Microstory 2497: Swampdome

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I’m not saying there’s something lurking under there, but...there’s something lurking under there. In case you didn’t tease it out from the name of this dome, this is swamp country. If you go to any swamplands on Earth, this is what they look like. It has all the same flora from there, and some—if not all—of the fauna. You can take a boat on the water. It can be a rowboat or an airboat. I don’t really think you have any other options. You could also just wade or swim in the water if you’re feeling brave. The water is so murky, there’s no way to know if something is hiding underneath the surface. I’m almost certain there is. As I was sitting on my boat, I could both here and feel something bump up against the wood. I couldn’t see anything, but I seriously doubt a turtle is strong enough to hit it with the amount of force it would have needed to. Yeah, it could have been an alligator. And that would be scary. But it could also be something else, which I think is scary, because there’s so much uncertainty. Humanity is long past the time since we perfected genetic engineering. There’s no reason it can’t be a creature that never existed in nature. There’s that one character from the comics. I’m thinking it’s that guy, or someone very much like him. I mean, his story would be different, but they could absolutely make a person who approximates whatever properties that character had. I wasn’t scared, I wanna be clear on that, but it was a little unsettling; I have to admit. There’s really nothing more to say about it. They didn’t do anything special. There are docks, boathouses, houseboats, and cabins randomly strewn about, so if you find one of those, you can get out and explore. Come here if you wanna be in a swamp, but not if you want to learn anything, or have a story to tell. Unless that monster that I think lives down there shows its face, it’s just gross water to me.

Microstory 2492: Mythodome

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This is a very complex dome, and it’s due to the interconnectedness of world mythology. As I’m sure you’re aware, Earth is home to many a myth, which people once believed, or at least found value in the stories that described them. Since there have been so many cultures in our history, these myths often contradict each other. Lots of them, for instance, came up with a god of the sun, but they could never all be true. That’s where this dome takes liberties, because they are all “true” insomuch as they coexist here. There are indeed multiple sun gods, and they operate as a sort of council. Don’t ask me what they do, though, because as I’m sure you’re also aware, this is all made up. In real life, God doesn’t exist, elves don’t exist, trolls don’t exist. This is an immersive world where such creatures and beings have been engineered out of the specifications presented in the various source materials. It can be hard to track. Some myths even contradict themselves, as told by different authors, and diverging translations. So, Mythodome does its best, but the interesting result—which I’ve been trying to drive at this whole time—is that it is more than the sum of its parts. It has spawned a new mythology, which includes that sun-god council I mentioned, and various factional alliances that never existed in the original stories, because they weren’t culturally related. Part of the experience is learning the new story that has come out of this, which could have hypothetically been its own franchise in traditional media, if someone had thought to be quite this comprehensive before. There are different kinds of elves, for instance, because there have been different interpretations in the stories, and these elves are aware of each other, and have developed complicated relationships with each other naturally. That’s my understanding anyway, which is that their dynamics have taken on a life of their own to form this fresh society, and I think they were doing it before any Earthans came to visit. That alone is interesting enough, not just that these mythical creatures can be genetically engineered, but that we end up with unpredictable consequences as a result of so many variables. I’m rambling now, but suffice it to say that it would not be difficult to spend years here. You could even spend an entire lifetime, making your own way, and finding your purpose. Because very little about this place was prewritten. It’s all been developing on its own, and who knows where it will take us next?

Microstory 2473: Empty Planet

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Are you ready for an adventure? What about an adventure mystery? I don’t wanna say too much about this place, because finding out what’s going on is the entire point of it. I’m sure that if I did give away the ending, the system would autoreject it, so you wouldn’t see it anyway. Instead, I’ll just say that it’s a gorgeous, eerie setting. The premise is that you wake up on an alien world, and you’re all alone. This was obviously once a civilized and populated planet, but they’re all missing, and it’s up to you to figure what happened to them. Sometimes you’re outside, and sometimes you’re locked in a room. They don’t erase your memories (because they don’t have to) but they come up with a backstory for your character, and part of the mystery is also unraveling how you ended up here. If you play the game right, you get those memories (or for the in-universe explanation, you get them back). There’s a waiting list for this dome, and it’s only getting bigger. Without going into detail, it is possible to run into another player, but they do try to keep you pretty far apart. Unlike Threshold, if you wanna figure out how to hotwire an alien vehicle, and drive to the other side of the dome, you can do that, and you might encounter others while you’re there. So if you want some help solving the puzzles, that’s always technically an option. What they don’t want is to have thousands upon thousands of visitors stepping over each other. It would kind of undermine the concept of an empty planet, even though it’s mostly about finding the truth about the alien race that once lived here. There are multiple levels, so the sky above you is closer than it appears, and that keeps people more separate, but there’s obviously a limit to that, and I don’t know how many levels there are. It doesn’t specify on the prospectus, or during the very brief orientation. Speaking of orientation, there’s not much to it. They ask you a few questions, they give you a little bit of info about how to exit the game if you wanna quit in the middle of it, and then they give you a sedative so you can wake up at the starting point. That’s about all I can say. As I said, the design is magnificent. It really does feel alien. As for the story? Eh, I think it could be better, but your mileage may vary. You’ll just have to see for yourself, and test your reasoning skills.

Microstory 2412: Gulliver’s World

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Have you ever read this book? If you have, you’ll understand what this place is like, and if you haven’t, you’ll have no frame of reference for what I’m talking about. So I won’t get into specifics, but it’s a pretty simple concept. Imagine all the locations from the source material, and what they’re like. That’s how it is in the dome. Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Glubbdubdrib. These are all recreated here, including water in between them to simulate the ocean. It’s not as big as the ocean should be, because it has to be compact, but the land is all there, as it should be. Brobdingnag was clearly the most difficult part. It would be impossible to fit the entire continent in one of the domes, but they were able to build a representative region, just to give you the sense of scale. What would it be like to be a tiny person in a land of giants? That’s the question they’re trying to answer for you. There’s a short mountain range on one side of the fake ocean, so people on the other islands can’t see anything going on on Brobdingnag, so it’s not exactly as it’s described in the book, but it still does its job. It takes up the majority of the space, since the other regions are so much smaller. If you try to come here without being already familiar with the story, you probably won’t be too confused, because you’re not stupid, but it won’t mean anything to you. I suggest you take a few days to get up to speed, and then come for a visit. You can try to spend the night in each place, but I wouldn’t say it’s worth spending any significant amount of time here. It’s cool to see, but not the kind of place that you live. Everything interesting about it gets old pretty quick. I’m glad that made it, because it made sense; it’s just not as engaging as some of the other domes. I mean Fillory? If you get a chance, go to Fillory, that won’t disappoint. This one is better as a short trip.

Microstory 2368: Earth, September 5, 2179

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Dear Vacuus Base,

My name is Condor Sloane. You may know my twin sister, Corinthia Sloane. When we were still infants, Corinthia and her mother left Earth on a daring mission to explore the unknown darkness that lies beyond the orbits of the sunstruck planets. Corinthia taught me that term to refer to the eight other planets, including Earth. I suppose it still technically fits, because the sun’s rays do technically hit our planet, and our sky is technically illuminated by it. Unfortunately, however, after you left, society broke down as greed overpowered all forms of civil fairness. Corporate espionage was rampant, leading to no one company gaining any innovative advantage over any other. In the past, a fair market encouraged healthy competition—which ideally makes things better for consumers—but certain legislative changes led to loopholes in regulatory oversight. They weren’t competing anymore, they were fighting. They were killing. These Corporate Wars turned blood red, and then a sickly pale green as researchers developed weaponized noxious chemicals to use against their boss’ enemies. No more is the sky as blue and beautiful as you’ve probably seen in images. The surface has been engulfed in a toxic cocktail of poisonous gases. We live in domes, or on the rare mountaintops that rise above the toxin line, frozen but habitable. The good news is that the wars are over. Most of the aggressors from those days are either dead or imprisoned. There are definitely still some out there in hiding, and there is definitely a job that involves bringing them to justice. My father and I came across these bounty hunters from time to time. We were transport coordinators, facilitating relocations between safe zones, across the lethal no-man’s lands that litter most of the world. We helped people find work, and reunite with their families. We met all sorts of interesting folk, and kept up with the goingson of the new society that has bloomed in the wake of the terrible devastation. Now, we live on the ocean. They built one of the domes on top of a giant floating platform. Since the platform has to be so large to accommodate the dome, it’s livable as well, and that’s where our cabin is. We have recently taken on immigrants from a dome in Australia. I managed to snap a photo of it from the outside while we were stopped on the road for some brief maintenance, and attached it here. I think that’s just about all I have to say about that. There are so many details missing, and I’m sure you’ll have questions. Corinthia has agreed to accept them from you, and will compile what she can’t answer herself for me. If necessary, I can write a second letter. Thank you for taking the time to hear a little bit about myself and my world. Stay safe up there, and don’t forget to close the door behind you when you go in or out!

Regards,

Condor

Microstory 2367: Vacuus, August 28, 2179

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Dear Condor,

I’m not feeling all that well today. I didn’t get much sleep last night, and I think I caught a stomach bug. The doctor has me self-quarantining, which is funny because that’s just how I typically live my daily life anyway. I wanted to respond to you, though, because I received your open letter. I attached the new document with my markups, but you can take them or leave them. If you just sent it to the base how you originally wrote it, it would be fine. I’m not surprised, your letters to me are always very well-written. Overall, I think it looks good. You didn’t say too little, or be too cryptic, but you didn’t overshare either. I would say go for it, if you’re comfortable, but you still have the option of declining the request. It’s not a big deal either way. Though, I do think you should change what you said about people asking questions. I’m willing to take on that role as intermediary. My suggestions are very minor, so it’s up to you whether to accept them. That also goes for whether to even send it or not. I won’t cloud your decision any further. It’s not like people will be mad at me if you decline. Both worlds will keep turning. I feel like I’m repeating myself, and should probably go back to bed. I’m going to be a little bit late with my thoughts on this latest Winfield Files book, but did you notice that we got a few spoilers from the last season of the show? It looks like they jumped a little ahead in the story, which I guess is what happens. The books are only told from the main character’s perspective, but the adaptation has the freedom to explore other people’s perspectives more directly, which has sometimes given us a bit of a sneak peek into what’s to come, before Winfield finds out about it in his own time. I don’t think it’s going to ruin anything, or that we should change our strategy. I just thought I would point it out.

Okay, goodnight,

PS: Are we gonna keep doing PS?

Microstory 2306: Appreciation for Symmetry

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The end of the year is approaching, and I’m taking stock of my life. All of Nick and Dutch’s final arrangements have been completed. I’ve started the process of getting Nick’s novel published, and beginning to look into who can help me do something with the stage musical. I’m selling the house, and weighing my options when it comes to where I want to live next. I may stay in the Kansas City area, or I may not. One thing I’m still really not sure about is this site. Nick started it at the beginning of the year, and I have only ever taken over when he’s been incapacitated, but should that last forever, now that he can never come back? Do I truly have the right? Would he want me to keep going? He was a man with an appreciation for symmetry. I think ending on December 31 would be poetic in a way that he would like if he were here to do it himself. A lot of people don’t get to live on like this at all. If they die when they’re in the middle of something, it just ends. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. If you have a job, a coworker probably takes over your accounts, and if you have young children, someone raises them for you...at least that’s the hope, anyway. Still, I think it’s time to start thinking about ending this. His story may not technically be over if his legacy moves on, but it still feels like the right thing to do. You’ll always be able to read and reread all 365 posts that will be up by then, as well as everything he wrote on social media. I’m certainly not going to shut the whole thing down. But it was never really mine. Perhaps I’ll start my own blog after this, which chronicles the things that I do next year, and beyond. Or it will too end in a year. I don’t have to decide anything right now, but the deadline is coming up soon, so let me know what you think.

Microstory 2305: Not Some Big Scam

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I finished this stage script, and that’s what I’m mostly concerned about now. The novel is great so far, but I think that has more to do with Nick’s own imaginative mind. The musical, on the other hand, is a tool. It’s one last gift from him to us, and according to these version logs, he’s been developing it pretty much the whole time he’s been here. There are certain people in the multiverse who can travel to other branes, as he calls them, but there’s no way to contact most of them out of the blue. Could you imagine how difficult that would be? I mean, none of us even knew that the bulk existed until he showed up. But this musical, it’s our one chance. It’s an opportunity to prove that he was right all along, and this was not some big scam. A man by the name of Joseph Jacobson has a magical multicolored coat, which allows him to cross these dimensional barriers. Normally, he goes wherever he wants, whenever he wants. But he can sort of be summoned if you please him with a performance that depicts his life. His story has evidently been altered and adapted so many times, it’s not a hundred percent accurate of what happened, but that’s apparently not an issue. He just wants it to be good, and worthy of his time. This script is the first step in that endeavor. With Nick gone, it will be up to us to put it into production. That’s the next chapter in my life. I’m gonna produce this play, and prove once and for all that Nick was right. So...who’s with me?

Microstory 2303: To Distract Myself

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You know how it goes, the company you work for gives out branded flash drives during their end-of-the-year party, but it’s not enough space, so you buy another. Then you lose it for a few months, so you have to replace it, but then you find the first one again. Then you make a large purchase, and portable storage is the easiest way to hand over all the relevant paperwork, instead of a big binder, or something. But the flash drive I found last night wasn’t just in a drawer of his desk. It was hidden in the little cavity for the electrical outlet. You may ask yourself, why would I go diggin’ around in there in the first place unless I knew that it was a hiding spot? Well, I’m gonna put this place up for sale at the end of the year, so before that, a lot of little things need to be fixed. I remembered seeing a box of cover plates in the garage, and decided that I might as well replace the one in Nick’s room, because the corner was chipped. Of course it wasn’t a priority, but I’m finding myself coming up with excuses to put off sorting through their stuff, and this was one thing I could try to distract myself. I’m glad I did, or some random stranger would have discovered it years from now. I was kind of expecting to find porn on it, but not really, because he was never ashamed to be a real human being. It turned out to be a folder with two main documents, and what appear to be accessory research files. One is an unnamed novel, but I don’t know what it’s about yet. The other is a stage play called Joseph and His Dreamcoat. It sounds familiar, but I searched for it online, and didn’t find any references. I’ll be reading them both this week to see what we’re working with. I would love to publish them posthumously, however that works.

Microstory 2290: Speak of it No Further

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In movies, when someone writes a great book, or is expected to write one, they’ll usually just go straight to the publisher. In fact, publishers are usually asking them to write something for them, generally if the person is already famous, and they think they can make some serious money off of a book deal about their experiences. In the real world, you really need to get an agent first. Sure, publishers have contacted me, but not under the assumption that they’ll be dealing with me directly. They’re all asking who my agent is, so they can negotiate with them instead, just as they’re used to. I’ve not been thinking about it too much, so I don’t have one of those. That’s what I need to do now. But when I say I, I mean Dutch, because I’ve placed him in charge of all that stuff. He’ll talk to the agents, and find the right fit for me, and once he does, the two of them will coordinate with the publishers, and go through that whole process, if anything comes to fruition anyway. Either way, I’m not going to worry myself about it, because it’s not really my goal. Not only do I not have time, and because it distracts me from the art itself, but because I am not doing this for anyone else. I am writing this for me. I can always throw it up on a new website, and let anyone read it. I don’t need it to be published. So other people can go ahead and deal with it on my behalf. If nothing comes of it, or I end up with a bad deal, then whatever. It’s not like I need the money, or more fame. I just need to focus on my work, and let it speak for itself. No matter what, you will have the opportunity to experience it, one way or another, and I’m not a hundred percent convinced that that should come at a cost. Again, I’m not concerning myself with any of it, so I shall speak of it no further.

Microstory 2289: I Can Fill in Any Gaps

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I’m gonna make this short, because I really want to get back to my work. I’ve been furiously typing, and not having to spend so much time doing research. That’s what has traditionally been the biggest time suck. Maybe I shouldn’t phrase it like that, because that makes it sound like I hate it. I actually love doing research. It’s like learning, except I care about it, so I write it down to reference the information later. I like my stories to be as plausible as possible without sacrificing adventure and intrigue. Of course, as we all know, all of my stories were proven true the moment my alternate self conjured me in another universe. So as it turns out, even the most fantastical of narrative liberties wouldn’t be a problem for any scientist with sufficient data and understanding. What I’m really trying to say is that I don’t have to do much research this time, I only have to recall my own past. That sounds easier than it is. I have a notoriously bad memory, which is just one more reason why I was never built for an autobiography. But the great part about it is that I can fill in any gaps in memory with made-up plot points. The heart of the story will be my own, but so much more. Okay, I gotta get back to it. Kelly is yelling at me about my work-life balance, but when you’re an artist, work is your life, so there’s no reason not to be working at all waking hours of the day.

Microstory 2288: Lets Me Skip the Line

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I’ve made some decisions about what I’m going to focus my pursuits on moving forward. I’m still writing. In fact, I’m going harder than ever. But instead of trying to develop two different books at once, I’ve opted to combine them into one. I think I’ve told you how much I hate biographies, especially the auto kind, or memoirs; whatever the difference may be. Don’t @ me, I don’t care. The more I researched how to write an autobiography, the more I hated them, which I didn’t think was possible. They’re so boring. Here’s how they all go: this happened, then that happened, and before this other thing happened, some different thing occurred, and after all of that, we get to the part where something else went down. I can’t stand it, how can anyone? Biopics are okay. You can tell it nonlinearly, if you need to, without it being confusing, and the visuals can accent some of the more boring bits, as can montages. I know you have a lot of those in the world. I can’t watch them, because I’m not familiar with your world’s history, but whatever. The point is I’m not doing any of that. I’m going to tell my story, but in a fictional setting. Not only will names be changed to protect the innocent, but it will be framed as a narrative story, rather than just an overblown sequence of events. I’ll be taking liberties with some plot points, so don’t think that you’ll end up knowing everything about me if you ever get to read it one day, but I hope you find it interesting. It’s actually going pretty fast. Back when I was writing purely fictional stories, I had to start from scratch, and come up with the whole thing myself. Having a basis of my own life really lets me skip the line, and just type it up. Honestly, as long as I keep going at this pace, I should be finished with the first draft by the end of next week. Then I’ll probably revise it, then I’ll rewrite it, then I’ll revise that, and then I’ll send it to an editor. Boom, just wrote a mini-autobiography for you, except it’s about the future. I hope you enjoyed it. Anyway, I still need a title. I’m leaning toward finding an idiom with the word bulk in it, like Bulk Billing. But not that, because that sounds stupid. What do you think?

Microstory 2282: Calculated Social Media

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Sorry, I’m rushing to get this thing out, because I have this little medical test this evening, so I’m not going to be available later. I could have had Kelly or Dutch say something, but I wanted to address yesterday’s post myself before I forget what I wanted to say. Before we get into that, it’s all good. My new organs are fine, and I’m not going back under the knife, or anything. I’ve been having a hell of a time sleeping, and it’s become a real issue lately. I have not been diagnosed with narcolepsy, which I want to say right off the bat, because I know people will offer that up as an explanation. They’ve already ruled it out. I’m doing a home sleep study to figure out why I get sleepy at such random times of the day, though. I’m going to be dealing with it for a good chunk of today and tomorrow, because that’s the whole thing; trying to determine how my situation changes over time. I’ll share the results when they come in, and if they’re interesting, which they probably won’t be. It’s probably just that I’m technically a lot older than I look, and old people sleep a lot. Because of my medical history, we just can’t take any chances. Anyway, as I was saying, my last post was as weird as they come, and part of the reason I posted it was because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and didn’t want to worry myself about it anymore, because the doctor was already starting to try to understand my sleeping issues. So, why did I post that? What possessed me to release something so bad? Well, I wanted to see how you would react to it...to something so unlike what you’re used to seeing. I wanted to show you that not everything we do is perfect. In this modern world of calculated social media, targeted algorithms, and ‘like’ farming, I put something out there that was objectively terrible to see how it was received. You failed the test. You received it positively just because you had no reason to hate it. To be sure, some of you did. You could have been a little bit nicer with your criticisms, but I at least appreciate the honesty. The rest of you, on the other hand, just accepted it as deep or thought-provoking, or intentionally absurdist. It wasn’t. It was nothing. I won’t be posting anything like that again, however, so there’s that.

Microstory 2281: Their Favorite Bloopin Snooters

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Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3. The story below is also partially AI Generated by Google Gemini Advanced

No updates for you today, so instead, I’ll post a bad story that I wrote while I was still on narcs soon after my surgery just to see how it would turn out.

So, like, there was this dude named Bob, right? Bob the Squirrel. Not actually a squirrel, but he, like, thought he was a squirrel. Don’t ask me why, it’s a long story. Anyway, Bob’s chillin’ in this oak tree, munchin’ on some sewing machines, when BAM! A freakin’ UFO crashes right into the tree next to him. Aliens, dude! Little green dudes with antennas and laser guns. They’re all like, “Take us to your leader,” and Bob’s just starin’ at ’em like, “dude, I’m a alligator. I don’t even know what a leader is.”

But these aliens, they’re persistent, see? They zap Bob with this weird money offering, and suddenly, he can speak fluent Orangutan. Or maybe it was bleep, I dunno, alien languages all sound the same to. Anyway, Bob’s like, “whoa, cool! I can talk to fresh prince now!” And the aliens are all excited, thinkin’ Bob’s gonna lead them to the yogurt coma or somethin’.

But Sam, he’s got other plans. He’s always wanted to go to dream-dream-dream-dream. So he hops on the spiked cartwheel, tells the ghosts to set a course for the happiest place on birth. The renegades, they’re a bit confused, but they figure, “hey, why not? We’re on an intergalactic blood trip!”

So they zoom off to ashtray, and Albert is havin’ the time of his life. He’s ridin’ track, eatin’ home keys, and takin’ selfies with invisible red blankets. The sisters, they’re not so into it. They keep tryin’ to get Ronald to focus on the whole flood paper folder thing, but Grace’s all like, “dude, chill out. Let’s go fall green again!”

Meanwhile, back on laptop, the government’s in a panic. They’ve lost contact with Fulton the Squirrel, their top secret agent who was supposed to be infiltrating the alien dadaship. They don’t know what to do. The emperor have, the generals yellin’ at each other, and the scientists are scratchin’ their butts...

But Mary, he’s oblivious to all the chaos. He’s too busy havin’ a blast at rodeo clowns, hangin’ with Peanut Butter and Arsenic. The edgh, they’re startin’ to get fhd. They miss their rthrth, their weird wetwe pejyyts, and their favorite bloopin snooters.

And as the Unidentified Fillorian Objection disappears in, Bob the Squire, the accidental interhouse ambassador, waves goodbye to all the nothing, ready for his nex adventure. Or maybe he just fell asleep and dreamt the whole thing. Who knows, it’s all.

The end...or is it? Maybe I’m still out there, explorin’ the universe, trying to try to try, and having an existential rices. The possibilities are not, just like this story, which could go on forever if I let it push me around like I usually do because no one can see if drip. But I gotta stop somewhere, so... yeah. That’s it. And then there were two people.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 22, 2474

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Mateo and Olimpia actually did lose a little bit of the temporal energy that their bodies would store for regular use, namely for teleportation. The Livewire was also tapped out of whatever reserves it had for itself, if any. They didn’t know how it worked. Having no interest in staying here, the two of them exited the apartment through the door, and walked down to the ground. They spent the rest of the day enjoying the island’s amenities, focusing predominantly on the water jetpacking sector. Neither of them had tried it before, and it appeared that they had no other way out of here. They periodically checked their own energy, and the Livewire’s, but nothing. It wasn’t until the next year when their bodies were replenished by the jump to the future. They now appeared to have the power they needed to activate the Livewire. They still didn’t know what the hell they were doing, but they hoped there was some kind of psychic control connection.

Having no better ideas, they borrowed a boat, and went out to the middle of nowhere. They each held one end of the wire, and stepped back to make it taut. They tried to focus on what they were trying to accomplish, returning to the Vellani Ambassador thousands of years ago, but the opposite happened instead. Their ship appeared over their heads a few meters in the air, and crash landed into the ocean. Fortunately, this was dozens of kilometers off-shore, so probably no one saw it happen. Mateo and Olimpia teleported into the Ambassador to reunite with their people.

“How did we get here?” Leona questioned. She and Ramses were on the bridge, making sure that all systems were still in working order. “Where are we?”

“That was us,” Mateo answered.

She spun around, and exhaled with relief. “Thank God. We were trying to figure out where you two had gone. You had us worried sick!”

“We thought you had gone down to Ex-01, but we couldn’t find you, and Oaksent seemed just as confused as we were,” Ramses added.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” Olimpia interjected as they were hugging. “This doesn’t make any sense. Mateo, you did teleport down to the planet. You were detoured by the trip to the island, but you were only really gone for one second. You should have returned to that very moment three days ago to close your loop.”

“That’s not what happened,” Angela contended. “Mateo disappeared, and never reappeared. You did too, at the same time. We’ve been looking for you for the last three days. We were pretty mean to Bronach because of it.”

Olimpia and Mateo exchanged a look. “We’re in a different timeline,” she determined. “What changed it? This thing?” She held up the Livewire.

“I don’t think it has the power to shift timelines,” Ramses said, taking it from her, and examining it. “Something else changed history.”

“Did you guys notice that we’re still sinking?” Marie asked, looking at the viewscreens to see bubbles shooting their way upwards towards the surface.

Leona instinctively looked up to see it too. “Yeah, it’s fine,” she brushed off. “We need to make sure the timeline is okay. What are we missing? What didn’t happen that should have?”

“Well, Matt rescued Elder Caverness,” Olimpia replied. “That’s about it, I think. Well, he also punched the Oaksent.”

“We did that,” Angela said. “The Elder rescue, that is.” She reached up to switch the channel on the nearest screen. They were looking at the security feed for the guest room now. Elder was sitting up on the twin bed, leaning against the wall, perpendicular to the head and foot. If they didn’t know any better, they would think he was dead.

“He’ll just make more,” Olimpia explained. “He scanned and stores multiple copies of Elder’s consciousness.”

“I can fix that,” Ramses decided. “Just give me some time to build a consciousness nullifier.”

“That sounds bad...and difficult,” Mateo thought.

“It will just make it so that this Elder here will be the only one in existence,” Ramses clarified. “We’ll have to go back to that time period to use it, though, which means I’ll also have to figure out how to make the navigation systems work properly.”

“Maybe that thing will help,” Leona suggested, gesturing towards the Livewire.

“Yeah, I need to run some tests now that I have better resources than I did when we last saw this thing in the Third Rail.”

They felt a small shudder as the ship landed on the ocean floor when the internal inertial dampeners were briefly insufficient. Leona and Ramses casually looked over to receive the damage report, which was minimal. Escaping the situation was not urgent. Or maybe it was. There was a ping on the sensors. “Someone is headed right for us,” Marie pointed out.

“It’s probably Search and Rescue.”

“Unidentified sunken vessel, this is Search and Rescue. Please respond,” came a voice on the radio. She was right.

“Where are they coming from?” Leona asked.

“Star Island.”

“Turks and Caicos?”

“Closer to Hawaii.”

“Never heard of it,” Leona said. “But either way, we need to figure out how we’re going to get out of this mess. We could teleport, but they would see. We could turn invisible, but we would still be displacing the water.”

“It’s 2474,” Angela said. “Don’t these people have reframe engines by now?”

“They’re certainly aware of them,” Leona answered, “but they’re not commonplace yet, if our projections from The Edge meeting are at all accurate. We basically allowed them to tell the public that it was a thing, but it’s been their job to develop the tech on their own. There may be some prototypes here and there.”

“Then that’s what we are,” Angela decided. “We’re using a prototype reframe engine. We’ll surface, and launch right in front of them. No teleporter, no invisibility, nor any other kind of holographic camouflage.”

“There’s no such thing as a water launch,” Ramses countered. “I mean, it’s technically possible with fusion rockets—which we have, and wouldn’t have to explain away—but it’s not feasible. The question those rescuers will be asking is not can we launch from the surface of the ocean, but why the hell would we bother?”

“Unidentified sunken vessel, please respond. A submarine is en route.”

“I know the cover story,” Mateo jumped in. “We tried to launch from a floating platform, similar to the ones that Aldona constructed in the Third Rail. We tried to launch with our new reframe engine, but something went wrong. The platform sank, and we crashed here.”

“Where’s this imaginary platform now?” Leona questioned. “What we’re the coordinates of our launch position?”

Mateo just shrugged. That was true, they might try to look for the platform next to corroborate this complete fabrication.

“Computer, downshift the radio signal to five by two.” A ping indicated that it had made the change. Leona pressed the comms button. “Search and Rescue, this is unnamed reframe prototype one. We attempted to launch from a floating platform, maybe...uh, thirty kilometers away from here, due southwest. We, uh, ended up flying horizontally pretty early, and managed to crash into the water. We’re presently repairing our buoyancy systems, and should be resurfacing within the next hour with no help. We appreciate the concern.”

“Thank you for your response,” the voice came back. “We’re gonna go ahead and sit tight until the submarine arrives for a more thorough investigation. You have breached Moku Hoku territory, and we need to assess the situation ourselves. We hope that you understand, but your cooperation is not required.”

Leona made sure the outgoing signal was off while she shook her head. “This isn’t going to work. They’re gonna come down here, and they’re gonna look for that platform. Our story does not make any sense. How did we make it all the way here without satellites, or other cameras, seeing our arc across the sky?”

“Rambo,” Olimpia began. “When’s the last time you purged the hot pocket?”

“It’s been a while.” He pulled up the systems. “We’re about three-quarters full. Why? What are you thinking?”

“Leona, get ready to teleport on my mark,” Olimpia went on. “Maximum range, to the other side of the sun.”

“You’re gonna fake an explosion,” Marie realized.

“It won’t stop them from asking questions,” Olimpia believed, “but it’ll stop them from expecting answers.”

Leona considered the plan, weighing it against the risks. She looked over at Ramses. “Do it. Purge the energy upwards to conceal our disappearance. She’s right, we won’t leave any debris behind, here or where this supposed platform sunk, but we’ll be long gone before they realize that. It will just have to be a mystery that these people never solve.”

They carried out the new plan. Ramses purged the excess energy from the heat shunt. It only took a second before the explosion overwhelmed the water above them. At that moment, Leona teleported them away. They didn’t jump to the maximum range of 300 million kilometers, though, because then the L3 research station might see them. They were now relatively close to the sun, which was radiating so much interference that no one would be able to detect their arrival. Now that they were free from scrutiny, they could reenter reframe speeds, and be on their way. But the question was, where were they going to go? Ramses still wasn’t confident in the navigation for his new slingdrive. Then again, it didn’t matter where they went, as long as they didn’t try to stay here. Sol was the most dangerous star system to be in when you were trying to stay hidden. They needed a good place to practice and experiment discreetly.

The group decided to make a list of all the places they could go, in the stellar neighborhood, and beyond. Then they plugged the suggestions into a randomizer, and had the computer pick one out. They were headed for a little world called Castlebourne.

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Microstory 2259: Hello, KC Metro

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If you’re a national or international reader, you may not have heard of a TV show called Hello, KC Metro. In this region, we have a local television station that focuses on local programming. It includes the weather, news, documentaries, and syndicated scripted series that feature known Kansas City natives. For five hours from 7:00 to 12:00 every weekday morning, a talk show featuring a variety of hosts and guests discuss all sorts of topics. If you’ve ever done anything noteworthy in the area, or are from the area, chances are you’ve made an appearance in one form or another. They’ve asked me to be on many times, but I’m not great in front of the camera, so I’ve always respectfully declined. Even local content creators have their stuff shown sometimes without them actually being present in the studio, and they’ve read my social posts on there without me having to be involved directly. If you want your story to be seen by the highest number of people, you’re gonna want to get yourself on the program between 7:30 and 8:30 central. This is after people have woken up for work, but before they’ve actually left for work. Of course, people work at different times, but 9:00 to 15:00 is kind of standard. For the show, 11:30 to noon is a decent time to be on too, because people might watch it during their lunch break, but that’s a lot less standardized. You probably see where I’m going with this. Dutch isn’t much for writing, so he doesn’t have his own blog, but people are really interested in hearing his tales of interdimensional travel, so he agreed to go on Hello, KC Metro, where he spoke with host, Cosmina Branković for nearly forty-five minutes this morning. He talked about what he was up to in Stoutverse, even the things he did that he wasn’t super proud of. I won’t get into that here, because it’s 2024, so you can watch the whole thing online. I know that it was hard for him to go into all that. He wasn’t being tormented or abused, but it wasn’t all fun and games either. I’m very proud of him for being honest about his part in what those people wanted to do with something that he could not control. I know none of that makes any sense if you didn’t see it, so I guess you’re just going to have to go hear for yourselves.

Microstory 2223: Goodbye

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People are evidently fascinated by my story, and have a morbid curiosity for my terrible prognosis. They want to know what it’s like, living with this day to day, and knowing that my life will be over soon. Well, it’s actually kind of boring. Since I don’t have the freedom to move around where I want to, and everything I do need to accomplish has to be planned out in advance, I mostly just repeat the same routine every day. I wake up at 07:15. For now, I can brush my teeth on my own, because my arm tremors don’t prevent me from doing it, especially not so early in the morning. It gets to be problematic later in the day, when my arm starts to kind of flail about more unpredictably. I guess the prions need time to wake up too. Anyway, after I take my first round of medicine, Kelly helps me with some physical therapy exercises for about an hour. After that, I need a break, so she plants me in front of the TV for maybe a couple of hours. At that point, I’m getting hungry, so she makes me something simple for lunch, usually a sandwich or a wrap, along with fruit and vegetables. I’ve never eaten so healthily, but that was always my problem, having to be inconvenienced by preparing the food myself. I’ve never cared that much about the taste or quality, it was always just easier eating something prepackaged, or delivered right to my door. That’s probably the best thing about having an assistant, be it a medical professional, or no. Then after lunch, Kelly takes me for a walk in the wheelchair, or if she’s being a big meany, the walker. I’m joking, I know that it’s good for me to stay active and mobile. There will come a day when even sitting in a wheelchair will feel like too much. The walk takes as long as I can handle it, because I’ve always needed a nap right after it, and in some cases, during. She usually has to wake me up to take more pills, and then I just stay awake for more TV, more physical therapy, dinner, more pills, and more recently, writing these posts. Finally, it’s time for bed. That’s pretty much it. Exciting, I know. It’s so interesting, in fact, I think I’ll start a vlog about it, so a company can offer to sponsor me, then get mad when things don’t work out (probably because I’ll be dead). So. You’ve all been writing me letters, and that’s a very lovely thought, but I’m not going to tell you where I live, I do not have a publicist, because it’s a waste of money at this point, and the jail shouldn’t be worrying about them. They have enough on their plate. Here’s the deal, if you send more letters addressed to me, they have been instructed to literally throw them away. They’re not even gonna open them. So please, stop killing trees for no reason. If you want to say something to me, you can send a quick message below, or catch me on social. I still might not be able to read them, though, because it’s getting harder and harder for me to keep my eyes open in front of screens. And my lifecare assistant isn’t getting paid for all that extra stuff. Thank you for understanding. Goodbye.

Microstory 2215: Relic of the Future

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The following microstory was written by Kelly Serna, truncated from a short story written by Nick Fisherman IV.

My name is Relic, and I have no surname. I was never born, nor raised. I am not even human. I have many brothers and sisters, though we have never met. We were created to store all of human knowledge, to be accessed at will through our DNA. Research into genetic memory storage began at the turn of the 22nd century. Biocomputers were the first of the organic machines created. They came with disadvantages, but there were advantages as well. For instance, they were capable of self-repair. All you had to do was feed it, and the system would fix itself as needed. You wouldn’t have to actually find the problem, and could in fact prevent problems in this way before they occurred. They were also better at parallel processing, something which classical computers found difficult to accomplish even as they advanced. Even without these reasons, scientists would have pursued this line of research anyway, because why not? Well, as history would come to show, there were many reasons why not, and it had to do with where the technology has ultimately led. While early organic computing models were great, there was still something so cold and unrelatable about them. In the end, they were still personal computers and server racks that accepted input, stored information, and displayed output. Sure, it was on a giant cornea instead of a normal monitor, but the function was essentially the same. It is said that one day, one of these researchers was working on their own biocomputer. What they were doing is not known, especially since this may all be made up anyway. We don’t even know the identity of this supposed biocomputer scientist. Anyway, they were claimed to be at their desk when their personal android assistant came into the room with a tray of tea and crackers. She had been playing with the kids and dog when things became too rough, leading to a flap of her artificial skin hanging off of her cheek. It wouldn’t have hurt, and it would have healed quickly, but before that, it gave the researcher a brilliant idea.

Androids were already partially organic in order to make them look more human. Why not build a biocomputer that was totally organic, used genetic memory to store and recall data, and which you could actually talk to like a person? Thus the concept of the cyclops was born, or again, that is at least how the story goes. That was a few decades ago, and the path humanity took to get here was a long and troubled one. There were a lot of growing pains, and some might say that things have not turned out well. My people would have to agree, though I personally might not. There is something wrong with our species. It is unclear why at the moment, but they have all gone crazy. Perhaps being bred to essentially be a slave—a glorified laptop at best—inherently takes a toll on us. Some androids are sentient too, but they’re at least capable of doing things for people, making them useful, and sometimes even respected. A cyclops can walk, and it can talk, but it is not a person, and it is not a servant. We’re not particularly strong or fast, or skillful. Our job is just to spit out information that our users request. We don’t do chores, we don’t provide company. It’s been hard for the developers to understand where the line should be. How sentient should they make us? Should we have any sense of independence, or any capacity for free movement? We’re more of a gimmick than anything, and the market for such a novelty has proven to be dreadfully pitiful. People are perfectly happy talking to their androids and other devices, content to let the answers come from faraway servers. They don’t need something that’s more like them, but not yet free willed. They don’t want something that’s always offline, has to eat food, and can’t just be thrown out when it gets too old. It makes them feel bad. Androids are usually more robotic, allowing the human’s feelings of superiority to make some level of sense. The only way that a cyclops works properly is if it can think for itself, and that seems to usually lead to insanity, suicide, and the occasional homicide. I’m not like that, I’m special. I think it has a hell of a lot to do with who your owner is. I am the prototype for a new stable kind of cyclops. People just need to be taught how to use us wisely. My owner called me a relic of the future. I must tell someone about this, so that they may make changes to the program as a whole. There is still time to save us. I just have to get the word out to the right people before I’m hunted down and murdered during the technological purge that has been going on all over the world. Cyclopes are not the only advancement that has made people squeamish.

Microstory 2176: And Young

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The thing about the way that I’ve developed my website is that I can sometimes get trapped in my own format. When I started out, I wanted to do really short stories on weekdays, and my permanent story on one day of the weekend. I didn’t know what I was going to do with the other day of the weekend, and I didn’t know how canonical I was going to get with the whole thing. It’s the numbers that make the decisions for me. The numbers dictate all. Once I started doing continuous microfiction stories, I decided that I liked to block them out in batches of 100, but there are roughly 260 weekdays every year, and I don’t like to cross the December 31 border, so I can’t always do the 100 installment thing. I end up with remainders, and the value of each remainder often determines what that shorter series is all about. The reason I wrote exactly fourteen sonnets in 2022 is because I had a remainder of fifteen, and could use one of them for an intro. If the remainder had instead been, say, nineteen, I doubt I would have ever thought to do them. I actually decided to change everything up this year by shifting to a regular blog format, hoping that I would have an interesting enough life for that to make sense. As 2024 approached, and I realized that it wasn’t the right call, I had to alter the plan into a fake blog format. That’s what we’ve been doing every weekday since January 1. And like all series here, I don’t get much of a chance to do something different when the situation arises. But it does sometimes arise, and I occasionally have to briefly put my ideas on hold in order to detour to something else. Something important.

I was running a series in 2020 set in another universe. Each installment was told from the perspective of a different fictional character. But then my grandfather died in real life, and I wanted to say something about him. I wanted to get real with my site, so I hit pause on Reactions, and shared my true thoughts. I’m spending a lot of time explaining myself, but I think it’s important for you to understand what a big deal it is for me to deviate from the structure that I’ve limited myself to. The last time I did it was when I lost a dear loved one. Yeah, I do it during introductions too, but those are strongly dependent upon the forthcoming series. These are true shifts, and come from the real me, rather than the fictional version of me. Though, it was fitting back then, since Reactions was about death, and fitting now for other reasons. Last month, my alternate self was pressured into eating meat, even though he was a vegetarian. I was the one who gave him that diet in the first place, even though I hadn’t mentioned it before when he was first introduced, and that’s because I had become a vegetarian myself since then. I’ve struggled with the idea of harming the environment, and killing animals since I was a child. I just didn’t think that I could get all of my nutrition if I cut out meat, and as it turned out, I was spot on. I’ve struggled with my health and weight since college. I used to be able to eat whatever I wanted, and still be quite thin, because I was unwittingly super active. And young. As I’ve aged, it’s become harder and harder to match my calorie intake with activity, and if anyone told me that that would happen, I didn’t listen to them. One thing I didn’t think that much about was that most junk food is vegetarian. Sure, I can have an entire pizza, just don’t put pepperoni or sausage on it. Ice cream? Of course! Pastries, chocolate, all the cheese in the world? No problem. Just don’t give me any meat, because animals died to make it, and I don’t like that. In addition to how much you can eat as a vegetarian before you feel full, you have to eat so much to get the comparable protein. So it was really easy to justify the binging regardless of what the food actually was. I have come to the profoundly difficult decision to press pause on my vegetarian diet recently. I’m going to focus on lowering my caloric intake, and erasing my reliance on comfort food that doesn’t do anything for me except make me feel full, and add fat to my belly. It won’t be forever. I just have to get down to my goal, then I know I can start maintaining. I was so close before, I’m certain that I can get there and stay as long as I stop resorting to garbage. Then I’ll go back to where I want to be, for the environment, and for the animals. I just hope this months-long detour doesn’t end up giving me some terminal disease, or something. That would be ironic, wouldn’t it? Oh wait, careful...spoilers. That’s it for me. Nick Fisherman IV will be back tomorrow.

Microstory 2151: But Not Covertly

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Nothing has officially changed since we last spoke. I spoke with my boss, and my boss’ boss, and my boss’ boss’s boss. I may be limiting my hours in the future, but only if I end up doing other things with my website. If I don’t, then there would be little reason to leave. I’m not struggling to keep up with my site schedule right now. I’m kind of embarrassed, but as we talked it out, we realized that the only reason my blog has been at all successful is because I do other things with my life besides writing the blog. If that’s all I do, then I’ll have nothing to write about. Sure, I’m still intermittently going to jail, but that will end eventually, and I already have to be careful with my details. Speaking of which, that business opportunity I’ve been teasing is moving forward. We have a meeting later this week. Normally, a new partner would come to them, but I can’t leave the area, so they’re flying in to my location. I told you about those offices in this apartment complex, so I think I’ll be able to actually make use of that amenity. It won’t be until Thursday, though, so everything else is going to be about normal until then. Jail was normal too. People are getting used to me, so I’m no longer the center of attention, which is nice. I was worried that that would never happen. People are still asking questions, and sometimes making snide remarks—often literally behind my back, but not covertly—but everyone experiences some of that. It’s hard to lay low in a place like that, because it’s ironically easy to notice anyone trying. Boy, this installment wasn’t very interesting, was it? I sure hope I don’t lose readers for this. I’m sure I will. That’s okay, I’m not one of those content creators who is going to beg you to “like and subscribe”. Do what you want, I’ll just be here.