Voyage to Saga: Ends of the Earth (Part IV)

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“Are we feeling better?” The Shepherd asked of him. She was holding a clipboard and wearing a stereotypical nursing cap.

“Good enough.” He struggled to sit up. “What’s my next mission?”

“Now, hold on. You don’t even know if you did well enough on the last one. Hell, you don’t even know if you survived. I can talk to dead people.” She said that like an overconfident kindergartner who can now count to ten.

Vearden just sat there and waited.

“Okay, fine, you did great. The people on that planet are fine too, by the way. You cured them, and saved the better part of an entire galaxy.”

“That’s nice to hear,” Vearden said honestly.

“I thought you might enjoy that, because this next one is going to be more complicated, and you’re not going to like how it starts.”

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not,” the Shepherd agreed. “You could always quit. You came to me, this isn’t like the Cleanser with his tribulations, or Arcadia with Mateo’s expiations.”

“Arcadia who, and her what?”

“Don’t worry about it.” She paused before adding, “yet.”

Vearden sat up a little straighter. “I’ll be ready in a minute. I just need to find my clothes.”

“Clothes?” she asked. “Where we’re goin’...we don’t need clothes.”

“So, a nudist colony?” He had to admit, if only to himself, that that did not sound like something he would say no to.

“No, L-O-L.” She literally laughed. “You’ll just be wearing someone else’s clothes.” She looked at him over her fake glasses. “I must say, though—and you might call me a cliché—but I do love a man in uniform.” She waved her hand in the air and spirited him away.

He found himself sitting in the cockpit of an airplane, wearing a pilot’s uniform. The Shepherd was right. He wasn’t happy with this. It was giving him traumatic flashbacks to the time he lost Saga in the first place. He had to get over it though, because it was time to get into character.

“I’ll tell ya what, though,” the guy who was presumably his co-pilot said without looking at Vearden. “I sure wish they could put an air marshal on every flight.”

Vearden chose to stay silent. Either he had leapt into the body of the pilot, or they had switched places. He wasn’t quite ready to find out which. He could also hear someone banging on the cockpit door, yelling something about diverting the craft.

“King Dumpster would never—” the co-pilot tried to continue, but then did happen to look over. “My God, who the fuck are you!”

“Uh...” he couldn’t come up with a good excuse. He missed the days when the people he ran into weren’t surprised to see him. The people on Orolak had encountered aliens many times before, and the doctors on Vaidy didn’t dismiss the possibility of alternate universes. Vearden waved his arms in front of himself like a stage performance. “Magic.”

“I’m gonna call this in.” The co-pilot started speaking into the radio, and Vearden had to think quickly. Violence was never the answer, but since when did he ever receive a perfect score for anything? He punched the co-pilot in the jaw, successfully knocking him out.

He stood and turned up the volume on the little security camera outside the cockpit. The man kept yelling. “There’s a bomb! We have to divert the plane! Go south! Go as far south as you can!”

Curious, Vearden opened the door, shocking the man on the other side. “If there’s a bomb on the plane, how would flying south help?”

“Uh...” the man didn’t know what to say either, but then he composed himself. “The bomb is not on the plane. It’s over Kansas, and the resulting EMP will knock out all electronics for hundreds, if not thousands, of miles. I can’t believe you opened the...” He trailed off when he noticed the co-pilot. “Who are you?”

“Someone who doesn’t know how to fly a plane. Do you?”

The man didn’t expect to be taken seriously. “I think I could figure it out. We just...we just need to go south. Then we can deal with the whole emergency landing problem.”

The flight attendant showed up from evidently having needed to calm down the other passengers. “What the hell is going on here? Where’s the captain?”

“It’s okay, um...Stevenson,” Vearden said, looking at the flight attendant’s nametag. “I’m an air marshal, and this is an emergency. We have to divert the plane.”

“Where’s your badge?” Stevenson asked.

“I’m under cover.”

He stared at him like he didn’t believe a word he was saying. But then he shrugged. “Whatever. I don’t mind being a hostage.” Stevenson left to sit down casually in his cute little jump seat.

“We better get inside,” Vearden said to the other guy.

“Taniel! Taniel! Come up here!” he called back to the fuselage.

“What’s your name, by the way?” Vearden asked.

“You can call me Kasabian.” They stepped into the cockpit, along with a young man named Taniel. Stevenson waved goodbye to them.

“What kind of world are we living in?”

“Have you been—” Kasabian began.

“...living under a rock?” Vearden proposed. “Let’s say I have. How would you explain this world to an alien?”

“Things have been going bad for years now,” Taniel explained while Kasabian sat down and tried to get a feel for the controls. “Now my father believes shit has finally hit the fan. So instead of taking me and my sister to safety, he left her behind.”

“I have my orders,” Kasabian defended himself. “She’s not a part of this.”

“She’ll die out there!” Taniel argued.

“I have taught her everything I know. She’ll be well clear of the blast, and radiation. She’ll survive, but we won’t if I can’t figure out how to get this thing turned.”

“Oh my God,” Taniel said. He shooed his father from the controls and started manipulating them himself. They could feel the plane make an uncomfortably sharp turn to the left. When he was done, the other two didn’t know what to say. “It’s not that hard,” Taniel said to them. “Parents complain about all the video games their millennial children play...until it comes time to call upon the skills learned in an airplane simulation.”

“Great,” Kasabian said with a nod. “Now that I know how to do that, we can turn again and go south, which is where we need to be, because we’re not going back to Houston, son!”

“You’re an asshole.”

“You’ll thank me when we’re in the—” he stopped short, apparently realizing that he had said too much. He just went back to making a much more dramatic turn than before, and pretended like they hadn’t been talking.

“In the what?” Taniel questioned.

“The safe zone, of course,” Kasabian covered. Taniel wasn’t buying it, but didn’t think he would get any more answers anyway. Besides, someone was knocking on the door.

“Don’t answer that,” Kasabian commanded.

“Why not?” Vearden asked.

“We don’t know who it is.”

“You don’t know who I am.”

“Exactly. I don’t any more variables.”

“I’m the one in the captain’s uniform,” Vearden said, with a slight smile.

“I’m the one with close-quarters combat training,” Kasabian countered.

“I’m here for a reason, and this women might be a part of that.”

“She looks familiar,” Taniel said, peering at the security stream. She was a pretty middle-aged woman who looked nervous and desperate.

Vearden opened the door, knowing that Kasabian was too busy to stop him.

“Are we going south?” the woman asked.

“We are now, yes,” Taniel said. “Do I know you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry but we will not be going to Atlanta,” Kasabian said, now looking through a manual he found. “This is a matter of national security.”

“I didn’t want to go to Atlanta,” the woman said. “I wanted to go to Brazil. Atlanta was just one of my stops.”

“We can’t go to Brazil either,” Kasabian told her. “We have to stop at the nearest airport, and from what I gather, that would be Havana.”

“Are you crazy?” Taniel asked. “We can’t go to Cuba.”

“Why not?” Vearden asked. “Did President Obama not reopen Cuba?”

“Who? King Dumpster was our last president.”

“Who the hell is King—oooohhhh.” Vearden finally realized who they were talking about. “You guys reelected him in this reality?”

“What?”

“Cuba won’t be happy to see us,” the woman continued, ignoring Vearden’s strange remark. “Let’s just go on to Brazil. Surely we have enough fuel.”

“Honestly, ma’am,” Kasabian said, “I have no idea. We’re playing this by ear. We too are trying to get to Brazil, but we may not make it, so we have to play it safe. No one anywhere is ever happy to see Trumpericans.”

“Is that really what—” Vearden tried to ask.

“No.” Kasabian sighed. “It’s not what we’re officially called. Man, that rock must have been heavy. Now everyone please stop talking. I need to learn everything I can about this so we don’t all crash into the gulf and die.”

“Fair enough.” Then Vearden added under his breath, “I’m just not sure what I’m still doing here.”

Vearden and Taniel sat on the floor while the woman, whose name turned out to be Candida, sat in the co-pilot’s seat. The co-pilot woke up a half hour later the jumpseat next to Stevenson; confused, angry, but with no way of getting back into the cockpit. A half hour after that, things got really insane. All of the sudden, the controls that were once lit up just shut off. Kasabian could steer the plane to a certain degree, but the electronics were all gone. It would seem that they were unable to get far enough away from the EMP he mentioned earlier.

“Oh my God, are we gonna die?” Candida asked, loudly, but not loud enough for the passengers to hear.

“We’ll be able to glide for a while, but it may not be enough to get to the runway. I don’t have that math, or enough education to, like, solve it anyway.”

“What can we do?” Taniel asked, but received no response. “Dad! What can we do?”

Kasabian frantically started flipping back through the manual. “Where do they keep the parachutes?”

“There’s no way this plane has a parachute for every single passenger,” Taniel said.

“I wasn’t talking about every passenger,” Kasabian said back. “Just us. In fact, just us two. Only you need to survive, and I only need to survive to protect you.”

“What makes me so bloody special?”

“I’m not having this conversation again.

And then they began to fight with each other, not one of them offering any viable solution. Candida tried to play mediator, but they started attacking her a little as well. Vearden remained silent before doing that thing where he shuts everybody up at once. “We can’t do this. None of us knows how to fly. Sure, you held onto the stick thingy, and kept it moving, but autopilot does most things these days, so I’ma hold onto your medal. Even if it had been programmed to land from a glide, it doesn’t work, because the power’s out. There’s only one person on this thing who can save us.”

It took some more persuasion, but eventually, they reluctantly opened the door and let the co-pilot come back in. Apparently, if they did manage to survive and make it to Cuba, they weren’t going to be punished as terrorists, because...well it was 2023 Cuba in a universe where a massive nuclear weapon was just detonated over Kansas. No one was in charge, so they might as well let the co-pilot do what he was trained to do. It wasn’t like he could stop them after that. He ordered them out of the cockpit, and they complied. It was out of their hands. More specifically, it was out of Vearden’s hands.

He stepped into the lavatory to splash water on his face. When he tried to step out, he found himself back in the magical suite from before. Housekeeping hadn’t even come in to clean.

“Oh, you did a good job,” the Shepherd said from the bathroom. “In the original timeline, no one thought to call the co-pilot back, and they all died.”

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Microstory 515: Woman Uses Telekinesis to Tear Planet in Half

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There comes a time in everyone’s life, in this system, when they must decide what kind of power they’re going to wield, if any. There are many variants of telekinesis. Some are designed for heavy lifting, others for microprecision. Some allow the user to create self-sustaining fields, and some for flying. There is one type, however, that is unlike the others. Most TK can be removed, and even switched out. This is not so when it comes to germ telekinesis. It requires proclivity, and practice...thus patience. It’s also theoretically limitless. Philosophers have long questioned whether there was anything a telekinetic individual may be unable to accomplish given enough time and talent. Of course, this question is impossible to answer, but what we can answer is the most impressive feat that has ever been accomplished. Dasha Sinclair is a 176 year-long virgat from the planet of Regnia, and is now listed as the most powerful telekinetic in the system.

Sinclair grew up normal, was a self-proclaimed ‘middling’ student, and was leaning towards working as a technician on one of the gravis stations. One day, when she was 14 standard years old, her class went on a field trip to visit Palomino Shore on Arion. She found herself drawn to the Aitchai Temple that rests on the south end. Sinclair says of this experience, “my family and I have never been religious. We believe in science and hard work. In fact, I was the first in generations to even accept telekinesis at all. I was already planning to do it, but I didn’t know until that moment that I would dedicate my life to it.” She was granted permission to witness one of the meditation rooms, and instantly admired them for their commitment to an alternative lifestyle. Spiritual devotion is one of only two paths that allow a citizen to be exempt from obligatory vocational contribution. The other is physical or psychological handicap, which is rare in present day, due to medical advancements. Anyone wishing to join a religious institution must prove their faith, and once becoming a member, must continue to prove it every day. And boy did Sinclair deliver. She was infrequently seen eating, sleeping, or doing anything else besides meditating. After receiving the germ telekinesis treatment, she did not once attempt to move anything with her mind for a whole ten years. Once she did begin to actually practice, she started out with nothing more than a small candle. Oh, but she held it in place for an entire week. Ever since, she’s been honing her skills, learning everything she can about the art of telekinesis...little by little. Only within the last thirty years or so did she even leave the temple for extended periods of time, and use her ability under practical conditions.

A few years ago, Sinclair petitioned the Greater Lactean Alliance for a planet of her own. Very few individuals have control over their own planets, and those who do are generally researchers who are interested in conducting in-depth surveys of their worlds. They measure literally ever square deam of the surface, and record their findings. One such  these of was a small rocky planet on the outer edge of the galaxy named Malcomicron by its previous owner. What the scientist discovered was that the planet showed absolutely no signs of life, either past or present. Not did it exhibit any evidence that it may support life in the future. His research had been recently completed, and he was currently on sabbatical. He, the alliance, and Sinclair all agreed that Malcomicron would be the perfect testing ground, as it were, for Sinclair’s experiment. Yesterday, millions of spectators boarded observation ships that are usually used for nebula and pulsar shows. They circled Malcomicron and waited for the first ever performance of its kind. Sinclair began by flying around the entire equator, cutting a trench that was only a quarter nayko wide. She then flew outside of its orbit and began the real work. Experts were stunned as she achieved exactly what she set out to. She managed to cleanly split Malcomicron into two equal halves. Each half-sphere sports an extraordinarily smooth surface. They are both currently on their way to succumbing to the gravitational pull of original planet’s sun. Policy-makers, and many others, are already rushing around to expedite a secondary proposal that would allow Malcomicron I and II to be moved into interstellar space to protect it from orbital decay. Tertiary plans are even being considered to convert it into a destination spot, complete with restaurants, resorts, museums, and more. She had the following words to express her feelings regarding the amazing endeavor.

I feel so grateful for everyone involved. Many people had to come together to make this thing even possible. I especially want to thank the representatives from Exile for advocating for me so vehemently. They didn’t have to do that, but they showed me a kindness that I can only hope to somehow repay them someday. I would like to thank the Core leaders, my fans, and of course, the Palomino Shore Aitchai Temple, which became part of my family.

Click here for the long-form interview with Dasha Sinclair.

Microstory 514: Martian Law Enforcement Approves ‘Culmination’ Coven

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For centuries, refugees and immigrants have been living in the great city of Atlantis on planet Earth. Some of us have even been here since the island was resting safely on the ocean’s surface. During that time, the Earthan population at the time was not only scarce, but also technologically primitive. Certain Earthans were aware of our existence, but you could count on an Amaigaben’s hands the number who understood exactly what we were. To most, we were just a small and barely consequential island that exported nothing. We were forced to sink our home into the depths of the waters to protect both us, and the Earthans. Martian Law forbade us from revealing ourselves to any veiled Earthan, which was a law most of us were happy to comply with. We’ve historically adopted an isolationistic position from the outside world, but many believe this to be a product of necessity, rather than true philosophical perspective. Recently, however, these thoughts have shift amongst a certain fraction of the population. The witches, due to their deep connection with the universe itself, are naturally inclined to ignore such trivial constraints as geographical boundaries. One coven in particular, which only now calls itself the Caretaker Coven, last year proposed to the Martians something that no one thought would be accepted, but it has.

Martian Law dictates that no one aware of the existence of society beyond their one planet may reveal this truth to any Earthan human. It’s pretty simple, really. If you’re talking to an Earthan, you can’t discuss what you know of outerspace and the likes, and if you’re talking to anyone else, you can say whatever you want. Some say this flies in the face as other laws, such as Priority Two, which turns the concept of sharing technology into a morally obligatory maxim. However your feelings regarding the moratorium on Earthan deveilment, the fact of the matter is that no Earthan may know that we exist. There are certain exceptions, like if the transgressor revealed truths accidentally, and while still themselves ignorant about the truth, to a certain degree. There are also a few Earthan world leaders who are aware of us, but only in order to cement our secrecy from everyone else. This new Martian approval changes all that on the highest scale since the Croatoan Expedition centuries ago. The Caretakers would like to bring certain Earthan humans into the fold in order to educate them in Craft. Covert studies have reportedly revealed that a select few Earthan children exhibit a special predilection towards the adoption of Craft engagements. Apparently, the evidence towards this fact is so strong, that the Martians have agreed to let the Caretaker coven remove more than one thousand Earthan children from their homes, and into Atlantis. Right now, it is not known how the Caretakers plan to explain to the parents where their children are going, but we will update you when we know. Some believe the witches will use memory erasing engagements to account for the disappearances, however, it is hard to believe the Martians would agree to that type of violation. The children have already been chosen, and some have been contacted. They are from all over the globe, and the first group is said to be arriving sometime next year.

Microstory 513: WARP Lantern Accident Damages Artwork

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In order to travel between the stars in a reasonable amount of time, a spacefaring vessel requires one thing: an astral collimator. This allows the ship to fall into what’s essentially another dimension, which allows it to bypass normal space, and propel itself forward at incredible speeds. However, enclosed ships are not the only method for near instantaneous travel. At current technology, if you just wanted to get to the other side of the planet you’re on, all you would need is a medical implant. To reach that planet’s satellite, your clothes can be modified to accommodate the necessary components. You could go anywhere in a single solar system with a device small and light enough to be carried in your hand, or suspended over your head. The question at this point is, what if you wanted to go to the next star over? Well, that qualifies as interstellar travel, which means you would need a vessel large enough to carry an astral collimator about the size of two people standing next to each other...and standing on boxes. But perhaps this is too much. Afterall, such vessels are designed to go anywhere in the galaxy, and maybe you don’t really need all that much. Is there an option that lies between an interplanetary device, and a transgalactic ship? Yes...technically. It’s called WARP lantern. The letters in the word stand for a great many things, coined by different people. System renowned technology critic, Pacy Reusner has been famously quoted as saying, “WARP means so many things that it actually means nothing. Today, it’s just a cool word that the Earthan humans will like when they learn that their precious entertainment franchise, Star Trek is kinda real.” Reusner has also said, “it’s dangerous as all hell. WARP lanterns, sometimes adapted to belt form, operate in a different way than traditional plex dimension collimators. Instead of sliding through a low-level dimension, which comes with limited risk, or staying safe in the confines of a vessel, WARP lanterns form a prototelekinetic forcefield. Forcefields are so dangerous on their own that most ships don’t even utilize them for defensive protection. Time and time again, they’ve proven themselves to be unreliable, often spontaneously overloading, or losing power altogether. Though no WARP lantern has failed in transit, sending its passengers to the vacuum of space, many experts agree that it is just a matter of time.

The lower plex dimensions are so ingrained in the fabric or celestial bodies that slipping into one leaves no lasting damage to the normal space environment. Interstellar travel is different, as it can release bursts of energy beyond the transport parameters. This is why any ship intending to travel the orange-colored interstellar plex system will generally jump into orbit of its originating planet first using the blue astral plane. It will only go orange once everything has cleared its vicinity. And this works perfectly for ships. As a WARP lantern has no physical bulkhead, though, this method does not work so well. Jumping through blue first using a WARP lantern can do just as much damage as a ship if it does not create a forcefield, and lift its passengers off the ground first. But even then, departure can lead to consequences, which is what happened at an Earthan Art Replica museum on Arion. Several paintings, and one marble statue, were damaged due to a WARP lantern accident. Preliminary findings suggest that the error can be traced to a miscalculation in the forcefield range, though the final report will come with more details. Already, Martians, Isala, and Dragon officials are working on a proposal to make indoor WARP traffic illegal, and possibly WARP travel altogether. We will update as details come in.

Microstory 512: The Boy With No Country

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In the year 1904, the third and last global-scale war began, and also ended. It was simultaneously the shortest great war, and the deadliest. At least one person died from every single generally acknowledged nation at the time. Following each world war, a new intergovernmental organization was formed. After World War I, it was the International Union. World War II led to Global Business Coalition, which primarily focused on international trade. The third world war started the multinational establishment that has lasted the longest, which is usually shortened to simply The Confederacy. Unlike its major predecessors, the Confederacy provides the world with regulations for every facet of modern civilization. Though national-level governments are free to run their countries as they see fit (barring crimes against humanity) any time one of these nations interacts with another, the Confederacy is always included. Nothing of note happens in the world without their say so, unless it’s illegal. It’s estimated that 92% of scholars attribute the absence of a fourth great war to the Confederacy’s efforts towards universal equality. Nearly every country on the planet belongs to the Confederacy at this point in history, with Corduene being the latest official acknowledgement, and Utah being the last holdout.

Other than that, the only recognized autonomous nation to remain outside the Confederacy is known as the Mesopotamia-Osroene Isolate. As theoretically the oldest surviving independent society, MOI refuses to interact with anyone else in the world. A small ambassadorship can be found in Iraq but only as part of a contingency in the unlikely event of global catastrophe. Little is known about the current state of affairs in MOI. A literal wall that extends a full shemra into the air surrounds the borders completely, and aircraft are banned from its airspace. No one is allowed in, and it is unclear what would happen—or has happened, for that matter—to anyone attempting to leave, and enter the rest of the world. The fact is that we know very little about Mesopotamia-Osroene. We’re not even sure that its citizens still refer to themselves as such. A recent poll shows that about half the population believes MOI is technologically more advanced, while the other half believes it to have defaulted to more simplistic, ancient technology, by design. 3% of responders believe that MOI does not even exist at all.

Whatever the reality behind the Isolate walls, it resulted in a rare occurrence for the Confederacy. Last week, an immigration boat was on its way from France to Mexico, full of people hopeful and excited for a new life. Two of these were a couple who met while day-laboring on a farm in Spain, one from Italy, the other from England. On the boat, they met a pregnant woman, whose baby they ultimately helped deliver. Unfortunately, the woman died in childbirth without anyone knowing who she was. What little she had said suggested, however, that she might have come from the Mesopotamia-Osroene Isolate. Though investigations later confirmed that the woman was indeed spotted around the MOI ambassadorship in Iraq, the ambassador herself refused to comment on the matter. And so this little baby was born with no country. Early reports indicate that the immigrant couple is currently petitioning the Confederacy to become the baby’s adoptive fathers, but that has not been confirmed. What is confirmed is that the baby has become a citizen of the Confederacy itself. He was born in international waters, on a Portuguese vessel, from France, to an unnamed mother, by no known father. Though he’s not the first person to be granted Confederacy citizenship, he is the first to come about it under these circumstances. No one can know what will become of this child, but for now, he represents a symbol of unity, one that many hope will support the Confederacy in its quest for world peace.

Microstory 511: First School Based on Alto Technology Opens

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Decades ago, a film premiered called Draugmas. In it, the titular demon sneaks into people’s dreams, and removes their fears. At first the characters find this to be helpful and rewarding. No longer are they afraid of heights and poisonous animals. They are free to take risks they never would have before. Unfortunately, this takes a turn when Draugmas victims begin to lose their inhibitions altogether, ultimately forgetting their instinct for basic self-preservation. Their only hope is a little girl who, for whatever reason, was born without the ability to dream at all. The film was low-budget, simple, and even cerebral. Though sequels were planned, they were never made, as critics pointed out how repetitive this type of movie was bound to be. What it did, however, was spawn a production company, led by the Draugmas filmmakers. The company created exclusively horror films involving dreams. Each took place in its own universe, but each involved someone with ill intentions, and the ability to cross into dreams. Powerful anomaly, Mandy Alto grew of during the golden age of Draugmas Entertainment, and is said to have watched all of the movies several times. His friends and family describe him as a caring worrywart, without a violent bone in his body. He first used his ability to enter people’s dreams to hold conversations, and exchange ideas. He then realized that, by connecting to someone of authority over a topic, he and his friends could learn from that person without ever leaving their respective beds. He eventually increased his range, and could theoretically pull everyone on a planet into a single dream; though that has never been tried, even during the dark Operator years. Bellevue scientists studied his ability, possibly to a higher degree than any others. Under the direction of The Visionary, Mandy’s dream network has recently been replicated through technology. Valary Sela believes that dream networks are the key to the planet’s success. “Soon,” she says, “the idea of going to school while you’re awake will seem as archaic as vehicles that operate on petrol.” The first educational network based on this new Alto technology has opened up. Based in Bellevue, Kansas, the network is currently in beta stage, serving students primarily within a single building. Interim Dean of Education for Alto High School, Roxanne Coraux hopes to extend the student body to field locations around the world by next year, and possibly allow the production of individual units for the home. She had this to say regarding expansion plans.

I believe it’s possible that Alto High School will become the single only organization for education on the planet, and perhaps even beyond. The board and I are exercising caution at the moment, however. Everyone deserves a solid education, and they deserve to have options, as they are available. Likewise, anyone who would like to initiate their own dream network is welcome to follow the Confederacy’s regulations, and do so. We are prepared to scale our program up as high as the natural market will allow, and also to remain as small as the population would like. This is a pilot program, one designed to showcase what can be accomplished using this technique, and we are excited to see what this teaches us about the art of teaching.

Mandy Alto declined to comment at this time. Bellevue declined to speak with this publication directly, instead opting to address the matter publicly using their own social media outlets.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 28, 2113

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The good news was that Paige not only retained her memories of the missing Gilbert, but actually experienced a gain. The more she thought about him, especially on an emotional level, the clearer the flashbacks became for her. It was a long process, nowhere near completion, and included periodic dips and gaps, but it was better than nothing. Time didn’t want her to remember, but she did, and she refused to let go. Unfortunately, this also meant that their technique might not actually work on Leona. She was only within the timestream one day per year, and that might not ever be enough to retain anything meaningful about the people that were taking from them, but that wasn’t something they had time to worry about. The next expiation was waiting for them.

In the middle of breakfast, Kivi walked to the center of the crowd, nearly stepping into the fire, but not caring, or even noticing. She was staring forward blankly, like Samsonite had done before. This was another message from Arcadia, spoken through Kivi as nothing but an emotionless vessel. “Ground control to Major Tom, your third expiation...ha-ha, just kidding—second expiation will be to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Each of your minds will be sent to the bodies of someone you knew in the past. You will relive a moment in time where an action or choice you made affected that other person negatively, and you will witness this from their perspective. At first, you will be powerless, consigned as more than an observer, watching your original self at your worst. At some point, however, reality will...kick in, and you will be given the opportunity to influence that moment—and thus history—permanently. Anyone who wishes to recuse themselves from this expiation may do so, but must make this decision within ten of your minutes. If you do choose to not participate, you will be removing yourself from all further expiations. Any attempt to provide support of any kind for these later expiations will result in terrible consequences.” Kivi’s body paused for a moment, while it looked like she was about to say something else. “Ride. Or. Die.”

They all looked over at Mateo to see his reaction. He said only, “I will not lobby either way. Everyone here is an adult. Choose for yourselves. You know how I feel...that I do not know how I feel.”

They said nothing.

He went on, “I’ll be at the new water well. She didn’t say how we decide, so I’m assuming she wants to see a symbolic gesture. Stay here if you wanna stay; come find me if you wanna more forward.” She took Leona by the hand, remembering that they were not to have any further arguments about her no longer putting herself in danger. No one followed them. Either they had already decided to quit, or they thought it was better to come out of the shadows at the well, rather than anticlimactically forming a caravan.

“This is a strange one,” Leona said.

“Stranger things we’ve seen, indeed,” Mateo replied, proud at himself for the wit, disappointed that she didn’t seem to agree.

“I just mean that there’s no clear goal here. With Baudin, we built a shelter. He was a constructor...that made sense. And thematically, from what you describe, this whole thing relates nicely to Gilbert. But still, there’s no logical endgame to this. When we go back to our worst moments in history, we can decide to change something, but when does it end? When will whatever point of divergence we create, if any, be enough? And what evidence will there be that it happened? Don’t get me wrong, this island has been hard, but you say that it wasn’t even real; that our memories of those events were implanted in our minds. Even if they were real, I don’t remember any moments that fit these criteria. Granted, I’m only here for one day out of the year, but I don’t remember anyone telling me of some traumatic event.

“Which means that Arcadia will have to send each of us to some moment before the island, or rather before the time we think we arrived on the island. I’ve been here for decades, but not really. I don’t remember all this stuff you say happened in the last few weeks, so either those are out of bounds, because they won’t mean much to me, or they’re not, and they won’t mean anything to me once the expiation is over, and I return to this corrupted reality.” Mateo was about to start talking and hope he figured out what to say on the fly, but Leona wasn’t finished. “Furthermore, if Arcadia sends us to moments in time before the island, then what effect can that have on the island? This all happened supposedly because we killed Arcadia’s brother, but what if our new actions in the past create a butterfly effect that prevents that from happening, or alters conditional minutia? What does that mean for us? Will we come back to a different corruption? Could we stop this from happening at all? Could something we do kill Arcadia?”

“Okay,” Mateo kind of interrupted. “These are, more or less, philosophical questions that are impossible to answer. We have no choice but to wait at the well, and hope for the best. She’s going to send us to where she’s going to send us, so worrying about when and where that is, and what ramifications it will have on the future is pointless at this juncture. We won’t know until we get there. Even if we did somehow guess our assignments right here and now, that would only allow Arcadia to change her mind on it before the ten minute grace period is up. We’re salmon, Leona. Whether you’re chooser, chosen, or spawn, right now, we’re all salmon. Nobody has any control...except for her.”

Leona seemed to accept this just as they reached the well, but still wasn’t quite finished. “I guess the bigger question is what’s going to happen to you. You erased yourself from time, so would she send you to the other timeline? Maybe she can’t. If she doesn’t, then she doesn’t have a whole lot of options, right? You’re just not very old right now. It would be like sending an infant to its own past...just limited options. This web of time is confusing, at best...probably even for her.”

Yeah.” He sighed. “I’ll be a tough one for her, that’s for sure.”

“Good.” Horace came into view from the woods. “A prey midchew can only hope that it does not so easily go down the predator’s throat.”

“Ancient Chinese proverb?”

“Read it on a bathroom stall once,” Horace said.

One by one, all of the others stepped into the clearing. No one had chosen to quit.

Mario’s watch, which was now on Leona’s wrist began to beep. “I didn’t set this,” she said.

“It’s magic,” Mario explained. “It warns of all important temporal events, and always knows what time it is, wherever I take it.” That was all anyone had time to say, because then Mateo went back in time, as did presumably everyone else.

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