Microstory 2105: Maybe I Should Leave

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It’s been one of those days. I told you in the last post how the scheduling works at my new job. When they first explained it to me, my first question was the obvious one, which is what happens when two people have to be gone at the same time? The answer was that this never happens, so they didn’t have a protocol for that. But of course, this being my life, it happened immediately. I’m not even finished with my training, but we’re already down to three people. One of the other janitors had a family emergency, which necessitated him driving halfway across the country at a moment’s notice. He reportedly didn’t even have time to pack anything. The old man, meanwhile, has fallen ill. He’s awake and alert, but he’s in no condition to be moving around, and doing this kind of work. The bosses are actually making him stay in a special room for treatment. I guess this place has its own little health clinic? They didn’t tell me anything about it, so I don’t think it’s for just anyone to use when they need it. So now it’s just me and the girls. Their initial plan when this happened was to have one of us take a double shift, and maybe someone else takes it the next day? That’s too much math. The reason four of us work on one day is because 24 divided by 6 equals 4. But 24 can also be divided into 8, and that makes 3. To cover the time, we’re each just going to take longer shifts, but we each get a 30 minute lunch break now. This is the way things often work in other universes, and even in other places on this world, so it’s not like I’m reinventing the wheel here.

I’m glad that they’ve taken my advice, because I feel super responsible for all of this. It may sound ridiculous, but hear me out. I’m starting to really worry that I’m the cause of all these issues. Things have been changing since I showed up on the scene, everyone thinks so, even if they’re not making the connection to me. Issues are arising that were not a problem before. It’s not always obvious, like when I first came to this world, and kept getting sick. Someone went missing after I started working at the nursery, and now this? I know, it sounds self-aggrandizing to think that everything is all about me, but come on. I understand that I felt like this before, and there actually weren’t any other missing people, but I’m not making everything up. I dunno. Maybe I should leave this town, and move to another to see if something weird happens there too. Of course, I can’t just run off right away. These people are counting on me. We have to find at least one more person to fill out the roster, and maybe another person after that, and if I go, then they’ll have to look for a third. I’m in such an awkward position. I better get some sleep, and see if I come up with any better ideas in the morning. The people who set me up with my new life are asking me to work for them too, which complicates things even further. I have a feeling that my situation is about to get a lot more difficult.

Microstory 2104: People Are Animals

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My job is going well so far, but I’ve only been doing it for one day, so we’ll just have to see. This place is open 24/7, which equates to a crew of five janitors. Each of us works six hours straight with no breaks, except to use the restroom. When one leaves for the day, the next one comes in. A fifth person sleeps on location, and can fill in if someone is sick. We don’t get paid to take time off, though we can if we need to, but we have to coordinate with each other, and the fifth guy will substitute during that time too. In the meantime, he gets paid for the entire day, whether he has anything to do or not. He’s the one who trained me, because he’s been there forever. The job is simple and tedious. You start at the top floor, and work your way down. Different janitors have different methods to get the work done. Some use the carpet sweeper all the way through, and then go back up to mob the bathrooms, and other tile areas, and then go back up again to collect the trash. Others prefer to focus on one floor, and complete all of the necessary work at once before moving on to the next one. They may not do it the same way every time, and our employer doesn’t care. They want it to be as clean as possible as much as possible. The work that the regular workers do here requires concentration, which means that they require us to be quiet and out of the way, which is why we don’t use vacuum cleaners. Fortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of collaboration, at least not in person, so we’re not constantly tripping over the staff, making it easier to stay invisible.

For one hour at 11:00, they are all having lunch together upstairs. We are not allowed to go upstairs. I’ve not even seen their cafeteria yet, because we’re expected to eat on our own time, but the other janitors have caught glimpses of it over the years, so they know that that’s where everyone is going. Apparently, a sixth person handles that entire area alone, and isn’t part of my team. I suspect that, in addition to eating, they’re having some kind of building-wide meeting. I still don’t really know what exactly they do there, but it must be pretty sensitive stuff. They lock everything up in their special desks, even when they’re only leaving for the restroom. I’ve yet to see a single piece of paper that isn’t still blank. The regular workers are usually really focused on their work, and don’t pay me any mind, not in a sort of disrespectful don’t fraternize with the help sort of way, but more like they’re trying to stay out of my way just as much. I think they’re aware that I’m on a schedule of my own, and they appreciate not having to worry about the mess. And when I say mess, I don’t mean that these people are animals. Honestly, I don’t think we need to clean up as often as we do. They don’t eat at their desks, or do anything else that would make my job harder. I barely have to empty the carpet sweeper, but that’s what’s in the job description, so I’m going to keep doing it until they ask me to do something else. I was under the impression that I was going to get a lot dirtier, but the really gross places, like the boiler room, are handled by a different team too. All in all, I think I’m going to be okay here. I know what I’m supposed to do, and how I’m supposed to do it. They even let us listen to headphones at a low enough volume to hear the environment. I don’t really report to a boss. My coworkers are treating me as one more person in the collective. The woman I’m replacing worked here for 48 years before she retired with six-figure savings. I’ve never dreamed of having that much money. I’ll let you know if anything changes, but I think I’m just going to stick around for now.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 17, 2399

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Leona has finally come back to the Superscraper after spending days at Homes for Humankind, working on something big. She even made a short trip to Haiti without even telling Mateo about it. She hasn’t given any details regarding their plans, but Mateo has briefed her on what he and the volunteers discovered as they were exploring the sublevels. She wanted to see it for herself, of course. She is particularly interested in the fusion reactor on the very lowest level. She stares for a few minutes, not vocalizing her thoughts. Then she walks over to it, and starts opening panels and hatches. She presses a few buttons, and flips some switches too. When she’s satisfied, she brushes the dust off her hands, and walks back over. “It is more interesting than you thought.”

“Why’s that?”

She points. “See that over there, that collection of tubes?”

“Yeah. Kind of looks like an organ.”

“It’s part of a cooling system.”

“Sounds reasonable to me. Fire hot. Fire burn,” he says like a caveman.

She smirks knowingly. “Let’s go back upstairs. I need to test something.”

They take the elevator up. Leona stops on the main floor, and opens the door to a maintenance closet. She looks around a little bit before finding what she’s looking for, which is apparently a large metal pipe. She smacks it against her other hand to test its strength, then they get back into the elevator to go up a few more floors. She doesn’t say a word this entire time. Mateo doesn’t think she’s going to hurt anyone with it, but he’s very confused, and a little nervous. She usually likes to explain herself along the way.

They get out on the fourth floor, and walk into a random unit. It’s not being used by any of the people they took in. Still silent, Leona pulls the pipe into a backswing, and sends it straight into the window as hard as she can. It’s not too hard, because she never played baseball, or works out, but it should have done at least a little damage. There is not a mark on it. Also silent, Mateo reaches out. She hands him the pipe, and he takes his own shot. Nothing. Impenetrable. “What does this tell us?” he asks.

She takes back the pipe, and hits the glass again, like a pickaxe this time, and not with all of her might. She feels the seams with her fingers, and looks closely at them. “Does this kind of window remind you of anything? Like, when you think back to the times you’ve encountered one that appears to be indestructible, were you in an office building, or were you...in something else?”

Puzzled, Mateo winces, and tries to think. “I mean, they’ve always been like that when I’ve been on ships?” He shakes his head tightly, and widens his eyes. He looks around at the room that they’re in, and slides his palm on the walls. “This is a ship?”

“I think so. In fact, I think that it’s just a giant evacuation vessel. They built them to replace the original arcologies in the main sequence during Project Airtight, but we never saw them. The whole planet could be evacuated in a matter of hours, if need be.”

“Leona, one of our new friends did the math. If some lived up top, and some below, a million people could fit. How many would you need to save literally everyone?”

“At a million per ship, that’s about eight thousand, just like this one.”

Mateo gazes out the window. “Is that possible? Do you think more exist?”

She sighs and watches the sun set upon the city. “That...would be crazy.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 16, 2399

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The building has been inspected, at least with a cursory glance. They didn’t hire a professional to go through the entire thing, and check or mold, or whatever it is they do. All the doors are open now, though, which will allow drones to go through, should Leona deem there to be some need for that. While she’s been dealing with other things, Mateo has been in charge of helping the volunteers check the rooms, and now it’s time to go in the opposite direction. A building this tall has to have a deep foundation, and there should be space down there too. It may not be furnished, or even clean, but there will be potential in it. The elevator turns out to be large enough for all of the now two dozen volunteers, so he invites everyone to join, including the kids. It’ll be a little adventure.

When the doors open, they find themselves in a wide expanse, which may cover the entirety of the building in the first two dimensions. There is nothing here but support columns. It’s made of concrete, but really clean and unused. Maybe this is meant to be used for offices. Underground, though? That seems unnecessarily cruel, especially since there should be plenty of space in the common areas on the bottom floors above the surface. “Come on,” Mateo says. “There’s nothing to see here. Let’s keep going down.”

They go down one story. This one is just as expansive, but it looks different. It’s filled with stuff. As they step onto the floor, and spread out, they find compartments that mirror the kind of rooms up above. Each room is equipped with four bunk beds, and is separated from its neighbors by only half walls. Metal bars come up and go across, suggesting that a modest amount of privacy can be created from curtains. There are rows and rows and rows of these bunks. “What are they for?” a teenager asks.

“Emergency shelter, in case of a tornado?” someone else suggests.

“Look at this sign,” one of them says. “ROOM CAPACITY: 34,768.”

“Okay,” Mateo says, stepping back towards the elevator. “Let’s try one more.”

They get back in, and go down one more story. It’s the same, doubling their current known underground capacity. Mateo looks over at the buttons. There are twelve stories total, numbered zero through negative eleven. “Who here is good at math?” he asks the group.

A girl snakes her way forward.

“Assuming that every floor is just like this one, subtracting that first one that was empty, how many people can fit in the shelter?”

She takes a moment to perform the calculations. “It would fit 382,448 people.”

Mateo shakes his head. I was kind of worried about that. “That’s not much more than half of the population that can fit above. That doesn’t sound like a great shelter.”

“Well, we don’t know what we’re looking at here,” a man pointed out. “The other floors could be bigger, or maybe they can’t make an elevator this big that goes down as many floors as there are, and we’re expected to get off, and get on another one.”

They keep riding the elevator down, stepping out for a moment just to check that it’s equipped with all the same stuff. Floor Negative-10 is different. It’s just a giant open area, like the first sublevel. There’s only one more to check now, and while this is all rather exciting, they don’t expect anything different. They would all be wrong. “I recognize this,” Mateo says. “This is a fusion reactor...a big one.”

Microstory 1830: Extreme to the End

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I am an adventurer. I like going to the most extreme places on Earth, and participating in the most extreme sports. I kayak on rapids, and run marathons, and even learned how to dance fight. That last one wasn’t especially dangerous, but it wasn’t sitting at home on your couch either, let me tell you that. I’ve climbed the highest mountains, and dove the deepest oceans. If I’m not risking my life, I’m not happy. I can’t say how many times I’ve been seconds or centimeters away from death, but I like to tell people that that is my comfort zone. One day, I thought it could eventually get me, but if the story is crazy enough, my legacy will live on without me. Until then, living on the edge makes me feel alive, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. That’s why I’m so disappointed in myself right now. I did all these things, and expected to die from something amazing, but that’s not what’s happening. It’s so boring, and pathetic, and embarrassing. I would say I’ll never get over it, but that’s an understatement, because this is it. Someone is going to find me like this, and that will be my entire story. They won’t talk about the time I ran with the bulls, or when I swung over the streets like a certain red and blue costumed hero, from one building to another. That one landed me in jail, and it was my proudest moment. My fan base grew, like, a thousand percent that day. I can’t bear to lose them. I know—again—I’ll be dead anyway, but that shouldn’t mean they all start making fun of me. They should continue to watch my stuff, and talk about me. They should flip off their mothers once she closes the door behind her after scolding them for watching those dumb videos. They should aspire to be me no matter what.

I slipped in the shower, how pitiful is that? I was just trying to step out when I lost my balance, and knocked my head against the porcelain. I don’t mind dying, but not like this, dammit! I struggle to grab my phone from the vanity. It falls right into the toilet. I didn’t bother buying something rugged or waterproof, because I’m not about that virtual life. I live in the moment, in the real world. It’s dead, and I don’t have any other way of reaching out for help, which means the end is near, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. But maybe I can make it a little better. Maybe I can die as I lived, like a freakin’ badass that people look up to. I turn the water back on, and shove the blood down the drain, but it just keeps leaking from my head. But it has to stop at some point, right? No one can know that it started here, or the ruse won’t work. It’s still coming? Seriously!? This isn’t fair! I’ll wrap a towel around it to keep it from dripping on the floors. Must. Get. To. The. Window. This is gonna work. It’s a foolproof plan. They’re gonna find me on the pavement, and they won’t know why I did it, but they’ll call me a hero. Because I am a hero. I crawl across the tiles, onto the hardwood floors of the hallway, and then onto the carpet of the guest bedroom. Some blood does drip from the towel, so I wipe it up with my hand, and keep going. Yeah, I’m not leavin’ a trail. This is definitely gonna work. It’s getting harder to move, but it’s not much farther now. Damn, the window is locked, and I’m getting woozy. I don’t think I can figure out how to open the latch in this state. It’s too complicated. Why do they make windows so complicated? That’s all right. Better even. Going through the glass will just make me look awesomer. I get to my feet, and slam my head against it. It cracks, but doesn’t shatter. I strike it again. It breaks, but not all the way. One more time...and I’m free. Oh, wait, no. I live on the first floor.

Microstory 1770: Net Loss

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I’ve always been a terrible person, who treats others poorly, and only looks out for himself. I don’t like that about myself, but no one understands how hard it is to change. I keep trying to do better, but when I think of something nice to say, it gets stuck inside my head, while a bunch of malice comes out instead. One of my therapists and I worked out the metaphor. There’s a golden net on the top of my throat. It catches all the pretty things that people want to hear, and what I wish I could say to them. These pleasantries are larger, as they should be, but it means that they can’t escape. The smaller, meaner, bits of darkness can slip out easily. After deciding to look at it this way, we began to work on ways to make me easier to work with. Before I respond to someone about something, I’m meant to force myself to smile. This apparently should stretch out the golden net so much that it breaks, and lets out all the goodness I supposedly have inside me. Well, I’ve never been able to break it, but the stretching helps a little. It opens up the holes just a little more, allowing some of the smaller pretty words to get out sometimes. It’s not enough for the Catholic church to canonize me as a saint, but I guess I would call it a start. Sadly, that’s not my only problem anyway. My biggest issue is how I behave, not just what I say to people. Sociopaths and psychopaths say charming things all the time, but if they still act selfishly, or even hurt people, it’s not really good, is it? Altering my instincts to stop just taking what I want without regard to others is going to be the biggest thing I’ve ever tried, and I don’t think I can do it alone. So here I am at this spa, upon the recommendation of one of my therapist’s other patients. They can reportedly turn anyone into a nice person. I feel like I’ve seen this movie before.

I sit on the table in the exam room. The woman who ushered me in here ordered me to remove my clothes. She took them all with her, and never provided a gown. I thought maybe it was an oversight, but when the...I guess, doctor comes in, she’s not fazed, so I guess this is how it goes. She looks me over from the door, quite clinically; not sexually, nor critically. She reaches up, and turns a dial on her glasses, like she’s seeing me through multiple filtered lenses. Once she’s satisfied with her readings, she steps over to a computer terminal on the wall, and begins to input the data. I don’t say a word. She’s the one leading this hoedown, so I wait for her. When she’s finished, she walks back over to the door with a clicker, which she uses to retract the floor. I try not to freak out, but I’m rather confident that the exam table is safe. It stops short of it, like I figured, but I’m stuck up here. It’s a surprisingly large room. There’s no way I would be able to make the jump. The maybe-doctor gives me a choice. I can wait 30 seconds, and walk out of here on the floor with a full refund, or I can take a literal leap of faith, and fix my life. With no context, she leaves. I peer over the edge, and see a beautiful glow emanating from below. My eyes adjust and I realize it’s a net. It’s a golden net. Am I dreaming? Am I just living in the metaphor? This can’t be real, it doesn’t look real. So I jump. I jump belly first. My body lands in the net, and it gives just enough to keep it from hurting. I bounce a little before it returns to equilibrium, and then I’m just lying there. Not for long, though, before I begin to feel skin ooze off my bones. It’s like the net is melting me, except it doesn’t hurt, and I’m not scared. I fall all the way through; not all of me, though; just the best parts, leaving behind only the garbage that once weighed down my soul.

Microstory 1734: Draco Total

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Ladies and gentleman, let me introduce to you the new Draco Total Surveillance Security System. Using the latest in artificial intelligence video analysis, and the best cameras this side of the central black hole of this galaxy, we have been able to create a tool that will help businesses keep track of everything that happens in their buildings. This is not just for nefarious agents, you see? It’s for everything. Let’s say you’re trying to figure out if your employees are slacking on the job. Now, you could send the managers to their workstations to check on them. But everyone knows how to quickly switch windows. You won’t catch anyone on social media, because they’ll smell you comin’ from a mile away. In recent years, it’s become trendy to use webcams, keystroke loggers, and remote mirroring to see exactly what they’re up to. But we have found that such intrusive prying actually lowers productivity, because workers get freaked out about the technology, and they start to protest, even if only in small ways. We’ve actually witnessed companies lose great talent, because they quit to look for an employer that doesn’t incidentally capture their personal email passwords. Besides, that’s not really what you’re worried about, are you? You don’t care that someone who works for you occasionally switches over to see what’s in the blogosphere, or watch a quick funny video that a coworker just sent them. You wanna make sure they’re not wandering the halls, or talkin’ trash about their supervisor by the watercooler. Can regular cameras take care of all of this for you? Well, sure, they’ve been doing it for years. But can they do it better than Draco? Absolutely not. We’re more than just cameras. We’re an experience. We can put you right in the middle of the action, and no one will even know that you’re there.

With the new DTSS system, you can immerse yourself in the footage with a 360° field of view. By combining the realtime feed from every camera in operation, plus detailed schematics of the building, our system will generate a perfect three-dimensional model. You will be able to step through a virtual recreation of any area that you have placed under surveillance. Install enough cameras—cover all potential blindspots—and you’ll feel like a ghost, walking through the hallways and rooms unseen...and unheard. The AI will even automatically update periodically with new information, such as a worker turning their desk to face a window, or a new potted plant in the corner by the bathrooms. After the camera network is set up, and connected to the central server, simply place goggles such as these on your face, and enter a secret dimension. From here, you can use the controllers to move your avatar around (or an omnidirectional haptic treadmill, if you sprang for it). You can view from a first person perspective, like this, or second person, where it’s more like you’re a butterfly on the ceiling, watching the goingson below. Third person, which I like to call God Mode lets you do so much more. You’ll fly all over the building quicker, passing through walls and floors with ease. You can delete impediments, like those walls and floors, to get a clearer picture of everything happening all at once. Watch what happens when I zoom all the way out. See? It’s like a cross-section of the whole building. This is in realtime, people. This is what’s happening at our HQ during this presentation. We’re still working out the price, but we expect to be ready for public use by the fourth quarter of next year. Thank you, and I know you’re all really excited, so I’ll open the floor for any questions, comments, or concerns.

Microstory 1546: Waiting

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I have been ________ in this waiting room for an ________. I don’t have anything else to do ________, but that doesn’t mean I want to ________ it here. I’m not usually that kind of ________ who will get up and demand to be ________, but this is getting ridiculous. Most of the ________ were here before me, but they don’t seem fazed. They just keep ________ backwards through their magazines, and fidgeting with their ________ forms. Maybe I should get up, not just for me, but for ________ too. They haven’t called ________ back this whole ________, so something is holding the entire process up, and if no one ________ is going to try to find out what that is, I suppose it will have to be ________. I nonaggressively stand up from my ________, and walk over to the counter at a reasonable ________. I politely ask the ________ for an estimated wait ________. He just looks at me like he doesn’t speak ________. No, it’s more like he thinks I’m speaking a ________ language. He reaches over, and closes the ________, not aggressively either, but it’s still rude. It’s ________ enough to upset me, so I reach over ________, and just open it back up. He’s gone. It hasn’t even been one ________, there’s no way he could have gotten up, and walked ________. I have too wide of a view of his ________, and the hallway behind him. Plus, he has all these ________ piled up on the floor, it would have been too much to navigate. I ask if anyone else saw that as I’m turning ________, but they too are gone. The noises they were making—flipping through book ________, coughing, sipping ________—it lingers for a while, but dies ________, like they were able to disappear faster than the sound ________. I suppose that makes sense as ________ moves faster than sound. No, that doesn’t mean this makes any ________. They shouldn’t have ________ at all! What the heck is going on here? I turn back to the reception ________. The folders are still there, but they’re knocked over, and ________ dust. The ________ are out, and there’s a draft in here that wasn’t there before. I turn my ________ yet again. The paintings have fallen to the ________, and the wall____ is peeling. Chairs are turned ________, and a few are broken. I have either just ________ to the future, or ________ to some kind of eerie upside down silent ghost dimension. I have to find help, and ________. That’s what’s important right ________. I leave the waiting ________, and then exit the ________. The rest of the ________is as dreary and dead as it was ________, there’s probably nothing useful to ________. I have to try at least, though, so I keep ________. I start out by walking on the ________, but without any ________ around, I wonder why I’m wasting my time. The ________is less damaging to my ________ and knees. I wander down the ________, only headed in one particular ________, because the fading painted lines tell me so. I hear a rushing ________ around me, and then squealing. Then I hear some honking ________, and as the traffic is coming back into ________, a pair of ________ take me forcefully by the shoulders. “Let’s get you back to your ________. How do you keep escaping? I swear to ________, this time you literally disappeared before my eyes.”

Microstory 1540: First and Last Blood

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I have never been to the ________ before. Or should I say that I’ve never been to any sort of medical ________ for any reason. I haven’t even ever needed to go to the ________ nurse for a tummy ________. I’m twenty-five years ________, and I’m only now starting to realize how ________ that is. It’s not something most ________ are aware of; how often they don’t have ________ problems. I should have kept it to myself, but my old college ________ is in town, telling me about her recent ________ surgery, and it came up. Now she’s ________ by me. She tells me she’s seen this movie, and that I have super____. I’m supposed to start walking through ________, and lifting ________ above my ________. I don’t know about all that, but if it’s true, I don’t suppose it could ________ to let her cut my ________ real quick—or try to, anyway. If I’ve just been lucky all my ________, then the worst that can happen is I need to wrap the wound up in a ________. But if she’s right, who knows what will become of my ________? Maybe I should be a ____hero. I can’t believe I’ve never thought to ________ this before. We leave the ________, and head to my ________, because we don’t want anyone seeing us do it. She grows more excited the ________ we get, and she can barely contain herself by the ________ we reach my door. I roll my ________, and take a kitchen ________ out of the ________. I hand it to ________, and before I can lay down some ________ rules, she slides the ________ across my ________. It ________. I don’t know what I ________ was going to ________, but not this. This hurts. This is what ________ feels like? ________ feel this all the time? I have to say that I’m not a fan. She seems even more ________ than me, and that’s saying a lot, because this is my first ________ ever. I tell her it’s okay, that we can ________ it up, but she’s watching the ________ flow out of my ________, and she can’t handle it. She desperately tries to cover it up with a paper ________, but it soaks through, so she grabs another, and another. Then she uses a ________ towel, but it’s no good either. She calls ________ services, but I don’t think they’re going to make it here in time. I don’t know how much blood the human ________ is meant to hold, because of course, that’s not something I’ve ever considered before, but this looks about that amount. The ________ is drenched in a matter of minutes, as is much of my living room ________. She apologizes, and tells me she was ________ about everything. I still don’t understand what’s happening. Is this why I’ve never been ________ until now? Am I actually more susceptible to injury then other ________, and some unseen force has simply been protecting me this ________ time? I’ve never just not been hurt before, but I’ve never gotten close. I never fell off my ________, or ran into a ________ ________. This must be why. Something out there has been guid____ me through life just so this very thing wouldn’t happen, and now I’ve gone and ________ it. The last drop of blood leaks out of the unstoppable cut, and the world turns black.

Flurry: The Man in the High Castle (Part VII)

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It wasn’t that much farther through the secret castle maze, though Serkan and Ace did get turned around a few times. The map wasn’t so much a map as it was a vague set of instructions. Imagine directions for the assembly of a piece of furniture that are in English, but with the words out of order. That’s kind of what it was like to read the map, but they eventually found their destination, though they still weren’t quite sure exactly what it was that had found.

A thirtysomething man was sitting at his desk in the middle of a field outside, his assistant off to the side, busy with her own work. They were halfway outside, but also not. The space above them would listlessly drift between a ceiling and the open sky, like something out of a Harry Potter movie. The man was casually talking on the phone, and did not appear to be at all surprised to see two strangers just waltz into his magical field office. He waved them towards him with his fingers as he was finishing up his conversation. “Yeah, don’t worry about. I’m sure ol’ Rothy boy is okay. All right, well give me a call when you find it. Thanks, Moomoo.” He cradled the phone and smiled at the two intruders. “You finally made it. I would love to say you made it record time, but the truth is you’re on the wrong side of the spectrum.” He glanced at his watch. “Most people find this place faster. That map there was stunting your intuition.”

“What is this place?”

“My home. Welcome to prehistoric Kansas City.”

“We went back in time?” Serkan asked.

“It’s more that we brought the past up to us, and merged it with the present.”

“Were you expecting us?” Ace asked of him.

“I knew that someone would notice the bad weather we’re havin’. I figured Kolby, or someone else from Beaver Haven, would show up, though.”

“What’s Beaver Haven?”

“A prison.”

Ace tried to get them back on track. “You’re the one creating the snow?”

The man looked at him like he was being just so rude, but then extended his hand. “Hello, I’m Keanu ‘Ōpūnui. Nice to meet you...you who would break into my home and toss around accusations.”

“You’re too young to be the founder of this company.”

Keanu shrugged. “My friend, Moomoo keeps me young, and also I think you already know that I didn’t really found this company in the 60s. I wasn’t even born yet!”

“Does that even matter?” Serkan asked.

“No, in our line of business, I guess not.”

“You treat time travel as a business,” Ace said, again accusatorily, and not in the form of a question.

“What else would the point of it be?”

“Does there have to be a point?”

“Good point.” He smiled at his own joke. “Look, that company website didn’t lie entirely, just about the details. I really do want to fix climate change.”

“Do you imagine that it’s working?”

“Well, this is just the testing ground,” Keanu said. “I’ll take care of the whole planet after we gather enough data.”

“This can’t possibly work,” Ace said. “You can’t just turn on the world’s air conditioning and expect to fix the climate. The underlying problems are still there. We’ll still have pollution, poor regulations, and other concerns. All you’re doing is covering it up. Will your weather machine last forever?”

“What weather machine? Do you think I’m just doing this with technology?”

“You’re not?” Serkan couldn’t think of any alternatives.

“We’re time travelers, of course it’s not just tech. You think my teleporting friend, Ophir ever drives electric cars?”

“Well, I can’t speak for Ophir,” Ace said. “But we assumed you stole the machine from the future, which is something a normal person couldn’t do.”

“Ah, I guess that makes a sort of sense,” Keanu admitted, “but no. That’s not necessary; not when you can mesh instead.”

“What’s meshing?” Serkan was feeling dumb with all these questions.

“Meshes are like time windows,” Keanu said, excited to have the opportunity to explain this. “But instead of the proverbial glass, the window is opened. You can’t get through, like with a time door, but the environment can cross the barrier.”

“The window screen,” Ace said in understanding.

Keanu pointed to him like he’d won a gold star sticker. “Exactly. I open time windows, but leave the mesh in place. So I didn’t actually create the weather. We’re just sharing it with a different time and place; 1740s Arctic, to be exact.”

That was kind of cool, Serkan had to admit, but only to himself.

Keanu went on, “it’s a good thing I’m limited to this, otherwise I’d probably be like Kayetan, and not try to save the planet.”

“How many time manipulators do you know?”

“All of them,” Keanu answered ominously, but then he winked, as if to say, not really.

“You’ve still not explained how your time power can fix climate change. If you’re doing this yourself, rather than by a machine, then it’s even worse. You will one day die.”

Keanu opened his top drawer and removed an object from it, setting it on top of his desk. “Do you know what that is?”

Serkan peered at it, but it didn’t look familiar. Ace, on the other hand, thought he recognized it. “Well, it looks like the old Analion building. The one that shut down after a bunch of people died from their products, and the building itself.”

“That’s right. I actually once worked there, as one of its many vice presidents. But the building itself is what’s important. It houses what we in the business call an echo chamber.” He turned it over, like a professor at a technical institute, explaining the intricacies of a particular part. “A cone inside of a cylinder. Seems simple enough, but that’s just its basic shape.” He used his pinkie finger to point to various details. “Every line matters, though. Every corner, every room’s dimension; it all helps us focus our energy.” He tossed it at Serkan who had to think fast enough to catch it. “Here ya go, you can keep that one, I have loads. It might come in handy one day.”

Serkan looked it over himself. It seemed innocuous enough. “What does it do again?”

“I’ve told you that I’m a time mesher. That’s all I can do, but my friend can cross dimensional boundaries.” He removed another replica of the Analion building; one that was much nicer and sturdier. “We trapped his power in this thing so I can show you how people are reacting outside.” He smiled smugly and pointed his toy to the side like it was a remote control, but nothing happened. “I said, this is how people are reacting outside!” He inspected it to make sure it was working. Apparently what he didn’t know was that Serkan had the ability to prevent other people from using their own time powers.

“Having trouble performing?”

Keanu’s assistant stopped what she was doing, calmly stood up, and took a hammer from her desk. She began to walk around like she was in some kind of uncontrollable stupor.

“Wait, wait! Don’t do this!” he ordered her, but it was pointless. He directed his attention back to Serkan. “What did you do?”

“Oh, did you not know what I was?” Serkan asked him haughtily, smirking in a way that was a bit out of his character.

He went back to trying to stop his assistant, “nope! Don’t! I’ll get my powers back, and you’ll regret this.”

“We can’t let her hurt him, no matter her reasons,” Ace said to Serkan. He tried to approach the woman, but she effortlessly pushed him to the ground.

She lifted the hammer in the air, and Serkan squinted as he was helping his boyfriend back up, not wanting to see this happen, but also conflicted by how he was supposed to feel about it. His worry was unwarranted, however, for when her arm dropped, it was nowhere near Keanu. Instead, it landed on what was presumably the handle to one of his other desk drawers. Still in a sort of autopilot, she sifted through its contents, and retrieved what she was presumably looking for.

“Put! That! Down!” Keanu yelled to her like a disappointed father.

It was just a piece of paper, so Serkan wasn’t sure what danger it could pose, though to be fair, they couldn’t see what was on the front. The other two seemed to feel that it was important. She looked at him with a seething rage, and Serkan wondered if she was considering going ahead and using the hammer against him physically, even though she had theoretically gotten what she came from. She ended up deciding against it, but did feel the need to slowly raise her arm and show him her middle finger. To him she said, “you have already regretted this.” To Serkan and Ace she said, “it was nice to see you again as little babies. Adorbs.” She then switched her gaze to the paper, and literally disappeared.

As soon as she was gone, Keanu began to scream. He lifted his right arm, which was already bubbling in the midst of a strange temporal disturbance. The tips of his fingers disappeared, and then the rest of his fingers. The hand went afterwards before the effect continued up his arm, accelerating by every second. Time was somehow gobbling up his body, or at least part of it. The bubbling did stop once it reached his shoulder. The pain seemed to go away fairly soon thereafter, but his panic was not yet over. He kept screaming from having lost that arm. “Bitch paradoxed me!”

Serkan and Ace didn’t know what to think, but a part of them couldn’t help but be pleased.

“What are you so happy about? You’re about to die. Newsflash: this building never existed! It’s been paradoxed out of the timestream!”

“You mean...” Ace began.

Keanu nodded emphatically. “Yeah. You’re evidently immune to time powers, so I guess you’re stuck with the temporal corruption.”

“What is exactly is going to happen?”

No sooner that Ace uttered the words did the sky around them began to warp and collapse. The grass and trees before them shriveled up and disappeared. This destruction followed them from the distance, like a horde of oncoming langoliers. Once it had caught up to them, Keanu disappeared along with everything else, leaving them stranded in the middle of the sky, thirty stories up from the ground. They began falling towards the roof of the High Castle building, but it too disappeared before they could reach it. One by one, the floors and ceilings of every floor bent, shuttered, and blinked away so they could continue to fall towards their inevitable death.

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Flurry: 13 Going on 30 (Part VI)

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Ace cracked the door open to get a tiny look around. People were walking back and forth. They weren’t paying attention to anything but themselves, but would still notice two guys coming out of a literal closet with no apparent authority to be there. “We didn’t really think this through.”

“We didn’t have all the facts,” Serkan said.

“We should have brought a ladder.”

“You mean like this one?” Serkan stepped back so he could see a step ladder hanging on the wall.”

“I mean one so that we could have climbed to the top of. That way, we would magically appear on the second floor, even deeper beyond security.”

“Again, we couldn’t have known that we would need that.”

“Well...we knew that we were going to an office building. We should have dressed as contractors, or in business suits.”

“You mean like these ones?” Serkan removed two business suits hanging on the wall behind the supply shelves. One was labelled with a big letter S, and the other, an H.”

“Why the hell are those even here? This is for cleaning supplies.”

“It’s like they were left here for us.”

“This doesn’t feel right,” Ace said, worried.

The doorknob started jiggling as someone was trying to open it.  They could hear someone talking from the other side. “Yeah, have a good night, Chip!” it said before starting to mutter under its breath, “you stupid corporate hack.” The door opened, and the voice asked them “why aren’t you two dressed yet?”

“Vearden?” He was much older, say about eleven years.

“Put your suits on. You look ridiculous.”

“How did you find us? How did you know when we would be here?”

He sighed impatiently and tried to close the door behind him. Some random guy asked him what he was doing. “Just having a secret meeting with a couple of time travelers!” he yelled back with a laugh. He then went back to Serkan and Ace. “It didn’t take me that long to figure out where you would end up, based on its distance from the road. Google Maps is a wonderful thing. I also knew you were destined for the summer of 2024, so I positioned myself to be stationed at this building for as long as I needed. Then I just keep an eye on this room.” He pointed to the back corner where they were being watched by a security camera. “Don’t worry, it’s a closed system. It can only be accessed from my account.”

“You work for High Castle?”

“Snowglobe, actually,” Vearden answered. “I figured we could use an inside man with some range. High Castle is not our only threat from this conglomerate.”

“That’s what you’ve been doing this whole time?” Ace asked.

Vearden smiled nostalgically, but also with sadness. “It’s been a long journey in this...City of Fountains. You got your math wrong, though. Lincoln Rutherford was far too young to be a lawyer in 2013. I did find Kyle K. Stanley, though. He didn’t own his own practice at the time, but he did give me my first job opportunity.”

“Oh,” Serkan said. “You’re right, I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry, we should have been more careful with you.”

“It’s okay,” Vearden said truthfully. “But you really do need to change your clothes. This place has a strict dress code. Business casual gets you fired, even for the mail guys.”

Serkan and Ace started getting dressed.

“I had to guess on your sizes.”

“Can you get us to the top floor?”

Vearden smiled knowingly. “You don’t want to go to the top floor. You want to go beyond that. And yes, I can get you there. Just be glad this isn’t 2023. It’s taken me forever to learn how to navigate the vator maze.”

“The vator maze. That...sounds...ominous,” Ace said, as he was tying his new shoes.

“It is. This place is confusing as hell. If you’re looking for a particular floor, you better make sure you’re in the right tower, or you won’t make it to the right room.”

Serkan adjusted his tie in a little mirror. “I assume there are secret passageways, like all the best castles had.”

“Boy, are there ever. Come on. This building is most vulnerable during the one o’clock shift change.”

Once he had determined that the coast was clear, Vearden led them across the lobby and into one of the elevators. It had to specifically be the freight elevator, though, or they wouldn’t be able to go where they needed to. As they were moving upwards, he hovered over the buttons and watched the numbers on the screen change, careful to press another one at the precise time required. For instance, when they were passing the second floor, he pressed 8, and when they were passing the third, he pressed 6. Not only was there a code, but you had to enter them at the exact right time. Finally, they stopped midway between twelve and fourteen, the buttons indicating that there was technically no thirteenth floor, presumably due to superstition. But apparently there was, just not one accessible to the general population. Vearden placed his index finger against his lips, then pointed towards the doors, which were not opening. He then reached over and took hold of the safety railing with both hands, using what appeared to be a not insignificant amount of strength to wrench it from its place, taking a section of the wall with it.

Removing that part of the wall showed there to be a second set of elevator doors. Vearden took a quarter out of Ace’s coat pocket and slipped it between the doors. They could hear it drop down. “Dammit,” he whispered. He now took the quarter he had left in Serkan’s pocket and dropped it into the crack more carefully. It fell it its slot, and opened the doors for them. Once they were through to the other side, Vearden pulled the false wall back in place, and pushed a button to close the secret doors. “Every Snowglobe subsidiary’s headquarters has a secret thirteenth floor,” he said, still in a low voice. “Many people know this, and even work there. Not even they know that there’s a secret section of the secret floor only accessible to an even more elite few.”

“You’re one of those few?” Ace asked.

“No. Infiltration is a complex process. We are still not anywhere close to knowing everything there is to know.”

“Who’s we?”

“We need to get going,” Vearden said, ignoring the question.

“Is this where the leader guy works?” Serkan asked.

“Not quite. It just gets us there. We still have a ways to go.”

Vearden continued to lead them through a series of doors, elevators, and passageways in a secret section of the building. At one point, they had to duck into this weird hobbit hole closet. They did not encounter a single other person on their way, or really any evidence that anyone else had ever been there. Except that it was always so clean. When they asked him about it, Vearden just said that The Custodian has been doing his job right. They traveled up, down, and around. One elevator even moved in several different directions, according to the right combination of buttons. Like, it’s one thing to make it hard for people to get into your secret building, but this would make it hard for you too. Even with muscle memory letting you enter all these codes, and navigate this maze, it would still take at least fifteen minutes to get through the whole thing. Was it worth not just, ya know, investing in better locks, or something? Or just build your evil lair in a volcano so that people won’t try to get there anyway.

He kept walking with a purpose, never having to stop and make sure that he was going the right way. If he hadn’t been here before, then he was certainly confident in whatever was telling him where to go. But then something happened that gave him pause. They turned a corner to find a set of double doors, which didn’t seem all that weird to Serkan and Ace based on everything else that was happening, but Vearden was concerned. “This...this is not supposed to be here.”

“Are you sure?”

He removed a paper tablet that had been stuffed into the back of his pants and started examining it, pinching and swiping through a set of blueprints and instructions. “No, it’s definitely not on the map.”

“Well, maybe it’s not on the map because it isn’t important,” Serkan suggested. “We go down the hallway regardless, right?”

“Right, but...” Vearden agreed, still confused.

Just then, the doors that didn’t belong swung open, revealing two women standing at the entrance to a lush botanical garden. “Vearden,” one of them exclaimed in excitement. “You’re alive.”

“Gretchen,” the other said. “This is 2024. It’s an alternative version of him; the one from this timeline. He doesn’t know you.”

“Should I know you?” Vearden asked.

“We’re married,” Gretchen said.

“Gretchen, stop!” the other ordered.

“Shut up, Danuta!” Gretchen yelled back.

“It’s not him!”

“It is him!” Gretchen argued. “We can contact The Warrior, or even Nerakali. One of them can bring my Vearden back. I can’t believe I never thought of this before.”

“He’s clearly busy,” Danuta argued back. “Plus, look how confused he is. He has no idea what brain blending is. It goes against our code to involve him in our affairs.”

“Screw the code!”

“Uh, hi,” Vearden finally jumped in. “You know an alternate version of me? And he died?” He took a few beats. “And you and I are married?”

“Not just that.” Gretchen took a half step forward, but was trying to be careful. “But we’re also in love. I can restore your memories. Well...I personally can’t, but I know someone who can. He or she will blend your mind with that of the alternate version, and you’ll remember all the lives you’ve lived.”

“Gretchen,” Danuta pleaded. “We can’t do this.”

“I’m standing at the cusp of a shadow dimension,” Vearden told her. “I’m informed enough to make that decision on my own.”

“See?” Gretchen asked Danuta rhetorically. “Still my beautiful Vearden Haywood. I told you we would see each other again, doorwalker.”

He looked back at Serkan and Ace, weighing his options. He then presented the paper tab with the map on it. “This is important,” he said of it. Then he looked back to the garden, and the mysterious Gretchen. But this is important to me.” He handed the map to Ace. “You’ll figure it out. I have to do this.”

“We understand,” Ace said.

Serkan wasn’t feeling so generous, but kept his mouth shut.

Vearden ceremoniously stepped across the threshold and into the impossible garden. He turned back and smiled at them. “Oh, and one more thing. The next time you see Slipstream, remind her that she owes me a favor, and let her know that I’ve transferred that favor to you.”

How does he know Slipstream?

Danuta reluctantly closed the doors, which promptly disappeared.

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