Microstory 2731: The Choices We Make

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Pribadium!Two offered to explain to Sora what happened to his alternate self, but he decided that he didn’t want to hear it, at least not right now. They all three split apart, and went to their separate corners. They need to decompress from everything going on, and process all the new information. If they miss their window to create a mobile pocket universe, then so be it. It was never going to be an instantaneous endeavor, and it’s prudent to wait a bit anyway. This is a huge undertaking, which will have massive ramifications in this universe, and who knows how many others?

Pribadium!One is lying in her equilibrium chamber now, thinking about Sora. When they first met, he was a clear opponent. She was trying to get him to calm down and see reason, but she never thought she would feel bad for him like this. The story he told about his crush on Proxima Doma was heartbreaking. She teased him with the chance to get some closure, and then about immediately took it away from him. It wasn’t fair, and she’s going to have to figure out a way to apologize for it, besides simply literally saying the words. He obviously needs some space right now, though.

A door alert. It’s Sora. When she commands the AI to open the door, he walks in. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were sleeping. I can come back later.”

“No, it’s okay.” Pribadium!One stands up and hangs there mid-air.

His eyes widen. “How are you doing that? I thought antigravity was impossible.”

She lowers her legs one by one like she is climbing down a ladder, towards what’s considered down. “It’s not really antigravity, per se. Though, I suppose we could make that happen too if I figure out how to contain quintessence. I have some friends who built a machine that uses it, but it was awkward between us, so I never got the chance to study it in depth. Anyway, no, this is an equilibrium chamber. Another friend of mine developed it, and now they use it extensively on Varkas Reflex. People stay in simulated environments for years on end. This perfectly distributes the pressure on your body, so you don’t suffer the negative health effects of extended immobility.”

Sora stares at the apparatus, curious enough, but obviously not really thinking about it. Their goals are unaligned, and one of them might have to relent one day.

It’s not just about him, though. He’s not the only person they have to worry about. Thousands of colonists who just so happened to be on this side of the host star have the right to decide what to do with their own lives too. She’s just glad that most people escaped the bubble. She placed her lab away from the activity even though it placed her in the line of fire of the upcoming obliteration blast, because she knows exactly when it will arrive, and has ways of avoiding it. Now that doesn’t matter anymore. “Did you want to talk about something?” she asks as she’s stepping out.

“I don’t need to talk to Elke,” he answers. “Before you say anything, I realized that she made her choice. Whatever her reasons, I wasn’t worth sticking around for. We knew each other for years. Her suicide took years, but she never gave up. If she survived it—if she didn’t end up killing herself again on the other side, then that still has nothing to do with me. It never did. So you two go ahead and do whatever you need to do with the weird universe thing. I’m not much help, but I’ll be here. I’ll support you.”

“This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with what she said about us?”

“About how we were together in another timeline? No. This is my choice.”

“Okay,” Pribadium!One says. “I’ll speak to my alternate self in the morning.”

Microstory 2727: False Convictions

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Sora stares at Pribadium for a moment. “We can’t use your machine to go back in time to stop the Teaguardians from destroying the world, but we can do it to visit my dead friend?” He shakes his head at the apparent contradiction.

“We don’t need a time machine for that,” Pribadium!One notes. “Do you remember how she was talking about other universes; how ours crashed into another?”

“Yes,” Sora confirms.

“I don’t know what universe that would have been,” Pribadium!One begins, “but it’s not the only one—not by a long shot. In fact, a couple of them are our siblings. One of these universes, which are known as branes, was named Fort Underhill. Its, uhh...” She hesitates. She’s not really supposed to talk about this stuff to the humans. That’s an antiquated word, but it just refers to people who don’t know about things like temporal manipulation or psychic abilities. But that ship has sailed, so she might as well go for it. “Fort Underhill is where you go when you die. Actually, you go to a virtual simulation first, but at some point, you get moved to the other brane, which is in base reality.”

Sora stares at her again, narrowing his eyes. “Who goes to this place when they die? Your mind? Immortals like Tertius Valerias and Aeterna Valeria?”

“No, everybody,” Pribadium!One clarifies. She sighs. “You may think you’re undigitized, but you’re not. You were born this way. I can’t explain the biology, I never got much into it, but it’s part of how humans are. We’ve been this way for millennia.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “No! No, it’s not true. If humans have always been digitized, we would know. We would have to.”

“I think we kind of did,” Pribadium!One says. “I don’t know how well you know your history, but when researchers were first trying to figure out how to do it, they made a quantum leap in progress. It was the most apropos use of that term ever. It was when they proved that consciousness existed in the quantum realm, and I think this is why.”

Sora stands, and starts to pace out of frustration. “So my convictions—my refusal to become like all of you—they mean nothing? I can’t die anyway? Elke isn’t dead?”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” she explains. “That was some time ago, and I believe there is a way to die for good in Fort Underhill, but that would be a choice.”

“Yet you have some unique way of contacting the dead?” Sora scoffs.

“I know people in high places.” She’s friends with the people who are responsible for it, but she has never told them that she found a way to access it. She kind of thought they might find out eventually, and when time travel is involved, eventually is synonymous with always. They have never brought it up, though she has had to use it on occasion. There was one time where a man from Castlebourne asked her to reunite an undigitized friend of his with her dead parents. They evidently gave her advice, and now that woman is an immortal flying superhero. So she doesn’t take this for granted.

“It won’t work,” Pribadium!Two says. She’s opening the medical pod, and slowly making her way out of it. “As I told you, this is a parallel reality. Your interversal communicator was calibrated to the main sequence.”

“Good point,” Pribadium!One says. “That would prove if you’re telling the truth.”

“If?” Pribadium!Two questions. “I definitely am.”

“Well, we’ll see about that.” Pribadium!One walks over to the communicator.

Pribadium!Two violently grabs her wrist. “If you try, I’ll have to kill you.”

Microstory 2726: Calm, Patient, and Empathetic

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The alternate version of Pribadium was exhausted, dirty, and hurt. She never got a chance to explain exactly what she went through, and how she came to be in this reality. The Pribadium from this reality put her in a medical pod to recuperate. While she fell asleep, it cleaned her up, treated her injuries, and kept her relaxed.

Pribadium!One has been sitting next to her for the last hour, thinking about what happened. Concurrent realities can exist. That’s how it worked when there were five parallels, before most were destroyed in 2400. But that’s just it—still no one seems to know what caused them to collapse. Keeping this one may prove to be a real problem.

“Can she hear us?” Sora asks in a whisper, sitting down next to Pribadium!One.

“No,” Pribadium!One explains. She eyes him curiously. “You’re a befuddling man, Mr. Shimizu. When we first met, I would have been in the right to call you an asshole, but now you’re calm, patient, and dare I say, empathetic. What changed?”

“Nothing changed; not really,” he says. “I get this way when I’m tired. I’m always so antsy and anxious, but I eventually run out of energy, so I kind of shut down. Plus, you remind me of someone I once knew.” He points to Pribadium!Two. “She reminds me of her even more, with her tattered clothes and worn face. No offense.”

“None taken. She’ll recover.” She pauses. “Have you tried always being nice?”

“Well, sure. When something makes me angry, I try to let it go. I’ve tried everything, short of medical intervention, which I don’t want to do. There was a span of a few years where I intentionally kept myself fatigued so I would be more likeable. I was told it wasn’t healthy for me, so it’s just a trade off. I can be nice or alert, but not both.”

“Is it the woman you wear that scarf for?” she asks. “Is that who the other Pribadium reminds you of, and who told you to be more healthy?”

Sora smiles. “You caught me. I don’t like to talk about it, because it’s...”

“You can be honest,” Pribadium!One encourages. “You can be vulnerable.”

“It was unrequited. I was in love with her, but not she with me. A lot of us Proxima Domanians, you know, are mortals. Organic, undigitized, and bound for death. Many think that it’s crazy. If you could live forever, why wouldn’t you want to? I was probably going to make the transition eventually, but I guess I wanted to test myself first. Our ancestors never had that choice. You lived, you died; that was it. I wanted to see if I could make it, and if I didn’t, then maybe I didn’t deserve it. But anyway, since I grew up with people more like me, that’s mostly all I knew. Until she moved in. I was in my twenties, and so was she...or at least that’s what I thought. I think she was 428 years old the last time I saw her. It made me angry. She looked like a peer, but she saw me as a child. No, she saw me as an ant. But, ya know, one of those friendly ants who you can hang out with. That is what we did, and I fell in love with her a little more every day.”

“What happened to her?” Pribadium!One asks. “You act like she died, but...”

“She did. That stream-blocking tech I used on you? It was hers. She came up with it herself. I didn’t know why until it was too late. Before we met, she systematically murdered every single one of her clones. She was on Doma to kill herself. She spent all that time, secretly under the signal jammer, so even if she was backed up somewhere, it would have been woefully out of date. Then one day, after years of watching me pine after her, she kissed me, went into the bathroom, and slit her wrists.”

Pribadium!One nods and sighs respectfully. “Do you want to see her again?”

Extremus: Year 136

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Sable finally feels like she’s in the club. She thought she had pretty much all of the pieces of the puzzle, but she had no idea how much she was missing. Now it all makes sense; why Silveon and Audrey act and acted the way they do and did, the kind of relationship Admiral Leithe had with Waldemar. She knows that she still doesn’t know everything. There would be too much to learn about the first timeline, and she doesn’t need it anyway. She knows what Waldemar is like now, and she can act on it.

She has decided to marry him. She knows that Audrey already tried that, but that was apparently more to protect innocent women from falling into his orbit. That was noble, but that’s not a problem anymore. Waldemar has gotten what he needed by being a family man. Good or bad, he maintains his popularity on his own merits. It sounds like Audrey was simply too passive. She evidently tried to coddle Waldemar, and long-con him into thinking that everything she wanted him to do was his idea. It seems to have helped, but it was clearly not enough. Sable has an advantage. She has real power, and she is willing to use it. It will have to wait, though. She is spending time with her mom.

The doorbell rings, which is weird, because it doesn’t normally do that at this time. In fact, it never has at all. She must have made some minor change to reality without realizing it. She is so focused on reliving these moments that she doesn’t always pay attention to the butterfly effect. She doesn’t bother with the camera. She just instructs the AI to open the door, only to find a complete stranger on the other side of it.

“Miss Keen.” The middle-aged woman walks in. “How are you doing?”

“I’m just watching my mother...wither away,” Sable replies. “Who are you?”

The stranger nods. “A fellow traveler. The difference is, I can’t control it. I’m here to ask you to move forward. I know it’s hard, which is why I’ve given you your space, but girl...it’s been months. This isn’t healthy. Now, I don’t want you to hurt me because I say that. I just want you to ask yourself whether she would want you to keep reliving this day over and over again, or live your life. I’m sincerely asking. I never met her.”

Sable frowns and looks down at her mom. This is the part of the day where she’s still alive, but has become unresponsive, so the conversation is over. She doesn’t know if Lataran can hear her, but she usually keeps talking anyway, even though no matter what, Lataran won’t remember it when time resets. She looks back at the woman. “How did you hijack my rewind? No one should remember the groundhog repeats.”

“I didn’t hijack anything. I’m a choosing one, like you. It’s just something that happens to me. I remember all timelines. As I was saying, you’re in control here. ”

Sable doesn’t say anything. She just sighs and looks back at her mom.

“They made a movie about this. Not the one you’re thinking of; it more closely resembles what you’re actually doing, but unlike that character, you can turn it off whenever you want, and...every time you refuse, you die.”

“That’s how this power works. I can only rewind upon death.”

“I know,” the woman says. “That wasn’t hard to parse. I have witnessed many of your suicides. You like to do them public so you can see the looks on people’s faces. That is not healthy either.” She holds out her hand as if Sable is meant to take it. “Come on. Let’s enjoy a nice walk in the Attic Forest, and wait for tomorrow to come.”

Sable stares at the intruder’s hand. “What happens if I kill you instead?”

“I wouldn’t know. I try to stay alive, as I always have,” she replies.

Sable stands, and steps forward menacingly. “I do like to learn new things.” She pulls out her knife. “Hold still. I’ll make it quick.”

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Microstory 2703: Miscommunication by Evasion

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Ronan cries foul. He doesn’t care about the rules. He doesn’t care if this is a separate issue entirely. When he first exited the Nordome Network to deal with this Talus problem, he looked Mayumi up. They have a protocol for this. She has a contact card. He should have been able to get a hold of her. He’s been too wrapped up in the trial that he hasn’t worked too terribly hard, and he certainly didn’t file a restraining order, but if she had entered another simulation, she should have left a message for him. That was what they agreed upon, and she knew that. She obviously didn’t die permanently, or something, or she wouldn’t be here now. He demands that she tell him where she’s been, and why she didn’t make sure to leave a trail for him.

“I wanted out,” Mayumi explained. “I never wanted the Norse experience as much as you did, and honestly, I was sick of us.”

“You could have just talked to me,” Ronan reasons.

“I couldn’t. I tried. Not in so many words, but I did try to work on us, and you just kept pretending that everything was fine. That just made it worse.”

“So, what, you killed yourself? Or did you just capitalize on the opportunity.”

“I installed a suicide inducer,” Mayumi explains. “I just jumped to a new body.”

“That’s enough,” the court agent says. “We’ll let the adjudicator decide what happens here. She’ll know if any of this is relevant, or if they need to change anything.”

They spoke with the adjudicator. As it turned out, Mayumi was indeed rather difficult to find, even for Castlebourne. Smartdust only gets you so far, and it’s possible to hide out in certain dark corners, if only for a little while. The judge is very interested in understanding what Mayumi did, and only grows more interested when Mayumi is rather evasive about it. She abandoned her child, which the adjudicator sort of knew already, but what she didn’t know was that Ronan was not cognizant of her whereabouts, or her apparent attempt to hide. “Where were you?” she pressed.

“I was home,” Mayumi finally clarifies. “I was in my new home. We were in the outer lands, in a small dome which my new husband built for us.” This planet is inhospitable, except in the domes, and the outer lands refers to any space outside of those. You can’t just go and build your own dome, though. When the adjudicator points that out, Mayumi continues to evade, until she finally lets slip, “Talus has experience working with diamond. It’s really not that hard, as long as you find a place. We’re not the only ones.”

The adjudicator is shocked by this. The trial will have to be placed on hold while they run this new investigation.

Ronan doesn’t care about that. This is personal. If the simulation that Ronan is trying to get back to were real, he would have the right to kill the lover, and divorce and disgrace his wife. Is that why she lied, because he’s so fixated on the culture that she thought he would exact revenge? He’s more enlightened than that. He went under the dome for the experience, not because he genuinely wishes he had been born a thousand years ago. There are some lines that he won’t cross, game or no—backup substrates or no. He also straight up doesn’t feel the same way about infidelity as his character might. He doesn’t want to be with anyone who doesn’t want to be with him. All she had to do was be honest, about the whole damn thing. What an idiot. What an absolute incomparable moron. How did he ever see anything in her, and why did he waste so much time keeping them together?

He takes a deep breath, and focuses on Gia, and his whole real family. Vith and Isavet need him, so he needs to leave. But wait. If she’s been with Talus the whole time...who has he been raising for the better part of a decade?

Microstory 2694: Little Cheater

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Ronan is distraught and overwhelmed. He has two kids to take care of now, and he’s all alone. Vith is old enough to help, but not old enough to be a true partner. He’s not breaking character. He’s supposed to be a child, so that’s how he’s acting. Ronan commends him for the commitment, and appreciates it. That’s what he would do in his situation. That is what he’s doing, in his own way. Mayumi was supposed to be here. She wasn’t supposed to die. She certainly wasn’t supposed to die after less than a year. But that’s how real life works, so she has stayed away in order for the simulation to feel more real. That’s what they agreed to do, and she’s not a liar.

They actually talked about it at length. They made a pact before all of this that if one of them died, the other would continue on in the simulation. It was only a hypothetical at that point, but he wants to honor her by following through with it. It’s probably why she never came back. It would not make sense for him to leave, and have her be upset that he broke her trust. They have been together for centuries. A few decades will be hard, but in the real world, there’s no escape. If someone you love dies, you either end your own life, or try to move on. Suicide is not an honorable death, and would harm her memory. It wasn’t worth it. They would see each other again.

Hopefully she was having fun in their second choice dome. Dome for Pioneers doesn’t have the same cultural adventure that they were looking forward to, and it didn’t sound like it would be quite as immersive, but they thought about visiting. They considered going there first to dip their toes in the water, so to speak. In the end, they decided to jump into the deep end head first, and this is what it has cost them. Ronan is struggling to feed his boys. His only saving grace is that a few months ago, they found two baby goats, and had the good sense to keep them both alive, even though it meant taking food out of their own mouths. Now, though, the mama goat has kids, and the daddy has become worth more dead. They needed her milk, and his horn and meat.

He slaughtered the father earlier, and cut off its horn. Then he stole some milk away from the kids, and filled the horn so he could use it to feed his human baby. Once little Talus was happy for the next hour, he went to work on preparing the goat meat. He was going to cook some of it, then smoke the rest so they could save it for later. This was always part of the plan. They had hoped to wait until they could have at least one more litter to keep the bloodline going, but that is tomorrow’s problem. He slices into the animal, and hits something hard. It doesn’t feel like bone. It clinks like metal. He pulls the flesh apart, and is horrified at what he finds.

“What is that?” Vith asks.

“That, son, is a robo-goat. I was not aware.” Ronan looks up and breathes. “I suppose some of the laws here do resemble what they have in the Core. They don’t kill to eat anymore. This is all part of the simulation.” He looks outside. “Those kid goats are never gonna grow. They never have grown since they were born. They are simply being systematically replaced every once in a while. Which means...” He trails off.

“What does it mean, father?” Vith presses.

“The milk has to be resupplied at some point. It certainly doesn’t get it from the vegetation we feed it. We can keep all the food for ourselves, instead of giving it to the goats. All of the milk can go to Talus.” Is that cheating?

It apparently is cheating. It doesn’t work. They run out of milk.

Microstory 2690: Forbidden Science

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Ronan Truett sits on the exam table, wearing what he calls a gasmask, but the doctor called it something else. It is quite literally freezing cold on his face, but he doesn’t mind it. It isn’t going to be the hardest thing he will ever do over the course of the next few decades. After the twenty minutes are up, the doctor comes back and removes it. “How does it look?” he asks.

“Good. How does it feel?” the doctor volleys.

Ronan rubs the new beard on his chin. “Like a thousand tiny cuts.”

The doctor dismisses it with his facial expression. “That’ll go away in a few minutes. Would you like me to hot press and discolor it? I can make it unkempt and wild, so you look more rough and tumble.”

“Actually, historical Norsemen were quite well-groomed. A long and well-styled beard was the sign of a masculine and respectable man back then. Pay no attention to the inaccurate old movies you may have seen. They didn’t wear horned helmets either, if that’s what you’re picturing.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about it.”

“It’s not in your internal database? Can you access the central archives remotely?” Ronan presses.

The doctor chuckles. “My brain doesn’t do that. I’m not an android, but one of those virtually immortal organics. I change substrates when I need to, like you, but I don’t have cybernetic connections.”

Ronan is surprised and impressed.

The doctor seems to sense this. “I just like medicine, so they let me do the simpler procedures, like your hair follicle stimulation. I wouldn’t be allowed to conduct any major surgeries. Castlebourne follows the same laws that Earth does in that regard.”

“I see,” Ronan says as he’s admiring his new appearance in the mirror. He’s never been one for facial hair, but he’s about to become a Norseman, so he wanted to look the part, and really immerse himself in the simulation. He’s not the only one. “So that’s why you’re not doing the foetal consciousness transfer for my wife.”

This gives the doctor pause. “I’m sorry? Foetal?”

“Oh, she’s not going to transfer herself to a foetus. She’s going to carry the foetus, and have the baby in the simulation.”

The doctor is still confused by this, and also now speechless.

“I assure you, it’s perfectly legal. We’re well within the Charter Cloud—”

“I’m aware of how the law works on this planet, Mister Truett. I’ve probably lived here longer than you. I know that foetal transference is possible, and I’m not surprised it’s legal. I’m surprised anyone would actually ever do it. There’s a reason it is illegal in the Core Worlds. We don’t know what it would do to a person, regressing to a prenatal state, or even early developmental, with all that neuroplasticity. What impact does that have on a person’s psyche, when their brains rewire themselves so drastically? Can you even have a continuity of consciousness when you let that happen? Is it not just an elaborate form of death? Suicide, that is?”

“Well, we’ll see,” Ronan says as he’s putting his shirt back on. He needed a little chest hair too. That is designed to take longer, which is fine. “My friend has fully consented to it.”

“He’s your friend?” the doctor questions. “I’m not sure if it’s weirder that he’s not your wife’s biological son already, or if it would be more awkward if he were.”

“Pretty judgy for a medical professional. A bot doctor would never say that.”

He shrugs. “You could have designed a substrate to develop facial and body hair during the gestation process, but you chose to come to me. Most people like my blunt attitude, specifically because they can’t get it from a bot doctor, unless it’s their personal model. But you’re right, I’ll zip my mouth. There’s the door, have a good immersion.”

Ronan leaves the exam room, and heads down to the other floor where his wife and friend are sitting up next to each other in their respective gurneys.

“Oh, you look great,” Mayumi reaches up towards his face with a dumb look on her own. “Fluffy.” She actually looks and sounds intoxicated. Her gown is on backwards.

“She’s on drugs for the implantation procedure,” their friend and future son, Talus explains. “I am not. I have to be sharp before I become a baby again.”

Mayumi smiles over at Talus. “You’re gonna love my uterus. We play hip-hop on Tuesdays.”

“Not anymore, we don’t,” Ronan points out. “It’s all lyres and flutes for us for the next thirty years. We’ll play the lyre for you while you’re baking in there, son.”

“You don’t know how.”

“I’ll have plenty of time to learn.”

“When you’re not off a-viking,” Talus reminds him.

“Maybe even then.” Ronan cracks his knuckles. “I’m sure I could break heads and carry a tune at the same time.”

“I don’t think I have a head anymore,” Mayumi says.

A new doctor walks in—a proper bot this time. He hands Talus a tablet. “Okay, the mother has already finished her consent forms, but here’s the last one for you, Mister Sauter. This one personally absolves Hrockas Steward from any liability in the event that the results of this procedure render you neurologically damaged, physically defective in your new substrate, or philosophically deceased and replaced. It is the same waiver you signed before, but the owner wanted you to sign a separate one for him.”

“Sounds good to me,” Talus agrees. He signs without hesitating. He has thought about this for a very long time. They did not do this on a whim.

Ronan must admit, this is a crazy idea, and yes, there is a reason it has never been done before. What comes out of Mayumi nine months from now may not be Talus at all. It may be an entirely different person; new memories, new personality, new everything. It could mean that this Talus right here is dead. He deliberately didn’t make a copy of his mind as backup, since that wouldn’t really be him either, since it would already have been outdated by hours at best. This might very well mark the end of Talus Sauter, and they won’t really have an idea for another ten years maybe? But it’s what he wants, it’s what Mayumi wants, and while his opinion doesn’t technically matter here, it’s what Ronan wants too. He is going to raise his best friend in a simulation of Scandinavia in the first millennium, and he couldn’t be more excited. He kisses them both, then leaves for the waiting room so they can move forward.

An hour later, Mayumi wheels out alone. She smiles at him. “Great news, husband. I am no longer light.”

“Okay,” Ronan says, clapping his hands. “Let’s go to Danmörk.”

Microstory 2687: Then She Winks

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The eruption is pretty cool, though probably less spectacular than if they let it spew everything all over the place. The two of them watch it for a few minutes, but Resi isn’t paying that much attention to the glory. It’s not what’s really on his mind. “Are you my sister?” he asks the woman quietly.

“Yes,” Kala replies. “I’ve been alive for over a hundred years now.”

“So you chose Kinkon.”

“I told you, we don’t do things that way anymore. There’s no sorting. The people who live on this island live simply, but they don’t do much work. They do some, to be sure, but most of it’s automated. It blends into the background, you don’t even notice it. There are some androids, which perform more of the front end labor, so they just look like regular people. This is still a very natural environment, and what can’t remain perfectly natural is simulated. If you take issue with it, getting your full memories back might help. Understanding where you came from, long before Yana, might give you some perspective. I don’t know how you feel about it, though.”

“What about everyone else I knew? Our parents, our siblings? My Fold, my House? Is everyone still alive? Did they all choose this route?”

“Not everyone, everyone,” Kala answers. “But most people did, yes. They decided that that’s what you were trying to do for them. Your legacy lived on after you. In terms of specifics, Caprice is still here, as is our sister. Chaya moved to Castlebourne, and I think our brother did too, but he may have gone somewhere else instead. Arumay moved to Varkas Reflex, and uploaded herself to a virtual environment, so she doesn’t have a physical body anymore. Our parents chose to remain as they were, so they’re long dead. I think that’s pretty much it, I don’t remember anyone else.”

“Kartica,” Resi says. “A.K.A. Speaker Lincoln. What happened to her?”

Kala frowns. “She died next to you a hundred years ago. Her consciousness was no longer streaming to the network, so she couldn’t be revived. She saved us in the near-term. Her sacrifice was just as impactful as yours. The Assembly letting her die was a major crime. There are laws that prevent you from being reckless with disposable bodies, especially those you don’t own. But murder? Straight up murder, where there is no coming back; that is still the big one. The colonial establishment couldn’t let it slide, even though they were part of a different network. The culprits were all locked up, and I lost track of them, but the important thing is they lost all of their power.”

“Wait, father was like us. He was backed up. Why is he dead now?”

“He could be backed up,” Kala corrects. “He fell in love with our mother, so he cut his own consciousness stream, and chose to let his body die, and with it, his mind. The laws surrounding that are complex and nuanced, but suicide is not illegal, as long as they prove that’s what it is, and not a complicated form of homicide.”

“I wish I could apologize now, for everything,” Resi admits. ‘To everyone.”

“This is why we live the way that we do. What father did was a choice. When I was a kid, there was no choice. I was going to die, that was just it. Whether you realized it or not, that is what you were fighting for; the freedom to choose our own destinies. The Houses were stopping us from that, and we’re grateful they’re gone.”

“I’m happy for you, but I don’t know what I want to do now...what to choose.”

“Why don’t you sleep on it?” Kala suggests. Then she winks.

Microstory 2682: Seeing The Whole Thing

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Resi can see the future, there is no longer any doubt in his heart about that. The problem is that, no matter how hard he tries, he has been unable to return to the vision he twice had of the eruption of Central Mountain. Brooke has her special techy spaceship, which she used to study the volcano, which said that nothing about it suggests it’s going to become active anytime soon. That is more worrisome than anything, because if Brooke is right, and Resi is also right, then something insane and unpredictable is going to happen that changes the equation. The trick is determining what that might be, and Resi thinks he may know why the answer isn’t coming to him. As of now, all of his predictions are sourced from past and present data. They’re still supernatural, for lack of a better term, but he’s not just randomly pulling information that doesn’t exist yet. He has to anchor it to something that is real. He doesn’t have to be physically touching an object to know what’s going to become of it, but it sure helps.

The fact is, Resi has nothing been very close to the mountain before. It just hasn’t been a meaningful aspect of his life. The higher you go, the less arable the land is. He’s not one for backpacking. Some class projects have involved hiking it, or even climbing all the way to the summit, but he never ended up doing that. That seems to be something that has to happen now. Brooke offered him a ride to the top, but that might not be enough. What if the problem happens lower down, and just causes the eruption up top? What if there are clues along the way? She pointed out that there is too much acreage to cover, and he agreed, but he has to start somewhere, and it can’t be at the end. That’s what’s blocking his understanding of this terrible future. He keeps trying to skip to the end. Of course, that’s what it sounds like fortune-telling is, but again, he doesn’t think he can just tap a future date, and jump to it. He thinks he has to fast-forward. He doesn’t have to sit through it all in real time, but he does have to see it all. So he’s going on a trek. He’s finally going to see what all the fuss is about.

Brooke is gone now. She has other things to do with her life outside of Yana, and outside of Bungula. She charges him to keep quiet about what he learned about her, which will not be hard, because she hardly told him anything. He’s not going to be alone, though. Caprice and Chaya are both coming. They don’t think that they’re going to have any apocalyptic visions, too, but they want to help, and it’s safer for him to not be alone. If something bad happens, someone may need to call for rescue. They’re only a few kilometers into the journey. They’ve not even reached the switchbacks yet when Chaya informs them that someone has been following them the whole time.

“Okay!” Resi says quite loudly. “Spread out! Shoot anyone but each other!”

“No! Don’t do that!” Kartica comes out with her arms up.

“I was never going to. Don’t you know me yet?” Resi questions.

“I dunno, you may have changed, man,” Kartica points out.

“Why are you here?” Resi presses. “You weren’t invited.

“I know, but you need me. You’re going the wrong way.”

Caprice looks up. “I think we can see where the mountain is.”

“Yes, you’re going towards the mountain, and you’ll even be on a trail, but it won’t be the right trail,” Kartica insists. “The mountain...is basically a cone. If you’re trying to see the whole thing, the switchbacks will only keep you to one side of it.”

“What makes you think we’re trying to see the whole thing?” Resi asks her.

“Please.” Kartica is offended. “I’ve not taken my eye off of you since we met. I can show you where to go. It will give you a clearer picture. I want this more than anyone. I want it more than you. You were hesitant before, when I begged you to tell me what was going to happen. Don’t leave me out of it. Please.”

Resi stands there thinking about it. He takes a swig of his special medicine. It still isn’t curing him, but it’s treating his symptoms. It’s keeping him vertical. Unfortunately, he believes he may be experiencing diminishing returns, and it will stop doing anything at all, probably sooner than later. “Fine, you can help. But try not to commit suicide on the way, okay?”

“I couldn’t if I wanted to,” Kartica claimed. “They locked me out of the respawn system. If I die, that’s it for me.”

Foreshadowing.

Microstory 2672: Allegiance

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Resi demanded to speak with the Assembly, or whoever was trying to stop House Kutelin from exiling to Anchor Island. They refused, as always, but Zenith and the Bungulans were not happy about it. The purpose of this island is to facilitate movement and communication. Refusing to meet your opponent is the first sign of being on the wrong side. So Zenith pretty much forced it to happen. Since Speaker Lincoln committed suicide, she was replaced by the next in line. Sherman is now the interim Speaker, and will serve in this capacity until a new appointment can be made. He brought his granddaughter here for some reason. She is fifteen years old—having not yet gone through her Kidjum—and Resi has never heard of her before, but she looks familiar, like she showed up in a dream once recently, or something. That can’t be it, though. He hasn’t dreamed even once since his botched Kidjum. She really has no business being here, but he can’t argue against it. She looks at him like she knows something he doesn’t, which she surely does.

“Can we all be civil, or do I need to remain here to mediate?” Zenith asks.

“You may go,” Speaker Sherman tells her.

“You do not need to mediate,” Resi begins, like he’s going to agree. “But stay anyway. They are your guests. I would like you to see who they are.”

Zenith closes her eyes and bows slightly before taking a seat against the wall.

It’s important that Resi speaks first, so he can seize the upper hand. “Tell me. Where do you expect us to go? You won’t allow us to return to Yana, and you won’t let us live here. So what other options do we have? What do you want, or think we should do? Should we kill ourselves, like your coward of a former leader?”

Sherman isn’t pleased by his words, but his granddaughter has the strongest reaction. She doesn’t speak, though. “It may sound like a contradiction, but I assure you that it’s not. You may not stay on Yana. You may not live here on Anchor Island,” Speaker Sherman says.

“There’s nowhere else!” Resi cries. That was the wrong move. He has lost his advantage now. He needs to stay calm and in control. Let his enemy see no emotion. No one ever taught him that, it just makes sense.

Sherman is successfully managing to follow Resi’s internal advice, so it must be the right call, at least in theory. “I am not here to give you answers, or options, only restrictions. It is our job to manage the affairs of the Tamboran nation, and to engage with other cultures when necessary. House Kutelin is not a culture whose sovereignty we recognize. Therefore, there is nothing we can do for you.”

The other Fold Leaders begin to yell and argue against his ridiculous position. Resi motions for them to relax. “You may not think that you owe us anything, and the truth may be that you don’t. But if you don’t answer me, you will be the ones declaring war against House Kutelin, not the other way around. We do exist, and the other Houses know us. You may tear us down, and wipe us out, but your will lose your power over Tambora. The people will not stand by. You will lose your reëlections, and you will have accomplished nothing good. Is that what you want?”

Sherman only smiles. “I’ve told you, I’m not here to give you any answers. This conversation is over.” He looks over at Zenith. “I have fulfilled my promise. I gave him five minutes. Now we’re done. Please arrange my transport home. Resi and his people must leave within one day, and the rest of his House must leave Yana a week after that. If I find out you’ve been harboring any members of House Kutelin after that, the Accords will be broken, and you know what that means.”

“I do.” Zenith wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t going to go against him either.

No one on this planet has the authority to do anything. If that’s true, then maybe he should stop asking for what he needs. Maybe he should just take it.

Resi watches the Speaker and the Assembly walk out of the room. As she passes by, Sherman’s daughter flings something from her device to his. He doesn’t look at it until they’ve all left. It’s a note from her. She wants to meet on the rock beach. Alone.

Here it is. Here’s where the relative or assistant swoops in with a knowledge bomb, and our hero has to decide if she can be trusted or not. In half the movies, she can be, and in the other half, she can’t. If she can’t, and is still loyal to the villain, the hero seemingly takes her advice anyway, only for it to turn out that he knew the truth the whole time, and was playing the long game to dupe them both. There is no workaround for this trope. If you operate inside of the system, there is no way to beat that system. The reality of her loyalties, and the hero’s actions, are equally dictated by the needs of the story. This is real life, which means what he chooses here could result in failure, and even casualties. No author is trying to make it more interesting, or lead things down the right path.

“You’re not going alone,” Vantu insists. “You must be protected.” Vantu is a bit of a brute, but a very kind one, and very protective of anyone smaller or weaker. That’s usually not Resi himself, but he’s been particularly clingy on this trip due to the high stakes. Still, it won’t be necessary. Resi already has a plan.

“If they want to hurt me, there are easier ways to do it. A Bungulan-run island is the worst place to try something fishy. They got drones flying all over the place.”

“They only react so quickly,” Vantu argues, “and won’t be able to stop anything. Let me stay out of earshot, but in line of sight, so she knows she’s being monitored.”

“Really, it won’t be necessary, but I’ll let you walk with me,” Resi tells him.

He follows the girl’s directions, and heads towards the beach. He sees her standing there on the rocks, hair blowing in the wind. She’s changed her clothes into an asymmetrical shawl loosely wrapped around her waist, and what at this distance looks like a flower bikini top. She must think that he will listen to her because of it. He doesn’t advertise his asexuality but he doesn’t hide it either. If she’s done her homework, she’ll know that this won’t work. Or maybe she’s just hot. They are in the tropics, after all. He shouldn’t assume what her motivations are. He has no clue who she really is, or what she wants. He can’t trust her, though, that much is absolutely certain. She appears to be rather patient. She’s not folding her arms, or even shifting her weight between legs. She’s a statue, which may be telling him all he needs to know.

Resi looks over his own shoulder at Vantu, who nods, acknowledging that this is where he will remain so he doesn’t interfere with whatever is exchanged here. It doesn’t matter. Resi turns back at the stranger. He slowly draws his open hand up against his forehead in salute. Then he steadily swings it forward dramatically. If he could see her face from this distance, it would probably look confused. He doesn’t go up to see if he’s right. He just turns and walks away. The only way to win this game is to refuse to play.

Microstory 2669: I Thought it Felt Light

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From the shadows, Resi watches Speaker Lincoln wake up in the middle of the night in reaction to a notification. She blinks rapidly as her eyes adjust to the harsh light of her device. “I’ve stolen the Kidjum elixir,” she reads out loud. “What the hell? I never told you to do that,” she whispers loudly. She scrolls a little. “Someone hacked my account!” she complains to what she thinks is an empty room. She dials a number, and holds it up to her ear. “Get security to the Tadungeria lab. We have a breach. Aether is going off script.” She hangs up and rolls her nightgown up and over her head.

Resi taps on his own device, careful to not let the light give away his position yet.

Lincoln’s device dings again. “Oh my God.” She opens the drawer of her nightstand and takes out a gun. She checks the magazine to find it empty.

Only now does Resi flip on the lamp in the corner. He’s sitting comfortably in her armchair, trying to look menacing but authoritative. He saw this in a movie once. Actually, it’s been in a few movies. “The first to raise a hand in violence dips one foot in their grave,” he recites calmly.

Lincoln looks down at her half naked body. “You like what you see?”

“Relax, I’m asexual. Go ahead and cover up.”

She wraps herself in a robe. “You must have Bungula tech if you could teleport here that fast.” She jerked her chin towards the device that she tossed onto the bed. “I just read your message that you’re gonna poison me with an overdose of elixir.”

“You think I would order one of my people to do that in the same second that I decided to just do it myself? You got security all riled up for nothin’. No one from my House is anywhere near the Tadungeria. Your elixir is safe, and so are you, physically speaking. I won’t hurt you, but I wanna know why you’ve been impersonating me, and sending my people orders that I would never give. You want us to stop. You wanted to bring the Kidjums back, so why are you undermining those efforts?”

Lincoln breathes through her nose as she regards Resi with a facial expression that he is unable to read. She’s trying to look calm too, though. She thinks she’s still in control here. Bizarrely, she lets the robe drop from her shoulders again. She then starts to remove the rest of her clothing.

“I told you, I’m asexual. I feel nothing. Seducing me will not work.”

“I’m not trying to seduce you,” she explains as she’s crawling back into bed and neatly rearranging her belongings on the night stand. “I don’t have to tell you anything. I just need to let you step both feet into your own grave, which you have done quite nicely by breaking into my house tonight.”

“I’m having signals blocked. If the answers you give me are satisfactory, I’ll leave before anyone notices. It will be your word against mine. If you lie, I don’t know what will happen. I want to know why. It makes no sense. Do you want a fifth House, or not?”

“I don’t care about the houses,” she admits. “It’s an arbitrary stratification that most cultures don’t have and do just fine. Divide into fourths, divide into eights, just have one united peoples; it’s irrelevant. The total population is the same.”

“So the Kidjum is fake, and it’s all about control? Do you just want to decide who goes where? Worker bees versus drones, as long as the queen stays on top.”

She smirks. “It’s not fake. It’s not about control. It’s about human lives, and the Garden we were promised. The Kidjum is very real. It’s the easiest and most reliable way for us to know what you want. Everyone has a place, and everyone chooses. Again, it’s not about that. But anyway, I’m tired, and I just want to end it all. I won’t be answering any more of your questions. It’s your turn.”

He sighs and grunts. This isn’t doing any good, and who knows where they go from here? So he’s proved that she’s a bad guy? She didn’t do it on her own. Anyone or everyone on the Assembly could be a part of it. The best he can hope for is that the other two nations hear him out. Maybe they’re not a part of the conspiracy. Or maybe they are, and House Kutelin really does need to revolt. He’ll have to just go out and try his best. Staying here, listening to these lies and vague answers, isn’t going to pay off, so let’s be done with this quickly. “I’m an open book. I’ll answer any questions you like.”

“Have you ever fired a gun before?” she asks, picking hers back up, and sliding three of her fingers across it like it’s her pet.

“No, but I know that that’s a projectile weapon. It needs bullets, not a maser charge, or whatever. I already took the mag out, and checked for extras.”

She smiles and nods, still looking at it admiringly. “Did you check the chamber?”

He jumps up in fear, now remembering other movies, where yeah, the bullets aren’t only stored in one place. There’s also this other thing on the top. 

Instead of aiming it at him, she points it at the side of her own head, as far from her temple as her bent arm will reach, and squeezes the trigger. Blood goes everywhere.

He’s seen it in those movies before, but it’s a different thing, being in the room when it happens. He’s frozen, though he doesn’t know for how long. People don’t really die around here, except peacefully in their sleep, or in a hospital bed. They’re not immortals, like the colonists, but life is pretty safe. They’ve built out the infrastructure, and everyone knows what they’re doing. The Kidjum doesn’t just choose what you want, but what your mind knows it would be good at doing. Everyone is professional and skilled. That’s why he doesn’t know history and geography, because their nation doesn’t value those things. It places all of its focus on people who can get work done. If they need to know anything about how the universe works, they can ask the Bungulans. Leave science to people who’ve been doing it for millennia.

Why the shit is he thinking about any of this right now? They’re hauling him out of the bungalow by his upper arms. He’s not resisting, he just can’t move his legs on his own. He feels the splinters catch on his toes as they drag across the old front porch. They throw him into the wagon, and drive off. He realizes that they never bound his limbs. He could jump out, and run away. But where would he go? They would look for him at the dorms, and then his birth parents’ home. It’s an island, and it’s probably being locked all the way down. This is the first murder he’s ever heard of, so the whole planet is probably freaking out. He could try to swim it. How far is Anchor Island again? Only forty-some-odd kilometers? Easy, he could do that in one breath.

He’s in a hardback chair now. When did they pull him out of the wagon? They’re asking him questions. He can’t really hear them. They say something about already finding his prints on the gun, which makes sense, because he had to take that magazine out. The chamber. The goddamn chamber. How could he be so stupid? That’s why the action stars are always pulling that thing back while they’re making their snide remarks. He thought he had it all figured out. The honeypot was brilliant. His people were on the ball. Like he was saying...trained as professionals. He’s the one who screwed up, and it’s gonna land him in prison. House Kutelin will fall, and she’ll get away with it. Oh wait, no, she died. She killed herself. Why? Just to frame him? What an asshole.

Microstory 2611: The Mob Will Leave as Fast as They Can, But Not All Will Make It

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August 20, 2526. Hydrangea Georgieva does not work for Proxima Doma in any way shape or form, but she has stepped up today, because no one else is. The vactrains are fully automated. Since they did away with money and tickets, there is really no reason to talk to another person. Even a trip to the other side of the world only takes a matter of hours, so if you get hungry, just bring something with you. These people may not want her, but they need her, and they’re going to listen, because chaos isn’t going to get them out of this alive. “Hey! Hey!” she yells louder to overpower the rabbling rabblers. “There are exactly two lines! If you are a mech, or a biological with a supersteadfastness trait, please stand behind the orange line! Otherwise, please wait behind the indigo line!”

“Who put you in charge!” some rando questions.

“I did!” Hydrangea insists. Surprisingly, the crowd quiets down so she doesn’t have to shout as loud anymore. “The Network Controller has programmed every single train on this planet to run at high acceleration. And the instability of this planet has made the trip rougher and more unpredictable than usual. They simply do not have time to be delicate when this many lives are at stake. If you have steadfast features, please hang back while my indigos board first. Indigos, when the doors open, please find your seats. From this location, the trip will take about three hours. If you get separated from your loved ones, maintain virtual connections with them, but do not try to reunite with them. Do not attempt to switch seats. I promise, you will find each other again, it is not the 1920s anymore. If you are an orange, you will be filling in the gaps, and using your core strength to stand in place while the train accelerates.” She looks over at the status board. “The next pods will be arriving in eight minutes. Be ready!”

“Pods? How many pods are there?” an evacuee asks.

“They are electromagnetically linking four pods together,” she replies so all can hear. “That is the optimum number. It is the most you can connect before the mass inefficiency starts to negate the value of higher capacity. The experts never predicted anything like what we’re facing now, but they are adapting emergency protocols. I assure you, they know what they’re doing. They’re going as fast as they can. Any other good questions?”

There doesn’t seem to be any. This next batch of evacuees starts shuffling around, getting in their appropriate queues, or at least hopefully so. There’s always something that holds them up. It’s usually a few morons who can’t remember which color means what. She’s been trying to make it so the instructions can be written unambiguously on the status monitors, but again, she doesn’t work here, so she doesn’t have the credentials to change that information. It’s still only giving them the current weather of this dome and the destination, but it’s outdated, because it says it’s only 24 degrees and sunny, but it’s actually a hellfire apocalypse out there. The world is sinking into itself, and her body is going to die here. She’s not going to be getting on any train, because there could always be someone in need of her help. Her mind is streaming to a back-up in orbit, and she already checked; the consciousness hub is safe above the debris cloud, and wasn’t damaged during the solar attack. A lot of her friends literally committed suicide to escape, but she saw this as an opportunity to do the most good, so she stayed behind to facilitate the movement of people who are not backed up. Proxima Doma is the first colony. A great fraction of the population are enhanced, but still not fully digitized.

A woman comes up, holding the hand of a little boy. “Um,” she whispers, “my legs can go into statue mode, but my grandson can’t do that. I know we can’t switch seats, but I would really like to stay by him if I can.”

Hydrangea smiles at her and leans down. “Most people are more like you, and less like him. After the indigos are seated, I’m going to tell the nearest oranges to go ahead and sit down until the seats get full, and then we’ll pack a few more in. I don’t tell them ahead of time, because then the lines will get messed up, and I think you would agree, organics need evacuation more than we do, so they should get through first. Just pretend like you’re one of them and sit down with your grandson. No one will know.”

“Okay, thanks.” The woman leaves with the boy.

A few minutes later, the pods arrive. Hydrangea has to continue barking orders so everyone boards in a timely and safe manner. The woman and her grandson get in and take the window seats. He smiles and waves at Hydrangea, so she waves back. It’s a madhouse, but the job gets done. Those who need a seatback to survive the high g-forces get on first, and then physically stronger people get on afterwards, filling in the aisles and other gaps. There’s nothing for them to hold onto, because standing just isn’t done. Even in a non-emergency situation, they move the trains fast enough to make seating overwhelmingly more practical. A few people do not understand this, which is a good note for her to remember for the next batch. Some people would be steadfast enough if they did have stanchions or straps, but not just free-handing it like this. There’s some confusion when it turns out a few people actually do need to sit down, but they manage to get settled. Her compatriots outside the platform have been doing a good job of counting, but this time, a few dozen people are left behind when the pods get full. They will have to wait for the next trip, which actually could be a while, because she thinks they will have to wait for empty pods to return from the pole.

Just before the pods can launch, the alarm goes off. Hydrangea looks over at the status board. “Brace yourselves!” she orders the remainders. “Another tremor!” The ground begins to shake, and it’s a big one this time. Of course, she can stand fast herself, but even that will only take her so far. She finds herself holding onto the wall as the dust and dirt are caked onto her skin and clothes. Others lie all the way down on the floor. The train speeds off. “No!” she shouts. Why would the AI do that? They should not be moving during a tremor, if they can help it, especially not if they still have to begin an acceleration phase. Nine times out of ten, it would be fine, but this is evidently that tenth proverbial time. The tube buckles and warps, and then full-on implodes. Even though the pods would have made it at least thirty meters by then, there’s no way they survived that. The tremor stops. Hydrangea stands up straight again and hyperventilates as she stares at the horror before her.

The angry horde of left behinders are screaming unintelligibly at her. She can’t tell what any one of them is saying, but she sure knows what they mean. She took responsibility for this...for them. She has to answer for the tragedy. But she can’t. She can’t deal with this. She takes out her pistol, and uses it to escape into space.