Extremus: Year 60

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image AI software

Today is the grand opening. Hundreds of workers contributed to the construction of the Attic Forest, whether it was planting a single seed, or installing the walls on what was once the exterior of the ship. They actually made Extremus bigger, adding an entire new layer on the top. Well, it wasn’t entirely new. There was already and eleventh deck, but it hardly extended more than a few meters. Now the rest of the kilometer has been filled in for this project. Right now, it’s all dirt and paths, with a few little ponds here and there, many of which are connected to each other via a series of streams, waterfalls, and pumps. There are spots to picnic, and a smallish venue for entertainment. The paths will be predominantly lined with beautiful plants that were genetically engineered from the DNA data stored in the database. Most of the plants were taken from Earth, but a few came from Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida’s records.

Right now, the only stuff that’s full grown is the bamboo, which is exclusively used to signify entrances, exits, facilities, and emergency terminals. At the moment, the rest of the trees and plants are ready to go. Temporal engineer Greenley Atkinson and her team have created a time bubble that will speed up the growth of all of this life. They just have to find out who is going to push the button. It’s up to Tinaya to pick the name out of the proverbial hat, but the ceremony is being delayed, because there is an issue in the basement. “What is it? People are waiting.”

“It’s Operation Wellington, sir.” After Tinaya was promoted to Senior Forest Guide, it only seemed right to hire a Junior Forest Guide. Cainan Suárez switched his primary studies to botany soon after Project Attic Forest was announced. He is still studying in college, but he helps out in his free time. He missed a skills evaluation this morning to work on this, but his advisor is allowing him to make it up next week. Cainan is distantly related to Halan Yenant’s first Lieutenant, Rita Suárez.

“Obviously that’s why we’re down here. What’s the issue?”

“It’s this.” Cainan steps over to the wall screen, and brings up the genetic information for the Journey Tree. “Okay, here is the DNA for a giant sequoia. This is supposed to be the genetically modified DNA for the giant sequoia we’re planting, because it needs to be tailored for an indoor environment.”

This is how Tinaya knows that the mind sharing machine that messed up her friends’ brains gave her knowledge that came from at least one person besides the other three in the machine. None of them possessed this much of an understanding of genetics. “It’s too big.”

“Yeah. They modified it too much. The root system is going to dig too deep, and the canopy is going to spread too wide.”

In the center of the ship, there is an atrium. It’s this giant metal tube that goes all the way from the engineering section, up to the tenth level. Tinaya isn’t sure why the ship designers included it. It’s big, but it’s not beautiful. There’s nowhere to sit, and no elevators or stairs. There’s no plant life either. It just sits there. If you happen to be on the bottom deck, you can walk through it, but if you’re on any other level, it just forces you to go around. Because it’s thirty meters in diameter, and it serves no real purpose...until now. Now it’s going to become the growing tube for the ship’s largest tree. It will grow to be so big that they can’t even plant it in the Attic Forest, or it will crash into the ceiling. Actually, all of the trees would crash into the ceiling, if given a chance. Once that big red button is pressed, the tallest of the trees are going to grow up to thirty meters, which won’t work, because the ceiling only goes up six meters, which is two meters higher than most decks. That’s why Atkinson also designed a pocket dimension for them all to grow up into. But even that won’t be enough for the ultimate height of the Journey Tree. Hopefully, by the time it gets to be too big, though, they will be able to transplant it to the Extremus planet. That’s one reason why it’s not going to be part of the temporal bubble. It represents the journey that they’re all making together, so it will grow at the same rate as everyone else. That’s the idea, anyway.

“How did they make this mistake?” Tinaya questions. “They can see, it’s got a radius of fifteen minutes.” She points to the atrium, and then down to the floor “And they know that below this level is frickin’ outer space. It can’t be that big.”

“I know, I wish I had caught it, but I’m still learning this stuff.”

“No,” Tinaya says with a shake of her head. “That’s not your job. I should have caught it. I know how to decipher this stuff.”

“The way I see it,” Cainan goes on, “we have two options. Either we delay the planting of the Journey Tree so this problem can be fixed, or we plant it anyway, and hope that the walls of the atrium regulate the tree’s growth.”

She shakes her head again. “We can’t let it do that. First, I would say that the roots are the bigger problem. They’ll spring a leak, if allowed to go as deep as this code commands it to. But also, the sequoia is a symbol. It’s a symbol of unimaginable growth. It’s a metaphor for Extremus itself. We can’t let the walls dictate how big it gets, because the who reason we’re on this mission is to go against the rules, and find a new home in the outskirts of the galaxy.”

“Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same thing too.”

She sighs. “I can fix it. I can rewrite the code, faster than even the real geneticists can. I just...I don’t have time today. I don’t want to delay the planting. The reason we’re doing these two things at the same time is to lean into the symbolism I was just talking about. I mean, ideally, we would have planted it on day one, but barring that, any day but the day that the rest of the Attic Forest goes online will be arbitrary and meaningless. It has to be today, and I have to be in two places at once.” A child is going to be selected to engage the temporal bubble that will grow the forest before their very eyes. Every kid who wants the honor has put their name into the lottery, which Tinaya is scheduled to select right around...exactly right now.

“What if...no...” Cainan doubts himself.

“No idea is a bad idea. Go ahead and say it.”

“If we’re most worried about the roots, then let’s not plant it on the bottom level. Let’s toss in some more dirt, and plant it higher.”

“I dunno,” Tinaya says nervously. “Look at this here. They also programmed it to be bigger than a normal giant sequoia. In the next 156 years, this thing is going to grow, and at the moment, it will be a tight fit. The canopy could reach the top of the pocket dimension. In order to get this project passed, Tinaya and Lilian had to explain how they were going to fit the really tall trees in the forest. Most decks are four meters high. Some of them are double heighted which means the ceiling of one deck has been excluded, and is just using the ceiling for the deck above it. And some parts of some decks are only two and a half meters high, leaving the rest for crawl space. But all added up, including the thick hull, Extremus is only about fifty meters high. The government didn’t want to build a forty meter high deck on top of that just for the forest, so to make it work, the pocket dimension will make it bigger on the inside. There are risks to this. If there is ever a power failure on the ship, they’re going to prioritize things like life support and artificial gravity over superfluous pocket dimensions. Perhaps one day, the ceiling will be raised, but that’s a decision for a future administration. For now, if everything remains as is, and that giant sequoia gets too big, it’s unclear what will happen.

“What do we do? Do we lie? We could plant this tomorrow, and just tell everyone we did it today. That’s why it’s a secret. I mean, of course, this isn’t why, but we may as well take advantage of that.”

“No, that won’t work either,” Tinaya contends. “I’m going to repair the DNA, and the file will reflect the save date before we 3D print the seed. There will be a record of the delay in planting, or at least it could be called into question, and that would just be embarrassing.”

“I’m all out of ideas then.”

“You could do it.”

“Me?” he questions. “I can’t write code like that. Like I said, I’m just learning.”

“But you can pull a name out of a hat,” Tinaya reasons.

“You want me to do the ceremony. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I’m just a Junior Guide. I can’t do that either.”

“Cainan, that’s a made up job. These are all made up. We’re making up the rules as we go along. There’s no reason you can’t do it. Just go up there and pick a name. When the kid shows up, shake their hand, crack a few jokes—”

“Crack a few jokes? What jokes? I only know dirty jokes, and I don’t think you want me to say them on broadcast.”

“You’ll know what to do; I trust you. Lilian will be right there next to you. Meanwhile, I’ll be down here, recoding this seed.”

“You don’t have that much time. If the lottery draw starts right now, the kid will push the button pretty quickly.”

“No, I won’t be planting the seed at the same time, but it will be before midnight.”

He hesitates. This isn’t his thing. People aren’t his thing; he’s always said that. He’s much better with plants. He talks to them, and treats their reactions to his care as responses. But she really does have faith in him, and he trusts her just as much. “Okay. I’ll need to change first, though, and my cabin is on the other side of the ship.”

“You don’t have that kind of time.” She takes off her ring, and hands it to him. “We’re obviously not allowed to teleport, but I have my ways. Just rub the gem, and concentrate on your destination. Make sure to make jumps to unoccupied spaces, so no one sees you. And obviously don’t tell anyone about it. I’m not supposed to have that.”

“You are in two places at once sometimes. I’ve always thought that.”

“Go, Cainan. Good luck.”

“Good luck to you too.” He puts the magic ring on, and disappears. Hopefully he didn’t accidentally land on the bridge, or something.”

Tinaya takes a deep breath, and switches the broadcast on so she can keep one eye on the show. Her other eye will be focused on her work. She’s had this genetic engineering knowledge for years now, but she’s not used it, because the right situation has not yet come up. Well, it’s here now, so hopefully whoever’s mind she unwillingly copied them from is as smart as her initial impression makes them seem. Two centuries from now, children may be able to sit under this tree to read or have a chat, but that can’t happen unless she figures out how to translate it from code to seed.

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 1806: Winning at Life

< > Table of Contents

I won the lottery. I worked for nearly twenty-five years. It wasn’t backbreaking work, but it wasn’t fun or rewarding either, and it didn’t pay particularly well. I had always wanted to quit. I remember one class in college that required a lot of group discussion. We had a little trouble getting along, so a fellow student suggested we play some team-building games so we would have a better understanding of where our opponents were coming from. One of the questions was what you would do if you won the lottery. Everyone else had all these elaborate plans involving buying sports teams and owning yachts and private jets. I figured I would just take enough to live on, and donate the rest. They weren’t disappointed in this answer, but they wanted me to come up with the kinds of charities I was most interested in. I had to give them a thoughtful answer, and not just be lazy with it. They actually asked me to do homework that no one else had to do so they could follow my logic. I didn’t end up winning the millions of dollars that we talked about during that exercise, but I still held true to my original answer. I saved up enough money, and finally felt fine about being a little frivolous, so I began to spend a little on instant win scratchers. Twenty bucks approximately four times a year. I never exceeded my maximum, and I managed to win a few times, breaking even twice, and making a five dollar profit once. Though, that’s not really a fair assessment—is it—since I spent a lot of cash on losing tickets, so I didn’t truly make anything. Until I did. I finally won big, and it was under unique circumstances. It was because I decided to spend more than usual.

The grocery store where I would always buy the tickets started using a vending machine. You selected which game you wanted to play, inserted your money, and it would spit it out for you automatically. I know, in 2022, that’s not a big deal, but it was special back then. I found out later that mine was the first state to introduce these new machines. I had a little bit of extra cash on me, and it had been a bit longer than usual since the last time I played, so I decided to splurge. It sometimes makes me shiver to think that I almost didn’t do it. I was this close to just sticking to my normal technique. I won $150,000; I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to call my boss right then and tell him that I was going to go in another direction. That was what he had said to me years prior, and he only ultimately hired me because his first candidate turned out to be terrible at the job. I never forgave him for it, and I couldn’t wait to return the favor. I had to wait, though. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe I was on a prank show. I had to be patient and careful. I took my ticket to the lottery offices, confirmed the win, and watched the numbers go up in my bank account. Only then did I quit my job. I wasn’t a millionaire, but I only spent about $1,000 a month, so it lasted me a decade, with a few mediocre investments, and a couple of luxuries just for me. The rest went to charity, as promised. I stopped playing the scratchers, and just enjoyed my hobbies, which were bowling and knitting. Boring, I know, but I liked them. Then the money started running out. It was bound to happen, and I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to return to the workforce. Hopefully employers would agree with my life choice, and not hold it against me. On my way back from my first interview, I stopped by my store, and bought another ticket, spending thirty bucks like last time. Guess what? I won again; this time, for $250,000. Funny enough, I got the job, but I went in another direction.

Microstory 1648: Regal Sea Goddess

< > Table of Contents

Image credit: Greg McFall (NOAA's National Ocean Service)

The penultimate universe I’ll discuss for this series doesn’t have a name, because there isn’t a strong enough defining characteristic. Yes, all relevant stories are about a group of superheroes, who fight against a group of supervillains, but there are many branes like that. The first of the heroes came about in the early 1980s. Her work was relatively shortlived, and her only responsibility was to go against regular criminals. Her decision to become the first would fuel the heroes of tomorrow, and also the villains, who were at first, pretending to be heroes. She basically became an excuse for people to dress up in costumes, conceal their identities, and operate outside of the law. People didn’t know what to think when Sea Goddess showed up on the scene in her colorful frilly outfit, and started fighting crime. They didn’t have the concept of a superhero. Comic books were predominantly about angsty teens, and exceptional athletes. They had heard of vigilantes, though, and they knew that what she was doing was against the law. Still, she seemed to be trying to do some good, so law enforcement just kind of stayed out of her way. They didn’t help her, but they didn’t actively try to apprehend her. It became an unwritten rule that if a cop happened across her that they look the other way, and act like it didn’t happen. Sea Goddess’ real name was Shanti Gideon, and she didn’t have some sad story about why she wanted to clean up the streets. She won a somewhat modest amount of money in the lottery, which allowed her to quit her boring job, and now she didn’t have anything better to do. Superheroing passed the time, and gave her purpose, and most people seemed to appreciate it. Obviously, not everyone.

Sea Goddess named herself for a species of underwater creatures called nudibranchs. She took on characteristics of the animal, primarily by wielding harsh chemicals. One of the chemicals put her victims to sleep, while another just tasted bad, and overwhelmed them to the point where they couldn’t fight anymore. She did have one lethal poison that she only used once as a last resort, and it was her final mission before she disappeared. No one knew what happened to her after that. Some believed that she was murdered in retaliation for the mobster that she killed when she was backed into a corner. Others thought that she was always part of some rival gang, and was reassigned to somewhere else. Most people rightly assumed that she retired, having regretted taking a life, and not being able to make up for it. Instead, she dedicated herself to helping others in more traditional ways, by donating to charity, and volunteering. Her identity was never at risk, and she told no one the truth about who she had been. The police reluctantly pursued the mobster’s killer, but came up with no leads, and eventually just let it turn into a cold case. Even if they thought she deserved to be locked up, no one wanted to be the cop who actually did it. Her legacy lived on after this, but it would be decades before anyone truly followed in her footsteps. A support group for people who had been traumatized, and were now lost in the world, was designed with levels. You level up, you learn more about the organization. The middle levels revealed it to be a source of recruitment for superheroes, but the higher levels revealed that it was actually a front for criminals. Upon realizing this, real superheroes had to rise up, and do everything they could to stop them. Once they did, however it wasn’t like their job was over. New threats came along, and perhaps Sea Goddess would have to come out of hiding.

Microstory 1566: Fresh Start

< > Table of Contents

Prompt

My wife left me the day we got back from our honeymoon, but she didn’t steal my money. What was her reason?

Botner

And what would I do with $6.1 million? This is a really cool question that I never really thought about in all of my years as a family man. We’ve been together for 13 years, and you’ve been there for 10 of those years. So why did your wife, Valerie, divorce you? I have no idea. I assume that she did it because I put my foot in my mouth one day and said something that she took the wrong way, and now she’s moving on and making out with some loser she met on her motorcycle. For the most part, though, I would not change anything about my marriage. So if I suddenly came into $6 million, what would I do? I think it would be nice to take a year to see the world. I’d head out to the moon, or maybe off to Mars, or maybe just jump in a private jet and take a couple of sweet helicopter rides. Then I’d come back, and I’d spend some time at my house in Los Angeles, where I’d have a spectacular view of the ocean and a really nice movie theater. I’d sit in the theater and watch “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “A Chorus Line” and “Fargo”. I’d probably also watch some soap operas like “Days of Our Lives” and “General Hospital,” because Valerie can’t stand soap operas. I think I would...

Conclusion

...do whatever the heck I wanted, and wonder why I ever got married in the first place. Oh, and hiking. I would travel the world, and hike all over the place, because I would have no responsibilities. Of course, Valerie would come back to me if I ever won the lottery, but I’m better than that. You don’t like me when I’m poor, you won’t like me when I’m rich; you may just like my money. I think it’s okay to dream, but I have to come back to reality, and focus on my future. I had it all planned out with her, and now that she’s gone, I have to come up with a new plan. It’s actually kind of exciting, being able to start over. When we did it together before, we were young and dumb. I’m wiser now, so the plan will be much better. Perhaps her leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me. I feel like it’s a fresh start, a new chance. I don’t feel like I wasted my time either, which is how a lot of people in my position would feel. It would devastate them. But I’m fine. Really, I’m fine. I just need to text her right quick to find out where she hid my jerseys. She hated me in them, and said they made me look fat, but now I can wear whatever I want. We need to talk about which restaurants each of us can go to, so we don’t run into each other. You know what, maybe I’ll just call.

Microstory 1478: Bicentennial

< > Table of Contents

The first known human to set foot on Durus was a little girl named Savitri. In 1980, she fell into some kind portal, and ended up here alone. She had to figure things out, and fend for herself for ten years before anyone else appeared. Even though the Deathfall wouldn’t happen until 2016, many believed that 1980 should be considered the dawn of man on Durus. They wanted to honor and respect Savitri, for all she had been through. Sure, technically the Bicentennial should mark the beginning of a city, or some other form of civilization, but this was their own planet, and they felt entitled to make up whatever rules they wanted. They could celebrate the start of the new Springfield later, if they even really wanted to do that at all, since life was pretty crappy back then. In the 2175 elections, people voted for the Savitri Act, and preparations were able to begin for a massive worldwide celebration, and it would indeed be massive. Their population had always been in flux, as most populations are, but in general, their numbers increased predictably. It was estimated that there would be 500,000 people living on Durus by the time 2180 ended. The celebration would mark this occasion, as well as the Bicentennial, hopefully appeasing those few who disagreed that it had been 200 years since the beginning. The party was huge, spread out across the surface, in Aljabara, and the other towns. They had rides, dinners, time power games, music, and other entertainment. They also had quiet, reflective events, mourning those they had lost, and remembering the heroes of yesterday. There was something for everyone, and everything for a precious few. A paramount with time traveling abilities offered his services to a select group of people. Many entered, but only ten people won tickets in the lottery. If you wanted to enjoy every single event that the week-long Bicentennial celebrations had available, even the ones that conflicted with each other on the schedule, you had to be one of these eleven people. The paramount took the group back in time as many times as it was necessary in order for them to participate or watch everything. For the most part, time travel was illegal on Durus. It was dangerous, and possibly paradoxical, and the government agreed that no one should change history, even the bad things that happened. But for this one time, one paramount was given the freedom to use his powers. He had to stay within the loop, however, and take all necessary precautions against messing something up with the timeline. It was a success, however, as was the Bicentennial in general, and it had people already starting to think about what they might want to do for the Tricentennial.

Microstory 1348: Flush With Cash

< > Table of Contents

Department Manager: So, how’s the job hunt going?

Trust Fund Kid: It’s absolutely dreadful. No one wants to hire someone with no experience in the workforce. I sometimes tell them why, and that never goes over well.

Department Manager: Oh yeah? None at all? Why’s that? Can I be one of the people you tell?

Trust Fund Kid: I don’t know that I should care anymore. I mean, if no one’s gonna hire me anyway, then I might as well be honest, right? I’m what one might call a trust fund kid. My maternal great grandfather was the real estate king in this area, so we come from old money. My paternal grandfather was a jingle writer, and you know those people can make bank if they book the right gig. Then my biological dad was a professional athlete, got killed in a train derailment, and left me his fortune, I guess to make up for not being in my life much. Well, anyway, my mother never cared if I had a job or not, so I never learned any work ethic. Furthermore, I invested in burcoin early on a lark, and made millions of dollars. Then—get this—I win the lottery. At that point, I’m just like, someone is watching over me from above, and they really shouldn’t be.

Department Manager: Why did you play the lottery?

Trust Fund Kid: Okay, here’s the story. I was nearing a million social media followers when I got this idea to give them each a reward. I bought a lottery ticket for every single one of them, and hired a team of temps to mail them out to my fans tout suite. One of the temps took it upon herself to go the extra mile, and program a special scanning software that would create a database of every ticket, and its numbers. So, if any of my people won, we would know it. Well, about four thousand people never responded, or refused to give me their address—which is understandable—so I still had some of the tickets, and one of them was the lucky winner. I tried to give all the money to those temps, particularly the one who built that scanning software, but now she’s my fiancée, so what’s left is kind of mine again.

Department Manager: You have led a very auspicious life.

Trust Fund Kid: Right? Well, I’m trying to make up for it by getting a job, but no one thinks I deserve it. I can’t really blame them for that, and I realize my situation is not as dire as it is for others.

Department Manager: Why don’t you just give the money to charity? Getting a job is still really only gonna help you.

Trust Fund Kid: Oh, most of the money is gone. I do donate it to various charities, but that’s just money; not my time. I want to give my time now.

Department Manager: Hm.

Trust Fund Kid: So, am I hired?

Department Manager: We haven’t even talked about what the job would entail.

Trust Fund Kid: I don’t have any experience, but I do have a lot of education.

Department Manager: Yes, this résumé is just your entire school history. You have an MBA from Hillside University?

Trust Fund Kid: Yeah, I don’t know why. I don’t run a business.

Department Manager: Maybe you should.

Trust Fund Kid: Maybe I should run a business? Which one?

Department Manager: You could start one.

Trust Fund Kid: What would my hypothetical company do?

Department Manager: Just take a look at this list. It itemizes everything you’ve learned since you graduated from high school. You studied computers a little. You could run a tech firm, and hire a bunch of people who are more knowledgeable than you. You could open a gym, because you took all these sports classes. Again, you don’t have to be the smartest in your industry. You just need to find people who can do it for you. You already have capital, so all you need is people. And those people need a place to work. Talk about winning. When the virus hit, so many employers had to let their employees go, because they didn’t budget in catastrophe. They just gave their executives huge bonuses, and wasted money on things we shouldn’t be using anymore, like paper. You could do better.

Trust Fund Kid: Hm.

Department Manager: Yeah.

Trust Fund Kid: What do you do for this company again?

Department Manager: This is the Washroom Department for the Appliance Division.

Trust Fund Kid: Great, let’s do that. Are you in?