The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 29, 2573

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Olimpia was back on Earth and back in Sri Lanka. With all the confusing time travel, she couldn’t remember how long it had been, but the last time she was home was centuries ago. When she was a child, she developed her echo affliction. Everything she said was copied and sent fractions of a second into the future. She couldn’t stop it. Her family was bewildered and scared. They had no context for it. Their best guess was that she had two sets of vocal cords, or that they could somehow vibrate two different sounds at the same time. They didn’t know, but the doctors did. They knew that she was a perfectly normal human, biologically speaking. There was no explanation for her voice.

Her parents didn’t demand that she stop speaking, but they definitely encouraged it. They learned and taught her sign language, and actively used that to communicate with her. Again, they didn’t force her to keep quiet, but whenever she asked a question, if she didn’t use her hands, they still would in response. She became self-conscious about it to the point where she eventually gave up and gave in. She became a full-time signer. She wasn’t fully mute, but she didn’t want to make people feel uncomfortable.

She was an excellent student, and probably could have gone on to a higher education institution. She maybe could have become as smart as Leona, or even Ramses, but she chose not to. When she was sixteen years old, she emancipated herself through the courts, left home, and left the country. Her parents didn’t beg her to stay, but they weren’t happy for her either. They just...basically said, “okay” and that was the last time she saw them. She lived alone for years as she wandered the world.

By then, national borders had become more of logistical zones for administrative maintenance rather than divisions. If you lived in Ethiopia, it was probably because that was where your progenitors lived, and there was no reason to leave, because there were no fewer opportunities there than anywhere else. People stopped moving and traveling for the most part, because if they wanted to join a community on the other side of the world, they could do it through telepresence or VR. Olimpia only kept moving around because her upbringing turned her into a loner. She could have been happy in a simulated world, where her echoism couldn’t follow. But she had to get away from Sri Lanka, and once she did that, nowhere else felt like home either, so she kept going.

Sri Lanka was empty now. According to the data, only a few thousand people still lived here, in its one remaining arcological megastructure tower. It would be so unlikely that anyone in her family was still around. She would have to find them elsewhere, if they were still alive. They weren’t even necessarily on Earth. The global population had been dwindling for decades. Everyone was apparently moving to Castlebourne and Varkas Reflex. Even so, it was the right move, coming back. It was at least cathartic.

A man walked up from behind her. “She doesn’t know how she’s meant to feel about it. On the one hand, it’s clearly sad. It’s the end of an era, and it won’t be the last one. It is a pretty big one, though. Humans have always been on Earth. The idea that it may one day just be empty again is pretty surreal. But also beautiful and poetic. A safe haven for wildlife. It’s fitting, it should end like this. The planet is closing its loop.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know you. If you could stop reading my mind, that would be great,” Olimpia requested. She didn’t want to be rude, but she was annoyed and nervous.

The man smiled and nodded. “The man smiled and nodded. He wasn’t really reading her mind. It was more like he was channeling her thoughts. He couldn’t help himself. It was his curse, just as Olimpia’s curse was to echo. She had somehow been cured, though, and her brother, Delfinus, was extremely interested in learning how.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 27, 2571

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When Mateo returned to the timeline the next year, his little ship was sitting on Earth’s moon. It was absolutely not unheard of for an unmanned vessel to show up like that, so no one questioned it. They would have scanned it for threats, then left it alone on the dock. It was particularly believable since it came from Varkas Reflex, where a lot of people no longer had physical bodies. Even if it was from elsewhere, some people lived exactly like that, in their ship’s core memory, with no physical body. He fit right in.

Mateo teleported out of the vessel, and to the middle of space, where he continued to teleport until he was back on Earth, hopefully having never been detected by any sensors. He was now where Topeka once stood. Through the dense canopy of the forest, the nearest arcology rose into the sky. Instead of teleporting there too, he decided to go the rest of the way on foot. Once he passed through the treeline, he saw that there was something different about it. It was much smaller than a normal megastructure. Giant cranebots were either assembling it or disassembling it. No, they were definitely disassembling it. He looked around for someone to query about this, but saw no one.

He jumped to Kansas City instead, where he found a normal tripod, still standing at full attention in the woods. It felt different, though. He couldn’t explain it. It was sort of quieter, maybe? He walked inside, and up to the information kiosk. “Hello. I was just in Topeka, but before that, I was off-world for centuries. They were taking one of the arcologies apart. What can you tell me about that?”

The man smiled, and it did look like an organic man, but there was no way to know these days without asking, which might have been rude. “The global population is decreasing. If you have returned to the homeworld for a permanent stay, you are in the minority. People are leaving. Many are going to Varkas Reflex, still more to Castlebourne. Others go to Gatewood to start their own colonies wherever.”

“And are we happy about this, or sad?” Mateo pressed.

“A bit of both, the informer replied. “It’s the end of an era. Earth was once all there was, of course. Are you old enough to remember that?”

“Vividly,” Mateo answered. “I was born in 1986.”

“Ah. I was born in 1985. Respect your elder, son,” he joked. “Well, it’s bittersweet, but many look back and see this as inevitable. Once we decided to rewild our lands, there was no stopping it. What relative few buildings are left take up space where wildlife cannot grow. The footprint is small, but not zero. Each one taken down adds a slight amount of life back into the world. Pushing those boundaries is an enticing proposition. What if we removed all human presence? What if we returned Earth to the way it was millions of years ago? We’re not specifically trying to go that extreme, but again, a lot of people think it’s trending towards that, whether we like it or not. We still boast the greatest population in the galaxy, but we may not be able to say that forever.”

Mateo looked around the atrium. “It will become a museum. Your population will never reach zero. The lower it goes, the more people will want to come here to see such a low-populated Earth. Which will defeat the purpose, so they’ll leave. Back and forth.”

The informer smiled again. “Like Gaia breathing.”

“Like Gaia breathing,” Mateo echoed in agreement.

“Matt!” he heard Leona’s voice call up to him from behind.

He turned around. “Hello, love. Sorry I had to go.”

Leona caught up to him. “It’s not just you. Romana is leaving too.”

Mateo nodded solemnly. “I thought she might. Is she here too?”

“I’m not even here. I projected my hologram from home. You need to come back.”

“I can’t go alone,” Mateo reasoned. “I only have one, uhh...” He realized the informer was listening to them, so he couldn’t finish that sentence.

Leona nodded. “Rambo had trouble tracking you, so we sent out a remote search party, which led us to VR, which led us to Loa, who told us where you went, so we started another search for you on Earth. Now here I am. Three of us will come get you.”

“Thanks. I love you, and I’m sorry.” He turned back. “Thank you too.”

The informer gently shut his eyes and nodded his head respectfully.

Mateo went outside to a secluded part of the woods. Marie, Olimpia, and Ramses appeared hours later, but not through a sling portal. They simply materialized, which suggested that they went somewhere else first. He chose not to ask about it, in case they were mad. He synced his slingdrive with theirs, and they all went back to Ramosus.

Romana had gathered everyone in the lab already, so they stepped out of the slingdrive chamber, and took a seat with the others. Well, Mateo stayed standing.

“I spoke with Loa,” Romana began. “I know where Boyd is.”

“Did you try to reconnect with him?” Mateo asked her.

“No. She would not have let me, and I probably shouldn’t,” Romana went on. “I’m not going to apologize or tell you that I regret what I did. Perhaps one day I will, but not today, and not here. I have to leave. There are too many hard feelings right now. Things spiraled quickly, and I definitely regret that at least. We were a team, and I put that all at risk. Don’t...interrupt, please. That’s how I feel, and I don’t think I can get better around you. If I try to stay and repair things now, I fear it will only be duct tape.

“The distance is what will bring us back. Distance in space, and in time. I will be back. I don’t know when, but I don’t wanna leave you forever, and I need you to believe that, because it’s true. I’m angry and hurt, but not bitter. Some of the blame belongs to you, some to our various opponents, and of course, I’m responsible for a great deal of it.”

“Where will you go?” Mateo asked. “Sorry if you’ve already answered that.”

“Earth, actually. When Ramses was there, he installed a forge core at an undisclosed location, which will generate a mirror slinglab for us. This will allow anyone to go back and forth without having to be in an array. But I won’t be sticking around the lab. I may not even stay on Earth for very long, and I don’t want any of you to follow. I don’t want you to try to convince me to come home, or even just look out for me. I want to be alone. I have to be alone. I hope you understand, especially you, dad.”

Mateo nodded. He obviously understood why she couldn’t stay here after all this. When she said she would be back, she probably meant it, but would she still feel the same way tomorrow? A week from now? Years into the future? Was this the last time they would see her? “I won’t argue or stop you, I really won’t. You can’t ghost us, though. We need to know that you’re okay. You don’t have to check in every single day—that would be way too much—but we do need proof of life, periodically. Can you do that?”

Romana smiled sadly and nodded. “I can do that. Maybe once a week.”

“Thank you,” Mateo said graciously. “If you need a ship, I left one on the moon.” He handed her his dock token. “I love you. If you can’t say that back right—”

“I love you,” Romana interrupted. “I love all of you. We’ll get through this. I promise.” After hugging them one by one, she stepped into the slingdrive chamber and nodded at Ramses. Once he finished tapping on his console, she disappeared.

“Did you tag her as we discussed,” Leona asked, “so we can always find her?”

Ramses took a very long time to respond. “No.”

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Microstory 2489: Coasterdome

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It’s the largest amusement park in the known universe. Varkas Reflex has some pretty crazy stuff, but there’s not as much diversity with their rides. When I say that this one is the largest, that doesn’t mean it takes up the whole dome. In fact, I believe they intentionally left room for expansion, basing their future plans on feedback from the fans. So I’ll use this space to discuss my ideas. First off, the rides they have are great. I have no notes on them. There are so many of them, and they’re all different, and there are hardly any lines, and people just kind of naturally spread out. One thing is when you show up, you’re transported to a different entrance using an underground local vactrain network. So I think they were always aware of the concern for bottlenecking, and deliberately assign you an area to start with. It’s not like you’re not allowed to travel as far as you want, but this helps with overcrowding. I will say that as far as the layout itself goes, there doesn’t really seem to be any sense of organization, which I think is probably a consequence of this multi-entrance thing. There’s no dedicated area for the slower rides, or one which aren’t really rides at all, but still belong in an amusement park. There’s no gaming zone, or eating establishment neighborhood. They’re all spread out, and the map is hard to get a handle on. It’s interactive, so you can tell it what you’re looking for, and it will give you options, and show you the directions, so it’s not like all hope is lost. I dunno, I guess this is how they’ve designed it, and there’s no changing it now. As far as new rides are concerned, you could take the megaengineering aspect of Castlebourne more seriously. I propose a drop tower right in the center that goes all the way up to the apex of the dome. That’s 41.5 kilometers, in case you forgot. It would be the most impressive ride I’ve ever heard of. You could also go to the other axis, and design a coaster that flies around the whole perimeter without any lulls. It would be like the trains in Eldome, but much faster. Of course, organies might face health and safety issues with a ride that long, or a drop tower that tall, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t exist. You just tell people who can’t handle it that they can’t go. I already came up with some great names for these new rides, but I don’t want to share them here, because I don’t want someone to steal them. Perhaps you’re already thinking about these things, I just thought I would offer a few ideas. You can even contact me if you want more. I got loads of ‘em. I’m kind of famous in certain circles for designing the craziest of rides in VR. I have a bit of a following, no big deal. But I’m just telling you that I do have experience, and I’m not just some rando. HMU, if you want.

Microstory 2447: Terminator Track

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This isn’t a dome. It might be, in fact, the only thing that you can do on this rock that isn’t. It’s basically this big wide train that goes around and around the circumference at a certain latitude. They told me exactly how far from the North Pole and equator we were, but I can’t remember. The point is that the time never changes when you’re on the terminator track. It might be sunrise, sunset, magic hour, or twilight, and as long as you stay put, it will remain as such until the solar system collapses, or the track goes out of commission....whichever comes first. I’ve only seen sunrise and sunset, but I heard that magic hour isn’t that great since the atmosphere is so thin. I think they’re planning on adding more trains in between these, so it can always be night, or always be day. I’m not sure why you would want that exactly, but to each their own, right? This is a cool concept that they’ve tried on a few other planets. Varkas Reflex has something very similar, but the train is of a very different layout, and I think the capacity is a lot smaller, because it’s an older design, and the megastructural engineering capabilities weren’t quite there yet. Or the size of the one here on Castlebourne is the result of natural advancement. They made it bigger very deliberately because they wanted it to be bigger. If the Varkas one had been built to this scale, this one would be even bigger. Anyway, you get the gist. You sit on the train, and watch the sunrise. And watch it. And watch it. The show never ends. Again, it’s a cool concept, but if you stare at it long enough—even though you’re going, like, a thousand kilometers per hour—it starts to look like a painting. Well, I can go look at a painting of a sunset whenever I want. Do you have any idea how many paintings there are of sunsets? I couldn’t tell you, but look it up, and then multiply it by several times, because some people will paint a sunset, and then not show it to anyone else, so whatever’s in the records is probably an underestimation. As you can see, I’m a bit of a tangentist. There’s just not much I can say about Terminator Track. I don’t think it’s any better than just setting your smartwindow to show a hologram of a sunset at will. Actually, it’s worse, because again, Castlebourne has such a thin, dusty atmosphere, so just remember that before you board. When you think about it, it doesn’t make much sense, even if they thickened the atmosphere, and created some of that Rayleigh scattering. Part of the beauty of a sunrise or sunset is watching it change from one state to the other. Yeah, they’re pretty colors, but seeing them appear and disappear is part of what made humans like them in the first place. This is just static...like a painting. That’s the way I see it anyway. I’m not gonna tell you not to come here. I’ve not gotten into any specifics, but they have a restaurant, and several lounges. You can watch the domes fly by too if you go to the side viewports, so that’s another thing. I see this spot as a one-time destination, not something you frequent, except maybe if you’re on a romantic date, or something. Or, like I said, you could just tell your nearest smartwindow to show whatever you want. In fact, I bet the trains have cameras, which you can tap into, allowing you to watch it remotely anyway.

The Seventh Stage: Painting Rocks (Part V)

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Echo is standing in front of the blue wall, painting wispy white clouds on it, paying close attention to details. It would look complete to anyone else, but to him, the work is never done. He can always add one more curve...one final flourish.

Clavia walks up to him. “There you are. What are you doing?”

“Painting this wall. It ain’t gonna paint itself,” Echo replies, still watching what he’s doing.

“It’s literally going to paint itself,” she counters.

He smiles. “I know. Sometimes I just need a break to unwind. Like you with your little headplays.”

She nods. “Fair enough.”

“What’s the count?”

“Three thousand, seven hundred and four.”

He drops his elbow, and looks over at her. “Technically at quota. We’re ready for move-in.”

“Like you said, in the technical sense. We still need to figure out how to convince a supermajority to do it, or it’s not really helpful.”

“We also need to figure out how to do it without loading everyone onto a proverbial bus, and driving them here.”

“It’s time to talk to Cedar,” Echo realizes. They have been dreading this day for a long time. They like him, but they don’t know how he’s going to react or respond to this news. There are whispers that the Cloudbearer twins are building something, but no one knows what, and all of their guesses are wrong; though off by varying degrees. Cedar ran his campaign for power on a foundation of intercivilizational unity. He believes that the only way to keep the Reality Wars at bay is if there’s no one to fight against, because everyone is on the same side. The amount of space between people in this universe could tear them apart. It’s the distribution. Cedar is probably gonna have trouble with the distribution.

“Yeah, we have no choice. Do you think he’ll be mad we didn’t read him into the situation earlier?”

“He’s serving as Head Advisor to our parents,” Echo replies. “He was too preoccupied to worry about this. That can be our excuse for keeping it a secret from him.”

“Good idea.” Clavia takes her brother’s hand, and transports them both to what essentially amounts to a holodeck, though on a much grander scale. They’re standing on an island floating in the air. At least, that’s what it looks like to them. It’s just an illusion. The “air” around them is clear purplish water. They can still breathe, of course, and talk just fine. The sky above is much more unambiguously an ocean. It’s upside down. Waves jut down, and spray a sweet misty rain down towards them. Some of it tastes like chocolate, other drops like honey. Their feet are planted firmly on the ground, though they feel like they could float away at any second. All around them are crystalline structures, also purple, since that is the theme. A stream gives way to a waterfall that slips over the edge, and disappears into the oblivion below, though again, it’s just invisible floor. Between them and the sky are giant turtles, swimming around. One of them nods and winked before moving on.

They aren’t alone on this floating island. They summoned Cedar, and are currently patiently waiting for him to get his bearings in this new world. “This breaks the laws of physics,” he notes. “I’m assuming it’s not real?”

“No,” Echo replies. “Our powers do have some limits.”

“You’ve been gone for nearly a month,” Cedar points out.

Clavia smirks. “We’ve been gone longer than that.”

“Framejacking, or temporal acceleration?”

“Both,” Echo answers. Time is moving faster in this universe, so more gets done in a shorter amount of time in comparison to the Sixth Key, but their own minds are also operating at much higher speeds, allowing them to think and act more quickly.

“This is what you’ve been working on?”

Echo laughs. “This took only a few seconds to construct. We got the idea from Castlebourne. Most of the domes on that world are physical, except for the holographic sky. One of them is nearly all holography. You can make it look like anything. We chose this today. Isn’t it cool?”

“Yeah,” Cedar agrees. “What am I doing here, though?”

Echo clears his throat. “What is the number one cause of tension and conflict in the Sixth Key?”

Cedar dismisses his words with a wave of his hand. “Don’t pitch me. Just tell me what you’ve done, and what you want. You’re gonna need to learn this for when you take over in a more meaningful sense. We’re in charge of undecillions of people back home. No one has time to beat around the bush or be polite about it.”

“Very well,” Echo decides. He reaches up and pantomimes pulling a stage curtain open. As he does so, a tear in the hologram appears in the far, far distance. Behind it, they see what looks like regular outerspace, but as the curtains separate even farther, a figure appears. It looks like a big metal statue of a humanoid, or perhaps just a big robot. It’s hard to tell what scale they’re working with here, so Echo has to explain. “Have you ever heard of the matrioshka body?”

“I have,” Cedar confirms. “I went to a sort of school like you did. That’s where the afterlife simulation was housed, before it collapsed, and everyone was transported into Fort Underhill. The Sixth Key shares interdimensional space with them now. I never knew what happened to matrioshka body, though. That it?”

Echo shakes his head. “That. Is MB-3704.”

Cedar laughs. “You made your own? That’s impressive.”

Echo and Clavia exchange a look. “He said it was three-seven-zero-four.”

Cedar is confused, but only for half a second. Then his face drops into a frown. “You made 3700 of these things?”

“Yeah,” Echo says.

Cedar starts to pace around and shake his head, almost in disappointment. “Why? What do they do?”

“Well, they...have people live in them.”

“Who lives in them?”

“No one yet, that’s what we’re asking you for.”

“Asking me for what?” Cedar questions. “I told you, get to the point. Stop trying to be dramatic.”

“We need you to transport everyone from the Sixth Key who wants to live here. Send them all to their new homes...all at once.”

“I can’t do that!” he cries.

“We’re gonna let them consent,” Clavia defends. “We’re not gonna make anyone move, but this will be better, and I think there will be a ton of interest.”

“Think about it,” Echo begins before Cedar can make another argument. “There are hundreds of billions of stars, but we don’t have enough resources for everyone. How is that possible? Because stars radiate a ton of their energy away, even with dyson swarms. Matrioshka brains are more comprehensive, and more efficient. And matrioshka bodies are just stylish and cool.” Honestly, I don’t know why no one ever thought of it before. I thought that was the point of the original matrioshka body, and its successor, Big Papa.” There ought to be far more than two of these in existence. The Parallel was more than capable of doing it, but they chose not to. They still orbited stars. Even the interstellar settlements were quite literally few and far between. Why? Why keep the stars? Aesthetics? Safety? Ethics? Probably all of the above. Or. Echo and Clavia are just that clever.

“That’s not my point. I literally can’t do it. I don’t have that kind of power.”

Echo and Clavia are both confused. “What are you talking about? You already did it. You moved them all from their original realities, to the Sixth Key.”

“No, I didn’t.” He starts to look around on the ground. Guessing at his needs, Echo manifests a chair for him to sit in. Cedar hunches over and stuffs his face in his palms. “That wasn’t me. I didn’t do any of that.”

“What? It had to have happened,” Clavia argues. “Everyone’s there.”

“I’m not saying that it never happened,” Cedar tries to explain. “I’m telling you that I didn’t do it. I have powers, but not like that. That’s insane.”

“Then who did?” Echo asks him.

Cedar looks up to meet Echo’s gaze. “I have no idea. They didn’t tell me. They have to keep it a secret, even from me and my family, even now that it’s done. We were...a misdirect. It’s like sleight of hand. We were the left hand that distracted everyone so no one would see what the right hand was doing. I don’t know if anyone knows who saved everyone during Reconvergence. All I know is that it wasn’t me.” He pauses before adding, “I just took credit, per my instructions.”

Echo and Clavia manifest their own chairs to sit in. They sit there in silence for a good five minutes before Echo decides to speak again. “Time is not linear. If something exists at any moment, it exists in all moments. If you know something about the past, you can change it. Keeping it a secret was smart. Even if someone were to go back and kill you as a child, it wouldn’t stop the creation of the Sixth Key. You’re like a bodyguard, there to take a bullet if one ever comes flying through. That’s how I would have done it if I were there.”

“Maybe you were,” Cedar reasons. “Maybe you two are the ones who created the Sixth Key; you just haven’t done it yet from your own perspectives.”

They exchange another look. Clavia decides to explain. “There’s a small group of people on a planet in the Sixth Key who are aware of what we’ve been up to. Just a few billion people. They were our test group. We’ve already tried to transport them to our new universe. We don’t have that kind of juice either. Stars are easy. Giant metal statues are easy. Moving people? That requires a level of precision that we do not possess; not with hordes anyway. We could probably move them a couple thousand at a time, but that’s all but useless for our needs. That’s a meaningless rounding error compared to the total population.”

“What about Ellie Underhill?” Echo asks after another bout of silence. “I don’t remember how many she transported into Fort Underhill.”

“It was only 120 billion,” Cedar replies. “Not quite a rounding error, but still not good enough. Besides, she gave them all new bodies; it was a whole different animal.”

“So what we’re saying is that we need to find the person who actually did move everyone from the five realities to the Sixth Key. We need them to do it again.” Clavia starts to pace. Finding someone out there in the abstract is not something that she’s ever done before. She always knows who she’s targeting, or roundabouts where they are. This is a mystery individual, who might be in either of two universes—or, hell, maybe neither of them. They could have also done it subconsciously, like how Echo lived before he became self-aware and realized his true potential. Maybe it’s not just one person. Maybe it was a group, or somehow everyone. Maybe through the spirit of survival every single living organism consolidated their untapped collective power into one brilliant miracle. Ugh, Clavia doesn’t know, but you know who would?

“Hey, boys!”

Echo nearly falls out of his chair, but catches himself by spreading his feet apart. He stumbles away from her. “Debra. How did you get out?” She still looks like his sister. She’s still occupying that body, and nothing about it has changed. But Echo knows. He would always know. “What did you do to Clavia?”

“Relax, she’s still in here; on the first stage. She gave me control of the body, because you need me.”

“I need you for what?”

“I can find your mysterious god-being,” Debra spits back like he’s an insignificant little ant on the ground. “I found you, didn’t I? You were alone on a nothing planet in the middle of the universe. I knew exactly where you were. I intuited that you existed in the first place.”

“We can’t trust you,” Echo contends.

“Believe it or not, I’ve changed. Living with those people, doing those plays...it’s changed me. I’m no hero, but I’m not a villain anymore either. Clavia maintains full veto power. She can come back whenever she wants.”

“Prove it. Let me talk to my sister again. And don’t try to trick me, I’ll know.”

“I know.” Debra actually does what is asked of her, and temporarily returns control of the body to Clavia.

“She’s not exactly right,” Clavia says. “She doesn’t need my body, she needs my brain.”

“Can’t you just do it? You have all her power, don’t you?”

“It’s more complicated than that. You would understand if you could be inside my head. You would get it if you could see the construct that I’ve constructed.”

Echo steps forward, and places a hand on each of Clavia’s shoulders. “I bet I can. Show me. I think it’s about time that I meet your little brain buds.”

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Microstory 2434: Canopydome

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Around the turn of the 22nd century, a major effort began to rewild Earth. Most of the population were moving to megastructure arcologies, seasteads, and space habitats. The cities of old were taking up space where life could be thriving instead. By now, the amount of horizontal space that humans take up is practically negligible. But these endeavors weren’t the very beginning of it. Closer to the middle of the 21st century, people were fed up with how their ancestors had treated the planet. They hadn’t even considered bulldozing entire cities yet, but they still knew that more needed to be done to recover the ecosystems that had already been destroyed. In particular, they were worried about the Amazon rainforest. So many trees had been taken down, and with them, the little critters that used that region as a home. They fought back against corporate greed, and began to restore what was lost. This was during the beginnings of worldwide universal basic income programs, so it was easier to push back against certain institutions. Four hundred years later, not only can we restore whole ecosystems, but create them from scratch. That is what they’ve done here under Canopydome. While nowhere near as large as the one in South America, or other parts of Earth, it’s still nice. When an individual is standing there, under the canopy, it’s not like they can tell how expansive it is. That’s the thing about a rainforest, which sets it apart from other forested environments; you’re wrapped up in the foliage, and can’t see very far. When you’re in it, it feels like this is all there is, and if you’re alone, you feel that too. At the moment, there isn’t much fauna in Canopydome, so the animal calls you hear are from hidden speakers, but I was promised that this will change in the future as more organisms are bioengineered to sustainable levels. They explained how there is actually another rainforest dome, but it’s not at all accessible to the public. It only exists to introduce various species to a comparable environment, and let them figure out how to survive on Castlebourne, before anyone shows up to gawk at them. Apparently, there are a lot of domes like this which serve this purpose. That makes sense. Regenesis is a delicate process, and slow if you wanna do it right. They could make them as realistic automatons instead, but I think they want to be as authentic as possible. One of the reasons they’re doing this is to preserve life, not just so it appears that life exists here. If you’re afraid of large animals, my advice is to come here now before they show up. In contrast, if you want to see those animals, then I advise you to wait. We’re probably talking about five or ten years depending on your definition of the climax community—or more appropriately their definition of it.

Microstory 2433: Tokyo 2077

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Did you ever go to Tokyo, Japan in the year 2077? Well...welcome back! I don’t know exactly why they chose this year for their recreation. I looked it up, there’s no Tokyo 2042, or Tokyo-Yokohama 2115. Maybe it’s random, or maybe the creator has some particular affinity for this city in this time period. They may have just as easily chosen 2075 or 2078; I dunno. I did find something when I searched for answers in the central archives that the year 2077 was used in a surprisingly great number of media, but they were all set in the future, because they were created before this. So maybe it’s just a nod to that, because the robot staff aren’t telling me anything. They just say, this is Tokyo 2077, have at it. I think I may know why Tokyo was chosen, though. At the turn of the 22nd century, there was a huge push towards population overcentralization. They figured out how to create megastructures that could fit hundreds of thousands of people each. They were nicer, newer, and allowed the rest of the land below to be returned to the plants and animals. They built these things several miles away from the population centers of the time, so people didn’t have to move very far, and once the old cities were emptied out, they could start to bulldoze them over. Tokyo was one of the last holdouts, and not because they hated pandas. There were a number of reasons, but the main one was that they were already so densely packed. There was no room to build the damn thing nearby, especially when competing against other priorities, like preexisting wildlife preserves, and historically protected settlements. They also wanted to build it near the ocean, because people love the water, and all that space was taken up, because like I literally just said, people love the water. Plus, the population by then in the Tokyo Metropolis was already so huge, one of these arcologies barely made a dent anyway. They needed a lot more to make any bit of difference. As I mentioned, it eventually merged with Yokohama, forming one gigantic city that wasn’t going anywhere soon. People eventually did move out, to seasteads, orbitals, interplanetary and interstellar colonies, and to just other parts of the world, but it took longer than anywhere else to find room to construct the megastructures. Anyway, if you have some particular interest in seeing what Tokyo looked like a few decades before this great transition—or in reminiscing—come check it out. There’s plenty to do here, but the theme isn’t any narrower than the city as a whole. It’s only a replica with robots simulating people living their everyday lives, so no one’s going to give you anything specific to do. People are starting to treat it like a violent video game, and destroying the androids like criminal thugs. I don’t know why it’s a growing trend in this particular dome, because the planet is riddled with non-self-aware droids, but you can try that if you have a lot of pent-up aggression. Be yourself, I guess.

Microstory 2415: Underburg

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Around 400 years ago, advances in materials science allowed for truly gargantuan structures to be built with complete structural integrity. We were constructing buildings that rose kilometers into the sky. Hundreds of thousands of residents could now live in an area once fit only for a thousand or two people. They called them megastructure arcologies for their efficient population densities, low environmental impact, and self-sustainability. No one forced anyone to move to these places, but they were the most logical. Instead of taking a vehicle or train from Point A to Point B, you mostly only needed an elevator. People used to have tons of belongings, but with advanced computing and virtual simulations, as well as component miniaturization, material possessions no longer seemed so relevant. Your unit stopped being a place where you lived, and began to serve only functional purposes. You lived in virtual constructs, and needed only a minimal amount of realspace for your physical components. Even so, the entire point to Castlebourne is being able to spread out how you want. You see, the reason we wanted to concentrate our population on Earth was so that we could give the majority of the land area back to wilderness. Animals can’t live in high-rise apartments—at least not intentionally, anyway. We have more choices. We figured that it was only fair that we do everything we can to stay out of their way, and let them be. Castlebourne started out as an uninhabitable planet, which had to be paraterraformed in order for it to be habitable. We’ve done this to many other colonies, but never before at this scale. There was no life here before we arrived. In fact, we’ve added life. The same rules about verticalization don’t apply here. We’re free to stretch our legs, especially since there’s a ton more land area overall, what with the oceans being confined to the poles. Underburg doesn’t have many people here yet, but I’m sure it will expand. Unlike other domes, it’s not populated by androids meant to simulate human life. I mean, sure, there are robots here to help us get things done, but it’s clear who they are. They’re not trying to blend in. If you conduct a search for 21st century suburbia, it will look just like Underburg does. Big houses; big green, perfectly manicured lawns; garages with two cars in them. Don’t worry, they run on electricity, supplied by fusion reactors. And we don’t have a history of racism and elitism. It’s not about recapturing the lifestyle of Old Earth. It’s about living in a neighborhood of like-minded individuals, watering your flowers in front of the walkway, and waving to each other as you leave for the day. We go to work. Nothing needs to get done, but we do it anyway, because that’s what we find enjoyable. If you think you might like it too, why don’t you come move to Underburg? Yes, it’s a little unsettling with all these empty houses, but it won’t get better unless more people take the leap. We need more residents! Come on, you know you want to.

Extremus: Year 74

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A year later, and Tinaya is still made of glass, but she’s doing okay, and adjusting to her new life. Solid walls no longer faze her. She’s gotten used to walking right through them whenever she needs to. She’s not technically phasing through them though, as one would conventionally picture a superhero’s atoms curving around the object’s atoms without interacting. It’s more like she makes the atoms disappear, even while they appear to still be present. There is a time when the house that Belahkay built for him and Spirit is standing there by the river. And there is a time when that house isn’t there at all; it doesn’t exist yet. What Tinaya does when she’s passing through the wall is steal little bits of spacetime from the past, specifically the mostly empty air that was once occupying the area that is now occupied by the wall. While it may look like Tinaya and the wall exist in the same point simultaneously, a clever bit of time travel allows her to become the only solid object in that moment. There has only ever been one recorded case of someone with this temporal ability. It was reported in the early 23rd century, on a ship called the Sharice Davids, but this was never confirmed.

While Tinaya was learning to accept her new physiological situation, she also needed to accept her new life in general. She is on a planet in the middle of nowhere with almost no hope of reconnecting with her friends and family back on Extremus. They considered manufacturing a long-range communications device of some kind, but ultimately decided against it. The True Extremists who now live somewhere kind of close to this area are under the impression that Verdemus was destroyed. There could be spies from this civilization amongst the people of the ship. They were there before; there could be more who have as of yet not been found. Even if they’re all eventually rooted out, the nature of time travel places all intel at risk at any other point in time. It simply isn’t safe to return, if the people on the ship could even find a way to backtrack. This is their home now, and they are better off acknowledging that. Tinaya has finally managed to do that today. She’s in a good place, and ready to move forward. Today is also the first day that she’s going to speak with the prisoner.

Everyone had a job to do on this planet in the beginning, but thanks to Belahkay’s extensive understanding of automated engineering, they don’t have to do a single thing at all anymore. Agricultural robots tend the fields. Kitchen robots make the food. Construction robots build the structures. This is like a permanent vacation. Of course, automation is the name of the game back in the stellar neighborhood too, but people still pursue goals. There’s no way to advance the human race here, though, so the simple life is the only rational pursuit. There is still plenty that they’re missing. The boy’s mother, Lilac was assigned to be Hock Watcher for their one prisoner, who was not fit to serve his time on Extremus, where he might be discovered by someone who was not aware of the persistent human presence on this world. Since her job was mostly incredibly boring, she was allowed to bring the majority of central archives, including the grand repository and the core compendium, with her. She was not, however, given copies of any of the virtual stacks. She wouldn’t be very good at watching if she were spending time in a simulation. Niobe was living too simple of a life in Exin territory where she was a slave-in-training, so she’s been eager to learn computers now, hoping to one day build the Verdemusians virtual worlds to explore. Tinaya isn’t worried about that right now, not only because there’s still plenty they don’t know about this world, but also because all she can think about is Ilias Tamm.

“First Chair Leithe, you’ve finally come.”

“I’m not First Chair anymore,” Tinaya volleys.

“I don’t see it that way.”

“You better. My chances of going back to that ship aren’t much higher than yours.” She looks around at his four walls.

“I’m holding out hope,” Ilias says cryptically.

She sighs. “Why did you ask to see me?”

“That explosion killed most of the people who were living here.”

“The explosion that you caused,” she reminds him.

He shuts his eyelids. “I’m not arguing that. I’m stating a fact to lead to a point.”

“Well, get on with it.”

“The Hock Watcher is the only survivor, besides the children, who know nothing. Many secrets died with the rest of the victims. Why do you think I was here?”

“You wanted a pardon for your father.”

He smirks. “It was more than that. I wanted you on these lands, so you could uncover those secrets. Yes, I wanted to restore my father’s name, but it will do him no good, since he’s already dead.”

“What are you saying, there’s a conspiracy of some kind?”

“Well, we’re talking about Extremus; of course there’s a conspiracy. You’re part of at least two of them. How’s Thistle doing, last you spoke with him? Still one hundred percent sentient?”

“No comment.” He isn’t supposed to know about that.

He doesn’t mind her stonewalling him. “Tell me, what is the purpose of the Extremus mission? What are we trying to do?”

“We’re trying to find a home in the farthest reaches of the galaxy.”

Ilias flinches as if that’s a bad answer. “Why? What’s the point of that?”

“It has its intrinsic value. The mission is the mission.”

This makes him laugh. “That’s a nice tautology, but it’s bullshit. Everyone who started this is dead now, and they mostly did not pass their motivations onto the latter generations. My bloodline is an exception. And I’ll explain it to you, if you want.”

“Only if you’re not lying...”

He nods slightly. “Operation Starseed is a secret subprogram under Project Stargate, designed to seed human-based life all over the galaxy, starting from the stellar neighborhood, and propagating outwards. The galaxy is a couple hundred thousand light years wide, which means it will take about that long to reach the whole thing. The point of Extremus is quite simply...to beat ‘em to the punch. It’s a race, and Extremus is trying to win it.”

“Okay. Well, that’s a pretty cynical way to put it. What does that have to do with Verdemus anyway?”

“It has everything to do with Verdemus, as well as the Goldilocks Corridor and the True Extremists-slash Exins. The goal of the farthest reaches of the galaxy has always been vaguely defined. Who wins this race has therefore always been determined by your definition of that goal. Bronach Oaksent decided that the goal was in the past. He won the race thousands of years before any of us were born. He didn’t just beat Extremus, he beat modern Earth. Verdemus is just another off-shoot of that idea. The people who were meant to live here would have been just as much Extremusians as our descendants will be, who will exit the ship together on a hypothetical world out there.”

“No, that’s not true. The goal was a factor of the time that we were going to spend on the journey. That’s why there were nine captains planned, because it was going to last 216 years. This is not Planet Extremus, and not only because we didn’t literally call it that. We’re not even halfway across the galaxy yet.”

Ilias nods again, but more substantially. He removes a piece of paper from under his pillow, and sticks his arm through the bars. “Go to these coordinates. You’ll see what I mean. I’m right about this.”

Tinaya reluctantly accepts the sheet. “What the hell is this? What are coordinates? Is this based on the Earthan system? We’re not on Earth.”

“Turn it over,” he urges. “I stashed a satnav there that’s coded to Verdemus’ coordinate system,” he goes on when she flips it to the back where there’s a map to a second location using the settlement as the origin, and various large landmarks as points of reference.

“Why didn’t you just draw a map to the coordinates?” she asks.

“That’s about a quarter way around the world,” he explains. “I wouldn’t recommend trying to walk there.”

“The satellite up there is new,” she begins to argue. “It doesn’t have a coordinate system, because it’s just a warning station. The original ones, which would have been programmed with such a system, were destroyed by the crew of the Iman Vellani, because they might be detected by the Exin invaders.”

He shakes his head dismissively. “The data is in my satnav. It will send the program to the new satellite once you establish the link. It will take some doing, but the way I hear it, you know your way around a microchip.”

Tinaya reluctantly follows the map, and digs up the lockbox. She punches his code in, and retrieves the device that he was talking about. It does indeed take a little work to find a way to interface it with the orbiting satellite. Once she manages to do it, her window to actually use it closes up. In order for it to be able to warn them of external threats, it can’t remain in geostationary orbit, which would place it above them at all times. It’s constantly moving around the world, so she enjoys a limited amount of time before it disappears over the horizon, forcing her to wait. The good thing about this is that it can effectively map the coordinate system that it has just learned to the actual geography. A geostationary satellite would not be good enough to help her get to where she needs to be. About an hour and a half later, the coordinates are locked in, and the device receives an accurate set of directions. The easy part is over.

Tinaya walks over to Belahkay’s workshop where he’s building them something, or rather working on something that a robot will build when the plans are ready. “Hey, Tiny,” he says. That’s what he calls her.

“I need the jet.”

“The jet?” he questions, surprised. “Wadya need that for?”

“Fishing,” she lies.

“I hear the..bass is good on the..third continent.”

He slowly smiles, and twists his chin. “All right, I’ll let you have the jet, but I’m going with you.”

“No, I would like to be alone. That’s part of what I enjoy about fishing.”

“Tiny, I’ve never synthesized any fishing gear for you, and you’ve never mentioned it before. You’re obviously lying, which is fine, but I’m not letting you go off alone; you’re literally made of glass.”

“Ugh, everyone’s always saying that. It’s magic glass, I can’t break.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe you just haven’t got hitten hard enough.”

“Hitten?”

“It’s a word, don’t look it up. So how’s about it? I’m goin’, or no one’s goin’...? Or I’m goin’...?”

“Okay, fine. But don’t ask questions, I don’t have the answers. And you have to promise to not tell anyone what we find unless I tell you it’s okay.”

“Very well. Just let me run a preflight check, and we’ll go.”

They came up with a quick lie about the two of them wanting to feel like free birds, far, far away. The rest of the group bought it because they had no reason to believe that they were being deceived. The six of them spent time together, and they spent time apart. Aristotle went on a hike alone for a week a couple of months ago, and no one tried to stop him. He stayed in contact the whole time, and agreed to let an aerial sentinel drone fly over his head at all times. As mentioned before, this is basically all one big, long vacation.

The jet that Belahkay engineered is sleek and modern, but it’s not hypersonic. It will be some time before they mine the necessary raw materials to build anything like that, and it might not be necessary anyway. The point of getting halfway around the world in a few hours would be to connect people to each other. There’s no one else where they’re going. At least there shouldn’t be anyway. Perhaps that’s where Ilias is leading her. It could be a trap too, but it’s unlikely that he ever had enough power here to set anything like that up so far from the settlement. They didn’t find any preexisting jets over the course of the last two years, nor any place that they would have been manufactured. What could possibly be all the way out here?

A building, that’s what. A series of nested buildings, in fact. Belahkay lands the jet in an open field, and then they get out to walk back there. They’ve already seen it from the air, but they want to get a more detailed picture. Tinaya remembers learning about these in class. In the late 21st century, most people lived in arcological megastructures that towered over the landscape kilometers high, and could accommodate hundreds of thousands of people. But they didn’t go straight from modest highrises to this hypercondensed style of living. They gradually worked up to them. They built superblocks first, which housed hundreds of people, and later thousands. Then they upgraded to megablocks, which housed tens of thousands. What they’re seeing here is a megablock. A giant complex several stories high surrounds a courtyard, and on the inside of this courtyard is another building, shorter than the first. They just keep going like that, each layer being smaller in two dimensions than the one outside of it. In the very center is a 10,000 square meter park.

The fact that they’ve found this thing is shocking enough. It shows that the people who first came to this world weren’t just curious about the flora and fauna. They were planning to settle it with a significant human population who would never see the Extremus again, and would start a new civilization. Ilias was right, different people were making up their own definitions for the end state of the Extremus project. But that isn’t the only thing they find here. In the park is what looks like a downed jet. It seems to have crashed here many years ago. There was one apparent survivor, or maybe he had nothing to do with it. He comes out of a handcrafted structure next to the pond, and approaches to shake their hands. “Hi. Welcome to Sycamore Highfields.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 14, 2399

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Imani Pettis is a Compliance Enforcer in the Church of Daltomism. Unlike most Daltomists at her level, she began in a starter house where she could have easily been lost in the crowd. People who have risen up the ranks to be where she is today have done so after being born into more elite status. There’s a downside to this, because while it’s impossible to begin in the uppermost levels, those who start at the upper levels just under those are not always considered worthy by the general Daltomistic population. Imani garners a lot of respect, because she started at nothing, and earned her place. She belongs to what is called a Singularity Church, which basically means that she operates autonomously, and at the behest of the Primary Church. The paradox is complicated, but even though there are thousands of members of the Primary Church, they each technically belong to their own church. That is what gives them the highest elite status.

Imani attends services all over her region, which encompasses the majority of Northeast United States. She is there to ensure that the local chapters are following the Word of Dalton faithfully, and that no one in the congregation strays from the path too significantly. The point of starter houses is to determine who is worthy to move up to smaller meeting houses, which means that technically, people here don’t have to do anything The Word says. But she will still instruct the local leadership on how to guide the wandering flock towards the Mountain of Truth. It’s unclear why she has requested a meeting with Leona Matic, but Heath wanted to impress her because of what she can do for their mission, so he set it up right away.

“Madam Pettis,” Leona says with her hand outstretched. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” She shakes her hand. “You may call me Imani.”

“Thank you, Imani. How can I help you today?”

Imani looks around, and walks forward a little. “What is the purpose of this building?”

“We hope to turn it into a refugee sanctuary. It’s not quite ready. We need to inspect all of the rooms, and there are many.”

Imani nods. “How did you come to create it? Or did someone create it for you?”

Leona looks to Heath for guidance, but he isn’t giving anything away. Okay, so a building appeared out of nowhere in the middle of downtown, which threw out the whole secrecy thing. For now, Leona has been able to remain quiet about how she’s not stunned that this happened, but it may be time to change that. If she were freaking out, she would probably be telling people, and asking the public how the hell it happened. She doesn’t know how it happened, but she knows that they can’t help her. “Someone appears to have created it for us. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, and this building fits those parameters. I’ve taken it as a gift from an anonymous donor.”

Imani laughs. “An anonymous donor builds an invisible building for you, and then just suddenly makes it visible? I would like to meet the person with such power.”

She probably doesn’t need to know about the Omega Gyroscope. Whoever built it may not have known that it would be activated, and was intending to keep the Superscraper hidden for longer. Unless that person was Dalton himself, which is a plausible theory. “There are things in this world that most would not understand.”

“Yet you understand it?” Imani prods.

“Some things I know, some things I don’t,” Leona quotes a TV show.

“Quite,” Imani replies. She looks around some more, and steps a bit deeper in. “A Dark Citadel will fall from the heavens, and make its mark in the Center of World Power. The Watchers who come out of it will change the world forever, and the people shall know the Life of God.”

“Ma’am?” Heath asks vaguely.

“Word of Dalton, Book Two, Chapter Thirty-One.” She grins at him. “Yes, dear, there is a second Word of Dalton book. You have not learned enough to know it.” Pretty impressive, keeping the existence of a whole prooftext out of public knowledge, especially in this advanced informational age. She goes on, “tell me, do either of you recall the date that this building appeared?”

“March 1,” Heath replied.

“March 1, 2399.” She holds up a tablet, and navigates to the chapter in question. “Chapter 31...month three, day one. Page two,” she says as she swipes to the second page. “Paragraph three, words 99 through 137. March 1, 2399,” she repeats. Numerology: the fool’s excuse for being late.

“Interesting,” Leona says, trying not to scoff at the absurdity, knowing in the back of her mind that it’s possible that the book is telling the truth, and this has all been orchestrated to turn out exactly as Dalton wished.

“Tell me,” she repeats herself, “would you consider New York City to be the Center of World Power?”

“One could argue that,” Heath says.

“One could also argue that it’s Kansas. Perhaps the whole country is the world power, and Kansas is literally in the middle of it.”

Imani points at her. “Exactly, my child. Because that’s how Dalton’s words often go. He frequently means something literally that most would take metaphorically, or culturally. And while Daltomism began in Africa, many competing religions were started somewhere in the land which would become North America. Some believe that Kansas holds a plethora of sacred secrets. Besides, look around...would you consider this place to be a dark citadel? Why, it’s so white, I was nearly blinded by the façade when I pulled up.” She’s right. Normal arcological megastructures are painted a gray base, which can alter its tint automagically to reflect or absorb sunlight, depending on the regional climate, and current weather where it’s built. The Superscraper is shockingly white, making it stand out even more amongst all the puny little skyscrapers below, and it doesn’t appear to change colors at all. Plus, it shouldn’t really be described as a citadel.

“So this is not the structure as foretold in your...little book,” Leona says, knowing that it’s a pretty disrespectful way to word it, especially considering it may all be real.

“That was why I wanted to come here, and why I appreciate your accommodation, despite the line of others ahead of me.” It’s true, the number of people who have asked to cross the border has grown exponentially, and that is showing no signs of slowing down. Most of them likely don’t have any particular reason they want to come. They’re curious more than anything, but as soon as they find out that she was invited without any sort of waiting list, or whatever, others might start to feel a little ticked off. Hopefully Imani does not intend to ask for more than just a few answers.

“So we’re agreed that this is not the Dark Citadel?” Leona presses.

“It’s not, but that does not mean that it is not something else. Mr. Walton, tell me what you know of the False Watchers of the Other Worlds.”