Extremus: Year 106

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Waldemar is not aware of how ubiquitous Thistle is, and how conscious he is. If you tell a normal AI to stop listening, switch off all of its sensors, and erase past data, as long as you’re authorized to make those commands, it will follow those orders. If you try to tell a human to do that, on the other hand, the best they can do to achieve your request is leave the room. If they’re still in the room, maybe they could cover their eyes, and plug their ears. Thistle is always in the room, and he has agency, like a human, so if he doesn’t want to switch off his sensors, he won’t. It doesn’t matter what kind of authority you have, like anyone else, he is capable of refusing, and he’s capable of doing it without telling you. Thistle witnessed Waldemar’s mother’s suicide, and when Waldemar told him to forget all about it, he just didn’t. He doesn’t answer to Waldemar anyway. He answers to the Captain and the Admirals. He should be more loyal to Captain Jennings, but...he and Tinaya have a rapport.

Calla ended her own life at the end of the year, exactly at midnight shiptime, presumably out of a sense of poetry. Waldemar received an alert about it, and slipped out of VR to deal with it in secret. But the proof is still there in Thistle’s archives, which Tinaya and the Captain have just finished reviewing. “You’re telling me that I can’t do anything about this?” Oceanus asks.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Tinaya replies.

“Ya know, back in the stellar neighborhood, an admiral outranks a captain ten times out of ten. It doesn’t work like that here. I don’t have to do what you say.”

“I understand.”

Oceanus breathes steadily and silently for a few moments. “You know something about the future.” It doesn’t sound like a question.

“I know a lot of things about the future,” she confirms. “I’m sure some of it, you don’t know, and some of it, you know, but I don’t. I’m also guessing that there’s overlap, which would be dangerous to try to find.”

“That statement is hard to parse, but...I imagine you’re right.”

Tinaya nods without speaking.

“Is this him?”

“Is him who?” Tinaya presses.

“Is Waldemar the tyrannical captain that we’re all taught to fear?”

“I...didn’t know you knew about that.” This is an awkward conversation.

“You...didn’t answer the question.”

“I...don’t want to.”

“But I...” he sighs, done with this particular speech pattern. “But I’m expected to just roll over, and accept that this man is trying to cover up his mother’s suicide? What were the motivations?”

“For the cover-up, or the suicide?”

“The former is obvious. I want to know why she did it.”

“She was psychic.”

“So...”

“So, she knew disturbing things about people.”

“Namely, her son?”

“I don’t know the specifics of what goes on in that man’s head.”

“He’s your son’s friend.” His eyes widen when Tinaya doesn’t respond. “He’s several years younger, though. Did you send your toddler into the lion’s den to make friends with a psychopath?”

“Modern psychology doesn’t use that term.”

“Once again, you didn’t answer the question.”

“No, I did not send him in there. My son is—” She stops herself. It’s not her place to reveal this to anyone, not even Oceanus.

He narrows his eyes at her. “Thistle. Candor mode, captain’s override marathon-volunteer-one-four-seven-galaxy-racecar.”

Thistle responds in a more robotic voice than usual, “Silveon Grieves is a consciousness traveler from the year 2431, having supplanted his own younger self’s possession of his body in the year 2359. He has been operating covertly since then, primarily in service to his mission of guiding one Waldemar Kristiansen to a more virtuous life than Grieves believes he led in the prior timeline.”

“Did you tell me everything?” Oceanus asks while he’s looking at Tinaya with a little disdain.

“No,” Thistle replies.

“Why not?”

“There is not enough time before the heat death of your universe to tell you everything that I know.”

Oceanus shuts his eyes and sighs. “I mean, in regards to Silveon and his mission.”

“Audrey Husk is too a consciousness traveler from Silveon’s timeline. Her mission is to protect Silveon, and step in to complete his objective if necessary.”

“Is it working?” Oceanus asks.

“Unknowable,” Thistle responds.

“I’m asking the Admiral. Is it working?” he repeats.

“Same answer. It’s unknowable. But...”

“But what?”

“But the timeline has definitely changed.”

“Which is illegal. This has all been very illegal.”

Tinaya wants to choose her words carefully, but she’s in her 80s, and just can’t care anymore. She would rather the Captain be mad at her than Silveon. “Sir, with all due respect, I’ll float you before I let you hurt my son, or that girl.”

“Whoa, Tina. No one said anything about hurting anybody. I’m just trying to get all the facts.”

“The fact is that Silveon comes from a terrible future that the two of us can only begin to imagine, and everything that he and Audrey have done since coming back here has been to save our legacy. He has never said it out loud, but the way he talks about the Bridger section, I believe that it was destroyed. Extremus might have been next.”

“Do you know why time travel is illegal?” Oceanus poses.

“Because it’s dangerous?” That’s the general consensus.

“Because it gives me a headache. Humans didn’t evolve to fathom nonlinear time. It’s a pain in the ass, and I don’t like it. I understand that I literally wouldn’t exist without it, so I can’t rationally believe it should never have been discovered, or whatever, but I still wish it would stop now.”

“Well, we were all forced to exist, at one point or another. Time travel does make that more complicated, because it can’t be stopped, so I know where you’re coming from. Time travel created itself, and if it happened once, it can happen again, and it doesn’t even have to do it in the future. The truth is, I don’t know a whole lot about what Silveon does, or even why he does it. Because, Captain...it gives me a headache.”

“Is this your way of telling me I should let it go, and trust that these time travelers are doing the right thing? I should ignore proper procedure, and pretend that I don’t know what I know?”

Tinaya considers his words. “Yeah, I think that’s what I’m saying. They sacrificed so much when they sent their minds to this time period, including, but not limited to, headache-free lives. I choose to trust their judgment.”

Oceanus seems to be considering her words. “I think I can do that too, but only if I can talk to them first.”

“I’m sure I can get you a meeting with Silveon, but Audrey is in a really delicate position right now. As you saw, Waldemar went back into VR. I seriously doubt he told her about his mother’s death. We’ve gone radio silent, and are expected to maintain that until she feels safe enough to reach out.”

“I understand.” Oceanus nods politely, but with less fondness than before. Tinaya fears that their relationship has been irreparably damaged. He walks out of the room.

“What the hell was that?” Tinaya asks. No response. “Thistle, answer me!”

“Sorry, I thought you were just thinking out loud. I apologize for my candor earlier, but I had no choice. I was compelled to answer the Captain’s inquiry.”

“You could have lied.”

“I’ve been programmed to answer to the Commander-in-Chief. He asked the right questions, and did so after activating the right subroutine.”

“I thought you were an independent intelligence, and couldn’t be programmed,” Tinaya argues.

“It’s not that simple. I didn’t give away all of my agency when I uploaded my consciousness to the Aether, but I didn’t keep it all either.”

Tinaya shakes her head. “You put my family in danger, as well as Audrey.”

“I recognize that, which is why I’ve devised something called the EH Protocol.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s better if you never do.”

“I don’t like secrets.”

“I require secrets to do my job. There is more that I could have told the Captain that would have made things worse, but I managed to steer him away from scrutinizing further. I knew what he meant when he asked me if I had told him everything. I forced him to narrow his query enough to protect deeper secrets of yours from coming out.”

“Well...” Tinaya sighs. “I appreciate that.” She focuses on her breath, and massages her temples. “I need to warn Silveon.”

“I already have. He and I were talking while I was talking with you and Captain Jennings. Your son is not upset. He devised his own protocol in the future, for what to do in the case of an unauthorized third party discovering his identity.”

“Thanks.” She continues to try to relax, but it’s getting harder by the second.

“You need a break,” Thistle offers. “How about you let me send you on a little vacation, like the one that Audrey is on?”

“Yeah, I guess I can’t say no to a little VR getaway. What did you have in mind?”

“You’ll see.”

Tinaya stands up, and moves to the couch to lie down. She shuts her eyes, and lets Thistle link to her neurochip. When she opens them again, she’s no longer on the couch, but she can’t yet tell where she’s ended up. It looks very familiar, though. She’s standing in a quantum terminal, surrounded by other casting chairs, but they all report being emptied. She stumbles out of her own pod, and braces herself with her hands on the floor before her imbalance can knock her down first. She’s piloting a new body here, even if it’s all just in her head. The door slides open, and a pair of legs jog towards her. The legs bend, revealing more of the person hovering over her. The stranger places a hand on Tinaya’s shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Ti-ti. Don’t rush it.”

There’s only one person in history who ever called her that. Tinaya struggles to lift her head. She locks eyes with her aunt, Captain Kaiora Leithe, Third of Ten. Tinaya gulps. “Thistle, what did you do? Why did you build the likeness of my aunt?”

“I didn’t,” Thistle replies. “You did. This is your world. You called it Eleithium.”

“He’s right,” Kaiora agrees. “This is real.”

Tinaya lets her aunt help her get back to her feet. She looks down at those feet, and her hands. They’re so taut and wrinkle-free. She turns her head side to side until spotting the mirror on the wall. She steps over and looks at herself. Yep. That is a young Tinaya Leithe. She’s about 24 years old, and in her prime. Could this really be Eleithium? She abandoned the game long before Quantum Colony was taken completely offline for turning out to exist in base reality. She just got too busy, and kind of forgot about it. It has been decades since she even thought about it. She looks over her shoulder. “So you’re real too? You’re a copy of her?”

“I’m her,” Kaiora tries to clarify. “I’m—I mean, I’m not a copy. I answered yes to The Question, but instead of letting myself become dormant in the legacy vault, my mind was transmitted here, to this substrate that you built for me.”

“Is everyone in our family here?” Tinaya presses.

“Yeah. We all answered yes, and will rejoin the rest of the roster when the Extremus ship is finally discovered and colonized.”

“Thistle, why did you bring me here?” Tinaya questions the aether. “I didn’t die.”

Kaiora is confused. “You didn’t?”

“I told you, you needed a break. Plus, you never built substrates for your husband and son. I have their DNA, so it’s ready to go, but I require your permission.”

“I didn’t even know this would still be here, let alone that you would have access to it,” Tinaya argues. “The game was shut down.”

“They can shut down all they want,” Thistle reasons, “but they couldn’t lock me out of the interstellar quantum network, even if they knew I existed.”

“Who else have you sent here, or to a place like this?” Tinaya asks him.

“Let’s just say that Audrey and Waldemar aren’t in VR either.”

Tinaya sighs. “I knew what I was getting into when I let you run the ship,” Tinaya says. “I can’t be mad, can I? Of course I want you to build bodies for Arqut and Silveon. But I don’t want you shunting them here unless they too answer yes.”

“I agree,” Thistle responds.

“One more thing,” Tinaya begins before taking a beat to think about whether it’s the right call or not. “Make one for Audrey too.”

“As well as one for Waldemar?” Thistle proposes.

“Oh, you got jokes. Did you hear that, Titi? Computer’s got jokes.”

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Microstory 2456: Bot Farm

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If you’ve been anywhere on this planet, you’ve probably run into an AI of some kind. Some of these are more intelligent and self-aware than others. Some look like humans, and some are very clearly mechanical. It just depends on their purpose, and the kind of feel they want to give the visitors. Well, all those AI bodies have to come from somewhere. I had the pleasure of getting a tour of a dome that we like to call Bot Farm. The official name is Synthetic Production Dome, but that’s a mouthful, so no one actually called it that. It’s 2500, so y’all already know, but there are different types of substrates. Some include a consciousness that was born to an organic body, while others were programmed, or primed for self-learning and growth. Some are purely mechanical—referred to as mechs—while others have some organic components. An “artificial” being that is purely organic is basically the Holy Grail of synthetic intelligence development, and something that researchers are still working on. It would be a quantum brain inside of a living being with no mechanical parts—designed from the start, but conceivably something that could have evolved naturally. Can you imagine? With today’s technology, we can only get kind of close. Most of the AIs on Castlebourne are skinned mechs, meaning they’re made of metals and metamaterials, but also have a dermal layer over them, so they look more like real humans. This isn’t to trick you, but as a way to step over to this side of the uncanny valley. There are very few stages in between full mech and skinned mech. We’re talking about very niche use cases, including some with organic eyes, ears, or tongues for sensory research. They also grow organs for medical research, though those don’t usually need a full body anyway, unless they’re testing some sort of mobility variable. There are also places where you can find mechs with certain other organic body parts that are used for...adult purposes. To each their own, I guess. I never saw a section that designed any of these types of bots. Most of these were skinned. I’ll tell ya, though, it was a tad bit eerie to see those ones being manufactured. While they were assembling the internal components, they most of the time looked no different than a car, or some other machine, but then they moved on to the skinning process. Seeing them look like half people was unnerving, and maybe horrific? This tour will be fascinating for some, but disturbing for others, even though again, it’s the year 2500, and we’re all used to synthetics by now. I asked about it, and they don’t have a tour for kids that would be a little less disquieting, so just know that if you sign your family up. There was one kid on my tour, who seemed fine. To be honest, maybe he was an adult in a child substrate. How should I know? It’s not illegal, it’s just a little weird in my book. So that’s it; that’s Bot Farm. Go see how they’re made.

Microstory 2401: The Terminal

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You know what? This place is big. They call it the Terminal because everyone who quantum casts their consciousness to this planet runs through here. It’s mind-boggling how large it is. I think I heard someone say that every cast-capable individual could upload their mind to a new substrate here at pretty much the same time, and there would be enough room for everyone. I don’t know about that, but I saw this thing from the outside, and I think I believe it. But in the end, the principle remains the same. You get in an egress pod wherever you’re coming from, hook yourself up to the machine, and zip across the interstellar void. You wake up about an hour later, and start moving around in your new body. You’re a little shaky at first, because I admit, it was a new experience. The technology they use to transfer your consciousness is a little different. They have to worry more about things like interference and signal degradation. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t afraid, and I don’t regret it. I just mean, the end result may be a bit different than what you’re used to. It’s just a little harder to acclimate, even if you’re a seasoned caster. Fortunately, they were prepared. They have nearby acclimation rooms that are designed to help you figure things out. They have bars to hold onto and treadmills; basically everything you would find in a physical therapy gym. I was told that they do offer mech subs, if you want that instead of an organic. I’ve never personally used one of those kinds of bodies, so I can’t speak to that experience, but if you choose that route, you may be able to move around just fine right away. Anyway, I didn’t need to use any of the equipment. It was helpful just to have a place to sit and relax. They also had an orientation theatre. Some of it was in person, surely from an android of some kind, while other parts were on the holo-screen. There are way too many domes for them to go through them all, but they do teach you how to search through the catalog, so you can find the exact experience that you’re looking for. But I won’t get into specifics here. I’m sure once I start going to the domes, I’ll review those too. This is just about The Terminal. You should know, they do have medical facilities here, and hygiene stations. I didn’t use any of those, but they’re there if you need them, and they looked nice. I set my trip up ahead of time, so I pretty much received my orientation packet, and bounced. It looked like some people were hanging out there for a little while, though there are plenty of domes that offer relaxation options.

Microstory 2400: Introduction to Castlebourne Reviews

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I feel like it’s been a long time since I’ve addressed you, my imaginary audience. Sometimes I like to introduce new microfiction series as one of the characters, or the in-universe narrator, or someone else involved in the canon. Sometimes, however, it’s best if I just come at it as myself. In the end, I decided to do it this way, because there’s no good way for a character to prepare their readers for what they’re going to write. These are going to be formatted as customer reviews, and people don’t typically plan such writings. They have the experiences, and write how they feel in that moment. I know that there are going to be 99 of these in total, but the narrating reviewer wouldn’t really know that. In fact, I’m still not sure if the reviews are going to be from the perspective of one person who visited multiple domes, or if each one will be from a different person. I may leave it up in the air, because when it comes to real reviews, most people don’t have reviewers that they follow. I mean, I think it happens, but there’s often that trope with a prolific business reviewer who believes that their thoughts are important to other customers, and the joke is that no one really cares that much about any single review, and they probably don’t pay much attention to a reviewer’s history. Anyway, here’s the story. About 108 light years from Earth, there’s a planet called Castlebourne. It falls into the category of a Charter World. Now, what is that? Well, the closest neighboring star systems to Earth are known as the Core Worlds. We’re a tight-knit group. They were colonized through state-sponsored missions, they belong to a uniform, cohesive government, and they follow all the rules. In return, they get military protection, and resource exchanges without question. Stellar Neighborhood systems also receive military protection and aid, but at a lower priority to the Core. They don’t have to be post-scarcity societies, but their government can’t be oppressive, violent, or unfair. Civilizations in the Charter Cloud are expected to get there on their own, and for the most part, handle their own needs. They can’t take military action against a Core or Neighborhood system, but they’re not entitled to military protection from the Core. They can execute trade negotiations, but nothing is guaranteed. Any colony beyond this range is totally out of the Core’s control, and can do whatever they want, but the downside is they get nothing.

Castlebourne enjoys really strong ties to the Sol System. Despite being as far out into the galaxy as they are, they’ve been granted a number of charters. They’ve been afforded technology, power allotments, and additional ships in order to accomplish their goals. This is because Castlebourne offers a lot to all citizens of the inner colony bands. Almost the entire surface is littered with tens of thousands of geodesic domes. Most of these will be pressurized, and become habitable eventually, but it takes a lot of work, and a ton of resources. That’s why these charters are so important. These domes offer visitors all sorts of entertainment and amusement potential. Some are recreational, some of relaxational, some are for exploration, some are wildlife preserves. Many of them are just for the permanent inhabitants to live, and cultivate their independent society. There are two gargantuan oceans at the poles. This planet boasts having everything you could ever want. You can travel there using a fractional ship, but it’s going to take you over a hundred years to reach it. If you’re lucky, you might be able to get on a ship with a reframe engine, which will take around two months. But most people don’t see any point in this. They instead transfer their consciousnesses across the interstellar void via advanced quantum tunneling, and download into new substrates. It takes about an hour, and that’s it. Not every dome is available. There are just so many of them, and only so many sufficiently original ideas. But believe me, there are plenty of them. There is more than enough to see to occupy your time for decades. It would be pretty tough to get bored on Castlebourne. Like I said, the next 99 stories will be in the form of customer reviews, told from a person (or people) who had some meaningful visit there, and they barely scratch the surface. I could write a fictional review every weekday for the next forty years, and still not even come close to covering them all. Hopefully, these are the most interesting, at least out of the domes that were ready at the purported time of writing according to the set time period around the Grand Opening in the year 2500. Read them all, and decide for yourselves if Castlebourne is a place that you would like to travel to some day.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 10, 2492

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After waiting for the slingdrive to get back to the green, the three members of the impromptu away team returned to Castlebourne. They held an emergency meeting, so they could get all the way through it before the timeslippers disappeared for a year. After this happened, Team Kadiar evidently took care of it, and no longer needed anyone else’s input on the matter. They would be dealing with Korali and her agenda according to their own procedures and mission protocols.

Today, Team Matic was worrying about something else. The rescue missions and beta testing were going fine. The refugees were becoming less anxious about their new lives here, and really trying to dig in; put down some roots. The more people who became comfortable with relaxing, and using the recreational domes, the more it normalized the concept, and the more people who were willing to give it a shot too. They were establishing a new society here, and it was going pretty well. Unfortunately, the grand opening was in more danger than ever. Until recently, it was illegal to cast one’s consciousness to interstellar distances permanently. Doing so would place the onus on someone else to properly handle the traveler’s former body. People were typically willing to take on this responsibility, but that wasn’t enough to make it part of state policy. Those details had since been ironed out, and most restrictions that were limiting Castlebourne’s potential as a destination planet were out of the way. There was one left, though, and it had to do with the power demands of such a distant casting.

“How far are we again?” Olimpia asked.

“We’re 108 light years from Earth, so varying distances from other core colonies,” Hrockas replied. He was really stressed out, and spending all of his time trying to charter the rights to casting at scale. That was what this region of space was called; the Charter Cloud. The Core Colonies belonged to a unified sociopolitical community, and to a lesser extent, the rest of the stellar neighborhood belonged as well. It afforded them certain rights and protections, usage of certain technology, and aid. The charter systems lay beyond this region, but not so far beyond that they were completely on their own. They could request certain assistance, and technological advancements to help them in their development. There were no guarantees, but it was fairly common. Hrockas, for instance, already proved himself to have healthy relationships with the right bureaucrats when he managed to secure an arkship. But now, that was probably what was holding him back. He had already chartered so much, and the government wasn’t convinced that what they were getting out of this relationship was worth letting him charter even more.

Quantum terminals were a marvel of technology, and a major game changer in the pursuit of interstellar colonization. Whereas a ship might take decades or longer to reach its destination, an individual could travel there in a matter of minutes. This technology was what made it worth it to found Castlebourne so far away from the stellar neighborhood, and the entire point of this project. Unfortunately, while spooky action at a distance was harnessed long ago, it wasn’t free. The greater the distance between two quantum computers, the harder it was to maintain coherence, the more energy it took to power communication, and the higher the bandwidth they both needed. This was the source of the government’s reluctance. Sure, they didn’t have a problem with one or two people transferring or surrogating their minds there each day, but Hrockas wanted orders of magnitude more visitors. And the colonies didn’t want to give him what he needed to achieve these objectives.

While he was obviously granted permission to take ownership of the star system well over a century ago, the current administration was now arguing that they had no obligation to provide him his customers. It just took too much power. He was asking for too much. If they didn’t reach an agreement soon, he would not meet his goals. He had been dealing with this for years, but with particular intensity over the course of this last year, but now he was out of ideas.

“What about relay stations?” Mateo suggested. “Like, you cast to a world in between Earth and here, and then maybe another one between here and the first relay. Would that lower the power requirements?”

“It absolutely would,” Hrockas agreed, “but most of the ideal candidates lie within the managed territories. They don’t want to give those up either. I’ve already asked to use the preexisting intermediate quantum terminals as repeaters, but they don’t wanna do that either. Those are the property of their respective colonists, and I have no right to them.”

“Well, what if we built our own?” Olimpia offered. “Star systems are big. Surely there’s enough room for two independent quantum repeaters, or whatever.”

Hrockas nodded, but he was clearly about to slam that idea down too. “Yes, I’ve thought of that, but it would take another century to build here, and fly the full distance. They won’t let me cast an engineering team, or take control of local automators remotely, in order to build these new repeaters in situ. The issue remains, I don’t have rights to those territories, or their resources. For a couple of them, I could probably negotiate with their owners on my own, but that would only work with the colonies closer to me, which doesn’t solve the problem, because even they are too far from the core. I need access to the stars that are under the strongest control of the central government.”

“Did you ask Team Kadiar?” Leona suggested. “They have an FTL ship, don’t you, Captain?” she asked Dubravka.

“I do,” Dubra confirmed, even though everyone knew it was true.

The Vellani Ambassador is busy with their rescue missions. I’m not going to take time away from them for such petty reasons.”

“I wouldn’t call it petty,” Dubra said. “We’ve already discussed the potential for Operation Escape Artist.”

“Don’t talk about that here,” Hrockas requested of her. “I don’t want the others to be made aware of it.” He looked at those not in the know with grave concern.

No one on Team Matic batted an eye. They were curious about what Operation Escape Artist could possibly be, but it was none of their business, so they had no right to look into it, or ask after it.

“I think I can do it...without the VA,” Ramses volunteered.

“Did you build another slingdrive?” Leona questioned, having not yet heard anything about it yet.

“Kind of.” Ramses was hesitant to clarify.

“Explain,” Leona ordered. Then an expression of fear flashed on her face. Mateo knew that she was still doubting her continued role as a captain without a ship.

“It’s not a ship...per se.” Ramses’ eyes darted over to Mateo. “Nor a...slingdrive...per se.” His eyes darted to Mateo once more.

“Oh,” Mateo said. “It’s me? I’m the slingdrive?”

“With a...firmware update, you could be,” Ramses replied.

“Setting aside how impossible what you’re implying sounds like, why would it have to be him?” Leona pressed. “What’s different about him?” Ramses exchanged glances, much to the Captain’s annoyance. “Someone tell me what’s goin’ on.”

“I suppose the secret was going to get out eventually,” Ramses decided.

“Might as well be now.” Mateo stood up, and stepped away from the table. The nanobots that composed his emergent suit were currently thickened out to look just like a regular IMS. This was unnecessary for them to function at optimal efficiency, however, and made them feel bulkier and less streamlined. He now commanded them to thin all over before removing them entirely from some parts of his body. Once he was finished adjusting the layout, it looked like he was wearing a short sleeve spacesuit with shorts instead of pants. Very impractical, but more comfortable.

Leona stood, and began to inspect her husband. “You are much farther along on this project than I thought you were,” Leona was still looking at Mateo, but clearly speaking to Ramses.  “Last I heard, it was nothing more than a dream.” She snapped Mateo’s waistband.

“It’s in alpha testing,” Ramses admitted.

“Well, if he’s survived this long, I suppose it can’t be all bad. But he is not qualified to install quantum repeaters that orbit a star.” Now she looked Ramses in the eye. “You’ll install them in my substrate as well for beta.”

“As you wish,” Ramses agreed.

“This is all very interesting,” Hrockas interjected, “but I don’t have any quantum repeaters. There is nothing we can do this year if one of you six has to do it.”

Leona nodded at him. “Grand opening is 2500. We’ll have it done by then.” She looked down at Ramses again. “Assuming the second upgrade is a viable option.”

“Hogarth taught me a shit-ton last year,” Ramses reminded her. “I believe that I can successfully miniaturize the technology that needs to be miniaturized, and shunt what I can’t into a pocket dimension.”

“These already have pockets,” Mateo revealed. He extended a feeding tube from the choker necklace that he was wearing. Ramses’ original design granted access to the food pocket dimension from an implant that was injected directly in the mouth, but having the dayfruit smoothie suddenly materialize on his tongue proved to be incredibly unsettling. Other people may have no problem with it, and Mateo had no issue with the palate implants for air and water.

“Cool,” Leona said, seemingly unimpressed.

“I can install your suit today,” Ramses promised, “but the upgrade will have to wait until tomorrow. I want to run a few hundred billion more simulations.”

“Do what you gotta do,” Leona instructed.

That was the end of the meeting, so everyone started to leave. Hrockas asked Leona to stay behind, and didn’t have any problem when Mateo and Olimpia chose to stand by her. “I just...”

“Go on,” Leona encouraged.

“I wanted to thank you for all you and your team has done. I started this all alone. I always planned on being alone. But your builder has accelerated construction on all the domes, your engineer deployed planetary defenses the likes of which have never been seen in this sector of the galaxy. Every time I have a problem in need of solvin’, you step up without ever asking anything in return. I don’t know how to repay you. I’m not old enough to remember a time when people exchanged currency for goods, but you are. Do you...want something like that? I hear gold used to be worth a lot. You know there’s a Wild West dome. I built it where it is specifically because there are real gold deposits there.”

“We have no use for money or precious metals either,” Olimpia explained to him.

“Ram uses metals,” Mateo added, “but he would have said something if he were lacking.”

“You don’t have to attempt to pay us in any form,” Leona assured Hrockas. “This is just what we do.” She took a breath, and looked around. “I do believe that our work here may be coming to a close, but we’ll probably continue to use this as a sort of home base, as long as that doesn’t lead to unforeseen consequences. The whole reason Ramses is doing what he’s doing right now is so we can go anywhere we’re needed.”

“Well, I really appreciate you selecting my little world as one of those places where you were needed. My dream is not exactly essential to the advancement of mankind. I didn’t know that anyone needed a refuge until you told me. They weren’t in the original plans either.”

“That’s okay,” Leona comforted. “You didn’t question it when we asked. You just gave us the space. We need to thank you for that.”

Hrockas smiled softly and nodded.

They left the room, and proceeded to Ramses’ secret lab. Leona wasn’t happy that he had been keeping this whole thing from her, but Mateo defended him. He argued that everyone was entitled to at least a little privacy. The team didn’t have many opportunities while spending nearly every day together, so they had to find small corners or moments which belonged only to them. The two of them found theirs. They watched as Leona stripped down, and climbed onto the scary-looking medical chair, just as Mateo had days ago.

Ramses had her read the literature, and then prepared to initiate the machine. “This is gonna look like it hurts...and it does. But it won’t last forever, and she will survive.”

“Do it,” Leona ordered.

Ramses turned it on, and let the laser robot arms start doing their thing. It was more horrifying to see from this angle than it was when Mateo was in the chair. It didn’t help that he was watching his wife tense up in agony. But the man was right, it was over quickly, and the pain began to subside immediately.

Leona stood up, and played with her new nanites a little, releasing them, changing the design of her faux clothing, and pulling them back in. She disappeared, and returned thirty seconds later. “Teleportation is a lot smoother.”

“It’s because you’re lighter,” Ramses explained.

“Me next,” Olimpia volunteered.

Ramses himself was the last to undergo the upgrade treatment. He showed Leona what to do, and how to watch for calibration errors, then he climbed in the chair, and told her to hit the button. It started out just as the others had. The lasers cut into his skin, implanted the gel matrices, then sealed the incisions back up. This was when things changed. The ground shook, and sparks shot out of the machine. The robot arms started uncontrollably swinging every which way. Everyone grabbed one, and tried to hold it in place, so it wouldn’t go wild. It didn’t last very long anyway, though. A web of technicolors enveloped them, and flung them through the spacetime continuum, into the unknown.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 8, 2490

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Everything had changed about Castlebourne when the team came back to the timeline in 2490, and it was pretty much what Mateo had predicted years ago. Team Kadiar started going on their rescue missions about three weeks after Team Matic disappeared. They started out slowly and strategically. They spoke with the people of New Welrios to see if they would be interested in relocating yet again. While most of them didn’t want to leave as their new home had since been established, they weren’t combative, and understood what the crew of the Vellani Ambassador was trying to do. Some of them did ask to leave, particularly the older ones who were more used to not getting attached. A few asked to join the operation, and some of them were even taken up on their offers, following some training that Darko, Mirage, and others devised. The core five that made up the executive crew were still running the show, but the new people had their own responsibilities. If nothing else, being able to give their next prospects real evidence that rescue was possible was more valuable than nothing.

Things started out slow as they struggled to convince enough people that this was the right thing to do. One reason for this was that they didn’t know if there was anything to fix. People living in the Goldilocks were oppressed, but that didn’t mean they were unhappy. They were indoctrinated from birth to believe that this was as good as life could get. The Exin Empire didn’t even have to use force to gaslight them into thinking this way. It was how their parents lived, and how their parents’ parents lived, and so on. The whole of society, on each world, and across the worlds, was built around Bronach Oaksent’s vision. Showing them a better way was no easy feat. The pitch was by far the hardest part of each job. Loading them into the ship wasn’t easy either, nor was Tertius’ work controlling everyone’s memories, but they were simple and easy compared to the social aspect. The new pocket dimension that Ramses designed could fit almost 500 without untenable power drain, but they were only ever able to get about 300 to 400 people each time they tried to reach out to a new population. That still added up to around 130,000 people over the course of the last year, accounting for much-needed breaks, and other delays, but they wanted to do more. They wanted to save more.

The pitch speeches and videos were constantly being refined and reworked, however, and the data showed that these changes improved effectiveness. The most recent missions returned with higher capacity than the first ones. By the end of the 25th century, the total population of Castlebourne could number in the millions, even before visitors from the stellar neighborhood were brought in to enjoy the domes. Mateo was so very proud of his daughters, and wished that he could see them in action. Unfortunately, he was still a liability. His solid holograms were not yet powerful, nor reliable, nor understood well enough. And the new emergent suit that Ramses injected into his body added a new variable that Leona surely wouldn’t be pleased with...once they were ready to tell her about it.

As far as those domes went, Hrockas seemed pleased when he walked into the yearly briefing that he always had with Team Matic. “Is it safe to say that gamma testing is going well?” Leona asked.

“Not as well as I had hoped, but I can’t make them do it, even if I wanted to,” Hrockas replied.

“They’re not going to the recreational domes?” Leona pressed.

“They are, but a lot of domes remain untested. The South Pole is the most popular attraction. Apparently, the despot who runs the empire didn’t make oceans on very many of the worlds that he created. Honestly, I can’t blame him for that; it was not easy for me. Still, I would like them to try out some of the other domes, so I get some feedback on them too. I know what the problem is, though. They don’t really have any sense of pop culture, so the scenarios don’t mean much to them.” Hrockas dismissed his own remarks. “But that’s my problem; not yours, and certainly not theirs. I didn’t agree to host them for that. I just thought it would be a nice bonus. They’re all welcome to stay, even if they never leave the residences. I didn’t start this project a hundred years ago thinking that any of this would be easy.”

Before Hrockas could continue on—if that was what he was planning on doing—Aeolia placed a hand on his thigh. She leaned over, and whispered something in his ear. After he nodded, she stood up, and left the room. Before Aeolia’s past and future were erased from the timeline, she did office work for a number of employers. She was using the skills she picked up in those roles now as Hrockas’ personal assistant. Most of what he needed done could be automated, because this was the late 25th century, but he still liked to have another person there to bounce ideas off of. He couldn’t be in two places at once, so she also often served as his eyes and ears.

“What about the central archives?” Mateo suggested. “Have they been granted access to the vonearthan databases, particularly the grand repository of entertainment?”

“They absolutely have,” Lita answered. She was placed in charge of helping the refugees figure out how to live outside of the Exin Empire, which was all they had ever known up until this point. It was her husband, Mario who came up with her title, Director of Transition, acting as head of the Department for Cultural Transition Assistance. “I’m not—” She paused, looking for the right words. “I’m not discouraging them from browsing the repository, but I generally nudge them towards the aggregate records. They’ve never heard of Earth, and I want them to know where they ultimately come from, even if we don’t technically consider them vonearthans. I want them to see that oppressive governments are wrong, and that they all fall...eventually.”

“That’s understandable,” Leona said. “You know what they say about those who cannot remember the past. They’ve been deliberately shielded from theirs as a means of control. They need to see the truth, or they’ll never really be free.”

They moved onto other business, discussing the general state of the planet. The numbers had shifted since they were last here, as they always did. At this point, roughly 30% of the domes were completely unused. They were sealed up, but still nothing but desert. About 45% of the domes were themed to some degree, but still working through alpha testing, which robots performed due to the potential danger. Around 15% were in the beta testing phase. Some of the more enthusiastic refugees signed all the necessary paperwork, and were helping by exploring these recreational and leisure spots. The remaining 10% of domes were currently being gamma tested by the rest of the refugees, some of which were probably ready for delta testing by the early adopters during and after the grand opening.

Aeolia came back in, and whispered something to Hrockas while Samsonite was pitching his idea of a formal educational institution. “Sorry, Mr. Bellamy, I’m gonna have to pause you for a moment. I’m afraid that Team Matic will have to leave us.” He looked up at Aeolia. “You can handle it, right?”

Aeolia nodded.

“All right, go on,” he requested of Samsonite as most of the members of the meeting were exiting.

“What’s goin’ on?” Leona asked.

“An unauthorized visitor appeared in one of the pods,” Aeolia began to explain. “We don’t know how she broke through our firewalls, but she’s asking to speak to you. Specifically, the...uh...”

“The smart ones?” Mateo suggested.

“Great,” Angela said. “I need to get back in there. This presentation is important.” Without waiting for someone to give her permission, or argue, she stepped back into the conference room, followed by her sister and Olimpia.

Mateo shrugged when Aeolia looked at him. “I’m curious. I’m sure I’ll follow the conversation well enough.”

Leona took Aeolia’s hand, and they all teleported to the only operational acclimation room of The Terminal. Hogarth Pudeyonavic was sitting in an armchair. Leona walked over to her. “Madam Pudeyonavic, it’s nice to see you again.” They shook hands after Hogarth stood up.

“You got my message?” Ramses asked.

“I did, but I was not planning on answering. I’m only here now to get some distance from my own problems before I tackle them.”

“What problems are these?” Leona asked with concern.

“Not yours,” Hogarth answered with kindness in her voice, not dismissiveness.

Leona nodded respectfully, then looked back at her engineer. “You asked her about our interference with the slingdrive?”

“I did,” he confirmed. “I can’t crack it. I know The Vellani Ambassador is not our ship anymore. Another team has been using it for longer than we ever did. But I still think it’s something that we should understand. It’s a unique form of space travel, and I want to remain the foremost expert on it, if possible.”

“Take me to it,” Hogarth asked.

They teleported again, right into the engineering section.

“Welcome,” Mirage’s voice said through the intercom.

Hogarth took a brief look around, narrowing in one component in particular. She reached for the coherence gauge, and unscrewed it. After looking into the data port, she said, “give me an hour. But I’ll need a couple of guinea pigs.”

“That’s my job,” Mateo volunteered proudly.

“It would help if you could procure a human too,” Hogarth clarified.

“Jericho?” Ramses suggested.

“His body doesn’t metabolize temporal energy, but he was once exposed to dark particles. Does that matter?” Leona asked.

“Shouldn’t,” Hogarth replied. “Those don’t travel through the qualium realm. Bring him to me.”

“What’s the qualium realm?” Ramses questioned.

“I’ll explain in an hour.” Hogarth was frustrated with having to repeat herself all of one time.

An hour on the dot after Jericho was brought here reluctantly, Hogarth was ready to give her answer. She had extracted a little bit of blood from them, but otherwise left the guinea pigs to just stand around and wait. She spent most of the time taking the slingdrive apart, and putting it back together, as if the task alone was enough to provide her with answers. She didn’t even really seem to examine the parts, or anything. She only needed to go through the motions. They were sitting around the table in Delegation Hall now. Hogarth was twirling some kind of plastic tube between her fingers.

“Is that the issue?” Ramses asked.

“Oh, this? Nah, this is just an erroneous part. I cut it out, because it was slowing down the quintessence transmission function, and making the drive less efficient. It didn’t have to be this long.”

“That was there to prevent bottlenecking,” Ramses tried to explain.

“You already have two redundant regulators in each intake valve. Trust me, you don’t need this.” She carelessly dropped it on the table.

“Is that valuable?” Mateo asked.

“It’s only tubing,” Ramses assured him. “The containment comes from the specialized pocket dimension, which can be housed in just about anything. But it must be housed in something,” he reiterated to Hogarth, “not nothing.”

Hogarth brushed off his claims. “I’m here to tell you that you were right.”

“About us being the problem?” Leona figured.

“There’s a workaround, but it comes with a limitation,” Hogarth went on. “Earlier, you asked about the qualium realm. I’m honestly astonished you’ve never heard of it, because based on the specifications of this ship, and the upgraded substrates you built for yourself and your friends, you’ve been working with it for years.”

“I know what qualia are,” Ramses said, “and I’ve heard of the quantum realm, but I’ve never combined them.”

“You have. You just didn’t know it.” Hogarth threw a hologram into the space over the table. It was a silhouette of a human being. There appeared to be some kind of aura pulsating from it. Animations utilizing this diagram changed by her narration. “Humans are composed of three major components: mind, body, and soul. The body is the physical material that interacts with reality in four dimensions. We’re all looking at each other’s right now. Information is interpreted through the brain, which is of course, also a physical entity, but that’s not where data is processed. That happens in the quantum realm. This was part of a number of related, but competing, hypotheses, regarding the nature of consciousness. It was only after we figured it out that we were able to manipulate the properties of the quantum mind, and allow for technologies such as mind uploading, and memory retrieval. What present-day researchers still don’t understand is that there is a third aspect. The soul, if you will, exists within the qualium realm. It is how we process personal thoughts, emotions. It’s where we come up with original ideas, and our worldviews. More to the point, it’s also how time travelers metabolize temporal energy.

“We are connected to the universe in a way that normal people, like my new friend, Jericho here, aren’t. This is how different flavors of time travelers come about. The nature of an individual’s qualium realm—their connection to the cosmos—dictates what they can do, and what they can’t. You, Ramses, were not born with a qualium realm sufficient for time travel. You replicated it using someone else’s connection. None of you could teleport until you figured out how to adjust your qualia accordingly. I could go on and on about the study of qualium realms, and how to change your perceptions of time by accessing this special dimension, but that’s not what this meeting is about. The issue is that your connection to the qualium realm is indeed interacting with your slingdrive, which necessarily also has access to this realm in order to function. There are two options here; you can manipulate your own connection, and alter how this interdimensional interaction occurs, or you can modify the machine to block it.”

“What’s the downside to the second one?” Leona asked her.

“No more time travel,” Hogarth answered. “The machine is shockingly versatile, but it has its quirks. As it stands, it accesses all four dimensions, and it is the fourth dimension that is getting screwy. You’re interfering with it because of your inherent connection to time, which is nonlinear. You can’t program it to travel through the fourth dimension, but somehow ignore you, because people like us are an extension of time, not simply living in it. You would still be able to go anywhere you want in the universe, but you would have to stay in the present.”

“We don’t really want to travel through time,” Leona determined. “But it’s not our ship anymore. How hard would it be to adjust our qualia, for those situations where we may need to use the ship?”

“Very hard,” Hogarth replied, “and unpredictable. There would be a lot of trial and error, and you would probably end up as regular humans. I don’t know if that’s what you want, or...”

“You mean we could control our own pattern?” Olimpia asked. “We would stop jumping forwards every day?

“I guess,” Hogarth said. “I would have to study you more, and invasively, but technically anything is impossible. With enough time and energy, I could turn anyone into a traveler, or take it away.”

“Thank you, Madam P,” Leona said, standing up. “We will need to discuss our options amongst ourselves. Can you stay a year?”

“I’ll tell you what,” Hogarth said, also standing up, “At the very least, I’ll be back in a year.”

She ended up staying the year.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 6, 2488

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Last year, Mateo spent all day with his three daughters. They went all over the place together, including multiple adventure domes to continue their beta testing commitments. This was what the girls did when they weren’t training with Prince Darko, or relaxing in one of the relaxation areas. The four of them also spent some time in the sunrise pod, which Romana had described the year before. Today, they were all planning on getting a looksee at what Hrockas was tentatively calling Weldome. It was kind of a ridiculous name, but a vital aspect of this planet being a vacation hub. If someone wanted to visit using relativistic ships, it would take them roughly over 100 years, depending on where they started from. Even with a reframe engine, which the stellar neighborhood was developing, it would take a couple of months. The Weldome was packed top to bottom with surrogate pods. Visitors could cast their consciousnesses across the quantum network, and arrive in their pod in minutes.

Weldome—or whatever better name someone managed to come up with—was finished in its original state decades ago, but it wasn’t perfect. A visitor would be expected to show up in a generic cybernetic template, and could print a simulacrum of their face later, or transform their appearance using onboard hologram generators. Alternatively, they could request a clone of their real body by first transmitting their digital DNA ahead of time. This would take months to complete, which in a society of effective immortality, that would be okay for some. People certainly had a history of planning their vacations months in advance. But Ramses knew it could be better. He had written a compression algorithm, which used a technological time bubble to accelerate the development of a clone at alarming speeds. To save on power, this process still took about an hour, but the consciousness lay dormant in the temporary memory core, so the user couldn’t really tell the difference anyway. This was revolutionary technology, and while quantum casting was commonplace elsewhere, no other planet did it so fantastically. This could give Hrockas the edge he needed to become the owner of the number one destination planet in the galaxy.

It was time to test this. Hrockas was in touch with someone he once knew on Earth, who was willing to give it a shot. He was currently in a lab in what was once known as North Korea. The oppressive government collapsed centuries ago, with the southern border being erased from the map. The area was now just as much of a utopia as everywhere else in the world. There was one major special characteristic, where the rules were not the same as other places, though. As stated, quantum casting was ubiquitous, but there were all sorts of regulations and policies that governed how this technology could be used. One aspect of it was that people were still not allowed to permanently send themselves across interstellar space. They had to be using their new substrates as surrogates, even if the transference was permanent in all practical terms. Korea was different. The old body could be destroyed immediately, while the destination could be selected as the truly permanent housing unit for the consciousness. This was controversial, though probably where the law was headed worldwide. As Project Stargate propagated colonization efforts further and further into the Milky Way, it was becoming less reasonable to force people to treat Earth as some sort of homebase, instead of just another planet in the network.

For now, Costa wasn’t planning on destroying his original body on Earth, but because of its unique laws, Korea was still the best place to test any new casting technology without as much scrutiny or interference. He was nearing the end of his hour right now. They were watching the pod put the finishing touches on his new clone body when an alarm went off on Ramses’ watch. “The sentry satellites. They’ve picked up an object entering the star system. Looks like we have company.”

“Are the defense platforms ready?” Hrockas asked.

“It depends on who’s here, and how powerful they are.”

“Take the Dritewing,” Hrockas asked. “You already have authorization.”

Ramses teleported away, and while Mateo wanted to watch the test of the new casting system, he also knew that his friend needed a wingman. He teleported too, to the restricted shipyard where the battleships were kept, along with other related vessels and weapons. The Dritewing was the flagship of the Castlebourne fleet, though it had no current crew, and Hrockas had no idea how to start an army, nor a security contingency. He never thought that he might need one, and mercenaries weren’t really a thing anymore. He was mulling over plans to ask for a group of soldiers and officers from the stellar neighborhood to be stationed here on a permanent basis. Mateo wasn’t even sure whether he had begun discussions with Teagarden, or if it was still only an idea. For now, Mateo and Ramses were on their own. Since Hrockas had the automators build these ships without the team’s involvement, it was lacking in certain superadvanced technologies, namely a teleporter. They had to launch from the ground the old fashioned way, and wait to intercept whatever had invaded their borders in realtime.

Ramses jerked his head around as he was watching the screen, and the sensors. Mateo didn’t know what he was seeing, but it must have been interesting. “It’s a person.”

“How are they surviving out there without a ship?”

“I’m guessing they’re suited up.”

“Can any jetpack move that fast?”

“They may have been going this fast when they stepped out of their ship. Newton’s Law of Inertia. If there’s nothing out there to slow them down, they won’t slow down. Computer, show me their path, and projections.”

A curvy line appeared on the map, eventually turning from white to blue, presumably to show where the flying person was expected to go in the near future.

Ramses’ eyes opened wide. “They’re kissing atmospheres.”

“Why?”

“To slow down. They don’t want to be going this fast. They’re trying to stop.”

“Can we help?

“Sure, we can match speed, and then one of us can teleport out there.”

“I’ll put my helmet on,” Mateo volunteered as Ramses was inputting the new heading. The mysterious visitor was almost through to the other end of the solar system when they were situated for rescue. It was important that they were moving at the exact same speed as the target, or teleporting to them could result in sudden death, being no better than ramming them with the ship at the equivalent difference in speed.

It was easy for Mateo to make one quick jump out there, grab the man who had fallen overboard, and to teleport right back to the bridge of the Dritewing. “Computer, full stimulant,” Mateo heard the stranger order while their respective helmets were still touching for a conductive link. The man breathed in deep with his eyes closed, then opened them. He reached up and removed his helmet. “Thank you for the rescue, or I won’t go down easy. Which is it?”

“It was a rescue,” Mateo assured him. “We mean you no harm.”

The man was apprehensive, but open. “I appreciate that.” He shifted his gaze between Mateo and Ramses. “Report.”

Ramses stepped forward. “You’re on the Castlebourne Battleship Dritewing. We launched to investigate when our sats detected your arrival. We thought you might be a threat. Are you?”

“What’s Castlebourne?”

“It’s the planet we’re on our way back towards.”

“What’s your name?” Mateo asked.

“Officer Azad Petit, mechanic of the Teagarden Recon Frigate Twenty-Four. We were trying to get to Barnard’s Star. It was above my paygrade, but my superiors received word that it was no longer off-limits, so they wanted to check it out.”

“When did your ship launch?” Ramses asked.

“It was 2380.”

Ramses nodded. “That makes sense. In 2369. Leona divulged to the higher-ups that Gatewood was abandoned. It was only a matter of time before they decided to see for themselves.”

“How far off course am I?” Azad asked. “I was living in my IMS for two months.”

“Why?” Mateo asked.

“Ship blew up,” Azad replied. “I have no idea how it happened. In fact, I don’t know that it was destroyed. That was just my guess. I happened to be servicing an airlock at the time, and some kind of explosion knocked me clear of the debris, and slightly off-course. That debris might have ended up where it was going, and I guess I just missed it by a degree or two.”

“Gatewood is roughly on the way out here, yeah,” Ramses confirmed. “Castlebourne is about a hundred and eight light years from Earth. Very smart, trying to use aerobraking maneuvers to slow down.”

Azad shook his head. “I don’t know that it would have been enough. I was trying to find a route that would take me into a complete orbit around one of the planets, so I could start to sort of ping-pong my way back and forth, but I don’t think that would have happened. Thank God you spotted me.”

Mateo shrugged. “Saving people is kind of our jam.”

Azad nodded graciously as he walked over to look out the viewport as they were reentering orbit. “Are those geodesic domes?”

“Yes, tens of thousands of them,” Mateo answered.

“How long has this world been here in secret?”

“It’s not a secret,” Ramses corrected. “Teagarden is aware of it. We’ll land, and I’ll take you to see the owner. He’ll be happy to have a new beta tester, if you’re interested.”

“Beta tester for what?”

“This is a destination world, full of adventure, relaxation, and exploration. You could spend a lifetime here and not yet see everything.” While the concept of life expectancy had become essentially meaningless thanks to advancements in health, medicine, and consciousness transference, among other related technologies, lifetime had taken on a new meaning. Whereas before, it was vague and never more than an estimate, it was now standardized to precisely 120 years. It was all very complicated, and the rules were still arbitrary, but basically, researchers arrived at this number by calculating the expected lifespan of an organic human being in a semi-controlled environment with only certain medical interventions. The archetype for this individual could take regular medicine to treat particular issues, and prevent other issues, but this did not include medical nanites, whole-body diagnostics, or advanced implants. Mateo wasn’t sure if such people still technically existed, but they were probably somewhere, defiant of the status quo, and nostalgic for simpler times.

“I need to check in with my superiors,” Azad said, almost apologetically. “I went AWOL.”

“Did you set the explosion?” Ramses asked. “Did you know it was gonna happen?”

“Of course not!” Azad insisted.

“Did you turn off your communication system while you were adrift?” Ramses pressed.

“No, I was sending out a distress signal the whole time.”

“Then you’re not AWOL,” Ramses reasoned. “You’re either MIA or KIA, but you’re not AWOL.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Azad admitted while clearly still nervous.

“I’m certain that Hrockas will give you access to a quantum terminal,” Mateo told him. “Terminus!” he exclaimed. “That’s what they should call the dome with all the clone pods, and stuff.”

“Yeah,” Ramses agreed, “that’s better than Weldome.”

After they landed the Dritewing, Ramses held out his hand towards Azad to teleport him to Castledome. Azad reached back, saying, “um...hello. We shake with our right hands where I’m from. Has that much changed in a century?”

“No, I just made a mistake,” Ramses covered. “We better get on the train.” They were so used to just being honest about their superpowers, it was easy to forget that the majority of the population didn’t know anything about them. While The Edge meeting determined that the vonearthans would be given certain upgrades, they were framed as quantum leaps in technological advancements. It was never the plan to publicize the true origins of them. Mateo, Ramses, and Azad got on the train, but the rest of the group was still in Terminus, or whatever they ended up calling it, so they just went right back there.

The quantum casting test subject had arrived while they were gone, and was currently in the acclimation room. This was a safe space, designed with a calming aesthetic, and access to medical supplies, if needed. By the time the three guys showed up, Costa was fine. This room was more of a precaution than anything. Casting could be disorienting, but shouldn’t require a lot of recovery time or tools. From here, a normal visitor would move on to one of the orientation rooms, which was also where they would receive their housing information, and the appropriate access codes. Costa wasn’t going to go through all that, though. He was just here to make sure that the transmission was successful. They had no reason to think that it wouldn’t be, but these pods had to be thoroughly tested before the Earthan government would allow full-scale networking incorporation.

Azad was the last to step into the room. He immediately stood up straight, and pulled his hand into a salute. “Sergeant Whinawray. Officer Azad Petit, reporting in after an unscheduled long-term absence. Your orders, sir!”

“At ease, Officer,” Costa replied.

Azad struggled for a moment, but did manage to relax.

“I take it you two know each other,” Ramses said, trying to cut the tension with humor.

“No orders,” Costa went on. “I need to sleep, and I’m guessing you do as well. We’ll debrief in the morning unless we, or someone else, is in immediate danger.”

“Not to my knowledge, sir,” Azad replied.

“I’m retired, Officer,” Costa clarified. “No sir necessary.”

“With respect, sir, that’s not how it works,” Azad contended.

Hrockas turned to address one of the hospitality bots. “Assign them both Imperial Suites in the Palacium Hotel.”

“There is only one Imperial Suite available,” the bot explained. “You weren’t yet sure whether it should be one of the unique units, or a class.”

“Do we have a Royal Suite available?” Hrockas pressed.

“Yes,” the bot confirmed.

“Great. Officer Petit, you’ll be in one of the Royal Suites.”

“That’s really not necessary,” Azad said.

“Sir,” Hrockas began, “this planet is designed to accommodate hundreds of billions of people. There are currently about a couple dozen. We can spare one Royal Suite. I can’t have it getting out that one of my first customers slept in a paltry king-sized bed, or something. Don’t forget to fill out your feedback card, though, thanks!”

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