Microstory 740: Credos, Convention Eleven: Collegiality

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When the wandering child lifted his leg from the tenth canister, he looked upon the next two. They could hardly be called canisters. Sure, they had some depth, but they were long and shallow. He looked upon himself and realized he had not quite run out of body parts. He still had his back, and his stomach. “This is an unusual quest,” he said to himself. “How many other quests have you been on?” the fish woman asked him from the aether, even though the magic communication cup was not filled with water. She had a good point, though, so he continued with his task by opening the eleventh canister. He recognized the young man of this story, for his story had already been told. He was the same man from the lesson about cordiality. He had had trouble finding a job, because he did not want to engage in dull conversations with the interviewers. He ended up having to learn to fake his way through it, and succeeded. He was now part of a team, but was still struggling. All he would do is sit at his desk, with his headphones on, and complete the work that was assigned to him. He would go to the meetings he was scheduled for, and listen to the presenters with respect, but never engage with his colleagues. Then it was the time of the year when the sections heads had to make personnel decisions. Some were going to lose their jobs, and others were going to receive promotions. The awkward man’s manager pulled him into her office to have a chat. This was it, he knew he would be let go, and have to find a whole new job.

“We are not letting you go,” his manager said, much to the awkward man’s relief. “But we are also not promoting you.” It wasn’t the worst news in the world, but it also wasn’t the best. His productivity was higher than anyone else’s. By anyone’s measure, he was the best worker in the department. That promotion should be his. “It’s not that you are not productive,” his manager said, as if reading his mind. “You are a very hard worker, and you make few mistakes, but that is not all it takes to be part of the team.” “What else does it take?” the awkward man asked. “You have to actually participate in that team. You have to have conversations around the proverbial water cooler. You have to go out for drinks after hours.” The boy interrupted her, “does everything that’s required of me involve fluids?” This did not seem like a joke to the awkward man, but it did seem funny to his manager, and she laughed. “This is not so,” she said. “I’m not telling you specific things that you must do, but giving you ideas of what you can do to improve your standing in this department. People around here expect some level of collegiality. Honestly, I barely knew who you were when I read your name on my evaluations list. Your numbers speak for themselves, but it is your actions that must be doing the talking. You must show that you belong here, and that you want to be here. The work itself simply cannot be your only concern. Promotions come for people who have the potential to be leaders. A leader speaks to his colleagues, and I have not so far seen that from you.” “I understand,” the awkward man said, even though he didn’t. Calling upon the advice from his parents when he was interviewing in the first place, the awkward man began to fake his interest in what he perceived to be the pointless social aspect of the job. And though no one grew to like him, and he was never good enough to earn promotions, he did earn wage increases, and maintained his steady position until the day he retired.

Microstory 739: Credos, Convention Ten: Congeniality, Chapter Two

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What the town did not know was that their dealings were being watched by a visiting alien from another planet. This alien was intelligent, and powerful, and his morals were fundamentally unfathomable to the people in the town, or the rest of their planet. He felt that it was his obligation to teach this world how he believed they should behave. They needed to be punished for how they had treated the doctor. With a great sense of irony, he set upon the town, and its neighbors, an epidemic. Nearly everyone in the region was infected with the pathogen, for which there was no apparent cure. It discolored their blood, and saturated it with harmful fluids. They had not encountered anything like it before, and none of their home remedies was working. Fortunately, no one was dying from this, but they were still in such incredible pain. It was after two days when someone broke through their delirium to remember that the rude doctor actually specialized in infectiology, which meant if anyone could have figured out the cure, it would have been him. “O,” they cried, “how foolish we have been. This must be the fury of The Dying Light, here to end our world.” But this was not so, it was only a person, flesh and blood, who had done this to them. Feeling more resentful about some other entity receiving credit for his doings that he thought he would, the alien who had infected them stepped forward and made himself known. He removed his modifications that allowed him to look like them, and spoke to the crowd. “This is what you have done. You have brought this upon yourselves. Are you better than the man you shunned, and indirectly killed? Your hearts were filled with as much hate as his, and now you must accept the consequences. Now it is your hearts that will kill you.” He raised a device about the size of a pen. “With this, I will exact my final solution. For now, the pathogen causes painful symptoms, but not death. With the push of this button, that shall change.” Then what appeared to be a female counterpart to the alien stepped up onto the stage. She had been visiting another town during this whole ordeal, completely unbeknownst to the male alien. With one look, she caused him to doubt himself, and he dropped the death device. And she spoke to the crowd, and him, “what these people need is example. They cannot learn to be better if they’re dead, can they? What you people lack...is congeniality, and to understand this, I will show you what it looks like.” And they believed she would simply provide for them the cure for the alien disease, and she did, but that was not all. She also invited them to her ship, where she transported them to her homeworld. There they lived in peace in a society that had moved completely beyond negative traits, such as jealousy and discordancy. Everyone was loved.

Microstory 738: Credos, Convention Ten: Congeniality, Chapter One

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The small town had but one physician. This physician hated everybody, but put up with them, because he had a monopoly on the market. Since he was the only medical professional around, he knew he could do whatever he wanted with his patients. He could charge whatever he wanted, lazily prescribe medication, or even refuse to see them at all, if he just didn’t feel like it. Everyone hated him back, but of course, there was little they could do about it. Though there were other physicians in the region, they had struck secret deals with each other, to prevent any one of them from gaining an edge over the others. Plus, traveling to these other towns was often not worth the trouble. Though no one was outwardly racist, citizens of the other towns tended to be rather opposed to visitors. One day, the rude physician fell ill himself, but was unable to carry out his own treatment. He tried to self-medicate, but nothing was working. He would have to go far away to find a peer, but he was in no condition to operate a vehicle. He started stumbling around town, asking people for transport, but no one was nice enough to agree. He contacted other physicians, asking them to come to him instead, but they all rejected him. It was the rude physician’s idea to unethically keep prices high, and not compete with each other, and this was causing them their own problems. No one wanted to help, and the rude physician eventually wandered into the woods, and died.

Microstory 737: Credos, Convention Nine: Commitment, Chapter Two

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For a long time, the girl was embarrassed of her shameful jalaxian harmony bowl performance. She immediately gave it up, and fell into a depression, spending her days in self-pity and remorse. Her father decided that she needed to get out of her own way, and stay busy. If she couldn’t play the jalaxian harmony bowl, then maybe she needed to help other people play it. Though he was not known for designing the bowls himself, he was an accomplished metal worker, and knew he could figure out how to do it. He brought her on board for a new department in his small business, where they learned to make harmony bowls together. She took to the trade quite well, enjoying the tediousness and focus that metalwork forced her to adopt. She was starting to think that she should go into the family business permanently once she was finished with her general studies. Meanwhile, her infamous recital piece was uploaded to the global network so that anyone and everyone could see it, and make fun of her. Some of the comments on her video were offensive, but many were more playful. A not insignificant number of people were actually suggesting that she become a comedian. Those closest to her made their own remarks, saying that what she lacked in talent for the harmony bowl, she made up for in her stage presence, and comedic timing. When she wasn’t in school, or building harmony bowls with her father, she was practicing her comedy act at local establishments. This was becoming difficult to manage, however. She never had time to sleep. Her studies faltered, her work at the factory was subpar, and her comedy routines were rather weak. She asked her mother, “what am I to do? I cannot handle all this at once. But I must study to earn my degree, and I have an obligation to the factory, and comedy is my passion.” The mother sat down and spoke. “You are trying to do too much. You cannot divide your attention to so many things at once. If you want to be good at any one of them, you must devote all of your time to it.” “But what will happen to the other two things?” the girl asked. Her mother answered, “you will not be able to do all three. You must decide what is most important to you.” “I don’t know what that is,” the girl said, “they’re all important.” “I cannot choose for you.” So the girl made the decision on her own. She stopped working at the factory, and started concentrating most substantially on her education. She continued to work on her comedy, but only when she had extra time, for no matter what she ended up doing with her life, she would need her degree to fall back on. When she grew up, she refocused her efforts back on comedy, committing to her skill with vigor. She utilized what she learned in school to make her jokes more meaningful and thought-provoking, able to make references to history and pop culture she would not have been able to without a well-rounded education. She even incorporated a little manufacturing into her routines, building her own custom-made props to accentuate the skits. And she became one of the most famous comedians in her world.

Microstory 736: Credos, Convention Nine: Commitment, Chapter One

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The wandering boy lifted his lower leg from the canister. “Wow, these stories all seem to be about people working together.” He filled his special communication cup with water and sought help from the fish woman. “What am I to learn from these canisters?” he asked. “They all seem to be teaching me the same thing.” “Be patient, my child,” the fish woman said. “You will understand, but you must finish the canisters first.” “Has anyone else been on this quest before? Or am I the first? If so, will I be the only?” “The canisters are meant for but one. They are meant for you. Others have tried, but failed to learn. Because of this, they have lost the new light...and have lost themselves. You must complete the task, and you must figure out what it means.” “I will,” the boy affirmed. “I will.” And so the boy placed his leg into the much deeper ninth canister, and watched the next lesson, which was much shorter than the others. There was a girl who wanted to play the jalaxian harmony bowl for scores of people. But she never wanted to practice. She dreamed of the day when she would be able to walk on stage and start playing and everyone would be soothed and happy by her music. But she didn’t understand what it took to get to that point. She figured all she had to do was decide to become a jalaxian harmony bowlist, and one day, she would be good enough. She failed to recognize all the hard work in between. Her teacher kept asking her to work harder, but she would not listen. She could not hear her own notes; that she was not playing them correctly. Finally the day of her first recital was upon her. Still she thought she was good enough to play, for she had never truly listened to herself. The performance was a disaster. She made a fool out of herself, and made it awkward for everyone else. She had not committed to her trade, and because of this she could never be great.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 12, 2158

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There was nothing special about the twelfth day in August of the year 2158. That it was Mateo’s last in existence did not matter much to the universe. When most people die, the worlds keep spinning, despite what others may feel about it. In this case, not even people would recognize that something was wrong, or different. Everything would just continue as if he had never existed, and any impact Mateo had on history would be reattributed to someone, or something, else. There was something liberating about that. It reminded him of his great grandfather’s death. Mateo was very young at the time, but he remembered vividly a conversation he witnessed between the man that everyone called Grandaddy Kai. He was a proud man who had sacrificed so much for his family that he never wanted to leave them. Mateo’s mother, Carol was not blood-related to Kai, but she took just as much care of him in his final days as anyone else, if not more. She told Kai that the family would be okay once he was gone. He was in so much pain, and the only reason he held on, whether he understood this or not, was because he thought everyone needed him too much. And they loved him, and they wanted him to stay, but his time was nearing, and he would need to let go. He raised fine children, who raised fine children of their own, who were still raising their own, using skills they ultimately learned from him. He could leave, because his job was done.

Mateo’s departure was not like this. Like everyone else, at least when he was first growing up, his time was not infinite. He too would one day die, whether this all happened to him or not. But no one needed to have a conversation with him about how they would survive without him. It wasn’t clear what lessons or feelings he would leave behind, or rather what exactly time would do with those experiences. He could take comfort in the fact, though, that his exit would not leave a hole in anyone’s heart. Not even Leona would feel a loss, and this made it easier for him to leave. “We need to spend every single second of today together,” Leona said, but was this true? You spend time with the people you love so you can remember those moments, and reflect on them later out of joy. Since this couldn’t happen with her, what did that matter?

“Without memories, what we do today is irrelevant,” Mateo said. “Neither of us will know a difference.”

“I’m still holding out hope,” Leona said in response. “I may one day get you back, you never know.”

The Superintendent would have to arbitrarily decide that this was going to happen,” Mateo calmly contended. “You certainly won’t be able to fight for it yourself.”

“I don’t believe that. Doesn’t your religion claim the soul to be real. If it is, maybe other people’s effect on it is not as easily erased as the mind is.”

“That may be, but you still won’t know what you’re missing, which means you won’t know where to look.”

“I dunno, I’m pretty smart. Maybe I’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe. But let us not worry about that. And let us not admit that this is an end. I’d like us to just go about our day as if it were like any other. I don’t want to eat a salmon dinner for the last time, or drive a muscle car for the last time, or even kiss you for the last time. Those...those symmetries are nothing more than illusions, especially when considering our unique situation.”

“So what do you wanna do today?”

“I just wanna relax.”

She sighed, and said nothing else.

“Mateo!” Gilbert’s voice came from down the beach. “Hey, Mateo!” He was waving excitedly, nearly dragging Zeferino Preston with him. As they got closer, they could see that the two of them were handcuffed together. Island dwellers thought it was weird, but not enough to ask questions. Everyone watched for a few seconds, and then just shrugged it off.

Mateo and Leona ran down to meet him halfway. “What are you doing?”

“I caught a big fish for ya,” Gilbert said proudly.

Zeferino just snarled.

“How old are you?” Mateo asked.

“It’s not polite to ask a lady her age,” Zeferino spit.

“Where have you been?”

“The Superintendent sent me back almost 2,000 years. I occasionally find someone who lets me hitch a ride to another planet, but I’ve mostly just been walking around this whole time, completely powerless, like an animal.”

“That’s a decent life,” Gilbert said, pulling his captive up so he couldn’t sit down to rest. “Even longer than mine when you add it all together.”

“What’s this about, Gilbert?” Mateo asked.

“I hear you’re going away,” Gilbert said.

“I am.” Mateo nodded his head. “I don’t suppose you two will be able to remember me.”

“Not this time buddy.” Gilbert shook his head. “That’s sort of why I’m here.”

“Oh?”

Gilbert continued, “I don’t like you leaving with loose ends. When you’re gone, the two of us should be too.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s time,” Gilbert said. “No one should live forever who’s done the kinds of things we have. I appreciate you getting me out of the extraction mirror. I’m sure Zeffy here does too.”

Zeferino said nothing.

“Zeffy!”

“Yes!” he shouted. Then he quieted down, “thank you. You didn’t have to do that. You would have found some other way to get Darko back, I’m sure.”

Gilbert redirected his attention to Mateo. “We’re all going back to Glubbdubdrib where the two of us will be reinserted into the last moments of our respective deaths.”

“Is that necessary?” Mateo asked. “Can’t you just...live forever?”

“We’ve gotten lucky,” Gilbert explained. “If I die before going back to the mirror, I create a paradox. Same goes for this asshole.” He had to pull Zeferino up again to prevent him from resting. “What’s done is done. It’s created the reality we live in now. Don’t get me wrong, I have a long history of changing reality, but I don’t wanna do that anymore, especially not when it comes to you. He’s even more dangerous outside of the mirror. His death is marked by the hound, which is a metaphor I made up just now to describe people who have died under conditions of the hundemarke. Like I said, we’ve lived long lives, and they are already over. We just have to make it official.”

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Mateo pressed.

“No,” Zeferino answered instead.

“Shut the f—” Gilbert breathed in, and then out. “Yes.”

“Well, I can’t say I’ll miss you,” Mateo said, trying to laugh through the pain.

“I will,” Leona said.

“As will I,” Horace said as he was coming up to them.

“Did you hear all of that?” Gilbert questioned.

Horace took out a set of ear plugs. “Ellie gave these to me as a wedding present many years ago. She calls them bergbuds, but I don’t know why.”

“You little spy,” Mateo said with a smirk.

“Some things never change,” Horace said. “And good thing I was listening. I was able to call in a favor, so you won’t have to paddle to the palace...like an animal.”

Lifeless barrens magically appeared over the water, and floated towards them. Once they were all standing on the other side of the merge point, the beach disappeared, leaving them only a kilometer or so away from their destination.

“Thank you, Kayetan!” Mateo called out to the aether.

“Fuck off!” an echo of Kayetan replied without showing his face. They were never going to be friends. Well, after today, they couldn’t anyway.

The five of them started walking towards Palace Glubbdubdrib, but didn’t say a word on the way. There really was nothing to say. Mateo might have expected Zeferino to burn off some gallows humor, as he was known to do, but perhaps it wasn’t so funny when they were marching towards his death. He was literally born to live for eternity, and probably never considered his own mortality. Back when his death first happened, things were moving too quickly for him to process it, but now that it was about to happen again, his mind was probably racing with thoughts of fear, and regret.

They entered the palace, and walked down the corridors to the mirror room. A man was waiting for them, in front of the extraction mirror, which was already paused on the final moment of Zeferino’s death.

“Darrow?” Gilbert asked upon seeing the man. “What are you doing here?”

“Hello, Boyce,” Darrow said. “I am the bringer of death. I am present at the end of all salmon and choosers.”

“I...did not know that. You’re supposed to be The Maverick.”

“No, that’s not what I’m supposed to be, that’s just what I am. What my job originally entailed was to pull people from the brink of death if the powers that be weren’t done with them. They came up with more sophisticated means of doing this, so they abandoned me, and I struck out on my own. I came here today, because extractions are easy, but insertions take a little more finesse. They require a talent that none of you possesses.”

“Then thank you,” Gilbert said.

“First subject,” Darrow said, stepping aside to let Zeferino through.

“Am I entitled to some final words?” Zeferino asked.

“Yes,” Mateo said, but before Zeferino could speak more, Mateo pushed him through the mirror. “And those were pretty good ones.”

“Would you like to watch?” an apathetic Darrow asked.

“No, thank you,” Leona said.

Darrow reached up to the edge of the opening, and switched the view of the extraction mirror to Gilbert’s death.

“What about me?” Gilbert asked.

“You may have as much time as you need to say whatever you need to say,” Mateo assured him. “Or you can back out. No judgment, really.”

“I die here today, but it will not be the first time,” Gilbert began. “It will simply be the last. I have been given many opportunities to improve as a person, and have squandered the majority of them, if not all.”

Mateo was going to argue against that, but this was Gilbert’s moment. He had to say his peace.

“But there is hope. If I had been born a girl, my parents would have named me Quivira. As the timeline gods would have it, this is the truth of the timeline we’re in now. Quivira Boyce is a flawed, strong, beautiful woman. She dedicated her life to jumping through time, using her powers to help everyone she can. She is what I should have been, and I’m glad that this universe...will remember me as her.” He was tearing up. “Mateo..Leona, I thank you for your understanding. For your patience. For your love. When all I ever gave you was reason to doubt me. I have lived many lives, but the best two were the ones when we were friends, the ones when I was just me. I cherish the relationship you allowed to grow between us. I only wish I had some way to repay everything you’ve given me. Instead, Leona, I’ll give you some advice. Remember.” With that, Gilbert Boyce stepped into the insertion mirror...and vanished.

Darrow slid his hand on the edge of the opening again, revealing an image of Tribulation Island. “Fear not,” he said. “I can insert anyone anywhere, to any time; this doesn’t mean you’ll die. It’s just a portal back to your home.”

Leona looked up at Horace. “Is this our home?” she asked.

“Do we have another?” Horace asked back.

“I would much like to return to Earth, I believe,” she acknowledged.

“I can switch you to that,” Darrow said.

“We’ll find a way back on our own,” Horace said. “There is still much to do on the island. We have to get Serif anyway.”

“Of course,” Leona agreed. “Thanks for coming with me to see them off. I know you have mixed feelings about Gilbert.”

“I loved him as strongly as I love anyone else in our family,” Horace replied.

The two of them locked arms and stepped through the portal together.

That evening, Leona revisited the idea of finally getting off this planet at dinner. It was a huge feast that included everyone there at the time, though they couldn’t all fit at the big table. Dar’cy and Lincoln had long since returned from their trip to see friends in Sutvindr. Mario, on break for a few days, was excited to tell everyone what kind of person Winston Churchill was. His wife, Lita revealed an admiration for the historical figure. Aura, Samsonite, and Téa were wondering why they didn’t expand the island as a resort to attract tourists from the mainland. Baudin was open to starting talks about such a thing.

Paige Turner was happy with her job in the Hall of Records, but was quite interested in Leona’s plan to go back to Earth, as was Dar’cy. The latter had spent some time in two now-collapsed timelines, but very little in this reality.

“What do you think, Serif?” Leona asked.

“I go wherever you go, Leona Matic,” Serif said with a loving smile. “Were I you.”

“Were I you,” Leona echoed.

They kissed.

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The Burning of Effigy: Chapter Three

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I take one last look at all the places I’ve lived recently. The upgrades that Ezqava willed into existence are still there, clustered in one area. There’s the tent, the cabin, the cottage, the mobile home, the tiny home, the small home, the farmhouse, and the really nice house. Her mind had already started construction on a tower, on top of which would be a penthouse, where we would live. The three of us were about to transport decades, possibly centuries to the future, and I don’t know if this will still be standing when we get back. It’s not like I spent a whole hell of a lot of time here, but I still feel close to them. Hell, she even built a treehouse, probably birthed by a stray thought she had one day about the possibility of raising children—and I’m just now realizing it must be the same treehouse Hokusai Gimura sought refuge in sometime in the future. Of course.

Effigy appears next to me as I’m reflecting. “I keep forgetting how slow and inefficient humans are.”

“And I need to remember how impatient and irritating your species can be,” I reply.

“We are the Maramon,” Effigy says. “She’s not told you much about us, has she?”

“No. She’s just learned to speak.”

“Faster than I did it. In the original timeline, I had to do it alone.”

“How is that possible, without any humans?”

“I get glimpses of Earth.”

“I see.”

“Are you ready to go?”

“Yes. Where’s Ezqava?”

“Right in here,” Effigy says, pointing to her own chest.

“The hell you talkin’ ‘bout?”

“We merged.”

“What!?”

She exudes a hippy disposition. “We are now...as one.”

“So she’s dead?”

“No, man, aren’t you listening? We’re now just one person. I absorbed her memories, and she mine, and now we’re just one person.”

“Why would you do that?”

“It was the right thing to do. You shouldn’t have two versions of yourself running around the same time period, it’s irresponsible.”

“Don’t you get it? She is dead. She had an identity that was independent of you, and you stole that from her.”

“It was consensual, asshole. My body, my choice.”

“Oh, don’t you throw that it my face, there’s no comparison.”

“Well it’s done. I am no longer just Effigy. I am Ezqava Eodurus, a.k.a. Effigy.”

“I can’t trust you, though. She wanted to help people, to make things better. Now she’s been corrupted...by you.”

“Ah, but you’re forgetting that it goes both ways. I hold properties of her. I’m now a far nicer person, because of her.”

“I want to believe that,” I say.

“Do you?”

This was getting me nowhere, so I just have to let it go. I don’t bother asking her if it can be reversed, because even if it can, she won’t do it. I have to remember that I only knew Ezqava for a short while, so we weren’t incredibly close. I have to focus on the mission, which is to close this portal, any way I can. I suppose the main trouble is that I was counting on Ezqava to back me up so that Effigy doesn’t betray us. Now I’m just alone. Effigy, or whatever it is I’m supposed to call her now, places her hand on my shoulder, and we transport away.

We’re in some little house. A woman is hovering over a crib, letting a baby squeeze her finger.

“Can she not see us?” I ask Effigy.

“No, it’s just like when that Screener woman was tossing you around time,” she replies.

“I can feel you there,” the woman with the baby says. She takes her hand from the baby, who is okay with that. She starts sort of miming in the space between us, like she’s worried about touching an electrified invisible box. “You’re somewhere around here. Sanela? Is that you?”

“We should be going,” I say. “The portal won’t fix itself, I don’t imagine.”

“I just need to recharge first,” Effigy says vaguely.

“What do you mean?”

“The portal’s not here. In fact, it would be closed by now. We’ve jumped further in the future than I wanted.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I can’t control it,” Effigy explains. “My power is sort of trial and error, which is why I try not to do it too much. You’ve seen that, otherwise Ezqava would have just created a condo or mansion as soon as she got to this world.”

“So we’re invading this woman’s privacy on accident.”

“Exactly,” Effigy says. “But it’s okay, Saga deals with this stuff all the time. She’s fine.”

“You can go now,” Saga says, going back to playing with the baby. “I’m not going to kill myself, if that’s what you’re worried about. Étude means too much to me.” She smiles at the child, but in a sad way.

“What happened?” I ask Effigy.

“Before you get upset, I didn’t do anything. Her heartache is her own. It’s...a pretty bad situation. Fortunately, I’m ready to make another jump.” She takes my shoulder, and we leave.

I find myself once again in the presence of Smith, the one who was pursuing Hogarth and her friends. Though that was sometime in the future, and I know this, because Smith still has his face intact.

A henchman I don’t know if I’ve seen before approaches Smith. “Sir, the kids are crying in harmony. We believe there to be a time anomaly somewhere around here.”

“Not monsters, though?” Smith questioned.

“No, it’s in a major key.”

“Interesting. Is Hogarth’s machine operational yet?”

“No, sir, our spies indicate that they are still months away, at best.”

“Perhaps she has returned to us earlier than predicted. This is good for us. Get me a glitchhound. We’ll search the area.”

“It’s already on the way.”

“Excellent,” Smith says so villainously that it isn’t even ironic. It’s like he read a listicle of every good antagonist, and is trying to emulate their worst common qualities with absolute sincerity.

An approximation of a dog tears into view, sniffing all around. It’s deformed and ethereal. It warps and shudders and gleams and melts, and sometimes looks more like a cat. It’s like a computer program with more bugs than good code.

“Don’t. Move,” Effigy orders out of the corner of her mouth.

“I can see why the call it a glitchhound,” I say out of the corner of mine.

“That’s not why they call it that,” Effigy says, displaying real levels of fear, which is something I didn’t think she could feel. Maybe she really has become more like the Ezqava I knew. “It seeks glitches.”

“Oh.”

“Bran, we’re the glitches.”

“Oh. Oh. Are you recharged yet?”

“No.”

“Then we should go.”

“If we move, it will sense us faster. Right now, our temporal anomaly is localized to one place, which can be a problem for them, but they’re also common. Tears in the spacetime continuum open and close all the time, most of them aren’t created by people. If we move, though, it’ll show that the glitch isn’t natural.”

“What will it do if it finds us?”

“It will lick my face and try to get me to play with it.”

“Yeah, but seriously,” I request.

“No, really,” she explains. “Glitchhounds were once just regular hounds. On my world, we called them tekachorl, which roughly translates to cheerful wolf. When they crossed the portal barrier, they became this.”

“You brought animals too?”

“I opened the portal. I didn’t decide who came through. Had it not been for...” she trails off.

“What?” I press.

“They weren’t meant to come corrupted like this. I never wanted any of this.”

“We don’t have time to talk about it. How do we get the glitchhound to leave us alone?”

“We can run a retroprep.”

“Which is...?”

“Which is when a future version of yourself comes back in time and saves you, so that you can live on, and one day go back in time and save yourself.”

“That sounds complicated.”

Suddenly the man who once escorted Sanela to meet me in Vearden’s safehouse appears through his own glitch in the continuum. He’s completely prepared for this, leaning down and patting his knees. “Come here,” he says in a sing-songy voice. “Come here, boy. That’s a good boy.”

The excited glitchhound gets in herding position, and strafes side to side, trying to confuse his playmate. Then he breaks free of his captor’s leash, and runs towards—Juan is his name, I remember now. Once the corrupted animal tackles Juan, they both fall back through the temporal anomaly and disappear.

“Was that you?” I ask. “Do you send him back sometime later?”

“I don’t even know who that is,” Effigy answers. “I can’t imagine I do that, but it’s possible, I can’t rule it out.”

“Who the hell was that!” Smith shouts to his frightened subjects.

“Looks like we’re safe,” Effigy says to me. “I’m charged up now, so we can go.”

“Go where? To the next mistake?”

“You have a better idea? How accurate is your time traveling?”

“Sanela spoke of this. You have to find a grasp of the timeline. You have to understand time first, or it will always dictate when and where you are.”

“That’s...actually not bad, Kally. You’re smarter than you look.”

“Just, try it. Do it differently than you normally do.”

Before we can leave, I feel something on my hip. I look down to see a small child reaching his little hand into my pocket. He pulls out the HG Goggles, and starts dancing around with them. I try to steal them back, but my hand just passes right through him.

“How did he do that?” I cry.

“Wadya have there, young Madoc?” Smith asks, graciously taking the goggles for himself. It’s the first sign of kindness I’ve seen from the man; now I at least know he has it in him.

“I could probably get those back for you,” Effigy offers.

“No,” I say with a smile, watching Smith look them over. “He gets what’s coming to him,” I tell her, remembering the future when a past version of me shines the Rothko Torch in his eyes, and literally burns the goggles into his face. “We can go now.”

We leave.

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Microstory 735: Credos, Convention Eight: Cohesion

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There once was an island in the ocean, remotely distant from other land. On it lived a peoples of fishing and adventuring. For generations, they had traveled all over the world, but they wanted to find a place to call home, so that no matter how far away they ventured, they could all be from one location. To mark their home, they decided to build monuments to their ancestors. Unfortunately, their island, which was otherwise paradise, did not have the stones necessary to make this a reality. A neighboring island did have the rocks, but they were too large to carry on their boats. A small tribe lived on this island, and they were happy to help in any way they could. The wisest of them was the matriarch of the tribe. She came to the stone pits, where the adventurers were arguing over what to do, and spoke to them. “No single boat can transport even but one of these stones to your island. But many of your boats can.” “But how can we do this?” the adventurers asked. “If we try to carry it across many boats, they will just drift apart, and the stones will fall.” You must find a way to make the boats as one. You must find a way to keep them from drifting.” Of course, now we know that they could have made a single, very large boat to transport the stones. But back then, the only boats they understood how to build were lightweight narrow vessels. So they came up with a plan, using the tools they had at their disposal. They tied the boats together, to form a sort of grid platform.

The platform boat seemed great, but then the adventurers still had a problem. They realized that they would also need to to get the stones to the water in the first place. They could roll them on logs once they reached the plains. On the beach, they could then use sleds, but the trouble was getting them through the forest. The matriarch of the neighboring tribe spoke again. “You must work together to do this. You must look inward, and at each other, and find some commonality.” They looked inward, and at each other, but they saw nothing that could help. Then a little girl tribe member noticed something, and so she spoke to the group as well. “We walk on two legs, and use our arms for balance. One foot forward, then it holds, and the second foot comes forward after that. Then the first foot again, then the second.” They marveled at her wisdom, and found a way to reapply this to their problem. They tied robes to the top of each stone, and lifted it up so that it was vertical. They broke apart into teams, pulling and releasing in unison, so that the stone was essentially walking through the forest. And so the stones were carried through the forest, over the plains, down the beach, and onto the water. They were taken across the strait, and onto their own island, where the process could continue. The task took many months, and many months after that to carve and erect the stones. There stood their greatest leaders in history, guarded by a barrier. In the middle was a monument dedicated to their tribal friends to the West. It was the least they could do to repay for the help.