The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 3, 2577

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It had been an entire year. Just because this whole area had been destroyed by some kind of bomb, didn’t mean that Olimpia’s brother, Delphinus or Leida were here when it was dropped. She had to keep believing that they were both still alive somewhere because she didn’t think the Miridir Galaxy qualified for the afterlife simulation. It was just too far away, and she felt like she would have received some confirmation about it one way or another by this point.

Olimpia needed answers, so she walked up the ridge a bit and placed herself in front of the forward viewports on the Vellani Ambassador, waving her arms over her head to get their attention. She couldn’t see anyone on the bridge, and it didn’t seem like they were seeing her either. She triple tapped on the comms device implanted behind her ear.

“Global broadcast,” came the voice prompt. “Tap once to cancel... tap twice to begin broadcasting.”

She tapped twice. “This is Olimpia Sangster, broadcasting to all friendlies on Desulforudis, or otherwise within range. Is anyone reading me? Is anyone on our network?” She waited for a response that never came. “This is Olimpia Sangster. I’m marooned on Desulforidus. Can anyone hear me?” She kept broadcasting for the next few minutes, repeating variations of the same plea. She was going to record the message so it would play automatically, but if anyone were there, they would have responded by now. If anyone was going to show up, say, tomorrow, she would no longer be here, and neither would her comms disc.

Olimpia took a breath and looked back up at the ship. “I sure hope you don’t have any anti-teleportation fields up, or whatever.” She shut her eyes and teleported away. When she opened them, she found herself safe and sound on the VA’s bridge. She looked around; no sign of a struggle, but as empty as it appeared from the ground. “Mirage, are you there? Or Thistle, or anyone? Can anyone hear me?”

No response.

“No crew, no AI, no nothin’.” Olimpia went over to the nearest terminal and started trying to find some answers. She was locked out of a lot. She was not a member of the crew, so she didn’t have any of the authorization codes. Surprisingly, however, she did have access to all transit systems, including propulsion, maneuvering, and all three FTL drives. That didn’t make much sense. If you were trying to protect yourself against an intruder, sure, you lock them out of information, but you also shouldn’t let them steal it.

Olimpia sighed again. What she needed was help, and it didn’t look like she was going to find it here. The planet felt quieter than it did yesterday, even though she never actually saw any locals before. She could be the last person alive. It was becoming abundantly clear that the petering war had found a resurgence, and it was probably due to her shutting off the communications jammer in that artificial mountain.

If the crew of this ship was in trouble, she wasn’t going to be able to help here alone. This might be a mistake, but she had to take the risk. Olimpia set the coordinates, fired up the slingdrive, and sent herself back home to Ramosus.

She teleported out of the ship, onto the ground, then off of the ground, and into their common area. She tapped on her comms disc again. “This is Olimpia, I’m back. Is anyone here?”  She waited for a response, shaking her head at the silence. “Come on!” Olimpia checked the logs here. The team’s last away mission was on one of the stellar neighborhood colonies, but they went out on September 30, and returned the next day. They didn’t leave again after that, or if they did, they didn’t go through the bulk.

Olimpia spent the next few hours scouring the planet. She sent messages, threw up flares, and literally looked around. Nothing was missing, nothing was awry, except she was entirely alone, just as she was on Desulforidis. Everyone she cared about was gone now, and she was supposed to believe that was a coincidence? They were millions of light years away, which pointed to a deliberate attack...by a formidable enemy. She could only think of a few who were powerful enough. Others would probably want to, but couldn’t pull it off. Then again, maybe they had found the power.

It still didn’t make much sense. Olimpia may have been separated from her friends, but she was still a part of the group. They were all on the same pattern. Why come after everyone, including those who weren’t on the pattern, but leave her alone? She sat down on the edge of her bed and stared at the wall. They had friends on Castlebourne too, but that was a long ways away, and without a slingdrive array, she wouldn’t be able to return, with help, or without. For now, she had to maintain a presence on Ramosus, because this was the most likely place any of them would show back up, but that didn’t mean she was hopeless. She would just have to take another risk.

The whole reason Ramses started working on a bulk map of the universe was to find a particular party. That didn’t quite work out, and they pivoted their priorities away from it, but Olimpia was desperate. And the map? The map was still tracking their frenemies, as far as Ramses said he could tell. They were trying to leave them alone, but they would have answers, and the means to transport themselves here. It was a pretty long shot that they would, though. She still didn’t understand their motivations.

Olimpia went back out to Ramses’ main lab and did her best to secure the facilities. Unlike on the Ambassador, she did have authorization to access most systems, but she didn’t really know how to work them. She locked out everything she could, placing them behind firewalls only someone on Team Matic would be able to get through, or also maybe someone really clever, armed with advanced tech. Then she opened the bulk map and found the right dot. It was somewhere in the Goldilocks Corridor where the Exin Empire was in the middle of slowly crumbling to dust. Even if these people responded to her, it could take weeks, which for her was one day. Still, she had no choice, so she shot off her message, and went over to a chair to wait it out.

A half hour later, a proximity alert started pinging from the terminal. Olimpia teleported a few meters over to it. A ship was in orbit that was not in Ramses’ database. It wasn’t what Olimpia was expecting, but they were trying to call her. Olimpia composed herself and prepared for the worst. Then she opened up a channel. “This is Olimpia Sangster of the free world, Ramosus. Who am I speaking to?”

“This is Franka Matic of Spiral Station. We received your message.”

“If I let you transport down, what are your intentions? Good or evil?” Olimpia turned her head from the mic and stifled a laugh. Was she serious with that question?

Franka suddenly appeared in the room in front of Olimpia. “Contrary to what you might believe, I love Mateo and Leona. They’re not really my parents, but I still feel a kinship. If they’re in trouble, I want to help. So tell me what you know, I’ll audit your systems, and we’ll figure this out. You can trust me, Madam Sangster.”

Olimpia frowned. “I’m not letting you into anything, especially not after you broke through our defense just to get here. I want some protection, so leave this place, and come back with someone I actually trust. Bring me your uncle.”

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Microstory 1788: Vulpeculiar

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I never wanted to get into gambling. My family has a history of gambling addiction, and I knew that I didn’t want to even look down that path, so I never put myself in that position. Unfortunately, gambling found me anyway, and I fell into it hard. Maybe if I hadn’t been so afraid of it, I could have learned restraint, but there’s no way to know now. I’m madly in love with it, and every time I lose, it only makes me want more, because there’s always a chance of turning things around. I’m actually not half-bad, now that I know the rules of my favorite games. I’ve come up with a system, and I know everyone says that, but most of the people who say it are thousands—or even hundreds of thousands—of dollars in debt, whereas I always keep myself in the black. I have a special savings account of money that I don’t touch. It doesn’t matter how close I get to losing everything else, that money is for food and shelter, and I’ve held firm on that. That doesn’t mean my life has been safe and happy. I’ve certainly had some problems, especially with sore losers who think that they’re entitled to live their own lives free from consequences. It’s hard to disabuse them of the idea that they won when they’re holding the scary end of a gun against my temple. I’ve recently become immersed in the shadier side of gambling, to which the authorities either turn a blind eye, or can’t even find. I’ve just been going deeper and deeper, playing games with higher and higher stakes. I’ve recently discovered the most mysterious and unusual game of them all. Bottom of the rabbit hole, I call it. The people who play it, though...they call it Vulpeculiar.

There’s a family game I remember playing as a kid called Catch Phrase. I don’t remember the rules, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s just the game disc for Vulpeculiar that reminds me of it. Only 121 people can play in the world, and the only time someone new can join is if someone quits while they’re in the black. This is hard to do, because if you’re in the red, you can’t choose to play. Only someone else can select you as an opponent. It’s a game of chance. You choose who you want to play against, and how much to bet. Then you squeeze the button. You either win, or you lose, and the only strategy is to decide to quit while you’re ahead. When you lose—and you will lose—if you can’t pay with money or collateral, you pay with your soul. You’ll be sucked into the disc, where you’re conscious, and totally at the mercy of the corporeal players. They can give you a chance to win back your freedom, or they can ignore your slot, and play against someone else. The guy who got me into this mess is probably best described as my frenemy. I guess he figured it would be easy to convince me to help him cheat. It’s a two-man job. If I hold the disc, and he squeezes the button, the game is confused about who the player is. If he loses, the round will be disqualified, and nothing will happen. But if he wins, it will pay out into our supposed joint account. Of course, he betrayed me, and never gave me access to those funds, so I’ve decided to screw him over too. I let go of the disc at the very last second, dooming him to losing after betting the sum of every player’s debt against the “dealer”, which he could never hope to pay. He’s sucked into the disc, and I realize I’m the last corporeal player left. It has to end here. The game is evil, and I’m the only one who can stop it. I bet the pot too. It’s over a billion dollars, so I assume that I’ll be sucked in, and leave no slots open for new players. I was wrong. Not only do I win, but the other 120 slots suddenly open up. I think I just killed everyone.

Microstory 1669: Of Kindness and Cruelty

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For every Hypostate in Adverse, there was an opposing force called an Apostate. These postates—to use an unauthorized collective term—could be anyone. It was never really clear whether someone was born this way, or became so over time. Some were humans, others were demons, and a few were original Maramon. There were twenty-three of each, plus the primaries, and they represented the virtues and sins that could be found in anyone and everyone. There are two of these special people that I want to talk to you about today. The virtuous one was named Kindness. Of course, that wasn’t his original name, but once he learned what he was, and what role he played in the fight against evil, he started going by it. It was kind of expected of him, and since he was so kind, he didn’t try to stop it. Kindness was a gentle human being, who genuinely cared about people, both on a personal level, and in a general global sense. You wouldn’t know it just by looking at him, though, and maybe not even after an interaction with him. He was tall, muscular, tan; all the generic traits of a dude-bro. He liked to work out, but he did it for all the right reasons, and he didn’t look down on those who didn’t do it at all. He was tan mostly because it was his natural skin color, but also because he spent a lot of time outside, and sunscreen can only do so much. He didn’t treat people unkindly, and he never felt awkward, but he wasn’t the most outgoing individual, and people wouldn’t have ever called him fun. Remember that kindness was his virtue, not friendliness. Friendliness is someone else. Those are two distinct characteristics, and while there’s often a lot of overlap, it’s not technically necessary, especially not for a hypostate, whose every trait is exaggerated, and whose mind is usually hyperfocused towards a goal.

Kindness grew up with a boy who would come to be known as Cruelty. Cruelty was exactly as you think he would be. He was a man, still—not a demon—but he shared the demons’ compulsion for wickedness. He was clever, always making sure the chaos he caused couldn’t be directly linked to him. People didn’t know that he was essentially a manifestation of evil, but they didn’t think he was a swell guy either. They generally didn’t want to be around him. However smart or careful an apostate is, they have a hard time completely masking their sick and twisted ways. His true nature was no more apparent than when the two of them were together. Everyone believed them to be friends, and most couldn’t understand why, since they were so clearly incompatible. This was a misunderstanding that neither of them refuted. Kindness was too kind to get angry at people about it, and Cruelty enjoyed how much it bothered Kindness. They just kept running into each other throughout their lives, no matter how much Kindness tried to get away. It wasn’t a constant pairing, but the relief was never very long. They were roommates in college, co-workers at their respective second jobs, and ended up moving to the same street several years later. Cruelty claimed it was an honest coincidence, but I think we all know how unlikely that is. Kindness and Cruelty weren’t the only two postates to have known each other before The Rapture, but they were the only opposing forces to know each other, and they were the only ones to know each other so well. They obviously didn’t get along, though. Cruelty would get tired of Kindness’ incessant need to make sure everyone around him was safe and cared for. It was sometimes even enough to keep him from torturing his frenemy. They never fought each other when they were alive, but they were directly at odds once both of them died. It was up to a small group of heroes to find all the hypostates, and defeat all the apostates. They were scattered throughout the three realms, including heaven where Kindness was found, and hell, where Cruelty was unsurprisingly sent to.

Microstory 1020: Ruth

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My time is very valuable, so I hope we can keep this interview short and efficient. A little bit of background. For the record, my name is Ruth. I’m class secretary, and hope to one day become a real secretary. Not as in, assistant, but a cabinet member. That may sound like too lofty a goal for a small town girl born to a middle class family, but I know what I’m doing, and I’m right on track. I have high aspirations for my life, and I don’t need this scandal getting in the way of that. For the record, I had nothing to do with what happened by the river that day, and was not at all involved in Viola’s death. For the most part, she was a diplomatic person. She loved to be loved, and she was willing to change her entire personality to fit in with whoever she happened to be around at the time. My God, I’m so sorry. Whomever. Get it together, Ruth. Anyway, my point is that I may have been the only person in the whole town that she didn’t like. We were quite similar—she and I—except that I have more trouble connecting with people, since I’m so mindful of order. We weren’t friends, but we were very close. This is our story. She was a lot more fun and relaxed, and people liked being around her, but I too care about the people around me, which is why I want to serve my country. We competed in everything, from grades, to sports, to the position of class president. We both lost out to that ineffectual, feckless cad, Riley, because he promised the school he would put brawndo in the water fountains. It’s not a real drink! Even he meant it as a joke! Whew, sorry about that. Calm and centered, you are worth it, Ruth. Well, no one ran for class secretary, so our apathetic principal decided to let Viola and I fight for the position once Riley took the top spot. She would have told you that she gave it to me to be nice, but I negotiated my way into it. She didn’t realize what she had really lost until later, so she’s never forgiven me for it. Our rivalry would have gone beyond the walls of this school had she survived through graduation. On a personal level, I am most upset with her murderer for taking that motivation away. Her tailgating me pushed me to be my best, and drove me to reach my goals. Oh dear, was that a terrible thing to say? Of course her death is sad on its own, and requires no selfish feeling of loss, or particular qualification. For the record, I did not dislike her as she me. I felt nothing but admiration for her. While she lacked the discipline to realize her own potential, I lack the social grace that she possessed in spades. The truth is that I miss her as much as anybody else, even though we were frenemies. I can only hope that she carried even half the amount of respect for me as I do her.