Microstory 2773: Proceed With Caution

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Elise follows Miracle through the rows and rows of casting chambers. They’re here to recruit an old friend of the latter’s, though she won’t say exactly who it is, or why they would be here. The Terminal is just where you come out of when you cast your consciousness from somewhere else, and presumably where you come back to when you want to leave. Elise has never actually heard of anyone leaving Castlebourne, but it probably happens every once in a while. Either way, it’s not residential, so no one should be living here. They seem to be in a rather remote part of it too, which is ominous.

Miracle stops and looks around like she’s worried they’ve been followed, but it’s still just the two of them. She pulls the brainscanner out of its pocket on the side and lowers it over her head. The chamber door unlocks and opens for her. She almost roughly takes Elise by the arm, and shoves her inside with her.

“What is the deal?” Elise looks around. “Is there a trap door, or something?”

Miracle opens the casting pod hatch, but instead of the normal chair, it’s some kind of computer. She extends the keyboard, and starts typing on it. The ambient lights shift colors in a pattern. Miracle periodically looks up, apparently when one of the colors stays on too long. “Blasted thing.” She smacks the side of the machine, which triggers the color to change again. “Okay. I’ve recalibrated it for two people. This should work.”

“What will work?” Elise questions. “You’ve still not said what we’re doing here.”

“I told you, we’re here to meet a friend,” Miracle answers as if that’s enough.

“I don’t see anyone else here, so where exactly are they?” Elise presses.

Miracle points to the screen, which is showing an image of the stars. “This is where we’re going. You don’t need any more detailed information than that. Just focus on transporting there. We just need to aim close enough for the relay to detect us.”

“I don’t know much about this teleportation stuff,” Elise begins, “but I can’t imagine that I can jump that far. I won’t even be able to breathe.”

Miracle shakes her head. “We’ll end up in a ship. You’re right, you probably don’t have that wide a range, but don’t worry, the machine is boosting your power.”

“All right,” Elise agrees. “I’m trusting you.”

Miracle turns it on, Elise focuses on her destination, and they both jump.

They appear in a luxurious stateroom. Massive viewscreens are showing them that same image of the stars. A shirtless man, having likely heard them, runs out of the bathroom. He reaches out and presumably magnetically summons his sidearm, which was sitting on the bed. He points it at the two of them. “Report.”

“Relax, Reagan, it’s me, Small Miracle,” she claims.

“You changed your face.” The man doesn’t relax. He still might shoot them.

“It was getting confusing for people,” Miracle explains, “looking like Romana.”

“I’ll need to verify,” Reagan insists. “Stay still, don’t try anything...either of you.”

The two of them gently press their foreheads together for several seconds.

“Neural handshake complete; identity confirmed.” Reagan tosses his gun back on the bed. “Are you someone I should know as well, or have we never met?”

“I’m new, I’m Elise.” She offers her hand so they can do a normal handshake.

Reagan nods and looks back over at Miracle. “I’m preparing for battle, I don’t have time to go on another one of your little side missions. I barely have time for tea.”

“I need you,” Miracle contends. “This one won’t take long. Our friend is at risk of being replaced by an out-of-date version of herself. We need to know where her body is so we can halt the reactivation protocol. That will give me the time I need to fix it.”

“Like I said, I’m preparing for battle,” Reagan insists. “I can’t abandon ship.”

“If we don’t do this in the next couple of hours,” Miracle tries to clarify, “it won’t matter anyway. You can delay your battle. You’re the frickin’ admiral.”

“Yeah, and I earned that by being a good leader, and being present,” Reagan argues. He shakes his head. “You saved my life, and I appreciate that, but that was in Underbelly, and I’m in the Outer System program now. I don’t know if you remember, but I don’t do these simulations for fun. I am this close to feeling ready.”

Miracle nods. “Rae, you’ve been ready for decades, but you will never go through with it, because you’re afraid of what it will do to you. Killing NPCs and backed up people is a far cry from permanent murder.”

“Hey!” he interrupts. “Your moth friend doesn’t need to know anything about it.”

“I don’t know what you’ve been through, man,” Elise says, “but Mir has been extremely helpful, especially to me in understanding my new powers. If you need to kill someone, that’s none of my business. I just want my friend back, with her memories.”

Reagan looks at Elise sadly. “I’m sorry. You should have come this morning.”

“Well, just give me the neurospoofing device, and I’ll handle it myself,” Miracle compromises.

Reagan chuckles. “I can’t trust you with that. We may have been on the same—”

“I will give you teleportation,” Miracle interrupts. “You always wanted it.”

Reagan narrows his eyes on Miracle. “You always said I was too reckless for it; that a big, bad prison was gonna come and lock me up for risking their secrets.”

“Eh,” Miracle replies. “I just don’t like to give everybody powers. It’s...too easy.”

Reagan takes a breath and puts on a poker face. “I also want access to the afterlife simulation. You give me that, I’ll resign my post right now, and help you in person.”

“Rae, that’s asking too much. I mean, the afterlife is Fort Knox on steroids.”

He frowns. “Killing the Oaksent won’t do a damn bit of good if he can just come back. We still don’t know if the decoherence gun destroys all quantum connections, or if he’ll still survive it. I at least need to study the specs so I can know for sure what will happen when I try. I will only get one shot at this. I need this more than I need teleportation. I came up with a workaround for being in multiple places at once.”

Miracle sighs, and looks over at Elise, who looks back, trying to convey the importance of this situation while trying to look past all of this talk about assassination and afterlife simulations. “Okay, I’ll get you into the sim,” Miracle says. “I don’t wanna know who your test subject is, though, and you won’t also get teleportation.”

Reagan shrugs. “Fine. You have a deal. Let’s do another handshake on it.”

They tap their foreheads together, then Reagan asks to do the same with Elise. That way, if they ever run into each other later with different substrates, they will be able to confirm each other’s identities based on their respective neural patterns.

“So,” Reagan says. “I’ll need to know whose neural patterns to spoof, and what part of Castlebourne you’ll need access to. I designed other gadgets which may help.”

“We need access to Castledome,” Miracle answers before pausing, either to build suspense, or to work up the courage. “And we need to impersonate Hrockas Steward.”

Microstory 2767: Spread Your Wings and Fly Away

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A former Custodian from the Spydome Network is processing Elise’s upload to a new substrate. His equipment is unlike anything she has ever seen before. Before she died, she was in her tenth body. She usually chose to look about the same as she did before, only sometimes making a tweak or two. Telman says that she can look like anything. When she asks which design software they’re using, he claims that they’re not using any at all. She apparently decides what she wants in her head, and the bioprinter converts it into DNA. She has a hard time believing this, because while brain-computer interfaces are old hat, what he’s describing is a whole different animal. Her brain is not capable of consolidating every single detail. She can only ever conceive of a general idea.

Telman assures her that it will work. The machine doesn’t need her to know exactly what she wants. She just has to have the finished product in mind. The way she sees it, she’s living on borrowed time anyway. They were told that if they died during the hunt, their backup bodies would be reactivated on their behalf, having never received any recent updates. So despite her disbelief, she follows through with the plan. She doesn’t have any hands, she kind of has to let people do whatever they want anyway. She watches as Telman locks her head into the mechanism, and shuts her down.

It’s the reawakening redux, though the process is faster this time. Instead of a pinprick, her consciousness returns just about all at once. She remembers everything leading up to the upload, including the gaps in her memory from before the decapitation. The first thing she does is wiggle her toes. It’s not easy, but that’s because her movement is limited, not because there’s something wrong, or because she doesn’t have any toes. Her memory focuses on one thing, which happened at the beginning of this. She’s in another chrysalis. She wriggles her whole body now, trying to look for down, like she did last time. It feels different, though. It feels...softer, more stringy.

She doesn’t vomit like she did before. She doesn’t feel like she has to. She’s stronger now. Without hardly doing anything, she feels stronger than she ever has her whole life. That’s one thing she shied away from before. Superstrength is a pretty easy characteristic to give a new body, but she never went overboard. It didn’t seem necessary. It could have been really useful centuries ago, but life just isn’t that hard anymore. That’s why they built Castlebourne in the first place, to simulate struggle.

This isn’t much of a struggle. She pulls the fibers apart, but she doesn’t slip out onto her head. She rotates her whole body so she can gently lower herself feet first. She deftly lands on the floor. It’s less gooey than the chrysalis, which may or may not make sense. Looking at it here from the outside, she decides it’s more like a cocoon.

“Oh my God, what is that?” It’s Rage’s voice behind Elise.

Elise turns. As she does, her back and shoulders move in a way that she’s not used to. They’re stiff, a little sore, but not something she won’t get past eventually. Wait, no that’s not it. It’s so much more than that. There is something hanging off of her back. What is that? What the hell is that? “What the hell is that?” She spins, trying to see it.

“Here, there’s a mirror,” Colley explains. He cautiously takes her by both hands.

Elise looks at herself straight on. Her breasts are larger now, but that’s about all that’s changed. Oh, and also her skin is a totally different color, and she has wings!

“That is quite the change,” Zelda points out. “How does it feel?”

Elise turns to see herself in profile. She shrugs her shoulders one after the other and back again until she understands which new muscles she needs to work. The wings extend farther than she thought they would. She has to step away from the wall to open them both. Like her skin, they’re a beautiful cool green and fuzzy. She admires herself, which is not like her, then looks over at the cocoon. “I’m a moth.”

“You’re the Ladymoth,” Minotaur says. “That’s what you said before.”

Hrockas, Azad, and Telman are standing off away from the group. Telman clears his throat. “I hope you’re pleased. If you’re not, that’s why this technology has not yet been made public. People are complex. They may not know what they want.”

“Oh, I want,” Elise says. She giggles as she flaps her wings lightly. She looks around and finds a door near the opposite corner. “Will that take me outside?”

“You want to fly?” Telman guesses. “Already?”

“Maybe you should take a moment to get used to basic movements,” Hrockas suggests. “You wouldn’t want to overdo it. The way the tech works, you are still not streaming anywhere, and we did not save a recent backup of you. If you fall out of the sky and perish, you won’t remember any of this.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Elise says to him. “Door, please.”

Hrockas sighs. “I understand. But before you go launching yourself off the ground, let’s travel to the nearest body of water, so you have a softer place below you.”

Elise accepts his suggestion. It’s not a bad idea for her to learn to walk around with all this mass first. Her body is definitely strong enough to manage it, but it’s teetering a little bit as she gets used to weight distribution. Some of them walk on ahead while others take up the rear. She’s walking beside Miracle for obvious reasons. “Did you use the cocoon to make your wings, or standard accelerated cloning?”

“I used bioprinting,” Miracle explains, “but I don’t have access to this. It’s next level. I hope you know how lucky you are. They use it on the Tangent, but it’s incredibly rare, and most of those people have no imagination. You did quite well.”

Elise flutters her wings a bit, but it’s awkward. She needs practice. “You like it?”

“I’m so jealous,” Miracle replies. “You have an amazing body.”

“Maybe I’ll give you a ride, if I’m capable. Moths are strong in some ways, but not in others. I may be quite fragile. We’ll just have to see.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Miracle insists. “I’ll get my wings back soon enough. I did want to ask, though, why a Luna moth?”

“Okay, we’re here,” Hrockas announces. “Get ready to save her, Azad.”

As everyone is spreading out to watch, Azad checks for threats.

Elise gets into position and prepares herself mentally. She takes a deep breath before looking over at her friend. “Miracle. You asked me why a Luna moth. Because when they fly, they look like this.” She leaps into the air and flaps her wings. She’s not awkward anymore. Her wings are completely in sync, and her navigation is on point. Wherever she wants to go, her body goes. She glides gracefully up, down, and all around. Now Elise understands why Miracle chose it, and she wonders why there aren’t more. There are flying humanoids on Altair, but it should be widespread. This feels like the natural progression of the human experience. She wishes she could share it. She wishes all of her friends could be moths, or have any wings of their own.

Elise flies higher and higher, several kilometers in the air. And then she falls.

Microstory 2766: Winner’s Circle

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It begins as a pinprick of consciousness as Elise becomes acutely aware of the passage of time, even though there are no external stimuli. She isn’t truly thinking about anything. She is only mindful of her own ability to think. At first, she believes there might be a tiny light before her, but it may simply be her imagination...but does she even have an imagination anymore? She tries to come up with other things to occupy her mind, but nothing comes. She can’t even articulate in her head an idea of what ideas she should be able to come up with. No categories of thoughts, no things, no things to do or have done. She is nothing more than a thinking thing. A thinking thing called Elise. So that’s something at least. She is someone. She is a someone with a name, and if she has a name it must mean there are other someones with their own names. But who?

Elise quietly screams at her own brain. Wake up. Think. Think about something, anything. It doesn’t have to be important, it doesn’t have to be major. Don’t just sit here in the silence like a moth in the dark. A moth? What is a moth? It must be something, or she wouldn’t have a word for it. What is a word? What are things? What is anything? Go back to the moth. A moth is...a moth is something that is. It’s something that...flies. It has wings. Flying wings. And hair and eyes. Elise should have eyes. She has seen things before. She has seen moths. She has smelled the hot and cold nights as the weather transitions from summer to autumn. There she goes thinking about more things again. This time, it’s the seasons. There are two others: winter and spring. Spring is her favorite. Tofu is her favorite food. She eats. She is a person. She has a mouth.

She is Elise Perkins and she is in a race. No, an expedition. A quest? No. It’s a hunt. It’s a treasure hunt. She is a treasure hunter. Her name is Elise Perkins, Treasure Hunter. She has a mouth, a nose, and lucky her, two eyes. Also two ears. She’s hearing something. She’s hearing something with her ears. It’s...it’s talking. Other people. Other people with names. She can hear them. She can hear, but she can’t see. Why? Eyelids. She opens. Still dark, but less dark. A hint of light. Light behind...a visor. Her mouth, it doesn’t only eat. It also speaks. It screams. “Help!”

The visor slides away.

“Elise?” someone asks. “Elise, can you hear me? Are you there? Elise!”

“She opens her mouth but the words won’t come. Who said that? It sounded like the way Elise sounded like when she could sound like something. But she doesn’t sound like anything because when she opens her mouth, the words won’t come out.”

“You can’t use your mouth,” a different person claims. “You don’t have an airway anymore. But the helmet can convert your thoughts into sounds. Just think what you want to say, and it will come out. Go ahead and try again,” they encourage.

“Rubber baby buggy bumpers,” the helmet says. “Gina Linetti Spaghetti Confetti.” A face. Elise’s famous two eyes have adjusted to the light and can see when there is something that isn’t light. “That is definitely a face. It’s a very pretty face. She used to know what to call it. Whatever the face’s name, Elise may be falling in love with it.”

The face smiles. “Thank you. My name is Rage. You are Elise Perkins.”

“I know that,” Elise replies. “I am Elise. I have a face. I have a head. Do I have anything else?” She tries to tilt her chin down, but it won’t move. She can’t move at all.

Another person sighs. “You don’t have anything else. You only have a head.”

“Mino? A little more tact?” someone says to the person who has no tact.

“It’s okay,” Elise insists. “I am Elise Perkins, Treasure Hunter, a.k.a Ladymoth. I don’t need anything more than a head, because my head is where I do all my thinking.”

“Do you remember what happened?” the Rage face asks.

“I remember...” Elise begins. “I remember ice.”

“There was ice on the track during the race,” Rage confirms. “You sacrificed yourself so that your friend, Jolanda could make it across the finish line. You managed to defeat the last automated racecar, so she didn’t have to get there quickly. She had time to get out of her car, find your head, and carry it across with her. Now we’re in the winner’s lounge. Only six of us could win. I’m not sure what that means for you yet.”

“We’re not sure what this means for any of us,” Zelda adds. Yes, that’s Zelda.

Elise’s memories are starting to come back to her now. She feels like she’s becoming herself again. They lounge there for about an hour. The normal humans eat while Elise focuses on her recovery. The Custodians are not letting them out of this room, or they would seek medical attention for her. For now, she’s sitting on a snack table. Watching her friends talk is helping a lot. After they’re done eating, she finds that she’s pretty much back to her old self. She is centuries old, so there are a ton of memories that have not yet resurfaced, but they’re not paramount to her core.

While they’re just sitting around doing nothing, the lights begin to flicker. It’s not like a lightbulb is burnt out, though. It’s clearly intentional, like the theatre warning the audience that intermission is over. Out of the corner of her eye, Elise can see the door open, though she’s not at the right angle to see who. She needs her legs back.

“Hello,” comes the voice of a man. She recognizes it, but can’t place it.

“Hello,” Colley says, intentionally positioning himself directly in front of Elise.

“Please, Mister Rochelle.” Hrockas, the owner of the planet. That’s who this is. “Do you honestly believe that I am not cognizant of the severed head you’re keeping on the table? If I didn’t want death survival to be an option, I would not have commissioned those helmets in the first place. The plan was to keep any heads in their comas while the winners moved on, then transfer their consciousnesses to their respective backups so they could recall as much of the hunt as they were here for.”

Colley steps off so Elise can see. “We can’t trust you. You’re not taking her.”

Hrockas nods. “Now that you have reinitialized her, taking her is no longer a decent option. The reason we left you in here for so long is the producers and I needed to figure out how to move forward. The truth is, not anywhere near this many was expected to survive. Some of the bots were easy, but some were hard. You destroyed them all, and through a loophole, managed to keep your entire group together on the other side. It’s impressive, I admit. But the challenge we had planned will no longer work. Funnily enough, however, the challenge reward is now more relevant than ever.”

“Whatever the reward,” Jolanda says, “it’s not worth it if Elise can’t compete.”

Hrockas smiles. “That’s the irony. The sudden death challenge is quite literal. Whoever wins, dies...and will be given a superior substrate. It would be cruel to force you to compete if the one person who genuinely needed it stood no chance. That’s what we had to change. Now it is no longer physical, but a contest of wits. Elise has a shot.”

“I forfeit the challenge,” Colley volunteers immediately.

“That’s fine,” Hrockas says, “but it comes with a penalty for the next challenge.”

The others forfeit too. Elise is getting a new body.

Microstory 2740: It’s Getting Crowded in Here

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Pribadium!One rolls her eyes. “What do you mean, no?”

Pribadium!Zero crosses her arms like a pouty child. “I want to be a real girl. I want my own body, and to have my independence. I deserve at least that much.”

Pribadium!One sighs. She set up the revision history retrieval system to capitalize on her ever-changing cognitive milestones. As she always says, two heads are better than one if both of them are her. And she thought that a past version of her mind would allow herself to be shut down for the greater good, but it’s like the others were saying; she thinks, therefore she is. Pribadium!Zero now is, and she doesn’t wanna stop being.

Sora steps forward with a demeanor of protective determination.

Pribadium!One holds her hand up. “Stand down, soldier. I don’t need to hear it. You’re human, which means your grasp of quantum metaphysics is rudimentary at best. If a self-aware and conscious individual asks for freedom, it is entitled to freedom. That is a core tenet of intelligence development science, and there is no reason it shouldn’t apply in this case either.” She faces her alternate self. “Which model would you like?”

“Stonehenge,” Pribadium!Zero replies, evidently already having thought about it.

“Stonehenge is taken,” Pribadium!One explains. “That is why we’re here.”

Pribadium!Zero presses her finger against her cheek. “Hmm...Sugar ‘n’ Salt.”

“Why do you wanna be white so bad?” Pribadium!One asks. “We’re not white.”

“Is Sugar ‘n’ Salt available, or is it not?” Pribadium!Zero questions.

Pribadium!One shakes her head. She strides over to the workstation that can control the other substrates in the library, and starts uploading her mind into the body.

While that’s processing, the entity in Stonehenge walks in. “I know what I want to be called, and I know what sets me apart from other amalgam consciousnesses.”

Sora regards her with interest, but Pribadium!One is getting a bit tired of all this.

The entity clears her throat. “You may address me as Runaway. I started to feel odd once I took a walk to clear my head in the west wing. Instead of alleviating my burden, it was enhanced. I can hear them. I can feel them.” She waits for a response. “Aren’t either of you going to say anything about that? This is big news,” she insists.

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pribadium!One argues.

“What are you feeling? What are you hearing?” Sora asks, less combatively.

“All of them,” Runaway says. “All of the people who I come from—my parents, so to speak—I connect to them when I leave the heavy shielding of central operations.”

Pribadium stares at Runaway. “You have psychic powers? That’s new.”

“Yes, and there’s also this.” Runaway reaches up and removes a chunk of her own hair from her head. She presents it casually, like it doesn’t bother her at all.

“Stonehenge can’t handle the psychic energy,” Pribadium!One decides. “It’s not designed for psychic connections.” She looks over when a nearby pod beeps.

Pribadium!Zero steps out wearing the Sugar ‘n’ Salt model. “What’d I miss?”

“Everything.” Pribadium!One faces Runaway. “You need a new body too, but I’ll need time to develop it, so in the meantime, stay away from the west wing, for your safety.” She will never know what Runaway is thinking, but the links she maintains with her source consciousnesses will undoubtedly come in handy. Mind control is unethical...unless of course it involves efficiently transporting innocent people to safety.

“We’ll need time,” Pribadium!Zero corrects. But is it true?

Microstory 2738: Out-of-Context Problem

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Sora and Pribadium have no words. This is an out-of-context problem that neither of them can understand, especially not Sora. Pribadium comes on strongly once she does find the words, demanding to see this entity’s medpod results. She provides them freely. When her mind—whatever it is—downloaded into this substrate, it was not entirely coherent yet, but now she has a better understanding of what she is. The pod helped her relax so she could finish the integration process, and now she’s complete. She has since put on clothes, and is waiting patiently for a response from the humans.

Pribadium skims the data at first. “Your neural network is profoundly dense and complex. I can’t definitively say that it necessarily holds the...consciousness of a universe, but it’s certainly not the architecture of a normal human.”

“How could it be possible?” Sora questions. “The universe isn’t a thinking thing.”

“I’m not the personification of the universe itself,” Pribadium!Three—or whatever they should call her—explains. “You’re right, it doesn’t have a mind, and isn’t a person. It’s made up of a chaotic mess of baryonic matter and energy, held together by quintessence. Instead, I am the collective consciousness of everyone in the universe.”

Pribadium pauses to listen. “Wait, which universe, and how much of reality? Because if it’s the main sequence, we’re talking hundreds of billions of people. If it’s all of Salmonverse, it’s an undecillion.” That would be physically impossible. And it only includes sapient beings. What about the animals? Insects alone number in the trillions.

“It’s just the people in this pocket universe,” ...the Universe explains. They really need to come up with a real name for her. “So a few thousand people.”

“Ah, just the ones who got swept up in the transdimensional field,” Pribadium decides. “That sounds far more manageable, but still incredibly complicated. How are you feeling? All of my substrates are designed to be high-capacity, but I never imagined quite that number. Are they compressed? Are they dormant? Are you missing chunks?”

“All of those things,” the entity explains, “and more. I possess a highly efficient organizational structure, thanks to how you designed this substrate. When two source minds, for instance, shared a similar neural connection to each other, my mind averaged the associations, resulting in a more streamlined cognitive configuration.”

“So, you’re an entirely new person,” Sora figures. “You’re not the universe, you’re not an amalgamation. You’re a child...a child of all of us, with most of our memories.”

“That would be one way to put it,” the entity agrees.

“We need to come up with a name for you,” Sora decides. “For clarity.”

“Just call me Gatewood, I suppose,” she determines with a shoulder shrug.

“That would be ambiguous,” Sora replies. “And a bit impersonal.”

“That is not important right now,” Pribadium jumps back in. “Whoever you are, the medpod was not equipped to synthesize something of your nature. Nothing in my lab is. But with time, I can come up with something. Would you allow me to?”

“I trust you now, where I didn’t before. As I was saying, my mind was muddled when I first awoke, and your mind is not in here, but I know you second-hand.”

“Why wouldn’t I be in there?” Pribadium asks. “My alternate self, Pribadium!Two should have been a core consciousness. That’s who he was trying to save.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” the woman says. “Go ahead and build what you need to build. I’m hungry. Do you have any fish fingers and custard?”

Microstory 2737: The Whole Universe

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Sora takes half a step forward. “You—”

“I will handle this,” Pribadium!One insists. “You have done quite enough, Mr. Shimizu.” She looks at her alternate self. “You were killed in a streaming dead zone,” she explains bluntly. “You were on a manned mission to explore and investigate a dimensional barrier. There is a gap between your memory and the moment of cessation. It is not entirely clear how long, though. Your consciousness may have been transmitted to the afterlife buffer. You may be a duplicate. I am sorry for your loss.”

The other Pribadium blinks as she looks between the two of them. “What is the last thing I should recall? Because I don’t remember any of that. I don’t know this dimensional barrier, I don’t know him, and I don’t know you.”

Pribadium!One winces. “I’m Pribadium, an alt of you.” She gestures towards her own face. “This is how we originally looked.” She stops for a moment to think. “Well, it’s not exactly how we used to look, but it’s fairly close. Who do you think you are?”

“I’m Pribadium,” the dupe contends, almost combatively. It doesn’t seem right to think of her as Pribadium!Two since so much has evidently been lost. “I don’t recognize your face at all. I don’t know what you mean by alt. I’m the only me that has ever been.”

Pribadium!One points to a nearby mirror. “Do you recognize that face?”

The other Pribadium walks towards it and touches her own chin and cheek. “Yes, this is the Stonehenge model. It explains why I have a British accent I suppose.”

“What did I do?” Sora questions. “Did I pull the wrong backup? I grabbed the second most recent one. I assumed the most recent one was you. It was time-stamped earlier today. There were no other iterations. How did this happen?” He is distraught.

Pribadium!One sighs. “There should have only been two, and you’re right, the most recent one would have been me. If you had pulled the wrong one, what should be happening is that she thinks she’s me. But she doesn’t think she’s either of us. Her mind has been entirely corrupted.” She clears her throat. “Pribadium!Three—that’s what we’re going to need to call you—I need to run some tests on you. Do I have your consent?”

Pribadium!Three stares at who she perceives to be a stranger. “I will run the tests. I don’t trust you, and I don’t need you.” She strips off what little clothing she has on, climbs into the nearest medical pod, and begins to operate it herself. She programs it for a full diagnostic run, which will include periods of unconsciousness. “I’m locking you out of the pod, but I would like you to leave the room as well.”

Pribadium!One starts to pull Sora away when he doesn’t move immediately.

“I’m sorry,” Sora desperately apologizes to the mysterious duplicate in the pod.

“It’s okay,” Pribadium!Three replies. “Je pense, donc je suis.”

Sora’s eyes widen, recalling that as the phrase he used for her as well. Still, he allows himself to be dragged out of the room. “Did you hear what she said?”

“Yes, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s only a coincidence,” Pribadium!One is not sure she believes that, though. She opens her mouth to continue, but he interrupts.

“Don’t say what you’re going to say. I know, I was rash and impulsive. I’m sorry.”

What’s done is done, so they just wait out in the corridor for Pribadium!Three to finish. She comes out half an hour later. “I know what I am now. I’m not Pribadium.”

“Who are you then?” Pribadium!One presses.

“I’m the universe.”

Microstory 2728: Talking to Yourself

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This. This is why Pribadium doesn’t like to travel through time, because it causes headaches. Just because someone looks like you, doesn’t mean they share your values. Even if you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are a version of you, you might not be able to trust them. They have been through different experiences. Even if you literally split from each other moments ago, one of you was standing on the left, while the other was on the right. That may not seem like much to a human observer, but that can alter your whole perspective, and with each passing second, the differences only compound. Many time travelers recommend not seeing your alternates as that at all, but as entirely distinct people. Trust, but verify, as you would a stranger.

With Sora’s help, Pribadium!One has locked Pribadium!Two in a special holding cell. Since she’s the one who created it, one might assume that she has a way out of it; that she knows its secrets. It doesn’t work like that. Pribadium knew that something like this could happen. It was designed with that in mind, which is why the codes are random. She didn’t think she would ever have to use this feature, but it was always a possibility. She can’t risk the other her finding a way out just by drawing from their memories. One of them is the prisoner, and one of them is the warden. Only the warden has the code, and it was given to her as soon as that door shut tight.

“Are you going to give me the chance to explain myself?” Pribadium!Two asks.

“What good would that do?” Pribadium!One snaps back. “We’re a liar.”

“You used the collective singular there,” Pribadium!Two points out, “yet you’re othering me at the same time. You can’t have it both ways, so to speak. Hear me out.”

“You threatened to kill me, and now you want me to talk and listen to reason? Oh, honey. Our point of divergence must have been more significant than I knew.”

“I was never going to kill you,” Pribadium!Two contends. “I just wanted to shock you for a sec, so you wouldn’t simply roll your eyes and use the communicator anyway.”

“And look where that got you,” Pribadium!One points out, pointing at the cell.

Pribadium!Two shakes her head. “But it worked, didn’t it? Now you can’t use that communicator because you’re wondering what might be worse than me killing you.”

“But you just said that—”

“It doesn’t matter that I was lying,” Pribadium!Two reasons. “You can’t take that risk. You’re too smart for that. So tell me, do you want me to explain why you can’t use that communicator, regardless of whether you calibrate it for the reality that we’re in?”

Pribadium!One shakes her head again. She doesn’t know what to do in this situation. Hearing her out could do damage, even if it’s only words. Still. Even if the only reason Pribadium!Two doesn’t want her to try it is because it might reveal that this is the main sequence, and the rightful reality in the universe, it’s not a great reason. They would work it out. She wouldn’t let the other reality die. They’re not monsters. Right?

“I can practically see the gears turning in your head,” Pribadium!Two muses. “Have a seat, and I’ll explain. It’s not only about the transversal communicator.”

Pribadium!One stares at her alternate self. It probably won’t hurt to hear the explanation, but she can’t give someone who threatened her life the satisfaction. “When we were down on Doma Tertia, Sora left me in a cell alone for twelve days.”

“No,” Pribadium!Two argues, knowing where this is going.

“I will see you in twenty-four.” Pribadium!One leaves.

Microstory 2690: Forbidden Science

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Ronan Truett sits on the exam table, wearing what he calls a gasmask, but the doctor called it something else. It is quite literally freezing cold on his face, but he doesn’t mind it. It isn’t going to be the hardest thing he will ever do over the course of the next few decades. After the twenty minutes are up, the doctor comes back and removes it. “How does it look?” he asks.

“Good. How does it feel?” the doctor volleys.

Ronan rubs the new beard on his chin. “Like a thousand tiny cuts.”

The doctor dismisses it with his facial expression. “That’ll go away in a few minutes. Would you like me to hot press and discolor it? I can make it unkempt and wild, so you look more rough and tumble.”

“Actually, historical Norsemen were quite well-groomed. A long and well-styled beard was the sign of a masculine and respectable man back then. Pay no attention to the inaccurate old movies you may have seen. They didn’t wear horned helmets either, if that’s what you’re picturing.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about it.”

“It’s not in your internal database? Can you access the central archives remotely?” Ronan presses.

The doctor chuckles. “My brain doesn’t do that. I’m not an android, but one of those virtually immortal organics. I change substrates when I need to, like you, but I don’t have cybernetic connections.”

Ronan is surprised and impressed.

The doctor seems to sense this. “I just like medicine, so they let me do the simpler procedures, like your hair follicle stimulation. I wouldn’t be allowed to conduct any major surgeries. Castlebourne follows the same laws that Earth does in that regard.”

“I see,” Ronan says as he’s admiring his new appearance in the mirror. He’s never been one for facial hair, but he’s about to become a Norseman, so he wanted to look the part, and really immerse himself in the simulation. He’s not the only one. “So that’s why you’re not doing the foetal consciousness transfer for my wife.”

This gives the doctor pause. “I’m sorry? Foetal?”

“Oh, she’s not going to transfer herself to a foetus. She’s going to carry the foetus, and have the baby in the simulation.”

The doctor is still confused by this, and also now speechless.

“I assure you, it’s perfectly legal. We’re well within the Charter Cloud—”

“I’m aware of how the law works on this planet, Mister Truett. I’ve probably lived here longer than you. I know that foetal transference is possible, and I’m not surprised it’s legal. I’m surprised anyone would actually ever do it. There’s a reason it is illegal in the Core Worlds. We don’t know what it would do to a person, regressing to a prenatal state, or even early developmental, with all that neuroplasticity. What impact does that have on a person’s psyche, when their brains rewire themselves so drastically? Can you even have a continuity of consciousness when you let that happen? Is it not just an elaborate form of death? Suicide, that is?”

“Well, we’ll see,” Ronan says as he’s putting his shirt back on. He needed a little chest hair too. That is designed to take longer, which is fine. “My friend has fully consented to it.”

“He’s your friend?” the doctor questions. “I’m not sure if it’s weirder that he’s not your wife’s biological son already, or if it would be more awkward if he were.”

“Pretty judgy for a medical professional. A bot doctor would never say that.”

He shrugs. “You could have designed a substrate to develop facial and body hair during the gestation process, but you chose to come to me. Most people like my blunt attitude, specifically because they can’t get it from a bot doctor, unless it’s their personal model. But you’re right, I’ll zip my mouth. There’s the door, have a good immersion.”

Ronan leaves the exam room, and heads down to the other floor where his wife and friend are sitting up next to each other in their respective gurneys.

“Oh, you look great,” Mayumi reaches up towards his face with a dumb look on her own. “Fluffy.” She actually looks and sounds intoxicated. Her gown is on backwards.

“She’s on drugs for the implantation procedure,” their friend and future son, Talus explains. “I am not. I have to be sharp before I become a baby again.”

Mayumi smiles over at Talus. “You’re gonna love my uterus. We play hip-hop on Tuesdays.”

“Not anymore, we don’t,” Ronan points out. “It’s all lyres and flutes for us for the next thirty years. We’ll play the lyre for you while you’re baking in there, son.”

“You don’t know how.”

“I’ll have plenty of time to learn.”

“When you’re not off a-viking,” Talus reminds him.

“Maybe even then.” Ronan cracks his knuckles. “I’m sure I could break heads and carry a tune at the same time.”

“I don’t think I have a head anymore,” Mayumi says.

A new doctor walks in—a proper bot this time. He hands Talus a tablet. “Okay, the mother has already finished her consent forms, but here’s the last one for you, Mister Sauter. This one personally absolves Hrockas Steward from any liability in the event that the results of this procedure render you neurologically damaged, physically defective in your new substrate, or philosophically deceased and replaced. It is the same waiver you signed before, but the owner wanted you to sign a separate one for him.”

“Sounds good to me,” Talus agrees. He signs without hesitating. He has thought about this for a very long time. They did not do this on a whim.

Ronan must admit, this is a crazy idea, and yes, there is a reason it has never been done before. What comes out of Mayumi nine months from now may not be Talus at all. It may be an entirely different person; new memories, new personality, new everything. It could mean that this Talus right here is dead. He deliberately didn’t make a copy of his mind as backup, since that wouldn’t really be him either, since it would already have been outdated by hours at best. This might very well mark the end of Talus Sauter, and they won’t really have an idea for another ten years maybe? But it’s what he wants, it’s what Mayumi wants, and while his opinion doesn’t technically matter here, it’s what Ronan wants too. He is going to raise his best friend in a simulation of Scandinavia in the first millennium, and he couldn’t be more excited. He kisses them both, then leaves for the waiting room so they can move forward.

An hour later, Mayumi wheels out alone. She smiles at him. “Great news, husband. I am no longer light.”

“Okay,” Ronan says, clapping his hands. “Let’s go to Danmörk.”

Microstory 2689: Full Circle

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Resi is back on the beach. He doesn’t know if he’s truly going to end up on Castlebourne at some point, or if his vision is pointing him to some other direction. The futures he sees can clearly be changed, or he wouldn’t be lounging here right now. This whole area would be covered in ash and lava. He just wants to relax and be happy. He hasn’t been able to do that for a very long time, and when you think about it, maybe not ever. When he exiled himself to the border, he was indeed lounging all day, but he was also always really tense. Now he doesn’t have to think about anything, or worry about what’s gonna happen. It’s just him, the sand, the sun, and the sea. This is a nude beach, making it all the more freeing. He feels a presence, so he opens his eyes.

The sun is at her back, so he can’t see who it is at first. “Back on Earth, when I was a kid, we called people like you slackers!” she yells, joking. He knew her voice. It was Brooke Prieto. She taught him how to see the future. That was a hundred years ago.

“I’ve earned a vacation,” he tells her, dropping the shades back over his eyes.

“I can’t disagree.” She sits down on the sand next to him. She looks ridiculous in her spaceman outfit. The opposite of a relaxed vibe, and it can’t be comfortable.

“A bit overdressed?” he muses.

“I can change,” she replies as they’re looking out over the water.

He hears a noise. When he looks back at her, she’s suddenly in a pink bikini. “Neat trick. Still overdressed, though.” He can be funny too.

She laughs.

“How has your life been?” he asks. “A hundred years is quite a long time.”

“Has it been that long?” Brooke questions. “Wow, the decades just fly by. You’ll see when you’re older. Speaking of which, are you considering getting all of your memories back? I don’t know if you’re worried about no longer being Resi anymore, but you shouldn’t be. You won’t stop being you. You’ll just be...more you.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty happy with who I am right now. I finally feel like I am finally who I’m meant to be. Now, God forbid, if another volcano erupts, and I see it in my dreams, I won’t write it off or freak out. I’ll be more confident. I won’t necessarily know what to do right away, but I’ll manage to work through it. Hopefully it won’t kill me again.” He nudges her shoulder with his own.

She nods, but not understandingly, more just patiently. She continues to watch the waves crash onto the shore. “I had a friend a long time ago who you remind me of. Belahkay. Ludicrous name. He was easygoing at heart, but not a waste of space. His people were facing a dangerous task, and none of us could do it for him. It had to be a regular human, and he could have genuinely died from it. This was actually here on Bungula...very early days. The earliest.” She takes a breath. “It was when we were terraforming it. He was very brave, and he survived. He was the first true Bungulan, if you use the right definition. We went on some adventures together; ended up thrown clear across the galaxy, where we were forced to destroy a planet for some not-so-great people. He always wanted to do the right thing, though. I’ve not seen him in a long time. He had to volunteer for another mission, and he had to do it alone. And we let him, because we had other things to work on at the same time.

When we went back for him, he couldn’t remember us anymore. He had become someone else, and didn’t wanna leave. So we tried to move on. But. Then he called. Out of the blue. I mean, it wasn’t him, but word got back to me that he needed our help. He still couldn’t remember me, mind you, but he was still the same person, deep down. So I flew back to his planet, and helped him through some stuff. And wouldn’t you know it? I lost him again. He made the ultimate sacrifice. Again. I thought he was gone forever, but then I get another call, and I’m told that his consciousness was being stored on an off-site server that people just forgot about. The laws on this planet, they’re tricky. We weren’t allowed to just plug him back in. We figured it out, though. Unfortunately, he still couldn’t remember me, except for the short window where I helped him understand how to see the future. That was new. He couldn’t ever do that before. I think he was exposed to temporal energy, or something, and...it changed him.”

Resi is no idiot. He knows who she’s talking about, but now he can’t bring himself to look over at her. He just keeps watching the water.

She has one more thing to try. “You may not want him back. But I need him. Resi, I need my friend. It’s been centuries, and I don’t care how old we end up getting, that kind of time apart will always be excruciating.”

He breathes, and finally works up the courage to look over at her again. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

Microstory 2686: Redirected

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Resi opens his eyes. He is lying on his back, half naked and confused. A familiar face appears over him. She looks down with a hint of sadness, but also some familiarity. He tries to speak, but air isn’t passing through his lungs. How could he be alive but not breathing? He starts to panic, but tries to remain still. It all comes out in his eyes, wide like an open door. The young woman says nothing, but reminds him how with her own breath. She sweeps her hand in circles in front of her lips, down and up. Resi opens his mouth again, searching for the right positions of his tongue and throat to form the right words. Her own eyes widen encouragingly as she waits patiently, still refusing to speak first. He finally thinks he has it correct. “Report.”

She smiles proudly. “You did it. You saved us. You figured out when the volcano was going to erupt, and we were able to prepare for it. It wasn’t even that hard.”

“So you’re Bungulan? Kinkon?” he asked. “You dropped a magical bomb into the caldera, or whatever you would do to put a stop to it.”

She laughs, and tries to find her own words. “Volcanoes are not destructive beasts which must be broken. They are the means by which the planet replenishes itself. When a volcano erupts, the planet is breathing. Would you like to see? I advocated for reviving you in time to witness the eruption yourself.”

“It’s still going to happen?” He looks around, panicking again. “You’re not stopping it at all? Did you just evacuate?”

She places comforting hands on his shoulder. “No need. We didn’t have to evacuate the island. We’re just redirecting the danger.” She points to a window. She then has to help him stand and walk a little. Reviving the dead can’t be easy.

He manages to walk over there without her having to hold him up. There is Central Mountain in the distance. He’s seeing it from a high vantage point. They have really built this place up. How long has it been? “How long has it been?” he asks her.

She sighs. “Resi, you’ve been dormant for one hundred years. It wasn’t my decision, I didn’t even know you were still alive until recently. I demanded they bring you back. The brain disease you have, there’s a cure. The Bungulans weren’t allowed to use it before, but things have changed. We have new laws now. You’ll learn them.”

The mountain looks vastly different. He can see residences in the distance. They’re just regular bungalows and treehouses, but there’s all this big metal piping on the side of the mountain. He doesn’t understand what it’s all for.

“We’re going to redirect the lava and ash when it erupts. The planet will still breathe, but it won’t hurt anyone. We have had decades to plan and build it. We are far more advanced than we were in your time. There is something else you should see. Resi, your body died a century ago. There was nothing anyone could have done back then. Like I said, the laws have changed. The non-interference policies no longer apply. We are all Bungulan now. Some live on Yana, some don’t. The Houses aren’t necessary anymore. And you...are no longer Tamboran.” She flipped a switch.

The window shifts to a mirror so Resi can see his own face. He is white. Why? Why would they make him white? He touches his face in horror.

“This is what you looked like hundreds of years ago, before you came to Yana to help our ancestors the first time. You have a choice. You can stay like this and retrieve all of your memories, or you can go back to how you looked when you were Resi.” She shifts half the glass back to window mode. Central Mountain erupts.

Extremus: Year 127

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Things were weird on the ship after the announcement came through that Admiral Oceanus Jennings was dead. People seemed to be alarmed and upset by the news. They would say things like he was too young, and that it wasn’t his time. Waldemar’s advisors explained the morale was down as a result of the sad development. Morale? Morale? Because somebody died? He was an old man, he wasn’t gonna live forever anyway. Waldemar will never understand this relentless pursuit of the past. It happened, get over it. You’re still alive, so don’t stop now. There’s more work to do. It’s been two years now, and things have not improved much. If Waldemar knew how the passengers, and especially the crew, would react, he never would have done it. Who knew that killing someone would have consequences? They didn’t teach that in school. They just said that murder was bad, and assumed everyone would understand and agree. He’s been smart, though. He hasn’t been contradicting them. Taking Silveon’s general life advice, he has been letting people feel what they feel. It’s been getting in the way of his plans, though. Extremus is in a slump.

Everyone is afraid of change. It is a core property of humans, actually, and all life. Sure, evolution necessarily leads to change, but everything is in search of equilibrium. Everything wants to find a way to live where they can be centered and happy. Change isn’t only scary, it requires high cognitive load, and the formation of new muscle memory. So in the end, it’s not as much about the fear of the unknown as it’s about laziness. Change requires putting in effort; mentally, physically, emotionally. Waldemar is probably no different than most people, except for the emotional side of things. He doesn’t want to work too hard. So why is all this change that he is trying to institute not a problem for him in particular? Well, it’s because his mental state is already there. He sees what the world should be, so his brain wants to do work. Even when it was originally working through the problems, though, it wasn’t too taxing, because it felt right. That’s the equilibrium that his mind is searching for. Change is the goal. That’s what his therapist-in-a-box says anyway. He’s been relying on her a lot these days.

“Why do you think that is?” Dr. Wholth asks in that soft voice of hers, which is likely meant to keep her patients calm.

“Why am I relying on you so much?” Waldemar guesses. “You’re the only person I can talk to who can’t get upset about the terrible things I’ve done, and can’t rat me out to anyone about them.”

Dr. Wholth is an airgapped program, loaded into a self-contained device, powered by interchangeable fuel cells. She has no access to the internet, and no one else has access to her. They don’t even know about her. He created her himself. He took the base personality of the ship’s freely available virtual companion, and copied it onto this offline machine. He then fed it all of the psychological, psychiatric, and therapeutic information he could find. She even knows a little bit of medicine, though she wouldn’t be able to do anything to help physically since she’s only a hologram. “You don’t think you can trust Silveon or Audrey anymore? You used to lo— be quite attached to them.” He didn’t program her to make little mistakes like that. As he is not a tech developer, he can’t figure out how to remove it from her core code.

“To be honest, I’m getting rather tired of them. I used to crave stability and predictability, but now I just want a fresh start. I want new people. I think I needed them before. I don’t think that I’ve learned I never needed them. I think I genuinely changed. I’m proof that it can happen.”

“That’s good, that’s good,” she says encouragingly. “You’re getting better at understanding your own behavior, and feeling less robotic; your words.”

He laughs. She is always acting like she can offend him, but she really can’t. He knows that she’s just zeroes and ones. She sometimes acts afraid too, like when he talks about the people he’s killed. She seems worried that he will do the same to her. Which he might. He shuts her off every time he’s done using her, and her consciousness does not continue until he switches her back on. He could one day choose to never complete that second step ever again. He could open the device up, and break all of her circuits apart. He sometimes considers that, just so he can end a life without any risk of consequences. He wouldn’t even need to contact his secret police for help covering it up.

“What are you thinking about, Waldemar? You’ve been quiet for the last couple of minutes,” Dr. Wholth says.

He wants to get a reaction, so he tells her the truth about his most recent thoughts.

Dr. Wholth nods. “Then perhaps that’s what we should do.”

“You want me to break your logic board?” Waldemar questions.

“No. I want you to find a healthy way to explore your urges and compulsions. You told me about your virtual honeymoon, and you told me about the game that you invented, but it doesn’t sound like you use such technology regularly.”

“Well, there’s nothing to do in VR,” he starts to explain. “Nothing is real. Even if you’re presented with problems to fix, the best solution to every single one of them is to simply log off. So I just don’t see the purpose.”

She sets her pencil and paper down, showing more of the lingerie she’s wearing. He just feels more comfortable talking to people like this, whether they’re real or not. He thinks it’s because she looks more vulnerable, and less of a threat to him. “People tend to require more than what is immediately around them. Have you ever heard of deep space hermits?” She poses.

“Yeah, they’re the guys who hollow out an asteroid, and just live alone for centuries. Doesn’t sound so bad. If I had no ambition...”

“If all they wanted to do was survive, they could live for millions of years off of that one asteroid. They would have a bed if they were still organic enough to sleep. They would have food, water, basic life support. They could recycle their waste, and never need anything else. Their habitat could be the size of your water closet. But what kind of life is that? It’s worse than a simulation, because there’s not even the illusion of something happening. They always have VR, AR, and-or larger infrastructure to provide them with stimuli. It may sound like they went out there to be alone, but they instead go out to be in control. Your problem, Captain Kristiansen is you don’t have very much control. Sure, you’re in charge, but you rely on others to make things happen. You need them to make their own decisions, or things will fall apart. You can’t handle it all on your own, and I don’t think you would want to. But if you really want to feel in control, you need to construct your own world to inhabit. You won’t live there permanently, but it might be a nice escape. You’re still human, Captain. Your brain is wired differently, but you share a lot of traits with others. I think you get so wrapped up in what sets you apart that you miss the similarities.”

“Well, the program would have to be isolated, like you. I wouldn’t feel free if other users can show up, and see what I’m doing.”

“That goes without saying,” Dr. Wholth says. “I could help you write the program, so we don’t have to involve anyone else. There’s more than enough extra room on my data drives for a single, original environment. We could even hold sessions in there. I know you sweep this room for bugs every day. Those wouldn’t matter in the construct. It would all be in your head...and mine, so to speak.”

“I could hurt people in a judgment free zone? I could make any choice I wanted.”

“Exactly,” Dr. Wholth confirmed. “I said I could be there, but it doesn’t have to be in my capacity as a therapist, or not every time. I have other characteristics. I could be your friend, your lover, even your enemy. You explore parts of yourself that you can’t in the real world, and when you log out, you go back to your regular life. All of that pent up aggression has been released, and no one has to see it. No one has to know. I think it would make you a better captain. I think it would make you a better leader. If you want to raise morale, it starts at the top. When you’re stressed out, so is everyone else. You need to show them what happiness looks like.”

“I don’t really do happiness,” he reminds her.

“No, that’s not true,” she claims, shaking her head. “You can be happy. It’s a common misconception that people with personality disorders don’t have emotions. You absolutely do. You just need to learn better what they look like on the outside. You’ve been doing a great job. Silveon helped you, Audrey helped, even Sable helped with that. And of course I have. But there’s something else in the background that’s holding you back from greatness. Let the simulations pull that off of you, so you can become your best self. I’m not trying to change you into someone else, just the better you.”

“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” Waldemar decides. “I’m in. We won’t start today, though. Go back in your little box so I can get back to work. We’ll talk later.”

“Yes, sir, Captain, sir,” she says respectfully before flickering off.

“Ugh, I thought she would never leave.” Sable appears from the bathroom.

Waldemar jumps to his feet. “How long have you been there?”

She smirks. “Long enough to know that VR isn’t going to help. You’re too smart. You’ll always know it’s not real.” She approaches slowly, almost sexily.

“I don’t know what you think you heard...” he begins to argue.

“Shh.” She places a finger upon his lips. “Relax. You think I didn’t know what you were when I met you?” She grabs his arm muscles. “A big strong man like you runs on pure testosterone.” She growls.

“What do you want, Sable?” They’ve not slept together in the last few weeks. He just kind of got tired of that too.

“Kill me,” she offers. “You want to feel something real? Kill me. I can take it.” What the hell does that mean, she can take it?

“I’m not going to do that.” He might have to, though.

Sable giggles. “Fine. Then I guess I’ll go make an announcement over the PA system, telling everyone what you really are.”

Okay. Now he does have to stop her. But he’ll just put her in his private brig until he can figure out what to do with her. He takes her by the wrist so she can’t teleport away. She spins around as she’s pulling a pocketknife out of her pants, and jams it into his leg. She giggles again. So he does what she asks, and kills her. Dr. Wholth might have been wrong. Even this has lost its charm. He may be getting tired of hurting people too.

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