Microstory 2121: Try to Escape, Blah Blah Blah

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I’ve been calling this weekend jail, but the real and official term is intermittent jail. I don’t know about anywhere else, but the people of this Earth decided that they wanted a lot of their criminals to be able to serve their time while still being able to contribute positively to society. Some prisons offer some sort of work program, but this is difficult to regulate, and studies a long time ago discovered a lot of exploitation, and unfair wage practices. The reason it’s called intermittent is because not everyone can do it on the weekends, because that makes the process too complicated. Everyone who works there would be really busy during these short periods of time, and they don’t want to have to do that. It’s actually harder to get a weekend schedule, because that’s what everyone wants, for obvious reasons. I was able to secure it because of my rising readership count for this website. They argued that my blog was a fixture of public interest that had the potential to paint the court system in a positive light. The system is not known here for its negative press, but good publicity is always welcome, and the judge agreed. So here’s what happened. I checked in at 19:00 exactly on Friday night. First, I should say that there are entire facilities dedicated to intermittent jail time, but some of them cater to mixed populations. You may end up as a cellmate to someone who has to stay there the whole time. In this case, we were all there for the same thing, and I think they’re going to try to keep me with the same cell mate each time, though that might not always work out. I have no feelings on this matter yet, as I have not even had a cellmate, because I was in the intake section.

The intake section is meant only for people who are going in for the first time. Well, it doesn’t have to be their first time full stop. If they’re a repeat offender, they have to go through the initial intake process all over again, so some of the people I saw there might have already known what to do. That’s the point of all this, to familiarize residents with the process before throwing them in with everyone else. So I got there at 19:00, and started filling out forms, and confirming information with the intake officers. After that, I was asked to place all of my belongings in a box after they were logged, and hand it to one of the officers while I went into a privacy room, and removed all of my clothes. It wasn’t that private, though, because we were all in there together, which I didn’t have a problem with; I just tend to notice funny language errors like that. It was just a locker room. So I removed my clothes, and put on an ugly multicolored striped shirt and ugly multicolored striped sweatpants. These did not have any pockets, because there is no reason to carry anything, such as—you know—weapons? Why were these striped and ugly? Well, if anyone breaks out, they want them to be immediately identifiable by their attire. It would be crazy for someone to break out of intermittent jail, since you would only have to wait a day or two, but I suppose there might be extenuating circumstances, like a dying loved one, or some other emergency.

After I got my new clothes on, I tucked my regulars in an aluminum tub, along with my other personal objects. I then put that whole thing in a big locker, the combination to which is known to the officers, and not to me. The normal lockers inside the privacy room serve no purpose from what I can tell. They led me down a hallway where I continued the intake process, which involved another physical exam, as well as a psych evaluation. All of this stuff is mostly for the first time you go there, but they warned me that they will periodically make me go through it all again, so I should never try to rely on a consistent schedule. Once I was cleared for lockup, they gave me a quick tour. The facility is not complicated. The common area is a hexagon in the center, which includes a gym, the cafeteria, chairs, televisions, and a few recreational amenities, like a pool table. That’s where the phones are too. On the first side of the hexagon is the Intake Sector, where the entrance is, as well as all the stuff that I’ve been describing, plus I think some offices on the upper floors. The common area is only a few stories high but the other sectors go up fourteen stories. The actual cells are in the middle levels of that first sector. The other sides of the hexagon are dedicated to all of the other cells, which is where I’ll go at the end of this week.

My first two nights here weren’t too terribly bad, but again, we were all in the same boat. Everyone there was scared, nervous, anxious, or just unfamiliar. Once I get placed in gen pop, I’ll start running into people who know the ropes. There could be drugs in there, or fights; who knows? I can’t give you a full impression since I’ve had such a limited experience so far. They did lay out the rules for me, most of which are obvious, like don’t cause trouble, or try to escape, blah, blah, blah. There are some less obvious ones too, like when mealtimes are, and how often I’m allowed to use the phone. There are times when I have to be in my cell, and even times when I’m not allowed to be in my cell, even if I just want to go in there to be alone or sleep. These vary by the sector, and by my current privilege status, so they’ll inform me of those specifics later. They will continue to update me with my status as my behavior continues to be monitored and appraised. For the time being, it felt more like staying in a hotel in Iowa. As we all know and agree, Iowa sucks, so if you have to be there for whatever reason, there’s no other reason to leave your hotel room. It’s not like there could be something that you would like to see or do, so staying in the room is the only rational way to pass the time anyway. I’m sure that it will start to feel more like a prison the more I’m obligated to go back, so stay tuned for my shifting perspective.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 15, 2398

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Marie gets out of the shower with a yawn. She looks around to make sure that no one saw it. Fortunately there’s no one else in the room, except for one person making some noise in the locker area. She wraps her towels around herself, and heads that direction, where her locker is anyway. Esmé is going through a lock-and-load montage. “Officer Sharrow, what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m gearing up.”

“Gearing up for what, war?”

“We don’t know what we’re going into. I like to be prepared,” Esmé reasons.

“You’re our diplomat, did no one tell you that?”

Esmé sighs, annoyed. “You haven’t been with the division in a while. I don’t trust Nero anymore. He’s lost his edge.”

“Specialist Cleary has passed all of his recent evaluations. I asked him to tone down the weaponry. Perhaps that’s what you’re picking up on.”

She shakes her head. “It’s more than that. It’s before you came back. ”

“He was—forgive me—cleared by his superiors, and that’s good enough for me. It should be good enough for you too. Respect the chain of command.”

“Like I said, you weren’t there. He made a bad call in the field, almost got his partner killed. I don’t expect you to understand since you’ve obviously gone soft as well.”

That was out of line. She’s the team leader here, and the expert on their targets. Esmé can’t talk to her like that. She slams Esmé’s face against the locker in front of her, denting the metal. Esmé tries to elbow Marie back, but she sees this coming, and ducks. They continue to fight for the next minute, Esmé trying to pull all of her weapons back out, only to be disarmed immediately. Finally, Marie slams Esmé’s back against the bench, and knocks the wind out of her with a heavy blow to the chest. She puts her lips right next to Esmé’s ear as she’s trying to regain her breath. “You wanna go work as a disposable in the Military Authority, I’ll put in the transfer papers myself. You wanna do something that matters, you’ll follow my orders. This is my team, this is my mission, these are my people we’re approaching. Some of them are bad, but most of them are good, and if you go in there guns blazing, they will freak out! You may find yourself sitting next to your internal organs if one of them has the power to teleport them there, so don’t give them a reason. You’re the diplomat, so be diplomatic. Am I understood, Officer?” Disposable is an offensive term for an enlisted officer in any military branch, particularly someone who fights in the infantry.

Esmé continues to struggle with her breath, but she manages to eke out the affirmative. She stands up, and starts to gather the scattered weapons for armory return.

“I’ll see you in the briefing room.” Marie puts on her clothes, and then leaves shortly after Esmé.

Specialist Cleary is already waiting for them in there, as is Kivi, who Marie goes up to. “You’re not joining us, are you?”

“No, but sort of,” Kivi answers. She takes out a tablet that’s showing a map of the world, indicating all the last known location of the errors from Ramses’ global brain scanner. “Winona wants us to always be nearby, in case you need backup. I’ll be using my psychic power to find whoever it is my mind wants to find, but if you need me, we’ll be there. All you have to do is decide where we’re going first.”

Marie doesn’t look at the map. She’s unsure about all of this.

“I won’t be there to babysit you. It really is just a contingency. My team’s mandate is to find people. The orders don’t say anything about who to find. People go missing everywhere, so they figured we might as well work in the same city at the same time. We won’t even be sharing a safehouse.”

“Okay.” Marie looks down at the map. Any destination seems fine, they have little reason to choose one place over another. Someone appears to be in Giza, which makes sense, given what they know of the pyramids. There’s a whole diplomatic issue with Egypt, though, especially if they’re going to be shadowed by a tack team. One target appears to be on an island in the Philippines, while another is just in the middle of the water. Unless, is that...? It is, it’s the Mariana Trench. That makes sense as well, but unless they’re at or near the surface, it’s a no-go at the moment. They just recently asked for a submarine, and it didn’t work out so great for the people who loaned it to them, so asking again would seem heartless. It would probably be met with a belly laugh, and a resounding NO. Perhaps they could ask someone else.

Their investigator, Agent Doric Filipowski comes in. “Where are we headed? I may need to prep field assets.”

Marie looks up with a stalling smile. She quickly takes one more glance at the map, feeling the need to make a decision before it starts to look like she doesn’t know what she’s doing. “Paris. We’re going to Paris.”

“Mais bien sûr!” Doric declares. He pats Esmé playfully on the shoulder.

Esmé winces.

“Are you okay?” he asks her.

“It’s fine, I slept on it wrong,” Esmé answers. “J’ai toujours du mal à dormir avant une mission.”

Marie almost feels bad about their fight. Almost. Before she can dwell on it, her phone rings. She looks at it. “Holocall from the AOC.”

“Let’s go in here,” Kivi suggests, pointing to the executive office.

As Kivi is closing the door behind them, Marie magnetizes her device to the wall, and answers. She steps back to get in frame. “Leona, what’s going on?”

“Have you spoken with Mateo?” Leona asks.

“Not since he told me about Fairpoint’s transfer. Why, haven’t you?”

“You have the map of the errors handy?”

“Right here,” Kivi says, stepping forward.

“Zoom into the Mariana Trench, go back two days in the data timeline, then step through the history.”

“Okay.” Kivi does as she’s asked, letting Marie see the screen. They watch as the error appears, disappears, stays gone, and then reappears. The AOC passes over the spot every ninety minutes. Sometimes it detects this specific error, and sometimes it doesn’t.

“This error wasn’t there before,” Leona says after they step through history a few times, “back with that first scanner. It only showed up two days ago.”

“Is this a pattern?” Kivi questions. “It’s not every other orbital pass, or...”

Marie looks away to think. “It’s morse code. Every time the error appears means a dot and every time it’s gone means a dash.”

“What does it say?” Kivi asks.

“Were I you,” Leona replies. Mateo is the error.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 1, 2398

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Kivi drops her bag on the bench, and opens her locker. She starts to undress. Paula Strand walks in to start doing the same, and gives her a bit of the stink eye. There is a hierarchy within the ranks of a tactical team. When Paula first started, she was at the bottom, and when her direct superior was promoted to the position of Lieutenant, she too moved up to become the Engineer. But even though Kivi is the new guy around here, she now ranks higher, because she officially entered the team as the Spotter. Hurst actually took a demotion when he decided to replace Paula as Technician, but he doesn’t seem to have any problem with that. It’s a special skill set, so it all works differently than what you might find in a military setting, where a rank determines one’s leadership level and pay grade, with specializations being a separate category. Here it’s arbitrary, really, that a Spotter ranks higher than an Engineer. Paula is taking it personally.

“So, you’re back. How long will you be gracing us with your presence this time?”

“I’m here indefinitely,” Kivi answers.

Paula scoffs. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“I’m sure you’ll retire before me, so you won’t be seeing it.”

Paula scowls now. “If we’re still working on the same team as my retirement approaches, promise to shoot me in the head.”

“That’s not my job. All I would be able to do is help Corolla shoot you.”

Paula tries to hold back her laughter, but she can’t help it. She knows that Kivi didn’t join the team to throw her weight around. Beyond the Leader and Lieutenant, no one generally gives commands. It really only happens in an emergency situation, when the two leaders aren’t around, and somebody has to make a decision. It makes it easier and safer to always know who that person will be without any argument. Paula needs to learn how to be an engineer, and Kivi needs to learn how to spot.

“Look, this is all new to me, but I’m committed now. I don’t wanna be anywhere but here. There’s some bad people out there, and some missing people too, and I think our new directive can do some real good in this world. Don’t you agree?”

Paula sighs. “I do. It is nice to know that we have a clear goal in mind. One of the most frustrating things about being on a tack team is you never know why you’re being sent off on missions. Now we know what we’re trying to accomplish, and I hope you know that I do appreciate that you bring that to our table in a way that no one else can.”

Kivi tugs on her shirt, and slams her locker shut. “I appreciate you saying that,” she says with a smile. She turns to head for the stall before the morning briefing, but that smile turns quickly into a frown. She’s struggling with this whole thing—not the decision—but the baggage, and the lack of honesty, she comes into every government room with. This seems right. This feels right. This must be where she belongs. But when she was born a few months ago, this job would not have been on her list of future pursuits, so it feels strange at the same time. She may be experiencing impostor syndrome. Her apparent psychic abilities give her the edge that she will need to be a great Spotter, but her lack of true experience—in anything—might sow doubt in her heart every day, and that could become debilitating.

Tactician Hartwin Seegers comes into the locker room, a hand over his eyes. “The briefing is starting early. There’s been an attack. This is an all-hands-on-deck situation.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 23, 2398

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Meredarchos’ plan presumably hinges on this idea that the team is not meant to know that he has transferred to Trina’s body. While the authorities were looking for Andile, he would apparently be free to move about the world unnoticed. Except that he would be noticed, because we’re talking about an unaccompanied six-year-old girl. His plan just doesn’t make any sense, especially considering the fact that Ramses knew about the secret refrigerated room, and would discover it eventually, if not immediately, which he did. Of course, little Trina was not capable of carrying Andile out of the building, so he couldn’t take the body with him after the transfer, but then why didn’t he just take Trina’s body, and make the transfer somewhere else. This is all sloppy work, and Ramses believes that he has an answer for why.

“Erlendr is in there.”

“They’re sharing a body,” Leona understands. “That’s always been a theory, but it doesn’t explain why they would use Trina’s instead of Andile’s, and risk us finding out.”

“I think it does explain it. They’re both alpha males, trying to control the outcome of whatever it is they’re doing together. They have their own objectives, and their own ways of accomplishing them. It’s sloppy because they can’t agree on anything, and neither of them will concede to the other, which means that nothing gets done right.”

“The problem with this possibility,” Mateo begins, “is that we have a short window to take advantage of their disarray. Eventually, one of two things will happen: either they’ll learn to work together—though this is less likely—or one will win out over the other. It depends on who is the stronger psychic, I would guess.”

“There’s at least one other option,” Leona says. “They may be able to split their minds to a second body.”

“Whose?” Mateo asks. “The only other vacant body we know of is Leona Reaver, who is being protected by layers and layers of agency security.”

“Who says it has to be vacant?” Ramses poses.

Mateo shakes his head. “If they can share the body of someone who doesn’t want to share it, why take Trina at all? Why not go straight to the guy who owns the pizza place down the block, or any other random stranger?”

“Erlendr may not be able to resist the poetry,” Rames suggests. “The pizza guy means nothing to us, but he doesn’t think we can hurt Trina. Again, sloppy.”

“Well, that’s another problem,” Leona says before a pause. “Can we? Can we hurt Trina’s body? Can we hurt any child?” That is the classic question issued in philosophy classes the world over. Would you be able to kill Hitler as a child, knowing what he would turn out to be? Except they don’t know what Meredarchos is, or will be, and Erlendr has already done his worst.

They’re silent for a moment before Mateo speaks again. “We still have the Livewire, right?”

“Yeah,” Ramses answers. “Meredarchos apparently doesn’t need it to control the Insulator of Life, so he didn’t steal it too.”

Mateo looks at his wife. “I would hate to kill someone who looks like you, but...”

“But it would be easier than someone who looks like little Trina, and honestly, we would probably ask Arcadia to actually do it for us.”

“If you place someone in Leona Reaver’s body, they’re not going to die,” Ramses reminds them. “They’ll fall back to her original timeline, and then be dropped right back here in that parking lot.”

Leona nods. “I’ve been thinking about that. I need you to do something for me.”

“Okay. What might that be?” Ramses is worried now.

“I need you to build me a prefrontal cortical scanner, unless they exist in this reality already, in which case, you would just need to procure one.”

“Lee-lee, what is that?” Mateo asks.

“Leona Reaver and Alt!Mateo keep subverting death because an extraction mirror keeps saving them. They thought that they couldn’t get out of the loop, but I believe that they’re not trying hard enough. It’s true that it is difficult to let yourself die when you see a way out, even when you’re suffering from suicidal thoughts. That’s why people who genuinely want to die can’t just strangle themselves with their bare hands. These decisions are made in the frontal lobe, and with enough science, you can manipulate which decisions an individual makes.”

“Are you talking about inventing a suicide inducer?” Mateo questions.

“They already exist in the main sequence, and probably the other advanced realities,” Leona reasons. “Or rather, they could. Whether anyone has ever actually used such technology is irrelevant. It’s possible regardless. I’m not talking about using it on all my enemies, but I think it might be worth the risk.”

Ramses is torn between the two of them. “I’ll investigate the possibilities, but I make no guarantees.”

Leona tilts her head as she’s standing up to leave. Sometimes she wishes this were a dictatorship. Sometimes.

“I know my wife,” Mateo says after she’s left. “You may also know her well enough to know what she’s really planning.”

“I do. She’s not interested in making Meredarchos and Erlendr suicidal. She’s going to copy her own brain, and upload all three consciousnesses into her alternate self’s head. She’ll kill herself, and the other two will just be along for the ride.”

“How do we suppose we stop her from doing that?”

“Not how you’re thinking,” Ramses warns. “Don’t forget, I know you too.”

“It’s the only play that makes sense.”

“Sacrificing yourself to prevent her from doing it isn’t a fair trade.”

“It won’t really be me. It’ll be a different me. But it won’t even be that, right? It’ll be a lesser me. No memories, no real thoughts...just the impulse to get out of the extraction mirror loop, and end it once and for all.”

“You can get semantic on me all you want, Mateo. This is a murder-suicide pact. Whatever happens, you both need to appreciate that truth.”

Mateo stands up as well. “It won’t be the first time, and I doubt it will be the last. And hey, won’t they end up in the afterlife simulation anyway?”

Ramses shakes his head. “I don’t think so. It’s an old timeline. We don’t believe it existed back then.” He watches Mateo leave the lab too. Then he unlocks his Completed equipment locker, and takes out his neural scanner. It’s funny that the two of them are under the impression that she’s the one who came up with the idea to copy consciousness. He was working on this for weeks, and now he knows how he’s going to use it. He’ll scan his own brain, and end this once and for all.

Microstory 1029: Eugene

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I don’t know that there’s much I can tell you Alfred didn’t already say. I would have joined magic club without Viola’s coaxing. I’m just sort of always in my own little world, so I didn’t notice that he had started it when we were freshmen. To be completely honest, I was not particularly into magic before that, but I have an adventurous spirit, and I like to try new things. Those new things are mostly limited to dining at interesting restaurants that are thirty minutes away in Adamantingham. That’s the largest city in Mineral County, in case you don’t know from being the new kid. Not that you’re a kid, sorry. Anyway. I grew up pretty sheltered in this small town where nothing ever happens. This is kind of the worst place for me, since I was never exposed to all the crazy things happening in larger cities, which is what I crave. I’m getting out as soon as I can, and not because I hate Blast City as it is, but it’s just not enough alone. I need the Eiffel Tower, and the Egyptian Pyramids, and the ocean. I’ve been alive for eighteen years, and have never seen the ocean, or even a single mountain. For the time being, I’ve been okay, though. There are some hidden gems around here, and Viola was an expert at finding them. We literally never spoke over the course of our high school careers. She just kept leaving notes in my locker, with suggestions for adventures. The last thing she did for me before she died was sending me on a scavenger hunt all over Blast City. I never got a chance to thank her for that. I sent her a text message a few days after her death, just as a symbolic gesture, and to kind of unburden myself of the minor guilt. I didn’t realize the police would be monitoring her phone, so they came and questioned me about it. I guess that was actually the last adventure she sent me on.