Microstory 774: Cowboy

< > Table of Contents

Dalvin Sabastino could not be more different than his sister, Twila. They grew up in the same environment in the city, were raised by the same parents, and even had most of the same teachers. But while Twila pursued a life of academics, ultimately becoming a world-renowned scientist and astronaut, Dalvin pursued almost nothing. His parents urged him to get a job when he was a teenager, and he always claimed he would get on that, but he never followed through. His mother even procured him a position at her factory, but he didn’t show up even once. After he finished high school, his parents promptly kicked him out of the house, and he was left to the streets. Despite having nothing, he never turned to a life of crime. This was the motivation he needed to turn his life around. Drawing upon a nickname his family gave him because of his reckless and carefree behavior, Dalvin decided to become a literal cowboy. Since there were no ranches where he lived, he walked halfway across the country, to California, where he thought he would have gainful employment year-round. He continued to struggle finding work, until a rancher took pity on him, and gave him a low-level job. His troubles did not end there, though. The rancher turned out to be using his small business to launder money for local organized crime. Though Dalvin was completely oblivious to this, he was sent to prison, and fined for his involvement. As successful as Twila was in her profession, she did not have enough money to pay for Dalvin’s legal defense, and certainly didn’t have enough himself. And so she agreed to participate in the reality series Flipsides, which pitted contestants against each other in adventurous challenges. She actually did pretty well, and was able to secure the funds for her brother’s release. Sadly, things would not turn out so well for her, and Dalvin blamed himself for what happened to her during production. But was it enough to turn him into a killer?

Microstory 773: The Curse of Mexico

< > Table of Contents

When the creator of the universe, Alaha saw that her most precious creation, Earth was in danger of being destroyed by Adversary, she made a plan. Though she would not be able to protect the entire universe from Adversary’s rule, she could at least protect this one planet. Unfortunately for her, she overestimated the amount of time it would take for Adversary, and his twisted minions, to take control of the realms. She was only able to place the protective enchantment over a small chunk of land. As time went on, and the humans spread across the globe, this piece of land came to be known as Mexico. Its borders were likely drawn by an innate sense of its range. Though the effects of Adversary’s influence on people could remain while within Mexico’s borders, new hexes could not infect them. Everyone inside of Mexico is perpetually shielded against his anger, as long as they remain there. Even demons who crawl onto Earth are unable to pass through, which is what makes the border itself so incredibly dangerous. Anyone attempting to cross over will have to fight against the wrath of the evil ones, even through indirect means. It is for this reason that a young woman formed an organization designed to keep what Adversary refers to as The Curse of Mexico a secret. Should the rest of the world discover the truth, the country would be overrun with people fleeing from the danger. Fortunately, Adversary had no intention of revealing his true nature to the people of Earth. He breaks them down by subtler means, gradually turning them over to his side, while leaving them oblivious to what’s happening to them. Had he not kept himself a secret, the reality behind Mexico’s enchantment would too come to light. That might even be enough to overload the system, and undermine the enchantment entirely. But even in balance, this paradise cannot last forever, and when Adversary’s wicked armies begin to descend upon the Earth in the final battle between good and evil, perhaps not even Mexico will remain a safe haven.

Microstory 772: Sergeant

< > Table of Contents

Adolphe Sargent was born in 1854, in a region of France called Lorraine. Though many of his compatriots felt culturally German, because of its historical connection to the German Empire, Sargent felt French, through and through. He was only sixteen years old when Prussian forces invaded France’s borders, and he decided to fight against them in the French army. It was on the battlefield that he met a musketeer named Anatol Klugman, who was as passionately Prussian as he was French. They battled against each other for several minutes, before Anatol struck a heavy enough blow to keep Sargent from standing back up. Just before Klugman could deliver death, one of Sargent’s fellow soldiers came to his rescue, coming this close to ending Klugman’s life. Sadly for the French soldier, a magical sword appeared on the ground just in time for Klugman to turn the tables once more. And he kept that sword for decades, possibly centuries, using it to travel through time, ultimately coming to be known simply as The Warrior. But what people may not realize was that Sargent’s story did not end here. Seeing him go up against one of the most formidable fighters in history impressed a lot of very powerful people, and they decided to start using him for their own means. They pulled him out of his time, and set him up to be part of a special battalion. These soldiers, known as the salmon battalion, were tasked with traveling through time together, assuming new identities, and blending in with the locals. Consisting of a couple hundred men from all over history, the salmon battalion cycled through its roster on an as-needed basis. But Adolphe Sargent was always there. Due to what must be assumed to be a clerical error, Sargent was never relieved of his duties, no matter how many temporal attempts, in how many battles, in how many wars, the battalion went through. Though Klugman went on as the infamous Warrior, earning a reputation as the most dangerous man in all of time and space, Sargent was the hardest-working fighter ever, which was something few people knew.

Microstory 771: Dewey

< > Table of Contents

When Kalista Dewey was born, the world was completely fine. Well, it might be a bit of a stretch to say that, but it was certainly still standing. She was just out of college when she was recruited into a secret research project, aimed at studying the unusual temporal properties of a remote island in the middle of the ocean. While she was there, great calamities began to befall the world outside, leaving those on the island as the only ones who were truly completely protected. It was unclear whether Dewey’s superiors started their organization knowing that these civilization-ending scenarios would wreak havoc on the world, but once they did, her job transitioned to studying what went wrong. As time went on, their research collective separated into three camps. Camp One came to believe that this was somehow part of destiny; that the island protected them from harm so that they could restart civilization in their image. Camp Two believed that, though this was not an ideal situation, the world needed to just move on from it. They rejected the idea that they were somehow the chosen ones, and ultimately sought to prevent the organization from returning to the outside world with such a massive technological advantage. They would be too powerful. They wanted to be there to support and nurture the survivors, so they could rebuild something that was better for everyone. Dewey belonged to Camp Three, however. She believed that the island’s special properties were there for a reason, and that they could find a way to save the world by learning more. Though they had no proof of this, they thought there was actually some way to harness its energy, and go back in time, to fix the world’s problems, before they even came to a head. The only question to answer at that point was, what was she willing to sacrifice to make this a reality?

The Advancement of Leona Matic: August 19, 2165

« < » > Table of Contents

Leona was standing in front of the water filtration system, massaging her chin, puzzled look on her face. “This is just a standard three-stage water filtration system.”

“Okay...” Paige said simply.

“But it’s in a ship. In space.”

“Is that bad?”

“Who designed this thing?”

Paige tapped on her tablet. “A man named—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Leona interrupted. “I’m starting to see there was a reason nobody used his design. It’s completely bonkers. It was built exactly to his specifications?”

“Except of the atterberry pods, yeah.”

“He was an idiot. You need a reverse osmosis filtration system when you’re operating this exposed to cosmic radiation, at least. You’ll probably want a DI filter too. Frankly, I’m surprised you lasted this long before hitting an incident that tainted the entire system.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

I guess I can build a RO filter myself.”

“You gonna be able to do that in a day?”

Leona looked over the the filter again. “I have a lot of the components I need already. I’ll have to finish it in a day. You’re suffering diminishing returns from your minimal supply. Count yourself lucky that the only redundancy this bucket has is the water, otherwise you’d be dead by now.”

“You can have everything you need, as long as it doesn’t require a store run. Just let us know.”

“I’ll make another list,” Leona said before getting on her knees and starting to get a more detailed picture of how this all works.

As it turned out, retrofitting the filtration system with upgrades wasn’t nearly as difficult, or time-consuming, as she thought it would be. 3-D printers did their magic much faster in these times than before, so the extra parts were fairly easy to come by. Since there was virtually no communications array on the ship, Leona didn’t have access to Earth’s network, but they were smart enough to have downloaded a number of useful databases, including one that contained a filter design. It took about a half day to finish this all up, but then realized she had to reprogram the ship to maintain these new parts, should they malfunction while Leona was out of the time stream. When finally the chore was completely finished, she promptly dove into her bed, and fell asleep.

She slept so long, that when she woke up, it was already 2170, and they were just approaching Durus. “How the hell did I sleep that long?” Leona asked.

“We knew you were tired. You fixed everything for us, so we didn’t need your help anymore,” Paige explained to her. “You certainly deserved it.”

That made no sense. “But...five days? I slept,” she looked at the clock, “a hundred an eight hours? Straight?”

Paige shrugged. “Like I said, you were tired.”

No one else seemed to think it was strange either, not even Serif.

But things were about to get even stranger. They could see Durus appear on the screens, and through the forward viewports. As they approached this celestial body, the ship decelerated accordingly, eventually slow enough to break the atmosphere, and begin to land on the planet. While she was watching this happen, Leona was incapable of saying anything. She tried to reason that the vessel was imbued with some kind of time power, but she had no evidence to support that. As far as she could tell, Brooke simply engaged the ship’s brakes, as if it were nothing more than a land vehicle.

“What did you just do?” Leona finally asked as they were landing on the surface.

“We’re here,” Brooke answered excitedly.

“That’s impossible. How did you land the ship?”

“What are you talking about, I just landed it?”

Leona tried to explain the physical limitations of such a maneuver, but Brooke simply shrugged off the problem, attributing their success to the advances of the day. But that didn’t work either, because no matter how advanced science progresses, you can’t just throw the laws of physics out the window. They shouldn’t be here. They shouldn’t be here at all.

“Come on,” Paige said. “Let’s go meet the new Savior of humanity.”

“You guys go ahead,” Leona said, hopefully doing a decent job of pretending she wasn’t scared out of her mind. “I’ll be there in a second. I need to run a quick systems check. Don’t want the ship blowing up from a fuel leak while it sits here, do we?” She gave Serif a kiss on the cheek, and saw everybody off.

Nerakali was the last to try to step down the ramp, which gave Leona a perfect opportunity to pull her to the side, out of sight of the others. “Watch it, lady!”

“What are you trying to do to me?” Leona demanded to know.

“What are you talking about? I’m not doing anything.”

“Wake me up.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Wake me the hell up!”

“Leona, you must still be tired. Tell ya what, I’ll go get Brooke. She’ll run your little diagnostics, and you can take another nap.”

“I’m already asleep, so get me out of here! Now!”

Nerakali sighed, then pulled her out of the virtual world. They were back in Leona’s room, in 2165.
“Why did you do that?”

“I was trying to help,” Nerakali answered defensively.

“How was that going to help?”

“You’ve been so stressed lately. You keep showing up in the timeline, and having to fix everyone else’s screw-ups. I thought you just needed a win.”

“You thought reaching our destination five years too early would be a win for me?”

“It wasn’t that much of a stretch. Being asleep for five straight days? I’ve seen humans do it for longer.”

“No, you haven’t. It was a weak construct, full of plotholes.”

“Look, I don’t know how you land a ship on a planet. I assumed you just slow down.”

“That takes too much fuel, you have to use atmosphere. If it weren’t a rogue planet, we would be able to use a sun, gas giant, or even a moon, but aerocapture is our only option. If it were a real rogue planet, it wouldn’t have an atmosphere, and we probably wouldn’t be able to land at all.”

“Well, I’m sorry I don’t know how all this works. When I want to go to another planet, I just snap my fingers.”

“I understand,” Leona said. “What I don’t understand is why you bothered doing this for me. Why would you care?”

“Crew morale is my job. It’s my only job. I’m pretty powerless here. The virtual worlds are all I have to offer, so I take it pretty seriously.”

“That doesn’t explain why you would help me. We hate each other, more than any of the others. I certainly don’t need an escape from this place, since I’m not here that much. It’s the others who have to worry about pandorum.”

“Leona, I am thousands of years old. My approach to blame, grudges, and revenge are completely different than yours. I hold you responsible for my brother’s death, yes, but that was also centuries ago for me. So...I’m kind of, like, over it.”

“So all it takes is time?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Then time is a commodity.”

“I suppose.”

“With a little more time, all wars would end before they could begin.”

“Okay, that’s a philosophical argument I’m too old to be having before my cup of coffee.”

“It’s the middle of the evening. It’s something you should be thinking about. You and your siblings were like gods. No, you were gods. You could have saved everybody, just with the gift of time.”

She smiled. “Time is not ours to give, nor were we brought up to want to help others with it. The choosers, the powers that be, my family; we all have one thing in common.”

“What is that?”

“We don’t give a shit,” she said plainly.

“I see.”

“Do you? Because you seem to be under the impression that you’re on your way to pick up someone whose sole purpose in life it is to help people. The powers haven’t done you any favors by calling her the Savior, but she’s nothing. All she is, is a tool for microsolutions. Nothing we do really makes anything better. Or worse, for that matter.”

“That’s pretty cynical of you to say.”

“You misunderstand. Powers, choosers, salmon; we’re pointless. In the grand scheme of things, the only people with any real power to save the humans...are the humans themselves. We didn’t design this ship. Even with all its flaws, it is still a testament to human ingenuity. The medical advances, transhumanistic upgrades, asteroid mining, the interstellar pre-colony probes that just launched to the nearest neighboring stars. That’s all them. We didn’t help make those things happen. Can I give you one piece of advice, Lee-Lee?”

“Only if you never call me that again.”

“Fair enough. Whatever your name is, you’re a pawn in someone else’s game. We all are. Normal humans are the only ones with actual free will. Absolute corruption, and stuff, you know how it goes.”

“What’s the advice?”

“Stay on Durus when you get there.”

“I don’t think I have a choice.”

“You do. There’s a reason the powers that be want you taking a relativistic ship to go get her. There’s a reason they sent you, and it’s not just because she can’t transport across planets, though we believe that part is indeed true.”

“What would that reason be? Rather, what do you think it is?”

“They have no power there. That’s what truly makes it rogue. If you stay on Durus, they won’t be able to get to you. You’ll still be on your pattern, but there’s a way around that as well.”

“Is any of this true?”

“It’s all true.” A very-much alive Missy had walked into the room. “I’ve seen it done. That’s why I volunteered for this job.”

« < » > Table of Contents

Void: Star-Crossed (Part V)

« < » > Entire Story

One of the conditions of letting the people of Durus vote in a new administration to replace the provisional government was that anyone serving in the provisional government would be allowed to run. Prosivor Drumpf was the only one exempt from this requirement, since he made all his cronies look bad when his hatespeech was broadcast live on LoaTV. A not insignificant number of people from the provisional government were either reëlected to their original positions, or to new ones, even those who really shouldn’t be there. Yet, the people have spoken, so Saga et al. would have to accept it, and move on.

One of Andromeda’s conditions was that she be allowed to step down from her leadership role as well. She enjoyed using her time power to build up the city, but she didn’t want people looking to her for answers. She just wanted to live her life for herself, and now, with Saga. The two of them had grown incredibly close over the course of the last year. Since their first, they had gone on dozens of other dates, and had even technically moved in together. Five Earthan months ago, it was becoming clear that not everyone in the original two cities were interested in staying. They wanted to spread out across the planet, like their ancestors had with their little towns. And so Andromeda built a mobile home. Since there were no city streets on Durus to worry about, she was free to make it as wide as she wanted, which meant there was enough room for the two of them, plus Loa, and her girlfriend, Hokusai. Loa was using her time power to stream their construction efforts in a sort of documentary designed to showcase all the good Andromeda was doing. It was Hokusai’s job to keep their home in operation. They probably had the most luxurious and technologically advanced home in the world; one that was capable to piloting itself to other settlements, where Andromeda would start laying the foundations for neighborhood isolates.

The most recent of these isolates was a neighborhood that called itself Dawidux. When the Earthans came in the Deathspring, they banded together and protested against giving refugee aid. As time went on, and the “Earthan problem” persisted, they gradually transitioned their goals to that of ethnic cleansing. They started covering themselves with hoods, and lynching Earthans that had strayed too far from the herd, reminiscent of a darker time in Earth’s own history. Scholars today believe they, in fact, got all their ideas from the Nazi and white nationalism movements, which was ultimately ironic, because if any Nazis or white supremacists were on Durus, they would be treated just as poorly as any other Earthan. Provisor Drumpf was rumored to be a powerful leader in the Dawiduxian movement, and though a direct connection was never proven, he was quite clear in his sympathy for them, as were other members of government, some of whom remain in power.

Though, of course, Andromeda was adamantly opposed to Dawiduxian principles, she had no choice but to build their neighborhood for them. She promised to do what she could to help restore the world to its former glory, and even improve upon it. The fact that she was in support of Earthans, and lived with two of them, appeared to be completely lost on the Dawiduxians. The hate-mongers needed something from someone they hated, and so they were going to carefully look away and pretend they didn’t notice, only expressing their outrage once Andromeda was done helping them. That day was today. Saga and Andromeda were presently walking on the edge of the neighborhood on a final inspection, to see if anything needed to be fixed, or added. Things started not feeling quite right, and they realized the residents were comfortable enough with their neighborhood to make their move.

“There’s a fire!” Saga called out, seeing the red and orange blaze in the distance.”

“That’s where we parked our home!” Andromeda cried.

“Hokuloa!” Saga screamed, referring to Hokusai and Loa’s shipper name.

They started running, but a horde of Dawiduxians deliberately stepped into their way.

“Please!” Andromeda begged. “There are people in there!”

“That’s the point,” one of them said luridly.

“You would murder two innocent people? We’ve already given you what you want! You asked for a neighborhood of your own, and you’ve got it.”

“That does not absolve you of your sins. You have conspired with the Earthans, and you will be punished for it.”

“What exactly is your problem with us?” Saga questioned.

Saga stepped back, in sync with the leader, as he stepped forward. “This is our world, and you have invaded it.”

“We didn’t ask to come here.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said, “but Earth asked you to leave.”

“What are you talking about?”

He smiled and shook his head, like a Christian wondering why a Muslim hasn’t figured out that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. “We have mage remnants on our side.”

They said nothing.

“What, you thought it was just you? Lots of remnants are part of our cause. They can see things others can’t, and they have told us that Earth sent us the worst of their worst.”

“Again. What the hell are you talking about?”

He looked to the air above his head for the right words. “You’re like lice. On a dog.”

“Do you even know what a dog is?” Saga asked bitingly.

He ignored her. “You’re actually the bad lice. All the other lice are just trying to live their lives in the dog’s feathers, but the bad lice keep raping them, so the dog’s owner uses a special machine to suck all the bad lice away. Durus was that machine, and it brought you all here so Earth wouldn’t have to deal with you anymore. But we don’t want you either.”

Saga just stared at them. “I don’t..even know...how to respond to that. There was so much wrong with what you said, I—I just..can’t even. How do you argue against something so absurd when your opponent is too dumb to know that dogs don’t even have feathers!”

“Whatever, you know what I mean.”

“There’s no such thing as good lice.”

“So what?”

“We aren’t rapists, and you have zero evidence that we are. You’ve just..been told this? And you accept it?”

The Dawiduxian scoffed. “We don’t have to listen to your lies. We were perfectly happy with building a wall separating our cities, but now you’ve infected people’s minds, and our only option now is to just rid of you altogether.”

“What does that mean?”

He spoke above their heads, “you have them?”

Saga and Andromeda turned around to see Hokusai and Loa being dragged towards them. They tried to run to them, but were held back.

“Yes, they’re alive,” the leader said, like he had done them a favor. “And one of them will remain that way, as long as she does what she’s told.”

“What are you telling?” Andromeda asked.

He nodded to two of his goons. One of them handed Andromeda a knife, while the other handed one to Loa. “You have been found guilty of literally sleeping with the enemy. You have two choices. You can either die in each other’s arms, or you can excise the demons from your souls, and join us.”

Saga knew neither Andromeda, nor Loa, would do such a thing. Had they not been respectively in love, they still wouldn’t kill guiltless and harmless people. That just wasn’t in their nature. This was a waste of everybody’s time. Perhaps the Dawiduxians knew it wouldn’t work, and were just screwing with them. Or maybe they were really delusional enough to think they were on the right side of history, and were confident everyone else would eventually see the light.

“Andromeda, maybe you could build a nice little cage for these people?”

The leader laughed. “You could try.” He nodded to an old woman at his side. “She’s a power dampener, though, so the most you’ll get is a psychic nosebleed.”

“He’s right,” Andromeda said quietly to Saga. “I’ve been trying this whole time.”

“You have sixty seconds to choose,” the leader said. With another nod, he ordered several of his people to lift their bows and arrows. One of the arrows slipped away, though, and flew right into Hokusai’s chest.

“Hokusai!” Loa screamed.

The one who had shot her was really just a kid, who was mortified by what he had done. It was clearly an accident.

“Andy! Be ready!” Saga yelled. She took the knife out of her hand, and used a skill she had learned on Tribulation Island to throw it into the power dampener’s neck.

The dampener didn’t have to die to lose control of her power, giving Andromeda the edge she needed. In anger, adrenaline coursing through her veins, she pulled a platform of stone out of the ground, and shot them up into the air. The four of them managed to stay on, but so did several Dawiduxians. In her own anger, Loa started fighting them alongside Saga, until they had thrown them all off the precipice. By the time Andromeda had calmed down, the tower was hundreds of meters in the air, and leaning to one side. She had built parapets to hold onto, so they wouldn’t slip off themselves, but the tower was not going to last much longer. They could already feel it threaten to tip over completely.

Some other version of Saga appeared from a hatchway in the floor. “Come on!” she called out to them. Andromeda and Loa carried Hokusai through the hatchway, while Saga took up the rear. Just as she was climbing through, the tower was starting its race back to the ground. When they exited at the bottom of the tower, though, it was still standing. The other Saga had magically transported them a few moments into the past. A Dawiduxian that Loa had pushed off the edge landed on the ground next to them, so they ran away from the new building, looking for safety. They then closed their timeloop as they watched the tower topple over, and destroy the majority of the neighborhood that Andromeda had just constructed.

“Thank you,” Saga said to herself.

“I need to get her out of here,” Future!Saga explained, indicating Hokusai, who was still alive, but barely.

“Where will you take her?” Loa asked.

“There’s gotta be a door in that town that’s still standing,” Future!Saga answered. “I have to take her back to the future.”

Loa didn’t like hearing this, especially since she didn’t know how far into the future this would be, but she knew she couldn’t question the decision. “Let’s go.”

While Future!Saga ran up to find the safest route to the closest stable door, the other three able-bodied women began transporting Hokusai using a three-person arm-stretcher carry. They made it to the door, and let Future!Saga take her through alone.

Present!Saga should have been more careful, but she did accidentally see Serif waiting for them on the other side of the portal. That was a good sign. “What do we do now?” she asked. “We’re scheduled to start building New Springfield a few miles from Watershed. With transportation burned down, though, we’re gonna be late.”

Andromeda surveyed the rubble that was once a budding town, bitter look on her face. She took in, and released, a deep breath. “I quit.”

« < » > Entire Story

Microstory 770: Crab

< > Table of Contents

At the beginning of the 21st century, the Earth’s population was rising beyond all expectations. Searching for work, people began flocking from rural regions, to denser cities, which allowed for some level of food distribution efficiency, while causing other problems, like an epidemic of isolation depression. When you put everyone in just a few large metropolitan areas, people start to feel like meaningless drones in a sea of other drones. Feeling the need to spread back out, people started looking for other places to live. One such place was Antarctica, which up until that point, was largely uninhabited, save for a few researchers, many of whom operated seasonally. The effects of global warming were becoming abundantly clear as it was now perfectly acceptable to live on a continent which had always been inhospitable to most life. The first nation there formed quickly, and was not immediately recognized as independent, but since they weren’t hurting anybody, they were allowed to remain. In an area originally referred to as Graham Island, and Palmer Island, stood the new country of Tundra Nouveau, populated primarily by antihipsters looking to shed their reliance on mainstream economy. For reference, an antihipster is a hipster who people keep calling a hipster, but doesn’t identify as a hipster, and in fact believes themselves to be the least hipster-like possible. They do this by claiming to adopt new trends later than the mainstream. Because of the drop in temperature, the beaches of Tundra Nouveau became inundated with, not only humans, but a hefty population of King Crabs. At first, this did not seem like a problem, but then they just kept coming. They were throwing the ecosystem out of wack, and threatening the survival of native species. Tundra Natals, as they liked to be called, started hunting the crabs to tame the population as much as possible, but this ad hoc approach was proving to be not quite enough. A man named Beery Snowkiss (not his real name) decided to capitalize on this crab hunting craze by arbitrarily regulating it. He bought up coastal land, and started charging people to hunt there; half price to residents, full for visitors, and he required a percentage of the profits from all meat sold. With the money he earned, he bought even more land, and eventually, he was in control of the entire peninsula. As the crab population dwindled, he saw a danger to his bottom line, so he paid crews of fisherman to go farther out to sea, catch the crabs that had not ventured to the beaches, and relocate them to Tundra Nouveau, so that hunters could pay him for the privilege of hunting them from the safety of land. Upon investigation, the Tundra Nouveau government determined Snowkiss’ business practices to be unethical, and he ultimately lost all of his power. Forty years after the founding of the nation, the King Crab population remains steady and sustainable. Every year, in honor of Snowkiss’ brilliant idea to exploit antihipster conforming nonconformity, residents still observe an annual crab hunt. It’s reserved primarily for children, who either keep the crabs as pets, or let them go at the end of the day.

Microstory 769: Hen

< > Table of Contents

In 1867, Eoin Burke, having traveled from Ireland to the United States, began a musical instrument manufacturing company called Hudson Euphonics Neorama with his friend, Cyril Kader. Of course, it started out small, but gradually grew as word spread, and their work became popular. Their ability to create custom-build instruments at a high turnover earned them a brilliant reputation in the midwest. Things went really well for them for half a century, until Cyril fell ill, and died. Cyril’s son took over the business, and was not at all interested in maintaining their image as a family business. Through some legal maneuvering, Junior Kader managed to push Eoin out of his own business, leaving him with virtually nothing. Though he was seventy years old, he had but a few years ago fathered a son out of his marriage, then realizing his and his wife’s inability to conceive children was due to her infertility, rather than his sterility. He fell into a deep depression, which coupled with his advanced age, prevented him from effectively caring for his son. Hearing the story of his grandfather’s struggles inspired Manus Burke to start his own company, one hundred years later, almost exactly to the day, in 1967. By then, HEN had expanded into several unrelated industries, transforming it beyond recognition. Wanting to immediately begin competing with an organization he considered to be his family’s enemy, Manus started out in the furniture sector, which was HEN’s weakest at that point in time. His success with this allowed him to later start competing with HEN’s second weakest division of clothing ten years later. And then a pattern formed, with Magnate entering new markets after about five years of slowly overtaking the previous one. In 1992, in honor of his family’s legacy, Magnate began manufacturing musical instruments, and though they were never able to become more successful in this than HEN, or other competitors, the division survived by utilizing profits from other divisions. For his own reasons, Manus Burke kept the secret of what HEN had done to his grandfather to himself, not even fighting about it with the original company’s leadership, as it changed hands over time. Only after his death did the truth come to light. The new Chief Executive Officer of HEN, Cassarah Hardwick was horrified to learn of her company’s dark history, and worked to mend relations between it and the new Magnate executives, Manus Burke’s two estranged daughters. This marked the beginning of one of the greatest business partnerships in the country.