him. He finds himself carrying two little children in his metallic arms. It’s the neighbor kids. The four parents are running alongside him, trying to get out in the open space while the bidaquakes continue to stir up the ground. Jande looks around. This area is as good as any. The surface is solid, and nothing can fall upon them. Jande sets the kids down. “I must check on the Ter Avests too,” he requests.

“Yes, we’ll be fine, bot,” one of the mothers says. “Go help the community.”

It’s a kilometer away, but this substrate gets him back home in no time. He races into the barn, and starts carefully pulling debris away. Other than his mother, everyone he loves turns up dead, but his sister is the only one who never comes back to life.

Microstory 2778: The Agenda Comes Out in the End

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There’s a knock at the door. Interim Axiom of Eggs Antinan Witt taps his fingers in the right sequence to signal the security AI to open it. “You must be Vantu Hidayat.”

“You can just call me Van,” he answers.

Antinan nods. “Thank you for coming, Van. You were in the Teaguardian that rescued everyone from Eyrenland, correct?”

“It’s not a Teaguardian, it’s a stateless vessel, but yes,” Van replies.

Antinan nods again. “Firstly, as a citizen of Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, I would like to thank you for that. You saved a lot of people. As the Interim Axiom of Eggs, I would like to explain our needs moving forward. Vonearthan lives are not all that is at stake.”

“Can I ask,” Van begins, “why are you the Interim Axiom? We rescued the Axiom of Eggs. I remember seeing her on the manifest. She is alive and well.”

“This is our way,” Antinan says. “When a leader’s life is threatened, or their substrate is destroyed off-schedule, their consciousness goes under review. During this waiting period, they are not allowed to make any state decisions. I will only hold this position for a few weeks at most, at which point I will undergo the same review. We like to be extra thorough here. As I was saying, my responsibility is to the eggs.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to catch me up. What kind of eggs are we talking about?”

Antinan takes a deep, reverent breath. He almost ceremoniously approaches the egg locker. This was the Axiom of Energy’s private stash. She graciously donated it back to the Egg Department to support restoration efforts. But there’s only one place they’ll grow now, and it’s not here. He carefully slides the opaque lid up and over so Van can see what’s inside. The eggs are still protected in the transparent preservation chamber.

Van chuckles voicelessly and lightly as he looks into the chamber. “They do look like eggs.” He looks up at Antinan. “I’m guessing that’s a misnomer, though?”

“They’re literally eggs.” Antinan recloses the opaque lid. He wants to preserve them for as long as he can. Even when they manage to seriously increase the yields at the secondary location, they won’t be the same. They are technically the same species, but epigenetically different enough for a dedicated expert like him. There will never be another Eyrenland egg once the last remaining ones in storage are consumed or spoiled, and that’s nothing that can be undone. He almost tears up just thinking about it.

Antinan composes himself and turns on the presentation. It starts with a video of a cute little creature. It’s bulbous and green, with stumpy little legs that can move surprisingly fast. Small plates are protruding all along its back, resembling a stegosaurus—they’re even called stegs, but they’re not hard, nor even made of bone. They’re soft and rubbery, like mushrooms, but stronger. “We call this the uquirapod.” He jumps to the next image. “And this is the uquira. Now, don’t try to call one an animal, and one a plant. Our Earthan terminology holds no water here.”

Antinan continues through the presentation, showing various footage of uquirapods wandering the uquira fields, but no mating shots yet. “Our taxonomical structures create rigid divisions between the branches of life, and to be sure, Bida has that too, but they’re not the same. Many creatures blur the lines between plant and animal. Some move but photosynthesize; some are rooted, but have a digestive tract. One ecosystem basically has a form of marine snow, except it’s in the open air, thanks to extremely tall tree-like specimens which shed their waste from the top.

“The uquira and uquirapods are more like two genders of the same species, but also not exactly. We sometimes call it a symbiotic relationship, but it’s hard to accept that with all the nuances of their practices. They can mate within their gender, or with the opposite gender, and they do both. Again, don’t try to attach assignments to these things. Neither is male, neither is female; there is simply no obvious analog.

“Now...for reasons that we still don’t understand, when two uquirapods mate, each partner will drop fertilized seeds on the ground. They’re very social creatures, and more intelligent than they look. One will press their partner’s seeds into the ground, and once they’re done, they will systematically travel together up to eleven kilometers to switch roles. We believe they do this to prevent inbreeding. The seeds will germinate into uquira. They will not breed more uquirapods, because that’s not their job.

“Similarly, the uquira are sexual beings, which connect via wind dispersal. In a fascinating process, they communicate with each other remotely, sometimes across several meters. They utter a mostly subsonic frequency, though, that’s in relation to the range of hearing for baseline humans.” Antinan shrugs. “Many can hear it just fine. In fact, you can’t work in this department if you don’t modify yourself to hear it, assuming you can’t already. Anyway, once two uquira match each other’s resonant frequencies, they will shoot their unfertilized seeds towards each other in an attempt to find cross-purchase. If a seed does not reach its target, it will usually die in the soil. But more on that later. Is all this making sense so far, or do I need to slow down? Because I can.”

“No, I’m fine; I’m following you,” Van assures him.

“Okay. Continuing on then. Once the seeds find the right mates, they will communicate success to each other, and reproduction begins. They will produce eggs, which will grow into uquirapods, not uquira. We do not call these eggs eyren because they are fertilized, and we obviously don’t eat those, because we’re not monsters. It’s okay, it’s very easy to tell the difference. They’re just kind of a plain tan color. Eventually, the uquira stops being able to care for its eggs—which usually come in clutches of three or four—so a uquirapod has to retrieve them, incubate them, and raise them. But they will always be able to find their parents. They frequently return to them out of respect, and we think, even love. They talk; they have language. They use the same language. It’s not anywhere near as complex as ours, but they convey ideas.”

“So where do the unfertilized eggs that you eat come from?” Van asks.

Antinan smiles. “The wind is unpredictable. Uquira have gotten pretty good at aiming, but they can only do so much, and they all mate at the same time, which means they end up with a lot of seeds that don’t belong to them. Since they resonate at the wrong frequency, the mismatches will not be fertilized, but will grow an egg; a proto-eyren. When the uquirapods sniff around for eggs to care for, they will find these proto-eyren, and eat them whole. They will lay a clump of cells on the ground. They won’t typically stomp them into the soil, but we can do it for them. And what comes out of it is a sort of sterile third-gender; more plantlike, not intelligent. The process is fragile; eyren are now endangered, thanks to the black hole cataclysm.”

“This is as interesting as it is sad,” Van says. “What does it have to do with us?”

“Eyrenland was our largest source of eyren, but not the only one. They are endemic to one other, tiny region on the other side of the world. We need you to protect it...even if that means removing the stubborn, narcissistic farmers who live there now.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 22, 2566

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When Mateo, Angela, and Ramses landed on this new colony planet, the latter immediately started trying to figure out how to get back home. It wasn’t right for Romana to make this decision for them. He was completely locked out, and embarrassed by that. He guessed that the invisible probe he had orbiting this planet were monitoring their progress. Once they satisfactorily completed the assignment, it would automatically unlock the recall program, and send them back home. Until then, they were forced to help the locals come to an agreement regarding their grape conflict.

Romana didn’t send them off with nothing. Ramses had the equipment he needed to sample the soil himself. The colonists had their own ways, but they weren’t very sophisticated. They came here with personal tech restrictions. They wanted to be as organic as possible, so while they happily maintained their transhumanistic enhancements, they shunned powered tools. They weren’t against them in general, they had just decided that they wouldn’t use them. They were perfectly content with Ramses doing it for them. He discovered that the south side of the river had better soil. The grapes would be happy there, and they would also be able to expand the farm as needed.

After the locals agreed to follow Ramses’ suggestion, they hoped to be slung back to Ramosus, but no such thing happened. Romana may have been waiting until midnight central, but there could have been some other issue. Maybe she needed to see that the colonists would indeed follow the new plan, and not just a pinky promise. So they helped till the land manually until midnight central approached, at which point they snuck off to a remote part of the forest. There they waited for their time jump.

It was now a year later. The vineyard was absolutely thriving. It had grown bigger than they thought it would in the short amount of time. Ramses guessed that the sun was emitting more desirable wavelengths of light, but he did not care to test it. They were ready to go. They should have been returned by now. Maybe Ramses wasn’t right about how it worked, or Romana was keeping an eye on them, and simply controlling it manually. Or maybe something was seriously wrong somewhere else, like the team’s other assignment site. Or Romana herself was in trouble.

“Are you sure you can’t bypass it?” Angela questioned. “Can you proverbially reverse the polarity, and undo the lockout? Or find some kind of backdoor in the system? We have our own slingdrives. We should maintain full control over them.”

“You’re right, we should,” Ramses agreed. “Rather, I should. I don’t know how she did it. Our onboard slingdrives are non-negotiable, but they’re missing a component. It’s...if you know anything about guns, it’s essentially the firing pin. The process won’t trigger without it, unless it has some external trigger, like the Ramosus base.”

“Can you build a new one?” Mateo proposed. “Just the new trigger.”

“Hmm,” Ramses said. “I didn’t think of that. It shouldn’t be too hard, as long as she didn’t sabotage anything else. I don’t even know how she gained access to our catalyzers in the first place.” He pulled out his tablet, and started tapping on it. “I can’t promise it’ll be done in a day since I’m away from my lab, but I’ll work as fast as I can.”

“Take your time,” Angela encouraged. “It’s better to get it right than do it rushed.”

“In the meantime, should we go back and help in the vineyard?” Mateo suggested.

“Let’s leave them alone,” Angela decided. “They need to learn their own limits. They will probably eventually bring external tech back, and just become normal. I think we did all we were obligated to. I just wish I understood why Romana doesn’t agree.”

Ramses was unable to finish. The next year, the vineyard was burnt down.

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Microstory 2707: Walking Out With the Door

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It’s been another year now. Leif knows his own name, and responds to it. Isavet has taken quite a liking to him. She doesn’t quite understand what Talus did, but she knows he was a bad boy, and seems to be trying to compensate for him. Ronan and Gia often talk about how close they might have been to Talus doing something to her. They grew up together as babies, so he never would have seen her as a threat to his status, but he might have held hate against her for some other reason. They don’t know what was going on in his head. They never will, and they have decided to take this as a blessing. For the most part, they don’t talk about Talus at all, especially not openly.

Ronan’s mind drifts outside the dome when he’s alone, often towards Talus’ new place on Varkas Reflex. He thinks about him from time to time, wondering how he’s doing. He’s probably having the time of his life. A significant portion of the population chooses such a life on purpose, and stays forever. Ronan could get everything he has here in there, but it wouldn’t feel right. He would always know it’s not real. He’s clearly not the only one. It’s why Castlebourne is the fastest growing colony in the galaxy, when it really should be Varkas Reflex, or it shouldn’t matter since you can technically do VR anywhere. One day, Castlebourne may sport the highest population of all. That will be an interesting time. According to projections, he will be done with this particular simulated experience by then, but who knows? The winds could shift.

They’re thinking of moving, just to separate themselves from the community. It has grown since they first arrived. A few other people have settled land near their farm. And they all know what happened, to some degree, so the looks Ronan and Gia get can be really uncomfortable, and take them out of the Norse experience. It wouldn’t be narratively unreasonable either. People moved all the time in this culture. But there’s one thing that would be hard to take with them. Ronan isn’t sure if he wants it, though.

“I think we should do it,” Gia says. “I think we should take it with us. You built that very nice wagon for us. If we moved far up to another beach, it wouldn’t be too difficult of a trip. It will take us several days regardless.”

Ronan keeps staring at it. “I built this house around this door. I did it for Mayumi. I did it for...” He trails off, not wanting to say his name.

“It’s our door now,” Gia points out. “It may be worth more than anything else we have combined. Some rich person was very upset, but has had nearly a decade to get over it. But the fact that you’re agonizing over it leads me to believe that you’re ready?”

Ronan looks at his wife now. “I think I’m ready. It’s time. This phase of our lives is over. How does Isavet feel about it? Is she attached to this house?”

“She might want to leave more than any of us,” Gia explains. “She may understand more about what happened to Leif than we thought. I catch her sometimes, staring at his crib when he’s not in it. She moves it to where it was when...” She trails off too. “Vith can’t find a wife here. We should look somewhere else.”

Ronan chuckles. “Vith doesn’t want a wife.”

“He does if he wants to stay immersed,” Gia says.

“He may not want to do that either,” Ronan calculates. “He’s changed more than any of us in some ways. He may be ready to leave too, but go in a different direction.”

“Well, we’ll let him decide that, and I won’t ask him about it. You shouldn’t either. Now come on, we are not packing up today. Dinner is almost ready.”

Microstory 2425: Industrial Farm Dome

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A bunch of domes are dedicated to farming. Some of them are designed for necessary food production, but others are just for the sake of it. Industrial farming describes the kind of farming that they did during and after the industrial revolution. They used machines to farm giant fields for massive numbers of people, and even used electricity, but they didn’t have computers. There was absolutely no hint of automation. Lots of farm hands still had to do all the work, and that’s how it goes here. Nothing gets done if there’s no one here to do it. If that means the crops die, then so be it. There’s actually plenty of waste, because the rest of the current population of the planet doesn’t really want to eat this stuff. Everything they could ever want is provided for them. They got their lab grown meat, meal bars, food printers, and dayfruit. They don’t really care how hard I worked out here in the hot sun, and the Castlebourne leadership isn’t incentivizing them to choose us over those other things. I think they really should have worked this out differently. Screw that other stuff. If you have the real thing—and people are willing to labor FOR FREE—why would you choose anything else? Those should be a last resort. If they want this planet to be self-sufficient, then we have what you’re looking for. I don’t blame the other visitors for doing this wrong. There is so little awareness about what we can do for them. I guess what you really need is cooks. Some domes have culinary components, or so I hear, but I can’t find a dome that’s dedicated to the culinary arts. If they did that, we could work closely with them to make the supply chain a real thing. See? I got ideas, and I’m just a dumb regular human. I came here on a ship with one of these new reframe engines. I can’t even upload or transfer my consciousness to a new body. This is the real me. These other people don’t always even need to eat, so they have no appreciation for any of this. Some changes need to be made around here, because I don’t want to go back to the stellar neighborhood. I shouldn’t have to. I should be able to find what I’m entitled to on this planet. People just need to do the right thing.

Microstory 2420: Nordome Network

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Unlike most other themed domes, this is actually a series of domes. I believe the creator wanted to truly make it feel large in scope. While the distance between the “continents” isn’t anywhere near as large as they are on Earth, it still takes some time in those antiquated boats to travel between them. I even think you pass by other, unrelated domes on your way, though you would never know it if you stick to the right heading, because the holographic sky is sensational. It just looks like you’re outside. If you get lost, and sail in the wrong direction, you’re gonna hit the sides. They even have a sprinkler system to simulate rain during your journey, and the sea below you is saltwater, so you get that real oceanic experience. This isn’t the only dome network that works like this. It’s just the one that’s set during the Viking Age. You don’t have to be a Viking yourself—you can choose a simpler life, as a farmer, or a merchant—but you’re at risk of being attacked. You have to protect your settlement as they would have during the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries. If you do choose to go on a journey, you have to build or commission your own ship. They aren’t just provided to you. Keep in mind that this is a lifestyle dome experience. You’re meant to stay here for years, and really live the way that these people historically lived. There are no rules, and no planned activities. There’s no anachronistic technology, and you can’t keep leaving and come back. If you have a serious need, they’ll let you go through an emergency exit, and once the issue is resolved, you can go back. So it’s not like a one and done sort of thing, but it’s also not a free-for-all. You can’t spend your days on the boat, then sleep in a nice comfy bed at night. There are no day trips, and they will enforce these rules. I never saw any sort of argument or disagreement, but they were clear. If you really want to get the full experience, it’s probably gonna take you about thirty years. But, I mean, come on, who doesn’t have that kind of time to spare these days? What are you worried about, that you’re gonna die soon? So take a break and learn something. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, if you haven’t heard.

Microstory 2361: Earth, August 1, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

It’s Pascal again. Thank you for being so patient with me. It is now August 1, and communication restrictions have finally been lifted. It was such horrible timing. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, and it’s very rewarding, but it does come with downsides. I hope it’s okay that I’m writing you now. I know that your connection to your brother has only gotten stronger since my first letter, which was my last one. So if you only want me to speak when spoken to, that’s totally fine. I want you to drive this relationship, or even decide whether it is a relationship, or not. I won’t take up too much of your time until you decide, but allow me to give you a few updates on what I’ve been up to. Our deal with the Australian dome has been a great success. Since we live on the ocean, we’ve gotten pretty good at using our resources sustainably, but we still have to trade with land-based regions more than they have to trade with each other. We have less space here for such infrastructure, and we’re not equipped to handle certain crops. Everyone has vertical farming now, but so many fruits and vegetables can’t be grown in these tight, efficient environments very well. We grow tomatoes and herbs just fine. Lettuce and green beans? We got those. But we have no way of planting trees, and even if we did, they have not had enough time to grow to maturity since we were established. So many others just don’t work with the techniques that we are limited to using in the confined spaces on this boat. We can’t exactly carry tons and tons of dirt over the sea. It is for these reasons that we lack fruits like apples and peaches, sprawling plants like pumpkins and cucumbers, and roots like potatoes and carrots. In exchange for some of their food, we agreed to take a number of immigrants on board. Since we’re so new, we still have plenty of space to grow as a human population. Others are running low. The funny thing is, as helpful as it is to the Australian dome for us to take those people, it’s actually good for us too, because that is what we need. We want to establish our own nation, and to do that, we need citizens. That’s probably why it’s gone so smoothly, because we’re all winners here. All right, I’ve taken enough of your time already. Just get back to me when you can. I understand that you’re busy.

With affection,

Pascal

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 4, 2486

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After Mateo and Ramses returned to Castledome, the latter hopped into their ship to run diagnostics on the slingdrive. Following careful examination and thought, he decided that it was not a good idea for them to try to jump again today. The good news was that they didn’t have to wait an entire year to begin the sidequest. Mateo’s daughters were capable of operating it on their own. They were going to have to learn sometime, and obviously all the systems were automated. While Ramses was spending time showing them the ropes, Mateo and Leona put their heads together to draw up a list of everyone they wanted to live here on Castlebourne with them. Darko Matic was first on the list. According to Dalton Hawk’s claims a while back, Darko’s last known location was the top of Monte Albán step pyramid in Mexico. This was where Dalton was killed, leading him to ending up in the afterlife simulation. Assuming there was no delay between his final moment on Earth, and his arrival in the simulation, this occurred in the year 2400.

While the team was gone, Kivi, Dubravka, and Romana took the Vellani Ambassador 85 years in the past to retrieve Uncle Darko. It was he who came up with the collective term of Kadiar, as that was the spelled out form of their first name initials as an acronym. They seemed to like it. Team Kadiar. Tertius was a part of their team too, but didn’t seem to mind being left out of the name. He wasn’t the only one to not be included, though everyone else’s role in this new operation hadn’t yet been fully fleshed out. Some would join the away team for the refugee missions, while others would remain on Castlebourne to work those refugees through orientation, and make sure they had everything they needed, as well as maintain some level of order as hosts.

Team Kadiar’s first stop after Darko was Baudin Murdoch’s architectural firm. His power would be invaluable on this world, speeding up construction on every dome by orders of magnitude. He agreed to the job with very little convincing. Over the course of the next year, more people were recruited to live on this world. This included Mateo’s once-mother Aura, and her husband, Samsonite, along with family friend, Téa. Ace and Paige came with a non-dead version of Serkan Demir. Kivi asked to bring in a version of Lincoln who didn’t literally know everything about everything. Next came Mateo’s once-father, Mario, and his wife, Angelita Prieto. They hoped to reunite with their daughter, Brooke, but she was off doing her own thing. She might show up later, once things were settled with the Exin Empire and the Ex Wars. Several other people agreed to live here too, like Kallias Bran and Aeolia Sarai. Lastly, they found a few less likely allies in Ida Reyer, Jericho Hagen, and Jesimula Utkin. Team Kadiar reportedly spoke with many others who didn’t have any interest in joining, or had too much work to do elsewhere, like Quivira Boyce and her team of time fixers, and the members of the Interagency Alliance Commission, which operated primarily around the turn of the 21st century. At some point during this, too, Dubra intentionally crossed her own timeline, and stole some DNA for a new clone body. It didn’t sound like that big of a deal.

There was one more major recruit on the list, and now that Team Matic was back, it was up to them to complete the mission, as the Matic girls were still too untrained to handle it on their own. Mirage was still presumably in enemy territory in the Goldilocks Corridor with Niobe Schur. Everyone was getting ready to go. They were checking their IMS and PRU systems. They were running a preflight check on the Ambassador. The hot pocket didn’t have much trapped heat, but it was purged anyway, so it could be as empty as possible. Mateo was looking for leaks in his helmet. Onboard diagnostics were capable of detecting such things, but as a point of redundancy, it was prudent to also have an external means of confirming the safety of the suit using an unsynced tester.

“You’re not going,” Leona told him.

“What?”

“You’re staying here.”

“You think you need to protect me?” Mateo question.

“No, of course not. Your daughters get one day a year with you. You can’t waste that time.”

“I’m on a different team,” he began. “I encouraged her to form her team, but I still need to stay with you.”

“I appreciate how you feel, but whether she says it or not, she needs you.” He had three daughters, but Leona was referring specifically to Romana, who was the youngest, and perhaps most vulnerable right now. “Ramses is staying too, for his work.”

“Have you talked to her about this?” he asked.

“No.”

“Good. I need to show you something.” He held out a hand, and when she took it, teleported them both to a farming dome. This wasn’t, strictly speaking, necessary when vertical farming had long ago replaced traditional methods, but Hrockas put a lot of effort into transporting live organisms on an arkship, and he didn’t want to waste it. Arkships were very rare vessels designed to store tons of organic material, such as seeds, and flora and fauna DNA. They were meant to seed life on other worlds, but the government didn’t just hand them out to anyone who bothered to fill out an application. It wasn’t even clear whether a single other one had ever been launched as the ethics of them proved to be the most complex and divisive of all. It was pretty insane that Hrockas managed to get one. He must have been able to prove that this rock was otherwise completely inorganic.

“This is nice. Come here often?” Leona asked in half sincerity.

They were standing by a tall fence, which was an even funnier thing to have here since there was no such thing as trespassers, or animals that needed to be kept penned in. Mateo had strung a bunch of different types of fruits from the top rail. A couple of them had apparently burst open, and there was fruit splattered on the wood and ground. “I was just practicing, and wanted my new abilities to be a surprise, but I guess you’re gonna need an early demonstration.”

“What new abilities?”

“Not really new, we just haven’t really been talking about it.” Mateo put his hands together in front of his chest in an unusual configuration. He then split them apart, leaving his left hand out where it was while pulling his right back towards him. A holographic arrow materialized between them, clarifying that he had been pretending to string it on a bow. He looked over at his wife, and winked. Then he let go of the imaginary arrow, and sent it flying towards the fruit. It struck a passion fruit, which burst open, and splattered all over.

She was shocked. “How did you do that?”

“I think I have that figured out.” He sauntered towards the fence, and pulled what remained of the passion fruit from its string. He tossed it over to her, so she could feel that it was real. “It took me a while, but then I remembered. The timonite.”

“You still have timonite in your system?”

“I don’t know, but it was definitely on my hands, which is why a lemon would explode if I ever tried to pick it up.”

“Yeah, I remember you doing that for fun in the Third Rail. We got that fixed.”

“Exactly,” Mateo agreed. “A god gave me telekinesis. I haven’t touched a single thing with my bare hands in months.”

“Oh, right. That was telekinesis.” She shook her head. “Wait, no, those were different hands. We transferred your consciousness to a new substrate. That body is gone. You shouldn’t have that anymore.”

He shrugged. “I guess it transferred too. I don’t know how telekinesis works. Do you?”

“No,” she admitted. “It’s not a time power as far as I can figure.”

He started talking with his hands. “I think it...integrated with my illusion powers, and created something new. We were wondering what my specialty was. Olimpia is better at invisibility. Marie is better at impersonation. This is my thing. I can make solid holograms.”

She shook her head again. “The god guy said that it was just really close to your hands. You weren’t meant to do anything at that great of a distance.”

“It mutated,” Mateo decided. “Again, we don’t know how it works. But it’s the best explanation. I’m not that strong right now, but with more practice, I might be able to create a giant fist, and smash into that fence. I’m Ms. Marvel!”

“Maybe in the movies, not the comics.”

“Well, our ship is named after the movie version, so...”

“Why are you showing me this? I mean, I’m glad I know now, and I wish you had told me sooner, but what does this have to do with the mission?”

“Leona, I can make an impenetrable force field for the VA out of light. I have an endless supply of missiles that I could send to an enemy.”

“Oh, hold on. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You literally just said that you need more practice, and if the arrow is the best you can do right now, I believe it. I’m not sending you out with this. I have half a mind to try to figure out how to suppress your pattern, so you can spend the next 365 days training with Prince Darko.”

“We need Mirage back,” Mateo reasoned. “I’m your best chance of getting her back safely. You need me.”

“This is a stealth mission,” she contended. “We’re going to be invisible. No one from the Exin Empire should know that we were ever there. I don’t even want our allies to know that we were there, save for Mirage herself. We are not ready for an assault. You’re not just unpracticed, you’re a liability. I was willing to discuss you coming along, and even bringing your daughters, but you just made the decision for me. You’re grounded until further notice.”

“You’re grounding me?” he questioned. “Like a child?”

“No, like a sky jockey.” She sighed. “Show this to Dubra. She has experience with lots of powers. We don’t have time to argue, and I’m not interested in your complaints. We’re going to get Mirage without you. I have spoken.”

He didn’t want to get into a real fight either, especially since he would definitely lose. She was the Captain, and her face certainly showed that she was giving him an order in that capacity, instead of as his wife and partner. He nodded respectfully. “We can maintain contact with the quantum messenger on the Ambassador, right?”

“We’ll be technically reachable, yes, but I want you to stay busy. They just opened a new scenic train in one of the domes. Right now, the landscapes are all computer-generated holograms, but I still hear it’s nice. It goes around the entire circumference of the dome, from a few kilometers above. So it takes about four hours to go from start to finish. Why don’t you get to know the girls there? You could have a nice lunch, talk about your hopes and dreams...”

“You can’t force this, Leona.”

“You can’t get anywhere with them if you don’t try.”

“So your suggestion is for us to ride around in a circle?”

“Very funny.” She paused. “It has slanted windows. You can look right down at the geographic features.”

“The fake features,” he pointed out.

“The topography is already there. That’s why Hrockas chose that spot on this planet, because it’s more textured than other regions. They just need to paraterraform it, which will take some time. The holograms are a stopgap.”

“You’re a stopgap,” he muttered under his breath, actually like a child.

“What was that?”

“I said were I you,” he lied.

“Yeah, that’s what I heard,” she lied back. She lowered him down by the shoulders, and kissed him on the forehead. “Qapla’!” She disappeared.

Mateo took only one moment to look back at his hanging fruit, and contemplate what he might do to accelerate his own training. By the time he teleported back to Castledome, the Vellani Ambassador was gone. It would never return.

He tried to call them on their comms disc, which were synced through a quantum connection to increase the range, but no one responded. They were probably too busy to deal with his incessant nagging. He reached out to Romana instead, who said that she was in Dojodome. It wasn’t just one big dome with thousands of dojos. It was modeled on Japanese architecture in general, so there were also ponds, gardens, and empty spaces. This was one of the big problems with the whole one dome per theme concept. A lot of themes just weren’t grand enough in scope to take up the whole 1.3 million acre area. Your only choices at that point, really, would be copying and pasting the same structures over and over again, or just leaving some of it as unused desert.

“Are you guys training?” he asked once he had teleported to Dojodome.

“Yeah, it’s scheduled as a solo day,” Romana answered, “so we each do our own thing. It’s how Uncle Prince Darko gets his breaks.”

“Do you really call him that?” he laughed.

“L-O-L, sometimes, he doesn’t like it. Hey, I thought you were going off to the Goldilocks Corridor. We said our good lucks at breakfast.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Mateo said, “but Leona kicked me out. She was right, they don’t need me out there. I want to spend it with you three, if you’re not too busy.”

“No, this is a perfect time. I was just gonna go for an extra run.” She fiddled with her armband. “It looks like Dubra’s at the South Pole at the moment, probably for a swim. And Kivi’s in...where is that? She’s on the move. Oh, that’s probably the Terminator Track. Ooo, I bet she’s on a date with Lincoln. I don’t have his location ID, but I’m sure he’s there too.”

“What’s the Terminator Track?” he asked.

“The pod’s speed is based on the rotation of Castlebourne in order to maintain a fixed position relative to the sun at that latitude. I think there are four pods. One is in perpetual sunset, and another at sunrise. The other two are in daylight, and nighttime...or is it twilight? Maybe there are five. I can’t remember, but they follow each other on the track.”

“Hrockas really thought of everything, huh?”

“I’ve helped,” Romana bragged, “but yeah, he pretty much had the big picture painted before I got here.”

Mateo took Romana’s arm to look at the little dots that indicated where all of Romana’s friends were currently located on the satnav, paying special attention to Kivi’s and Dubra’s. “I’ll let you do what you were planning on doing, and let the others do the same. But can we agree to meet one year and one day from now?”

Romana thought about it for half a moment, debating in her head whether she would try to make her sisters accommodate a daddy-daughters date this year. Having come to a decision, she nodded once, and said, “okay. What are you gonna do today instead?”

Mateo looked around the dojo, eventually zeroing in on a wooden dummy on the other side of the room. Drawing inspiration from his own comment from earlier, he reached his arm back, and shoved it in the air towards the dummy. A hologram of his fist flew away from him, as the arrow had before. It crashed into the training apparatus, bursting it apart. He smiled and admired his own work. “I have some training of my own to do.”

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