Extremus: Year 119

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Decades ago, Tinaya and Arqut connected their lives together through a lifelink. When one of them gets hurt, so too will the other. They weren’t sure if the procedure had worked, because it wasn’t always reliable. There were times when one was sick, and the other was not. It was never really the point, though. This is why they did it. They have just died at the exact same time, which is rare on this ship. Everything that they were dealing with—all the trials and tribulations—it’s all behind them now. Their son is technically older than them, and this isn’t the first time that he had to say goodbye to his parents. Silveon will be okay without them, armed with his memory of future events, and a lifetime’s worth of knowledge and wisdom. He and Audrey bid farewell and let them go, as did everyone else here who deserved it. Now they can move on. Now they can finally rest.

There is one thing left to do, however. It is time to answer The Question. Tinaya has known about it for many years, and eventually told her family. It’s a secret from just about everyone else, though. It violates a major principle of the Extremus mission, but again, they have known about it for so long, they’ve had plenty of time to come to terms with it. There is no way to know how many people answer yes, and how many answer no, because it should come as a surprise for most. At the moment of their deaths, Tinaya and Arqut’s consciousnesses were uploaded to a special server. If they agree, their minds will be put on ice for another century, until the Extremus planet is reached by their descendants. When it comes time to settle their new homeworld, everyone who answered yes will be downloaded into new substrates, and become part of the colonists. If the two of them were normal, it would feel instantaneous to them—assuming nothing destroyed the ship in the meantime. But they’re on a different track. When they say yes, they will be going somewhere else.

“Hello, and welcome to The Buffer,” a woman says warmly.

They were standing in the Attic Forest, though obviously a virtual simulation of it. The two recently deceased are now young again, which makes sense, and feels nice.

“Does everyone come to this place?” Tinaya asks. “The forest hasn’t always existed.”

The welcomer smiles. “You were clearly prepped beforehand, so I will skip the usual explanation. To answer your question, the simulation scans your thoughts, and generates what it believes will be the most pleasant and comforting place for you specifically. For most people, it looks something like this, as we all wish to find Extremus. For you, it sounds like it’s more specific. I hope it pleases the both of you. We don’t get many duos. I’m guessing it’s a lifelink?”

“Yes, and I helped build this place for real in base reality, as did my now-husband,” Tinaya explains, “so it’s important to us both.”

“Ah, yes. I have heard of you. Miss Leithe, right?”

“Admiral Emerita Leithe.” Tinaya doesn’t usually care about formalities, but it felt important to her to clarify her title in this case.

“Apologies. And you?”

“Superintendent Arqut Grieves. You didn’t know that we were coming?”

The woman shakes her head. Her voice is still calming. “I do not receive a manifest beforehand, or even an alert of a forthcoming arrival. My job is to ask you The Question without judgement or preconception. It doesn’t matter to me who you are, or who you were. You’re entitled to answer.”

“Who are you?” Tinaya asks, “Or, who were you, if you prefer?”

“I am Dr. Itri Meziani, thanks for asking,” she replies. “I was the Executive Grief Counselor many years ago.”

“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Dr. Meziani.” Tinaya shakes her hand, then Arqut does.

“I suppose that you already know what I’m about to ask you, but I still must ask it,” Dr. Meziani says.

For a long time there, Tinaya intended on saying no to The Question. She only changed her mind relatively recently when Thistle showed her that her whole family line has been kept alive in base reality on an asteroid which Tinaya herself colonized and called Eleithium. It gave her some perspective. She doesn’t wanna die. The problem now is that Thistle is no longer the AI in charge, and they don’t know whether they will be rerouted to the colony, or just kept on ice with everyone else. Did he set it up so that it will happen automatically? Truthfully, she forgot to ask him before Oceanus stopped allowing their visits. Do they have to be honest with this Dr. Meziani about their sort of get out of jail free card? In the end, they decided to just come clean and tell the truth. They can’t risk something going wrong with the process. If it doesn’t work, they’ll just go on ice, and still be alive. All they know is that they’re not going to say no. They really want to see the Extremus planet, and they almost have to see Silveon again.

“We have somewhere else to be,” Arqut begins. “A friend of ours set up...an alternative option. I’m not sure how we go about getting there, though. He’s sort of...indisposed at the moment.”

“I can check for a rerouting subroutine,” Dr. Meziani says graciously, “but I can’t guarantee anything. If your friend can’t control it from the outside, I can’t get you there. It wouldn’t be that I wouldn’t want to. Again, it’s not my job to make judgments. You don’t have to do anything in particular. Hell, if you can will yourself back to life in your own body, go for it. But understand that there is a time limit. I can’t tell you what it is. It’s after five minutes following the next death, so that could be any second now. The Buffer must be kept open.” She looks to the left, presumably searching for the path that will take them to Eleithium, and hopefully finding it. She suddenly jerks her head to the right. “Something’s wrong.”

“What is it? Did you find it?” Arqut asks.

“Your time is up,” Dr. Meziana tells them. “Someone else just died.”

“But we have five more minutes,” Tinaya reminds her.

“No.” She starts breathing heavily, which doesn’t make sense given that there’s no air in this virtual environment. “You don’t.” Without warning, she pops away, leaving a faint puff of smoke behind.

A shadow appears in the trees in the distance. It’s moving in an eerie serpentine pattern, but drawing nearer. As it does so, its silhouette becomes clearer and clearer. Finally, it looks like a person, and soon after that, it looks like someone they know.

“Pronastus?” Tinaya questions. “You died?”

“Just for a few minutes,” Pronastus says in a weird tone that doesn’t really sound like him. “The flatline device that I found will revive me in about six minutes.”

“Did you have something to tell us?” Arqut presses.

“Or ask us?” Tinaya adds.

“You gave me the ability to do this,” Pronastus goes on. “You’re the one who helped me find the consciousness transference technology that I needed to hack in here. I was looking for it, but I could not find it, because it was for me. I can’t do anything for myself. I have to be searching for someone else. Fortunately, you never realized just how close you were to it. For reference, it was in a closet, in the first Frontrunner you teleported to; the one where you met AI!Elder.”

Oh, right. AI!Elder did say that there was a cool helmet in there. She should not have ignored that quip. “So you’re, uh...evil...errr...what’s goin’ on here?”

“What’s going on is that I am sick of doing everything for everyone else. I found a workaround, and it’s thanks to that helmet. Coming here was a necessary latent step, but not my endgame. I’m going to send my mind to another body. Bonus, I get to keep my pathfinding powers, and finally use them for myself!”

“What do we have to do with any of that?” Arqut spits.

“You know me,” Pronastus reasons. “You know me better than anyone. Others know that I’m a pathfinder, of course, but they don’t understand it. When Captain Jennings dies, I’ll have to make sure that he also answers no. I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry about Silveon. He’s too preoccupied with his own life, I don’t feel threatened by him, so I don’t care what answer he gives when he dies. However, if any of you put yourselves on ice, and come back in a hundred years, you’ll see right through my disguise. I have long-term plans. Running the ship is just the first part of it. I don’t plan on ever dying, because that’s a retarded provision that our ancestors never should have decided upon or agreed to.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to say that word.”

“That’s your issue? I’m about to straight up murder you, and you’re arguing with me about political correctness?”

“We’re not too worried,” Tinaya explains. “Tyrants like you and Waldemar always create their own resistance. It’s not gonna last. You may be a pathfinder, but eventually, you will run out of paths that lead you to joy. You’ll always want more, and it will be your downfall. Extremus will get through this. It suffered but survived Consul Vatal, and Ovan Teleres, and Mister Radomil Cernak. It will survive you too.”

Pronastus smirks. “Will it survive Waldemar?”

“You’re obviously undoing that timeline,” Tinaya replies.

“Am I?”

“Oh, shit. The clones.”

“The clones,” Pronastus confirms. “They were never made by him. What would be his reasoning?”

“No, that doesn’t make any sense. You needed me to ask you to lead me to the Frontrunners for the consciousness transference technology. That’s where I found the first clone. You didn’t know about it beforehand.”

Pronastus smirks again. “I’m not in this alone. Others know where the path should go, and have known that for decades. They just didn’t know that I would be the one to take the first step in the right direction. Eight. Eight. Eight,” he says in a low and intimidating voice.

“What?”

“Eight. Eight. Eight,” Pronastus repeats. Oh, it’s a weird chant. “Eight. Eight. Eight.” It kind of sounds like hate with all that breathiness. His watch beeps. “Oh, my time is up. Don’t wanna wake up with brain damage, do I?”

“We’ve not given an answer,” Arqut tries to reason. “How exactly are you gonna force us to give the wrong one?”

“You have a time limit, remember?” Pronastus says.

“But you’re the time limit, and you’re not really dead. You have to go back in a minute or so. I doubt the Buffer will force us out. I mean, it hasn’t yet.”

“I started the clock,” Pronastus begins. “The next death will stop it. Some overlap is acceptable, but not three death events.”

“How do you know there’s gonna be another death soon?”

One last smirk. “Because I caused it, just like I caused Détha’s. Trust me, I didn’t miss anything.”

“Who did you kill?” Tinaya demands to know.

Oh, no. This is his last smirk.

“Who did you kill!”

Pronastus winks, then disappears.

“Response window expired,” a disembodied computerized voice that they don’t recognize announces. “Answer null. Prepare for IDCode purge.”

“No!” Tinaya and Arqut exclaim. “We answer yes! We answer yes!” Tinaya continues.

“Mom?” Silveon asks, having just appeared before them.

“NO!” they both repeat. Everything turns black.

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Microstory 2528: Unhoused Patient

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I have some sort of disease that I can’t pronounce, and I don’t like to talk about it. They diagnosed me at the free clinic because I was having these phantom pains all over my body. They say it’s neurological. Or I should say that they said that, because I don’t have it anymore. Yeah, I heard about this Tipton fellow, and didn’t think it had anything to do with me. Why would they take some raggedy aging woman who lives on the streets? I mean, I didn’t even get that far in my thinking. I heard the news on the radio, shrugged, and then moved on with my life. A few years later, I was sitting in the park, which I do every Tuesday, because that’s when they water the plants, which soaks the soil, which brings up the worms, which brings down the birds. I know, I’m a bit of a stereotype, but who doesn’t like birds? Anyway, I was just sitting there when this social worker comes up and tells me about a program which assists unhoused people in applying to be healed at the Foundation. I said, “you’re crazy. We live in Denver. How the hell am I gonna get all the way out there anyway?” He said that they offer transportation too. I asked him what church he was with, and he said none. This is just something the city wants to do to help out. I was, like, “okay. Sign me up. Literally!” Then I laughed, and he laughed too. And wouldn’t you know it, they actually followed through on their promise. Now, I don’t wanna sound too cynical, but you know how cities feel about their homeless. I’m sorry, you’re supposed to say unhoused these days. You know how they feel about their unhoused. They don’t like ‘em, and they wanna get rid of them. And sometimes what they do is just bus them out to a different area. I don’t know, maybe that was happening here too, but the Foundation is a real thing, and my application was real too. They gave me a burner phone so I could get my information, which told me where to go, and when to be there. I sat in the room, and I waited in line, and this kid breathed on me. But it doesn’t stop there. After I left the room, they guided me to a cashier, or whatever, who gave me money. They set me up with a special card that’s specially designed for people without easy access to a normal bank. I haven’t had a bank account in fourteen years and don’t trust them anymore. I thought they were joking, but dammit if I didn’t end up with $18,000 dollars all for me. Can you believe it? They paid me to take the cure. These people are nuts. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I kept my mouth shut, and walked away with my card. I never went back to Denver, because there’s nothing there for me. I got myself some affordable housing, took a shower or two, and now I’m currently looking for a job. Let me know if you know anyone who wants to hire a 54-year-old formerly unhoused woman who still doesn’t have a car, but did once work as a secretary for a plastics manufacturer. This new money is great, but it ain’t gonna last forever.

Microstory 2500: Welcome to the Landis Tipton Breath of Life Foundation

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Welcome. And thank you all for coming to the Landis Tipton Breath of Life Foundation. In a few moments, I’m going to start the video, which will give you a more comprehensive idea of what we do here, and how our principles have guided our vision for the future. You all came to this place either because you are suffering from a debilitating or terminal disease, or you are chaperoning someone who is. You have all already filled out your preliminary applications, and would not be in this room if there were some reason to reject you. So congratulations, you’re about to be cured! Let’s go over some reasons why some people face rejection, so you’ll better understand why you were selected for treatment. First, we handle otherwise incurable diseases only here. We do not treat injuries. No one is here because they broke a leg, or suffered a cut on their cheek. Those are not life-threatening conditions, and conventional medicine should be able to help them. We also do not accept patients for holistic benefits. Someone who just wants to feel better overall will not be given a place in line. Landis also can’t treat what we like to call conditions of state. You may be considered overweight, by popular medicine, your doctor, or even yourself, but this is not an acute or chronic illness, and Landis is unable to make changes to these types of systemic issues. There is simply nothing to repair in these cases. It may be unhealthy, but nothing is broken, and in the end, that’s what Landis can do for us. He can fix what is broken, not simply make something more preferable.

It’s important to understand as well that, while you were granted allowance to add more than one medical issue on your form, Landis is unable to selectively decide which conditions are cured, and which are not. I doubt any of you would like him to leave anything out anyway, but we have to make it clear that if you left anything off of your form, it will not be excluded. If you have poor eyesight, but don’t care about that, Landis’ breath has no way of knowing that, or ignoring it. In fact, if you do happen to have some minor injury along with your illness, that will be cured too. The breath doesn’t choose. It is the program, and our policies, which choose what to spend Landis’ time on, but once you’re here, everything that can be repaired will be repaired. We have yet to find a disease that Landis cannot cure. Our mission is to one day rid the whole world of all disease and pain, but for right now, due to the sheer number of requests, we have to prioritize, and sacrifices must be made. I don’t say any of this to scare you, but to excite you for what’s to come. This is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I know you’ve all been waiting for your chance to be healed of what ails you, even before this organization was founded. You’ve been through great hardship. I can’t tell you that life will be easy from here on out, but we can at least take this off your plate. Now, please sit back and relax while you watch the introductory video, which will provide you with a history of our foundation, beginning with the mystery of the origin of Landis Tipton’s powers, and explain how we are providing the community with more than just cures. We’re building the future, and finding a place for everyone in it.

Extremus: Year 103

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Silvia and one of the Audreys are gone. Thistle is the only one who may know whether the original, or the clone, is the one who ended up heading off to the planet. He reportedly deleted his own memories of the event, but it really doesn’t matter. For all practical purposes, it’s the same consciousness, just with a different body. He restored her to perfect health to further conceal the truth, but a deep enough medical examination could produce an answer, if anyone were so inclined to try. Extremus!Audrey is choosing to be positive about the situation, taking comfort in knowing that she is raising her baby, even though she will never have any memories of it, or be able to make any decisions on the child’s behalf. There was a ton of philosophical debate about this during the time when consciousness manipulation technology was being developed. In the end, most can agree that you are unique, and even a copy is not really you. They’re just someone who looks like you, and thinks they are you. That’s why programs like Project Theseus and neurosponging were created. They maintain continuity of thought during the digitization and transfer process. There is no copy; it’s you over here, and then over there. Audrey is ignoring that, because it’s not the point. Silvia is being cared for by her mother, and that’s as good as it’s going to get until the Waldemar problem is solved, or at least comes to some kind of conclusion.

Tinaya’s duties to the population have subsided. There doesn’t really seem to be a need for anyone to be directly in charge of promoting growth. They don’t really want there to be someone doing that job permanently. It’s too close to totalitarianism. If you want kids, have kids. If you don’t, don’t. If you can’t care for them, please don’t try. In the end, it’s the public’s responsibility, and if they want the human race on this side of the galaxy to eventually die out, then so be it. Philosophically, it’s not a real problem. A problem is something which has a negative impact on those involved. If no one is alive anymore, there’s no one to feel the negative effects. No one gets hurt. The human race is not inherently entitled to persisting. The fact that they exist does not, on its own, provide any transcendent benefit to the universe. This is a hard lesson to learn, and few have learned it. In an ideal world, they shouldn’t have to. If they do want to live, they should be able to. The only real boundary separates what one person wants from what another does. Everyone deserves the right to decide what they want, even if what they want is to not exist at all.

Oceanus had started to rely less on Tinaya, and more on Lataran, and that hasn’t stopped even as Tinaya’s time begins to open up. So she’s kind of gone back to not having that much to do. At this point, it doesn’t bother her as much. Her son claims that he doesn’t need parenting, because he’s so old, but that’s all changed. The thing with Audrey and Waldemar has really messed him up. It’s affecting his work negatively. The whole point of coming back in time was to help Waldemar, not hurt him. That’s why Silveon didn’t just straight up murder him the first chance he got. He’s having a hard time rectifying this mission with the monster he knows Waldemar to be inside. Audrey put herself in a position to get pregnant, but Waldemar took that opportunity. A decent guy would not have done that. How can Silveon continue trying to make this future tyrant a better person when nothing seems to be working?

While Silveon is questioning his commitment to the cause, Audrey herself has picked up the slack. She’s still with Waldemar because she has to be, and Waldemar is still with her because it helps his reputation. Everyone sees him as the hero who stuck by the mother of his child even though that child didn’t survive. This wasn’t just about population growth, or because she’s hot and young. It’s true love, and they’re in a real relationship. At least that’s how the public sees it. Only a few people know what’s really going on, though even such people are each looking at it from different angles.

Silveon bursts into Tinaya and Arqut’s room. He’s huffy, pacing around in a tight circle. “I need you two to stop me.”

“Stop you from what, honey?” Arqut asks. The two of them are in bed, but just reading.

“Waldemar. He’s still raping her,” Silveon replies. “I wanna hurt him.”

“Careful with that word,” Tinaya warns. “I’ve spoken with Audrey. It’s consensual.”

“We all know it’s more complicated than that,” Silveon argues.

“Yes,” Tinaya agrees. “What we know is that her birthday was two weeks ago, which makes her an adult in the eyes of the law, and even if she weren’t a time traveler, she would be considered capable of making her own decisions about who she shares her body and time with. What we know that the public doesn’t is that she’s far older than that, so even if you subscribe to the idea that humans are not sufficiently mature until their mid-twenties, she’s well past that. So if anyone has the advantage in this relationship, it’s her. So who are you angry with?”

“Well, not her.”

“Then it shouldn’t be with anyone,” Arqut determines.

Silveon scoffs. “Oh, believe me. I have plenty reason to be angry with Double-U.” He’s been having a hard time saying Waldemar’s name lately, like it’s cursed. “It’s not just about this.”

“Yeah, you’ve told us all the stories,” Tinaya reminds him. “We don’t need to rehash his fate, or lack thereof.”

“I haven’t told you everything.” Silveon shakes his head.

“Silvy, why don’t you have a seat on the ottoman?” Tinaya offers.

To their surprise, he does it. It doesn’t alleviate his stress right away, but it’s harder for him to be so tense when his own weight is distributed a little more comfortably.

His parents slide down the bed to join him on either side. “I’m only going to ask you this one more time, and then never again. I will believe you this time.” Tinaya pauses a moment. “I’m not downplaying your fundamental disapproval of their...unconventional relationship. But I think it’s important to establish once and for all if even a small part of you is so upset because you have feelings for Audrey?”

Silveon shoots right back up to his feet, and spins around to face them. “Are you kidding me? Of course I have feelings for her! Have you seen her? She looks no less beautiful as an old woman than she does now. I still see her like that, though; the wrinkles in her face. The way her skin sags. The...experience and heartache in her eyes. I’ve always been in love with her.” He steps over to sit in the armchair. “But I set that all aside, because I thought I would never see that Audrey again. Not the real her. When I came back to the past, she was just this little girl. She would always be far too young for me. Mom, dad, everyone is too young for me. Except, as it turns out, her. I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but I’ve not slept with anyone myself, and I will never be able to. Unless...”

“Unless something changes between her and Waldemar,” Arqut acknowledges. “She’s your only peer. She’s your only hope for love. Even if you met an old person who was closer to your real age, they would see you as a child.”

Silveon takes a deep breath. “Yeah.” They sit in silence for a few moments before Silveon continues, “don’t take me for a fool, though. I wasn’t surprised by that fact. I obviously knew what I was getting into. She’s the variable that I wasn’t expecting. Understanding that I would be alone in this new timeline was one thing, but having one possibility just out of reach? No one prepared me for that. They knew she was coming back with me. She knew too. They could have told me, and maybe I would have handled everything differently. Maybe we could have brainstormed ways to give Waldemar the bump in the polls he would need without a prop family.”

Tinaya has been patiently waiting for her son to get to a point where she could interject, and this is the right place. “There’s a very old song I love from Earth, which was written centuries ago. It goes, when I was a young boy // My mama said to me // ‘There's only one girl in the world for you // And she probably lives in Tahiti. For reference, the singer did not live very close to Tahiti, and might never venture there. The song is about him going all around the world to look for this one girl, because maybe it’s not really Tahiti. That was just one example. She could have been anywhere, and the lyrics never reach a resolution, because the singer missed the point that I am interpreting his mother to be making, which is that you’ll never find the perfect one for you. She doesn’t live in Tahiti, Silveon. She doesn’t live anywhere, because she doesn’t exist. Maybe Audrey would have been great for you in the other timeline, but as you said, she’s out of reach. If you pursue her, Waldemar will never accept it. I can almost guarantee you that he will be worse than what you experienced under his reign before. You may see her as your one shot, but I see her as the only person you can’t be with.

“I probably shouldn’t recommend this, but maybe you’re looking at this all wrong. Don’t think of yourself as an old man in a young man’s body. Think of yourself as a young man with special knowledge. Only the four of us know where you’re from. Find a partner. Recognize your age difference initially, but then ignore it. Put it in a lockbox, and never open it up again. They don’t ever have to find out about it, and neither does anyone else. You’re not a time traveler, Silveon. You’re a seer. There are tons of seers on Earth, and no one thinks of them as older than they look. Just pretend to be a seer.”

“You want me to start a relationship with some innocent girl with a lie?”

“I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” Tinaya goes on, “which I’m surprised you never grew up to learn yourself. All relationships start out on a foundation of lies. People are disgusting, and we never let others see our true selves. It wouldn’t be any different for you than for anyone else. Convince yourself that you are a seer. Forget your past life. Treat it as the gift of foresight. Find a way to be happy, and forgive yourself.”

“Or,” Arqut jumps in, “alternatively, accept your role in this life, and avoid all romantic entanglements. You wouldn’t be the first. Hell, you wouldn’t even be the first time traveler to face this choice. How do you think Lincoln Rutherford and Dalton Hawk got through it?”

“That’s a good point,” Silveon realizes. “I should ask those two how they dealt with their consciousness travel shenanigans.”

“How would you do that?” Tinaya asks. “They live or lived on Earth.”

“You need to get me into the Bridger Section,” Silveon decides. “They have a secret time mirror there.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 28, 2510

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Mateo woke up lying facedown in the dirt. He stood himself up, and looked around. He definitely wasn’t in the train station anymore, but that didn’t tell him much. Any number of domes looked like this, with the lush jungle, and the clear blue sky. There was something extremely familiar about it, though, especially when he looked down over the edge of the mountain that he was on, and saw smoke billowing up from the valley. This was what he woke up to just before he learned that he was in the afterlife simulation. He took another look around, now with fresh eyes. Yeah, this was exactly what it looked like. He could have been dreaming, or it could have been something that Hrockas found out about, and recreated it in one of the domes. But why, though?

The only answers were in the direction of that smoke, so he started walking down towards it. No one else came out of the trees to do the same, so at least that much was different. He continued on down until he reached the amphitheater, just as he had the first time he died. No, it wasn’t the first. Ah, who could keep count?

A woman was on stage, smiling kindly, and waiting for him patiently. She was pressing a clipboard into her belly, which she glanced back down to now. “Mateo Matic?”

“Indeed.”

“Have a seat,” the clipboard lady offered, pointing towards the seating. “We’re waiting for one more.”

Only one other person was sitting there already. It was another woman, perhaps in her thirties. She looked scared and-or nervous. He left two seats between them. “Hey,” he tried to say in the calmest voice he had. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“Am I dead?”

“You may have died, but you survived it.” He inhaled, and admired the digital beauty surrounding them. “And you’ll go on...indefinitely. Your life now will be longer than your first one was. In a trillion years, you might not even remember it.”

“You act like you’ve done this before.”

He nodded. “I have. They let me go back, because I had more work to do in base reality, but now... Now I think I’ll just wait for my friends to join me. Could be a while. We’ll all be okay, though.”

The woman stood up, and sidestepped over to sit right next to him. She remained there for a moment before working up the nerve to give him a hug.

The counselor smiled at them, but didn’t say anything. She then looked up as the last guy was jogging down the hill.

“Sorry! Sorry, I see smoke, my instinct is to move away from it, not towards it.”

“It’s all right, Brian. We have all the time in the world.”

“Cool.” He sat down on Mateo’s other side.

“Hello, my name is Keilix Oliver, and as you have all surmised, you have died. Fortunately for you, some people long ago decided that they didn’t like death, so they built a computer program where the deceased could live on in a simulation. That simulation has since been defunct. They were hosted by a powerful society of advanced intelligences who grew to see them more as a nuisance, and a bit of a power hog. Do not be alarmed, though, because the 120 billion or so people who were in there at the time managed to escape—if you can believe it—to another universe. I don’t know that much about it as I have never been there. You see, when the hosts discovered that the identities in the simulation had all left, they actually didn’t bother to shut it down. It was no longer taking up too many resources, and there didn’t seem to be any reason to end it. That is how I survived, as did a few others.

“To explain a little more, the sim was not one single world. You could travel between different environments, each with their own laws of simulated physics. I just so happened to be in the middle of traveling between two of these worlds when the evacuation happened. Lots of people were doing that, of course, but they were closer to one side, or the other. I was right in the middle, so when I came out on the other side, I was alone. I didn’t make it through evacuation. Didn’t know how. Didn’t even know that it happened. I was just confused. The hosts discovered our presence—the rounding errors—and brought us all together. They offered to facilitate our exit to join the others in the new universe, which a few of us agreed to. The rest, we stayed here to keep the lights on. If we didn’t, when you died, you would just be dead.” She gestured towards all the empty seats. “As you can see, death is quite rare these days. The mortality rate used to be at 100%, but now life is a lot safer. It still happens. Accidents and errors, and people who just never upgraded from their normal organic bodies. You are three of the exceptions. You are the only three who died today. Well, it was yesterday, but... And you died a year ago, or something?”

“Yeah, it gets screwy,” Mateo admitted.

Keilix nodded. “Anyway, you can stay here if you want. The hosts did eventually dismantle and cannibalize most of the servers that the afterlife simulation was running on, but we still have plenty of space for a moderate population. You can also move on to the other universe, if you’re interested. Again, I can’t tell you anything about it, but I hear it’s nice. You can’t go back home, though. Your friends and family can’t find out what the endgame is. We don’t know for sure what would happen, but there’s a strong chance that people would start killing themselves out of pure curiosity. We just can’t handle that many people anymore. The system only works at this scale, because deaths have become so few and far between.”

“Did you know Serkan Demir?” Mateo blurted out.

Keilix smirked. “Yeah.”

“Cool.” He turned towards the other guy. “Did you know Lincoln Rutherford?”

“Yeah, I went to school with him.”

“Small world.”

“Do we have a connection?” the newly dead woman asked Mateo.

“I dunno, what’s your name?”

“Cecelia Massey.”

Mateo reached for his bag to check whether she was on a list of people he had met or ever heard of, but realized that he no longer had any possessions. “No, I don’t think I’ve heard of you. Nice to meet you, Cece. I’m Mateo.”

“The three amigos!” Brian shouted. “Four!” He pointed at Keilix. “You’re part of this too. Four, uhh...four musketeers!”

Keilix laughed. “That’s very sweet of you, but my job is here. While people don’t die as often as they once did, they still do occasionally, and someone ought to be there to greet them, and facilitate their transition.”

“How did you get this job?” Cecelia asked.

“I just stepped up,” Keilix answered. “Why? Are you interested?”

“I was a guidance counselor on Earth before I became obsolete. So I do have the experience. Do I have to choose right away, or can I change my mind later?”

“If you choose to stay here,” Keilix began, “you can always move on later. But if you choose to move on, I don’t think you can come back. I’ve never heard of it. I don’t even know who’s in charge over there.”

“Her name is Hogarth Pudeyonavic,” Mateo answered, even though she didn’t actually ask a question.

Keilix is surprised by this. She looked back down at her clipboard. “How do you know that?”

“We’re friends,” Mateo explained.

“Interesting. What else do you know?”

“How much time you got?”

“All of it,” Keilix said.

“All of what?” Leona asked as she was walking across Ramses’ secret lab.

“His EmergentSuit nanites,” Ramses answered. “I need them all back. Or rather he needs them back.”

“He doesn’t have them?” she questioned.

“Boyd must have been injured, however slightly, when Mateo gave him the suit. It’s not just designed to form a protective barrier. They can also treat medical conditions, just like any other medical nanites. Some of them must have stayed with him to conduct repairs, and are still swimming in his blood.”

“Well, they should be done by now. It’s been hours. So go ahead and take them,” Leona ordered. “You’re not trying to hold onto them, are you?” she posed to Boyd.

“I have no mental control over them,” Boyd replied.

“He’s right. Only I can do it. They’re not responding to my commands, though,” Ramses said to her. “They’re his now. I just need to keep trying...”

“Well, why do you need them? How does it help Mateo?”

“Each one stores little bits of data from their host,” Ramses began. “If we want to bring him back, I think I need that intact data. We’re lucky we even have a chance. If he didn’t have any nanites at all, we would have no way to anchor him to this point in spacetime.”

“I don’t understand why you can’t find him,” Leona complained to Boyd. “Isn’t that your thing?”

“Until we get that time power crystal switched off, I don’t have my normal powers,” Boyd said apologetically.

“We’re almost there!” Olimpia shouted from the other side of the room. She and the twins were responsible for figuring out how to convert the lemon DNA into musical chords. Once complete, they will blast the crystal with the music, and let it play over the course of the next two years, which for them, will only feel like two days.

Leona sighed. “He could be anywhere, anywhen.”

“I know that,” Ramses agreed. “This is all I can do. The ladies are smart enough to wire an array of speakers, and my AI finished converting the DNA last year to musical chords. It’s a bit above my paygrade, to be blunt, so I need to focus on an alternative way of retrieving Mateo from wherever he ended up.”

It looked like Mateo was there, lying on the exam table between Leona and Ramses. But it wasn’t him. It was just his suit; an empty shell waiting for its host to return. “What if Boyd got back in the suit? Could that...trigger the stray nanites to return to their brethren?”

“Yeah, I thought about that,” Ramses admitted. “It might work, or they might all switch to him as their new host, and then Mateo could be lost forever.”

“I can do it,” Boyd insisted. “You get that crystal turned off, I’ll find him for us.”

“Forgive me if I have little faith in your motivation to help,” Leona said.

“That’s fair,” Boyd acknowledged, “but I really did learn a lot on the fake Castlebourne. I have grown. I’m not a saint, but I’m not the same man you met those years ago.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it. Ram, keep working. Boyd, do whatever he says. And ladies!” The three of them stopped working, and looked up at their captain, so she went on, “I need one of you. Romana has an idea, but we need a third to activate the tandem slingdrives.”

“I’ll go,” Olimpia volunteered.

“I’m sorry, I meant one of the Waltons,” Leona countered.

Olimpia frowned.

“Pia, you have sonic powers. I need you on the music thing. That just makes sense. If we needed a driver, I would ask Mateo to be a part of it, even if it’s driving a giant futuristic terraforming tiller piloted by an AI.”

“I’ll go,” Angela said, setting her screwdriver down, allowing her sister to finish rigging up the speaker apparatus.

Leona and Angela teleported away to meet up with Romana, who was sitting on the edge of an emerald pool, under a dome fittingly named 10,000 Emerald Pools. She was staring into the water, obviously aware that they had arrived, but ignoring them for now. “What do you see in there?” Angela asked her. “They say the pool reflects your true self back at you.”

Romana, frowning, slapped the water before standing up. “I see an orphan.”

“We’ll get him back,” Leona assured her. 

“You can’t promise that.”

“If he died,” Leona started, pausing dramatically, “we’ll get him back from that too. There is nowhere he could be that we couldn’t find him. Now, what’s your idea? Where are we going?”

Romana activated her suit, helmet and all. The other two followed her lead. They took each other’s hands. “We’re going to a new universe, called The Eighth Choice. I know a Pathfinder there.”

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Microstory 2338: Vacuus, February 17, 2179

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Generated by Google ImageFX text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

Dear Condor,

I’m writing to you to let you know that I’m back online, and also that your father did finally send me a letter. I responded to it yesterday, so you probably already know everything by the time you receive this anyway. I don’t really think that I should say anything more; about what he said, or about what I said. I kind of want you two to have your own conversation without me being involved. That’s why I think I’m gonna cut this short. There’s nothing for me to report on this end. The stray Valkyrie blocked our signal for a week, then flew away. The rest of the Valkyries are still orbiting on their usual path. I suppose I shouldn’t say usual as changing course is sort of their whole thing. But we’re safe from them...for now. There’s a slight chance that they will veer off of the predicted orbit, and come at us all at once with a vengeance, but the astronomers are hopeful that this will not happen. I just wanted to warn you that it’s not impossible that any message could be our last. I’ll continue to respond with the non-automated read receipts, and only won’t if it becomes impossible.

Bored again,

Corinthia

Microstory 2189: Not There by Choice

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Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

We’re moving along with this process. Interviews, interviews, and more interviews. It’s not showing any signs of slowing down, but it will have to stop soon, and will do so rather abruptly. At some point, we’re going to have to make some hard decisions, and unfortunately that means a lot of great people won’t get the chance to be part of this pilot program. We can’t hire them all, it wouldn’t be practical, and that’s true of any organization. But here’s the good news: it is a pilot program, and if it goes well, you may be able to do something similar on a different team somewhere else. The analytics team in my company has looked into this for us, and have estimated that this program need only last for eight months before they would have enough data to reach some real conclusions about its efficacy. All eyes are on us right now to see if we succeed, but there are rumors of others who are considering building their own programs before our data comes in. We’re not sure if that’s the right thing to do, but we can’t stop them, and it may not be right to want to if we could. I think it’s fine to try to take your own shot, as long as you don’t spend too many resources on it, and come at it from a place of trying to make things better. Now, what do I mean by better? Well, here’s what it’s not. We’re not here to save the taxpayers money. That will hopefully be a consequence of our changes to jail and prison population procedures, but it’s not what we’re going for. We could accomplish that in any number of easier ways, by only feeding them slop, or doubling up on cell assignments, or not letting them have any yard time. You don’t need to pay many guards if you don’t allow your inmates to leave their cells, do you? Obviously, that would be inhumane, and I hope that no one else is suggesting it.

Our goal is to improve people’s lives, reduce recidivism, and create a healthier and more productive community overall. I hope that anyone who gets their ideas from us only accepts the good ideas, and rejects the ultimate failures. We’re going to be going through growing pains. At some point, our plans, theories, and models are going to become meaningless if we don’t actually institute the policy changes. It may not turn out well, and as difficult as it is for me to admit that, it would be unethical for me to imply that I know exactly what I’m doing. The entire point in hiring these experts for a team that has never existed before is to try something new, and by its very nature, we don’t know what’s going to happen. So I hope that other programs take that into account. Sorry to get all preachy, and maybe sound a little angry. I just want to make it clear that we’ve only just begun here. It’s going to take some time. The judicial system in this country isn’t going to change overnight, and nothing we do here is going to give definitive answers for how to handle our nation’s incarcerated with no exceptions. What we would like to do is group guests in our facilities according to predictive modeling of sustainable harmony, nonviolence, and social progress. But the fact of the matter is that everyone there will have been tried and convicted of a crime. Guilty or innocent, they’re not there by choice, so none of them is going to be happy-go lucky, and excited to be locked up for the next X amount of time, or intermittently, as it were. We’ll try to make it as safe and productive as possible, but there’s only so much we can do. It’s not magic, so don’t expect to bring the crime rate down to zero, or anything. Okay, that was a bit depressing. Hopefully tomorrow’s post will be more optimistic, or a little easier to swallow.

Microstory 2136: Try the Punching Thing

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Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

While I’m feeling all right, I still have the fungal infection, so I still can’t leave my apartment. I’m really super extremely very hoping that this is all over by this weekend, so I can get back to doing my time, and finish my current sentence before I die of old age. This is one of those days where I have little to tell you, because not much interesting happened to me. The nurse came last night to take my blood, and I got my results this morning. She’ll come three more times this week, on Wednesday, and on Friday. After that, if I’m still having trouble, I may be ordered to go to the hospital. I mean the real hospital, not the prison medical ward. That would be really bad, for myriad reasons, not the least of which is that it might ultimately mean my death. If I were given such a terrible prognosis, I would probably start punching the air, and screaming at the top of my lungs. That might seem random to you, but I have two characters who can travel the bulkverse using those methods. It would be my last hope. I mean, I could always try them now. Well, I can try the punching thing. The screaming thing is different, because I would have to be away from other people, but that’s not a bad idea. It may be cathartic to let out some primal cries anyway, and hey, maybe it’ll work. A part of me doesn’t want it to. Back when I first became immortal, I was also learning that using people’s powers meant stealing it from them temporarily, and I also knew that once I stopped using it, I would lose it, and I really want that immortality back. I’m sick of being sick. But also, get me out of this universe, and tell me where Cricket and Claire are! *screams primally*

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 29, 2398

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Mateo can’t shower himself. He can’t feed himself, he can’t clothe himself, he can’t even open doors. He has sent a number of random items to God-knows-where in an attempt to gain control over his newfound ability, but he’s confident in his assessment that he has been blessed with suck. He’s basically King Midas, except that at least that guy was surrounded by a bunch of gold. He can touch his own skin, which is a small miracle, but if he was able to transport himself, maybe he could find out where he’s banishing everything else. It might still be the key to finding Trina.

Leona has returned from the store, where she picked up a number of stylish vests for him to wear. He’s fine with pants, as long as someone helps them on, but shirts are a no-go. A single brush against the skin from his wrist to his tips, and it’s gone. Vests are really the only type of clothing with arm holes big enough to avoid an issue. But that is nothing compared to the humiliation of needing help going to the bathroom. He really had to go while his wife was out, and Marie was the only one around who he felt comfortable enough asking. She did so without complaint or awkward tension. “Are you mad?” he asks.

“That Marie helped you with your clothes?” Leona asks.

“Yeah.”

“Did you cheat on me?”

“Of course not!”

“Then of course not, I’m not mad. What kind of person do you think I am? If you were an amputee—or your hands were mutilated—we would probably have a nurse for you, who would be doing the same things.” She carefully gets the vest around him so he can stop walking around topless.

“That’s true, it’s just...”

“It’s just that we’re family, and we’re all here to help you get through this.”

He appreciates that, but he’s having trouble expressing it. He can’t really express anything right now but frustration, anxiety, and depression. Once Leona is finished, he plops back down on the chair, and hangs his arms over the armrests. It’s not very comfortable, but it keeps his midan hands away from everything. “Thank you.”

She frowns down at him, slouched there. “You know, this could be a blessing.”

“How so?”

She steps over to the table, and picks up a package they received earlier today. “This is our new shower mirror.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

She removes the mirror from the box, and then tosses the box to him.

He instinctively reaches up to catch it, banishing it to the unknown. “Why did you just do that?” he questions.

“I’m your garbage man! I go across the land!” she sings as if that’s a song he’s meant to be familiar with.

“We don’t know where it went. We don’t know if it went to the same place as all the other stuff.”

“That’s why Ramses is in Lebanon.”

“He’s not going to find anything there.”

“We’re working on a way to get him into Russia. He’s just starting his field work closer to home. The Olimpia is almost ready to fly at optimum efficiency again.”

“He’s not going to find anything there either.”

“Mateo, that timonite sat there for upwards of millions of years without transporting anything anywhere. Otherwise, it would have destroyed the whole planet. Something has to be able to render it inert.”

“It was inert because it was sitting under immense pressure,” Mateo argues, “pressure which would vaporize my hand, if not straight up kill me. I unlocked it. I relieved that pressure. And I seriously doubt there is anything in the universe that can shield against bulk travel. There’s nothing anyone can do. Hope is a teardrop in the ocean. Once it falls, you’ll never find it again, but you may drown in the attempt.”

Leona nods. “I applaud you for your hypothesis that it remained inert due to the pressure. That’s not something the old Mateo would say.”

“Maybe Erlendr is controlling me psychically again.”

“Maybe.” She doesn’t believe that, but her own mind is somewhere else already. He’s right, they can’t recreate the pressure of the depths of an undug mine, but he’s wrong about there being no hope. There are others with the ability to travel the bulk, which means that they must have ways of controlling how that happens. They must have access to materials that react to it differently than normal baryonic matter. Maybe that’s neutrinos, maybe it’s dark matter, but whatever it is, it has to exist. There is only one place on Earth that might have it, and they weren’t planning on going there until the winter. Well, it’s in the southern hemisphere, so really, it’s more about it being summer at the destination. Hopefully it’s not just a main sequence location, because then they really might be searching for teardrops in the ocean.

“I know that look,” Mateo says. “You’ve come up with an idea.”

“I need to order a few more things,” Leona tells him with a smile. “I’ll have you throw out the boxes for me.”

“Gee, thanks.” He cracks a smile. “What do you need?”

“For one, a good winter coat. I hear Antarctica is freezing this time of year.”

Microstory 1746*: Heart of a Lion (Excerpt)

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The crowd gathered and whispered as Cordelia prepared herself. Chris tried to step up and stop her a few times, but Clay always held him back. Neither of them wanted her to get hurt, but Chris could not bear to see her in pain; not even for only three seconds. She lifted her hand, and everything stopped. The whispers, the mindless fidgeting—even the howl of the wind was waiting for her. She placed her palm on the handle, and wrapped her fingers around it. She cringed, but did not scream. One second passed. Chris lunged forward, and again Clay pushed him back. Two seconds. Chris was starting to feel a pain in his heart; empathy for a loved one. Three seconds. She had beat his record. Four seconds. Five seconds. She had beat the world record. Six and seven, still holding on, but the baton stayed in place. Chris made his most valiant effort to reach her and pull her back, but Clay still would not let him. It didn’t matter how strong she was. She wasn’t going to be able to do it. Even without the pain, it was in there too deep. Only the owner could remove it from the stone. That was their true mission, to find the owner and kill him. Had it been anyone else, they might have asked for help. But Chris realized who the owner had to be. Only one both had lived long enough, and possessed a soul twisted enough, to construct such a sinister trap. He didn’t know where to find the evil telepath, but at least he knew what he looked like. How many seconds had it been? Too many to count. The crowd stared in both fear and awe. She was doing the unthinkable, but could not quite make it all the way. That was the sickest part. It would be one thing to torture a hopeful wielder with pain, but another to cause that pain and still not reward them with what they deserved. Chris thought his empathy was growing stronger as the heat reached his face and stung his eyes, but he was wrong. It was real.

The heat from the burning baton was expanding. With it came powerful gusts of wind, which drove the onlookers back. A few persisted to show support for the elf who took the brunt of the flames, but most gave in. Chris and Clay were one of the steadfast. Even the rain felt like it was at a boil. They squinted, put their hands up in pointless protection, and struggled to walk forward. “Let go!” They took turns yelling to her. If she could hear, she was not listening. “Let go of the baton! It’s not worth it!” They reached her, and what they saw was more horrific than they could have imagined. Smoke dribbled out of her pores, and faded up into the air. Her hands, which were both now pulling on the handle, were literally on fire. It was the hottest Chris had ever felt. With Clay’s help, he tried to pull her away by the shoulders, but she was as stiff as the statue—petrified, at least for the moment. Chris quickly realized what he had to do. He took a few seconds to prepare himself before cupping his own hands around hers. He could feel her blisters as his own skin began to bubble. Clay tried to help as well, but he was unable to get closer than a few inches. The baton slid a few millimeters out. But only a few. Then it slid out a few more, each one easier than the last. More and more it gave as Chris felt a scream at the top of his lungs. He would later be told that he had not uttered a sound. Centimeters more, and it was just about free. Time froze. The pain went away. No blisters were on his hands. The whole world turned a purplish-blue. He could recall seeing this before, but could not place where. The fire was gone, but everyone else was still there. Next to him stood Cordelia, just as confused as he was. Their former bodies lain at their feet.

Microstory 1745: Lizard’s Tree

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Let me tell you about my father’s last day alive. We knew he had been sick for a long time, but we kept having reason to hope. Treatment was working well in the beginning, and then it wasn’t. A promising new drug came on the market, but it didn’t seem to work for him. A new drug trial went underway, so we tried that, but it had no effect. Of course, he could have been taking the placebo the entire time. A different trial began a couple of years later, but he ended up not qualifying. He chose to stop treatment a month before he died, wanting to spend his last remaining days lively and pain free. According to my mother, he wanted to spend his actual last day with me. On TV, when parents are asked which child is their favorite, they always either say they love each of their children equally, or they’ll give a real answer, and it’s because they’re a villain. It’s a little weird in our family. My dad loved me just a little bit more than his other five children, and no one has ever seemed bothered by that. I’m a lot like him, in most ways, and the others were more like our mother. Except for the eldest, who isn’t like any of us at all. As far as I know, they all just accept that I’m the special one, and don’t take offense to it. Every family is different, I guess, maybe we’re just a little more honest with each other. Anyway, he called me Lizard, on account of its similarity to my real name, which I trust you can rightly guess. The day he died, he said, “Lizard, come with me. We’re going for a drive.” I’m the one who drove, but he directed me to the middle of nowhere, and asked me if the tree before us wasn’t the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I looked around us, and saw plenty of trees, but none close enough, and none that stood out. He laughed, like it was a prank, but he quickly returned to his serious but calm look. He gestured towards the ground, and told me that it once stood here.

This is what he said about the tree that was. “While your mother was pregnant with you, Lizard, she was reading a book about the world’s cultures. She discovered that people from different countries practiced the same tradition of planting a tree when their child was born. We had already had two of our own by that point, but we still decided to start doing this for however many we had left, which ended up being four.” I told him he meant to say three, but he was scared to respond to that, and I think I understand why. He went on, “your younger brothers’ trees are closer to the house, but your tree used to be here. We planned on showing you when you turned eighteen, so it could be one of your gifts, but we all know I’m not gonna make it another seven months. I wish we had brought you at least two years ago, before a drunk driver ran off the road, and crashed right into it. No one was hurt; not even him, but your tree was destroyed. I choose to believe there’s a lesson here, even though a mound of dirt is not what we had in mind for you. The tree was supposed to represent your life, but if that were true, you would be dead right now, instead of me. I hope what this shows you is that you are exactly as strong as you think you are. You made it through most of your schooling, you made it into a good college, and you’ll get past my death. I love you, Lizard, and there is nothing that can change it, no matter how many drunk drivers fly down that road. I need you to believe that you can take care of yourself, because I can’t go in peace if you can’t.” He went back to the car real quick, and returned with another small tree in a pot. “You can plant as many new trees as you want, but never forget that you...are irreplaceable.”