Microstory 2590: Quidel Tears Through the Sac and Crawls Out Like a Monotreme

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Quidel tears through the sac and crawls out like a monotreme. He’s all alone, but he’s been through this many times before, and will be able to acclimate to his new body just fine. Of course, in most of those instances, he has had an institution to fall back on if he needed it, but it’s better than the alternative. A few months ago, he saved the “world” from a terrorist attack, almost single-handedly. As reward for his heroism, he was given an egg-shaped crystal trophy. In-universe, this was only symbolic; something to place upon his mantel, and lie about when in the presence of someone who didn’t know that he was a spy. In reality, it was an extra life. Spydome has a bunch of these little rewards scattered throughout the environment. You can’t just find them, though. You have to earn them, and most of the people operating inside of the storyline don’t understand their value. It just looks like a tchotchke.

After solving the secret puzzle by refracting light through the trophy in just the right way, a holographic message appeared on the base, telling him what he now had in his arsenal. It also gave him instructions for how to use it. He emptied the organic starter nanites into a sterile pee sample cup, and mixed it with the other ingredients, which included his own blood. What formed was an actual egg. A human egg. Of course, as a spy, he had safehouses and storage lockers all over the dome, so he chose a remote one to store his egg in a freezer, where it grew on its own from there. It has been sitting here ever since, preserved in its own self-contained stasis field, and kept cool by the freezer, which gathered dust in his absence.

Quidel flicks the interior safety mechanism, and climbs out. “Ugh, gross. I should have stored a shower in here too. This is basically amniotic fluid.” This locker isn’t heated, because that would just make it easier to find, and it wouldn’t help preserve the clone sac. It’s freezing outside, and probably windy. The device. The device is giving off waste heat as the RTG transmits power. He punches in the code to the cabinet, takes out the case, and starts hugging it. It would be better if he had the code unlock the case as well, but that’s probably not super safe anyway. Okay, he’s gathered a little bit of warmth. He only has two sets of clothes here. One of them is a tuxedo, and the other is jeans and a t-shirt. It’s unfortunate, but he’s got to clean himself off, so he uses the tux like a rag. Then he puts on the regular clothes, and hugs the case for a little bit longer.

Okay, he has to leave now. He didn’t store a phone, not because it wasn’t safe, but because he didn’t think he could trust anyone with this location, especially not given its rare contents. And when he came here to stash the device yesterday, he just didn’t think about it. He went into this experience with plans to be a lone wolf, and so far, that has played out as expected. He opens the door, and sticks his head through. The coast is clear. The storage lot is closed right now, because consciousness transference takes so long due to all the safeguards, so they’re not expecting anyone to be in here right now. He didn’t check in, with his alias, or anything. He’s going to have to sneak out, avoiding the cameras, and any guards who might be lurking about. This is what he trained for, though. This kind of thing is precisely why he signed up for Spydome in the first place. It was only his second choice.

He came here in the year 2500, which was when the planet opened up for non-beta exploration. Before this, he spent nearly twenty years in Empty Planet, and then another few months just relaxing in Polar Tropica. He likes adventure, and he likes to relax. After this is done, he still isn’t sure if he wants to switch to Underbelly or the Nordome Network. Maybe Baumrealm. That’s so many years away, though, unless this latest mission ends up cutting his spy life short. Not only does he have no more extra lives, but all of this has become super meta, which the Custodians may not like. This little ragtag team might be making huge problems for the entire system. They might shut them down at any moment.

Holding out hope, he calls upon his lessons, and sneaks over the fence, sticking to the shadows, and making no sound. He’s clutching the device case, still for the warmth, but also because it’s clearly quite valuable. While Quidel didn’t have the foresight to store a burner phone in his locker, he is aware of his surroundings, which means he knows that there is a no-tell motel just down this hill. He walks inside and slaps a hundred dollar bill on the counter. “I need your phone...and your discretion.”

The night manager lifts up the receiver of the corded phone, and punches in a code; one that Quidel recognizes from his training. “Carrier call log has been switched off, but you only have five minutes.”

“I only need one,” Quidel says back in a gravelly voice. God, that’s so cheesy, but back in the 1990s, that’s exactly the kind of thing the hero would say in a spy movie. As the manager is putting on his noise-cancelling headphones, Quidel dials, using his own code to prevent any local tapping. It adds an extremely annoying background screech to the call, but the voice will come through well enough, and it’s better than risking an eavesdropper. When the human Marshal answers, Quidel says, “I’m alive. Meet me at the northern border.” The country in this dome is called Usona, but it’s an analog of more than just the 21st century United States. There are four distinct regions, which also include a series of dome layers that are more like Canada, one series like Australia, and one like New Zealand, which is a bunch of islands. To get to one of these other regions, it doesn’t matter if you take a plane, train, or automobile. You’re gonna end up in an elevator. He really is standing by a border. He doesn’t actually need to get to the Canada-analog, though. Right next to the elevator is a maintenance tunnel that will lead them to Osman, which is this mythology’s analog for Pakistan.

Microstory 1801: Jellyfish Cycle

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I have been around for centuries, but I’ve not been young the entire time, or even most of the time. A few species of jellyfish are capable of something similar, through by different means. They use their genetics to be immortal. I use my soul. Before they can die, they will revert to an earlier stage of development, and begin anew. These creatures have evolved to do this, but the same can’t be said for me, because humans are not like that. The majority of us aren’t, anyway. I belong to a subspecies of humans called voldisil. We did not technically evolve out of the other either, though. You see, there are three genders. Normal people are only conceived by two, but a third can get involved, often without their knowledge. They’ll inject something else into the process. It’s a spiritual experience, which those like me would consider a gift. Back in the early second century, I was created, and unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of meeting my third parent. My mother and father died shortly after I came into the world, when you think about it, because it was only a few decades. I felt like I was able to spend a lot of time with my family back then, but I now realize how precious those moments were, and how I should not have taken them for granted. When I was 36, I contracted malaria, and I assumed that was it for me. There was no cure, no vaccine. It was pretty much a death sentence in my region in that time period. One night, I felt myself drifting away, and had to make peace with the end. I was surprised to find myself waking up the next morning as a toddler. All of my memories were intact, and I was cured. I couldn’t explain it. A new couple adopted me, thinking I was the child of a victim, and not even considering the possibility that I was the patient. They just thought of me as their little miracle.

I continued to go through this cycle lifetime after lifetime. Though, I probably shouldn’t call them lifetimes. I would be older when the transition happened every time, but I was also coming back older. The second time it happened, for instance, I looked more like an eight-year-old. By the fifth cycle, I no longer had to worry about someone trying to take care of me. I appeared to be old enough to handle myself. Each time, I would have to pack up, and move to a new land, so no one would become suspicious. I felt like I was in my early forties the last time I cycled, but that was only sixteen years ago. I’ve not known what it was like to die of age-related causes in a very long time. If I keep this up, I’ll probably only have days to live at a time, and I don’t want that. My soul’s ability to rejuvenate my body was never destined to last forever, and I always knew this about myself. What I needed to do was find some way to make my legacy last. I, of all people, understood what it looked like when someone just faded away. That’s what happens to most, in the end. Barring great fame, perhaps someone’s great great grandchildren will recall stories of their ancestors, but they won’t likely pass these on to their own descendants. I didn’t have any myself, because I didn’t know what their lives would have been like. It wasn’t worth the risk. As I lie here on my bed, prepared to go through this once more, and come back as another middle aged woman, I see now. I see that my third parent must have been in my same position all those years ago. This must be how it works; we pass the torch. I may simply be the latest in a line going back to the dawn of man. My final thoughts are of a newborn baby crying with the others two floors down, who receives my spirit ability, and has no choice but to accept the burden.