Microstory 2485: Passage of Rites

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They call this an antimetabole, with the name referring to the physical space where rites are performed, as opposed to the original phrase, which involves a more metaphorical passage from one state of being to another. A rite of passage is a ceremony—or a more abstract transitional period—that marks some change in a person’s life, often when they are still young. In some cases, it’s specifically meant to mark someone’s development from youth to adulthood. Bar Mitsvahs, Quinceñeras, and Sweet Sixteens are all about this concept, and come at the age when that culture believes an individual sufficiently matures. It doesn’t have to be based on a particular age, or there might be some leeway. For instance, our ancestors used to have to wait to learn how to drive land vehicles, and once they did learn this skill, it came with a sense of independence that they usually did not feel before. It often happened at a certain age, but it didn’t have to, and some people never learned. Different people have different ideas about what someone needs to experience in their life before they can be respected in some form or another. Some have believed that you weren’t a man, for instance, until you participated in a physically violent altercation. Others thought you really only needed to learn how to hunt game, or go on some kind of lone journey in the wilderness. Some rites of passage are a very specific set of rituals which offer symbolic practices to represent the transition. They might be asked to drink a bitter drink to symbolize the harsh realities of life, then receive a sweet candy to exemplify the reward of a life well lived. Some of them their participants prepared their whole lives for. A lot of the rites of passage shown here have been lost to time as the culture who practiced them forgot, or had newer generations who began to see less value in maintaining them. There’s a relatively new tradition on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida where the current permanent residents gift each of their younglings a stone every year of their lives. They are expected to hold onto their collection between the ages of six and seventeen, even as it grows, until their seventeenth birthday, when they throw all of them over a cliff. These stones represent the care and attention the child needed as they were growing up. The weight of them collectively represents the burden they placed on their families. Ridding themselves of their collections represents the second stage in their life, when they are now expected to fend for themselves—to collect their own proverbial stones. That rite of passage is here too, reenacted by visitors, so they can physically feel the meaning behind the traditions. Other rites are performed exclusively by androids, such as the human sacrifices, which thankfully, no culture today has continued to observe. As I was saying about the birthday observances, there’s a lot of fun here, and you can come just to party. But I hope you do venture out to the other areas, and see some of the more somber and profound events. You can learn about any of these things in the archives, but there’s nothing quite like seeing it up close for yourself. I’ve learned a lot here already, even though I’m an archaeologist, and I’m sure you will too.

Microstory 2418: Paleodome

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This is a fascinating historical dome, but I think it can be better. I think they can make it more realistic, and more immersive. What’s the premise here? Well, it’s the paleolithic age, which is part of the stone age. Cavemen are working with stone tools, trying to figure out how to build societies, and engaging in the first (loose) definitions of war. I mean, it depends on how you define war. Were these organized, formal conflicts fought on distinct battlefields? No. But they were more than just two guys swinging clubs at each other during a disagreement. Their language was minimal, but they did make plans, and they did go out to fight together, so I would say that qualifies. The androids have been programmed with very low intelligence, but heightened curiosity, leading them to try all sorts of experiments, many of which don’t go too well. For now, these androids aren’t aware that you’re there. They’re literally programmed to ignore you while you watch from up close. I think they can do more with this. I think they can adjust the visitor’s intelligence as well. I know they do this with that zombie dome, where you can actually be transformed into a zombie. They seem to understand how people can bring themselves back to normal once they’re done with that. I don’t see any reason why the same principles can’t be applied here. It’s cool to watch the cavemen, but I want to be an active participant. I want to feel what it would have been like back then. In this regard, it’s an excellent reenactment. I don’t know exactly what year it’s supposed to be, but it moves in real time. I watched a guy learn how to cut a rudimentary axe-sort of thing out of stone, and that was a unique experience. That android will never do that again. He will never need to learn it again. Fifty years from now, if I go back, he will be “dead”. I’m sure his grandchildren will be starting to conduct their own tests, and learn their own lessons. That’s so cool to me, that we’re watching history unfold—albeit as a best guess based on archaeological evidence alone—and if you miss something, you miss it. There’s no going back to see what someone else saw before you. I think that’s really special. So if you’re interested in getting a glimpse of what Earth was like millions of years ago, you better come now, because it never stops changing.

Microstory 2402: Castledome

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I had the rare opportunity to visit Castledome. For those of you not in the know, this was the first dome ever built on the surface of this planet. They’re not even sure if the original colonist was intending to build more domes at the time, or if he just needed a breathable place to live. This is where the leadership and other sentient staff members of the whole planet live and work. Obviously, there’s a castle, but that’s not all. They’ve built up a whole village in the surrounding areas, giving it the real feel of a medieval settlement. Everything on the outside looks really archaic and simplistic. I’m not sure if the old-timey machines are functional, like the water mill, or the wagons that I see strewn about, but I’m sure they are. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time outside, or inside, for that matter. I was only granted a one night stay in one of the towers as a sort of treat. To be fair, this planet is still in its early stages. They’re still testing a lot of these hotspots, so I’m sure more people will have the chance to do what I did. It was interesting to be in all that stone architecture. I’m fairly young, so I just don’t have any experience with that sort of thing. But don’t fret, it wasn’t all rustic. They still have computers and a network connection. The bed might have looked old, but the mattress was still really comfortable, and came with all the adjustable settings and smart sensors. I was hoping to get a chance to meet the planet’s owner, but he was just too busy. I can imagine that running this place is not easy, even though he has a full staff of dedicated personnel. This may change in the future, but there aren’t any activities or adventures in this particular dome. It’s just for living and exploring, and again, it’s not available to everyone since that’s where all the people work. Check it out if you can, but don’t get your hopes up.

Starstruck: The Price of Doing Business (Part VII)

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Mirage stared at Honey for a moment. “You understand that I’m not human, right? I’m not going to die. When Lilac comes back into the timestream, I’ll be waiting.”

Honey shook her head, and sighed. “Your friend is not where you think she is.”

Mirage frowned, and darted her gaze back over to Ashlock, who held his hands up defensively. “Hey, I sent her to 2180, I promise.”

“He did,” Honey agreed. “My guy tracked her there, and sent her somewhere else. Don’t worry, she’s safe. All you need to do is hand me the stone, just as you promised.”

“Your prices are too high,” Mirage argued. “I took my business elsewhere. As a customer, I have the right to do that. You do not have a monopoly on time travel.”

“That may be,” Honey replied. “Why don’t you call the time police, and see what they say about it, hmm?” Time police didn’t exist. The closest equivalent was a prison that housed people who exposed the existence of time travelers to the general public. That was the only crime they cared about.

“I’m going to find her,” Mirage assured Honey. “The only question is whether I kill you to do it, or not.”

“I think you’ll find that my husband and I are more difficult to kill than we look.”

Mirage was more than willing to test that claim, and that was the problem. She was created to be a killer, but she transcended that when a man of good heart taught her how to overcome her own programming. What would he do in this situation? He wouldn’t kill them, she knew that much, and he wouldn’t approve of her doing it either. He would find a way, and not because he was any smarter than his opponent, but because he had friends. He always won, because he always had friends. It was his greatest strength. “You’re never getting this homestone.”

“Then you’re never getting home,” Honey spit right back.

Mirage turned to walk down the concourse in the opposite direction.

“Wheh,” Honey exclaimed. She looked down at the buzzer. “That there pager’s yourn. You go more than ten meters from it, or leave realtime with it, you’re gonna start to feel a lot of pain. Even your kind can feel pain. We may look dumb, but we’re in the business of knowing things. Do not underestimate us. Even if you can take the agony, can your friend? She’ll feel it too from where she is.”

Mirage grabbed the pager. “I’m going down there, though.”

“That’s quite all right,” Honey told her. “You know where to find me when you’re ready to talk again.”

“I’m sorry,” Ashlock said.

“It’s fine, Ashlock. Go home and get sober.” She walked down to the post office.

Obviously, this was unlike any regular post office. This was here to send messages across time and space. Only The Courier had any power here, and he could go anywhere he wanted. He was so powerful, in fact, that while Mirage was in the Gallery dimension, she could detect that he existed, but could gather no information about him. He wasn’t a choosing one, but a salmon, which meant that he answered to the mysterious powers that be, though there was reportedly some leeway with that. “Hi. Dropping off, or picking up?” He spoke in a genuinely polite voice, unlike the Travel Agents.

“Mr. Patton, do you do read receipts?” Mirage asked him.

“Ah, I believe I know where you’re going with this. You’re looking for someone.” Apparently, he was smart too.

“She’s been taken.”

“I see. Well, normally, no, but I will make an exception if I can verify your relationship. Do you have an undoctored photo of yourself with the recipient?”

“I do not. We just met.” She could synthesize one, and he probably wouldn’t be able to tell that it was fake, but she wanted to be honest. She needed him on her side.

“Then, I’m afraid—”

“Wait, yes, I do.” She was being an idiot. All of her conversations were being recorded. She switched her eyes to output mode, and projected a hologram of them eating lunch together at Allen and Richard’s restaurant. Well, Lilac was eating anyway.

“You two look happy,” Ennis noted.

“Please, I have to find her. I don’t know how I’m going to get to her while I’m lugging this thing around, but...” She showed him the pager.

“Oh, I can take care of that.” He took the pager from her briefly, and flipped it over. He mouthed the serial number on it, then handed it back, and stepped through a door. While he was gone, the pager started to blink lights, vibrate, and play a little melody. As he was walking back out, the melody stopped. A few seconds later, the buzzing stopped as well, but the lights kept going. “There. Your waiting period is over. Now you can do whatever you want with it. Give it back, destroy it...”

Mirage crushed it to death with her bare hand. “Why could you do that?”

“That’s my partner, Susan’s technology. We just loan it out to the Travel Agents.”

“You are as kind of a man as I’ve been told. Though, it seems out of character for you to include a pain feature in such a thing.”

Ennis was taken aback. “There’s no pain. No, if you go too far from it, it will just follow you, and if you travel too far with it, its activation will send you back to the agency. All I did was reroute it to Susan’s control block. Jesus, is that what they told you, that it would hurt? We may need to reassess our business relationship with them.”

“They really want this homestone.” She showed that to him as well.

“I suppose I understand the appeal, but it’s no excuse for their behavior.”

“So, will you help us reunite, me and Lilac?”

“Well, if what you say is true, that she’s been taken by someone, I’m worried than any message I attempt to send will simply be intercepted. My birds have been killed by those who did not like the messages we delivered.”

“Then can you just...take me to her? I know you have that ability. You deliver large and heavy packages, don’t you?”

“I never take anything organic,” Ennis said apologetically. “That is a rule I refuse to bend, and I will not explain why.”

Mirage cut into her lower arm, and peeled back the artificial skin that housed her non-organic android parts. The skin was alive, but she only used it to better blend in with regular people. “That’ll be fine.”

“I was wondering how you crushed that pager so easily.”

“Plus, my film projector eyes.”

“I thought that they were just advanced contact lenses.”  He inhaled deeply, and held it in for a long time. “Okay, I guess you are a walking exception, though I imagine you’re from a time when such a body is not surprising. I don’t want a bunch of other robots asking me for rides, so I would kindly ask you to not tell anyone how you got to where I’ll be delivering you.”

“I have no problem with that. I’ll erase it from my own memory, just to be safe.”

He smiled excitedly. “That’s cool.” He squinted as he was framing Mirage’s body with his hands.

She smiled, and crouched down to wrap her arms around her shins. “I can get pretty small, and I’m lighter than the androids you see in movies.”

“I never ask a lady her weight,” he quipped before he went over to the backroom to retrieve the appropriate box. He assembled it, and then she crawled inside. Yeah, there was plenty of room.

“You have enough to find her? It has to be when and where she went just after I last saw her ten or fifteen minutes ago.”

“I got you covered.” Ennis flipped the lids over, and taped them up. “And now I got you covered,” he joked. “But also, you’re about to not be covered. My non-organic rule is not just something I choose not to do. The way I move through time, it just doesn’t work. Your skin will...come off, like a damaged Terminator.”

“That’s fine. It’s inert,” Mirage explained.

“All right. Let me calculate the route, and then we’ll be on our way.”

She felt the box being lifted and carried away, and while it didn’t hurt, she also felt her skin shed off of her as she passed through the time vortex.

Moments later, the movement stopped. “What’s this?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

“Package for Lilac,” Ennis announced.

“I’ll sign for it,” the voice responded.

“No need to sign. Just be careful when you open it,” Ennis warned.

Before the man could start slicing through the tape, Mirage punched through the lid, and took hold of his throat. “Where’s Lilac?”

Eyes bulging, he turned them to point to her right.

“Mirage?” Lilac asked. “Is that you?”

“Losing my skin was the price of doing business,” Mirage explained. “I’ll be able to grow it back eventually.”

“I see. Well, I’m fine,” Lilac said “You can let him go.”

“What are we going to do with him then?” Mirage asked, still not letting go.

Lilac shrugged. “Let him leave. We’re where we need to be. I’ve been waiting for you for the last couple of days.”

Mirage gently set the man back down. “You better do what she says before I decide to override her decision. I don’t ever wanna see you again in my whole life, which should be about...forever.”

As he was running away, he waved his arm in front of him to create a black hole in the ground, which he jumped into, letting the hole close back up above him.

“He must be related to The Overseer.” Mirage emulated a sigh. “What year is it?”

“It’s 2183,” Lilac answered. “He jumped us a few years into the future to hide.”

Mirage nodded, and looked up and to the right to access her memory archives of the timeline. “Its 2183,” she echoed. “I know where to go. There ought to be a ship here that has everything we need, but I’m not entirely sure what it’s been through so far, because my knowledge of this time period may be quite literally outdated. It’s called The Elizabeth Warren, and no one else should need it at the moment. It’s not that fast, but it has stasis technology, and I could retrofit it. How would you like to see your son again?”

Lilac sighed too, but for real. “I think I’ve waited long enough.”

Mirage took her by the hand, and teleported them both to Panama.

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Starstruck: Back to the Future (Part VI)

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Mirage swam over to Lilac, who was scared and nervous, but not panicking yet. She hitched a ride when Niobe used the homestone to go from somewhere in the Goldilocks Corridor, back to her home on Verdemus. This couldn’t be Verdemus, because there were too many people, and too many houses by the shore, and also, Niobe was nowhere to be found. “Lilac. My name is Mirage. I’m going to explain everything, but first, you should know that both Niobe and your son, Aristotle are perfectly safe. They’re fine, and I’m going to get you back to them, okay?”

“Okay. Where are we?”

“Topeka, Kansas, 2036.”

“Niobe has never been to Topeka, Kansas, 2036.”

“I know. This is my homestone destination. For some reason, you were unable to exit the stone, so I activated it myself, hoping to get you out with a new trip. Think of it like rebooting a computer to clear out the memory.”

“Hey, are you two all right?” A dude in a tank top was standing on the edge of his boat, holding a paddle, apparently ready to pull them in if need be. It was April, so not a great time for swimming, but the day was rather warm.

“We’re cool, dawg!” Mirage replied.

He winced, but respected their personal bubbles.

“So, that could have deleted my file?” Lilac assumed. “It could have killed me?”

“Yes, I took a risk. It was probably fifty-fifty, but know this too, there is already a Lilac on Verdemus in 2341. She’s taking care of the kids. She either has not left to ultimately become you in her future, or she never will, because we’re in a new timeline.”

“Right. I don’t know much about how this stuff works, but I tried not to think about Past!Lilac. I just wanted to see my son again.”

“You will. It will take us 300 years to get there, but I will return you to him.”

“We should start by getting out of the water. I suppose it’s a coincidence, and that Maqsud Al-Amin isn’t here too?”

“No, sorry, it’s a coincidence.” Maqsud Al-Amin, also known as The Trotter, was capable of traveling profoundly vast distances from planet to planet. He found it easier to accomplish the task by starting in a sufficiently voluminous body of water. Sherwood Lake would do. Mirage didn’t know whether Lilac simply knew this about him, or if she had some other reason to suspect that he might be involved. She chose not to push it.

Lilac started to breaststroke towards the shore. “He’s Aristotle’s father.”

Oh, interesting. How come Mirage didn’t know this? She was losing her edge. Too much of the timeline must have changed since she left the Gallery Dimension to become a real girl. She would have to make peace with that.

They climbed out of the lake, and shook off a little. Some other people tried to hand them towels, but they were just going to air dry. They walked with each other up the road until they were hidden enough from view for Mirage to teleport them both away from here.

They landed in the middle of the concourse of the Salmon Civic Center, which was a secret hidden section of a building that only time travelers had access to. There was a bank, a post office, and even a weekend club, among other things. If you were a time traveler in need of help in the 21st century or later, and The Constant was inaccessible, for whatever reason, the SCC was the place to go. It existed on a secret subterranean floor underneath a strip mall on The Plaza. A man power walked up to them. “Good morning. My name is Konstantin Orlov. Do you require any immediate medical attention?”

Mirage looked over at Lilac, who replied with, “I’m fine.”

When Kostantin switched his gaze to Mirage, she replied, “I’m an android.”

“I see. Well, I’m here to help you navigate the Center, or try to help you with anything else you may need. Right now, it’s 11:24 Central Standard Time on April 13, 2036, in Kansas City, Missouri, United States of America, Earth. Have you ever been to the 2030s before?”

Mirage pointed. “I have, she hasn’t.”

“Do you have any questions about the current level of technology or cultural dynamics?”

“I’ve studied the history,” Lilac said dismissively.

“Great!” Kostantin exclaimed. “What is the specific nature of your visit today?”

“We need to get to the future,” Mirage began to explain. “Do you have any available time travelers, or access to stasis pods?”

He tilted his head to the side. “We do have a few pods, but they are currently in use. Unfortunately, we have been limited to only those few by, uhh...certain powerful forces. We are working on securing authorization for more, but I couldn’t tell you when that may happen. In the meantime, have you tried The Constant?”

“I would rather not involve The Concierge in this.” The Constant was like the Salmon Civic Center, but it was highly exclusive, and a hell of a lot older. Anyone who knew the SCC was here could get in, unless specifically banned. Even if you had once enjoyed the amenities and security of The Constant, you were not necessarily allowed to return. The rules were impossible to know. You just had to try, and hope for the best, but Mirage didn’t want to even try unless they had no other choice.

“I understand.” He had this polite customer service representative thing down. “In that case, you might want to speak with the Travel Agents. They will take down your information, and try to connect you with someone who might be able to jump you into the future. I must warn you, not everyone is met with a favorable transaction. Payment is often cost-prohibitive for people.” In the world of time travelers, cost was a far more complicated concept. They almost never dealt in such petty trivialities as fiat currency, or even precious gems or metals. It was sometimes a favor that the provider couldn’t do for themselves, and sometimes a sacrifice that didn’t technically need to be done, but the point was for the customer to lose something. For instance, if you loved your beautiful long hair, they may ask you to cut it all off. They didn’t need your hair, but if you really wanted their help, you had to be willing to part with it. Others just gave away their services for free, but when the Travel Agents were in play, there could be a middleman fee anyway.

“Thank you very much for your help, Kostya.” Mirage turned and led Lilac to the back corner. The Travel Agency was empty, except for an old man who was either sleeping or dead on the bench against the wall. Lilac rang the bell. A thirtysomething man in a blue sweater vest came up from the back with a Stepford smile. “Hello. I’m Romeo. My wife, Honey is finishing up something in the back. How can I help you?”

Honey and Romeo. Wow, okay. “I’m Mirage and Lilac. We came here from 2341 Verdemus. We need to return there to the exact same moment.”

“Okay, was that your first time traveling through time?” Romeo asked. “Perhaps you could find a homestone.”

“A homestone is how we got here,” Lilac answered before Mirage could stop her.

Romeo smirked. “Get out here, please, Honey!”

“What did I do?” Lilac whispered to Mirage.

“It’ll be okay. You just started the negotiation too high.”

“Negotiation?”

A woman who just looked like the feminine version of Romeo came around the corner. “What is it, dear? Oh, customers. I should have put my face on.”

“It’s fine,” Mirage assured her.

“Honey...” Romeo began, building anticipation. “They have a homestone.”

“Oh my, isn’t that wonderful? We just so happened to be in the market for one of those. Do you happen to have more than one?”

“Only the one,” Mirage replied a bit too hastily, which wasn’t necessary, since it was the truth.

“I’m afraid our rates are too high for only one stone. If you had another, we could talk about sending you where you need to go. Which would be where?”

“Verdemus in 2341,” Mirage repeated.

“I’ve never heard of a Verdemus. Is that a musical artist?” A common joke for this crowd, though not in so many words.

“Ya know what, don’t worry about it. Just get us to anytime on Earth in the 22nd century, and we’ll make our way to our final destination on our own.” That far in the future, they will have no problem finding stasis pods, or a ship. Hell, she could engineer her own ship and pod using the technology available in that time period.

“I’m afraid that that doesn’t change our rates. We’ll need one homestone per traveler. Two travelers, two—”

“We get it.” Mirage emulated a sigh. “One stone, one traveler. Get my friend here to this exact spot on November 22, 2260. I’ll go the long way ‘round, and meet up with her. Deal?”

The couple exchanged looks. They really wanted more than one homestone, but the only way for Mirage to procure a second one would be if the Travel Agents found them a time traveler, which would render the quest stupid and pointless, and they knew it. They nodded at each other simultaneously, then Romeo went on. “Give us a few hours to find the right traveler for your needs. You may wait over there, or go explore the Center.” He handed Lilac a buzz coaster while Honey started flipping through a rolling index of contacts. “Richard and Allen’s restaurant is open as well. I especially recommend the hadrosaurus burgers. I know what you’re thinking, but all dinosaur meat is lab-grown, and ethically sourced from still-living specimens in the appropriate prehistoric period.”

“Thanks.” Mirage didn’t eat, and Lilac wasn’t going to eat that.

“It’s Sunday, so the Salmonday Club is still open, though the portal to the Facsimile is closed.

“Thank you very much.”

“Oh, wait. Payment first.”

“No,” Mirage insisted. “Find us a ride first. If they charge for their services as well, we may need to reassess.”

“Very well.” They weren’t happy about this either, but they wanted the business.

The two of them left, and went over to the restaurant. Lilac was indeed hungry. This place was open all day and all night. It was actually technically two restaurants. A public-facing version was located on the other side of the barrier, and up a flight of stairs, between the Civic Center and the rest of the world. Regular people ate there all the time, and had no idea that they could be just meters away from a bunch of time travelers eating the same food. Or maybe they were eating different foods. The regular side served the standard fare. This side served literally anything, from anywhere in time and space, including apparently lab-grown dinosaurs.

“Mirage and Lilac?” a man behind them asked as they were sitting at their table, having finished eating a long time ago.

“Can we help you?”

“Garen Ashlock. A seer sent me here to find the Oasis and the Flower.”

Mirage was surprised, and she wasn’t easily surprised. “And you riddled that out to our real names?”

“I know who you are,” he clarified. “Do you need my help getting somewhen?”

Mirage looked behind him at the Travel Agency. “They didn’t call you?”

Ashlock looked over his shoulder. “Those creepos? No, they’re way overpriced.”

“We made a deal,” Lilac pointed out. “If we go with him instead, is that gonna cause us problems?”

Mirage scoffed. “I would like to see them make good on any consequences. Mister Ashlock, if you would be willing to get us both to at least 2260, we would be grateful.” That was the year humanity figured out how to travel at maximum relativistic speeds. The reframe engine was invented nearly fifteen years earlier, but the majority of civilization did not so much as know about it, so it was better to be safe than sorry. Lilac only had so much time in her life.

“Ooo. Unfortch, that’s too far,” Ashlock lamented. “My seer didn’t say anything about that. Why would they imply I needed to help you when I’m unable?”

“What’s your limit?

He grimaced. “It’s complicated. I don’t have a limit in terms of a solid number. It’s this complex algorithm involving my current state of health, including my age, how much I slept last night, how much I drank last night...”

“Give us a ballpark,” Mirage interrupted.

“Today feels like a gross day. That’s 144.”

“That will be far enough,” Mirage decided. “At that point, We’ll have everything we’ll need available to take us the rest of the way,” she explained to Lilac. “I could eventually make a stasis pod these days too, but closer is better, for safety and security. It would take me longer to procure the materials.”

Mirage and Lilac stood next to each other while Ashlock stood before them. He waved his hands around each other like an airbender, and then pushed his temporal energy forwards. Lilac’s body shrank to an infinitesimal point as it was thrown backwards. “Okay,” Mirage said. “Me next.”

“Uhh...that was supposed to be for the both of you,” he said quite nervously. “I don’t know why you’re still here.”

Honey walked over in her clackity high heels, sporting her eerie smile, and speaking with her fake politeness. “You entered into a verbal contract. You’re staying here until I get my homestone. Then you’ll go where I say you go...and by whose hand.”

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Starstruck: Only A Stone’s Throw Away (Part V)

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First Chair of the Extremus, Tinaya Leithe was not the one who was awake. It was the other one, who had fallen on top of her naked. For her safety, it was not possible to exit the medical pod from the inside, but the woman was perfectly calm and patient. Mirage came over to address her, along with everyone else. She opened the pod, and let the patient sit up. “My name is Captain Mirage of the Stateless Private Vessel Iman Vellani.”

“Spirit Bridger of the Void Migration Ship Extremus.”

Lilac gasped. “She’s a Bridger. We’re not allowed to be here. Come on, children.” She ushered the kids out of the room.

“Are they afraid of you?” Mirage asked.

“No, I just know things that they’re not allowed to know about the secrets of our mission,” Spirit explained. “You’re not allowed to know either, so it’s not like I’m going to talk about it here. And anyway, I quit already, so that’s all behind me.”

Mirage nodded, and respectfully waited a beat. “Can you tell us what happened? Did the Exins blow up your settlement?”

“Who? The Exins? Never heard of them.”

“Bronach Oaksent,” Brooke clarified.

“Oh, that asshole. Yeah, no, this had nothing to do with him. It was an internal matter. I shouldn’t talk about it either.”

“Well, the Exins were on your planet. It looked like they were trying to attack,” Mirage told her.

“Wait, what year is it?”

“It’s 2341 by the Earthan calendar,” Sharice answered.

“Oh, I’ve been gone for a year,” Spirit realized. “This explosion you speak of must have been pretty devastating. Did anyone else survive?”

“Just your friend.” Belahkay stepped out of the way to reveal Tinaya in the other pod. “The kids and the mother were elsewhere, I guess.”

Spirit looked over at her friend. “No, those wounds are fresh. Whatever happened to her was recent. As a Bridger, I was part of the Phoenix Program, which can reconstitute a user after they have been completely vaporized. It just takes time. A year sounds about right, I suppose. I’ve never needed it before. She’s not part of it, though, so do everything you can to save her.”

“She’s stable,” Mirage said. “However, evidently the pod is having trouble removing the glass. Each time it tries to remove a shard, it digs in deeper, like it’s alive.”

Spirit was confused. “Glass? As in literal glass? We don’t construct with glass. It’s too much work. We use polycarbonate or transparent metal. Wait.” Her eyes widened. “What happened to the time mirror?”

“Oh, that was destroyed in some kind of powerful explosion,” Mirage replied. “Miss Leithe was right in front of it.”

“Madam Leithe,” Spirit corrected. “She was married. Where’s Arqut?”

“We didn’t find anyone else,” Brooke said.

“Unless he was one of the Exin soldiers.”

Spirit shook her head. “No, he’s not involved in that. Of course, I’ve been gone for a year, so maybe he infiltrated them, but probably not. He serves as the Superintendent.”

The three ladies exchanged a look. Belahkay didn’t understand why.

Spirit chuckled once. “Not that Superintendent. He runs our local government.” She took a deep breath. “Anyway, what is an Alpha Centauri ship built in the 23rd century doing all the way out here?”

“You’ve heard of the Iman Vellani?” Sharice asked.

“You’re a matter of historical record. The books lost track of you, though. I guess now we know why.”

“The IV shouldn’t be famous,” Mirage contended. “That’s why I built it on Toliman, so we wouldn’t be written about.”

“Everything gets written about,” Spirit said dismissively. She tucked her legs up to her chest, so she could roll out of the pod.

“Do you want some clothes?” Brooke offered.

“Don’t worry about it.” Spirit took a breath. “I’m craving fudge, though. Do you have any fudge?”

“I have a food synthesizer,” Belahkay exclaimed. “I’m surrogating right now, but I still have an organic body.”

“That sounds lovely. Go back to your body, let’s eat some together.” She took him by the arm like they were on a first date, and let him begin to lead her out. “Please alert me if and when Tinaya’s condition changes. Do you have a shower too?” she asked Belahkay once they were out in the hallway. “The pod did its best, but...”

“I have a sonic mister, and a soaker.”

Sometime during Spirit’s bath and fudge meal, which may or may not have happened at the same time, she realized that she hadn’t asked the crew why they were here. Belahkay tried to explain it, but he didn’t know all that much about this phase. He was still mostly responsible for the automators, which were doing just fine on their own, which was probably why they were called that. “He said it was a hypercubic crystal?” Spirit questioned? Like, a fourth dimensional crystalline structure?”

“Yes, have you heard of it? Did you know that it was in the core of your planet?”

Spirit looked at each of them one by one with a soft poker face, but then she couldn’t hold her fervor back any longer. She burst into riotous laughter. “The Maramon were students of temporal manipulation. Not one of them was born with time powers, and they were jealous of the humans for this, even though most humans aren’t time travelers either. Their research passed onto the Ansutahan humans living there, then later to the refugees in Gatewood, and later to the Extremusians on Extremus. If there was such a thing as hypercubic crystal, trust me, I’d-a heard of it. Sorry, kids, you got played.”

“I’m sure we’re all older than you,” Mirage argued.

“Heh. Time, right?”

“Why would the Exins demand we come here? They claim that it’s a critical component for the containment rings,” Brooke pointed out.

Spirit shrugged. “Why would it be?” These rings are just penning traps on megasteroids. Do normal containment pods contain this magical substance? And have you ever heard of any material that only exists inside of a single planet? Oh, and I suppose it’s just a coincidence that their bitter rival just so happens to have chosen this world as its Beta Site? Let me guess, the only way to extract it would be to destroy the entire rock. Am I onto something here?”

Mirage simulated a sigh. “They just wanted us to kill you.”

“Which is ridiculous,” Spirit reasoned. “There were only ever a few dozen people on that planet. They kept it a secret from the general public. I didn’t even know about it from the beginning.”

“The mirror,” Sharice began. “You set up a permanent portal with it, and a second one on your ship?”

“Semi-permanent, I believe. I wasn’t involved in that. I was just asked to go through to help Tinaya with the hostage situation.”

“A portal like that, between a planet, and a moving target, would have been difficult to maintain at best. Imagine building a walkway that leads from the street to the train. Not the train tracks, but the train itself. No matter where the train goes, you can walk onto it from the street. That link would have to be pretty robust. Ripping the planet apart may have destroyed Extremus too.”

“That still doesn’t make any sense,” Belahkay jumped in. “They know us well enough. They knew that we would investigate a planet that harbors life before doing anything with it. Finding the settlement was not hard from orbit.”

“That’s why the soldiers came through,” Mirage figured. “It was their Plan B, in case making us do it didn’t work. You’re right, it was dumb to bet on us at all. Maybe they were just hoping we would get blood on our hands?”

“The True Extremists are brutal and advanced,” Spirit said. “But they’re not too organized. We believe that their civilization is riddled with horribly chaotic compartmentalization. No one knows what the hell is going on. It’s entirely possible that Plan A was made from the stew of multiple sub-plans that were, in some cases redundant, and in others, totally contradictory.”

“Hm.” Mirage thought about this. “We can use that.”

That was when Lilac came back into the room. “I need to go back down to the planet. I have to feed the prisoner.”

“You have a prisoner?” Mirage asked. “One of the Exin soldiers?”

“No, the terrorist,” Lilac clarified. “He’s the one who blew up the settlement. I’m the Hock Watcher. I...should not have left my post at all, but the kids were missing...”

“I’ll take you back down,” Brooke volunteered.

“And can Aristotle and Niobe stay up here? They’re old enough to take care of themselves, and they won’t get into any trouble. I know—”

“It’s fine,” Mirage responded. “We’ll be here. Sharice will be most available while I look at your homestone.”

“Room for one more?” Spirit asked-slash-offered before Brooke and Lilac left.

Lilac wasn’t sure.

“As Hock Watcher, you may permit visitors at your own discretion. Of course, you may also deny.”

“No,” Lilac decided, “it’s okay. We may be stuck on Verdemus awhile, so we’re in this together.”

Belahkay jumped up. “I’ll take you!” He was a little bit too excited. Spirit was perfectly capable of teleporting on her own. “I mean, I don’t need to meet the prisoner, or anything. I just wouldn’t mind a nice walk on an inhabited planet.”

Spirit looked to Lilac for guidance.

“Why are you looking at me? I’m not in charge here.”

Spirit tilted her chin to the side slightly. “I think you are. It wouldn’t be Tinaya, if she were awake, and it’s certainly not me.”

“Isn’t that literally your job?” Lilac put forth. “To step in when all else fails?”

“This is out of my jurisdiction, and I am a Bridger in name only now.” Spirit grimaced a bit.

“Okay, anyone who wants to go down to the planet can,” Lilac decided.

Only the four of them ended up returning to the surface. In the meantime, Mirage went back to her lab, and agonized over the homestone. She had strong reason to suspect that there was indeed a person’s consciousness in there, but she couldn’t prove it. It was giving off different energy readings than the other stone was, but that was about all she could determine from her limited tests. There was no conclusive evidence of a trapped consciousness, or anything else. It could just be that different homestones were made slightly differently. A third stone would help come to some better understanding of them. As far as she ever knew from her time in another dimension where all of time and space was laid out before, no one else had ever taken the occasion to study them. They still didn’t know where they were from. Some temporal objects were designed partially through technology. Others were normal objects imbued with power. These appeared to be categorized as the latter, but as a stone with no moving parts, nor complex internal structure, it was unlike even those. Even the Escher Knob only worked when you used it as a doorknob. The stone evidently activated by being squeezed, coupled with psychic intention. What the hell did that even mean?

Mirage leaned back in her chair, as if she needed to rest in a chair, and massaged her chin, as if she could feel it through biological nerves. There was one test that could not be done from here. It would require her to go somewhere else, and she had to go there alone. She didn’t want to do that, though. It could seriously screw things up for everyone; not just the crew, or the Verdemusians, but literally everyone in the universe. Just then, someone who looked very much like Mirage came down the hall, and stood in the doorway. Mirage looked over at her, unshocked at the development. “Yeah, Okay. I’ll do it. Blindspot, I guess.”

The other Mirage smiled, and didn’t speak.

Mirage initiated her internal comms device. “Brooke. I think this is going to work, but in case it doesn’t, you’re in charge.”

“What? What are you going to do?”

“The other Lilac is stuck in a dimension that can only be accessed by this rock, and you can’t access it unless you use it.”

Brooke teleported into the lab. “Wait!”

Mirage squeezed the stone, and thought about her past. Before she knew it, she was falling from a few meters in the air, and into the water. She sank a little before inflating her buoyancy compensator, and rising back up to the surface. The lake was packed with people on boats who were all very confused about what had just happened. She looked around to get her bearings, recognizing the geography right away. This was indeed Sherwood Lake in Topeka, Kansas, which was where she was when she accidentally fell into another dimension while saving Mateo and Leona’s lives.

She looked over, and breathed a fake sigh of relief when she saw someone she recognized. It was Lilac. Her plan worked; no clone body, nor crazy time tech required. All she had needed to do was activate the stone again, and trigger a new point of egress. The problem was, if these stones worked the way she understood them to, it was going to be rather difficult to get back to where they were. It should be the year 2036.

< > Entire Story

Starstruck: Crystal Clear (Part IV)

< > Entire Story

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

Over a half century into Phase Two of the project, Ex-10 messaged the crew of the Iman Vellani with the additional plans for the antistar containment rings. When Mirage asked him why the plans were changed, he told her that they weren’t. He just chose not to divulge everything all at once. She asked whether there was anything else that he wasn’t telling them yet, but he refused to respond. What a dick. Hopefully, any further changes wouldn’t disrupt their progress, or force them to alter course. Fortunately, they had not yet begun Phase Three, which involved actually building the structures using the materials that they were procuring from the nearby star systems. Even if they had, it would have probably been okay. The new plans called for an extra layer of material on the inside of the rings.

“Hypercubic crystal lattice?” Belahkay asked. “Forgive me for my ignorance, but what the hell is that?”

“No,” Mirage assured him, “you’re not the only ignorant one. I’ve never heard of it either. I know what a hypercube is, and I know what a crystal lattice is, but a hypercubic crystal lattice? Sharice, what does it say?”

“It’s a special material. Incredibly rare. They’ve only found it in two planets.”

“In two planets?” Brooke echoed.

“It’s evidently only located deep in the core,” Sharice replied. “It doesn’t form naturally anywhere else. We’ll have to rip the whole thing apart to get to it.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard. What exactly is it?”

“It doesn’t say,” Sharice explained, “but if it’s what it sounds like, my guess is that it manipulates time in some way? Maybe it protects it from future or past tampering? Damn, I don’t know. There’s barely anything in this document.”

“Well, how far away is the nearest world that has this stuff?”

“Uhh, 707 light years,” Sharice answered.

“It will take us exactly one year to get there with the reframe engine. How convenient. Belahkay, how are the automators?”

It was his job to manage all of the machines that were spread throughout this sector of the galaxy. He synthesized error reports, and coordinated arrangements to get the project back on track. “It’s been four months since the last issue, and that one wasn’t that big of a deal, we just lost a chunk of one planet. It wouldn’t have slowed down the project.”

“You can keep an eye on the progress on the ride. We’ll all go to this magical fourth-dimensional planet, and see what we see.”

A year later, the Vellani was in orbit over the planet, which they discovered to be inhabited. Ubiquitous plant life was visible with the naked eye. There were billions of bodies of water, and evidence of seasonal shifts. The surface gravity was decently suitable for human life. Oh yeah, and there was human life there. A small settlement was found, and a closer look proved that people were currently living there. Something had happened somewhat recently, though. Most of the buildings had been severely damaged in an explosion. A few of the structures, which had been built farther from the apparent epicenter, managed to stay whole, including a perimeter fence. There was also one more thing that they saw when they zoomed in.

“It’s a time mirror,” Mirage noted.

“People are coming out of it, one by one,” Belahkay noticed.

“They’re armed,” Brooke pointed out. “They’re either about to attack the settlement, or protect it from someone else’s attack.”

“Can they see us? Do they think that we’re a threat?” Sharice asked, worried.

“I see no sign of space observation technology. We’re shielded by the daylight.”

Belahkay pointed at the screen. “Oh, look at that.”

A figure was running out of the ruins of the bombed out settlement. It ran straight through the gate of the fence, and towards the mirror. Just before it could make it through, the mirror exploded. “Whoa!” they all shouted in unison. The explosion sent everyone flying in all directions, no one farther from it than the person who had been running towards it. They were thrown all the way across the field, over the fence, across the interior field, and then back into the ruins of the settlement. There was no way that person survived that.

“Oh my God, what did we just witness?” Sharice asked, horrified.

Determined, Mirage stepped over to the corner, opened a secret compartment, and revealed a cache of weapons.

“Those have been here the whole time?” Brooke scolded.

“Yes, mom. Here’s yours.” She tried to hand her one of the rifles.

“No. Never again.”

Mirage tried to hand it to Sharice, who also refused, as did Belahkay. She growled. “If you don’t arm up, you’re not going down to the surface.”

“Stop us,” Brooke goaded. Then she disappeared.

Sharice looked at Mirage awkwardly, and then followed her mother. Belahkay stepped over and reached into the cache. He took out a handgun, and hid it inside his vest. “I got your back.”

They teleported down together, meeting the other two in the crowd of bodies near where the mirror once stood. They fanned out, and approached a body each. “Ex-088-GL0821,” Mirage called out.

“Ex-088-GL0403,” Sharice returned.

“Where I’m from,” Belahkay said, “this patch would be for the wearer’s name.”

“Yeah. I think it’s the same for them. These people belong to the Exin Empire, almost surely some kind of military force.”

“Ex-10 must be pretty important if he’s as low a number as he is, and these guys are named in nine figures,” Sharice decided.

“I imagine it’s far more complicated than just one through a billion,” Brooke guessed.

“I don’t have your fancy sensors. Are they all dead?” Belahkay asked.

“Yeah, they are,” Mirage confirmed. “No human lifesigns. So unless one of them is an alien, we should go into the ruins, and see if anyone there is still alive.”

They teleported away to find four people. The woman from the mirror explosion was lying on her back on the ground, just as they saw her. They thought that she had landed on the other side of a statue, but it was gone, and another woman was lying face down on top of her. She was completely naked. They were both breathing, but cut up from the glass that they shared, embedded in their skin. Two children were huddled together nearby.

“Sharice, take the wounded up to the infirmary, and place them each in a medical pod. Then you can come back. I’ll keep an eye on them from here.”

Of all of them, Brooke was the softest. She cautiously went over to the children. “Hey. It’s okay. We’re not gonna hurt you. Are these your parents?”

The kids were six, maybe seven years old, but they didn’t seem too terribly scared. The boy shook his head. He gently elbowed the girl in the arm. She pulled something out of her pocket, and held it up. It was a rock.

“You want me to have this?” Brooke asked. She carefully stepped forward, and took it from the girl.

“My mom’s in there,” the boy said.

Brooke moved it around in her hand, and then reached back to hand it to Mirage.

“It’s a homestone.” Mirage bent over, and looked the boy in the eyes. “Did you use this to get here, or were you going to use it to go somewhere else?”

“She used it to get here,” the boy explained. He took a rock out of his own pocket. “I used this one. I came alone. She came with my mom.”

“Don’t mix them up,” Mirage advised. “Homestones are identical. We’re not even sure that it’s not just the same stone at different points in spacetime. If one of them contains his mom, we have to work with the right one.”

“It could contain his mom?” Brooke questioned. “How’s that?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never heard of it, but I believe him. If he says that the girl and her mother came together, then something must have happened to the mom.”

“She’s not her mother,” the boy corrected. “She’s my mother, but we’re not siblings. It’s just that we both first traveled through time at the same time.”

“I see,” Mirage said. “You sound older than you look.”

“It’s been several years for me,” the boy—or rather, the young man—explained. “She’s older than she looks too, but even when she was older, she looked young.

Mirage nodded, and turned to the other three. “The homestone takes you back to where you were when you first experienced nonlinear time. It reyoungifies you to the age that you were, but it doesn’t undo history. It potentially gives you a second chance at life, but whatever originally happened after that moment still took place in the timeline.” She sighed, and looked over the girl’s stone. “You can take passengers with you, but it’s not the safest way to travel. Again, I’ve never heard of someone getting stuck, but I can’t rule it out.” She turned back to the young man. “Can I take this to test it?”

He nodded.

“What are your names?” Brooke asked.

“I’m Aristotle. This is Niobe Schur.”

Niobe cupped her hands over Aristotle’s ear.

“She can talk,” he told the crew. “She just doesn’t like to meet new people. When she gets to know you, she’ll warm up to you.”

“Well, what did she say?” Belahkay asked him.

“She doesn’t go by a name anymore. She goes by a number. I’m trying to fix that.”

“So this planet is in the Exin Empire,” Mirage reasoned.

Aristotle’s eyes narrowed. “No. This belongs to the Extremusians. The Exins are just the ones who kidnapped us, and forced us to live in the Goldilocks Corridor.”

“My mistake,” Mirage said apologetically.

“The women you took up to your ship,” Aristotle went on. “One of them is First Chair Tinaya Leithe. She’s very important. I don’t know who the naked one is.”

“Aristotle! Niobe!” A third adult woman was running towards them from a path that went through the forest behind the settlement. “Oh my God!”

The crew stepped back instinctually to make themselves look less like a threat.

The woman hugged the children, and frowned at the crew, trying to stop crying. “I saw the patches. You’re Oaksent’s people.”

Mirage shook her head. “We’re not part of them. Well, to be fair, we work for them, but we had no idea they came here. We were not told that this was a populated planet. They asked us to procure a rare component for something we’re building for them due to a debt that must be paid.”

“Another weapon of theirs, no doubt,” the woman spit.

Mirage sighed. “It’s possible. It’s possible in the way that a car can be used as a weapon if the driver chooses that.”

“We mean you no harm,” Brooke added. “Your friends are healing on our ship.”

The woman wiped tears from her eyes, and looked at the young man. “I thought that they had taken you. I couldn’t find you. No more hide-and-seek. It’s too dangerous.”

“We were taken, mom,” Aristotle said to her sadly. “The Captain rescued us, but when she tried to take us back through the mirror, we didn’t end up on the Extremus.” He paused. “We’re from the future. He handed her his homestone.”

“You’re his mother?” Mirage asked.

“She’s my Past!Mother,” Aristotle explained. “My Future!Mother, from the other timeline, she is indeed in that stone. I can feel her.”

The mother stood up straight, and composed herself. “My name is Lilac. Can you get my alternate self out of there?”

“I can try,” Mirage answered. “ I promise nothing, but I have cloning tech in the Vellani. Your DNA would do us a lot of good in that department if your alt has lost her original substrate.”

Lilac pulled her sleeves up. “Take however much blood you need.”

They all teleported up to the ship in orbit. While Belahkay monitored the other women’s progress in the medical pods, Mirage started to take readings from the homestone. They needed to find out if a consciousness really was trapped in there, and whether it was intact. Sharice took her own mother aside for a private conversation. “It’s clear to me that we can’t take this hypercubic lattice stuff out of the core of this world. The only way to extract it is to destroy the whole thing.”

“I know,” Brooke agreed. “I just accessed the updated records. The Extremus launched from Gatewood, and is moving at maximum reframe. It’s literally impossible for us to ever catch up to it. I think they had a time mirror on board, and were using that to travel back and forth through a portal. If these people don’t want to leave with us, they’ll have to stay here. This is their world, we have no right to it. More to the point, the Exins don’t have any right.”

“What do we do?”

“We protect them, at all costs. If Mirage’s explanation of how the homestones work is right, those military guys connected to this mirror from a different point in time. That’s probably what blew it up; they got the wires crossed. If we can stop them from ever attempting to override the original connection—”

“We can prevent the attack on the settlement,” Sharice guessed.

“That woman,” Brooke began, “the...First Chair. She knows something. She was running for that mirror for a reason. We need to talk to her when she wakes up.”

“She’s awake,” Belahkay announced.

< > Entire Story