Microstory 2655: Shadow of the Throne

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They’re here. They’re in Loegria, specifically just outside the walls of Camelot’s lower town. It was a fine walk all the way out here, which is part of the immersive experience. There were no trains in the middle ages, so the castle is a full forty-two kilometers from the entrance. For a normal person in those days, that might have taken a couple of days, or more, including rest. Many come to this dome with intentionally low-grade substrates to really feel the antiquity of it all. Team Ravensgate doesn’t care about that experience. They just need to get the job done. It takes them four hours of sustained powerwalking. The clothing was the most difficult part. In order to be let through the gates, they decided to travel as nobles, and people like that dressed for attention, not comfort or practicality. Reagan has it the worst. He’s portraying a knight.

“I speak the language, so let me do the talking,” Mandica encourages. “This dome is not a hundred percent accurate. Women and people of color are not treated as second-class citizens. The NPCs are programmed to ignore it.” They draw nearer. “Good morrow, kind sir!” she calls up to one of the guards. “We are travelers to Glastonbury, and require one night of rest. Is there room at the inn for three ladies and their knight?”

The guard stares daggers before reaching behind his back and taking out a parchment. He unrolls it, and leans over to the side to show the other guard. It appears they are comparing something on it to the team. He clears his throat. “You have been expected, Lady Raven of Dakota, The Hollow Red Woman, and the Shadow of Doubt.”

“Please enter,” the other guard adds as the gates are opening for them. “Make your way to the tiltyard for your challenge.” He chortles. “I do not like your odds.”

“We did not sign up to joust,” Mandica informs them.

“You are on the list, you are fighting in the grand mêlée,” he replies with a shrug.

“Morgana knows we’re here,” Reagan guesses as they’re walking through.

The lower town is exactly how you would think. The first thing they see is the market, where locals, neighboring farmers, and travelers are selling their wares. The road leads up the mountain, towards the castle. They don’t know precisely where the tiltyard is, but it’s the biggest tourist attraction in the land, so it will be obvious enough. Mandica did not look too much into how it works when you legitimately sign up to visit this dome. Do you start as a serf, and try to work your way up, or is it like Ravensgate, where you get to write your full character sheet? Malika made herself rich in Underbelly, and that was fine since not everyone finds that to be the best gaming experience. They may have rules against that here, however. Perhaps all other nobles are NPCs. Anyone they come across could be a visitor, and if they are, will be a lot less likely to break character than people in Underbelly. They’re not just playing cops and robbers, but living an ancestral life 24-7. Being truly immersed is the entire purpose.

They continue up the mountain. The townspeople scowl until they think they’ve been caught, then turn away to avoid punishment. They knew they wouldn’t have a lot of fans, dressed like this. It was necessary to get through that gate without issue. Though, they didn’t expect to be let in quite that easily, or be expected. But it’s fine. If Morgana wants to fight, they can fight. That’s why they came here prepared.

They make it to the tiltyard, which is full of people. A runner apparently beat them here so he could warn the Marshal of their arrival. The stands are completely full. The audience begins to cheer uproariously when the four of them enter the grounds. Morgana didn’t only send word to her guardsmen. She prepared the whole town. She wants to make a show of it. She probably wants to humiliate them.

The Knight Marshal stands on his platform, and begins to bellow his announcement. He tells false tales of where the four of them come from, making up annoyingly elaborate backstories, which the governing AI must have developed for them since they didn’t take the time to write their own. They’re expected to stand there and look confident or scared. They don’t have time. “Excuse me?” Jaidia interrupts.

The Knight Marshal glares at her before turning back to the crowd so all can hear. “You will have your chance to speak when I am finished!”

“Right, but is Morgana here?” Jaidia continues.

“Or Morgan le Fay?” Mandica adds, not sure which name they use for her here.

“Lady Morgana is in Avalon, where she—hey! Hey!” He’s getting mad because the four of them are simply leaving. “Hey, I have this whole introduction planned! I’ve been working on this all day! It’s not easy to speak in this weird Chaucerian shit!”

“Save your complaint for your review!” Malika argues back.

A wiry little man skitters up to them as they’re leaving. “Seek ye the road to Avalon? I know the way. Lady Morgana, she lays traps for those who would do her harm. If you are not pure of heart, or sharp as steel, you may wander for days in a circle that looks straight. I can shine a light upon the true path. I am a humble man. All I ask—”

Mandica strikes him in the chest with her open palm, sending him crashing into the brush in the ditch. Her friends are neither bothered, nor confused. “That’s enough, shapeshifter! We’re taking you to Castledome, where you will face judgment!”

The impostor smirks as he’s standing back up. His skin mutates into nanites, and begin to crawl all over his body, changing shape, changing color, and changing her size. A dark mist swarms her for effect. The statuesque Morgana stands before them. She breathes with an unsettlingly bright smile, as if this form is more comfortable, though if she is made entirely of nanobots, it doesn’t feel like anything, and any preference for form would be merely psychological. She’s not even breathing at all. “Do you really want to have this anachronistic fight here?” she asks with a cackle. “Steward wants to bring me in for breaking the rules. You would break them in service to your fool’s quest?”

“Sure.” Reagan takes out his decoherence gun, and shoots Morgana in the chest without hesitation. He has been working on it in secret for decades. Once it’s perfected, he will be able to use it on the man who oppressed him, and is still oppressing his people back home. It will kill every single back-up of anyone streaming their consciousness outside of their body. For now, it is only capable of destroying this one copy, but Azad is standing guard outside of Vanore’s substrate storage chamber. After she returns to her regular body, he won’t let her reinsert herself into the simulation.

With no time to react, Morgana falls to pieces. It’s powerful enough to disrupt the brain’s electrical signals, which means it’s also capable of breaking your average, everyday electromagnetic bonds. If she were more solid, it would not have been so dramatic. More people witnessed it than they realized. They begin to crowd around. “You...you killed her,” a child says. “You killed the witch. Will you save the queen now?”

“The queen?” Malika asks. “Who is the queen? Why does she need saving?”

“Why, ‘tis Guinevere, of course. She withers in the high tower.” The child points. “The King will give you anything if you kill the Bane of Loegria, and set his heart free.”

Microstory 2647: Something to Punch

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Mandica starts looking for something to punch. She has only lifted heavy things so far, but she is starting to get a sense of how strong she has become. There are a ton of objects here for testing purposes, but she’s eying something in particular. It’s the concrete ruins of a building. Has it always been like this, or did they construct a building in the beginning of a simulation, and visitors have been smashing it apart all these years? After everything here has been destroyed, will they build it back up, or find a new spot for newbies. “Follow me.” She leads Elysia and Reagan that way, and approaches the corner. She pulls her arm back and—

“Stop!” Elysia demands.

Mandica built up too much momentum from preparing to strike the ruins. She’s still not used to her muscle weight gain, and ends up tripping and bashing her head against it. A huge chunk of concrete breaks off of the wall, and falls the rest of the way to the ground with her. Fortunately, it doesn’t hurt in the least. But it still freaks her out, because it’s not normal, and doesn’t feel right. Even a pillow fight can cause dizziness. “What? What’s the problem?” she asks.

Elysia steps closer, and takes Mandica’s hands. She rubs Mandica’s finger in her own. It’s almost sensual, but also clinical. “Soft, just like mine were.” She reaches into her back pocket, and pulls out two black gloves. They’re either the gloves she wore when she was the Ravensgate Rescuer, or an extra pair. “Here, try these.”

“I’m not becoming you,” Mandica starts to explain. “I just need to understand how my body works now. I want data to help me find a way to reverse it, or if not, go against my convictions, and transfer to a new body; one that’s more like I was before.”

“Do whatever you want,” Elysia says, “but look at my hands. They’re nice, right? Sexy. I didn’t wear those because I wanted to cover more skin. They were necessary. You are profoundly strong now. Most transhumans don’t make their bodies this powerful because it’s excessive, and comes with some downsides. Plus, with backup streaming, they tend not to worry about dying, just about dying permanently. You can still break, and if you punch that wall without protection, it could shatter your phalanges. The suit did not only represent my mystique as a raven symbol. It served a mechanical purpose.”

Mandica nods. “Okay. Thank you.” She puts the gloves on, and punches through the building like it’s butter. She can feel a ripple of energy as the force is distributed across the gloves. She must say, even though she never wanted any of this, it feels pretty good. It’s not like she thought transhumans were crazy by pursuing all of these enhancements. She always recognized and appreciated the appeal, and she never judged anyone for doing it. Her reasons for staying human were personal. But now that a different way of life has been thrust upon her, she’s questioning her whole philosophy. She’s trying not to show it, but she is scared to death...pun extremely intended.

As Mandica is brushing the concrete dust off of her fancy new gloves, she hears a crack behind her. More cracks as she’s turning back around. The building is wobbling, and with little further warning, begins to topple over. Mandica can only save one of them. She tackles Elysia to the ground, and spreads her arms like she’s trying to deter a bear, taking every hit of debris for Elysia. While it’s happening Elysia is just smiling up at her, not scared at all. When it’s over, they stand to see Reagan still alive too, balancing his sonic weapon against his knee, and pointing it towards the sky.

Mandica notices that Elysia is still smiling at her. “What? Why aren’t you mad? I screwed up, and could have gotten you killed. You’re in your regular body. That would have been the end of it. You shouldn’t even be here.”

Elysia laughs heartily. “You think I came here unstreaming? Sister, I’m always backed up.” Her eyes dart to the side. “That makes it sound like I’m constipated. But it sounds like you have a lot to learn about our subspecies. We don’t go anywhere without an exit strategy. I have no fewer than three backup bodies at all times, and a dozen more virtual partitions just in case, in addition to an airgapped duplicate that I update periodically as a failsafe. She won’t really be me, but she’ll think she is.”

Reagan nods. “Same. That’s standard procedure.”

“Oh. I guess I never really looked into how the system works,” Mandica admits. “It’s never mattered before. I suppose it still doesn’t. I remain just one person, and I can obviously still die.” She gestures towards Elysia.

Elysia frowns, and looks over at Reagan for a second. “My skin was hardened. I mean, it was soft, but hardened against attack.” She’s upset and confused. “That sword should never have been able to pierce my skin. It hasn’t before. I kind of feel like it was a different sword than the one she used a couple months ago? But still, I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how to investigate. Morgana may have come across something that bioscience is not prepared for. I suggest you stay the hell away from her.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” Mandica says. “I wanted answers, and I think I got all the ones I’m going to get. She wants to hurt me. She hopefully thinks she did.” She looks around at the handful of other people training. Some of them are still watching the three of them and whispering to each other. Knocking down a building facade must not be that common. “Though, she probably doesn’t. So I’m still in danger, but I will not be seeking her out. She knew that I was vulnerable. She knew that I could die, and she took my eyes anyway. I don’t care what she has to say anymore.”

“I think that’s the right attitude,” Elysia decides.

“Me too,” Reagan agrees.

“But just the same,” Elysia goes on. “I would like you to see something in my car. You don’t have to make any sort of commitment, but I want you to know your options.” They walk back to the dirt parking lot where cars are parked in random configurations. Elysia pops the trunk. Sitting there front and center, folded all nice and pretty, is her Ravensgate Rescuer outfit. “It’s up to you, but you’re not that much smaller than me, and I know a good tailor who can take it in. I think you would look good in it.”

“You actually do want me to become you,” Mandica says.

“The Rescuer isn’t a symbol of hope, nor a brooding nightmare for underworlders. She’s just a first responder. She helps you out of jams, or stops you if you’re the one causing the jams. Anyone with power can, and should, use it. That’s the point of my character’s persona. You’re not a sunny optimist, and that’s not what this role calls for. It just needs someone who wants to help; who wants to fight every day.”

“I know the bots have some worldview-protecting programming, but even they’re not gonna be fooled by this. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m black.”

Elysia laughs. “You wouldn’t be the first super-successor. No one will bat an eye. You’ll still be someone new. Just think about it, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll consider it,” Mandica relents.

Microstory 2646: Little Miss Incredible

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Mandica’s eyelids flip open. The harsh fluorescent lighting irritates her eyes for a second before they dim. Everything dims, as if she’s wearing sunglasses. It’s cold, and she knows that, but she doesn’t feel the familiar sting of her body heat evaporating from her skin. She is just arbitrarily aware of it. The man is scared, or the doctor, because he’s wearing a lab coat. Reagan is there. He’s surprised too, but not scared. Mandica sits up to see him take out his sonic weapon, and utterly destroy the doctor. Wait. This isn’t a hospital, or if it is, a specific sector in it; probably in the basement. She’s not in a medical bed, but a drawer, and two dozen other closed drawers line the wall next to her. This is a morgue. They thought she was dead, and she ought to be, because if they didn’t even bother treating her, she shouldn’t have healed. She is not like these people.

Reagan steps closer to the mortician with his weapon, and keeps blasting until he’s sure the NPC is dead. He looks back over to Mandy. She’s entirely naked, the sheet having dropped down when she sat up, but she doesn’t care. He’s breathing heavily. “I’m sorry you had to see that, but we can’t have him submitting his periodic report.”

“How am I still alive?” Mandica asks him.

“I don’t know. You weren’t,” Reagan answers. “I came here to claim your body so I could prevent them from finding you, under the pretense of being responsible for your funeral arrangements, which I absolutely would have done to cover your tracks.”

“There’s something in my back,” she says as she’s trying to reach behind her. “It’s, like, hard and pulling at my skin. It doesn’t really hurt, but there’s something there.”

Reagan walks over and checks it out. “It’s, uhh...well...” He gives her a funny look, and then checks her back again. “It’s...”

“If you’re distracted by my bare ass, I’ll let you see it better later, just tell me what’s there. Did a shard of glass get embedded in my skin?”

“I’m not looking at your ass, and it’s not a shard, but...it might be glass. It’s glowing, though.”

“Glowing? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Here.” He takes out his handheld device, and snaps a photo of it, which he then shows to Mandica. It’s not glass. It appears to be the Philosopher’s Stone.

“What the fuh?” Mandica questions, having no words for this. It’s glowing all right, which she can tell even from it only being a still image.

“Do you... You don’t think it’s real, do you? The Philosopher’s Stone?”

“Well,” Mandica begins. “People die and come back to life all the time. It probably happens thousands of times each day on this planet alone. It’s not entirely out of bounds for someone to invent a stone that can somehow heal and resurrect. I doubt it’s anything that was made back in ancient times, but it can certainly exist now, can’t it?”

“Can I touch it? I really wanna touch it.”

“How deep is it in there?” The extent of the glow, and the lack of depth in the photo, make it hard to tell.

“It’s pretty deep. I don’t think touching it is going to knock it out.”

“Go ahead.” She sees him reach back there, and then she feels it. Oh, God, does she feel it. It is, quite frankly, orgasmic. That was not in the legends about alchemy. “Okay, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. A little goes a long way with that thing. Jesus.”

Reagan looks down at the dead mortician. “Someone else might show up at some point, We need to sneak you out of here. I’ll try to scrub the records. I don’t know what they keep track of, though, since this is probably the first true death in history.”

“Except it wasn’t,” Mandica points out. She swings her legs out from under the sheet, and hits the floor with a thud. How embarrassing. Has she gained weight? She tries to see her own reflection in the metal drawers, but they’re not reflective enough.

“That’s true. Here.” He takes off the mortician’s lab coat, and hands it to her.

It’s big enough to cover her, she just looks like she’s wearing shorts or a short skirt now. “The others? Did any of them survive?” she asks.

“Jaidia is recovering, and should be able to keep her substrate. Malika’s dead. I’ve not spoken with her yet. Ravensgate Rescuer is dead too. I don’t have her contact information for the outside world, but I’m guessing she’s pretty upset about it.”

“At least she gets a second chance.” She tries to push down on the door handle, and ends up tearing the whole thing off. Maybe she gained muscle weight. “Okay, are these buildings designed to be that easy to break to better simulate mayhem, errr...?”

“They are not,” Reagan says, coming up to inspect the damage. “If you wanna break something, you gotta be strong enough to do it.”

Mandica regards Reagan for a moment, then sticks her fingers in the hole where the handle once was. She grips it tight, and pulls the whole door off of its hinges.

“I’m thinking that stone is real, and it does more than bring people back to life.”

Mandica very gently sets the door down on its side, and lets it lean against the wall. “I probably should not have tested my newfound strength in such a public place.”

Reagan looks over his shoulder at the dead NPC. “Actually, maybe that’s exactly what you should do. Maybe you should do a lot more damage around here, so it will look like some supervillain came by. It would explain him, and where your dead body went, so we don’t have to locate and erase the records.”

She sighs through her nose. “I’m new to this—whatever this is—I don’t know what I’m doing.” She walks further back into the room. “Plus, someone might be coming.”

“Well, I’ll handle that, if it comes up,” he decides. “You just practice a little.”

Mandica decides to not do that. The door and the dead mortician are enough. Reagan isn’t convinced, so he stays behind, and creates a bigger mess using his gun. He then goes into the security room, and destroys the footage before meeting up with Mandica outside. He was going to drive her back home, but she does want to practice, so she asks him to take her out to the middle of nowhere. He knows of an abandoned train yard about thirty kilometers outside of town that was placed there for this very thing. She is not the only person there testing her own limits. It’s an unspoken rule that you don’t fight at The Depot. It’s for newbies who want to figure out how well they designed their substrates in a more practical environment.

When they add it all up, Mandica’s abilities match with what Elysia had when she was the Rescuer. Superstrength, speed, stamina, heightened senses, spring-action legs for jumping. A lot of people have these things, but Elysia was remarkably more powerful, and now Mandica has somehow taken her place, thanks to this weird red piece of glass. Elysia herself shows up in the middle of Mandica’s self tests after Malika called her, after Reagan called her. Elysia is presumably in her normal body now, which is still likely pretty formidable, and doesn’t seem upset. “Okay. Show me what you got.”

Microstory 2273: Skipping Out of the Building

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Against all odds, the organ donor network was able to find two matches for Nick. One person gave him a lobe of their liver, and another one of their kidneys. I couldn’t tell you anything about them, even if I knew myself. They’re not necessarily anonymous, but the information hasn’t been released yet. Some of their respective families may not even know what they did. There was apparently a really short, but really intensive, vetting processing. Normally, a person would have weeks, or even months, to prove that they understand what they’re doing, and what they’re giving up. But in this case, it was an emergency. I wasn’t part of any of that, so I don’t know how it went down, but I’m grateful to them just the same. All three surgeries are now finished, and they’re in recovery. Nick still hasn’t woken up yet. Well, he has, but he hasn’t been at all lucid. During what little time he was somewhat awake, he didn’t seem to really know where he was, or what was going on. It will just take time, but I’m choosing to be optimistic. We’re still not out of the woods, so I’m not going to break out the celebratory balloons just yet, but he has a chance now. We will know more when he wakes up, and he can tell us how he feels. That’s a very important metric that doctors can only guess. They’ll continue to keep him here for quite a while. They still couldn’t do anything about his spleen or gallbladder, so I imagine his hospital time will be on the upper end of the typical estimate. Once he is healthy enough to be discharged, he won’t be skipping out of the building, though. For the next few months, he’ll be in a state of recovery, gradually getting better and stronger. Dutch and I will be with him the whole time. Even though the surgery is over, he’s still opening doors, hoping to speed up the process, but a part of me is worried about that working. If he becomes immortal again, the donors’ sacrifice might seem to mean a little less. I dunno. I guess in that scenario, they still bought him time, and it was still a profound thing to do. I shouldn’t be thinking about any of this. I just need to go back to making sure he wakes up feeling safe and comfortable.

Microstory 2239: Marrow and Index

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A private citizen with a whole lot of money—who I shall not name—has offered me a substantial amount of money for a sample of my bone marrow, and my index. Not just a biopsy of it, but the entire thing. I didn’t want to do anything like that, but I feel like I have no choice now. The FBI can’t be responsible for us for the rest of our lives, and it’s not going super great. Someone broke into the house that we were just living in. We’ve been moving around for security reasons, but if the suspect had been a week earlier, this might not have had a happy ending. Instead of trying to hide, and stay out of danger by remaining inconspicuous, I think a better strategy would be to be out in the open, but to become so well-guarded that I’m virtually untouchable. That’s how world leaders do it. We all know where the President of the United States lives, that doesn’t mean attacking her would be easy. This will obviously require significant capital. The procedure wouldn’t be simple, nor safe, but it would be relatively quick. I’ll only have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days, and only be in recovery for about a month as I regain my strength. I don’t know for sure what the backer thinks he’ll be doing with my marrow and index, but I explained to him that my immortality is gone, and it’s not something that can be studied in this universe. He’s willing to take that risk, and if we’re being honest, I don’t know with certainty that his researchers won’t gain any insight with it. Doctors have been taking samples for weeks, but never this much. So I think I’m gonna do it, to help myself, and my friends, and for the possibility that it helps everyone else.

Microstory 2071: Wake Up Clean

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I just reread my post from last week, and realized that I didn’t really tell you anything about myself, since I started going on and on about how the cosmos really works. So let’s do that now, but you still don’t have to read it. I was born in central Kansas, and moved around a lot in my youth. I suppose I moved around a lot as an adult too. I was a quiet kid, and people hated that about me. Have you ever had to deal with someone yelling in your ear incessantly? It’s like that, except I don’t make any noise, and I guess some people perceive that as just as irritating? My incessant silence: it doesn’t hurt your ears, but it hurts your heart, because you have an incessant need for attention, and if you’re around someone who doesn’t give it to you, it feels like dying. I spent many years pretending to be a regular person, and many years afterwards unraveling most of that so that I could become my true self. Then I started to develop my idea of what my best self would be, and tried to work towards that.

Here are a few random facts about me. I’m left-handed. I once knew a guy who was legit mad at me for wearing my watch on my right wrist. I may be left-handed because I was born with an extra finger on my right hand, which jacked up the joints. All of my fingers are crooked, and my hands hurt literally all the time, especially when I use them, which is why it’s so great that I’m a writer, because it doesn’t require the use of hands. I like baby rhinos, and hate pandas. On principle—but not in practical terms—I don’t believe in war, national borders, money, poverty, the inherent value of work, or religion. I think sex work should be legal, and recreational drugs should be illegal. I would rather lose a competition than win it, because it will always be more important to other people, and I don’t want them to feel bad.

Here are a few random facts about you: if you’re a smoker, you’re an idiot, and a bad person. It doesn’t matter what you’ve accomplished, or what your IQ is. Only a total moron would poison themselves on purpose, and only an asshole would do it in a way that potentially causes harm to others. No matter how you die, as long as it’s not an accident or something, the smoke will either cause your death, or exacerbate it. It will never help you, nor remain neutral. There’s no logical reason for it. Some people like you, and some don’t. No one is hated by all. The human body is beautiful, and you shouldn’t be afraid of it. The toilet paper goes over the top, ‘cause gravity. Some of your food contains bug parts. It’s fine.

Here’s some random advice. Find your strength in school, and focus on that. Work half as hard at the things you struggle with. You’re never gonna be as good at them as you are with your best subject, and normal people don’t need to be good at everything to succeed. If you struggle with a subject for years on end, while doing fine in others, that’s your worst subject, and it’s never going to change. Smart people don’t suddenly become that way in adulthood after being unintelligent before. Some jobs require you to be committed and driven. Most of them, however, come with bosses that aren’t paying enough attention to you to reward good behavior. Your number one job in life is to find happiness, not build profit for your company. Never forget that every company needs you more than you need it. You could survive naked in the woods with nothing but your wits. Without labor and customers, a company doesn’t exist. Life is all that matters.

Shower before bed, so your bed is clean, and you wake up clean. Wash your hands. Clean everything else too. Let your children get dirty to build up their immune system.

Microstory 2061: Anyway, I’m Taking Some Drugs

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If you’ve been following my microblog, you know that I got sick again. It’s not even the same thing. The first one was a virus that I can’t pronounce, but this one is a bacterium that I can’t pronounce. I guess my immune system was in shambles for so long that something else managed to get in there before I closed up shop. I should have known. It’s definitely happened to me before. I just forget these things. The thing about being immortal is it doesn’t change your brain chemistry. It’s a purely physiological situation. It’s pretty much impossible to study the condition, because no one could ever take my blood, or anything, but I think that one of the downsides is an inability to improve in certain ways. I could never get stronger. Lifting weights, doing cardio, none of it mattered. Exercise didn’t make me feel better (it also didn’t make me feel worse at least). Nothing could change. The brain isn’t a muscle, but I think it suffers from the same limitations. I could gain new memories, of course, but I couldn’t really grow as a person. Anyway, I’m taking some drugs besides the antibiotics, so I’m not sure if I’m making any sense, but basically what I’m saying is my memory sucks. People would always tell me I should keep a diary to remind myself of my own history, but I would always forget to do it, so that never really worked. I’m surprised at how diligent I’ve been about this. Don’t expect me to keep going. If it’s anything like my previous attempts, I’ll stop by the end of the month. The only thing more boring than this world is talking about my personal experiences with it. Nick Fisherman IV, signing off. Oh, wait. Did I never tell you what my name was before? Oh my God, that’s kind of funny. Maybe I’ll explain where the name comes from, and what makes me the fourth out of four. It’s not anywhere near as simple as that my father was the third, and so on up the bloodline. It’s more like how they name kings.

Microstory 1753: Mountain Table

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I have to stop and take another break. I know that I only have a few more steps to go, but I’ll topple over if I don’t take a few seconds to catch my breath. I don’t hear my master up on the mountaintop. He’s probably on the far side of it, peeing over the edge, or laughing to himself about his accomplishments, of which there are many. Technically, everything he ever did was actually done by someone else; someone like me. Don’t tell him I’m complaining, though. A single word of slight displeasure with work conditions, and he’s sending me back down this mountain the quick route, if you know what I mean. It’s what he does. He’ll take any reason he can find to kill his servant, and move on to the next one. There always is another candidate waiting, so it’s not like he has to worry about doing any actual work on his own. I wish I could thank the ones who came before me, who learned his quirks and pet peeves, so the rest of us know what to expect. I just hope the guy just before me was the last to ever make a mistake. My sister tells me it doesn’t matter, that it’s not worth it. She thinks he’ll always find a reason, but I know that he has in mind the perfect life, and if I can give that to him, he’ll reward me. He’ll reward my entire family if I go above and beyond above and beyond, and that’s why there is always someone ready to take his servant’s place. If I get this right, he won’t need another servant until I’m dead. Then maybe my grandson will take over for me. That would be a dream come true. Okay, I can keep going now. Then I’ll assemble the pieces, and be finished with this once and for all. I’m grateful he didn’t demand that I bring the whole thing up here at once. That would have been impossible, and I would have become the first in an infinite series of servants to die on our respective first days.

I keep walking, and make it all the way to the top. Then I approach the pile of parts, and carefully set the last one down next to it. It’s the largest and heaviest one. When it’s finished, this will be the largest table in all the lands. Kings, warriors, and sorcerers from all over will one day hold meetings here. Dozens of sections will fit together on top of four times as many legs. Those were the easiest to do in the grand scheme of things. He let me take as much, or as little, as I wanted, and as much time as I needed. Unfortunately, the central leg structure was custom made by a follower of his, and it was constructed as a single piece, so I couldn’t take it apart, but that’s done now, and I’m ready to move on to the next phase. I begin to fit legs under leaves, and connect them all together. It goes quite fast, and I don’t need any more breaks. I suppose what I went through to get here has made me so strong that I feel invincible. Perhaps it’s a taste of my ultimate reward. I’m so proud of myself once it’s completely complete. I didn’t make any mistakes, or have to redo anything. It’s perfect, if I do say so myself. As if he knows it’s ready, my master appears from the other side of the ridge. He takes a long time to inspect my work, making me nervous, probably on purpose. He smiles and places a warm hand on my shoulder. “You have done well. It is a magnificent table.” I smile back and thank him for the praise. He continues, “now drag it over to that side, and flip it over the edge. Follow it down, as carefully as you would like, but be at the bottom by the end of the day. If you survive, commission the carpenter to make another one just like it, and then do it all over again.” He begins the trek down the steps, and I do as I’m told. After the fourth table, I don’t make it down the mountain in time, and he kills me for it.

Microstory 1747: Little Lion

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I’m a nomadic lion, which means that I don’t belong to a pride. This is not by choice, as it is for most of my kind. I was the runt of the family, so my mother rejected and abandoned me. I should have died in the wild, having never learned how to survive, but I figured it out. I figured out what to eat, and what not to. I taught myself how to hunt, and where to find water. If only my mom could see me now. I’m full-grown, but not much larger than I was before, relatively speaking. You might think that makes it harder on me, but I have found it to be an advantage. Prey animals think of me as a baby, and while they are worried about mama being around here somewhere, they always underestimate me. Yes, it’s harder for me to run and pounce, but I don’t have to when my meal doesn’t consider me too much of a threat, and lets me get close before becoming worried about it. Yes, I’m doing okay, all things considered. I wouldn’t say this is a great life, and I doubt I’ll ever find a suitable mate, but at least I’m alive, and I understand how to keep myself that way. I will say that I’m fairly sick of it, wandering around without the protection or companionship of others. I’ve made a few attempts to join other prides, but they always run me off. They would kill me if, again, they thought I was any real threat. They don’t think I deserve to share in the food we would catch together. They don’t think I can contribute, and that’s not fair. They have no idea what I have to offer. I’ve decided to give up, and focus on being the best version of my lonesome self. If no one else can appreciate me, then I guess I have to work extra hard to make sure I appreciate myself, and maintain my self-esteem. It’s their loss.

One day, I’m walking over the grasslands, trying to pick up the scent of a sounder of warthogs. They’re pretty mean and rowdy, but they’re smaller than giraffes, so they’re kind of all I can handle on my own. My nose picks up something. I don’t know what it is yet, but it’s not a warthog. I keep going, and pretty quickly realize it to be the blood of my own kind. Another lion is hurt nearby, and I feel compelled to go investigate. I really shouldn’t. It’s none of my business, I don’t know how I could help them, and it’s not like they would try if our roles were reversed. I can’t help it, though. I have to find out what happened. Perhaps some super predator has shown up, and I’m in danger here. That is a good enough reason for me to follow the trail, right? As I draw nearer, I imagine the horrific crime scene I’m about to encounter. Blood and guts everywhere, I don’t know which parts connect to which other parts. Vultures feasting on the remains. But that’s not what it is. It’s a female, probably around my age. She’s injured enough to not be able to move on her own, but she’s not drenched in her own blood. I instinctively begin to lick her wounds. When the vultures actually do come, I scare them off with my pathetic excuse for a roar. It wouldn’t be good enough to impress another lion, but the birds are sufficiently disturbed. I continue to watch over the lioness as her cuts heal on their own. She won’t tell me what happened to her, but I get the impression that she too had some kind of falling out with her pride. Once she’s well enough, we walk together to a safer location, where I can leave her to hunt. I drag carcasses back to our den to keep her fed. It’s a lot of work for a little guy like me, but I make it work. One day, she runs off without even a thank you, and I figure that I’ll never see her again. But then she comes back with a carcass of her own as what she calls the thank you. Then we start our family.

Microstory 1746*: Heart of a Lion (Excerpt)

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

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

Microstory 1745: Lizard’s Tree

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Let me tell you about my father’s last day alive. We knew he had been sick for a long time, but we kept having reason to hope. Treatment was working well in the beginning, and then it wasn’t. A promising new drug came on the market, but it didn’t seem to work for him. A new drug trial went underway, so we tried that, but it had no effect. Of course, he could have been taking the placebo the entire time. A different trial began a couple of years later, but he ended up not qualifying. He chose to stop treatment a month before he died, wanting to spend his last remaining days lively and pain free. According to my mother, he wanted to spend his actual last day with me. On TV, when parents are asked which child is their favorite, they always either say they love each of their children equally, or they’ll give a real answer, and it’s because they’re a villain. It’s a little weird in our family. My dad loved me just a little bit more than his other five children, and no one has ever seemed bothered by that. I’m a lot like him, in most ways, and the others were more like our mother. Except for the eldest, who isn’t like any of us at all. As far as I know, they all just accept that I’m the special one, and don’t take offense to it. Every family is different, I guess, maybe we’re just a little more honest with each other. Anyway, he called me Lizard, on account of its similarity to my real name, which I trust you can rightly guess. The day he died, he said, “Lizard, come with me. We’re going for a drive.” I’m the one who drove, but he directed me to the middle of nowhere, and asked me if the tree before us wasn’t the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I looked around us, and saw plenty of trees, but none close enough, and none that stood out. He laughed, like it was a prank, but he quickly returned to his serious but calm look. He gestured towards the ground, and told me that it once stood here.

This is what he said about the tree that was. “While your mother was pregnant with you, Lizard, she was reading a book about the world’s cultures. She discovered that people from different countries practiced the same tradition of planting a tree when their child was born. We had already had two of our own by that point, but we still decided to start doing this for however many we had left, which ended up being four.” I told him he meant to say three, but he was scared to respond to that, and I think I understand why. He went on, “your younger brothers’ trees are closer to the house, but your tree used to be here. We planned on showing you when you turned eighteen, so it could be one of your gifts, but we all know I’m not gonna make it another seven months. I wish we had brought you at least two years ago, before a drunk driver ran off the road, and crashed right into it. No one was hurt; not even him, but your tree was destroyed. I choose to believe there’s a lesson here, even though a mound of dirt is not what we had in mind for you. The tree was supposed to represent your life, but if that were true, you would be dead right now, instead of me. I hope what this shows you is that you are exactly as strong as you think you are. You made it through most of your schooling, you made it into a good college, and you’ll get past my death. I love you, Lizard, and there is nothing that can change it, no matter how many drunk drivers fly down that road. I need you to believe that you can take care of yourself, because I can’t go in peace if you can’t.” He went back to the car real quick, and returned with another small tree in a pot. “You can plant as many new trees as you want, but never forget that you...are irreplaceable.”

Microstory 1436: Motus

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Following the 2070 Mage Selection Games, a young man was sourced what would turn out to be a very powerful time power. He could teleport, but also apport, which means he could instantaneously transport other things besides himself. Not all apporters are alike. Assuming a given mage or choosing one is standing at point A, some would be able to move an object from A to B only, while others could move it from B to A, while still more could move it either way. There are even a few who can move something from B to C, but they would have to know a whole lot about the location of just about anything within range, whether they were looking at it, or not. These were the three primary classifications of apportation, but there were variants within them. Baran Avan was a Class A apporter, but with a special twist. He had to teleport himself along whatever it was he was trying to move. Of course, regular teleporters were limited to this, but they generally had to be at least touching the target for it to work. He just had to be close enough to see it. The thing about him, though, was that his power grew over time, the more he used it. When starting out, Baran could only transport something the size of a penny, but he kept practicing, and upgrading, and becoming more powerful. In under ten years, he was so strong, and his range so wide, that he was capable of moving an entire town from one place to another. Knowing this would be the case, a group of people started building a new town to capitalize on its utility, which they called Motus. They didn’t dig into the ground, though. They first constructed a gigantic platform, on top of which every building would sit. It required a flat surface to remain stable, but these weren’t too hard to find. While Durus did have mountains, valleys, ravines, and the like, it was actually pretty smooth. They had, by then, surveyed the whole surface, so Baran had an accurate map to know where to make his jumps. Once completed in 2079, Motus required fewer mages to be assigned there than other towns. It wasn’t like they didn’t need any, but their primary means of surviving monster attacks would be Baran. When the alarm sounded, the other mages would fight the threat, while Baran gathered his strength, and prepared to make the jump. At first, this often resulted in his fellow mages being left behind to fend for themselves, but as time continued, he not only grew even stronger, but also more precise. He could select individual objects within his range to tag along with them, even if they were a hundred meters off the platform. Some believed his power would never reach a limit, and that he would one day be able to move the whole planet across the void. They never found out, though. Motus was only around for a little over a decade before the final battles of the war began. While many of his contemporaries survived to pass their genes onto their offspring during and after the Interstitial Chaos, Baran ultimately became a casualty of the war. Until then, however, the Motus method proved productive. It just made travel between it and the other towns a little more complicated.

Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida: Deeply (Part IV)

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I blink and look around, immediately seeing a mirror next to my chair. It’s facing away from me, though, so I turn it. It’s my old body. Well, no it’s not. But it’s at least my original face. “Report,” I say to the girl standing on the other side of me. I just keep looking at my reflection, though.

“I was gonna put you back in your new body,” the girl replies, “but then I thought maybe you would prefer to look as you did before. Everything my father explained to you about how it works—how strong and resilient this substrate is—remains true. Now you look like yourself, though.”

I sigh, and lean my head back. I close my eyes, but it doesn’t have the same relaxing effect as it once did. Even after I started upgrading my body with technology, this would help make me feel better. Way back in the day, futurists would boast about how powerful we would one day be. They were right, I installed incredible physical strength, endurance, faster processing speeds, and lots of other stuff. What they failed to realize was just how beautiful it was to be a living organism. These upgrades cause you to lose something about what it feels like to be alive. Sleep was something I always took for granted, because it took eight hours out of my day, and I didn’t have a choice. Ancillary to that was the ability to close my eyes, and shut the world out. While I could still hear, suppressing some of the stimuli still helped slow my brain, so I could calm down when my emotions got the better of me. I actually had to downgrade my systems after I realized I added too much, and lost my ability to sleep. But that only lasted so long. I never want to age or die, so I later had to upgrade again. Sleep and immortality just don’t mix, I guess; I don’t know.

The only solace I took in my new situation was that I could turn my systems off. I could shut myself down, not entirely, but close. I could still maintain my perception of the passage of time. Other people would find this horrific, existing inside a void, conscious of their own existence, but unable to do anything. I embraced it, because it was the closest thing I could find to sleep. In fact, I loved it so much that I set a timer to not wake me back up for five hundred years. I wasn’t even in there for a hundred and fifty years before this girl’s father forced me back awake by transferring my mind into a new body, and then promptly destroying the old one. I don’t blame her, though. I’ve only known her for a few minutes, but she doesn’t seem to be on his side. She may actually be the best person I’ve ever met in my life. After several seconds of my eyes closed, I start feeling a sense of sleepiness. It’s not enough to make me fall asleep, or even start nodding off, but it’s definitely more what I’ve been missing for centuries. I almost feel human again. “What’s going on? I’m a little tired.”

She smiles. “That means it’s working. I modified more than just your face. I installed a hibernation mode. You still won’t need to sleep, but you can, whenever you want. You’ll also wake up if, say, a saber-toothed cat shows up to attack you, but you should otherwise be good.”

“That asshole could have given me the power of sleep, but chose not to?”

“With more time, yes,” the girl answers. “He didn’t think to include that, but I’ve been working on it for months. You’ve been completely dormant this whole time.”

I stand up out of the chair. She’s right about how she changed me. I’m a little weak, like a regular person would be. It’s nothing I can’t get over, but...it’s amazing. “Oh my God, thank you so much. I don’t think I could explain just how important this is to me. I haven’t felt this great in centuries.”

“I’m glad you like it. My name is Abigail, by the way.”

“Oh, yes, sorry. How rude of me. I’m sure you know this, but let me introduce myself. I’m Thor Thompson.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you. I grew up on this planet, and I passed your storage case every day to get to Trinity and Ellie’s labs. I always wondered what you were like.”

I accidentally release a scoff, but it’s a Freudian slip, because what she said deserves it. “I’m not that great,” I admit.

“Oh, I’m not so sure about that. Way I hear it, you were one of the first colonizers of Mars, and you were directly involved with Operation Starseed.”

Project Stargate was a secret endeavor to send automated ships to every single star system in the galaxy, so people could travel to them instantly with quantum communication technology. Operation Starseed was a super secret companion to that, which added biological samples from Earth, so life could be seeded on those planets. The public wasn’t sure whether they wanted us to conquer the Milky Way, which is why a few key people in the government gave the greenlight without telling anyone. The public was pretty much completely opposed to Starseed, though. Some people were cool with it, but the majority found the prospect irresponsible, and upsetting. Together with my friend, Saxon, I was in charge with transporting the samples to the launch site in a star system called the Gatewood Collective. Only an even fewer number of government officials, time travelers, and time-traveler adjacent people knew anything about it. “Those are just accomplishments, and they say nothing about my character. Your father is quite accomplished too, isn’t it?”

“That’s true, but Trinity and Ellie have said good things about you, and I trust them.”

“Are they still here, or did they move on?” I ask.

Abigail checks her watch. “They’re at work right now.”

“Why did use airquotes?” I question.

“It’s because of something I learned about in my studies,” she says. “People used to have set hours that they would work. They had these things called jobs, so they could make money and if they wanted to survive, they had to have one.”

“They didn’t have to have a job, or even money, to survive; only if they wanted to live in town. They could go off and live off the land, if they wanted to. But go on.”

“Obviously we don’t have jobs anymore. People just work on things that they want to do. But Ellinity like to pretend it’s the olden days. They live farther away from their workspaces than they used to, and they go into work every day. They don’t leave until the work day is over.” She seems to think this is silly, and it is.

The old ways made some bit of sense at one point, but not in a galaxy where quite literally all work can be automated. I have a better appreciation for it, though, since I grew up in a time period where work was ubiquitous. The only people who didn’t have jobs were too rich to need them, or too poor to get them. The irony in that is precisely why we did away with money. I nod. “That’s hilarious.”

The doorbell rings. Abigail answers it, then lets Trinity and Ellie into the room.

“Mr. Thompson,” Trinity says. “How are you feeling?”

“Better than ever.”

They look at me funny, not because it’s a bad answer, but because it’s uncharacteristically genuine of me to say.

“No, really, I am. I’ve always wanted to live forever, but never wanted to lose what it means to actually be alive. If I were to ever consume the Immortality Waters, I wouldn’t take Energy. I like sleep. You guys get it.” They’re both immortal too, but in their own ways, and they’re still fully biological.

“That’s great,” Ellie says. She almost sounds bubbly again. It’s not that she was faking it, but she does kind of have two sides to her. When she meets someone new, she’s really outgoing and carefree, but once she learns to trust them, she’ll let a little bit of that go, and act more reserved. I hope this doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel she can trust me anymore.

“What are you two working on?” I ask them.

They look at each other, like two secret agents, who know they can’t talk about their work with their old roommate from college, who they’ve just run into in a bar.

“Whoa, sorry I asked.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s just—” Trinity closes her mouth tightly, not to keep herself from explaining, but so she doesn’t say it the wrong way.

“It’s a crazy idea.” Ellie can’t go any further either.

I look to Abigail, who shakes her head. “They won’t tell me either. It has something to do with dead people.”

“We didn’t wanna say anything until we knew we could do it.” Trinity finally feels like she’s ready to talk. “Making ourselves look insane is a lot easier now that we know it’s a real possibility. We’re just not sure about the ethics.”

“And some of the logistics,” Ellie adds.

“Come on guys, what is it? Dead people?”

Trinity gestures towards Ellie. “I’ve learned something about her ability. She can teleport people’s minds. Regular people. Of course, you can upload yourself into another body, but she can do that with anyone, or herself, with no technology.”

“We’ve figured out how to harness that, and mass produce it,” Ellie explains.

“You’re gonna use that to bring dead people back to life?” I imagine.

“Yes,” Trinity answers. “All of them.”

“All of them?”

“Literally everyone who has ever died.”

“How?”

“With these.” Ellie holds up a stack of microscope slides. “I call them synthetic central nervous neurolemmocytes. They will change everything about everyone.”

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Microstory 1423: The First Mage Games

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Later Mage Selection Games would come with better organization, and a better understanding of how to measure a competitor’s potential to become a great town mage. That didn’t mean, however, that the first one went terribly. Well, at least it could have been worse. There were some bumps, and some mistakes they wish they could take back, but in the end, it got the job done, and all the winners went on to prove to be good choices. The source mages were careful to plan it out, so things wouldn’t just fall apart. They spent a great deal of time working on coming up with appropriate challenges, because they were going to have less help with it than they did for other aspects of the new government. While the Mage Protectorate was definitely going to be a democracy, that didn’t mean everyone had to be able to express their opinion about everything. They chose not to ask the people how they wanted to handle this competition. They didn’t even consult their experts all that much. If they alone couldn’t figure out what made someone worthy of being a mage, then they were not worthy of being mages either. Besides, letting a regular person design a challenge could put the entire process in danger. If the fastest runner on the high school cross country team, for instance, suggested every town mage had to be able to run a mile in five minutes, well, that person was obviously just setting themselves up to win. The source mages were the only ones entirely ineligible to compete, so they were the only ones capable of engineering it.

The contest would last the whole day, and be composed of a series of challenges, each testing various aspects of character. They didn’t come up with a list of character traits, though, and try to match each challenge with one trait. A given challenge could allow a competitor to exhibit multiple traits, and in different ways from each other. Some of them were physical in nature, while others were academic, and some were psychological or emotional. The scoring system proved to be, by far, the most difficult component to specify. Was athleticism more important than intelligence? Maybe, maybe not. They needed experience to understand which influenced time power aptitude the most, or if neither of them mattered. They didn’t have very many examples to go on, and they didn’t want a bunch of test subjects running around with powers, who had never gone through the competition. So, without this data, their best guess seemed to be their only option. They kind of had to surrender to the fact that the second time they tried this, in twenty years, was going to be better than the first. The town had to understand this as well, that nothing was going to be perfect. Even ignoring these issues, they didn’t know if they ought to only award points to the winner, or winners, or if losers simply received fewer points. The answer was obvious to most of the mages; just because a competitor wasn’t the best, didn’t mean they weren’t good at all. Few should be so bad at something that they received zero points for their effort. Still, how many points was a challenge worth, and how would they determine the increments of scale, and how they would rate a competitor’s performance with very little in the way of comparison? Standards. How would they set a standard, and how exactly would they know when someone reached, or surpassed it, and if someone surpassed it too greatly, did that just mean they needed to reexamine the standard? All of these questions took months to answer, and even then, as previously mentioned, the system proved to be less than ideal, and more importantly, not entirely fair. So the first Mage Games actually took place over the course of two days, which were separated by a month of repreperation time. They should have known that the best way to see how well the competition would go was to do a dry-run ahead of time. Even though history would remember the Mage Protectorate as having held four games total before it fell, there were technically five, but most agreed that the first one didn’t count.