Extremus: Year 28

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Ovan Teleres is the first candidate for Olindse’s little rehabilitation experiment. They decided to stop calling it reintegration, because it suggested an outcome that may never materialize. One day, she hopes to get her mentor, Halan Yenant out of hock, but she can’t go straight for him. She has to play the political game, and begin with someone who has already shown remorse for his actions. In a moment of weakness, he tried to take control of the ship. It was pretty bad, and violent, resulting in the deaths of two people. He has since expressed a desire to repent for his actions, and improve himself. Today was the initial interview for the process. Once the program gets up and running, Olindse will step back, and let Counselor Persephone Falk establish her own therapeutic methods. This is just to make sure Ovan understands what’s going to happen, and why. If his sessions go well, they’ll restart the process with the other two permanent prisoners, along with anyone who ends up being sent here.

“Any further questions?” Olindse asks.

“No, I’m—I feel grateful for this opportunity,” Ovan replies. “I’m ready to begin.”

“That’s good to hear,” Olindse says. “The two of us will coordinate...”

Persephone nods.

Olindse goes on, “and you will probably have your first private session in two days.”

“Not private,” Armelle Lyons says. Head of Security is a weird position here. A shift lasts for eight years, but the end of it does not spell the end of the crewmember’s service to the ship. Armelle worked security before she was selected to run the team, and after she was finished, she went back to being a regular security officer. She will continue on this way until she chooses to retire, which could be any day now. The people who created the shift schedule determined that security could be the most stressful work over the long term, and they didn’t want to force anyone to stick around if they weren’t into it anymore. They wouldn’t be very good at maintaining security if they were burned out or sick of it. You have to prove your stamina to be appointed the leader, but there is still a limit to this.

“Well, we’re still working out the kinks,” Olindse admits, “which is why we’re not starting right away. All patients have the right to privacy, Madam Lyons. We’ll figure out some way to keep you close by without letting you hear what is said in this room.”

Armelle growls.

“Anyway, if that’s it, then I guess we’re done here.” She stands up, and accepts Ovan’s handshake amidst Armelle’s protests. This won’t work without a level of trust, and a handshake is the least that they can offer the prisoners.

Once they leave the cell, Hock Watcher Giordana asks to keep her down here while Armelle escorts Persephone out.

“What is it?” Olindse asks.

“It’s Vatal. He’s asked to speak with you,” Caldr reveals.

“He can wait his turn,” she decides.

“He says it’s time sensitive.”

“It sounds like a trick already.”

“I’ll be right there with you,” he promises. “I’ll magnetize him to the far side.” Every prisoner wears advanced cuffs around their wrists. They serve a number of purposes. They can release a chemical sedative into the bloodstream, or deliver a debilitating electrical shock, or sequester them to a certain area. The latter is used all the time. Cell doors are kept closed and locked when not in use, but they’re not technically necessary. None of them can cross the threshold. A dimensional barrier would just force them back like an extremely powerful wall of wind. Of course, there is also an electromagnet inside the cuffs, which can bind them to one another, or against the back wall. Olindse insisted that this not be done with Ovan, but Dvronen is another story. He’s an incredibly dangerous and intelligent man who hates the ship, and everyone on it. At least Ovan isn’t an evil spy.

“Very well. I’ll give him five minutes, at most.”

They stand before the door. Caldr is wearing his own cuff, which controls all the others. He taps the commands into it, and they hear the familiar clink of metal against metal. Caldr opens the door.

“Is this necessary?” Dvronen asks. He looks so pathetic, trapped there with his hands behind his back. He’s always been so prim and proper; it must be excruciatingly embarrassing, being reduced to this.

“Quite,” Caldr answers.

“What do you want?” Olindse questions.

“Why, Vice Admiral, this is not a good start to your reintegration program.”

“Rehabilitation,” she corrects.

“What did I say?”

“You have four minutes.”

“Is it safe to say that I am the most hated man on the ship?” Dvronen poses.

It’s his time, so if he wants to take the long way ‘round to go nowhere, then fine. “Sure, that sounds about right.”

“What if I told you that what Oaksent did when he took those genesis samples was actually all part of the plan?”

“I would say I know it was all part of the plan. It was his dirty plan. He clearly didn’t do it on a whim.”

Dvronen smirks. “No, I mean it was part of the ship’s mission.”

“The mission, according to who?” she questions.

“It’s whom.”

“Sorry,” she laughs. “I mean, the mission, according to who?”

He looks perturbed. “The Conceptualizers.” The Conceptualizers were a small group of people who originally wanted to leave Gatewood. They started formulating plans before Omega Parker even came to them with the idea for the Extremus ship. As their voices grew louder, their ranks grew too, and they eventually abandoned their collective term. Going by a specific name felt silly and juvenile. Most people didn’t refer to the people who framed the mission as Conceptualizers, but it was occasionally bandied around.

“They came up with the idea of attacking the ship, and trying to kill everyone on it?” That’s hard to believe.

“No, of course not. Their idea predates the Extremus concept. They wanted to seed life all throughout the Milky Way, and in order to compete with Earth, they wanted to do all this deep in the past. When Omega showed up with the new idea, everyone sort of fell in line. Well...not everyone.”

“Bronach Oaksent was not a Conceptualizer,” Olindse argues. “He was too young to have been involved in those discussions.”

Dvronen shakes his head. “He was, but his grandmother wasn’t. She used to let him sit in on their meetings. They talked about a number of different plans, and he was inspired.”

“It doesn’t matter that they talked about interfering with Earth’s Project Stargate, because they didn’t go through with it. They chose Extremus over it.”

“And like I was saying, not everyone agreed with that decision.”

“If that’s true, why did they involve Extremus at all? They could have built their own ship, and left us out of it. As I said, they attacked us, and they didn’t have to.”

“Do you know what’s in the Bridger section?” Dvronen goes on.

“Yeah, the Bridgers, and the samples that Oaksent left behind when he broke in.”

“There’s more. There’s a lot more down there. Maybe you wanna...find out for yourself?”

“I don’t have authorization. Neither do you. Neither did Oaksent.”

“Then you need to talk to someone who does.”

“The Captain is not going to go along with this. Nor should she.”

“You don’t need the Captain from the present day. You don’t even need a captain at all. Most admirals have—and will have—access to the Bridgers, because they will be former full captains. You’re a little different, since you were only interim.”

“Are you expecting me to go talk to a future admiral, or something?”

“There is another, and I don’t mean Yenant. Let’s not get him involved. There’s someone from the past who would be willing to help you. He never went down there, he doesn’t know the truth. But he could have, and he’ll still have authorization, because no one thinks to strip dead people of their access codes.”

“If I go down there and investigate, what are you getting out of it?” Olindse questions.

“I think...when you learn what’s really going on on this vessel, you’ll want to release me from hock. You’ll be on my side at that point.”

She laughs. “Wow, you really believe that, don’t you? Your five minutes were up a long time ago, by the way.”

“See? You’re already starting to like me. Otherwise, you would have been strict about that time limit.”

“Goodbye Dvronen. I’ll see you in a few weeks for the start of your rehabilitation.”

“Go down there, Admiral. Go see for yourself,” Dvronen says as Olindse and Caldr are stepping out of the cell.

Once the door is closed, Caldr tries to release the magnets. She places a hand over his cuff. “No. Leave him like that for a few hours.”

“That’s considered torture, ma’am. It’s against the law.”

Olindse gives him a terrifying look.

“I’ll...fudge the report.”

“That can wait. Meet me in the executive infirmary in thirty minutes.”

“You want me to do what?” Dr. Holmes asks.

“Erase our memories. Mine, his, and Dvronen Vatal’s.”

Dr. Holmes looks over to Caldr, who just lets out a grimace. He kind of understands why it is Olindse is asking for this. “Any particular memories, or do you just want me to take ‘em all?”  This isn’t something that she’s allowed to just do when requested. It’s technically feasible, but there’s this whole protocol.

“Vatal is trying to gain an advantage over me, and I need him to not remember that. I need to not remember it either, or maybe he gets the advantage anyway. The Hock Watcher here was just an innocent bystander.”

“Plus me,” Dr. Holmes adds.

“No, you don’t need to know anything about it,” Olindse reasons.

Dr. Holmes shakes her head. “Actually, I do. In order to delete the right memories, I need to know what they are. I mean, I could take the entire day, but then you’d be, like, what the hell happened to my entire day!” She’s not usually this volatile.

“So, no matter what, someone would have to recall the memories?” Caldr figures.

Dr. Holmes sighs. “No, I could delete the entire procedure from my own mind without risking reversion, since I know how to convince myself to ignore the inconsistencies. I’ve been trained for this. I just don’t know if I should in this case.”

“It’s about the Bridger section,” Olindse explains.

Dr. Holmes takes some time to respond. “What do you know?”

“Too much already. What do you know?”

“About as much.”

“It shouldn’t be very hard,” Olindse assumes, “not for me, nor for Caldr. Vatal is a different story. He deliberately withheld information from us to maintain leverage. We don’t know what else he knows about the Bridgers, but we would certainly love to take that from him too. You see why that’s important, ethical ramifications notwithstanding.”

The doctor folds her arms, and leans back to consider those ethics. There is no obvious answer to this. Getting rid of anything and everything Dvronen knows about the ship that he shouldn’t would surely be a boon for them, but erasing memories without consent lies in shaky territory. It’s not illegal to do on a post-conviction hock prisoner, but it’s not something she takes lightly either. She would feel a lot better about it if someone could order her. A Vice Admiral doesn’t have that power. “The brain doesn’t store memories like a computer does. You would have to walk me through each idea, and tell me what to extract. It’s not a pleasant experience. It’s not painful, but it can be awkward and uncomfortable.”

“I understand.”

“How would you do the same with Vatal?” Caldr asks.

“Him, I would brute force,” Dr. Holmes begins. “I can rip out ancillary memories, and not worry about him experiencing time discrepancies. He’ll know something’s wrong, but he has no legal recourse to gripe about it. We have to be more delicate with you two, because you might make a big stink about me performing a medical procedure on you that you don’t remember. It won’t work if you realize that you’re missing something, and then we could all be in trouble.”

“Do it,” Olindse agrees. She looks over to Caldr, who agrees too, knowing that it has to be this way. “Please.”

They start with Dvronen. That’s the great thing about no one else working in the hock section, it’s easy to be sneaky. Caldr goes next, and then Olindse. Dr. Holmes navigates from the general, and makes her way down to the specific. She removes the conversation with Dvronen, but not the one with Ovan. As far as Olindse’s concerned, she left after the interview, and didn’t do anything else of significance today. She didn’t burn a secret note to herself, or talk to the doctor, or go back down to the hock.

A year later, the secret note reverses entropy, and rematerializes on her desk.

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Microstory 1805: Field Work

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Like any young girl with parents who taught her to be independent and powerful, I dreamed of joining law enforcement. No, I know, that’s not a universal dream, but it sure felt like it back then. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. As I grew up, my passion for the work only grew stronger. I wanted to be out there in the field, making the tough calls, and actually seeing the people I was helping. While I was still in college, my personality began to change. I still wanted to help others, but I no longer seemed interested in field work. Fortunately, I knew that there were plenty of jobs that didn’t require me to do anything like that. I won’t get into specifics about the path I took, but I ended up becoming a Threat Investigator for the government. It was my job to process calls from civilians who were reporting crimes and of course, threats. I occasionally had to go out and speak to people in person, but that only ever happened when the potential threat was nearby. Most of the time, I asked questions, and determined next steps, which generally involved contacting local authorities, or my branch’s local offices. It could be rewarding, but it was also stressful. It would be terrible if I downplayed a threat that turned out to be a really big deal, and it was almost as bad if I sounded the alarm about a threat that ended up being nothing; maybe even a hoax. Citizens from all over the country counted on me to accurately evaluate each situation, and decide the best course of action from the information I was given. I made mistakes, and I lived with regrets, but nothing was bad enough to warrant a disciplinary response...until it was. I made the wrong call, and people got hurt. No one died, but they very well could have. I should have taken it more seriously, even though the caller sounded unconvinced himself, and a background check made it look like he didn’t have much credibility. I wasn’t fired, but I couldn’t let anything like it happen again. Then I received my last call.

It was from a young man who lived in my city, or rather on the outskirts of it at the time. He was a member of a militia who was supposedly planning an attack on the capitol. The more I spoke with him, the more I realized that this guy actually joined the militia with the intention of taking them down from the inside. Apparently, his family was more into the anti-government stuff, and he had been forced to pretend to be like them so he could blend in, and stop his life from being so hard. Now he was in way over his head, and he needed my help to get him out of it. I went out into the field, and investigated the threat myself. Suddenly, I found myself in over my head. It wasn’t against protocol for me to go out there for a visit, but things snowballed so quickly, and I was captured and detained by the aggressors. Well, this proved that the threat was real, but there was nothing that I could do about it, at least not on my own. Fortunately, the self-appointed mole in the organization wasn’t found out himself, so I was able to sneak him a message, which he bravely took back to my superiors. They sent a strike team to raid the place, and I would like to tell you that they successfully prevented the attack, but I honestly don’t know one way or the other. It turned into a bloody mess just as the year was coming to a close. The bad guys realized immediately which among them ratted them out, and we were both executed in an attempt to show the agents that they meant business. Again, I can’t tell you what happened after that, but I can only hope that some good came out of our sacrifice, and they weren’t able to commit any further acts of violence.

Microstory 1804: Good Opinions and Right Choices

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I was raised in an extremely hostile environment. My parents were racist, hateful, and mean. When my older brother was first growing up, he tried to rebel against them. He didn’t go full liberal—because he didn’t know what that meant—but he didn’t agree with the kinds of things they would say. And they weren’t super obvious about it. They didn’t go around claiming that black people were inferior. They just used very unclever cover words like urban and hoodlum. They weren’t as inconspicuous as they thought they were, though, and my brother wanted no part of it. Unfortunately, they decided they weren’t going to give him a choice. They verbally abused him until he stopped talking all that lovey dovey nonsense. The world didn’t use terms like snowflake and libtard back then, but they would have loved it if they had been alive to learn them. Anyway, when I was old enough to start possibly making my own decisions, my brother realized how similar we were. He taught me to pretend to be like our family. I let them think that I was all about letting poor people die on the streets to save the dollar in my pocket, and not getting upset about the injustices we would see on the news. I did a really great job, blending in as the good little conservative boy that I was expected to be. I did too good of a job, actually. They were so proud of me. My brother and I had about the same grades in school, but since they were so disappointed in him, it was like I was the second coming of the messiah. I also had to pretend to believe in the messiah. I wasn’t an exceptional student, or person in general, but I could do no wrong, and my parents did what they could to give me the opportunities they felt that I deserved.

They paid my way into a preparatory school, which led me to a really great college. I hated every minute of it, but I figured I would take my free education, and do something positive with it. The problem was that I was so used to pretending to be an entitled prick that it was too hard to turn off at this point. I let them get me conscripted into a secret underground brotherhood, which was designed to foster a network of good ol’ boys who help each other go places, and get out of jams. It was so rough, being around people with such wrong opinions. I know people say that there’s no such thing as a wrong opinion, but those people’s opinions are wrong. There is a right way to think about how the world should be run, and a very bad way. It was impossible to walk away, though, and not because the only way out would have been in a bodybag, but because it was so tempting to accept their gifts. With their help, I was poised to step on a lot of heads, and make a lot of money. At that point, I didn’t really care that everyone who was helping me get there disgusted me to my core. Because maybe they didn’t. Maybe they weren’t so bad. None of my brothers were violent or outwardly intolerant either. They were great at hiding it, and some of them probably weren’t even that conservative at all. That’s obviously how the secret society formed, but we all make our own choices. I had to make a choice too. I had to do something to become my own man, and stop letting my family dictate how the world should see me. The brotherhood fed into a militia. Not everyone joined it, but it was an option. I continued to pretend, and took the path towards that anti-government group. They accepted me, and armed me, and it wasn’t long before they decided to plan an attack on the capitol. Before they could, I warned the authorities, and got the place raided. I finally made the right choice, and it was my last.

Microstory 1803: Life Can’t Be Engineered

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I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I went to school for engineering. I didn’t even know what kind of engineering I was interested in. I figured it was better to at least have some kind of direction, rather than spending two years undeclared, and then having to rush to graduate on time. I ended up choosing civil engineering, and ultimately earned an architectural degree to go along with it. A lot of people do it the other way around, but like I said, I hadn’t been thinking that far ahead. I started out at a firm where the work wasn’t very exciting. We constructed a lot of facilities that were basically carbon copies of buildings that already existed. Sure, there were some modifications necessary for every new project, due to certain constraints, like geography, but for the most part, I didn’t find the work challenging or glamorous. A friend from college called me up, and said that he was starting a business on his own. It was going to be small in every sense of the word. We were going to build these newish things called tiny homes. They were meant to be as small as possible while including all the necessary amenities that a homeowner would expect to encounter in a normal-sized house or apartment. Space was key, and understanding how to work within the restrictions of a smaller space was paramount. I was looking for a challenge, and I found it. I had so much fun, engineering household objects to not be simply smaller, but more efficient. My job has proved that humans need less space to live comfortably than some may believe, as long as they have the right tools. I designed some of those tools. I had to continue my education since not all of this was civil engineering, but it wasn’t too hard, and I enjoyed every second of it.

One of my proudest accomplishments was a stackable washer/dryer that included a sink. It took up a lot less room than you might have assumed, and it even won me an industry award. The whole washer came out like a drawer, it was so cool, if I do say so myself. There were a few other minor contributions, like the actual mechanism for a bed that receded into the floor, and other collaborative efforts. I even literally built my own house using the skills I used for my job. I was proud of myself for that too, obviously, but the laundry sink was my baby, at least at the time. I hadn’t thought much about starting a family. I wasn’t against it, but every morning, when I woke up, I thought about my workday, and didn’t realize how much time I had let pass until a stranger called me a cat lady. I think he was just being a jerk, because he shouldn’t have known that I was an old maid, but something clicked in me that night, and I decided that I did want a family. Back then, there weren’t any dating apps, or even online matchmaking services at all. All I could do was keep going to bars, hoping to meet someone nice. Occasionally, a friend would set me up with someone, but it never worked out. After all that searching, and all that failure, I discovered that my future was right under my nose. It was like a romcom when I suddenly started to see my business partner as something more. We both loved what we did for a living, we had a great shorthand with each other, and the attraction had always been there. We both agreed we would have one child, I guess to keep in line with our shared minimalist approach to life. That didn’t quite work out. Our first two children were twins, and our third was an accident. We loved them so much, we decided to have just one more. The fourth and fifth were also twins, but it was long before that when we outgrew our tiny home. We were forced to upgrade. It was worth it.

Microstory 1802: A Mother Doesn’t Know

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The end has finally come, and I welcome the relief. The doctors have been keeping a close eye on me for years now, but they can’t stop the inevitable. I have a DNR, and nobody lives forever. I don’t remember how I ended up in this institution, but it was definitely against my will. They keep me drugged up so I can’t think straight, let alone move fast enough to get out of this place. It’s been such sorrowful torture. I would protest against them, but I just don’t have the energy anymore, and haven’t for a very long time. They know this about me. They do that on purpose. They took away my free will, because if I had a voice, people might actually listen to what I have to say. But they can’t have that. No, far be it for me to speak my mind. I’m a crazy person, who no one cares about. I had someone who cared about me, but they took him away. Not the same people, technically, mind you, but close enough. Anybody who works for the institutions of this country, and promotes the oppression of the masses, might as well just be one evil man. I can’t wait to get the hell out of here, and I am well aware that the only way that happens is in a bodybag. The time has almost come; what I’ve been yearning for. This won’t be the first time that I died. I tried to kill myself a few years ago. My son got into an awful mess, and ended up being murdered by a cop. I was foolish to have made my attempt on the day the charity organization would come to deliver meals. He was the only person who ever gave a damn about me, and now he’s gone. What do I have to live for but him? Now this cough has taken me down my final path, and I’ve been letting it happen. They can’t keep me locked up forever, no sir. Now it’s just a waiting game.

I reflect on the decades behind me. They say that your life flashes before your eyes, but maybe that doesn’t always happen automatically. Maybe I have to force it, and expedite the process. I’ll take any advantage I can get. I did my best raising my child, but I could only do so much without his terrible father. Sure, he was the one paying for everything, so I didn’t have to work, but he should have been there. He should have helped teach our son how to be a man. I don’t know how to be a man; I’ve never done it before! Looking back, maybe there were some signs that he wasn’t well, and maybe I should have gotten him some help. But, really, how was I meant to know that his fixation on certain girls in his class was some kind of warning? It didn’t seem weird when these fixations transferred down to new girls. They kept staying the same age, while he grew older. He was very protective of others; I thought it was sweet. He didn’t ever kill any small animals, which everyone says is the behavior you’re supposed to look for. He has absolutely no trouble feeling empathy for people. I mean, when I say these signs were obvious in retrospect, it’s because hindsight is 20/20, not because I think I should have understood what the problem was back then. I couldn’t have known, I couldn’t. He did some bad things when he was older—those cages. He didn’t have to die for it, though, and they certainly shouldn’t have blamed me for it. Like I said, he didn’t ever show any violent tendencies. He truly wanted to help those women, and the situation sometimes just got out of hand. If their own parents had raised them better, perhaps they wouldn’t look so vulnerable. That’s what he was attracted to, but not in a sexual way. He wanted to help them, and I can’t help but be proud of him for that. I know he’s in heaven now, where he belongs, and I know that I’ll soon meet him there...at last.

Microstory 1801: Jellyfish Cycle

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I have been around for centuries, but I’ve not been young the entire time, or even most of the time. A few species of jellyfish are capable of something similar, through by different means. They use their genetics to be immortal. I use my soul. Before they can die, they will revert to an earlier stage of development, and begin anew. These creatures have evolved to do this, but the same can’t be said for me, because humans are not like that. The majority of us aren’t, anyway. I belong to a subspecies of humans called voldisil. We did not technically evolve out of the other either, though. You see, there are three genders. Normal people are only conceived by two, but a third can get involved, often without their knowledge. They’ll inject something else into the process. It’s a spiritual experience, which those like me would consider a gift. Back in the early second century, I was created, and unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of meeting my third parent. My mother and father died shortly after I came into the world, when you think about it, because it was only a few decades. I felt like I was able to spend a lot of time with my family back then, but I now realize how precious those moments were, and how I should not have taken them for granted. When I was 36, I contracted malaria, and I assumed that was it for me. There was no cure, no vaccine. It was pretty much a death sentence in my region in that time period. One night, I felt myself drifting away, and had to make peace with the end. I was surprised to find myself waking up the next morning as a toddler. All of my memories were intact, and I was cured. I couldn’t explain it. A new couple adopted me, thinking I was the child of a victim, and not even considering the possibility that I was the patient. They just thought of me as their little miracle.

I continued to go through this cycle lifetime after lifetime. Though, I probably shouldn’t call them lifetimes. I would be older when the transition happened every time, but I was also coming back older. The second time it happened, for instance, I looked more like an eight-year-old. By the fifth cycle, I no longer had to worry about someone trying to take care of me. I appeared to be old enough to handle myself. Each time, I would have to pack up, and move to a new land, so no one would become suspicious. I felt like I was in my early forties the last time I cycled, but that was only sixteen years ago. I’ve not known what it was like to die of age-related causes in a very long time. If I keep this up, I’ll probably only have days to live at a time, and I don’t want that. My soul’s ability to rejuvenate my body was never destined to last forever, and I always knew this about myself. What I needed to do was find some way to make my legacy last. I, of all people, understood what it looked like when someone just faded away. That’s what happens to most, in the end. Barring great fame, perhaps someone’s great great grandchildren will recall stories of their ancestors, but they won’t likely pass these on to their own descendants. I didn’t have any myself, because I didn’t know what their lives would have been like. It wasn’t worth the risk. As I lie here on my bed, prepared to go through this once more, and come back as another middle aged woman, I see now. I see that my third parent must have been in my same position all those years ago. This must be how it works; we pass the torch. I may simply be the latest in a line going back to the dawn of man. My final thoughts are of a newborn baby crying with the others two floors down, who receives my spirit ability, and has no choice but to accept the burden.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 19, 2377

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“Ramses, dark mode!” Leona ordered.

The ship became a darklurker. All nonessential systems were powered down to make themselves as undetectable as possible. Mateo decided to float up to the upper level, which was the only place with regular viewports. They were the only means of seeing what was going on outside. There was another ship out there. It was much smaller than The Investigator, which had taken them to the stellar engine. At the moment, it wasn’t doing anything. Perhaps it never noticed them, and its presence was a mere coincidence. Probably not, but they could hope.

“Battery level,” Leona whispered. She didn’t need to, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Twenty-four percent,” Angela reported.

“Hull integrity.”

“Holding.”

Ramses popped his head up from the lower level.

“Propulsion,” Leona prompted.

“There is nothing out here close enough for us to get to it without the battery, and this maneuver took a lot more out of us than I hoped it would. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Leona promised. “Mateo—where’s Mateo?”

“He went upstairs,” Olimpia said.

“I’m getting a bad feeling,” Leona said, standing up. “Ramses, use a tablet, and run some simulations. I want options for getting us out of this mess.”

“Sir,” Ramses replied.

Meanwhile, Leona went up to see what her husband was doing. He was in the airlock, hatch closed, finishing up fitting himself with one of the vacuum suits. “What are you doing?” she asked through the intercom

“I’m gonna board that thing,” he answered.

“The hell you are.”

“Stop wasting power on the intercom,” Mateo argued.

Leona rapidly pressed the charging button on the console. Something as simple as this did not require much power, and could be recharged quite easily. “There, now it’s back up to four bars. You are not going out there.”

“We need fuel, that thing has fuel,” he contended.

“I’m sure it does. It has antimatter pods, and hydropellets, but the former won’t be compatible with our system, and you don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“I know what I’m looking for,” he said. “I’m not as dumb as you think. I don’t know how antimatter works, but I’ve seen you people replace lots of parts on this thing while I was sitting around with nothing to do. I can retrieve them for you, and the two of you can adapt the alien technology. If nothing else, the deuterium and tritium can be used with the regular fusion drive, correct?”

She sighed. “They can. It’ll be slow, but yes.”

“Slow for us is maybe a few weeks,” Mateo pointed out as he was placing the helmet over his head.

“I’ll go with you,” Leona offered. “There are eleven other suits.”

“But there’s only one jetpack, and I need all the power I can get.”

“Mateo...”

“Let me do this. Let me do something.”

“You promise you know what you’re looking for?”

“I do. You know our code words. If something goes wrong, and I tell you to through the cuff, then you darkburst the hell out of here, and don’t look back.”

“Mateo...” she repeated.

“I’ll be fine, I promise.” He couldn’t promise that, but he had to do something. They needed those power sources. Being stuck in an intergalactic void was just not a sustainable living arrangement. Better him than someone else. Out of everyone on the team, he was the most expendable. He double checked his vacuum suit, then turned around, and jacked himself into the jetpack on the wall. In the olden days, one or two people had to help an astronaut into a suit like this. This was a lot better, especially if Leona had chosen to be less agreeable about the whole thing.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Leona was still so worried.

Mateo separated himself from the wall, and struggled to stay vertical from the weight of the jetpack. “Were I you.”

“Were I you.” She switched off the artificial gravity for him, so he didn’t have to stand. Then she pressed the button to open the outer doors, and watched him go.

According to the heads up display, the mysterious nonresponsive ship was floating about a kilometer away from the AOC. It had yet to make any move against them, or any move at all, for that matter. Ramses was reading heat waste coming off from it, so it didn’t appear to be abandoned, unless it was, and it happened pretty recently. The AOC remained in dark mode, staying in communication with Mateo using a carefully tuned laser. This would stop working once he boarded the vessel, but at that point, he should be able to take off part of the suit, and begin using the highly secure Cassidy cuff.

Using data relayed from Mateo’s sensors, Ramses was able to pinpoint a good place for ingress in what was probably an infrequently used airlock for automated external hull repair. It was too small for his jetpack to fit, so he removed it, and magnetically held it against the hull to retrieve later. He opened the airlock using the manual override they found, and slipped in. Still no response from anyone on the ship, suggesting that they had no idea he was there, or even that the AOC was. This could prove to be the hard part, figuring out how to repressurize the airlock without the team’s help. He reached over, just hoping there wasn’t an authorization code to block him, but before he could touch anything, the room started to make noise. It was repressurizing on its own, theoretically in reaction to his presence. The inner doors opened on their own too. Mateo removed his helmet, set it on the floor, and carefully exited.

He looked one way. Coast was clear. He looked the other way. Not clear. A man was standing there with a weapon of some kind trained on him. “Weapons on the floor.”

“I don’t have any,” Mateo told him honestly. They had never thought to store them on the AOC. It wasn’t a warship, after all.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why did you let me in if you thought I was a threat?” That airlock didn’t pressurize itself. This guy was surely in control.

“I wanted to know who you are, and what you’re doing here.”

“We need fuel,” Mateo answered. “Our own ship, it’s...it’s not gonna get far.”

“You mean that lifeboat down there?”

“You noticed us.”

“I’m not an idiot. Weapons, now.”

Mateo began to take off the rest of his suit, proving that he didn’t have anything up his sleeve.

“What is this thing?” the man questioned, holding Mateo’s wrist up, and indicating the Cassidy cuff.

“Comms and basic sensors.” He didn’t need to know about the sync teleporter, or the temporal pattern link.

He seemed satisfied with this answer. That was exactly what it looked like. More importantly, it didn’t look like a weapon. “That way,” he ordered with a jerk of his gun. He continued to direct Mateo from behind. This was a nice ship; kept clean and well-lit. There didn’t appear to be anyone else here, but it was pretty large. They could have been busy in other sections without Mateo ever knowing. “What fuel do you need, isotopes?”

“That, and antimatter pods. I know it’s a big ask, but if you’ll just speak with my Captain, I’m sure we can work something out. There’s no need for things to get—”

“We’re here.”

They were entering a big storage room. The roar of the engine was louder now, coming from a door on the other side. It did not look like a hock cell.

“How much do you need?” the man asked.

“Um.” That was an interesting question. He was just planning on stealing as much as he could carry. “Whatever you can spare. Our propulsion drive can handle six pods simultaneously, but our engineers will have to transfer what you have to—” He stopped himself to look down at the case the man had just opened. Inside were six pods. They looked nearly identical to the ones the AOC used. “Is that some kind of standard design?”

“I have no idea.” He shut the case, and pulled another one from the shelf. You carry them, I’ll carry the isotopes.

“Not that I’m not appreciative, but...why are you doing this?”

“I want you out of my business,” the man answered, “and I don’t care what it takes. This is my territory now, and I don’t need you hanging around any longer than necessary.”

It kind of sounded like he was doing something illegal. Mateo didn’t really care, though. This wasn’t his reality, and he didn’t know anything about the culture. He couldn’t even say that Salufi, or the others on the matrioshka brain, were bad people. Their reaction to the team’s arrival was not outrageous. They just couldn’t have it, and needed to leave. “I understand.”

“Thanks, let’s go.”

They started to walk back towards the service airlock, this time without the gun. “I’m sure you don’t want questions, but does this have anything to do with the matrioshka brain that was parked somewhere around here last year?”

The man stopped him at the shoulder. “You know it was here. Did you see it?”

“I was on it. We barely escaped.” Again, he couldn’t be sure whose side this guy was on, but against the matrioshka brain was a pretty fair bet at this point.

“Do you know its exact coordinates?” he pressed.

“Uhh, I don’t, I’m just the delivery boy. My Captain probably knows, or will do everything she can to help you find it.”

He set the isotopes down, and took one of the antimatter cases from Mateo. “Contact your ship. I will give you twice as much as this if you can get me to where they were.”

“This was exactly a year ago,” Mateo warned him. “We can probably find where it was then, but if it moved after that...”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I just need its flight path, so I can predict where it will be next.”

“What are you going to do with this information?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Mateo weighed his options in his head. He didn’t have much to go on, but one side imprisoned the team, and the other gave them presents. Dance with the one that brought you, he figured. He tapped on his cuff. “Leona.”

“Finally! Yes—my God—where have you been?”

“In a meeting,” he mused.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Perfectly fine,” he answered. “Jump to these coordinates. I’ve made a business arrangement with a new associate.”

“Powering up now.”

“Hey, I don’t know how long this is gonna take,” Mateo started to say to the man, “but in case we make quick work of this, we should formalize it. My name is Mateo Matic. My wife, Leona is the Captain. We have an engineer, and two other crew members on board.”

“Xerian Oyana.”

Mateo pulled up his own info on his cuff. “This is my personal quantum sequence. If you ever need anything else, call me, and we’ll try to help if we’re in the neighborhood. Time lag might be a factor.”

Xerian pulled out his handheld device, and accepted the data, exchanging it with his own. After Leona teleported to their location, they all three went up to the bridge, stopping briefly at the storage room to double their payment. Once at the controls, Leona retraced the AOC’s steps, and found the region of space where the matrioshka brain was last year. Xerian knew it was somewhere around here, but he needed to be as accurate as possible. He added it to the points he had already plotted on a map, and connected them with a new line. “Ah, they’re tricky, but I see a pattern.”

“Me too,” Leona said.

Mateo didn’t see it. It just looked like a random mess to him.

“Well, I appreciate your help,” Xerian said.

“We appreciate yours. This should last us quite a while.”

“I must be off. I think I can finally get ahead of them.”

“We’ll leave, but do you know where we can go? Is there some kind of haven for people who don’t have identities, and don’t have a great relationship with that matrioshka brain?

“Andromeda is your only hope,” Xerian explained. “But since I imagine you don’t have a lightyear drive, it will take you too long to get there.”

“You don’t have instant transporters?” Leona pressed.

“We do, but that’s what I mean,” Xerian went on. “The closest Nexus that won’t ask questions is nearly 1400 light years away.”

Mateo looked over to Leona, who closed her eyes and nodded. That will be fine. Xerian didn’t know about the reframe engine, or their salmon pattern. “Thanks again,” she said.

Xerian found the coordinates to both the Nexus, and a supposedly safe place in the Andromeda galaxy, and beamed them to her cuff.

After the two of them teleported back to the AOC, Mateo realized there could be another way. “Maybe we should just ask if we can stay with him.”

“That is not our business,” Leona contended. “We just need to get somewhere safe.”

“I think I trust him,” Mateo decided.

“That’s great!” Leona said with false enthusiasm. “We’re still gonna go do our own thing. Ramses.” She held out one of the cases of antimatter, and one of the tritium. “Load these up while I plot our course. We’ll be there in two years.”

“We’ll be where?” Mateo pointed out.

“We’ll see,” she said simply.

They weren’t necessarily headed towards safety. They still didn’t know what the hell was going on in this reality.

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Extremus: Year 27

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Hock Watcher may sound like a funny position, but Caldr Giordana is responsible for the rehabilitation department of the entire ship. Here, rehabilitation is being used in its loosest definition. It’s a pretty simple concept. You break a law, you go in hock. If a ruling needs to be made beyond that, you go to trial, and either go free, or stay in hock to serve out a sentence. When you’re done, you go free. There’s no real rehabilitation, and there is no program for reintegration into society. It’s never been needed. Most crimes have been straightforward, committed by people who clearly made a mistake, but which can’t be categorized as menaces. Three of the men presently in hock are different, and more complicated, and Olindse Belo feels that something needs to be done to reform the system. She is not capable of doing this without the approval and aid of others.

The hock is a special department, which acts as an unlikely spot to bridge the gap between passengers and crew. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a civilian or a civil servant, if you commit a crime, you go to the same place as everyone. Hock Watcher is one of the most complicated roles to fill, and equally illustrates that bridge. First, the government nominates the most promising candidates. Then the passengers vote to narrow the pool further. The crew then votes for the winner, but the Captain is free to veto any decision, and restart at least part of the process. If that were to happen, there would be even more deliberation to decide how far back in that process the cycle has to restart. To get where he is today, Caldr had to really want it, and now that he’s here, it would be all but impossible to get rid of him unless he wanted to leave. He wields a lot more power than one might expect.

When Consul Vatal was discovered to be a True Extremist spy—or rather, outed himself to a spy—his job needed to be backfilled. He had his own sort of apprentice, who was prepared enough to take over, but the nature of his departure made that more complicated. For more than two years, the new Consul tried his best to carry out his duties, but everyone who required his services hesitated to reach out to him. The consul is not a lawyer. They are primarily an ethicist who understands the law down to the very last punctuation mark. By being untruthful about where he came from, and where his loyalties lay, Dvronen was quite ironically proving himself to be unethical at the highest order. If he’s the one who trained the apprentice, could that apprentice have good ethics himself? Well, probably, since he went through his own education, and had his own ideals, but we’re dealing with humans here, and humans are complicated. The crew, especially the Captain, found it difficult to trust him with their ethical needs. It essentially made it impossible for him to do his job, and he just couldn’t take the stress. He stepped down, and while quitting the crew is usually a complex process, Captain Leithe made an exception, and simply let him go. Any other member of the crew could have contested this ruling, but no one did, so it went through.

Renga Mas was fresh out of school, and didn’t think she was ready to take the job, but she was pretty much the only option. Others studied law, but they were predominantly on the other two of three tracks. One track focuses on civilian law, and that’s the route most students take. The other concerns itself with destination law. Such students are intended to become teachers, so they can pass their knowledge down to further generations. There are a lot of skills that people living on the ship won’t, or might not, ever use, but which their descendants will find critical. It would be irresponsible of them to let this knowledge disappear before the mission can be realized two centuries from now. If you want to take the third track, which prepares you to possibly become Consul, you have to complete an independent study program, and while Renga isn’t the only one who has done that, she’s the only one with sufficient competency. She likely would have apprenticed for Dvronen’s apprentice, and ultimately secured the job anyway, but the timetable had to be moved up. Today is her first major project.

“Okay, so, uhh...um.” Renga fumbles with the tablet before she realizes it isn’t even hers, so it isn’t signed into her account. That’s why her passcode didn’t work. “All right, I don’t think I need it. Is this being recorded? Are we recording?”

“We are,” First Lieutenant Corinna Seelen replies. Captain Leithe doesn’t need to be part of the decision-making process in this case, so Corinna is in charge. “Go on.”

Renga is responsible for running the meeting itself. “Great. Uh, that’s great.” She clears her throat. “Okay. This is the...hearing?”

“Proposal meeting,” Corinna corrects.

“Right, proposal meeting for the question of whether to accept Olindse’s—”

“Admiral Belo,” Corinna corrects her again.

“Admiral Belo’s prisoner reintegration plan. Thanks.” Renga nods sharply, proud of herself for managing to get through that, and forgetting for just one second that it’s literally only the beginning.

Corinna urges her on with her eyes, but no words. She may have to take over.

Renga continues, “Olin—Admiral Belo.” Olindse took Renga under her wing at school. They were studying completely different things, but they became friends, and the latter often mined the former for advice. It’s proven difficult to remember that she should not be so informal with this. “Please, begin your presentation.”

“Thank you,” Olindse says. “I’ve already given you my written proposal, so I won’t go into detail, but I’ll sum it up. I believe that our justice system leaves something to be desired. It’s far too simple. If you’re guilty, you go in hock. Maybe you’re given limited computer privileges, but for the most part, the severity of your crime dictates how long you’re there. Prisoners are not provided resources to help them rehabilitate, or later return to society. When and if they’re released, they’re just thrown back into the general population, where they have to move on on their own. Many will have been changed by the trauma, and their lives will be more difficult than necessary. I believe that this is unfair and unjust.”

Corinna holds up a hand, and closes her eyes, like it’s a performing arts audition, and Olindse’s minute is up. “Currently, the only prisoners in hock are...” She checks her tablet, but only to find the file for the least infamous prisoner. “A spy, a mutineer, a disgraced former officer, and a saboteur.”

“It was a prank,” Olindse argues, “not sabotage.”

“Tell that to the eighteen people who drank the contaminated water, and suffered from heavy diarrhea for the next three to four days.”

“No civilian charges were filed,” Olindse reminds her. “That’s not my point. I’m not here to argue if any of them deserve to be in hock, or not. I’m here to argue that we should be helping them learn from their mistakes. Egregious, or forgivable,” she adds before Corinna can debate the definition of a mistake, or contend that two of them did not simply make a mistake.

“My point,” Corinna goes on, “is that only the...prankster will be getting out of hock outside of a body bag. The other three are enemies of the state, and will have to make their respective cells their homes for the next however many decades are left of their lives.”

“That doesn’t mean they don’t deserve respect and compassion,” Olindse says.

“I’m not saying that,” Corinna claims. “Though, I don’t have any personal respect or compassion for two of them in there, and I don’t much care about the fourth. I shouldn’t have to name names.” She doesn’t. Everyone still loves Halan Yenant, and no one likes Dvronen or Ovan. “I’m asking why we should divert time and resources to helping people we know will never be able to reenter society. You even call this the reintegration program.”

“That’s a catchall term, but it doesn’t just address actually placing prisoners back in the general population. There are many ways to reintegrate,” Olindse explains. “Besides, as you saw in my proposal, I also discuss counseling for those who have been given life sentences. And as a side note, Admiral Yenant has not technically received a definite sentence. His potential for parole is always there.”

“Don’t call him that,” Corinna demands. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but we legally can’t call him an admiral. Right, Consul?”

“Right,” Renga answers uncomfortably.

“Who do you suppose will provide these counseling services for the prisoners?”

“Nearly every job on this ship has a surplus labor pool. It won’t be hard to find someone to fill this void,” Olindse figures.

Renga realizes she needs to speak up more, since this is supposed to be her show. “I didn’t see this in the proposal—even though I read it...” She eyes the Lieutenant.

“I’m busy, I skimmed it,” Corinna defends.

Renga goes on, “I didn’t see anywhere that dictates whether this new counselor will be a member of the civilian workforce, or the crew.”

Olindse nods and points, having predicted this would come up. “It’s not in there, because I wasn’t sure about that. I hoped we could work together to figure that out. My first thought is to make it a joint effort, like the Hock Watcher, but still appointed, rather than voted upon.”

“That is a tall order,” Corinna says. “We would have to all vote in order to make this new flavor of job even a thing. What say you, Hock Watcher Giordana?”

Caldr had been listening intently and respectfully to all sides of this argument. “To be honest, I wouldn’t mind having one or two other people on the team. It can get lonely down there. Also to be honest, I sometimes chat with Mr. Yenant because of it.”

“That’s not illegal,” Renga assures him. They actually did consider fraternizing with the prisoners completely illegal, because it could theoretically lead to a conflict of interest, and even possibly a prison break. They had to decide against such harsh rules, because it was more unethical to restrict who a resident of the ship could be friends with. They made it so hard to become Hock Watcher in the first place in order to lower this risk. Caldr bleeds integrity.

“Okay,” Corinna begins, “let me read the proposal in full. I’ll assign some duties to my Second LT to make the time. We will reconvene in two weeks to discuss this further, and hopefully come to some conclusion. Vice Admiral, create a list of candidates for this counseling job, and determine whether you want anyone else on this expanded hock team. Consul Mas, you can tentatively approve them. Does this sound fair?”

“Yes,” they all agreed.

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