Microstory 768: Salmon

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A lot of people wonder where the term salmon comes from. For the longest time, nobody actually knew, because it did not originate in the same reality. During one timeline, the powers that be decided to call upon one of their little pets, who was named Ed Bolton. He was living in the year 1809, but they pushed him forward one year to 1810. But he only stayed there for three seconds, at which point they pushed him again to 1811. Again, this was short-lived, as he was only there for three minutes, long enough to encounter his friend and roommate, who had been wondering where he was for the last two years. He didn’t have time to both figure out the truth, and explain it, when he was pushed forward two years to 1813. By then, his roommate had moved out of their unit, and somewhere else. It took Ed nearly three hours to find where this was, and then go to him, looking for help. But at this point, the powers that be pushed him all the way to 1816, where he spent three days discovering his friend had moved to the other side of the country. He continued to jump forward in time, hopeless, and completely alone; three weeks in 1821, three months in in 1829 and 1830, and three years from 1843 to 1846. Just when he was feeling comfortable in this new era, with some simple math, he realized he was destined to jump yet again, this time to 1867, where he was likely to spend the next three decades. Fortunately, he would not have to be alone the entire time. He found himself in the company of two other travelers, who were from the future. They immediately treated him with kindness and understanding, and he came to find out that they already knew him, for he was scheduled to run into them again, periodically over the next century. Each time he did, he knew them better, and they knew him less, for they were jumping through time in opposite directions. Through all this, at some point, somebody remarked that these friends were, in fact, going the wrong direction. But it was Edward who drew the analogy of salmon, who were known for traveling upstream to spawn in the same place they were first born. Now this moment—this seemingly innocuous moment—would have repercussions across all of time and space, spanning past, present, future, and all realities. Though earlier versions of the timeline left Ed Bolton free to live his life oblivious to time travel, they too would come to refer to travelers who had no control over their travels as salmon. Some call it inevitable, others fate or destiny, but this would not be the only example of something in a reality that does not yet exist having an inexplicable effect on prior timelines. It would not even be the most profound.

Microstory 767: Sailboat

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Christopher Clark was a Hydro Scout, which was a special class of scout dedicated to water activities. This didn’t mean they didn’t ever enjoy other environments, or that other classes of scout didn’t also participate in water activities, but they did have their own niches. There were Forest Scouts, Mountain Scouts, Prairie Scouts, Desert Scouts, Snow Scouts, Jungle Scouts, and even stranger ones, like Swamp Scouts, and City Scouts. In this world, scouts work differently than what you may be used to. For example, there is no separate organization for girls. They would never think to put people in those boxes. Nor was there ever a time when certain peoples were excluded from joining. Nor was there ever a time when certain peoples were excluded from joining. You are free to practice whatever spiritual beliefs you follow, you can be of any gender, or sexual orientation, and you can be of any race. The scouting program is also designed to be more of a lifelong adventure. The penultimate division is Senior Scouts, which starts when an individual reaches the age of majority at sixteen years, and generally goes for four years. After that, Post-senior scouts become more independent, often enter the workforce, and involve themselves in scouting functions only when they have time. Chris was only fourteen years old when he moved up to Senior Scouts, but this was because he was such good friends with those already in it, so they made an exception. One day, Chris and his fellow scouts were scheduled to go on a sailboat trip, marking the first time most of them had been on the ocean, including Chris. With his ability to see the future, Chris knew that things would not turn out well for them. He did not seek to stop the trip altogether, even though he knew everyone would believe him. Instead, he kept trying to fix the timeline, so that the future would change in their favor. They were meant to travel from Hawaii to a remote island in the North Pacific Ocean, but something went terribly wrong, and a sea of death came to swallow them up. Though he was not able to prevent the catastrophe, it would seem that he was able to save some lives in the trying. Though it would not be easy, and Christopher Clark would never return to his home stateside, he would find a bit of peace...in the last refuge.

Microstory 766: Four Spot

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The four spot, or the universal heart symbol, is a graphical representation of the human heart. Historians are unsure who first came up with the symbol. Earliest depictions can be found in prehistoric art from the sixth century BUC, but it is believed to be much older than that. As the myth goes, there were two people deep in love with each other, who used the four spot as their new family crest, intending to pass it down to their children. The four curves represent the four chambers of the standard human heart, and later on as four tenets, ideas, or beliefs. Many religions have adapted the four spot to their respective faiths, and have come up with differing uses for the quadrant symbolism to satisfy their own dogma. The original story, however, says nothing about it. What is present is the intersection of two independent streams of infinity, symbolizing time as cyclical, and that no matter how far one travels from their loved ones, they will always inevitably come back around to their intersection. This is important as the story progresses, predicting a grand reunion between the lovers sometime in the future, after a great cataclysm separates them across a seemingly insurmountable vastness. Supposedly, each of the couple was holding onto one side of the crest at the moment of the calamity. When they were torn apart, so too was the crest itself, with the man retaining only the bottom half, and the woman keeping the top. Later apocrypha suggests the man’s half represents the testicles, while the woman’s the breasts, but this is improbably more than coincidence. The man ended up in the new universe, spreading the symbol to its inhabitants as the only symbol for the heart, while the woman stayed in the primary universe, notably causing Earthan humans to believe that they had come up with it on their own. As the tale predicts, these two universes shall one day be made whole again, and the four spot heart can once again be accepted as the true icon of love.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: August 18, 2164

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Late in the morning of 2164, Dar’cy came into Leona and Serif’s room and gently woke them up. “We let you sleep a little, but we need you. Serif, specifically you.”

Serif was still groggy. “What is it? What happened?”

“A lot. Since you’ve been gone. We lost Missy.”

Leona shot up out of bed. “What? What do you mean, lost her?”

“Acute radiation poisoning. She was exposed. Well...” she lifted her shirt to reveal radiation burns on her chest. “We were all exposed, but hers was the worst. She didn’t make it a week, even with treatment.”

Leona found Serif’s shirt while she was looking for her own, and threw it over to her. “The micrometeoroid. I scrubbed afterwards.”

“It was too late for us,” Dar’cy explained. “Symptoms appeared just after you left. We all thought we just ate a bad batch of meal bars.”

“How much treatment do you have left?” Leona asked.

“None,” Dar’cy answered. “We ran out months ago, and now everybody looks like me. We were hoping Serif’s special healing powers could help us.”

“Of course,” Serif said. She couldn’t get her pants all the way on without her morning coffee, so she just gave up. “Take me to them.”

The rest of the crew was sitting in the lounge area, except for Nerakali, who was sprawled out on the floor. They all had vomit buckets. Paige noticed them come in, and checked her watch with her eyes closed. “You’re back. I didn’t realize it was your day.”

“Brooke, Paige, your upgrades. They’re not protecting you?” Leona asked while Serif was assessing everybody’s condition.

Paige laughed. “I didn’t get the antirad upgrade. I didn’t think I would need it.”

“I did,” Brooke said lethargically. “But I bought the bronze package. I need regular doses, or I lose it, which are heavily regulated, and supplied by my employer, who has no control over this mission.”

“Dar’cy?” Serif asked. “You seem the healthiest.”

“I threaded two months after the incident, when my dermatitis appeared. I only came back yesterday. Obviously we needed to save treatment for the people who couldn’t jump through time.”

“I still don’t get why you couldn’t take us with you,” Nerakali griped from the floor, head buried in a throw pillow.

“I don’t really either,” Dar’cy admitted. “I guess radiation poisoning makes it difficult for me to take passengers.”

“You barely tried!”

“Enough,” Paige demanded. “She’s back now, along with...Serif.” She clearly just wanted to go to sleep. “Please start with our pilot.”

“I’m the worst one!” Nerakali complained.

“She’s right,” Serif said. “She has to go first.”

Paige shook her head. “I can’t have that. She may be the sickest, but she’s also the most expendable. If Brooke goes, we lose control of the Warren.”

“Why does it matter?” Brooke questioned. “We’re all getting cured? She can go first, I don’t mind.”

Paige struggled to sit up straighter. “What if Serif can only save one of us? What if she can only save one of us per day? No, Brooke, it’s you. I make the decisions around here, and with Miss Atterberry gone, you are our best bet.”

“You’re wrong,” Leona said. “If Nerakali dies here, it will create the paradox I was telling you about. We don’t know when she goes back in time to seal her own fate, but one thing I do know is that she wasn’t at all sick when it happened. She has to get the cure to protect the timeline.”

“Leona Matic. Unlikely voice of reason,” Nerakali said.

“Shut up,” most of them barked at her in unison.

“Dar’cy,” Brooke said.

“What is it, hon?” Dar’cy asked her, coming over and kneeling down at Brooke’s side, ready to help.

“No, you. You get the cure. This is a logical problem, like that one where you and a...and like a, sheep and a wolf, or something, have to cross a river. You’re the piece of the puzzle that solves everything.” She was having trouble concentrating, but pushed through it. “Serif cures you, and say...say she can only do it once a day. Days don’t matter if you’re alive. If the rest of us die, you can go back in time and pull us out of the timestream to stop it from happening, meeting up with Serif after she recharges.”

“And what if she can only do it every week? Or every year, from her perspective?” Paige posed. “What if she can only do it once ever? What if the illness is so bad that it drains her of all her power?”

The room had no answer to this morbid riddle.

“Twelve hours,” Leona finally said.

Paige slumped back into the couch. “To what?”

“I never got a chance to study her ability. Give me twelve hours to do so. You think you can all make it that long? More importantly, Brooke, can you make it? Because Paige is right about one thing, you’re the most valuable crew member this boat has, with Missy gone.”

“Yeah, I can make twelve hours. I can make sixteen.”

“Ten,” Paige amended. “You have ten hours, and regardless of what you find out, Brooke goes first.”

“All right,” Leona accepted. “I’ll make a list of things I need. You’re all more familiar with the inventory.”

Eight hours later, Serif walked into Leona’s lab. “Anything?”

“Lot of things,” Leona answered. “Come here and take a look.”

Serif put her eyes on the microscope. “What am I seeing here?”

“Nanobots,” Leona said with a grin.

“Nanobots?”

“Nanobots,” she repeated. “Organic nanobots. Your body makes them. It converts the chemicals you eat in everyday foods into programmable machines. Programmable..by your brain. You can expel these through your breath, instinctively programming them to treat wounds.”

“Don’t the Earthans have this kind of technology anyway? Aren’t they part of transhumanistic upgrades?”

Leona shook her head, even though this wasn’t technically wrong. “You can’t just..give someone medical nanites. They have to not only be programmed for specific tasks, but be customized to the individual.”

Serif just stood there.

“The only nanites that can treat a patient are the ones that were made especially for them. They’re non-transferable.”

“Well, then why are mine?”

“Because you’re a miracle,” Leona said, no doy. “We already knew that. When you donate your nanites to others, they automatically become compatible with their blood, organs, and microbiome.”

“You say I create them when I eat.”

“Yeah, basically. They die eventually, just like any cell, and your body discharges them, probably through urine, and replaces them simultaneously. That’s why your patients don’t suddenly start carrying nanites themselves. They lose them after the job is done, and they don’t replicate.”

“If I create them when I eat, and lose them after a period, then I only have so many.”

“At any one time, that’s right. But theoretically you’ll just keep producing them, like man’s sperm. I still don’t know why you can do this. If you were born with it, or what. It’s not really a time power, and those are the only kinds we’ve ever seen, but I guess it’s possible tha—”

“Leona!” Serif interrupted her. “Come back to me.”

“Yeah, sorry, I get carried away. This is a major discovery.”

“If I have a limited number, maybe I really can be drained. Maybe I can only save one. Maybe two. Hell, maybe even three, which means I don’t just have to decide who lives, but also who dies.”

“Paige is making that decision. It’s her job.”

“She can make all the decisions she wants. It all comes down to me.”

“Look, I need more time. I need you to heal someone, and then I can test your refresh rate. We can’t know that if you don’t use it.”

“You’re not getting it. You were supposed to tell me I can heal everyone, with absolute certainty.”

“Science doesn’t work like that.”

“This isn’t science. It’s magic. What we do is magic! There’s a way out of this, and you need to figure it out!”

Leona shut down and turned herself into a statue.

Serif composed herself. “I’m sorry. I’m under a lot of stress. I can’t wrap my head around the possibility that something I do—or don’t do—could lead to someone’s death. I can’t pass that off to Paige. I’m the one with the power.” At last, she inhaled.

“No you’re not.” Leona said, coming to an idea.

“What?”

“You are now, but you don’t have to be.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Allogeneic HSCT.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“A transplant. Transplants can transfer powers.”

“That works with time powers, but you said you don’t know if that’s what this is.”

“True, but it shouldn’t matter anyway. Cancer patients receive marrow transplants when their body can no longer produce certain cells on its own. Your nanites are probably made in the marrow, originating as stem cells, like all your others. If we transplant these stem cells to all the patients, they’ll start producing nanites on their own, for a short time.”

“For a long enough time?”

“There aren’t any studies on this, Serif. I know that’s a shitty answer, but it’s all I have. That certainty you were looking for doesn’t exist, not in ten hours.”

“Can you perform a, uh...an allergic CT?”

“Allogeneic HSCT. Probably.”

“What?”

“Yes, I can,” she clarified, though she wasn’t really so confident.

“Paige isn’t gonna like this. A lot can go wrong in surgery, even I know that.”

“Well, if we had five days, and growth factor, I could give you growth factor, and it would be totally noninvasive.”

“Helpful remark.”

“I just need a blood centrifuge, and some needles,” Leona said, as if that wasn’t asking a lot. “And anesthesia.”

“And a sterile environment, surgical tools, time to practice the procedure, oh yeah, and the years it takes to become a surgeon.” Paige had hobbled into the room, and was resting against the door frame.

“You shouldn’t be up,” Serif said, trying to help her stand.

Paige refused the help. “And you shouldn’t be indulging in your girl’s fantasies.” She turned back to Leona. “You’re not performing surgery on five people, Leona. Jesus Christ, who do you think you are? I’ll be the first to admit that you’re an amazing woman, but you cannot do this. Time is up.”

“I have two more hours,” Leona argued.

“I’ve decided you don’t. Brooke’s health is too important, so Serif, you’re saving her now. We can only hope she isn’t your last.”

“Love,” Leona called out when Serif started following her out of the room.

“I’m sorry. If I can only save one, let me at least save one. If I jump forward in time to find nothing more than a pile of rotting corpses, because we wasted these last few hours on the off-chance you find out how to make this work, will the try have been worth it?”

“We can try to contact The Crossover,” Leona begged as they were walking away. “They know doctors, and they can be here in a flash!”

No one answered.

Leona remained to stew in her defeat, praying that someone from the Crossover randomly decided to show up without prompting. Then she realized that that was it. The Crossover. Serif was badly injured by the Sword of Assimilation. She must have absorbed the powers from someone else; someone from the other universe. She ran out to stop Serif, hoping her epiphany could be enough for them to rethink their plan. Only when she saw Serif breathing deliberately all over Brooke’s body did she realize the news didn’t matter.

As midnight approached, Brooke showed no signs of improvement, and the conditions of the others were deteriorating. In a desperate attempt to save the crew, Serif breathed on everybody, including Leona, just in case. Come 2165, they found everyone in perfect health. The nanite treatments apparently just needed a few days to work. Unfortunately, they realized that their exposure to radiation was not due to the meteor strike itself, but the contamination of most of their water supply. They had been forced to get creative with the recycling system, especially since no one knew how to repair the atterberry pods following Missy Atterberry’s death.

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Void: Andromeda (Part IV)

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The powers that be must have been keeping an eye on Saga from their secret ivory tower, because she was once again unable to open a door back in time. She wanted to return Morick and the couple to their own time, but whenever she opened a door, it led only to the other side. They read through the histories of their world, and were horrified by some things that had happened. Their home really went down the drain while they were gone, starting on the very day of their departure. Though their absence could not be to blame for the dark turn of events that followed, perhaps they could have been there to help prevent, or at least make things better. The couple was most concerned with their daughter, and knew that the stories of her twisted dealings and mistakes were nothing more than lies. Unfortunately, nowhere in the books did it speak of the three of them, which meant it was unlikely they would ever get back. They would just have to build lives for themselves here, where things were finally starting to get better, and hope that their child’s life was better than the books claimed it was.

Speaking of building, Andromeda was becoming quite the hero for her skills in the Earthan refugee camp, using her new powers to expand it into a grand city. Long ago, when the first Springfielders arrived through the town portal, a healthy fraction of them were pregnant. These children—though they would not have become choosing ones had they been born to Earth—were imprinted with their powers from having been in various crucial stages of their development when their mothers were transported to Durus. They grew up quickly, and became known as the source mages, for they had the ability to bequest time powers to anyone who proved worthy enough to wield them. They established a competition, with winners serving in an order of town protectors. One of the rules for becoming a town mage was that you were not allowed to have children. They actually employed special meta-mages to make sure this rule was followed by literally preventing conception from taking hold.

When Sadie and Jörm’s daughter started upending the system, and the Durune monsters took their opportunity to take over, the sterility mandate could no longer be enforced. After the monsters were pushed back, survivors on Durus had to restart their civilization, almost completely without time powers, for those that had them, lost them in the war. What they didn’t realize at the time, though, was that their genes had already been irreversibly altered when they were turned into choosers in the first place, which meant these were traits that could be passed down the generations. Because their descendants never displayed near the same intensity or power of their predecessors, they were known as mage remnants. They didn’t reserve their powers to protect the towns, since that was now being done with technology. They just used them for fun, or they sold them to people looking to accomplish various tasks, legal or otherwise. Andromeda was different. She was a full-fledged choosing one; probably the first one in this century, on this planet, as long as you didn’t count an alien named Effigy.

Having been raised by a decent mother, Andromeda decided to use her powers to do the most good. Seeing the suffering of the Earthan peoples, who were forcibly removed from their homes, and had no choice but to come here, she dedicated her time to helping them. As Morick pointed out, she was a builder, much like The Constructor, Baudin, who Saga knew from Tribulation Island. She could summon building materials from other times and places, sometimes in the form of fully living trees. She could then arrange them into proper configuration, as well as manipulate the speed of time, to build vast architecture in a matter of days. In only a few short months, the refugees had become the wealthy ones, leaving the rest of the world struggling to rebuild their infrastructure in real time, following the devastation of the syzygy durusquakes. The irony of the tables having been turned on them was lost on no one. Right now, the provisional government was seeking help from someone they insisted on calling Queen Andromeda. After a full year of watching her help the Earthans, they were only now recognizing her as their greatest asset; one they should not have taken for granted.

Morick, having retained his mage powers from another time, stood at her right flank as her primary bodyguard. Camden, whose episodic memories never returned, flanked her on the left, as another guard. Fortunately, he never lost his muscle memory, so he could still rely on his training as a field agent. Saga sat at Andromeda’s side for moral support, while Durune government officials pleaded their case.

“Your Highness—”

“Eh,” Andromeda interrupted. “That’s not what you should call me. If you are obliged to an honorific, then what did I say it should be?”

He hesitated, but acquiesced. “Your Badass,” he began. Andromeda thought this term up, thinking the Durune would be too uncomfortable to actually use it, and just revert to her proper name. It didn’t work, but honestly, she much enjoyed the new title, so ultimately just went with it. “We implore you to help. Our city is falling apart faster than we can repair it. It was created many years ago, using the last drops of power The Last Mages could muster. To be truthful, we don’t know what we’re doing.”

“I believe there were those who came to this world from Earth with construction experience,” Andromeda replied.

He was trying to figure out whether this was a question. “Yes,” he guessed.

“You could have used them. Had you treated them as human beings...read, with dignity, they could have helped you.”

“Surely someone with wisdom such as yours can understand our reluctance to rely on anyone but ourselves,” Provisor Drumpf replied.

“What was that again?” Andromeda asked aside.

“Negging,” Saga answered her.

“Negging,” Andromeda repeated. “Did you just neg me?”

“Your Hi—Your Badass, I would never. I...am afraid I..do not know what that means, but I promise, I meant no disrespect.”

Andromeda was silent, but in a way that made it clear no one was to speak until she was ready for them to. “The city was depositioned at the end of the 21st century, by Earthan years. The disparate towns were all brought together into one, so that we could collectively protect a shorter border, against the monsters who remained after the war. While populations in other worlds rise, ours falls. There was plenty of room in the city when the Earthans arrived, yet you rejected them. You were uneager to help, completely ignoring the high probability that they would help you in return. You held meetings, attended exclusively by loyal followers, and spouted hate speech against the immigrants. You spun a story, giving the impression that the majority of Durune were against providing any aid to our new friends. And when it came time to vote, you suppressed those who would oppose you, making it seem like half the city was against humanitarian efforts. And we are humans, by the way. We may not be from the same worlds, but we are the same. And now your approval rating is the lowest it’s been since we transitioned from source mage rule, to the republic. I wonder why that is. Is it possible that this is your last grasp at saving a dying approach to societal policy? Do your backwards views on the role of women remain in your hearts, but in a new form? You call me queen, and grovel at my feet, yet you still do not respect me. You still consider me inferior. Though you are all new officials, you are still all men, just as it has been since the republican reformation.

“It is time for a new reformation. The provisional government has outstayed its welcome. If you want help—from me, or any Earthan—you must step down, and make way for a rightly elected administration. I can rebuild your city...but not in your name.”

Provisor Drumpf breathed deeply through his mouth, and out loudly through his nose. “I will not be doing that. Nor will any of my comrades. This is our planet. We took it, because no one else had the balls to do it! We took it, because the people let us! We took it, because they want us here...because they need us...because they’re too stupid to do it without us! We will make it great again; even better than your shithole city, and we will do it without your help!”

Andromeda finally revealed her smirk. “We shall see about that.” She nodded to a young woman in the corner who the Durune bureaucrats didn’t even notice was standing there. “Cut.”

The provisor looked over to the girl, slowly recognizing her as as the infamous Loa. Her father was a mage remnant with the ability to remotely view anywhere else in the universe, like a window through space. She recently discovered she possessed a similar power, but hers was much stronger. She could broadcast an event to massive numbers of people, just by witnessing it herself. They asked her to televise the entire meeting to all of Durus.

“Frell me,” the provisor said, having learned the word from Andromeda, who was first taught it by Saga.

“Would you like to go out with me sometime?” Saga asked. She had been trying to rally the courage to ask her, and couldn’t help but blurt it out now. Seeing Andromeda take charge of the situation, and engineer such great change in the world, was just too much. The love was real.

Andromeda kept smiling at the provisor, and what she had done to him, as she nodded her head excitedly. “I sure would. Let’s have dinner tonight.”

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Microstory 765: Nickel

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In the realms beyond this one, there exists a hierarchy of demons. Of course Adversary is the highest of these, and it is he who rules over all others. His top twenty-three advisors are known as the Apostates, and are all but completely autonomous in their dealings against hopeless humans. Most other demons under them must follow the chain of command, and submit to their superiors. The lowest of the lows, however, are the nickels. They’re considered to be so insignificant that the Apostates don’t even bother giving them responsibilities. While mid-level demons are busy concocting new and interesting ways of torturing people in Hell, and beguiling those in heaven, nickels are just sort of always around. Hell is an open place. People aren’t most of the time locked in cages, or chained to great boulders. Instead, they travel freely, hoping to carve out some small shred of safety somewhere. Nickels find joy in being nuisances to the people they come across. They often cause physical harm, but spend most of their time just being incredibly annoying, preventing residents from finding any level of peace. If a nickel finds you, it might sing the same lyric over and over again in your ear, sometimes for days on end, until it gets bored and moves on. It might throw track ballast at you when you’re trying to sleep, or drench you in itching powder. If a group of nickels incidentally comes together, they’ll form something called a licking party, which humans will find difficult to escape. This all may not seem like that big of a deal, but nickels number in the hundreds of millions, and never sleep. When The Words predicted that hell would reign on Earth, they primarily meant that nickels would break free from their realm, and come into ours. And when the armies of evil are finally vanquished, it will be the scattering of nickels that remain, possibly for years to come.

Microstory 764: Hockey Stick

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Few people could be considered as fierce an athletic competitor as Veraise Akima. Though born in Captain Mason, Usonia, her family decided to take up a nomadic lifestyle, and start moving all over the world. They never spent more than six months in any one place, and often did not even bother renting a permanent house. They wanted to experience everything that the universe had to offer, so trotting the globe was as close as they were going to get. As a result of moving around so much, Akima found herself in a number of completely different environments, but her one constant was hockey. From the street to the field, ice rink to roller rink, and even underwater, Akima did it all. Seeing her love of the sport, her parents moved to a small island in the Japanese archipelago where it was rumored an old woman was experimenting with graphene tools. She agreed to design a custom stick for Veraise that would be the strongest of its kind in the whole world. Once she had it, she never used anything else. No matter which type she was playing, or where she was playing it, she used the same stick, swapping out only the blades, when necessary. Even after growing old enough to move out on her own, Veraise stuck by her family, having long fallen in love with the idea of not being tied down to any one place for too long. In her mid-twenties, they found themselves living in inland Somalia. There they discovered the Great Salt Flats of Somalia, which she eventually decided was her favorite place ever, especially since it gave her an idea that would change the course of history. She founded a new type of hockey, one that could be played on salt flats. But not all salt flats are created equal. Some are completely dry, and playing on those would prove to be but marginally different than playing in a semi-arid desert. No. Though similar flats existed, no flat was quite like the Great Flats of Somalia. It lies just on top of brine water, which seeps to the surface, resulting in a thin layer of water. It is highly reflective, giving distant observers the impression that they are watching someone walk on water. It was on the edge of the flats that Akima tried out her new sport, gathering her neighbors to play with her, and work out some of the nuances. For the most part, it’s played like other versions of hockey, but requires special equipment to allow for speed in the shallow water. From this day on, Veraise Akima never played any other type of hockey, nor any other sport, for that matter, nor did she live anywhere outside of Somalia. She gathered crowds of spectators from all over the world, which snowballed its popularity, and encouraged the creation of a league. She served as its first commissioner, establishing most of the organization’s rules that remain today. She was buried somewhere in secret somewhere under the Somalian flats with her stick, while her various blades can be viewed by the public in the International Salt Hockey Association museum.

Microstory 763: Time Travel

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People often come with me with questions about how time travel works. They watch a movie about it, and are confused on the timeline. Sometimes I can help them, because I’m fairly well-versed in the subject of time travel in fiction, but sometimes it’s done so horribly, or confusingly, that even I can’t follow it. A lot of writers seem to keep making the same mistakes, and I would like to clear some of them up. First, you can’t have an event in one moment of time have some effect on an event in another moment without impacting the time in between. If today you went back to when you were in first grade, and stopped yourself from cheating on a test, you would not suddenly feel the effects of that once you returned to you own time. A whole bunch of other things happened in between. While we’re on this subject, you can’t return to your own time anyway, or rather if you did, you would find yourself in an alternate timeline. You would have to deal with the version of yourself who is living there. A single timeline simply does not explain the point of divergence, for if you succeed in stopping yourself from cheating, Future!You would have no reason to go back and change it, which would leave it unchanged, which would give you a reason to go back and change it, and so on, ad infinitum. Alternate timelines are the only logical consequence of any time traveling event. Writers also try to bring in bogus tropes that make no sense. They have timewaves, which somehow affect the timeline at a different rate than the flow of time itself. This allows people to see the changes that are being made all around them, and maintain their memory of how things were before. But this is impossible. Like I’ve said about the alternate timeline, as soon as you go back to first grade, everything changes, from that moment of egress, onwards. One may be able to jump from one moment in time to another, but that does not stop time from moving forward at a constant. Now, this constant gets a little more complicated when you factor in relativity, but it is still always moving forwards. Time doesn’t change, only an observer’s perspective of it. I could go on about the issues I see, but no one has time for that. There’s a lot we don’t know about how time works, but by as much as I write about it, and the manipulation of it, there is one undeniable truth that must not be ignored. Time travel can happen by one of two ways: it either can not, or should not.