Castlebourne Capital Community: The Man Who Finally Died (Part VII)

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It was done. They proposed a new referendum, which was basically just like the old one, but tweaked enough to be considered original. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Dreychan Glarieda, Yunil Tereth, and all of their friends, including even Vip, they were able to sway people’s votes. Slain kind of became a pariah on Castlebourne. He was so well-liked, but they eviscerated him in the media, so to speak, and he was not happy about it. He didn’t speak out in public, though. He aired his grievances to Dreychan and Yunil in private, but he didn’t poke his head out of his hole. He was too embarrassed. He shouldn’t have been. People had short-term memories. Many were glad to be done with the political decisions for a while.

When the refugees first came to this world, they were super hesitant to enjoy themselves, because there weren’t as many opportunities to do so in the Corridor. They had pretty much gotten over that, though and loved their recreation now. To them, the government was there to do their job, and stay out of their hair. No more voting, no more referendums, just do whatever you need. So they were all out of the spotlight by the time the sun actually started moving across the galaxy. None of them was allowed to know any details about it, or how it was being done. The sun-mover evidently wanted to maintain their anonymity, and that was fine. Perhaps Dreychan and Yunil could do the same, and finally rest. Or maybe not.

Someone yanked the dark hood off of Dreychan’s head, and pulled the bandana out of his mouth. He looked to his right to find Vip and Amazine. Yunil was to his left. They were all on their knees, with their wrists tied behind their backs, and still gagged. Amazine was scared, but the other two weren’t. He realized why. Like him, she was undigitized. If she died here today, that would be it. Yunil and Vip would be fine, so why were they here? What were these assholes trying to prove? He looked up, and didn’t recognize the scowling thugs, but he did know the smirking thug boss sauntering over behind them. “Slain. You do understand that that’s a dumb name, right? It means that you’ve died, not that you kill. Perhaps you meant to call yourself Slayer?”

“My name is my name,” Slain contended. It really wasn’t. After discovering that Slain was also from Ex-777, Dreychan did a little research. Like Dreychan, he was born with a regular name, instead of a number, but it certainly wasn’t Slain. So he made it up too. He must have thought it sounded cool.”

Slain crouched down so he was at eye-level with Dreychan. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“Judging by the design and decor, I’m guessing you’re putting us on trial?”

“A tribunal, actually.” Dreychan didn’t know the difference. Slain probably didn’t either, it just sounded cooler. He stood up, and started pacing around with his own hands behind his back, mocking them, but also giving off the impression of levity and ease. “Do you recognize where you are? We’re not in the Capital anymore.” Dreychan didn’t, but wouldn’t have had the chance to answer anyway. “Of course not. This is the three-dimensional Winner’s Hall of 2.5Dome. It’s where you would have gone had you played your game fairly, and won without cheating.”

Dreychan didn’t say anything. Even claiming to not care about that would imply that he actually did have some strong feelings on the matter, when in reality, he was totally over that, and absolutely never cared about the inherent value of winning. He had just been trying to survive.

Dreychan’s indifference angered Slain, so he had to work hard to keep it together. He pointed to one of the camera operators who was presently at rest. “The tribunal will be broadcast, but if you think that means someone’s gonna come rescue you, you got another thing coming.”

“Another think coming,” Dreychan corrected.

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry about it, little dum-dum.”

Slain was fuming. “You will show me respect. By the end of these proceedings, you will be begging me for your life, I guarantee you that!”

Dreychan was silent again. He just made himself look calm and disinterested.

Slain didn’t want to point it out, so he just moved on. “You are here to answer for your crimes against the Castlebourners. I’m not talking about the visitors, by the way, I couldn’t give a flailing fuck about those people. I’m talking ‘bout us; the real Castlebourners. You manipulated the people, and you rigged the referendum, and I have the proof. You will answer to the people of this great new nation, and more importantly, you will answer to me!”

One of his thugs batted an eye at his last claim. Perfect. This wasn’t one big happy family. There was a way to exploit that, he just needed that thing out of Yunil’s mouth, so she could use her silvertongue to do that. He gave her a look, and she winked back, still unfazed.

Slain notices this. “Oh. Oh, I see. You think you’re safe? I assure you, you’re not. No one knows where we are. The cameras won’t show any distinguishing characteristics, the signal will be bounced around different quantum servers, or scrubbed of its metadata, or whatever my expert did to hide us. When it’s your turn to speak, you can see 2.5Dome all you want, but my other expert will be censoring all that shit during the built-in delay, so it’ll just make it look like you’re cussing a lot on one of those old Earthan TV shows where they weren’t allowed to say certain words to the public.” He gestured at the walls in a general sense. “Even if they do find us, they’re not getting in. No teleporting in or out. You see, that’s why you don’t get. We are from all over. One of us worked on the teleportation field research labs. One of us is a carpenter. One a computer scientist. You just sat around and played games all day. My people know how to work.”

“I must have been misinformed. I thought you were also from Ex-777.”

Slain shook his head. “Not everyone who lived there was wealthy like you. Some of us worked for people like you.”

Dreychan scoffed. “Not true, they were bots. Our planet was specifically designed to keep all human workers out, so they weren’t even close to the luxury.” He looked around at the people with guns. “If he told you he was a workin’ man, he lied. They simply didn’t exist.”

Slain bolted back over, and backhanded Dreychan across the chin, causing his head to fall into Vip’s lap. “I told you to show me respect!”

“You gotta earn that,” Dreychan replied. “But I don’t like your chances. I don’t have much respect for the dirt on the bottom of my shoe, or even my own fingernail clippings.”

Yunil giggled.

Slain turned his head to her. “You think that’s funny? You’re only so calm because you think your safe. But my carpenter, teleportation expert, and signal technician aren’t the only geniuses I have on my side. We can also suppress quantum consciousness transference. Your last backup stream was just before you crossed the threshold into this dome. Even if you’re not one of those people who philosophically rely on continuity of thought, your backup substrate is in no safe place either. While we’re talking, my people are out there, destroying any extra bodies you got lying around.” He leaned in closer to her. “We’re tuned in, sweetheart. We didn’t do this on a whim.” He forced a kiss upon her lips, and then booped her in the nose. “Boop!”

“You should not have done that,” Yunil said firmly. “Sexual assault is no joke.”

Slain led into a laugh from a scoff. “Relax. We’re all friends here, aren’t we? Or aren’t we?” he posed, as if that was some justification for this kangaroo court.

Slain wasn’t worried. He straightened his knees out, and went back to pacing around menacingly. “Now. Before you get all up in arms about me being judge, jury, and executioner, let it be known that I am only the first one. The panel of your peers will be composed of people who know firsthand what it’s like to be slighted by the great Dreychan Glarieda of Ex-777. Come on in, folks!”

And they did. Dreychan recognized every single one of them. They were former members of the Old Council of Old Worlds. Teemo, Rezurah, Maaseiah, and Yunil’s sister, Lubiti were all there, as well as everyone else who had gone to jail for the conspiracy to kill Dreychan. They didn’t look happy, though. They weren’t smirking, or even smiling. They look kind of perturbed. Which was weird. They had all somehow been freed from prison, yet they could not be more annoyed. “This is why we’re here?” Lubiti questioned. “You want us to judge this man?”

“I figured you would want to take your shot at some justice, since you’ve been waiting for it for a year now.”

“We have not been waiting for that,” Maaseiah argued. “We have been doing our time. We have been repenting for our sins.”

“What are you talking about?” Slain was so utterly baffled. “He’s right there! The guy who put you all away—the man who you hate with such profound disgust—this is your chance to exact revenge. Take it!”

“So this was never going to be fair?” Yunil asked. “You weren’t even gonna pretend to be impartial?”

“I said it’s a tribunal, not a trial!” Slain argued. He looked back over at the councilors. “Come on! What’s your problem? He ruined your lives!”

“No, we did that ourselves,” Rezurah said. “We tried to kill him, and regardless of our reasons, that was wrong, and we all recognize that now. We have said this on the record. We have done interviews. Did you not watch them?”

“I thought you were playing for the camera,” Slain explained. “I don’t understand, you forgave him for real?”

“There is nothing to forgive,” Lubiti reasoned. “He didn’t do anything to us. He didn’t even call the authorities. They conducted their investigation without his knowledge. Like Rezurah was just saying, we are the architects of our own demise.”

Slain shook his head. He could not wrap his mind around this. He expected to win today, and he was losing steam by the minute. His thugs weren’t outwardly going against him, but they didn’t seem ready to start a firefight either. It was looking like no one was going to get hurt today. Enraged, he let out a primal scream. “Argh! You dumbasses aren’t going to take this from me!” He pulled out a knife as he was coming around to the other side of Dreychan. He held it against his neck, letting it dig in enough to make it bleed.

“Now, hold on,” Lubiti said, trying to keep him calm. “This isn’t going to get you anything. Right now, it looks like you’ll be done for kidnapping, trespassing, and maybe some hacking, or whatever. That’s not great, but it’s not murder. You can still get out of this. The laws are rigid, but the punishments are fluid. There’s not much crime anymore. No one really knows how to handle it all the way out here. You might just get exiled. They may send you to Outcast Island. You would probably prefer it there anyway. Dreychan’s a good guy, I’m sure he would advocate for you. Right, Drey?”

“Yeah, I don’t care,” Dreychan confirmed. “I don’t hold grudges, and I’m not the vengeful type.”

“You know who else isn’t the vengeful type?” Slain asked. “Dead people!” He tensed up, and cut into Dreychan’s neck deeper. Okay, this was really starting to hurt.

“Don’t. Do it,” Maaseiah urged. “I regret my actions here last year. Don’t make the same mistake we did.”

“It’s not the same,” Slain argued. “You failed. I’ll succeed.”

Lubiti breathed deliberately, presumably hoping to get him to mirror her subconsciously. “The fact that you’ve not done it yet tells me that you don’t want to. If you go through with it, no one here is gonna hurt you. So if you’re not on the fence, what have you been waiting for?”

“Good point.” And with that,” Slain dug into Dreychan’s neck deeper. He didn’t just pull it clean across his throat. He sawed at it like a cellist. It was bloody, and messy, and gruesome. He didn’t just want to kill Dreychan. He wanted to make it hurt, and it wanted to put on a show. His fun didn’t last forever, though. When he could no longer bear Dreychan’s weight. He dropped him to the floor, and let his victim succumb to the black.

Dreychan broke through his chrysalis and emerged anew. It felt weird. He didn’t know what was happening, or where he was. He just had the urge to escape. He had the impulse to move upwards. So he jumped up, and started to fly. He didn’t know how he was flying, but he certainly wasn’t very good at it. He was bumping into all sorts of things. The walls were soft and mushy, so it wasn’t really painful, only disorienting. It was pitch black except for a pinprick of light, which Dreyhan thought might have been an illusion. Still, he went towards it. He focused his thoughts on flying towards it. He kept scraping against the gooey walls, but never stopped. The pinprick grew larger and larger until he finally reached the exit. The light was blinding, so he started flying more erratically now. He was so confused and lost, but he didn’t know whether there was anywhere safe to land, so he didn’t.

He tried to blink, but he didn’t seem capable of it. So weird, having wings, but no eyelids. Was this heaven, or just a simulation? Whatever the answer was, the real question, was why? His vision adjusted, and he was finally able to see where he was. As it turned out, he hadn’t moved. This was still the kangaroo court. Everyone was staring at him, equally confused, but there was something else different. Oh right, they were giants. They watched as he fluttered about, small enough to fit in one of their hands. There was Yunil, standing up now and rubbing her wrists, no longer bound. She was smiling at him, not in shock, but in triumph. She did this. She turned him into a flutterby. But still, why...and also how? He was growing a little tired, so he landed on her shoulder.

Yunil gently petted Dreychan’s wings and giggled. She turned to face Slain, whose arms were now being held behind his back by two of his own people. They never wanted any of this. No one was on Slain’s side anymore. “I didn’t know that you were going to suppress consciousness transference, but still, this is a handy backup plan. It’s not always prudent to transfer your mind across vast distances. Some people just store their own backup, sometimes in the form of a fairy, and sometimes, a flutterby like this. I’m told holly blue is the most popular model. He’s quite pretty now, don’t you think?”

Dreychan wanted to say something to her, but he couldn’t speak. Insects didn’t have vocal cords. So he sat there patiently on her shoulder, more in love with her now than ever, even though he had always been afraid of transhumanistic upgrades.

She peered at her new little pet. “I’m sorry I did this to you without your consent. I just couldn’t bear to lose you. For the record, I fed you a sort of seed, which grew into this in the lining of your stomach. It didn’t require any surgery, or anything.”

Dreychan still couldn’t say anything to her, so he launched, and playfully fluttered around her. He then flew over, and started fluttering around the former council members. They seemed to get the idea, because they were smiling, and reaching up with the palms down, hoping that he would land on their fingers. He chose to land on Lubiti, who let him flitter back and forth between her hands. It wasn’t for another few days when they were able to have a real conversation again. That was when she and the others apologized to him directly.

Slain was taken right to jail for murder. The prosecutor wasn’t going after him for reckless substrate destruction, or consciousness back-up endangerment, but full-on murder. He had no idea that Dreychan was backed up by any method, and in fact, had strong reason to believe that the destruction of the substrate equated to true death. Time would tell what became of him. The same could be said for the former councilors. As it turned out, Slain’s movement had run deep enough to reach the prison. He had them released under the guise of a legitimate criminal forgiveness program. He kept them isolated from each other until the day of the tribunal that never was. They willingly went back to their cells immediately. The terms of their respective parole schedules were currently being revised to account for their swift voluntary return, evidence of their remorse and self-improvement, and overall good behavior. Meanwhile, the new government was holding strong. Vip and Amazine continued in their positions, and the representatives under them were representing their people admirably.

And Dreychan and Yunil? They finally got their break. The former was provided with a new human body, but he didn’t always use it. He let her teach him to switch as appropriate, when he needed something different for a certain dome, or just on a whim. The superintendent protocol was suspended since it was no longer needed. The two of them left the Capital, but could come back later, if their services were ever required again, or they could pass their power onto someone else. Meanwhile, the host star and all of its celestial bodies were on their way to a new region of the Milky Way. As for the war...well, Castlebourne wasn’t out of the woods yet.

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Microstory 1867: Lottery Winners All

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In third grade, I took a math test. I wasn’t a child prodigy, but I was one of a handful of students who tested into a slightly more advanced math class. While the rest of the students stayed in the room, we went off to learn at a higher rate. We focused most on probability. The first question our designated teacher asked was what were the odds of winning the lottery. None of us knew the answer of course, nor were we expected to. It was just to get us warmed up to the basic concepts. I don’t remember the numbers people say, but the truth is that the chances are actually a hundred percent. Hi, my name is Arnie Arnoldson, and I’m about to die. But before I go, I’m gonna explain to you what I mean. The reason my answer works out is because each and every one of you has already won the lottery. The chances that the universe would exist were profoundly low. The chances that life would exist were profoundly low. The chances that any given person will be born to this world are low. You went through so much to get here even before you were alive to do anything on purpose. That’s amazing. You’re amazing, and I want you all to give yourselves a round of applause for making it this far, because as I’ve said, it was virtually impossible, yet you did it anyway. You know, I didn’t start out as a motivational speaker. I was just a wee li’le baby, like anyone else. What I did to get to this place in my life is I kept playing the lottery. Sometimes I won the pot, but I never truly lost, because at the very least, it was experience, which helped me play the next round. Because life isn’t really like a lottery, it’s hard work. Put in your time, day after day, and I promise you, no matter what, at the end of the week, you’ll be paid fairly.

Notice how I said that you’ll be paid weekly. This is important, because if you expect that paycheck every day, six times out of seven, you’ll be disappointed. As a result, you’ll stop working as hard, and you’ll start getting paid less, and that will make you even more discouraged. We all receive what we deserve. It may not feel like it, but that just means that you need to manage your expectations, work harder, and never give up. Say it with me, manage your expectations, work harder, never give up. That is your new philosophy. Whenever you’re down, or you think you have done nothing but lose, just ignore all that, and remind yourself that there is always time to turn things around. But you have to take charge of your life, and decide that you’re not satisfied with what you have right now. No one else can do that for you. Let me tell you a story about the moth in the pond. A moth fell into a pond, but he didn’t die. He had spent his whole life fluttering through the air, and landing on leaves, but now he realized that those same wings he used to balance himself and fly were also good for swimming. This opened up a whole new world to him. So he said to himself, I’m never going to fly again. I prefer to swim. I’m a swimmer now. He smiled—insomuch as a moth can smile—and continued to swim around, looking for food. But he could not find the fruits and flowers he normally drank from. Oh, the moth realized, now I know why we moths don’t usually swim. And so the moth summoned all of his might to get back into the air, but he quickly discovered that his wings were too heavy, weighted down by the water. Try as he would, all he could do was swim. He swam until he was too exhausted, but before he could drown, the hand of a human reached underneath, and raised him from perdition. All of you are that moth, and the water is every obstacle you face; past, present, and future. I am the hand.

Microstory 1782: Tukana Is All

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We live our lives by the Tukana. It is an ancient text, which lays out the ways of the Tukan. It provides us with the guidance we need to make the best decisions, and be happy. Some go against the Tukana, but we fight them, and we always win. We will always win. For the Tukana is everything. The Tukana is all. I am known as the Dominant, which means that I am in charge of this entire tropicas. I did not simply fall into my position, and I was not selected. I had to fight my way to the top. Literally. The main social activity, according to the Tukana, is fencing. The practice is even more ancient than the prooftext. Our ancestors once used it to determine who amongst them was the bravest and noblest. They did not become rulers, though. That is something the Tukana demands of us. I am obviously the best. Many have attempted to thwart me, but I put them down every time. Unfortunately, our laws dictate that fighting for dominance is not the same as sparring. The better must kill the lesser in order to become the winner of the challenge. Until then, nothing is settled, and it would throw our world into chaos if I let them live. This has threatened our population before, and I can’t let it happen again, so I outright reject any challenge that comes my way when there is no hope that I’ll lose. It would not be fair to the challenger, and it only places us in greater danger to our enemies, the Buseros. They follow a similar path to enlightenment, but it is corrupted. Their inferior prooftext, the Buseron was plagiarized from our own; the one true book of salvation. The writer paraphrased nearly every sentence in his work, and passed it off as original so he could make money. The Tukana is not about making money. The Tukana teaches us to embrace the fruits of our destinies.

We are fruitarians. That is our number one rule, and as far as I know, no Tukan has ever broken it. We are aware that our ancestors once killed for their food, as the Buseros still do. That is perhaps our main difference. We do not destroy what we eat, but spread it around, and make more of it. We pollinate what’s left of our beautiful and precious Earth, and we do not take anything for granted. I may need to break our rule, though. I have been held captive by the Buseros for the last two weeks, and I’m starving. They have deliberately locked me up with a garden of plants, and small furry creatures. They want me to fall apart, and become more like them. It would be the greatest victory they’ve ever seen...dare I say the only victory. I’ve tried to hold on this whole time, but the pain inside me grows by the minute. The guards have left me alone for the next half hour, or so, as they do every day. They will notice if I eat one of these plants, or of course, an animal. We’ve become friends, I certainly don’t want to harm the latter. The former deserve to live out their lives as well, even though they do not have faces. The insects. They can’t possibly know how many insects are in here with me. They crawl and hop in and out at will. They’re still alive, so I don’t want to kill them, but I suppose if it’s me or them, it has to be me. I look around to make sure I’m not being watched, and then I snatch one off of the ground. It doesn’t taste good, and it’s not much, but I keep doing it, and I eventually start feeling energized again. I can’t eat much before the guards return, but I keep doing it every day. The Buseros are so impressed after I show them I’ve survived for four whole months, and they have no choice but to let me go. I return home to tell my people of the tasty insect, and its many rewards.

Exemption Act: Stable Time Loop (Part VIII)

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The two of them struggled to stand up as they rubbed their various wounds. Freya felt heavier than before, and was quite off balance. It wasn’t impossible to get upright, but not easy. They were in the middle of a forest. Limerick breathed deeply through his nose. “Wow. Is it easier to breathe?”

Freya took a breath as well. “It’s much easier. Perhaps...almost twice as easy?” She bounced her knees a little. “Surface gravity higher, oxygen level higher. Trees look a little short. This is Worlon.”

“We jumped back to the planet? I thought we weren’t ever going to the surface.”

“Maybe some kind of emergency teleport. Zek should have brought us all together, though, if the ship was destroyed.”

“What destroyed it?” Limerick asked.

Freya started pacing, not so it would help her think, but so that she could get used to the new gravity.  She did need some time to think, though. “Backwards. We were backwards.”

“How’s that?”

“I don’t know how. That’s just what happened, it’s the only explanation.”

“I haven’t heard an explanation yet.”

Freya got back down on her knees, and found some visual aids; a leaf, and a pebble. She tore a hole in the middle of the leaf that was large enough to fit the pebble. “This is what we were supposed to do.” She slowly swung each object in front of her, parallel to each other. After a few seconds, she quickly pulled the leaf in closer to her, so it was encapsulating the pebble, just like they did up in space with The Cormanu, and the probe. “But this is what I think happened.” She started out just as before, with the objects flying parallel, but this time, when she teleported the leaf over to the pebble, she turned it around, and pulled it in the opposite direction, serving to tear the leaf all the way open. “The probe kept going forwards, but since it was facing the wrong direction, it shot right through the back of the ship, and back into space, where it either continued on its journey, or was damaged enough to start drifting. We were almost sucked into that hull breach, except we ended up here.” She looked around some more. Then she reached into her back pocket, and removed two sticks of gum, one of which she handed to Limerick. “This is gravity gum. It will help your body acclimate to your increased weight. If it’s just us, and we stay on schedule, the pack will be enough for us to adapt, and not need it anymore.”

“And if it’s not just us? Where are they?”

“Zek? Zek?” Freya spoke out loud, but was really just trying to send a psychic signal.

“Could she have transported all of us, but not herself.”

“She could have done that, yes, but why would she have? We could have gone back to the ship later, if that’s all she wanted to do; save it.”

“Well, you said it was going the wrong direction. It would have eventually flown out of her teleportation range, right?”

“I guess.” Freya took out her device. “But I don’t see anyone else.”

“Is that a tricorder? Does it show life signs?”

“No, that’s stupid. It can ping other devices, though. I know Carbrey had his, and Khuweka would too. I would say about half of the others would happen to have kept it on their respective persons.” She kept pinging the others, waving her hand around, looking for a good signal. Nothing.

“Maybe she just saved us, because we were the only ones in danger.”

“So was Carbrey, and she should have just transported us to a safe section of the Cormanu.”

“He might have flown out of range, through that hole.”

Freya dropped her arm in sadness. Then she decided to try one more thing. She switched to a different menu item, and held the device back up towards the sky to measure stellar drift. Preliminary data came through pretty quickly. “Oh, no.”

“What is it? What do you see?”

“It’s still calculating a date, but...”

Limerick figured out where she was headed. “We didn’t just teleported, we traveled through time.”

“The past.” She kept watching the screen. “The deep, deep...deep, deep, deep-deep past. It’s still going.” She dropped her arm back down. “It’s slowing down, and it won’t be exactly accurate, because it requires more data, but millions of years. A few million, at least.”

Limerick smiled, and cracked his neck. “That doesn’t matter to us, though, does it? When I shatter this portal, we can go to any time period we want, in any universe.”

“In any universe touching ours. That limits you. You see, in the outer bulkverse, time is not a temporal dimension, but a spatial dimension.” She held up her fists as more visual aids. She placed her right index knuckle against her left pinky knuckle. “They have to be touching at the right point, which for us, is a moment in time. Now in the future, it’s constant. All the universes you could ever need to get to, are touching each other. I think someone did that on purpose, they call them bridges. Back in this time period, though...I don’t know. Do you detect any thinnies? Do you sense any nearby universes? Or are they all too far away?”

He held up his hand, and searched for a place he could make a portal. He stopped moving and closed his eyes to focus his senses. “I can feel one, but you’re right, I think it’s too thick. Or too far away, or whatever.”

“I don’t suppose you have an ETA on when that gets closer, if ever. It could be drifting away from us.”

“No, it’s getting closer. It hums a certain way, but I can’t predict the time table. We’ll just have to wait and hope, I guess.”

Freya shrugged her shoulders and sighed.

“Wait.” He seemed excited. “Can’t you get a message to them?”

“No, not from the past. That’s just impossible.”

“But why did we end up here, in this moment? You said, millions of years, but you’re not sure exactly when? Aren’t you, though? The probe was supposed to start sending its data to the past. That room is designed to send time messages.”

“Oh, you’re right. That’s why we ended up here. I mean, it doesn’t explain why we were able to make a physical jump, but it must be the exact same time period that we chose. Oh, but no, we’re not on Earth. The message is going to prehistoric Earth, not Worlon. It doesn’t matter that we’re closer, it’s quantum communication. It’s actually really weird we’re on Worlon. It doesn’t make much sense.”

He placed his hand back up to the invisible barrier. “Then we’ll just wait and see.”

The two of them grew closer over the three years that they were alone together. They continued to look for others, but there was no sign that anyone else came with them. This had something to do with the quantum Faraday cage, rather than Zek, and they were the only ones within its boundaries at the time. The other universe continued to draw nearer, according to Limerick’s beliefs, but it was hard to tell because of how faint the connection was, and how slow it moved, if it was doing so at all. He just kept measuring it as best he could, waiting until it was close enough for it to be useful to them. They made a life for themselves here, and as the only two people on the planet, of course, they had sex regularly. They had no birth control, but they were extra careful about it, because they didn’t want to raise a child in this environment.

It wasn’t the worst possible place to live, but it wasn’t civilized either. They built a latrine in the ground, and wiped themselves with leaves, and no matter how intricate they made their Crusoe dwelling, the toilet situation wouldn’t ever get better. There was plenty of food to eat, and infinite fresh water, and none of the animals gave them any significant trouble. They chose not to eat them, partially because they couldn’t effectively estimate any given creature’s intelligence level, but mostly because they didn’t need to. Their vegetarian diet was doing them well. What passed for insects were larger here due to the greater oxygen content, so that was a lot of fun; not creepy at all. Today, everything changed. Like cicadas did on Earth, Freya and Limerick woke up to find giant flying bugs crawling up out of the ground. There was no telling how long they had been there beyond the three years they had never seen them before. They looked a lot like dragonflies. Shit. This was it. This was where their enemies came from. Five million years in the future, these little fuckers would somehow transmit their DNA into the developing human scions that Operation Starseed planted here, and create a source variant species capable of raining hell down on countless other worlds.

They were witnessing the early evolution of evil, and there was nothing they could do to stop it. The bugs ignored the humans at first, or perhaps didn’t see them. But one took notice, and then they all did. They started flying towards their prey, forcing the couple to seek refuge in their hut. They were able to keep the mega dragonflies out for a few minutes, but the walls were buckling, so they had to fall back to the little panic room they built. It was stronger than the rest of the place, though not fit for anything but this kind of situation.

“We should have run. They’re gonna get in here eventually,” Freya lamented as the creatures bashed themselves against the walls.

“They would have caught up with us. We live longer in here. Maybe they have a really short memory. Best to keep ourselves out of sight for as long as possible.”

The wood started cracking. “Not long enough.”

Limerick regarded her. She felt like such a pathetic little nothing, sitting there so frightened and hopeless. He apparently had an idea. He grabbed her wrist, and held it up to his mouth. “Hey, Thistle...where’s my hex phone?”

“Pinging hex phone,” the watch announced.

The bashing stopped, and they could hear the little song Freya’s device was playing on the nightstand. The sound of wings flapping grew fainter.

“Stay here,” Limerick told her.

“No. We do this together.”

“Better they get one of us than both. If you find an opening, then run. Otherwise, please stay here.” He took a beat. “Please.”

“What are you going to do?”

He literally rolled up his sleeves. The Maramon promised me I would get to punch someone. Here’s my chance.”

Freya connected her watch’s hologram to the camera on her device outside, which allowed her to see what Limerick was doing. He really was punching them, like some kind of The One in a sea of well-dressed agents. They kept flying at him, and he kept knocking them away. He always knew which one was the most pressing target, and exactly where it would be. It was a magnificent show, but Freya knew that it couldn’t last forever, because he would grow tired, and there would always be more, waiting in the wings, so to speak. But then something happened.

He punched one of the cicada-dragonflies, and it disappeared, almost as if it had been sucked out of an airlock. He punched another, it did the same. The more he tried, the clearer things became. He was creating small fractures in the universal membrane, sending them out into the void, where nothing could survive. They were not yet close enough to another universe, so they were just...lost. The survivors started taking notice, and even though they obviously weren’t as intelligent as their descendants would become, they were able to take the hint. They rose up from underground to breed, and this fight was both a distraction from that goal, and not doing them any good. They flew off before they could kill Limerick.

Freya came out of the panic room, and dove down to help him.

“I’m all right. I just need to rest. Water?”

“Of course.” She retrieved some water from the barrel, and handed him the drinking gourd.

He took his drink, and caught his breath. “Whoo! That was amazing. You have no idea how good it feels to fight an enemy you’re allowed to destroy. I’ve been in a lot of brawls, but I’ve never actually wanted to kill any of my opponents. They were human. I know I’m not supposed to think this, but so far, it’s been the best day of my life.”

She smiled. “It’s okay to feel that. It’s your truth.” She stood up to look out the window, where the evil dragonflies were starting to perform their mating rituals in the distance. “We’re both alive, and that’s what matters.”

Out of nowhere, a flash of darkness overwhelmed Freya’s eyes, and grappled onto her face, knocking her to the floor. She was being attacked, presumably by a cicada-dragonfly that didn’t want to give up. She reached up to get the facehugger off of her, but it wouldn’t budge. It just wrapped its whatevers around her tighter. Freya could taste some kind of disgusting fluid forcing itself down her throat. It didn’t last forever. Limerick managed to stab it with his walking stick, and tear the corpse off of her. Together, they wiped the viscera away as much as possible.

Without warning, he jammed two fingers into her mouth, and pulled out as much retch as he could. “You swallowed something. In thirty minutes, we’ll do that again.”

“That’s not science,” Freya argued.

“We don’t have medicine, so inducing vomit is the best option available.”

“Okay.”

Freya drank a lot of water, and then a half hour later, retched it all up again, hoping that cleared whatever it was the cicada-dragonfly put in her. Like they had both said, this was not necessarily going to solve their problem, but without any means treating a disease, or even diagnosing one, this was all they had. They spent the rest of the day building a ring of torches around their entire hut, hoping the fire scared the creatures enough to keep them at bay. Tomorrow, they would try to break a thinny one last time, and then move out somewhere else. Perhaps there were places where the cicada-dragonflies didn’t thrive.

Until then, Limerick wanted to have sex, as they did every night.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“I thought you were feeling better.”

“Oh, I’m totally fine. I could be infected with something, though.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

“Better it gets one of us than both,” she echoed him from earlier.

“If you give me a space STD, then so be it. If you die, what am I gonna do without you anyway? We might as well get in the same boat. If you’re not up for it, that’s fine, but I am, and I’m not afraid.”

She was into it too, and the risks seemed worth it, what with this world looking more and more like the place where they would die regardless of when that ended up happening. “All right, let’s go to bed.”

Seven months later, literally about a thousand baby cicada-dragonflies flew out of her vagina, and off into the world. No, this was it. This was where her enemies came from. The Ochivari never had anything to do with Operation Starseed, but were spawned by Freya herself. She was the mother of evil.

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