Microstory 2687: Then She Winks

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The eruption is pretty cool, though probably less spectacular than if they let it spew everything all over the place. The two of them watch it for a few minutes, but Resi isn’t paying that much attention to the glory. It’s not what’s really on his mind. “Are you my sister?” he asks the woman quietly.

“Yes,” Kala replies. “I’ve been alive for over a hundred years now.”

“So you chose Kinkon.”

“I told you, we don’t do things that way anymore. There’s no sorting. The people who live on this island live simply, but they don’t do much work. They do some, to be sure, but most of it’s automated. It blends into the background, you don’t even notice it. There are some androids, which perform more of the front end labor, so they just look like regular people. This is still a very natural environment, and what can’t remain perfectly natural is simulated. If you take issue with it, getting your full memories back might help. Understanding where you came from, long before Yana, might give you some perspective. I don’t know how you feel about it, though.”

“What about everyone else I knew? Our parents, our siblings? My Fold, my House? Is everyone still alive? Did they all choose this route?”

“Not everyone, everyone,” Kala answers. “But most people did, yes. They decided that that’s what you were trying to do for them. Your legacy lived on after you. In terms of specifics, Caprice is still here, as is our sister. Chaya moved to Castlebourne, and I think our brother did too, but he may have gone somewhere else instead. Arumay moved to Varkas Reflex, and uploaded herself to a virtual environment, so she doesn’t have a physical body anymore. Our parents chose to remain as they were, so they’re long dead. I think that’s pretty much it, I don’t remember anyone else.”

“Kartica,” Resi says. “A.K.A. Speaker Lincoln. What happened to her?”

Kala frowns. “She died next to you a hundred years ago. Her consciousness was no longer streaming to the network, so she couldn’t be revived. She saved us in the near-term. Her sacrifice was just as impactful as yours. The Assembly letting her die was a major crime. There are laws that prevent you from being reckless with disposable bodies, especially those you don’t own. But murder? Straight up murder, where there is no coming back; that is still the big one. The colonial establishment couldn’t let it slide, even though they were part of a different network. The culprits were all locked up, and I lost track of them, but the important thing is they lost all of their power.”

“Wait, father was like us. He was backed up. Why is he dead now?”

“He could be backed up,” Kala corrects. “He fell in love with our mother, so he cut his own consciousness stream, and chose to let his body die, and with it, his mind. The laws surrounding that are complex and nuanced, but suicide is not illegal, as long as they prove that’s what it is, and not a complicated form of homicide.”

“I wish I could apologize now, for everything,” Resi admits. ‘To everyone.”

“This is why we live the way that we do. What father did was a choice. When I was a kid, there was no choice. I was going to die, that was just it. Whether you realized it or not, that is what you were fighting for; the freedom to choose our own destinies. The Houses were stopping us from that, and we’re grateful they’re gone.”

“I’m happy for you, but I don’t know what I want to do now...what to choose.”

“Why don’t you sleep on it?” Kala suggests. Then she winks.

Extremus: Year 129

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Audrey Husk is sitting in hock. Yes, that’s right, that’s what she’s calling it. That’s what everyone calls it. No one uses the new terminology that Waldemar instituted, except to his face. It’s a new problem in this timeline. He didn’t do that before, because he didn’t have anyone trying to steer him in a different direction. The language policing was a way to exert his control when more destructive ways were off limits to him. Those barriers are breaking down, though. Audrey and Silveon’s hold over him has been slowly eroding, and his true nature is coming out. They didn’t want to believe it. They wanted to believe that anyone could be a positively contributing member of society, no matter their brain chemistry. But she is beginning to doubt that. She has to, because if she maintains her philosophy of seeing the good in everyone then it means the reason their plan didn’t work was either because they had a bad plan, or they didn’t execute it well.

Either way, it’s over now. She’s done fighting. Or rather, she’s done not fighting, because this subtle psychic driving bullshit is not working. Out of all the contingencies they came up with, none of them involved being an outspoken detractor or enemy. They thought he needed to be finessed. But that just encourages him. Everything they’ve done has encouraged him. She’s glad she’s in here now. It has given her multiple chances to give him a piece of her mind without fear of repercussions. She’s already at the lowest point in her life. The only place to go from here, other than up, is death. She doesn’t welcome it, but at least she won’t actually die. She’ll spend some time in the buffer, then she’ll answer yes to the question, and wait on ice for ninety to a hundred years. When she gets back, Waldemar’s reign will be over. He may have revived too by then, but he will have gone down in history as a terrible captain, so she won’t be alone anymore. That’s the future she wants to see. She might prefer it. She may go that route anyway.

 Silveon walks casually into her cell like he’s just come home from work.

“What are you doing here?” Audrey questions. “You are going to get caught.”

“Master codes, remember?” Silveon reminds her. “I didn’t only unlock the doors. I also took care of the security system.” He holds his hand out towards her.

“What are you doing? What is that? You want me to go with you? Where would we go? We’re on a ship, there is no escape. That’s why I didn’t use the master codes to break out last year. You think I didn’t memorize what I needed just in case?”

“I think you told me you had a plan, and I’ve been waiting for you to fulfill it, but you’ve not done a single thing, so now we’re doing it my way. Let’s go,” he insists.

Audrey shakes her head, and turns her body away from his offering hand. “No. I have been moving forward with my plan. I’ve been arguing with Waldemar. I don’t mean I’ve been trying to get him to see the light. I’ve been calling him an asshole, and a tyrant, and really letting him have it. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him about you, or say anything about the future. I just acted like a bitter ex-wife, which is basically what I am.”

“Aud. You’re going to die in here. You’re going to die in hock, and there was another way. Let me send you to Verdemus. He will never find out. You can even—”

“Don’t say it.” Audrey closes her eyes and breathes. “Don’t...don’t even say her name. She is being cared for, and I can’t leave. Please respect my wishes.”

Silveon agrees and leaves, but then he comes back when she’s sleeping, knocks her out with a drug, and drags her to the mini-Nexus in Admiral Hall. She will never forgive him for this violation.

She wakes up on the green grass outside. Green!Audrey is the one who helps her wake up. “Welcome home. Would you like to meet your daughter, Silvia?”

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Microstory 2670: You Can’t Fight a Wave

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Resi told the truth, knowing that it wouldn’t matter, because the evidence was overwhelming. The victim was unclothed in her bed. He was found in the room, having no good reason to be there. His fingerprints were found on the gun. The police on the island are absolutely not trained to investigate this sort of thing because high-level crimes don’t happen here, but they know how to dust an object. They’ve seen the same shows and movies that Resi has, and probably more, since this is their chosen profession. They keep order, though. They help facilitate large crowds, so everyone is safe. They don’t solve crimes. They don’t catch criminals. They have no idea what they’re doing, and they know it. A few of them asked him a few questions, but again, none of it was based on any training or experience. It was just what you would expect to ask, like did he do it, what was his motive exactly, and where did he get the firearm?

He’s sitting in his cell now, which maybe has never been used before. Or it’s been used a lot more than he thinks and that’s why it’s so dirty? No, this is dust, not dirt. He’s a rarity here, which is perfect. Just perfect. It’s what he deserves, letting himself become the First Tongue of Aether. He should have meditated more before the Kidjum. There are those who will teach kids to take control over their dreams, so they don’t have to rely on their subconsciousness. It’s not against the rules, but definitely frowned upon, and those people often do poorly in their jobs unless they choose the House they grew up in. He never would have gone that route. He did everything right, except he broke into Speaker Lincoln’s bungalow. That probably was a bridge too far. He will spend the rest of his life paying for it. The officers aren’t buying his story. He just sounds desperate.

He hears a ruckus outside, so he drags his cot over to the high window, and stands on it to peek between the bars. Hundreds of members of House Kutelin are here, swarming the building. “Free Resi! Free Resi!”

“He’s there!” one of them says, pointing to the window. A selection of the convoy breaks off, and crowds around. “We’re here to break you out!”

“You can’t do that,” Resi contends, looking around for someone from his Fold, or anyone he recognizes better. He has not had enough time to get to know everyone, and wouldn’t have the brain capacity for it anyway. “It will make only things worse.”

“We know you didn’t do this,” someone else says.

“Yeah, you’re too smart to solve your problems that way.”

It’s hard not to see them as children. Even though this is the age where Tambora thinks you’re mature enough to make your own decisions, it’s really just about labor redistribution. It’s about keeping things moving. Make no mistake, he’s no better than them. He’s just not as naïve. Breaking him out is just going to make him look more guilty. “Please. Just go. Listen to Caprice. She will figure this out for you. I’m cooked.”

They’ve come all the way into the station now, surrounding Resi on all sides. Finally, someone he knows. “We have the keys,” Kasati says, jiggling them in front of the bars. “We just need to figure out which one to use. The guards aren’t cooperating.”

“You better not have hurt them,” he warns her.

“Are you kidding me?” She looks back at the horde behind her, as she’s trying keys one by one. “We don’t have to hurt anybody. We’re a wave. It’s comin’ whether you brace or not. They’ve just pressed their backs against the wall, not even arguing.”

“You can’t fight a wave!” someone echoes from the group.

“You can’t fight a wave! You can’t fight a wave!” they all start to shout.

“No chanting!” Resi cries. He hates chanting more than most things.

“You can’t fight the wave either,” Kasati replies. She turns a sixth key. “First try.”

They realize that he’s not going to go with them willingly, so several of them flood into the cell, and begin to gently nudge them in the direction they want him to go. It does feel like a wave, pulling him away from justice. He may be innocent, but this is not how it’s done. Even without much crime, they still have procedure. They take him through the station, and outside. Some start chanting the new motto again, others are yelling or cheering unintelligibly. Resi is hopeless to stop it. Have they just sparked war?

They all start to squint and shield their eyes when a gust of wind washes over them from the sky. A flying vehicle is descending upon them. They back up to form a hole. Several kids almost fight each other over who is going to protect Resi from whatever this is. “You can’t fight the wind either!” an Enaiyo boy screams. “Come on, say it with me! You can’t fight the wind! You can’t fight the wind! You can’t—”

He stops when a figure hops out of the opening of the aircraft when it’s still two or three dozen meters in the air. They drop to the ground, landing safely on their feet. She pulls her hood off to let her locks breathe. She holds a finger up, and swirls it around above her head, presumably triggering the craft to fly away, and lower the decibels in the area. “Which one of you is Resi Brooks?”

“I’m Resi Brooks!” someone claims, followed by several others.

“Stop, stop it!” she orders. “He’s not in trouble, I just need to know who to talk to. In case it wasn’t clear, I’m from the mainland. I’m Bungulan.” This whole planet is called Bungula, and the Yana Islanders acknowledge that, but they typically prefer to identify with their nation, and relegate Bungulan to all outsiders.

“I actually am Resi,” he insists, freeing himself from his self-assigned protectors. He approaches the stranger. “If you’re here to process me through your court system, I’ll go willingly. But I must ask that you speak with the Assembly first.”

“That will not be necessary,” the stranger explains. She steps up onto a flower bed retaining wall so all can hear. “Resi Brooks is innocent of the crime he was accused of! I was sent here to personally oversee his release, in case there was resistance! We demanded photographs of the crime scene, and of Mr. Brooks! That’s all we needed! Any bumbling 20th century detective could tell instantly that he did not shoot the victim! It was, in fact, a self-inflicted wound! I won’t go into specifics about blood spatter and blowback, but the reality is quite obvious to us, and we were worried that something like this would happen as a result of the miscommunication! Please peaceably return to your homes! I need to speak with Mr. Brooks myself, so I can understand the full extent of the situation! Thank you!”

The Head Peace Officer pushes his way through the crowd as it’s trying to break apart, and approaches the Bungulan, lifting his pants up by the belt, again, like he’s seen in movies. “I don’t appreciate you coming down here. I only called for an opinion.”

The Bungulan gestures towards the crowd. “You obviously needed more than that. You didn’t do anything wrong. You followed the evidence. I hope I can count on your cooperation, however, now that we know the truth.”

He fancies himself a sheriff, pretending to chew on something when there’s nothing in his mouth. “I don’t care what you do with the exile. Just get off my island.”

Microstory 2669: I Thought it Felt Light

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From the shadows, Resi watches Speaker Lincoln wake up in the middle of the night in reaction to a notification. She blinks rapidly as her eyes adjust to the harsh light of her device. “I’ve stolen the Kidjum elixir,” she reads out loud. “What the hell? I never told you to do that,” she whispers loudly. She scrolls a little. “Someone hacked my account!” she complains to what she thinks is an empty room. She dials a number, and holds it up to her ear. “Get security to the Tadungeria lab. We have a breach. Aether is going off script.” She hangs up and rolls her nightgown up and over her head.

Resi taps on his own device, careful to not let the light give away his position yet.

Lincoln’s device dings again. “Oh my God.” She opens the drawer of her nightstand and takes out a gun. She checks the magazine to find it empty.

Only now does Resi flip on the lamp in the corner. He’s sitting comfortably in her armchair, trying to look menacing but authoritative. He saw this in a movie once. Actually, it’s been in a few movies. “The first to raise a hand in violence dips one foot in their grave,” he recites calmly.

Lincoln looks down at her half naked body. “You like what you see?”

“Relax, I’m asexual. Go ahead and cover up.”

She wraps herself in a robe. “You must have Bungula tech if you could teleport here that fast.” She jerked her chin towards the device that she tossed onto the bed. “I just read your message that you’re gonna poison me with an overdose of elixir.”

“You think I would order one of my people to do that in the same second that I decided to just do it myself? You got security all riled up for nothin’. No one from my House is anywhere near the Tadungeria. Your elixir is safe, and so are you, physically speaking. I won’t hurt you, but I wanna know why you’ve been impersonating me, and sending my people orders that I would never give. You want us to stop. You wanted to bring the Kidjums back, so why are you undermining those efforts?”

Lincoln breathes through her nose as she regards Resi with a facial expression that he is unable to read. She’s trying to look calm too, though. She thinks she’s still in control here. Bizarrely, she lets the robe drop from her shoulders again. She then starts to remove the rest of her clothing.

“I told you, I’m asexual. I feel nothing. Seducing me will not work.”

“I’m not trying to seduce you,” she explains as she’s crawling back into bed and neatly rearranging her belongings on the night stand. “I don’t have to tell you anything. I just need to let you step both feet into your own grave, which you have done quite nicely by breaking into my house tonight.”

“I’m having signals blocked. If the answers you give me are satisfactory, I’ll leave before anyone notices. It will be your word against mine. If you lie, I don’t know what will happen. I want to know why. It makes no sense. Do you want a fifth House, or not?”

“I don’t care about the houses,” she admits. “It’s an arbitrary stratification that most cultures don’t have and do just fine. Divide into fourths, divide into eights, just have one united peoples; it’s irrelevant. The total population is the same.”

“So the Kidjum is fake, and it’s all about control? Do you just want to decide who goes where? Worker bees versus drones, as long as the queen stays on top.”

She smirks. “It’s not fake. It’s not about control. It’s about human lives, and the Garden we were promised. The Kidjum is very real. It’s the easiest and most reliable way for us to know what you want. Everyone has a place, and everyone chooses. Again, it’s not about that. But anyway, I’m tired, and I just want to end it all. I won’t be answering any more of your questions. It’s your turn.”

He sighs and grunts. This isn’t doing any good, and who knows where they go from here? So he’s proved that she’s a bad guy? She didn’t do it on her own. Anyone or everyone on the Assembly could be a part of it. The best he can hope for is that the other two nations hear him out. Maybe they’re not a part of the conspiracy. Or maybe they are, and House Kutelin really does need to revolt. He’ll have to just go out and try his best. Staying here, listening to these lies and vague answers, isn’t going to pay off, so let’s be done with this quickly. “I’m an open book. I’ll answer any questions you like.”

“Have you ever fired a gun before?” she asks, picking hers back up, and sliding three of her fingers across it like it’s her pet.

“No, but I know that that’s a projectile weapon. It needs bullets, not a maser charge, or whatever. I already took the mag out, and checked for extras.”

She smiles and nods, still looking at it admiringly. “Did you check the chamber?”

He jumps up in fear, now remembering other movies, where yeah, the bullets aren’t only stored in one place. There’s also this other thing on the top. 

Instead of aiming it at him, she points it at the side of her own head, as far from her temple as her bent arm will reach, and squeezes the trigger. Blood goes everywhere.

He’s seen it in those movies before, but it’s a different thing, being in the room when it happens. He’s frozen, though he doesn’t know for how long. People don’t really die around here, except peacefully in their sleep, or in a hospital bed. They’re not immortals, like the colonists, but life is pretty safe. They’ve built out the infrastructure, and everyone knows what they’re doing. The Kidjum doesn’t just choose what you want, but what your mind knows it would be good at doing. Everyone is professional and skilled. That’s why he doesn’t know history and geography, because their nation doesn’t value those things. It places all of its focus on people who can get work done. If they need to know anything about how the universe works, they can ask the Bungulans. Leave science to people who’ve been doing it for millennia.

Why the shit is he thinking about any of this right now? They’re hauling him out of the bungalow by his upper arms. He’s not resisting, he just can’t move his legs on his own. He feels the splinters catch on his toes as they drag across the old front porch. They throw him into the wagon, and drive off. He realizes that they never bound his limbs. He could jump out, and run away. But where would he go? They would look for him at the dorms, and then his birth parents’ home. It’s an island, and it’s probably being locked all the way down. This is the first murder he’s ever heard of, so the whole planet is probably freaking out. He could try to swim it. How far is Anchor Island again? Only forty-some-odd kilometers? Easy, he could do that in one breath.

He’s in a hardback chair now. When did they pull him out of the wagon? They’re asking him questions. He can’t really hear them. They say something about already finding his prints on the gun, which makes sense, because he had to take that magazine out. The chamber. The goddamn chamber. How could he be so stupid? That’s why the action stars are always pulling that thing back while they’re making their snide remarks. He thought he had it all figured out. The honeypot was brilliant. His people were on the ball. Like he was saying...trained as professionals. He’s the one who screwed up, and it’s gonna land him in prison. House Kutelin will fall, and she’ll get away with it. Oh wait, no, she died. She killed herself. Why? Just to frame him? What an asshole.

Tangent Point: Farther Than I Can Throw (Part VII)

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Reed Ellis and his people were better prepared for this mutiny than the last one, when they only had about a week to plan. This time, it was months, but the mission was four times harder. Actually, it was probably harder than that because the Teaguardians were infinitely more competent than the security guards on the Tangent. The platform could be moved with four fusion torches. It was designed for balance and power. But those torches could be removed, and that was how it was meant to be most of the time for a stable geostationary orbit. The only reason the torches had stayed on for this long was because they were evacuating from the poles, and stationkeeping in these positions was a whole hell of a lot more difficult. They were, at last, about to be removed, but outsiders were not expecting it. They assumed the Tangent would be returned to Bungula while the mutineers boarded a Teaguardian, and faced judgment. Well, they were boarding all right, though not for judgment, but self-preservation.

Matar Galo was expecting Reed to surrender, but they had other plans, and everything had to be perfectly timed, because once someone noticed something out of place, like the sudden detachment of the torches, or the near complete abandonment of two of the Teaguardians, they would react. The last of the evacuees were now gone, having been transported to other vessels, but before the mutiny could begin, the stragglers had to be dealt with too. For various reasons, these were the ones who chose to stay here for an extended period of time. Tertius, Aeterna, and baby Dilara were here, along with their associates, Breanna, and her people. Most of the others felt some debt of gratitude to the Tangent, and an obligation to stick around and help out. This was great, but it posed a problem now. He pointed to the shuttle. “This is large enough to fit all of you. A course has been plotted for the asteroid known as PC-1124E. It has become a staging ground for interstellar journeys headed for the Varkas Reflex. VR is a popular destination for evacuees looking to start new lives with the special energy credit dispensations that you have all received since your exodus is not your fault.

“Now, the reason this is being offered to you is because my people and I are about to stage another mutiny. And the reason I set this shuttle aside is because it has been stripped of its communications system. You will cruise towards the asteroid at a fairly slow, fuel-saving speed, but not so slow that it looks like there’s something wrong with you. You will not be able to course correct, and not be able to reach out to anyone else. I have to do this, because I can’t have any of you revealing the truth about what we’re planning to do. I decided, instead of simply shipping you off, and wiping my hands clean of you, that I would give you each a choice. You can stay, and you can help, or you can stay, and stay out of the way. You just can’t betray us.” He looked down and swept his foot across the floor a few times. “Let’s call this seam the boundary. If you stay on that side, you get on that shuttle, and leave the Tangent for good. If you come over here, you’re with us, and you face the same consequences that we do. If we end up getting caught anyway, you might argue that you were under duress, but I will argue that you made the choice. Because that’s the truth. This is your choice. I’m not here to sway you one way or the other.”

“Why are you doing this?” Breanna asked. “Exactly why, that is? Just so you won’t get caught?”

“Yep, that’s it,” Reed explained. “There’s no convoluted secret agenda here. We just don’t want to get in trouble, so we’re gonna keep fighting. We like all of you, which is why we kept you around, but this isn’t your fight, and we don’t expect you to stay. If you choose not to, I thank you for your service.”

Without saying a word to Reed, or even to each other, Tertius and Aeterna spun around, and began to walk into the shuttle. Reed let out a quiet sigh of relief. He liked them as much as everyone else here—that was not a white lie—but he couldn’t guarantee that baby’s safety. That was the thing about a posthuman society. As advanced as they had become, infants and children were still mortal. They were still developing, and thor brains were still plastic. Digitizing them that young was a hurdle that researchers still had not cleared. Around half of the helpers elected to join them in the shuttle while the other half crossed that line. Breanna, Cashmere, Calypso, and Notus expressed interest in taking a hands-on role in the mutiny, while the majority of the rest didn’t want to fight, but still wanted to stay. It was unclear what their motivations were, but they would be guarded in case it was only a ruse so they would retain the ability to warn Teagarden of their plans.

“Wait,” Reed said. “I forgot one thing, and it hopefully doesn’t change your mind.” He snapped his fingers. One of his guards opened a door to let in two more guards, who were escorting a chained up and gagged Vasily. “This man did betray us, and I finally have my opportunity to be rid of him. Now that we’ve finished the evacuation, I no longer need to worry about his influence. These two fine guards have volunteered to hold onto him en route to the asteroid. You will not be in danger from him. We rigged up a little hock in there for him, but he will be present, and I understand if you feel uncomfortable with that. Since I think you deserve to know, his crime...was murder. The permanent kind.”

“And I would do it again!” one of Vasily’s guards shouted. He took out his sidearm and shot his partner. Then he grabbed one of the men who was about to get on the shuttle, to use as a human shield. “Now that I have your attention, I want you to unlock my brother, get in that shuttle yourself...Captain,” he spat, “and fly yourself out of here. As a great man once said, I’m the captain now!”

“Packard. You’re brothers? Since when?” Reed questioned. It may have sounded like an irrelevant question, but he needed to understand what he was dealing with here.

“Since I’m not Packard at all, but figured out how to hijack his download,” the guy who looked like Packard volleyed. “Ever since that Sorel guy took over the consciousness backup department, your system has been for shite. It wasn’t even hard.”

“We had to upgrade it, it created vulnerabilities. That won’t work a second time. Now put down the gun, you dupe, and release the nice man. Last year, you killed what many would consider an enemy combatant. Today, you have someone innocent, which is a whole different ballgame. If you pull that trigger, you’ll start losing sleep over it.”

“I’ll live,” the duplicate version of Vasily contended.

“But you won’t remember anything,” Tertius said as he was casually walking down the ramp.

Dupe!Vasily’s eyes glazed over as he loosened his grip on the hostage, who managed to pull himself away from his captor, and rush into the shuttle. Dupe!Vasily, meanwhile, looked incredibly confused, and scared. When he realized that he was holding a weapon, he dropped it to the floor. “I don’t...I don’t know anything.”

“What do you mean by anything?” Reed questioned.

“Anything,” Tertius echoed. “He won’t be a problem anymore. His memories are gone.” He picked up the gun, and held it up in offering to Reed. “If you have the consciousness of the true owner of this body stored away somewhere, you should be able to overwrite the parasite. If you don’t, I can try to restore him myself.”

“Restore him how?” Reed asked while another guard secured Packard’s weapon. He looked down at the now husk of Vasily’s host, who was now on his knees, seemingly trying to figure out what his hands were all about. “You didn’t even touch him. You didn’t do anything.”

Tertius shook his head. “I didn’t need to touch him. It’s just something I can do.”

Reed stared at him for a moment, occasionally looking down at the victim again, and also the other people in the room. “How much can you scale that up?”

“Oh, God,” Tertius said before sighing. “That’s not what it’s for.”

“Let’s do it,” Aeterna said as she was coming up from behind him without her baby. “We all know what the Captain is thinking. This mutiny is happening, whether we help or not. We have the chance to make it bloodless.”

“We could stop it altogether,” Tertius argued, “by erasing everyone’s memories.”

Aeterna placed a hand upon her father’s forearm. She looked over at Reed. “This man, and his people, came for us. They came for all of us, and they did it as efficiently and as humanely as possible. Now they need to get away safely. These mortal affairs; we inserted ourselves into them. We are partially to blame for what happened on Doma. It cost lives, it might have cost more if not for people like Reed Ellis. Let us do one last thing for the humans before we take ourselves off the board and focus on my daughter.”

“This is why we lost touch for two centuries, my sweet girl,” Tertius said to her. “You wanted to help, I wanted to walk away. But now you have to think about the baby.”

“I am,” Aeterna insisted. “I want to teach her to do the right thing, and I want to be able to teach it by example.”

Tertius thought about it. “Fine, but we’re putting their memories on a timer.” He approached Reed, and pointed at him fairly aggressively. “You will have one day to bug out, which I believe gives you a head start of around two light years. I suggest you don’t leave a trail. These people may be your enemies, but they deserve to move on with their lives in whatever way they choose, so I won’t be taking their agencies away forever.”

“That is more than I could ask,” Reed told him. “I don’t know how you do what you’re evidently about to do, but I want you to know how grateful I am.”

Aeterna took a half step forward. “We’ll need a list, of everyone whose memories you don’t want suppressed. Preferably with faces.”

“We’re also gonna wipe your memories of this conversation,” Tertius added. “You’ll know what happened, but not who, or how it was possible.”

“That’s fine,” Reed promised.

Reed was aware that people’s memories were going to be erased. He believed that. He trusted that. Seeing it was a whole different animal. This was no longer a mutiny, but a humanitarian mission. He had Thistle compile a list of everyone they wanted to be immune to the temporary memory suppression. The rest were wiped. After it was done, a mass silent confusion fell upon the Proxima Centauri system. The targets, which were mostly Teaguardians, though some Bungulans too, didn’t freak out. They had no idea who or where they were, but they were calm and trusting. Instead of fighting them, Reed and the mutineers spent most of the energy on helping them.

They rounded up anyone with memory loss and consolidated them to three Teaguardian ships that they were not intending to commandeer. They told them to sit tight and wait for medical assistance to arrive. The targets accepted their instructions without question, without a single voice of dissent. There was only one hiccup. Well, two if you counted the infighting. All of the key participants were in their first and only face-to-face meeting. “Why the hell were my people targeted?”  President Abrams questioned with surprising anger.

“We don’t need them anymore. We don’t need them to hand over your two ships willingly. We are facing no opposition.”

“That wasn’t the agreement,” Abrams argued. “I don’t like seeing my soldiers like this. They’re like...children. They’re dumb children. It’s sad. They’re all sad.”

“It’s better this way,” Reed contended. “Now they never betrayed Teagarden. When they wake up from this—and they will wake up from this—they will be able to claim plausible deniability. Not even that, they will have done nothing. They won’t have to defend their actions at all. Honestly, I probably should have kept you off the immunity list too, to keep your hands clean. If I had had more time, I might have, but the window was closing. We had to act, either with the original plan, or the new one. There was no third option to delay entirely.”

“Oh, actually, there was,” Abrams said. “You could have turned yourself in, which was the noble thing to do. It still is.” It took more than the one conversation to convince him to get on board with this, and he still fought the plan every step of the way. Reed regretted making him immune. He should have put him on one of those Teaguardians as just another oblivious docile.

“He’s right,” Ajax agreed. He survived the runaway shuttle last year by jumping to a new body on the surface of Bungula after his death. He maintained his captaincy, and had since become an ad hoc liaison between the Teagarden forces and the Bungulan military. No one ever seemed to suspect his true loyalties, and he had restrained himself from demanding control of the Tangent. Which was actually kind of weird, because the baseline command structure for a captain included overseeing 256 troops, and you only needed a certain sized ship to accommodate that number. An elevator platform like the Tangent didn’t need a higher crew count, but it was orders of magnitude larger, and probably the best assignment this side of Earth. “I would have gotten my platform back.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to you about this before, but I didn’t know that mind-wiping was an option until it was time to act,” Reed defended. “But this is objectively better, so I don’t understand why we’re still arguing. There’s work to be done. Those Teaguardians aren’t going to attach themselves to the Tangent.”

“They kind of are,” Delegator Chariot reasoned. “I believe in our crew. This meeting is important. You have still not told us how you suppressed all of these people’s memories. You didn’t give them anything to eat or drink, you didn’t disperse any sort of bioweapon, or we would all be affected. Unless it was a DNA-targeting pathogen, in which case, you would have needed to plan this for days at the shortest. So are you lying? Did you cook something up in secret, or was it really just earlier today, and you genuinely accomplished the impossible?”

Reed blinked. “I don’t know.”

Abrams rolled his eyes. “What?”

“I don’t...I don’t remember.”

“Oh my God, you’re claiming you were bit by your own creation? You expect us to believe that?” Abrams scoffed.

“He’s telling the truth,” Shasta said. “I don’t remember either. I remember knowing that this was going to happen, and that we asked for it, but I don’t remember who or how, or any details. We may have asked for our own memories to be altered, possibly permanently, or they did it without our consent. But I know that the targets will recover. I know that we will get through this if we stick together, and stop arguing.”

Abrams crossed his arms and shook his head. “It smells fishy. Someone with the technology to do this doesn’t just let us use it for nothing.”

Ajax looked to his left. “You’ve been quiet. I have never seen you without a bag of opinions over your shoulders. Can we trust Reed?”

Vasily nodded, also with his arms crossed, but in a more authoritative than closed-off way. “I trust Captain Reed Ellis more than anyone in this galaxy. If he says that this will work, then this will work. I say we keep moving those empty Teaguardians into position, fire up their fancy reframe engines, and bolt.”

“I’m not bolting,” Ajax reminded the group.

“Neither am I,” Abrams said.

“As long as you don’t interfere,” Reed began, “that’s fine. No one has to go anywhere. In fact, I will afford the same opportunity to all of my people. They can pretend to have also lost their memories, and maybe the authorities will go easy on them.” He paused for a moment. “I want to thank you all for all of your help. I know it wasn’t easy, but I believe the history books will shine a bright light upon us...eventually. If that is all, this meeting can come to a close, and those staying behind can leave the Tangent.”

They all went their separate ways. Reed returned to his office, and found someone sitting in his seat who he did not recognize. Her legs were propped up on the desk, and she wasn’t scared of him at all. “Security!” he shouted over his shoulder.

“They can’t hear you,” the mysterious woman explained.

“Security!” Reed shouted again. He turned to walk out of the room, but was completely unable to. The door that was meant to lead to the bridge had become a mirror. He reached out to it, but instead of hitting glass, his hand slipped right through. Meanwhile, that hand reached out towards him, superpositioning with itself going the opposite direction. He stepped forwards, all the way through, and ended up back in his office, his back now turned to the impossible mirror.

“Tripy, right?” the woman said. “You can thank my liver for that little trick.”

“Who are you, and what do you want?”

“The chrysalis bioprinting room you have. I made that for you. I gave you that tech. I knew you needed it.”

“I’ve been wondering who our mysterious benefactor was.”

“Now you know.”

“I don’t, actually.”

She stood up. “I don’t really use my name anymore. I try to interact with others as little as possible. I used to go by Leona Delaney, but if you ever meet someone who looks like me, it won’t be me, and she won’t remember this.”

“You’re, like, a future version of her, or something? You’re a time traveler? Time travel is real?”

She laughed. “Of course time travel is real. Teleportation is real, ain’t it? That’s just a form of time travel.”

“And the second question?”

“You can’t daisy chain reframe engines,” she began. “It would be like duct-taping four pairs of scissors together. You end up with no scissors. This won’t work.”

“Trilby assures me that he’s synced them up properly.”

“Compared to the woman who invented them, Trilby is a drooling buffoon. I’m telling you, don’t do this. The results are unpredictable. Whatever course you laid in will become meaningless.”

He approached her menacingly, but he had no plans to harm her. “I don’t know you. I don’t trust you. I trust my people.” He looked at his watch. “Last I checked, we were on schedule, which means we’ll be leaving in less than thirty minutes. I’ve already given the greenlight. You can kill me right here, and they’ll still launch.”

“I’m not your boss,” Leona clarified. “I’m just warning you.”

“Either way, you should leave. These people are my responsibility, and whatever comes to pass, I’ll get them through it.”

She shook her head in disapproval. “No one thinks they’re Dr. Smith. Everyone thinks they’re Captain Janeway.”

“Thank you. You can go now.”

Leona literally disappeared. When he turned around, the magic mirror was gone. A half hour later, they spooled up the antimatter engines of the Teaguardians, now affixed to the Tangent where the fusion torches once were. They activated the reframe engines, and flew away from Proxima Doma. The traveler turned out to be right. They got lost immediately. But at least they weren’t in prison.

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Castlebourne Capital Community: The Man Who Finally Died (Part VII)

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It was done. They proposed a new referendum, which was basically just like the old one, but tweaked enough to be considered original. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Dreychan Glarieda, Yunil Tereth, and all of their friends, including even Vip, they were able to sway people’s votes. Slain kind of became a pariah on Castlebourne. He was so well-liked, but they eviscerated him in the media, so to speak, and he was not happy about it. He didn’t speak out in public, though. He aired his grievances to Dreychan and Yunil in private, but he didn’t poke his head out of his hole. He was too embarrassed. He shouldn’t have been. People had short-term memories. Many were glad to be done with the political decisions for a while.

When the refugees first came to this world, they were super hesitant to enjoy themselves, because there weren’t as many opportunities to do so in the Corridor. They had pretty much gotten over that, though and loved their recreation now. To them, the government was there to do their job, and stay out of their hair. No more voting, no more referendums, just do whatever you need. So they were all out of the spotlight by the time the sun actually started moving across the galaxy. None of them was allowed to know any details about it, or how it was being done. The sun-mover evidently wanted to maintain their anonymity, and that was fine. Perhaps Dreychan and Yunil could do the same, and finally rest. Or maybe not.

Someone yanked the dark hood off of Dreychan’s head, and pulled the bandana out of his mouth. He looked to his right to find Vip and Amazine. Yunil was to his left. They were all on their knees, with their wrists tied behind their backs, and still gagged. Amazine was scared, but the other two weren’t. He realized why. Like him, she was undigitized. If she died here today, that would be it. Yunil and Vip would be fine, so why were they here? What were these assholes trying to prove? He looked up, and didn’t recognize the scowling thugs, but he did know the smirking thug boss sauntering over behind them. “Slain. You do understand that that’s a dumb name, right? It means that you’ve died, not that you kill. Perhaps you meant to call yourself Slayer?”

“My name is my name,” Slain contended. It really wasn’t. After discovering that Slain was also from Ex-777, Dreychan did a little research. Like Dreychan, he was born with a regular name, instead of a number, but it certainly wasn’t Slain. So he made it up too. He must have thought it sounded cool.”

Slain crouched down so he was at eye-level with Dreychan. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“Judging by the design and decor, I’m guessing you’re putting us on trial?”

“A tribunal, actually.” Dreychan didn’t know the difference. Slain probably didn’t either, it just sounded cooler. He stood up, and started pacing around with his own hands behind his back, mocking them, but also giving off the impression of levity and ease. “Do you recognize where you are? We’re not in the Capital anymore.” Dreychan didn’t, but wouldn’t have had the chance to answer anyway. “Of course not. This is the three-dimensional Winner’s Hall of 2.5Dome. It’s where you would have gone had you played your game fairly, and won without cheating.”

Dreychan didn’t say anything. Even claiming to not care about that would imply that he actually did have some strong feelings on the matter, when in reality, he was totally over that, and absolutely never cared about the inherent value of winning. He had just been trying to survive.

Dreychan’s indifference angered Slain, so he had to work hard to keep it together. He pointed to one of the camera operators who was presently at rest. “The tribunal will be broadcast, but if you think that means someone’s gonna come rescue you, you got another thing coming.”

“Another think coming,” Dreychan corrected.

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry about it, little dum-dum.”

Slain was fuming. “You will show me respect. By the end of these proceedings, you will be begging me for your life, I guarantee you that!”

Dreychan was silent again. He just made himself look calm and disinterested.

Slain didn’t want to point it out, so he just moved on. “You are here to answer for your crimes against the Castlebourners. I’m not talking about the visitors, by the way, I couldn’t give a flailing fuck about those people. I’m talking ‘bout us; the real Castlebourners. You manipulated the people, and you rigged the referendum, and I have the proof. You will answer to the people of this great new nation, and more importantly, you will answer to me!”

One of his thugs batted an eye at his last claim. Perfect. This wasn’t one big happy family. There was a way to exploit that, he just needed that thing out of Yunil’s mouth, so she could use her silvertongue to do that. He gave her a look, and she winked back, still unfazed.

Slain notices this. “Oh. Oh, I see. You think you’re safe? I assure you, you’re not. No one knows where we are. The cameras won’t show any distinguishing characteristics, the signal will be bounced around different quantum servers, or scrubbed of its metadata, or whatever my expert did to hide us. When it’s your turn to speak, you can see 2.5Dome all you want, but my other expert will be censoring all that shit during the built-in delay, so it’ll just make it look like you’re cussing a lot on one of those old Earthan TV shows where they weren’t allowed to say certain words to the public.” He gestured at the walls in a general sense. “Even if they do find us, they’re not getting in. No teleporting in or out. You see, that’s why you don’t get. We are from all over. One of us worked on the teleportation field research labs. One of us is a carpenter. One a computer scientist. You just sat around and played games all day. My people know how to work.”

“I must have been misinformed. I thought you were also from Ex-777.”

Slain shook his head. “Not everyone who lived there was wealthy like you. Some of us worked for people like you.”

Dreychan scoffed. “Not true, they were bots. Our planet was specifically designed to keep all human workers out, so they weren’t even close to the luxury.” He looked around at the people with guns. “If he told you he was a workin’ man, he lied. They simply didn’t exist.”

Slain bolted back over, and backhanded Dreychan across the chin, causing his head to fall into Vip’s lap. “I told you to show me respect!”

“You gotta earn that,” Dreychan replied. “But I don’t like your chances. I don’t have much respect for the dirt on the bottom of my shoe, or even my own fingernail clippings.”

Yunil giggled.

Slain turned his head to her. “You think that’s funny? You’re only so calm because you think your safe. But my carpenter, teleportation expert, and signal technician aren’t the only geniuses I have on my side. We can also suppress quantum consciousness transference. Your last backup stream was just before you crossed the threshold into this dome. Even if you’re not one of those people who philosophically rely on continuity of thought, your backup substrate is in no safe place either. While we’re talking, my people are out there, destroying any extra bodies you got lying around.” He leaned in closer to her. “We’re tuned in, sweetheart. We didn’t do this on a whim.” He forced a kiss upon her lips, and then booped her in the nose. “Boop!”

“You should not have done that,” Yunil said firmly. “Sexual assault is no joke.”

Slain led into a laugh from a scoff. “Relax. We’re all friends here, aren’t we? Or aren’t we?” he posed, as if that was some justification for this kangaroo court.

Slain wasn’t worried. He straightened his knees out, and went back to pacing around menacingly. “Now. Before you get all up in arms about me being judge, jury, and executioner, let it be known that I am only the first one. The panel of your peers will be composed of people who know firsthand what it’s like to be slighted by the great Dreychan Glarieda of Ex-777. Come on in, folks!”

And they did. Dreychan recognized every single one of them. They were former members of the Old Council of Old Worlds. Teemo, Rezurah, Maaseiah, and Yunil’s sister, Lubiti were all there, as well as everyone else who had gone to jail for the conspiracy to kill Dreychan. They didn’t look happy, though. They weren’t smirking, or even smiling. They look kind of perturbed. Which was weird. They had all somehow been freed from prison, yet they could not be more annoyed. “This is why we’re here?” Lubiti questioned. “You want us to judge this man?”

“I figured you would want to take your shot at some justice, since you’ve been waiting for it for a year now.”

“We have not been waiting for that,” Maaseiah argued. “We have been doing our time. We have been repenting for our sins.”

“What are you talking about?” Slain was so utterly baffled. “He’s right there! The guy who put you all away—the man who you hate with such profound disgust—this is your chance to exact revenge. Take it!”

“So this was never going to be fair?” Yunil asked. “You weren’t even gonna pretend to be impartial?”

“I said it’s a tribunal, not a trial!” Slain argued. He looked back over at the councilors. “Come on! What’s your problem? He ruined your lives!”

“No, we did that ourselves,” Rezurah said. “We tried to kill him, and regardless of our reasons, that was wrong, and we all recognize that now. We have said this on the record. We have done interviews. Did you not watch them?”

“I thought you were playing for the camera,” Slain explained. “I don’t understand, you forgave him for real?”

“There is nothing to forgive,” Lubiti reasoned. “He didn’t do anything to us. He didn’t even call the authorities. They conducted their investigation without his knowledge. Like Rezurah was just saying, we are the architects of our own demise.”

Slain shook his head. He could not wrap his mind around this. He expected to win today, and he was losing steam by the minute. His thugs weren’t outwardly going against him, but they didn’t seem ready to start a firefight either. It was looking like no one was going to get hurt today. Enraged, he let out a primal scream. “Argh! You dumbasses aren’t going to take this from me!” He pulled out a knife as he was coming around to the other side of Dreychan. He held it against his neck, letting it dig in enough to make it bleed.

“Now, hold on,” Lubiti said, trying to keep him calm. “This isn’t going to get you anything. Right now, it looks like you’ll be done for kidnapping, trespassing, and maybe some hacking, or whatever. That’s not great, but it’s not murder. You can still get out of this. The laws are rigid, but the punishments are fluid. There’s not much crime anymore. No one really knows how to handle it all the way out here. You might just get exiled. They may send you to Outcast Island. You would probably prefer it there anyway. Dreychan’s a good guy, I’m sure he would advocate for you. Right, Drey?”

“Yeah, I don’t care,” Dreychan confirmed. “I don’t hold grudges, and I’m not the vengeful type.”

“You know who else isn’t the vengeful type?” Slain asked. “Dead people!” He tensed up, and cut into Dreychan’s neck deeper. Okay, this was really starting to hurt.

“Don’t. Do it,” Maaseiah urged. “I regret my actions here last year. Don’t make the same mistake we did.”

“It’s not the same,” Slain argued. “You failed. I’ll succeed.”

Lubiti breathed deliberately, presumably hoping to get him to mirror her subconsciously. “The fact that you’ve not done it yet tells me that you don’t want to. If you go through with it, no one here is gonna hurt you. So if you’re not on the fence, what have you been waiting for?”

“Good point.” And with that,” Slain dug into Dreychan’s neck deeper. He didn’t just pull it clean across his throat. He sawed at it like a cellist. It was bloody, and messy, and gruesome. He didn’t just want to kill Dreychan. He wanted to make it hurt, and it wanted to put on a show. His fun didn’t last forever, though. When he could no longer bear Dreychan’s weight. He dropped him to the floor, and let his victim succumb to the black.

Dreychan broke through his chrysalis and emerged anew. It felt weird. He didn’t know what was happening, or where he was. He just had the urge to escape. He had the impulse to move upwards. So he jumped up, and started to fly. He didn’t know how he was flying, but he certainly wasn’t very good at it. He was bumping into all sorts of things. The walls were soft and mushy, so it wasn’t really painful, only disorienting. It was pitch black except for a pinprick of light, which Dreyhan thought might have been an illusion. Still, he went towards it. He focused his thoughts on flying towards it. He kept scraping against the gooey walls, but never stopped. The pinprick grew larger and larger until he finally reached the exit. The light was blinding, so he started flying more erratically now. He was so confused and lost, but he didn’t know whether there was anywhere safe to land, so he didn’t.

He tried to blink, but he didn’t seem capable of it. So weird, having wings, but no eyelids. Was this heaven, or just a simulation? Whatever the answer was, the real question, was why? His vision adjusted, and he was finally able to see where he was. As it turned out, he hadn’t moved. This was still the kangaroo court. Everyone was staring at him, equally confused, but there was something else different. Oh right, they were giants. They watched as he fluttered about, small enough to fit in one of their hands. There was Yunil, standing up now and rubbing her wrists, no longer bound. She was smiling at him, not in shock, but in triumph. She did this. She turned him into a flutterby. But still, why...and also how? He was growing a little tired, so he landed on her shoulder.

Yunil gently petted Dreychan’s wings and giggled. She turned to face Slain, whose arms were now being held behind his back by two of his own people. They never wanted any of this. No one was on Slain’s side anymore. “I didn’t know that you were going to suppress consciousness transference, but still, this is a handy backup plan. It’s not always prudent to transfer your mind across vast distances. Some people just store their own backup, sometimes in the form of a fairy, and sometimes, a flutterby like this. I’m told holly blue is the most popular model. He’s quite pretty now, don’t you think?”

Dreychan wanted to say something to her, but he couldn’t speak. Insects didn’t have vocal cords. So he sat there patiently on her shoulder, more in love with her now than ever, even though he had always been afraid of transhumanistic upgrades.

She peered at her new little pet. “I’m sorry I did this to you without your consent. I just couldn’t bear to lose you. For the record, I fed you a sort of seed, which grew into this in the lining of your stomach. It didn’t require any surgery, or anything.”

Dreychan still couldn’t say anything to her, so he launched, and playfully fluttered around her. He then flew over, and started fluttering around the former council members. They seemed to get the idea, because they were smiling, and reaching up with the palms down, hoping that he would land on their fingers. He chose to land on Lubiti, who let him flitter back and forth between her hands. It wasn’t for another few days when they were able to have a real conversation again. That was when she and the others apologized to him directly.

Slain was taken right to jail for murder. The prosecutor wasn’t going after him for reckless substrate destruction, or consciousness back-up endangerment, but full-on murder. He had no idea that Dreychan was backed up by any method, and in fact, had strong reason to believe that the destruction of the substrate equated to true death. Time would tell what became of him. The same could be said for the former councilors. As it turned out, Slain’s movement had run deep enough to reach the prison. He had them released under the guise of a legitimate criminal forgiveness program. He kept them isolated from each other until the day of the tribunal that never was. They willingly went back to their cells immediately. The terms of their respective parole schedules were currently being revised to account for their swift voluntary return, evidence of their remorse and self-improvement, and overall good behavior. Meanwhile, the new government was holding strong. Vip and Amazine continued in their positions, and the representatives under them were representing their people admirably.

And Dreychan and Yunil? They finally got their break. The former was provided with a new human body, but he didn’t always use it. He let her teach him to switch as appropriate, when he needed something different for a certain dome, or just on a whim. The superintendent protocol was suspended since it was no longer needed. The two of them left the Capital, but could come back later, if their services were ever required again, or they could pass their power onto someone else. Meanwhile, the host star and all of its celestial bodies were on their way to a new region of the Milky Way. As for the war...well, Castlebourne wasn’t out of the woods yet.

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Castlebourne Capital Community: First Rule of Warfare (Part VI)

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Two aspects of the scalar representative council government that carried over from the advisory-administrative model were the main leaders of all the councils combined. If your community were to join the federation, these two would be at the tippy top. The Moderator and Facilitator weren’t policy-makers per se, but they did make sure that everyone was on the same page about the policies. Having democracy didn’t mean that everyone was on the same level. It was prudent to have people who managed and directed the conversations. They were never meant to be unilateral nor tyrannical, though, hence the titles.

Facilitator Abascal walked into Dreychan and Yunil’s shared office after they unlocked the door from Dreychan’s desk. Yunil was sitting on his lap. They weren’t doing anything untoward, but they should probably be more professional. They were just tired, and ready to be done working. That was the point anyway. She climbed off of him and stood at his side. He stayed seated. “Amazine, how the hell are ya?” he asked.

Amazine reportedly lived on Castlebourne for years before anyone pointed out that the name she chose for herself simply sounded like the word amazing. She felt so embarrassed, but she didn’t want to change it, because it felt right to her. Like so many others, she had spent most of her life as nothing but a number. In the end, it was a decent name. It sounded nice on its own, and it made her unique, which was an unheard of characteristic in the Goldilocks Corridor. “We need to talk about Vip.” Vip was Amazine’s direct superior. Now, Vip...Vip chose his name quite deliberately. It was a mononym, and it stood for very important person. He would deny this if you were to ask him about it, but he came here with a complex, just like Maaseiah, though maybe to a lesser degree. Then again, Maaseiah was still in prison, and Vip was the Moderator of the Castlebourne government, so who had the highest aspirations here? He wasn’t evil, as far as they knew, but Azad called him a populist candidate, which Dreychan still didn’t understand, but he was told it wasn’t a compliment.

“Are you suggesting that I remove Vip from his position, and replace him with someone else?” Dreychan asked, absolutely knowing that this was not at all what she would suggest to him.

“Wull...no, of course not. We’re not there yet, but—” Amazine began.

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Dreychan said, holding his hand up. “My job as Superintendent is not to settle your internal disagreements. My job ought to be done.”

“Our job,” Yunil corrected.

“Right,” Dreychan agreed. “Our job was to start the government. It’s supposed to be able to run itself. My position is a failsafe against tyranny, but if all goes according to plan, I should be able to sit on a beach in Polar Tropica, and not worry about anything anymore. That’s how our Earthan ancestors designed the system, and it is a characteristic that we have chosen to maintain.”

“I understand that, I just...”

“You mostly wanna vent,” Yunil guessed.

“Yes,” Amazine admitted. “You may not technically be above me in the org chart, but you’re certainly not below me. Everyone else is. I don’t have anyone to talk to about his bullshit, or I’ll appear weak and unfit for office. I just thought..maybe you would have some ideas. I know it’s not your obligation, but maybe you could save beach day for tomorrow?” A look of horror spread across her face. “Oh my God, that was so rude. I am terribly sorry, I was out of line.”

“It’s all right,” Dreychan said to her calmly. “I’m not offended. And you’re right, there’s no need for us to be lazy. Maybe we should be available to people who need our guidance. The problem is...”

“That’s not really where his strength lies,” Yunil explained. “I, on the other hand, give great advice.” She glided around the desk, reaching out towards Amazine. Once they made contact, she wrapped her arm around her shoulders, and started leading her back towards the door. “Let’s go off somewhere to talk. Have you ever heard of Christmas?”

“No,” Amazine replied.

“Oh, it’s this delightful little Earthan tradition. We can have a cup of hot cocoa in Holidome. Have you ever heard of hot cocoa?” Yunil asked her.

“No,” Amazine repeated.

“You are going to love it.”

Dreychan stayed in his office, glad that Yunil stepped up for this one. His sense of relief didn’t last long before Moderator Vip showed up.

Vip was just as annoyed at Amazine as she was at him. “She is undermining me at every turn. She’s talking to Dominus Petit behind my back, ya know. I was this close to convincing him that I need to be in charge of the military, but she screwed it up, saying all this nonsense about peace, and the..middle way. I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about.”

“Why would you be in charge of the military?” Dreychan questioned.

Vip flinched like it was obvious. “I’ve been studying Earth history. The most powerful country was called The United States, and their leader was the Commander in Chief. He ran the civilian government and the military at the same time. It just makes sense.”

“That was a democratic republic,” Dreychan argued. “That’s a completely different model. You’re here to moderate, that’s why you’re called that. And besides, the military isn’t an ex-Exin contingency. It’s managed by the Executive Administrative Authority. They’re not going to give you anything. I’ve known Azad for almost a year now. He and his superior officer aren’t going to give it up, to you, or anyone.”

Vip shook his head. “The Governor. That guy’s even softer than Petit. I’ll tell you what, you should superintendent his ass out of here.”

“That’s not my purview,” Dreychan said. It wasn’t the first time he had to explain what his job was to this guy. Dreychan would not have picked him for this role, but there were two sides to Vip. He was charismatic and well-spoken to the public. In private, he was temperamental, contrary, and sometimes downright dumb. Dreychan and Yunil could have designed the government so that they could move members around with impunity, but that wouldn’t have been very democratic. They bowed to what the people wanted, and the people wanted Vip. That was why it was so important that they maintain the council federation structure, so he wouldn’t have any actual power. In that way, they were a lot alike.

“Whatever,” Vip mumbled.

Dreychan sighed. “Vip, why do you want control over the military? What would you do with that?”

“I would protect our home from the Exin threat.”

“Defensively or offensively?” Dreychan pushed.

“The first one, obviously. Wait, which is the one where we go out and murder as many of our enemies as possible?” He feigned an evil grin. He did have some sense of humor, albeit a rather dark one, so at least that was one redeeming quality. “I don’t know what I did to make you all think that I’m some power-hungry moron bent on destruction. But you have largely stayed out of the military’s dealings. I’ve been paying attention, and I see the issues. Drey, they’re not doing anything. They’re barely training, they’re relying far too much on their robots. Have you seen them? Each soldier has this whole compliment of bots that follow them around. They have this animal-like one at their side that carries all of their gear. I think Azad said it looked like a dorg, or a duck, or something, I dunno. Then they have their hawk, which flies above to look out for future obstacles. And then there’s this flutterby thing that—I don’t know what it does, but it’s small enough to fit in my hand, so it can’t possibly help.”

“What the hell is your point?” Dreychan asked.

Vip sighed. “They need someone to lead them...inspire them. Governor Whinawray is not up to the task. The way I hear it, he just sort of fell into the role because he happened to be on the planet when the Charter Contingency was born. I strongly believe that we need to grow our numbers, and what, are they gonna promote him to Ligament or higher? I don’t think he can handle it. I don’t think he wants it.”

Dreychan slammed the side of both fists on the table.

“Oh, no, I’ve said something else that you don’t like,” Vip quipped.

Dreychan tapped on his desktop device, and pulled up what he needed. He spun his monitor around to show Vip the resignation form.

“I don’t wanna quit.”

“Well, you don’t wanna be here, doing this. A Moderator needs to be non-violent by nature. He shouldn’t be looking to grow an army, or train its officers. He shouldn’t be disparaging his colleagues’ names, or complaining that soldiers are safer and better equipped than they have ever been because of their bot pack. And the flutterby, by the way, is for stealth recon. It’s that lack of attention to detail that tells me that you really shouldn’t be responsible for our military, and you probably shouldn’t be the Moderator either. So go ahead, go on, resign. I’ll find someone who wants to do it. The planet will be fine without you. And hey, if you’re really serious about aidsmanship, there’s nothing stopping you from signing up. But you won’t be starting at the top, like you think. Whinawray didn’t start where he is today, and neither did Petit. They’ve been at this for literal centuries. So you’ll train first. Maybe spend a year in Mêléedome. Or two. Or a few decades. I don’t care where you go, or if you quit at all. Just for now, get the hell out of my office. I need to focus on garnering support for the next vote on the stellar engine.”

Vip was trying to hold it together. “Ya know, I voted against that.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t campaign for the opposition—I was a good soldier—but I voted with my heart. I think we should stay here and fight.”

“And if it were just us here, I might agree with you,” Dreychan admitted, “but the visitors outnumber us almost 230:1 at last count. A million new visitors are arriving every week. Unfortunately for them, they are not capable of voting, so it is up to us to ensure their safety. We do that by running and hiding, not by subjecting innocent people to our problems.”

“Why didn’t you say all of this before?” Vip questioned.

“Because we underestimated the opposition. We won’t make that mistake again.”

Vip’s face changed, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. He seemed to be absorbing the information, and processing it in some way. “Let me help.”

“You voted against it.”

“You’ve changed my mind.”

“Just like that?”

“You’re very persuasive,” Vip explains. “You should have been more involved in the discussions. You underestimate yourself, but people listen to you. They want to hear your opinion.” He looked around at the office. “Don’t just hide out here. You decide what your job entails. Tell me how I can help.”

Dreychan sighed and glanced over at his inbox. Still no messages. Well, he had a ton of messages, but not the one he was looking for. “The primary voice of dissent. I messaged him yesterday, and he still hasn’t responded. He seems to like you, so maybe you can talk to him.”

“Well, where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Check the tracking system.”

Dreychan didn’t budge.

“We all know you have access to that. The prison is allowed visitors. People talk, especially members of the Old Council of Old Worlds. Just look him up, and point me to him. I make no guarantees, but I will give it my best.”

Dreychan sighed again and checked the tracker. Once he saw where the guy was, he leaned back in his chair and tapped on his lips.

“What is it?” Vip asked. “If you feel uncomfortable with telling me, that’s fine, or if you feel guilty about using this tool in the first place, that’s okay too. I’ll just send him my own message, and see if he responds to me instead.”

“It’s not that, it’s...he’s in XDome.” XDome is probably the most controversial one of all. Azad hinted that Hrockas agonized over whether to include it way back in the day. In the end, he approved the idea when the AI he placed in charge of coming up with most of the dome concepts produced its master list. The truth was that sex was a part of life, and a necessary one, though technically no longer a required activity in a galaxy of gene splicing and artificial gestation. Still, it was a primary human motivation, hard-coded into most organic people’s DNA. Even the most enhanced of transhumans typically kept that trait, because life without pleasure was just survival. Ignoring it as a fundamental component of happiness wasn’t going to make it go away. People were going to have sex, and those who couldn’t find anyone to do it with them—or who couldn’t find their ideal partner—were going to do it with synthetics. At least, by creating a central hub for all sexual fantasies, it kept it fairly isolated and contained. It was easier to keep it out of reach of children and asexual individuals when there was one best place to get it above all, and access to that place was easily controlled.

“Yeah, I’m not surprised. You’ll notice he hasn’t joined the military either. He doesn’t want to fight, he just wants someone else to do it for him. Do you know where he’s from?”

“Slain?” Dreychan asked rhetorically. “I don’t actually.”

“You didn’t know him?”

“Huh?”

“On Ex-777?”

Oh. Dreychan’s face went numb. “Oh. That explains it.”

“That explains it,” Vip echoed

Dreychan didn’t keep up with the refugee manifests. It would be too many people to keep track of anyway, but as far as he knew, he was still the only former 777er. So if Slain was also from there, he must have come to Castlebourne really, really recently. Why were people listening to him? Why were people following his lead when only a year ago, Dreychan was quite nearly murdered for being from the same Old World?

“I bet I know what you’re thinking,” Vip began. “My hypothesis is that it’s your fault. People hated you because you were from a luxury world, but you proved them wrong. You proved your worth. I think they’re overcompensating in their heads, and deciding that maybe ex-Ex-777ers are the best amongst us. That is why you need to make your voice heard, and not just play in the background. People need to know that it’s not because of where you’re from, but despite it. They need to hear a voice of reason.”

Dreychan leaned back again, and tried to rethink the strategy. Maybe they were going about this all wrong. The reason the so-called opposition won out was because, as Vip was just saying, the voice of reason wasn’t strong enough. He had thought it made sense to try to convince Slain to change his mind, and do the right thing, but Ex-777ers were not known for their open-mindedness. And honestly, Dreychan didn’t want the rest of the refugees to start seeing 777 as some kind of hot bed for the intellectually enlightened. It was full of entitled assholes who didn’t understand the danger of war and struggle because they had never faced it before. They were living in a post-scarcity civilization before anyone on Earth had even dreamed it up. “Scratch that. I don’t need to talk to him. We need to talk against him. You’re smarter than I give you credit for.”

“I am?” Vip asked. “I mean, I am.”

Dreychan laughed. “The first rule of warfare: the bigger the gun, the more compelling your argument is.”

“Okay...” Vip didn’t know what he meant by that.

Dreychan stood up. “So let’s go recruit some bigger guns.”

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