Microstory 570: Dwyn Rinen Lands on Moon

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Yesterday at 31:62 BCT, the first person to reach the moon planted the Buleoden flag next to Caterel Crater. Dwyn Rinen never grew up wanting to go to space. As a child, she watched as Koro Fallows first entered orbit around the planet, but did not intend to follow in her footsteps. Rinen was raised on a farm just outside of Pike City, ultimately becoming a crop duster for hers and neighboring families. Eventually, though, she decided to reapply her aerial skills as a commercial pilot, and was soon flying people all over the world. During her time off, she would go out and meet new people, learning their languages, and listening to their stories. She kept a vast collection of library cards from dozens of major cities, visiting them to study the subject for every book she could get her hands on. Before she knew it, she was one of the most knowledgeable uneducated people in the world. It was then that she was approached by a recruiter for the Buleoden-Hurshese Space Agency, the organization responsible for aeronautic studies all across the Central Euhsan continent. They were looking to increase their spaceflight capabilities, hoping to one day reach the moon. A lunar trip was planned for an octade and a half ago, but the BHSA ran out of funding, and the projects were put on hold. With the industry more robust, Rinen agreed to join the ranks of Fallows as the new class of aerospace heroes. She trained with her team for months, all the while continuing her extracurricular studies, and it paid off. Her first steps on the lunar surface were quickly followed by her partner, Bradford Jones. Together, they walked 1.3 sholmas to the edge of the largest crater on satellite, Caterel—named after the eleventh century astronomer who discovered it. Rinen and Jones will spend a total of 37 hours on the moon, collecting samples, and even planting sunweed (an extremophile plant, known for being able to survive in harsh conditions) before returning to the landing module and leaving the surface. It will take them 1.98 days to get back home, slightly longer than it took to get there, because they will be taking some time in orbit to capture more photographs, and waiting for their travel window. Stay tuned for updates on their progress.

Microstory 569: Brooks Clothing Opens in Kansas City

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History has taught us that there are about a hundred people on this planet who display extraordinary abilities. That number is expected to rise very little as we continue through this new century. One such of these anomalies has already come and passed. In fact, Ormonda Brooks died before the fact that anomaly abilities exist was public knowledge. She was recruited by a sort of proto-Bellevue to help certain anomalies use their abilities without fear of one important thing that probably wouldn’t even cross most people’s minds. When she sewed clothes, a special oil was excreted from her hands that became intertwined with the fabric. The first person to wear this piece of clothing would also excrete oils from their skin, mixing with both the fabric, and Brooks’ oil. This would prompt a process wherein the clothes themselves would become imbued with that anomaly’s ability. No, this didn’t make sentient clothing, or even temporarily allow a second wearer to use that ability. All it did was prevent the original wearer’s ability from damaging the clothing. For instance, Serenity Theodo, who could phase through objects, would always have to concentrate in order to keep her clothing wrapped around her body while phasing through something else. Brooks’ oil, however, allows her to use her ability without worrying about this, so she can go about her day, thinking about more pressing issues. Ellen Snider’s body is designed unlike most others. She’s perfectly suited to fly around in the sky without frost building up, because her skin stops it from happening, but she couldn’t stop that from happening to her clothes. Brooks’ clothing changed all that for her.

One of the first things that certain qualified people within early Bellevue did was study people’s abilities, searching for ways of replicating them for common use. If Hosanna Katz can feel other people’s emotions, we should be able to understand his mind to create more effective therapy strategies, and yes, possibly interrogation techniques. Ling Guo helped engineer a universal translator, and a number of anomalies helped us crack interdimensional travel. Not surprisingly, early scientists realized how useful Ormonda Brooks’ ability could be; how many practical applications it could have. Paired with technology that mimicked Otto Vann’s ability to remove oxygen from the area, suddenly firefighting didn’t have to be all that dangerous. Law enforcement no longer need wear heavy body armor, because their standard uniform would be more than enough...as long as that uniform was modified with a synthetic version of Ormonda Brooks’ oil. A new store has opened in Kansas City, servicing all of North America, called Brooks Clothing. This clothing store does not carry the latest fashions, nor the cutest baby shoes. It is reserved exclusively for work uniforms. Law enforcement officers, firefighters, other first responders, steelworkers, and many others, will be able to order in bulk special clothing with a variety of uses. Electricians will be nearly impervious to electrical shocks, while general construction workers won’t be able to accidentally nail their hands to a door frame, as long as they wear their protective clothing. These uniforms are extremely regulated, requiring a long and complex application to even be considered as a customer. Since Bellevue still owns the patent of this advancements, there is also a long and complex process for becoming a legal vendor, of which there is currently none besides the Bellevue-backed Brooks Clothing location. Others may come in the future, and if so, could open up new markets, such as anti-sweat clothing for runners, or better swimsuits for competitive swimmers. For now, though, you’ll only be able to get your hands on this technology if your job field is considered to be one of the more dangerous, and your employer has been approved.

Microstory 568: Once Again No Winner For Seven Day Wonder

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Eight days ago, seventeen contestants gathered on a little-used planet with a thin atmosphere in the Nuy system called Nuy o for an annual contest. The Seven Day Wonder competition has been going on for the last twenty-three years, with fewer and fewer people applying each year. For those readers who don’t know, Seven Day Wonder pits the best scientists from all over the galaxy. They are charged with terraforming a planet within only seven standard days. The prize for winning is automatic ownership of all planets involved, whether terraformation was at all successful or not, along with a multitude of new Arkeizen thralls. As a bonus, the winner is allowed to employ all losers as halfrthralls (thralls with better living conditions, servitude duration limits, other advantages) with whatever term stipulations they would like. In more than two decades, hundreds of people have attempted to win this competition, and not one has won so far. All contestants have failed to terraform their planet, and they have all become halfrthralls for jarls around Fostea. The rules for the competition are extensive and complicated, but here are the basics. Contestants are not expected to build a full eden, complete with lush gardens and vibrant ecosystems. They are expected only to generate a magnetosphere, and an atmosphere, and show promise for complex life. Terraforming, as a process, was discovered centuries ago, but it’s only relatively recently that it has become possible to complete in a matter of days. Some yet believe that seven days is an impossible goal, however, and shun this competition as nothing but a means of artificially triggering a supply of halfrthralls for the galaxy’s wealthiest. The leaders of the competition deny all such claims, and treat any serious accusations as legal threats to personal and organizational reputation. Still, despite the organization’s claims that seven-day terraforming is physically possible, no one has ever even come close to winning. Perhaps next time. At least then there will likely be even fewer competitors than in years past.

Microstory 567: Spontaneous Human Combustion Proved Inaccurate

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Detectives from the SDS have finally arrested the culprit responsible for a number of inexplicable deaths by fire all over Kansas City. The story has been sensationalized for the last week, leading many to conclude that they were hard evidence of a previously thought to be myth called spontaneous human combustion. Lead Detective in the case, Dimitri Orion released this as an official statement: “Okay, so, calling it spontaneous human combustion is a huge misnomer. Nothing was spontaneous about it, these are several counts of negligent homicide, at best...all perpetrated by the same individual. There’s also a logical scientific explanation for it, just like there always is.” At first, Orion and his team explored the deaths themselves, trying to understand just how the victims caught on fire with no sign of accelerant or any other external influence. What they found was so bizarre and unexpected that experts worried the entire city would face complete quarantine from the rest of the world. All victims had been suddenly exposed to dangerous levels of a form of radiation that has never been seen before. These signs of radiation presented themselves exclusively internally, leading investigators first to believe that victims ingested some kind of advanced poison, but there was no evidence of this either. To calm any fears of an epidemic, radiation levels have all dropped to zero, and the city is now safe.

Authorities began to search for any connections between the victims, a subfield known as victimology, but they found nothing substantial. They didn’t work at the same place, nor did they travel the same routes on a regular basis. They didn’t know each other, or have some mutual friend or enemy. They were of all shapes and sizes, ages and genders. As time went on, however, a pattern began to form. They noticed that victims were killed exactly every twenty-four hours, and that they were killed in pairs. The two people in these pairs were not standing anywhere near each other, but they did die at the exact same time. Further exploring their bodies, the SDS discovered that each pair shared genetic traits between each other, not because they were genetically similar, but because they literally transferred DNA to each other. This made no sense to most people, but it did to Orion. He realized that these were not attempts at murder, but at something else. Josiah Mackeral became a suspect because of a paper he published, outlining his ideas on teleportation. Upon being discovered, he immediately admitted to executing unsanctioned human trials. He was attempting to teleport people around the city by switching their places. The combustion was merely an unforeseen consequence for this that came out of the instability of the exotic fuel source he tapped into to power the experiments. Mackeral was allowed to release his own official statement: “If I had stopped after the first pair of deaths, I probably would have been okay. Not great, but okay. That I kept going even after accidentally becoming a murderer means that I will spend my life in prison. I’m just glad that capital punishment was outlawed in 1659 [sic] (capital punishment was actually outlawed in this country in 1649, and all around the world by 1798). Mackeral’s trial has been set to begin next month.

Microstory 566: Experiments Increase Animal Intelligence

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In a massive violation of ethics, the company UI has been performing illegal experiments on animals. Detectives of Science raided and “off the books” laboratory literally located underground two days ago. There they found a menagerie of animals of When detectives first entered the area, they knew that something was different. With all the ruckus they were created, one would have expected the animals there to be stressed out and frantic, but this was not the case. Some of them were sitting in their cages patiently, others appeared to have a look of desperation on their faces. Some even seemed to be making attempts to communicate. After some interrogation, and investigation into the lab research, the SDS learned that the facility was designed to find ways of uplifting animal intelligence. The scientists there were attempting to increase animal intelligence enough to create entire new species, supposedly so they could live amongst humans as equals. Its leader, whose name has not yet been released, had the following to say:

I consider myself neither a criminal, nor a villain...and I regret nothing. My team and I were trying to do something amazing, to create new friends, with new perspectives. We wanted to truly share this world with the other creatures here. Perhaps then we would think twice about all that we do to destroy it. Pollution, logging, overpopulation. We’ve tried to stop these, the true crimes, but never to any success. Maybe if people could talk to the animals that were being affected by this, they would start looking for better ways to live, and stop harming our beautiful planet. I cannot speak to the others, but I can tell you that this does nothing to dissuade my position on the matter. I wholeheartedly believe in the work, and I hope that someday, someone else will feel the same way, and continue pursuing my vision.

No word yet as to what will happen with the animals they have already undergone the experiments. Experts do not believe that it would be too dangerous to try and reintroduce them into their natural habitats. Even though no animal exhibits human-level intelligence, each one would have trouble acclimating to their respective traditional social hierarchies. In other terms, an enhanced goat would not be able to live with other goats, because it understands too much, and would use its intelligence in unpredictable ways. Detectives are also unsure what would happen if the enhanced began to bred with the unenhanced, or even each other. Beyond biological ramifications, would a superintelligent animal–standard animal pairing be analog to beastiality? This is an important question to explore, even if it’s decided that all animals experimented on should remain in some kind of quarantine. One of the cages was found to be compromised, with a hole leading from it, to the outside world. It is unknown at this time when it happened, but it is evident that the wolves found a way to escape captivity, and reenter the world. Another team is presently searching for them in the nearby wilderness. President of UI, Isilda Kenson had this to say about them, and the lab as a whole:

I would like to make it clear that UI does not condone the actions carried out by this renegade faction of scientists. We want to assure the public that neither the board, nor anyone in the greater organization, had any idea that these experiments were going on. We will work tirelessly with the authorities to pursue criminal charges against these rogue scientists, as well as help find the missing wolfs [sic].

So far, no charges are being brought against UI itself, but authorities are operating on the assumption that this was not actually a rogue group, and was fully sanctioned by the UI board. We will update this story as necessary.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 9, 2124

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Leona sat up in hers and Mateo’s bed in the morning of July 9, 2124. She hadn’t seen him for days, but she had always known that he was all right. Well, perhaps all right wasn’t the right term to use. Alive was just about as far as she could take it, but that was enough for them, because they couldn’t really ask for more with lives like these. At present, he was like a rock, completely unmoving, and barely breathing. She even checked his pulse a few times to make sure he really was still alive.

During one of the interim years, the others had built for them a new hut, not too far from their group shelter, apparently by the words of Arcadia, who told them that this much was okay. They rotated its use according to the number of people left on the island, and of course, only had to let Leona and Mateo have it for one day every year. She got dressed and stepped out of this hut upon the smell of breakfast. Everyone looked exhausted, not so much physically, but mentally. They had all been going through Arcadia’s expiations, and living the time in between, for the better part of two decades. Before that, they had false memories of being stranded on this planet. It took its toll more and more each day. Vearden, in particular, looked extremely distressed. There were only nine of them now, and though only she, Paige, and Mateo had any level of memory of the ones who had been taken from them, the others felt something. There was something from their souls that had been rubbed away too much, leaving them feeling hollow...dispirited. Though they couldn’t technically remember their missing friends, they could feel that something was wrong.

Horace was preparing to boil some eggs, Lita was trying to get comfortable in an awkwardly constructed beach chair, and Mario was looking for extra blankets for her. Everyone else was curled up by the fire.

“Is Mateo okay?” Darko asked.

“He’s okay,” Leona assured him. “You guys had a whole three years to act as temporary Saviors. Mateo and I had to complete just as many tasks in only three days. He just needs to sleep it off.”

“Well, if he doesn’t wake up, how will we know who’s missing this time?” Horace asked. “I mean, you two don’t remember enough details,” he said, referring to Leona and his daughter, Paige.

“I know who’s missing,” Vearden said solemnly.

“You do?”

“Her name was Saga. Saga Einarsson. She was my best friend...my partner.”

“How do you remember her?” Mario asked of him.

“It’s like he said,” Lincoln answered instead. “She was his partner. That’s a bond that cannot so easily be broken.”

“Wasn’t Samsonite my partner?” Aura asked. She did not remember him after he had been taken. Mateo had to give her a brief oral report of their history together.

“I can’t explain that. Though I suspect,” Lincoln hesitated, “that their bond was, well, deeper.”

“I cannot speak to their bond,” Vearden interjected, “but I can tell you that I was closer to Saga then I’ve ever been to anyone...possibly closer than anyone has ever been to anyone else.”

Arcadia teleported in. “This is true. This is not the first time that Saga has been torn out of the timestream.”

“It’s not?” Lita asked, finally deciding to just move to a table and lie all the way back.

“She sacrificed herself to save hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people,” Vearden explained. “It was the only way to prevent a disaster.”

“Yes,” Arcadia supported. “He crossed dimensional borders to get her back, risking his life throughout several parallel universes.”

“Yet you’re making him do it again?” Horace asked, feeling particularly protective of his people.

“I did not do that to him the last time,” Arcadia defended herself. “Technically Saga did it to herself.”

“But you’re still making him go through it a second time,” Leona pointed out. “He still once more feels the pain of her loss.”

Vearden just sat there, wide-eyed, unsure how to handle the support of his family.

“Yeah,” Darko said, “we should be exempt from whatever expiations you have planned. You should give her back right now.”

“That I will not do,” Arcadia stated plainly. “She’s gone, and you won’t get her back until the end. Or rather, Mateo won’t get her back, because you’ll all be gone too. But trust me, you’re gonna want to complete this round of expiations.”

“Why’s that?”

Lita, as if called to stage, screamed in agony and wrapped her arms around her belly.

“That’s why,” Arcadia said, pointing to Lita.

Leona looked between them. “Her? Is she about to go into labor?”

Answering her question accidentally, Lita’s water broke, splashing amniotic fluid all over their food, and Horace’s leg.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” Mario was frantic. “It’s happening! It’s happening now! What do we do?”

“Calm down,” Lita tried to comfort him. “We’ve been over this. We’ve planned for it.”

“But we’re on an island! On a different planet!” Mario cried. “We have to get out of here!” Rage in his face, he threateningly approached Arcadia, who wasn’t the least bit afraid. “You. You can get us out of here. You have to take us back to Earth. She can’t give birth a billion lightyears from home!”

Arcadia lazily lifted her hand to present their surroundings. “Look around.”

They all started looking around, except for Aura, who was keeping her eye on Lita’s condition. At first, nothing seemed different, then they noticed something weird in the distance. The island was...broken...unfinished...fractured, but whole. Now Leona realized what was happening. It was merged; merged with some other tropical island. Kayetan Glaston was somewhere nearby.

Arcadia pointed towards the border of the two islands. “Carry her to the other side or her baby will die.”

Now Mario was really upset. “What! What are you talking about?”

“Do you know what pristinely ungifted means?”

“You mean like Connor Higgins?” Darko asked.

“Or Jennsen Rahl?” Aura suggested.

“Yes. Lita’s child is just that. She cannot be affected by temporal manipulation. The only way to save her is to give birth to her on the other side of the merge border.”

“Horace, Darko, Lincoln,” Mario ordered, “lift her chair and help me get her to the other side.”

“Are you calling me fat!” Lita screamed, but was ignored by Mario, who was just trying to fix the problem.

While the four strong men were carrying her down the beach, desperate to make it before labor really kicked in, everybody else followed beside, including Arcadia. She continued explaining their situation, “only two people may cross the border with Angelita, and neither of those people can be Mario Matic.”

“What!” Mario repeated. “I’m not leaving my wife.”

“You will. You will physically be unable to cross, so don’t even bother trying.”

“The hell I won’t.”

It took them several minutes to get to the merge border. Lita’s cries of agony increased along the way. Leona kept track of the contraction times in her head. She and Vearden were chosen, to be the two who cross the border and deliver Lita’s baby. They held onto the chair and dragged it over the sand the rest of the way while Horace pushed as far as he could, and then stood with the rest to watch them work. Darko ran back to camp to retrieve supplies they would need. He was able to throw them across the border, but was still not able to cross either. Mario kept his face pressed against an invisible force field, like a new father admiring his newborn from the other side of the glass of the infant ward.

Vearden felt that he needed to do this, because this was the sort of thing that Saga would have done. She spent years alongside Doctor Baxter Sarka, treating salmon and choosers on an as-needed basis. Before that, she worked as a nurse centuries in the past, utilizing modern techniques as best she could without arousing suspicion. Throughout her life of healing and helping people, she had assisted in an incalculable number of births. Though Vearden himself knew little about it, this was his responsibility. Leona knew a little about it herself, while Aura provided some guidance as well, drawing on her maternal instinct, even though she hadn’t had any children before.

Angelita was in labor for hours, all the while in a great deal of pain. Dr. Sarka never showed up, nor did they have any form of pain relief beyond a little aspirin from a first aid kit. The delivery itself, however, wasn’t as bad as it could have been. It didn’t give them any problems that they weren’t equipped to handle on their own. The little baby came into this world exactly as she was supposed to; head first, and quickly crying. Vearden wiped her down with one of the blankets, snipped the umbilical cord, and handed her to a happy and loving mother.

“What does she look like?” Mario asked, pounding on the forcefield with his fists. “Eva? Catania? Hannah?” They hadn’t quite settled on a name yet.

Angelita smiled and addressed the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...Brooke Victoria Prieto-Matic.”

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Flurry: The Butterfly Effect (Part II)

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Kallias Bran rearranged the documents on his desk for a minute and stood up, placing his reading glasses in his front pocket. “You going after the people making the snow?”

“Well, we were going to look for help from someone else,” Ace said. “We don’t know who is causing the snow.”

“I have a pretty good idea.”

“You know who’s doing this?” Serkan asked, surprised.

He smiled. “I’m gonna give you a minute to think it over, Serkan. You possess a connection to these people, one that Ace and I do not...except through you.” He had to keep going when Serkan wasn’t getting it, “who do you know might have the money and resources to alter the weather...and is possibly named something, uh, related to the weather?”

“Oh!” Serkan finally got it, of course. “Of course! Snowglobe!”

“That’s right,” Bran confirmed. “I’ve been investigating Snowglobe Collective for years, but I’ve not been able to get very close.”

“Well, what do you know about them?”

“I know that the top leadership is comprised of temporal manipulators, like you three. I don’t know who they are, and I don’t know what they’re trying to do.”

“It looks like they’re trying to control the weather,” Ace said.

“Yes, but to what end? Are they trying to help, or is control the keyword here?”

“What about this doorknob?” asked Serkan, holding it up in front of him. “Could we use this to sneak into the Snowglobe headquarters and get some answers?”

Bran smiled again. “I’ve tried that before. Like I said, they’re powerful time manipulators. They have, like, wards against that. In the future, weather control will be ubiquitous, and worrying what tomorrow brings will be a thing of the past. I believe these people jumped to that future, stole the technology, and are currently attempting to reverse engineer it for their own gain. They’re not taking any chances. It will be their most guarded possession.”

“But we can stop them,” Ace proposed. He placed an affectionate hand on Serkan’s shoulder. “Rather, Serkie here can stop them. If they have temporal wards, then he can get through them.”

“Ehh, not necessarily,” Bran argued. “He has the ability to stop people from using their powers, but he doesn’t block all temporal manipulation. Afterall, this all started when he fell into The Gravedigger’s open grave, and ended up in the past. Why just now he used The Doorknob to access this dimension. He obviously has the ability to experience temporal manipulation when it comes to objects.”

“Oh, that’s true,” Ace realized.

He separated a few pieces of paper from one of the messy stacks on his desk, one of which was a crude blueprint of the Snowglobe headquarters. “I actually think the entire building is designed to protect their power from outside influence. They may not know about you specifically, but they know they’re not the only time travelers out there. They’re not interested in letting anyone through who isn’t one of them.”

Ace placed his other hand on Serkan’s other shoulder. “Then we’ll have to find a way to make Serkie become one of them.”

“Ace,” Serkan said lovingly. “I’m not going to be promoted from security to executive management overnight.”

“Maybe it’s time you bite the bullet and go have a conversation with Lincoln Rutherford,” Bran suggested. “From what I gather, he understands what it’s like to pretend to be a business magnate’s security guard.”

“We need to talk to Andrews first, though,” Ace told them. “We still need someone on our side who might actually have a chance of fixing this.”

“Unless he’s part of this,” Serkan posited. “Like I said, I barely know him, and you don’t know him at all.”

“I know him,” Bran said. “Well enough, at least. You wouldn’t be the first of his kind that he’s met. You should go. I promise to take care of Paige.”

Paige finally revealed herself from the bathroom. “I can go with you. I can help. I can take pictures.”

“No.” Ace knelt down to be closer to Paige’s level. “One day you’ll be able to help with things like this in profound ways. Ways that we can’t even begin to predict. You’re going to become a lovely young lady, and an important woman in history. Right now, you’re vulnerable. You’re young, physically small...and untrained. You just don’t have the experience we need for this, and we can’t be worrying about what might happen to you. One day, you’ll get your shot. It is not today.”

Paige always appreciated them talking to her like she was an adult. Her birth parents had been absolutely awful to her, treating her more like a rabid animal than a person. Their trip to Stonehenge together was just a front, for they treated her just fine in public, preventing anyone from knowing what was really going on. Harry Potter couldn’t come close to understanding what Paige went through back in the 20th century. What she needed was to feel like she mattered, like she could contribute. She also needed discipline, and boundaries. She wasn’t allowed to help with the Snowglobe problem, and she needed to be told this straight up, and also be told that they won’t be sheltering her forever. Because it was true, they always knew that she would grow up to be a strong, independent woman. For now, she needed to stay alive long enough to realize those days. Bran could give her that. “Okay.” She went back to her bedroom and started packing.

“Thank you for this, Kallias,” Serkan said.

“In my younger days, I would have jumped at the chance to go with you. That’s just not me in anymore.” He placed his reading glasses back on his face, but purposely askew so that he looked silly. “This is me now.”

They could afford to take a second to laugh about how he looked. But then it was time they went into their bedroom, and packed as well. Serkan still needed to get dressed.

“Paige, make sure you pack your heavy coat! We don’t quite know how the weather will affect the pocket dimension!”

“Okay!” she called back.

“That goes for you too, Serkan,” he said.

“Yes...dad.” That was weird. He wasn’t going to call him that again, for any reason.

After everybody had said their goodbyes, Paige and Bran were safely back in the secret pocket dimension, and Serkan and Ace were on their way to DNA Research Labs, Inc. Yes, a company called DNA was confusing, but it was a pun, and Duke Norbert Andrews was sticking to it. It took a while to get all the way up to the top floor. Of course, Andrews was already hard at work with his team, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. He didn’t have time for visitors, but once Serkan claimed to the front desk security that he had some insight into the mysterious weather phenomena, he was ushered in.

“Mister Demir?” Andrews asked, closing the door between them and the frantic meteorologists in the conference room. “You look...older?”

“I can’t explain why that is, Mr. Andrews, but please, let us keep our conversations quiet. If you ever see me again, I may not...uh...quite remember that we spoke of today.”

He lifted his head inquisitively. “You’re not Serkan.”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you know?”

“Snowglobe Collective is doing this. We don’t know how, but we know they’re involved.”

He casually walked around his desk and sat down. “Of course they are. I worked that out on the slow drive over here. With a company name like that, you’re just asking for people to make a connection between you and Christmas in July.”

“Do you know how they might be doing this?” Ace asked.

Andrews just looked at him.

He introduced himself, “Horace Reaver, sir.”

Andrews noticeably twitched at the sound of Ace’s full name. “I have no idea, but it is not without precedent.”

“It’s happened before?”

“1816,” Andrews began. “It’s also known as the Year Without Summer. Frost killed off a great deal of agriculture, leading to food shortages in North America and Western Europe.” He tapped a few keys on his keyboard and the flipped his monitor around to show the Wikipedia page on the subject. “But that was after a massive volcano eruption. Nothing like that happened here. The snow has merely materialized.” He tapped a few more keys and switched it to a series of maps and diagrams that Serkan was not educated enough to comprehend. “And it won’t end here. These weather patterns make absolutely no sense, but we can still do minimal forecasting for the area. It’s going to get worse...unless someone finds a way to stop it.”

“Do you have any ideas?” Serkan asked.

“Besides storming Snowglobe’s castle and shutting down whatever it is they have that can alter the weather? No. Nothing can reverse this, because that technology simply does not exist. Global climate control is something my lead futurologist predicts won’t happen until next century, at best. We’re not even working on it right now. This world requires too many microsolutions before we can even begin exploring it. It would seem that Snowglobe has skipped ahead on us.”

“But it’s out of control,” Serkan added. “I mean, that is unless they actually wanted a winter wonderland in what’s supposed to be the summer.”

“No,” Andrews agreed. “I imagine they stumbled onto something they don’t understand, and it’s backfiring on them.”

“Can your team do anything?” Ace asked.

“Honestly, I have them all working on different avenues, but no. No one, as far as I know, is equipped to handle this sort of thing. Like I said, the tech doesn’t exist. If Snowglobe doesn’t stop it, no one can.”

“We might be able to.”

“What do you know? Be honest? Whatever your secret, I can handle it.”

Serkan was worried about altering the timeline, but that ship has appeared to have sailed by now. The original 2024 didn’t involve mysterious freak weather, so he might as well go full force and just read Andrews in. If he couldn’t be trusted, then all hope was lost anyway. “I’m from the future. From what I remember of this year, this never happens. Somehow I changed something. I had some butterfly effect on Snowglobe, maybe just by being one of their security guards.”

This gave Andrews pause. “You work there? At Snowglobe?” He didn’t seem shocked by the revelation that Serkan was a time traveler, though.

“Just as a guard at one of their warehouses,” Serkan explained. “Nothing big. Nothing that can help us.”

“Don’t be so sure about that. It could be our way in.”

“I don’t even have access to headquarters.”

“Not yet, you don’t.” Lincoln Rutherford, Esquire had come into the room.

“Mr. Rutherford, thank you for coming. What are you thinking?”

Rutherford was on the City Frenzy council, both now, and in the future. Serkan and Ace encountered him a few times, and he proved to know a lot more about time travel than anyone else. He and Serkan made each other uncomfortable, though, so when they came back from 1971 Stonehenge, they decided to stay away from him completely.

“I’ve been keeping my eye on you, Future!Serkan. I’m glad you found some nice kind of life since last we spoke.”

“We’ve done our best,” Ace responded. “Would you be able to help us? This time?”

“The problem at hand,” Rutherford said, “is that you can’t get into the building. I think I may have a way for you to do just that, and to get the executives to trust you. But you’re gonna have to trust me first.”

Oh, no. “What?”

“It’ll require some deception...and a hint of violence.”

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Microstory 565: Government Used Interstellar Travel for Decades

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Just over three decades ago, this publication ran a story about the Brihd investigators and their fruitless attempts to figure out what had happened to the majority of the world’s incarcerated criminals at the time. Their investigation ended within five years, even though prisoners have continued to disappear over time. Early on, there was one far-fetched theory that now seems to have been proved true. I’ve been granted access to one of a secretive multinational governmental organization’s most classified projects. A competitor of ours most notable for his conspiracy theories, and his alias, Olkin has been using illegal tactics on his own to investigate this secret organization, which was so good at covering its tracks that it was apparently on no one else’s radar. Sadly, a rogue faction of this group grew overzealous, and decided to end Olkin’s life to prevent the evidence he uncovered from being released to the public. Due to the fact that this information will be coming out either way, the true leaders of the multinational organization have decided to come clean about their involvement in probably the largest coverup in human history. This will be just the introduction in a series of articles about a new technology that is not so new to some of us.

In the year 2200, a group of scientists figured out how to access another dimension. This dimension, known as a simplex dimension, was clearly the most important discovery ever. They decided to continue studying it in secret. Twenty-seven years later, the first spacefaring vessel capable of maintaining integrity within what’s known as the orange plex was completed. It took off on its maiden voyage, its crew fully aware that they may never find a way back home. They did, and in fact learned that doing so is actually not all that difficult, in relative terms. They, and this newly formed multinational, have been exploring the galaxy throughout this whole century. In 2067, they started a plan to relocate every prisoner on the planet with a severity level beyond two. Yes, as it turns out, the theory that they were moved to an exoplanet turned out to be entirely true, finally validating all those that believed it. Its precise location, however, has not been released. The multinational went out to several other star system, planting offworld bases on most of them, and gaining insight into the way the universe operates on a cosmic scale. An interesting aspect of this, however, is that it is physically impossible to travel straight from one star system to another. Scientists and explorers have been looking for ways to do this for decades, always to no avail. Any traveler wishing to reach beyond their own world, no matter what, without fail, will always have to first make a stop in what’s been determined to be the center of the universe itself. Researchers are still unsure what to make of this phenomenon, but they have come up with a name for it. It’s called...The Verge.