Microstory 2656: The Traitor Knight

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Jaidia snuck away from the crowd, and called Azad, who reported that Vanore had not woken up in her regular substrate yet, following her death in the simulation, but that’s to be expected. It takes time for a consciousness to fully return and compile safely. Safeguards are in place to protect them from losing memories, or any defining personality traits. Of course, Reagan’s gun makes that more complicated, but he’s sure that he didn’t just straight up murder the woman permanently. Figuring out how to transmit the decoherence signal across backup consciousness streams has been the most difficult part of his special gun’s development process. The technology is still based on the earliest of research into the field of mind transference, which was pioneered by scientists who were trying to protect people from a weapon such as this. It’s baked into the design, and for good reason.

Three of them are in the castle now, where King Arthur has been ruling only as a figurehead for the last few years. Malika stayed behind, both to make sure that Morgana is indeed dead, and also to ask the townsfolk some questions about this whole situation. Why was Vanore splitting between two immersion domes, and why was she playing the same character? The locals wouldn’t be able to answer those questions specifically, even the ones who are visitors and not NPCs, but their answers to other questions might hold clues to understanding her motivations. Even though it appears that she has been defeated, they may need to prepare for future complications that she has set in motion.

Arthur is sitting on his throne, resting his temple against his fingers, his heavy crown askew upon his head. He doesn’t even react to them. He is guarded by no one.

The three of them kneel before him out of respect for the game. “King Arthur, Chief Dragon, Lord of Camelot, High King of the Britons,” Mandica begins. “We come in humble service, hoping to free your love from the high tower. Do you protest?”

Arthur scoffs, almost menacingly. “Many have tried, all have died.”

“Forgive us, sire. We would not dare to disrespect your loyal subjects, but we come with experience that others have not possessed. We will defeat the Bane of Loegria. He will not be the first monster that we have vanquished. He will not even be the first to die at our hands today.”

He chuckles now. “I have been apprised of your exploits at the tiltyard. Morgana has died before, and returned. She shall return again.”

“Not this time, sire,” Mandica goes on. “Please, we wish to continue our quest for Fair Guinevere. Is there anything you can tell us of what we are up against?”

“The monster is but a whisper,” Arthur explains. “He has only been heard, his mighty sword clanging against the steel of my knights. He hides behind a magical wall of green. Those who pass through suffer terrible pain. Any who survive, never return.”

“Sounds like a plasmic hologram,” Reagan says to the ladies. Arthur hears it as well, but has no frame of reference for it. “I can turn it off once we get closer.”

Mandica lowers her head deeper. “We will not fail you, Your Highness. We thank you for the honor.” She stands. “For Camelot and Loegria!”

The other two stand as well, following her lead. “For Camelot and Loegria!”

They walk up the many steps to the top of the high tower. Dust and cobwebs multiply along the way. No one wants to come near this area, even though, according to a few castle staff, the Bane never crossed through the barrier. You have to go looking for trouble in order to find it. Unless you have already pissed off the Empress, Morgana. She occasionally sends her enemies through the wall for apparent execution.

They reach the wall. Reagan takes out his scanner, and waves it around for only a second. “Yeah, definitely a plasmic barrier, coupled with a holographic illusion. And...here it goes.” The green wall flickers off. Behind it is the real obstacle. The plasma is transparent, but still visible, like glass. At a full meter, it’s incredibly thick. Most plasma passageways are measured in centimeters, because you just don’t need much to prevent unauthorized entry, or atmosphere leakage. “This really shouldn’t be here. The powersource would have to be enormous. Plasma has to be replenished regularly for maintenance. I thought I could bring it down, but the projectors are on the other side, and the command signals from my equipment will not be able to penetrate the field.”

“Well, obviously, it can be crossed. If there’s fighting happening on the other side, then pain is the first trial, not the endgame.” Mandica removes her medieval garb until she’s down to her Ravensgate Rescuer costume so she has more freedom of movement.

“You’ll fare better than the knights,” Reagan explains. “They were almost certainly wearing armor, which microwaved them. The only reason any of them survived is because they’re androids.” He points. “Just destroy one of those projectors.”

He’s not entirely right about that. It’s profoundly painful. She screams in agony as she’s slogging her way through. It takes her several minutes to make it, and it might have even killed her, because she wakes up on the floor, and doesn’t know how much time has passed. She can feel her stone pulsing with energy as it continues to heal her burn wounds. A dark masked knight is standing in front of her now, between her and the jail cell, and also the projectors. Nice of him to wait for her to resurrect first.

“We can’t get through!” Jaidia cries. “It’s solid now! I guess it’s one at a time!”

“I got this,” Mandica responds, not turning back around. She and the Bane begin to fight. She’s wiry, but he’s a brute, and he’s not going down easy. Punching him is doing her no good. He doesn’t even falter when she kicks him in the strawberry basket. She keeps trying, though, only breaking away for a second at a time to reach for one of the projectors. He always holds her back. That’s enough. No more playing by their rules. Who cares what this NPC sees? She releases the nanites from her back, and forms her new wings. They didn’t even have time to test this model, but they’re glorious. She swings one forward and knocks the mask off of his face. She is surprised to see who it is. It’s Mordred. It’s not just some other Mordred. It’s the same face as her companion from Earth. This has always been about Mandica. “Vanore, you devious bitch!”

This was a mistake. In anger, he hulks out, except he’s not green. He pounds his chest and roars at her. He must be composed of nanites too, just like Morgana. That makes some sense. If she couldn’t defeat him before, she’s certainly not going to now, though. So she takes a gamble. She pulls out her watch, finds the right image, and shows it to him. It’s a picture of her with her Mordred. He recognizes his own face. He sees the love in their eyes, and begins to weep. He doesn’t understand, but he can fight her no longer. She punches the projector with her other wing. The plasma disappears.

Malika runs up to them from the steps, rather out of breath. “Morgana’s already back! She must have had another body waiting for her in the simulation.”

“Then we better hurry,” Mandica decides. She turns around, and kicks the cell door in. On the other side is not some random NPC Guinevere. It’s Vanore.

Microstory 2654: An Epic Quest

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Hrockas gave Mandica and her team unprecedented access to data and controls for the simulation. Unfortunately, it turned out to be rather useless in finding her hideout in the dome. If the Custodians who ran the sim couldn’t find Morgana with that information, what hope did four puny humans have? But it wasn’t entirely unhelpful. They decided to think more like her, or more to the point, like her character. If Morgana were a real person, how would she think? How would she act? The core question is why hasn’t she done anything since her attack at the jewelry store? Before Mandica showed up, her power in this city was surpassed only by her mystique. She claimed to live in a distant land, only coming to Ravensgate when business brought her here. Malika says it reminds her of some guy named Ra’s Al Ghul, but Mandica doesn’t know who that is. Their initial assumption was that Vanore wasn’t spending all of her time in Underbelly, but how was she exiting the dome without being traced? According to the logs, Vanore’s regular body is still in substrate storage. If she’s leaving, she’s not returning to it.

Incidentally, they did check Vanore’s storage chamber, though Hrockas was not happy about it. He told them that there was a breach a number of years ago that he doesn’t want repeated. Substrate storage is extremely delicate. People rely on those back-ups to survive, so there are mountains and mountains of laws designed to protect bodies from being tampered with. While Castlebourne doesn’t have to follow stellar neighborhood laws, in this situation, they absolutely do, because mind-transference is their bread and butter, and because it’s the right thing to do. But if Vanore isn’t in Underbelly, and she isn’t in her regular body, then she must be somewhere else on the planet. But she could not have beamed her mind to an entirely different body, because the logs would show that too.

“I got it!” Mandica is in her pajamas. They all are. It’s late, but this puzzle keeps them up just about every night.

“You know where she is?” Jaidia questions. “How?”

“I don’t know the how,” Mandica replies, even though that’s not really the question. “I only know the where. It was so obvious, I’m kicking myself for not realizing it before. God, I’m so stupid. She told us where she lived from the very beginning!”

“Well, stop teasing us like she apparently did, and tell us!” Reagan urges.

“Loegria.”

“Loegria?” Malika echoes.

“It’s the King Arthur dome,” Mandica explains. “There is a Morgana there; there has to be. Just like there’s a Merlin, and a Lancelot, and even Sir Dagonet. When I first heard of her, I assumed they were distinct interpretations of the character. I mean, there are already plenty of different versions of Morgan Le Fay in lore. The one from the TV series Merlin is not the same as the one from Le Morte D’Arthur. But what if it’s not like that here? What if she’s just counting on us to assume that? She could be splitting her time between Ravensgate and Camelot. She’s a shapeshifter, so if she’s somehow found a way to sneak back and forth through the backrooms, or whatever, Hrockas and the Custodians would never know. They wouldn’t realize it’s the same consciousness either.”

Malika and Reagan exchange a glance. “Mandy, you can’t go to Loegria. Hrockas warned you against that. We could go, but we would have to go back to our regular bodies first, even Reagan. That’s why we were hoping she hadn’t left this dome.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that,” Mandica begins, “since we started postulating that she wasn’t always in the dome. Hrockas is not a god. He obviously needs us, or he would use whatever resources he has at his disposal to deal with meta-business. Do you remember how weird it was when he came here? Why did we meet him in some penthouse? Why didn’t he just walk into our headquarters? For that matter, why did he conscript us for this job at all? I’m sure he’s busy, but I’m sure he can delegate the work to someone else in the executive administrative authority. I don’t actually care why he chose us, as long as he honors that moving forward. If he wants us to be the ones to catch Morgana, we will, and we’ll do it by whatever means necessary.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” comes a voice from behind the couch. They jump up to find Hrockas’ personal bodyguard, Azad Petit. It’s impossible. Unless there are built-in trapdoors all over the place, one of them should have seen him come in. He’s just standing there as if the solid wall was briefly a doorway. It doesn’t make any sense. 

“How did you get in here?” Reagan questions, aiming his maser gun. He didn’t come back here as a superhero, but he’s not completely helpless either.

“That’s classified.” When Azad senses that they’re too intrigued, he goes on, “you can either know how I did it, or you can get an exemption to leave the dome with those bodies. We will have stipulations, but we need this problem taken care of. Quietly.”

“Are we allowed to ask how you happened to show up while we were talking about your boss, or are we to believe it was just a coincidence?” Jaidia questions.

“Your buddy was looking at my contact card,” Azad explains. “I get an alert when that happens.

They look at Reagan. “I was only preparing to reach out to him,” he defends.

“Now you don’t have to,” Azad reiterates. “I’m here, and I’m here to tell you that you can go to Loegria, but you can’t be in costume, and you can’t take those wings.” He jerks his head towards their wings, which are charging on their docks. “If you get there and run into resistance, we don’t want you to die, but you can’t be flying around as superheroes. It does not belong in that world. Again, we want to get this done without anyone noticing. If Vanore has replaced that simulation’s Morgana NPC, that is a huge breach, and letting others know that it’s possible will only make things worse.”

“Wow. How much of our conversation did you hear?” Jaidia kind of complains.

“Obviously enough. Will you do it? Will you help us plug the leak?”

“What do we get if we do?” Malika asks him.

“He doesn’t have to give us anything,” Mandica contends, looking over at her briefly, and then back at Azad. “Our goals are aligned. We’ll take care of it. We’re not asking for payment, but if we do this, we become your heroes, right? That will count for something, right? You will consider us friends in the future...right?”

Azad scoffs, but isn’t mad. “Yes, and friends take care of each other.”

After he leaves, The team decides to get one more night of rest, but before that, they visit Elysia’s tailor to make them new clothes. They will need to blend in with the Arthurian realm. They don’t take the wings that Azad indicated, and they don’t take their superhero outfits. They’re not entirely unarmed, however. They do have wings, but they’re an upgrade from even Daedalus’ originals. Thanks to Reagan’s mechanical engineering skills, and Jaidia’s background in biology, their wings are now always with them, and hidden.

Microstory 2481: Treasure Hunting Dome

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This is like a cross between a race and a treasure hunt, but multiplied by a thousand. Obviously, if there was only one hunt going on at once, it would immediately become impossible to complete, like a million or more players trying to golf on one course. The surface under this dome has plenty of room, so they take it up. Of course, there are different levels of difficulty, and different lengths. You can choose a hunt that only typically takes a couple of hours, or one that can last for days, or even weeks. Like a real treasure hunt—or one you might find in media—you solve clues, or solve puzzles to get more clues to solve. Like a challenge competition, some of the clues can be earned through otherwise unrelated tasks. You might have to complete a Rubik’s Cube in order to unlock a secret hidden inside, or you might have to figure out how to milk a genetically engineered cow that’s as big as a house before an android will hand you your clue. One of them necessarily leads to the reward, while the other is arbitrary, and could theoretically be anything. This isn’t a criticism, just a clarification that there’s a healthy mix of tasks to complete, and while some of them might seem silly, or make you feel embarrassed, they’re all meant to be fun. It gets even more complex, because you’re sometimes working alone, and sometimes with a team, and sometimes against others, and you don’t always get to choose your team. If multiple people arrive at the same challenge or puzzle, you may be required to work with them, or compete against them. It really just depends. And those other people may be on the same treasure hunt with you, or on an entirely different one, which just so happens to intersect at this same point. You can also select a hunt that involves being on a team already, and even that sometimes goes up in the air, because they may make you compete with each other for individual rewards. They always tell you what you’re meant to do, though, so don’t worry about getting overwhelmed by the rules. They obviously won’t tell you how to complete a given challenge, but they’ll make sure you understand it well enough to at least make an attempt. As I said, there are all sorts of different ways of going about this, and you have the power to choose your own destiny. I’ve run four hunts at this point, and I can recommend all four, but I can’t recommend any hunt that I’ve never been on. No one can. I doubt there’s even time for any given person to try every single variation, because I think they’re intending to retire some to make space for brand new ones. It changes all the time, just like life itself. One final note. There are some out there who believe that there is some sort of overarching plot here, and a secret hunt which will lead to genuine, valuable riches. I don’t know anything about that, but my advice would be to stick with what you’ve been given. You can’t get into this dome without choosing a particular hunt, and they’re gonna keep you on task. Even though you’re expected to figure things out on your own, it’s not a free-for-all, so don’t even try.

Microstory 1781: Triangle Water

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There was originally nothing special about the Bermuda Triangle. There are many explanations for why there seem to be more lost aircraft and oceancraft in the area, and not all of them are supernatural. Yes, some believe it leads to another dimension, while others think that there’s some kind of glitch in the magnetosphere over this spot. Even the more logical explanations aren’t necessary, because the truth is that it mostly comes down to math. Why are there more disappearances in this one region of the sea, as opposed to, say, the middle of the South Pacific Ocean? Simply because there is more travel happening in this area. It’s like asking why there are more deaths in cars that are driving on the road, as opposed to cars that are parked in people’s garages. Well, they’re not moving, so there’s not as much opportunity to suffer an injury. It’s not impossible, but not as common, and not reported as a traffic accident. In the 1950s, sensationalist media began to suggest that there was something different about the Bermuda Triangle, and people began to contrive their conspiracy theories. Once this happened, the Triangle began to distinguish itself. Just the suggestion that it was special was what made it special, and that was what gave it the temporal properties that it otherwise would not have had. To be clear, supernatural disappearances did not start to occur in the 50s. It was still perfectly safe to sail or fly over these waters, and expect no more problems than you might encounter elsewhere. Neither activity is without risk, but that’s true of anywhere. The best thing you can do to protect yourself is to be prepared, and again, this is true of anything. At any rate, you won’t have to worry about an undersea demon rising up to eat you. It’s more that becoming so important to the global consciousness has allowed the natural laws of temporal sciences to exploit it for other purposes.

Time travel is real, and so is immortality, but reaching true immortality is a pretty big chore. It requires obtaining eleven sources of water. Catalyst primes the body to accept them, and Activator binds them together. Each of the sources in between imbues you with a different flavor of non-mortality. Bermuda Triangle water is called Existence. Most of the waters are fairly obvious in regards to their purpose, while Existence is a little more vague—though not quite as vague as Death—at least if all you’ve heard is its name. Youth keeps you young, or even youngifies you, if necessary. Longevity lets you keep going throughout the years. Health cures you of disease, and immunizes you against all future disease. The others are just as apparent when you first hear of them. You can take any of the waters you want, and exclude any you don’t, but once you drink Activator, it’s over. You are permanently at least one kind of immortal, and you can never benefit from any of the ones you missed. Heck, you could theoretically not drink any of the middle nine, and become permanently immune to them. Some choose to ignore Existence, but it is the absolute most important. Time water keeps a time travel event from preventing you from ever reaching your goal of immortality in an alternate reality. Existence is similar, but instead it prevents a time travel event from preventing you from being born in the first place. If you never existed, you can’t become immortal, can you, even if you drank Time in your first timeline? The closer to the center of the Bermuda Triangle, the better, and it only counts for the water found after 1950, but if you did manage to drink it, and then Activate, no one can take it away, even in the past.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 21, 2228

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Many years ago, back in the version of reality where Mateo Matic did not exist, Leona was on her way with a crew to a rogue planet called Durus. There they would find the daughter of Saga Einarsson, and her wife Andromeda. Étude would go on the be the Last Savior of Earth, which meant she was incredibly valuable to the powers that be. So they evidently decided one ship was not enough. A second vessel, called The Emma González was secretly sent behind them, presumably to support the primary team. The Failsafe Vessel never did make it to Durus, and the crew of The Elizabeth Warren were never able to make contact with them again. As it turned out, they were diverted by some mysterious force. Against their will, Captain Kestral McBride and Lieutenant Ishida Caldwell found themselves all the way at Gatewood. There they were charged with maintaining three to four major projects, one of which involved the production of all the facilities the Ansutahan refugees would need to escape their universe, and survive in this one. Apparently, this was in the works long before anyone on the ground knew it would ever be necessary.

Unfortunately, in order to protect the people of Dardius, which he was responsible for, Mateo was forced to destroy the Muster Beacon. When combined with the power of its counterpart, the Muster Lighter, it was causing a flood of duplicates, which were threatening to destroy the solar system. If not stopped, the beacon probably would have continued to add more and more to the population, and wouldn’t even stop once there was literally no more room. Its original creator was never known, with The Weaver assuring them that she would have had nothing to do with it in any reality. There was no on or off switch, and it only ever worked according to a psychic connection it made with its operator. They never had a chance to figure out why it was able to keep going unsustained by this connection, which meant the only solution was to destroy it completely. That appeared to have been enough to stop the onslaught of Freemarketeers, leaving everyone wondering whether they made a huge mistake by not starting out by trying to destroy the Muster Lighter first, since it was a hell of a lot less powerful anyway.

So here Mateo was in a different universe with Ramses, Weaver, and Goswin. They were discussing their options with Mateo’s girlfriend, Serif, their new friends Kestral and Ishida, and newcomer Greer Thorpe. Time was not the same here. Their only hope of solving this problem was to use the lighter by itself, but it featured a far smaller capacity. According to preliminary attempts, it was capable of summon a maximum of eight hundred and sixty-one people at one time. In order to save all eleven billion humans presently living in Ansutah, it was probably going to take them over two years. The good news was that two years wasn’t the worst possible solution, but it all came down to a very special girl, with a very important temporal power.

Many years ago, a woman named Melissa Atterberry went off on a quest to rid herself of her special ability. The reasons she wanted to do this were her own, but she ended up discovering what she was looking for, as did dozens of other people. Long story short, however, some of her friends were in need of getting their powers back, but of course, it wouldn’t be so easy. They began a new quest, and found themselves on a place called Eden island, where their powers were waiting for them. No one there at the time remained long enough to tell the story, but historians were able to piece together fragments of information, which ultimately told them that their plan at least worked in part. Right at the spot where they were standing, a tree grew. This tree bore fruit of different colors; each one containing one of the quester’s powers. To protect the Fruit of Power from falling into the wrong hands, a special order of humans was created. No one would be allowed to live on the island, except for this order. As anyone might expect, this could not last forever.

As the war with the Maramon of Ansutah raged on, a small group of young humans began their own quest. They sought the Fruit of Power, hoping to end the war, and free their people. They were met with no resistance upon reaching Eden Island, for this island was also being used by Serif as the location of the bridge that could transport them all the way back to their home universe. The protectors were simply too busy with trying to figure out how to get everyone through the bridge to worry about the tree anymore. Something went wrong during an attempt to recreate the power of the Muster Twins, and most of the young men and women who partook in the fruits were either lost to the multiverse, or killed. Only Greer remained, having eaten the yellow fruit, which imbued her with Missy’s original power. She was now able to create bubbles, inside of which time would pass at a slower or faster rate. Knowing it would take some time before the bridge made it all the way to Gatewood in the first place, Greer used her new ability to form a bubble around the entire planet. She linked the passage of time to Serif’s pattern, so that only days would pass inside, while the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made its way through interstellar space on the outside.

“Why would you do that?” Weaver was asking Serif. “If you thought Mateo and Leona would be on their way with the Muster Beacon, why would you try to make one of your own, especially before you had even arrived on Gatewood?”

“I wasn’t responsible for that,” Serif explained. “I am not the leader of the Ansutahan humans, as you can imagine, since I only live for one day every year. Bureaucrats decided that, if the Muster Beacon could be invented once, then surely it could be invented again. I would have stopped them had a I been there. Surprisingly, though no one would call what they did successful, they did come damn close. They harnessed the power of the bridge itself, and used it like a vacuum cleaner, sucking everyone on the island into it. Sadly, most of those people disappeared into the bulkverse, but they were onto something.”

“What?” Mateo asked. “You think we can combine the technology of the bridge vacuum, and the Muster Lighter? You think we may be able to get it to work?”

Serif nodded. “If Miss Blue here helps us, yes I think we can.”

“People have been calling me Weaver, in order to distinguish me from the Holly Blue who belongs in this reality. And I’m not sure that would be such a good idea. I mean, this is alien technology we’re talking about here. The Maramon developed as a society completely independently from the rest of humanity. Even the humans here came up with their own technology, and all of it would be totally incompatible with anything I learned to build on Earth. We don’t even know where the Muster Lighter comes from; perhaps even a third universe. You may have this idea that, as an engineer, I can invent pretty much anything on the fly, but that’s not how this works. I’m going to need time, if it’s even possible. There’s also this belief that everything is possible, if the right people have the right tools, but some dogs just don’t hunt.”

“Time I can give you,” Greer said. “In a panic, I created an Atterberry bubble so big that it encompassed the entire planet. That’s what’s keeping us from suffering years of war. But the war is still going on; it just hasn’t been very long yet. I think...” she trailed off, hesitant of her own convictions.

“Go on,” Serif urged her.

“I think I can pop this bubble, and make a new one. I think I can place all Maramon in a bubble where time moves slower, and put all the humans back in real time. Except for Serif and Mateo. I can’t end your salmon patterns.”

“Speaking of people who can end salmon patterns, any word on that?” Mateo asked Weaver.

Weaver shook her head. “I’ve not been able to get the Nexus replica to take me anywhere since we saw Newt hopelessly trapped in that awful suicide vest. I may be able to get to Durus or Earth at some point, but I assume Dardius has been completely cut off from everyone. They’re on their own now, unless someone like Dave or Maqsud goes out there.”

“How did you know how to build the Nexus?” Mateo asked Kestral and Ishida. “How did you know to do anything when you got to this star system?”

The two of them gave each other this look. “The instructions come to us in dreams,” Ishida answered.

“Shared dreams,” Kestral added. “They don’t tell us what to do, but they tell us how to do things, and we decide whether we want to.”

“So we didn’t know why we might need the centrifugal cylinders, or the Nexus, or—”

Kestral interrupted, “the point is we don’t know how the Nexus works. It’s not like a real Nexus, which if what you say is correct, is from a real universe that we could potentially go to. It was just made to look like that, but it utilizes temporal energy from our universe to travel the stars.”

“We’re still not clear why you need a Nexus at your destination. You should be able to teleport anywhere in the observable universe, as long as you have its coordinates.”

Mateo turned back to Weaver. “Maybe you could use that too.”

“What?” Weaver asked. “The Nexus? You want me to combine whatever powers the Nexus, with the Muster Lighter you brought back from Dardius, with whatever crazy Maramon tech sustains the universe bridge?”

“Greer can give you time to study all three of them. Plus, you have at least two other brilliant engineers helping you out.” He gestured to Kestral and Ishida.

“We would be most excited to work with you,” Ishida agreed.

Kestral was excited too. “The cylinders aren’t finished being built, but we don’t have to maintain them manually. The robots do pretty much everything.”

Weaver sighed. “I will see what I can do, but Miss Thorpe will indeed have to change how this temporal bubble works. I’ll need to be able to go back and forth between our universes without getting stuck.”

“Give me an hour,” Greer requested. “Maybe longer.”

“Done,” Serif said, like a leader. “As for Misters Abdulrashid and Montagne, there are other considerations for this venture. While Weaver finds a way to get everyone here, we’ll need you two to figure out the kind of society they’re going to build. I understand you both have experience in government?”

“I do,” Ramses said.

“Yes,” Goswin said.

“Good. Many of the human leaders got themselves sucked into the bridge vacuum. I obviously can’t lead them, since I’m going to disappear at the end of today, after Greer changes the bubble.” She looked around at the group. Most people had something important to do, but Mateo certainly didn’t. “All right. Break!”

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Missy’s Mission: Secret Knowledge (Part II)

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The next morning, Missy and Dar’cy stopped for some coffee, then went on to the library. It was the one of the oldest buildings on the planet. Not only had it survived the original Deathfall back in 2016, but was also a relic from Springfield’s history. It had been updated a few times since it was first built, but not much, and had remained exactly the same since it came here. People didn’t really use the library anymore. Like on Earth, knowledge had become ubiquitous and completely accessible to all residents of the planet. If you needed to know something, you looked it up on your computer. And if it wasn’t somewhere on the network, then it wouldn’t be in the library either. Neither of them grew up with any experience with libraries. They were still around in their more traditional form when Missy was growing up, but they were already on their way to becoming obsolete, and she never personally found use in them.

The librarian was surprised to see them when they walked in, like she hadn’t seen another person in ages. “Hello, welcome to the original branch. How may I help you?”

Missy looked around in paranoia, to check if anyone could hear them, while Dar’cy stepped off and scanned the area more deliberately. “Yes, this might sound strange, but we were hoping to find information on how to...” It was an awkward request.”

“How to...have sex as two women?”

“No,” Missy answered with her own surprise. “I think we could probably figure that out. No, I’m...I’m a paramount, but I don’t want to be.”

“Ooh, I’m sorry,” the librarian said sadly. “There’s no cure.”

“But isn’t there? I came to this planet upon rumors there was some way to get rid of time powers. There’s some...ancient quest, or something?”

“Oh,” she said, suddenly becoming quite serious. “That.”

“So you know what I’m talking about?

“We don’t keep information on that. It’s dangerous, and there’s no real evidence that it has ever worked.”

“Still, I’d at least like to know what to do.”

“You disappear.”

“What?”

“If you try this, you disappear. Everyone has. In all of history, everyone who’s figured out how to start this...quest has gone off, never to be seen again. Are you Earthan?”

“We are,” Dar’cy said, ever ready for a glorious battle.

“You came on that ship. You’re not paramounts. You’re choosing ones.”

“That’s what we call ourselves, yeah. We’ve adapted our language to make others more comfortable.”

“Oh, never do that,” the librarian said, still with that seriousness. “Never apologize for who you are, or hide away, or change for people’s benefit.” She paused in thought. “I cannot, in good conscience, supply any Durune with the tools they would need to try the quest. I also cannot exercise any control over an Earthan. I don’t know how to start the quest, but I know who will.”

“Who’s that?” Dar’cy asked.

“The Librarian,” the librarian answered.

“That’s not you?”

“I am a librarian. I’m talking about The Librarian, of the Secret Library.”

“There’s a secret library? Why is it secret?”

“It’s been here longer than we have. This is the original branch, but the new branch was swallowed up even before the Deathfall.”

Missy was confused. “We were told no one, and no thing, survived those earlier portals. Only a small section survived during that last fall.”

“For the most part, that’s true. But there were exceptions; Purple Rose Lane, the High School, and the Library.”

“And people on this world don’t know about it?”

“A few do. Fewer know how to get there. Even fewer do actually go.”

“The Librarian,” Missy repeated. “That sounds like—”

“A chooser nickname?” the librarian interrupted. “It sure does, doesn’t it?”

“I’m assuming this place is located in some other spatial dimension,” Dar’cy guessed.

The lowercase librarian drew a frown on her face. “Temporal-spatial,” she corrected. “That’s one of the reasons so few people go, and it’s the first reason to not even try the quest. For every hour you spend in the Secret Library, a year passes for everyone outside of it.”

Missy and Dar’cy looked at each other, which was the best way to send telepathic messages. Missy shrugged. “Time ain’t nothin’ but a thang. We don’t belong here anyway. Year outside, hour inside won’t be a problem for us.” The world could change quite a bit in such a short time, from their perspective, but their lives were defined by change.

“All right, then,” the lowercase librarian began as she was turning around and walking away, “follow me.”

She lead them to the card catalogs, which she told them had all been emptied before the Deathfall pulled the town to this world. She opened one of the drawers, took a bobby pin from her hair, and reached deep into it, then she pulled her arm back out. “Yeah, I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you get through this. Not with my arthritis. I don’t suppose either one of you knows how to pick a lock.”

Dar’cy kind of smirked, but in a sad way, but with feigned sadness. “My father taught me, much to my mother’s disapproval. Sometimes an object I need to thread is on the other side of a locked door.” She accepted the pin from the lowercase librarian, and stuck her own arm in the drawer. “Yeah, there’s a hidden lock in here.” Within but a few seconds, she was clearly successful.

The lowercase librarian had casually stepped back away from the catalogs, leaving them to transport to the ceiling of a dark cave alone. Once Dar’cy removed her arm from the drawer, they both fell to floor, slowly and safely.

“Hello?” Missy asked the aether.

“Hello,” someone answered from a nook in the rock.

Dar’cy held her arm out to prevent Missy from getting too close, and cautiously walked towards the voice herself. “Who’s there?”

“My name is Porter. The Constructor, The Weaver, and I collaborated on this place as a refuge for the needy. It is a prototype, however...a proof of concept, as it were. Congratulations, you have been chosen as a beta tester for the program. Here you will find anything you need. If you would like something, within reason, simply request it out loud. We’re not mind readers, you know,” she added with a smirk. “If the program is successful, we will be creating more—more advanced—places like this. Go ahead and try it out. Ask for anything.”

“I would like the cure for time powers,” Missy requested.

“I’m sorry, that item is not in my inventory.”

“I would like to speak with the real Porter,” Dar’cy said.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

Dar’cy stood there for a few seconds, working something out in her head. This was clearly some kind of magical recording, programmed into an avatar. Missy didn’t know anything about it, but Dar’cy seemed to. “I would like a paradox.”

“What?” the Porter’s avatar asked.

“Give me a paradox.”

That seemed to stump her, but why would it? She could easily just give them some canned response about that not being possible, or not in her inventory, which she already had. The question itself seemed to be putting her into some kind of does not compute error mode, like she was having an existential crisis. Her eyes and head were twitching as she was trying to figure this all out. Then she stopped and relaxed. “I am the real Porter.” She stepped out of her nook.

“My mother told me about you.”

“I met her only in a corrupted reality,” Porter said. “How does she remember that?”

“What do you think meditation’s for?”

“What are you doing here?” Porter asked.

“We’re on a quest.” Dar’cy gestured towards Missy. “She’s looking to get rid of her powers.”

“Why?”

“The Cleanser is after her.”

Porter stood up straighter. “You think he won’t kill you if you’re not a chooser anymore?”

“That’s what he said.”

“If you go back in time, to when dictionaries existed, and had pictures, and looked up the word liar, you wouldn’t see a picture of him, because that would be ridiculously specific, but he is a liar. I’m sure you misinterpreted his meaning anyway. Choosers never choose to strip themselves of powers, and the rumor that it’s possible on this world is just that, a rumor. It’s never been verified beyond anecdotal evidence. He’s not planning on letting you live, powers or no. I suggest you turn around.”

“I’m not giving up,” Missy said firmly. “We only came here because we were told it’s the way to the Secret Springfield Library.”

“It can be,” Porter said. “I can provide you with a door, if that’s what you want.”

“That’s what we want,” Dar’cy confirmed.

“Uhhhh, where the hell am I?” Saga’s  voice echoed through the small cave.

Porter smiled, and lightly ushered them towards Saga. “As you wished.” She stepped back into her nook and returned to her blank avatar state.

“Thank you,” Missy said.

The two of them went over to Saga.

“Oh, it’s you two,” Saga said with relief. “How have you been. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Not yet,” Missy replied. “I think it’s there.” She nodded towards the door that had appeared out of nowhere.

“Right, I’m just you’re ride.”

“What year is it for you?” Dar’cy asked.

“Careful. Spoilers.”

She graciously opened the door to the Secret Library, and closed it behind them.

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