Microstory 2305: Not Some Big Scam

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I finished this stage script, and that’s what I’m mostly concerned about now. The novel is great so far, but I think that has more to do with Nick’s own imaginative mind. The musical, on the other hand, is a tool. It’s one last gift from him to us, and according to these version logs, he’s been developing it pretty much the whole time he’s been here. There are certain people in the multiverse who can travel to other branes, as he calls them, but there’s no way to contact most of them out of the blue. Could you imagine how difficult that would be? I mean, none of us even knew that the bulk existed until he showed up. But this musical, it’s our one chance. It’s an opportunity to prove that he was right all along, and this was not some big scam. A man by the name of Joseph Jacobson has a magical multicolored coat, which allows him to cross these dimensional barriers. Normally, he goes wherever he wants, whenever he wants. But he can sort of be summoned if you please him with a performance that depicts his life. His story has evidently been altered and adapted so many times, it’s not a hundred percent accurate of what happened, but that’s apparently not an issue. He just wants it to be good, and worthy of his time. This script is the first step in that endeavor. With Nick gone, it will be up to us to put it into production. That’s the next chapter in my life. I’m gonna produce this play, and prove once and for all that Nick was right. So...who’s with me?

Microstory 2271: It Won’t Be Long Now

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It’s so much worse than we had imagined. After everything Nick has been through; traveling through time, bouncing around the multiverse, being trapped away from his friends, getting sick over, and over, and over again. At worst, we thought that he would be dead. That would have been horrible, but at least he would no longer be suffering. There were consequences to this blog that none of us foresaw. Learning that Nick’s organs fetched such a heavy price from a reputable and trustworthy businessman, an as-of-yet still at large basket of deplorables abducted my friend, and took him to a makeshift surgical theatre. You heard that right. There was clearly an audience to this thing. It was put together quickly, but it was made with great purpose. A surgeon tore into his body, removing both of his kidneys, his liver, his spleen, and even his gallbladder. I don’t know how much they intend to make for these stolen organs on the black market, but there’s no way these assholes aren’t going to be found. The authorities don’t have to sift through dozens of other dark web postings for organs. They only have to find the one that’s advertising miracle organs for an insanely huge amount of money. They’re going to get nothing, and then they’re going to jail. Meanwhile, my poor Nick will be dead. He’s not immortal anymore, and no one can survive losing that much of their key organs. The doctors have placed him on life support, but there is only so much they can do. These five organs are literally vital to the proper functioning of a human being. It’s true, you can donate half a liver, or one whole kidney, and be fine. Yes, you can be suffering from kidney failure, and be kept alive through regular dialysis. With the proper lifelong treatment, you can even live without your spleen or gallbladder. But you can’t survive if all of these things are ripped out of you all at once. He’s going to die if another miracle doesn’t happen, but I really don’t see that happening. Dutch is running around in a panic, opening every single door that he can find. He has even demanded keys from hospital staff for locked doors. He’s trying to make another connection to the bulk to restore the magic of Nick’s immortality for but a few minutes, just like he did when he came back here from another world. Needless to say, it isn’t working. What happened that day was a fluke. If an angel is looking out for Nick, I can’t imagine they have the inclination to do it a second time. Even so, I’m letting Dutch try, because it’s not hurting anything. Well, it is, he’s causing a disruption, but everyone here has been pretty cool. They know why he’s doing it. Me, I’m sitting at Nick’s bedside, holding his hand, and hoping that he can hear me. It’s really sad to say, but...it won’t be long now.

Microstory 2241: Me as a Weapon

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Yo, what up, kids? My name is Dutch Haines, and I won’t take up too much of your time. People have just been asking where I came from, and I thought it might make sense to clear the air. I won’t go into too many details, to protect the innocent, and even the not so innocent. Months ago, I woke up just as I normally do, and tried to leave the house to head for work. I never made it, though. I ended up in this underground bunker, apparently on another Earth. That’s what people told me anyway. It was also centuries in the future, so maybe it was our planet the whole time. Wouldn’t that be a great twist for a movie? Anyway, there’s this weird phenomenon called Westfall, which sends people to different worlds all the time. You’re not supposed to know it’s happened, but sometimes it glitches, I guess. Don’t ask me how it works. All I know is that I was sick, kind of like Nick. I was the carrier of a disease that’s harmless to humans, but deadly to an evil race of aliens who are trying to sterilize people they don’t like all over the multiverse. The natives asked to study me and my blood so they could use me as a weapon, and sadly, I believe they got their wish. I just wanted to come clean about my part in this. It’s not like I really had a choice. Maybe the Westfall thing wasn’t a glitch. Maybe I was destined to go there for that. I dunno, but I’m hoping to make up for it, so I would like to dedicate my life to service, if you’ll have me. I’ve never been one for social media, but I’ve signed up now, so maybe y’all can follow me too, and help me figure out what I can do to help the world. I’ll hand this website back over to Nick for now, though.

Microstory 2210: It Broke Him

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Hello, everyone. My name is Kelly Serna, and I am Nick Fisherman IV’s lifecare assistant. If you follow him on social, you’ll already know that. What you don’t know yet is that he’s having more trouble with this than he has let on. When I took over for his update this morning, I didn’t want to say anything, but after rereading some key full posts from days past, I’ve decided to maintain his spirit of honesty. Nick has reportedly always been fascinated with immortality. He’s come up with a number of different ways for the characters he creates to subvert death. He told me yesterday that it kind of got so out of hand that in one universe, it’s virtually impossible for anyone to die, which effectively lowered the stakes for the stories, forcing his other self—the one who is still a writer—to come up with major loopholes to the backup protocols. At this point, I believe that Nick would salute, and respectively repeat the words “Major Loopholes”. Anyway, the way he tells it, the ability to avoid death was his favorite superpower out of all of them, which was why he felt such relief when he managed to procure it for himself. When he realized that he lost this power, he felt hopeless and frustrated, and apparently fell back into his old habits, which he had exhibited when he was just a normal guy, before the multiverse opened up to him. And yes, to be clear, I one hundred percent believe that he comes from a different version of Earth, and that he is telling the truth about everything that would sound outlandish coming from anyone else. I’ve read every installment on his site, and we’ve been talking a lot about it lately, because I didn’t pay all too much attention when we worked together at the plant nursery. Nick had never warmed up to the idea of dying, for any reason. He had been planning to live forever since he was eight years old when his older sister made a casual comment that they didn’t know it was impossible just because it hadn’t happened before. Traveling to a world where he was no longer immortal was one thing. He could have still held out hope for science. But to come to realize that he was so sick, not even the most optimistic of longevity advances could save his life in time? It broke him. He doesn’t want to do this site anymore, but I have faith that he will want to return to it one day, and when he does, he will not want his daily streak to have been broken. I have his passwords, so I will continue to update you in his stead. And when he does come back, I’m sure he’ll have a lot to say about how I handled things. I hope not to disappoint him.

Microstory 2070: Godlings All The Way Down

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I’m sorry about bummin’ you all out yesterday. I’ve just been thinking a lot about my past, and my life. Why don’t I tell you a little bit about it? ‘Kay? You can read it or not. Like Superman, I grew up in Kansas. And like Superman, I had superpowers. But unlike Superman, these powers weren’t useful for flying around, rescuing people. They gave me glimpses into other worlds, which allowed me to write their stories down, and pass them off as fiction. I eventually realized that some of these stories were taking place in a universe that was located inside of my very soul. You see, that’s what all inhabited universes are; the complex development of a person’s soul, who you might call a god. We are all gods with godlings, and all godlings are gods. It’s godlings all the way down. No one knows where it ends, and no one knows where it begins. Some may want to answer such profound philosophical questions, but I am not one of them, because it would not change the way I live my life, which has always been a little less than the best I can. I’m not what you would call responsible or productive. I’ve not written any stories for a long time, because that’s not me anymore. I no longer have access to those worlds. If I did, I would be able to find Cricket and Claire. My alternate self could. He probably knows exactly where they are, and I bet he’s telling their continued story without me. He used to be able to send me messages, which we called updates, but your boring planet locks all those out. My own story is still getting out to him, but I’m lost. Alone. With all of you.

Microstory 2069: There Are No Winners

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I’m feeling bad again, but it has nothing to do with my recent infections. I’m a week away from my first day on the job at the garden, and I’m getting really nervous about it. I’ve been worshiping the porcelain god, as they say. Can you imagine what a real porcelain god would be like? Of course you can’t, you gave up religion a long time ago, because it was too interesting. That’s one upside to living on this Earth, I guess. You somehow lost the curiosity gene, but at least you don’t believe in a flying spaghetti monster. I was hoping that I would be less anxious, since I’ve not encountered very many surprising people, except for those two alien believers, but my stomach has a different idea. When I’m not running from my life, like I was when Cricket, Claire, and I were hopping all over the multiverse, I’m anxious all the time. That’s me, I’m full of anxiety. Well, that and depression. I hear “brave” people in the public eye talking about how their mental health issues are things that they’ve been battling. But for me, it has always just been suffering. It’s not a fight, it’s survival. There are no winners. All I can really do—after the medication wears off, and the therapists close the door—is get through the day. Then I get five or six hours of sleep, and wake up to get through the next day. Listen to me, being all moody and broody about life. It’s not all that bad. It’s not like I can remember every bad thing that has ever happened to me, and I can’t remember many of the good things. That would be crazy, right? Ha. Right? Who could survive that?

Microstory 1725: Bernice’s Coma

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Bernice Dossal is in a coma, or so her doctors believe. She’s showing all the signs of it, but they cannot seem to find a cause. She wasn’t in an accident, she doesn’t have an infection, she was never diagnosed with diabetes, and there are no unusual chemicals in her system. They also found no evidence that she had a stroke. Her eyes are closed, and she is unresponsive. Her body is presently in the long-term care unit of the hospital, hooked up to life-maintaining machines, her family by her side. They come in shifts, sitting with her, and talking to her, for hours. There is never not anyone in there, unless they’re taking a bathroom or coffee break. What they don’t know is that Bernice isn’t there anymore. She was whisked away to another world. It looks exactly like Earth, except that it’s been decimated by some kind of event. She doesn’t know what it was, but it was pretty bad. She realizes pretty quickly that she doesn’t need to breathe to survive, but she can breathe, and as soon as she tries, it starts to cause her problems. Her lungs tighten up, and she begins to cough. She tries to put a stop to it, but the damage has already been done. The toxins have entered her body, and they won’t go away, even when she seals her mouth shut. A small group of people in hazmat suits apparently hear the commotion, and come to her rescue. They usher her into a nearby truck, take her to a plane, fly her to a far off place, and escort her into what looks to be a bunker. They try to treat her medically, but nothing does her any good. She’s corporeal, yes, but the drugs have no effect on her system. She is not a ghost, but she’s not completely here either. Everyone is baffled, but she ends up recovering on her own. All she needed was time in a ventilated and clean environment. In a day, they’re able to debrief her.

They explain to Bernice that she’s been transported to a parallel reality. This world is much like her own, except that it exists about a year in the future. This is not their first encounter with other realities, and one thing they’ve learned is that, while global events play out differently across them, it all ends the same. A comet hits the planet, and destroys nearly all life, either by the impact itself, or the ensuing consequences, such as the now toxic atmosphere. According to their interactions with the previous reality, they’ve gathered that the oncoming event triggers some sort of breakdown in the dimensional barriers which normally maintain the multiversal structure. Some people are saved by jumping into the next reality, while others can only send and receive messages back and forth. They’ve yet to figure out how to stop it, but apparently Bernice has made contact earlier than anyone ever has before. Perhaps, if she can figure out how to get back to her real body, she can at least warn her world about it. They put their best scientists on it, even though they were originally tasked with coming up with long-term survival solutions. They decide they’ll be satisfied if they can prevent their counterparts from suffering the same fate, even if it means surrendering to their own. After weeks of study, they find the answer, and Bernice awakens, but they were evidently off with their calculations, because she soon realizes this can’t be her reality. She’s woken up about a year before she fell into the coma in the first place, which means she’s actually in the next reality over. That gives her two years to prepare for the comet, instead of one, and maybe if she can save the world from total destruction, it will alleviate a little bit of the pain she now feels from knowing she will never see her true family again.

Microstory 1610: Hypnopedia

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All universes are strange in their own way from most people’s perspective, and that’s just a product of only living in one universe for a long time before you encounter others, if you even ever do. I’m a little different, because I grew up with them, so even the stranger ones aren’t all that strange to me. Hypnopediaverse is pretty strange, though. It’s one of the few places where the bulkverse is common knowledge, and where they use the knowledge of it to their advantage. As one might assume, most universes are independent, alone, isolated. If you want to travel from one to another, you’re first going to need something powerful enough to tear a hole in the membrane that keeps it all together, and then you’re going to need some way to navigate. The first step is hard. The second step is just this side of utterly and hopelessly impossible. Very few people have the means to navigate the bulkverse. I can only do it mentally, and even then, I get lost a lot. It is simply not meant to be traveled. There are small exceptions to this rule, and it has to do with multidimensional proximity. Some universes are very close to a counterpart, like a binary star system. They refer to these as twinverses, and while I suspect they’re rare, I haven’t mapped the bulkverse, so I don’t have the data to back up my claim. After all, multi-star systems are more common than single stars, if you can believe it. It’s part of what makes Earth so special, and probably has a lot to do with its habitability. Getting back to the real story, however, when you’re talking about twinverses, you’re talking about two branes that are perpetually linked to one another, and follow the same temporal vector. The inhabitants may not be using the same calendar, but if you leave one, go to the other, and spend X amount of time there, X amount of time will have passed for those you left behind once you return.

I’m not sure how twinverses come into being, and there could be multiple reasons for this, but the thing about them is that this phenomenon has always been discovered. The residents have always eventually learned about the other side, and this is no truer than it is for Hypnopediaverse, which is a little different, because only one of the universes has a native population. The second brane that the one is attached to only contains plantlife. Whenever someone dreamfalls into it, the only people they encounter are from the main universe. This is how dreaming works, by the way. Everyone travels to other universes when they dream. It’s just that these branes are unstable, and usually only last as long as the dream does. In this case, though, the attached brane is stable, self-sustaining, and affords the dreamers a level of lucidity generally only reserved for the lucky few. Now, they could use this world to reach out and enjoy each other’s company while they’re still asleep. They actually do this sometimes; set up dates and other meetings to maximize their time. This population has decided, however, that the main purpose should be education. And not just regular school, but special skills they didn’t before know existed. The most common of these is flying like a bird, but it’s not that easy. They can fly in the dreamworld, but the skill will not transfer over to the main world. To make that happen, they have to enter yet another universe that’s only attached to the second one. That’s right, hypnopediaverse is actually a trinary system, and as far as I know, the only one of its kind. The third operates on a different temporal vector, however, which adds a level of complexity that the residents have to account for every time they dreamfall into it.

Microstory 1609: Area W

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The majority of universes don’t really allow time travel. Even if they do, it probably doesn’t occur. Which is good. Manipulating time is extremely expensive, and by that, I mean that it demands a lot of energy. It often takes so much energy that it’s not even worth it. The universes that have it, most of the time use a little loophole for this. You can go back in time, but it’s going to cost you the entire timeline. Reality will collapse behind you, and the energy that was being used to maintain that reality will simply be channeled into the new reality. Nothing has been lost, nothing has been gained, you’re just picking up a path, and moving it in a different direction. Well, I suppose that would require a little extra energy just to do, but there’s enough excess in the bulkverse to account for it. The point is that matter can neither be created nor destroyed; it just changes form, and time travel is a higher level example of this. There are some universes, however—and I believe it’s quite rare—that persist with multiple timelines. Salmonverse, for instance, has a few: The Main Sequence, The Parallel, The Third Rail, The Fourth Quadrant, and The Fifth Division. And as you now know, holding all these realities up simultaneously uses up energy, but that’s okay, because there is plenty left over; there’s just not enough for every universe to work this way. There are a few universes that take this one step further, and maintain many, many parallel realities, which do not necessarily exist because of time travel, but are more like the many-worlds interpretation of multiverse theory.

Technically, and I know this sounds contradictory, every universe does have infinite realities attached to it, but they don’t exist all at once, and they don’t last long. They’re called microrealities, and they pop up in case the true reality needs to use them, but they pop back out when they’re no longer needed, and the energy they used is transferred to new microrealities, which will in turn collapse soon thereafter. How do they come to be, and why do they collapse? Each new event comes with any number of potential outcomes. Every outcome that could exist, will exist, but only for a short time, because one of them will quickly win, and cancel out the ones that now can’t exist anymore, because they’re no longer possible. If you approach a door, you could walk through it, or just walk away from it, but once you decide to walk away, every reality where you walked through it will disappear. Area Doubleuniverse is different. Catchy name, I know. For whatever reason, this particular brane absorbs an unreasonable amount of bulk energy, and uses it to maintain thousands of realities. This is the kind of thing you see when you watch a movie or show about alternate realities. In one, you’re a juggler; in another, you’re a sea lion trainer. Most decisions are practically impossible to detect, because you might walk through that quantum door one nanosecond later, and that’s an entirely different reality. In fact, it’s even more than one separate reality, because you’re not the only one  making these minute decisions. The fact that Area Doubleuniverse only contains thousands of parallels makes no logical sense. It should be infinite, but it’s not. They’ve actually mapped them, and they travel between them fairly easily. It suggests there’s some sort of higher intelligence in control of which realities exist, and which collapse with all the others. I’ve just not been able to see this force. The people use it mostly to protect witnesses, so whatever the original intention, it’s benevolent now.

Exemption Act: The Needs of the Many (Part I)

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Confusingly named Saga!Three was sitting at the top of the stairs, waiting for her new partner, Zektene to get out of the bathroom. Zektene was from another universe, and came here after a trip to the past changed enough about history to stop her from ever existing. That was no longer her world, so she made this her new home.

“I’ve been thinking about your name!” Zek called out through the door.

“You don’t have to yell!” Saga!Three shouted back.

“You’re yelling!”

“I’m just trying to match your energy!”

Zektene laughed.

“What about my name?”

“We need some way to distinguish you from your alternate self.”

Saga!Three was also a time traveler, and was created when a different version of her named Saga!Two went back to help kill Adolf Hitler early. To avoid ambiguity, others began to address them by the number that was arbitrarily assigned to their reality. There were an infinite number of past realities, however, and this was in no way only the third, but the name was good enough. “That’s what the number is for.”

“It’s too impersonal!” Zek argued. “Who was that one gal you mentioned, who met her alternate self? She goes by her real name, while the other goes by their nickname?”

“Holly Blue and Weaver, yes. The former just never started using the nickname. You wanna start calling me Doorwalker?”

“No, that’s dumb. That’s why I wanna talk about it, so we can figure something else out.”

“I’m all ears.”

Zek came out of the bathroom. “How about Freya?”

“You have already thought about this.”

“Just a little. During my research, I learned that your name, Saga is associated with a goddess named Frigg. I don’t know what it means to be associated with a different person, but I don’t much care for Frigg. I do, however, like Freya, which is somehow associated with Frigg. I don’t know what that means for its relationship with Saga, but I think it suits you either way.”

“Fine with me. Freya it is,” the newly reborn Freya affirmed.

“Now, is that Freyja with a j, or just a y-a?” asked some stranger in their hotel room.

“Whoa! I’m sorry, but who are you?”

The stranger looked confused. “I...I’m Nadia.”

Freya continued to look confused and disturbed with her eyes, and widened her mouth like a smile to offer this Nadia person more time to elaborate.

“You may have heard of The Historian...?”

“Oh. That’s you?” Freya asked. That’s Freya, with a y-a.

“Okay, I got it, Superintendent,” Nadia said with a roll of her eyes. Don’t you roll your eyes at me. “Oh, forgive me, Your Grace.” You are forgiven.

“Are you...speaking with The Superintendent right now?” Freya asked.

Nadia was writing in her book. “F-R-E-Y-A. What was that? Oh, yes, he’s being a di—uhhhhh...lightful supreme being. He’s being..great.”

“Why do you need her new name?” Zek asked, changing the subject back. “I mean, it’s cool you know, but for what specific purpose?”

“Um, she can’t just change her name, and expect everyone to start using it all of the sudden. When the Shapers go to a new time period, I have to manipulate reality to account for their new identities. When Lowell Benton changed Jeremy’s name from J.B., I had to update our records. Otherwise, he would have to start correcting people one-by-one, and that is so tedious. It’s much easier if I just send out a psychic blast. From now on, most of the people you run into who already knew you should now start using the new name. There may be a few glitches.”

“Well...” Freya began. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Nadia replied. “I’m also here for another reason. This belongs to you.” She handed Zek a business card. There was no writing on it, but it was covered in colors.

“What is this?” Zek asked.

“Rendezvous card,” Nadia said cryptically. “It’s up to you to figure out how to use it. Be at that location, and someone you’re supposed to meet will arrive as well.”

“Sounds like you’re not going to tell us who it is,” Freya presumed.

“I don’t know who it is. I just found it as a bookmark on your title page, and I know what it does. I couldn’t tell you if it’s a mission, or someone you’ve been looking for, or what, but someone has decided to put you two together, so go on and find out.”

“Thank you again,” Zek echoed.

Nadia softened her smile, and raised her hands in front of her stomach, pinkies together, palms up. She ceremoniously closed them together, as if shutting an invisible book, which served to fold her own body into a two-dimensional object, and make her disappear.

“This is a distraction,” Freya told Zek.

“We don’t know that.”

“We’re supposed to be looking for something called The Transit. That’s what Vearden said. That’s going to help us end this once and for all.”

“Have faith in the process, Freya. Now, I think I know how to work this thing. Hold onto my shoulder.”

“Okay,” Freya conceded.

Zek activated the rendezvous card by flicking it out of her hand, which transported them to some unknown location in the middle of the forest. They were alone, but not for long. Pretty soon, several spots before them started warping with technicolors. People emerged from these warp spots, and each one of them dropped their own rendezvous card into a pile in the middle of the circle. The last one was not human, but a large and imposing creature with ashy white skin. Freya knew this to be a Maramon.

This Maramon was the only one who didn’t look at least a bit bewildered. She scanned the group. “Thank you all for coming. I know you have no clue why you’re here, but I appreciate it greatly, and so does your universe.”

“What are you?” one of the others asked.

“I am a Maramon, from a dwarf universe called Ansutah. Please, ask no further questions while I explain myself. I will be answering the most important ones without prompting. My name is Khuweka Kadrioza, and even though I’m from Ansutah, I’ve been living in bladapodoverse for the last several years. It’s only there that I encountered humans who accepted my form. The fun was not destined to last, unfortunately, as a great danger came upon us; an enemy that threatens the very survival of everyone in the multiverse.”

“The Ochivari,” Freya blurted out. “Oh, sorry.”

“That’s right,” Khuweka confirmed, unperturbed by the interruption. “Saga is already fully aware of them, because this enemy originates from her universe.”

“Her name is Freya now,” Zektene corrected.

Khuweka tilted her head in thought. “Huh, you’re right. Apologies, Freya. Anyway, the Ochivari are an odd bunch. They were born with a limited ability to travel the multiverse. At first, they used this to build their empire at home, siphoning large amounts of resources from uninhabited worlds with barely a thought. Eventually, however, a sort of religion formed. They wouldn’t use that word for it, but it’s the best way to describe it, because it’s twisted and pervasive, like a cancer. Not everyone believes in the same thing, but they all serve the interests of Worlon, their home planet. Their basic tenet is that all evolved life must be destroyed. They’re antinatalists, which is ironic, because they propagate their own species to insane numbers. Normally, this would be terrible, but people like you wouldn’t get involved, because this is not your universe. But remember what I said, they travel to other universes, which is why you are all in danger, as are your people.

“Now, we could fight a war. We could build giant ships, and attack them. We could conscript the various machines and people who travel the bulkverse, but why do that when we can end it before it starts? I propose we go back to before the Ochivari are seeded on Worlon, and destroy them before they have the chance to do anything.”

The others had been listening intently, careful not to make any assumptions, or dismiss Khuweka’s concerns. They also seemed a lot more comfortable being around her than Freya would have guessed. Perhaps, though they had clearly never seen her kind before, they were used to the concept of other. A well-dressed middle aged woman took a quarter step forward. “Have you considered the ethics of this undertaking? When accounting for time travel, what you’re talking about could still be considered genocide.”

“No, I’ve not considered it much,” Khuweka responded. “That is your job, Professor. I will say, however, that this serves the greater good.”

A disheveled man raised his hand.

“Yes, Limerick?”

“Do I still get to punch somebody?” He assessed the group. “I can’t believe I’m here for any other reason than I’m good at punching people.”

Khuweka sighed and massaged her forehead. “You remember you’re in another universe, right?”

“Yeah, you said that,” Limerick replied.

“I don’t have the ability to do that myself. I got all these people here, because of you. You brought them here, so that’s what you bring to the table. You’re a bulkverse traveler, just like the Ochivari.”

He squinted at her, like the two of them were just trying to figure out which actor was in a particular movie, and even though she was obviously right, he couldn’t help but not believe her. “I don’t remember that.”

“Yes, I know,” an exasperated Khuweka said. “That’s what happens when totally shitfaced is your resting state. I need you to sober up, and get with the program. It’s time to be a big boy, and do something productive for a change.”

Limerick mockingly straightened up, and bounced his head all hoity-toity like. “We’ll see.”

“Well,” Khuweka continued, “you all now know Limerick Hawthorne. He’s right, if someone does need punching during this mission, he’ll be able to help with that as well. You also met Freya Einarsson, who is here because she is familiar with this universe, and the progression of the timelines. Her friend, Zektene Cormanu is a teleporter from the Composite Universe, which will come in handy, no doubt. Doctor Andraste Spellmeyer will act as our resident ethicist, because as she pointed out, what we’re doing here isn’t exactly the Middle Way. She is from Universe Prime, and she has never met an alien, or a time traveler, or anything before. Round of applause for how graceful and patient she’s being with us.”

They clap.

“Moving on, Carbrey Genovese is our engineer. He’s from Flipverse, and he’s going to build us a spaceship, and pilot it. Don’t worry, I’ll get you the specs for the reframe engine.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Carbrey said.

“Essentially faster-than-light travel, Freya filled him in.

“Oh, okay. Well, no promises, I’ve never built a spaceship before.”

“Wait,” Limerick jumped in. “You said he’s from Flipverse, and other people are from other places. Where am I from? What would you call it?”

“Most universes don’t get their own names,” Khuweka tried to explain delicately. “Yours is one of the many. You can call it Limerickverse, if you want.”

“I want.”

“If there are no further interruptions, I can introduce our last crew member.” Khuweka looked over at the humbly quiet man who had actually separated himself from the group by nearly a meter. “Do you want to step back into the circle?”

The man hesitated, but approached. “Hi, my name is Landis Tipton, and I’m from a universe called Voldisilaverse. I am a kenvoldisil, which means I was not born voldisil, but turned into one later when a group of them died, and transferred their abilities unto me.” He took a step back, apparently believing that was enough of an explanation.

Khuweka was trying to be patient with him. “Do you wanna tell us what abilities you have?”

Not really, but Landis didn’t care much for confrontation. “I can see your regrets, smell your health, hear your desires, feel your pain, and taste your lies.”

Limerick suddenly turned into a decent and put-together human being. “Right on, man.”

Khuweka smiled at Landis. “He can also reverse his abilities, using them primarily to cure people by breathing on them. He saved millions of lives one by one, and billions once they figured out how to replicate his healing ability.”

“I once knew people who could cure others by breathing on them,” Zektene said.

“Yes, by using organic nanotechnology. This is different. Voldisilaverse is unlike any I’ve ever heard of. My people are ruthless and unfeeling. They’ve never met a human they didn’t want to kill, except for the few they revere as gods. But when they discovered Landis’ version of Earth, something turned them away; not out of fear, but...respect, and maybe even empathy? Something made them not want to hurt his people.”

“We’re not all good,” Landis revealed, then slunk back away, immediately regretting having volunteered to speak.

“Well, at least two of you are,” Khuweka acknowledged. “Another voldisil is the one who contacted me. She can see things that are happening in other universes, and it was she who told me who belongs on this team. Now it’s up to all of us to prove her right.”

< > Entire Story

Microstory 1499: The End of Durus

< > Table of Contents

Two hundred years after Savitri became the first human on Durus, the eleventh major form of government, the Solar Democratic Republic officially ended. Technically, it should have ended a long time ago, if not once the rogue world left 70 Ophiuchi space, then certainly when nearly the entire population was evacuated through the Nexus. Survivors, called remainders, ultimately agreed that this most recent event was the greater shift than those others, however. The thirteenth remainder in charge of waking up from stasis, and being available to solve any problems, was a woman by the name of Kyra Torosian. Nothing of note happened for the first few months of her shift. A couple of the pods experienced some power irregularities, but these were simple repairs. None of the Dardieti team were awake at the time, for she was not considered a threat to them. She spent her days zipping throughout the bunkers on a scooter that one of the children left there when he evacuated, and carrying on full conversations with her completely unresponsive friends. They had access to entertainment from Durus, Dardius, and even Earth, but she wasn’t much for that kind of art, so she really just wasted the days away. She was the type of person who could sit in a chair for hours, doing nothing else, and not grow bored. Her mind was just too busy with her imagination for it to matter much what her environment was, as long as it wasn’t uncomfortable, or sometimes even if. One day, Kyra was wandering the halls just outside the Nexus room when she thought she heard it start to power up. Of course, she assumed that someone from Dardius was coming to check on them, so she ran inside, and mentally prepared herself to greet them professionally, and in her words, well-spokenly. She never knew exactly what happened, or whether anyone was actually trying to come through, because it all went wrong. The machine exploded, and sent a wave of energy throughout the entire section.

What no one knew at the time was that the explosion was an accident, and happened to all Nexa in this universe. Because they involve time travel, they didn’t explode all at once, and the damages were not irreparable, but this did cause a number of problems for everyone who needed to use them at certain times. The explosion was powerful, but it was pretty contained, so no one else on Durus was affected, or even immediately made aware that it happened. Kyra would later have to start waking them up, so she could let them know. Obviously, the explosion didn’t kill her, which was a universal result. Others experienced superficial injuries, but nothing serious. What set Kyra apart was that she came from a bloodline of paramounts. While there was never enough temporal energy on Durus for her to have exhibited any powers before, she was genetically predisposed to developing them, and the Nexus explosion was enough to do just that. What was unclear was whether she would have developed the same power under different circumstances, or if the explosion also decided what she could do. Evidence suggested the latter. After waking key remainder leadership, along with the team from Dardius, Kyra went about figuring out who she now was. It was like she became a walking Nexus. When someone touched her, they would be transported to one of the other Nexa, and if someone made the appropriate hyperdimensional metamathematical calculations, they could also transport to her. Unlike regular Nexa, Kyra could also transport herself anywhere in the universe that she wanted; it didn’t even have to be tied to the network. Every time she jumped somewhere, it would recharge her temporal energy, like a perpetual motion engine, and the more she did it, the stronger she became. Over time, she would end up with enough power to move entire planets through the network, which she used to move Durus to its new home. Not even the Nexa could do that. It wouldn’t be there forever, though, because her power continued to grow. The remainders would come to use their unique position to fight a great war against a multiversal threat. Until then, the remainders had to decide how they were going to use this advantage, and whether they would be able to convince any former Durune to return to their homeworld. While they worked on that, they figured they ought to shift to yet another form of government. This one would be called the Kyran Nexus Tempocracy. That was not all, though. The remainders would also decide to change the name of the planet to Torosia, in honor of her.

Glisnia: The Shorter List (Part VII)

< > Entire Story

Porter decided to find Jupiter Rosa, as opposed to Jupiter Fury, even though they were alternate versions of the same person. When he was a child, he discovered his ability to call upon quantum duplicates of himself. Each was from an alternate reality, which was only slightly different than the first. These other worlds only lasted for fractions of a second before collapsing to make way for the reality that was meant to win out, but when accounting for time travel, those few microseconds were enough. Before Jupiter understood what he was doing, there was no telling which Jupiter was the real one. Only one of them truly belonged to this reality, while the other was a visitor, and could be reabsorbed into the primary by a process called quantum assimilation. By the time they figured out which of them was this primary, each Jupiter believed himself to be it. And so the primary decided to let the other live on as his own person. As the years flew by, neither of them could remember which was which anyway. Both of them were good, but Jupiter Rosa was better, because he rejected the influence of their friends, and went on to make his own decisions.

Saxon Parker was another person with alternate versions of himself, though by different means, and so many more. He was part of a massive exploration project, which sought to establish a settlement in every single star system in the entire galaxy. It was called Project Stargate, and though the ships he and his team built were automated, their overseers wanted them to carry a human touch. So Saxon cloned himself well over a million times, so each could keep watch over one of the modular ships. In order to protect causality, Porter was forced to look for Saxon after he underwent this project. She found this to be extremely difficult, and didn’t realize her mistake until after it was made. As it turned out, one of Saxon’s clones developed independent thoughts, and rejected his destiny. He asked to stay where he was, which forced Saxon to take his place. Porter didn’t know this, and accidentally retrieved the clone, instead of the original. He called himself Omega Parker, and he would have to do.

The third member of Katica’s shorter list was a man named Lihtren Uluru. He was born out of a companion endeavor for Project Stargate called Operation Starseed. While the former was designed to allow exploration, communication, and even travel to the Milky Way stars, the latter was created to seed life. Lihtren was born on a planet over sixty thousand light years from Earth and Glisnia, which meant it wouldn’t happen for at least as many years from now, if the timeline hadn’t been altered enough to prevent it. He unjustifiably traveled to Earth, unwillingly went back in time, and unwittingly became immortal. Though he was not as heavily involved in time traveler affairs, and had not gotten himself mixed up with interstellar expansion, his opinion mattered, and Katica figured he would be on her side.

The last member of this new list was a woman called Viana Černý. A long time ago, the world governments began to change. Several of them adopted a new form of democracy with a stronger sense of checks and balances. The state was run by two separate leaders. Each was advised by a separate board of experts, and following this advice, made decisions together, with the guidance of a mediator. Upon coming to some kind of consensus on a given matter, they sent directives to their administrators, which were just as respectively experienced and educated as the advisors, except they were in charge of carrying out the decisions, rather than merely discussing them. The interesting thing about this form of government was that it was scalable. The leaders answered to a population representative congress. One person represented 240 people, while the Senator oversaw 328 of these groups, for a total of 78,720. Larger groups combined with other groups, and reported to higher ranks. And this process could be repeated as needed, like proto-planetary dust coalescing around a star, until the whole world was unified. Whereas before, each nation state had its own government, they were now governed by a single body. Viana was an important member of this whole world government.

She was the Futurology Administrator, and one of the most important singular voices when it came to the interstellar expansion. She helped decide which star system the Earthans would explore, where they would go first, and how they would get there. Because of how much respect she earned around the stellar neighborhood, exoplanet colonists sent her regular updates, even though they were not obliged to. When very few people were made aware of the strange goingson that happened on a new world, she was one of those people. So it was no surprise that she consolidated all of this information, and eventually realized that time travel must exist. She wasn’t meant to know about all that, but once she discovered it, no one could take it away from her. Viana was an intelligent and responsible person, who could be trusted with the truth. She didn’t reveal what she now knew to the neighborhood at large, or even one other person. Katica Petrić felt this integrity entitled her to a spot on The Shorter List, and the right to help come to a decision regarding what kind of technology Glisnia was allowed to have. Katica didn’t think everyone here had earned that.

Hogarth was disallowed from participating in the meeting, which of course, pissed her off. She was the one the Glisnians asked for this, and she wasn’t even part of it anymore? That was total bullshit. She had called the first meeting, and it was a good meeting, and it should be honored. The Shortlist wasn’t something they just came up with one day while they were all hanging around together. It took a lot of time and effort to organize. Hogarth couldn’t help but worry that this new group had no hope of reaching a legitimate decision. Holly Blue was allowed to be in the room where it happened, which made this even more frustrating. Though she accepted the real decision, she would surely fight against it now that she had a second opportunity to do so, and that wasn’t fair. There was no one on the Shorter List which Hogarth felt would be on her side, and fight for her position. Right now, she was sitting in the hallway with Jupiter. “Why are you here?”

“They didn’t tell you? They want me to use my magical powers for an alternative solution to your resource shortage.”

“What can you do?”

“Well, I can access other—”

“No,” Hogarth interrupted, “I know what you can do, but why would that help us?”

“As I was saying,” Jupiter continued, “I can access alternate realities, and retrieve alternate versions of people and objects. Evidently, Katica believes this power can be scaled up for your purposes.”

Hogarth stared at him blankly for a moment. “She wants to steal resources from alternate realities?”

“Alternate uninhabited realities,” Jupiter clarified. “Think about it, if Holly Blue can adapt my power to a machine that siphons materials from an infinite supply of alternate Glisnias, then they will never run out of anything they need.”

“Is that possible?’

Jupiter smiled, and turned to face the opposite wall. “Unequivocally no. I don’t care how powerful I get, or how much of a boost Holly Blue can muster, it won’t be enough. The realities I access are really close to ours. One might be, for instance, exactly like this one, except with one less mosquito. I cannot, sadly, reach far enough into the multiverse to find one which doesn’t have any people in it, and even if I could, you couldn’t siphon enough resources out of it to justify the amount of energy you put into the trying. It’s like fusion power in my time period, the 21st century. Sure, it works, but it takes more energy to run the machine than the machine produces for you.” He indicates the universe around them. “Obviously, people in the future eventually figure out positive fusion energy.” He shook his head. “They won’t ever figure altreal siphoning, though. It can’t be done. So I suppose it’s less like fusion, and more like plugging a surge protector into itself.”

“Holly Blue’s alternate, Weaver invented what she calls a perpetual motion engine, using time technology,” Hogarth argued.

“Well, I don’t know anything about that. Like I said, I’m from the 21st century. Though I doubt that’s really what’s happening. I’m sure it’s a lot more complex than that.”

Hogarth turned to face the wall as well. “Yeah, it is. But if she could do it—if she could figure out altreal siphoning—I won’t fight against it. It would be a lot better than what I proposed.”

“If I’m being honest,” Jupiter began, “I don’t much care for Holly Blue. These future people, they...they don’t know what it’s like. You and I, we’re just a couple of jabronis from Springfield, Kansas.”

“You’re from Springfield?” she questioned.

He turned back to face her. “Of course! All the Springfield Nine are. That’s why we’re called that.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Miss Pudeyonavic, if we weren’t time travelers, I would be three years older than you.”

“It’s Madam Pudeyonavic. I’m married.”

“Why isn’t it Missus?”

“Because Hilde and I didn’t change our names. Madam is what you use for a married woman who still uses her birth name.”

“Who came up with that rule?”

“The Superintendent, I think.”

Lihtren stuck his head out of the door. “Mr. Rosa, we’re ready for you.”

“Not without my associate,” Jupiter contended.

“Who is your associate?”

Jupiter stood up, and offered his hand to Hogarth. “Madam Pudeyonavic.”

Lihtren looked over his shoulder, back into the room, but didn’t say anything to the people in there. “I cannot guarantee this will not be contested. We don’t really have protocols and procedures laid out.”

“Clearly,” Hogarth grumbled.

The two of them stepped into the room, and Jupiter’s decision to include her was indeed contested. There was nothing Katica could do about it, however, since the other three members had no problem with it, and Jupiter was holding all the cards. Hogarth was grateful to have met him. It only took four hundred years.

“We believe, Mr. Rosa, that we can convince you to help us,” Katica began.

“I understand your plan,” Jupiter replied, “and I’m here to tell ya that it ain’t gon’ happen. I’m not powerful enough, you’re not powerful enough. It won’t work.”

“We thought you would say that,” Holly Blue said. “Which is why we brought in some extra help.” She held up what looked like a garage door opener. When she clicked it, Crimson Clover appeared, and it wasn’t alone.

“Hi,” said the stranger. “My name is Ambrose.”

“Ambrosios?” Hogarth questioned. “The mad immortal.”

“No, just Ambrose,” the man corrected. “Ambrose Richardson.”

“He’s a power booster, like Savitri,” Holly Blue revealed proudly.

“I met him during my travels,” Crimson explained.

“Does this change your mind?” Katica asked Jupiter.

Jupiter thought about the offer for a moment. “I’ll consider it, but only if it works; only if he can boost my power enough.”

“That’s fair,” Katica agreed.

“And only if Hogarth is in charge.”

That was less fair. But awesome.

< > Entire Story

Source Variant: Heaven Protects (Part XIII)

« < » > Entire Story

           Now things are really confusing. It was already tough for the Veardens and the Sagas to keep track of which Vearden, and which Saga they were interacting with. Who remembers what, and what have they been through? But now it’s all four of them, all together. They stand here awkwardly for a moment, in the Gondilak monitoring facility, before Vearen!Two breaks the ice. “So, you two figured out this was happening, right?”

“We had some idea,” Vearden!Three replies with a short nod, and a long blink.

“You’ve been dealing with the Gondilak?” Saga!Two guesses.

“Indeed,” Saga!Three confirms. “I assume you were in charge of the Orothsew.”

“That’s right.”

“So, are we gonna be okay?” Vearden!Two asks. “Are they gonna start fighting each other?”

“They haven’t been fighting,” Zektene explains from the computer.

Saxon is with her. He immediately jumped at the chance to look at a new system. “The Orothsew crossed the ocean decades ago. They came in peace, and they’ve remained as such this whole time. The drones report no history of violence.”

“Wow,” Vearden!Three says. “So we did it. Mission accomplished.”

“That doesn’t mean there aren’t any other threats,” Saga!Three explains. “Zek, what’s the last the drones saw of Cain.”

Zektene fiddles with the inputs. “He disappeared nearly ten years after we did. I think it took him that long to find it.”

“Find what?” Saga!Two asks.

“Don’t worry about it,” Vearden!Two assures her. “If he’s gone, that’s a good thing. This world should be safe now.”

“That’s not true,” Vearden!Three begins. “We still have to worry about the Worlonians.”

“The Ochivari,” Saxon says.

“The whatnow?” Vearden!Three asks.

“They’re not called Worlonians,” Saxon explains. “Ochivari is the name of their species.”

“Really?” Vearden!Three asks. “That’s weird.”

“Is it?” Saga!Two questions. “Humans don’t come from planet Huma, or something.”

“Well, that’s true,” Vearden!Three has to admit.

“Who are these people?” Saga!Three prompts.

“Bad aliens,” Vearden!Three answers. “Real bad aliens. Probably worse than the Maramon.”

“Maybe about equal,” Saxon claims. “The Ochivari want to destroy all life in the multiverse, so that no one else gets to go to heaven.”

“Then they must be worse than the Maramon,” Vearden!Two says. “The white monsters aren’t super great, but they don’t want to kill everyone. Their motivations are diverse, and their agendas nuanced.”

“He’s right,” Saga!Two supports. “I’ve seen what happens when a Maramon is removed from its natural environment, and taught right from wrong. They can be reasoned with.”

“Yes,” Saga!Three adds. “This world is proof of what they can do when they choose to be good.”

“Huh?” Vearden!Three asks. “What do the Maramon have to do with this planet?”

“They’re the Gondilak,” Vearden!Two says to him. “Or rather, the Gondilak are Maramon...their descendants.”

“Oh my God,” Saxon exclaims. “They’re the source variant, aren’t they!”

“That’s what Ramses called it,” Saga!Three acknowledges.

Now everything is starting to make sense. Both the humans and the Maramon chose to settle on this planet, but at different points in history. Now they’ve come together, and things seem to be going fine. Saxon and Zektene continue to catch up on the data, skimming climate patterns, and contact history. The other four mostly catch up with each other, even though this is the first time any of them has been in a situation like this. It doesn’t seem weird, though. Now that the shock of meeting alternate versions of themselves has passed, it’s actually kind of nice. Sure, their respective alts had different experiences, but there’s a shorthand between them that they would never be able to find with anyone else. Both Veardens know they can trust each other with their secrets, while both Sagas feel the same.

They listen to the updates that the other two in their newly formed group relay to them, but most of it isn’t very interesting. Current events have been pretty uneventful. This is around the same time Saga!Two and Vearden!Two were on Orolak in the second timeline, and things are extremely different. It’s satisfying to see the fruits of their labor, and to know that everything they’ve been doing for the last millennium hasn’t been a huge waste of time. The last thing they do before sharing a meal is show each other their funny McIver hats. Everyone is jealous of Vearden!Three’s beard beanie, which Vearden!Two recalls seeing once when he was browsing the internet in the other timeline.

“So, what do we think the mission is?” Saxon asks as Saga!Two is passing him the mashed potatoes. “I mean, why were you four finally reunited, and why now?”

“Well, this isn’t really a reunion,” Vearden!Two explains. “I’ve never met Vearden!Three here.”

“Neither have I,” Saga!Three says. “I hadn’t met anybody until all this, actually.”

“You know what I mean,” Saxon says. “You’ve spent centuries apart; separated on two continents by an ocean. According to our collective experiences, we haven’t gone anywhere without a purpose. But the Orothsew and Gondilak seem fine without us.”

“Maybe the missions are over,” Vearden!Three suggests. “Maybe that’s the point. We’ve done our jobs; preparing for the two races coming together.”

Saga!Three, Vearden!Two, and Zektene aren’t obligated to say anything at this point, and no one else responds either, but it feels like they’re somehow more silent than everybody else who isn’t talking. It’s like they’re avoiding the conversation actively, rather than passively.

“Okay, what is it?” Saxon asks, concerned.

“We went off mission,” Saga!Three finally replies.

“We weren’t supposed to help the Gondilak,” Vearden!Two continues the explanation. “We were supposed to kill them”

“Once we failed to do that,” Zektene contributes, “we were at least supposed to slow them down, so your people could wipe them out.”

“Oh my God,” is all Vearden!Three can say.

“That’s terrible,” Saga!Two adds.

“Well, it didn’t go that way,” Saxon reminds them. “What you did worked, and the Orothsew and Gondilak will never know how grateful they should be for you.”

“For us,” Saga!Two clarifies. “This whole thing required all six of us, and it required not listening to The Delegator, apparently to varying degrees.”

Vearden!Three smiles widely. “We should all feel proud. We stopped a frickin’ world war. Who else can say that?”

“I heard the salmon battalion stopped World War III,” Vearden!Two reveals.

“That’s an urban legend,” Saga!Two refutes. “They won wars, but they didn’t stop any.”

“Speaking of war,” Vearden!Two says, “tell us more about these Ochivari.”

“We don’t know much about them,” Saxon begins. “It’s mostly about three little Latin words. Loci non grata. Just the fact that Earth has banned all travel to Worlon space is enough to frighten me. I mean, there are worlds we don’t get along with very well, but we do try to interact with them on some level. LNG means no ambassadors, no mediators, no negotiations. If your ship has gone derelict within three light years of Worlon, you’re just straight up expected to let yourself die; it’s that bad.”

“They’re a Class XI threat,” Vearden!Three says, “which Saxon here evidently didn’t even know existed.”

“Really?” Zektene is interested. “Tell me about the classes.”

Saxon wipes his mouth to prepare for the lecture. “It’s a pretty straightforward ranking system for threats to life. A Class I threat would be to an individual; like a murderer, or something. Class II would be for a group of people...a mass murderer. Class three is city, then region, then continent, then the whole planet. Class VII threatens the whole solar system, while Class VIII the stellar neighborhood. As far as I know, nothing has been designated threat level IX for the whole galaxy, or X for the universe. And as we’ve said, Class XI is an entirely new thing, for something that could be dangerous for the multiverse.”

“Bulkverse,” Zektene corrects. “It’s called the bulkverse.”

“Oh, okay,” Saxon accepts.

“So...” Zektene begins. “Would these Ochivari, perhaps...possibly resemble dragonflies?”

“Um...” Saxon is uncomfortable. “They do, yes.”

“Yeah, they came to my world once,” Zektene discloses. “They didn’t ask for anything. They just started killing people.”

“What did you do?”

“We used our superpowers, and destroyed them right back,” Zektene says as if it were obvious.

“We might need those powers here,” Saga!Two says to her. “We’re not sure when the Ochivari are coming, only that they are. The Orothsew and Gondilak might not be prepared for it when that happens.”

“Well, how has Earth prepared to protect themselves?” Vearden!Two asks her.

“A number of things,” Saxon answers instead. “I don’t have all the details, but it’s all about SCR&M. Safety, Compartmentalization, Redundancy, and Modularization. The first line of defense is recon and early warning, of course, but for anything incoming, they’re also protected by a gargantuan shield that encompasses the whole system. There are trillions of planetesimals, and other celestial bodies in spherical orbit in something called the Oort cloud, only fractions of a light year from the center. Almost every single one of them is equipped with defensive and/or offensive measures. If something were to get past that, they’ll have to deal with the armada of reserve warships, a satellite fleet, and an array of surface weapons. For the people, it’s estimated that Earth could be one hundred percent evacuated in an hour. Other planets have fewer people, and less atmosphere, so they could escape even faster.”

No one says anything for a moment or two. They’ve also stopped eating.

“All right,” Vearden!Two says, dropping his napkin on his plate. “Let’s do that.”

“Do what?” Saxon asks. “Build a defensive contingency around this solar system?”

“Well, I don’t know that it has to be the solar system, does it?” Vearden!Two believes. “We just need to protect the planet. It’s the only place that’s inhabited, ain’t it?”

“Theoretically,” Saxon admits.

Vearden!Three stands up. “We already have artificial satellites in orbit, right? I know the humans put at least one up there. I assume the Maramon did as well.”

“This is the mission,” Zektene decides. “This is what we’re here to do.”

“Hold on,” Saxon argues. “We are not qualified to try anything like this.”

“You are,” Saga!Two claims. “You helped build the quantum seeder network, and you told us about those gigantic telescopes just outside the Milky Way. We can’t pick up a hammer and some nails, and expect to get anything done, but we can come up with ideas, and you and Zektene can program the AIs to do the actual construction.”

“This sounds impossible,” Saga!Three can’t help but feel.

“I would rather try than not,” says Saga!Two. “If you’re anything like me, you feel the same.”

“Don’t you just wanna get back to your daughter?” Saga!Three asks her.

Saga!Two stands up. “I wanna protect her. Maybe this is how we do it, because we have to protect the human race, and everything that comes from it...even if it’s against something else that comes from it.”

Saxon shakes his head. “This is a tall order.”

“Then let’s find a ladder,” Vearden!Two and Vearden!Three say simultaneously.

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