Microstory 1040: Jerry

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I’ve only lived in Blast City for a couple of years, so if you’re looking for a different perspective than you’re getting from these townies, you’ve come to the right place. I don’t know what reason your family had for moving, but mine had to do it because of me. I grew up in a really red state, but my mother had a really good job, and they thought they would be able to survive. My first high school was the absolute worst, though. In the summer after eighth grade, I asked if I could become a cheerleader, which they had no problem with whatsoever. They were actually getting a little worried that I wasn’t interested in anything. It was a bit too late to sign up for cheer camp, but they made tons of calls, and found me a place that was far away, but really open to beginners. Most of the other kids had been really active their whole lives, even if they were switching from gymnastics, or acrobatics, or whatnot. They were so incredibly supportive and patient with me while I was catching up. So you can see why, even though I knew my hometown was more conservative, it was a huge shock when I was met with such backlash when I tried out for my school’s cheer squad. It’s the 21st century, you would think there would be protections for diversity just about everywhere in this country, but no. They just shut the door on my request, and wouldn’t even entertain the possibility. In the end there was no fighting it. They seemed more angry when I mentioned I wasn’t gay, because then I wasn’t afflicted with the homosickness—their word, not mine—I was just confused and weird. Well, we learned about this place, which we found surprising progressive for a small town. My mom was offered a really good job at the club, though still not as good as what she had, and I will never be able to pay her back for that. You may be wondering why I’m even telling this story, and what it was to do with Viola. The truth is, everything. The issue with my old school was tragic and traumatizing for me and my family, but it didn’t make national news, or anything. Perhaps it should have, but I guess we just didn’t make a big enough stink. Viola herself actually called me out of the blue, and acted like she worked for your paper, Alma. She said she had heard what happened to me, and wanted to tell my story. We got sidetracked, and she brought up an open position at the club, and let me know how much safer and loving Blast City Senior High was. It was she who suggested we move all the way out here, though she did a great job making me think I had thought of it myself. It wasn’t until my second week in that I realized the whole thing was made up. She didn’t work for the school paper, and the article never existed. Even then, I never found out how she found out about me, let alone got her hands on my phone number. I’ll tell you what, though, I’ll always be grateful she did. I’m captain of the cheer squad now.

Microstory 1039: Charlotte

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Hello, my name is Charlotte, presently known as An Artist, presently known as Charlotte. I do all kinds of art; painting of all styles, sculpting, performance. I work a lot with blue. Pretty much the only thing I don’t know is music, so I guess I don’t ever have to worry about going for an EGOT. I tried my hand at the flute, and then the guitar, and then the saxophone, but it’s just not for me. Anyway, I’m that girl who always has paint in her hair, and cares more about a book’s cover than the content inside. Don’t feel bad for me, though. I know that it’s almost impossible to make money as an artist. The game is rigged, and if you do manage to succeed, you’ll have sold your soul to do it. I never planned on making money on my work. I’m working hard in school, and while I’m still not certain what kind of career I ultimately want to have, I’ve never had any delusions about the art. I just enjoy the feeling of joy from creating something, and that of accomplishment once I arbitrarily declare that a piece is done. Viola suggested that I get the best of both worlds. I could potentially make a little extra cash, while going around all the people in the industry who’ve traded true beauty for money. She helped me build a website, where I can passively sell my work. It doesn’t cost me a thing, so if I never find any customers, no harm done. It doesn’t take much time to keep posting photos of my creation, so I can still focus on the more practical aspects of my life. I would have been happy just signing up for a service that has everything set up for me, but Viola thought it was important I carve out my own space on the internet. That girl can write code, which I bet most people don’t know about her. She did it right in front of me, literally writing up the little sideways carrots, and dollar signs. It all goes over my head, but man, was she fast. I know transcriptionists who can’t type regular words as quick she can type something she called PHP. That’s not just an analogy, I know a shocking number of transcriptionist personally. It’s this family connection that you don’t care about. I’m sure my classmates are telling you how she had such a huge impact on their lives, but what they might not be saying is how easy all of it was for her. When she was done coding, she just stood up, said goodbye, and walked away to help someone else. For me, it was one of the most important days of my life, but for her, it was Tuesday.

Microstory 1038: Ernest

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You are probably going to hear a lot of crazy stories about the things Viola did for people, if you have not already. Well, I guess you will hear more of them, even if you already have. I do not know about all those other rumors, but I can fill you in on my personal experience with her. You may notice that I am quite...serious, if you will. I have excellent posture, and I cannot speak in contractions. I do not enjoy comedy movies, or amusement park rides. I do not ever smile, and I am never relaxed. All this, I believe, was a mistake. You may not know this, but not every part of our town is something out of a 1950s family situation comedy. We have poor people, and we have criminals. I grew up in an exceptionally unstable environment. My bloodline is messy and confusing, so I will not bore you with the details, but when my real parents were unable to care for me, relatives were required to pick up the slack. Unfortunately, no one I am related to is particularly refined either, so I simply did not have a chance. I started smoking cigarettes when I was nine years old, drinking alcohol when I was eleven, and smoking marijuana when I was thirteen. I was even addicted to opioids for a good long while. I was failing all of my classes freshman year, and was going nowhere with my life. Even if we could have afforded college tuition, there was no way I would be accepted anywhere better than a revolving door institution. Even then, I possessed no motivation to succeed, nor natural talents I could have used in the workforce. One day, Viola approached me with a frown. She said that she was not certain she could help. A disease of the body is easy. It is easy to spot, and given the right tools, easy to correct. But my problem was a disease of the mind. I was not raised to believe in myself, or that the world had anything to offer me, other than drugs, of course. Still, she tried, and though I am not convinced I am now better off, I will forever appreciate the effort. She worked harder for me than anyone else before. You see, she was trying to make me whole; to clean the slate, as it were. She was trying to make me normal. Sadly, she went too far. In giving me ambition, she removed nearly all feeling. I am not uncaring for others, and I would certainly do anything I could in an emergency, but I can no longer relate to people. Their issues are more trivial to me than ever, and this is a character defect that I have been unable to change. Perhaps, in time, I could learn to be more like I was before, but not too much. For now, however, I am stuck as this distant..numb..robot. I achieve perfect grades, and have been accepted into some astonishingly impressive educational establishments, but I am unable to make friends. I would like to think that, if Viola had survived whatever it was that happened to her, she would have eventually figured out how to balance me out. No, that is a purposeless thought, for it cannot be. Thusly, becoming a better person is all up to me, just as it is for everyone else. Is that all you need? I truly must return to my studies. Just because I am going to college no matter what, doesn’t mean I can stop trying. Did you hear that? I’ve used a contraction. Twice!

Microstory 1037: Raymond

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Mind if I do my workout while we’re talking? I had to meet my tutor before school this morning, so I’m going to have to double up on my routine this afternoon. My father says that we’re all born with our own gifts. Some people are smart, and some are strong. He says siblings often don’t end up having the same traits, so Wynn got the smart genes, and I got the muscles. That’s not to say I didn’t have to work for these things. I adhere to a very strict diet, and exercise regimen. I’m not one of those people who thinks you should eat all protein, and no carbs, or that lifting weights is the only thing you gotta do. Life is all about balance: balance in food, in activity, and in everything else. Unfortunately, there are still some things that I struggle with since my brother stole all my smarts when he was born. I’m a year older than him, but we’re in the same grade, because I had to take ninth grade a second time. I don’t have a learning disability, like Roy. He has trouble comprehending and retaining knowledge, but I’m just not good at all the other stuff you have to do to learn. You have to pay attention to the teacher, and student presentations. You have to study, and complete your homework, and pace yourself during a test. My tutor hasn’t been teaching me the content so much as he’s been helping me become better organized, and more motivated. Ya see, maybe I could use my physical strength to make money. Maybe I could model in fitness magazines, or play some sport, or become a fitness trainer, but the first two things are unrealistic dreams, and I’m not at all interested in being a trainer. What my father said about natural gifts really got into my head when I was young, and I’ve never truly gotten past it. But I know that I have to graduate from high school if I want a chance at landing a good job. As things are heading, it’s not clear if I should waste my time going to college, but a liberal arts degree from an in-state school probably wouldn’t hurt. It would at least give me four more years to figure my life out, which might be really helpful. I don’t dislike my new tutor, but he’s not as good as Viola was. She made me a better student just by being around. Seriously, she could sit next to me while I did my homework—without saying a word—and I would get hundo-p on it. She had some magical power to make me feel comfortable, confident, and focused. I realized I was gay a long time ago, but I felt a love for Viola that I’ve never experienced before. It strained my relationship with my boyfriend so much that we had to break up. I don’t mind, though, because I needed Viola’s help with my grades more than I needed a make-out partner. Without her, I might have had to repeat my senior year as well, and that would have been even more embarrassing. I’m going to miss her in the worst way.

Microstory 1036: Wynn

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I know it looks really crazy in here, but I’m kind of old school, because I don’t really trust computers. People call me paranoid, and a conspiracy theorist, or just a nut. I can’t honestly say with one hundred percent certainty that they’re not right, because maybe everything I’ve ever been suspicious about is completely explainable. I started questioning my world when I was really young, and really impressionable. Instead of starting to notice some discrepancies with the lies we were being told, I just accepted all the lies that other investigators we’re telling me. So no, I didn’t believe the government when they said nothing happened in Roswell in the 1940s, but that doesn’t mean I should have trusted the truthers who were saying something definitely did something. There’s a difference between healthy skepticism, and insane distrustfulness. As you can see from the office I’ve built for myself down here, I’m very good at walking the line between them. And when I say that I built it, I mean that quite literally. The basement was unfinished when my parents bought this place years ago. Just about everything else wasn’t finished either. They came here to try their hand at flipping. You can get a house for cheap out in the countryside, so this was a good opportunity for them to learn the trade. They worked so hard getting it fixed up—my brother and I helped as much as we could—and ended up falling in love with the place, and just sticking around. They found jobs in town, and we’ve been Blast Citians ever since. They left this basement alone, though. They wanted it to belong to their children, so when we were old enough, we were each given half, and charged with creating whatever we wanted. Raymond turned his half into a gym and game room, while I turned mine into this lair. Needless to say, I get a lot more out of spending time in his half than he does in mine.

Anyway, I’m not going to show you everything I’ve collected over the years, but I encourage you to come here whenever you want. I actually installed a door to the outside, so you don’t have to go through the house to get in. Here’s an extra key, you can come whenever you want. If I try to explain what I think I’ve found beforehand, it’s just going to freak you out, and make you second guess every one of my claims anyway. I think it’s best if you go into this part of your investigation with the most open mind. Please do come back, though. I know it seems a little creepy, me offering you the basement, but I assure you I have no interest in anything beyond the truth. You should do it, even if only to find inspiration to write a story on the town crazy who thinks angels are real. I think you’ll find a lot of this stuff pretty interesting. It may not seem like it, but I’m a quite organized person, so all the Viola Woods stuff is in one place. If you’ve already interviewed three dozen people by now, then I’m sure you’ve heard some stories about her that just don’t add up. She helped a lot of people, and did so with such...precision. Some of the methods she used were also a little hard to believe, I bet. Take a look at the travel records. Her family didn’t leave this town once after she was born, yet there’s strong evidence that she’s been all over the world. How did she do that? No, I’m saying too much, and I don’t want to corrupt your own journey. I may have been wrong about Roswell, and about chemtrails, and about a secret organization that controls every world superpower, but I’m not wrong about this. I don’t know exactly what Viola was, but I know she wasn’t one of us. Or rather, she isn’t. Raymond should be home by now, so you can talk to him now. He’s not as smart as I am, but he’s a lot more relatable.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 11, 2218

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While the three of them were brunching at a restaurant named in honor of Horace Reaver, a group of Dardieti workers were disassembling and packing the Muster Beacon on the roof of the Intake Building. After Ramses left to start his new life on this planet, Mateo and Leona met up with the movers at the cemetery. It was clear upon seeing it that there was no way to get that whole thing into an open grave, even in pieces. They realized they would have to get back to Bungula some other way. So they called Transportation Administrator Moss to discuss their options.

“Can we use the Nexus instead?” Leona asked.

“I can send you anywhere you want on Earth,” Moss began to explain. “The Great Pyramid of Giza acts as a tethering point to focus interstellar, or intergalactic, travel. I don’t have to ask you whether something like that exists on Bungula, because if it did, I would know it. The Nexus control system shows every possible destination.”

“How many destinations are there?” Mateo asked her.

“Four, including this place.”

Her assistant whispered something in her ear.

“Did we confirm that?” she asked him out loud.

He whispered again.

“Correction, five destinations,” she said to the group. “Dardius, Earth, Durus, a secret location I’m not going to tell you about, and a new one that we don’t understand.”

“It’s new?” Leona questioned, fascinated by the technology.

“Yeah, it popped up in our systems last week, all on its own. The last time we had a new one was Durus, which we were expecting, because we were in communication with them. We’re not sure where this other one came from.”

“Well, where is it?”

The assistant handed Moss a tablet, who opened the necessary program. “It doesn’t appear to be too far from Earth, but I’m not overly familiar with your star systems.” She turned the tablet over to Leona, who took a few minutes to study the data.

“Holy shit.”

“What is it?” Mateo asked her.

Leona presented the screen to all of them, but they needed more information. “This is Gatewood. Someone built a new Nexus exactly where we need it.”

“Who would do that?”

Leona consulted the tablet again. “Simply designated FVG, courtesy of KM and IC.” She started pondering that.

“Why does everyone have to speak in acronyms?” Mateo questioned. It was the one of the most frustrating things he remembered experiencing before he became a time traveler. He called it the Abbreviation Epidemic. He broke out of his funk when he noticed Leona was frowning. “What is it?”

“These aren’t complete.”

Moss kind of rolled her eyes, and took the tablet back. “We are aware of this. I would have ordered my team to finish the calculations quickly if I knew you would be in need of it.”

“Can someone tell me what’s happening?” Mateo requested.

“These aren’t real Nexa,” Leona said. “In the movies, the machines can connect to each other automatically. They’re like cell phones. Whenever you call your friend, they don’t have to be in the exact same spot every time, right? Well, everything in the universe is in constant motion. A real Nexus could just send you without any trouble, but these are, more or less, replicas. I know for a fact that this is going to lead us to Gatewood, but not today, I imagine.”

Moss shook her head. “No. My team alloted eleven days for the project. They could have done it faster, but we weren’t in much of a hurry, because we had to prepare a recon team anyway.”

“So, we won’t be able to go until next year?” Mateo figured.

“That’s right,” Leona confirmed.

“Well, this hastens the process anyway, so that’s no big loss.”

“It is,” Leona argued. “We can get Gatewood instantly, but we still need the Ocasio-Cortez to get there.”

“Oh, that’s true.”

“We’ll have to separate,” Leona determined. “One of us has to wait for the Nexus to be ready, while the other returns to Bungula now, and gets our ship on its way.”

Mateo put on a blank face. “I can’t do either of those things.”

“I can help with either, or both,” Moss said. “I have Muster Beacon experts, I have engineers, and I have pilots.”

Leona spent some time in her head, weighing all the options. Mateo wouldn’t have been surprised if he learned she was predicting the outcome of 14,000,605 timelines. Finally, she said, “you go to Gatewood. I’ll pilot the AOC, and take the long way ‘round.”

“Are you sure about this?” Mateo asked. He didn’t doubt her, and he certainly didn’t think she couldn’t handle it. He was more concerned with the fact that he wasn’t fit for either task.

“Yeah, I think this is our best option. She stepped closer to the open grave. “As long as Halifax comes through.” She looked to Moss. “I can do this on my own. Please send him with the best Muster Beacon engineers you have next year.”

“Will do,” Moss agreed.

“Wait!” Mateo stopped her just as her heels were teasing the edge of the grave. “I love you.”

“Were I you,” she said, “I would too.” She fell back, and never came out.

Leona woke up at the bottom of the grave with a splitting headache. A cloud of dirt and dust was floating around her. She was having trouble focusing, but she had the wherewithal to check her watch, which told her it was now October 11, 2218. She must have been knocked out from the fall, and then just reappeared in the timeline a year later, which stirred up all this dirt. Mateo usually took the brunt of the fall when they traveled through graves. She had never done it on her own before, and just felt grateful that it had worked at all. The Gravedigger didn’t do this for just anyone.

She started to climb out, hoping someone would reach down and help her, but there was no one around. The dome looked a lot different than it had before, though. The colonists had expanded greatly since, theoretically as more ships arrived, full of passengers ready to settle on a new world. Things didn’t look completely great, however. She could see the Ocasio-Cortez in the middle distance, just where it was before, but having been toppled to its side. Something had gone terribly wrong. She kept her head on a swivel, and carefully made her way towards it, recognizing and appreciating that she didn’t know what she could find once inside.

Leona pulled herself up through the airlock, and walked along the wall, down to the main area of the ship. Whatever it was that did this, it had done it a while ago. Things weren’t as bad as she would have thought, fortunately. The systems were shut down, but it didn’t look like the vessel had suffered too much structural damage. “Hello?” she called out, nervous about what might still be around to respond. “Anyone there?”

A figure appeared from the steps that lead to the engineering deck, holding a flashlight in Leona’s face. “Oh, it’s you.” The figure turned the flashlight around to illuminate her own, decidedly friendly, face.

“Sharice?”

“You’ve finally come back,” Sharice said as she drew nearer, and turned the flashlight into a standing lantern. “Did Brooke not see you? She was meant to check the grave every year.”

“There was no one out there,” Leona answered.

“We’ve been having power issues, for our own bodies. She must be charging.”

“What happened here?”

“An uprising,” Sharice said. “Skirmishes have begun in Ansutah, and the human refugees became desperate. They figured out how to break through the door, and started pouring out.”

“How many got through before you managed to seal it?” Leona looked over to grave chamber four, which was fully closed again, and reinforced heavily.

“A few dozen,” Sharice replied. “They decided it was impractical for everyone to have to climb up to the airlock, so once a few of them got out, they turned the AOC over on its side.” They did a pretty good job, actually. The ship is not irreparable, but it will take some time.”

“Where are they now?”

“The Bungulan colonists rounded them all up, and placed them under house arrest. Robots built an entire facility to accommodate them. I don’t know what’s going to happen to them, but if we ever make it off the ground, they won’t be allowed to head for Gatewood with us.”

Leona nodded. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

“Please tell me you have better news. Did you get the Muster Beacon? Where’s your husband?”

Leona looked at her watch again, but only demonstratively, because she already knew what day it was. “With any luck, he should be arriving at Gatewood with the beacon. We discovered a way to travel there instantaneously. I came back to get the refugees, but the beacon should be set up and waiting for them in nine years.”

“Better make that ten,” Sharice said. “We can’t leave until next year.”

Leona nodded in understanding. “Yeah, okay. I just want to get this thing up there as fast as possible, even if that means you leave during my interim year. The Dardieti need the beacon back ASAP.”

“We’ll need about four months.” Brooke Prieto was climbing across the ladder from the upper deck. “The Bungulans want us to leave, but paradoxically, they’ve been resistant to help us actually do that. They’re not happy with the Ansutahan refugees, and are still suspicious of our lie about how we got here, let alone how all those people supposedly fit in this tiny little ship.”

“That’s fine,” Leona said. “Again, leave as soon as you’re ready. I can always jump back into a grave, take a detour to Dardius, and meet you at Gatewood.”

“Understood.” Brooke nodded respectfully.

Meanwhile, back on Dardius, Mateo was waking to a world at war. He had ultimately traveled back to Tribulation Island with Ramses. Come the next few weeks, Ramses was meant to greet the Freemarketeers and Vespiarians in a location far removed from society. But something had apparently gone terribly wrong. Reminiscent of his jump to 2085, Mateo found himself in the middle of a firefight. And like that war, he had no idea why people were shooting at each other. Ramses ran up to him from a barricade, and pulled him to safety.

“What the hell is going on!” Mateo cried.

“I’ll explain in a second!” Ramses replied. “Fall back!” he shouted to everyone on his side. “Activate your recoil!” He held Mateo close to his chest, and punched a button on his belt.

They teleported back to what appeared to be Sutvindr, as did all of the other soldiers.

Ramses first took roll call, and gave instructions to his charges, to report to some command center. “Are you okay?” he asked Mateo. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine. Who are you fighting?”

“Apparently there’s a reason the Muster Beacon and the Muster Lighter are kept far away from each other. Even when one is supposedly dormant, it will activate the other, and they’ll start feeding off each other’s energy. We still don’t understand it, because we’ve not been able to study it, but this pairing had horrible consequences for us. Instead of simply summoning all the people from the ships before they were about to blow up, they summoned multiple versions of every one of them. Roughly every day, a new batch of Freemarketeers arrives from alternate realities, and are assimilated into their...clone army. We’re not sure what they’re doing with the Vespiarians, but some of the soldiers are masked, so we think they’re being brainwashed into fighting on the wrong side.”

“You can’t turn off the beacon and lighter?” Mateo suggested.

Ramses shook his head. “They have control over Tribulation Island, Lorania, and several other key locations. We can’t get anywhere near the objects. We risked everything just to get you back from behind enemy lines. You’re not going to Gatewood anytime soon.”

Mateo looked around the city streets. Sutvindr was probably the safest spot on the planet right now, but the people moving about still seemed fearful and nervous. “What can I do to help?”

“You can trigger Amendment One,” Ramses said cryptically.

“What is Amendment One?”

“Basically, you have to declare yourself King of Dardius.”

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Furor: Dude Thinks He Invented It (Part V)

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The prison guard held the door open so Ace could call Serkan and Paige, and tell them where he was going to be. Slipstream needed to get her affairs in order with the tracer gang as well, though she wasn’t as honest with them about what she was doing. The reality was that neither of them really knew where it was they were going, though. They could be traveling to the other side of the world, to another world, to the future, or the past. Perhaps the prison existed in another dimension, or maybe somehow all of these possibilities all at once. Susan and Ennis seemed to think it was safe for them to travel there, but Ace didn’t exactly know them that well.

“No cameras,” the guard informed them at the doorway. He took their phones from them, and slipped them into his pocket. Then he started leading them down a passageway. “Who is it you need to speak with?”

“Anyone who can tell us about Rothko Ladhiffe,” Ace answered.

The guard flinched, almost imperceptibly. “He got out on my watch. I can tell you as much as anyone else here can, outside of his friends.”

Ace and Slipstream gave each other a look. “We should talk to his friends.”

“They are not allowed visitors,” the guard explained.

“We’re not here to visit.”

“Good point,” he admitted. He turned a corner that Ace didn’t even know was there. Some walls weren’t really walls. “Susan has instructed me to give you everything you ask for, but she is not my boss.”

“Who is?”

“The Warden, of course.” He ushered them into an office, where a woman was sitting at a desk, and just staring at the wood, like a powered-down robot.

Ace cleared his throat, but the warden lady didn’t react.

“Excuse me?” Slipstream piped up.

The Warden held up one finger, and didn’t drop it for a minute. Then she used it to point at what appeared to be some random point on the desk. “There. See it?” she asked the empty space right next to her chair.

“Yes,” came the voice of some invisible entity, right where the Warden was talking to.

“I want him moved to the other side.”

“I’m on it.” The side door opened and closed on its own.

The Warden finally looked up to the two of them. “What, you’ve never seen an invisible person before?”

“Well, no,” Ace said, “but that’s not it. We’re just not sure what you two were looking at on your desk.”

She smiled and reached under that desk. After a click, a holographic image appeared on the surface; apparent footage of the prison. “This is a live feed. We were looking at something that hasn’t happened yet, so you can’t see it unless you have a trained eye.”

Ace nodded. He didn’t fully understand what she had said, but he long ago learned when someone with more experience in the world of time manipulators said something is a thing that’s real, he was better of just accepting it and moving on.

“What can I do for you?” Who are you?”

“You just let us walk into your office without knowing us?” Ace questioned.

“Don’t you know the future?” Slip added.

“Not the whole future.”

“Well, I’m a salmon...sort of,” Ace began. “That’s what everyone calls me, but the powers that be have never asked me to do anything.”

“That you know of,” the Warden corrected.

“That I know of,” he agreed. “This is Slipstream. She’s, uhh...” Yeah, he still wasn’t clear how different people were going to react to a regular ol’ human.

“Bozhena Horvatinčić?” the Warden asked, with a proper fangirl squee. She stood up, and walked around the desk to shake her idol’s hand. “It is such an honor. What you did for Kansas City...”

“Was a group effort,” Slipstream said with flawless modesty.

“That’s my girl. We should do lunch. Are you hungry?”

“We’re...anxious,” Slipstream replied. “As I’m sure you know, our fair city is in danger.”

The Warden fell into seriousness. “Right, the ninth and last City Frenzy event.”

Ace and Slipstream gave each other another look. Neither of them knew anything about this being the last Frenzy.

“Whoopsie-doodles, I’ve said too much. I would hit the redo button, but I don’t wanna do that to you. You’re here looking for answers about Mister Ladhiffe. I can put you in a room with Keanu ‘Ōpūnui and Jesimula Utkin, but I’m not sure that’s safe.”

“You have ways of suppressing people’s powers, don’t you?”

“That’s not the problem,” the Warden said. “The Springfield Nine aren’t just dangerous because of their abilities. They’re also all insane. Well, Kallias isn’t, but that’s because he was immune to side effects of the...”

“What?”

“Well, I mean he’s not pristinely ungifted, like Brooke Prieto, but he can control how nonlinear time effects him, if at all.”

“Kallias Bran is one of the Springfield Nine?” Ace asked. “He babysat my child.”

“Yes, but like I said, he’s different.”

“Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. I read about those children,” Slipstream said. “I read about all nine. He wasn’t in there.”

The Warden nodded. “You’re probably thinking of Kayetan Glaston. No, he’s tight with them, but he’s just a regular choosing one. He was born that way. The Nine were made.”

“Are you gonna lock him up too?”

“Kayetan?”

“No. Kallias.”

“I don’t lock up anybody. I’m a warden, not a judge. But to make you feel better, I doubt it. Your child was safe with him.”

After a reverent pause, Slipstream continued, “what did we decide about the interview with Rothko’s friends?”

“Please.” She opened her hand, and pointed to their knees. “Have a seat.”

As soon as they sat down, they discovered themselves to be sitting in an entirely different room. Keanu was on the other side of a cold, metal table that was an awkward few meters long. At the far corner was a young woman Ace didn’t know, but guessed to be Jesimula Utkin. They were both chained to their respective corners. The prison guard from before was performing a beautiful impression of a statue in the corner.

“I don’t think she teleported us,” Ace said. “I think we lost time.”

“You’re getting smarter,” Keanu said to him with a grimace.

“It’s been so long,” Jesi said to Slipstream.

“Is that a joke, or has it been longer for you?”

“Just a year, but I do miss the time we spent together. What’s the deal with this table?”

“No touching,” the guard clarified.

Ace took a moment to pretend he was alone with Slipstream. “As a feminist, I grapple with this idea that hitting a woman is worse than hitting a man, but I know if I punch this guy in the face right now, everyone who heard the story would shrug it off. But if I did the same to—”

“I catch your drift,” Slipstream interrupted. She stood up, and punched Jesi in the face for terrorizing Ace’s daughter.

The prison guard immediately opened a cabinet on the wall, and pulled out a med kit. He removed a piece of cloth from a container, and placed it on Jesi’s face. “Sixty seconds,” he said to her before going right back to his corner, and freezing.

Jesi leaned her head back and sighed while she waited to heal.

“What is it with you people and hitting?” Keanu asked.

“What is it with you people and harming others on a grander scale?”

“Hey, I stand by my winter wonderland!” he shouted jovially.

“They let you stand in here?”

It was a silly retort, but offensive enough to the prisoner. “What is it you want?”

“Rothko.”

Keanu scowled. “That bastard promised to take us with him.”

“So, you’ll help us catch him?” Slipstream imagined.

“Hell no! Springfield code!”

“Oh God,” Jesi said as she was finally removing what was obviously a healing mask. “Enough with that bullshit! We owe him nothing.”

“We owe him everything,” Keanu argued. “He got us out of the pocket dimension.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“It’s a fact, Jesi. You can’t just ignore it because—” Keanu stopped short. “Oh, I see what you did there. Pitting us against each other, making us give you information about the pocket dimension. You’re a couple of sneaky snakes. I see you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ace said honestly. “You started fighting all on your own. If you don’t want to tell us what we need to know, then you are free to go.”

“They’re not free to go,” the guard said.

“Oh, my bad,” Ace said. “Looks like you’ve been compelled to help us.”

Jesi pursed her lips and regarded them with exaggerated disdain, like a lady thug. “Yo, watchu wanna know?”

Slipstream took this one, stooping herself to a way of talking that Jesi was already pretending to have. “Yo, like...what does he want? What beef he got with the City Frenzy?”

“That ol’ thang?” Jesi went on. “That dude thinks he invented it.”

“He did,” Keanu argued.

“Puh-lease, ain’t nobody remember him talkin’ about it when we was kids.”

“Well, he did. To. The. Letter.”

Jesi sucked her teeth, and brushed that dirt off her shoulder. “Yeah, right. And I introduced the word fleek.”

“You did,” Keanu reminded her. “That wasn’t meant to be part of English vernacular until 2049.”

“Oh, for reals? Schway.”

Slipstream reached towards Jesi’s face. “No. No. Use whatever accent you want, but no one is uttering that word in my presence.”

“What, schway?”

Slipstream stood up so fast, her chair fell back. Ace picked it up for her while Jesi assured them she wouldn’t use it again.

“Getting serious, guys, Rothko is not all there.” Jesi gestured to Keanu as her voice got quieter. “These kids love him, but he is not okay. He had this thing with this girl, on this other planet. But then there was this other guy, and I don’t know what happened to him, but no one’s ever seen him again. He don’t talk about it, but I think Rothko killed him.”

“Allegedly,” Keanu interjected.

Ace decided it was time to get to the point. “What’s his weakness? How do we stop him.”

Jesi laughed. “How do you stop gravity?”

“Lift?” Slipstream offered.

Jesi thought that was a pretty good answer. “Tell ya what, you get me furlough, I’ll bring him in...dead or alive.”

“You’re not getting furlough,” the guard said abruptly.

Ace looked back at the guard, and then back to the prisoners. “Can you do it.”

“They’re not getting out of here,” the guard said, growing angrier.

“Yes,” Jesi answered.

Steam was coming out of the guard’s ears. “I won’t let two more people get past me.”

“Not two,” Jesi said. “Just me.”

“Traitor!” Keanu cried.

“I need backup,” the guard called into his radio.

“We have to go now,” Jesi urged. “You’re untouchable. They can’t hurt you. Either of you.”

“Okay,” Ace decided.

The guard tried to make a move, but Slipstream was too fast. She took him down without breaking a sweat. But then his jackbooted backup arrived. She pushed back on the door to keep them out, but they were too strong. Keanu jumped up and helped her. “You have a plan to get us out of here?” he questioned.

A pigeon suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and landed gracefully on the table. It started cooing, and looking around for food. The backup was now banging on the door harder, and it looked like someone was coming with a breaching bar to knock it down.

“Now would be nice,” Slipstream said.

“Read the note!” Keanu ordered.

Ace carefully removed the little note wrapped around the bird’s leg. “Take a picture,” he read. “I don’t have my phone with me.”

“They’re in his pocket,” Slipstream reminded him. She and Keanu were starting to lose the match against the guards.

Ace dove down and grabbed his phone. He flicked up the camera app, and snapped a photo of the floor. An older version of Paige wearing glasses suddenly appeared. She took Ace in one arm, and Jesi in the other.

“Wait. Slip!” Ace yelled.

“Everyone who wants a ride has to be touching me,” Glasses!Paige said.

The door was too far away from Jesi. “Go!” Keanu said to her. “I’ll hold them off, just go!”

“I won’t forget this,” Ace said to him.

As soon as Slipstream’s fingers were at Paige’s shoulders, the latter spirited the four of them away.

« < » > Entire Story

Microstory 1035: Ezra

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My family has been in this town since it was first founded. Blast City, and all of Mineral County, is best known for its mining roots, but we have a long history of more—dare I say—honorable pursuits. We are also in a land of farmers and ranchers. Gold sure is pretty, but its only value comes from whatever arbitrary number of monies the people who have it are able to convince their customers to give up. Diamonds are the same. Coal actually serves a purpose, but it’s not exactly the resource of the future. And salt? Well, I guess salt is fairly important too, so I won’t say anything negative about Salzville. We Kinder are famous for our fruit, which we harvest from acres and acres of orchards, producing everything from apples, to oranges, to peaches. Yes, I did pronounce my own name right. Most people assume it should be kine-der, but no; it’s German. Anyway, it’s been a couple generations since it’s been necessary for any of us to actually work the orchards, but I’ve always really enjoyed it. I can spend ours out there, picking and sorting, while listening to music on my headphones. A picker of ours hypothesized I would feel a whole lot different about it if I worked ten hours a day, made minimum wage, and had no choice. He certainly had a point there, but I also don’t get paid for it, so life is kind of a give and take, isn’t it? But you didn’t come here for my worldview, did you? You want to hear about how I know Viola. I don’t have any stories from recent years, but something did happen when we were in elementary school. Well, I guess we weren’t in school at the time, because this happened in the summer, but you get what I mean. Here goes.

A big news story broke that a little girl a few years younger than us got lost somewhere in Silver Shade. For reference, since you’re not from around here, that’s over an hour away, due East. It’s basically a ghost town now, because its founders hoped they would find silver near where our predecessors found gold, but there was nothing. Their descendants have been struggling and dwindling ever since. Blast Citians didn’t pay much attention to this story, because the girl was said to be on foot, but Viola somehow knew this to be inaccurate. She called me through my older sister’s cell phone (I don’t know why she had her number) and told me to go straight to Plupple Lane. Again, I don’t know how she knew anything about it, because Plupple Lane isn’t a street; it’s the boundary between our plum trees and apple trees, and a term we only use internally. It’s also the near the farthest reaches of our property, because we don’t grow many plums. I asked Viola why I would do that, but it sounded really urgent, and she said she was out of town, so she couldn’t go herself. I figured, hey, when a pretty girl who’s never talked to you before asks you to do something, you better just do it. I was, like, eleven, by the way. I got on my bike, and rode all the way out there, where I found the missing girl, crying by the irrigation regulator. She was covered in mud, and wearing raggedy clothes. I was too young to be told this at the time, but I learned years later that her stepbrother had sexually assaulted her. Until now, I haven’t told anyone how I really found her, out of respect for Viola’s privacy. It was easy to lie about it, because everyone knew that I liked spending time alone with the trees. But I think it’s time people know that Viola was the one who truly saved this little girl’s life, and didn’t take any credit for it. I asked her how she knew after she came back from vacation, but she completely denied it, claiming she didn’t make a single phone call while she was in Greece. My sister didn’t tell anyone about the call either, and she and I have never discussed it. I heard the girl moved to the other side of the country, but she might like to know the truth too. I’m gonna go look her up on social media.