Missy’s Mission: Secret Knowledge (Part II)

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The next morning, Missy and Dar’cy stopped for some coffee, then went on to the library. It was the one of the oldest buildings on the planet. Not only had it survived the original Deathfall back in 2016, but was also a relic from Springfield’s history. It had been updated a few times since it was first built, but not much, and had remained exactly the same since it came here. People didn’t really use the library anymore. Like on Earth, knowledge had become ubiquitous and completely accessible to all residents of the planet. If you needed to know something, you looked it up on your computer. And if it wasn’t somewhere on the network, then it wouldn’t be in the library either. Neither of them grew up with any experience with libraries. They were still around in their more traditional form when Missy was growing up, but they were already on their way to becoming obsolete, and she never personally found use in them.

The librarian was surprised to see them when they walked in, like she hadn’t seen another person in ages. “Hello, welcome to the original branch. How may I help you?”

Missy looked around in paranoia, to check if anyone could hear them, while Dar’cy stepped off and scanned the area more deliberately. “Yes, this might sound strange, but we were hoping to find information on how to...” It was an awkward request.”

“How to...have sex as two women?”

“No,” Missy answered with her own surprise. “I think we could probably figure that out. No, I’m...I’m a paramount, but I don’t want to be.”

“Ooh, I’m sorry,” the librarian said sadly. “There’s no cure.”

“But isn’t there? I came to this planet upon rumors there was some way to get rid of time powers. There’s some...ancient quest, or something?”

“Oh,” she said, suddenly becoming quite serious. “That.”

“So you know what I’m talking about?

“We don’t keep information on that. It’s dangerous, and there’s no real evidence that it has ever worked.”

“Still, I’d at least like to know what to do.”

“You disappear.”

“What?”

“If you try this, you disappear. Everyone has. In all of history, everyone who’s figured out how to start this...quest has gone off, never to be seen again. Are you Earthan?”

“We are,” Dar’cy said, ever ready for a glorious battle.

“You came on that ship. You’re not paramounts. You’re choosing ones.”

“That’s what we call ourselves, yeah. We’ve adapted our language to make others more comfortable.”

“Oh, never do that,” the librarian said, still with that seriousness. “Never apologize for who you are, or hide away, or change for people’s benefit.” She paused in thought. “I cannot, in good conscience, supply any Durune with the tools they would need to try the quest. I also cannot exercise any control over an Earthan. I don’t know how to start the quest, but I know who will.”

“Who’s that?” Dar’cy asked.

“The Librarian,” the librarian answered.

“That’s not you?”

“I am a librarian. I’m talking about The Librarian, of the Secret Library.”

“There’s a secret library? Why is it secret?”

“It’s been here longer than we have. This is the original branch, but the new branch was swallowed up even before the Deathfall.”

Missy was confused. “We were told no one, and no thing, survived those earlier portals. Only a small section survived during that last fall.”

“For the most part, that’s true. But there were exceptions; Purple Rose Lane, the High School, and the Library.”

“And people on this world don’t know about it?”

“A few do. Fewer know how to get there. Even fewer do actually go.”

“The Librarian,” Missy repeated. “That sounds like—”

“A chooser nickname?” the librarian interrupted. “It sure does, doesn’t it?”

“I’m assuming this place is located in some other spatial dimension,” Dar’cy guessed.

The lowercase librarian drew a frown on her face. “Temporal-spatial,” she corrected. “That’s one of the reasons so few people go, and it’s the first reason to not even try the quest. For every hour you spend in the Secret Library, a year passes for everyone outside of it.”

Missy and Dar’cy looked at each other, which was the best way to send telepathic messages. Missy shrugged. “Time ain’t nothin’ but a thang. We don’t belong here anyway. Year outside, hour inside won’t be a problem for us.” The world could change quite a bit in such a short time, from their perspective, but their lives were defined by change.

“All right, then,” the lowercase librarian began as she was turning around and walking away, “follow me.”

She lead them to the card catalogs, which she told them had all been emptied before the Deathfall pulled the town to this world. She opened one of the drawers, took a bobby pin from her hair, and reached deep into it, then she pulled her arm back out. “Yeah, I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you get through this. Not with my arthritis. I don’t suppose either one of you knows how to pick a lock.”

Dar’cy kind of smirked, but in a sad way, but with feigned sadness. “My father taught me, much to my mother’s disapproval. Sometimes an object I need to thread is on the other side of a locked door.” She accepted the pin from the lowercase librarian, and stuck her own arm in the drawer. “Yeah, there’s a hidden lock in here.” Within but a few seconds, she was clearly successful.

The lowercase librarian had casually stepped back away from the catalogs, leaving them to transport to the ceiling of a dark cave alone. Once Dar’cy removed her arm from the drawer, they both fell to floor, slowly and safely.

“Hello?” Missy asked the aether.

“Hello,” someone answered from a nook in the rock.

Dar’cy held her arm out to prevent Missy from getting too close, and cautiously walked towards the voice herself. “Who’s there?”

“My name is Porter. The Constructor, The Weaver, and I collaborated on this place as a refuge for the needy. It is a prototype, however...a proof of concept, as it were. Congratulations, you have been chosen as a beta tester for the program. Here you will find anything you need. If you would like something, within reason, simply request it out loud. We’re not mind readers, you know,” she added with a smirk. “If the program is successful, we will be creating more—more advanced—places like this. Go ahead and try it out. Ask for anything.”

“I would like the cure for time powers,” Missy requested.

“I’m sorry, that item is not in my inventory.”

“I would like to speak with the real Porter,” Dar’cy said.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

Dar’cy stood there for a few seconds, working something out in her head. This was clearly some kind of magical recording, programmed into an avatar. Missy didn’t know anything about it, but Dar’cy seemed to. “I would like a paradox.”

“What?” the Porter’s avatar asked.

“Give me a paradox.”

That seemed to stump her, but why would it? She could easily just give them some canned response about that not being possible, or not in her inventory, which she already had. The question itself seemed to be putting her into some kind of does not compute error mode, like she was having an existential crisis. Her eyes and head were twitching as she was trying to figure this all out. Then she stopped and relaxed. “I am the real Porter.” She stepped out of her nook.

“My mother told me about you.”

“I met her only in a corrupted reality,” Porter said. “How does she remember that?”

“What do you think meditation’s for?”

“What are you doing here?” Porter asked.

“We’re on a quest.” Dar’cy gestured towards Missy. “She’s looking to get rid of her powers.”

“Why?”

“The Cleanser is after her.”

Porter stood up straighter. “You think he won’t kill you if you’re not a chooser anymore?”

“That’s what he said.”

“If you go back in time, to when dictionaries existed, and had pictures, and looked up the word liar, you wouldn’t see a picture of him, because that would be ridiculously specific, but he is a liar. I’m sure you misinterpreted his meaning anyway. Choosers never choose to strip themselves of powers, and the rumor that it’s possible on this world is just that, a rumor. It’s never been verified beyond anecdotal evidence. He’s not planning on letting you live, powers or no. I suggest you turn around.”

“I’m not giving up,” Missy said firmly. “We only came here because we were told it’s the way to the Secret Springfield Library.”

“It can be,” Porter said. “I can provide you with a door, if that’s what you want.”

“That’s what we want,” Dar’cy confirmed.

“Uhhhh, where the hell am I?” Saga’s  voice echoed through the small cave.

Porter smiled, and lightly ushered them towards Saga. “As you wished.” She stepped back into her nook and returned to her blank avatar state.

“Thank you,” Missy said.

The two of them went over to Saga.

“Oh, it’s you two,” Saga said with relief. “How have you been. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Not yet,” Missy replied. “I think it’s there.” She nodded towards the door that had appeared out of nowhere.

“Right, I’m just you’re ride.”

“What year is it for you?” Dar’cy asked.

“Careful. Spoilers.”

She graciously opened the door to the Secret Library, and closed it behind them.

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Microstory 820: Attack Dogs

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This is what happened. The neighborhood’s crazy old man was trapping rabbits in a tiny icey stream in the backyard, so he could tie them to fireworks. He forced me to chase after the rabbits so he could torture them first, but I was purposely failing. Instead, I caught two stray dogs. The dogs had been living in a series of rabbit tunnels that should have been too small for them. The owner teleported in immediately. He acted like the dogs were barking and screaming at me, but then I realized he abused them, so I ordered them to attack him. While attacking, the two dogs became five dogs, and I helped by kicking the evil owner. Now I had five dogs I couldn’t take care of. As I was wondering what to do with the dogs, spacetime shifted around me. Our base had been ransacked...blood smeared on the walls. The ordeal with the dogs had altered the timeline. Now a rival spy agency had taken over our operations, which accidentally destroyed the world. My spy agency and I were in the middle of our last stand against the rivals. But they were too strong...it was going to be a slaughter. The last of my spy agency and I fled to a bulletproof car. Two of our people sacrificed themselves to push our car over the edge of a cliff. We fell backwards in the car down the side of the cliff in slow motion. We knew we would survive, and that the other two wouldn’t. Unfortunately, the car was impenetrable. Once at the bottom of the cliff, we couldn’t even get out. We eventually starved to death. Do you have any idea what it feels like to starve trapped in a car? Your holographic simulator is clearly broken; it’s combining multiple programs into one. I demand a refund.

Microstory 819: Self-Help

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I’ve worked at Area W for seven years, and for the most part, it’s been the most rewarding experience in my life. I can’t tell you how honored I was to be chosen to help people feel completely safe in their new homes, knowing that it’s nearly impossible for the persons they’re running from to find them. I see a lot of people become cynical about the whole situation. None of us is even from this universe, so they don’t seem to have any vested interest in what happens here, but I never had that problem. These are still people, and though I was not born here, I consider it my home. I’m told it’s one of the few universes that maintain a matrix of stable alternate realities. All I know is that mine certainly doesn’t. It’s the most boring place in the multiverse, so I’m happier here than I could have ever been back home. Even now. Still, I always felt like we could be doing more to help people. Yes, it’s great we can transport people to realities where their tormentors don’t even exist, but that’s not the only viable application of this technology. The possibilities are literally endless. It was tough feeling like the only one who could see that. Two years ago, I became fully qualified to be the primary operator of a portal. There were still a few people around me, though, so I wasn’t working completely autonomously. Some types of jobs require no secondary operator, or auxiliary crew, as you’ve learned. Yet, you’ll have to prove yourself worthy of such trust, even after achieving primary status. I breached that trust with my actions, and I regret it. I just thought I could use them as proof that my ideas for an expansion in our scope was a viable option.

My last job was pretty simple. There was a chance the defendant’s sister would seek to eliminate the witness in his trial, even though the trial was already over, and it wouldn’t do her brother any good. The system erred on the side of caution, and assigned the witness to another reality for a month, just in case the sister developed any bad ideas. During my initial security sweep of the egress side of the portal, I discovered that one of the portal’s guards was an alternate version of a guard in the reality the witness was coming from. Though most of the people who work at Area W are from different universes entirely, like I’ve said—which means there’s no possibility of quantum duplication—this is not true for portal guards, or normal people, for that matter. Guards often share job roles as their alternates, which makes sense, if you think about it. If one version of an individual grew up wanting to work security, or found themselves in such a position, it’s reasonable to assume at least some of their alternates ended up in similar situations. I decided to use these two alternates as guinea pigs in my experiment. Not knowing much about them, I held the portal open for an extended period of time, and introduced them to each other. It was my hope that they would speak with each other, and discuss their feelings. I figured talking to someone who knows how you feel better than anyone else ever could might be rather cathartic; perhaps even enlightening. I was so wrong. While I do still work at Area W, I no longer hold the prestige—or pay—that I did before I broke the rules. Now, instead of operating portals, I have to talk to recruits like you, to warn them what can happen when you don’t follow protocol. Don’t end up like me.

Microstory 818: Gum Up the Works

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I watched with curiosity as the man I worked for began to tie a wire around his own rooster’s leg. I had only been working on this farm for the last few days, and had learned a lot, but this one was new to me. I was born and raised in the city, but when the war began, the only safe places to live were in very rural areas. Sometimes not even small towns were safe enough from the danger. I knew I had to adapt, and figure out how people survive around here. He wasn’t trying to show me what he was doing, but he wasn’t hiding it either. I asked him to explain it to me, and he said it was a teaching tool. He said roosters are as intelligent as dogs and pigs—which I wasn’t convinced was true—and he wanted to teach his to do things for him. I pointed out that this would be virtually impractical, as birds don’t have hands, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He was sure that an army of roosters could protect his lands, and perform simple tasks autonomously. All he was concerned with right now was conditioning the animal to follow his commands. The teaching tool was, as you may have guessed, designed to send a small but painful current up the rooster’s leg. Negative reinforcement, my boss called it. He’d read about it in a book. I was horrified by what he was doing, but was too afraid to say anything, or try to stop him. I learned long ago to accept these people’s way of life, recognizing it to be wildly different than mine, and that I’m the stranger here. One of the other farmhands, however, was not so tolerant, nor did he fear losing his job, like I was. While the boss wasn’t looking, the other guy replaced the wire with his gum wrapper. This worked for a little while, but then the boss wised up to what was happening, and went about fixing the problem. I’m not sure why the farmhand thought that would work in the long-term. The question was whether he would live long enough to regret it. As soon as the boss replaced the the wire on the rooster’s leg, he sent a test shock to it. The farmhand shuddered in pain, which surprised us all. The boss tested his makeshift device again, and the same thing happened. While the rooster was indeed feeling pain, so was the farmhand. They had somehow become linked to one another, so that when one felt pain, so did the other. A twisted smirk fell upon our boss’ face, as his head started filling with all sorts of nasty thoughts. A shock was easy to take, but what were the farmhand’s limits, and how could the farmer exploit him? I grabbed the rooster with my bare hands, and deftly removed the shock wire. “Run!” I screamed. We’ve been hiding out ever since, doing everything we can to protect the rooster, and hoping to find a way to disconnect these two, so that the human doesn’t die when the animal does. If it’s the only way, we’ll even consider defecting to the enemy.

Microstory 817: Fly in the Teeth Part II

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Most of us escaped and headed for the nearest airfield, and everything seemed okay. Another group of survivors was getting there just as we were, and we agreed to travel together. It was only while we were in the middle of taking off that we learned they were actually a zombie-worshipping cult, with plans to secure food for their gods. The fact that we were to be that food was not lost on us. We intended to parachute out of the plane, but found only wingsuits, which we weren’t all confident we knew how to use safely. Still, there was no other way, so we quickly put them on, and jumped out of the aircraft. The wingsuits turned out to be specially designed to operate near the plane. They could actually generate their own electromagnetic field, that allowed us to stay in the air indefinitely. The meant we could fly all the way to a safer environment, but stay away from the danger of the fuselage. While we were flying, I began to have this vision of someone trying to kill me with a rifle. I fought him off as best I could, but my only option was to turn the gun back on him, and make him shoot himself. This not only didn’t kill him, but seemed to give him incredible rage, and I suspected his bullets had been laced with some toxic poison. He was delirious, so I was able to trick him into stepping into traffic. I realized only then that this was a flashback of a real experience I had had, that led to the demonic kids who had been chasing me in my truck. I had suppressed the memory. I had done it. I was the one who started the zombie apocalypse.

Our shrinking group of survivors found refuge on a military base that we took over once the zombie cult who had taken up residence there got a fatal dose of their own medicine. As fate would have it, zombies don’t want to be worshipped by their own food. The base was heavily fortified, and well-stocked with provisions, and we were able to ride out the apocalypse there in near complete safety. My zombie pheromone powers increased and changed as time went on. I was never able to fly, but I could jump to incredible distances. And I seemed to be totally invincible. I used my new gifts to venture into the world, so I could report back to my people how things had changed. I found that the apocalypse had played itself out. Zombies needed flesh from the recently deceased. They couldn’t feed on each other, and since they were driven purely by desire, never regulated their hunting habits. In trying to destroy humanity, they had starved to death, and destroyed themselves instead. Still, they couldn’t be removed from the equation completely, apparently. I found another group of survivors, trapped in a former academy. It was surrounded, and ruled, by a horde of zombie-ghosts. They can smell fear, and can’t help but revert to their violent instincts when that fear was present. They can’t actually bite or eat people anymore, since they no longer possess corporeal teeth, but they are capable of affecting the real world in some ways. They can make your life hell if you don’t display an adequate level of confidence. As potentially immortal myself, I have no problem with this, but I feel obligated to help others overcome their insecurities. And so that’s what I do, and why I’m here right now. I can teach you to survive.

Microstory 816: Fly in the Teeth Part I

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Throughout my whole life, I was utterly convinced that the zombie apocalypse was coming. Whenever anyone would ask me about it, I would be able to explain exactly why I thought that. I cited diseases that could mutate to something resembling a zombie-like state, and had all these scientific explanations for why it was not only possible, but inevitable. Everyone thought I was crazy, as you can imagine, and as time went on, I started wondering whether they were right all along. But they weren’t, were they? My first true evidence that there was something wrong—that some kind of epidemic was starting to spread—was when I ran into a group of what I thought were just mischievous kids taunting me for my theories. They turned out to be incredibly fast and riotous, and I began to fear for my life. I had to knock them off of my truck as I was driving away. They could almost keep up with me, but I had to speed to make sure they didn’t. Somehow the story of my harrowing adventure landed in the ears of the White House, and I was secretly invited to speak with the President himself, as well as the First Lady. We discussed the problem, but still things didn’t seem too dire, because I can remember having a good laugh about his opponent’s running mate in the election that led to his first term.

As I predicted, though, the zombies did show up, and man did it spread quickly. Fortunately, the President and I had covertly coordinated the installation of special buttons on nearly every street corner in every major city in the country. One push could summon the aid of military force. I still believe this saved a lot of lives, even though the proverbial shit has since completely hit the fan by now. When it all happened, I was nowhere near Mount Weather, so even though the government had secured for me a place in their bunker, I was unable to make it in time. I instead had to care for a young boy whose mother had abandoned him to save herself. We struggled to run away from the zombie hordes, but some of them seemed to release a pheromone that slowed us down. We managed to push through just barely, and found ourselves with a band of survivors, who were on their way to a series of caves they claimed would easily rival that of Mount Weather’s. A lovely and unexpected side effect of the zombie pheromones was increased agility and strength, which allowed me to jump down a forty-foot cliff to make sure it was safe for the others. I discovered the caves to not be so safe, for other survivors had already made their way there, and had all been turned by the time we arrived. We needed to go somewhere else, and somebody suggested we try to find a plane. Zombies clearly hated the cold, because it slowed them down, so our best bet now was to head North.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: August 28, 2174

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The entire crew of The Warren was still in the ship proper when Annora Ubiña died, which acted to seal off all access to her pocket dimensions. Étude and Saga were expected to be have been in pocket four, which was where they lived, along with Camden Voss, and a group of passengers who posed the least amount of threat to them. Serif had gone into pocket three to explore, but everyone else was capable of still doing their jobs. They were heavy one of the passengers, though. A man named Thando Kovar requested special permission to work dirty jobs on the vessel, saying that he felt uncomfortable being taken back to Earth for free. They agreed to this, but at the moment, he was prime suspect for Annora’s murder, which they confirmed as such after Paige used her cybernetic upgrades to perform a brief autopsy. He was happy to remain locked in one of the cabins, realizing he was the only one they could not fully trust. Unfortunately, the culprit could be anyone. According to as much information as Paige could gather, it was fully possible that Annora was fatally wounded, but remained alive long enough for the killer to escape through one of the pocket entrances before they were closed. There would be no way for them to know, or so they thought.

Hokusai and Leona worked tirelessly for the rest of the day, trying to get back into the pockets, but they were impenetrable. No, it was more like they didn’t exist at all. They could be 99 percent sure that they were still open, and the residents inside were living fairly normal lives. Except for maybe the one that held the murderer. That one could be bad. And it could also be the one Serif was in, or the one where Camden, Saga, and their daughter were in. They absolutely needed to get in, but it was looking impossible. With a defeatist attitude, and a familiar feeling of fatigue that she long ago learned was an occupational hazard, Leona slumped at the once-entrance to pocket three, and fell asleep. Dimensional mechanics being what they were, she was not really closer to Serif than she would be on any other part of the ship, but it was as good as she was going to get. She dreamt of the future, several days from now, when the ship would land. Only then might they find a way to reopen the pocket dimensions, with the help of some salmon or choosing one.

Not long after midnight central hit, she was being woken up by a stranger. She struggled to open her eyes, blinded by the sunlight. She was lying on a beautiful green lawn, but could see buildings in the middle distance. “Are we there already?” she asked.

“No. You’re in pocket three. Have you been here this whole time?”

Wobbly Leona struggled to stand up. “No, I was in the ship. The pockets were sealed off. Hokusai must have figured out how to reopen them.”

“I don’t think that’s what happened,” the man said. “We’ve been stuck here for a year. And still are.”

“No, that’s impossible. I was out there. There’s no way to get in. We tried the whole day.”

“Just a day?” He tilted his lizard brain. “You’re that jumper. The one who only lives one day per year.”

“Yes. I’m sure the rest of the crew kept working on it since I left. Wait, you said this is pocket three?”

“Yeah?”

“I was at the entrance when I jumped. Is Serif here?”

At first, he didn’t seem to know who that was, but then remembered. “Oh yeah, the crew rep who was here. Well, she disappeared a year ago. Just like you. There are two of you, I didn’t know that.”

“Where exactly was she when she disappeared?” Leona asked.

“Leona!” she heard Serif’s voice call out to her from the direction of one of the housing units. She was already running towards her.

“Yeah, this isn’t a huge place,” the man said. “It doesn’t take long to find anyone.”

“Serif, you’re here!” Leona said happily.

“I am, what happened?”

“There was—” Leona hesitated, and looked over the man who had found her. This was not for his ears.

“Right...I’m gonna go fix the daytime simulator. I only found you because I came out to investigate why the sun turned on in the middle of the night.”

“What happened?” Serif repeated herself once the man was out of earshot.

“Annora’s dead. Murdered. The suspect is either our custodian, or someone in one of these pockets.”

“Oh my God. I guess that would explain how we got trapped.”

“Yes, but if I can get in, you can get out,” Leona said.

“What about the others?”

“It only works during our timejumps, and only when we’re close to the entrance. So we’ll camp out here for the day, and before midnight, we’ll go to the exit, and wait for it to happen again. We can’t save the others. They won’t fit, and I don’t know if that would work anyway.”

“Leona, you misunderstand. The exit isn’t blocked, or locked. It’s gone. It likely vanished at the same moment Annora died. There’s nowhere to go.” She pointed behind Leona. “You’re looking at a Mario Bros. wrap around. Walk in one direction for long enough, and you end up on the exact opposite side of the dimension. There is no escape.”

This was not good news, but then Leona reached for the gadget on her wrist. “My emergency teleporter. That might take us back to the bridge. Do you still have yours?”

“No,” Serif said. “I didn’t think I would need it here.”

“Well, they can take the mass of two standard adults. So that’s what we’ll do. Here, take my hand.”

Serif stepped back like she had seen a spider. “No, we can’t go.”

“I assure you, we can try.”

Serif balked. “If someone’s been murdered, someone is a murderer. Possibly more than one. That person—or those people—could be walking around free right now, ready to do it again. We have to stay here until we determine who it is.” She was unwavering.

“Serif, we’re not detectives. What’re we gonna do, interrogate people?”

“Damn right,” she replied. “We’re the only ones who can go to the other pockets. We have to exhaust all our options here before we do that.”

“The investigation could take six years.”

“A regrettable side effect,” Serif said of this dismissively.

Leona scoffed.

“Better six years than never. Will you be able to sleep at night, knowing we let a killer keep on killing, somewhere here. And what happens when we arrive on Earth? Will we let all the passengers go, thereby also letting said killer do what they want with a whole planet of victims?”

“Well, it’s nearly impossible to get away with murder on Earth these days.”

“You think that’s my point?” she cried. She calmed herself down without prompting. “We have one day to interview every one of the twenty-four people here. I say we get it done by eleven o’clock, try your emergency teleporter, and report back to the crew. Before midnight, we get to the next pocket entrance, and do it all over again. Then we do it as many times as it takes to solve this mystery.”

“Serif, I don’t care about these people. I only care about our people. We get back to the ship, grab a few extra teleporter bands, and go retrieve Étude and her family. That’s the best I can do.”

Serif was shaking her head. “That’s not good enough. There are children here.”

“Oh, don’t guilt trip me.”

“We have to help them,” Serif said, still steadfast. “It’s what we do, when we can. Right now, we can.”

The sun turned back off, and stars appeared, simulating the nighttime. Leona sighed. “If these people are half as tired as I am, they could do with some more sleep anyway. Did they give you a guestroom, or something?”

“They did. There are a few extra beds in each pocket. We’ll start talking to people in the morning.” She used airquotes for the final word.

Once morning came, Serif called everyone to the main common area, and explained the situation. There were a few gripes about privacy and this being a waste of time, but most of them were okay with being interrogated if it meant figuring out who was responsible for this. Overall, they were a fairly accommodating group, though they did express dissatisfaction with this means of investigation. It was rather difficult to explain that there was no other way. Only two people on the ship could travel to the pockets, and only at certain times, on certain days. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but as Serif was saying, it was the best they could do.

No one seemed particularly suspicious, and they couldn’t find any clear motive for any one of them to have committed this crime. Everyone could be accounted for during the time range for Annora’s death. The fact that all their suspects were being quarantined was a pretty nice feature for this situation. The killer likely believed that they got away with it, especially since so much time will have passed before anyone can show up to ask them about it. They will never see Leona and Serif coming, and will have hopefully let their guard down by the time they do. Yes, they could kill again by then; or worse, Leona and Serif could show up to the last pocket they investigate to find everybody massacred. So that wasn’t a great prospect. Perhaps when they went back to the ship, the rest of the crew would have some idea of how they could better handle this.

With an hour to spare before midnight, they entered into a tight embrace, and activated Leona’s teleporter. It worked. They were both back on the ship, much to Brooke’s surprise. “You two are late. Serif, I thought you were in one of the pockets.”

“I was,” Serif answered. “She was too. There’s a way for us to get in them. But only us, and we’re gonna need a few extra transporters.”

“Ouch,” Brooke said apologetically. “No can dosville, baby doll. Hokusai tore them apart, trying to get into the pockets. Apparently, they got real forked up. I don’t think they work anymore.”

“Dammit,” Leona said. “We were gonna use them to get Saga, Étude, and Camden out.”

“And to extradite whoever killed Annora, when we find them,” Serif added.

“Wait, you’re going back in to, what, investigate?”

“Hey, don’t look at me,” Leona said with betrayal.

“You got a better idea?”

“Eh, you do you, sister.” She turned back to her controls. “My only job is to run this ship. If you wanna go back in, you best have a talk with the captain.”

“A talk about what?” Paige asked, demonstrating her almost irritating knack for showing up in doorways, acting as if she hadn’t heard the whole conversation with her enhanced ears.

Serif sighed. “About the safety of our passengers.”

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Missy’s Mission: Simba Baby (Part I)

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Melissa Calluna Atterberry was born on April 7, 2018 not far from her parents’ home in Surrey, British Columbia, which was located just meters from the U.S. border. Her family wanted her to possess dual citizenship between both countries. As soon as they found out her mother was pregnant, they began to make inquiries about special permission for a border birth. As it turned out, their daughter would have dual citizenship, regardless of which side she was born on, because her father was Usonian. Still, the idea of giving birth right on the line fascinated them, so they continued to press the issue. They were ultimately granted authorization for this, but only for the good publicity. Representatives from each country wanted to acknowledge, solidify, and demonstrate the good relationship between them, in a very public setting. Though, of course, the media was not allowed in the trailer they retrofitted as a cleanroom, they were called in when the time came, and reported from outside.

Two separate audiences gathered in either half of Peace Arch Park. Missy’s future uncles sold snacks and memorabilia. Her aunts put on a singing performance, along with a local band. Since the moment couldn’t be planned too far in advance, the people who showed up were just the ones who could drop what they were doing at a moment’s notice. Once Missy had come into the world, and passed the initial health test, her grandfather carried her out of the trailer, and presented her to millions of people watching the feed on the internet. The people called her Simba Baby, a nickname she outgrew when she found out she was a choosing one, and her unorthodox birth was no longer the most interesting part about her.

She was ten years old when her parents took her on a vacation by Brooks Lake, in Wyoming. With them came a family of friends, including a boy named Harley, who she had been friends with since forever. He was four years older, and taught her a lot of things about life, all of which she later had to question. When they were alone on a walk in the woods, he decided it was time to attack her. He had put a lot of work into their relationship, and he was cashing in on what he deserved from her. She said no, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t take no for an answer. She tried to push him away, but he pushed back. She tried to run away, but he ran after her. She had power, though, and he was no match for it. She could create temporal bubbles that slowed down, or sped up, time for anyone and anything inside of it. Just before he could catch up to her, she created one of these out of instinctual desperation. He was practically stuck in time, moving in slow motion. She stopped and watched, knowing that she had done this, but not knowing how. Worried she wouldn’t be able to hold the bubble for an extended period of time, she tried to run away again, but nearly collided with another man.

“Very good job,” the man said. He was much, much older. “You couldn’t have picked a better time to figure out what you could do.”

“Who are you?” she asked, still more frightened than she had ever been.

“Not a friend,” he replied coldly. “But no one deserves this.” He started walking over towards the boy, who was still struggling to get back to realtime. “No one deserves what he was about to do to you, so I’ll take care of him for you.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you should go,” he said.

“What does that mean?” she repeated.

He casually brushed his fingers against the wall of her time bubble. “I can do what you can do. Let me show you a trick. Instead of slowing them down, you should speed them up.” He grabbed onto the wall, and gritted his teeth. The boy inside of it started bashing himself against the edges, at incredible speed, trying to get out of it. Eventually, though, he had to give up. He quickly starved to death, and his body decayed, right before Missy’s eyes. “I hope you appreciate my sacrifice,” the man said. “I don’t usually kill children, which is why I’m letting you go...for now. In fact, I’ll protect you your whole life. That is, until your time comes. Enjoy your powers,” he said as he was walking away. “Because whether you use them or not, I’ll eventually kill you for having them.”

He hadn’t lied about that. Missy’s life was in danger far more often than the average for any one person. She tried asking her parents about her powers, but they had no clue what she was talking about. They freaked out when they saw what she could do, and they didn’t want anything to do with them. She could stay with them, if she wanted, but she wasn’t allowed to make time bubbles, and she wasn’t allowed to talk about them. She agreed to their conditions, but literally the day she turned eighteen, she left the house, and never returned. She went looking for other people like her, eventually discovering there to be this huge network of choosers, as she learned they were called. Her life continued to be threatened, as some people she met with powers were dangerous, and others were simply reckless. The man from before did as he promised, appearing whenever his services were needed. Despite how much time had lapsed, he was never any older, and never any nicer. The older she got, the closer he seemed to be to doing what he said he would, and killing her. She didn’t know exactly what he was waiting for, but she did not feel the need to find out.

She met some good people along the way too, many of whom helped her try to escape her fate. They took her all across time and space, sometimes even to other planets. At some point, she learned of a special prison called Beaver Haven. Technically, it was for any choosing one who had committed some crime that an arbitrary group of people with time powers decided was too far over the line. They were known, however, to also allow law-abiding time travelers in, who needed protection from others. Yet the evil man found her there as well, and easily broke her out of it. Still, he didn’t kill her, and she was starting to think that stalking her was more important than the violence he was planning to inflict on her.

She sought refuge on a place called Tribulation Island, which was located on millions of lightyears from Earth, on a planet owned by a woman named Leona Matic, called Dardius. Leona had been involved with the murder of the evil man who had been stalking Missy all this time. Unfortunately, time travel being what it was, a younger version of that man was still free to torment her, for he had not yet gone back in time, and died. But because of the nature of his death, he could do no harm to Leona, which meant she was the safest person to be around in the whole spacetime continuum. So Missy began to follow her around, with a group of girls on a mission to find The Last Savior of Earth. They ended up on yet another planet, this one called Durus. Having been long ago ejected from its solar system, it was somehow linked with Earth, and carried with it unusual temporal properties of its own. There were rumors that somewhere, somehow, Durus was capable of removing someone’s powers. Though she loved what she could do, these powers were too dangerous to keep, so if there was any chance of ridding herself of them, she had to go for it. A friend of hers from the group, Dar’cy Matigaris even agreed to stay with her, as a personal security guard. If anyone in history could stop The Cleanser from hurting Missy, Dar’cy was it.

At the moment, the two of them were seeing their friends off in the ship that had brought them there, The Warren. Missy didn’t know if staying behind was the right call, but it was the best one she could come up with at the time. Even though she might never be able to get back home, and see people she loved ever again, this was perhaps the only path to take. She would at least be alive, assuming any of this worked. They still had no idea where on Durus they were meant to go, what they were meant to do, or whether the whole thing was just one big lie.

They were standing next to a paramount—which was just this world’s word for chooser—who could instantly transport massive objects from one place, to another. She did her trick with the ship, sending it straight into orbit, and it was done. Now there was no turning back. “Well, what do we do now?” Dar’cy asked.

“Right now, we go back to the house that Andromeda built for her wife and child,” Missy declared. “We get something to eat, we get some sleep, and we start looking for answers in the morning.”

“Where might we find those answers?”

“I suppose we should start at the library, where all good research originates.”

When they arrived at the house, a man was there, waving his hands at it, creating ripples in the air.

“What the hell are you doing?” Dar’cy demanded to know, stepping between him and Missy.

“Oh, I was asked to create wards here,” he responded, stopping his work.

“Create what?”

“Wards. People can’t use powers in or around the building. And they can’t step foot in here without your permission.”

“Who asked you to do that?” Dar’cy questioned.

“I did,” he said. “I received a time message from my future self, asking me to help you. I can show it to you. I put it through an authenticator, it definitely came from me.”

“That may be so,” Dar’cy began, “but we don’t know if we can trust your future self any more than we can trust you.”

“You can call the paramount division of the police if you’d like,” he said. “They’ll verify these are true wards. I have no reason to hurt you.”

“Dar’cy,” Missy said, “not all men are bad.”

“I know that,” she replied before turning her attention back to him. “I want your telemagnet code. If you’re going to make these for us, then I want to be able to hold you accountable at any moment.”

He smiled. “I can do that. Can I finish first, though?”

She nodded.

“Thank you,” Missy said to him. She nodded as well, but to herself. “We might actually survive this.”

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