Microstory 814: Timebomb

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I wake up again, and cough up the water. This is my upteenth try, but I know if I can run fast enough, I can get there in time. I just have to get past this psychotic terrorist. Whenever I try to fight him, I waste precious time that I could be using to get to the boat. Sometimes I win, and sometimes I lose, but no matter the outcome, the boat always explodes. My only way to save it is to just ignore him. I race through the water as fast as my stomach—which is being held back by the water—will take me. I’m at the point where I can start edging towards the right, and catch the current. Then it gets shallow enough for me to hop over the surface. I’ve learned a thing or two since my first attempt. Everything in my environment is trying to keep me from reaching to my goal, but I’m determined to make it this time. I’m dead anyway, I keep telling myself. But if I can change history for the better, the researchers who sent me back in time promise to provide for my family, and me, if I manage to survive this time ‘round. How they’ll even know that I’ve fixed the timeline for them is something I should have thought about before I signed my brain away to them in the name of science. I’m almost to the boat; farther than I’ve ever gotten, when the bomb goes off, and I’m sent back yet again. I don’t know what else to do. Of course my first thought was to get out of the water, and run through the woods, but it’s far too thick. The river is the fastest way, as illogical as it sounds for someone moving on foot. It’s deep and wide, though, so there is an infinite number of routes to take. I just have to find the perfect one. The scientists didn’t say anything about a limit to the number of times I can try this.

This time, though, the boat explodes when I’ve barely made it past the terrorist, which is several minutes earlier than it usually does. Somehow I’m changing how things turn out, even without seemingly doing anything. I go back for another try, and this time the bomb goes off at the normal time it usually does, but I still don’t get there fast enough. I do touch the stern with one finger, though, so that’s progress. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the scientists were. Maybe this is physically impossible. Why me, too? There’s gotta be someone else around here who can get to the bomb faster, and defuse it. Maybe there was, but I’m the only one who agreed to the potentially lethal procedure. The time solution they injected me with caused the most pain my body has experienced, and I relive those moments every time I wake up for another attempt. I’m getting used to it, though, and if I can figure out the secret to this, it’ll surely be worth it. I must be missing something. In my rush to go as fast as possible, I never thought to stop and take a look around. There could be a better way if I just had a new perspective. So this time, as soon as I’m sent back to my body in the past, I start running in the opposite direction. Upriver seems like a counterintuitive decision, but it’s really the only thing I haven’t tried yet, and as luck would have it, it’s the right one. After some careful searching, I realize a group of frat boys have left their small motorboat loosely nestled in some brush while they play polo. It took me too long to get here, though, so there’s not enough time, but the brush on the bank is a lot thinner here. I can use that.

The next time the explosion resets the clock, I race up the bank, and upriver, expertly jumping into the boat, and getting it started, like it isn’t my first time. The frat boys start yelling at me, but they don’t seem all that perturbed about it. I speed down the river, which I know so well by now that there’s no risk of running aground. I make it go as fast as possible, point it at the right direction, and let it run into the riverboat, jumping onto the deck at the perfect moment. It does some damage, to both vessels, but that’s nothing compared to what happens when my time runs out. I run down the steps, having long memorized the layout, and deep into the bowels. There. The bomb’s there. But it’s not alone. I tense up, and prepare for another fight, but somehow I don’t think this guy’s a terrorist. He’s dressed like a captain afterall. “You’re new,” he says to me with surprised. Damn, I’m still not quite there in time. The bomb goes off, but for the last time. It has to be. I don’t think my heart can go through this even once more. I start running again, relishing in the idea of the terrorist who had escaped what he had done, and stumbled onto me, wondering why the hell I suddenly stopped fighting him. I get to the motorboat even faster during this attempt. The captain nods when he sees me this time. “You’re back. I hope you know what you’re doing.” I do. I know exactly how to defuse this bomb, as I’ve done it hundreds of times as practice. With seconds to spare, I cut the circuits, and end this nightmare. “You remember me?” I ask. “You’re from the future too?” He smiles and replies, “yes. Thank God you finally showed up, though. Humans can only jump back to one moment so many times, so this was our last chance.”

Microstory 813: There is Sanctuary

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I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff in my life, and not all of it since I’ve been on the force. When I was little, life on this rock was pretty normal, but things changed when the bladapods were discovered. As it stands, we’ve only cataloged about a quarter the world’s total species, the majority of which lie in the oceans, many of which are microscopic. Still, scientists twenty-four years ago came across the interesting species in the Amazon rainforest. They quickly discovered that these things breed like tribbles when kept in captivity. Theoretically out of fear of extinction, they multiply rapidly in an attempt to play the odds. Hoping to solve the problem without using genocide, and encourage them to drop back down to more manageable numbers, the bladapods were distributed all over the world. It seemed to have worked, but there was an eerie side effect that we’ve never been able to remedy. They began to release gases into the atmosphere that had a huge impact on our planet. Nothing truly supernatural has occurred yet, but people, animals, and plants began to transform in unexpected, and completely unpredictable ways. It’s no longer strange to find a pair of conjoined twins that look nothing like each other, or to meet a telepathic whale shark, or to find a tree that’ll adjust its branches and leaves to provide you an impenetrable canopy from the rain, at polite request. Some of these are interesting and delightful, but not everything has been dog poop that decomposes in a matter of minutes, or literal unicorns, born from two mules. There are nasty, dangerous things now, causing problems we never thought we would have to deal with. For instance, I’ve been working on this series of killings in the area that screams bladgas-related. They’re all professional and quick. The victims share no defining trait, other than being in some position of power, such as a company executive. Basically, I’ve always assumed these were assassinations, carried out by a hired gun. But I can’t rule out a hyperintelligent pedal-hyena, or luck fungus.

After months of investigation, I finally found a lead; not on who might be doing this, but who their next target might be. I started following him around, and he seemed to be under the same suspicions as me, because he looks agitated, and scared. Traffic gets bad when a firetruck catches on fire—reported as being caused by a contaminated tank of mislabeled ironywater. He gets out of his car, and starts moving off on foot. I get out as well, and stay on him. He finally finds what he’s looking for, in a church known for taking in refugees from the other side of a wall that spontaneously sprung up right down the middle of the District of Columbia, which some now worship as the “foot of God”. They think he put it down, and they’ll do anything to keep people from crossing it. As a law enforcement officer, I’m not technically allowed in, but the choir boy security guard makes an exception when I agree to leave my badge and gun with him, and promise to eat a fistful of sweatsalad if I try to harm anyone inside. Unsurprisingly, if you can believe it, a three-year-old girl comes in after us before too long. She has an assault rifle leaning casually against her shoulder, which is, of course, still entirely legal in this country. She announces to the crowd that she has no interest in any waller, and just needs to clear her contract. I stand between her and her target, hoping to reason with her. It takes a few hours of some circular arguing—and a vow to let her ride on the tail of a titanosaur, which I actually am capable of delivering—but I finally convince her to let this one go. She even assures me that she’ll return the money to her client, and take but a third of what she would have ultimately earned, from me, and a few generous wallers. I’m not sure I can trust her, though, so while she isn’t looking, I search through her bag, and retrieve her contact information, so I can reach out to her parents, and keep my eye on her. We’ll see how this goes.

Microstory 812: Water Shoes

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I stumble out of the building, totally disoriented, with no memory of the last day or two. I don’t know what I’m running from, but I know it isn’t good. I woke up on a table, tiny little metal things holding my eyelids open. Someone must have given me something, because it’s brighter outside than I’ve ever seen it. I can make out a few shapes here and there, enough to keep from running out in traffic, but I can’t see any detail. I don’t see the shape of what’s coming for me, though, because I’m already feeling off-balance, and turning my head would just make it that much worse. I keep blinking as a run, thinking my eyes will adjust to the daytime, but they never do. It doesn’t even just look like the sunlight beating down on me, but like every surface I encounter is reflective. I land in a couple shallow puddles, then across some grass, and as I do, I hear fewer and fewer city sounds. I sense that whatever is chasing me is getting even closer, and since I don’t have any clue where I’m going, I may never be able to outlast it. I start to feel water leaking into my shoes, but one thing I can see is that I’m not walking through water. It’s just somehow appearing out of nowhere, and while it does so, I start to feel the tightness of my shoes less and less. Not until the last aglet is gone do I realize that my shoes themselves have turned into water. Somehow. What’s even more amazing is that the shoes stay on my feet, and continue to protect me from the rocks I’m now running on.

I don’t even feel the road beneath me. Still, the thing behind maintains its pursuit. Getting an idea from what’s happened to my shoes, I take a sharp left turn, and—despite my full eyesight not returning—deftly maneuver down the bank, and into a lake. Rather, I’m on top of the lake. I can run on top of the water, as it were nothing more than soft Colorado snow. I keep running, acutely aware that my tormentor has found itself unable to follow me here, but I can hear it scream at me. It’s definitely not human. Then again, I don’t feel human anymore either. The more I run across the lake, the more water splashes on my body, and as it does, that body part begins to feel less like itself; like I no longer have any feeling there. I begin to sink, but still, I never stop. It’s a pointless endeavor, as my body starts melting into a liquid state. Just before my head transforms, my last thought is of a once-lost memory. I remember now that I first experienced these symptoms a few days ago, and had found someone to help me correct the problem. I shouldn’t have run from them.

Microstory 811: Inevitable

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I was about fourteen years old when my parents sat me down and told me that they were time travelers. They both had the ability to go back in time, as far as the last day, which gave them enough to try things over. In fact, my mother was even more powerful, being capable of trying things over and over and unlimited number of times. I had always wondered why she was so freaking perfect. And there was that one time she caught me just as I was falling out of the tree, even though she had been nowhere near me. My dad could only do it once. I remember asking them whether I would eventually develop the same powers, and they told me I was more likely to have the same limitations as my father, since there seemed to be some gender component, but I could also end up with nothing. I would come to find out several years later that it would be inaccurate to call what I could do powers. I appeared to have no control over when it happened...it was more like time travel was happening to me, rather than me traveling. I first noticed it when I was on a date with this guy from my history class. A waiter spilled sauce on my best outfit; which involved a blazer that I actually bought specifically for this occasion, because I wanted my date to think I was more sophisticated, and didn’t just wear grunge band concert tees. As the waiter was apologizing, and sending the hostess to grab some club soda from the kitchen, I was suddenly sent back to the morning, not long after I had woken up.

Okay, great, I thought. Now I can try this again. Except that it took a lot out of me to get tickets for this restaurant, and I still needed to impress my date. I knew I would be able to pull the reservation up thirty minutes, hoping that would be enough to change my fate, but it wasn’t. I bought a different jacket; still nice, but any way I could alter the timeline seemed like a good idea. We arrived at the earlier reservation, were seated at a different table, and we even had a different waiter. Yet, this one spilled sauce on me as well, as if I were simply destined for that. But that couldn’t be true, it would be ridiculous. I was thrown back in time once more, and changed a bunch of other things, including several times just finding a different restaurant. But it happened. Every single time. This was sauce night, and there was no way around it. I thought I was cursed, but once I gave up wanting to change the timeline, the magical time gods gave up on me too. I was finally able to get through the rest of the night, and wake up the next morning...next to him. So in the end, it didn’t really matter. I guess I should have realized that he wouldn’t hold that against me. I still had to get this timeline’s blazer dry cleaned, though. A few days later, I went back to the cleaner’s to pick up my jacket, and found about three thousand dollars stuffed into the pockets, theoretically by accident. I never found out how it happened. So yeah, that’s how I came up with the capital to start my business. Good things just happen to me, I don’t work at all.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: August 27, 2173

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The two year-skippers were happy to learn that the whole hostage situation was resolved within the week. The violent-leaning members of the rogue group that terrorized them were excluded from all negotiations, but most of the rest were accepted as passengers of The Warren. Though Annora’s dimensions were a little too small for that many people, she was able to garner help from other paramounts who had the ability to create pocket worlds. That combined with the technological expertise of Missy and Hokusai, they were able to retrofit the ship so that this would all work. Leona agreed to skip her own system’s check, and just trust that all the other smart people who had been working on the launch for the last several months, and beyond, had accounted for everything. The passengers were assigned their pockets, while most of the crew gathered in the cockpit. The passengers were generally expected to police themselves, and were only allowed within the ship itself while crossing into each other’s pockets, but Loa was assigned liaison between them and the crew. Had Dar’cy still been a part of this, she would have handled security. Instead, she and Missy were remaining on Durus, hopeful for a way to remove the latter’s time powers.

A paramount on the ground was hired to apport their entire ship from the surface, into orbit, and it was there that they began their long journey back to Earth. They watched on the screens as Durus grew smaller and smaller, and they ventured out into the dark nothingness. Eventually, since the sight was so dull, the adrenaline from the launch wore off, and all unnecessary personnel dispersed. Leona decided she wanted to get to know her new crewmates better, while Serif wanted to check out one of Annora’s pocket worlds.

“So, how long have you two been together?” Leona asked.

They looked at each other for the answer. “We’ve been off and on for about twelve years,” Hokusai answered.

“How did you meet?”

“Umm...” they stammered a bit before Loa took over the story. “She was not welcome here when she arrived. The world was quite different from what you see.”

“I heard that. Quite the misogynistic government you had,” Leona said, hoping to not sound too judgmental, but also kind of wanting to.

“Yes, well, she changed all that. People were afraid of her, because they knew she would. My father was different, always has been. He and I share the same power. We can create windows across the vast reaches of space, and he used that to study Earth. Your ways inspired him to rise above the conventions of our world. He imparted those beliefs on to me, raising me to be a feminist. Tried to do the same with a friend of mine, who never quite understood that I wasn’t promised to marry him. Anyway, my father was known for his sympathy for women, and appreciation of the Earthan lifestyle, but they couldn’t do anything about it. They had honestly written very few laws governing the lives of men. We have such a long history of oppression that they didn’t want to hinder any man’s desire to do what he wanted, even if what he wanted was to oppose them.”

Hokusai took over, “I don’t know how it happened, but when they first captured me, I asked if there was anyone there that would be willing to be on my side, to advocate for my needs. Despite what was obviously not an obligation for them, they allowed me to meet her dad. A bunch of things happened, there was a battle royale,” Hokusai said casually. “I ended up back at his place, seeking sanctuary, and she opened the door. Then we all worked together to get back to my ship, and stop the world from colliding with Earth.”

“Oh yeah, your ship. What’s become of your ship? Did you just leave it there?”

Hokusai shrugged. “Can’t take it with us. It fits one person. Don’t worry, though. I removed all of its guts. It’s just a hunk of fancy metal now. The Durune can’t exploit it. Not that there’s anywhere they would need to go. The planet is constantly moving away from its last position in empty interstellar space. You try to leave, you can’t come back.”

Leona nodded in understanding. “So, what about you, Loa? Now that women are legally equal there, are you gonna miss it? Did you hesitate, or did you know you would want to leave? You’ll never see your father again.”

She became sad. “He’s passed. I’ve no one there. My family’s right here.” She wrapped her arm around Hokusai’s shoulder. Just the four of us; Saga and Étude included.”

“And you,” Hokusai added. “And the rest of the crew.”

“So tell us about you,” Loa suggested. “What’s the deal with you two skipping a year every day?”

“It’s been this way since I was twenty-eight years old. On my birthday, midnight hit, and it was suddenly a year later. That’s how salmon do. We’ve no control over it, it just happens. You don’t seem to have salmon on Durus, which is interesting.”

“But you and Serif are the same. Did you know each other before it happened?”

“That’s complicated,” Leona admitted. “I mean, you’re very familiar with how...paramount powers work, but it’s gotten a little crazy, even taking that into account. I have memories of meeting Serif not long after this happened to me, but the truth is that all of that is a lie. We only met a few weeks ago, actually, from our perspective; barely a month. There’s someone with the power to create entire people out of, generally clay, I think. A friend of mine isn’t quite sure how it happened, but he was trying to build someone else, and before he finished, the statue came alive, and poof, Serif suddenly exists.”

“Really?” Loa asked, eyes wide.

“She’s five months old?”

“Yeah, pretty much. My memories were altered to remedy the temporal inconsistencies, as were her own,but yeah, she’s almost like a baby.”

“So, is your love for her real?”

No one had asked her this before, and had presumably not asked Serif either. It was true that her feelings towards Serif would be forever coupled with an asterisk. The fact that no one else around her had memory of Serif existing before the statue was carved didn’t seem to matter. In their world, people come from alternate timelines, with full lives and histories that never took place, so in the end, how was Serif any different than that? Leona could remember being married to a different version of Horace Reaver too, as did he, even though neither one of them actually experienced any of that. But did that sort of thing justify hers and Serif’s love? These memories were entirely false, not just extracted from a different reality. Had they taken the memories and emotions for granted? Had they been wrong to not question them? Should they sit down and have deep discussions about whether their relationship had any merit?

“Oh, that was a bad question,” Loa said apologetically.

“Yes, very rude,” Hokusai scolded.

“No, it’s a very valid question,” Leona assured them. “I’m only not answering you because...I’d never deigned to ask it myself. But I should, shouldn’t I?”

“We all have different stories,” Hokusai said. “Different origins. Your relationship isn’t any less valid than ours just because it started a little strangely. Why, I know a guy back on Durus who fell in love with a quantum duplicate of himself. They grew up separately, and didn’t meet until they were in their twenties, so they’re very different people, but they’re also somehow compatible. And they seem to make it work, I don’t know them that well.”

“That’s a lovely story, honey,” Loa lied transparently.

“I’m just saying, we’re not living in the same world normal people do. We don’t have nine-to-fives, and mow our lawns. People have powers, and reality is more fluid than we can even comprehend. Love is love is love is love, right?”

Leona smiled and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“And hey, I love these meal bars,” Loa said. “They’re ingenious.”

Leona stood up. “You’ll get over that when you notice how few flavor tabs there are to choose from.”

“What flavor tabs?” Loa questioned. They were practically flavorless without them, so Leona wasn’t sure why she liked them so much.

“I’m gonna go check on Serif. Do you remember which pocket she went into?”

“I think it was pocket three,” Hokusai guessed.

Leona went over to the Ubiña pockets, and tried to enter the third one. She was met only with the back of the cold black half-pipe. She backed out, and stepped back in, trying to get it to activate. Still nothing. She looked over at the console, and started messing with it. “Energy levels normal,” she muttered to herself. “Doors should be open. I thought we decided to keep them open at all times, for safety reasons.”

“We did.” Paige had heard her, and had come up to see what was wrong.

“They’re closed.”

Paige tapped on the console as well, but of course, came to the same conclusion. She then went over to another pocket. “Try all of them.” Now she was getting worried.

Together, they tried to each each of the six different pocket dimensions, and gathered information from their respective consoles, but they were all the same. The dimensions appeared to not have collapsed, but the doors on them somehow closed back up, and they were unable to open them through tech. They would have to go straight to the source. They walked into Annora’s cabin, which was where Nerakali used to sleep, but it was empty.

“Computer, locate Annora Ubiña.”

“Unable to comply,” the computer responded, likely as a joke. “Annora Ubiña cannot be found on The Warren.”

“What the hell happened to her?”

“Direction unclear. Please repeat request.”

“Drop the Star Trek jokes, and just...” Paige tried to think up the right way to communicate what she needed. “What was Annora Ubiña’s last known location.”

“Annora Ubiña was last seen in microponics.”

“Let’s go,” Paige ordered Leona.

The ship was very small, so the microponics lab was about as remote as you could get, except maybe the gravity disk interface terminal nook. Had Annora stepped into one of her pocket worlds, which the computer wouldn’t necessarily be able to detect, she would have at least been clocked somewhere in between here and the Ubiña pockets. They walked in and looked around, until Leona found why the computer hadn’t recognized her lifesigns. Annora was dead. Obviously they would need a full investigation into what happened, but judging from the lack of blood on the edge of the seed table she was laying right next to, it was unlikely due to a fall. Her face looked bashed in. Blood had pooled around her head, and was still slowly spreading further away, so the death was relatively recent. And they could almost be certain it was murder.

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Void: Taken (Part XIII)

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One week. After accepting the truth that she had no choice but to take her daughter to Earth, Saga took some time to get past it. Since they would not be able to leave until Leona and Serif returned to the timeline anyway, she decided to make the best of her situation. She joined a gym, learned how to meditate, and continued doing what professionals suggested to encourage her daughter to speak. She tried to be more patient and understanding with those around her, cognizant of the crew of The Warren’s position, and appreciative of what they were trying to do for her. In the end, even though Durus was now her home, it wasn’t the first, and only. She had lived in the early 21st century, mid-19th century, mid-18th century, and the turn of the 16th century. She had been a globe-trotting photographer, an alien revolutionary, and a nurse. She spoke four languages, built a full-scale replica of the Colosseum, and was quite literally torn out of time. She’d lived through multiple lifetimes, across multiple timelines, and experienced an array of adventures she would always remember. Her meditation instructor, Dar’cy taught her to think of this one as but the latest, and to prepare for the next. But then...one week.

When Leona returned, she really needed to do her own inspection of the ship before she would let them leave. Saga was in support of this, because if that took an entire day, they would have to push the whole thing a whole other year. That would just give her more time to teach Étude about where she was born. A three-year-old is capable of some independent thought, but people tended to not recall much from this early in their lives. If she wanted her daughter to have full and intact memories of life on Durus, she would have to at least make it to four. As badly as Saga wanted this for her, she didn’t want it like this. Not if it meant having to endure this one week.

Serif was helping her check the house Andromeda had built for their family for any belongings they would want to take with her. Despite the diminutive size of the vessel, Annora would be coming with them to create a pocket dimension. They would live comfortable in this parallel world, able to forget the stale and metallic world that lay just beyond. It also meant they would have room for just about anything they wanted to keep. She thought she had all they needed, but then Saga remembered the doorknob to their bedroom closet, which Andromeda claimed was a family heirloom that possessed great power. She went back upstairs to retrieve it, leaving Étude with Serif on the street. Suddenly, there was a great explosion outside that shook the whole house. She ran back down to search for her daughter, but found nothing. She looked all around, but there was no sign of the two of them. Hoping they had activated their emergency teleporters, Saga activated her own, and jumped all the way back to the ship. She was relieved to find this to be the case. Everyone else on the crew was already there, having undergone their own attacks simultaneously. They thought the worst of it was over, but then both she and Étude were taken hostage...separately. For one week.

The people who had attacked them were part of yet a new fringe group of Durus. Comprised fairly evenly of Earthan refugees and Durune natives, these people no longer wanted to live here, and decided it was the Warren’s responsibility to take them to Earth. Had they not known Annora would be creating a relaxation dimension, this group probably never would have formed. It was clear how few spots there would be on the ship without her. But they indicated they understood so many more people could fit, and they felt entitled to proverbial tickets, for all two hundred of them. Annora tried to explain that her worlds were of greatly limited scope, and would not be large enough to accommodate that many people; not for a years-long journey, at least. If they were just traveling to the other side of the world, on a trip that took a few hours, that would be fine. But they expected to live on top of each other for almost a decade, and that just wasn’t going to work. Still, they were determined make this happen, and their leadership proved to be completely capable of hurting people to achieve their goals. They weren’t sure how long this standoff was going to last, but definitely long after midnight central, which was the end of their departure window. Leona and Serif were taken out of the timestream, destined to not return for another year. Yes, Étude would be four-years-old by the time they could leave, but at too great a cost.

A man with the knife kept Saga in one of the ship’s cabins for the whole week, refusing to so much as give her his name. The only words he spoke—aside from whispered conversations with his people on his phone—were used to demand food from the crew left on the rest of the ship. He even refused to give Saga updates on her daughter’s condition. For all she knew, she was long dead, and her own life was completely over. Apparently Dar’cy managed to negotiate herself to become a hostage, in exchange for Étude’s return. Though they agreed to her terms, they went back on their word, and just kept them both as hostages somewhere outside the ship. Days later, the Durune police force—which had established itself as highly reputable, organized, and legitimate division of the world’s government—made their move. They raided the hostage-takers’ lair, recovering both Étude and Dar’cy, who were as healthy as could be.

A few days later, the police chief presided over peace talks between the crew of the Warren, and the hostage-takers, who were now identifying plainly as The Passengers. Obviously, the Warren owed these people nothing. As Captain Turner had pointed out when this all began, had they asked nicely, they might have been able to work something out. Their gut reaction to use violence to get what they wanted had immediately spoiled any good relationship they could have forged. But the situation was not so simple. These people were not happy with their lives on Durus, and since the government kept a reasonable tally of unhappy citizens, everybody knew that this was the limit of their numbers. If they could make Annora’s dimensions large enough to fit these two hundred, they would not have to be any larger. Furthermore, since they no longer wanted to live here, Durus was, quite frankly, better off without them. They were just bound to cause more problems down the line anyway, so if the Warren could take them off the government’s hands, they were for it. Again, it was not that easy. While Annora and Missy were using the borrowed access to the paramount database to see if the technical issues could be resolved, Paige and Saga were sitting down with the Passengers.

A man named Faustus Lambert was their founder and highest leader. He was given the authority to speak on the behalf of the Passengers, but Saga was not convinced every one of them was in favor of this decision. When she spoke to some of them privately, she found a general consensus that few were happy with the way he handled their plea for safe passage. Perhaps he was not the man they should be speaking to, and so Saga took it upon herself to color outside the lines.

“Mister Lambert, do you speak for the people?” Saga began the questioning, looking for a way to lead into what she was really trying for.

“I speak for my people.” He clearly felt no remorse for the pain he had caused others, and was still fully convinced that what he had done was necessary; honorable, even. Saga guessed he expected to go down in history as a great leader.

“Were you voted into this position of power?” she asked.

He smiled wider. “Well, no, that’s not how it works. I started something, and they follow me, because they believe in it.”

“They believe in holding people against their will?” she pressed.

“I did what I had to do to protect mine. I stand by it.”

She nodded, feigning acknowledgement of his predicament. “You don’t think there was a better way?”

“Like what?” He looked towards Paige. “Asking nicely?”

“Exactly.”

“Would you have even entertained the idea if we had just requested it?”

Saga stood from her chair, and leaned on the desk with her fists. “To be quite unambiguous...yes.”

He scoffed, and didn’t believe it. “You would have done exactly what I did. Get off your high house.”

“It’s high horse,” Paige corrected.

“What the hell is a horse?”

“I don’t think we should be speaking to you,” Saga said, moving on. “Because I don’t think you represent these people anymore.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I spoke with some of them. Sounds like there was some trouble in paradise. Sounds like a group of parents had to step in, and protect my daughter, from you and your...violent cohorts.”

“They exaggerate, I wasn’t gonna hurt anyone,” he defended himself.

“I don’t believe you,” Saga replied. “The man who trapped me on the ship had a knife. Held it to my throat. Drew a little blood. Did anything like that happen, to my daughter, or Miss Matigaris.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You know we speak the same language, right? The two of them and I. And they have memories. You didn’t erase them. They told me how they were treated, and how bad you were. And how scared they were of what you would do.”

“Lies.”

“I’ve spoken with the police too. They tell me they’ve already been investigating your connections with the Dawidux, and the terrorist known as Barbwire.”

“He wasn’t a terrorist, and he was a great man, and a great leader, and you did something to him!”

“So you did collude with him?” Saga asked, still as calm as ever.

“Lies!” He stood up angrily. “It is you who works with terrorists! Crooked Saga!” He looked over to the police, who tensed up. “There’s evidence of her involvement with the Earthan Uprisers! I have it, and can show you. Maybe tomorrow, just you wait. I’m an upstanding citizen. Saga has been working against this world since the Deathspring, long before I became the leader of the Passengers. Also, no collusion!”

Saga sat firmly, and waited patiently for him to come out of his rage. “That right there, sir, is how I know you’re a terrorist, and have been plotting against us. I don’t know how you maintained control over the Passengers, but that ends here.” She directed her attentions towards one of the police guards. “Please send in Miss Kistler.”

“What?” Faustus questioned. “Her?”

Camden came through the door, ushering in a woman named Lavitha Kistler, who had been the most upfront to Saga about her dissension to Faustus’ poor conduct. She hovered over Faustus.

“The police asked me to bring out your true side,” Saga announced. Apparently they can’t charge you with anything without an understanding of your attitudes. They need to see how you really think, and how you treat others. I don’t remember that being in the Constitution, but okay. You, and those who directly carried out your violent orders during the hostage situation, will be excluded from negotiations. I think that means we only have to worry about, what, a hundred and eighty-four people? The Captain and I will be continuing these negotiations about the rest of the Passengers with Miss Kistler here.”

“You can’t do this,” he argued. “I’m the leader! I started this, and I’m gonna goddamn end it!”

“People like you make me not regret agreeing to leave,” Saga said to him, still calm.

“No!” he screamed. In true form, he reached over and removed a teleporter gun from the nearest police officer. They were nonlethal, of course, but were inconvenient. Once someone was teleported into a holding cell, it took a lot of paperwork to get them out. He pointed it at the crowd, and literally backed himself into a corner.

As if having been called, Kolby teleported into the room. He was a career security guard from Earth, whose job it was to incarcerate choosing ones who had abused their powers to the detriment of mankind. “Mine’s bigger,” he said in a phony gravelly voice. And he was right. His own transporter gun was massive, probably because it had to be able to send people through both time and space. He shot Faustus with it.

“He’s not a chooser,” Camden pointed out.

“We’ve expanded the prison’s reach,” Kolby explained. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have over a dozen more on my list.” He walked out of the room.

As promised, Saga continued talks with Lavitha, and the Passengers. Though they didn’t show it specifically during the hostage situation, a few of them had somewhat violent histories, and were considered too dangerous for the ship. Several others felt bad about what they had done to the crew, and especially Étude, so they volunteered to be excluded from consideration as well. They assured the government that they would continue to contribute positively to society, and not cause problems on Durus. Yet still more strongly believed in the Warren’s companion ship, the González, which was supposed to arrive mere days after the first. These Passengers were convinced that it still would, even after all this time, when the most likely scenario was that something had gone wrong since the Warren lost contact with them. They agreed to stay behind as well, though, leaving the number at a perfect gross of a hundred and forty-four. Annora and Missy were confident that this was a tenable number, with some modifications. Now all they needed to do was wait yet another year, which was when it was finally time for Saga to return home. The Durus chapter of her life was finished.

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Microstory 810: Driverless

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I woke up in a bed, but it wasn’t my bed. I thought I was in the middle of an earthquake, but when I tried to sit up and take a look, the whole room turned. No, quakes don’t move like that, so something else was going on. I rubbed my eyes and got a better look around. It wasn’t a room at all, but a van, completely hollowed out, and filled to the edges with this van shaped mattress. Despite having no apparent driver, it was rolling down the highway. I looked out the deeply tinted windows, where it was either early morning, or late evening. Other cars were around, but none of them was towing this van, so it was probably being operated remotely. Why anyone would kidnap me would be a hard enough question to resolve, but trying to figure out what their reasoning behind putting me in this thing was beyond unanswerable. Of course, I tried opening the doors, but the handles were removed, and they wouldn’t budge without them. I took off my shirt and used it to protect my fist as I pounded on the glass, but that wasn’t doing any good. I might have tried a shoe, but they had taken those as well. I crawled up to the front to at least see where I was going. As soon as I drew close enough, a blue light lit up the windshield, and a soothing voice alerted me to the fact that autopilot had been disengaged. The van immediately started swerving, so I reflexively willed it to straighten back out, which it eventually did. We were coming up on one of the busiest stretches of the highway, so I wished the van would exit to the side streets, and as if the vehicle could read my mind, it exited. Or maybe that was exactly what it was doing; reading my mind.

I continued to think about where I wanted to go, and the van would comply. When it was necessary to stop for a light, or stop sign, or slow traffic, it didn’t seem to be planning on reacting properly, unless I deliberately thought that it should. Yes, it was quite clear after several tests that the van was responding to my instructions telepathically. The most pressing question now was where was I even going? I realized I could make these minor adjustments to my route, but ultimately, I was heading in one direction. The van was still working somewhat autonomously, and was apparently programmed to take me somewhere specific, whether I wanted it to or not. I kept trying to get it to just take me back home, but nothing was working. After hours of this, I was getting bored, having resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t really in any control, even though I still had to keep my eyes on the road. Finally, it pulled into an abandoned drive-in movie theatre. There were dozens of other vans already there, and a few more coming in behind me. Once everyone was apparently there, all of our doors opened at the same time, revealing that no one else knew what was going on either. The movie screen turned blue, and radiated different shades as the voice on the speakers spoke. “Welcome to your new home. Everything you need can be found in your gloveboxes. No one may enter your van without your permission. But have no fear, there are no criminals in this new world. The only rule...is that you must remain here forever. To leave means death.” Then everything outside of the parking lot disappeared, as if the world had fallen out of orbit, leaving only us standing.

Microstory 809: Seven Year Stitch

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From the moment I was born, I knew that I was put on this Earth to protect people. Okay, well that might be a bit of an overstatement, but no matter when I realized this about myself, it’s a integral part of me that I can’t change. I had no short supply of options when it came to what I was going to do with my life. I had a few ideas, but they all seemed to be so minimally impactful. I worked as a lifeguard in high school and college, but that was generally uneventful. I would have to move to a beachtown to be any sort of active protector, and even that was only on an individual basis. What I wanted was a way to protect massive numbers of people; something more general, perhaps even something secret. I went to the Bureau academy for a little while before I was recruited into the CIA, which seemed like the best choice at the time. What I didn’t know then was that there was a lot going on in the agency that seemed pretty unproductive, and I wasn’t likely going to be an international spy. I was ecstatic when I was told I would be joining an elite reconnaissance team in the midwest, but that excitement quickly faded when I realized what I was in for. The term elite was being used in this context to describe a group of agents operating mostly autonomously, but that didn’t mean they were doing anything of great significance. I was given a new partner, which was the most thrilling aspect of the situation, because we were then planted in a small town to do practically nothing. As part of something deemed Operation Stich, we were instructed to act as if we were happily married, and live the simple life, doing little work beyond taking mundane notes on everything we encountered.

Now, I’ve never been one to belittle the contributions that so-called unimportant workers make, but this was almost literally nothing. We kept track of what our neighbors were doing, which was nothing interesting or illegal, and sent encrypted emails to an address that never responded. After years of this, we started questioning whether what we were doing at all mattered. Was anyone on the other side of those emails, or did they forget about us? What were they doing with the information? Were we missing something about some kind of underbelly in this town? Was it ever going to end? We started coming up with explanations for why we were there, each one more imaginative than the last, and not one of them making any real sense. And then after seven years, everything ended. I mean, the whole country went down the tubes. Every single major city was attacked by some unknown enemy, all at once. The only people left alive were those living in smaller towns, and rural countrysides. Someone rode right up to our house on horseback, and revealed that Operation Stich was now fully activated. When we asked what that meant, she handed us a manila envelope, and rode away. The documents explained that we were there to create a new world order, as a contingency plan. Should anything happen to the original form of government—which was exactly what ended up happening—we were meant to pick up the pieces, and join a new national police force. We requisitioned two of our own horses and began our journey halfway across the country, to the provisional capital of this, the nation we live in now. And that, kids, is how your mother and I became founding fathers of Nusonia.