Microstory 2435: Bloodbourne

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

This dome is scary, even though you know that you’re technically safe. I won’t go into specifics, but it’s heaven for fans of the horror genre. While Zombie Dome has its niche, due to its broad appeal, Bloodbourne takes care of everything else in the genre. Ghosts, goblins, evil demons, and other monsters. If you’ve read about it in a book, or saw it in a movie or show, it’s here...somewhere. Lurking. Waiting to pounce. Some are trying to kill you, some are trying to scare you, and some have more bizarre motives. Bear in mind that the safeguards are extremely strong here. If you go in there with a regular human body, nothing is going to hurt you. I even think they’ll lower the scare level so they won’t even give you a heart attack, though I don’t know how they ensure that when everyone’s personal constitution is different. If you’re wearing a sufficiently mechanical or strong substrate, you’re fair game. The monsters can kill you, and they will. They follow whatever rules they’ve been programmed to follow, based on their nature in the source material. If you see a guy in a mask holding a knife, you better run, or try to fight. That’s another important note. Even though you may be in a mechanical body, it’s not superhumanly strong. You will not be able to bat the hostile force around like a cat with a ball of yarn. You’re meant to be in a simulation of what the horror would be like if these characters were real, and that goes for the victims just as much as the bad guys. Your body is capable of bleeding, and it’s capable of dying. Of course, you’re consciousness will survive, but getting back into the scenario is difficult. I think it should be easier. They could treat it as a learning experience, where you get to try new tactics, but I guess they think you should have to choose a different scenario to keep going. That could change in the future. That’s why feedback like this is so important. I hope they read them. Now here’s the question, can you play one of the bad guys yourself? No, you can’t. I think that’s a shame, and they should change that too. My mind can just as easily be uploaded into the body of a psychopathic killer as a scream queen. I wonder if they just have an issue with potentially targeting people who are already psychopaths, and just haven’t had the pleasure of living out their wildest fantasies. People have been debating these things for centuries, because virtual reality affords us the same opportunity to be our sickest selves completely free from punishment or other consequences. We still haven’t found an answer, though some black market stuff can be really disturbing, so I think we kind of have settled on some boundaries. There’s something very different about doing it in base reality. Maybe that’s just taking a step too far. I’m not sure. See? This is why the debate is still raging after all this time. Draw your own conclusions. In the meantime, enter the scariest place on Castlebourne...if you dare.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 25, 2013

« < » > Table of Contents

The last time Mateo was in 2013, he was only 27 years old. He had yet to hear of time travel, parallel realities, other universes, or psychics. More frighteningly, he had not met Leona, who was only 13 years old. She had never heard of any of this either. That was all in another timeline anyway. There was no way of knowing what awaited them in the here and now. At the moment, the four of them were stepping out of their hotel suite, and heading for the business center, so they could investigate a theory that Leona was brewing. It had been a very long time since she had been able to get onto the old fashioned internet. In the future, Web 4.0 was destined to begin scrubbing the internet of unnecessary information, or misinformation. Future generations will stop caring about frivolous personal broadcasts, and focus on shared knowledge, and streamlined entertainment. Answers will be readily available in whatever form the user wants. Dense datasets can be reorganized on the fly to come up with any solution that’s in there somewhere.

After that, Web 5.0 will take over, and centralize all this data. Artificial intelligence will analyze and synthesize the collective vonearthan information. Separate web sites will no longer exist. They’ll be replaced by a repository of information, which can be accessed by pretty much anyone. The idea of a place to order books, and another place to watch videos will be as foreign to the natives as churning butter was to the people of today. Until then, it was nice to get back to basics. Leona had to go to a specific location in a building to connect to the internet, and just hope the answers she was looking for were there somewhere.

Angela hovered a little bit, while Mateo and Jeremy passed a foam ball between each other. They stopped when another hotel guest came in, then continued once he left. Soon thereafter, Leona was ready with her hypothesis. “On October 9, 1532, a carrack called The São Leonor left Ponta Delgada on a return trip, bound for Portugal. It never made it there before it sank for unrecorded reasons on October 15. The crew was later located and rescued by another vessel less than a year later. In 1535, an attempt was made on John III of Portugal’s life, but the killer was thwarted by a man named Mateus Gil, who was reported to have been a crew member of the Leonor. He killed the would-be assassin, and was awarded his own ship by the king for his efforts.”

“Hmm,” Angela said simply.

“August 29, 1608, a known, but unpunished, rapist in the little English hamlet of Olympia found himself at the hands of the town physician. Stroud ignored his oath, killed the rapist, then escaped to Chaslow to avoid prosecution himself.”

“Oh, weird,” Jeremy said.

Leona continued, “May 31, 1838, Anatol Klugman was born. He’s killed more people than anyone can count. November 9, 1888, Mary Jane Kelly is Jack the Ripper’s last canonical victim.”

“I think I see what you’re trying to say,” Angela noted. “I don’t see much evidence of a pattern.”

“You don’t?” Leona questioned. “We saved killers of killers.”

“We don’t know that Orna killed Jack the Ripper. The murders stopped, but that doesn’t prove Orna had anything to do with it. Sure, she had motive, but no one else was able to catch him, what gave her an advantage?”

“The man who tried to drown her called her a hedge-creeper. She might not have actually been a sex worker, but she could have posed as one, and lured the serial killer to her. He may have even known that they were related, and couldn’t resist the poetry.”

“That is all a guess. Nothing suggests the Ripper stopped because he was killed.”

“It makes sense, though, doesn’t it?” Leona insisted. It sure did make a lot of sense. They should have known all along that The Warrior wasn’t going to let them save lives without there being some kind of catch. He was a killer, and if he couldn’t compel them to kill for him, he would have to loop a hole. “We’re Dexters.”

“What do you suggest we do?” Mateo asked.

“Don’t play into it,” Leona argued. “We don’t take any missions.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Jeremy acknowledged, shaking his head. “First of all, that won’t come without consequences. Secondly, we are still saving lives. Who are we to say who is worth saving, and who isn’t?”

“Not us,” Leona agreed, “but better us than him.”

“We just need to hold out,” Jeremy went on. “If we can—”

“Shh,” Leona interrupted.

“Right.” Before the conversation—or argument, as it were—could continue, the Cassidy cuffs beeped. Jeremy looked at his, sighed, and stood up. “I’m taking this. I’m answering the call. Anyone can come with me...anyone can stay.” With that, he left the business center, and then the hotel.

The other three followed him out there, and down the street. They walked into a sporting goods store, and over to the customer service counter. While satellites were now flying overhead, the cuffs were still just giving them two points: where they were, and where they needed to go. They had no idea who it was they were meant to help here. A clerk turned around and smiled. “Let me guess, you’re the Matics.”

“We are, yes,” Mateo answered.

“Your order is all paid for, and ready.” She reached under the counter and pulled out a large hiking backpack. She then reached down, and retrieved four more. They looked like they were already packed full of stuff.

“There are only four of us,” Jeremy explained.

The clerk frowned, and checked the receipt. “You’re right, I don’t know how this happened. It does say four.” She pulled one of the backpacks away. “I’m so very sorry about this. I’m still new here. I’m only in Utah to house sit for my aunt while she’s on sabbatical, but I still need a little money. I’m better with shoes.”

“That’s not a problem at all,” Mateo said sincerely. “Thank you for your help...” He looked down at her tag. “...Cecelia.”

“That’s who I am if you need me...and not if you don’t.”

They all chose their packs, thanked Cecelia, and left the store. The map became a little more sophisticated. Now it wasn’t just showing them their destination, but the path they were meant to take to reach it. Leona had bought a Utah atlas as the hotel beforehand. She compared the two, and learned that they were going on a pretty bad hike. It was only about five miles, but instead of using a road, they were cutting through a mountain range. Without understanding the topography, it looked more or less like a straight line, but it was actually going to be grueling. On the streets, this distance would only take them half a day, but like this, it would be more like three days, especially since none of them—not even Angela—was a particularly avid walker. The only blessing was that their time limit was five days, which would give them a buffer to work with. Still, fearing punishment more than ever, they strapped on, and headed off.

It was worse than Leona had surmised, but they couldn’t blame her. This was not her area of expertise. It took them all five days to make it to the general area of their destination. Once they were close enough, the dot changed colors, and began to move. It was moving towards them, so they quickly realized that something was floating down the nearby stream. As it drew nearer, they discovered that it wasn’t something, but someone. It was either a dead body, or a nearly dead one. It was just letting itself get knocked around by the rocks and branches. It wasn’t moving that fast, but still. Jeremy instinctively threw his belongings down, and jumped into the freezing cold water. He reached down, and began to pull the body to the shore. Mateo came down to help, and together, they began to perform CPR. Angela was their medical expert, but the two of them were more than qualified to handle this part of the treatment.

While they were doing that, Angela removed the AED from her pack, and started to set it up. She placed the pads on his chest, engaged the voice instructions. Then she restarted his heart with one jolt. Now that their patient was breathing and beating, she and Jeremy began to clean his wounds together. Once all the blood was removed from his face, they realized it was Lowell Benton, who was part of their team some time ago, before he joined forces with Ellie Underhill. He hadn’t experienced much time travel, though, so a good bet was that none of that had happened to him yet. This would have to be the 2013 version of him.

“Looks like you’re right,” Angela lamented as she was unrolling a bandage. “We’re saving killers.”

“I was also wrong,” Leona admitted. “Lowell has to be saved. He has important things to do in the future, like delivering baby Jeremy. Even I know that, and I don’t have the intel that Anatol does. We can’t just refuse.”

“Mateo, could you please set up one of the tents, so he has somewhere to recover?” Angela ordered. “Find a nice clear, flat spot. Obviously he’s the one who needs the sleeping pad this time. I know it’s your turn, but...”

“It’s fine,” Mateo laughed. “Just focus on getting him better. You’re a valuable member of this team, and we’re gonna miss you when it’s over.”

“Shh,” Leona repeated.

That night, after Angela had done everything she could, the team went to sleep. She shared the other tent with Leona and Jeremy, while Mateo stayed with Lowell. If something went wrong, he would have to call Angela for help, but Lowell was too dangerous to wake up next to anyone else. He didn’t know any of these people yet. If he came to and witnessed their sins, he might attack them. Mateo wasn’t immune, but his death would be the lesser of four evils.

Hours later, Mateo was still wide awake. He was just staring at Lowell, who was slow-breathing next to him, ready to pounce at any moment. The tent zipped open, and a dark figure came halfway in. It took Mateo by the ankles, and dragged him out into the cold like a horror villain. Mateo wasn’t sure if he should scream, or let it happen. Once he was out, and on the ground, he watched the figure reach back up, and zip the tent closed. The dying firelight lit up his face just enough to show that it was Anatol.

“Are you trying to scare me to death?”

“It would be a new one,” Anatol replied. “I wouldn’t mind being able to brag that I accomplished that. But no, I just needed you out of there.”

Mateo looked over where the second tent was supposed to be.

“Don’t freak out,” Anatol insisted. “They’re in the future. Tents are really complicated. The powers that be decided that people can’t transport out of a tent; that the tent will go with them, including everything else inside the tent. I need Lowell to just stay here where he belongs, while the three of you move on.”

“He’s gonna wake up alone and wonder what happened. Whose tent is this? Who made the fire? Most importantly, who treated his injuries?”

“He will,” Anatol concurred, “but so what? That’s not your problem. He’ll eventually shrug it off, and move on to his next kill.”

“Is he a friend of yours, or like, a rival?”

“I don’t think that much about him, and he doesn’t know about me. He’s killing sinners, which is kind of my whole thing, but he’s better at it, so I need him alive.”

“So it’s true; we’re saving killers of killers.”

Anatol smirked. “Get to 2020. Leona and Jeremy are waiting for you.”

“Very well. But don’t think you’re off the hook. We want answers.”

“That I do not doubt.”

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 1612: Absolute Zero

< > Table of Contents

As we’ve discussed, concurrent realities are rare, but they do come up. Salmonverse has a handful, while Area Double Universe has thousands. Today, I want to talk about a brane that has only two realities. There’s no name for it, to distinguish it from others, as far as I know. All I know is that it’s a scary and dangerous place, and I can’t recommend it for vacation if you’re looking to relieve some stress. As a spirit, I hesitate to make a claim about whether evil exists, or if life is just all about choices, but this brane sure makes a compelling argument for the former. From my perspective, one of the realities appears to be the primary, while the other is reliant on the outcome of events from the first. Let’s say you were from this universe, and you happened to be a chef, and restaurant owner. You keep prices low, treat your employees well, and give your day-old bread to the homeless. You’re not perfect, but on the whole, you’re a good person. Your alternate self will be just as bad as you are good—I mean, exactly as far from absolute zero. On the other hand, if you’re a serial killer, your alternate self would be a saint. But their life would be incredibly difficult, because people are good in general, so that makes the alternate reality pretty bad. So that would be terrible on its own, but at least the main reality would be able to move on, and ignore their counterparts, right? Wrong. Whereas most of the time, you have to advance science enough to figure out how to access other dimensions, that sort of thing sometimes just happens to some people in this world. You could walk through your front door, and end up inside the alternate, and would have to hope you survive long enough to make it back home. Fortunately, if you do manage to not die, you will get back home. People remain permanently connected to their reality, and they will eventually be summoned home without having to do anything special. So there’s not a whole lot of interaction between the two realities—not on a large scale—but it does occur in isolated cases, and it does cause problems.

Enough of this back and forth travel happened throughout history that the governments and experts got together, and started trying to come up with solutions. They decided it was their moral obligation to do something about the other side. Could they destroy them? Could they teach them to be better? What if they shared knowledge, or resources, or disciplinary techniques? After years of study, and a whole lot of incidents that did not go well at all, they came to a single conclusion. The only way to stop everyone from being so evil over there was to stop being so good on the main side. They tried to institute programs, which were designed to teach people to just be okay. No more saints, no more sinners, just regular people who were doing all right. Everyone was expected to get average grades in school, and do the bare minimum at work. Don’t make waves, and don’t change the status quo. Just live your boring life throughout the day, and then go to bed. Certain things were outlawed in the hopes of making this easier. There was no more music or entertainment. Everyone ate meal replacements, and cooking anything else was strictly forbidden. All these things made people too happy, and if they were happy, their alternate was miserable. As you might have guessed, these measures did not work in the least. You can’t just make people be different. A rebel faction rose up, and became more and more violent over the years. Before they knew it, the main reality was more evil, and the secondary reality was full of good people just trying to do the right thing.

Big Papa: Day Zero (Part II)

< > Entire Story

I have the ability to teleport sound waves and brain waves. I can’t read people’s minds, but I can transfer a consciousness from one substrate to another. Is there something that connects these two kinds of waves? Are they just two sides of the same coin? I don’t know, that sounds crazy, so maybe I just have two completely unrelated time powers. I choose not to question it beyond those two possibilities. I’ve been developing my powers for millennia, and long ago, I figured out that I can listen in on a conversation that happened in the past, or even the future. I have to be careful not to step on any butterflies when I do this, and I generally don’t like to invade people’s privacy, but it has proven to be incredibly useful on many occasions. I have to find out what became of my friends after I left them sixteen years ago, and this is safer to the timeline than if I just went back to that moment, and interfered with them directly.

When Lowell was resurrected into a clone body, Tamerlane Pryce removed his power. He was born with the ability to see other people’s sins. He became a murtherous vigilante because of this, so being rid of it was actually a welcome relief. That’s not what I ever wanted for myself, so fortunately, Pryce didn’t remove what I could do. He’s not the worst person in the world, and if I can find a way to work with a serial killer, it’s not crazy to think that Pryce and I could come to some kind of agreement. I don’t want to kick him out of his job, but things have to change about the afterlife simulation, and I know he won’t do it on his own. No one—however noble they think they are—deserves to be solely responsible for over a hundred billion people.

I reach into the past, and even before I find the conversation I’m looking to eavesdrop on, I can tell that my powers are safe. This is the first time I tried them after being resurrected, so even though I could feel that they were still here, I couldn’t know for sure. It’s a great relief. I scour what I call the soundstream, and navigate all the way to Tribulation Island, in The Parallel reality, on July 3, 2218. You might think it’s weird that I can access a parallel reality, but it’s no further removed from my present-day than any other moment in time. The only reason I’ve never done it before is because I wasn’t aware that it existed until recently.

I’ve found them. Trinity, Abigail, and Thor are exactly where I left them. Though Past!Me is gone, they’re still discussing plans for our new afterlife sim. They plan on catching me up when I return. “...ethics. This will disrupt everyone’s perception of the divine.” Trinity, always the pragmatist.

“Everyone knows that their religion could be wrong,” Abigail argues. “At least, everyone reasonable knows this. Anyone who didn’t so much as consider the possibility will just have to figure it out. We will tell them the truth, and they’ll accept it eventually.”

“We’ll tell them our truth,” Thor reminds her. “We’ll tell them what we’ve decided to do with them.”

“Sure, yeah,” Abigail agrees.

Like I said, I’ve been perfecting my abilities for a really long time now. It started out small. I discovered I could act as a walking surround sound speaker system, and carry my voice to huge crowds without the need for technology. My strength grew over time, and I could always get better, hear further...but at a certain point, I reached a kind plateau. I can’t hear beyond the bounds of the observable universe, and I can’t see what I’m hearing. Light waves, or whatever, are not the same thing as sound, or even consciousness. I have never been able to see remotely. Until now. Either Pryce altered me somehow, or I was always destined to evolve. Little by little, my friends come into focus visually. At first, I just get the sense of how they’re moving their mouths, and then I can detect the silhouette of their mouths, which slowly begins to extend to the rest of their bodies. And then I see the world around them, which fills in gradually, until the picture becomes as clear as it would be if I were truly there. This is the second biggest leap in my abilities I’ve ever experienced, and I’m floored. I’m teleporting light, that’s insane.

Thor stops the conversation. “Do you see that?”

“What?” Abigail asks.

“Over there,” he clarifies, pointing the direction that I would be if I were really there.

“I see nothing,” Trinity says.

“I do,” Abigail confirms. She and Thor were also transferred to new bodies, but not because they died. Abigail’s father has always been obsessed with surviving past death, and was tinkering with consciousness transference since long before we came up with the afterlife sim. The two of them are the result of what was probably his last experiment before going full God mode. He must have given them extremely enhanced vision.

I adjust the angle at which I’m spying on them, like an invisible drone flying a few meters away. Except I’m not invisible. Thor and Abigail both turn their heads to keep an eye on me. If they could see me straight up, they would greet me, but they can clearly only tell that something is over there, watching them, but they can’t tell what. Before they freak out, I decide I have to explain what’s going on. “It’s me,” I say to the past.

Trinity tilts her lizard brain. “Ellie?”

“Yeah, sorry, guys, I’m watching you from the future.”

“How are you watching us?” Trinity questions. “Did you contact The Screener.”

The Screener, whose real name is Sanela Matic, has a similar ability, though by slipping into an observation dimension, and she enjoys no control over it. She’s salmon, which means the mysterious powers that be decide what she sees, and who she shows it to. “No, I guess I’ve been...upgraded. I can see remotely now.”

Trinity looks behind her, in the general direction of the nearest other island on this planet, Tribulation Island. “When are you from? A version of you just left to help save Vearden Haywood’s life.”

“We did that,” I respond. “A lot has happened since then. I know what becomes of our idea.”

“Well, don’t tell us,” Abigail warns. “You’ll throw off the timeline.”

“There are things I need to know about what you went through after I left,” I explain to them. “We don’t see each other until now, and I need to know where you go.”

“We don’t plan on going anywhere,” Trinity says. “If we leave, it is an unplanned trip.”

Just then, we hear a rustling in the bushes. It could be some kind of alien rabbit, or a person, and if it’s a person, it could be an ally, or an enemy. They stop talking, but don’t approach. They just wait patiently. Finally, a figure appears. It’s me. It’s some other version of me. This Other!Ellie wipes leaves off of her arms, and scrapes burrs out of her hair. She still looks like a mess. “Okay, sorry I’m late.”

Thor and Abigail stare at her, and then turn their heads to where my signal is coming from. “What year are you from?” Abigail asks.

Other!Ellie squints her eyes in suspicion. “I don’t remember. I think Pryce did something to me.”

“That’s not me,” I warn the group. “I don’t know who that is, but I don’t talk like that. That is not me.”

“No, I’m me,” Faux!Ellie contends. “You’re not you.”

I didn’t say what I said to her. I only said it to my three friends. She should not have been able to hear my warning. “Get out of there now.”

Faux!Ellie smirks, and removes what looks like an ancient tape recorder from her pocket. “Captain’s log, Day Zero. Now that I’m back with my group, we can finally get to work. We’re gonna build this afterlife together, and it shall be glorious.”

“Run!” I warn again.

“What’s more believable?” Faux!Ellie asks. “That I went off to save Vearden, and then came right back to you only moments later, like a normal time traveler? Or that I’m talking to you from the future, acting like I can see you, which is an ability that I’ve never exhibited before, and I’m asking you to not trust the Ellie that’s standing right in front of your eyes?”

“Pryce has the ability to transfer his mind to other substrates,” Thor reasons. “This technology was always at risk of leading to impersonations. Most people probably wouldn’t think to use it in a post-scarcity society, but he’s a sociopath.”

“Psychopath, thank you very much,” Faux!Ellie says. “Uhh...I mean, that’s what he told me once.”

“Well, that seals it,” Thor decides. He reaches into his bag, and removes a gun.

“No, wait!” Faux!Ellie cries. “You can’t really ever know for sure.”

“The real Ellie is eleven thousand years old,” Thor says calmly. “That’s long enough, I imagine. It’s worth the risk.” He shoots her in the head.

“That was my father,” Abigail assures him. “I can always tell.”

“That was the right call,” Trinity agrees.

“He’s not dead,” I remind them. “He’ll always have an extra body lying around. He’s planned for every eventuality.”

“But he’s no longer among us,” Trinity replies. “We won’t ever talk about this beyond this group of three, and we won’t ever let each other out of our sight.”

“Three?” I question.

“I’m sorry, Ellie. You’re out.” Trinity looks sad, but determined. “We can’t trust anyone now. We’ll be sure to give you the credit you’re owed.”

“No, you don’t understand. He co—” I have to warn them that Pryce takes over. I still don’t know how he does it, but he does. At some point.

Trinity knows the risk of messing with the timeline. “I don’t wanna hear it. This is what we’re doing. Please kindly never eavesdrop on us again.” She takes out her device, which allows her to travel through photographs. “Keep watching whatever it is that allows you to know where this supposed Ellie is,” she tells Abigail and Thor. “I don’t want her seeing where we’re going.”

“Please, don’t do this,” I beg of them.

“Goodbye, old friend.”

The three of them take a look at the photo they won’t let me see, and disappear into it. I still have no idea how Pryce finds them, but there’s nothing I can do to change things. Not only could that ruin everything about the timeline, but my friends will never trust me again. They’ll never trust anyone. I exhale, and come back to the present.

“I could only hear your end of the conversation,” Lowell tells me. “But it didn’t sound good.”

“It is...the inevitable,” I reply cryptically. “Time travel aside, all we can do is move on. I will plead my case without their help.”

< > Entire Story

Big Papa: Claims Department (Part I)

< > Entire Story

The day has been saved, not because the better side won the battle, but because the more powerful side just gave up. They had given him so much trouble that he got sick of it, and decided to just let them go. He was in charge of over a hundred billion souls, in an afterlife simulation that he built, both long ago, and in the future. Resurrecting a few of them to get them off his back must have sounded like the easier option.

Missy, Tetra, Jeremy, Sanaa, and Angela are standing in a machine called the Nexus, which was capable of delivering them thousands of light years away, back to Earth where they belonged. Three of them have decided that Earth is not where they belong, however. “I’m not going,” Téa announces. “I must return to Tribulation Island in The Parallel, so I may one day be on Tribulation Island in this reality.”

“How will you get there?” I ask, concerned. Traveling between the two parallel realities is not something that just anyone can do. Someone with the power has to open a transition window.

“On my way.” Jupiter Fury is the man capable of opening a window, but he is presently many light years away, and it will take him some time to reach this location. “I’ll get her where she’s goin’.”

“What about you, Ellie?” Tetra asks.

“I’m going back to the matrioshka body,” I reply. “I helped come up with the original concept of the afterlife simulation, and I have to take responsibility for it, even if it means overthrowing the king.” I don’t know everything that went down, but my friends and I were in the midst of coming up with a way to go back in time and rescue every single human from their deaths, then upload their consciousness into a virtual construct, where they would never truly die. I got waylaid by a side mission, and never found out exactly what happened to my friends, but our frenemy, Tamerlane Pryce ended up co-opting the whole thing. He hasn’t done a bad job, but he doesn’t deserve the power, and I already know of a few changes I want to make to the simulation. It’s my birthright, and I’ll fight for it.

“Can I go too?” Lowell offers. Lowell was a serial killer when he was first alive, but he didn’t have the worst reason for it in the world. He was basically a superpowered version of Dexter, who could literally see the bad things that people around him had done. Like it would anyone, it made him crazy, and gave him the compulsion to do something about the things he saw. He sacrificed himself in an attempt to become the inside man in the rescue mission that has ultimately led to my freedom. Pryce gave him a new body, and stripped him of his psychic powers, so I choose to give him the benefit of the doubt, and let him start fresh. “I would really love to help. I need to do something positive with my life now that my curse is gone.”

“I would appreciate the company,” I say sincerely.

“I’ll go to Tribulation Island with Téa,” Missy steps out of the Nexus. “I don’t like the idea of her waiting here alone, and I feel like I’m meant to be there anyway.” She’s right. They both have a destiny, and it continues on that island. It’s located in a galaxy millions of light years from here, on a planet that enjoys a significant human population.

“Then I guess I’ll have to thank you now,” Sanaa says to Missy. The two of them have some kind of ever since unspoken burning hatred of each other, stemming from some incident that neither of them will actually talk about. No one seems to know what started this rivalry, but the irony is why Jupiter chose Missy to be part of the rescue mission. “Which I did, and it’s done, and now we can go. Boot it up, baby!”

“You’re welcome, Miss Karimi.” Missy says. It’s unclear how sincere she’s being.

“Just don’t ever let me see your face ever again. The temporal restraining order is hereby reinstated. Starting...now.”

With that, the Earth-bounders disappear.

Lowell and I then step back in. “Should we make a plan?” Lowell asks.

“Let’s just wing it.” I give him a wink, and an evil grin. Even though he’s trying to turn over a new leaf, I’m glad he’ll be with me, because I don’t plan on being delicate. If I have to take the afterlife sim by force, I will. We jump.

The Nexus technician steps out of her little booth, and approaches us. “You’ve returned. According to the historical records of our species, can I guess that you...forgot something? Perhaps your keys, that appears to be a common one.” She’s human, but a lot has changed since the days of forgetting one’s keys in the bowl by the door, or the refrigerator.

“We need to talk to someone regarding Tamerlane Pryce,” I explain.

“That is beyond my purview.”

“He stole my idea for the afterlife simulation, and he’s using matrioshka body resources to keep it running. I would like to assume operations of the simulation. Do you know who I could speak to about this? I must plead my case to whoever makes such decisions.” Pryce’s work is just a fraction of what the people living here do. The matrioshka body is the largest object in the galaxy. It would cover the distance from the sun to Uranus, and houses two stars that allow it to fly through interstellar space. It also hasn’t been invented yet, so at some point, they figure out how to send the whole thing to the past.

The tech tilts his head to calculate the response. She’s organic, but there’s no telling whether she has any transhumanistic upgrades, and if so, what kind. “Please step back down into the Nexus. I will transport you to the one-gee meeting section, and inform the necessary entity that you will be waiting for them. Time will be running at one-to-one while you remain inside.” The matrioshka body is located extremely close so Sagittarius A*, which is the black hole in the center of the galaxy. Time moves a hell of a lot slower than it does on Earth, but these people obviously have a way to manipulate that as needed.

Lowell and I step back down, and jump to a different part of the body. The egress technician says nothing, but gestures for us to leave the room. It’s clear that we’re meant to follow the hallway lights, which lead us to a beautiful botanical garden. An entity approaches after we enjoy the scenery for a few minutes. “My name is Aaaddffgacar, and I am responsible for Research Approval for Organic Entities. I hear you have a claim?”

“Yes, thank you for meeting with us, Aa...ad...” That’s a hard name to pronounce.

“You may just call me Gacar.”

“Thank you, Gacar. Tamerlane Pryce runs the—or an, if such is the case—afterlife simulation. I’m the one who came up with the idea for it, and I believe I have the right to make decisions for it.”

“If you had to estimate the percentage your ideas were used in how the present-day simulation operates, what would you say?”

“My species is not good at coming up with such numbers,” I say, just to fill time while I come up with something reasonable.

“Twenty percent,” Lowell answers for me.

I give him a quizzical look.

He continues, “five people were involved in the conception and creation of the simulation: Ellie, Trinity, Abigail, Thor, and Abby’s father, Tamerlane. Assuming each contributed equally, that’s twenty percent. Without detailed data on exactly how the sim works, or meeting minutes for the discussions Ellie wasn’t around to participate in, we have to assume all five originators have equal stake. Equal partnership.”

“You are unaware what became of these three other people?” Gacar asks.

“No.” I don’t know if that hurts my case, or helps it.

Gacar considers the facts. “All this time, Pryce has enjoyed full control over his experiment. We have not interfered with this work, and have allocated all processing power that he has demanded. An auditor has been maintained throughout, but does not provide us with the details you seek, nor do we have any knowledge of meeting minutes, as you say. We can speak with this auditor, but if I were you, I would find at least one other founder to support your claims, otherwise, the math could get tricky. Intellectual property is a delicate subject. My species has trouble grasping the concept of an individual claiming ownership over anything, let alone ownership over people’s lives—”

“I claim no ownership over the people’s lives,” I interrupt. “In fact, it is my intention to bestow more free will upon them than Pryce gives.”

“I will reach out to the afterlife simulation auditor. I suggest you find your friends. If you do not, we can proceed with your case, but your claim will be weaker. I make no guarantees, regardless of what evidence you believe you have.”

“Thank you,” I say. “This place is lovely. Are there quarters nearby that we could use?”

“Follow the lights,” Gacar says, then walks away.

“Need some sleep?” Lowell asks nonjudgmentally.

“I prefer a quiet place to work. I’m going to eavesdrop on the conversation my friends had on Lorania after I left, and that’s best done without distractions.”

“Oh, okay.”

“You’ll be there too,” I explain before he starts thinking I want him to leave. “If there aren’t any distractions, then I could focus too hard, and get lost in the soundstream. You can be my anchor.” That’s not a thing, but I want him to feel valued, and involved.

“I’m honored.”

The lights have led us to a luxurious suite, full of everything a human could need to be comfortable. The matrioshka body has existed for thousands of years, and takes whatever resources it needs from whatever system it finds. Two showers, a four-person bathtub, an espresso machine; these all take so much less effort than they did for people in my time period. Whoever designed this section probably barely gave any thought to the logistics or cost, and probably finished the plans within one second. And this particular room has probably literally never been used before. There aren’t a lot of humans here, and the machines, of course, don’t need this kind of stuff.

Lowell sits down at the table. An envelope magically appears before him. “What’s this?” he asks.

“It’s for you,” I explain. “It’s an invitation to Mateo and Leona’s wedding. It happened in 2144.”

“That’s ten years from now,” Lowell says.

“The Mateo you met has already done all that, a while ago. Everyone Mateo or Leona meets, and becomes friends with, will end up at that wedding, whether it’s their past, their future, or a separate universe entirely. You recently became one of those people, so the invitation found you.”

“And I should go?” he questions.

“Yes, Lowell, you should go. Make yourself a nice suit in the industrial synthesizer first, though.”

“All right.” I can tell that he’s pretty nervous about it.

“There are forty-eight thousand people there,” I assure him. “No one will notice you. Just blend in with the crowd.”

I see the relief in his eyes. I help him pick out a suit, and then watch him activate the invitation transporter. He blinks away, and returns immediately. He’s no longer wearing the suit, and he looks rather tired.

“How was it? I never saw you when I was there.”

“I...” he looks around, paranoid. “I don’t remember. Was I gone? What am I wearing?”

“That’s...disconcerting. You don’t remember anything?”

“No, but I feel like time has passed, and I’m exhausted.”

“Sit back down,” I tell him. “I don’t know what happened to you. I can figure it out, but I really want to do my thing first. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll just...be your anchor.”

“Great.” I remove my outer clothing, adjust the bed to a sitting-up position, and get in to begin summoning sounds from the past. It’s 2134, and I need to hear something that happened back in 2118.

“You have to get naked to eavesdrop on the past?”

“No, these clothes are just uncomfortable. I’m tired of wearing them,” I answer.

“I hear bras are pretty uncomfortable too.” He’s joking, but he’s also not.

I unclip my bra. “Very well.” Watching me listen to a conversation that he can’t hear will get boring, so if this is what he wants to pass the time, then whatever. I’m technically tens of thousands of years old, so I don’t care anymore. Plus, the face he makes when I do it—and he’s not sure how to react, because I haven’t actually given him permission to look, but I haven’t said not to either—is priceless. I grin and close my eyes to get to work.

< > Entire Story

The Pryce of Heaven: The Paigenic Council (Part I)

< > Entire Story

The team has been assembled, and Jupiter Fury thinks that it’s complete, but someone has a different idea. Lowell Benton is there to rescue Jeremy Bearimy, Missy Atterberry was assigned Sanaa Karimi, Téa Stendhal will be responsible for Angela Walton, and Trinity Turner was supposed to be there for Ellie Underhill. There is a reason that her name means three. She is the third version of the original Paige Turner. Jupiter knows of eleven versions total, but there might be more. Every time Paige has to go back in time and correct something about the future, it generates another alternate version, and instead of assimilating into one person, this alternate always ends up going off to do something else with her life. Trinity is the one with close ties to Ellie, so why are Tetra and Quinn here?

“She can’t be part of this mission,” Quinn argues.

“Why not?” Jupiter questions.

“There are things about her future that she cannot know,” Quinn explains.

“I hope you haven’t told her already,” Tetra adds.

“We’re looking for the afterlife simulation that a future version of Tamerlane Pryce creates,” Trinity says, proving what she knows.

“It’s too late,” Tetra says, shaking her head.

“No, it’s not,” Quinn assures her. “We can erase her memories to preserve the timeline. I just need to make a call, and I need...I need Trinity to consent.”

“No, hold on,” Jupiter jumps back in. “I have seen no evidence that Trinity—or any version of Paige—has anything to do with the afterlife simulation.”

“She will be there at its conception,” Quinn says.

“Well, I didn’t know that,” Trinity pushes back, “but now I do.”

“You knew enough before we arrived,” Tetra argues. “You have to erase your memories. Too much about the future is at stake here. You are the most important of all of us, besides Paige the First.”

“Please,” Quinn begins to beg, “just let me contact Tertius. You know what happens when you change the wrong thing about the past. This is wrong.”

Trinity shifts her gaze from Jupiter to Tetra to Quinn, and then back to Jupiter. He looks to the latter Paiges. “Okay, I will admit that my primary reason for conscripting Trinity for this team is a...little more poetic...and a little less inherently necessary.” He looks at Trinity. “You may have Tertius erase your memories, if you would like.”

Trinity thinks about it more. It’s true that she understands the dangers of altering the past, and she has to surrender to the wisdom of the latter Paiges. Each new version was created with greater concern for the timeline than earlier ones, like her. “Call him.”

Quinn takes out her photo device. When Paige was a child, she was accidentally whisked away from her life in 1971, and taken to the future. This had the side effect of giving her the ability to travel to any point in time and space, as long as she was looking at a picture of it. The devices they carry—which are alternate versions of the same thing as well—contain millions of photos from the past and future, so they can go just about anywhere and anywhen. Quinn isn’t using hers to make a jump, though. She needs to bring someone to her, which is a secondary time power that, for whatever reason, not all of the Paiges have. She finds the photo she’s looking for, then points the device away from her, like a TV remote. A beam of light shoots out of it, and conjures a man.

He looks around to get his bearings. “Greetings, kind folk.”

“Thank you for coming,” Quinn says with a slight bow. “I will send you wherever, whenever you want, if you will please erase my friend’s memories.”

“All of them?” he questions.

“Heavens no,” Trinity clarifies. “They will be better at explaining what I am to remember, and what I’m not.” She takes out her own photo device, and finds the right photo. She hands it to Tetra. “Once it’s done, and I’m still in the daze, take me back to this dumpster. It’s where I was when Tracker found me.”

Tetra bumps Trinity’s device with her own, and transfers a copy of the photo. “I would have chosen a beach, but I won’t yuck your yum.”

“I would rather not explain why I’m digging around in the trash,” Trinity requests.

“Oh,” Tertius says. “If you’re going back to a departure point, I don’t need to know which memories to take, and which ones not to. I just need to know how much time has passed since then. You don’t even need to know the answer yourself. I can search your brain for the right duration.”

“What happens to my memories after you take them?” Trinity asks. “Do you keep them?”

“It depends,” Tertius begins. “I can hold onto them for you, like a flash drive, if you want them back later. I can keep them in my own head, and it will sort of feel like part of me is part of you. I can also just purge the memories, so they cannot be retrieved.”

“That one. Do that.”

“Okay. Since this is an individual job, and not for the greater good, I am going to need consent from you.”

“Of course, you have it,” Trinity replies.

“Right. But I mean, you’re going to need to keep the memory of your official, verbal consent. You won’t remember what memories I take obviously, but you will have access to this consent. You won’t be conscious of it, but if you need it, you can get it.”

“I don’t understand the point of that.”

He tries to formulate the right words. “You ever seen a movie where the protagonist spends ninety minutes trying to find out what happened to him, and in the end, he discovers that he actually asked for his memories to be removed.”

“I haven’t seen many movies,” Trinity says, “but I grasp the premise.”

“If you find out you have missing time, you might start running around, trying to get those memories back, and figure out who hurt you. This little secret memory nugget will be like a little voice in the back of your mind that tells you, in your own words, that it’s okay, you shouldn’t get those memories back. Everything’s hunky dory.”

“All right, I can do that,” Trinity agrees.

Tertius does his thing, Tetra does hers, and then Quinn announces she’s going to leave.

“Whoa, hold on,” Jupiter stops her.

“What?”

“I haven’t decided which one of you two is going to take her place on the team.”

Quinn looks back at Tetra. “We’ve already talked about it.”

“We didn’t talk about it,” Tetra contends. I won RPS 101 Plus...twice.”

“You cheated the second time.” Quinn is getting a little bit defensive.

“I don’t care if you fought to the death,” Jupiter declares. “It’s my team, I choose.”

“That’s not how consent works, sweetheart,” Quinn fights back.

“That’s a microaggression,” Jupiter volleys.

“True. But this is the way it is. You have Tetra, and I have to go do something else.”

“I don’t think you understand that—” Jupiter manages to say before he’s interrupted.

Quinn begins to fume, and gets in Jupiter’s face. She lifts her photo device, and speaks a command. “Protocol Six-Six-Six.” A picture of what just looks like a mountain of fire appears on the screen. “Tetra is gonna get you into heaven. You choose me, you go here. Is that what you want?”

Jupiter doesn’t say anything.

“You and your little Springfield buddies like to think that you’re top shit. But there are more of me than there are of you.”

Jupiter can’t help but scoff. “I can make endless copies of myself, and I don’t have to jump back in time to do it.”

Quinn smirks. “Technically, I do. But does that really matter?” She lifts her arms to the crucifixion position. About twenty alternate versions of her appear out of nowhere behind her, looking menacing.

“You can’t quantum assimilate,” Jupiter argues, but he’s quite fearful. “Now there are just a bunch of extra versions of you.”

“Who says I can’t?” Quinn asks rhetorically. “I just usually don’t, unless I’m trying to prove a point.” She gracefully drops her arms. The other Quinns disappear. “Thanks, Indvo,” she says, but no one knows what it means.

Jupiter doesn’t back up, but he does kind lean away from her as subtly as possible. “Tetra will be fine.”

“Good, because I’ve wasted enough time here already.” She swipes at her device until she lands on the photo she wants, and disappears into it.

He gathers his composure. “Are you ready to meet the team?”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Tetra apologizes. “She’s been through a bit more than the rest of us have. Except for Octavia. She...anyway, yes, let’s go meet the team.”

They make the trip to the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which is the ship that they borrowed from a slightly different team. They will be giving it back once this is all done. Missy, Téa, and Lowell are reading the same hardcopy book, suggesting they’ve formed some kind of club. Jupiter facilitates introductions and explanations before getting into his speech about what they’re going to be doing together.

“In the future, a man named Tamerlane Pryce will find himself on a planet called Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida for the second time. Trinity Turner will ask him to be there so he can help build a tourist attraction, where people will come to insert their consciousnesses into cloned animal substrates. This will allow them to go on extreme close-up safaris. After his job is done, he will remain on that world, and continue his own private research. Meanwhile, Trinity and her friends—which includes Tamerlane’s daughter, Abigail—will be working on their own thing. They had the idea of creating a perfect world simulation, and use it to upload the mind of every single person who has ever died. This obviously requires time travel, but that’s also obviously okay, because that’s what we’re all about.

“We do not know what happens after the spark of this idea, but we do know that Tamerlane Pryce becomes cognizant of the idea, and then gets his hands on the resources necessary to pull it off. For the last several thousand years, everyone who dies is sent to his virtual construct, instead of theirs. We don't know how involved the others were, but we know he’s at least in charge of it now. We also don’t know where it is in physical form, but it has to be massive, because the amount of processing power required to run the damn thing is something humans can only dream of today. I’m talking larger than a whole solar system massive. If it were close, we would notice it, so it’s probably thousands of light years away. I have assembled this team in order to locate it, travel to it, remove Pryce from power, and rescue a few friends who had no business dying when they did. That is all we are there to do. We do not want to destroy the simulation, and we’re not going to save everybody from it. We’re getting these four people, and that’s it.”

“Got it,” Lowell acknowledges, feigning enthusiasm. “How are we going to find it?”

“Did you enjoy the tea I gave you?”

“Yeah, it was actually pretty good.” Lowell grows suspicious. “Why?”

“I learned a few things about how the simulation works,” Jupiter goes on. “When you die, your consciousness transfers to the simulation, wherever it is. But how does it know that you’re dead, and how does it find your mind? There has to be something in the brain that allows this transfer, and that’s not something that people naturally evolved to have. I mean, it would be like a little computer somewhere in your head.”

“You’re making me nervous,” Lowell admits.

“Me too,” Missy concurs.

“Téa, are you nervous too?” Jupiter asks.

“I would be lying if I said no.”

“Don’t worry,” Jupiter says, shaking his head slowly. “Tetra, you’re all right too.”

“You said something about tea,” Missy reminds him. “We all drank it. Did you drug us?”

“Yes, but the drug itself isn’t going to hurt you. It’s like a beacon. If I did this right, it should allow us to track a dead person to where they go.”

“So...you’re going to hurt us,” Téa presumed.

“Not you.” Jupiter takes out a gun, and points it at Lowell’s chest. “Just the serial killer.”

Lowell makes no move to get away, or argue against it. He just regards Jupiter with disdain, and sighs. “Try to make it quick. I imagine shooting me in the head puts the mission at risk, and I know it seems like I don’t have a heart, but it’s right here.” He taps on the left side of his chest.” The last thing he hears is the gunshot, and Téa’s instinctual yelp.

Lowell finds himself face up in a stream, a large rock preventing him from being washed away. A child approaches as he’s climbing out. Without a word, the child takes Lowell by the hand, and leads him down the trail. They come to the treeline, and see a tower several kilometers away. They keep walking until they reach it. After the child presses the elevator button, she stays behind, and begins to walk away. Lowell goes up to the top floor, and is asked by a secretary to wait. After a few minutes, a very distraught Ellie Underhill comes out of the office, and heads for the elevator. Jupiter showed him a picture of her when his mission began, which is the only reason he knows who she is. They lock eyes, but just for a moment before the doors close in front of her.

“You can go on in now,” the secretary tells him.

Lowell stands up, and goes into the office. Tamerlane Pryce is waiting for him there. He doesn’t remove his gaze from the window. “Did you ever think,” he begins to ask before a long pause. “...that you would one day be here, having suffered exactly what you forced on others so many times?”

“Did I think I would one day die, just like them? Yes, sir, of course.”

Tamerlane nods. “Do you think you deserve heaven or hell?”

“Yes.”

He chuckles once, and finally turns around. “Best answer possible, I imagine.” He gestures for Lowell to sit in the guest chair, and then leans back on the desk. Next to him is a wheel with twelve unequal wedges. Jupiter told him about this too. You spin the wheel, and whatever you land on decides where you’ll be assigned. You could be killed forever, or resurrected, or get anything in between. “No, no, no. This one isn’t for you.” He lifts the wheel up, and turns it around, so it’s facing the other direction. On the other side is the same circle, but painted with different wedges. There are only four of them here: black, blue, red, and orange; all the bad ones. “You are a temporal manipulator. Well, I mean, you’re a psychic, but that’s close enough. Normally, I would assign you a good level, because I like people like you. But you hurt people, and like all other maniacs before you, this only ends bad. He points at the wheel. “Fate will determine how bad.”

Lowell studies the wheel, and recalls the levels as former dead person, Mateo Matic recited them the other day. Level 0 is the true death. Level 1 is like being put on a flash drive. You still exist, but you’re not aware of the passage of time. Level 2 and Level 3 are both prisons, except you’re completely alone in the former. He smiles, almost graciously, and nods. Then he reaches over to the needle, and turns it directly to Level 1.

Tamerlane watches it over his own shoulder. “That’s not exactly how it works, but...I suppose I have to admire your chutzpah. I do recognize that you only killed bad people, like Dexter, and you surely deserve some credit for that. Level 1, Iced blue it is.”

Lowell’s clothes turn blue.

“Oh,” Tamerlane says as he’s standing up, and walking back to the other side of his desk. “There’s a chance of you being unshelved eventually, but only if your friends who are coming after me can get past my defenses, and only if they like you enough to look for you. I don’t love your odds.”

Shit. He knows they’re coming.

< > Entire Story