Microstory 2248: Deliberately

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Hey, everyone, this is Kelly again. Things are not going well. As you may have realized, Nick is not well. We thought that we were totally past this, but we were wrong. He proved that he was once immortal by being cured of the prion disease, and now he’s incidentally proving that he’s no longer immortal by suffering from something else. We didn’t know what we were dealing with at first, but we were very worried for him. He’s been very fatigued and weak lately, which he attributed to a lack of consistent and comfortable sleeping situations. But that just didn’t seem to be enough to explain how dramatically he was declining. And then that last post. It was written so poorly, and wasn’t like him at all. We knew that something else had gone wrong; something specific that could be tested for, and not just remedied homeopathically. Everyone’s first thought was yet another pathogen of some kind, since he seems to have become a magnet for them. I’m sure that a lot of you were all thinking the same thing, as his posts were reminiscent of the kind that he wrote during other infections. That’s not what it is, though, and not because he’s run out of those. Some of you seem to feel like he can’t get another infection, because he’s already had every kind, but that’s not how it works. He’s had every classification. He could get a thousand different ones over the course of the next half century, and he will still not have contracted everything that the world has to offer. And you can become reinfected with the same exact disease anyway; we’ve never cured any of them. But no, that has nothing to do with it anyway. It’s poison. He has been poisoned. The hospital ran a battery of tests, and came to the conclusion that it’s an organophosphate. Don’t ask me to say that out loud. They are commonly found in pesticides, which is why the majority of patients live or work on farms, or in facilities would use these pesticides, or which take part in the manufacturing of them. But those are not the only ways to encounter it. You can eat contaminated food, or even be exposed to it from a chemical explosion. None of these apply to Nick. Well, he’s eaten food, of course, but we’ve all eaten the same things, and have not tested positive for the stuff. The most likely answer is that someone poisoned him deliberately. I don’t know if they were trying to kill him, or only wrongly trying to prove that he’s still immortal, or what, but we will not tolerate that. We’ve spoken with the proper authorities, and a major investigation is underway. Since these chemicals are sometimes used in terroristic plots, the FBI is on the case, not just for Nick, but because such a bad actor places the whole country at risk. So be warned, they’re going to find you, and you will pay. As for Nick himself, he is receiving the treatment that he needs, and the medical professionals expect a full recovery eventually. If you did this to him, you better hope for a positive outcome, or you will be in even bigger trouble than you already are.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 17, 2399

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Of all the least stable regions in the world, one particular small so-called nation located in Central Africa may be the worst. On the borders of Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad lies a terrorist-controlled area that was once split between those four original nations. The historical events that led to this secession are too complicated to spell out in a few paragraphs, but the bottom line is that the terrorists operating there were building out their offensive strategies, and worsening a war that they would ultimately lose, but not before thousands—if not millions—died in the ensuing conflict. The only way the four countries saw to end the bloodshed was to simply let them take formal control over the land and lakes. Their only significant condition was that the terrorists allow anyone living within the new borders to migrate out if they wished.

People fled in all directions, and were accepted as refugees or preexisting citizens in the four countries. They were also accepted in a few farther countries, like Libya, and even Egypt. Hostilities from Fadi have not ceased since the borders were redrawn, but the violence has subsided, and fewer civilians are caught in the crossfire than before. One issue is that only these four countries acknowledge Fadi as an independent state, stifling its voice and influence on the international stage. They also experience extreme sanctions, which limits the resources that they can import. For this reason, they will take payment from anyone for literally any reason. As long as the price is right, they’re willing to agree to any deal. They’ll commit acts of violence against their own people if the result is the persistence of the state as a whole. One resource they have to export are fossil fuels, which some aircraft can use to fly. They don’t require filing flight plans, so many criminals use it as a layover. Fadi will usually ask them to transport goods back and forth for them as part of the deal.

It was hard for SD6 to find the plane that left Dublin Island after it made a stop in the completely inaccessible Fadi, but they think they’ve done it. A plane matching its characteristics was tracked leaving the area, and landing in North Sudan, right on the border with Egypt. Once there, Kivi began to feel a draw even farther northward, suggesting that they are finally on a hot trail to Leona. They still don’t know who took her, why, or what condition she’s in, but she has to be alive, or Kivi wouldn’t be feeling anything. As they drew nearer to Cairo, Kivi realized where they must be headed, and it makes a lot of sense. She and the team were in Egypt once after the whole Birket issue, but were unable to stay and investigate one of the most important locations in the world when it comes to temporal anomalies. From what she recalls, they were going to go back at some point to check out the pyramid, but there were political issues with that, so they placed it on the backburner. Then when they became teleportation-capable, they had sort of forgotten about it. There were other things to worry about by that point.

“There’s someone here,” she says, holding up the portable temporal error detector.”

“Here where?” Alserda asks. She looks around at the crowd enjoying their tours.

“Inside,” Kivi says, nodding towards the pyramid.

“You can’t go inside,” their tactician, Hartwin points out.

“No,” Kivi says. “You’re not allowed to go inside. That doesn’t mean you can’t. Team Matic doesn’t do well with rules.”

“Can you...” They’re in mixed company, so he just mouths the word teleport.

“No.”

“Then when we use the word you, we’re not just talking in generalizations, are we? SD6 has no official jurisdiction on these lands.”

“Perhaps I can help?” Most tack teams have seven members, but this one often travels with a rotating list of eight member consultants. Their guide while in country is a man by the name of Nakia Mounir.

“Do you have that kind of pull?” Alserda asks him.

“Unofficially, no,” Nakia begins, “but my sister’s husband’s brother runs a tourism company for the Nile. I’m sure he has ties to the Great Pyramid.”

“That’s a lot of degrees of separation,” Alserda says.

“Let me try. It can’t hurt to make some calls. Worst that happens, they say no.”

“Go ahead and make your calls.” Alserda turns to admire the craftsmanship. “I’ve always wanted to see inside anyway,” she says, mostly to herself, but loud enough for others to hear.

A few hours later, they have permission to enter the pyramid, but not the entire group. Only two people will be allowed in, and one of them has to be of Egyptian citizenship, so obviously that’s Nakia. “Can you do this?” Alserda asks.

“Me?” Kivi questions. “You or Klein should go in. I don’t have any diplomatic training. Besides, you said you wanted to.”

“You know her best,” the leader reasons. “She needs to see a face that she trusts, not just one she recognizes.”

Kivi holds up the error detector. “Alserda, this thing detects...” She trails off, looking over at Nakia, who has not been read into everything. “Ugh. Time travelers. That’s all it can see. It doesn’t show me how many other people are in there. It doesn’t even tell me that it’s Leona. It could be anybody.”

“They’re only letting in one of us,” Alserda states the obvious. “You’ve had enough training. Stay on radio, and if it goes bad, we’ll breach. I would rather deal with the socio-political fallout of an unsanctioned tactical action than go in there without you. It’s your job to be the Spotter, so enter the pyramid and spot.”

Kivi sighs. “Well, if it’s an order...”

“It definitely is. This is not a voluntary mission.”

Kivi and Nakia make their preparations, then step through the entrance a half hour later. The guard lets them in without seeing any credentials, confident that no one who hasn’t been authorized would so much as attempt it. They’re not wearing full tactical gear, but they’re not dressed in their civies anymore either.

“I wanted to ask you a question,” Nakia whispers as they’re walking through the darkened maze.

“What I said about time travelers?”

“Are we hunting them?”

“No, this is a rescue mission. We didn’t lie about that, we just didn’t tell you everything.”

“Good.”

“Why is that good? You don’t even know who we’re here for.”

“I would always rather be on a rescue mission than a hunt,” Nakia explains.

“Fair enough.” Kivi checks her detector again. They can’t just go straight for the ping. They have to find their way there, and the corridors will probably lead them in the wrong direction many times. They were not provided with the floor plans.

“Please tell me that time travel does not explain how the pyramids were built.”

She waits a beat to answer. “The way I understand it, time travel doesn’t explain how they were built, but it does have something to do with why. It’s a special place, which helps facilitate space travel. I don’t know; they didn’t tell me that much about it.”

“How did you meet them?”

Kivi decides to answer honestly. “I’m one of them. Technically, I’ve never actually done any traveling personally, but my alternates have.”

“So you’re a traveler in other timelines.”

“Other realities, but that’s not why I have alternates. I just do. It’s called spontaneous reemergence. Different versions of me have been, and will be, born in different moments in time. We have different origins and different lives.”

“How did that happen to you?”

She chuckles a little. “That’s how this works. Things just happen. There’s not always a reason to it. Why were you born with dark hair?”

“Genetics.”

“That’s the cause, not the reason.”

“I understand,” he says in a way that suggests he doesn’t. But that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? No one truly understands it. It just is. That’s her whole point.

“We’re closer,” she says. “I think she’s right on the other side of this wall. If we just go that way, I’m sure we’ll find a way in.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Kivi turns around to find Ramses having appeared out of nowhere wearing shorts and a t-shirt. “We’ve been trying to call you.”

“I didn’t wanna be called,” Ramses replies.

“That’s not really your right to decide that.”

“It is.”

“Leona is missing.”

“What?”

“She was taken. We don’t know by who, but she was brought here.”

“I’m the only one here,” Ramses insists.

Kivi isn’t sure that she believes him. She looks down at her detector. The dot that was once on the other side of the wall is now on the other side of them. “Oh my God. We’re been on your trail?”

“I guess. I’m sorry. I thought I successfully shielded myself, but I guess it was only good enough for satellite distances. The portable detector is able to get through.”

“That’s not how I found where you were. It’s just how I pinpointed your exact location. We used detective work to track you from Ireland to Fadi to here, and then my psychic ability to find you in the Cairo area.”

“Uhh...I was never in Ireland, nor Fadi. I teleported straight here after Mateo died. I’ve been here the whole time.”

“So it was Leona,” Kivi figures, “but then our intel went bad, and we followed the wrong third flight.”

“I apologize for pulling you off mission for nothing, but now you know I’m here. I’m never leaving, so if your ability ever takes you this direction again, you’ll know that it’s wrong, so just ignore it, and try again.”

“You’re living...in here?” Nakia asks.

“There’s a modern apartment hidden in here. It took me some time to find the secret entrance, but it’s just as Leona described how it looked in the main sequence.”

Kivi shakes her head. “No, you’re still a part of this. I don’t care if you’re having a midlife crisis, or whatever. I need you to teleport to Leona using your superempathy.”

“I don’t have either of those things,” Ramses counters. “I ran out of juice.”

“Then I’ll get you some more temporal energy,” she argues. “Let’s go!”

“I really want to keep myself out of it now. I’ll just make things worse.”

“I don’t care what you—oh, hold on.” She answers her phone. “Hello?”

“I have Leona on the line for you,” Winona says.

“What? You found her?”

“Kivi?” Leona asks. “Stand down, I’m fine.”

Microstory 1786: Virgin By Nature

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I accepted long ago that I wasn’t ever going to find myself a partner, or even just a warm body for the night. I was doomed from the start, and I’ve been branded an incel because of it. It’s true that I’m what one might call a virgin—though, that is an outdated term—and it’s true that it’s not by choice, but that doesn’t mean that I blame others for my situation. This is all me, and I take ownership of it. I wish there was a term for people like me. Since that word has been attributed to terrorists, rapists, and mysoginists, I’ve tried to just call myself a loser. It’s not a particularly favorable term either, but at least it distances me from those violent and aggressive men who believe the world, and its women, owe them something. I am a socially awkward extrovert. Yes, you read that right. I love putting myself out there, and meeting new people. I’m just incredibly bad at it. I’ve tried to take seminars, and watch tutorials, but none of them has worked. Many of them come off just as angry and entitled as the incel movement. I don’t know how to talk to others, no matter how badly I want to, or how hard I try. I keep saying the wrong things, and making myself look like an idiot. I always look weird, and make people uncomfortable. So what exactly is my problem, and is there anything I can do to fix it? I don’t think so, but even if I were better at communicating with people, I’ve realized that it doesn’t really matter. I’m traditionally unattractive. Yeah, I may be able to alleviate that a little with better hair, and hipper clothes. I may even be able to learn to express myself appropriately. That’s just the first filter, though. There are plenty of people in this world who are willing to look past looks, or are just as awkward as me, and could probably deal with it. But they won’t get past my other filters.

What is a filter? Well, people use them all the time when forming relationships. They don’t walk around with a sign hanging from their necks that announce that they’re available, and then just accept the first person who responds positively. Once they find someone they’re attracted to in some manner, they look for common ground. What do they both like to do, or what aspects of their personalities complement each other? Do they get along, or do they have too many differences? If those incompatibilities add up and overweigh the things they like about each other, the relationship either ends healthily, or becomes toxic. Unfortunately for me, those incompatibilities are pretty much guaranteed to be there from the start. The biggest filter is drug use. I can’t be with someone who does recreational drugs, including alcohol. I can’t stand drunks, and while I support recovering addicts, I still can’t relate to them, and I don’t know how to help them. That right there wipes most people off the board. Some people are sober because of religion, but I’m a staunch atheist, so that wipes off most of who’s left, because I can’t stand those people either. I would have to find a nonreligious teetotaler who likes to dance all night, and even listen to techno off the dance floor. That person just doesn’t exist, especially not when you account for other filters, like gender, relative age, and sexuality. Because the most important filter—the only one that’s necessary for me to remain alone—is other people’s filters. I may find the perfect girl, but if she doesn’t like me, it can’t go anywhere. It won’t even begin. That’s what truly keeps me from finding a soulmate. I don’t want to be with someone who would want to be with someone like me.

Microstory 1552: Fire Store

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Prompt

I broke into the store, as one does in the middle of an apocalypse. The shelves were nearly completely empty. All I ended up finding there was a box of rotten fruit...

Botner

...that nobody wanted, and a lone bottle of gas that had somehow made its way into the frozen food section. I poured the gas into the mouth of the nuclear bomb. Then I lit a match. It didn’t take long for the entire store to catch fire. I escaped with a few of my comrades, and we fled into the desert. I later learned that the whole thing was a controlled action. The peaceful protests that I had witnessed before had been staged in the hopes of making the current government pay. I had left behind two of my friends, who, having stayed behind in order to “protect the people” were taken as prisoners by the terrorists. They were held in what we would later learn to be a torture chamber, along with about thirty or forty other protesters. The rest of us were made to stand in lines in the blazing desert sun as the soldiers gave us a speech about what we were all doing wrong. “This is no way to live,” one of them said, as he pointed to his own bare foot. “Your life belongs to the state. You are here to serve it.” It was...

Conclusion

...the most humiliating day of my life, but I will also make it the most important for the movement. We were galvanized into action, to put right what is wrong, and make the world a better place. Nuclear war is not the answer, and I should have known that. We have to show them that they cannot break us, that we will continue to fight, but will not do so with guns, or sticks and stones, or even our fists. We will fight them with words, and turn hearts to our favor. Not everyone will join us, but enough will, and those remaining will lose in the end, not just because there will be so few of them left, but because nothing will come of their actions. We leave the desert, and regroup in the tunnels under the city. A rival faction of rebels has heard what happened to us, and meets us in the neutral zone. They’ve decided they want to help, and that maybe, our goals aren’t as misaligned as we once thought. They don’t want the terrorists to win either, and if we can come to a compromise, and formulate a solid plan, they won’t. Our first order of business is to declare someone leader, after our last one was executed to prove a point to the rest of us. Someone anonymous nominates me, and even though I don’t want the job, I can’t protest. Our ways prevent nominees from campaigning one way, or the other. I realize that no one is going to actually vote for me, but someone wanted to shut me up, and keep me from swaying minds to the woman I know is right for the role. A man from the rival faction is elected instead, and the rebellion fails, for good this time.

Microstory 1460: Nothing Civil About It

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People were not happy with Sekundas Drumpf declaring himself the Republic’s dictator. It didn’t make any sense, and it wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair. The voters distrusted women as much as he did, but that didn’t mean he had the right to pass whatever laws he wanted, or to punish however he saw fit. People were dying, even though capital punishment remained illegal. They had to get him out of office, and that meant sparking a revolution. This rebellion force had absolutely nothing to do with the Thicket. They didn’t feel that women should be equal, but if the city was going to develop any policies regarding what a woman could and couldn’t do, then it would develop them as a collective, not by a single voice. Unfortunately, unseating Drumpf was not destined to be the easiest thing in the world. He was extremely good to the military. He allowed them to use whatever means they deemed necessary in the fight against terrorism, but also made their jobs as easy as they wanted. He didn’t force them to work, but when they did work, he let them do it however they pleased. He had no interest in commanding the troops, but left that responsibility to the Commons. By the way, Common was the Durune analog for a General, due to some English linguistics becoming lost in translation over time. They loved him, and they would do anything for him, and the only way to stop him was if they switched sides, or if dissidents started an internal conflict. For two years, this so-called civil war raged throughout the city. Soldiers on both sides died, as did innocent bystanders.

The Thicket rebels didn’t know what to do. They could see some great opportunities to make real changes while Aljabara was distracted and in chaos, but they were afraid of making things worse, or stooping to their level, because that was the kind of thing that their enemies would do in their shoes. In the end, they did nothing. They stayed in hiding, and let the Aljabarans work it out themselves, for if they tried to help the dissidents, they would just be painting a larger target on their own backs. No one really won this conflict. Drumpf ultimately stepped down, deciding that he would rather not be in power than see the city fall, and the women rise from its ashes to take their revenge. Before he left office, however, he made one final speech, where he warned the citizens of the last prediction that his hidden seer made for him. He claimed that a great subversive force was on its way, that this force would destroy everything they had been working towards for the last sixty years, and that they would come crawling back to him in the wake of its destruction. He said that he would gladly return to office when that day came, and would not hold these recent events against them. It was the only thing he ever asserted that ultimately proved to apparently be true. Years later, a woman from Earth showed up, and helped take down the established republic. In response to this, Drumpf was indeed returned to leadership, in an albeit different position, with smaller scope. Until that day came, however, the Republic still needed to continue, and someone had to be in charge around here. The dissidents hadn’t really thought about who would do that, or how they would go about finding this man. They decided they needed an emergency election. That actually went pretty well, and marked a turning point in the planet’s history. The thirteenth top leader of the Aljabaran Republic secretly studied under former President Summerfield, which gave him the insight to learn from his mentor’s mistakes. Before the Republic ended, social justice was already leaning in that direction, thanks to Remanoir Eskandar Aljabari’s initiatives.

Microstory 1459: A Continuation

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Starting in the year 2154, the city of Aljabara was gearing up for another election. They expected to elect Sekundas Drumpf for a third term, but there was no guarantee of that, and there were plenty of hopefuls who sought to unseat him. He had no interest in seeing this happen, so he made an argument for cancelling the election altogether. He was already in charge, and things were going great, so why mess with a good thing? According to reports, the war against the Thicket terrorists couldn’t be going any better. The truth was that he had made little to no progress on this front, but the people didn’t need to know that. He inflated numbers, and reframed narratives, and spun the truth, and also just made up flat-out lies. He made himself look like the best thing that had ever happened to this planet. He made it seem like people barely survived before him, and that they wouldn’t survive the future without him. He claimed to have a mage remnant seer in his pocket, who regularly warned him of oncoming events, and that only he knew what to do to protect his constituents. He swayed a lot of people using these tactics, but he couldn’t convince everyone. That was okay, because he didn’t need everyone. He really only needed the military. He had no legal authority to get rid of the election ballots, but get rid of them he did. He declared himself the autonomous authority over the entire planet, and challenged anyone to disagree with him on this matter. There were a few takers, but they were swiftly removed from their mortal coil, and no one dared push him towards the edge again. It didn’t bother him at all that his actions meant that they were no longer living under a republic, but a dictatorship. He wanted more power, and the only way to get it was to hold onto what he already had. Democracy could go take a hike for all he cared. He insisted they continue to call it The Republic, however, to make him look good, and to make the city look good, in case Earth ever found out about them. The history books didn’t even acknowledge a change in governmental type when looking back at this period of time, for all the official documentation suggested that nothing had been altered. The Durune were now living in a totalitarian state, and it didn’t feel like anything could make it the least bit better.

Microstory 1458: New War on Terrorism

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Sekundas Drumpf won reëlection for leader of Aljabara, which was the first time that ever happened on Durus since the Republic was founded. People liked change, and he gave it to them, and five years later, there was no reason to believe he wouldn’t keep changing things. He even promised to undo some of the policies he himself came up with in the first place, as if his past self were less of a man than the version of him in the present. People didn’t see this as contradictory or bizarre. The past was always worse, no matter what, even if this was objectively untrue. He had their confidence, and he had their votes. There was some evidence that the ballots had been tampered with by Drumpf’s loyalists, but no proof, and there was definitely nothing connecting him to this alleged crime. He would later get rid of any semblance of democracy altogether, but for now, he had work to do. He wanted to make this the best planet in the galaxy, and in order to do that, he had to take control over the whole planet. The first change he made was to his own administration. They were no longer going to call this the government of Aljabara, but of Durus, so that if they did one day expand beyond this one city, they would have control over everything. It wasn’t just about the future, though. It also made it a lot easier for him to go after what he considered to be man’s greatest enemy. Now that younger generations of girls would be indoctrinated into the belief that they could do nothing on their own, it was time to deal with The Thicket. These women could never change—never be taught. He figured they needed to die, like a household pest. He and his closest allies desperately wanted to go to war, and to leave no prisoners, but it wasn’t going to be easy. Surprisingly few were in favor of violence against women, or anyone. There was only one way to change their minds, and that was to reframe the narrative. The Thicket was already labeled an insurgent organization, but had yet to be fully recognized as a terrorist group. Making this change required diplomatic addendums, but starting there would have been a waste of time. He needed to make sure the public was on his side first, so he just started slipping the word into his speeches, increasing frequency each time, and boosting applause every moment he could. Once the civilians were convinced that the rebels were terrorists, it was easy to get it changed in the official documentation. That in turn made it easier to get the necessary support to start physical attacks. Until then, they had been trying to protect the city’s borders, but had yet to go on the offensive in any significant way. It took Drumpf several months, but he finally got approval. Then it took even longer for his army to find their opponents, who had grown used to hiding deep in the thicket. The War on Terrorism began in 2151, and never really technically ended, even when Hokusai Gimura showed up, and forced huge changes to the government. They never reached a peace treaty, or a ceasefire, or anything. They just kept fighting when they could, and taking strategic breaks when the intelligence dried up. A lot of other things happened in the meantime.

Microstory 1446: Rise Up and Fall Down

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When the Republicans took over Durus, they did so insidiously and strategically. They didn’t just start screaming about how much they hated women. They didn’t even openly talk about women disparagingly. They dressed it up in innuendo and subtext. They started out by mentioning all the people they believed had caused most of their problems, and conveniently left out all the men that fell into that category. Smith and Kosta were undoubtedly villains in Durune history, but even though they agreed with this truth, acknowledging it was counterproductive to the Republicans’ goals, so they deliberately focused on only the women. By the time the majority of the population figured out what was happening, it was already too late. Their numbers were too great, and they had control of all of the resources that Aljabara needed to survive. They didn’t have everyone on their side, but they had enough. Plenty of men were completely against this insane new system. It wasn’t like they turned all of them into misogynists overnight. Further generations would be indoctrinated into these ideals, but until then, there was going to be a lot of internal conflict. In the beginning, detractors tried to remain peaceful, and use reason against the fear and distrust that the Republicans were trying to instill in everyone. Over the course of about a year, however, this method was proving to be ineffective, and some of them decided that it was never going to work. So they strayed, and started working on more violent solutions. There were actually two entirely separate groups who were not aware of each other, because each had to operate quietly and secretively. A war broke out in 2095, where insurgents attempted to gain control over Watershed, so the civilians would no longer be held to these people’s whims. Unfortunately, the Republicans were more prepared for the attack than they knew they would be. No one had betrayed them, and warned the Republicans that the attack was coming. They were just ready for anything, because they were fairly confident it was going to happen sooner or later. The rebels lost not only this first battle, but also the support of the people. The Republicans twisted their actions, and claimed that the rebels weren’t trying to make the world a better place, but a worse one. By calling their system a republic, they could easily paint any opponent as a fascist, or maybe an anarchist, whether this was true or not. So the rebels not only failed, but actually worsened the situation, because now they were the bad guys. The Republicans were even smart enough to leave the survivors alive, suggesting that they were the victims, who were only trying to do the right thing. Over the decades, more groups would rise up, but the establishment labeled them all terrorists, and easily maintained their power.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, April 26, 2050

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Shortly after Mateo and Sanaa arrived at their final destination, an old woman found them wandering what they could only describe as a thicket. The plant life here wasn’t all dead, but it was brown and overgrown. It was all there was as far as they could see. They wouldn’t have been able to hide in it unless they had been lying down, but there was still nothing for miles and miles. It would be strange if this person just stumbled upon them. She probably knew they were coming. She urged them to follow her, and didn’t say a word. It was only after they walked over the slight hill that they found civilization. A small town sat peacefully in the valley. She motioned for them to follow her farther, but did not go in herself after her final instructions to enter some kind of official building near the center of town.

They climbed the steps, and approached the doors. A young woman appeared to be standing guard. “Ecrin?” Mateo asked.

“Indeed,” she replied. He had only met her once, but since she was ageless, that was centuries in her future, so there was no way she knew who he was. Well, she might have known—it was absolutely within the realm of possibility—but it looked like she did not yet recognize him.

“I think we’re meant to save the life of someone on the other side of this door,” Sanaa said to her.

Ecrin was no stranger to time powers, and future-knowledge, so she wasn’t at all surprised by this possibility. She removed a note card from her back pocket, and consulted it. “That’s not on my agenda.”

“We don’t actually know,” Mateo clarified. “We’ve just been sent here by...” The powers that be didn’t have any control over them while they were in The Parallel, but they were back in the main timeline, so who the hell knows who was pulling the strings right now? Still, they were the easiest scapegoat. “By the powers that be,” he finished.

“A guide led us here, but she didn’t speak,” Sanaa added, “so we don’t know her motivations, or purpose.”

Ecrin frowned. “Was she wearing about a hundred more layers than she needed, and not because she looked like a homeless person from the old world, but more like she thought it was fashionable, like ancient times in the old world?”

“Yes,” Mateo confirmed.

“She’s a greeter, not a guide,” Ecrin began. “The PTB do occasionally send us salmon, and she takes it upon herself to track these arrivals, and make sure, no matter what, people like you report to the source mages first.”

“Then we need to talk to the source mages,” Sanaa said. “Thank you.” Mateo didn’t know if these two ever met at some other moment in the timeline, but she must have automatically respected the hell out of Ecrin, because she wasn’t known for being so polite and gracious. Strangers, best friends; Sanaa treated them just a little bit poorly. It wasn’t enough to alienate everyone around her, but it was something those closest to her had to learn to tolerate.

“Most of the source mages are gone,” Ecrin said. “Though, I suppose Kalea will be the most helpful and patient with you anyway. Welcome to Durus.” She opened the door with a backhand, but stayed outside to hold her watchful position. “Up the stairs, third door on your left.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Cabral.” Ah, damn. He wasn’t supposed to know her name. She flinched, but didn’t question it. Again, this sort of thing was commonplace in the world of salmon and choosers, and this whole planet lived in that world.

“Oh.” A young woman clapped her hands together, and opened a wide smile where once there was a regular smile she probably used as her resting face. “I am so happy you are here.”

“Did you know we were coming?” Sanaa asked.

“No,” she said, “but I am always glad to see a couple friendly new faces.”

“How do you know we’re friendly?” Sanaa pressed. She didn’t seem to respect this one quite as much.

“I always just assume that. I find life goes much smoother when I don’t make enemies with people I don’t know.”

“That’s lovely.”

Before they could continue the conversation, they were interrupted by the clanging of metal against metal, followed quickly but a loud crash; maybe an explosion. Then came the footsteps.

“This way,” Kalea ran out of her office, and bolted down the hallway.

Mateo took up the rear, and found the men pursuing them to be gaining ground. They ran all the way down, and into another staircase. Unfortunately, they were met by a second group of angry people at the bottom. This mob dragged them through the lower level, and into an open area. They forced them down to their knees, and ziptied their hands behind their backs. An angry bearded man stood in his leadership position, sword resting against his right shoulder, which he probably figured looked pretty badass. It did not. He scowled. “Where are the other source mages?”

“It’s Tuesday,” Kalea answered. “We don’t work on Tuesdays.”

The leader guy lifted his boot, and kicked Mateo in the chest. “Where are they?”

“You moron. It’s 2050. They’re getting ready for the mage games, which are not held at the capitol.”

“Why aren’t you with them?”

“There’s always at least one of us in the building. I imagine we do that to prevent someone like you from killing us all in one go.”

The man grimaced, threw his blade over to rest it on the back of his neck, balancing it with two hands, and leaned in real close. Man, this dude was just asking to cut himself. “We don’t need to kill you in one go. You’ll do...for now.” He stood back up, and spit on the floor. “Everyone out. I’ll stay here and make sure they don’t contact someone for emergency teleportation.”

“Sir?” one of his minions questioned.

“I die for a great cause. I die for equality. I die for a world where the powerless have powers.”

The minion, tears and all, nodded once out of reverence, and followed the rest of his compatriots out.

“You can’t teleport within these walls,” Kalea spit. “That’s how we designed it. It’s about your safety as much as ours.”

“Still, I think I’ll stick around.” The bearded man removed a black box from his bag, and placed it delicately on the floor.

“Singularity bomb,” Kalea said in an exhale. “Those are illegal.”

“No, d’uh,” he responded. “Ten seconds. Say your prayers to the time gods.”

“What’s that flickering?” Kalea asked, looking around at the walls.

“Oh, no.” Oh, yes, but oh no. Hoping the web video he once watched before he was a time traveler was real, Mateo raised his arms behind his back as high as they could go, then swung them down as hard as he could, and pulled them apart. The ziptie broke, as it was meant to. Just before the flickering gave way to reality—which was just before the bomb was going to go off—he managed to wrap his arms around Sanaa, hoping both of them would be swept into Kalea’s transition window. The building disappeared, leaving them on the cold, moist ground. The town was gone entirely, as was the freedom fighter, and they were surrounded by friends.

“Mateo!” Leona cried. She knelt down, and carefully pulled him off of Sanaa. She kissed him with a huge smile of her own, maintaining the expression as she looked at Sanaa. “And you. Where are you in the timeline?”

“The last time you saw me was the last time I saw you,” Sanaa replied.

“That’s wonderful,” Leona said, helping her friend up from the ground, and turning her attention back to her husband. “We were so worried Jupiter separated you from us forever, just to get a kick out of it.”

“I think he wanted to save Sanaa as well, so he got us to Kalea’s window.”

“Speaking of which,” Kalea said. “What’s a window, and where are we?”

Ramses took it upon himself to get the source mage up to speed, while Leona continued doing the same for Mateo.

“How did you get to this world?” he asked.

“The Cosmic Sextant,” she explained. “Samsonite was in possession of it in 2047. He didn’t know what he had, of course.”

“Samsonite? Does that mean...?”

“Aura and Theo. They were there too.”

“What was happening with them in 2047?” When the two of them were first jumping through time, they ran into his mother, her love interest, and a friend of theirs who was reincarnated as Leona’ younger brother. That was in a completely different reality, though. Mateo later went back in time, and killed Hitler. The butterfly effect from this act both took Mateo out of the timeline, and made it so Theo was instead reincarnated as a girl, named Téa Stendahl. None of them knew who Mateo or Leona were after these changes. “Wait, you said Theo, not Téa.”

“Yes,” Leona said. “They were from what we sometimes call Reality Two.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Sure it does,” Leona said. “The Parallel is a series of alternate realities—not just one of them—which all run parallel to—but independently from—the main series of alternate realities. Neither one directly impacts events in the other. If we were to cross back over, we could end up in any branch that spawned from the main series, rather than the one we just came from.”

“So, dark Reaver could show up,” Mateo supposed. “Or the versions of Carol and Randall who were my parents, rather than yours. Or a different version of you could appear, or me.”

Leona shook her head. “Carol and Randall couldn’t show up, because neither of them would be able to survive into the 2050s. The dates still match up perfectly. It’s April 26, 2050 over there, and it’s April 26, 2050 over here, regardless of which reality it happens to be. That’s what makes them parallel. Yeah, evil Reaver could show up, but we’re quickly coming up on the end of his personal timeline, before he dies. I can’t say what happened in 2047 won’t happen again, but it probably won’t be those people you mentioned. Tell me about you. How did you and Sanaa find each other?”

After Mateo finished telling his side of the story, the larger group came back together to decide what they were going to do. The Cosmic Sextant only operated one-way trips. They would allow any traveler to go anywhere in the observable universe, but they could never take the device with them, which meant, if they wanted to come back, they would have to do it by some other means. No one here was capable of that, and there was no one on this world either, because in this reality, nobody lived on the planet at all. All evidence suggested that they were now stuck here, unless they could figure out how to make the HG Goggles work for this many people.

“Perhaps that’s why I’m here,” Kalea said. She tripped, and almost fell. “Whew, a little faint.”

“Yeah, does the air feel thin?” J.B. asked.

“You stole atmosphere from the other Durus,” Leona began, “just like I believe the Sextant brings some atmosphere with it from Earth. We’re probably running out. We better find a way to get back. Miss Akopa, you said you thought that’s why you were here? I can’t imagine you can jump between planets. Otherwise, you would have traveled freely between Durus and Earth, right?”

“I can’t, no,” Kalea corroborated. “I can give someone else the power to do that, though.”

“Way I understand it,” Holly Blue said, “you’re a source of power, but you can’t choose which power to give someone. It’s like a random lottery.”

Kalea sported a smile-frown. “That’s what we’ve told people, but it’s not entirely true. I can give someone whatever power I want. We don’t always do that, but we do kind of have to make sure that our town mages don’t have the power to—I dunno—see what someone’s face will look like in fifty years. We need them to have real, protective powers, so we kind of control it.” She was hesitant to be telling them all this. “Sorry.”

J.B. looked around to see if everyone was in agreement. “We don’t care about any of your internal politics. That’s fine, we’re not judging you.”

“Oh.” She was pleased and relieved to hear this. “There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?” Holly Blue asked.

“I can’t give powers to someone who already has them, or already has a salmon pattern, for that matter. It only works on regular humans.”

Everyone but Kalea, and Ramses himself, looked over to the one true human in their midst.

“Am I finally gonna get time powers?”

“I think it’s the only way out of this.” Mateo affectionately slapped a firm hand on his best friend’s shoulder. “One of us, gooble gobble, gooble gobble. One of us, one of us.”

“Ramses, is that even what you want?” Leona asked with motherly concern.

He looked at her, and then Mateo, and then to each of the others, to gauge their respective reactions. “Oh, no doubt,” he answered in the flyest voice he could muster.

“All right, cool.” Kalea approached Ramses, and showed him both her palms, obviously suggesting he place his hands in hers. “There’s normally a lot more ceremony when it comes to this, but I think we’ll skip the pageantry. My headache is getting a lot worse.” She inhaled a deep breath from the thin air, and grasped Ramses’ wrists tightly. It took a couple minutes for her to pass whatever magical energy from her body to his.

When it was over, Ramses blinked. “What’d I get? Something cool?”

Kalea smiled at him. “I gave you exactly what we need, and what the world technically already has.”

“And what’s that?” he asked her.

She took him by the wrists again. “Life,” she whispered.

And with that, they both disappeared. They were replaced by a flourishing city. It was highly advanced, with futuristic buildings, and electric cars zipping by them on a newly paved road. This didn’t look like Durus, or Earth, or any planet they had ever been to before. This was new. What had Kalea done to him, and how had she removed Ramses’ Cassidy cuffs without being locked into them herself?

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Microstory 1399: Story

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Seasoned Reporter: This is the interview with Fiore Stern, noted serial killer and terrorist.

Fiore Stern: I am not a terrorist. I’m the one who helped take down the terrorist organization. Get your facts straight.

Seasoned Reporter: You worked for Hemming Fertilizer for three years before you contacted the authorities about their misdealings.

Fiore Stern: That’s right. I was undercover all that time.

Seasoned Reporter: That’s what you said when it happened, but you were later discovered to have personally killed two dozen people. Does that not call your motives regarding the bomb-making company into question?

Fiore Stern: I don’t think it does at all. The two things have nothing to do with each other.

Seasoned Reporter: According to earlier interviews, you knew the entire time what Hemming was in reality. Now, I’m not saying it doesn’t take three years to go undercover, and bring terrorists to justice from the inside. I honestly don’t know how I would do it, let alone how long it would take. But because of these revelations about your private inclinations towards violence, you have to understand that people are going to be suspicious about your role within the company. Some are wondering whether you had always intended to fight against them, or if you simply saw an opportunity, and took it, assuming that no one would scrutinize you about who you really were.

Fiore Stern: I can see where people might start modifying their perception of me. But they have to realize that serial killing and terrorism are two very different ideologies. What I did to those innocent victims was very personal, and I’ve been working with mental health professionals to understand my reasons. It’s a lot more complex than you might think.

Seasoned Reporter: I would never characterize your behavior as simple. No one seems to be arguing that.

Fiore Stern: Yes, but terrorism kind of is simple. These people were angry at the world. The justice they saw, they perceived as injustice. They believed it was their duty to correct society as a whole, and make people afraid to go against them. Now, I’m not at all saying that the terrible things I did were okay. It’s just that Past!Me had very different motivations. He thought he was making art, and subsequently beauty, and he even thought he was creating life. When I put those bodies on display, I surrounded them with plant life, which signified rebirth, and transcendence. Again, I’m completely aware of how wrong that was, but the terrorists couldn’t care less about any of that. I don’t fault people for hating me, or thinking I’m not better than the people who worked for Hemming, but to suggest we fall into the same category is quite negligent, and no psychologist would do that. I just want to make it clear that I didn’t hurt anybody for Hemming. I’ve hurt people, but not for those reasons, and not for them. It’s important to me that the public acknowledges that.

Seasoned Reporter: Okay. You’re both bad, but you’re not the same. Acknowledged.

Fiore Stern: Thank you.

Seasoned Reporter: Let’s move on. Tell me how life in prison has been for you over the course of this last year. Have the other inmates accepted you for what you did to your victims, or do they mistreat you because of what you did to those bomb-makers?

Fiore Stern: I’m actually in protective custody, but a special corner of it. This is where they put the corrupt cops, and snitches, so I interact with people a little, but not much. I’m mostly in solitary confinement.

Seasoned Reporter: And have you found that difficult, being alone all the time?

Fiore Stern: I like it. I don’t much care for people, and I don’t find myself going crazy in there. They gave me a little window, so that’s nice.. I will say this, though, the place could do with a few more plants.

Microstory 1398: Truth

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Advocate: Before we proceed, there are a few things you have to understand about your case. First, we’re not going to be able to convince the arbitration panels, or the general public, that you’re not guilty. I think you’re well aware of that. There’s too much evidence against you, and there’s no evidence that anyone else is actually responsible for your crimes. Does this sound right to you?

Fiore Stern: It is. I have to accept the fact that I’ve been caught. I cannot deny that I killed those people. So if I’m already guilty, what else can we do? What is the point of any of this? Can’t they just lock me up, and walk away?

Advocate: There are still some things to work out, and some things we can do to make your time in prison easier. Even if there weren’t, this is how our system is designed. We can’t just start punishing people without due process. You might be willing to skip trial, but what about the poor nineteen-year-old kid, who just got addicted to drugs? No, it has to be like this, and I’m afraid to tell you that it’s not going to be pleasant. The adherent is going to make you out to be the worst person on the planet. They’re going to make the panels think you deserve nothing better than a hole in the ground, and some slop once a week. As your advocate, it’s my responsibility to prevent that.

Fiore Stern: Okay.

Advocate: To that end, I have to know a few things. First, how many people have you killed, in total, including your colleagues at the bomb-making outfit, and anyone you dispatched for reasons other than your ritualistic killings?

Fiore Stern: I have killed twenty-four people in my life.

Advocate: The authorities found eleven bodies that they can attribute to you, including your psychiatrist. The other ten were put on display, so as to be found. Did you kill others before that, after, or in between?

Fiore Stern: All before. I didn’t decide to come out to the world until I had already killed thirteen people.

Advocate: You started wanting people to know who you were?

Fiore Stern: I wanted people to know me, but I didn’t want them to know who I was. I didn’t want to be caught. I put them on display, so people could enjoy my artwork.

Advocate: Okay, well, maybe don’t say that in court, since we’re not going with an insanity plea strategy. Here’s the problem. The bodies you put on display make you look disturbed. The bodies you kept hidden make you look remorseless. What you need to do is tell the authorities where to find the bodies that they have not yet uncovered. That will go a long way to making you more sympathetic. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but the arbitrationers need to know you’re not using these missing people as leverage, or toying with the world. They need to see you feel remorse.

Fiore Stern: I don’t feel remorse.

Advocate: Yeah, again, don’t say that.

Fiore Stern: Well, I’m kind of all about the truth. That’s why I did what I did in the first place. I want people to see the beauty in death. The reality is that everyone dies, and I consider my subjects to have received the highest honor. I only took a few decades from them anyway, and now, they will never be forgotten. How many other people can say that?

Advocate: This isn’t looking good for you, Mr. Stern. People don’t like it when you say things like that. Do you honestly believe people will buy into that, and that it will help your case?

Fiore Stern: I don’t really care about my case. I’m going to prison for the rest of my life. What difference can you really make? We don’t put people in literal holes in this country. I’ve seen what the worst prisons look like, and I’m prepared for those.

Advocate: It’s not just about the facility itself. It’s about the people in them. Do you know how many people you sent to prison when you took down that terrorist organization?

Fiore Stern: Two hundred and sixteen people worked for them, and are considered to be responsible enough for prosecution.

Advocate: It’s more than that. The company didn’t just make bombs for themselves. They funded their cause with money from their clients. They sold explosives to other groups. Many of those groups are now being watched and investigated, thanks to intel the government received from people you helped arrest directly. Now, a lot of these people end up in special prisons that you probably wouldn’t go to, but not all of them. You could end up in a cell with one of them, and they’re not going to be very happy with you. I can get you to the right prison, with the right protections. You have to be honest, but you also have to be careful with how you frame the narrative.

Fiore Stern: I understand.

Advocate: Good. Now, let’s move on, and start from the very beginning. Who was the first person you killed, and why?

Microstory 1397: Evidence

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Fiore Stern [on audio recording]: Yes, I agree. We should nip it in the bud, lest you poison the world with your claims about me.

Psychiatrist [on audio recording]: Mr. Stern, what are you talking about?

Fiore Stern [on audio recording]: Why don’t you stop recording, and I’ll explain.

Psychiatrist [on audio recording]: Stop. Don’t touch that. Please keep your distance, Mr. Stern. Mr. Stern! If you don’t—

Detective: That was the last recording from your psychiatrist. We couldn’t find a local copy on her computer, so I bet you erased it without realizing her sessions are automatically uploaded to the cloud so her assistant can transcribe them for her later.

Fiore Stern: Why are you playing this audio for me? If you want me to sue the psychiatric practice for breaching my privacy, then okay, I’m in.

Detective: That’s not why you’re here, and you know it. Madam Psychiatrist was killed two days ago. Her assistant happily supplied us with this evidence, because it appears to suggest you killed her to cover up whatever it is you shut off the recording to prevent anyone from finding out about.

Fiore Stern: Well, play the rest of it.

Detective: There is no rest of it. That was it.

Fiore Stern: Oh? So you don’t actually have any evidence that I killed her. All you’ve heard is that my psychiatrist didn’t want me touching her crystal awards, and then some kind of technical malfunction ended the recording.

Detective: You literally ask her to stop recording, and then your voice becomes slightly louder, which suggests you approached the microphone. You’re not going to get me to believe you didn’t turn it off. Now all I have to do is prove that you killed her. And honestly, I don’t really care why you did it; just that you go down for it.

Fiore Stern: This  is exactly what’s wrong with this country. You’re so eager to punish whoever you find first, you end up letting a lot of guilty people walk away unscathed.

Detective: You didn’t seem to hate the authorities very much when you were praising how well they handled your case with that bomb-making organization you worked for.

Fiore Stern: I was playing nice for the cameras, but the truth is that company wasn’t even on anyone’s radar. Hell, the Financial Regulation Commision didn’t even suspect there was something wrong with their books. I only needed the authorities, because I’m not allowed to arrest people. You’re completely incompetent, and totally pointless without people like me.

Detective: I suppose that’s true. I wouldn’t have a job if killers like you didn’t exist.

Fiore Stern: That’s not what I was talking about—I mean, that’s not what I meant, because I’m not a killer, and you have nothing on me.

Detective: I have an adjudicator working on a warrant for your apartment as we speak.

Fiore Stern: Great, I’m happy for ya. All they’ll find is a stack of dishes I wasn’t able to clean before you so rudely forced me to come down to the station, and a bunch of requests for book deals to tell the world my story. When you don’t find anything illegal, I’ll have even more material for a tell-all book. It’ll be a scathing indictment of Usonian Law EnFARCEment.

Detective: The warrant’s just for safety. We didn’t need one to search your greenhouse.

Fiore Stern: What?

Detective: Yeah, we had probable cause. One of our officers saw some splatter on the glass that looked a little like blood.

Fiore Stern: It was paint. I use some of those plants to make art supplies.

Detective: No matter. We couldn’t know for sure. The only way we could run a test to see whether that was true was if we went in, and procured a sample.

Fiore Stern: This will never hold up in court. A little red on the window isn’t enough for probable cause. Besides, I built that greenhouse with my own two hands in the middle of the woods, which means there aren’t any public records of a property, so you couldn’t have known about it unless you broke the law to peek at my GPS history.

Detective: We didn’t need that. Your mother told us where to find it.

Fiore Stern: She doesn’t know anything.

Detective: She’s seen you go out there. She’s worried about you, Mr. Stern. You’ve always been a dark person with a frightening fascination with deadly plants.

Fiore Stern: You can go to hell.

Detective: We have you, Mr. Stern. You don’t have to tell us anything. Everything will come out in court, but you can help your situation if you talk to us now. Start by telling me how your colleagues from the garden team died.

Microstory 1396: Soma

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Psychiatrist: Welcome back, Mr. Stern.

Fiore Stern: Thank you.

Psychiatrist: Tell me how you’ve been feeling this week?

Fiore Stern: I’m still really nervous around other people. I never thought going undercover in a terrorist organization would make me feel like this. I keep seeing people as victims, as if I’m the one who hurt them.

Psychiatrist: Well, that’s understandable. A lot of highly trained people in law enforcement come back out of undercover feeling responsible for the things they did while they were pretending to be someone else.

Fiore Stern: That’s just it, I didn’t have to do anything. All I did was teach people how to reinforce their lawns, and spread fertilizer. If the company had never told me they were terrorists, I would have just been some guy with a normal job. I’m not responsible for the things they did, even while I was working there. They would have been doing that anyway.

Psychiatrist: It’s good that you recognize that intellectually. I would call it the first step towards getting you to a better place in your life. Your conscious brain now just needs to tell your subconscious that, not only did you do nothing wrong, but that you did something amazingly heroic. That’s what these medications should be doing for you. Tell me how they’re going.

Fiore Stern: They’re all right, I guess. I get a little tired of having to remember to take them.

Psychiatrist: They have apps on your phone now that can help you schedule doses. I have one a lot of my patients use that they seem quite pleased with.

Fiore Stern: Yeah, I know. I suppose a part of me still doesn’t like taking them in the first place. I just don’t get why I know I didn’t do anything wrong, but like, the other half of my brain doesn’t? Can’t I just...I dunno, talk to myself, and convince me to be better?

Psychiatrist: That’s kind of what therapy is for, and you said you didn’t feel that was helping. If you would like to start seeing your therapist again, however, I can only see that as a good choice.

Fiore Stern: I didn’t really like her. She didn’t exactly get me, ya know?

Psychiatrist: There are plenty of others. Just like with medication, sometimes it just takes a little experimentation to find someone who’s right for you.

Fiore Stern: Yeah. I probably do need to keep taking your drugs, though. I believe they help me distinguish fact from fiction. When I’m seeing some random person on the street, paralysed in place, and bleeding from their neck, I need the meds to tell me that that’s not real.

Psychiatrist: Yes, it’s important to be able to tell what’s not really there. I have a question about that, though.

Fiore Stern: Okay.

Psychiatrist: You say you see people paralyzed and bleeding? How are they bleeding? Is it flowing from a wound, or does it kind of look like they’re painting with the blood? Do you see burn marks, or—forgive me—dismembered body parts?

Fiore Stern: Wow, you have a sick mind, don’t you, Psychiatrist? It’s pretty normal. The blood is just coming out of them. Now burn marks. Why? Does that say something about my worldview, or my personality?

Psychiatrist: Well, the organization you helped take down for the authorities was a bomb-making outfit, was it not?

Fiore Stern: It was, yes.

Psychiatrist: From what I read, they didn’t—forgive me again—cut people, or anything. Why would you be seeing victims that look like that, if you’re subconscious is feeling responsible for explosions?

Fiore Stern: Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I didn’t think it all the way through. I should have just kept it vague, and told you I saw dead bodies.

Psychiatrist: Mr. Stern, have you been lying to me to score recreational drugs?

Fiore Stern: Ha! Nothing so human, I assure you. What do you take me for, some kind of amateur?

Psychiatrist: Interesting word choice. Does that mean you’re a professional? A professional what?

Fiore Stern: Tell me, Psychiatrist. Do you have any other appointments today?

Psychiatrist: I can clear my schedule, if you really need me to. We should get to the bottom of whatever is going on with you.

Fiore Stern: Yes, I agree. We should nip it in the bud, lest you poison the world with your claims about me.

Psychiatrist: Mr. Stern, what are you talking about?

Fiore Stern: Why don’t you stop recording, and I’ll explain.

Psychiatrist: Stop. Don’t touch that. Please keep your distance, Mr. Stern. Mr. Stern! If you don’t—