Showing posts with label girl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label girl. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Microstory 2107: Freedom at Risk

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As it turns out, the people who helped me with my new identity in this mystery city are a married couple, and they have a daughter. According to them, she’s very irresponsible and hard to deal with. That’s not what I experienced when I met her, and I didn’t get the feeling that she was just manipulating me. My first thought was that the parents haven’t been giving her much attention, because they’re so busy making IDs. As a result, she doesn’t do the chores, because where they live is more her house than theirs, and she doesn’t personally care about that stuff. They basically want to come home to everything being done after spending a string of days in the city away from her. They hired forced me to supervise her, which I did, even though I really didn’t want to. I made sure that she mowed the lawn, completed the laundry cycle, vacuumed the carpet, mopped the hard floors, and made dinner. The daughter didn’t even push back. She just rolled her eyes, and completed the tasks. I helped her out, because I felt like it was too much for one person, and it felt really weird just standing there, barking orders at her. A lot of it involved things that I do for my real job, and I get enough of that stuff there, so I wasn’t ecstatic about the extra work. Here’s the first issue, and it pales in comparison to the real problem, but I’ll get to that in a minute. The first thing is that they were so pleased with my work that they now want it to be a regular thing. So after my eight-hour shift as a janitor, I have to drive out to the outskirts to this new second job? I’m going to be exhausted every day, and annoyed about the whole thing. But I could deal with that. When I was waiting for Cricket and Claire to find me in Moderaverse, I spent twenty years without much of anything to do. So I’ve had it pretty good, working a little harder now isn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. No, the real problem is that this girl isn’t even their daughter.

The first clients that they had in this business were reportedly themselves. They’re cagey about how they got started, which is understandable, but my guess is that they used to work for the DMV, or social security, or something else along those lines. You don’t just jump into this kind of thing without having any frame of reference for what people might be looking for. I don’t think they lived around here for their original lives. After they came this way, their second client was a couple who were trying to escape the law for whatever reason. They needed IDs for themselves, and their very young daughter. At some point, the ID makers came to find out that she wasn’t their daughter either. They had kidnapped her, and instead of contacting the authorities, the ID makers just essentially kidnapped her for themselves. For years, the girl didn’t know where she originally came from, and she still doesn’t have any details. After years of school counseling, and mostly introspection, she figured a few things out, and made some memories resurface. All she knows now is that the parents who she has been living with aren’t her real parents, and nor were the people they took her from. She has not yet tried to get out of this situation, or find out where she came from, but it’s made her less interested in doing these chores, or anything for these people, really. Now I’m in a real pickle. I obviously have to save her, but doing so puts my own freedom at risk. I suppose I’ve already decided to intervene, no matter what ends up happening to me. The two of them have never expressed interest in reading my blog before, but they definitely know about it, so there’s a chance that they’ll read this after it automatically posts later tonight. I’ll have to figure out what to do by then, and put a plan into action. I’ll let you know how that goes, unless I die, like I said before. But just know, whatever the supposed cause of death, it was murder.

Friday, June 2, 2023

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 30, 2399

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Vearden is sitting next to Arcadia, as he does all day every day. He doesn’t even go to bed anymore. He just reclines the chair, and stays there, only getting up to get food, or get rid of it. In this reality, the vital sign monitor keeps track of all the usual suspects, like heart rate and oxygen levels, but it also logs the weight. The doctors didn’t explain why, but it’s apparently what first alerted them to the fact that the baby was gone. Now it seems to be back. Arcadia’s weight has just suddenly gone up by eight pounds, seven ounces, which Vearden noticed, because they programmed the system to alert them to any further changes in weight. Just as he’s calling for help, she starts to tremble, then shake, then scream. She’s awake.
“Arcadia, Arcadia, Arcadia. Shhhh. Shh, my darling, it’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re back, everything is gonna be fine.” 
She pulls the oxygen tube out of her nose. “I’m back? Where did I go? Where was I? Tell me! Tell me what happened! Did I jump through time!”
He keeps trying to reply, but she’s not really letting him. She’s hyperventilating. A nurse steps into the room. “Put the oxygen back on, please,” he asks of her.
“No!” Arcadia cries. She starts ripping out the other medical things attached to her. That’s when she seems to first notice her belly. “Wha—what the hell happened? She looks up to her love, tears in her eyes. “Vearden? How long have I been away?”
“You haven’t been away, dear. You’ve been in a coma. At least that’s the best diagnosis that the government doctors could provide.”
“How. Long.”
He frowns at her. “Two and a half months.”
“The baby? How’s Kendra?”
“She’s perfect. She’ll be coming soon, Dr. Best thinks.” No need to mention the part where the baby disappeared for a week.
Arcadia nods. “What happened to Mateo? Where is he? He’s dangerous. There is something wrong with his mind.”
“That’s all been dealt with,” Vearden assures her. “You don’t have to worry about anything except taking care of yourself, and our little girl.”
She nods again. “Hey, Vearden.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s happening.”
“What’s happening?”
“The baby. She’s coming.”
“Now?”
“Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaargh, right now!”
Vearden reaches up and pushes the big mauve button, which indicates an emergency, and sounds an alarm to wake everybody up. More nurses flood into the room. “She’s going into labor!”
They all move to their stations, and start getting things ready. One of them checks under Arcadia’s gown. Another handles the IV bag and monitor. A third leaves again to retrieve the doctor. It takes a really long time for him to return. When he does, Dr. Best is not the one following him. It’s a doctor that they’ve never met.
“Where is Dr. Best?” Arcadia demands to know.
“I’m afraid Dr. Best is trapped in an elevator, and won’t be able to help you. It’s my first day at this facility, but I’ve been a gyniatrician for eighteen years, I have full clearance, and I’ve been fully briefed on your situation.”
“Someone needs to teleport to Dr. Best,” Arcadia begs Vearden.
“That’s not possible,” Vearden replies apologetically. “Not these days.” He looks back up at the new doctor. “What’s your name? It’s important.”
“I’m Dr. Suggitt. Dr. Cheyenne Suggitt.”
Vearden and Arcadia share a look. “You see?” he begins. “This was always meant to happen. Our child has a future, and while we know her life won’t be easy, we also know that she survives at least into her thirties, and becomes a beautiful, powerful woman. “We have nothing to worry about.”
Arcadia has been listening, but she’s also clearly in an incredible amount of pain. It takes everything she has to nod her head at him between contractions.
Dr. Suggitt takes her stethoscope out of her ears. “Okay, this is happening, and it’s happening now. I’ve never seen someone in labor for such a short period of time. Sorry, no time for drugs. Dad, if you want to stay here, I’m going to need you to clean yourself up, and put on that set of scrubs.” She jerks her head towards one of the nurses.
The nurse shakes the scrubs to show that he’s ready to help Vearden put them on.
Vearden leaves for a moment to wash his hands and arms. By the time he gets back, little Cheyenne is already crowning. Arcadia no longer seems to be in any pain. She’s resting her head against the pillow, and appears to only be experiencing a little bit of pressure while the head slips out. In under a minute, their baby girl is out and in the world. She’s cooing, and not crying. At first, she looks pretty normal, but then she begins to glow. The nurses exchange nervous looks. They obviously know that there’s something special about the girl, but they weren’t warned about this. Probably because no one else was aware that it was going to happen.
The glow intensifies, and spreads beyond her tiny body. As it grows like a bubble, the light fades, but a strange visual distortion remains, like the heat shimmer from a flame. Once it passes through Vearden’s body, he begins to feel a calmness, and a strong sense of relief. It reminds him of what it feels like to teleport or travel through time. No, it feels like it does once the pinch from doing so is over, and he’s reached his destination. He watches through the window as the bubble accelerates, and starts to roll over the lands, so far into the distance that it disappears over the horizon. 
The nurse in charge of tracking Arcadia’s vitals disappears, but only her. Her clothes remain, suspended in the air for a split second before collapsing to the floor. They hear a crash outside. Two cars have collided with each other in the parking lot. One of them starts to slip over the edge of a dark hole that appeared out of nowhere. People are screaming down the hallway. It starts to snow over a small area down the street.
Vearden looks down at his precious girls. Back in the main sequence, when he was resisting finding a partner to settle down with, people would tell him that a baby changes everything, as if telling him a scary story would somehow convince him to go for it. They had no idea how right they were. “This is her. This is Cheyenne’s doing.”
“No.” It’s his supposed future son-in-law, Curtis Duvall. “People are getting hurt, and that’s sad, but this is not your fault, and it’s certainly not Cheyenne’s. It’s Danica’s. She didn’t stop time powers from existing, she just pent them up, and now they’re coming out all at once. Chickens. Roosting.” He pauses for effect. “Temporary.”

Monday, October 24, 2022

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 21, 2398

Ever since Arcadia bailed on Team Matic, Alyssa has been working as the receptionist at Angela and Kivi’s company. It’s been pretty easy. As a startup, they don’t have a lot of calls and foot traffic. She’s getting paid for the work, which seems quite weird seeing as her and her family’s room and board are also being provided by these people. They have given them so much, and now it’s time to ask them for one more thing. She needs to have a conversation with the man trapped in her sister’s body, but she has to ask permission. The security guards will let her watch him through a one-way mirror, but there is to be no direct contact without authorization, and only a member of the core group can make such a decision. She’s also going to need the day off.
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Kivi asks. “You remember, Trina isn’t in there, right?”
“I know,” Alyssa says. “She’s in the past with your other friends. I just...I wanna know who he is.”
“I can’t help you with that, but the others could.”
“I’ve heard enough second hand. I want to speak with him.”
“I understand. It’s all right by me for you to take off, but I have to stay here to fill in, so someone else will have to accompany you. Mateo is up in the air, Leona is halfway across the country, and Marie is...preoccupied. I think Ramses is your only choice.”
“I’ll talk with him. Thank you.”
“Okay.”
Alyssa climbs the steps to the lab, and badges herself in. Ramses is there, like he always is. He has his own unit upstairs, but there’s a cot next to his desk, and he’s clearly been sleeping here. She feels bad. He’s so obsessed with figuring out how the Insulator of Life and Livewire work that he can’t make any time for himself. Perhaps driving her to the black site is as close to a break as he’ll be willing to take, especially if she’s the one asking. He would probably kill for her if she asked. “Hey, can you do me a favor?”
“What?” He was engrossed in his work. “Oh, yes, of course. Anything.”
“I need you to take me to the black site. I would like to meet Erlendr Preston.”
Ramses frowns. “Oh. I’m not sure that I should do that.”
It would be morally right for her to plead her case, and convince him through reason, and emotional understanding. She doesn’t have time for that, so she pulls out her trump card. “I’m sure that you should.”
He frowns for a few more seconds, but then his expression changes. “Wait, that’s perfect. Yes, that could work. He hates all of us, but if you talk to him, you may be able to get him to do what we need.”
“What do we need?” Alyssa asks.
“More data.”
“Okay. What kind of data?”
“Let me explain.” Ramses goes over what they would be asking Erlendr to do for them, and together they strategize how to get him to go along with it. He shouldn’t have any real problem with it in general, as long as they leave out one particular detail. They just have to hope that it’s not something he already knows about.
The guard lets them in, and escorts them to the observation room. The mentally unstable man in Alt!Mateo’s body is fidgeting with one of his flashlights. He’s fixated on the damn things, so the government agreed to supply him with dozens of all different kinds. He just keeps switching them on and off, and rearranging them around his cell. Alyssa thinks that they should get him professional help, but that’s not really her call. It’s also not what she’s about today. She’s here for Erlendr.
“You don’t need to rush this,” Ramses advises her.
“I’m ready. You can open the door.”
The guard opens it, but Ramses steps through first. Erlendr smirks, and doesn’t put the novel he’s reading down. He’s obsessed with books, instead of flashlights. He realizes that they’re in an entirely new reality to him, full of culture that he doesn’t know anything about. He’s got a lot of catching up to do. He changes when Alyssa follows. He sets the book down gently, and regards her with an empathetic face; the kind that Trina hasn’t gotten old enough to need to use yet. He seems to be gathering who Alyssa is, or at least that she’s not just some random interrogator. He waits patiently.
“We’ve not formally met. My name is Alyssa McIver, and you’re in my sister, Trina’s body.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Erlendr replies.
“I’m sorry to hear that you’re not a very good person.”
“In real life, villains don’t think of themselves as villains. We’re the heroes of our own stories, and in my story, everyone agrees with me.”
“You’re story is not factual,” Alyssa argues.
“No one’s is,” he counters.
“I didn’t come here for philosophy class,” Alyssa begins. “I’ve decided that I’m no longer okay with you being in the body of my baby sister.”
“I was never okay with it,” Erlendr explains. “I want you to understand—in case Leona and her friends have not made it clear—I did not choose to end up in here. The Insulator of Life is difficult to control.”
“I get that,” Alyssa says, “which is why I don’t blame you. I can’t even blame you for all the horrible things you did in your reality, because I wasn’t there to witness them. I can only go on what others tell me. The truth is that I’ve not known them much longer than you. Fate put us together, much like you and my sister. I can change my circumstances by leaving them, but I can’t do it without her, which is why I need you to change your circumstances first.”
“Would if I could,” Erlendr claims.
“You can,” Ramses declares. He takes the Insulator out of his bag.
“I told you that it can’t be controlled, not even by me. What makes you think you could do any better?”
“You wield magicks. I use science. That’s the problem with you choosing ones, you can live so easily without technology, you don’t know how things work.”
“I know a lot more than you might think, young one,” Erlendr condescends.
Ramses sets the Insulator down, and takes out the Livewire. “I want to transfer your consciousness to another body, but with such low technology, these are the only tools I have at my disposal, plus only one alternative substrate. You’ll look like Leona, which may not be ideal, but for my part, it’s better than where you are now.”
“I’ll do it,” Erlendr agrees with no argument.
“Now, if it works, you may think you’ll be able to exploit your new position, but—”
“I said I’ll do it,” Erlendr repeats. “You’re right, anything is better than this. And Miss McIver’s right, I’ve done a lot of bad things, but I don’t hurt kids. So get on with it.”

Thursday, May 19, 2022

Microstory 1889: No Way to Fail

The first thing I did when I became an adult was visit what you might call an adult entertainment club. I struggled with getting dates, and I had never done anything beyond kissing. Even that wasn’t all that great, but I still wanted more. I was mostly just lonely, and if I had to pay to pretend for a few minutes a week that I wasn’t, then that was what I would do. It became a habit. I knew all the girls there, and they all knew me. They knew they could trust me, and for a little bit extra cash, some of them decided that it was okay if we took things to the next level. I was grateful and happy, but then it all ended. The club installed security cameras in even what were meant to be private areas, and suddenly, I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore. The girls had to be really careful and distant, as did I. I stopped going to that place. I was still pretty young, but I managed to get over my urges, and lead a normal life without all that stuff. What I realized was that all those conversations I had that I treated as superficial and fake were preparing me for real relationships that were not transaction-based. I jumped into the dating scene, and started looking for something real and lasting. I had a few good girlfriends, but we always grew apart, at least in such a way. I stayed friends with most of them, which a lot of people say can’t be done, but I beg to differ. Even when we parted ways forever, I knew their names, and I could have reconnected with them in some capacity later on. The girls at the club, not so much. Some of them gave me their real names, but I didn’t exactly check their papers, so even those could have been fake too. One night, my buddy was getting married, so he needed a bachelor party. His best friend ended up choosing my old club to go to, which I didn’t think too much on, because it had been so long, and those places have a lot of turnover, you know. I did recognize one girl there, though.

I bought a dance with her for old time’s sake, but I was with someone at the time, so I wasn’t interested in an actual dance. I just wanted to catch up. She seemed stunned the whole time, which was odd. I wouldn’t have thought she would remember me. She quit before the cameras, so it had been a particularly long time. I tried to ask her questions about her life, but she was being really cagey. That was odd too, because those girls are normally good at lying just to keep the conversation going without giving any personal details away. Eventually, however, I was able to get it out of her that she had an eleven year old daughter, and there was a possibility that I was the father. She would have contacted me sooner, but I stopped going to the club by the time she took a test, and she couldn’t investigate further, or her old bosses would have learned that we broke the rules. Due to her religious beliefs—and because of the high expense back then—she couldn’t get a DNA test for her daughter, but she showed me a picture of her. She looked quite a bit like me, I mean, she had to be mine, right? DNA test or no, she had to be my kid, and I had to do right by her. After some deeper discussions, the mother let me meet our daughter, and we got to know each other better. I took care of the both of them for years. My girlfriend broke up with me because of it, so they ultimately just moved in. Once our daughter became an adult herself, she decided she finally wanted that DNA test. To our surprise, the result was negative. She was not my biological daughter, and she was heartbroken. But I wasn’t. She is my daughter, and nothing can change that. It’s actually a blessing, because the disease that’s killing me today is hereditary.

Friday, November 12, 2021

Microstory 1755: A Man Named Monoceros

Yes, Monoceros is my real name. Yes, it’s—more or less—the same as a unicorn, which is why that’s my twin sister’s name. No, my parents were not on drugs when they had us. No, I’ve never thought about changing it, and neither has my sister. It’s not even the most interesting thing about us, but it is related. Something went wrong while we were developing in the womb, which made both of us come out with slight protrusions on our heads, reminiscent of a one-horned animal. This protrusion lessened in my sister over time, which is kind of a ripoff, because hers is already a pretty name that people don’t make fun of very much. Mine is still here. In fact, I would say it’s larger, but my parents disagree, and say that my whole head is obviously just larger than it was when I was a baby. I’ve tried to wear an afro to cover it up, but that doesn’t look great on me, and kids would just make fun of that instead. The teasing and bullying got to be so bad that we left the area completely. The same people who gave us these unusual names actually packed everything up, and moved us across state lines just so I could start over with a new strategy. I can’t figure them out either. Perhaps they secretly regret giving us such insensitive names, and have since tried to become better people. This time, they spoke with the principal before the start of my sophomore year, and told her what my situation was. Not only did she have the advantage of being able to get ahead of the bullying before it ever happened, she proved herself to be kinder, and better equipped to handle someone like me. My sister was a little in love with her because of how good she was to me, but don’t worry. This isn’t a sad or disturbing story. I might even call it uplifting.

So what did I do to keep anyone from finding out what my head looked like? I wore a hat, and I claimed it was for religious purposes. My sister wore a variation of the same design to sell the lie. All of the faculty and staff were told this as well so that only the principal knew the whole truth. People get really skittish about religion, so they didn’t question me. Occasionally, a substitute teacher would take their opportunity to yell at me for it, but there was always at least one student in the class who defended me, and called them a bigot. That usually shut them down right quick. Even with those heroes, the kids at my new high school were generally about as mean to each other as they are anywhere. Some of them teased me anyway, because my name was still Monoceros, but a lot of them thought it sounded badass, so it evened out. One girl in particular said she liked it. On my first day, before everyone had learned about my fake religious hat, she called out a group of boys who were mocking me. She didn’t know anything about me, but she instantly showed compassion, and I think I fell in love in that very moment. She was so popular, but for all the right reasons, because she was nice, so people left me alone if they were worried about displeasing her. I know, this story sounds familiar. The awkward kid falls for the hottest girl in school, and they end up together, because they end up having a lot in common. Well, that’s not what happened. We went out on what turned out to be a platonic date, and I professed my feelings. She let me down easy, and told me that she just wanted to be friends. As you can see, we’ve stayed close all these years, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s married now, and so am I. She was the one who convinced me to take off my hat forever, and be confident in myself—to be confident as myself. So what about you? How do you two know each other?

Friday, October 22, 2021

Microstory 1740: Hercules Wagon

I just found a dead body. It’s a fifteen-year-old girl, who is—I mean was—one of two of the last remaining residents of Cepheus, Kansas. Everyone else who once lived here either left, or died already. Technically, anyone in the world could have killed her. I can’t rule out any of them, except for myself, but there is one person who is my prime suspect right now. Her father is the only one I know of who was here at the time. They were supposed to go fishing today, I know that much, but I’m not a coroner, so there is no way for me to know how long ago she was killed. It could have happened anytime within the last month, but I feel like the smell would be worse if she had been lying here for longer than a few days. Plus, food is something that I do know a little bit about, and I can tell you that this ice cream that spilled all over the floor only went bad recently. It looks like she dropped the bowl, slipped on it, and hit her head on the corner of the counter. Or maybe that’s just what her dad wants us to believe. I mean, where is he now, right? A month, a few days; either is plenty of time for him to contact the authorities if it really was an accident. Running makes anyone look suspicious, so he’s only making it harder on himself. I simply cannot let the trail go cold, and I can’t rely on the sheriff to do his due diligence. He’s going to rule it an accident, and not even look at the damn facts. She’s dead, and the dad’s gone. They need to investigate, or even call in the FBI. No, he can’t be trusted. I have to go on the hunt, or no one else will. Sure, I’m just a rural area supply transporter, but I know these woods like the back of my eyelids. If the killer is hiding somewhere around here, I’ll find him. You can bet on that.

I get back in my wagon, and head to what’s left of Main Street, hoping to find some evidence of where my suspect could have gone. There aren’t a whole lot of locations around here, and of course I’m well aware that he could be in Peru by now. If I killed my own teenage daughter, accident or no, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to stick around unless I wanted to get caught, consciously or no. I never pegged him for much of a bright boy, so I expect he’ll turn up sooner or later. These abandoned buildings are a pretty decent place to hide if you’re not worried about someone like me being on the hunt. Not in the old general store, not in the one restaurant still standing, not in the playground slide. It’s covered in mold, though. Someone should really do somethin’ about that. Where could that guy be? I head farther out to check the fishing hole, and the run-down cabin nearby. No one has been here in weeks, by the looks of it. Maybe he’s camping out on the prairies, or in that trailer that someone abandoned deep in the forest a couple of decades ago. Man, pretty much everything around here is falling apart, isn’t it? I still can’t find him, so I decide I need to get some perspective. One thing I didn’t try that they always do on those crime shows is inspect the scene. I can’t believe I was so dumb that I didn’t really even look for clues around the body. Maybe I’m not a bright boy either. When I get back to the house, police lights are flashing in my eyes. The sheriff has finally shown up. Took him long enough. He has some colleagues with him from neighboring counties. I get out, thinking it’s time I fill them in on what I know. I don’t get to say much before they slam my face into the hood of my own truck, and wrap handcuffs around my wrists. Apparently, they found the father lain neatly in his casket in the cemetery. He probably died before her. Now I’m the only suspect. I shouldn’t have run.

Friday, February 8, 2019

Microstory 1035: Ezra

My family has been in this town since it was first founded. Blast City, and all of Mineral County, is best known for its mining roots, but we have a long history of more—dare I say—honorable pursuits. We are also in a land of farmers and ranchers. Gold sure is pretty, but its only value comes from whatever arbitrary number of monies the people who have it are able to convince their customers to give up. Diamonds are the same. Coal actually serves a purpose, but it’s not exactly the resource of the future. And salt? Well, I guess salt is fairly important too, so I won’t say anything negative about Salzville. We Kinder are famous for our fruit, which we harvest from acres and acres of orchards, producing everything from apples, to oranges, to peaches. Yes, I did pronounce my own name right. Most people assume it should be kine-der, but no; it’s German. Anyway, it’s been a couple generations since it’s been necessary for any of us to actually work the orchards, but I’ve always really enjoyed it. I can spend ours out there, picking and sorting, while listening to music on my headphones. A picker of ours hypothesized I would feel a whole lot different about it if I worked ten hours a day, made minimum wage, and had no choice. He certainly had a point there, but I also don’t get paid for it, so life is kind of a give and take, isn’t it? But you didn’t come here for my worldview, did you? You want to hear about how I know Viola. I don’t have any stories from recent years, but something did happen when we were in elementary school. Well, I guess we weren’t in school at the time, because this happened in the summer, but you get what I mean. Here goes.

A big news story broke that a little girl a few years younger than us got lost somewhere in Silver Shade. For reference, since you’re not from around here, that’s over an hour away, due East. It’s basically a ghost town now, because its founders hoped they would find silver near where our predecessors found gold, but there was nothing. Their descendants have been struggling and dwindling ever since. Blast Citians didn’t pay much attention to this story, because the girl was said to be on foot, but Viola somehow knew this to be inaccurate. She called me through my older sister’s cell phone (I don’t know why she had her number) and told me to go straight to Plupple Lane. Again, I don’t know how she knew anything about it, because Plupple Lane isn’t a street; it’s the boundary between our plum trees and apple trees, and a term we only use internally. It’s also the near the farthest reaches of our property, because we don’t grow many plums. I asked Viola why I would do that, but it sounded really urgent, and she said she was out of town, so she couldn’t go herself. I figured, hey, when a pretty girl who’s never talked to you before asks you to do something, you better just do it. I was, like, eleven, by the way. I got on my bike, and rode all the way out there, where I found the missing girl, crying by the irrigation regulator. She was covered in mud, and wearing raggedy clothes. I was too young to be told this at the time, but I learned years later that her stepbrother had sexually assaulted her. Until now, I haven’t told anyone how I really found her, out of respect for Viola’s privacy. It was easy to lie about it, because everyone knew that I liked spending time alone with the trees. But I think it’s time people know that Viola was the one who truly saved this little girl’s life, and didn’t take any credit for it. I asked her how she knew after she came back from vacation, but she completely denied it, claiming she didn’t make a single phone call while she was in Greece. My sister didn’t tell anyone about the call either, and she and I have never discussed it. I heard the girl moved to the other side of the country, but she might like to know the truth too. I’m gonna go look her up on social media.

Monday, September 3, 2018

Microstory 921: Hand Sanitizer

I discussed hand sanitizer in the Stepwisdom entry about Cleanliness in general; wherein I recount my first experience with the stuff as being God-adjacent. For someone like me, cleanliness is extremely important. I’m not a germaphobe, mind you. I get sick all the time, and it has been this way my whole life. I’m not afraid of being infected by something, and I’m about 83% that, if the zombie virus ever plagued this world, I would be immune to it. What I have a problem with is cross-contamination. My OCD is what gives me the need to control the nature of my environment, but it’s my autism that dictates what how that environment should ideally be. There’s this trope you can find on the web called Blessed With Suck. Basically, a character will be burdened with some supernatural ability that is mundane, pointless, or downright inconvenient. There are a lot of superpowers that I occasionally believe myself to possess, like being able to see the future, or sensing other people’s emotions. The one power that I actually do have, all the time, is the ability to feel the ick around me. If you were to clean a table thoroughly, I would be able to touch that table, and tell that it’s happened. No big deal, right? Anyone can intuit the cleanliness of an object. Now imagine you ran your palm along the tabletop. Your hand isn’t particularly dirty; you weren’t picking your nose, or chalking up to climb a mountain. It was just your hand. Well, I can tell that too. I won’t know exactly what happened, but I’ll be able to tell that something contaminated that surface, and it’ll bother me. I once worked with this girl in a room where all the tables were pushed together, and we sat around it. She would put her feet up on her section, and—I dunno, doodle “Mrs. Donald Trump” in a notebook, I guess. When it was lunch time, she would go grab her food, and place her fork on that table...right where her shoes were. Then she would use that fork to pick up food, and put it all in her mouth. She was putting dirt in her mouth, along with animal feces, and God knows what else she’d walked through. Because she was a crazy person. People think I’m weird for walking around with hand sanitizer, but it makes me feel safe, and it makes it a lot more difficult for me to put poop in my mouth. Can you honestly say the same?

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Microstory 867: Steadfast

I need money. I need all the money I can get. I’m paying for college myself, so I sometimes walk around campus, looking for opportunities to make a little extra cash. When I was a freshman, I learned that grad students were always looking for people to participate in their research studies, and many of them paid. I’ve worn eye-tracking visors to show how people look at pictures, I’ve gone for days without sleeping, and I’ve even donated my saliva. I still don’t know what they did with my DNA, but hopefully nothing. After all this time, I know a few people in the right departments, and I usually know when something good is coming. The other day, a psychology professor called me up to let me know they would need a handful of people to come and watch a presentation. He said it could pay up to two hundred dollars, which is the highest I will have ever gotten, so I jumped at the chance. I walk in the building and find the right room. There are a lot more people there than the professor led me to believe, but that shouldn’t make a difference; it’s not a competition. Like many of these things, no one comes up to tell us why we’re here, or what they’re looking for. An orator just steps onstage and starts talking about fairly advanced concepts in the field of psychology. I start taking notes, because I take this very seriously, and they may test us on it later in order to understand the principles of comprehension. One by one, beautiful girls start coming up and standing in front of me so I can’t see the stage. With no provocation, they just start flirting, and I realize the study is not about comprehension, it’s about concentration. I’m resolved to get through this, though, so I ignore all their advances. All in all, I estimate there to be fifteen girls, and one guy, over the course of a half hour. Not one of them succeeded in breaking my focus. I watch the whole speech, understand a few things, and learn even more. The speaker says nothing about the girls, or even about the human brain’s capacity to focus on a task at hand. It’s actually about how smart people can often miss very obvious things because they overthink the problems in front of them. But I know that it doesn’t matter. The presentation itself is irrelevant, but how I react to the interruption. After it’s all done, I walk down the steps and approach my professor friend to ask him how I did with the experiment. He frowns and all but throws the stack of cash at me. “That was a ruse,” he says. “We’re all just trying to find you a girlfriend. You worry too much, and we thought a companion could help you relax.” I scoff. That’s a dumb experiment.

Friday, June 15, 2018

Microstory 865: Cashier or Credit

After seven years, the war is finally over, and wouldn’t you know it, it ended in peace. No side truly won over the other, but compromises were made. Hell would continue to house all the dead bad people, but exactly what qualifies as bad would be drastically altered. There would also be limitations on the conditions of the hellscape, rendering the place more depressing and banal than torturous. Heaven would be turned over completely to be run by the hypostates, with very little cross traffic, save for checks and balances. Earth would be left mostly to its own devices, with an interesting twist. Any demon wishing to relinquish their connection to the other realms would be free to start new lives, alongside living humans, with no repercussions. The apostates agreed to this, not thinking it would make any difference. A surprisingly high number of demons wanted to live with mortals, which was actually rather beneficial to the global economy. The world was primed to restabilize after the apocalypse, but that didn’t mean demons were automatically awarded decent jobs, or that they would be happy about it, or that they would not revert to their old ways. Most of them ended up with dead-end, minimum wage, high school jobs. If you were a law-abiding demon who went an entire workday without doing anything with trash, you were lucky, just that good, or had brilliant connections. With this in mind, I get into the line at the grocery store that’s being run by a demon cashier. The woman ahead of me is wearing that infamous tattoo, indicating that she was a warrior for The Lightbringer during the war, which explains why she’s the only other human willing to risk it. I’m here because demons don’t bother me that much, and the other lines are far too long. It doesn’t hurt that the demon cashier is extremely beautiful. I identified as pansexual even before the armies of darkness brought hellfire to the surface, as many people did. I know a lot of others started questioning their sexuality when that happened, never having before been confronted with the puzzle of how to feel about someone who we would best be described as a monster. I had no problem with it, and were we not literal born enemies, I would have considered a relationship with a demon years ago. I treat individuals individually, and try not to judge people until I know more about what they’ve been through. The warrior takes her groceries, along with the fiver that the cashier tried to pocket. She doesn’t even argue about it; she just gets it back, and walks away. I throw my own stuff on the belt, and try to swipe my credit card. The cashier tells me that the reader is broken, and she’ll have to swipe it for me. Extra cautious from what she tried to do to the warrior, I watch her carefully, easily catching her slipping the card into her cleavage while replacing it with another one. She tries to give me the wrong one, likely hoping I’ll put it away without even looking. I politely ask for the right one, and remind her to return this other one to its rightful owner. “And one more thing,” I say. Her eyes dart over to her supervisor. This may be the straw that causes the camel to fire her. “Would you like to get some coffee sometime?”

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Microstory 864: Hostage to Fortune

There was a time when bad things would always happen to anyone else, but never to you. Nowadays, being touched by violence of some sort is assumed, and there’s something strange about hearing of someone who came out of life unscathed. I was petrified when a gunman came into our school cafeteria, and took us all hostage. I was actually more surprised that he seemed to want something other than to hurt people. He didn’t look frazzled or pissed off at the world. It was more like a job to him. We did what he said, crouching under the tables, facing inwards, heads curled in, like it was a pointless a Cuban Missile Crisis drill. I wondered why he didn’t confiscate our cell phones, but when I saw several students fail to find a signal, I guessed that he was using some kind of jammer. That felt like overkill—pardon the insensitive pun—but again, he never told us what he wanted. He kept us there for two hours, asking nothing of us but to be quiet, and stay put. Eventually fear subsided, and kids started playing offline games. We could hear other students walking around the hallways, but no stomps of Federal agents, or cries of shock. When he was done with us, he removed the chains from the doors, and let us go. I stayed behind out of morbid curiosity, waiting to see him kidnap one of my classmates, or plant a bomb, but he just sat down at one of the tables, and started watching security feeds on his laptop. We slowly moved towards class, wondering if we had just experienced some mass hallucination. Our teacher marked us as tardy when we finally arrived, and had no idea what we were talking about. One girl I knew for a fact was there with us also acted unaware. I couldn’t tell if she was covering her ass, or had legitimately lost her memories. Our persistent claims that we were just in a hostage situation only made our teacher madder, and we were given detention. When the bell rang, I went back to the cafeteria. The hostage-taker was still there, not at all concerned that he would get in trouble. I snuck up behind him, and listened to his conversation on the phone. “Yessir, the field test worked perfectly. The artificial spatio-temporal dimension will allow us to operate surveillance facilities completely undetected. The rest of the school was totally oblivious to what was happening, and the hostages ultimately forgot as well...except for one. I agree, he would be a perfect candidate for running this region’s program.” He twisted around, and gave me a wink.

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Microstory 862: Family of Thieves

When I was a child, I wanted to be a police man when I grew up. As I got older, though, I started becoming disillusioned with our justice system. I am one hundred percent against the use of recreational drugs, but I also don’t think cops should be wasting my tax dollars prosecuting mild offenders, especially not since true rehabilitation would be a better use for that money. I think prostitution should be completely legal, that there should be no statute of limitations on rape and sexual assault, and immigrant families should be kept whole. I quickly forgot my dreams of joining law enforcement, and ended up becoming an accountant. Boring, I know, but I make decent money, and I don’t take my work home with me. I am not exactly known for my social skills, and since I don’t drink, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to meet women. Most of my friends met their significant others at work, but that’s not a great idea either, because the only girls there that I don’t find incredibly boring are the ones who think that I’m boring. I can’t disagree with them either. Then just last week, my company decided to start handing out free lunches, and getting rid of our lunch hours. Some dumbass upstairs convinced them that paying for a thirty minute lunch break would be more cost effective than letting each worker be unproductive for an hour each business day. I guess I shouldn’t say that; Bill’s a pretty smart guy, and it’s the executives that are stupid for believing his BS. Anyway, I get off a half hour early now, and never have to think about where I’m gonna eat every day. Bonus, the girl who rolled the cart around with these sack lunches was absolutely gorgeous. Fortunately, my office was near the far corner of the lowest floor, which meant she was done with her work by the time she got to me. Lady, as unbelievable as the name sounds, immediately started eating with me, even though I never invited her. How perfect that she came to me, I thought. It wasn’t until two days ago that I realized she was just using me.

Our company was robbed, big time. The only files not taken were the ones I had anything to do with, so I started suspecting that the lunch girl, whose name could not possibly have been Lady, was protecting me. They didn’t take any money, but the data they did steal would likely fetch a pretty penny on the identity market. Most of our clients can afford to hassle with their bank on disputed charges, so it’s not exactly Robin Hood, but she’s not the devil either. Thank God the executives are so dumb, or they might have been suspicious of me. Anyway, I used what few detective skills I had to track down Lady. I was planning to confront her with what I knew, but one look at her with a messy updo, and sweat pants, and I couldn’t remember what I was going to say. I found myself asking her out, which she obliged, apparently not at all creeped out that I found her home. We had our date that evening, and I followed her upstairs that night. I woke up for the bathroom in the middle of the night, and heard a muffled conversation downstairs. Hopelessly curious, I tiptoed to the top of the stairs, so I could listen. Her whole huge family was discussing what they were going to do with me, now that it was obvious I had figured out their scheme. Lady—which actually is her real name; she showed me her driver’s license—was advocating to read me into their group, but others wanted to eliminate me. Desperate for my life, I snuck back into Lady’s room, stole her television set, and snuck out the window. Once home, I placed my new TV on the floor, and sat down in my dinette, sipping a ginger ale, and hoping my audacity is enough to impress Lady’s family. This is where I have been all morning. As I’m nodding off, I begin to hear scratching at my door, which quickly opens to reveal a guy about Lady’s age, so I infer that he’s her brother. “Nice try,” he says, “but you’ll have to go bigger if you want to audition for us.”

Friday, June 1, 2018

Microstory 855: Stab At It

When my family first moved to this town, and I started attending this school, I never thought I would be fighting off a demon within my first week, but that’s exactly what happened. People back home warned us that things were getting as bad ‘round these parts as they were where we had come from, but my parents didn’t want to hear it. Kansas City was overrun with the creatures, and they did not want to believe that a small quiet town like this could be anything like that. I tried to tell them that I had to learn to battle the darkness sooner or later, so they decided on the later option. I’ve been secretly training on my own, and I’ve not been happier I did than I am right now. Despite my parents’ beliefs, fate had other plans for me, and for this town. A mangle of nickels came into the school and started stepping on all the students’ toes. Since things were so bad in the big city, my old school had protocols for this sort of thing. Every student walks around with nickel mace, and every teacher is armed with banishing powder. This one horse town, however, is not so well-equipped. When the mangle came through, the demons spread out, but after I got started defending my classmates, they changed strategies, and ganged up on me. I punched and kicked at the evil little Hell minions, but they just kept coming. Somehow they contacted another mangle nearby, who quickly came in as reinforcements. By then, though, my peers realized that they were strong enough to fend off the beasts, and they came to my aid.

Pretty soon, all the demons were banished or unconscious; except for one. I don’t know what she was, but she was no nickel. She was as tall as a human; taller, even. She walked with a sense of purpose, an air of confidence, and the patience of a monk. The thing about battling demons in a school is that there aren’t very many good weapons around, so when she came after me, all I had to defend myself were a tin of pencils on the teacher’s desk. We wrestled for half a minute before I was in a good position to grab one of the pencils, and it took a little longer before I found a moment to take my opportunity to take her down. I stabbed her right in the heart, at least I thought I had. That was where humans kept their hearts, and so did nickels, but this thing seemed to be different. I pleaded for help from the few people still left in the room, but realized when I looked into their eyes that the only reason they hadn’t escaped with their friends was because they were experiencing the freeze acute stress response. So I was alone in this, and I had find a way to kill her, or she would kill me, and I would soon be fighting this war against the armies of darkness from a completely different front. I just kept stabbing her with pencils, trying to find the right spot. All the while she was cackling like a green-skinned witch, assured that I would never succeed. But then she changed. The more I hurt her, the less she fought me, and the softer she became. She even began to encourage me, and it was like she was doing absolutely everything she could to try to tell me where her heart was, but something was stopping her. Finally she got out two words, “it..moves.” The heart? Her heart moves around her body? If this was true then there would only be one way for me to find it. I would have to slow down, and listen carefully. I closed my eyes, and tuned out all the sounds around me, focusing only on the thump-thump-thump of the heart. I could hear it on the side of her neck, and before the side of her that didn’t want me to kill her stopped me, I took the last pencil from the desk, and jammed it right in the jugular. The demon shrieked in pain, and pushed me to the floor. The neck wound cracked wider, ultimately running all the way down her leg. Her gooey skin fell away from itself, and slinked down to the floor. The human girl now standing in her place took a desperate breath in, like she had just come up from the water. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for freeing me.”

Thursday, May 31, 2018

Microstory 854: Between Man and Wolf

When I was a child, my grandmother would tell me stories of a new species that showed itself to the world when she was younger. They were hideously deformed, but a naïve girl had convinced them to reveal themselves, believing that people would treat them kindly. While no one was hurt or anything, the creatures decided it was best to go back into hiding, and eventually, the truth of their existence was transformed into legend. No one in my day believed they existed, but I was always convinced. I spent my entire life savings on a trip across the ocean, and to the Dolomiti Forest. It took me days to figure out exactly which village housed the girl from the stories. I was surprised to learn that she was still alive, but also unwilling to help me in my quest to meet the hyperintelligent Dolomiti wolves, and learn from them. So I began my search the hard way, tirelessly trekking through the forest, looking for any evidence of an intelligence, and just hoping they hadn’t move somewhere far away in order to avoid people like me. Finally I came across their encampment, and the pack that lived there. It seemed that I had merely found a group of a few dozen humans who lived amongst some very large wolves. They greeted me politely, provided me food and a place to sleep, and told stories around the fire. Of course, they told them in Italian, so I didn’t understand a word they were saying, but they sounded wondrous. Though they did not speak English either, they clearly understood that I was there to see whether werewolves were real, so they made it clear there was nothing to be found. Still, I was suspicious that the rumors could have been borne simply of a tribe who had domesticated wolves. I indicated that I was leaving, but instead circled back around to watch them in secret. I soon learned that I was right, but the reality was even more astonishing than I was told. The wolves in the camp, thinking no one else was around, could transform themselves into humans. Meanwhile, those I met as humans were capable to turning themselves into wolves. The stories were true. They were all true, and more. Smiling at my success, I left for real, respecting their wishes to remain a secret.

Years later, I was still in Italy, having fallen in love with the city of Verona, and also a man. I told no one of what had brought me to the country in the first place, or what I had ended up experiencing, yet out of the blue, he suggested we take our honeymoon in the Dolomiti Forest. Thinking there was no way we would run into the werewolves again, I agreed. What we didn’t know was that the area was experiencing a severe drought, and resultant forest fires. Many woodland creatures had died, or been forced from their homes. It was not uncommon recently to see a herd of deer on the road, or an owl in the daytime. We still wanted to go on the trip, though not so much on a honeymoon, but to see if there was anything we could do to help. We were staying in that same village again, which had actually grown since I first visited. We were eating outside when a young wolf came up. Though he was thin and malnourished, he was quite a bit larger than your average wolf. His fur was mangy and dirty, and he was obviously thinking about eating us. The only thing that stopped him was that there were two of us, and he was probably trying to find a way to incapacitate us both at the same time. He attacked me first, but since I had lived my life well-fed, I was able to knock him away from me. I yelled at my husband to run away, which he did for a few meters, but couldn’t bring himself to leave me entirely. Yet he stayed back when he saw me take a brick paver from the ground, and threaten the wolf with it. “Yes,” I said to him in Italian. “You know what this is. It can be a weapon. Show yourself.” He just growled. “Show yourself!” I yelled. “I know what you are; that you know what I’m saying.”

Cautiously, he absorbed his fur, twisted his bones, adjusted his face, and stood up. Now in human form, his sickliness was even more obvious. “Please,” he begged. “I’m just hungry.” I told him that I understood completely, and that I was perfectly happy to help. We gave him the rest of our food, then we took him back to our room, and let him sleep in the bed, while my husband and I shared the corner on the floor. My husband, the more proper of the two of us, watched in horror as the werewolf ate breakfast like an animal the next day. He had quickly accepted what this individual was, but didn’t agree with the way behaved. He said that the forest is no longer an acceptable place for him and his people to live. We were evidently going to teach him to be civilized, and if it worked, we would do the same for the rest of his pack. The wolf looked between the two of us, and seemed amenable to the idea. But then in one final surprise, he asked, “what about all the other packs?”

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Microstory 802: Fountain of Truth

The first thing I remember is standing in a brightly lit hallway, full of doors. I didn’t wake up, or come to. I just slowly started realizing there were these things around me that I could see, as if someone else had been driving my body, and I was slowly taking back control. “It has begun,” came a voice from nowhere and everywhere. “What do I do?” I asked. The voice instructed me to check my pocket. I expected to find a key, because of all the doors, but there was only a note that said I had to pick a fountain, and that the wrong choice would get me killed. I opened the nearest door to me to find a giant two story fountain. Leaves were carved into the base, and stone fish were somehow suspended in the jets. I stepped back out, and opened the door right across from it. There was fountain in this room too. Jets perpetually shot up from the bottom, and inexplicably disappeared into the darkness above it, forming the shapes of musical instruments. I opened a third door to find another fountain, just as large, but it couldn’t be that big, because I’ve already opened the one next to it. They should be overlapping. I’m supposed to choose a fountain, but I feel no connection towards these ones, nor with any other I check. So I run. I run as far down the literally endless hallway until I can run no more. Might as well let my muscles tell me which door to open.

Inside the room to my left is a fountain that’s much smaller than the others have been, barely reaching my waist. Water is bubbling out from the center, pooling to the sides, and spilling into a drain along the rim. It’s the simplest one yet. I’m reminded of a movie I saw once where the right choice was not the most extravagant, but the least. If this isn’t the answer, there is no answer. I reach my hand into the fountain, and let the water tickle my skin. After a few seconds, though, the water turns to acid, and begins to burn. I immediately pull it out, but the fountain isn’t about to let me off that easy. Burbling turns to spurting, which turns to shooting and spraying. The basin cracks, letting out more acid. It tips over and breaks open. Now the acid is rushing, out from the floor. I run out of the room, but by the time I get a few meters away, the threat behind me has grown into a full blown hurricane flood. There’s no way I can get out of this, but my survival instinct is not hampered, and I just keep going. Thinking I have no other options, I decide to open another random door, and hope the magic acid also magically can’t enter other rooms. “I did it! I got it right!” I hear. There’s another girl in this room, having presumably been given the same choice. She’s bathed in the luminous water of her fountain. The acid hasn’t burst open the door, but it has begun to seep under the door. The other girl is being lifted into the air, so I take a chance, and grab onto her foot. We’re lifted to safety together. Now I just need to convince her to help me figure out who did this to us.

Monday, June 19, 2017

Microstory 606: A Virgin’s Child by Sacred Savior

Each taikon was written independently. In few places will you find it said that one taikon necessarily informs another. We’ve now learned that each one has been ultimately made possible by the one before, but this is not explicitly stated in the Book of Light. A major exception to this has to do with Peter Fireblood. The Book makes it quite clear that he, and only he, is capable of accomplishing the sixth taikon. He must impregnate a young virgin with the seed of the Sacred Savior. Obviously this is referring to Sotiren, whose body was only recently recovered from interstellar space. Since the Sacred Savior has been dead for centuries, his body no longer carries with it the ability to conceive a child. Fortunately, this is no longer a necessary component of conception. Through the miracle of science, it is possible to generate a baby using more sophisticated ways of mixing genetic material. Nowadays, it is possible to be born of two men, two women, more than two parents, or even just one person. Yes, by recombining the DNA of the progenitor, an entirely new scion can be created. Artificial gestation technology exists along with these methods, but this would not be allowed for the taikon. A girl below the age of majority must become pregnant by the genetic remnant of the Sacred Savior, and Peter Fireblood must perform the procedure, and he must perform it somewhere near the Yulven Ice Fields, for whatever reason. A number of girls were chosen to apply for the position of Sacred Mother. The Book of Light does not specify how to narrow down the contestants, but they did not have to do that anyway. The most  recent candidate was none other than the younger sister of Katafar Lyons, the woman who was sacrificed for the second taikon. When Peter Fireblood’s acolytes saw Marilesse Lyons on the list, they knew that she had to be the one. Her presence only fueled their belief in the truth. Marilesse, of course, agreed to the procedure, and things could continue.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Microstory 502: Deformed Wolves Come Out of Hiding

Dark creatures from the woods have been reported in multiple villages all across the French countryside. Descriptions varied, but one thing these reports have in common is that the animals were all said to be wolf-life. These animals have all now come out of hiding and revealed themselves to the world. They seem to have human-like qualities as well, appearing to be some sort of cross-breed between wolves and humans. Leading philosophers are unable to come up with an explanation for their true nature, and claim that a hybrid species would be biologically impossible. Still, witnesses say that there is no denying some kind of connection, and have already begun to refer to them werewolves. The first human known to interact with a werewolf directly was a young girl named Scarlett Capello. She had this to say:

Yes, I have been taking care of my friend, Barnabas, for the better part of a month now. He and his kin are in a great deal of pain, and need a lot of attention. They agreed to come out of the shadows to ask for your help. If anyone, with any experience with animals, has any ideas, they would be greatly appreciated.
This help has apparently come in the form of a coven of witches from Namibia. This reporter was unable to have access to their rituals as witch practices are strictly private, but an inside source has revealed that the main concern now is pain management. Experts expect werewolves to have a greater lifespan than regular wolves, but one still shorter than humans. This story will be updated in later issues as more information comes in.

Sunday, October 30, 2016

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 14, 2099

Mateo, Gilbert, and Horace spent the rest of the day hatching their plans and explaining themselves to each other. After the alternate version of Reaver shot Gilbert in the Australian cell, Gilbert began jumping into other people’s bodies. He eventually learned precision, and could use whatever temporal powers his victim at the time had. He spent years leaping from life to life, not putting right what once went wrong, but doing anything he wanted. He leapt into good people, bad people, helpless salmon, and powerful choosers. Each jump corrupted him further, and caused him to lose a little bit of his old self. But he was back now, and he was ready to help. Unfortunately, their plans were thrown out of whack when midnight came and they discovered an unusual phenomenon. Gilbert and Horace were meant to spend the interim year setting off a series of events that would culminate in a climax that would come once Mateo returned in 2099. For some reason, though, the other two jumped forwards in time with him.
“Why did this happen?”
“It’s happened to me before,” Gilbert said. “Someone high up the chain wanted me to help Mateo bring you in,” he said to Horace. “They temporarily placed me on his pattern.”
“That could be explained by you reverting to some earlier version of yourself,” Mateo began, “but why would Horace be here now?”
“We bound you together this once,” said a child who came out of nowhere. “We know the kinds of things you’re planning in your campaign against The Cleanser, and frankly, we don’t have time for it.”
“Who are you?” Horace asked, skeptical.
“He’s The Emissary,” Gilbert answered.
“This is is correct,” the Emissary confirmed. “I speak for the powers.”
“Why don’t they speak for themselves?”
“We are not yet prepared to explain that to you.”
Mateo and Horace looked to Gilbert for answers, who simply said, “that I actually don’t know.”
They looked back to the Emissary, who went into his spiel. “Mateo Matic, you operate at the pleasure of the powers that be, but they have loaned you out to the Cleanser for whatever he feels like he needs to do.”
“Yes, I am aware,” Mateo said.
“The powers, however, maintain precedence. Right now, we are in need of your services.”
“Hold on, go back,” Horace argued. “Why have you loaned him out to the Cleanser? What obligation do you have to do such a thing? I thought you hated the choosing ones.”
“I am but the Emissary.”
“That has been established,” Horace retorted. “Why don’t you give it your best shot?”
The Emissary did not look pleased, but could tell that they would not let him proceed without some explanation. “The Gallery is a separate entity. It is a sort of...home base for choosers, and we are not allowed to go there. The powers have their equivalent where choosers are not allowed to go. We have...an arrangement. Asking us to interfere would be like asking Apple to police AT&T.”
“You’re afraid of him,” Mateo guessed.
The Emissary did not want to let on that this was true, but his face betrayed him. “We respect him.”
“I bet.”
“May I proceed?” the Emissary asked rhetorically.
Just the same, Mateo nodded to allow him to continue. It was important to maintain dominance over any conversation with a chooser, power, or whatever else he encountered from now on.
“We need you to protect a young girl named Xearea Voss.”
“What kind of name is Shayaraya?” Gilbert questioned rudely.
“The kind that starts with an X.”
“Why does she need protecting, and why do we need to do it?” Horace asked.
“She angers someone in the future who’s coming back to kill her,” the Emissary explained. “She becomes extremely important when she grows up, so she cannot be allowed to die.”
Horace and Mateo both squinted and tried to remember why that sounded familiar. Then they looked to Gilbert for answers again. “Yeah, it’s Terminator 2,” he said confidently.
“It is not Terminator 2,” the Emissary protested, extremely offended by the suggestion.
“It’s Terminator 2,” Gilbert repeated, not havin’ none of that.
“No matter what anyone says, all of my tribulations have been tied to movies. This one is no different.”
“I guess there’s nothing new under the sun,” Horace pointed out.
Gilbert chuckled. “Depends on the sun.”
The Emissary just shook his head, dumbfounded by their bizarre reactions. “Look, she’s the new Savior. She was conceived and marked for duty upon the death of Makarion Dimitrios, but she will not be activated until she turns thirteen. Until then, the powers can’t protect her themselves.”
“Oh, and you say it’s not Terminator 2.”
“Wait,” Mateo said, “Saviors start their pattern when they’re thirteen?”
“It’s true, Gilbert noted.
“I started even younger,” Horace said, referring to the fact that he started repeating each day from the moment of birth.
Does she know who she is?” Mateo asked.
“Her brother works part-time in 1999, so she’s aware of our world, but she does not know her own destiny. Now, if there are no further questions, I’ll send you off.”
“Actually, I have a question—”
“No? Good. Byeeeeeeee.”

“Hello?” a young girl said from the other side of the threshold, arms crossed, chewing gum. She was wary, but not fearful, of three grown men at her door. Mateo could immediately tell that she was sarcastic and irreverent. “Can I help you?”
“Xearea Voss?”
“Yeah...?” she waited for them impatiently.
“We’re not sure how to say this,” Gilbert said awkwardly.
Now she was a losing a bit of her edge. “Are you from the 20th century? Is it my brother? Is he okay.”
“No, your brother’s fine,” Horace tried to backpedal. “I mean, I assume he is. We’ve never met him.”
Mateo took over. “Oh my God, your brother is fine. We’re not here about him. We’re here for you.”
“Is it about to happen to me too?” She asked. “I’m a little young for you, don’t you think?”
“It won’t happen for you for another three years. We cannot stop it, though we would like to.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why would I want you to stop it? My brother’s life sounds awesome.”
Mateo looked to Horace and Gilbert, just to make sure that they were all on the same page. “I always err on the side of pure honesty,” Horace admitted.
“Yeah, we know,” Gilbert snarked.
“Xearea,” Mateo began. “You won’t get your brother’s life. Yours...will be much harder. It will be nonstop. I’ve seen it. Saviors don’t have personal lives.”
She tightened her arms around her chest. “In three years? They don’t even wait until you’re an adult.”
“No.”
“How old were you?” she asked of Mateo.
“I was twenty-eight.”
“Well, maybe I’ll be twenty-eight too. You don’t know.”
“We do,” Horace assured you.
She clearly wanted to deal with the news, but was determined to continue. “If it’s in three years, then what are you doing here now?”
Mateo went on, “the people controlling us don’t want you to die, so once you’re activated, they’ll keep you safe. Don’t get me wrong, your job will be dangerous, but you’ll survive anything until retirement. They’re not protecting you because they care, but because they have no use for dead people. They sent us to keep you safe so you live long enough for them to protect you.”
“You really know how to make a girl feel special.” Sarcastic and precocious.
“I’m sorry, Xearea,” Mateo said. “I’m sorry this is the way it has to be. I’m sorry these people exist, and that they forced you into it.”
“Wow, this is nothing like Terminator 2,” Gilbert noticed.
“Are you sure about that?” They could see Xearea’s eyes widen in fear at the sight of something behind them.
They turned around to see a stone-faced man walking towards the door, completely unperturbed by the fact that the three of them were standing between him and his apparent target. “Xearea Voss. You have been judged by time and found guilty.”
While Mateo raised his arms to shield Xearea from the attacker, Gilbert walked down to meet him halfway. “Now, you know that we’re not going to let you do anything to this young lady.”
“We shall not be moved,” the man claimed.
Horace took a pistol from the holster hidden in his coat and shot the attacker in the head without a second thought.
Scared for Xearea, Mateo looked back through the doorway, only to see her spin around a bolt towards the back of the house. As he was running past them to catch up with Xearea, he could hear Horace say, “man, I wish Serkan were here.”
Even without Serkan’s help, they were able to catch up with Xearea before she made it all the way through the backdoor. Had they not, she probably would have been killed. Another attacker was waiting for her in the messy backyard. He swung an automatic rifle from behind his back and began spraying bullets in their general direction, presumably hoping he would eventually get lucky. While Gilbert and Mateo pulled Xearea to the floor and protected her like a blanket, Horace removed his second gun from its holster and began laying down returning fire.
Horace ran out of bullets at about the same time as the attacker did, so he left his weapons on the kitchen counter and marched out to confront him in person. It was no contest, though, as the man thoughtlessly brushed him away like dirt on his shoulder. Gilbert, the next violent person in their group, stood up with the intention of taking up the reigns, but this was not necessary. Darko Matic jumped into the timestream by object threading Horace’s guns. He engaged the enemy in close quarters combat. Seeing him again was his own reward, but Mateo was especially excited to watch the fight. He was never into boxing or MMA, but Darko’s work was particularly impressive. Still, it was not safe there, not for Xearea, so they had to get away. While Darko was keeping the attacker busy, Gilbert went out to make sure Horace was okay and Mateo took Xearea upstairs.
A third attacker teleported into the room just as they opened the door. He smiled at them sinisterly and started to remove a knife from its sheath. Mateo grabbed a nearby lamp and bashed it across his face. This didn’t seem to faze the man, but he was amused and curious. Mateo continued to grab random items from the room and hitting him, or throwing them at him. “All right, that’s enough, kid,” the attacker said.
What would Vin Diesel do? He would kick ass, that’s what. And he would do it all on his own. But Mateo Matic was no Vin Diesel. He was just a normal guy with no fighting experience. He wasn’t even particularly clever, but he did have a random desperate idea. He looked over the man’s shoulder and shouted, “okay, now!”
This was enough to distract him. Mateo slammed the door shut and rapidly entered the Baudin code. Before the attacker could stop her, Xearea ran through the new door Mateo opened for her. The Constructor’s headquarters was no fortress, but one thing he noticed when he was last there was that it did have some level of security. A muscular man running after a ten-year-old girl in their lobby was enough for them to raise their defenses. The man was quickly apprehended and taken to another room for questioning.
As Mateo was trying to catch his breath, the Cleanser appeared. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes,” the Cleanser said. He shook his open hands in the air and formed this weird sort of mirror portal which he promptly ushered Xearea through.
“What did you do with her!” Mateo argued.
“She’s back home.” Then he waited for dramatic effect. “I’ve spent so many years, peering through time, looking...for you.”
“Dear God, no. Not now. I’m already in the middle of a tribulation.”
The Cleanser arched his arm and opened a spark portal. “Now you’re coming with me on another one.” Mateo reluctantly followed him through it.