Extremus: Year 98

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It’s been well over a year, and Audrey Husk has not reached out again regarding her mandate to secretly aid Silveon in his mission to stop Waldemar Kristiansen from growing up to become a violent tyrant. As per Extenuating Circumstances Executive Time Travel Protocol, Tinaya hasn’t reached back either. While time travel is illegal on the ship, the council recognizes that there are situations where it may be necessary. It may not be safe to report such time travel activity, and under those extreme conditions, it is up to the executive crewmember to exercise caution at their own discretion. That only goes for people like Tinaya and Lataran, though. If, say, a passenger were to discover a time travel event, it would be their responsibility to report it accordingly, and they would be just as liable for any damages if caught in the lie or conspiratorial collusion.

They’ve all seen each other regularly. Audrey has maintained her cover as Silveon and Waldemar’s friend. Despite being at wildly different places in their education, they help each other out. Silveon still doesn’t know that Audrey has the mind of an adult, so she pretends to be lacking in certain areas. Silveon, despite not being able to reveal himself as also from the future, has propped himself up to be somewhat of a prodigy. This gives him a decent excuse for being more intelligent than anyone would expect him to be. More importantly, it frees him up to focus on his real work without any questions. As for Waldemar, he’s still struggling. He went the other way by pretending to be dumber than he is because he has an almost total lack of motivation, which is something that neither Silveon nor Audrey can teach him. If he’s not listening to the apparent adults, he’s certainly not going to take advice on self-discipline from a couple of kids that he believes to be younger than him. Again, Tinaya is mostly staying out of it. Her son tells her and Arqut some anecdotes about his progress, as anyone would to confide in someone they trust, but he doesn’t deliver official reports, or anything.

Since the ship is fortunate enough to have two living admirals at the moment, only one of them is asked to attend each daily meeting. That leaves the other one back at the office with nothing to do for slightly longer than on days where she’s in the meeting instead. There’s not really any strategic reason for this. The council seemingly just doesn’t want to hear too many voices in the room. These huddles are boring, annoying, and intrusive for most, so they want to get them over with as quickly as possible. The admirals switch off every other day, and today is Tinaya’s turn to not have to be there. At least that’s how she claims to feel. In reality, she would rather be there every time. She actually misses being involved, and—if she’s being honest with herself—needed. The solution may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s not. She doesn’t want anyone to know how she feels, not even Lataran. So she goes along with the so-called fair routine.

“Sir, I’ve received a request for a visit,” Thistle says from the aether.

Who could that possibly be? Everyone authorized to see her is in that meeting. “From who?”

“Another child.” Oh, God. Not another time traveler. Thistle goes on, “he’s been assigned to write on someone he admires. He’s evidently chosen you.”

That’s flattering. “Does he seem nice?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Have him meet me in the Attic Forest—no, the Central Sequoia, at the base.” Tinaya planted the tree at the bottom of the ship nearly forty years ago, and it has since grown around eleven meters, allowing it to pass through three decks at this point. She won’t live to see its full potential, so she likes to frequent it when she can to get the most out of her masterpiece.

She teleports directly there, expecting to have a little time to herself before the boy arrives, but someone is already there. At this time of day, it’s not very busy. Well, it’s never very busy here, but people are preoccupied with other things, so there’s not a whole lot of traffic going in and out, or sticking around.

A young man appears from the other side of the trunk. “Admiral Leithe, thanks for meeting me.”

“How did you get here so fast?” Tinaya looks down at the boy’s wristband, even though it’s impossible to know from here whether it’s teleportation-capable or not.

“Oh, I’m a Pathfinder,” he answers, both like it’s no big deal, and as if she should know what that means.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I don’t so much as see the future as I know where to be, and when to be there. And I know when someone’s in danger, or when their luck is about to change. Things of this nature. To me, the future is more like a haze, while for everyone else, it’s a darkness.”

“You’re a choosing one. Those are rare. They’re, like, real rare.” Back on Earth, there are people who are born with the ability to manipulate time and/or space in some way or another. There aren’t a lot of them, but they can be anyone. Some of them have full control of it, and some are being controlled by this mysterious force known as the powers that be. They’re practically nonexistent on Extremus, though. Their ancestors were wayward sons and daughters, who found themselves trapped in the universe of Ansutah with all the white monsters. A baby came out stillborn, and this tragedy erased everyone’s powers, whatever they happened to be. They say that, had this baby been healthy, he would have had the ability to control other people’s powers at will, but because of the unfortunate circumstances, his meta-power was only activated once, and could not be reversed. And it had consequences for the future. Not only were the powers stripped from everyone present, but their descendants didn’t have powers. Statistically speaking, over the course of millennia, new choosers should have been born, regardless of their lineage. It’s just something that happens every once in a while. No one really knows why time travelers exist in the first place. But there are almost none on the ship. The real question is actually, why does it ever happen? Why are there any exceptions at all? What makes this boy different?

He shrugs. “Maybe my great great great great grandparent was a space traveler who secretly snuck into the Gatewood Collective, and ended up starting a mixed bloodline of Earthans and Extremusians.”

She narrows his eyes at him. She’s getting the sense that he’s telling the truth, and genuinely doesn’t know why he’s an exception. It’s not like it’s illegal anyway. Nothing is against the law that you’re born with, though if someone made it so that you were born a certain way, that may be cause for a response. Maybe it’s just that he doesn’t care. Some people are also born apathetic, and that’s not illegal either. “Maybe...”

He offers her his hand. “Pronastus Kegrigia, secondary school student at Stern Academy.”

“Secondary school?” Tinaya questions. She looks at her watch, again stupidly. She knows the date. “I figured you were in tertiary already. Shouldn’t you be taking your assessments?” That’s one of the reasons why the corridors are so empty today.

He chuckles. “I’ve known my destiny since I was a little kid. I’m going to become the ship’s first—and if the captain has his way, not only—official Pathfinder.”

“They’re expecting you to give direction, I’m guessing when it comes to personnel assignments, and general scheduling? Any policy?”

“Not there yet. Don’t know.”

“So you’re not going to tertiary school, or what?”

“I’m on the civilian admin track. I don’t need any test, I’ve been shoehorned in.”

“Why civilian, and not crew?”

He tightens his lips.

Tinaya lifts her chin, realizing the answer to her own question. “The crew are expected to listen to a civilian voice if their superior officer commands them to. It doesn’t work the other way around. You have to remain a civilian in order to maximize your power and influence.”

“I don’t make the rules, ma’am.”

“You will.”

“I’m supposed to be asking you questions.”

“For your report. Is that in lieu of the placement tests, or did you just make that up to get to me?”

“I made it up, and my instructor approved it. I didn’t tell her that I was choosing you. I did not yet know that I would. We’re encouraged to come up with our own learning tools. I’m sure you remember.”

“It was a long time ago, son. I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”

“Why did I choose you?” He doesn’t wait for her to confirm that he guessed right. “You’ve been through the ringer. You were kicked out of the captain’s program, for no apparent reason, except I’m thinking that I’m not the first pathfinder you’ve ever met; built a forest on a spaceship; restructured multiple departments; became First Chair; abolished the Chair system in favor of a more democratic council, even though it caused you to lose your power; disappeared for many years for a secret mission, which evidently lasted longer than the time you were away; and finally, went full circle to become captain anyway, despite the initial setback, which is how you’re an admiral now.”

“That about sums it up.” He doesn’t know the part about her being a secret spy for the Bridger Section, nor the truth about Verdemus. Which is good.

“Satisfying answer?”

“Yes?”

“Would you care to ask me anything else before we continue?”

“I reserve the right to stop the interview at any time, to ask more questions of you, or because I have to pee, or because I suddenly decide to stop making noise between 09:37 and 09:42 everyday.”

He laughs. “Fair enough.”

Pronatus goes on with the interview, asking all the questions one would expect in this situation. He asks after her feelings on all the dramatic shifts in her life, and whether any of it was planned or predicted. He’s really interested in her time in the Parks Department, and how impressive it is that she came up through there, and accomplished so much, not only afterwards, but also during. Things seem to be going okay with the interview until they start to approach the end. That’s when he throws her a curveball. “One last thing. When you die...are you going to choose to live on, or just let go, and see if there’s a true afterlife?”

Tinaya is shocked by this, and thrown totally off her game. “How do you know about that?” She’s met a number of people who are aware of this secret. She herself found out when she was a rebellious kid who was good with computers. She should be an outlier, though, not a trend. There is no protocol for what to do if someone who knows meets someone else who knows, because that’s never meant to happen. She could deny, and play dumb, but he obviously knows what he’s talking about. He’s not grasping at straws. He’s heard the details.

“I told you, I’m a pathfinder.”

“You said the future was a haze. It sounds like you get clear pictures sometimes.”

“My abilities themselves didn’t give me this knowledge. They lead me to places, and sometimes in those places, I end up overhearing things that I’m not supposed to.”

“You’re an eavesdropper.”

“Not by choice. It’s...an impulse.”

“An impulse that you should learn to control.”

“I can’t. I mean, I could. I could draw upon my willpower, and ignore it, but what if it’s leading me to save someone’s life? The very fact that the path is hazy is precisely why I have to follow-through every time. I never know how important it is. Sometimes, yeah, it’s innocuous, like seeing a guy’s towel fall off in what would have otherwise been an empty corridor, but sometimes, it’s profoundly vital. I don’t know until I get there.”

She sighs. “Have you discussed this with anyone else?”

“Of course not. I don’t even know if captains know. Something told me just now that you do, or I wouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Well, maintain that policy. Don’t tell anyone. Leave it out of your report. Don’t even hint at it with colorful language. As for me? I’m obviously not going to answer that question, and even if I did, I could always change my mind, so it’s not like it would tell you where I am after death.”

“You’re right. It was a dumb question. I should have ignored that one. I had enough information to stop myself. I can do better. See, this is why I admire you? Because you’re so...good.”

She has no response for that, so she just moves past it. She stands up from the bench, and sighs. “Is that all you need from me?”

Pronastus stands up too, and folds the cover over his tablet. “Yes, I’ll try to have the first draft of my paper to you tomorrow for approval.”

“Approval? I’m meant to approve it?” She wasn’t expecting this.

“Yes, I’m not a monster, and this isn’t a hit piece.”

“Well, I appreciate that. Give yourself enough time as you need. I don’t do much as an admiral, as we’ve discussed, so I’m sure I’ll be able to read it right away, and get it back to you.”

Everything goes fine in the beginning. Pronastus takes two days to write the paper, and Tinaya is able to approve it with only a few minor grammatical corrections in three hours. She couldn’t help herself, even though it’s not technically her job. The paper’s content is fine, and she has no problem with it being submitted. It’s the instructor who decides that the three of them should not be the only ones to read it, though. She releases it to the public. And it kind of causes an uproar.

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Microstory 2427: Great Depression Dome

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Not everything on this planet has to be fun. Some of it should be a somber reflection of real life, and in this case, the inspiration is depressing. I don’t use that as a pun, but it’s a really good word to describe the nature of the source for the dome’s theme. The Great Depression was a period of worldwide economic turmoil that began in October of 1929, and continued on into the 1940s for some regions. It is defined by a global high of unemployment, institutional financial failure, and trade conflicts, among other things. I’m not here to give you a history lesson, though; that’s the dome’s job. This is a recreation of the conditions that a lot of people lived in during this time. There’s a swath of land representing the dust bowl, there’s a seemingly endless unemployment line, situated not too far from the soup kitchen line. They make excellent use of the entire area of the dome, exhibiting the various negative impacts of life on Earth in this time period. I’m glad that they put this dome here, because it happened 550 years ago. So many people alive today don’t even know what you’re talking about. There is so much to learn in your education that things fall through the cracks, and one of the biggest sacrifices we make is history. Science and math is always changing, and while it might be interesting to know how things used to be, it’s not vital. It’s more important to understand the present day concepts. History, on the other hand, never stops coming. Students today have more background to draw from than the students of yesterday, and the students of tomorrow will have even more. That is why it is so important to keep building places like this. People need to see how things were like in the past, especially in times before they were born. No one still alive right now was around to witness the Great Depression. The oldest in our population wasn’t even born yet, and that’s really sad. I don’t even know how many people can’t even grasp the very concept of a monetary-based economy. That’s where you have to start. You have to know what money is before you can comprehend what it meant to not have any of it. To not have everything you need just to survive as a living organism. Water, food, shelter. These are fundamental rights that we take for granted, but for most of human history, none of these things was guaranteed. The people who lived during the Depression understood that. I won’t lie to you, if you come here, you’re not going to “enjoy” it, but unless you’ve been studying this stuff in particular already, you are going to learn something. They do a really great job of framing the curriculum through the present-day lens, recognizing the shortcomings of conventional contemporary education, which again, must prioritize more “relevant” topics. I implore you to give it a try. Even though it’s not an adventure, and it may not be your cup of tea, it will be good for you. It would be good for everyone.

Microstory 2261: Call Her My Baby

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My license situation in this country, on this planet, has been complicated, to say the least. I do have an identity, though officially, I am not considered an alien from outer space. It doesn’t matter how many people believe me, or even if all the world leaders do, bureaucratic documentation simply does not have a box for that on any of the forms. So anyway, while I was technically certified as a driver here, I was only rated for a normal combustion engine. It required learning a lot more maintenance than I cared to know. I would much rather take it in to a professional, and have them deal with it. Mechanics has never been a strength for me, and more importantly, not an interest. Of course, electric vehicles being what they are, require a different kind of maintenance. It wasn’t easier or harder; just different. I had to go into the dealership, and take a little class, which included a written portion, and practical instruction. Then I had to take a test immediately afterwards. It was a sort of all-day affair, but they conduct these all the time, so there were about two dozen people with me. Most people were bored, because they were a lot more prepared than me, and they were more used to driving over all. I needed a refresher on operating motor vehicles anyway, since it’s been quite a while for me I think. I know I did it a little bit in Havenverse, but we mostly tried to walk or bike, since electric cars weren’t as prevalent there as we would have liked. We couldn’t afford one anyway. So that being done, I was able to finish the paperwork for my purchase, and take my new car home. You’ll notice that I did not refer to it as a she, or call her my baby. This is a machine that I need to get myself around, not a living member of the family. And it’s not just for fun. It’s a tool, to make our lives more convenient in a medium-sized city with some metropolitan sprawl. After Kelly and Dutch take their own classes, they’ll be able to use it too.

Microstory 2208: Steep Physical Decline

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Weird and unexpected news today. Do you remember that high school student that I worked with at the nursery? Well, after she graduated, she went straight into an intensive program to become a lifecare assistant. It’s a lot more socially acceptable on your world to forgo a college degree, instead focusing on training for more specific fields of study or work. The reason it works here is because of how careful and methodical you are with your children’s skills, and learning schedule. You see, where I’m from, every student from before first grade to when they become an adult is expected to learn pretty much all the same things. You do that too, but you don’t take it quite as far. By the time a kid is fourteen years old, you should have a pretty decent idea of where their strengths lie, and instead of forcing them to struggle and struggle through the topics that they have a harder time with, you encourage them to concentrate on what they’re probably going to do with the rest of your life. Sure, you hear a few stories here and there on my planet of someone ultimately becoming a brilliant scientist after failing chemistry class, but really, how often does that happen? Anyway, I don’t have to tell you people this, you obviously already understand. My former co-worker has now become my lifecare assistant. It wasn’t even planned that way, it’s just a coincidence. I’m her first patient since she aced the final exam. She’s going to live with me in my extra bedroom. Due to my steep physical decline, while I don’t need a whole lot of help yet, the doctors believe that it’s only a matter of time. By the end of this, she’s going to be doing pretty much everything for me, including the gross and awkward stuff that no one wants to need help with. It’s a little embarrassing, yes, but I can handle it. She’s a highly trained professional, and I still prefer to be treated by a woman. I’ve always been like that. Sexist or not, it’s the way I am. I see no reason to request a new assistant either way. Be prepared for the next installment in which things get incredibly depressing and sad.

Microstory 2188: Trust in Other People

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Thank you for being patient with me yesterday. How easy it is for us to forget the lessons of our youth. I’ve been trying to take on too much work for one person, and it’s had a negative impact on my well-being so I need to learn to lean on others. Or rather, I need to relearn it, because I already figured it out during college. I was taking a class in the linguistics department called Semantics, but I wasn’t working very hard at it. I didn’t go to class unless a classmate was presenting—because I wanted to show them respect—or if there was a test. I was at a high risk of failing when I discovered that some of my classmates were regularly meeting for a study group. I’ve joked that the TV series Community was probably based on them. Lol, you don’t know what I’m talking about, but that would be really funny if it were true. I wouldn’t know, because I never attended the meetings. I wasn’t invited. They did let me use the study guide that they had curated for the open note exam at the end of the semester. I aced that test, and passed the class with a C. I didn’t learn much about semantics, but I did learn everything I needed to know about humanity. I learned to trust in other people’s expertise, and their efforts. People are basically good, and they’re just trying to do the right thing, so don’t assume the worst in them, or try to take advantage. Share knowledge, and help when you can. You never know when a friend will come in handy. I won’t ever forget that again.

Microstory 2149: A Million of Anything

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As you might have deduced from the title, I’ve reached one million readers. Is that right? Is it deduce, or is it induce? I’ve heard that deduction comes from removing all wrong answers, but that’s probably wrong, and I really don’t know what induction is. Here’s the thing, I have a pretty decent vocabulary, but there are still some concepts that I struggle with. I’m also very logical, but I’ve also always particularly struggled with explaining my logic through accepted standardized terms, like straw man or if and then. I can tell you my logic, but I’m not going to sound very smart while I do it, and I’ll stumble over all of my words on my way there. In seventh grade, I was failing English class. We were on a topic called Greek and Latin Roots and Stems. I was paying so little attention that I didn’t even know what that meant. I’m sure I was daydreaming a lot. I didn’t crack open my workbook once, and in fact, would just leave it in my locker. We had a test the next day so I actually had to call a classmate, who gave me hers to photocopy. It was kind of late at night, and really weird, and humiliating, and my dad was angry with me for it, because like I said, it was twelve or thirteen, so he had to help me with everything. So anyway, I got the workbook, and started looking through it, and I’m like, “this? This is what my teacher has been talking about? I know all this. It says that -ing means continuous action, because of course it does. This is why my teacher called my parents, and got me in trouble?” Needless to say, now that I understood what I was missing, I aced the test, and ended up with one of the highest grades of all classes combined. So I’m pretty good at language.

Still, it’s still not clear to me how you induce something, at least not in any practical sense, and my definition of deduction may come from my strong sense of linguistic morphology, not from how the word is actually used in this subject. I remember intuiting that the word division meant separating objects in half when I was a toddler, which misses the fact that it’s not always by half specifically. Why am I talking about this? Oh yeah, a million readers. A million people read my stories now. Well, a million unique IP addresses access my website on a regular basis. I think it goes by the month, but it’s the middle of May now, so is that based on April’s metrics, or is it just from thirty days ago to now? I’m not entirely sure how to read this section of the blog service. Whatever, I’ll take it, I trust the analytics. For years, this is what I wanted, for people to read my stuff, and to keep coming back for more. I’ve never been great at non-fiction, so I didn’t think it would turn out like this, but I guess I didn’t think I would travel to a different world either. Or different worlds, as it were. I wonder how many readers I would be able to get if people in all of the universes that I’ve been to could navigate to the site as well. That would be a lofty goal, and I should really just be focusing on what’s here and now. Thank you. Thank you for reading. I’m sure my alternate self on my homeworld is super envious of me right now. Oh yeah, he’s pissed. I can feel it. His readership still sits at approximately zero. He would take a million of anything if it also meant a million readers, even slaps in the face. I’m not going to celebrate this milestone, because I have a binge eating disorder, which is triggered by the mentality that positive events should be marked with food, but I’m glad anyway. Let’s see how long it takes to get to two million, and then after that, I think the next one should be five billion?

Microstory 2099: That Slacking Pays Off

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Like I said in the last post, I moved around a lot as a kid, as well as into adulthood, and it had an effect on my schooling. For kindergarten, my parents sent me to a hospital academy in Springfield, Missouri. They had some sort of connection to someone there, but as I was so young, I don’t know much about what it was all about, nor whether it was any better than a regular public school. I ended up moving on to that public school the next year, though, for first and second grade. We moved to Lawrence, Kansas before third grade, so I attended a school where we would walk through a tunnel underneath the street, which is not all that common in Kansas, since we tend to have more space. We moved to Overland Park a year later, so I switched schools yet again. Then for fifth grade, they built a brand new school in the district, and I was zoned there, while most of my peers were not. Notice how I said peers instead of friends. The last person I could confidently call my friend was in Springfield, and he grew up to become a republican, so that relationship was doomed to fail eventually. Anyway, most of the kids in my fifth grade class went to the middle school right next to it, but they rezoned the district again, and I ended up going to the middle school that was generally fed into from the elementary school that I went to for fourth grade, which placed me back with all the kids I thought I would never see again, and in many cases, hoped I wouldn’t. Funny enough, three years later, they built a brand new high school, and most of the kids from my middle school didn’t go there with me. I actually think we technically lived closer to the older high school, but somebody was apparently gerrymandering the school district. I guess it can happen in all levels of government, eh?

After I graduated from grade school, I took a gap year. I didn’t call it that; I doubt I even knew that that was a thing that some people did. My parents didn’t think that I was ready for college, and they were probably right. We didn’t know at the time that I had a diagnosable learning disability, which led to a lack of skills in maturity and socialization, which teachers don’t get paid enough to focus on, especially not since their funding is often dependent upon their students’ standardized test performance. Instead of continuing my education right away, I flew to California, where I volunteered on a farm. The greater organization provided livestock to developing regions of the world, and this particular location was designed to promote awareness of their mission, and educate visitors. My autism bit me in the ass when I was having trouble getting along with the other volunteers, so they kicked me out. I won’t tell you what the organization is called, but they made up these lies about how lazy I was, and how I didn’t do any work, which anyone could see were lies, because they kept changing their reasons. So they’re assholes, and I hate them. I’m the type to hold a grudge, and the only reason I don’t hold more of them is because I have a terrible memory. But I remember this traumatic experience. I’ll never forget how they treated me, and I’ll never support them again. It turned out to be a blessing, though, because Hurricane Katrina destroyed the gulf states soon thereafter, and I decided to take classes with the American Red Cross, and fly down there right away. That’s why I’ve been to Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. I went home after one round, developed my first staph infection, got it cleared up, and then went back, this time being assigned to Florida, so I finished out the southern row.

After that second stint with the Red Cross was done, I enrolled at my junior college for a few classes, only one of which ultimately transferred properly to my four-year school, which I started the following summer. It’s annoying, really. When you do the math, I am quite certain that I could have graduated from college in three years, extremely plausibly in two. I kept taking summer classes, and took a full load for each term, plus I failed out an entire semester, plus several other classes after that. If everything had gone well, I’m really sure it could have taken me less than three years, I just had too many credits when considering how much I had from dual enrollment during my high school career. I failed too many courses, yet still made it in four years, for that not to be true. If I could go back in time, I would have graduated by the time I turned 21, I’m sure of it. In the real timeline, I graduated in 2010 with a degree in Linguistics, barely eking by with the minimal requirements. For the final semester, I was taking a geography class, because I thought it would be fun, but it turned out to be too technical, so I dropped it, and switched what I thought would be an extra linguistics credit. I literally signed the paper on the very last day allowed, and had to take a test with everyone else on my first day of the new class. I aced it, by the way, even though I had zero time to so much as open the book, so don’t act like you’re not impressed. A few weeks later, I was talking to my advisor when I learned that I needed an A in one of my linguistics classes and a B in the other in order to make the minimum GPA for graduation. If I had not switched classes at the last minute, that would have meant an entire extra term there. Thank God Geography 101 was so boring.

I didn’t learn a whole hell of a lot in school, if I’m being honest. I know that people will argue that I’ve retained more than I realize, but I dunno. I did a lot more studying in the decade afterwards than I did in the four years I was there. I did learn a valuable lesson once. In one of my linguistics classes, I was notoriously absent. I only showed up for tests, and other students’ presentations, because I wanted to be respectful. I didn’t do well on the assignments, and only kept myself afloat with my superior writing skills. That’s a bonus lesson that I learned; that teachers’ standards for writing had to be so low that I could get an A on a paper even if I phoned it in. Give me enough time to craft my words, and I could probably figure out a way to convince you that liquid water was dry. But that’s not the lesson I learned in this class; I already knew that I was a writer by then. No, what I learned there was far more valuable, because it applies to everyone. The other students were more interested and focused, so they formed a study group that I was not a part of. I would like to think that they would get up to entertaining shenanigans like the characters on the show Community, but I will never know. Still, I benefited from their hard work. The final exam was an open notes test, and someone in the study group let me have a copy of their study sheet. I can’t remember how well I did, but it was well enough to pass the class, when really, it should have been another failure. So what did that teach me, that slacking pays off? No. It taught me to trust and believe in others, and to accept help when it’s needed. I don’t have to do everything all on my own, and I shouldn’t want to. Humans are a tribal species, and community—there’s that word again—is the only reason we have managed to advance to the point of dominating this planet. So instead of ignoring people, or dismissing them, try to listen, surrender to their expertise when warranted, and let’s all work together to build a better tomorrow. No one gets through this life alone, and it would suck if they had to.

Oh, PS, I took a few more classes over the years after getting my degree, but we’ll talk more about that in the next post, because I signed up for some of them in the pursuit of figuring out what I could do for a living.

Microstory 2092: I’m Finally Back Home

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I’m profoundly tired today, as I’ve been for the last week. Or rather, I guess I’ve been tired for weeks, haven’t I, because of the parasite? It’s been taking a lot of energy from me, which should have been my first indication that something was wrong, even if I really did believe that I was an alien from another universe. I can’t eat enough, and I can’t sleep enough. Today is different, though. I’ve been released from the hospital specifically because the parasite has been vanquished, but it was just a hard day, so all of those kinds of symptoms are still around, just now for different reasons. Before I could be released, I had to meet with all sorts of people; I can’t even name them all. Doctors, nurses, a patient advocate (who was more advocating for the hospital). The pharmacist came upstairs to tell me how the drugs that they had prescribed me worked, so that was nice of her. At some point, a class of med students showed up, but they didn’t spend very much time with me, since it was my last day. Not everyone who came in was good. Two lawyers snuck into my room in case I wanted to sue my boss. I’m not entirely sure how they found out about what happened, but I don’t appreciate my private story being—oh, wait, I’m the one who told them, aren’t I? I’ve been telling my story this whole time on this blog, inviting all sorts of characters to come into my life, and give me their two cents. That’s okay, I could sure use the money, right? Anyway, I’m finally back home, and about to go to bed. I have to set my alarm every hour and a half to take my medicine. It’s going to be hard to get real sleep, but as I’ve already said, I don’t have to go back into work anymore, so I guess I’ll just stay here until I end up with a total of eight hours.

Microstory 2076: About My Weaknesses

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Obviously, since it’s winter, most of the work we do at the nursery has been in the greenhouses, but that’s not all we can do. Apparently, since there are fewer customers, we’ll be spending a lot of time cleaning, and doing inventory. When I first started, the weather was unseasonably warm, so I was able to get a taste of what it’s like in the spring, but now that the temperature is dropping again, things have started to slow down, at least in terms of customer service. Like I said, there’s plenty to do, but it’s not as stressful, because there’s not as much of a timing issue. Soon enough, our busiest time of year will begin, and I’m getting anxious about it. They do a lot of workshops here, to teach the public about how to care for plants, and which ones to choose for their needs or wants. I can learn all I want about the industry, but I’ll never be good at teaching others about it. I come from a family of teachers, including my paternal grandparents, my aunt, my father, and my sister. I was not born with that gene. I just don’t explain things well, and I have such a shoddy memory that I forget whether I’ve said something already. More often than not, though, that doesn’t result in me repeating myself. I end up skipping crucial information instead because I think I’ve already said it. Then the whole thing just doesn’t make any sense. I was clear with the boss about my weaknesses, though, so I think they’re just going to keep me away from the students. At least I hope that I was clear. Maybe I skipped over crucial information. And anyway, we don’t have to worry about that quite yet. We’re still in the winter slowdown. Peace out!

Microstory 2006: Idaho

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All of us go to a middle school that starts at 6th grade, and ends in 8th grade. Before that, we were in elementary school, and after this, we’ll go to high school. That’s not how it is everywhere, though. When my papa was thirteen, his mother got a call from a school district in Idaho Falls, which is in Idaho, of course. When he was three, she started working as a teacher at a junior high, which is only 7th and 8th grades. She went to college to learn how to be a teacher, but after she had kids, she decided to stay home with them, and never actually got to be a teacher yet. In 1986, she had been doing it for ten years when they were in the middle of building a brand new school in Idaho. They asked her to be the principal of it, but it was not like the one where she was already. This school had all the grades in the same place. Kindergartners and 12th graders all went to the same really, really big building. I’m sure they had special reasons for doing it like that, but I don’t know what they are. I think the school is still there. As I was saying, papa’s mother moved the whole family there so she could be principal. She was making a lot of money from doing that. My dad says that 40,000 would be more than 100,000 in today’s dollars. I don’t understand why it’s different, but it sounds like a lot. Papa’s father had to quit his really good paying job when they moved to Idaho, but since he was the boss in Wyoming, he was able to get a really good new job in Idaho doing pretty much the same thing. This is where they lived for many years.

Extremus: Year 54

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He bows his head, and walks the other way.

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

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

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

“Ah, they’re here.”

“What?” Omega asks.

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

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

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

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

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

“Gofer! Gofer!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tinaya and Lataran exchange a look. Hats?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Extremus: Year 53

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Correct,” Avelino agrees.

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

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

“Spycraft?” Tinaya guesses.

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

“It’s called intelligence.”

He chuckles softly.

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

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

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

Avelino frowns now. “It will be.”

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

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

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

“You’ll have to defer.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What a nutsack.”

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

“I wanna talk to him.”

“Him who?” Avelino asks.

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

Avelino sighs.

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

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

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

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

“You’ll see,” Tinaya tells her.

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

Tinaya gently closes her eyelids, and nods.

“Very well. Follow me.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is that wise? Is it safe?”

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

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