Microstory 2690: Forbidden Science

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Ronan Truett sits on the exam table, wearing what he calls a gasmask, but the doctor called it something else. It is quite literally freezing cold on his face, but he doesn’t mind it. It isn’t going to be the hardest thing he will ever do over the course of the next few decades. After the twenty minutes are up, the doctor comes back and removes it. “How does it look?” he asks.

“Good. How does it feel?” the doctor volleys.

Ronan rubs the new beard on his chin. “Like a thousand tiny cuts.”

The doctor dismisses it with his facial expression. “That’ll go away in a few minutes. Would you like me to hot press and discolor it? I can make it unkempt and wild, so you look more rough and tumble.”

“Actually, historical Norsemen were quite well-groomed. A long and well-styled beard was the sign of a masculine and respectable man back then. Pay no attention to the inaccurate old movies you may have seen. They didn’t wear horned helmets either, if that’s what you’re picturing.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about it.”

“It’s not in your internal database? Can you access the central archives remotely?” Ronan presses.

The doctor chuckles. “My brain doesn’t do that. I’m not an android, but one of those virtually immortal organics. I change substrates when I need to, like you, but I don’t have cybernetic connections.”

Ronan is surprised and impressed.

The doctor seems to sense this. “I just like medicine, so they let me do the simpler procedures, like your hair follicle stimulation. I wouldn’t be allowed to conduct any major surgeries. Castlebourne follows the same laws that Earth does in that regard.”

“I see,” Ronan says as he’s admiring his new appearance in the mirror. He’s never been one for facial hair, but he’s about to become a Norseman, so he wanted to look the part, and really immerse himself in the simulation. He’s not the only one. “So that’s why you’re not doing the foetal consciousness transfer for my wife.”

This gives the doctor pause. “I’m sorry? Foetal?”

“Oh, she’s not going to transfer herself to a foetus. She’s going to carry the foetus, and have the baby in the simulation.”

The doctor is still confused by this, and also now speechless.

“I assure you, it’s perfectly legal. We’re well within the Charter Cloud—”

“I’m aware of how the law works on this planet, Mister Truett. I’ve probably lived here longer than you. I know that foetal transference is possible, and I’m not surprised it’s legal. I’m surprised anyone would actually ever do it. There’s a reason it is illegal in the Core Worlds. We don’t know what it would do to a person, regressing to a prenatal state, or even early developmental, with all that neuroplasticity. What impact does that have on a person’s psyche, when their brains rewire themselves so drastically? Can you even have a continuity of consciousness when you let that happen? Is it not just an elaborate form of death? Suicide, that is?”

“Well, we’ll see,” Ronan says as he’s putting his shirt back on. He needed a little chest hair too. That is designed to take longer, which is fine. “My friend has fully consented to it.”

“He’s your friend?” the doctor questions. “I’m not sure if it’s weirder that he’s not your wife’s biological son already, or if it would be more awkward if he were.”

“Pretty judgy for a medical professional. A bot doctor would never say that.”

He shrugs. “You could have designed a substrate to develop facial and body hair during the gestation process, but you chose to come to me. Most people like my blunt attitude, specifically because they can’t get it from a bot doctor, unless it’s their personal model. But you’re right, I’ll zip my mouth. There’s the door, have a good immersion.”

Ronan leaves the exam room, and heads down to the other floor where his wife and friend are sitting up next to each other in their respective gurneys.

“Oh, you look great,” Mayumi reaches up towards his face with a dumb look on her own. “Fluffy.” She actually looks and sounds intoxicated. Her gown is on backwards.

“She’s on drugs for the implantation procedure,” their friend and future son, Talus explains. “I am not. I have to be sharp before I become a baby again.”

Mayumi smiles over at Talus. “You’re gonna love my uterus. We play hip-hop on Tuesdays.”

“Not anymore, we don’t,” Ronan points out. “It’s all lyres and flutes for us for the next thirty years. We’ll play the lyre for you while you’re baking in there, son.”

“You don’t know how.”

“I’ll have plenty of time to learn.”

“When you’re not off a-viking,” Talus reminds him.

“Maybe even then.” Ronan cracks his knuckles. “I’m sure I could break heads and carry a tune at the same time.”

“I don’t think I have a head anymore,” Mayumi says.

A new doctor walks in—a proper bot this time. He hands Talus a tablet. “Okay, the mother has already finished her consent forms, but here’s the last one for you, Mister Sauter. This one personally absolves Hrockas Steward from any liability in the event that the results of this procedure render you neurologically damaged, physically defective in your new substrate, or philosophically deceased and replaced. It is the same waiver you signed before, but the owner wanted you to sign a separate one for him.”

“Sounds good to me,” Talus agrees. He signs without hesitating. He has thought about this for a very long time. They did not do this on a whim.

Ronan must admit, this is a crazy idea, and yes, there is a reason it has never been done before. What comes out of Mayumi nine months from now may not be Talus at all. It may be an entirely different person; new memories, new personality, new everything. It could mean that this Talus right here is dead. He deliberately didn’t make a copy of his mind as backup, since that wouldn’t really be him either, since it would already have been outdated by hours at best. This might very well mark the end of Talus Sauter, and they won’t really have an idea for another ten years maybe? But it’s what he wants, it’s what Mayumi wants, and while his opinion doesn’t technically matter here, it’s what Ronan wants too. He is going to raise his best friend in a simulation of Scandinavia in the first millennium, and he couldn’t be more excited. He kisses them both, then leaves for the waiting room so they can move forward.

An hour later, Mayumi wheels out alone. She smiles at him. “Great news, husband. I am no longer light.”

“Okay,” Ronan says, clapping his hands. “Let’s go to Danmörk.”

Microstory 2689: Full Circle

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Resi is back on the beach. He doesn’t know if he’s truly going to end up on Castlebourne at some point, or if his vision is pointing him to some other direction. The futures he sees can clearly be changed, or he wouldn’t be lounging here right now. This whole area would be covered in ash and lava. He just wants to relax and be happy. He hasn’t been able to do that for a very long time, and when you think about it, maybe not ever. When he exiled himself to the border, he was indeed lounging all day, but he was also always really tense. Now he doesn’t have to think about anything, or worry about what’s gonna happen. It’s just him, the sand, the sun, and the sea. This is a nude beach, making it all the more freeing. He feels a presence, so he opens his eyes.

The sun is at her back, so he can’t see who it is at first. “Back on Earth, when I was a kid, we called people like you slackers!” she yells, joking. He knew her voice. It was Brooke Prieto. She taught him how to see the future. That was a hundred years ago.

“I’ve earned a vacation,” he tells her, dropping the shades back over his eyes.

“I can’t disagree.” She sits down on the sand next to him. She looks ridiculous in her spaceman outfit. The opposite of a relaxed vibe, and it can’t be comfortable.

“A bit overdressed?” he muses.

“I can change,” she replies as they’re looking out over the water.

He hears a noise. When he looks back at her, she’s suddenly in a pink bikini. “Neat trick. Still overdressed, though.” He can be funny too.

She laughs.

“How has your life been?” he asks. “A hundred years is quite a long time.”

“Has it been that long?” Brooke questions. “Wow, the decades just fly by. You’ll see when you’re older. Speaking of which, are you considering getting all of your memories back? I don’t know if you’re worried about no longer being Resi anymore, but you shouldn’t be. You won’t stop being you. You’ll just be...more you.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty happy with who I am right now. I finally feel like I am finally who I’m meant to be. Now, God forbid, if another volcano erupts, and I see it in my dreams, I won’t write it off or freak out. I’ll be more confident. I won’t necessarily know what to do right away, but I’ll manage to work through it. Hopefully it won’t kill me again.” He nudges her shoulder with his own.

She nods, but not understandingly, more just patiently. She continues to watch the waves crash onto the shore. “I had a friend a long time ago who you remind me of. Belahkay. Ludicrous name. He was easygoing at heart, but not a waste of space. His people were facing a dangerous task, and none of us could do it for him. It had to be a regular human, and he could have genuinely died from it. This was actually here on Bungula...very early days. The earliest.” She takes a breath. “It was when we were terraforming it. He was very brave, and he survived. He was the first true Bungulan, if you use the right definition. We went on some adventures together; ended up thrown clear across the galaxy, where we were forced to destroy a planet for some not-so-great people. He always wanted to do the right thing, though. I’ve not seen him in a long time. He had to volunteer for another mission, and he had to do it alone. And we let him, because we had other things to work on at the same time.

When we went back for him, he couldn’t remember us anymore. He had become someone else, and didn’t wanna leave. So we tried to move on. But. Then he called. Out of the blue. I mean, it wasn’t him, but word got back to me that he needed our help. He still couldn’t remember me, mind you, but he was still the same person, deep down. So I flew back to his planet, and helped him through some stuff. And wouldn’t you know it? I lost him again. He made the ultimate sacrifice. Again. I thought he was gone forever, but then I get another call, and I’m told that his consciousness was being stored on an off-site server that people just forgot about. The laws on this planet, they’re tricky. We weren’t allowed to just plug him back in. We figured it out, though. Unfortunately, he still couldn’t remember me, except for the short window where I helped him understand how to see the future. That was new. He couldn’t ever do that before. I think he was exposed to temporal energy, or something, and...it changed him.”

Resi is no idiot. He knows who she’s talking about, but now he can’t bring himself to look over at her. He just keeps watching the water.

She has one more thing to try. “You may not want him back. But I need him. Resi, I need my friend. It’s been centuries, and I don’t care how old we end up getting, that kind of time apart will always be excruciating.”

He breathes, and finally works up the courage to look over at her again. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

Microstory 2688: Go A-Viking

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Kala gave him some good advice. He hadn’t realized how tired he was, so he followed her directions to a suite they had set up for him. It was super nice and luxurious, reminding him of the hotel where he stayed on Anchor Island. He took a quick shower, and then crawled into bed.

He dreams of being on a boat, but it’s unlike anything he’s ever seen before. It’s wooden, like the canoes and fishing boats that the Tamborans would use, but it’s big, more like the kind the Bungulans had. He’s dressed in alien layered clothing on the deck, looking out over the ocean. He can’t see a single hint of land anywhere. Nothing really happens, but he’s not alone. He’s experiencing the voyage with others, most of whom he does not recognize. Caprice is there, though he is much younger than she was before. Either this is a memory of her past, or a vision of the future, and she has chosen to inhabit a younger version of herself. The second one actually makes the most sense.

He wakes up feeling refreshed, but confused, and trying to make sense of what he saw. Being on the sea obviously wasn’t too weird, but the clothes they were wearing, and the tone of the scene—people’s facial expressions—even the color of the sky...none of it looked right to him. He couldn’t even tell if they were happy to be there.

He finds Caprice eating dinner alone in the common area when he exits his room. They’re evidently sharing the space. She tried to be here for him in time for the eruption, but got caught up with something on the other side of the island. She appears as young as she did in the dream, and he’s never seen her this way before, which strongly suggests that it really is something from his future. The mountain is no longer a problem, so his mind has jumped to the next one. “What do you think?” he asks her. “Does that sound like something you would do, or even have done?”

“I think, since I’ve known you, I’ve learned to trust what you see, and what you say. If you think we’ll be on a big boat together, sailing on rough waters, I believe you. I have never been on a boat like that before, but I have heard of it. I have to say, I hope it doesn’t mean that we’ll be traveling through time.”

“Why would that even be a possibility?” Resi asks, puzzled.

“What you’re describing is a viking boat, and viking clothing. And the sky you saw? It sounds more like the one on Earth. The sky there isn’t quite as icy blue as it is on Bungula? I’ve seen pictures. Here, I can pull it up for you.” She reaches for her device.

“I believe you. I can’t imagine we would ever go to Earth, let alone the past.”

Caprice tilts her head in thought. “There’s another option.”

“What would that be?”

“Well, have you heard of Castlebourne? It’s tens of light years away.”

“Yeah, that’s the one where it’s just a bunch of amusement parks, right?”

“It’s a lot more than that. I think I might be able to pull up the prospectus from this. They give out all that information because they want visitors.” She taps on her device a little. “Yeah, I searched for vikings, and here it is; the Nordome Network. Live like a Northman in the first millennium. Sail the seas, take the lands, and try to keep them! In this highly immersive simulation, no electricity is allowed. It is not something you visit, but something you live. Are you ready to go a-viking? Tap here to begin your journey, and see what you’re made of. Hmm. It actually sounds like fun.”

It sounds like a nightmare.

Microstory 2652: A Wing and a Prayer

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Malika Turnbull follows her friend’s instructions, not knowing if it’s going to work. Truthfully, she hates mythology, but Mandica needs her, and she’s willing to stomach it for as long as she must. Hopefully Plan A will work, and it won’t be too terribly long. She’s standing at the maintenance entrance, still in the plaza, not even too far from the reception. The door is locked, which they figured would be the case since it’s a secure area. She locates the nearest camera, and holds a photo of Mandica up to it. This really probably won’t work. Daedalus would have to be monitoring it, or have some sort of alert system connected to it. Why would he even do that? He’s supposed to be an NPC. He’s not supposed to have any access to the outside world, or the inner workings of any dome. There’s just no way—the door swings open on its own. “Oh. Okay, then.”

She goes through the passageway then lifts the trapdoor, and ends up in the meadow that Mandica described. Oh, she almost forgot. She detaches the pole from her back, extends it to the right length, and jams it into the stone wall to prevent the hidden secondary door from trapping her here. As a visitor, she would have every right to leave, but that would be a whole thing. Hopefully this guy doesn’t take long.

Several hours later, a man wearing brown and gray wings swoops down from the sky holding a torch. He jams it into the ground, and smiles cautiously. “I’m Daedalus. What fate has befallen Mandica Kolar of Tribe Kolar?” Would Daedalus say that?

“She’s fine. She just can’t leave where she is, so she sent me in her stead.”

“Did she find the woman for whom she was looking?” he asks.

“Yes, but Morgana is powerful, and angry with Mandica, for no apparent reason. Mandica is calling in the favor that you owe her.” The original script had her qualify that with expressing the hope that the favor still stands, but Malika suggested that she hold firm so it doesn’t become an argument. Mandica accepted the attitude, because after all, she’s not the one who has to be here with these creatures, wherever they might be lurking. “She is asking you to engineer a pair of wings for her. She requests raven black.”

“Hmm,” Daedalus says. “What is your name, child?”

“Don’t call me that. I’m probably older than you. My name is Malika Turnbull.”

“Fascinating. Are you two related?” he asks offensively.

“Oh, because we’re both black, we must be related.”

“Your names, dear traveler. They’re similar. That is all I meant.”

“Oh.” Malika shrugs. “People have similar names. It happens.”

“I wouldn’t know.” There are other people named Daedalus out there, Malika is sure of it, but she wouldn’t expect the bot version of the original to understand that.

“So. How about those wings?” she presses.

“I will not have to build something new for her. If it is raven black she is after, then it is raven black she shall have. I have a new line of wings back in my shop that I think she’s really gonna love. More compact than ever, more advanced in every way. They exist in your world, but they are quite rare. I had to sacrifice a lot to persuade—”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t need your life story.” Yikes.

“Very well, my new blue friend. Back or front?”

“Huh?”

“Would you like me to carry you, or let you ride on my back?”

“Neither. I will stay here and wait for your return.”

He shakes his head. “This area is unsafe. Spriggans lurk in these woods. You have been lucky so far. Had I known that you would be coming, I would have been waiting for you. Please, you must come with me. You may be immortal, but I do not want to return to this spot to find your dead body, and have to wait for your replacement.”

She refrains from arguing that it was she who had to wait for him before. Instead, she lets him pick her up by her underarms, and fly her over the lands. “This is some bullshit,” she complains on the way. She doesn’t like being controlled by other people.

They land on the top of his tower in the center of a great city. Crowds of people are cheering for him, and seemingly praying. He waves at them respectfully, and blows them kisses, but does not stay long before escorting Malika inside. “This is my flight lab,” he says when they enter the room. “I have others, but I’m obviously fond of wings.”

 “Right.” Again, Malika is not into this sort of stuff, but she is an educated woman. She knows enough about the stories to know that Daedalus didn’t just keep building wings, and become the emperor of the world, or whatever he is here. Mandica said that the mythology has evolved on its own with all these unrelated characters being forced together, but it’s surreal seeing it up close. She still doesn’t wanna stick around.

“Ah, right here,” Daedalus says as he’s walking a dress form mannequin more towards the center of the room. He smiles proudly, which is odd, because there’s nothing on the mannequin. He reaches behind it, and presumably flips some switch. Nanites emerge from the back, and form themselves into wings. They are raven black, as requested. “What do you think? I have other corvids, but this one was specifically inspired by the raven. There are other black ones too, though they’re more metallic.”

“I think she will love these,” Malika has no choice but to admit.

“Do you want to try them out first?” he asks, still standing tall and proud.

“Oh, no. They’re not for me.” Malika walks around to get a better look at the backside, and the housing unit. “Besides, what would I be testing? She didn’t specify what she’s looking for. She didn’t know they could collapse like this. As long as they work, she will accept them. I presume you don’t have a return policy.”

“For her, I absolutely do,” Daedalus says. “But you really should try them. If not, I have other models, perhaps in blue? This might be your last chance.”

“Okay, fine.” She’s a guest here, right? She doesn’t want to be rude. She only gave up being a superhero in Underbelly because her substrate was destroyed. She still likes to have fun. The blue wings are not quite the same shade of blue as her character, but perhaps that’s a good thing. Blue Umbra is dead, and unlike Ravensgate Rescuer, she’s never coming back to life. She lets him help her put the apparatus on, and take her out to the edge of the building. If he’s trying to kill her, he’ll fail. Her mind will just stream over to her nearest backup. She leaps from the building, activates propulsion, and begins to soar through the air. It’s a magnificent feeling. She was obviously just flying, but it’s better to be in control. She spends an hour up there, feeling the wind in her face, and enjoying life for the first time in a long time. She lands back on the roof with a huge smile. “Thank you for letting me have that experience.”

“It doesn’t have to end,” he says. “You can keep them.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why not? No one here can appreciate them like a real-worlder can.”

“Well, thank you,” She’s not gonna argue. “Do you have one in red and black?”

Microstory 2454: Elizabeth Victoria

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If you’re looking for something anachronistic and weird, you’ve come to the right place. The Elizabethan Era ran from 1558 to 1603, during Queen Elizabeth’s reign. The Victorian Era started in 1837 and ended in 1901. They are both iconic periods in Great Britain’s history, but vastly different as they were separated by more than 200 years. The technology here is hard to get a grasp of. Not only are we dealing with stuff that they were using nearly a millennium ago, but they’re juxtaposed by each other. When you walk into a building, you never know if it’s going to be lit by gas lamps, or incandescent bulbs. It could be both! Which, I mean, it’s not like they destroyed all the gas lamps when they invented electricity, did they, innit? People walk around in all sorts of different clothes. They all looked alien to me, but I could tell that some of them were really old, and some were really, really old. The architecture is a mix, of course, with wooden cottages and natural stone buildings right next to giant even-stoned factories. Again, I’m sure a lot of the old stuff still existed in the new era, but the way they have it organized so randomly, it seems very forced and intentional. I’m not sure if I was supposed to learn something here, but it was fun to spend an afternoon getting a look around. I don’t think I would want to spend a lot of time there, though. I don’t much care either way, but I went with a historian friend, and they didn’t like it. They would prefer a historical dome to be accurate. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like they were shocked and appalled. The design was very clear in the prospectus, and you know they read that whole damn thing, because I waited for them to finish it while we were sitting in the vactrain station. They told us that it was intentionally incongruent, and in that goal, they delivered. That’s all you can ask sometimes, innit? (Hey, am I using that word right? I don’t even know.)

PS: Please read my friend’s review. They actually know all the historical and cultural stuff that kind of flew over my head anyway.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 22, 2504

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“Who here likes music?” They were back at the Matic house now, sitting on lawn chairs in the front yard. Pacey had convened them, evidently thinking it was funny that they tried to break out of the simulation by examining blades of grass. While they were waiting to listen to his spiel, Mateo was looking at the grass himself since he wasn’t around for that test before. “I’m prepared to offer you a new home in a new dome,” Pacey finally started to say. “It’s basically a city, though the residences are minimal. It’s all about music. All the greats are there. Do you wanna see a live show with Elvis Presely? We have that, as an android who looks, acts, and sounds exactly like him. I can get you front row tickets. You can always have front row tickets. Any show from any artist, past or present.”

“What is this?” Marie questioned. “What are you doing here? Are you seriously asking how we would like to live as prisoners?”

“I mean, would you rather I just decide for you?” Pacey asked. “Seems weirder.”

“I remember you,” Leona pointed out, “but I don’t. You were...on a ship.”

Pacey sighed. “You were prisoners on that ship. You broke free, broke into my lab, and tricked me into giving you my technology.”

Their memories weren’t all there yet, but the most relevant ones seemed to come up when they were most needed. If they once had an adventure involving a ball of rubber bands, seeing a rubber band ball here would probably bring it back to the surface. But for now, it mostly had to do with their time on Castlebourne, and now Leona and Marie’s brief stay on a ship commanded by that Angry Fifth Divisioner who could not give his vendetta against them a rest. “What are you talking about?” Leona asked. “I didn’t trick you into anything. Yeah, I went in there to steal it, but you gave it to me instead.”

“You said that you were going to use it to protect a population in another universe,” Pacey said.

“Yeah, and we did,” Ramses interjected. “The Ochivari can’t get in there anymore.”

“Fair enough,” Pacey accepted, “but I told you not to use it for anything else, yet you did, didn’t you? You created something called a slingdrive, and you even managed to develop it enough for miniaturization and interdimensional pocketing.”

Mateo stood. “You’re right, he did, which is why we should be able to leave whenever we want. Right, guys?”

Pacey rolled his eyes. “I obviously put a dampener in the dome. You ain’t goin’ nowhere. So sit back down!”

It seemed unlike Pacey to get all riled up and intense like this, so Mateo did as he was told.

Pacey continued, “I don’t want to hurt you, which is exactly what would have happened if I had tried to extract the technology from these bodies. I might have asked you to switch to new ones, but that wouldn’t have solved the problem of you having this technology. You would have rebuilt it.” He dismissed it immediately as soon as Ramses opened his mouth to argue. “Even if you promised not to. Something would come up, and you would have to break our agreement. You already did! I asked you to use it once, then you explored your options. You can’t be trusted, so I’m keeping you on this planet. That is not in question. Your only choice now is which dome you want to live in. Some are obviously off-limits, like The Bowl and The Terminal. I thought Underburg was the best idea, because it’s pleasant, and inoffensive, but I guess you didn’t like how nice it was. So I’ve come up with some other ones, which is why I ask, do you like music? Melodome is the Music City...the real one.”

“How do you have control over all of this?” Angela asked. “Where’s Hrockas, and the rest of the staff?”

“They’re on the real Castlebourne,” Pacey answered. “That’s all I’ll say. Even though I’m gonna erase your memories again once it’s time to wake you up in the new dome, I don’t want there to be any memory of you understanding where you are in the cosmos. I can’t delete memories, I can only cover them up. It’s an ethics thing. I actually follow rules, even if I’m the one who came up with them.”

“What are our other options?”

“Boyd,” Romana scolded.

“What?” Boyd asked her. “He has the power. I recognize power, I’m a pragmatist.”

Pacey smiled with only a slight bit of relief, knowing that this didn’t mean everyone was on board. “Well, you can also just live in the Palacium Hotel; have any suite you want, whenever you want it. I’m sure you’re aware of all the amenities, like the swimming pools, the game room, and the spa.”

“Boring!” Boyd complained.

“There’s also Tokyo 2077.”

“I’m not familiar with that one,” Olimpia noted.

“It’s what Tokyo looked like in the year 2077. Your lives would be as interesting as you want them to be. I can even implant the Japanese language in your brains, if you don’t already speak it.”

“I don’t like city environments,” Olimpia said. “What else you got?”

“You’re not seriously entertaining this idea?” Mateo asked her, shocked. “He’s the bad guy here. We can’t just roll over.”

“What choice do we have?” Boyd posed. “As I said, he has the power. Don’t antagonize the antagonist. Isn’t that one of your rules?”

“Technically, it’s mine,” Leona said. “And technically I agree.”

“Et tu Brute?” Mateo didn’t know where that phrase came from. He just hoped that he was using it right.

“Yesterday, we thought that we were hopeless because we were in a virtual simulation, where we couldn’t even trust our own minds.” Leona paused dramatically. “That doesn’t appear to be the case. So we are not hopeless. Put us in whatever dome you want,” she said to Pacey. “We’ll get out again.”

“You’re welcome to try, but you won’t remember any of this.”

“Go on with your options,” Ramses spat.

Pacey wasn’t perturbed. “Canopydome might be nice. It’s a rainforest, but there are nice places to stay.”

“What if we refuse to choose?” Mateo asked.

“Then I’ll choose for you, and you might not like it. And if you continue to piss me off, you might really not like it.”

“We can’t just let him control us,” Ramses argued. “We have to fight.”

“You’re changing your tune,” Romana pointed out.

“It’s not hopeless anymore,” Ramses explained. “We’re physical, I didn’t know that. I can’t tell you all what to do, but I will say that I’m not going to choose my own prison. I reject it on principle.”

“I have a nice place lined up for you,” Pacey said. “Maybe pack a coat or two.”

“Do your worst,” Ramses volleyed.

“He doesn’t speak for all of us,” Angela said, trying to be clear on her concession.

“He speaks for me,” Mateo told him.

“Then you won’t all necessarily be together anymore,” Pacey decided. “But don’t worry, because most of you won’t remember each other anyway.” He glared at Mateo. “Most of you,” he repeated. “Some of you might even not be alone.” He stood there for a moment, in apparent deep thought. “Okay, I have your assignments. Go to sleep.”

His command was ineluctable. He said it, they did.

Mateo woke up with a start. It was dark, but he could see the foreboding crooked lines of bare tree branches above him. He was in the forest. It was soft and dry. He could not bring himself out of an intense feeling of fear. At first, he thought it was due to a nightmare, but he couldn’t remember having one. No, he was afraid of something here, in the real world. He darted his eyes back and forth, but he daren’t move a muscle. Something was around him, lurking...biding its time. He didn’t know what it was, but it was incredibly dangerous. This whole world was dangerous. Even if he managed to clear the most imminent threat, another would be right there in moments. He was so uncomfortable, though, on a root maybe. The more he adjusted his position—the more sound he made—the more enemies would be alerted to his presence, and his location. They weren’t just enemies, though. They were monsters. There were all monsters.

He could remember what happened now. The current antagonist dropped him under this dome with full memory of all that happened in the dome before. He even found himself being able to distinguish the true experiences from the implanted memories that Pacey used to reinforce the illusion. As Mateo lay there, still too fearful to make a move, he found his old memories returning as well. His unremarkable origins in the 1980s, growing up with his adoptive parents, being turned into a time traveler, unintentionally erasing himself from the timeline, exploring space, fighting villains, changing the past. He was Mateo Matic, husband to Leona Delaney, and father to Romana Nieman. And he had to get back to all of his friends. Get up. Get up!

Mateo sat up, at first thinking it prudent to stay on his rear, but realizing that to be the most vulnerable position. At least when he was on his back, he was theoretically concealed. So he quickly shifted to a crouch. He looked around, not seeing anything in the foliage, but knowing that they were there. Pacey never specifically said where he would be sending him, but there was only one place it could be, given recent developments. Hrockas named this one Bloodbourne. Take every horror film killer, and stuff them in one metropolitan-sized environment. That was the idea, to incorporate visitors into a world full of real danger and violence. On Castlebourne, there were safeguards in place, chief among them being every visitor’s ability to have their consciousness transferred to a new substrate whenever the old one became too damaged. It wasn’t so much an ability as a requirement. It was just as illegal to let oneself die permanently and for real as it was to kill someone else. According to Pacey’s cryptic words, though, this wasn’t really Castlebourne; it was somehow just very similar to it. Perhaps those safeguards weren’t around. The only thing to do now was to find a way to survive.

Something was in the brush. There could be rabbits here, like that common trope in fiction where that was what it turned out to be; a misdirect for the audience to let their guard down just before the true jumpscare emerged. Or it could be something genuinely frightening. Mateo didn’t want to stick around and find out. There was no reason to approach the shaking leaves, like the idiot protagonist in a movie. The only choice was to run. Cautiously, but still quickly. He took off, deftly dodging tree trunks, and avoiding getting his feet caught in exposed roots. Where was he running to? Well, the scope of these domes were limited. They each had a radius of 41.5 kilometers. So if he just kept going in any direction, he would eventually hit the wall. Now, whether he would be able to find an exit, or if there was even one to find, was a different question. Either way, it was the only logical way to go. Of course, he could already be next to a wall, and running in the complete opposite direction, which would mean he would have to travel the full 83 kilometers, but there was no way to know that.

Perhaps this was the wrong call. Maybe movie characters had the right idea by investigating one unknown at a time. His running has evidently awakened a number of monsters in the area. At first, only a couple of them showed up, but then more. And more, and more, and more. Pretty soon, two dozen creatures were chasing after him. He couldn’t run from them in a straight line either, because some of them were actually ahead in his path. So he was zigging and zagging, and desperately doing everything he could to avoid being caught by even one of them. Then he saw something in the corner of his eye. It was a human, and something about her figure made her seem less threatening than the others, even though there were plenty of human killers here. It was the mask, or rather the lack thereof. Most horror genre killers wore some kind of mask, sometimes to conceal their identities, but also to instill dread in their targets. For franchises, it was a way to become iconic, and differentiate themselves from their competitors, even though the formula was pretty much the same throughout all of them.

She wasn’t wearing a mask of any kind, and it didn’t look like she was looking to attack him. No, it looked like they were chasing after her too. Pacey said that not all of them would be alone for their assignments. But it wasn’t Leona or Romana. Not Olimpia, nor either of the Walton twins. Holy crap, it was Paige. Paige Turner, at an age that he had never seen her before. “This way!” she cried.

She seemed to know what she was doing better than he. Mateo turned when she did. They rounded a thick grove of trees, and found themselves coming up on a cliff. He couldn’t see the elevation just yet, but based on the beautiful scenic view beyond, it was probably pretty high. “You got a plan?”

“Don’t stop!” she replied.

He trusted her, though to be fair, it could have been a shapeshifter. Those belonged in horror films too. Just as he leapt over the edge, she stopped for half a second. This was just enough time for him to get ahead of her. After she jumped, she reached for Mateo’s shoulders and held on, digging her knees into his back. He wasn’t one to make a good guess at a falling height even when he was in the middle of it, but it was surely over fifty meters. He maybe could have grabbed some branches below to break his fall, but Paige might get tangled up in them, so he stayed on the straight path, and just let himself crash land on the relatively smooth ground below. He lay there for a few minutes while the nanites flowing through his body started to affect their repairs. It didn’t sound like she was worried, so the monsters probably hadn’t taken a leap of faith behind them. Once he was healed enough to move just a little, he turned over on his back. She was sitting next to him, still catching her breath. “It’s nice to see you, Paige.”

“That’s not my name,” she responded. “I go by Octavia.”

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Microstory 2424: Aquilonian Deep

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Why do they call it that? I don’t care. It’s an ocean. You ever see an ocean before? It’s just like that. I mean, the way my buddy hyped this up, I expected to find giant sea creatures lurking the dark waters, like a krakken, or what’s that thing from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? I never read it, I just heard about it. But mermaids. And sirens! You could do so much with this, but it’s pretty much just a giant-ass ocean. I could get that on Earth. It’s got islands too. Are you incentivized yet? No, because again, it’s just an ocean under an invisible dome? At least Polar Tropica has sun and sexy ladies in bikinis. That’s all I got to say about this. It was a nice idea, but they totally botched the execution. They told me that I would never be bored on this planet, but I was bored. I just sat in the boat, and the waves were crashing, and it wasn’t a fun experience. No one else around me seemed to be enjoying it. Sure, they were smiling and laughing, but I know what they were really thinking. Get yourself some monsters to escape from, and we’ll talk. Until then, I’m going back to one of the Lovecraftian domes. They got what I need.

Microstory 2382: Earth, October 31, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

I’m sure that my son has already informed you, but I was recently on a trip to Eastern Seaboard, which if you don’t know, is a city-state in the former United States of America. I was taking part in very early negotiations for future possible trade deals. The platform is still circumnavigating the continent of Australia, even though our initial required proximity period has passed. We ended up extending that another four months after some people from other Australian domes began to express interest in moving here. We currently don’t know where we’ll go after this, but it’s always good to have your options open, and it’s not like we have to float over to a trading partner in order to trade with them. That’s what jets are for. So I went out there for my work, but I was also doing something else. After investigating my own past, and reaching out to my contacts, I discovered that an old friend of ours from before the collapse of society—or, I guess it was kind of during it—was living there. I couldn’t pinpoint his exact location remotely, or find his contact information, so I decided to fly up there to look for him myself. And wouldn’t you know it, I found him. I told you that I wouldn’t send you another message until I had a solid update for you, so I hope this qualifies. I confronted Gunnar about his motivations back then after we started catching up, and felt like he was being rather evasive. He seemed to have mixed feelings about seeing me again, like he was happy, but also pretty worried. In my head, I thought for sure this was the guy. He knew something. He was part of it. He was Condor’s secret observer. As it turns out, not exactly. When we met, he was genuinely trying to be my friend. He didn’t even like sports or outdoorsy stuff either; he just figured that I did, because they were very common hobbies, and he was desperately trying to connect. The reason he approached me in the first place was because he had social anxiety, and his therapist recommended he intentionally step out of his comfort zone, and try his hand at small talk, explaining that the worst that could happen was an awkward conversation that ended quickly. I felt really bad about accusing him of something nefarious but then he admitted that he was once contacted by a mysterious someone, asking him to keep tabs on us; Condor in particular. Out of fear, he actually agreed to do it, but he fed this stranger false information. He would just straight up lie about how Condor was doing, and how his personality was developing. He didn’t know if this was the right thing to do, or if he should have refused entirely. He wasn’t sure if he should have told me what was going on either. He always regretted not speaking up, though, and was grateful for the opportunity recently. Except for the first one, Gunnar recorded every conversation he had with this other man, who never gave him his name. Gunnar kept these recordings all this time, so he was able to give me copies of them. I’ve put in a request to the forensics specialists to have them analyzed, and will update you again if and when they find something. We’re getting closer, Cori. We’re gonna find out who did this to you. To us.

Your distant but doting father,

Pascal

Microstory 2372: Vacuus, September 29, 2179

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Dear Condor,

Thank you for attaching yours and Pascal’s medical records. That’s really going to help, not only with this one issue, but any other problems that might arise in the future. It’s good to have a full picture of your health. Thank you for being protective of me, but I want you to remember that he’s your father, and I know that he did the best he could with the cards that he was dealt. It was a tough situation that I can’t even begin to imagine. On the ship, the adults had to have a it takes a village mentality, or we never would have survived. I only had one official parent, but I was raised by just about everyone on that tin can way or another. You were just out in the world, where no one really cares about anyone else unless they have some specific reason to. I’m so glad that your father found a way to provide you with the medical care that you needed, despite how shallow it sounds like his pockets were. I would have been heartbroken if mom had told me about you, and when I tried to reach out, I found out that you were dead. We will never meet in person, but at least we get to converse, and that might be thanks to your secret nurse and her laced chicken noodle soup. It’s important to frame it positively. I’m doing fine. I still have symptoms, but it helps to sit still, which is perfect, since that’s how my job works. I do need to get exercise, though, so I walk down the corridors, which Bray helps me with. He still feels guilty, but here’s the way I look at it. Yeah, the STD triggered the epigenetic disease in me, but the doctor says it was better that it happened now, instead of when I’m older. Anything could have caused it to surface, including some age-related conditions, and it would have been much harder for me to recover under those circumstances. I don’t know what the future holds, but he and I are still together. Speaking of which, we have not had any time to get into your open letter to the base. Everyone loved hearing from you. They are aware of how bad things are on Earth, but most of them don’t have any firsthand accounts of what it’s really like. Many of the older people here who left connections behind have found those connections since severed, due to death or outdated information, probably because of the collapse of society. They appreciate hearing from someone, even if it’s not all great. On a personal note, my friend, the garment fabricator, seems to be taking a particular interest in you. Her name is Velia. I’ve attached her contact card in case you want to have a second person to talk to up here. I’m sure she would really love it.

Keeping it light,

Corinthia

Microstory 2365: Earth, August 17, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

I didn’t even think about that, how there would be no organic material in the soil on a lifeless alien world. Even if we were to find life on another planet, it would probably not be the right organic material for the plants that we need to survive. I must say, as angry as I was with your mother, I admired her greatly for her bravery. She knew that she was going somewhere dangerous, and that she might not make it. She and everyone on that ship should be commended for their courage in the face of such literal darkness. I hope it’s okay to say all that. I know that you had a tricky relationship with your mom, and it’s only grown more complicated since she passed. I just want to make sure you know that she loved you very much, and your brother too. Leaving him was the hardest thing that she ever did. She and I struggled there near the end, but she never lied to me. She wouldn’t have taken walking away from Condor lightly. She genuinely believed in the science that they were advancing. Had things gone more smoothly here—had Condor and I lived more stable lives—the insights taken from this research could have helped humanity better understand how humans adapt and survive in the black. Space travel will only increase in the future. I just hope that whoever was in charge managed to get something positive out of it before civilization fell apart. I hate to think that never having the chance to meet my own daughter amounted to absolutely nothing. Condor has asked me about the researchers themselves, and I’ve spent a lot of time pondering who here may have been involved. I’m trying to make a list of everyone I’ve ever met in my life since Alizée first told me that she was pregnant. It’s nothing concrete, but after you left, I did have one neighbor who used to come by the apartment to play cards. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now I am looking back at it with fresh eyes. He offered to do a number of things together, like watching sports, playing sports, hiking—a lot of outdoorsy and active stuff that I’m not into. He didn’t really stop asking until he found something that I was amenable to. He may have been using this as an excuse to come over and monitor Condor. I don’t know, but we moved away when Condor was still young, and I never saw that guy again. I think I’ll try to see if he’s still alive somewhere, and maybe get you some answers. I won’t write back until I find something, or hit a roadblock.

Stay safe out there,

Pascal

PS: I ordered some apples from the Australian dome, because we don’t have them yet here. It will be a while before we swing around close enough to it again.

Microstory 2344: Vacuus, April 2, 2179

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Dear Condor,

That all sounds very dangerous. I’m glad that you’re inside fulltime now. I’ve only ever lived in three places, and never go outside. I grew up on the ship while it was on its way all the way out here, and a little when it was first in orbit around Vacuus. I was eighteen when we arrived, and after some initial surveys, I was part of the first group to drop down to the planet. And I really mean that. We took something called a dropship down to the surface. We lived there for almost two years before they had built enough of the residential base for us to move in there. Back then, we couldn’t launch any ships back into orbit, because it takes too much fuel to do it the traditional way, and the necessary infrastructure for more advanced methods took time to engineer. Now we have something called a launch loop, which—if you don’t know—is like a giant-ass roller coaster that allows us to get into space without expending too much energy, or requiring as much tensile strength as a space elevator would. They’re thinking about building the latter at some point, but it’s going to take a lot more effort and time. Anyway, until we started to be able to travel back and forth relatively cheaply, there were two separate populations. Those who never dropped down to Vacuus lived up there, and had their own kids. We stayed in contact with each other, though, since it was the only place we could talk to which had no significant time delay. I’ve never been back in person, however, while most people I know have gone back at least once. It’s really just little kids who have no had the opportunity yet. My friend who lives up there now has been asking me to take the launch loop into orbit for a visit, and I want to do that, but I also don’t. So much can go wrong. I cannot believe that I used to live on a ship. How did I end up so soft and cowardly? How did you do it? How are you so brave? You don’t have to answer that. This is just my neuroses getting in the way of my goals. I already go to counseling to get this stuff figured out.

Not yet living my best life,

Corinthia

Microstory 2279: Fine to Be Discharged

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Guess who surprised me with a visit today? That’s right, it was my old parole officer, Leonard Miazga. He’s been so busy, so we’ve only been able to text occasionally, but he’s felt like a bad friend, not checking in on me until now. It’s okay, I didn’t even think about it. It was nice to see him again, though. Other than that, I have nothing to update you on. Besides the medication issues the other day, my life doesn’t really change that much anymore. I lie in the hospital bed, and stare at the TV most of the time. I do my physical therapy in my own room, and out in the hallway, and sometimes do my exercises on my own without the therapist. Then I watch more TV. The nurses come in to give me meds, and check my vitals. It’s all very routine and unexciting. The hospital, my security team, and the police are not letting anyone come in for interviews, and trust me, they have been trying. Apparently, Leonard had a hard time getting through the human barricade, even though he was on a list of approved visitors. Ugh, I can’t wait to get out of here. I’m not one of those people who say that they “hate hospitals” as if that’s some kind of unique or rare personal characteristic to have. You’re not special. I know that’s mean to say, but no one likes death and disease. I just wanna go home because I’ve been here long enough, and I’m ready to sleep in my own bed. I think I can swing it pretty soon here. A normal person under these circumstances might struggle, but we have a little hospital of our own in our house, and a small medical staff, so it shouldn’t be too hard for me to convince the administrators that I am fine to be discharged.

Microstory 2228: More Advanced Care Now

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Nick is back in the hospital, and this is where he’ll stay for the rest of his life. It seems that we were too quick to decide that he was capable of staying at home. We weren’t back in the apartment for more than a few hours before he started having some real problems. His temperature was going up each time I checked it, eventually reaching a full fever. Soon after that, he started coughing, and feeling dizzy even though he was just lying in bed. The nurse had already left for the evening, but I called her back, and she agreed that he couldn’t stay there untreated anymore. For a normal healthy individual, these symptoms could be treated on their own using over-the-counter remedies, but Nick is in a really vulnerable position. He requires round-the-clock care, and the kind that I’m not qualified to provide. They conducted rapid blood tests, and confirmed that it’s a virus. Again, a normal person might be able to fight it off on their own, or get some medication after a quick doctor’s visit, but that’s not enough for him. He’s hooked up to machines, which are monitoring him for a team of top-notch medical professionals. But where does that leave me? I know that, when you add it all up, I’ve not known him for very long, but we’ve grown pretty close in that time. I’ve seen sides of him that no one else has. So I can’t just leave, even though he has more advanced care now. There’s a protocol for this situation. It’s called a “hand-off”. And I’ve officially done that, though I am still here, just now as a friend, which is what our relationship was when we were co-workers. He doesn’t have any real family in this world, so I’m going to do what I can to make him feel safe and comfortable, even though it’s not my job anymore.

Microstory 2212: All the More Alarming

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We met with a diagnostician today who normally works out of New Jersey, but he flew down here, because he’s an apparent avid reader of this site, and is fascinated by Nick’s case. Nick laughed when he heard where he was from, but he wouldn’t tell us what that’s all about. He promises that his laugh is not a symptom, and that he had genuine reason to find the news humorous. The diagnostician was inclined to believe that, though he does not believe him about much else. He has to operate under the assumption that Nick’s belief that he’s from another universe is a part of this mysterious disease. If that’s true, then he’s had whatever this is for several months now, which would make his decline all the more sudden, and all the more alarming. He’s scheduled a bunch of lab work and scans to perform over the course of the next few days. Today only involved a comprehensive examination. It included everything you get from your periodic physical exam, plus a whole bunch more. He had him hold his arms out to his side, and try to keep them still, which Nick found difficult. He had trouble walking in a straight line, and reciting simple prompted phrases from memory. Now that I write it all out, I realize that it sounds like a sobriety test. But obviously that’s not the cause as Nick doesn’t drink. The diagnostician had him walk on a treadmill, and ride a stationary bike. They weren’t measuring stress, or anything. This all seemed to be about his motor skills. So far, the doctor can’t come to any conclusion, which frustrated Nick, even though he understands that this was never going to be a quick or easy fix. It’s only the first of several tests. The doctors and techs have to start at the beginning, and move forwards from there. Even if one of them doesn’t diagnose the right disease, it will give us more information than we had before. We need to be patient. After a couple of hours of this, Nick was tired, and ready to go home, so it was good that we were done for the day. I drove him back to his apartment, and made him some dinner. His former personal assistant ate with us, and told us how the work has been going at the jail. They have kept the spirit of his vision alive, and are making real progress on their prison reform ideas. It saddened him to hear it, since he expected to be there working on all that himself, but he’s pleased that the project is still very much alive. I think the dinner gave him a boost of positivity, even if he would never admit it. I don’t know Jasmine very well, so after I tucked him into bed, she and I stayed up to get to know each other a little bit. We have more tests to get to tomorrow, so I turned in too before too long.