Microstory 2354: Vacuus, June 15, 2179

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Dear Condor,

Well, Nature Wars started out in 2006. It was a fairly cheap show to produce with no writers, inherently minimal sets, and an adaptable format that saw the hosting duties change hands five times (though, one host only lasted three seasons before basically being forced to turn it back over to Leyton Parkins after his legal issues were positively resolved). They were usually able to shoot two entire seasons per year, resulting in 147 seasons over the course of 75 years (a few random production issues led to only one season in each of a few years). Let’s continue on with the math. I’m currently in the middle of the 83rd season. Every season, without fail, has had 16 hour-long (minus some ads) episodes total, but the finale is always twice as long. So that’s about...15.5 hours per season. Multiply that by 83, and you’re looking at 1,286 hours of television that you would have to watch just to catch up to where I am. Then we have about a thousand more hours left. That would take a lot of dedication on your part, and we don’t even know if you would like it. You might be annoyed to see those people taken to those beautiful remote locations where the air is pure, and clean enough even where they normally live. You may be annoyed at me just for talking about it right now. That all being said, I’m willing to wait if you think you have the time for it, but I don’t want to die without seeing the final season finale. I’ve been watching this stuff since I was a wee little girl on the interplanetary ship. Let’s try to think of some more options. I know you don’t watch a lot of stuff, but when you do, what kind of things do you like? Are they still making more movies and shows? Are there domes over studio lots that are dedicated to keeping the visual arts alive? Surely we can find something that we’ll both enjoy. We can do it with literature too. Perhaps you could recommend books to me, and we could also share in that. Once we get to know each other’s tastes, we could select a book to read at the same time, and then exchange thoughts, like a penpal book club. I tend to gravitate towards stories that involve regular people in extraordinary circumstances. They don’t have the experience or training, but they have to make it through to solve the problem, and the usually do, even if it kills them. Let me know what you think.

Living in that pure air (but for a different reason),

Corinthia

Microstory 2259: Hello, KC Metro

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If you’re a national or international reader, you may not have heard of a TV show called Hello, KC Metro. In this region, we have a local television station that focuses on local programming. It includes the weather, news, documentaries, and syndicated scripted series that feature known Kansas City natives. For five hours from 7:00 to 12:00 every weekday morning, a talk show featuring a variety of hosts and guests discuss all sorts of topics. If you’ve ever done anything noteworthy in the area, or are from the area, chances are you’ve made an appearance in one form or another. They’ve asked me to be on many times, but I’m not great in front of the camera, so I’ve always respectfully declined. Even local content creators have their stuff shown sometimes without them actually being present in the studio, and they’ve read my social posts on there without me having to be involved directly. If you want your story to be seen by the highest number of people, you’re gonna want to get yourself on the program between 7:30 and 8:30 central. This is after people have woken up for work, but before they’ve actually left for work. Of course, people work at different times, but 9:00 to 15:00 is kind of standard. For the show, 11:30 to noon is a decent time to be on too, because people might watch it during their lunch break, but that’s a lot less standardized. You probably see where I’m going with this. Dutch isn’t much for writing, so he doesn’t have his own blog, but people are really interested in hearing his tales of interdimensional travel, so he agreed to go on Hello, KC Metro, where he spoke with host, Cosmina Branković for nearly forty-five minutes this morning. He talked about what he was up to in Stoutverse, even the things he did that he wasn’t super proud of. I won’t get into that here, because it’s 2024, so you can watch the whole thing online. I know that it was hard for him to go into all that. He wasn’t being tormented or abused, but it wasn’t all fun and games either. I’m very proud of him for being honest about his part in what those people wanted to do with something that he could not control. I know none of that makes any sense if you didn’t see it, so I guess you’re just going to have to go hear for yourselves.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: The Rock – Part 2

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The Pryce Tree temporarily bestowed the Vellani Ambassador with the power of time travel. Leona could navigate to anywhere or anywhen she chose. His only rule was that they could not stay in the Nucleus, and it was his preference that they go somewhere rather neutral. A region of space under control of one culture or the other could be construed as favoritism. Even a totally uninhabited planet could be claimed by one or another. Totally neutral? Where could that be? After some thought, and consultation with Ramses, they decided that the meeting would take place throughout all of time, and at no particular point in space. Instead of jumping once, and remaining at the destination, they would sail through the timestream at an accelerated rate. They were moving 108,000 times slower than objects outside of the bubble, so for every second that passed for them, thirty hours was passing for everyone else. They were ten billion years in the past, though, so there wasn’t actually anyone out there observing anything. This was about as neutral as it could get since the time period predated the creation of every branching alternate reality.

The hypertime factor was mostly for fun, but it also had a calming effect on the diplomats. The ceiling and floor of Delegation Hall could become completely transparent, allowing them to watch as the stars that they were surrounded by danced around each other. They called it the Stellar Waltz. Whenever anyone was getting stressed out or frustrated, they could just look up or down. Some of them did not care for the Waltz, so they were provided with special glasses that blocked out the view, and made the hull look opaque again. They would occasionally remove these anyway.

Olimpia served as Primary Host. She kept people fed and watered. One person needed a special neck pillow once, and another was colder than everyone else, so she retrieved a blanket. Ramses kept an eye on the ship’s systems, since it was not designed to operate in this manner, but everything was going fine, so he also split his attention to his own projects. Leona was more involved than she ever intended to be. They often demanded her insights, and her help mediating brief disagreements before they escalated. Angela and Marie were there to do that, but some of them had too much respect for the Captain to listen to anyone but her. She found it difficult to explain to some of the delegates that she was not in charge here.

Mateo’s may have been the hardest job of all, though. Pryce Tree provided them with a special AI that could receive and synthesize input from the multitudes of people watching from the Sixth Key. They had a lot to say about the situation themselves, and while it would be quite impossible to field questions, comments, and concerns from individuals, they could pare it down to consensus thoughts. There were still many hundreds of these generated ideas, so Mateo had to read through them, and relay them to the meeting members. No one but others on Team Matic could appreciate how much effort he was putting into this responsibility, so they grew frustrated when he asked for breaks. But the thing was, he wasn’t actually taking the breaks. He was using that time to catch up with the input. It was everyone else who could visit the restroom, or dine on the little cakes that Olimpia made for them using the Biomolecular Synthesizers.

They did take full breaks at the end of every day, for sleep and recharging, to prevent burnout. Each day’s worth of talks lasted for eight or nine hours, which resembled a standard workday on 21st century Earth. They were in the middle of one of these right now. For one hour every evening, the team went into their private pocket dimension to discuss amongst themselves, or to not talk at all. They were getting burned out, and they needed time away from everyone else. No one was allowed to disturb them during this period, but they were also discouraged from doing so at any time outside of the official negotiation sessions. The delegates had their own special pocket dimension. There was relatively low security in there, which could open up the possibility for one delegate to cause harm to another. Yet they were expected to police themselves, and Pryce Tree was able to protect them using his power. If he had to, he could simply transport someone away from someone else. To Team Matic’s knowledge, this had not yet come up, and probably never would. Killing one delegate, for instance, would have little effect on the outcome of this meeting, or the rest of the Sixth Key’s situation. As Ellie explained, there were so many other people in the biverse. Anyone trying to derail these discussions was going to have to work a hell of a lot harder than that.

Ramses, since he wasn’t a part of the talks in any capacity, was able to work at his own pace, so he wasn’t nearly as tired as everyone else. “Why are they calling it The Rock Talks again,” he asked, “because those words rhyme?”

Marie was chewing on her cuticles. “It’s really complicated, but the whole thing is based around rocks. They draw rocks to decide who talks first during a given segment, or for a one-on-debate. They select rocks to indicate their votes unambiguously. They even play games using stone dice when the dilemma appears to be about even on either side, and no one is too passionate about one or the other. They’re not trying to figure out who is entitled to have control over a border river, or something, like historical negotiations have been about. There are millions of little decisions that will add up to a bigger picture, and decide the fate of quintillions of people, and it’s exhausting.”

“The Rock,” Ramses repeated. “How long do you have left?” Their patterns were obviously temporarily disabled, though they didn’t know if that was a side effect of the temporal bubble they were in, or if Pryce Tree had to do something special to keep them on the same path as everyone else at the meeting.

“Are you getting bored?” Leona asked him.

“No, I love this extra time that I have. I’m getting so much done. I’m working on some things that I think you’re gonna be real excited about. I’m worried about you lot.”

“I’m worried about him.” Mateo jerked his chin behind most of the group, where the internal security feed was showing on the wall monitors. Pontus’ second from the Nucleus was pacing in front of the entrance to their pocket. He obviously wanted to ring their doorbell, but he knew that it was against the rules, so he was just stressed out, and probably waiting for the hour to be over.

Leona tapped on her armband. “Berko, what’s up?”

“Nothing. It can wait. I know you need your alone time,” he replied.

“Just spit it out,” Leona urged.

“There’s just a..minor...problem with the walking tree, and the princess, and...where they live.”

She stood up. “I’m coming out.” She headed for the door. “Matty, you’re with me.”

They exited the pocket, and walked down to the other side of Delegation Hall, to the visitor’s pocket. About half the group of delegates were in a crowd in the common area, arguing with each other unintelligibly. A couple of others were sitting in the lounge chairs, not participating, but everyone else was presumably in their respective living quarters. “Silence, please!” Mateo shouted. “Your Captain is here.”

They all fell quiet, and parted the Red Sea to show that they were standing in front of Pryce Tree and Princess Honeypea’s door. It was fully open, but there was a second door after that, which was still closed. “What’s the issue?” Leona asked.

“Those weird people,” the delegate from the true main sequence began. “I caught a glimpse of where they live. It’s bigger on the inside, like the T.A.R.D.I.S.”

“This whole thing is bigger on the inside,” Leona explained. “That’s what a pocket dimension is. You wouldn’t have a bed if it didn’t exist.”

“Right,” the delegate agreed, “but theirs is much, much, bigger. It’s outside, and I could see the horizon.”

Leona nodded. “I’m not surprised that they go home to the Garden Dimension every night. I still don’t understand what the  problem is.”

The delegate sighed shortly. “We’re living in these cramped quarters. I understand that it’s another dimension, or whatever, but we thought there was some kind of limitation. We each only get one room, and we accepted that, but there’s an entire island on the other side of that door. Or maybe even bigger, I don’t know. We just didn’t know that nested dimensions were possible.”

“Of course they’re possible,” Leona confirmed. “But that’s not what this is. That door apparently leads them back home. It’s more like...a stargate.”

“Well, why can’t we live in there?” one of the other delegates questioned, but Leona couldn’t remember who she represented. “There’s so much more space.”

“The Garden Dimension is protected ground,” Mateo answered in Leona’s stead. “We’re not even allowed there.”

“It’s a nature preserve,” Leona added. “Highly protected, highly regulated, highly secure. It’s there to shield plantlife from interference. It’s not a place where people live, except for the few who work there.”

“Well...” the true main sequence delegate stammered, “can’t you make a larger pocket for us anyway? It’s getting tough. The smell. Can’t you smell the smell?”

Leona breathed in, a reflex triggered by his words. There was indeed a stench here, which she had subconsciously commanded her nose to block. Most of these people did not enjoy the same control over their senses, so she could appreciate their struggle. “I’ll ask Ramses to fix the ventilation system. I’m sure that it won’t be that hard, he just wasn’t aware. I am not here to help with the diplomatic discussions. These are the things that I need to know about, so do not hesitate to alert me.” They seemed responsive to this, but she wasn’t done yet. “However, if I catch you trying to break into anyone else’s space, or doing anything else of that nature, there will be consequences. I don’t care what the tree says, I’ll throw you in hock, and I can’t promise that they’ll find a replacement representative, which means your culture may end up being locked out of the benefits of this budding union. Do you all understand me?”

Some of them shrunk away, but they all nodded.

Leona nodded back. “Now get back to your rooms. It’s gonna be a hard day tomorrow, just like it always is. I know I need sleep.”

“That was so sexy,” Mateo whispered as they were walking across the realspace portion of the ship.

“I’m not in the mood, Mateo.”

“No, of course not. Me...me neither.” It had actually been a long time for the two of them. This was stressful for everyone.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: The Rock – Part 1

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Mateo teleported right behind the shooter, and snatched the weapon out of his hands. He then jumped several thousand kilometers away, into outer space, and left it there before returning. He blinked and breathed to get himself back to equilibrium. “Do not shoot my wife again please, nor anyone else.”

“He won’t,” the other masked person claimed. They removed their helmet to reveal herself to be someone they already knew.

“Kalea Akopa,” Leona acknowledged. “I assume there are multiple versions of you, so which are you, and what do you want with us?”

“I want nothing of you,” Kalea replied. “Forgive us for the theatrics. The last I heard, you were mixed up with the Goldilocks Corridor; a place like that can turn a person violent. I needed to see how you would react to violence against you.”

“What’s this Resonant Parallel Coalition?” Marie asked. “That sounds genuinely violent.”

Kalea nodded. “I’m afraid it is.” She sighed deeply. “I am the leader of the Parallel, but I’m not a king. There are too many people to manage, and they like to make their own decisions. Some of them have banded together to prepare for war in the Sixth Key.”

“Yes, we are aware of it,” Mateo explained. “We were going to try to help prevent it, I think, but then we got pretty sidetracked. Has it not begun?”

“We’re staving it off,” Kalea answered before adding, “...for now.”

“Yet you want us to join your little army,” Leona reminded her.

“No, Harbinger Zima wants you to join.” Kalea nodded towards her companion, who had yet to remove his own helmet.

“Harbinger?” Angela questioned simply.

Kalea was afraid to clarify, so she put it off until the last second before the pause in the conversation became too awkward. “He commands roughly 480 billion units. They’ve not started fighting yet, but...”

“Did you say billion with a B?” Mateo asked.

“That’s nothing compared to our total population,” Kalea said.

“It’s not nothing compared to every other military force that could possibly participate in the Reality Wars!” Leona screamed at her.

“As I said, I’m trying to stop it,” Kalea responded calmly. “He and I were in the midst of diplomatic discussions when we were both spirited here.”

Before the discussion could go any further, other people started to pop in out of nowhere. The first one they saw was Carlin McIver, who was much older now, but he was not alone. A teenage girl they didn’t know appeared to be accompanying him. Ellie Underhill showed up too, along with Lowell Benton. Princes Honeypea appeared unexpectedly, as did a bunch of people who the team didn’t recognize. Two of them were either twins, or duplicates of each other, like Angela and Marie. Everyone seemed equally confused, if only by coming to this place specifically, not that they were transported in the first place. The weirdest thing to happen was the giant Memory Magnolia tree from the Garden Dimension. It faded in and out of view, struggling to maintain coherence in this time and place. It never solidified either. Instead, Tamerlane Pryce was standing where it was. He was the only one who acted as if he knew what was going on.

Pryce stepped forward and breathed deeply the recycled air. “Thank you all for coming, and I say that completely sincerely, even though you did not have a choice. Some of you are familiar with this face. The man who originally wore it was named Tamerlane Pryce. I am not this man. I am the humanoid manifestation of the Tree of Life. I chose this form because I had access to it, but if you have any strong feelings for him, please do not put them onto me. I’m just...a ghost.”

The crowd stared at him. “Right,” a woman in full military dress said. “You’re a tree. I suppose that is a flower?” She pointed out Honeypea.

Honeypea did a short little dance full of twirling and bowing. “I am a Horticulturalist. Pleased to meet you all.”

“Why are we here?” It was Ingrid Something. She was the one leader in the Fifth Division who refused to fight for her position in the deadly competition that saw Leona’s entire team get destroyed, which meant that she was the only one not to lose that position when Leona ultimately won. “I think we’re all thinking that.”

The personification of the Magnolia nodded Tamerlane Pryce’s head. He started talking with his hands like he was giving a Ted Talk. “You are on the brink of war. I saw it. The Nucleus saw. Team Matic sees it. I think I can help you put a stop to it, but it’s not going to be fun for you. It’s going to take hard work, diplomacy, and perhaps even your entire lives. You may die here, and in doing so, could save quintillions and quintillions of other people’s lives.”

“Excuse me.” One of the twins stepped towards the Pryce Tree. “What the fuck are you talking about? As far as I know, we are not on the brink of war.”

The Pryce tree nodded again. “You live in something called the main sequence. Your whole reality was copied, along with your alternate self over there, who you have been desperately trying to ignore, because he makes you uncomfortable. It is he who is at the brink of war, as are many others here. But you are not all here for being aggressors. You are here as representatives. One person from each reality, as well a second to serve as their compatriot, has been selected for The Rock Meeting. I’m here representing the interests of life itself, and Princess Honeypea is my second. Pontus here will represent the Nucleus with the aid of his own second, who has not yet been chosen. Ellie and Lowell are here for Fort Underhill. They have already been doing what they can to stop the war from their side of the mid-universe membrane, so I believe that they can continue to help.” He smirked, and looked over at Leona, and the rest of Team Matic. “You think you’re only onlookers, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry?” Leona questioned.

“You think your arrival here is unrelated,” Pryce Tree went on. “You came here on purpose, or so you believe. Make no mistake, you are not getting out of this. You’ll be a part of the discussions as well.”

“Why would we be there?” Leona pressed. “We do not represent any reality, nor any other significant stronghold. We didn’t even bring our ship with us.”

“Yes, we did,” Ramses countered, tapping on his backpack, where the Vellani Ambassador apparently was.

Pryce Tree chuckled. “Why do you think I helped Marie get him back for you? Your ship is vital to the negotiations. We’re going to use it for how it was designed. So go ahead, Mister Abdulrashid...let it out.”

Ramses looked to Leona for guidance, but she could see that she was not the one in charge here. If a magical tree with access to every point in spacetime wanted him to release their ship, then that ship was getting released, regardless of how she felt about it. It was powerful enough to appear to them in the form of an avatar, who knows what else it could do? So he unlocked his pack from its magnetic seal, opened it, and removed the ship. Like Hank Pym, he was carrying it around as if it were nothing more than a scale model. He turned around and hunched over it, probably to input some kind of coded sequence. Then he tossed it out into the vast open space like a paper airplane. Once it was sufficiently far away, it expanded to full size, and landed gently on the floor. Some people were impressed by this, while others weren’t, or were at least trying to act like they had been there. Ramses clicked his special remote to open the main entrance.

“Everyone in,” Pryce Tree ordered.

“And if we refuse?” another stranger offered.

“If you don’t stop this war, you’re never going home, so you can either contribute...or derail it, and stay here forever,” Pryce Tree warned.

“You said that we might die here anyway, as some kind of noble sacrifice,” the stranger reminded the tree.

“If you die for peace, you can come back to life; I can do that. If you die because you refuse to help, you’ll just stay dead, and no one will remember you. Literally. I can do that too.”

They all started to walk up the ramp. Olimpia took it upon herself to lead them in, showing them where Delegation Hall was, as well as the rest of the Ambassador, which was designed with private meeting rooms, a galley, and lounge areas. The rest of the team held back, as did the Magnolia. “We do not need to be part of the negotiations,” Leona insisted. “We’re happy to host, but that is all we can do. The rest is way above our paygrade. None of us is anywhere near qualified to mediate serious discussions.”

“You’re the captain,” the tree began. “You control their movements, their actions, and where the ship goes once it leaves this place. Ramses is the engineer. Olimpia will make a fine Hospitality Manager. The Waltons actually are counselors. They will be directly involved in the discussions.”

Mateo laughed. “Anyone here need a personal driver?”

The tree smiled at him. “You’ll just be around. I didn’t see a point in bringing your entire team in except for you. Where else would you go?”

“Are you kidding me?” Ellie was the last representative to head for the ship. “You have a job here too. You went to every reality before they were absorbed into the Sixth Key. You’ve been to other universes. You know all these people, or they know you.”

“So, what? Everyone on my team boasts the same résumé,” Mateo pointed out.

“But you see it from a different perspective,” Ellie went on. “All of us here; we’re important. People look to us for guidance, for our leadership. We make decisions, and others have to follow them. You are one of those people, and you can speak to their interests better than any of us can. They are the ones we’re fighting for, yet we don’t understand them. I’m sorry, Tree, but representative in this situation is a joke. You can’t boil this impending war down to a couple dozen people. We need more Mateos, not fewer.”

“Hm.” The tree seemed genuinely surprised by this. “That’s a good point. Let’s televise this.” He snapped Pryce’s fingers.

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Microstory 1841: Prank Wars

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I was one of the first people to sign up for a certain video sharing website. At that point, most people were just watching, but I was a content creator. I built my name as a prankster before anybody really knew what the industry would grow into. Of course, secret camera television shows predated my debut, but none of them generated the kind of hits I would end up having. People could watch them over and over again, and they did, because they were hilarious. When copycats started trying to recreate the magic, people would ask me whether that bothered me, and I would tell them honestly that absolutely not! That’s the whole point of the internet, that there’s room for everyone! Yes, they were competition, but you have to understand that, back then, nobody was making money off of the site. Even once they started splitting ad sales with us, it wasn’t much, and it was impossible to tell who was taking your audience. No, I had no problem with my rivals, but trouble came for me anyway. A few years after the beginning, one of those regular old TV shows premiered. They would lure victims to highly controlled environments under false pretenses, let them think something great was going to happen, and then pull the rug out from under them. One time, that was literal. They convinced someone they were going to get a free very expensive rug, coupled with a very expensive remodel of their home, and then actually pulled on the rug they were standing on. It was disgusting. My pranks were never like that. They weren’t mean-spirited. My guests were never victims, and they always walked away with a smile. I hated this show on principle, and I acknowledged as much in a non-prank video on my channel. This caught their attention, and my life was never the same after what they did to me.

I was an awkward kid. Pranks were a way for me to come out of my shell, and express myself. Which was great, but it didn’t really help my real life. Perhaps if I were making them today, it would be different, but again, nascent industry. When a girl started talking to me at a party, I couldn’t believe it, but I wanted to, so I went along with it. She seemed very interested in who I was, and what I did, which was unusual, because for as many fans as I had, girls didn’t care much for it. They didn’t know how light-hearted and fun they were. They always figured I did the same twisted things the TV show did. She said she knew the owner of this house, and invited me to a sort of secret room in a finished attic. I had never done anything with a girl before, so I was nervous, but I didn’t want to waste an opportunity. You can see where this is going. We didn’t get very far before the host of that show ran upstairs, and started laughing at me. He was so ecstatic that I fell for it. How pathetic, how embarrassing. The party wasn’t even real. This whole thing was set up for me, and I could hear them all laughing downstairs. I blew up. I grabbed one of the cameras, and struggled with it for a second, telling the operator that I could either drop it to the floor, and break it, or I could drop both him and the camera. I smashed it, and punched the walls. A security guy tried to tase me, but he missed, so I punched him in the face. I don’t remember what I said, but threats were made, and while I don’t think anyone there took them seriously, the network’s lawyers sure did, because they sounded like money to them. The site banned me for life; my career was ruined, robbing me of the revenue that others now see. Bitter, I decided to finally make good on one of my threats today, but I wish I knew before that the host owns a gun.

Microstory 1696: Symbiotic Death

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For the most part, the commensalistic relationship between a human and their nevilere is a loving and happy one. As stated above, they’re like a pet that you keep with you throughout your entire life. There are almost exactly as many nevileres as there are humans. Nature didn’t keep the populations so even like this, but in modern days, with doctors and other medical professionals keeping track of such things, it’s been pretty equal. Occasionally something can go wrong, but that does not mean that there is no way out of the problem. It’s sad, but death is a part of life. When a nevilere embeds itself in its host, it will enjoy an extended lifespan. It won’t die until the human does, and it won’t ever survive beyond that, unless it’s removed from the hump in enough time. This is a dangerous and risky procedure in any situation, and most humans don’t want to think that their lifelong symbiotic organism friend was later given to someone else. Plus, the nevilere probably wouldn’t survive for much longer anyway, and even if it did, it would probably be depressed, because it would have become just as attached to its original host as the host was to it. There are some cases when the nevilere dies before the human does. This universe didn’t come up with a lot of the more violent or dangerous sports; there is no such thing as boxing, or even SCUBA diving. Doing harm to a nevilere—be it one’s own, or another’s—is considered more heinous than murdering a human. So people are generally a lot more careful around each other, but that doesn’t mean that accidents don’t happen. If a nevilere dies before the human is sufficiently old, it will often leave the survivor in great despair. It has been known to lead to suicide.

Luckily, there is hope. Someone else’s nevilere can birth an offspring without the host having anything to do with the process. It can then donate it to the other host. The challenge is coaxing it to do this. Nevilere are smart, but still just animals. Nevilere experts know how to provoke conception with vibrations, tickling, and other techniques. It’s a little weird, but it’s necessary, and no weirder than any other form of animal husbandry. Not everyone would choose to go this route. If they were to lose their nevilere, they would never dream of trying to bond with another. This is all right, but there is a little bit of stigma attached to it. Being asymbiotic, as people call it, can sometimes make other people feel uncomfortable. They don’t know whether something unavoidable happened to it, or if you intentionally did something to harm it, and of course, being flawed human beings, they can assume the worst in you. Overall, however, people of Nevilereverse are compassionate and patient with each other, and they try not to judge. They value facts and understanding. It is unknown if this has something to do with the nevileres themselves, or if being part of such a profound symbiotic relationship has taught the human race to choose kindness over cruelty. Either way, it’s had a generally positive impact on their impact on the environment. While they do have a history of burning fossil fuels, and otherwise harming the ecosystem, due to a delay of innovation, they’ve done fairly well for themselves, and their planet. After careful study and deliberation, the Ochivari ended up deciding to leave them alone, and let them develop without any interference. While many cultures end up walking the path towards transhumanistic upgrades, the Nevilereversals were not able to figure out how to bring their nevilere with them, so they remained forever organic.

Microstory 621: Parasitic Infestation

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Not everything in this galaxy is perfect. To be sure, there is no galaxy out there with absolutely zero problems. In order to achieve such a thing, you would have to build one yourself, like they do in the ancient broadcast series Starscapers. Wise and capable Sotiren Zahir knew this going into his mission of finding a new galaxy to call home, and this was the best of a multitude of options. One particularly nasty problem with Fostea, however, has to do with a single planet. Before we even arrived, Sacred Savior Zahir ordered all Fosteans to stay away from the Warbad system, in order to protect everyone, for it houses the most dangerous parasite ever encountered by man. Scientists have concluded that warbads are probably only parasites when there is a species worth taking as hosts. While in a period of what science has called peace time, they live just as any other creature, eating what bacteria they find naturally in their environment. It is only when they encounter a suitable species that they enter their war time, which is where it gets its name. There are five kinds of warbads; the king, the queen, the purgers, the proliferators, and the civilians. They all look like tight strips of dark hair. There is only one king and queen in any given warbad platoon. They mate with each other up to nine times a day. Afterwards, the king will birth a troop of purgers, while the queen births the proliferators. These proliferators then go on to propagate their species with civilians. Another organism’s body is often the best place to lay a new city of civilians, but it is not technically necessary. Once a suitable species is identified, the king and his purgers will get to work with their own purpose, which is to weed out hostile conditions.

You see, though host organisms make for great brood environments, they can also provide inhospitable environments, depending on the individual. Instead of merely ignoring these unsuitable hosts, the purgers are responsible for destroying them, so that only the desirable hosts remain. They do this by infecting a mediocre host’s brain, ultimately directing it to kill its own kind in an endless quest for blood. Purger-infected hosts go on killing sprees, cleansing the battlegrounds of any host that might limit the warbad platoon’s ability to survive, and protecting the hosts that might be used by the proliferators. Health professionals and other researchers have been unable to identify the parameters of what the warbad considers a good host, versus a bad host, but it has recently been turned into our advantage. A new platoon has somehow managed to escape their home planet, and begun infecting the galaxy. But they are not going after just anyone. They’re only killing and infecting nonbelievers. Somehow, they know who has the light, and who does not. Atheists are being used as proliferator hosts so that the warbad civilians can multiply, while members of rival religions are being turned into purge vectors, and gone about killing each other. They began their crusade with the silenced blasphemers. By the end of the taikon, the only ones remaining should be Lightseers. Blessèd be The Light, and all its seeds, and only its seeds. Our day of illumination is upon us.

Microstory 38: The Sock

“When I was eight years old, I lost a sock in the dryer. It had a green, then blue, then another green stripe at the top. The sole was red, and the base of it had a print of soccer balls. I loved all of my socks, and had one pair for every major sport. My older brother told me that dryers operate at a particular frequency; one that opens up wormholes to other dimensions, and that socks are just the right size to slip through on occasion. He wasn’t being mean. He used a fictional story to validate my overdramatic reaction to something so innocuous. Since then, I’ve been through a few dryers, and lived in several places. When I moved here to Japan, I brought with me very few of my possessions. Somehow, though, when I was doing laundry a few months ago, I found my soccer sock in the dryer. I blinked and shook my head, trying to rationalize it. It probably wasn’t the same sock. It couldn’t be. But it is. It’s the exact design that I remember. There’s even a small hole on a part of the sole that doesn’t usually tear. It’s the same sock, I’m telling you. How did it get here? Had my brother been right? Did dryers open up wormholes? That’s ridiculous, of course. But I’ve always been open to believing in miracles, and I’m not sure that this one doesn’t apply. I wasn’t in a great place when it showed up, and maybe that’s why it came back.”

“That’s an interesting story. But you should probably consider removing your framed sock from the wall for the next party your host.”

“Fair point.”

Microstory 27: One Table

Ben and Mark walked into the restaurant around the same time. They were both exhausted from working a few hours of overtime, neither of them wanted to have to go somewhere else, and the place was packed. The host smiled at them and asked if they needed a table for two. When Mark told him that they weren’t together, the host informed them that it would be a forty-five minute wait for one of them. That was too much, but it was a busy night. If they wanted to avoid fast food or leftovers, it would be the same story anywhere. Ben offered to play rock-paper-scissors for it, but the waitress jumped in and suggested that they just sit together. After a few awkward half-exchanges, they both finally agreed to the arrangement. The two sat at their one table quietly while looking over the menus, and the thermostat must have been turned up too high. After ordering, Mark sighed and announced that the whole dinner would be uncomfortable unless they found something they had in common. So, they basically turned the night into a date; asking each other about their work, hobbies, and friends. Two hours in, the waitress walked over to note that several tables had opened up. Ben and Mark made more half-exchanges, making up nonsense about the other tables being too far from the window, and not wanting to deal with moving their plates. After dinner, they went for a walk by the river in the freezing cold, each one trying to one-up the other with tales of their crazy ex-girlfriends. Three years later, Ben and Mark were married.