Microstory 2507: Pain Feeler

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I can feel your pain, and kindle your ecstasy. Isn’t that such an interesting way to put it? You know, these gifts we had; they didn’t come with instruction manuals. We had to figure out how they worked, and develop ways to explain them. Other people’s gifts might be a little vague and profound, but mine was simple. If you were in physical and/or emotional pain, I could feel that. Fortunately, I could choose not to feel it. Not everyone on the team could exercise so much control, and switch it off when they didn’t want it. I don’t know if I could have lived with myself if I couldn’t so I’m grateful for that, and I’m sure Landis is too. Basically, what I did was make people feel better. It was only a temporary solution, and a very complicated and delicate process to navigate. Sure, I could have run around the world alone, essentially as a walking-talking recreational drug, but that’s not going to help anyone in the long-term. And honestly, if they wanted to feel better in the way that I could help them, they could just do it themselves. What I did was only one step of the program. When it was the right time, I eased their suffering, so they could think clearly, and figure out how they were going to improve their lives. It wouldn’t work if I did it too early, because then they would have kind of forgotten what was so upsetting to them in the first place. They would basically treat my gift as the only useful solution, and not worry about what would happen when it wore off. I couldn’t do it too late either, or they would get frustrated that they did all this work, and I could have just solved their problems right away. I had to find a balance, which was the hardest part of the job. These days, I’m pretty happy. I loved what I used to do, and I think about it sometimes, but it’s kind of nice to just have a regular job, and live a regular life. Things were so complex, and I was always having to think about how I was going to kindle someone’s ecstasy. Now I move boxes from a truck to a shelf, or a shelf to a truck. There’s an answer for everything, and you know when you’ve done it wrong. And the burden of responsibility was a weight on my shoulders that I didn’t know I was carrying until it was gone. Basically, all I’m trying to say is that I’m glad that it happened, and I’m happy with what I have now. I don’t think I could say the same if my life were just one or the other. Landis is going to cure everyone one day, and while it won’t necessarily alleviate pain, I know that it will help, and it’s more than I could have ever done on my own.

Microstory 2468: Internal Security Dome

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I can’t say too much about this dome. It wouldn’t be secure. But I can assure you that security personnel have ears and eyes everywhere while still managing to protect your privacy. Internal institutional domes like this one don’t typically have a review section for obvious reasons, but my boss asked me to write something up after my audit in order to maintain at least some connection to the public. I don’t work in ISD, but in Castledome. An unattached intelligence will periodically be sent to any given dome at any given time to assess productivity and general soundness of the facilities in question. Of course, each dome handles its own internal audits, but it’s always good to have a second opinion. It’s not that we don’t trust our various branches and divisions. We’re not trying to catch them in any mistakes, but you know, things break down, and procedures start to drift. Or they can, rather. The system overall on this planet is quite robust, full of non-wasteful redundancies, and resource-efficient protocols. The security is good. I only suggested minor improvements, but that is to be expected. There are more people on this planet today than there were yesterday, and there will be more tomorrow. The number of people who visit far outweigh the number of people who leave. We have a very low turnover rate in general, and that makes security an ever-changing beast. It is not easy to keep up with it, but our security team manages to do it with flying colors. I kind of wish that I could keep auditing it myself, but as I’ve explained, that would defeat the purpose of it being impartial, and having fresh eyes. It’s the only one that gets these evaluations on a very strict basis, but now I have to move on to something else, and let one of my colleagues handle the next one here. I’m sure they’ll pass the test just as well next time. I have full faith in these intelligences.

Microstory 2444: The Sandbox

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This dome isn’t for everyone, but it’s available to anyone. Do you have an idea for a new dome, or an improvement on a preexisting dome? You can come here to conceptualize, pitch, and even engineer these designs. Not everyone here has the educational or working background to translate their thoughts into functioning prototypes, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have their voices heard. I’m not either of these people. I don’t have any ideas, or the means to implement them. But I did want to hear from other people, and they were totally cool with this. Some meetings have closed doors, but it was always very clear. They have a constantly updating map on their prospectus, which shows you when and where the next meetings will be, and whether you’re allowed to just show up to watch and listen. It’s not even always about some crazy and unique concept that’s meant to blow people’s minds. I was at this one pitch from someone from a planet that I had never heard of because it was mostly just a number. She was asking whether they might consider building smaller domes for smaller communities. I can’t tell you whether they’re going to do that, but it’s not a bad suggestion. I’ve always wondered why every dome has the exact same dimensions regardless of the theme. My gut tells me that they constructed all the domes in one go, pressurized them, and only decided afterwards what the purpose of each one was going to be. That would be an all right excuse, but there’s still a lot of land out there that hasn’t been domed over, mostly because the terrain doesn’t allow it, but again, if it’s going to be smaller, that might be okay. Or, instead of that, you could have one large dome with lots of smaller domes inside of it, which might be good enough for what that woman was looking for. Anyway, the Sandbox is for ideas. If you have even only one suggestion, you can send this dome a message, or take the vactrain to it. They seem to be really considering the feedback that they receive. If an idea grows from there, it looks like they sometimes begin building models or prototypes here before making an investment at full scale. A lot of those were kept secret, though, and even the ones I did see, I don’t feel comfortable reporting. You’ll just have to come see for yourself, and find out what they’re willing to show you.

Fluence: Amal (Part IX)

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Eight Point Seven took hold of Goswin, and laid him gently onto the floor. Blood leaked out of him like a popped water balloon. He screamed when Iolanta instinctively applied pressure to his wound, forgetting that her hands were covered in citrus juice. Airlock Karen drenched his abdomen with water. Eight Point Seven was not a doctor, but she had all necessary medical knowledge in her memory banks, because there was no reason not to. “Briar! Briar! I need a med kit.”

Briar was wrestling with A.F., trying to get the knife out of the man’s hands, but also maybe trying to kill him?

“I can get it,” Weaver replied.

“No!” Eight Point Seven argued. “He needs to be the one to do it! Briar, go find me some gauze! Now!”

Briar let go of the attacker, and ran off. Iolanta followed. “I know where the nearest infirmary is!” she explained.

One of the other Goswins, who had chosen to remain here, climbed up the ladder, and approached with no sense of urgency. “I know what to do.”

“I know what to do too,” Eight Point Seven spit.

“You can’t save him,” Goswin!Three explained. The numerical designations were largely arbitrary. This was the first shifted Goswin who needed one, but Weaver!Two’s Goswin was presumably Goswin!Two. “We shifted into the Fifth Division, which is where that guy is from. That blade is poisoned. If there’s a treatment, it’s not here.”

“Is that where we should go?” Eight Point Seven questioned. “The Fifth Division?” She looked behind him to see the rest of Goswin!Three’s crew appear up the stairs. They look disheveled and tired. Their experiences were apparently not nearly as safe and easy. Who knows what else they had been through?

“You wouldn’t know where to look, and neither would we,” Goswin!Three clarified. “Besides, all members of a crew must be conscious to shift.”

“So, what would you have me do?” Eight Point Seven was desperate. She had all this medical knowledge, but no tools, and she wasn’t a miracle worker. She at least needed to stop the bleeding, even if they still had a poison to worry about. Where the hell was Briar with that first aid kit?

“Let us take him,” Goswin!Three offered. “He needs to visit the Magnolia.”

“What would be the purpose of that?” Weaver questioned.

“You must not have had enough time to study it,” a shifted Weaver said. “It does more than you think. Trust us. He needs to go to Bida.”

“He doesn’t have much time,” the other Briar claimed.

“We should trust them,” Goswin!Prime struggled to say through the bubbles of blood popping out of his mouth.

“No,” Eight Point Seven tried to reason. “If you’re conscious, then let’s all focus on a medical professional in a medical facility. Somewhere in the Fifth Division, you say? We don’t need to know where to look. That’s what our power is for. It looks for us, we just have to concentrate on it. Gos? Gos!”

“He’s out again,” the other Goswin said. “We have to go now, but we won’t do it without consensus.”

Weaver!Prime took a half step forward. “You have it. I’m second in command. When he’s out, it falls to me. Eight Point Seven, let him go.”

“We’re obviously going with you,” Eight Point Seven insisted.

Everyone shifted to the location of the Memory Magnolia on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. This included the other shifted crews who chose to stay, as well as the warmonger crew. Even Briar!Prime and Iolanta were shifted with them, each cradling as much medical paraphernalia as they could carry. A version of either Weaver or Holly Blue was standing at the tree. She was wearing steampunk goggles, and inspecting the bark of the tree. It was much larger than the last time the Primes saw it.

“We need the sap,” Goswin!Three demanded.

Weaver!Four turned, but left her goggles on. “This kind of tree doesn’t have sap in the way that you’re thinking. If you just give me some time—”

“There’s no time, dipshit!” Weaver!Three argued. She pushed her other, other self out of the way as she approached the tree. She held her hand out by her hip, using her power to shift a spile out of some other time and place. She dropped her other hand, and shifted a drill into that one.

“No. I’ll do it,” the other Eight Point Seven insisted. She ignored the drill, and took the spile from her Weaver. She placed it against the bark of the tree, but didn’t jam it in immediately. She used her other hand to feel around the trunk until she found the right place well above her head, which she moved the spile too. She twisted it at first to begin making the dent before it was sufficiently deep. Then she forced it the rest of the way in. Once it was evidently ready, she placed her hands on either side of the trunk, and closed her eyes.

“No, I’ll do it,” Goswin!Three echoed her from earlier.

“You’ve already given too much,” the Weaver!Three reminded him.

“I’ll do it,” the Briar!Three volunteered instead.

“We’ll need a lot,” his version of Goswin warned him. “You’ll have to sacrifice a lot of memories, and that could kill you.”

“It’s for a Prime,” Briar reasoned.

“No,” Weaver!Prime jumped in. “Goswin wouldn’t want someone to die for him.”

Briar!Three smiled. “No one ever really dies. I am a wave returning to the ocean.” He placed his own hands around the tree like his Eight Point Seven did, and shut his eyes. He stood there for a few minutes, sometimes smiling, sometimes frowning. Finally, he shifted away, perhaps into oblivion. An amber sap began to flow from the spile. Goswin!Three jumped up to it, simultaneously shifting a golden grail into his hand. Once he had collected enough, he held up his free hand as if merely asking a waiter to stop adding parmesan. The sap stopped flowing after it let out the last few drops.

“Is he gone?” Briar!Prime asked regarding his shifted self.

“Gone is a relative term,” Goswin!Three replied vaguely as he was slipping the sap between his shifted self’’s lips. “There’s a little bit of him in all of the other Briars now. We’re all only extensions of one person. That’s what makes us different from normal alternate selves. Identity is preserved, just...split.”

Tamerlane Pryce slowly began to climb the hill up towards the Magical Memory Magnolia. “What does that mean for those of us who don’t have any shifted selves?”

“Same thing it means for anyone,” Goswin!Three began. “You are just you.”

“But the tree,” Pryce tried to clarify. “What would happen if I were to...sacrifice a memory to it? Or all of my memories, which is presumably what caused your Briar to disappear.”

“That’s not our problem right now,” Eight Point Seven!Prime exclaimed. “How long is this miracle sap supposed to take? He’s not waking up.”

Goswin!Three checked Goswin!Prime’s pulse. “He may be too far gone. His heart is still beating, but barely. It should have worked by now.”

“You said gone isn’t really gone,” Briar!Prime pointed out.

“It’s complicated, okay?”

Everyone kept arguing while Pryce only stared longingly at the tree, and Iolanta warned him off of it. It was too dangerous, but he had to know. He would soon get his chance to find out, but not quite yet. Goswin!Prime was indeed gone, but not in the way that anyone here was imagining it. He found himself standing on an asteroid in the middle of outerspace. There was no atmosphere, but he felt no need to breathe. Only a few faint stars were in the sky, but they were moving as the asteroid rotated on its axis. From behind the hill, the Earth came into view. Except it wasn’t Earth. It was a warped abomination of many Earths, twisted around, and melded into, each other. It looked like how someone would draw the Earth if they kept messing up, and instead of finding a new piece of paper, just drew the next attempt on top of the old one. No one could have survived whatever happened to it, yet he wasn’t alone.

Some version of Briar walked up to him, and watched the Earth amalgam continue to rise in the sky over their head. “This is the result.”

“The result of what?” Goswin asked him.

“Of us,” Briar answered. “Us and our shifted selves. We just keep shifting, and these are the consequences. We start out with the best of intentions, obviously. We shift Hitler out of history to prevent the Holocaust. It works, but the war still happens, and people keep dying. So we keep shifting, a person here, a building there to avoid a tsunami. Shift this, shift that, shift who we believe to be an anachronistic visionary to another point in time. Shift entire groups of people. We try to remake the world in our image, and eventually, we just move the Earth itself. To compound the issue, we’ve already been shifted, so competing crews are running around, making their own adjustments to the timeline. The conflicts arose exponentially, and we couldn’t stop it. That’s what’s happened with that.” The amalgamation disappeared beyond the horizon. It wouldn’t be long before it was back.

“We break time,” Goswin acknowledged. “Time travel is always bad, no matter what you’re trying to do with it. We think it’s better, but it’s just movement...unless you’re a shifted one, that we end up with an amalgamated Earth.”

“That would seem to be the case, despite the fact that some of our best friends are time travelers. What’s to be done about it?”

Briar shrugged. “Some tried to go back in time to stop it from ever happening, but guess what?”

“It just backfired,” Goswin realized. “That’s the whole point.”

“That’s the whole point,” Briar echoed. “But you,” he went on. “You’re here to catch a glimpse of your future.” He put the last word in airquotes. “Perhaps you really can fix it before it starts.”

“How could that be possible?”

“How is any of this possible? Use your imagination. That’s what our power really is. We manifest what we imagine into reality, not by conjuring new constructs out of nowhere, but by shifting what already exists from one point to another.”

“Thanks for being so cryptic.”

“I’m not telling you how to fix it, not as some life lesson so you’ll come to the right answer on your own, but because I don’t know it. I was one of the ones who tried to fix it before, and it obviously didn’t work. That’s how we got the Amal.” He pointed at the Earth as it was coming into view once more.

“Amal,” Goswin whispered, getting an idea from his imagination.

“Yeah,” Briar agreed, though he did not understand what he was agreeing with.

Goswin shifted a goblet of Arthurian sap into his hand, but kept looking at his enemy-turned-friend. “I figured out your problem. You were trying to fix it on your own.” He held the goblet up to his face to prepare to drink. “It’s going to take us all.” He poured it down his gullet, and suddenly woke up in his originally body, back on the ground in the middle of the forest on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida.

“Tammy, no!” Iolanta was shouting.

Pryce reached out towards the Miracle Magical Memory Magnolia, and placed a hand upon its bark. He disappeared much quicker than Briar did. Iolanta was holding onto his free hand, and disappeared along with him.

Goswin!Prime got himself to his feet. “It doesn’t matter. It will all be over soon.”

“Something happened to you,” Goswin!Three guessed. “You went somewhere...saw something.”

Goswin!Prime smiled at his shifted self, and placed a hand upon his shoulder. Then, without warning, he shifted him back into his own mind and body.

“What did you just do?” Eight Point Seven!Three asked.

Goswin!Prime shut his eyes, and shifted her into Eight Point Seven!Prime. Then he did the same for the other Weavers, and A.F. He took hold of the hands of each of his compatriots, and synchronized their neural signals. They reached out into the cosmos, to every shifted self, in every point in time, in every timeline, in every reality, and even some who managed to escape this universe, and enter another. He summoned them all to this small clearing in the forest, a hundred of them at a time. They were only here for a second before he absorbed them, even the copies that were not alternates of the core four, like Ellie and Paige. They absorbed them all, back to where they belonged in their respective bodies. One body each.

Now that that was over, and all was right with the world, they still had one more issue. The four of them turned to face the Mysterious Miracle Magical Memory Magnolia. Colors were flowing around the trunk and branches, radiating with energy. The space around it was distorted as it pulsated with power. It almost looked like it was getting ready to explode, and they couldn’t say what that would mean for anyone standing near it, or on the planet at the time, or hell, all of time. The crew was back together, but the rules of reality were still broken, and floating down a river of chaos.

“Something has to be done about that,” Goswin decided.

“The bark receives memories, the leaves store it, and the sap heals. What do the roots do? What do the fruits do?” Briar questioned.

“I see no fruits,” Eight Point Seven pointed out.

“It’s probably only a matter of time,” Weaver figured. “Some plants take years to mature enough to bear fruit.

“Something has to be done about it,” Goswin repeated himself.

“I have an idea,” Weaver said. “But it’s going to require more shifting, and I can’t predict the consequences. Have any of you ever heard of the Garden Dimension?”

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Fluence: Elder (Part VIII)

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They were time travelers, so there was probably no need to hurry away, but there might be. It was unclear how connected they were to their shifted selves. Perhaps every second they spent at one point in spacetime had an impact on the events in another that they couldn’t understand, or determined precisely when they could return to a given place. They watched the butterflies for a few more minutes, but had to focus on the task at hand, which was what exactly? They didn’t know yet. They were just going to go back to Po, and see what was going on there. The four of them came together as twilight was falling, and reached for each other’s hands, but then Goswin stopped, and massaged his chin while he looked upon Briar. In response to this, Briar flinched and leaned back. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“You know what...” Goswin began cryptically, pausing to everyone’s discomfort. “I don’t think that there is. You grew up under extraordinary circumstances, and you’ve improved in a very short amount of time. Do you regret killing Mateo?”

“Of course I do,” Briar said. “What does that mean? Why do you ask now, when we’re about to leave?”

“It means that I think we’ve officially become a real crew—all four of us together—even though I couldn’t point to a moment when it happened. We’ve been worried about shifting to competing realities apart from each other, but I don’t think that’s been happening. Eight Point Seven, you are our Eight Point Seven, just in a new body. Weaver, thank you for letting us into your home. And Briar? I think you’re gonna be okay. You’re one of us now, and I’m going to rely on you just as much as them to help us solve whatever problem we’re barreling towards. Whatever happens, we stick together, okay? Our powers operate on a psychic level. I’m not worried about the abstract concept of identity tomorrow. If we wanna stay together, we will. We can call ourselves The Primes.”

“Others shifted versions of us are probably coming to the same decision,” Weaver!“Prime” pointed out.

“Yes, but it will be true of none of them but us,” Goswin said, knowing that it didn’t make a lot of temporal logical sense.

“I hope you’re right, Captain,” Weaver said.

Eight Point Seven only nodded.

“Thank you,” Briar said to him graciously.

“What was that thing you said to Leona Matic that one time?” Goswin asked Eight Point Seven rhetorically. “You better make like a jock and strap in. Shit’s about to get real.”

They shifted themselves back to The Nucleus, which for all intents and purposes, was the center of the universe. They were not the only ones there; not by a long shot. The place was chock full of their shifted alternates, some running around, others wandering, and some just standing there, some in fear, and some in determination. There were several other people scattered about who weren’t the same as the core four, including Ellie Underhill, as well as her friend, Trinity Turner. They saw a few instances of Cassidy Long, her mother Étude Einarsson, and her mother, Saga Einarsson. They were all about the same age. At least one version of Leona was here, and she was either teleporting around, or different versions were popping in and out of existence like virtual particles. She was stopping only long enough to whisper something to someone, and hear a response before moving on. They didn’t recognize everyone, though. The place was utter mayhem. No one knew what they were really doing, and no one was in charge. Or maybe that wasn’t true.

A catwalk extended from a balcony two stories above the crowd. Four people walked along as it grew longer and longer. They were not alternates of the core four, but entirely different people, and they did appear to be in charge. They didn’t appear evil, but they didn’t seem particularly friendly either. One of them was Tamerlane Pryce, but none of the other three looked familiar. A cursory glance around the room gave the impression that they did not have any shifted selves here, but were each one of a kind. It wasn’t totally out of left field that Pryce should be here. He was present on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida when the crew of the X González departed. He was there for a reason, but there must be a reality out there where he finished his work on the planet early, or was perhaps fired for sometimes being an insufferable tool. Where did these other three come from, though?

Pryce held up both of his arms, and slowly lowered them to quiet the rabbling crowd. They did not comply. He jerked his arms back up, and tried again, but still it didn’t work. He looked to one of the women to his flank, and held out his hand. She gave him an object that resembled a bullhorn, and that was exactly what it was, but not a regular one. The Time Shriek was a mysterious scream that randomly echoed across the lands at various points in space time. There was no predicting its appearance, nor anything to do about it. If it interrupted you while you were in the middle of something, you just had to stand there and wait until it was over. This device was evidently capable of summoning the Shriek at will, and even amplifying it. It scattered across the hall, pounding into everyone’s eardrums, causing them to grasp at their heads in pain, and forcing some down to their knees. “Thank you! It’s so kind of you to give me your attention with no incentive.”

“Why can’t we leave?” a version of Briar demanded to know from the floor.

“That’s a good question, random citizen,” Pryce replied, pointing down to him. “It’s because of my good friend here.” He placed a hand on the shoulder of the woman who didn’t give him the Time Shriek Horn. Iolanta Koval is a very powerful metachooser. None of you is in control anymore.”

Iolanta glared at the audience. She reached into her fanny pack, and pulled out some kind of fruit, which she bit right into, rind and all.

“Ha! She’s got an affinity for citrus. It’s a time traveler thing. You all get it. I’m sure you know me,” he went on, “but just in case one of you shifty mother fuckers is from a reality where I don’t exist, my name is Tamerlane Pryce, but to distinguish me from my Afterlife Simulation and Third Rail selves, please just call me The Elder.”

“There’s already a guy named Elder!” one of the Weavers called up to him.

“There are hundreds of people that share your name too, jackass!” Pryce snapped back.” He huffed. “Anyway, as I was saying, this here is Airlock Karen. That’s obviously not her real name, but everyone she thought she could trust on her ship started calling her that, so she’s decided to own it. Similarly, A.F. here adopted his name from his enemies, who never bothered to learn his real name either. He hopes to vanquish them one day, but for my part, I hope he fails, ‘cause they’re good people, but I’m not gonna get in his way. We’re a team, just like the four of you...and you...and you, and you.” He pointed at random groups. Was everyone here always in a group of four exactly, even when they weren’t the core defaults?

“What are we doing here?” a Goswin questioned.

Pryce looked down at him. “I want to join forces.”

“Yes? Go on,” the same Goswin urged.

“Yesterday, I moved a mountain,” Pryce said bizarrely. “I mean that literally. The four of us stood before it, and we made it disappear, only to make it reappear by the end of the episode—I mean, a few hours later. But we didn’t put it back where it belonged. It’s now two meters farther north. It wasn’t easy, but we got it done. Different crews have developed their powers differently, and some of you may have done something similar, or even more impressive. We can alter time and space on a level that no one in histories has ever enjoyed, and I believe that together, we can do even more. We can remake the future to our desires. Notice that I didn’t say whims. They’re not going to be pointless and silly. The mountain was just practice. There is a war brewing in the Sixth Key, I’m sure you’ve all at least heard about it. They call it the Reality Wars because five parallel realities have been forced together into one. Their respective habitats remain intact, but the stars have been consolidated, cutting their available resources by 80%. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine a friend sending you an uncompressed video on your phone, which suddenly dropped your charge from full to 20%? You’d be pissed. Everyone is pissed, and they don’t have a true culprit to blame, so they’re blaming each other. We can help them.” He paused for effect. “We can move them.”

Leona appeared next to Goswin!Prime. “Are you the ones who took Angela?” she whispered to him.

“Who?”

“That’s a no.” She was about to teleport away again.

“Wait. What does she look like?” Goswin asked.

Leona held up her palm. A small holographic photo appeared of a woman that he had never seen before. “A core crew was on our ship, and when they left, she disappeared along with them. She’s not here, so they left her somewhere else in spacetime, but if you don’t recognize her, then it wasn’t you.”

Goswin looked to the other three Primes. “Let’s find her. Just like Misha.”

They nodded. And just like that, Angela was standing next to them. “Oh, thank God,” she exclaimed, taking Leona into an embrace.

“Excuse me!” Tamerlane asked from his balcony. “What’s going on down there?”

“Sorry, sir!” Goswin!Prime answered. “She was just looking for a friend!”

Pryce looked over at Iolanta, and snapped his fingers at the primes. She peeked over the edge at them, and a second later, the whole crew was standing on the platform with the Elder, and the other self-proclaimed leaders. “You just summoned someone here, even with the Time Lid shut?”

“The what?” Briar asked.

“Is that a band, errr...?” Weaver asked sarcastically.

Pryce looked at Iolanta again. “Why are they able to do that?”

She took another bite of her citrus. “They shouldn’t be able to. Not here. Not now.” She shrugged, and tried to take another bite.

Pryce slapped the fruit out of her hand. “That’s your only job!” He pointed at the primes. “Focus on them. Stop them specifically from using their powers!” He faced the primes. “Bring me...a dancing monkey in a hat.”

“No,” Goswin decided.

“Okay, that’s fair,” Pryce admitted. “There’s ethical concern with that. Instead, just bring me a birthday cake.”

“No,” Goswin repeated.

“All right, you don’t want to steal from a kid, I get it. Just summon anything that isn’t already in this asteroid. Dealer’s choice.” He looked back at Iolanta. “Are you blocking them?” he reiterated.

“Absolutely. I can feel it,” she assured him.

Goswin sighed. He hovered his hand over the floor, and summoned Portrait of a Young Man, which was famously stolen by Nazis during the war, and never recovered. He held onto the frame to keep it from tipping over.

Pryce noticeably gasped. “How did you do that? You four didn’t even talk about it? That is the biggest issue within the crews. No one can agree on anything.”

“We’re in sync, I guess,” Goswin figured.

Pryce took the painting, and held it up for all to see. “Witness power! These four have accomplished the impossible: true neural synchronization! This painting has been missing for four hundred and fifty years, and now here it is. They barely gave it a thought. It was probably destroyed in the original timeline.” He gazed upon the Primes. “These versions will be our foundation. They—not I—will lead us into the future, and the past. They’ll stop the Reality Wars, and save all of mankind in the Sixth Key.” He figured that this choice would endear everyone to him.

“How ‘bout no, Scott..okay?” Goswin!Prime snapped back.

“What?”

“You seem to like references,” Goswin continued, “so no. Scotty, don’t.”

“I don’t think I saw that one,” Pryce admitted.

Goswin rolled his eyes, and looked back at his crew. “Don’t tell Scotty, Scotty doesn’t know.”

“Enough,” Pryce declared. “I know that I’ve been cracking a few jokes of my own, but I’m being serious. “We need you. Your powers may be limitless. And you don’t really have a choice.”

“I actually think we do,” Goswin suggested. “I believe that that is exactly what you’re trying to tell us, wouldn’t you say, kids?”

“Yeah, I agree,” Weaver!Prime said.

“That’s what it sounds like,” Eight Point Seven!Prime concurred.

Briar!Prime nodded. “Yep.”

Goswin stepped up to the railing, and looked out over the audience. “Do you all wanna be here? Raise your hand if you do?”

A few people raised their hands.

“Then be free.” Goswin!Prime swept his hands forward from his chest, and all but the ones with their hands raised disappeared. Goswin turned, and swept only one hand this time, causing the famous painting to disappear. “It belongs in a museum.”

“We’ll get them back,” Pryce promised.

“No. You won’t.” Goswin held his hand up again to facilitate his own departure, along with the other Primes, but this A.F. guy took it as a threat. He reached over with a huge compensation knife, and jammed it into Goswin’s stomach.

“What the hell did you just do?” Pryce questioned. “Iolanta, stop blocking powers. We need to get a medic here stat!”

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Microstory 2061: Anyway, I’m Taking Some Drugs

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If you’ve been following my microblog, you know that I got sick again. It’s not even the same thing. The first one was a virus that I can’t pronounce, but this one is a bacterium that I can’t pronounce. I guess my immune system was in shambles for so long that something else managed to get in there before I closed up shop. I should have known. It’s definitely happened to me before. I just forget these things. The thing about being immortal is it doesn’t change your brain chemistry. It’s a purely physiological situation. It’s pretty much impossible to study the condition, because no one could ever take my blood, or anything, but I think that one of the downsides is an inability to improve in certain ways. I could never get stronger. Lifting weights, doing cardio, none of it mattered. Exercise didn’t make me feel better (it also didn’t make me feel worse at least). Nothing could change. The brain isn’t a muscle, but I think it suffers from the same limitations. I could gain new memories, of course, but I couldn’t really grow as a person. Anyway, I’m taking some drugs besides the antibiotics, so I’m not sure if I’m making any sense, but basically what I’m saying is my memory sucks. People would always tell me I should keep a diary to remind myself of my own history, but I would always forget to do it, so that never really worked. I’m surprised at how diligent I’ve been about this. Don’t expect me to keep going. If it’s anything like my previous attempts, I’ll stop by the end of the month. The only thing more boring than this world is talking about my personal experiences with it. Nick Fisherman IV, signing off. Oh, wait. Did I never tell you what my name was before? Oh my God, that’s kind of funny. Maybe I’ll explain where the name comes from, and what makes me the fourth out of four. It’s not anywhere near as simple as that my father was the third, and so on up the bloodline. It’s more like how they name kings.

Microstory 1998: Vastly Irresponsible Plan

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Leonard: Where is she? She’s not in a jail cell still, is she?

Street Proctor: No, no, no, no, no. She’s in the VIP quarters. She’s perfectly fine.

Leonard: The law station has a VIP room?

Street Proctor: Of course. They don’t on your world? [...] Oh, don’t look so surprised. You told me that you were in the wrong world when we first met, and now you’re some big shot secret agent. It wasn’t hard to figure out that you were actually telling the truth the whole time. I really wanna apologize for how I treated you back then. I was going through some stuff that had nothing to do with you, but it was no excuse for being unprofessional and unhelpful. And I’m not just saying that because you super outrank me now. I’ve been to some seminars, one workshop, and counseling every week.

Leonard: Well, I appreciate you saying that. It’s...very big of you.

Street Proctor: Yeah. Well anyway, your wife is right through here.

Leonard: *steps into the room* Keziah.

Keziah: Leonard. What the hell is happening? Where are we?

Leonard: What is the last thing you remember?

Keziah: I was going to Yuuna’s baby shower. I was driving around, thinking that I was very lost, until I realized that I was actually very, very lost. None of this is familiar. They call this place a law station, instead of a police station. The guy who helped me said he was a proctor, which is nothing I’ve ever heard of either. What is this room all about?

Leonard: Yuuna’s baby shower? That was months ago. That was...that was the day that I disappeared. You and I left our Earth on the same day, but I’ve been here since June.

Keziah: Time travel? We traveled through time? Wait, does this have something to do with your little friend? Where is he? He has to send us back home.

Leonard: It’s not really time travel. It’s that—let’s see, how did he put it—the timestreams for two separate universes have nothing to do with each other. And anyway, I’ve not seen him. I don’t think he had anything to do with it. It’s just something that happens sometimes. In fact, I believe that our link to him is the only reason either of us realizes that there’s something different about this world. There could be others here who  are from different versions of Earth, but don’t even know it.

Keziah: Either way, I wanna go home. Do you have a plan? It’s been months, right?

Leonard: Hold on... *starts to wave a little device all over the room*

Keziah: *turns the sink on* Is that a bug detector?

Leonard: Yes. We’re in the clear, but let’s whisper anyway. I have indeed been working on a plan, but I’ve had trouble enacting it. Number one, if we use the only tools we have at our disposal, we could be dooming our world to profound destruction, so if we try it, I’ll have to kill the alien who transported us right away, but that’s assuming he even took us to the right brane in the first place. And now that you’re here, I’m not sure we can both fit in the portal. Plus...I’ve sort of...built a new little life here.

Keziah: The ink on the divorce papers you texted me to say you signed, sealed, and sent out for delivery isn’t even dry yet. But you met someone, didn’t you?

Leonard: Yes, I did. You would like her.

Keziah: I don’t doubt it. But I still wanna go home. Tell me about this alien.