Microstory 1716: Sea Goat

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I’ve done it, I’ve cracked it! I have finally figured out how to genetically engineer the sea goat. No, this is not like the mythological Capricornus creature thing that’s half-goat, half-fish. This is an aquatic goat, which still looks mostly like a goat, but which has features that allow it to swim below the surface. Most goats can already swim, but they don’t really like it, and they certainly can’t breathe underwater. The sea goat is different. I designed fin flaps on his legs, so when he’s in the water, he’ll curl his hooves inward, and let the fins do the paddling. His hair is more like otter or beaver fur, capable of keeping him warm in frigid waters. The gills on his neck can process both saltwater and freshwater equally well, allowing him to stay under indefinitely. He has a set of transparent eyelids underneath the opaque ones, which allow him to see through the water. You may be asking why I would do this. Why create an amphibious goat? The truth is that not once during the process did I ask myself that question. It seemed like such a natural objective that I never considered there needed to be any sort of reason. Now, you’ll notice that I keep referring to the animal as a he, but the truth is that its genderless. I just use the term for the sake of ease, but he is no more male than he is female. When he’s ready to reproduce, he will do so asexually. That doesn’t mean he carries both reproductive organs, but that he doesn’t need different organs. When it’s time to propagate the species, he’ll develop the eggs. He won’t have to fertilize them, but he also won’t be making an exact copy. Enzymes in his reproductive system will attach themselves to the eggs randomly. Once enough of these enzymes are attached, they’ll operate uniquely, and in concert, altering each egg’s DNA in unpredictable ways. This allows for the offspring to be born genetically diverse, whilst still only requiring the one parent. The species will evolve as normal, but will have no need to find suitable mates.

The only thing I’m having trouble with now is figuring out how to prompt the reproductive process in the first place. If I were to engineer a sexual species, two members of that species would undoubtedly experience the instinct to mate with each other, which would continue the bloodline. Without such environmental factors, I’m not sure why the sea goat would do this. Most species evolve the biological imperative to pass on their genetic information, by whatever means they have available to them. This is because any individual who doesn’t have this drive, won’t pass on their genetic information, and will die out long before we ever have a chance to study them. They just don’t exist—in random defective organisms, yes, but not in an entire species, because it wouldn’t make any sense. But evolution didn’t take too much part in what I have created. It’s impossible to tell whether the fundamental biological imperative is strong enough in the sea goat, or is even there at all. If all goes according to plan, he’ll lay about a dozen eggs, and maybe half of them will survive through the early developmental process. That is if anything happens at all. I don’t really want to try to trigger the propagation myself, because I want to see if he will do it on his own. That day may never come, but I have no choice but to be patient. The sea goat’s life span is presently about as long as a human’s, which is a gift I deliberately added to his genes. I may die before seeing the second generation come to fruition, so that is why you’re here. If you accept the position, you’ll be responsible for carrying on my legacy. You won’t be my assistant, you’ll be more like my heir. Now that you know a little bit about what we do here, how about you tell me more about yourself? Why do you want to study and raise sea goats?

Microstory 1656: Purebloods

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In the universe where Neanderthal DNA managed to survive as a higher percentage in the modern population, most people were genetically diverse. But there were a few outliers; bloodlines which they would often call pure. While knowing how much Neanderthal DNA an individual contained wasn’t something people generally knew until DNA testing became available, there were those who could detect it naturally. It appeared to be a survival trait shared by few. It would seem evolutionarily important to be able to know such information about a potential mate. Members of these so-called pure bloodlines became impure by the 21st century, because it just stopped being so important. Younger generations were making their own choices, and didn’t really care about tradition, or perceived purity. It was also getting harder to accomplish without committing incest, which was not out of the question for some people, apparently. The rest wanted to fall in love with whoever, and not worry about what people thought. One particular bloodline kept their traditions going much longer than the others, until the youngest of the latest generation met someone with the highest known percentage of Neanderthal DNA. She was 24.4% Neanderthal, and honestly, considered to be not so attractive because of it. That didn’t matter to this man, nor should it have. They had a lot in common, and they wanted to be together, but his family was not having it. At first, his parents threatened to cut him off from the family fortune, hoping that would be enough to straighten him out. He was not so easily swayed. He already had a decent education, presently had a good job, and could probably get a better one with time. He didn’t need their money. Since that didn’t work, they resorted to intimidation, and even stalking, but still he would not budge. He was in love, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. That was when they grew violent.

They attacked the couple in their home, but they didn’t kill his fiancée. No, they murdered the pureblood son, and didn’t even bother covering it up. Though he was one of them, the purebloods had no qualms about murdering him, because they couldn’t risk contaminating the family tree with what they deemed to be inferior DNA. They had previously resorted to inbreeding to prevent this from happening when no viable candidates were available as mates, but that wouldn’t help in this case. He wasn’t the last in his generation, or even the parents’ only son. He was just the best choice for passing the baton. His DNA was strong, and so were his reproductive capabilities. If they couldn’t have him, no one could. Yeah, they were that sick. The others could continue on without him, though, and everything would be fine. Of course, it wasn’t fine. The public was outraged by the development, and wanted something to be done about it. Law enforcement was able to arrest the suspects, and most of them were convicted of something. Some actually carried out the crime, while others conspired to make it happen, but in the end, they were all mostly gone. That wasn’t enough for everyone. A group decided to fight fire with fire. They didn’t murder anyone, but they did chemically sterilize the survivors. The pure bloodline would end here, no matter what they did, or who they tried to introduce into the family. The sterilizers were convicted of their crimes as well, but it was too late. The very idea of a pure human would forever be eradicated from the public consciousness. A new age of enlightenment sprang from this, fostering innovative ideas, and promoting social unity. Now they were all the same, because they were all different, and there was no need to fight about it anymore. The purebloods, meanwhile, died out, and became nothing more than a terrible footnote in the history of the world.

Microstory 1655: Linsetol Revealed

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Bulk traveler Joseph Jacobson came to me recently with a story about his adventures in Linsetolverse. He corrected some assumptions I made about the universe. It’s hard for me to get a good look at it from so far away, so it was nice to hear some details about the way they lived. He arrived, as he always does, as a human, shocking the Linsetol, who had never seen anything like him before. They knew it was best to keep this alien a secret, because they didn’t want to cause any confusion or panic. Joseph has the ability to navigate the bulkverse. That’s kind of his whole deal, so he could have made a deliberate effort to avoid showing up where his presence could negatively impact the development of the locals, but he usually just spins a metaphorical wheel, and takes his chances. He’s immortal, so he doesn’t concern himself with preparation, or vigilance. Anyway, things seemed to work out fine, and Joseph spent a few years there, learning about their culture. The language was the hardest part. As they were evolved from dinosaurs, the Linsetol have different vocal physiology, and produce sounds that are impossible for a human to replicate. With the aid of some engineers, Joseph actually managed to build a device that would translate his thoughts into a digital voice. It was not a linguistic translator, though. Joseph still had to understand the language in order for the device to not simply come out as English. He probably could have done it differently, but just didn’t feel the need. It worked both ways, allowing a Linsetol to speak in English, should the need ever arise, but this wasn’t something that Joseph needed of them. Once he was able to communicate with them effectively, he started learning their customs, because that was his favorite part about traveling. He was usually just going to a different version of Earth, so it wasn’t like the topography was particularly exciting. Understanding other people was the entire point.

As it turns out, the Linsetol are quite like humans. I was wrong about them being foreign. I think the language barrier was clouding my vision. They’re just as diverse, just as curious, and just as capable of doing terrible things. They measure time in the same way, though it’s different on prehistoric Earth, because the celestial bodies are moving differently. Shorter days, longer years. They developed fairly advanced technology, which I can see from my perspective, but they never got very far into space. Upon realizing how bad for their environment nonrenewable energy sources were, they outlawed them. They outlawed them across the globe, and pursued renewables like solar and wind power. Unfortunately, such things are not conducive to sending rockets up into space, so space exploration was pretty much off the table without fusion or antimatter rockets, which weren’t destined to be developed for many decades. They didn’t make it that far, because of their isolationistic habits. That’s one thing that I was right about. They were capable of demanding universal laws for the protection of their world, but they didn’t possess a spirit of cooperation, which stifled ingenuity, and slowed progress. They couldn’t last forever this way. They didn’t die out because they destroyed their planet, or succumbed to some pandemic. It was a population growth problem. Their drive to propagate the species was much lower than it is for humans. It was never zero, but it wasn’t enough, and over time, they just couldn’t maintain the species. Each generation was less inclined to bear children on the individual level, and that eventually caught up to them.

Microstory 1593: Leaving a Legacy

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Prompt

I made a wish on a shooting star, and it actually came true. What I wished for...

Botner

...was to leave a legacy, and I have been living up to that ever since. The next question is...would I want to end it all? Maybe...but I would have to be crazy to give up now. Two hours later, I stood in the yard of my home in the small city of Bandar, in Central Asia, having just made a living pot with my own hands. Would I take up that trade for the rest of my life? No...I don’t want that life. The world needs more good guys like me, like everyone, not more killers. I will never end my life...if the world ends with a bang or a whimper, I will be a happy man. I look back down at the pot of light, illuminated with the fire I made and smile. I know...the world won’t end with a whimper...not any time soon, anyway.

Conclusion

Of course, I won’t see the world end, because I did not wish to live forever. Looking back, that would have probably been the better idea. If I could stick around, I wouldn’t need a legacy, I would just keep going, keep helping people. Only dead people have legacies, and they don’t even get to enjoy them. Still, I think I’ll be okay when I finally do die. I hold onto my newfound love of gardening, and help make the world a better place through it. I plant as many trees as I can. I sell seeds to keep the dream alive, and use it to buy up huge swaths of rainforests, to protect them from the deforestation companies. I’m not a hero, or a god, but I believe I’ve done my part. Perhaps no one will remember my name, but they will enjoy the literal fruits of my labor. They will sit under my trees, and walk amongst them, and watch the wildlife scamper, and crawl, and fly. Further in the future, my trees will die, but will seed the next generation, and my legacy will go on even then. It can’t be stopped. In the end, I’ll never really die, because what I have done is contribute to the persistence of life. No, I won’t be there to see it with my eyes, but I see it with my heart, and when the world finally does end—with that bang, or a whimper—I know I’ll at least have done everything I could to protect it.

Dardius: Mateo Matic (Part IX)

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No, it wasn’t Cassidy in the background. Mateo was seeing Meliora Rutherford, whom he had only met a couple times; once in an alternate reality. They didn’t look anything alike, but the former was the person he was expecting to be here. He had always wondered why it was that Gilbert Boyce owned this planet, rather than her. She was in charge of the only inhabited building on it back when this all began, so why did her power not spread as the population did? After he hugged everyone in the room who was there for his memorial already, he decided to be brave, and pull Meliora aside, so he could speak with her about this. Seeing her here, and realizing why it was that all these people were coming together, gave him an idea.

“I thought this day might come,” Meliora said.

“You did?” he asked. “So you know what I’m going to say.”

“I have no idea,” she admitted. “But you and I have not spoken in quite a long time, from both of our respective perspectives, so we were probably due. Ask me anything.”

“Why did Boyce own this planet, and not you? I mean, didn’t you basically run it, and weren’t you the one who named it”

“Oh, we’re talkin’ about that? Okay. Well, it’s really complicated, but the gist of it is that I don’t want it. Maqsud owed Boyce a favor, and that favor came in the form of a star system. Boyce owed me a favor, but it was a much smaller one, so that favor came in the form of being able to use this planet for my needs. I wanted a place where Earthans could feel safe and comfortable. Right down to the surface gravity, they needed to feel like they were still on the same world. Keep in mind that this agreement was discussed and finalized when The Rogue was possessing the body of Baudin, and one other person. Neither one of them was evil, like The Apprentice, so he was far more congenial at the time. Anyway, I was responsible for The Sanctuary, and Boyce was not allowed to interfere, but he did maintain control over the rest of the planet. Or rather, he maintained theoretical control. He never had any ideas of what he could do with it, so when a few of my guests wanted to go out camping, for instance, we didn’t run into any problems.

“Around the time that Boyce first died, and ownership transferred to you, the people I was rescuing from Earth were multiplying beyond the Sanctuary’s boundaries. I took a risk, and expanded without permission, because I assumed you wouldn’t have a problem with it.”

“Of course not,” Mateo confirmed.

“Good. So, I started using more and more land, but I realized my people no longer needed me. They procured their own way of extracting those in need from the timeline, and of figuring out precisely who those people were. Recognizing that I would probably only be a hindrance to this new civilization’s development, I determined the best thing for me to do was leave.”

“Where did you go? Or when?”

“It’s a little bit of both. I began to travel to other universes.”

“Ah, I see.”

“I never know where I’m going, or what I will find when I arrive, because I have no means of navigating the bulkverse. That’s why I can’t own this planet. I can always return to a brane that I’ve been to, but I can’t guarantee where in the timeline I’ll be, or even if I’ll be in the latest timeline,” she said with airquotes. “So now I have a question for you, are you asking out of curiosity, or are you trying to pass it off to me?”

“Do you think I should...pass it off, that is?”

Meliora stood there for a moment. “Probably. I can’t take it, though. I’m a bulk traveler and that’s the way I like it. After this is over, I will be leaving again. If you would like someone to take Dardius off your hands, I can help you do that. It’s a good time for it, because even though you’re obviously alive, you have died, and that’s sort of when ownership transference happens.”

“Right. The problem is you are exactly who I had in mind. I don’t know of anyone else. Do you?”

Mateo’s memorial was quite literally a global event. The only people not paying attention to it were in emergency situations, like those at the hospital. Even they had the ceremony on in the background, though. There wasn’t enough room for everyone to watch in one place, however, so only a select few tens of thousands of people were afforded tickets to the stadium. Other stadiums held their own events, though they were self-regulated, and unofficial. Even the people in the main stadium didn’t have the best view, because there was a much smaller crowd on the grounds, full of only people who knew Mateo personally. Though the event would not begin for another few hours, Meliora decided to transport the living Mateo there, so he could catch a sneak preview. She slowed time down to a crawl so they could get a good look from another dimension.

“I don’t know how all these people get here,” Meliora began as they were staring at the group. “I dispatched some of my most trusted allies to assist in the endeavor, because the powers that be are not involved this time, like they were with your final showdown with The Cleanser in the Colosseum. I was also unable to recruit Glaston for this, because your wedding with Leona nearly killed him.”

“Who’s that guy?” Mateo was pointing to a mysterious man who they did indeed encounter at the wedding.

“He’s from the future. Don’t worry about it. Are you listening to me?”

“Yes, of course.”

Meliora went on, “not everyone here would be up to the task of owning a planet.”

“How hard could it be? I did almost nothing as owner. I only became Patronus later, and that didn’t last very long, and it never truly had to happen at all.”

“It is a psycho-emotional strain, Mateo. You’ve always been too busy to feel it, especially since for a good chunk of the time, you didn’t even know how many people lived here. All these people do. The new owner would know from the start that billions of people will know their name. They’ll likely feel the obligation to live here, because they’ll have the option, whereas you and Leona never did. They will spend their days in the public eye, not possessing any real power, but being asked for help anyway. Mateo, if you choose someone to take this world from you—which, by the way, you don’t actually have to—you will be simultaneously giving them an enormous gift, and a massive burden.”

“Do I have to give it to anyone at all?” Mateo hoped. “Can I not just relinquish my rights, or something?”

“Normally, yes. But with this particular world, with this many people, who all believe in you, no. They’re comfortable with having an owner, kind of like how it took over two centuries for the United Kingdom to abolish the royal family, and transition completely to a real democratic republic.”

“Wull, if I try to give Dardius to someone else, do the people have to approve of that person?”

“Well, they will, because you do. I know that seems like I’m not answering the question, but it’s true. They will accept anyone. You could hand it off to Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, and Donald Trump, and they’ll smile, because they’ll trust you had your reasons.”

“I don’t think I’m going to go that route. I want to choose someone who’s up for the job. Please don’t be neutral on this. If you have a good choice in mind, I want to hear it.”

“I have to be neutral, because I’m too powerful to let people listen to me too much. I do know someone who should be involved in this decision, though. I’ll take you back to the recent past, just before Leona arrives.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

Mateo returned to the Sanctuary hotel, and had an hour-long talk with his wife about what they were going to do with this planet. They generated a list of their most responsible friends, and pared it down. In the end, the three-generational Einarsson family proved themselves to be the most logical choice. Any help they needed they could secure from their various friends and allies, and as the owner of a whole planet, Cassidy would be forever protected from anyone who would do her harm. The trick would be convincing them to agree to it in the first place. He didn’t really know if the three of them had to agree to this, because Gilbert never gave him a choice, but he was determined to not force the issue if they didn’t consent. That wasn’t Mateo’s responsibility, though. Leona would have to take care of that herself while he was off doing something else. There were two people who were vital to the services, but Meliora’s people were struggling with finding a way to retrieve them. One in particular would not come easily, mostly because he had no idea who Mateo was.

Ramses was difficult to get to, because of when and where he was. Horace Reaver, on the other hand, was difficult because they evidently couldn’t choose just any version of him in any time period. The Horace living in 2027 was the one who needed to see the events that would be unfolding today, for temporal reasons that Mateo wasn’t capable of understanding. He just had to trust that Meliora knew what she was talking about when she explained this to him. This would be a lot easier if he had managed to retain Nerakali’s brain blending power, but it was still possible without it. His best chance at success would be to appeal to Horace’s better nature, and make sure he suppressed his dark tendencies.

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Microstory 1294: The Flies and the Gnats

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A business of flies was so tired of having to hunt for food. They wanted to find a consistent and endless supply of resources, without having to work for it. Meanwhile, a cloud of gnats would scold them for thinking this way. “You should want to work for your food,” the gnats would say. “You will feel better for it.” But the flies were not convinced. They knew there was something else out there, so they sent scouts out to the unknown lands, in search of exactly what they were looking for. Finally, they found it in the form of a dumpster behind a restaurant. This was where the business of flies decided to live. The restaurant always dumped their leftovers at the end of the night, without fail, and it was always full of tasty treats. This went on for generations to come. The gnats, on the other hand, continued to travel from house to house. Whenever they exhausted the resources they had found there, there was nothing else they could do but move on to the next. Some houses were kept cleaning, and were no good. One night, the cloud thought it had discovered a great source of honey. “This is amazing,” the said. “We worked hard, and did not give up, and this is our reward.” But the honey was a trap...literally. While they were busy applauding themselves for their work ethic, a human came by and sucked them all up into a vacuum cleaner.

This story was inspired by, and revised from, an Aesop Fable called The Flies and the Honeypot.

Source Variant: Planet of Hats (Part III)

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Saxon talked a little bit more about Project Stargate, Operation Starseed, and two other interrelated endeavors called Operation Anglo, and Operation Soul Patch. Apparently, Projects are publicly known massive undertakings, while Operations require a little more secrecy, and are often used to support the projects. He evidently cloned himself millions of times, and sent each one of them to a different section of an unfathomably huge ship, which would break apart, and start exploring the galaxy. He was the OG Saxon, however, and was able to exercise a little more independence because of it. Following some research, before the Stargate ship was able to break apart too much, he switched places with one of the random Anglo clones, so that he would be stationed on this planet. According to early synthetical readings, the world that would one day come to be known as Orolak was rated at .982 on the Terrestrial Habitability Similarity Index. A perfect score would have been 1, so this was pretty good.

Saga!Two and Vearden!Three did what they could to help Saxon with his work. For most of the worlds that were being seeded with evolved human-based life, the first generation would be raised by some form of artificial intelligence, but either way, they couldn’t do it on their own. The humans were responsible for maintaining the growth pods while the Orothsew subjects were still in preliminary biological development. Once they were born, they were then responsible for protecting them, and teaching them how to live. They went over the basics: finding food, eating, sleeping, not killing, etc. They didn’t teach them any math or science. They didn’t tell stories of Earth, or explained how it is they came to be. Hell, they didn’t even speak to them, because then the Orothsew would learn English, and they were meant to form their own language. It was only their job to make sure they survived long enough to propagate the species. Once the first phase of their social development was complete, so was the job.

To unwittingly mark the occasion, they open a door to get something to eat, and all three find themselves transitioning to what they soon learn to be a different point in time. Based on stellar drift, it’s almost exactly two hundred years later. They had set up a little village for the first generation of inhabitants several kilometers away from the facility where they were grown, but that facility still existed, and it’s where the humans were living once it was safe to leave the children alone for extended periods of time. The place is still here, just as they left it, but automated systems had buried it underneath a hill, so that it perfectly blended in with the environment. Orothsew progress was still in its infancy, so any exposure to advanced technology could disrupt their continued social development. It’s not quite the Prime Directive from the Star Trek franchise, though. If the powers that be transported all of them to this moment in the future, then it’s obviously for a reason, and that reason probably doesn’t involve too much passively observing from a safe distance.

It does involve some observation, though. They look through the data the facility has been keeping track of since they were gone. The population rose at a predictable and steady rate until something terrible happened eighty-three years ago. An infection spread through the village, and though the villagers had the good sense to isolate all who were showing symptoms of the disease, they didn’t consider quarantining asymptomatic people who might have been exposed to the pathogen. All told, the population took a hit of three hundred and fifty-eight people, but it could have been so much worse. It could have spelled the end of the species, and Saxon has been reluctant to answer what they would have done in that situation. Though, to be fair, if that were to ever happen, the PTB would probably step up, and send them in to stop it. Perhaps that’s why they’re here now. Maybe there’s another disease coming, or some natural disaster that the Orothsew are woefully unprepared for.

Saxon is still looking over the numbers, head in hand. “Five hundred and ninety-one.”

“How many should there be?” Saga!Two asks.

He shakes his head. “Around fifteen hundred. More.”

“This happens,” Vearden!Three assures him. “Humans went through a lot more than this, because they didn’t have us.”

“Yes, they did,” Saxon says.

“What?”

“Huh?” Saxon has gotten lost in his thoughts.

“What do you mean, humans had us?” Saga!Two questions.

“Oh, sorry. Well, I should be clear; they’re a theory. There are some inexplicable anomalies when we look back at the hominid population hundreds of thousands of years ago. Our ancestors survived some things they probably shouldn’t have. These disasters were just shy of being enough to wipe out the species entirely. Humans from what’s considered to be the very first timeline ever supposedly went back in time and saved their own ancestors, thus propelling us towards a more stable population growth rate. If this is true, it’s before the powers that be or The Gallery existed, and the changes they made were so dramatic that not even one individual was born in that timeline, and also in any other since.”

“So, there’s no proof any of this is true,” Vearden!Three says.

Saxon goes back to looking at the data. “No, but there’s strong evidence.”

“You’re human,” Saga!Three says in a non sequitur.

Saxon stops dwelling for a moment again. “Yes, why?”

“Why do you know so much about us? Who taught you all this?”

He chuckles. “You people spend a lot of time talking to each other to get information. Word of mouth is full of errors, lies, and truths lost in translation. I’ve heard so many contradictory claims about who the powers that be are, and what they have to do with the choosing ones. There’s a whole library out there that’s maintained by The Historian. I got access to it, and I did what I do best; I studied my ass off. I’m not saying there are no inaccuracies or biases in those books, but they’re at least based on research. You should be careful when someone tries to tell you what’s going on. They may not be right.”

“Thanks, professor,” Vearden!Three snarks. “I’ll remember that the next time I travel to one of the dozens of other universes I’ve gone to.” It’s true that, after traveling all over the bulkverse in The Crossover, he has a few experiences Saxon could never begin to understand, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things he could learn from the legit astronaut. His advice certainly isn’t unreasonable.

“Vearden,” Saga!Three scolds.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Saxon sighs and moves on. “Well, the disease is over. It ran its course decades ago. I’m looking at atmospheric and seismic readings; I don’t see anything else that gives you a clue what you’re back here to accomplish.”

“What would you be doing if you hadn’t jumped forward two hundred years?” Saga!Three poses. “That is, what would you have been doing for the last couple centuries?”

“I dunno,” Saxon answers, “but I wouldn’t still be here.”

“Oh, no?”

“No, I would have left after the last member of the first generation died, which they already have. Once no one was left alive who was grown in a pod, it would have been up to the remainders to sustain their population unaided. If you do have a job to do here, I’m not sure I should even help you. I didn’t, like, sign an oath, or anything, but I wasn’t meant to stick around forever.”

“So our door cut you off from your job?” Vearden!Three laments.

“I should clarify,” Saxon begins. “Vonearthan intervention ends after the first generation in most cases, including this one. It didn’t have to be me. As soon as I disappeared, automated systems took over.”

“That’s comforting,” Vearden!Three says with an extended nod. “It doesn’t tell us why it is we’re here now, though.”

As if there were a correlation between his words, and what was happening in one of the now several Orothsew villages, an alarm goes off. A live feed from a microdrone disguised as an insect comes up on the main screen. Since none of them speaks the Orothsew language, subtitles appear as well. Two males are fighting in the middle of a crowd. They’re not at full fisticuffs yet, but their argument is as heated as it is petty. It’s over the hand of a mate. One of them will push the other, or knock his hands out of the way. Waggling fingers and rude hand gestures; this is getting bad. But it apparently can’t go further in the here and now. The Orothsew have rules. The duel is scheduled for tomorrow, at high noon. The three humans aren’t sure what a duel in their culture involves, because they don’t mention details during the fight, but one thing the monitoring systems know is that they haven’t invented guns yet, so that’s something.

“We have to stop it,” Saga!Two declares.

“We can’t,” Saxon contends. “We can’t go out there like this. Back when we were teaching the wee babies how to survive, looking human was fine. They didn’t pass that information down to their own children, because they didn’t yet understand. Even if they describe us generations from now, no one will believe in ancient astronauts, just like people on Earth never did. But they’re already developed enough to record quasi-accurate history akin to the Bible. We can’t show our human faces; we just can’t.”

“I can help with that.” A woman walks in from the other room. A human woman. The three of them take a quick glance at each other, but their facial expressions do not suggest that anyone already knows who she is. She tries to shake their hands, but they’re reluctant. “It’s a good thing I’m not easily offended. If my visage makes you nervous, I can always take a form you are more comfortable with.” With no more warning, she suddenly transforms to look exactly like Leona Matic.

“Who are you?” Vearden!Two asks. He’s never met Leona before.

“My name is Alyssa McIver. I’m an illusionist. I can make you see whatever I want you to see...as long as what I want you to see exists at some point in spacetime. I can’t conjure imaginary visions; just superimpose real ones.”

“Could you, then. Umm...?” Saxon was uncomfortable. “Could you go back to your real face?”

She does as she’s asked. “I can help you blend in with the natives. I’ve done it a million times.That was my job almost a thousand years ago on the AOC.”

Now Saxon is interested, and more receptive. “So it’s true; the source variant theory. This is going to keep happening on other worlds.”

“It already has,” Alyssa confirms. “Source variants are fabricating aliens where there would not be aliens naturally. What you’re doing here; infiltrating the natives, and secretly helping to fix their problems? That’s what I and my crew did in the third millennium.”

“What year is it right now?” Vearden!Three asks her.

“Nine-two-seven,” Alyssa replies.

“What? No, I mean by the Earthan calendar.”

“Oh, you mean the old calendar. Three-five-two-seven.”

This freaks him out. “Why do they restart the calendar? Does the world end?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Alyssa says dismissively. “Do you like hats?”

“Alyssa,” Vearden!Three presses. “Does the world end?”

“I’ve taken the liberty of guessing what kind of hats you’ll be more comfortable with.” She removes three hats from her bag, each of a different design. One is a snowcap, the other a driving cap, and the third is something none of them knows enough about hats to designate. “No one will see the hat, of course. It will just make you look like a, uh...”

“Orothsew,” Saxon helps.

“Orothsew,” she echoes. “Yes. When I was on the AOC, I would just maintain the illusions myself, but I’m not sticking around here, so Holly Blue imbued these with my powers.”

They take the hats graciously.

“I do have some more questions,” Vearden!Three says.

“Cool. I gotta go, though. Bye!” She may teleport away at that point, or she just makes herself invisible. Either way, she’s gone.

They’ll probably never know what prompted her to come to the future to help them, but they’re grateful. Now it’s time to go stop that duel. They don’t realize until later how absolutely vital it was that they stop it. Either of their deaths would have caused catastrophic problems later on.

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Microstory 998: Turnover

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This is a really morbid one, which is why I put it near the end, in case I came up with something more positive. Believe it or not, that actually did happen with another topic. The previous installment was a last-minute replacement for something I ended up deciding I didn’t think you would like, and even then, I altered the subject matter while in the middle of writing it. For as much as I talk about how curing death can help the world, I’m not going to pretend it alone can solve all our problems, or that there isn’t potential for it to cause more. We can all surmise that immortality, without accompanied by other advancements, can lead to terrible consequences. If we don’t solve this world’s distribution problems, and move out to other worlds, we won’t be able to provide for the dramatic increase in population. Already we’re seeing the cost of better global health. Try driving from one side of town to the other without passing at least three separate postretirement facilities, of varying calibre, for varying needs. But there’s another reason death has been of benefit to us. In some of my stories, I have a race of “aliens” called Maramon. Their creator was a naive child who wasn’t interested in his creations ever dying, so he subconsciously made them immortal. What he couldn’t have realized was that meant the worst of the worst individuals were free to keep going through the centuries, unchecked. Can you imagine how awful life would be if Caligula, Jeffrey Dahmer, or Adolf Hitler were still alive? How much hope could we have if we knew that Donald Trump and Jared Fogle would always be around? We would never get through this. Turnover lets us rid ourselves of our history’s sickening mistakes, and gives rise to new ideas. Progress doesn’t happen just because a new generation wants things to change, but also because they’re eventually free from the burden of the old fogies who are incapable of that change. As wicked as it sounds, death is sometimes the only way. Maybe I’m wrong, and all those kids at the tiki torch rally who are young enough to become immortal in the future can eventually learn to become better people. Maybe if humans never died, we would all be totally fine, and living in the paradise our still-living ancestors built for us. But I doubt it.

Microstory 975: Millennials

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Not only have I never identified as a millennial, but I’ve also never identified as any generation. That’s probably because the whole generation system ignores individuality. I’ve been known to do it, which you can see by running a simple search on my website, but we really shouldn’t categories large groups of people based on trivial properties. I can’t necessarily relate to a man born on the exact same day at the exact same hospital as me, because we were each born to different parents, and raised by different people, in different places. Our contemporaries have different expectations of us, and we hold different worldviews. These are truths that I think you’ll find it hard to argue against, even if you believe in astrological nonsense, yet you expect me to relate to everyone born anywhere in the world within a range of, what, twenty years? I don’t believe all that, and if you think about it for a minute, I doubt you really do as well. It’s an absurd suggestion, that we all behave the same way, and agree with each other over all or most things. When someone says something about a millennial, usually how they contrast with others, they’re generally just talking about young people. But the reality is that young people always see things differently than their older counterparts. If this weren’t true, we would still be stuck obsessed with ridiculous religion doctrine that once kept us from progressing and developing. Those complaining about us were once under comparable derision from their own predecessors as they were protesting the Vietnam War. It’s funny how they’ve forgotten about that. So is there any real difference between us and them? Well, not if you get too specific, but there are some generalizations that can address the mainstream, but it still gets complicated.

I keep hearing people talk about voter trends, and how the younger crowd disenfranchises themselves, but if they did vote, they would overwhelmingly vote liberal. Okay, well here’s the problem. That’s always been the case; young people tend to not vote, and old people tend to vote. This suggests that those people, who once did not vote, are now voting. Why aren’t they voting liberal, like they supposedly would have before? They’re the same people, so what changed? Did they all just become assholes who only vote in their best interests, rather than the greater good? Yes, that’s exactly what happened. They’ve settled into their lives, usually believing themselves to have worked their asses off—whether it’s true or not—and start seeing less accomplished as failures. That too has always been the case. Children are dreamers, who believe in the good of the world, only to grow up jaded by the hatred and selfishness they didn’t realize was out there. So let’s go back to this idea of the millennial. The true difference between this generation, and all who come before us, is that we’re sick of this shit, and we’re never gonna grow out of that. We will continue to fight for fairness, and love, and inclusion, and equality. We will snuff your tiki torches, and we’ll investigate your Russian spies, and we will vote your asses out! As we get older, and start coming into positions of power, we will actually start changing things, because your way was never truly working. You just thought it was. So go ahead and scoff at the kids who don’t know what they’re talking about, because you will one day be as dead as your rotten ideals. I’m gonna live forever. Kids have always thought they were invincible, but because of medical science, and other technological advancement, it’s actually true for us.