Microstory 2785: It’s Actually About the Whole Planet

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As people are activated in their pods one by one, Jande steps up and takes charge. He asks about everyone’s experience. They all had the same one—the exact same one. The room looked the same, the executioners were the same, even the audience sounded identical, save for their loved ones, who were swapped out respectively. Even the loners saw their parents, or someone else they once cared about. It’s unlikely that some were brought here on such short notice. Quantum casting is relatively easy, but people have their own lives, and the real slowdown would be explaining that this was a performative execution, and they should remain stoic the whole time while they watched.

For the most part, the contestants are fine with Jande playing the leader for now. They still think he was part of the operation from minute one, and they’re hoping he will share what he knows. It’s a fine line he’s walking here, letting them think that just enough to keep them cooperative, but not so much that it paints a target on his back.

They’re all wearing their birthday suits, and it’s rather cold in this room. It’s not until the last pod opens that a wall parts in half, revealing a hidden doorway. The other side is a locker room. It’s even colder, but they find clothes. They are t-shirts, shorts, and skirts, but they’re better than nothing. They get dressed, then start to look around for clues. There is nowhere to sit, which is weird for a locker room, and also frustrating because they’re still wobbly from the mind transference process.

Even the pros say it’s hard on them, probably because this is the weakest they have ever been. Jande spent all that time working out because he didn’t know this would happen. He already was in a baseline model. He should have realized that the coordinators don’t just want them to be unenhanced; they want them to be evenly matched. They’re all slender and lanky, but also short now. Everyone is pushing each other to get to the one mirror, but Jande doesn’t spend too much time in front of it. He’s uncomfortable, seeing himself with the same face but a wildly different body.

Ersence is running her fingers along the walls, looking for another seam for a door. She’s doing it carefully and methodically, and hasn’t used the mirror even once.

“What does it matter?” Jande asks her. “Whatever will happen will happen, and we won’t be able to control it. I think we have all seen that by now.”

Ersence doesn’t look away from her work. “We just died, I recall. I don’t like the feeling of being trapped. Everything my people want could be achieved with a rotating habitat. We could plant trees, and fill lakes. We could even have mountains. But a planet just hits harder. I don’t like enclosed spaces. If I can find a way out before these people let me out, then that’s what I’m gonna do, if you don’t mind...husband.”

“You two are married?” It’s the hermit who should not have even known that this competition was happening. “Forgive me, but, what’s the point? Are you just trying to maximize your chances? You have an 18% chance of winning, compared to my 9%?”

“Marriage is different for us,” Jande explains to the hermit. “It can be for love and partnership, but it doesn’t have to be. I mostly needed an employee.”

Ersence is not offended by this, but the hermit looks over as if in anticipation of her sadness. “Well, then I suppose my odds haven’t gone down, so that’s good.”

“Actually, they have,” an Eyrenlander jumps in. “Their odds are not only 18%. Working together gives them an advantage over whatever is coming to us. If we’re asked to push boulders up a hill, each of us is stuck alone, and it may be physically impossible in these raggedy bodies. But if you team up... Same number of people, same number of boulders, but two of us can actually get both of theirs done.”

“I just said, we are not a team,” Jande reminds the asshole Eyrenlander.

“Yeah, you did say that,” the Eyrenlander replies. “The other day, I was in a virtual construct where I told people I was a zookeeper.” He drops down to a whisper. “Wanna know a secret? I’m not really. Zoos don’t exist anymore.”

They stand in silence for a moment before the hermit breathes in and extends his hand towards Ersence. “Anyway, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Dare Finnian, but you can call me Dare.” He shakes Jande’s hand after hers. “Dare Finnian, call me Dare.” He starts going around the room, repeatedly saying the same thing in slightly different ways.

His ice-breaking triggers a massive wave of introductions. They don’t all shake hands, and they definitely don’t provide their life stories, but everyone gets a say. Except for one man. He’s standing off to the side, looking smug, but not making any reaction to anyone else’s words. He’s just standing there like he knows something no one else does.

Jande walks up to the mysterious stranger, who must be the last guy to register for this. “You’ve been quiet, cowboy. You got a name, or what?”

“Or what,” the man responds without blinking.

Jande looks him up and down. “You look a little familiar. Is that your real face?”

“What is real anyway?” Oh, he’s so mysterious and intriguing.

“I’m gonna need a name, sir,” Jande insists. “It’s a safety thing. No one here is anonymous, and I won’t let you be the exception, so out with it.”

“Found it!” Ersence has her hand behind a corner locker. “Here, help me.” A Bidan woman goes over and helps her remove the entire locker from its socket. Without hesitation, Ersence reaches for the recessed toggle and pulls it down.

The entire ceiling cracks in the center. The two halves lift up and away from each other. Simultaneously, the floor pushes the contestants up like an elevator, leaving the walls and lockers behind. The coordinators are truly leaning into the tropes with this thing; it happens in every movie about challengers in a deadly competition.

The floor reaches the surface, but it doesn’t stop. It keeps ascending towards the sky as a crowd of tens of thousands cheer from the stands. Jande just thought this was going to be a low-key, private matter, but it’s a spectacle. Cameras imply that they’re being watched by people all over the world, and maybe beyond. They really are taking a page out of the classics, like Gladiator and The Hunger Games series.

Not too far from their platform, a smaller one rises in tandem. Vantu Hidayat is on it alone, which is who Jande figured would serve as the third-party judge. “Assembled minds and remote viewers, thank you for bearing witness to this occasion! We have been working on this program for the last four months, and have finally reintegrated our candidates into new substrates!”

It’s been four months? It’s already spring, that’s not good.

“I know you’re all anxious to get going, but first, we have to inform the candidates of something we discovered while we were researching the charter!” Van looks over at the larger platform, and lowers his voice. “You believe that you will be competing for the fate of Quiratan, but centuries ago, it served as the first settlement on this planet. The Superintendent position would not oversee only one community. Winning this will place you in a supervisory role over all of Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida.”

Microstory 2784: He is Not Really Going to Die

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Registration is over. After one more person signs up following Ersence, they lock it down. Now the contenders are waiting for their next instructions. They still have no idea what’s in store for them, or when it’s gonna happen. They just go about their day, and go to sleep that night.

The front door creaks open. It’s the 26th century, doors don’t have to creak if you don’t want them to. Jande’s grandfather designed it to do it because that’s how history taught him. Once the world transitioned to a post-scarcity economy, people stopped having to worry about their neighbors much, but Rolof Ter Avest believed in full immersion. They’re not playing a game here, with their intentionally low-tech lives. Protecting the home has been a tried and true practice for millennia, and it doesn’t have to stop here. The creak means someone is using the door. Jande is so intimately familiar with his home that he can even tell when it’s being opened from the inside or out.

Jande is up and out of bed before the intruders can make it more than a few steps into the house. For a split second, he catches sight of Ersence still fast asleep. He reaches over the headboard and unlocks the shotgun. He swings it around and aims it at his bedroom door just as it’s opening. “Halt or catch fire!” Jande orders.

Ersence is startled awake. She curls herself up against the wall, but isn’t scared.

If the first intruder isn’t backed up then they’re stupid, and they deserve to die. Jande has every right to defend that home. Post-scarcity conventions and virtual immortality diminished the need for violence; they didn’t erase the possibility of being attacked anyway. No court would convict him. So once he sees the figure move another centimeter forwards, he fires at it without hesitating.

The enemy twists backwards when they get shot in the shoulder, though they don’t fall over. In response, they lift their undamaged arm and point towards him. An electromagnet spins up, pulling the gun out of Jande’s hand, along with every ferromagnetic object in the room. A pair of hands takes the first figure by the neck and wrenches them backwards to make room in the doorway. The true threat emerges from the hallway. “This is why we came to you last, because we knew you would make noise.”

Jande hears another shot. The speaking intruder’s head jerks backwards before the rest of his body follows and falls on top of the robot. Jande looks over at Ersence.

“Whoever told you to own a gun made out of metal did you a disservice,” Ersence says. “There’s intentional obsolescence, and then there’s willful incompetence.”

Jande reaches out and takes her wrist. “Come along, darling.” He takes her into the bathroom because the window in there is easier to open.

As they’re slipping out, they hear hushed voices nearby, but Jande can’t tell what they’re saying. This is a full-on assault. The Eyrenlanders don’t want to wait for the Superintendent to decide who takes control over the community because they know the five people they registered are gonna lose. Jande just needs to make it over the border where he’ll find asylum with the Mount Pryce-dwellers. From there, he will take back control of his land, and if he’s the last surviving competitor, he’ll automatically be Superintendent by that point anyway. They just have to stay quiet and stay vigila—

A sharp pain starts on the surface of the skin of his neck before sliding in deeper. It’s a needle...not even a jet injector, but a bona fide 5-centimeter-long needle. Arms gently help him down to the ground as the stars above twinkle off. Someone else is sedating Ersence, and there is nothing that either of them can do about it.

Jande wakes up in a reclined wooden chair. His wrists and ankles are strapped down, and there’s an IV line in his arm. Something is attached to his head, but he can’t tell what it is. It’s somehow both spongy and hard at the same time. He is in a dimly lit room, with whirring machines to his left and an electrical box to his right. Before him is a window, and next to it a nondescript door. As the fog lifts from his mind, he starts to realize where he is. This is an execution room, but a hodgepodge of various methods. All that’s missing is the firing squad and the guillotine. He cranes his neck to look up. Oh, no, there’s the guillotine. Well, at least they have all their bases covered.

The door opens. Several men enter solemnly. The curtains fall away, revealing the audience. His parents are there, having returned from their first retirement location on the edge of Eyrenland, where it’s still green and alive. Other Quiratani are sitting around them, hardened looks on their faces. No one is upset by this. They look robotic.

One of the men is wearing a black hood. He walks over to the electrical box lever and rests one hand upon it. Two men in lab coats go over to the machines to push buttons and take notes. A man in a three-piece suit nods once at the guys carrying rifles over their shoulders. They spread out along the wall and aim their weapons at Jande.

The boss man looks over at a landline phone on the wall, consults his watch, then looks back at the phone. This is some sick reenactment shit, and Jande doesn’t appreciate it. It was a savage time in human history when they did this, and yes, he does recognize that murder wasn’t completely illegal for the vast majority of the timeline.

When the phone doesn’t ring, the man sighs and takes a half step towards Jande. “This be your last moment on Earth, son. Do you have any last words?”

Jande chuckles. “Uhh...ai gonplei ste odon? Or...shel kek nem ron.” Yeah, that’s the one. Let’s get this pinnacle of literal overkill over with.

“Ready!” the man in the suit cries.

The electrician tightens his grip on the lever. The firing squad cocks their guns. The lethal injectors turn one last knob.

“Aim!” the man adds.

Jande’s chair turns down so his neck is directly under the guillotine blade.

“Fire!”

A mask appears in Jande’s field of vision. Someone affixes it to his face. The air inside feels different on his tongue and in his nostrils. He breathes deeply as euphoria floods his whole body, and he begins to drift away. His eyelids bounce up and down while he smiles. The electrician never pulls the lever. There is never any tightness in his arm at the injection sites. The gunmen never fire. The guillotine never falls.

Jande awakens yet again, this time in a bioprinting pod. He pushes the lid away and climbs out. He has transferred bodies before, but he’s not as experienced as some are these days. He stumbles around like a newborn fawn. He manages to make it over to the next pod where he finds Ersence’s new body still finishing being printed. As he makes his way around the room, he sees the other nine contenders in varying stages of the printing process. What the fuck was that all about?

Microstory 2772: Dasshutsu

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There is a natural atmosphere on Castlebourne, but it doesn’t have the right composition for human lungs. That’s why the owner built tens of thousands of domes, so each could contain its own atmosphere. The hunters knew the risks going into this plan, but they didn’t talk about it, because it was the only one they had. As soon as Elise clears the dome opening, she turns and follows the curve back down towards the surface.

They already picked out a rendezvous point. The desert where the rocket was buried is not on any map they’ve ever seen. It’s much smaller than a regular dome, which has a diameter of 83 kilometers. It’s situated between Bloodbourne and Tokyo 2077, and was supposedly built exclusively for this hunt. For whatever reason, the single escape pod always transports the designated survivor to Tokyo 2077, where they find themselves having to navigate their way back home using directions found hidden in the pod. Rage once tried to ignore them, and exit herself, but the target exit is the only way to reenter the normal dimension, instead of this Facsimile thing.

Elise and Colley fly through the airlock, where they inject themselves with an emergency baseline cocktail, which brings their body back to equilibrium after exposure. They walk through the tunnel where they catch up with the rest of the group, who have already found Rage sitting on the edge of the pod’s hatch, reading the instructions.

“Don’t you just remember where to go?” Jolanda asks her.

“The exit is in a different place every time,” Rage explains.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Minotaur presses. “If you’re going back in time, why would it move, unless Hrockas is aware that you’re doing it?”

“He may be,” Miracle explains, “but even if he’s not, Rage makes different decisions in different time loops, which affect how the hunt progresses, if only due to the butterfly effect. I don’t have to go over the butterfly effect, do I?”

When Rage shakes her head, she notices something. “We’re missing someone.”

“Zelda didn’t make it,” Elise answers solemnly. “I couldn’t carry both.”

Colley hangs his head low. “It should have been me.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Elise argues. “There were no good options.”

“There might be a way,” Miracle claims, “to get her back.”

“How?” Rage asks. “Is death just a form of time travel?”

Miracle chuckles. “No. But you have to understand that, in the world of time travel, if something ever exists, it always exists. We can get her mind back by stealing it from the past, and pulling it up to the present. We have to find Zelda’s body before it wakes up, though, because the Zelda we meet there will begin to be her own person, and blending their minds together is ethically tricky the longer we wait.”

“Well, I can’t read this,” Rage complains. “I’m starting to think that Hrockas is aware of my time travel. It’s always, always, always in Japanese, which is why I uploaded the language into my neural net, but now it’s in something else.”

Colley takes the paper from her, and studies it. “It is Japanese. It’s an old style called Kuzushiji; basically their form of cursive. They stopped using it nearly 700 years ago specifically because it was hard to read, and they wanted something standardized.”

“So we have to find someone to translate it,” Rage decides, snatching the document back. “It takes forever because people are assholes. I think that’s why this is Tokyo 2077, rather than 2050 or 2100. It was a complex time in Japan’s history. And the NPCs are just as modern as me, so now we need a scholar who studied this ancient form of writing, which will make it even harder. Zelda doesn’t have time for this!”

“It might actually be easier,” Colley reasons. “Scholars love history. If we go to the nearest university’s language department, they’ll probably be excited to see this.”

He was right. The Head of Linguistics is ecstatic to see the directions because he was programmed with a passion for dead languages. He agrees to transcribe it for them, but only into modern Japanese hiragana, and only if he gets to keep the document. That is absolutely fine. Once they know where to go, they won’t need anything else from it. Elise suggests that he start with the last step in case it’s the only one they need, and that turns out to be the right call. It saves them a ton of time. Rage has familiarized herself with the city enough to navigate. The problem was, the exit is in a bad neighborhood.

“Well, they’re all NPCs, right?” Elise asks. “One restriction when it comes to fighting is holding back so you don’t accidentally murder someone. But here, that doesn’t matter. We can go full force with anyone who attacks, and not feel bad.”

“It’s not that easy,” Colley contends. “Ambients are programmed to be reactive. If you fight harder, they fight harder. That’s why conventional wisdom says to use diversion combat methods, like aikido, or maybe judo. Try to deescalate the situation.”

“Again, Zelda doesn’t have time for that,” Rage argues, “and she didn’t teach us either of those things. I’m guessing you only know them academically.”

“Let’s just try not to make trouble, okay?” Minotaur suggests. “This isn’t a video game. A confrontation is not guaranteed to pass the level. We might be okay.”

Minotaur’s advice was sound but unfortunately inaccurate for their situation. They aren’t only in a dangerous part of town. They have to walk into a den of thieves, surrounded by people open-carrying firearms and underneath nude video billboards. While it’s true, they didn’t study the gentler martial arts, they do have an intuition for similar tactics, based on what they did practice with Zelda and Jolanda. The latter still being alive obviously takes point, but she isn’t able to handle all attackers on her own. Everyone has to participate, including kinder Colley. They keep moving as fast as possible to reach their exit. Luckily, there’s no final boss to destroy.

By the time they reach the door, they are all bloodied and bruised, but still breathing, and once they do open it, all the fighting ceases. The NPC criminals instantly begin to ignore them, and go on with their fake lives. So it is a little like a video game. Meanwhile, the hunters cross the threshold, through the magical dimensional portal, and back into the real world. They end up in the same basement, but it’s the polar opposite as it was before. It appears to be a school, or a childcare facility. They’re attacked again, but this time by a bunch of children gawking at the unusual strangers, who are mostly dressed in racing uniforms, and also one of them is a green moth.

Amidst all of this, they make their way back to the outer walls of the real Tokyo 2077 dome, get on the vactrain, and travel clear to the other side of the planet to The Terminal. This is where everyone who comes to this planet by casting their consciousness through the quantum network shows up. Every dome has its own highly secure vault of primary and backup substrates, and people have their own pods in their private residences. They don’t know where Zelda will end up, so this is the only place they can go to find out since it should store routing priority procedures in its database. This is the hard part, though. It’s time for a good old fashioned high-tech heist.

Microstory 2771: Three-Two-One Liftoff, Jetpack, Shoot Into Space

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Elise and Colley learn that the maze the other team members were making their way through is a rocket buried in the ground narratively from crashing. It’s heavily damaged, and not likely spaceworthy, so they’re pretty sure that their goal was never to learn how to pilot it. It is of apparent alien design, based on the mysterious writings and glyphs all over the place. One particular room off of what they believe to be the bridge is calling out to them, like path funneling in a video game. It just looks important. This is partially because it sits opposite the exit that led them back to their friends on the surface. This hunt is all about movement. It must be the next step in their journey.

They came across other locked doors, but they served mainly as dead ends for the maze portion of the challenge, because if the ship were real, it probably wouldn’t have actually been designed as a maze on purpose. This room is different, and they think Colley may be able to figure out how to unlock it. Their best guess is that it’s a puzzle.

Colley is standing at the door now, looking at the symbols carved into it, having already examined the writing on the consoles. Elise stands a little to the side. She has no idea what the symbols mean, but she’s watching Colley’s facial expressions closely. He doesn’t look like he’s studying them. His face is solemn and reflective. At times, it’s unclear if he’s looking at anything at all, or simply staring into space. After a moment, he pivots 45 degrees to look over at Rage. “You’ve always known.”

“What?” Rage questions. “I’ve always known what?”

Colley quietly looks back at the door. “You’ve always known we would end up here. Or maybe you thought this time would be different...that you could change it.” He looks back over at her again. “Which is it? Hope, or inevitability.”

Rage looks as confused as before, but then her face falls into cold understanding. “I did what I had to do. We’re so close. Next time, we’ll make it all the way, I know it.”

“What is going on?” Jolanda questions. “What are you two talking about?”

Colley begins to look around. “The door is dead. We got here too late.”

“There’s power,” Zelda reasons. “We can figure out how to reroute it to the door.”

“No,” Colley contends, shaking his head. “It’s not that kind of door. It’s powered by time, and the clock ran out before we even stepped foot in the maze.” He faces Minotaur. “Do you have any idea who brought you down here? Did you catch a glimpse? Any clue whatsoever?”

“No, why? I assumed it was Azad, or a programmed Ambient, like those pirates.”

“I don’t think they were supposed to grab you,” Colley begins. “I think someone was trying to help us get down here faster. It turned out to not be enough because of the other delays we faced, like Elise’s death, and Miracle’s surprise return. Rage knows more about it. She’s been here before. Haven’t you, Rage? You’ve been through all of this.”

“It’s not like that,” Rage says. “They give us different challenges every time. Even this last one is different. It’s the same crashed ship, but the path is always changed. That’s why I started recruiting Mino, so they would help us get through it faster. But like the man said, it wasn’t enough. The countdown has already begun.”

“Explain,” Minotaur presses. “What do you mean you started recruiting me?”

Rage sighs. “I don’t have the whole history, because I’m not always the designated survivor, but—you have to understand that at first, a part of me thought they were just dreams. When I could remember past attempts, I thought my brain was just making it up, because the memories don’t really feel like mine. The more time passes, the more I realize that they’re real, and I start actively trying to change things.”

“Ah,” Miracle says. “You don’t store all of your thoughts in the network. You learned how to keep them in another dimension. I probably taught you how. Though, if I did, why would I not have those memories?”

“Because you have to be the one who survives,” Rage explains. She points at the mysterious door. “Once we open that, two things will happen. The ship will ascend, and bathe this whole dome in exhaust and radiation. The dome is smaller than it looks. A single-person pod will unlock, and allow one of us to survive. That person’s consciousness alone will continue, go back to the beginning, and recruit everyone to try again. It’s usually me. We vote and agree that it will be me since I’ve become the one with the most context. I think I sometimes just don’t make it this far so you have to pick someone else. I have been trying different ways of winning, but delays add up. Speeding through it won’t work either, because it usually just ends up getting everybody killed. I made one huge change this time which got us closer than ever.”

“What did you change?” Zelda asks.

Rage looks over at Elise. “I recruited a seventh hunter. She was the missing piece. If we go one more time, I know that we can make it. You just have to let me get in that pod one more time. Once I regain access to the right equipment, I will send my consciousness back in time, like I always do, and restart. Please, trust me.”

“How can we trust you?” Colley questions. “You have been lying this whole time. Did you ever think of reading us in, and maybe we would work through it better?”

“Of course I’ve tried that,” Rage contends. “Those iterations go worse than any. We get in our own heads, and we get in our own way. Placing my trust in you is what gets us far, as well as thinking outside the box, like when I found Elise.”

“Why can’t we just walk out here right now?” Elise asks. She dips her head a little. “I can still see light coming in through the executive exit. We’ll go back to the desert, armed with water this time, and make our way to the wall. We won’t win the hunt, but all of our memories will remain intact, rather than only yours.”

Rage shakes her head. “We’ve tried that too. As soon as one person steps over that threshold, the ship takes off and burns them alive before they cross the desert. Anyone who manages to hold on and stay inside when that happens asphyxiates once the ship reaches altitude.”

“Well, we could teleport,” Elise turns to face the person who knows the most about all this time travel stuff. “Miracle, I’m surely charged up by now, aren’t I?”

Miracle nods. “You probably are, but you can only take two people at a time.”

“Yeah,” Rage agrees. “Miracle managed to retain her own powers in one iteration but that didn’t work either, because the ship launched, and I guess triggered some kind of teleportation suppression field. That’s when she taught me how to send my consciousness into the past. We were hoping to subvert the challenge changes, but we later decided that we decide what challenges come up, based on our dynamic and capacity for teamwork, which changes constantly. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I was trying to keep everything as predictable as possible.”

“But you said that I’m new,” Elise reasons. “You made a change, but also tried to keep everything the same? Which is it?”

“It’s both,” Rage answers. “It’s complicated. I’m sorry. It’s gonna happen again.”

Elise shakes her head. “What if I flew people out of here?” Elise asks. She turns to Miracle again. “I think I’m strong enough. The ship has to escape the dome somehow, right? It is a spaceship, after all, and there’s no outer space inside the dome.”

When Miracle defers to Rage, the latter goes on. “I once climbed into the escape pod, but intentionally didn’t escape right away, to see what would happen. Yes, it does fly all the way into space. You’re not strong enough to carry six people, though.”

“She won’t have to carry all six,” Miracle claims. She begins to stretch and roll her neck. “There’s a reason I’ve been so subdued since Hrockas made me come back in a different body. I’ve been focusing on induced limb growth.” She tenses up like she’s having a baby, and hunches her back. Two beautiful white angel wings sprout from her shoulder blades, and unfold before their eyes. It looks a little painful, but once it’s over, she smiles and breathes. “Ahhh, loophole!”

“Oh my God,” Zelda says. “That’s bad ass. You have to teach me how to do that.”

“There’s a problem, though,” Miracle says as she’s flapping her new wings, presumably to get used to them. “I couldn’t will myself to have superstrength, and it doesn’t sound like Elise has it either. I reckon we can each only take two passengers.”

“Someone’s going to have to stay behind,” Zelda realizes. “There’s apparently usually only one survivor, but this time, there will be one death. How poetic.”

“I’ll do it,” Colley volunteers. “Before you say anything, I don’t have any special argument in favor of it, but the way I see it, I called it first, so I win. I shouldn’t have to explain myself. I don’t have this big speech about what I learned, and what will happen to my alternate self when he wakes up with no memories. This is just gonna be what happens. So go on and yell all you want, but I’m not budging.”

Rage looks at him like he’s an idiot. “There’s still an escape pod,” she reminds him. “It’s got my name on it. I’ll take that. You take the ride.”

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” Colley agrees. “But we have to time it right.”

Everyone gets into position. Rage prepares to open the door with the code while the flyers stand at the exit, their respective passengers on either side of them. On Rage’s mark, they fly out of the hatch as fast as they can. Miracle gets going quickly, which triggers the launch sequence. Elise is having more trouble. Her wings may not be as fragile as a real Luna moth’s, but they’re not made of carbon nanotubes either. They’re still organic, and she still has limitations.

They’re only a few meters over the surface, and Elise is fighting just to stay at that level. She just can’t reach elevation. As she’s flapping her wings as hard as possible, they look down and see the sand slipping away from them like an hourglass. She’s not getting higher; the ground is getting lower as the ship displaces it with its initial lift off. The boosters are just about to fire and burn them to death. They have to go now.

“I guess I am gonna sacrifice myself!” Colley yells, obviously preparing to let go.

“No!” Elise cries. “Just hold on! I can do this!”

“There’s no time!” Colley shouts. “Don’t argue with me! Save Zelda!”

“Save Zelda?” Zelda questions. “I was born for this.” She lets go and plummets towards her death. “Wooooo!” They lose her amidst the rain of sand below.

Now there’s really no time...no time to mourn, no time to dwell. Elise tightens her grip on Colley, and flies up towards the zenith as flames nip at their heels.

Microstory 2737: The Whole Universe

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Sora takes half a step forward. “You—”

“I will handle this,” Pribadium!One insists. “You have done quite enough, Mr. Shimizu.” She looks at her alternate self. “You were killed in a streaming dead zone,” she explains bluntly. “You were on a manned mission to explore and investigate a dimensional barrier. There is a gap between your memory and the moment of cessation. It is not entirely clear how long, though. Your consciousness may have been transmitted to the afterlife buffer. You may be a duplicate. I am sorry for your loss.”

The other Pribadium blinks as she looks between the two of them. “What is the last thing I should recall? Because I don’t remember any of that. I don’t know this dimensional barrier, I don’t know him, and I don’t know you.”

Pribadium!One winces. “I’m Pribadium, an alt of you.” She gestures towards her own face. “This is how we originally looked.” She stops for a moment to think. “Well, it’s not exactly how we used to look, but it’s fairly close. Who do you think you are?”

“I’m Pribadium,” the dupe contends, almost combatively. It doesn’t seem right to think of her as Pribadium!Two since so much has evidently been lost. “I don’t recognize your face at all. I don’t know what you mean by alt. I’m the only me that has ever been.”

Pribadium!One points to a nearby mirror. “Do you recognize that face?”

The other Pribadium walks towards it and touches her own chin and cheek. “Yes, this is the Stonehenge model. It explains why I have a British accent I suppose.”

“What did I do?” Sora questions. “Did I pull the wrong backup? I grabbed the second most recent one. I assumed the most recent one was you. It was time-stamped earlier today. There were no other iterations. How did this happen?” He is distraught.

Pribadium!One sighs. “There should have only been two, and you’re right, the most recent one would have been me. If you had pulled the wrong one, what should be happening is that she thinks she’s me. But she doesn’t think she’s either of us. Her mind has been entirely corrupted.” She clears her throat. “Pribadium!Three—that’s what we’re going to need to call you—I need to run some tests on you. Do I have your consent?”

Pribadium!Three stares at who she perceives to be a stranger. “I will run the tests. I don’t trust you, and I don’t need you.” She strips off what little clothing she has on, climbs into the nearest medical pod, and begins to operate it herself. She programs it for a full diagnostic run, which will include periods of unconsciousness. “I’m locking you out of the pod, but I would like you to leave the room as well.”

Pribadium!One starts to pull Sora away when he doesn’t move immediately.

“I’m sorry,” Sora desperately apologizes to the mysterious duplicate in the pod.

“It’s okay,” Pribadium!Three replies. “Je pense, donc je suis.”

Sora’s eyes widen, recalling that as the phrase he used for her as well. Still, he allows himself to be dragged out of the room. “Did you hear what she said?”

“Yes, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s only a coincidence,” Pribadium!One is not sure she believes that, though. She opens her mouth to continue, but he interrupts.

“Don’t say what you’re going to say. I know, I was rash and impulsive. I’m sorry.”

What’s done is done, so they just wait out in the corridor for Pribadium!Three to finish. She comes out half an hour later. “I know what I am now. I’m not Pribadium.”

“Who are you then?” Pribadium!One presses.

“I’m the universe.”

Microstory 2736: Introducing Pribadium!Three

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Pribadium didn’t think that Sora—or anyone, for that matter—would be able to bypass her security protocols, so she doesn’t rush to chase after him. Once she sees him enter the substrate library, however, she grows worried. She immediately tries to teleport into the room with him, but the closest she gets is outside in the hallway. He has managed to not only breach the sector, but lock her out if. How did he do that?

She bangs on the hatch. “How are you doing this?” She bangs on it more.

Sora looks at her through the view window with a frown. He holds up an object so she can see. It’s a cephalobud, and it looks like it’s already been used and spent.

Pribadium invented it a few decades ago. It’s somewhat comparable to other neural drives, except this model can pull information directly from the timestream. It allows a user to download whatever digital data they want into their brains. Unlike other kinds, this will transfer knowledge even if you’re not digitized. It’s very dangerous, especially for a normal human like Sora. Time travelers have different neurology and biology, and that’s who she designed it for. It was kind of a weekend project that she forgot about. He must have found it in her lab, though, when she left him alone earlier.

“Your external security is extremely robust,” Sora explains, “but your internal security is laughable. I didn’t download the secrets of the universe, but I did capture the specs of this base. I thought you might turn on me, and I would need to escape.”

“You’re the one who has turned,” Pribadium argues. “Don’t do this.”

Sora looks around, presumably searching for Pribadium!Two’s next substrate. “I like this one. She looks even less like you than you two before. It will be easier to tell you apart.” He approaches the console, and starts working it like a pro.

“Sora, this isn’t what she wanted. She’s literally gone to a better place. It’s fine.”

“You don’t know that,” Sora responds as he keeps working. “You two split from each other over a year ago, according to her. She and I apparently...” He trails off. “You don’t know her anymore. She was a different person, and I’m going to give her a choice.”

Pribadium shakes her head. “That goes against every principle you have. If you truly felt that way, you would have digitized and enhanced yourself years ago, yet here you are, a totally normal organic human. You of all people should understand our ways.”

“I’m not normal anymore.” He taps on the back of his neck where he would have applied the cephalobud. “Now I know why people do this. It’s better to have power than to not. Even if you don’t use it, it’s better to not let others have power over you.”

Pribadium sees the pod power up. “Don’t! You still have time to undo it!”

Sora hovers his hand over the interface and turns his head to look at Pribadium. “She’ll thank me one day, even if she’s mad now. Elle pense, donc...elle est.” He hits it.

The stasis pod continues to power up as Sora stands back. He watches it as he sidesteps over and unlocks the hatch for who now has to go back to being called Pribadium!One. They both watch now as the IDCode downloads and unpacks itself in the new body, rewiring the neural pathways in realtime to bring Pribadium!Two back to life. This wasn’t part of the plan, but there is nothing to be done about it now. Now that she’s alive, she will want to stay that way, which Sora would probably point out means she always deserved to. Duping is philosophically complex. Millennia after it was first being contemplated, ethicists have still not figured it out.

The pod opens. The new Pribadium!Two climbs out. She regards them. “Report.”

Microstory 2634: In the Doghouse

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Mandica is less than four weeks into her trip, yet 48 years have passed for the rest of the universe. She thinks about that sometimes. If she had never latched onto this relativistic ship, she would be 76 at this point. A couple of centuries ago, had she died at that age, people would have said that she lived a good, long life. Now 76 is still quite young, even for the undigitized. It’s not like she doesn’t accept any medical intervention. For the less enhanced, it’s still unusual to not make it to at least 100. But that means in about 15 or 20 days, she will have passed her own expected lifespan. Her parents were already pretty old when they had her, and she was only 22 when they died themselves. She spent the next six years carrying on their nomadic legacy, but alone...except for Mordred and her bot pack. It is finally time to move on from that. By the time this arkship comes to a full stop, it will be the 26th century. Who knows what the world will look like by then? She doesn’t even really know what it looks like now. Castlebourne isn’t open to the public yet. They only announced it early to build hype, and give ship travelers like her time to cover the expanse.

Most people have no use for the ships. Once Castlebourne does officially open, they will simply transmit their consciousnesses through the quantum network, and arrive in a matter of days at worst. She doesn’t know if they will have facsimile substrates waiting for them or skeletal android bodies, or what. She doesn’t pay attention to that stuff because it doesn’t apply to her. She has chosen to not be able to do it. Those are the values that her family instilled in her. You’re born, you live, you die. That is the cycle. That is how humans have been doing it for millions of years. That’s what life is. She honors her ancestors by becoming one of them one day. Going on this trip isn’t changing the plan, it’s just delaying it by a century, and making it happen on a different planet. If someone had invented faster-than-light travel like they have on the TV shows, she would have absolutely done it that way instead, and stayed on the schedule that her parents predicted for her. But this is what she has. She has a 108-year wait, experienced as 56 days. Then, for the next 80 or 90 years after that, she will lead the kind of life that she wants, and die peacefully on her terms.

Mandica set herself up with exigent alerts. While she can’t see outside—which is normally no problem, because there’s usually nothing to see—the pod has external sensors, keeping tabs on the environment. That environment is always shifting as they’re shooting through space at luminal speeds. That’s a new word she learned. Luminal is for those extremely high relativistic speeds that allow her to survive the journey in a reasonable amount of time. Any slower, and it’s not worth it given her lifespan. That gift isn’t enough now, though. There’s a breach in the hull. Nothing in the ship is going to die, but it needs to be dealt with, and they will send a bot out here to do that. Since there are live specimens on board, most of the vessel has to be spun to simulate gravity using centrifugal force. They don’t spin that whole thing, though. The spinning section is fully enclosed, and kept separate from the hull using electromagnets. The spinning cylinder is fine for now, but they can’t just leave that gaping hole there like that. Someone will come eventually.

The alert told that there was a problem, but it didn’t give her the whole story. A deeper dive into the “local news” explained it further. A micrometeoroid, probably the size of a grain of sand, managed to make it through the shielding, and puncture a hole in the front of the arkship. The EM shield surely slowed it down, after the plasma shield ionized it, but wasn’t enough to deflect it, and definitely could not have stopped it. Since the space between the spinning cylinder and the hull is also a vacuum, it was able to continue to fly backwards like a bullet. It then blasted another hole in the back as an exit wound. Right now, the automated systems are prioritizing that entry wound, because it makes them more vulnerable, but it’s only a matter of time before they head this way. It’s close enough to where Trilby attached the barnacle that a bot would spot her. She doesn’t know exactly how it will react, but it won’t ignore her. It will report the intrusion to a higher tier intelligence at the very least. She has to act.

But what can she do here? She can’t just move the barnacle somewhere else. This entire back section is exposed, and she is visible to anything nearby. She might be able to slowly walk around the engine nozzles, and hide behind them, but that’s a long-ass walk, and dangerous. Trilby said there’s a reason he chose to stick her in this spot. Even though the ship is coasting, and the engines aren’t on full right now, they still generate heat. Her suit, the tether, the barnacle; any of things could suffer damage during transit. She has to think, and she has to think fast. The port side maybe? That might be fine for now, but she’ll then be exposed to the kinds of micrometeoroids that just ruptured the hull. Again, that’s why Trilby put her right here. The way she sees it, she only has one choice at this point. It’s incredibly risky, but the worst that could happen is the bots finally do apprehend her. If she tries any alternative she could die instead.

Mandica gathers everything she can, namely the half-complement of dayfruit growers. After a quiet goodbye to her temporary home, she untethers herself from the barnacle, initiates the release procedures, and watches it fly off into the nothingness. Now she’s staring into the black. It’s haunting. Nothing on Earth is as black as this. No stars, no debris, just endless void. Everything is completely redshifted and invisible to the naked eye. They are simply moving too far away from it all. She shudders and turns away. It shouldn’t be her concern right now. There is no way to know how soon the repair bots will come. She trudges across the hull as fast as she can, which isn’t very fast. Her magboots have to be on maximum, unlike they would be if she were on the inside since a misstep out here could cost someone their life. She sees it with her flashlight now. It’s the hole. Man, is it huge. She was worried about being able to fit, but it’s not going to be a problem at all. You could send a truck through this thing if you had to.

She carefully contorts her leg to magnetize against the edge. To a giant, it would be an edge, but to her, the hull is so thick, it’s like its own wall. She walks along it until she’s fully inside. Now she’s looking at the rotating cylinder, moving at about one rotation every two minutes. It seems to be holding up. She watches it go by, looking for something—anything—to grasp onto. There, that’s it. It’s some kind of access panel. Hopefully, it grants her access to the inside, and not just wiring, or something. She leaps. The microthrusters on her PRU are designed for helium and neon, so they’re not particularly powerful, but they keep her pointed in the right direction. She grabs the handle, and holds on. Then she turns it and pulls. It’s unlocked, which makes sense, because who would they be worried about breaking in? Pirates? Insane human stowaways? She crawls up the tunnel, and comes out through a hatch in the ground, surrounded by timber wolves. “Hm. Could be worse.” It is here that she spends the next four weeks trying to figure out how she’s going to get off the ship unnoticed.

Microstory 2633: Riding the Blinds

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It’s the year 2424, and the trip to Castlebourne will take 108 years, because it is 108 light years away, and the ship will be able to travel at just under light speed. Due to special relativity, however, it will only feel like a couple of months for anyone on the ship. That preposition is more appropriate for Mandica than for anyone or anything else. They will actually be inside of it while she’ll be on the outside, like a parasite.

“That’s not the right term,” her pilot argues. “It makes it sound like you’re hurting the ship. I promise, it won’t even notice you. You’re not a parasite, it’s...” He trails off as he looks it up on his device. “Phoretic. You’re a phoresy. Yeah, that sounds better.”

“You literally called the pod The Barnacle,” Mandica argues.

“It’s a joke,” he defends.

“That hat is a joke,” she snaps back. She knows, she shouldn’t be so mean.

“Uh, it’s a trilby, and it’s what we call retro-stylish,” he boasts.

“All right, Trilby.” She notices that he seems to like that nickname. “Tell me how this works so I don’t vaporize myself in the middle of interstellar space.”

Trilby literally pulls back the curtain to show the little pod that she’ll be in. It looks like the inside of a nutshell, but only half of it. There is no other half. This will evidently be sealed against the hull, so the hull acts as the fourth wall, and if that seal ever breaks, she’ll be exposed to the vacuum of outer space. “Okay. You’ll have to be in your Integrated Multipurpose Suit when we begin, helmet and all. You can hold onto these handles so you don’t slip off. Of course, you’ll be tethered, but if you slip out during the process, the seal will snap that tether, and you’ll start to float away.”

“Got it. Hold on tight.”

“Right,” he agrees. “Once it’s sealed, I wouldn’t unseal it until you reach your destination, or you’ll be screwed. It can be resealed, but you would have to keep your grip on it for that to work, so just don’t do it. There’s no door. You can only get out by detaching from the hull. I assume you’re halfway decent with computers. Everything you need is on this console, and it will interface with your suit. It has its own powersource, but it’s minimal, so I suggest you let it siphon from the arkship. Don’t worry, it’s a small pod, and you’re only one person, so the power draw will be well within the margin of error. As long as you don’t do anything crazy, you won’t be detected.”

“Can I take my helmet off in transit, or even my suit?”

“Helmet off should be fine. This thing has its own climate control. I would leave the suit on most of the time, however. If you do remove it, do it in short bursts to let your body breathe, but don’t fall asleep like that, or anything. It’ll be a tight seal, but I won’t be there to fix any issues. It will all be up to you.” He lifts a flap on the end of the console. “Here’s a copy of the operator’s manual, in paper form. There’s obviously a virtual version of it, but this is just in case. He opens a small cupboard. It also has dayfruit growers, but I could only fit four of them, so you’ll want to supplement with the meal bars below it, and your dayfruit smoothie in your Portable Resource Unit. I don’t remember how long regular humans can go without food, so rationing will be up to you. Just be careful and pay attention to your supplies.”

Mandica sighs and looks over her little lifeboat. “Any exercise equipment? I’ve actually never been to space before today, and I spent most of the time hiding in that shipping container. But I hear that we regular humans have trouble with zero-g over long periods of time. I assume I’m subject to the inertial dampeners, or I simply wouldn’t survive high relativistic speeds at all anyway.”

Trilby nods. “The pod will leech from the inertial dampeners, but it’s weird because of how it attaches.” He points to some of the controls. “You’ll be able to tune it, however. If you just turn this dial, it will lower the effects slightly, allowing you to make the back of the pod down. Don’t be scared of it, you will not be able to turn your private dampeners so far down that you splatter against the wall. And this isn’t even the wall. Think of it as the floor. See? Here’s your bed.” He slides the bed lid away. Because of this little shuttle’s own inertial dampeners, it looks like the bed is up against the wall, but that will change once she’s attached and on the move. “You can still do exercise. Your suit has a number of programs built in, which you can peruse yourself. Just be sure to narrow the results to close-quarters, or it may try to get you to run away.”

Mandica nods repeatedly. She’s growing quite nervous. It was bad enough when he snuck her onto the space elevator, but now she will be completely alone. If this fragile thing pops off, and she manages to survive that, she won’t be able to get into the ship. She won’t be able to ask for help. Even in an emergency—even if she’s willing to get caught—the arkship may be fully automated, and help may be difficult. Some bots don’t respond to black swan events. They won’t know how to respond to her pleas. And she’s not going to ask this guy if there will be any intelligence present, because nothing should go wrong at all. She will be tucked away safely for two months, and be free of Core World rule forever. She doesn’t hate the establishment, but she wants to remove herself from it, and this is the only way. She can’t afford the energy credits for anything else.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Trilby says to her.

“Have you done this before?”

“Not this exact thing, but I’ve tested the barnacle pod. It will work, as long as you treat it right, and don’t push the wrong buttons.”

“No pressure,” she says.

He takes a chance and places a hand upon her shoulder. “You’ll do well.”

She doesn’t know him, but he’s been helping her, and risking a lot to do it, so she decides to go for it and give him a hug. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He looks over at his screen. “We’re comin’ up on it. Remember what I taught you, and for everything else, rely on your survival instincts. Digitized people don’t have those anymore, but yours will know what to do. Better put on your other two IMS layers, but first, fix your inner layer. You have it on backwards. The autozipper goes in back. Let me know when you’re ready. I have to seal the bulkhead before I open the airlock, but we’ll be able to talk on comms. I’ll stay with you until I get out of range myself, or the arkship launches, and you speed away in a flash.”

“All right.” She puts her suit all the way on, and tethers herself to the barnacle pod. He opens the airlock, and lets the pod drift out for a little bit before seizing it with his grabber claws. He maneuvers the barnacle in front of his shuttle as he makes his approach. She wants to close her eyes, but that would just be unsafe, so she watches. She looks around for any cameras, drones, or lurking spacewalkers. No one. No one will know she’s here. The claws push the pod forward, and automated systems automatically latch on. The vacuum seal engages until she’s fully secure. They spend the next few hours getting to know each other better before the arkship powers up and flies away.

Microstory 2630: If You’re Going Through Hell...Keep Going

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April 3, 2527. Each pod can hold about 2,500 people, and with three tether systems running concurrently, that means around 2.16 million people can be evacuated every day. On the north side of the planet, only around 147 million people ultimately needed to evacuate. The rest had died, transferred their consciousnesses to other worlds, or refused to leave. A lot of the people who had originally settled in the surviving domes saw no reason to go, and no one spent much effort trying to convince them otherwise. The future is wildly uncertain at this point. Science suggests that the poles will remain safe indefinitely, but that’s assuming nothing more changes about Proxima Centauri, and that anyone truly understands what’s happening. This has never occurred before. If Earth were this hostile, nothing would have likely evolved on it, let alone a species as intelligent as humans. The safe bet is to leave, but many don’t see it that way.

It’s been 69 days now. Breanna, Cash, Notus, and Calypso are still here, along with a handful of Tangent workers who are just finishing up. They have made one final announcement in case anyone wants to change their mind, but it’s time to leave now. People have had multiple chances to get on board, so this is it. They need to pack up and head off to the southern pole to do it all again. It is reportedly going to take a lot longer, as more of them want to leave, but the four of them have completed their responsibilities. They weren’t even expected to stay for the whole two-month stint, but they did, because they wanted to help. They have not been shown a whole lot of gratitude for their efforts by the evacuating Domanians, but that’s not why they did it, and it was a rewarding experience anyway. The Bungulans initially left two pods down here as staging pods. Each one is several stories tall, so filing everyone in was a lot faster when they were already in place. One of those staging pods has finally gone back up, completely empty, which means it can do it a lot faster. This last one is for the last remaining workers. They all climb the steps, along with Heracles.

“Wait! Wait, wait, wait!” Someone says. He’s jogging through the holo-stanchions, and jumping on stage. It’s none other than Sorel Arts.

“Hey,” Breanna says after he climbs into the pod. “You’re coming with us?”

“Yeah, everyone who’s ever gonna say yes to the upload has already done so. I see no point in wasting my time here. The southerners need my help now.”

“Good on ya,” Cash says. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Likewise,” Sorel replies as the doors are closing.

One of the Bungulan workers comes over as the pod is closing and being moved out to the tether. “Listen, we were hoping to do an express trip. Can you all handle that? The pod isn’t equipped with inertial dampeners. We had to manufacture too many of them on our way here. It was simpler to basically just make a tin can tied to a string.”

“How many Gs are we talking’ here?” Breanna presses.

The Bungulan reaches over and waves a sliding door open. “A hundred and twenty. Because we have to break through the atmosphere first, so it will take nearly fifteen minutes total.” She steps to the side, revealing what’s in the other room. It’s a giant tank of some kind of fluid. Breanna is guessing perfluorocarbon.

“We’re trained for that,” Cash says, pointing to herself and Breanna. “They’re not,” she explains, indicating Notus and Calypso.

“No, it’s all right. We can handle it,” Calypso insists.

“You don’t understand,” Breanna says. “If you accelerated at these speeds without that tank, it would kill you. No matter what, unless you’re maybe a couple of certain someones, there would be nothing you could do to survive.” She gestures towards the tankroom. “This allows us to do it without feeling the full effects of such extreme acceleration, but you’re submerged in a special water that you breathe through your skin as it also fills your lungs. Everyone panics the first time. Even I did, and that was a controlled pull, at a lower acceleration than this.” She faces the Bungulan. “I’m sorry, I won’t allow it. You’ve been at this for seven months. You can wait sixteen more hours.”

“No.” Notus steps forward. “We have been through this much. We did things we never thought we would. None of those things was our choice, but this is. Let us do it. We promise, we’ll make it through. Even if it traumatizes us, it’s a story that we can tell our grandkids one day.”

“Our grandkids?” Calypso echoes.

“Our...respective...collective...grandkids.” Nice save.

“I assure you, it’s quite safe,” the Bungulan promises. “You won’t be able to talk, but it comes with an AI coach. Even the veterans will hear it guide us through the experience. The voice has been clinically tested, and proven to be fairly universally calming and helpful without sounding robotic or irritating.”

Breanna sighs and looks at her friends. They all seem amenable to the idea, and he’s right that it’s safe. The concern is not that something will go wrong, but that they won’t like, and won’t be able to tell anyone to stop. “Well, because of the atmosphere, I suppose we have to start off rather slowly anyway, so that will give us some time for human coaching, right?”

“Right,” the Bungulan agrees.

“Okay, fine,” Breanna concedes. “I’ve never actually done it in the field, so you’ll have to walk us through it. Explain like we’re five.”

“We can do that.”

Everybody climbs into the tank, and dips into the water. At first it feels like nothing, and then they move. They can feel the resistance of the thick fluid surrounding them, but still, the suit itself is fully sealed. Once everyone is in, the pod begins to move, but at very low speeds. The Bungulan instructs them on what to do. The suit, being as versatile as it is, is designed with the ability to accommodate this very thing. Valves open to let the fluid in. It’s the weirdest part. Humans evolved without the ability to breathe underwater. They are hardwired to not even try. It takes a great deal of will to force one’s self to overcome that impulse. Yet everyone does. While they’re still moving at fairly low speeds—though already accelerating—the group reports being prepared for this. Notus retains the wherewithal to send a message to Heracles, who is still in the main area of the pod, telling him that they’ll see each other on the other side. The pod moves faster and faster. Then it goes faster, faster, faster, and faster. The AI voice responds to their reactions, and alters its guidance accordingly. It’s rough and frightening, but they all get through it. Minutes later, they’re on the platform. Breanna may never see Proxima Doma again. She’s not sure yet if she wants to head for the southern pole, or take a shuttle somewhere else. She doesn’t have to decide right away.

Delegator Chariot greets them when they arrive. “Welcome to The Tangent. The Captain would like to meet you.”