Microstory 2766: Winner’s Circle

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It begins as a pinprick of consciousness as Elise becomes acutely aware of the passage of time, even though there are no external stimuli. She isn’t truly thinking about anything. She is only mindful of her own ability to think. At first, she believes there might be a tiny light before her, but it may simply be her imagination...but does she even have an imagination anymore? She tries to come up with other things to occupy her mind, but nothing comes. She can’t even articulate in her head an idea of what ideas she should be able to come up with. No categories of thoughts, no things, no things to do or have done. She is nothing more than a thinking thing. A thinking thing called Elise. So that’s something at least. She is someone. She is a someone with a name, and if she has a name it must mean there are other someones with their own names. But who?

Elise quietly screams at her own brain. Wake up. Think. Think about something, anything. It doesn’t have to be important, it doesn’t have to be major. Don’t just sit here in the silence like a moth in the dark. A moth? What is a moth? It must be something, or she wouldn’t have a word for it. What is a word? What are things? What is anything? Go back to the moth. A moth is...a moth is something that is. It’s something that...flies. It has wings. Flying wings. And hair and eyes. Elise should have eyes. She has seen things before. She has seen moths. She has smelled the hot and cold nights as the weather transitions from summer to autumn. There she goes thinking about more things again. This time, it’s the seasons. There are two others: winter and spring. Spring is her favorite. Tofu is her favorite food. She eats. She is a person. She has a mouth.

She is Elise Perkins and she is in a race. No, an expedition. A quest? No. It’s a hunt. It’s a treasure hunt. She is a treasure hunter. Her name is Elise Perkins, Treasure Hunter. She has a mouth, a nose, and lucky her, two eyes. Also two ears. She’s hearing something. She’s hearing something with her ears. It’s...it’s talking. Other people. Other people with names. She can hear them. She can hear, but she can’t see. Why? Eyelids. She opens. Still dark, but less dark. A hint of light. Light behind...a visor. Her mouth, it doesn’t only eat. It also speaks. It screams. “Help!”

The visor slides away.

“Elise?” someone asks. “Elise, can you hear me? Are you there? Elise!”

“She opens her mouth but the words won’t come. Who said that? It sounded like the way Elise sounded like when she could sound like something. But she doesn’t sound like anything because when she opens her mouth, the words won’t come out.”

“You can’t use your mouth,” a different person claims. “You don’t have an airway anymore. But the helmet can convert your thoughts into sounds. Just think what you want to say, and it will come out. Go ahead and try again,” they encourage.

“Rubber baby buggy bumpers,” the helmet says. “Gina Linetti Spaghetti Confetti.” A face. Elise’s famous two eyes have adjusted to the light and can see when there is something that isn’t light. “That is definitely a face. It’s a very pretty face. She used to know what to call it. Whatever the face’s name, Elise may be falling in love with it.”

The face smiles. “Thank you. My name is Rage. You are Elise Perkins.”

“I know that,” Elise replies. “I am Elise. I have a face. I have a head. Do I have anything else?” She tries to tilt her chin down, but it won’t move. She can’t move at all.

Another person sighs. “You don’t have anything else. You only have a head.”

“Mino? A little more tact?” someone says to the person who has no tact.

“It’s okay,” Elise insists. “I am Elise Perkins, Treasure Hunter, a.k.a Ladymoth. I don’t need anything more than a head, because my head is where I do all my thinking.”

“Do you remember what happened?” the Rage face asks.

“I remember...” Elise begins. “I remember ice.”

“There was ice on the track during the race,” Rage confirms. “You sacrificed yourself so that your friend, Jolanda could make it across the finish line. You managed to defeat the last automated racecar, so she didn’t have to get there quickly. She had time to get out of her car, find your head, and carry it across with her. Now we’re in the winner’s lounge. Only six of us could win. I’m not sure what that means for you yet.”

“We’re not sure what this means for any of us,” Zelda adds. Yes, that’s Zelda.

Elise’s memories are starting to come back to her now. She feels like she’s becoming herself again. They lounge there for about an hour. The normal humans eat while Elise focuses on her recovery. The Custodians are not letting them out of this room, or they would seek medical attention for her. For now, she’s sitting on a snack table. Watching her friends talk is helping a lot. After they’re done eating, she finds that she’s pretty much back to her old self. She is centuries old, so there are a ton of memories that have not yet resurfaced, but they’re not paramount to her core.

While they’re just sitting around doing nothing, the lights begin to flicker. It’s not like a lightbulb is burnt out, though. It’s clearly intentional, like the theatre warning the audience that intermission is over. Out of the corner of her eye, Elise can see the door open, though she’s not at the right angle to see who. She needs her legs back.

“Hello,” comes the voice of a man. She recognizes it, but can’t place it.

“Hello,” Colley says, intentionally positioning himself directly in front of Elise.

“Please, Mister Rochelle.” Hrockas, the owner of the planet. That’s who this is. “Do you honestly believe that I am not cognizant of the severed head you’re keeping on the table? If I didn’t want death survival to be an option, I would not have commissioned those helmets in the first place. The plan was to keep any heads in their comas while the winners moved on, then transfer their consciousnesses to their respective backups so they could recall as much of the hunt as they were here for.”

Colley steps off so Elise can see. “We can’t trust you. You’re not taking her.”

Hrockas nods. “Now that you have reinitialized her, taking her is no longer a decent option. The reason we left you in here for so long is the producers and I needed to figure out how to move forward. The truth is, not anywhere near this many was expected to survive. Some of the bots were easy, but some were hard. You destroyed them all, and through a loophole, managed to keep your entire group together on the other side. It’s impressive, I admit. But the challenge we had planned will no longer work. Funnily enough, however, the challenge reward is now more relevant than ever.”

“Whatever the reward,” Jolanda says, “it’s not worth it if Elise can’t compete.”

Hrockas smiles. “That’s the irony. The sudden death challenge is quite literal. Whoever wins, dies...and will be given a superior substrate. It would be cruel to force you to compete if the one person who genuinely needed it stood no chance. That’s what we had to change. Now it is no longer physical, but a contest of wits. Elise has a shot.”

“I forfeit the challenge,” Colley volunteers immediately.

“That’s fine,” Hrockas says, “but it comes with a penalty for the next challenge.”

The others forfeit too. Elise is getting a new body.

Microstory 2764: Ghostriders

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In this post-scarcity economy, gold is not valueless. It’s actually quite useful. It has a number of applications in electronics, aerospace engineering, and even medicine. It’s used for all sorts of mundane things. And that’s because, in this day and age, destroying entire planets only to extract their raw material is on its way to becoming a matter of it being Tuesday.

Many treasure hunts end with a cache of precious metals and jewels. They’re not usually quite this extensive, but they signal the end of the challenge. The accomplishment of that challenge is the real prize. Hunters usually don’t even take the treasure, but leave it for the next batch, or if they do, they take only a small trinket to remind them of the good memories. No one needs this much, except major engineering operations. The disappointing part, however, is not the letdown of the prize itself, but that the hunt might be over. They went through a lot, but they still expected more.

They tie the boat off, and step out. They begin to walk around on the cave floor between the piles and piles of goblets, coins, bars, crowns, and other accessories. They’re going to spread out to look for clues. There has to be something, whether this is the end or not. Every hunt tells you when you’re done in no uncertain terms. It’s never simply implied. They don’t need fanfare, just undeniable proof.

“Don’t touch anything,” Minotaur warns. “It’s sometimes a literal booby trap, and sometimes a curse to teach of the dangers of greed, or whatever.”

“We might need to dig,” Jolanda points out. “A clue might be under the gold.”

“You’re right,” Minotaur admits. “Just don’t take anything.”

“Should we look for something special?” Elise asks them. “Like the only blue gemstone, or something anachronistic or out of place?”

“That’s a good idea,” Mino agrees. “Most everything is probably a distraction. The important thing will be simple or not valuable to the pirates we’re pretending to be.”

“Something out of place,” Zelda begins, “like this?” She’s standing beside what initially appeared to be the cave wall. But she’s opening it like a door. It’s heavy, so she and Miracle hold it open for everyone to walk through single-file.

They’re now standing in another locker room. The lights are flickering on for them. Their names are on their respective lockers again. Colley is the first to open his.

“What is that?” Rage asks. “What is that for?”

Jolanda is frowning. “Racing. That’s a racer’s uniform, including the helmet.”

“Why do you look so upset?” Rage questions. “This is right up your alley.”

“Because I know I’m gonna win, and I might have to hurt you to do it.”

“I don’t understand,” Elise says. “Don’t listen to Hrockas when he says only one person can win. We don’t have to follow his rules all throughout. We’re in charge here.” She said it, but she doesn’t mean it. They’re really not. She’s just trying to be positive.

“This is a headless racing uniform,” Jolanda begins to clarify. “It’s a niche race that kind of went obsolete. The helmet gives it away. You see, they didn’t just suddenly come up with mind-transference and uploading technology. It was a grind. There was a time when updates were periodic, rather than continuous. It was metaphysically scary. But not as scary as this. No updates, but a local chip implanted in your head. You see, unless you’re an octopus, the head is the only place where your brains are stored. And it’s a lot easier to protect that above all else.

“Some astronauts were given these kinds of helmets. If something went wrong—if all else failed—your spinal column is severed, and your head is preserved. You lose consciousness, so someone has to retrieve you, and give you a new body. This tech came out of the private sector, so while they had government contracts, they also had private ones. This gave rise to the deadliest format of racecar driving. The ancillary tech wasn’t that reliable. Racers occasionally died because sometimes, their heads were destroyed as well, because of-freaking-course they were. Or sometimes the reintegration process simply didn’t work. They signed waivers, but it was a dark time in our history. Now, with consciousness streaming, the races can technically be deadlier, but reliably temporary.”

“This,” Zelda says. “This is why Hrockas gave us an out. It wasn’t all the storms.”

“Can’t we all pile into a car together?” Elise reasons. “Even compact cars can fit seven if you’re creative and willing to get really familiar with each other’s bodies.”

“The cars are too small. You wouldn’t be able to fit two people,” Jolanda clarifies.

“Now, let’s all calm down,” Rage tells them when she notices everyone growing more stressed out about this. “All we see are the uniforms and helmets. We have no idea what’s waiting for us on the other side of those doors. We might have a choice of challenges. Those helmets might just be manufactured to look like decappers. Let’s first get changed, but keep the helmets off, and go outside. Sound okay?”

The seven of them gladly remove their tattered, disgusting tunics, shower down, and suit up. They walk through the set of doors beyond the showers holding their helmets. They expected to find seven cars waiting for them, but there are instead two dozen. It’s tempting to believe that they will have their pick of the litter, but they know they’re not that lucky. They’re going to be racing against some other team, or other individuals. This obviously raises the stakes. Now it’s plausible that none of them will win. Jolanda is the best driver in their group, but she’s not invulnerable.

What’s interesting about it is that seven cars are sitting separately from the other 17, so they don’t know what that’s about. While they’re examining the vehicles, and debating whether they should get in, or try something else, seven zombie ghosts appear before them. It’s the same ones from the sea before, and they know that, because they grew to be quite familiar with their distinctive looks, despite them all being undead. They’re on the other side of the cars, and end up walking straight through them as they approach the humans. They move much less menacingly than they did before. Once they are a couple of meters from the hunters, they stand there and wait.

“Oh,” Rage finally says. “I think we’re each meant to choose one. That happens on the regular hunts all the time. They don’t expect you to magically know how to complete a task. If it’s a skill, an expert will train you on it. I think they’re our driving instructors.”

“Them?” Miracle questions. “They don’t exactly look the part.”

“Maybe they’re shortstaffed,” Zelda jokes. She steps forward, and points at one.

The ghost reaches out and pantomimes taking her hand. As he’s leading her to a car, he growls but more in a grumpy way, rather than violent. The one-footed captain isn’t here, which would have been awkward since they seem to have personalities now.

Rage sighs and gives the other line of cars the side-eye. “I suppose we have no choice if we want to keep going. Pick your partner. The competition may be pretty fierce. We won’t know until we learn, and hopefully there’s no time limit, because we practiced driving, but we didn’t train for this.”

Microstory 2763: Steady as She Goes

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The storms return, which gives them the freshwater they need, but are hell to sail through for a ragtag group of non-sailors. They knew that there would be skills which none of them possessed, but they didn’t think it could be this. Regular domes aren’t big enough for these long-haul trips. Sailing seemed like such an unlikely challenge. They figured they would be literally separated from the rest of the hunters—as they indeed are—which would limit the amount of space they had to work with under Treasure Hunting Dome. It didn’t occur to them that they would end up in a place like this.

They’re making a lot of mistakes, but at least they’re not getting killed for it. They just need to find land. Even if it’s not where they’re meant to be, it would be nice to have a break from the water. Four days of this would be hard on anyone, even genuine sailors.

They do manage to fish during lulls, which is where Elise shines since that was one of her early skills. She has never fished in an ocean setting, but it’s not too hard to adapt. While these creatures are fully organic and edible, they are not real fish. They literally don’t have normal complex brains. They were very simply programmed to swim pseudorandomly and react to stimuli, such as each other and the light. It’s only the basics of cognitive function. They don’t even feel hunger or pain. Hopefully not.

Minotaur and Miracle find even that almost too far past vegetarianism but they’re too hungry for their pride, so they partake as well. One thing is they’re not entirely sure it’s true in this case. That was Elise’s experience, and how it works in most of the galaxy, but it’s entirely plausible that these are regular fish. That would not be illegal, whether on Castlebourne or in the stellar neighborhood. However, she doesn’t think they are because they don’t fight the catch as hard as something which evolved to survive would.

Finally, after the relentless struggle, they see something. It’s not land that they can stand on, but they rise above the surface. Tall rocks, looking almost like fingers, are scattered all over in their path. A fog rolls over the water, but not so thick that they can’t see how eerie the obstacles are, nor the means of avoiding them.

“It looks like we could go around,” Jolanda muses, looking at Minotaur.

Mino stands on the bulwark and holds themselves up via a rope. “That’s the question. If this were a movie, there would be some contrived reason why the characters have to go this way. That’s where the MacGuffin is. But the audience would be screaming at them to not be stupid. So far, this hunt has felt very movie-like. While the challenges have not been specific analogs to any story we’re familiar with, at times, it does feel like we’re meant to play into the tropes, rather than try to outsmart them.”

“Should we take another vote?” Jolanda offers. “Be safe, or follow a path?”

“I will warn you,” Minotaur goes on, “something bad will probably happen if we go in there. We’ll shipwreck, or someone will fall overboard. These early consequences are designed to show how high the stakes are, so the audience feels something for the survivors. How much loss there is after that depends on the subgenre and age targeting. I’m not saying we should vote against that, but we still don’t know what we’re looking for, so the motivation to go this way is a little bit lacking from my perspective.”

Their fearless leader stares at the horizon and at all the deadly, jagged rocks. It does look like an obstacle course that the gamemakers expect them to play straight. But the possibility that subverting those expectations actually gets them what they need is a tempting offer. Elise can see the debating raging in Rage’s eyes.

“What are ya thinkin’, boss?” Miracle didn’t seem like the type to defer to anyone else, let alone another person with a strong personality, but since she came back with a new face, she’s been a team player. She doesn’t have an ego anymore. Elise almost wonders if it’s not really her. While researchers tried in the early days of mind- transference development, they never figured out how to prove identity when anyone can look like anyone. It’s a risk you live with since the technology couldn’t be stopped.

“We came here for a goal,” Rage begins. “We each signed on not even knowing what that goal was. Not only is it possible that that’s exactly where it’s waiting, but if we take the safe route now, we’ll be defeating the entire purpose. We decided to go north, let’s not head east or west now. I’ll hear arguments against, but I don’t wanna vote.”

No one says anything. Colley doesn’t look like he agrees, but he’s also missing Laise, which may be making it hard for Elise to read his facial expressions.

They raise anchor once more while Zelda is climbing back up to her perch. She continues to direct them as they begin to navigate the deadly rocks. To the starboard side, Elise sees something moving in the fog. She moves over and squints. At first, she sees several heads bobbing around each other until she realizes that it’s a single monster with multiple heads in the distance. She has heard of this before. Colley once spoke of the famous story. She runs over to the port side where she sees the second monster, or part of it, anyway. A dark mass is swimming in circles just under the surface. Neither is making any attempt to attack the boat. For now, it appears they chose right.

“What?” Jolanda questions. “What is it? Do you see something?”

Elise looks up to Zelda, who is regarding the underwater monster with her spyglass. She lowers it and meets Elise’s eyes. Then she quietly returns to her work.

“Nothing,” Elise replies to Jolanda. “It’s just beautiful here.” Why did she choose not to tell anyone about it? What did it matter? If the monsters aren’t going to attack, why not prove that this was the right call? Maybe because they don’t know that yet, because straight ahead could end up much worse. After all, those monsters look pretty casual for having missed a meal. Or maybe she just liked keeping a secret with Zelda.

They continue sailing between the rocks. It isn’t easy, but they keep a close eye on that water at their respective posts, and don’t ever run aground. They go slowly so the fog never obscures something they can’t avoid. Gradually, they realize that it’s lightening up, and they can see better with each passing moment. Then comes the cave. The opening is more than large enough for them to sail right on through, which means that is exactly where they need to go, as scary as the darkness might look from out here.

“What are we thinking?” Miracle asks. “Is there a monster waiting for us?”

“No, there’s no third monster,” Elise slips up and says.

“What do you mean?” Rage questions, a puzzled look on her face.

“Nothing,” Elise answers. “Steady on, or...whatever you’re meant to say.”

“Steady on!” Rage shouts up to Minotaur, who has been steering lately.

They enter the cave. It becomes so dark, they have to navigate with lanterns. But then they see a glow up ahead. Is this it? It can’t be it. Hrockas wouldn’t have offered to get them out if there were only two more challenges ahead. It’s pretty significant, though. It’s a gargantuan pile of treasure. Real, physical, golden treasure.

What a disappointment.

Microstory 2754: Starting Line

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Elise opens her eyes. She’s floating in artificial amniotic fluid. No, that’s not what it is, it doesn’t taste right. It tastes more...leafy? Like spinach that’s gone bad, or kale that hasn’t gone bad, because kale is the worst food God ever created. She’s trapped. She’s trapped in something opaque, which is not how body switching works. You’re supposed to be in a glass box, or in more advanced equipment, a clean and sterile pod. It’s not this, whatever this is. This is all wrong, and she’s panicking. She squirms around, looking for a way to escape, but doesn’t find it. She’s going to have to make her own.

She tries punching and she tries kicking, but neither of them work. That’s what makes her realize that this isn’t simply a pod. It’s a chrysalis. And that’s not how butterflies get out of their chrysalises. Elise feels around to make sure she knows where down is, and then she starts to spit. Opening her mouth amidst all this goo necessarily forces more goo back into her mouth. She thought it tasted bad before, but now it’s making its way down her throat. She starts to retch, and then she vomits. Even though it’s disgusting, the bile, saliva, and other fluids accelerate the mission.

The enzymes in Elise’s saliva weaken the chitin enough for her to tear through it. She can see light now, and feel the air. She vomits more so she can start breathing again. She continues to tear at the chrysalis until the opening is wide enough for her to get through. She tries to aim away from her own sick, but that’s stupid, because she’s already covered in filth. Elise reaches out to the floor with her hands, clumsily slipping on the fluids, but it slows her down enough to keep her from faceplanting.

She’s on her back now on the cool white floor of a small room. It’s not too small, though. It’s big enough to fit ten other chrysalises. Her whole team is here, plus the other team. Wait, there should be twelve in total, so who are we missing? She frantically starts knocking on the other chrysalises. “Jolanda? Rage? Is that you? Who’s in there?” she starts to say, looking for her people.

She can hear them moan back to her, but no one replies with words.

In the real world, with a real butterfly, you don’t want to help it get out of its chrysalis. The struggle is real, but it is not pointless. It’s a crucible, which strengthens the insect so it can literally spread its wings and fly. But they’re not in the real world, they’re in a simulation. It may be a base reality simulation, but it’s not natural. The others don’t need to go through what she just did. Elise stumbles over to a wall and wrenches a sconce from it. She starts tearing at the nearest chrysalis. Yeah, sometimes you gotta spit on that thing, but sometimes you need good old fashioned brute force.

A woman tumbles out of the chrysalis. It’s Miracle.

Elise catches her, and gently lowers her to the floor.

“Oh, thank you,” Miracle says. “I’ve forgotten what this feels like.”

“You’ve used this form factor before?” Elise has never even heard of it.

“Yeah, buncha times,” Miracle replies. As she’s resting on her hands behind her back, she looks around before her gaze returns to Elise. “You take left, I take right?”

They divide and conquer until the other nine hunters are free. Thankfully, all of Elise’s teammates are here. It’s Miracle who is missing one of hers. The girl she was trying to safely fly down to the ground, and who was wearing her shirt on backwards on the football pitch, is missing. Miracle says that she had an emergency mind transponder, which she probably used before she hit the ground. There was no way to know that they would survive it.

It’s different, though. Elise feels weak, and not just because she just had to force her way out of a chrysalis, and then help five other people do the same. Her vision isn’t as strong, her joints are achey, and she feels hunger in a way that she hasn’t since she was a kid, before she became immortal. This is a regular body, like the kind everyone had back in the days before humanity had even reached the longevity escape velocity. Her consciousness stream isn’t just unlinked. It doesn’t exist. There’s no backup plan now. If she dies, she truly dies, and she’s guessing the same goes for everyone else.

Once the last person is on his feet, the ceiling lifts up and to the side like the lid of a cardboard box, revealing only a dark void above them. It begins to rain once more, but this time, it’s just regular water, instead of acid. Well, it’s also a bit soapy. The room fills up around ten centimeters of water and suds before the drains open up and start to wash all the gunk and junk away. Next come the blowers to dry them off. They all just stand there and accept it, because there’s no door to exit, and they want to get cleaned off, even if at the end of this is, they get decapitated by a Jigsaw wannabe. They are here to play a game at any rate, and this appears to be the start of it, for whatever reason.

After they’re sufficiently dry, seams appear on the back wall. They slide upwards, revealing eleven chairs in front of eleven lockers. Each one is labeled with one of their names. The hunters proceed to their assigned lockers, retrieve the generic clothes that were placed there for them, and get dressed. But nothing happens after they’re done.

“I think we’re supposed to sit down to trigger the next phase,” Elise figures.

They follow her advice, and once that last butt hits that last seat, the wall in front of them transforms into a monitor.

A man appears on screen. “Hello, and welcome to Treasure Hunting Dome. My name is Hrockas Steward, and I own the planet of Castlebourne. Now, you may be wondering why I would record this message, and whether I do it for the other 69,814 domes presently in service. The answer is no. This is only for you. You twelve—forgive me, eleven—contestants have selected our Premium-Ultra Package. This is the rarest of hunts, which will take you on a journey few have traveled. In regular hunts, you would be out in the open, encountering Ambients who are simulating locals from various locales. You will not be doing this. You are on a special mission to find a unique prize.

“It’s important you understand that I am not admitting that such a prize exists. This is confirmation of absolutely nothing. You are being isolated from the other players so your hunt does not influence or interfere with anyone else. Everyone who expresses serious interest in this track experiences the same thing. Or do they? You may never know. You may not even survive. You have become decoupled from your consciousness streams so if you die along the way, your alternate selves will move on with their lives with no memories of these events. Even if you do find what you’re looking for, you might never be able to reveal its secrets. Thousands before you may have succeeded, but never returned to tell the tale. You will receive your next clue on the other side of this door.”

The seams of a door appear on the third wall.

“Oh, and one more thing. Those teams you worked so hard to build? They’re useless. Only one person can win this hunt. Good luck to one of you. Aaaaaaaaaand go!”

The door opens.

Microstory 2753: Dropoffs Only

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The football match started right after this Miracle Brighton woman claimed that she and her team were interested in the same thing in Treasure Hunting Dome. Rage didn’t have a chance to talk to her afterwards, because they were separated into different locker rooms, and then she couldn’t locate her again. Rage says that she’s not entirely surprised. The possibility of an ultimate secret prize isn’t something that she randomly came up with on her own. The rumor has been around since Treasure Hunting Dome first opened. Over the decades, with no proof that anyone ever won it, however, most have lost interest. They assume now that it doesn’t exist. Perhaps the rumor was started by the planet owner, who wanted to build hype, or it started organically. The fact that nothing has ever come of it has only served to intrigue Rage more, and Miracle evidently had the same idea. They try to find her on the local network, but no luck.

They train with each other in the Sandbox warehouse for about another week, but they have to be careful, because their efforts are not being made in secret. If they wanted complete privacy, they would have needed to go to a different planet. No one has ever said anything, but it’s plausible that the Custodians who run the game will use the team’s experience against them. If they get really good, for instance, at driving on the right side of the road, they might end up with a task where they have to drive on the left. And if they practice both, they might not get any driving challenge at all, and it will have been a waste of time. There’s no way to know, which also means there’s no reason to keep doing this indefinitely. They all agree that it’s time to dive in head first.

Before the big day, they check into the Apex Suite at the Palacium Hotel for a good night’s rest. Minotaur was able to secure it for them on short notice because they know someone who knows someone who knows someone. They would have been—

Smoke. Smoke and fire. Elise wakes up to find her room ablaze. She checks her consciousness stream and finds that it’s been severed. Her last upload was three hours ago. If she doesn’t get it turned back on, and dies here, the person who boots up in her backup body won’t really be her. It will only be a copy who thinks she’s Elise. How can this place be on fire? Things don’t catch fire anymore. It just isn’t done.

The door bursts off its hinges, and falls to the floor. Jolanda scrambles back up. She scoops Elise off the bed, and carries her out to the common area. It’s on fire too.

“I’m not streaming!” Elise warns.

“None of us is!” Jolanda is still carrying her as she finds her way across the room.

Zelda is holding a chair, pounding the leg against the edges of the window.

“We’re two kilometers up and that’s security glass!” Elise warns. “It won’t break!”

“Not without some help!” Zelda says. “Stand by Mino, Jo!” She keeps pounding.

“I think you can put me down now,” Elise tells Jolanda.

“We agreed that I would be the one to take you out,” Jolanda replies.

“What?” Elise questions. “What do you mean, take me out?”

Rage appears to their left, holding Colley like he’s also a little baby.

Zelda stops striking the glass, and puts her steampunk goggles on. “Ready?”

“Do it,” Rage orders. She grips Colley tighter. “Everyone turn off your lungs!”

Zelda takes Minotaur in one arm, then reaches out with the other to grip the doorknob of what’s either a bathroom or a closet. She yanks it open. It explodes.

Fire rushes out of the room, and crashes into the window. It’s destroyed instantly, and in that same instant, all six of them are sucked out.

Jolanda never lets go, but now she looks more worried than ever. Even though she has less experience skydiving, she doesn’t have none. They wouldn’t have done this if they weren’t each packing the right equipment, like parachutes and/or wingsuits. Why does she look so scared? She holds Elise tighter with one arm while she maneuvers her other one, hovering her watch above Elise’s face.

It takes a second for Elise to realize what Jolanda is trying to show her. Their altitude is about 35,000 meters and falling. They should not be anywhere near that high. That’s damn near the apex of the whole freaking top. Despite its name, that’s not where the Apex Suite sits. It’s just at the top of the building. She turns her head enough to look back up, but whatever they just fell out of has now been covered by clouds. She can see the other two pairs, though. Wait, four—no, six. Other people are also falling alongside them, presumably from some nearby suite that was also on fire. What is happening?

They keep falling for about a minute before Elise gets her head turned enough to see land below. It’s coming up fast. If Jolanda doesn’t do something soon...

“You can turn your lungs back on!” Jolanda shouts. “Or don’t, you don’t need them! But you do need to hold on tighter, with your arms and legs! I need to pull!”

Elise tightens up and buries her face in Jolanda’s neck. She may be falling in love.

Jolanda pulls the ripcord. The parachute flies out of the back of her belt. Elise’s legs slip off, and begin to dangle, but Jolanda wraps her arm back around her to compensate. After a few seconds, the initial shock wears off, and now they’re just floating. They’re actually going to be okay. They’re going to survive this.

Elise gets another look around now, and starts to run attendance. Rage, Colley, Zelda, and Minotaur; everyone’s here. She looks in the other direction, at the strangers. They’re actually not strangers. She recognizes Miracle’s face. She’s holding the girl who did a backflip on the football pitch. Instead of a parachute, they’re staying aloft via Miracle’s white feathered wings. Which is all sorts of crazy, but it’s clearly working.

As they’re drifting towards the ground, Elise feels something bite at her arm. Some kind of bug? She can’t get a look at it to check. She’ll just have to tough it out. But then she feels another bite on her other arm. She also sees rain begin to fall all around them, which doesn’t feel like a coincidence. She looks up in horror to find holes forming on the parachute above them. The holes are growing as something begins to shred the material. Rain plus stinging plus tearing equals only one thing. Acid rain.

Either someone is trying to kill them, or they’re just having a little fun, and they don’t know that the team isn’t streaming properly. The fact that they were somehow moved to the very top of the dome leads her to believe that this is attempted murder. Hours from now, when the unscheduled data gap triggers emergency resuscitation procedures, her latest backup will wake up with no idea what went wrong. She will have no reason to suspect foul play, but at least some version of Elise will exist. With that, there is a modicum of hope for justice.

After only a few seconds, the parachute can’t take it anymore. It violently rips apart, sending Elise and Jolanda away from each other. Not that it matters. At this height, even their advanced substrates won’t survive it. Elise keeps falling and falling until she runs out of room and splats on the ground.

Microstory 2481: Treasure Hunting Dome

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This is like a cross between a race and a treasure hunt, but multiplied by a thousand. Obviously, if there was only one hunt going on at once, it would immediately become impossible to complete, like a million or more players trying to golf on one course. The surface under this dome has plenty of room, so they take it up. Of course, there are different levels of difficulty, and different lengths. You can choose a hunt that only typically takes a couple of hours, or one that can last for days, or even weeks. Like a real treasure hunt—or one you might find in media—you solve clues, or solve puzzles to get more clues to solve. Like a challenge competition, some of the clues can be earned through otherwise unrelated tasks. You might have to complete a Rubik’s Cube in order to unlock a secret hidden inside, or you might have to figure out how to milk a genetically engineered cow that’s as big as a house before an android will hand you your clue. One of them necessarily leads to the reward, while the other is arbitrary, and could theoretically be anything. This isn’t a criticism, just a clarification that there’s a healthy mix of tasks to complete, and while some of them might seem silly, or make you feel embarrassed, they’re all meant to be fun. It gets even more complex, because you’re sometimes working alone, and sometimes with a team, and sometimes against others, and you don’t always get to choose your team. If multiple people arrive at the same challenge or puzzle, you may be required to work with them, or compete against them. It really just depends. And those other people may be on the same treasure hunt with you, or on an entirely different one, which just so happens to intersect at this same point. You can also select a hunt that involves being on a team already, and even that sometimes goes up in the air, because they may make you compete with each other for individual rewards. They always tell you what you’re meant to do, though, so don’t worry about getting overwhelmed by the rules. They obviously won’t tell you how to complete a given challenge, but they’ll make sure you understand it well enough to at least make an attempt. As I said, there are all sorts of different ways of going about this, and you have the power to choose your own destiny. I’ve run four hunts at this point, and I can recommend all four, but I can’t recommend any hunt that I’ve never been on. No one can. I doubt there’s even time for any given person to try every single variation, because I think they’re intending to retire some to make space for brand new ones. It changes all the time, just like life itself. One final note. There are some out there who believe that there is some sort of overarching plot here, and a secret hunt which will lead to genuine, valuable riches. I don’t know anything about that, but my advice would be to stick with what you’ve been given. You can’t get into this dome without choosing a particular hunt, and they’re gonna keep you on task. Even though you’re expected to figure things out on your own, it’s not a free-for-all, so don’t even try.