Extremus: Year 56

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They did not have much time to listen to Nerakali Preston explain what she meant when she claimed that she died and lost all of her powers. They could hear a security team coming down the hallway. Rodari switched off the mirror quickly, so that when the guards opened the door, it looked like they were still trying to figure out how to work the thing. Tinaya was grateful for his quick thinking. There was no way that they weren’t going to get caught, but at least now no one knows that they were trying to reach out to Nerakali. Their lie was that they were trying to contact Captain Halan Yenant. It was believable and not unreasonable. Tinaya wanted to be Captain some day, and even though that dream seems to have fallen right back into the valley of implausibility, it made sense that she would seek counsel from the first Captain.

It’s been nearly a year now. They were all sentenced to as much time in hock for unauthorized entry into a restricted area. The court was not cruel, though. Instead of keeping them locked up separately, they lived together in a sort of prison suite. They had their own rooms, but also a communal area. It was during this time that Tinaya and Rodari got to know each other better as they worked together to take care of Omega and the others. Though Valencia and Lataran grew more independent by the week, being locked up was not doing any favors to their recovery. Today is the day that they’re going to be released, and Captain Soto Tamm himself would reportedly like to come down to see it happen in person.

“Can we talk?” Rodari asks.

“Yeah, is everything okay?” Tinaya replies.

“I wanted to, uhh... I wanted...”

“What is it, Rodi?”

“He shuts his eyes, and breathes out his nose. He starts to whisper, “Bridger spies are not allowed to fraternize.”

“Right,” she agreed. “We’re just friends.”

“Are we, though?”

It is an unwritten rule that Captains do not get themselves into romantic relationships. It’s a sacrifice that they’re all expected to make. Aunt Kaiora broke this convention with Chief Medical Officer Holmes, but they never really made it official. Candidates for the civilian government tend to do better in the elections when they can parade around their spouse, but the crew—particularly the executive crew—is the opposite. It just seems to everyone that it should be like that. Tinaya cares about Rodari, but she made the choice to not even consider dating when she was a child, for this very reason. So it really doesn’t matter how she feels, and it doesn’t matter how he feels either. Then again, everything Avelino supposedly did to restore her reputation appears to have been reversed by the mirror room incident. The chances that she actually does make Captain one day have only gone down. He’s no better off. “We are.” She tries to sound certain, but the expression she slips into at the end of the sentence betrays her.

He pretends not to notice. “You deserve to be loved, Tinaya, on a personal level. You don’t have to be all things to all members of the crew, and residents of the ship. You’re allowed to have your own life.”

She breathes in deeply. “No. I’m not. Captain Tamm is coming today. I have to show him that I’m worthy. Now, my stint in hock does not look good on my record, but I’m not going to stop going for this. I’m not gonna quit. Someone will be replacing him in seventeen years, and I won’t stop fighting to be that person until someone else sits down in that seat.” Ugh, she doesn’t have time for this. They still need to figure out how to fix their neurological issues. She’s been spending a lot of her time organizing the knowledge that she absorbed from the others. Now that she has the tools in her brain, she needs the tools to get back into the Bridger section. They still don’t know who did this to them, but she is pretty sure that she can trust Rodari. They just need to make sure that no one else catches them. The first step is getting the hell out of here, and the last one is total domination. Getting a boyfriend is decidedly not a step on the task list. 

“I understand, I just...wanted to get us both on the same page.”

She nods once respectfully, as if they have just finalized a modest real estate deal.

Tao Li approaches them from the hallway. They don’t even lock the door anymore. None of them is going to try to escape, and even if they did, they would have to get through several more doors before they reached any semblance of freedom, and even then, they’re stuck on a spaceship in the intergalactic void. Where would they go? Tao became Hock Watcher years ago when the first one, Caldr Giordana retired a week before he died. Fortunately, as his health was beginning to decline, he took on an apprentice, so Li knows what he’s doing. “Tamm isn’t coming.”

“Let me guess,” Rodari says with a chuckle. “He’s busy dealing with the longest stretch of peace that this ship has experienced since it first launched?”

“That’s not for me to know,” Li replies, “and it’s certainly not for you to know. Anyway, he has sent his lieutenant in his place. Allow me to introduce you to Second Lieutenant Athan Velitchkov.” He steps away to reveal the man behind him.

Tinaya resists her urge to crack a joke about not being able to swing the First Lieutenant. “Lieutenant Velitchkov,” she instead says with an outstretched arm. It’s nice to meet you.” Second Lieutenants can be touchy about their position. It’s technically more correct to address him with his full title, but leaving out the second part is more likely to make him happier.

He smiles, and shakes her hand. “We’ve actually met, but I doubt you would remember. You were about three at the time.” Every important member of the crew has a reputation that goes beyond what people know for sure about them. His reputation is that he’s quiet, nice, and as sharp as a whip. He’s also known to be a lot more competent than his bosses, though it’s unclear how he feels about that, or about them. He smiles even wider, and faces Li. “Thank you, Hock Watcher, you may go now. You as well, Mister Stenger. I would like to speak with Captain Leithe alone.”

She looks bashfully at the floor. It’s fine when her peers joke about her already being the Captain, but when a real member of the crew says it, it rings a little differently.

He wraps his arm over her shoulders, but does not actually make contact. He just starts walking away for a private conversation, and allows her to follow. “Can you keep a secret, Captain?”

“I would ask you to stop calling me that, sir?” she requests.

“Can you keep a secret?” he repeats.

She nods.

“I’m calling you the Captain, because I know that you’ll be the Captain. I even know when. And I know this, because you and I went to the same school.”

Her eyes widen, and she looks back at Rodari.

“Yes, I’m aware that he too attended said school, but I still wanted to speak with you alone. If you would like to share what we discuss with him later—if you trust him enough for that—spy to spy, then I’m not gonna write you up. I just wanted to touch base with you, because this experience in hock has been what I’m sure you believe to be a setback, but I promise that it is anything but.”

“Sir?” She doesn’t understand.

“Tamm hasn’t gone through anything. He was born to a lot of privilege. He’s never suffered, he’s never lost, he’s never had to work for anything. People are going to get sick of that, if they haven’t already. What you’ve gone through is not what’s going to stop you from making captain, it’s what’s going to get you into that seat. Make no mistake, no one is doing this on purpose. We just see the future, and we’re allowing it to happen. We could stop it. We could protect you. And you would still become Captain. But you wouldn’t be respected, and that’s what we need. That’s what our future needs. Let me ask you this, have you ever heard of the term Eighth of Eight?”

“No,” she answers truthfully. “But it sounds like something that I shouldn’t hear about. It sounds like a temporal issue.”

He nods. “Yenant, Belo, and Leithe were all great leaders. Tamm is an okay guy, if you get to know him. Honestly, your two successors are up in the air, though. We don’t know how they’ll fare, because the future keeps shifting. You keep shifting it. You’re making decisions outside of time that we don’t understand. Now, I’m not going to try to explain it to you.” He looks over at Valencia. “I’m sure you have the knowledge somewhere in there yourself. But what I can tell you is that the eighth Captain...is not shifting. That asshole is written in stone, and it’s looking more and more like there’s a reason for that. Like...another force at play is making him inevitable, despite the fact that he hasn’t even been born yet.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?”

“As I said, he’s inevitable, but you can alleviate the problem, by being the best Captain this ship has ever seen, and making the next two after you even better. People will fight for Eighth of Eight, but they’ll surely win unless people also fight for you. You will become a symbol, an historical figure, whether you want to be or not. The future leaders will cite your tenure as the reason for whatever they think that future should be. You can either let the good guys of that future cite you for your successes, or the bad guys cite you as a failure. The Bridgers, they—we brought you into this; we created all this drama surrounding the years leading up to your rise to power, hoping to make you strong. Now you can give up, and just rest on your laurels, or you can be the source of inspiration for the next generation, and the next. That could be what makes Eighth of Eight’s reign of terror ultimately short-lived, and corrected infinitely afterwards.”

“You’re somehow telling me too much about the future while not really saying anything about what I’m supposed to do about it.”

“That’s my strength as an orator. That’s why the Bridgers chose me, and why Tamm chose me too. I was gonna be Captain myself, ya know. The Bridgers kept trying to put one of their own in that chair, until they realized that their safest bet was to find someone who was destined to sit there anyway.”

“So they chose me? I’m a puppet.”

“Everyone is a product of their environment and upbringing. That’s why I’m here, to give you the scissors to cut your strings. But it has to be a choice. Cutting all of them means cutting yourself off from the only people on your side.” He hands her her skeleton key. “Leaving at least one on, at least lets us keep helping you.” He walks away coolly.

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Extremus: Year 55

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The last two months have been hell. It turns out that the four-person mind blender machine did more than Tinaya first realized. She’s the only one who can function on her own. Lataran, Valencia, and Omega struggle with simple tasks, especially the latter, who can’t even feed himself. The entity formerly known as Lantaran does okay, which is why she helps him with things like that, but she makes mistakes, and can’t be seen in public. Tinaya can’t tell anyone what’s happened. Not only does their time in the Bridger section have to remain a secret, but either way, she doesn’t know who she can trust. Not her family, not the captain, and definitely not Avelino. Even Lataran herself doesn’t quite seem to understand that something strange is going on. To them, this all seems rather normal. So, really, she’s alone; forced to take care of all three of them all by herself. Which sucks, because it’s not like her life is perfect after all of this. She may have more knowledge than before, but practical application did not come with the package. She now knows everything that Omega, Valencia, Lataran, and probably other people knew and know, but she can’t organize the information properly. She’s learning, but it’s going to take time, and that’s been difficult, because again, no one is around to help.

There’s a knock at the door. Not a ping, or a cam notification. That’s quite troubling, because she’s relying heavily on a makeshift security system that she built herself. It’s entirely isolated from the ship, which is important, because of that trust issue. She and the others are staying in an isolated sector of the Extremus. It’s not totally hidden; she doesn’t have to climb through an air duct to get to it, but the population has not grown into this area yet, so no one comes down here, except occasionally on a walk/run to clear their heads, and get away from the madding crowd. She hears them pass by every once in a while, but they don’t knock on the door. Who is knocking in the door, and why the fuck?

It’s Rodari Stenger. She tries to shut it when she sees that, but he’s too strong. He’s desperate to get in, but the expression on his face is not what she would have expected. He doesn’t look menacing, or angry, or vile in any way. In fact, he looks rather kind. He looks...worried. “It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Tinaya grabs the nearest weapon, which is a tiny screwdriver that she’s been using to engineer a new skeleton keycard of her own design, patent pending. “What did you do to us? Why?”

“I didn’t do anything to you except get you out of there,” Rodari claims.

She rolls her eyes and scoffs. “Really? You expect me to believe that?”

“Really, it’s true,” he answers, maybe sincerely. “I was trying to repair the memory absorptioner, but I ran out of time. I still don’t understand this stuff very well. Then Omega and Valencia ordered me to leave, and...this happened,” he says, gesturing towards her, and the other three behind her. They’re not as perturbed by this disturbance as she is. That’s probably for the best, or it would get real chaotic in here.

“What are you talking about? Please clarify.” The words are polite, the attitude is not.

Rodari sighs. “That thing was not going to do what you thought it was going to do, and not what it actually did.”

“Qué?”

“What Omega and Valencia told you was right. They would have been able to share their memories with you, and yours with them. But it could also delete all your memories, or it could turn you into a psychopathic killer, or it could make you think that you’re a grouse in Labrador.”

“What is a grouse? What’s Labrador”

“The point is that it was not programmed correctly. Someone tampered with it before I got into work that day last year. They were trying to dumbify Omega and Valencia, and almost completely incapacitate you two. Well, it was more about you. It’s all about you, Tinaya. They only programmed it to affect the two of them so they couldn’t fix the problem, and I think Lataran is just collateral damage.”

“You think?” she questions. “You seem to know a lot, but also kind of nothing?”

He sighs again, but this time out of frustration. “The point is, someone was trying to get you out of the way, and prevent anything from being able to get you back in the way eventually. I still don’t know who it was. I wasn’t supposed to be in that room that day, but I was curious to learn more, because I have a thirst for knowledge, and I noticed that it was reprogrammed. So I tried to fix it.”

“But you failed, and now this is us.”

“Yes, it didn’t even do what the bad guy wanted it to do. It made this tornado of synapses instead. I have been looking for you ever since, hoping that one of you was still smart enough to...help me figure this out. I guess it’s you.” He sounds quite apologetic.

“I don’t understand why you got us out. Why didn’t we all just stay in there to work through the problem?”

“I didn’t know what the endgame was. I still don’t. My thought was that the safest place for you was on the Extremus proper. I went back in to get supplies, and when I returned to the hallway, you were gone. You had shuffled them away. I had no idea where you had gone, and I couldn’t trust anyone enough to ask for help..”

Tinaya stares back at the poor saplings sitting at the table. “Is it possible that...?”

“Either Omega or Valencia, or both, are responsible for what happened with the machine. The thought crossed my mind.”

She turns back to him. “I don’t know if you’re lying,” she says as she’s shaking her head. She falls into a laugh, and not because it’s funny; ha-ha, but because it’s funny; goddammit. “I don’t know if you’re about to kill me. Or them. Or yourself. Or...a grouse! I don’t know anything anymore, which is ironic, because I know more right now than I ever thought I possibly could! I mean, did you know that all non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function lie in the critical line of the complex plane real part one-half? Because I do. I know that. I don’t know what it means, but it’s rattling around up here, along every line from a clearly very stupid movie called American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules, the number forty-two—for some reason—and how many dimples there are in a golf ball...which I assume is from a game?” She slaps her head demonstratively as she’s ranting. “There’s so much in my head right now, but I can’t do anything with it, because there’s no organization. It all just got randomly dumped in all at once, and mixed together like a blender. My brain is trying to sort it out, but it’s too much. It’s too much, Rodari! It’s too much!”

Something clicked in Rodari’s head when she said that. “That’s it! The Blender.”

“Are you making fun of me now?” she questions angrily. She has trouble tempering her anger these days, and it always frightens the little ones, setting any progress they’ve made back by at least half a day.” She takes a breath, and tries to calm herself down, if only to make the others feel safer.

“I’m sorry. I did this to you. It wasn’t intentional, but I’m still at fault. If I thought that I could trust that it wasn’t either of them who messed up the machine, then I would have alerted them to it. But I got scared, and I ran away. Let me make it up to. You’ve given me an idea, but in order to implement it, I’m going to need help. You know this vessel better than anyone. How do I get into the mirror room?”

“The mirror room?” she asks, not out of not knowing what that is, but not understanding how it’s going to help them. The mirror has the ability to summon and extract anyone from any point in space and time. It’s generally used to pull people out just before they’re about to die, but that’s not a requirement. It can’t extract whole past consciousnesses, though. The mirror room is unguarded, but heavily fortified. Almost no one has access to it, and not many more even know that it exists. Tinaya only does because she’s a nosy hacker. The question is who does Rodari want to summon with it?

Hoping against all hope that this is not all an elaborate trick, the five of them sneak up to the mirror room in the middle of the night. It’s nice to finally have someone to help wrangle the saplings. Truly, unambiguously, hopefully he’s not lying to them. She uses her still-not-quite-finished skeleton keycard to break in, and they shut the door behind them. “Do you really think she can help us...and will be willing to? According to my temporal history classes, she’s not always good people.”

Rodari starts to slowly step around the mirror in the middle of the room, admiring its craftsmanship, and again, hopefully not planning something evil and twisted with it. It could be that all of this was to get Tinaya to let him into this room. “Nerakali Preston is a good person at heart. We will make sure to extract her later in her timeline, after she’s become friends with Team Matic. This will work; she can do this. It’s her whole thing.” He shrugs excitedly. “She’s The Blender.”

“Okay,” Tinaya agrees, still unsure. “But I’ll do it myself.” Rodari could hypothetically suddenly call upon Adolf Hitler or Elon Musk instead, and by the time the sound of his words hit her ears, it would be too late to stop him. She positions herself before the mirror and clears her throat. “I stand at the gate of life and death. Come forward, spirit, come forward. Here is life. Smell blood, smell life; I summon thee, Nerakali Preston of The Gallery Prestons,” she rattles off. The words are in her head because someone whose knowledge she absorbed knew them. Nothing happens, though.

“Once more with feeling,” Rodari encourages.

She repeats the words, but puts more umph into them, using dramatic pauses whenever necessary, and exclamation points where not necessarily necessary. Now it works. The glass shimmers, and shifts to a different place and time. A woman is standing on the other side, hovering over the body of another, who appears to be in a simulation of some kind. The supposed caretaker looks over when she realizes the mirror there. “Oh, hey. What’s up?”

“Are you Nerakali Preston?”

“I am,” she replies. She doesn’t seem evil, so it would appear that they have indeed summoned her at the right point in time.

“My name is Tinaya Leithe of the VMS Extremus. We have some people here whose brains would sure be better if you could blend them with their proper memories.”

Nerakali frowns. “Sorry, I can’t do that. I died. I don’t have my powers anymore.”

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Extremus: Year 54

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It’s been two years. To the few who live on the Bridger Ship, it’s 2324, but to those who still live on Extremus proper, it’s only 2323. Why the portal works this way is still a little hazy, but what the Bridger leaders don’t say is how much they use their foreknowledge to influence events in the past. They don’t seem to be doing a very good job at it, but then again, maybe there is only so much they can do, and things would actually be a lot worse if they didn’t exist. That’s the problem with surrendering to a group of people with this much power. It’s impossible to ever fully grasp whether they’re doing right by the people, or if they have nefarious intentions. Tinaya thought that she had a backdoor into their systems—and she does—but it’s not as helpful as she hoped it would be. It has granted her access to classified files for Extremus itself, but little data for the Bridger section. For now, it shall remain a mystery.

She and Lataran have been good students over the last eight terms. They’ve learned all the new skills and knowledge, which consists primarily of spycraft, but also regular things, like math and history. When the former returns to normal college tomorrow, she’ll be two years behind, but have an advantage on her new current class. It’s unclear how Avelino plans to reintroduce them to society. Where does everyone think they’ve been this whole time? Were they worried? Did it spark an investigation?

“You were in a study abroad program,” Avelino answers.

“Study abroad, like in another country?” Tinaya questions. They don’t have those here. The Bridger Ship is the closest thing to it, and the whole point is that most people aren’t even aware that it is its own vessel.

“Like with Omega Saxon and Valencia Raddle,” Avelino goes on. “You were reportedly studying on the Perran Thatch.” The Thatch used to be the command bridge for the Extremus, before it was commandeered, replaced, and eventually transformed into a time ship for temporal excursions. Its missions are as secretive as one would expect, but its existence is common knowledge. “This has redeemed your reputation, Future Captain Leithe, Fifth of Ten. You didn’t get into college, but you studied somewhere almost no one else does. You’re welcome.”

“So Omega and Valencia are aware of this. Of us?” Lataran assumes. Valencia was the Extremus’ first temporal engineer, and she should be old by now, if not dead. Extreme life extension is outlawed, but they made an exception for her, kind of because temporal engineers inherently get special treatment. All of her successors have opted to take the same path towards nigh immortality, but the rule is that they have to do it for themselves, which isn’t hard, since understanding the science is their whole thing. It’s the hardest job to get, and probably the most coveted, because of the perks.

“That’s what you’re doing today. You have to meet them, so when someone sees you together on the main ship, they don’t detect that you’ve never met.”

“We’re meant to have known them for two years,” Tinaya points out, “but it will only be a few hours.”

“You’ll get a crash course on each other,” Avelino explains, “and it hasn’t been two years. You were only reportedly on the Thatch for two terms.”

“So the reality that we jumped forward in time will actually be told as the truth, except it won’t be the real truth, because the duration will be off,” Lataran reasons.

“Correct,” Avelino confirms. “When you’re in mixed company, just tell people that you last saw them half a year ago. Don’t think about what year it was for you, or anything like that.”

“Thanks, Avi,” Tinaya says. “We just spent two years learning how to lie and compartmentalize, but please...remind us.”

Avelino clears his throat, and doesn’t respond to that. He just points to a door. “They should be through there. My time with you is up. We may or may not see each other ever again. You’ll be assigned handlers, or one handler for the both of you. I don’t know who it will be, but it won’t be me, and it won’t be Omega or Valencia.”

“Okay. Thanks, Bridger,” Lataran says to him sincerely.

He bows his head, and walks the other way.

“He’s all right,” Tinaya decides as she’s turning to ring the doorbell. Instead of the bell, the door just opens for them.

As promised, Omega and Valencia are on the other side of it. They’re focused on a smartwall in the middle of the room. It’s only displaying equations, and other symbols, so they can see pretty well through it. Still, the engineers do not notice the two students who have entered their lab.

Now Tinaya clears her throat, hoping to get their supposed teachers’ attention.

“Ah, they’re here.”

“What?” Omega asks.

“The Captain and Lieutenant,” Valencia tells her husband. “They’ve come.”

Omega finally looks up. “Ah, they’re here,” he echoes as if he were the first to notice. As he’s stepping around the glass, he crumples up the code as if it were physical paper, and tosses the ball into an encrypted virtual safe. “What are your names again?”

“Tinaya Leithe.” She shakes his hand, and then Valencia’s.

“Lataran Keen.” She does the same, but in reverse.

Valencia looks around the room. “Where is our assistant?”

“Gofer! Gofer!”

“Don’t call him that,” Valencia scolds.

Another door slides open, and a young man steps through. It’s not just any gofer. It’s Rodari Stenger. He was on the captain’s track at one point, but Tinaya lost track of him while she was dealing with her own crap. He runs up to the four of them, and stands at attention like a soldier. He stares straight ahead, and doesn’t make eye contact with anyone.

“At ease, soldier,” Valencia orders. She rolls her eyes and looks at the girls. “We never asked him to do that.”

“I respect my superiors, sir,” Rodari clarifies.

Omega nods. “And don’t you forget it.” It sounds like a joke, but they don’t know him well enough to detect his sense of humor. “Are the hats ready?”

“Almost, sir. That’s what I was doing in there.”

“We’ll finish up,” Valencia says. “Go to your office and finish your coursework.”

“Thank you, sir.” Rodari hops away, and exits through a third door.

“He’s your assistant, but he’s still studying?” Tinaya asks.

“That’s not the question,” Lataran argues. “We know everyone at the Bridger school, and he is not one of them. Where has he been all this time”

“He was in the college,” Valencia begins. “He finished just as you were coming in. He’s been our assistant since then. The coursework he’s doing is for some continuing education that I’m sure you’ll hear about later.”

“In the meantime...” Omega says, showing them the way to the door that Rodari came out of. “Let’s go try on some hats.”

Tinaya and Lataran exchange a look. Hats?

They’re not really hats, but more like helmets, and it’s clear that their purpose is not to make a fashion statement. They perform a function, though what that function is is uncomfortably unclear at this point. There are four of them.

“Pick any one; doesn’t matter which. We’re all going to the same place.”

“Place?” Tinaya asks. “Oh, it’s VR?” She chooses one of the helmets.

Omega is fussing with the equipment, presumably finishing Rodari’s preparatory work. “Not really. Kinda. Not really.”

“We need to pack two terms of memories of each other into the short time we’ll actually spend together. Once we activate the helmets, the system well help you select the data points that you would like to share with the group. It will help you filter out secrets and other private information that you don’t want us to know, plus things that are so trivial and random that they would never have come up if we got to know each other naturally. Then, when we’re all ready, we’ll upload each other’s data packets.”

“Is all this necessary?” Lataran questions. “I mean, can’t you just tell us your middle names, and what your favorite foods are, and call it a day?”

Valencia shakes her head. “The cover story is that you two spent six months on a tiny time ship with us. No one else was there, and there was no escape. Yeah, we need to pretend like we’ve been through something. It wasn’t harrowing, but it was prolonged.”

“Plus, I don’t have a middle name,” Omega adds. “Don’t worry. You’ll learn everything there is to know about me soon.” He plugs one more thing into another thing, and makes a nod of accomplishment.

“Don’t be afraid,” Valencia says comfortingly. “Like I said, the system will filter for secrets. We’re not here to make profound imprints. This is just the quickest solution to what only sounds like a small problem. Trust me, it’ll come up. No one’s going to quiz you on us later, but they will notice if you can’t believably joke about how bad my hair looks in the morning.”

“You always look lovely, honey.” He steps over and gives her a kiss. Then he dips her into the seat, and places her helmet on her head. He sits down in the seat next to her, and nods encouragingly at the girls. “Go on. This is perfectly safe. I promise.”

It wasn’t safe. Something broke down in the filter, and messed them all up. It transformed each of them in a different way. Omega lost everything. He could remember how to blink and swallow, but nothing about himself, or the world around him. Lataran’s entire consciousness was copied over to Valencia’s substrate. Valencia’s complete memories, meanwhile, were transferred to Lataran’s brain, but Lataran retained her own personality, so there were kind of two of her now. Tinaya probably got off easy. She absorbed all of the semantic knowledge from everyone, plus seemingly people who were not even part of the group. She’s a genius now, and probably could have helped them fix this issue, but the opportunity to try was stolen. Rodari returned with wheelchairs while they were all still so disoriented, and took them to the portal. He forced them back to 2323 on the Extremus, and locked them out, possibly forever.

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Extremus: Year 53

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Half a century ago, the original passengers and crew of the Transgalactic Ship Extremus began an intergalactic voyage across the galaxy, which was set to take 216 years. That wasn’t some random number that they came up with. That was how long it was going to take to reach the outer edge of the Milky Way. Well, only going for 215 years would have been fine, or all the way to 217, but they had to draw the line somewhere, and 216 was a nice number. Year 217 is, therefore, known as the first year in a new era. By then, the destination should be reached, and the descendants of the original people should be starting their new lives. If this is where Tinaya and Lataran are now, they have just traveled through time.

“Yes, you did jump through time,” Avelino confirms, “but not actually to the year 217. That’s what we call this place sometimes, because that is our primary focus. This is what we’re going to use to find the final destination.”

“Isn’t that what the Extremus itself is for?” Lataran questions.

“No. When the last generations of the generation ship reach the end of their mission, they will want to get off the ship, and start to build their new homes on the new world. They can’t do that if they don’t know where the new world is. There are hundreds of millions of habitable worlds out there, but we don’t know precisely where they are, or which one we’ll want to call home. So the Bridger section was sent a year ahead of time to scout. We’ll find it first. It may take us the whole year, but that should be enough time to get it done before everyone else arrives.” Avelino points back down the dark hallway. “You’ve just stepped through a portal between the two ships, which are a light year apart, and always will be.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Tinaya points out. “Admiral Yenant changed course. We’re not going the same direction we were when this started. The assumption was always that you were parallel to us, at least for the people who knew that the Bridger section was an entirely separate ship in the first place. How can you be following us from in front of us?”

“Time travel,” Avelino says simply. “We’re not just a light year ahead. We’re a year ahead. That’s how the portal works. It doesn’t only jump through space; it jumps forward in time.”

“So that hallway goes back to September 5 2321, and this to September 5, 2321?”

“Correct,” Avelino agrees.

“Good. I can’t lose a year of school,” Lataran says in relief.

“You’ll have to lose time,” Avelino counters. “We need the two of you here, so you can take part in some...extracurricular training.”

“Spycraft?” Tinaya guesses.

Avelino smiles. “That’s why we chose you, Miss Leithe, Fifth of Ten, because sometimes you just...know things.”

“It’s called intelligence.”

He chuckles softly.

“You called me Fifth of Ten, as if I’m going to be a captain one day,” Tinaya began. “But that’s impossible. I didn’t get on the captain’s track. Or I didn’t stay on it, anyway. I was humiliated.”

“That’s why we didn’t take you out of school any earlier than we did. You’ve gone through enough of it that people will respect it once you do become captain. But we had to stop you from going to college, because you’re currently the perfect age to start your real training. The Extremus has never had a captain with the skills that you will possess when you begin your shift in 2337.”

“That’s not the end of Tamm’s shift,” Lataran contends.

Avelino frowns now. “It will be.”

“Okay, you exist a year in the future. That I can wrap my head around. But now you know things that won’t happen for another fifteen years? How do you have all of this intel? Do you have seers? Time machines? What?”

“That will all be part of your training while you’re on this side of the bridge.”

“Even if she agrees to this,” Lataran says, “I can’t. I have to get back to real, publicly visible, college.”

“You’ll have to defer.”

“I haven’t even finished out one year,” Lataran argues.

“I know,” Avelino acknowledges, “but the curriculum is not going to change by the time you return. Trust me, it will all be worked out. The people of the ship are gonna be a little confused, but officially, you had to take a break from school for personal and private reasons, and will be able to restart your studies right where you left off. If you had homework due tomorrow, you’ll turn it in two years from tomorrow.”

“Two years?” Tinaya exclaims. “Me, I understand, “but she has people who care about her. She can’t be away from them for that long.”

“Ours is a two-year program,” Avelino explains, “just like regular college. “I assure you that you have plenty of time. Like I said, your respective crew shifts won’t start until Year 68.”

“You’re acting like we don’t have any choice in the matter,” Tinaya decides.

“You do,” Avelino assures them. “We’re not monsters. We’ve just...never been rejected before. We choose our candidates very carefully.”

“Exactly how many students have walked the halls of your secret school on the secret ship in the future?”

“Not many,” Avelino answers. “It’s quite elite.”

Tinaya studies his face for a few moments. Lataran is about to speak when she notices this, knowing what Tinaya looks like when she’s trying to figure something out that someone doesn’t want her to know. “Bronach Oaksent was one of them. He’s a dark mark on your record.”

Avelino scoffs and shakes his head. “How the hell did you determine that? None of your predecessors knew that he was one of ours.”

“You’re telling us that the greatest threat this ship has ever seen once worked for you?” Lataran asks, horrified.

His head sank. “Oaksent was part of the program before the ships left. Before either ship left. We didn’t realize that he was a threat to us until the last second. He was...dangerous. We wish we hadn’t taught him anything. We wish we hadn’t shown him anything. So we left him behind. Somehow, he managed to change his name, and board the Extremus proper. We didn’t know until it was too late.”

“I always thought that was a fake name,” Tinaya says.

“Yeah, he adopted it from an insidious propagandist from ancient Earth history.”

“What a nutsack.”

Avelino nods, intending to shift the conversation back to the matter at hand. “I know this is a shock, but the time you spend here will be well worth it. You’ve never heard of this, not because the people we train are all anonymous, but because many of them are not. We know how to reintegrate our students. I’m sure you’ll miss your families, and they’ll miss you, but this is important. This is really important.”

“I wanna talk to him.”

“Him who?” Avelino asks.

“Yenant. I want to speak with Admiral Halan Yenant. He answered yes to The Question, didn’t he?”

Avelino sighs.

“What are you talking about?” Lataran doesn’t know the secret. “Yenant is dead.”

“We are not allowed to divulge who answered yes, and who answered no,” Avelino tries to explain. “Even if we could, we wouldn’t be able to allow crosstalk.”

She laughs. “You’ve told me that supposedly important people have gone to your secret college, but you’ve also told me that no captain has been made aware of it. It’s my understanding that there are more things that captains don’t know about the bridger section than the things they do know. If you want to have a captain in your pocket, and you think I’m the best for the job, then make an exception, and let me speak to Admiral Yenant. I know he’s alive, or you would be reacting differently to my demands.”

“How could he possibly be alive?” Lataran presses.

“You’ll see,” Tinaya tells her.

“No,” Avelino objects quickly. He pauses again and sighs. “I will log you into the system, but not her. We can explain it to her afterwards, but we cannot make a habit out of this. I will allow one exception, but not two, Miss Leithe. No captain is worth that.”

Tinaya gently closes her eyelids, and nods.

“Very well. Follow me.”

Lataran reaches out as Tinaya is walking away, but makes no attempt to hold her back. “Naya,” she whispers earnestly.

“Follow the lights, Miss Keen,” Avelino tells her without looking back. “They’ll lead you to your new cabin.”

Green lights begin to point down the other direction, but Lataran isn’t ready to go just yet. She secretly types out a quick message on her watch, and programs a beacon. She pops the memory card from it, and throws it all the way down the hallway that leads back to the Extremus proper. Then she heads for her cabin.

Tinaya makes her way there half an hour later. “Hey.”

“Did you speak to Yenant? Tell me about The Question.”

“The Question is just one part of a giant conspiracy that’s hanging over our ship like a dark cloud. There’s a lot I still don’t know, but it’s more than I thought before. This whole thing is being tailored. Free will is an illusion. The Bridger Section—Year 217—whatever they want to call it; it’s not just about finding the destination planet ahead of time. They control so much from here. No, I didn’t speak with Halan, but I never wanted to. I just wanted access so I can code a backdoor. Now I can get in anytime I want, as long as we stay here.” She points to the floor demonstratively.

“Is that wise? Is it safe?”

“Probably not.” But she has to do something. There’s too much power here. It goes against the spirit of the mission, and the purpose of the people’s journey. Tinaya thought she knew the big secret. She had no idea. She has to put a stop to it, and if that means getting in on the inside, then okay. “You can go home, but I have to do this.”

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Microstory 1949: Those in the Know

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Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image AI software

Reese: Oh, good, you’re here too. I was worried about you both, but you don’t have a phone, and she’s not picking up.

Myka: Sorry, I’m here. My phone died while we were in quarantine, and it’s still off and on the charger. Leo, we need to get you your own device.

Leonard: Yeah.

Reese: Is everyone okay? How did they treat you in there? [...] Somebody respond, I’m getting worried again.

Leonard: I’m fine, I was just trying to let the lady speak first.

Myka: I’m fine too. I missed you...both. I have something to tell you, though, and I don’t know how you’re gonna feel about it.

Leonard: Let me guess, they offered you a job.

Myka: Yeah!

Reese: Seriously? Both of you? That’s suspicious.

Myka: Why, you don’t think I would be cut out for it?

Reese: I didn’t say that. It’s just that the government doesn’t make a habit out of hiring the formerly incarcerated. Even the OSI has a thing about perfect prior records. What would you even be doing for them?

Myka: They didn’t say.

Reese: See? Suspicious. I don’t think you should even entertain the idea.

Leonard: I’m not so sure, and I think I know the reason. She knows about the aliens, and I am an alien. I think they would rather keep us close than far away where they can’t keep track of our movements and behaviors. I’m thinking about taking it. Like you said, I need a phone. And a place to live, and food. I need money for all that, just as I did on my world. How hard would it be to apply at, say, a carwash without a valid background?

Myka: You’re right, they’re trying to keep an eye on us, but that doesn’t doesn’t mean we should accept the positions. I assume you have something more substantial in the way of an offer than I do, but it sounds dangerous.

Reese: Well....

Myka: Well, what? Have you already changed your mind?

Reese: I want you both to be safe, and you knowing about aliens puts you in more danger than I’m in because I know about them too. Yes, you would be working for the people who are placing you in that danger, but maybe they’ll be less likely to go after you if you seem to share their interests. Government spies know government secrets all the time, and their government doesn’t kill them, because they’re on the same side.

Myka: So, you think I should take it?

Reese: I didn’t say that. I just don’t think we should dismiss it. We really should learn what plans they have for you. You have skills, as do you, Leonard, but neither of you has the kind of résumé they generally look for.

Leonard: How do you suppose we go about procuring such information?

Reese: We don’t. I already work there, to a certain extent. I’ll go back in and see what I can find out. You two stay here and don’t go out unless you’re buying a new phone, and don’t separate until you have one...or maybe not even then.

Microstory 1832: Older Sister

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My sister and I were never really close growing up. She was seven years younger than me, so we didn’t have very much in common. Our parents didn’t encourage me to take care of her, which is something she probably regrets more than I do. She could have used my support and guidance. I don’t want to say that she went down the wrong path, because she didn’t, but she could have learned some better coping skills, and been a little bit more responsible for her actions. Me, I got out of there, and I never looked back. I only applied to schools that were on the other side of the country. I wasn’t trying to get away from my family, per se, but I didn’t want to be able to lean on them. I needed to start making my own choices, and figuring out how to get myself back up when I fell down. My grades were never terrible, but they weren’t excellent either. It’s not like I had my pick of the litter. I applied to a state school, and then I moved to that state so I could pay a lower tuition. I know what you’re thinking, you can’t do that, but I could, because I had a friend out there whose address I was able to put on my application. A little shady, but I don’t feel bad about it. It’s not like the college was starving for funds. The truth is, I never once went to the guy’s house. He was still a hundred miles away in Reno, and we were never very close. Friends was surely a strong word to use, and he ended up starting a tiny business where he would do this for other people. He never charged me to deal with the few pieces of mail that would get sent to him, but it sounds like he turned it into a nice side hustle, and it’s all thanks to me. Anyway, college ended, and I just sort of stayed out there, because I felt like Nevada was my home now.

Meanwhile, my sister stayed in North Carolina, fostering a resentment towards me for saddling her with the responsibility of caring for our aging parents. They were already old when they had me, but they were damn near geriatric by the time she was born. Talk about irresponsibility, it was their mistake for waiting that long. They got married when they were in their early to mid-twenties. They would have had plenty of time to have children, I don’t know what they were doing with their time before then. We used to make up stories about them once being international spies who worked for competing agencies until they fell in love, and had to escape to America to start new secret lives together. She is of Polish descent, and he is Armenian, or something. Nah, I never asked, but I’m sure it’s as simple as me being an accident, and then she was also an accident. They probably never wanted kids, which is why they didn’t much care whether we were close. They weren’t bad at raising us, but they definitely relied on a fleet of teachers and preachers. A few years after I begin my post-education work life, my sister calls me up. She tries to stay calm at first, but then she can’t help but yell. I don’t get mad back, because based on the few keywords I manage to catch, I know her issue. I abandoned her, and the parents are both doing terribly, and not only can they not afford to send her to college, but she wouldn’t be able to leave them alone anyway. She needs me to come home and help, and I can’t argue, because she’s right about everything. So I returned, and together, we got them settled into the best assisted living facility we could get. Neither one of them lasted long after that, but my sister and I grew much closer while we were waiting. I might even say that we’re best friends now. We even decided to treat ourselves, and a neighbor, to a trip to the Appalachian Mountains. It does not go well.

Overwritten: Trust (Part VI)

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Presumably because of my ultimate failure to kill Mateo back in 2023, and more recently because his family kidnapping did not go well, Reaver began to lose faith in me. He still seemed to have no idea that I was working against him, but he did gradually tease me from his life. I remained in the employ of Reaver Enterprises, but in a more general position, working as a security officer with all the other grunts. In the year 2034, we’re in one his newest facilities, the purpose of which has never been clear, and was likely irrelevant. It was built over the ruins of a house that had been just completely wrecked by some sort of artificial intelligence malfunction. Immediately upon Mateo’s return to the timestream, I realize the AI malfunction had something to do with him, and the facility was built for the sole purpose of keeping him contained.

At the moment, alarms are going off around the building, and I’m leading a team of two other security guards, neither of whom I trust. For a while, things are going all right. We’re just wandering the hallways, no idea where we’re going, and only one of us knows why. But then the target of our pursuit shows up. He’s with two other security guards. I don’t know them very well and, of course, do not trust them either. “Status?” I ask as part of protocol. I still carry weight in the department, and am respected by all.

“We’re showing this newbie the ropes,” one of the guards says as he’s motioning to Mateo.

Mateo lifts his hand and tips the brim of his hat down as a greeting, but does not speak. That’s smart of him. It’s harder to tell when someone’s being deceptive if they don’t say anything.

I’m not sure what to do. If they’re loyal to Reaver, once they find out their “newbie’s” true identity, they’ll turn him in for sure. Then again, I do not recall any new conscriptions. Assuming these two do not know what they have in their hands, then Mateo is a very good liar, and I have a responsibility to play along. But if they do know him, and they’re helping him, then I should secretly assist. This can go one of two ways. I can order them to station themselves in an area of the building I know there to be fewer obstacles, or I can order them into the lion’s den and hope they go against these orders. It all depends on their relationship to Mateo, and they’re impression of me. I trust my instincts and remain in character, ordering them to the basement. They stand there awkwardly after accepting their new assignments, so I usher my team through the doorway, allowing Mateo’s team to make the right decision.

Not long afterwards, though, things get complicated. Reaver gets back on the intercom. “That’s it! I’m calling in the cavalry. Boys, this is who we’re looking for!” My heart sinks as Mateo’s face appears on the walls. Now everyone knows who we’re looking for. What’s worse is that my team knows that we just encountered him. But there’s nothing I can do about that. Now that the entire building knows what they’re doing, I have to get back to Mateo and protect him personally. It’s my only choice. Reaver continues, “bring him to me and I will write you a blank check!”

As we reenter the stairs, my team tries to head down, but I start to go up. “What are you doing?” one of them asks.

“I have to go this way,” I say. Maybe they’ll shake it off and let me go.

“You told him to go down, remember?”

“You go ahead,” I order my team. “I’m gonna check up here in case they ignored my orders.”

“That makes sense,” the other one says. “If he’s trying to get away from us, then he’ll make a point of subverting orders.” These guys are too smart for my own good. I won’t be able to get away from them, so together we rush upstairs.

Both luckily and unluckily, we do find Mateo and his possible accomplices again. I block their path, still not sure how I should proceed. Who are these two? Are they trying to help Mateo too? Or are they on their way to Reaver right now?

One of the guards in this other team holds up some kind of cannon. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“What are you doing?” I ask, weapon pointed where they would expect it to be. “Why is Reaver so interested in him?” I’m still trying to get a feel for whose side they’re on.

“Stop us and you’ll never find out,” Number One answered.

I shake my head in disbelief, still needing to hold onto my cover. “That sounds like the opposite of the truth.”

All of the sudden, some random guy appears from one door while a girl comes out of the door on the opposite wall. They each force one member of my team through the other one’s door. It’s like they knew this was going to happen, and were waiting for them. “What the hell?” Curious, I reopen one of the doors to find the room empty. More time travelers. Awesome. Or awful. I lower my weapon towards the floor, so I can gauge the remaining guards’ reaction. And then I see it in their eyes. They’re not trying to bring Mateo in. They are trying to help. I still don’t know why, or who they are. But I know I can trust them.

Before I can reveal my true intentions to them, a man comes out of nowhere down the hall. But he’s not actually in the hallway. It’s some kind of mashup of the real environment and another place. Outside. I guess I might call it a portal. “Excuse me?” he asks. “Have you ever been to Stonehenge?”

This is my chance. This guy seems different than Kyle, or Reaver, or even those two mysterious door-walkers. He is in some kind of position of authority. I have half a moment to make a choice. Either I continue to help Mateo, or I take what might be my one opportunity to get some answers. Mateo seems to be in good hands with his friends, so I leave them to it, and walk towards the strange man who has the ability to form a teleporting bridge to Stonehenge.

He, almost lovingly, sets his hand on my shoulder and smiles. The walls of the building melt away, and all that’s left is Stonehenge. He opens his mouth to begin his speech, but then he sees something in me. He crooks his neck. “Who the hell are you?”

“I am Lincoln Rutherford,” I reply honestly.

“Are you a salmon, or are you a choosing one?”

Dowhatnow? “Neither. Both. What are those things?”

“I can sense that you’ve been separated from the timestream, but you’re not on my list. What happened?”

“I was in an alternate timeline,” I explain, “with Horace Reaver. Someone snuck into his prison cell and pushed him backwards in time. I was just caught in the crossfire, I guess.”

He lifts his chin but keeps his eyes on me. “I’ve not heard such a thing. An accidental salmon. When was this?”

“Four years from now,” I say, “and eighteen years ago.”

“Interesting, tell me everything.”

For some reason, I feel that I can trust this man with my story. And so I do just what he asks and go over my entire life’s story. I tell him what I remember from the other timeline, and also what has already been overwritten. I explain the blog, what I believe to be my job to stop Horace Reaver from causing further harm. I bring up Brian and Kyle and Duke, the train, the other train, Mateo’s family who Reaver kidnapped, the door-walkers; everything. This guy just pulls the information out of me. Brian knows everything, and I’ve discussed some of this with others, but only to a low degree. It’s nice to get all of this out to a second person, and possibly gain some perspective.

After I’m done, he again says, “interesting.”

“What happens now?

“Horace Reaver is becoming a problem for us. We are preparing a response to his actions.”

“Just now? He’s been screwing with the timeline for years now. How could you let it go this far?”

“Oh, they don’t really care about the timeline. Everything can be corrected, one way or another. It’s not hard for the people I work for.”

“You’re not the time police, or something?”

“Oh, heavens no.” He laughs. “I don’t know exactly what the choosing ones are, but they’re not that.”

“Huh?”

“We estimate twenty-five years before Mateo finally apprehends Mister Reaver and brings him to justice.”

“That’s over three weeks in Mateo-time. You don’t really think it’ll take him that long, do you?”

“Why not?”

“He’s smarter than you give him credit for. And now that he has Leona, he’ll be unstoppable.”

“That may be true, but either way, we’ll need your help. Reaver isn’t our only problem.”

“Tell me what to do.”

“You’ll be in your element. We’re building a security team, and we would like you to be in charge of it, as Head Guard.”

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