Microstory 730: Credos, Convention Five: Congruence

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The fifth canister was deeper, and the wandering child had run out of hands and feet, so he stuck his whole arm into it. There was a man who owned a profitable organization. His business started out small, but grew when the demand for his product increased. One year, he decided he needed an explosion in production if he was going to be able to keep up with this demand. To accomplish this, he’d need to hire massive numbers of people, all at once. But he knew he would not be able to do this alone, and that he needed to hire the right people for the right positions, rather than simply gathering as many as possible. So at first, he focused only on building a team responsible for recruiting the rest of the factory’s labor force. This proved to be even more difficult than he thought, and was quickly becoming a bad omen for the planned hiring explosion. The recruitment team he chose argued and argued, and was unable to get any real work done. One recruiter valued experience over education, while another valued the opposite. One wanted them to all work on the recruitment together, while another wanted each of them to find their own fraction, and put them together. It would seem that they could not agree on a single thing. If the owner could not build a team to find all the other teams, how was he ever going to reach his business goals? This should have been the easy part. Overhearing his complaints at a bar, a woman he had not met before approached the owner, and offered her services. She claimed to know how to build the perfect team. “You have hired the best recruiters you could find, correct?” she asked. “Yes, of course,” he replied. “I only want the best.” “Well, that is your problem,” she said. “Just because they have had the most success independently, does not mean they will be successful together. Their ideals are incongruous. You must find people with not only the same goals as each other, but also the same as you. The team must be able to work together. Even a group of amateurs can come to great things when afforded the opportunity, if they find a way to work well together. The owner of the business let all of his new employees go, and instead searched for people who were a little more like him. And the business grew.

Microstory 729: Credos, Convention Four: Cordiality

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The boy lifted his foot from the canister, fearful of letting it touch the ground, but ultimately finding it to be safe. The brilliant sparkle of the magic water remained intact. He placed his other foot in the fourth canister, and watched the story. There was another boy, on a far away world , who was different than most others. Everyone around him complained that he was too quiet, as if their lives were somehow not complete without his spoken words. They urged him to be more active, to participate in conversations. But these conversations did not interest him, and he could not understand how anyone appreciated them. For they were not real conversations. They did not stimulate the mind, nor solve a problem, nor help someone get through a terrible situation. They were, quite literally, meaningless. They would speak of the weather, as if any of them had any valuable insight into the matter. They would talk of...well, mostly the weather. They apparently had few other ideas for conversation. They were uncomfortable with silence, and would have to fill it with something, be it ever prosaic.

The boy was completely fine with silence, and was content to sit in it without saying a single word. He would mostly only speak when spoken to, and would keep his responses short and concise. His family would tell him, “that the people around you are engaging in small talk, does not mean they do not have more important thoughts as well, or that they are somehow intellectually stunted.” But he did not believe this. How could anyone knowingly appear to be so trivial? That is a paradox. Anyone aware of this in themselves would immediately alter their behavior. But if they could do that, they were not truly trivial in the first place, were they? No, that they choose to say nothing while never ceasing is irrational, but not in a good way. And the boy was not going to give into the pressure to fit in. But then the boy grew up, and like many others, had to go and seek gainful employment. Before anyone would hire him, they first had to speak with him in an interview, and though he was fully qualified, he would always fail this task. They wanted to ask him about his experience and education, yes, but they also wanted to be dumb and unproductive. That was somehow enjoyable to them. And so the young man sought advice from his parents once more. “I am sorry that I did not listen to you. I did not learn how to fit in. I don’t understand small talk, and now I fear it is too late. What am I to say to these people who are responsible for my livelihood?” And his family smiled upon him and said simply, “fake it”. And so he did, and he found this to be easy, for it turns out the people really were as mindless as he believed. It was easy to trick them. All he had to do...was be cordial, and they would think he genuinely cared about their thoughts on the weather.

Microstory 728: Credos, Convention Three: Cooperation, Chapter Two

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The couple left the lower neighborhood having learned a valuable lesson. They went into the upper neighborhood and bought nice clothes. Then they sought new jobs as uppers. No one would hire them, for though they wore nice clothes, they still behaved like middles. They still did not carry themselves with a sense of entitlement that uppers had come to expect. “That man in the lowers has ruined our chances,” one of them said. The other replied, “he has made us question our choices, and now we do not exude confidence.” And so they returned to their home, saddened and angry, and gave up on their dreams of moving. They did, however, still have all this lottery money they needed to spend. So they worked on the house they already had, remodeling it and expanding to an extra floor. They were hoping to rent out the extra space so they could make even more money. Weeks later, a tornado formed on the edge of town. It rampaged through the upper neighborhood, tearing apart the buildings, killing many, and injuring many more. In but a few minutes, the upper neighborhood was gone. Out of the surviving uppers, some still had places to live, but many did not. They sought refuge in the lowers and the middles, but were refused by all. They had been so unkind to those less fortunate than them that no one wanted to help them. The couple from before, however, having however reluctantly learned from the charitable upper man, opened their doors. They provided shelter to many uppers whose homes had been lost, and became an example for the entire town. Seeing this, other middles opened their doors as well, and even some lowers with room did the same. The couple became leaders in their community, using what they had learned from their time remodeling their own house to form a new construction company. This provided jobs for lowers, middles, and even uppers, who were not used to manual labor. Together they rebuilt their town, but they did not simply rebuild what they already had. They improved the living conditions of all. In only a few years, the neighborhoods no longer existed. They lived in a town of harmony and camaradery, with everyone afforded the opportunity to live happily. They were still not the richest of the rich, but they were thriving, and the rest of the world saw this, and were inspired to rethink the structure of their towns too.

Microstory 727: Credos, Convention Three: Cooperation, Chapter One

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The wandering child look around at the remaining canisters, and realized there must be a reason that they were in all shapes and sizes. The first two canisters were the right size for his hands, while the next two were perfectly shaped for his feet. And so he stuck one foot in the third canister, and waited for the lesson. His mind was transported to an impoverished neighborhood on another world. Fully unclothed toddlers were sitting on the edge of streets. He could see the bones through the skin of children his own age. Feral animals were scavenging for what little food-adjacent things they could find in the garbage lying all over the ground, some of which was smoldering. In this world, no one was rich, but there three neighborhoods in total, each with residents at various levels of comfort. The worst off lived in a part of town between the other two, and were known as the lowers. The middles lived to the West, and the uppers to the East. Middles were constantly traveling eastward, hoping for better opportunities in the upper neighborhood, only ever to be met with disappointment. Fuel was so precious that traveling around the lower neighborhood would be impractical, so they passed through, able to see the poverty they were desperately trying to avoid. Lowers would beg for money and food; some would give, others would not.

One day, a couple was for the first time trying their hand and hunting for a job in the upper neighborhood. They had recently won a marginal lottery prize, and thought they would have a good chance of moving up in the world if they just bought some nicer clothes to impress potential employers. Never before had they strayed from the middle neighborhood, nor had they ever given to charity, for they did not feel they had any to spare. They had heard stories of beggars, but were shocked to find them to be entirely true, and their recent windfall had gone to their heads. They were horrified and disgusted by the lowers, many of which lacked sufficient clothing, and many more lacked access to running water for cleaning. “No, they said. We will not give you money. No one ever gave us money, so why should we?” An honorable and charitable man from the upper neighborhood witnessed their disrespect, and confronted them about it. “Do them no harm, travelers. If you cannot help, then please move along. Thank you for your cooperation.” “Do not insult us,” the couple said. “They are of the lower class, as we are presently lower than you. Why do you care for them? They do not contribute positively to society.” “If I do not help them,” the charitable man said, “then how am I contributing to society? I give what I can, for I do not need as much as I have, and it is my responsibility to support my community. If I give them money, they can spend that money. They can fill their bellies, and they can replace their tattered clothing. Perhaps one day, they will move to the middles. Maybe someday after that, they’ll even move to the uppers, where I will be able to see them every day.” The couple frowned and asked, “how is it that it is your responsibility to do this for them? You are not the reason they are poor.” “The responsibility falls on each and everyone of us,” the charitable man said. “A city is a cooperative, and we all play a part. The difference between me and you, is that I recognize my part, and I seek to improve myself through the service of others.”

Microstory 726: Credos, Convention Two: Collaboration, Chapter Two

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After the countries of the world were brought into one, the original leaders were imprisoned together in a special penal colony built just for them. There were no cells, or guards, just a high wall that no one could scale, and no way to communicate with anyone on the other side. They were forced to figure out how to live together, planting the few seeds their angry former citizens let them have to get them started. They divvied up these seeds, and the other few resources, breaking apart into alliances, and building their own sections on the grounds. The strongest and most brutish took the most of these resources for themselves, but wasted them, for they were interested in short term satisfaction, rather than long term gains. The most intelligent of them had little, for they were feeble and easily manipulated. What they had they used well, but it was still not enough for them. The most manipulative of them let the others fight over the seeds, then bargained for what they wanted with false claims and empty promises. But all they had they traded away for things they believed to be more valuable, until they suffered diminishing returns, and too had little. Everyone was near starvation, and a new war was brewing amongst them. Their former citizens watched them from the other side of the walls and laughed joyously. “Finally, it is the rich who will know what it is to die just to protect what is theirs.” “They will know what true pain is; how the rest of us felt during the wars that they commanded from the safety of their wealth and power.” But no one died in the prison as a result of violence. A group of them who had been known to treat their civilians far more justly than the others appointed themselves as mediators, opening up negotiations amongst the others. They asked the smart ones to teach gardening to the strong ones. In turn, the strong ones built shelters, and protection from aerial predators. The mediators guided the manipulative ones into developing a stable economy, so free trade could begin. Over time, a microcosm of a society grew from nearly nothing, and over the years, it became a true society. Decades later, only the descendants of the great war remained. The penal colonists built structures so high, eventually they were able to cross over the wall, and travel to the great nation that had thrived without them. What they found there was a bustling isolated civilization, free from the resentment of their forefathers. The two cultures were absorbed into one, and all lived in peace from then on. When the wandering child removed his second hand from the canister, he discovered it to be covered in the same brilliant light as his first. It was time to learn from the third canister.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 10, 2156

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There was no green car in the garage, just a Taurus that looked eerily familiar. Mateo and Lincoln called back upstairs to tell this to the Gaius, The Superintendent. “Oh, that’s right. I’ve not gotten it back yet. Must be a sign. We’re all better off with you staying here.” He had two extra bedrooms they could sleep in, one with a twin, and the other with a queen. “You’ll be stickin’ by me this week, and maybe the next. I absolutely hate driving, but I hear you love it. I’ve always wanted a chauffeur.”

“Why don’t you just call—”

“Who? The Chauffeur?” Gaius interrupted. “Take a look in your memory archives and tell me why anyone who had a choice would call Dave.”

And so Mateo drove his purported creator around for the week. He worked at a different place almost every single day, which was kind of weird. While they were off duty, he and Lincoln were free to travel on their own. Mateo expected this universe to be wildly different than his own, but it was pretty much the same, just minus all the time travel.

“Well, of course it is,” Gaius told them as he was parking the green Mercury they finally retrieved from his parents. “I modeled yours on my own. I was not aware I was creating universes until later. I thought I just had knowledge of your worlds, but once I realized the truth, that’s when things really got crazy for you. I suddenly had so much more power than I knew. Like I said, I’m gonna tone that down moving forward.” He scrunched up his face, and hesitated continuing, but did. “Except for this challenge I’m sending you on. It’s pretty crazy.”

“Oh, God. What is it?” Mateo scratched his head, trying to get the lice of subservience out of his hair.

“Do you think if I describe you as trying to get the lice of subservience out of your hair by scratching your head, people will understand what that means?”

“No,” Lincoln answered simply while helping unload some chairs and books they had also gotten from Gaius’ parents.

“Okay, I might take that out. Anyway, what was the question?”

“What are you asking me to do to get my people back?”

“Right. The challenge. Do you remember when you killed Hitler?”

“Twice? Yes.”

“Yeah, you having done it twice is important, thanks for bringing that up. Well, there’s this little thing, called the Hitler-Trump Clingon Conundrum. In some bizarre and evil joint venture, Adolf Hitler, and Donald Trump are literal universal constants. Though their histories may differ between them, they exist in almost all c-branes. Like...little herpes, you can’t really ever get rid of them. Even when you do, they still have a twisted effect on reality. I sent you to purge Hitler from history in your universe, but there are still many others that are suffering because of another trope called Hitler’s Time-Travel Exemption Act. You can’t go back in time and kill him, because something will always be there to stop you, or it won’t turn out well.”

“That’s not what happened in my world,” Mateo noted.

“Exactly,” Gaius agreed. “That’s because I have a subversion tool that most story-tellers don’t.”

“And what is that?” Lincoln asked apprehensively.

“I have the ability to recognize and appreciate that, from my characters’ perspective, I really am God. If I want Hitler dead, I’ll get it done.” He turned back to Mateo. “That’s where you come in. I don’t just want him dead in your universe. I want him dead in all of them. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to all c-branes, due to some...legal constraints. I do have access to some of them, though. At present, eight. I have more than that, but one of them is out of my control, and I already removed him from another simply by not having an Earth in that one.”

“Gaius, are you about to ask me to kill the other Hitlers for you?”

He put on a transparent display of feigned humility. “Would you really? That would be so lovely. Thaaanks.” Reading Mateo’s mind, he went on, “no, I’m worse than The Cleanser.”

“How’s that?” Lincoln asked, concerned.

“Because my power is real.” He rearranged his face to reveal his sincerity. “I will return Darko to you, time served, for nothing. I want you to understand this, Mister Matic, I’ve been giving you free will this entire time. I don’t know what you’re going to do until you do it. I’ve tried to work ahead on this story, but you won’t let me, because time doesn’t work like that for you. You’ve always had a choice, as has everyone you’ve encountered.”

“I don’t believe in you,” Mateo said, “so I believe that.”

“But you see my power, so I’m going to give you a choice. Either return to your universe with Darko, and wipe your hands clean of me.”

“Or what?”

“Or kill a bunch of Hitlers first, and then go back to your universe with Darko.”

Lincoln crossed his arms. “What’s the catch, as they say?”

Gaius directed his response to Mateo, “with door number one, you don’t get to kill any more Hitlers. The challenge part of this is deciding whether you would rather risk your life for the satisfaction, or play it safe.” He crossed his arms as well.

“But you already know what I’m going to say?” Mateo thought.

Gaius shook his head. “I don’t. I’m not writing the second half of this installment until tomorrow, because I don’t know what you’re gonna do. You have until then to choose. I’m going to bed.”

When Mateo woke up the next day, he began travelling to other universes, and killing all the Adolf Hitlers he could find. It was as satisfying as Gaius had said, and more. Once he was finished, he returned to Base Reality where not a minute had passed for Gaius and Lincoln.

“That’s it?” Mateo asked, looking over the text Gaius had written about the ordeal.

“Wadya mean?” Gaius asked.

“I just spent hours killing Hitlers, which I didn’t know would happen, by the way. I figured it would be in and out like the first two times.”

“Yeah, well the histories in those other universes are slightly different. He wasn’t gonna be in the same place every time.”

“Was he even an adult in that one where I found him in the bar?” Mateo asked.

“I’m not quite sure how old he was,” Gaius replied, perhaps not as powerful and omniscient as he thought. “But you avoided the Holocaust in that one, so kudos.”

“And that made things better.”

“The Devil plays a bigger role in that brane. No need to muddy the waters, ya know what I mean?”

“No. What I know is that what I just did was harrowing, but you’re not going to say anything about it in the story, except that it happened.”

He frowned. “There’s no room.”

“If you’re the god of my world, then you can make room.”

“No, one day per year for you means one day per installment for me. I only mess with that a little, but the math always evens out, always. I can’t make these things too long, or no one will read them. They might not even be reading them now. I might be the only one who knows I’m writing myself into the story.”

“Talk about muddying the waters,” Mateo said.

“Look, you got what you wanted,” Lincoln jumped in. “Mateo did what you asked, so send us back to our world, along with all of our friends.”

“Nice try, President Puppy, but I’m not going to forget that I only agreed to return the one person.”

“Then ask me to do something,” Lincoln pushed. “You wanna be a real writer, with an actual audience? You’re having trouble finding an agent, right? You think you’re autism might be getting in the way? I can tell you exactly who to contact, and even when to send your submission email. Or I could just give you the lottery numbers. I’m sure you could use a few million dollars so you can quit your job and focus on this. I have a lot to offer.”

Gaius reached up and gently slapped Lincoln on his cheek. “Seeing that handsome face is all I ever needed from you, Pup.” He smiled at looked at them both. “It is time for you to leave. Thank you for your help this week, and for taking care of the Hitler problem.” He reached into a drawer and pulled out a cell phone. “I understand you lost Arcadia’s pager in the universe where you shot Hitler during one of his speeches?”

“Oh yeah.” He had almost forgotten. “I did, yes.”

“I was gonna give this to Vearden, but he went back in time and warned his past self to not accept it from me. So you can have it.”

“Well, if he didn’t want it—”

“Just take it, Mateo.”

Mateo took the phone. “I would tell you thanks, but...you don’t deserve it.”

Gaius, a.k.a. The Superintendent, clicked his magic pen, creating a doorway where once there were stairs. “I know,” he said solemnly.

A teenage girl opened the door.

“Please take them home, Emma.”

“Why are you not sending them back through the Westfall?” Emma asked.

“I wanted to meet you, hoping it would help me figure out where your story is going.”

“It all ends in death,” Emma said, slowly closing the door behind the three of them. “Start there.”

Emma dropped Mateo and Lincoln off on Tribulation Island where Darko was waiting for them. After hugs, laughter, and a summary of what happened recently, Mateo decided he wasn’t interested in putting off the inevitable. He took out the Superintendent’s old phone, which had very little battery life left, and dialed Arcadia’s number.

“Who is this?” she asked.

“It’s Mateo.”

“Where did you get a phone?”

“I’ll explain everything. Just get back here.”

Arcadia teleported herself in, still holding her own phone to her ear. She looked at Darko, and then at Lincoln, who shouldn’t have still been alive. “What did you do?”

“I sought help from above.”

She squinted her eyes, looking for answers, then closed them all the way upon finding them. “The Superintendent.”

“Yes, but we had to speak with your brother first.”

“That’s how he gets out,” she realized. “I’ve been wondering how a version of him without powers keeps popping up in history.”

“I know I didn’t do it how you asked, Arcadia,” Mateo began to plead, “but please don’t be angry. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill Lincoln.”

“No, I understand,” Arcadia said surprisingly, or deviously. “You found a loophole. I commend you for that.”

Mateo breathed a sigh of relief.

Arcadia went on, “of course, I can’t let it stand. But I’m not angry. I just need to..rectify the situation.” She apported a gun into her hand, and then pointed it at Mateo. “You wanted to save both Darko and Lincoln, well fine. I’m gonna need a sacrifice then.” She was just about to squeeze the trigger when the weapon suddenly disappeared from her hand. “What the hell?” She looked around. “Who did that?”

Mateo looked over and noticed Lincoln holding the Superintendent’s reality warping pen.

Arcadia noticed it as well. “How did you get that? Give it to me!” She lunged at Lincoln.

Lincoln clicked the pen again, and Arcadia disappeared as well. He stared at the space where she once was with horror. “Ret Gone.” He dropped the pen like it was the incarnation of evil.

“You stole that from Gaius?”

“It was just sitting there on the table,” Lincoln said, still shocked by what he had done, “begging me to take it. I was just trying to stop him from screwing with our lives. I never intended to use it.”

“It’s okay, Linc,” Mateo tried to console him. “Arcadia was gonna kill me.”

“What’s happening?” Darko asked. “Who’s Arcadia?”

Mateo carefully picked the pen out of the sand. “Yeah, it worked.”

Lincoln’s watch started beeping. It was midnight central.

“Oh, crap,” Mateo said. Then he fell out of the timestream.

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The Burning of Effigy: Chapter One

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For the last few weeks, I’ve been taking care of the alien that crashed on this world. She never speaks, but when I speak to her, she seems quite receptive to it, and I’ve been assuming she’s trying to encourage me to speak more. When I first pick her up, there’s nothing around, except for a few dead trees I can see in the distance. We’re obviously still not on Earth, so I realize that this is the best I’m gonna get. I tear them apart and set up a lean-to shelter, though I’m not sure it’s necessary. As terribly barren as this place is, there also doesn’t seem to be any weather. Still, as soon as you get too comfortable with something, it’s taken away from you, so just always be prepared. The shelter isn’t necessary for long either way, though. When the alien first wakes up, a tent suddenly appears several yards away. A couple days later, she’s a lot more lucid, and a log cabin appears to replace the tent. Over time, as her strength increases, we upgrade our lodgings. She has some power over this place, and I think perhaps maybe, she’ll eventually be able to get us out of it.

One day I’m reading a book to her, that she apparently uncontrollably summoned, called God’s End of Paradise. One of the lines reads, “My name is Xanthia,” she said. “This is my son, Blaine.”

As if in response to this, the alien suddenly says, “my name is Ezqava.”

“What? You speak English?”

“I do now,” she says. She holds her hand out. “Ezqava Eodurus.”

I timidly shake her hand. “As I’ve said, Kallias Bran. Did you learn just by listening to me?”

“Yes,” she replies. “It took me much longer that I thought it would.”

“You never tried to teach me your language.”

“I’m sure humans would not be able to produce all the sounds we use.”

That’s fair. “Now that we can communicate with each other, I can finally ask you.”

“Where did I come from?”

“No, can we leave this place?”

“I’ve tried many times. Everytime I grab your arm, you’ve interpreted it as mere affection, but I’m really just trying to teleport us to your world. I seem to have a lot of power here, but I cannot do that.”

“Would you not want to return to your own world?” I ask her.

“No one would want to go there.”

“Why not? Tell me about it.”

She sighs. “You live in a magnificent universe. There’s no telling how big it is, or even if it’s not infinite. My universe was not like this.”

“You’re from a different universe?” I ask, intrigued.

“I am, and for a time, it was fine. We lived in peace, and advanced at a decent rate. We built giant structures, and studied health, and learned from our mistakes. But then we wanted to travel to the stars. There must be something else out there, we would say. There must be someone we can meet, and learn from. And we must find other places to live, for we are running out of room. But this was impossible.”

“You encountered an evil alien race?” I guess.

“If only,” she says. “We could have fought against that, but not against the truth. The truth was...difficult to reconcile. We designed a ship powerful enough to travel beyond the confines of our solar system, hoping to reach interstellar space, like the ships in those books you read me. What we found...was that they did not exist.”

“What?”

“The stars weren’t real. They were...illusions...or maybe reflections of other universes. We don’t really know, but the ship crashed into the wall of the universe itself. We tried to retrieve our friends, but they were gone. Their remains were still floating in space, but they did not answer us. Kallias, they were dead. From what I can tell from your stories, your people experience death all the time. We had never heard of it.”

“You’re immortal?”

“We did not have a word for mortality, so no. We were just...alive. You’re born, you live, and then you live, and then you keep on living. This was how it was thousands of years. We had to build megastructures and get creative with our produce, just to provide for everyone, but we did it. The first time anyone died was when they reached the end of the cosmos. And it was then that we knew there was nowhere else to go. We were stuck.”

“What did you do?”

“For decades, we lived in war and strife. As it turns out, there are many other ways to die, if you work hard enough. The world was no longer safe. Enemies and the elderly were regularly sent off in other ships to the universe wall, for that was still the only thing no one could survive. We had to maintain the population at its number, if not lower it, or we would all be in danger. Some brilliant scientists, however, never gave up on finding new worlds. They realized that if there was an impenetrable wall just outside our solar system, then there must be something on the other side of it. If not in those stars, then maybe in other dimensions, or somewhere. They built a giant machine that they called—as translated to your language—The Crossover, for it was meant to cross us over to other universes. As you can see by my being here with you now, it worked, but it wasn’t all great. The bulkverse is dangerous. We found on the other side only more war.”

“In our universe?” I ask, ashamed.

“No, not here,” she clarifies, to my relief. “There are an infinite number of possibilities. But we did not realize this at the time. All we saw was pain and hate. We did not evolve these traits ourselves, for until we discovered our world to be finite, it was paradise. We didn’t know what true war was until we met the Ochivari.”

“Who are the Ochivari?”

“They are unimportant, for again, this was just one universe. We went to many others, searching for a home, so that our internal conflict could finally end. I do think we found it, but then I was jettisoned to wherever it is we are now, so I do not know what came of my people.”

I nod and walk into the kitchen for a glass of water. We’re now living in a house far nicer than anything I’ve ever been in. It’s only missing two things: basic entertainment, like television and radio, and a way to leave. “Are you thirsty?” I ask.

“Yes, thank you. Probably not more than you, though. This is a lot to swallow, I’m sure.”

I walk back over with her glass. “I’ve seen a lot in my life. Nothing can surprise me anymore. But now that I know where you’re from, I’m questioning why I’m here.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Well, I came here accidentally as well. I was traveling with someone who could show me the past, but we weren’t meant to interact with it. Sure, those rules were broken a time or two, but it’s different here. I am physically in this dimension, just as you are. This leads me to believe that someone wants me here.”

“You wanna know who and why?”

“Yeah, that would be nice. I’d love to help you, Ezqava, but I have no clue how. You’re the one with the powers. What good am I to you?”

She shook her head and smiled. “You weren’t brought here to get me out. You were just brought here to take care of me, which is what you’ve done.”

“You know this?” I ask, not sure how.

“It’s become clear to me that my powers always act to my benefit, whether I’m consciously aware of what I need or not. I didn’t create or summon this building by choice. It came to me simply because I wanted it. Likewise, you came to me, because I needed you. I needed someone, that is; why the gods of circumstance chose you is not a question I can answer. Which means that’s not really the question we should be asking.”

“Then what is?” I ask her.

“The question...is what are we gonna do now?”

I shake my head, at a loss.

She continues, “and also, who is that behind you?”

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Microstory 725: Credos, Convention Two: Collaboration, Chapter One

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The wandering child lifted his hand from the canister and admired it. The water of light inside had left a film over his skin that glimmered and shone brightly. He could use this light like a torch. He did not know how long it would last, but it was a lovely gift. He opened the second canister, and then placed his other hand inside of it, excited to watch another story unfold before his eyes. It began like this. There once was a world of great strife. Other planets had experienced world wars that soaked the land in blood, and tore it apart, and many more would have such conflicts, but this was unlike any other. There were dozens of countries, and each one was fighting all of the others. Long before this time, a summit was held in a neutral zone. Hoping to prevent all future war, alliances were deemed criminal. This meant that any nation wishing to wage war against another would have to do so by their own resources. All imports would have to cease immediately. The hope was that leaving them so defenseless would cause them to think twice about what they wanted, and ultimately choose to let their grievance go. For many years, this worked, and the world saw peace. But something happened, and a chain reaction of hatred boiled over upon the hearts of all nations, leading to a crisis that threatened to destroy all life. As a small miracle, however, this major conflict did end before everyone died, though the population was diminished significantly. Where once there were billions, there now were only hundreds of thousands. Not all nations survived with more than a few individuals, in fact. The world was all but dead, but these survivors thought up a plan. Instead of multiple countries, they would converge into one. There would be one nation; one peoples; one world. And a second great peace began. In order to maintain this peace, they imprisoned the former leaders of their respective original nations. All of them had survived, for they were greedy aristocrats living safely in bunkers and fortified towers. And ye, the story of collaboration is not over.