Microstory 620: Silence of the Blasphemers

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If there’s one complaint any Lightseer can have about our great galaxy of Fostea, it’s that there are some things we would just like to change. I know, that’s vague, but our faith has a few stipulations for our way of life that make it a little difficult to be around people who do not share it. Not everyone knows about, wants to understand, or can truly appreciate the glory in The Light. We have an evangelical side of us that goes out to the stars and spreads the Word to others, but we must restrain ourselves, for being too aggressive could go against other people’s rights to be as they choose. This patience can be arduous for some of our kind, which is why not ever one of us is an evangelical. There are those, however, who do not share our level of tolerance and respect. We call these the blasphemers. Not only are these people not Lightseers, but they actively work against our practices, and try to destroy our way of life. The Book of Light discusses often the dangers of dealing with blasphemers, for they bring only darkness. It teaches us that light is more powerful than dark, but also that this does not mean it requires no effort. Like the fragile flower, light must be nurtured, fed, and protected. One of the most well-known quotes from the Book of Light says, there will always be more darkness in the universe than light, but light is the only one of the two that moves...that moves others...that truly is. Darkness...is nothing. It’s important to remember these truths whenever you’re having a crisis of faith; when you doubt your beliefs, be it on your own, or by someone else’s harmful words. It is not you who should change; it is the blasphemers. They are the ones who need be silenced. Lucky for us, this very thing was foretold in the taikon passages.

After Eido Ivanka was covertly removed from the segregated Anter star system, she was taken back to Istamas so that she could recover from not having lived in civilized society for however long it was. Even after a medical examination, a shower, and some real food, Ivanka never spoke a word. But she kept pointing to a tablet that was lying on the counter. Once she got her hands on it, she navigated to the galactic map, and presented the others in the room with the coordinates to one of the worst places in Fostea. On the edge of the galaxy is a star system with a planet called Castanea Beta. It follows Fostean law, and practices Fostean traditions, but it is the furthest from Lightseed a place could possibly be. This is where a group of atheists live, but not just any atheists; they’re also wildly outspoken against Lightseed. It’s unclear exactly what their motives are, but they are one of the most dangerous threats to our faith. As far as we know, they have not successfully recruited a Lightseer to their heathen ways, but not for lack of trying. Unfortunately for them, their days of blaspheming our religion are over. A ship transported Eido Ivanka to Castanea Beta immediately upon request, and it was there that they witnessed a real-life miracle. With no apparent technological advancement, Ivanka held out her arms and literally silenced the blasphemers. Try as they may, they are to this day physically incapable of uttering so much as a cough. And with this miraculous act, Ivanka’s own voice returned. The first thing she said was, “let us move on to the next one.”

Microstory 619: Eido Ivanka

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No one could have predicted that the segregated Anter star system would play such an important role in the achievement of the taikon. Yet this is where the game of Vector was revived, and also now where we found our way to the nineteenth taikon. Eido Ivanka was the younger sister of Eido Seamus, and most ruthless of the eidos. She was born into a family of fishermen, but rejected her birthright, choosing instead to go into the paramilitary business. Because of her background, she was chosen to be the head of private security, whose primary purpose was the defense of Sacred Savior Sotiren Zahir, and the entire Fostean-bound fleet. Her zeal for the protection of her charge, and also her mercilessness inspired Sotiren to later give her the central system of Dulex, which included Dikaio, Istamas and Lakre. In tandem with her responsibilities as one of the galaxy’s eidos, she continued her calling in hired security. Ivanka fought many wars for others, sometimes switching sides in the middle of the conflict when the pay was better. Despite a life of more danger than most other eidos, she was never killed. Some texts speculated that she died of natural causes after a long and healthy life, but others believed her to have survived to modern day. The latter has now proven to be true. All the taikons referring to the eidos have left the true nature of the replacement for the original eidos up to chance. The assumption was that they would need to be replaced by younger counterparts, but this was obviously not true for Peter Fireblood. Eido Ivanka turned out to have survived under similar circumstances. It is as yet unclear how long Ivanka lived in the Anter system, but the Fathers of the Undisturbed claim to have known nothing about it. She has not said a single word since being discovered by the Vector verifiers who were already in the star system. They are confident, however, that she will soon be in the right mind to take her place back as one of the Fostean eidos.

Microstory 618: Revive the Vector Tournament

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When our ancestors first left the old worlds, they wanted to also divorce themselves from the old ways. Some traditions had to be kept for practicality’s sake—like speaking the preexisting language, or many scientific advancements—but we wanted to rid ourselves of anything unnecessary. One of the hardest things for people to give up, believe it or not, was a sports competition. Vector is played with multiple balls, and multiple goals, and has been a staple of Lactean civilization since humans were still living on just the one planet. Each player on each team has a job to do, and in order to carry out their responsibility, they don’t always have to even interact with their own teammates. A well-played Vector game is like a well-oiled machine. If everyone plays their part with proficiency, it should all go according to plan. Carefully executed plans are valued in our galaxy, so it may seem relevant to us, yet it is still technically a team sport. Our founders had trouble reconciling the idea of people helping one another despite a lack of reward. Most of the players aren’t even in any position to score goals at all. Their job requires they protect the scorer, and defend the advantage over the opponent, while only that scorer gains actual points for them. In the end, it was decided that the game of Vector be banned in Fostea. It is one of the few central laws that govern our system, but it has not gone without pushback. The eighteenth taikon predicted a revival of a Vector tournament, but said nothing of how this would come about. It seemed to be contradictory to the law, and original mandates by Sotiren Zahir himself that Vector is an unacceptable pastime. And as we all know, the Book of Light is a perfect specimen, and there are absolutely zero self-contradictions. Fortunately, nature has found a way to maintain the sanctity of both the passage, and the law. Another isolated solar system has handled the taikon for us.

The star system Anter carries within it the record for the highest number of naturally habitable planets orbiting a single star. A total of seven planets orbit Anter within what’s known as the habitability zone. As a gift of peace to one of our rival religions called Fathers of the Undisturbed, the Fostean founders donated the entire system, and promised to leave them alone. The Fathers of the Undisturbed do not value the same things normal Fosteans do, but they were as unwelcome by the dirty communists from which we came as we were. We escaped together, and instead of fighting over the galaxy, they agreed to isolate themselves from us by remaining in Anter. They were free to advance as much as they wanted, but never venture beyond their territory. Fathers of the Undisturbed have a set of beliefs that is difficult to understand, and even from as little we know of its secrets, it is terribly inconsistent. The basic tenet of their faith is to create life, and study it from above without interfering. They are based in a hollowed out asteroid, but maintain other secret bases on the planets themselves to keep a better eye on their children. These children on each respective planet know nothing of each other, let alone the universe as a whole. Some of them even believe stars are merely drops of paint splattered on some giant cosmic ceiling above them. Why exactly the Fathers of the Undisturbed are doing this to their inferiors is something no Lightseer can claim to understand, nor should we make an attempt. Again, they leave us alone, and we do the same. We do, however, from time to time, visit the star system to make sure they’re not planning some attack. This last audit revealed something interesting. On two Anterian planets—who are, again, completely unaware of each other—Vector was somehow reinvented. This phenomenon cannot be explained, but there has been no evidence that the Fathers broke their own religious law, or would have any interest in doing so. The Undisturbed Children just managed to do it on their own, with no provocation from any outside force. And this is lucky for us, for it fulfills the requirements for the eighteenth taikon. It also happened to provide for us with the means of discovering the nineteenth taikon.

Microstory 617: Everlasting Sacred Light

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Three days after the Sacred Savior, Sotiren Zahir was buried, perhaps the most miraculous event of all took place. He came back from the dead. Now, at this point in our collective history, humans have had their fair share of resurrections. It is not terribly common, but it’s also not impossible. Vampires were borne of a race of peoples called pseudomortals who had figured out a way to pull themselves back from the death dimension. Ambers were a different race of people with special abilities; a select few of which could bring others from the afterlife as well. Much later, the anomalies rose to power, and a few of them also had some level of control over death. Even if these things had not happened, virtual immortality has been in the galaxy for a long time now, so death is really a non-issue for anyone with enough money to enjoy the right treatments and procedures. But our Savior died in such a unique way that he should not have been able to return at all. This was not by accident, but by holy mandate. One of Sotiren’s final request was that he not be retrieved, cloned, or otherwise replicated. He believed in singular identity, and did not think that anyone other than the actual him could ever hope to be him. His followers tend to agree.

There is one obscure passage in the Book of Light—separate from the taikon passages—that seems to make the aforementioned mandate sound a little more complicated than we thought. Then the Sacrificed will rise, by light in darkness; the darkest and coldest. A new sun will illuminate the sky. It will burn bright and die fast. Many scholars believed this passage to be connected to the scripture regarding the seventeenth taikon, despite no direct reference to each other. The Sacred Light will dim for three days, but be reignited by the juice of peace and joy. Both of these passages have largely been considered metaphorical; independently and collectively meaning that the Lightseed faith cannot be extinguished, that truth will always prevail, even after being snuffed out...or dying. Recent events, however, led scholars and verifiers to reexamine these words to see if they may be more literal. Evidence has pointed to the idea that the seventeenth taikon was reached. And this is how. Within the boundaries of the solar system that houses the planet isolate of Kesliperia, a star suddenly burst into existence. The elite residents of Harrdosa and Yelseten were shocked by its unexpected appearance it in the twilight sky during the Feast of the Fruit of Love. Upon turning back around, however, they discovered a visitor had arrived at the feast. Feeling happy and agreeable from the polbit fruit, they welcomed him to the meal, even though he wasn’t wearing any clothes. A group of verifiers were witnessing the event, however, and immediately recognized this man as Sotiren Zahir. He had been resurrected from death, by no artificial means. Many believe that the text in the Book of Light that refers to the Everlasting Sacred Light was actually in reference to this event. If this was a true miracle, it is one that requires further testing. The other taikon may continue in that time, but cannot be officially recognized until the Savior’s return can be scientifically verified.

Microstory 616: Feast of the Fruit of Love

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As anyone in this galaxy knows, sometimes conflicts arise between two opposing factions. Sometimes, these disagreements come between star systems, but more often than not, it involves two warring worlds of one system, or even regions one planet. Near the center of Fostea, there lies an unnamed star system with only a single orbital. This orbital is a habitable planet called Kesliperia, and there is literally nothing else. Scientists are baffled as to why and how the system formed with no asteroids, comets, protoplanetary bodies, or other planets. Kesliperia doesn’t even have a tidal moon, making life there rather uncomfortable for most. The days are short, and the weather is erratic. Still, Kesliperians remain there, for they feel that it is their home. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any problems. Its two nations have been at war with each other for resources for the last couple centuries. There are times of peace, but it never significantly diminishes the tension between them, and it never lasts long. Kesliperians, as a whole, are rather isolated from the rest of the galaxy, choosing generally to govern themselves independent from our natural economy. Which is, of course, fine; that’s their choice. But this lack of trade with other systems has forced them to adopt lifestyles most in the galaxy would find inconvenient. This is what has led the nation of Harrdosa, and the nation of Yelseten, to be in constant dispute for what few resources the planet provides on its own. Yet there is one thing they have in common. They both celebrate a particular annual holiday, the name of which eludes me. The primary component of the celebrations is fruit, of which they possess little. And so, they break their isolation for this period by importing fruit from all over the galaxy. Unfortunately, this year, there were some issues with payment, and each of the two nations were really only able to afford a half ship’s worth of fruit. A single ship would not be enough to feed everyone in one nation, let alone both of them. Yet a deal was struck between them. A joint celebration would be held in neutral territory. All high-ranking officials, pop culture celebrities, and other public figures were invited to celebrate together. They were not doing this to create peace, but this is what seems to be coming of it. What’s interesting is that the feast consisted mainly of a Merekan fruit called polbit, which has been known to induce feelings of euphoria and comradery. In fact, it is often referred to as the fruit of friendship. Despite having nothing to do with Lightseed, or the taikon, the Kesliperians accidentally stumbled upon the achievement of both the sixteenth, and seventeenth taikon.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 19, 2134

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The rest of the gang had not been brought back yet when Mateo and Leona returned to the timestream. The first thing they saw was a bearded and disheveled Darko jump out of the bushes and try to attack them. Then he got on all fours and slinked away quickly like a chicken who totally knows that it’s over. He started grunting and talking to them in gibberish before hiding behind the shelter, which he seemed to think was sentient and complimenting him. The two of them just stood there and watched, knowing what was really happening. Finally, Darko stood back up and took off his dirty and torn jacket. “Goddammit, I spent all year growing this itchy beard just to make this joke, and you’re not even mildly amused!”

“Yeah, sorry about that, but we knew you would be okay,” Leona said.

“Because I’m a badass?”

“Yeah, let’s go with that,” Mateo said. It was mostly true, but also he had been living there for years by now. Being alone for just the one wasn’t that big of a deal, and unlikely to have been the worst thing he had ever experienced.

An hour later, the others in their group literally stepped out from the fire one by one, casually brushing ash off of their bodies.

“What the hell is this?” Darko asked.

Mario was shaking his head. “Apparently Arcadia had not yet read the Harry Potter books, so—after a few lovely weeks of her trying to figure out how to safely mimic the effects of floo powder—she started transporting us like this.”

“It is safe,” Aura added, “but it’s not pleasant.”

“How did the classes go?” Leona asked.

“Oh, they were fine,” Lincoln said. “Not hard at all.”

“Well, that’s because you have superpowers, Linc,” Horace spit, minimally irritated. “The assignments were hard for some of us. We were expected to have already understood a lot about the practice of medicine.”

“I made study guides for everybody.”

“Those may have well been written in Greek,” Paige said. Then she turned back to the three dropouts. “We did all pass, though...even my dad.”

“Hey.”

“So we’re cool? Did Arcadia confirm that the expiation was completed?”

Aura nodded. “She did. And she said we should get some sleep before the next one. It’ll apparently be rather easy, but it requires daylight anyway.”

They went to bed, and then several hours later, they all woke up.

A young woman was waiting for them patiently amongst a legion of easels, more than there were people on the island. “Please,” she said to them in a warm and pleasing vaguely British voice, “partake in your breakfast first. An artist’s soul cannot be fed before the stomach.” She immediately seemed like the kind of person who spent a great deal of time doing yoga and meditating. And when she wasn’t doing those things, she was probably just enjoying the beauty of the universe. “Class will begin...whenever you are ready.”

They did as they were asked, but ate a little faster than they normally would. The woman remained steadfast in her place on the beach. She seemed completely at peace in this position, and was doing nothing to make them feel guilty for taking up her time, but still, it felt unbecoming to dawdle.

“So, we’ll be painting today, huh?” Darko asked, stifling a burp.

“We will be creating art,” she answered. “Paint is but one way to do this.”

He peered down the beach. “Is that a sandcastle?”

She slowly looked to her creation, but waited to answer until she was facing the group again. “I built that earlier this morning to greet the day. You may do so as well, if you find sand to be the medium that better expresses your heart.”

Darko seemed rather smitten with her, and was trying to covertly make sure there was nothing on his face. Fortunately, he had taken the time to shave before bedtime. “We did not catch your name. Or do you have a name? Do you identify as a symbol, or a color?” He was trying to be sensitive to her perspective.

Luckily, it was probably rather difficult to offend her. “My name is Marcy.”

“You’re gonna teach us art?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Art cannot be taught. It must realized...remembered. I will be your guide today.” She turned her attention to the whole group. “To get the sense of what it is like to transcribe the beauty in your mind to something others can enjoy, I ask that we all begin with the canvasses and paints. Once you feel comfortable, you may move onto something else; like I said, to whatever speaks to you.” She approached her own easel. “Arcadia,” she began, pausing to purse her lips. It would seem as though there was at least one thing in the universe that she did not consider valuable. She fought through her feelings, though, and went on, “has asked that I lead this expiation. You are required to come up with something beautiful, and says that I must approve of it, and it must be beyond your first piece. Funnily enough, for someone who spent the first several thousand years—if not longer—of her life in an art gallery, she still does not understand what the definition of art truly is.”

“What’s the definition?” Darko asked of her, enraptured by her every syllable.

She didn’t just look at him; she examined his face, ensuring that he was ready for the answer. “Art...is whatever keeps you from turning away.” She took a breath and centered herself. “You will all pass this expiation. I guarantee this now.”

They got to work, or rather they got to life. Mateo was confused when Darko chose an easel in the back row. Surely he would want to be as close to Marcy as possible. When questioned on this, Darko just turned his easel away so that no one else could see. Mateo slyly got a few peaks a little later on. Darko was in the middle of painting strawberry blonde hair, which matched that of Marcy’s. With no signs of being uncomfortable with this, or an explanation for how she knew without seeing, Marcy walked around to keep an eye on everyone’s progress, excluding him. She somehow knew that he was painting her, and also that he would not want her to see it until he was finished, if ever.

Marcy’s ability to be sensitive to other people’s needs made Mateo assume that she was universally liked by all who met her, which meant she might have been used to an onslaught of people interested in her in less platonic ways. That she was the complete opposite of Darko; who was wild, reckless, adventurous, and slightly judgmental, explained his personal attraction to her. He could probably do with a little more calm and stability in his life. Though he was regularly preoccupied with his own problems, Mateo realized now that life here had probably been the most difficult for him. Sure, Téa didn’t love the outdoors, Saga had always missed her camera, and Horace didn’t much like pooping in the bushes, but Darko had never before been required to stay in one place and time. He had always been running off to explore new sights, eternally comforted by the fact that he always had an exit. He needed someone like Marcy to teach him how to find peace in doing nothing.

“Maybe we’ll be able to keep her,” Leona whispered to Mateo while she was painting the ocean they were all facing right now.

“I wouldn’t want her any more mixed up in all this.” He was painting a portrait of Jesus. He was using darker colors to better reflect Jesus’ true form as a Middle Eastern man, and was inspired by an infamous drawing he had once seen of him smiling. No, he wasn’t just smiling, he was laughing. Mateo had always liked this representation of the OG Savior, and had always felt disappointed by its lack of replication by others. Jesus was about love. Too many focus too much on his birth, and his death. They all but completely forget everything he did in the middle. He had dedicated his life—and, yes, in more ways than one—to peace, love, and happiness. It wasn’t that he died for everyone’s sins, but that he felt like he had done everything he could to show people what love meant. He did not fight against his murder, because he believed that this gave his murders power that they did not deserve. He died with endless love in his heart, and not even death could take that away from the world. Mateo had changed from angry to accepting of his situation as an unwitting time traveler, but it took Marcy’s class to remind him why he was able to do that. Painting was proving to be cathartic, helping Mateo get back to his faith once more. For the first time ever, he was treating an expiation as a gift.

Some paintings were better than others. Mateo’s wasn’t half-bad, if he did say so himself. Leona’s was worse than he would have expected. She said that her film major mind was in conflict with her physics mind; each from a separate timelines. She wanted to reproduce what she saw in her environment, but she was being too exacting. The lines were too straight, and the colors in less of a gradient than they should have been. She wasn’t bothered by this, though. Painting was not her thing, nor did it have to be...nor was it anyone’s on the island. Except for maybe Darko. His portrait of Marcy was spectacular. Once it looked like he was satisfied with the result, Marcy walked over and took a gander. As expected, she wasn’t surprised. She even sounded enthusiastic about it, whereas with everyone else, she turned out to have been feigning endorsement for their benefit. Again, no one was particularly bothered by this seeing as art just wasn’t in their wheelhouse, except for Paige the photographer.

While Marcy stepped aside to engage in a deeper discussion with her new protégé, everyone else moved on to try other things. Aura started building her own sandcastle next to Marcy’s, expressing her nostalgia for her childhood when her parents took her to Myrtle Beach every year for vacation. Lincoln started carving at a monolith Arcadia had silently apported to their location upon Marcy’s request. Paige and Horace put on these special suits covered in paint that allowed them to create something out of their own dancing and rolling around on a giant canvass. They laughed the whole time. Mario was absolutely determined to draw a perfect turtle. When he grew too frustrated with one, he would throw the entire easel on the ground and move on to another. This was probably why so many of them were set up, even though one could simply start again on the next page. Mateo through Marcy would try to calm him down, but she wasn’t the least bit perturbed by his outbursts. She would later tell Mateo that this was just ‘part of Mario’s process’ which is something sacred and personal to each individual, and should only be encouraged.

For the longest time, Mateo and Leona just stood there on the treeline, watching everyone else enjoy their newfound hobbies. They weren’t interested in painting any more. Neither one of them had grown up near enough a beach to feel anything strongly about sandcastles. Sculpting just sounded like a whole lot of work, and would take too long for their unchosen lifestyles. Seeing their reluctance to do anything, Marcy halted her conversation with Darko, and walked over to them. She suggested that they stop thinking of art so narrowly. Though her passion was visual art, and the expiation was technically supposed to fall under those disciplines, not everything is black and white. She was taking it upon herself to have the authority to give them permission to do something different.

That night, after hours of rehearsing, they performed the dance number that The Rogue, Gilbert Boyce had forced them to prepare, but never actually present, during the tribulation period. It took them over sixty years, but they finally had it down pat. The audience loved it, which included Arcadia. When it was over, she was smiling and clapping with all the rest. Then she nodded and gave a thumbs up to indicate her approval in their method of accomplishing the expiation; as if they required it.

The next year, they discovered Leona’s wish to have been granted. Marcy was still on the island with them.

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Flurry: Fringe (Part XII)

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Serkan was allowed to stay the night with Future!Ace before he was pushed back to his own time period where Present!Ace was waiting for him. Or rather he wasn’t waiting at all. He was still in the middle of his story about his first encounter with Quivira Boyce as they were leaving the lake house. There was only a slight skip, like a restarted DVR recording that doesn’t start exactly where you last left off. But Ace had no idea that anything had happened. Unfortunately, Serkan wasn’t quite prepared for the jump. He let out a mild grunt, which alarmed Ace, but Serkan was able to play it down. He thought about telling Ace about his sojourn in the future, but chose not to. There was no telling what would happen by revealing such information, especially the part about Serkan’s most likely fate to die. It just seemed like the best course of action was to keep quiet about it, just like he had done when he first went back in time and first met Ace for the second time. He had a hard time listening to Ace’s story about Quivira, instead being distracted by his own thoughts on the fact that somebody should make a list of rules for time travel that they could all live by.

The teleporter car was gone when they stepped outside of the house, so they just kept walking, hoping to find civilization. They needed something to eat before they needed to get home. They had walked a few miles through the woods, having long lost any sense of where the nearest road might be, when they could see something familiar.

A Stonehenge doorway of three stones appeared down the path. They walked through the stones and teleported to Stonehenge. The Delegator was pointing to another opening that served as a portal to a park. “You’re welcome,” was all he said.

Serkan and Ace continued talking to each other without saying a word to The Delegator. This was just sometimes how they traveled now. They found themselves right in the middle of Mendoza Park, suddenly under an onslaught of snow, with very little protection. Things had gotten so much worse since they had left, probably to the point of being categorized as a blizzard. Not a soul was around, hopefully holed up in their respective homes, with enough food to last them three days. “We have to get back to Duke,” Ace suggested.

“It’s time to end this.”

They stole an abandoned city bus buried in the snow. It took them awhile to get it uncovered, but that was at least the hard part. Neither one of them had any clue as to how to hotwire a vehicle, let alone a bus, but they didn’t need to. The Escher Card was fully capable of magically starting it for them. In fact, though it was the kind of vehicle still designed to be driven by a human, the Esher Card automatically maneuvered and navigated it. This gave them the time to huddle together near a heater vent and warm back up. It took them at least three times as it normally would to get to DNA Labs, only realizing then that everybody might have left for the day, and they were just wasting their time.

The lobby appeared to confirm this for them. The place was completely dead. The propaganda televisions continued to try to play the company’s selling points, but the power was going in an out. There were a few options here. They could try to find help elsewhere, go upstairs to check if the special weather task force was still working the problem, or leave Kansas City. Perhaps that’s what everyone else had done. Maybe the whole city had turned into a ghost town. How they were all able to get out so quickly was not obvious. They should have seen at least one person; be it a straggler, homeless person with no transportation, or a looter. But there was no one. They decided it couldn’t hurt to go upstairs and see if they couldn’t find someone who had stayed behind. It actually did end up hurting, because they knew the elevators weren’t reliable, and were forced to walk up the steps to the top floor of the tallest skyscraper in the city.

Still no one. At least they had a great view.

They looked in Andrews’ office, the attached situation room where his team had been furiously trying to understand the weather, and even the maintenance closets. Nobody was going to help them, so they tried to help themselves. They looked over the data still left in the situation room, and studied the maps on the table computer. It was pointless. Neither one of them had any hope of deciphering this information, let alone doing something about it. But then Ace completely unintentionally pulled up a different map. It was still the Kansas City Metro, but there were new layers. Colors as one might find on a local news weather report showed the temperature differentials across the area. Downtown, which was where they were, was purple, indicating it to be the coldest. The surrounding suburbs were orange and red, though, suggesting that they were still in summer temperatures. Ace and Serkan hadn’t really thought about where Keanu’s borders might have been. They hadn’t even thought of driving towards one direction to see where it ended. Looking back, that seemed foolish to them; a rookie mistake.

“Wait, look, what’s what?”

“Well, it’s just black,” Serkan replied. Beyond the suburbs lied some farmland, and beyond that, on the fringes, was nothing but blackness.

“Why?”

“It’s obviously not part of the temperature scale. This here is just how far the map goes.”

“That’s not how it works. Either the map shows the temperature in other areas, even if it’s not relevant to the viewers, or it’s just a smaller map. But I’m not seeing Nebraska, or the rest of Missouri on here. It’s all black. What would be the point? You’re just wasting all this screen space when you could make it bigger.”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t know how this stuff works. I’m not a meteorologist, and neither are you.”

“No, but it’s just...it’s just weird.”

“I agree, but I don’t think it’s all that significant.”

“Oh, it’s all the significance. Every significant.” Some guy had walked into the room, dressed in a cool leather jacket.

“Who are you?” Serkan asked. His tone wasn’t threatening, threatened, or accusatory. He had learned by now that when some random person showed up, claiming to have information they needed, that it was best to just go with the flow. That could be another rule for time travel. Treat people kindly, because you never know when they’ll return to your life, or what they’ll want when that happens.

“My name is Jupiter Rosa.”

“I’ve heard of you,” Ace said. “You run that weapons plant.”

Jupiter was noticeably offended by this. “Not anymore,” he said defiantly. “Now I help people; currently you.”

“How can you help?”

“Slipstream sent me,” Jupiter answered. “I’m here to get you out of this wretched world.”

“You know Slipstream?” Serkan asked. She was the founder and leader of the Tracer gang. She was instrumental to the creation of the New Gangs of Kansas City. She was a legend...a hero...a goddess. And as far as Serkan knew, she didn’t have anything to do with time travel.

“What do you mean by wretched world?” Ace asked.

Jupiter decided to ignore Serkan’s question—which was sort of par for the course for Serkan—and instead address only Ace’s. “You’ve been living in a nightmare, brother. This world you’re in isn’t real. It is a reaction; a punishment...and a test.”

“I don’t understand.”

He gathered his thoughts. “It’s a pocket reality, consisting only of the residents of Kansas City. Well...copies of the residents.”

“No one here is real? Or was real?”

“They’re...copies. They’re real. And they’re still here.” He pointed to the map on the table screen. “They’ve all moved to the red areas. You were in Wisconsin for longer than you realized. It took about a week to evacuate everyone from the coldest parts of the city. Pretty impressive from my side, but not all that surprising. This may not be the real Kansas City, but it’s still Kansas City. We’re stronger ‘an hell.”

“I don’t get what’s going on,” Ace argued. “Who’s being punished?”

“You are,” Jupiter said, with a near-laugh. “My friends are pissed off at you.”

“What did we do?” Serkan questioned.

“We’re dealing with time travelers here. You’ve done nothing to them yet, but you will, and they’re trying to get to you before that.”

Serkan looked around. “Seems like a whole lot of trouble. Couldn’t they have just killed us? Teleport behind each of us, and stab us. Then leave.”

Jupiter shook his head. “These people are fucking stupid. Pardon my language. They like screwing with others more than they like getting what they need. They have no sense of efficiency, or rationality. They get their panties in a bunch about a few people who choose to defy them, and they can’t just let it go. Now I’m no time traveler myself, but my theory is that all they’re doing to you in these moments is what causes you to go against them later. I tried to warn them, but they won’t listen to me. From their perspective, I’m not any more real than this little bubble.”

The two of them didn’t have any context for what was happening between Jupiter and this mysterious group of people that included Keanu. So they just continued the conversation from there. “How do we get out?” Serkan asked.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Jupiter answered. He popped his collar. “You just need one of these jackets.”

“They let you travel between dimensions?” Serkan pressed.

“Very good, yes,” Jupiter said with a teacher’s smile.

“Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on,” Ace stopped them. “What happens to this place when we leave? Where’s Paige and Daria? Where’s Bran? Where are Keanu and his friends? We’re meant to be stopping them, not just escaping.”

“They are all in the real world. Paige, Daria, and Bran were not copied, so you’ll only have one of each of them to get back to. Keanu is laughing his ass off in his real office, while simultaneously trying to locate Paige. You’ll still need to stop him from doing that, but you can’t do it from here.”

“What about all these people? The copies? What happens to them?”

Jupiter shrugged. “They’ll stay here. When you stop Keanu, the weather will go back to normal, and Kansas City II will just go on. It was designed to be self-reinforcing, whether you kill the people who created it, or not.”

“Completely cut off from the rest of the world?”

“Yeah, they only built a replica of the metro. That’s the entirety of the universe.”

“Which means they’ll have to survive without import resources.”

“Yeah, I guess. They should be fine, though. They’ve already realized something weird is up, and they’ll adapt. Like I said...they’re Kansas Citians.”

Ace didn’t like this. “They’ll need help. Someone should help them.”

“Maybe,” Jupiter said. “But you got other stuff to deal with. They’ll still be here, but you have to finish this Keanu thing.”

“He’s right,” Serkan said to Ace. “For Paige. For the real world.”

He was hesitant, but conceded. “Fine. But we’re coming back.”

“Hey, you can have this jacket if you want, along with this reality’s copy of it—which we need to find, by the way. I don’t need either one of them.” Jupiter turned and left the room. “Come along, dears.”

« < » > Entire Story

Microstory 615: Amphibious Infestation

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Like most taikon listed in the scripture, the fifteenth was written without too many details. What has been largely interpreted to refer to some kind of minimal population boom for one particular species of amphibians has turned into something greater. Much, much greater. Amphibians of all shapes and sizes, and of all species, began crawling out of the waters at the exact moment the storm in the last taikon ended. This did not happen from only one body of water, and to only one city. It didn’t even happen on only one planet. All major cities on all central worlds began experiencing an infestation of these creatures simultaneously. Streets were soon overrun by them, halting all land transportation. Some species appeared on planets on which they did not naturally live. Experts immediately began studying the phenomenon, and running some numbers. They came to the understanding that there were more amphibians present during the infestation than there should have been in existence across the galaxy. How this was possible was not something that anyone, from any field of study, could explain. What was strange about this event—as if that wasn’t enough—was that the animals left as quickly as they had come. Less than a quarter standard hour later, they began receding into their waters, and disappeared. After these moments, the number of observed individuals of their respective species returned to expected quantities. Things were back to normal, and after the shock had worn off of every resident and visitor to these cities, people started realizing that the animals didn’t actually do anything. They didn’t destroy any equipment of infrastructure. They didn’t hurt anyone, or cause any freak accidents. They came, they went, and that was it. Unfortunately, for as inexplicable as the incident was, the Lightseed faith did not significantly increase its own numbers. Obviously this was undeniable proof that Lightseers were true and righteous, but perhaps it also scared any potential doubters. Still, as the ol’ song goes, the taikon..must go on. This was still only the beginning. The majority of prophesied events were yet to come to pass, starting with the Feast of the Fruit of Love.