The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 23, 2505

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Mateo’s nanites were just about done healing him. They prioritized the most life-threatening injuries first before moving on to the less serious damage. So a few cuts and bruises remained, and they hadn’t done anything for the pain yet. Even so, he could now stand up, and get a look around. Octavia still didn’t look concerned, so maybe this was some kind of refuge.

“We need to get moving,” she warned. “I let you recover, but it’s not safe here.”

“Is it safe anywhere?” he asked as he was following her along the stream.

“No,” she conceded. “The horde that was chasing after us can’t follow. Free from oversight, they’ve formed alliances, and divided the land into territories. We’re kind of on a border, so that offers us a little protection, but someone will eventually grow brave enough to cross the line—or hungry enough.”

What did you mean, no oversight?”

“This isn’t the real Castlebourne,” Octavia began to explain. “I don’t know exactly what it is, like an alternate reality, or something, but none of the staff is here. I don’t know who runs it—if it’s Pacey on his own, or if he’s working with someone else—but they don’t keep watch over the safeguards. These monsters are more vicious than they’re supposed to be.”

“How long have you been here?”

“The Vellani Ambassador rescued me and a bunch of others from Ex-486 in 2498. I wasn’t there long before I started hearing how worried the crew was about your whereabouts. I don’t know what they thought was wrong, but they were afraid that something had happened to you. So I agreed to investigate while they continued on with their missions.”

“Well, you found it. You found us.”

“Now, I have,” she agreed. “I found Pacey first, though, and he stuffed me in here so I wouldn’t interfere with his business. I’ve been running for my life ever since.”

“What happens if you die here?” he pressed.

“Nothing good,” she answered simply. “My body isn’t like yours, so I’ve been avoiding everyone. There are some buildings; particularly houses. They’re mostly haunted, but the ghosts have rules, and if you learn them, you can stay safe for a while.” She sighed. “But I think you can help end the madness forever.”

“How’s that?”

She looked around with a face full of paranoia and fatigue. “We’re pretty close to one side of this dome, and I can navigate us there. Unfortunately, once we get there, we’re going to have to walk halfway around the perimeter to reach the exit.”

“There should be more exits than that.”

“Like I said, it’s not the real Castlebourne. Pacey made modifications. There is a way out, but I can’t get through it with you.”

“It takes two to open the door, or something?”

“No, it takes an elite.”

“I’m an elite?”

“Yeah, of course you are. You were in Hrockas’ inner circle, and he hardwired contingencies into the software that should grant you access to any area at any time. The way he sees it, the planet is as much yours as it is his because of how much you contributed to its development. I don’t think that Pacey could have erased all those privileges without breaking the systems entirely. He would have had to reprogram everything from scratch. I’m sure he’s technically capable of doing that, but he’s kind of old school, so doesn’t like AI all that much. He likes to be hands-on, so he deliberately limits the tools in his toolbox.”

“So I can unlock the door, and we can both walk through?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Does he not know that?”

“I don’t know how much he knows about what I know.”

“It could be a trial,” Mateo put forth. “He may want us to escape. Some antagonists want us to stay out of their way, but others want us to stop them, like Thanos is with the Avengers.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“And you can’t teleport, right? Because I can’t. I tried while I was running once I remembered that I should be able to.”

Octavia shook her head. “I don’t have any powers at all. I lost that when I went back in time as September, and created a new timeline. I don’t like to talk about it, but it sets me apart from the other Paiges.”

“You don’t have to,” he assured her. “How dangerous is the border?”

She bobbled her head. “It has its advantages, and disadvantages. The monsters don’t know that they’re in a dome. If you showed one of them the wall, and they were the kind who could talk, they would probably just say, it doesn’t look like anything to me. They’re programmed to stop several meters before it, but they patrol that border, because they can still feel that there’s something weird about it. You’re safe beyond their reach, but there aren’t any resources there. No freshwater, no edible plants. You can take breaks, but you can’t stay.”

“Then let’s grab some supplies along the way. Now you can carry twice as much as before, and I don’t eat much.”

“Some of your powers and abilities are available to you, as you discovered when you jumped off the cliff and survived, but not all of them. If you aren’t hungry already, you will be soon. We need to get to that exit.”

“You seem to know a lot about it; about me.”

“You were part of my investigation,” she clarified. “I had to know who I was looking for. A lot has changed since I last saw you, many iterations of Paige ago.”

“Yeah.”

After nightfall, they finally managed to reach the border. She was right, there was a narrow open space that seemed to circle around the border. The problem was that this meant walking an additional 130 kilometers. Mateo didn’t know how his pattern worked in here. Even if he woke up right at midnight central, there would not be enough time for them to cross that distance before the end of the day. Paige would have to wait a whole year for him to come back, and then they still wouldn’t be able to make it in under 24 hours. Perhaps this plan wasn’t so perfect. There had to be a closer exit, perhaps hidden behind a false wall, or a hologram. As they were sliding their hands along what felt like glass or metal, they started hearing a commotion behind them. They turned around to find a new horde of monsters, about the same size as the one from before. But then more began to appear on the ends, and it eventually felt more like ten times that size. They were just standing there, staring at the two of them menacingly.

Paige’s watch beeped. “Oh, no.”

“What does that mean? Don’t tell me the worst monster comes out at a certain time.”

“No. It’s an hour until midnight central. You’re about to disappear for a year. This was stupid, we should have run straight through the center to the door. Now we’re screwed.”

“Don’t be so sure. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Mateo asked her. “In that clearing over there.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“If I recall correctly, it’s pretty maneuverable.”

“It’s pretty deadly.”

In the 1980s, a horror movie came out that would become a cult classic decades later. It was simply called Seatbelt Killer. Mateo couldn’t remember the exact backstory, but the villain’s origins involved his seatbelt getting stuck while his wife was being violated outside in front of him. He ended up turning the car on, and running over one of the rapists, but when the husband turned to get the other one, the second rapist threw his wife in front of the car, leading him to hitting her instead. The rapist then ran off, eventually getting trapped between the car and a cliff. With nothing left to live for, the husband drove right into him, and over the edge, where they both died. Then he and the car came back to life as a ghost, and started killing the protagonists over the course of the movie. The premise was that he literally couldn’t get out of his car anymore, but you couldn’t escape by going inside, because as a ghost car, it could fit through doorways, down hallways, and even up the stairs. You would think that he would kill rapists, but because he accidentally killed his own wife, the ghost could now only kill rape survivors. There was an implication that he didn’t want to do this, but was...driven to, so to speak. Due to the sensitive nature of the film, they never gave the car a name, but it was entirely fictional. The propmasters apparently manufactured the models from scratch so they wouldn’t have any sort of legal or reputational issues to contend with. But whatever it was, it was here, and Mateo wanted to steal it.

“Mateo...” Octavia began uncomfortably. “I can’t go near that thing.”

He knew what she meant right away, and if she was willing to talk to him about it, this wasn’t the time. “Have you seen the movie?”

“No, but I know the premise, which means I know that I qualify as a target.”

“The Final Girl survives by getting in through the passenger side window, and taking the steering wheel. She didn’t just take control of it, she literally removed it.”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t easy.”

“It’ll be easier for us. She was alone. You have me.”

“But if we take off the steering wheel, we won’t be able to drive either.”

“His weapon is the car itself, his hands are only his means of controlling that. If we get inside, I can control where the car goes, and he can’t hurt you while you’re in the back. We’re not gonna remove the wheel, because unlike the girl in the movie, we need to use it.”

“It sounds risky.”

“It always is. It’s your decision, though. I understand that I don’t understand. But I can tell you that I will protect you, and I’m a damn good driver.”

“Okay. We better come up with a plan fast, because we’re running out of time. Even if you drive as fast as possible, it will take nearly the full hour to get there.”

Mateo nodded, then started to shake his head. “We’re not going around the perimeter. We’re going straight through.”

They hatched their plan, though it wasn’t all that complicated. Octavia came up with the idea to use herself as bait for the Seatbelt Killer, but Mateo wasn’t getting off easy. He was bait as well. While most of the monsters in this dome wanted to kill both or either of them, only a few of them were exclusively attracted to Octavia, based on her profile. They would use this to their advantage. Mateo would lure all of the others away, so Octavia was only contending with one of them. Once it was just her and the car, she would hop over the boundary, back to the safety of the perimeter. This would give her a respite that the characters in the original movie never had. From there, with the driver essentially frozen in place, she could simply climb onto the hood, and slip through the open window. Mateo never saw her accomplish this, but it evidently worked. She drove up next to him while the horde was chasing him through the woods. He dove in the back, and she sped up so fast that no one else was able to keep up.

“We need to get you up front so you can do the steering!” she shouted. She was navigating the terrain pretty well, but still struggling against the driver. He was bound to his seat, but not entirely helpless there. He was still trying to peel her arms away, just as he had the girl in the film. With a bit of ingenuity, this heroine had managed to pry the wheel off of its place, which stole his power from him, and allowed her to escape back through the window. A mid-credits scene suggested that he was about to be successful in finding a workaround by rigging a tire pressure gauge as an ad hoc steering wheel, which may have played out in a sequel, but it was never made. Mateo was a driver, so he watched movies about drivers, even bad ones, and sometimes he read about them too. There was a theory that made the rounds on the message boards that this sequel would have ended with the Final Girl also managing to get in the car, but solving the problem by finally freeing the killer from his eternal seatbelt. Could it be true? The creator never responded to these rumors, but an unverified snippet of the sequel’s script appeared to support the lore. Whether that was how it would have worked in the movies was not the question, though. The question was...was the android who was programmed to believe he was the Seatbelt Killer coded with this solution, or would it only make things worse?

“Do you have a knife?” Mateo asked her. Now that he was inside, he could hold the killer’s arms back, but the guy was really strong. They might not be able to keep him at bay for the duration of the drive.

“What?”

“A pocket knife. Scissors. Anything!”

“No, I don’t have anything like that!” Octavia yelled back. “I didn’t know I was gonna be trapped in the woods for seven years!”

“I need something sharp,” he muttered. Just then, a glow started to form in his right hand. He let go of the killer’s arm to look at it in wonder. The glow consolidated, and began to take shape. Before too long, it was in the form of a knife. And he could feel it in his palm. Somehow, despite Pacey’s restrictions, Mateo’s weird telekinetic hologram powers were back, at least in this one instance. Not taking any chances that it wouldn’t last, Mateo slipped the blade underneath the belt, and with one slice, ripped it right open.

The killer stopped struggling. For a moment, he just sat there in awe. Then he pulled the strap through the loop, opened the door, and tumbled out. Octavia sat there in shock, not even paying attention to where they were going, which was all right, because they were in an open area now, and slowing down quickly.

“Okay. I’ll take it from here.” Mateo climbed over the headrest, and situated himself in the driver’s seat. Then he took off again, free from resistance or distractions.

Now that they were clear of the monsters, their primary struggle was against the clock. In the movie, the car could phase through objects, or even squeeze itself through like a bus out of Harry Potter. That wasn’t possible in the real world, so Mateo just had to negotiate the trees and other obstacles. He kept going though, relying on his great skills, which had only been enhanced during his stint in the Underburg dome. The clock was ticking as they were approaching the part of the wall where Octavia said there was a door. He barreled through the treeline, and onto the perimeter again, almost all the way on the other side of the dome. New monsters were upon them now, but were still bound by that imaginary line.

“How do I open this?” Mateo asked. Before Octavia could answer, he placed a hand on the handle, and heard a buzzing sound. “Hm. Was that it?” He opened it.

Octavia breathed a sigh of relief as her watch was counting down. “Finally.” Four, three, two, one.

Mateo blinked, and it was 2506.

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Microstory 1884: Transience

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Transient Retrograde Amnesia is what they call it. I can’t remember how long I’ve had it, or what caused it. And that’s not an amnesia joke. I can’t remember, because I’ve been suffering from it for a long time, and I just happen to not recall that far back in the past. Lots of people have that kind of poor memory without it being a symptom of some larger issue. Most of the time, I’m normal. I know who I am, and what I’ve done. I can form new memories, and I know whether I left the proverbial stove on. Of course, I don’t own a stove, on account of those periods of time when I don’t remember a thing. Sometimes I wake up, and I have no memory at all. It doesn’t always occur when I literally wake up, but that’s what it feels like; like everything that happened to me before was a dream that disappeared from my mind in a flash. I know stuff did indeed happen, but mostly probably because it must have happened, since I know that adults don’t just suddenly come into being. I know this, because my memory condition doesn’t affect semantic memory, which is the kind that tells me what an adult is, and what a baby is, and what words to use to describe them. My problem is all about events, plus the most basic information about myself. I can’t tell you my name, or what kind of upbringing I had, for instance. Even the most recent of things are gone. I don’t know where I am, or how I got there. When the attack is over, it all comes flooding back to me, including the time I spent in that state. So I remember how fearful and anxious I become each time. I’m talking about this like it’s in the present, but I’m happy to say that I’ve not had an attack in over a year, whereas before, it would happen nearly every day.

Like I said, I don’t own a stove. It’s not worth the risk to be out in the world when I could lose it all without warning. Medical professionals of all sorts have tried to figure out what prompts an attack. Is it stress? Fear? Reminder of a past trauma? There seems to be no link between them. There’s no temporal connection either; it happens at all times of the day. As far as anyone has been able to discern after studying me for decades, it’s completely random and unpredictable. So I live in a facility, where others take care of me, even while I don’t need it. That’s the most humiliating part. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, but they won’t let me do anything. I can’t blame them. I once had an attack while I was holding a knife. It was quite obvious that I was cutting vegetables with it, but my father was in the room, and I thought he could have been a threat. So over the years, little by little, my privileges have been taken away. It’s for my safety as much as anyone else’s. Again, I’m not going to forget what a knife is, or how it works, or which end is the hazardous one, but I obviously can’t be trusted with it anyway. In a way, I’m relieved that my body has been failing me recently. When you’re bedridden, and it’s difficult to move, people have to wait on you anyway. It feels natural now, expecting the nurse or orderly to come in and feed me, or take my vitals. That’s what they’re supposed to do, and they do it for everyone who lives long enough to die like this. It’s almost over now anyway. My spirit has pulled itself away from my body. I’m hovering over it, looking down at myself like it’s not me anymore, because it’s not. The man left on the bed is looking around, confused and lost. He doesn’t remember a thing. I can’t believe I’m witnessing my last attack as a ghost. I keep watching, knowing the other me can’t hurt himself, and that it won’t be long before he’s dead too.

Microstory 1729: Crater

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I have not been able to get very much sleep for the last few weeks. Really, when I think about it, it’s been a lifelong problem. I have too much stress. At first it was because of my parents’ hostile divorce, then my schoolwork was too hard, then I was trying to get into a good college, then I was looking for a job, then I had to deal with a terrible job. It just never ends with me. I keep thinking that things will get better if I can just solve this one major problem. Then I do, and I find that the grass actually isn’t greener on the other side. It’s mostly more dirt and I have to cross yet another void to get to something better. My therapist says that things actually have gotten better, and that just because some people at my high school reunion are CEOs and city council members, doesn’t mean I’m a failure. She suggests I stay positive. But I was born optimism-blind, and I don’t think there’s a cure. I finally get to sleep when the ground shakes, and the loudest sound that has ever pounded on my eardrums attacks me from all sides. It’s a crash, but there’s also this sizzling electrical sound. I order my smartspeaker to turn on my lights, and watch as my glass figurine collection threatens to topple over, but never does. I swear to God, some of them actually do tip before straightening back up, like some kind of ghost is there to protect them for me. The ground continues to tremble, and a deeper darkness overwhelms my windows. I switch the lights back off as I get out of bed, and move over to look outside. All I see is the black. I stand there for hours, watching it ever so slowly dissipate. It’s dust and debris, and it takes a long time to settle. No one answers the phone, not even the police. The sun comes out, and I can see a crater.

I check every window in my little house. The crater wraps all around me. It doesn’t look like a bunch of different craters, but a single one, of which I rest in the middle. A massive doughnut must have fallen from the sky, and left me unscathed. If there really was a big space doughnut, though, it still shouldn’t have spared me. I mean, the tremors alone should have sent me to hell with everyone else in my neighborhood. The hole is so large than I can’t even make out the houses that weren’t crushed by it. I see the edge in the distance, but everything left above is too far away to discern. I cautiously step outside, and crawl to the edge of my little protected patch of land. I realize, though, that if I were capable of dying, it probably would have happened already. The thing that protected my figures wasn’t likely a ghost, but a guardian angel. I don’t think I have to be careful anymore. I peek over the edge of my patch, and look for the bottom of the crater, but I can’t tell if I see it, for the light does not reach as far down. I check the GPS on my phone. No, I’m not in La Brea, so I doubt there’s a portal below me that will send me to prehistoric times where CGI monsters still roam the lands. I check all around my—I don’t know whether to call this a butte, or a mesa, or a plateau, because it’s as tall as all hell, but narrower than my now-dead neighbor’s political beliefs—patch. I see nothing that would explain what saved me, or whether the theoretical angel is still here. Just then, two helicopters fly over from different directions. One appears to be military, and the other from a news station. As they’re inspecting me, trying to figure out what the hell is going on, their rotors just stop, and they fall out of the sky, into the crater. Others come, hoping to understand, including an AirEvac, but they all suffer the same fate. I was wrong. An angel has not saved me. A demon has doomed me.

Microstory 1638: Global Reconstruction

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If you’ve ever seen or read a zombie apocalypse story, you’ll notice that they rarely ever really fix the problem. They may come up with some deus ex machina at the end, but in order to leave the door open for a sequel, it won’t ever truly work. Or they’ll tease salvation at the very end, but never really show what life would be like in a post-zombie world. This Earth of this universe had their own version of zombies, and they attacked people, and some survived, and the zombies died out. They could only keep moving as long as they ate the dying or dead flesh from a human, so eventually, they ran out of food. The most resilient human survivors managed to protect themselves in bunkers, and behind walls, leaving the zombies to wander around aimlessly until they died completely. Well, they didn’t die completely, but they weren’t zombies anymore either. They essentially transformed into ghosts, able to interact moderately with the corporeal world, but no longer a real threat to humanity. They were now mostly just scary, and irritating. Not every zombie turned into a ghost; just the ones who weren’t super great people while they were alive, and there were ways to defeat them. The living human species, meanwhile, went on. They began to rebuild civilization, though not out of the ruins of the old world. They had to stay away from cities that were still falling apart from the war, which meant they were basically starting over. This was a slow process, and the survivors were in no rush to return to the way things were before. They didn’t outlaw technology, but they ignored it, deciding to return to the way things were in earlier days. As the original cities crumbled and sank, new towns popped up where once there was wilderness. Progress came gradually, about as fast as it had before. This time, however, they knew of the dangers that came with advancement. They retained stories of where their ancestors went wrong, and while some was lost in translation, the morals lived on. They focused on preserving the wild, and using only as many resources as they needed. They were aware of renewable energy long before they were capable of wielding it, and they knew there was no point in fossil fuels. Centuries after the fall, humanity was pretty much back on track.

Microstory 1607: Tense Time Travel Trouble

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When The Crossover exploded, most of the people on board survived. What you see when you encounter the Crossover is probably not it in its original form. The highest tier, which was located the absolute farthest from the main engines, was designed for such an unthinkable event. It’s capable of doing everything the machine as a whole could do, just on a smaller scale—which is why it was so well insulated—but the whole point of building the Crossover in the first place was to ultimately relocate every Maramon in Ansutah, so it was only ever meant to protect the technology. Not all tiers are like this, and none of them came out of the cataclysm intact. Different sections were sent off to random universes, leaving any survivor stranded, often with few resources. These were called expulsions, and they set the scene for a number of run-ins with the Maramon. But the expulsions did more than just exile people. It transformed them, so that they would fit in with the cosmic laws of their destination. They were still Maramon, and they usually retained their memories and motivations, but their biology was altered, sometimes to an unrecognizable degree. Cut off from their kin, they formed new societies, and did whatever they felt necessary to keep surviving, even if it meant giving up everything they were taught to believe in as Maramon. Most sections separated from their tiers, and were ejected alone, but there was one universe that swallowed up an entire tier, though with each section being dispatched to a different planet in that brane’s version of the Milky Way galaxy. They were altered independently, in ways that would allow them to thrive on their respective alien worlds. They didn’t know what had happened to each other, and they definitely weren’t cognizant of the general status of the rest of the Crossover. They built new civilizations, and developed their technology, and after centuries, all but forgot about where they had come from.

As explained, the purpose of the machine was to let their species spread out, for they were born to a limited and confined universe. The expelled ones realized this goal, and spent little time worrying about whether everyone else would. Over time, the isolated Maramon advanced enough to explore the galaxy, eventually reuniting with each other, and comparing notes. It wasn’t for a while until the growing interstellar union finally managed to uncover the location of Earth. Remember that they had by now lost most of what made them Maramon, and the prejudices they held against the humans was pretty much gone. They were willing to give Earth the benefit of the doubt, especially since they recognized it wasn’t the same Earth that they struggled against in their history. Unfortunately, it would seem that they sent the wrong man to make first contact with them. He unilaterally decided that the humans were not fit to join the rest of the galaxy, and the best course of action would be to destroy them. He almost did it too, but his arrival came with consequences. While this version of Earth had already experienced some unusual things, such as ghosts living in pocket dimensions, they did not yet have time travel. The alien had inadvertently introduced them to that, and this changed the course of history. His technology ended up accidentally going back in time, where it was discovered by ancient Egyptians. Of course, they wouldn’t immediately recreate the tech themselves, but examining it was enough to propel human technology centuries beyond what it was meant to be. Thus began the Time Wars of this brane.

Microstory 1547: Common Enemy

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Aliens are real, and I’m one of the few ________ who know about them. When they first ________ in our solar ________, they were ________ and quiet. Invisibility is impossible, but they can ________ themselves as space debris, and otherwise manipulate our ________ to prevent anyone from finding out about them. I run a conspiracy theory ________, and before you roll your ________, it’s not as bad as you think. I only spread the harmless theories. I don’t claim that the ________ is a lizard, or that black Jewish people are trying to take over ________, or what other nonsense ideas people have. I talk more about ghosts and burn victim-killing fairies and, of course, ________ visitors. I never believed any of this ________, but I found I can make a decent living pretending that I ________. I know, I know, you think I’m exploiting vulnerable ________, but they’re going to buy into this stuff whether I’m the ________ they’re buying from, or ________ else. So I might as well be the one to make ________. At least then, I can keep my prices ________. I broadcast a ____ly AM radio show, I sell the occasional tee-shirt, and I run ________ on my website. I’m not making ________ of dollars, but I do all right, and I still ________ coupons. Anyway, I’m certainly not the most famous ________ out there, but perhaps that’s what the aliens were ________ for. They may have even realized that I haven’t been entirely truthful about my ________, and that’s precisely why they chose me. Whatever the reason, after all their ________ into our species, they’ve decided they need ________ help to help everyone else. You see, they call themselves a steward race. They have taken it upon themselves to foster the ________ of younger civilizations. This ________ comes in many forms, but what they’ve found is that our ________ problems are our internal ________. We just keep ________ each other, for stupid things, like religion, and ________, and skin color.

Before we can be welcomed into the interstellar ________, we have to come together. We have to unite into one peoples, and sure, they could wait for us to do that on our ________, but they think there’s a ________ way. The only way to create an ally, they’ve learned, is to first have an ________. Individuals can become friends, but on grander ________, people don’t unify unless it’s necessary to fight some other ________. Now, this might not necessarily be an actual enemy that you can literally ________ against. We’ve teamed up to battle hunger, depression, homelessness, drugs, terrorism and fascism. It’s a lot more compli____ than two sides at war. People just need to have something to fix if they’re going to bother working with ________. The issue with this ________ is that not everyone is as concerned with any given ________ as others. Racists will never become not racist in order to end racism. I mean, some of them might turn, but it will still be a ________. Some people don’t care about ________ because they’re not poor, so why should they worry about others? No, a real enemy to go up against is the only way the stewards are going to ________ effectively. They have to purport themselves as a threatening ________, so humans can rise up against ________. Unfortunately, the stewards aren’t as ________ about that plan as me. It will take too many ________ that they don’t want to spend, so they’ve come up with an ________. Instead, they’ve chosen to release a deadly ________. It won’t wipe out the entire ________, which would defeat the purpose of this exercise, but it will kill thousands—millions if we don’t start getting our ________ together. They’re calling it the corona____. I don’t know why they wasted their time talking to me about it. I can’t ________ them, and I didn’t help them, I swear. This is not a theory, it’s real this time.

Microstory 1546: Waiting

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I have been ________ in this waiting room for an ________. I don’t have anything else to do ________, but that doesn’t mean I want to ________ it here. I’m not usually that kind of ________ who will get up and demand to be ________, but this is getting ridiculous. Most of the ________ were here before me, but they don’t seem fazed. They just keep ________ backwards through their magazines, and fidgeting with their ________ forms. Maybe I should get up, not just for me, but for ________ too. They haven’t called ________ back this whole ________, so something is holding the entire process up, and if no one ________ is going to try to find out what that is, I suppose it will have to be ________. I nonaggressively stand up from my ________, and walk over to the counter at a reasonable ________. I politely ask the ________ for an estimated wait ________. He just looks at me like he doesn’t speak ________. No, it’s more like he thinks I’m speaking a ________ language. He reaches over, and closes the ________, not aggressively either, but it’s still rude. It’s ________ enough to upset me, so I reach over ________, and just open it back up. He’s gone. It hasn’t even been one ________, there’s no way he could have gotten up, and walked ________. I have too wide of a view of his ________, and the hallway behind him. Plus, he has all these ________ piled up on the floor, it would have been too much to navigate. I ask if anyone else saw that as I’m turning ________, but they too are gone. The noises they were making—flipping through book ________, coughing, sipping ________—it lingers for a while, but dies ________, like they were able to disappear faster than the sound ________. I suppose that makes sense as ________ moves faster than sound. No, that doesn’t mean this makes any ________. They shouldn’t have ________ at all! What the heck is going on here? I turn back to the reception ________. The folders are still there, but they’re knocked over, and ________ dust. The ________ are out, and there’s a draft in here that wasn’t there before. I turn my ________ yet again. The paintings have fallen to the ________, and the wall____ is peeling. Chairs are turned ________, and a few are broken. I have either just ________ to the future, or ________ to some kind of eerie upside down silent ghost dimension. I have to find help, and ________. That’s what’s important right ________. I leave the waiting ________, and then exit the ________. The rest of the ________is as dreary and dead as it was ________, there’s probably nothing useful to ________. I have to try at least, though, so I keep ________. I start out by walking on the ________, but without any ________ around, I wonder why I’m wasting my time. The ________is less damaging to my ________ and knees. I wander down the ________, only headed in one particular ________, because the fading painted lines tell me so. I hear a rushing ________ around me, and then squealing. Then I hear some honking ________, and as the traffic is coming back into ________, a pair of ________ take me forcefully by the shoulders. “Let’s get you back to your ________. How do you keep escaping? I swear to ________, this time you literally disappeared before my eyes.”

Microstory 1217: Brian Hiddy

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Brian Hiddy was a regular human. He didn’t have any time powers, and he didn’t have any salmon of choosers as friends. He was close with a classmate named Lincoln in a different reality, but the former forged a new path in the new timeline, so Brian never got a chance to know him that well. There are some that say these alternate timelines can impact each other in greater ways than what the time travelers who created them have done. Certain people are known to find each other again, or develop particular skills, even when enough about history has changed to make it unlikely. It’s unclear whether Brian picked up on the idea that there was something missing in his life; that an alternate version of him once helped Lincoln through his temporal troubles. Maybe destiny wanted him part of the world of time travelers, regardless of what role he was playing. Or maybe it’s just a big coincidence. Either way, he found his way into that world on his own. Brian always wanted to be part of something big. He knew that there must be some secret about the universe that few people were aware of. He didn’t see anything weird, or get tipped off in any way. He just sought out the truth. And he found it. He didn’t know exactly what he should be looking for; signs of a hitherto unverified macroorganism roaming the lands of South Los Angeles, aliens in the outfield, werewolves running a blood bank. He looked into nearly everything. He started out by collecting all the articles about absurd claims he could find, and searching for patterns. That didn’t really turn up much, ‘cause people be crazy. He tried to engage in conspiracy theory chat rooms, but it was just as difficult to sift through the crazy, and find the legitimate stories, if they even existed at all. He decided to go old school, spending a lot of time in the library, reading up on all the lore he could find, trying to see if anything stood out. One interesting fact about vampires he noticed was that multiple disparate ancient cultures had made eerily similar claims, suggesting that the species was real, pervasive, and consistent. He had a hard time tracing the mythology together, both to see if the stories had simply been passed from one culture to the next, or to see if they were consistent enough to be real. Again, this labor yielded no fruit. He was about to give up when he came up with another idea. He made himself go crazy.

He made a lot of noise; in public, like on the news when a field reporter was trying to talk about a newly laid pavers at the community college, or the weather. He was spouting all sorts of nonsense about ghosts, interdimensional invaders, and people from the future. That last one got him noticed. People came to his house, asking what he knew, and how he knew it. He had taken some acting classes, especially ones geared towards improvisation, so he did a pretty good job of keeping the lie going, and making it seem like he wasn’t bluffing, which he was. Well, they eventually figured him out, but not before he pressed the little red button on his old phone, which he had set up on the bookcase during the interview. He recorded their whole meeting, and the next day, was able to watch them erase his memories. This was it; his one opportunity. He took a screenshot of the mysterious people, and started hunting for them. He reached out to everyone he knew, trying to get in touch with law enforcement, or the NSA, or anyone with resources. This was how he found a small group of people who had interacted with temporal manipulators, one of which was an agent in the FBI. One of the others had also once seen the people from the screenshot, and together, they figured it all out. Their investigations caused a lot of problems for them, and they wouldn’t end up agreeing with each other, or staying together. Brian sort of broke off on his own, and decided that the best use of his time was to search for people like him. He continued to look through tabloids and conspiracy boards, for anyone claiming to have seen something they couldn’t explain. Once he found someone who fit the description, he would reach out to them, and help them in any way he could, even if that meant stopping them from exposing this truth to others.

Microstory 1099: Viola

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My name is Viola Woods, and I’m dead, writing to you by Dolly’s hand. Don’t worry, though, because dead for me is not what it’s like for you. I am called a voldisil. Most people have two parents; their father produces the seed, and their mother the egg. But there is a third, much rarer gender out there that occasionally helps create life in secret, and when it does, something like me comes of it. I was born capable of perceiving more dimensions than you, and with the ability to sense and channel certain universal energies. I can look to the past, to other places in the present, and to the future. What I do with that information is entirely up to me, but the expectation in my house was that I use my abilities to help others. After all, they’re called gifts, because I’m meant to give them out. My mom and dad weren’t fully briefed on what I was, but they reportedly felt something different during my conception than normal, and that’s all I’m going to say about that. My third parent’s involvement was evidently not completely consented to, or at least not in the way humans treat consent. They did recognize that I was special, and were able to raise me right, but only I, and others like me, fully understand the nature of my species. One thing they didn’t know was when I would die, but I’ve known it my whole life, and it took me a hot minute to realize that this is a trait unshared by my peers. Growing up with this kind of information may be unsettling, or even debilitating, but it made me feel free. Everything thing I’ve done has been part of a plan; my plan, and nearly everyone around me executed it pretty well. But I am not the only one of my kind, and not every voldisil has other people’s best interests at heart.

The way I understand it, voldisila are few and far between, for a number of reasons, including the fact that it’s metaphysically difficult to conceive one. Blast City seems to have a higher concentration of us, and I was never really able to determine why. What I do know is that the more people you have in any population, the greater your chances of finding some bad ones, which is what Homer was. This little town would have become the epicenter for an unstoppable movement of darkness if I hadn’t intervened, and recruited a number of other voldisil, who seem to not fully understand what they are. I wouldn’t be telling you this, Alma, but I need you to understand what’s at stake moving forward. You don’t know this yet, but you are pregnant now. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to do this with your consent, but a new voldisil must be born to take my place. Ada is lovely, but she can only ever be a temporary solution. My abilities can’t survive forever without me, which is why I introduced her to the others; the psychics, the witches, and the medium. I’m hoping they take their responsibilities seriously. You and Ralph were my best options to take on the challenge of nurturing the next generation of voldisil. I will not leave you, but I can only do so much to help in my current form. Protect and prepare her, Alma, and trust Ralph to be a good father. I literally know that he will be. She is destined to be the strongest of our kind, but since she was not planned properly, it will be much harder for her than it should be. She won’t have as much innate knowledge as I did. Everything you need to teach her has come through clues from the interviews you conducted. Thank you, and if you ever need to speak with me in person, you can contact Dolly. One last thing, it’s up to you if you publish this letter as part of your series.

Microstory 1098: Della

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Thanks for coming to see me, Alma. The truth is that I’m glad to take the fall for Viola’s death, because I’m just as responsible as any of the others were. Well...maybe Homer was the worst of us. Nevertheless, I wanted to get my truth out there, because though I’m the only apparent survivor from our side of the cave fight, it wouldn’t be fair for everyone to go on believing I was working alone. Plus, out of everyone in Blast City Senior High’s Class 2019, I didn’t want to be the only one you didn’t interview, besides Homer himself. Or Viola. Or that guy that no one can find. I’m not going to be able to explain my actions to you, because I don’t fully understand them myself. It’s true, I was under his spell. The others were convinced to help them using their own vices and emotional traumas, but he handled me a little differently. I was technically his first recruit, but I didn’t know it at the time. When we met, he treated my kindly, and made me feel like I was the only person in the universe who mattered. For over a month, we would sit and talk under the beautiful sunset sky. He seduced me, not just for sex, but for my entire soul. By the time I realized what he was, it was too late. I was in love, and I couldn’t just throw that away. I thought I could fix him. I knew that I couldn’t. I should have listened better to my head. I stayed with him, and I helped him with his plans, because I was desperate to believe that we could overcome his urges. His powers were a curse, and there is always a way to lift a curse. Eventually, I realized there was nothing I could do, but I felt trapped. I understand now that all his talk about how important I was managed to instill the opposite message in me. I was actually not important at all. I couldn’t stop him, or help him. I couldn’t be free of him, and I couldn’t become a better person. In my mind, I was an accomplice to something so heinous that there was no reason to quit now, and there was no hope for redemption. I know this doesn’t absolve me of what I’ve done, but you should know I wasn’t like the others. They wanted to be there, completely. He might have lied to them, but he didn’t manipulate them. I wish I could go back in time and be stronger. I wish apologizing for my actions had any impact on what’s happened. All I can hope for now is that Viola has some trick up her sleeve to correct me of my behavior. So I have two favors to ask you. Please extend my gratitude towards Alice for healing me. She didn’t have to heal any of us, but it’s better that at least one of us answers for these crimes. Also, if at all possible, please ask Dolly to come see me. I would like to make contact with Viola’s spirit.

Microstory 1097: Homer

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This is Alma, one last time. As a reader, you’ve hopefully been able to tease out some of the more recent events, just by the clues from the interviews. I didn’t solve the mystery of Viola’s murder because I reported the facts. I solved it, because those responsible grew paranoid, and revealed themselves to me before I had the chance to find them. As you could probably gather, Ralph and I were captured by the cult, and prepared for a ritualistic sacrifice, the purpose of which remains ambiguous. Fortunately, though Viola Woods is gone, she did not leave us without a legacy...or rather, nine legacies. They have assumed the mantle, and their first mission together was to rescue the two of us. In place of the interview with Homer that I will never get, I will recount those events in a more narrative form.

It would seem that Ada really was chosen to be Viola’s replacement, but she’s decided to not do it alone. When Homer shows up in the cave to get started on the ritual sacrifice, Ada’s there, along with seven other seniors. He doesn’t seem to realize that they were following him in until we do, like they were somehow invisible to him until the right moment. The abilities Viola gave her must have worked, and allowed her to get some idea of what was going on with Homer and his crew of evil minions. The four psychics—Martin, Margaret, Mae, and Mattie—are there as well, along with self-proclaimed witch, Alice, and her apparent student, Joan. They’re joined by Harry, who was evidently originally chosen as Viola’s replacement, but failed to meet her requirements. In what capacity he was working for them, I couldn’t tell you. I also couldn’t tell you exactly what the seven people with abilities did in their fight against the seven psychopaths who were trying to kill me and Ralph. They mostly stand there, staring at each other. Occasionally, blood would leak from one of their arms, or a bruise would form on their face. They appear to be locked in a psychic battle; a battle which the good guys are clearly winning. While they’re preoccupied, Harry steals the keys from Nannie’s belt loop, and breaks me and Ralph free from our chains. He tries to usher us away, but we both want to see what’s going to happen. It’s then that things start to change. Joan steps forward, and utters Oshwrlé to their opponents. All six minions fall, leaving Homer to take on the team by himself. The four psychics take this opportunity to surround him, and I see a nearly transparent bubble of energy that appears to be preventing him from moving forward. Ada tells him to give up, but he won’t. He pulls a knife out of the back of his pants, and starts moving it around without touching it. He sends it flying through the air, letting it slit the throats of his own people.

An inexplicable energy seeps out of the wounds, and flows into Homer’s body, seemingly giving him a boost in power. He grunts like a caveman, and breaks the psychic bubble, sending its creators falling to their backs. He takes Ada by the throat, and holds her up in the air. Alice and Joan rush up to help her, but he sends them flying towards the rocks. They don’t reach the wall, though, as Ada calls upon the strength to stop them midair before a potentially deadly collision. Then Dolly shows up, and looks to be alone, but we eventually see that she’s not. I hesitate to use the word, but it’s the only one that works. The ghost of Viola appears from Dolly’s body, and approaches Homer. He’s more scared than he’s probably ever been in his life. She doesn’t speak. She simply taps his arm, and he unwillingly lets Ada go. Viola then smiles at Ada, and gives her what looks like the go ahead. Ada uses her telekinesis to force Homer to his knees, then she places her hand at his temples. After only a few seconds, his eyes roll to the back of his head, and he falls down to his side. Viola then fades away, and Dolly leaves. Alice stands back up and takes roll call. Everyone seems to be okay, except for Homer, and his people. She announces that she’s going to heal them, but by the time she’s finished with Della, all of her energy is depleted. The other five are gone, and Homer’s in what we now know to be a coma. It’s finally over. I do not yet know what sort of truth the authorities are going to recognize, but I know this, we are going to get Maud out of jail. Someone who is actually responsible for Viola’s death is going to accept that responsibility.

Microstory 1094: Julius

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If it makes you feel any better, I don’t like this any more than you do. I’m not as unfeeling as Clyde, or as twisted as Nannie. I’m just trying to make my life better, and unfortunately, that means yours has to end. When Homer first approached me with his offer, I...well, I just didn’t believe him. But when he showed me what I could do, I still turned him down. I’m not a bad person, Alma, I promise you. I know these chains don’t make it look like that’s true, and I understand there’s no way you and I could ever be friends, but we’re all just doing our best here. Homer explained to me that the universe only exists through balance. There is no way for everyone in the world to be happy; it just doesn’t happen like that. Everyone’s fine with corporate executives firing their minions left and right. They’re fine with protected presidents sending poor soldiers to die in an unjust war. But they get all up in arms when we make a human sacrifice or two. Can you tell me, what exactly is the difference? In all three scenarios, people die, so why is it so much worse what we’re doing? I’ll tell you why, because we and Homer aren’t part of an institution. You’re only allowed to hurt people if you’ve gathered enough others who want to hurt people. Isn’t that sickening? We’re killing two people, while world leaders regularly kill by the thousands, but somehow, we’re the monsters. Priorities, am I right? Well, I’ve been through enough, and I’m not going to take it anymore. This town may accept me as the token gay jock, even though I’m definitely not the only one, but it hasn’t always been like that. I had to learn to filter out a lot of hate when I was a kid, growing up in the deep south. I’m one of those gays who can’t contain it, even if I tried—my mom knew who I was before I even did—so I had a huge target on my back before we moved up here. The only thing that kept me alive was football. You might think my opponents would be too homophobic to even touch me, but they were always itching to knock me down. They underestimated me, though, because I hit them back, and I hit them harder.

We’re not going to sit back and let people come after us anymore, and we’re not going to be silenced. I’m sorry you won’t be around to see it, but Homer is building a better world, with more logical rules. He’s recruited some terrible people to help him, and I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but they won’t be around to see it either. I think we can all agree that there is something seriously wrong with this world, and if our species is going to survive, something has to change. The process is not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be pretty, but it starts today, and I wish you could be proud of what you’re a part of. It’s my job to explain what we’re going to be doing to you, and the first thing you should know is that each one of us went through the same thing...except that your ritual ends differently. First, we have to submerge you in water, and hold you there until but one air bubble remains clinging to your nostril. Then we pull you out, revive you, if we have to, and lather you with mud. We’ll set you on the ground next to a campfire. If you’re up for it, you can be sitting, like Maud was, or you can be lying down, like Gertrude. Homer will then use his wind magic to blow the fire towards your bodies, until the mud hardens. After a little bit of chanting, which I suspect isn’t truly necessary for the ordeal, you will reëmerge from your cocoon a new person. This is where things change from the rituals we experienced. One of us will be chosen to kill you, while another will be chosen to carry out the second sacrifice. We don’t know who that’s going to be yet, but I will almost certainly be chosen. Wanda and Della were chosen last time, while Clyde and Sidney were responsible for protecting the sacred grounds. The girls hesitated, which gave Viola the opportunity to interfere with the ritual. The guys got distracted in an argument, and were unable to stop her. Nannie and I will probably have to wield the holy blades, while Homer takes matters into his own hands, and prevents any Viola-like magician from stopping us this time. Like I was saying, I get that none of this is going to make sense to you, but things are going to get better. If ghosts exists, which it seems like maybe they do, perhaps you’ll even be able to watch humanity’s magnificent transformation from the other side. Hell, we still don’t know what all of Homer’s powers are, so he might even be able to bring you back. Oh, we should stop talking. Wanda’s here with the second sacrifice. I believe that you and Ralph have become friends, right?

Microstory 1032: Riley

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Hello. This is your president speaking. I know you weren’t around to vote for me, but I’d like to think you would have had you gone to this school at the time. Today, I’m going to talk about a dear, dear friend of mine named Viola Woods. We didn’t always see eye to eye politically, but we were a lot alike. We both care and cared about this school, and ran for office to see it reach greatness. We both like and liked to help people; even strangers, and we both consider and considered our peers to be our best assets. I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of things about me since you started these interviews, but I think you would have a different perspective right now if you had spoken to me first. We could have combined our minds, and coordinated a strategy to tackle this series. First and foremost, I am absolutely, one hundred percent, behind our police force. I believe that justice has been served, and the right person has been found guilty of this terrible crime. I know that the trial has not yet commenced, but I have complete faith that the truth is exactly what we were shown. I know people are spinning tales about some religious cult, and are filling your head with ideas about what really went down by the river that day. I just want you to be careful about who you listen to, and who you trust. This is a small town, and though I love it terribly, I recognize that it’s fairly pleasant and uneventful. This murder has made the news statewide, and with that comes the crazies. People like conspiracy theories, because they take comfort in the possibility that not everything is as it seems. They don’t actually care who killed Miss Woods, but the idea that there’s something stranger going on than the public is aware of makes them think there could be other things they don’t know about. Why, if a demon possessed an impressionable young girl, and forced her to kill her best friend, or a ghost drowned Viola in revenge for some crime carried out by someone else, what else might there be? The fangirls can hold onto hope that vampires are real, and out there, and just waiting to seduce them. Nerdy young boys might actually get the girl, because hey, crazier things have happened, right? Conspiracies are just believable enough that they could technically be true, but insane enough that they open us up to other—perhaps more fantastical—possibilities. In philosophy class, we learned about something called hokum’s razor [sic]. Basically, if you haven’t heard of it, it means that life is really simple, and if something is too complicated to explain, it’s probably a bad explanation. Viola’s death was a tragedy; one that could have been avoided, but the investigation came to a legitimate conclusion. All the pieces fit, and if anyone tells you they have evidence to the contrary, they’re most likely trying to feed you a bunch of hokum. Thank you, and God bless America, and Blast City. Go Miners!

Microstory 878: Edison Phone

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Most people may not know this, but it’s not, on its own, illegal to fake your own death. Where people who try this go wrong is when they commit some crime that’s more of a side effect. If you really want to disappear from society, you’ll need to make a few arrangements, and even if you succeed in these, you still won’t be able to reinstate yourself with a new identity. Your only option would be to start living off the land. But it can’t be your land, because you have to pay property taxes on that, so someone would have to give you permission to live there, but if they do, they could be party to fraud as well, depending. Before you leave, you can’t have any outstanding warrants, or unpaid debts. You can’t skip out on filing your taxes, so you pretty much won’t be able to do anything from a financial standpoint between the first of the year, and whenever you file for the year before. Lastly, you can’t do this in order to collect a life insurance payout, not even for your loved ones. That’s where I come in. My company will only pay the survivors of a death if that death follows certain legally binding criteria; the primary requirement being that it actually happened. As an investigator, it’s my job to make sure these claims are legitimate ones. You would be surprised how many times I catch someone trying to commit fraud, if only in some minor way. A faked death is pretty rare, especially since, as I’ve mentioned, any number of other agencies and departments are going to be scrutinizing the same case. Otherwise perfectly normal, upstanding citizens can make one mistake when they’re desperate, and as much sympathy as I feel for them, I have to uphold the law.

My current case is an interesting one, because she seems to have followed every piece of advice I would give to someone committing pseudocide, which is the term we use in the industry. The only suspicious thing about it comes from the life insurance policy, which was only flagged because she named her sister beneficiary within too short of a period of time before her supposed death. She technically passed the waiting period that’s designed to prevent this sort of thing, but only by one day. We don’t disclose to our clients that we continue to monitor that for longer. I do my due diligence, and discover that a fairly remote friend of hers just subletted her apartment for a year-long stint in Japan. That would be a perfect place for the alleged fraudster to hide out, because I can find no record of the individual renting the unit out at the moment.  I knock on the door, and hear a voice telling me it’s okay to come in. Sitting at the kitchen table is the now confirmed fraudster, totally alive, and smiling at me, with a phone up to her ear. I try to introduce myself, but she knows exactly who I am. She recites my name, social security number, and a bunch of personal anecdotes, many of which she could not have possibly known. She hands me her phone, which I see now is attached to a machine in the corner that’s about the size of the refrigerator right next to it, which seems to be helping keep it cool. I place the phone to my ear, and listen as my great grandmother scolds me for bothering this poor girl. She demands I leave her to her business, and insists that she is doing good work; that she’s helping people like her find closure. I try to maintain the conversation, but Nanaboo doesn’t want to talk anymore. I hang up the phone, and stare into space for an indeterminate period of time. “That woman has been dead for over twenty years,” I say. “You built a machine that can talk to ghosts?” The young woman smiles wider and nods. “And you help people?” She nods once more, so I think this over for another moment. “Do you need an assistant?”

Microstory 845: Trapdoors Galore

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The Legend of Trapdoors Galore is something everyone in the county knows, but I’m not from around here. I found out because haunted houses, and other location-based mysteries are a passion of mind. I don’t believe in ghosts, or other supernatural occurrences, but I don’t go around debunking myths either. I just love researching the history behind these stories, and the superstitious beliefs people have for them. I’ve been wanting to come here for awhile now, but I only make so much money, and only have so much vacation time, so I have to be very choosy with every trip. Built in 1813, the mansion first served the wealthy family who founded the town of Rower, appropriately named for them. The Rowers were famous for being kind and compassionate people, even going so far as to purchase an abundance of slaves, for the express purpose of housing them. They used them as labor, but treated them well (read: equally), provided them gourmet food, and paid them competitive wages. Slaves technically built Rower, Missouri, but they did it while secretly independent. Townspeople today claim Rower was designed to become a haven for former slaves; fortified from foreign threats, and autonomous from the rest of the U.S. While this is a questionable assertion, the fact that the Rowers were abolitionists is undisputed. Whenever an employee wanted to quit their job, the Rowers gave them a handsome severance package, and helped them travel farther northwards, to avoid southern backlash. After the end of the war, the entire project was abandoned, and Rower eventually began to suffer from the same population decline as any other small town. No longer with the need for so much space, the family downsized to a smaller house, and later generations started flocking to the big cities with everybody else. No Rower lives anywhere near the area. Decades later, in order to revitalize the town, and try to attract some tourism, a descendant returned to her roots, and started a massive remodeling effort on Rower Manor, hoping to establish Trapdoors Galore as what would have surely been the world’s first ever escape room. Unfortunately, the spending ran a bit too much higher than the budget, and the building was once again left to rot. Her daughter grew up and attempted to convert it to a museum to showcase its history, but she grew tired of the work, and gave up too.

Now it remains alone on the hill, cordoned off, and forbidden to be entered by trespassers. I’m pretty determined, though, so I recruit a horde of crazy townies, and sneak in under cover of darkness. It’s even larger and harder to navigate than I thought it was. I’m even considering the possibility that it exists in another dimension, like some kind of 1940s police box, and it’s literally bigger on the inside. We quickly find ourselves lost, and soon after that, we’re separated. While Trapdoors Galore never opened, it was meant to be self-sufficient, requiring little setup from any staff members. Apparently the Rower descendant was further along with the engineering than anyone knew, because walls would move, and actual trapdoors would drop us to dark windowless rooms. The few brave souls I managed to stick with and I just keep going, trying not to panic. We have no doubt we’ll find an exit before we die of starvation, so we’re even trying to have a little fun. There’s never been any gossip about ghosts, or demons, but it still feels creepy, and then we start hearing someone come after us. None of us can agree what the sound sounds like, or where exactly it’s coming from, and this only reinforces some of our concerns that it’s not human. We start running through the rooms, desperate to get out of there, all the while fairly certain that what we’re worried about is completely in our imaginations. We meet up with a couple other people experiencing the same fears of being chased, so we decide to circle the wagons, and fight, if it comes to that. They’re standing in a circle, insisting on keeping me as safe as possible in the center, since I’m a visitor. A woman none of us recognizes casually bursts into the room from a trapdoor no one noticed, holding a candle. She’s wearing an anachronistic outfit, and just has this look about her that screams she’s from the past. She also looks exactly like the famed matriarch of the founding Rower family, Marthanna. She looks directly at me and says, “Lois Vivianne Rower.” My name is Lois Vivianne, but I am not a Rower, as far as I know. “We have been waiting for an heir to show up ever since King Dumpster was elected president. We think it may be time to start the Rower Haven Project. Your friends can help us too.” As we’re standing there, stunned, people begin to materialize around the room, wearing similar outdated garb, and smiling. Most of them are black. “Meet the rest of your family.”

Microstory 835: The King and the Scourge

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Games. My whole world is about games. Our scientists long ago predicted this concept of the singularity, wherein technology goes so far beyond what we believe it can do, that it’s impossible to know what will come of it. Science fiction writers and futurists tried to come up with their ideas of what would look like in the future, but they were always off the mark. It’s understandable; no one was expecting them to be perfectly accurate, because they were interesting and entertaining. The truth is that the future is boring. Technology, as it turns out, was always working towards one thing: making life easier to live. We have nanites swimming through our blood, constantly monitoring our health, and alerting us to what we need to improve, or to fix an issue they can’t handle on their own. They tell us what to eat, which exercises to do, and how long to sleep. Meanwhile, other nanites are surging through our brains, allowing us to connect with each other on a telepathic level, or experience the limitless possibilities of a virtual construct with no rules. But these constructs are just that; not real, and after a good decade of this, people starting signing off, because what was the point? Life was boring inside cyberspace, and outside of it, and since we figured out how to subvert death, nothing held any weight. There was no danger, so we had to find ways of creating this ourselves, and doing so in a world where physical laws are immutable. Hence the games. Some are voluntary, some are forced. Some are deadly...most are deadly. For some games, you even have to forego any of your transhumanistic abilities that normally prevent your life from ending permanently. I am technically in one of those games now. Fortunately, it is by no measure the most dangerous one.

Centuries ago, children would play a fairly simple game called King of the Mountain. The object was to be the one person at the top of a hill, and the only way to maintain that position was to fight off any comers. The rules varied, according to how rough the players wanted to be, but they never killed each other, because murder was pretty frowned upon in those days. In the new world, however, it’s normal. We are not just playing a deadlier version of the original game though. Ours focuses more on those left at the bottom of the hill, which is why the creators call it Scourge of the Valley. As with the original, the goal is to get to the summit, but you can’t get there just by running up, and resisting anyone who’s trying to keep you back. It’s more deliberate and methodical than that, combining elements of strategy games, such as the ancient chess. It gets pretty complicated, but the idea is to move as far as possible by killing as few competitors as possible. Sure, you can massacre everyone, and get to the top quickly, but once you do, you’re in real trouble, because every player whose death you were responsible for, now has the opportunity to take your summit for themselves. And if they win, you die for good. No one has ever gotten out of this game having never died at all. Ghosts are incredibly difficult to destroy, and they’re very good at killing others. I’ve always been convinced that the only way to survive unscathed is to make it to the top without killing anyone else to get there. I’m about to prove it. Wish me luck.