Microstory 2477: Wheeldome

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In case you’re confused, this dome is all about wheels. This includes bicycles, roller blades, skateboards, etc. What it doesn’t include are cars and motorcycles. Basically, if it runs on petrol or electricity, it can’t be here. I guess I shouldn’t say that. They do have some electric bikes, but obviously that’s a whole different animal. There are hundreds of wheel-based leisure areas, as well as long trails that stretch between them. They have all sorts of hills if you wanna go fast, and the best part about it is that you don’t even have to hike all the way back up. They have chairlifts that take you back up. It’s like a ski mountain, but for wheel sports. You couldn’t do that on Earth. They just didn’t want to build the infrastructure, and of course in more recent decades, all those old abandoned roads have been demolished to make way for nature. I didn’t come here because I was a skater. I came because I’m not, and I want to learn. I’ve had plenty of time to practice in virtual simulations but never got around to it, despite how accessible the worlds are. I guess I was waiting for this. Having a whole dome dedicated to what might one day become my passion seemed like the perfect place to get into it. It’s real, ya know? Anyway, I tell you that I’m a beginner so you’re not expecting me to give a detailed review of this place. I don’t know how it stacks up against other skate parks. I just know that when you’re working with 5,410 square kilometers, it’s hard to believe it’s lacking in anything. Unless, again, you’re looking to race cars, or something. Go somewhere else for that. Just because it’s got wheels, doesn’t mean it belongs in Wheeldome. Hang ten, bruh. Gotta go.

Extremus: Year 74

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t see it that way.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, get on with it.”

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

“You wanted a pardon for your father.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Only if you’re not lying...”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I need the jet.”

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

“Fishing,” she lies.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hitten?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Fluence: Mirage (Part III)

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Goswin wiped the rain from his eyes, and was able to see that this Irene de Vries woman was not alone. A very young child was huddled against her hip. All signs pointed to the fact that this was Briar, but it could also be his son, or his great grandfather, or his eleventh cousin, forty-two times removed. “What year are you from?” Goswin asked. “Oh wait, no. Sorry. I mean, uhh...report.”

Irene smiled. “Trinity used to say that to me all the time. Is that in the time traveler’s handbook, or something?”

“If there’s an actual handbook, I’ve not actually seen it. That’s just what I’ve heard others say. May I ask the boy’s name?”

“It’s Briar.” Confirmed. “Hey, do I know you from somewhere? You look familiar. Have you ever been to the 21st century?”

“Captain!” Behind him, Weaver was power walking up, followed by Eight Point Seven, and Harrison.

“Is Madam Sriav with you?” Goswin asked.

Weaver shook her head. “She didn’t come. We assume she’s still on Lorania.”

“That’s not good,” Goswin mused. “We’ll try to get back to her. Crew, I would like you to meet Irene de Vries, and her son...Briar.”

Eight Point Seven didn’t react, and of course, neither did Harrison. Weaver flinched, but kept it together. Briar was in very, very big trouble, but not yet. Warning Irene that her son would one day become a killer was not going to help. Things could conceivably get better, but they could also get worse. She may decide that the only way to stop this would be to murder her son, and that would not be an okay decision. It wouldn’t work anyway. Briar killed Mateo while he was wearing the hundemarke, which was a special temporal object that created fixed moments in time. No matter how you try to change the past, this will always happen, as will anything inherently necessary to lead up to it. “It’s nice to meet you.” She pulled Goswin towards her, and did her best to whisper in his ear while still being heard through the rain. “We need to get out of here.”

“I know,” he replied.

“If you have to go back to the Middle Way, or whatever it is you did to make this happen a fourth time, then do it again. I don’t care if we end up on the moon. Just get us out of this paradox.”

“Fourth?” Goswin questioned incredulously. “You think I’m the one who took us to Achernar in the first place? You think that this was just something I’ve always been able to do, but the first time I tried was when I was in my 80s?”

“The thought crossed my mind. Maybe you’re salmon.”

“Excuse me?” Irene interjected. “The rain’s starting to come down harder. I really could use some shelter. There’s a cave nearby that we can hide in temporarily.”

“Hey!” a voice shouted to them. “Get the hell away from my mother!” Briar was running towards Goswin as fast as he could, and unlikely preparing to come to a complete stop just to exchange a few choice words. He was in a tackle posture. Fortunately, he didn’t make it that far. Harrison reached out, and lifted him up by his underarms, holding him in the air effortlessly as Briar continued to paddle his feet to no avail. “Let me go!”

“Did he just say mother?” Irene asked, confused and scared.

Goswin waggled his finger at the still struggling Briar. “Stop. Stop! We’re not going to hurt anyone. If you want to protect her, then you will stop moving, and listen to me very carefully.”

Briar went limp, and started to pant.

“Everyone gather around. Not you, Madam de Vries. Please go protect your son.” Once everyone else was in a huddle, Goswin went on. “I have a theory. Briar, are you familiar with any landmark on Earth; anything at all?”

“No, nothing.” Yeah, he had only ever remembered living on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. “Well, except for this.” He held up a photo of Irene in her younger days, smiling in front of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. “It was her favorite place in the world.”

Goswin closed his eyes and sighed. “Okay, I’ve been there too. That’ll work. Think about that place. Think about trying to go there.”

“Why?”

“Would you just do it? The National Museum of Natural History. Think about the museum. Think about visiting there. Don’t think about anything else.”

“Okay, I guess.”

The rain suddenly stopped. They were now in the middle of a grassy park. To one side of them was a giant bosom, and to the other a giant phallus. Behind them stood a red castle, and before them was the target museum, which was the second bosom. This was Washington D.C. all right. They were soaking wet on a bright, sunny day. The tourists around them were confused, and a few of them looked really nervous.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” Goswin admitted. “I just didn’t want us to go back to Bida, and Briar doesn’t have a frame of reference for much on Earth.”

“What is your hypothesis,” Weaver asked, “that he’s the one who brought us?”

“Well, it seems like the only possibility,” Goswin determined.

“We didn’t even see him at the other locations,” Weaver pointed out.

“Excuse me?” A man in overalls had approached Briar. “Could you please step closer to your friends?”

“They’re not my friends,” Briar spit at him.

“That is very much not my point, sir,” the stranger said. “Please step closer to them.” He waited, his patience thinning. “Please,” he repeated. “Thank you,” he added when Briar finally complied.

“What is it you need?” Goswin asked, ready for a fight, even though he was not much for violence.

The stranger held up his hands like he was trying to block the sun from his eyes. He jerked them a centimeter away from each other, which served to freeze everyone around them in place. Time was stopped, or at least moving very slowly. He gradually pushed his right hand forward, and in front of his left hand, which pulled back, and moved in the opposite direction. As he did so, time began to reverse outside of the bubble he had erected for them. They watched as the tourists walked backwards. A child’s scoop of ice cream flew back up to his cone from the ground. Once the scene was back to where he wanted it, he closed his hands into fists, and snapped them against each other, pinky to thumb. The five of them felt a lurch, as if the roller coaster ride were just beginning. The man carefully placed his left fist against his nose, and looked over his hands like a sniper. His arms were shaking, but not like he was struggling, more like it was integral to the process. As he slowly moved his fists away from his face, the scene around them began to blur and fade into blackness. They flew forward, also like a roller coaster. Finally, he opened his hands back up, and separated them, stopping the ride.

They were standing in a desert, the three main pyramids of Giza rippling above a mirage a few kilometers away. The slight distortion from the bubble dissolved, and the warm wind began to blow sand into their eyes and noses. “All right. It’s done.”

“What’s done?” Eight Point Seven questioned.

“You’ve been erased from the timeline. No one who witnessed your arrival in the National Mall remembers that it ever happened, because it didn’t. They’re all going about their day, still clueless about time travelers, and the like.”

“Thank you, Repairman,” Weaver said to him as if they were old friends. Maybe they were.

“When you say, we were erased from time...” Goswin trailed off intentionally.

“You just never showed up there,” the Repairman clarified. “Instead, you transported yourselves to this random spot in the Necropolis. You’ve been here the whole time, and if anyone were to ask a lizard or cactus around here what they saw, that’s what they would say.

“I don’t see any cactuses,” Briar noted.

“Then maybe you don’t have to worry about any witnesses,” the Repairman joked. He paused a moment. “Well, bye.”

“Wait!” Goswin stopped him. “Could you help us again...maybe by telling us what’s happening to us?”

“I wouldn’t know, but I heard you blame everything on this guy,” the Repairman said. “What I’ll tell you is that the ability to transport people from a distance is rather rare. It’s not impossible but...in my experience, when multiple individuals travel together without any of them realizing how or why, it’s not because one of them is doing it on purpose, but because there’s some kind of glue that binds them together.” He made a quarter turn, reached out, and opened an invisible panel in the air. They couldn’t see anything, but they could hear the familiar creak of metal scraping against metal. He reached into it, and took hold of an equally invisible handle, which he pulled down. His figure turned into a black silhouette for a split second before disappearing completely.

They stood there in silence for a few moments. “I have another idea,” Goswin finally said, worried how they would take it.

“A new experiment?” Weaver asked him, intrigued.

“Are you up for it? We have to get a handle on this. I don’t really want to spend the rest of my life randomly jumping from point to point.”

“Let’s hear it,” Eight Point Seven encouraged.

“You can’t,” Goswin replied. “I’m going to write four places down, and keep them compartmentalized. You will each think about your own place, and only that place. If he’s right, and there’s some kind of glue between us, it won’t work, because it will be contradictory.” He pulled out his handheld device, and started writing the locations down. He showed Briar the first one.

“Really?” Briar asked incredulously.

“Don’t. Give it away,” Goswin warned. “It’s a magic trick.”

Briar sighed, upset. He was being expected to think about the cliff where he killed Mateo Matic. It was simultaneously the worst and best place for him. What happened there was probably the worst thing he had ever done, so that meant, now that he had been triggered, he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else, even if he wanted to.

The other three, on the other hand, were going to be thinking about the the west entrance to the primary research facility on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. No one ever went back there, so they shouldn’t have to worry about being seen. Goswin was the only one who knew that he, Weaver, and Eight Point Seven had the same spot in mind. If Briar were the one in charge, it didn’t matter what the others thought of, because they would always end up where he wanted to go instead. “Everyone ready?” Goswin asked. “I guess time travel works on psychic powers, so...everyone think about your respective locations, please, and really, truly, desperately try to actually go there. Don’t think about anything else. It may take a while, I really don’t know.”

They stood there in their huddle for a minute or so without anything happening, the humans struggling with the dust storm that was starting up around them. It did work, though. The sand and sun disappeared to be replaced by a dense forest at twilight. Alien bugs crawled around on a tree next to them, as wingèd ones swarmed in their faces. This was definitely Bida. But it wasn’t the cliff where Briar committed murder, and it wasn’t anywhere near the research facility.

“Whose spot was this?” Eight Point Seven asked.

“No one’s,” Goswin revealed. I don’t know that we’re right about this.”

“Don’t be so hasty,” Weaver said, taking out her own handheld. “I can connect to the satellite now.”

Goswin was worried again about how they would take it. “Briar had the...the cliff. You know the one I mean. The rest of us had the west entrance to Pryce’s lab.”

Weaver peered at him over her device. “Only two places.”

“Yes, it was like a blind study.”

Weaver nodded, and tapped on the screen. She held it in front of his face. “We’re right in the middle.”

“What?” Goswin took it from her, to see what she was talking about.

“Exactly equidistant from the cliff and the building.”

“We split the difference,” Eight Point Seven noted. “The Repairman was right. It’s all of us. Whatever each of us wants, this...force between us tries to come up with something that matches our criteria combined. If you wanted Italian food, and she wanted Chinese, and I wanted French, and he wanted Ethiopian, we would end up at a fusion restaurant.” She started pointing at the members of the group accordingly. “If we wanted to go to the years 1776, 1912, 2024, and 2100, we would show up in 1953.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Goswin said. “Briar wasn’t with us on that void planet, or on Dardius.”

“Wasn’t he?” Weaver prodded.

Briar frowned. “I was hiding. I wasn’t planning on showing myself at all, but then you attacked my mother...”

“No one was attacking her,” Goswin defended. He grunted. “We have to figure out how to get rid of this. It could cause us serious problems. If one of us wants to go to Teagarden, and the rest want to go to Glisnia, are we gonna end up somewhere in the middle of empty space?”

“We can’t do that yet. We have to go back to return Harrison and Madam Sriav to where they belong.”

“That’s true,” Goswin agreed. “Can we all come to a consensus long enough to make that work?”

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Microstory 2052: Day Two

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I have to write this one really quickly, because I’m running out of money, and I know that I really shouldn’t be spending it on the internet, when what I really need is food and shelter, but I figure that I can get those things for free if I’m smart, or just later. First, while my immortality is gone, I’m still running on the energy that I got back when a window to the bulk briefly opened up. I probably won’t have to eat for at least for another week, maybe two. The weather is surprisingly mild here. They say it’s January in Kansas City, but it doesn’t feel like that. I don’t think the temperature—or the weather in general, for that matter—has changed once since I arrived here yesterday. Either your calendar is a lot different than the ones in other universes, or geography is. Maybe the continents drifted differently? Could this version of North America be closer to where the equator would be—wait, no, that doesn’t make any sense. I would have noticed that just by looking at a globe. The equator is the equator, regardless, and we’re about as distant from it as I recall. This is just super weird. Anyway, where was I? Oh, I had a little money in my pocket from Havenverse, and luckily, they use the same kind of bills here. I think that’s kind of how it works, though. Westfall is a special section of a universe-traveling machine called The Crossover. Westfall is seemingly random, and doesn’t send you clear across to a distant brane that’s unlike your own. The whole point is that you usually don’t even realize it’s happened. A lot of things are gonna be the same, like currency, and history, but apparently not weather. Still need to find a job, and a place to live, though. If anyone has any leads, hit me up in the comments. At this point, I’ll do pretty much anything. But I don’t deal with food or cleaning. Or waste or sewage. Or animals, because I’m allergic. And I really don’t like to work with my hands, or lift really heavy objects. I don’t want the environment to be too dirty or cold. I’m also not very skilled, so it needs to be entry level, but still pay extremely well. Other than that, I’m up for anything. Let me know, I’m gonna go take another nap in the park.

Microstory 2045: North Dakota

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Before my papa was born, his parents would go to a forest called the Roosevelt National Park, which is located in North Dakota. It isn’t that far from the border to Montana. Papa never went there himself, but on my grandpa’s birthday, who was dead, papa wanted to honor him with a family trip. We took a plane over there, and stayed in tents. We ate outside, and we hiked, and I swam in a lake a little bit. I know that it’s a really beautiful place, but I don’t have very good feelings about North Dakota. This is where my papa started getting sick. I hope I don’t cry while I’m presenting this slide. My papa had a real hard time on this trip. He had trouble walking, and he felt very weak all the time. I remember seeing him twitch while we were sitting around the campfire. He was also talking kinda funny, like he was trying to talk with his mouth full. We didn’t know what was wrong with him at the time, but we hoped that it would just go away. He took it easy for the rest of the trip, and then we just went back home. The problems started getting worse after that, so he went to the doctor, and he was eventually diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Most people just call it ALS, because that’s hard to say.

Extremus: Year 59

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It’s happening. Attic Forest is this close to becoming a real thing. It has been a grueling year and a half, but Tinaya and Lilian managed to amass enough support to get approval to build it. The Resource Allocation Authority was not easy on them, and put up every roadblock they could come up with. The two of them were required to include in their proposal every little detail, right down to every individual plant in its individual location, to the size of the screws that would be used for the ventilation grate that was in the portside corner with the stern. Even then, they weren’t allowed to just go do it unless they proved that the people of the ship actually wanted it. Well, it wasn’t the kind of thing that could be left to a popular vote. The level of support they were receiving for it was so subjective, and at the mercy of other people’s interpretation. They did interviews for the newspaper, and went on talk shows. Tinaya was more in charge of all that, since Lilian didn’t like the attention, but that was okay, because that was how they sold the story. Lilian was the genius behind the design. Tinaya was the face. They made it work.

Not everyone is as jazzed about this as they are, of course, but there are no unambiguous detractors. Captain Tamm has made a point of staying out of it. He claims that this is a matter for the civilians, and the civilian government, but that’s just political posturing. It’s a waste of his political energy too. He still lives on this ship, and could support it on a personal level. He’s trying to play both sides, even though there aren’t really two sides to the issue. There’s little opposition to it; mostly people who don’t care, or don’t think it’s necessary. It’s ridiculous, really, because he’s guaranteed the captaincy for the duration of his shift, unless he does something to lose the faith of the crew, government, or passengers. It’s not like he should be worried about reëlection. It’s ‘cause he’s an idiot. There’s no better way to describe it.

“Thank you, and welcome back. I’m your host, Zorion Azarola, and this...is Over the Desk.” This is one of those talk shows now. Zorion Azarola is known for his stoic and serious demeanor while he lobs his guests softball questions. Exactly what his gimmick is here, no one really understands. Maybe he thinks he hits harder than he actually does, or maybe it’s all one big joke. Either way, this is their final unofficial hurdle before the  vote. Once it passes, construction can begin on the forest, and tonight is their last chance to convince the committee. That’s why Lilian is here.

Unlike other shows of this type, the view never switches to different angles, and the blocking is very simple. That’s partially because there is no crew to speak of. The apparent idea is to be raw and sincere. The camera is on a tripod, pointing straight forward from the edge of the desk. Zorion is on one side, and up to two guests can sit at his opposite. It’s been dressed up like an office, but the books on the shelves are fake, and the knick knacks scattered about likely hold no sentimental value to Zorion. He must think of himself as the college advisor type, and the guests as his students, who he’s trying to help reach their potential. Tinaya has decided to play into it. Lilian has decided to sit there like a block of ice. She really struggles with these things.

“Captain Leithe,” he begins. “Can I call you Captain Leithe?”

This would normally be the time where she replies with an absolutely not, and a little bit of attitude, but she has to look like a saint here; a saint who can play ball. Everyone is amazing, and all of the things they say are good, and not stupid. So what would be the most polite way to word this? “It is an inaccurate, and inappropriate, title at this time. Captain Tamm is the Captain. I am a Junior Forest Guide.” That’s a new title that they came up with, which won’t be entirely accurate either until there’s an actual forest through which to guide visitors, but it’s fine.

“All right, Guide Leithe. How excited are you that this measure is about to pass?”

“I’m very excited to see this project come to fruition. It has been a long road to get here, and I feel lucky to be a part of it. And that’s what I am, a part. If I owned the whole ship, I could do whatever I wanted, but we’re all living here, and none of this would be possible if the people didn’t want it. It’s important to note that the measure has not quite passed yet. The committee is yet to vote. We’re confident in the outcome, but whatever it is, we will respect their decision, because we trust their judgment.”

“Yes, the...” Zorion stops to check his notes, or at least pretend that he is. “The Committee for Special Projects. That’s a new one, right?”

“Yes, it’s composed of government leaders, respected community leaders, and a few crewmembers. I was not the least bit involved in creating it. Obviously, it would be a conflict of interest for me. So if you have any further questions regarding the matter, I’m afraid you’ll have to call some else into your office.” She said it with a smile to keep it light. But really, she’s annoyed, because people do ask her a lot of questions about the committee, as if she’s some expert on them just because she and Lilian are the ones whose request triggered its creation. What she just told Zorion is the result of her cursory research into the subject, and she refuses to compound it with further information. It’s not her job to know, or care.”

“Fair enough,” he replies with a polite smile as well, and a mildly defensive hand gesture. He flips through his notecards, which are made of paper. Paper is made out of the wood of trees. It’s this whole process that Extremusians have never used, but recent events have changed things. Out here in the void, stars are few and far between. They do exist. Despite what some believe, intergalactic voids are not totally empty. There are probably about as many celestial objects in them as there are within the boundaries of galaxies. It’s just that the voids are so much more vast, these objects are so spread out, and difficult to find. This is why Captain Halan Yenant knew that changing course into the void was not damning his descendants to the curse of never finding a home. It’s out here, somewhere; most people still believe that. But still, it’s impossible to know for sure, especially since—even before they started heading into the void—they had not found any habitable planets along their journey. This all changed last year.

In order to maintain the ship and its systems, the engineers send automated probes to star systems as they pass by them. Since Extremus literally never stops, the only way to make use of the data and resources found in these systems is to send the probes into the past, so that they’re actually waiting for them a minute or two after departing. They don’t have to do this all the time. In fact, the original designers tried to plan a trip that would require no side missions at all. But it was necessary to come up with a solution to a problem once, and now that they know they can do it, resources are being taken for granted, forcing them to continue doing it every once in a while. Now they send probes all the time, but usually for different purposes. The majority of them are simply cataloging what they’ve found. The discovery of a world with plantlife was the biggest shocker since Admiral Olindse Belo’s disappearance a quarter century ago.

Tinaya doesn’t have all the details, because she is not yet part of the group of people making decisions about this sort of thing, but the public was made aware of the discovery when it happened. And it was also shown samples of the plants they found, which an entirely different department from Lilian’s is handling. One thing they’ve done with their samples is manufacture paper. It’s a luxury that requires an extremely high contribution score to earn. Hosting a broadcast series is one of those things that can keep your score high enough for such luxuries, though, which explains why Zorion is making use of his stash of physical paper. Obviously Tinaya couldn’t care less about paper, but she’s interested in a day when the plants they found on that planet might one day become part of hers and Lilian’s forest. That would make the accomplishment all the sweeter.

He finishes flipping through the notecards. “Sorry about that, I’ve realized that a lot of the questions I was planning to ask you have already been answered.” He pauses for a moment. “Or at least they’ve been asked.”

Oh, no. Where is this going? He’s not wrong. She’s answered the same questions in these interviews multiple times, and it’s become annoying for her, but he’s the first interviewer to express any concern over it. How can she stop him from asking whatever he thinks he should ask her? “I suppose...” She trails off, but makes it clear that she’s not finished with her thought. She just needs to find the words. “It’s just...what’s happening here is quite simple. Parks and forests promote a healthy and satisfying life. All studies from Earth, its neighboring orbitals, and its colonies in the stellar neighborhood, have proven time and time again that stone, metal, and metamaterials just. Don’t. Cut it. Life wants to be around other life. It is a biological imperative, and regardless of what we have been forced to endure in our history, on Ansutah, in the cylinders, and yes, even on Extremus...we are still human. All life naturally evolved to thrive on Earth. Except for those aliens plants we found, I guess...and the ones on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. Earth is positively brimming with life. And that second exception only proves the point, because it’s just another example of how it works. Life craves life.

“It’s not so much that Lilian and I want this project to go through. It’s that the Extremusians need it. You will be so happy when you get to go there for the first time. Your brain will release chemicals that will make your heart and soul feel good. You’ll feel human again, and that may be hard to beehive now, because you don’t know you’re missing yet. But it will be there. Your life will improve, I promise you that. Everyone who lives on this ship will be that much happier for it...until we find our Promised Land on our ultimate destination. We’re not on our way to find some rock in the middle of nowhere, are we? Who needs that? We can find that anywhere. Who gives a shit how far from Gatewood we’ve flown? We’ve always been looking for the forest. We’ve always been looking for life. All we’re doing is...letting those of us who will not be alive to see the Extremus planet get just a small taste of what our descendants will know and love.” Tinaya turns to face the camera, which Zorion discourages, but this is too important. “For the members of the committee who are watching this, there is only one choice here. If Extremus doesn’t get its forest, it will die. I’m not just talking about contribution scores. Our success as a people; our mission...depends on it. If you don’t believe me, just go to the park that we do have. Multiply the feeling you get by a thousand.”

“Wow,” Zorion said. “Well said, Junior Forest Guide Leithe.”

“She’s a Senior Forest Guide, Mr. Azarola,” Lilian said after being silent this entire time.”

“Well.” He takes a breath. “I believe this is a good time for a break. We’ll return with our next guest soon.” With a smile, he lifts his remote, and switches off the camera.

The next day, the vote passes. Project Attic Forest is a go.

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Extremus: Year 58

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Lilian Diamond’s job in the government is neither glamorous, nor revered. By most, it’s considered unimportant, and even a waste of space and resources. But it actually is important, and it deserves a lot more respect. Extremus is made of metal and metamaterials. For half a moment, the original designers considered going extremely creative, and making it organic, but they decided against that. They didn’t know at the time that the temporal engineer would come up with a way to repair the ship with time traveling shuttles, but even if they had, finding organic material out here in the galaxy would have proven difficult at best. A lot of people who came aboard could remember living on Ansutah, which was—though not lifeless—sparse with flora. It had just about  no fauna besides the humans and the Maramon. The humans survived by farming and harvesting what few edible plants there were. It’s a wonder they survived, but however they did, they seemed to never develop an appreciation for wildlife.

This mentality carried over into this universe, where they lived in gigantic rotating habitats. The majority of such cylinders are planned with plenty of forests and parks. And why shouldn’t they be? The climate can be controlled perfectly. As long as water is handled correctly, there’s never any drought, or hurricanes, or blight. Being in nature is easier in a place like that. But the four cylinders that the Ansutahan humans lived could not afford to waste space on these luxuries. They have to house billions of people in the most efficient way possible. There are rooftop gardens, but most of them have died, because no one tended to them, because they don’t care. This mentality was carried over again to Extremus. Space is dedicated to housing, and food production. The latter is green, but it isn’t beautiful. Once again, it was made to be efficient, and not worthy of visiting. They simply could not have installed anything larger than a small park, which almost no one ever visits. Lilian’s daily responsibilities mostly involve lobbying for more park space, and encouraging residents to visit the one that they have. It is a lot of work for nearly no gain. But what could they do?

“I have an idea,” Tinaya says.

“Let’s hear it,” Lilian replies

Tinaya has been Lilian’s assistant for months now, writing up proposal after proposal, and making sure the park stays alive in this pretty hostile environment. They’re the only two people who work in the park, and it’s almost not worth it. A few people do come; the regulars, they call them. They’re outliers who actually do appreciate green spaces. But they are pretty much the only people this park can accommodate. This is the dilemma that Lilian faces. She wants more people to come enjoy it, but they can’t all do that. Maybe if more people were interested, she would be able to convince her superiors to dedicate more space to greenery, but which comes first, and how does this work? There’s plenty of room on this ship right now, but in 150 years, they’ll be reaching capacity, because they’re supposed to be nearing their destination. “Expansion.”

“Expansion, how?”

“Let’s make the ship bigger. You keep asking for a second park at the edge of the presently uninhabited section, or a few other spots. Have you ever thought about asking to build an entirely new section on the back of the ship?”

“Is that even possible?” Lilian questions.

“Absolutely, it’s possible. Before either of us was even born, a devastating micrometeoroid strike destroyed almost the whole engineering section. They rebuilt it, which means that they could do that again, but instead of a rebuild, it would just be a first build. I’ve been working on some designs that I didn’t want to bring to you until I was satisfied with them. I think my best one is a forest that spans the entire length and breadth of Extremus, right on top of what’s currently the top level.” She turns her tablet to show Lilian what she’s come up with.

Lilian turns her head away instinctively. “I’ve been asking for another little park for years. It would, at worst, prevent three families from being able to move in over a hundred years from now. Now you want me to multiply that by...honestly, I don’t know how big the ship is, but that sounds...crazy, right? It’s crazy.”

“I don’t think so. It wouldn’t halt the population growth at all. In fact, it would promote it. You’re the one who’s always talking about the mental health benefits of having access to forestland. Our ancestors understood that, and if they didn’t have powers, patterns, or afflictions that they had to get rid of, they never would have gone to the desolate deathlands that was Ansutah. They just had no choice.”

“We wouldn’t have existed if they hadn’t done that.”

“I know. For centuries, our people have lived in stone and dirt and metal. We have the chance to change that. I believe in the mission as much as the next girl, but what are we waiting for? None of us is going to be alive to see the Extremus planet. We’re just...incubators, here to protect the future peoples who will enjoy the fruits of our labor. But that doesn’t mean that we have to suffer. Why not build a giant forest on the roof? Why not plant a thousand trees to sit under and daydream? Why limit ourselves to one park that no one goes to?”

“Exactly. No one comes here, so what makes you think they’re going to come to this hypothetical indoor forest?”

“Because they’ll be the ones who built it.”

“I don’t understand. Why would anyone have to build anything? That’s why we have robots.”

Tinaya swipes over to a different app. “I’ve been...seeing someone who works for the citizenry administrator.”

Lilian smirks. “Tinaya Leithe, are you in love?”

“Stop. It’s not that big a deal. We mostly talk about work, and he showed me some stats.”

Now Lilian accepts the tablet. “What am I looking at here?”

“You and I met because I was having trouble with my contribution score. As it turns out, I’m not the only one. They’re all going down. Everyone’s fine, everyone’s alive, but they’re not working, and they’re not enjoying life.”

“Hmm.”

“The civilian government has almost been cut in half since Extremus launched. Half! And the population has been rising, like it’s supposed to. Well, I mean, it’s actually a little slower than they predicted, but that’s why we need mental health programs, like the attic forest. I just now decided to call it an attic, instead of a roof. That makes more sense. Anyway, people need jobs. They don’t need them, but they need them.”

“Yeah, my brother just had to let someone go because the spa doesn’t get as many visits as it once did, which means her score also went down...assuming this is why there’s been a drop in patronage.”

“Lilian, the government isn’t supporting the people, and the people aren’t supporting the government. Nando thinks—”

“Nando? His name is Nando? Do I know this Nando?”

“No. He thinks this is the start of a huge problem. Because take a look at this one.” She reaches over, and swipes the tablet for her. “There was a suicide last year.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Now, you can’t multiply by zero, so there’s no real number that tells us how much the suicide rate has gone up. The percentage of increase from zero to one is undefined. But mathematically, it’s an increase to infinity, because it’s the first one we’ve ever had. And it’s because of a general decline in mental health. It—it..it could just be the first of many. We need the forest more than ever, and we need to get people involved in the project.”

Lilian stares at the suicide rate for a moment. “Why didn’t I hear about this?”

“It was buried in the news,” Tinaya explains. “It wasn’t covered up, but it wasn’t covered much either. The headline that day was about a little boy who won’t eat unless he’s dressed like a cat, and his plate is placed on the floor for him.”

Lilian is perturbed but not surprised by this. She sighs, and swipes back over to study the forest design. “You can’t have these close together. The black walnut will kill the tomatoes. I’ve told you this. You don’t always listen.”

“I did that on purpose as a prank,” Tinaya explains with a smirk. “There won’t be any black walnut in the real design. Walnuts, and their trees, are terrible.”

“It’s gonna take forever for these trees to grow. I mean, we can ask people to crouch on the ground and plant them, but they’ll die before the trees get big enough for the people who did that to enjoy. Except for the bamboo. The bamboo will be fun.”

Tinaya nods. “There’s a way around that.”

Lilian looks at her incredulously.

“Heh...time, right?”

Lilian sort of rolls her eyes. “You wanna create a time bubble so it grows literally overnight. Isn’t that illegal?”

“I’m sure we could figure it out,” Tinaya says with a shrug like it’s no big D. “I can talk to the Captain, you can talk to the First Chair.

Lilian scoffs. “I don’t get audience with the First Chair.”

“Well, I’m sure you can make your way up high enough to get things going. We can do this, Lilian. We can make this happen. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s gonna be a shit-ton of work, but what’s the point of living if you don’t do stuff? I may never become captain, but if we pull this off, we’ll both go down in history as heroes.”

“Is that why you wanna do it? That’s not a great reason.”

“Who cares what my motives are if it happens? The result is what matters. The trees and the plants and the fruits and the vegetables are what matter. You taught me how great it feels to take that first bite into a tomato that I planted and picked myself. If you want everyone to feel that, then let’s give them the chance. Not everyone can work for the best civil servant in the world.”

“That’s sweet,” Lilian says with a smile. “Okay, but we’re not talking to anybody else about it until we get the design perfect. Let me work on it myself. We gotta get rid of those black walnuts.” She shakes her head.

“All right, but let me talk to Valencia and Omega. If we’re going to use a time bubble, they’ll be the ones to do it.”

“No, don’t do that. They don’t work for the ship anymore. Reach out to Atkinson.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 13, 2399

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The first thing that Leona did after Mateo, Ramses, and Alyssa departed for their mission was to look into the requirements for becoming a certified facilitatrix. She found a training program with good reviews, gathered all of the necessary literature, and spoke with a few professionals about starting the process. Leona is a very intelligent, experienced individual, who will have no problem completing the coursework, but in the midst of all this, she realized that even the limited training may be a waste of time. Can a Berarian mother name her child after a facilitatrix? This kind of information is not freely available online, so she has finally set up an appointment with a faith consultant.

Nearly every religion in this reality has them. They are usually members of the religion themselves, but not always. They do not serve as leaders within their respectives faiths, because it is only their responsibility to guide prospective converts. It’s part of the law that anyone wishing to convert should have all the facts they need to make an informed decision. A special subset of these faith experts specialize in children who have just reached the age of choice, and it is one of these that was the only one available at such short notice. They’ve met at a park, next to a lone bench. “Hello, I’m Rostam Gibson. You are Leona Delaney.”

“Umm...yes, I am.” She didn’t give a name when she called to set an appointment.

“Don’t worry, I heard about the bounty, but I have no interest in it. It’s not high lawful. And to let you know, everything we talk about here is completely confidential.”

“I appreciate that. What is high lawful?”

“High law refers to the moral and ethical standards to which we must all adhere, whether any given state, organization, or individual ascribes to them. Berarians believe that there is a right, and a wrong. We don’t think we know what that moral code is, or that anyone knows, but we’re certain that a just lifestyle exists, and is possible to attain in the future. That is what we are working towards.”

“I see.”

“You’re not a hopeful convert,” he deduces, “yet you came here for answers. Berar is one of the least complex faiths. We don’t ask weird things of our believers, like praying to a ghost once a week. A lot of what I do is helping people write school papers about us, but something tells me that you’re here for a different reason.”

“When you say this is confidential, does that extend to anything I tell you about someone else?”

“It doesn’t matter what, or who, you talk about, I can’t repeat it. It wouldn’t be high lawful.”

She smiles. “I have a friend. She’s pregnant.”

“I see where this is going. She doesn’t like her doctor’s name.”

“You’ve seen this before.”

He nods. “Yes. Some are...more devout than others. I told you that we don’t ask weird things of our believers, but the naming thing is kind of the one exception. I’m the only Rostam Gibson in the world, and it’s only because I’m Berarian, and my deliverer was from Iran. People ask me whether there is some kind of database, where they can search for a doctor with the name that they’re looking for. However, this goes against the spirit of the practice. You’re not supposed to choose the name. Fate is.”

“What does that have to do with high law?” Leona questions.

“It doesn’t, really. Our founder’s mother was on a sinking ship when she went into labor. She ended up on a lifeboat that was literally broken in half, and barely able to stay on the surface, with one man, and two coats. The water was freezing, and so was the air. He gave his own coat up to protect the baby that he had just delivered into this world. He died, and she named her son after him. This honor was just something that was important to our founder, so when he came up with his new religion, he chose to deliberately put it into the rules. It’s not entirely random and pointless, though. No, there is nothing immoral about not naming your child after its deliverer. What it does is serve as a small reminder that...some laws are immutable; the high laws. And some of them we just decide we’re going to follow, and that’s what makes a healthy society. Because the fact is, no law—high, or otherwise—matters if we don’t agree.”

“That’s...fascinating.”

“That’s why so many students write papers on us,” he begins. “They’re looking for answers, and not to speak ill of other faiths, but...our answers are better, because they make sense.”

“I bet they do. Even the baby naming one has a logic to it.”

He smiles mildly, and nods.

Leona takes a little bit of time to go back over the lie she made up to explain why Arcadia would feel compelled to name her baby Delaney. “We’re triplets; Arcadia, Nerakali, and me. We were separated at birth, and didn’t find each other until less than a year ago. I was raised by our birth parents, but Nerakali was raised by a now estranged uncle, and Arcadia by a family friend. That’s why she has a different last name. Our third sister died recently, and Arcadia wanted to honor her by naming her child Nerakali. Unfortunately, it’s a unique name, so when Arcadia learned that she had to give this honor to her baby’s deliverer—”

“Wait, when she found out?” Rostman echoes, confused. “Why would she not already know that?”

“I can’t explain why Berar is her religion of record, though not technically her religion.”

He’s suspicious, but it looks like he’s going to respect the confidentiality claim.

“When she found out this part, we made a plan to technically name the baby after my unmarried name, which is the same as Nerakali’s, but really be named after Nerakali herself. I was going to learn to become a facilitatrix, but...”

Now he’s smiling sadly.

“But that’s not going to work, is it? It doesn’t matter if I’m the one who facilitates the birth, it will always be a bad faith move.”

“Yes,” he says compassionately.

This sucks. Arcadia is going to be heartbroken, but she’ll be able to get through it. Trina McIver told them, Leona Delaney is alive. Or she was, anyway. Naming their child after her would have been a very nice gesture, but it’s not meant to be, and that’s okay. “Welp, just to be clear, if a masculine name has a feminine form, it’s okay to choose that one instead, right?”

“That’s all right, it doesn’t have to be exact,” he confirms. “If someone were to ask, she would just have to be able to explain that it’s a close linguistic variant.”

“I appreciate your guidance,” Leona says, standing up, “and your discretion.”

“Call me anytime.”