Microstory 2762: Emergency Exit

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Once the deed is done, Miracle flies back over to the boat and lands on the deck. She sways her head side to side as her angel wings tuck back into her body like they presumably would for a real angel. She smiles at the group, particularly Laise.

“You upgraded,” Laise points out. “The wings are organic now.”

“They’re carbon-based, but they’re not organic,” Miracle explains. “They’re not from Daedalus, I don’t know why I was ever limiting myself to his antiquated work in the first place. I’m still getting used to the nanites. What did I miss?”

“How did you get here?” Rage asks. “You said we were in another dimension.”

“We are,” Miracle confirms. “Did you think Hrockas was the only one with the ability to traverse dimensional barriers? There’s really no way to lock the door on a parallel. That’s what pocket dimensions are for. Now, of course, he could always show up and kick me out, which I’m guessing he’ll do here in the next few minutes.”

A scary man wearing battle armor magically appears behind Miracle.

“He’s right behind me, isn’t it?” Miracle jokes. She smirks, and doesn’t turn around. “It’s nice to see you again, Dominus. Are you here to kill me?”

“Not yet,” the man replies. He brushes past Miracle and approaches the rest of the group. “Good morrow, folks. My name is Azad Petit of the Castlebourne Charter Contingency. As we are in peacetime, I currently operate under Mr. Steward directly.”

“Yeah, as his lackey,” Miracle points out, rolling her eyes.

Azad smirks much in the same way she did, but still doesn’t face her. He continues facing the group. “You have all survived a great deal, and I commend you on the current state of your success. Your friend is right, she will not be allowed to continue on this journey. She didn’t earn it. She failed one of the obstacles, and should not even have any memory of this, let alone the means of reëntering the program. So I will be pulling her out.

“I’m giving you this one opportunity to join her. If you leave as well, your respective mind streams will be reactivated, and you will move on with your lives at least with the memories of what has happened thus far. Of course, it will disqualify you from attaining whatever prize does or does not exist at the end of this hunt, but at least you won’t risk consciousness discontinuity.”

“She obviously didn’t suffer from discontinuity,” Elise points out.

Azad nods. “Miss Brighton does not store her consciousness, or her backups, in base reality, but in another dimension, much like this one. That will not work for you.”

“Thanks for speaking for me,” Miracle lambasts. “I’m just a girl in the world.”

Azad smirks again, and finally turns his head to face her. “Go wait in the car.”

Miracle rolls her eyes again.

Azad sighs. “We fought the Ochivari together. I respect the hell out of you. But these people deserve to win or lose on their own, not to have you cheat for them.”

“I won’t cheat,” Miracle insists.

“What’s behind your back?” Azad asks.

“Oh, these ol’ things? If you want, I’ll keep them tucked away the whole time.”

“Not good enough,” Azad reasons. “You can’t be trusted.”

“You just said you respected me,” Miracle argues. “It’s not exactly a contradiction, but it doesn’t make much sense either. I made one mistake, I’m back, deal with it.”

Azad tilts his head for a moment. He then steps back so he can address the whole group. “All right, Hrockas says you can stay, but you have to transfer into a substrate of his choosing. Before you ask, you won’t look like this anymore. He believes you have been coasting on Romana Nieman’s good will, walking around with her face. It’s time you look like someone unique, and you don’t get any input on what it looks like.”

Miracle contemplates the offer, then tries to respond, but gets cut off.

“Oh, and someone has to exit the hunt,” Azad adds. “A life for a life.”

“I’ll do it,” Laise says, so quickly that Elise wonders if she could see the future.

“You don’t have to do that for me.” It sounds like Miracle is being sincere.

“I want to quit,” Laise decides. “I suspected you might say something like that, Dominus, so I waited to speak up. I’ve been thinking a lot about my continuity. I don’t want a version of me to move on not knowing what I know. I did things I never thought I would, even in a simulation. Sure, I’ll be missing out on whatever comes next, and this fabled prize, but now I know what I’m capable of. Now maybe I’ll stop spending all of my time in historical domes, and actually have an adventure or two.”

Miracle notices Azad frowning. “You thought no one would take you up on the offer. You thought I wouldn’t have a shot, so you wouldn’t have to break any rules.”

“I admit that,” Azad acknowledges, “but we are following rules. We’re just changing them a little.” He turns to Laise. “Hrockas accepts the deal. Take my hand.”

“Wait!” Colley reaches out in an obvious request for a hug from Laise, which Laise gladly takes. Elise thinks that she’s the only one close enough to hear him whisper, “if I die, find me and tell me that my shoes in Elizabeth Victoria were anachronistic. I’ll know what it means.” He then kisses her on the check, right by her ear.

Laise kisses back, then lets go. She takes Azad’s hand, as Miracle takes the other.

Azad looks at the remaining six hunters. “I don’t think it’s cheating to tell you that you’re clearly expected to sail somewhere. I won’t tell you where, but I will say that the south is beautiful this time of year. It’s so relaxing. In a couple of hours, a stranger will appear. That will be Miracle in a new body. I’ll let her explain why.”

They disappear. Elise would very much love to know how they do that.

After a reverent moment, Rage claps her hands. “Okay, let’s figure out how to point this thing south and sail so we can search for our next clue.”

“No,” Minotaur counters. “We need to head north.”

“That’s not what the man said,” Rage contends. “You think he was lying?”

“He didn’t tell us to go south,” Minotaur reasons. “He told us that south was relaxing. We don’t want relaxing; we’re on an adventure. We want danger.”

“They have a point,” Zelda agrees. “Mentioning the wrong direction allows him to nudge us towards the right one without technically giving anything away.”

“Trust me on this,” Minotaur says to Rage. “I have experience with misdirection.”

“We vote,” Rage decides. “Raise your hands for Minotaur’s plan to go north.”

Everyone raises their hand, including Rage herself.

A few hours later, Miracle does return with a new face. The boat has not yet moved. Still none of them knows how to sail, so they need to study the vessel first. They would love a manual to read, but it’s safer to remain stationary until they have a better understanding of what they’re dealing with. At a certain point, however, they need practice, so they raise anchor, and head off. It certainly isn’t relaxing.

Microstory 2760: Heave Ho

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The way Laise described the traditional means of lifting a sunken ship sounded exhausting and time-consuming. Their ancestors would have sunken barrels and tied them to the bottom. To make them buoyant, they would push buckets down and transfer air pockets little by little until the last barrel was enough to lift the boat. They didn’t have time for that. They had no freshwater, and as it turns out, no food. The barrels weren’t airtight. Each had a hole on the side, presumably to let air through, but when the boat sank, they all flooded with seawater. Most of the fruit had spoiled before they even showed up. The coconuts were okay. They floated on their own, so once that barrel was opened, they were easy pickings. That was what they ate during their break periods.

The first thing they did was rip all of the heavy metal and other unnecessary pieces off of the vessel. They pushed them over the side, and let them drop down to the shelf that the boat was on. This made it as light as it could possibly be.

After clearing the spoiled fruit mush, they tied ropes around the barrels one at a time, and created a makeshift pulley system around the bulwark and other parts. Then they stood on the crow’s nest and pulled the barrel up. Once it was on the surface and full of air, they closed it back up and plugged the bunghole securely. Now they had to reverse the process, which was even harder. The air-filled barrel wanted to float, so five of them had to stand on—or even hang off of—the crow’s nest. That was as many as they could fit before they ran out of leverage. The sixth person freedove down with the barrel, and held it in place so it didn’t wobble around like a watermelon.

While the pullers tied off the rope to hold it in place, the freediver came back up to recapture air for themselves. Then they would go back down with the seventh person to tie the barrel to the bulwark, and untie the original rope. Each barrel took about an hour, factoring in break times and errors. They were so tired, blistered, achey, hungry even with the coconuts, and absolutely thirsty. Rain would make their job harder, but it would at least give them something to drink to survive another day. They were able to learn from their mistakes and get into a good rhythm, but they were also losing energy with each one, so they never ultimately sped up the process. It took them two days to get through the lifting phase, but man was it worth it. As soon as that sixteenth barrel was in place, before the pulley rope could even be removed, the boat let go of the shelf, and rose. The people who were on the crow’s nest all jumped off to make it that much lighter, and watched the mast fly up above them. It was  glorious to behold.

Now the boat is close enough to the surface to stand without drowning. It’s still totally filled with water, but bailing it out will be the easy part. At least they think it will. They obviously start with the wet deck, which is the most appropriate term for it today. They think it’s going pretty well. Some water is splashing back in since the surface is so close to the railing, but it seems to be working. Then they realize their mistake. The boat didn’t simply sink on its own. There must be damage. Sure enough, when they swim down to a small storage room, they find the hole. It’s not particularly big, but it has to be patched first. That isn’t even their biggest problem, though. They’re about to tip.

“Three people on starboard side and three people to port side!” Rage orders.

Five of them run to one while Elise is alone on the other. Rage stays in the center.

Rage points. “That’s starboard, and that’s port. Minotaur, Zelda, join Elise. Okay. The water is out but the boat is unstable. Does anyone have any idea why?”

Jolanda raises her hand. “I don’t have any sailing experience, but I’ve been on more than one boat. One thing they all have in common is this thing called a ballast. You don’t actually want it to be super light, unless it’s a speedboat or jetski. You want some weight to keep it in the water so you don’t tip over. Modern boats use water itself. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe in the olden times, they used metal.”

Rage looks over at the water. “We just sank our metal to make it lighter.”

“I did not want to do a seventeenth barrel,” Minotaur contends. “Dumping our heaviest stuff was the right call. We just need to bring some of it back up. I wouldn’t mind having some chains anyway. Chains come in handy in mazes all the time.”

“Well, I’m glad we dumped everything onto the shelf, instead of the depths.” Rage sighs and centers herself. “Okay. We did this once, we can do it again. Zelda, Colley, please stay on the boat on opposite sides to maintain balance. Hopefully that will be enough. The rest of us need to get in the water so we don’t literally rock the boat.”

“Our pulley rope has been through quite a bit by now,” Laise says. “I don’t think it’s gonna make it. It might snap. We need to use a different rope.”

“We don’t have more rope,” Rage points out. “We’ve already snapped two.”

Elise looks up. “Take it from the sail. It’s long enough that we can double up and distribute the stress. Then we’ll put it back up where it belongs.”

“So many concessions and compromises,” Rage laments. “Very well. Do it.”

So they add another phase to the work even though they thought they were done. They pull up the bars and grates, but they leave the cannons. Their combined strength isn’t enough to make that happen, and the rope probably isn’t strong enough either. They’re into their third day before they feel like they’re ready to learn the ropes, so to speak. Laise knows some history of sailing, as does Colley, but none of them knows how to sail. They spend the rest of the day trying to figure it out methodically. They still don’t have any regular water, but they’ve been drinking coconut water, and it won’t matter how long it takes to find land if they sink or crash before they even get there. It’s smarter to take their time, and do this right. Everyone is drained, but they’re not stopping.

“We don’t even know where we’re meant to go,” Minotaur reasons. “I’m not used to that. I mean, of course I’m used to being lost, but I always have something to orient myself. This dome has a diameter of 3,300 kilometers, and we could be in the very center of it. Sure, if we sail in one direction, we’ll eventually hit the wall, but that’s assuming we don’t die of thirst, starvation, or exposure before then. Everything else is ocean or an island, and those are notoriously hard to target, even with a map.”

“I have a map.” Jolanda is climbing up from below deck holding a piece of paper.

Colley doesn’t have to ask, she hands it to him. He examines it a little before looking up at the sky. “We’re gonna need to orient ourselves again. For that, we need the stars back.” He returns to the map. “Narratively, I know where this thing set sail, and I know where it’s going, but it may have gotten knocked off course. Even if it didn’t, I have no idea how far the original crew supposedly made it before they sank.”

“Rest up,” Rage instructs. “We set sail tonight. Once again, I hope it rains.”

It doesn’t rain, but that night, they are given an opportunity to find out what happened to the original crew when their ghosts appear. Or they’re zombies, or something else like that, because they can make physical contact with the living. That’s exactly what they do by attacking too, because as one might expect, they were pirates.

Microstory 2334: Earth, January 22, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

I beamed your contact card to dad, and he said that he’s going to write to you as soon as possible. Take that with a grain of salt, because his definition of possible might be different than yours. I would say, give it a couple of weeks, and then maybe just give up. I could talk to him again, if you wanted, but he’s really nervous. He doesn’t know if you forgive him, or hate him, or what. I have not told him anything about you. I told him that you and I were in contact now, and demanded he explain his involvement in our separation thirty-six years ago. I didn’t say anything about your job, or what your life is like on Vacuus. I did divulge that his wife, your mother, was dead. I felt like he had a right to know that, regardless of how at fault he is. Anyway, I hope that whatever happens between the two of you, it doesn’t negatively impact our relationship. I think he may be partially worried about that too. I want you to know that I won’t let him ruin our new sibling connection, and I would hope that you don’t let whatever he does or says—or doesn’t do or say—stop you from wanting to converse with me. Okay, I think I’m done with all this negativity now. You inspired me today. I actually don’t have much idea of how the platform can move from one part of the ocean to another. You’re right, it’s pretty big, so it can’t be easy. I’ve started taking some courses on it, not necessarily so I can tell you, but because I would like to understand it myself. I’m so old, I doubt that I’ll ever become an engineer, or a mechanic, or a sailor, but it doesn’t hurt to learn more stuff.

Until next time,

Condor

Microstory 1682: Starcatcher

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After the wars began—precipitated by a debate about what to do with the people on this version of Earth who were already infected with the sterility virus—a group of scientists figured that there was no way out of this. Now that the virus existed on their planet, there was probably nothing stopping it from getting out eventually. They could bomb the quarantined nation, and they could send people to bunkers, but their fate would eventually catch up to them. They decided that the only way to save the human race was to take it off world. But they weren’t trying to save themselves. They did not have the resources or technology necessary to send a significant enough population to the stars. They would only be able to send frozen embryos, and one individual young adult in stasis. There was also no guarantee that revival from stasis would work, because even though they had tested the technology in the short-term, they didn’t know if it would be able to last for what was potentially thousands of years. There were no sufficiently habitable planets within a reasonable distance from Earth. Neighboring worlds were always too hot, or too massive, or not massive enough. A human outpost could probably survive on these worlds, but again, this was a long-term project, and the people who would grow up in the colony were not liable to be able to advance fast enough in a harsh environment. Thanks to a boost from the solar sails, the ship was capable of traveling at about ten percent the speed of light. It would slow down over time as it hunted for the right world to settle on. Since they didn’t know exactly where the ship would be going, they called it Starcatcher. It was designed to use solar power to jump from the current star to the next, and just keep doing that until the right orbiting body presented itself.

There was no way to know whether their plan would work, let alone how long it might take. They just had to send off the embryos, and hope that Starcatcher found a new home eventually. As aforementioned, this could take thousands of years. They could program the AI to gather the requisite data for every planet they encountered, synthesize it well, and extrapolate a survivability factor, but so many things could go wrong. Again, the scientists would never know how the mission turned out. Even if Starcatcher did manage to find a world just next door, the trip was still going to take decades, and none of them was young enough to still be around. This was all about faith. They were right to have it. Fifty-six thousand years later, Starcatcher found a decent planet that was about 5500 light years away. It had a nitrogen-rich environment with healthy levels of oxygen, 85% water on the surface, and fairly reliable climate patterns. Things went pretty smoothly, but not perfectly. The Governess, as she was called, woke up from stasis, obviously still alive, but she wasn’t intact. She had trouble remembering who she was, and what she was meant to do. Fortunately, she didn’t try to mess with any of the embryos until her mind was better. It just took some time for her to acclimate to the future, and remember her purpose here. You may be wondering how it’s possible for a single woman to raise the 147 babies needed for the initial population. She didn’t start with that number. Experts had developed a complicated development plan for her, which involved starting out slowly, having the older children help raise the younger ones, and patiently doing this over the course of three decades. Humanity was able to restart here, and they never had to worry about the Ochivari again.

Microstory 1569: Killer Katz

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Prompt

Ever since all of the cats started deliberately killing the humans, I’ve been saving up for a boat, since cats hate water.

Botner

And I finally got one, so I’m very happy and I want to sail. I have a rule that if any other person should read this, they will have a legitimate claim for sole ownership of my blog; as I cannot control other people. The guest, however, claims that they found this post, and they were so amused and amused they decided to check to make sure the ID was legit. If so, I’d like to give a heartfelt thanks. A big red heart to go with it. It’s very warming. I’m amused. This post reminded me a lot of something that happened to my sisters and me when we were very young. We got a kitten when we were maybe two or three. We were out with our family for my grandmother’s birthday. This was before we could actually read, but we were very good at mimicry and my aunt, my dad’s sister, was babysitting us and brought the kitten into the living room for us to see. My sisters and I climbed onto her lap, and when we saw the kitten, we all said “Oh, kitty, kitty, kitty.” She understood what we were saying, and she said “Kitty is a boy cat,” which was very funny to us, since we had thought kitties were a girl cat. We didn't quite grasp that we were actually saying that kitties were also...

Conclusion

...a genderless species. We didn’t understand back then, about gender, and sex, and sexuality, and identity. We had to learn these things as we grew older, which takes time, and time is something we no longer have. I’ve sailed my boat into the middle of the ocean. I don’t want to find an island that’s too close to the mainland, because the cats could continue to evolve. They could develop opposable thumbs, and then they could sail as well. My family wanted me to fight, but I won’t do it. The cats are going to win, because they now literally have nine lives, and they’ve been watching us for thousands of years. We’ve been completely ignorant about their intelligence, and they’ve used that to their advantage. They weren’t just learning our behaviors and weaknesses either. They were around when we were punching in our safe codes, and hiding our keys under the planter. They’re gonna win, and I’m gonna be far from all the destruction. If they ever do find me, it won’t be for a very long time, and hopefully they won’t worry about what I’m doing, because they will have totally taken over the world by then. I anchor my boat, and paddle to the shore of the island. There’s no sign that this has ever been inhabited. It’s small, but it will have plenty to sustain me alone. I smile as I’m breathing in the fresh air. I didn’t abandon my family. They refused to come with. If anything, they abandoned me. I have no guilt about doing what I must to survive. I walk up the beach, and head for the treeline, but I stop when I see something out of the corner of my eye. It’s a panther, or something. We stare at each other for over a minute, and then I swear to God, it grins. More panthers, and other large cats, come out of the jungle.