Microstory 2689: Full Circle

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Resi is back on the beach. He doesn’t know if he’s truly going to end up on Castlebourne at some point, or if his vision is pointing him to some other direction. The futures he sees can clearly be changed, or he wouldn’t be lounging here right now. This whole area would be covered in ash and lava. He just wants to relax and be happy. He hasn’t been able to do that for a very long time, and when you think about it, maybe not ever. When he exiled himself to the border, he was indeed lounging all day, but he was also always really tense. Now he doesn’t have to think about anything, or worry about what’s gonna happen. It’s just him, the sand, the sun, and the sea. This is a nude beach, making it all the more freeing. He feels a presence, so he opens his eyes.

The sun is at her back, so he can’t see who it is at first. “Back on Earth, when I was a kid, we called people like you slackers!” she yells, joking. He knew her voice. It was Brooke Prieto. She taught him how to see the future. That was a hundred years ago.

“I’ve earned a vacation,” he tells her, dropping the shades back over his eyes.

“I can’t disagree.” She sits down on the sand next to him. She looks ridiculous in her spaceman outfit. The opposite of a relaxed vibe, and it can’t be comfortable.

“A bit overdressed?” he muses.

“I can change,” she replies as they’re looking out over the water.

He hears a noise. When he looks back at her, she’s suddenly in a pink bikini. “Neat trick. Still overdressed, though.” He can be funny too.

She laughs.

“How has your life been?” he asks. “A hundred years is quite a long time.”

“Has it been that long?” Brooke questions. “Wow, the decades just fly by. You’ll see when you’re older. Speaking of which, are you considering getting all of your memories back? I don’t know if you’re worried about no longer being Resi anymore, but you shouldn’t be. You won’t stop being you. You’ll just be...more you.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty happy with who I am right now. I finally feel like I am finally who I’m meant to be. Now, God forbid, if another volcano erupts, and I see it in my dreams, I won’t write it off or freak out. I’ll be more confident. I won’t necessarily know what to do right away, but I’ll manage to work through it. Hopefully it won’t kill me again.” He nudges her shoulder with his own.

She nods, but not understandingly, more just patiently. She continues to watch the waves crash onto the shore. “I had a friend a long time ago who you remind me of. Belahkay. Ludicrous name. He was easygoing at heart, but not a waste of space. His people were facing a dangerous task, and none of us could do it for him. It had to be a regular human, and he could have genuinely died from it. This was actually here on Bungula...very early days. The earliest.” She takes a breath. “It was when we were terraforming it. He was very brave, and he survived. He was the first true Bungulan, if you use the right definition. We went on some adventures together; ended up thrown clear across the galaxy, where we were forced to destroy a planet for some not-so-great people. He always wanted to do the right thing, though. I’ve not seen him in a long time. He had to volunteer for another mission, and he had to do it alone. And we let him, because we had other things to work on at the same time.

When we went back for him, he couldn’t remember us anymore. He had become someone else, and didn’t wanna leave. So we tried to move on. But. Then he called. Out of the blue. I mean, it wasn’t him, but word got back to me that he needed our help. He still couldn’t remember me, mind you, but he was still the same person, deep down. So I flew back to his planet, and helped him through some stuff. And wouldn’t you know it? I lost him again. He made the ultimate sacrifice. Again. I thought he was gone forever, but then I get another call, and I’m told that his consciousness was being stored on an off-site server that people just forgot about. The laws on this planet, they’re tricky. We weren’t allowed to just plug him back in. We figured it out, though. Unfortunately, he still couldn’t remember me, except for the short window where I helped him understand how to see the future. That was new. He couldn’t ever do that before. I think he was exposed to temporal energy, or something, and...it changed him.”

Resi is no idiot. He knows who she’s talking about, but now he can’t bring himself to look over at her. He just keeps watching the water.

She has one more thing to try. “You may not want him back. But I need him. Resi, I need my friend. It’s been centuries, and I don’t care how old we end up getting, that kind of time apart will always be excruciating.”

He breathes, and finally works up the courage to look over at her again. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

Microstory 2687: Then She Winks

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

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

“So you chose Kinkon.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Microstory 2686: Redirected

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Resi opens his eyes. He is lying on his back, half naked and confused. A familiar face appears over him. She looks down with a hint of sadness, but also some familiarity. He tries to speak, but air isn’t passing through his lungs. How could he be alive but not breathing? He starts to panic, but tries to remain still. It all comes out in his eyes, wide like an open door. The young woman says nothing, but reminds him how with her own breath. She sweeps her hand in circles in front of her lips, down and up. Resi opens his mouth again, searching for the right positions of his tongue and throat to form the right words. Her own eyes widen encouragingly as she waits patiently, still refusing to speak first. He finally thinks he has it correct. “Report.”

She smiles proudly. “You did it. You saved us. You figured out when the volcano was going to erupt, and we were able to prepare for it. It wasn’t even that hard.”

“So you’re Bungulan? Kinkon?” he asked. “You dropped a magical bomb into the caldera, or whatever you would do to put a stop to it.”

She laughs, and tries to find her own words. “Volcanoes are not destructive beasts which must be broken. They are the means by which the planet replenishes itself. When a volcano erupts, the planet is breathing. Would you like to see? I advocated for reviving you in time to witness the eruption yourself.”

“It’s still going to happen?” He looks around, panicking again. “You’re not stopping it at all? Did you just evacuate?”

She places comforting hands on his shoulder. “No need. We didn’t have to evacuate the island. We’re just redirecting the danger.” She points to a window. She then has to help him stand and walk a little. Reviving the dead can’t be easy.

He manages to walk over there without her having to hold him up. There is Central Mountain in the distance. He’s seeing it from a high vantage point. They have really built this place up. How long has it been? “How long has it been?” he asks her.

She sighs. “Resi, you’ve been dormant for one hundred years. It wasn’t my decision, I didn’t even know you were still alive until recently. I demanded they bring you back. The brain disease you have, there’s a cure. The Bungulans weren’t allowed to use it before, but things have changed. We have new laws now. You’ll learn them.”

The mountain looks vastly different. He can see residences in the distance. They’re just regular bungalows and treehouses, but there’s all this big metal piping on the side of the mountain. He doesn’t understand what it’s all for.

“We’re going to redirect the lava and ash when it erupts. The planet will still breathe, but it won’t hurt anyone. We have had decades to plan and build it. We are far more advanced than we were in your time. There is something else you should see. Resi, your body died a century ago. There was nothing anyone could have done back then. Like I said, the laws have changed. The non-interference policies no longer apply. We are all Bungulan now. Some live on Yana, some don’t. The Houses aren’t necessary anymore. And you...are no longer Tamboran.” She flipped a switch.

The window shifts to a mirror so Resi can see his own face. He is white. Why? Why would they make him white? He touches his face in horror.

“This is what you looked like hundreds of years ago, before you came to Yana to help our ancestors the first time. You have a choice. You can stay like this and retrieve all of your memories, or you can go back to how you looked when you were Resi.” She shifts half the glass back to window mode. Central Mountain erupts.

Microstory 2685: We Have More Time Than We Thought

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Resi flies through the tunnel in his mind, searching for the vision that he’s meant to see. He spends more time in here than usual. So much passes him by, but it’s too quick for him to have any time to tell what other events he’s missing. He just keeps going and going and going until he sees it. Central Mountain. Framed in a circle like a painting on the wall. It’s terrifying. Smoke is billowing up into the air. Lava is rolling down the sides. People are dying. He can’t see that much detail yet, but he’s getting the feeling. It’s at the end of the line. This is the last thing that will ever happen to anyone on Yana. The painting grows larger as he draws near, and then he passes through the portal. Now he’s flying through the air. Unlike his other vision of this tragic fate, he’s not composed of the elements. He’s just a regular guy. A regular guy who can fly.

The still image begins to move in slow-motion, making it even more horrifying than it already was. Now he really can see the people dying on the ground as the ash overwhelms them. Bungulan aircraft are frantically flying in, trying to save as many as they can, but they won’t get anywhere near everyone. Catastrophe has struck, and the question is, is this what happens if Resi doesn’t report the truth to the island, or is it inevitable? Will people simply not believe him, or will he not even get the message out in time? He remembers Kartica in the caldera with him. She has that satellite phone. He has to make that call, or tell her so she can make it. That is, if he can trust her.

Resi doesn’t have enough information, but he can feel himself waking up. His body is stirring where it lies on the ground. He’s melting into the rock. He really will die, so he has to get this done before he takes that last breath. What he really needs is the date. He needs specific information when he makes that call. There’s a boat on the coast, taking evacuees in. Surely there’s a date there somewhere. He dives down towards the surface, and lands on the deck. No one can see him, because he’s not really here. They’re frantically scattered about, some using devices, but no one keeps still long enough for him to see a date. Don’t they know that he needs this? Don’t they know he can stop it?

He has to get to the bridge. It will have computers there. He dashes up and passes right through the wall like a ghost. As the vision is beginning to collapse, he gets only one decent look in the upper right corner of the nearest screen, but it doesn’t make much sense. The day and month are both fine. It’s the year that doesn’t make the least bit of sense. The number is weird and wrong; it can’t be right. He has to look around for something else. Maybe there was an EMP, and it screwed up all of the electronics?

He wakes with a start, not having had the chance to find any more clues to understand what it means. Still, it’s all he has to go on. He feels like he’s moments from death. “Pho—phone,” he ekes out, reaching his hand up aimlessly. He turns his head to find Kartica lying on her stomach next to him, probably as close to death as he is.

She fights to open her eyes. She reaches behind her back and pulls the phone off of the clip. She lifts it into the air, and starts swinging it around, delirious and confused, maybe seeing double vision. Their hands dance around each other for several seconds before they finally make contact.

Resi selects Caprice’s contact card, and tells the system to call her in whatever way will work. If point-to-point communication is best, do that. She answers, demanding to know where he and Kartica are, but there’s no time. “August 7, 0045.” She’s flummoxed. “That’s the date of the eruption. August 7, 0045.” He dies.

Microstory 2684: Whoops

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Resi is walking across the jagged rock at the bottom of the caldera now, dodging these scary vents in the ground. He did not pay attention in school when they discussed this stuff. Again, it wasn’t important for his future, and the teachers didn’t think so either, so they didn’t get mad when students didn’t do great on science assignments. It is freezing cold, though, except for those gases. They make him cough, and gave him a huge headache. The center. He has to reach the absolute center. It’s poetic, right? That makes the most sense. So he just keeps moving forward. He kind of has to. Whenever he tries to stop, the rubber soles of his shoes begin to melt. It doesn’t feel too hot here, except when he touches the ground with his hand. God, it’s so weird. This place is weird.

Being this close, it certainly feels like the thing could explode at any moment. The air is still, but there’s a vibration all around. To be fair, he could be imagining it. If all these gases are toxic, it would explain the headaches, and the little bit of giggling that he thinks he’s doing. He can’t remember. He just keeps walking, heading for that big dream vision in the sky. Maybe he should walk faster, lest he die before he gets there.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” a voice asks from behind him.

“The time gods?” Resi asks, looking up. “Is that you?”

“It’s Kartica, you idiot!” she scolds, catching up to him. She is hard to hear with that banana over her face. Banana? Bandana. It’s either really smart, or totally useless.

“What’s the big deal? What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” she fires back at him. “You’re going to get yourself killed. You don’t have any protection whatsoever.”

“Yeah, I do. I have a coat on.” He tries to show her. “Oh. Well, it was on a minute ago.” Oh, that’s right. It was too green, so he took it off. “And anyway, I’m still on the hunt for that vision. This is the one place we’ve not yet tried.”

“How did you expect to get back if it kills you first?” Kartica presses.

“I was going to call you guys and tell you what I saw. I had it all planned out. I was going to detail my vision to you, and then at the very last second, with my dying breath, I would start my final sentence, and then not be able to finish it.”

“You planned on failing?”

“It was gonna bring you three together, and together, you would figure out what the last few words were gonna be, and save the day at the very last second.”

“Quite a few very last seconds you have there, Res. And, um, tell me. How were you going to call us without a phone?” She holds up Caprice’s satellite phone.

He pats his chest and hips. “Oh. Whoops.”

“Whoops?” she echoes. “Just the fate of our island on the line, and whoops? Resi, you’re already sick on top of the toxic fumes this place has to offer. And that’s on top of you just not being that bright of a person in the first place. You are the worst person to do this job, you’re just all we got. So please, lean on your friends.”

“Are you my friend?” Resi asks. “Because I seem to recall you infiltrating my House, trying to make us look bad, and then trying to frame me for your murder.”

“That was the old me,” she insists.

“Wait, shut up!”

“What?”

“Shut up, shut up!” he urges. “I’m getting a vision.” He falls to the ground.

Microstory 2683: Desperate Remedies

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It’s been seven days. The hike was grueling, especially for Resi, who is not doing very well. He’s run out of medicine. It was supposed to last him a few weeks, but he took a little more than the recommended dose each time, and now he can’t even synthesize more. But this is it. This is his moment. If we can predict exactly when this volcano erupts, it will be worth it. He can die if he has to. Chaya, Caprice, and even Kartica will walk back down, warn the Bungulan scientist when it’s going to happen, and then they can craft their magical technology into a solution. The problem is, so far, he’s not seen anything. They stopped a few more times than they absolutely had to so he could take a nap. He needed the rest and recovery period, but he was also always hoping to trigger a new vision. Nothing came to him. Not even a hint. Every once in a while, Chaya would do something totally unexpected, like throw a fruit at him. One time, she tore off all of her clothes. Or rather, she was going to. He stopped her. Because he saw that she was planning on it. Which was great. Not only could he save her the trouble, but it also proves that changing the future is possible. They have to stop that volcano.

They’re on the rim of the caldera now, in the process of walking around the entire circumference. They’re moving even slower now; again, because Resi can’t keep pace, and because he’s trying to see something meaningful. Nothing is doing anything. He’s starting to think he made the whole thing up. Yes, he has visions of the future, but maybe this one is just a dream. Maybe that’s just what the Kidjum elixir does to his brain. Both things can be true at the same time without it being this complex web of connections. “Well, ladies, I don’t think this is doing us any good. I hope you at least see it as a good way to make your daily steps, because nothing else has come of it.”

They’re all breathing heavily, and nodding. They don’t want to agree with that assessment, but there’s no reasonable alternative. It hasn’t helped anything. Kartica drops her pack, and starts looking for something in it. “There’s one more thing we can try.” She takes her hand back out, coming back with a black box. She opens it, and as she does, dry ice vapor seeps out of the gap. Inside is one vial of Kidjum elixir.

“You told me not to take that stuff again,” Resi reminds her. “You said it was too dangerous.” He can’t admit that she was right to bring it. It only makes sense.

“It is,” she confirms. “But you look desperate, and honestly, so am I. You also look like you might not survive the night, so if you’re willing to take the risk, I am too.”

“Don’t do this,” Caprice urges. “She’s wrong. You will survive the night, and when we wake up in the morning, we’ll take the fast trail back down. If we think you won’t be able to handle it, we can call for a helicopter ride.”

“How would we do that?” Chaya questions.

“With this satellite phone.” She takes it out of her pack. The thing is giant, probably to accommodate a huge power source, so it never requires charging, and to make it harder to break. “I have a direct line to the Bungulans. I had to, it isn’t safe.”

Caprice and Kartica start arguing with each other, but Resi interrupts them. “I’ll decide.” He takes the sat phone, and then the box. “Let’s all have some dinner, then go to bed. “Okay?” He doesn’t get a response. “Okay?” He adds, “okay,” when they nod.

That night, he sneaks out of the tent he’s been sharing with Chaya, puts his shoes back on, and then begins the descent into the caldera. That’s where his visions are waiting for him. He knows it.

Microstory 2682: Seeing The Whole Thing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Foreshadowing.

Microstory 2681: Final Exam

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Brooke will not tell Resi Brooks anything about the rescue that she and her friends pulled off centuries ago. She doesn’t even admit that she’s a time traveler. She says that she can help Resi get a handle on his visions, and that is what she does. They work together for weeks. She doesn’t give him a cure for what ails him, but she provides him with treatments that are better than what Yana has to offer on its own. It’s actually better that he not be too active in the world while he’s working on his mental ability. There are too many distractions, and he has to focus. She first teaches him how to meditate. That’s really all the Kidjum elixir does. It drops a person into a relaxed, unconscious state so it can access deeper truths about the dreamer’s psyche. The drug is an easy shortcut, and its side effects might actually be detrimental to the process.

Brooke asks Resi to start with small things. He’s meant to predict things that will probably happen anyway, like the outside temperature that the forecast already predicted, and always predicts with accuracy. This will reinforce his knowledge of the world, and reward his brain for saying something correct. Over time, she asks for more and more uncertain predictions, like the daily harvest yield in the south fields, or the results of an ancient singing competition show which Resi had never seen before. He gets them right too, but it’s still not too surprising, because yields are fairly steady, and we all knew Miki was gonna win season eleven. So far, though, Brooke has only asked him questions about specific things. She has driven him towards a prediction. The hardest part will be when she simply tells him to come up with something new.

He doesn’t think he’s ready for that yet. He’s still not entirely sure that he really has this ability. But she convinces him to try because if the first time he proves it is when the Central Mountain volcano explodes, then they’re all going to have a bad time. He has to start with something that’s still small, but impossible for him to have known just by recognizing past patterns, or relying on other systems. It has to be so isolated and bizarre that it can’t be true until it is. She sits him down, and has him close his eyes. She tells him to focus on the future, and forget everything he knows about everything else. The past does not exist, and it never will. The only thing that matters is what is to come. He’s also supposed to breathe. In, out. In, out. Her voice fades away as she continues the usual instructions. He keeps following them, trying to see something which does not exist, but is inevitable. He sees a tunnel, but it’s not real. It’s only a conduit to a higher plane of reality. It’s his way to seeing the future. He propels himself forwards, becoming one with the tunnel, and preparing himself for the other side, when an image he has never seen before finally comes to light.

He reaches the end. It’s small, and it looks like it’s moving fast, but to him, it’s in slow motion. It’s kind of grayish, or maybe even gold? It’s hard to tell with the light from the visionscape itself. He tries to look at it from a different angle, but a second image slips into view behind it. This one is also metal, but of a more complex design. It’s still covered in shadow, and hard to make out. So he moves closer. Closer, closer, closer. It’s...it’s a gun. Resi wakes up from the vision, and dives to the side just as he hears the shot. He feels the rush of wind as the bullet passes him within centimeters at most. “What the hell was that?” he asks, trying to put his heart back in his chest.

Brooke puts the gun into her jacket. “That was the final exam. In case you didn’t notice, you passed.”

Microstory 2674: Dissatisfied

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Resi is back on the river of lava, standing on a small solid lilypad of a rock. His feet are made of stone again, his legs fire, his torso water, and his head air. He represents all four Houses. Before, he wasn’t really able to move, except maybe one foot up and down. He felt very heavy and locked down. Now he feels free. Now it feels like these four parts of him belong together, working in harmony. No element is trying to take over the others. He is one with himself. He hops off of the lilyrock, and begins to skate upon the lava. He feels free here, so he just enjoys the thrill of sliding around.

He’s having so much fun, he’s barely paying attention to the hellscape around him. It’s not too hot for him. It’s not scary. He’s perfectly content. But he’s also alone. He continues to skate, until he begins moving downhill, at which point, it’s more like skiing. Faster, faster, faster. He twists and turns, and makes killer jumps off of little lava rock ramps. He can’t fall. His airhead keeps him aloft for as long as he needs to find his footing. He tucks his legs in intentionally. The wind compensates more persistently, until he’s flying.

He soars and loops in the air, sometimes flapping his arms like a bird, and sometimes straightening out like a superhero. He points himself downward and dives into the lava. It doesn’t burn. It’s not even thick. It feels like water to him. He opens his eyes as he’s swimming, admiring the little rock creatures passing him by, looking for little minerals abundant in the lava snow falling from the surface. He pops his head back out, and climbs onto the rock. He starts to walk again, catching his breath, and enjoying the crisp, hellish air.

He comes upon a metal floor buried in the dirt. It looks familiar, but he can’t place it. He decides to dig. His arms and hands are the only fleshy part of him in this state. Bits of dirt stick under his fingernails. It feels good. Cool. Pleasant. It makes him feel like he’s a part of something big and beautiful. He digs and digs, and digs some more. Black paint peeks out from the ground. It’s writing. Someone has written on this curved metal wall. Yes, it’s so thick, it must be a wall rather than a floor. He keeps digging. It’s a V. No, he digs farther and realizes it’s just the top of a Y.  Y, Y, why is he digging? He can’t help himself. There is empty space to the left of the Y, so it’s the beginning of a word. He moves to the right, and pushes the soil away. A. He pushes more. N. He already knows what it’s going to say, but he has to finish that last letter. Another A. Yana. This is the Yana water tower, it’s the only building on the island that’s higher than five stories, and the next highest building only has to be that way to accommodate the movie theatre.

The island has been buried in the lava. He thought this was a fun place, but it’s not. This was his home. It was home to hundreds of thousands. Did they escape, or are they dead? They’re dead. Look at that sky. This isn’t Earth. He’s not picturing the cataclysm his ancestors escaped centuries ago when they came to Bungula. This is Bungula. That now-distant volcano is Central Mountain. It only looks shorter, because the lava has overwhelmed the land below. It erupted, and killed everyone. He knows it. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he does. They didn’t see it coming. They couldn’t. And now they’re all dead. Only Resi remains. Or maybe he’s dead too, because how could anyone survive such destruction? He’s not really here. He’s only the ghost of Resi, receiving the warning of what will happen if they don’t act. But how will they act? What could they possibly do?

He looks closer at the bright stars in the sky, growing brighter, becoming true suns. They’re shining their glory on the ground. The lava is beginning to disappear. He doesn’t see it end.

Resi awakens to a massive headache. He tries to reach up to massage the back of his head, but he’s tied up. He looks down at his side. It’s a cot. It’s been turned up, and he’s wearing it like a backpack, sitting on the cold, dark floor. He can’t see a thing around him besides the cot. The spotlight trying to blind him blocks his vision of anything else. Disembodied arms take hold of his. He feels the ropes begin to loosen. The cot tips backwards with a crash. The edge of it hits the back of his head, briefly worsening the pain.

The hands pull him up by the armpits, and sit him down on the cot. A second light bangs on, not towards him, but into the auditorium seating. Speaker Sherman’s granddaughter is the only one sitting there. She’s staring at him stoically, legs crossed. She plants both feet on the floor now, and leans forwards with apparent fascination. “What did you see?”

Microstory 2666: Two Ambassadors Walk Into a Farce

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When the saviors—whoever exactly they were—rescued the would-be victims of the 1815 Mount Tambora eruption, they only took those whose bodies would never have been recovered. They know this, because lots of people did die from that catastrophe, even all across the world, due to secondary effects, and no survivor left on Earth reported seeing magical beings come down and whisk certain people away. They were missing and presumed dead, most likely vaporized. The Kingdom of Tambora was closer to the volcano, so the history books have written them off as wiped out. In reality, they were brought here to Bungula, for some reason over 400 years in the future. That’s what some people currently living on Yana believe. To the rest of the galaxy, the original Yana islanders must have been an isolated population of colonists, who came to this planet in ships like everyone else, then later made up superstitious stories about their origins. Yana Islanders have accepted the more rational explanation for the most part. Some of them reject the lore so strongly, though, that they leave the island as Kinkon. Only some still believe, and out of them, the majority live in Tambora.

Fewer people were rescued from Pekat and Sanggar, but they have maintained their own culture here too. They don’t have Houses, they don’t care about the Tamboran Houses, they don’t have anything to do with any of this. They occupy a smaller portion of the island because their population remains a smaller fraction, but they have their own things going on, and certainly their own problems. Still, a few hundred sixteen-year-olds isn’t too much to deal with. Surely one of them will agree to take them in as refugees. Members of House Kutelin don’t have to stay together. It would be nice, but Resi is prepared to be flexible in case their neighbors aren’t. That’s why he has asked to meet with them at the same time, so they can all three work this out together.

Resi stands when they enter simultaneously, likely having been discussing matters away from him beforehand. “Ambassador Churchill,” he says with a nod. “Ambassador Cortez. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I apologize if our customs are incompatible. If there is anything I should do or say, please let me know. My studies focused primarily on agriculture. We were not taught much of your cultures.”

“It’s fine, Mr. Brooks,” Churchill assures him. “Let us sit.”

They’re at the triangle table. It looks about as you would expect. It’s usually for the Tambora ambassador to sit on this side, but if she has an issue with it, she can climb the hill and complain. He focuses on keeping his breath steady. “I believe that you two know why I am here, so in lieu of pitching it to you formally, I thought I would give you the opportunity to speak first. Unless, that is, you do want to hear a speech.”

“That’s all right,” Cortez agrees. “We have been talking amongst each other, but cannot give an answer until we know a little bit more information. The last we were told, there were three hundred and thirteen of you?”

“There are three hundred and fifty-five now, since it took a couple of days for you two to become available for this meeting.”

They both consult their devices. “Forgive me,” Churchill begins, “but we were to understand that your number was static. The Tamboran Assembly claims to have put an end to the new system, and reverted back to the old one.”

Resi nods. “They’re trying to do that, yes, but they’re struggling. Kids are excited to join us, and we have not been turning them away. If they skip their Kidjum, and come right to House Kutelin, we always open our doors. So far, the Assembly has not been arguing with us about it. The ceremony Kokore has...remained on my side of things, which makes reinstituting the Kidjum a somewhat complicated endeavor. I believe they are secretly relieved to have the extra time to get things back up and running.”

“Do you anticipate further defection?” Cortez presses.

“We don’t use that word,” Resi replies, “but as I said, we’ve been opening our doors to those in need. That is how I was raised. My family once took in a Bungulan who came here for vacation when there was no more space at any of the resorts.”

A brief awkward pause.

Cortez went on, “you understand that we are already reluctant to extend a hand, and risk instigating tensions with the Tamboran Assembly.”

“The Assembly has no problem with it,” Resi insists, hoping it wasn’t too rude to interrupt. He just needs them to understand this before they start arguing more, because he knows what their real concern is. “We’re not fugitives or war criminals. We’re exiles. They want us to find somewhere to live. The stratified system that they use in their economy is not conducive to the introduction of an additional house. There are no jobs left. Your systems are more fluid, allowing us to fill in the gaps wherever necessary while maintaining our distinct culture association.”

“We appreciate that,” Churchill says. “But if your numbers are increasing, it makes our decision harder. We do not have infinite resources, nor infinite jobs. The Pekat are also facing a mild distribution issue with our own population. The island is only so large, and we are never not negotiating the size of our fractions of it.”

Cortez nods. “Sanggar is running out of space as well. I don’t know if you know this, but 300 years ago, Tambora reserved the best land for themselves. They can dig down in certain regions. You have basements and high rises. We don’t have that luxury.”

“We have had to maintain strict population control,” Churchill concurs, “so we do not exceed our allotment. We may be able to take in a few dozen of your people.”

“Us as well,” Cortez agrees.

Churchill continues with the same breath, “but that’s only if those we take in are willing to live on the harsh Tambora border, and build their own infrastructure.”

“That is unacceptable,” Resi says with a shake of his head. “I can’t leave any of my people behind. There’s nowhere to go.” He takes a breath before he says something unbecoming of an ad hoc ambassador. “Let’s think this through. You need more space.” He taps on his heart. “We do too. Point to the map. Show me where they can build basements that’s closest to your borders. My former Maing’aing are excellent engineers. They can whip up a new building in a matter of weeks.”

“Nowhere on our side of the border is dig-worthy.” Churchill stands now. “I know the geography well enough to say the same for Sanggar.”

“It doesn’t have to be on that side. It just has to be close, and we’ll annex it. We don’t have anything over there. The border isn’t a heavily trafficked area. They might as well give it to us, and by extension you. But we need your support to do that.”

The Ambassadors look at each other, appearing to share a telepathic conversation before Cortez looks back over at Resi. “I’m sorry, but we simply cannot risk conflict with Tambora. Taking land on your way out isn’t really exile, is it? You’ll have to find another way. It looks like you are no longer welcome anywhere on Yana.”

Microstory 2598: Renata Lies Back in the Exam Pod, Fully Undressed

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Renata lies back on the exam table, fully undressed. She’s never done this before. Even in her implanted memories, she never had to have a full physical examination like this. She has always just walked into the doctor’s office, and talked until they cleared her. She’s not uncomfortable, though. It’s unclear if the woman here is a doctor or a mechanic, though, which is just a little unsettling. Again, why is she internalizing it? She should just ask. “Are you a doctor, or a mechanic?”

“Both!” Evica replies confidently. She’s wearing what basically looks like a hazmat suit, but it’s fairly thin, and her face is exposed. She’s wearing a respirator mask and protective glasses, but Renata still feels safe here. “As a biocyberneticist, I specialize in cyborg healthcare. Now that I’ve performed the visual exam, we’re going to have to move on to the tactile portion. Is it okay if I touch you?”

“Go ahead, I’m not shy,” Renata replies sincerely.

Evica lays her hands on Renata’s body. She pats and rubs all over, quite systematically and carefully. She sometimes tilts her head away, not in shame, but to let her fingers do the understanding, and not cloud her interpretations with sight. “Standard humanoid shaping. No protrusions, tears, or injuries.” She taps on the side of her glasses twice, implying that they’re showing her an augmented reality. “Preliminary scans indicate a carbon-fiber endoskeleton and polymer muscles. The skin is wholly artificial, but still organic. I’ll need a deeper scan to see your brain—wait.” She reaches for her glasses again, with her thumb and index finger. She slowly rubs them together. Maybe she’s zooming in? Evica reaches over with her other hand, and starts tapping on the medical pod screen.

“What? What is it? Is something wrong?”

Evica makes another tap. Red scanning lights appear from the foot of the pod, and sweep across Renata’s body back and forth a couple of times. “Can you turn off your sensitivity to cold?”

“What? Why would I need to be able to do that?”

“To save my life,” Evica explains cryptically. “Can you turn it off?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never tried before.”

“Try it now,” Evica urges. “Don’t just lower the sensitivity. Turn it all the way off.”

“Tell me what’s going on.” Renata demands as she’s trying to comply, using her intuition alone, and maybe the clear sense of urgency as motivation.

“I’m gonna take it out, but I can’t do that unless I cool you down to extreme temperatures first.”

“Okay, I think I can’t feel cold anymore, but even if I can, just do it. I don’t care.”

Evica hits the button. Nozzles lining the inside walls open and begin to flood the pod with some kind of fluid. She can’t feel the cold. It just feels wet. She breathes a sigh of relief, but she’s still anxious. “Have you ever heard of an ATP bomb?”

“No, but it sounds real bad.”

“It’s not bad for you. You don’t have any mitochondria, but I do. If that thing goes off, and I’m still in here, the agent will get into my system, and basically disconnect my mitochondria from their partner cells. It doesn’t stop the mitochondria from producing power, it just prevents them from channeling it into energy. All of it becomes waste heat. So not only will I not be able to move, breathe, or do anything anymore, but I’ll burn up with a fever that kills me within minutes.” She watches the screen for a moment. “Okay. We’re safe, for now. And I don’t need to call in any help, so we’re going into lockdown.” She moves over and lifts the lid from a button on the wall. She then pulls it. Metal shutters slide down in front of the windows, locking them in.

“If that’s good enough,” Renata says, “then just leave and leave me in here. That’s what bomb experts sometimes do. They activate it from a safe distance, so the energy is wasted.”

“Sounds good in theory,” Evica agrees, “but we’re talking about a biological weapon. We inspect it first. She takes a breath. “I’m going to cut you open, okay?”

“I can’t feel pain anymore either. Do what you gotta do.”

Evica sterilizes her instruments, and herself, then begins the procedure. She cuts into Renata’s abdomen very slowly and carefully. “It’s located where your gall bladder would be if you needed one. Your artificial liver is a little bit smaller to make room for the device too.” She pulls the skin apart, creating a giant gaping cavity.

“Why do I need a liver at all?”

“Your liver processes all liquids, so they can be purged safely. Except for water, you don’t need to consume anything, but you think you do, so you do. And that has to be filtered out.” Evica takes some kind of wand and slips it into the cavity. She suddenly steps back in fear, dropping the wand on the floor. “It’s worse than I thought.”

“Worse than something called a freaking ATP bomb! What could be worse!” Renata questions.

“I thought it would be an aerosol. Everyone in the vicinity would absorb it into their pores, and they would die from it, and I wish that were the case. You just close the door, and it’s fine. But this...this has a gamma pulse delivery system. Much more sophisticated, and orders of magnitude more dangerous. I couldn’t detect the intensity, but it would pass through the walls, and surely everyone in this building would die. Probably the dome too. Maybe not further than that since the dome walls are hardened against radiation, but they’re designed that way to protect us from space. I don’t know if they work in the reverse. That’s not my department.”

“What can you do? Throw me into a volcano?” Renata suggests.

“That would be unethical, and unwise. I don’t think the bomb is designed to trigger via heat, but enough heat would likely break the seal anyway.”

“Then jettison me into space.”

“Same deal,” Evica reasons. “Gamma ray bursts happen all the time in space. They can’t be stopped.”

“Not by the domes?”

“Actually, you’re right. This bomb is powerful, but it’s not a quasar. Still, we’re not entertaining this. I don’t have to send you into space. I just need to extract this thing from you.”

“That won’t work. My mother did this to me, and she is no fool. Her contingencies have contingencies. I’m gonna have to talk to her about it. Only she knows how to fix this, and she’ll only tell me. I know her well enough to know that too.”

“That’s not my department either.”

“Then get Hrockas Steward on the phone.”

Microstory 2417: Racetrack Dome

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I’m gonna say this real slow. This is a racetrack dome, which means there are...racetracks. That’s all it is. It’s hundreds of racetracks just all over tarnation. A racetrack here, a racetrack there. There’s even a track that runs the entire circumference of the dome, which is something like 260 kilometers. That sounds boring to me, but hey, you do you, right? I would much rather stay close to the inner tracks. They’re so much more interesting. The vehicles are electric, obviously, but they’re also electromagnetic. This allows them to do all sorts of crazy stuff, like drive up the wall, or even do loop-de-loops. There are jumps and shortcuts, and drops into rivers of lava. Yeah, this particular dome was chosen for its proximity to a volcano. The volcano isn’t inside the dome, and if there were ever an eruption, there are safeguards in place to seal off the lava flow, and protect the dome. But as long as everything’s copacetic, it’s there. Plus, they have clear emergency procedures in place. I mean, this hasn’t actually happened since I’ve been here, so there’s no way to know how effective their plans are, but they claim to be ready. Of course, the lava they do have is dangerous, as are all of the other tracks. Well, almost all of them. They have bumper cars, and some go-kart tracks too, for the kids, or people who want something a little lighter. If you do get hurt, and don’t want to just jump your consciousness to a new body, they have excellent medical teams on standby. I was never injured, but I did walk in once to find someone having just crashed on one of the traditional intermediate tri-ovals. I heard the collision from the corridor, and by the time I rounded the corner, they were already loading the driver into an ambulance. I asked after him later, and he’s fine; didn’t even have to switch to a new body. I can’t even begin to describe what other kinds of tracks they have here, but if you’ve ever played a racing video game, they’re pretty much all recreated here. They don’t have boats, planes, or spaceships, though. Man, people kept asking about that. I’ll say again, it’s a racetrack dome, not races in general. Look for that in another dome. I’m sure they’re somewhere. I see all these negative reviews from morons who are disappointed when the name alone tells you everything you need to know. Just think it through, and you’ll be pleased with what you find.

Microstory 2340: Vacuus, March 4, 2179

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Dear Condor,

It’s okay that Pascal won’t be able to write for a while. Honestly—and you don’t need to tell him this—it’s a little awkward. These are just letters, but I still felt like I was on a blind double date, which I know is a weird way to look at it. I suppose we could always speak through you if we really needed to. That’s great news about reaching your rendezvous point. How long will/did it take? By the time you read this letter, you may be well on your way back out into sea. Make sure you choose the right path, though. It sounds like the weather is pretty dangerous out there. I never thought about that, about how the toxins in the atmosphere could make things even more dangerous. We learned about climate breakdown in school. Things were already not as safe as they were a couple hundred years prior. Humans were evidently damaging Earth before they started to do it intentionally to harm each other! I just hope your leaders always exercise caution. Vacuus does have weather. It’s not nearly as bad as it is for you guys, it’s just different. We experience infrequent, and rather weak, dust storms. These can still damage our instrumentation, though, and our permanently outdoors equipment needs constant cleaning. Or rather, they don’t. We’ve incorporated state-of-the-art onboard self-cleaning technology into nearly everything. You have windshield wipers on your cars with wiper fluid? We do too, but for cameras and other sensors. Instead of going out to clean every day, our field maintenance workers go out periodically to refill the fluid, or maybe repair or replace a blade. It’s much easier, and the infrequency of the task lowers the risk of something happening to them while they’re exposed like that. They’re also at risk of running into electrical storms. These things happen all the time. Our habitats are riddled with lightning rods. They both protect us from the strikes, and help power our habitats. That’s something else we’ve developed out of necessity, ultracapacitors which capture the short, energetic burst of raw power, and store it safely for future use. I keep using words like we, but I obviously had no hand in any of this. As I’ve said, I’m not cut out for field work, and I have no interest in it. I didn’t choose where to break ground on our settlement either, which was not chosen at random. Other parts of the planet experience volcanic activity. Some of these are even cryovolcanoes, which release nasty chemicals like ammonia and methane. Thankfully, we’re really far from those things, but I have a friend who operates a drone array which studies the nearest spots. So yeah, it’s dangerous here, but not worse than Earth. At least no one did it on purpose.

Again, stay safe,

Corinthia

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 16, 2437

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Finding the Vellani Ambassador was easy. Mirage had programmed it to follow her wherever she went while invisible with a space-warping generator on the hull, but something must have undone that at some point, because it was out in the open, and available to the public. The locals of Ex-666 had never entered the ship, but it was not clear yet whether they had ever tried, or if they deliberately stayed out of it. Because they had begun to revere it as a religious icon.

The government was a little too busy to return Mirage’s ship to her right away, though they did want to respect her ownership over it. They just really had to worry about preparing to go to war. The team was busy too, helping them take control of the eye in the sky. It was surprisingly easy. They were worried that there was some kind of catch that would come back to bite them in the ass, but the Chief Ascendant was convinced that no escape attempts had been made in the last 150 years, which probably caused some level of complacency.

Not much had actually changed about the world over the course of the last year. The armada from Ex-182 was not yet here. Some of the so-called prisoners were former fleet members, who knew enough about the ships that the empire used to tell them that they were mostly powered by reframe engines. They had built their vessels to be quite large, however, and scaling of the technology came at a cost. While regular fusion reactions were perfectly suitable to make the engine work for a smaller ship, like the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, capital ships demanded too much power. Not even a larger fusion reactor could compensate for the loss. The only way they could get up to maximum reframe speeds was to use matter-antimatter reactions. No one here knew enough about it to understand why that was a problem these days, but Mirage did.

“It was us,” she shrugged.

“You stole their antimatter reserves?” Leona asked her.

“Far as I know, it’s still there,” Mirage began to explain, but it’s hard to get to. It exists as a fully formed antistar, sitting out there alone in the void. Getting close enough to it to extract only as much antimatter that they need when they need it is a delicate dance. My team and I were tasked with engineering a containment megastructure. We were on schedule to completing that mission when I was separated from them, and captured. I knew that it was going to happen, so I made arrangements to halt all production and construction. If they returned to the project themselves, it’s going to take them a hell of a long time. I scattered my barges in all directions. Just getting them back would probably take longer than starting over from a new source of raw material.”

“Why were you helping them in the first place?” Mateo questioned. “Did you not realize that you were working for the bad guys?”

“We suspected from the beginning,” Mirage replied. “But we weren’t sure, we weren’t sure what level of technology they had—though it could have been vast considering their remoteness from the Earthan stellar neighborhood—and also we felt bad. We were the ones who destroyed their first antistar. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, they maintained a link between this region of the Milky Way, and Alpha Centauri. That’s how we ended up this far out in the first place. We were just going to Toliman to pick up my ship, which I had programmed to build itself years prior. There was something very wrong with that whole star system, so we blew up our asteroid to prevent anyone else from trying to investigate, and that’s what destroyed the star. It and the antistar annihilated each other.”

Leona winced. “Toliman has not been destroyed.”

“No, it had to have,” Mirage insisted. “What else could have happened?”

“I don’t know,” Leona contended, “but if Alpha Centauri B didn’t exist in this day and age, I would have heard about it.”

“Someone must have gone back to fix it,” Mirage guessed, “maybe me.”

“I don’t know how you would do that,” Ramses said.

“I have some ideas,” Mirage responded. She looked forward again, and sighed. “Looks like they’re nearly done.”

While Mirage was in the sixth circle of hell, the natives had transformed the site of the Vellani Ambassador into a sacred one. They didn’t worship the ship, nor whoever may have brought it here, but they conceived stories about how it might one day open for them, and a great savior would step out of it to rescue them from their damnation. It was only hitting them now that this was their very first sign of religious doctrine in this sector of the galaxy. The team hadn’t even noticed before, because vonearthan culture had managed to transcend its superstitious origins, so religion wasn’t much of a thing anymore. But the Goldilocks Corridor was apparently seeded with life thousands of years ago, and many of the worlds were severely underdeveloped. So it seemed rather odd, not that some evil religious order wasn’t controlling the masses alongside the evil empire, but that no one on the planets they had been to so far had taken comfort in the mystical. Was this agnosticism enforced...or incidental?

The religious leadership was dismantling the decorations and offerings that had been placed on and around the ship.  Some of them believed that Mirage was indeed their savior, and that their belief that she would literally come out of the Hope Chariot, which was what the worshipers called it, was just a matter of detail.

Why didn’t you have them do this before?” Angela asked. “You could have left before.”

“I figured I would give them one more year with it,” Mirage answered. “I knew that you would need that whole time to come back, and that kind of waiting means little to me in the long-run. I’ve developed high patience. Now they’ve had time to say their goodbyes.”

“Did you explain that it was just a regular ship, and not god, or whatever it is they believe?” Olimpia asked her.

“I don’t know if they believe me. Some think I am indeed the savior they’ve been waiting for, and others think that I’m just the one who is going to unlock it so the true savior can be released from it. This is a prison world, and while they’ve thrived here, they have not forgotten that. So if there’s a god of Ex-666, perhaps they’re a prisoner too, and maybe they’re trapped in the...Hope Chariot. It would explain why this deity hasn’t saved them yet.”

They had an interesting way to express respect here, at least as far as the religious people went. They would stretch their arms out wide, dip their nose down towards the ground as low as possible, and balance themselves out by raising one leg behind them as high as possible. Only the elderly members no longer flamingoed, but they still airplaned their arms, and lowered their head into a regular bow. The younger ones made the move with the most enthusiasm, and they did not care if they fell over in the attempt. “Hmm, it’s basically Warrior 3,” Marie noted, having tried yoga in the afterlife simulation in the early 19th century, before it was cool in the western world on Earth.

The Elder Priestess was the last in line to pay her respects to Mirage and the team. She made no attempt to bow, but smiled as wide as Mona Lisa, and nodded. As she passed by, she placed a comforting hand on Mirage’s shoulder, and walked down the hill to join the rest of the main group, who were watching from there. A huge crowd had convened behind them to witness the magic. Not everyone in the world believed, but surely there were plenty here who just wanted to see what happened. Fortunately, they were in an open expanse in the desert, which fit the instructions for the Ambassador to avoid populated areas, so something like this wouldn’t happen. The settlements here only sprung out as a result of its sudden appearance.

Mirage lifted her hand, and said in reference, “allons-y.” She snapped her fingers, prompting the back hatch of the ship to engage and lower. To her surprise, someone actually did step out. It was a young woman, perhaps in her early- to mid-twenties. She was completely ready for this, coming into the light with confidence and self-assuredness. The crowd went wild. A lot of them dove to the ground in a full Downward Facing Dog bow of intense unwavering loyalty and faith. The woman walked right down the hill, and approached Mirage. “Do you recognize me?”

“Niobe. You’re older now. How long have you been in there?”

This was the girl who was with Maqsud Al-Amin and Lilac’s son, Aristotle. She was a slave-child on Ex-324, but she originated on the Extremus planet of Verdemus. She smirked, and looked over at the team. “A few minutes.” She winked.

“Why?” Mirage asked.

“These people need someone to follow. They’re never going to let go of their convictions, at least not until they win the war. The Chief Ascendant is going to continue to run the state, but they are transitioning from peacetime, and they are severely underestimating what that is going to do to their culture. Someone else needs to be there to guide them. Now, I’m not going to explain why I’m the best person for the job, but it has to do with what I’ve experienced since we last saw each other. Just know that this is the right thing to do, and I’m not going to abuse my power. If you would like to be sure of that, you can stand by my side, Mirage. This team needs your ship more than you do.”

“What about...”

“Ex-10?” Niobe guessed. “Let it go, he means nothing. Do not be fooled by his low numerical designation. It’s a trick. Everything that Oaksent does is a joke, a smokescreen, or a mistake. So, how about it? Are you with me?”

Mirage looked back at the crowd, and let out her signature emulated sigh. She switched her gaze to Leona, who had made herself look like the real Iman Vellani. “Leona’s Rules for Time Travel, Number Fourteen, do not form, or inspire, a religion.”

“Leona is just a person,” Niobe reasoned, “not a god.”

“Nor are we.”

“We won’t act like one,” Niobe continued. “We’re there to help. They understand where we come from, but you were about to open this ship, and I saw an opportunity. I won’t apologize for that. I really am trying to help. The Empire must fall, and while I have limits to what I’m willing to do to accomplish that, this does not cross the line. You have to decide where your line is.”

Mirage shook her head as she thought about it. “Give me the rest of the day.”

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