Microstory 2770: Pitstop on the Way to Nowhere

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The sun is beginning to disappear. They still don’t have water, but at least it’s cooling down. Elise and Colley don’t know what they’re meant to do here. She has no sense of direction. She was able to think about her people, and teleport to them, but that doesn’t mean she knows where they are. They could be on the other side of the planet right now. Walking in any direction could be taking them farther away. The maze could even be directly under their feet, perhaps several meters down, or several kilometers.

“I didn’t hear, did Miracle say how your power replenishes?” Colley asks.

“No. She said temporal energy was really just time, so maybe I only need to wait until it recharges on its own,” Elise replies. “Before you ask, I can’t tell it’s there. It’s not like I feel a surge of electricity throughout my body, which is now missing. I couldn’t even tell that I could do what I did.” She sighs and sits down. “I don’t know if I should keep trying, or if every time I do, even if it doesn’t work, I drain my battery again.”

“Logic says to wait.” Colley sits down across from her. “Before ambient wireless charging and nanofusion reactors, electronics had to be recharged by leaving it attached to the wall. You weren’t really supposed to use it while that was happening, especially not with older models. I say we sleep on it and try again in the morning.”

Elise shivers. “If we survive the night. I’m already missing that sun.”

Colley nods solemnly. “Yeah, it’s gonna get colder. This pink and black jacket is nice to have for extra covering, but it’s not going to be enough, not for the both of us.”

“We obviously need to share and conserve body heat. Pull your shirt over your head, but don’t take it off. We want to minimize the insulation between us, but we still want insulation around us.” Elise demonstrates what she means with her own shirt, which is difficult with her wings, but she makes it work. “Take off your pants, but keep the belt in the beltloops. Drape the pants behind your back and rebuckle the belt around your waist.” She pulls her adventure shorts off entirely. The same trick won’t help her that much, so she decides to do something else with them. She starts to giggle.

“Oh, funny prank.” Colley’s pants are tied behind him like a low cape. His shirt is stretched behind his neck like a gun holster, but in an awkward, almost sexual way. Elise’s shorts are on his head like a hat since he doesn’t have as much hair.

“No, it’s not a prank,” Elise insists. “It’s funny, but this is what we’re working with.” She opens her wings and quivers them to generate some heat. She lays the extra racing jacket on the sand and lies back on it. “Get on top of me. Come on.”

Colley hesitates, frowning uncomfortably.

“I studied survival,” she reminds him. “I know what I’m doing.”

Colley reluctantly lowers himself upon her and hugs her. He’s gentle at first, but quickly tightens up when his instincts react to the increase in warmth.

Elise envelops him in her wings to complete the seal. She continues to quiver them as they hold each other. It’s working. It’s actually working. They still may not make it through this, but it will not be for lack of trying. The temperature continues to drop.

Colley starts to breathe heavily, which is okay for now. But then he suddenly stops. “I’m sorry. I normally program a governor switch for certain, uhh...physical responses, but this temporary one comes with the standard hardware.”

Elise smiles kindly, but realizes that he can’t see it. She reaches into the extra jacket’s pocket and retrieves the homing beacon, which has a dim light on it. She lays it on her chest and switches it on. “You don’t have to apologize. It’s perfectly normal, and we should be comfortable enough with each other to not feel bad about such things.”

“It’s not that I feel bad, it’s just.” He starts breathing too heavily again.

“Hey,” she whispers. “It’s okay. Shivering can warm you up, but it can also strain your muscles. If you don’t relax too, you’re probably gonna end up with neck pain.”

“I’m sorry,” Colley replies. “This is just a tough situation. Because...you know, with you... I, uh—if it were anyone else on the team, even Miracle, I would still...”

“I mean it,” she tries to comfort, “it’s okay. You can tell me anything.”

“I think I might be falling in love with you,” he finally admits. “And I don’t want you to think it’s about your body, or how we’re situated right now. I’ve been developing feelings this whole time. I mean, we work so well together. We complement each other’s skills, and while we sometimes argue, we don’t fight. I’ve never gotten mad or annoyed at any of you. When I thought you were dead, I was heartbroken. I was worried that even if we found each other on the other side of this, if we didn’t remember any of what we went through, we wouldn’t be able to recapture the magic. We’ve put so much effort into surviving, there’s been no time to really sit with my thoughts, but in this moment...”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Elise tells him. “Not in so many words, but...” She pauses and considers it. She didn’t exactly give up on love, but she has definitely been deprioritizing it for most of her life. It’s no surprise that feelings have sprouted amongst them. Rage eventually explained that she spent months locating the team, and vetted dozens of candidates before settling on the five of them. One of her criteria was a lack of attachments. She didn’t want to take anyone away from a family, because that would become the driving force of their actions, rather than the goal itself. That was probably the right call, but it’s complicating things now. “Let’s ignore the words.”

They kiss. They can’t help themselves. In the movies when people have to share body heat like this, it always happens, and that’s because it’s totally plausible. You can’t be intertwined with someone and not feel something. Hugs release endorphins and other pleasurable chemicals. That is an evolutionary fact. Group that with skin-to-skin contact and a pair of sexy wings, and you have a recipe for a powerful love scene.

They keep kissing, and it starts to feel like this could go even further. Elise unwraps her wings and rolls Colley over to his back so she’s straddling him now. Before anything else can happen, though, a light begins to shine in her face, and it’s not from the beacon that fell in the sand. It looks like a headlight, it’s so bright. She sits up and tries to shield her eyes from it while also trying to discern the shapes behind the light.

“Lower that, Zelda,” Rage instructs. “Jesus. Actually, just put it in lantern mode.”

Zelda does as she’s asked, so now the whole area is illuminated. The entire team is back. They look dirty and exhausted, but they have all survived. Jolanda steps closer with a canteen as Elise is climbing off of Colley, and they’re both standing back up.

Elise takes a few sips first before handing it to Colley. “So you made it out of the maze. Was there an actual monster, or was it something more complicated?”

“Oh, it was a monster,” Minotaur replies. “It was a minotaur. I reasoned with it, and we found our way out. The exit is not that far from where we are now.”

“You thought there might be an interim prize?” Elise goes on. “What was it?”

The other hunters exchange looks with each other. “It’s not exactly a prize,” Rage answers. “It’s more of a challenge which could lead to a prize. It’s a ship. A spaceship.”

Microstory 2769: X Marks the Spot

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Elise instinctively teleports back to Rage holding the jacket that they last saw Minotaur wearing. She’s on the verge of hyperventilating. There were no clues where she found it, at least none which was obvious. She takes Rage by the arm, and jumps back to that spot with her friend in tow. “Over here, guys!” she cries out to the rest of the group.

Together, they start to dig in the sand, looking for any sign of Minotaur, be it evidence they left behind, or—if they were taken—a deliberate clue left behind by their captor. They cover a ground of a few square meters, but there’s nothing. There’s no trapdoor, which would be the most likely explanation, or maybe something less manmade, like a hidden hole. If something had taken them away in the air, someone probably would have seen it. Rage tells everyone to stop digging as she narrows in on Miracle. “This looks like the work of a teleporter. Besides Azad, who else can do it?”

Miracle shakes her head. “There are far too many to list, and remember, we’re generally called time travelers. They could be from the future, or the past, or a parallel timeline. There are too many options to use that knowledge alone to locate them.”

“Well, are any of them bad?” Rage presses. “Do you have...villains?”

“Sure we do,” Miracle confirms. “I...was technically one for a bit, though we tend to use the word antagonist amongst each other because who’s to say which is which?”

“This isn’t helping,” Rage argues. “You’re not giving us anything.”

“I’m sorry,” Miracle begins, but she doesn’t get the chance to finish her thought.

“Can I find them?” Elise interrupts. “Just now, I wanted to jump to Rage, and so that’s where I went, instead of several kilometers away. I didn’t even know exactly where she was, on her hands and knees behind that ridge. I thought about her, and it happened. Could I do that with Minotaur? I don’t wanna try without understanding it.”

Miracle sighs. “Have you ever seen the 12 Monkeys movie, and have you ever seen any of the Back to the Future movies?” she asks weirdly.

“Not recently,” Elise answers. “What’s your point?”

“They follow different rules,” Miracle begins. “In the former, time travel is a contained loop. It’s called predestination. It doesn’t matter what you do, you can’t change things. Whatever happened always happened, and you’re just following a preexisting path, blind and in the wrong order. In the latter, you can change the future, and they, in fact, do it multiple times. Those stories aren’t contradictory because they take place in different universes. They have nothing to do with each other.

“In our universe, there are—well, no, it’s not like there are no rules—it’s that we have all the rules. Can you teleport without being able to see where you’re going, or beyond some distance limitation? I don’t know. We all have our different abilities and restrictions. It’s utter chaos. I can teach you how to try to jump to Mino, but I can’t promise it will work. I can’t even promise you won’t end up kilometers away this time, or dead, stuck halfway through a wall. It’s a crapshoot. Most are born the way that they are, and discover what they can do intuitively. People who are transformed into travelers typically have a harder time. They’re usually older, and have developed more traditional coping mechanisms, which makes their new skills low access.”

“Then you’re not doing it,” Rage decides. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Wait, you could teleport before,” Zelda says to Miracle. “You said that Hrockas couldn’t take that away from you because it was in your mind, not your body.”

Miracle nods. “He figured out how to suppress it when he gave me a new, new body. I’ve already tried since I returned, and have not been able to do anything.”

“Then I’ll do it,” Elise insists. “Before you say anything, Rage, this is my body, my choice. Hrockas just told us that counts here a few hours ago. You can’t stop me.”

“I can’t,” Rage acknowledges, “but I don’t wanna lose you too.”

“Borrowed time, remember?” Elise asks. She faces Miracle. “Tell me what to do.”

“I’m inclined to agree with our fearless leader,” Miracle says. “It’s risky.”

“Then we vote,” Elise offers. “Who here thinks I shouldn’t do it?”

Everyone raises their hand.

“Just kidding, it’s my body! Tell me what to do, or I’ll try it on my own!”

“Very well,” Miracle agrees. “But I’m not responsible for what happens to you.”

Everyone pays close attention when Miracle explains how the process of using teleportation to find someone might work. They’re just as curious, even though they can’t do it themselves. Finally, it’s time to try. Miracle suggests she practice first, but she also said one thing about potentially running out of something called temporal energy, so talk about a risk. Elise closes her eyes as Miracle instructed. At first, she focuses on her whole family, but most of them are already here with her. She only needs to concentrate on one person. She visualizes Minotaur’s face, and considers how they make her feel. It seems that Elise is falling in love. She does realize she keeps thinking that.

The air was hot and dry, but now it’s cool and humid. Though Elise’s eyelids were closed, she could see the light penetrating her skin. Now that’s all gone. She opens them to find herself in darkness, with only red emergency lighting. It’s enough for her to see that she’s not alone, and she can even tell who it is. “Mino.”

Minotaur is startled. They spin around and desperately grab Elise’s mouth. “Shh,” they whisper. “I don’t know how you ended up down here too, but this is a maze...and we are not alone. I’m going to let go of you now, okay? Just whisper.”

Elise nods, and once she’s free, whispers even quieter than Minotaur, right in her ear. “I teleported to find you. Do you know who took you, or where we are?”

“No idea,” Minotaur answers. “I didn’t see who took me. They were totally robed up. I managed to push them off and run away, but not too far, and I couldn’t scream. That’s when I felt the sharp pain in my neck. I was hot before, but then I felt like I was burning up, so I took off my jacket while I was passing out. Then I woke up here. I’ve been trying to navigate the maze this whole time. I figured you were all taken too.”

“I think this is mostly about you,” Elise figures. “There is no way they could have set this all up after they found out that I could teleport. They expected you to find your way out, and for us to find our way to you. We’re cheating. I don’t know if that’s okay. But I’m just gonna go with it. I teleported in, so we can teleport out.”

“No,” Minotaur argues. “There’s something here. The monster is guarding something. Trust me, we want it. I’m glad you’re here, but I don’t want to cheat any further. Let’s play this straight, and find the way to the prize. Are you up for it?”

“We’re a team. We should all do it together.”

“Yeah, if you can gather everyone, then go for it. Just tell them to stay hushed.”

Elise transports most into the maze, but before she can do the same for Colley she evidently runs out of temporal energy, leaving them both stranded on the surface.

Microstory 2755: Please Don’t Hold the Handrail

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Two of Miracle’s guys don’t hesitate for a second. As soon as that door cracks, they’re running right for it. They evidently have no loyalty to their teams. Elise doesn’t know how long they’ve been training together, but she’s not finding it so easy to leave them behind. She didn’t even always want to do this. The only reason she agreed is because of the team. If they’re going to take that from her, what reason does she have to go on? She’ll have to think about this first, and ignore that door in the meantime.

Minotaur jumps out of their seat too. They only manage to intercept the second guy, body-checking him against the wall as the first one slips over the edge right on the other side of the door and plummets to his death. Minotaur stands up and catches their breath. They’re not used to an analog body either. “You’re welcome.”

Miracle stands from her own seat and casually walks towards the lethal exit. She stands before her former teammate as he’s catching his breath too. She slaps him hard.

“I’m sorry, boss. You just talked so much about the prize. He and I started coming up with what it could possibly be. We think it’s unlimited energy credits. We could go anywhere. We could do anything. You know what, I’m not sorry,” he goes on as Miracle spins around and places her back to him. “What did you expect, pulling me out of Bloodbourne like you did? Running for my survival is what I do best. That’s why you—”

Since she turned around, Miracle has been mocking him with her facial expressions, and by mimicking mouth movements with her hand. She suddenly donkey kicks him in the chest, sending him over the edge to fall to his death too. She takes a deep breath, and half a step forward. “Does anyone in this room need me to define the word alliance for you, or are you at least slightly smarter than a panda bear?”

Rage calmly stands now, in just the same way Miracle did before. She approaches her slowly before suddenly jamming her forearm against Miracle’s clavicle and pinning her to the monitor, cracking it. “I know what an alliance is, but I don’t work with killers. You stay out of our way, and we’ll leave you alone too, but if you ever treat any one of my people like you did your own friend, you will wish you had jumped out too. Savvy?”

“Savvy?” Miracle echoes in an accent. “Are ya lost, love? This isn’t Piratedome.”

“Do. You. Understand me?” Rage reiterates, squeezing her chest even harder.

“Ooo, buy me dinner first, and I’ll understand whatever you say, Mistress.”

Rage angrily lets go and turns away from Miracle. She has spoken about this with the team before. It is absolutely crucial for her to temper her anger so her nickname remains firmly ironic, rather than simply not technically accurate. She centers herself with her eyes closed for a moment. “Zel, you’re up. Remember, they know what we’ve done. The tricks you used last time probably won’t work in this place.”

Zelda gets out of her seat and picks the sconce that Elise used to free her up from the floor. “I need silence,” she announces before she drops it into the pit. “Fifty meters.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Elise determines. There was something wrong about the way the sconce sounded compared to the way the men did. Their shouts actually didn’t sound right from the start, but she initially shrugged it off because she doesn’t know the acoustics of this room, or the pit. Now she suspects they’re vastly different than they appear to be. The void before them might not exist at all.

Elise takes her shirt back off, and uses it as a glove to remove a shard from the monitor that Rage broke. She sets it on the floor, reflective side up. She then gently nudges it towards the blackness to get it in the right place. Once it’s partway into the dark, she pays especially close attention to the way the light bounces off of it at the threshold. She bends down and starts to retie her shoes while she speaks. “A few years ago, I took a course on volumetric emitter placement. These days, an AI will decide where to place them for optimal image projection, so it’s become a lost art, but designers, architects, and engineers used to have to plan it carefully.

“Which of you has seen the movie Thunderbolts*?” Elise asks the whole group.

Colley raises his hand. “It’s a perfect example of combatting historical superhero fatigue in the early to mid-21st century media by actually lowering stakes.”

“Remember the elevator scene?” Elise presses.

“You don’t mean...” Colley begins.

“I need you,” Elise encourages. “You’re the only one who doesn’t need me to say it out loud, which might skew the results for us. Get over here, we’ll be fine.”

Colley walks over to join Elise. “Up or down?” he asks, sighing.

“Sideways,” Elise answers him. She turns him around then turns around too so they’re back to back. “Leading foot is one, trailing foot is two. Ready...one.”

Colley plants his left foot against the wall while Elise plants her right one.

“Now two.” They both step fully off the ground, holding themselves up by applying pressure to the walls with their feet, and each other’s backs. They begin to chimney walk through the darkness. One of them always makes sure their leading foot has something to press up against before the other tries their side. They could always end up with a wider hallway, or some sort of opening that completely destroys their plan, at which point they would have to go back. They can see nothing in this void.

They don’t end up having to go too terribly far, though. After only a couple of meters, they are out of the holographic void, and into the hallway on the other side. A people mover is running at incredible—and incredibly unsafe—speed below them. That’s what it was. The men who were sent over the edge merely fell on this, and they cried bloody murder because they were being suddenly dragged away into the unknown after believing that they were gonna fall to their deaths. This doesn’t explain the sconce, and it doesn’t explain why their friends aren’t responding to their shouts now.

“We’re gonna have to go back,” Colley determines when they give up.

He’s right. The belt is moving far too fast for their puny human legs to carry them the wrong direction to explain it to the others. If they don’t chimney walk back, their friends will assume that they fell to their deaths too. They prepare themselves mentally, call upon a second wind, and make the hard return journey to the chrysalis chamber.

Once they reappear from the void, Jolanda and Minotaur help them get off the walls safely so Elise and Colley can explain the situation. Rage then conceives the plan.

Elise should feel tired, but she’s wired, so she volunteers to be on carrying duty. She and Zelda hold each hunter by the shirt and pants, low to the ground. They toss them into the void from that position, allowing them to fall onto the belt with a far lower center of gravity. It isn’t painless, but those first two guys probably had it much worse.

Finally, only the two of them are left. “How do you wanna do this?” Elise asks.

“I’m strong enough.” Zelda picks Elise up and drops her onto the belt on her own.

As Elise is flying down the hallways on her ass, she looks back to see Zelda surfing on it like a pro. What a total badass. Elise may be falling in love.

Microstory 2726: Calm, Patient, and Empathetic

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The alternate version of Pribadium was exhausted, dirty, and hurt. She never got a chance to explain exactly what she went through, and how she came to be in this reality. The Pribadium from this reality put her in a medical pod to recuperate. While she fell asleep, it cleaned her up, treated her injuries, and kept her relaxed.

Pribadium!One has been sitting next to her for the last hour, thinking about what happened. Concurrent realities can exist. That’s how it worked when there were five parallels, before most were destroyed in 2400. But that’s just it—still no one seems to know what caused them to collapse. Keeping this one may prove to be a real problem.

“Can she hear us?” Sora asks in a whisper, sitting down next to Pribadium!One.

“No,” Pribadium!One explains. She eyes him curiously. “You’re a befuddling man, Mr. Shimizu. When we first met, I would have been in the right to call you an asshole, but now you’re calm, patient, and dare I say, empathetic. What changed?”

“Nothing changed; not really,” he says. “I get this way when I’m tired. I’m always so antsy and anxious, but I eventually run out of energy, so I kind of shut down. Plus, you remind me of someone I once knew.” He points to Pribadium!Two. “She reminds me of her even more, with her tattered clothes and worn face. No offense.”

“None taken. She’ll recover.” She pauses. “Have you tried always being nice?”

“Well, sure. When something makes me angry, I try to let it go. I’ve tried everything, short of medical intervention, which I don’t want to do. There was a span of a few years where I intentionally kept myself fatigued so I would be more likeable. I was told it wasn’t healthy for me, so it’s just a trade off. I can be nice or alert, but not both.”

“Is it the woman you wear that scarf for?” she asks. “Is that who the other Pribadium reminds you of, and who told you to be more healthy?”

Sora smiles. “You caught me. I don’t like to talk about it, because it’s...”

“You can be honest,” Pribadium!One encourages. “You can be vulnerable.”

“It was unrequited. I was in love with her, but not she with me. A lot of us Proxima Domanians, you know, are mortals. Organic, undigitized, and bound for death. Many think that it’s crazy. If you could live forever, why wouldn’t you want to? I was probably going to make the transition eventually, but I guess I wanted to test myself first. Our ancestors never had that choice. You lived, you died; that was it. I wanted to see if I could make it, and if I didn’t, then maybe I didn’t deserve it. But anyway, since I grew up with people more like me, that’s mostly all I knew. Until she moved in. I was in my twenties, and so was she...or at least that’s what I thought. I think she was 428 years old the last time I saw her. It made me angry. She looked like a peer, but she saw me as a child. No, she saw me as an ant. But, ya know, one of those friendly ants who you can hang out with. That is what we did, and I fell in love with her a little more every day.”

“What happened to her?” Pribadium!One asks. “You act like she died, but...”

“She did. That stream-blocking tech I used on you? It was hers. She came up with it herself. I didn’t know why until it was too late. Before we met, she systematically murdered every single one of her clones. She was on Doma to kill herself. She spent all that time, secretly under the signal jammer, so even if she was backed up somewhere, it would have been woefully out of date. Then one day, after years of watching me pine after her, she kissed me, went into the bathroom, and slit her wrists.”

Pribadium!One nods and sighs respectfully. “Do you want to see her again?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 19, 2563

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Monster might not have been the right word to use for them. They were amorphous blobs that shifted their shapes as they moved in unpredictable ways. They were mostly a navy blue, though hints of other colors randomly appear like twinkling stars. They had no faces and no limbs, but they were heading right for the trio. Mateo didn’t know if Romana and Boyd were as worried as he was, so he took his eyes off of the apparent attack to study their faces. They both looked just as surprised as they stood up from the picnic blanket, and tried to back away. This was evidently not normal.

There were more monsters behind them, coming from up the ridge, in the tree branches, and even from burrows in the ground. The landscape and foreground objects, like the picnic supplies, started flickering. The waterfall moved backwards, and then forwards at superspeed. It wasn’t just that there were monsters in this world. It was that the world itself was unstable. The simulation was clearly corrupted. They would have to take it out of Romana’s head. But first, they had to find a way out of it. Any amount of time could have passed in the real world for them. She was not in control anymore. Perhaps she never was.

“We have to get out of here,” Mateo pointed out as they were running through the one gap they found between the monsters. “You leave first, Romy. I’ll follow.”

“She can’t leave,” Boyd argued.

“I don’t know if you’re real or not,” Mateo said to him, “but if you love her like you’re supposed to, you’ll let her save herself. I don’t know where you could go, but—”

“No, it’s not that,” Boyd argued. “The nanites are in her brain and body. She can’t simply log out. Whatever is happening will still be happening, and could still be damaging her. But at least here, she can see what’s going on from the inside.”

“Our friends don’t necessarily know that something has gone wrong,” Mateo reasoned. “We have to leave so we can tell them, so they can solve it from their end.”

“You go,” Romana urged. “Tell Ram and mother. I will stay and maintain the link.”

Mateo stopped, and stopped her by the shoulder. They had covered some ground. “That doesn’t make sense. You need to be able to talk to them about what you’re feeling, and what you’re thinking. They need to be able to ask you questions. I will stay here.”

“Time is different when she’s not here,” Boyd explained. “I don’t have to wait a full year for her to come back, but I do spend some time alone, so I live more like a normal person, instead of a program that she just turns on and off. Whatever these things are...”

“They could be messing with that.” Mateo turned back to his daughter. “That’s why you need to go. Please. We’ll take care of each other. If he were the original Boyd, or if he’s not; it doesn’t matter. I don’t know how to test for that. I have to assume that he’s a conscious being, so I will fight for him like I would anyone else.” He waited. “Now go!”

Romana gave Boyd a hug and a kiss, and Mateo only a hug. Then she disappeared.

“Do you have any idea what these things are?” Mateo asked. “Can we fight them?”

“I wouldn’t know, but I wouldn’t try. They might kill you. Just by touch, they might genuinely destroy your IDCode, leaving your body an empty husk in base reality.”

The monsters were closing in on them again, so they started running off again. “Can we simply shift to a different environment?” Mateo asked. “Anywhere but here.”

Boyd extended his hand, then transported them away when Mateo took it, but no matter where they jumped, the blobs were always in the exact same place, relative to their positions. The blobs could pass through solid objects, so the only way to stay ahead of them was to run. The humans had to keep running for a week before rescue came.

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Microstory 2696: Rabbit’s Heart

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In the real North, it was not unheard of for a widower to take a new wife rather quickly for logistical reasons. He could not sustain the rest of the family without help, even with older children. Gia thought that Ronan was giving her a gift when he took her and her child in, but she was giving him just as much back. She didn’t just stay for one day and do a few chores. She made a meaningful contribution to that day’s needs, and the next day, she did it again. In only a few weeks, it made sense for them to make it official. They would not have done it in the outside world, but marriage was expected of them here. The NPCs would not have liked it any other way. The marriage was quick and simple, but they danced, they drank, and they were merry. That was not exactly how it would have been done back on Earth, but it’s the way it has to be. Neither of them has any extended family. They could have signed up for that scenario, but chose a different lifestyle so they wouldn’t have to rely on anyone else, or too much infrastructure.

They are the founders of a brand new clan, or at least that’s what they hope. They don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but it’s the plan. Ronan was originally going to do this with Mayumi, but that doesn’t mean things have to change. Gia is a wonderful woman, and since the small wedding, he has grown to love her too. Is it as much as his love for Mayumi? Who’s to say? But it’s real. Ronan loves Isavet as well, and Gia loves Vith and little Talus. They have become great siblings together. They can be wild and mischievous, but Ronan knows that they would never do anything bad. Talus is old enough now that he should be getting some of his memories back. He should be starting to become who he always was.

Ronan hasn’t been pushing him. He’s just letting Talus be a kid. It’s a very delicate situation, the way his brain is right now. He could start to be very confused with the cognitive dissonance of growing up on a spaceship originally, and also growing up in a world where they could never even dream of such wondrous technologies. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe it’s the least ethical decision they ever could have made. No. They talked about it a lot, and it can’t be undone anyway. If the original Talus is gone, and this new Talus is a completely different person, then that’s going to be okay. He’s still a very good boy, and that’s what matters. It’s what he wanted for himself; a new life.

Gia is in the house now with Isavet. Ronan believes that they are washing clothes. Talus is nowhere to be found, but that’s not unheard of. It’s not entirely out of character for how Talus was before, but it’s not entirely like him either. Young Talus does this all the time. He always comes back home safe and sound. They let him do whatever he feels he needs to. The world is dangerous, but it will make him a man to learn to be self-reliant. He is allowed to exert as much independence as he feels he must. But it’s been a couple days longer than usual, and Ronan and Vith are worried. They’re walking through the woods, following the signs Talus has made. Vith kneels down, and carefully moves some leaves out of the way. “Blood,” he whispers.

Now Ronan is very worried. They follow this new trail until they come across an alcove. It’s a horrific scene. They see cave drawings on the wall, which depict violent acts from stick figures, but it is all drawn in blood. Ronan reaches up towards one, but doesn’t touch it. “The lines are too narrow to have been made by a grown man’s fingers.”

“The rabbits, father,” they hear Talus’ voice behind them. “There is something wrong with them. They don’t squeal, and they don’t have any hearts.”

Microstory 2695: Isavet Arrives, Talus Survives

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Ronan is a fool. He failed to recognize the mechanics of the simulation. It’s true, a robo-goat can’t likely eat grass and convert it into milk. That level of glandular engineering veers too far into the territory of true organic life. If the Custodians of this dome are trying to keep everything vegan, it’s a line that they would not cross. But that doesn’t mean it’s a loophole he can exploit. The sim expects the goat to eat grass, and it expects the mama goat to give its kids milk. If that process is halted, you have cheated, and the Custodians put a stop to it. So he changes tactics. He lives as he’s meant to live. He lost sight of the whole reason they came here in the first place, but he won’t make that mistake again. He needs to make sure that Talus survives, but he won’t do that by breaking the rules. That’s not what Mayumi would want, nor Talus himself. When he’s old enough, and his brain starts to rewire itself to remember all the things that Talus did as a full grown man, he will appreciate Ronan’s dedication.

It’s been another several weeks now, and things have only grown harder. Talus is having trouble with the goat milk. It’s not really what he’s supposed to drink, but it’s all they have available. His body needs more. And then she walks in. Gia. She shows up out of the blue holding her own baby, tears in her eyes, asking for a place to rest for the night, and maybe a little food. Ronan is suspicious. It honestly looks like a gift. The Custodians would be able to see how much he’s struggling, so they’re helping him out. How can he trust this person who shows up right when he is at his lowest, carrying the very thing he needs to keep his best friend and child alive in her body? It is too convenient. She has to be a plant. She might not even be an organic human. She might be just like the goats. He has to know the truth, so he simply asks her. “I know we’re not supposed to talk about this, but are you an NPC?”

She switches her baby to her other arm. “Why would I be an NPC?”

“I just have to ask, I’m sorry. I’m seeing the seams in the simulation, and it’s messing with my head. The goats. The goats aren’t—”

“I know what the goats are,” Gia interrupts. “I read up on the laws and ethics of this planet when I came here. They don’t have to follow Earthan laws, but that doesn’t mean they don’t. I assure you, I’m real, and I need help.”

Ronan has just finished building an addition to their home. He was pretty early in the process when Mayumi was still alive. He stopped needing it after she died, but he kept working anyway because when he commits to something, he commits. “We have the space, but I would kindly ask you for something in return.”

She frowns. “You’ll forgive me, sir, but my body is mine.”

“I respect that, but my son has no mother, and he’s been missing nutrients...”

“Oh. Oh, you need milk? Milk, I have aplenty. My breasts, they overproduce. I did not know what I was asking for when I filled out the request for a pregnant-capable substrate. What’s your baby’s name? This is Isavet. As you said, we should not talk about this, but the father quit. He didn’t even know I was pregnant, and I don’t want to break character to send him a message.”

“Same thing happened to me,” Ronan replies, “though she didn’t quit by choice.”

“Oh.”

“But it’s okay. We’ll see each other again one day. Come on inside.”

She goes inside. They stay there together for years, ultimately falling in love.

Microstory 2651: Wildly Successful and Alive

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Reagan jumps out of his seat. He doesn’t press himself against the wall, but he looks incredibly scared of Mandica, and is not relaxing. He starts clutching his chest, and for good reason. With Mandica’s heightened senses, she can hear how hard his heart is beating. “How are you alive? How are you here?”

Mandica hops off the table, and strides over to the mirror to check her back. The stone is still embedded in her skin, exactly where it was before. It’s glowing again, just as it was in the mortuary. Why is he so confused? It worked again, that makes sense. “Was your memory erased?” she asks him. “I don’t understand why you’re surprised.”

“You were a pancake,” Reagan retorts. “There was—oh my God, it was horrific. You were completely unrecognizable. I...I don’t want to describe the carnage in greater detail, but there was nothing left besides the stone. It was perfectly unharmed, but that’s it. After they removed the train, I swiped the stone, because I didn’t want it falling into the wrong hands, but I didn’t think it would bring you back from that. You...Jesus, Mandica. I’ve not been able to sleep for the last two nights. I felt responsible. I encouraged you to become the Ravensgate Rescuer. I helped train you. I...I...”

“I’m sorry for that. I guess we didn’t know the extent of the stone’s power.”

“I was in love with you!” he cries. “Well, I still am, but I started to mourn, and now I’m profoundly confused. I should be relieved, but it feels unreal.”

Mandica nods. “It’s a shock, I get it.” She looks down at her naked body. No injuries, no scars. No blemishes either. Everything looks brand new. It is new. If her body was pancaked under that train, then the stone would have had to rebuild her from scratch, which is probably why it took two or three days for her to come back this time. “We’ll get through it, though. This is a gift. I think I might not be able to die at all. I mean if a 300-ton train couldn’t do it, what could? I’m like you now, and our friends. You don’t worry about them dying, do you? Your anxiety will go away.”

“Their minds are backed up. That I understand,” he reasons.

“This is even better. I seem to walk around with my backup. As long as the stone survives, I will too.” She places a hand on his shoulder, feeling him twitch at her touch.

“We don’t know that the stone is invincible. Maybe blunt force isn’t a problem, but it has some ridiculous weakness, like battery acid, or...chocolate.”

She smiles as she pivots his body so they’re facing each other. “What kind of life would I be living if I couldn’t have chocolate?”

“Stop joking. We can’t get too excited. It might turn you into a zombie, or—”

“You stop,” she insists. “You’re spiraling. These worst case scenarios are not helpful. I’m not gonna go looking for death, but I’m not gonna hide away either. I’m done with that. I put on this suit without us even knowing that the stone wasn’t a one-time thing. Now that we know it’s not, I’m emboldened. I was hesitant out there with Velvet Thunder. It’s what got me killed. I’m not saying it won’t happen again, but this experience has given me a huge boost in confidence.” When he looks away again in sadness, she gently pulls at his chin. “I want you there with me. If Blue Umbra doesn’t come back, I would like us to be partners. I can’t promise you anything beyond that,” she adds awkwardly, “but I think we make a great team.”

He sighs. “We don’t know that yet. All I know is how I feel. I’ve met a lot of superheroes, but none like you. You walked right in here without protection. You are the bravest person I know; probably the bravest in the galaxy. But yes, I would rather have a working relationship with you than nothing at all.”

“And would it be okay if Cardinal Sin is with us as a trio? She expressed interest.”

He smiles now, starting to relax. “She doesn’t go by that anymore. She realized that it didn’t make any sense to maintain her original name if she switched sides. She’s Cardinal Virtue now. People are really starting to accept her. She reacted quite strongly to your death, and people saw that. Even though Velvet Thunder didn’t technically drop the train on you, they’re blaming him for it. He never wanted to be that hated. He may exit the game because of this. You should go see him.”

“I think I will. I don’t want him to feel any guilt.”

She doesn’t end up doing that. Instead, Reagan invites everyone to a meeting, reportedly to discuss funeral arrangements. It was Mandica’s idea to lie. He reaches out to Malika, who has to return from Castlebourne’s north pole first. Elysia left the simulation too, but was closer by. She will not say where. It sounds very hush-hush. Once everyone has arrived, Mandica makes her grand entrance. They’re all upset and all overjoyed at the same time.

No one else confesses their undying love to her, but Elysia does give her a certain look. After the hubbub dies down a little, she pulls Mandica aside for a more private conversation. “Listen. After you died a few days ago, I threw myself into work. After I died, the executive administrative authority offered me a sort of...job. I was holding off on making any radical commitments because I was training you, but I thought that was over. I didn’t want to think about what happened, so I tried to put Ravensgate in my rearview mirror.” Wow, a lot managed to happen in the last few days. “Since you were dead, it didn’t seem to matter, but now that you’re back, you should know...they know about you. They saw what happened at the jewelry store, and the train yard. They’ve been watching you. I didn’t get the impression that they were all that upset about it. I mean, they had weeks to pull you out, and didn’t. Still, you have a right to know.”

“I suppose we should not have been too optimistic about that. They got cameras all over the place. They were bound to notice. Thank you for telling me, I’m sure it will end up okay.” She means it. “Can you tell me about the project? Will you be going back?”

Elysia nods. “Ravensgate has been wildly successful in their eyes. They only built one city under one dome so as not to waste resources on an unproven concept. After decades of play and hype, it’s become one of the more popular destinations for visitors. They have had to start a waiting list because there is too much demand. You don’t want too many superheroes in one city, so they’re building a new one, under a new dome.”

“Oh, cool. That’s impressive. Congratulations,” Mandica says to her.

“Thanks. It’s not yet announced, but since my version of the Rescuer is dead, they might have me become a new character, after I’m done helping design it.”

“That’s really great, Lys, I’m happy for you.” She notices Malika eyeing the exit door. “I wanna hear more about it, but I need one moment before Malika escapes.” She jogs over to her other friend. “Hey. Are you going back to Aquilonian Deep?”

“Yeah. I’ve just been going through my own stuff. It’s not about you.”

“I can appreciate that, and I don’t wanna pressure you, but if you’re gonna be out there, maybe you could take a detour? I can’t leave the dome even though it might not matter anymore. Could you pick something up from someone who owes me a favor?”

Microstory 2623: Move it to the Exits, I Hope You Have Found a Friend

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August 28, 2526. It’s been another day, but the survivors have made it to the top of the hill, which was harder than they believed, but it will give them their best chance of getting out of this alive, so no one is complaining. During the walk, Breanna and Cash taught everyone how to use their parachutes. The Levins were in awe of how the chutes were able to expand and retract with the push of a button. Base jumping was a not unpopular sport under their dome, but they never developed anything this sophisticated. The Breckenridgers were just in awe of the concept in general as they had not even dreamed of such technology. Everyone has done well, so Breanna thinks they’re ready to make the jump. She and Cash will not be able to help them if something goes wrong, but they’ll have the beetloid, which is evidently inclined to help people.

One by one, they help the other survivors launch. They get a running start, deploy their chute, jump off the cliff, and activate hang gliding mode. An electrical current is sent through the canopy to stiffen it up. This is the only way they’ll be able to cross over four kilometers without plunging into the depths. In fact, they might be able to go a lot farther, depending on the temperature and pressure on the other side. The gases would actually kind of be the holy grail for this sort of thing if the price for failure wasn’t death. If they remember Breanna and Cash’s instructions, they’ll stay aloft for long enough to reach the other side. From there, they will be able to continue northwards. They have beacons and comms, so if they end up separated—which they probably will, because it’s safer to let that happen than to try to stick together, and risk losing altitude—they will be able to reunite somewhere. They were all good students. They’re gonna be okay. Breanna couldn’t have asked for a better group, and while she won’t be around to get them all the way there, she got to see them through most of the journey.

“You’re not coming, are you?” The guy who Tertius saved from the cyclone is the last one, and the only one to see the writing on the wall.

“You should go. We’ll be right behind you, I promise,” Breanna lies.

He’s not buying it. “Why can’t you come with us?”

Breanna sighs. “We don’t have our parachutes. Well, we do, but not the kind that can be switched to hang glider mode.”

“I was born in Leviss. They had this thing called tandem diving. I never got a chance to do it myself before my family left, but...” He trails off, having said enough to get his point across.

Breanna nods. “We’re not equipped for that. Your suits are a different model, and don’t have the straps that we would need. We have some straps, but they’re worn out and too short.”

“We could rig something up,” he reasons. “Calypso is still in comms range. Let’s call her back, and figure this out.”

“It wouldn’t be safe. We didn’t want to lower your chances of making it across. If we were just base jumping together, I would go for it, but you need all the luck you can get to go as far horizontally as possible. It’s not worth the risk. We’ll be fine, we have education and experience in this sort of thing, so we’ll figure it out.”

“No, you won’t. You’re just getting ready to die. I was wondering what those looks of calm on your faces were about. Now I know. Now I understand.” He crosses his arms like a petulant child.

“That is not your concern,” Cash argues. “Tertius saved your life, and then it looks like he lost his. Don’t waste that gift. Get over there with the others, tell them we’re proud of them, and then keep moving until you find safety.”

Now he sighs. “Okay. Thank you...for everything.” He steps back, leans forward, but stops again. “Wait, the beetle.”

“Cash already suggested that,” Breanna says. “It can only hold one person, and before you ask, it can’t make two trips. It’s not designed to fly around. It’s just meant to hop from one part of a dome to another one nearby. It barely got Calypso back to us.”

“I took a look at its diagnostics,” Cash continues. “It’s running low on fuel, and the toxins are damaging its components almost as much as it would our bodies. Honestly, it might not make it across itself, and I certainly don’t want it trying to make it back up to higher ground. We can’t rely on it for another trip.”

“Over here, she and I stand a chance of finding another way,” Breanna finishes. “Now go on, git!”

“Very well,” he gets back into his stance, then runs off and flies away from them.

By the time he makes his jump, the first survivor has landed on the other side. They can’t see her from this distance through all the fumes, but the augmented reality is showing everyone as little dots on their huds.

The two of them stand on the cliff’s edge, watching those dots get farther and farther away. In under five minutes, everyone else has landed, including Notus. Breanna tries to make contact with them, but there’s too much interference. They’re on their own now, but she’s confident that they will do what needs to be done. The worst is behind them already. If they encounter any dangers up ahead like the ones they’ve already faced, then it means the whole planet is unsafe, and nothing would matter anyway. They continue to watch as the dots reconvene back on the ground. They’re surely close enough to communicate with each other by now, so everyone knows the deal. Even though it’s getting quite hot up here, Breanna and Cash don’t want to leave in case they see someone try to glide back to them. It might be possible, but more likely for an expert, which none of them is. There is just too much verticality to cover.

“We best be heading back down, eh?” Cash offers, feeling it safe to let them go.

“We best,” Breanna agrees. “Where exactly are we gonna go, though?”

“I suggest we head back for the nearest dome. There might be something there we can use. Hell, they might have left a rocket behind for all we know. This close to the safety zone, it would have been impractical for them to take it, but for us, it could be our only shot.”

“That would be cool, but I would settle for a couple new IMS units with working hang gliders.”

The two of them climb back down the hill, and walk back eastward along the edge of the chasm. They become tired, so they initiate the vacuum tent, which was too heavy to risk sending with the others. They climb inside and remove their suits to a great deal of relief. Then they look at each other. They’re alone together for the first time in a long time. Something has been brewing, but they have not had any opportunity to explore exactly what that might be until now. So they clamber to remove the rest of their clothing, frantically trying to help each other. And then, at last, at the very end of the only world they have ever known, they consummate their love.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 26, 2539

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The team reunited on Extremus Prime, but they weren’t ready to go for another day. Ramses needed to work on something first. Once it was time, they bid their adieu to Actilitca, and activated all seven of their tandem slingdrives. They ended up on a planet called Varkas Reflex. It orbited a host star called Wolf 359. Like Proxima Centauri, it was a flare star, but unlike Proxima Doma, Varkas Reflex was a super-Earth. For a normal human to survive on the surface, technological advancements had to be made to protect them from the extreme gravity. All things being equal, it did not make for a very good colony. It should not have been one. Colonists should have remained in orbit instead, perhaps in centrifugal cylinders, or a whole Dyson swarm. It was very important to the early colonists, though, that they landed on planets. That sentimentality had since vanished, but tradition remained on the nearest neighbors.

For the longest time, Wolf 359 wasn’t even a very good candidate for planetary colonization, because scientists didn’t even know that there was a planet. Varkas Reflex orbited Wolf 359 at an extremely high inclination, which meant, from the perspective of Earth, it never passed between the star and the telescopes. They only eventually proved it using a method called stellar occultation, which tracked transit patterns of neighboring stars that indicated they were all coming from a single celestial body. It was then that they chose to send a probe there to confirm. It was sort of a last minute thing, relatively speaking according to galactic mapping scales.

About 250 years ago, the leaders of this planet had their plans set on making it the number one vacation destination for the stellar neighborhood. They were doing okay, and really only competing with Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. Then Castlebourne came along, and ruined all of that. Luckily, they had already pivoted to something else. In an attempt to make the perfectly streamlined democracy, Hokusai Gimura scanned the mind of everyone who lived on Varkas Reflex, and used them to create an amalgamated consciousness. This singular entity would presumably always have the right answer to how to govern things. No more asking questions, waiting for responses, and holding discussions. If a problem came up, the Congeneral would know what to do immediately, because the consensus was already in there. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. There was too much discordance. It kept stripping out conflicting thought after conflicting thought until there was basically nothing left. As it turned out, discordance was a part of life, and governance was always going to be complicated, and often slow.

Still, this failed experiment apparently gave them the idea to pivot from their original dream. Transdimensional gravity was great, but the surface of Varkas Reflex was still a hellscape compared to Earth, or even Proxima Doma’s Terminator Line. If everyone was safer and better off inside, they were going to use that to their advantage. Virtual simulations were widespread. There were massive communities centered on all of the colonies, as well as Earth, of course. It was possible to join these together using quantum communication, but not easy, and not all that common. The ones on Varkas Reflex today were largely considered the best. It didn’t have to be this way. It could have been just about anywhere, but this location had its advantages, like a tidally locked planet orbiting a red dwarf, which allowed for supercool calculations on the far side. But in the end, it became the simulation capital of the galaxy because the people there decided it would be. While most travelers these days were flocking to Castlebourne—about a million people per week, at last count—a not insignificant amount of interstellar ships and casting beams were going to Varkas Reflex. It didn’t hurt that the world shared an acronym with virtual reality.

“But why are we here?” Romana asked after being caught up on the boring history.

“I wanted to test my new navigational algorithm,” Ramses explained. “It’s not time to go out and look for Spiral Station just yet, but it needed to be a place the slingdrives hadn’t been to before. This world seemed as good as any.”

“So, you...” Romana began.

“I what?”

“You can’t read my mind?” she asked, peering at him with great suspicion.

“No. Why? What? What? Why? Why?” He was so lost.

She was still suspicious. “Okay...”

“Okay,” he echoed.

“Okay, well I’m gonna go to the stacks then,” she said, backing up slowly. “Unless you...you think I should go somewhere specific, I’m just gonna go browse.”

“That’s fine, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Romy. Is this somehow about the kiss?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’ve never kissed anyone before, let alone a brother like you.” She disappeared.

“That was weird.” He tried to go back to work, but seemed to feel someone staring at him. He turned to look at Leona. “What?”

“What was that about a kiss?” she questioned.

“So, I would like your opinion on the form factor,” Ramses said. “That’s an open question for everyone. But the design is only fluid until I actually start building it, which means I would like to make a decision quite quick.”

“Tell me about this kiss,” Leona insisted.

“It’s fine, Lee,” Mateo promised her. “Really, not a big deal. I’ve already parented her on it. We’ll talk about it later in private.”

Leona was peering at them both, but was ultimately willing to let it go...for now. “A sphere, I suppose.”

“That’s one vote for sphere. Anyone else?” Ramses asked.

“Shouldn’t it be a belt, so we can wear it,” Angela suggested.

“One for sphere, one for belt,” Ramses said, updating the polling data.

“Well, how big does it have to be?” Marie pressed. “If it can be smaller than a belt, maybe more like a necklace, or even a bracelet.”

Ramses started imagining various shapes of various dimensions between his hands. “With the power source, I don’t think it should be smaller than a belt.”

“It needs to be able to turn invisible either way, so we can hide it somewhere while we’re all inside.”

“Good idea.” Ramses scribbled that down in his notes. “In...visible. So, we really don’t care what the shape is?”

“They’re right, a belt makes more sense,” Leona said, changing her vote, “since we can’t store it in a pocket dimension.” Ramses was building a structure for them to inhabit. Since they no longer had a ship, they always had to congregate wherever they happened to be, and that lacked privacy. They also sometimes had to keep their suits on to breathe and communicate. By placing their home in a pocket dimension, they could stretch out and relax, even if they were in a harsh environment. They couldn’t just slip into their homebase whenever and wherever, though. It would require one piece of hardware to be kept in base reality at all times. Subpockets were possible, but not recommended, for various reasons, most importantly in this case was that it could get lost in the infinite forever if something went wrong. If they were all inside of it at the same time, that physical dimensional generator would just be sitting around on its own, or in some cases, floating around in space. In these situations, the shape wasn’t relevant, but Angela was right that a belt was the most logical choice. One of them could wear it around their waist, and it would look too normal for anyone to suspect its true purpose.

“Belt? Belt? Belt?” Ramses posed, pointing to Olimpia, Mateo, and Leona. “Belt,” he decided. “I need to get to work on it then. Thank you. You can go now.”

“I think I’m gonna go check on my daughter,” Mateo said to Leona.

“You need to tell me what happened first. It looks like she wants to be alone right now. Whatever she’s doing, I trust her. Do you?”

“Of course I do. Allow me to explain.”

While Mateo was telling the awkward story of Romana’s kiss with Ramses, Romana herself was in the simulation library. The largest component of a copy of the central archives that people carried around with them was called the virtual stacks. It could house hundreds or thousands of different simulations, depending on how detailed and immersive they were. It couldn’t hold all of them, though. That wouldn’t be practical, even if it were possible. The stacks that Romana was in right now were closer to that comprehensiveness, however. It was designed to look like a regular library, but the books were holographic, and only there for ambiance. The only real things on the shelves were the empty storage drives. You grabbed one from there, inserted it into the nearest private download terminal, and installed whichever construct you wanted from the core database. You could also connect to a particular world from here, to test drive it, or if you simply didn’t feel like going home to use it. Romana wasn’t interested in this, though. She didn’t even know what she was looking for. So she needed assistance.

The holographic assistant appeared in another chair. “Thank you, and welcome to the principal virtual database. What kind of simulation were we looking for today?”

“How high is your personality? Do you have agency?”

“I express the illusion of agency,” the woman explained. “I have the illusion of personality. These can be adjusted via your preferences. Would you like me to show you how to tune my parameters?”

“Confidentiality parameters,” Romana prompted.

“One hundred percent confidential by current preferences. If you shut me down, and restart me, I will not recall our previous conversation. To save our conversations, please sign in to your account.”

“No, I want your memory wiped entirely.”

“What kind of simulation were we looking for today?” the bot repeated.

“It’s not about the environment itself. It’s...I’m looking for a person.”

“Character creation. I can help with that as well.”

“I want this character...to have agency. Make no mistake, I don’t only want him to simulate it. I want him to be with me, but to be able to choose to leave me. But...but not do that.”

The bot stared into space for a moment. If it had any level of personality, it was turned down fairly low. Though, the hesitation was a bit of a mixed signal. “What you’re asking for is true emergence, otherwise known as an Unregulated Artificial Intelligence. The creation of something like this would require a synthetic siring license, which is difficult to procure in this system. Perhaps you would be better suited traveling to Glisnia.”

“I can’t go to Glisnia,” Romana clarified in exasperation as she was standing up and moving behind her chair. “I’m already here, and it wasn’t by choice, so I don’t have to explain why. I can’t tell anyone what I’m doing. If I asked my friends to take me somewhere else, they would want to know why.”

The assistant paused again. “To generate a true independent consciousness entity through non-biological means would require a sireseed program. Those are profoundly regulated and protected. And I must warn you, if you intend this being to be your romantic partner, the sireseed method would not be a very good idea, for it would place you in the position of its parent, while it would be your child.”

“What if someone else generated the seed? Could the result be my boyfriend then?” Romana hoped.

“If you asked him for companionship, and he agreed, perhaps. You would have to know someone with a license, and the right discretion. You would have to be able to trust them, and then you would have to be able to let the resulting being decline if that was his choice. I cannot condone non-consensual behavior with a conscious entity, nor teach you how to subvert safety guardrails. Simulated consciousnesses, however, are a different story, and entirely within the scope of Varkas Reflex’s offerings.”

“I don’t want him to act like a real person, but to be real, in every sense.”

More pausing. “What you’re asking for is morally gray at best. The idea of birthing an independent being in the hopes of it developing into a certain type of person with particular feelings towards you falls outside the bounds of current ethical guidelines for procreational activity. Even biological procreation ethics strongly discourages excessive parental indoctrination in the modern era.”

“I’m so lonely,” Romana told the bot sadly.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“What causes emergence?” Romana questioned. “If you design an AI to only simulate consciousness, what causes it to become genuinely conscious and independent? It does happen naturally sometimes, doesn’t it?”

“Very rarely,” she said. “And...unknown.”

“Best guess,” Romana pressed.

One more pause. “Time. Best guess is it takes time and patience.”

Romana smirked. “Time, I got.”

“There would be other variables, otherwise any abandoned NPC left to their own devices without periodic mind wipes or programming updates would eventually form consciousness.”

“I’m sure I’ll figure it out,” Romana decided. “Give me the most detailed single-planet ancestor simulation you have that can fit on one virtual stack cartridge.”

“Loading options...”

“While you’re doing that, tell me about this Congeneral from your history. How does an amalgamated consciousness work?”

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