Showing posts with label heart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heart. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

Microstory 2387: Earth, December 5, 2179

Generated by Google VideoFX text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 2
Dear Velia,

I just wanted to touch base with you, and make sure that we really are on the same page. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and scare you off. I can be a little intense and focused sometimes, and it can get me into trouble. It’s not my fault, it’s the kind of life that I had to lead. While we were transporting people to the safe zones, I had to be single-minded, and ignore all distractions. That’s kind of where I feel most comfortable. Now that my job is kind of cushy and breezy, I rarely ever feel that rush of adrenaline anymore. Reading your letters gave me that intensity that I guess I’ve been missing in my life. I hope I’ve not gotten too carried away about it. So, you tell me. Do you think we’re somehow moving too fast? The way I see it, we can’t see each other face to face, so we kind of have to make up for it by being a little over the top. Maybe that’s the wrong way to look at it, though. Perhaps we should just be sending each other letters as friends. When you think about it, that’s about as far as things can go anyway. I suppose we could start being really graphic and suggestive, but would that even work? Argh, I’m in my head. This would go a lot smoother if you could reply to each question or comment as I said them. Dumping them all into one message sounds so strategic and calculating, like I have to get out all my thoughts. Which I pretty much do with the time lag. Some friends at Mauna Kea connected me with their colleagues who were working on faster-than-light communication. Or should I say, that’s what they say they’re doing. They’re pretty convinced that it’s an impossibility. There are no wormholes. There’s no warping space. There’s just the constant speed of the propagation of information, and we, the slaves to its tyranny. Okay, now I’m getting poetic. Just message me back when you can. I meant what I said, that you have the right to look for companionship closer to home. And to be clear, I’m not telling you that because I think you don’t know it yourself. I’m telling you so that you know that I know that.

So into you,

Condor

Monday, April 14, 2025

Microstory 2386: Earth, December 4, 2179

Generated by Google VideoFX text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 2
Dear Corinthia and Velia,

Thank you for your letter. I will be continuing to write to both of you individually until a bunch of Valkyrie assholes show up, and tell me that I can’t anymore. My dad, Pascal is standing over my shoulder, reading—and approving of—every word. He sends his love to you, Corinthia, and wishes that we all had more time together. We understand that the meteors are out of everyone’s control, but that it is not going to last forever. We will reconnect one day, even if it takes years, and while we’re waiting, we’ll be thinking of you. Velia, by the time you receive this message, Corinthia should have received mine from last month during the communications blackout. It was waiting to be sent in the buffer, but I received confirmation that it was finally released shortly thereafter, so I don’t think that there were any issues. Let me know if it never came through, though, and I will send again. I said some things which I want to make sure that she hears, and I would love it if you two talked about it openly. But basically what I said was that I care about you, and I want to get to know you better. While we’ll never meet in person—and we may soon be separated by time as well as space—I think our correspondences will be worth it. Please understand, however, that as Corinthia said, you deserve happiness. If you meet someone else, don’t hesitate. I agonized over even saying anything about this, because I don’t want to root for us to fail, but it’s probably best that you know that I’m going to be okay too. I’m not saying that I’ve found someone special, or anything, but I do get to know people around here. As a story from the Earth of old goes, our hearts will dance together to the far end of eternity. Anyway, we don’t have to get into our full romantic histories, especially not in a joint letter like this, but it’s important for us to be open and honest with each other. Can’t wait to hear from you two again!

Grateful for the opportunity in the first place,

Condor and Pascal

PS: Velia, you should be getting a new letter from me as early as tomorrow.

Monday, February 21, 2022

Microstory 1826: Shared Birthday

It’s not my birthday today, but it’s the day that I used to use for it. My best friend, who I grew up with, was born exactly six months after me, to the hour. Obviously, we used to have our own separate celebrations, but we liked to do everything together, so we figured we might as well include birthday parties in that. We split the difference, and always observed it halfway between mine and hers. Our families didn’t really understand why we would want this, and it took them a while to recall the occasion, since the date wasn’t significant for any of them, but they eventually got on board, and it became a lovely tradition. As we got older, we did the usual thing of distancing ourselves from our families, and exerting our independence, but we never grew apart from each other, and we never stopped these middle birthdays. She died years ago, not too long after our last ever joint party. It was so sudden, but not an accident. Her heart just stopped beating. I think her parents know more about it than they wanted to tell me, but I don’t think there was anything anyone could have done to stop it. I was devastated, and depressed, and I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself. Who was I without her? We would always go on group dates, and we took care of each other, and we had no secrets. I just sort of went on autopilot after that, letting my routines take me through life, which just made it worse, because so many of those routines involved her. I realized after that how much I loved her, and that I didn’t really need anyone else to be happy. Those dates were pointless. Rather, they weren’t, but we were really just dating each other. We were in love, at least in every sense that mattered. Sex was so unimportant to both of us. We probably would have admitted this much about ourselves, and stopped trying to find partners in others. Now we’ll never know.

A few months after it happened, her real birthday rolled around. I didn’t realize it until the end of the day. I was sitting on my couch, watching whatever happened to be on TV, when the weather came on. They showed us the date, and I realized its significance. A normal person would know exactly what day it was, but I had all but missed it. It’s like she died all over again, I cried for hours. Thin walls line my apartment, I know my neighbors heard, but everyone knew what was going on, so they didn’t say a word. The next day, my neighbor to the left invited me over for dinner, and though he still didn’t say anything, I know it was because he didn’t want me to have to be alone. It was nice. We started to do it every week, making it a new tradition. I should have seen it all along, but I didn’t notice what was really going on until my own real birthday occurred. Again, I didn’t realize right away what day it was, because the day was so meaningless. But that neighbor wanted to take me out, and do something special. The way he looked at me that night, it was the same way he always looked at me, but I was seeing it in a new light. It was love. He was in love with me, and I was in love with him. We had been dating for the last few months, and I didn’t even know it. I felt like such an idiot. How many times did I act like a bad girlfriend because I wasn’t aware that I was one. I decided to be honest with him. I’ll always remember his smile. He wasn’t the least bit surprised at how dense I was being, and he didn’t hold it against me. We just kind of started over from there, with both of us on the same page. We have been married for thirty years. And now I’m dying, and it’s not my birthday, but it’s the day that I used to use for it.

Sunday, May 5, 2019

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 23, 2230

Unlike people in Mateo’s past who claimed to have fallen onto his pattern, Cassidy appeared to be the real deal, though she didn’t act like she had any previous knowledge of it. Other people were around when she disappeared one year ago, and they witnessed her return at the exact same time Mateo did. Since they didn’t have access to a type of chooser called a diagnostician, who was capable of interpreting people’s time powers, Weaver would have to suffice.
“What do you expect me to do, diagnose her?” She tickled Cassidy’s fingers with her own, like a bad attempt at an examination.
“Couldn’t you invent a medical device capable of that?” Mateo asked.
“Theoretically, maybe. I wouldn’t be able to do it within the next several hours, though. Perhaps if a real diagnostician were here for me to study, I could imbue their power into something, but my own ability takes time. I have no clue how they do what they do.”
Cassidy tilted her lizard brain. “What if we started by checking for temporal anomalies. Surely you’ve already invented something that can do that. I mean, that’s all salmon and choosers are, aren’t they? Walking, talking temporal anomalies.”
Weaver tilted her head as well. “Did you intuit that, or do you know something?”
Cassidy shrugged. “Iono, it just makes sense.”
Weaver studied Cassidy’s face for a moment. Then she walked over to the central table, and accessed one of the terminals. She pulled up a hologram of an object, and tapped a corner of it to make it spin around perpetually.” “Do you know what this is?”
Cassidy stepped closer and watched the hologram. “I suppose I would call that an echo chamber.”
Weaver smiled. “The official term is cylicone, but yes. That’s exactly what it is.”
“Weaver, what do you know? She’s from 2019, and said her arrival here is her first exposure to our world.”
Weaver spoke into her wrist, “Greer, no real emergency, but could you emergency teleport back to the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, please?”
Greer appeared. “Yes?”
“Miss Thorpe, this is Cassidy Long. Miss Long, this is Greer Thorpe.”
Cassidy and Greer shook hands.
Weaver’s smile grew as soon as their hands touched. “Greer, could you please place Goswin in a temporal bubble?”
“What, why? What did I do?”
Greer did as she was asked, and for several seconds, Goswin was frozen in place.
“Okay, you can let go,” Weaver went on. “Now, Cassidy. Would you mind...trying to do the same thing to me?”
“You want me to freeze you?” Cassidy questioned.
“Couldn’t hurt to try.”
“Okay, how do I do this?” She lifted her arm. “Should I just wave my hand in—holy shit, she’s not moving! Are you frozen in place? Did I just do that? How do I get her out of it?”
“Just try,” Greer said. “If you can do it, you can undo it.”
Cassidy waved her hand again, and brought Weaver back to realtime.”
Now Weaver was beaming. “You’re an absorber. Or a channeler. There’s no way to test which one at the moment, but that explains why you disappeared and returned when Mateo and Serif did, and presumably how you got here in the first place. You must have accidentally bumped into The Trotter on the street, or handed The Chauffeur his wallet after he dropped it.”
“So, I’m one of you? Which one, the kind that can control it, or the kind that can’t; the fish ones?”
“I guess you would have to create a time bubble, and then invent something, to figure out whether you can have more than one power at a time. Or you would have to encounter someone with a time power, and choose not to use it. We’re kind of low on options all the way out here.”
“Can I get back to work now?” Greer asked. “I’m still trying to figure out how to maintain two massive bubbles at the same time.”
Weaver laughed at this. “We don’t need you to do that anymore. You can focus on holding the Maramon bubble. Miss Long here can pick up the slack, and cross everyone over.”
“Wait, you figured out how to cross people over?” Mateo asked.
“Yeah, while you three were gone,” Goswin said. “There’s a problem, though.”
“The technology is stable,” Weaver began, “but it’s limited. Not even the Muster Beacon has ever had to summon eleven billion people before. What we need is, more time. I mean, Greer can hold the bubble indefinitely to keep the Maramon out, except...”
“Except some of the Maramon are at our borders,” Greer finished for her. “A few have even gotten past the bubble’s barrier, just because they were already on their way when I made it. We outnumber them a hell of a lot, but we don’t have long before we’re overrun. I wouldn’t be able to modify it in time. Too many people live on the border towns. If we want to evacuate them, we have to bring them into this universe.”
“Cassidy can do what Greer wasn’t able to do alone,” Weaver added. “She can create a second bubble; one that goes faster than realtime. By the time the Maramon break through, all the humans will be safely over here.”
“If it works,” Greer noted.
“If it works,” Weaver agreed.
“And it won’t be all the humans,” Goswin pointed out.
“Yes, some are stuck in inaccessible parts of Ansutah. That’s not an easy fix regardless.”
“It’s my greatest concern,” Goswin reminded her.
“Well, the people we know we can save are my greatest concern.” This was evidently a touchy subject for the both of them, about which they had already fought at least once before.
“Guys. People. Fish...people. I just learned that I’m some sort of magician. I can’t create the kind of time bubble you appear to be discussing. I don’t know how any of this works, and if I only have one day to figure it out...”
“We’ll have more than one day to teach you,” Weaver assured her. “You shouldn’t have to jump to the future with Mateo, like you did before. It’s possible that you are, in fact, being infected by people’s powers and patterns, and you can’t ever get rid of one once you acquire it, but I wouldn’t put money on it.”
“I just don’t know. I mean, I got no stake in this. Who are these people?”
“They’re my people,” Greer explained. “Look, I don’t know if you were sent to us by someone on purpose, or if it’s just a brilliant coincidence, but we need you. You can save an entire world’s worth of human beings. There are as many of us living in that universe as there are on your home planet.”
“She’s from the past,” Weaver clarified. “There were actually fewer people living on Earth when she left it than there are in Ansutah.”
“Cassidy,” Greer went on. “I implore you, don’t let these refugees die just because you don’t know them. Please. I can teach you how to use your powers. These isn’t a comic book. Most of us don’t have tragic origin stories where we killed our families because we didn’t know our own strength. It generally comes pretty naturally.”
“When did you first discover your powers?”
Greer looked for guidance from the group, but no one had any answers. “Okay, well, I’m different. I obtained them from this fruit I ate few years ago, but I put someone who was trying to kill my friends in a bubble before I even knew I could. It’s an instinct thing.”
Cassidy sighed. “I will do what I can.”
“Thank you,” Greer said. She draped an arm over Cassidy’s shoulders. “Come on. We need some space for your training...and tennis balls.”
After they left, Mateo nodded towards Goswin. “Yo, you know where Ramses is?”
Goswin rolled his eyes. “He’s probably working out. He’s convinced he’ll have to be the one to muster all the refugees, so he’s trying to be in tip-top shape.”
“I thought the machines were going to do it.”
“In conjunction with the Nexus replica, and the muster device on the other side of the bridge, the Muster Lighter can pull everyone into this universe, but the lighter has to be operated manually. Someone is going to have to teleport from sector to sector, taking chunks of the population one at a time. We can’t take everyone all at once.”
“Is that right?”
Mateo left the ship, and ended up following Greer and Cassidy to the recreation building, but he kept a distance, so they could talk amongst each other. He found Ramses exactly where Goswin thought he would be, pumping furiously on a stationary bike. “Deputy Director Abdulrashid.”
“Hey,” Ramses replied shortly, but stayed focused on a spot on the opposite wall that he would never reach.
“Stop pedaling.”
“No brakes. Can’t stop..don’t want to either.”
“Stop the bike, Deputy Director.”
“I don’t work for you anymore, Patronus.”
“Stop the fuckin’ bike!”
He did as he was told, then pulled a green towel from his handlebar, and started wiping the sweat off his face. “I need to hydrate anyway.”
“You’re not gonna do this.”
“Hell you talkin’ ‘bout?”
“You’re not going to muster the refugees.”
“Mateo, we don’t have time for you to come back in a year and play hero.”
Mateo shook his head. “I’m not doing it either. I want Goswin on it.”
“Why would he do it?”
“You don’t have anything to prove, Ramses.”
“And he does?”
“He doesn’t have a heart condition.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you do.”
“I told you that in confidence.”
“And I’m confident you’ll do the right thing. Teleportation is tough on the body. Weaver had to invent a special kind that can work with humans, otherwise you would just straight up die. Goswin has been fitted with transhumanistic upgrades that will allow him to survive. You weren’t, since you thought it would be better to live in a world where you had to pay for them, instead of just filing a request.”
He dumped the rest of his water on his head. “Hey, I rejected those doctrines a long time ago.”
“And I’m grateful for the friendship we developed because you made that choice. You’re still not mustering the refugees. If I come back next year and find out you’re dead, because you didn’t listen to me, I’m going to head straight for the extraction mirror, summon you just before your death, then kill you myself.”
“Mateo, I just spent the last seven months training like hell for this mission. Now you’re telling me it was a waste of time?”
“Of course not. Now you can play a superhero in a movie. You look good, Ram. That’s not a waste.”
A moment of bro silence.
“Hey, what’s up with that girl who disappeared when you did?”
“Oh, her. I’ll explain why it looked like she was on my pattern.”
“Nah, I don’t care about that. I mean, is she single?”
“I don’t know, man. She’s from the past. If she was with someone, they’re probably dead now.”
“Not necessarily.”

“What do you mean, not necessarily?” Leona asked.
“We don’t know that someone is trying to hurt you,” Eight Point Seven started to explain herself.
“They hijacked my ship, and they’re sending me in the wrong direction.”
“Maybe you’re supposed to go in this direction.”
You’re supposed to be finding a way to turn us around.”
“I told you, I’ve not been able to. You’re the engineer.”
“I’m an astrophysicist. You’re an artificial superintelligence.”
“Yes, I’m super, not omniscient.”
Leona opened her mouth to argue.
“Nor omnipotent. Look, if we were gonna figure out how to get back on course, we would have done it by now. You’ve been here for a couple days. I’ve been working the problem for years. There’s no solution. I’m locked out of navigation.”
“Goddammit.”
“Maybe Mateo will be on Varkas Reflex, waiting for you. You’ve not been able to establish contact with him, and there are ways of achieving faster-than-light travel.”
Leona shook her head.
“You should eat.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. You’re not my leader anymore.”
“No, we’re partners, and as someone who cares about you, I’m telling you...you should eat.”
“Fine. But then we get back to work.”

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Microstory 1067: Harvey

I’ve always been a pretty athletic guy, but I also never liked sports. I find no joy in watching other people compete for trivial prizes, and I don’t much enjoy doing it myself. I guess it’s not always trivial. If you’re really good, they may start paying you for it, but you won’t get any income from me, because I won’t be there. I could theoretically play just about any sport I want, but I tend to stay away from them. I’m both a runner and swimmer, but I don’t do either of them in school, or on any team, for that matter. I like to keep my heart rate up to stay fit, but that’s really my only reason. What does this have to do with Viola? Well, she and I used to run together. We actually quadruple-footedly created a long desire line around the entire town. At least two times a week, we would run a full square around Blast City, which turns out to have a distance of exactly four miles. Even stranger is that the town itself is almost a perfect square. I say that we did this at least twice a week, because while I tried to go for godlike six days, one of us could sometimes not make it. She was the one who usually had to text and cancel. She and her family spent a lot of time out of town, on what she referred to as secret missions. I think we all know by now that whatever she was doing while away, the term secret missions was probably a pretty accurate descriptor. Anyway, she told me near the end that she wasn’t running with me for her health. She claimed the perimeter we formed was going to be important one day, and that I would understand later. I had learned by then to not ask her too many questions. Questions didn’t upset her, but if she didn’t think you could handle the truth, she wasn’t going to say anything. That was the last time we met up, and a week later, she was gone. I don’t know if the perimeter has anything to do with her death, or what happened that day, or if the purpose of it has yet to be fulfilled, but I’m leaning towards the second possibility. She was an interesting person. We talked a lot during our workouts, but always either about me, or something unrelated. It didn’t dawn on me until she died that she never really spoke about herself, and whenever I tried to elicit a relevant response, she managed to change the subject every time. Don’t listen to anything these people tell you if they claim they knew Viola Woods, because I’m quite certain no one knew her at all.

Monday, July 2, 2018

Microstory 876: Deer to My Heart

When the first of the monsters started cropping up in the public, a lot of people thought they knew what they were dealing with. They had pale skin, sharp fangs, and drank human blood, presumably to survive. They only came out at night, and they seemed to be multiplying. People reported that their loved ones, who were once perfectly normal, suddenly acted different, and went after them like all the other attackers. Vampires. That was the word people were using to classify these new beings, because that was the one that made the most sense. Naturally, we assumed we understood what that meant, and how to fight them off. We were so wrong. What we discovered the hard way was that they would not be killed by the sun, or by ultraviolet light. They came out at night because their bodies preferred cooler weather, but that didn’t mean heat was deadly to them. They could be killed with fire, or decapitation, but that goes for just about any living creature on the planet. We also thought a vampire could be killed with a wooden stake to the heart, but a great many humans were either killed, or turned, failing to make that work. Though not impossible to kill, vampires were tough, and strong. It took more military prowess than the average civilian could demonstrate, unlike in the movies, where average joes band together, and save the day. It was I who discovered their unusual weakness, and I did it accidentally. Like any good doomsday prepper, I had a plan to escape the city, and just wait this out somewhere remote. Like a good doomsday prepper with no money, my plan was limited to a few ready-to-eat meals saved up, and some camping gear. I couldn’t afford a bunker, or a road tank, so my best bet was to just hope to find some small sliver of land away from the struggle.

I made my way out of town when the first legitimate reports came in, and monitored the situation via crank radio. I drove up to the nearest significant wooded area, which was Aldenroda National Park. Then I just started living off the land, finding food using the knowledge I gained from video tutorials online before this all happened, and supplementing what I never learned with instinct and improvisation. After a couple of weeks, things were getting worse in civilization, but I had still not encountered a single vampire myself. By then, anyone still around knew that wooden stakes and daylight wouldn’t help them, including me. I felt fairly safe where I was, but winter was literally coming, and I would die from good ol’ fashioned hypothermia if I didn’t travel south, or find some better shelter. Fortunately, I happened upon an abandoned cabin that was perfect. It was pretty well insulated, had a nice fireplace, and a good bed. I was doing even better than before when a vampire showed up out of nowhere, looking for some dinner. There weren’t any samurai swords around, and I didn’t think I was clever enough to set the guy on fire, so my options were death, or switching sides. Desperate for door number three, I grabbed the nearest weapon I could find, which was a set of deer antlers the cabin’s real owner evidently never got around to hanging up. They had just left them on the floor, and so had I. The vampire thought he had me cornered, but I got lucky when he accidentally fell onto the antlers, and straight up died. I was shocked and relieved. I had stumbled upon perhaps the easiest way to kill these things, and no one else knew about it. I now had a new pair of choices; continue to use this revelation to my advantage, or go back to the outside world, and spread the word. The choice was obvious. The world had never done anything for me, so screw ‘em. They can all die, for all I care. I’m the only person who matters now, I thought. Yet fifty years later, I’ll be dying soon anyway, and humanity is still here. I impart the secret of the antlers to you, stranger. Use it wisel—what are you doing with that machete?

Monday, January 29, 2018

Microstory 766: Four Spot

The four spot, or the universal heart symbol, is a graphical representation of the human heart. Historians are unsure who first came up with the symbol. Earliest depictions can be found in prehistoric art from the sixth century BUC, but it is believed to be much older than that. As the myth goes, there were two people deep in love with each other, who used the four spot as their new family crest, intending to pass it down to their children. The four curves represent the four chambers of the standard human heart, and later on as four tenets, ideas, or beliefs. Many religions have adapted the four spot to their respective faiths, and have come up with differing uses for the quadrant symbolism to satisfy their own dogma. The original story, however, says nothing about it. What is present is the intersection of two independent streams of infinity, symbolizing time as cyclical, and that no matter how far one travels from their loved ones, they will always inevitably come back around to their intersection. This is important as the story progresses, predicting a grand reunion between the lovers sometime in the future, after a great cataclysm separates them across a seemingly insurmountable vastness. Supposedly, each of the couple was holding onto one side of the crest at the moment of the calamity. When they were torn apart, so too was the crest itself, with the man retaining only the bottom half, and the woman keeping the top. Later apocrypha suggests the man’s half represents the testicles, while the woman’s the breasts, but this is improbably more than coincidence. The man ended up in the new universe, spreading the symbol to its inhabitants as the only symbol for the heart, while the woman stayed in the primary universe, notably causing Earthan humans to believe that they had come up with it on their own. As the tale predicts, these two universes shall one day be made whole again, and the four spot heart can once again be accepted as the true icon of love.