Microstory 1890: Forced Pair

< > Table of Contents

I was one of two new kids when my family moved to a new town for my fourth year of primary school. I was nervous about fitting in, but I had no idea how difficult it would be. The other kid was—for lack of a more reasonable term—weird. He wore baggy pants, tight shirts, and a baseball cap that was missing the bill. He had a strange way about him, and didn’t seem to understand topical references. I was more or less normal. Quiet but responsive; capable of smiling, but not overly bubbly. I should have found a group of friends, and done so sooner than later. Probably because the teacher sat the two of us next to each other, everybody got it in their heads that we were friends. I didn’t know him, we had never met, and we didn’t hang out, but they started calling us inseparable. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t break free from this total misunderstanding. I suppose I could have tried harder, but that would have required me to say mean things about him, and I didn’t want to do that. He was an odd duck, but he was gentle, and polite, and he didn’t deserve the ridicule. So I eventually let it go, and decided things would get better when I was older. We were bound to be placed in a different class the next year, and it would go away on its own. I don’t know if the school caught wind of the rumor, or what, but that’s not what happened. It would seem that we were stuck together, so if my social life was going to be entirely dependent on this one person, I figured I might as well get to know him. At least I would have someone to talk to.

When asked about it, he would tell people that the cap was for religious reasons. They still thought it was funny, but it stopped them from messing around with it for fear of being labeled bigots. The truth was his parents were conspiracy theorists, though they would never use this term; they considered themselves believers. In particular, they believed in aliens, telepathy, and telepathic aliens. They didn’t want nefarious forces to read their minds, and they were under the impression that this special headwear could protect them from the brain scanners. The inside was lined with aluminum, which is a trick I recalled having heard of. But those were usually crude and cheap-looking. His was smooth and well-tailored; his parents had put some real time into constructing them. He wasn’t sure he believed in all that stuff, but he didn’t want to upset them, so he did as he was asked. We remained friends over the years, though we had to contrive common interests at first. Eventually we formed a genuine relationship, and I found myself feeling grateful that we met, and that the universe worked so hard to pair us up, as unlikely as it seemed at first. We went to college at an institution distant enough to allow him to stop wearing his hat, and it was there that we learned better how to blend in with the crowd. We found new friends, and our lives were good. There was never anything romantic between us, but there was a strong financial connection. We both wanted to be super rich, and to be in charge of a company. But what could we do? What were we experts on? Aluminum foil hats? I know it sounds crazy, but yes! We adapted the misguided paranoia into a lucrative business. You see, while mind-reading isn’t real, electronic scanners are, and as the world was becoming more and more reliant on digital technology, customers needed a way to protect their data. They can do this using signal-blocking material. We hold a number of patents for techniques that make this technology work. So even if customers don’t buy directly from us, we still make money off of nearly every sale. Who’s laughing now?

Microstory 1889: No Way to Fail

< > Table of Contents

The first thing I did when I became an adult was visit what you might call an adult entertainment club. I struggled with getting dates, and I had never done anything beyond kissing. Even that wasn’t all that great, but I still wanted more. I was mostly just lonely, and if I had to pay to pretend for a few minutes a week that I wasn’t, then that was what I would do. It became a habit. I knew all the girls there, and they all knew me. They knew they could trust me, and for a little bit extra cash, some of them decided that it was okay if we took things to the next level. I was grateful and happy, but then it all ended. The club installed security cameras in even what were meant to be private areas, and suddenly, I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore. The girls had to be really careful and distant, as did I. I stopped going to that place. I was still pretty young, but I managed to get over my urges, and lead a normal life without all that stuff. What I realized was that all those conversations I had that I treated as superficial and fake were preparing me for real relationships that were not transaction-based. I jumped into the dating scene, and started looking for something real and lasting. I had a few good girlfriends, but we always grew apart, at least in such a way. I stayed friends with most of them, which a lot of people say can’t be done, but I beg to differ. Even when we parted ways forever, I knew their names, and I could have reconnected with them in some capacity later on. The girls at the club, not so much. Some of them gave me their real names, but I didn’t exactly check their papers, so even those could have been fake too. One night, my buddy was getting married, so he needed a bachelor party. His best friend ended up choosing my old club to go to, which I didn’t think too much on, because it had been so long, and those places have a lot of turnover, you know. I did recognize one girl there, though.

I bought a dance with her for old time’s sake, but I was with someone at the time, so I wasn’t interested in an actual dance. I just wanted to catch up. She seemed stunned the whole time, which was odd. I wouldn’t have thought she would remember me. She quit before the cameras, so it had been a particularly long time. I tried to ask her questions about her life, but she was being really cagey. That was odd too, because those girls are normally good at lying just to keep the conversation going without giving any personal details away. Eventually, however, I was able to get it out of her that she had an eleven year old daughter, and there was a possibility that I was the father. She would have contacted me sooner, but I stopped going to the club by the time she took a test, and she couldn’t investigate further, or her old bosses would have learned that we broke the rules. Due to her religious beliefs—and because of the high expense back then—she couldn’t get a DNA test for her daughter, but she showed me a picture of her. She looked quite a bit like me, I mean, she had to be mine, right? DNA test or no, she had to be my kid, and I had to do right by her. After some deeper discussions, the mother let me meet our daughter, and we got to know each other better. I took care of the both of them for years. My girlfriend broke up with me because of it, so they ultimately just moved in. Once our daughter became an adult herself, she decided she finally wanted that DNA test. To our surprise, the result was negative. She was not my biological daughter, and she was heartbroken. But I wasn’t. She is my daughter, and nothing can change that. It’s actually a blessing, because the disease that’s killing me today is hereditary.

Microstory 1888: Dead Army of Ants

< > Table of Contents

I once worked in a cave. It was there that companies kept a great deal of their legacy parts and equipment. This was for when they couldn’t sell them, couldn’t reuse them, or just didn’t know how to get rid of them. It was a convenient way to hold onto these things without them clogging up their normal warehouses. Very, very occasionally, one of our clients would send a request for a part to be picked, and it was my job to go do that. It was an entirely different team that stored them on the racks in the first place, but honestly, I don’t know why my specific job existed. Most of the time, I just sat in the office, reading a good book. It was the easiest job I had, comparatively speaking, and I only quit, because I needed to start a family and the pay wasn’t enough to support this goal. It was perfect for me alone, but not me with children. Besides, there were other reasons for me to seriously consider a career. One day, I was finished with the only book I brought with me that day, so I decided to go on a walk. It was surprisingly clean for a cave, and set to a comfortable temperature, unlike what you may be imagining. I ended up in a corner that I didn’t go to very often, because the client who rented out that space didn’t ever need anything. I looked down at my feet and saw an anthill in the crack of the cement. I looked over a little, and saw another. And another, and another. The place was littered with anthills, and rivers of ants traveling between them. I wanted to leave them there, but taking care of the grounds was technically part of the job description, so I had to report it. An exterminator came out to kill everything, but what we learned he didn’t do was clean them up. So those ant rivers were still there, they just weren’t moving. It was an army of dead ants, and seeing their lifeless bodies lying there felt like an appropriate metaphor for life. We were the ants.

They didn’t know that they were going to be wiped out, but they had a concept for death. Or at least they had a concept for failure, or otherwise, they would not have pursued their goals. When the spray came for them, they didn’t scurry into their tunnels, or hold a conference about what to do. They didn’t study the spray, or try to clean it off. They just kept going until they succumbed to the toxin. I guess I don’t know that, I don’t know how fast the spray worked. I just remember it being so surreal, staring at that pile of death. Combined, the ants wouldn’t even make up the mass of a single person, but from their perspective, it was a slaughter. It was genocide. I started thinking about what sorts of things could come for the human race. What kind of proverbial spray could wipe us out? Climate change? Maybe. An asteroid, sure. Then I realized that the spray was a disease, which could probably pretty easily spread from an infected ant to one which had originally escaped the wrath of the nozzle. That could happen to us, godlike exterminator not required. A pathogen could destroy us all, and while doing it, leave everything we created intact. Even our bodies would still be there, littering the streets, and our homes. So I went back to school to ultimately seek a degree in epidemiology, so I could do everything I could to prevent this eventuality. Though it started as a desperate whim, it was the best decision I ever made. It’s where I met my future wife, and an army of colleagues who all wanted the same thing. Once we graduated, we went off to fight against what we believed to be the greatest threat our species faced. Because we didn’t want to not see it coming. We didn’t want to be ants anymore.

Microstory 1887: Feeling Poverty

< > Table of Contents

Even though I grew up as the son of general store owners, I always felt poor. I think it mostly had to do with the fact that we couldn’t afford the time it would take to enjoy luxuries, like vacations, because someone always had to be at the store. When mom and dad both retired, I took over fulltime, and tried to put my snazzy business degree to good use. We expanded into the empty unit next door to add more shelves, but I never thought to franchise out, or do major advertising campaigns, or anything like that. I just wanted us to be a little more comfortable, and work a little less. I ended up hiring a larger staff than we ever had before, and spent less time there personally. My children weren’t interested in helping out after serving their part time sentences as middle school and high school students, and I didn’t discourage them from pursuing their respective dreams. I ran a clean business. I filed my taxes accurately and on time—or rather I paid the right person to handle it all for me—and I treated my employees fairly. I also kept my prices fairly low; not enough to dry out my profits, but enough to support my community faithfully. Back in the late 1990s, this country suffered a terrible economic depression. Inflation was at an all time high, as was unemployment. Everyone was struggling, including us. But we did okay. I didn’t have to let anyone go, I just had to raise my prices a tiny bit. For some, that tiny bit was as vast as a canyon, and for the very worst off, an untraversable one. People starved to death. My heart went out to them, but I had to protect my own family. Still, I did what I could, instituting promotions where possible, usually when a particular item was in higher than normal supply. Even then, not everyone could afford to buy what they needed to survive.

We had a couple of security cameras by then, but they weren’t exactly HD quality. There were likely a number of instances of theft that went by unnoticed. A box of cereal here, a can of soda there. It happens, and anyone who runs retail just sort of has to accept the risk. One day, during this depression, I was stocking an aisle with canned food when I noticed a misplaced item. People do this all the time when they change their minds, you’ve seen it. All I had to do was hop over to the next aisle over, and reshelve it. I incidentally did this quite quietly, and happened to catch a young woman sticking baby formula inside her stroller, right under her baby’s legs. At that moment, we locked eyes, and she froze like a stunned animal. I recognized her as a regular, and I’m pretty sure she knew that I was the owner, and not just some minimum wage worker. All of those were on the younger side of the spectrum. I didn’t know what to say as we stared at each other, so I ended up not saying anything. I cleared my throat, shelved the item in its place, and walked away. I don’t know what was going through her head, but she probably had her own internal debate about what to do. In the end, she left with what she needed, and only actually paid for a carton of milk. Years later, she returned to my store in tears. I had seen her many times since the incident, and we never spoke of it, so I’m not sure what had changed, but she wanted to apologize. She wasn’t the real mother. She was actually the sister, and their mother had died, which was why she wasn’t producing breast milk. I told her it didn’t matter. The kid needed food, the kid got food; end of story, no apology necessary. I wasn’t able to help much during the depression, but I was able to help this one person on that one day. I guess it will have to do.

Microstory 1886: Gone Away

< > Table of Contents

I spent years looking for a decent job after high school. I mean, based on my skill set, I had a number of okay ones over the years, but none that would really support me the way I felt I deserved. When I did get that job, I was cheated out of some of what I was owed. It came with two weeks of vacation time, but in order to save money, my supervisor chose to not inform me of this fact. He went even further than that by claiming that I didn’t qualify for time off under this and that policy. When his boss found out, she was livid. By then, I had worked for the company for eleven years, which meant I actually should have started getting four weeks off per year. Normally, they didn’t carry over, but through some maneuvering, they gave them to me all at once. That was a total of nineteen weeks when all added up. The only thing was that I had to take them off by the end of the current year. Which essentially meant I had to leave right away. In fact, she tacked on an extra week to round out the number, and just not have me come back in until January of the next year. What was I going to do with all that time? It was over four and a half months. I wasn’t making a whole lot of money, so it’s not like that freed me up to go on a cross country tour, or a cruise. The best idea I had was to go visit my cousins who lived on the border. I didn’t get a chance to see them very much, so this was a great opportunity for a cheap, but still relaxing, sabbatical. I didn’t sublet my little house, because that wasn’t really a thing in the region. I just locked it up and left. I did ask my neighbor to bring my trash cans back up to the house one last time, which he agreed to do with a smile. I had my mail forwarded, and went on my way.

When I came back, the place was dusty as hell, but everything was otherwise fine. The trash cans were where they were meant to be, and some mail was already waiting for me in my normal box, as planned. I still had that last week of time off, so it was time to clean up. I used a lot of disinfecting wipes. Plus, there was some fruit in the fridge that I forgot to toss. And a loaf of bread in the pantry. And some other food in the fridge. Okay, it was a mess, but that’s not the point. The point is I had to gather all that up, and take it out to my cans. At first when I opened the lid, I didn’t know what I was looking at. I was in such shock, I couldn’t process it. I didn’t scream, or jump back in horror. I just stared at the body, trying to piece together what it was. Only after I realized the truth did the smell hit me. It should have been my first clue, I don’t know why it waited so long to waft up to my nose, but I did have to slam the lid shut, and step back. I still didn’t scream, though. I’m not that kind of girl. Assuming that I would be prime suspect, I contacted the authorities, and let them come out and investigate. To my surprise, they didn’t even consider me as the culprit. Even before they had all this evidence with my mail forwarding, and corroboration from my cousins, and other people, they believed me that I wasn’t the murderer. By the way, the victim was my neighbor, and they said he had been stuffed in there for about four and a half months, which suggested the killer did the deed around the time he was trying to help me out. I had to move, which was fine, because I was fired after three days of missing my return to work due to the trauma. I just couldn’t live in that house anymore, and I had encountered a few originally ignored job opportunities where my cousins lived, so I figured I could just go straight back. That was almost four decades ago. They never found the killer.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 5, 2394

« < » > Table of Contents

Skylar led the team into the building, and up the elevators, which was a tight squeeze with her bodyguards. As the sister of the apparent leader of the entire metropolis, it was understandable that she needed to be protected. The only weird part was that they made no attempt to pat the team down, or assess them as a threat in any way. Perhaps they just knew enough about the future.

They spilled out at the top floor, and headed to the left for the Night President’s Office. This should be interesting, learning why there was a different president for each half of the day. Skylar nodded to her guards as they entered the Night Vice President’s Office. They stayed outside by the door, and gave them some privacy. Instead of sitting at her desk, she chose a chair in the center of the room, and had everyone choose a spot on one of the two couches. “I don’t normally work here. By design, we’re usually kept separate to insulate against a discontinuity of government. We knew you would head here for help first, though, and at the moment, my brother has to sleep, so I’m the only one available.”

“This sounds like a fascinating form of government,” Ramses pointed out. “Night and day?”

Skylar laughed. “It’s by necessity. One of us wanted to run for office, and the others sort of had to follow suit. We never thought we would win, because of our unusual situation, but the people seem cool with it, and we’re making it work.”

“You’re making what work?” Marie asked. “What’s your situation?”

“We’re gargoyles,” she answered. They had seen a lot over the years, but a stone monster person would be a first. She giggled again. “A specific kind of gargoyle. Oliver and I are the originals. We were born this way. It’s what the powers that be chose for us. Due to a series of unlikely events, we transferred our patterns to Kostya and Lucy, except diametrically. We only exist between sundown and sunrise. They only exist between sunrise and sundown.”

“So you can’t cooperate?” Leona noted.

“We leave each other messages. That’s not the issue.”

Olimpia tilted her head, and twitched an eye. “Love,” she guessed.

Skylar nodded. “Oliver loves Lucy, and she him. They haven’t seen each other in person in a very long time. There’s one way that we could do it, but...there’s an obstacle. That’s what we were hoping you would be able to help us with.” She checked her watch. “It’ll have to be next year, but...would you be willing?”

“Depends on what it is,” Mateo said cautiously.

“Of course,” Skylar said understandingly. “You’ve heard of the Salmonday Club?”

“Yeah,” they answered, except for Angela and Marie.

“It adds an extra day between Saturday and Sunday,” Leona explained to them. “It exists within a pocket dimension of extra temporal energy. Clubgoers spend one minute inside, but it feels like twenty-four hours.”

“People run in when the timer starts,” Ramses continued, “and rush back out before time runs out at the end.”

“Wait,” Angela said. “What happens if they don’t get out in time?”

“They jump to the end of the next week,” Leona answered. “If you never left the club, it would always be Salmonday for you, and you would basically live for fifty-two days a year. Their pattern would be not unlike ours.” She turned back to Vice President Spout. “Is that why you think we can help, because of our pattern?”

“No, it’s because we don’t have any teleporters left,” Skylar clarified. “The obstacle is pretty simple, you should be able to jump past it, and once inside, you can shut it down. If you can do this for us, we can get you back to the main sequence.”

“You say obstacle like you don’t wanna talk about what it really is,” Olimpia realized.

“It’s an abyss,” Skylar said. “Some of that temporal energy escaped, and formed a cloud around the entrances to the club. Fortunately it has never spread farther, because that would be bad. We don’t know how slow time moves inside, but it’s very slow. We can see people just stuck there in place. There’s a way to purge it, but again, it’s inside the club, and we can’t reach it. You wouldn’t just be helping my brother and the love of his life touch each other once more. You would be freeing all the innocent curious people, and the volunteers, who have been trapped for decades.”

“Why do we have to wait until next year?” Angela asked. “We still have a few hours left before midnight central.”

“All four leaders have to sign off on it,” Skylar began, “and the other three refuse to do so until they meet you. If we had known exactly where you were going to show up, we could have planned it better, but unfortunately, our seer wasn’t that specific. So here’s what will happen—if you agree to even entertain the idea—”

“We’ll do it,” Leona answered plainly. There was no doubt about it. This was right in their wheelhouse, especially now that they were full-fledged teleporters.

“That would be great. Just so you understand, I’ve met you, I sign off. I’m easy. I trust our seers, and the historical records that have recounted your dealings with the Fourth Quadrant, and other points in spacetime. Next year, when you come back, it will be nighttime again, and you can meet Oliver. Come sunrise, you can meet with Lucy and Kostya. Does that sound fair?”

“What are the chances they won’t sign off?” Mateo asked her.

Skylar sighed. “Nearly zero. I think this is more of a CYA operation. We need the citizens—the voters—to know that we didn’t just send a team of strangers to a hazardous temporal anomaly, on a potentially dangerous mission, without so much as shaking your hands.”

“Okay, we’ll do it,” Leona repeated.

“You don’t need to discuss it?” Skylar pressed.

“We can feel each other’s emotions,” Mateo divulged. “We’re all in. We would know if there was any reluctance amongst us.”

“Very well,” Skylar said, standing back up. “I’m just now realizing, though, that we did not factor in any rest time for you. You can wait to meet my brother until later. It just can’t be after 6:56. Well, it needs to be reasonably before that. I suppose we could—”

“We’re fine,” Leona interrupted again. “We don’t need very much sleep anymore either.”

“Brilliant,” Skylar said. “I wish I had that luxury. I only exist an average of twelve hours a day, but I still need to sleep at least seven.”

The team looked around at each other, particularly Ramses and Leona.

“What? What is it?”

“The way we understand it,” Ramses started to say, “the powers that be have no control over salmon once they cross into other realities, like this one.”

“I assure you, we are still bound to our pattern.”

“Yes, you are,” Leona presumed, “but there might be a way around that. Our pattern, for instance, was encoded into our neurology. Take it away from us, and we’re no longer us. This is tantamount to murder or suicide. But that was done to us by a man...a very powerful man. We’ve not been beholden to the PTB for years. The fact that our current pattern matches the original one was deliberate and arbitrary. He could just as easily have chosen some other random pattern.”

“What are you saying?” Skylar sat back down, curious. “This man could do the same for us, but change our pattern?”

“Oh, no,” Mateo said. “We wouldn’t have you deal with him. It would be us. Well, it would be Ramses and Leona.”

Ramses reached into his bag, and retrieved an object that resembled an ancient wireless cellphone charging stand. He set it on Skylar’s coffee table. It looked wholly unremarkable, but it was incredibly advanced. “This is called a nanoforge, specifically a lab creator. I might need to tweak it a little bit, but the last time I used it, it was for the same thing you’ll need. It’s mostly automated, but you’ll have to provide it with raw materials, and it’ll let you know what those are. It can build a cloning laboratory, based on the number of gestational pods you require, and the speed of development you wish to wait for. You can then transfer your respective consciousnesses to your new bodies, and if all goes well, you’ll leave your patterns behind. You’ll be a salmonfree you.”

Skylar was shocked. “You would do this for us? You would grant us this technology?”

“It comes with an expiration date,” Leona clarified. “You won’t be able to keep it. The lab will literally implode, as well as the forge. We’re not in the habit of interfering with the development of a given culture. We don’t know what you would do with cloning tech if you don’t already have it. If you would like to invent it yourself afterwards, we won’t stop you, but we’re not going to let you just jump into it...except to help the four of you this once.”

“Of course we’ll still shut off your weird time cloud,” Olimpia reminded her. “It’s not an either-or thing.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

Ramses took out his tablet, and paired it with the nanoforge. “I’ll stay here to program it. The rest of you should scout the location.”

“Yes,” Leona agreed.

“Why don’t you...?” Skylar began, but trailed off out of seeming embarrassment.

“Go ahead and say it,” Mateo encouraged.

“Would you consider just staying here? We do have a way to get you back to the main reality, but I think you six could do quite well here, and you’re always welcome.”

It was certainly a thought to think on, but they had already considered it as an option while they were still in the Fifth Division. They didn’t leave because of any particular danger they were in. They were always in danger. They wanted to return home. Leona was about to say as much when a feeling she received from Mateo changed her approach. “We’ll talk about it. Thanks for the offer.”

They teleported away, except for Ramses, who was working on the nanoforge, and Marie, who felt like sticking around.”

The next day was as breezy as Skylar made it sound. They met with her brother, Oliver soon after returning to the timestream. They then waited several hours, when the two of them were stuck in impenetrable time bubbles, and the other two were free of theirs. Apparently, each one lasted a few seconds, but spanned roughly half a day. It didn’t matter what time of year it was, or where they were. Their pattern was coded to this region, according to the rotation of the Earth. Sunrise and sunset times changed every day, and their patterns changed with them. Winters were better for the night team, but summers were better for the day team. One day, they would be free of all that, and that day was going to come sooner than they could have imagined. The cloning process was going to take years to complete the safest way, but there was a workaround in the meantime. In fact, it could be a permanent solution if that was what they chose.

Fixing the Salmonday Club temporal issue was easy too. The emergency shutoff button was exactly where everyone said it would be, in the manager office. Mateo and Marie teleported in alone, pressed it, and the nightmare was over. It was no longer a club for Salmonday. They could start it back up again, but would probably just demolish the place. The intention was to repurpose it as a neutral zone for the two disparate leadership factions to reunite periodically, but they shouldn’t need it anymore.

Shortly before sunset, and after ensuring that the leak was repaired, they flipped the dimension back on, and let Kostya and Lucy inside. Once the Spouts were back, Olimpia and Leona transported them there too. After witnessing the heartfelt reunion between them, Leona presented them with four Cassidy cuffs. “Unlike the laboratory, these will not self-destruct. They can also not be reprogrammed according to your whims. They’ll work with your DNA only. You can’t even swap them among each other.” She handed each one to the salmon, careful to make sure she didn’t get them mixed up. “All you’ll be able to do is suppress your pattern. They’re not communicators, they’re not teleporters. I left the clock on there, but that’s it. They’re all juiced up, and should last you centuries. You’ll probably have to transfer your consciousnesses to other substrates to survive that long anyway.

“Thank you,” Lucy said graciously.

“Thanks to all of you,” Kostya added.

“The seer did not predict any of this,” Oliver said.

“I’m sure they saw it coming,” Leona figured. “They just didn’t tell you about it. They like to withhold.”

Skylar frowned, and hastily attached her cuff to her wrist. “Put them on,” she ordered the other three. Put them on now.”

“It’s okay,” Leona said. “There’s no rush. I mean, it’s fine, but...”

“It’s not fine,” Skylar said in an apologetic tone. “We’ve been withholding as well. We can’t get you back to the main sequence. That’s never been something we could do. We probably would have had migration with those kinds of capabilities. Our technology has grown, since we sped up time to match that of true Earth, but we didn’t advance as fast as them, I’m sure. I’m sorry, we lied.”

The team smiled. “We know.”

“You do?” Oliver asked.

“We’re good at reading microexpressions,” Marie told them.

“You’re not mad?” Lucy asked.

“Don’t inspire anger in them,” Kostya advised.

“Really, it’s all right,” Leona assured them. “We’ll find a way eventually.”

“Eventually has come!” came a voice from across the room.

« < » > Table of Contents

Extremus: Year 44

« < » > Table of Contents

Cloning and self-duplication are not illegal in the stellar neighborhood, which serves Earth at its center. It’s not even technically illegal on Extremus, but it’s effectively so, because some of the technology required to make either of such things happen have indeed been outlawed. Kaiora jumped through a lot of legal loopholes to institute the Clone and Consciousness Transference team within the secret quarantined section of the ship that she’s been working with. It’s all above board, though of course, not public knowledge. She originally authorized it in order to study the impostors that are running around unchecked, but she made sure to have the ability to use it herself should the need arise. Hindsight being what it is, she’s convinced herself that this was probably her plan all along. She always knew she was going to pretend to have an impostor. It’s an incredibly risky plan, as the whole idea behind the secret quarantine in the first place is to keep it...well, secret. She doesn’t want to cause a panic, but this may be the only way. Elodie’s duplicate detection program using the security cameras will only supposedly find two copies of the same person. It won’t help them understand where the impostors are coming from, or who’s responsible. It won’t even work at all if the impostor killed or stashed the original.

The scientists have been hard at work, ensuring that the technology they’re using is sound and safe. Just like everyone else on the secret team, these are not the best that Extremus has to offer. All of those people are busy being rock stars who would look quite appetizing to a group of impostors looking to disrupt the status quo. Still, they’re good enough, and it only took them the rest of the year to be confident enough to let Kaiora create a copy of herself. This copy is not an automaton that’s just going to stand there and take orders. She is the real Kaiora, as the original is also real. They both carry the same memories, the same personality, and the same claim to the captain’s chair. Again, duplicating itself isn’t against the law, but in this case, it might as well be. Even suggesting that they’re both in charge of the ship and crew is basically blasphemy. Can you imagine how dangerous it would be if this got out of hand? Kaiora could copy herself dozens of times, outman the rest of the crew alone, and use their position to take over completely. No, no one will be able to let this stand. She’s about to lose her job, but it will have been worth it if it works. She doesn’t know if Halan would be proud, or disappointed that she followed in his footsteps towards a treasonous act.

It’s March of 2313 now, and the two Kaioras have been successfully running the show in tandem with each other for the last four months. No one has noticed. Elodie’s detection program has caught them perfectly every day, but the public hasn’t spoken up about any discrepancies. They’re not even working that hard to make sure they avoid running into each other. They do, to be sure, because a real impostor would do just that, but she was worried over nothing about how difficult that would turn out to be. She probably could have entrusted the mission to any idiot. The hope is that only another impostor—or someone else involved in the impostor insurrection—will take notice before anyone else, and pull them aside quietly. This is why they can’t force an encounter with each other. They have resigned themselves to the possibility that someone else will realize instead, and make a big stink about it. That might still give an impostor the opportunity to step in, but Kaiora’s career will have been ruined regardless.

The impostor hunting team has no normal way to reach out to Kaiora if they need to speak with her. The entire purpose of the quarantine is to keep them isolated from society. If they can communicate with people on the outside, the integrity of the mission is lost. Still, Kaiora needs to know if there’s an emergency, so she’s decided to trust one person. Mediocre hacker, Elodie Seabrooke has control over all of the ship’s cameras, which she uses to look for duplicates. These cameras do not have speakers, or blinking lights, but they do have apertures.

When this aperture is adjusted, it makes a very faint noise, just as you would expect. Any given camera has no reason to adjust the aperture, because it operates best at a wide angle to close blindspots. They were only designed this way because it was a cheap and easy feature that they would rather have and not need, than need at some point, and not have. By opening and closing the aperture of the nearest cameras to Kaiora, Elodie can signal a return to base. This happening once means nothing, as it could simply be a normal security officer who is bored sitting at the monitors. But if the aperture noise makes a distinct pattern, and keeps happening with other cameras as Kaiora moves, then it means something.

Kaiora cancels her next meeting, which is fortunately not too important, and since it’s with her girlfriend, Ima will understand. Dr. Holmes doesn’t know anything about this. She knows she can’t know everything that the Captain deals with. Kaiora heads for the secret section, and opens the interior door.

Dr. Malone is there, just like he so often is. “Captain, I need to speak with you.”

“Did you summon me here?”

“No. How would I do that?”

“So you’ve just been hanging out by the door, like I’ve asked you a million times not to do.”

“It’s really urgent.”

“What’s really urgent is protocol. You’re making me think that you’re trying to look for a way to escape. There’s a reason I have to unlock two doors to get in here, and there’s a reason there’s nothing of note at the entrance which might excuse one of you ever being too close, and there is a reason we built a special hock in this section. Are you understanding me?”

“Sir.”

“Bye,” she says coarsely.

“Bye,” he echoes bitterly.

Kaiora enters Elodie’s room, and shuts the door behind her this time. It’s cleaner now than it was a year ago; organized and well lit. There’s a pleasant smell. “Please tell me you reached out.”

“I did, thanks for coming so quick,” Elodie replies.

“Did you find a duplicate?”

“More like a single-cate,” she says, knowing it’s a dumb joke. She navigates to the right screen, and turns the monitor so that Kaiora can see better.

Kaiora leans in close to get a good look. It’s an empty hallway at first, in what she knows to be a vacant section. It hasn’t been populated yet, because they don’t need the space yet. Then the door opens, and a figure steps out. His back is turned to the camera at first, but then he spins around. It’s Yitro Moralez. He has been on a mission off-ship for the last thirteen years. “Is this the first time you’re seeing him?”

“It’s the first time that I’m seeing him. I don’t know if the cameras spotted him before. I didn’t program them to flag other unusual activity; just duplicates. Once a week, I run a diagnostic on every single camera the ship has, even the dormant ones. It turns them on for several seconds if they aren’t already on. He happened to step outside, and got flagged by the regular security system which checks for dark section movement.”

“Are those cameras back on now?”

“Yes,” Elodie answers, “the feed is flowing directly through me; not security.”

“But they saw him during the diagnostic. They saw those few seconds.”

Elodie waits a moment. “The system saw him, I don’t know if a human did. People use those sections all the time; teenagers wanting to fool around in private, people on long walks. Especially since you shut off all teleportation, people do have to cross out of an in-use area to get to one of these places, which means each subsequent camera can flip on to follow them. Lieutenant Moralez has to have been there for a very long time if this is the only camera that ever clocked him.”

“He’s a captain now,” Kaiora says. “Or he was, or he will be. We don’t know who that is. He could be a duplicate, or he could be here as a time traveler. We don’t know anything. All we know is that an entity who resembles him was at that very door in that very moment, for a few seconds. He could have his own form of teleportation that I don’t know about. That’s always been a possibility.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Your system is ready to flag him again if he ever shows up, correct?”

“Correct,” Elodie confirms.

“I’m going to investigate personally.”

“Are you going to tell the other you?”

“No, let her run the ship for now.” Kaiora leaves, and heads back for the exit.

Dr. Malone is waiting in the hallway yet again. “Captain, it’ll only take a second.”

“Guard!” Kaiora calls.

The one security officer she’s quarantined, runs up, wiping crumbs off of his lips.

“Place him in hock.”

“For how long?”

“Until I come back and change my mind.”

“Please, Captain! No!” Dr. Malone struggles, but is no physical match for the largest guard Kaiora could find. He never even trained for the job. His size and strength are the only reasons he’s here. The other subjects are finding this isolated life to be difficult, but he has thrived. It’s pretty easy to keep him happy.

Kaiora leaves the secret section, and heads for the other secret section. It’s been unused for the whole year, since the only purpose of it is to house the time machine, which they never intended to use again. Greenley is already there, like she’s been waiting. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to talk you out of it,” the head temporal engineer replies.

The Captain points an accusing finger at her. “You’re colluding with a seer.”

“I wouldn’t use that word,” Greenley defends. “It’s not nefarious. We’re trying to protect you. This machine is extremely dangerous. We’ve never seen anyone come back out of it. I wish we had never built it in the first place. Don’t..do this.”

Kaiora fumes. She has to go back to earlier today to intercept the supposed Yitro. It’s a necessary sacrifice. “I’m doing it. So turn it on, and do your job. That is an order.”

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 1885: Put on Ice

< > Table of Contents

Yesterday morning, I was walking my cat by the frozen river. Yes, I walk my cat. I know it’s weird, but he likes it, and I like it, so I don’t owe you an explanation. That’s not the point anyway. This is a story about how I nearly succumbed to death, and how that would have been okay, because I still would have saved a life in the process. The trail doesn’t run exactly parallel to the river—it bends away at places, to get around trees, and the like. As we were getting back towards it, I started hearing what I initially thought were birds. It was Buttons who heard it first, actually, he has such great hearing. I’m sure he knew right away that it was a human. Once I realized this myself, I dropped the leash, and left the trail. It was tough, getting through all the brambles and thorns, but I couldn’t wait until we got to a clearing, because then we would be too far upstream. Buttons followed me, he’s loyal too. Finally I reached the bank, and nearly slipped onto the ice myself, which may seem like it wouldn’t matter, because I was ending up out there anyway, but not right there. I discovered how unstable it was right there. I looked across, and saw a child on his stomach in the middle of the river. There was a rope swing nearby that kids use in the summer, so I assumed he came from that side. Irrelevant. He needed help, and there was no one else around, so I found my footing, and crawled out to retrieve him. I know now, you’re supposed to urge them to come to try to come to you, but he was so little. I tried talking to him, but he just kept crying. He wasn’t capable of meeting me halfway. Man, I wish I had been on that other side, though; then I could have thrown him the rope! Or maybe I would have tied it to myself, and been safer.

Well, crawling started feeling dangerous. I could hear the ice crack under my weight, so I decided to lie flat, and slide to him. I dug my fingernails into the top layer, hoping not to disrupt its integrity, and pulled myself closer little by little, ignoring the blood turning the snow red. He was facing away from me, so even though I kept talking to him, I didn’t think he knew I was on my way. Finally I was there. I took him in my arms, and together we kept going to the other side, because we weren’t exactly in the center. We were almost to the bank when the ice just fell out from under me. I held on as best I could, but the current was so strong underneath. The only thing I could do was push the boy forwards, and get him onto the ground. When he looked back, I told him to run for help, but it was too late. I was under. Another random citizen pulled my body out of the river more than twenty miles downstream, where the water was calmer, and not iced over. This was eleven hours later. He assumed that I was dead, but that didn’t stop him from beginning CPR, and having his niece call for help. The paramedics took over when they arrived, and my heart miraculously started beating again. I wasn’t conscious, but I was alive. They drove me to the hospital, where doctors continued treatment. I woke up several hours later, feeling terrible, but still alive. My family was all around me, crying because they thought they had lost me. They were all talking about how God saved me, and I don’t know about that, but I did feel lucky. My own niece was holding Buttons, having snuck him into the hospital in her purse. I was grateful that he was okay, but I told her to take him back home, because there are sick people here, and they don’t need any dirty animals. I was feeling tired just in time for visiting hours to be over, so I said goodbye to my family, and tried to get to sleep. But I never woke up.