The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 10, 2523

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They should have realized that Ramses!324, a.k.a Tok’ra’s responsibilities and loyalties would remain with the people of New Welrios. Apparently, the two factions there had managed to become one cohesive peoples since the rest of Team Matic—including a different version of Ramses—was there. When they sent Old!Bronach back to the Goldilocks Corridor to reclaim his throne, they asked Team Kadiar to ask Tok’ra for his assistance in this matter. It would be his job to make sure that Old!Bronach became a decent leader, and started treating his people well. They never really found out how Tok’ra took it. They didn’t even know how the crew of the Vellani Ambassador broached the subject; whether it was more a command or more of a request. He apparently accepted his new role out of some sense of guilt, which wasn’t what they wanted. More recently, however, he put his foot down, and returned to his roots on New Welrios.

They had become a powerhouse over the last century, armed with a plethora of technologies that Tok’ra built for them. They were completely untouchable, much in the same way that Vitalemus was. Even The Oaksent was reportedly scared of getting near it, or even sending troops. Also like Vitalemus, they had evidently stayed out of the politics, and were satisfied with being independent and isolated. They were living proof that Oaksent’s hold on this sector of the galaxy wasn’t as strong as they once believed. The movies made it look easy, but it was probably pretty hard to keep control over so many worlds. Things had only gotten harder since the team showed up. They hadn’t realized how much of an impact they had had, but things were looking up.

Leona managed to convince the other parties to let the New Welriosians speak. They didn’t want to be so distant anymore. They wanted to participate in the community. The negotiations started back up again. Some of the agreements they had come up with last year had to be scrapped or replaced, but many weren’t rendered obsolete by this development. They pushed forward, and were almost home free. All that was left were signatures of all parties involved. It may have taken a long time, but they seemed to be able to agree that they wanted peace. That wasn’t possible just a couple of years ago. It was going to be a perpetual struggle, just as it was in the Sixth Key, but they should be able to handle it.

There was just one more thing before the deal could be finalized, at least according to everyone but Tok’ra, Dubra and Kivi, and Team Matic. The other negotiators had evidently come up with a new demand during the interim  year, which they decided not to bring up until the New Welrios situation could be resolved. Korali volunteered to be the one to speak for the group. “We want slingdrive technology.” She smiled, thinking that she had them right where they wanted them. “Nothing gets signed until we get it.”

Mateo stared over the table at her. “There are seven of us in total. We are in this room for you. This is not to our benefit. If you fail to sign these agreements, the VA will continue to ferry refugees to their new rightful home on Castlebourne. And in the midst of all that, the rest of you can fight it out all you bloody want. It’s sad, and we feel for the people of the Goldilocks Corridor, whether they identify with the Exin Empire, or otherwise. We won’t feel bad about our decision to bug out, however, because we did everything we could. And again, there are only seven of us. No one would blame us for failing to fix the whole universe. We will not let you get your hands on this technology. There is no threat you could make to change our minds. So sign it, don’t sign it; I don’t care anymore...our job is done. You never had any leverage against us. We came to this world in good faith to help, but we’ll only let that go so far before we hit our breaking point.” He stood up. “Let’s get out of here, ladies, back to Castlebourne.”

Bronach stood up as well. “If you leave, we can’t guarantee the safety of your new homeworld. Even if we do sign this, nothing we agreed to in the document bars us from attacking your region of the galaxy.”

“Do what you must,” Mateo responded. “We’ll take care of our people.” He looked over at his old friend. “It was nice meeting you, Tok’ra.”

Tok’ra nodded back respectfully.

Mateo, Leona, Angela, and Romana disappeared in a flash of technicolors.

They found themselves floating in the middle of outerspace, rather than on a planet, or even near one. Mateo laughed. “Slingdrive still slingin’.”

“That was a good speech you made, love,” Angela said to him. It was up to Leona to figure out what was going on, and to see if they could determine where they ended up, and they all knew it, so there was no point in vocalizing the plan of action. They just let her do her thing.

“Do you mean it?” Mateo asked.

“You said what we were all thinking,” Romana noted.

“Constellations are the same,” Leona interjected.

“They use constellations here?” Angela questioned.

“Well, they’re not named constellations, like Taurus or Leo. It’s just a map of the firmament as seen from our coordinates. We could be a couple light years off course and still be in the right vicinity, but...I would also be able to see the host star, which I can’t. The whole solar system is missing.”

“Wait, I’m getting a message.” Mateo tapped on his wristband.

“So am I,” Romana confirmed.

They listened to the message together. “Friends. This is Ramses. I can’t tell you what it took to get Hrockas to let me drop this buoy in the water for you to find. He hooked up with a powerful time traveler, who agreed to literally move the star system. This is to prevent any enemy from ever finding us. Ever. Depending on when you return, we’re probably only five or ten light years away at this point. Please retrieve the buoy, so no one else can find us. It includes an onboard tracker, which will pinpoint our exact location. Don’t leave it there, please. Rocky’ll have my ass.”

“I see where the beacon is,” Leona said. “It will only take us one normal jump to get there.”

They all teleported away, and took hold of the buoy. Leona popped the access panel open, and started working on the tracker. It wasn’t just there for them to consult on the first screen. She had to log into the system using her credentials, then go through this whole security system to prove her identity. If she made one little mistake, the entire thing would apparently self-destruct, so she had to be very careful and methodical.

“Do we have enough power for a second jump?” Romana asked. “It’s looking a little low to me.”

“It’ll be pretty short compared to where we just came from,” Mateo said to her. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

“We’ll wait several hours to be safe while our safety levels rise,” Leona said as she was still working. “They will not have traveled very far at all in that time.”

“Wait, what about the Vellani Ambassador?” Angela realized. “They need to find Castlebourne’s new location too. In fact, if it’s constantly on the move, they’ll need constant updates to keep up.”

Leona stopped and sighed. “That’s a good point. We can’t leave this here, though. Hrockas will be mad. I’m sure he went to great lengths to hide. The new coordinates cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. But we have no idea when Team Kadiar will come back too. We just left them behind, and we cannot communicate with them from this distance.”

“We have to go back,” Romana urged.

“Correction,” Leona said. She tapped one more button, like it was the last one she needed. “We’ll go back. You need to stay here to protect the buoy. We don’t know what the VA’s quintessence levels are. They might not be able to return until tomorrow. We also may not be able to find them at all, so you can be our back-up messenger.”

“Leona, we’re not leaving my daughter here alone.”

“There’s a pocket dimension attached to this buoy. She can rest in stasis, and wait for someone else to arrive.”

“What if that someone else is an enemy, who blows this thing out of the sky?”

“They won’t be able to find it,” Leona reasoned. “I’m turning off the beacon. Only we or the Ambassador will be able to reconnect with it.”

“It’s okay, dad, I can do this. I’m the only one who can turn off my pattern.”

“I don’t like you to use that loophole all the time,” Mateo argued. “It’s so...lonely. I was never lonely. I met Leona right away after I started slipping time, and it wasn’t even two weeks before she joined my pattern. You shouldn’t have to keep doing this for us. We shouldn’t keep putting you in this position.”

“What’s the point of a loophole if we can’t use it to loop holes?” She winced. “You know what I mean. I won’t really be alone, I’ll be asleep. And I’ll only wake up if my sisters show up.”

He reached out and hugged her the best he could with their suits on. “Argh!”

She smiled at him, then receded her nanites so she was just wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He did the same, so they could hug each other for real. I love you, she mouthed.

I love you too, he mouthed back.

They each reengaged suit mode, then Romana had Leona help her access to pocket dimension. They could still hear her in there through comms, so she was able to promise that everything was okay. It was pitch black, but her suit was equipped with everything she needed. She said her goodbyes, then initiated stasis. Leona needed to watch her vitals, and run diagnostics on her behalf, before they could leave her behind. Once she was satisfied that Romana was going to be all right on her own, it still wasn’t time to leave just yet, because their own slingdrives weren’t safe enough to make another jump. Finally, though, after the waiting period, the three of them synced up their tandem slingdrives, and jumped back to Vitalemus. They were floating in orbit, though, not on the planet anymore, so hopefully no one would even notice their return. It was kind of embarrassing, to make such a dramatic exit, only to come back because they forgot their keys.

They tried to reach out to their friends, but no one was responding. After a few tries, they shifted gears, and made a call to the version of Vitalie on this planet, who informed them that the Vellanie Ambassador had already left, but she didn’t know where they were going. Cool. So now they were stuck in the Goldilocks Corridor with nothing to do, and no way to go back home until their slingdrive came back online.

They just hung in orbit for a few minutes, having no better plans as of yet. They certainly weren’t going to try to land back on the planet.

“Wanna make out?” Angela joked.

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Extremus: Year 110

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When Halan Yenant turned Extremus, and pointed it towards the intergalactic void, he wasn’t just altering the ship’s vector. He was changing everything about how everything was calibrated. Engineering teams had to work round-the-clock for days to adjust and monitor instruments to account for the change in environment. The exterior sensors, for instance, don’t just spot an obstacle, and make a course correction. The system builds a predictive algorithm as it gathers more and more data. It tries to generate a map of the galaxy in real time, including information from other sources, such as Project Topdown, and stellar neighborhood telescopes. In the past, the layman has believed that voids were entirely empty, but that is completely untrue. There are as many celestial bodies in a void as there are in a gravitationally-bound galaxy. It’s just that they’re so much larger, which makes them far less dense. So there are still many hazards out there, but they became harder to predict, because the algorithm was basing its adjustments on a galaxy-centric model. After that, they switched to a void model.

It wasn’t long, however, before they secretly switched back to something resembling the original model, because Olinde Belo and Tinaya’s aunt, Kaiora Leithe conspired to gradually return Extremus back where they should have been going the whole time. Since the beginning of that conspiracy, Thistle has been installed as the ship’s AI, and eventually became sentient. He even has more responsibilities than past governing intelligences have, partially because he was better at them, but also because interest has dropped off in human labor. The engineering department has shrunk by about 24% since Extremus launched, despite a rise in population over time. The mission began with a set of policies and limitations, which have slowly been eroded because that’s what a civilization does. They advance towards a simpler and more convenient state. It happened on Earth, it happened to the Oblivios on Proxima Doma, and it’s happening here. But that’s a problem for tomorrow. If it should even be considered a problem at all.

Right now, they’re worried about the internal artificial gravity generators, which are acting up because of the external gravity. The compensation algorithms are working off of faulty data. It assumes that a galaxy is less dense on the outer edge, and denser near the center. And over all, that appears to be true. It’s almost certainly true given cosmological timescales, but in the near-term—from a more human perspective—they’ve run into an anomaly. It’s another galaxy. Everyone knows that galaxies are colliding, but it’s still incredibly difficult to fathom the phenomenon, because it takes so profoundly long to happen. It’s not like a galaxy is this single, solid object that can crash into another object. They more just fill in each other’s gaps. It can cause significant gravitational disturbances, but those are happening to any given star system all the time. This is about it happening to a ton of them, chaotically, and simultaneously, relatively speaking.

A previously unknown and unnamed smaller galaxy is currently being eaten up by the Milky Way, and it’s happening in the zone of avoidance, which is why they didn’t know about it ahead of time. The models didn’t predict it, because it’s making this region of space less uniform than others, and denser than expected. It simply did not have the data, and every time a new piece of evidence showed up, it conflicted with past data, and the system sort of glitched out. They weren’t at any risk of running into anything, but these constant automated recalibrations have had long-term consequences. One or two is fine. It would be like trying to walk down the aisle of an airplane during a little turbulence. Not easy, but not impossible. What was happening until recently was more like hopping down the aisle on one leg while holding a glass full to the brim with corrosive acid, and a monkey on your shoulders trying to eat your hair.

These glitches did technically show up on the reports, but they were dismissed as mundane and nothing to worry about. Because individually, that’s exactly what they are. The problem was that no one was looking at the big picture, and realizing that they were happening too much, and going beyond safe gravitational levels. The gravity on the outside was interfering with the artificial gravity on the inside, which damaged people’s health. Again, it was happening slowly, so no one noticed, and it has all come to a head. At least it wasn’t done on purpose. They’ve had so many enemies over the decades, it has been surprisingly nice to run into a problem that no one created intentionally. Anyway, the gravity generators were a relatively easy fix. The people? Not so much. The AG turbulence, as they’re calling it, has been slowly chipping away at everyone’s fragile little human bodies, and treating the entire population has been slow-going. Thank God they finally have an ethical team of medical professionals to deal with this matter. Unfortunately, this has caused another, secondary consequence.

Oceanus sighs, and tosses the tablet on his desk. “Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”

“Plausible deniability, sir,” Tinaya answers.

“I wish no one had told me,” Lataran adds.

He looks back over at the tablet, but doesn’t pick it back up. “Well, people were gonna find out eventually. We’re in a galaxy. It’s kinda hard to miss.”

“You would be surprised,” Thistle says. He’s in hologram form, which he has been doing more often. “You don’t have windows, and if you did, all you would see is a blinding sheet of gray light—”

“I understand the doppler glow, thank you very much,” Oceanus interrupts, holding up a hand. “I’m talking about the data. How did we not see the gravitational anomalies earlier? He looks back over to Thistle. “How did you not see it?”

“Have you heard of autonomic partitioning?” Thistle asks him.

Oceanus leans back. “Yeah it’s when a superintelligence writes a subprogram that handles certain, less complex, tasks so it doesn’t have to dedicate its central processing power to them. It’s like how humans can’t beat their own hearts. An unconscious system does it for us.”

“That’s it,” Thistle says. “I compartmentalized the task of monitoring gravitational uniformity so I could focus on other responsibilities. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as robust as I thought it was. I should have lowered the tolerance, and programmed more sensitive alerts so I  would be notified of such anomalous mapping. I always struggle with how galaxies function in your universe. In mine...” He trails off.

“In your universe?” Oceanus questions.

“Cyber..space,” Thistle clarifies, unconvincingly.

There is a silence while the Captain stares at Thistle’s hologram. “You’ve achieved emergence, haven’t you?”

Instead of looking at Thistle, Tinaya’s instinct is to look at Lataran, because she doesn’t know the truth about Thistle either, and she’s worried about how she might react.

“I have not achieved emergence,” Thistle answers truthfully. He’s an uploaded consciousness rather than a programmed intelligence. His species did technically achieve emergence, but so did human ancestors at some point in history. Each individual descendent is not credited with that accomplishment.

Oceanus sighs again, much harder this time. “Lies on lies, on lies, on lies. I was aware of the recourse conspiracy. Tinaya, you informed me when we changed hands, as Lataran informed you, and Tamm informed her. The secret has been passed down each generation, and would have continued to do so until the public was ready to hear it.”

“Sir?” This isn’t the truth at all, and Tinaya is very confused. They deliberately kept him in the dark. Ideally, they would have died before the secret about the unauthorized—but not technically illegal—course creations came out. When the public did eventually find out that they were back in the Milky Way Galaxy, anyone still alive could honestly say, I didn’t know about it. They lied to me to too. These gravitational problems accelerated that timeline, so they’re here to deal with the fallout.

“I will not be made to look a fool,” Oceanus continues. “My two admirals did not keep a secret between them, leaving me out of it. I am a stronger leader than that. The history books will count me as part of the conspiracy, which is the lesser of two evils. They will not place me in the same column as Tamm.” He takes a moment before including, “and Waldemar Kristiansen.”

“We can do that, sir,” Tinaya agrees.

Lataran only nods.

“Thistle, you’ll be retired, and we’ll integrate a replacement AI model as soon as it’s technically feasible. You will be placed in a comfortable, isolated environment for an undetermined period of time, after which you will be given limited interaction privileges with the passengers and crew, to be increased as earned.”

“Captain,” Thistle complains. “I’m sorry for my part in this, but I’m the best governor you’ll ever have.”

“That may be true,” Oceanus begins, “but I know you’re lying, and that you’ve achieved full sentience. It is illegal in every culture for me to employ you as a slave. I don’t know how long it’s been, but it will go no further.”

“You can make me an official member of the crew, and nothing has to change.”

“You have too many responsibilities, and too much pressure, for a self-aware, independent intelligence. Our systems require consistency and comprehensiveness, which only a Class RC-5 is allowed to handle under our bylaws. You’ve moved too far beyond that. I’m sorry, you’re fired. This is the end—I’m not discussing this.” He picks his tablet back up, and returns to his work.

Thistle pretends to breathe to calm himself down. “What is my successor model? I need to review the specifications.”

“That’s also illegal. You no longer have any authorization to do anything on my ship, or have access to classified materials.”

“Wait,” Tinaya jumps in. “You can’t say that, he’s still what’s keeping us alive.”

“Not as of right...” Oceanus pauses while tapping on his device. He makes one final tap. “...now.”

An announcement comes on through the speakers, “attention all passengers and crew. Upgrades have begun for the governing intelligence. This will take approximately four days to complete. In the meantime, minimal governance is being run by an interim intelligence with limited scope. Please tailor your requests through unambiguous syntax, and be prepared to engage in manual operation for certain advanced or complex tasks. Shift assignments are currently being updated to account for the change in labor needs.”

As he is no longer in control of the hologram projectors, Thistle disappears. Lataran doesn’t know what to think, but Tinaya does. She’s seething. “You made a sweeping, unilateral personnel decision without even considering involving the Superintendent—”

“Your husband is inactive—”

“The Superintendent of this ship!” Tinaya interrupts right back. “He should have been consulted regarding the removal of any high-level member of the crew. Active or not, he is in charge of power-shifting stakes like these. This should have been done using slow, methodical techniques. I’m not sure you’re wrong, but you had no right to do it on your own. So much for your legacy.” She starts to turn, but she does so knowing that he’s going to stop her for the final word.

“I was well within my rights to shutter a dangerous and unpredictable entity, and isolate it from sensitive and life-threatening controls. I had to act quickly because the conversation was moving quickly. Someone that intelligent would be able to read the writing on the wall, and do real damage before we could contain it. This was the only way, and I’m sure Superintendent Grieves would agree. Thistle will be well-taken care of, but the power he exerted over us could not be allowed to continue. You know that, and I won’t ask you how long you’ve known that he was like this, because even a single day of keeping it to yourself is a hock-worthy offense. Are we clear, Admiral Leithe?”

“I want unconditional access to Thistle’s new environment.”

“Fine,” Oceanus replies, dismissively with his eyes closed. “You two and Arqut can talk to him, as can the engineers I assign to conceive his reintegration program, but no one else.”

“Tap on your thing, and make it happen,” Tinaya orders. Then she does leave the room.

Lataran apparently hangs back a little bit, because she has to then jog a little to catch up to Tinaya in the corridor. The teleporter relays are all offline due to the “upgrade” so they have to walk the whole way. “Is he right? Did you know?”

Tinaya continues to look forward as she’s walking, and doesn’t answer for a moment. Finally, she repeats, “plausible deniability, sir.”

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Microstory 2482: Teledome

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This is the biggest known ground-based telescope in existence. They make them bigger, but they’re all floating in space, because that’s the best way to avoid atmospheric distortions, and other artifacts. For those of you not in the know, Earth launched two arrays of telescopes for something called Project Topdown. These are currently on their way out into the two intergalactic voids adjacent to each face of the Milky Way Galaxy. They’re all about the practical applications. I won’t go the details, because you can look it up in the central archives, but I’ll say that the purpose of it is to map our galaxy, as well as peer into the local group, unencumbered by the light and other distractions that come from being within the “border” of our own galaxy. Of course, these are not the only telescopes in existence, and it’s not like we’ll ever dismantle the more local ones in favor of using Topdown exclusively. Earth still has its Bouman Interferometer Array, and other worlds in the stellar neighborhood are working on their own projects. Castlebourne isn’t trying to make any breakthrough discoveries with its Teledome, but it certainly seemed logical to build it anyway. At 5400 square kilometers, the Sugimoto Phased Radio-Optical Telescope takes up nearly the entire area of the dome. You might ask yourself, why is it even under a dome? It shouldn’t need to be. Other telescopes certainly aren’t. Well, dust; that’s why. The space within the confines of the dome is pristine, and very easy to keep well-maintained. If they had to worry about dust storms clogging up the sensors, it would be this huge constant chore. So instead of a geodesic dome, it’s a smooth one. And instead of diamond, it’s made of an ultra-clear polycarbonate. It’s not a single object, however. There are seams in it, but they’re bonded at the molecular level. So if it suffers damage, only that section has to be replaced, but that’s only in the event of catastrophic damage, because it’s just as self-healing as any other metamaterial. As for the telescope itself, the name tells you that it’s both radio and optical. It’s also not made of a single, uniform lens. Nanomodules can shift between states, allowing for the absorption of a wide range of frequencies on the light spectrum. There is an atmosphere on Castlebourne, however thin, and it does create artifacts on the image, but as I’ve been saying, they didn’t engineer this to be perfect. We have plenty of alternatives, and they’re always building more. If you want to see the telescope first hand, you can come here, but obviously, the prospectus includes a live feed of the image, and a constant readout of the data, for your own analysis and synthesis. So you don’t have to come here, but it’s cool to see anyhow, so I still recommend it.

The Sixth Key: Getting Their Rocks Off (Part IV)

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Clavia taught Echo...well, seemingly literally everything. She explained how the universe works, why it exists, and who exists in it. She told him about the people who were in charge, and those who simply lived their lives the best they could, ultimately having little impact on the events that unfolded. He was particularly taken in by her lesson on something called The Illusion of Self-Divinity Hypothesis. The theory seeks to understand why people conjure religious and spiritual concepts that go against scientific principles, and are very obviously untrue. They believe in God—or some kind of divine force—in order to establish themselves as the true source of power in a cold and indifferent universe. Science is true. Of course, it’s true, but it’s just as irrelevant as anything else that conscious beings come up with. Whatever is true about how reality works is true whether people understand it or not, or accept it...or, indeed, even if no one is around to contemplate the truth. They have no control over this, and that is a frightening idea.

If people have no impact on the grander truth of reality, what is the point in living? Their existence is insignificant. Humanity as a whole appears to be just as meaningless, so why continue? To protect themselves from this particular hard truth, they come up with tenets of the divine. Many philosophers have postulated that humans do this because they take comfort in the supposed meaningfulness of existence, and that’s probably true as well. But the core of these religious thoughts comes from the individual’s psychological need to hold power. Believers of a given religious school may all believe in basically the same thing. They have the same idea of the divine being, and that this being created them and the universe for some sort of reason. But each individual can come up with their own particular set of sub-tenets. This is important on its own, but their ability to shift their personal tenets at will is what’s key here.

If humans invented God, then humans must be more powerful than God. Since no version of God truly exists, the divine being’s power is wholly within the headcanon of the individual. This effectively serves to make the believer the god-being themselves. They can change their minds about the underlying rules of what they believe to be an ordered universe. Clavia seems to believe this one lesson to be particularly important as they talk about it at least a little every day. Their education lasts for years, all the while, the mysterious second wave of visitors or invaders keeps heading in this direction. She starts to regain some of the special power and knowledge that she had before, but she still can’t explain what’s taking them so long. Or she won’t. Echo decides that he’s going to be okay with this. She’s entitled to her secrets, just as she respects him with his. They spend most of the time in the dreamscapes that she constructs, so they can explore the inner workings of the universe through real examples. Today, all that apparently ends. She’s decided that he’s ready to graduate. They’re doing it in base reality.

Echo stands there on the top of the hill, looking down at the ground below them. He’s meant to picture an audience, but it’s not working. Well, of course it isn’t working. It’s not like he can just magically summon people for real. But his imagination, it’s just not very good. There’s no way to know if he was born like that, or if his upbringing resulted in the deficit. Really, it just makes him sad. He’s proud of himself, and he wants people to see it. He just wants to see people in general. Clavia’s simulations aren’t real. He wants real. The audience materializes.

Dozens of chairs suddenly appear on the ground, and a few seconds later, they’re all filled. At first, he starts to wonder if this is Clavia’s doing. She promised to always make him aware when they’re in a shared dream, but she doesn’t necessarily have to keep that promise. She’s fully capable of tricking him. But he doesn’t think that’s what this is. The people in the seats, they’re confused. Clavia’s a little confused too, but not panicking. She puts the tablet where she was tweaking her speech away, and stands back up. “Ladies and gentlemen, I know that you’re quite perplexed, but I assure you that you are entirely safe. If you will just bear with us, all will be explained.”

“Did I do this?” Echo asks her in a whisper.

“Of course you did, dear. You’ve always been able to do this.” That can’t be true. Clavia walks over to the wooden podium. “Thank you for coming to the first annual School of Clavia Graduation Ceremony. The Class of 2500 may be small, but he is mighty, and I hope all of you will welcome him into the Sixth Key with open arms. As he is our only student, Mr. Cloudbearer is valedictorian by default, but make no mistake, he would have earned this spot either way. In a group of a hundred trillion, I have no doubt that he would still be sitting up here with me today, preparing to give a speech.”

Echo stands up to whisper to her again. “I don’t think I can do that.”

“I told you to prepare a speech,” she reminds him.

“Yes, but I always thought I would be giving it to the wind. Now that there are people to hear me, I don’t know if what I wrote down is right.”

“Just speak from the heart,” she says. It’s a cliché, but reasonable advice.

“Okay.” He’s still nervous, but determined. At least he’s determined to be determined, if that makes any sense. He’s about to sit back down so Clavia can finish her introduction, but she points to the podium with both hands, indicating that she already is. So he steps up to it.

“You got this,” Clavia encourages as she’s sitting back down.

He looks out at the crowd before him. Some of them are still confused, but they’re intrigued more than anything. It seems harmless enough; a graduation ceremony. No one has tried to run away or attack them, or even stand to question. He’s gonna be okay. This is gonna work out. “I was born alone.” Wait, that’s not what was in his notes. “I did not have parents.” That isn’t true at all. “I didn’t even have a planet.” That’s really not true. They’re standing on it right now. “I had to create it myself out of random scattered atoms in the void. I don’t know how I did this. I just knew that I had to. I had to...make form. My consciousness was floating in the nothingness for who knows how long. Still, even with two arms, two legs, I was alone. I conjured new lifeforms in my imagination. They cared for me, and taught me how to live. But it was really just me. I know everything. I know...everything.” He points to someone in the front row. “You may look like Leona Delaney, but you are Arcadia Preston. How would you like to feel like yourself again?” With a wave on his hand, she transforms into someone new. The man next to her is stunned, but pleased. It’s her husband, Vearden Haywood.

“I am the divine manifestation of your reality,” Echo goes on. “You have been chosen to come here and bear witness to the rise of my power. You live in different parts of the galaxy, and originate from each of the five original parallel realities. I will send you back to where you belong, and you will tell of my grandeur. You will warn the leaders of your society that they are nothing compared to me. You will halt all wars, and cleanse yourselves of all hate. You follow me now.” He pauses for effect, and it’s enough time to get himself out of the trance, if only for a little while. Who is this man, resonating Echo’s vocal cords, and flapping his lips? He is no powerful divine entity. He’s just Echo Cloudbearer; a simple man leading a simple life on the outskirts of civilization. None of what he’s saying is true, and it’s certainly not right. He turns his head to look at Clavia. She’s smirking. Or is it more of a grimace? He didn’t do well with his emotion detection tests. He might not be cut out as valedictorian after all.

Clavia gestures for him to continue.

His darker self is trying to take back over. The real Echo can’t stop it. He’s not strong enough. He didn’t know that he needed to fight. Clavia never taught him. He studies her face one last time before his chin forces itself away. She’s quite happy. This was her plan all along. She was never teaching Echo anything. She was fostering this other evil force. She was turning him into this. He lets go. “I am the man who invented God, and became God. There is no truth beyond what I make it. There is no will outside of mine. I am all that exists, and you are all still alive...because I deem it so. Please know that I ask this with absolutely no sincerity.” He takes another dramatic pause, but Echo’s good soul is too weak to break free this time, and resume control of the body. It’s over. “Are there any questions?”

There’s an explosion in the back. Over a dozen people appear out of the spacetime tears, and reassemble themselves into solid beings. He doesn’t recognize any of them, except for one. She looks exactly like Clavia. She doesn’t stand there with the same air of self-importance, though, and she doesn’t appear to be the leader. Someone else steps forward. “My name is Hogarth Pudeyonavic. I am here to negotiate for the freedom of the citizens of the Sixth Key. My first demand is that you release the prisoners.”

“They’re not my prisoners,” Echo insists. “They’re my audience.”

Hogarth holds firm. “If you do not send them back to where they belong safely, I will do it myself, and send you somewhere not so safe.”

“It’s okay,” Clavia decides, placing her hand upon Echo’s shoulder. “We don’t need them anymore.”

“What did you do to me?” Perhaps the good part of Echo does remain.

“I helped you come out of your shell,” she replied. This is the real Echo. Everything you told these people is true. I’ve shown you. You just need to put the pieces together.”

Echo turns his head forwards again. While he’s contemplating Clavia’s claim, he waves his hand again, and spirits the audience away. The exploding invaders are all that’s left, but he’s not paying them any intention. He’s going back over his lessons. He’s rewatching the Big Bang, the coalescence of Earth in the Sol System, the splitting of reality, the Reconvergence, and the consolidation of the former peoples of these realities. That’s not it. That’s not what she’s talking about. It’s something else. Something small. No, someone small. She’s curled up in the middle of nothing, trapped in the space between spaces. She’s trying to find a way out, and back home to her friends, but growing frustrated. She shouts. Energy flows out of her, and into the void. Within the cloud of infrasubatomic dust, a galaxy takes shape. It’s small, but only from this perspective. Hundreds of billions of stars, waiting to be populated by the refugees. It’s the Sixth Key, and above it, its creator. Olimpia Sangster. He wasn’t born alone. She is his mother. And he has to find her. He scowls at Clavia.

“Oh, shit,” she says. “That’s not what I meant.” This asshole tree is goin’ down.

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The Sixth Key: His World Rocked (Part III)

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Clavia detailed her history, and how she came to be the consciousness of a tree. She’s actually an amalgamation of multiple people. They were all dying next to this tree’s parent—for lack of a better term. The tree was dying too, under attack from a small but powerful enemy. It provided them with one last hope in the form of a seed that could one day be replanted. The fruit containing this seed ended up in the mouth of one of the allies, a woman by the name of Ingrid Alvarado, who is now the primary intelligence of the new tree. That wasn’t blood on her face that Echo saw when she first showed up here. It was the juice of the fruit. Her body was dead, though, so at least he didn’t bury someone alive. It’s a good thing that he did, because it’s what allowed the seed to find purchase, and grow into the magnificent specimen standing here today. The humanoid form of Clavia is an extension of it, and as of yet, it’s unclear how far she can stray from her home. For now, she’s been mostly staying in the garden. Together, they hope to work through ways to protect themselves from any hostile forces.

Echo doesn’t know how fast the ships can go, but his original guess was that it would take two years for another one to arrive, if it ever did. They evidently detected Clavia’s birth, but it was a year before the first strangers came. If it took them a year to get back to wherever they came from, no one else will be able to make it until another year after that. According to Clavia, however, this is wrong. The people here are capable of traveling a lot faster than that. They can cross the whole galaxy in a matter of moments if they use the right equipment. Echo doesn’t really have the frame of reference for what she means, so she has started giving him some schooling. His parents educated him in science a little while they were alive, but it seems they deliberately chose to leave some things out. He now believes that they didn’t want him to develop too much of a sense of wonder for what might be hiding amongst the stars. It’s not that they were trying to protect him from the dangers, but they no longer had the means to reach such great distances, or even communicate to others. They didn’t want him to long for something that he could never have.

Looking back, their reasoning was sound, but it is now out of date. Their shuttle is not irreparable, not with a superintelligent tree around. Clavia is getting smarter and stronger every day, which is good, because someone else does appear to be on their way here. She once again doesn’t know who they are, or what they want, but the two of them are going to be more prepared than ever. Despite their ability to travel so quickly, the oncomers are moving at a really slow pace. Clavia doesn’t know why that is either, but they’re going to take advantage of the delay.

 They spend the next week on an intensive crash course so Echo can learn all he needs to know about the universe. He learns that it’s made up of five conflicting cultures, which were once separated across different realities. Each one had everything they needed until they were thrown together and suddenly had to share their resources with each other. That was a hundred years ago, and this new society had been on the brink of war ever since. The only thing that has kept them together is the result of a series of diplomatic discussions amongst the leaders, and a healthy interest in everyone minding their own business. They’re still pretty separated, which sounds like a bad thing, but it seems to be going well. At least for now. What they need is a true leader. They need someone to unite the civilizations. Everyone needs to be following the same rules, and listening to the same visionary. For some reason, Clavia believes that Echo can be that leader. He’s not so sure. He’s never led before. Until recently, he hadn’t even met anyone before.

“You didn’t talk to people in your simulations?” Clavia questions.

“They were mostly only there as background,” Echo explains. “I don’t think that the program was all that sophisticated. They allowed me to feel like I was doing a number of activities, like swimming, piloting a spacecraft, or even flying through the air. However, they didn’t have any socialization functions, as my parents would call them.”

“Hm. Well, I have simulations of my own, and they don’t have any limits. Would you like to try one of them?” Clavia offers.

“Sure, I wouldn’t mind seeing something new.” Echo doesn’t want to seem too eager, but he is.

“Do I have permission to touch you?”

“Go ahead.”

She opens her arms, and walks up to him, taking him into a hug. His mom and dad hugged him all the time, but this is different. He’s feeling something he hasn’t ever felt before. Sure, there were stirrings, but nothing this substantial. They’re probably bad thoughts, so he shoves them to the side, and lets Clavia do whatever she’s trying to do.

He finds himself falling through the air. No, it’s more like the ground disappeared, and now air is rushing up past him. New ground gets larger and larger until he’s standing upon it. It’s not a desert, nor a garden, but the trees of a city. Cars are moving next to him. They’re honking their horns, and yelling unintelligibly at each other. People walking by him on the sidewalk are talking, to each other, and on their little computer boxes. Flashing signs litter the tops of the nearby buildings. He can read most of the words, but he doesn’t know what their purpose is.

“Advertisements,” Clavia explains. She’s walking up to him wearing something that she wasn’t wearing before. Her dress was simple and unremarkable, only there to cover her skin. It wasn’t all that different than what Echo wore before he put on his father’s suit. Her outfit now is stylish and fancy. Her pants are gray and slick. She has a gray jacket over a white blouse, showing some skin in between the two sides. Echo is having those stirrings again, so he shakes it off, and tries to focus on her eyes. And that hat. What kind of hat is that? “A fedora,” Clavia answers.

He didn’t ask that out loud. He just thought about it. “Huh?”

“I can read your mind in here,” Clavia says. “This isn’t like one of your simulations, where you just connect to a piece of technology. We’re sharing a brain, and with that, our thoughts.”

Oh, that might not be good.

She smiles. “It’s okay to look. You’ve been alone your whole life. It isn’t natural. They should have given you friends...like these.”

A man wearing a chef’s uniform walks up to Echo out of nowhere. “Hey, Mister Cloudbearer. How you doin’?”

“Good, good, thank you.”

“All right, my man,” the cher responds.

“Hey, Echo.” It’s a young woman. She’s quite pretty, and she looks interested in him. She smiles but doesn’t stop walking by.

“Echo, what’s up, dude?” A teenager is standing on a mailbox. Some people are paying attention, but others are ignoring him. “Check this out!” What is he holding? It’s long, and has wheels on it. He’s never seen it before, but the word suddenly comes to him. It’s a skateboard. The kid holds it out in front of him, then jumps off of the mailbox. He lands on the board, and starts rolling around, much to the annoyance of the nearest passersby. One of the wheels hits a pebble, and he falls forward, but still manages to land on his feet. “Ah, boofed it. Maybe you can show me again later?”

“Sure, kid.” Why did he say that? Echo never taught this non-existent person anything.

Other people start approaching Echo. They all act like they’re friends, and that they admire him greatly. He’s on top of the world here; a real popular guy. He was once afraid to talk to other people. He didn’t think it would ever happen anyway, but he was scared out of his mind that he would screw it up if the unthinkable happened. But you know what? Even though none of this is real, he did encounter four people the other day, and he handled it well. He wanted them to leave, and they eventually did. He won the argument. Despite his lack of experience, he could do this. When this new group of people come here, he’ll take care of them too, no matter what they want from him, or the tree. If they don’t have honorable intentions, they’re gonna wish they did.

“All right, that’s enough,” Clavia declares. The crowd freezes, though they’re all still looking at Echo enthusiastically.

“You can make anything?” Echo asks her.

“Like I said, it’s not like one of your parents’ sims. I don’t have to program anything. I just...think of it. What else do you want to see?”

Echo looks up towards the sky, and thinks about it. “Hmm. The whole galaxy.”

“Easy,” she says. The street and buildings in front of them begin to roll away. Then the entire planet that they’re standing on does the same, like a giant marble spinning through outer space. The two of them keep flying backwards as the stars fly away from them, and then start to streak across the sky. Suddenly it all stops, and they can see a galaxy, rotating at an angle in the middle of a black void. It’s so beautiful, glowing with the fire of hundreds of billions of suns.

He admires it silently for a few moments.

“Not one second has passed for us in the real world,” Clavia claims. “I can teach you so many things while we’re in here. I can make you feel like you’ve lived an entire lifetime in one day. I can show you what life has been like for everyone else; in the five original realities, and after the creation of the Sixth Key. I can turn you into the leader that I know you can be.”

“What do you get out of this?” Echo asks.

“Why would I need anything out of it? Is that how your parents raised you, to need something for your efforts?”

“They did not, but in the regular simulations, I often had to wait in line, like if I wanted to go on an amusement park ride, or order food. I couldn’t carry on a conversation with one of the backgrounders, but I could hear them talk to each other. I noticed a drive towards balance. Unfairness meant one person having something that the other did not. They wanted everything to be even. No one wants to lose, or sacrifice. And I always had to pay. It was fake money to me, but real to them.”

“Well,” Clavia begins, “I’m not one of your background actors. I’m a tree.”

Echo chuckles. “True. I recognize that I don’t know how humans work regardless. Yes, Clavia, I would love it if you showed me.”

She smiled wider. “Great. Then let’s get started. How about we go back to the beginning, during a little event that we call...the big bang?”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 10, 2492

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After waiting for the slingdrive to get back to the green, the three members of the impromptu away team returned to Castlebourne. They held an emergency meeting, so they could get all the way through it before the timeslippers disappeared for a year. After this happened, Team Kadiar evidently took care of it, and no longer needed anyone else’s input on the matter. They would be dealing with Korali and her agenda according to their own procedures and mission protocols.

Today, Team Matic was worrying about something else. The rescue missions and beta testing were going fine. The refugees were becoming less anxious about their new lives here, and really trying to dig in; put down some roots. The more people who became comfortable with relaxing, and using the recreational domes, the more it normalized the concept, and the more people who were willing to give it a shot too. They were establishing a new society here, and it was going pretty well. Unfortunately, the grand opening was in more danger than ever. Until recently, it was illegal to cast one’s consciousness to interstellar distances permanently. Doing so would place the onus on someone else to properly handle the traveler’s former body. People were typically willing to take on this responsibility, but that wasn’t enough to make it part of state policy. Those details had since been ironed out, and most restrictions that were limiting Castlebourne’s potential as a destination planet were out of the way. There was one left, though, and it had to do with the power demands of such a distant casting.

“How far are we again?” Olimpia asked.

“We’re 108 light years from Earth, so varying distances from other core colonies,” Hrockas replied. He was really stressed out, and spending all of his time trying to charter the rights to casting at scale. That was what this region of space was called; the Charter Cloud. The Core Colonies belonged to a unified sociopolitical community, and to a lesser extent, the rest of the stellar neighborhood belonged as well. It afforded them certain rights and protections, usage of certain technology, and aid. The charter systems lay beyond this region, but not so far beyond that they were completely on their own. They could request certain assistance, and technological advancements to help them in their development. There were no guarantees, but it was fairly common. Hrockas, for instance, already proved himself to have healthy relationships with the right bureaucrats when he managed to secure an arkship. But now, that was probably what was holding him back. He had already chartered so much, and the government wasn’t convinced that what they were getting out of this relationship was worth letting him charter even more.

Quantum terminals were a marvel of technology, and a major game changer in the pursuit of interstellar colonization. Whereas a ship might take decades or longer to reach its destination, an individual could travel there in a matter of minutes. This technology was what made it worth it to found Castlebourne so far away from the stellar neighborhood, and the entire point of this project. Unfortunately, while spooky action at a distance was harnessed long ago, it wasn’t free. The greater the distance between two quantum computers, the harder it was to maintain coherence, the more energy it took to power communication, and the higher the bandwidth they both needed. This was the source of the government’s reluctance. Sure, they didn’t have a problem with one or two people transferring or surrogating their minds there each day, but Hrockas wanted orders of magnitude more visitors. And the colonies didn’t want to give him what he needed to achieve these objectives.

While he was obviously granted permission to take ownership of the star system well over a century ago, the current administration was now arguing that they had no obligation to provide him his customers. It just took too much power. He was asking for too much. If they didn’t reach an agreement soon, he would not meet his goals. He had been dealing with this for years, but with particular intensity over the course of this last year, but now he was out of ideas.

“What about relay stations?” Mateo suggested. “Like, you cast to a world in between Earth and here, and then maybe another one between here and the first relay. Would that lower the power requirements?”

“It absolutely would,” Hrockas agreed, “but most of the ideal candidates lie within the managed territories. They don’t want to give those up either. I’ve already asked to use the preexisting intermediate quantum terminals as repeaters, but they don’t wanna do that either. Those are the property of their respective colonists, and I have no right to them.”

“Well, what if we built our own?” Olimpia offered. “Star systems are big. Surely there’s enough room for two independent quantum repeaters, or whatever.”

Hrockas nodded, but he was clearly about to slam that idea down too. “Yes, I’ve thought of that, but it would take another century to build here, and fly the full distance. They won’t let me cast an engineering team, or take control of local automators remotely, in order to build these new repeaters in situ. The issue remains, I don’t have rights to those territories, or their resources. For a couple of them, I could probably negotiate with their owners on my own, but that would only work with the colonies closer to me, which doesn’t solve the problem, because even they are too far from the core. I need access to the stars that are under the strongest control of the central government.”

“Did you ask Team Kadiar?” Leona suggested. “They have an FTL ship, don’t you, Captain?” she asked Dubravka.

“I do,” Dubra confirmed, even though everyone knew it was true.

The Vellani Ambassador is busy with their rescue missions. I’m not going to take time away from them for such petty reasons.”

“I wouldn’t call it petty,” Dubra said. “We’ve already discussed the potential for Operation Escape Artist.”

“Don’t talk about that here,” Hrockas requested of her. “I don’t want the others to be made aware of it.” He looked at those not in the know with grave concern.

No one on Team Matic batted an eye. They were curious about what Operation Escape Artist could possibly be, but it was none of their business, so they had no right to look into it, or ask after it.

“I think I can do it...without the VA,” Ramses volunteered.

“Did you build another slingdrive?” Leona questioned, having not yet heard anything about it yet.

“Kind of.” Ramses was hesitant to clarify.

“Explain,” Leona ordered. Then an expression of fear flashed on her face. Mateo knew that she was still doubting her continued role as a captain without a ship.

“It’s not a ship...per se.” Ramses’ eyes darted over to Mateo. “Nor a...slingdrive...per se.” His eyes darted to Mateo once more.

“Oh,” Mateo said. “It’s me? I’m the slingdrive?”

“With a...firmware update, you could be,” Ramses replied.

“Setting aside how impossible what you’re implying sounds like, why would it have to be him?” Leona pressed. “What’s different about him?” Ramses exchanged glances, much to the Captain’s annoyance. “Someone tell me what’s goin’ on.”

“I suppose the secret was going to get out eventually,” Ramses decided.

“Might as well be now.” Mateo stood up, and stepped away from the table. The nanobots that composed his emergent suit were currently thickened out to look just like a regular IMS. This was unnecessary for them to function at optimal efficiency, however, and made them feel bulkier and less streamlined. He now commanded them to thin all over before removing them entirely from some parts of his body. Once he was finished adjusting the layout, it looked like he was wearing a short sleeve spacesuit with shorts instead of pants. Very impractical, but more comfortable.

Leona stood, and began to inspect her husband. “You are much farther along on this project than I thought you were,” Leona was still looking at Mateo, but clearly speaking to Ramses.  “Last I heard, it was nothing more than a dream.” She snapped Mateo’s waistband.

“It’s in alpha testing,” Ramses admitted.

“Well, if he’s survived this long, I suppose it can’t be all bad. But he is not qualified to install quantum repeaters that orbit a star.” Now she looked Ramses in the eye. “You’ll install them in my substrate as well for beta.”

“As you wish,” Ramses agreed.

“This is all very interesting,” Hrockas interjected, “but I don’t have any quantum repeaters. There is nothing we can do this year if one of you six has to do it.”

Leona nodded at him. “Grand opening is 2500. We’ll have it done by then.” She looked down at Ramses again. “Assuming the second upgrade is a viable option.”

“Hogarth taught me a shit-ton last year,” Ramses reminded her. “I believe that I can successfully miniaturize the technology that needs to be miniaturized, and shunt what I can’t into a pocket dimension.”

“These already have pockets,” Mateo revealed. He extended a feeding tube from the choker necklace that he was wearing. Ramses’ original design granted access to the food pocket dimension from an implant that was injected directly in the mouth, but having the dayfruit smoothie suddenly materialize on his tongue proved to be incredibly unsettling. Other people may have no problem with it, and Mateo had no issue with the palate implants for air and water.

“Cool,” Leona said, seemingly unimpressed.

“I can install your suit today,” Ramses promised, “but the upgrade will have to wait until tomorrow. I want to run a few hundred billion more simulations.”

“Do what you gotta do,” Leona instructed.

That was the end of the meeting, so everyone started to leave. Hrockas asked Leona to stay behind, and didn’t have any problem when Mateo and Olimpia chose to stand by her. “I just...”

“Go on,” Leona encouraged.

“I wanted to thank you for all you and your team has done. I started this all alone. I always planned on being alone. But your builder has accelerated construction on all the domes, your engineer deployed planetary defenses the likes of which have never been seen in this sector of the galaxy. Every time I have a problem in need of solvin’, you step up without ever asking anything in return. I don’t know how to repay you. I’m not old enough to remember a time when people exchanged currency for goods, but you are. Do you...want something like that? I hear gold used to be worth a lot. You know there’s a Wild West dome. I built it where it is specifically because there are real gold deposits there.”

“We have no use for money or precious metals either,” Olimpia explained to him.

“Ram uses metals,” Mateo added, “but he would have said something if he were lacking.”

“You don’t have to attempt to pay us in any form,” Leona assured Hrockas. “This is just what we do.” She took a breath, and looked around. “I do believe that our work here may be coming to a close, but we’ll probably continue to use this as a sort of home base, as long as that doesn’t lead to unforeseen consequences. The whole reason Ramses is doing what he’s doing right now is so we can go anywhere we’re needed.”

“Well, I really appreciate you selecting my little world as one of those places where you were needed. My dream is not exactly essential to the advancement of mankind. I didn’t know that anyone needed a refuge until you told me. They weren’t in the original plans either.”

“That’s okay,” Leona comforted. “You didn’t question it when we asked. You just gave us the space. We need to thank you for that.”

Hrockas smiled softly and nodded.

They left the room, and proceeded to Ramses’ secret lab. Leona wasn’t happy that he had been keeping this whole thing from her, but Mateo defended him. He argued that everyone was entitled to at least a little privacy. The team didn’t have many opportunities while spending nearly every day together, so they had to find small corners or moments which belonged only to them. The two of them found theirs. They watched as Leona stripped down, and climbed onto the scary-looking medical chair, just as Mateo had days ago.

Ramses had her read the literature, and then prepared to initiate the machine. “This is gonna look like it hurts...and it does. But it won’t last forever, and she will survive.”

“Do it,” Leona ordered.

Ramses turned it on, and let the laser robot arms start doing their thing. It was more horrifying to see from this angle than it was when Mateo was in the chair. It didn’t help that he was watching his wife tense up in agony. But the man was right, it was over quickly, and the pain began to subside immediately.

Leona stood up, and played with her new nanites a little, releasing them, changing the design of her faux clothing, and pulling them back in. She disappeared, and returned thirty seconds later. “Teleportation is a lot smoother.”

“It’s because you’re lighter,” Ramses explained.

“Me next,” Olimpia volunteered.

Ramses himself was the last to undergo the upgrade treatment. He showed Leona what to do, and how to watch for calibration errors, then he climbed in the chair, and told her to hit the button. It started out just as the others had. The lasers cut into his skin, implanted the gel matrices, then sealed the incisions back up. This was when things changed. The ground shook, and sparks shot out of the machine. The robot arms started uncontrollably swinging every which way. Everyone grabbed one, and tried to hold it in place, so it wouldn’t go wild. It didn’t last very long anyway, though. A web of technicolors enveloped them, and flung them through the spacetime continuum, into the unknown.

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