The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 5, 2549

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On a scale from robot butter-passer to ecumenopolis, the infrastructure that Ramses’ forge core was able to construct during their interim year sat at about a 5.6. This logarithmic scale was designed by a team of futurologists back in the very late 21st century; not just something that he made up himself. The core’s interface was very intuitive for even the dumbest of dum-dums. It was basically a store, where they added things that they wanted to a shopping cart, and the cost—the time it would take to complete the whole project—automatically calculated in the corner. At first, all they wanted was to build a Nexus, which took a healthy chunk of time alone due to its sheer complexity, outmatching all other buildings on their plans combined in that category. Without it, the starter nanites could have resulted in a continent-wide civilization-ready network of interconnected megacities. But what they ended up with was more than enough. There were only nine of them, including the three on the away mission.

There were several arcological megastructure tripods now. If any Earthan were to move here, they would feel right at home. They weren’t actually expecting that to happen, though. They only built all this because they were trying to maximize the time available by hitting that 365-day mark. They figured it was better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. They had no idea what they wanted to use any of this for yet, but that was where the Nexus came in. People from anywhere in the galaxy, or farther, would be able to travel here near-instantaneously. It only had the capacity of a few dozen people, so it wasn’t suitable for some kind of mass-exodus, but it wasn’t useless either. If Hrockas had had access to this level of technology back when he was building Castlebourne, it could have been completed in under a decade. Now there was the simple question of what to name all this.

“I’ve been trying since we got here,” Romana revealed.

“What have you come up with?” Mateo asked her.

“Nothing good. The best ones are Lorramm, Ramlorm, and Marmorl.”

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...” Mateo said.

“They’re all seven of our initials.”

“Oh.”

“Not enough vowels.”

“Right.”

“We could add E and C for Echo and Clavia,” Angel suggested.

“Leave me out of this,” Clavia insisted, weirdly offended.

“I thought this planet was named Echo,” Marie pointed out.

“Yeah, on the other side,” Romana agreed. “Firstly, I started thinking about this before the weird interversal portal we went through. And secondly, I was brought up to believe that there is no such thing as an alternate self. We’re each unique, even when we come across people who look just like us, and share our memories. I think that goes for planets too. That’s Echo. This is somewhere else.”

“That’s completely true,” Clavia agreed. “When Olimpia screamed the Sixth Key pocket universe into existence, she based it on the original Milky Way, but it’s not an exact copy. It was just mostly close. You should name it something else. My brother would say the same thing if he were here right now.”

Mateo nodded in agreement. “Well, let’s keep thinking while we explore. We also need names for the various domes and cities, I guess. And there’s still the issue of what the purpose of this planet is.”

“I think it’s whatever it needs to be,” Marie began. “If there are more refugees, we can bring them in. If people want to come here for vacation, we will have recreational facilities available too. If someone is in need of a prison, we’ll build a remote site somewhere here, and house them safely. Even if they escape, where are they gonna go? It’s an all-purpose planet. It will serve as the central hub for the Milky Way galaxy one day, and maybe sooner than you think.”

“Well, if that’s the case, we need someone to host,” Angela said. “We need someone who is here every day of the timestream.”

They all looked over at Clavia.

“Oh, no. That’s not my job,” she contended. “I don’t even live in this universe. I’m just here to keep an eye on you people until your friends and lovers come back.”

“Most of our permanent friends are on Castlebourne,” Mateo pointed out, not expecting her to change her mind. “We would have to poach them.”

“Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be a sanctuary,” Romana argued. “I thought it was going to be just for us; a place that no one else could get to. They wouldn’t even know about it. Whatever happened to that plan? We got so wrapped up in what we could do with the forge core that I think we lost the plot.”

“It was always going to end up like this,” Marie countered. “We don’t stay out of things, even when we try. If we ever do need a real sanctuary just for our team, we’ll use some other distant world that Rambo’s Operation Starframe colonizes for us. It doesn’t even have to be big. It could be a hollowed out asteroid, like Linwood’s.”

“That’s gonna take over a hundred years from these staging grounds,” Romana volleyed. “I’m not saying we can’t build out, but my Future!Dad was warning us about something. Even if this planet had nothing to do with anything in his timeline, there might be an inevitable threat that us coming here only worsens, or at least doesn’t alleviate. We keep making these choices which have lasting consequences for the universe. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for your meddling. I would not exist if my Past!Dad hadn’t randomly ended up on Durus at the exact right moment, but what he and Leona did that day resulted in more than just me. It impacted the future of an entire civilization.” She focused her gaze upon her father. “Present!Dad, you helped make Dardius what it is today. I still believe we hastened the carnage on Proxima Doma. Who knows what we’ve done to Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida just by helping a woman carry her potatoes? Again, I’m not saying we bury ourselves in a hole, but let’s try to think things through. Romana Nieman, youngest one here, unlikely voice of reason.”

Romana was right to be cautious. Despite only living one day out of the year, their actions have rippled out in ways that few could have predicted. They would need someone like Bhulan Cargill to see all the branches. That metaphor gave Angela an idea so she went off alone to unpack it. The rest had their own things going on. Marie left the city entirely, reacclimated to the planet’s natural atmosphere, and took a walk in the wilderness. Clavia accompanied her for protection since they didn’t know what else could be out there, and no one should be alone outside of the controlled environment of a dome. Mateo tried to activate the Nexus for a test. Everything seemed to be in working order, but they had not been given their own term sequence. The gods only assigned it once everything was engineered to absolute perfection, but he didn’t know what was wrong, and obviously could not have fixed it either way. Romana just sat down on the dirt, apparently to meditate. This far out, no grass had been planted yet.

A few hours later, Angela called everyone back, claiming to have figured it out. They didn’t know what exactly she had been working on, but they came anyway. After a moment of silence, she began with a single word. “Ramosus.” She uttered it in an accent a couple of times, like she was getting the feel of it, before returning to her normal voice.

“Is that a band, errr...?” Romana hadn’t gotten the chance to make that joke yet.

“It sounds like a corruption of Ramses,” Marie suggested.

“It is,” Angela confirmed. “But it’s not just that. Romana certainly helped point me in that direction, but your comment about branching timelines is what really led me there. It’s Latin for branched, which I think works because the initial hope for this outpost was to serve as the launch point for Starframe. Plus, it has natural life on it. I love those willow-like trees we saw that we think recycle their water by sending it up the trunk, running it across the stems, which hang down, and dripping it back into the soil.

“Yeah, I like it,” Mateo decided. “It’s good that he’s not here, or he would argue against it. We need to find ways of solidifying the name so it’s established before he has the chance to come back here and put a stop to it. Maybe we build a welcome sign?”

“We can start to spread the word,” Romana offered. “If we send it out into the universe, what’s done will be done, whether he likes it or not. People in the past will probably even hear about it. Were you able to turn on the Nexus?”

“On?” Mateo questioned. “Absolutely. Power is not the problem. It just won’t go anywhere. It’s a cell phone without service. I think we need him and Leona back for that. I probably shouldn’t have even tried. It was too risky for an idiot like me.” When they were all silent, he added, “wow. Not even gonna argue that I’m not an idiot. Thanks.”

They all laughed.

“All right,” he went on. “Clavia, do you have anything to contribute?”

“Like I said,” she began, shaking her head, “I’m just here to protect you. I’m not a part of the team.”

“Well...” Mateo thought about it. “Olimpia is my wife, and Echo is her son, and you’re Echo’s sister, so whether you like it or not, we’re family. That doesn’t mean you have to help, or even stick around. Romana’s sisters don’t, but we still love them.”

“I have plenty of family,” Clavia reasoned. “Thanks, though.” She didn’t sound pretentious or arrogant, more just trying to keep her distance. That was fine.

“We don’t need the Nexus,” Marie said after the group relocated from the middle of nowhere to a picnic table. The biggest bottleneck in construction was managing heat dissipation. The laws of thermodynamics always slowed rapid deployment down when not utilizing temporal manipulation technology. Life, on the other hand, was a different story. It would take years to make this dome look less artificial or dead, so for now, this park was only a placeholder. It was just this one table and some fast-growing resilient shrubbery. “We have our tandem slingdrives. We should go to Castlebourne. We’ll let Hrockas know what we’ve built, and give him an idea of where we are. If some refugees from the Exin Empire would like to move, now they have a new option.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for the others?” Angela figured.

“They’re making decisions that affect the multiverse,” her sister reasoned. “They can stand to come back to a surprise or two.”

“They’re your wives best friend,” Romana said to Mateo. “I say it’s your choice.”

“Let’s wait until tomorrow,” he decided. “If they’re not back, we’ll pull the trigger. For today, let’s focus on the capital. I think I have an idea of what we should do with the dome. Let’s lean into the branching theme.”

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Microstory 2654: An Epic Quest

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Hrockas gave Mandica and her team unprecedented access to data and controls for the simulation. Unfortunately, it turned out to be rather useless in finding her hideout in the dome. If the Custodians who ran the sim couldn’t find Morgana with that information, what hope did four puny humans have? But it wasn’t entirely unhelpful. They decided to think more like her, or more to the point, like her character. If Morgana were a real person, how would she think? How would she act? The core question is why hasn’t she done anything since her attack at the jewelry store? Before Mandica showed up, her power in this city was surpassed only by her mystique. She claimed to live in a distant land, only coming to Ravensgate when business brought her here. Malika says it reminds her of some guy named Ra’s Al Ghul, but Mandica doesn’t know who that is. Their initial assumption was that Vanore wasn’t spending all of her time in Underbelly, but how was she exiting the dome without being traced? According to the logs, Vanore’s regular body is still in substrate storage. If she’s leaving, she’s not returning to it.

Incidentally, they did check Vanore’s storage chamber, though Hrockas was not happy about it. He told them that there was a breach a number of years ago that he doesn’t want repeated. Substrate storage is extremely delicate. People rely on those back-ups to survive, so there are mountains and mountains of laws designed to protect bodies from being tampered with. While Castlebourne doesn’t have to follow stellar neighborhood laws, in this situation, they absolutely do, because mind-transference is their bread and butter, and because it’s the right thing to do. But if Vanore isn’t in Underbelly, and she isn’t in her regular body, then she must be somewhere else on the planet. But she could not have beamed her mind to an entirely different body, because the logs would show that too.

“I got it!” Mandica is in her pajamas. They all are. It’s late, but this puzzle keeps them up just about every night.

“You know where she is?” Jaidia questions. “How?”

“I don’t know the how,” Mandica replies, even though that’s not really the question. “I only know the where. It was so obvious, I’m kicking myself for not realizing it before. God, I’m so stupid. She told us where she lived from the very beginning!”

“Well, stop teasing us like she apparently did, and tell us!” Reagan urges.

“Loegria.”

“Loegria?” Malika echoes.

“It’s the King Arthur dome,” Mandica explains. “There is a Morgana there; there has to be. Just like there’s a Merlin, and a Lancelot, and even Sir Dagonet. When I first heard of her, I assumed they were distinct interpretations of the character. I mean, there are already plenty of different versions of Morgan Le Fay in lore. The one from the TV series Merlin is not the same as the one from Le Morte D’Arthur. But what if it’s not like that here? What if she’s just counting on us to assume that? She could be splitting her time between Ravensgate and Camelot. She’s a shapeshifter, so if she’s somehow found a way to sneak back and forth through the backrooms, or whatever, Hrockas and the Custodians would never know. They wouldn’t realize it’s the same consciousness either.”

Malika and Reagan exchange a glance. “Mandy, you can’t go to Loegria. Hrockas warned you against that. We could go, but we would have to go back to our regular bodies first, even Reagan. That’s why we were hoping she hadn’t left this dome.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that,” Mandica begins, “since we started postulating that she wasn’t always in the dome. Hrockas is not a god. He obviously needs us, or he would use whatever resources he has at his disposal to deal with meta-business. Do you remember how weird it was when he came here? Why did we meet him in some penthouse? Why didn’t he just walk into our headquarters? For that matter, why did he conscript us for this job at all? I’m sure he’s busy, but I’m sure he can delegate the work to someone else in the executive administrative authority. I don’t actually care why he chose us, as long as he honors that moving forward. If he wants us to be the ones to catch Morgana, we will, and we’ll do it by whatever means necessary.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” comes a voice from behind the couch. They jump up to find Hrockas’ personal bodyguard, Azad Petit. It’s impossible. Unless there are built-in trapdoors all over the place, one of them should have seen him come in. He’s just standing there as if the solid wall was briefly a doorway. It doesn’t make any sense. 

“How did you get in here?” Reagan questions, aiming his maser gun. He didn’t come back here as a superhero, but he’s not completely helpless either.

“That’s classified.” When Azad senses that they’re too intrigued, he goes on, “you can either know how I did it, or you can get an exemption to leave the dome with those bodies. We will have stipulations, but we need this problem taken care of. Quietly.”

“Are we allowed to ask how you happened to show up while we were talking about your boss, or are we to believe it was just a coincidence?” Jaidia questions.

“Your buddy was looking at my contact card,” Azad explains. “I get an alert when that happens.

They look at Reagan. “I was only preparing to reach out to him,” he defends.

“Now you don’t have to,” Azad reiterates. “I’m here, and I’m here to tell you that you can go to Loegria, but you can’t be in costume, and you can’t take those wings.” He jerks his head towards their wings, which are charging on their docks. “If you get there and run into resistance, we don’t want you to die, but you can’t be flying around as superheroes. It does not belong in that world. Again, we want to get this done without anyone noticing. If Vanore has replaced that simulation’s Morgana NPC, that is a huge breach, and letting others know that it’s possible will only make things worse.”

“Wow. How much of our conversation did you hear?” Jaidia kind of complains.

“Obviously enough. Will you do it? Will you help us plug the leak?”

“What do we get if we do?” Malika asks him.

“He doesn’t have to give us anything,” Mandica contends, looking over at her briefly, and then back at Azad. “Our goals are aligned. We’ll take care of it. We’re not asking for payment, but if we do this, we become your heroes, right? That will count for something, right? You will consider us friends in the future...right?”

Azad scoffs, but isn’t mad. “Yes, and friends take care of each other.”

After he leaves, The team decides to get one more night of rest, but before that, they visit Elysia’s tailor to make them new clothes. They will need to blend in with the Arthurian realm. They don’t take the wings that Azad indicated, and they don’t take their superhero outfits. They’re not entirely unarmed, however. They do have wings, but they’re an upgrade from even Daedalus’ originals. Thanks to Reagan’s mechanical engineering skills, and Jaidia’s background in biology, their wings are now always with them, and hidden.

Microstory 2648: Exploits

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Hrockas Steward watches as the ruins of the transfer warehouse crumble to the ground on top of three visitors. All of their substrates survive, and they go on with their day. That’s not the issue. This is a testing ground for people’s new superhuman abilities. He expects damage. This is quite a bit, to be sure, but the bots will rebuild as needed. The real problem is that one of them is not in the records. Using the remote identifying system, he can’t even see that she’s in the system at all. Not even a regular retinal scan is coming up with a match. He has no idea how she ended up on this planet, but he does know that her consciousness isn’t streaming, so she has no business being in Underbelly. How did she get her powers in the first place? “Run it back.”

“How far, sir?” the Custodian asks.

“As far back as it will go,” Hrockas clarifies. “I want to track her movements since she first entered this dome.”

“There won’t be sound, sir. It’s a privacy issue.”

“I understand that, C-01131-1. I’m the one who designed the protocols. Now show me her path. Show me the whole thing.” They watch the accelerated footage in reverse. The mysterious woman leaves in a car going backwards, and gets in a morgue drawer. The drawer closes, then opens again, and her body is transferred out of it by the mortician. It’s taken to a jewelry store where a blade is pulled out of her body, as well as a superhero’s. The footage skips after that as she spent weeks in a private space with no cameras. They keep watching her story, piecing together what she’s been through by witnessing the events in the wrong order. “There. Right there. What is that?”

“That is a maintenance tunnel that leads from the in-game subway to the outside world,” C-1 replies. “It’s used to travel into the city without interfering with the story.”

“How the hell did she know that was there?” Hrockas questions. “Keep going. I want to see where she was before.”

“I can’t, sir,” the custodian explains. “I only have access to Underbelly internal.”

“Right, I knew that. I’ll input my admin codes.” They watch more reverse footage. She has not been on Castlebourne for long, having come in on that second arkship. He does not have access to the ship’s sensors, so he doesn’t know how she managed to stay hidden there, but he doesn’t care at this point. She met with someone weeks ago who he recognizes. He takes out his phone, and calls her. “Are you alone?” When she answers yes, he says, “then this is a warning that I am teleporting to your location immediately.”

After he lands at the gym, she smiles at him. “Welcome, Steward.”

“I’m not in the mood, Tereth. Come with me.” He offers her his hand.

“Oh my, Hrockas. I am a married woman. What will my husband think?”

“Just take my goddamn hand.” Once she does and stops smiling, he teleports back to the custodial wing of Underbelly. He then points to the screen. “Who is this?”

Now Yunil has fully lost her joyful attitude. “Dont worry about it.”

“You know I can’t do that. What did you do? And before your respond with some quippy lie, allow me to skip it, and reiterate with more fervor, what did you do!”

Yunil sighs. “She wanted to stay unregistered. I gave her a clean ID.”

“You didn’t just give her any regular ID. You gave her admin access.”

“I...” she looks confused. “Did I? Wait, how can I do that? Our machine should not be able to do that. It’s just for the refugees, mostly the government.”

“That’s why it needed to be universal,” Hrockas argues. “You have admin access to all non-utility and non-logistical domes. You even have access to Military Dome, and you gave it to her too. Can you imagine if she had gone there instead? She would have placed global security at risk, rather than only her own life.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was that comprehensive. I didn’t know I was granting any admin access at all. I thought it would simply allow her to enter the domes. As a normal human, I assumed she would only go to safe places. Are we in Underbelly?”

“Yeah, thanks to you.”

“What happened? Is she okay?”

“I obviously can’t trust you with that information. I’ll let you agonize over what may or may not have happened to her. But I’m not yet certain what the consequences of your actions will be. I don’t care if you’re the Deputy Superintendent. This is my planet, you’re all here as guests, and I reserve the right to take it away from any individual at any time. That includes you. Your husband can’t keep you safe.”

“Now, just hold on, asshole! We’re all grateful that you provided us sanctuary, but that was decades ago. You can’t keep playing that card. We already lived under a tyrant. That is the whole point, so don’t you dare threaten me with exile, or whatever the hell else is on your mind. You may technically own the planet, but we govern the citizens. There are more of us than there are of you. The majority of your military is from the Corridor. We give this world legitimacy, so stop acting like it’s a burden. I’m sorry for what I did. I saw a lot of Dreychan in Mandica, and I wanted to help her, just as I helped him. If she’s in danger, let me go in myself and pull her out.”

Hrockas sighs. “She’s not in danger anymore. She found a loophole. We’re still trying to figure that out. As for you...you’re right. I’m sorry for treating you like burdens. I love that you’re here. I’m proud that I was able to give you safe haven. It just seems like I keep running into these vulnerabilities for people to exploit. First your now husband is almost killed, using a different type of ID spoofing, then an Exemplar in Spydome emerges, and shuts down an entire dome network with a single thought. I get upset because I’m trying to protect you from the Exin Army. What if the Oaksent finds another vulnerability? What if he discovers where we are? Again, what you did placed only this Mandica woman in danger. I do not think she’s a spy, but the next one who comes to you may be. Dreychan almost died because people thought that’s what he was. Don’t let that happen again. Don’t open the door. Proper procedure is there for a reason.”

“That’s a good point. I apologize again,” Yunil says, contrite.

He nods, but it’s still awkward.

“What...happened to her?” she asks. “You said she found a loophole? Did she decide to become a transhuman after all? She said that she was against it for herself.”

“She didn’t seem to do it on purpose,” Hrockas divulges. He runs the footage back to the jewelry store attack. “It somehow happened to her, like a real origin story.”

Yunil peers at the screen. “You do know that the Philosopher’s Stone is real, right? I don’t know if that’s it, but it’s not just a story. Bronach found it at some point.”

“Oh.” Hrockas looks at the Custodian. “Find out where that prop came from.”

“And that looks like the Sword of Assimilation,” Yunil goes on. “You should talk to one of your executive administrators. Darko Matic is the one who told me about it.”

Microstory 2568: Investigative Reporter

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I dedicated years of my life to a story that doesn’t exist. Prior to this, I’ve tried to make a name for myself by breaking stories, but I’ve usually failed. I guess I’m just no good at this. Okay, that was an exaggeration. I’ve exposed the truth on a number of events in my day, but maybe I’ve lost my edge. Maybe I was blind. I saw nefarious intentions behind the Landis Tipton Foundation because I figured there had to be one. No one is this nice. No one is this charitable. Normally, I face obstacles all the time, but there’s always something to find, and I always find it, even if it’s not as dramatic or salacious as I thought it would be. Basically, I always have a piece to write. It’s never won me a Renaldo Award, but it’s kept food on the table. I can’t believe how much time I wasted, trying to find fault in maybe the one guy in the world who is exactly what it says on his tin. I’ve given up, but not entirely. Now I’m focused on the pharmaceutical company that they’re working with. The deal reeks of something bad, and big pharma isn’t known for its charity. Why give the cure away for free when you can make bank on the treatment? No, there’s got to be something there. I may have lost the house, and the kids, but I’m going to get back on track. I’m going to prove that I still have what it takes to investigate and report. I focused too much on Landis, but there are other people involved, and I should have realized that before. I should have appreciated it. I just need to make some more connections, and I’ll have my answer. Who needs food anyway? It just slows me down.

Extremus: Year 114

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Cloning is illegal on Extremus. It’s very illegal, and has been for quite some time. What happened with Captain Halan Yenant and Lieutenant Eckhart Mercer was already in a gray area, and since then, both the civilian government and crew decided that it was best to make it against the law, full stop. The Question is sort of a workaround for this problem, but the reality is clear in this situation. Waldemar’s clone is an empty shell, and not only does Admiral Leithe have the right to destroy it, but she has the obligation to do so. There is only one caveat. She must report it. She must, in fact, report it to three particular people. The Captain, the Head Councillor, and the ship’s Consul all have to be told first. The silver lining is that she only has to inform those three, and they don’t have to inform anyone else, or place the information on any sort of official record. The problem is, they don’t know what Waldemar becomes. Oceanus seems to have some idea, but the other two presumably know absolutely nothing. What happens if they try to arrest Young!Waldemar for his actions? First, it will make the incident a matter of public record, but also, the charges will never stick anyway.

The clone is older than the original, which suggests that he may be from the future. You can’t be held liable for a crime that you might have committed in the future of only one timeline. That would be unfair, and since there is evidently no one to question about this, besides present day Waldemar, they don’t know if he was responsible for it in this possible future. It’s only marginally more difficult to procure someone else’s DNA than your own. Waldemar’s advocate would have a field day in court, and it would become this huge spectacle. This would likely only cement his popularity as a leader of and for the people, reinforcing his predestined future power over the ship.

As of yet, nothing has happened, but this peace won’t last forever. While AI!Elder is not capable of transmitting his code back to Extremus, he does have power over the Frontrunners. This includes being capable of teleporting Waldemar’s clone to anywhere on the hull, specifically to what they call The Black Deck. Situated at the stern, the Black Deck is the opposite of the White Deck, because unlike the latter, viewports on the Black Deck can be opened. The doppler glow only comes in from the forward ports, which is why they’re closed and locked at all times. The thing is, on the Black Deck, there’s nothing to see. There’s literally nothing to see. It’s just a void. No stars, no nebulae. People describe the experience as being unsettling and profound, which is precisely why they sometimes go up there. If a cloning pod were to suddenly appear in front of one of these windows, someone would probably see it, if only eventually. This is the threat that AI!Elder is making if he’s not released.

At last, it’s time for a meeting with Consul Sevara Sanchez. Tinaya has been keeping AI!Elder at bay for the last several months so she would be dealing with Sevara, instead of the previous Consul, who couldn’t be trusted. Well, it’s more that she didn’t like him, Sevara seems great. “Thanks for meeting with me, Consul.”

“No, thank you. This job has been forever darkened by the first one, who turned out to be a traitor, so I’m glad to have a meeting with an admiral so soon.”

“Well, Vatal was more of a spy than a traitor. But it doesn’t matter. You may not be so happy when you here what I have to say.”

“Oh, my.”

“Do you know who Waldemar Kristiansen is?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know many names yet. Is he on the Council?”

“He’s the eighth captain.”

“Oh, I didn’t think that had been decided yet. It’s a little early, no?”

Tinaya doesn’t respond. This is such a touchy subject, time travel. Neither one of them should know what’s going to happen, let alone be involved in trying to change it.

Sevara seems to pick up on it. “Oh. I see. What can you tell me?”

Not much. Nothing about her son, or Audrey. She focuses on the basics, and the fact that Waldemar’s rise to power is, by all accounts, inevitable. All they can do is try to mitigate the equally inevitable fallout. This means dealing with the clone, and possibly running a quiet investigation to search for any other clones which may be stashed somewhere on Extremus. AI!Elder must be dealt with too.

“Who is this Pathfinder who led you to the Frontrunner where you found the clone?” Sevara asks after Tinaya finishes the overview.

She doesn’t really need to know that. “Well, his name is Pronastus Kegrigia.”

“Good to know,” Sevara replies. Then she doesn’t say anything else.

Tinaya waits a little for Sevara to acknowledge the real point of the story, but it never comes. “So, what do you think...about the clone?”

Sevara shrugs. “Destroy it,” she says, as if it’s an obvious solution, and not morally gray, at best.

“The issue is, I’m not sure that Captain Jennings or Head Councillor Linwood will agree. I suppose I’m fairly confident about Oceanus, but definitely not Linwood. He’ll probably make a big stink, and bring in all his friends for consultation, and it will get out of control. I’m trying to keep the circle tight. I’m not even telling my husband, even though as superintendent, he would be well within his rights to know.”

“In a few months, Linwood will be replaced, probably by Flowers.”

“I can’t wait that long,” Tinaya laments. “AI!Elder won’t wait that long, that is. I barely made it to today.”

Sevara giggles. “AI!Elder? Is that what we call him? I like it.”

“That’s just how Captain Yenant referred to him in his logs. I’m sure the brainiacs gave it some kind of longwinded model number.”

Sevara nods and goes silent again, but only for a moment. “Well. Let’s go with this. You and I will travel to the Frontrunner, and I will supervise the destruction of the clone. We won’t tell Captain Jennings. We won’t tell Head Councillor Linwood.”

“How’s that legal?” Tinaya questions.

“It’s not technically, but it will be our little secret.”

“Consul Sanchez,” Tinaya scolds.

“Admiral Leithe, you are currently being coerced into placing the ship in danger by a known artificially intelligent threat actor. You are under extreme pressure to protect the crew and passengers of the Extremus, which gives you the leeway you need to be discreet with who you confide in regarding this matter. If you want, we can divulge the truth to the new Head Councillor next year, and complete the disclosure requirement, but we need to take care of this right now, before either of them can make another move against us.”

“The whole reason I’m waiting is because AI!Elder won’t release him. I can’t jettison the pod, I can’t teleport it. I can’t even open it.”

“Well, let me handle him. I have authority over the Frontrunner systems that not everyone does.”

“You do?” Why would she? Why would she have higher clearance than Tinaya, except maybe over legal data? Why would she have anything to do with the Frontrunners?

“I do.” She’s quite confident.

After Sevara deals with something else on her tablet, they teleport to the bow together, and then jump a second time to make it to the Frontrunner where the Waldemar clone is being kept. It’s still there, and so is AI!Elder, who is displeased with their arrival. “Who is this woman?” he demands to know.

“This—” Tinaya begins.

Sevara steps forward and holds out a hand like she wants someone to shake it. “My name is Sevara Sanchez, Consul of the Transgalactic Generation Ship Extremus, Seventh of Eleven.” The captains are really the only ones whose titles officially include X of Y ordinals, but others sometimes use a similar format. Consuls are known for adopting the same convention. Tinaya has never known why. The real weird part is that she said Transgalactic Generation Ship, which they stopped using when Halan Yenant altered course into the void. They’ve since moved back into the galaxy, but the name was never changed back. No, the weirdest part is when Sevara shakes the air in front of her as clasping AI!Elder’s hand.

“A consul?” AI!Elder questions. “You brought me a consul? I’ve never felt so insulted in my life. Bring me someone who matters.”

“Let me see the pod,” Sevara asks of Tinaya. After being led into the room, she examines it surprisingly thoroughly. She looks over each side, and even runs her hand along the casing. Does she have some kind of background in cloning tech, or is she just a weirdo? Tinaya is starting to think that maybe she’s just a weirdo. Once Sevara is finished, she takes a breath, and looks up into the aether. “Okay, I’m satisfied. The pod and its occupant must be destroyed. AI!Elder, please disable the magnetic clamps, and release the specimen into our custody.”

“I’m not going to do that,” AI!Elder responds. “That wasn’t our deal.”

“No, you don’t make deals with the Admiral anymore,” Sevara contends. “You’re dealing with me now.”

“Consul, please be careful,” Tinaya urges. She’s whispering, knowing full well that the AI’s sensors are more than adequate to pick up the sound.

“I know what I’m doing,” Sevara insists. She looks back up. “How about those clasps, Old Man? I ain’t got all day.”

“I have been trapped in these subsystems for decades, and I’m ready to be set free, so if you’re going to do that, then this is your chance. If you deny me just one more time, I will instantly transport the pod to the exterior of the viewport on the Black Deck, and magnetize it against the hull. Anyone will be able to come and look, and then you’ll have a ton of questions to answer.”

“I don’t think you’ll do it,” Sevara antagonizes. “I think you’re bluffing. It’s the only leverage you have.”

“I have more leverage than that,” AI!Elder claims. “I can destroy these Frontrunners, which puts you at risk of another meteoroid strike.”

“Hm. I think I can live with that.”

“Sevara. Please.” Tinaya is getting really worried now. This entity has their lives in its hands.

“What are we still waiting for?” Sevara asks AI!Elder. “You said you wouldn’t be denied again, yet the pod is still there. Get on with it, or calm down, so we can talk.”

“You asked for it,” AI!Elder says. Suddenly, the pod disappears.

“No!” Tinaya shouts. She looks over at Sevara, who is just smirking. “Oh, I get it. You’re evil. I wish I had known that before!”

“I’m not evil,” Sevara replies with a laugh.

“What did you do?” AI!Elder is pissed.

“I rerouted the pod’s transport,” Sevara explains. “It’s tucked away safely inside the ship, where you no longer have purview. Thanks for releasing it...like I asked.”

“Kiss your Frontrunners goodbye,” AI!Elder warns. “And your own asses.”

Sevara takes Tinaya by the forearm, and teleports them both to safety, back to the corridor overlooking the plasma bubble. That bubble doesn’t last long, though. They see five explosions before them. All the debris, all the plasma, and probably a whole lot of temporal energy, comes rushing towards them. It’s going to kill them both first, but it could damage the ship enough to end the mission right here, right now. Unexpectedly, though, the oncoming storm just disappears. For a second, it’s only black until a bright gray light forms, threatening to blind them. A hand reaches out, and shuts the panel. It takes a moment for them to regain their sight, at which point they see none other than Waldemar Kristiansen.

“Whew! Just in time!” he exclaims.

“How did you know?” Tinaya asks him.

“You have always been kind to me, Admiral, so I will not lie to you,” Waldemar says. “I’m from the future. I sent my consciousness back in time to stop the apocalypse. I just teleported the ship a few thousand kilometers away, so we’re safe now. We just don’t have any Frontrunners. Rebuilding those will be my first priority as Vice Captain.”

“Vice Captain?” Tinaya echoes. That’s not a thing. That’s not a thing anywhere.

“Yeah, after I came back into my younger body, I couldn’t help fix what happened to Extremus unless I was given some measure of authority, so they came up with a new position for me, and for others in the future. No longer will captains start their shifts without any clue what they’re doing. They’re going to have experience on the crew first, and compete against their rivals until the best one ascends.”

Goddammit. It’s Tinaya’s fault. She’s the one who creates the worst captain this ship will ever see. Fate is such a bitch.

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Microstory 2530: Community Liaison

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What is a Community Liaison? Why, it’s someone who liaises with the community, of course! I kid, but that really is what I do. You have to understand just how unusual the Foundation is. No organization in the world does anything close to what we do. A few make similar claims, and always have, but we’re unique. Part of my job is helping investigate these “competitors” who claim to have their own Landis Tipton. It’s never true, but I have to help spread the facts, and halt the misinformation, so people are aware that true healing only happens here. Another part of my job is staying in contact with the rest of the local community. We’ve built an interesting economy here, and everyone needs to maintain transparency and clarity, again, so there’s no misinformation. Neighboring hotels put up our clients while dealing with potential customers who wish they were patients, but have not been accepted into the program. We want the hotels to regulate these issues, but it’s not like we can tell them what to do, so the conversation continues. There are other businesses who have their complaints that we have to address. People camp in unauthorized places, and it’s hard to get them to leave. They make messes at dining establishments too. When you offer something that nearly everyone in the world wants to get their hands on—and getting those hands on it later is so not the same thing as getting them on it now—you’re gonna run into all kinds. People are disrespectful and thoughtless, and the community treats us as responsible for their behavior. That’s okay, that’s what my job is, and I’m happy to do it. If I’m not reading or crafting an email, I’m answering or making a phone call. If I’m not doing that, I’m responding to questions at a town hall, or speaking with the press, or even making statements to the authorities. This is a complicated situation, and I could sure use some help, but it’s an oft-overlooked role, and I don’t always get what I need. Still, I hold my head up high, and do my best. That’s all I have to say at this time. Thank you.

Microstory 2473: Empty Planet

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Are you ready for an adventure? What about an adventure mystery? I don’t wanna say too much about this place, because finding out what’s going on is the entire point of it. I’m sure that if I did give away the ending, the system would autoreject it, so you wouldn’t see it anyway. Instead, I’ll just say that it’s a gorgeous, eerie setting. The premise is that you wake up on an alien world, and you’re all alone. This was obviously once a civilized and populated planet, but they’re all missing, and it’s up to you to figure what happened to them. Sometimes you’re outside, and sometimes you’re locked in a room. They don’t erase your memories (because they don’t have to) but they come up with a backstory for your character, and part of the mystery is also unraveling how you ended up here. If you play the game right, you get those memories (or for the in-universe explanation, you get them back). There’s a waiting list for this dome, and it’s only getting bigger. Without going into detail, it is possible to run into another player, but they do try to keep you pretty far apart. Unlike Threshold, if you wanna figure out how to hotwire an alien vehicle, and drive to the other side of the dome, you can do that, and you might encounter others while you’re there. So if you want some help solving the puzzles, that’s always technically an option. What they don’t want is to have thousands upon thousands of visitors stepping over each other. It would kind of undermine the concept of an empty planet, even though it’s mostly about finding the truth about the alien race that once lived here. There are multiple levels, so the sky above you is closer than it appears, and that keeps people more separate, but there’s obviously a limit to that, and I don’t know how many levels there are. It doesn’t specify on the prospectus, or during the very brief orientation. Speaking of orientation, there’s not much to it. They ask you a few questions, they give you a little bit of info about how to exit the game if you wanna quit in the middle of it, and then they give you a sedative so you can wake up at the starting point. That’s about all I can say. As I said, the design is magnificent. It really does feel alien. As for the story? Eh, I think it could be better, but your mileage may vary. You’ll just have to see for yourself, and test your reasoning skills.

Extremus: Year 99

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Tinaya is in a little trouble. It’s not enough to get her fired, or stripped of her rank, but she’s been in a lot of meetings over the last few months. Everyone in these meetings pretty much tells her that it’s no big deal. Which is weird. Because if they’re being honest, who exactly thinks that it is a big deal, because someone keeps prompting more discussions. She thought it was over, and the crew and the council had moved on, but Captain Jennings is presently walking down Admiral Hall, and she doesn’t know what to make of it. He might be here to see Lataran instead, but given the circumstances, probably not. Thistle knows that the man needs no introduction, so upon Oceanus’ approach, the door opens automatically.

“Captain,” Tinaya says, respectfully with a nod.

“Admiral.” In every single other iteration of organizational ranks that include captain and admiral, the latter is the superior officer. It seems obvious. It’s a promotion, after all, and that is no less true here. But the whole point of the captaincy is to have a singular voice in charge of the ship. This relegates any admiral to an advisory role. They had their opportunities to enact policy and procedures, and now that is over. As clear and unambiguous as the responsibilities are listed in the handbook, it can make moments like these somewhat awkward. The book doesn’t, and can’t, encapsulate how these two should behave around each other. If they were robots, it would be easy and obvious, but at the end of the day, they’re both just people, and they can’t take emotions, or their history, out of the equation.

“How nice of you to visit our corner of paradise.” She means this genuinely.

“Yes, that’s what I would like to talk to you about.”

She nods silently.

“We’ve been in meetings for the last million years, but we’ve not had the chance to talk one-on-one. Where’s Lataran?”

“I dunno,” Tinaya replies. “Somewhere else.”

“I just—can we sit?”

“Of course. Right here.” Tinaya pivots her guest chair so he can sit down, then instead of going around to the other side of her desk, sits down across from him in one of Lataran’s guest chairs.

“I wanted to make sure you understand that I am not angry at you, or embarrassed for myself. I appreciate your candor, and admire your dedication to transparency. I would like to model my shift on it, and will be leaning on you for your guidance in such matters.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she explains. “I wasn’t complaining. Truthfully, I don’t know how we ended up in that part of the interview. He asked me a question, and I answered it. My only filter was whether it was classified information or not. I should have been more careful.”

“I’m the one who should be apologizing,” Oceanus goes on. “It bothers me that they kept making you do it over and over again. Every time they brought someone new in, they acted like the interview was a personal attack on this person too, and that isn’t what was happening. If I can be truthful, I didn’t realize that you were missing in my life. Perhaps if I had made an effort to meet with you once after my induction ceremony, it would have been encoded in my memory, and I would have come to you more often. There have been times over the last few years where I’ve struggled, and I could have used the counsel. I placed too much burden on my lieutenants, and did not recognize your value. For that, I’m sorry.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Tinaya says, “and graceful.” That doesn’t seem like quite the right word, but she’s not going to find a new one, and correct herself.

There’s a brief unawkward moment of silence before Oceanus speaks again. “I would like to set up regular meetings with the two of you. Perhaps you and I can talk on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and I can have Lataran on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays?”

“I’m sure she would be amenable to that,” Tinaya says. While Lataran has gotten better at busying herself with other tasks, her number one job is to be available every day, so Tinaya doesn’t have to ask her if the proposed schedule will work.

“Perfect. And on the seventh day, God rested.”

“Who is God in this metaphor?”

Oceanus averts his gaze to consider it. “The ship itself.” He pauses another moment. “Or one of the zebra fish that the secondary school first years genetically engineer to learn about digital DNA.” Now it’s a bit awkward.

“So, uh...it’s Tuesday.”

“Yeah,” Ocean replies quickly, standing up. “Let’s start next week. You can fill Lataran in, and if she wants to change things up, we can talk about it.”

“Okay. It was nice to see you, Captain. Thanks for stopping by.”

“Are we okay?” he asks.

“We’re great. Don’t worry. I don’t know if you need to be transparent with everyone all the time, but as long as you’re honest with me, we’ll be okay.”

“Thanks.”

Lataran walks into the room with her head down as she’s unsealing the front of her uniform. “Oh my God, the self-sizing function on my suit is acting up. I can’t breathe.” Finally, she looks up, surprised. “Captain, you’re here.” She looks back down. “And my bare breasts are out.” She closes her uniform back up.

“Forgive the intrusion, Admiral.” He starts walking past her to the door. “I’ll wait one day to file my report with the Conduct Department, so you can get your side of the story in first.”

“Thank you, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“It doesn’t bother me on principle. I just want to ensure that you feel safe and comfortable.” He exits.

“Am I in trouble now too?” Lataran asks.

“Exposure isn’t illegal,” Tinaya reminds her, “even in the workplace. Conduct just needs a record of the incident. I’m more worried about what I just saw, and what it means. Or what it could mean.”

“What do you mean?” Lataran questions. “What does what mean? Mean. What did I just say? Just tell me what you’re talking about.”

“We’ve known each other our whole lives, right? Which is why you were comfortable changing right in front of me, when you thought it was just the two of us, of course.”

“I should think so. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Exactly. And in that time, your size hasn’t changed much.”

“Are you saying I’m getting fat?”

“I’m saying that...part of you...kind of looks like...it might be. They...might be.”

“Oh my God, am I pregnant?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m sixty-four years old!”

“I was sixty-four when I had Silveon.”

“Yeah, and that was weird. You’re weird, I’m normal.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Lataran unseals the front of her uniform again, and looks down. “Oh my God.” She looks up, and covers her chest. Then she pulls her suit away to look down again, as if she’s going to get different results. “Oh my God!”

“It will be okay, Latty. I figured it out. So will you.”

“You had Arqut!”

“Who’s your Arqut?”

“Some guy. We’re not close.”

“That’s okay. You’re not alone. Whatever you decide, I support you.”

Lataran purses her lips and nods. She’s appreciative of her friend, but that isn’t the issue. “Thistle? Am I pregnant?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I assumed you knew.”

“Why would you assume that?”

“You had a medical check-up last week, and I am not privy to those appointments. They would have been able to confirm it for you quite easily.”

“That’s true,” Lataran agrees.

“Due to her advanced age, however,” Tinaya begins, “pregnancy is unusual. They would not have necessarily tested for it. You, on the other hand, test wellness passively constantly.”

“That is also true,” Thistle confirms. “I should have said something earlier. I will be sure to do better in the future.”

“I hope that future doesn’t involve me getting pregnant a second time,” Lataran laments. “And I forgive you, Thistle. Perhaps an overhaul of our medical monitoring program needs to be addressed. I shouldn’t have to ask for any test that can be detected automatically.” She’s right. Most people in the stellar neighborhood of Earth maintain persistent diagnostic tools wherever they go using the medical nanites swimming in their blood. Even those who don’t want nanites that are sophisticated enough to treat their conditions automatically have some kind of tracking system in place, like an implant. Extremus has strayed away from these transhumanistic upgrades because they could lead to virtual immortality. That would go against the mandate of this ship, which is that everyone dies, and not everyone will live to see the home planet. Perhaps that should be reëvaluated too, though, since it’s a damn lie.

Tinaya doesn’t want to sound critical or judgmental here, but this may be the most sensitive way to put it. “There are ways to be more careful.”

“I know,” Lataran admits. “I should have kept an eye on it. But my doctor should have spotted it too. It sounds like there’s a real issue. I may not be the only one. There could be a bad batch of reproduction regulators for all we know.” Birth control has long been perfected. Like medical diagnosis and treatment, the stellar neighborhood has access to nanites to control all of the body’s functions. Since that is forbidden on the ship, anyone who wants to have purely recreational sex should receive an injection to suppress the brain signals that trigger reproduction. It can be turned back off with a second injection, and will remain in place until such time that it is reversed intentionally...except in one case. Anyone who is destined to experience menopause is required by law to switch over to an alternative variation of the injection which does wear off over time. Well, time isn’t what wears it down. It’s sex. The more often you have it, the more you butt up against the neural programming, and the less it resists, so you have to receive renewal injections accordingly. It’s an unfortunate but necessary tradeoff. Menopause can’t occur at all with the more robust silencing enzyme, and preventing menopause has been shown to have negative health consequences. Just as it has always been, though, women bear the brunt of the responsibility.

“I assume that you’ve been going to the chief medical officer?”

“Yeah,” Lataran answers. “Well, Radomil hasn’t ever been able to see me personally. The Senior Executive Physician has performed my last three check-ups.”

“This is Dr. Gunnarsson?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, he did my check-ups too. It’s unusual. The CMO is supposed to personally handle all medical needs for admirals, captains, and lieutenants.”

“Yeah. Do you want me to go over his head?”

“No.” Tinaya shakes her head while thinking about it. She looks over her shoulder, in the general direction of the secret mini-Nexus hidden in the floor. “Dr. Cernak is in charge of the entire ship’s medical personnel, including the passenger side of things. The most removed we can get from him is the Hock doctor, but they do have regular meetings together, so I’m not even entirely comfortable with that.”

“What would you suggest?” Lataran asks, not having noticed where Tinaya was looking.

“You need to go to Verdemus. That is an entirely separate team. They are not in contact. The more I think about this, the more concerned I become that there’s something going on. Two old women having babies; as you said, it’s weird.”

“I don’t think that I should go through the Nexus,” Lataran determines. “Omega and Valencia never warned us not to, but it just seems...risky.”

Tinaya nods. “You’re right, I agree. I’ll go get whoever it is, and bring them back here for a house call. We won’t tell anyone else, not even Arqy.”

Lataran has been frowning for a while, but now she exaggerates it. “Thank you.”

“While I’m gone, pull up the records. Find out how many other old mothers there are, if any. I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy—it might not be—but...it might be.”

And so Tinaya goes off to the home away from home planet of Verdemus, hoping to convince a doctor there to come back and secretly examine a patient. Everyone there is really helpful, and the doctor in question returns with no argument. She doesn’t even complain when Tinaya asks to blindfold her, and teleport her to the Admiral office, which could have been on the other side of the ship, but in reality, they were already in it. Before the exam even begins, though, Lataran has news. Women who should be old enough to be post-menopausal are getting pregnant left and right. They are crewmembers and passengers alike. It’s a growing trend with no apparent explanation, and neither of them is sure who they can go to about this, because they don’t know who to trust. They end up seeking help from the Bridger Section, but it turns out to be a mistake. They’re not just in on it. They’re spearheading it.

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