Microstory 822: The Room

< > Table of Contents

I’ve been in this room for years now. At least that’s what I assume. I’ve never seen the sun, so keep tracking of time is pretty difficult. I’m not sure where this light is coming from, but it’s always at the same dimness, so I’ve had to get used to sleeping with it. That wasn’t the hardest part, though, because I don’t have a blanket or pillow either. There’s a hole in the corner that no one told me was a toilet, but I’ve been using it as such for years now, and have experienced no consequences for it. Once a day, when I wake from sleep, there’s a crate of new supplies. Gruel, water, vitamins, my daily allotment of toilet paper, and hand sanitizer, if I’ve run out. At least they don’t want me getting some disease from a lack of hygiene. Still, I wouldn’t say no to a shower, or even a bath. I’ve tried staying awake long enough to see where each new crate comes from, but like children and Santa Claus, if I’m not asleep, I get nothing. There’s also no door, and no seams on the walls to hide one. I think they knocked me out...built it around me. All I do, day in, day out, is eat, make waste, and sleep. I have nothing to watch, nothing to read, nothing to draw with. No playing cards, no pull-up bar, no life. I just here and wait. I don’t know how I got here, but the most important question is why I’m here. I have no real memories of before the room. I know I’ve ridden in cars, trains, and airplanes. I know I’ve had real food, and read books, and met other people like me. I have fragments of these experiences, but couldn’t actually describe them to you. Perhaps it’s all just my semantic memory disguising itself as episodic memory. Then again, the fact that I know what the difference between those kinds of memories is must say something about what kind of life I led before the room.

One day, I wake up and there is not crate of supplies. Oh well, I still have enough hand sanitizer, and I always save a little bit of toilet paper, just in case something like this happens. I’m grateful for my forethought now. I see something weird out of the corner of my eye, but the room has never changed before, so I must be imagining it. I just turn back around and stare at the corner for the next several hours. I fall asleep at some point, and wake up the next day to find myself crateless yet again. That thing is still there, though; that thing I barely recognize, that was never there before, and I guess isn’t an hallucination. I start staring at it and realize I know exactly what it is: a door. Doors are meant to get in and out of places. Like with everything else, I recall having many times opened and closed doors, but I can’t point to a specific instance of it. I crawl over toward the new door, which is my only mode of transportation. Since they give me, maybe 800 calories a day, I can’t exactly sprint over there. I reach for the handle, knowing for sure that it’ll be locked, but before my fingers can touch it, it disappears, and reappears behind me. Maybe I am hallucinating, because I have no vague memories of doors that can move around on their own. I hoof it over to its new location, and try to open it once more, but it moves again. While it’s at its new place, I don’t touch it at all, but inspect it closely. I see nothing between the door itself, and the frame that surrounds it. I think it’s unlocked, but I still need to figure out how to keep it from jumping away from me. This goes on for three days, at which point one glass of water begins appearing every time I wake up for the day. It’s three more weeks before my food also returns, and the door disappears completely. What I imagine is another three years, the cycle starts over. And this pattern continues for decades, until my body can take it no longer, and I’m lying on my back, near death. It is only then that the door finally opens. A man walks in and kneels over me. “Now you know what it feels like,” he says. And then it’s all over.

Microstory 821: Fits and Starts

< > Table of Contents

When the bladapods first cropped up around our world, the first people to get a crack at them were the scientists. They wanted to research their biology, and behavioral habits. No one can blame them, really; they’re fascinating creatures. I mean, chlorophyll knives for legs? Who knew evolution could come up with something so elegant and dangerous? Of course we all know how this research turned out. They multiplied out of control, and released gases capable of altering both genes and reality itself. One thing those original researches hadn’t considered was the possibility that these bladapods were actually sentient, and could be capable of communicating with us on an intellectual level. One woman realized this prospect, and urged the Association International de Bladapodologie to fund a new department, one designed to crack the code for a theoretical language deemed bladapotango. Suddenly there was a huge influx in open positions at the AIB, and I was proverbially first in line. As a linguist, I was always fascinated with the similarities and differences in languages. The chance to study the communication patterns of an entirely new species was too good to pass up. Unfortunately, the bladapod gas had transformed my perfectly normal-sized vehicle into one of those tiny motor cars that children drive around the neighborhood. Since I’ve been trying to find a decent job for years now, I’ve not had the money necessary to upgrade to something more reasonable. The upside was that the bladapod gas had only quartered my car’s top speed, so it was now sitting at a healthy thirty-five miles per hour, so it could be worse. It’s frustrating not being able to drive on the highway, but since it fits in the cargo hold of a commercial jet, I was able to take it with me to AIB headquarters in Martinique. Bonus: it now has a perpetual motion engine, so it never runs out of power. I discover, however, that the car operates better while within the North American bladapodosphere. It still works, but it keeps stopping and starting, forcing me to keep coming up with new little tricks to get it to start again.

I finally make it into mall, which is where my interview is. Apparently there was literal crapstorm over the actual headquarters last week that has yet to be fully cleaned up, and the mall is being used for continuity of operations. Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t postpone, or even just cancel, the interview, but I certainly am grateful. I’m driving through the mall, trying to find the right retrofitted storefront, when I hear a commotion across the way. I drive up to it out of curiosity and find a man throwing a violent fit. He’s covered in mud, screaming at people, and flailing his arms all around. He almost looks like me, but he can’t be me, because I’m me. I shrug it off, and try to focus on being ready for my interview. I find where I’m meant to be, and the interview seems to be going great. Then, without provocation, a mudfooted ragepanda crashes through the wall from the store next door, and starts trampling over me. I’m overcome with anger, and start fighting it with my bare hands. They tell you to stop, drop, and roll when exposed to emomud, but the only people who say that are the ones who’ve never experienced it themselves. I don’t know how I ended up traveling back in the past, but needless to say, I was unable to break the timeloop, and did not get the job. To make matters worse, I didn’t get all the emomud washed off my body before trying to drive my car back to the hotel, so now it gives me lip, and won’t take me anywhere unless I give it compliments.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: August 29, 2175

« < » > Table of Contents

Paige agreed to let the two of them reenter the pocket dimensions, searching for Annora’s killer. Her only condition was that they start with pocket four, so they could check on Étude, and her parents. They were wanting to do that anyway, so it all worked out. Leona had to warn them that, though they were doing their best to recreate the conditions that led Leona to pocket three, there were no guarantees. In The Langoliers, the only reason the survivors survived was because they were all asleep when their plane flew through a time rift, as was Leona when she fell through hers. That was an unlikely requirement, but not outside the realm of possibility. What had happened to her could also have been nothing more than a fluke, and they were just wasting their time. Even so, it was worth try, so just before midnight, they squeezed into what was once the entrance to pocket four, and waiting for launch, knowing it might not work.

It worked. They suddenly found themselves on the lawn of pocket four. While solar cycles were generally considered irrelevant when flying on an interstellar ship, they were arbitrarily programmed into Annora’s worlds, in order to better simulate people’s circadian rhythms. And since everything in the world of salmon and choosers revolved around Kansas, it was also based on the central time zone, meaning it should have been nighttime. But like before, the sun was up, prompting people to start filing out of the housing units, looking for answers. The others were hesitant to approach. Even though they all recognized Leona and Serif, they must have been worried their arrival came with bad news. Of course, Saga and Camden had no such fears. They came right up, with six-year-old Étude in tow.

“We’ve guessed that Annora is dead,” Saga said, spot on.

“She is.”

“How did it happen?” Camden asked.

“Murder. We’re going around to the other dimensions, trying to find out who.”

Camden nodded. “The entrances were sealed off, but if you’ve found a way through, I would like to join you. I have quite a bit of experience with these kinds of things.”

“We would love that. Unfortunately, it’s not possible. We only have one emergency teleporter to get up back to the ship proper, and only we can travel to other pockets.”

He stood up straighter, not in disbelief, but deep in thought for a workaround to their problem. There wasn’t one, though.”

“At least take Étude with you,” Saga requested. “If there’s a killer somewhere, and you know they’re not on the ship itself, then that’s the safest place for her.”

“We both need to go back,” Serif said. “If one of us takes Étude, the other will have to stay behind.”

“That’s not the problem,” Leona said. “The teleporter could probably handle the mass of two smallish adults and one child. The problem is Hokusai has been trying to figure out how to reopen the entrances for years now.” She looked up and gestured towards the microworld in general. “Obviously she hasn’t yet. We don’t know when you would be able to see Étude again.”

“But she’ll be safe,” Camden argued.

Leona shook her head. “I can’t take another child from her parents,” Leona said, recalling the events surrounding Brooke’s life.

“But she’ll be safe,” Saga echoed Camden.

“If the killer’s here,” Serif assured them, “we’ll find them. We’ll take them back to the ship, and you’ll be safe. If they’re not, then you have nothing to worry about.”

“And what if there’s more than one killer, or there’s a secret army amongst this group?” Camden suggested. “What if not one of these people can be trusted, and they all just managed to lie their way onto this ship. If you’ll remember, they started out by taking our people hostage.”

“That was the leadership. Each and every one of these passengers has been vetted.”

“Lotta good that did,” Camden retorted. “Somebody here got past your research. At least one person is a killer.”

“I conducted that research,” Saga turned the argument. “And I used every resource on Durus to do it. There’s no way we could have known this would happen.”

“And why not?” Camden oppugned. “Didn’t you ask any seers whether something like this would happen?”

“I did,” Saga said. “But the future is always changing. No one told me this would happen, or I wouldn’t have let it.” Now she turned the argument back, “please. I wanna raise my daughter, but not if it means watching her die.”

All this time, Étude remained speechless, and unmoved. As with every child Leona had met after all this began, she was precocious and jaded. Xearea, Brooke, Dar’cy, and now Étude; they all had to grow up too fast, and had complicated family situations. What struck her about this family was their openness. She probably would have sheltered her own daughter from this conversation, but it looked like these two were keeping nothing from Étude. Though she never spoke, she did have other ways of expressing her opinion, in particular her disapproval of a decision, which reportedly happened often. She didn’t seem bothered by this argument, though, and appeared on board with whatever they chose.

“I’ll tell you what,” Leona began. “Camden, there’s no reason you can’t help us with the investigation while we’re in this pocket. Your skills, and my Serif’s love of mystery novels combined means there’s no way we leave here without being certain the murderer is either not here now, or won’t be after the teleporter is next activated. Once we’re done talking with everyone, we’ll revisit the question of what to do with Étude. I don’t think we can reach a reasonable consensus until then. Deal?”

Camden and Saga conferred telepathically. “Agreed.”

“All right,” Leona said. “I’m with you, Agent Voss. Saga, you’ll go with Serif. Each pair should question each individual. Then we’ll compare notes; look for inconsistencies, and such.

After being told what had happened, the rest of the residents were in full agreement that they should get to turn the sun back off, and get the rest of the night’s sleep before answering any questions. Camden told his fellow investigators that the were better off interviewing them now. It’s harder to tell a lie when you’re tired, and didn’t expect to have to. He gave them a few other pointers, most of which were designed to exploit their subject’s weakness. Though every person was different, there were a few universal weaknesses. Everybody needed to eat, everybody needed to sleep, and everybody hated repeating themselves. He instructed them to ask the same question multiple times, under the guise of just trying to get a clear picture of what they remembered from that night, to see if their story changed. He also did warn them that it had now been two years since the murder. While the fact that the incident had resulted in the pockets being sealed off—which made the day a memorable one—worked in their favor, the time that passed since then increasingly muddied memories. The last pocket’s alibis will be the least reliable.

The three inexperienced and untrained interrogators came out of the interviews feeling good about what they had learned, which was nothing. There seemed to be no indication that anyone here had killed Annora, or felt any ill will towards anyone here. Camden, on the other hand, was not convinced, and appeared more stressed out than ever. While the resident technician was working on turning the midnight sun off, and getting back on schedule, the five of them huddled on the edge of the pocket world, to discuss their observations.

“It’s worse than I thought,” Camden said, mostly to Saga.

“I’ve not found that,” Saga said.

“No, you wouldn’t. It was subtle, but it was there. People are fine with the pocket being sealed off. They’re happy here, they have everything they need, and they’ve no interest in going anywhere else. Few of them had planned on leaving at all throughout the whole trip. Those that had are still cool with what’s happened, and are just happy no one else can come here.”

“Okay, that sounds good,” Serif said.

“It sounds good; it’s not good. There are some paramounts here, the combination of which puts this place in danger.”

“I don’t remember anything like that,” Saga disputed. “We ran predictive combination models.”

“Yes, but you didn’t calculate children. Two have been born since we got here, and one got on board last minute. The latter can diagnose time powers.”

“Yeah, I remember him,” Saga said, “so what?”

“Well, he diagnosed the other two,” Camden replied. “One has the potential to expand the pocket’s scope. It could be infinitely large, once she’s old enough to learn how to use her power. The other goes hand in hand with that. He can create scions.” He looked at them like they were supposed to know what that meant in this context.

“He can have children?” Leona put forth. “So can a lot of people.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Camden continued. “He can take any two individuals—of any sex—and artificial generate offspring from them. And he can accelerate that offspring’s development. So as the girl is expanding the universe, the boy is adding people to it.”

“That sounds strange,” Serif agreed. “But bad? I dunno.”

“It could have serious repercussions for our universe,” Leona explained. “It could be kind of a this town ain’t big enough for the two of us thing. One could consume the other, likely the one that’s expanding the fastest, so goodbye us. They could both make each other pop. Or they could form a culture bent on our destruction, and ultimately cross back over to make war with us. We can’t just, like, let a whole new universe be created.”

“We also can’t stop them,” Serif pointed out.

“Maybe not,” Saga said, “but you can make good on your word, and get my daughter out of here.”

“Saga...” Leona started, having been dreading saying no to this request again, but believing strongly that she needed to.

“You said we would revisit the issue,” Saga reminded her. “That’s what we’re doing, and I think recent events have made the right choice quite clear.”

Leona was about to argue the point, but Serif stopped her. “We’ll do it.”

“Serif,” Leona scolded.

“We’re doing it,” Serif said to Leona. “Our job is to protect the Last Savior. This is how we do that.”

“We don’t know they have plans to make a new universe. They’re just babies.”

“That’s true,” Camden acknowledged, “but the whispers suggest it’s going to come to that. These people are trying to leave Durus, not go to Earth. They can build paradise here, and maybe a Savior would be a nice feature to have around in that paradise. We need to get her out now.”

“Very well,” Leona finally capitulated. “Well, if we’re gonna go, we should go now.”

“Great, I have her bag right here.”

“We’ll give you some time to say goodbye,” Serif told Étude’s parents.

“Are you sure about this?” Leona asked Serif once they had stepped off to the side.

“You said we could take a child with us.”

“I’m never a hundred percent sure of anything.”

“If it doesn’t work, I’ll stay.”

“Serif...”

“But it’ll work,” she said with confidence.

It didn’t work.

The three ladies held hands, trying to emergency teleport back to the cockpit of The Warren together. It felt like they were in a mosh pit, being pushed and shoved in a chaotic crowd of strangers. The teleporter wanted to take them away, but wasn’t able to, yet it kept trying. Serif gave her love one last look, then let go. Before Leona could do anything about it, she and Étude were gone.

« < » > Table of Contents

Missy’s Mission: Secret Knowledge (Part II)

< > Entire Story

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.

< > Entire Story

Microstory 820: Attack Dogs

< > Table of Contents

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

< > Table of Contents

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

< > Table of Contents

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

< > Table of Contents

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.