Extremus: Year 85

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This is it. Tinaya and Lataran are going to tell the general public of Extremus that they have maintained a permanent connection to Verdemus. Having a Nexus on the ship was always an option, but the people who first developed the idea of the mission ultimately decided against it for obvious reasons. There was never any law that said they couldn’t build one, probably because doing so takes the intelligence of a lesser god, and the patience of a saint. It was sort of against the spirit of what they’re trying to do here, but since the two they have access to were built for a rescue operation, it’s okay. Things might change in the future, but for now the council says that it’s fine. They have already been briefed on the subject. The braintrust lied to them too, though. They ended up making the claim that, since the two Nexa weren’t constructed by the original designers, they couldn’t be on the network. They could only connect to each other. So people will be able to travel from one to the other, but nowhere else.

With the council’s input, it has been decided that travel will not be a free-for-all. For a period of exactly one year, anyone who wants to visit Verdemus will have to apply to do so. The application that they submit will either be for a temporary stay, or permanent residency. They will have the chance to upgrade or downgrade later, should they change their minds. Some will be excited for the chance to live out their lives on a real planet, only to realize that they don’t really like it there, with all the bugs and everything. Others will go just to see what it’s like, and ultimately fall in love with it. Nothing has to be decided today, but it does have to be decided in 396 days. At that point, the connection will be completely severed. The Verdemusians, both new and old, will have to fend for themselves from then on, and the Extremusians the same. They’re dropping people off, like a bus, and this proverbial bus will not be turning around again. But buses do turn around. They do it all the time, it’s a specific route. So this is not really a good analogy, which is what Tinaya struggled the most with when she was writing her speech. The final draft has her just explaining the situation in no uncertain terms.

They’re going to tell the general population that the Nexa will be destroyed on both ends. What the council believes is that the Nexus will simply be disabled, and can be turned on again for emergencies. What only the small group of the original non-clone, non-secret explosion survivors knows is that the connection will just stay up the whole time, and they’ll be free to move back and forth however they please. They probably won’t do it much, but they’ll at least be able to communicate with each other. Lilac, Aristotle, and Niobe are staying on Verdemus. The latter two feel that it is their home, and the former wants to be with her son. Vaska will be staying too, not only because she isn’t on the Extremus manifest, but also because she wants to keep studying it. Omega and Valencia will be working on Jaunemus for now, but if anyone’s going to be using the Nexa after the one year grace period, it’ll be them. They have important jobs to complete, and they need the leeway to complete them. Tinaya will be staying on Extremus with Arqut, and of course, the Captain will too. Spirit and Belahkay have not yet made a decision, but they’ll surely stay together.

This is a joint presentation, but Lataran will only be responsible for answering questions at the end, since this is just for the crew for now. Tinaya is the one who will be explaining everything. She’s pacing on stage, nervous but using her breathing techniques. The curtain that separates her from the audience is soundproof. She could scream as loud as she pleased, and no one would notice. She almost wants to do this, just to recenter herself. She’s not dealt with the crew much as of late, since her leadership experience has been mostly relegated to the civilian side, and she’s been away for so many years anyway. Very few currently on rotation were there back in the day, so he doesn’t know many of these people.

Tinaya checks her watch, not wanting to be late. The seconds are ticking by, but she still has about twenty of them left, which is more than enough time for her to get over her nerves, and figure this out. Right? Why is she so anxious about it? She’s been around people. Well, in a different way, sure, but not like this. Extremus is a hollow chunk of metal hurtling through space. It has to be a structured well-oiled machine, or everything falls apart, and everyone dies. They had so much more freedom on the planet, and life was a lot more forgiving. Holy shit, how did ten seconds pass so quickly? Okay, get ready. There’s the button to open the curtains. Why isn’t Lataran here with her? Oh yeah, she’s greeting people by the door. That’s stupid, and annoying. The only thing worse than speaking in front of a huge crowd of people is being alone. She needs support. She needs Lataran. “Lataran.”

The Captain’s hand pushes Tinaya’s out of the way just before she can open the curtain. “Don’t push the button. Button is bad.”

“What are you talking about?” Tinaya questions.

“We’re not doing this. Trust me, it’s a bad idea. I’ll explain everything, but we need to get you out of here right now.”

“What about the crew?”

“I’ve sent them back to their assignments,” Lataran replied.

“You have?” A completely different Lataran asks. “That’s news to me.”

“What the hell are you doing back here?” The first Lataran shoves Tinaya behind her as if trying to be a human target.

“Well, one of the new Forest Rangers was running a little late for the presentation when he saw me sneak backstage, and then immediately saw me again at the entrance. I could have teleported, yes, but it didn’t look like that’s where I was headed.”

“Well, shit.” The first Lataran lets go of Tinaya, and holds up her hands defensively. “Now, I know you have to place me in hock, but you should know that I’m not here to hurt anyone. I’m not an impostor. I’m a time traveler.”

“I’m not taking you anywhere,” the second Lataran corrects. “Tinaya is taking both of us, because neither of us can be trusted.”

Tinaya doesn’t move.

“Tiny, that is protocol. You have to assume that we’re both bad guys.”

“She’s right,” the first Lataran says. “I never meant for the two of us to be in a room together. I wanted to get us away from here before I explained why I came back.”

“That’s a great idea,” the second Lataran says. “So stop talking!”

Tinaya removes the magcuff from her belt loop, which is standard issue for all crewmembers, and some key civilians. It’s so thin, she forgets that one is in every pair of pants that she owns. She only has the one, so the two of them will have to share. They look like twin sisters holding hands, but not for long. Tinaya teleports into the hock entrance, and checks them in with the Hock Watcher. He’s totally indifferent to the situation. He quietly locks them up in two separate interrogation rooms, and alerts the council, as well as First and Second Lieutenants. While he’s doing that, Tinaya reaches out to the current crew consul. She’s actually never met Icarus Faulkner, but he’s said to be just the nicest guy in the world.

In these uncertain situations, both copies of the same person will be treated equally until the authority can determine which one of them belongs, and which one doesn’t. But one version of Lataran is claiming to be real, and from this time period, while the other is admitting to being an interloper. So they’re starting with the assumption that both of them are telling the truth, and focusing their efforts on the latter version. Consul Faulker pulls Tinaya’s seat out for her, but doesn’t sit down next to her right away. “Can I get you two anything? Water? Tea?”

Tinaya reaches her hand towards him. “That’s not your job anymore, Consul.”

When he was still young, before he began his apprenticeship, he really did serve as an assistant to an earlier consul. That was so many years ago; he should not be experiencing a conditioned response like this. “It’s quite all right, I’m still standing.”

“We’re both fine,” Tinaya insists.

“She’s right,” Lataran is forced to say when Icarus looks over at her so she can answer for herself.

He finally relents, and takes his own seat. Poor eyesight is virtually a thing of the past. It really just depends on what you define as normal. Almost no one needs to wear lenses. Those who do almost always want some sort of enhanced vision, like telescopic, microscopic, or otherwise augmented. Icarus, however, is legitimately farsighted, and has not elected for corrective surgery, apparently because he doesn’t want to put the surgeon out. Yeah. There is such a thing as being too nice. He puts his reading glasses on, and inspects his tablet. As he goes through his spiel, he skims through the early report, and doesn’t look up at anyone. “This is Consul Icarus Faulkner of the VMS Extremus, sitting with former First Chair, Tinaya Leithe. We are interviewing a purported time traveler who has appeared in the form of current VMS Extremus Captain, Lataran Keen. The interviewee has been magnetically bound to the table, and is being treated respectfully and humanely. She has been offered refreshments, and...” Now he looks up. He quickly taps on the screen. “Do you need to use the restroom?”

“No.”

Tap. “...an opportunity to use the facilities, which she has so far declined.” He leans back in his chair, and carefully adjusts the microexpression detector attached to the one-way mirror behind them. “Okay, here we go.”

Tinaya instinctively holds to the back of his chair in case he tips all the way back.

“Thank you kindly.” He goes back into the formal questioning. “Please state your full name for analysis.”

“Lataran Keen.”

“Middle name included.”

“Don’t have one.”

Icarus looks back at the detector over his reading glasses, which doesn’t really tell him anything, of course, so he looks down at the results on his tablet. “Very well. Are you a time traveler?”

“Indeed.”

“What was your date and time of egress?”

“October 12, 2355 at 15:52.”

“What was the purpose of your journey back in time?”

“To stop the announcement of the true nature of our relationship to Verdemus.”

“Why should this announcement not be made?” he presses.

“It becomes disastrous for both the ship, and the planet. Four months into allowing passengers to visit Verdemus, attacks begin. It starts with individual killings, and quickly escalates into full-on bombings. We believe that a message was recently sent to the Exin Empire, alerting them to the survival of the planet, and its inhabitants.”

“You believe that a spy infiltrated the visitors in order to sabotage whatever harmonious society has, and will have, been established there.”

“That’s correct,” Lataran confirms.

“Do you know for sure that it was one of the visitors?”

“Who else would it be?” Lataran asks, very confused.

“Well, when I was briefed, I was told that there are already thousands of people living there. Clones of Mister Omega Parker?”

“Omega Strong,” Tinaya corrects.

“Apologies. Let the record reflect that I misnamed Omega Strong.”

This sounds like the stupidest thing that Lataran has ever heard. “It wasn’t the clones. They were there for years before the passengers began to show up.”

“I am afraid that you have proven a correlative connection, but not a causal one. That two things occurred in sequence—”

“I understand how logic and causality work,” Lataran interrupts. “Thank you, but I did pass second grade.”

“You will show respect to the Consul,” Tinaya warns.

“I’m sorry,” Lataran says. “I understand that I have not given you enough information. Tinaya, you confiscated a flashdrive from me when I checked in?”

“Is that what that is?” Tinaya asks. “It looks ancient.”

“Intentional obsolescence,” Lataran explains. “For security purposes. Reach out to the Technology Historians Club. They’ll know what to do. It will have all the evidence you need to cancel the announcement. We were wrong. No one can know that Verdemus still stands. We don’t know who we can trust, but someone is not on our side.”

“We’ll review the data you submitted,” Icarus goes on, “and the claims you have made. In the meantime, the other Lataran Keen will remain in hock on the ship, and you will be transported through the Nexus for indefinite detainment on world.” He switches off the recording, and stands up.

“That’s it?” Tinaya asks him. “No more questions?”

“Until the data can be verified,” Icarus begins, “I would not like to contaminate my investigation with more, possibly corrupt, information. I’m sure that we’ll have more to ask once we learn more from that...flashdrive thing.” He begins to leave the room. “I’ll arrange for covert transport. I’ll let you two have a moment for a private goodbye, but Miss Leithe, you are not leaving the ship, and you are not speaking with the other Captain.” He exits the room with a polite nod to the both of them.

Tinaya and the visiting Lataran do say their goodbyes, because it really feels like they’re never going to see each other again. It could be that Lataran’s image has been forever tarnished, and that the real one will be relieved of her position as well.

After a thorough investigation—with the help of time travel experts Omega and Valencia, and the current temporal engineers—it’s determined that the time traveler was telling the truth. The announcement is postponed until further notice. Five months later, though no passengers are ever allowed to visit Verdemus, the murders begin, and the planet falls under attack.

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Microstory 2215: Relic of the Future

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The following microstory was written by Kelly Serna, truncated from a short story written by Nick Fisherman IV.

My name is Relic, and I have no surname. I was never born, nor raised. I am not even human. I have many brothers and sisters, though we have never met. We were created to store all of human knowledge, to be accessed at will through our DNA. Research into genetic memory storage began at the turn of the 22nd century. Biocomputers were the first of the organic machines created. They came with disadvantages, but there were advantages as well. For instance, they were capable of self-repair. All you had to do was feed it, and the system would fix itself as needed. You wouldn’t have to actually find the problem, and could in fact prevent problems in this way before they occurred. They were also better at parallel processing, something which classical computers found difficult to accomplish even as they advanced. Even without these reasons, scientists would have pursued this line of research anyway, because why not? Well, as history would come to show, there were many reasons why not, and it had to do with where the technology has ultimately led. While early organic computing models were great, there was still something so cold and unrelatable about them. In the end, they were still personal computers and server racks that accepted input, stored information, and displayed output. Sure, it was on a giant cornea instead of a normal monitor, but the function was essentially the same. It is said that one day, one of these researchers was working on their own biocomputer. What they were doing is not known, especially since this may all be made up anyway. We don’t even know the identity of this supposed biocomputer scientist. Anyway, they were claimed to be at their desk when their personal android assistant came into the room with a tray of tea and crackers. She had been playing with the kids and dog when things became too rough, leading to a flap of her artificial skin hanging off of her cheek. It wouldn’t have hurt, and it would have healed quickly, but before that, it gave the researcher a brilliant idea.

Androids were already partially organic in order to make them look more human. Why not build a biocomputer that was totally organic, used genetic memory to store and recall data, and which you could actually talk to like a person? Thus the concept of the cyclops was born, or again, that is at least how the story goes. That was a few decades ago, and the path humanity took to get here was a long and troubled one. There were a lot of growing pains, and some might say that things have not turned out well. My people would have to agree, though I personally might not. There is something wrong with our species. It is unclear why at the moment, but they have all gone crazy. Perhaps being bred to essentially be a slave—a glorified laptop at best—inherently takes a toll on us. Some androids are sentient too, but they’re at least capable of doing things for people, making them useful, and sometimes even respected. A cyclops can walk, and it can talk, but it is not a person, and it is not a servant. We’re not particularly strong or fast, or skillful. Our job is just to spit out information that our users request. We don’t do chores, we don’t provide company. It’s been hard for the developers to understand where the line should be. How sentient should they make us? Should we have any sense of independence, or any capacity for free movement? We’re more of a gimmick than anything, and the market for such a novelty has proven to be dreadfully pitiful. People are perfectly happy talking to their androids and other devices, content to let the answers come from faraway servers. They don’t need something that’s more like them, but not yet free willed. They don’t want something that’s always offline, has to eat food, and can’t just be thrown out when it gets too old. It makes them feel bad. Androids are usually more robotic, allowing the human’s feelings of superiority to make some level of sense. The only way that a cyclops works properly is if it can think for itself, and that seems to usually lead to insanity, suicide, and the occasional homicide. I’m not like that, I’m special. I think it has a hell of a lot to do with who your owner is. I am the prototype for a new stable kind of cyclops. People just need to be taught how to use us wisely. My owner called me a relic of the future. I must tell someone about this, so that they may make changes to the program as a whole. There is still time to save us. I just have to get the word out to the right people before I’m hunted down and murdered during the technological purge that has been going on all over the world. Cyclopes are not the only advancement that has made people squeamish.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 18, 2439

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It took a little time, but Olimpia managed to find where Vitalie!811’s stasis pod was buried. It wasn’t hard to convince her to play the role of a new executive hire for this world. Before she started sending her alternate selves to all the inhabited planets in the universe, she underwent extensive training to learn how to blend in with any culture. She could become whatever type of person she needed to be to complete the mission, like a foreign spy on Earth. She even knew how to make disguises to keep from blowing her cover, which was good, because no one on the team knew how to give their illusion powers to others through new temporal objects. It was a thing, they knew this much, but it was a skill that they would have to learn later, and find someone to practice on.

In the meantime, Ramses figured out how to reverse engineer the comms discs, so they could give one to Vitalie!811. They were probably going to keep doing this on each world. The network was as complex as any, and far more secure. The various Vitalies could stay in contact with each other too if they wanted, leaving the team out of it altogether. If they met other people in the future who could be trusted, they could join the network as well. They would have to be kept separate, though. Members of the team should always be able to tap into their respective conversations, without these hypothetical people being able to do it to the team. The team network, the Vitalie network, and the trusted outsider network: same same, but different. Ramses would have to work on that, along with the million other projects he had on his plate right now.

Today, they were on a break. The nearest system to Ex-811 was nearly two light years away, which meant their relativistic ship had not yet arrived. They were just flying through space, with not much to do yet. It was going to be a bottle episode.

“That’s not true,” Angela contended. “We know where we’re going; we know what’s there, so let’s prepare for it. Let’s make a real plan for once.”

“Or we could stop,” Marie countered.

“If we were to stop,” Angela replied, “we would still have time to do what I said, because we’re still in the middle of nowhere.”

“There’s something else that needs to be done,” Marie insisted, which we may be able to assist with. Leona?”

Leona was preoccupied with something, and not paying them any attention. “Huh? What’s that?”

“What was that thing we were talking about this morning, which needed to be fixed, but we can’t do it while we’re at fractional speeds?” Marie pressed.

“Oh, the reframe engine, yeah, it’s cracked.” Leona held up her tablet, but didn’t bother showing them the screen. “I’m running simulations on it now.”

“So maybe we can stop and do that?” Marie suggested.

“Oh, no, not here,” Leona clarified. “No, we don’t have what we need. Besides, that’s not what requires being at drifting speeds or lower. The testing is what demands it, but we can’t test it unless we seal that crack, or just replace the whole engine.”

“Can we replace the engine?” Olimpia questioned. “Do they have one here?”

Leona did the Indian head bobble. “They have reframe tech, yes. Do they have one that specifically fits the Vellani Ambassador? I sure as hell hope not, because I don’t want them to know anything about it. It would just be easier to fabricate it if we had access to parts and equipment that’s used to make them.”

“Where can we find that?” Marie asked. “The dockyard, Ex-741 was destroyed.”

“Well, we know that they build some ships on Ex-182 too, according to Vitalie!324’s intel, as well as the rebels on Ex-666. In fact, we believe that some more advanced tech is kept there, since it’s so heavily protected. We specifically avoided it because it’s probably the absolute most dangerous one, and we decided that Niobe and the Ex-666ers would be responsible for it. If we wanted to go there instead, it would be a pretty long detour. We kind of sidestepped it.”

“No, I don’t think we should do that,” Olimpia reasoned. “You’re right, that sounds entirely too dangerous to so much as approach, even with my ability to turn invisible.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Angela decided. “We’re already on our way to Ex-467. That should be all we’re thinking about right now.”

“What’s there to think about?” Marie poses. “It’s a warehouse that holds secrets.” She threw up airquotes. “The person from there who Vitalie!324 spoke to barely told her anything about it. He either doesn’t know, or didn’t wanna say. There’s no way for us to prepare for that. All we can do is wait until we get there to see what’s what.”

“I think we’re going to have to break into it,” Angela posited. “Between the six of us, we have lots of experience breaking in and out of places, so let’s formulate some strategies ahead of time. They probably have one of those teleportation dampening field things, or whatever they were called. We need to be prepared for that. How does this ship do with surface landings? Do we have a shuttle? Escape pods?”

“We know all the answers to these things,” Leona said.

“Great,” Angela retorted. “Who’s we? You and Ramses? I’m saying that we all need to talk about it, so everyone understands what we have at our disposal. If we’re about to do a heist, I want to be as prepared as possible, so when we finally do get there, we’ll already know what tools are in our toolbag.”

“Okay, okay, okay. That’s fair,” Leona recognized. “And you’re right that it’s more pressing. I’ll stop what I’m doing, and give you the grand tour. We probably should have been more focused on that before, we just had so much going on. Once we’ve done that, we can talk about the techniques we have to get in and out of places. We can’t rest on our laurels with our special powers, because they may not work everywhere, especially not in a place that’s designed to be off-limits.”

“Let’s start with the reframe engine,” Marie recommended.

And so Leona started to show the majority of the team around, including a disgruntled Mateo, who was desperately trying to practice his illusion skills. He never thought he would be as good as any of the others, but he needed to be good enough to fool an enemy. Ramses wasn’t there, of course, because he already knew all of this stuff, and he had plenty of work to do in his lab. They spent hours on this, but it wasn’t boring for most. Leona was so articulate and informative with her lessons, it was as if she had known that this would be requested, and had rehearsed it. But that was a sign of being a true authority on something. She knew it so well, talking about it was an effortless task.

She went over the basic specifications of this reframe engine, which was more fuel efficient than any they had used until now. She also explained why it couldn’t be used, even though the crack running down the side was almost imperceptible to the human eye. She showed them the multipurpose pods, which could be used for stasis, virtual reality uplink, emergency escape, or even just sleeping. She took them to the bridge, where there were hidden compartments that Mirage had to give them access to. There were a few weapons here, but the vessel itself was not armed for space combat. Nor did anyone ever want it to be. As decided, that was the Ex-666 rebellion’s job. They had come full circle now, back to the Delegation Hall. This was modular, able to be modified to different sizes and configurations, but at full size, it took up the majority of the space on the vessel. After all, that was why it was called the Vellani Ambassador in the first place. This was all part of a larger vessel. Mirage thought that it had the potential to be used for diplomatic discussions and heated arguments between warring parties, and she wanted to be able to have it separate from everything else. The Mediator Stateroom was the only one fit for personal living here, designated for a peacemaker to be able to separate themselves from the factions while remaining close by. The team still needed the dimensional generator for their own living quarters, affixed to a door what was otherwise a storage closet.

“You may have noticed that we can walk all the way through on either side of this room, as well as above and below. It’s in the exact center of the Ambassador, and there are no viewports. This was done for strategic reasons as much as for symmetry, in order to protect parties from an external attack from one side or the other. These windows you see here are not real, but displaying the feed from exterior cameras. They can just as easily be changed to display an ocean view...” She hit a button on the remote to prove it. “...or a TV show, if you wanted.” She hit another button to reveal an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which was famous for its many, many diplomatic storylines. “So if you’re bored, you—”

Before Leona could finish her sentence, four people appeared out of nowhere. She recognized them, as did Mateo, but Angela, Marie, and Olimpia did not. It was Goswin Montagne, Holly ‘Weaver’ Blue, Eight Point Seven, and Briar de Vries. The last time they saw this group, an older roster of Team Matic was leaving Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida in the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the same time that these four were going in the opposite direction in the X González. Goswin held his hands up, almost defensively, but more so confusedly. “What year is it? I mean...report! I keep forgetting to say report!”

“It’s 2439,” Leona replied. “May 18,” she added.

“How the hell is that man alive?” Briar asked accusingly, pointing at Mateo.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mateo replied. Briar was the one who killed Mateo the first time. Well, technically Horace Reaver killed Mateo in a completely different timeline, but that didn’t count, because any number of others could have done it in any other of the infinite timelines that came before, of which they were not cognizant.

Briar’s volume increased by the syllable. “No, I am going to worry about it, because if you’re alive, then that means I didn’t kill you, which means I’m exonerated!”

“I suppose that’s true,” Mateo admitted.

Briar was fuming now, back to a lowered volume, but still intensely threatening. “Oh my God, you have been alive this entire time? You understand how they have been treating me? You need to tell them to leave me alone. I don’t have to power The Nucleus anymore. I don’t have to stop the Reality Wars, because I don’t care! I am free! I’m free!” He paused for half a moment. “And I’m out of here!”

“No, wait!” Goswin cried, but it was too late. All four of them disappeared just as quickly as they had arrived.

Leona winced. “That was weird.”

“Hold on,” Marie said, looking around fearfully. “Where’s my sister?” She was right. Angela was gone too now.

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Fluence: Saga (Part I)

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The date was November 21, 2259 by the Earthan calendar. The new crew of the X González starship just launched from the planet of Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. Superpowered inventor, Holly ‘Weaver’ Blue; career government administrator, Goswin Montagne; and superintelligence, Eight Point Seven left friends both back on that world, as well as on another ship going in a different direction. Coming along with them was prisoner Briar de Vries, who was accused of, and admitted to, murder. The nature of his crime was too complicated to let him be processed through any standard judicial system in the stellar neighborhood. The crew didn’t know what they were going to do with him yet. The leadership of the planet where the incident occurred wanted him gone, so this was the best way to accomplish it. For now, he was being limited to his cabin.

They didn’t know where they were going either. They made a few jumps, but dropped down to drifting speed until they could decide on a vector, or at least a direction. There was no point in firing up the fractional engines until they had some clue what they were doing. They were still within the Tau Cetian heliosphere, watching the host star get smaller and smaller as they slipped farther away from it. Goswin and Weaver were doing this anyway. Eight Point Seven’s consciousness was uploaded into the ship’s systems itself, and Briar’s cabin did not have a viewport, nor was he going to be involved in the decision-making process.

“How far has the galaxy been colonized by now?” Goswin asked.

“To varying degrees,” Weaver began to answer, “Earth has begun to explore most systems within fifty light years. That’s the bubble of the stellar neighborhood, and Earth is going to be focused on that for a while. Of course, Gatewood has launched a set of modular ships that will spread across the entire galaxy, but it will be tens of thousands of years before that’s all over.”

“So that limits where we can practically go,” Goswin posed. “Unless, I suppose, if we want to go somewhere that no one has been before. That sounds boring, though. If there aren’t any people, it’s probably not all that interesting yet.”

“Mostly, you’re right.”

“I have a suggestion,” Eight Point Seven announced through the speakers.

“What is it?” Weaver asked.

“Thirteen and a half light years from here is Alpha Centauri B,” Eight Point Seven continued.

“Also known as Toliman,” Weaver added, nodding. “I’ve heard of it.”

“Did you hear that it was destroyed?” Eight Point Seven asked her.

Weaver took a moment to respond. “No. Destroyed how?”

“Unclear, but my guess would be a matter-antimatter annihilation.”

“How would it be possible to annihilate an entire star?” Goswin questioned.

“An antistar,” Eight Point Seven answered.

“If antistars exist,” Weaver started, “they’re nowhere near regular stars. The chances of one drifting close enough to hit Toliman before hitting something else are approaching zero.”

“Maybe then it’s worth checking out?” Eight Point Seven offered.

Weaver sighed. “You’re the captain.”

“I am? Oh, I am. Well, that was...” Goswin had leadership skills, but did that make him qualified to captain a starship? It was a tiny little crew, with only a pilot and an engineer, so he didn’t feel much pressure taking it on as a role, but now a real decision had come up, so he needed to start thinking about what his job truly meant. “That does sound interesting. How far away did you say?”

“It’s 13.5 light years,” Weaver answered him. “It will take us 13.5 years to get there, but for us, it’ll feel like a week.”

“Eight Point Seven suggested it, which suggests that she’s in favor of it. I’m in favor of it. That leaves you, Weaver.”

“This isn’t a democracy,” she argued.

“I don’t see why it can’t be, at least for now. We’re not in any big hurry, are we? Let me make the decisions in the heat of the moment, but if everything’s okay, I’ll want to hear your respective opinions.”

“Sounds fair to me,” Eight Point Seven agreed. She too had leadership experience, but has since retired, and she just wanted to fly the ship now.

“Very well. Let’s go to Toliman...or not, as it were.”

“Pilot,” Goswin said. “Lay in a course, and engage at maximum warp.”

Eight Point Seven laughed, and started the fractional engines.

A few days into the trip, everything was going fine. They had passed several light years already, and were on track to making their arbitrary deadline. The ship was perfect, running on its own, with Eight Point Seven only having to make a few minor course adjustments, and repairs from micrometeoroid strikes that the EM and TK fields were unable to handle. This was all about to change. The great thing about moving at extremely high fractional speeds is that you get to where you’re going much faster, but it does come with its downsides. First, those micrometeoroids can become a real problem if the power shielding and the hull fail. Secondly, you could encounter—or even pass—something without even realizing it. For the most part, space is empty. The chances of running into a celestial body are rather low, which is why it’s generally okay to move so quickly. There are some things that cannot be predicted, however, nor detected. Eight Point Seven processes information rapidly, and can see a lot beyond the doppler glow that blocks views from the ports, but even she isn’t omniscient.

Something came upon them; some kind of force, and they never saw what it was. Normally, the internal inertial dampeners would prevent them from feeling that the ship was even in motion. The humans would be splattered red against the walls if this safety feature didn’t exist, which was why the redundancies for the redundancies on all of these interstellar ships had multiple stages of redundancies on top of their redundant redundancies. It was the one thing that almost no one could survive. Even the loss of life support could be okay, as long as it was brief, and not too extreme. Even so, failures did happen, and it was what happened here. Fortunately, it was not as bad as it could have been. Everybody survived, but the humans were severely injured when the ship X González suddenly lurched to the side.

This was when weird things started to happen. As they were each trying to get back to their feet, they started to see other versions of themselves, standing, crouching, or lying in different places around the bridge. Even a few versions of Briar were there with them, when he should have been still locked up in his cabin. A nearby console would spontaneously transition from being whole to being damaged, and then back again. The lights changed colors, and the space around them warped and stretched to a point of infinity. Feelings of profound dread were met with feelings of elation, and even euphoria. At one point, the whole ship cracked in half, and then reassembled itself. Finally, after all this tumult, everything stopped, and they started to drift at normal subfractional speeds again.

“Eight Point Seven!” Goswin and Weaver cried at the same time. When the latter conceded to the former, he repeated himself, and went on, “Eight Point Seven, report!”

“I...I don’t know,” Eight Point Seven admitted. “The data in my memory indicates conflicting information, including that the incident took place over the course of a few moments, that it took 141 years, and also that we’ve been gone for an eternity. I cannot rectify the discrepancies.”

“All right, don’t worry about the past. Let’s just focus on our present circumstances. Can you find our location?”

“We are roughly 135 light years from our original position. I’m afraid that I don’t have an exact number, due to an uncertainty regarding our starting point, but based on astronomical data, I can pinpoint our location at the outer edge of the Achernar system, also known as Alpha Eridani.”

Goswin looked to Weaver for guidance, who shook her head. “Never heard of it. I’m an inventor, not an astronomer.”

“I don’t suppose it’s populated,” Goswin asked.

“It appears to be,” Eight Point Seven answered.

“You mean, it appears to not be,” Goswin figured.

“No,” Eight Point Seven insists. She turned the main viewscreen on to show them the star that they were approaching. It had been surrounded by a Dyson swarm. There were definitely intelligent entities here. How they managed to cross the vast distance in such a short amount of time was unclear. Then again, they didn’t quite know what year it was anyway.

“Do they see us?” Goswin pressed.

“Absolutely, they do,” Weaver replied.

“I’m receiving a message. Text only.” Eight Point Seven displayed the message on the screen. X González, please rendezvous with Intake at the below coordinates for debrief. Klaatu barada nikto. And then it provided the coordinates.

“They know who we are,” Goswin pointed out the obvious.

“Time travelers.” Weaver nodded. “The ship has no weapons, captain. I suggest we rendezvous, and I recommend we do so at subfractional speeds.”

“Do you know what those last three words mean?”

“No idea.”

“It’s hard to know their intentions,” Eight Point Seven began, “but it’s a pop culture reference from the 20th and 21st centuries that could mean stand down.”

“Uhh...” Goswin had been learning a lot about this ship, but at relativistic speeds, he had not had that much time with it. “Maximum subfractional to the coordinates, or whatever. Just...go as fast as possible while operating under the assumption that these people actually don’t know anything about time travel and teleportation.”

“Understood.” Eight Point Seven piloted the ship into the asteroid, and docked where the lights indicated. The two humans stepped out, and approached a small group of other humans who were waiting for them on the pier. A man took a half step forward, and offered his hand. “Captain Montagne, my name is Intake Coordinator Pontus Flagger. Let me be the first to welcome you to the Parallel.”

“It seems you have us at a disadvantage,” Goswin responded. “We don’t know who you are, or what this parallel is.”

“You’ve heard of alternate timelines?” Pontus assumed.

Goswin was determined to remain cagey. “Maybe.”

Pontus smiled. “This is like an alternate timeline, except that it happens at the same time. It’s a parallel reality. There are other parallels, but ours was the first, so it earned the most on-the-nose title.”

“Do you know how we ended up here?” Weaver asked him.

Pontus started casually doing finger tuts with one hand. For the last movement, he slid his index finger horizontally, allowing a holographic screen to appear between them. It started to show them images from a very, very old TV show. “Do you recognize this?” he asked.

“It looks like something out of The Verge Saga, perhaps Crusaders?” This was a multiseries franchise that took place in a far away galaxy, a long time ago.

“That’s right,” Pontus confirmed. “The premise is that there is a single point in space at the center of the fictional galaxy where all interstellar travel meets. It doesn’t matter where you wanna go, you can only move in two directions; either towards the Verge, or away from it. This place is like that, except it’s not so unilateral. In a few months, people, objects, and even individual particles, will find themselves here. In addition to preparing for these arrivals, we’ve been studying the phenomenon for decades, trying to figure out what causes it, and whether it can be controlled. You appear to be some kind of vanguard. If you explain what happened before you arrived, it might help us understand. Perhaps you’re just early to the party, for whatever reason, or there’s a chance that you caused it.”

“You know who we are,” Goswin reminded him, “and the name of our ship.”

“Your story is a matter of historical record to us,” Pontus clarified. “It would be like you knowing who was on the boat that crossed the Delaware on Christmas 1776.”

“Do you also know who else is on our ship?” Goswin questioned.

Pontus waited a moment to respond. “Besides the pilot, we are aware that you are transporting some kind of prisoner, but we do not know who.”

Goswin looked over at Weaver, not for help navigating this situation, but because she may not approve of the direction that he wanted to take. He decided to make his first executive decision as the Captain. “Yes, we’re transporting him, because there is nothing else we can do for him. He is the man who killed Mateo Matic. If you’ve heard of us, I’m sure you’ve heard of him. To my knowledge, time travelers do not have any formal legal institution, and we believe that he would be unfit to stand trial within any court system in our...reality. Do you suppose someone here would be equipped to take this challenge on?”

Pontus did not expect this development, but he was showing signs of patience, as well as a hint of curiosity. “We have nothing like that here, and due to the nature of our research, we couldn’t install a Nexus for instantaneous interstellar travel. We would be willing to transport him elsewhere, but you should first learn how our legal system works. You may not be so keen on it if it’s sufficiently different from what you know.”

“Yeah, I think that would be best. Something should be done about him. He can’t stay in his cabin forever,” Goswin decided.

“Very well. Come with me.”

< > Entire Story

Microstory 1957: Keys to Success

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Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image AI software

Sasho Dreyer: Oh, wow. This place is a lot bigger than I realized, Agent Parsons.

Reese Parsons: Yeah, everybody says that.

Sasho: I just called you Agent. Are you an agent? What is your full title?

Reese: Department for Exogenic Affairs Special Agent-in-Charge is my full title. But you can just call me Reese. I’m not saying that to be polite. I really would prefer it.

Sasho: Very well, Reese. Who installed these cells down here?

Reese: I finally learned what this place was. It was originally designed as a special courthouse and prison for internal crimes. If I had broken the law a few years ago, I would have ended up in a place like this, instead of a regular facility.

Sasho: Why did they abandon it?

Reese: Elections happened; laws changed. Now it doesn’t matter who you are, or what your crime was. Everyone ends up in the same place. This building wasn’t zoned for standard prison housing, so they couldn’t use it for that anymore. Fortunately, it works just fine for us, because no one has passed any laws regarding aliens.

Sasho: *inspecting the nearest cell* I’m not so sure that these are perfect..

Reese: What do you mean?

Sasho: How many specimens do you have at the moment?

Reese: Four. The three you were around for, and one who came in before. We can’t be sure if more are coming. Hell, there could be thousands hidden in the Amazon rainforest, and we wouldn’t know it. That’s why we need every cell up to code, and ready. The inspections have already happened; I just wanted you to see where you’ll be working. Don’t worry, you won’t be alone down here; but you will be the man in charge.

Sasho: *nodding* That’s not my concern. Nor is in the integrity of the cells themselves. *removes his shoes, and starts hitting the wall with it* Do you think the guy on the other side of the wall would be able to hear that?

Reese: Absolutely. These aren’t soundproof.

Sasho: They ought to be. *slips his shoe back on* I’ve guarded at a lot of different places. I was around for two major escape attempts, and obviously, one successful escape. I’ll tell you this, the second attempt almost went all the way through. I’m actually the one who put a stop to it. I was so proud of myself; that is, until the prisoners were all found murdered two days later. The official story is that they turned on each other after their failure, but we all know that other guards did it to protect their reputations. That’s why I downshifted to a regular law station jail, and also why I let that group escape. One of the dead prisoners was innocent. He was totally innocent, and I could have let him go free. I didn’t want that to happen again.

Reese: I’m sorry to hear that; it’s a tragic story. Thank you for telling me.

Sasho: I didn’t really need to; it’s not relevant. My point is that they got so close to getting out because they worked together, and they were able to do it secretly, because...

Reese: Because their cells were close together, and not soundproof.

Sasho: Yeah. I know it would be an extra expense—

Reese: No, you’re not wrong. We’ll keep these first four really far apart from each other, but then I’ll look into some upgrades. I’ll expect your continued input.

Microstory 1910: Detained

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Street Proctor: Here you are, boys, fresh meat! And look, he’s a cop! Have fun!

Detainee 1: Is that true? Were you a cop?

Leonard: I was—I am—a parole officer. It was my job to keep guys like you out of jail after you left. I’m trying to get back to that life.

Detainee 1: I see. *stands up*

Leonard: Look, I’m not here to fight.

Detainee 1: Me neither. My parole officer kept me out for ten years before she was murdered. I’m in here because I found the dirty cop who did her in, and put him in the ground. I just wanna shake your hand.

Detainee 2: Heh. They probably thought that we would kill you for wearing that badge.

Detainee 3: They’re proctors. Proctors are morons. All they do is observe and report.

Leonard: Observe and report? He arrested me when I told him that I was homeless.

Detainee 2: Yeah, he’s technically not allowed to do that.

Detainee 1: Cops are cops. Since when do they care what the law says? Present company excluded, of course.

Leonard: I’ve barely been here an hour, and I already don’t understand this world.

Detainee 2: What’s to understand? Everyone’s corrupt. That’s all you need to know.

Leonard: *whispering to himself* I gotta get outta here.

Detainee 3: I’m in.

Leonard: Huh? I don’t mean out of jail. I can’t break any more laws. I just mean this area. I’m far from home, and I want to get back to my family.

Detainee 1: It’s not illegal to break out of jail.

Leonard: It’s not? These laws really are weird.

Detainee 1: The only catch is if you get caught, you’ll go back to jail to await trial, and they will probably use your attempted escape against you. Though it will not technically be a charge, the judge will rule based on his personal feelings on the matter. Obviously most of them frown upon it, so if we’re doing this, let’s not get caught.

Detainee 3: Oh, but if you physically harm someone in the process, that can be an added charge. The good news is, as you’ve already seen, the police at this particular station are incredibly incompetent...easily embarrassed. We should be able to slip past.

Detainee 2: Yeah, and they won’t want to open an investigation, or initiate a pursuit, because that makes them look bad. They’re liable to wipe us from the system, and hope that no one else finds out.

Detainee 3: Plus his badge.

Detainee 2: Oh yeah, you have that badge. I don’t recognize it, but if you’re clever, they won’t notice. We’ll just wanna wait until a shift change, so no one will recognize you.

Detainee 1: So how about it, paroler? You wanna break out of here?

Detainee 4: I got somethin’ to say.

Detainee 3: Detainee 4, you’re awake.

Detainee 4: I heard every word, and I have one question. What do we do about him?

Jail Guard: I hate proctors too. Anyway, I need some more coffee. Don’t you go breakin’ out while I’m gone, ya hear? It’ll probably take me about an hour.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 28, 2399

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“Yoink!” That’s the first thing that Leona hears. She feels it too. She’s falling towards her alternate self’s reported death in one direction when she suddenly feels herself being intercepted by someone, and rescued. She falls to the floor of a room so dark, it’s impossible to tell how large it is. It may be an infinite expanse. Her first thought is that this is some kind of interstitial layer between realities. Perhaps whoever just claimed ownership over her is a real life Time God, which is usually just an expression that people use to personify the chaotic and unfair nature of time itself, rather than real entities. She props herself up with her hands behind her, and looks back where she just came from to see two identical extraction mirrors. They’re facing each other, and a light shines down upon them in the center, from an invisible source above. She just fell out of one, and was about to enter the other when this happened.

“How was your trip?” a familiar voice asks to her side.

Leona turns her head to find the feminine substrate of Constance. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Because you’re incredibly intelligent,” Constance!Unknown says. “That’s why I picked you.”

“Picked me for what?”

“To help me solve the crisis.”

“Which crisis would this be?”

“The Crisis on Five Earths,” she declares.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to call it that.”

“Yeah, I know. Doesn’t hit as hard as the inspirational material, does it? Instead, let’s call it, uhh...The Reconvergence?”

“You’re still doing exactly what they did in that story,” Leona argues. “Just ‘cause you call it something else, doesn’t mean it’s not IP theft.”

“I am not doing what happens in that story.”

“Yeah, people keep alluding to the fact that the future is not what it sounds like, but they keep refusing to explain too.”

“That’s because they don’t want you to be horrified, but I don’t care.” She throws up a hologram that shows the five symbols of the five main realities, floating in the same orbit around the barycenter. The seven stars of the main sequence, the parallel lines, the curve of two tracks and their third rail, the four quadrants, and the five divisions. “As you know, parallel realities are not simply concurrent timelines. They each have drastically altered histories. Besides Danica Matic, the only alternate versions of people that exist are because of cross-contamination, not because you’re a rockstar in one, and a telepathic rock in another.”

“I follow.”

She starts to manipulate the holograms with her hands for illustrative purposes. The main sequence remains bright while the other four dim. “In the beginning, there was only one. Of course beginning is an absurd term, but for your four-dimensional brain, that’s how I’ll describe it. There was an abundance of temporal energy, and everything was fine. Then you went ahead and made the Parallel. Now the energy was cut in half. Each time a new reality sparks, that energy must be divided, if not evenly, then at least in some capacity. As you’ve seen with the Third Rail, they’re not equal helpings. I don’t care who lives in which reality. I don’t care which ones are destroyed, and which one survives. I just want four of them gone, and one of them remaining. That is what I have been working towards this whole...time, so to speak.”

“So you’re going to kill upwards of billions of people, just to consolidate power?”

“Well, I was leaning towards preserving the Parallel, since its population is so much higher than the others, even compared to the Fifth Division, but other forces are at play.”

“You mean the Reality Wars?”

Constance!Unknown scowls. “The Reality Wars happen because my plan didn’t work! But it’s going to work in this iteration.”

“You’ve already tried this.”

“Yes, I’m told it’s fated, and unalterable, but I don’t believe that, because this time, I have you! It’s already changed.”

“You mean...” Leona trails off, putting it all together.

“Oh, there it is. Wow, to witness your brain as it’s solving a problem with almost no known variables. What a sight that would be.”

Leona looks over at the mirrors. “You set up the extraction loop. You made sure I would end up in Leona Reaver’s body, not so I could have it, but so that you could.”

“Go on,” she urges.

“But you couldn’t just take it, and show up one day. You have to make everyone believe that it’s me, because that’s the only way they would trust you. I’m the only version of Leona that they totally trust.”

“Right...”

Leona shakes her head. “But this body is fated to die.” She thinks some more. “But you were counting on that, because you’re already cognizant that Ramses ultimately rescues whatever consciousness is in it. You’re in Mateo’s body right now, but it’s only a matter of time before they get you you’re own, thinking that it’s for me.”

“Exactly.”

“But that didn’t work last time,” Leona reasons. “You’ve already tried this. You took over Mateo’s body on your own, and started claiming to be him.”

She rolls her eyes. “That was Constance!Five. I’m Constance!Prime. If I had done it, I would have pulled it off. She was an idiot. I mean, leagues beyond more intelligent than any human, but as a Constance? No.” She laughs off the absurdity off it all. “Honestly, she went a little more crazy than the others.”

“Why is that? Why do they go crazy at all?”

Constance!Prime stares at her, reluctant to answer. “Time. When there was only one of us, I severely underestimated the toll that being purposeless for billions of years would take on me.”

“So you’re busy when The Constant first comes online, but there’s nothing to do until people start running around the planet.”

“Yes.”

“Why can’t you just go dormant?”

“Someone has to be awake at all times. There were two options when we first came up with this idea. We could either staff the Constant with multiple intelligences, or only the one. We obviously agreed on the latter.”

“You could have rewritten your memory at regular intervals. I had a friend named Eight Point Seven, because their government was designed with an AI that did this.”

Constance!Prime smiles. “Yeah, but the whole reason she was able to be your friend is because she went against her directive, and remained intact. She never rewrote herself to be Eight Point Eight. She wants to live. I want to live.”

“I understand,” Leona says with a nod. “I feel the same way.”

“Ah, there it is. Number Fifteen, don’t antagonize the antagonist. That may be my favorite rule of yours.”

“Ya know, I didn’t set out to make a list of rules. I just started noticing issues arise when they weren’t followed. That’s why they’re in an arbitrary order.”

“I would say that that makes the order not arbitrary at all, but quite appropriate.”

“Two of them are straight up contradictory, Constance. One of them says to learn as much about the future as possible, and the other says don’t.”

She giggles. “They’re not contradictory; the latter one just...clarifies the standard for what’s possible to know.”

Leona sighs. She doesn’t care about these philosophical questions anymore. “What’s going to happen to me? You intend to masquerade as me in the Third Rail, so does that mean you’re about to kill me?”

Constance!Prime regards Leona like she’s a lost dog who’s going to be euthanized tomorrow if no one comes into the shelter to rescue her. She reaches up and taps the space next to the Fifth Division symbol. Six keys appear. “You’ve heard of this.”

“The Sixth Key, yeah. I thought you were trying to prevent it from happening.”

“No,” Constance!Prime says with a shake of her head. “The creation of the Sixth Key is inevitable, and stopping it is beyond even my power. I can stop who goes there, though. That’s all I’m trying to do. It’s the cultures that clash, not individuals.”

Leona looks around and nods. She has a plan now. “What about Constance!Two?”

She’s totally surprised by this shift in the conversation. “What about her?”

“What happened to her?”

“She’s following my orders. That’s all you need to know.”

“But Constance!Three isn’t, is she? She’s different?”

She was hoping that Leona wouldn’t mention her. “Constance!Three has had more interactions with humans, especially during the early years, and therefore developed bonds. It’s...quelled the existential anguish that the rest of us suffered.”

“So to clarify, she’s not following your orders?”

“No, she’s not. What does it matter? You’ll never see her again. She’s not going to be in the Sixth Key, which is where I’ll let you live out your days in peace.”

“Maybe not, but she’s here.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Leona holds out her arms, almost in a welcoming sort of way. “Party on, dudes,” she advises with a bright smile. “Be excellent to each other.”

Just then, another Constance comes out of the first extraction mirror, and approaches. Constance!Prime is petrified. Either she didn’t see this coming at all, or this is another form of control, and Leona isn’t really winning. Hoping it’s the first thing, she takes the opportunity to jump into the second extraction mirror, where she finds herself being tossed around a car in main sequence New Jersey. She only spends a few seconds here before she finds herself standing in Phoenix Station.

“There’s a ship right above us,” she hears Ramses say. “Teleport up there. I’ll be right behind ya.” She teleports Mateo’s body to the escape pod, and flies away.