Microstory 2487: Skilldome

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I don’t want to speak for you, but I’m guessing that your life is pretty easy. Everything you need is handed to you, along with a few things that you might just want. There are those who spend their whole lives holed up in their modules, connected to VR or the network. Dayfruit growers provide them with food. Drones deliver their feedstock. Their electricity and water is piped in, and their waste is shipped out. Their personal robot does all their work. I’m not criticising people who live like this. This is just a preamble so you’ll understand what purpose Skilldome serves. So many things that you may or may not take for granted were either not cheap for our ancestors, hardly available, or outright didn’t exist. Obviously, different time periods came with different limitations, and over the years, there are skills that we’ve lost to automation, and engineered simplicity. I’m not saying that you’ll become a better person if you learn how to drive a car with your hands and feet. I’m just telling you that the skill is something that this dome offers. You can also learn how to churn butter, command an animal to plow a field, or write something down with a pencil and paper. It’s hard to describe what these activities are, since there’s such a broad range, but it’s basically everything that people used to have to do to be productive that we don’t anymore. To be sure, there are some things that still hold some merit in our world. You might not have access to a medpod or healing nanites, even today, so knowing how to perform first aid is one of those skills that some people have maintained anyway. But for those of us whose minds it didn’t cross to do it before, if you’re on Castlebourne, come on down and take a class. As far as skills that are less practical in the synthetic era go, like stuffing mail in envelopes, or coding a program in an obsolete computer language called C++, you can do it just for fun, or to have a greater appreciation for modern living. Or come up with your own reasons. There are no requirements on what you have to do when you come here, but if you do come, and you do choose a particular skill, it is asked of you to use the tools you are given, and not “cheat”. If you’re taking a math test, only use one of those old basic calculators that they will provide you with. Don’t just ask an AI to do it for you. That defeats the purpose. I actually saw a guy do this, which was so stupid, because no one was making him take this otherwise pointless test. What you get out of coming here is entirely up to you. Ain’t nobody gonna hold your hand. Nor should they have to.

Microstory 2471: Hubdome

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It may be boring, but someone’s gotta do it. Centuries ago, mail was all the rage. You could send someone a letter a thousand kilometers away, and it might only take a month to get there, or never! Doesn’t that sound neat? Over time, of course, speed picked up as infrastructure was developed, and efficient methods were discovered—or rediscovered, as in the case of relay stations. In the late 20th century, they invented electronic mail, which may lead you to believe that regular physical post was all but eradicated, but not so fast my friend. Adoption was slow, and...people are dumb. They still sent letters. Plus, the population was booming, so even if any given individual wasn’t sending as much, the volume was still increasing overall. It did eventually die down, but one thing that didn’t go away was package delivery. Instead of just the written word, real, useful items had to be transported from one place to another. There was no way to send that electronically. Or was there? Of course there is! It’s called additive manufacturing, and it’s been improving too. Not everyone has their own industrial synthesizer, and there are some things that standard feedstocks can’t handle. If there are too many different types of materials in one item, you can’t expect every end user to maintain each type in their private space. And even if you did, the feedstock itself has to be delivered, right? That’s where this dome comes in. It’s a hub for all your shipping and delivering needs. It doesn’t take weeks to get to its destination, though, unless whatever you asked for hasn’t been built yet. I say, if something you ordered takes more than a few hours to reach you, there’s probably something wrong. Shipping was one of the easiest industries to transition to automation back when human employment was something necessary in order to maintain a stable economy. You pick this thing up, put it in this box, seal it up, and move it to its destination. The programming couldn’t be simpler. Only one human works here. He walks up and down, making sure that things are okay. Obviously, the robots do this too, but they like to put  a human touch in everything, and that’s true of pretty much every planet, except maybe Glisnia. Come here for a tour if you have a few hours to kill, but you could also probably just read the more detailed literature on the prospectus, and get just as much out of it.

Microstory 2236: Stop Sending Me Messages

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We’re running into the same problem with the FBI that we had with the jail. No one has my contact information, so they’re reaching out to the only entity that they know is already in contact with me. They had to hire a temp to sift through all the letters and emails. It may actually be a team, I don’t really know. But I’m sure it’s a stressful job, because it includes death threats. Well, in truth, I don’t know that there are any death threats, because if true, part of the temp’s job would be to filter them out, so I don’t have to see them. But let’s face it, there are. No one should be sending anything like that, but I don’t really want anything anyway; good or bad. I don’t want your love letters, propositions, or proposals. I don’t want you to publish a book about my life, or cast me in a romcom. I won’t go on a date with you, or father your child, or give you my blood. It’s not a healing elixir; we know as much. Just stop. Not too long ago, Kelly suggested that we might consider hiring a publicist to handle all this stuff. They have the infrastructure and hiring practices to handle this sort of thing, not that I want anyone to have to deal with this stuff. I would rather it just stop altogether. Back in my younger days, I wished that I would be famous, and I guess I always knew that it came with drawbacks, but knowing about them, and experiencing them, are two different things. So please just calm down. As I’ve tried to explain, my blood cannot heal you. Doctors have been studying it for weeks—even longer than that when you consider the fact that I was a former immortal before I even came to your world. That’s the thing about your universe, it dampens my abilities, which is of course, what opens me up to all those death threats. God, I just can’t get away from the strife. Please just stop sending me messages. I’m sorry, but I’m not reading most of them. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life, but I can tell you that it will be on my terms. The more you beg me to follow your lead, or listen to your ideas, the more I’m going to pull away. That’s just who I am. If you really wanna stay in the loop, simply read my website and socials. Personal connection isn’t a thing; not with me. I have all the friends I need.

Microstory 2223: Goodbye

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People are evidently fascinated by my story, and have a morbid curiosity for my terrible prognosis. They want to know what it’s like, living with this day to day, and knowing that my life will be over soon. Well, it’s actually kind of boring. Since I don’t have the freedom to move around where I want to, and everything I do need to accomplish has to be planned out in advance, I mostly just repeat the same routine every day. I wake up at 07:15. For now, I can brush my teeth on my own, because my arm tremors don’t prevent me from doing it, especially not so early in the morning. It gets to be problematic later in the day, when my arm starts to kind of flail about more unpredictably. I guess the prions need time to wake up too. Anyway, after I take my first round of medicine, Kelly helps me with some physical therapy exercises for about an hour. After that, I need a break, so she plants me in front of the TV for maybe a couple of hours. At that point, I’m getting hungry, so she makes me something simple for lunch, usually a sandwich or a wrap, along with fruit and vegetables. I’ve never eaten so healthily, but that was always my problem, having to be inconvenienced by preparing the food myself. I’ve never cared that much about the taste or quality, it was always just easier eating something prepackaged, or delivered right to my door. That’s probably the best thing about having an assistant, be it a medical professional, or no. Then after lunch, Kelly takes me for a walk in the wheelchair, or if she’s being a big meany, the walker. I’m joking, I know that it’s good for me to stay active and mobile. There will come a day when even sitting in a wheelchair will feel like too much. The walk takes as long as I can handle it, because I’ve always needed a nap right after it, and in some cases, during. She usually has to wake me up to take more pills, and then I just stay awake for more TV, more physical therapy, dinner, more pills, and more recently, writing these posts. Finally, it’s time for bed. That’s pretty much it. Exciting, I know. It’s so interesting, in fact, I think I’ll start a vlog about it, so a company can offer to sponsor me, then get mad when things don’t work out (probably because I’ll be dead). So. You’ve all been writing me letters, and that’s a very lovely thought, but I’m not going to tell you where I live, I do not have a publicist, because it’s a waste of money at this point, and the jail shouldn’t be worrying about them. They have enough on their plate. Here’s the deal, if you send more letters addressed to me, they have been instructed to literally throw them away. They’re not even gonna open them. So please, stop killing trees for no reason. If you want to say something to me, you can send a quick message below, or catch me on social. I still might not be able to read them, though, because it’s getting harder and harder for me to keep my eyes open in front of screens. And my lifecare assistant isn’t getting paid for all that extra stuff. Thank you for understanding. Goodbye.

Extremus: Year 62

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The Department Fixer. That’s what they call Tinaya now. The Resource Allocation Team was only the beginning. Well, the Forestry Department was the beginning of this new chapter in her life, but she didn’t realize it at the time. Since the RATs asked her to help them with their image problem, she has helped three other departments with their own issues. For the RATs, she first encouraged them to lean into their once-negative nickname. She conscripted a graphics designer to change their logo to a rat. She distributed materials about how great rats are in real life. Of course, the allocators aren’t actual rats, but that wasn’t the point. She wanted to make them look like a fun group of people who are in on the joke. She wanted to keep it light, and associate the department with something positive.

Next, she lobbied the government to relegalize teleportation for all with sufficient contribution scores. Not only were the civilians happy to receive new teleportation tech after all this time from the RATs, but it also served to increase Tinaya’s personal popularity. She wasn’t specifically trying to do that, but everyone knew that she was the one who finally made it happen, and they credited her for it appropriately. The fact that she accomplished it without wielding any real power was a testament to her value on the ship, and people were taking notice.

Immediately after this was done, the Civilian Engineering Corps asked for her help. These are different from the engineers that run Extremus. They manage inessential projects, such as remodeling quarters when changes are requested for a family’s living situation. They receive a lot of requests, but have to reject the majority of them for logistical reasons. They do lots of other things, though, which have nothing to do with the crew engineers. Most of the students who go to college to study engineering want to be on the crew, and when the slots fill up, a surprising number of them decide to pursue other interests. Even so, the CEC receives an excess of applications for employment, and has to make even more rejections. They don’t like doing this, and needed to expand their scope to new and original projects, which necessarily required raising their staffing limit. But that also meant figuring out how to get through all this red tape, which Tinaya was now quite familiar with. So she navigated it for them, and fixed that problem too.

Following that, Tinaya organized a Quantum Colony Tournament for the Recreation Department. It was not built as a player v. player game, so she had to devise an in-game competition from scratch. This meant that she planned everything in the real world, and in the virtual space. Her stint here was the shortest according to the calendar, but also the most time and labor intensive, so after it was over, she took a break from doing anything for a couple of weeks, and returned to the spa where Lilian’s brother welcomed her back warmly. When she was ready, she logged back into her account to find a couple dozen applications for her assistance. She did not create an official template for this process. Someone else did it for her, and dispersed it to the entire ship on her behalf. If she knew who it was, she might have scolded them for doing something like that without her permission, but honestly, it was making her life easier. The applications were clear, easy to read, and most importantly, easy to filter out.

There was only one application that she was willing to accept, which was for Captain Soto himself. She didn’t choose him because she liked him, because she doesn’t, but she wanted a challenge. That is becoming increasingly important to her; being challenged. Like the RATs, Captain Tamm too had an image problem, and even though it wasn’t strictly necessary for him to be well liked to do his job, it helped to have his crew respect him. He also needed help communicating with the civilian government. Tinaya was not a miracle worker, so he was never going to be as belovèd as Halan Yenant or Kaiora Leithe, but she did her best, and saw markèd improvement in the man. He still needs more work, but her obligation to him is now over. She’s not a saint either.

This morning, she’s woken up to only one application in her mailbox, which is weird, because she had five in there last night which she had yet to find time to review. They were somehow deleted, or perhaps rescinded? All of her maybes were gone now too. Perhaps whoever generated the application form for her in the first place still had access to them in the system. Hmm. Last year, she tried everything she could to locate the source, but was never able to, and she can’t think of anything that’s changed since her initial attempts. All she can do now is pretend that she was completely mistaken, and there was only ever one in here. Let’s see what it’s about. It’s from Arqut Grieves. This is the guy who always has to attend Tinaya’s meetings. Well, not all meetings, but the ones that could plausibly impact how the government is run.

A representative from the Office of the First Chair is required to be at such meetings, but it doesn’t always have to be the same person. Yet it has been for the last year and a half. Arqut is always the one, whether that means he volunteers every time, or someone else assigns him to Tinaya’s projects. She’s never asked him. And he’s never asked anything. He’s remarkably quiet. Before he took over the job ad hoc, a few others filled the same role, and they were very concerned about how this would impact the government, or rather specifically the First Chair themselves. He didn’t seem to care. He let her do whatever. He was so mysterious. What could he possibly want from her now?

The application itself is filled out in a funny way—read: incorrectly. It’s not sophisticated enough to know whether a given input field has been entered appropriately. The only requirement is that something be in every box. Next to NAME, he put the word Dear. Then next to DATE, he wrote Tinaya, and for the TIME, only a comma. The rest of the fields add up to what look like a standard freeform letter, each field handling the next two or three words until the DESCRIPTION box finishes out the rest of the body in what has finally become easy to decipher:

Dear Tinaya,

Request that you provide your assistance with the following project. This is top secret. Extremus exists in a constant state of danger of being destroyed, and a new plan has been put in place to ensure the continuity of our people in a dire emergency. It is paramount that you share nothing of what you read here today with anyone, nor anything we discuss later in regards to this matter. A fourth ship is being designed upon the direction, and at the discretion, of the civilian government, somewhere in secret on Extremus proper. This emergency ship will be run by a shadow crew. This crew will ultimately be privy to every development that the current captain, Soto Tamm is made aware of. They will recreate the decisions that the real crew makes, and also run parallel simulations that imagine new solutions to these real problems. Should the worst happen, and Extremus is destroyed, this shadow crew will break away, and restart the mission using what will probably be determined to be new parameters. Again, tell no one of what you’ve just learned. You have been selected as a candidate for the first captain of this crew on a temporary basis. Your job will be to lead the simulated ship for a short time, and use your experience to select the new captain, who will continue on for the duration of the next real captain’s shift. Please meet me in the Mirror Room at 16:15 to discuss details.

The EXPECTED START DATE was Thank you, and the EXPECTED END DATE was Arqut Grieves. This is highly irregular, and super suspicious. It sounds like a coup. It sounds like the government making plans to overthrow the crew, and take over the ship for themselves. She has to tell someone. She can’t just take this man’s word for it that this is just some kind of simulation. They’ve barely spoken, she can’t trust him. She can’t trust anyone, though. So who’s the closest option? The Bridgers? She rarely makes contact with her spy handler. She can’t go to the Captain, even though she does have a personal relationship with him now. She obviously can’t reach out to the First Chair either. Basically anyone in the government is a risk. But this Mirror Room meeting is not an option. The Council. The Council sucks, but she’s gotta do it. If it’s come to the point where they are her only option, though, then nothing else matters. Because if they’re dirty, then the whole ship is fucked.

It was then that she noticed that there was just a little bit more text, which she originally ignored as some kind of short disclaimer, or something, but that’s not what it says. It reads, THIS DOCUMENT UTILIZES EYE-TRACKING SOFTWARE THAT WILL—PRINT. Tinaya hates paper today as much as she always did, but the law requires that she make hard copies of every accepted application, so she has a ream of the stuff for such purposes, which she predicts she will never get through completely. She’s grateful for it now, because after the application is done printing out, she finishes the fine text in the footer, which goes on to say, TRIGGER A SELF-DESTRUCT ONCE THE INTENDED RECIPIENT READS IT IN ITS ENTIRETY, OR AN UNINTENDED RECIPIENT BEGINS TO READ IT.

True to its word, the application disappears from the screen, and all traces of it are removed from the system. Like the origin of the application template itself, she’s unable to retrieve it, or find any proof that it ever existed, besides this hard copy. She makes ten more copies of the letter, and teleports all over the ship to hide them in secret places. Then she returns to her cabin to get dressed for her impromptu meeting. Whoever is engineering this coup isn’t going to get away with it...or they will indeed upon her failure, which is a distinct possibility. Either way, she has to try.

The council used to be a loosely defined collective of crewmembers and government officials who were only there to make sure that everyone was doing their jobs correctly. It was more of a committee than a council, and the level of power they wielded was limited to how much, or how little, respect that a given person that they were trying to control at a given time had for them. This has changed over the decades as members have been turned over to those with greater and further-reaching ambitions. Now they call it The Council with a capital C, and if they make a decision, it’s pretty much final. It can be challenged by others, but most of the people with any real chance of overturning their decision are already on the council anyway. Checks and balances are more of a joke at this point, but don’t tell them that, because they’re the only ones who don’t find it funny. They’re also all full-time members now, except for the Captain, First Lieutenant, First Chair, and Second Chair. All they do is hear complaints and make executive decisions, like a king in open court. At least this works in Tinaya’s favor, because she knows where they’ll be, so she won’t have to ask for them to convene.

Dreading doing it, she takes the long way ‘round with good ol’ fashioned walking, instead of teleporting straight there. Today is a good day; the line is not very long. There are about eight parties ahead of her who seek audience with the Council, and they all make way for Tinaya. She’s never tried this herself, but she commands a level of respect enjoyed by few others. Again, she’s not exactly itching to get there, but she hates waiting, even if it’s for something she doesn’t want to do. So she accepts their gracious gesture, and jumps to the front of the line. When it’s her turn, she walks into the room, and heads for the center platform. The proctor who watches the line steps up behind them, and whispers something to Council Leader Whatever-His-Name-Is. She never bothered to learn it, because she doesn’t care. Let’s just call him Cleader.

Cleader nods, and sighs as he’s turning his head back to face Tinaya. “Miss Leithe, what can we do for you today? What is so urgent that you had to skip the line?”

“What the proctor might not have told you,” Tinaya begins, “is that they offered. I didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t want it, but refusing it would have been ruder.”

“Very well,” Cleader replies. “Proceed.”

Tinaya steps towards the dais. She places two hard copies of the suspect request form before Cleader, so they can pass them down each way. “I received a request for my assistance this morning in a most unusual manner. It deleted itself from the system as soon as I finished reading it, but I managed to print these out just in time. As you can see, I have been asked to serve—”

“That’s enough,” Cleader says to her dismissively. “I think you passed.”

“What? What did I pass?”

Cleader lifted his watch up to his mouth. “Teleport here at once.”

A second later, Arqut Grieves appears. “What is the about?” he questions.

“When did the message self-destruct?” Cleader asks Arqut.

Arqut checks his own watch. “Twenty-four minutes ago.”

“Who did you speak to about this before coming to us?” he now asks Tinaya.

“No one,” Tinaya answers truthfully. “I came straight here.”

“Why did it take you half an hour?” Cleader presses.

“Because I walked. I like to walk.”

Cleader purses his lips, and whispers something to the members on either side of him, which pass whatever message down the line. “Explain to her,” he orders Arqut.

“There is no secret shadow crew,” Arqut begins to tell Tinaya. “It was a loyalty test. We still need to verify your whereabouts after you opened the message, but I’m proud of you. You made the right decision, coming to the Council.”

“You should know, I hid more hard copies around the ship, so my location records will reflect that. But I promise, I spoke to no one.”

“That was smart,” he says nicely. He may actually be a decent guy, unlike the Council members.

“If I may,” Tinaya begins, “what was the point of this test?”

Arqut smirks. “Not yet, Tinaya. Not yet. Just keep doin’ what you’re doin’. Your real applications have been restored to your inbox.” He winks, then disappears.

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Microstory 1981: Defenses

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Leonard: Oh. I just came down here to shore up our defenses.

Myka: Same. I wanna make sure we know our exits. This is an interesting tunnel.

Leonard: Yeah, it is. Must have a purpose. Well, I’ll go find something else to do.

Myka: Are you avoiding me?

Leonard: Of course not. Why would I do that?

Myka: Well, the last time we spoke, you were leaving on your hush-hush mission—

Leonard: I was compelled not to tell you what we were doing. I didn’t even know much about it myself. We didn’t learn the details until we arrived, and even then there was a lot of improvisation involved.

Myka: I’m not mad at you for keeping it secret. I’m just saying...we were growing closer, and since you’ve been back, I feel like you’re a different person.

Leonard: I guess I kind of am different. I’ve been in situations like that before, but not quite like it. I’ve never been rogue. This is all very strange to me.

Myka: I’m fascinated by you, Leonard, and I want to know what you mean by that.

Leonard: What I mean by it being strange?

Myka: What you mean that you’ve been in such situations. You were a parole officer, but it sounds like you were so much more than that. You’ve told me that you’ve been on missions before, which is not in the job description on our planet. *waits for a response that doesn’t come* It’s okay if you don’t wanna talk about it, but I just thought...

Leonard: Thought what? Go on.

Myka: I thought that there was something between us, but maybe I’m way off base.

Leonard: You’re not, but it’s complicated. I had just finalized my divorce before I arrived here. I mean that literally. I signed the papers, then stepped outside to mail them on my way to meet a friend. I forgot something inside, so I went back in real quick, and when I opened the door again, I was here. I didn’t even notice that something was weird until I looked up and realized that I was no longer in my neighborhood. My first thought was that I lost time, but then the patrol officer started talking about the National Commander, instead of the President, and I knew that something was really wrong. I think my mail went through, but I don’t know that for sure. Maybe I’m remembering that wrong. Maybe I’m not really divorced.

Myka: Forgive me, but it sounds like you are regardless. A divorce doesn’t happen once the lawyers get the paperwork. It happens when you decide that it needs to. Of course, until those papers are signed, you can always change your mind, but you did sign them. You did make that decision, and your ex did too, didn’t they?

Leonard: Yeah, she signed them first.

Myka: I’m not asking for your love, I’m just asking what your love is gonna take.

Leonard: Those are song lyrics where I come from. Did you do that on purpose?

Myka: A man I once knew said that to me long ago. Maybe he was from your universe too. Look, I know we’re dealing with a lot right now, but we both deserve to be happy. I just want you to know that it’s okay to be a little selfish. Not everything is about DExA.

Leonard: You’re right. But let’s start slow. We can’t really go out to eat, so...wanna check out the shooting range that Micro apparently built herself?

Microstory 1832: Older Sister

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My sister and I were never really close growing up. She was seven years younger than me, so we didn’t have very much in common. Our parents didn’t encourage me to take care of her, which is something she probably regrets more than I do. She could have used my support and guidance. I don’t want to say that she went down the wrong path, because she didn’t, but she could have learned some better coping skills, and been a little bit more responsible for her actions. Me, I got out of there, and I never looked back. I only applied to schools that were on the other side of the country. I wasn’t trying to get away from my family, per se, but I didn’t want to be able to lean on them. I needed to start making my own choices, and figuring out how to get myself back up when I fell down. My grades were never terrible, but they weren’t excellent either. It’s not like I had my pick of the litter. I applied to a state school, and then I moved to that state so I could pay a lower tuition. I know what you’re thinking, you can’t do that, but I could, because I had a friend out there whose address I was able to put on my application. A little shady, but I don’t feel bad about it. It’s not like the college was starving for funds. The truth is, I never once went to the guy’s house. He was still a hundred miles away in Reno, and we were never very close. Friends was surely a strong word to use, and he ended up starting a tiny business where he would do this for other people. He never charged me to deal with the few pieces of mail that would get sent to him, but it sounds like he turned it into a nice side hustle, and it’s all thanks to me. Anyway, college ended, and I just sort of stayed out there, because I felt like Nevada was my home now.

Meanwhile, my sister stayed in North Carolina, fostering a resentment towards me for saddling her with the responsibility of caring for our aging parents. They were already old when they had me, but they were damn near geriatric by the time she was born. Talk about irresponsibility, it was their mistake for waiting that long. They got married when they were in their early to mid-twenties. They would have had plenty of time to have children, I don’t know what they were doing with their time before then. We used to make up stories about them once being international spies who worked for competing agencies until they fell in love, and had to escape to America to start new secret lives together. She is of Polish descent, and he is Armenian, or something. Nah, I never asked, but I’m sure it’s as simple as me being an accident, and then she was also an accident. They probably never wanted kids, which is why they didn’t much care whether we were close. They weren’t bad at raising us, but they definitely relied on a fleet of teachers and preachers. A few years after I begin my post-education work life, my sister calls me up. She tries to stay calm at first, but then she can’t help but yell. I don’t get mad back, because based on the few keywords I manage to catch, I know her issue. I abandoned her, and the parents are both doing terribly, and not only can they not afford to send her to college, but she wouldn’t be able to leave them alone anyway. She needs me to come home and help, and I can’t argue, because she’s right about everything. So I returned, and together, we got them settled into the best assisted living facility we could get. Neither one of them lasted long after that, but my sister and I grew much closer while we were waiting. I might even say that we’re best friends now. We even decided to treat ourselves, and a neighbor, to a trip to the Appalachian Mountains. It does not go well.

Microstory 1710: Everything But the Chisel

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My chisel is all that’s left. Ever since I moved into this house I’ve had a hard time remembering to close the garage. Everywhere I lived before, I would walk straight into the house, but this one is unattached. It’s right up against the house, mind you, and it’s even connected to the grid, but I have to walk outside to actually get into my home. It’s annoying, but I can deal. I just need to learn to make closing that door a habit by using the keypad, or maybe by buying an extra clicker to hang on the key hook. I guess it doesn’t matter much now. Everything is gone. Everything except my chisel. I don’t even have any use for a chisel. Just about everything I own I inherited from my family; in the case of the tools, my dad. He somewhat recently bought all new supplies, but the old ones were fine, and they were just sitting in his father’s father’s toolbox for years until it was time for me to move out. Now I’ve lost it all, except for the chisel. They took my car, naturally. I don’t know why I didn’t hear it start up, since the walls are so thin. They must have been professionals, who knew how to get in and out quickly and quietly. They didn’t want any chisels, though. Fortunately, the door to the inside of my house is always locked. I never forget to do that. In my old age, I can’t take off my shoes without holding onto something to steady myself, and the doorknob is pretty good for that. I suppose I could use a chair, but who has the time to remember that? Anyway, my hand’s already there, so before I grab all the way onto it, I turn the lock, and I’m safe. Or maybe they never wanted inside at all as there’s nothing of value in here, except for my life, and maybe not even that. My laptop is obsolete, my TV is a square. They would probably still want it anyway. After all, they took the trash can I keep in the garage for junk mail. They crave that 49 cents off a bag of carrots, but not a chisel, I guess.

I stand there staring at it, feeling like there must be some kind of message in this. If it were on the floor, I would assume they just dropped it on their way out. But it’s still up on this pegboard, right where I’m pretty sure I left. Well, I didn’t leave it there. My mom set this up for me secretly while I was at work one day. She likes to do things for me, because she knows how irresponsible I can be. Remember that I’m the one who never remembers to close his garage door. In all this time, I’ve probably only used a couple of these tools. The deck is old, so I have to smash down the screws and nails with a hammer so my dog doesn’t step on them. I would use the pocket knife to open packages. Those are really the only things here that I ever needed. I wonder if it’s possible to use the chisel for both of those tasks. I could hit the screws and nails with the handle, and stab into the boxes and bags. That would probably risk damaging the contents, but I believe I deserve it. Yeah, this must be a message, and it has nothing to do with online orders or hardware. The burglars are telling me that I’m not only a tool, but a useless one. Chisels are great when you’re the kind of person who uses chisels, but they’re not an everyday thing for most people. I’m not an everyday person. I’m only good under certain conditions, like when you want someone to steal all of your stuff without breaking a sweat, or if you need a mediocre file clerk who’s always making mistakes. This chisel represents me: alone, and not especially valuable. As I’m contemplating my sad life, one of the burglars returns and explains that he forgot something. He’s about to reach for the chisel, but I grab it first. And I stab him in the throat with it.

Microstory 1374: Internal Candidate

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Internal Candidate: I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. I understand that people like me aren’t normally given the opportunity to apply for this position.

Hiring Manager: People like you? I want to assure you that our company does not discriminate against a candidate or employee based on race, gender, age—

Internal Candidate: I mean an internal candidate. You always hire at this level from the outside.

Hiring Manager: Do we?

Internal Candidate: Uh, it’s my job to examine and understand trends. Yes, you definitely do. You’ve never promoted someone to this—or a comparable—level from the inside. Employees call it the promotion ceiling, because, as you said, it doesn’t seem to be based on protected classes. You regularly promote people all the way into my current level, but for the next one, you always look for external candidates, and then continue to promote from there.

Hiring Manager: Really?

Internal Candidate: Yeah, you don’t even post this on the internal job listings.

Hiring Manager: I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this. I don’t normally conduct these interviews personally. I’m just the one who’s in the office right now.

Internal Candidate: Yes, because I requested this meeting via email, since I wasn’t allowed to apply through the system.

Hiring Manager: You couldn’t have just found it on one of the job board sites?

Internal Candidate: The questionnaire asks whether you or a family member works, or has worked, for this company. If you check yes, it will disqualify you from consideration shortly thereafter. It doesn’t technically say that’s why, but...I’m pretty sure that’s why.

Hiring Manager: We use a contractor, of course, to manage our listings. I was not aware of this problem. I assure you that this is entirely an error. At least, if it’s not, I was somehow left out of the decision-making process.

Internal Candidate: Yeah. So, does this mean you’re willing to interview me?

Hiring Manager: I think I already am.

Internal Candidate: Okay.

Hiring Manager: Have you noticed any other issues like this? Have you seen discrimination of any other kind, or unfair disadvantages, or other weird things?

Internal Candidate: Well, in terms of the hiring structure, not really. I’m sure there’s plenty of discrimination happening we don’t know about; either because the manager doesn’t let on that they’re doing it, or they don’t even realize their prejudices themselves. I do know of one thing that’s frustrated our customers, though.

Hiring Manager: Oh, please, what is it?

Internal Candidate: Well, we have a product return policy of sixty days. You can request an extension, starting on day sixty-one, and ending on day ninety. It’s a form you fill out online, and an actual person has to review these every single time.

Hiring Manager: Yes, I am aware of this policy.

Internal Candidate: Well it’s fine, except I guess the system has some sort of software bug. To fill out the form, you have to input the order confirmation code, of course, and if the order was placed sixty-two days ago, the form just won’t submit. Which obviously just defeats the purpose, unless you happen to be precisely one day late. Customers have been forced to print out the form, fill it out manually, and either fax it in, or send it through snail mail.

Hiring Manager: Oh, that’s terrible. I don’t remember the last time I sent a fax, or used the mail service for anything short of a package.

Internal Candidate: Same.

Hiring Manager: I suppose it’s at least good that they do have some kind of workaround.

Internal Candidate: Yes, and no. The fact that there is a workaround has prevented us from correcting the mistake. If it just didn’t work at all, we would be flooded with complaints, and someone probably would have done something to solve it. Though, I have heard anecdotal evidence that some customers just give up, and keep the tools they don’t really want.

Hiring Manager: That’s a good point.

Internal Candidate: Yeah.

Hiring Manager: So, you’re applying for a management position in the marketing department?

Internal Candidate: That’s right, sir.

Hiring Manager: As a hiring manager, I have the authority to contrive new positions, within any department in this division. I can, however, speak with my counterparts in other divisions, and increase that scope.

Internal Candidate: I’m sorry, I don’t understand.

Hiring Manager: I’m formulating a plan. I think the company as a whole would benefit from a job—or even an entire department—that’s solely responsible for catching these types of errors, and coming up with solutions. How would you like to get a real promotion, and really break through this ridiculous promotion wall?

Internal Candidate: Wow, um...yes.

Microstory 1329: Local Drone Service

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High School Dropout: Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. I know you’re really busy, even in your retirement, so I’ll try not to keep you.

Rich Neighbor: No problem. I hear you need some money? I have plenty left over, so we can do a loan, or a gift. I’m good either way. I don’t have any kids, and I can’t take it with me when I die.

High School Dropout: Oh no, I’m not looking for any handouts, or a loan per se. I’m looking for an investor.

Rich Neighbor: You have some kind of business idea then?

High School Dropout: Yes.

Rich Neighbor: ...Okay, go ahead.

High School Dropout: Okay, sorry, yeah. So, I recently bought a hobby drone. This thing was pretty big, but it didn’t have very high carrying capacity. My friend and I were each at our respective houses, stuck inside because of this virus thing, and he was bored out of his mind. I had a box set of DVDs for a show he wanted to watch, but neither of our parents would let us go outside to exchange them. He’s still in high school, and I dropped out, so I still have to live with my parents.

Rich Neighbor: Real quick bit of advice, if you ever pitch this to anyone else, don’t mention that you’re a high school dropout. Unless it’s relevant...it ain’t relevant.

High School Dropout: Do you think that was why the bank rejected my loan?

Rich Neighbor: Probably not. Go on.

High School Dropout: So I had this idea to fly my drone all the way to his house, but I had to break them up, because the drone couldn’t carry it all at once. While he was binging the first group, I started taking a look at my drone. I realized, while I’m no expert, there were some modifications I could make to the thing to increase its strength and integrity. I could actually make a better drone out of a cheaper one. Then I thought, what if I made that a business?

Rich Neighbor: You want to set up a shop that enhances people’s drones? I would need to see the numbers to determine whether it makes sense for your customers to pay you for that service, instead of just buying a stronger drone in the first place.

High School Dropout: No, that’s not what I’m talking about. That was just to illustrate how I could lower my overhead to get this business off the ground...so to speak. What I’m talking about is a courier service. This virus got me thinking. Everyone had to suddenly start working from home, and a lot of people realized that wasn’t too hard. As long as they had a few office supplies, and a network connection, that was good enough for most of the work they needed to do. But they couldn’t do everything. Even if they happen to own their own printer, it’s usually small, and can’t handle a big job. What if I developed a courier service designed specifically for local work-from-home companies. We would actually encourage these businesses to drastically shrink their on-site staff, only accommodate a few essential personnel, and save buttloads of money. Everyone has already figured out how to do the virtual side of remote work, but for companies that need all this printing done, and stuff, they usually just give up on the entire idea, and maintain their vast office spaces. If we can show them people can work from home, and still receive necessary physical objects, up to a weight limit, maybe the country can become a better place. Hell, the office could still get regular packages and mail, for security reasons, and our drones could redistribute all of that too.

Rich Neighbor: Wow. I have to tell ya kid, this sounds pretty ambitious. I would expect a supply or courier service to get into this sector, but to start from scratch? I’m not sure how it could be done.

High School Dropout: I can do it...with your help. Like I said, this isn’t a loan, it’s an investment. It’s a stake. I want you involved, because of your years of business experience.

Rich Neighbor: Well, this is indeed a budding market. Everyone I talk to says drones are going to be big in the future. If you can find a niche early on, you can take over the whole city before anyone sees you coming. You would have to do it right, though, and I think you came to the right place. Tell me more.

Microstory 1308: Clearance Investigator Job

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Clearance Investigator: I appreciate your patience during this process. As you can imagine, as clearance investigators, it’s very important that we make sure the people we allow to be hired—or remain employed by the government, as you recently experienced—are investigated to the best of our ability, with the resources we have at our disposal. It’s doubly important that the people we hire to be those investigators be vetted even more thoroughly, to avoid any conflicts of interest, or other issues. We are the gatekeepers for so many agencies, and if you want to be part of that, we have to make sure you’re both up to the task, and worthy of holding the keys.

Postal Worker: I understand. I consider everything I went through during this most recent background check to be part of my preliminary training. The other checks were part of my training too, I suppose, since they are still relevant.

Clearance Investigator: Very good. Now, you have worked for the postal service for the last four years, correct?

Postal Worker: This is a fact, sir.

Clearance Investigator: Were you surprised when you got called up for a reinterview process?

Postal Worker: I wasn’t surprised so much as I didn’t know it was going to happen. I guess that is the very definition of surprise. Perhaps I mean only that I wasn’t bothered by it, nor concerned.

Clearance Investigator: What made you decide to apply for this position?

Postal Worker: It was the whole process. I was a bit scared the first time it happened, because I didn’t truly understand what was going on. I made a writing error on my application, and you threw it back to me, so that was upsetting. But I was a little more mentally prepared when the renewal came up, and I started really thinking about what was happening in the background; what you guys were doing, and why you were doing it. I became fascinated by it, and I realized how incredibly important, as you said, it was to make sure you know who it is you’ve hired. A lot of my co-workers were put off by it. They didn’t think it mattered, since we’re just mail sorters, but I never saw it that way. We have access to a lot of sensitive information that the citizens of this country are counting on us to protect. Maybe it’s not always national security, but every letter matters to someone.

Clearance Investigator: You seem eager to work for us.

Postal Worker: Oh no, I wouldn’t say I’m eager; I definitely wouldn’t use that word. I’m ready. I mean, I just... I...I—

Clearance Investigator: Don’t worry, I don’t think you’re a terrorist who’s trying to become a mole in our department. You have the position. This interview is just one final formality to give you one more chance to back out, if you are so inclined. If you think an initial background check is hard, just wait until you see our exit process. Quitting this job, or—God forbid—getting fired from it, can be even more stressful, because now you have all this confidential knowledge we can’t let you walk away with unless we’re sure you won’t misuse it. If you really want to do this, we’ll get the paperwork started.

Postal Worker: I really want to do this.

Clearance Investigator: All right. Wait here a moment.

Microstory 1133: Carol Gelen

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Carol English was raised in a very poor family, which lived in southeastern Missouri, starting in 1950. Her parents wanted the best for her, and sacrificed their own happiness so that she could have everything she needed to succeed. They both started saving—not for their own college fund—but hers, when they were still in high school, even though she was years from being born. They always knew they wanted a child, but after marrying at age seventeen, decided to wait until they were financially stable. Carol was the first in her bloodline to get a higher education. Three Rivers was a recently founded community college, so she wasn’t exactly set for life, but it gave her the tools she needed to start a decent career. After receiving an associate’s degree in pre-dental hygiene, she took out a loan so she could go through Missouri Southern State University’s dental hygiene program. A year into her first job, Carol received news of her mother’s mother’s decline in health. She decided to move out to Topeka, Kansas to help her parents take care of her grandmother, because nothing was really tying her down in Williamsville. She quickly found herself a new job, and a future husband in her first patient, Randall Gelen. She was making pretty good money, but much of it had to go back to her family. Well, she didn’t necessarily have to give out all this money, but she felt it was the least she could do after all the support she received from them growing up. At some point, she was sending regular checks to a second cousin that she had never even met, and never asking for repayment. Randall had his own family issues, so they were living pretty modestly when an opportunity knocked on their door. They had never outright decided to not have children, but that didn’t seem to be the path they were on. But a child had recently lost both of her parents to tragedy, and needed some stability. Carol never questioned why the two of them were sought out to care for a foster child, when they weren’t even licensed. It was another three months before they were approved to become foster parents in the first place. Still, this was a gift, and they did not take it for granted. Carol was raised to be Christian, but didn’t care much for the church, yet she couldn’t help but wonder if there was a God out there, planning all this for them. Leona’s arrival seemed like fate. Or maybe, if Carol didn’t attribute it to some higher power, she wouldn’t be able to justify her involvement at all. Neither of them had any experience with children, and they had no idea whether any of this was going to work out. Fortunately, things turned out great. They fell in love with Leona, and ended up adopting her into their forever family.

Microstory 1027: Howard

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Have you ever noticed that we write addresses backwards? If I want to send a letter to my friend at 123 Main Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, I make it harder for the mail service to deliver by writing it out like that. We should start with the general, and become more specific from there. The first person at the post office only cares about which country it’s going to. They see Spain, they throw it in the Spain bin. They see Canada, they throw it in the Canada bin. Once it gets to Canada, the next person only cares about which Province it goes to, so put that on the next line. Next person after that only cares about the city, and the next which post office, which means it’s only the last one who cares about which specific building, or unit, it’s meant for. I had this dream that we would completely revamp our delivery system, to make it make more sense. Now, I don’t really know how it works. Maybe I was always wrong, and no worker has any problem hunting for the line that matters most to them. Or maybe the entire address is relevant to everyone who sees it. I just thought there was a better way, but Viola helped me get over it. It’s an insane idea to change something that’s been so ingrained in our way of life for centuries, but she never treated me poorly for it. She gently explained to me that the problem with the way we write addresses has less to do with the order, and more to do with the spacing. The system would work just as well top to bottom, if only we separated the geographical regions more clearly. Anyway, this was really just one carefully explained example of these ideas I have in my head that normal people don’t think about. I obsess over small inconveniences and inefficiencies that most people gloss right over. There are better ways we could be doing things, but in the grand scheme of things, that doesn’t matter much. Viola taught me that, but didn’t let on she was doing it. She taught me that life is not so much pointless as it is too complicated. A lot of good has come from humanity’s advances over the last few centuries, but some have made things worse. Why do we have health insurance? It’s an unnecessary step towards healthcare. We came up with these ways of treating maladies and other medical conditions, and then we muddied it up with a bunch of erroneous programs that do nothing but cause mess. I was getting so bogged down with trying to make this life more efficient, that my life itself was inefficient. Viola helped me shed what she called the extra from my life. Minimalism is key. That’s not to say I’m going to go live in a tiny cabin in the middle of nowhere, and drink milk straight from the udder. But I’m also not going to play by all of society’s rules. My life is going to be simple, and fulfilling, and I owe that to Viola’s ageless wisdom.

Microstory 946: Taxes

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I know it’s an extremely unpopular opinion, but I very much love taxes. In 2011, I worked for the IRS for a short stint during tax season. A year later, I worked at H&R Block as an editor in a temporary capacity in the Learning Department for several months. Almost exactly a year after my first day, I was rehired there in a similar position, which only lasted a couple months. I applied for these jobs very much on purpose, and only don’t still do them, because I was just a temp, and they weren’t going anywhere. Now, why would I like taxes? They’re a pain to fill out, and “that’s my hard-earned money”. Well, that’s true. You did earn that money, so the question is now, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to buy more guns? Cigarettes? Tiki torches? Or do you want to spend it on improvements to your community? Libertarians would say, “hell no” to the latter, and “you should be able to, if you want,” to any other option. If you think spending a day or two filling out tax forms each year is a huge hassle, you are in for a real treat, if we ever get rid of them. Let’s go on a hypothetical walk, and take a look around. You’re on a sidewalk, next to a road. Let’s say it’s the evening, which means there are streetlights, lighting your way, along with traffic lights keeping cars from killing you. There’s a county hospital. That’s a public a school. Right across the street from that police station is a fire station. Wave hello to that postal worker, on his way to delivering your paycheck. Oh, now we’re in a not so great neighborhood. These people are struggling to get by, but fortunately, the government helps them out. They provide them with a little bit extra, to make their lives easier, so they have some money left over, which they spend on goods and services, which stimulates the economy. Which helps us all. See that house with a flag in the front, still in “bad” neighborhood? A marine once lived there. Not anymore, though. She was killed in action fighting for your freedom, and is survived by her husband, and two little children. Your taxes paid for her gear, and then it paid for her memorial services. Your taxes paid for that road, sidewalk, and lights. It paid for police protection, fire safety, health care, community education, and mail. It even paid some welfare, and other assistance programs.

Some of things I’ve discussed you like, and some you don’t. Some you use, and some you don’t. But I guarantee you know at least one person who has, at some point, benefited from each of these things. An educated populace is a prosperous one, and I think it would be difficult to argue against the idea of safety and health. You may want these individual services to be paid for by the consumer on an as-needed basis. You may want everything to be privatized, so that companies compete for your business. That’s what capitalism is about, so why wouldn’t we use it for this? Well, because that would be hell. I don’t want to have to pay a toll every time I switch from one street to the next. L.A. traffic would look like racetrack compared to how that would be. Maybe we simplify it, by adding stickers to your car that indicates which streets you’ve paid for, and which you haven’t. Could you imagine the amount of manpower it would take to regulate this, however you set it  up? A labor shortage would put this nation into just as much turmoil as unemployment has in recent history. You may hate taxes, but they are the most efficient means of distributing wealth across the whole country. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system. There are so many ways we can make it better. I don’t understand why I fill out any forms at all. The government should know where I work, how much money I earned, and even what I did with it. Just take what you need, send me a statement, and give me back my Aprils. I also don’t always agree with what they spend my tax dollars on, but the solution to this is not to simply eliminate the concept completely. The solution is to vote for civil servants who I believe will change laws according to what’s best for society. If you agree with this sentiment, then come the next two elections...#votethemout.

Microstory 945: Google

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In the early days, you had several choices for a search engine, and since few people fully grasped how the internet worked, or what it could become, they were all about the same. You chose Dogpile if you wanted to donate to charity, or you chose any of the others based on what features they had, or even just how pretty their homepage was. Then Google came along. As my father was a mathematician, I already knew what a googol was, and ignored the irony that I was otherwise terrible at math myself. As time went on, the world started to see the same thing I did. Google was quickly edging out all competition, until the only real contender was Yahoo!, plus whatever Microsoft was calling their service at the time. And then there was one. I early on saw the potential Google had to completely transform how we access information, despite being a wee boy with no programming aspirations. Though I didn’t know how big they would be, I did predict they would start adding unrelated services all the way back when all they did was search. I expected the internet to be one day entirely controlled by them, and while it’s more complicated than that, they are today the gatekeepers. We all know that person who still has a Hotmail account, and while most people aren’t dedicated power users like me, it still makes you giggle. Why is that? Just because you use Gmail, why in this world defined by apathy, does it matter to you? Well, because it’s absurd. Google is best at nearly everything they’ve tried, even if they ultimately shuttered a given service. They couldn’t crack social, and I don’t exactly understand why they keep trying. While I believe they could have out-Netflixed Netflix before Netflix got so big, they never seemed to see it coming, and missed that boat. Though Google Fiber is considered a failed experiment, they were the best internet service provider I ever had, and only don’t have it still, because I had to move. I use all the usual suspects: search, Gmail, YouTube, Google Calendar, Chrome, Android. But I use all the others too. There’s a reason you’re reading this on a website made by  Blogger, instead of WordPress. There’s a reason I’m typing this out on a Motorola (formerly owned by Google) phone, and one which uses Google’s Project Fi cellular service. And there’s a reason I’ll revise and post it once I get home to my Chromebook. The reason is the same for everything, which is that they are superior to all competition within their field. It’s as simple as that. I have been a fan and supporter of this company since before I cared about much else beyond my own life. Despite their just absolutely god-awful customer service, I still love them, and will never use anything but. So, search on, my friends.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 22, 2199

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The first thing that Leona Matic could remember was being killed by one of the mercenaries that she had commissioned to break Ulinthra out of her prison cube. She could recall the sting of the bullet, and the flow of blood spilling out of her wound. She could feel the light of her life dim little by little until there was nothing but a single pixel left. She never actually experienced that pixel being destroyed in her very, very final moment, but it still made her feel small. Though, through the magic of alternate timelines, she knew she had died before, no one had ever shown her what it truly felt like before. But she had apparently asked for it, and she had to trust her own past. The memories began to return to her backwards from there. Interrogating Ulinthra to find the ardusite dagger, retrieving an alternate Horace Reaver from the extraction mirror, watching Brooke Prieto die in a darkburster explosion. They just kept coming at an accelerated rate, until everything she had done before had finally returned, added to the ever-growing pile of parallel memories. The Warrior removed his hands from hovering at the side of her temples.

“I’m not screaming,” she noted. “Why am I not screaming? The others screamed. It always makes you scream.”

“Not always,” the Warrior explained. “You’ve had your brain blended before. It gets easier each time, and your brain is particularly...magnificent. Plus, the way you changed realities has never been done before, as far as I know. That dagger seems to have come from a completely different universe, so there’s no telling what other side effects it brought with it.”

“Where’s Horace?” Leona asked.

“He was never here,” Vitalie told her. “He and I followed Ulinthra to where she hid the ardusite dagger. Despite the fact that cops have been playing that trick on criminals throughout all procedural drama history, Ulinthra fell for it. She couldn’t help but check to see if we were bluffing about already knowing where it was.”

“Who did it?”

“He did, of course,” Vitalie continued. “He tried to tell you; that he knew it would mean his own demise. Ulinthra never existed. We are the only few people who have ever heard of her. Unfortunately, if she never existed, then we had no reason to go get Horace from the alternate reality either. As soon as he stabbed her with it, reality changed around everyone, leaving us with this, and without him.”

Leona shook her head. “We needed Horace to erase Ulinthra from history, which meant we didn’t need Horace, but if we didn’t have Horace, then Ulinthra couldn’t have been erased from history. It’s a vicious circle. A paradox.”

“I can’t tell you why it’s not a paradox,” Vitalie said. “Let’s just let it go, and be grateful that everything worked.”

“Yes,” Brooke finally spoke. Let’s.”

“It appears to be unanimous,” Ecrin pointed out.

Paige sighed. “The motion has passed.” She mimed banging a gavel.

“If that is all,” The Warrior said, “I will be going.”

“Yes,” Leona said, almost thinking they ought to give him a tip, as if he were a helpful bellhop. “Thank you so much, Anatol..for everything.”

The Warrior nodded respectfully, and disappeared.

“Well, he’s right that this feels different. Before, I got blended memories of different times. But this just went back through the last two weeks of my life, with only a little extra from having encountered Ulinthra at Stonehenge before we left for Durus.”

“Yeah, that’s what’s interesting to me,” Brooke said. “There are minor differences in what happened to us between the first time we saw Ulinthra in this time period, and when we saw her again in Panama, but nothing big. I have conflicting memories of recharging my systems on the ship one day, instead of going over navigational calculations; or of Dar’cy and Missy arguing over something trivial, when that actually never happened. But no one died who should have survived. No one was born that shouldn’t have, or anything like that.”

“I guess, in the end,” Ecrin began, “despite all the havoc she wreaked on the world, she wasn’t really all that important. It makes you wonder, do any of us matter? How different would the universe be if any one of us just disappeared?”

“Yes, about that,” a man said as he stepped through an invisible door in the middle of the room. In the timeline that had since been erased, they spent most of their time in Panama, but in the real timeline, Leona only got one day there before everyone went back to Kansas City. A couple years ago, they decided to move to one of the outer Northwest Forest circles, which was where they were now.

Ecrin tilted her head in friendly, mild surprise. “Ennis, how nice to see you again.”

Ennis looked like a mailman, complete with shorts, a cap, and a large satchel. He also had terrible burn scars on his face. “Miss Cabral, hello.” He tipped the cap.

“What do you have for us?” Ecrin asked him. “Anything good.”

“I guess,” he said.

“What did you mean, about that?” Leona asked. “About what?”

“Oh, you were talking about people disappearing, and I have something for you that is relevant to that.” He pulled a thick folder out of his bag, but did not hand it to anyone. “I was meant to come to you earlier, but I’m not allowed on Durus, and I don’t do moving vehicles. I could have given it to you after that, but I was told to leave you alone during the Ulinthra corruption. So I’m here now, at my earliest convenience, to give you this.” He handed the heavy folder to Leona.

Leona didn’t open it, but looked to Ecrin for guidance. She trusted her judgment.

Ecrin nodded. “If The Courier hands you something, it belongs to you. He’s legit.”

“Mrs. Matic,” Ennis began.

“Miss,” Leona corrected.

This confused him a bit. “I’m sorry, but aren’t you pregnant?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Leona asked, appalled and offended.

“Well, it’s just, I was told...who’s the father?”

Now Leona was getting really offended. “That is none of your business.”

Ennis scratched at his chin, then took a notepad out of his bag, and started looking them over. “Oh, you’re only starting to remember. Hmm.”

“What? Are you? Talking about?”

“Okay.” Ennis clapped his hands together to begin his explanation. “There was a man. This man..was named Mateo. A...bunch of stuff happened, and then a really powerful asshole took him out time. Kind of like what you did with Ulinthra. And also kind of like Ulinthra, he owned a planet, but in this case, it was legitimate, and the people who lived on it actually liked him. Since he’s no longer here, however, the rights to that planet fall to his next of kin, which is you.”

“You’re telling me I have some relative that I don’t know about, because someone erased his history?” Leona had seen a lot as a salmon, and knew there were entire timelines she had no recollection of, but this was sounding fishy.

“I’m telling you that you had a husband you don’t remember. He’s the father of your child, which means that child is proof that Mateo Matic did indeed exist. His history wasn’t erased. He was erased. You don’t remember everything he did, nor do most people, but he still had an impact on the way things are today. And the days before, since we’re time travelers.”

Leona once again looked to Ecrin, who clearly had no memory of this either. “Again,” she said, “this man doesn’t lie. If he says this dude existed, then he existed.”

“The more the baby grows inside of you,” Ennis went on, “the more it will have an effect on you. You will start remembering. The Superintendent can do a lot, but he can’t stop that. I didn’t mean to suggest you had to be married to have a child, I just thought you were far enough along to start getting your memories back.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Leona said, trying to wrap her head around having a husband she couldn’t remember. “I’m not saying I believe it, but I’m not saying I don’t. Assuming it’s true, is there any way to prove it? Can you..show me something? Can we get the Warrior back here?”

Ennis shook his head. “The Warrior and The Blender can give you quantum memories from an alternate timeline. But this isn’t an alternate timeline. It’s a corrupted timeline, but still the same timeline. Same same, but different.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, I got blended memories from the Ulinthra corruption, which is what you called it.”

“That shouldn’t have worked either,” Ennis began, “but you made arrangements so that it would. You spoke with The Warrior before Horace used that dagger thing, and prepared him to help you today. That’s not gonna work here. I want to make it clear—and Ecrin can attest to this—I am quite literally the messenger, so don’t shoot me. I didn’t erase Mateo, I can’t put him back, I can’t prove that I’m not lying, and lastly—this is an important one—I can’t put you in touch with the Superintendent. He’s the one who did this, and like a witch’s spell, only he can undo it.” He pointed at the folder, which Leona had yet to open. “That is, if you even wanted him to undo it. Dardius is pretty nice this time of millennium.”

She didn’t know the answer to that. Surely if her memories had been removed against her will, she would want to get them back. Yet this was her life now, and though no sane person would call it a good one, it was one she understood. While she would likely never see Serif again, Leona would never want to lose the memory of her. If they only got together because Mateo wasn’t there instead, then what would happen to her? Could she give up one love for another? “What would that mean for Serif? Was what we had even real?”

“Oof,” Ennis said lightly, “that’s a loaded question. Was Serif real? Technically, no. She was fabricated, but she was fabricated...before Mateo was removed from time.”

“But she was, what? Just some friend?”

“No, you were with her; you and Mateo both. Don’t ask me to give you details on how your relationships worked, I just met you today. Some things I know, some things I don’t.” His watch beeped, as did Leona’s, though she didn’t know why. “Oh, look at that, it’s time. Are you guys going to the show? Do you have tickets?”

“Tickets to what?” Brooke asked.

“The Last Savior’s Last Save? It’s today, in just a few minutes.”

“You mean, she retires after this?”

“Yep, it’s over. The Age of Saviors is kaput. I can hook you up, if you want. I’m pretty good friends with Sanela. Hey Leona, she’s your, uhh...great-something-grandmother...in-law. Umm. Twice removed? I don’t know how it works, your family tree is crazy.”

This was getting to be too much.

Ennis kept going, “so do you guys want to go, err...?” He trailed off an awful lot.

“That would be lovely,” Paige said.

“Yeah, sure,” Leona agreed. She was the last to step through Ennis’ invisible portal. It would be nice to see Étude again, but honestly, all she could think about was what she was going to do about this Mateo guy.

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