Microstory 2479: Glaciadome

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Brr, chicken! That’s what my dad used to say. Brr, chicken! It’s cold up here. There is not much dihydrogen monoxide on Castlebourne—compared to say, Earth or Europa, but there is some. Some of it is in the form of water ice, and some of that in the form of glaciers. The largest of these is called Sanaa Glacier. I’m not sure where the name comes from, but I’m guessing this Sanaa woman isn’t too happy about it. The Sanaa Glacier is up there in the northern hemisphere, not too far from Aquilonian Deep. It’s about 2.16 million square kilometers in area, which makes it the largest region on the planet that is not covered by domes. That is for an obvious reason, which is that glaciers, by definition, are always on the move. They move very, very slowly, but they are not still. They’re never still. You can imagine that erecting a dome on top of one is difficult at best, and quite risky. Yet they did it. Glaciadome sits right in the middle of Sanaa, which is the most stable part of it. It’s not immune to the glacier’s movements, but it’s your safest bet. It’s unlike any other dome on the planet. It’s totally unique. Instead of being made out of the usual graphene composite, its frame is instead composed of carbon nanotubes, which can be made to be more flexible. That’s why we use them for space elevator tethers. Instead of diamonds, the panels are made out of a more flexible polycarbonate. This allows the dome to shudder and shake as the glacier flows, and against the extremely heavy winds outside. There’s an old saying, if it doesn’t bend, it’ll break, and that’s true. Glaciadome will survive over time because it’s designed to withstand the stress of movement without buckling. It’s not completely impenetrable, and it’s not nearly as strong as the other domes, but it does its job, and it does it well. You can tell that it works too, because while you can’t physically feel the glacier’s flow unless you’re an advanced lifeform with the right onboard sensors, you can certainly hear it. It’s always screamin’ at ya while the ice breaks and slides. Why do this? Why build a dome on top of something so unstable, in such a hostile environment? Well, what the hell are we doing here if we’re not engineering megastructures for the sake of the challenge. Do you need any other reason? I surely don’t. Researchers live here to be closer to what they’re studying, such as the geologic history of this planet, the composition of the water and ice, and of course, the glacier itself. There are also some winter sports here, like dog sledding, and cross-country skiing, but it’s not as comprehensive as Winterbourne Park. A lot of it has to do with the novelty of the experience. You can live in an igloo, or an ice palace. You can go cold-weather camping, or just make snow angels. It may not be as exciting as one of the adventure domes, but it gives you what it promises. And for me, that’s enough.

Microstory 2449: Windbourne

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Holy crap, it’s windy here! It’s almost like that’s the point! I’m yelling, because it’s hard to hear with all this wind! Did I mention that it was very windy? Why did they make a dome that’s just super windy? Well, I don’t know, why the hell not? What would you do instead? I’m asking a lot of questions, and I’m not a prolific reviewer on the network, so no one’s going to answer them. The staff certainly didn’t. It’s windy here, because that’s the way they wanted it, and they were technologically capable of it. Before you read on (if you do manage to find this review) you should know that I’m one of the uneducated. By early 21st century standards, I would have been an average student. By today’s standards, with perfections in educational tools, and individualized lesson planning, I’m well-below average. I did this on purpose. I don’t find value in learning beyond a certain point. I’m happy, and I’m content with who I am. So if you’re looking for a scientifically dense explanation for how the wind generation works here, tap on, buddy...tap on. Windbourne. It’s windy. The topography has been moulded to create the perfect conditions for wind, where they want it, when they want it. Air is heated and cooled in very precise configurations to create the wind patterns as planned. Temperature usually flows spontaneously from hot to cold, I remember that. I’m not sure how they’re heated, but I think the process is solar-powered, perhaps by use of mirrors, rather than just solar panels to convert into electricity. They also use gargantuan fans to control the airflow, but I didn’t see them, so the must have cleverly hidden them behind geographic features, or maybe holographic illusions. Some regions are windier than others, of course, and they tell you where these are. The map color-codes the zones by the speed of the wind, so if you just want a light breeze, you can stay there. If you want near tornado-like conditions, baby, you’re gonna wanna go to Gale City. Winds in this area reach up to 400 kilometers per hour. That sounded like a lot to me, but I didn’t have much of a frame of reference until I tried it myself. What you do is enter a tunnel where you can walk through, or stand on people movers. Once you’re on the other side of the Arnett Mountains, you climb up to these towers. There are robot staff here, so they’ll tell you where to go, and how to get there. You get to your platform, which is fully protected by walls, and situate yourself in the waiting station. You have a few options here. You can strap yourself in, hold onto the straps, hold onto a bar, or freehand it. Once you’re ready, they’ll open the flap behind you. At this point, you can hear the wind roaring at your sides, and above you, but you’re still protected. This only lasts for a few moments before the wall opposite you opens up. The wind rushes in, as I said, at 400 km/h. What happens to you next is entirely dependent upon your choices, both leading up to it, and once you hit the point of no return. Did you grab on to something? Can you keep holding onto it? Are you gonna fly over the edge? If you do, will you activate a parachute, or a wingsuit? If not, will you manage to land in one of the scattered foam pits, or plummet to your death? Please note that, due to the obvious dangers, there are certain criteria that you must meet before they let you go to Gale City, such as, do you have a heart condition, and do you have mind-transference on, or are you a suicidal moron? I’ve already gone on the ride several times, and I’m gonna end this here, so I can go back to see if I can beat my own record for the farthest fall without wings. Wild ride, friends, wild ride. Catch the wind, and fly out of control!

Microstory 2157: Jail For Everyone

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All right, the power’s back, and we’re okay. I mean, we’re not okay. Three people died in the storm, and another in the aftermath. Did I not tell you that there was a storm? It didn’t seem that bad, but I was in jail at the time, and I don’t have a cell with windows. The wind was apparently really bad. It knocked a bunch of electrical poles over. Contractors from all over drove in to help restore power. I think I heard that some of them were from as far as Arkansas, which is so crazy to me. I could go into more detail about what I experienced during this time, but I think I’ve said just about everything I need to about it. I will tell you that my fridge and freezer did fine. I deliberately didn’t open either of them even once that whole time, to keep as much heat out as possible. I drank directly from the tap, and I had a peanut butter sandwich, since I couldn’t access the jelly. I know a lot of people had it a lot worse than I did. I was able to open some windows in my apartment to keep the air circulating. It was still hot, but not unbearable, and it went back to normal overnight. I was gonna try reading a book to pass the time, but I really only have these so my built-in bookcase doesn’t look empty and pathetic. I don’t actually like to read, and I don’t want to read any of them. I mostly just took naps, and went on a few walks. I took care of my plants and flowers, though, so that took all of ten minutes. There’s a bit of good news, though. For everyone who was in intermittent jail at the time of the power outage, or was scheduled to be while it was still going on, those days were erased from our respective sentences. That means that I don’t have to make up for it later, and push my end date further back than it already is. The way I’m guessing they reason it is that the power outage was basically jail for everyone, though they didn’t actually use that as an explanation. Either way, I’m grateful.

Microstory 2083: For Free Candy

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Today was pretty much exactly as it was yesterday, except I worked second shift, instead of the first one. We hung out in the greenhouse while the boss stayed in the main building to greet customers. She would call us up whenever she needed help. I could practically copy my post from yesterday, and paste it here, and it would hardly be inaccurate. The weather is still crap, though it’s not as windy or snowy, which is nice. I thought maybe that there would be just a few more customers, but it was the same. We keep track of the number of people who come in, and the number of parties. Somebody smart wrote a computer program that logs this stuff for us using the main entrance security camera. It doesn’t have any facial recognition software built in, so it’s not totally accurate. For instance, if you realized you forgot your wallet, ran back out to get it, and then opened the door again, it would log you twice, because it wouldn’t know that you were the same person. Anyway, that doesn’t happen a whole lot, so we’re not worried about any auditing issues. The total number of visitors today was nearly identical to yesterday. I’m not good with numbers, but I like to explore trends like that, to see if I understand them. It reminds me of how my parents would always log visitors on Halloween. Oh, that’s right. You don’t have that holiday in this world. It involves children going door to door to ask for free candy. I wonder whether they still do that.

Ya know, I don’t think I’ve mentioned my family yet. Bulk travel is a form of time travel, but I’ve not seen them in over 25 years. So if I were to return to a point in their timeline that matches my own personal timeline, they would be in their eighties. They could be gone by now. But again, the timelines don’t match up, so I could also go back, and not a second will have passed. Or I could go back to before I even left, or before I was born, or before they were born. Heh, time, right? Back to the weather, why were the numbers about the same, even though it wasn’t precipitating as hard? It’s because of the roads. I always forget about the roads. It was really bad last night—even worse than it was to drive while it was still happening during the day before—so people did not want to go out after that. All schools in the area were canceled, which is why the high school student who works here picked up an extra shift. I think she’s my favorite out of all the humans I’ve met on this version of Earth. She seems to be the only other person who recognizes how unexciting it is, besides maybe those people who answered my weird ad. Though to be fair, they didn’t appear to have any strong feelings about the nature of the world. They were just behaviorally divergent. Speaking of which, I should probably reach out to them; make sure they’re doing okay.

Microstory 2082: Too Happy Here

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The meal with my landlord went great. I’m glad I went with the easier recipe, though I may try to challenge myself more next time. We’re going to try to have dinner together twice a week from now on, though when I get my own place, that may change. I made enough so we could have leftovers today, and I couldn’t wait to eat it because it meant that I could sit in the break room for thirty minutes. It’s heated. The nursery is a mostly outdoor spot, as you can imagine. There’s a building, but it’s chock full of plants, particularly ones that I’m allergic too. I try not to spend too much time in there. I seem to be okay outside, or when I’m in the greenhouses. That’s where we spent the majority of our time. It’s snowing and blowing, so it sucks to have to work outside, but it also means that not many customers show up, so we don’t have to do much outside. The boss doesn’t like us to just be sitting around doing nothing, because there is always a plant in need of attention, but she exempts us from that rule on days like this. She volunteered to stand guard while we hung out, but we had our radios on hand. All she had to do was press the button three times, and one of us would run up to help. If she had clicked it four times, that would have meant that two of us needed to go. It didn’t happen much, but when it did, I always agreed to go back, since I’m still the new guy. She’s not going to spend too much time training the temp, because he doesn’t seem to be too happy here, so we don’t think he’ll ask for a permanent position. She’s still looking for someone new while the authorities are looking for our missing coworker.

Microstory 1799: Adventurous Spirit

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There’s not much to say about my life, so I’ll just tell you about my death, with a little bit of background. My father once told me that I had an adventurous spirit. I liked to learn about other places, and read about people’s harrowing ordeals. I didn’t actually do anything, though. I kept thinking that I would grow up to be a boat captain, or a pilot, or I dunno...just something that would show me the world. I was always watching Indiana Jones movies, so I thought becoming a college professor would help me. I ended up at the community college five miles from my childhood home, and I rarely stepped beyond my comfort zone. I was certainly not having any adventures. I woke up one day—it wasn’t a random day, but a few weeks before my birthday, which is around the time I start planning my party, which fewer and fewer attend each year. I was about to turn forty, and I had nothing to show for it. That was not acceptable. I had always considered that to be the age when you start getting old. It’s at the top of the hill. You spend half your life climbing up to it, and the other half falling down from it. Obviously I could make new memories in the second half, but I knew it would haunt me if I couldn’t say I did anything by then. I had to start before. I had to start now. I didn’t have any money, or more than a few vacation days saved up, but that was okay, because I was too scared to go too crazy anyway. There was a lake twenty miles out of town that I figured would be the perfect place for me to literally test the waters. If I could survive a baby adventure there, then I would know I was ready for something more, and then maybe more after that. I was never gonna end up in space, but I thought I would go further than this.

As someone who was so inexperienced, I didn’t know how to prepare. Was I going camping? Hiking? Water skiing? No, not water skiing, that’s insane. And no hiking either, I don’t like to walk. How about I just rent a little row boat, and go out onto the water? Yeah, the weather wasn’t too bad that day, so it should have been calm. I assumed that was what the weather report meant. Little wind, little waves. Anyway, twenty-five miles an hour sounded like a low number to me. I still didn’t know what to buy, so I just went to the watersports section of the sporting goods store, and pretty much grabbed one of everything. I knew I wouldn’t need a water trampoline, or a giant canoe, but every small thing seemed like a good idea, because it’s better to be safe than sorry. I gathered everything up, and drove to the lake, where there was indeed a little place to rent rowboats. God, I wish there hadn’t been. I wish it was out of season, or the guy had warned me that the weather was worse than I realized. I don’t know how the boat sank, or why it waited until I was in the middle of the water, but screaming for help did me no good. No one was around to hear, especially since that motorboat was being so loud. A life vest. That was the one thing I forgot to pack. I felt like such an idiot, loading up all this unnecessary gear, but leaving out the one thing that could save my life. I wouldn’t have needed it to keep from drowning, though. That’s not how I died. I didn’t stick around the boat, assuming it was best to swim towards the shore. That turned out to be my downfall. Had I stayed with all that floating crap, the motorboat people might have been able to spot me. Instead, breaststroking my way through the wavy waters, under the darkening sky, in my grayish sort of lake water-colored swimsuit, was the last mistake I made before the propellers came over to say hello.

Microstory 1630: Virtual Exclusion

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Here is another story about a world that avoided a run-in with the Ochivari and the Darning Wars. It’s also not about a version of Earth. Here, humans evolved on a planet called Olankaran. It was tidally locked with its host star, meaning one side of it was stuck in perpetual brightness, and the other, perpetually nighttime. They could only survive in the terminator zone, which was a thin strip of temperate vegetation that went all around the circumference. Despite this wildly different solar dynamic, they developed about as any other civilization does. They fought with each other, and formed bonds, and progressed science, and were held back by religion. It took them about as long to figure out that some habitable worlds weren’t tidal-locked as it will take a non-tidally-locked planet to hypothesize about them. One thing they had on their side was a deeper appreciation for how precious life was. So much of their planet could not support complex life, so they understood how important it was to protect what little managed to come into existence. They didn’t ever burn fossil fuels, instead moving directly to renewables. It might have taken them longer to start harnessing electricity, but whatever, who cares? Solar was, of course, their number one form of power generation, as there were places where they could install panels that worked throughout the entire day. It was very windy on the nightside, though, so that was useful to them as well. They flourished on this world, and why they were just as curious about outer space as anyone, the majority of them chose to stay right where they were. And that was because they knew, from there, they could go anywhere.

They developed virtually reality constructs, which was a completely normal and natural progression for any civilization. These people took it to an extreme. Once they were ready, just about everyone chose to upload their consciousnesses to the virtual worlds, and live there permanently. To keep them cool, their processors were placed on the far side of the planet, and kept them running using highly advanced solar power on the day side. Robots maintained them from the outside. The temperate zones where their physical bodies once took up excessive space were returned to nature. Within a century, it was nearly impossible to tell that people had ever lived there before. Anyone still using a body was exploring interstellar space. The uploaded people were exploring space too, they just weren’t doing it with their own bodies. They dispatched probes to map the galaxy, and one day reach out to other galaxies. As more data came in from these unmanned exploratory missions, the virtual equivalent world was updated to reflect the new information. They just thought it was a lot safer, because it was impossible to die in the construct unless the servers were damaged, and of course, they came up with safeguards to prevent that from happening. The people here were so good at hiding that the Ochivari weren’t even aware that they existed. When they came to this universe to find out whether any sufficiently evolved life was here in need of being destroyed, they didn’t detect anything, and marked it down as empty. They lived happily ever after. Literally. Because when the universe finally came to a close on its own, they simply transferred all of their servers to a younger one, and just kept going on forever.

Microstory 1567: An Assassin’s City

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Prompt

All of my friends are dead now, and I’m the only assassin left. I’m just waiting to be taken out next.

Botner

I have a high view of the city, and I like to spend time out of my window. However, in this case, I didn’t even see a thing... A nice breeze is blowing by as a gust of wind... There are no screams or fire or anything, yet...I glance around and notice that my balcony door is open, and the light is on in my room. I think to myself for a moment and rush over to my room... I see that my body has disappeared. I sense something of course, but I had never suspected this... I race through the dark building into the grass field where everyone has been getting slaughtered. I throw up all the bodies I see... Bodies of the villagers who have been stabbed, stoned, burned, and who have been eaten alive. And some other stuff. I walk towards the stone monument and begin building a city, and for the first time I do it without killing anyone. In the end, I have an entire town, and have even created an army... This is going to be fun! All it takes is one round to read it, but I took my time to enjoy it. It sounds a little bland but it is a fun read anyway. It is quite a tale and I look forward to the next installment. This is a different style of writing than anything I have...

Conclusion

...seen before, and it’s slowly becoming my favorite. Still, I have so much work to do, so I put the book down, and get back to it. I crawl back into my body, and head for the town square. The city is holding a parade in honor of me, to thank me for building their city without killing people. I don’t want to go, because that’s not my kind of thing, but I’m obligated, because this is actually more about them than me. I sit there waving, and pretend to smile, and let them applaud me. When the celebration is over, I decide that my time here is as well. I must leave now, and let these people thrive on their own. I am designer and creator; not god and ruler. Perhaps I shall make a new city after this, which can trade with my first one, and they can teach each other new ways of living happy. I did this to protect myself against the rival assassin team, but that was centuries ago, and I don’t think I have to worry about them anymore. I slip away without telling anyone, and hope that my people do not feel abandoned. I hope they understand that this is what’s best for them now. As I’m crossing the outer border, I take one last look at what I have created, and smile for real, full of love and peace. A paralytic arrow comes out of nowhere, and strikes me in the back. I’m about to fall, but my archnemesis catches me, and forces me to watch as his sons and daughters burn my beloved city to the ground. Then, and only then...does he cut off my head, and let me die.

Microstory 1496: Wayward

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It was 2245. For eleven years, Durus found itself hurtling through interplanetary space, though since there weren’t any other planets in the solar system, it was really just general 70 Ophiuchi space. Now the rogue planet was crossing a threshold, all the way into what experts considered interstellar space. They knew how far they had gone, because they knew how fast they were going, and how far they were from the edge when the sun was effectively destroyed, but they had lost most of their instruments since the catastrophe. Of course, everyone was living underground now. The atmosphere had long since been stripped away. Anyone who needed to go outside did so in vacuum suits that they had to plan, fully engineer, and test before use over the course of only a few months. The wind turbines above were still operational, powering their bunkers using the torrential storms still raging, but they required a hell of a lot more maintenance than they did before. The extremely cold temperatures made it much more difficult for these machines to keep going without constant tending. Fortunately, it wasn’t impossible to accomplish this, as long as they kept a team up there at all times. Children were now being taught almost exclusively only what they needed to know to take up the burden when it became their time. They didn’t learn much history or culture, but fortunately, they were at little risk of falling victim to their old ways. Every second here was now pretty much only about survival, and no one wanted to live past the destruction of the population, so they all made sure to remain inclusive and fair. Many crimes were punishable by a naked surface walk, so it was vanishingly rare. It wasn’t nonexistent, but the government made every attempt to give the people what they needed. There was no reason to steal a certain medication for one’s dying daughter, for instance, because if she wasn’t given the medication, it almost certainly meant it simply didn’t exist. As for that government, the Solar Democratic Republic was still intact. It was composed of the same number of leaders, in the same leadership positions, and they continued to have their rounds of elections every five years, just as it had been since the first Republic.

There were some great things about life underground that could have been quite terrible without the proper planning. For example, food was not a problem, and would probably never be. They knew how to grow produce under less than ideal conditions. They also weren’t at much risk of losing their oxygen, because scientists had been perfecting carbon scrubbing technology since the Mage Protectorate. The real problem was available space. The bunkers were designed to accommodate little more than the population at the time of conception, and they were quickly approaching that limit. They still didn’t know where they were going, or how long it would take for them to get there, and more importantly, how getting there would even help their situation anyway. This world wandered the interstellar void for at least millions of years before humans stepped foot on it, and there was no reason to believe it couldn’t do that again. They needed to buy some time for the right people to come up with a solution, and halt nearly all population growth until then. The Nexus replica was the obvious answer, but could it transport everyone, and how would they power it? It would seem the turbines were not enough for it, because they had already tried connecting it to the grid, and came up short. Even the experts weren’t a hundred percent certain how these machines were powered in the first place, but theirs didn’t seem to be working right now. To give them the time they needed, the people elected to invest heavily in stasis technology, which wasn’t something they had needed until now. A team of researchers was already working on it, but they needed more resources to complete it. It could take decades to figure out fusion technology, just like it did on Earth, so it was worth it to use stasis as a temporary solution. By 2252, nearly everyone was placed in their pods. This had the added benefit of lowering their reliance on the turbines. Now the only people awake were tasked with cracking fusion, or with supporting those elite in various ways.

Microstory 1495: Time Rocks

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There was only one person left with powers in 2234. Everyone else had completely lost any ability to manipulate time in any way. Had Durus the medical technology necessary to study these former paramounts, they might have learned whether their powers were gone forever, or if they just didn’t have the temporal energy necessary to use them. The world was emotionally troubled. Fearing the worst, engineers expanded the bunker clusters, and moved everyone underground. Though the sun was still shining, and the wind turbines still turning, trying to remain on the surface was just not worth the risk. Only a few technicians went out daily to make sure these perfectly normal power generators were still fully operational. And only they were left outside when the sun blinked out of existence. Calluna—named after Missy Calluna Atterberry, who was a historical figure from the interstellar ship, The Elizabeth Warren—didn’t disappear completely, but it was no longer useful to the people of Durus. The old woman who still possessed a modicum of temporal energy used it one last time to explain what had happened. It was the Time Crevice. When a group of apporters banished a kilometer wide patch of land from the surface of the planet to get rid of the crevice, they didn’t give much thought to what was going to happen to it. It didn’t seem like it was their problem anymore, and they didn’t think they would have to deal with it ever again. The instantaneous journey from Durus to outer space took a toll on the land, and broke it apart. These parts were still on the same trajectory, however, so they stuck pretty close to each other. Most of it didn’t have any special temporal properties at all; they just wanted to make sure they got the whole thing. They ended up calling the central structure the Time Rocks, for they were the ones responsible for messing with the passage of time inside the crevice. Evidently, even as a bunch of rocks, they were powerful enough to place the whole sun into a temporal bubble, and since it was stuck in this bubble, light could not escape fast enough to shine on Durus anymore. They were smart to move underground, because they would not have survived for long above.

It was absurd that something smaller than a house could have any impact on something as massive as a star. Experts hypothesized that there was more temporal energy stored in those rocks than anyone realized, or that it was channeling it from somewhere else. Then it dawned on them. They didn’t know how, or why, but that was finally the answer they were looking for to the question about their own time powers and time tech. Somehow, as the Time Rocks were hurtling through space, they were also absorbing temporal energy from all of Durus. The rocks were draining people of their powers, and stripping away everything that allowed the Durune to manipulate spacetime. All that energy, concentrated into one tiny spot, was like setting an armed nuclear bomb next to a lamp post. The lamp post never stood a chance. The energy exploded, overtook Calluna, and trapped it in time. Now remember that it was still giving off light, but it was doing it at an incredibly slow pace, and that just wasn’t enough to keep the planet warm. The world didn’t end, but even if Calluna escaped eventually, it would do the Durune no good. The resulting explosion sent a gravitational wave towards Durus, which was strong enough to knock it out of orbit, and cause durusquakes all over, but not enough to destroy the bunkers, which were designed to withstand heavy seismic activity. The remains of Aljabara above collapsed, though, as did most structures still standing after all this time. So now their relationship with 70 Ophiuchi was all but over. It would seem that Durus, or some other entity, did not want it to be anything more than a rogue planet. It would take them a long time to escape interplanetary space, but there was nothing they could do to stop it. They had no temporal energy, very little electricity in the reserves, and not a lot of time to repair the turbines. Fortunately, once they did make those repairs, they were up and running again. Through all this, Durus lived up to its name, and endured. Some suggested they change the government back from the Solar Democratic Republic, but most agreed it didn’t really matter right now. They had to focus on survival, and hope that something about their situation changed eventually.

Microstory 1494: Shutting the Stable Door

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The evidence was piling up that there was nothing the Durune could do to stave off their eventual total loss of temporal energy. By 2230, most people with powers had already lost them, and the rest could only use them sporadically and unpredictably. Time tech wasn’t reliable enough to be worth it either. There was no more teleportation, no more filter portaling, no more transdimensional living spaces. Aljabara was the only city on the planet that had built enough regular renewable energy to continue operating sans temporal manipulation. It was looking like a world without time powers was where they were headed, so everyone had to once again consolidate into one place. The outposts and distant settlements were entirely abandoned as everyone literally converged upon the Capital. They weren’t all crammed together, however. The most efficient living spaces available today were constructed underground. They were protected from the elements, easier to keep warm, and residents were able to spread out more without wasting energy, or taking as many resources as would be required for the same real estate above ground. Technology wasn’t nearly as advanced as it was on Earth right now, but engineers had learned enough to build these connected bunkers. They didn’t know what was going to happen to the world, but it was the best way to survive a number of disaster scenarios. Wind. Wind was their best friend, because without sun, without geothermal power, without fusion, without crazy temporal energy—wind would remain a constant. If they didn’t have wind anymore, it was because they didn’t have a planet, and there wasn’t really anything they could do about that anyway, because they weren’t anywhere near advanced enough to build exodus ships. They would just die, and that would be it. A normal fledgling world would be okay without any energy, but those all had host stars, and were at a quite minimal threat of losing them. At this point, there were one and a half million people, so the only way they were going to make it is if they fixed anything and everything that was wrong with their planet. People were still dying; their agelessness having long been stolen from them, presumably by the suns of 70 Ophiuchi. They still weren’t sure whether real sunlight was detrimental to their way of life, or if there was something particular about these stars. It didn’t really matter in the end, of course. They had no way of moving off to another star system, and even if they could, they weren’t confident about being able to survive the trip, even with their trusty wind turbines. A lot of things were capable of wiping them out while they were here, but it would be so much worse in interstellar space. At least they were still able to utilize solar panels while they were orbiting Ophiuchi A, which they had since named Calluna. Things were getting really rough, and everyone was making sacrifices. They would be nowhere, however, without the hard work of their ancestors, who fought for equality and justice. Without them, they would still probably be suffering the same problems, but they would not be armed with the tools necessary to combat them. They were a unified peoples now, and that was going to get them through this, even if it wouldn’t be very easy.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, July 7, 2122

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After Sanaa was done sending her time message through the phone using a fifty-two digit number, Holly Blue appeared. “Boy, am I popular today,” she said.

“We don’t mean to disturb you,” Mateo said to her.

“Don’t worry about it,” she replied. “Susan knows when my line’s busy. What can I do for ya? Where’s Leona?”

“She’s back in the main sequence,” Ellie began. “You see—”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Holly Blue interrupted. “I’ve known about the four concurrent realities this entire time.”

“You have?” Ellie questioned. “Did you not tell anyone about them?”

“Weaver strongly recommended that I keep it a secret,” Holly Blue said, referring to her alternate timeline counterpart. “What year was it for you when you left the main sequence?”

“July 6, 2121,” Sanaa answered.

“Ah,” Holly Blue said, “there’s no hurry in getting back in that case. Leona won’t be returning until July 8.”

“Really? Where is she?” Mateo was worried, but not in a panic.

“Oh, it’s fine. She just had to get to a meeting in the future. Mr. Fury approved it. Or rather, he doesn’t have much of a choice when it comes to her and her friends.”

Mateo wasn’t entirely sure what she was talking about, but he would discuss it with Leona later. They needed to return to the issue at hand. Time was running out for him to leave the Fourth Quadrant, whether Leona would be waiting for him or not.

“You seem to have some understanding of our situation here,” Ellie said to Holly Blue. “Do you know why we called you?”

“I don’t, but give me a second, and I may be able to guess.” Holly Blue narrowed her eyes, and looked around at everyone, letting her genius-level intellect fill in the blanks for her. “Based on the people who are here, I can surmise that Ellie has finally begun to realize her mission to save the residents of this reality.”

Ellie looked surprised.

“Yes, Miss Underhill,” Holly Blue went on, “I have access to information from alternate timelines. I know more about you than you care for others to remember. Don’t worry, I have no interest in divulging any of your secrets. Judging by the Cassidy cuffs on your wrists, I know that Jupiter did not fully approve of this mission, but he is allowing it. Or perhaps you actually need the cuffs, because everyone knows that Ariadna doesn’t use her powers herself.”

“Does everyone know what I can do?” Ariadna questioned, upset.

“Just everyone in this room,” Holly Blue answered. “Since Missy is here, obviously your plan is to reset the speed of time. It must be pretty important to you people, or Sanaa would not also be here. Do you guys know what she did to her?”

Ellie nodded, but everyone else shook their heads.

“Anyway, you called me, because President Orlova needs the energy that the time discrepancy provides—”

“Wait, you didn’t say anything about me,” Mateo pointed out, but he regretted it immediately.

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

“No,” Mateo said. He wasn’t there because he served some purpose, or was a clue to their situation in any way. He was just there because he had to be somewhere.

“How did I do?” Holly Blue asked the crowd.

“Can you help us?” Missy asked of her. “Can you adapt my ability to make temporal energy generators?”

“They would be more like a converter,” Holly Blue said, her voice rising in the end, like it was a question, but it wasn’t, because she was the one who knew what she was talking about. Then she sighed, and looked between Missy, and for some reason, Ariadna. “Your ability isn’t good enough,” she finally explained. “You can create temporal pocket dimensions.” She looked around, indicating the world in general. “This is a spatio-temporal pocket dimension. Or. Well. It’s not a pocket anymore, but whatever. My point is that you can neither create nor control spatial dimensions.” Now she quite deliberately faced Ariadna. “You, on the other hand...”

“Why does that matter?” Ariadna asked.

“I would need to adapt both of your time powers, and put them together.” Holly Blue raised her hands in front of her chest, and moved them to lock her fingers together at medium speed. “Both of you need to be involved in order for this to work. Otherwise, the bubbles won’t do these people any good.”

“Why not?” Ellie asked. “We don’t need to access the main sequence anymore. That’s just what they’re using now, because that’s how this reality was designed. If we separate from the main sequence, you can just build something that uses time bubble energy.”

Holly Blue shook her head. “You’re not getting it. The main sequence is self-sustaining. You’re stealing energy from it. The fact that they’re moving at different speeds is what powers the grid in this reality, but that only works because time flow on the other side is in turn powered by natural entropy. If Missy were to go off and create her own bubbles, they could not generate any power unless she continued to funnel energy into it from her end.”

“I’m lost,” Mateo said, “as per yuzhe.”

Holly Blue prepared to clarify herself. “Well, let me make a car analogy. Why don’t cars have small wind turbines, instead of using gas or batteries? While the car is driving, the wind flows into the turbine, which spins, and powers the motor.”

“Well, they’ve tried to build them, and they do exist, but they’re inefficient, because the turbines create drag, which means there’s more demand for more wind, and you can’t get over that. The more wind you try to put into it, the more drag you create, and it never ends.”

“Exactly,” Holly Blue agreed. “For Missy’s bubbles to be used to generate energy, she has to keep adding energy, which is fine, assuming her power is infinite, but that’s not what you’re asking me to do. My invention would not be self-sustaining. You wouldn’t be able to get more energy than what you put in to power the converters themselves. If you want me to build you something, it has to extract energy from a separate supply, just like they do now. Otherwise, you could plug  a surge protector into itself, and have infinite energy for no reason, and without paying into it.”

“Bottom line,” Ellie said, “can it be done?”

“Not without Ariadna. She has to consent to let me study her.”

They all waited patiently for Ariadna’s response. She never wanted to be involved in any of this, but from Mateo’s perspective, it was a no-brainer. She had the power to help, and she wasn’t doing anything else with her abilities, so who could say no? “Well, who could say no to that?” she revealed after building a little suspense.

Sanaa reached over, and nearly twisted Mateo’s arm off to check Leona’s watch. “We don’t have long to get out of here, or we’ll be stuck here for a month. So if this is all you need of us, we’re gonna slip back through.”

“How do we do that?” Mateo questioned. “Ellie needs Ariadna to get us back to The Parallel, but Holly Blue needs her to stay here, for however long until she finishes her new invention.”

“I can finish in a month,” Holly Blue said. “My invention can be built and tested within that time frame. She doesn’t have to stick around for us to mass produce it.”

“I really would love to see this all end,” Ellie announced.

“I can hang out here for a month. So can you,” Mateo scolded Sanaa.

Sanaa frowned. “Fine. But I want to stay on the opposite side of the city as her.” She didn’t gesture towards Missy, or even look at her, but she was the established target of all her hatred.

Holly Blue, Missy, and Ariadna stuck around, so President Orlova could find a lab for them to work in. She mentioned something about Duke Andrews, but something in her voice made Mateo worried that she was talking about a dead person. He, Sanaa, and Ellie followed their own escort to the suburbs, where they would be allowed to stay until it was time to return to the main sequence. They were only half surprised to find out that they were assigned to Fletcher House. Based on how Horace talked about it, a few people were left untouched when their enemy, Tauno Nyland created this reality. He copied every single person from Kansas City, and placed them here, except for him, Serkan, Paige, and maybe some others. The true owner of this house, Mercury Fletcher, was always assumed to be one of these other exceptions, but there wasn’t enough data to prove this one way or the other. Until now.

A man stepped out of the house to greet them in the driveway. A presumably different version of Mercury was at Mateo and Leona’s engagement party, so even though they didn’t know each other well, Mateo recognized that this was him.

Ellie shook his hand. “Congressman Fletcher, it is an honor to meet you.”

“Congressman?” Mercury asked, impressed. “It’s nice to know I go places.”

“I figured I ought to call you that, even though it was technically an alternate version of you who ran for office.”

“Please, just call me Mercury, or Dupe!Mercury. Or hell, even Dupe!Merc.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” the driver asked of him.

“Nah, go on and go home. Make sure your batteries are full, though. I would like to take these fine folks on a tour of our fair city tomorrow.”

“Very good, sir,” the driver said before leaving.

“We appreciate you letting us stay here,” Mateo said. “You have a lovely home.”

“Especially the basement,” Mercury agreed. “You each have a room down there. I don’t need to use it as a secret headquarters anymore.”

At the end of the summer in 2024, Mercury Fletcher sold his house, and downsized to something more appropriate while he pursued a career in civil service. Having been outed as the vigilante who was largely responsible for bringing gun violence statistics in the metropolitan area to nearly zero, he was lauded as a hero, and became quite popular around the country. Shortly after he left, a small team of time travelers moved into Fletcher House, and started using its facilities to save lives in the past. The Fourth Quadrant was created about a month before any of this, however, so this version of Mercury was still here.

Holly Blue was finished with her new creation in three weeks, but the window was not yet ready for them to return to the main sequence, so the stayed for the rest of the month. Unfortunately, calculations were a little fuzzy, so it turned out that Ellie was unable to see Missy take down the temporal bubble. Jupiter stepped in, and pulled everyone with a Cassidy cuff back to reality, which was July 7, 2122. They quickly jumped forward a year to find out the plan changed while they were gone. The temporal bubble wasn’t destroyed, but reversed.

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Microstory 965: Renewable Energy

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I’ve spoken so much about renewable energy, in this series, and in others, that I’m almost not sure I need to go over it again. It’s frustrating that so many people believe in clean energy, but apparently not the right people. I wasn’t aware until recently that the official political stance on climate change, for democrats and republicans alike, is tha—next question, please. Seriously, if they don’t outright deny climate change, then they still won’t explicitly admit that it’s real, or at least not that humans are the main drivers for it. I remember talking about this years ago with a conservative “friend”. He said that electric vehicles, for instance, require charging from the grid, which are powered by coal, natural gas, and other not-so-renewable sources. His reasoning was that they couldn’t help the environment as long as this true, so we might as well not try, and “hey, look at my gas guzzler, the hubcaps keep spinning!” And he’s not entirely wrong. The energy grid is a terribly inefficient system, and all but the worst way of accomplishing our energy requirements. Instead of building a giant central plant, and piping it all over a massive area, why don’t we build a bunch of tiny ones? In fact, why don’t we just let each household supply its own energy? The libertarians should be jumping all over this one, because instead of relying on the only power option available to me, solar and wind power companies can all vie for my business, no matter where they’re based. If I place solar panels and miniature wind turbines on my roof, and store excess in a wall battery, I can be energy self-sufficient. If I collect and filter my own rainwater, farm my own small garden, and print my own clothes using additive manufacturing, then I don’t need nobody but me. Some would call that a dream. Last year, power went out all over the city. I don’t even know how bad it was, but for some, it lasted for days. My parents and sister had to stay at a hotel one night, and at my place for another. I nearly slept in my downstairs twin bed, of all places. A twin bed! It was horrific. And it only happened because we’re all connected, so one thing goes wrong, and we all get screwed. So let’s fix these problems before they even happen, by investing in microgrids. The more people who start buying renewable solutions, the cheaper it becomes, and the more affordable it will be for people like me. In the end, isn’t that what really matters; what’s best for me?

Microstory 931: Gravity

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There are few things in the universe as important as gravity. One of them is spacetime, and the other—if it exists at all—is any underlying component of reality that allows for the creation, and persistence, of life in general. We have only studied organic life on Earth, as well as quasi-living entities we call viruses. There may be other forms of life beyond our single orbital we have yet to encounter, or which we have encountered, but do not recognize. One thing is for sure, however, in whatever form this other life takes, it would not be able to exist without gravity, because nothing can. Gravity is what holds celestial bodies together. People like to say that it “keeps us down to the ground” but that’s not a very reasonable way to put it. There is no up and down in space—and we are in space, just not outer space. So it’s more like gravity pulling us inward, and keeping us from going outward. The distinction matters, because it’s important to understand that a body gravitationally bound to another will always be pulled towards the center of  that more massive object. Why exactly it does this is something we’ve been struggling with for years. Contrary to the tale of the apple that has been misinterpreted into your brains, Isaac Newton did not discover gravity. At no point did someone have to realize that things fall down, or even that they don’t spontaneously float upwards. There are things like wind, lift, and pressure, which allow certain objects to move away from its gravitational pull, but that doesn’t mean gravity isn’t operating upon it. The reason those objects, like birds, are capable of resisting the effects of gravity to some degree is because gravity is a weak force. It’s the weakest force, because it takes a lot more to make it happen than it does to make the other forces happen.

If gravity were stronger, the computer you’re reading this on may be experiencing a gravitational pull towards the center of your body right now. There’s an episode of Family Guy that demonstrates this by having several household objects float around Peter, suggesting that he’s so fat, he’s massive enough to hold his own orbit. And while we know that such a thing is impossible in the real world, and Isaac codified a great deal of the basic properties of gravity, there is still so much more to learn. The scientists who know the most about it still don’t understand what gravity is, how it works, or why it’s so much weaker than the other three (or four) forces. They’ve proposed this particle called the graviton, but there’s no proof it even exists. What we do know is that it’s vital to the universe. I’ve read some sources that say if we didn’t have gravity, everything would just fall apart, but that’s only a helpful image when you’re trying to explain what would happen if gravity suddenly disappeared. The truth is that, without it, nothing meaningful would exist at all. Particles would just be floating around in empty space, never having come together to form something larger in the first place. Gravity has done a lot to work against us. Rocket ships expend the majority of their fuel just getting off the ground, and away from the atmosphere, in the first place. And we don’t even have it that bad. It’s conceivable that a species living on a heavy world would never develop technology capable of reaching space, because it would just not be practical to try. Still, gravity is one of my favorite things, because we will one day conquer it, and once we do that, nothing will be able to stop us from reaching greatness.

Microstory 851: Preacher Man

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Flying is difficult. It’s not like in the movies where someone will just jump up and go. It takes a lot of energy and concentration, and you’re always at risk of falling. In many of my dreams, I’m either capable of flight, or just jumping to incredible distances. Sometimes it’s a hybrid of these two abilities, allowing me to jump up really high, and then jump again while I’m still in the air. Most of the time, being able to do these things doesn’t seem strange at all. I’m living in a world where they’re possible, and my avatar doesn’t realize life could be any other way. But other times I’m lucid, and aware that I’m just dreaming. One thing I’ve learned about dreams is that they are also real. Dreaming literally transports you to other words, inhabiting new bodies, most of which are synthesized specifically for you, while others belong to preexisting characters. The majority of these dreams take place in unstable universes, which means they can only exist while you believe they do, and they collapse soon after you leave them. Other can exist permanently, or semi-permanently, and we tend to call them fictional stories. LOST, for instance, is about a group of very real people who exist in a parallel universe, and whose adventures are merely being reenacted by actors in our universe. Their world is self-sustaining, but limited to the scope necessary to tell the story. Other galaxies in the lostverse don’t exist, because they don’t need to. Not even the stars are real, because there is no plotline within the context of the story being told where travel to them, or even study of them, is mentioned. Now, as I said, the characters who live here don’t think any of this is strange, and are totally unaware that things are different in other universes, and that most of us think they’re not real. When a dream becomes lucid, you are reestablishing your consciousness in your own universe, while still maintaining a presence in the dreamverse. This acts to stabilize the dream world even more, allowing it to have a fighting chance of surviving past your morning alarm, though that is no guarantee. While in this state, you are to varying degrees capable of manipulating events to your liking. You are, at the very least, able to analyze your surroundings, and solve problems with the benefit of two personalities; those of your true self, and your dream counterpart.

I not infrequently become lucid during my dreams, and in one such instance, I was also able to fly, which gave me a sense of joy I could not usually feel in the real world. I encountered a preacher in this world, who told me that he was a real person in my world, and that if I found him when I was awake, he could teach me how to fly for real. He gave me his address and everything, so this was not a difficult task. I scheduled some last-minute vacation time for next week, which my boss wasn’t super happy about, but also not too upset. I got in my car and drove across the state to find this preacher, knowing full well that this was more than likely all in my head. I found myself to be wrong, though, when the preacher opened the door with a smile. He looked exactly like his avatar did, and claimed to have been waiting for me. We made use of my holiday, and immediately started my training. This involved meditation, sedatives, and a lot of time just standing on the roof of the church, “getting to know the wind.” After a week of this, much to my surprise, I started making some real progress. I could actually hover a couple meters over the ground, proving that this was all very real. The preacher man said my studies were over, and that I now had the tools to practice on my own. I went back home, suffered through work the next day, but went back to my exercises in the evening. And I continued to do this this every day, working extra hard on weekends, to get better and better. After months, I was able to fly anywhere in the area at will, still having to concentrate on what I was doing, but no longer afraid of falling to my death. I was midflight when I woke up in my bed, and realized all those lessons were simply another level to my dreams. Only a few hours had passed in the real world, and I hadn’t actually taken any vacation time. I was so disappointed, but out of desperation, instead of driving to work, I jumped off my backyard deck. And that’s how I became the real world’s first ever human capable of self-propelled flight. That’s right, folks, I can actually fly, and for twenty dollars a class....I can teach you too.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 2, 2148

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No one was torn out of time come August 2, 2148. During breakfast, Mateo kept doing a headcount, making sure that he wasn’t crazy. This wasn’t the first time Arcadia had broken her pattern—just saying that she does have any pattern may be a bit inaccurate—but still, this was making him nervous. What did she have in store for them? Was it good? Bad? Neutral? Was it a break? Were he and Leona meant to have their honeymoon now? After they were done eating, the two of them went out for a swim in the lake that The Cleanser had used for the Six Days Seven Nights tribulation. Leona had convinced him that there was no use fretting about the possibilities. When they had an opportunity to rest and relax, they needed to take it, and not worry about secret plans.

“I suppose we could use some time to talk,” he said while slowly slipping into the water.

“Yeah, we’re married, and we never talk about it,” she agreed.

“Are you wishing we weren’t?”

“No. It wasn’t right that she forced it on us, but I’m happy it happened. I want to be married to you. We’ve been together for thousands of years.”

He chuckled at the remark, knowing that saying it had been thousands of years wasn’t really doing their situation justice. “We’ve not really taken time to go over the Serif thing, though.

“Oh, are you still in love with her?”

He was silent at first. The three of them cared for each other deeply, but it wasn’t an equal bond. Though Mateo now knew that Serif didn’t exist until a few days ago, his memories of her from before that remained intact. He could remember when they met, and how their relationship developed. Leona’s feelings grew at the same time, and they eventually had to admit that the best way to describe it was polyamory. Even as such, though, Mateo and Leona were the primaries, with Serif being a third-wheel. That wasn’t an insult, though, as it was Serif who made this claim for herself. She called them collectively a tadpole tricycle, which was a design that involved having two wheels in the front, and one in the back. “Without me,” he falsely recalled her having once said, “the tricycle falls apart. Two wheels in that configuration are completely unstable. But have no fear, because a tricycle with two wheels is a bicycle. You would simply have to redesign the relationship to account for my absence.”

“I guess she should be included in this conversation. I didn’t forget about her, but I sort of avoid talking to her about it, because I know she’s all right. I know she’s not upset about our marriage, or that she wasn’t part of it. That’s just the kind of person she is. You would love her, Leona. If you gave her a chance, you would feel as I remember you feeling.”

“Well, that’s the thing. If what you two say is right, and that my memories of her were somehow corrupted, then all we should have to do is finish the expiations. If I’m really supposed to love her, then my memories of her should return, along with those of everyone else we’ve lost.”

“Rrrrriiiiight, well...”

“Well, what?”

Well those memories can’t return to you because they don’t exist. Mateo was saved by the bell when none other than Serif burst out of the bushes.

“There’s a boat!” she called down to them. “Whoever’s on it has probably gotten to the beach by now.”

They ran through the jungle, and then down the beach to find a sailboat anchored far off shore. Passengers were still on their way in three inflatable motor boats. The islanders stood there in shock, not knowing whether the people who had arrived were friendlies, or else.

The group of newcomers smiled kindly, though, so things were looking up. The oldest one extended his hand in friendship, which Leona took hesitantly.

“We have been granted passage to your island so that we may thank you for saving our lives. We’ve been waiting to do this for many years.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“The children. In Petrovichi.” He gestured to his group, all of whom were smiling as warmly. “You made a tea for us that cured us of our disease.”

“But you died. We watched you,” she argued. “Some of you, at least.”

“It just made us look dead so our parents would let us go. We were then brought to this world where we’ve lived ever since.”

“How did we not know about you,” Darko asked.

“We weren’t allowed to come here until you had experienced your time in 1921. It’s a big planet. You’ve not seen it all. In fact, you’ve seen very little.”

“It must have been hard for you to grow up alone like that,” Mateo said.

“We weren’t alone. Not by a longshot. This world is teeming with life. We are not here just to thank you, actually. We’re here to take you there so you can see for yourself.”

“Is this an expiation?” Mateo asked.

The leader stared at him. “I don’t know what that means.”

They all piled into the inflatables and then onto the sailboat, including Marcy and Dar’cy. It was a little tight, but they were all able to fit with decent breathing room. “Are we gonna get there before the three of us jump into the future?” Serif asked, not thinking until that moment that these people may not have any idea what their pattern was.

“Ira,” the leader, whose name was Anisim, said.

Ira knew exactly what he meant just by him saying her name. Through the little window, Mateo could see her fiddling with the instruments.

“Best hold on to somethin’,” Anisim recommended.

Just as Mateo grasped some kind of metal bar, the boat flew into superspeed. He looked down to see the water flying away from them faster than it should have been possible for any boat. The clouds were doing the same. The wind, on the other hand, was a different story. It was definitely coming at them at a high rate, but not as high as it should have been for as fast as they were moving. This was a magical boat, one that was capable of subverting the traditional laws of real-time. It probably operated on the same principle as Serkan and Horace’s friend and speedster, the mysterious masked K-Boy.

Anisim smiled at the newbies and their dumb newbie reactions. “It would take us days without the cylicone design,” he explained. “It’ll get even weirder once we reach land, though.”

“What happens then?” Darko asked.

Anisim just smiled wider.

About an hour later, they could see land up ahead, and were coming upon it too fast. They would either have to slow down soon, or the magic boat was even more magical, and could stop instantly without throwing them all overboard. The islanders tightened their grips and kind of leaned back and squinted. They couldn’t help but not fully trust the mainlanders to not kill them all. Their fears were unwarranted, of course, but it was true that the boat never stopped. It kept flying over the land, as if it were simply more ocean. It started to twist and turn through trees, around mountains, and even between buildings. Yes, there was a city of highrises, and even skyscrapers. If this was just the coastal city, what did the rest of it look like? How many people lived here, and exactly how advanced we they? He couldn’t see too many details at their current speed, but he did see people walking around. Some of them watched the boat fly by them, but no one appeared to be shocked by it. This could have been an entire world of people who experienced the manipulation of time on a regular basis. How did they not know this place existed? How long had they been there?

A half hour later, the boat slew down to more comfortable speeds, and finally came to a stop. They were in a region of the mainland called Sutvindr, which Anisim described as the Kansas of Dardius. It hadn’t occurred to Mateo to name the planet that he supposedly owned, but he was glad he never did. That was a good name, and it would have made things weird for it to have more than one. But then he started thinking about the fact that there were so many people living here. It wasn’t really his at that point anyway, nor was it ever Gilbert’s. It was easy to own it when the Tribulation Island was the only area populated, but now that he discovered there to be so much more, that all seemed even crazier than it had before.

“How many people live here?” Leona asked. They were standing at the edge of another city.

“A few billion,” Anisim answered. “Maybe four? I guess don’t really know.”

“That’s half the population of Earth when we first left,” she pointed out. They’re all refugees?”

“I guess you could call us that. But not all anymore. The majority of people here are descendants of these...refugees. They’re not all from the same timeline, and not everyone is human. We even have a subpopulation of Dardieti natives that we didn’t know about when the world was first settled fifty-two years ago. They did not yet have complex language, but now they’re productive members of society.”

“You did all this in half a century?” Lincoln asked, impressed.

“Eh, time...right?” was all that Anisim said.

“How long do we get to stay here?” Marcy asked. “There can’t possibly be enough time to see everything.”

“For you there will be,” Anisim said. “For these three,” he added, gesturing to Mateo, Leona, and Serif, “not really. I believe we have you for the next three or so years.”

“Wow,” Dar’cy said, eyes wide.

“Where do we start?”

“Come on.” Anisim motioned for them to follow as he walked off. “Mateo National Park is just up ahead.”

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