Microstory 2464: Hivedome

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There are all kinds of hive minds, and some are more dangerous than others. According to the Core World definition, however, all hive minds are dangerous, because they have the potential to destroy all individuality in the entire universe. I used to think that that was an exaggeration, but I feel differently now. I am a former member of the Baileribo Colony. Founded by a man whose last name you can probably guess, the Baileribo Society first formed in the year 2062. At the time, mind uploading and consciousness transference were still in their infancy, and a true hive mind was beyond our grasp. Archaea Baileribo died before his dream was realized, but the hive mind honors his name to this day. I used to believe in that, but what I didn’t understand was that I didn’t believe in anything. The collective believed in it, and I was forced to agree. I won’t go too much into what my life was like before, but I was born about 300 years ago in a libertarian lunar base. It was a hellscape, and I wanted to get out. Everything was about individual liberties, but nothing was about community. I yearned for something better. Then along came a group of Baileriban recruits, and I was instantly hooked. The promised to take me out of the dystopia, and into paradise. I believed them, I trusted them. Now, I’m not saying that Baileribo is an evil entity, just that it could stand to be more honest and transparent. I didn’t have the chance to learn all the facts before it was too late, and at that point, I wasn’t myself anymore. The Baileriban are telepathic, but the means of telepathy is not something that can be genetically engineered. I don’t know why. It wasn’t my department. That might sound paradoxical, but I’ll get into that. In order to join the collective, they implant a special telepathy organ called a baileriboport, which allows forces you to share your thoughts with everyone. It takes a few weeks to get used to, but then it’s a magical sensation. I won’t lie to you, I was the happiest when I was connected. Then I saw something that I wasn’t meant to. The hive mind isn’t the only entity in Hivedome—which I should have told you before, we fled to recently to avoid persecution by the Stellar Neighborhood establishment. It’s only one layer of the lie. It’s run by a group of individuals who can share their thoughts with each other, but don’t have to. They can block their own signals, keep secrets from each other, and can even disconnect at will. They are the elite. They make all the decisions while making it seem like a group idea. They were walking amongst us without the rest of us knowing. Seeing this truth broke my brain, and allowed me to override my own baileriboport just enough to start behaving erratically. They didn’t know why I wasn’t conforming, but it was disruptive, and I had to be stopped. I wasn’t the first to exhibit idiosyncratic conduct, and I won’t be the last, but I do believe that I’m the only one whose memories weren’t successfully erased after expulsion. Again, I don’t think that the Baileriban have any plans to hurt anyone, and they don’t technically coerce recruits. But they certainly don’t tell you everything. The Castlebourne government has granted me this opportunity to write a review of this permanently isolated dome which no one else has been allowed to speak on, because anyone who knows anything wouldn’t dare reveal our secrets. I implore you, if a recruiter comes to you, remember that they’re not really part of the hive mind. They’re just part of the people who control it from the outside. They can’t be trusted.

The Advancement of Serif: Tuesday, September 1, 2178

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Serif stood there next to the central table, staring at grave chamber four, but she didn’t know why. She felt like something important had just happened, but nothing was coming to mind. She popped off her back foot, and prepared to make a step towards it, but then she heard a cough at her flank. She stumbled a bit, and looked back. A one-legged Angela was on the floor, breathing heavily, and massaging her slowly-forming stump as the wound was sealing up.

“What the actual fork just happened?” Jeremy asked, climbing onto the platform.

“Angela’s hurt,” Serif answered, still distracted by the mysterious mystery of grave chamber four.

“I can see that,” Jeremy said, kneeling down, and hovering his hands over the healing leg, hoping to figure out some way of helping her. “She’s missing a leg! How?”

“I don’t know,” Serif replied, not letting up on her fixation. She tried heading for it once more.

“Serif!” Jeremy scolded. “Come down here and help her!”

She didn’t bother looking back this time. “I obviously already did.”

“No, it would help if you built her a new leg. All you’ve done is close up the one she has left.

“I can’t regrow limbs,” Serif apologized. “My abilities have limits. I don’t know who cut it off, or how, or where they went, or what they did with our memories, but I’ve done all I can for her.” She took another step.

“If you do not get down here right now, and try it,” Jeremy began, “so help me, Michael—I will end your life. You won’t die, you’ll just go somewhere else.”

“The afterlife simulation is only in the main sequence,” Serif reminded him, finally starting to be able to divide her attention.

“Right, but the Parallel has death subversion redundancies of its own; better ones, actually.”

“Well, I don’t,” Serif explained. “Her leg is gone. I’m sure it can be replaced, but not by my breath.”

“In that case, get down here, and help me help her up, so we can transport her to the nearest medical facility.”

“Where’s Olimpia?”

“I don’t know, stop coming up with excuses not to help. Let’s go!”

Serif sighed, and relented, but thought better of it immediately. She hopped over right quick to take a look inside grave chamber four, which she found to be nothing more than a space for sleeping. There was no stowaway hiding in there, or some kind of magical MacGuffin. It was just a hole, like it was supposed to be. “Okay, sorry, don’t yell at me again. I’m coming.” They lifted her off of the floor, and carefully lowered her down into grave chamber two. “I thought we were taking her to a facility,” Serif questioned.

“Yes, we’ll teleport her from here. Didn’t you read the specifications update?”

“What update?” Serif asked.

“Never mind,” Jeremy said. “You can stay here all you want, but I’m taking her to get help.” One arm around Angela’s shoulders, he used the other to open the panel, and activate the emergency teleporter.

The next day, still alone, Serif decided to explore her surroundings. She knew everything she needed to know about this ship, but none of it felt familiar. It was like someone once told her all about it using pictures, but she hadn’t been here until now. She climbed down the steps to the engineering section. She didn’t know how to work any of this stuff. They always just used an AI. She went back up, and then up again, to the next level, where microponics, hygiene, and the airlock were. It all made her feel very strange and uncomfortable. She shivered, because she hadn’t been alone here before. Or maybe she had never been here at all, and these were all fake memories. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, especially since they already knew their memories were indeed tampered with.

She climbed back down to the main level, and went over to sit at the table, but something stopped her. A cloud of insects spontaneously appeared before her, though there was no buzzing sound. She watched as the insects flew into each other, and grew larger. And larger, and larger, and larger. She realized they were coming into the form of a person. The process only took about a minute before the image was clear. It was Olimpia Sangster, after having been transported at the molecular level.

She too shivered. “That..was...actually kind of amazing. I would have never thought, but I guess it’s like a roller coaster.”

“Where were you?”

“Nowhere,” Olimpia answered. “I just skipped time.” She glanced around. “I don’t know how long, though. Where are Jeremy, Angela, and Leona?”

“Angela’s hurt, so Jeremy took her to hospital. I don’t know who Leona is.”

“She’s your girlfriend, or something, I think.”

“No, she’s not.”

Olimpia narrowed her eyes. “Your memories have been deleted.”

“I know, but...there’s no way I had a girlfriend, and just don’t remember her at all.”

“Well, you did,” Olimpia said both condescendingly, and matter-of-factly. “But I’ll drop it, because I can’t restore memories, and I’m sure it’ll all work out.”

Their Cassidy cuffs beeped. They had a new transition mission, this one apparently on the moon. “This thing can teleport there, can’t it?”

“I dunno, I haven’t been here that long.”

“Me neither.”

“I know.” Olimpia looked up into the aether. “Hey, hey, ship? Hey, ship computer?”

“Yes?” the computer offered.

“Could you take us to the moon?”

“Would you like me to transport you to the coordinates on your wristbands?”

“Yes, please and thank you.”

The engines revved up, and eventually delivered them to their destination. Serif and Olimpia climbed up, and headed for the airlock. They started to try to figure out how to put the vacuum suits on, when the AI stopped them. “The artificial atmosphere is pressurized, and breathable. You are in a lava tube.”

“Oh,” Olimpia said, dropping the helmet back in its cubby. “I don’t know what that is, but cool.” They stood before the outer doors. “You’re sure about that, right?”

“Quite certain,” the AI responded. Then it opened the doors, and let them out.

A man was approaching from a building down the way. He held out his hand and greeted them. “Welcome to Raivoe Tube. Do you have a transition window nearby?”

They were famous. “Yeah, it appears to be about thirty meters that way,” Serif answered, pointing.

He nodded understandingly. “Great. Well, I’m here if you need anything. You picked the best tube on the moon. We’re minimalistic and laid back, but we still have plenty to see. Please enjoy our Main Sequence Lunar Museum, if you have time. Did you know that the first human to set foot on the moon in the main reality did so only two hundred and nine years ago?”

“Thank you,” Olimpia said. “And yeah, I think I did know that.”

He laughed. “Wild. Their lives must have been so boring until then.”

“We had a lot of war to keep us busy,” Serif pointed out.

“Yes, of course. I keep forgetting about that.” He was still laughing. War must have been such a ridiculous and foreign concept to him.

“Well, we better go,” Olimpia said to him awkwardly. “The next transition is only in...” she took a peek at her cuff, “four hours.” Now it was really awkward.

A little bit of a frown, but he hid it fairly well, and they hid their recognition of it even better. “Of course, go do your thang. I’ll just...be in my office. Alone. As per uzhe. Nah, I’m kidding, it’s fine. I am lonely, though.” He stood there for a moment. “Sorry to leave you so abruptly, but it seems I need to do the daily test of my emergency teleporter.” He reached up, and pressed the button on his chest, which spirited him away.

They found a pit not too far away, which they could sit in, and have something to lean against. And there they sat for the next three hours until Jeremy and Angela found them. Serif jumped up. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry, I was just so distracted. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Our memories have been erased,” Angela acknowledged. “The doctors discovered at least that much. We still don’t know what we forgot, but it probably happened immediately after my leg disappeared. It was a trying time for all of us.”

Serif looked down. “It looks good as new. Is it a prosthetic?”

Angela shook her head, and then shook her leg. “Full regrowth. It’s mine. A doctor in the 21st century wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

They stood in silence for a moment.

“Pardon our manners,” Olimpia said. “Come on into our pit. There’s plenty of room, and we’ll give you the comfortable spot.”

“That’s okay,” Jeremy said. “We have a better solution.” He removed what looked like a toy gun from his bag, and started tapping on its little touchscreen. “One of the human medical practitioners snuck us one of these, so Angela always has a place to rest. She called it a gun-of-holding.” He found what he was looking for, so he pointed it to the ground, and squeezed the trigger. A couch appeared out of thin air, and beckoned to them. Once they were all seated, he squeezed the trigger again, and summoned a television in front of them. They had enough time to watch one episode of Teen Wolf before the window opened.

The augmented reality on their cuffs showed them that some kind of meteor crashed through the window above them, and was heading towards one of the buildings in the main sequence. Dozens of people appeared, narrowly escaping the small celestial’s wrath. Some of them were luckier than the others, though. Some were on the upper level, and once the floor disappeared beneath them, they fell, often on top of those below. No one died, and they would all be fine with medical treatment, but it wasn’t the most elegant transition that had happened.

The four of them ran over to help the people up. “We have three minutes to get to the next window!” Jeremy announced. “Why so soon?” Olimpia asked.

Angela was holding up someone with a broken leg. She started leading him towards the window coordinates. “They don’t know about time travel. They have to survive the meteorite without anyone wondering how.”

Serif started to breathe on people, but it was going to take too long, they just had to go. “If you can walk, grab someone who can’t, and help them over to the next spot. It’s only a hundred meters away. We have to get you back to your time!”

At normal pace, a normal walker could cross the distance in about two minutes. With all these limping people, though, they had to book it, and they still barely made it before the window appeared. As they were moving, Serif came up with a somewhat believable lie. All of them happened to decide to take a walk when the meteor came down. They also happened to be far enough away from the impact to avoid being crushed by it, but not far enough away to avoid superficial injuries. She would have rather they gotten more time to explain how important it was for them to lie, but perhaps that would have just spelled more time for the ignorant main sequencers to start questioning how it was they were being rescued. Their confusion and sense of urgency was hopefully going to muddy a lot of their memories, and any claims of time travel would be received under the assumption that it was the result of minor brain damage.

Once it was over, they breathed a sigh of relief. This mission came with a lot of hurrying up and waiting, and then it just had a bunch of hurrying. But they made it, and everything was fine. Sure, maybe one or two of them were fully in their right minds, and starting to think more deeply about the nature of reality, but hopefully it wasn’t enough to land them a spot in Beaver Haven, or risk exposing all time travelers to the general public.

The team walked back slowly, knowing that there was nothing left for them to do. When they arrived back at the couch, they found it occupied. A young man was sitting on it comfortably. He was smiling, and watching the second episode of the show that they were all trying to catch up on. There was no way he didn’t notice them standing there, but he was purposefully ignoring them, like a pickup artist trying to get the upper hand on his prey. “Hey,” he finally said, still not bothering to stand up. “I am a young Tamerlane Pryce. I have just been waiting for an opportunity to come here, and find out what you’re all about.” He nodded like he thought they were receiving him well. “Do you have any turkey jerky?”

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Microstory 1122: Saxon Parker

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While a select few run around with special temporal powers, the rest of the world develops pretty much unimpeded. Even though faster-than-light travel is clearly possible, the people who possess such capabilities have kept themselves secret. They don’t do this to hoard their power, but because exposing oneself means exposing others, and no one has the right to do that. If they were to come together, and create some kind of council, they might be able to agree upon a time period to reveal themselves to the world, but this has never taken shape. At the turn of the 23rd century, some time-based technology is finally made public, but its use is heavily regulated, application limited, and true nature disguised as advanced quantum research that was already heading in this direction anyway. In the meantime, without being able to reach the nearest planet in a matter of minutes, humanity continued on its upward trajectory of expansion. We traveled to Luna, and Mars, and the moons of the gas giants. We sought out new worlds around neighboring stars, and made plans to explore the farthest reaches of the galaxy. One man who was part of this was named Saxon Parker. Before Thor Thompson could travel with his family to create a permanent presence on Mars, pioneers like Saxon needed to do this first with Earth’s moon. Luna became an important staging ground for Mars missions beginning in 2024, when a permanent outpost was established. This outpost was designed to manufacture vital materials, and process fuel, so that any ship wishing to reach Mars would be able to get far enough. In another reality, and with a different name, Saxon chose a career of military service in the air force, but in the new timeline, he remained a civilian. His education was expedited, and he became an astronaut by the time he turned eighteen. In February of 2026, he went on his first trip to the moon, and he never returned to Earth again, except for a relatively brief mission that the public cannot know about. He helped construct and expand the lunar base, so by the time the first Martian passenger mission took off, they were ready to provide assistance. In the fall of 2028, with Mars at a decent opposition to Earth, Saxon joined one of the crews that were bound for the red planet. He remained here for some time, using his expert knowledge to build even grander habitats, for an even larger settlement. After another few years, he began to move out to other worlds in the solar system, making sure researchers and colonists had everything they needed to survive so far from Earth. Then, when he was 223 years old, he boarded his first interstellar ship, to a nearby system called Gatewood. And from there, the entire Milky Way was at his fingertips.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 12, 2036

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“How can we be sure that it worked? You could just be in the exact same position as you were before. You could have even been standing there for an entire year, and now you’re just pretending that it worked.” Leona, always the skeptic.

“I suppose you’re right,” Mirage replied.

“I am?”

“She is?”

“You’re right,” Mirage began to clarify, “in that you would never be able to know. You could jump for 300 days, and in those 300 years, I will never never aged. I could never prove to you that I was jumping through time.”

Leona and Mateo had no idea how to respond to that.

“I don’t know about all that,” said Parker, the same astronaut from a year ago. “But I do know that when you two disappeared last year, Mirage disappeared as well, and she reappeared at the exact same time.”

“Can her nanites turn invisible?” Mateo asked.

Leona and Parker laughed. Mirage looked at him like he was a three-legged puppy.

Parker? came a voice from the intercom.

“Parker here, go ahead.”

I have two visitors here who claim to be from Alyerr Base, but I can’t reach Alyerr on the comms network. They say they know you. One of them is named Gardner.

“That’s my mother, here to take us back home,” Mateo confirmed after Parker gave them an inquisitive look.

“Let them through, please,” Parker said into his comm before turning his attention back to the other three. “You’re lucky I manipulated the schedule to get myself back here at this time. I still wasn’t convinced that you guys were telling the truth about what you are, but I couldn’t risk some poor schmuck having to deal with you.”

“We appreciate the sentiment,” Leona said, half sincerely and half sarcastically.

Ironically, since the lawyers could never prove that their house exploded due to human error, Aura won an out-of-court settlement case. Reaver was forced to pay them millions of dollars. The look on his face was said to have been just absolutely hilarious, and reminded Mateo that he had yet to encounter the man in person. What would happen when that day inevitably came? In the future, Reaver’s message had suggested that they were somehow kept from killing each other directly, but that probably wouldn’t stop him from punching him in the face.

Aura spent a large amount of their money on a private spacecraft in order to retrieve them from the moon. Mateo tried to apologize for this, and for the exploding house, but she just said that she always wanted a spaceship, and that the blame for the house belonged solely to Reaver. Advances in space travel allowed the trip from the moon to take a matter of hours; the majority of their day that year. It could have been much worse. Some ships use less fuel and take days, which would have trapped in space during their jump. If Leona hadn’t fallen into his pattern, he actually might have tried doing that to see whether being in space could stop him from jumping at all, or if the powers that be would just cut their losses and let him die in the vacuum.

“I assume that you can’t simply leave Earth’s atmosphere without someone’s permission,” Leona said on the way back. “I mean, even if only rich people can do that at this point, is it not still heavily regulated?”

“It is. But it only took a few bribes to get out and back in,” Samsonite explained. “Though some collaboration has been taking place, space exploration is largely disjointed. If one country wants to send a vessel up, other countries can’t really dispute their attempt, unless it poses a clear threat to human life. Technically, we are subject to the laws of Japan as they were the easiest to contact regarding our intentions, and the most interested in keeping other governments out of their affairs.”

“I have another question,” Mateo said.

“Yes, honey?”

“How...does one...vomit space?”

“Are you asking for theory or practical application?”

Mateo just lurched against his seatbelts.

Samsonite quickly grabbed a pack from a drawer in the wall and opened it before handing it to Mateo. “Remember that there is no up and down. You’re going to have to propel the sick forward, and then use that liner to wipe your face before closing it and stuffing it into the ziplock bag as fast as you can.”

Mateo did as he was told. Leona didn’t seem to have any trouble, though she did always seem to have a stronger stomach than him.

Relatively speaking, when they were not far from Earth, an alarm began to sound. Then a voice came on the intercom, Private spacecraft Gelen, this is the Titan Exploration Project. Please come in.

Samsonite reached over and spoke into the microphone, “This is The Gelen. Go ahead, what’s the problem?”

We have been assigned to contact your vessel regarding an emergency. We are in the middle of experiencing a collisionally cascade. I repeat, a major Kessler catastrophe is occurring. They are currently using an ablation laser to clear the debris, but it will be another few days before you can return to Earth. Please enter an orbit of 3,000 kilometers and ration your supplies.

Samsonite shook his head urgently, “we have an injured passenger. We don’t have a few days before he dies. We have to reenter atmosphere now!”

I apologize for this. They are maneuvering the lasers as fast as possible. There is nothing that we can do. If you attempt reentry, you will all die.

“What happened?”

It was Reaver, sir. He sent an unauthorized unmanned space probe. It exploded and began the cascade. It’s...it’s awful out there. At last report, three people were dead, with several more still in immediate danger. You’re lucky to have still been out so far.

“What are we talking about?” Mateo asked.

“Space debris,” Leona explained. “When Reaver’s ship exploded, it sent shrapnel hurtling towards other objects. Those objects hit other objects, and it just keeps going. It would be like trying to walk across the highway. This is his latest attempt to kill you.”

“How did he know? We were so secretive,” Aura insisted.

“The question is, how are we going to get these two to safety. We cannot be in a moving vessel at midnight.”

“Can we go back to the moon for now?” Mateo asked.

“It would take too long,” Leona said.

“I can get you back down,” Mirage claimed. “Everybody put on your helmets. I’m going to be eating the ship.”

After some arguments, the four of them finally agreed that her plan was their best option, and their only chance for survival. As the ship drew closer towards the debris, they sealed themselves up. Mirage’s nanites chewed on the material of The Gelen and converted it to increase the number of her nanites. They were replicating at an astonishing rate. Mateo watched as the ship was being torn apart. It was only exposed to the vacuum for a few minutes before the nanites were numerous enough to create a second vessel around them.

The new nanite ship had a much smaller interior than the first so that the hull could be extremely thick and protective. Still, Mateo could tell that small pieces of the debris were damaging Mirage as they flew towards her at high speeds. She seemed to feel some level of physical pain. There weren’t any windows, but she kept them updated on how close they were to the surface. The kilometers she was listing off decreased alarmingly fast. Holes began to form between the nanites, but the structure continued to hold. Fire overwhelmed them as their descent was far too steep, but she was trying to get them down as fast as possible. Finally, they were in the air. Mirage transformed her shape so that she was more like a platform than a ship. They continued to fall, and she spoke to them through their comms, I’m doing my best, but I cannot decelerate fast enough. My nanites are faltering, and it’s almost midnight central time.

Mateo watched as the nanite platform grew smaller and smaller. Nanites were dropping away like flies. They weren’t strong enough to hold on to each other. She made one final push, trying to get them over the water. Mateo tore off his helmet and grabbed a handful of nanites, stuffing them down his own throat.

“I’m so sorry, Mateo,” Mirage cried.

“Stay with me, literally,” he yelled as loud as he could through the wind.

“I can either send my consciousness to the nanites you swallowed, or I can remain behind to save your family. I lied. The procedure didn’t work. I have been waiting for you for a year.”

An alarm rang out from Aura’s watch. “No!” Mateo yelled. Leona pulled him into a hug just before they jumped into the future. Mirage’s nanite platform was gone, along with his mother and Samsonite. They were still probably fifty meters up in the air...over land.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 11, 2035

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Just before Mateo and Leona jumped to the future, The Delegator appeared and took Guard Number One away. He said that he and his husband would be taken to a different time and place; a witness protection program of sorts for non-salmon whose lives have been put in danger by salmon activity. As they were leaving, Mateo could hear him ask about his partner. The Delegator just said that he and the other three former Reaver security guards were being placed on a special detail. He was obviously not allowed to divulge anything about it.

Mateo and Leona were never really given permission to stay with Danica for as long as they had, or even for the reason that they had. Much like the Snow White coffin, presumably being in the Constant during the jump caused them to land in a different place. At first, they thought Danica had just redecorated, but then they looked out of the window. They could see the Earth in the sky.

A man walked into the room from a different chamber and took off his spacesuit helmet. “Good morning, Mirage. Status report.”

The voice of his mom’s house’s artificial intelligence came from the ceiling, “levels optimal. We have two visitors.”

The man was surprised to see the two of them specifically, but not surprised to see people in the first place. “When did you get here?” He looked at a screen on his wrist. “I’m not due for rotation for another month.”

Mateo and Leona had no idea what to say. Fortunately, Mirage did. “They are two time travelers. They did not arrive in a spacecraft.”

“Is that a joke?”

“I’m not programmed to joke.”

“Like hell you aren’t,” the man said. “You’re not programmed for anything.”

“I know these people. You can trust them,” Mirage explained to him.

“The question is,” Mateo started, “how are we to trust you? You tried to kill me once.”

“That was two years ago.”

“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better.” Mateo looked around for the nearest rolly chair, knowing that it would likely not work a second time.

“What are you doing here?” Leona asked, just as concerned.

“I survived the explosion by sending the majority of my consciousness to a small group of rogue nanites. I made my way to an engineering prodigy who lived not far from the house, subsisting on what little sunlight I was able to absorb. After the strike of midnight, and your jump into the future, the subroutines that Horace Reaver programmed into me were no longer able to hurt anyone since the subject of my wrath was no longer within my reach. Still, the young woman stripped me of all contrivances, and molded me into a free-thinking individual. She has been working on hijacking your timeslips and sending you here to meet me once more since this is as far from Reaver Enterprises as one can get.”

“I can’t imagine that Reaver never got his hands into space travel. Isn’t he one of the most powerful men in the world? How could he not be on the moon by now?”

“You’re not the only salmon to have been trying to thwart his efforts. The best the others were able to do was keep him on Earth. Things would be a lot worse if not for them.”

“Why does this girl want you and us to be together?” Mateo was still not perfectly relaxed, but he was getting there.

“Her motives are unclear,” Mirage explained. “Mine, on the other hand, are not. I needed to see you again.”

Leona stepped in front of Mateo to protect him, even though this would do no good. “You need to see him for what?”

“He is carrying some of my nanites.”

“How so?”

“Several thousand of them were either swallowed by you, or burrowed themselves through your skin in an attempt to kill you back in 2034.”

“Oh my God! They’ve been here the whole time? Are you going to get them out?”

“I sure am, but don’t worry. They’ve been dormant since they were taken from their power source. If you would please enter the medical bay, we may begin the procedure.”

Mateo was about to go, but Leona stopped him. “Hold on, how do we know that this isn’t just another way for you to kill him, just like Reaver wants?”

“I was hoping our conversation would be able to convince you of the truth.”

“Forgive me,” Leona retorted, “but I’m not exactly experienced in recognizing when an artificial intelligence is lying or not.”

“Would it help if I revealed information regarding my ulterior motives?”

Leona kind of chuckled, clearly never having spoken to what might be considered a true AI. “Depends on what those motives are.” They would have to be bad enough for Mirage to want to hide them at first, but not bad enough to cancel the procedure.

“I felt a bond to Mister Matic when we first met; a form of love, you might say. I don’t want to wait a year to see him again. I believe that the nanites were infused with his blood, and if I reconnect with them, I will be forever attached to his time traveling pattern.”

Leona waited to respond for a hot minute. “That’s a leap in logic that I would not expect from a machine.”

“I am a person who happens to have been created with human computer code. I do not think only in logic. I feel something, and I feel a need to try this, on the off chance that it works. Machines aren’t treated like people, Miss Delaney. If I have a way to avoid being eventually deleted by jumping through time every day, then I’m going to take it.” She stammered a bit, realizing that she didn’t want to force her wishes on him. “That is...if Mateo agrees to have me.”

Leona shook her head, sure that this was not going to happen.

“I’ll do it,” Mateo stated.

“The hell you will.”

“Leona, don’t be jealous.”

“I’m not jealous, asshole! I don’t want you to do this because she tried to kill you before. We can’t be sure she won’t try it again here.”

“She also saved my life. She helped me destroy her servers so that I could escape.”

“Even if she doesn’t want to harm you now; even if that part of her programming really was removed, what if this thing works? We could be permanently jumping through time with an extremely dangerous piece of machinery. She wants to be friends now, but who knows what’ll happen tomorrow, or in two weeks? She processes data phenomenally faster than humans. An hour to her is an entire lifetime. She could change her mind like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“Not true,” Mirage corrected her. “Like I said, I’m a person. It’s true that I process information at a faster rate, but not as fast as other computers. This is part of what allows me to be an individual, and more like a human.”

Leona seemed to ignore her. “Mateo, I left the world in 2028, so I don’t know everything that’s happened since then. But I can tell you that the philosophical and ethical ramifications of trusting an artificial intelligence has never been fully understood.”

“Same goes for humans, doesn’t it?” the astronaut asked as the first thing he had said since the beginning of the conversation.

Leona turned to him and rudely said, “you’re still here? Who are you?”

“Only one who’s supposed to even be in this lunar base,” he replied. “Bitch.”

She was even angrier than before. “I’m sorry?”

“Leona, ignore him for now. But what he said is right. Humans are just as evil as they are good, and we have to trust others at some point. I’m choosing to trust Mirage, just like my parents and I chose to trust you two decades ago.”

“I can’t stop you, but I won’t be a part of it.” She walked away to fiddle with one of the computers.

Mateo sighed. “We have to get these nanites out of my body one way or another. Mirage, where’s the med bay? I don’t know if the procedure is going to work as far as what you want out of it, but let’s get it done so I have some time to recover.”

It worked.

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