Microstory 573: News brief: Jarl Found Dead; Thralls Missing

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A planet owner was found dead in his home one standard hour ago. All 144 Arkeizens have also turned up missing, and are suspected as being at least partially responsible. Cathasach Derricks only recently promoted himself to the status of jarl, and possesses very little on his planet, which he named Castle Cathas. He owned no craft capable of traveling through space, and is only able to transport to other planets via a standard Nexus. That Nexus has not been activated for months, proving that his thralls were not the only ones on the planet. An unknown vessel has moved them offworld...and could now be anywhere in the galaxy. Lactean irritants are suspected. Any information on the truth behind this crime, or the location of the missing thralls will be handsomely rewarded. 

Microstory 572: Amnesia Patients Receive Erroneous Memory Infusions

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When then-President of Development at Sikie International Knowledge Insights Enterprises. stood before a press conference, he promised us one thing; the cure for all memory-related neurological disorders within ten years. That was five years ago, and it has recently come to the attention of the authorities that this is a promise Sikie will not be able to fulfill. The board of directors, according to documentation recovered by SDS detectives, has been acutely aware of this fact for at least a year, however. In response to this problem, they redirected resources towards a new strategy. They decided to refocus all efforts on one singular technomedical advancement: memory infusions. By aggregating data from medical histories, correspondence, criminal reports, second-hand accounts and other anecdotal evidence, along with many other resources, Sikie believed that memories could be reconstructed and implanted in the damaged brain. They believed that the brain simply possessing the verifiable evidence of past events could be enough for that brain to fill in the gaps, and possibly even restore the actual memories hidden away in broken neural connections.

Historically, amnesia patients, for instance, have been told about who they are. They meet their loved ones, and are shown photographic evidence of their adventures together, with the hope that something will spark their memories. Sikie’s new process was an attempt to expand on this by actually inserting these data into the neurosubstrate itself, thereby allowing the brain to absorb that information physically. Unfortunately for Sikie, and its early program testers, this method does not work. At best, patients possess a distant understanding of these ‘memories’ but no emotional attachment to them, as if recounting nothing more than a fictional narrative. At worst, the process further damaged the patient neurologically, leading to a life of even less quality than they had before. It is for this reason that a second round of testing was ordered, but with even more unethical parameters. Recorded data is supplemented by the transferred memories of others. Without their reasoned consent, the brains of the patient’s loved ones were scanned. Their memories were then extracted, and inserted into the patient’s brain. The hope was that the memories of their events together, coupled with the original data, would create an even clearer picture of their time together, and these memories will enrich other memories through a snowball effect. Of course, this method did not work either, leaving patients with altered perceptions, and dissociative disorders. They no longer felt like themselves, but a horrific amalgamation of other people they knew. So far, only ground floor researchers have been arrested by the SDS, but an investigation into everyone who possibly knew what was going on the department is presently underway.

Microstory 571: Calendar Reset to Zero Following Fall of Civilization

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The world has ended. A lot of people worked extremely hard to prevent it, and then even more worked even harder to keep it from getting worse, but in the end, there was nothing anyone could do. The floodwaters came, overwhelmed our cities, and destroyed them. The water has not receded, leaving only those survivors on the highest points of the planet; mountain ranges, and superstructures. Of course, many of our people were able to escape. Some went to other planets; some of those even to other galaxies. Some are even believed to have traveled to the past, or the future. But some of us remain. We are still here, fighting to maintain the human race on the greatest planet in history. It is time to make some decisions, and one of those decisions involves the calendar. Two-thousand and one hundred years ago, the world was fragmented. We lived in prenational territories, fighting for resources, and hoarding treasures. We had kingdoms built with two somewhat contradictory principles; isolationism, and conquest. Everyone wanted to take over everyone else’s lands, while simultaneously trying to prevent anyone from doing the same to them. Empires rose and fell, and the world was in chaos. But then something happened. We came together. We had nothing at that point like the Confederacy, but we at least developed some civil attitudes towards each other. We drew lines in the sand and respected each other’s borders. Though war and pain still ruled the lands, we call this The Grand Unity, and on the first day of every year, because of it, we have celebrated Unity Day.

It was this time in history that a group of scholars and other important figures came together and came up with some conventions. They decided how things were meant to be measured. Distance, volume, economic exchange value. These were important facets to navigating a world, both literally, and also figuratively. We needed to know how to communicate with each other, because we realized that, if we all had different forms of measurements, we would always be confused. Along with this, we also needed to schedule things out together, in a logical way, that anyone could relate to. This Ribalion Convention, as it’s known today was composed of academics and agriculturalist who already understood how time worked, and it is their work that we still use. There are one hundred seconds to a minute, one hundred minutes to an hour, twenty hours in a day, ten days in a week, three weeks in a month, and ten months in a year. We also break this apart into five seasons, based on standard weather patterns, that help guide farmers with their businesses. This system works perfectly, and has served us well for more than two millennia. Unfortunately, things have changed. With the development of what most agree to be the end of civilization, our calendar no longer suffices. A second convention was held, this time on Mount Shiirapa; the closest landmass to Ribali, which is now submerged. Temporal measurement will remain the same, but the calendar has been reset. We are now living in the first year of this new calendar. The Shiirapa Council has released one short statement, to be followed by more detail later on: “We’re hoping never to repeat our past mistakes, and we feel that starting fresh is the first step to a better, more prosperous, future.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 10, 2125

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Mateo jolted and fell out of bed upon the sound of screaming. He tried to stand up, but his legs were so weak that he just ended up doing the wobbly...wobbly walk. Someone screamed again, and he screamed back, as if in reply to them, but really he just wasn’t in complete control of his own actions. He struggled to pull his shirt on, but knew that it would take him about a year to get his pants on, so he skipped it. He ran out of their little privacy hut. His intuition grabbed the first aid kit, entirely without his knowledge. As he passed through the doorway, something pulled him to his left. It was like he passed through some kind of charged force field. It didn’t hurt, but it certainly wasn’t normal. It reminded him of the air on the other island when he woke up after having slept in the Camry.

He ran down the beach to see a commotion. Leona was on her knees, hovered over someone on the sand. Even from fifty yards away, Mateo could see the distinctive color of blood. Angelita was off to the side, holding what appeared to be a baby. Everyone else was standing in a line off to the other side, acting like they weren’t capable of getting any closer than they were. “What seems to be the officer, problem?” Mateo asked. He knew that was wrong, but couldn’t help it. Never in his life had he drunk enough alcohol to mess up his sentences that much, but this must have been what it felt like. All that time doping to stay awake for three days straight had taken a huge toll on his body, and his mind. He need to snap himself out of it.

“Mateo!” Leona cried. “How did you cross the merge border? Oh my God, you have the med kit. Bring it here!”

Mateo kept wobble-jogging towards them, eventually dropping the kit at Vearden’s bloody head. He then kept going all the way towards the ocean. Something was seriously wrong with his head, because it looked like there were two oceans to choose from. He tried to head for the ocean on the right, but some invisible barrier was preventing him from doing so. He just slid along the wall until reaching the water. Once he was far enough into it, he fell forwards, letting the salt burn his eyes and tickle his skin. He let the rest of his breath out through another scream. Once that was done, he popped back out of the water and stood up. Wow, that actually worked. After a few seconds of dizziness, he was back in control of his movements. He still felt awful, but he knew that he could at least power through the next hour, which was more than enough to figure out what the hell was going on.

He walked back up the beach and dropped to his knees across from Leona, on the other side of Vearden. “What happened?”

Leona was desperately treating Vearden’s many wounds with nothing more than strands of her shirt. It would seem that every one of his body parts was injured in some way. Blood was spilling out of “multiple lacerations”, as they would say in a medical drama on television. “There’s some animal on this new island, very aggressive. We’ve been avoiding it, but Vearden got too close when he was looking for berries, and it attacked.”

Humor intact, Vearden laughed up a little blood and said, “I’m just glad I did it on a day that you’re here. Had this happened yesterday, I would have been screwed.”

Mateo took some dressing out of the kit and started working on Vearden’s leg. “Why isn’t anyone else helping?”

“They can’t,” Lita explained, holding what Mateo could now see was def a baby. Hers, presumably. “We’re on the other side of a merge border. Arcadia is preventing anyone else from crossing. We’re also lucky that she let you through.”

Mateo let his muscle memory keep wrapping the wound while he looked around. He could now see that the merge border was real, and that there really were two oceans, only one of which he had access to. The privacy hut was just on the original side, its side placed right up against it. Arcadia probably designed it that way so that Mateo would easily and quickly be able to cross over once he woke up.

They continued to treat him as they were able, but this wasn’t exactly a full medical bag, and they weren’t exactly medical professionals. They exhausted the majority of their resources, and could now do nothing but wait and hope. Vearden seemed to be okay for now. He was sleeping, complete with breath and a pulse. Lita kept an eye on him so that Mateo and Leona could wash up in the ocean.

“I’m sorry I’ve been asleep all this time. How long has it been?”

“It’s 2125,” Leona explained. “I’ve missed you. How was the Xearea expiation for you?”

“Rough.”

“I see that. It wasn’t nearly as difficult for me; Memphis let me take naps. This was over the three days-slash-years before you, what were you doing all that time?”

Mateo told her the story of how he and Xearea drove over to the other island. He spoke of the supposed first immortal, who was bitter, and angry, and desperate for more immortality. He talked about how he accidentally drank some of that immortality water, and how there was a woman there who had already done Arcadia’s expiations before, and lost. “Who knows how many people could be out there, experiencing the same thing we are? She could be doing this all over the planet, or all over the universe!”

“Maybe, but we can’t think about that. Right now, we have three problems. Number one is Vearden’s health. Number two is the fact that we can’t cross back over to our friends and family. Number three, Lita practically has to raise her baby literally alone. Vearden helped during my interim year, but now he’s out of commission, and needs care himself.”

“We’ve done everything we can, especially you.”

“There’s something else,” Leona said, looking back to make sure no one was listening, like they were in a secret alliance on Survivor. “We are not on a different island.”

“We’re not?”

“No. I can’t tell you how long it’s been, but we are either in the past, or the future. I’m thinking past, because there is no evidence of the structures we built, but maybe there wouldn’t be. Some landmarks still exist, but others are different. Mateo, we could be separated from them by thousands, perhaps millions, of years. The gravity is the same, so we’re at least on the same planet.”

Mateo looked back as well. “And we don’t want to tell anyone else?”

She looked back again. They must have looked suspicious to everyone else, but they were probably assuming that Leona and Mateo knew something bad about Vearden’s condition. “Arcadia didn’t tell us, so I’m assuming it’s a problem. I don’t know when we’ll be able to cross back over, if ever. We may be stuck here until the end of the expiations...ya know, to really make this difficult for us?”

“Leona, I think they have a right to be worried about the same thing you are.”

“I dunno. This has already been hard enough on them, especially for Mario. I heard that most of the time, he sleeps against the barrier so he’s as closer to her as possible.” She pointed to a tiny structure on their side of the merge border, and near the treeline. “Vearden, Lita, and the baby sleep in there. The ground isn’t stable, so that’s as close as he could build it. Mario’s almost to the point of tearing his hair out.”

Knowing that made Mateo realize just what the alternate version of his father had missed out on. As a salmon, he had no control over his time travel, and was completely beholden to the desires of the mysterious powers that be. For some people, not being able to raise their child wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it obviously was for Mario. He had never let on how much pain this caused him, but now Mateo was seeing his true colors. He was a father, and no one had the right to take that from him.

“Could you imagine not being able to hold your own child in your arms, even with her being only millimeters away?”

“No.”

“We better get back. It doesn’t take this long to wash blood off of your hands.”

“Yeah.”

They walked back up, and checked on Vearden. He hadn’t gotten better in the last few minutes, but he at least hadn’t gotten worse either.

“Family meeting,” Lita announced.

They all sat in a semi-circle, three on one side of the merge border, six on the other. Vearden still lied in the middle. They had clearly done this many times before, perhaps every day.

“I’ll start,” Mario said. “Today has been a struggle. Things should be better. With Leona and Mateo back, Lita has even more people to take care of her, but with Vearden hurt—it just seems like the universe is against us. We just can’t catch a break. Lita and Brooke feel further away than they’ve ever been. I’m starting to doubt I’ll ever truly meet my child.”

“Thank you, Mario,” Aura said.

“Thank you, Mario,” everyone else said in unison, including Leona. It was like a twelve-step program, except that this wasn’t anyone’s fault. Except for Mateo. It was all his fault.

They continued to go around the circle, airing their grievances to each other. Some spoke more, some less. Mateo had nothing to say. He couldn’t. All he felt was guilt, and he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Mateo?” Mario asked. “How did you cross the merge border?”

“I don’t know, I just did. I had no idea it was even there. I just ran out and something forced me to my left. I guess I just figured it was my own imbalance. I was pretty out of it. My Xearea expiation depleted all my energy.

Mario looked up at the privacy hut. “It’s right in the middle. The border cuts through. Why the hell did I not think to try that before? I’ve been sleeping on the sand this whole time, but that’s our way in!” He jumped up and headed for the hut.

“Mario, I don’t know if this will work,” Aura tried to reason with him.

“So I don’t try?” Mario asked rhetorically.

“No, of course you try, but I don’t think this woman wants you on the other side. You need to be prepared—”

He interrupted her, “prepared for what! To never see hold my daughter? To never comfort her when she has an ear infection? To never swing her in the air like a helicopter? To never hold her arms up as she tries to walk? I’m not going to stay on this island doing nothing! I have to fight!” He continued towards the hut. Everyone followed, except for Leona who had to stay with Vearden.

Mario ran inside alone and started banging on the walls. “Why didn’t we build more windows on this thing?” he screamed. He then marched back out of the hut, still on the original side, mumbling, cursing, and yelling. He ran over to the main camp and retrieved a hammer, the only tool relevant to this situation. He ran back into the hut and started banging on, and tearing at the walls, again. Lita begged him to stop amidst little Brooke’s cries of fear, but Mario would have none of it. He continued swinging the hammer as hard as he could. It took a very long time, because that wasn’t exactly the best tool for the job, but he did finally break through. He reached through and tore a few more planks out so that he could fit half his body through. As he did so, his head banged against the merge barrier. It wasn’t perfectly straight. Arcadia had built it to turn and move around the hut. Mario grabbed the hammer again and tried to break through the barrier, but it was impossible. They had certainly tried that months ago. There was no way in.

“Mario, please stop, just stop,” Lita pleaded with him. “It’s not going to work. She doesn’t want you over here.”

He finally did stop, dropping the hammer to the ground, and pulling himself back into the hut. They could see him pacing around the room, trying to catch his breath, and still mumbling a little.

“It’ll be okay,” Lita went on. “We will find a way back to each other. I’m not giving up, but I won’t let you act this way around our child.”

Mario bit his lip and nodded in agreement, seemingly prepared to calm down. But he wasn’t. He flew into a rage. Through the hole, Mateo and Lita could see him zig and zag around the hut, slamming himself, and other objects, against the walls. By the time he was done, the structure was completely destroyed, like a tornado had come through. He then walked into the woods, and Mateo didn’t see him for the rest of the day.

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Flurry: Time After Time (Part III)

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“You are not serious,” Serkan said after Lincoln Rutherford filled them in on the plan. Dr. Andrews had to leave the room for a meeting.

“We are not doing that,” Ace agreed.

“It’s the only way,” Rutherford claimed.

“That isn’t even in the same league as the truth,” Serkan argued. “Your plan is so convoluted and random that it doesn’t make any sense. What, were you a Bond villain in another life?”

“No, I was a security guard,” Rutherford answered seriously. “I’ve been through this before. When I did it, it took me years to gain the guy’s trust, but we don’t have that kind of time here, so you’ll have to get the executives to trust you in one fell swoop.”

They didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, my friend, Brian would say that I have complexity addiction, but trust me. I see the connections, I know this will work, but only you can do it.”

“So many things can go wrong,” Serkan said.

“And I don’t love what role I’m meant to play,” Ace complained.

“Ah, you’ll be fine,” Rutherford said, literally brushing away Ace’s fears with his fingers. “And so will you, Serkan.”

“How do you know?”

“Remember how I told you that I see time from a third-person perspective, like I’m just watching it on a screen?”

“Yeah, but your time power doesn’t work when I’m around, so you can’t know what’s going to happen in the future.”

“No, I can’t, but I’ve gotten good at predicting things just the same. I’ve planned this whole thing out, and I’ve accounted for every detail.”

“When did you do this?” Ace asked like a cop in an interrogation room. “You just walked in here.”

“I’ve been planning for you to do this for awhile, it’s just more pressing now. Why do you think I got you that job as a security guard?”

“I...but...wha?”

“One of your superiors had a criminal record that I took care of once when he applied for the job, so he owed me a favor. I made sure you were hired,” Rutherford explained.

“I can’t believe you did that to me. I’m just a chess piece for you, aren’t I? You can’t move me around like everyone else with your crazy movie-time perspective, but you can manipulate me in other ways.”

“That is sooo not true.” Rutherford seemed rather offended. “I’m here to help.”

“You’re here to help by having my boyfriend attack one of the executives, while I fend him off and save the executive’s life?” When Serkan put it like that, it sounded even dumber.

“He’ll be wearing a mask,” Rutherford said unconfidently.

Serkan wasn’t buying it. “Does this kind of thing ever work?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Ace said. “We’re not even going to try. We’ll find another way.”

Duke Andrews came back into the room. “Did you guys figure it out?”

“Yes,” Ace said, stone-faced. “We were just leaving.”

“Well, let me know if you need anything,” Andrews said to them sincerely as they were walking through the door.

Lincoln made no attempt to stop them.

“I’m glad we’re on the same page with this,” Ace said to Serkan when they were in the elevator.

“Of course,” Serkan said back. “Rutherford’s plan was stupid, but it wasn’t without its merits. It did give me an idea of how we can actually get into the building, but we can’t do it alone.”

“Who do we need?”

“About a year from now, I’m going on a very light jog when I see a struggle on the street ahead of me. Two men are fighting over something very small, and one of them finally takes it away from the other. He runs off as the other guy yells that he was just robbed. So, naturally, I use my speed to catch up with the thief and take the flashdrive from him, returning it to its owner.”

“Okay...” Ace replied, waiting for more.

“Turns out the victim was a member of the grammer gang, one of the best.”

“Serkie, I don’t want you getting involved with those gangs. They’re dangerous.”

“They’re not that kind of gang.”

“I know, but they’re still built on an us vs. them mentality. They don’t do anything for free, and if we ask them for help, they’ll want something in return.”

“That’s just capitalism, Ace. Nobody at all does anything thing for free.”

“Correct, but what people like this ask for is usually something you don’t wanna give, and/or can’t afford.”

“We’re kind of out of options here. We need in that building, and my warehouse security badge just won’t cut it. I need J-Cuken to upgrade it for me.”

“But you said yourself that you helped him in the future. He’ll have no idea who you are.”

“No. But I know who he is, and I know if we just talk to him, he’ll agree to help. Yeah, he’ll want something from us, but it’s gotta be worth it.”

Ace sighed and conceded, “okay. I’ll trust you.”

The grammer gang is different than other gangs. By their very nature, programmers don’t need to be in the room together to get their work done. They’re perfectly content communicating with each other remotely. This gives them an advantage over other gangs, which is especially good since their work is generally more illegal than others. They only ever convene IRL during new member initiation rituals, but even then, most watch it through video chat, or just don’t participate at all. If the authorities ever compile enough evidence on one of the hackers, they’ll only be able to get that one hacker, at best. And once they do move in on a target, all other members are alerted. They immediately trash their equipment, scrub whatever room they’ve been working in, and relocate to somewhere else. The only permanent bases they maintain are virtual, and fortunately, Serkan knew how to access their network.

Ace returned home with Serkan to watch as he got on their computer and logged onto the grammer chat system. Serkan sent nothing more than a ping to J-Cuken. After a few seconds, J-Cuken sent back a message with GPS coordinates to an abandoned mall.

“Serkan, I don’t like this,” Ace said. “What if he has a gun?”

“He won’t be here,” Serkan explained. “This is not where we meet, it’s just so that he can keep an eye on me while we discuss business using what he already knows to be a secure connection.”

“This is not true,” J-Cuken said, appearing from around the corner. He spoke in a Russian accent that was much thicker than Serkan remembered. It was probably just part of his mystique, and something that he ends up getting over sometime in the future.

“Whoa,” Serkan said, surprised. “I thought you didn’t like meeting IRL.”

“I do not, but you have sparked my curiosity. Once you contacted me on your completely vulnerable machine, I hacked into your webcam and ran facial recognition software. What I discovered was that you are literally in two places at once.” J-Cuken handed Serkan a tablet, revealing a feed from one of Agent Nanny Cam’s drones that were watching the younger Serkan training at Frenzy Headquarters.

“I can explain that.”

“You are time traveler,” J-Cuken suggested.

“Why is no one shocked by that!”

J-Cuken shrugged his shoulders. “I have seen stranger things.”

“Like what?”

“Like every season?”

“What?”

Ace took control of the conversation. “We need to get into the Snowglobe Headquarters. Would you be able to help us with that?” He reached into Serkan’s pocket and took out Serkan’s employee badge. “Could you modify this so that it gets us to every room in every building?”

J-Cuken took the badge and looked it over a bit. “You still use badges?” He rudely squeezed the badge until it broke in half. He then threw it onto a stack of lumber that had been left on the dirty floor. “We don’t need no stinking badges. What do they pay you in, goats?”

“What the hell!”

“I will help you. The leaders of that company pissed me off many years ago, and I have been looking for a way to get them back. But tell me, what do you have against them?”

“They’re responsible for all this snow.”

J-Cuken stood on his tippy toes and looked down the hallway at a sliver of light coming from a boarded up window. “Does nature not do that on its own?”

Serkan laughed, “well, yes, but not in summer.”

“What is...summer?”

Serkan quickly directed J-Cuken’s tablet to Google Translate, pushing the little speaker icon so that it read aloud the Russian equivalent of summer.

J-Cuken was still confused. “What is...leto?”

Now Serkan was confused. “Something’s wrong here. You don’t act all that much like J-Cuken.”

“Oh...you got me.” J-Cuken placed both hands on his face and slowly started pulling it down. As his hands lowered, so did his eyes and ears, and then his nose, and also his mouth. He moved his features all around his head, revealing a hideous creature of some kind.

“Oh my God!” Serkan yelled.

But his boyfriend wasn’t all that scared. “What are you?” Ace just had to ask.

“My name is Effigy,” it answered...warping its face to look exactly like Ace.

“Oh my God!” Serkan was forced to yell again.

“Time after time,” the creature said, still in J-Cuken’s voice, “people have come and seen me. They all react the same way. With horror. Am I really that disgusting?”

“Well, you’re not exactly Melissa Benoist, I’ll tell ya that much,” Ace said to...it.

“This is fair,” Effigy said.

“I guess that explains how you knew Serkan was a time traveler.”

“It takes one to know one.”

“Could you...” Serkan tried to speak, but was faltering. “Could you...make yourself look like something else?

The creature blinked and transformed into Serkan.

“Something...else?” Ace requested.

“Like what?” Still with that heavy Russian accent. “A taco that shits ice cream? I do not do this for you. I prefer to remain in a form you are most uncomfortable with. And so, I will show you your worst nightmare.” It transformed into a man they didn’t recognize, which was nothing scary.

“Who is that?” Ace asked.

“I’m Mateo.”

They just shrugged.

“Mateo Matic?”

Still nothing.

“Oh, wrong timeline. Okay, whatever.” Still in Mateo’s form, he took the tablet back from Serkan and set it on the table. He then waved his hands around like a Vegas magician, using real magic to produce an extremely thin transparent plastic rectangle that looked like a cell phone. “Anyway, this will get you into any building, at any time, on any planet. It’s a more advanced version of the Escher Knob.”

“You’re still helping us?” Serkan asked, surprised that this monster would have any interest in helping them with anything.

“Snowglobe still pissed me off long ago. But honestly, if you’re upset about the weather, they’re not the ones you should be going after.”

“Who then?” Ace asked.

“One of their daughter companies is the one that would most likely actually be responsible for it. But don’t worry, I’m pissed off at them too.”

“Daughter company?”

“It’s called Snowglobe Collective. Their whole thing is owning subsidiaries. D’uh. Snowglobe itself doesn’t really do anything.”

“Then who does?”

“High Castle Corporation.”

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