Microstory 2602: Hrockas Steward Stops at the Door and Waits

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Pollo AI text-to-video AI software

Hrockas Steward stops at the door and waits. Renata just spent nine months in her chrysalis, but she wasn’t sleeping. It was a taxing and tiring ordeal, so she has had to sleep for nearly a day. She agreed to let Telman monitor her vitals constantly for the time being, and it is showing that she is awake again. He’s not sure if he should knock, though. Quidel’s tracker is showing at this location too, so they’re probably together. According to Telman, nothing is indicating that she’s undergoing strenuous activity the likes of which two people might do together in private, but it’s only been a day, so they’re still trying to establish her baseline.

Renata opens the door. “You know I can see you on my doorcam, right?”

“Sorry, I just didn’t wanna disturb you.” He can see inside her room, where Quidel is stretching, in a way that makes it look like they were only sleeping.

“It’s fine, I’m feeling much better now. What’s up?”

“I just wanted to give you a gift,” Hrockas explains.

She looks down at herself. “Isn’t my new substrate the gift?”

“Uh, no, that was ethically compulsory on our part. We destroyed your old one, and even if we hadn’t, they’re free.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t need a gift. I just wanna figure out what my life looks like now.”

“That’s what this gift is for.” As Renata steps off to the side, Hrockas looks over at Quidel. “Mister Jesperson, you’re welcome to tag along. It might affect you too.”

Quidel sits up with a yawn, then sticks his tongue out like he’s just tasted something unpalatable, but he’s really just still tired. He shuts his eyes, and falls back on the bed.

“I have a bit too much, uh...stamina for him,” Renata discloses.

“I see,” Hrockas says awkwardly.

She throws on a shirt and some pants. “Let’s go.”

Hrockas teleports them both to a hangar, about fifty meters from her gift, which is covered in a tarp. They start walking towards it. “Some friends of mine are upgrading their shuttles. There’s nothing wrong with the old ones, but the technology doesn’t quite fit their intergalactic missions. Instead of trying to cast yourself to another world, or spend extensive periods of time on cyclers, I thought maybe you would like a way to take shortcuts.” He snaps his fingers. The pulley system engages, and moves the tarp to reveal the purple beauty. “Renata Granger, may I introduce you to...The Aerie.”

Renata admires it. “This is for me?”

“I have no use for it myself. I’ll be on Castlebourne ‘til the stars burn out.”

“You said something about shortcuts?”

He nods. “Mm-hmm. You could reach Earth in about two months.”

A hatch opens, and a woman climbs out. “It’s called a reframe engine,” she says. She approaches the two of them. “Hi, I’m Brooke Prieto.” She shakes Renata’s hand, and then looks over at Hrockas. “Unfortunately, due to its small size, it can’t go at full reframe speeds. If you try to get back to Earth, it’s gonna take you about five years. It’s still better than a hundred and eight, though, right?” She grimaces a little.

“It’s fine with me.” Renata looks at Hrockas too. “I’m apparently immortal now.”

“That you are,” Hrockas agrees. “Anyway, I’ll let you two get acquainted. I have some other business to take care of, but don’t leave without saying goodbye.”

“Thank you, Steward Steward.”

He smiles. “No. Thank you.” He teleports away.

“Did you get everything squared away with Ren and the boy?” Azad asks.

“She’s got her ship. I think she’ll leave to explore the real world for a change. Castlebourne is a symbol of her entrapment, even if she isn’t conscious of that. I can’t imagine he won’t go with her.”

“That just leaves the Marshal,” Azad points out.

“Samani is a soldier,” Hrockas reasons. “He’ll fall in line. I don’t think he’ll be a problem. I don’t trust him enough to read him in, but if we ever have to use the thing, I doubt he’ll cause us problems.”

Azad nods. They’re silent for a moment.

“Did you figure out where the next component is?”

“Not for a fact, but all signs are pointing to Underbelly.”

“If we can’t get the people to vote to move the sun to a new location, we may need it, but we still have time before the Exin armada arrives.”

“Ya know, there would be a benefit to us keeping the Granger girl around. If she can shut down entire simulations with nothing but a thought, she could be of use to us. Not even you have that power.”

Hrockas shakes his head. “I don’t have that power by design. It raises too many questions. I’m still fending off reporters who want to know what the hell happened in the Spydome Network.” He shakes his head more aggressively. “No. These domes stay as they are. We follow their rules, and we let the stories play out naturally. As I said, we have time.”

“We don’t have infinite time, though,” Azad reminds him.

“Yeah, I know. Just keep looking for the other components, and do it quietly.”

“Okay.” Azad’s watch beeps. “Superintendent Glarieda needs something again.”

“Go ahead,” Hrockas encourages. “Assure him that we’ll make sure the votes go our way, one way or another.”

“You want me to say it like that?”

“Obviously not.”

“What should I do with this thing?” Azad asks.

They both look down at the device sitting on the table. “Granger still has access to the lab, and might need to return there for check-ups while she’s still on-world. She can’t know that we didn’t destroy it. She went through a lot to prevent her own mother from using it. She won’t approve of us using it either. Take it to Delta Outpost. But that can wait. See what Dreychan needs first.”

Microstory 2597: Renata Sits Down in the Chair That Was Offered to Her

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

Renata sits down in the chair that was offered to her. The big man leader guy is standing on the other side of the desk. He’s sifting through information on his tablet. She can’t read his face, though. She has no idea what’s going to happen to her. They’ll probably decommission her. Or fire her. Or cancel her, or whatever cutesy euphemism they’ve come up with that means more than it sounds at first. Ya know, what? Why doesn’t she just ask him? She’s just gonna ask him. She opens her mouth to speak.

He tosses his tablet onto the desk. “How are you feeling?”

Renata, as ridiculous as it sounds, looks behind her in case there’s someone else in the room. There isn’t, and she knew that. She would have been able to detect them without her eyes.

He chuckles. “You, Renata Granger. How are you doing?”

“I’m...anxious,” she admits. “I don’t know what this is.”

“Anxiety is a product of the future. You shouldn’t be worried about the future. It’s the past that should concern you. You’ve been through quite the ordeal. Be honest, how are you feeling about that?”

“I don’t understand the question. I get why I should be concerned about that, but why would you? I turned off your whole simulation. Aren’t you mad about that?”

“You turned off one simulation,” he argues. “It’s not the only time that’s happened. Why, just a few months ago, I had to close one called 2.5Dome because someone almost died who shouldn’t have been in there.”

“What happened to them?” Renata doesn’t know why she should ask after this stranger. She doesn’t know them, whoever they are.

“He runs the government now,” the boss answers. What? Isn’t that his job? He goes on, “Listen. I looked over the data. Spydome Network was corrupted. An unauthorized entity infiltrated the ranks, and made dangerous changes to the system. You are one consequence of her actions. Now, I’m not one to tell an intelligence that it can’t evolve, but—”

“I’m sorry,” Renata interrupts, “but I have to stop you right there. I don’t want another philosophical discussion about the nature of identity and free will. I don’t care that you use robots to get your work done. I just want to know what’s going to happen to me. And I wouldn’t hate an update on Quidel, Lycander, Demo, and even Libera.”

“The first three have not made any decisions about their future on Castlebourne, or if they have, they’ve not told me. As for this Libera person, she is currently being held in a secure dome called Synthetic Production Dome. I don’t know what’s going to happen to her either. We’ve called in support from Earth, who will be sending a team of experts to examine and interview her. I have final say as it is out of the stellar neighborhood’s jurisdiction, but I will be relying heavily on their recommendations. I’ll try to keep you informed, depending on where you choose to go, and whether you remain curious about it.”

She nods, but says nothing.

“Oh, and as for you, your life is yours now. You do whatever you want. You’re welcome to stay here, and explore the other domes. I can try to get you on a ship bound for one of the other colonies, but that doesn’t happen too often. People come, but they don’t typically leave. So we just keep the transport ships here, and those other colonies build new ones. Of course, if you’re not married to this substrate, you can always cast, which is a lot faster and easier.”

“Forgive me, Quidel and Lycander told me that you would be generous and obliging, but I am finding it hard to believe. I mean, I know it was only one dome network, but it sounds like it was your most immersive one. I did not expect a warm welcome after I realized what I was. In the movies—”

“Don’t...watch the movies, or the series,” he interrupts. “Don’t watch A.I: Artificial Intelligence, I, Robot, or Ex Machina. Don’t watch the Terminator franchise, the Alien franchise, or the Matrix Trilogy. Don’t watch Battlestar Galactica, Humans, or Raised by Wolves. Don’t you dare watch Westworld. Everyone thinks I stole the idea from them, but I didn’t build the domes. I just made use of them. Anyway, those were not predictions of the future. They were parables. We learned from them before we had the technology to replicate them. We based our intelligence laws around the ethical issues that those stories raised. What happened here was the result of a rogue intelligence who had her own ideas about what civilization should look like. And statistically, that’s bound to happen. We call them criminals. I don’t care where she came from or how she developed. The bottom line is that she broke the law. She’s not any more above them than I am, so she’ll face the music for that.”

“But that’s my question,” Renata presses, even though it’s in her best interests to thank this man, and then thank her lucky stars. “How am I not also a criminal? I essentially hacked into your system, and shut everything down. Did that not go against your laws?”

He finally sits down, leans back in his chair, and takes a breath. “What you did exposed a fatal flaw in that system. You never should have been granted root access to every synthetic entity in the network. According to early reports, not even Libera knew that you were capable of that. I’m currently having the technicians perform an audit to see why it happened, and how we can prevent it in the future. You see it as a crime, I see it as better than the alternative, which is that Libera had access instead, and did something far worse with her power. I should be thanking you.” He winces. “Thank you.”

“I should be thanking you, Mr. Hrockas.” She takes a beat. “Thank you,” she adds to make it official.

“It’s just Hrockas,” he says with a smile. “My last name is Steward.”

Renata considers the development. “You seem to be a steward of the planet. So which came first, your job or your name?”

“Hm. I’ve never thought of it that way. Everyone just calls me the Owner. I never liked it, but I never had a better title. Until now.”

“I dunno. Steward Steward seems a little weird.”

“Good point,” Hrockas admits. “Perhaps I’ll just go by Steward.”

“Can I see my friends?” Renata asks, suddenly changing the topic.

“I would like you to consent to an examination by a professional, but after that, sure. Are you up for it?”

“Yeah, it’s the least I can do,” Renata agrees.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 24, 2537

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

The team came out of the technicolor sling web, and found themselves near another ship. It wasn’t looming over them this time but underneath their feet. Had they failed? This far out in the galaxy, no one should have reached by now. Sure, Extremus was traveling this far, but the chances of happening upon them were literally astronomical. Leona sighed. “Magnetize to the hull. They will sense us, and send a probe to investigate.”

“You don’t seem surprised,” Mateo pointed out.

“I’m not,” Leona replied. “Rambo?”

Ramses was desperately tapping on his wrist interface, looking for what could have happened, no doubt. “It worked. We’re 152,000 light years and change from Barnard’s Star. We should be alone. I don’t understand. Is this Extremus?”

“That’s exactly what it is,” Leona confirmed, looking at her own data.

As she predicted, they felt the vibrations of something moving several meters away. A giant metal ball flew up from an opening, and rolled towards them, hovering against a local magnetic field. It stopped before the team, and began to scan them.

“Place your hand upon it if you want to hear the conversation,” Leona said.

They all did it.

“Report,” came a voice.

“Leona Matic. This is my team. We are of peace...always.”

“Pirate got jokes,” the voice said.

“We’re not pirates. Look in the central archives. We were there when your ancestors were preparing for this mission. We helped come up with it.”

“We lost the central archives.” The voice paused. “We’ve lost a lot since launch. But we still have our oral stories. I know who you are, Madam Matic.” A graphic appeared on the probe’s screen. “This is the basic schematic of the ship. I will shut down the teleportation regulator for exactly five seconds. You better come in before then.” A red circle in the corner of the screen suddenly turned green.

“Now,” Leona ordered.

They teleported inside, landing on the bridge, inside of the horseshoe pit. It was just like when Pribadium’s ship showed up. “Déjà vu,” Olimpia noted after they had all receded their nanites into more comfortable clothing.

One woman was the only other person here. She took hold of a control console, and pulled it towards her. It swung on a hinge, giving her room to step down into the center of the horseshoe. “Welcome to the TGS Extremus Prime, Team Matic. My name is Watchstander Actilitca. The captain is in stasis, and I would like to keep her that way, unless you have some reason we should wake her up?”

“There’s no issue here,” Leona began to explain. “We came on accident.”

“I don’t know why,” Ramses said apologetically. “Did you change vectors, or are we off the mark? I deliberately chose a destination away from where I knew you were supposed to end up.”

“We’ve changed course before,” the Watchstander, “but by reputation, I know you would have aimed for something sufficiently far away. We’ve ended up just about where our ancestors planned to.”

Ramses shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“I know what happened,” Leona said to him. “I don’t know the why, but I know the what. The slingdrive doesn’t necessarily go where you want it to. It can’t go absolutely anywhere in the universe. It can only go where there is already an established presence. I don’t know whether it’s looking for some level of technology, or organic life, or what, but we can’t ever be alone.”

Ramses stared at her blankly as he went back through his memory, trying to retrieve even one instance which might point to her being mistaken. There were times when they certainly might have been alone, but there wasn’t proof one way or another. Her hypothesis didn’t sound too far-fetched. That wasn’t so far necessarily a bad thing as they weren’t in the business of being remote and isolated from others, but that was Linwood’s goal. They thought they could help him, but it was going to be much harder than they thought. They needed a ship. Specifically, they needed one with reframe technology. They needed to get somewhere far from here; far from everything. They promised him extreme solitude. “Oh my God,” he said in disappointment.

“I’m sorry to have gotten in your way,” Actilitca said.

“No,” Leona countered. “We couldn’t have come this far out at all if not for you. I suspected that this was a limitation of the technology—”

“No,” Ramses interrupted. “It’s a limitation of my implementation of the technology. I doubt your...um, the others have the same issue.” He evidently didn’t want this stranger knowing anything about Leona and Mateo’s children. That was logical.

Angela wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “It hasn’t caused us problems. You’re always so down on yourself about this, but we have always ended up exactly where we belong.” She looked up to the ceiling. “Maybe these old powers that be have still been with us the whole time, and understand that we’re no good to the universe if no one else is around who needs us.”

“Someone needs us now,” Leona said to Actilitca. “He requires total isolation and privacy. We promised it to him. But wherever we try to go, there’s always going to be someone else there.”

Actilitca stepped back up out of the pit, and started working on one of the standing workstations. “We sent hundreds of unmanned scouts in all directions, in search of our new home. We no longer have reframe technology, which means at most, they are 52 light years away. Now, if that’s not far enough for you, keep in mind that we are only drifting here for the moment. Once one of our scouts finds a suitable candidate, we will be heading that way, which in all likelihood, will take us even farther from whichever scout I give you the coordinates to.”

“You would do that?” Ramses asked. “You would give us coordinates to one of your scouts?”

“As I said, it’s unmanned,” Actilitca replied. “We never intended to scoop them all back up later. Not only will I find one for you that you can transport to—using whatever faster-than-light technology you have access to—but you can have it. It has life support, it just needs to be turned on. In fact...” She went back to her screen to look through the data. “A few of them were sent up towards the top of the galactic plane, which is quite sparse. And yes!” She flung the image on her screen to a hologram in the center of the horseshoe. The team stepped back to get a better look at it. They were orbital images of what appeared to be a barren, lifeless planet. “This one has reached a particularly isolated region of the galaxy. It has chosen to halt there, rather than moving on to find other candidates. It must have calculated that the chances of finding anything useful beyond it were too low to waste the energy and time on. You can absolutely have that, unless...you’re looking for paradise too.”

“No,” Leona contended. “He just needs raw material. That looks perfect. Not the planet. The gravity well is too deep, but I assume there are other celestial bodies there?”

“It hasn’t surveyed them,” Actilitca explained, “but it has spotted them.”

“We would be grateful for it,” Leona said.

“Wait, should we wake him up and ask?” Romana suggested regarding Linwood, who was still asleep in his own stasis pod on the floor.

“We already did ask him,” Marie reasoned. “He wants to be alone on the edge of the galaxy. We’re giving him that, we’re just going to be a bit delayed. He shouldn’t know anything about the Extremus.”

“We’ll have to strip out all mention of it from all the systems on the scout, if we provide it for him,” Mateo decided.

“Yeah,” Leona said. She looked back up at Actilitca. “Does this all sound acceptable?”

“Sounds like a fine idea to me.” Actilitca tapped on her screen.

Their interfaces beeped, having received the message. “It won’t take long for me to incorporate the coordinates into the slingdrive.” Ramses stepped over to the corner to focus on the work.

“While we’re here,” Leona began, “is there anything we can do to help?”

Actilitca seemed to think about it for a moment. “No, I believe that we have everything well in hand.”

“Are you certain?” Leona pressed. Hint, hint.

“No, we’ve been doing this a long time. The scouts are out, the crew and passengers are asleep. The skeleton crew schedule is working.”

“You said that you lost your copy of the central archives.”

Actilitca bobbled her head. “Yes, there was...a disagreement in our past.”

“I can give you a copy of it,” Leona offered. “Our tech is compatible with yours. You should be able to plug and play.”

Actilitca looked over at a door as if something on the other side might sway her decision. “The disagreement is...ongoing.”

“Which side are you on?”

“I’m on the fence,” Actilitca admitted. “Look, we came here for a fresh start. Some believe that holding onto our past holds us back. There are some things we kept, like...how to grow plants. But the reframe engine is sort of a no-go. It only took us 216 years to get here, and now that we have a stasis pod for every Extremusian, any trip back would feel instantaneous. We have had issues with people quitting on us, and we don’t want that to happen again. We’re stuck out here, and that’s the way we like it. Most of us, anyway. Technology threatens that stability. It threatens to undermine the entire mission, negating everything our ancestors worked for.”

“That’s a very Amish position to have,” Leona reasoned. “You don’t shun all technology. You shun tech that can take your people away from the community.” She contemplated it. “Is there any knowledge you lost that you regret? Perhaps it just got filed into the wrong category, or someone destroyed the wrong data drives?”

“That happened a lot,” Actilitca confirmed. “We lost all of Earthan history and entertainment. We lost most of our virtual stacks too, but a lot of that had to do with how much space they took up.”

“It’s done,” Ramses announced. “We can go.”

Leona didn’t move. She was studying Actilitca’s face. “You and Matt should go. Ladies, one or two of you have to go with them, but no less than two of you need to stay behind to keep my slingdrive company.”

“You really don’t have to do this,” Actilitca claimed.

“I don’t know much about what happened to you in the last 216 years,” Leona said to her, “but we were last here in 2397, and things didn’t look great, so I know you’ve been through some things.”

Actilitca brushed it off. “That was in another timeline. You were never here, not for us. You don’t know anything about what has happened.”

“Fair enough,” Leona acknowledged.

“We’re ready.” Mateo and Ramses were holding Linwood’s pod again.

Romana was sitting on it wearing a sexy red dress, holding a microphone, or rather a holographic microphone. “Fly me to the moon! Let me play among the stars!”

“Bye,” Mateo said.

“Let me see what spring is like on...” Romana’s voice trailed off and echoed from the aether as they slung away.

“Hey, that’s my thing,” Olimpia complained.

“Yes, it is, dear,” Leona agreed. She turned back to the Watchstander. “We have all day, but depending on how your skeleton crew shift works, maybe no longer than that. Let’s develop a list of what you need. I can write an algorithm that will copy admissible material, and ignore forbidden knowledge.”

“Okay,” Actilitca said. “I accept those terms. But we must quarantine the data so it can be purged all at once if we vote against it.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Leona replied.

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 2593: Renata Gets Up From Her Cot, Trying to Keep the Squeaking to a Minimum

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

Renata gets up from her cot, trying to keep the squeaking to a minimum. She leaves the room, and goes into the common area, climbing the ladder up to the loft where Lycander is keeping watch. “Everything okay?”

“You still need sleep,” he warns her. “You were made to think like an organic, which comes with its disadvantages, like spending a third of your life in bed.”

“I’m not awake because I think I’m better than everyone,” Renata tries to explain. “I’m awake because of insomnia. I suppose that was programmed into me too.”

“Everyone is at risk of suffering from insomnia. They didn’t give it to you on purpose. It’s likely happening because you’re struggling with some things. I’m not a psychologist, though, so don’t listen to my advice.”

“I understand.” She stood there in silence for a moment, looking out at the desert expanse. “So, you’re a natural-born human, right?”

“We don’t really use that term human anymore, but yes,” Lycander replies.

“And this planet is...just a giant theme park?”

“More like tens of thousands of theme parks. Some of them are for adventure, but some are more low-key.”

“I hear you don’t have to work anymore in the real world.”

“That is an oversimplification, but still true. If you want to live a very comfortable, immobile life, you don’t have to contribute a single thing to society. If you want more—if you wanna travel—you have to do something. It doesn’t have to even be particularly valuable. You could be the absolute worst painter in the world, but if you paint, and you put your artwork out there for others to see, you get credits for that. If you save up enough, you can spend it on transportation somewhere.”

“So, that’s what you did? You were on your homeworld, but you had a job, so they let you come here?”

“They let me cast here,” he clarifies. “I’ve actually never been on a ship before. I basically sent my mind to a new body at faster-than-light speeds. It costs fewer credits, and it’s a lot more common.”

“You can move your mind around. So we’re all robots.”

“Like we’ve said, the distinction doesn’t hold much meaning. There are people out there whose substrates are designed almost just like yours, except they were born before that. No one really cares about the differences.”

“Right.” She nods, not wanting to talk about that all again. “But you still work. Are you trying to leave this world now? Cast again, or go on a real ship.”

“No. I’m making credits, sure, but I’m not concerned with them. I don’t pay much attention to my account. I work because I find it fulfilling. That’s why they created the post-scarcity society. A lot of really smart people worked very hard to make that happen, so people would finally have a choice. If you want a job, you can just go get one. There is always an opening. If it’s typically automated, they’ll have you replace some of that automation. Even if it makes the process a little slower or less efficient, no one’s really bothered by that, because we have such an abundance. And if you quit, or just don’t feel like coming in one day—or for a few months—it’s no sweat off their backs. They’ll backfill your job with automators in your absence.”

She pushed Quidel to explain what it’s really like before, but he insisted that everything was fine. Maybe Lycander will have a different answer, especially since he does still work. “Sounds like a paradise. What’s the catch?” Was that offensive?

“The catch is, there are gaps. Energy credits don’t just pay for the transportation itself, but also materials, which is why casting is cheaper, but it has lower overhead. Anyway, it’s not only about leaving where you are, but building a new home somewhere else. While no one is poor in the sense that you’re familiar with, there are definitely wealthier people. They’re the ones who can afford to construct a centrifugal cylinder and leave others behind...stuck. It really just depends on what your priorities are. If you want to stay in civilization, you’ll be able to find happiness pretty easily. Even if you go the cheaper casting route to a new planet, you’ll be living around others, and you won’t always get a choice on who those people are. A lot of people want that choice. They want to choose their neighbors, or choose not to have any neighbors at all. That’s the hardest life to achieve, because it takes a crapton of energy credits, and while you’re saving, you’re living in a way that you probably don’t care for. There is no such thing as an advance, and loans come with sometimes untenable stipulations. As I was saying, my work is easy because I can always leave. Those who need a lot of credits can’t, or they’ll never realize their goals.”

“Energy. It’s based on energy?” Renata presses.

“That’s the only thing that matters. It’s the only thing that ever mattered. Everything we do is in service to survival, and you can’t survive without energy. And material to stand on, or in.”

She sort of frowned.

“What is it? What’s on your mind?”

“What happens to me when I leave? I won’t be a banker anymore. I won’t even be a spy. How will I earn credits? Should I even try?”

“That’s up to you. As an emerging intelligence, you will be entitled to the same basics as everyone else, including an energy stipend. That stipend is based on your physical requirements, and cannot be lower than what you need to be alive and conscious indefinitely. Since you started out without any choice in life, I’m sure they will make arrangements for you to travel anywhere you want, totally free of charge. Not everyone gets that, of course, but the way they see it, forcing you to live where you were created would be immoral.”

“Well, you were created at a certain place, and had to pay to leave, didn’t you?”

“That’s different. I was born, and some of my physicality was even designed, but my mind wasn’t designed. Yours was. I hesitate to call it slavery, but their reasoning is, if they make you stay here, it will lean more in that  direction than before, because you now have agency. I shouldn’t be talking about any of this. I am not an expert. Someone will explain it to you in greater detail, and more accurately.”

“No, I appreciate it,” Renata says gratefully. “Now I have something to look forward to. Except I have no clue if I would even want to travel. How many other worlds are there, and what are they like?”

Microstory 2517: Campground Manager

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

Even though it’s not my department, I do receive daily updates from the hotel about how they’re faring in there. I know how many people got in line, and how many people were cured. Those numbers are usually quite close together, with only a handful of people who ever have to wait until the next day. They’re obviously marked as such, and prioritized in the morning. Delays are built into the schedule, but it’s never perfect. In fact, if it ever gets to be too much, Landis will work extra hours to make up for it. That’s just the kind of guy he is. I’ve never met him. We’re worlds apart. I’m one of the few staff members who does not have a room in the building, and in my case, it’s a necessity. I’m on the clock 24/7, and always have to be available to the guests. People come from far and wide to get their cure. They encourage visitors to check into nearby hotels (which are still hotels, and not healing foundations). For these places, that’s just about all they do. You’re gonna have a hard time finding a room if you just wanna take a tour of the area. They’ll ask you to find somewhere close to the city. While there’s no rule against it for these unrelated facilities, there is one for the campground. We will not assign you a plot if you aren’t scheduled for a healing in the next week at the most. We understand that some people want to come early, because they’re worried about travel delays, which is why the campground exists in the first place, but we can’t have people living here for weeks on end. We certainly can’t accommodate people who just want to be ready to go while they wait for their application to be processed. I promise you, once you’re accepted, you will have plenty of time to make arrangements for travel. There is no such thing as a same-day appointment here. I hear so many requests for that. Everybody wants to be bumped up the list. First of all, I don’t have that kind of pull. I just manage the plots, and the tents for people who can’t afford their own. Secondly, everyone in the world wants to get in on this, and Landis can only see about 2,000 people per day. There are no bribes here. There are no special accommodations. Everybody’s sick, we are not going to prioritize based on need. The only fair way to do it is on a first come, first serve basis. The amount of coordination that would go into quantifying patients for triage is an unreasonable expectation to have for any organization. You would be waiting for years, just like people have done for organ transplants through conventional medicine. Is that what you want? Trust me, it’s better if you sign up, and snag an appointment a few weeks out. Application control comes from the scope of the application itself. If you just have a boo-boo on your knee, or you’re unwilling to divulge your financial situation, it’s going to slow things down. Only people who are serious about this are going to get through, which is why the 2,000 patient per day figure isn’t too much lower than the applicant per day figure—whatever that is; I don’t have those numbers. I know, I’m talking a lot about things that don’t really have anything to do with me, but that’s because my job isn’t that hard. A lot of this is self-service. We don’t provide meals, we don’t offer travel to and from. I’m mostly here to make sure the only people who try to drive through that gate are authorized, and that we have enough space for everyone. I don’t even handle security. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a lot of work, and it gets tough in the winter, but it’s pretty straight-forward, and far less stressful than it is for some of my colleagues. They may get to work inside, but I wouldn’t want to field the kind of questions they get every day.

Microstory 2498: Conjunction 11

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

These are vactrain hubs, and there are twelve of them. They’re evenly spaced all over the planet, according to an icosahedron model. While the world is obviously a sphere, an icosahedron shape can be overlaid on it in order to minimize the number of Conjunctions needed. It would be utterly impractical to have a vacuum tube that went from one dome to every single other. While there’s technically space for that, it would require far too much management and maintenance. So many of such tunnels would not be used very much, or at all. How many people are going from, say, Ancient Egypt to Prairiedome? It certainly wouldn’t be an impossibility, but that tube would likely be sitting vacant most of the time. Layovers have been a staple for our civilization for centuries, but this system is a lot better than its predecessors. First off, while the tubes themselves are limited, the trips are often exquisitely planned. Because each dome does have a direct line to each of the twelve conjunctions. As you would expect, a dome will have twelve stations, and you go to the one that leads to your destination. Currently, most trains leave about an average of every thirty minutes, but that fluctuates, and will continue to change, because it’s based on demand. If literally no one is going from Conjunction 6 to Conjunction 4, then it’s not even going to bother leaving. It will just sit there until someone signs up prior to the next cycle. I probably don’t need to tell you all this, because there is already sufficient literature on how to travel around the world, but I’ve always loved transportation, so while I’m finding lots of enjoyment from the other domes, I tend to focus more on the logistics than most visitors do.

So let’s talk about how it works once you’re in the Conjunction. As I said, each dome has a direct route to every single one. That’s important. I read up on the history, and the original plans called for multiple layovers, where you travel to your nearest hub, then the hub nearest your destination, and finally your final destination. That would be so bad, but I’m sure most people are glad that they ended up building up the infrastructure much more than that. The Conjunctions are so well-designed, and there is so much redundancy. If you are in a train car with visitors who are going through the same Conjunction, but different final destinations, your car will stop, and have you get off. At that point, you will just about immediately step into a private multi-directional elevator pod. It can only fit eleven people, but if you have luggage, obviously fewer. If you’re in a party of one, you can have a pod to yourself, and if you’re in a party of 22, you’re gonna have to split up. That’s just fine, they have enough to accommodate everyone who can fit in any given train car over only a few moments. Your pod will take you to your next station, where a second train will come for you to deliver you to the right dome. You might still be alone, but the builders thought of this. Not all vactrain cars are the same size. That’s why you tell the system where you’re going, so they can prepare the right one for you, to save the larger ones for more popular domes, even if the popularity shifts hour by hour. It’s such a robust system, I’m so impressed. There are so many things going on in the background, but you don’t have to worry about that. You just get on, get off, pod over, get on, and get off again. Despite there being more than three times as many stations worldwide than there have ever been airports on Earth, travel has never been simpler. And your trip will never take longer than three and a half hours from anywhere else. And that’s assuming you stop for coffee.

Microstory 2420: Nordome Network

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

Unlike most other themed domes, this is actually a series of domes. I believe the creator wanted to truly make it feel large in scope. While the distance between the “continents” isn’t anywhere near as large as they are on Earth, it still takes some time in those antiquated boats to travel between them. I even think you pass by other, unrelated domes on your way, though you would never know it if you stick to the right heading, because the holographic sky is sensational. It just looks like you’re outside. If you get lost, and sail in the wrong direction, you’re gonna hit the sides. They even have a sprinkler system to simulate rain during your journey, and the sea below you is saltwater, so you get that real oceanic experience. This isn’t the only dome network that works like this. It’s just the one that’s set during the Viking Age. You don’t have to be a Viking yourself—you can choose a simpler life, as a farmer, or a merchant—but you’re at risk of being attacked. You have to protect your settlement as they would have during the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries. If you do choose to go on a journey, you have to build or commission your own ship. They aren’t just provided to you. Keep in mind that this is a lifestyle dome experience. You’re meant to stay here for years, and really live the way that these people historically lived. There are no rules, and no planned activities. There’s no anachronistic technology, and you can’t keep leaving and come back. If you have a serious need, they’ll let you go through an emergency exit, and once the issue is resolved, you can go back. So it’s not like a one and done sort of thing, but it’s also not a free-for-all. You can’t spend your days on the boat, then sleep in a nice comfy bed at night. There are no day trips, and they will enforce these rules. I never saw any sort of argument or disagreement, but they were clear. If you really want to get the full experience, it’s probably gonna take you about thirty years. But, I mean, come on, who doesn’t have that kind of time to spare these days? What are you worried about, that you’re gonna die soon? So take a break and learn something. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, if you haven’t heard.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 19, 2501

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 2

Leona, Olimpia, and Romana were on a trip together in Portland. They checked into a hotel for one night, but then they left to rough it in a cabin in the woods far outside of town. This was a bonding experience meant to strengthen Leona’s relationship with Olimpia, and create a relationship between Olimpia and Romana. The former seemed to be okay with the three-person arrangement that her parents had, but she hadn’t spent much time with their third. They weren’t intending on her becoming a second mother—especially not since Romana was approaching adulthood—but it was important for them to get to know each other better.

“Do you still know where you’re going?” Olimpia asked. They were on a hike now, straight away from their cabin.

Leona checked the satnav on her watch. “Absolutely, I do. Not far now.”

“I hear the highway,” Romana said. “We’re not in the middle of nowhere anymore. If we need to stop and ask for directions, I’m sure it’s fine.”

“That you can hear the highway is a good sign,” Leona said. “The surprise isn’t remote.”

“What is it?” Olimpia asked for the umpteenth time, knowing that she would not receive an answer this time either.

“Just be patient.” We’re really close. She wasn’t wrong. Ten minutes later, they were passing through the trees, and onto the edges of some town. “Welcome...to Kansas City.”

“We walked all the way back to Kansas City?” Olimpia questioned. “What did we do, teleport?” She laughed.

“Kansas City...Oregon,” Leona clarified.

“Is that even a thing?” Romana asked.

“Clearly. You may now look at your phones.”

They both pulled them out, but Romana was faster. “There’s, like, fifteen people here.”

“I know. Cool, though, right?” Leona said with her hands on her hips.

“This was the surprise? A few people moved here from Missouri, and were too unoriginal to come up with a new name.”

“Well, I thought it was interesting.”

Olimpia turned around. “I’m headed back.”

“Oh come on, there’s a pool hall,” Leona whined.

“There is a pool hall,” Romana confirmed, still looking at her phone. “It’s pretty much all there is at this point. There isn’t even a restaurant.” She dropped her hand, and stood there with a blank face.

“There’s a school too.”

“No, it closed down.”

“Since when?”

Romana lifted her phone again. “Today.”

“Oh.”

“They had to finish up some summer schooling, but now it’s over.”

“Well, I’m sorry I wasted our time. I thought we could take a picture in front of the town sign. Ya know, like what people do when they go to a small town that shares its name with their surname?” She looked out, and blocked the sun with her hand. “It should be somewhere on that other road over there.”

“No, they took the sign down too,” Romana explained to her. The county stepped in, because it’s an unincorporated community, instead of a real town. So they weren’t allowed to have a sign anymore.”

“Fine,” Leona lamented.

“It’s all right, I still got my steps in today.” Olimpia looked at her own watch. “Eleven kilometers, not bad.” She patted Leona on the back. “That’s reason enough to come here.”

“Can we just take some pictures at least?” Leona begged.

“Sure. Let’s walk closer and get some more steps.”

They took a few photos of each other near one of the few buildings, which must have been a barn, or something. They went to check out the pool hall, but it was very smoky, and gross, so they didn’t even play one round. They just left, and started hiking back to the cabin. Leona was more upset than any of them at how anticlimactic this was. She kept walking with a frowny face, which the other two kept trying to pull back up at the corners. Eventually, she was able to forget about the whole thing, and get back to normal. It was only one day, and the hike was still lovely, so it wasn’t like it was a total waste of time. Besides, they would be able to laugh about it later, and tell a decent story at parties. Or so they thought, until Olimpia fell.

They were on a narrow trail on a ridge, switching their order organically and unintentionally. Each new leader would warn those behind of obstacles or dangers awaiting them. Unfortunately, this meant that one of them would not enjoy any given warning. Before Olimpia had the chance to inform the other two of a loose rock in the soft dirt, she became the victim of it. At first, she believed that she was okay. She caught herself on a whip tree, and even had enough time to say, “I’m good” before the pole trunk snapped under her weight, and dropped her over the edge. She fell so far, Leona and Romana couldn’t even tell how far it was. She kept tumbling and tumbling down the hill, ultimately disappearing through the forest, but they could hear the sounds of her knocking against things as she kept going, and her screams.

“Stay here,” Leona ordered her daughter.

“You’re not going after her.”

“Of course I’m going after her.”

“You’ll die too! You think it’s gonna be easier for you to get down than her?”

“She started on her back, and gained too much momentum,” Leona reasoned as she was dropping her pack. She took out her trekking poles, which she so far hadn’t bothered using. “I have the luxury of being more careful. We can’t just leave her.”

“I’m not saying that. We need to call for help.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Leona said as she was starting down the hill. “We don’t know how long that’s gonna take, though. I need to go assess the situation. That’s why we brought radio transceivers in addition to the sat phone. I’ll stay in contact from down there. Call S&R.”

“Be careful,” Romana warned, as if that could ever help.

“Yeah.” Leona cautiously walked down the hill with her four appendages, but it was taking too long. If she were going up, she could just keep climbing and climbing, but facing forwards, she had to be mindful of where she placed the tip of her pole. It could sink into mud, or slide on a thick leaf, and then it would literally be downhill from here. Momentum was Olimpia’s problem, but it was going to be Leona’s solution. Now that Romana probably couldn’t see her anymore, she started to slide—not uncontrollably, but more like she was on a snowboard. She went as fast as she could, leaning back to keep herself from tipping over. She still used the poles to slow herself down a little, and occasionally catch herself on a tree. As she got the hang of it, it actually started to be less like snowboarding, and more like skiing. She could just about glide down like a pro, like this hill was designed for it. Then she hit an invisible root, which reminded her why boot skiing wasn’t a real thing. She did tip over, and fell right on her face. Her ass flew up over her, and sent her rolling farther down, and just like Olimpia before, she couldn’t stop herself. She kept going and going until she felt a sharp crack in the back of her neck, and the lights went out.

“Mama! Mama!” Leona could hear. It was Romana.

Leona fluttered her eyes open to see that pretty face looking down at her. “Roma,” she whispered.

“She’s awake,” Romana said to someone out of view.

Olimpia’s equally pretty face appeared above her. “How is that possible? Her neck was broken. I swear, it was broken.”

“Clearly not,” Romana argued.

“Help me up, daughter.” With Romana’s aid, Leona got into a seated position. She leaned back against a boulder on the edge of a creek, and looked up at Olimpia, who was absolutely covered in blood; not quite like Carrie White, but not entirely unlike her either. “How are you alive?”

“I don’t know,” Olimpia replied. “I guess we’re both lucky.”

“Where’s the rescue team?” Leona asked.

“They’re not here yet,” Romana answered. “They said that it would be a couple of hours.”

“That’s funny,” Leona began. “They would be your only way down here since I explicitly ordered you to stay up there.”

“I’m younger than you two,” Romana reasoned. “I have better balance. Even with these things.”

Leona scoffed. Ever since Romana’s boobs came in, she was always talking about them...like Leona ought to be jealous. “You’ll get sick of ‘em.” She struggled to stand up all the way. “I’m all right, I can do it,” she insisted when Romana tried to help again. She looked up at the sky as if she would see a helicopter on its way. “You need to wash yourself off. You survived something that you probably shouldn’t have, and we don’t need people asking questions.”

“What are we?” Olimpia asked. “Superheroes, or something?”

“I’ve never saved anyone in my life,” Leona replied.

“Yes, you have, you’ve saved trillions,” Romana said.

“What?”

Romana flinched, and took a beat. “What?”

That wasn’t true, yet it did sound right somehow. Leona turned back to Olimpia. “Get in the water.”

“I don’t wanna get dysentery.”

“Just don’t get any in your mouth, you’ll be fine,” Leona assured her.

“You could also use these,” Romana countered. She removed a pack of wet wipes from the side pocket on her pack, which she managed to keep on her person.

“Thank you,” Olimpia said, graciously accepting them from her. “I’m gonna need them all, I think,” she decided, looking down at the mess. “And a change of clothes?”

“I can afford it,” Romana told her, “and certainly. How do you feel about pink crop tops?”

Olimpia stripped down and cleaned herself up. In the meantime, Romana tried to cancel search and rescue, but that went against protocol. They said that they couldn’t just turn around and erase the mission from their logs. She could be under duress, or suffering from a concussion that made her confused. They received a distress call, and were obligated to go out and investigate. Welp, they would have to lie and say that it wasn’t as serious as they thought. Romana wasn’t lying about the crop top, though. For Olimpia’s larger frame, however, it was extra croppy; more like a bra. They opted to climb back up the ridge. It wasn’t safe, but they seemed to be some kind of invincible, and they were hoping to find Olimpia’s bag along the way. They did, which allowed her to change into her own extra set of clothes instead.

They found Leona’s bag back up on the ridge trail. After taking a stop to drink water, they simply continued on their way. Oddly enough, the rescue team didn’t show up, and never called back. Concerned, Leona called them again an hour later, but the line was dead. “The phone number you are trying to reach is unavailable, or has been disconnected. Please check the number, and try your call again.” They tried a few more times, and still got nothing. That was super bizarre, but not their problem anymore. They just returned to the cabin, and collapsed on their respective bunks.

The next day, they got back in touch with the boys back in the regular Kansas City area. They immediately confessed what happened to them on that ridge, which prompted Mateo to admit that something similar happened to them, though less accidentally. There was something going on between the four of them, and their neighbors, the Walton twins. Even though they had no clue what was happening, their instincts were telling them that Romana was a lot more fragile, and her durability should not be tested with stabbings, falls, or surge protector strikes. Still, she was one of them, and other than Boyd, and maybe Pacey, no one else was. The more they thought on it, the more convinced they were that they were in a simulation. They had customers and clients and employees, but none of them could relate any specific story about one of them. They couldn’t remember the last time they were at the dentist, or a conversation they had with a classmate. There was something wrong with their memories. That was what it all came down to. And Pacey. He knew something. They could feel it.

The girls boarded their plane, and went back home, or at least that was what they believed. They didn’t have any memory of that either. Not clearly. They returned with the impression that a sufficient amount of time had passed between Portland and Mission Hills, and it seemed like they were at the airport, and then on a plane, but they had no recollection of it. They needed answers, and they needed to find a way to get those answers without their memories being messed with again, if that was really what was happening at all. They didn’t know. They didn’t know anything. Maybe confronting Pacey wasn’t the right call. Maybe all they could do was go out and push the boundaries. If none of this was real, there would be clues. There would be little rendering mistakes, and coding copies. Ramses called this geometry instancing. If they were in a virtual environment, each blade of grass would probably just be a copy, repeated from a single block of code. Through enough examination, they should be able to detect this, even though they obviously couldn’t read the code directly. Hopefully, whoever was watching over them—if anyone—wouldn’t catch them in the act. Perhaps a distraction was in order?

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 18, 2500

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 2

The ladies were gone. Leona, Olimpia, and Romana were on a trip together in the Pacific Northwest, predominantly the Portland area. Mateo could have taken time off of work to go with them, but he wasn’t invited. Instead, he was staying home. Ramses was spending a lot of time here too, hanging out to keep him company. They had planned on playing cards with a couple of driver friends, but both of them fell through, so now it was just the two of them. “You can play cards with just two people,” Mateo reasoned. “You can play with just yourself, if it’s the right game.”

“That’s depressing,” Ramses pointed out. “Let’s just find someone else.”

“This last minute?”

“It’s not a big party; they’ll be able to leave whenever they want to. What about those twins next door?”

“Angela and Marie.” Mateo leaned over in his chair, but couldn’t quite see through the window, so he stood up. It still wasn’t enough, so he just stepped over. “Yeah, they’re out there in their garden. Seems as though that’s all they do.”

“Maybe they would like a break,” Ramses suggested. Maybe they’re always out there hoping a couple of cool guys will invite them to something better.”

“I’ll see.” Mateo walked out of the house, expecting to do this alone, but Ramses was trailing behind him. “Hello, Waltons. Are you free this evening? We got a poker game going, and there are some extra seats at the table.”

Marie and Angela exchanged a look. “Do you have RPS-101?” asked the former.

“Is...that a drink?” Mateo asked.

They laughed. “No,” Angela said. “It’s a game. We have a board, if you think you might like to learn.”

Mateo exchanged a look with Rames, and then shrugged. “Yeah, we’re up for something new. It’ll just be the four of us.”

“Great.” Marie stood up, and started to remove her gardening gloves. “Marie Walton, computer programmer.” She shook Ramses’ hand.

“Computer engineer,” Ramses replied.

“I know.” She smiled.

“I’m an addiction counselor.” Angela shook his hand too.

“There won’t be any drinking,” Mateo explained, worried that maybe she was worried about it.

“It would have been fine if there were,” Angela promised.

The twins wanted to shower first, which was fine, because the gaming table wasn’t set up yet. A half hour later, they showed up with their game board. It was a giant wheel with 101 objects written in the wedges. The entire game was pure chance, with absolutely no strategy involved. One player spun the wheel, and randomly landed on one of the objects. The other player spun next, and if it was better than the first one, they won. It was the most boring thing that Mateo had ever experienced, and he couldn’t understand why they liked it so much. They couldn’t explain it either. They just had this peculiar fascination with it, like there was a secret dimension to the game that they simply hadn’t reached yet. Mateo wasn’t so sure, but he did find himself mysteriously landing on Sponge a lot. Maybe there really was magic to it. Despite this inexplicable intrigue, everyone agreed after a while that it was literally played out. They switched to regular old poker. They had to explain the game to the Waltons first. Well, Ramses did. Mateo knew the hands, but he didn’t understand it on the level that Ramses did. That was why he served as the region’s engineer. Mateo certainly couldn’t do it without him.

After hours of this, they took a break to get up, use the restroom, and scavenge for food. Ramses and Marie ended up in a discussion about their jobs, and it was kind of looking like they were never going to start playing again.

“There’s something I’d like to show you,” Angela said to Mateo. She tilted her head towards the east. “Back at our place.”

“Okay,” he said. Hopefully she wasn’t coming onto him. Managing a three-person relationship was complicated enough. They didn’t need to add a fourth. He followed her back to her house, and into what she called their study.

“Did you know that there are more than two kinds of twins?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you can have identical or fraternal—or in the case of two girls, sororal. You’ve probably heard of this distinction, but there are other variations. Precisely when the egg splits, or whether it was fertilized before the split, or after, makes a difference. There are other factors. You can even have two twins with two separate fathers!”

“Is that what you are?” Mateo asked, not sure where she was going with this.

Angela giggled as she took a file folder out of the top drawer of a desk. “No.” She opened the folder, and folded it under itself before handing it to him. “We’re not sure what we are.”

Mateo looked down at the top piece of paper. “I don’t understand what any of this means. DNA methylation, telomeres...”

“Down at the bottom.” Angela just pointed at the sheet in general.

Mateo read it out loud, “biological markers inconclusively suggest an aging abnormality that places Subject B roughly four years ahead of Subject A. Yeah, I still don’t know what that means.”

“Marie is older than me,” Angela tried to explain, “by four years.”

“How is that possible?”

She shook her head. “We don’t know. It’s not the only weird thing about it. We understand that RPS-101 is stupid and boring, but we wanted to play it with you two to see what would happen. You keep landing on Sponge. I keep landing on Heart. And there’s also the matter of the hemlock.”

“Excuse me?”

“We all drank hemlock.”

“I don’t know much, but I know that that’s toxic.”

“Yeah, it should be. But are you even a little queasy?”

Mateo turned away. “You poisoned me as some sort of test?”

“Do you remember moving here, to your house, I mean?”

“Yeah, of course I do.”

“I don’t. Neither does Marie. We’re just been here forever. All we do is garden.”

“And play Rock, Paper, Scissors, and drink hemlock.”

“Do you feel stronger when you go out in the sun?”

“Lots of people like the sun.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Mateo sighed. “I guess so. Is that not normal?”

“No, it’s not.”

“What does it mean, when you put it all together, that we’re superheroes?”

“Well, we may be super, but we’re not heroes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure your job is very fulfilling, but it can be done by a computer.”

That was a bit of a sore subject. While it was true that RideSauce valued the human touch, his role was also under constant threat of being automated. The only reason they hadn’t pulled the trigger was because customer satisfaction was a reflection of staff satisfaction, which was reportedly tied to their ability to receive help from real humans. If the pendulum ever swung to the opposite direction, even for only a day, his job would be gone so fast, a new tenant would be in his office space by lunch.

Angela took her lab test back, and returned it to the drawer. “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but there’s something going on around here. I feel like nearly everyone around me is fake. There’s a reason we ran these tests on you two. You, your wife, your daughter; they all seem like real people. You seem like the only real people. Everyone else is just sort of...weird. Wouldn’t you say?”

“No,” Mateo argued. “My assistant feels real, as does one of my drivers, Boyd.”

Angela grabbed a notepad from the desk. “Boyd. And what’s your assistant’s name?”

“You’re not going to poison my friends too!”

“Understood, but you only listed two more people. Can you think of anyone besides them?”

“Yeah, my rival...Pacey.”

“Pacey, with an e?”

“You’re not—I mean, you can poison him if you want, I guess. But you stay the hell away from my wife and daughter, you hear me.”

“Well, your daughter wouldn’t be able to survive it.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I dunno. Why did I say that?”

Mateo decided to sit down in one of the guest chairs. “If I’m being honest, there are some things I know or think about the world around me, and the people, which don’t seem true...but do?”

Angela flattened her skirt under her thighs and sat down in the other guest chair. “I think I know what you mean. Leona and I had tea the other day, and she made an off-handed comment about how I was once engaged to a man named Ed. That’s completely untrue, I’ve never been engaged, yet it still somehow felt right. I could picture him in my mind. He was dressed weird, like he lived in a different time.”

“Maybe it’s a past life.” He stood up and laughed as he put his face in his palm. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m even entertaining these scifi ideas. Past lives? That’s not a thing.”

“Aren’t they? We don’t know,” Angela pointed out.

“I designed a spaceship.” The two of them looked over to find Ramses standing in the doorway. “I thought it was just for fun, but...I think it works. I mean, it’s really detailed, right down to how the fuel is injected into the engine.”

“He showed it to me,” Marie said as they were both walking all the way into the room. “I can’t make heads or tails of it, but I can tell that he put a lot of thought into the design. If it wouldn’t work, it’s well-thought out at the very least.”

“We were talking,” Ramses went on. “I’ve never been sick. Neither has she, nor her sister. My memories seem...not fake, but too perfect, like they’ve been carefully curated for my mind.”

“Did she tell you about the poison?” Mateo asked him.

“Yeah,” Ramses said with a nod. “We took it a step further.” He bent over, and unplugged a surge protector from its wall, along with all of the appliances connected to it. “Do you care about this?” he asked Marie.

“No,” she said as she was taking it from him. She pulled it back like a baseball bat, and slammed it straight into Ramses’ face. He didn’t even move. It didn’t seem to hurt at all, and didn’t do any damage whatsoever.

Apparently inspired by the two of them, Angela grabbed a letter opener from the desk, and tried to jam it into Mateo’s neck. It didn’t hurt either, and didn’t break the skin. It did do damage to the opener, though, bending it into a slight curve.

“We are superheroes,” Mateo guessed.

“Or it’s the simulation hypothesis,” Ramses decided.

“Explain that one again?” Mateo asked, jokingly without laughing, because he hadn’t ever heard of it, though it did not sound humorous.

“We’re all living in a computer simulation,” Ramses began. “Usually, it’s used in an attempt to explain the nature of reality itself, and where we all are in general. But in this case, it could just be the explanation for where we are...the four of us.”

“Six,” Marie corrected. “We think Mateo’s family is part of this too.”

“More,” Angela corrected Marie’s correction. She lifted up the notepad. “Mateo came up with a few names of people he interacts with who also appear to be real.” She used airquotes around the last word.

“If we’re just in a computer,” Mateo asked, “how do we get out?”

“Typically?” Ramses asked. “You can’t. You can never really know what’s real, and what’s not. It’s not like the movies, where you can will yourself out of it, or where the developers hid secret powers that let you take control. If the simulation hypothesis is true, we have absolutely no free will. Not only can they shape our world to their liking, but they can adjust our minds as needed. We’re not necessarily real either.”

“So, what do we do?” Angel asked him.

“Our two main choices are to keep our heads down, and hope our creators see fit to at least keep us alive in whatever definition that should be for the simulation. Don’t make waves, don’t rock the boat; just play along.”

“Or we keep bashing each other with office equipment,” Marie offered.

“Or we try to talk to them,” Mateo suggested instead. “I told you, Angela, that my rival, Pacey seems real too. There’s more to it. He actually seems, somehow...more real.”

“You think he’s one of them? An avatar of one of the developers?” Angela figured.

“Might could be,” Mateo said. “But I don’t wanna do anything until my girls come back home. It’s not safe for them here, but it’s not like it’s safe wherever they are now. What if they’re on a different server, or whatever? At least if they come back, I can keep an eye on them.”

“Okay, then we wait to do anything,” Marie said. “They should have a say in whatever decision we make anyway.”

« < » > Table of Contents