Microstory 2765: I Came in Like a Wrecking Ball

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Everyone chooses their own ghost to teach them how to drive these cars. Even Jolanda accepts the lesson. She’s not pretentious enough to think that she already knows everything, especially not about her specific car today. For all she knows, there might be a secret button behind the steering wheel that dispenses banana peels. Still, it seems rather pointless for the rest of them to even try, given her experience. Her only meaningful contender is Zelda, but Zelda is a risk-taker. She’s more likely to push it too far, and end up dying in the act, even if she was in the front until it happens. She hasn’t even driven that much in her life, because it places her in too much control, which isn’t thrilling enough.

Elise feels like she’s struggling with it the most, even though she technically has the secondmost amount of time behind the wheel. She’s listening to her ghost—as much as she can listen to a hologram that can only grunt and say a few single-syllable words—but she is not internalizing the lessons. She keeps looking over at the others, particularly when their stationary work is done, and they move on to the practical. She doesn’t want to start. She doesn’t wanna do this. It goes against how she learned it.

The rules were what drew her to learning antiquated skills in the first place. She almost wishes she had never tried driving at all. At least she would start at zero, but now she has much to unlearn. Not that she has any chance of winning anyway. Why risk it? Why place herself in danger when it’s hopeless? Can all seven of them move forward as long as they stay ahead of the other 17? Again, “what are the rules!”

Elise’s ghost frowns. “The rules are that the first six racers move to the sudden death challenge. The rest are killed, or in the case of the automated cars, deleted.”

“Wait, you can talk?” Elise questions. “Why have you not been talking until now?”

“You didn’t need me to talk before. Now you do,” the ghost explains.

“There are seven of us. That number was chosen so at least one person will be killed today. But then the subsequent sudden death challenge will kill everyone else.”

“Sudden death doesn’t mean what you think it means,” the ghost goes on. “I cannot elaborate, but if six players win the race, all six will continue on the hunt.”

Elise shakes her head. “That’s not good enough. We came into this together. Even Miracle is part of the team now. We all deserve to stay together.”

“It was never going to be fair,” he reasons. “That’s what makes it challenging.”

“Such a wise, dead pirate,” Elise muses.

The ghost nods. “I see you at the wheel. You’re more at ease than the others. Even the pro over there looks nervous. I know she has her reasons, but you could actually win this. You have a perspective that none of them does. You lived like the ancients. Don’t underestimate that. They still don’t understand the threat of death, but the skills which you dedicated your life to studying were all developed by fleeting creatures.”

“I’m still not faster than she is, nor braver than any of them,” Elise argues.

The ghost shakes his head. “Again, car racing was conceived by mortals. Anyone can push a button with their foot until it stops and leave it there. You know when to let up. You trained from resources made by people who would die if they didn’t know that.”

Elise sighs. “I don’t know if I wanna win. A part of me wants to gather everyone up and ask them to quit so we leave with our memories intact. I don’t wanna lose them.”

He smiles. “If your bonds are real, you can make new memories later.” Maybe.

Here endeth the lesson.

Elise decides not to do any practice driving before the race. She’s not confident in herself, and is not enthusiastic. Her friends look ready and determined. They may not know the restrictions on the results. She’s not gonna tell them. She’s a liar.

They’re at the starting line now, at the edge of the dome, pointed towards the wall. When those giant metal doors open, they have no idea what they’re gonna find. One thing they have going for them is that all seven of them are sharing the second row. Only two cars are in front of them, which gives them something to fight against without it feeling impossible from the start. It’s a huge track. Since the engineering bots weren’t limited by an audience, they were free to make it as wide as they wanted. They’re probably not even going to be driving in circles, or at least not one single circle.

Elise looks to her right at Minotaur, who doesn’t react. She looks to her left where Colley notices. He frowns at her kindly before refocusing on the road and gripping the wheel tighter. She has to protect these people. She doesn’t want to lose her memories of the ones she has grown to love, but she would rather it be her than any of them. They all committed more to this. They deserve to see it through. She’ll be fine.

The light is red, and has been for the last few minutes, but now it blinks. It blinks faster and faster and faster until it turns yellow. Two cars down, Miracle gives a false start, but she manages to roll back to where she was while it holds at yellow for a few more seconds. The two lead cars take off, and only then does the light turn green, which is either cheating, or one of the rules that Elise failed to hear when she was feeling down.

The six of her friends take off, but Elise throws her car in reverse, and punches it. She slams into the four cars behind her. They fight her, but she doesn’t let up. It would appear that the humans were given superior vehicles to race with. They go down relatively easy. Once the four of them have been sufficiently destroyed, her job is still not over. She still has thirteen more to take care of. So she puts it in drive.

She zips into the dark. It’s only lit enough for her to see where the walls are, and maybe other cars. She’s in the back, though, so she doesn’t have to worry about them anymore. At least she didn’t think so. There’s a small fire up ahead. One of the cars has already crashed without Elise’s help. She has to swerve around it, but immediately has to swerve again because of the second car involved in that crash. They’re both bots, though, so it’s fine. Two more down, eleven to go. She can do this. She can stop them all.

Elise flies out of the tunnel, and onto the road. They’re in a desert. The track is narrower here, so it’s a good thing she was already in the middle. The others aren’t as far ahead as she thought they would be, probably due to this bottleneck. She still can’t let up, though. She maintains her speed, and catches up to the rear car. She saw this maneuver in an educational video once about what not to do, but she thinks she can recreate it. She drives right up and wedges the front of her car into the back of the bot. Now it’s just spinning its wheels. She drives it over and slams it into the barrier. She ends up pointed in the wrong direction, but she doesn’t have time to get turned back around, so Elise just drives backwards for a bit while she catches up with the others.

There we go. Now she’s with a huge group of bots. The problem is, Rage is here too. Three of them have created a line, which she can’t pass. Every time she goes for a gap, they cover it, so she has to try again. She’s being too gentle and patient with them. Elise doesn’t have that issue. She crashes her rear bumper into two of the cars at once. Only one of them skids and hits the barriers, but it’s enough to let Rage pass. As she’s doing that, Elise goes after the other two, stopping them both before the next tunnel.

The track is narrower yet. Only two cars could potentially drive side by side. It’s also no longer always flush with the ground. They’re in a winter wonderland, driving on an elevated track as it snows. The road becomes ice. Fortunately everyone up ahead is smart enough to go slower here so they don’t just fly over the edge. Elise loves this opportunity. She’s literally knocking bots off left and right. Before, there was a chance for them to come back with a vengeance, but not here. Talk about sudden death.

All of the human cars are still going, but none of them is even close to the lead bot. It seems to have no problem with the ice at all. Someone has to put a stop to it. There are only two bots left. If she can stop them, the others don’t even have to drive fast anymore. They can coast to the finish line safely. Frustratingly, the penultimate bot is the smartest one. It knows what she’s trying to do, and out-maneuvers her every time. It’s also stronger than the other bots. She manages to get right next to it, but when she rams the side, it barely moves. Then Elise looks over. Another car has joined them.

It’s Jolanda. She has positioned her car on the other side of the bot. There’s so little space, they have it pinned. As difficult and counterintuitive as it is, and without being able to talk, the humans slow down to a complete stop. Still without talking, Elise lets go and drives on ahead several meters. Jolanda turns the wheel, and knocks the bot over the edge.

Elise backs up again. “Get back up to the front! Only six people can win!”

“I know!” Jolanda shouts back. “My ghost told me about that!”

“I’m sacrificing myself!” Elise shouts.

“I’m sacrificing myself!” Jolanda volleys.

“You’re the only one who can stop the final boss! Go do it!”

“I don’t think we have to worry about that!” Jolanda jerks her head forward.

Its the final bot. It’s pointed towards them at the top of the hill, where there’s another tunnel. It’s revving its engines menacingly, so they instinctively rev back.

“I’m gonna kill him!” Jolanda volunteers.

“No, I will!” Elise insists.

They both take off. The bot takes off too for a game of chicken. This is ridiculous. Only one of them has to die in order to make the math work. It just makes sense that it’s Elise. Jolanda can not go on with the knowledge of having lost this race. When they reunite on the other side of this hunt, someone will tell her, and she will be devastated. Elise will not care. She has to be the one to do this. She takes a deep breath. There hasn’t been much ice for a few hundred meters, but she knows something Jolanda probably doesn’t. Her teachers taught her about something called black ice, and how to spot it.

To Jolanda’s likely confusion, Elise slows down just enough to get behind Jolanda, then bullies her way back on the other side. At the right moment, she gently nudges Jolanda towards the barrier, not hard enough to hurt her, but it does stop her in her tracks. Elise’s car, meanwhile, hits the ice, and goes crazy. She starts spinning counterclockwise, utterly uncontrollably. She can’t even tell where anything is anymore, but she feels the powerful slam of the crash, and for a split second, the sharp twinge of the blade as her helmet cuts off her head.

Microstory 2764: Ghostriders

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In this post-scarcity economy, gold is not valueless. It’s actually quite useful. It has a number of applications in electronics, aerospace engineering, and even medicine. It’s used for all sorts of mundane things. And that’s because, in this day and age, destroying entire planets only to extract their raw material is on its way to becoming a matter of it being Tuesday.

Many treasure hunts end with a cache of precious metals and jewels. They’re not usually quite this extensive, but they signal the end of the challenge. The accomplishment of that challenge is the real prize. Hunters usually don’t even take the treasure, but leave it for the next batch, or if they do, they take only a small trinket to remind them of the good memories. No one needs this much, except major engineering operations. The disappointing part, however, is not the letdown of the prize itself, but that the hunt might be over. They went through a lot, but they still expected more.

They tie the boat off, and step out. They begin to walk around on the cave floor between the piles and piles of goblets, coins, bars, crowns, and other accessories. They’re going to spread out to look for clues. There has to be something, whether this is the end or not. Every hunt tells you when you’re done in no uncertain terms. It’s never simply implied. They don’t need fanfare, just undeniable proof.

“Don’t touch anything,” Minotaur warns. “It’s sometimes a literal booby trap, and sometimes a curse to teach of the dangers of greed, or whatever.”

“We might need to dig,” Jolanda points out. “A clue might be under the gold.”

“You’re right,” Minotaur admits. “Just don’t take anything.”

“Should we look for something special?” Elise asks them. “Like the only blue gemstone, or something anachronistic or out of place?”

“That’s a good idea,” Mino agrees. “Most everything is probably a distraction. The important thing will be simple or not valuable to the pirates we’re pretending to be.”

“Something out of place,” Zelda begins, “like this?” She’s standing beside what initially appeared to be the cave wall. But she’s opening it like a door. It’s heavy, so she and Miracle hold it open for everyone to walk through single-file.

They’re now standing in another locker room. The lights are flickering on for them. Their names are on their respective lockers again. Colley is the first to open his.

“What is that?” Rage asks. “What is that for?”

Jolanda is frowning. “Racing. That’s a racer’s uniform, including the helmet.”

“Why do you look so upset?” Rage questions. “This is right up your alley.”

“Because I know I’m gonna win, and I might have to hurt you to do it.”

“I don’t understand,” Elise says. “Don’t listen to Hrockas when he says only one person can win. We don’t have to follow his rules all throughout. We’re in charge here.” She said it, but she doesn’t mean it. They’re really not. She’s just trying to be positive.

“This is a headless racing uniform,” Jolanda begins to clarify. “It’s a niche race that kind of went obsolete. The helmet gives it away. You see, they didn’t just suddenly come up with mind-transference and uploading technology. It was a grind. There was a time when updates were periodic, rather than continuous. It was metaphysically scary. But not as scary as this. No updates, but a local chip implanted in your head. You see, unless you’re an octopus, the head is the only place where your brains are stored. And it’s a lot easier to protect that above all else.

“Some astronauts were given these kinds of helmets. If something went wrong—if all else failed—your spinal column is severed, and your head is preserved. You lose consciousness, so someone has to retrieve you, and give you a new body. This tech came out of the private sector, so while they had government contracts, they also had private ones. This gave rise to the deadliest format of racecar driving. The ancillary tech wasn’t that reliable. Racers occasionally died because sometimes, their heads were destroyed as well, because of-freaking-course they were. Or sometimes the reintegration process simply didn’t work. They signed waivers, but it was a dark time in our history. Now, with consciousness streaming, the races can technically be deadlier, but reliably temporary.”

“This,” Zelda says. “This is why Hrockas gave us an out. It wasn’t all the storms.”

“Can’t we all pile into a car together?” Elise reasons. “Even compact cars can fit seven if you’re creative and willing to get really familiar with each other’s bodies.”

“The cars are too small. You wouldn’t be able to fit two people,” Jolanda clarifies.

“Now, let’s all calm down,” Rage tells them when she notices everyone growing more stressed out about this. “All we see are the uniforms and helmets. We have no idea what’s waiting for us on the other side of those doors. We might have a choice of challenges. Those helmets might just be manufactured to look like decappers. Let’s first get changed, but keep the helmets off, and go outside. Sound okay?”

The seven of them gladly remove their tattered, disgusting tunics, shower down, and suit up. They walk through the set of doors beyond the showers holding their helmets. They expected to find seven cars waiting for them, but there are instead two dozen. It’s tempting to believe that they will have their pick of the litter, but they know they’re not that lucky. They’re going to be racing against some other team, or other individuals. This obviously raises the stakes. Now it’s plausible that none of them will win. Jolanda is the best driver in their group, but she’s not invulnerable.

What’s interesting about it is that seven cars are sitting separately from the other 17, so they don’t know what that’s about. While they’re examining the vehicles, and debating whether they should get in, or try something else, seven zombie ghosts appear before them. It’s the same ones from the sea before, and they know that, because they grew to be quite familiar with their distinctive looks, despite them all being undead. They’re on the other side of the cars, and end up walking straight through them as they approach the humans. They move much less menacingly than they did before. Once they are a couple of meters from the hunters, they stand there and wait.

“Oh,” Rage finally says. “I think we’re each meant to choose one. That happens on the regular hunts all the time. They don’t expect you to magically know how to complete a task. If it’s a skill, an expert will train you on it. I think they’re our driving instructors.”

“Them?” Miracle questions. “They don’t exactly look the part.”

“Maybe they’re shortstaffed,” Zelda jokes. She steps forward, and points at one.

The ghost reaches out and pantomimes taking her hand. As he’s leading her to a car, he growls but more in a grumpy way, rather than violent. The one-footed captain isn’t here, which would have been awkward since they seem to have personalities now.

Rage sighs and gives the other line of cars the side-eye. “I suppose we have no choice if we want to keep going. Pick your partner. The competition may be pretty fierce. We won’t know until we learn, and hopefully there’s no time limit, because we practiced driving, but we didn’t train for this.”

Microstory 2761: Into the Drink

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This boat isn’t very big, so the crew isn’t a legion of men, but they’re still outnumbered. In the chaos of the initial attack, it’s hard to tell by how much, but fortunately, they have some fighters on their side. They trained as much as they could in each other’s fields, but Zelda and Jolanda are still the best, and have to take the brunt of the combat. Elise has done some martial arts in her day, but doesn’t have any experience fighting moving opponents. Colley is a pacifist, but can defend himself, or someone else. He hides in a corner with Laise, who has absolutely no fighting experience whatsoever.

Meanwhile, the only means of making any headway in this fight is getting the zombie pirates over the edge, and keeping them at bay. They don’t drown, they don’t die, but it does take effort for them to try to climb back aboard. So once they’re over, the living humans end up with the upperhand. The zombies are relentless, however. They also don’t get tired. Their only hope is that this is a nighttime problem. After all, why did they only attack at nightfall on the day they finally lifted the boat? Once the sunrise comes, they’ll cower back to the depths, and the hunters will finally be able to rest.

There it is, that reddish-orange glow over the horizon. Elise can’t stop glancing at it even though she knows she’s meant to be keeping an eye on her sector. She’s holding an oar from the rowboat, and has to keep swatting pirates away. Any second now, there should be enough light. They’re like vampires. In some franchises, it just takes a little more time. The sun has to be a little higher. It often depends on the dialogue.

Three hours later, they’re still at it. Funny enough, despite their collective fatigue, they’ve all kind of grown used to the job. They fight in shifts. Five of them man their sectors of the boat while the other two sleep or rest below deck. They started out with a sixth person down there on high alert, but the zombies never tried to somehow break through, so they categorized it as a non-threat. It’s almost time for Elise’s break. Her eyelids are low as she almost carelessly bonks the zombie on the head again. It’s not scary anymore. Part of it is the sunlight, but part of it is the sheer tedium of it all.

There has to be some way out of this. There’s always a way. There is always a loophole. They may have a random, bizarre weakness that is impossible to know unless you came across the lore earlier, or you have to fix something for them in order to break the curse. The hunters need time to figure it out. They can’t just keep fighting. Maybe Elise can call upon her research skills during her break to search the cabins for any clues. Maybe the zombies simply have unfinished business, and they can help finish it, symbolically or physically. Oh, but that bed down there looked so good. It was short and narrow, and probably not soft, but right now, it might be the best thing in the world. Maybe she’ll just lie down for a quick nap, and then get to work.

Thirty minutes pass, which is twenty minutes after she should have been relieved.

The zombies aren’t geniuses, but after they get knocked down, they realize that that’s where a hunter is, so they move to try a different spot. The hunters sometimes use that to their advantage if they need to get closer to one another. It takes time to control where the next intrusion will come from, but it’s possible. Rage has done that. Now she’s within better speaking distance of Elise. “Where the hell are Colley and Laise?”

“Iono.” Elise can’t even bring herself to say all the words separately. “Laise was s’pose ta take over my spot.” She stands there with a puzzled look on her face.

“What?” Rage questions. “What is it? Do you see something out there?”

Elise swats another zombie. “Her name is Laise. My name is Elise. Do you think we’re related?” The zombie has managed to take hold of the oar, and is trying to wrestle it from her, which they do from time to time when she gets too complacent and lazy. She mindlessly pulls and pushes on it while she waits for Rage’s answer.

Rage is only staring at her. “No, Elise, I don’t think you’re related.”

“Oh, okay. Fair question, though,” Elise decides.

“You’re tired,” Rage argues. “Go ahead and sleep. I’ll take care of two sectors.”

“That won’t be necessary!” Colley cried from the top of the steps. He and Laise have pulled a big sack up from below, and are starting to drag it across the deck. “I know you’re all tired, but we have a way to end this once and for all so we can all sleep!”

“What is that?” Rage questions. Then she has to turn around and fight because a zombie has made it over the bulwark. Laise runs up and provides assistance.

“A mouse trap,” Colley explains once the zombie is taken care of. “Everyone huddle up, and put your backs together! We need to get the zombies into one place!”

“You want us to let them onto the boat?” Jolanda questions from the stern.

“They’ll just keep coming unless we take control! I can say no more than that, because I think we all know that the zombies are smart enough to understand us ! Trust me, we’ve been quietly discussing, and secretly preparing, for this for hours!”

They decide to trust the two of them. As they’re huddled together, the zombies climb aboard. They’re moving slowly now. They might be tired too, or Colley is right and they understand the humans well enough to know that something is up. They’re still not too smart, though, because they naturally group into a single mass, presumably to prepare for the next onslaught.

“Rotate counter-clockwise a little bit.” Laise is in the middle of them. “Perfect,” she says once they’re done shuffling. “Rage, Minotaur, you’re the tallest. You feel what’s at your feet behind you?” After they both confirm, she adds, “you know what to do.”

“Ready...!” Colley begins. “Everyone, run to the closest side to get out of the way!”

After everyone else scatters, Rage and Minotaur run forward holding the corners of a huge heavy net. They raise it over the heads of the zombies and pass them as fast as they can, managing to snag all of them all at once. Colley and Laise take this opportunity to start punching and kicking the zombies so they end up on the floor. The others join in too, of course, even though they still don’t know what the endgame is.

Laise goes around and starts shackling the zombies’ ankles one by one. The chains are already tied to the net, so even if they escape, they’ll be dragging a whole lot of weight. It’s still not enough, though, which is where that sack comes into play. Per Colley’s direction, all seven of them work to hoist the heavy sack up and over the railing. Elise is in back, and not really helping that much, but the job gets done. She touches it enough to know that it’s filled with cannonballs. Once the sack falls over, the net drags all the zombies across the deck, and over the edge too. Now there’s no escape.

Oh, no, it’s not over. “Guys,” Elise says, looking behind them. “Guys!”

When they turn around, they too see what she’s looking at. One of the zombies—the captain, by the looks of it—is still standing there. He’s holding his ooey gooey sabre, and standing on one leg. He cut off his own foot! And he’s got a gun.

A hot blonde girl flies out of nowhere on angel wings. She snatches the evil dead captain up, soars back up in the air, and drops him in the ocean kilometers away.

Microstory 2760: Heave Ho

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The way Laise described the traditional means of lifting a sunken ship sounded exhausting and time-consuming. Their ancestors would have sunken barrels and tied them to the bottom. To make them buoyant, they would push buckets down and transfer air pockets little by little until the last barrel was enough to lift the boat. They didn’t have time for that. They had no freshwater, and as it turns out, no food. The barrels weren’t airtight. Each had a hole on the side, presumably to let air through, but when the boat sank, they all flooded with seawater. Most of the fruit had spoiled before they even showed up. The coconuts were okay. They floated on their own, so once that barrel was opened, they were easy pickings. That was what they ate during their break periods.

The first thing they did was rip all of the heavy metal and other unnecessary pieces off of the vessel. They pushed them over the side, and let them drop down to the shelf that the boat was on. This made it as light as it could possibly be.

After clearing the spoiled fruit mush, they tied ropes around the barrels one at a time, and created a makeshift pulley system around the bulwark and other parts. Then they stood on the crow’s nest and pulled the barrel up. Once it was on the surface and full of air, they closed it back up and plugged the bunghole securely. Now they had to reverse the process, which was even harder. The air-filled barrel wanted to float, so five of them had to stand on—or even hang off of—the crow’s nest. That was as many as they could fit before they ran out of leverage. The sixth person freedove down with the barrel, and held it in place so it didn’t wobble around like a watermelon.

While the pullers tied off the rope to hold it in place, the freediver came back up to recapture air for themselves. Then they would go back down with the seventh person to tie the barrel to the bulwark, and untie the original rope. Each barrel took about an hour, factoring in break times and errors. They were so tired, blistered, achey, hungry even with the coconuts, and absolutely thirsty. Rain would make their job harder, but it would at least give them something to drink to survive another day. They were able to learn from their mistakes and get into a good rhythm, but they were also losing energy with each one, so they never ultimately sped up the process. It took them two days to get through the lifting phase, but man was it worth it. As soon as that sixteenth barrel was in place, before the pulley rope could even be removed, the boat let go of the shelf, and rose. The people who were on the crow’s nest all jumped off to make it that much lighter, and watched the mast fly up above them. It was  glorious to behold.

Now the boat is close enough to the surface to stand without drowning. It’s still totally filled with water, but bailing it out will be the easy part. At least they think it will. They obviously start with the wet deck, which is the most appropriate term for it today. They think it’s going pretty well. Some water is splashing back in since the surface is so close to the railing, but it seems to be working. Then they realize their mistake. The boat didn’t simply sink on its own. There must be damage. Sure enough, when they swim down to a small storage room, they find the hole. It’s not particularly big, but it has to be patched first. That isn’t even their biggest problem, though. They’re about to tip.

“Three people on starboard side and three people to port side!” Rage orders.

Five of them run to one while Elise is alone on the other. Rage stays in the center.

Rage points. “That’s starboard, and that’s port. Minotaur, Zelda, join Elise. Okay. The water is out but the boat is unstable. Does anyone have any idea why?”

Jolanda raises her hand. “I don’t have any sailing experience, but I’ve been on more than one boat. One thing they all have in common is this thing called a ballast. You don’t actually want it to be super light, unless it’s a speedboat or jetski. You want some weight to keep it in the water so you don’t tip over. Modern boats use water itself. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe in the olden times, they used metal.”

Rage looks over at the water. “We just sank our metal to make it lighter.”

“I did not want to do a seventeenth barrel,” Minotaur contends. “Dumping our heaviest stuff was the right call. We just need to bring some of it back up. I wouldn’t mind having some chains anyway. Chains come in handy in mazes all the time.”

“Well, I’m glad we dumped everything onto the shelf, instead of the depths.” Rage sighs and centers herself. “Okay. We did this once, we can do it again. Zelda, Colley, please stay on the boat on opposite sides to maintain balance. Hopefully that will be enough. The rest of us need to get in the water so we don’t literally rock the boat.”

“Our pulley rope has been through quite a bit by now,” Laise says. “I don’t think it’s gonna make it. It might snap. We need to use a different rope.”

“We don’t have more rope,” Rage points out. “We’ve already snapped two.”

Elise looks up. “Take it from the sail. It’s long enough that we can double up and distribute the stress. Then we’ll put it back up where it belongs.”

“So many concessions and compromises,” Rage laments. “Very well. Do it.”

So they add another phase to the work even though they thought they were done. They pull up the bars and grates, but they leave the cannons. Their combined strength isn’t enough to make that happen, and the rope probably isn’t strong enough either. They’re into their third day before they feel like they’re ready to learn the ropes, so to speak. Laise knows some history of sailing, as does Colley, but none of them knows how to sail. They spend the rest of the day trying to figure it out methodically. They still don’t have any regular water, but they’ve been drinking coconut water, and it won’t matter how long it takes to find land if they sink or crash before they even get there. It’s smarter to take their time, and do this right. Everyone is drained, but they’re not stopping.

“We don’t even know where we’re meant to go,” Minotaur reasons. “I’m not used to that. I mean, of course I’m used to being lost, but I always have something to orient myself. This dome has a diameter of 3,300 kilometers, and we could be in the very center of it. Sure, if we sail in one direction, we’ll eventually hit the wall, but that’s assuming we don’t die of thirst, starvation, or exposure before then. Everything else is ocean or an island, and those are notoriously hard to target, even with a map.”

“I have a map.” Jolanda is climbing up from below deck holding a piece of paper.

Colley doesn’t have to ask, she hands it to him. He examines it a little before looking up at the sky. “We’re gonna need to orient ourselves again. For that, we need the stars back.” He returns to the map. “Narratively, I know where this thing set sail, and I know where it’s going, but it may have gotten knocked off course. Even if it didn’t, I have no idea how far the original crew supposedly made it before they sank.”

“Rest up,” Rage instructs. “We set sail tonight. Once again, I hope it rains.”

It doesn’t rain, but that night, they are given an opportunity to find out what happened to the original crew when their ghosts appear. Or they’re zombies, or something else like that, because they can make physical contact with the living. That’s exactly what they do by attacking too, because as one might expect, they were pirates.

Microstory 801: Burial Ground

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Growing up, the four of us were inseparable. Lawrence, Jessie, Frank, and I would do everything together. Our bond was so tight that we ended up getting jobs together. Whenever one of us was tired of working somewhere, we would all quit and find something else. We even moved halfway across the country together. But then Jessie needed to go back home and take care of her sick mother, and the rest of us just couldn’t afford to go with her. It was okay, though, because we were able to keep in contact with her pretty easily in this modern world. Until we couldn’t. One day, she stopped calling, and we soon discovered that her family hadn’t seen her either. She was reported missing to the authorities, but they weren’t able to find anything. Since we’ve had so many different jobs, though, we had made tons of connections with others. We used this vast network to conduct our own investigation, and eventually learned that she was last seen at the docks where her father worked before he retired. There were rumors that a crew of fishermen were secretly pirates, so that seemed like our best lead. After months of coaxing, we infiltrated the crew, and discovered that the rumors were true, but that wasn’t the worst thing about them. One of the crewmembers was even sicker than the rest, and appeared to be responsible for the abduction of nearly a dozen other women. We found a poorly scaled map in his quarters, and set out to find the X. In the woods, between the bay and the highway, in a relatively remote area, we found what we were looking for. Parts of the ground had been turned up and replaced, forming perfect human-sized rectangles. Each grave was marked with some kind of personal item. We started digging the one marked by Jessie’s lucky stone, which was a painted rock she bought in a gift shop because it “spoke to her”. We worked slowly, not relishing the idea of seeing our best friend’s lifeless body. When we finally opened it, our eyes widened. I immediately grabbed her and pulled the mask off of her face. “Start digging up the others. They’re alive.”

Crossed Off: Relay (Part IX)

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“It sounds like crosstalk to me,” Karam said after Starla explained what had happened with the old man in Greece. He preferred to speak with her out loud, even though they were psychically connected.

I don’t know what that means.

“Well, you sent your consciousness to Egypt, and while you were doing that, this Don guy was sending his consciousness to Greece. You sort of...collided with him, and it prevented you from completing your call to me.”

How do I get back to them?

“Well, you’ve already tried what I would have suggested. It sounds like you don’t really know his phone number.” He threw up air quotes at those last words. “It was an accident. I don’t know that you could replicate it.”

Starla was silent, unable to vocalize her frustration regarding the last few weeks. She thought things couldn’t get any worse following her physical decline, but she was wrong. Something had to change, and quick.

Alec decided to take the next term of school off, and it would have been an uphill battle for Starla’s parents to try to claim that there was any reason for her to go back to tertiary school. They had no idea why her body had fallen into this condition, but they were probably more distraught over it than even her. They paid the bills and modified the house to accommodate her. They did everything right, on paper, that is. But they had a hard time looking her in the eye. They were secretly grateful for Alec’s involvement and patience. She loved them very much, but she didn’t dwell on the fact that they had grown apart. Sometimes, things like that are just unavoidable.

And so, the two of them remained in Winnipeg with Marissa’s family for the next few weeks. Starla would bring the consciousnesses of her confidants to hang out with them. Unfortunately, she could only connect with one person at a time, and Karam was hogging all the appointments so that he could be around Therasia. He had an open relationship with his husband, so there was no problem with his attraction towards her on that front. Though, there was a bit of a problem from their age difference, so he kept his feelings to himself, and also to Starla since she couldn’t help but know.

One of her confidants was too busy to hang out, however. Uruguayan-born Yenifer was always off on one crusade or another. After tertiary school, she decided to forego college and travel the developing world, providing aid to those in need. She had worked for a number of different organizations and was at present working for Food for Somalia on the outskirts of Mogadishu. It was likely the most dangerous situation she had ever been in, and she was currently calling for Starla’s help. I need you to relay messages to Chantal, Yenifer pleaded. In order for two or more of Starla’s confidants to communicate with each other, without using the telephone or letters, Starla would have to relay messages between them. She would have to send her consciousness to one location, pick up the psychic message, then send her consciousness to the other and repeat the thought. And she would have to do this over and over again, because there was no way to connect them together. It was mentally taxing, but it ultimately instilled a sense of community amongst her friends, rather than them being just a scatter of people around the world who all happened to know the same South Carolina girl.

I can do that, Starla said after jumping to Yenifer’s body. She was running through an industrial area. A large group of civilians were running beside her while some kind of small armed military force was providing cover and protection. One soldier, however, had no weapons at all. Instead, she remained up front, barreling through enemies with her bare hands like they were nothing. She clearly had some kind of superhuman strength. She was either another person born with special abilities, or part of a military supersoldier program. She could not yet rule out the latter.

We have to flee the mainland, Yenifer cried. Chantal is the closest known friendly. I need you to coordinate with her. We need permission to enter Seychelles.

I don’t think that she would have that kind of pull, Starla said.

She’ll have to contact the Coast Guard and inform them that we seek refuge from a pirate legion. Seychelles incarcerates the highest number of pirates in the world. I expect them to be sympathetic to the cause.

What have you gotten yourself into, Yenifer? Starla asked like a disappointed mother.

Don’t give me that. This is important. We’re almost to the plane. We need a place to land. Can you help or not? I can just wait until we get to a phone and do it myself.

No, no, it’s fine, Starla insisted. I can do it.

Starla kept an eye on both of them, making sure that Yenifer got to the plane safely, and that Chantal managed to get ahold of the right people. After some discussion, the Seychelles Coast Guard did agree to let them land as long as they agreed to be debriefed, and to let them handle any further piracy issues. Starla ended up staying with Yenifer for a while as she was looking for a way to get the woman with superstrength alone.

“Could you tell me your name? I always like to know who to thank for saving my life.”

“Máire Lyne,” the woman said, shaking hands. “And it’s my job.”

“Forgive me, but you possess a level of strength of never seen before.” She looked down to the back of the fuselage. “And there are far more soldiers here than I remember running with us.”

“Many were waiting for us on the plane,” Máire explained.

“I don’t believe that. Do you have a superpower?”

“Of course I don’t,” Máire replied, and it was obvious that this wasn’t the first time she had been asked such a question.

“There are two people inside of my body right now. Me,” she began, “and my friend, Starla. Her body is in Manitoba right now.”

Máire was wary but noticeably excited by this. “Is that a joke?”

They provided her with a demonstration. Physical contact with a confidant and someone else on the other side allowed Starla to transfer her consciousness to that new person. She moved Máire’s mind to Marissa’s house where the gang was playing cards and telling stories. “That was amazing,” she said after returning to her own body. “She’s always been able to do that?”

Starla took over Yenifer’s body completely. “I have.”

“My brother and I already know that we’re not alone. Sandro Watts works on a separate team, using darts he shoots out of his fingers. Honestly, Miss Wakefield, I would be remiss if I did not suggest to you that you strongly consider joining us.”

“Sorry,” Starla said truthfully. “I would never.”

“I understand. But remember that we’re here to help; not to hurt. My ability does not only give me physical strength. I’m also able to utilize the intelligence and wisdom of others. I always know how to find the peaceful option, if there is one. Besides, you wouldn’t have to join the paramilitary. There are other positions in the Confederacy. I’m pretty sure one of us works as an interpreter in Hudson.”

“Yes,” Starla nodded. “Ling Guo. I have encountered her. I almost forgot.”

Máire subtly shrugged her shoulders. “Just something to think about.”

“Indeed.”

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Microstory 45: Lost Colony

In 1587, the island of Roanoke was accidently settled by a group of English colonists. They were led there by John White, but this was not his choice. They were piloted to the unplanned location by Simon Fernandez; a former pirate who was loyal to a man named Sir Francis Walsingham for having prevented his execution. Walsingham was a recruiter from another planet, and had been choosing Earthan humans to be early colonists of a new planet called Persephone. Most of his recruits were individuals; a few were in small families, so the Roanoke colony was his largest venture. Now-Governor John White returned to England to ask for help with the new colony. By the time he he was able to make it back nearly three years later, the entire group had been recruited, and the establishment abandoned. On a fence post, a young boy had carved the word “Croatoan”. True, it was the name of a second island, and also of a supposed American Indian tribe, but this was not why the boy had carved the word. These were not truly American Indians. They too were aliens, posted on Earth to foster the people. They had chosen Croatoan to be their tribe name, because it was originally the name of their spaceship. In 1590, Walsingham’s sabbatical ended, and his superiors requested that he return to the star system. After faking his own death, he picked up Fernandez whose debt from being a pirate had been paid by his work in Roanoke, and they left for The Core. Fernandez was allowed to live out the rest of his life with the colonists on Persephone, and none of them ever saw Earth again.