Microstory 893: Letters to the Shredder

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Are you lonely? Separated from your loved ones? Frustrated with your life, but you don’t know how to release your emotions in a healthy manner, with no consequences? Well, introducing Letters to the Shredder. Many studies have shown that the act of writing your feelings down on paper can be cathartic on its own. You don’t even have to send it, and sometimes...you shouldn’t. Tell that special someone how much it disgusts you when they chew with their mouths open, or how ugly you think their favorite outfit is. Or what about that jerk of a boss who makes you clock out, but stay late and help him with a “personal favor”? But don’t send it to them, because that could ruin your relationships. Instead, send it to us, and we’ll destroy it for you. Sure, you could try to throw it away yourself, but who wants that risk in their lives? You’ve seen the sitcoms. Someone inevitably finds something they were never meant to see, and hilarity ensues. But reading someone else’s mail is a federal offense. So go ahead and write down how you really feel, and we’ll take care of it for you. All of our highly trained shredding professionals are legally blind, and couldn’t read your letters, even if they wanted to. We promise to not even open the envelope. Each letter is collected by a team of specialists, and goes straight from the mail tub to our locked barrels, where they are quickly dumped by a second team in our state of the art shredding equipment. Seriously, we destroy literally all our mail. We’ve still not decided how to handle mail we’re not meant to shred, like our own electric bills, and general correspondence. I’m pretty sure my daughter’s high school diploma is a pile of confetti right now. Most shredding companies turn your sensitive documents into strips of paper that can be easily reassembled by anyone with an IQ over 210. We turn ours into a fine dust that would be impossible to decipher, so you can be rest assured your angry rants will never see the light of day once you send it to us. So what are you waiting for? Say what you would like to say to someone else, but know you can’t. We’ll make sure your private thoughts both have an escape, but also can’t come back to haunt you.

Microstory 892: And Twins

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All through high school, I was in love with two girls at the same time. I now think that I was probably more interested in one over the other, but they were literally never apart from each other, so it was sometimes hard to see them as individuals. For this reason, people started calling them Romy and Michele; nicknames which they never disputed. Eventually, even the teachers started calling them that, and everyone just sort of forgot what their real names were. After I graduated, I didn’t see either of them again. I think they both went to college on the other side of the country, while I pursued a medical career closer to home. While it wasn’t even on my radar when I was in pre-med, I ended up working for one of those companies that analyzes people’s DNA, and gives them reports on their family history, and health profiles. Just out of sheer coincidence, both of their names came across my desk one day. I didn’t recognize their names at first, because like I said, we all called them something different, but then I remembered them. I took note of how random it was that I would be the one to run their saliva samples, then I moved on and completed the tests. One service we provide is giving customers the ability to meet other people that they are related to, however distantly. Usually this is a second cousin, or something, but there have been human interest stories written about estranged immediate family members finding each other through us. This was one such of these cases. I discovered that Romy and Michele were not only related, but sororal twins. I also noticed some strange genetic markers that I didn’t understand, and which didn’t make any sense. I brought over colleagues to look over the data, and they came to the same conclusion; that they didn’t know what the hell this all meant.

Completely outside of company protocol, I contacted the two subjects personally, so we could discuss their situation. Needless to say, they were positively thrilled to learn that they were sisters, but confused about how it was possible. Their parents had never said anything about it. One’s died when she was very young, the other’s mother died a couple years ago, while her father cut ties with her shortly thereafter. The twins decided to hire a private investigator to get to the bottom of this, and they kept me in the loop, but as a friend, rather than their DNA Analyzer, which I presently was not anyway, because I was on unpaid suspension for my breach of confidential information. I’m still waiting to find out if I’ve been let go completely, or what. As it turns out, they were part of some bizarre social experiment. They were clones, yes, and separated at birth, just like that television show, but the mad scientist in charge wasn’t pursuing biomedical knowledge. No, he was looking at the social aspect of twins and siblings. He wanted to find a way to quantify the delicate balance between nature and nurture. Apparently he had done this with hundreds of unwitting mothers. He monitored each one of his subjects, using a vast network of spies to keep track of their movements and behavior. Romy and Michele were the only two who accidentally found each other later. The investigator got her hands on the scientist’s list of subjects, and discovered something that I found even more interesting. I was on it, as was a brother.

Microstory 891: Trinity

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You never really know how you’re going to react to a shocking situation until you’re actually faced with it. I’ve always thought of myself as a scaredy cat. I often wake up sharply from bed, already in fight or flight mode, having but a vague memory of hearing some random and innocuous sound outside. I’m afraid of spiders, heights, tight spaces, crowded rooms, flashing lights, and loud noises. Yet when I turned around and found a stranger in my house, having suddenly arrived through no apparent means, I was completely calm. She was smiling at me with her lips closed, as if I were an old friend she hadn’t seen in ten years, but we just ran into each other again at a different location of the same grocery store franchise where we first met as poor college students. I immediately felt comfortable with her too, like I knew she wasn’t there to hurt me. I simply asked if I could help her, but she said that she was there to help me. She told me that we weren’t meant to meet for another two hundred years. I asked her how it was possible we were still alive that far in the future, but she just said everyone is practically immortal by then. That didn’t surprise me at all, since I’m a science fiction writer, and I’ve been studying futurology as part of my research. She claimed that Future!Me had sent her back to change the course of history. Apparently he felt that things had not progressed fast enough, especially not on a personal level. That I did not believe. I write about time travel all the time, which means I’ve gone over dozens of thought experiments. And the conclusion from all of them is that time travel is too dangerous to even try. Anyone who discovers how it works has a moral responsibility to destroy all of their research, and keep it to themselves. Anyway, she told me that a lot had changed in the last two thousand years, and Future!Me felt it was necessary. She was obviously hiding something about it, but I chose not to press it at the time. One thing that was clear to me was that at no point did we engage in any sort of romantic relationship. Our friendship was purely platonic, but she refused to divulge any information about the future of my love life, which was probably the right call.

Evidently her main concern now was that I never got a chance to write as many of the stories as I should have, and the ones I did end up writing weren’t as good as they should have been. That’s all really important to me right now, but I can’t imagine a centuries old version of me maintains the same priorities. Her arrival actually put some things in perspective, and I was considering quitting being a writer altogether. She wouldn’t let me do it, though. Instead, she used cloning technology to create three new bodies for me. One was supposed to go out and travel the world, gaining new experiences, and meeting new people, while the other could stay home and write. I had complete control over both bodies at the same time, which took some getting used to, but eventually became natural. As boring as I may seem, I’m deep down an adventurous person, and the only thing that was keeping me from traveling this much before was my lack of money. She solved that problem by using my third clone as a worker bee. He had my basic personality traits, and many of my memories, but lacked the natural drive I have to be lazy and just not give a crap about what happens to the company. He also never gets tired, so he works two part time jobs in addition to my original full time position. Things were perfect, because now I only ever had to do what I wanted, and I had a lot more money lying around. We had to destroy my old body, because it was fragile and absurd now that the ones I was using were so technologically and biologically advanced, but I didn’t regret it. Not until yesterday. I started noticing that I was seeing her less and less as time went on. She was spending most of her time in a secret lab she only took me to blindfolded a couple times. One day, I decided to follow her, and snuck into the lab. I found it to hold a vast farm of clones, just like I was, but which looked like her. Thousands of them were sleeping—or rather inactive—in pods. She didn’t seem perturbed that I had found what she casually revealed was her personal army. When I questioned why she had to involve me at all, when she could have done this all on her own, she gave me that same gentle smile. “Your daughter was the one who stopped me from trying this before. Now that you’re sterile, I don’t have to worry about her. This planet will finally be mine.”

The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 12, 2189

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Paranoid about being caught with the plans for the teleporter gun from Harrison’s hand, the gang decided they would sit on it for at least a couple days. They didn’t even want to print it out in the synthesizer, for fear of it being discovered. They all agreed that it was best to move the files to an external drive, hide it in the recess of one of the bedroom pocket doors, and pretend that nothing had changed. If Ulinthra and Harrison started to suspect what they had done, they needed the evidence of their offense to be as modest as possible.

When they all woke up the next year, their unit was empty of enemy combatants, so they had theoretically gotten away with it, but they couldn’t know for sure. “Brooke, how are we doin’ on bugs?” Leona asked over breakfast.

“We’re secure. I don’t think Ulinthra wants it to be that easy.”

“Or she’s playing the long game,” Ecrin suggested. “Maybe she knows all about the coin, and the gun.”

“Maybe,” Vitalie said. “Maybe not.”

They ate a little more in silence.

Once Leona was finished, she wiped her mouth with her napkin, and set it to the side. “You guys ready for the call?”

“What are you gonna ask her about?” Ecrin stopped Vitalie from interrupting her. “I know it doesn’t matter on a quantum level, but it does on a psychological one. You have to have a good reason to contact her. Otherwise she’s going to start getting suspicious you keep randomly calling her to talk about...I dunno, the Raiders.”

“I’m open to ideas,” Leona said.

“We could use a vacation.” Brooke offered. “Ask her for some time off. I’ve always wanted to check out the West mountains, or even Costa Rica.”

“Any objections?” Leona looked around the table, like the chairman of the board. “Vacation it is.” She called Ulinthra, and tried her hand at a pleasant receptionist’s voice. “Hi, this is Leona Matic. My colleagues and I were wondering if we could, maybe, have a quick break.—Well, we were thinking a Boquete waterfall, or Costa Rica, if you’ll allow it?—Then how about you let us out of the arcology? It’s pretty stifled in here. Since we’re not allowed to enter the virtual worlds, we feel pretty trapped. These units are great for living in the 22nd century, but only when you ha—Right.—That’s true, but—Uhuh.—Yeah, we get it, but aren’t you busy with taking over the world anyway?—I understand.—I understand.—I understand.—Okay, I appreciate your support. Thanks, byeeee.” She hung up. “Flip that penny!” she ordered, trying to keep it light.

Vitalie flipped the penny into the air, but before it could land, a powerful force propelled it towards the side wall, along with everyone else. When Leona recovered from the explosion, she saw a woman crouched on the floor, trying to recover as well.

“Holy hell!” Brooke shouted.

“Are you okay?” Vitalie offered the woman her hand.

The woman accepted it. “I’m okay. I don’t understand why it always has to come with an explosion, though. Just once, I’d like to jump through time and space, and land on my feet.”

“Hogarth?” Ecrin asked.

“Do you know me?” the woman asked back.

“We go way back.” Ecrin started working it out in her head. “This is where you went, when you touched the compass. They told me about that.”

“What’s going on?”

“Leona?” Hogarth squinted. “Is that you?”

“Do you know me?” Leona echoed.

“Yeah, in 2025. You were with a, uhh. Sorry, I’m disoriented. You were with a little girl. I’m a genius, but I can’t remember her name.”

“Was it Brooke?” Brooke guessed.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Hogarth confirmed.

“That already happened,” Brooke reminded Leona. “Why don’t we remember her?”

“Eh, time, right?” Hogarth repeated the company slogan.

“Nah, she’s right,” Leona said. “If you saw Baby Brooke, it’s already happened to us. I remember going back to 2025, but I don’t remember you.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Ecrin said cryptically. “There’s a reason you don’t remember me from that time either. You’re the one who came up with the rules of etiquette for time travel, so I implore you to call upon them now, and not discuss the past.”

Leona could do that. “I can do that.”

“As can I,” Hogarth agreed. “But what year is it?”

“2189,” Brooke answered.

Vitalie was looking at something on the floor. “The year of the tail.”

“Huh?”

“It landed on tails,” Vitalie clarified. “We do nothing today.”

“That works, because we’ll need to figure out how this newcomer fits into all of this.” Leona directed her attention back to Hogarth. “Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?”

“Yes,” Hogarth answered simply.

“Have you ever heard of Ulinthra, or Arianrhod?”

“Arya Toad? I’ve never heard of her. I haven’t heard of the first one either. Is that a band?”

Leona laughed. “No. Ecrin, you vouch for her?”

“Oh, definitely. She’s good people.”

“Then we have to protect her,” Leona declared. “In fact, we have to get her to Kansas City. She’s the only one who can do it, if Ulinthra doesn’t know about her.”

“It’s not hard to escape Panama because Ulinthra knows who we are,” Brooke pointed out. “It’s hard because she’s halted all interarc travel for everyone.”

“We could use the teleporter gun,” Vitalie brought up.

“We’re still not sure if that will work,” Leona argued. “There could be components to that thing that don’t exist in our dimension. Maybe the synthesizer didn’t even pick up on everything.”

“Besides,” Ecrin added, “we agreed to leave that alone for a few days.”

“Right,” Vitalie said.

“A few days for us is a few years to her,” Vitalie reminded them. “What, is she just gonna hide out here all that time, hoping Ulinthra’s people don’t come in to make sure Brooke’s pod is still functioning?”

“If we’re brave enough to use the teleporter gun on her,” Brooke began, “why don’t we just use it on you three as well?”

“Because that would leave you alone,” Leona noted.

“So?”

“So we’re not leaving you behind. The teleporter gun is so we can banish her somewhere, not so we can escape.”

“I can take care of myself,” Brooke said. “You’re not my surrogate mother anymore.”

“Everyone can die, and Ulinthra likely will kill you. It doesn’t matter whether I’m your surrogate mother, your real mother, or just a friend, I’m. Not. Leaving. You. And like I said, the teleporter gun is dangerous, and we don’t understand it. If something goes wrong, I sure as hell would rather test it on her than anyone in this room.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Hogarth jumped in. “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I was a genius. If you need me to take a look at this teleportational technology, I could probably get it working in perfect condition. But why is a year for me shorter for you than it is for me?”

They explained to her what Leona’s pattern was, and how the other three were now, if only essentially, trapped in the same boat.

“That’s not how it was in 2025,” Hogarth said.

“I was given a break so I could take care of Baby Brooke.”

“I’ve always hated that term,” Brooke mumbled.

“You love it.”

“So wadya say?” Hogarth asked. “Why don’t you show me that gun?”

“We just the plans for the gun,” Leona said, “that we can reupload to a synthesizer created by humans who don’t know anything about time travel.”

“That’s why you got me.” Hogarth smiled. “I’m not a chooser, or a salmon. I’m where I am today because I built a transdimensional portal from scratch, based on a brief glimpse of a natural spacetime rift. And I transported an entire town of thirteen hundred people to another planet before they were erased by time.”

Leona walked over to the door, pulled the drive out, and handed it to Hogarth. “Okay. If you do this, you’ll have to go somewhere else. Vitalie is right. We can be fairly certain they’re not listening in on us, but if they come in while we’re gone, and they find you, none of what you do matters. You’ll be locked up, put on my pattern, or killed.”

“I understand,” Hogarth said, taking the drive. “So where should I go?”

“She can live in the 329th floor,” Ecrin said.

“There are only 328.”

Ecrin shook her head. “Not exactly. Each arc was built with one secret floor, in one of the hanging towers, that the original designer could stay in without being disturbed whenever he wanted. I mean, all the towers have something underneath the bottom floor, otherwise you would be able to measure which one was longer than all the others, but they others are used for storage and maintenance. Only one of them has a finished and habitable section that’s about a hundred and seventy square meters.”

“And do you know which one that is?”

“I met him when he was young, and he told me how to read the code he was planning to hide in every arc. But I’ll need to see one of the official wall maps.”

“Wait, he hadn’t even designed them yet? They were just an idea?”

“He’d sketched them out, but no, he was just some high school kid I met when I was undercover for the IAC. I’m from the future, so I knew who he was. I’m confident the room exists. Guy liked to be the smartest man in the room, and thought he was inventing the future for everyone.”

“All right, I guess it can’t hurt to walk down the hall and check one of the maps. Just make it look like you’re looking for a good froyo place, or something.”

“While she’s doing that, Hogarth, would you like to print some new clothes. I can teach you how to use it.”

As Leona was showing Hogarth the machine, Ecrin opened the door to the hallway. Harrison’s voice came from it. “There was a report of an explosion,” he said.

“Really? That’s weird,” Ecrin replied coolly.

Leona silently gestured for Hogarth to stay completely silent.

“I need to come in and take a look,” Harrison urged.

“I don’t think you need to do that.”

Leona mouthed the f-word, and then the word hide. Vitalie stuffed her into the cabinet.

“I really must insist,” Harrison continued as Hogarth was hiding.

Even though Hogarth couldn’t be seen, Harrison’s sensors were too, well...sensitive. Leona needed a good distraction. For much of her life as a scientist, Leona often found herself boring to sleep by reading technical specifications, and searching for interesting hacks. It would seem this model of synthesizer was designed with a catastrophic flaw. The programmers sent out a patch over the air years ago that prevented it from being a further problem, but it was still possible to exploit the error, if one knew what they were doing. Leona had removed the general safeguards two days ago, in order to have the option to build unauthorized objects, like firearms. She hadn’t used it for that yet, but the safety protocols were still down, so the dangerous feedback loop could be triggered manually. She used all of her strength to bend the nozzle bundle in random directions, and hastily programmed the machine to print outside its parameters. Then she waited for it to heat up, hoping that Ecrin could stall him long enough.

Brooke was watching from a neutral zone, and seemed to be picking up what was happening. Leona could hear Harrison push past Ecrin, but the machine wasn’t ready yet. Brooke thought fast. “We wanted to blow you up. We were gonna lure you to the kitchen, then overload the food synthesizer. We tested it, and it worked, which is what our neighbors heard. But if you come in here now, you will die, because we have figured out how to control it. We still have one more printer left.” Apparently warning him what Leona was planning to do was part of Brooke’s crazy scheme.

“Shut it down,” Leona could hear the android say.

“He has Ecrin,” Brooke said in defeat. “Turn it off.”

Leona disengaged the power, and stepped out from around the corner. “We’re gonna stop you one day.

“Let her go,” Brooke ordered, stepping back further back into the livingroom.

Harrison released Ecrin with no argument.

“Duck,” Hogarth shouted from behind them.

Leona ducked down, but looked up to see Harrison get shot with something. His body stiffened, like he was being electrocuted. Then parts of him started disappearing randomly, some of which appeared only a few meters away, one of which was embedded in the wall. In a matter of seconds, Harrison was destroyed, and in dozens of pieces, spread out who knows where.

They all looked back at Hogarth, who was holding what looked like a teleporter gun. “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I can fix this.”

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Fervor: Zero Dimension (Part III)

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As foretold, a new woman appears through a portal after we wake up from having all shared the unit in the Ponce. At first, she doesn’t seem to speak anything but German, but then she rewires her brain before our eyes, and introduces herself as Ida Reyer.

“Have you been told why you’re here?” Slipstream asks.

“No particulars,” Ida answers. “I’ve been asked to help you find something.” She pulls a compass out of her pocket, and presents it to them. “This can find virtually anything, across time and space” She tilts her head inquisitively. “This is usually the part where people reach out to see the compass for themselves.”

“We’re all adults,” Slipstream says, making me smile.

Hogarth does seem the most interested in understanding the thing. “How does it find what you want? Do you tap your slippers three times, and wish upon a star?”

“Not in so many words,” Ida answers. “No, but it would take me years to teach you how this thing works, and months for you to learn, if I were to just let you use it at your leisure. There are multiple layers, see?” She lifts the face of the compass, revealing more needles underneath. Then she lifts that face, and another face below that. Then she swings them out, and turns them in all sorts of directions. She even flicks one of them and lets it spin, claiming that it would never stop as long as the universe is ivory beige. “It can take you anywhere, and anywhen, and it can show you anything.”

“So, if we asked you to find a book, you could do so with that compass?” Hilde proposes.

Ida sports a neutral frown, and lays the compass on a table. She places her palm on top of it, and takes a breath. Upon flipping her hand over, the front cover of a book that’s suddenly there follows, leaving the compass now sitting on the title page. “You mean, like this one?”

Leona lifts the book, and reads the title, “Hotspots: A Look into Places of Great Power on Earth, and Beyond. No, not this one.”

“Hm,” Ida says. “You should keep that, just in case.” She claps her hands together. If I wasn’t awake before, I am now. “All right, so if you’re not looking for that book, then which one are you looking for?”

“It’s called the Book of Hogarth,” Hilde tells her.

“Heh, that’s a funny name,” Ida snorts.

“It’s my name,” Hogarth explains awkwardly.

“Right, well...you lost your own book? Why don’t you just...print off another copy?”

“I don’t remember writing it. I mean,” Hogarth has clearly been in the world of salmon and choosers for awhile now, but this is personal, and she’s having a hard time accepting it. “I mean, I evidently didn’t so much as write it as I guess I just made it come into existence.”

Ida keeps her mouth open, like she’s on the precipice of saying something else, but then she just looks amongst everyone in the group, almost as if waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out and give her a high five. “Are you talking about a cypher book?”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“Did you make it when you were a child?”

“Jesi didn’t say anything about that. She said I birthed it.”

Ida threatens to nod her head perpetually. “Those things are rare. Entire timelines go for thousands of years of human struggle without anyone ever making one. The first time, I think, was an actual cave drawing.” She starts pacing the room like a bee giving directions to a flower. “You basically have to cut into the fabric of the continuum, and focus the collective mass of the cosmic background radiation into a single point the size of a planck length, as observed within the zero dimension.”

“Uhh, what?” I ask, looking to the adults for answers, as Hilde looks to Hogarth, who doesn’t get it either.

“I’m an astrophysicist,” Leona says, “and I don’t understand that.”

“I’m just regurgitating something someone told me once,” Ida clarifies. “The point—pun intended—is that if you wrote a cypher book, it potentially holds the answer to literally any and all questions in the universe. We have to find it. Where did you live when you were a kid? Only children write cypher books.”

“Springfield, Kansas,” Hogarth answers, dreading having to explain that whole thing again.

She apparently doesn’t need to. “Okay, well we’re not going to be able to go there, and it possibly explains what happened to that city in the first place.”

Mireille walks into the room. “Umm, Leona? Is Brooke allowed to have—”

“No,” Leona interrupts. “Brooke, what did I say about lying?” she yells out.

“To!” Brooke shouts back from out of view.

“Brooke!”

“Fine! I know where you hide them!”

Leona shakes her head. “I moved them, don’t worry. Sorry,” she apologizes to the group after Mireille leaves.

“All right,” Ida says. “I have an idea. If you wrote a cypher book, then you should be maintaining a permanent quantum entanglement with it. It may have even made you immortal.”

This perked up Hilde. “Really?”

Ida shrugs. “Or it’ll die when you die, or you’ll die if it’s destroyed. Who knows?”

“What’s your idea?” Hogarth asks, not wanting to think too much about her own death.

“Just hold the compass. Maybe it’ll take you there.”

Hogarth holds out her hand reluctantly, fully prepared to whine about how stupid this feels, but she never gets the chance. As soon as her fingers touch the compass, it clamps down on her hand. She tries to get it off, but it holds on tighter. The back of the compass opens up, and flips down to grab her wrist. The opposite side does the same. No matter what Hogarth does—or how much we try to help—the compass is determined to take over her. It continues to open up, and climb up her arm, unfolding as many times as necessary to accommodate her whole body. There is no way this much stuff exists in such a small thing. It must be bigger on the inside, because in a matter of seconds, Hogarth is completely covered in this bizarre steampunk armor cocoon.

“Can you breathe?” Hilde asks in a panic.

“Yep,” Hogarth says, trying to keep herself from panicking too.

“Ida, what the hell is this?” Slipstream demands to know.

Ida is even more freaked out than any of us. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen it do this. I have to call The Weaver.”

“Who the hell is the Weaver?”

“She built the thing,” Ida replies. She turns around to walk away, then stops.

“What? What are you waiting for?”

Ida cautiously turns back around. “I need the compass to contact her.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Does it hurt?” Leona asks, as calm as ever.

“I literally don’t feel anything,” Hogarth replies from inside her cocoon. “Like, I can’t be a hundred percent certain I even still have a body.”

“We have to get her out of there,” Hilde states the obvious.

“How would we go about doing that?” Slipstream asks, looking to Leona.

“Why are you lookin’ at me?”

“Aren’t you a scientist?”

“I’m not a mechanic, and I don’t what this is.” She gestures to the cocoon.

“Well you’re the most qualified here, so maybe you could give it a think? What about a blowtorch? Or...a screwdriver?” She examines the armor, hovering her hands centimeters from it, like she’s performing reiki on her girlfriend, but she’s really just afraid to touch it. “Acid.”

“Those are all bad ideas,” Ida says. “Too dangerous.”

“I know,” Hilde agrees. “I’m just brainstorming, and I can’t think straight, because I’m scared.” She looks back at Hogarth. “Are you still doing okay in there, Piglet?” She waits patiently. “Piglet?” She carefully reaches up, and touches the part of the compass armor that’s roughly where Hogarth’s cheek should be. It caves in, like the sand of a castle. “No,” she murmurs. “No, no, no,” she continues as the structural damage causes a chain reaction, and more of the armor crumbles into millions of pieces. She never screams or cries. She just stands there, stunned and helpless, as the love of her life falls apart, leaving behind only a perfectly intact magical compass, and a book.

“This is it?” Hilde questions. She reaches down and pulls the book from the sand ashes of her loved one. “This is what we wanted? She had to die just to get this goddamn useless thing?” She pulls arm back and hurls the book across the room. Hogarth catches it  with one hand, like a pro baseball player.

Hogarth looks different, though. She’s much older, ragged and dirty, and she’s missing an ear. She sneers at the book in her hand. “This damn thing. Ain’t brought me nothin’ but trouble.”

“What happened to you?” Hilde asks, still in shock.

Future!Hogarth casually hands the book to me as she’s heading for Hilde. “Careful...” she dips her girl, and plants a passionate kiss on her face. “Spoilers.”

“How long has it been for you?” Ida asks out of profesional curiosity.

“Too long,” Future!Hogarth answers as she’s reaching down to pick up the special compass. She points it to the middle of the room, and squeezes, like it’s just a television remote. A beam of light shoots out of it and forms a portal. A group of ladies is standing on the other side of it. One looks like she could be related to little Brooke, and another is Leona. Yet another version of Hogarth is there too. She walks through the portal as Future!Hogarth is walking towards it. “Bye, Felicia,” Future!Hogarth says, feigning hostility.

“Bye, Vicki,” Young!Hogarth replies with equally fake animosity. “See you in the red forest.”

The portal closes, and now there’s only one Hogarth. “Well, this is a bit awkward. I’ve been through quite a bit since the cocoon. Sorry to scare you, but I’m fine.”

“You were missing an ear,” Hilde pointed out.

“That hasn’t happened to me yet. I don’t know why it does, but it doesn’t matter right now. The point is that we have the book, and we can...”

“We can what?” Slipstream prodded.

“We never did find out what the point of this thing is, did we?” I ask. I’m flipping through the pages. I recognize some of the words as English, but not all of them are. There are some other languages, and some are symbols that I’m not familiar with at all. There are lots of graphs, and charts, and figures. Some pages have meaningless scribbles, while others are completely blank. This is a book only insomuch that it contains pages, wrapped in a cover.

“We can deal with it tomorrow,” Slipstream says as our leader. “This day has been a crappy one, and I think we’ve had enough.”

“Agreed.”

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Microstory 890: License to Die

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I have mixed feelings about my job. I believe that it’s the best solution yet that anyone’s come up with to deal with the overpopulation problem—and the most humane—but I hate that it’s necessary in the first place. Ours is a troubled history, full of death and war. Back in the golden age, we were making movies about what it would be like if the world ended. Sometimes it was a virus, sometimes an asteroid, and sometimes something religiously supernatural would take over. In very few of them did the end happen so gradually that it was hard to notice. We elected a bad president in our country. Meanwhile another country was purposefully separating itself from a union. Another country was going through a sex trafficking epidemic, while another a drug epidemic. People kept waiting for these things to get better, but they just never did. They got worse year over year, but scholars today seem to think the year we realized there was no going back was the one in which we found we were almost completely out of coffee. That sounds like a joke, like don’t talk to me until I’ve had my coffee, but it was a profoundly vital commodity, in more ways than one, and its loss marked the end of the beginning of the end. People kept having babies, but also kept being unable to provide for those babies. Procreation is a biological imperative that even we, as humans, have been unable to quell. Sure, an individual here, a couple there, can decide to not have kids, but sociologically speaking, it’s going to continue. Governments around the world started trying to come up with solutions to our problem. One thought to test everyone at the age of eighteen, and kill all the people who didn’t pass. Apparently they only wanted the smartest of their population to survive. Others figured their biggest problem was their criminals, so they just straight up executed anyone who so much as stole a pack of gum. Yet another country went the opposite direction, and just let people legally kill each other every once in a while. All of these remedies did what they set out to do, but at great cost to our morality. It was teaching people to be individualistic, and hateful, and most importantly, it was taking away people’s choice.

Then a woman came forward with what she believed to be a better idea. If childbirth limitations weren’t going to work, then the only alternative was to balance the other side of the equation, by organizing death. That seemed easy enough to grasp, since that was what everyone was doing anyway. But she realized the element these other methods were missing was self-sacrifice. She figured that there were plenty of people out there willing to support the common good without being forced to do so. And the suicide license was born. Now, you can’t simply fill out a few forms, and be handed a license. It’s a long and involved process that includes speaking with a trained counselor about it for weeks, which is what I do. I ask my clients a plethora of questions, test them on their mental stability, and make sure they’re not being coerced into this decision. If they agree to do this, their families will be afforded extra resources. While they are not given enough to alter the dynamics of their lives too dramatically—that would defeat the entire purpose of the program—some forced suicide has been attempted. It’s my job to explain to my clients what suicide truly means, and arm them with the tools they’ll need to make the right decision for them. There is no one size that fits all. My average right now is 56%, which means just over half of the people who come to me with their proposals actually end up following through with it once we’ve had all the necessary discussions. My colleagues boast higher numbers, but I don’t treat it as a competition. These are precious lives we are talking about, and that should be respected. I don’t enjoy what I do, but I believe I am contributing positively to the peace in the world, and I will continue to do it until it is no longer needed.

Microstory 889: Healing Glass

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I have no idea how I ended up at the site of this car wreck, but I know I have to get out of here. It must be raining, because the side of my face is wet, and I’m having trouble staying on balance. I slip and slide away from the cars, and start heading down the street. At first I think there are a whole bunch of obstructions in my way, but then I realize how silly I’m being. There’s nothing in front of me, but my own glasses, which are so scratched up and cracked that I just can’t see very well. I take them off to examine them, but quickly realize that the reason I have glasses in the first place is because I can’t see without them, so this isn’t doing me any good. Best I can tell, there’s also some weird red stuff on the frame. There must have been paint in one of the cars that crashed. I put my glasses on and keep walking, angry that my glasses are damaged when I didn’t even do anything wrong. A guy can’t even have a few drinks after a hard day of work without his glasses getting all jacked up. Thanks, Obama!

I reach for my elbow, and wince in pain. A couple weeks ago, I fell down the stairs of a hotel. It busted me open, which was bad enough, but now I’m dealing with this terrible infection, and I got fired. Apparently a guy can’t even take a couple weeks off of work without telling his boss to make sure he doesn’t use his arm too much. Thanks, Obama! Anyway, that just adds to my case. Before, the hotel would only have to pay my hospital bill, and my medicine, which were quite expensive. But now I can sue for damages, or whatever, since it caused me to lose my job. My elbow isn’t hurting that much right now, though. It’s my other arm that hurts when I try to check on my elbow. Let’s see, when did I last take my pain meds? I lift up my watch, which is cracked too, but I can see enough of it to tell that it’s only been an hour. Surely I can take another couple, though. I’m not operating any heavy machinery, am I right? I keep walking as I take the pills, just waiting for my glasses to heal themselves, but it almost seems like they never will. What a rip off. I mean, the lady at the eyewear store didn’t explicitly say that they can heal themselves, but I’ve heard of things that can do that, so I guess I just figured my glasses was one of those things now. Okay, now the rain is getting into my mouth. Oh wait, no, it’s coming out of my mouth. Does rain ever do that, and why is it red? Is that paint? Oh my God, now I have to sue someone for getting paint in my mouth. When did I last take my pain meds? I lift up my watch, which is cracked too, but I can see enough of it to tell that it’s only been an hour. Surely I can take another couple, though. I’m not operating any heavy machinery, am I right? I keep walking as I take the pills. That’s funny, I should have at least ten left, but now the bottle is empty.

Microstory 888: A Letter Home

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Hey, honey, I miss you, and I can’t wait to see you when we finally get back. I’m having a lot of fun here, but I wish you could have come with us. This trinary system is more interesting than we thought. We went to this one world that you are not going to believe. The scientists gave us this long-winded explanation that I couldn’t follow. She said something about the temperature of the planet, and the composition of the atmosphere. She hypothesized that the ocean didn’t form like this exactly naturally, but somehow transformed from fermentation brought upon by evolutionary fascinating microorganisms that she can only postulate exist. She wanted to stay and study the phenomenon more, but it was a pretty hostile environment, and we weren’t really equipped for a long term survey. Besides, there weren’t any resources, so it wasn’t like we would have gotten much out of it. She was allowed to take a few samples back to the ship, though, so maybe we’ll learn a thing or two about how the universe works. I wanted to take a few samples of my own, because I think it’s cool that that we found an ocean made of alcohol, but the captain ordered us to stay away from it. I imagine she’s worried I’m going to try and drink it, which would be outrageous, but I understand where she’s coming from. So we moved on. The next planet we came to—the one we’re still orbiting right now—showed unusually specific signs of civilization. We found no ruins, nor any ancient artifacts. There weren’t any petrified specimens, or bones. We only know that someone must have been there at some point, whether it was that species’ home planet, or not. We only found a single structure on the entire surface, or underneath at a depth of fifty kilometers, so we guessed it served as some alien outpost at one point. The rest of it appeared to be completely untouched by anything beyond some weird plantlife. There were computers and other instruments in the structure. They allowed us to not only control the weather, but also the composition of the atmosphere. We turned up the oxygen to help us breathe a little easier, but there is still so much to learn. Oh my God. Oh my God, sweetie, that’s it. How did we not think of this before? We need to move these machines over to the alcohol ocean planet. That’s the one with an atmosphere that needs to be adjusted. Okay, I gotta go, but I’ll send you another message tomorrow. Love you, don’t cheat on me!