Romana was sitting on the floor, hovering over her father, when he woke up.
He turned over to the side, and started to cough. The others were waking up
at the same time, recovering in their own ways. Fortunately, no one was
dead, not even Octavia. A robot was lifting her up, though, and carrying her
away. “She’ll be all right,” Romana assured him. “There’s a medpod in that
room.”
“You’ve been alone all year again?” Mateo asked her.
“I did it on purpose,” Romana explained. “Why would we waste time looking
for this man one year at a time, when I could spend days and days on the
search?”
“Did it work?” Mateo asked.
“It did,” she answered with a sigh. “He doesn’t wanna leave, so I’m hoping
you’ll talk some sense into him. But...I don’t wanna lie to you. Something
happened. I’m not especially proud of it, but even though I was pretending
to be a sixteen-year-old in Underberg, I’m actually much older than that. I
don’t know why Pacey aged me down, but you need to understand that I’m an
adult, and I make my own choices.”
“You slept with him...” Mateo guessed. “With Buddy.”
“He’s very kind to me.”
“I bet he is.”
“That’s not fair. I just told you, I’m an adult. He didn’t trick me. Don’t
take away my agency.”
“I’m not, but Romana, he’s not a good guy. Being nice to you doesn’t absolve
him of his past sins.”
“And what sins are these?” Romana questioned. “How many people has he
killed?”
“That’s not the point.”
How many have you killed?”
Mateo didn’t respond to this.
Romana went on, “you two don’t see eye to eye, and I know he hasn’t been
particularly pleasant to be around, but if you add up all the bad things
he’s done, they’re really not all that bad. In the end, you two are enemies
because you don’t get along. I’m sure before you became a time traveler, you
interacted with plenty of people like that, and it didn’t make you believe
that they didn’t deserve love.”
“Is that true?” Mateo sat up. “Are you in love?”
“No, of course not. I’m just saying...”
“That you’re acting like a rebellious teen,” Mateo interrupted as if that
was what she was gonna say. “Are you sure you’re older than sixteen?”
“You are not my father. You didn’t raise me. Silenus did.”
“That’s comforting.”
She ignored that rude comment. “You don’t get to tell me what to do with my
life. You never have. I know it’s not your fault that you weren’t around,
but you can’t honestly expect me to listen to everything you say as if you
have some kind of control over my choices. I’m being honest with you,
because I don’t want to lie to someone I respect and care about. But don’t
you sit there and belittle me as if I’m nothing more than an extension of
your own personality. I will take you to Boyd, but you are not to harm him.
You are not even allowed to yell at him. I am insisting on that, and I will
keep us on this rock forever if you defy me in this regard.”
“That’s enough!” Leona interjected. “You don’t talk to your father like
that. I don’t care how old you are, or who raised you. Boyd probably has ten
years on you, and that’s assuming he hasn’t used time magicks to reyoungify
himself, or he could be much older.”
“You were fifteen when you met your now-husband!” Romana shouted back.
“And he didn’t have any feelings for me until much later. Don’t turn this
around on us. Boyd—if that’s what we’re calling him—is not good for you,
full stop. When we first encountered him, he insisted that we call him
Buddha. That’s incredibly offensive, and tells you everything you need to
know about him. Just because he may not be as bad as some of the other
antagonists we’ve met, like Zeferino, Arcadia, or even Pacey, doesn’t mean
you made the right choice.”
“You’re friends with Arcadia now. You made friends with nearly everyone
you’ve gone up against. What are we even talking about here? All I’m asking
is that you give him a chance to improve himself, and prove himself;
not just give up on him outright. Forgiveness doesn’t have a quota!”
“All right!” Olimpia interjects this time. “Mateo, Leona, you’re not going
to attack Boyd when we find him. Romana, you may be older than you look, but
you have a long ways to go. This situation is incredibly weird, what with
our experiences in Underberg, and other domes. We can’t trust our own
memories. Some of them are entirely fake, and their associated feelings may
be a little less genuine than they seem. So I think we all need to take a
beat, and focus on what matters. We are not living in a soap opera. We’re
dealing with real problems here, trying to escape some weird, alternate
universe. We can’t do that until we get what we came here for. The
interpersonal relationship drama can wait.”
Mateo, Leona, and Romana quietly conceded. Ramses, Angela, and Marie
silently agreed, having successfully stayed out of the fight.
“Okay,” Olimpia continued, proud of herself, and relieved that her argument
worked. “It won’t take long for Octavia to recover. In the meantime, where
is Boyd? Did he get hurt in the explosion?”
“He’s fine, he wasn’t even here,” Romana answered. “He’s in the Fostean
sector at this point, living on a simulated jarl world.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Mateo said.
“Single-occupancy planet,” Leona explained. “A one-percenter in that culture
will have so much money that they can afford to own an entire celestial
body. They will live there alone, or with their family, supported by a small
army of slaves called Arkeizen. These supposed subhumans will be known as
thralls so long as they are in service to the elite. It’s not a heartwarming
story.”
“Why would he be there?”
“To be clear, the thralls aren’t real slaves,” Romana said. “As I said,
which you obviously already know, it’s a simulation, so they’re just
robots.”
“It’s still gross,” Olimpia said to her. “I gotta admit, that’s a point
against him.”
Romana smirked. “Just wait until you see it, okay?”
“Fine,” Leona decided. “Let’s take a vactrain this time. I don’t want this
happening again, so we’ll stay out of canon as much as possible.”
“It’s not gonna happen again,” Romana contended. “Like the flooding of
Atlantis, the destruction of this planet was canonical. It happened during
the Sixth Shell.”
“Either way, let’s keep it real.” Leona led the way down the corridor.
Octavia was stepping out of the medical bay. She had missed a lot, and
didn’t know where they were going, but she followed them anyway.
They got on the train, and had it deliver them to Jarldome. There were 200
levels here, most of which were 200 meters high, but with the holographic
skies above each one, they felt endless. Boyd was on the topmost level, with
a bunch of slaves. The team expected to find him lounging on a mountain of
pillows, being fawned over and doted upon by these Arkeizen. It didn’t seem
to be that way. The robots made to look like a hominid cousin were milling
about an impressive little town. When they walked through, the Arkeizen
smiled and waved. They didn’t look oppressed or abused. They
were working, however, so no valid conclusion. On the far end of the
main street, they finally found Boyd. A group of people were evidently in
the middle of building a house, and he was helping. He was physically
helping carry a wooden beam, and set it in place.
“Oh! I didn’t see you there. How long have you been watching us?”
“We just arrived,” Romana answered him.
“Well, welcome to Citrus City!” Boyd said. “Would you like the tour?”
“We’d like to get out of here,” Mateo responded.
Boyd frowned. “There’s so much work to do.”
“None of this is real,” Ramses told him. “It’s a simulation. You know that,
right?”
“Of course I am,” Boyd said dismissively. “You think it’s that easy to erase
my memories?”
“Either you’re delusional,” Mateo began. Romana gave him the stink eye, so
he switched tactics. “I mean, if that’s true, then were you aware of our
true histories while you were living in Underberg?”
“I guess not. But I broke out of it. I’m fine. I’m happy, living here,
teaching these people how to fend for themselves.”
“They’re robots,” Ramses added.
“Shh!” Boyd whispered loudly. “They don’t know that.”
Mateo sighed angrily, and looked over at his daughter. “You did this. You
told him to put on this show to make it look like he was freeing a whole
peoples. You think that’s gonna work? You think I’m gonna start liking him
now?”
“Sir,” Boyd jumped in. “Romana came to me two weeks ago. I’ve been working
on this town for months. This isn’t just for show. I know that I have made
mistakes in the past, but I don’t agree with slavery. Jesus. That’s the
point of this dome, you know? It’s a test; will a visitor let their thralls
do what they’ve been indoctrinated to do, or make changes that go against
the history of the Fostean culture from the fictional stories? That’s the
question, will you play into it, or do the right thing, even when it doesn’t
matter? Because like you said, they’re robots.”
Mateo crossed his arms disapprovingly, but didn’t have anything more to say.
Leona pulled the magical technicolored crystal from her bag, and presented
it to Boyd. She jerked it away when he reached for it. “This will place you
on our pattern. Truthfully, Pacey did not reveal whether it was permanent or
not. I believe that you will have less of a chance to get into trouble if
you only exist for one day out of the year, though, so I’m hoping that you
take the risk. I don’t know how long it’s gonna take for us to get back to
where we belong, but I don’t want you running around on your own anymore.”
She glanced over at Romana. “I certainly don’t want you to be doing that
with my daughter. Frolicking on the jarl worlds, freeing slaves together.”
She grimaced, and looked over at the Walton twins. She wasn’t trying to say
that freeing slaves was bad. “You know what I mean.” She went on, “touching
this crystal will go a long way to earning our trust, but it’s not a
cure-all. And either way, it has to be your choice.”
Without hesitation, Boyd took hold of the crystal. The colors swirled around
inside, presumably transferring Leona’s pattern into his qualium realm.
“Thank you for the opportunity. I won’t let you down.”
Suddenly, they heard a noise in the sky. A flying craft of some kind was
headed right for them, so far up in the air that it couldn’t be real. The
holographic image grew larger and larger though until it was as large as it
would be if it were right above the invisible ceiling. Something changed as
the hologram gave way to a tangible object, presumably having been dropped
down through a recess. This real, physical shuttle continued to fly towards
them until it landed right in the street. A bunch of humans with guns filed
out of it.
The leader of the newcomers looked around at the Arkeizen. It was unclear
whether he could tell that they were free, and no longer enslaved thralls.
He zeroed in on Boyd. “Sir, are you okay? Our sensors picked up unauthorized
entry to your planet.”
“They’re friends,” Boyd said. “We need no help here.”
The leader stepped closer so he could lower his voice. “Listen, if you need
help, you don’t have to be afraid of them anymore.”
“I’m not being coerced,” Boyd tried to say. “Everything’s fine. You can go.”
The leader nodded. He walked past Boyd, and as he was adjusting his pants,
got a better look at the community. He turned back around to address Boyd
again. “How are your thralls doin’? You’ve been here a while. Do you need a
top-up?” A top-up of slaves?
“No. My numbers are steady.”
The guy was surprised. “Not one death?”
Boyd shook his head.
“Interesting. “Very interesting. Say, you wouldn’t be...treating them like
people, would you?”
“And if I were, is that against the law?”
The man shrugged. “No, of course not. They’re your thralls, you can do
whatever you want to them. It’s just a little unusual. I’d hate to think
that they were influencing your behavior in some way. You know, we get a bad
batch sometimes. One of them is sick in the head—starts thinkin’ that he’s
special, or valuable—and that can infect the whole group. And
sometimes...their owner gets infected too.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” Marie said. “Suits on!”
Mateo took Octavia in a hug again, and commanded his nanites to wrap
themselves around her. Angela and Marie, meanwhile, started taking out their
anger for their father out on these robo-slavers. They stole their guns from
them, and shot each in the head. The slavers shot back, careful not to hit
Boyd, but not caring about anyone else’s life. The Arkeizen ran and hid
behind various structures while Leona, Ramses, Olimpia, and Romana protected
the stragglers. It was over quickly. All of the bad robots were dead and on
the ground.
“What happens when we leave?” Leona asked after the dust had settled, and
the suits were no longer necessary. “Is another shuttle gonna be triggered
later to come down and try to put a stop to all this antislavery wokeness?”
Boyd chuckled. “This isn’t my first single-occupancy planet. They always
show up as a sort of final test, to see how you’ll react. I’ve always just
talked my way out of it, but I guess this works too.”
“Great,” Leona decided. “Then pack up your shit. It’s time to go.”
