The Seventh Stage: Painting Rocks (Part V)

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Echo is standing in front of the blue wall, painting wispy white clouds on it, paying close attention to details. It would look complete to anyone else, but to him, the work is never done. He can always add one more curve...one final flourish.

Clavia walks up to him. “There you are. What are you doing?”

“Painting this wall. It ain’t gonna paint itself,” Echo replies, still watching what he’s doing.

“It’s literally going to paint itself,” she counters.

He smiles. “I know. Sometimes I just need a break to unwind. Like you with your little headplays.”

She nods. “Fair enough.”

“What’s the count?”

“Three thousand, seven hundred and four.”

He drops his elbow, and looks over at her. “Technically at quota. We’re ready for move-in.”

“Like you said, in the technical sense. We still need to figure out how to convince a supermajority to do it, or it’s not really helpful.”

“We also need to figure out how to do it without loading everyone onto a proverbial bus, and driving them here.”

“It’s time to talk to Cedar,” Echo realizes. They have been dreading this day for a long time. They like him, but they don’t know how he’s going to react or respond to this news. There are whispers that the Cloudbearer twins are building something, but no one knows what, and all of their guesses are wrong; though off by varying degrees. Cedar ran his campaign for power on a foundation of intercivilizational unity. He believes that the only way to keep the Reality Wars at bay is if there’s no one to fight against, because everyone is on the same side. The amount of space between people in this universe could tear them apart. It’s the distribution. Cedar is probably gonna have trouble with the distribution.

“Yeah, we have no choice. Do you think he’ll be mad we didn’t read him into the situation earlier?”

“He’s serving as Head Advisor to our parents,” Echo replies. “He was too preoccupied to worry about this. That can be our excuse for keeping it a secret from him.”

“Good idea.” Clavia takes her brother’s hand, and transports them both to what essentially amounts to a holodeck, though on a much grander scale. They’re standing on an island floating in the air. At least, that’s what it looks like to them. It’s just an illusion. The “air” around them is clear purplish water. They can still breathe, of course, and talk just fine. The sky above is much more unambiguously an ocean. It’s upside down. Waves jut down, and spray a sweet misty rain down towards them. Some of it tastes like chocolate, other drops like honey. Their feet are planted firmly on the ground, though they feel like they could float away at any second. All around them are crystalline structures, also purple, since that is the theme. A stream gives way to a waterfall that slips over the edge, and disappears into the oblivion below, though again, it’s just invisible floor. Between them and the sky are giant turtles, swimming around. One of them nods and winked before moving on.

They aren’t alone on this floating island. They summoned Cedar, and are currently patiently waiting for him to get his bearings in this new world. “This breaks the laws of physics,” he notes. “I’m assuming it’s not real?”

“No,” Echo replies. “Our powers do have some limits.”

“You’ve been gone for nearly a month,” Cedar points out.

Clavia smirks. “We’ve been gone longer than that.”

“Framejacking, or temporal acceleration?”

“Both,” Echo answers. Time is moving faster in this universe, so more gets done in a shorter amount of time in comparison to the Sixth Key, but their own minds are also operating at much higher speeds, allowing them to think and act more quickly.

“This is what you’ve been working on?”

Echo laughs. “This took only a few seconds to construct. We got the idea from Castlebourne. Most of the domes on that world are physical, except for the holographic sky. One of them is nearly all holography. You can make it look like anything. We chose this today. Isn’t it cool?”

“Yeah,” Cedar agrees. “What am I doing here, though?”

Echo clears his throat. “What is the number one cause of tension and conflict in the Sixth Key?”

Cedar dismisses his words with a wave of his hand. “Don’t pitch me. Just tell me what you’ve done, and what you want. You’re gonna need to learn this for when you take over in a more meaningful sense. We’re in charge of undecillions of people back home. No one has time to beat around the bush or be polite about it.”

“Very well,” Echo decides. He reaches up and pantomimes pulling a stage curtain open. As he does so, a tear in the hologram appears in the far, far distance. Behind it, they see what looks like regular outerspace, but as the curtains separate even farther, a figure appears. It looks like a big metal statue of a humanoid, or perhaps just a big robot. It’s hard to tell what scale they’re working with here, so Echo has to explain. “Have you ever heard of the matrioshka body?”

“I have,” Cedar confirms. “I went to a sort of school like you did. That’s where the afterlife simulation was housed, before it collapsed, and everyone was transported into Fort Underhill. The Sixth Key shares interdimensional space with them now. I never knew what happened to matrioshka body, though. That it?”

Echo shakes his head. “That. Is MB-3704.”

Cedar laughs. “You made your own? That’s impressive.”

Echo and Clavia exchange a look. “He said it was three-seven-zero-four.”

Cedar is confused, but only for half a second. Then his face drops into a frown. “You made 3700 of these things?”

“Yeah,” Echo says.

Cedar starts to pace around and shake his head, almost in disappointment. “Why? What do they do?”

“Well, they...have people live in them.”

“Who lives in them?”

“No one yet, that’s what we’re asking you for.”

“Asking me for what?” Cedar questions. “I told you, get to the point. Stop trying to be dramatic.”

“We need you to transport everyone from the Sixth Key who wants to live here. Send them all to their new homes...all at once.”

“I can’t do that!” he cries.

“We’re gonna let them consent,” Clavia defends. “We’re not gonna make anyone move, but this will be better, and I think there will be a ton of interest.”

“Think about it,” Echo begins before Cedar can make another argument. “There are hundreds of billions of stars, but we don’t have enough resources for everyone. How is that possible? Because stars radiate a ton of their energy away, even with dyson swarms. Matrioshka brains are more comprehensive, and more efficient. And matrioshka bodies are just stylish and cool.” Honestly, I don’t know why no one ever thought of it before. I thought that was the point of the original matrioshka body, and its successor, Big Papa.” There ought to be far more than two of these in existence. The Parallel was more than capable of doing it, but they chose not to. They still orbited stars. Even the interstellar settlements were quite literally few and far between. Why? Why keep the stars? Aesthetics? Safety? Ethics? Probably all of the above. Or. Echo and Clavia are just that clever.

“That’s not my point. I literally can’t do it. I don’t have that kind of power.”

Echo and Clavia are both confused. “What are you talking about? You already did it. You moved them all from their original realities, to the Sixth Key.”

“No, I didn’t.” He starts to look around on the ground. Guessing at his needs, Echo manifests a chair for him to sit in. Cedar hunches over and stuffs his face in his palms. “That wasn’t me. I didn’t do any of that.”

“What? It had to have happened,” Clavia argues. “Everyone’s there.”

“I’m not saying that it never happened,” Cedar tries to explain. “I’m telling you that I didn’t do it. I have powers, but not like that. That’s insane.”

“Then who did?” Echo asks him.

Cedar looks up to meet Echo’s gaze. “I have no idea. They didn’t tell me. They have to keep it a secret, even from me and my family, even now that it’s done. We were...a misdirect. It’s like sleight of hand. We were the left hand that distracted everyone so no one would see what the right hand was doing. I don’t know if anyone knows who saved everyone during Reconvergence. All I know is that it wasn’t me.” He pauses before adding, “I just took credit, per my instructions.”

Echo and Clavia manifest their own chairs to sit in. They sit there in silence for a good five minutes before Echo decides to speak again. “Time is not linear. If something exists at any moment, it exists in all moments. If you know something about the past, you can change it. Keeping it a secret was smart. Even if someone were to go back and kill you as a child, it wouldn’t stop the creation of the Sixth Key. You’re like a bodyguard, there to take a bullet if one ever comes flying through. That’s how I would have done it if I were there.”

“Maybe you were,” Cedar reasons. “Maybe you two are the ones who created the Sixth Key; you just haven’t done it yet from your own perspectives.”

They exchange another look. Clavia decides to explain. “There’s a small group of people on a planet in the Sixth Key who are aware of what we’ve been up to. Just a few billion people. They were our test group. We’ve already tried to transport them to our new universe. We don’t have that kind of juice either. Stars are easy. Giant metal statues are easy. Moving people? That requires a level of precision that we do not possess; not with hordes anyway. We could probably move them a couple thousand at a time, but that’s all but useless for our needs. That’s a meaningless rounding error compared to the total population.”

“What about Ellie Underhill?” Echo asks after another bout of silence. “I don’t remember how many she transported into Fort Underhill.”

“It was only 120 billion,” Cedar replies. “Not quite a rounding error, but still not good enough. Besides, she gave them all new bodies; it was a whole different animal.”

“So what we’re saying is that we need to find the person who actually did move everyone from the five realities to the Sixth Key. We need them to do it again.” Clavia starts to pace. Finding someone out there in the abstract is not something that she’s ever done before. She always knows who she’s targeting, or roundabouts where they are. This is a mystery individual, who might be in either of two universes—or, hell, maybe neither of them. They could have also done it subconsciously, like how Echo lived before he became self-aware and realized his true potential. Maybe it’s not just one person. Maybe it was a group, or somehow everyone. Maybe through the spirit of survival every single living organism consolidated their untapped collective power into one brilliant miracle. Ugh, Clavia doesn’t know, but you know who would?

“Hey, boys!”

Echo nearly falls out of his chair, but catches himself by spreading his feet apart. He stumbles away from her. “Debra. How did you get out?” She still looks like his sister. She’s still occupying that body, and nothing about it has changed. But Echo knows. He would always know. “What did you do to Clavia?”

“Relax, she’s still in here; on the first stage. She gave me control of the body, because you need me.”

“I need you for what?”

“I can find your mysterious god-being,” Debra spits back like he’s an insignificant little ant on the ground. “I found you, didn’t I? You were alone on a nothing planet in the middle of the universe. I knew exactly where you were. I intuited that you existed in the first place.”

“We can’t trust you,” Echo contends.

“Believe it or not, I’ve changed. Living with those people, doing those plays...it’s changed me. I’m no hero, but I’m not a villain anymore either. Clavia maintains full veto power. She can come back whenever she wants.”

“Prove it. Let me talk to my sister again. And don’t try to trick me, I’ll know.”

“I know.” Debra actually does what is asked of her, and temporarily returns control of the body to Clavia.

“She’s not exactly right,” Clavia says. “She doesn’t need my body, she needs my brain.”

“Can’t you just do it? You have all her power, don’t you?”

“It’s more complicated than that. You would understand if you could be inside my head. You would get it if you could see the construct that I’ve constructed.”

Echo steps forward, and places a hand on each of Clavia’s shoulders. “I bet I can. Show me. I think it’s about time that I meet your little brain buds.”

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Microstory 1763: On the Wings of Perseus

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I thought I was alone on this alien planet, but there is another. I don’t know if he belongs here, or came here from somewhere else, like me, but he doesn’t seem the least bit surprised to find me. I should not be surprised that he is not surprised seeing as we’re standing before a fountain containing statues resembling the two of us, along with many other creatures, who I presume to all be evolved alien species. My guess is that this is a monument to the intelligent races who live in this galaxy, though I couldn’t say whether all of them visited here at some point, they’re only the ones that the Pegasus being specifically knows about, or it’s comprehensive. All I can say is that I’m so pleased to finally have someone else to talk to. And he does indeed talk, even though he looks like a horse with wings. The first thing he tells me is his name, and though I imagine his peoples don’t use Latin script for their written language, what I hear sounds a little bit like the name Perseus, albeit with some kind of non-North American accent and pronunciation. It’s interesting that he should be named that, since both Pegasus and Perseus appear in ancient Greek mythology together, and it’s never been suggested that they are one and the same, or that the latter is the proper name for just one particular member of a whole race of the former. Perhaps all religion was inspired by reality in some way, but the truth has been corrupted overtime, kind of like how the Norse gods are often depicted as real aliens with advanced technology, who humans mistook for deities. I try to ask Perseus what this fountain is, and why a statue of me is in it, but he sort of brushes it off and says that it’s “just this thing.” I find it strange that I should be placed closest to him in the artistic rendering, when we have only now met, and the other aliens probably have much more experience with their interstellar neighbors. He brushes this off as well, and offers to give me a ride on his back. I feel awkward, accepting such a thing from a clearly sentient entity, but if he doesn’t, I shouldn’t.

We fly up, and up, and up, through the clouds, into the bitter cold, and right past what I might consider to be the boundary between atmosphere and outer space. I don’t bother freaking out, or trying to hold my breath. If this is his way of murdering me, then so be it. What am I gonna do, hop off, and go back down? I don’t die, of course. I assume some kind of invisible protective barrier forms to hold in the air, and the heat. The farther we go, the faster we move, until we’re traveling at faster-than-light speeds. Our ships can do that, but not nearly this fast, and before I know it, we’re on a new planet, which I initially figure to be Perseus’ homeworld. I don’t see any other Pegisides around, or whatever it is his people call themselves. I only see humans, standing in and around what I remember to be human architecture. They don’t gasp at the sight of the alien, so he has likely been here before. After I admire the city for a moment, Perseus explains what happened. The reason our scout ship crashed in the first place is due to tidal forces from a relatively nearby collapsis, which my ancestors used to refer to as a black hole. The planet’s proximity to this region of high gravity is also what caused me to experience only fifteen years of time while the human settlement here has been around for nearly two centuries. It’s nice to know that humanity survived the disasters on Earth, and also that I’m still around to enjoy the fruits of that labor myself. The people here welcome me warmly, and I realize just how much I missed being around other people.

Microstory 1762: Pegasus Fountain

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I’ve lived alone on this world for the last fifteen years. Actually, if we’re talking about the time it takes for the planet to orbit its host star, then it’s been 38, but I can’t get used to using any other calendar than the one I grew up with on Earth. Our world was dying, and our civilization crumbling, so we were sent to look for a new one. We weren’t trying to save everyone, but our species. Only the peaceful would be allowed to migrate, while the rioters and warmongers stayed behind to fight amongst themselves. Our ship crashed here, and I was the only survivor, so I don’t know whether any of the other scouts were successful. I can only hope, but it’s entirely possible that I am the last human in the entire universe by now. I’ve spent my time here doing what I do best, which is building things. I started with a Columbarium, so I could lay my comrades to rest, but I didn’t stop there. I constructed cages to trap the albibirds, which is the only source of meat available. It would be crazy if only one animal species lives on this whole planet. They don’t act omnivorous, but perhaps they hunted everything else to extinction long before I showed up. I’ve traveled great distances by now, but not everywhere. My helicopter has a short range, and I don’t like to venture too far from home, so it’s not like I’ve been able to cover the entire planet. That changes today. I finally fixed the ship. Well, I didn’t so much as fix it as I took it apart, and built a brand new ship from the wreckage. It’s much smaller than the one we took to get here, but since it only needs to accommodate me, that shouldn’t be a problem. It’s not fast enough to reach Earth—or any of the other candidate settlements—in any reasonable amount of time, but it’s much better at handling atmosphere, and that’s all I really need.

The protium harvesters worked, and the fusion reactor is operational. It would be great if I discovered how little of the surface I’ve truly explored, and the rest of it is lush with vegetation and game. It will be sad, of course, leaving the cremains of my friends behind, but I have to focus on myself now. Either I’m on a desert planet, or I just happened to end up in a desert on a normal planet, but no matter what, I have to know the truth. I spend months surveying the land, searching for anything better than what I started with, but there’s nothing. There’s no ocean, no mountain ranges...certainly no signs of animal life, let alone intelligence. The computer generates a map for me, and I start to see a bigger picture. It is all desert, with oases scattered throughout, and not randomly either. They’re equidistant from each other, which is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen. It makes no sense; nature would not distribute them so evenly. Then the computer spots something even weirder, so I drop down to check it out. It’s another oasis, but it’s unlike any other. In place of a more natural-looking well, there’s a gigantic fountain; probably larger than anything made on Earth. It’s the only sign of evolved life I’ve found on this rock. It’s filled with statues of creatures I’ve never seen before, spewing water out of their orifices, but I’m drawn to their eyes, which seem intelligent. I think each represents an evolved alien species. The largest one in the center looks eerily like a pegasus from Earthan mythology. It’s uncanny, really, the horse and its wings. That’s when I notice that I actually do recognize one of the statue creatures, standing proud below the pegasus. It was carved in the form of a human, but not just any human. It’s me. It looks exactly like me. Then a real pegasus flies down from the sky to greet me.

Microstory 1746*: Heart of a Lion (Excerpt)

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The crowd gathered and whispered as Cordelia prepared herself. Chris tried to step up and stop her a few times, but Clay always held him back. Neither of them wanted her to get hurt, but Chris could not bear to see her in pain; not even for only three seconds. She lifted her hand, and everything stopped. The whispers, the mindless fidgeting—even the howl of the wind was waiting for her. She placed her palm on the handle, and wrapped her fingers around it. She cringed, but did not scream. One second passed. Chris lunged forward, and again Clay pushed him back. Two seconds. Chris was starting to feel a pain in his heart; empathy for a loved one. Three seconds. She had beat his record. Four seconds. Five seconds. She had beat the world record. Six and seven, still holding on, but the baton stayed in place. Chris made his most valiant effort to reach her and pull her back, but Clay still would not let him. It didn’t matter how strong she was. She wasn’t going to be able to do it. Even without the pain, it was in there too deep. Only the owner could remove it from the stone. That was their true mission, to find the owner and kill him. Had it been anyone else, they might have asked for help. But Chris realized who the owner had to be. Only one both had lived long enough, and possessed a soul twisted enough, to construct such a sinister trap. He didn’t know where to find the evil telepath, but at least he knew what he looked like. How many seconds had it been? Too many to count. The crowd stared in both fear and awe. She was doing the unthinkable, but could not quite make it all the way. That was the sickest part. It would be one thing to torture a hopeful wielder with pain, but another to cause that pain and still not reward them with what they deserved. Chris thought his empathy was growing stronger as the heat reached his face and stung his eyes, but he was wrong. It was real.

The heat from the burning baton was expanding. With it came powerful gusts of wind, which drove the onlookers back. A few persisted to show support for the elf who took the brunt of the flames, but most gave in. Chris and Clay were one of the steadfast. Even the rain felt like it was at a boil. They squinted, put their hands up in pointless protection, and struggled to walk forward. “Let go!” They took turns yelling to her. If she could hear, she was not listening. “Let go of the baton! It’s not worth it!” They reached her, and what they saw was more horrific than they could have imagined. Smoke dribbled out of her pores, and faded up into the air. Her hands, which were both now pulling on the handle, were literally on fire. It was the hottest Chris had ever felt. With Clay’s help, he tried to pull her away by the shoulders, but she was as stiff as the statue—petrified, at least for the moment. Chris quickly realized what he had to do. He took a few seconds to prepare himself before cupping his own hands around hers. He could feel her blisters as his own skin began to bubble. Clay tried to help as well, but he was unable to get closer than a few inches. The baton slid a few millimeters out. But only a few. Then it slid out a few more, each one easier than the last. More and more it gave as Chris felt a scream at the top of his lungs. He would later be told that he had not uttered a sound. Centimeters more, and it was just about free. Time froze. The pain went away. No blisters were on his hands. The whole world turned a purplish-blue. He could recall seeing this before, but could not place where. The fire was gone, but everyone else was still there. Next to him stood Cordelia, just as confused as he was. Their former bodies lain at their feet.

Microstory 1594: Bugs

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Prompt

I’ve lived in this house for nearly two years now, and it’s just occurred to me that I’ve never seen a single insect or spider in here.

Botner

At least I don’t think I have. They’re so tiny I’d probably just miss them. There’s also a statue of a cat on the coffee table. Can I tell you how many cats I’ve seen in my life? Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but that’s the limit of my memory right now. Mostly because I’m pretty sure there’s not going to be any more cat statues in my life, and because I don’t want to have the fate of my life decided by some damn invisible spider, so whatever happens, happens, I guess. Mother is still asleep in the next room, as she is every morning. I wish I could get away with having her sneak into my room to sleep on my bed with me, but the neighbors think my mom is the meanest mom in the world, so she’s locked in the living room with the remote control and her knitting needles to prove that point. She says I’m not allowed to be out in the house until I’ve gotten a good night’s sleep, but the neighbors say I’ve never gotten a good night’s sleep anyway, so it doesn’t matter. I don’t...

Conclusion

...think it should matter much how much I sleep. I get good grades in school, and I have a lot of friends. Everyone just needs to let me be me, and figure things out on my own. When I grow up, I think I want to be an entomologist. That’s someone who studies insects, in case you don’t know. I learned that when I was in first grade, but not from my first grade teacher, but by myself. I like to learn things on my own, and don’t pay much attention to what the teacher is saying. I don’t understand why school has to be like that, why I can’t decide what I learn, and what I ignore. Sure, everybody needs to know some math, and they need to know how to speak, but beyond that, who cares? I don’t care about social studies, so I shouldn’t have to worry about it. Just like that, my best friend hates bugs, he’s afraid of them, he shouldn’t have to study them like me. I’m growing bored in my room, so I decide to go out in search of these mysteriously absent bugs. I know my family takes care to keep them out, but they can only do so much. I should be able to find at least one. I get down on all fours, and start crawling around the house. My little sister asks me what I’m doing, but doesn’t care about the answer, and my dad doesn’t care enough to even question it. It’s not going well, so I run to the kitchen, and grab the magnifying glass from the junk drawer. I go into every room, but find nothing. I check my own room last. No, nothing in here either. Nothing on the floors, nothing on the walls, nothing on my dresser. Nothing on my desk, nothing in the trash can, nothing on my big brown bed. Wait. Wait, there is something on my bed. There are a lot of somethings. Extremely short tiny things are all over my bed. Hold on. Bugs. Bed. Bed. Bugs. Bed bugs. Oh no. Mother’s not gonna be happy now.

Microstory 1298: The Burro and the Bust

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There was a burro whose responsibility it was to carry food and other goods over the mountain to sell at the market. It was a thankless job, but he was proud of it, and always felt that things could be worse. One day, a man approached the burro’s owner, and asked her if he could borrow the burro. They wanted to transport a very important statue through town, so that all could gaze upon its magnificence during a small parade. The woman agreed, and so did the burro, even though he didn’t really understand what was going on. He was just happy to meet a new friend. The man loaded the burro with the statue, and led him down the path. When they reached the town, the crowds came out and cheered. They smiled and laughed, and some even wept a little, for the statue was a bust resembling their late leader. She was a wonderful woman, who did so much for the whole county, and they were grateful to be honoring her in this way. The burro still did not understand, though. He thought the people were cheering for him, so in response, he grunted, and he groaned, and he brayed. And the people cheered louder. They had no problem with it, because the statue didn’t have any feelings, but the burro did. There was no point in ruining his day, and the truth was that he was pretty great anyway, so it wasn’t like they were lying to him. It made everyone happy. The burro continued to walk through town with the bust, smiling with pride, and the day was better for it.

This story was inspired by, and revised from, an Aesop Fable called The Ass Carrying the Image.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: Fall of 2176

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Not long after Leona would have returned to the timeline in 2076, a man appeared in the ship proper, using the former’s emergency teleporter. He was out of breath, and holding onto his chest. He collapsed to his knees. Brooke left her controls, and knelt down to him. “What happened?” she asked as she was helping him up.

He was struggling to catch his breath. “They attacked us. Her,” he corrected. “They attacked her.”

“Leona?” Brooke confirmed. “Who attacked her?”

“Everybody,” he said. “They’re angry. I tried to protect her, but they were too strong. With her dying breath, she begged me to take the e-porter, and get out of there.” He sighed and stammered. “I shouldn’t have broken the news like that. But it’s true. She’s gone.” He paused for effect, as if traumatized by the event. “She’s gone.”

Paige casually walked into the cockpit. After sizing him up, she crossed her arms, and looked at Brooke.

“Sir?” Brooke offered to carry out orders.

“Put him in Nerakali’s room,” she commanded as she was turning around. “Get that teleporter to Hokusai, so she can figure out how to send it back to Leona.”

“Captain!” the man cried. “You are the captain, right?”

Paige turned back to face him, but didn’t bother answering.

“I told you, Leona’s gone,” the man continued to lie. “Don’t waste the teleporter on a dead body. Two of the people who killed her will just use it to come here, then you’ll have a real problem on your hands.”

“Why didn’t you bring her with you?” Paige asked, still as cool as a cucumber that’s been sitting in a refrigerator. “You can teleport dead bodies.”

He took a moment to come up with a reasonable lie. “We got separated. I couldn’t get to her, and...and I was in danger. I just had to go. I’m sorry you can’t give her a proper send-off.”

Paige smirked. “Not a bad attempt at recovery. It might even be believable, except for one truth you could never have known.”

“And what’s that?” he asked, almost breaking character.

“There are only two people on this ship—or any of its extra dimensions—whose lives actually matter. Leona is one of them. She can’t die. And I don’t mean that like, it would be really bad if she died. I mean she literally can’t, not until her mission’s complete, and maybe not even then.” She nodded to Brooke, who picked the lying man off the floor, and carried him kicking and screaming to Nerakali’s room, which they had successfully transformed into a fully-functional brig.

After the deception of the man who claimed he would help her, Leona felt hopeless, trapped, and scared. The mob outside was showing no signs of changing their minds about wanting to kill her. Sweaty and freaking out, she started pacing and spinning around the room, looking for anything that could help her; a weapon, or...cash, maybe. Anything She opened the closet door, not just in the search, but also hoping one of Saga’s magical portals would appear in the frame. She found only a couple blankets. She hadn’t realized right away, but this must have been one of the guests rooms, so nobody’s belongings were in it. She was about to slam the door shut in a rage when something on the inside of it caught her eye. Scratched on the wood was an odd bathroom stall-style note, In a bad time // call Jayde Mercy // 937-724.

Well, she certainly was in a bad time, but how could she call this Jayde person? She didn’t have a phone, and even if she did, it wouldn’t likely work all the way out here. And even if it did, there were only six digits in the number, and she knew not even Durus operated like that. She started working on the math in her head, trying to figure out whether the numbers would have anything to do with someone’s telemagnet. When coming up with the telemagnet network system, the Durune knew they couldn’t rely on traditional phone formats, like those found on Earth. If contacting somebody in another time period, one first needed a four-digit year code. Since the sun was fake, the year was then broken up into one thousand arbitrary days. There were ten months in a year, ten weeks in a month, and ten days in a week; all of which led to a three-digit day code. An individual then required a full twelve digits, which would allow all of Durus history to ultimately have just under one trillion people. They probably wouldn’t even run out of numbers. Basically, all this meant that this six digit number had nothing to do with that. What else could it mean?

Before she could come to any logical conclusion, the door burst open, and the mob flowed in. Out of desperation, Leona blurted out the message, “I need to call Jayde Mercy! Nine-three-seven. Seven-two-four!”

The frontlines were about to strike her with their various and sundry weapons, but hesitated. “Say that again,” one requested.

“I need Jayde Mercy,” Leona said.

They still lunged towards her, but apparently knew they couldn’t. “What’s goin’ on up there!” someone from the hallway demanded to know.

“She’s called Jayde Mercy,” someone in the front answered back.

“This ain’t Durus,” the other one reminded her.

“But we are Durune, and we will honor that!” she said.

“We’re not all Durune!” another one shouted.

“We are honoring the mercy petition!” the leader declared. “Everyone out!” she ordered. “I’ll be acting diplomat in this matter.”

They all reluctantly left, except for the leader, and one other woman.

“You may go,” the leader said to the other one.

“I am nine-three-seven-seven-two-four,” she explained.

The leader looked back, and thought this over. “Your inmate code. That was yours?” She looked back at Leona. “Did you want to speak with her?”

“Umm...yes. Her.”

The leader left the two of them alone.

“How do you know me?”

Leona stepped aside, revealing the closet door behind her. “I don’t know you, Jayde. But I still think you can help.”

“My name isn’t Jayde,” she said, like Leona was stupid. “It’s Dubravka. You requested Jayde Mercy, which means no one can hurt you until diplomatic solutions can be explored.”

“Oh,” Leona said. “Actual mercy.”

“Yeah.”

“Then why is your inmate code scratched here too?”

“No idea. Who did this?”

“No idea,” Leona echoed. “It may not have anything to do with me, and this was left for someone else, but would there be any way for you to help me? Are you, perhaps, a paramount?”

“I’m The Slipper. I can skip over any future period of time. It’s not really that useful since I can’t go backwards.”

“It might be, if you’re trying to escape from an angry mob,” Leona pointed out.

“Oh, no,” Dubravka argued. “I help you get away from them, they come after me.”

“I can get you out of here,” Leona promised. I just need time. If we can get them to go back to their normal lives for a few hours, and forget about us, then I can find a way back to The Warren. I will take you with me. You don’t seem to wanna be here, or to deserve to be.”

Dubravka was silent.

“Please.”

They could hear a ruckus outside. People were running back up their stairs, and not in a sort of happy dancing jog, but a rageful sprint.

“Dubra, please!” Leona begged.

Just before the mob ran into the room, Dubravka took Leona’s hand, and jumped them into the future.

Hokusai spent the entire day trying to find a way to send Leona’s emergency teleporter back to her, but had no luck. She was drenched in sweat as midnight central approached, knowing that if she didn’t get this right soon, they would have to wait an entire year before it could do Leona any good. She could be dead by then, if even one part of what that lying man said was true. If she was in as much danger as she seemed, she could be dead by now. Then midnight struck followed by dozens of other midnights. It was weeks before she discovered how to send the teleporter back to the other dimension, which it did so on its own. A week later, Leona’s body fell onto the floor beside her, from out of nowhere. She stared at it shock, knowing that she had failed.

A few days after that, decisions had been reached. Leona was to receive an airlock funeral, accompanied by the man they held responsible for her death. Paige did not take her burden of deciding the man’s fate lightly, and did not relish the idea of the Warren’s first execution, but he was a danger to the crew, and the mission. He needed to be dealt with more than he needed to be punished. She reasoned that he was the one who chose this, not her.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Hokusai said to little Étude. They had already said their goodbyes to Leona, and were currently placing a mildly sedated criminal in the airlock with her. She was still too young to see something like this. “Go back to our room.”

Étude refused, pushing Hokuai’s hand away, and trying to show her a little Buddha statue that Dar’cy had given to her before they left Durus.

“Étude, please. This is for grownups.”

“It’s okay,” Loa seemed to think. “She’s old enough to know what this is, and she’ll have to decide for herself whether she was right to stay or not. Go ahead, Brooke.”

Brooke wasn’t sure, but then she lifted her hand to open the outer doors.

“Stop!” Étude screamed. This was, as far as they knew, the first word she had ever uttered in her life.

“Étude,” Hokusai said, “you spoke. Can you do it again?”

She contorted her face, indicating the one word she did say felt gross in her mouth. She just held up the statue, shaking it in front of their faces, trying to get them to understand. They didn’t, so she threw it on the ground. It was too tough to break, but this seemed to bother her even more. She picked it up, and tried again, but failed. She shook it again, and tried to hand it to Paige. Once Paige took it from her, Étude mimed smashing the statue with her own hands.

“You want me to break it?” Paige asked. “This was a gift. You don’t break gifts.”

Étude was jumpy and teary-eyed, still pleading with them to listen to her, even though she couldn’t use her voice. Please, she implored them with her eyes.

“Trust her,” Loa suggested.

Paige mulled it over some more, then squeezed it with her hand, buckling the metal into a blob. She dropped it to the floor, but it never reached it. Dar’cy suddenly appeared, holding it in her hands. She looked it over with a sad face, and sighed. “I really liked this one. You guys must really need me.”

“Dar’cy, you’re here.”

“Yeah, Étude called me. It’s a failsafe. I always thread certain precious objects to the end of their life. If something like this breaks, I know something goes wrong. So what happened?”

The crew went over everything they knew, and everything they guessed, but didn’t know for sure. Having calmed down, Étude was able to express her thoughts as well. She came up with a plan to rewrite history without creating a potentially dangerous new timeline. They would keep reality about the same as it always was, but Dar’cy would go back to before the Warren launched from Durus, and leave a message for Leona to find in pocket one. All she needed to do was make a new friend in there who could help her stay alive long enough to find the emergency teleporter when she returned to the timeline in 2177. After all the specifics had been ironed out, Dar’cy hugged everyone, and threaded the Buddha back to her own time, to before the Warren had even left. Then reality shifted into a new timeline, so that no one could remember anything about Leona’s death.

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Microstory 788: K-Boy

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At some point in the history of the bulkverse, a version of K-Boy ended up in a universe unlike his own. Here, though special abilities were possible, they were rare, and not nearly as ubiquitous as the time powers he had come to know in his home brane. His powers remained while in this universe, but they were significantly limited, as if the laws of physics—though outwardly exactly like the ones he was familiar with—were ever so slightly different. While still faster than any normal human being, he was significantly slower than before. He could run, but within the bounds of normal spacetime, and could be seen doing so by the naked eye. He found himself attached to a group of heroes, most of which had no special abilities of their own, but he was most known for his entanglements with a man named Michael Fintan, a.k.a. Boom Mike. Fintan was an actual boom operator, working on a number of popular and high-budget productions. He was not well-liked personally, for his reckless attitude, and juvenile behavior, but he was coveted professionally. He could hold the boom microphone for extended periods of time, like a statue, with some claiming his record to be forever. The truth was that he learned his patience and stamina while fighting in war. It was the characteristics he picked up here that caused K-Boy to gravitate towards him. As much as they fought their feelings for each other, it was ultimately useless. But their relationship would not be without its problems. K-Boy was strictly a hero, fighting for good and justice, while Boom Mike had become disillusioned with the government from his time in the military, eventually leaving it behind for the private sector. He became a mercenary, lending his services to anyone who was willing to pay him enough money. This created great tension between the two of them, and when it came time to choose sides, it was unclear whether Boom Mike would choose the right one. He was not a lost cause, and redemption was just around the corner, but he would have no hope without the dedication, and love, that he found in K-Boy.

Microstory 735: Credos, Convention Eight: Cohesion

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There once was an island in the ocean, remotely distant from other land. On it lived a peoples of fishing and adventuring. For generations, they had traveled all over the world, but they wanted to find a place to call home, so that no matter how far away they ventured, they could all be from one location. To mark their home, they decided to build monuments to their ancestors. Unfortunately, their island, which was otherwise paradise, did not have the stones necessary to make this a reality. A neighboring island did have the rocks, but they were too large to carry on their boats. A small tribe lived on this island, and they were happy to help in any way they could. The wisest of them was the matriarch of the tribe. She came to the stone pits, where the adventurers were arguing over what to do, and spoke to them. “No single boat can transport even but one of these stones to your island. But many of your boats can.” “But how can we do this?” the adventurers asked. “If we try to carry it across many boats, they will just drift apart, and the stones will fall.” You must find a way to make the boats as one. You must find a way to keep them from drifting.” Of course, now we know that they could have made a single, very large boat to transport the stones. But back then, the only boats they understood how to build were lightweight narrow vessels. So they came up with a plan, using the tools they had at their disposal. They tied the boats together, to form a sort of grid platform.

The platform boat seemed great, but then the adventurers still had a problem. They realized that they would also need to to get the stones to the water in the first place. They could roll them on logs once they reached the plains. On the beach, they could then use sleds, but the trouble was getting them through the forest. The matriarch of the neighboring tribe spoke again. “You must work together to do this. You must look inward, and at each other, and find some commonality.” They looked inward, and at each other, but they saw nothing that could help. Then a little girl tribe member noticed something, and so she spoke to the group as well. “We walk on two legs, and use our arms for balance. One foot forward, then it holds, and the second foot comes forward after that. Then the first foot again, then the second.” They marveled at her wisdom, and found a way to reapply this to their problem. They tied robes to the top of each stone, and lifted it up so that it was vertical. They broke apart into teams, pulling and releasing in unison, so that the stone was essentially walking through the forest. And so the stones were carried through the forest, over the plains, down the beach, and onto the water. They were taken across the strait, and onto their own island, where the process could continue. The task took many months, and many months after that to carve and erect the stones. There stood their greatest leaders in history, guarded by a barrier. In the middle was a monument dedicated to their tribal friends to the West. It was the least they could do to repay for the help.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 24, 2139

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“Leona,” Mateo said, “this is Serif.”

“Oh?” she asked, like a mother to a child who’s just brought home that new friend she can tell will be a bad influence.

“Leona,” he repeated, “you met Serif years ago.”

“I did?” she seriously couldn’t remember. “I don’t recall that. Like...at all. Is she part of this...corrupted reality?”

“Well, yeah,” Serif said, “but I’ve been here for longer than that.”

“How long?”

“Since,” Mateo began, trying to remember exactly. He looked to Serif for help.

“2039,” Serif remembered.

“Right,” Mateo said.

“April 15, 2039; I was one of Ulinthra’s guests at the same time you were. In the timeline before Boyce killed Hitler.”

“Of course,” Leona sarcastically agreed.

Mateo sighed. “Oh my God. I’ve been spending this whole time trying to convince people of other people they used to know and love. It was difficult, because Arcadia had removed them from time. But here Serif is standing right in front of you, and you have no clue. Either Arcadia is losing her touch, or it’s just another wrinkle.”

“Well, if we failed to complete Nestor’s expiation, maybe this is part of our consequences,” Serif proposed.

“Not really fair,” Mateo said. “She never said there would be additional ramifications.”

Leona was not super happy about them talking to each other like they were old pals, but that was exactly what they were. Not long after this whole thing got started, Ulinthra had the two of them escorted to her secret base somewhere in East Bumblefork. There they met Serif, another salmon on their exact same pattern. She had been traveling with them ever since. That Leona could forget all of that was just adding salt to an already painful, wide open wound.

While Mateo and Serif were trying to talk things out, Leona was turning her head between them like a tennis match spectator, working the problem in her head. “What of hers am I wearing?”

“What?” Mateo didn’t understand.

She started pointing to her clothes. “I’ve got Lincoln’s belt, and Aura’s engagement ring. What did Serif give me so that I wouldn’t forget her when Arcadia tears her from time? If she’s really always been here, then I should have something.”

They frowned at the sad puppy. “Your ear.”

“What?” She felt her ears with her fingers, finding an earring on one that Serif’s great great grandmother had passed down through the generations. Paige had been given the other.

“I don’t remember this at all.” Her world had been turned upside down.

“It’s okay, love,” Mateo tried to comfort her.

“How could I forget? I am spawn. If she’s here, and I supposedly have her totem on my ears, why can I not remember?”

“Maybe it’s not working,” Mateo suggested, “or Arcadia found a way to alter that.”

“The totems were meant to have sentimental value. Maybe my connection to Leona just...isn’t strong enough?”

“That can’t be true,” Mateo said dismissively. It couldn’t be. “You love each other.”

“We do?” Leona asked.

“Oh yeah, it’s, uh...”

Leona was being impatient. “Mateo.”

“Well...”

“Mateo, are we polyamorous?”

Serif took the reigns. “We are, yes. At least...we were. I guess we won’t be needing the privacy hut tonight.”

“No, probably not,” Mateo agreed. “But we do need sleep. Obviously we’re all tired. Now, I’m not saying you’ll suddenly get your memories back overnight, but we should rest and deal with it in the morning. We shouldn’t try to argue with Arcadia after the day we had.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Serif said.

In the middle of an awkward breakfast wherein they discovered that none of the other island dwellers could remember Serif either, Arcadia teleported in.

“I hear you’re having some trouble,” she said, impersonating a repairman.

“I’m the only one who can remember Serif,” Mateo complained.

“Uhuh,” was all Arcadia said.

“Did you make a mistake?” Serif asked. “Did you take their memories, but forget to actually take me?

She was reluctant to answer, so she avoided it. Instead, she pointed to three of them. “You, you, and you. Come with me right now.”

“Why is Lincoln going with them? Mario asked.

“And why am I not?” Leona questioned.

Arcadia drew closer to Leona. “This is one of those times when what I say is law, and you questioning that can hurt you real bad. Stay here until I tell you otherwise.”

Leona was not afraid. “Okay.”

Mateo, Serif, Lincoln, and Arcadia all stood in a circle just inside of the treeline. The first three waited for the fourth to say something. They could still see the rest of the group eying them from the fire pit.

Finally, Arcadia spoke, “Lincoln, did you have something to do with this?”

“What?” he asked defensively. “No. Why? How?”

“Where is your art project?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said with feeble shrug.

Arcadia pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. “I know what you were doing with that thing. I didn’t put a stop to it, because I was totally all right with it. Kivi’s disappearance from history was not part of my plan, and I was rooting for you, Lincoln, but it looks like you screwed up.

Lincoln looked Serif over head to toe.

“Yeah, she does look a little like her,” Arcadia said, overexaggerating a head nod. “But not quite enough, huh?”

“Well, I was working from memory. I’m not The Artist, ya know. I was hoping to contact him so he could cut the detail for me.”

“Can someone tell me what’s happening?” Mateo implored them. “What does Kivi have to do with all this?”

“When you went back to the Hitler Tribulation, you altered the timeline. Slightly. That expiation both created Angelita...and destroyed Kivi. Mister Rutherford here was trying to remedy the situation.”

“Lincoln?” Mateo asked simply.

“It was meant to be a gift. When she was ready. When I was...done. I was gonna call The Artist to bring the statue to life, so you could have your daughter back.”

Mateo looked to Arcadia. “Is this possible?”

“It’s what he does,” Arcadia confirmed, “our father.”

“He’s your father?” Serif asked.

“He’s our creator,” she corrected. “He can create entire people; souls, minds, even memories. At one time, he and the Curator had a whole crew of people managing the timeline on a metaphysical level. Then they all left. But those jobs still needed doing. Unfortunately, it was literally impossible to recruit anyone else, so Athanaric Fury took his tools, and built me and my siblings out of clay. Then he gave us life, along with the powers we would need to act as a skeleton crew for The Gallery. Then we were thrown out of The Gallery as well, including Fury. He built the body that my brother, Zeferino ended up stealing. That’s why he had so many different powers, because it was Fury’s last attempt at protecting the timeline from people—well, from people like my brother. And my sister. And me.”

Serif was uncomfortable and worried. “Are you saying that Lincoln failed to make a good enough Kivi...and they ended up with me?”

“Sorry, kid. I know that’s not something anyone wants to hear.”

“So I’m not real.”

“Of course you’re real.” Arcadia was confused. “How do you think Leona has your earring? You had a real effect on history, I’m impressed.”

“I wasn’t born, though. I was just...made. Do I even have a brain, or a heart, or skin? Is this skin?” She started pulling at the skin of her own arm.”

“Serif, stop it!” Mateo yelled.

“Why? I’m not a person. Just a big block of...rock! I don’t know what he used, what did you use? Marble? Granite? What species am I?”

“You’re the same species as Kivi was,” Arcadia answered calmly.

“What?”

“Lincoln knew that Fury could give life to the Kivi statue, because he had done it before. I don’t know why, but I kind of think she was supposed to be a gift for you, even then. Lincoln remembers that, so he was trying to repeat it.”

“I don’t know The Artist’s original intentions,” Lincoln added, “but she didn’t have a past either. She was about a month old when you two first met.”

“Well,” Arcadia said. “The first time you met her.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh yeah, you ran into her on this island. She didn’t know why she was there, so you took her to the Archivist, who reset the timeline far back enough to delete her. I guess she had shown up too early? I dunno, that’s not really my responsibility anymore.”

“Can we get back to me, please?” Serif asked. “What’s going to happen? Are you going to erase me?”

“Do you want me to erase you?”

“Of course not.”

She shrugged. “I don’t really think I need to. I wouldn’t tell the others what you are, though, if you plan on staying. They’re already gonna have a hard enough time accepting you as it is.”

“What can we tell them?” Lincoln wondered.

“Whatever you were gonna tell them before I came here. You have memories of her, right?” she asked Mateo. “And you have your own memories?” she rhetorically asked Serif. “So just go from there. You can say that someone else messed with the timeline, or you can just blame me. It honestly doesn’t matter to me. I just need to know, Lincoln, how you contacted Fury.”

“I didn’t,” Lincoln replied with an honest tone. “I was going to, sure. But I hadn’t made it that far. Like we said, she doesn’t look quite close enough to Kivi.”

“Well, how were you planning to get in touch with him? You don’t have what you need here on Tribulation Island.”

Lincoln just stared at her with his hands in his pockets.

“Oh my God, you were gonna go Bill and Ted on me?”

“What is that?” Mateo asked. They were asking a lot of questions today.

“Retroactive preparation. It’s when you plan to go back in time and do something you can’t do right now. It creates an ontological paradox, which is dangerous as shit.”

“Not if you frame it right, which is something I know how to do,” Lincoln argued.

“Obviously not, or we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

He shook his head. “No, something else is going on here. Maybe I could one day screw this up, but the Artist wouldn’t. There must be a reason. Serif is supposed to exist,” he said before repeating himself directly to her. “Serif, you’re supposed to exist.”

“That’s comforting,” Serif lied.

“Well, no one has been taken out of time today,” Lincoln changed the subject. “Unless you’ve found a way to erase my memories too.”

“No. I was planning on letting you grieve for your loss yesterday. Every single player needed to cross the threshold, Mateo, not just you. I can’t bring Nestor back.”

“We figured,” Mateo said sadly. Through all this drama, they didn’t give themselves the time to be disappointed in themselves for having failed one of the expiations.

“If it’s any consolation, he was a screw up in his own right,” she explained. “His family kept loving him, despite his many mistakes; no one more than his sister, but he never felt like he deserved their forgiveness.”

Mateo nodded. “I can relate.”

Arcadia turned her head like she had heard her name being called. “Oh, I don’t want to be here for this. But good luck.”

“Good luck with what?” What was going on?

“Not even I can stop them from taking you, and I’ve learned not to piss them off.” She disappeared.

“Lincoln, do you have any idea what she’s talking about?” Mateo asked.

“I think maybe that,” Serif said, pointing towards the jungle.

They turned their heads to find a door sticking out of the ground, completely out of place.

“What the hell is that?”

Vearden Haywood opened it from the other side. “Come with me if you want to live,” he said in a thick fake accent. “Nah, I’m just playin’.” After another pause, he added, “but I am gonna need your clothes.”

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