Microstory 2261: Call Her My Baby

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My license situation in this country, on this planet, has been complicated, to say the least. I do have an identity, though officially, I am not considered an alien from outer space. It doesn’t matter how many people believe me, or even if all the world leaders do, bureaucratic documentation simply does not have a box for that on any of the forms. So anyway, while I was technically certified as a driver here, I was only rated for a normal combustion engine. It required learning a lot more maintenance than I cared to know. I would much rather take it in to a professional, and have them deal with it. Mechanics has never been a strength for me, and more importantly, not an interest. Of course, electric vehicles being what they are, require a different kind of maintenance. It wasn’t easier or harder; just different. I had to go into the dealership, and take a little class, which included a written portion, and practical instruction. Then I had to take a test immediately afterwards. It was a sort of all-day affair, but they conduct these all the time, so there were about two dozen people with me. Most people were bored, because they were a lot more prepared than me, and they were more used to driving over all. I needed a refresher on operating motor vehicles anyway, since it’s been quite a while for me I think. I know I did it a little bit in Havenverse, but we mostly tried to walk or bike, since electric cars weren’t as prevalent there as we would have liked. We couldn’t afford one anyway. So that being done, I was able to finish the paperwork for my purchase, and take my new car home. You’ll notice that I did not refer to it as a she, or call her my baby. This is a machine that I need to get myself around, not a living member of the family. And it’s not just for fun. It’s a tool, to make our lives more convenient in a medium-sized city with some metropolitan sprawl. After Kelly and Dutch take their own classes, they’ll be able to use it too.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 14, 2398

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Marie teleported down later yesterday to take over the brain scan error investigations. She’s going to prep her own small SD6 team. This isn’t a tactical team, like the one Kivi works with. One of them is an operative who specializes in combat and weaponry, yes, but another one is an agent, like Marie, with investigative experience. The third is an officer with diplomatic skills that she uses to turn foreigners and other civilians into government assets. They have all been read into the whole thing about time travel and alternate realities, so they’re ready to go on these missions. Alyssa doesn’t need to be involved in that anymore, and Mateo can’t, because whenever he approaches one of these people, they’re accidentally banished to another universe. While that’s happening, there is something that he always thought they should do, but weren’t able to.

The Olimpia was a submarine, but it had limited depth capabilities. The Bridgette has its own limits, but it can dive far deeper, which they’ll need in order to get to the bottom of Danica Lake. It’s located on the McIver farm outside of Lebanon, Kansas, and the McIver’s still technically own that land, but they still don’t need anyone seeing them go down there. As the saying goes, it’s always darkest before the dawn, and though that’s wholly inaccurate, that’s about when they arrive in the area. That way, they’ll still benefit from some of the daylight filtering through the water. There may be nothing down here, but then again, it may be everything,

This vehicle is far more automated than their last one as it’s equipped with the AI that Ramses rescued from The Constant before it was flooded and destroyed. Mateo is capable of operating it himself without the help of one of the team’s smart people. They dip into the water, and hang out near the surface for a little bit, shining the giant lights on the exterior around in case they see anything interesting right off the bat. They do. There are tons of fish down here. “Were you aware of people stocking this lake with life?” Mateo asks.

Alyssa shakes her head. “If they did, it would have been illegal. Not only would they have needed permission from the owner, which is me, but they would have had to negotiate a lot of bureaucratic red tape. A team of scientists would have needed to come out and test the area for pH, salinity, and other environmental variables. You can’t just randomly introduce a species to an ecosystem. Not enough time has passed for all of that, and we still have friends in the area. I’m sure I would have heard something.”

“Hmm. You seem to know a lot about how it works.”

“We considered doing it,” she explains. “We could have charged people to fish. I decided not to, because all this stuff was going on, and I didn’t want to deal with that red tape. I doubt it would have been worth it, especially since we would have either had to move back, or employ someone to manage the licenses.”

Mateo nods. “So this may be a clue. These fish here came from somewhere. I guess we don’t know where the water itself came from. I saw a movie where an isolated species of carnivorous fish were living in an underground lake until something broke, and they ended up in the regular lake, where they started eating people.”

“Sounds awful.”

“It was.” They continue to dive down as the sun rises. The natural light is never bright enough to do them much good, but it does make it seem less scary, being able to look up and see that they’re not trapped in a watery grave. They continue to see fish, though the population is not as dense down here, which they guess is typical of any body of water. They don’t see any other things, like frogs or octopodes. Mateo had a thought that they might, and that they were about to be transported to somewhere else in the world. These sorts of missions usually end up like that, but it doesn’t happen. No coral, no sharks. It’s looking like someone really did just drive up here with a tank of unauthorized fish, and dump them in here, for whatever reason.

Just as they’re reaching the limits of the sub’s capabilities, they also reach the lakebed. They expected to see the twisted ruins of the Constant, but there’s nothing. It’s just dirt and particulates, and a few adventurous fish. They go back up a little bit, because this water did have to come from somewhere, but they don’t see the pipes. “They must have been designed to disintegrate after use. The Constant must have been designed to do the same.”

“Surely the walls will have gotten wet at some point,” Alyssa reasons.

“Yeah, so water wouldn’t have caused them to fall apart. There must have been something in the water, like a...enzyme, or whatever, I don’t know.”

“Ha, are you just using fancy words you’ve heard before?”

“Pretty much.”

“Let’s call it an enzyme, which destroyed all evidence that there was once an underground complex down here. The question is where was that enzyme stored before it was needed, and why don’t we see evidence of that?”

Mateo sighs. “Neither of us is smart enough to make any real guesses in this matter. This was a nice idea, but we’re not qualified for this work.”

“Yeah.” Alyssa leans forward, and looks up through the viewscreen, where she sees nothing remarkable. “Let’s call it a day.”

“If we surface now, someone may see us.”

“I don’t really care anymore,” Alyssa decides. “This is still my land, I can do whatever I want with it.”

“Fair enough. Hey Constance, please surface.”

“Surfacing,” the computer responds.

They keep looking through the viewscreen as they go higher and higher. It’s going pretty fast, which Mateo would think would be dangerous, but Constance knows best. Something weird happens when they’re almost at the surface. The water becomes clearer, and light comes in through the glass. It almost looks like there’s a wall in front of them. An alarm starts going off outside, but it’s not too loud, and not too obnoxious. “Constance, report!”

“Status normal,” she replies simply. She doesn’t see anything wrong with this. The Bridgette breaks the surface, and starts to just float there. Now they can really see the walls. It looks like they’re in an Olympic-size pool.

“What happened?”

“I’m pretty sure we just went back in time.” Mateo reaches up to the emergency ceiling hatch, and pulls himself through it. He then helps Alyssa up as well.

They stand on the roof, and get a look around. It’s definitely a swimming pool, and it looks familiar. The double doors open, and Mateo’s cousin, Danica power walks in. She looks surprised to see him, but more annoyed than anything. “What the hell are you doing back here?” she questions.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 20, 2398

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Andile didn’t want to say much else after dropping that bomb on them about the alternate version of Leona. She said that it wasn’t her place to explain. The other Leona’s flight would come in the next day, and they could ask their questions then. So that’s what they did. They went back to the condo to fill in the rest of the team, and waited. The others wanted to come too, but the other Leona apparently didn’t know them at all, so it would probably just be overwhelming. The next morning Alt!Leona answered the door, not surprised, but yes, unnerved at the sight.

“Thank you for coming again,” Andile says once they’re seated.

“Thank you for having us,” Mateo says.

It becomes evident that Alt!Leona wants to talk first, but she needs them to be patient with her. Lips closed, almost pursed, she stares at the space between Mateo and her alternate. “I trust you’re doing well?” she asks Mateo.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Mateo answers.

“It’s nice to know there’s at least one Mateo out there who didn’t die.”

“Actually, he did die,” Mateo’s wife, Leona clarifies. “A few times.”

Now Alt!Leona purses her lips fully. “Well, at least he came back.”

“Leona, what happened?” Leona asks her self.

“I’m going to tell you my story,” Alt!Leona begins, assuming nothing about what you’ve been through. I may tell you things that you already know, and you’re just going to have to accept that, and be patient. I also don’t want any commentary about how things played out for you, or anything like that.”

“Understood,” Leona says.

Alt!Leona begins. “When I was nearing my sixteenth birthday, a friend of mine suggested I try alcohol, because drinking alcohol is the type of thing that normal teenagers do. So I did, and it went poorly. It made me sick—not enough to have to get my stomach pumped, but I had to go to urgent care just the same. I was sitting across from a man in the waiting area, trying to retch into a bag, when I ended up getting some on him. Long story short, I figured out who he was, and went to his house to apologize. That’s when everything changed. I learned that he was a time traveler, but not in control of his own life. I don’t know who was in control, if anyone, but I, admittedly, fell in love. He and his situation were fascinating, and I couldn’t just let that go.

“I probably would have become a film student in college if not for him. Instead, I pursued a physics degree. I wanted to understand what was going on with him. We met another; a teleporter, and she led us to believe that there were others. There was this one other guy too, but we weren’t really sure what his deal was. Anyway, I learned that an organ transplant might allow a normal person to take on the temporal characteristics of a traveler. Lucky for me, I was suffering from some kidney problems, which I might have been able to deal with, but I didn’t want to, so I started to not take very good care of myself. I needed a kidney transplant, and as luck would have it, Mateo was a match.

“Obviously, this process normally takes a long time, but we couldn’t wait for the bureaucracy. Mateo only existed one day out of the year. Through my connections, I was able to find a surgeon who was willing to perform the surgeries under unusual circumstances. Let’s just say that he had lost his license for a similar infraction years prior. This was the biggest mistake of my life, and seeing a version of Mateo sitting here hasn’t helped, like I hoped it would after Andile called to tell me that he was alive. The surgery went bad, and Mateo died. After a year of mourning, I discovered that his death didn’t prevent me from becoming like him. I guess it just delayed it. I only made one jump before I was approached by a stranger with an offer.

“She told me that it was her job to rescue people from the timeline. She said that I was in a different reality completely, and I could stay here, and not be on my pattern anymore. I only did it to be with Mateo, so that seemed like a good deal. Before she disappeared, she reintroduced me to Andile, and I never saw her again, so I never got the chance to ask her why it didn’t work. Instead of freeing me of my pattern, I just ended up taking Andile with me. I didn’t mean to. It’s not like I gave her my kidney too. At most, I touched her during a hug. Maybe you have an explanation for it.”

Leona and Mateo nod reverently, as they have been during the story.

“Do you?” Alt!Leona asks.

“Oh, sorry, we didn’t want to comment.”

“It was more about not being interrupted,” Alt!Leona straightens out.

It was hard for Leona to hear that story. She has met other versions of people before; even of herself, but this one is a lot different. This Leona didn’t spend hardly any time with Mateo, and never built a team. She and Andile have pretty much been alone this whole time. That changes a person. “Everything happened to me just as it did for you, until the surgery. A time traveling doctor did it for us, probably following what went wrong in your reality. Someone must have wanted things to play out differently, so they altered history. Normally, you would cease to exist as the result of that, but when you’re dealing with parallel realities, that all gets more complicated. Who was this stranger who told you this would free you of the pattern?”

“Her name was Olaya,” Alt!Leona answers. “I don’t know if it was a first or last name, but she didn’t give me any other.”

“Never heard of her,” Mateo says.

“Nerakali did say that there were other teams, but I don’t remember if Jupiter did. That was back during his era,” Leona says.

“So, do you know the answer?” Alt!Leona asks again.

Leona shakes her head. “Olaya should have been right. This place doesn’t have time travel, or at least not much of it. We don’t think it ever did. My theory is that that’s why it was created in the first place.”

“You did eventually lose it, though,” Mateo says. “When did that happen?”

“It was about three months ago,” Alt!Leona replies.

“Three months and twelve days.”

Mateo and Leona exchange a look. “That’s when we arrived. We did this to you.”

“You helped us,” Andile corrects. “We don’t want to time travel. We just want to stay put. I mean, we could do without the shady government people chasing us all over the country, but that could have happened either way. People crave power.”

“Do they know about you?” Leona asks. “If anyone would recognize you, then they probably know that there are two of us. And they know that there are two Angelas, so all in all, they know too much.”

“I don’t think they know about me,” Alt!Leona tells her.

“They only caught me,” Andile says apologetically.

“And you’re one of a kind.” Alt!Leona reaches over to take Andile by the hand.

“Look,” Leona begins, “I know you don’t want to have anything to do with this stuff, so we’re prepared to leave, and never mention you again, but I don’t feel like that’s enough. If you want to be somewhere safe, it’s not in this city. I don’t know where it is, though. I don’t know how to help you.”

“We don’t need your help,” Alt!Leona claims, “but we may be able to help you.”

“How might you do that?”

“I heard them talking while I was being transported to the fishbowl,” Andile says. “They’re looking for someone more valuable than any of us. And I know where he is.”

Microstory 1687: Licensed Genies Only

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There are many differences between a spirit, a witch, and a mutant. A spirit uses their soul to develop special abilities, a witch uses their mind, and a mutant uses their body. But it goes deeper than that. Witches use something called Craft (they don’t call it witchcraft), and while there is more often than not a biological component, it is usually a learned skill. The temporal manipulators in Salmonverse are a major exception to this, as they seem to have some kind of innate understanding of their own respective abilities, but for the most part, it takes work. Mutants obviously have some kind of genetic difference that allows them to do whatever they do, or even hinders them in some way. While their mutations aren’t always beneficial to them, they do generally figure out how to express them through survival instincts, because it’s rooted in that part of their neural makeup. Spirits, on the other hand, don’t have to learn anything. They don’t have to be changed, or be descended from those who were changed. It’s just something they are; or rather, it’s something that we are. We’re born knowing that we’re different, and also how we’re different. There’s sometimes a learning curve, but we typically grow up with a fairly high understanding of ourselves. We know what we can do, and we have a pretty good idea of what we intend to accomplish with our gifts. Some are good, some bad, but none is lost. The Genies in Genieverse were the same way, except pretty much all of them wanted to help people with their spirit abilities. Of course, as we know, they totally fail to live up to their own expectations, but this story isn’t about that. It’s about how they came together to organize, and how any recalcitrant ones were left with no choice.

For reasons I’ve not bothered to figure out, the population of this version of planet Earth was only at about a billion when personal computers and cell phones became ubiquitous. This is unusual. Even with heavy religious influence, the global population should be beginning to see a much steeper increase by this time. They kept changing their calendar, so I’m not sure what year it would be comparatively, though, so it’s hard to gauge what’s different, and what’s on track. Still, at this point in history, Genies were starting to feel like they needed to do more to help. They numbered about a thousand when a few of them got together first. They wanted to start a local organization, which would service people hoping to be granted wishes. They were the ones who came up with the majority of the rules and procedures that would end up becoming the norm. Up until this moment, Genies operated individually, and granted wishes very rarely. It’s unclear how they chose their clients, but they included some of the most powerful people in history. A few other Genies caught wind of what this small group was planning, and wanted in on the action. They had some ideas on how to improve the system. Genies just kept showing up, and wanting to make sure the system operated smoothly. Some fought against it. This was the way they had done things their entire lives, as had their predecessors, and they didn’t think there was any need to change things now. Unfortunately for them, once word got out to the general population that Genies were real, there was no way to grant wishes without being part of the association. Even without an understanding of how Genies worked, people were suspicious of anyone who wasn’t considered licensed. Each Genie was ultimately responsible for about a million people, which was just one more reason why this was all such a bad idea.

Microstory 1578: Nameless

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Prompt

I found a package on my porch. It was addressed to me, but had the wrong address. I don’t know how it got here, but I shrugged, and opened it up. Inside was...

Botner

...a huge bag of Reese’s Pieces (I don't even like Reese's Pieces) and...a shirt, and pants, and...a cardboard license plate? Who did this? Hey there! Yes, I know, that license plate looks pretty strange, but I thought it might help you identify yourself if you ever get pulled over. Here are the parts of it. There’s a 4x4 strip that says “Pickles Drive”. There’s a piece that says “Raging Bull” and another that says “Scotty Doesn’t Drive”. There’s a plate holder. It’s hard to make out the rest because the back part’s missing. I’m very disappointed to find out that it’s not just some kind of joke. I’m so excited! Did someone send me a gift? Can I open it now? Can I say thank you? Can I wear it? I think I’m going to cry. From: The [Nameless]. To: [Me]. From: [The Nameless]. Date: 12/16/13. Subject: Greetings and salutations and other nothings. To: [Me]. I really appreciate it! I haven’t tried the Reese’s Pieces yet, but my brother really likes them, and it would be a shame if I didn’t...

Conclusion

...at least eat a little bit of it. Someone went through all this trouble to make this care package for me, and it would be rude for me to completely ignore it. The fake license plate intrigues me. I feel compelled to use it, even though I obviously already have a state-issued plate on my car, and this would be extremely illegal. I remove that one, and affix the fake one in its place, just for fun, I guess. To my surprise, the cardboard transforms into metal, and looks totally authentic. You would never know that this isn’t the real thing. I now feel the urge to get in my car, and drive as fast as I can. I’ve never been much of a daredevil, and I don’t break the law. This is so not me, but I can’t stop myself. I stick to normal speeds while I’m in the neighborhood, and don’t go too terribly fast in the city, but once I’m out, all bets are off. I’m going ninety on a sixty-five, and pissing everyone off as I weave in and out of traffic. I pass a speed trap that we all know is there, because it’s not a very good hiding place. The cop pulls out of their little spot, and switches on the sirens. They match my speed until they’re right behind me, and then they do something strange. They turn off the siren, and pull back over. Since we’re in flat Kansas, I can see them in my rearview mirror for quite awhile, even at these high speeds. They’re just sitting on the shoulder as if this were a video game that’s not programmed well enough for the NPCs to notice the player once they pass a certain point. I turn around, and start heading back towards them. I don’t mean I get onto the other side of the highway. I’m driving the wrong direction on the shoulder. It’s dangerous as hell, but as I was saying, I don’t care anymore. I can’t. This Nameless person isn’t letting me. I keep going until I’m face to face with the cop. He just smiles at me through the windshield, and gives a salute. What the hell is going? Curious and bold, I step out, and approach from the passenger side. “Mornin’ officer,” I say.

“Mornin’, sir,” he replies in between bites of his own giant bag of Reese’s Pieces. “Almost got up to ninety-five today! Still can’t make a hundred, I see! Ah, I’m just playin’. Anything I can help you with?”

Again. What the hell? Where does this license place get its power?

Microstory 1571: Secret Compartment

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Prompt

I just found this secret compartment in my grandfather’s old oak desk, and inside it was...

Botner

...his driver’s license! He’s never been married, he’s in his 60s, and he’s been married to the same woman for 25 years! How crazy is that? I had a hard time believing that, but there you have it. Here’s the proof. I’ve had many girlfriends over the years, but never an old girlfriend. After my daughter was born last May, a friend of mine called to ask if I could watch her infant daughter for a few days. Of course, I said yes. Then I asked, “do you happen to have an old girlfriend around who can’t have the baby?” We had a blast. The baby and I spent a few nights and weekends together, but we got to see each other the rest of the time. What did we do, you ask? We shopped, we talked, we ate dinner, and we watched movies. We didn’t actually get to do any of those things the whole time, but what we did do was talk for hours and hours on end. It was nice to reconnect after all these years. When I got my first full-time job in 1998, I saved money and...

Conclusion

...was able to hire someone to help me get clean. I had never done drugs before, but the cleaner says the desk must have been lined with some kind of hallucinogenic, perhaps to stop anyone from accessing it. Now that I’m better, and the things I’m saying make any bit of goddamn sense, and don’t contradict each other, I can get back to the driver’s license. At first, I don’t think there’s anything interesting about it, because I saw his current one in his effects after he died. Little by little, I start to notice discrepancies. Firstly, it claims that his birthdate was last year, and that his license won’t be issued until decades from now. That cannot be right, of course. Is there a smudge on the card? I try to wipe it off, then find myself a magnifying glass. No, it says 2020, which is absolutely bizarre. His home address is weird as well. It says he lives—or will live, as it were—at my friend’s house, the one with the infant daughter I just babysat. Only then do I notice the name. The baby’s name is Indra, and my grandfather’s was Darin. Those are anagrams of each other, which is not something I would have realized until seeing it here on the license, paired with the wrong surname. My grandfather was a time traveler. That’s the only explanation. He’ll grow up in the wrong body, undergo gender reassignment surgery, and then at some point, go back to the past, and become my mother’s father. I don’t know why, and I definitely don’t know how, but I know I have to do whatever I can to protect that baby...or I’ll never even exist.

Microstory 913: Blood/Organ Donation

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When I was getting my first driver’s license, someone at the DMV was explaining to me what it meant to be an organ donor, and acting as if I had a choice. It was years before I started realizing that there are actually a fair number of people who choose to not be donors, which perplexes me. Why would you not want that? My instinct was that the majority of them are religious, and believe giving away parts of their former bodies is somehow going to hurt their conditions in the magical flying spaghetti monsterland, or wherever it is they think they’re going for chanting nonsense once a week. As it turns out, religion is a common reason people have in favor of becoming donors. So maybe it’s that many are so spiteful and misanthropic that, in one final middle finger to the world, they’re going to make sure their deaths lead to nothing good. Eh, those kinds of people aren’t as plentiful as it might seem. The truth is that there are many other reasons to check the wrong box. People get a lot of their education from glamorized television; this case being medical dramas. The rumor is that a doctor won’t save your life if your organs can be donated. This absurdity relies on the doctor making a choice between yours, and someone else’s life. What do you suppose the criteria are, and what makes you think you wouldn’t win? This is also related to a mistrusts in doctors, and medical science as a whole.  I guess I get that to some extent, because I’ve never met a doctor that I liked. But while there are outliers, every single one of them in the Western world took some modern form of the Hippocratic oath, and that’s not something to be ignored. The fact is that you don’t need your heart and kidneys after death, so there is no legitimate reason to try to literally take them to your grave. I do want to speak on some related issues that need to be addressed. As medical science improves, and life comes with more safety protocols, we face an even greater shortage of viable donors. People are living longer, and more easily surviving physical traumas, which means there are fewer to go around. And while this often means treatment can exclude the necessity of an organ transplant, it doesn’t preclude it entirely. We still need them, and you can help. In the future, we’ll be able to print organs in a medical synthesizer, using cells harvested from the patient themselves, to avoid any compatibility issues. But until then, do one thing for me; check that donation consent box. God forbid you die, but if you ever do, you could save up to eight lives, and improve the lives of a hundred more. And look at it this way, if you end up donating everything possible, you’ll be put to rest seven pounds* lighter than you were when you died.

*The totality of the organs you’re capable of donating upon death actually adds up to less than four pounds, but your scale is broken anyway, right? How do I do a winky face?