Microstory 2445: Dune Buggy Paradise

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This is the largest habitable desert in the world. Now, you may be asking yourself, how could it be any bigger than any other? Every dome is the same size as all the others, isn’t it? True, but this one makes better use of that space, because it operates in three dimensions. We’re talking about multiple layers here. It’s quite ingenious, really. I don’t mean that you can wander about on the bottom layer, and then take an elevator to a higher ones. You have to walk or drive up ramps to get to other levels, and you don’t just multiply the area of one by the number of layers to get the total area. The upper layers are nowhere near as big. They’re like giant catwalks, criss-crossing each other in random configurations, looping around, and dipping down. It’s all very chaotic, and hard to track. Here’s the most mysterious—and I think, best—part of this whole place, there is a layer near the top of the dome which no one has been able to figure out how to reach. There doesn’t seem to be any path leading to it, but we can clearly see it. At the right angles—and with good enough vision—you can even make out a dune buggy parked on the edge. It’s gotta be some kind of prize, but as I said, no one has managed to reach it thus far. Even if you found some roundabout way, like with an extremely long grappling hook, how would you drive it down? It’s about a kilometer higher than the next highest layer. Maybe it’s a joke, or the creators are taunting us. Or it’s just straight up unfinished, who knows? Another special thing about the way this place is designed is what happens when sand from one layer falls over the edge. Well, it doesn’t. It can slip over, but then fly back up to where it belongs. You don’t have to worry about sand falling on your head all the time like rain thanks to people on the higher layers. It’s not just regular sand that they harvested from the surface of this planet. It’s smartdust. It’s all smartdust. I hear tales of people claiming that it has flown around in other instances, and formed ominous shapes, which they interpret as the dust trying to communicate with them. It could be true, though I’ve not seen it for myself, but even if it were, there’s a scientific explanation for it. Smartdust is fully capable of moving around, and forming larger shapes, like tiny artificial starlings. Overall, this is a pretty nifty place. It could be pretty boring, with its one niche being hardly distinct from other domes. There are other deserts, and at least one other racing dome, but combining them here is more than just the sum of its parts. I think it’s worth the trip. You don’t have to race if you don’t want to. You can just drive around, people are pretty respectful about boundaries.

Microstory 2422: State of the Art

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Isn’t that a funny name for a dome? State of the Art. Since art is so subjective, that term is so often used to describe scientific advancements, which is essentially the opposite of what we’re talking about here. But in this case, they’re calling the entirety of the dome a state, and its purpose is art. Have you ever seen a show from a long time ago called The Peripheral? It only lasted one season, but in that, they feature sculptures that dot the skyline, which are larger than most buildings around it. They never talked about them, or gave any history, but it was set in the audience’s future. I’m not sure if the Castlebourne people were specifically inspired by this, or if it’s a coincidence, but either way, they have those here. These things go up two or three kilometers in the air, and can sometimes be just as wide. It’s really cool to stand on the balcony level, and look down at the whole thing. You’re a few kilometers up yourself, but there aren’t any clouds that low, since they can control all that stuff. Not every dome has one of these second levels, but I think it’s really important in this case. I certainly think that you could extend it more along the perimeter, or even build more layers, but maybe there was a reason why they stopped it here. I just worry that there won’t be enough room once the planet and the dome become more popular. That’s assuming it does. I know you’re all running from your zombies, and wasting each other in the wasteland, but it’s important to learn to be cultured and quiet. That’s what my mom taught me. She was old enough to remember a time before the longevity escape velocity. To them, art was a way of continuing on an individual’s and culture’s community. A piece of visual art or musical piece is a snapshot in history, showing in the most genuine way what life was like—what life was like for the people making the art, and for the people around them. We’re taught that a painting, for instance, comes from a distinct period in time, and it’s important to understand that. You paint a pond of water lilies in 1840, it evokes a different feeling than someone painting it in 2040. Lives change, lifestyles change. Those two people see the world entirely differently, and recognizing the beauty in that is an important human trait that I think we’ve lost as we’ve developed. We still make art, but it’s a reflection of who we are today, and it means nothing if we can’t remember that. Go back to the past, and learn from it. You can visit one of the Babeldome libraries and read about it, and I definitely wouldn’t discourage you from doing that, but don’t forget about the art. Never forget about the art. It speaks, so listen closely. Be cultured and quiet.

Microstory 2411: Party Central

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Party, party, party! All aboard, party people! This is where the party’s at! It’s Party Central! That is a great name, because it’s true. It’s January 1, 2500, according to the Earthan calendar, and Castlebourne is officially open for business! They’ve been in testing until now, and while a ton of domes are still not open to the public, a lot of the earlier ones are. There’s plenty to see and do here after the hard work of thousands of testers who were here on the frontlines, making sure that the activities and adventures in the domes were enjoyable, worth your time, and safe. Except for the residentials, all of the domes were shut down yesterday, and will remain that way until tomorrow. Everybody’s here, getting their groove on, and having a great time. We’re all in the main hall right now, but there’s a reason they called this dome what they did. There’s a venue for every need, every niche, every theme. It’s basically if you took the concept of every dome on the planet, and squished them down to smaller scale. You like sports? There’s a venue designed specifically for people who like sports. You can play sports there, and eat bar food, and talk about the sports that you like. I’m not into them myself, so I don’t know what it’s like, but I’m sure it’s great. There are multiple levels to this dome, so you can hang out in the sky, if that’s your thing. I don’t know what else to say about it. As of this posting, the festivities are still ongoing. Even when they officially reopen the domes, we’ll still be here dancing and partying. You know what parties are like, well this is the greatest one ever thrown, and it never really has to end. Come on down, and when you’re ready, go find your bliss elsewhere. Or stick around, I’ll be here. It’s my home, I see no reason to leave.

Microstory 2407: Zombie Dome

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Zombies! Get your zombies here! We got fast zombies, slow zombies, zombies who are still a little bit intelligent, zombies who mindlessly continue on with the jobs that they supposedly had when they were still alive. You choose your environment, and you choose your level of difficulty, and then you just try to survive. They have some pretty crazy scenarios. I love zombies, so I’m biased, but I think you could have an entire planet just designated for this, and it would be great. Here’s what’s interesting about it, and the kind of unique thing about Castlebourne over all. They really lean into the fact that human bodies are completely expendable these days. They put a lot of work into building them for us. They have some fancy new technology that can grow a clone of you in a matter of minutes, I don’t understand it. Or you can choose your own creative avatar—like a bunny, or an iron giant—though that’s not really allowed in Zombie Dome. You’re supposed to be a human running from humanoid zombies. That’s the thing. But here’s a choice I never thought I would get to make. You can turn into a zombie in certain variations. When they bite you, if you don’t die, you continue as one of the undead. They’ll pump you full of drugs, and impair your brain processing. You’ll start walking around trying to bite other people. It’s a trip. I wanted to see what it was like, so I intentionally got bitten. Don’t worry, there are fail-safes in place. No matter how stunted your mind is, there’s always this part of you that is aware that none of this is real, and that you can break out of it if you need to. You can force your real consciousness back to the surface, and start being a normal person again. You’re dead, so you can’t keep playing like that, but you can make your way to an emergency exit, and quit playing. At that point, you can request a respawn into a normal body again, and start all over. I never felt unsafe in there even though that’s the point. It’s true, as I said, I love this stuff, so I kind of went into it really prepared. You might have a different level of preparation, but they’ll take care of you. They won’t let things go too far. Even when you’re still alive, you can put a stop to a zombie attack by uttering your safeword, which you will choose ahead of time. It can’t be too obvious, like, help, or no, stop! but I’ve seen it work. I had a bunch of buddies who were there specifically to test these systems. They chose different safewords at different times, and they always worked. We were there to test the boundaries, and make sure that the safeguards were sufficient, and never faltered. Highly recommended, but bear in mind this is not for everyone. It takes a certain kind of constitution, and most people should know whether it will be good for them or not, and again, if it’s not, you can just leave.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 102,398

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Bhulan steps out of her stasis pod, and then out of the joint stasis chamber. She stands in the hallway for a moment, rubbing her eyes. She was actually sleeping in there, instead of only standing and waiting for the time to pass. She yawns, and smacks her lips together in a cartoonish way. “Constance, have Danica and Mateo returned yet?”

“Not yet, sir. I would have alerted you if they had.”

“You would not have if she had told you not to.”

“If she had told me not to, I would probably be lying right now.”

“Are you lying?”

Constance pauses for effect. “No.”

“Where are Tamerlane and Asier?”

“Asier is still in stasis. Tamerlane is in his simulation room.”

Bhulan rolls her eyes, and heads that way. She finds him busy at his desk, scribbling notes on paper, instead of typing them out with a keyboard, or dictating them directly. The floor is covered in crumpled up paper from his now defunct ideas, and other mistakes. He’s not looking well. “How are we feeling today?”

He darts his head up, apparently having just realized that she’s in the room. “Bhu, I think I have it figured out. Instead of having all the different levels in the same world, we put them on completely separate worlds. You can’t want what you don’t know exists. I’m still working out the levels, but this system allows a lot more of them than the old one. If you’re allowed to build new worlds, then you do that on a separate server from the people who are stuck in prison. And they’re separate from just the regular folks. Right? I mean this makes sense, right? It makes sense to me. Heaven.”

“So, in your version of the afterlife simulation, no one can ever improve their afterlives. Whatever they did in their real lives decides their eternity, and that never changes.”

He starts nodding at her with an earnest forced smile. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, umm...shit. You’re right, this doesn’t work.” He stares at the corner of the room while he grabs some of the paper, crumples it up, and tosses it away. He then looks back down at his desk. “Wait, I threw away the wrong thing.”

“Tam.” She can see where this is going.

“Where did that end up on the floor? Do you see it? I think it was yellow.” He gets on his knees, and shuffles around in search of it.

“Tam, get up.”

“No, I have to find it. I was calculating the power requirements earlier. See, I think my real problem was relying too much on the Matrioshka Body as hosts. I need to be in control of the hardware, as well as the software, or I won’t be able to protect the residents.”

Bhulan crouches down, and tries to comfort him with her hands on his shoulders. “Tam, that wasn’t you. It was an alternate version of you.”

He stares into her eyes like she just kicked his puppy. “I know that, you think I don’t know that? You know what I mean. I’m trying to do better than he did. If I can figure this out, I can rewrite the entire program, and dismantle his version of the simulation entirely. You know how much heartbreak I can prevent?”

“Tam, he didn’t...he didn’t come up with it. He took ideas from others. And those people aren’t here either. This is not your problem to solve.” This isn’t the first time he’s become singularly focused on trying to fix the supposed mistakes of his counterpart in the main sequence who created an entire computer simulation that houses the uploaded consciousness of everyone who died across a span of tens of thousands of years. She has to be patient with him when he’s in this state. He spends the most amount of time out of stasis—to no one’s fault but his own—and he spends a lot of that in here, dealing with his issues. None of them is qualified to bring him back to reality. Still, they have to try every time, because they don’t think his fixation is healthy.

“People know what he did. They know who he is, and I look exactly like him. How do I stop looking like him?” He blinks slowly, and falls back to sit against the wall. “I had the dream again.” Time moves differently in dreams, and this is true of everyone, but the phenomenon is especially potent in people who are in stasis while they’re doing it. They can experience many lifetimes—or even longer—in great detail in a short amount of pod time if their brain becomes acutely aware of the passage of realtime. Some are more susceptible to this bug than others, Tamerlane Pryce being one of them. It starts to become a real problem after the first few thousand years in stasis, which is why most people wouldn’t even know what you’re talking about if you bring it up. This is one reason why the four of them always come out every once in a while, to stretch their legs, and to reset their internal clocks. Again, he has to do it more often to avoid suffering from psychotic breaks, but sometimes, not even that is enough.

“Come on,” she says, helping him back to his feet. “I know you’re afraid to go back to sleep, but once you surrender, you always feel better. You’re not in stasis right now, and I promise you that no one is going to force you back into it. Why don’t you just stay out here for a year or two? Someone will be with you at all times, starting with me.”

“Are Dani and Matt not back yet?”

“No, but if you agree to go to sleep, I’ll run diagnostics on the machine again.”

“Okay, thank you.”

Bhulan helps him back to his room, and even into his bed, as if a mother mothering her child. He conks out pretty quickly, so she leaves. She’s about to just go watch some Future!TV when she decides to not make herself a liar. She goes up to the time machine room, which they’re not even supposed to enter, but Mateo did, and Danica went after him. They disappeared 40,000 years ago, and never returned. They plan to be here for billions of years, so there’s technically no rush, but it’s still worrisome. According to the literature, the machine is designed for recon, and should always bring the travelers back to the moment of departure, even if they’re dead, and even if the machine itself is broken, which it isn’t anymore. She stands there in the doorway for a few minutes after a good diagnostics check, knowing that there’s not much else she can do to help the situation. She turns around, like she always does, giving up on this being the day they come back. Suddenly, the machine powers up.

A naked body appears in the center of the chamber, its back to Bhulan. It doesn’t move for a minute, and she’s honestly kind of afraid to approach. She’s lived with Danica for thousands of years, so she knows it’s not her, but it could be anyone else with a feminine figure. She’s breathing, though, so that’s good. Finally, she turns over so Bhulan can see her face. “Who the hell are you?” Bhulan questions.

“Abigail. Abigail Genifer Siskin Pryce.”

Microstory 1675: Boss Level

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Even before it was named after the woman who populated it, Fort Underhill was designed to become a new universe for those who had died in Salmonverse. They had been living in a simulated reality up until that point, but the creators wanted them to have a place to go where they couldn’t make up whatever rules they wanted, or have literally anything given to them simply by request. They weren’t being mean—the idea was originally conceived to be a choice—they just thought people might eventually get tired of having everything handed to them. For better or worse, while their consciousnesses remained intact, they were not alive, and they knew that people would want to have resurrection as an option. They were all transitioned there all at once, against their will, because there was no time to ask them. The simulation was being shut down by a group of people who essentially boil down as the landlords. They had to get out, and they had to get out fast, or they would all meet the true death. Despite the fact that it was necessary to do this without warning, it has been reported to me that it caused some unrest. As I’ve said, Fort Underhill is impenetrable to me. The membrane is too thick to allow information to be passed back and forth, so I’m getting all of this second hand from people who have been inside. According to what they saw and experienced, a lot of the newly resurrected were grateful for the gift. It was a lofty goal that the original creator of the simulation had always hung over their heads, just out of their reach. He built levels into the social hierarchy, with the lowest level being true death, and the highest level being new life. So a lot of them were always trying to attain it, and they never thought they would, because it was incredibly rare. They were glad to have finally achieved the final level, but not everyone felt the same way about it.

Some didn’t care either way, because they figured they could always enter a new virtual construct now. They were immortal, and time meant nothing to them now, so who cares how long that took, or how much earlier work they lost? Others were less patient. They worked very hard to build their afterlives, and to have it all ripped from them was a travesty in their minds. As far as I can tell, they didn’t go into war, or anything, but it was a complicated situation. Because of how efficient the level system was, they didn’t have any preexisting form of government. Because of how long the simulation had run, there were people from the entire history of civilization, which meant for every form of government Earth ever had, someone was around who had experienced it prior to their death. Which one would they choose? There was plenty of space for them to spread out, but did that mean each planet ran itself? Would the creators of the universe have any say, or would they expect the people to elect new leaders? What would they do with the levels, now that everyone was apparently on the same playing field? Was there some way to return to the hierarchy, and was that fair? Honestly, the main purpose of levels was to keep the afterlife interesting. If everyone always had everything handed to them, which was technically feasible, would people grow bored, and kill themselves for good? Still there were those who wanted to return to the old ways, especially when it came to the prisoners. Throughout most of history, everyone died, including bad people, so did they deserve to have all their sentences suddenly commuted? There were a lot of complex social questions to try to answer now, and the creators would not have it easy.

Big Papa: Biting the Ice (Part IX)

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We never could have guessed the truth about what has become of the afterlife simulation since we’ve been gone. For a world where you’re not supposed to be able to die, it sure is dangerous. Gilbert doesn’t come back with all the answers, but he has a decent idea what the hell is going on. Details about Pinocchio remain scarce, as people are evidently afraid to say anything about him, but the results of his efforts are clear. The worlds have been thrown into war, built on a foundation of a class system, fueled by real consequences...and weapons.

“It’s like the zero blade,” Gilbert explains as he’s still trying to catch his breath. No one is actually breathing in the simulation, or at least they don’t have to. If it’s possible to become tired, it’s because somebody deliberately turned that feature on to better resemble base reality.

“What does that do again?” Lowell asks.

“It kills you,” Nerakali answers. “It destroys your code, so you don’t respawn, or heal, or anything. You’re just...gone.”

“But you said it’s like the zero blade,” I point out. “What does it do?”

“There’s more than one,” Gilbert continues. “Blue, red, orange, yellow.”

“Downgrading weapons,” Pryce realizes. “I made one for every level.”

“Every level?” Gilbert questions. “Even the higher ones?”

“Yes,” Pryce confirms. “There’s even one for resurrection, which will transmit your consciousness to a new substrate in base reality. From there, you can pick out some other body.”

“I don’t care about the upgrades. How many of the weapons are there?” I ask.

“You can make more of certain ones,” Pryce explains. “There are only a few zero blades, though, and only one white staff. I lost it a long time ago, and I have no idea where the zero blades are. Obviously, Leona had one at one point, which she got from Boyce.”

“Tell us about the others,” Nerakali orders. “What are we dealing with?”

“The ones you have to worry about are the ice picks, the red axes, the hock shanks, the yellow hammers, and possibly the green collars. That last one isn’t all that bad, but some would disagree. The others would be considered upgrades, and they’re incredibly rare.”

“They’re using them in a war,” Gilbert adds. “If someone gets their hands one one, they can either use it against their enemies, or threaten them with it. The people with the worst weapons are the ones with the most power. No one wants their IDCodes to be shelved, so those with ice picks are considered elites. They make most of the decisions, delegating to the red axe wielders as needed, and so on down the hierarchy tree. I got the feeling when I was out there that a few people have the upgrade tools, but it’s unclear how powerful those people are. I think they can really only use them to bargain for personal favors, but they don’t control anything.”

Pryce is shaking his head. “When we started this project, we didn’t immediately know how the levels would work, or how you would rank up, or what. But we never wanted war. I wouldn’t have let this happen.”

“When we first showed up,” I begin, “we thought you were the enemy. We thought things would only get better if we removed you from power. Now I see how bad things get when you’re not here. Abandoning this place was the biggest mistake of your life. When you went down this path—shutting me out of it, manslaughtering Trinity, letting your daughter and Thor go off to wherever—you chose to assume the responsibility of tens of billions of people, and you should have respected that. People like you don’t get to quit; it’s a lifetime appointment. The fact that you’ve had an extremely long lifetime is no excuse.”

“You’re right,” Pryce says, “which is why I have to be the one to fix this.”

“How?” Lowell asks.

“Ice in the Hole,” Nerakali guesses.

“We can’t do that,” Lowell argues.

“I wasn’t here,” Gilbert reminds us. “What is that?”

“There’s a button,” Pryce starts to go over it again. “I doubt Pinocchio ever found it, it’s not in my office, and even if he did, he probably wouldn’t know how to use it. And he would be horrified by the downside. As the name would suggest, it puts everyone on ice. It shelves every single IDCode inside the simulation. Every single one,” he reiterates. “It’s like pressing a great reset button, except that it doesn’t destroy anything. The simulation itself remains up and running, and once it’s time to reinstantiate the identities, they’ll all be intact. I created it in case something like this happened.”

Like a great reset button that doesn’t destroy anything, I repeat in my own head. It’s a terrible choice, but if it’s the only reasonable solution, then it will be what we do. We have to end the war, and if we can’t do it through words, we’ll force it. But we have to try to use our words first. “That is a last resort,” I protest. “We haven’t even tried to stop it some other way. Can’t we start by deleting all of the weapons?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Pryce contends. “You can’t find and replace the weapons. The code is far too complicated for that. It’s designed to be self-teaching, and adaptive, and it simulates every law of physics that isn’t specifically counteracted by a programmed rule. In the real world, you can’t find every weapon, and erase it from reality, so you can’t do it in the simulation either. We created it that way to curtail our own power. There is no button, for instance, that turns everyone’s clothes black, even though it wouldn’t be very hard to program that. Hell, I could set every server on fire if I wanted to, because I have the privilege of a body, but it would take a long time, because each one is at least hundreds of miles from any other. These restrictions are all about preserving life, and preventing something disastrous. You’re right, Ice in the Hole is a last resort, but it is perfectly safe for the residents, and we are already at the point of a last resort.”

“Where is it?” Lowell asks. “I know it’s not murder, but I have experience with hurting people, so I should be the one to do it.”

“No,” Pryce says. “I’m responsible, I have to push the button. Besides, you’ve been resurrected. I can’t take that away from you.”

“Why would that take it away from me? Can’t you just re—uhh...re-in—”

“Reinstantiate,” Nerakali helped.

“No, I can’t,” Pryce replies without the full question. “I told you, the button has a downside. I said it was safe for the residents, but that doesn’t go for the person who pushes the button. It requires a blood sacrifice. You can push it all day long, if you want, but nothing will happen unless you do it with your bare hand.”

“What, does a needle come out of the button as it goes down?” Gilbert figures.

“Not a needle,” Pryce corrects, “a blade.”

I know where he’s going with this. “A zero blade.”

“Yes.”

“It’s not a blood sacrifice, it’s a code sacrifice.”

“In the end, yes,” Pryce agrees. “The code of your blood is different than the rest of your avatar. It contains your genetic information, just like it would in base reality. Once the blade tastes those genes, it will zero out the person they belong to.”

“You can’t just cut yourself with a regular virtual blade, and pour it on the button, while you push it with a meter stick, or something?” Nerakali suggests.

“Sure, you could,” Pryce says with a shrug, “but that doesn’t solve your problem. Your blood matches your code. You still die, because it knows it’s your blood. Or rather, it knows it’s my blood, because I’m the one who’s going to be doing this. And before you think you’ve figured out a loophole, that won’t work either. You wouldn’t be able to draw someone’s blood, and store it in a jar while you resurrect them. People who are resurrected are still connected to the simulation, and it will kill them, even when they’re on the outside. Plus, the virtual blood has to be fresh. I mean, seconds fresh. Nothing can resurrect you that fast, except for the white staff, I guess, but like I said, I don’t know where that is.”

“Why did you design it this way?” Nerakali questions. “This is needlessly complicated and deadly.”

“Not needlessly,” Pryce maintains. “Quite importantly. It’s not dangerous for the residents per se, but there is some risk. If the Glisnians detect a sudden drop in power usage—which is what this act will do—they could theoretically decide that the experiment is over. That’s what they keep calling it, an experiment. They don’t see it as a subversion to death for all the humans in history. As far as they’re concerned, they’re the only ones who matter, and they’ve already cracked immortality. They let me continue with my work, because I don’t get in their way, and I don’t use too much energy in the grand scheme of things. But they will end it if they see any evidence that I don’t need it any more. The button, and how it works, is a deterrent. If someone pushes it, someone else has to go up to the real world, and make sure they don’t shut the whole thing down. Ellie, you have proven that you can convince people of almost anything. The residents will rely on you to be their advocate once I’m gone.”

“I am their advocate,” says a voice from beyond the huddle. He looks familiar, but I can’t place his face. As he approaches, I start to remember. He’s altered his appearance to be a more attractive version of himself, but this is the bot who served us what would turn out to be fake refreshments back when I was trying to convince Glisnia to give me the simulation. This is Pinocchio? He’s been hiding in plain sight. He has two goons at his flanks that look mean for no reason but they were programmed to look that way.

“How did you get in here?” Gilbert demands to know.

Pinocchio chuckles. “IDCloner. Very easy.”

“Is it now?” Lowell asks, oddly interested in having something like that.

He chuckles again. “Well, I suppose not that easy.” He shakes the subject out of his mouth, and readies it for a new one. “I’ve been listening to your conversation, most of it, anyway.” He reaches behind his back, and slowly slides a sword out of a virtual pocket dimension. “Before I kill you, you’re going to tell me where I can find the Ice in the Hole button.”

“It’s up your ass,” Pryce tells him.

Pinocchio jerks his chin, prompting one of his goons to take Pryce by the shirt collars, and press him against the wall. “Your mom was there last night, she would have told me if she had seen it.”

What are these, fifth graders?

“Boys,” Nerakali shouts in a smooth and steady voice. “There is no call for violence.”

Pinocchio nods, which causes the goon to release Pryce, even though he wasn’t even facing his master. Yeah, they’re definitely NPCs. “I have no beef with you. I wasn’t created until after the other Pryce took over the simulation. I’m only going to kill you, because you’re a threat to my power, but it’s not personal. Just tell me where the button is. Understand this, though...now that I know it exists, I’ll find it myself eventually. You can make it easier, on everybody, but you can’t stop me by keeping this information to yourself. You do not have the upperhand here. If you don’t tell me, I’ll still kill you, but not before I kill your friends in front of you.”

“Wait.” I hope what I plan to say to him is the right call. “Is this what Leona wanted? When she gave you consciousness and agency, did she want you to do this?”

Pinocchio smirks knowingly. “A hundred percent. She wanted me to be able to make my own decisions...and these are my decisions.” He grows cold and passively angry. “This is my design. Tell me where the button is.” He lifts his finger, and starts wagging it in front of Gilbert’s face without even turning to face him. “Gilbert, if you try what I know you’re about to try, you will be the first to go.”

“I’ve died a thousand times,” Gilbert retorts. “Each time, I knew it could be the last.” With that, he drops a yellow hammer into his grip from out of his sleeve, and bashes one of the goons over the head, only to swing it back immediately, and smash it against the other one. Their clothes turn yellow, and they disappear. It’s the color of Limited, so they’re still very much alive, but they’re only allowed in public spaces now, which is pretty normal for NPCs, but it’s a good short-term solution. Gilbert swings a third time, and tries to strike Pinocchio, but he’s met by the zero blade. They hold there for a few seconds, neither one yet strong enough to overtake the other. “Nerakali...get them to the escape hatch.”

“No!” I scream.

“Come on.” Lowell takes me by the shoulders, and tries to usher me away.

I struggle against his pull. I’ve seen Gilbert across many timelines. I know how much he’s had to overcome, and it’s all been his own personality and instincts. He’s changed himself, and improved more than almost anyone I’ve ever known. You have know idea how hard that is. People who are naturally good could never understand. He doesn’t deserve this. “No!” I repeat.

Lowell’s too strong for me, I should have asked for an upgrade in here, but fake physical strength wasn’t really a priority. He pushes me into Pryce’s arms, who takes it from here. “I’ll help him,” Lowell promises. “Get her out.”

The last thing I see before we round the corner is Lowell removing a fireplace poker from against the wall, and heading back towards the still-struggling Gilbert and Pinocchio.

< > Entire Story

The Pryce of Heaven: The Paigenic Council (Part I)

< > Entire Story

The team has been assembled, and Jupiter Fury thinks that it’s complete, but someone has a different idea. Lowell Benton is there to rescue Jeremy Bearimy, Missy Atterberry was assigned Sanaa Karimi, Téa Stendhal will be responsible for Angela Walton, and Trinity Turner was supposed to be there for Ellie Underhill. There is a reason that her name means three. She is the third version of the original Paige Turner. Jupiter knows of eleven versions total, but there might be more. Every time Paige has to go back in time and correct something about the future, it generates another alternate version, and instead of assimilating into one person, this alternate always ends up going off to do something else with her life. Trinity is the one with close ties to Ellie, so why are Tetra and Quinn here?

“She can’t be part of this mission,” Quinn argues.

“Why not?” Jupiter questions.

“There are things about her future that she cannot know,” Quinn explains.

“I hope you haven’t told her already,” Tetra adds.

“We’re looking for the afterlife simulation that a future version of Tamerlane Pryce creates,” Trinity says, proving what she knows.

“It’s too late,” Tetra says, shaking her head.

“No, it’s not,” Quinn assures her. “We can erase her memories to preserve the timeline. I just need to make a call, and I need...I need Trinity to consent.”

“No, hold on,” Jupiter jumps back in. “I have seen no evidence that Trinity—or any version of Paige—has anything to do with the afterlife simulation.”

“She will be there at its conception,” Quinn says.

“Well, I didn’t know that,” Trinity pushes back, “but now I do.”

“You knew enough before we arrived,” Tetra argues. “You have to erase your memories. Too much about the future is at stake here. You are the most important of all of us, besides Paige the First.”

“Please,” Quinn begins to beg, “just let me contact Tertius. You know what happens when you change the wrong thing about the past. This is wrong.”

Trinity shifts her gaze from Jupiter to Tetra to Quinn, and then back to Jupiter. He looks to the latter Paiges. “Okay, I will admit that my primary reason for conscripting Trinity for this team is a...little more poetic...and a little less inherently necessary.” He looks at Trinity. “You may have Tertius erase your memories, if you would like.”

Trinity thinks about it more. It’s true that she understands the dangers of altering the past, and she has to surrender to the wisdom of the latter Paiges. Each new version was created with greater concern for the timeline than earlier ones, like her. “Call him.”

Quinn takes out her photo device. When Paige was a child, she was accidentally whisked away from her life in 1971, and taken to the future. This had the side effect of giving her the ability to travel to any point in time and space, as long as she was looking at a picture of it. The devices they carry—which are alternate versions of the same thing as well—contain millions of photos from the past and future, so they can go just about anywhere and anywhen. Quinn isn’t using hers to make a jump, though. She needs to bring someone to her, which is a secondary time power that, for whatever reason, not all of the Paiges have. She finds the photo she’s looking for, then points the device away from her, like a TV remote. A beam of light shoots out of it, and conjures a man.

He looks around to get his bearings. “Greetings, kind folk.”

“Thank you for coming,” Quinn says with a slight bow. “I will send you wherever, whenever you want, if you will please erase my friend’s memories.”

“All of them?” he questions.

“Heavens no,” Trinity clarifies. “They will be better at explaining what I am to remember, and what I’m not.” She takes out her own photo device, and finds the right photo. She hands it to Tetra. “Once it’s done, and I’m still in the daze, take me back to this dumpster. It’s where I was when Tracker found me.”

Tetra bumps Trinity’s device with her own, and transfers a copy of the photo. “I would have chosen a beach, but I won’t yuck your yum.”

“I would rather not explain why I’m digging around in the trash,” Trinity requests.

“Oh,” Tertius says. “If you’re going back to a departure point, I don’t need to know which memories to take, and which ones not to. I just need to know how much time has passed since then. You don’t even need to know the answer yourself. I can search your brain for the right duration.”

“What happens to my memories after you take them?” Trinity asks. “Do you keep them?”

“It depends,” Tertius begins. “I can hold onto them for you, like a flash drive, if you want them back later. I can keep them in my own head, and it will sort of feel like part of me is part of you. I can also just purge the memories, so they cannot be retrieved.”

“That one. Do that.”

“Okay. Since this is an individual job, and not for the greater good, I am going to need consent from you.”

“Of course, you have it,” Trinity replies.

“Right. But I mean, you’re going to need to keep the memory of your official, verbal consent. You won’t remember what memories I take obviously, but you will have access to this consent. You won’t be conscious of it, but if you need it, you can get it.”

“I don’t understand the point of that.”

He tries to formulate the right words. “You ever seen a movie where the protagonist spends ninety minutes trying to find out what happened to him, and in the end, he discovers that he actually asked for his memories to be removed.”

“I haven’t seen many movies,” Trinity says, “but I grasp the premise.”

“If you find out you have missing time, you might start running around, trying to get those memories back, and figure out who hurt you. This little secret memory nugget will be like a little voice in the back of your mind that tells you, in your own words, that it’s okay, you shouldn’t get those memories back. Everything’s hunky dory.”

“All right, I can do that,” Trinity agrees.

Tertius does his thing, Tetra does hers, and then Quinn announces she’s going to leave.

“Whoa, hold on,” Jupiter stops her.

“What?”

“I haven’t decided which one of you two is going to take her place on the team.”

Quinn looks back at Tetra. “We’ve already talked about it.”

“We didn’t talk about it,” Tetra contends. I won RPS 101 Plus...twice.”

“You cheated the second time.” Quinn is getting a little bit defensive.

“I don’t care if you fought to the death,” Jupiter declares. “It’s my team, I choose.”

“That’s not how consent works, sweetheart,” Quinn fights back.

“That’s a microaggression,” Jupiter volleys.

“True. But this is the way it is. You have Tetra, and I have to go do something else.”

“I don’t think you understand that—” Jupiter manages to say before he’s interrupted.

Quinn begins to fume, and gets in Jupiter’s face. She lifts her photo device, and speaks a command. “Protocol Six-Six-Six.” A picture of what just looks like a mountain of fire appears on the screen. “Tetra is gonna get you into heaven. You choose me, you go here. Is that what you want?”

Jupiter doesn’t say anything.

“You and your little Springfield buddies like to think that you’re top shit. But there are more of me than there are of you.”

Jupiter can’t help but scoff. “I can make endless copies of myself, and I don’t have to jump back in time to do it.”

Quinn smirks. “Technically, I do. But does that really matter?” She lifts her arms to the crucifixion position. About twenty alternate versions of her appear out of nowhere behind her, looking menacing.

“You can’t quantum assimilate,” Jupiter argues, but he’s quite fearful. “Now there are just a bunch of extra versions of you.”

“Who says I can’t?” Quinn asks rhetorically. “I just usually don’t, unless I’m trying to prove a point.” She gracefully drops her arms. The other Quinns disappear. “Thanks, Indvo,” she says, but no one knows what it means.

Jupiter doesn’t back up, but he does kind lean away from her as subtly as possible. “Tetra will be fine.”

“Good, because I’ve wasted enough time here already.” She swipes at her device until she lands on the photo she wants, and disappears into it.

He gathers his composure. “Are you ready to meet the team?”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Tetra apologizes. “She’s been through a bit more than the rest of us have. Except for Octavia. She...anyway, yes, let’s go meet the team.”

They make the trip to the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which is the ship that they borrowed from a slightly different team. They will be giving it back once this is all done. Missy, Téa, and Lowell are reading the same hardcopy book, suggesting they’ve formed some kind of club. Jupiter facilitates introductions and explanations before getting into his speech about what they’re going to be doing together.

“In the future, a man named Tamerlane Pryce will find himself on a planet called Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida for the second time. Trinity Turner will ask him to be there so he can help build a tourist attraction, where people will come to insert their consciousnesses into cloned animal substrates. This will allow them to go on extreme close-up safaris. After his job is done, he will remain on that world, and continue his own private research. Meanwhile, Trinity and her friends—which includes Tamerlane’s daughter, Abigail—will be working on their own thing. They had the idea of creating a perfect world simulation, and use it to upload the mind of every single person who has ever died. This obviously requires time travel, but that’s also obviously okay, because that’s what we’re all about.

“We do not know what happens after the spark of this idea, but we do know that Tamerlane Pryce becomes cognizant of the idea, and then gets his hands on the resources necessary to pull it off. For the last several thousand years, everyone who dies is sent to his virtual construct, instead of theirs. We don't know how involved the others were, but we know he’s at least in charge of it now. We also don’t know where it is in physical form, but it has to be massive, because the amount of processing power required to run the damn thing is something humans can only dream of today. I’m talking larger than a whole solar system massive. If it were close, we would notice it, so it’s probably thousands of light years away. I have assembled this team in order to locate it, travel to it, remove Pryce from power, and rescue a few friends who had no business dying when they did. That is all we are there to do. We do not want to destroy the simulation, and we’re not going to save everybody from it. We’re getting these four people, and that’s it.”

“Got it,” Lowell acknowledges, feigning enthusiasm. “How are we going to find it?”

“Did you enjoy the tea I gave you?”

“Yeah, it was actually pretty good.” Lowell grows suspicious. “Why?”

“I learned a few things about how the simulation works,” Jupiter goes on. “When you die, your consciousness transfers to the simulation, wherever it is. But how does it know that you’re dead, and how does it find your mind? There has to be something in the brain that allows this transfer, and that’s not something that people naturally evolved to have. I mean, it would be like a little computer somewhere in your head.”

“You’re making me nervous,” Lowell admits.

“Me too,” Missy concurs.

“Téa, are you nervous too?” Jupiter asks.

“I would be lying if I said no.”

“Don’t worry,” Jupiter says, shaking his head slowly. “Tetra, you’re all right too.”

“You said something about tea,” Missy reminds him. “We all drank it. Did you drug us?”

“Yes, but the drug itself isn’t going to hurt you. It’s like a beacon. If I did this right, it should allow us to track a dead person to where they go.”

“So...you’re going to hurt us,” Téa presumed.

“Not you.” Jupiter takes out a gun, and points it at Lowell’s chest. “Just the serial killer.”

Lowell makes no move to get away, or argue against it. He just regards Jupiter with disdain, and sighs. “Try to make it quick. I imagine shooting me in the head puts the mission at risk, and I know it seems like I don’t have a heart, but it’s right here.” He taps on the left side of his chest.” The last thing he hears is the gunshot, and Téa’s instinctual yelp.

Lowell finds himself face up in a stream, a large rock preventing him from being washed away. A child approaches as he’s climbing out. Without a word, the child takes Lowell by the hand, and leads him down the trail. They come to the treeline, and see a tower several kilometers away. They keep walking until they reach it. After the child presses the elevator button, she stays behind, and begins to walk away. Lowell goes up to the top floor, and is asked by a secretary to wait. After a few minutes, a very distraught Ellie Underhill comes out of the office, and heads for the elevator. Jupiter showed him a picture of her when his mission began, which is the only reason he knows who she is. They lock eyes, but just for a moment before the doors close in front of her.

“You can go on in now,” the secretary tells him.

Lowell stands up, and goes into the office. Tamerlane Pryce is waiting for him there. He doesn’t remove his gaze from the window. “Did you ever think,” he begins to ask before a long pause. “...that you would one day be here, having suffered exactly what you forced on others so many times?”

“Did I think I would one day die, just like them? Yes, sir, of course.”

Tamerlane nods. “Do you think you deserve heaven or hell?”

“Yes.”

He chuckles once, and finally turns around. “Best answer possible, I imagine.” He gestures for Lowell to sit in the guest chair, and then leans back on the desk. Next to him is a wheel with twelve unequal wedges. Jupiter told him about this too. You spin the wheel, and whatever you land on decides where you’ll be assigned. You could be killed forever, or resurrected, or get anything in between. “No, no, no. This one isn’t for you.” He lifts the wheel up, and turns it around, so it’s facing the other direction. On the other side is the same circle, but painted with different wedges. There are only four of them here: black, blue, red, and orange; all the bad ones. “You are a temporal manipulator. Well, I mean, you’re a psychic, but that’s close enough. Normally, I would assign you a good level, because I like people like you. But you hurt people, and like all other maniacs before you, this only ends bad. He points at the wheel. “Fate will determine how bad.”

Lowell studies the wheel, and recalls the levels as former dead person, Mateo Matic recited them the other day. Level 0 is the true death. Level 1 is like being put on a flash drive. You still exist, but you’re not aware of the passage of time. Level 2 and Level 3 are both prisons, except you’re completely alone in the former. He smiles, almost graciously, and nods. Then he reaches over to the needle, and turns it directly to Level 1.

Tamerlane watches it over his own shoulder. “That’s not exactly how it works, but...I suppose I have to admire your chutzpah. I do recognize that you only killed bad people, like Dexter, and you surely deserve some credit for that. Level 1, Iced blue it is.”

Lowell’s clothes turn blue.

“Oh,” Tamerlane says as he’s standing up, and walking back to the other side of his desk. “There’s a chance of you being unshelved eventually, but only if your friends who are coming after me can get past my defenses, and only if they like you enough to look for you. I don’t love your odds.”

Shit. He knows they’re coming.

< > Entire Story

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Thursday, July 11, 2126

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Mateo sat on the edge of the stage, and watched the presentation from there. Their moderator was a woman by the name of Angela Walton. She was no angel, though. She died centuries ago, and was recently promoted to Level 8, Counselor Class. She went over the levels, so the people under her care would understand that life didn’t end after the end of life, as she said it. As Mateo already knew, everyone here was dead. They had, in fact, all died on the same day. Most of them were living in the Primitivist Circles, but others were from the North Korean Isolate. It was harder to die anywhere else, though in 2126, still not impossible. This was not the real afterlife, if such a place even existed. The Designers created a virtual simulation in order to allow almost everyone to survive their death by being uploaded into the construct. They did this covertly by altering the brain structure of every human being, beginning thousands of years ago. Everyone was a cylon, reborn after death, on a Riverworld.

There were eleven levels, like membership tiers for some kind of product or service. There was a Level 0, but it wasn’t really part of the others. If you were a Level 0 Oblivion, it meant that your identity code was permanently deleted, and you really were dead. This was reserved for the worst of the worst, like Hitler, Franco, and cops who kill innocent black people; those who the Designers determined could never learn to change their ways. Level 1 Iced members were not much better off, but there was hope for them. Their code remained intact, but dormant, so they could be reactivated later, but only at the pleasure of those in power. Level 2 Statics were isolated as well, but still conscious. They persisted within the confines of a dark room. They could sleep, and ask to be set free, but there was nothing to stimulate their minds. There was a debate whether it was worse to be Level 1, or Level 2. Level 3 Hock members were prisoners, kept locked up in what looked like an actual prison. They could interact with other prisoners, and visitors, and they could work towards freedom. People came out of hock all the time, and joined the ranks of normal society.

Most people awakened as Level 4 Limited. They were free to move about public environments, but they were limited as to what they could do with what they could see, and they were not provided with their own homes. Privacy was reserved for Level 5 and above. Level 5 Basic was kind of like living in base reality. Everyone started out with a basic home to call their own, but they could upgrade to more luxury by contributing to afterlife society in some positive way. If an individual contributed enough, they could be bumped up to Level 6 Plus, and this would give them the ability to ask for many amenities, but not absolutely anything they wanted. If they wanted unlimited requests, they had to be promoted to Level 7 Elite. Think Janet from The Good Place. Level 8 Architectural allowed members to design and build their own structures within a preexisting world, while Level 9 World-Builder allowed them to create entirely new worlds. Level 10 Unrestricted was the highest possible within the simulation. A Level 10 could do pretty much anything they wanted: create worlds, destroy them; delete other people’s code, promote them, demote them. As one might imagine, this was incredibly rare, and reserved predominantly for the Designers themselves. Level 11 Resurrected wasn’t just rare, it was nonexistent. No one had ever been returned to base reality in a new body, yet.

Angela never did say who these Designers were, but it seemed obvious. This was exactly what Trinity, Thor, and Abigail were working on when Ellie left them. They must have gone back in time and realized their goals without her. Or they wait until Ellie is done with all this sometime in her personal future, and include her in their plans, just like they were meant to. That didn’t explain where they went when they disappeared from the Parallel Tribulation Island. Welp, they were about to find some answers either way. Mateo was standing in front of the Head Designer’s door, waiting for him to be ready to talk. Leona was there too, along with Sanaa, Ellie, and J.B. They hadn’t gotten a chance to catch up with each other, but there would be plenty of time to do that. They were dead now after all.

As they stood there, the double doors before them cracked open, but not in the way they expected. The doors stayed together, and spun around like a Scooby Doo castle. The floor turned with it, and swept them to the other side. Trinity wasn’t the one in the room, though.

“Pryce,” Leona snarled.

Ellie and Sanaa looked none too happy either. Mateo never met the guy. When he was on Bida, Pryce was always somewhere else, and their paths never crossed. He was a bad person, though, according to stories, so Mateo knew to agree with their revulsion.

“Welcome, my nonlinear friends,” Tamerlane said with literal open arms. “You have fought hard to get here, and you shall be rewarded.”

“What did you do?” Leona questioned.

“Leona,” Mateo urged, “Rule Number Fifteen.”

“Mister Matic, I’m hurt,” Tamerlane said. “I am not an antagonist, I am your friend.”

“What..did..you..do?” Leona repeated.

“Well. I suppose we can do away with the niceties. It’s true, I’m an antagonist, at least from your perspective. But bear in mind that, from my side, you’re the bad guys here.”

“We haven’t done anything wrong,” Ellie argued.

“Okay, fine, you’re more of a mere nuisance.”

“I won’t ask a third time,” Leona stated.

“My daughter and her friends had a great idea. Save everyone’s life, and bring them here. It’s quite a beautiful thought. Now, I know what you’re thinking.” Pryce shrunk into an exaggerated sarcastic face. “You must have twisted it, and corrupted it, and now everyone’s miserable!” He returned to his own side of the argument. “No, I didn’t do that at all. I followed their design pretty closely. I made some tweaks, and it’s evolved over time, but for the most part, this is what they had in mind.”

“Then where are they?” Sanaa asked.

“Hell if I know,” Pryce answered, and it kind of sounded like the truth. “The Norse god and my daughter ran off together. Trini opened a photo, and disappeared. She never came back. I’ve had to do this all on my own.”

“You managed to get yourself in charge of the entire human race,” Leona began. “How inconvenient for you.”

“I’m nothing if not resilient.”

“Like a cockroach.”

“An honorable creature. That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” Pryce was really enjoying himself. “You notice that you’re all wearing black?”

They were. Angela said this was the color of unassignment. They had not been classified yet. The rest of the people at orientation had woken up wearing yellow.

Pryce grew more serious as he sat down in his mogulchair. “If you keep that on, you’ll eventually be deleted. Black is the color of oblivion. You will experience the true death. If you want any other color, you gotta come through me. Now, if you’re ready to go into the great unknown, you can keep ‘em on. You’ll last at least a day, maybe a bit more; enough to say your goodbyes. But if you wanna keep livin’, I suggest you get the fuck on your knees.” Rule Number Fifteen really did apply here. “I’m sorry, did you think that was a metaphor? Get on your knees!”

He was the one with the power here, so they all did as he asked.

“You too.”

Angela didn’t know she was a part of this, but she conceded quickly.

“Great,” Pryce continued. “I have a rule here, something which the other Designers didn’t think to include. Time travelers get special treatment. I like people like you. I think it’s amazing. If you had powers before you died, you’re automatically assigned Level 7; the Elite, at the very least, but usually higher. If I really like you, I may even make you Level 10. Wouldn’t that be wild? For people I don’t like, they spin the wheel.” He reached under his simulated desk, and pulled out a simulated tri-fold display board. In the center was a wheel. On this wheel were twelve wedges. They were not of equal size, however. The black wedge was the largest, and between that and violet was barely a sliver of white. White was the color of resurrection. Typical. Mateo had not yet learned all of the colors, but given enough time, he could probably surmise which were which. The larger the wedge, the lower the level. There was more of a chance of spinning something bad.

“This is sick,” Angela protested. “This wasn’t in training.”

“You didn’t need to know about this in training, and just for your outburst, you’re gonna spin the wheel too!”

“I’m Level 8,” she pressed.

“For the second outburst, now you only get to spin once. I was gonna give you two chances to land on a high wedge, but now you’ve lost it. If you say one more goddamn thing, I’ll spin for you, and I’ll warn ya, my hand prefers blue.”

Angela shut her mouth.

Mateo felt responsible for getting her, and everyone else, into this mess. “Sir, could I propose something?”

“Let me guess.” Pryce smirked. “You’ll take blue or red as long as everyone else gets pink.”

“I was thinking they could get white?” Mateo hoped that wouldn’t piss him off.

“Ha!” Pryce exclaimed. “No one gets white. I mean...if someone here spins, and lands on white, I will honor that, but...no one gets white.”

“Then I’ll accept pink.”

“Oh.” He bobbed his head mockingly. This guy hardly knew how to be sincere and forthcoming. “Oh. Oh. He’ll take pink. Please, sir, could I have some more pink?” He went back to his regular face. “Everyone spins. Ladies spin twice, because I like tits. Understood?”

They were just going to have to move past his crude remark. He was too powerful here, perhaps the most powerful enemy they had ever faced. Mateo looked over at Leona, who looked back at him. They were gonna get separated again. Even death would give them no peace.

Pryce had everyone stand up again, so they could start spinning. They would all spin once, and then the women would go back for round two. He even did end up deciding to allow Angela a second spin. However, instead of taking the better of the two, she would have to risk the second one being worse than the first. Or she could skip it, and go with what she had. She got red, which was the color of Hock, and even though that was scary and humiliating for her, she couldn’t take the chance that the next spin would be black. Her shirt immediately turned red, handcuffs appeared around her wrists, and she disappeared with a whimper. Ellie got Plus indigo on the first spin, and Oblivion black on the second, so her assignment reverted to the first. That was good, she would be free, and have her own really nice place to live. Sanaa spun Limited yellow on the first try, and refused to spin again, because she was a rebel.

Leona and J.B. both spun Basic green. They too would have places to live, though not as fancy as Ellie’s. And Mateo? He spun white. Before he could try to negotiate for his friends, Pryce snapped his fingers, and whisked Mateo away, so he could receive his new body.

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