Microstory 2504: Regret Seer

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I can see your regrets, and show you your potential. Before Landis Tipton received the gifts of The Ten Vulnerabilities, I was responsible for two of them. There were five of us in total, and we chose to use our abilities very differently. We were nomads, traveling all over the world—mostly the North American continent—helping people one at a time. We searched for those who were at their lowest, who needed the most help. I was on the frontlines of this mission. Regret is one of the strongest emotions that a person can have, and sight is one of the strongest senses. It was easier for me to pick our targets out of a crowd without having to wait for them to do something to draw attention to themselves. I could just see it. Once I found a candidate, the five of us would explore this person’s life further. We could strategize about what we could do to help this person live a better life. The way we saw it, our tasks were helping the whole world exponentially. Everyone we supported would go out, and pay it forward. With a brand new lease on life, they would find it in their hearts to help others in their own ways. Honestly, we didn’t think to focus on only one of the Vulnerabilities, like Landis has. We were drawn to one another, and it felt like we absolutely had to work together in order to fulfill our destinies. Had we only let the Health Smeller do her thing, what work would have been left for the rest of us? We just had a different perspective. And fittingly enough, I regret nothing. And you know that’s true, because if I did, I would be able to tell, and I’m comfortable enough with my own vulnerabilities that I would be honest about it. I can’t bring my own regrets to the surface, but I’m very good at recognizing them. We did our own thing our own way, and I still think we improved the world. We didn’t always hit it out of the park. There is a reason why we don’t have the gifts anymore, and why we had to transfer them to Landis. But I don’t like to talk about it, because that is something that I regret. Maybe I’m not as brave as I believe. I should be able to talk about what happened. Unfortunately, while I helped countless others see their potential, I could never see my own. But again, the gifts belong to Landis now, and while it saddens me a little that my Vulnerability senses aren’t being used, I’m proud of the work that he’s been doing. That’s why I chose him in the first place. I didn’t know exactly what he was going to do, but I knew that he was on his way to reaching greatness.

Microstory 2501: Mother of the Healer

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You can call me Mrs. Tipton. I always knew that my boy was special. He wasn’t born premature, but he was a very tiny little thing. They had to keep him in that box for so long, it was horrible. But he came out, and he fought for his life. This was long before his literal special abilities. Once I heard about what Landis could do, I was not surprised at what he did with it. He hasn’t always had his life together, but he’s always been a caring and kind person. I think it’s because he had to overcome so much so early on. It wasn’t only that, though. There is so much darkness and sadness in the world, and he hated to see it. I could tell that he felt powerless against all the heartache, so he kind of retreated into his shell. To some, this made it seem like he didn’t care, but it was the exact opposite. He cared too much, and it was so overwhelming. You know he has a lot more abilities, right? He can tell when people are lying, and can kind of persuade people to do things. He can’t outright force them, like mind control, but there’s a lot more that he could do, and for selfish reasons. He could have become quite rich, working for the government or a corporation. They would have paid good money to have him investigate for them, or spy. I’m so proud of him for doing the right thing with these gifts. I can’t tell you where they come from. He wasn’t born with them. Lord knows, his father and I didn’t give them to him. But I know that he’s not the only one, and I know that as soon as he got them, he started doing something with them. Of course now, we’ve started to hear about other people with their own gifts, but I don’t think they would have announced themselves publicly were it not for my son’s singular bravery. How long have they walked among us without saying anything or helping? His father suggests that maybe they have been helping all along, but they’ve had to remain a secret. Maybe that’s true. I just wonder if they could be doing more by stepping out of the shadows. That’s what my son did. He jumped right into the light, and made sure everyone knew that he could help them. He bought himself some real estate, and started churning out cures. It makes you wonder, would anyone else do the same? Was this foundation inevitable? Or is Landis the only one who could have pulled this off? Just something to think about when you’re waiting in line to have your life changed for the better forever.

Microstory 2423: Oz

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My assumption is that the guy who made this planet was a huge fan of L. Frank Baum, and his works. If you haven’t read the books, you really should. You can see the movies, particularly the first one, but everything here is drawn from the source material. Oz is only one dome, complete with the Emerald City in the center, and the four countries around it. There’s a so-called Impassable Desert along the perimeter, but there’s not much to it before you just hit the wall. Which is fine. I mean, that qualifies as impassable, doesn’t it? Unless you go through a door. I’m overthinking it. The point is that Oz is only one dome, but the world of the Baum books includes many other regions on the planet, and each of them has their own dome too. They’re all on my list, because my father used to read me the books when I was a kid, multiple times. And when I grew up, I read them myself. On my way here, I read them yet again to refresh my memory. Yeah, I could have installed the data into my cybernetic mind, but there’s nothing like reading the words in realtime, is there? The bottom line is that this place is perfect for me. It’s as accurate as it can be given the lack of specifications from the books (which no one could expect from any writer). It exemplifies the spirit of the original story, I should say. They had to make their own decisions, and take some liberties, but they totally nailed it. This. Is. The Land of Oz. Are there some things that I would change if I could? Sure. Do I wish that they would ask me to help them make such changes? Yeah, I do. Could I offer my services? Yeah, I guess I could. I might just do that. They have people work here, right? It’s not all automated. I might wait just a little bit, though. I should take notes, and go through the entire thing. I should also wait until I’ve had time to do the same in the other Baum domes. I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do, but you really should check it out. It is great and good.

Microstory 2358: Vacuus, July 16, 2179

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Dear Condor,

There was a short delay in my response to you because I read your letter, and decided that I wanted to implement your suggestion regarding my new noisy neighbor, then wait to see if it worked. It seems to have, at least for now. I kind of maybe got the feeling that I will eventually have to reset my connection to him after he forgets. I’m not saying that he’s dumb, but I noticed he would regularly lose his train of thought, and forget key aspects of the stories that he was telling. I came to find out that researchers here are aware of his issues. They’re still not certain if he would have developed this way had he been born on Earth, or if there’s something specific to this environment that led to his neurological shortcomings. Right now, they’re leaning towards the latter. All children are different, but others have shown similar signs of developmental problems that need to be addressed. At the moment, there are still some variables that they have to account for, so they can’t arrive at any conclusion on the cause. This is a relatively small population. There must have been something about the progenitors’ own psychology that made them want to come here at all, and they all had to pass certain tests to qualify. These factors, along with others, limit the gene pool, making it more difficult to test hypotheses when it comes to determining the effects that this world might have on humans as a rule. I have to say, I’m surprised I didn’t know anything about any of this before. I guess they’re trying to keep it hush-hush. It is funny, though, they might be missing out on valuable data by keeping the rest of us in the dark. I belong to a subset of the population: children who had no choice but to travel to this world; born on Earth, grown up on the ship, and working on the base. The criteria for our selection was different than it was for the adults, of course. Studying us may tell them something that they’re not seeing now. I’m not gonna let them know about this, because I’m already a test subject, and I don’t need to add to that pressure. I still can’t find anyone who will tell me what exactly they’ve learned from the whole twins separated at birth study. I don’t know which team might be responsible for that, and I can’t get the top brass to even admit that it’s a thing. In a way, my situation is not dissimilar to Bray’s. We’re both being studied against our will. I think that’s what really endeared him to me, and honestly, this street seems to go both ways. He has had a much harder life than I realized, and I think that he also sometimes wishes that he were on Earth. I’m not saying it was okay that he was playing music while I was trying to sleep, but I kind of understand this behavior better now. They weren’t watching him in secret. They were really in his face about it, and they probably just made everything worse. I do not envy him, and it really puts our situation into perspective, don’t you think?

Sleeping in the quiet once more,

Corinthia

Microstory 2357: Earth, July 7, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

You should have received my custom read receipt that confirmed the plan for The Winfield Files, but in case you didn’t, we’re a go. They’re not the longest books in the world, but they’re not super short either. Still, I think we could each get the next one done within a couple weeks. I agree that our thoughts should be in the form of attachments. Yeah, we might have to wait for each other’s responses before moving on, so it may not be as neat as one installment per pair of letters, but I dunno. We’ll just have to wait and see how it goes. To answer your question, our relationship with the dome remains strong. Generally speaking, the immigrants aren’t having significant issues, though it’s a culture shock for many of them. In some ways, we’re different, but in others, we’re the same. It’s true that we’re mobile, but this thing is so large, and the engines are running so slowly, that you can’t really tell. The view is really the biggest difference. Still, they’ve designed it to simulate a normal dome as much as possible. We have dirt and sand and grass. Dad and I live in the platform section, instead of the dome proper, but all of the newcomers have been assigned housing outside, which I think they prefer, since it’s more like what they’re used to. Speaking of new friends, I have an idea about your neighbor. What your problem seems to be is that he doesn’t care how his actions affect others. You have to show him that you exist, and give him some reason to consider that in the future. Don’t complain about the noise, don’t yell at him. Endear yourself to him. First step is to ask him for help with something. How tall are you? If you have some artwork high up on the wall that needs to be adjusted, or a nut under your sink that needs to be tightened, ask him to do it. This especially works if he’s a man, because he wants to feel big and strong, but you can execute this trick with just about anyone. Just make sure it’s a simple task. People want to feel needed, not exploited. Once he’s done, thank him for taking the time, then invite him over for lunch, or a board game. Invite a couple other people if you feel uncomfortable being alone with him, but don’t make it a full-on party. You want him to see you as an individual, and to be reminded of his connection to you when he’s in the area, not the gathering over all. I don’t like the phrase kill them with kindness, but that’s what you’re doing here. This doesn’t work every time; some people are clueless, but my childhood bully stopped harassing me after I tried this. Give it a shot, and let me know how it goes.

Ready to start Book One,

Condor

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 30, 2482

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The technicolor web encompassed them as it did every time they used the quintessence drive. They faded into blackness before the stars and other celestial bodies reappeared. It didn’t look like anything had changed, though. They seemed to still be orbiting Dardius. Had something gone wrong? “Has something gone wrong?” Marie asked. “It looks the same.”

“Not exactly the same.” Her sister pointed through the window, at the terminator line that separated night from day. “We should see lights from the cities.”

“Lee-Lee?” Mateo asked.

She looked at her watch, knowing what he wasn’t saying. She stared at it for a moment before dropping her wrist, and regarding the group. “It’s June 30...2082.”

“I’ve never been to this year before.” Mateo shut his eyes, and concentrated. “I can feel her. She’s nearby. But...it’s weird. She’s still...”

“In flux?” Ramses guessed. “I feel that too.”

“What was this world like in this time period?” Olimpia asked.

“It wasn’t populated yet,” Leona began to explain. “I think these are the beginnings of something known as The Sanctuary. I suppose the whole planet ends up being thought of as a sanctuary, but back then, it was just one hotel. There could be no one down there besides Romana, or only a handful of people. If Meliora’s around already, she’ll be able to help us figure this out.”

“I can figure it out,” Mateo decided. “I’m just going to teleport down to her.”

“Don’t be reckless,” Leona warned.

“Helping or hurting, honey. Helping or hurting.” With that, he disappeared.

He was standing inside of a construction site. By the looks of the architecture, it appeared to be a hotel, but it was nowhere near ready for people to move in. This probably was indeed Sanctuary, just in its very early days. There could be enemies nearby, or not. There was no way to know, and the only rational reaction was to be cautious and quiet. He was standing in front of a door, which was where the tethering signal was coming from. He reached for the knob when one footstep gave him pause.

“What are you doing here?” Holy shit, that was a face he hadn’t seen in a good long while. It was Dave, a.k.a. The Chauffeur.

“Where should I be, if not here?” Mateo questioned.

Dave sized him up and down. “You hold yourself differently. You seem more comfortable. You’re not the same man you were when we last saw each other.” He was right. It had been centuries.

“You didn’t notice the spacesuit I’m now wearing?”

“That too.” Dave looked around for other threats. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but if you have plans for that young woman in there, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to take a step back.”

This surprised Mateo. “You’re protective of her?”

“She needs protection.”

Mateo flicked the door open. Romana was standing in a lit reading nook of the hotel suite. She was surrounded by a swirling swarm of dark particles. They made her disappear for a couple of seconds, only to return her for a couple more before sending her away again. It was unending. Her eyes were closed, as if trapped in some form of stasis. “That’s my daughter. I’ve been looking for her.”

“Are you lying?” Dave asked.

“Don’t you know me well enough?” Mateo asked him. “I’m the good guy. No, I’m not lying. Her name is Romana Nieman.” He watched as she disappeared and reappeared over and over and over again. This was Buddy’s doing, just as he suspected.

“I’ve been trying to get her out of there for years,” Dave explained. “Every time I get close, those black fly things attack me, and send me somewhere else. Sometimes it’s just to the other side of the room, but I have had to claw my way back from decades in the past. I’m afraid they will one day zoicize me.”

“This is my fault. The man who has her captive and I did not part ways well.”

Dave lifted his chin in realization. “That sounds about right. Can you help her?”

“Tell me where Buddy is.”

“I’ve never even heard of him.”

“Yeah, he’s new, for whatever that’s worth in our world.”

“There’s been no one at the construction site, besides me, The Builder, and Meliora Reaver.”

“Rutherford,” Mateo corrected. “Her name is Meliora Rutherford.”

“Indeed.”

“Give me a second,” he said with a finger up. “Why has no one come down here with me?” he asked through comms. “To stop me, or help?”

“We don’t see Dave Seidel as a threat,” Leona responded. “Do you need help?”

“I may. I’m going to try to take her by the hand. Come find me if I end up back in dinosaur times.”

Leona appeared from the other end of the hallway. “I’m here. We’ll battle the dinosaurs together.”

“A lot of changes with you too.”

All three of them stepped into the room. The dark particles menacingly expanded from Romana’s body, like bees protecting the hive, but they weren’t attacking yet. “I keep forgetting the rule, don’t antagonize the antagonist.”

“Not everything is about you,” a voice came from nowhere. A second swarm of dark particles appeared in a corner from which Buddy materialized. “The truth is, I didn’t even know you knew this woman. I took her to test Dave’s resolve.”

“My resolve?” Dave asked. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re special,” Buddy claimed. “Your powers are special. And I need them.”

“He wants you to get him a fruit,” Mateo said, jumping right to the end of this dumb spiel. “A citrus, to be exact.”

“Oh,” Dave said, knowing the limitations of time travel. “I can’t do that.”

Buddy laughed. “Temporal Citrus Explosion Syndrome is just another time illness, except instead of a person getting sick, it’s a fruit. You can protect organisms traveling through time. That’s your whole deal.”

“I’ve already tried,” Dave contended. “That was, like, the first thing Meliora had me attempt after she turned me into this. She too thought I was a loophole. And she didn’t have to kidnap anyone for it. She just asked, asshole.”

“As I said, it was a test. You failed to free her from her prison, and so here she shall remain forever. Sorry, Mr. Matic. I harbor no ill will against you, or her. I am aware that you had nothing to do with Superintendent Grieves’ betrayal a few years back. You weren’t even there!”

“Wait,” Dave said. He really needed to save the girl. “Perhaps there’s something else I can do for you. Let the girl go, and I’ll try my best. I can make no promises, but I may come up with an alternate solution that you haven’t thought of. My powers are not all that define me. I’m pretty clever.”

Buddy considered the offer. “You’ll have to do everything I say, no arguments. You have to make a genuine offer to get me that citron, even if it’s not exactly pleasant.”

“Okay,” Dave conceded.

“Thank you, Dave,” Mateo said sincerely.

“Just take care of her.” The way Dave said that, as if it was personal for him. He had never met Romana, but perhaps she reminded him of someone else.

Buddy reached out, and shook a reluctant Dave’s hand. “We got a deal.” He moved his hand over towards Romana. The dark particles broke orbit, and sped towards their master.

After he had reabsorbed them all from her, Romana’s knees buckled, but Mateo made a short jump, and caught her in time. “It’s okay, I got you.” She was still unconscious. He lifted her up in his arms, and looked over at Buddy. “If she doesn’t recover, you’ve become a real enemy, and that is not something you wanna be.”

Buddy titled his head and shrugged, apparently accepting the possibility.

“Dave,” Mateo went on. “Don’t lose yourself.” He exchanged a look with Leona, then they both disappeared.

“Get us out of here as fast as you can,” Leona ordered.

Ramses was hovering over the console, ready for this, having been listening to the brief but charged conversation. He engaged the machine again, and sent them away. It was a rocky trip this time. The technicolor web engulfed them on all sides, as usual, but it was uneven. The whole ship shook like it was experiencing turbulence. When it spit them out at the destination, they were sent tumbling through space, and were still feeling it here on the inside. Ramses first made sure that there weren’t any objects nearby that they might collide with. Then he shut off the viewscreens, so they wouldn’t be so dizzy anymore. The internal inertial dampeners were still shuttering a little bit, but holding together.

“The watch is having trouble calibrating,” Leona announced, bracing her hip against the wall. “Something went wrong.”

“All that matters is we’re together,” Mateo said. “I’m taking her to the realspace infirmary.” There were three infirmaries on this vessel. Two of them were in pocket dimensions, but one was just built on the ship itself.

“Good idea,” Leona replied to him before addressing the group. “No teleporting, and stay out of the pockets. They may be compromised.”

Ramses worked on the console to stabilize the ship. After a minute, it was still having attitude problems, but the shaking stopped. While he was trying to fix the rest, Leona sat down, and fiddled with the watch. She tapped on her comm disc. “June 30, 2182. We only jumped a hundred years.”

“That’s not where I was trying to take us!” Ramses complained.

“We’ll figure it out,” Leona assured him.

They did figure it out, and it didn’t take them very long either. The slingdrive was very sensitive, and could only make one jump before it needed some time to rest. It was all too technical for Mateo to understand, and he didn’t care to learn the details anyway. It needed a break in between uses. Whatever. That changed nothing about Romana’s condition. She was okay, though, and he needed Olimpia’s comfort to remember that. According to the medical pod’s diagnosis, she was only sleeping. Her EEG suggested that she would wake up on her own, and it was safer to just wait for that to happen than to try to wake her up some other way.

There was a little bit of news while Mateo sat by his daughter’s side. While seemingly random at first, their arrival at this particular point in spacetime led them to a discovery. The Insulator of Life was just floating in the middle of space. There was no telling what it had been through, but Ramses seemed to think that someone’s consciousness was being stored inside of it. He was forced to put the investigation on the backburner while he sorted through the slingdrive issues. They must have solved the issue one way or another, because by the end of the day, they were able to make another jump. Leona announced that they were where they wanted to be, orbiting Castlebourne on June 30, 2482.

He never left the infirmary, and neither did Olimpia. He ran through the past couple of weeks in his head, replaying the events that led him here. What could he have done differently? Could he have handled the Buddy situation differently? Could he have urged Ramses to exercise caution, and wait on trying to tether the group. It seemed like a good idea at the time, to prevent any of them from getting lost, but their plan backfired, and this may have lasting consequences. One of those consequences was staring him in the face. Rather, she would have been if her eyes were open. “Have you noticed?” he asked after a long time in the silence. “She looks older.”

Olimpia cleared her throat. “I believe she is. If she’s been off of the pattern since she disappeared, it’s been five years for her.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Leona said, stepping into the room to check on them. “I didn’t stop to make precise calculations, but just working from memory, I would say that she existed in the timestream for about four seconds at a time before jumping forward two seconds. I don’t know if it was exactly that, or what, but I did notice her being present for around twice as long as she was gone. I think Buddy knew more than he admitted. He obviously did this to disable our tether’s ability to track her location. She never had to jump forward very far in the future; just enough to clear the last ping before it reset.”

“So, how old is she?” Mateo pressed.

“At a two to one ratio, that’s about three and a third years.”

He looked back down at her. “She’s eighteen.”

“Her body is,” Leona clarified. “I don’t know how it subsisted this long in the dark particle temporal bubble, but we don’t know what happened to her mind in there. Age isn’t about how long you’ve been alive. It’s about how much time you’ve experienced.”

“I wish I could look at it that way, but all I see is five more years that I could have spent getting to know my daughter.”

They wanted to keep talking it through, but he just wanted to return to the silence. A couple of hours later, while Mateo and Olimpia were eating their feelings out of a dayfruit that was programmed to taste like chocolate cake, Romana finally woke up. It seemed, however, to be a double-edged sword. He was relieved for a moment when the EEG alerted them that her brain activity was increasing, then very concerned when she opened her eyes, and several dark particles wafted out of them before fading into nothingness.

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Microstory 2258: Loyal and Protective

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So the reporters are gone, but that doesn’t mean people have stopped coming to our house. We’re still getting harassers, but not because they want to know our story. What they want is money. Kelly, despite being so young, has known a lot of people throughout her life. She took a wide array of classes in high school, and participated in a ton of extracurricular activities. She’s easy to get along with, and is well-liked by her peers. But she only had a small group of real friends. They know who they are, and they’ve supported her during this crazy ordeal. Others just want a payday, and they’re contriving deeper relationships with her in their respective headcanons in order to leverage them for personal gain. I’m rich now, and so are Dutch and Kelly. Many of the latter’s former contacts have been showing up, suddenly showing interest in her life, and they could not be more transparent. Their motives are obvious, to me, to Kelly, and most importantly, to our security team. These people aren’t camping out on the lawn, fortunately, but they do keep ringing that bell. They wouldn’t be able to do that, of course, without the reporters having doxxed us, but I don’t want to get into another rant about that. I just need to clear the air. The money that we now have is not for fun. It’s not so we can buy a private jet, and a megayacht. It’s not so we can start adding caviar to every meal. We have a job to do, and this capital allows us to do it. Our house is as big as it is because there are three of us, we’re not romantically linked, and we need room for live-in security, as well as some home office space. We see it as an investment in our well-being and responsibilities, not as a status symbol. We’re giving money away to charities, and social programs, not to just random individuals, no matter how big of a crush they purportedly had on one of us in ninth grade history class. I hope that all makes sense, because I’m loyal and protective, and if you start making one of my people feel uncomfortable and unsafe, then you’ll find yourself feeling the same things. Understood? Okay, then I don’t think we need to talk about it again.

Microstory 2257: And He Paid It

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The money is in. Our bank account is so full, money is spilling out of it. I mean that in the most literal sense while still not talking about physical cash. Knowing that the funds would be in there by the end of the day, I set an autopayment for a number of various charities, so the full amount was only available for a few minutes before a chunk of it was gone. I’m laughing now, reading all of the replies and comments from readers who were under the impression that I was getting scammed. Oh, so many of you thought that it was never gonna happen; that I was just setting myself up for failure. We kept mentioning all the things we had to do at the bank, and whatever. You were convinced that it was going to come back to bite us in the ass. I suppose I can see where you could have guessed that. In an alternate reality, that’s what would happen; us becoming the victims of a long con. The thing is, though, even though I’m not telling you who commissioned me to give up my specimens, he’s not just some random guy who claimed to have a bunch of money. He’s fully on the books, and can’t run from me. The FBI, and other agencies, were fully aware that this was all happening, and they could have easily gone after him if he hadn’t been on the up and up. I know that a lot of scams work by telling you that they’ll give you a whole lot of money if you just give them a tiny bit up front, and the idea is that they’ll accept the tiny bit, and just run away with it, because to them, it was better than zero. But this guy didn’t ask me for a cent, and like I said, he’s a public figure with a life to lead. Taking my index and bone marrow probably won’t do much for him, especially since as I’ve been trying to tell everyone, they’re not the key to immortality. Risking going to prison by stealing them? That would have been even more absurd. He set the price, and he paid it. He paid it today, and now that business is done. I’m keeping enough of it for the three of us to live comfortably in this house, and to pay my security detail and publicist. Everything else should be spent on things that help the community, and maybe the world.

Microstory 2256: Keep My Mouth Shut

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Last we spoke, I told you that pretty much the only way the authorities would swoop in to clear the crowd off our lawn would be if that crowd got to be too big. They were invasive and annoying, but they weren’t doing anything illegal, and they weren’t technically placing anyone in danger. I was venting to my readers, but some of you took it as a call to action. You flooded the neighborhood for the sole purpose of forcing the cops to shut the whole thing down. They didn’t just remove you from the premises, but everyone, because it otherwise would have been some form of discrimination. I didn’t know that you were going to do that. I didn’t tell you the “loophole” even thinking that that might be a possibility. And it’s not the first time that’s happened. I have to be really careful about what I say to people. They will do things for me without me explicitly asking for it, or having any clue how they’re interpreting my words. Sometimes I just say things about how I’m suffering, or lacking, and they’ll want to fix it. And I never see it coming. When I was fifteen, a few weeks from my birthday, my parents asked me to go on a road trip with them. My aunt was out of the country, but she needed a car when she got back, and she liked a particular make and model. This is something that I knew about her, so I wasn’t the least bit suspicious that something else was up. They asked me to help them make the drive up to, and back from, Minnesota, so I obliged without question. We spent one night in a hotel, and when we woke up, we drove out to a farm where the car was supposedly waiting for us. We saw dogs in big pens, screaming at us for attention. So a farmer was selling their car, and they had a bunch of dogs? Didn’t seem like that big of a deal. We got out, and I was watchings those hounds bark their heads off when the owner came out carrying a little puppy. My parents admired it, and asked me if I would like to hold her too. I loved dogs, so I jumped at the chance. I had that wee furbaby in my arms before they told me that she was mine. She was my early birthday gift. It didn’t occur to me that the trip had anything to do with me, nor that it was weird for there to be a car being sold at a farm that also had dogs.

The point is, Sophie was a total surprise to me. I stopped asking for a dog when I was young, but I would still talk about how much I loved them, and all animals. I never asked for a bunk bed, but I got one around fifth grade, because my parents knew that about me. Again, I have to be so careful about what I say, but being autistic, I don’t ever think that my random musings will have any real impact on the world. It’s caused other problems too. Since I don’t think that way, it makes me less of an attentive person. When someone else talks about how much they would like it if things were a certain way, I hear them, I listen, but I don’t think to help them. The way my brain works, if you want me to know something, then you should say it. You should say it clearly and unambiguously. I sort of have a different idea of rudeness. Well, it’s not different, it’s just not as broad. I don’t notice subtext, and I don’t accept innuendo. Be honest and straightforward. Or don’t. Just be the way that you are, and hope that I take the hint. I probably won’t, but you can hope just the same. And me? I’ll try to keep my mouth shut in case I say something that accidentally prompts a response. We’re just talkin’ here. It’s only a blog. I appreciate what you did for us with the lawn, but don’t worry too much about my needs. I’ll figure it out. And if I ever do need your help, I’ll just ask.

Microstory 2241: Me as a Weapon

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Yo, what up, kids? My name is Dutch Haines, and I won’t take up too much of your time. People have just been asking where I came from, and I thought it might make sense to clear the air. I won’t go into too many details, to protect the innocent, and even the not so innocent. Months ago, I woke up just as I normally do, and tried to leave the house to head for work. I never made it, though. I ended up in this underground bunker, apparently on another Earth. That’s what people told me anyway. It was also centuries in the future, so maybe it was our planet the whole time. Wouldn’t that be a great twist for a movie? Anyway, there’s this weird phenomenon called Westfall, which sends people to different worlds all the time. You’re not supposed to know it’s happened, but sometimes it glitches, I guess. Don’t ask me how it works. All I know is that I was sick, kind of like Nick. I was the carrier of a disease that’s harmless to humans, but deadly to an evil race of aliens who are trying to sterilize people they don’t like all over the multiverse. The natives asked to study me and my blood so they could use me as a weapon, and sadly, I believe they got their wish. I just wanted to come clean about my part in this. It’s not like I really had a choice. Maybe the Westfall thing wasn’t a glitch. Maybe I was destined to go there for that. I dunno, but I’m hoping to make up for it, so I would like to dedicate my life to service, if you’ll have me. I’ve never been one for social media, but I’ve signed up now, so maybe y’all can follow me too, and help me figure out what I can do to help the world. I’ll hand this website back over to Nick for now, though.

Microstory 2237: Good Number of Zeros

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Okay, I’ll make this brief. People did not like what I wrote in my last social post. I told you yesterday that I wasn’t going to be making any book deals, or anything, but I think most of you know that that’s not really what I meant. I was saying that I’m working on my own timeline, and contemplating my future privately. Dutch came back to this world through an interdimensional doorway while I was starting to wonder whether it even existed. For the first time in months, there is hope for me to see my friends again, and maybe even my family if I’m lucky. So no, some of you misunderstood me. I did not reject the concept of making money, and I am not being a hypocrite. I told you that I would be doing this on my own terms, which means not accepting just any offer that comes with a good number of zeros. Let’s do it right, not just quickly. This is all happening so fast, I don’t know what tomorrow holds, let alone the next year, so just be patient. For now, I’ll ask you to read my site if you want, and not try to give me any ideas. I appreciate the thought, and I’m not mad, but this is all I need for now. One thing I will tell you is that the internet is the only place where I share my thoughts. I don’t see any reason to write an autobiography that you have to buy. That ain’t me.

Microstory 2236: Stop Sending Me Messages

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We’re running into the same problem with the FBI that we had with the jail. No one has my contact information, so they’re reaching out to the only entity that they know is already in contact with me. They had to hire a temp to sift through all the letters and emails. It may actually be a team, I don’t really know. But I’m sure it’s a stressful job, because it includes death threats. Well, in truth, I don’t know that there are any death threats, because if true, part of the temp’s job would be to filter them out, so I don’t have to see them. But let’s face it, there are. No one should be sending anything like that, but I don’t really want anything anyway; good or bad. I don’t want your love letters, propositions, or proposals. I don’t want you to publish a book about my life, or cast me in a romcom. I won’t go on a date with you, or father your child, or give you my blood. It’s not a healing elixir; we know as much. Just stop. Not too long ago, Kelly suggested that we might consider hiring a publicist to handle all this stuff. They have the infrastructure and hiring practices to handle this sort of thing, not that I want anyone to have to deal with this stuff. I would rather it just stop altogether. Back in my younger days, I wished that I would be famous, and I guess I always knew that it came with drawbacks, but knowing about them, and experiencing them, are two different things. So please just calm down. As I’ve tried to explain, my blood cannot heal you. Doctors have been studying it for weeks—even longer than that when you consider the fact that I was a former immortal before I even came to your world. That’s the thing about your universe, it dampens my abilities, which is of course, what opens me up to all those death threats. God, I just can’t get away from the strife. Please just stop sending me messages. I’m sorry, but I’m not reading most of them. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life, but I can tell you that it will be on my terms. The more you beg me to follow your lead, or listen to your ideas, the more I’m going to pull away. That’s just who I am. If you really wanna stay in the loop, simply read my website and socials. Personal connection isn’t a thing; not with me. I have all the friends I need.

Microstory 2235: Constant Federal Supervision

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This is Nick. The FBI has developed a way for me to write my posts, and have them published on my website without actually having to access the internet myself, and risk giving away my current location. I’ve been asked not to place myself in that risk in other ways, such as describing where we’re living, or anything, but other than that, I don’t have to run anything by them. There’s no approval process here. It’s just me, printing a copy of what I want to say, and sending it to the agent who has access to the right web accounts. I will tell you that I’m granted brief, monitored, and heavily secured access to the internet to make sure it looks the way I want it, but other than that, we entertain ourselves with physical media, like books and DVDs. They’re not that interesting to me, but the other two don’t seem to have any issues with it. I’m getting back into writing, because I think this world needs more compelling stories, so that takes up a lot of my time. God knows there’s nothing else to do stuck in this safehouse at 221B Baker Street in foggy Londontown. Ha! Fooled you! That is a reference from my homeworld. It’s not really where we are, you chumps. Anyway, my new stories have given me an idea of how I might get back to my friends, but it’s going to take help from viewers like you. I’ll have the details later—I just remembered this cosmic trick yesterday—but basically, if I put on a production of a particular stage musical, there’s a chance that a universe-hopper will come and get me out of here. I know that sounds bizarre and random, but it does make sense once you know the full story. Again, these are only the early stages. I’m still in protective custody, so if I want to take it one step at a time—which I should—carving a new life out for myself without the need for constant federal supervision would be the first one. So don’t ask me when auditions are. It’s not time yet. There’s a strong chance that it wouldn’t even work. Joseph is very...critical of people’s interpretations. I’ll give you more information at a later date if I decide to move forward with this plan.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 10, 2462

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Three years ago, Leona and Marie finally escaped the Angry Fifth Divisioner’s ship, and returned naked to the kasma. Leona asked Marie to insert the data crystal into the interface drawer on her PRU, which allowed her to download the information, and display it on her HUD. She began to look through the technical specifications for the machine that could thicken the membrane of a universe, and also the skeleton key that would allow a ship to pass safely through it, despite its great thickness. She had spent the last three days studying the manual. They were surviving on the recycled air and water contained in the pocket dimension inside of their PRUs. They were just stuck here in the equilibrium of the kasma for now, because there was no way to travel to one universe, or the other. She had the means to understand the skeleton key, but no way to construct one for themselves. “Quintessence!”

“Eureka!” Marie replied. She had spent this time reading some of the books stored in her helmet, because there was no way she was grasping the high level mathematical concepts that Leona was working on. It was taking her longer than it should have to finish Rules for Fake Girlfriends due to all these interruptions.

Leona laughed. “Sorry again. I didn’t mean to say that out loud. It’s just that Ramses is gonna love this stuff. Up until now, we’ve just been thinking of the universe as being contained by a membrane. That’s how brane cosmology works. But we never really knew what this membrane was made out of, just that you have to break through it if you want to travel through the bulk. Now we know that it’s called quintessence. For centuries, scientists have referred to it as dark matter, because we didn’t know what it was. But here it is. It’s what’s responsible for the repulsive fifth fundamental force, and explains why bulk travel is so difficult. It’s like trying to place two positively charged electromagnets together, except instead of being separated by an EM field, it’s a quintessential field.”

“Oh, that?” Marie began to joke. “I’ve always known about quintessence. You should have just asked.

“Lol. Some have theorized that quintessence is what explains dark energy, instead of dark matter, but we know that dark energy is just bulk energy that has leaked into our universe to become vacuum energy, and the work that it completes is what explains the accelerating expansion of the universe. These three things are just the same thing in different states, like the difference between a meteoroid, a meteor, and a meteorite.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t matter how much you try to explain it to me, or how many analogies you try to use, I’m not gonna understand it. All I need to know is can it get us out of the kasma?”

“Yes,” Leona replied.

“What? Really?” Marie didn’t expect to get such a good answer.

“Yes, because quintessence repulses baryonic from within its field. We may not be able to get out, but we can go back in just fine. That’s what lets bulk energy leak inside in the first place. If it didn’t, the universe would be static.”

“Oh. Well, then...let’s go.”

“We can’t.”

“You just said that we could,” Marie reminded her.

“We can’t...yet. What is the one thing that’s more powerful than bulk energy, or quintessence?”

“I’m sorry, why do you think that I can answer that question?”

“The answer is temporal energy. Now, a normal person—or even a choosing one—will not usually ever have enough temporal energy to disrupt the quintessential field in order to pass through the membrane, but you and I are special. Every single day, for a few seconds, our bodies overload on the stuff, and generate a burst of energy that sends us forward in time. That’s one advantage that salmon have over choosers. We don’t have to build the energy ourselves. It always comes to us.”

“But you’re not a salmon anymore. Tamerlane Pryce just recreated your pattern.”

“I was never technically salmon, but the fact holds true for us, even after what Pryce did when he gave us our new bodies, and what Ramses did when he upgraded us twice after that. Come midnight central, we’ll release enough temporal energy to break though. Now, if we don’t actually try to break through, then we won’t. It would be like being strong enough to open a door, but still not reaching for the doorknob—”

“What did I say about your analogies?”

“Teleportation. At exactly midnight, teleport into the universe. That’s what we’ve been missing; timing.”

“Okay. Good.” Marie looked at her wrist display. “That should be just enough time to finish my book.”

“All right.” Leona closed her eyes, not to sleep, but to give her brain a short break from all this research.

“Wait.” Marie stopped reading. “Which universe are we going into?”

“Whichever one is closer.”

“Which one is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

“There aren’t any landmarks out here, it’s easy to get turned around. Based on Ramses’ modifications to our onboard sensors, I can tell you that we are sufficiently near the outside of the nearest membrane, but I couldn’t tell you which one it is. It’s our only hope, though. If it’s not the one we want, we don’t have time to teleport to the other side of the kasma, even if we knew which direction that was. Besides, which one do you wanna go to? They both contain friends who can help us get back to Stoutverse, but this task will be no easier from one than the other.”

“True. Okay. Back to my book.” She literally turned herself away to concentrate.

About an hour later, midnight struck, and they jumped to the other side of the year, and the other side of the membrane. Now they were in a vacuum, rather than the kasma. They could feel themselves in freefall, and could see stars all around them. They still had no clue where they were, but they could see a host star relatively close in the distance, so they began to teleport towards it little by little, hoping to spot a rocky celestial object to land on. The armor module of the IMS was equipped with mechanical assistance, which made movement less fatiguing than earlier models of spacesuits, but they were still tiring to use for an extended period of time. They were both ready to be locked down by gravity again. That was how humans evolved, and not even Ramses’ upgraded substrates were immune to the negative effects of microgravity, or equilibrium.

There it was, a planet, but there was more to it. Their suits also detected friends nearby. Mateo and Angela were here already. What a lovely coincidence. Leona pinpointed their exact location on the planet, and made one final jump. “Boo!”

“I saw you coming,” Mateo said. That made sense. His suit had its own sensors.

Marie and Angela tried to give each other a hug, but it wasn’t particularly satisfying with their armor modules on. “Report,” Angela said after they gave up.

The two parties caught each other up on everything they had been through since they parted ways for their respective missions. They hadn’t known how they were going to come back together, but they had been confident that it would turn out to be something like this; totally coincidental, and barely within their control. Well, this was only the first step out of three, and the easiest one, at that. Their next order of business would be figuring out how to get Past!Mateo back to where he needed to be. Only then could they find a way back to their own place in Stoutverse. But first, one of the Maramon had something to say about it.

“Now that you’re here, you can help us.” It was the guy who had genetically engineered the new human-Mar hybrids. He was still not happy that Mateo had spirited him away to this planet without even trying to transport his gestational pod too.

“Help you with what?” Leona asked.

Mateo smiled, glad to have their group’s leader back, if only to be the bad guy in situations such as this.

“My equipment. Your husband made me leave it on the moon. I must have it returned to me. I am to understand that your carrying capacity is roughly 300 kilograms. Being 800 K-G in mass, the four of you should, therefore, be able to teleport it together, even with your suits.”

Leona stared at him for a moment. “I’m not doing that.”

“You must!” the Maramon insisted.

“Actually, I must not. This is not my universe, it is not my decision. If you would like help in this regard, you will have to take it up with Hogarth Pudeyonavic, or perhaps Ellie Underhill. It has nothing to do with us. You don’t need teleporters, you need authorization. I’m afraid that this conversation is now over, so speak of it no further.” She knew that he was just going to keep hounding her about it, so the longer she waited to put her foot down, the harder it was going to be to land it flat upon the ground.

“I have what you seek,” the Maramon claimed vaguely.

“What does that mean?” Leona asked.

“Well, the truth is that I do not have it in my possession, but I know where you can find it. If you retrieve my pod from the moon, I will tell you where to go.”

“Where to go...for what?” he obviously could be lying, so in order for her to even consider trusting him, she had to know that they were at least on the same page.

“The timonite. That’s what you came here for, right? You expected to find it in that cave in the Third Rail, but it was nowhere to be found, was it? That’s because you weren’t looking in the right place.”

Past!Mateo took a step towards him. “Are you lying just to get what you want?”

He laughed. “I could never. You’re Team Matic. You famously don’t take kindly to betrayal. I could never send you far enough away from me that you could not find a way to return, and exact your revenge upon me. I speak the truth. In fact, as a sign of good faith, I will give you a hint.”

“Okay, go ahead,” Future!Mateo urged.

“No. The hint comes after you agree, but before you get me my pod. Once you do get the pod, then you get the exact location.”

Past!Mateo gave the rest of the team puppy dog eyes. “Please.”

“You don’t have to convince us that you need it,” Marie told him. “We already know that you do. We were there, remember? Our reluctance in this is helping him, and in trusting that he’s telling us the truth.”

“I am,” the Maramon said. “If I didn’t have this leverage, I would probably just threaten one of your lives to coerce the others.”

“Fair enough,” Leona decided. “We agree to help. Where is the timonite?”

He took a breath, and prepared for the big reveal. “Verdemus.”

“Is that a band, errr...?” Past!Mateo joked, but then he looked at everyone else’s face. No one was surprised to hear this. “Oh, you’ve heard of it?”

“Yes,” Leona answered. She took Past!Mateo’s hand in hers, and Angela’s in the other. Angela then took Future!Mateo’s, who took Marie’s, who took Past!Mateo’s to complete the circle. They did the same thing around the gestational pod once they were on the moon, and transported it down to the planet.

“Okay, you have your little pod,” Future!Mateo said to the Maramon. “Now where exactly is the timonite on Verdemus?”

“The Miracle Plains,” he replied, almost as if it should be obvious. “Don’t worry, the locals will know what you’re talking about. But you better hurry, they’re set to abandon the whole planet soonly.”

Angela sighed. “How the hell are we going to get all the way to Veremus? We can’t even get out of this universe.”

“Quintessence!” Marie shouts, echoing Leona from earlier.

Leona chuckled. “I’ll need time, but uh, I’ll build something. It could take a couple of years to complete construction.”

“There’s no way to be sure that it remains undisturbed during our interim years,” Future!Mateo lamented

“I’ll set up a lab in secret.” She reached over and took a dish of starter nanites out of Marie’s PRU. Then she looked up at the Maramon. “If any of you find it, and disturb it, while we’re gone, I cannot guarantee your safety.”

“We’ll leave it alone,” he promised to the best of his ability.

While she buckled down to make a plan to build a temporary ship equipped with what could now be called a quintessential skeleton key, the rest of the team started to teleport kind of randomly around the planet to search for a good spot to set up a new lab. It had to be rich in minerals, so the nanites would have a lot to feed on, and preferably somewhere beautiful, so they could return to a pleasant scenery. But of course, it had to be remote, and hard to find. They could not trust the Maramon, nor their hybrids. They returned with several candidates each for Leona to inspect for herself. She ultimately chose one of Past!Mateo’s picks. It was inside of a sea cave that looked like something that could be found on the rocky beaches of Iceland.

Leona programmed the nanites to begin building the ship, as well as the deuterium harvester in the ocean to power it. The design of the vessel was based on the shuttle that was already built for the Iman Vellani proper, since it was readily available in the database, but with less cabin room, to accommodate the skeleton key. When they came back a year later, it was done, but occupied by one of the hybrids.

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Microstory 2217: He Only Watched

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We’re at the hospital today for a check-up. There’s a lot that I can do for him. I can take care of his basic needs, help with physical therapy homework, and draw blood or run an IV drip. There are still things that a nurse or doctor needs to perform, though. He’ll probably be at the hospital about once a week from now on. While I was on their website to make sure we would park in the right lot, I found out that the hospital was putting on a little talent show. It wasn’t this grand, expensive affair, but the staff like to keep their patients active and in high spirits, so they do things like this sometimes. No one was being judged or ridiculed. Some of the talents were unimpressive by most people’s standards, like one elderly woman who just sort of slowly twirled around while she was looking up at the ceiling, waving her arms around occasionally. One of the radio techs beatboxed. It was a safe environment for people to be themselves, and maybe forget about why they were there. I don’t think that it worked for Nick, but it was worth a shot. He only watched, of course. There was no way I was convincing him to get up on that stage. He says that he wouldn’t have done anything like that on his best day. He’s not much of a performer, and has hated having to do things like that in the past, like for school. Lots of teachers told him that he would get used to it the more he tried it, but that never happened. Evidently, in his world, the culture assumes that everyone can do anything if they work hard enough at it, and obviously, that’s not true. This site was his way of reaching out to the world, and when I pointed that out to him, it actually seemed to resonate, so I’m hoping that means he’ll soon decide to inject his own thoughts back into it, even if that means he dictates what he needs me to type for him. One can hope.