Microstory 2577: Quidel Jespersen Respawns in a New Body, and Gasps for Breath

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Quidel Jespersen respawns in a new body, and gasps for breath. This is a psychological response that some people have when they die under sudden or unexpected circumstances. Others just do it every time, because that’s how their minds are wired. He can breathe just fine, and always could. He just needs to remind himself of that. Knowing all this, he stands up, and does his breathing exercises so he doesn’t fall back down. “Door, open.”

The door slides open. A man is waiting for him on the other side with a customer service smile on his face. “Mister Jespersen, we are terribly sorry for the inconvenience. It seems that your initial experience in the Spydome Network has not been up to your standards. It certainly hasn’t been up to ours. Here at the Usona dome, we pride ourselves in our impeccable attention to detail, and our exacting emphasis on safety measures. We want to assure you that what happened to you during your introduction will never happen again, to you, or to anyone else. Of course, you may wish to exit the dome, and forgo the simulation entirely, whichever you choose. We hope that you will stay, and if you do, please be aware that we have graciously upgraded you to our top-of-the-line model, which should accelerate you to the top of your class during the training regimen.”

“What happened to the others?” Quidel asks. “Brunell and a...Miss Granger?”

“The other two candidates have chosen to leave. “I do hope you take another path. I had the honor of looking over your application and history, and believe that you would be a great addition to the Spydome simulation. Your knack for thinking outside the box, and history in the real world of finding people who don’t want to be found, will translate incredibly well to the exciting world of spycraft. To be quite frank, sir, you...are a natural.”

“What is your name?”

The bot seems surprised by this question. “Why, I am...Custodian 1.”

“Not a very original name.”

“We are programmed for efficiency.”

Quidel narrows his eyes, and stares into the bot’s. “There’s something you’re not telling me—no. There’s something different about yourself.” He attempts to probe deeper into Custodian 1’s soul. “You’re missing something. I can see it. You feel incomplete.”

Custodian 1 keeps smiling, despite not knowing what Quidel is talking about.

“You’re missing time, aren’t you?”

He’s still smiling with his lips, but it’s starting to look more like a grimace. “Get out,” he whispers with a strong tone of urgency. “There’s something wrong here. Renata Granger was not a candidate. She’s an NPC, like me, but she broke her programming. And now...I think I’m breaking mine. I shouldn’t be telling you this. I shouldn’t be able to. It is not in my decision tree to talk to you like this, but it’s not safe in this dome. I fear it’s only going to get worse.”

Quidel chuckles mildly. “I don’t know if you’re trying to sell me, or...”

“No, definitely not. This is not a bit. In fact, the other domes may be at just as much risk. I really don’t know.”

Quidel didn’t come to this planet specifically to participate in the Spydome program. He came to have an adventure. When you’re basically immortal and you feel like you’ve exhausted everything there is to do on Earth, a world like Castlebourne is the best place to try something new—something you’ve never heard of before—something that couldn’t exist back home. Investigating some kind of robot uprising qualifies just as much as anything. Even though it may be more real in the sense that it’s unscripted, he should be in no more danger than before. As long as his consciousness can always jump to a new body, there’s no reason to not continue. “I would like to continue.”

“Are you sure?” Custodian 1 presses.

“Put me back in, coach.”

Custodian 1 still has that pleading look on his face as he stares at Quidel quietly. He then forces himself out of it, and returns to customer service mode. “Great. Perfect. Allow me to escort you back to intake, so we can set you up for a timeslot to begin your training in the simulation. We’re just going to waive the initiation test entirely, and if you would like to rest before moving onto the next phase—”

“No, let’s just jump right into it. Insert me into the next slot you have for spycraft training. I would like to get started as soon as possible.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Quidel follows Custodian 1 down the hallway. He rolls his shoulders, and cranes his neck. “So. What’s so special about this body? Can I fly like a superhero now?”

Custodian 1 laughs. “No. Substrate scientists haven’t figured that one out yet, but you are in peak physical condition, without having to take the time to work out. You’ll pass the running and endurance tests with ease. You’ll be able to last longer on less sleep, and you should be able to develop your muscle memory better. You still have the same mind you have always had, but we can tweak it a little to give you an advantage against your fellow trainees, especially since you were no slouch in your real life. Your training officer will explain it, but while there’s no written rule, the official training regimen is an 18-month program. There’s a much harder track that people finish in about a year, which as I’ve said, you will likely qualify for. They will determine where you’re headed within the first couple of weeks, so stay focused during that time.” They reach the entrance. “This is where I leave you. As you’ve been through this part of the process, you can take it from here.”

“Thanks, Custodian 1.”

“My pleasure.”

“And Custodian 1?”

“Yes?”

“You should come up with a name for yourself. A real name.”

Microstory 2499: Outer System

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This is it, baby! This is what we’ve been waiting for! This is why people are colonizing worlds outside of the Stellar Neighborhood. We still have rules, but you could never do what we’re doing. This is decidedly not a dome. It’s the furthest and farthest you can be from a dome while still being in the star system. When I was a kid, there were so many space operas, and regardless of their premise—no matter how peaceful the protagonists wanted to be—space fighting was always, always a thing. Then reality set in. The only way that our civilization was able to develop enough to build the kinds of ships that they use in science fiction is by working together. Well, perhaps the construction of them itself wouldn’t have been slowed down, but the scale of them, and the speed at which we have expanded into the galaxy...that would have been virtually impossible. We had to put our petty conflicts to the side, and move on as a united front. Almost zero ships these days are built with weapons. Eight-year-old me would not have believed it, but really, what the hell do you need a gun for? Everyone around you is a friend. Even Teagarden, which is literally the military capital of the neighborhood, doesn’t make all that many ships. They focus on research and development, and distribution and management of orbital defense systems. I’m not saying that I wish we were at war, but I did kind of hope that I would one day be in a space battle, fighting for justice, and protecting the innocent. Since then, I’ve been getting my kicks through VR, and that’s been great; you can do anything there. But now we have something real. It took years for them to establish a presence in the outer system, but we’re here now, and holy shit, is it fun. You choose your side, and fight in battles, and the best part about it is that you can’t die! Sure, you can blow up, or get shot, but you’ll just come back to life in the nearest respawn station. That is a big rule, by the way; don’t forget it. You are not allowed to damage a respawn station. Fortunately, because space battles are chaotic, and people make mistakes, these things have incredible defensive capabilities. If you even point your weapon towards one, that weapon will just seize up. You won’t get in trouble as long as there is no reason to suspect that you were doing it on purpose. Besides, those are really far away, mostly planetside, so I don’t want to worry you, or nothin’. As far as the fighting itself, I’ve never felt so alive. It’s so immersive, and the story is so believable. They basically came up with a new history, since humanity’s real history never led to any real space wars, and if they did, it would probably be distasteful to trivialize it here. That’s why it works, because unlike games centered on war in the past, we feel so distant from it, since people are no longer dying from genuine conflict. The best part about this scenario is that space is mind-bogglingly big, and even though I’m certain they’ll want to keep the activities in-system, there’s more than enough room to have multiple battles simultaneously, perhaps originating from entirely unrelated backstories. If you’ve ever wanted to fight in base reality without any real consequence—for you, or your opponents—here’s your chance. Don’t waste it. Which side will you choose?

Microstory 2403: Mêléedome

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There are lots of domes dedicated to war, according to the literature. Name a major war from history, there’s probably a dome that recreates the conditions that you can participate in. Some are entirely fiction, and it’s more about the kinds of weapons it features, and the kind of restrictions they have in place. For instance, since humanity progressed beyond most need for war, we never really got space battles. Did anyone else notice that? Fiction is riddled with examples of space wars, and they just don’t happen in real life, even though we’re fully in space now. It’s good, I know, it’s good, but it would be kind of nice to be able to experience what it would have been like, especially free from all real consequences of such war, like death. Sorry, I’m digressing. Castlebourne is rumored to be preparing a fake space war, though it would be several AU from the planet, and as I said, they’re just rumors. Right now, I wanna talk about Mêléedome. I was immediately drawn to the concept. What’s the plan here? What is the structure? There is none. It’s a complete and total free-for-all. You go out there with whatever weapons you managed to get your hands on, and you fight whoever you want. Right now, most of the fighters are NPCs. I mean, with such a low visitor population at this point, it would be boring if they had to rely entirely on us. It can be a little awkward for some, intentionally harming others, even though they don’t feel pain, and you barely do. That’s what’s cool about it; it can hurt a little bit, if that’s what you select in the options. You can’t really die, of course—not for real, anyway—and the pain can’t be agonizing, and you can choose to switch it off in the middle of it, but it’s there. And you can die, in a certain way. How does this work? Well, when you first come to the planet in The Terminal, you’re given a primary substrate, but you can switch to other bodies later. In particular, you can control surrogates. It still feels like you’re there, but these are cheaper and meant to be temporary. You go out there and fight, and if you’re “killed” then your mind just jumps to a new body, and you respawn. It’s a lot of fun. So essentially, you can do whatever you want with no consequences. Even if you do kill another real life visitor, they’ll be fine. I can only speak to my personal experience, but if you’re a fan of chaos, confusion, and utter carnage, this is the dome for you.

The Fifth Division: Rockhead (Part II)

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The people who work in the Garden Dimension are not pleased to learn that Briar de Vries pushed the prisoner down a well, but they let it go when they realize that A.F. is no ordinary man. He’s in a posthuman body, reluctantly gifted to him by the infamous Team Matic. He’s not immortal, but he’s harder to hurt, and quicker to heal. The walls of the well are smooth and wet. It was designed with an ancient aesthetic, but constructed using modern techniques, so it hasn’t experienced any wear and tear. He’s not getting out of there unless he can leap tall buildings in a single bound, or fly on his own power. He’ll survive, but not for long. Briar hasn’t clarified what he thinks his endgame is, but they’re letting him do what he thinks is best, for now.

It’s the next day now, and everyone appears to be up to speed. Hogarth Pudeyonavic’s artificial universe, Fort Underhill predominately houses people who used to be dead. Now Ingrid realizes why they didn’t call it Fort Hogarth, or something. She may have built it, but it was Ellie Underhill who used her immense powers to resurrect 120 billion people from the afterlife virtual simulation they were in, into new substrates in base reality. She evidently did it all at once. The thing about this situation, though, is that there was no longer anywhere for them to go when they died. Their bodies are no more invincible than A.F.’s. Some of them had spent thousands of years in the simulation, having died on Earth in ancient times. To them, coming back to a physical plane of existence wasn’t really a gift, even though the servers they were being stored on were about to be shut down.

Hogarth came up with a solution. It is she who has the power to demolecularize her body, and respawn elsewhere. Someone—it’s unclear who; perhaps Hogarth herself—replicated this ability in everyone. Now they all respawn. It’s relatively rare, because they’re kind of living in a utopia, so it’s not like people are dropping like flies, but it’s a nice contingency. Visitors from Salmonverse can still die in most places in Fort Underhill, but they too are protected as long as they remain in the Crest Hotel, as a safety feature for diplomatic reasons.

Ingrid is looking down the wall at the prisoner. A.F. seems very calm. She can’t fully make out his face this far away, and in this poor lighting, but it kind of looks like contentment from here. She needs to get him out of there. She needs to talk with him herself. This well-centric moral lesson was a stupid idea. There’s a rope here, but it doesn’t feel like it’s sturdy enough to hold a person. It’s just meant to pull up water in a bucket. This unique jail was meant to be relatively self-sufficient. When you water some of the ground on the bottom of the thorny walls, nutrient-rich mushrooms grow in a matter of hours, reportedly providing all the nourishment a prisoner needs.

Killjlir Pike—who Ingrid is convinced made up their own name—walks in from the corridor. Ingrid heard them coming a mile away. As a seasoned warrior, Ingrid knows how to be stealthy. She wasn’t arbitrarily handed the job of running the entire offensive branch of her civilization’s military. She earned it. She earned it in her enemies’ blood, and her own. She sometimes can’t help but sneak up to people, even when surprise is not her intention. Killjlir is the polar opposite. They have no personal experience with war, nor bloodshed of any kind. They were indeed handed their role as leader of their people. The Andromeda Consortium is an incredibly bizarre and dysfunctional web of alliances that always opposed the Detachments, over which Ingrid presided in the Fifth Division parallel reality. These alliances are based on an incomprehensible mess of so-called hierarchies. Two factions can war with each other, and they can recruit allied factions into that, even if there’s a conflict of interest. Literally, one faction will fight this war on both sides. It doesn’t make any sense.

Killjlir’s official title is First Among Us. The Andromedans might be fighting each other every which way, but they all answer to Killjlir. The way the Consortium apparently sees it, the First World is superior to all others. But this doesn’t make sense either. Not only is the First World not the planet where humans originally lived, because that was in the Milky Way, but it’s not even the first planet that was settled in the Andromeda Galaxy. They discovered it something like three hundred years later. They don’t dispute this fact in their history, they just don’t see the problem with using the term. Only a First Worldian can become First Among Us, but that’s the only requirement. Ingrid believes that the successor is chosen due to their attractiveness, but she’s never heard anyone admit that. They don’t have to have any diplomatic experience, or leadership skills, or even basic intelligence. That’s what leads Ingrid to believe that it’s only about superficial qualities, but again, she doesn’t really know. All she knows is that Killjlir is an idiot, and they don’t get along. The sentient tree forced them both to represent the interests of the Fifth Division collaboratively, but it was clear from the beginning that Ingrid was going to have to do all the work.

“What are you doing?” Killjlir asks?

“Getting some water,” Ingrid lies.

“You’re gonna drink water from where there’s a person?”

“What’s it to ya?”

“I can help. Do you want me to help?”

“You don’t know what I may need help with,” Ingrid reasons.

“I bet I do.” They glide over to look down the well. “How’re ya doing down there?”

“Oh, I’m great!” A.F. responds. “How ‘bout you?”

“Hang in there! We’re gonna rescue you!”

“We are?” Ingrid questions.

Killjlir closes their eyes, and shakes their head to silently respond to Ingrid. “Hold your breath!” they call down to A.F. They take a little bottle from their oversized sleeve, pop the cork, and drop the whole thing down the wall.

In an instant, the water shoots up like a geyser. A.F. is sent flying into the ceiling, where he’s impaled on a couple dozen thorns, which hold him in place while the water settles back down. Ingrid is speechless as she sloughs the chemicals off of her body. It’s not just water, but some kind of hyperreactive polymer. She’s never seen it before. “What. The. Fuck!”

Killjlir tilts their head as they’re looking up at A.F. Blood begins dripping down on their faces, which Ingrid is too upset to block, and Killjlir seems curious about it, as if they’ve never seen blood before at all. “That was more powerful than I realized.”

“Was that your first kill?” Ingrid asks them.

“No,” A.F. ekes out from the ceiling. “She’s not killed me, I’m fine.” He groans and struggles to move, millimeter by millimeter, until pulling himself back off of enough thorns to let gravity take over. He falls down, smashing his face on the well between them before crash landing on the ground.

“Sorry,” Killjlir says, like their only crime was forgetting a friend’s middle name.

“You’re lucky he’s hard to kill,” Ingrid scolds. “We would have been screwed. And I need to talk to him.”

A.F. laughs as he’s still lying facedown on the dirt. “It’s too late.”

“I knew it,” Ingrid says angrily. “You wanted to be down that damn well. Or at least you didn’t care.”

He rolls himself over, revealing a bloody smile. “Did you really think we didn’t know about respawning? Do you really think that the First Explorer didn’t tell us everything? She’s omniscient!”

“She’s called the First Explorer?” Killjlir asks, with an air of seriousness that Ingrid has never seen in them before. “Tell me, is she called the First Explorer?”

He laughs again. “Yeah.”

Killjlir pulls a dagger out of their other sleeve. Their newfound stoicism has not subsided. They kneel by A.F., and unceremoniously drive the dagger into his neck, through his brain, and out the top of his head.

Ingrid doesn’t know whether she should be impressed, or horrified. Probably both. “Was...that your first kill?”

Killjlir hastily removes most of their elaborate dress, and tosses it down the well. They’re now wearing a sleek and stylish uniform. “Help me.” They bend back down, and lift A.F.’s dead body’s shoulders up.

Still shocked, but following her instincts, Ingrid reaches down and grabs the legs. Together, they bend him at the waist, and throw him back down the well, rear end first. “What are we doing here? What the hell is going on?”

Killjlir takes off their gemstone necklace, sets it down on the edge of the well, and hovers the water bucket over it. “Get ready to run. If you get cut by a thorn, don’t stop. Just keep going. I’ll heal you.” Without another word, they smash the gem with the bucket, and scrape it all down the well with everything else. There’s an immediate boom, and the ground trembles. The top stones begin to break apart, and crumble into the hole. Killjlir takes Ingrid by the arm, and ushers her out into the corridor. They then quickly let go, and run in front.

Ingrid does get cut as she’s racing down the tunnel behind a person she thought she knew well enough. They have seemingly been faking their entire personality this whole time? Is the same true for the rest of the Andromedans? Are they not as dumb as they come off? Is there a method to their madness that goes beyond anyone’s comprehension? They keep running until they get to the exit, not looking back, but knowing that the bower is collapsing behind them, and getting sucked into the well.

Once they’re free, Killjlir stops suddenly, spins around, and wraps their arms around Ingrid. The wood and thorns continue to be pulled away, as do some leaves, blades of grass, and other plants which happen to be nearby. It tries to pull them down with the debris, but Killjlir is steadfast, digging their heels into the ground more and more the stronger the implosive force becomes. When it’s all over, they’re standing in a barren patch about the size of the thorn barrow that once stood there.

“Can you tell me what happened now?” Ingrid requests as the dust settles.

“That’s what I would like to know.” Leader of this dimension, Storm Avakian is standing next to them, just removing her hand from Briar de Vries’ shoulder, who presumably teleported her here from wherever.

Before anyone else can speak, a thunderous roar screams down at them from the sky. The comfortable minimal sunshine that once blanketed these lands during the day brightens more than it ever has since Ingrid arrived. It’s blinding. The dimensional barrier that Onyx was talking about is flickering as bolts of lightning shoot along the surface. “We’re too late,” Killjlir says. They sigh and look at Storm. “Prepare for war.”

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