Extremus: Year 113

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Audrey didn’t feel comfortable giving Tinaya the location of any secret consciousness transference technology which might be on the ship, and neither did Silveon when she asked him instead. Though with the latter, it seemed more like he didn’t know; like they didn’t discuss it before he time traveled, because it wasn’t relevant to his mission. He actually seemed rather perturbed at the implication that Audrey did know. For months, Tinaya let it go, and moved on to other things, but the situations with Waldemar and Thistle have only worsened, so these dark fantasies have continued to eat at her. She needs to get this solved, even if it interferes with the kids’ plans. Unfortunately, she’s not gotten much time to speak with Audrey discreetly.

“I know she told you,” Tinaya says.

“She didn’t tell me anything,” Silveon answers. She didn’t even have to clarify what she was talking about. He just knew right off the bat.

“Where is it?”

“You can’t transfer Thistle’s mind to Waldemar’s.”

“It would solve all of our problems.” Tinaya also didn’t tell them what she was planning to do with the tech, but they must have pieced it together.

“The human body would not be able to handle the data that Thistle contains.”

“That’s BS. AIs have been downloading their data into organic substrates for centuries.”

“Thistle is not a normal AI. You’re the one who told me that part of his memory isn’t even located in base reality.”

“That’s what he told me about it, but why can’t his Waldemar body access it from wherever it actually is, just as his servers do now?”

“Don’t ask me, this isn’t my field of research, but I don’t think it’s possible, based on the discussions I was a part of when we were working on the plan to send my mind back in time. They wanted to send multiple people into one body as a sort of amalgamated supersoldier, but it couldn’t be done. And anyway, why do you even need consciousness travel tech? Basic realtime mind transference should be in the central archives.”

“It’s not. They deliberately erased it before we launched. You should know that.”

“Sorry I didn’t study harder in school, mom. I was a little preoccupied. It must be in the Bridger Section somewhere, though. A trusted ally provided it for us, and I always assumed that’s where he got it. I didn’t ask questions, because compartmentalization.”

“I don’t know if you’re being cagey or ignorant, but son, I don’t like this side of you. To be clear, I still love you more than anything, but you still seem to think that this is your mission, and yours alone. You brought me into this, even if you had rather I stayed out of it. I may not be from the future, but I know things. And I know that this can work.”

“Consciousness overwrite was always a possibility, mother,” Silveon begins to explain. “It’s one of the plans that Audrey and I have not mentioned. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Back in the stellar neighborhood, where all the time travelers live, someone could have done it with a snap of their finger, like Nerakali Preston. Our version of the technology doesn’t just take one mind, and put it in someone’s body. It’s more like it holds it in place, and pushes it backwards in time. It stays in the same brain, just at a different point in history. You can overwrite an older Waldemar with himself, but not someone else...not Thistle. You might be able to modify it—I mean, someone theoretically could; not you specifically. I’m not going to help you with this, because it is not part of the plan. Audrey and I are on the same page with this one.”

“Well, at least you two are talking again. How nice for you.” That was too catty.

“I love you, mother.”

“I love you too, Silvy.”

Not long after Silveon leaves for work, Pronastus shows up. “Hello, Admiral. Would you like to take a walk with me?”

“I can’t right now,” Tinaya replies. It’s not really true. Lataran is liaising with the crew today, but she doesn’t want to think about anything but her objectives.

“I think you can. I think you need a break.” He starts to mumble, “I really think you should take a break.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Tinaya ultimately concedes, realizing where he’s going with this. He leads her farther towards the bow. The bridge, the engineering section, and the executive wings are all near the front of the ship, but there’s a lot ahead of them, particularly shielding and storage. It’s the most dangerous part of the ship, because if they’re gonna get hit by a meteor, that’s where it’s gonna happen. Technicians come here all the time to work, but they don’t stay here any longer than they have to. Tinaya herself has never been down here before, because she’s never needed to.

Pronastus isn’t entirely sure where he’s going. He’s just letting his pathfinding ability work, but it appears to be a little unclear. He keeps sticking one foot down a corridor, then realizes his mistake, and backtracks. She quickly learns to follow him a couple meters behind while he figures out the correct route. “Ah, here we are,” he finally says. This is it. This appears to be the absolute most forward section. It’s the extreme of Extremus. On the other side of this hull is outer space. There’s nothing here but a panel on the wall that reads, CAUTION: DOPPLER GLOW. DO NOT OPEN WHEN TRAVELING AT REFRAME OR FRACTIONAL SPEEDS.

“You want me to open that?” Tinaya questions. That would blind them, so the answer better be no.

Pronatus studies the words, like an illiterate person would, but Tinaya assumes he’s just trying to figure out whether that’s really what they’re meant to do here. “That warning is out of date.” He sniffs it, and it’s not clear if he’s getting any information from doing that, or if it’s just theatre. “Yeah, this is original signage.”

“What does that matter?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but I’m pretty confident that we can open it. If you want,” he goes on, “you can go around the corner, and I’ll do it myself.”

Tinaya sighs, and takes hold of the handle. “You have your whole life ahead of you. You go around the corner.” After he does so, she opens the viewport, and braces herself for the blinding light. That’s not what she finds on the other side, however. Instead, it’s a massive bubble of some kind. It’s gray, like doppler glow is, but not nearly as bright. Her eyes have to adjust a little, but it’s not bad. It’s a fairly smooth surface, but it fluctuates and oscillates like a liquid, or no...a plasma. That’s plasma. This is a plasma shield. And all those frequent ripples are from meteoroids. But if this protective bubble is here, why does this sign warn people against opening it?

“Holy shit,” Pronastus says, walking back up to the port, just as surprised and awe-inspired as her. “Why isn’t this a channel on the broadcast system that you can watch on your holoscreen?”

“That’s a very good question. Maybe it’s slowly blinding us, I dunno.”

“Sometimes I can kind of feel the past too,” Pronastus tells her. “I often need context, because I don’t empirically know everything about it. I realize why the panel is here when it seemingly doesn’t need to be. It’s because it used to be necessary. And then they came up with the Frontrunner program.” The frontrunners are five little baby Extremus vessels, which fly ahead of the main ship. They’re entirely unmanned, and self-sufficient. She’s never heard of them needing to be repaired, replaced, or even visited. She’s not even sure whether they have life support or not. They developed them over a hundred years ago to enhance the protective shield, which turned out to be necessary—not due to natural obstacles, but an intentional meteoroid minefield, placed there by man. The True Extremists made that whole region of space far more dense than it should be in order to throw the Extremus off course. It worked. That’s why Halan Yenant went to hock, and why the ship has had to correct course gradually ever since. These frontrunners may be old, but they’re still vital, even without the ultra-density of that part of the Milky Way. Space debris will always be a danger.

“I think I’m supposed to go to one of them, but I don’t know which one. What are your spidey-senses telling you?” she asks him.

“I’m not allowed to call it that. But...that one.” He points. They can’t really see the frontrunners, but they can see five evenly-spaced dips in the bubble, which are probably where they are. “Or that one,” he adds, pointing again. “They’re both screaming at me.”

“Okay, it’s not safe, so you stay here.” She starts adjusting the settings on her watch. Usually, whenever anyone teleports anywhere on the ship, it’s logged in the system. As an Admiral, she can switch that off to go dark, but there’s still a problem. Even though there’s probably nothing you can do about it, they have a built-in “man overboard” feature, which will set off all sorts of alarm bells if someone ends up teleporting outside the hull. Not only are there safeguards to prevent it from happening at all, but just in case it does, the alarms can’t be disabled or turned off unless—

Pronastus has retrieved a black cloak from his bag, and is offering it to her. “I knew the code to the armory, and the cabinet where this was being stored. My mind had me steal it a week ago, and now I know why.”

Tinaya takes it from him, and examines it. “Hm. Is this darkbursting tech?”

“Oh, maybe,” Pronastus decides. “It did say DB on the cabinet.”

This could work. If she’s wearing it, she should be able to make it to the frontrunner without being detected. The question is, which one? She doesn’t even know what she’s looking for here. She’s just been guessing that he’s been leading her to consciousness transference technology, but it could be a swimming pool for all she knows, or an okapi sanctuary. He helps her slip the darkbursting outfit on, which covers her whole body, leaving only a small mesh screen for her to look out of.

“I can’t see you. Where are you? You’re invisible! Ahhhhh!” Pronastus jokes, flailing his arms about. It doesn’t make her invisible to the naked eye, just to instruments hunting for heat signatures, or in this case, a teleportation signature.

“Go back home, Mr. Kegrigia. You have been an immense help, but if this doesn’t work, or if it isn’t what we think it is, I don’t want you getting caught up in this mess.”

“Aye, Admiral.” He salutes, and then walks away obediently.

Tinaya teleports away, hoping to land somewhere with life support, and regretting at the last second not coming here with her own life support. All she would have needed to do was grab a helmet from her stateroom. Then again, Pronastus should have had one in his back if she needed it. She holds her breath with her eyes shut for a few seconds before giving in and trying to look around. She’s in a dark room, and she can breathe just fine. She opens the darkbursting suit, and pushes herself out of it like a baby being born. “Um. Hey, Thistle? Are you there?”

Nothing.

“Hey, Micro. Respond.” Another common AI model.

Still nothing.

Wait. They made these a long time ago. “Hey, Elder.”

“Yes, Admiral?” Ah, shit. This AI went rogue way back in the early days of the mission, and they had to destroy it, but it evidently survived here without anyone realizing it.

“Turn on the lights, please.”

“Of course.” The lights turn on.

There isn’t really anything here. It looks like what you would expect out of place that isn’t supposed to be manned, but could be in a pinch. There’s a bed, a couch, and some seating around a table, as well as a desk. There’s a lavatory in the corner, and a kitchenette with a food synthesizer. “What is the most interesting thing on this vessel?”

“Besides me?” AI!Elder asks. “You.”

“Besides me and you.”

“Let me think.” He takes a beat. “There’s a cool helmet in that closet over there.”

“Hold on.” Tinaya seals herself back up in the suit, and teleports over to the other frontrunner that Pronastust was pointing to.

“Welcome back!” AI!Elder exclaims with glee.

Tinaya looks around. This can’t be the same frontrunner. It looks similar, but it has a distinct enough design, and it’s smaller, because there appears to be a whole extra room where the closet should be. Now that she knows that these exist, she’ll have to jump to the other three to see if they hold their own secrets. Her curiosity will get the best of her eventually, but for now, she needs to deal with this situation first. Who should she tell about it? What is there to tell yet? “You maintain coherence across the frontrunners.”

“I do.”

“What about Extremus proper? Have you had access to us this whole time?”

“Not until today.”

“Are you telling me that by coming here and activating you, I let you into the main systems?”

“Of course not! What kind of security would that be? No, you’re gonna let me back in once you open that door you’ve been eying.”

She wants to argue with him, claiming that she would never do such a thing, but she has to open the door before she can even be honest with herself. There is no time like the present, so to speak. She opens it, and steps in. It looks like a clone lab, and it’s populated by one specimen. She wipes the condensation from the glass, and peers inside. It’s Waldemar Kristiansen. He’s older than the one currently on Extremus, but it’s definitely him. She does a few breathing exercises to calm herself down. Whatever this is, it’s not good, but she doesn’t have any details yet. She clears her throat. “AI!Elder...”

“Yes?” She can hear the smile in his disembodied voice.

“Report.”

“This isn’t his only clone.”

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Microstory 2499: Outer System

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

Microstory 2488: Chemosynthedome

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All this stuff went over my head, but in case you don’t see it from the title, this place is where most of the chemicals we use are produced. It even produces some water, for certain uses, though the majority of that comes from outer system ice mining. I won’t bore you with the details that my tour guide went over, because I don’t remember them. I’ll just say that this is clearly a very important place. They’re used to create organic substrates, and then to sustain them once people download their consciousnesses into them. Mechanical substrates still use gear lubricant. Synthesizer feedstock, spaceship energy maintenance and propulsion, superconductors, and the constituent parts of metamaterials. Everything is a chemical, in case you don’t know, and it all starts here. I wish I understood it better, but the tour was very dry, and they assumed a level of intelligence and education that I don’t have. Everyone else probably had no problem, though. I felt like an idiot, trying to keep up with what she was saying. I suppose that’s my only complaint. I obviously don’t take issue with the dome itself. It’s doing what needs to be done, and it sounds like it’s doing a great job at it. I just think there should be different kinds of tours, which cater to people of different backgrounds and interests. I did want to learn something, but it was so advanced that I basically ended up with nothing. I think what’s happened is that the planet’s priorities are in the really big and popular domes, which demand a lot of resources, like a massive android population. That leaves these educational, institutional domes behind. They develop what they’re asked to, but they don’t support a visiting population in addition to that. It’s just something to think about. I dunno, maybe it’s just all my fault. Whatever. Do what you gotta do.

Microstory 2441: Power Crystal Factory (PCF)

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Not to be confused with scifi examples of power crystals, or examples in fantasy where crystals have magical properties. Disclaimer over. For the most part, ships and orbiting stations in the system fleet are manufactured in outer space. The only reason we ever did it on Earth was because we were not capable of space manufacturing in the early days. Once we built up some infrastructure, and bolstered the industry overall, we were able to free ourselves from the gravity well. We still needed ways to actually get up to these vessels, but that was easy after everything. There doesn’t seem to be a name for the host star, or the star system as a whole, so we’ll just call it a Castlebourne thing. They build their ships on a secret moon base, which is easier for them to take off from. I caught a peek from a telescope once, and saw the mass driver that they use for launching. That’s all I know about that, and the crystal regulators. Every ship, no matter how big or small, or what powers it, or what it’s used for, has a need to distribute its power. Our ancestors used to use various technologies, like adapters, to control the flow of electrical power. These were crude by today’s standards, but the principle remains vital to the safe and efficient operation of a moving vehicle. Crystals have a variety of uses in this regard. I won’t bore you with the details, but some of them serve as conditioners, which maintain the smooth transference of power, where it’s needed. It makes sure that everything, no matter how remote, is powered at all times. But sometimes it’s too much power, so you also need crystal capacitors, which can buffer the power temporarily, and release it more gradually. If it’s buffered too much, then they can also redistribute it safely, if only to a waste heat ventilation system. Crystals are also used as nodes, redirecting or splitting the power when powering multiple independent systems at once. I say all this so you understand why this dome has to exist. So now you know why the crystals themselves are important, but that doesn’t explain why they need to be manufactured here, instead of the moon, where nearly everything else is made. It has to do with gravity. Crystals aren’t made, they’re grown. They start small, and build themselves from there, almost like a plant. For some types, this process requires 1G surface gravity, or close to it. There’s some evidence that Castlebourne’s slightly lower gravity is beneficial to the process, but they’ve not completed enough studies on this phenomenon, and there are a lot of other variables to account for. What we do know is that Castlebourne-grown power crystals are at least as good as any others. You may be asking, why don’t you just grow them in a cylindrical habitat? And I’ll tell you, that’s not real gravity. It’s only simulating gravity. For everyday living, if the spin is programmed correctly, everything feels normal. But crystals are more finicky. They also need to be still, and they can tell when they’re in motion, which is presently the only way to fake gravity. So for now, they’re grown on the surface of a full-sized planet. That’s what we do here in this dome, and we do it well. Most of this is automated, as one would expect, but I still have an important job to do here. They still like to have humans inspect the merchandise. If you ever ride in a ship that uses my power crystals, you can rest, assured that it’s been created using the highest of standards, and you’re safe. At least from crystals. Any other components, I don’t know...that’s not my department.

Microstory 2430: Advanced Research Dome (ARD)

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In the early days of interstellar colonization, they largely expected you to start from scratch, though the definition of this term is a little loose. I mean, they had domes too, because almost none of them had an atmosphere that was breathable by organic Earthans. So there was some technology right from the start, and they were making scientific advances on their own, but Earth remained front and center in the industry. You just can’t beat that kind of established infrastructure and strong, lasting institutions. I’m not sure that’s true anymore. While Teagarden took over the majority of the military needs of the Core Worlds, that was mostly for political reasons. They wanted to erase any sense that it favored the nations of Old Earth. Physics research didn’t have to switch homes, but it has. These new reframe engines people are using to travel at faster-than-light speeds? Those were apparently invented here. Developments in anti-gravity; induced stasis; transhumanistic enhancement, including bioforming; terraforming; power generation and distribution...it’s all here. Dare I say, we’re now more advanced than Earth is, even with all of its advantages? I’m sorry to tell you that that is my conclusion. If you’re interested in furthering our understanding of physics, biology, chemistry, or any other scientific field, your best bet is to come here. Earth’s programs are nothing to scoff at, and I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong, but at some point, the brightest minds in the galaxy evidently decided to move, and before anyone realized what was happening, the power shifted here. Good or bad, that’s what happened. This power may shift once more, back to Earth, or perhaps some third star system, but for now, this is the nexus of scientific exploration. The silver lining is that they’re not hoarding it any more than Earth did. They’re sharing what they’ve learned with others, so we’re at least safe from the privatization threats that we’ve faced in days past. Word of warning: this dome is not for visitors, really. You can come, and they’ll let you walk around, but we’re dealing with a lot of dangerous things here, so the majority of the sectors are off-limits without proper authorization. People keep randomly showing up, believing that we have something to show off, but that’s not what we’re doing here. This is just for us. If you want to join, fill out the right application. If you don’t yet qualify, find a learning platform, and catch up. There are no limits to who can help humanity and its offshoots achieve everything we ever dreamed of.

Microstory 2429: Capital

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This is the Capital City of Castlebourne. It doesn’t have any other name besides that, which is unusual, since they seem to have an appreciation for word puns in their other names. I suppose they just wanted to be real serious here, which is probably a good thing. Where I’m from in the Goldilocks Corridor, our planet didn’t have a capital. It was just a village where we made soap. That’s really it. Several years back, we were visited by the resistance to the Exin Empire. They wanted to know if any of us were willing to join the movement, and fight alongside them. We didn’t understand why we would even consider that, because for the most part, the empire left us alone. They asked us for soap, we gave them the soap, and they left. They never abused us, or attacked us, or anything. The resistance started educating us, though. They taught us about the other worlds, which were being forced to do other things to serve the Emperor. They showed us images of these other places, involving big machines that could produce their own wares in a fraction of the time. We were stunned. Some of us didn’t believe it. Some of us still don’t, and presumably still live on our home planet. We were making soap by hand. It was hard work, and the only reason we didn’t complain before was because we literally didn’t know that there was any better way. We were intentionally kept in the dark. Well, anyway, no, none of us joined the resistance. We were soap makers, we didn’t know how to fight! But then a few years later, another new ship showed up, and promised to take us somewhere where we wouldn’t have to make soap anymore. We asked them what work we would be doing, and they kind of laughed. No work, they said; we wouldn’t have to work at all. This was another concept that we didn’t have any frame of reference for. You work, it’s what you do. Not even the war-fighting people said anything about a life where we wouldn’t have to work. After some further education, most of us agreed to go with these other people. We flew away, and landed on Castlebourne. They didn’t lie to us, we don’t have to work. It’s taken some adjusting, but we’ve gotten used to just being alive and happy. I still wanna work, though. It still feels like the right thing to do. So I came to Capital to see how I could contribute to the governing body of our new society. I don’t have much experience, but they were all so welcoming to me. I’ve not been assigned anything yet, but they’re working on finding a place. I’m sure it’s difficult since I don’t have any skills. As for the dome itself, it’s gorgeous. Our village was dull and lifeless. I didn’t realize how much of a struggle it was for us just to survive. In contrast, this place has trees and other plant life. Tall buildings with hundreds of people work to make the world a better place for us refugees. For whatever reason, we were allowed to know how to read, but not everyone here had that luxury, yet the government is helping, and they’re doing it in style. I can’t wait to get my new job, and get to come to this beautiful dome every single day for the rest of my life.

Microstory 2426: Waterworld

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There is an ancient movie called Waterworld, and this has absolutely nothing to do with it. The only connection is the abundance of water. I kind of feel like they did that intentionally. It was one of the first domes ever to come into commission, obviously because water is so important. It makes me think that they knew about the movie, and deliberately used it as the name for this place so they wouldn’t have to adopt the franchise for a themed dome. Do you think that’s possible? Maybe I’m just being stupid and paranoid. I didn’t come to this planet specifically for it, but I got excited when I saw the dome on my brochure, and then my heart sank when I quickly learned that it’s only a Utility dome. I guess I really am dumb, because I was in the wrong section of the catalog. All the fun ones are listed completely separately. So. What is this? It’s a water processing plant. Not so exciting now, is it? They send a ship out into the outer solar system, where water can’t exist in liquid form (for the most part). They drag the ice that they harvest from the smaller celestial bodies, and transport it back to us. I went to Waterworld because it was already in my brain, and when I make plans, I tend to stick to them. Then I stayed to learn about it anyway. They don’t just lasso the ice chunks in a net, and pull it along behind them. They encapsulate it in a highly regulated tank, which is only partially insulated. They adjust this insulation and pressure accordingly as they’re on their way back. This allows the ice to melt into a liquid, and drain into a second tank without sublimating into gaseous form, which is what it would typically do in a vacuum. It’s the sun that accomplishes this for them, allowing them to get a little bit of free energy. Obviously, it still takes power, but it sounds like a pretty cool system at any rate. Pun intended. By the time they get back, the ice should theoretically be fully liquified, so they can dump it into Waterworld. The dome itself is basically a giant fish tank...without any fish. I’m oversimplifying it, because that’s what it looks like from the outside, but the truth is that the water is divided into compartments, which protects the system from total and utter cross-contamination. If there’s an issue with one compartment, at least it doesn’t ruin the entire thing. All told, we’re talking a volume of 145 billion megalitres. I mean, just picture that. You can’t, can you? Well, just take the vactrain to Waterworld, and they’ll show you. It’s evidently never filled to the brim, but it still looks interesting. You’re not gonna want to spend a lot of time here. It’s not closed to the public, but they clearly haven’t set it up for visitors. Don’t get me wrong, they’re ready for you, but I don’t think they could handle it if it suddenly became super popular. If you’re only mildly intrigued, I think reading about it on their prospectus is probably good enough, but if you really want to, you can come take a little tour. It won’t take much time out of your stay on Castlebourne, and might be a nice reprieve from the exhilarating activities. I’m still mad about that name, though.

The Sixth Key: Rock Up (Part VI)

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Cedar Duvall, leader of the Sixth Key, stands on the bridge, watching as the seams to the time bubble that has been slowing their progress down start to rip apart, and finally release them. They expected to break free from its tyranny eventually, but the calculations the scientists made placed that estimation much later than now. “Steady, boys. I fear we have been freed intentionally by whatever intelligence is down there. We still don’t know if they’re friendly.”

“There’s no planet here anymore. It’s just a small patch of land. Should I prep an away team?” the Captain of the Starship of State offers. Any vessel that The Sixth Key is on is the Starship of State, but this is the ship that is typically used for this purpose, so the two of them have a nice rapport. She knows that Cedar isn’t going to say yes. He is the away team. He’s reckless like that.

“No, Cap’n. Teleport me down alone. Keep the whole crew on PrepCon Three.”

“Aye, sir. Teleporting you now.”

Cedar appears on the grassy hill. A bunch of people are sitting around. Two others appear to be dead, but it doesn’t seem to be bothering anyone. “My name is Cedar Duvall, Sixth Key of the Sixth Key! Report!”

“I’m confused,” a woman says.

“About what? The re part, or the port part?”

“Ha-ha-ha. The Sixth Key of the Sixth Key, I don’t know what that means.”

Cedar is taken aback. He hasn’t spoken to anyone who doesn’t know who he is in decades. “I am the Sixth Key, because I created the Sixth Key universe. Me and five other keys.”

“Oh,” the woman says. She’s holding back further laughter. “Right. My name is Hogarth Pudeyonavic.”

“Ah, I’ve heard of you. I know all the salmon and choosing ones. And the other...extra people.”

“Of course, sir. You’ve taken a leadership role since all these people left?”

These people? Cedar starts studying people’s faces, instead of just treating them as background actors. She’s right. Some of these are the former leaders of the original five realities. Not all of them, though. They disappeared, and he did indeed have to step up. They needed a singular voice, and they needed someone whose loyalties did not lie in one past civilization or another. “I have. Is that going to be a problem?”

“What year is it now?” Ingrid Alvarado of the Fifth Division asks.

“It’s 2500. At least, it should be. We were stuck in a time bubble on the way here, so who knows?”

“That was probably his doing,” Hogarth says, gesturing towards the dead man.

“Is that why you killed him?”

“He’s not dead, he’s asleep.”

Cedar cocks his head to the side, and eyes the supposedly sleeping man. “There’s something happening to his face.”

Hogarth looks down at him too. She takes a pair of goggles out of her pocket, and presses them against her eyes without bothering to strap them onto her head. “He’s de-aging. Interesting.”

“How do we stop it?” Cedar asks. “Cosette DuFour,” he says to another woman. “You can do that, can’t you?”

“Not to other people,” Cosette answers. “I can only adjust my own age.”

“Pity.”

“This is what he wanted,” Hogarth tries to explain. “He’s...resetting his brain back to factory settings. At least that’s how I’m interpreting his words. He didn’t allot any time to talk about it. He just collapsed, and fell asleep.”

“I think she’s de-aging too,” a guy calls up after examining the dead-not-dead woman. Who is he again? He ran the main sequence. Some kind of General.

“So, they’re gonna be all right?” Cedar asks.

Hogarth shrugs. “Dunno. We’re waiting to see.” She jerks her chin towards the sleeping woman. “She wasn’t a good person.” She jerks her chin towards the sleeping man. “He’s trying to fix her. Too early to tell whether it worked or not.”

Cedar takes his water disc out of his suit. He flicks it in the air, but it doesn’t open, so he flicks it several more times until it does. He presses the button, and summons the interdimensional water. “Well...” He takes a drink. “There’s something weird about this void.” He takes another sip. “Ahhh. I mean, besides the fact that there’s no black hole in it, which I’m told is unusual. It’s been drawing power lately.” Some of the water has gone down the wrong pipe, so he coughs it out. “It’s been stealing from us. We came here to plug the leak.”

Hogarth glances down at the sleeping man now, who looks a lot younger than he did when Cedar first showed up. “Well, that would probably kill them.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking too.” Cedar vigorously shakes the back of his head. “Thing is, I still gotta plug the leak. The galaxy runs on temporal energy.”

“Every universe runs on temporal energy,” Hogarth says. “That’s what time is.”

“I have no doubt that that’s true, but I don’t care about the other universes. I care about mine.”

“You’re the confused one now,” Hogarth says, taking a step forward. “This universe is mine. You may have made your little pocket universe, but I made the full-sized one that it’s inside of. You’re here because I say you can be here, and technically speaking, all of the energy that you have is sourced from me.”

He studies her face. “You’ve been gone as well. We’ve been holding diplomatic discussions with one Ellie Underhill, and her cohort. Perhaps you’ve heard of her? She lives in Fort Underhill.”

Hogarth cracks a smile. “That I named it after her does not diminish my own power. You still need to respect me. The Third Rail spent billions of years without excess temporal energy. They lived off the time that was naturally available to them. You will be fine with a little bit of rationing while we figure out who these two are when they wake up...what they are.”

“The Third Rail was one planet in its original reality. We number in the trillions of habitats. We need the excess.”

“And you’ll have it,” Hogarth reiterated, “when these two are done doing whatever it is they’re doing.”

They look like children now. How long is this gonna go on? “Which will be when? When they each turn back into an unfertilized egg and a sperm?”

“It’s called a spermatozoon,” one of the people Cedar doesn’t recognize corrects. “What? I’m a biologist, I have to know these things.”

“I thought you were a princess,” the Nuadu-something guy from the Parallel says.

“We don’t know,” Hogarth jumps back in before the conversation can be moved too far off topic. “I expect that they’ll stop de-aging at some point. I’m sure that this was all part of his plan, and I’m choosing to accept that. Why? Because he may be the single-most powerful being in both of our universes. Let’s not piss him off, shall we?”

Cedar clears his throat, and coughs again. He smashes his cup back down to disc form, and slips it in its pocket. “Can’t argue with that logic. Wadya all eat around here?”

“We just got here,” Hogarth answers. “We don’t know what’s edible.”

No one ends up eating anything. They’re too nervous to find out what’s going to happen when the child-gods wake up. They’re both eight years old or so when the de-aging process ceases. They stay asleep after that, though, continuing to work through their apparent metamorphoses. While they’re waiting, they catch Cedar up on who and what the sleepers are, to the extent of their knowledge. In turn, he catches them up on the goingson of the Sixth Key, and all the history they missed while they were gone. They’ve maintained the imaginary wall that is holding back the Reality Wars, but it is a constant threat to the peace that their new civilization is enjoying. That’s why Echo and Clavia are such a concern. Energy is still the number one commodity in the galaxy, so they can’t afford to waste one ounce of it. These two god-beings could be the key to maintaining the peace forever, or they could be the instruments of its destruction following total domination. It all depends on what happens when they come to.

About an hour passes before they begin to stir. Clavia wakes up first, dazed and confused. “Mommy?” she asks. She thinks she has a mother. Who is she talking about, though? “Mom, where are you?” She’s looking around and blinking a lot.

“Umm...I’m right here.” Hogarth carefully approaches her.

“You’re not my mommy,” Clavia argues.

“No, but I care about you, and I’m here to care for you.” Nice save.

Clavia is very pouty. She continues to blink as she tries to wake up fully. She looks around again, and stops when she sees the second-in-command for the Sixth Key version of main sequence Earth. “Mom! There you are!”

Judy Schmidt widens her eyes. “Uh, me?”

“Yeah, silly!” Clavia laughs joyously.

“Right, okay. Um. Come here...honey.”

Clavia hops over, and tackles Judy with a big hug.

Judy mouths what the fuh to everyone else, but no one has any answers. This little magic girl has imprinted on her, for whatever reason, and there’s probably no going back on that. Kids don’t just switch parents on a whim. It’s her job to raise her now. So she better figure it out.

“Group hug!” Echo comes running up the hill. He hugs Judy and Clavia. “Come on, daddy!” He beckons Judy’s superior, General Bariq Medley.

“Oh, um.” Bariq leans over to hug them too, but not very tightly.

“Okay,” Judy says, gently separating them all. “Why don’t you go play with your aunt...Princess Honeypea, so your mommy and daddy can talk to their friends.

“Okay!” the kids say in unison. Good, they do see Honeypea as a member of the family. Out of everyone here, she’s probably the best with kids.

“What the hell is happening?” Bariq questions Hogarth.

“Everyone seems to think that I’m some sort of expert in all this, but I don’t know what’s going on. I came here because this is where the trail led after the magnolia tree was destroyed. But here’s all I know. Two extremely powerful individuals were just regressed to childhood, and now they think you two are their parents. I don’t know if they have false memories of you, or if it’s just an intuition they have, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it. You have to be there for them. No one can replace you. Think about how you were when you were their age. Would you have accepted just being moved to someone else’s care?”

“No one suggested that,” Judy defends.

“You were thinking it.” Cedar steps forward, injecting himself into the conversation. “I would be.”

Bariq looks over his shoulders. Princess Honeypea is teaching the kids pattycake. “I want a seat at the table.”

“What?” Cedar asks.

“You rule the galaxy now. I wanna be a part of that.”

“I don’t know that there’s any reason—”

“Hey, Clavia and Echo!” Bariq calls over. “Who’s this guy?”

They both just shrug their shoulders.

“They don’t know you. You wanna have any say what they do with their power? You wanna make sure the people of the Sixth Key have what they need? You better cozy up to their parents.”

“Bariq, we can’t just exploit them like that,” Judy warns. “They’re children.”

“No, they’re not,” Bariq argues. He turns back to Cedar. “What’ll it be? The woman’s name literally means key. That’s a strong symbol, but they don’t answer to you. They answer to the two of us.”

“They’ll answer to me better,” Judy reasons. “Children always love their mommies more. Especially when their daddies are dicks.”

Bariq chuckles. “I’ll dote on them. But I can’t do that from the sidelines.”

“Yes, you can,” Judy insists.

“Okay,” Cedar says. “You come with me, bringing the temporal energy gods, and I’ll find you a place in government. High up. People will know you, respect you. They remember you. I didn’t erase the past, though I literally could have.”

“They’ll be well taken care of,” Bariq tries to explain to Judy when she shakes her head at this devil’s deal. “No one’s exploiting anyone. It will be years before they’ll be mature enough to make their own serious decisions, and it’s better for them if they’re close with the leader of all of reality. If you don’t want this to go badly, then be their mother. You have that instinct. That’s why the tree chose you to be my second at the Rock Meetings. You weren’t my lieutenant before this. I would have chosen someone else to stand by my side.”

“I wouldn’t have chosen a military leader to be the main representative,” Judy reminds him. “I would have chosen Earth’s Mediator.”

“Yeah. We’ve been over that,” Bariq acknowledges.

“Okay, but I’m the head parent,” she says with airquotes. “I decide what’s best for them, even if that comes to mean leaving the Capital, or wherever you operate out of,” she says to Cedar.

“Sure,” Cedar agrees.

“Them too.” Bariq points at everyone else in this little bubble. “Give them what they want.”

“We want a garden,” a woman says.

“I got lots of gardens,” Cedar replies.

“A big one,” she clarifies.

Cedar nods his head. “I’ll see what I can do.”

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Microstory 2383: Earth, November 1, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

Huge news. I couldn’t wait to write this until after your next message, whenever that ends up being. I know that dad told you what he found out from our old neighbor, so I won’t go over all that again. While he was gone, I managed to make contact with my old nurse. Her name is Madalena Rich, and she was part of it all. She wasn’t just hired by the researchers to observe me. She was part of the braintrust that came up with the idea to study twins separated at birth throughout their entire lives. It was she who located our mother, since her name was in the records as being pregnant with twins. She didn’t make first contact with your mom, but they did become friends after Alizée was read into the program, and honestly, kind of brainwashed into believing that this all made sense. At first, mom thought that they were just going to have her live a few towns over, but then they kept talking about it, and a few towns became a few states, and a few states became a different country, and so on and so forth, until we ended up where we are today. It was this whole long-con. They just kept getting her more and more excited about what kind of data they could get from this study, and how beneficial it would be for the advancement of science. Madalena was already a nurse by the time this happened, which means that she lied to our father about being a student. It was an excuse she came up with for why she wasn’t demanding much money to care for me. She didn’t need money, she just needed to get into that apartment, though obviously it would have been quite suspicious had she agreed to do it entirely free.

We talked about a lot more than this, so these are only the highlights. I screen recorded our conversation—in secret at first, though I later divulged it, which she didn’t argue against. She said that she has done a lot of growing up, and has dedicated her career to helping the less fortunate. She also regrets having participated, especially since it made little sense to begin with. It took them a few months to build up to the whole Vacuus expedition offer, and just when they had it, they discovered that we were fraternal twins. We were right that it was really disorganized. They didn’t try to develop a relationship with any other candidates, this was their one chance, or they would literally miss the boat that took you across the interplanetary void. They realized how little meaning their study would have at this point, but decided to press forward. Over time, they eventually gave up. At least, that’s what Madalena believed. She stopped treating me (by the way, but illnesses were real, it’s not like she was getting me sick on purpose), and she walked away from it all. She only later found out about her old business associates approaching our neighbor for further observation when I was a little older. One last thing. The screen recording doesn’t have this, because she never said it out loud, but she sent me an old contact card with the name of the person assigned to study you on the ship, and on the planet. It was Elek Katona. Isn’t that Velia’s last name?

Reeling from the truth,

Condor

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 11, 2493

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A web of technicolors appeared out of nowhere, and spat Team Matic out onto the floor. They rolled away from each other like marbles from a jar. It was not only the six of them, though. Romana was with them, as was some guy. “Who are you?” Leona demanded to know, prepared to fight, while Mateo was making sure that his daughter was okay.

The stranger stood up and cracked his neck. He held his arms out in front of him with his elbows bent a little. As he was clearing his throat, he adjusted his nanites, looking down at himself, making sure they were all in working order. It was only then that he acknowledged their presence, though not out of surprise. “My name is Amal,” he answered stoically.

“What are you doing here, Amal?” Leona questioned, almost as if she didn’t believe him.

“What year is it?” he posed.

She kept one eye on him while she consulted her watch. She tapped on it a few times with her fingernail. “No idea, this is broken.”

“Use your other one,” Amal suggested cryptically.

“My other what?” Leona asked, confused, and even more defensive now.

“Uh,” Ramses began, massaging his forehead. “I replicated that watch’s powers. We all have one now.” He receded the wrist of his emergent suit to show his bare skin. The time and date appeared on it, glowing a bright green. “Nanobotic tattoos, tied directly into the timestream.”

Leona looked at her own. Then removed her broken watch. “July 11, 2493. We jumped early from last year.”

“No, you went on a detour,” Amal contended. “You’ve been gone longer than you realize.”

“Where were we?” Marie asked, stepping forward. “When were we?”

“I cannot answer that,” Amal replied. “I honestly do not know.” Agent Smith. That was who he sounded like; Agent Smith from the Matrix franchise. “Our minds have been erased to protect the future. I could not even tell you why I’m here. We have not yet met.”

“It seems that we have,” Angela reasoned.

“Quite,” Amal agreed. “Something must have gone wrong after you were summoned to the future. I should not have come through with you.”

“Summoned by who?” Olimpia pressed.

“That I could answer, but I won’t. But I can promise that you trust them.” He laughed through his nose.

“It was us,” Leona figured. “We summoned ourselves.”

“I never said that.” Amal was worried, which probably meant that she was right.

“How do we proceed?” Mateo asked him. “What are we gonna do with you?”

“What you’re going to do is be patient,” Amal answered. “Until we meet again.” There was no stopping him. He slammed his fists together, crouched down, and stuck his knees between his elbows. Technicolors overwhelmed him, and he was gone.

“Hmm,” Ramses said. He looked around at his lab. “The sensors picked that up. Now I bet they know how to make a miniature slingdrive.”

“Careful, Rambo,” Leona said to him. “That’s what we call bootstrapping.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

“Roma,” Mateo said to his little girl. “How did you end up with us?”

“We were going on a mission,” Romana answered. “I stepped into my Dubra pod, just as we always do, so our temporal signatures don’t interfere with the operation of the slingdrive on the Vellani Ambassador. Then I woke up here.”

“You must have been summoned too. It could take years before we find out where we went, and even then, it may only be from an outsider’s perspective. Then again, I once closed my own loop, and my otherwise paradoxical memories of it finally came flooding back into my brain, like they were just waiting for me.”

Romana shook her head. “I’ve been gone for almost a year. I have to go report in.”

“I understand.” He gave her a hug, and then let her go.

A swarm of dark particles spun her around, and into oblivion.

Olimpia was playing with her new suit. She opened some sort of flap on the top of her wrists, which she pointed around the room with a menacing look on her face. “I have guns. I’m gonna shoot sum’im.”

“Those are not guns,” Ramses said with a laugh. “There are no onboard weapons.” He lifted his own flaps, then switched on the flashlight on his right arm.

“Oh,” Olimpia said, figuring out how to turn her own flashlight on, and looking down the barrel of it. She then did the same with her left arm. “What’s this other one?”

“Sensor suite,” Ramses explained as he was walking towards her, “for more detailed information about your environment. It has a medical array too. You should read up on it. He tapped the center of her chest, just under her neck, with three of his fingers. A holographic computer interface was projected from two emitters on her shoulders. “You should peruse the manual.”

“Why is it called the EmergentSuit?” she asked.

“Because the nanites emerge from the implants in your body,” Ramses said.

Olimpia read a little more of the text, which was probably pretty dry and uninteresting. “Boring, I’ll wait for the movie.”

He put an arm around her shoulders, and used his other hand to control her interface. A video popped up. “Hi. I’m a virtual avatar, presenting in the form of my creator, Ramses Abdulrashid. Let me show you how your new EmergentSuit works!” He muted it. “What a fox,” Real!Ramses mused.

Mateo huffed. “You did not tell me that was there. I had to read pages and pages of that thing.”

“If that’s true, you would have seen the part where it tells you that there’s an interactive alternative.”

Mateo mocked Ramses playfully with his pursed lips as he bobbled his head. He pulled up his own interface, and searched the manual for the exact terms. “Interactive alternative; no results.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to put that blurb in your version of the manual, and you never received the updated edition. You do have the video, though.”

“Thanks, that’s great,” Mateo said sarcastically.

“This all sounds fun,” Leona said, “but we need to go check in with Hrockas.”

“Wait,” Angela interrupted. “Is that it? We were sent to the future, and brought back to our pattern, and we’re just gonna move on as if that’s normal and fine? We’re not gonna try to get our memories back, or investigate how this could have possibly happened, or anything? Someone summoned us, Ramses, using technology that you have apparently not invented yet. Doesn’t that worry you?”

Ramses was about to answer, but Leona stepped in, starting with, “I—” She took one moment to gather her thoughts. “Before you died, did you believe in God?”

“Excuse me?”

“It was very common at the time, to believe in a higher power.”

“Well, yeah, I did. I was raised to be a Christian,” Angela admitted.

“Did you ever question God?”

“All the time,” Angela replied, like she was winning the argument. My dad was a slaveowner.

“And did you ever get anything out of that? Did God ever...come down, and apologize?  Did he give you answers?”

Angela was not happy, but Marie was even more upset. “The people who took us are not gods.”

“By our standards,” Leona reasoned, “they may as well be. We know nothing. We don’t know for sure that it was Future!Us, though that is the assumption. We can’t go preoccupying ourselves with every little thing that happens to us. We’ll go crazy. The truth will reveal itself in time. Until then, Hrockas needs to know that we’re back. Because we returned later than expected, and we made a commitment to build him a relay network.”

“The relay network is done.” They had left Ramses’ lab, and were now in Hrockas’ office. “Well, it’s not done, but it’s on its way, and will be ready in time for the grand opening in seven years.”

“Team Kadiar agreed to help you with it?”

He shook his head. “No need. Some friends stepped up. They didn’t want us clogging up their own quantum terminals, but they agreed to build us dedicated machines. Most of them will be stored in the corner somewhere on their Lagrange-one stations.”

“I thought you couldn’t do that,” Leona reminded him. “I thought they were unwilling to help.”

“No, the core government was unwilling to help. But the neighborhood representatives finally secured a win for key legislation that gave them more latitude. They’re free to build whatever technology they want—as long as it follows certain criteria, like not being a weapon—and they don’t have to share it with any other world. This places each machine squarely in the local leadership’s control, and I’ve managed to negotiate with all of them, even some core worlds. So we’re good. Thanks for the offer.”

“This sounds risky,” Leona pointed out. “They could revoke the charter whenever they want, right?”

“Absolutely,” Hrockas admitted. “Maintaining strong diplomatic relations will be of the utmost importance to the continuity of my operation. That’s why I’ve hired a Minister of Foreign Affairs to be in charge of all the little ambassadors that I’ll need to liaise with our relay partners.”

“Could we meet this person?”

“She’s not here yet,” Hrockas explained. “I believe that she’s leaving in a few weeks, then it will take her a couple of months to arrive.”

“A couple months?” Ramses questioned. “The only way you can get out here in a couple months is if you use a reframe engine. I mean, that’s if you’re not just quantum casting which is within an hour.”

“Yeah, she has a reframe engine,” Hrockas said. “I guess Earth has done enough work to develop them on their own.”

“I guess,” Leona agreed. “I hope we did the right thing, letting them have that technology.” It had actually been a pretty long time since the Edge Meeting where they granted certain knowledge to certain parties in the main sequence regarding the manipulation of time. It was Hokusai Gimura’s responsibility to actually coordinate with Teagarden and Earth, and Leona didn’t exist most of the time, so she lost track of how that process was faring. It didn’t sound like it was going to be as easy as beaming them the specifications, and walking away. Still, it felt rushed, probably because to the team, this whole thing only started a few months ago. “Well, I’m glad you’re doing okay.”

“Yep,” Hrockas agreed. “So, if you wanted to move on to your next project, maybe fight the bad guy in that Goldilocks Corridor, I think that would be fine.”

“Yeah, we might do that,” Leona said with a nod.

The rest of the team was there, but besides Mateo and Ramses, they were all kind of busy reading up on their new suits. It was awkward, so Leona just disappeared. Mateo broke the others out of their trances, and pulled them out of the office too. “Hey. How are you feeling?” he asked his wife. They were in the replica of Kansas City now, standing in the parking lot where all time travelers were funneled to when they showed up in the Third Rail.

“We never...finish anything,” she mused. “We don’t accomplish our goals. We’re always pulled in some other direction, and all we can do is hope that we’ve done enough for whoever we had to leave behind. I got used to that. I got used to knowing that I did my best, but this new crowd needed me now, and it was time to refocus.” She finally looked up at him. “But do we even need to go back to the Corridor? Niobe’s army is taking the offensive. I even think fighters from Verdemus finally showed up in the Anatol Klugman. Team Kadiar is rescuing defectors left and right. I don’t know what’s going on with the Sixth Key, but the delegates were doing fine the last we saw them.”

Mateo nodded. “We’re aimless again, aren’t we? And we don’t do well when we’re aimless. Ramses needs to invent, you need to lead, the Waltons need to counsel.”

“And the two of us need to be dum-dums,” Olimpia added.

Mateo nodded again. “And the two of us need to be dum-dums,” he echoed.

“Dum-dums with cool flashlights,” Olimpia corrected. She shined it on the asphalt, thought it was daytime under this dome, so the light may as well have been off.

“We may be aimless,” Marie said in a soft voice, “but we’re not useless. We’ll find our place to be. Ramses just needs to get us there.”

“I can finish the mini-slingdrives,” Ramses confirmed, “but someone will need to decide where we go.”

“Are you sure?” Angela smiled. “We’ve used it before without plotting a destination. You could even say that we were aimless.”

Leona smiled too.

“Orders sir,” Ramses requested from the Captain.

Leona took a breath to center herself. “Engineer, build me my new engine. Counselors, find out what you can about this Minister of Foreign Affairs. I don’t want to leave our friends hanging if there’s only one last thing to do. Mister Matic, go see if you can spend some time with your daughters before we leave. And Miss Sangster?”

“Yeah...?”

“I believe we owe each other date.”

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