Microstory 2308: In a New Direction

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That was quick! The house sold. I shouldn’t be surprised. Famous people once lived here, and it’s a really nice place. We’ve also done well to keep it up, so there shouldn’t be any repairs, or minimal ones, at worst. Its last inspection was not very long ago. It isn’t a done deal yet, the process is complicated, but I’m sure it will be fine. Then again, the people who put in the offer didn’t even come look at it for themselves. That typically means that they intend to tear it down, and build something new on the land, but this area isn’t particularly desirable, so my real estate agent is assuming that the notoriety is enough for someone wealthy enough to take it. To them, it really doesn’t matter what condition it’s in, because they enjoy collecting things for their inherent value. But that’s just a guess, we don’t know what’s going on in their heads. If this deal falls through, another one will be just around the corner. As for my next steps, I have all of Nick and Dutch’s belongings packed up. I think I’ll keep them with me for sentimental reasons. My new place isn’t too big, but there seems to be enough storage, and I like to find ways to simplify. People have been asking if I’m retaining the security team for my own personal protection, and that is a question that I’m not going to answer. You knowing about my security procedures is a security vulnerability, which has already bitten us in the ass. Yes, anyone who truly ever wanted to hurt us would have been able to find that intelligence on their own, and would have had great incentive to do so, but we shouldn’t have been so open about such information. I’m learning from our past mistakes, and taking my life in a new direction. Please respect my privacy. There’s a reason I’ve decided to stop posting on this site, or create a new one. I just want to go back to the way I was before, when it was safer. There are only six more days left this year, and only four of them will see full posts. It’s time to start thinking about saying our final farewells.

Microstory 2243: Keeping Watch Over Us

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I received a clean bill of health from the doctors, who were truthfully a little perturbed by it. It’s not that they wanted me to be unwell, but they don’t understand how I could have been cured in the first place. They want to find a reasonable explanation. They want to find evidence that something happened to me, but they’re not going to, because my brief exposure to my own immortality cleared me out entirely, and brought me back to square one. They had no choice but to approve any medical treatment with any other doctor I choose. In turn, the FBI had no choice but to let me move out of the safehouse. Kelly, Dutch, and I are in the new apartment now. It’s not technically a safehouse, but it may as well be so far, since our security guards are keeping watch over us 24/7. It’s only a temporary place, as they have all been for a while. But I’m really hoping that the next one will be permanent. It has to meet all sorts of conditions, and my new security team will have to run an inspection first. It sounds like a lot of fun. While the other two are working more on that, I’m working through the details of my upcoming surgeries. I think it’s gonna happen pretty quick now that I can make my own decisions again. I don’t see this going more than a couple weeks before we get through it. I’m pretty wiped from all the poking and prodding, so I’m gonna have a nap. I hope it’s not a symptom.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 16, 2399

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The building has been inspected, at least with a cursory glance. They didn’t hire a professional to go through the entire thing, and check or mold, or whatever it is they do. All the doors are open now, though, which will allow drones to go through, should Leona deem there to be some need for that. While she’s been dealing with other things, Mateo has been in charge of helping the volunteers check the rooms, and now it’s time to go in the opposite direction. A building this tall has to have a deep foundation, and there should be space down there too. It may not be furnished, or even clean, but there will be potential in it. The elevator turns out to be large enough for all of the now two dozen volunteers, so he invites everyone to join, including the kids. It’ll be a little adventure.

When the doors open, they find themselves in a wide expanse, which may cover the entirety of the building in the first two dimensions. There is nothing here but support columns. It’s made of concrete, but really clean and unused. Maybe this is meant to be used for offices. Underground, though? That seems unnecessarily cruel, especially since there should be plenty of space in the common areas on the bottom floors above the surface. “Come on,” Mateo says. “There’s nothing to see here. Let’s keep going down.”

They go down one story. This one is just as expansive, but it looks different. It’s filled with stuff. As they step onto the floor, and spread out, they find compartments that mirror the kind of rooms up above. Each room is equipped with four bunk beds, and is separated from its neighbors by only half walls. Metal bars come up and go across, suggesting that a modest amount of privacy can be created from curtains. There are rows and rows and rows of these bunks. “What are they for?” a teenager asks.

“Emergency shelter, in case of a tornado?” someone else suggests.

“Look at this sign,” one of them says. “ROOM CAPACITY: 34,768.”

“Okay,” Mateo says, stepping back towards the elevator. “Let’s try one more.”

They get back in, and go down one more story. It’s the same, doubling their current known underground capacity. Mateo looks over at the buttons. There are twelve stories total, numbered zero through negative eleven. “Who here is good at math?” he asks the group.

A girl snakes her way forward.

“Assuming that every floor is just like this one, subtracting that first one that was empty, how many people can fit in the shelter?”

She takes a moment to perform the calculations. “It would fit 382,448 people.”

Mateo shakes his head. I was kind of worried about that. “That’s not much more than half of the population that can fit above. That doesn’t sound like a great shelter.”

“Well, we don’t know what we’re looking at here,” a man pointed out. “The other floors could be bigger, or maybe they can’t make an elevator this big that goes down as many floors as there are, and we’re expected to get off, and get on another one.”

They keep riding the elevator down, stepping out for a moment just to check that it’s equipped with all the same stuff. Floor Negative-10 is different. It’s just a giant open area, like the first sublevel. There’s only one more to check now, and while this is all rather exciting, they don’t expect anything different. They would all be wrong. “I recognize this,” Mateo says. “This is a fusion reactor...a big one.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 9, 2398

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It’s just Mateo and Alyssa now. Winona came back down to the surface of Earth as well, but she has her own life with SD6, so she’s more of an honorary member of the team. Mateo used his temporary teleporting powers to jump them down to Kansas City, where the two true team members stayed in The Bridgette. It was a little weird for them, but fine. They made it work. This morning, Vearden called from space to ask them for a favor. He and Arcadia were approved for the house in the suburbs that they want to buy. The only thing pending that can’t be done over the phone is the home inspection. They want someone there to observe the process in person, so that’s where they are now.

“This is a beautiful vehicle ya got there,” the inspector says when they meet in the driveway. He immediately seems salty and talkative, and he clearly has an aversion to personal hygiene. Perhaps he’s a Suilien, like those people in the hospital who were being purified by their rivals. Or he’s given up on life, and he’s faking it through forced cheerfulness. Or maybe he was just in a hurry this morning.

“Oh, yeah, it’s a company car,” Mateo explains. It’s not entirely a lie.

“Car is a bit of a weak word, don’t you think?” The inspector caresses the outer hull with his grubby little hand. My car can’t fly.”

“Oh, if it did, you couldn’t ever drive anything else again,” Mateo muses, trying to play the part of the friendly suburbanite. “It would get you to your jobs faster.”

The inspector looks at his watch, and frowns. “I’m not late,” he insists.

Awkward. “No, I—I’m not saying that you were, I was just...”

“Ah, I got you! You’re too easy, my friend. What’s your name, brother?”

“Mateo. Mateo Gelen.” He was about to say his real last name, but then he thought that it would be best not to go around declaring any possible connection to the infamous Leona Matic. It’s still not yet safe.

Alyssa shakes the man’s hand next. “Alyssa...” she begins, and they can both see her struggling to think of a fake name too. “...Gelen.”

Okay, that’s okay. Mateo can work with that. He smiles, reaches behind her back to her opposite shoulder, and pulls her closer.

He smirks creepily. “See, I knew you and I had a lot in common. I like ‘em young too. You ol’ dog.” Then he howls. The man actually howls out loud. In front of people.

Mateo just clears his throat uncomfortably.

“Ha-ha, anyway, I’m Guthrie. Guthrie The Dog. Nah, they don’t call me that, but I’m tryin’ it out. Wadya think?”

“I think it...suits you.”

He takes it as a compliment. “Anyway, I better get to work, shouldn’t I? It’s like you said, I can’t fly to my other jobs.”

The rest of the day is just as inappropriate and uncomfortable. They’re happy to help, but this guy is a lot to deal with. They would rather be in charge of moving all of Arcadia and Vearden’s belongings, which they probably will have to do later. That is, if it’s ever safe enough for them to return to Earth. They have sure all been doing a lot of moving recently. It’s good, though, it makes them feel kind of normal. Packing and carrying boxes is the kind of thing that regular people do everyday without thinking about bombs, tactical teams, and spaceships. They just worry about men like Guthrie.

Microstory 1798: Flawed

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Ever since I was a child, I was really good at detecting what other people were doing wrong, and I had absolutely no trouble informing them of this at every opportunity. I perhaps developed a little more tact as I grew up, but not a whole lot. I was still a master at pissing people off, and pushing them away. It’s just...like, what’s the point of living your life if you’re not going to improve, ya know? Like when women lie about their age. They go the wrong way with it. I can see what you look like; giving me a surprising number is not going to change that. If you say that you’re 20 years old, but you’re 30, and you look 30, then not only am I not impressed, but I’m probably going to assume that you smoke, or something. Now, if you say that you’re 40, and you’re 30, and you look 30, then I’m going to assume you take good care of yourself. The idea is to appear younger, not to make everyone just think you’re younger. Some people were really appreciative of my advice. Just kidding, they always hated it, every single time. On the night I planned on proposing to my girlfriend, we went out to see a musical together. I actually like musicals, and I’m willing to suspend my disbelief that these people would suddenly break into choreographed song. That’s the medium, and I’m fine with it. My problem had to do with the particular show we saw. It was great on the whole, but one lyric sort of ruined the whole thing for me. One of the characters sang, not counting the homeless, how many tickets weren’t comped. Well, unless he’s suggesting that regular people were given free tickets, and homeless people had to pay, this line doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t matter whether you include the homeless people in the math, or not, the number of people whose tickets weren’t comped should not change. Needless to say, she broke up with me, and I had to take the ring back to the store for a refund. The people who worked there all gave me this sad look. But I decided that if she wasn’t happy with my logic, she couldn’t be happy with me at all, so it actually worked out.

Anyway, her father was my boss at the time, and he didn’t like the way I treated her. I think she made some stuff up to make me look even worse than I was. He fired me, and I had to go on the hunt for something new. My friends all suggested that I translate my ability to see and point out flaws into something productive, like maybe being a film critic. I chose to be a house inspector, because the pay was better, and the work was steadier. I never really enjoyed it. I had a boss, and she pretty much left me alone, so I felt like an entrepreneur, but the work was still boring and monotonous. I kept thinking that there would be someone. Someone had to like what I had to say. But it never happened. Every first date was bad. Every party was awkward. I finally gave up, and just figured there was nothing I could do about it. Therapist after therapist tried to turn me into a better person, but they all failed. Well, that’s unfair. I’m the one who failed, and I would be a huge hypocrite if I wasn’t willing to admit that about myself. In the end, it’s probably for the best, anyone hypothetically interested in someone like me probably just didn’t understand what they were getting into, and it would eventually turn sour anyway. I wouldn’t want to subject someone to that. I made lots of money because I didn’t have any responsibilities, and I was destined to die with it, because I didn’t have any heirs. Like many in my position—or even outside of it—I decided to donate my savings to charity. Hopefully someone who actually needs it can get some use out of it.

Microstory 1739: Jana Crane

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For the most part, Jana Crane tried to keep to herself. She kept her head down, did her job, and didn’t complain when the people she worked with treated her like crap. She tried to be as accommodating as possible, without being a pushover who no one respected. She was a factory inspector, who would go around her region, making sure that the businesses she was assigned to were maintaining health and safety standards. She was thorough and careful, and didn’t let anything slide. Forgetting to fill out your monthly logs completely is one thing, but not properly securing a piece of incredibly dangerous equipment was just something that could not be tolerated. Her reports were not meant to get anyone in trouble, but she saw them as a way for the companies to improve themselves, and prevent anything from going terribly wrong. It would be bad for the floor workers if one of them became injured, and bad for the employers if that injured worker sued the company, or otherwise cost them money. Everyone should love inspectors for preventing such tragedies. At least that was how Jana saw it, but no one else shared her sentiments, even people whose lives she was trying to preserve. Perhaps if she wore a cape, and a symbol of some kind on her chest, they would think differently of her. One person in particular could have done with a little more perspective. He was a floor supervisor who probably should have never been promoted, but far be it for Jana to judge the process. What she could judge, however, was how casual he was with the safety protocols. He didn’t worry about locking down the machines. He let his people go in there without safety goggles. He didn’t care about anything. If she didn’t know any better, she might think he was asking for a bad outcome. Sadly, she was the one who ended up in a bad situation. She gave him low marks too many times, and he had had enough. She was going to stop inspecting his work, whether she wanted to or not.

The last thing she saw before the darkness was his face. He wasn’t wearing a mask, or anything. He probably thought she wouldn’t recognize him, and since she wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a lineup later, he would get away with it. Or maybe he was just a moron who didn’t think things through carefully. That was the most likely reason he not only showed his face, but spoke to her after throwing the acid in her eyes, and made references to their previous encounters with each other. She screamed, but couldn’t cry, on account of the acid. She just tried her best to wipe the chemicals off of her face. She pulled her shirt off, and wiped some more. It got the excess off, but it didn’t stop the pain, and it wouldn’t give her her sight back. He didn’t laugh. He was angry; talking about how this was her fault, and if she had just ignored the infractions, this wouldn’t have had to happen. All this, like it was completely unavoidable. An unlocked chemical cabinet was unsafe, but he didn’t appear to recognize the irony. She could hear his footsteps grow fainter, so she started to reach out around her. Feeling around was taking too long, so Jana had to be bolder. By the end of this, she was going to have a lot of bruises, but she would live. Every second she waited would make it that much harder for the doctors to fix her eyes. She began to run. She didn’t run into anything, so she went faster and faster through the factory, all the way out into the cold, and over to a warehouse down the street, which she knew operated 24/7. Her vision was never quite the same after that, but she didn’t go blind, and the floor supervisor didn’t go free.

Microstory 1323: Inspectorate

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New Clearance Investigator: Are you nervous? You look nervous.

Inspector Job Candidate: You look nervous. I’m sorry, that sounded like a burn. You just actually look nervous to me.

New Clearance Investigator: I’m a little nervous, yes. This is my first clearance interview.

Inspector Job Candidate: What did you do before this?

New Clearance Investigator: I was a postal worker, but I’m the one meant to be asking the questions here.

Inspector Job Candidate: Right, of course. Everything you need to know should be on the forms I filled out. I’m here to be a factory oversight inspector.

New Clearance Investigator: Yes, they are, and yes, you are. We just need some clarification on a few things.

Inspector Job Candidate: Go ahead, I’m an open book. I’m not sure why I was flagged for face-to-face, though. I’ve never been out of the city, let alone the country.

New Clearance Investigator: That’s exactly why you were flagged. It’s a bit unusual for a candidate to have almost no housing history. According to these records, you were literally born in your childhood home, you grew up there, you stayed there through college—

Inspector Job Candidate: Well, it’s a college town...surrounding a really good college.

New Clearance Investigator: That’s fair. And you still live there, but not with your parents?

Inspector Job Candidate: My mother died when I was in high school, and I had to move my father to an assisted living facility a few blocks away two years ago, because I couldn’t take care of him while I was in class. So yes, I still live there, but I’m fully independent. It’s my house now.

New Clearance Investigator: Okay. This was an open-ended question about your travel. You responded that you’ve never gone anywhere, for any reason. Is this because of your family situation?

Inspector Job Candidate: Not exactly, per se. My parents hated traveling, my grandparents hated traveling. I had no strong feelings about it, but I also had no experience with it, so I suppose it never came up, even when I became an adult. I wasn’t ever actively thinking about the fact that I never went anywhere; it just never happened.

New Clearance Investigator: Yet here you are, applying to a position with—let’s see...an 85% travel requirement.

Inspector Job Candidate: Oh, I can see how that would look weird. I imagine it doesn’t help that I’m not acting like it’s always been my dream to finally break free from this one-horse town, or something.

New Clearance Investigator: This city has more than one horse, so to speak.

Inspector Job Candidate: Exactly. So I haven’t been to somewhere exotic, like Tokyo, or Peru. Lots of people can’t afford to go on big vacations. Yeah, I realize it’s strange that I haven’t even been to the other side of the state, but this city has everything I need, and I have been all over it. The form didn’t really ask me how active I’ve been within the city limits.

New Clearance Investigator: This is true. Neither the form, nor the interview, can account for everything. It’s designed to help us find out whether you met a terrorist group when you studied abroad one semester, but there’s no way to know if the terrorist group came here, and met you on the other side of town.

Inspector Job Candidate: ...

New Clearance Investigator: I’m not accusing you of that, but again, that’s why you were flagged. The form you filled out simply does not have much information about you. It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t be punished for leading a reasonable life that appears boring on paper. But they called me in, because I can find out what the forms don’t tell us. So, let’s begin.

Inspector Job Candidate: Wait, we haven’t begun yet?

New Clearance Investigator: Ha. No. Get comfortable. This might take a couple hours.