Microstory 2782: She Will End Up in Quiratan Too

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The ground is hard and hot under Ersence Tridali’s boots. She didn’t have to go synthesize these for this occasion. She already owned this whole outfit. Ever since her home was destroyed, she’s been prepared to survive in some of the most hostile places. She likes to think of herself and her people as extremophiles, which is all the more impressive because they’re baseline humans, for the most part. The locals, they didn’t want the refugees here, but now they’re all refugees, which she finds poetically just, and incredibly satisfying. They’ve all run away, but the Doma Tertians are sick of running. They were told that they could live here, so that’s exactly what they’re gonna do.

A shuttle flies overhead, and slowly lands several meters away.

“Oh, here we go.” She sighs, which she’s just now realizing she’s been doing on purpose since she returned. She likes the clicking sound her respirator makes.

The hatch peels open and transforms into a ramp. Someone in one of those fancy IMS units comes down. They think they’re better than her because of it. They have all these gadgets and gizmos, but they’re just a waste. All you need is something that isn’t permeable, doesn’t tear, and insulates you from the heat or cold. You don’t need seven layers to make that happen, especially not when one of them is just to read your vitals and make it feel like you’re wearing underwear. The figure approaches and flashes a radio frequency on their chest, extending an invitation for them to talk to each other.

Ersence shakes her head. She grabs the stranger by the shoulders and places her helmet against theirs. “This is how we talk. We don’t need radios.”

“How do you communicate across distances?” a man’s voice questions.

“We like to stay close to one another,” Ersence explains to the idiot.

“This area is unsafe and uninhabitable. Please return to your shuttle and leave.”

“I’m here to survey the land for hospitality,” Ersence explains. “This particular site is too volatile, but some parts are better than others. I’ll find it, and it’s none of your business. We’re not hurting anyone, just leave us alone.”

“It would be morally reprehensible for us to allow you to remain anywhere in what was once Eyrenland,” the man insists. “We must begin installing the heat pumps to expedite the cooling and solidifying process. You cannot be here when that happens.”

“Install whatever you want,” Ersence encourages. “We’ll stay out of your way.”

The man separates their helmets just long enough to shake his head. “The pumps will make this entire landmass impossibly hot while it radiates into space. Even if you had an IMS, you wouldn’t be able to survive on the surface. Nowhere is safe. Please go.”

Man, this guy is not letting up. “Listen, buddy. My people stayed on Doma Tertia even under threat of annihilation from a literal death star. Do you have any idea how hot that world was? We didn’t have a choice but to leave there, but we’re not going to let it happen again. We have become quite accustomed to thriving in harsh environments. Your heat pumps don’t scare us. Leave me alone while I finish my survey.”

When she tries to separate them again, he holds her back. “If you do not leave on your own, history will repeat itself, and you will be forcibly removed. If you were in Gatewood, then you would know that someone is here with teleportation tech. They rescued you once, they can do it again. Even if you got your hands on another shuttle, and came right back here, in seconds, you could be swept up yet again. There is no winning this. I was dispatched to be diplomatic, but this is not our last resort.”

Ersence laughs. “You think we’re not intimately familiar with Sugar Delgado’s ship? It has disappeared from the solar system, probably in an attempt to figure out where those black holes keep coming from. We timed our mission perfectly.”

“The lieutenant, Hidayat; he stayed behind with his own shuttle. He has told us that he will summon you if we ask,” the man claims. “Don’t make him do it. Don’t let yourself be humiliated like that. Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida deals in two currencies: eyren...and reputation. Leave on your own accord. It will be better for you.”

“I don’t like to be threatened,” Ersence tells him.

“It’s not a threat, it is the Bidan way,” he says. “I do have a radio, and I’ll make the call. You have five minutes to pack up your gear, and begin your preflight check.”

“Preflight check,” Ersence echoes. “Preflight check, safety, reputation. You people sure do love to live cautiously. When you’ve been through what we have, you gain a little perspective. You realize how precious life is when you don’t have an extra body to fall back on. You would think someone like me would be safer, but that’s not how the ancestors lived, nor we. Just so you know, we have radios too, which is why I know that the magic shuttle you were talking about is still sitting in the same place it was in that other egg country. I have plenty of time before your threat so much as manifests, especially since you people are so obsessed with your preflight checks.”

Ersence separates their helmets and turns away so she can pack up her things, not because that’s what he wants, but because she has to make another hop to find somewhere better. If they truly are installing heat pumps, that changes the equation. It will determine where she checks next on the search grid. As she’s closing the lid on her ground-penetrating radar, she blinks, and finds herself somewhere entirely different.

Gone is the barren landscape and scattered gas vents. She’s in a grassy prairie on the edge of a town. Next to her is the giant shuttle she was supposed to be worried about. She removes her helmet as a telescopic lift descends from the belly and lands.

Sugar’s lackey, Vantu steps out and approaches. “I was listening to your conversation. I knew you were never gonna give it up. You people never do. You would rather die than admit defeat. It would be admirable if it weren’t so pathetically foolish.”

Ersence scowls, both at the man and the shuttle. “I’m not getting back in that thing, and I’m not going back up into space. None of us is, you can bet on that.”

Van nods. “I’ve been speaking with the locals here. They had a sort of rivalry against Eyrenland. Of course, the latter was orders of magnitude larger and more economically significant, but they had a fundamental difference in philosophies. The Eyrenlanders want to go back to what they were doing, but here. The Quiratani aren’t so enthused. They need warm bodies, not geniuses, so I thought of you!”

She rolls her eyes, choosing not to give him the satisfaction of her taking offense.

Van goes on, “they’ll give you places to live, but since I know you like to be self-sufficient, the abodes don’t come with bells or whistles. Very low tech and low-key. You’ll fit right in, but you have to follow their rules, and their training. Don’t be stubborn and stupid. The reason you went off to try to resettle Eyrenland is because they told you that you couldn’t...like a child. But I know you better than the Bidans, and I know you don’t want anything that belongs to anyone else, so stay here, and build it.”

Some guy walks up to them.

“Ersence Tridali,” Van begins, “allow me to introduce you to Jande Ter Avest.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 10, 2398

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The map was finished when Mateo woke up the next morning. It took him a few minutes to confirm what he was seeing, since he didn’t exactly take any training to use this software. According to this data, there is indeed some kind of access shaft right about where he always suspected there should be. That’s all he can tell about it. He’ll only have to dig a few meters down in order to reach the empty space. It’s too square and perfect to have been made by natural causes. Someone built something down there, and then covered it up. It can’t be anything but The Constant, because that would be too great a coincidence. He’s so excited. This is the first time since coming to this reality that a plan someone on the team came up with to find answers has actually gone well. Furthermore, he’s the one who conceived it, which is just wild considering...

The joy of success wears off quickly when Mateo realizes that there’s a huge problem here. Just because there’s something down there doesn’t mean he can go down and get to it. The Lebanese people won’t—is that what he should call them? Probably not. The people who live in Lebanon, that is, surely won’t care for it, or maybe just not whoever owns this particular acre. Scanning is one thing. It wasn’t hard for him to run the machine over this land without causing a stir. It might even be public land, but that doesn’t mean he can excavate it. Now he’s both literally and figuratively at a crossroads, and he needs help.

Just then, as if she could sense his desire, Leona calls. The quality is loud and clear, but she pretends that it’s shoddy. “Captain. Can you hear me?”

“What?”

“On your left.”

“You’re the Captain.”

She sighs. “I know, which is just one more reason why I should be there, and you should be in this car. Look to your left,” she reiterates.

He looks over to find Heath’s flying carboat coming right for him down Highway 191. “Did you get up to drive in the middle of the night?”

“We flew most of the way,” Heath answers proudly. “That’s why I bought this.”

“I was trying to remain conspicuous,” Mateo complains.

“Inconspicuous, you mean,” Leona teaches.

“I’ve heard it both ways.”

The giant vehicle pulls over into the grass, and parks right next to the location of the ground anomaly. Leona gets out first. “You bought that thing with our shared credit card,” she begins to explain. “That means I had access to the serial number, and therefore the data in the app. Angela happened to be awake early, and noticed what you found. So we took off work, piled in here, and came out to investigate with you.”

“I’m sorry I left without you. I was just worried how Danica would react.”

“It’s fine,” Leona says sincerely. “We’re not mad. We’re all kind of doing our own thing. It’s time for a joint adventure, though.”

“I found what I was looking for, but not necessarily who. My cousin may not even be alive. If this reality suppresses powers, then she died billions of years ago.”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Ramses says with a smirk. He’s walking over the access shaft, arms down at his sides, feeling the air churning under his palms. “Do you feel that?”

“I felt it when I arrived,” Mateo agrees. “It’s become stronger since you showed up.”

“There’s temporal energy here,” Ramses believes. “There may be enough.”

“Enough for what?” Marie questions.

His smirk widens. He closes his eyes to concentrate, locks onto the apparent energy around him, and disappears.

Heath is shocked. “I always believed. I always believed it was all real, but a part of me still experienced doubt.”

Marie takes him by the shoulders, and leads him closer to the shaft. “That’s fair. I’m glad you stuck by me, and you will be too. The first time is always a rush. “She holds on tight, and jumps him down to meet Ramses.

The other three come together, and follow. The lights are on in the elevator, and a little beyond the open doors, but no farther. Ramses is already venturing out, and Marie is smiling at Heath’s look of exhilaration.

“Hey, computer...I’m home,” Mateo says out loud.

“Welcome,” comes the AI’s voice. Lights begin to illuminate for them, but never get too bright, possibly to conserve power.

The team continues down the passageways, splitting off every once in a while to check out rooms to see if there’s anything of note in them. All but Angela meet back up in the main lounge once it becomes rather clear that they’re the only ones down here, and it’s probably been this way for quite a long time. “Computer, report.”

“I’m afraid I do not understand.”

“What happened down here?”

“You arrived seven minutes, thirty-two seconds ago.”

“What happened before we arrived?” Leona clarifies.

“No data available,” the computer answers.

“I’ll look into it more,” Leona tells the group. “There might be answers in the system that the processor doesn’t have direct access too, or even a handwritten note on the refrigerator.”

“This alone is a pretty big answer,” Mateo points out. “Just the fact that it’s here proves that we may have everything we need to get everything we ever wanted. We could leave, not leave, travel back and forth. This gives us possibilities that we didn’t have yesterday, or at least lights us the way.”

“You were right,” Leona admits. “This is real.”

Angela walks in. “So is the med bay. I think we can work with this. Marie, you’re gonna be okay.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 9, 2398

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Mateo is just driving a regular car, rather than the flying carboat—a form factor which definitely needs a new name, or at least that particular vehicle needs its own designation. This car he’s using today is not even Heath’s at all. Ramses and Leona pooled the money they made from their first paychecks at their three jobs, and put a down payment on a second one for the team. It’s an SUV that can fit all six of them, and then some. It just makes practical sense to have two standard forms of transport, even if two members will soon embark on a long-term mission with that third vehicle. Mateo didn’t tell anyone that he was leaving. Well, he leaves every day, usually to go to therapy, or the library, so the real problem is that he didn’t tell them where he was going this time. About halfway into the trip, Ramses evidently experiences a psychic vision, and decides to call him up on the video screen, which is overlaid on the windshield.

“You don’t need to know that,” Mateo replies when asked for his whereabouts.

“Something is wrong, I can feel it.”

“I thought we weren’t empaths anymore,” Mateo says.

“We shouldn’t be, but maybe our powers are slowly coming back. Or you’re drawing nearer to a location of great power, and that’s helping? Where are you?”

“You tell me.”

“If I had to guess? Lebanon.”

“Close. Manhattan.”

“What’s in Manhattan?”

“It’s...on the way to Lebanon.”

“So I’m right. You’re hoping to get into the Constant.”

“I am, yes. It will be harder since it’s not the center of the country in this reality, so they won’t advertise the location, but the Constant was built billions of years ago. There is no reason to believe there’s not a version of it here, and if there is, it’s an hour from my current location.”

“We don’t know where the point of divergence was,” Ramses reasons. “Angela is still researching history. The Constant is a secret place, which could have been moved without anyone knowing.”

“Why would they do that?”

“That, sir, is an unknown unknown.”

“I’m gonna check anyway.”

“What are you looking for, the church above?”

“Why don’t these cars have autopilot?”

“I don’t know,” Ramses says.

They do have some advanced cruise control features, which allows Mateo to participate in a video call, and also reach behind his seat to struggle to lift a box up with one hand. “Can you..can you see that?”

“I see a box. What is it?”

“Ground-penetrating radar.”

“You’re just going to go to where you think the church would be in the main sequence, and search for signs of an access shaft?”

“Bingo was his name-o,” Mateo confirms.

“Why are you doing this? Why aren’t you just waiting until Heath, Marie, and Angela can get their affairs in order? Are you really this anxious for answers?”

He’s not doing it for himself, or even to get his people back home. It’s for Marie. The Constant was designed with all sorts of advanced technology, including medical equipment. They don’t need to trust an outsider if he can make contact with Danica. “If I can find my cousin, she can help us complete Marie’s procedure, and she can do it in such a way that it doesn’t leave evidence, and we know that she won’t rat us out. It’s a far better alternative than Croatia.”

“Why didn’t you tell us, or ask one of us to come with you? Do you even know how to use GPR?”

“I don’t know how to use GPR. It comes with instructions. I didn’t tell anyone, because I don’t want to spook her. She trusts me more than anyone, and I’m more likely to be invited if I’m alone.”

“That’s a stretch,” Ramses contends. “We’ve all been down there too.”

“And you will again one day,” Mateo promises. “Just not today. I’m not going anywhere. I’m just looking for help.”

“Fine. Just be careful, and stay in touch.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Having spent a relatively small amount of time in the Lebanon area in the past, Mateo doesn’t know exactly where he’s going. He sort of has to take for granted the likelihood that the roads at least are the same. He starts in the town proper, then makes his way North, backtracking a little until he figures he has reached the correct crossroads. In the main sequence, the actual center of the U.S. is located in a rough triangle, rather than a four-way intersection, which makes it even harder to guess, but this must be it. It’s just about two miles from town, yeah, it has to be.

He removes the various parts of the radar thing from the box, and begins to assemble it. It takes him a few hours to get through it, at which point he finds himself too hungry to go on with the mission, so he stops to eat some lunch. Then he spends the rest of the sunlit hours scanning the ground, hoping to find any evidence that there’s something below his feet besides more dirt and rocks. He looks for landmarks on the surface too; perhaps an interesting tree, or a boulder. They don’t really have that second thing in Kansas, so it would be very out of place. He’s assuming that this version of Danica opted out of an entrance for normal people, and just teleports herself whenever she needs to, but there might be an emergency exit somewhere too.

The machine isn’t designed to just beep when it finds some kind of anomaly. It sends waves into the ground, which detect impediments along the way. This is how the machine measures density, and estimates composition. A picture of the soil below does begin to form on the data screen, but it’s incomplete until the entire data can be synthesized into a full image. He pretty much has to scan the whole area strip by strip before he can find out whether it’s found anything of note. He’s done with a good chunk of land when the sun sets, so he stuffs the thing back in the back, crawls into the passenger seat, and goes to sleep so the computer can continue its work. He’ll check it in the morning.