Extremus: Year 137

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Sable knows that she needs to get back into the mix, and try to figure out how to get Waldemar to marry her. It’s time to fix what he’s broken, and the only way to do that apparently is to act like a friend. She’s just still in a funk, though, due to what happened last year. She has been free from her time loop for months, but it’s still a part of her. She spent entirely too long willingly reliving the same day over and over again. The truth is that she was tired of it long before she put an end to it, but it became part of her routine. It gave her a sick sense of comfort, always knowing exactly what was going to happen, even though it was bad. But she eventually ended it anyway. It was time.

“Thank you for confiding in me,” Silveon says after refilling her tea.

“Well, you were honest about your time travel adventures, I figured it was only right that I do the same,” Sable responds.

“What of the woman—the one who can see across timelines—is she still dead?”

“She’s alive,” Sable explains. “Had I broken the loop after killing her, that would have been it, but I kept going, so she’s fine.”

“Are you sure that she’s fine? Have you talked to her since? She might be traumatized by the experience,” Silveon explains, in the same voice that he uses to condescend to Waldemar. Is that what he thinks? Does he think she’s a psychopath too?

“I saw her a few times in the loops, and a few times since I ended it. During the loops, she remembered that I was going to kill her, but she didn’t remember the death itself. Now she doesn’t even remember most of the loops, and definitely not her death. She only remembers the last one. We have not talked about it, though.”

“Do you think what you did was okay?” he presses. “Do you feel good about it?

“Look, I know you have your moral high ground, and I respect that, but I was going through something while my mother was dying, and acting out. I knew that the timeline woman would survive. You think I tested it on an innocent person first? I was angry and grieving. And don’t start talking about your own parents, and how you never did anything like this. You and I wired differently. I’m wired to push boundaries, and experiment. You are solely focused on the mission. Which I think means we complement each other. Don’t you forget that I helped you. I took you to Verdemus, and let you be present at Audrey Husk’s memorial. So I don’t need your judg—”

“I’m not trying to judge you, Sable, but I do want you to try to learn from your mistakes. I have. I have flaws. I try to look for them, and fix them. You seem to treat life as the warm-up to something else. Even before you could rewind time, you always acted like there weren’t any consequences. Do you regret anything? Anything at all?”

“Of course I have regrets. But I don’t like to dwell on them, because you have to move forward, you know? What I was trying to get to, before we got off on this tangent, is that I’m going to marry him. You two have grown apart. We need someone back in his good graces. I was going to do this on my own, but since I’m the one who asked to be your partner, I figured I would bring you in first. Do you object to this move?”

“Not inherently, no. You’re a lot older than you were before. But again, you’re acting like if you want something to happen, it’s just going to happen. Have you asked him? Have you two discussed it? Have you considered the possibility that he’ll say no?”

“Not really. Have you seen my boobs?” Sable pulls her shirt down a bit.

“No, thank you, though I see where you’re coming from. But it’s no guarantee.”

“Well, what would you propose instead?” Sable asks.

“I think you should start over with him, forming essentially a new relationship.”

Extremus: Year 136

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Sable finally feels like she’s in the club. She thought she had pretty much all of the pieces of the puzzle, but she had no idea how much she was missing. Now it all makes sense; why Silveon and Audrey act and acted the way they do and did, the kind of relationship Admiral Leithe had with Waldemar. She knows that she still doesn’t know everything. There would be too much to learn about the first timeline, and she doesn’t need it anyway. She knows what Waldemar is like now, and she can act on it.

She has decided to marry him. She knows that Audrey already tried that, but that was apparently more to protect innocent women from falling into his orbit. That was noble, but that’s not a problem anymore. Waldemar has gotten what he needed by being a family man. Good or bad, he maintains his popularity on his own merits. It sounds like Audrey was simply too passive. She evidently tried to coddle Waldemar, and long-con him into thinking that everything she wanted him to do was his idea. It seems to have helped, but it was clearly not enough. Sable has an advantage. She has real power, and she is willing to use it. It will have to wait, though. She is spending time with her mom.

The doorbell rings, which is weird, because it doesn’t normally do that at this time. In fact, it never has at all. She must have made some minor change to reality without realizing it. She is so focused on reliving these moments that she doesn’t always pay attention to the butterfly effect. She doesn’t bother with the camera. She just instructs the AI to open the door, only to find a complete stranger on the other side of it.

“Miss Keen.” The middle-aged woman walks in. “How are you doing?”

“I’m just watching my mother...wither away,” Sable replies. “Who are you?”

The stranger nods. “A fellow traveler. The difference is, I can’t control it. I’m here to ask you to move forward. I know it’s hard, which is why I’ve given you your space, but girl...it’s been months. This isn’t healthy. Now, I don’t want you to hurt me because I say that. I just want you to ask yourself whether she would want you to keep reliving this day over and over again, or live your life. I’m sincerely asking. I never met her.”

Sable frowns and looks down at her mom. This is the part of the day where she’s still alive, but has become unresponsive, so the conversation is over. She doesn’t know if Lataran can hear her, but she usually keeps talking anyway, even though no matter what, Lataran won’t remember it when time resets. She looks back at the woman. “How did you hijack my rewind? No one should remember the groundhog repeats.”

“I didn’t hijack anything. I’m a choosing one, like you. It’s just something that happens to me. I remember all timelines. As I was saying, you’re in control here. ”

Sable doesn’t say anything. She just sighs and looks back at her mom.

“They made a movie about this. Not the one you’re thinking of; it more closely resembles what you’re actually doing, but unlike that character, you can turn it off whenever you want, and...every time you refuse, you die.”

“That’s how this power works. I can only rewind upon death.”

“I know,” the woman says. “That wasn’t hard to parse. I have witnessed many of your suicides. You like to do them public so you can see the looks on people’s faces. That is not healthy either.” She holds out her hand as if Sable is meant to take it. “Come on. Let’s enjoy a nice walk in the Attic Forest, and wait for tomorrow to come.”

Sable stares at the intruder’s hand. “What happens if I kill you instead?”

“I wouldn’t know. I try to stay alive, as I always have,” she replies.

Sable stands, and steps forward menacingly. “I do like to learn new things.” She pulls out her knife. “Hold still. I’ll make it quick.”

Extremus: Year 134

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The fairytale dream is over. Waldemar no longer feels emotions, but he is not back to his old self either. That experience has changed him, and he’s having mixed feelings about it. No, that’s obviously the wrong way to word it. He’s having contradicting thoughts. On the one hand, it’s familiar, so he’s much more comfortable again. This is how he grew up, and it seems right. It was working before. People weren’t happy, but he didn’t need them to be. Still, it’s not like the end of the year of empathy means that he can revert. He’s now living in a paradox. The logic in how he behaved, and the kinds of decisions he made, are still in his head. They still make a lot of sense. The darkness is fueling his rage, but it’s also...intoxicating, and he doesn’t want to give it up again. Because, now that he has spent time without it, he realizes that that’s what it is. It’s fuel. It makes him feel strong and powerful. There’s that word again, though.

He’s standing in his bathroom now, staring at the mirror. He’s looking at himself in disgust, not because that’s what he’s feeling, but because he knows others would if they knew the truth. He slaps himself in the cheek. “Feel something,” he urges.

He feels nothing.

He slaps himself harder. “Feel something!” he cries.

Nothing.

“Feel something!” he screams at the top of his lungs.

“Stop that,” comes a voice from behind him. “Stop hitting yourself.”

He turns to see his late wife, Audrey Kristiansen. “Where have you been?” He declared her dead, but he never knew what happened. When he didn’t feel anything, he didn’t care, and when he did, he wanted to leave her alone if she wasn’t really dead.

“I like the new place. I would have felt more at home here when I was alive.” During the empathy year, he downgraded himself to smaller quarters to look more like the common man, and he didn’t regret it. It didn’t really matter.

“You know I don’t like to repeat myself,” he told her.

“And you know I don’t like to be ordered around. I’m not one of your crewmembers. I was your wife, and you treated me like shit.”

“You knew who I was when you married me,” he pointed out.

“Yes, I did. That’s why I did it. I took that bullet so no one else would have to. And I died for it. Now you are at a crossroads. You are starting to believe that the only way you can get respect from both sides of the imaginary political line is if you align yourself with a new belle. I’m here to tell you that you don’t. You don’t have to be the ruthless dictator, and you don’t have to be a squirming bleeding heart. You just have to follow logic. And logically, hurting people has never made any sense. Yes, you have a darkness. You can’t ignore it, so I’m not going to try to tell you to. But it doesn’t have to define you. The year that you felt something taught you what others experience all the time. Don’t try to get it back, but don’t let it go either. Learn from it. Be better.” She paused for a moment. “And stop with the self-harm. It makes you look weak.”

“I am not..weak!” he cries, lunging towards her with the anger of a magnetar.

She doesn’t blink. “Prove it. Get out there, and do your job. Lead the people. Don’t tell them what to do. Tell them what needs to be done, so they can decide. If you don’t know what needs to be done, then lean on advisors. That is what they’re there for.”

“You’re not really here. What are you?” Waldemar questions.

“That’s not the question you need to ask yourself, Captain,” she begins. “The question is...who are you?”

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Microstory 2696: Rabbit’s Heart

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

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

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

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

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

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

Extremus: Year 128

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It’s midnight on April 8, 2397. Waldemar and Audrey are trying to sleep when his doorbell rings with a level two urgency pulse. He sits up, and tells the AI to open the door, and send whoever it is into their bedroom. The secret service agent comes in while Waldemar is rubbing the sand out of his face to inform him that they encountered four intruders. “Intruders where?”

“The gym locker room.”

Waldemar yawns, annoyed. “You woke me up for that? If they’re not authorized, put ‘em in the brig, and leave me out of it. If they are, then leave ‘em alone.”

“It’s not that, sir. They’re not authorized anywhere. They’re...” The agent hesitates.

“Just say it.”

“They’re Team Matic. We don’t know how they got on the ship in the first place.”

That wakes Waldemar up all the way. He stands and steps into his integrated multipurpose suit. “I want this whole ship on lockdown. Block teleportation. I don’t just mean switch off the relays. Suppress all teleportation everywhere. I should not even be able to teleport, you understand? We can’t let them go anywhere. Where are they now?’

The agent nods at his subordinate to complete the order. “They’re in a private brig. Do you want to speak with them personally?”

“Yes,” Waldemar answers. “But you stay here, protect my wife. Audrey, you can’t go anywhere today. I know you had that art show with Sable, but it’s off the table.”

“I understand,” Audrey agrees.

The Captain leaves his room, and assigns five more men to it. He walks down the corridors manually, and takes the lift down to the private brig. It wasn’t in the original design. This used to be a game room for children. Now he uses it to interrogate prisoners without being pestered by the Hock Watcher, or anyone else. Only his secret police and secret service agents know of it.

There they are. It’s Mateo, Leona, Ramses, and one of the twin girls. Where’s the other one, and also Olimpia? He smiles, pleased with his catch. This is a big get for him. They’re a huge deal in the galaxy, past and present. Word is they were there when the idea of the Extremus mission was first being devised, and may have had a hand in proposing a few key concepts. Their faces are impossible to read. They don’t look nervous or upset. In their shoes, he would be angry. No, he would be absolutely livid. The truth is, he has respect for these people. They’re renegades. They have no authority whatsoever, but that doesn’t stop them from going wherever they want, and fucking shit up. He can’t have it on his ship, of course. His people were right to bring them here. Famous or not, they’re stowaways, so they go in the brig. Extremus has no laws allowing for exile or deportation, so it’s not like he has any choice. If they didn’t want to be trapped here, they should have stayed home. No one forced them to come here.

Leona stands up. “You must be the Captain. So am I. Leona Matic.” She lifts her hand, but makes no attempt to stick it through the bars. “Let’s pretend to shake hands.”

Interesting tactic. She recognizes his power, but also his prudence. He would never make physical contact, so this is a reasonable approximating gesture. He obliges, holding his own hand out, and shaking the air at the same time she does. “Captain Waldemar of Extremus Transgalactic Hero Ship, Eighth of Eleven.”

“They each had one of these around their wrists,” one of his newer officers says. He’s holding a wristband of foreign design. It’s white, and less flexible than the ones they use here. And it could be the most dangerous thing he’s ever seen.

Waldemar is instantly furious. “Are you serious? We don’t know what kind of proximity power they have over those things. Get the hell out of here with it. Get out! Get out! Take it to evidence!”

The young man runs out in terrible fear.

Waldemar looks at one of his more seasoned officers. “Follow him up there, and then kill him. I can’t have such profound incompetence on my team.”

“Belay that order, soldier,” Leona demands.

It’s surprising, but what’s even more surprising is that the officer actually does stop moving. “What the hell was that? You don’t listen to her, you listen to me. Go do what I said.”

“Stay here!” Leona insisted.

“Am I on crazy pills? Why is he listening to you?” Waldemar questions

Leona wraps her fingers around the bars, totally unfazed by the deterrence burning. “Because you, sir, are fleeting. You are the big fish in the small pond. I am the one who dug and filled the pond, and he knows it. He needs to be in your graces to live on this ship on this day, but he needs to be in mine if he wants to live anywhere else.”

“He doesn’t need to live anywhere else,” Waldemar reasons. “This is it for him.”

“Are you sure about that?” Leona poses. “Can you see the future? When we show up, changes are made, and he is scared to death...just as you are. Matt.”

Mateo Matic pushes off of the back wall, and bashes his whole body against the cell door. It breaks open. He stumbles over the twisted metal, but doesn’t fall down.

“Shoot him,” Waldemar orders.

The nearest officer still doesn’t budge, but the other two guards fire their weapons at Mateo. The bullets don’t break skin, so they stop. It looks like they hurt a little bit, but aren’t capable of doing serious damage, so he doesn’t ask for round two.

Leona goes on, “we are not here to change things. We’re only passing through. All you have to do is let us keep moving along. No one else will know we were here.”

He is losing the upper hand here, which he cannot abide. Time to take control. “Okay. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll let all four of you go right now, but after you leave, I’m killing everyone who was made aware of your arrival, even if they never saw you with their own two eyes. Are you prepared to live with that guilt?”

She doesn’t say anything.

Waldemar chuckles and nods. “Ah, you’re realizing that your influence only extends as long as you’re actually here. Once you leave, I don’t have to do anything in particular, even if I agreed to it.” He switches his gaze to Mateo. “Now get back in your cage, dog.”

“Don’t kill anyone,” Leona practically begs. “Just teach them to do better. It’s much easier than constantly having to replace people, and breeds a higher level of trust.”

“I know it will only be a few days for you,” Waldemar begins, “but based on your outburst and rapid escalation, I’m guessing whatever you’re dealing with his quite time-sensitive. So how about I leave you here for a few decades, and we’ll see what we see. Okay? Great.” He walks out of the holding area.

“Sir, I want to apologize. I wasn’t following her orders, I was just temporarily confused. She must be a witch. You know they have powers in their biology.”

Waldemar smiles. “It’s okay officer. I’m not going to kill you. I’m not going to kill the one with the wristband either. It was only a showing of strength.”

“Okay. Thank you, sir. It will never happen again.”

“Of course not.” Waldemar stops smiling. “Strip ‘im.”

The other guards disarm him, and start pulling off his armor and outer layers. They leave him inside the holding area, and close the second stage security gate. “Whatever your name is, you’re done. I won’t kill you, but this is where you’ll die. The only prisoners we have in here are supermen who only exist one day out of the year. If we don’t return for another 365 days, they will not have even come close to starving to death. But you will.” He walks out of the private brig, along with his true loyalists. “Seal it up. Pour concrete if you have to. No one in or out.”

“Wait!” he can hear the disgraced officer screaming. “Give me another chance! I’ll do whatever your want! I’ll kill the idiot! Please!”

No, this is something Waldemar is just going to do himself. That way he knows it will get done. He goes up to the evidence room, but doesn’t find the guy. He doesn’t find the wristbands either, but that might not be so surprising. The organization in there is utterly atrocious. Who does he have to blame for that failure in competence? He’ll deal with them later. The real problem is the missing people. For the next week, he sends his men to tear the ship apart, but the wristband dumbass is nowhere to be found. It’s a ship, there’s nowhere to go. Or rather, there shouldn’t be.

Wondering how far this conspiracy runs, he marches back down to the private brig to visit the officer he left in there early, expecting to find him weak, but still alive. He too is gone. No signs of forced entry. Teleportation has still been entirely suppressed, even for the exceptions, like himself and the people he trusts most. He orders a thorough investigation, but wonders if the investigators can be trusted. Can he trust anyone at all? Is trying to run this ship with any semblance of patience and compassion worth all the uncertainty, and the medicine he has to take for the headaches?

It’s like one of those old Earthan crime shows that Silveon likes to watch. All the security footage has been expertly scrubbed or doctored, but there is one small omission. In the reflection of an airlock window, there is one clear enough still, showing the dipshit walking next to someone who appears to be helping him evade capture. Waldemar can’t believe his eyes. He has known her since childhood, and she would betray him like this? There must be a good reason.

“There is,” Audrey confirms. “He didn’t deserve to die for one mistake. So I saved him. I would do it again.”

“And the other officer?” Waldemar presses. The one I left in the private brig? Did you break him out too?”

“No comment,” Audrey replies stoically. She doesn’t sound or look remorseful. Granted, he has trouble reading people’s emotions, but it really looks like she doesn’t regret a single thing.

He can’t kill her. This is his wife. It’s his goddamn wife! But he can’t let her run free either. As scandalous as it is, he has to do the right thing, and treat her as he would any other criminal. “Put her in the brig.’

“For how long, sir?” his agent asks.

“Indefinitely.”

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Extremus: Year 127

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Things were weird on the ship after the announcement came through that Admiral Oceanus Jennings was dead. People seemed to be alarmed and upset by the news. They would say things like he was too young, and that it wasn’t his time. Waldemar’s advisors explained the morale was down as a result of the sad development. Morale? Morale? Because somebody died? He was an old man, he wasn’t gonna live forever anyway. Waldemar will never understand this relentless pursuit of the past. It happened, get over it. You’re still alive, so don’t stop now. There’s more work to do. It’s been two years now, and things have not improved much. If Waldemar knew how the passengers, and especially the crew, would react, he never would have done it. Who knew that killing someone would have consequences? They didn’t teach that in school. They just said that murder was bad, and assumed everyone would understand and agree. He’s been smart, though. He hasn’t been contradicting them. Taking Silveon’s general life advice, he has been letting people feel what they feel. It’s been getting in the way of his plans, though. Extremus is in a slump.

Everyone is afraid of change. It is a core property of humans, actually, and all life. Sure, evolution necessarily leads to change, but everything is in search of equilibrium. Everything wants to find a way to live where they can be centered and happy. Change isn’t only scary, it requires high cognitive load, and the formation of new muscle memory. So in the end, it’s not as much about the fear of the unknown as it’s about laziness. Change requires putting in effort; mentally, physically, emotionally. Waldemar is probably no different than most people, except for the emotional side of things. He doesn’t want to work too hard. So why is all this change that he is trying to institute not a problem for him in particular? Well, it’s because his mental state is already there. He sees what the world should be, so his brain wants to do work. Even when it was originally working through the problems, though, it wasn’t too taxing, because it felt right. That’s the equilibrium that his mind is searching for. Change is the goal. That’s what his therapist-in-a-box says anyway. He’s been relying on her a lot these days.

“Why do you think that is?” Dr. Wholth asks in that soft voice of hers, which is likely meant to keep her patients calm.

“Why am I relying on you so much?” Waldemar guesses. “You’re the only person I can talk to who can’t get upset about the terrible things I’ve done, and can’t rat me out to anyone about them.”

Dr. Wholth is an airgapped program, loaded into a self-contained device, powered by interchangeable fuel cells. She has no access to the internet, and no one else has access to her. They don’t even know about her. He created her himself. He took the base personality of the ship’s freely available virtual companion, and copied it onto this offline machine. He then fed it all of the psychological, psychiatric, and therapeutic information he could find. She even knows a little bit of medicine, though she wouldn’t be able to do anything to help physically since she’s only a hologram. “You don’t think you can trust Silveon or Audrey anymore? You used to lo— be quite attached to them.” He didn’t program her to make little mistakes like that. As he is not a tech developer, he can’t figure out how to remove it from her core code.

“To be honest, I’m getting rather tired of them. I used to crave stability and predictability, but now I just want a fresh start. I want new people. I think I needed them before. I don’t think that I’ve learned I never needed them. I think I genuinely changed. I’m proof that it can happen.”

“That’s good, that’s good,” she says encouragingly. “You’re getting better at understanding your own behavior, and feeling less robotic; your words.”

He laughs. She is always acting like she can offend him, but she really can’t. He knows that she’s just zeroes and ones. She sometimes acts afraid too, like when he talks about the people he’s killed. She seems worried that he will do the same to her. Which he might. He shuts her off every time he’s done using her, and her consciousness does not continue until he switches her back on. He could one day choose to never complete that second step ever again. He could open the device up, and break all of her circuits apart. He sometimes considers that, just so he can end a life without any risk of consequences. He wouldn’t even need to contact his secret police for help covering it up.

“What are you thinking about, Waldemar? You’ve been quiet for the last couple of minutes,” Dr. Wholth says.

He wants to get a reaction, so he tells her the truth about his most recent thoughts.

Dr. Wholth nods. “Then perhaps that’s what we should do.”

“You want me to break your logic board?” Waldemar questions.

“No. I want you to find a healthy way to explore your urges and compulsions. You told me about your virtual honeymoon, and you told me about the game that you invented, but it doesn’t sound like you use such technology regularly.”

“Well, there’s nothing to do in VR,” he starts to explain. “Nothing is real. Even if you’re presented with problems to fix, the best solution to every single one of them is to simply log off. So I just don’t see the purpose.”

She sets her pencil and paper down, showing more of the lingerie she’s wearing. He just feels more comfortable talking to people like this, whether they’re real or not. He thinks it’s because she looks more vulnerable, and less of a threat to him. “People tend to require more than what is immediately around them. Have you ever heard of deep space hermits?” She poses.

“Yeah, they’re the guys who hollow out an asteroid, and just live alone for centuries. Doesn’t sound so bad. If I had no ambition...”

“If all they wanted to do was survive, they could live for millions of years off of that one asteroid. They would have a bed if they were still organic enough to sleep. They would have food, water, basic life support. They could recycle their waste, and never need anything else. Their habitat could be the size of your water closet. But what kind of life is that? It’s worse than a simulation, because there’s not even the illusion of something happening. They always have VR, AR, and-or larger infrastructure to provide them with stimuli. It may sound like they went out there to be alone, but they instead go out to be in control. Your problem, Captain Kristiansen is you don’t have very much control. Sure, you’re in charge, but you rely on others to make things happen. You need them to make their own decisions, or things will fall apart. You can’t handle it all on your own, and I don’t think you would want to. But if you really want to feel in control, you need to construct your own world to inhabit. You won’t live there permanently, but it might be a nice escape. You’re still human, Captain. Your brain is wired differently, but you share a lot of traits with others. I think you get so wrapped up in what sets you apart that you miss the similarities.”

“Well, the program would have to be isolated, like you. I wouldn’t feel free if other users can show up, and see what I’m doing.”

“That goes without saying,” Dr. Wholth says. “I could help you write the program, so we don’t have to involve anyone else. There’s more than enough extra room on my data drives for a single, original environment. We could even hold sessions in there. I know you sweep this room for bugs every day. Those wouldn’t matter in the construct. It would all be in your head...and mine, so to speak.”

“I could hurt people in a judgment free zone? I could make any choice I wanted.”

“Exactly,” Dr. Wholth confirmed. “I said I could be there, but it doesn’t have to be in my capacity as a therapist, or not every time. I have other characteristics. I could be your friend, your lover, even your enemy. You explore parts of yourself that you can’t in the real world, and when you log out, you go back to your regular life. All of that pent up aggression has been released, and no one has to see it. No one has to know. I think it would make you a better captain. I think it would make you a better leader. If you want to raise morale, it starts at the top. When you’re stressed out, so is everyone else. You need to show them what happiness looks like.”

“I don’t really do happiness,” he reminds her.

“No, that’s not true,” she claims, shaking her head. “You can be happy. It’s a common misconception that people with personality disorders don’t have emotions. You absolutely do. You just need to learn better what they look like on the outside. You’ve been doing a great job. Silveon helped you, Audrey helped, even Sable helped with that. And of course I have. But there’s something else in the background that’s holding you back from greatness. Let the simulations pull that off of you, so you can become your best self. I’m not trying to change you into someone else, just the better you.”

“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” Waldemar decides. “I’m in. We won’t start today, though. Go back in your little box so I can get back to work. We’ll talk later.”

“Yes, sir, Captain, sir,” she says respectfully before flickering off.

“Ugh, I thought she would never leave.” Sable appears from the bathroom.

Waldemar jumps to his feet. “How long have you been there?”

She smirks. “Long enough to know that VR isn’t going to help. You’re too smart. You’ll always know it’s not real.” She approaches slowly, almost sexily.

“I don’t know what you think you heard...” he begins to argue.

“Shh.” She places a finger upon his lips. “Relax. You think I didn’t know what you were when I met you?” She grabs his arm muscles. “A big strong man like you runs on pure testosterone.” She growls.

“What do you want, Sable?” They’ve not slept together in the last few weeks. He just kind of got tired of that too.

“Kill me,” she offers. “You want to feel something real? Kill me. I can take it.” What the hell does that mean, she can take it?

“I’m not going to do that.” He might have to, though.

Sable giggles. “Fine. Then I guess I’ll go make an announcement over the PA system, telling everyone what you really are.”

Okay. Now he does have to stop her. But he’ll just put her in his private brig until he can figure out what to do with her. He takes her by the wrist so she can’t teleport away. She spins around as she’s pulling a pocketknife out of her pants, and jams it into his leg. She giggles again. So he does what she asks, and kills her. Dr. Wholth might have been wrong. Even this has lost its charm. He may be getting tired of hurting people too.

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Extremus: Year 126

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Admiral Oceanus Jennings stands between Captain Kristiansen and his bride, Sable Keen. The audience is noticeably uncomfortable, if not outright disgusted. Even Waldemar’s sycophants don’t like what’s happening in this holographic grand cathedral. They won’t do or say anything about it, but they’ll have their private thoughts, and maybe share a few whispers. As for the happy couple, they couldn’t be happier. The Captain has become much better at feigning emotions. It almost looks like he’s in love with this girl. Oceanus hasn’t been made privy to all the secret meetings that Admiral Keen has with her daughter, and the rest of the braintrust, so he just has to hope that this is all part of some elaborate plan. There’s no way she actually likes this guy. She’s so sweet and intelligent. Even if her mother never told her anything about what he really is, surely she would just pick up on it.

The Admiral obviously doesn’t want to be here, let alone be officiating, but it’s his responsibility since this such a high-profile event involving a crewmember. There’s only one other person here qualified to perform the ceremony, and no one bothered to ask her. She’s not even here, which is understandable, and really not a scandal. Or if it is, it’s cancelled out by the reason she declined the invitation. Sable is an adult now. There’s nothing illegal about this. But it makes people feel icky. Not only is there a significant age difference, but he’s also in an immense position of power. There are protesters, but they have not been allowed into the auditorium. Oceanus passed a message onto them, begging them to stay quiet. He can’t tell them that it’s because he fears for their lives, but there is only so much he can do. He doesn’t outrank the Captain. He’s only an advisor, and it’s time for him to begin today’s responsibility.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today,” Oceanus begins. It’s an uncommon turn of phrase on the ship. Waldemar evidently heard it in a movie or two, and he has a fixation on tradition—not Extremusian traditions, specifically ones that they don’t typically follow. He proceeds to drone on and on about love and loyalty, following the script that Waldemar handed him word for word, including the few typos. If asked about it later, he’ll just say that he’s become so accustomed to speeches that the words travel right from the screen to the microphone, bypassing his brain entirely. It’ll be fine, they’re not that bad, and people have bigger things to worry about.

After the ceremony comes the reception. Oceanus thought he was done with his part in this charade, but Waldemar surprises him with a call to toast. He didn’t prepare anything, so he has to wing it. Other toasters dropped subtle clues about the extent of their disapproval, but he was entirely noncombative, because what would be the point? How does it help anyone, getting yourself chucked into hock? Errr, rather, the brig. He mostly sticks with love and loyalty, and drives home how lucky Sable is to find someone so amazing, adding in some anecdotes about Waldemar’s work ethic and tenacity. Fifty points to Oceanus, he didn’t throw up even once during the entire ordeal. When it’s a feasible time to duck out quietly, he goes back towards the bow, but instead of going to his quarters, he heads for the office that he shares with Lataran. Waldemar has made a lot of changes to Extremus, but Admiral Gardens remains untouched. Oh good, she’s here. “I want in.”

Lataran is busying herself with nonsense work. Waldemar has his own advisors, and has never asked to their help with anything. “You want in to what?”

“Whatever you, Silveon, Audrey Husk, and even Sable are up to, I want to be a part of it. I don’t want to sit on the sidelines anymore. I want you to tell me the plan.”

She sighs, and returns to her tablet. “There is no plan.” This may not be the right time to talk to her. Her daughter just married a monster, and she couldn’t bring herself to watch it happen. It must have been so difficult for her, being unable to stop it.

“Please. You can trust me,” he insists. “I know you know that. We may not have always gotten along, but we can agree that we have to protect the ship from him.”

She sighs again, more annoyed this time. “I’m not icing you out. There really is no plan. We did have plans, but Sable ruined them when she married him.”

“That wasn’t what you all wanted?”

“No,” she begins to explain. “That was Audrey’s job. She’s...older than she looks, and knew what she was getting into. Sable doesn’t understand what’s at stake. I don’t know why we agreed to let her be part of this at all, but this wedding was a bridge too far. So I’m out. I’m old and dying, and she has to make her own choices. I’ve already talked to her about it ad nauseum. I guess they were more like fights. But either way, whatever we were trying to do together, that’s over now. She’s made it clear that she’ll be pivoting him away from us, so she can have him all to herself. There’s nothing left to do but accept it. Whatever Extremus becomes, that will be what it is.”

“So we just fade into the background?”

“While we’re alive? Yes.” She shakes her tablet slightly. “I’m writing a book. It outlines the truth—my truth, and will be published posthumously. I’m still deciding who will be responsible for that. It could place those who survive me in danger, including my daughter. But I can’t sit with these thoughts in my head anymore. I have to get them out. If you’re struggling with the same hopelessness, you might look for your own outlet.”

“I prefer to fix things while I’m still alive,” he says.

She presses a button on her desk, causing the walls to start to extend and wrap around her work area. She never used privacy mode when Tinaya was working alongside her. Now she activates it all the time. “Good luck with that,” she says just before it seals her up completely.

Oceanus moves on to Silveon. He basically asks him the same thing, and Silveon basically responds the same way that Lataran did. “My mission had an expiration date. I didn’t know it when I started, but I’ve lost my way in. She has taken over everything. We did not factor in the possibility that someone new in this timeline would usurp control over the situation. It was always a possibility, of course. That’s what happens when you change history. I suppose this might have even been inevitable, thanks to my actions. One thing that Waldemar was not in the old timeline was welcoming. He didn’t have close advisors, or personal relationships. He only had loyal subjects. I gave him this. I taught him how to connect with others. I showed him how to marry a girl. I don’t know if I should regret it or not, because the plan was to make him more human. Unfortunately, this is what that looks like.”

He goes to Audrey now, who he expects to find distraught in her new quarters. They are a far cry from the luxury of the Captain’s Stateroom. She doesn’t seem to care, about her living arrangements, nor Waldemar’s new wife and life. “Sable has powers.”

“What?”

“She has time powers.”

“Which ones?” Oceanus presses.

“I don’t know, but she was a kid when we brought her into the fold. We shouldn’t have done that. She somehow made us. When we switched bodies—”

“You switched bodies?” he interrupts.

“Yes, I forget who knows what. She doesn’t know how to paint.”

“Oh, right. She did that portrait. It looks good.”

“It shouldn’t,” Audrey counters. “I had only started when she forced her way back into her mind. When I say we switched bodies, that isn’t entirely truthful. I took over hers, but we placed her in a constructed dream, made to look exactly as the Extremus was when she went under. We took sensor data from all over, and fed it into the program. It extrapolated what would happen if Sable were really still there. She somehow broke through the illusion, and took back over. I don’t know how she did that, and I don’t know how that painting got finished.”

“It sounds like you’re done with the mission, like Lataran. That’s how she put it.”

“That’s how we put it to each other,” Audrey tells him sadly.

“Do you understand Sable’s motives? Did you get anything from the experience? If she learned to paint, did you learn to...use whatever gifts she has?”

“Well, I felt her power, before she proved she had it. And at the same time, I...”

“Go on. You can trust me. I want to help.”

“I felt something else,” Audrey finally says. “I don’t know how to articulate it. It was...ambition? Or maybe yearning? I don’t know, but she wants something. She is singularly focused on it. Honestly, it reminded me of Waldemar, sometimes when I’ve looked into his eyes. I’ve never seen it in her eyes, though. She’s either good at hiding it, or I’m crazy. But it scared the shit out of me. I wouldn’t recommend consciousness transference tech unless you really know the person you’re switching with.”

Oceanus nods, taking in all the information, and trying to fill in the gaps. It’s not much to go on. Even if no one else is trying to fight it, he can’t stop. He’ll go it alone if he has to. He cares too much about Extremus, and the mission. He cares about it at the expense of himself. “You can’t really know anyone, can you? Except for yourself.”

“Maybe,” she answers. “Maybe not even then.”

“You did once; trusted yourself. You went back in time, to your younger body.”

“I was desperate.”

“I am too,” he states plainly.

She shakes her head. “Don’t even think about it. You don’t have enough information. Silveon and I spent years curating historical variables, and we still missed things. Time travel is never the answer. The teach that in school. I wish I had listened.”

“Give me the key,” he asks, calmly and dispassionately, but not hostilely.

“You know what? What does it matter? We might as well give it a second shot. I’m not gonna remember doing this, so here are the directions to the tech room.” She flings the data to his device. “Here are the codes.” She flings those too. “When you get to the past, would you do me a favor?”

“Anything, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my primary objective.”

She chuckles. “Don’t tell me or Silveon what you are, or anyone, really. If you have to tell us anything, just say you got intel from the Bridger Section, or something.”

“I promise, he lies. He walks out without saying goodbye, because she won’t remember it anyway. He walks down to the deepest bowels of the ship, and unlocks the room where the secret insurgent tech is apparently stored. He doesn’t know how to work the equipment, but it’s sufficiently self-explanatory. After making sure he has all the settings right, he climbs in the chair, and sends his mind back to his younger body.

Its over a year in the past, in 2394; the day of the portrait. It all started to fall apart here. Oceanus has to immediately break his promise to Audrey. The first thing he does is go to the Captain’s Stateroom to tell her to not go through the plan to force Sable into a virtual environment. Whatever she does in the real world, it’s better than pissing her off, and pushing her away from the group. He doesn’t even think he needs to know what exactly she’s after. Anything has to be better than letting Waldemar Kristiansen run around unchecked, unbalanced. They have to put up a united front, and that means being honest with each other.

Since he was never a part of any of that, he has no idea if it turns out all right. Like Audrey said, he only knows so many facts about the situation. He just has to hope that she listened to him. Telling her that he spoke with the Bridgers was never going to be enough. To be absolutely sure she believed him, he had to reveal that he knows about the secret room, and the secret portrait plan. He couldn’t be cryptic or vague. Now, whether she, Silveon, and Lataran actually listen to his advice is another story.

He returns to his stateroom to mourn the loss of his past self. It’s only hitting him now that he essentially murdered someone. He overwrote someone else’s consciousness. The fact that it was technically him, and not someone else, doesn’t really help. It was still a death, and one that he caused. That version of Oceanus is gone, and he will live with that guilt for a long time. The doorbell rings. He opens it without checking the feed. “Captain, this is unexpected. How did the portrait go?”

“Swimmingly,” Waldemar replies as he’s letting himself in without an invitation.

“How’s your wife?”

“Funny you should ask, because I was about to ask the same thing.”

“Sir?” Oceanus questions.

“I hear you stopped by for a visit.”

“Oh, yes. Briefly. We hadn’t spoken in a while. I just wanted to see how she was. I thought we might grab some tea, but she wasn’t up for it.”

Waldemar nods. “My secret service agents say that it wasn’t all that brief, that you were acting unusual, and that Audrey was rather upset when you left.”

“I’m sorry if she was, but I saw her in high spirits. I assure you, I didn’t hurt her.”

“Why would you even put such a thought into the universe? I didn’t suggest that.”

“I can see that you think something happened which didn’t. Your agents interpreted something that wasn’t there. Please don’t make this a thing.”

“It may be a thing, it might not. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk a scandal. I don’t care about her, but I care about my reputation. You’re endangering that. So you got to go.”

“You can’t kill me. I’m an admiral.”

Walder sports a feigned frown. “Aww, it’s cute that you think that matters. Admirals have never mattered. I never intend to become one. I will be the captain forever. And you’ll be dead. If you don’t fight it, it won’t hurt. You’re old. That’s all they’ll see. I’ll scrub all contradictory records.”

“They will see what you really are. Before you can start getting anything real done, beyond renaming the hock and Chief Medical Officer, they’ll see you.”

“That’s what they all think. Just before I end their life, everyone thinks they know me. But Admiral Jennings, I’m here to tell you...I’m not about to start making real changes. I’ve already begun.” He kills him.

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Extremus: Year 125

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Sable Keen opens Audrey’s eyes. She looks over at the chair next to her and sees Audrey opening Sable’s eyes. It was a success, they’ve managed to switch bodies. Now when Waldemar is standing there in his royal pose, it will be Audrey who is painting his portrait. Sable is slated to stay safe and sound somewhere else, the target being the Captain’s Stateroom, playing the part of the dutiful housewife. It’s not to keep her safe, though. She just doesn’t know how to draw. There are some skills that she can’t pick up from others. She doesn’t understand how it works, and doesn’t have anyone to talk to about it. But this is good. This sort of thing makes life more exciting. If there’s one thing she hates more than anything, it’s boredom. She lives for the drama.

Silveon reaches over and takes Sable by the hand. “Slowly. Slowly now,” he encourages softly as he’s helping her get onto Audrey’s feet.

“You know I’m Sable, right, not your girlfriend? I only look like her right now.”

Silveon looks over at Audrey, who Lataran is helping stand. “We’re not together. You do realize that, right? It’s important you know that we’re not a couple in any way shape or form. We work together because we have the same goals, and know what the stakes are.”

Of course Sable knew that, she’s just gauging their reactions. She always felt the chemistry between the two of them. They’re the same age, and they’ve been through a lot. In a perfect world, they would be together. But she knows enough about what that world looks like to know that Sable is not in it. She would not have been born if they hadn’t come back in time to stop the evil man, Waldemar Kristiansen. That name. It’s like his mother wanted him to grow up to become a villain. The way Sable sees it, Calla brought this on herself; her own death, and everything that has happened since. “I’m just messing with you,” she replies, having spent too much time in her head to respond any other way. This ends the follow-up conversation. “I can do it on my own.” She effortlessly steps over to the mirror and tests out her new look. Audrey has been practicing Sable’s mannerism so she can impersonate her. Sable has not been doing the same. At least that’s what she wants them to think. She has her own agenda.

“You are not to do anything as Audrey,” Lataran warns her. “If Waldemar comes to you, you will do as Audrey would do, and say what she would say, but you are not to interfere with their lives. You’re not there to make changes to their relationship, or try to get him to make certain administrative decisions for the ship, its crew, or passengers...”

“I know, mom. He doesn’t listen to Aud any better than he listens to me. It’s not about me becoming her, it’s about her becoming me. Stop going over it.”

“Okay, okay,” Lataran says in that voice she uses when she remembers that Sable is a big girl now. She was the hardest to convince to help Sable join the fight. She loves Sable too much, which is understandable, but that makes her less pliable. The further removed she is from someone, the easier it is for Sable to control them. Unless they have psychic powers, like Waldemar. That’s the biggest reason why Sable pushed for this assignment, because he’s a challenge. He really doesn’t listen to her. Unlike any rando in the hall whose sandwich she wants, he doesn’t have to comply.

Audrey checks Sable’s watch. “Okay. We cut it close, so I have to run.” They only had a short window to complete the body swapping procedure, but Waldemar is expecting to begin the sitting soon. She steps over and gives Sable a hug. She doesn’t struggle at all. That’s how Sable walks. Without hugging anyone else, she disappears.

“That was weird, don’t you think?” Sable asks Silveon and her mother. “We built in a little time for her to practice in my body. But she’s such a natural.”

“She’s transferred her consciousness before,” Silveon reasons. “It gets easier each time you do it.”

“I bet it does.” She turns around and looks back in the mirror, frowning at the boring clothes that Audrey picked out, probably because she knew Sable would end up in them. “Bye.” She jumps to the stateroom, where she has already stashed her backup watch. She switches them so everyone with the ability to track her location thinks that she’s still here when she’s not. They don’t have authorization to teleport directly inside to check on her, and would have no good reason to give the secret service for ringing the doorbell. She finds something sexier in the closet, then heads out with it.

The three agents guarding the door nod at her respectfully. “First Lady of the Vessel,” they each recite.  Yeah, Waldemar is really leaning into the idea that he’s not a captain, but a president. He sees it as a stepping stone towards becoming a king, and then an emperor. He feels the need to ease the people into accepting more and more of his power over them. He’s correct. If the team weren’t here to stop him, it would work.

She’s been studying the agents, and lucked out today. A few of them have expressed a deeper loyalty to Audrey than to Waldemar himself. They can’t say it out loud, but she sees it in their eyes. This particular guy is in love with her, and would do anything she says. She insisted on going about her business without constant protection, but she can request it anytime she wants. Sable looks the right one in the eyes, doing her best to give him the sense that, in another life, they could be together instead. “I would like an escort today. Only one.” Wait, she needs a cherry on top. “Only you.”

“Very good, Madam.” He’s trying to keep it together. He professionally begins to walk with her down the corridor while the others remain at their post.

“Laventry,” she begins to say once they’re out of earshot of the others.

“You know my name, Madam?” he interrupts. “I mean, I’m sorry, that was rude.”

“It’s okay, Lav.”

His face melts at the sound of the nickname. Perfect.

“Yes, I know your name. Lav, there are secrets on this ship, you know that?”

“I do, Madam.”

“Please. Call me Audrey,” Sable insists. Okay, she can see that that’s too much. He’s still been trained to bow before her and show great deference. “Or not. It’s fine.”

“Thank you, Madam First Lady of the Vessel.”

She laughs. “The secrets. There are places on this ship that not everyone has access to. I need you to take me to one of those places, and I need it to stay between us. Now, I understand that you have sworn and oath to preserve the captain’s chair, but there are things that not even my Waldemar needs to know.”

“Ma’am, I’m not sure I feel comfortable doing anyth—”

She interrupts him now to say, “you recall my child.”

She thought he was frowning before, but now he really is. “Yes, ma’am.”

“There is a place here where time tech is stored, are you aware of this place?”

“I am, Madam First Lady. It’s the old Temporal Engineering lab.” Waldemar did away with the position of temporal engineer. He doesn’t seem to care about it one way or another on principle, except when it comes to his pursuit of immortality. He shut it down, however, because it threatens his hold over Extremus. It leaves the possibility open for someone to go back in time to stop him from ascending. It didn’t seem to occur to him that it’s already happened.

She stops walking, and tugs at his upper arm. “There is something in there that can let me see my child.” Here it comes, the tears. She didn’t even have to drop a tearitant into her eyes, which is good, because he would have noticed that. “It’s not...real, but I can see what she would have looked like had she grown up. I just want to see, Lav. I want to know what I missed.”

“Yes, ma’am, I can understand that, ma’am.”

“Will you help me? Will you get me into that room, and tell no one else about it? Can I trust you, Lav?”

He stares at her and breathes deeply through his nose. She can hear the desire echoing off the walls of his full heart. “Yes, I will help you...Audrey.”

She smiles and places a hand upon his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispers.

He gently takes hold of her hand, palm to back. He pulls it away, and puppets her to wipe the tears from her own cheek.

She smiles wider, and turns away shyly. “Sorry.”

Now he touches her chin, directly with his finger, turning it back towards him. “You can show your true feelings around me. I’m very emotionally intelligent.” The members of the secret police are absolute morons. It’s a wonder they manage to put their own shoes on them in the morning. Some of them probably have help. But the secret service agents? They truly are smart. That’s why she had to pick him carefully. She could not have grabbed any one at random. Anyone else would see right through her manipulation. Anyone would reject her control. It’s only working on him because of his connection to Audrey. If Sable had tried to do this as herself, she would have failed miserably, and it could have gotten her found out. “Let’s go.”

They continue through the ship until reaching the sealed off temporal engineering sector. At the door, he looks at her and chuckles. Then he lifts his hand, and smashes the side of his fist against the security panel, breaking it open.

“Oh. Strong.”

Yeah, he liked hearing that. Centuries of gender equality progress, and men are still driven to impress women with their skills and prowess. They’re all peacocks. He chuckles again as he starts to mess with the wires and miniature power crystals.

This is it. Sable is finally going to get what she needs. She can do a lot with what she has now, but she wants more. She has to have more, and she’s willing to go to great lengths to get it. It was not Waldemar’s idea for her to paint his portrait, or even for her to do it. He definitely thinks it was, which is exactly how it should be. Without being able to control another psychic’s mind, she had to use old fashioned conning techniques, and her feminine wiles. Again, het men are all the same. Does she feel bad about treating people like game pieces? No, because she’s not hurting them. Silveon and Audrey weren’t making any progress without her. They’ve been doing this almost literally their entire lives, and were floundering. They never would have let her help if she just let them make their own choices. People are stupid, prideful, and in these cases, protective. So it took a little coaxing. It’s true, that’s what Waldemar would do in the same position, and she has had to accept their similarities. She is more like him than she is willing to let her family and friends know. To be sure, she wants to stop him from destroying the ship, but he’s not crazy. He has some good ideas. It’s more that the ends don’t justify the means. She has better means. It’s her responsibility to use them, starting with this room.

Laventry cracks it. The door swings open, but it’s nothing but darkness. It’s a totally empty void.

She reaches out. As her hand passes over the threshold, it starts to de-resolve, breaking apart into a million pieces. She pulls it back out, watching her hand gradually reassemble itself.

Laventry is just standing there, still proud of himself.

“Did you see that? Did you see what happened?”

“Seems normal to me,” he replies.

“Stick your hand in there,” she orders.

He does as he’s told. He too watches his hand fall apart, then come back together once she pulls at his arm, and brings him fully back into the rendered environment.

“That doesn’t seem weird to you?”

“No. Should it?”

“God...dammit!” She turns around and lets out an incredibly loud scream as she’s beginning to walk away.

He hops up to her and clutches her shoulder. “Tell me what’s wrong. I can help. I told you, I have high emotional intelligence.”

She turns back, scowls at him, and screams again. “Argh! Fuck you!” She pushes the NPC by the chest with both hands, right through the world boundary, killing him instantly. She starts to walk again, foaming at the mouth, utterly incensed at her so-called team. How dare they trick her? It’s a violation. What, did they not trust her? Did they know she would do something like this? Do they know she has powers? If they even know a little bit, that could be a massive problem for her. She screams again. She screams, and she screams, and for a moment after that, she yells, but then she goes back to screaming. She’s out of breath and exhausted, but not actually at all. She can’t feel anything. None of this is real, not even her. She hasn’t been walking for the last several minutes. She’s been sitting in a chair, painting Waldemar’s portrait. Audrey has been in the driver’s seat, and never gave up her own body. Why? Why do it like this? Ugh, she’s not gonna find any answers here. And she’s not going to get out of it by screaming.

She closes her eyes and begins to control her breath. The first step to breaking out of a mind prison is understanding the true orientation of your real body. This is virtual reality 101. Everyone learns that in school so they never become too immersed in the games. Normally, that would be pretty easy. She should be lying down at a 45-degree angle, her arms at her sides, or resting on her chest. But Audrey is making that more complicated, so Sable has to find it. She sits down on a cargo crate. She closes her eyes, and starts by guessing. Audrey is probably sitting like this, with her knees tight together, but her feet wide apart, so she can lean over to see her subject past the canvas. Which hand is dominant? She tries both, pantomining holding a brush. It’s up, it’s down a little, it’s up higher. She keeps moving with these microadjustments, lowering her fake heart rate, and keeping herself calm, breathing like a woman in labor.

The brush materializes in her hand. The real environment resolves, and she’s back. She’s in the art studio, sitting behind the easel. The painting has barely been started, and it may never be finished. The plan has changed. She stands and looks at Waldemar. He’s dressed ridiculously, and posed on a holographic mountain, like he’s nearly at the summit. “I’m not finishing this until you divorce your wife.”

He turns his head slightly to look at her, but maintains his pose. He doesn’t seem the least bit surprised, or annoyed at her. “Consider it done.”

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