It’s over. After some long conversations with Arqut, Silveon, and Audrey,
she has decided to divorce herself from the ship’s drama. Her promotion to
Admiral Emirta wasn’t just to get her to stop having to work. It was an
encouragement to just live the rest of her life in peace. Silveon is not
going to update her on his progress with Waldemar, if there is any, or if it
backslides. She’s going to be a mother, a wife, and a person from now on.
The clone that Sevara supposedly has, and the ones that Regulus claims he
can find for her, are just going to have to be a problem for future
generations. Back in the stellar neighborhood, the majority of people are
set to live until the heat death of the universe. Whether that will actually
happen for them or not doesn’t matter. It’s certainly the plan. If they
commit to something open-ended or indefinite, they may have to continue on
with those responsibilities over the course of many, many lifetimes. It
doesn’t work like that on Extremus. Barring The Question—which is really
only about being alive to see the new home world, not about living
forever—people here are supposed to be able to die. They should do this
without any stress or regrets. Tinaya doesn’t know how much time she has
left, but she has an idea of how long now, and she wants to spend the rest
of her time with her family. Waldemar isn’t a part of that. Most people
aren’t.
Today is Silveon’s birthday. He has the day off from both of his jobs.
Waldemar has pretended that he wishes that he could be here with him, but he
has to work. He isn’t simply allowing Audrey to go, but actively encouraging
it, again as a way to purport himself to be a nice guy who wants his friends
to be happy. Of course, they celebrate the day every year, but Silveon says
that this one is special. He won’t say why, because 29 is not a universal
milestone in aging, but Audrey agrees that it’s significant. It clearly has
something to do with the old timeline, which they’re not allowed to talk
about. Tinaya has told them it’s okay to talk about that specifically—she
doesn’t want to just stop hearing about their lives altogether—but they
insist on staying silent. And that’s just going to have to be okay.
They’re all wearing conical part hats, and being really cheesy with it. He
even asked that they give him gifts. That isn’t a traditional practice in
this culture, but they wanna have some fun. They all did research to find
out what people used to give their kids on their birthdays on Earth. Audrey
gave him a coffee table book that’s just unremarkably photographed images of
various landmarks; some manmade, some natural. She put a lot of effort into
it, drawing from the central archives, and crafting the layout herself,
instead of just having the AI render it. Arqut synthesized a car key, and a
box of something called condoms, which is evidently what people used
to use to protect themselves from pregnancy or disease when they had sex.
According to Arqut’s research, these are the kinds of things dads usually
gave their sons, but typically at younger ages, as parts of their rites of
passage. Tinaya is about to retrieve her gift when Arqut stops her.
“No, it’s not over. You think that key is just a symbol?”
“Are you telling me that you gave me a car?” Silveon asks.
Tinaya glares at her husband.
Arqut smirks. “Join hands.” They hold hands and teleport to an assembly bay.
It’s relatively narrow, and very long, with smaller assembly rooms branching
off of it. While every part, and every machine, and every piece of equipment
they need can be synthesized, someone still has to put all the disparate
parts together. These are not engineers, mechanics, or technicians, but they
study all of those disciplines. They’re the ones who build everything,
instead of just each department performing the assemblies for themselves.
The room is mostly empty, except for a large tarp that is obviously draped
over a land vehicle of some kind. There is either nothing to assemble at the
moment, or he requested the synthwrights to clear out for the occasion.
“Arqut!” Tinaya scolds.
“What, it’s no big deal. I found the model in the archives, and thought it
looked cool. I wanted to see it in real life, and I wanted to experience
this moment. Every father does this for their kid. Or did, anyway.”
“The synthwrights have jobs to do!” Tinaya argues.
“I didn’t use any current synthwrights for this,” Arqut defends. “They’re
all my buddies, and retired. We play cards together.” He does love his old
Earthan customs.
“You used resources,” Tinaya presses.
“Oh, stop worrying so much. We’re living on a ship of abundance! Don’t you
people wanna see it?” Arqut approaches the vehicle, and takes one corner of
the tarp.
Tinaya sighs. “Silvy?”
Silveon laughs. “It’s too much, but yeah, of course I wanna see it.”
“Help me with the other corner, Aud.” Arqut and Audrey take their corners,
and pull the tarp up and over. No one knows how to describe what’s
underneath. They literally don’t have the vocabulary to differentiate it
from any of the other dozens of models that must have existed on ancient
Earth. “The archive called it a 2001 Pontiac Aztek.” He smiles proudly.
“Forgive me, but...what’s he supposed to do with this?” Audrey asks.
“Well, he’s supposed to sit in it,” Arqut reasons. “That’s what you did with
cars. No one could teleport, and they didn’t have spaceships back then. I
mean, some people could teleport in secret, and I think some rich people had
a few spaceships, but for most people, this was the only way to get around.
Come on!” he says excitedly. “Aud, you sit in the back. Can you figure out
how to open the door?”
She rolls her eyes, and opens that hatch in the rear.
“You’re next to me, Silvo,” Arqut says, getting in on the left side, in the
front.
Tinaya reluctantly takes the seat right behind Arqut.
“Um...am I supposed to have a seat?” Audrey asks, curled up in the trunk.
Arqut struggles to look over his shoulder. “I meant, the back next to
Tinaya, Aud. Jesus.”
“Well, you didn’t say that,” Audrey argues before coming around, and
climbing back inside the right way. “This isn’t the back, it’s the middle,”
she mutters.
“Okay.” Arqut breathes deeply. “Comfortable, right?” He reaches over
Silveon’s knees, and opens a small compartment. “Look at this. Funny
mechanism. This tiny little mirror here?” He adjusts it a little. “Notice
these other mirrors on the outside. And get this...there’s no
display. That’s not a screen. It’s just a window.”
“We studied this in school, dad, I know what these things are,” Silveon
explains. “We’re not archaeologists. But anyway, if this is a gift for
me, why am I not the one sitting behind what are obviously the
controls.”
“You don’t know how to drive yet,” Arqut contends.
“And you do?” Tinaya questions.
Arqut releases an evil smirk as he’s looking at his wife in the small mirror
between him and his son. “I’ve been taking VR lessons.” He looks over at
Silveon. “The key, my good lad.” He takes it, and sticks it into the slot on
the side of the wheel thing. He pauses for dramatic effect before twisting
it. The engine roars. Did it have to be that loud, or did people back then
like it?
“Okay, that’s enough,” Tinaya warns.
“We haven’t gotten to the best part. You can’t see, but there are big
buttons on the floor. You push one to go, and one to stop.”
“Well, we’re not going to go anywhere, so that’s irrelevant,” Tinaya says.
“Ah, we won’t go far, and I won’t go fast. It’s fine.” Arqut depresses the
pedal and the car lurches. “Whoops, okay. It’s just a little different when
it’s real.” It lurches again, but not quite as much. “Give me a moment to
get into a good rhythm.”
Tinaya is really worried now. “We need to stop, this is dangerous.”
“It’s all right, Tiny” Arqut promises. “I know what I’m doing.” The car
starts moving forward. It’s not going particularly fast, but it’s smoother
than the first two attempts. They’re moving down the bay. Lights flip on in
response to them.
“Oh, this is interesting, you can really feel it,” Audrey muses.
“You should feel the bumps on the road in the simulation,” Arqut boasts. “I
bet it was a hell of a ride in real life.” He speeds up, probably thinking
that Tinaya won’t notice.
She notices. “Slow down. There’s nowhere to go.”
“We have plenty of room.” The bay almost runs the full length of the ship on
its level. It’s not infinite, however.
“At least turn on autopilot,” Tinaya demands.
Arqut bursts out laughing. “They didn’t have that back then!” He speeds up.
Faster, and faster still. It really is reckless at this point, inarguably
so. He had some room to play around before, but now, he could get them all
killed.
“Arqut!” Tinaya cries.
“Just relax, I know what I’m doing,” he assures her.
“That’s it. I’m teleporting us all out of here.”
“Suppresed,” Arqut volleys. “You think I don’t know you?”
“We’re about to hit the bulkhead!” Audrey tries to alert him.
The wall is indeed getting closer.
“She’s right, we’re gonna crash!” Silveon shouts.
They all start screaming now, even Arqut, though for different reasons. Just
before they collide with the wall, he reaches up, and flips a switch next to
the little mirror.
There was a lot of debate when Project Extremus was first being conceived.
The design of the vessel was the first—and arguably most important—detail
that they had to nail down. One idea proposed was to make it relatively
small, and expand the spaces they needed using parallel dimensions. History
has forgotten why they decided against this. It wouldn’t have really
contradicted their mandate to be a generation ship, or to reach the most
extreme region of the galaxy. They just chose not too. Parallel and pocket
dimensions are still used here, though at far smaller scales. These prove,
however, that they’re possible, and it’s a simple enough task to adapt one
such of these generators to something larger.
The world around them has shifted slightly. They’re still on the ship, but
everything is a little fuzzy and discolored. They pass right through the
bulkhead, and into the corridor on the other side. Arqut continues to drive
them around this level, which is so far unoccupied by anyone else. They
don’t know whether that means it’s more like a lifeless facsimile, or just
everyone is at lunch right now. They get their answer when Arqut lifts a
lever, and raises them across the z-axis to the deck above. There are a ton
of people here, going about their day, and not paying them any mind. He
drives right through this as if they’re not even there, just like the walls.
“Okay, now this really is dangerous,” Tinaya admonishes her husband. “We
could slip back into realspace at any moment. One brief disruption in power,
or the frequency generator, and you could end up killing several people.”
“Multiple redundancies,” Arqut clarifies. “It’s not gonna happen.” He
continues to drive around aimlessly, though with less enthusiasm than
before. The moment has passed for them to get into it. As he’s driving, he
looks around. No one is having all that much fun. Audrey is nervous, but
trying not to show it. Tinaya is irritated, and not hiding it at all.
Silveon looks rather bored, and maybe distracted? Arqut stops the car, but
doesn’t phase them back. “I just thought that this would be an exciting
thing to do before...”
“Before what?” Silveon asks him.
Arqut takes a deep breath and prepares himself. He doesn’t face anyone,
though. He’s just staring through the front window. “I’m dying. Cancer. They
think my weird shapeshifting power is eating me up from the inside.”
“I thought you weren’t using that,” Audrey says.
“It apparently doesn’t matter,” Arqut replies. “In one...maybe two years,
Tinaya and I are going to die. It’s okay. It’s time. We’re both old. But
Silvy, we missed out on your childhood. I guess I was just trying to
recapture that magic. I’m feeling fear and stress about the future, and I
suppose I took my nostalgia for those first couple of years when we just had
a growing boy a little too far; back to a time when none of us was even born
yet.”
Silvy nods reverently. “I understand the impulse. I miss my childhood too,
and I wish I could have given you that. I wish, at the worst, I could have
jumped into my younger self’s body when he was nineteen or twenty. But
Waldemar couldn’t wait. That’s what I thought anyway. I don’t think I’ve
been helping. So all this was a waste of time. You lost your kid, and I lost
my chance to die fighting alongside my brothers and sisters in the
resistance.”
“You did the right thing coming back here, son,” Tinaya tells him sincerely.
She looks over at Audrey. “You both did. You’re our children
now, and we love you. When your father and I finally leave, as he said, in a
couple years still, I know that you will be all right. I’ll know
that...you’ll keep working towards a better future. Just don’t forget to
find some happiness for yourself. It’s not all about the mission.
I’ve recently learned that. Don’t wait as long as me.”
The four of them start to hold and pat each other’s shoulders, and hug, and
kiss, awkwardly in this vehicle. Then Arqut drives them back to the bay,
where they schedule it for disassembly and material reclamation. Silveon
keeps the key, though.
“Oh, wait. Mom, you had a gift too?”
“Right.” Tinaya reaches behind the couch cushion, and pulls out an envelope.
“These are the master codes. I’ve been collecting them over the years, and
finally secured the last ones I needed a couple of months ago. They will
grant a user control of every system, and override any command. No single
person on Extremus has ever had them.” She hands him the envelope. “Until
now.”
