Microstory 2331: Vacuus, December 31, 2178

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Dear Condor,

Happy New Year! It’s true, religious beliefs have changed over the years, though some of the traditions remain, even if people don’t understand why they’re doing them. You were kind of right, we actually do observe Christmas, though it’s a lot different than it used to be, and that has to do with the circumstances under which we live. We exchange gifts too, but only one. It’s rocks. You might think, hey, you give rocks as gifts? That sounds dumb. Well, we’re not talking just any rock. Obviously, since there is no breathable atmosphere out here, we can’t just walk outside whenever we want. If you want to pick a rock off the ground, it’s going to be this whole to do. You have to put on a suit, and you might need to climb into a rover. The farther the rock was found from the base, the more impressive it is that you managed to get all the way out there, and the more meaningful it will be for whoever you’re giving it to. Every year, the hardcore gift-givers train to lower their heart rates, and learn to control their breaths, so they can travel farther than ever before. Some try to run, and some try to sloth their way there, deluded into thinking that it’s making any significant difference in their range. If you look at a map of excursion sites, however, there’s a limit to how far anyone can go, even if they lug extra air tanks with them. Everything they try to use to gain an advantage has its drawbacks that regress them towards the mean. And if you do choose to use a rover—if only to go part of the way—it’s less impressive, and less of a big deal of a gift. I’ve never done it. Mother was as much of a homebody as me, so she didn’t make a trek, and I never learned to value it. I’m a bit too old to care. It is mostly for the younger crowd, who are indoctrinated as children. They don’t go outside themselves. An adult who is rated for surface excursions collects from nearby, and hides them around the base for kids to find, and give to their families. We actually do this twice a year. There’s another holiday called Valentine’s Day, which is for romantic partnerships, though people tend to grow out of it. That one usually involves pebbles, and kids look for them in a scavenger hunt too. Once they’re older, signs of affection typically come from spending extra money on a luxury food item from the synthesizer, or something else more substantial. Christmas is about effort, other gift-based observances are about sacrifice. Either way, it sounds like we’re even more into Christmas than people left on Earth are. We also celebrate New Year, and surely your people do as well. It’s not a religious concept as far as I know, though maybe there’s something about its history that I don’t know. Someone had to come up with the calendar, and it wasn’t after the decline of superstition. Here’s to a great 2179.

May you find the farthest rock (that’s what we say),

Corinthia

Microstory 2330: Earth, December 24, 2178

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Dear Corinthia,

Merry Christmas! Do you observe Christmas up there among the stars? Well, we don’t, for the most part. I studied it in school once, learning the traditions that people used to maintain. They would celebrate their family, and promote world peace. A lot of the things they did sound kind of arbitrary and silly to me, like cutting down trees, or exchanging gifts, but the message of togetherness sounds nice. I don’t know exactly why religion declined. I mean, I know why; because none of it is real, but I don’t know precisely how it happened. We’re just lacking in perspective, I guess, since we were born on this side of it. Anyway, we still say Merry Christmas to each other on this day, but that’s really it. People don’t really know what it means, it’s just become second nature. You can’t live somewhere far from your family, and then come home for a few days before going back. Travel just isn’t the same for us as it was in the past. Back then, if you built a life for yourself in another region, this would be an excuse to go back to visit where you came from. But now, separating yourself from your family is all but irreversible. There are those who work in some of the more dangerous corners of the planet, and send money home, but they don’t get vacation time. Only when their job ends—be it from losing it, or having made enough to quit—will they try to return to their families, but there’s no guarantee they’ll succeed. I was just wondering if people on Vacuus even acknowledge that this time of the year used to be a thing, or if you’ve even heard of it in the first place. Or...do you go all out with thick themed sweaters, hanging stockings, and seasonal hot drinks? Has there been some resurgence in popularity thanks to someone who happened to be on the ship who really wanted to bring back old traditions? Ha, is any of this making any sense to you, or did you have to search your database? Even though we don’t participate in the same sort of things that our ancestors used to when they believed in superstitions, I think some of the things they did were decent, and I regret that they’ve gone away. They thought they had it bad when their children moved out of the house, and decided to live on the other side of the country, or even in another country. They had no idea how good they had it, always being just an aircraft ride away from each other. I’m not sure that I understand whether there are other people on your mission who left loved ones behind, or if all of their interplanetary communication is strictly professional. Even if there are others, that’s still a very low number of people in this boat. No one else in the solar system has to deal with the kind of distance that we do. All I’m trying to say is, even though we never met, I miss you.

Happy holidays (they used to say this instead when members of competing religions didn’t want to offend each other),

Condor

PS: I’ve not yet asked dad about connecting you two to each other. By the time this message reaches you, however, he and I will have talked about it. I promise.

Microstory 2139: It Was the Crystals

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Oh my God, it’s finally over. My fungal infection is clear, and I’m cleared to go back into jail tomorrow. A part of me thinks that the real therapy session I had is what fixed me, like it was my own hang-ups that were preventing me from recovering completely. It may seem stupid, and I would have agreed with you back in the day, but I’ve seen a lot of things across the bulkverse, so the ability for my brain to alter my physiological condition actually doesn’t seem so weird anymore. Now, I’m not saying that it is definitely the explanation. New agey people do that all the time. They take antibiotics, and also pray to crystals, and when they get better, they decide to believe that it was the crystals, instead of the real medicine. But it’s not impossible either. To be sure, in this universe, where my immortality is gone, I’m disinclined to believe in anything but provable science, but I remain open to other possibilities. Maybe special abilities are perfectly acceptable in your world, and there’s some other reason why I’ve lost it. Anyway, I still think it’s best to not leave my apartment just yet. I would rather sleep on it one more night to make sure that it’s all been flushed from my system. It’s not like I have anywhere to go. I’m still working hard at work. I’m almost to the point where I can do my job effectively without having to reach out to colleagues. I always get in my head about that. It’s like this little game I play, where I try to go as long as I can without having to send someone an instant message. It’s always a relief when someone else messages me first, as long as they’re not pointing out an error that I made, of course. I would like to get to the point where I don’t have to say nothin’ except to ask them how they’re doing. I think that’s pretty much it today. Nothing else is going on in my life right now. You can follow me on social to hear about the baby birds living above my balcony. Besides that, peace and namaste, or whatever.

Microstory 1861: The Tarmides of Tasmania

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In the late sixteenth century, a certain famous playwright wrote what would become perhaps his most obscure works. He was two years from death, and didn’t even get to see his final piece performed on stage. Once Tarmides of Egypt finally did make it to the theatre, opening night was riddled with such bad luck that it ruined the show’s future indefinitely. The lead forgot many of his lines, his co-star had to give birth halfway through, forcing them to switch to an understudy. The man who played the grandfather died of a heart attack near the end, and another was impaled when the stage collapsed due to all the weight of the people who ran up to tend to the old man. The injury resulted in death a day later. It was for these reasons that all further showings were cancelled. Years later, a different troupe tried to put on another production, but it went badly too. No one else died on the night, but set pieces fell apart, multiple actors flubbed their lines, and historians believe this to be the probable ground zero for what came to be known as the relatively shortlived Lurch Plague. The play was cursed, according to the superstitious majority of the time, and no one else so much as attempted to produce it again for at least a century. Since then, rumors of further unfortunate events have spread about more recent attempts, but most of these claims remain unsubstantiated. The fact of the matter is that the play has almost certainly been produced dozens of times without any issue, but that’s not a very good story, so most students are taught the melodramatically stretched truth that the curse always takes them in the end. The mystique of this whole thing is only fueled by the subject matter of the play itself.

Tarmides was born in Greece, but the narrative is about him immigrating to Egypt to escape his past, only to find himself at the center of one disaster after another. The playwright was probably trying to demonstrate the futility of life, having become more nihilistic in his latter years, but this depressing lesson is lost to the more sensational idea that he was a prophet, who wrote it in order to prompt destruction in the real world. When I was a young man, a tyrant rose to power, and waged a war against the rural parts of my country. Villages were demolished under the weight of his superior technology. I probably wasn’t truly the only survivor, but again, that’s not sensational enough, so the media billed it that way. I became famous, and an international effort formed in order to relocate me to a safer region of the world. Most of the time, developed world nations fight over who has to take in refugees, but in my case, they fought for the honor. Tasmania won, so that’s where I moved. Shortly thereafter, an undersea earthquake in the Southern Ocean sent a tidal wave to the island, killing thousands of people, and destroying a great deal of the infrastructure. Once again, in order to sell papers, journalists began drawing connections between my arrival, and the completely unrelated and unpredictable natural disaster. Like most regular people, I hadn’t even heard of the play myself at the time, but I soon came to be known as The Tarmides of Tasmania. This nickname followed me for the rest of my life. Whenever an item fell off of the shelf at the grocery store, or I was around when it began to rain, I was blamed for it. There was always someone around who enjoyed pointing it out, especially if something even moderately inconvenient happened to someone else. I lived the rest of my life with this mark, and as much as I don’t want to die, I won’t miss it.

Microstory 1781: Triangle Water

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There was originally nothing special about the Bermuda Triangle. There are many explanations for why there seem to be more lost aircraft and oceancraft in the area, and not all of them are supernatural. Yes, some believe it leads to another dimension, while others think that there’s some kind of glitch in the magnetosphere over this spot. Even the more logical explanations aren’t necessary, because the truth is that it mostly comes down to math. Why are there more disappearances in this one region of the sea, as opposed to, say, the middle of the South Pacific Ocean? Simply because there is more travel happening in this area. It’s like asking why there are more deaths in cars that are driving on the road, as opposed to cars that are parked in people’s garages. Well, they’re not moving, so there’s not as much opportunity to suffer an injury. It’s not impossible, but not as common, and not reported as a traffic accident. In the 1950s, sensationalist media began to suggest that there was something different about the Bermuda Triangle, and people began to contrive their conspiracy theories. Once this happened, the Triangle began to distinguish itself. Just the suggestion that it was special was what made it special, and that was what gave it the temporal properties that it otherwise would not have had. To be clear, supernatural disappearances did not start to occur in the 50s. It was still perfectly safe to sail or fly over these waters, and expect no more problems than you might encounter elsewhere. Neither activity is without risk, but that’s true of anywhere. The best thing you can do to protect yourself is to be prepared, and again, this is true of anything. At any rate, you won’t have to worry about an undersea demon rising up to eat you. It’s more that becoming so important to the global consciousness has allowed the natural laws of temporal sciences to exploit it for other purposes.

Time travel is real, and so is immortality, but reaching true immortality is a pretty big chore. It requires obtaining eleven sources of water. Catalyst primes the body to accept them, and Activator binds them together. Each of the sources in between imbues you with a different flavor of non-mortality. Bermuda Triangle water is called Existence. Most of the waters are fairly obvious in regards to their purpose, while Existence is a little more vague—though not quite as vague as Death—at least if all you’ve heard is its name. Youth keeps you young, or even youngifies you, if necessary. Longevity lets you keep going throughout the years. Health cures you of disease, and immunizes you against all future disease. The others are just as apparent when you first hear of them. You can take any of the waters you want, and exclude any you don’t, but once you drink Activator, it’s over. You are permanently at least one kind of immortal, and you can never benefit from any of the ones you missed. Heck, you could theoretically not drink any of the middle nine, and become permanently immune to them. Some choose to ignore Existence, but it is the absolute most important. Time water keeps a time travel event from preventing you from ever reaching your goal of immortality in an alternate reality. Existence is similar, but instead it prevents a time travel event from preventing you from being born in the first place. If you never existed, you can’t become immortal, can you, even if you drank Time in your first timeline? The closer to the center of the Bermuda Triangle, the better, and it only counts for the water found after 1950, but if you did manage to drink it, and then Activate, no one can take it away, even in the past.

Microstory 1559: The Point of Faith

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Prompt

My teacher told us that every day was a gift, and my friend’s parents flipped out about it, because they detected a religious leaning that none of the students noticed.

Botner

They were living in church and told us all that we would burn in hell if we didn’t do the same. I went back to school and pulled one of my friends aside and told him that there was a chance we would go to hell if we didn’t accept Jesus Christ into our hearts. I don’t even remember what his response was. I found out later that he had taken his own life. I was so angry. He was one of my good friends, and I had told him the truth. I’d said it with a lot of conviction, too. Now, I hadn’t learned a thing about the Church. I didn’t know what we were supposed to believe. I didn’t have the gospel. I didn’t know how to speak the faith into his life. All I had was a real, legitimate chance at eternal damnation, and I didn’t understand the mechanics of that. I didn’t see why I couldn’t just change my mind, just change religions if I needed to. Well, I did. I gave up Catholicism. This is one of those stories that I am glad that I have. I am glad that my heart was pure, and I found an answer to my question before it was too late. I am glad that I had enough common sense to take responsibility for my actions. I am glad that I took my friend’s death seriously. I am glad...

Conclusion

...that I’ve given up my superstitions. I don’t know why my friend killed himself, if it had anything to do with what I told him. But I’ve decided I can relieve myself of the guilt. We all make our own choices in the world. Sure, I might have influenced his actions, but I didn’t tell him what to do, and I didn’t purport to be some kind of authority on the matter. It’s true that there’s a chance hell is real, and that has been the case since before I came into the picture, but the degree to which he accepted this was his own decision to make. I move on with my life after this, still without a certain answer to the question, and you know what? Things have turned out okay. I look around at my religious peers, and I don’t feel like my life is any better or worse than theirs. They think they’re safer than me, because they’re doing all these things with their faith, predicated upon the possibility that it’s all true. They think I’m at more of a risk, because I don’t believe. But what if what they believe is also wrong? What if, at the end of our lives, I’ll be judged more favorably. Maybe God wants us to not believe, and it’s the believers who are in trouble. You don’t know. You don’t know. The most likely outcome is that we all turn out to be wrong, and I say that’s fine. At least, I say that there is nothing we can do about it. The reality is that a religious person having faith in their own faith is no more reasonable than a heathen like me having faith in themselves, or in other people. It’s all a crapshoot, because the point of faith is that you can’t ever be sure, and no one else can either. So believe, don’t believe, it doesn’t matter. The chances of you being right or wrong cannot change, no matter what you do. All you can really do is try to be a good person, and hope to leave the world a little better than it was when you found it.

Microstory 1202: Jeremiel Sachs

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When the town of Springfield, Kansas went through the Deathfall portal to the rogue planet of Durus, different people had different perspectives on the matter. It was no surprise that a not insignificant number of them believed that they had all been damned to hell. While it would turn out to be untrue in the Biblical sense, it did bear some similarities to the idea of an afterlife of torture and pain. Death and hardship was all around, brought by monsters and killers. It’s a wonder that anyone survived. Tyrannical leader, Smith could see right away that the source mage children were special, and he used his position to garner favor with them. Though they were not even born at the time of the Deathfall, he recognized how important they would become. People would follow their guidance, whether they gave it willingly or not. He needed to not just be on their good side, but to be in control of them. As he predicted, people would come to trust the children’s leadership, though he was no longer around as they grew up. Without his control, the people started developing their own thoughts about the source mages. Many, drawing on their earlier religious beliefs, formed a spiritual dedication to them. They started worshipping them as new gods. Most of the others rejected this blind devotion, but not Jeremiel Sachs. He wanted to be idolized, praised, and gifted. He didn’t just allow them to build a church in his name; he commissioned it. To them, he was the spark of life where there was no other life. They started referring to him as The Flower on the Rock. The other source mages might have had their differences amongst them, but they still maintained an indelible bond. Jeremiel always found himself on the outside of the group, and he had mixed feelings about this. He was the last to be told of any news, and was often not included in important decision-making. He loved his life, but recognized that there was a lot missing. He could have as many followers as there were people on the planet, but he still wouldn’t have any friends.

Of course, there was a scientific explanation for why Jeremiel and his contemporaries had time powers, and why they were able to give powers to others. They weren’t angels or gods or any other form of supernatural creature. They were people who enjoyed an uncommon connection to the metaphysical structure of the universe, and could exploit loopholes within the system. Over the years, the people of Durus began to accept this reality, including those who worshiped in Jeremiel’s church. Still, the loyalists did not stop revering him, because he was still more powerful than anything they could dream of, and that wasn’t going to change, even by logic’s reasoned hand. When the Mage Protectorate fell to the destructive forces of the war with the monsters, the church took a heavy blow. Their gods turned out to be mortal, which again, they knew in their minds, but could not before then accept in their hearts. The church fell into rapid decline after that, until there was no one left to believe. But there was still hope for the movement. After decades of political turmoil, Durus finally found its place in a binary star system. It was stable, self-sufficient, and finally beginning to truly innovate. It had advanced beyond most religions, but no one had yet put forth a clear reason why choosing ones, salmon, mages, and paramounts existed at all. The lingering mystery sparked a new fire, and the religion was revived. Descendants began to worship the source mages once more, with Jeremiel back in the center of it all. The fact that they were long gone only helped this cause, for the intrigue of idols who were completely inaccessible was alluring on its own, like it is in most religions. In just a few short years, the new followers were stronger and more committed than ever. And they were convinced that Jeremiel Sachs was bound to return to them one day. Unlike other superstitious organizations that believed something like this, it was entirely possible that Jeremiel’s followers were right.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 9, 2216

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Mateo and Leona learned from Serif that it had been centuries since the universe of Ansutah was created by the fourth pocket dimension on the interstellar ship, The Warren. For her, however, it had only been a few years. It was after The Crossover was invented, utilized to explore the bulkverse, and ultimately destroyed. It was before, however, the time that Leona went to Ansutah with all those people looking to get rid of their time powers. Since that had not yet happened from Serif’s viewpoint, there was no way for her to stay with them permanently. At some point, she would have to return to the monster world, and continue her own life with her daughter. There was just no way to save her. She knew this, but she was determined to save all the other humans there, by whatever means necessary. Apparently, they were the descendants of those who sought to be free from their powers, and had been transported back to the early days of the universe.

Unfortunately, the brilliant Leona quickly did the math on their plans to evacuate the billions of people in Ansutah. It would take a couple decades to get them all out through the little ceiling entrance magically attached to grave chamber four on The Ocasio-Cortez. And that was assuming those people literally ran up the rickety wooden ladder, and out of the vessel constantly, so they could funnel hundreds in a minute, which was probably also impossible. It would take many decades at the most realistic projections, and even then, there was nowhere for them to go. Bungula was not presently hospitable to life, and wouldn’t be for the next few centuries, assuming its colonizers decide to terraform the planet at all. The domes were not designed to fit quite that many people.

“What made you think this was going to work?” Leona asked. She was feeling overwhelmed by the situation, and was unable to just be happy to see Serif again.

“The scientist built the bridge, and apparently didn’t consider the logistics of the endeavor,” Serif defended. “I didn’t ask for this, but we have to find a way to escape. Ever since the Crossover was destroyed, and its remnants scattered throughout the bulkverse, the Maramon have grown more and more restless. As the human population grew, an entire continent was needed to be set aside for them. Religious superstitions have kept the Maramon from exploring the area, but like any sufficiently advanced civilization, those superstitions are waning. They want to see what’s over here, and if they discover an entire planet’s worth of humans have been hoarding resources, they’re not going to be happy. This will start a war.

“Why did he build a bridge, instead of another machine?” Leona questioned. “That could completely eliminate the time sensitivity. Every time the Crossover leaves a universe, it can spend as much time as it wants away, and always return one second after it left.”

“I understand that,” Serif said. “Sadly, he still felt he needed to ultimately honor his promise to his colleagues. He killed himself as soon as the bridge was finished. He didn’t even test it out first. There might be a way to move the exit somewhere else, but I would have no clue how to do that. Time itself wants the refugees to come through here. Something thinks this is our best option.”

“Time is not a conscious individual,” Leona argued. “The bridge exited out here, because this is where we are. It was seeking to bring you back to us.”

“If time isn’t conscious, how could it be seeking anything?”

“You know what I mean, like magnets. The three of us are entangled on a quantum level.”

Serif wasn’t buying it entirely, but it didn’t matter. Leona was right. There was no way to get everyone to safety using their only current option. The bridge was all but useless to them, and that wasn’t going to change, even when they landed on Bungula next year. They needed a creative solution.

Mateo, Leona, and Serif returned to the timeline a year later, and found the Ansutah situation to be no different than before. To keep Ramses safe, they decided they needed to lock the opening to grave chamber four. There was a lot of diversity in a group of eleven billion, which meant there would be plenty of irrational people who might try to escape through the bridge, even one that led to a ship designed for six to twelve people.

The upside was that there were two new members of their group. Ramses was able to extract Brooke and Sharice Prieto from the Insulator of Life, and upload their consciousnesses to new android substrates. And bonus, one of them seemed to have an idea of what to do with the Ansutahan humans.

“What about Gatewood?” Sharice suggested.

“What is Gatewood?” Mateo asked her.

“Orbiting Barnard’s Star, Gatewood is a collection of planetesimals, dwarf planets, asteroids, and comets about six and a half light years from here. Since there aren’t any planets, it wasn’t a good candidate for colonization. Still, people had dreams of reaching nearly all of the closest stars, and so a project was started in order to capitalize on the plethora of materials that can be found there. They would live in centrifugal cylinders instead.”

“What is that?” Mateo asked, feeling as much the idiot as ever. Serif didn’t seem to recognize the term either, though.

Sharice went on, “they’re basically giant space stations that rotate so fast, they simulate gravity on the inner surface. You might have seen the movie Interstellar. The people at the end lived in one.”

“Oh.”

“Well, the project was scrapped, but there was some sort of communication breakdown. All evidence suggests the automated factories in the system continued to build these cylinders on their own, waiting for colony ships that will never come.”

“Is there enough room for eleven billion people?” Leona asked.

“Theoretically. The basic designs are based on 21st century personal space requirements. People need less room now, and there’s no reason you couldn’t expand later, as needed.”

“What about Project Stargate?” Brooke asked.

“And what is that?” Mateo asked yet again.

“Like Sharice said,” Brooke began, “Gatewood is full of stuff. Most of it didn’t coalesce into larger celestial bodies, but this stuff is very useful for building things. It’s called Gatewood, because it’s also the home of the largest vonearthan endeavor in the entire history of our species.”

“It’s a rumor,” Sharice argued.

“I think I can guess, based on the name,” Leona said, “but just so I’m sure, what is this rumor?”

Sharice decided to answer. “The vonearthans are presently concerned with the colonization of the stellar neighborhood. We have settlements—or planned settlements—on Proxima Doma, here on Bungula, Varkas Reflex, Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, and Glisnia, with a few other places in the early exploratory stages. Project Stargate would expand those plans by hundreds of billions. Every single star in the whole galaxy would be reached, over the course of the next tens of thousands of years. It’s an absurd idea, and it’s not real. It couldn’t be.”

“But if it is real, then Gatewood would be the perfect staging ground for it,” Brooke reminded her.

“It would be, if it were real, but it’s not.”

“Would they be building the galaxy vessels right now? If it were real, that is,” Leona added.

Sharice shook her head. “Maybe, maybe not. The people who came up with it projected a 2250 departure date, only because they wanted to travel as close to the speed of light as possible, and that’s when futurists think we’ll get there. They hadn’t figured out how long it would take to construct the damn thing. The smallest independent unit was called a seed plate. It’s about a meter wide, and three centimeters thick, and would have been responsible for installing quantum messengers, and other structures, in seven to twenty-eight solar systems. Look, Gatewood is perfect for the refugees. The cylinders are waiting for them there, no one else wants them, and there aren’t any goddamn Stargate automators swallowing up resources.”

“Well, we have to come up with some solution in the next few years,” Serif noted. “My people are on the brink of war with the Maramon. Our universe is not big enough for all of us. Something’s gotta give. I’m willing to risk Gatewood, if Bungula is not a viable option.”

“Even if you got everyone there,” Brooke complained, “it will still take forever to evacuate them. The bridge is still attached to this wee little bunk thing in the floor.”

“Grave chamber,” Ramses corrected.

“Morbid.”

“That’s an easy solution too,” Sharice said. “We just need the Muster Beacon.”

“The lighter that I used to bring Mateo back from nonexistence?” Leona questioned. She had gotten it from another universe, and though it was a powerful temporal object, there was no way it was strong enough to take on eleven billion people.”

Sharice smirked. “Every invention you’ve ever come across has had a more advanced counterpart, right? The Jayde Spyglass is an easier-to-use version of the Cosmic Sextant. The Escher Card is the sequel to the Escher Knob. Even the Crossover started out as a tiny Prototype. The Muster Lighter too has another version. The Beacon is much larger, and has a much greater capacity.”

“How much greater are we talking?” Leona asked.

“A handful of rounds could pull everyone from the other universe, into Gatewood. It’ll take longer to transfer it from cylinder to cylinder than it will to summon everyone from Ansutah.”

“Just what the hell are we talking about?” Serif was feeling left out.

“Special fire,” Leona said to her. “It somehow apports massive numbers of people, from wherever they are, to a single location. It’s like a bug zapper for people, that doesn’t kill the people.”

“And we have this object?” Serif tried to clarify.

“That’s another thing,” Brooke said. “If it does indeed exist, which we don’t know for sure, we don’t know where it is.”

“The Weaver told me where it was,” Sharice said, but she didn’t act particularly excited about it.

“Oh, yeah? Where?”

Sharice pretended to clear her throat. “Dardius.”

“That’s millions of light years away,” Brooke shouted. “If we could travel those distances, we could just take the refugees to Dardius itself.”

“There’s not enough room there either,” Sharice fought back.

“Still in another galaxy, young lady.”

“You promised not to call me that anymore.”

“There’s a way to get to Dardius,” Ramses jumped in.

“Is that right?” Leona asked him in disbelief.

Ramses took a deep breath. Then he looked between Mateo, and one of the other bunks. “There’s a reason Étude wanted the ship to be designed like this, and why she wanted us to call these grave chambers.”

“Why?” Serif had no clue.

Ramses looked back to Mateo. “Accent on the grave part.”

Mateo didn’t know what he was driving at either.

Ramses rolled his eyes. Then he reached down and slid back one of the doors in the floor. “Before...it was a closed grave,” he condescended. “Now...it’s an open grave.”

Oh. But would that work?

No.

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Microstory 1016: Finley

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Good mornin’. Yes, my people do say good mornin’ sometimes. It isn’t always top o’ the mornin’ to ya. Hi, my name is Finley, and I’m Irish. Well, that made me sound like an alcoholic. Is there a difference? According to our neighbor, there ain’t. Me dad wanted to move us back to a small town, like the one where we lived in Ireland, but we couldn’t afford to go back overseas, so here we are. Coming from the big city was a bigger culture shock than the original move to the states. People here a lot more racist, and they don’t even know it. They think they’re being funny and endearing, but that can be just as offensive. Viola wasn’t like that. We immediately became friends. Believe it or not, we liked to play darts and pool together. We weren’t technically supposed to be allowed in the pool hall, but the bartender made an exception, as long as we didn’t try to drink, which we didn’t. Councilman Koch is there all the time, and she was cool with it too. We would spend an hour or two there most weekdays, and sometimes on Sunday, just talking about meaningless stuff. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time with her before she was taken from us. I think that’s why that Ralph feller told you to speak with me early. Either he didn’t know how close we were, or he figures that three weeks is still just three weeks. I couldn’t tell you what happened that day, or what was going on with her friends. I can tell you that the whole group makes me feel really uncomfortable. I have a sense about these things, ya see. My mother was very sensitive to auras. I’m not super superstitious, but I believe there are laws of physics out there that we don’t even know enough about to study. I was really only cool with Viola. She was so much different than them, I don’t understand why they all hung out together. I’m sure they’re lyin’ about something, I just don’t know what. She was worried. She didn’t say anything, but I could hear the anxiety in her voice. The week of her death, she was really short and distant. I thought maybe I had done something to bother her. I scoured my social media pages, looking for a post I made that didn’t paint me in the best light. I didn’t find anything, but now I know it was a waste of time. It wasn’t me, it was them. I’m sure you’ve heard whispers, they are into some weird shite. Those are really the only ones you need to talk to.

Microstory 919: Decline in Child Mortality

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Wow, this is a depressing topic, isn’t it? Any attempt at being positive will be overshadowed by how dark the subject is. Before I started this entry, I was doing research, and what I learned was something I’ve already intuited, about a number of other concepts. It may not seem like any, or much, progress is being made, because people lack the historical references to understand what has changed. You’ve only been alive yourself for so long, and you can only understand so much about what things were like before you. I often hear arguments for going back to the way things were that involve claims that we did things that way for so long, and our ancestors did fine. Well, no, that’s not true. Before the nineteenth century, the child mortality rate was roughly fifty percent. This means that, for every one child that was born, and lived past five years old, one child did not. Medical science was severely lacking, as you would expect; utilizing treatment techniques that would be laughable today, if not outright horrifying. Sanitization was difficult to come by, if not virtually nonexistent. And people simply did not know how to care for children as well. Part of this was not their fault, but part of it was. Things were once so bad, that offspring were seen as a means of continuing one’s legacy, rather than family to be cherished. The Abrahamistic God, in his infinite cruelty, one killed a man’s entire family, just to prove the man would continue to love him. He and Satan teamed up for a wacky adventure where they destroyed this man’s life, taking everything from him, in an attempt to win an argument between each other. Of course, being the Bible, God won the bet. He used his power to not just restore Job to his former state, but make his life better than it was. He didn’t do this by undoing his own actions, but simply by replacing his wife and children with a whole new set. That’s right, people were living in such wretchedness, that a human could be replaced by another, and no one would bat an eye. We don’t know what the child mortality rate was back then, but I’m guessing it wasn’t great. I’ll never understand this need to trust in a higher power that would ever kill a human being for some “grand design”. How despicable an entity you would have to be to ever do that, much less to a child. I have big plans for the future, and none of them includes killing any children, and I hope yours don’t either. Things are getting better, but like any progress I’ve mentioned on this site, or not mentioned, there is always room for improvement. We must seek a state of zero child mortality, and the only way for us to do that is to embrace advancement, reject counterproductive nostalgia, and abandon religious superstition.

Microstory 826: Hurt a Fly

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Today is the day. I’m more nervous about this than any other time in my life. I thought I had accepted what was going to happen to me, but as the hour approaches, I start doubting my resolve. Years ago, the King of this country came across a movie scientists eventually realized had come from another universe. We either don’t know how the DVD got here, or they never revealed this to the general public, but it changed our lives forever. In the story, all crime is legal for one night, including murder. This inspired the King to adopt a similar structure. His people made the connection between this movie, and a short story we came across seventy years ago. Though technology hadn’t advanced enough back then to determine the story’s origin, we now believe it too originated from some other universe, because no one by the author’s name ever existed in ours. It was about a small village where one individual is chosen every year to be stoned to death, upon the superstition that there was some correlation between that, and a good harvest. Our King decided to combine these stories into one. He would draw one name in a lottery every year, and make all crimes against the winner legal for one day, so people could purge them from the world. Of course, in a kingdom of millions, the odds of your name being drawn are almost negligible, but someone has to be chosen, and this time, it’s me. But I have a secret that no one else knows.

Though purge day lasts for twelve hours, lottery winners usually die within the first, because there is nowhere to run. But I don’t have to run, because I can fly. I take a deep breath and step up onto the stage. Wearing my ceremonial grey suit, I smile for the cameras, which is something I’m required to do, so people know who they’re trying to kill. There’s been a history of illegal murders on this day, because people pretend to be the lottery winner, just to die famous. I stretch a little and loosen up, do a little dance to make the people laugh, and wait for the bell. As soon as it dings, I launch into the air, surprising the entire world, all at once. I’ve never met any other human who could fly, so it appears to be impossible, and it certainly isn’t easy for me. It’s not like in the movies, where they just have to jump up and go. It takes a lot of work, and a lot of energy, and I’m not entirely confident in my ability to sustain myself for as long as I’ll need to. When I fly, it’s like I’ve turned the wind into a slippery hill. I have to constantly climb up that hill to stay above the surface, and it’s always only a matter of time before I slide back down.

After the crowd gets over their shock from what I’ve done, they start running after me. They can tell that it isn’t easy, so they’re just biding their time until I come back down. I’m just glad that the King decreed that guns were illegal for this event, because of how impersonal, and effortless they are. He wants a show, and it’s supposed to be my job to give it to them, which I believe I’ve delivered, and I think that entitles me to become the first lottery winner to survive. I stay up as best I can, but man am I getting tired. I move like a heart rate monitor. Up, down, up, down, up, down. But I never fall, and I never land. I try to rest on roofs of the castle towers, but people are always waiting for me there. I try to seek refuge in the Keserint Forest, which no past winner has ever lasted long enough to reach, but I find a horde or rebels there who are just as interested in killing me as any law-abiding citizen. After three hours of this, I’m just not physically capable of staying up. I gracelessly drop to a meadow, and try to massage my shoulders, and my pelvic muscles, which support most of my weight when I’m flying. I look into the distance as a band of excited killers come to claim their prize. They’re happy that it’s finally over, but appreciative of how much more thrilling this year has been. Everyone always wants to be the one to make the final blow, but the stakes are even higher for me. They’re but meters away, but I’m even too tired to try to run. I place my arms behind my back, and close my eyes to yield to my fate. Suddenly, I feel arms grip my shoulders, and lift me into the air. I turn my head to find another human who can fly, carrying me away from the crowd. It appears to be far easier for her. She smiles at me. “We’ve been looking for you your whole life. Let’s go back to our universe.”

Microstory 486: Composer

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I’ve spoken before on the fact that I ended up deciding that I wanted to do more series, and fewer standalone stories on this site. In reality, I don’t think I’ll really ever go back to the way it was in the beginning. Sure, the Dreams series will include a hundred different dreams, but they’ll still all be dreams. The problem with this plan is that the solar calendar doesn’t really make this easy. I end up with dangling remainders on both ends of the calendar year. This could be solved if we used a calendar that had 28 days in each of 13 months, but you people are too bloody superstitious. Anyway, these danglers are fine, because I end up coming up with something based on however many installment slots happen to be left over. And how many do we have this time? Well...14. I didn’t have any ideas broken up into 14 sections, but what I did have was a set of 16. This turned out to be perfect, because I could set aside two Saturdays to complete it, which helped with the mezzofiction math. Unfortunately, however, this meant I didn’t have room for an introduction, which I’ve discovered to be narratively important. If I don’t explain what’s going to happen ahead of time, I feel awkward, because I’ve just jumped into this weird new thing, and it never had a real beginning. So that’s what I’m doing here, instead of talking about Composers. Why would I talk about composers, you ask? Why because it’s a type of personality. Composers are observant artisan entertainers. They are creators, artists, inspirers. But they are also methodical, deliberate, and stable. They’re considered to be ever-present, choosing not to focus too much on the future, or dwell on the past. It is for this reason that, although I’ve discussed the future of this project, I cannot tell you what the other installments are going to be like. That’s mostly because I don’t know. But that’s okay, I’m not worried about it. Let’s just be here. Now.

Microstory 473: Floor 12 (Part 2)

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Production Manager: Are you scared?

Shadow: No, of course not.

Production Manager: Ya know, it’s okay to be scared. Adults get scared, just like little kids...just like brave eighth graders.

Shadow: It’s just that...I’ve never seen anyone die before. I mean, I know that I didn’t actually see him die. But just knowing that he’s down there is...

Production Manager: Go ahead. Don’t be afraid to share your feelings. I know that sounds contradictory to what I said about getting scared. Just know that this is a safe space.

Shadow: It’s creepy. Is that bad?

Production Manager: I’m sure you’ve heard that death is a natural part of life, and this is true. But I bet no one’s explained to you what death is really like.

Shadow: I go to church with my family. They talk about death all the time.

Production Manager: Well, they’re talking about the afterlife. I’m referring to the death itself, and how any given loss of life impacts the world around them. One second you’re here, and the next you’re not. Or rather, they’re not. Alpha will never tell a coworker another dirty joke. He’ll never see how his current favorite TV show ends. And worst of all, he’ll never get to meet you. That is creepy. It’s weird to think about a world where you don’t exist. Can you imagine what this planet will be like after you die? Yeah, see, I saw you shudder a bit. Because it’s an uncomfortable feeling. What you’re experiencing right now is an existential examination. You’re questioning your very reality, because a man just left us forever. So when you ask me if it’s bad that you think it’s creepy that his body is just lying down there, all I can say is no. No, it isn’t bad. Death should make you shiver. It’s reminding you how important you are, and how important everyone around you is, and it motivates you to make a difference. That’s what life is; interacting with others.

Shadow: Whoa. No one’s ever said anything to me like that before.

Production Manager: I don’t doubt it. People often underestimate children, but I can see how bright you are. And I want you to know how glad I am that you chose to shadow me for your career day project. I’m sorry this had to happen, but I’ll always remember our time together...interacting. I hope you take this experience, and apply it to something positive in the future. I know I will.

Microstory 472: Floor 14 (Part 2)

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Scientist 1: Hey, do you know where Lead Scientist is?

Scientist 2: I believe that he went upstairs to speak with the president.

Scientist 1: To what end?

Scientist 2: To request we move our offices and labs back to the original facility, because this one isn’t great for us.

Scientist 1: Yeah, it’s a beautiful building, but we really should go back.

Scientist 2: Yeah, we should def go back, but Lead Scientist should not have gone up there asking for that.

Scientist 1: Why not?

Scientist 2: This is a trying time for all of us, for no one more than Alpha. This was his company, his baby. It’s no wonder he faltered...literally, once it all started to come crashing down.

Scientist 1: Are you saying that Lead Scientist pushed him to it? I don’t mean pushed him, pushed him. I mean, do you think their conversation drove him to it?

Scientist 2: Oh, certainly not. In fact, I don’t even think he went up there early enough to say one word to Alpha before he fell. I just mean that it was foolish for him to do it. I don’t want to say he was lucky for having missed his chance, but I do think things could have been worse if he had been there—and I’m not just referring to the emotional trauma from witnessing someone’s death.

Scientist 1: Or he could have stopped it from happening at all, if only due to the butterfly effect.

Scientist 2: That’s true. But then his job would be at risk, even more than it already is. All of ours are.

Scientist 1: Yeah, I get it. I see what you’re saying. But he couldn’t have known how bad things had become for the company. I mean now we’re hearing all sorts of rumors flying around. Alpha dies, the elevator crashes and more people die? Things are getting worse. If none of that had come out, I bet going up there wouldn’t be all that bad of an idea.

Scientist 2: Yeah, maybe. I suppose there’s no way to know. What happened, happened.

Scientist 1: That might not be an entirely accurate assessment of our situation.

Scientist 2: What the hell are you talking about?

Scientist 1: I think maybe it’s time for you to see what my special team has been researching on the thirteenth floor.

Scientist 2: There is no thirteenth floor. This building was designed by superstitious people. Technically, this is Floor 13.

Scientist 1: That’s not exactly how this building was constructed. You’ll see.