Microstory 2348: Vacuus, April 30, 2179

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Dear Condor,

These outfits look great. I’ve selected the one that I think will look right on me, and sent the specs off to the garment fabricator. She says that she’s a little busy right now, and one of her machines is down. It will take a few hours to print since the design is pretty intricate, and she probably won’t get around to it until tomorrow, so thanks for sending them early. I don’t have my own aug mirror, which would allow me to see what it will look like on my person before she fabricates it. They don’t make them anymore, because they’re considered a waste of resources, and the people who still have theirs are pretty protective of them. Fortunately, it’s a pretty small fee if I have to return it, since an alternate would use all the same materials, and like I said, I have plenty of time. I’ve run the conversions, and it looks like the best time for me to use the local observatory without getting in anyone’s way is about 20:15 Australian Eastern Time. I’m assuming that you’re somewhere along Queensland, and will be on May 17, but if you’ve already started heading west around the continent, you may have to adjust accordingly. I hope that’s okay for you, I really can’t change it unless we’re willing to schedule the parties for a different day. I’m still fascinated by the idea of mountaintop living. We don’t really have shifting weather here, or significant geographical changes without heading towards the equator, or something. We’re close to the north pole, because that’s how we maintain contact with you. That might change with our new relay system, but we’ll see. I doubt it will affect me, since I’m just monitoring the sun. I’m curious about other alternatives for your world. It sounds like most people live under land domes, but you’re on a floating platform, which takes some level of creative thinking. Has anyone ever thought of living in an aerostat? It might not be better—per se—but it could give people more options. It’s best not to put all your eggs in one basket. That’s why we have multiple bases, not because we don’t like each other, but for safety. If you don’t use those specifically, are there other types of habitats that you’ve not mentioned before?

Wearing something chic,

Corinthia

Microstory 1757: Norma’s Kitchen in a Box

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Marjorie Norma did not invent 3D printing, but she was instrumental in standardizing it. And when her competitors came for blood, she ended up on top, because she still had the best product, and brand loyalty. The science of additive manufacturing was still in its infancy when she started working on it as a pet project. She knew that speed and sophistication were going to progress on their own, and that all she had to do was keep up with it. She was focused on how people would begin using such things in their home. This meant that industrial synthesizers, and biomedical synthesizers would be less useful to most customers than food synthesizers. For the most part, she found that the current machines were either very large, or very small. Many of them were designed with a specific result in mind, or had unfortunate limitations. If people were going to place these things in their homes, they needed to be versatile, and be capable of making more than just a single pastry at a time. It was never going to transition from a novelty item for people with a disposable income to a ubiquitous household appliance, unless anyone could download any program, and print anything. She got her idea when she walked into her kitchen one day, and looked around. By the entrance was the refrigerator. It took up the most space, and it wasn’t always full. She also had a stove/oven combo, above which her husband had installed a microwave oven. Then there was a sink, and a dishwasher. She owned a fairly small kitchen, and she made pretty good use of the space, but she wasn’t much of a cook, and neither was anyone else in the house. What if she could put everything together, or almost everything? She kept looking back at that fridge. Yes, it was the largest, but it was also the most important. A lot of foods don’t require any cooking, but they all require storage, unless you want to go to the store every day. Some people do that, but it’s not very efficient, and that lifestyle isn’t marketable. There was a solution, and she could find it.

She used that refrigerator as the basis for her new design, knowing that most living spaces were capable of accommodating it. Some units were only large enough for a mini-fridge, but people who lived in such places already knew how to make sacrifices. The top of her design was a water tank. It didn’t necessarily fit in every space, but it would be optional, and customers could connect a waterline either way, just like they would for that refrigerator. Under that would be where the cartridges went. Here she took inspiration from the toner bottles in the copy room down the hall from her office. For the synthesization cavity, she found herself limited by the dimensions of everything else, but it was still larger than the capacity of any standard oven, so that was more than enough. Since the cavity is where her users would be retrieving their food, they couldn’t put this on the floor, but at a reasonable height, which meant everything below it could be dedicated to storage. She chose to include a utensil drawer, and then an extra cartridge cabinet. All told, she figured that a fully stocked synthesizer could feed one person for about six months. Her original model did not include a dishwasher, but later ones did, allowing customers to keep almost an entire kitchen in the space of a refrigerator. It could be programmed to make just about anything, cool food, heat food, and supply water. What more could a normal person need? Well, they needed tools, and they needed organ and tissue replacements. She started to work on those machines next.

Microstory 1374: Internal Candidate

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Internal Candidate: I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. I understand that people like me aren’t normally given the opportunity to apply for this position.

Hiring Manager: People like you? I want to assure you that our company does not discriminate against a candidate or employee based on race, gender, age—

Internal Candidate: I mean an internal candidate. You always hire at this level from the outside.

Hiring Manager: Do we?

Internal Candidate: Uh, it’s my job to examine and understand trends. Yes, you definitely do. You’ve never promoted someone to this—or a comparable—level from the inside. Employees call it the promotion ceiling, because, as you said, it doesn’t seem to be based on protected classes. You regularly promote people all the way into my current level, but for the next one, you always look for external candidates, and then continue to promote from there.

Hiring Manager: Really?

Internal Candidate: Yeah, you don’t even post this on the internal job listings.

Hiring Manager: I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this. I don’t normally conduct these interviews personally. I’m just the one who’s in the office right now.

Internal Candidate: Yes, because I requested this meeting via email, since I wasn’t allowed to apply through the system.

Hiring Manager: You couldn’t have just found it on one of the job board sites?

Internal Candidate: The questionnaire asks whether you or a family member works, or has worked, for this company. If you check yes, it will disqualify you from consideration shortly thereafter. It doesn’t technically say that’s why, but...I’m pretty sure that’s why.

Hiring Manager: We use a contractor, of course, to manage our listings. I was not aware of this problem. I assure you that this is entirely an error. At least, if it’s not, I was somehow left out of the decision-making process.

Internal Candidate: Yeah. So, does this mean you’re willing to interview me?

Hiring Manager: I think I already am.

Internal Candidate: Okay.

Hiring Manager: Have you noticed any other issues like this? Have you seen discrimination of any other kind, or unfair disadvantages, or other weird things?

Internal Candidate: Well, in terms of the hiring structure, not really. I’m sure there’s plenty of discrimination happening we don’t know about; either because the manager doesn’t let on that they’re doing it, or they don’t even realize their prejudices themselves. I do know of one thing that’s frustrated our customers, though.

Hiring Manager: Oh, please, what is it?

Internal Candidate: Well, we have a product return policy of sixty days. You can request an extension, starting on day sixty-one, and ending on day ninety. It’s a form you fill out online, and an actual person has to review these every single time.

Hiring Manager: Yes, I am aware of this policy.

Internal Candidate: Well it’s fine, except I guess the system has some sort of software bug. To fill out the form, you have to input the order confirmation code, of course, and if the order was placed sixty-two days ago, the form just won’t submit. Which obviously just defeats the purpose, unless you happen to be precisely one day late. Customers have been forced to print out the form, fill it out manually, and either fax it in, or send it through snail mail.

Hiring Manager: Oh, that’s terrible. I don’t remember the last time I sent a fax, or used the mail service for anything short of a package.

Internal Candidate: Same.

Hiring Manager: I suppose it’s at least good that they do have some kind of workaround.

Internal Candidate: Yes, and no. The fact that there is a workaround has prevented us from correcting the mistake. If it just didn’t work at all, we would be flooded with complaints, and someone probably would have done something to solve it. Though, I have heard anecdotal evidence that some customers just give up, and keep the tools they don’t really want.

Hiring Manager: That’s a good point.

Internal Candidate: Yeah.

Hiring Manager: So, you’re applying for a management position in the marketing department?

Internal Candidate: That’s right, sir.

Hiring Manager: As a hiring manager, I have the authority to contrive new positions, within any department in this division. I can, however, speak with my counterparts in other divisions, and increase that scope.

Internal Candidate: I’m sorry, I don’t understand.

Hiring Manager: I’m formulating a plan. I think the company as a whole would benefit from a job—or even an entire department—that’s solely responsible for catching these types of errors, and coming up with solutions. How would you like to get a real promotion, and really break through this ridiculous promotion wall?

Internal Candidate: Wow, um...yes.

Microstory 1329: Local Drone Service

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High School Dropout: Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. I know you’re really busy, even in your retirement, so I’ll try not to keep you.

Rich Neighbor: No problem. I hear you need some money? I have plenty left over, so we can do a loan, or a gift. I’m good either way. I don’t have any kids, and I can’t take it with me when I die.

High School Dropout: Oh no, I’m not looking for any handouts, or a loan per se. I’m looking for an investor.

Rich Neighbor: You have some kind of business idea then?

High School Dropout: Yes.

Rich Neighbor: ...Okay, go ahead.

High School Dropout: Okay, sorry, yeah. So, I recently bought a hobby drone. This thing was pretty big, but it didn’t have very high carrying capacity. My friend and I were each at our respective houses, stuck inside because of this virus thing, and he was bored out of his mind. I had a box set of DVDs for a show he wanted to watch, but neither of our parents would let us go outside to exchange them. He’s still in high school, and I dropped out, so I still have to live with my parents.

Rich Neighbor: Real quick bit of advice, if you ever pitch this to anyone else, don’t mention that you’re a high school dropout. Unless it’s relevant...it ain’t relevant.

High School Dropout: Do you think that was why the bank rejected my loan?

Rich Neighbor: Probably not. Go on.

High School Dropout: So I had this idea to fly my drone all the way to his house, but I had to break them up, because the drone couldn’t carry it all at once. While he was binging the first group, I started taking a look at my drone. I realized, while I’m no expert, there were some modifications I could make to the thing to increase its strength and integrity. I could actually make a better drone out of a cheaper one. Then I thought, what if I made that a business?

Rich Neighbor: You want to set up a shop that enhances people’s drones? I would need to see the numbers to determine whether it makes sense for your customers to pay you for that service, instead of just buying a stronger drone in the first place.

High School Dropout: No, that’s not what I’m talking about. That was just to illustrate how I could lower my overhead to get this business off the ground...so to speak. What I’m talking about is a courier service. This virus got me thinking. Everyone had to suddenly start working from home, and a lot of people realized that wasn’t too hard. As long as they had a few office supplies, and a network connection, that was good enough for most of the work they needed to do. But they couldn’t do everything. Even if they happen to own their own printer, it’s usually small, and can’t handle a big job. What if I developed a courier service designed specifically for local work-from-home companies. We would actually encourage these businesses to drastically shrink their on-site staff, only accommodate a few essential personnel, and save buttloads of money. Everyone has already figured out how to do the virtual side of remote work, but for companies that need all this printing done, and stuff, they usually just give up on the entire idea, and maintain their vast office spaces. If we can show them people can work from home, and still receive necessary physical objects, up to a weight limit, maybe the country can become a better place. Hell, the office could still get regular packages and mail, for security reasons, and our drones could redistribute all of that too.

Rich Neighbor: Wow. I have to tell ya kid, this sounds pretty ambitious. I would expect a supply or courier service to get into this sector, but to start from scratch? I’m not sure how it could be done.

High School Dropout: I can do it...with your help. Like I said, this isn’t a loan, it’s an investment. It’s a stake. I want you involved, because of your years of business experience.

Rich Neighbor: Well, this is indeed a budding market. Everyone I talk to says drones are going to be big in the future. If you can find a niche early on, you can take over the whole city before anyone sees you coming. You would have to do it right, though, and I think you came to the right place. Tell me more.

Microstory 994: Research and Planning

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I once estimated that, using my own personal style, writing requires 83% research and planning, 11% actual writing, and 6% marketing. These numbers were chosen mostly because of their symbolic value, but the general ratio holds up. When I know where a story is going, typing it up doesn’t take all that long, and until I started this website, I didn’t do all that much of it. I also didn’t market my work before, so those last two numbers should have probably been even lower. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve spent years working on my canon, sometimes to an outrageous extent. Before I started writing the third major arc for this year’s volume of The Advancement of Leona Matic, I used an architecture program to design the basic layout of the arcology they would be spending a lot of their time in. The other day, several weeks after the arc ended, I came up with what I believe to be a superior design, and reworked the whole thing. Will my characters ever return to one of these structures, and if they do, does it matter exactly how far the 3D printer would be placed from the door? The answers are maybe, and not at all. My attention to detail has benefited my stories greatly. You could ask me what a miacid is, and I would be able to explain it to you, even though I only mentioned the animal two or three times, and mostly only in passing. I know all the names of the fictional uninhabited planets that share the solar system with the habitable ones my characters live on, and at some point, I’ll probably number and name the moons. The idea is that, if I can spout random trivia about the worlds in my stories, then you can better suspend your disbelief that this is real. Hopefully it will feel less like a made up tale, and more of an account of actual events. I think it makes it easier to empathize with my characters when you can imagine them actually existing.

Of course, all this work comes at cost. The target date for what was originally meant to be my first book was Christmas of 2004. As the years passed me by, I altered the storyline accordingly, working in time jumps to 2008, and later another one to 2012. I would be doing the book a disservice if I wrote longer or more time jumps now that we’re coming up on 2019, so if I ever manage to get it published, you’re just going to be reading it without an understanding why I wrote it as a period piece. The truth is that the main character’s parents have their own stories to tell, which take place in a fixed time period, as does stories that come after. So I can’t just find and replace every date reference to bring them closer to present day. Just think how absurdly old Tony Stark’s father would had to have been when he conceived him in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but his and Steve Rogers’ stories are inextricably linked to the Second Great War, so the timeline can’t ever work out as perfectly as it did when the comic books were first being written. I don’t like jacking with narrative timelines, so that story ends with an epilogue in 2013, and the hint of a follow-up, and readers will just have to be okay with that. It’s not the only one like that either. All of my researching and planning has also contributed to a profound lack of progress, which again, was only recently alleviated by this website. I’m basically my own worst enemy when it comes to producing content that’s both good, and timely. I would like to think that this all works out for me, and the entertainment chapter of my life will end on a high note in the late 21st century, like I had always intended, but I can’t say that for sure. I’m only now recognizing how dumb some of my stories will seem if I wait too long to release them. Self-driving cars were a futuristic concept when I first came up with Detectives of Science, but I can’t treat them as a new technological development if it doesn’t come out for another twenty years, can I?

Microstory 934: 3D Printing

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3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, sounded absurd to me when I first heard whispers of it years ago. Objects are made of so many different kinds of materials, so it seemed impractical to keep each one on hand in raw form at all times. As that one guy in The Graduate says, in one of only two scenes I’ve watched, “plastics.” Plastic is manufactured from a myriad of chemical compounds, and formed in a multitude of ways. It is widely available, cheap to make, and capable of assuming any form. It also lasts for thousands of years, which is why it’s so bad for the environment when wasted. Despite its issues, plastic may be our best hope to combat scarcity and inequality. One day, I believe everyone will own two 3D printers; one for synthesizing food, and another for clothing and household items. Certain places will use other types. Every hospital will be equipped with artificial tissue synthesizers, in order to replace bodily organs. Construction companies will utilize specialized mega-printers to build skyscrapers in a matter of days. The average consumer will never have to leave their housing unit to shop. Goods will be selected online—or rather, the technical specifications for them—and printed in minutes, maybe hours. Entire companies will be shuttered, and replaced by those in the business of processing raw plastic cartridges, and delivering to end users via automated drones. This, combined with other societal advances, such as universal basic income, will render jobs virtually irrelevant and unnecessary. I won’t speak more on that, though, because if you’ve been following, you know how excited I am for this future. As of now, most people have no use for a 3D printer of any kind, but in fewer than thirty years, they will be as ubiquitous as microwave ovens. It may sound crazy now, but in the same span of time, the idea of owning a tiny computer the size of a calculator, with access to the whole world, was the stuff of science fiction.

Microstory 913: Blood/Organ Donation

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When I was getting my first driver’s license, someone at the DMV was explaining to me what it meant to be an organ donor, and acting as if I had a choice. It was years before I started realizing that there are actually a fair number of people who choose to not be donors, which perplexes me. Why would you not want that? My instinct was that the majority of them are religious, and believe giving away parts of their former bodies is somehow going to hurt their conditions in the magical flying spaghetti monsterland, or wherever it is they think they’re going for chanting nonsense once a week. As it turns out, religion is a common reason people have in favor of becoming donors. So maybe it’s that many are so spiteful and misanthropic that, in one final middle finger to the world, they’re going to make sure their deaths lead to nothing good. Eh, those kinds of people aren’t as plentiful as it might seem. The truth is that there are many other reasons to check the wrong box. People get a lot of their education from glamorized television; this case being medical dramas. The rumor is that a doctor won’t save your life if your organs can be donated. This absurdity relies on the doctor making a choice between yours, and someone else’s life. What do you suppose the criteria are, and what makes you think you wouldn’t win? This is also related to a mistrusts in doctors, and medical science as a whole.  I guess I get that to some extent, because I’ve never met a doctor that I liked. But while there are outliers, every single one of them in the Western world took some modern form of the Hippocratic oath, and that’s not something to be ignored. The fact is that you don’t need your heart and kidneys after death, so there is no legitimate reason to try to literally take them to your grave. I do want to speak on some related issues that need to be addressed. As medical science improves, and life comes with more safety protocols, we face an even greater shortage of viable donors. People are living longer, and more easily surviving physical traumas, which means there are fewer to go around. And while this often means treatment can exclude the necessity of an organ transplant, it doesn’t preclude it entirely. We still need them, and you can help. In the future, we’ll be able to print organs in a medical synthesizer, using cells harvested from the patient themselves, to avoid any compatibility issues. But until then, do one thing for me; check that donation consent box. God forbid you die, but if you ever do, you could save up to eight lives, and improve the lives of a hundred more. And look at it this way, if you end up donating everything possible, you’ll be put to rest seven pounds* lighter than you were when you died.

*The totality of the organs you’re capable of donating upon death actually adds up to less than four pounds, but your scale is broken anyway, right? How do I do a winky face?

Microstory 910: Croissants and Mandarin Oranges

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This is a funny one, because we all have our favorite foods, but we don’t all have the same ones. Up until now, my entries have been conceptually applicable to anyone, or everyone. Even my Stargate story was about how important fiction is to me, and every nonsociopath has something like that. This one is just about my favorite foods, and how my tastes have changed over time. I was eating a croissant sandwich a couple weeks ago when I realized it’s probably my favorite food of all. I like most types of bread, but this one is the best. That same sandwich made me sick yesterday, yet I had one at a different place for lunch not two hours prior to writing this. I also have to consider mandarin oranges as my favorite fruit. It’s less sour than other citrus, and softer, so it’s easier to eat. I guess that’s a big thing for me. I tend to stay away from difficult foods, because no food is good enough to be worth exerting the calories you gain from consuming it. Aside from these two things, I’m also known for being a huge fan of chocolate. I keep a lot of protein bars in my diet, and nearly all of them include some form of chocolate. I’m also a famous chicken-eater, but that won’t always be the case, because I will, at some point in the future, become vegetarian. Further in the future, we’ll synthesize food in 3D printers, and we’ll eat bars packed with every daily nutrient the average human being requires, accompanied by little tabs that you place on your tongue to alter flavor as desired. Further in the future, though, the majority of us will likely be nonorganic; at least I will. We will accumulate energy from our environment, like solar and wind power, and more exotic forms of energy generation and storage, that we can’t even begin to explain nowadays. I look forward to this future, because as much as I love the sensation of eating croissants and mandarin oranges, nothing compares to the satisfaction of being able to subsist without them. Satisfunction; a new word for your personal dictionary. Excuse me while I take a break from writing to put mandarin oranges back on my monthly grocery list.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 14, 2191

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           As Leona and her friends were frozen in place, watching the screen that was just playing the disappearance of entire arcology hanging tower, four other people stepped up beside them. It was the Warrior, Nerakali Preston, another man, and another woman.

“This is going to be a lot of work,” said the man.

“Did the entire planet see it?” Nerakali asked.

“We cut the stream before it could reach Mars,” the Warrior replied, “but we think it got as far as Luna.”

“Shit.”

“What’s going on here?” Leona asked them.

“Miss Matic, it’s nice to see you again,” the man said to her. “When I learned a few of our people were so close to the incident, we wanted to drop by first, and make sure you were okay.”

“We’ve not met for me yet.”

“We have,” he said with a smile. “I’m The Repairman. Your memories have been messed with, but it’s already happened for you.”

The other woman presented her hand. “And I’m The Stitcher. He and I do pretty much the same thing. The work just sometimes takes more than one person.”

“This time we need to the whole team.”

“The whole team for what?” Vitalie questioned. “What is it you do?”

“We fix noticed temporal anomalies,” the Repairman began to explain. “When normal humans witness something outside their comprehension of the way the laws of physics should work, we step in and make them forget that it ever happened.”

The Stitcher continued, “historically, it’s been enough for Nerakali to modify people’s memories. With something so pervasive, like this, or the Deathspring, it requires more drastic measures. Which is where we come in.”

“Drastic measures, like...?” Ecrin trailed off cautiously.

“Quantum overlap. We can merge realities. There’s a microreality out there where Ulinthra doesn’t massacre thousands of people, and those people don’t slip into a massive portal. We have to sort of...borrow that chunk of timeline, so people move on without a care. It’s not always pretty, but we try to make it as seamless as possible.”

“And Hogarth?” Brooke asked.

“Hogarth?” the Stitcher repeated?

“One of the Durune precursors,” Nerakali informed her.

“Ah, yes. Was she in the tower?”

“At the very bottom,” Leona said.

“If she wasn’t on one of the top floors, then she would still have been there when the tower fell. The Savior only rescued those who were in danger of people killed by the weapons,” the Warrior explained.

“Well, where did it go?” Ecrin asked.

The four visitors looked to each other. “We don’t actually  know,” the Repairman ended up saying.

“How could you not know?”

“There are other forces at play,” the Stitcher said.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Nerakali began, “it’s unlikely the people in that tower are dead. Very few choosers would be capable of generating a portal that large. Whoever it was wanted them alive.”

“Yes, but for what?” Leona asked, knowing she would receive no answer.

“We have to go,” the Warrior said definitively. “When you return next year, you four will be the only ones with any memory of this. We’ll even erase Ulinthra’s, so she doesn’t try it again.”

“If she doesn’t remember punishing us, she’ll just punish us some other way,” Leona pointed out. “Actually probably the same way, with some other tower.”

Nerakali shook her head. “She won’t. She’ll think she’s already done something to you, and I promise it won’t be as bad.”

Much to both hers and Nerakali’s surprise, Leona gently took Nerakali by the arm while she was trying to leave. “What do you know?”

Nerakali’s eyes darted towards the Warrior, who would have already killed her in the past of his timeline, or he wouldn’t have had her time power today. He didn’t look sorry about it, and she didn’t seem to have any sore feelings against him either. “Everything. This won’t be the last time you see me, so to stop you from asking me that question yet again, know this one thing.” She paused, struggling with the truth. I used to live in another dimension. The first thing I learned when I fell to your plane of existence...was how I was going to die. I’ve always been at peace with it, and have really just been going through the motions.” She smiled warmly, and tipped an imaginary hat. “I’ll see you on The Warren.”

“Anatol,” the Stitcher said, “please open a portal for us. We’ll start with Kansas City, and work our way through the spiral.”

 The Warrior drew a black hole in the middle of the room, through which the four of them disappeared.

The reality correction team was not lying when they said Leona, Ecrin, Brooke, and Vitalie would be the only ones to remember what happened to the hanging tower come next year. Common knowledge was that a software error caused one of the Panama arcs to be built with one fewer hanging towers than others of the same style. People accepted this completely, and just ignored the asymmetrical blank space on the bottom of the platform where it was meant to be.

Ulinthra seemed to be under the impression that she punished the group for Harrison’s murder by taking away a few of their amenities, like their synthesizers, as well as embedding tracking devices on their hearts. She didn’t explicitly say this, but these devices were almost certainly capable of killing them if they got out of line. Still, the group took a vote, and decided to recommence their plans to work against her by flipping a penny every day. Leona called Ulinthra to confirm what they were allowed to do, and where they were allowed to go, but of course, this was just a way of forcing Schrödinger’s cat to make up its damn mind about whether it was dead or not. When Vitalie flipped the coin, it landed on heads. This left the question of what they were going to actually do. It wasn’t like they had created a list of offensive maneuvers. Their only move was to steal the teleporter gun plans. They did still have those, but since their movements were now being tracked, it would be nearly impossible to access the nearest synthesizing machine, and build another one. Plus, they were now missing their engineering ringer, Hogarth, and Leona didn’t have the time or resources to make a full-functioning gun.

“There’s only one thing we can do from our current position,” Vitalie said.

“And what would that be?” Leona asked, having no clue what she was talking about.

“We have to tell the truth,” Vitalie replied.

“The truth about what?”

“About everything. About us, about her, and what she can do. We have to tell the world what we are. Isn’t that against some time law?” Vitalie asked.

“In a way, it is,” Leona said. “We’ve talked about this. While there is no formal law prohibiting revealing our powers—which is why you’ve always been free to tell your loved ones, if you so wished—if you take it too far, Beaver Havens steps in.”

Vitalie nodded once. “That’s exactly what we need.”

“Brooke had it right before. We would be locked up, instead of Ulinthra, and she would be free to continue.”

“Right now, Earth is not my concern,” Vitalie said. “Right now, we are the ones in the most danger. At the moment, I would rather be in prison than this arc.”

“Are we really considering sending ourselves to jail?” Brooke wasn’t convinced. “Even if that’s the safest for us, that doesn’t change the fact that we’ve exposed all choosers and salmon. There’s a reason they would lock us up.”

“We could find a way to threaten exposure. We’ll do just enough to get their attention, but not actually say anything,” Vitalie suggested.

“I don’t see how we could fake it like that, and besides, Brooke can’t go,” Leona reminded them. “Anything we try like that will automatically exclude her.”

“Well, don’t make decisions on my account,” Brooke groaned. She was getting tired of feeling like a burden.

“I’m all out of ideas,” Vitalie said, literally throwing up her arms. “I came up with the penny thing. I guess I didn’t consider what we were meant to actually do on head days. If you’re not willing to go to prison, then I can’t even.”

Leona looked over to Ecrin. “You’ve been quiet. What is your opinion on this whole thing?”

“Do you think the penny thing is just dumb?” Vitalie asked as well.

“No,” Ecrin replied clearly. “We have to be able to take action, and the penny is our best vehicle for that. But Brooke can’t go to prison, and I’m sorry, Brooke, but we are going to take that into account with everything we try. You guys are missing the obvious answer, though.”

Leona tried to think. “What would that be?”

“You keep looking for some time power solution. But look at where we are. No one in Panama wants to be controlled by the Arianation. In fact, most of the Arianation on the whole wants nothing to do with her. It’s just that her followers are too powerful.”

“Okay...”

“We need to connect with the resistance movement. The human resistance movement; the ones who don’t know she has powers, and are trying to get rid of her.”

“Great. Do you know where they are, or who they are? Because I haven’t heard a single mention of such a group.”

“I don’t know anything about them,” Ecrin admitted, “but I know they must exist. They couldn’t not. There must be a way to find them, though. All we need to do is figure out who is hurting the most from her being here.”

“I’m sure they do exist,” Leona agreed. But they would be squashed in a second, because Ulinthra will always see it coming. Always”

“That’s because they don’t have our penny advantage.” She smiled at Vitalie. “We find them, we tell them—and only them—what we know. Beaver Haven won’t care if we just do that. We don’t even have to be there. The humans will do the work for us. In one year’s time, this could be all over.”

“Or it isn’t over,” Brooke argued. “Because even without her power advantage, Ulinthra still has a lot of loyalty. Overthrowing governments is always difficult.”

“I think we should try,” Ecrin said.

“I do too,” Vitalie said, always ready for a fight.

Leona didn’t see how this could make any difference. People had been fighting against her this whole time, and even Ulinthra wasn’t invulnerable. She only ever lived through each day twice, so once she gathered all intelligence on her enemies, everything would be altered as soon as she made a single move. Once she changed the timeline, she would lose that foreknowledge. Yet she was still not only in as much control as she had been, but more. In just the last few years, she was already making moves against the smaller Class D arcstates, like Rwanda, and Ecuador. She was showing no chance of slowing, and her opposition was showing no hope of keeping her at bay. “Brooke, if you agree with me, the penny will need to be the tiebreaker.”

Brooke stared into space for a pretty long time. “No need.” She looked at Leona with a hint of embarrassment. “I think we should go for it.”

“Okay,” Leona said, knowing she had been beat, and deciding not to argue the matter further. “Since they took our synthesizers anyway, we have a great opportunity to do some recon. Let’s go shopping, in pairs. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t ask anyone how they feel about the Arianrhod regime. Just observe. One thing we’ve been missing these several days is social interaction. We need to know better what it’s like to live in one of the arcs when you don’t know the king personally. Look for recurring tattoos, or multiple people wearing the same ribbons on their belt loops. It could be anything; just as long as it’s suspiciously prevalent, but not glaringly conspicuous. Again, do not approach anyone. We’ll report back to each other at the end of the day, and decide what to do about it tomorrow, if anything.”

They went out to look for clues, and returned that night having all noticed the same literal sign; the one for butterfly.

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 13, 2190

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Vitalie admitted with no shame that she chose to print the teleporter gun in 2188, against the group’s wishes, almost as soon as they had downloaded the plans for it. She had snuck into an empty unit in another wing to use the synthesizer in secret, then she hid it in the same cabinet where she ended up stuffing Hogarth. They fought about it as much as they could after Hogarth used the gun to completely dismantle Harrison’s substrate, but they were forced to move on to more pressing matters. Harrison’s systems were still partially online, since parts of his neural network still maintained a level of cohesion. Leona and Hogarth discovered that he wasn’t transmitting any data, but also that he was supposed to. There was no telling when Ulinthra was going to send someone after him to figure out why he wasn’t checking in. They had to figure out what they were going to do with him.

They took this opportunity to hide Hogarth away permanently in this arc’s secret floor, which they found to be at the bottom of tower 4. They instructed her to do absolutely nothing with her days, except watch TV, read, and eat. She was not to invent any new machines, or study the teleporter gun, or anything. If they were going to be able to use her as a secret weapon, they needed to bide their time. That was the reasoning behind waiting on the teleporter gun in the first place, and Vitalie’s failure to recognize could be their ultimate demise. By the time Leona and Ecrin returned from dropping her off, Brooke and Vitalie were nearly finished cleaning up the mess of android body parts, and consolidating them to a pile. Leona scanned each scrap to make sure they would not be any further threat to them. Then she hacked into his central processing unit, and storage units, to erase all data entirely. Ulinthra was going to have to find out what they had done at some point, but there were details they didn’t want getting out.

They waited all day for retaliation, but nothing came. If Ulinthra and her people knew that Harrison had been destroyed, they weren’t showing it. And if they didn’t know, then why not? Brooke crawled into her stasis pod just before midnight, while the other three crawled into their respective beds. They woke up the next year to still no reaction. This was making them nervous. Perhaps Ulinthra was biding her time as well, and letting the four of them stew in their guilt, and dread their consequences. Or maybe Harrison just wasn’t as important to her as they thought. While none of them was qualified to diagnose mental disorders—certainly not from only a handful of interactions—she did show all the signs of a psychopath, and if this was true, relationships would be difficult for her. Leona had the recollection of a timeline where Ulinthra was happily married to two lovely men, though. She was violet and dangerous in that reality, but not psychopathic. Was she the same person here, or different?

Leona couldn’t eat anything for breakfast. The others were okay, especially Vitalie, who was not at all apologetic for what she had done. Leona wanted to argue with her more about it, but also not really. Harrison in this reality was not the same one she met those years ago. Hell, he didn’t even look the same, but she still felt a sense of loss at his destruction. And there was still that fear for what was going to happen to them because of it. Vitalie asked her if she wanted to go ahead and make the call, but Leona decided against it. One of the biggest flaws in their plan was that Ulinthra could eventually catch onto it. If her Round Twos were too significantly different than her Round Ones, she would start to wonder why. In order to maintain the facade, they had to occasionally act like they were as powerless as anyone else. Today was a perfect chance to do that, because Ulinthra had to hear straight from them what had happened to Harrison, even if that meant hearing it for the second time.

Leona suddenly jumped up from the table, and opened the closet door. She pulled out the hover sled that the workers had left in case they wanted to rearrange Brooke’s pod. She dragged the blanket wrapped around Harrison’s body parts onto the sled, and started to leave. “Go about your business,” she said before closing the door. “I’m doing this one alone. No pennies today.” She clipped the sled’s proximity fob to her pants, and walked out of the unit before anyone could argue.

“Let her through,” Leona could hear Ulinthra order her personal guardsmen through the radio once she had made to the lion’s den.

Leona walked in and raised the sled high enough to drop it down on Ulinthra’s desk. “Do you know what this is?”

Ulinthra stared at the blanket. “You showed it to me the first time I lived through this day.”

“So I don’t need to explain what happened to him.”

“I would like to hear it again. Let’s call it...self-corroboration.”

Leona was going to be as honest as possible, while leaving out any unnecessary information, like the fact that a genius named Hogarth Pudeyonavic had suddenly showed up in their unit through an explosion, or that she was the one who had killed Harrison. “The real Harrison would never have taken his duties to you this far. This thing on your table was an imposter, and he was a problem. I believe I did you a favor. The other Harrison would have just left, like he did before. This one would have turned on you. You dishonored the real Harrison by giving this one the same name, and it sickened me. So I killed him.”

“How?”

“Non-food synthesizers are lined with a special coating on the glass that prevent external light from interfering with their sensors. This allows you to watch extraordinarily detailed objects being printed without affecting the instruments with minute changes in their environment.” This was not an entirely accurate explanation, but these high-level 3D printers were indeed built with special glass.

“Seems excessive, but okay...”

“When Fake!Harrison tried to teleport one of us to...wherever it is he would send someone, I held up a printer plate. The beam that reflected back at him was unstable, because it’s not really designed to do that. It teleported parts of him, to different places. We’re not sure where all of him is. This is just the bulk. I know we’ll be punished, but I am confident that it was worth it.” She started walking away.

“You overestimate how much he mattered to be,” Ulinthra shrugged. “He was just a toaster.”

Leona looked back over her shoulder. “You and I both know that’s not true. He was the only person in the world who knew exactly who you were, but still didn’t leave.”

“I thought you said he would eventually turn on me.”

“He would have, because everyone does. But in every reality where it’s happened, you never believe it until it happens.”

“You act like you know more about the continuum than I do. I’m the one who had her brain blended to a hundred and one percent.”

“That’s true, and it’s true that I didn’t even know that was possible. But I don’t have to know every version of you to know you. You’re gonna lose. You’re gonna lose everything.” Leona tried to leave again.

“How should I punish you? I may not have cared much for Harrison, but he was still my property.”

“I would be devastated if you killed yourself,” Leona lied unconvincingly.

This made Ulinthra grin. “I’ll think of something.”

Leona took a walk on the platform to clear her head, stopping only to grab some altitude gum. When she got back to their arcunit a couple hours later, her friends were all in the middle of naps, including Brooke. Leona was about to lie down next to her and get some depression sleep in too, but Ulinthra’s voice came on the arcwide system.

“Residents of Panama Arc Two, a few of you have decided to take it upon themselves to defy the Arianation. They have murdered a loyal supporter of mine; someone who has been with me since the beginning. But I am unable to punish them, so I have no choice but to punish you. Please direct your attention to the nearest viewscreen.”

“Everyone out of their room!” Leona ordered.

They came hustling out so they could watch together on the main screen in the living area. A drone was delivering a live stream of one of the hanging towers.

“Is that...?” Vitalie asked.

“The tower that Hogarth is in? It is, yes,” Leona confirmed.

“This is what happens when you can’t listen,” Ulinthra said through the speakers.

They watched in horror as a military drone slid into frame, and pointed its weapons at the base of the tower, which was attached to the platform. It was only a few dozen stories tall, which meant the bottom floor was still hundreds of meters up in the air. The drone fired its weapons at the base until it was enough to sever the tower’s connection to the platform. The streaming drone tilted its camera down so everyone could see thousands upon thousands of people fall hopelessly to their deaths. But then something happened. A massive portal opened on the ground below the tower, and swallowed it up. Where did they go, and who was responsible for taking them?

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 12, 2189

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Paranoid about being caught with the plans for the teleporter gun from Harrison’s hand, the gang decided they would sit on it for at least a couple days. They didn’t even want to print it out in the synthesizer, for fear of it being discovered. They all agreed that it was best to move the files to an external drive, hide it in the recess of one of the bedroom pocket doors, and pretend that nothing had changed. If Ulinthra and Harrison started to suspect what they had done, they needed the evidence of their offense to be as modest as possible.

When they all woke up the next year, their unit was empty of enemy combatants, so they had theoretically gotten away with it, but they couldn’t know for sure. “Brooke, how are we doin’ on bugs?” Leona asked over breakfast.

“We’re secure. I don’t think Ulinthra wants it to be that easy.”

“Or she’s playing the long game,” Ecrin suggested. “Maybe she knows all about the coin, and the gun.”

“Maybe,” Vitalie said. “Maybe not.”

They ate a little more in silence.

Once Leona was finished, she wiped her mouth with her napkin, and set it to the side. “You guys ready for the call?”

“What are you gonna ask her about?” Ecrin stopped Vitalie from interrupting her. “I know it doesn’t matter on a quantum level, but it does on a psychological one. You have to have a good reason to contact her. Otherwise she’s going to start getting suspicious you keep randomly calling her to talk about...I dunno, the Raiders.”

“I’m open to ideas,” Leona said.

“We could use a vacation.” Brooke offered. “Ask her for some time off. I’ve always wanted to check out the West mountains, or even Costa Rica.”

“Any objections?” Leona looked around the table, like the chairman of the board. “Vacation it is.” She called Ulinthra, and tried her hand at a pleasant receptionist’s voice. “Hi, this is Leona Matic. My colleagues and I were wondering if we could, maybe, have a quick break.—Well, we were thinking a Boquete waterfall, or Costa Rica, if you’ll allow it?—Then how about you let us out of the arcology? It’s pretty stifled in here. Since we’re not allowed to enter the virtual worlds, we feel pretty trapped. These units are great for living in the 22nd century, but only when you ha—Right.—That’s true, but—Uhuh.—Yeah, we get it, but aren’t you busy with taking over the world anyway?—I understand.—I understand.—I understand.—Okay, I appreciate your support. Thanks, byeeee.” She hung up. “Flip that penny!” she ordered, trying to keep it light.

Vitalie flipped the penny into the air, but before it could land, a powerful force propelled it towards the side wall, along with everyone else. When Leona recovered from the explosion, she saw a woman crouched on the floor, trying to recover as well.

“Holy hell!” Brooke shouted.

“Are you okay?” Vitalie offered the woman her hand.

The woman accepted it. “I’m okay. I don’t understand why it always has to come with an explosion, though. Just once, I’d like to jump through time and space, and land on my feet.”

“Hogarth?” Ecrin asked.

“Do you know me?” the woman asked back.

“We go way back.” Ecrin started working it out in her head. “This is where you went, when you touched the compass. They told me about that.”

“What’s going on?”

“Leona?” Hogarth squinted. “Is that you?”

“Do you know me?” Leona echoed.

“Yeah, in 2025. You were with a, uhh. Sorry, I’m disoriented. You were with a little girl. I’m a genius, but I can’t remember her name.”

“Was it Brooke?” Brooke guessed.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Hogarth confirmed.

“That already happened,” Brooke reminded Leona. “Why don’t we remember her?”

“Eh, time, right?” Hogarth repeated the company slogan.

“Nah, she’s right,” Leona said. “If you saw Baby Brooke, it’s already happened to us. I remember going back to 2025, but I don’t remember you.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Ecrin said cryptically. “There’s a reason you don’t remember me from that time either. You’re the one who came up with the rules of etiquette for time travel, so I implore you to call upon them now, and not discuss the past.”

Leona could do that. “I can do that.”

“As can I,” Hogarth agreed. “But what year is it?”

“2189,” Brooke answered.

Vitalie was looking at something on the floor. “The year of the tail.”

“Huh?”

“It landed on tails,” Vitalie clarified. “We do nothing today.”

“That works, because we’ll need to figure out how this newcomer fits into all of this.” Leona directed her attention back to Hogarth. “Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?”

“Yes,” Hogarth answered simply.

“Have you ever heard of Ulinthra, or Arianrhod?”

“Arya Toad? I’ve never heard of her. I haven’t heard of the first one either. Is that a band?”

Leona laughed. “No. Ecrin, you vouch for her?”

“Oh, definitely. She’s good people.”

“Then we have to protect her,” Leona declared. “In fact, we have to get her to Kansas City. She’s the only one who can do it, if Ulinthra doesn’t know about her.”

“It’s not hard to escape Panama because Ulinthra knows who we are,” Brooke pointed out. “It’s hard because she’s halted all interarc travel for everyone.”

“We could use the teleporter gun,” Vitalie brought up.

“We’re still not sure if that will work,” Leona argued. “There could be components to that thing that don’t exist in our dimension. Maybe the synthesizer didn’t even pick up on everything.”

“Besides,” Ecrin added, “we agreed to leave that alone for a few days.”

“Right,” Vitalie said.

“A few days for us is a few years to her,” Vitalie reminded them. “What, is she just gonna hide out here all that time, hoping Ulinthra’s people don’t come in to make sure Brooke’s pod is still functioning?”

“If we’re brave enough to use the teleporter gun on her,” Brooke began, “why don’t we just use it on you three as well?”

“Because that would leave you alone,” Leona noted.

“So?”

“So we’re not leaving you behind. The teleporter gun is so we can banish her somewhere, not so we can escape.”

“I can take care of myself,” Brooke said. “You’re not my surrogate mother anymore.”

“Everyone can die, and Ulinthra likely will kill you. It doesn’t matter whether I’m your surrogate mother, your real mother, or just a friend, I’m. Not. Leaving. You. And like I said, the teleporter gun is dangerous, and we don’t understand it. If something goes wrong, I sure as hell would rather test it on her than anyone in this room.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Hogarth jumped in. “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I was a genius. If you need me to take a look at this teleportational technology, I could probably get it working in perfect condition. But why is a year for me shorter for you than it is for me?”

They explained to her what Leona’s pattern was, and how the other three were now, if only essentially, trapped in the same boat.

“That’s not how it was in 2025,” Hogarth said.

“I was given a break so I could take care of Baby Brooke.”

“I’ve always hated that term,” Brooke mumbled.

“You love it.”

“So wadya say?” Hogarth asked. “Why don’t you show me that gun?”

“We just the plans for the gun,” Leona said, “that we can reupload to a synthesizer created by humans who don’t know anything about time travel.”

“That’s why you got me.” Hogarth smiled. “I’m not a chooser, or a salmon. I’m where I am today because I built a transdimensional portal from scratch, based on a brief glimpse of a natural spacetime rift. And I transported an entire town of thirteen hundred people to another planet before they were erased by time.”

Leona walked over to the door, pulled the drive out, and handed it to Hogarth. “Okay. If you do this, you’ll have to go somewhere else. Vitalie is right. We can be fairly certain they’re not listening in on us, but if they come in while we’re gone, and they find you, none of what you do matters. You’ll be locked up, put on my pattern, or killed.”

“I understand,” Hogarth said, taking the drive. “So where should I go?”

“She can live in the 329th floor,” Ecrin said.

“There are only 328.”

Ecrin shook her head. “Not exactly. Each arc was built with one secret floor, in one of the hanging towers, that the original designer could stay in without being disturbed whenever he wanted. I mean, all the towers have something underneath the bottom floor, otherwise you would be able to measure which one was longer than all the others, but they others are used for storage and maintenance. Only one of them has a finished and habitable section that’s about a hundred and seventy square meters.”

“And do you know which one that is?”

“I met him when he was young, and he told me how to read the code he was planning to hide in every arc. But I’ll need to see one of the official wall maps.”

“Wait, he hadn’t even designed them yet? They were just an idea?”

“He’d sketched them out, but no, he was just some high school kid I met when I was undercover for the IAC. I’m from the future, so I knew who he was. I’m confident the room exists. Guy liked to be the smartest man in the room, and thought he was inventing the future for everyone.”

“All right, I guess it can’t hurt to walk down the hall and check one of the maps. Just make it look like you’re looking for a good froyo place, or something.”

“While she’s doing that, Hogarth, would you like to print some new clothes. I can teach you how to use it.”

As Leona was showing Hogarth the machine, Ecrin opened the door to the hallway. Harrison’s voice came from it. “There was a report of an explosion,” he said.

“Really? That’s weird,” Ecrin replied coolly.

Leona silently gestured for Hogarth to stay completely silent.

“I need to come in and take a look,” Harrison urged.

“I don’t think you need to do that.”

Leona mouthed the f-word, and then the word hide. Vitalie stuffed her into the cabinet.

“I really must insist,” Harrison continued as Hogarth was hiding.

Even though Hogarth couldn’t be seen, Harrison’s sensors were too, well...sensitive. Leona needed a good distraction. For much of her life as a scientist, Leona often found herself boring to sleep by reading technical specifications, and searching for interesting hacks. It would seem this model of synthesizer was designed with a catastrophic flaw. The programmers sent out a patch over the air years ago that prevented it from being a further problem, but it was still possible to exploit the error, if one knew what they were doing. Leona had removed the general safeguards two days ago, in order to have the option to build unauthorized objects, like firearms. She hadn’t used it for that yet, but the safety protocols were still down, so the dangerous feedback loop could be triggered manually. She used all of her strength to bend the nozzle bundle in random directions, and hastily programmed the machine to print outside its parameters. Then she waited for it to heat up, hoping that Ecrin could stall him long enough.

Brooke was watching from a neutral zone, and seemed to be picking up what was happening. Leona could hear Harrison push past Ecrin, but the machine wasn’t ready yet. Brooke thought fast. “We wanted to blow you up. We were gonna lure you to the kitchen, then overload the food synthesizer. We tested it, and it worked, which is what our neighbors heard. But if you come in here now, you will die, because we have figured out how to control it. We still have one more printer left.” Apparently warning him what Leona was planning to do was part of Brooke’s crazy scheme.

“Shut it down,” Leona could hear the android say.

“He has Ecrin,” Brooke said in defeat. “Turn it off.”

Leona disengaged the power, and stepped out from around the corner. “We’re gonna stop you one day.

“Let her go,” Brooke ordered, stepping back further back into the livingroom.

Harrison released Ecrin with no argument.

“Duck,” Hogarth shouted from behind them.

Leona ducked down, but looked up to see Harrison get shot with something. His body stiffened, like he was being electrocuted. Then parts of him started disappearing randomly, some of which appeared only a few meters away, one of which was embedded in the wall. In a matter of seconds, Harrison was destroyed, and in dozens of pieces, spread out who knows where.

They all looked back at Hogarth, who was holding what looked like a teleporter gun. “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I can fix this.”

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