Microstory 865: Cashier or Credit

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After seven years, the war is finally over, and wouldn’t you know it, it ended in peace. No side truly won over the other, but compromises were made. Hell would continue to house all the dead bad people, but exactly what qualifies as bad would be drastically altered. There would also be limitations on the conditions of the hellscape, rendering the place more depressing and banal than torturous. Heaven would be turned over completely to be run by the hypostates, with very little cross traffic, save for checks and balances. Earth would be left mostly to its own devices, with an interesting twist. Any demon wishing to relinquish their connection to the other realms would be free to start new lives, alongside living humans, with no repercussions. The apostates agreed to this, not thinking it would make any difference. A surprisingly high number of demons wanted to live with mortals, which was actually rather beneficial to the global economy. The world was primed to restabilize after the apocalypse, but that didn’t mean demons were automatically awarded decent jobs, or that they would be happy about it, or that they would not revert to their old ways. Most of them ended up with dead-end, minimum wage, high school jobs. If you were a law-abiding demon who went an entire workday without doing anything with trash, you were lucky, just that good, or had brilliant connections. With this in mind, I get into the line at the grocery store that’s being run by a demon cashier. The woman ahead of me is wearing that infamous tattoo, indicating that she was a warrior for The Lightbringer during the war, which explains why she’s the only other human willing to risk it. I’m here because demons don’t bother me that much, and the other lines are far too long. It doesn’t hurt that the demon cashier is extremely beautiful. I identified as pansexual even before the armies of darkness brought hellfire to the surface, as many people did. I know a lot of others started questioning their sexuality when that happened, never having before been confronted with the puzzle of how to feel about someone who we would best be described as a monster. I had no problem with it, and were we not literal born enemies, I would have considered a relationship with a demon years ago. I treat individuals individually, and try not to judge people until I know more about what they’ve been through. The warrior takes her groceries, along with the fiver that the cashier tried to pocket. She doesn’t even argue about it; she just gets it back, and walks away. I throw my own stuff on the belt, and try to swipe my credit card. The cashier tells me that the reader is broken, and she’ll have to swipe it for me. Extra cautious from what she tried to do to the warrior, I watch her carefully, easily catching her slipping the card into her cleavage while replacing it with another one. She tries to give me the wrong one, likely hoping I’ll put it away without even looking. I politely ask for the right one, and remind her to return this other one to its rightful owner. “And one more thing,” I say. Her eyes dart over to her supervisor. This may be the straw that causes the camel to fire her. “Would you like to get some coffee sometime?”

Microstory 864: Hostage to Fortune

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There was a time when bad things would always happen to anyone else, but never to you. Nowadays, being touched by violence of some sort is assumed, and there’s something strange about hearing of someone who came out of life unscathed. I was petrified when a gunman came into our school cafeteria, and took us all hostage. I was actually more surprised that he seemed to want something other than to hurt people. He didn’t look frazzled or pissed off at the world. It was more like a job to him. We did what he said, crouching under the tables, facing inwards, heads curled in, like it was a pointless a Cuban Missile Crisis drill. I wondered why he didn’t confiscate our cell phones, but when I saw several students fail to find a signal, I guessed that he was using some kind of jammer. That felt like overkill—pardon the insensitive pun—but again, he never told us what he wanted. He kept us there for two hours, asking nothing of us but to be quiet, and stay put. Eventually fear subsided, and kids started playing offline games. We could hear other students walking around the hallways, but no stomps of Federal agents, or cries of shock. When he was done with us, he removed the chains from the doors, and let us go. I stayed behind out of morbid curiosity, waiting to see him kidnap one of my classmates, or plant a bomb, but he just sat down at one of the tables, and started watching security feeds on his laptop. We slowly moved towards class, wondering if we had just experienced some mass hallucination. Our teacher marked us as tardy when we finally arrived, and had no idea what we were talking about. One girl I knew for a fact was there with us also acted unaware. I couldn’t tell if she was covering her ass, or had legitimately lost her memories. Our persistent claims that we were just in a hostage situation only made our teacher madder, and we were given detention. When the bell rang, I went back to the cafeteria. The hostage-taker was still there, not at all concerned that he would get in trouble. I snuck up behind him, and listened to his conversation on the phone. “Yessir, the field test worked perfectly. The artificial spatio-temporal dimension will allow us to operate surveillance facilities completely undetected. The rest of the school was totally oblivious to what was happening, and the hostages ultimately forgot as well...except for one. I agree, he would be a perfect candidate for running this region’s program.” He twisted around, and gave me a wink.

Microstory 863: Need to Know

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I have never had very much money of my own. I’ve spent a lot of time unemployed, and looking for work. My parents have had to give me a lot more money than my siblings. They say it’s all evened out because of how much more their respective tuitions cost, but I have never really believed that. My mother told me that I can’t waste my days away either looking for work, or playing video games, because those gaps could reflect poorly on my character. She suggested I do start volunteering, because a lot of organizations are always in need of help, and I’m allowed to put that kind of work on my résumé. I started doing as I was told. Every time I’d lose a job, I’d get a new one right away; just one that didn’t pay anything. As much as I think it was helping, I never could find a permanent full-time paid position that was right for me, and my parents continued to have to send a supplemental allowance. I know now that it was ruining them. They never complained about it, though, and the only person angry at me was myself...and also my resentful siblings. They died in debt, and I could no longer afford to live in the apartment. I was unemployed yet again at the time, and was out of options. My brothers and sisters cut ties, and I was left to fend for myself, which I honestly believed I deserved. At my lowest, I was living on the streets, eating and sleeping at one of the shelters where I once worked, which was profoundly humiliating. A young woman I met there was still volunteering, and one day, she said they were shorthanded at a construction site. It seemed weird to build someone’s house when I was in need of one of my own, but she promised me some good meals, and a stipend. When I arrived the next day, I saw cameras and lighting equipment all over the place. There were trailers, and a woman walking around, barking orders about staging, acting more like a film director than a foreman. I asked whether we were building an actual house, or just a set piece, but none of the other workers appeared to know. The people I asked who definitely would know the truth refused to answer me. A camera operator followed me around during my work, asking me questions about who I was, and where I had come from. They were interviewing other volunteers as well, but it felt like I was getting the most attention. The project was finished within only a few days, apparently after having employed multiple shifts, day and night. When everything was done, they called me back to the site for the ceremony where they would hand the house off to the needy family, so that answered that question. I was standing in the audience, minding my own business, when I noticed one of my brothers standing on the other side of the walkway. I looked around, and discovered all of brothers and sisters. They looked just as terrible as I did: almost like they too were homeless. The cameras began to roll, and the host started talking. Suddenly, she introduced me and my siblings, and asked us to come up to the door and accept our new keys. The house was ours.

Microstory 862: Family of Thieves

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When I was a child, I wanted to be a police man when I grew up. As I got older, though, I started becoming disillusioned with our justice system. I am one hundred percent against the use of recreational drugs, but I also don’t think cops should be wasting my tax dollars prosecuting mild offenders, especially not since true rehabilitation would be a better use for that money. I think prostitution should be completely legal, that there should be no statute of limitations on rape and sexual assault, and immigrant families should be kept whole. I quickly forgot my dreams of joining law enforcement, and ended up becoming an accountant. Boring, I know, but I make decent money, and I don’t take my work home with me. I am not exactly known for my social skills, and since I don’t drink, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to meet women. Most of my friends met their significant others at work, but that’s not a great idea either, because the only girls there that I don’t find incredibly boring are the ones who think that I’m boring. I can’t disagree with them either. Then just last week, my company decided to start handing out free lunches, and getting rid of our lunch hours. Some dumbass upstairs convinced them that paying for a thirty minute lunch break would be more cost effective than letting each worker be unproductive for an hour each business day. I guess I shouldn’t say that; Bill’s a pretty smart guy, and it’s the executives that are stupid for believing his BS. Anyway, I get off a half hour early now, and never have to think about where I’m gonna eat every day. Bonus, the girl who rolled the cart around with these sack lunches was absolutely gorgeous. Fortunately, my office was near the far corner of the lowest floor, which meant she was done with her work by the time she got to me. Lady, as unbelievable as the name sounds, immediately started eating with me, even though I never invited her. How perfect that she came to me, I thought. It wasn’t until two days ago that I realized she was just using me.

Our company was robbed, big time. The only files not taken were the ones I had anything to do with, so I started suspecting that the lunch girl, whose name could not possibly have been Lady, was protecting me. They didn’t take any money, but the data they did steal would likely fetch a pretty penny on the identity market. Most of our clients can afford to hassle with their bank on disputed charges, so it’s not exactly Robin Hood, but she’s not the devil either. Thank God the executives are so dumb, or they might have been suspicious of me. Anyway, I used what few detective skills I had to track down Lady. I was planning to confront her with what I knew, but one look at her with a messy updo, and sweat pants, and I couldn’t remember what I was going to say. I found myself asking her out, which she obliged, apparently not at all creeped out that I found her home. We had our date that evening, and I followed her upstairs that night. I woke up for the bathroom in the middle of the night, and heard a muffled conversation downstairs. Hopelessly curious, I tiptoed to the top of the stairs, so I could listen. Her whole huge family was discussing what they were going to do with me, now that it was obvious I had figured out their scheme. Lady—which actually is her real name; she showed me her driver’s license—was advocating to read me into their group, but others wanted to eliminate me. Desperate for my life, I snuck back into Lady’s room, stole her television set, and snuck out the window. Once home, I placed my new TV on the floor, and sat down in my dinette, sipping a ginger ale, and hoping my audacity is enough to impress Lady’s family. This is where I have been all morning. As I’m nodding off, I begin to hear scratching at my door, which quickly opens to reveal a guy about Lady’s age, so I infer that he’s her brother. “Nice try,” he says, “but you’ll have to go bigger if you want to audition for us.”

Microstory 861: X Gratia

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Most people around here grew up wanting to be medical professionals. They played doctor when they were children—and I’m not talking about exploring each other’s bodies; they legitimately pretended to treat patients. I’ve never had a problem with blood or broken bones, but I also never considered a career in the field. It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood, working as a faceless engineer for a gigantic corporation that I started getting itchy. I saw a post on social media advertising for a free Emergency Medical Responder course. I had never heard of it before, and had always called knowledge that fell between first aid and EMT second aid. My role-playing game team recently disbanded when two of us moved out of town at about the same time, so I was looking for something else to do with my evenings. I signed up for the class, thinking a little extra education couldn’t hurt. I didn’t find out until later that my company provided a minor pay differential for intermediate medical training, because it allowed me to be a designated first responder in the office. That would have been good enough for me, because the worst that could happen in an office is a paper cut, or maybe a hot coffee accident. But then I started getting really into it. I didn’t realize how rewarding the training would feel, how satisfying it was that I knew something my friends and coworkers didn’t. Even if I never changed careers because of this, I felt comfort in knowing that no matter where I was, at least one person in the immediate vicinity would be able to help in an emergency. If no one better trained was around, at least I would be there. Once the class was over, and I was fully certified, I started looking into EMT training, while not being sure whether I would be accepted into a program if I had no intention of applying for a new job, and starting to drive an ambulance. Then the war began, and none of that mattered anymore.

Things got real bad real fast. My city was evacuated, and we were rushed to a refugee camp in the middle of nowhere. As I was sitting in the processing area, the intake counselor asked me for my profession, but I was not paying attention. All I could focus on was the triage canopy down the way. She told me to try to ignore the screams, and that the people there were doing everything they could. “I need to help,” I found myself saying. She asked me if I was a doctor or nurse, and I said no, but that I had to do what I could. So without permission, I jumped out of my seat, and ran over. I told them the limits of my knowledge, thinking there was a strong chance they would tell me to just take a hike. But they were happy to have the help. While the people with real expertise were busy treating patients, I could easily help with assessing newcomers, and assigning color tags. I also ran around to find fresh water, and helped unload emergency supplies. I wasn’t saving anybody’s life, but I was helping, and that was exactly why I continued my classes. I was finished cleaning the blood off one of the cots, and no one had told me to do anything else, so I went up to the nearest nurse, and offered my help. Before she could answer, the head of the patient she was treating burst open like a soda can in the freezer. Blood and brain matter oozed out, and I swear I could see some kind of gas leaking from the opening. I heard the nurse yell to the doctors that it was confirmed they were dealing with sudden onset intracranial pressure, brought on by a bioweapon that the enemy was using. I asked what the treatment was, and he just handed me a scalpel, telling me that I had to relieve the pressure manually since an EMP had fried all the drills. He ran off to help others before I could remind him that I was barely beyond a Boy Scout. I whispered to another nurse that I had no idea what I was looking for, or what I was doing, so she said that everyone in this canopy was in the same mall during the attack. They all had it, and would die if we didn’t help them. Then she showed me how she was doing it, carving the letter X in her patient’s forehead. So I gathered all of my courage, and got to work. And wouldn’t you know it, I was great at it? I should have started studying this years ago.

The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 6, 2183

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True to her word, Paige was waiting for Leona on the surface of Earth when she returned to the timeline on September 6, 2183. With her were Brooke and Ecrin. Camden had jumped himself back to 1982, hoping to find some way of reconnecting with his old team that he left back in 2002. Ecrin had apparently gone back with him, and had returned to this time the long way around. She was now 371 years old. A distraught Saga reportedly opened the door to a hall closet, and never came back out, so she was either off on one of her Freelance missions, or looking for a way to skip right to when her daughter retires. Hokusai and Loa had kept in contact with the others. They were swamped with their new jobs as sort of independent social workers, still in charge of all the Durune passengers. They thought this work would only last a few months, but it was proving to be more difficult than they believed, and they felt like it would never end. While almost all of the passengers had climbed aboard The Warren wanting to live on Earth, they had varying expectations of what that looked like. Brooke was working on a cargo ship, operating primarily on the Mars-Belt run, which was a pretty simple life. She took some vacation time so she could return to Earth and see Leona again.

Hokusai never did figure out how to reopen the dimensions permanently, so they reactivated her original invention. The castaways were all prepared for this endeavor, and were packed and ready to leave at the right moment. Loa and Vitalie combined their powers again to let Paige and Brooke back into the pocket seven prison blocks, so they could retrieve the inmates. They then contacted professional designated security guard, Kolby Morse, so he could send them to Beaver Haven, which was the only place suited to hold them. Justice for Annora was finally officially served, and the case was satisfactorily closed. The dimensional destroyer freed the ship from its extra dimensions, then left to report to Team Hokuloa. Now, with no current missions, it was time for a little rest and relaxation, and what better place to do that but the beautiful country of Panama?

After a long hammock nap, Leona joined the rest of her current band of friends on the beach. Ecrin used only a fraction of the massive wealth she had accumulated over the decades to secure them a luxurious resort. They didn’t have the whole place to themselves, but since this was the off-season, it was close. Leona stood next to them smiling, glad for this respite, growing paranoid that it was but an illusion. She had already lost Serif, and still hadn't taken the time to mourn her, or figure out whether there was any way of saving her. She could use this time to think that over, and maybe find someone to help. That wasn’t going to be easy on its own, but interference for some mission would complicate matters even further. When would the powers that be step in, and ruin this nice break? Right now. Still smiling, Leona keeled over, and threw up all over the sand.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she assured the others when they jumped up to help her. “I was just thinking about Serif.”

“I’ll go get some water,” Ecrin offered, running off to the bar.

As strange as it seemed, lying on her stomach, with her head hanging over the top of the lounge chair was the most comfortable position at the moment. Ecrin also found her a really long straw so she could sip on her water, and not have to move.

“We can try to contact Vearden,” Paige suggested after a few moments. “If pocket four is now its own independent universe, then The Crossover is the only thing capable of reaching Serif.”

“Sounds great,” Leona said through mild moans of discomfort. “How do we contact him?”

“Maybe through that door that just appeared in the middle of the beach?” Ecrin guessed. She had presumably never encountered the Crossover before, but a freestanding door was very out of place.

Leona struggled to flip over to her back and get a look. “Oh, look; a deus ex machina.”

A woman—no, a man—no, a woman walked out of the door. He or she kept changing faces, like they were an amalgamation of dozens—possibly hundreds—of different people, cycling one by one. It walked right up to the four of them, noticing their reactions. “Oh, sorry. Give me a second.” It closed its eyes and concentrated, slowing down the transitions until finally settling on the single form of a woman. She took a breath. “I apologize for that, I forget how disconcerting I make people. I hope this is a form you are more comfortable with.”

“It didn’t make us uncomfortable,” Brooke said. “We were just surprised you showed up unprompted. Are you the current owner of the Crossover?”

“I am,” she said proudly. “My name’s Monster.”

“Is...?”

“...that my real name?” Monster interrupted. “Actually, it is. You can call me Erin, if you want, though.”

The three of them looked at Ecrin. “No, Monster will be fine.”

“Monster, how did you know we were wanting to speak with someone from your machine?”

“I’m psychic,” she said simply. “You ever heard of the cocktail party effect? It’s when you can hear your own name from across the room, even when the person who said it wasn’t trying to talk to you, and you didn’t hear anything else they said. Your name is just that important to you. My ancestors could form psychic bonds with people, but I’m bonded to everyone, so the universe is my cocktail party. Now that I operate the Crossover, all the universes are.”

“If you’re psychic,” Ecrin began, “you know what we’re after; where we wanna go?”

Monster frowned. “Yes, and I debated whether I should come or not, but I figured it was my duty to speak with you, so you can move on, to other options, or with your lives. I’m afraid I can’t take you where you want to go.”

“Why not?” Paige questioned.

“The Crossover can’t get to the universe in question. It’s a no-fly zone.”

“You can’t make an exception, just this once?” Leona pleaded. “I only need a minute to get someone back.”

“It’s not possible.” Monster shook her head. “That world was locked out of the system almost as soon as the machine was created.”

“Because it’s a dangerous place?”

Monster waited to answer. “Because it was built there. Other branes aren’t like yours and mine. They can’t just alter time on a whim. Without the temporal stabilization factors that keep your universe together, these other universes could collapse. The Crossover won’t go back, because that could screw up its own creation.”

“Well, there was someone else. They can also travel between branes. I think they use their dreams?”

Monster nodded knowingly. “Yes, and it’s possible they’ll be able to help. But more than likely, they’ll only be able to send your friend a message, or bring one back. They can travel the bulkverse; you can’t.”

“Shit,” Leona said.

“I wish I could be of more help,” Monster went on. “I just wanted you to understand that even we have limits.”

Leona closed her eyes in defeat, used to this by now. “We understand. You better get back to...doing whatever it is you’re doing.”

Monster gave Leona a sad panda look. “You can kill me, if it’ll make you feel better. I hear it’s cathartic.”

“What?” Paige exclaimed.

“Don’t worry, I can’t die. See?” She took a glass dagger from her breast pocket, and prepared to plunge it into her neck.

“No!” Brooke stopped her. “We don’t need to see it, we believe you.”

Monster shrugged. “Then accept this as a gift.” She handed Leona the dagger ceremoniously. “This is made of ardusite. I have died more than three thousand times, which means that one of those times was due to being struck by lightning.” She pointed to the dagger balancing on both of Leona’s hands. “That was created from the ashes left behind. You stab someone with that, you can erase their entire history.”

Leona looked at the dagger, impressed but confused. “Lightning doesn’t turn you into ash. No strike has ever been that powerful.”

Monster smiled. “It does if you’re a phoenix.” She stepped back and snapped her jaw shut. Foam started spilling out of her mouth, then she burst into flames, and was reduced to a pile of ash. The door had disappeared sometime in the hubbub.

“And I thought our universe was weird,” Brooke noted.

“How many universes are there?” Ecrin asked them.

“All of them,” Leona answered.

Before Ecrin could question exactly what this meant, a helicopter appeared out of nowhere and landed on the field next to the resort. A horde of soldiers spilled out of it, and began sweeping the resort. One of them went straight for the four of them, who were the only ones on the beach at the moment. She fired some kind of nonprojectile weapon at Paige, who immediately collapsed to the ground. She did the same to Brooke before placing Leona and Ecrin in zip cuffs.

“What the hell is goin’ on?” Leona demanded to know.

“We have declared this a staging area for the Arianation,” the soldier answered in an authoritative tone. “You are now prisoners of war.”

“Oh, crap,” Ecrin lamented.

“What in the world is Arianation?” Leona asked, pulling away from her captor.

“That’s exactly what it is,” the soldier replied. “The Arianation is the world. The day of reckoning is here, and the arcities will have to answer for what they’ve done to this planet.”

“And Nazis are gonna make ‘em answer?”

In retaliation for this remark, the soldier punched Leona right in her stomach. “We are not Nazis! It’s a linguistic coincidence. It’s Celtic.” She placed a third zip cuff around the two of theirs, so they were bound together, and started leading them back up to the resort.

Once they were to the top of the hill, they could see the nearest arcology towering in the distance. It was being attacked by fleet of aircraft. They really were at war. But with whom?

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Missy’s Mission: Metas, Worlds, and Pieces (Part X)

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Both Dar’cy and the supercharger looked around in a panic. “Are you sure?” Dar’cy asked. “We didn’t do a headcount, maybe it just looks like there are fewer people here because we have more space.”

“Cassius!” a woman began to cry out, along with several other people, looking for their respective loved ones.

“Pretty sure,” Missy said.

“Oh my God,” Dar’cy said, dropping her head.

“What have we done?” the supercharger asked rhetorically.

“We have to go back,” Dar’cy declared.

Suddenly a teenager teleported in between the main players, and the crowd. He was wearing a funny hat, and darting his head back and forth. “Who are you people? What are you doi—” He stopped when his eyes met with that of supercharger’s. “Umm...it’s not safe here,” he stammered. “For, uh, humans.”

“Where is it safe?” Missy asked him.

He scoffed. “Eden Island.”

“Great. Take us there.”

“It’s on the other side of the planet,” he clarified.

“You can teleport.”

He flicked the bill of his cap. “This is what lets me teleport. I can’t take everyone with me.”

Supercharger took hat guy’s hand in hers, reminding Missy that she needed to be better at learning people’s names. “Together, we can.” The energy pulsated between the two of them, causing a new temporal bubble to form around the crowd. Before the people who were missing family members could protest, they had made the jump to a beach.

Curtis stepped forward, doing his best as a leader. “Okay, everyone who’s missing someone, come with me. Everyone who’s fine with staying here...go collect firewood, or something.”

Dar’cy felt responsible, so she went with them, but that all had nothing to do with Missy, so she stuck around. The hormonal teens were still holding onto each other’s hands, even though it was no longer necessary.

Missy cleared her throat. “Did The Weaver make that for you?” she asked the boy, referring to a chooser on Earth with the power to imbue objects with metatemporal properties.

“Oh this?” The boy pulled off the hat, and tossed it over to her. He couldn’t take his eyes off the girl. “It’s made from a teleporter’s hair, as a gift to the primary gods, so they could always escape danger. I stole it, because I need it more than Esen does.”

“This is human hair?” Missy was generally pretty open-minded, but there was a line, and body parts were on the other side of it. She let it fall to the ground.

The boy ignored her. “I’m Avidan. My mom called me Avi. My mama called me Dan.”

The girl was as enthralled with him as he with her. “Savitri. Just...Savitri.” She giggled.

They still had not let go. “I feel something when we touch,” Avidan said.

“Me too,” she agreed.

“I bet,” Missy sassed.

“No, it’s not that. I mean, it’s definitely still that. You are...” he stopped talking, but his face was saying wow. “I can diagnose people’s time powers, but when I touch you, I don’t just see you. I see what we can do together. What we will do. There’s a future for us.”

“I can’t see that, Savitri admitted, to his sadness. “But I...I can see it. In the figurative sense. What does our future look like?”

Avidan broke his gaze for the first time in a million years. “Why are these people here?”

“We all want to get rid of our time powers, and our journeys have led us here,” Missy answered. “Well, I guess not all of us. My friend just came with me to help.”

“I’m not here for that either,” Savitri explained. “I accidentally tore open a microscopic tear in spacetime, and ended up here.”

“Wait, you didn’t walk through the haze on Durus?” Missy questioned.

She was still watching Avidan. “What’s a Durus?”

It had been a long time since Missy had encountered anyone who didn’t know what Durus was. “What year do you think it is?”

“Uh, we estimated it was, like, 2004? There was no sun on Blightworld.”

“I think you were on Durus,” Missy postulated. “I think you were there before it had a name.”

“Oh,” she said, unperturbed. “Okay.”

They were silent for a beat before Missy broke it again, “Avidan, what do you see in the future?”

“I can’t literally see the future. I can feel love. Between the two us. And I can...” he trailed off.

“Go on,” Savitri encouraged.

“I can feel the product of that love,” he went on.

“You mean, like, a child?” Savitri asked. She was intrigued when she should have been creeped out.

Avidan took Missy’s arm in his free hand. “And I feel the end of your quest.”

“A supercharger and a diagnostician,” Missy started to work out in her head. Both of you are metachoosers.”

“What’s a metachooser?”

“It’s someone whose power has something to do with other people’s powers. If the rest of us didn’t exist, your powers wouldn’t either.” She started mostly talking to herself. “For the most part, time powers aren’t hereditary. They’re not even always genetic. But it has been known to happen. Daria Matic was a Savior, and her brother The Kingmaker. They both jump in and save people’s lives; they just do it at different times, and in different ways.”

“What does this have to do with us?” Avidan asked.

“What if this is it? What if we’re all here because your child can take away people’s powers? Everything has been leading us to this.”

“We just met,” Savitri pointed out.

“And I’m not ready for that,” Avidan said, embarrassed, though he needn’t be.

“We all ended up right here, right now. That doesn’t mean we get what we’re looking for immediately. Savitri, you came here with us, so we were always going to have to wait for time to catch up with us. There is no pressure to speed up this relationship, if there even will be one. I have zero intention of telling anyone what we’re thinking, not even my partner.”

Speaking of Missy’s partner, Dar’cy suddenly screamed, “no!” from the meeting. It was accompanied by an uproar from everyone else.

As Missy and the lovebirds were rushing up to see what was the matter, they could see Lucius stepping away from the angry mob. “Back up! Stay back! he demanded. “I can do the same to you—all of you, all at once—and I don’t even need Savitri’s help!”

Missy slid onto her knees in front of Dar’cy, who was hovering over a pile of what looked like ash. “Oh my God, who was that?”

Dar’cy shook her head, and sniffled. “It was no one. It was the wrench.” She looked up at Lucius, clingy tears trembling on her eye sockets. “He destroyed it.”

Missy stood up and confronted Lucius straight on, unmoved by his stature. “Why would you do that?”

“No one’s going back to the future. I won’t allow it,” he replied.

“Don’t you understand that you just created a new timeline? Everyone standing here potentially has a duplicate of themselves, running around the timeline.”

“Exactly,” Lucius agreed. “They’re alive.”

“What? You did that on purpose?”

“If the wrench no longer exists in the future, Dar’cy and Savitri can’t thread it back to this moment. If they don’t do that, everyone there survives. They are not the duplicates...we are.”

“And what happens to this new timeline’s versions of us? They’ll still come to this world, but they’ll have no escape.”

“I gave them a fighting chance,” Lucius argued, “if that ends up happening, which I’m not sure it does. I suspect we all heard of this magical place that can take away time powers because we ended up going back in time, and started spreading the news. Now that won’t happen.”

“You can be sure of nothing,” Missy reminded him.

“Can anyone ever?” With that, he turned and disappeared past the treeline.

Dar’cy reached down and tried to gather the pieces of the wrench, which had gotten all mixed up with the sand.

“What are you doing, love?”

She wiped the snot from her face. “Maybe someone can put it back together. Maybe someone has the opposite power that Lucius does. Or did, rather, since I’m gonna kill him for this.”

Missy knelt back down. “Darce. This is not your fault.”

“It’s mine,” Dubravka confessed.

“How’s that?”

“I broke through the bubble to put Adamina back into the timestream,” Dubra said. “The half that didn’t come through were standing on that side of the room.”

Missy stood back up yet again. “We don’t know that you had anything to do with anything.” She stepped back, and raised her voice to address the crowd. “Take note of that, everybody! We don’t know anything! Time is a mysterious bitch, and I think we’ve all figured that out, or we wouldn’t be here, trying to get our powers removed. No one is to blame for this, not even Lucius! We don’t know if your loved ones are even still in the future. Maybe they went further into the future, or to a different moment in the past, or another planet, or even another universe! Hell, they could have landed five months ago, and we just haven’t found them yet!”

“Uh, that’s not possible,” Avidan piped up. “I showed up because I sensed your arrival. I would have sensed them too.”

“Shut up, Danny,” Missy spat. “Does everyone understand, or are you trying to figure out how to build torches and pitchforks from scratch?”

No one answered, but they didn’t act ready to riot.

Missy took a breath for the first time since they got here. “Now, the end of our quests might still be here, because again, we don’t know the nature of the thing! I suggest we start helping the others make camp!” She looked over to Savitri and Avidan while she said one final thing, “remember...patience is a virtue!”

Everyone spread out, evidently taking her advice to heart. There was no shortage of food to eat here on what may very well have been the inspiration for the fictional representation of Eden in Abrahamistic proof texts. A few people came up to her and thanked her for her words. It was comforting to realize that, though they all had amazing temporal powers, they were still just as clueless as everyone else. There were just some things that were impossible to understand, and life went a lot easier if you assumed the best. Optimists lived longer. But there was one man who was not working. Instead he just stared at Missy eerily from a distance.

She slowly approached the man, who remained steadfast. “Can I help you?”

“The wrench will be fine,” he said, almost as if he was trying to reassure her.

“You can see the future?” she asked, not surprised to be meeting a seer. It might have been the most common time power.

“I see everything. For now...”

“What do you mean, everything?”

“I see all of time and space. Everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen, across the entire universe.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“I’m one of a kind,” he explained.

“And you’re trying to get rid of your powers because all that information hurts?”

He looked over her shoulder, right at the happy new couple.

“Do you know what happens to them?” she asked.

“Yes, very sad.”

“What’s your name?”

He shook her hand. “Lincoln Isaac Rutherford.”

She laughed. “I know Lincoln Rutherford. Though I don’t think anyone told me his power. And I know you’re not him. I mean, ya...kinda look like him. But I would recognize him.”

The man who claimed to be Lincoln pulled at an invisible mask on his face. It wouldn’t come off entirely, but stretched away from his skin, like a smudge of ink from a marker not given enough time to dry. The mask shuddered, like a dying lightbulb. A second face peeked out from underneath the top layer in this unbelievably disquieting sight. She still couldn’t recognize Lincoln, but the face she was seeing was definitely not the real one.

“What in the actual ass is that?” she asked. “And why do I keep saying that?”

“It’s a motif, don’t worry about it,” he said as he was returning his face to normal. I’m kind of, uhh...famous in this universe.”

“Famous how?”

He tilted his head back and forth. “Famous in the way that a red guy with horns and a pitchfork is famous in our universe.”

“They think you’re the devil?”

“A little bit?”

“Why would they think that?”

“I might have gotten drunk one time, and predicted a bunch of bad things that did happen. Anyway, The Superintendent sent me to a guy who could give me an illusory face, but I cannot get it off. So I’m stuck looking like this until I get my powers stripped, and they let me go back home.”

“They?”

“They! Them!” he yelled, but was acting like it was but a joke. “Anyway, I was just trying to tell you that I know how this ends. The wrench is not dead. You were right about those two kids, and the part about us needing to be patient.”

“If you end up losing your powers, how can you see anything beyond you losing your powers?” she prodded.

“Because I have my powers now. I don’t see the future. They’re memories, and those memories won’t go away until they’re deleted, and when they are, I don’t know what I’m gonna be left with.”

“It sounds like you don’t wanna do this.”

He sighed. “I don’t. I was forced here.”

“By who?”

“An actual god.” He paused for a moment. “I better go help. You’re a good leader, Melissa Atterberry,” he said as he was walking away backwards. “Maybe you should explore that.”

< > Entire Story

Microstory 860: Pyramid Scheme

< > Table of Contents

I have never seen anything so evil and twisted done in the name of science. Decades ago, and in some cases more recently, there was little regulation regarding what kind of experiments could be done, and which could not. True scientists have always known that you cannot kill someone in order to understand death, or something related to it. You could also never harm anyone, though exactly what qualifies as harm is always changing. For years, there was a huge patch of land in the desert that was a no fly zone. Outsiders were not allowed within its borders, and by some special handshake with the government, risked being shot if they trespassed. A bunch of politics happened that I had nothing to do with. We elected a new president, and there were some changes to our federal investigative system organization, which meant what was assumed to be a desert cult was no longer protected. Fearing something terrible, the military was sent in to raid the desert, not at all certain what they would find in the center of it. It turned out to be a pyramid. It wasn’t particularly large, but it was built with modern materials, and perfectly maintained. They forced their way into the facility, and discovered a relatively small group of researchers who acquiesced peacefully. All they asked was that their experiment not be disturbed, for it was extremely sensitive, and the introduction of new stimuli could result in severe psychological trauma. The soldiers went into the center rooms anyway, and found several teenagers living there. As per the warning, the kids were profoundly afraid of these new strangers. Upon being carried to the outside, they began screaming, crying, and thrashing about. At first, as implausible as it seemed, the soldiers thought they were dealing with vampires, they were do violent. But the researchers explained that they had been conducting a social experiment for the better part of two decades. The subjects were taken from supposedly unfit parents, who were rewarded substantially. I never heard how much money they were given for their children, or even whether it was true at all. All I know is that it is my job to help these kids acclimate to the world.

They spent their entire lives inside the walls of the facility. They were told literally nothing of the universe beyond. They weren’t even told that there was a universe beyond. As far as they knew, the total breadth of reality topped out at around three thousand cubic meters. You can’t even imagine how bewildered they were when they were suddenly exposed to the dirt, to succulents, to the sun and the sky. They had no concept of these things, or frame of reference. They were taught the English language, but the researchers were exceptionally careful with what words they uttered. They said nothing that would even suggest the possibility there was more to the world than just this pyramid, and just this handful of people. It’s unclear what the researchers were attempting to accomplish with this. Perhaps they were intending to release them at some point, and observe their reactions. Or maybe they just wanted to see how humans behaved in a controlled microcosm. I have been told that there was little schooling in the pyramid. There was no use in teaching them agriculture, or animal names, or even that much math. As far as they could tell, everything would always be spontaneously provided for them, so they never thought to ask for anything else. Not a single one of them was so much as moderately suspicious that everything their elders had told them was just a lie. I don’t know how I’m going to explain everything to them, but I have been given the freedom to choose my own method of treatments, and move at whatever pace is needed. There is no time limit. Still, I see that the longer I take to prepare for them to survive without their elders, the harder it’s going to be to make any progress at all. I hope I don’t damage their vulnerable minds even more.