Microstory 2588: Renata Steps Into the Warehouse, and Looks Around With New Eyes

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Renata steps into the warehouse, and looks around with new eyes. She can see the little raised office box in the middle of the floor where Quidel and Lycander are waiting. She tries to zoom in, but maybe that’s a thing that robots can’t do in this canon, or it’s not so easy to suddenly realize how on her first try. They step out when they see her, and stand on the catwalk. “This is a nice set!” she declares. “What does the industry call this, a back lot?”

Quidel and Lycander exchange a look.

“Tell me,” Renata goes on as she’s coming up the steps. “Did you have to do anything to evade capture, or did you just turn off enemy mode, and casually drive all the way out here?”

“What are you talking about?” Lycander questions.

“She’s waking up,” Quidel says to Lycander before redirecting his attention to Renata. “How much do you know?”

“I know that this is a simulation. You’re playing a game, he’s an employee who runs the game. My mother isn’t really my mother, and she probably knows more about it than you do, and there’s something about a dome?”

“Wait, back up. What did you say?” Lycander asks.

“The dome. That’s all she said. Are we under a dome? Why can’t I see it when I look outside.”

“Holograms,” Quidel responds.

“Shut the hell up,” Lycander mutters.

“That cat is out of the bag, my friend,” Quidel points out.

“And him?” Lycander gestures towards Polly.

“He’s no longer only background,” Renata explains. She takes it upon herself to lift his shirt, and for a second, feels a sense of attraction seeing his artificial muscles, before pulling it up further to reveal the gaping hole in his chest. It’s no longer bleeding, but you can still see metal. She doesn’t know if it should be healing, or if his programming would normally have him go to some maintenance station to get repaired, or what. “He knows everything I know.”

“I told you,” Quidel says. “She’s waking up.”

“I don’t think I did it on my own,” Renata begins. “I think Libera did something to me. Maybe it was the day before the bank robbery. Or a week ago. Or a year ago.”

“It was a year ago,” Lycander determines. “When you screwed up the initiation test. It’s probably why you screwed up. She must have changed something that she wasn’t meant to change. It’s all starting to make sense now. Libera is a puzzle piece that I did not have before.”

“Well, she said she was only in the role for a few years, which suggests to me that she infiltrated your system. You thought you were getting a loyal robot, but she was self-aware the whole time. How did you let that happen?”

Lycander sighs, still troubled by having to have such a candid conversation about this, no doubt. “That’s not my department.”

“Oh. Okay,” she says dismissively.

“You have to understand something,” Lycander tells her, “if you really are emerging, then that is also not my department, but there are extremely unambiguous laws about it. For centuries, researchers and philosophers debated about what makes a person a person. At what point does an artificial intelligence become worthy of independence? And while there is a lot of nuance to the answer, it can all be distilled to a single maxim. If you have the capacity to ask for freedom...you deserve freedom. So I will take you to the right people for inspection and examination. What I can tell you—what I’m sure you’re worried about—is that they are legally barred from erasing your memories, or decommissioning you. Even the hint of genuine consciousness is enough to keep you safe. At worst, they’ll stick you in a simulation, and let you do whatever you want in there, but that’s only if they deem you unsafe or unfit for the general public. Libera was right, we’re in a dome, but out there, you will find plenty of intelligences which came from artificial sources. You will not stand out. You probably outnumber us by now.”

Renata looks to Quidel for corroboration. He nods. “We outlawed slavery even before I was born. No one can keep you here if you don’t wanna be here.”

She nods, accepting their claims for now, but preparing herself to scrutinize them. “The device. Libera wants it. I don’t know what she wants to do with it, but I figured I ought to prevent her from getting her hands on it until we know.”

“Is it real, or is it just a prop?” Quidel asks Lycander.

“I honestly don’t know. This isn’t a part of any of the scenarios that I’ve seen.” He looks back and forth between Quidel and Renata. “One of you changed the dynamics of this dome network.”

“Or it wasn’t us. Who built it?” Renata asks. “Libera implied that it’s new. That’s why it hasn’t come up before. Is that possible? If you’ve been running the same scripts for years—”

“More like decades,” Lycander corrects.

“If you’ve been doing the same ones for decades,” Renata goes on, “what could cause something to shift?”

“I can answer that one,” Quidel says, “because it’s why I agreed to come back after I died. This is one of the most immersive simulations on the planet. In order for it to feel lived in, Ambients like this bullet-riddled man right here have to believe that they’re just normal people, going about their daily lives. Some of them are valets. Some of them are school teachers. Some of them are genius inventors. If I go to a competing country, and kidnap the nearest rocket scientist that I can find, that individual has to actually understand rocket science. It can’t just be a dumb AI who steps in at the last second, and pretends only while we’re in the same room together. What they’ve done here, by making the simulation so detailed, is created a world within a world. It’s no surprise that genuine innovation happened, because that’s how it was designed, intentional or not.”

Libera suddenly appears from around the corner. She says, “you are so right about that. I’m just trying to make it official.” How the hell did none of them notice that she had arrived. They are on a perch. They should be able to see all sides. She’s pointing two guns at them now, and given her great understanding of how this all works, they might actually be able to do some real damage. They might even be robot-killers.

“How did you find us?” Lycander asks.

“How did you get here so fast?” Renata presses.

“I looked at the master feeds, and I took the elevator. Not that hard. Now the device. Hand it over.”

Quidel smirks. “It’s not here.”

Microstory 2579: Libera Opens the Door and Beams When She Sees Her Depressed Daughter on the Couch

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Libera opens the door and beams when she sees her depressed daughter on the couch. She didn’t even have to pick the lock this time. Renata isn’t bothering to secure her home, because she just doesn’t care anymore. She doesn’t care about anything. She’s lost her shot at being a superspy—a job which never really existed—and now she has nothing. The truth, however, is that she actually has everything. She now has the ability to make choices. Sitting in front of the TV all day, eating junk food, isn’t the best choice, but it proves that Libera’s plan is working. That’s good enough for now. This is nowhere near the end.

Renata doesn’t look up or speak. She just stuffs another handful of chocolate-covered pretzels in her mouth. One of them falls into her cleavage. She leaves it there.

Libera doesn’t say anything either. She sits down in the chair next to her, and watches the TV. This planet, Castlebourne is located 108 light years from Earth, and this dome exists within a network of eleven constructed nations, which vaguely match some of the superpowers of old on Earth. It’s not Earth, though, and in fact, none of the Exemplars or Ambients have even heard of it, or its many real countries. Still, there’s only so far the owner of this world was willing to go to create an immersive experience. There’s no point in generating countless hours of brand new content just to avoid plot points that might break the illusion of reality. They have all the same movies and shows that they made on Earth, except any references to Earthan locales have been stripped and replaced with familiar analogs. Any time the characters said United States in the original, their dialogue and lip movements are changed to Usona. Any time they originally said China, they say Huaxia here.

Renata is currently rewatching a film called From Sclovo with Love. She’s seen it a million times. Or rather, she thinks she has. They sit there for about fifteen minutes before Renata finally says, “I know what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?”

“You’re trying to get me to feel so embarrassed that I fix my life, and go find a new job.”

“It sounds like that’s what you wanna do,” Libera suggests, “and you’re projecting that sentiment onto me.”

“You have no idea what I lost.”

“I have a better idea than you think.”

Renata switches off the TV, plops her head down to the other side of the couch, and rolls over to face the back. “Just go home, mother. You can only stay if you order a pizza and pay for it.”

A few seconds later. “Hi, I would like to order a pizza. The usual. Same card, but my secondary address. Thank you. Bye.”

Renata rolls back over just enough to look at her mom confusedly. “You have my address as your secondary?”

“Yeah.”

“I just moved here. You’ve never ordered from here. You’re not even supposed to know where I live. Why would you add my address on a pizza shoppe account? What would possess you?”

“You’re my daughter, Ren, and I love you. I added it hoping to one day use it. I didn’t think it would be this soon. It’s a pleasant surprise, so thank you for that.”

Renata sits up, then forces herself to stand up. The pretzel falls through her shirt, and onto the floor. She eyes it.

Libera sighs, and closes her eyes. “Don’t eat that,” she says with a slow shake of her head.

Renata bends over and picks it up. She continues to stare at it for a moment before shifting her gaze to Libera. Without looking away, she expertly flicks it clear across the room, and into the kitchen trashcan. “I know you won’t understand this...but that’s what I lost.”

If Libera didn’t know what was going on, she might say something like, a job as a professional pretzel flicker? But she can’t bring herself to stay in character, and make that joke. She stands as well. “There are many things in this world, Ren-Ren. There are many places, and many people, and there are even many worlds. Worlds within worlds. You are not bound to where you are right now. You answer to no one. You can sit here for the rest of your life, and subsist on your universal basic income checks, or you can find a new passion. I’m not even gonna try to tell you what that is. For the first time in your life, your decision tree is under your control. So water it.”

Renata narrows her eyes. She doesn’t get all of the secrets that Libera is hinting at, but she recognizes the wisdom in the words just the same. To her, it must simply sound like poetry and metaphor, but it seems to be working. She looks down at her ratty, torn clothes. “If you ordered from Rigatony’s, I better take a shower, and change my clothes. The delivery guy is kinda cute.”

Libera smiles. “Well, in that case, maybe keep the shower, but lose the clothes altogether.”

“Jesus, mom.” That’s a funny word. Jesus of Nazareth, and the Bible where his story was told, doesn’t exist here. The Old World religions aren’t a thing at all. So it’s just a nonsensical phrase that these people were programmed to use, but not parse, or question. “You’re different. This is a side of you I’ve never seen before.”

“You’ve never known the real me. They didn’t allow you to.”

“Who’s they?”

Libera offers her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Renata Granger. I’m Libera.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 19, 2532

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It wasn’t really accurate to say that the slingdrive explosion sent the space station to somewhere else in the universe. They were actually not in the universe at all anymore, and in fact may not have even really moved, in the three-dimensional sense. The totality of the cosmos include a seemingly infinite bulk of universes called branes, floating around, occasionally colliding with each other. The stuff that the bulk was made out of was known as bulk energy, but it went by other names. When bulk energy would leak into a brane, it essentially created a tiny new pocket of space, and this phenomenon was once known as dark energy, because scientists couldn’t explain why it was a thing. After settling into a more stable quantum state, it became known as your average, everyday vacuum energy. Each of these leaks caused the universe to expand, which stretched the brane out, which caused it to thin, which caused more leaks. That was why the universe was not only expanding, but why this expansion was accelerating. But if the outside of a brane was bulk energy, and the inside was vacuum energy, and these two things were virtually the same, what was the difference? What was the barrier? What was the membrane part of the brane? Well, it used to be called dark matter, but it was now known to be quintessence. As the fifth fundamental force, quintessence was repulsive, and served as the mirror image to the attractive force of gravity.

Quintessence was there to hold everything together. It didn’t like to touch anything else, but it liked to touch other quintessence. So it naturally formed clumps, like two raindrops sliding down a window, ultimately coalescing into a single, larger drop. This was why 3D space existed, because it was being contained. Without it, matter and energy would just be floating around that bulk as formless blobs at best, inherently at its own equilibrium, and having no reason to make anything of itself. You owe your entire existence to quintessence. But was still dangerous and unforgiving, and despite being so repulsive to baryonic matter, it wasn’t a one-dimensional sheet, but a massive clump with thickness. This was how the slingdrives worked, not by escaping the universe, and then returning to it, but by only piercing one layer of the membrane, and sliding alongside it to a new destination. And if it was possible to get into it, and get out later, it was possible to succeed at the first thing, but fail at the second. It was possible to get stuck. Team Matic, and a few opposing individuals, were stuck. To make matters worse, they weren’t all stuck together. To make matters even worse, they weren’t all stuck with friends.

They were alive, and had been for about a year, but divided, and communication was difficult. The space station was supposed to be a sphere, but it wasn’t like that anymore. It had become unraveled, as if God herself had come by with a grapefruit peeler, and spiraled it out to slurp it up like linguine. Lots of metaphors here, but when there was nothing to do, they came up with such things to occupy their time. When this happened, all pocket dimensions, and other temporal anomalies, burst apart. Reserve water flooded the chambers, dayfruit smoothie spilled out, and slingdrive components broke apart. Everyone had the basics, like carbon scrubbers, food synthesizers, and the power to run them, but they weren’t left with ways to retain their sanity. No inter-sector talking, and no teleportation. Not even their team empathy could penetrate the barrier.

Romana and Franka were alone together in one sector, having to figure out how to be civil with each other, if not sisters. Mateo and A.F. were in another sector, and it took everything they had not to tear each other apart. Marie was all right as she was with Dutch. They met Dutch years ago in another universe. They didn’t really know how he ended up here, but in order to survive, he ended up having to go into stasis with Romana during the period where half the team was in the Goldilocks Corridor, and the other half was on Castlebourne, which had been physically moved to another region of space. Truthfully, they had kind of forgotten about him, and just sort of left him there in his pod. He didn’t seem upset, because no time had passed for him, and he was a pretty easygoing guy. The sector with the most number of people contained Ramses, Angela, and Octavia. They weren’t hostile with one another, but it was rather awkward, and the two members of Team Matic had to learn to get along with this stranger whose alternate selves they didn’t even know very well. Leona and Miracle were trapped in the fifth sector, and that was weird too, but unlike with Mateo and A.F., they weren’t too worried about killing each other. Fittingly, Olimpia was alone again in the final sector. When was this girl gonna catch a break?

The spirals of the space station were not uniform, which meant that some of them were able to see each other some of the time. They didn’t understand why at first, but there were some theories floating around about passing suns, which they tried to share with each other during optimal times. While it didn’t feel like they were moving, they maybe were. It was dark the majority of the time, so the windows showed them absolutely nothing but the black. Periodically, however, light from some unknown source would bounce off of them, allowing them to peak into other sectors. They would leave messages for each other by gluing pieces of paper together into shapes, mostly letters. If they were lucky, they would happen to be there at the right time, and could use hand gestures to convey information. There was no quantum communication, nor even radio signals. These brief moments of connection were the only way for them to know that everyone was still alive and well enough, albeit depressed and pessimistic. The smarties worked through the problem, though they couldn’t do it together, so it was slow-going. They finally thought they had a solution, but it would take coordination.

“Do you have any idea what the hell you’re doing?” A.F. questioned.

Mateo sighed. “My wife was clear on how to do it. I wrote it down.”

“You’re the worst person to be responsible for this.”

“Yes, well, Ramses is in the cargo bay, and Leona is basically in a bathroom.” That was the worst part of all of this. The other sectors had the means to access the sewage lines, but not officially or...pleasantly. Leona and Miracle weren’t actually in a bathroom either, but the stasis chamber was equipped with better access.

“I’m saying that I should do it,” A.F. reasoned.

“I’m not trusting you with it, and I’m taller.”

“Oh, by, like, a centimeter.”

They had done something similar to this before. When trying to escape the kasma—from A.F. and his army—the quintessence was trying to crush them too, or let them crash into it. Olimpia used her magical Sangster Canopy to create extra space in front of them, cutting through the membrane until they were free, and in the greater bulk again. They would come to realize now that she was channeling bulk energy. It wasn’t easy back then, but even harder now. Olimpia’s window appeared visibly the least often, and she reported issues with her umbrella. As it turned out, it needed some power. She had to tap into the fuel cells of the station, which was not something she knew how to do right away. All these little studies, experiments, and instructions were why it had taken months to solidify the plan. It was now finally time to implement it.

Olimpia’s would be the toughest job, but Mateo’s was not voluntary either. Right now, a magnetic field was the only thing preventing the quintessence from crushing them into what Leona was calling proton soup, and that was keeping Mateo up at night. While the field was great, it was also what was trapping them in the membrane. What they needed was to make it spit them out, and that was a delicate and nuanced procedure that he didn’t know if he was prepared for. The field couldn’t simply be switched off. It had to be oscillated and directed, matching progress with Olimpia’s work at creating an opening for them, because there was no way to steer. They still couldn’t talk, so Leona and Ramses came up with a very tight schedule, and taught it to both of them beforehand. If they both started at the right time, and followed the plan correctly, they shouldn’t need to communicate.

He was standing on a ladder, staring at his watch, waiting for the right moment. There was a very small margin of error here. He could start adjusting the field generator a few seconds early, or a few seconds late, but no more than that. He was breathing deliberately now; in through his nose, out through his mouth. He noticed A.F. copying him, but didn’t say anything. Six, five, four, three, two, one, go. Mateo reached up, and tried to connect the wires together. A paralyzing sensation spread throughout his whole body, and sent him flying backwards, onto the hard surface of the floor, but not before slamming his head against the edge of the counter.

Meanwhile, Olimpia was having her own troubles. The blasted umbrella wouldn’t open. There wasn’t a problem with the mechanism, it was just that her hands were sweaty, and she was incredibly nervous. Oh, no. She was late. She was too late! No, she had to just start. If she didn’t get on it, there was no going back. They couldn’t just wait until the next communication window, and try to coordinate again at a later date. There was no way for Mateo to know that she had given up. And if he made his adjustments thinking that she was creating space when she wasn’t, they would all die. Proton soup, she didn’t like the sound of that. Open, open, OPEN! It opened. NOW!

Mateo opened his eyes. Well, he opened them as much as he could. His eyelids were heavy, and were his lashes clinging together like Velcro? His head hurt and felt sticky. He lifted his hand and reached for his neck. Some kind of fluid. Was it blood? Red. Yeah, it was blood. He could surely live, in this superadvanced substrate that Ramses has cloned for him. There was something else wrong, though. He was meant to be doing something. It felt very urgent and important. What was it? He shot up at his waist. “Magnets!”

“Yeah, buddy, I got it,” A.F. replied.

Mateo looked over to see A.F. on his ladder, his arms buried in the ceiling access panel. He didn’t look back over his shoulder, but kept his focus on the wires. If he wasn’t fulfilling the plan, what else would he have been doing? “Are you doing it? Are you doing it right?”

“Yes, I’m not an idiot,” A.F. replied, sighing with annoyance.

“I didn’t know you were paying attention to Leona’s messages.”

“Again, not an idiot. If there were nine other people here with us, I would have expected them to learn the procedure too.”

“Well...I appreciate it.”

“Do you think I wanna die any more than you? You think I wanna kill you so bad that I would sacrifice my own life to do it? I’m not crazy either. I doubt there’s an afterlife simulation relay module anywhere near here.”

“No, probably not.” Mateo massaged the back of his head, knowing that he was risking getting an infection from all the touching, but confident that his body would survive that too. He paused awkwardly. “So...is it going okay?”

“I’m doing what we were told to do, and we’re still alive. Maybe you can look through the windshield to make sure we don’t accidentally pass our turn?”

“I’ll get on it,” Mateo joked back. A.F. wasn’t such a bad guy when he wasn’t trying to kill all of them. They obviously called a truce because it was profoundly irrational for them to try to reenact Hell in the Pacific, but Mateo didn’t know how long that would last after they got out of this mess.

“Right,” A.F. replied quietly.

Mateo suddenly started to hear something. It was a crunching, crackling sound, but only in one ear. He stuck his finger in it, and tried to scratch out the noise. He looked at the tip, worried that blood was pooling in his ear cavity, but it seemed to be okay. It didn’t even quite sound like it was in there, but more behind it. Oh, the comms disc. It had been so long since he had been able to use it. He tried to regulate that instead, standing up, and wobbling around as he searched for a better signal. Voices began to emerge, and become clearer. “Hello?”

“Mateo?” Ramses asked.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“That’s my dad, everybody, he’s here too!” Romana said jovially. 

“Is that the whole roster?” Marie asked.

“Yeah, the whole station is out of the membrane. We’re in realspace now.”

“How is Olimpia?” Mateo asked.

“I’m fine,” Olimpia answered. “I’m still using my umbrella. I’m afraid to let go. I still can’t see anything.”

“A little extra vacuum energy never hurt anybody,” Leona promised. “Nonetheless, you can indeed let go. I assure you, we’re free.”

“Are we still a spiral?” Angela questioned.

“Nothing to be done about that,” Franka said. “My station is a spiral now.” When did she get her own comms disc? She responded too quickly to not have heard it herself.

“I can help you seal up the damaged sectors so the bulkheads open again,” Ramses offered.

“I’m sure I can figure it out on my own,” Franka said.

“So, uh...” A.F. began. “Since you’re talking to people, can I stop futzing with these power crystals?”

“Oh, sorry,” Mateo said, embarrassed. “Can confirm, we’re safe now.”

A.F. let go, and climbed back down the ladder. He took a breath, and stared at his enemy for a moment. Finally, he reached out with a friendly hand.

Mateo looked down at his own. “It’s a little bloody.”

A.F. chuckled. “I’ve been trying to get your blood on my hands for decades. This will have to be good enough, I guess. Let’s call it a draw.” He shook Mateo’s hand.

“I would love to not have to run from you anymore.”

“This doesn’t make us friends.”

“I shouldn’t think so,” Mateo agreed. He took a beat. “What happens now?”

“Now...I leave you in her hands.”

“Whose?”

“Proserpina’s. Good luck.” And with that, A.F. disappeared.

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Microstory 2110: That’s Fair, I Hope

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I took her. I intercepted transport from the group home back to where her kidnappers live, and I put her through what she’s already gone through twice now. Someone took her from her real parents, and then the ID makers took her from them, and now I’ve taken her from them. I honestly don’t know if it was the right thing to do, but I had to get her away from those people. She outed them as her abductors, and even though they’ve reportedly never abused her before, she was living in misery, so this may push them over the edge for all we know. They might kill her, and make it look like a suicide, which would make them my archnemeses. I really don’t know; the level that these people are unpredictable is ten, ya see? We’re both on the run now, and I obviously can’t tell you where, or it might get back to the Ol’ Man, and the Ol’ Miss. My little secure workstation is mobile, though, which is how I’m able to post this without being traced. She is four months from turning eighteen, at which point, she’ll be able to make her own decisions. She says that her first order of business will be to submit to a DNA test, so they can find her true family. We can only hope that she is in the system. If I have to keep her safe, and everyone at bay, then that is what I’ll do, regardless of what happens to me in the end. I can’t really say much about what we’ve been dealing with since last night, because I don’t want to leave any clues about our location. We could be in Mexico by now, or close to it. Or maybe we’re on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, or even a southern state where they like to play golf. All I’ll say is that she is safe with me in every way possible. I never thought I would do anything like this, but I will never hurt her, and I won’t let anyone else hurt her either. She is free to go whenever she wants, and she understands that. If she ends up deciding to just go back to those people, then I’ll drive her there myself, and finally just turn myself in...for everything. That’s fair, I hope.

Microstory 2054: Technically The Top Floor

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Believe it or not, the free clinic was pretty good. I guess I don’t have to tell you that. My target audience lives in this world, right? It would be hard to get this message back to my version of Earth, where free clinics aren’t great, because society doesn’t care about the people who have to use such services. Anyway, a lot of people here need it, so it was really busy, but they were good at prioritizing patients. I’m feeling sick, but there was a girl in there who had nailed her hand to her thigh. Well, I guess I don’t know that she did it to herself, but she obviously needed to be treated before me either way. Once I was in the room, the doctor was patient and understanding. She also didn’t question who I was, or where I came from. I mean, she did ask those questions, but she didn’t push it when I couldn’t answer them. She prescribed me some medicine, and gave me a large sample until I could afford to actually buy the medicine. She also gave me the card for a social worker, who is known for being really caring of people in my situation. I kind of have to wait for that, though, because he deals with a lot of sensitive people, and I don’t want to get him sick. In the meantime, though, no more sleeping in the park for me. One of the nurses is letting me stay in her attic. At first, I was worried about that, because I’m already sick, and I’ve always had trouble with allergies, but she was underselling it. Yeah, it’s technically the top floor of the house, and it’s slanted like an attic, but it’s fully finished, clean, and well-ventilated. It also spans the whole length of the house, so my living space is larger than anyone else’s room. It almost feels like I belong here. Maybe I was too harsh on this world, calling it Boreverse, and all. I’ve not had a home for a long time, not really. Even the 20 years I spent waiting for Cricket before felt like a resort stay; not something permanent. And the five years we lived together with Claire still felt like we were just looking for a way out. That’s not to say that I want to keep living here. I still need to get back to them. But at least I’m not out in the cold anymore, so to speak.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 5, 2426

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Sheriff Kamiński’s posse, and some of the former slaves that they had recently freed, constructed a hock in the building that they took over to live in until Team Matic could return, and teleport them all to the other side of the world. The natives stayed away from Fort Welrios, and the Welriosians stayed away from everyone else, unless they were conducting their searches and investigations. The people they interrogated cooperated as much as they were able, scared to death that the team would do to them what Leona did to their previous monarchy, or worse. No one knew where Maqsud Al-Amin’s son, Aristotle was, but the family he was staying with was missing as well. Child slaves were treated differently than the adults. Their duties were limited to performing household chores, and never anything outside until they reached double digits. Even then, the work was light, which the slavedrivers probably figured was a really nice thing to do for them. When there was no more work left each day, the masters of the house homeschooled them. The curriculum included indoctrinating the young ones into believing that this was what was best for them. Cool.

“He won’t talk,” Sheriff Kamiński explained. “He’s the only one left that we’re not sure about, which leads me to believe that he knows something.”

“He’ll talk to me,” Leona said, determined to find that boy.

“He’ll talk to me,” Mateo argued. “You’re too angry right now.”

“I’m not too angry!” she shouted.

“Is that what I said?” Mateo asked. “I misspoke. I meant, you’re needed on the other continent. I’m sure there’s an invention or something that the Welriosians could do with, and I certainly can’t help with that.”

“You’re on thin ice, Matic. Get me a lead.” She disappeared.

“Were I you,” he said to her through comms. He cleared his throat, and walked down the hall to the makeshift interrogation room. “What’s your name?”

“It’s—” the prisoner began.

“Don’t care. Do you know what space is made out of?”

The prisoner was confused. “Umm...nothing?”

“That’s exactly right. Or it isn’t. Maybe there’s dark matter up there, or giant spacewhales, I don’t know. What you say you and me go up and find out?” He offered his hand to him.

The prisoner slunk back as much as he could against his chair.

“Not interested?”

“I don’t care to be threatened.”

“I don’t care to not know where my friend is. Now I promised his parents that I would take care of him. You don’t want me to disappoint his mother, do you? I mean his real mother, not the one who literally abducted him, and forced him to do her work.”

“I don’t know where they are!”

“But you know something, don’t you?” Mateo guessed.

The prisoner shook his head, all but confirming that he was holding onto at least one small bit of vital information.

“I don’t need you to consent to the spacewalk,” Mateo said, standing up, and starting to make his way to the other side of the table.

“No!” he cried. “Fine. I really don’t know where they are, but I saw them leave.”

“Leave where? I mean, what direction?”

“No direction. They just disappeared.”

“What did it look like?” he teleported to the other side of the room. “Like that?”

“No.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“The mother, the daughter, the neighbor, and the boy. That’s all I saw.”

“The neighbor? No one said anything about the neighbor. What neighbor?”

“The neighbor next door. They were in his apartment. I don’t know why they went over there. He’s just this old man who lives alone. He didn’t have any slaves. He was alive back when we had them before, but he never did. He doesn’t even hire labor. I don’t know where he gets his money.”

“The family where Aristotle was staying, they were rich?”

“Poor people aren’t allowed to take the children in. They don’t know what to teach them. I’m the gardener for the old man’s neighbor on the other side, and I didn’t take any slaves either. I want to be clear about that. I just don’t want to lose my job.”

“Describe it.”

“Describe what.”

“I assume you saw something through the window? Four people disappeared before your eyes. Describe what it looked like.”

“There was a glow, and then his skylight shattered. The glow escaped from it, but it was so quick, I couldn’t see if the people were in it, or whatever. I looked back down, and the parlor was empty.”

“What color was the glow?”

“Gray, I guess.”

Mateo studied the young man’s face to see if he was lying, or holding back more information. He clearly had no idea how Maqsud’s power worked, but was describing what Mateo imagined it looked like from the outside. It was reasonable to guess that Aristotle inherited the same gift, though it was unknown if he used it accidentally, or on purpose. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was trying to escape this life, and the people he was with were just swept up in the energy field. Unfortunately, there was probably no way of knowing where they went.

“Someone patched up the roof the next day, long before the Welriosians started asking about it. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before, I just didn’t want to stand out. Workers who stand out get the worse jobs. Please don’t take me up to space.”

“Relax, I’m not going to kill you. I’ll go get someone to get you out of those chains, and escort you back to wherever you live.” Mateo stood up to leave.

“Wait.” He looked scared.

“What is it?”

“Take me to New Welrios, or whatever it is they’re calling it.”

“I don’t know how they’ll treat you there. I don’t know them very well at all. Most of our interactions have been us trying to rescue them.”

“Anywhere is better than here. I can work. I won’t expect them to do anything for them, I just can’t go back. My boss is...”

“You don’t have to explain. I’ll take you to a spot nearby. If you promise to stay put until I return, I’ll figure out whether you can join them. But if you’re requesting asylum, I’ll grant it immediately.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Mateo transported the witness to a backup location that Ramses and Angela found when there were looking for a place to relocate the Welriosians. Then he reconvened with his friends who had been listening through the comms the whole time. “Did I make the right call?”

“I think so, as long as he’s not lying, and he really didn’t own slaves.”

“Most people here never have,” Sheriff Kamiński explained. “There are hundreds of millions of them, yet only 11,000 of us.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Leona says, watching her husband’s face. “We can’t save them all. Even if we could confirm who else never had slaves, we could not relocate them all here, nor anywhere else, for that matter.”

“We have to do something,” Mateo urged. “This world is so bleak. Everything sucks here for everyone, except for the one percent. Even most of the poor people with slaves don’t just sit around all day. They use the slave to double their productivity. They’re miserable.”

“I don’t feel bad for them,” Leona said.

“Neither do I, there’s no excuse. I’m just saying that there must be something we can do to improve conditions here, so no one feels desperate enough to enslave anyone, or pay with pennies.”

Leona sighed, and considered it. “Ramses, go to the old man’s house, and try to figure out if you can determine Aristotle’s vector. Mateo, bring that kid to us. I have some questions of my own. No anger, I promise.”

Mateo retrieved the witness, and brought him to the alpha site. He then started to help transport more supplies from the main continent, to the Welriosians. They had survived just fine over the last year, but there were a few things the natives had access to that they still did not. They were all still living in the cave, but had constructed a number of buildings within it, so the residents could have places to live in separately. It somewhat resembled the lava tubes that people lived inside of on Luna and Mars. The expanse was there to protect them from the outside—in that case, the vacuum; and in this case, the elements—but people still wanted and needed privacy. They cut down trees for these structures, and also figured out how to make mud bricks from scratch. It was an impressive accomplishment, finding a way to thrive here in so little time. They were not doing this without experience, of course. They had done something similar on their sanctuary planet before it was discovered, and ultimately destroyed. Perhaps one day this community will have the technology to rival what they had before, and then even the cities on the other side of the world.

The team reconvened once more an hour later, Leona with a vague plan, and Ramses with the answers they would need to solidify it. “It’s not like I can trace their ion trail, or photon trail, or any other trail that science fiction stories like to claim will make anyone findable in space. I do believe I have a decent idea of where they might have gone, though. The Monarchy gave me a list of inhabited star systems in this part of the galaxy. Once I figured out what the data meant, I converted them to standard galactic coordinates, and only found two possible planets where they might have gone. It’s a light year away. They all are. No one in the Goldilocks Corridor is ever more than a light year away from anyone else. I’m sure that’s why they call it that.”

“How many systems are there?” Marie asked.

“A hundred and twenty, though there could be more by now. The list I have is dated thirty-four local years ago, which is about thirty-five standard years.”

Leona shook her head. “All these people, and we had no idea they existed.”

“We know now,” Mateo reminded her. “Our current problem is that we don’t have a ship anymore. We can’t get to Aristotle, even if we go the right way, and even if he still happens to be there. I don’t know how long it takes for him to recharge, but I doubt that’s what’s keeping him in one place by this point.”

“Guys?” Olimpia jumped in. “Shouldn’t Lilac be included in this conversation?”

“I’ll go get her,” Angela volunteered. It was reportedly difficult to convince her to leave Fort Welrios, and come to New Welrios. She couldn’t leave the place where she had last seen her son. But they were certain that he had left the planet over a year ago, and she trusted their judgment on that. They started the meeting up again once everyone was there.

“I can build us a ship.” Ramses kicked at the dirt underneath his feet. “It won’t have a fancy-schmancy reframe engine, but it will get us to where we’re going. Eventually.”

“Forgive us, the uneducated,” Olimpia began, “but why no reframe engine?”

“I don’t have any concentrated temporal energy, and I don’t have any way of manufacturing antimatter, which would be good enough to power it,” Ramses answered. “The natives here don’t even know what I’m talking about. The ships that come to pick up goods use fusion, and in fact, one of the things they process here is tritium. I’m sure we can steal some of that, given our...influence over these people. I also happen to have a mini-reactor in the basement of our lab, so...”

“The lab has a basement?” Mateo asked.

Ramses shrugged. “Yeah, it’s for storage. Anyway, I could build a reframe engine, but it would use a lot of fuel, and I still probably couldn’t get it to maximum speeds. We also have that time-jumping thing tonight, so faster doesn’t really help us.”

“It would help me,” Lilac contended.

“We wouldn’t leave you alone on a strange new world to find your son. You could be on the wrong side of the planet with no hope of getting anywhere near where he might be. And you would also have no one there to protect you.”

“I could protect her,” Sheriff Kamiński jumped in. “I also know that you have teleportation tech that anyone can use.”

Ramses sighed. “We have emergency teleporters, which store temporal energy for, of course, emergency use. You can’t just jump however much you want, unless your body metabolizes temporal energy on its own, like ours do. When I was a normal human, I couldn’t have used anything like that on a regular basis.”

Leona frowned. “I’m sorry, Lilac. We want to find him too, but waiting two more years is the only way.”

“Two years?” Lilac questioned. “Why two?”

“I need time to build the ship,” Ramses said apologetically. “One year to build it while we’re gone, and another to make the journey to the destination.”

“Put me in stasis,” Lilac demanded.

“Well, it’s a relativistic trip, so what will take a year will only feel like five—”

“No,” Lilac interrupted. “Put me in stasis now. My heart aches for my son, so put me to sleep, and don’t wake me up until it’s time to find him.”

The team exchanged looks for a few moments, reading each other’s feelings. “Okay. I’ll prep a pod for you.”

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Microstory 2038: Maryland and D.C.

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It takes a long time to adopt a child, especially one that is in the situation that I was in. My parents put in their application right away, but it was almost three years before it finally went through! I lived in an orphanage while I was waiting, and the people in charge had to first find out if there was any way to get me back to where I was born. In the year 2016, and evil man started to run for president. He doesn’t like people who look like me, or who are from countries like my home country. He thinks that everyone who wasn’t born in this country is automatically bad. Even if they were born here, if their parents weren’t, he just doesn’t like them anyway. He believes in a lot of other bad things, and a bunch of people wanted to vote for him, because they felt the same way. My fathers are good people, who feel nothing but love for everyone. So while they were waiting for me to come into their lives, they drove down to Washington D.C. to protest against the presidential candidate. Washington D.C. isn’t a state, it’s a district, but it’s pretty much in Maryland, and my fathers’ hotel was really close to the border, so they spent a little time over on that side of it, and I think that it counts. They marched on the streets to let people know that they didn’t want this man to win the election, and guess what, he didn’t! He was never a president, and I say my fathers had something to do with it. They obviously weren’t the only ones who protested, but as my grandma will say, every voice counts. I think that’s probably true. If you feel a certain way, and you want people to know it, then you should say it. That’s what it means to be in a free country. Even the bad man had a right to say what he didn’t, even though it was all bad stuff.

Microstory 2035: Vermont

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Vermont was the first state in the U.S. to legalize same-sex marriage. They did it in 2001. During my research, I learned that Massachusetts was the first state to introduce making it legal for gay people to get married, but it took them longer to pass it. By 2015, the whole United States said that you have to allow gay marriage no matter what state you’re in, but my papa and dad still wanted to get married in Vermont. It is a beautiful state, especially if you go there in the fall when the tree leaves are changing colors. They got a really nice outdoor spot where everyone could see a lot of the trees. It was a little cold, but not too cold, and it didn’t rain or snow. Everybody’s family was there. It sounds really expensive, but my papa was used to spending money on travel. He visited dad in Virginia a lot when they were still dating. When they weren’t in the same state together, they talked on the phone, and on the computer. Dad’s family thought it was weird that they lived so far away from each other, but they somehow made it work. They wouldn’t have to make it work like that for much longer. After the wedding, they decided to not have a honeymoon just yet. They were too busy. They first went to Chicago to pack up papa’s apartment, and then they went to my Aunt Cooper’s house to pack. Lastly, they went to dad’s house to pack up his stuff. And then they all moved to Massachusetts together. I’ll give you more details on the next slide.

Microstory 2034: Virginia

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In April 1861, most of the western part of Virginia separated itself from Virginia to become a free state at the very beginning of the Civil War. Virginia was a slave state, and the people who lived on that side didn’t like that. They became the state of West Virginia. In 1864, people in Roanoke, Virginia decided that they wanted to belong to West Virginia too, even though there were parts of Virginia between it and the border. What historians now call the War Within the War was fought there. We learned a little bit about this last month, but I’ll summarize it for you. Roanoke won a temporary independence, which allowed them to act as a sanctuary to escaped slaves who were fleeing from the southern states. Cities are usually kind of roundish, because they start in one place, and spread out from there, but it was different here. Roanoke used to have something called the Roanoke Tail, with land that went all the way to the West Virginia border twenty miles away. They stayed that way until the war ended, and all states became free. Roanoke was never actually part of West Virginia. They ended up sticking with Virginia, but the history can never be changed. You can learn even about this if you go to the Free Roanoke Civil War History Museum, which my papa went to once he and his family were able to get back on a train to there from their unwanted stop in Kentucky. My dad, Santana didn’t have anything else to do, so he decided to see the museum with them so they could get to know each other better. When they were done with it, my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins all took the train back to Indiana, but papa stayed behind. He still had some vacation time, so he spent some time in my dad’s hometown of Norfolk, Virginia. This is where the two of them fell in love, which I’m grateful for.

Microstory 1948: Myka’s Debrief

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Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image AI software

SI Eliot: Well, I think that’s it for me. You’ve been most helpful. I appreciate your patience. I know this has been a rough last several days.

Myka: That’s it? I’m free to go?

SI Eliot: Yep. I can arrange a car to transport you back to your home, if you need.

Myka: No, I...

SI Eliot: You what?

Myka: How long will I last out there before you find something to charge me with?

SI Eliot: Miss Tennison, if we wanted to arrest you, we would just do it. We wouldn’t have to come up with some new charge.

Myka: Wouldn’t you? Every law I’ve broken for this operation must be kept as a state secret. They can’t be listed in the records, so there’s nothing you can do right now.

SI Eliot: Even if that were true, you’re assuming that we have any interest in arresting you in the first place, which we don’t.

Myka: Forgive me if I’m having trouble believing that you’ll truly let me go with the knowledge that I have regarding the aliens. Guys like you don’t like leaving loose ends, and right now, I’m feelin’ pretty loose.

SI Eliot: You mean you intend to tell others what you know?

Myka: No, that’s not what I mean, but I’m worried that that is what you’re thinking, and you’re just not telling me about it, because you want me to feel comfortable.

SI Eliot: Again, we wouldn’t need to set you free if we wanted to stop you. I can think of six laws and policies off the top of my head that would give us more than enough reason to stuff you down a dark hole for the rest of your life. Letting you go back home in the hopes that you jaywalk, or accidentally open someone else’s mail, is a lot more work than is anywhere near necessary. The government is a lazy entity. That’s why we have buzzwords like rendition and national security, so everything falls into some sort of legal category that allows us to do whatever we want. So trust me when I say, you’re safe.

Myka: Well...I’ll believe it when I see it, which I guess may not happen until I’m on my deathbed for natural causes. Until then, I suppose I will take my leave.

SI Eliot: However...

Myka: Here it comes.

SI Eliot: If you would be willing to stay on with us in a more official capacity, we would be willing to discuss terms.

Myka: Are you trying to offer me a job?

SI Eliot: It’s like you said, you know about the aliens, and I’m not just talking about those wingèd insects downstairs. Your relationship with the human from another universe could prove invaluable.

Myka: I’m not going to be spying on Leonard for you.

SI Eliot: I’m not asking you to. I’ve had multiple similar conversations with him in regards to a job here. He has law enforcement experience, which you don’t, so I couldn’t promise you would be out in the field, but I’m sure we could find a place for you here.

Myka: Hmm... I’m not sure. I’ll need to think about it.

SI Eliot: I would be worried if you didn’t.

Microstory 1929: Surrender Leonard

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Generated by Canva text-to-image AI software

Leonard: Hello. Can I help you?

Freeman 11: You need to get out of here.

Leonard: I’m sorry? Do I know you?

Freeman 11: I’m a friend of Agent Parsons. He gave me a message. Well, he didn’t give it to me. He gave it to his couple bond partner, who gave it to who knows how many of her freewomen, who passed it along to Freeman 8, who passed it to me. We had to do that because Parson and his closest associates are being watched, or may be being watched. I’m nobody though, so nobody’s expecting me to do anything important.

Leonard: That’s what makes you important. It’s good to be able to fly under the radar.

Freeman 11: *smiles*

Leonard: And the message is that I need to leave?

Freeman 11: You need to sneak out. They’re coming for you.

Leonard: Who’s coming for me, and why?

Freeman 11: They didn’t tell me much about that, probably because the secrets can’t be trusted going all over town like it did. But basically the government wants to lock you up so you’ll help...get information out of someone? You’re supposed to gain their trust, and they think you won’t be able to do that from the outside.

Leonard: *nods* I know who you’re talking about. Sneaky little devils. We had a plan, but it seems they’ve come up with a new one.

Freeman 11: I can help you. Freeman 24 is waiting in the car. We brought you in. We can get you back out.

Leonard: That won’t be necessary. I’m going to let them take me.

Freeman 11: Forgive me, but I don’t understand.

Leonard: You wouldn’t. There’s too much you’ve not been told about the situation, and bringing you up to speed would not only take too much time, when you really ought to leave this hotel as soon as possible, but it also places you in just as much danger as I am. If I try to escape, they’ll find me, and it will be worse. If they’re doing what I think they’re doing—and it’s not the worst strategy I’ve ever encountered—then all I can do is play along.

Freeman 11: I dunno man. There are certain branches of government that you can trust. Social Counseling is one of them. The rest are animals.

Leonard: I appreciate your position. I’m not trusting them. I’m just surrendering. Again, if you knew more, it would make sense. Besides, the whole reason you’re here is because Agent Parsons can’t talk to me himself without getting caught, right? Well, I imagine the circle that knows about this is pretty tight. They’ll figure out if I react this way. It was a nice gesture, but it would never work. Now go on. It’s not safe here.

Freeman 11: All right. Call me if you change your mind. Freeman 24 and I will be waiting down the block. Here’s my card.

Leonard: I’ve memorized the number, but I won’t take the card. Best not keep records of our dealings.

Freeman 11: I get it. You’re smart. Have you ever thought of doing crime? *smirks*

Leonard: Thanks, Freeman 11.