Extremus: Year 139

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

Sable has been playing a one-sided game here, which is to be expected, because for the longest time, Silveon was too. A few months ago, Waldemar revealed to her that he had been seeing and interacting with his late wife. Either he is sparse on the details, or Sable didn’t relay everything to Silveon when she told Silveon about it yesterday. He doesn’t know why she waited this long, but he can’t argue with her about it. They have a very fragile partnership, and it’s the only one he has, so he doesn’t want to lose it.

He asked Sable for more information, but she didn’t give it. He doesn’t know how this is changing Waldemar. Their relationship has grown more strained over time as the latter focuses on maintaining his power, and his relationship with Sable. They are probably more or less in a holding pattern, though. He is coming up on a crossroads in his career. In the original timeline, Waldemar threw the rule book out the airlock, and declared himself the One True Captain of Extremus, Eighth of Eight. His acolytes came up with the chant, “eight! Eight! Eight!” When spoken out loud, it sounded like they were saying hate, hate, hate, which in a way, they were very much saying exactly that.

Out of all of their goals, this is the big one. In five years, his and Audrey’s hard work will either pay off, or fail. Will Waldemar do what he did before, or will he follow procedure, and step to the side for a new captain? They were never trying to make him into a saint, but if they can end the tyranny, all of their sacrifices might prove worth it. The question for Silveon right now, though, is who or what is Audrey? He has a decent idea, but he doesn’t want to go digging around to confirm it, because it could mess with what’s happening. He needs to better understand what this Audrey ghost is telling Waldemar, so they know if she’s a threat to the plan, or a boon. It’s gonna be tricky.

“Hey, W,” Silveon says when the door opens for him. “What’s up?”

“What did you want, Sil?” Waldemar questions. He doesn’t sound happy, but he doesn’t sound mad either. He’s concentrating on whatever is on his table at the moment.

This is where Silveon has to be careful. If the Audrey who Waldemar is seeing isn’t the least bit real—like a temporal echo from the past, or a mental projection—and if Waldemar knows that it’s only in his head, Silveon’s next words will be an obvious lie. He might be able to save face, but it depends on the wording he chooses. “I wanted to talk to someone, and I think you’re the only one who may understand. You cared about her as much as I; or more, rather. I can’t trust anyone else.”

Waldemar freezes but stays on his tablet. “Cared about who?”

“Audrey,” Silveon answers. “I’ve been...seeing her. Kind of in the corner of my eye? She doesn’t talk. I thought it was only in my head, but it’s just too real. She’s older, ya know? She’s aged like us even though she’s been gone for so long already. I dunno, I mean, my brain could certainly conceive of that, but stranger things have happened too. Maybe...maybe it’s real. Do you think she could be real?”

Waldemar stares at the man who he once called a friend, and is now becoming a stranger by the day. He stares for a long time. “Of course not, Silveon. Audrey’s dead. Time travel is illegal. It’s the only set of laws I never touched. Go see a psychologist.”

Shit. Their trust is gone completely. Well, at least he’s not angry, or becoming violent. Still, he’s playing this close to the vest, which means that Sable remains the only hope they have of getting through to him, and averting his dark fate.

Silveon shakes his head, bids his farewell, then respectfully bows out of the room.

He returns to his own quarters, defeated. Life should have an undo button.

“Hey,” a voice says from behind him. It’s Audrey. “We need to talk.”

« < » > Table of Contents

Extremus: Year 138

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

Waldemar and Sable are back together. It has been long enough since Audrey died that the people of Extremus accept the new relationship, so they can be public about it. Yes, she’s young. The crew and passengers do notice that, but they wouldn’t dare say anything to his face. He doesn’t want people to talk about them behind their backs either, but he can’t stop that. Well, he probably could. He could have the AI that runs the systems track everyone’s conversations, and make sure they’re only saying nice things, but he won’t do that. The old version of him might have, but he’s different now. He still doesn’t have real emotions, but he knows if he takes away all of their freedoms, then his popularity rating will drop down to zero, and he won’t keep his job. Maybe in a few years once the second phase of the master plan begins.

Other than his personal life, nothing noteworthy is happening, at least not that he can be honest about. The ghost of his late wife still haunts him, and not in a metaphorical way. She shows up when he’s alone, and talks to him. It’s torture. He knows it could be worse. She’s not screaming in his ears while he’s trying to sleep, or singing the same song over and over again. What she does is basically give him advice. She acts just Audrey did when she was physically here, except now he can’t even get on top of her like he used to.

No, the problem with it is that he doesn’t have a choice. He can’t leave the room unless he wants to surround himself with others. She won’t leave. A part of him doesn’t want her to, but a part of him does. He obviously can’t tell anyone about it, because it will make him look unfit for the chair. He can’t trust Silveon, and his rekindling with Sable isn’t where it should be yet. When the—

“Stop. No one cares about this.” It’s Audrey again. She just appears out of nowhere sometimes. It can be really annoying.

“What are you goin’ on about now?” Waldemar questions.

“You’re dwelling on your situation,” Audrey explains. “Your thoughts are not interesting, which makes sense, because the story is not interesting right now. The beginning of this volume had a lot of action and intrigue, and the end of it will too, but right now, The Superintendent is in the middle of focusing on other projects, so he doesn’t have time to write this whole thing about your fake fee-fees and hallucinations.”

Waldemar stands there midstride, holding a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. A single drop of the milk sprang out of it when Audrey first showed up, and is currently running down the back of his hand as another form of irritation. He wants to stop and lick it up, but he’s worried he’ll look stupid in front of the ghost. Can you believe it? Feeling self-conscious before someone who you don’t even respect. If only—

“I said stop!” Audrey argues. “Stop trying to create a story where there is none. He’s gonna cut this short, and move on. Maybe he’ll have more time next week.”

“I’ve had enough of this.” Waldemar carelessly drops both the plate and the glass on the floor to let the cleaning bots deal with it. He taps on his wrist band until he finds what he’s looking for. Or rather, who he’s looking for.

Sable appears on the floor. She’s half-naked, crouched in an awkward position.

“What were you doing?” Waldemar asks. “Having sex?”

“Uh, no. Yoga?” Sable claims, probably lying. She stands up. “I don’t appreciate being summoned like this. You may be the captain, and I may be your girlfriend, but—”

“I’ve been seeing the ghost of my dead wife. For years. And I need your help.”

She stares but he can’t say what she’s thinking. “Fascinating. Tell me everything.”

« < » > Table of Contents

Extremus: Year 134

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

The fairytale dream is over. Waldemar no longer feels emotions, but he is not back to his old self either. That experience has changed him, and he’s having mixed feelings about it. No, that’s obviously the wrong way to word it. He’s having contradicting thoughts. On the one hand, it’s familiar, so he’s much more comfortable again. This is how he grew up, and it seems right. It was working before. People weren’t happy, but he didn’t need them to be. Still, it’s not like the end of the year of empathy means that he can revert. He’s now living in a paradox. The logic in how he behaved, and the kinds of decisions he made, are still in his head. They still make a lot of sense. The darkness is fueling his rage, but it’s also...intoxicating, and he doesn’t want to give it up again. Because, now that he has spent time without it, he realizes that that’s what it is. It’s fuel. It makes him feel strong and powerful. There’s that word again, though.

He’s standing in his bathroom now, staring at the mirror. He’s looking at himself in disgust, not because that’s what he’s feeling, but because he knows others would if they knew the truth. He slaps himself in the cheek. “Feel something,” he urges.

He feels nothing.

He slaps himself harder. “Feel something!” he cries.

Nothing.

“Feel something!” he screams at the top of his lungs.

“Stop that,” comes a voice from behind him. “Stop hitting yourself.”

He turns to see his late wife, Audrey Kristiansen. “Where have you been?” He declared her dead, but he never knew what happened. When he didn’t feel anything, he didn’t care, and when he did, he wanted to leave her alone if she wasn’t really dead.

“I like the new place. I would have felt more at home here when I was alive.” During the empathy year, he downgraded himself to smaller quarters to look more like the common man, and he didn’t regret it. It didn’t really matter.

“You know I don’t like to repeat myself,” he told her.

“And you know I don’t like to be ordered around. I’m not one of your crewmembers. I was your wife, and you treated me like shit.”

“You knew who I was when you married me,” he pointed out.

“Yes, I did. That’s why I did it. I took that bullet so no one else would have to. And I died for it. Now you are at a crossroads. You are starting to believe that the only way you can get respect from both sides of the imaginary political line is if you align yourself with a new belle. I’m here to tell you that you don’t. You don’t have to be the ruthless dictator, and you don’t have to be a squirming bleeding heart. You just have to follow logic. And logically, hurting people has never made any sense. Yes, you have a darkness. You can’t ignore it, so I’m not going to try to tell you to. But it doesn’t have to define you. The year that you felt something taught you what others experience all the time. Don’t try to get it back, but don’t let it go either. Learn from it. Be better.” She paused for a moment. “And stop with the self-harm. It makes you look weak.”

“I am not..weak!” he cries, lunging towards her with the anger of a magnetar.

She doesn’t blink. “Prove it. Get out there, and do your job. Lead the people. Don’t tell them what to do. Tell them what needs to be done, so they can decide. If you don’t know what needs to be done, then lean on advisors. That is what they’re there for.”

“You’re not really here. What are you?” Waldemar questions.

“That’s not the question you need to ask yourself, Captain,” she begins. “The question is...who are you?”

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 2708: The Fear of History Repeating

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

It was about another month before they were ready to head out. They mostly abandoned the old house how it was, though of course, they pulled the door off of the hinges, and replaced it with a much cheaper one that Vith cut himself. They got on the road, and started walking. Isavet spent most of the trip in the cart, holding baby Leif, while the others walked. Vith would go off on his own to scout ahead or hunt, and then catch up with them later. Maybe he isn’t going to leave the simulation after all.

After several days, they felt as though they had traveled far enough. They weren’t looking for some kind of paradise; just a nice patch of land to call their own, where they could put down new roots. They found a clearing that had seemingly been untouched by man. It sat up against a ridgeline, so it was well-fortified on one side already. It was perfect. It was far enough from others that they could start over, but not so remote that they were entirely unprotected from invaders. What mattered was that it was closer to the border of the next dome, which was where Ronan would be headed eventually.

Ronan leans their special, expensive door up against the face of the ridge. He stares at it with a smile on his face while Vith is starting to unload the supplies. “Thank you for making me bring this. We’ll build a bigger and better house this time; one more fitting of this door.”

“I’ll help,” Gia says. “A woman can get her hands dirty, even in these times.”

“Of course, she can,” Ronan replies with a hearty laugh.

“I can help too!” Isavet exclaims. She’s playing a game where she taps Leif somewhere on his body, like an ear or a shoulder, and tries to teach him to match it on her body. He’s surprisingly good at it. He gets it right a few times, and gets really close for the rest. He already understands body parts. That’s some high-level stuff for his age.

Ronan starts to think about young Leif. Like Talus, he will grow up in this world, under this dome. Are they doing him a disservice, keeping him from seeing the outside world? Is that what happened to Talus? Would he have turned out differently had Mayumi been more honest about what she wanted out of life? Well, if she had been honest, Talus never would have been born in the first place, so that is an impossible question to answer. They also agreed to put all that behind them anyway, so he should really be focusing on the family that he has left.

Gia frowns at him. “I know that look. I know what you’re thinking about. He’s not going to grow up to be like him. He’s a completely different kid, born under entirely different circumstances. We will still need to litigate that when we get out of here.”

“I know,” Ronan agrees. He lowers his voice “I just want him to be happy. I want him to have a choice. This should be against the rules. Having a kid in a simulation should not be allowed, so people aren’t burdened with these questions.”

“Are you regretting having Leif?” Gia asks in a whisper.

“No, of course not. I just...what if Talus’ behavior had nothing to do with his genetics? What if this place made him that way? And what if the same thing happens again? He got sick. He almost died. That could mess anyone up.”

“He won’t remember that,” Gia assures him. “He was far too young. He still is. He will have a very happy and safe childhood.”

“I hope you’re right,” Ronan says. “I hope you’re right.”

She wasn’t, and he didn’t.

Microstory 2707: Walking Out With the Door

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

It’s been another year now. Leif knows his own name, and responds to it. Isavet has taken quite a liking to him. She doesn’t quite understand what Talus did, but she knows he was a bad boy, and seems to be trying to compensate for him. Ronan and Gia often talk about how close they might have been to Talus doing something to her. They grew up together as babies, so he never would have seen her as a threat to his status, but he might have held hate against her for some other reason. They don’t know what was going on in his head. They never will, and they have decided to take this as a blessing. For the most part, they don’t talk about Talus at all, especially not openly.

Ronan’s mind drifts outside the dome when he’s alone, often towards Talus’ new place on Varkas Reflex. He thinks about him from time to time, wondering how he’s doing. He’s probably having the time of his life. A significant portion of the population chooses such a life on purpose, and stays forever. Ronan could get everything he has here in there, but it wouldn’t feel right. He would always know it’s not real. He’s clearly not the only one. It’s why Castlebourne is the fastest growing colony in the galaxy, when it really should be Varkas Reflex, or it shouldn’t matter since you can technically do VR anywhere. One day, Castlebourne may sport the highest population of all. That will be an interesting time. According to projections, he will be done with this particular simulated experience by then, but who knows? The winds could shift.

They’re thinking of moving, just to separate themselves from the community. It has grown since they first arrived. A few other people have settled land near their farm. And they all know what happened, to some degree, so the looks Ronan and Gia get can be really uncomfortable, and take them out of the Norse experience. It wouldn’t be narratively unreasonable either. People moved all the time in this culture. But there’s one thing that would be hard to take with them. Ronan isn’t sure if he wants it, though.

“I think we should do it,” Gia says. “I think we should take it with us. You built that very nice wagon for us. If we moved far up to another beach, it wouldn’t be too difficult of a trip. It will take us several days regardless.”

Ronan keeps staring at it. “I built this house around this door. I did it for Mayumi. I did it for...” He trails off, not wanting to say his name.

“It’s our door now,” Gia points out. “It may be worth more than anything else we have combined. Some rich person was very upset, but has had nearly a decade to get over it. But the fact that you’re agonizing over it leads me to believe that you’re ready?”

Ronan looks at his wife now. “I think I’m ready. It’s time. This phase of our lives is over. How does Isavet feel about it? Is she attached to this house?”

“She might want to leave more than any of us,” Gia explains. “She may understand more about what happened to Leif than we thought. I catch her sometimes, staring at his crib when he’s not in it. She moves it to where it was when...” She trails off too. “Vith can’t find a wife here. We should look somewhere else.”

Ronan chuckles. “Vith doesn’t want a wife.”

“He does if he wants to stay immersed,” Gia says.

“He may not want to do that either,” Ronan calculates. “He’s changed more than any of us in some ways. He may be ready to leave too, but go in a different direction.”

“Well, we’ll let him decide that, and I won’t ask him about it. You shouldn’t either. Now come on, we are not packing up today. Dinner is almost ready.”

Microstory 2706: A Leif on the Wind

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

Ronan is back. He asked the Custodian preparing him for reëntry if he could return with extra supplies, and she said that he could, since that wasn’t the reason he walked out in the first place. Had he simply been out of what he needed, it would have been against the rules. He considers it compensation for what he endured, even though it wasn’t Castlebourne’s fault. They don’t make him go through the sunken boat trial again. He simply exits a regular elevator, and carries his new stuff through. He recognizes this part of the woods. It is surprisingly close to where he lives, but it’s not the same elevator he took to leave a few weeks ago. Just before the new elevator sank back into the ground, the Custodian warned him that they would be dismantling it immediately. Which is fine, and it’s obvious that they will replace it with a new one later somewhere else, so they are no more trapped than they were for the last several years.

Not wanting to lug all this stuff, he whistles. It’s the sound of a bird that Ronan studied before they came here. The nightingale thrush doesn’t exist in the simulation, for whatever reason, so he uses it as a signal to the people he knows and trusts. Mayumi and both versions of Talus, therefore, also know it, but he doesn’t see them coming here, especially not the one who is on his way to virtual prison. He has to find a way to push that out of his mind. To be fair, however, it’s about to come up. Gia never had the chance to say goodbye to the boy she raised. Isavet didn’t either. Vith probably won’t care. He could see the darkness in Talus from the beginning. He just didn’t know how to help.

Vith walks up now, having heard the song. He’s holding his bow, having presumably been hunting. Ronan asks him how things have been, and Vith assures him that they have been okay. Isavet has been a great help with the baby, which makes Ronan smile. Yumo—wait, that’s right, another complication. Oh, that is maybe a problem now. They named Yumo after Mayumi, but she is no longer a bright star in Ronan’s past. It certainly isn’t too late. The little guy doesn’t know his own name yet. They still have time to come up with something better. But what, and what would Gia think of it? He’s afraid to even mention it, after all this.

They must have been through so much, waiting for him to come back. It’s good that the child’s siblings helped, but the boy needed his father. At some point, Ronan is going to have to leave. That’s what he has always planned on doing, after the farming portion of the experience is over. Every second away from his family not at least fighting for them is a second wasted. Then again, that trial was his way of fighting for them. That doesn’t mean he wants to go back and do it all over again, but it’s taught him some things. It’s taught him what kind of father, and what kind of Norseman, he wants to be. And a true Norseman would face his wife. He would tell her what needed to be done, and while he probably wouldn’t necessarily listen to her input, that is what Ronan is going to do. He and Vith return to the house. It looks the same as it always did. He half-expected to come back to it having been burned to the ground, just to throw a wrench into the game. But it’s fine. He can pick up where he left off.

After he tells Gia how the excursion went, he brings up the point about Yumo’s name. She’s receptive to his position. She’s a little too receptive. “Actually, I’ve not been calling him Yumo since you left,” she admits, seemingly worried about his reaction.

“Well, what have you been calling him?” Ronan asks.

“Leif.” A bit dark, given what it’s a homophone of, but okay.

Microstory 2703: Miscommunication by Evasion

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

Ronan cries foul. He doesn’t care about the rules. He doesn’t care if this is a separate issue entirely. When he first exited the Nordome Network to deal with this Talus problem, he looked Mayumi up. They have a protocol for this. She has a contact card. He should have been able to get a hold of her. He’s been too wrapped up in the trial that he hasn’t worked too terribly hard, and he certainly didn’t file a restraining order, but if she had entered another simulation, she should have left a message for him. That was what they agreed upon, and she knew that. She obviously didn’t die permanently, or something, or she wouldn’t be here now. He demands that she tell him where she’s been, and why she didn’t make sure to leave a trail for him.

“I wanted out,” Mayumi explained. “I never wanted the Norse experience as much as you did, and honestly, I was sick of us.”

“You could have just talked to me,” Ronan reasons.

“I couldn’t. I tried. Not in so many words, but I did try to work on us, and you just kept pretending that everything was fine. That just made it worse.”

“So, what, you killed yourself? Or did you just capitalize on the opportunity.”

“I installed a suicide inducer,” Mayumi explains. “I just jumped to a new body.”

“That’s enough,” the court agent says. “We’ll let the adjudicator decide what happens here. She’ll know if any of this is relevant, or if they need to change anything.”

They spoke with the adjudicator. As it turned out, Mayumi was indeed rather difficult to find, even for Castlebourne. Smartdust only gets you so far, and it’s possible to hide out in certain dark corners, if only for a little while. The judge is very interested in understanding what Mayumi did, and only grows more interested when Mayumi is rather evasive about it. She abandoned her child, which the adjudicator sort of knew already, but what she didn’t know was that Ronan was not cognizant of her whereabouts, or her apparent attempt to hide. “Where were you?” she pressed.

“I was home,” Mayumi finally clarifies. “I was in my new home. We were in the outer lands, in a small dome which my new husband built for us.” This planet is inhospitable, except in the domes, and the outer lands refers to any space outside of those. You can’t just go and build your own dome, though. When the adjudicator points that out, Mayumi continues to evade, until she finally lets slip, “Talus has experience working with diamond. It’s really not that hard, as long as you find a place. We’re not the only ones.”

The adjudicator is shocked by this. The trial will have to be placed on hold while they run this new investigation.

Ronan doesn’t care about that. This is personal. If the simulation that Ronan is trying to get back to were real, he would have the right to kill the lover, and divorce and disgrace his wife. Is that why she lied, because he’s so fixated on the culture that she thought he would exact revenge? He’s more enlightened than that. He went under the dome for the experience, not because he genuinely wishes he had been born a thousand years ago. There are some lines that he won’t cross, game or no—backup substrates or no. He also straight up doesn’t feel the same way about infidelity as his character might. He doesn’t want to be with anyone who doesn’t want to be with him. All she had to do was be honest, about the whole damn thing. What an idiot. What an absolute incomparable moron. How did he ever see anything in her, and why did he waste so much time keeping them together?

He takes a deep breath, and focuses on Gia, and his whole real family. Vith and Isavet need him, so he needs to leave. But wait. If she’s been with Talus the whole time...who has he been raising for the better part of a decade?

Microstory 2702: Alternate Arrangements and Agendas

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

It’s time for Ronan to speak. In the old ways, a witness would be assigned either the defendant or the plaintiff or prosecutor. They were on one side or the other. Over time, this started to feel too combative. Society decided that the point of the justice system should be to uncover the truth, and balance fairness. There were different variations for the setup, but the changes were sweeping. A whole new vocabulary was created, which alone, made everything seem less partial. Lawyers became advocates or adherents to more clearly define their roles. Defendants became accused, and were considered pending so as not to bias the decision from minute one. Even juries changed. Half of the arbitration panels deliberated in one room while half did so in another. If they came to the same decision, maybe it was more likely right. Ronan still remembers the old ways and the old terms, and since this is the first time he’s ever been in any court in the centuries he’s been alive, he still frames everything he’s seeing through that lens. It’s jarring when they contradict it.

He must remember that he’s an attestant, not a witness. Attestant, not witness. Because he didn’t witness Talus do anything, he can’t attest to it. He can only tell the court what he knows, and what he knows is that Talus is not right in the head. As he’s sitting up here, not answering the most recent question that he was asked, he’s thinking about who else could be blamed for his son’s behavior. He keeps coming back to the implantation procedure. Something must have gone wrong. They must have made some mistake. They...spliced the wrong genes, or—he doesn’t know, he—

“Mister Truett. Mister Truett,” Jericho Hagen urges. “Have you seen any other behavior out of the accused which you might categorize as abhorrent?” he repeats.

Ronan was zoning out, but now he’s more sure of what he wants. He waits to answer again, but this time, he’s looking the attorney—no adherent—dead in the eye. “I wish to make an alternative accusation.” He looks up at the judge—adjudicator. “Did I do that right? Am I supposed to say it another way?”

“There is no formal syntax,” she replies. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes, I—” Ronan begins to say.

“This is not the place for that. We will have to schedule a new inquisition to formalize your accusation. Until then, you cannot be expected to attest further at the current proceedings. But I must warn you, people have used this as a delaying tactic in the past. I will not stand for it in my court, so you better have a plausible accusation.”

“I do, your honor.” What Talus did was wrong, but it may not be his fault. Ronan is not going to try to stop Talus from being dealt with accordingly, but those bot doctors need to answer too, and he doesn’t want to continue until they do. He stands from the chair, and begins walking back towards the attestant waiting area.

“Agent, please prepare the next attestant for a round of assertions,” the adjudicator orders. They changed it from bailiff to fit all the other A-terms. So stupid.

The agent escorts Ronan back into the joint chamber, where he is supposed to go into his own little private room. They keep attestants separate, again to maintain impartiality. Something has gone wrong here too, though. The next attestant is out of her own room already. She seems as surprised to see him as he is to see her.

“Mayumi.”

She doesn’t speak. She picks her jaw off of the floor, and slips back into her room.

Microstory 2699: Forbidden Longhouse

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

Ronan is scared of losing Gia just like he lost Mayumi. This time, they’re not going to go it alone. When the date was approaching, they traveled to the nearest settlement. They had already sent word to a midwife, who doesn’t have much to do because relatively few people are becoming so immersed in the simulation that they’re choosing to have real children. She offered to come to them, but they don’t only want her expertise. They want to be close to a lot of people, in case they need anything else during this uncertain period. The other players are clearly shocked by it. They know that Gia is real, and that this birth is real. They know that the other children here are NPCs, but Ronan’s entire family is composed of real people. They are a total anomaly, and it fascinates them. They know that they’re not supposed to talk about it, however. Ronan would be open if not for the immersion rules. Before he entered, he would talk about it to anyone who would listen. This is simply not the time or place for it.

Ronan is pacing, frustrated and annoyed. This is one of the reasons he and Mayumi isolated themselves. He wanted to be in the room, but the culture will not allow it. He was only allowed in back then because there was no other choice. Now, they can’t make that argument. Gia is with the midwife, and her two apprentices. One of them looked pretty young, so she’s probably just fetching water and towels, and he doesn’t know if she’s an NPC too, or what. It can be very confusing. Or maybe he’s just so confused at the moment because he’s singularly focused on that longhouse. He’s so far away, he can’t usually hear her screams, but her voice occasionally carries far enough. Or it’s a bird, and he’s imagining things. He hears her again, though. It’s unmistakably Gia. He stops pacing, and starts to head right for it.

One of the other players puts his pipe in his mouth, and reaches out to hold Ronan back as he shakes his head. He’s not really smoking. It’s literally just water vapor. It’s one of the few technologies that people use regularly. Just pretend it isn’t what it is, and is just a regular pipe with tobacco, or whatever disgusting stuff they smoked back then. “I appreciate the impulse, but we have to respect tradition. That longhouse is for womenfolk only. You’ll see your kid. He’ll be all cleaned up first, though.”

Ronan bobbles his head, knowing that this guy is right, but still wishing to break the rules. “You got any of your own?”

The guy takes his pipe back out and looks around to make sure no one else is listening. “Almost ninety of them, all over the age of two hundred.”

“None came here to Danmörk?” Ronan presses.

He shakes his head. “None even, uhh...came to the castle, to use the parlance.”

“You miss ‘em?” To Ronan, that’s a stupid question, but it takes all kinds.

“We have a private qua—” He stops himself before he can say the word quantum. He was probably going to say quantum environment. It’s a virtual construct that you can connect to across vast distances. It’s a power and bandwidth hog, so most VR is done locally, but if you just want a fancy way to communicate, and don’t need a lot of complex renderings, it’s fine. “We see each other every once in a while, though it’s been several decades since everyone has been able to make it.”

Ronan is just now realizing that his breathing has steadied, and his sweat is evaporating faster than it leaks. These distractions are helping. He’s calmer now. That’s when he hears a baby cry. Ronan runs off. Screw the rules. That’s his kid!

Microstory 2694: Little Cheater

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

Ronan is distraught and overwhelmed. He has two kids to take care of now, and he’s all alone. Vith is old enough to help, but not old enough to be a true partner. He’s not breaking character. He’s supposed to be a child, so that’s how he’s acting. Ronan commends him for the commitment, and appreciates it. That’s what he would do in his situation. That is what he’s doing, in his own way. Mayumi was supposed to be here. She wasn’t supposed to die. She certainly wasn’t supposed to die after less than a year. But that’s how real life works, so she has stayed away in order for the simulation to feel more real. That’s what they agreed to do, and she’s not a liar.

They actually talked about it at length. They made a pact before all of this that if one of them died, the other would continue on in the simulation. It was only a hypothetical at that point, but he wants to honor her by following through with it. It’s probably why she never came back. It would not make sense for him to leave, and have her be upset that he broke her trust. They have been together for centuries. A few decades will be hard, but in the real world, there’s no escape. If someone you love dies, you either end your own life, or try to move on. Suicide is not an honorable death, and would harm her memory. It wasn’t worth it. They would see each other again.

Hopefully she was having fun in their second choice dome. Dome for Pioneers doesn’t have the same cultural adventure that they were looking forward to, and it didn’t sound like it would be quite as immersive, but they thought about visiting. They considered going there first to dip their toes in the water, so to speak. In the end, they decided to jump into the deep end head first, and this is what it has cost them. Ronan is struggling to feed his boys. His only saving grace is that a few months ago, they found two baby goats, and had the good sense to keep them both alive, even though it meant taking food out of their own mouths. Now, though, the mama goat has kids, and the daddy has become worth more dead. They needed her milk, and his horn and meat.

He slaughtered the father earlier, and cut off its horn. Then he stole some milk away from the kids, and filled the horn so he could use it to feed his human baby. Once little Talus was happy for the next hour, he went to work on preparing the goat meat. He was going to cook some of it, then smoke the rest so they could save it for later. This was always part of the plan. They had hoped to wait until they could have at least one more litter to keep the bloodline going, but that is tomorrow’s problem. He slices into the animal, and hits something hard. It doesn’t feel like bone. It clinks like metal. He pulls the flesh apart, and is horrified at what he finds.

“What is that?” Vith asks.

“That, son, is a robo-goat. I was not aware.” Ronan looks up and breathes. “I suppose some of the laws here do resemble what they have in the Core. They don’t kill to eat anymore. This is all part of the simulation.” He looks outside. “Those kid goats are never gonna grow. They never have grown since they were born. They are simply being systematically replaced every once in a while. Which means...” He trails off.

“What does it mean, father?” Vith presses.

“The milk has to be resupplied at some point. It certainly doesn’t get it from the vegetation we feed it. We can keep all the food for ourselves, instead of giving it to the goats. All of the milk can go to Talus.” Is that cheating?

It apparently is cheating. It doesn’t work. They run out of milk.

Microstory 2693: Settle

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash

They have settled down, and settled into a routine. Ronan built a small home for them to live in, with some help from the boy, Vith. Vith is not who they thought he was. He was an adult in the technical sense, but he grew up on a planet not unlike the simulation they’re in now. For him, it was real. They planted and caught their own food, and built their own structures. And if they failed at any of these things, they could die for good. He seems to be of two minds. On the one hand, after he was essentially rescued by Castlebourne, he realized that he never got a real childhood. On the other, he isn’t comfortable in the modern world, and actively sought a place that resembled his original home. Ronan and Mayumi aren’t confident that he is entirely mentally okay, but instead of trying to exit the dome, and ask for help, they decided to raise him on their own. Little Talus will have a big brother to look up to, which they didn’t originally plan.

It’s been nine months now. The harvest is going well, but Vith is having to work their garden on his own today. Mayumi is in labor. They talked about this at length before coming to the Nordome Network. Were they going to try to find someone to help her deliver the child, or do it themselves? In the end, they decided on the latter. It wasn’t the only way to do it, they were in it for the long haul. When they form a community, it will come naturally, not just because they notice a bunch of other people in their vicinity. For now, it’s just the three of them, and in this room, two.

In over 300 years, Mayumi has never given birth before. They never even had children, but out there, they would not have done it naturally. This is part of the experience that they were seeking. They want to know what it was like before genetic engineering and gestation tanks. They didn’t have to go quite this far back in the past, but they have other reasons for admiring this culture, in this time period. She is in a lot of pain. There are no drugs. There’s a wooden spoon that Vith fashioned for them several months ago. It’s very soft. Her teeth marks are going to be in it forever. Hopefully, he will be okay with that. She is screaming her head off, but she is strong, and she’ll get through this. They will be a complete family again, once Talus returns.

Ronan can see the head. He encourages her to keep pushing while he guides the little guy out of her. He’s not crying, and that’s not good. Ronan wipes the goop from his tiny face, and bounces him up and down a little, tapping on his chest ever so gently. It takes a couple of minutes, but he finally does after Ronan sticks his pinky in his mouth, and clears it out. It’s the loudest scream he’s ever heard—louder than even Mayumi was—but it’s such a beautiful sound. Apparently curious, Vith walks in. Ronan smiles at him, and shows off his little brother. Vith doesn’t seem to know what to think, but he doesn’t seem upset. He is just confused. He knew that Mayumi was pregnant, and that she was going to give birth. He knows where babies come from too. The truth is that he’s a little bit of an oddball. That’s okay, Ronan knows that he’s going to be a good brother.

“Good. We need to let mommy see him, okay?” Ronan goes over and tries to hand Talus over to his wife. “Mayumi. Mayumi?”

She’s not moving. Ronan too hastily hands baby Talus off to Vith, and tries to wake Mayumi up, but she doesn’t. She never does again. The three of them live in that small house for another few weeks, waiting for Mayumi to appear, having reentered the simulation. It’s not against the rules as it was an accidental death. But she never comes back, and the winter is about to get real bad.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 18, 2500

« < » > Table of Contents

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

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

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

“This last minute?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Is...that a drink?” Mateo asked.

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

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

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

“Computer engineer,” Ramses replied.

“I know.” She smiled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How do you mean?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How is that possible?”

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

“Excuse me?”

“We all drank hemlock.”

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

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

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

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

“Yeah, of course I do.”

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

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

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

“Lots of people like the sun.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

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

“No, it’s not.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah, my rival...Pacey.”

“Pacey, with an e?”

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

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

“What makes you say that?”

“I dunno. Why did I say that?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We are superheroes,” Mateo guessed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So, what do we do?” Angel asked him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

« < » > Table of Contents