The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 16, 2529

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The team stayed on Jaunemus the rest of the day, eating the local cuisine, and recharging their photovoltaics by the star that they were orbiting right now. This moon was a gargantuan spaceship, which could move through space at will. The Jaunemusians couldn’t travel all the way back home to Verdemus to eat lunch with their friends every day, but they didn’t have to stay in one place either. They bounced around the nearest stars in this area, and spent a lot of time in interstellar space to avoid detection.

There was nothing for Team Matic here, so they decided to bug out. “We have to get back to Proxima Doma,” Angela suggested. “We have to find out what happened there, if anything.”

“I thought we were going after Miracle,” Ramses countered.

“That trail has gone cold,” Marie figured. “She has had a whole year to get those cuffs off.”

Leona chuckled. “She has not been able to get them off. They’re held together by a distributive bond. Breaking them would cause her to explode, and I’m the only one with a key.”

They all looked to Ramses for confirmation. He nodded. That was how their EmergentSuits worked. It was how they could be so thin, yet so durable, and protective against harsh environments, like the vacuum of outer space.

“There’s still the question of where she is,” Olimpia tried to remind them. “She could have gone anywhere. I’m guessing the quantum connection doesn’t extend this far.”

“Even I have my limits,” Ramses admitted. “But your husband doesn’t.”

“Me?” Mateo questioned. “If I can find her, why didn’t we do that yesterday?”

“We all needed a break,” Leona explained, “especially you. As I was saying, those cuffs aren’t going anywhere. There was no need to rush off, and besides, I don’t like traveling with low slingdrives. Mateo, your dark particles are the backup, not the other way around.”

“All right,” Mateo agreed. “I’ll use my black magic for a locator spell.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Romana said. No, it wasn’t Romana, but Miracle. She was holding her arms in front of her chest, like a beggar. “Get them off of me, and I’ll agree to transfer to a new substrate. It doesn’t matter anymore. I stole this body because that’s what Pacey asked of me. But I never wanted this.” She sighed, and looked off into a random direction. “I just wan—I just wanted to end him...and his reign of terror.”

The real Romana stepped forward, and placed a comforting hand on Miracle’s shoulder. “You’re not doing this for Pacey, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re from the Goldilocks Corridor.”

Miracle sighed again. “My name isn’t really Miracle. It’s just Mirinda. Mirinda...Oaksent.” They didn’t know exactly what that meant. In modern times, you couldn’t guess someone’s relationship to someone else based on their appearance. They could look 50 years older, but be 200 years younger. She giggled. “You’re all waiting for the clarification before judgment. That’s quite magnanimous of you. I’m his daughter. I’ve been that way for millennia. You see, all those people out here in the Corridor, they are his subjects...his toys. He built them to serve, and to adore him. But the problem with that is they were indoctrinated into belief from birth. Ignorance is the killer. I mean, you showed one person the truth about Earth, and an entire opposing faction spread out from it, which is what he’s always been afraid of. Sycophants who don’t know any better aren’t very satisfying either way. He wanted a group of people who loved him because that’s what they were supposed to do. He wanted a family. He made us just like he made the others, but he made us immortal, just like him. He didn’t really raise us, but we got more face time with him than most, so I suppose he figured that was enough.

“I grew to resent him, of course, which is how we ended up here. In defiance of his plan to curate a family of superhumans, I started fighting back violently. I killed all of my clones, as well as my brothers and sisters’ clones. I didn’t kill them too, but they eventually died, and there was nowhere for their consciousnesses to go. Oaksent doesn’t like virtual simulations, I don’t know why, so there’s no uploading to a central server. There’s just backup bodies. I was just about to kill my own final clone when Pacey found me. He made me realize that Bronach never cared about any of us, which was why he made almost no attempt to stop me. His plans didn’t work. He’s not a likeable guy, and if he didn’t force adoration through ignorance, it wasn’t going to happen. All of his children loathed him. I’m just the only one who wanted to do anything about it. Pacey promised that he could kill my father. He promised to find a way. You were supposed to be that way, but what he didn’t tell me was that you always look for the peaceful resolution. Your ship was literally called the Vellani Ambassador. I’ve been trying to get you to change, but if I thought that anyone could do that, I would never have let my siblings die. I would have tried to call them to action. I believe that I’ve just been trying to replace them...with you.”

Leona stepped forward, and gently held Miracle’s wrists in her hands. It looked like she was about to remove the cuffs from her. “Obligation.”

“Yeah,” Miracle said with a nod. “Wait, what?”

“It’s a movie, about a sibling rivalry that goes too far. The motif throughout is Nazca boobies, which are known for killing their siblings.”

“Oh, I guess that’s kind of similar,” Miracle agreed.

“No, it’s almost the exact same premise. What you just described here, killing off your siblings to drain the parents’ of their power, and their legacy...that is the plot of Obligation. That never happened to you.”

“Well, I hardly think that’s a unique situation. I mean, I’m sure—wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!” she screamed when Leona started to lift her arms up. “You don’t have to do this! Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay! I’ll help you! I’ll switch sides! Just don’t make me transfer out of this body.”

This was such a weird freak out. What was she so afraid of? Why did she not want to transfer to a new substrate? It wasn’t like the processes hurt, or anything. It just felt like going to sleep, and waking up in a different room after surgery. It could be disorienting, but that went away, and relatively quickly. Why did she even ever want Romana’s body if not to parade around as Romana, and give her a bad reputation? They should have asked this as soon as Miracle agreed to keep it. They shouldn’t have been so trusting of her. They won’t make that mistake again.

“Please don’t, please don’t! Miracle continued to beg.

Leona suddenly broke the cuffs apart, and let the nanites recede into her implants. “There you go.”

“You’re setting me free?” Miracle asked, shocked.

“I don’t want us to be enemies anymore. It doesn’t come for free, though. I want you to take us to Pacey. We need to have a talk with him. I’m sick of going through his little minions. It’s inefficient at best.”

Yeah, sure,” Miracle said, stepping away and rubbing her wrists. Déjà vu, this was basically what she looked like yesterday, just before escaping through a black hole portal. “I just need to, uh...speak with him first. I’ll be right back!” Still reminiscent of just yesterday, she fell through a portal, which closed up behind her immediately. And it wasn’t going to reopen.

“Why did you do that?” Olimpia asked her wife.

“She ruined our plans,” Ramses answered for Leona. “Miracle was supposed to lead us to Pacey, not come back here. Matty?”

“Okay,” Mateo said. Gather ‘round.” They huddled in a group, and let Mateo generate a swarm of dark particles to overwhelm them. It was a pretty weak showing, though. There weren’t very many of them. “I think we’re trying too soon! I can’t pull enough out,” he warned. “It took too much to get us to the Fifth Division!”

“That’s okay,” Ramses shouted back. “Just build a bridge! The slingdrives will take us the rest of the way!”

Mateo didn’t exactly know what he meant by that, but his intuition told him to spread the dark particles thin, so they reached far enough out to their destination without being wide enough for a group of seven people to cross over with them. They then activated their slingdrives, and used the signal to navigate them to the right destination. The technicolors came and went, and they found themselves in a familiar place. This was the room they went to before they were knocked unconscious, and inserted into the Underburg simulation with false memories. The place was empty back then, but not this time. Miracle was there, as were Octavia, Pacey, and some other woman. He seemed to like the ladies. He wasn’t happy right now, though.

Miracle’s eyes widened in fear as she stared at the team. She looked over at her boss. “I’m sorry. They took the cuffs off! You said I could come back if they took the cuffs off!”

“We never needed the cuffs, you idiot,” Ramses argued. “He can find anyone in the universe.” He jerked his head towards Mateo.”

“Not with my shielding,” Pacey contended. “There must be something else.”

“Nanites are very smol,” Leona said to him. “They could be on you, without you even knowing it. We never needed the cuffs,” she echoed Ramses.

“You tracked me, like an animal,” Miracle spat.

“You’re a murderer. Which one is worse?”

“Who said I murdered anybody?”

“So you were lying.”

“Enough,” Pacey interrupted. “You obviously came here to talk, so let’s talk. Leave my girls out of it.”

“Mr. Henricksen, again, I’m so—” Miracle tried to apologize.

He held up a commanding hand. “We’ll talk about it later. You both can go now.”

Miracle left, as did Octavia, having never said a word. Miracle was annoying, but an opposing force. Octavia still felt like a betrayal. They wanted to talk to her again too, but on a personal level. Today was about business. The mysterious other woman stayed. She didn’t lurch or hesitate. She knew from the start that he wasn’t ordering her to do anything. If this were an action movie, she would be the one in charge here, and all of their previous dealings were with her henchman or lieutenant, who was only pretending to be in charge. But this wasn’t a movie, was it? Was it? It was a movie before, under the dome. It could certainly be that again, or worse...still.

“I understand that you have reservations about fulfilling the mission,” Pacey began, getting himself comfortable in an arm chair while the woman sat next to him in a hardback.

“That’s an understatement,” Leona said. “We’re not doing it. We don’t need higher compensation, or incentive. We don’t need you to explain why you think we should do it. It’s just not happening. We don’t care if you agree or not. We don’t care what you want or know at all. It’s. Not. Happening. If you have some kind of Plan B, which doesn’t involve us, then I suggest you move forward with it. We’re not interested, and we never were. Why don’t you make like a snowflake, and let it go?”

“I don’t know what that means, but I want you to know that I’m listening, and I hear you. I won’t make you do anything that you don’t wanna do.” He seemed proud of himself for the response, which meant that it was a trick. It probably had something to do with the woman next to him.

They all realized that this wasn’t actually going their way, and it felt exhausting. Mateo stopped forward and placed his hand upon Leona’s chest. He gently nudged her backwards in the direction of the team. “It’s all right. I got this.” He took another step forward, but more towards the stranger. “Who are you? What is your stake in this?”

The woman looked over to Pacey, not for guidance, but more like they were having an unspoken conversation with each other. She lifted her eyebrows to ask a question. He shrugged like the answer was maybe. She pointed at him, and lifted her brows again. He shrugged again, but this time, more as if to say, yeah, fine. They made a couple of other gestures towards each other, all basically implying that they were relenting to the team’s demands, but really, it was impossible to know for sure what they were saying. In fact, they could have been in the middle of an actual psychic conversation. Finally, after Pacey said, “okay” out loud, the woman took a breath, and leaned back in her chair. “I was admittedly hurt when I first heard the term Team Kadiar.”

“No,” Mateo said.

“I felt left out,” the woman went on.

“No,” Mateo said louder. It couldn’t be.

“Yes, it’s true, father. I’m your fourth daughter. Or should I say...your first. His name isn’t Pacey. It’s Séarlas. And I am Franka.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 7, 2520

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Romana lay down on the digitization table. Ramses affixed the spongification helmet over her head. In a few days, this will absorb her consciousness, digitize it almost instantaneously, and transfer it to her new substrate. This part of the process was absolutely vital for the success of the endeavor. During the early days of mind digitization, test subjects were shocked by the new experience, at best resulting in independent duplicates, but at worst in something called bifurcated consciousness. This is when the single mind was divided across the old substrate and the new one. In the movies, this usually involves two copies of each other, one which exhibits some of the traits of the original, but at an extreme, while the other exhibits the polar opposite traits. This will be played for laughs if it’s a comedy, teach the person something about balance if it’s more serious, or even be an example of body horror if it’s meant to be disturbing. In real life, bifurcation isn’t so clean and concise. Neither copy will be able to survive. They will both be missing core physiological characteristics; not just personality traits, but vital neural functions, such as breathing and walking.

Romana was here to dabble in the digital world, so her brain could get used to the feeling of it, before her upload happened. Because once Ramses pushed that button, and began that upload, there was no going back. “Is it going to hurt?”

“It won’t hurt today, but about half of uploaded people claim to experience some pain during the procedure. Researchers are split on whether it’s a psychosomatic memory, or genuine physical pain.”

Romana sighed, and leaned her head all the way back. “Pain is pain. All pain is in the brain. Yet if my body were slain, and my brain placed in chains, that brain would sense no pain, but I would go insane.”

“Poem?”

“Song lyrics,” she explained. “Peter Fireblood. You wouldn’t know him.”

“Was he in the Third Rail?” Ramses asked.

She continued to look forward. “Let’s get on with this.”

Ramses had more to adjust on the equipment. “I need to prep you first. You’ll wake up in a plain white expanse. You will sense the walls around you, yet they will feel endless. Do not be afraid of the expanse. You are still in your body. It should feel just like dreaming.”

“I’ve done VR before.”

“Not like this,” Ramses said. “You cannot return to base reality without me. But I will be able to hear everything you say, so you can bail at any time.” He paused to continue with his work. “After your mind settles into the expanse, lights will appear before you. Some may be blinding, and you cannot look away, as they will always follow your gaze. This is the scary part. You will not be able to shut your eyes. Blinking is an autonomic process, triggered by external stimuli. It is surprisingly the most difficult biological function for digital avatars to replicate, even though in the real world, you’re fully capable of closing them whenever you want. Honestly, scientists still don’t know why, which is what I think is the scariest part. But it will be all right. You will figure it out again, just as you did when you were a baby. The lights are meant to teach your brain to recognize how much control you have over your own residual self-image. They will not stop until you finally do close your eyes. Next will be sound, then smells. Objects will then appear before you for you to feel, inedible ones at first before food materializes to reteach you taste. You could theoretically taste the chair, or whatever it is, before the food shows up, but it’s your call. Interestingly, taste and touch aren’t that hard to fake, at least not until you get into the deeper complexities, like...uh...”

“Like intimate touches,” Romana said. “I get it.”

“I was gonna say umami. Anyway, once you get through sensory school, you will be in the driver’s seat. The world will begin to respond to your imagination, and is only limited by that, as well as the AI’s rendering speed. You can do whatever you want, but I will gently pull you out after about fifteen minutes, depending on what your vitals readout says. It might be earlier, but it won’t be later. You shouldn’t stay too long during the first session. We’ll work our way up gradually over the next couple of days.”

“Okay, I understand.”

“Are you ready?”

“Do it,” Romana answered confidently. She closed her eyes, and tried to relax.

“Count down from eleven for me.”

“Eleven, ten, nine..eight...seven...six...”

Romana felt a shift in gravity, and had the urge to open her eyes. She was not in a white expanse, but a silvery metallic chamber. The space was steamy, or maybe it was only that her vision was blurry. She could make out small beads of water crowding each other on a tiny window before her. She blinked. She blinked just fine. And her other senses didn’t seem to be a problem either. She could smell the sterile scent of medical seating upholstery. She felt the soft grip of the bands of fabric, which barely covered her body, around her crotch, and her breasts. Her breasts. They were back. She was in her adult form. Ramses never said anything about that. They did look a lot smaller, though, which was...odd. She was compelled to taste something, so she leaned over to lick the wall. It wasn’t particularly pleasant, but about as expected. No flashing lights, but her vision was slowly coming into focus. Underneath the tiny window, a message was embossed. Slide down to see the new you. Whenever you’re ready. Another message caught her eye above the window. DON’T PANIC.

She reached over and slid the panel down to find a mirror. That was not Romana Nieman. That was some random chick. “Ramses. Ramses! Can you hear me? You said you would be able to hear me, but you never said if I would be able to hear you?” She waited a moment. “Ramses!” she cried louder. “Pull me out! Something is wrong!”

No response.

“Door.” She paused. Speaking was frustratingly difficult, and it felt like she had just used up her word allotment. “Open,” she managed to eke out.

The door slid open. Romana pushed herself off the back of her chair, and headed for the exit. It was pretty hard to stand too. She was a newborn fawn who had never used her skinny little legs before. Her legs were skinny, whoever this strange woman was. She was now in a dimly lit hallway. She looked to her right. A few meters down, a guy was stepping out of his own pod, struggling about as much; maybe a little more. “Hey,” she said, attempting to raise her voice, but only reaching a whisper. She tried to walk that direction, but her knees buckled.

Before her face could meet the floor, a pair of arms caught her, and lifted her back up. “It’s okay,” the sound of a woman came, like an angel from above. “I gotcha.” She picked her all the way up into the air, and gently lay her down on a gurney.

“Who are you?” Romana asked.

“I’m your Acclimation Specialist.” She looked around. “This is the newborn wing. Anyone who hasn’t transferred before comes through here. There aren’t many of you left. Welcome to Castlebourne, Miss Brighton.”

“Who the hell is Brighton? My name is Romana.” It didn’t hurt so much to talk anymore, but she was slurring her words like a drunkard.

The angel checked her wristband, and looked up at the top of the pod. Then she looked back down at Romana. “Are you sure?”

Romana lifted her new hand, and pointed at the specialist, fighting to keep it aloft. “Hundo-p.” She lowered her hand and tapped on her own temple...or rather, this Brighton person’s temple. “Sharp as a tack. My name is Romana Neiman. I’m friends with Hrockas. He’ll wanna hear about this.”

The specialist tapped on her wristband again. “We have a possible Code Five. I repeat, possible Code Five. Subject claims wrong target.”

“Are we in The Terminal?” Romana asked.

The specialist stepped over, to the back of Romana’s gurney, and began to push her down the hallway. “Seal all newborn pods and halt new travelers to newborn wing. Quarantine all consciousnesses in transit to the emergency digital holding environment.”

“All transiters?” A voice questioned.

“All of them!” she screamed. “Make way! Make way!” she yelled as she continued down the hall. She suddenly stopped. “Owner Steward. Where did you come from? You...you just—”

“Never mind that,” Hrockas said.

Romana couldn’t really see anything from this angle, so Ramses stepped into her line of sight. “Romana?”

“Yes, Rambo. What did you do?”

“I honestly don’t know. What did you say to me, when we were in Underburg? We were at that office cookout. I asked you what your favorite subject in school was.”

Romana turned herself over to the side. “That never happened. It was an implanted memory.”

Ramses stood there for a moment. “Good enough.” He looked up at the Acclimation Specialist. “Thank you. You can go now.”

“Sir?” she asked.

“It’s fine,” Hrockas replied. “Go deal with the lockdown. We’ll determine if this is a fluke, or a new system vulnerability.”

“Thank you, sir.” She left.

“Is it?” Hrockas asked.

“Is what what?” Ramses volleyed.

“Is it a new vulnerability? Should I be worried that body swapping is going to start happening left and right?”

“I draw power from the grid,” Ramses explained. “Might as well. It’s free and easy. I’m plugged into your network for archive updates, but I don’t use your processing power. I don’t need it. I don’t know how this happened. There should be no link between my localized digitization equipment, and your Terminal casting infrastructure.”

“This is the newborn wing,” Hrockas told him. “None of these people has cast their consciousness before. Most of them have not even used surrogacy. Some of them are even escaping colony cults. Isn’t Romana new too?”

“She is, but we were just acclimating her. I hadn’t transferred anything yet. And again, we’re not connected to the Terminal.”

“You are close, though. Treasure Hunting Dome is very close to this one.”

“I don’t see how proximity has to do with anything, if Miss Brighton was coming from Earth.”

“Figure it out, Abdulrashid,” Hrockas demanded. “This wasn’t us. It was you. Millions of castings, not a single problem. You and your time tech are the variables.”

Ramses scooped Romana up, and kissed her protectively on the forehead. “I know.” He teleported them away.

“Beginning decon—”

They were back in Ramses’ lab. “Decontamination override, Ramses Abdulrashid echo-echo-one-nine.” He carried her into the restricted section.

Young!Romana was waiting for him there. She was presumably the real Miracle Brighton. She looked surprisingly calm. “Yep. That’s me.”

“I’m so sorry about this,” Ramses said to her as he was laying Romana down on the secondary digitization bed.

“Don’t worry about it. I came here to have adventures.”

Romana got back on her side. “Can you walk?”

“I walk just fine,” Miracles answered. “It was a lot easier than they told me it would be.”

“It’s your EmergentSuit,” Ramses explained as he was fiddling with the machinery. “It would be like being born in a powered exoskeleton.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Romana decided. “Are you just gonna switch us back?”

“I don’t know if I can,” Ramses said. “I mean, I’m capable of it. People have switched bodies before. It’s a niche leisure activity. I just don’t know what your father is going to say. If I don’t call him back in, will he be madder than if I let him actually see the damage?”

Miracle chuckled. “You’re trying to decide if you should glue the broken vase back together before your parents get home, because at least they come home to a fixed vase, or if it’s better to fess up right away so you look more honest.”

“More or less,” Ramses admitted.

“Too late,” Mateo said from behind.

“Mateo, I didn’t hear you come in,” Ramses said to him.

“Yeah. Decontamination protocols are down.”

“Right. Digital acclimation is a safe procedure. It’s been for centuries. This never should have happened.”

Mateo stepped closer. “I want to comfort my daughter, Ramses, but I don’t want to touch a stranger...” He looked over at Miracle in Romana’s body, “and I don’t want it to look like I’m touching a stranger.” He looked over at Romana in Miracle’s body.

“I’ll switch them back, right away.”

“No,” Mateo said. “That’s stupid. Her new body is ready now, right? It’s in temporal stasis, but fully grown?”

“It’s ready,” Ramses said. “You still weren’t sure, though...”

“I’m on board,” Mateo told him, but he was really saying it to Romana. “Her mind has already been digitized. You might as well finish the process. Forcing her back into that child’s body is just a waste of time and power.”

“Speaking of which...” Ramses walked over to the wall, unlocked a panel with his biometrics, and flipped a lever. The lights shut off for three seconds before returning. “We’re off grid, and all signals are blocked. We’re completely isolated. No consciousness is getting out, and none is getting in.” He moved over to the gestational pod where Romana’s new body was floating around. “Romy will jump into this, and Miracle will jump into her new body.”

“And my old body?” Romana inquired. “The one that looks like a little girl.”

Ramses looked down solemnly. “It will be destroyed. That’s the hardest part of this. I would have rather you be proverted anyway, but I don’t think we really have time for that. I don’t know any proverters.”

“I do,” Mateo said.

“Yesterday, you made it seem like you didn’t,” Ramses reminded him.

“It’s you. You can provert that substrate. After this kind woman leaves it, you can place it in a temporal field, and age it up, so you’re not watching a child’s body be destroyed.”

“Well, I don’t really have to watch as it happens. I just put it in a—”

“Ram. This is how you should do it. You don’t want the memory of even placing her wherever it is you were about to say.”

They waited there in the depressing silence.

“That got dark,” Miracle mused.

“Our lives are sometimes dark.” Ramses flipped another lever, and started to drain the fluid from Romana’s pod.

More silence.

“Wait,” Miracle said. “Don’t do what you were talking about with the temporal field. I’ve never heard of that, but I can guess what it is. I saw you suddenly disappear from here, so there’s obviously a lot I don’t know about the universe.” She took a breath. “Just leave me in this body. I can wait to grow up again. In fact, after what I lived through on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, it might feel like a fresh start.”

“Are you certain?” Ramses asked. “Once I destroy your Castlebourne body, you’re stuck with this unless you choose a new one, in which case you’re just passing the burden to someone else.”

“I understand. I want this.” She hopped off of the bed. “I promise. As long as it’s okay with this one that she has a doppelgänger walking around.”

Romana looked over at Mateo, and said, “actually...that’s a family tradition.”

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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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Microstory 2480: Archidome

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I recently read a review on the prospectus for another dome. They were talking about how a lot of culture has faded from vonearthan society because of how standardized everything has become. And I must say that I agree. I understand why it happened. The basic design of the arcologies on Earth are perfect for what they’re intended to be. Each unit is a small and efficient living space, and they’re connected in such a way that allows modularization for shifting needs. You can open a door to grant a neighbor’s access to your units, or close them when you’re a teenager who needs to exert more independence. Everyone has a window, yet the structure is sound, because the spokes distribute the weight evenly, and over a sufficiently wide area. They’re nice, but they’re best for people who don’t care about what their homes look like, probably because they spend most of their time in simulations, or at least on the network. What your dwelling looked like, and how it was arranged, used to be profoundly important. I cannot stress to you enough how crucial it was for people to get to decide what their homes were like. That is what made it a home in the first place. There were multiple channels on linear television with dozens of programs about people finding, building, remodeling, or selling homes. And that’s before you include all the innumerable web content. It was a subculture of our society, and it went away due to a number of factors, which I’ve already touched upon. But the biggest moves happened in tandem with the shift to a post-scarcity economy. The government couldn’t put effort into building something to your specifications, or with any sort of flair or whimsy. Even before megastructures, they came up with a few models, and everyone got the same thing, because it was the most fair. Castlebourne gives us the opportunity to go back to the creativity of yesterday, in many respects, and in this respect, Archidome is the place for original architecture. It was empty at first—I really wish I had been here to see that. If you come here, you’re supposed to design your own building. It doesn’t have to be a single-family home. It can be an apartment complex, or a museum, or even a cathedral. The only restriction, really, is that you have to hold the rights to the intellectual property. I’ve heard a number of stories about visitors hoping to recreate some structure from their favorite movie, and that’s just not what this is for. Again, you get to decide what you build, and what it’s used for. It may never be used for its intended purpose, or anything at all. It’s up to you to promote it, and try to get visitors. I’m sure, over time, as the population of this planet in general increases, the chances that someone comes to see what you’ve created will go up. Until then, you might just have to be satisfied with the completion of the project itself. I’m proud of my columbarium, even though people don’t really die anymore. I’m proud of it because its mine, and it’s real. What will you create?

Microstory 2476: Substrate Development Dome

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It’s the opposite of Bot Farm! While that dome is all about mechs, perhaps with some skinning, this one is all about organic substrates, perhaps with some cybernetic components. This is one of the most important aspects of living on Castlebourne, and really, anywhere in the modern galaxy. Life is dangerous, and we’ve only made it more dangerous, because that’s how we like it. Back in the day, when you died, that was it. As far as we knew, there was nothing after that. Now that we’ve let go of our religious superstitions for the most part, we’re pretty certain that there’s no afterlife. So why let yourself die when there’s a better way? We’ve mastered consciousness transference and uploading, and it has given us so many options. You can backup your mind to a body that looks exactly like your own, but you don’t have to. Or it can look the same, but sport different characteristics. It can be stronger, faster, more resilient. You can fall asleep in seconds whenever you’re ready, and wake up feeling perfectly rested after only an hour. The possibilities truly are endless. You don’t even have to look human. You can become a unicorn, or an alien from your favorite media franchise. You can copy yourself, spread your mind into a hive of codependent insects. Be whatever you want, do whatever you want. Just remember, that whatever substrate you choose to move into next, it was built here. This place is really cool, but that’s probably because I was born in the 1960s. That’s right, it’s not a typo. I was barely young enough to reach the longevity escape velocity. Had I been born a few years earlier, I may have eventually died. So I know how vital it is to be able to get a second chance. A third. An umpteenth. And I think it’s so amazing that we have so many options. I know a guy who’s married to a sort of squid. She was human at one point, but now she identifies as a squid who can walk on land. That was designed and implemented here. You can even design your own, if you’re interested. You can make your new design private, unlisted, or fully open to the public. Bear in mind that every single design change has to be approved by the system, so don’t publish it until your ready. The laws are different here than they are in the stellar neighborhood, but they do have them. You can’t make a body that shoots deadly acid out of its hands, even though, theoretically, a victim could just switch themselves to a new body of their own. Come here, have fun with it. It’s available for all. Just don’t take it for granted. My brother died when he was an old man, and I never saw him again. You kids these days, you don’t know how good you have it.

The Seventh Stage: Rock-Ribbed (Part VI)

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Echo didn’t like the idea of his sister’s body being piloted by an evil transdimensional god-being. Debra knew that he wouldn’t, which was part of her plan all along. They believe that he has the power to conjure entirely new substrates for the six of them to inhabit. He does that—he gives Debra a new body—she’ll do what the rest of them want, and find the person responsible for transporting everyone from the original five realities to their new home in the Sixth Key. She’s not asking for this for her own selfish reasons. She needs it.

Debra is not evil anymore. She’s become a better person, and genuinely wants to help now, which she knows will only make her an even better person. That’s what she learned on the first stage. Diversity and community are the keys to harmony, even though they can lead to conflict. If she doesn’t end up being able to find who the Cloudbearer twins are looking for, it won’t be for lack of trying. Someone that powerful is a master of time and space, and may have the means to shield themselves from being pinpointed, detected, or identified. Still, even with the uncertainty of success, Debra doesn’t think that it’s unreasonable to ask for a new body to call her own. It’s not like they don’t want to give her one. They just don’t know if they can trust her. That’s okay, she’s willing to do whatever it takes to change their minds.

He’s standing there, still weighing their options. “Think of it this way,” she begins.

Echo closes his eyes and holds up a silencing finger. “Shh. Just shh,” he says, shaking his head. He continues to keep his eyes closed while trying to make up his mind for another few minutes. “You don’t have to convince me anymore. I just need to figure out how to do what I’m trying to do.” Though his eyes are still closed, he can sense when she’s about to speak again, and shushes her once more. “I don’t want your help either. I have my own simulations running through my head at the moment.”

Debra sighs louder than she meant to. She quietly says sorry, even though that technically only adds to the ambient noise, and distracts him more. She centers herself mentally, and stands before him patiently and quietly.

After ten more minutes, he opens his eyes, and stares at her with a cold disdain, but also a sense of...determined acceptance, if that makes any sense. “I know what I have to do. Let me talk to Clavia.”life

Clavia passes by Debra on their way to swapping places in their shared mind palace. The former is center stage now. “What do you have to do?”

“Did I ever tell you that I met my mother?”

“What? No. You’re not talking about Judy, right?”

He laughs. “No, I’ve obviously met her. I mean the woman who gave me life. When I put us back to being children, we both collapsed and fell unconscious. We had to sort of reset to factory settings. I don’t know what it was like for you. I guess you and the others were formulating your internal seven stages metaphor. I left my body, and communed with Olimpia Sangster. We actually spent quite a bit of time together before we both decided that it was time to part ways. So I won’t go over everything we discussed, but it was nice to get to know her. Anyway, when I woke up as a kid, I didn’t remember any of it. Judy and Bariq raised us as siblings, doing their best to mould us into well-rounded, productive members of society. It wasn’t until later that I was able to recover those moments with her.”

“I wish I could have been there with you,” Clavia says. “Debra is cognizant of facts about Team Matic, and all that, but they never met. Ingrid and Onyx each knew them only briefly.”

“You might meet them one day,” Echo says with a knowing smile. Perhaps she was there, just at a different point in her own timeline. He goes on, “she comes from a time on Earth when religion had largely faded from society, but it was still around. A lot of factors were at play, of course, but the greatest push towards atheism happened because those who believed in God or gods usually also believed in some kind of life after death. They let themselves die because if they didn’t, they would never have the chance to live in the paradise they were promised. If they had just accepted the longevity escape velocity as a new characteristic of a devout life, superstition might have survived. But these die-hards had children, who watched their loved ones die for nothing, so they switched out, and eventually, belief died alongside the believers themselves.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because, Clavia, we are the gods. We are those who are believed in. And we’re about to give the two undecillion people of the universe everything they could ever need to be happy. If you think we’re revered now, just wait until we check every box in every religion’s idea of a true living god.”

“What are you saying? We should quit?”

“Absolutely not,” Echo insists. “I’m saying that we should leave. There is nothing for us in this new world. We don’t want them worshiping us.”

Clavia laughs. “You think they’re not going to worship us ‘cause we’re not around? I want you to think about that for a moment.”

“I should rephrase. We don’t want to have to watch them worship us. I agree, they’re gonna do it. I’m worried about a massive resurgence in religious belief, but I don’t think we can stop that. We can’t save them, and save them from themselves, at the same time. We can’t give them something tangible to reach out for.”

“It’s the opposite, Echo. We have to be there. We have to act like normal people. That’s what the Tanadama did, and it’s why those two undecillion people even exist. Almost everyone is from the Parallel. Ramses and Kalea are leaders. They’re accessible. If we too are accessible, it will make it harder for mysticism to take root, not easier.”

Echo looks away with a huge sigh. “I know.”

“Then why are you arguing against it?”

“Because I am going to leave, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”

“What are you talking about?”

He turns back. “I can make new bodies for your friends, but I won’t survive it.”

“That seems arbitrary.”

“I ran thousands of simulations in my head. It never works unless I do it that way. I can’t make entire people out of nothing. I have to draw upon my own energy, and that will destroy me. I’m just trying to rationalize it by coming up with a way that that outcome could possibly be better for the universe once it’s done.”

“Even if it is, it won’t be better for me.”

“I know,” he repeats. “In a few different religions, depending on how you define them, there’s a story of the first man. His name was Adam. He was alone until God cut him in half and created a woman named Eve.”

“I’m familiar with Genesis,” Clavia says. “Debra is the First Explorer, remember? She watched all the people who wrote that book.”

“Right. Well, it’s kind of like that. But in my case, I have to split myself in sixths, and the result is that I’m no longer an independent entity. I suppose that my soul may live on in the others, but the simulations don’t have a definite answer on that.”

“No. There must be some other way. And if I’ve learned anything from writing several plays, it’s that when someone says there’s another way, there really always is.”

Echo smiles at her. “I’m not going to argue with you about it, but I am going to split myself apart, and give your friends new bodies. I don’t need to survive.”

“No. We just won’t do that. We don’t need to. They’re perfectly fine in there.”

“Debra says that she won’t help us if we don’t set her free.”

“Well, I’ll talk to her. If she knows that it will kill you, she won’t go through with that demand, and if she does, then we can’t go through with it, because she’s obviously lying to her advantage.”

Clavia’s consciousness suddenly disappears as Debra takes over. “Actually, it’s not a matter of being set free, but of getting my toolbox back. I can’t do what you asked unless I’m back to my old, powerful self. Here’s the metaphor. You’re asking me to shoot a target, but you don’t want to give me my bow and arrow. Recreating my body is like giving me the weapon. It’s non-negotiable. I don’t just want it. I need it.”

Clavia takes back control of the body. “I don’t think she’s lying.”

“I don’t either,” Echo replies.

“Hold on.” Clavia’s eyes glaze over as she recoils into herself to hold an impromptu meeting of the Seven Stages. It’s brief. “Okay. Andrei wants to talk to you.”

“Should I go in your mind?” Echo offers.

“Nah, I’m already here,” Andrei says.

“What’s up?”

“What would happen if you only split once? Just one new person?”

Echo contemplates it. “I’ve never run that scenario specifically, but I did try to generate one substrate at a time, as opposed to all at once, and it seemed to go all right until I got to the third one before I couldn’t continue.”

“Then just do that. Run that scenario for real, but stop yourself on purpose.”

“You want me to create a new body only for Debra?”

Andrei shakes Clavia’s head. “She has powers. She needs someone like you to make the kind of body that she requires. The rest of us can wait. There are other options. They’re just not in the Sixth Key.”

“I’m willing to try that, assuming you can convince everyone else.”

Clavia’s eyes glaze over once more. She comes back to speak for the group. “Will this work? Will you survive this?”

“I believe so,” Echo says sincerely.

Clavia breathes deeply, and looks around. “Couldn’t have picked a more beautiful place. They’re standing in the cold, sterile corridor in the finger of one of the matrioshka bodies. They don’t choose specific places to meet. Every time they’re in separate places, and need to reunite, they just think of each other, and rendezvous at a random location. Time itself seems to choose on their behalf, and it has no apparent preference.

He chuckles and transports them away. They’re now in one of the rotating habitats. It’s a lush garden, densely packed with life. In particular, they’re standing next to a very small, clear pond. It’s barely larger than a bathtub. They didn’t create this with any concentrated intent. They didn’t have the time or energy to conceive of every single blade of grass. They built macros from their powers, and programmed the worlds to basically build themselves, starting with a spark, and iterating from there. It was very effective, if not a bit unsettling. If they didn’t make this watering hole on purpose, did it just create itself, or is there another force at play. Is God indeed real?

“All right, Clavy,” he begins as he’s removing his clothes, and stepping into the water. “I’ll see you on the other side. Best put Debra front and center so it’s easier for me to extract the right consciousness.”

“I’m here,” Debra answers.

“Your residual self-image. Focus on it. Or...I guess if you would rather have the body of a tall black man, I’ll make that for you instead.”

“No one’s called me Airlock Karen in a long time, and I was never racist...” Debra pauses. “But no, I wouldn’t like to be a tall black man, thank you very much. My original form will be fine.”

He nods and closes his eyes, leaning back to float in the water.

“Though, I wouldn’t mind you making me a bit younger than I was before.”

Echo smiles but keeps his eyes shut. Like her, he focuses. He tries to count every atom in his body. Every molecule, every cell, and every organ. Atoms can’t really split, or they’ll explode, so the constituent parts of the new Debra substrate won’t really be coming from him. Instead, they’ll be composed of elementary particles that he sources from across the dimensions, and channels through his body. The energy builds in waves, accumulating in the pockets of space between his atoms. Pulsing, vibrating, firing. He can feel a hot pinprick in his forehead. It drives deep into his skull, and comes out the other side. The two ends travel down through the center of his face, and then further down his body. As the chainsaw of time and space cuts through him, the energy tries to escape, but the fundamental forces hold it all together. The two halves split apart, but they’re both incomplete. As one half morphs and transforms into a female form, new body parts take shape on both halves, replacing the bits that each lost.

When it’s all over, they both turn to face each other. Echo is confused. “Debra, this is not what you looked like, even at a younger age. You did want to appear as someone else.”

“Echo?” she replies. “I’m not Debra. I’m Clavia.” She looks down and away. “I’m alone. There’s no one in my head anymore but me.”

“We’re still in your head.” Someone piloting the original Clavia body remains standing on the bank. “You’re the one who has vacated.”

“Who is that?” Clavia asks from her new body.

“Andrei. I’m in charge now.”

“Why did you do this?”

Andrei frowns. “We can’t trust Debra. We only needed her power, and now...you’re the one who has it.” He lifts his chin in an arbitrary direction. “Go save the universe. We can’t hold you back anymore.”

“Don’t you understand?” Clavia questions. “You six gave me strength. Without you, I’m just...a baby.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” comes a voice from the other side of the pond. It’s some guy.

“Who are you?”

“Aristotle Al-Amin,” he answers stoically. “I believe you’ve been looking for me?”

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