Microstory 1089: Clarence

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Viola and I spent a lot of time together, but only out of necessity, and it’s not what you think. She’s well known for helping people through terrible times, saving their lives, and all sorts of things, but she needed help too. Harriet was a really good friend, who is destined to be a world-class therapist one day; I’m sure of it. I assisted Viola in a similar capacity, but in a completely different way. As you may have heard, she knew things about the world without having learned them. She knew that a man was hanging by his fingers off a building in Venice. She knew an oil tanker was about to spill in the Atlantic Ocean. No one told her about these things, nor did she reach out and hunt for them. Her brain just absorbed her environment, much in the way normal people do with their eyes, except her environment was the entire planet, and she didn’t need eyes. While she was born with extraordinary abilities, she was also part human. In fact, she was two-thirds human, which means a lot of her biology wasn’t fit for the life she chose to lead. I won’t get into the physical toll it took on her, because dealing with those issues was Lee’s responsibility. I was in charge of Viola’s mind, and I wouldn’t have been her friend had I not been born with my own gifts. You see, normal people go to sleep because their brain needs that time to adjust itself after all the input it received throughout the day. It needs to make sense of its host’s experiences, organizing the important events and knowledge into long-term memory, and dumping the erroneous. You need to remember that two plus two equals four, but you don’t need to know how many branches there were on the tree that overlooks the meadow behind your house. Believe it or not, if your eyes receive the light from those branches, your mind registers that number, and their shapes, and all sorts of information that you cannot use in your daily life. Your brain is capable of ignoring some of this input, and dumping it while you’re awake, but the majority of it happens while you’re sleeping. Now imagine that you’re Viola Woods, who was incapable of not receiving information from all over the world. Do not misunderstand me, she was not completely omniscient. There were plenty of goings on that she had no clue about, nor would she have wanted to know. Her mind sought out terrible pain, and planned for ways to help alleviate it. But once the present becomes the past, and all those people she wasn’t able to help—because she was preoccupied with helping someone else—can no longer be helped anyway, those memories are just sitting there in her brain. They’re useless now. Sleep just was not enough to consolidate all the good data, and purge all the data that has no bearing on her own future. That’s where I came in. We were able to link our minds together, and share memories. With our combined brainpower, we could do what most people do on their own without even thinking about it. Naturally, people assumed that we were either best friends, or in a relationship, because I moved into the Woods home when we were children, but that’s not at all. We slept together every single night, because that’s the only way she survived without going completely insane.

Microstory 1088: Harriet

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I was one of Viola’s best friends, and I knew everything about her. I was her confidante in a way that no one else in the world could be. Yes, she could tell her parents anything about what happened to her, but she could never reveal how she felt about it. She could sense in me my innate talent to listen to others, and help them through difficult times. I didn’t need her to tell me this—I would have figured it out on my own—but it was useful to get a bit of a headstart on my therapy skills. She’s seen as this rock, who always knew what was going to happen, and how to handle it, but her job required a lot more thought and guesswork than you would think. First of all, bad things are happening all over the world, all at the same time. She had to consider a number of extremely complex factors, including who needed her help the most, who was most likely to accept it, who would not waste it, and most importantly, who would be missing out on her services because she was somewhere else. Once she settled on any given mission, she had to figure out how best to solve the problem. She didn’t want it getting out that there was this superhero jumping around the planet, so subtly and brevity were key. All this put a lot of pressure on her decisions, in a way that no one her age could have understood, or anyone, really. It’s easy to forget, since she died as an adult, that she’s been doing this nearly all her life. There’s evidence to support the idea that she influenced people’s lives in her special way from birth, but we know she started actively doing fieldwork from the age of five. Can you imagine how difficult it must have been for a five-year-old to get people to take her seriously. Believe it or not, she made mistakes. She didn’t have anyone to train her, or explain how her gifts worked. She had no direct examples to emulate, or books to consult.

Viola wasn’t a normal human being, but she still felt the depth of human emotion. She still knew what it’s like to lose someone important; perhaps more than any of us. I was there for her, to talk her through it. She suffered from anxiety, and had her fair share of panic attacks, which I helped alleviate. In one instance, she was single-handedly holding up a boulder on a mountain that was threatening to fall on a hiker who was taking  a nap down below. Meanwhile, the other hand was holding onto the nest for three babies of a rare bird species. She used all of her remaining energy to summon me to her, so I could take the babies, so she could destroy the boulder without alerting the hiker. He was a vlogger, and an influencer. She would have been exposed via his live feed if she had tried to sweep him out of harm’s way. She was an amazing person, but she wasn’t God, and she couldn’t do absolutely anything and everything. And she craved human connection on a personal level, just like anyone else. And there were those she didn’t like. Take, for example, these so-called friends I hear you have yet to interview. The people who were at the river when she died were anything but, no matter what they tell the authorities, or how they manipulate reality. She despised them, because they had access to similar gifts that she had, but used them for terrible ends. Whatever they’ve said about how we lost her, they are all equally responsible. In fact, out of everyone in the Blast City Senior High graduating class of 2019, Maud is probably the most innocent. She was framed, in the worst way. I hope you’re careful when you talk to them, because they are going to do everything they can to protect their secrets.

Microstory 1087: Ethel

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Viola and I are not the same thing, but we are similar. I’m not sure how to phrase that sentence, since, to most people, she’s a were and I’m an is. She was born with her own gifts, given to her by one of her parents, but I am the way I am just because. I know you’ve already spoken with Edgar, Carrie, and Earl, but I don’t know how much they told you about that. It was a sickening situation that Viola confided in me about. Edgar suffered from reverse empathy, so that he would always feel the opposite emotion as the people around him. This caused him to develop unhealthy habits, and form urges to hurt people. I always called what I had reverse empathy as well, but it’s a totally different thing. Unlike him, I can’t feel other people’s emotions at all. This does not really mean I don’t have empathy for others, because I can still feel bad for someone who’s going through something terrible, or happy for someone who’s enjoying life. My problem is I have my own emotions to deal with, and until Viola came along, had no way of keeping them in. Before her, whenever I was feeling extreme, I would unwillingly force others to feel the same, no matter what they themselves were dealing with. The stronger my emotion, the worse it was for people around me. Like any child, I used to throw temper tantrums when things didn’t go my way, and instead of being able to handle it appropriately, all I did was make my parents throw their own tantrums. We just kept fueling each other’s anger, and it only subsided for any of us when I tired myself out. The only time my family found any sort of relief from the whirlwind that was me was when I was sleeping.

They eventually caught on that something was wrong with me, and tried to give me drugs to even me out. These drugs made me feel numb, which was completely fine with me, because I did not like the way I made other people feel and act. When I was about seven or eight, though, Viola came to my house to announce to my parents that I would be ceasing all medication immediately. She would instead treat me, so that I could learn to control my effect on others myself, and not need any external help. Of course, they argued that what she proposed didn’t make any sense, but they were also concerned about stopping medication so suddenly. She claimed to be able to diminish any withdrawal symptoms I might experience, and once she showed this to be true, they were convinced that I really could help. She came over everyday for months, inducing various emotions, and training me to overcome my body’s instinct to spread them. When she wanted to switch me to a different emotion, she would first touch my temples, and send me these beautiful images of twinkling lights, which she called neural palate cleansers. She wasn’t just helping me keep my emotions in check, which was what the drugs were doing. She was helping me figure out how to accept whatever it is I’m feeling at any moment, but express it responsibly, and not alter other people’s brain chemistry at the same time. Even after our training sessions were over, and I was capable of controlling my—you could call it an ability, though I certainly wouldn’t—she continued to hang out with me. A lot of people are sad that she’s gone, because it’s sad when anybody dies. But I know Viola, and I can tell you that she’s not really gone. Power like that doesn’t just go away. Her soul lingers on this plane, and I know this for a fact, because I can still feel her.

Microstory 1086: Signa

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Let me tell you a little story about how Viola Woods powered two towns, all on her own, and potentially saved thousands of people from freezing to death. Before you moved here, we had what was probably the worst winter storm in our local history. By the second day, people were trapped in their houses. This wouldn’t have been the worst thing ever, since we knew it was coming, and authorities urged us to stock up on supplies, but then the power went out. For one slow and terrible hour, almost everyone in both Blast City and Coaltown was without heat, and it would not be for another week until everything was back up and running. My mother runs the power plant that serves both towns, so she and a ton of contractors worked tirelessly day and night to fix the problems, but Viola had a temporary fix for us that very few people were aware of. As the storm was brewing, my mother shuffled the entire family to the plant, knowing that it would be the most protected building throughout the ordeal, and that she would more than likely be needed. So, thirty minutes after the lights went out, Viola showed up and pulled my mom into her office alone. Fortunately for us, my brothers and sisters all learned long ago of a vent in the custodial closet off the break room that has decent access to secret office conversations. Viola revealed to her—and by extension, us—that she was capable of patching the system herself while the technicians worked on a permanent solution. Of course, this was highly unorthodox, and mom had no reason to believe anything Viola was claiming was real, but I think you can guess where the story is headed. Desperate for a miracle, mother let Viola physically place her hands the power generator. Despite how I grew up, I don’t know how the power station works, but maybe she was touching the voltage regulator? Whatever it was, it worked, and my mother decided to only allow a skeleton crew work on the repairs in that area, so that not too many people would find out what was going on. She had to come up with a good lie to tell them about how they were supplying temporary power. We were reportedly relying on the goodness of the next power station over to help us out, which meant the head of that facility had to lie as well. The reality is that randomly supplying power to two towns that your plant wasn’t designed for is even harder than it sounds. Otherwise, they probably would have just stepped up and helped. There’s no way to know for sure how many lives would have been lost that day had Viola not been there, but I’m confident it would have been over zero, so it was worth it. Everyone here owes her a lot, and they don’t even know it yet. The day after power was restored completely, my whole family worked in the kitchen, cooking thank-you food. Then we went over to the Woods house, and gave them to her. She and I were friends from that day on. I never asked her how she did what she did, nor did anyone else in my family, and she never told us. I guess she was just waiting for you to run this series.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 21, 2228

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Many years ago, back in the version of reality where Mateo Matic did not exist, Leona was on her way with a crew to a rogue planet called Durus. There they would find the daughter of Saga Einarsson, and her wife Andromeda. Étude would go on the be the Last Savior of Earth, which meant she was incredibly valuable to the powers that be. So they evidently decided one ship was not enough. A second vessel, called The Emma González was secretly sent behind them, presumably to support the primary team. The Failsafe Vessel never did make it to Durus, and the crew of The Elizabeth Warren were never able to make contact with them again. As it turned out, they were diverted by some mysterious force. Against their will, Captain Kestral McBride and Lieutenant Ishida Caldwell found themselves all the way at Gatewood. There they were charged with maintaining three to four major projects, one of which involved the production of all the facilities the Ansutahan refugees would need to escape their universe, and survive in this one. Apparently, this was in the works long before anyone on the ground knew it would ever be necessary.

Unfortunately, in order to protect the people of Dardius, which he was responsible for, Mateo was forced to destroy the Muster Beacon. When combined with the power of its counterpart, the Muster Lighter, it was causing a flood of duplicates, which were threatening to destroy the solar system. If not stopped, the beacon probably would have continued to add more and more to the population, and wouldn’t even stop once there was literally no more room. Its original creator was never known, with The Weaver assuring them that she would have had nothing to do with it in any reality. There was no on or off switch, and it only ever worked according to a psychic connection it made with its operator. They never had a chance to figure out why it was able to keep going unsustained by this connection, which meant the only solution was to destroy it completely. That appeared to have been enough to stop the onslaught of Freemarketeers, leaving everyone wondering whether they made a huge mistake by not starting out by trying to destroy the Muster Lighter first, since it was a hell of a lot less powerful anyway.

So here Mateo was in a different universe with Ramses, Weaver, and Goswin. They were discussing their options with Mateo’s girlfriend, Serif, their new friends Kestral and Ishida, and newcomer Greer Thorpe. Time was not the same here. Their only hope of solving this problem was to use the lighter by itself, but it featured a far smaller capacity. According to preliminary attempts, it was capable of summon a maximum of eight hundred and sixty-one people at one time. In order to save all eleven billion humans presently living in Ansutah, it was probably going to take them over two years. The good news was that two years wasn’t the worst possible solution, but it all came down to a very special girl, with a very important temporal power.

Many years ago, a woman named Melissa Atterberry went off on a quest to rid herself of her special ability. The reasons she wanted to do this were her own, but she ended up discovering what she was looking for, as did dozens of other people. Long story short, however, some of her friends were in need of getting their powers back, but of course, it wouldn’t be so easy. They began a new quest, and found themselves on a place called Eden island, where their powers were waiting for them. No one there at the time remained long enough to tell the story, but historians were able to piece together fragments of information, which ultimately told them that their plan at least worked in part. Right at the spot where they were standing, a tree grew. This tree bore fruit of different colors; each one containing one of the quester’s powers. To protect the Fruit of Power from falling into the wrong hands, a special order of humans was created. No one would be allowed to live on the island, except for this order. As anyone might expect, this could not last forever.

As the war with the Maramon of Ansutah raged on, a small group of young humans began their own quest. They sought the Fruit of Power, hoping to end the war, and free their people. They were met with no resistance upon reaching Eden Island, for this island was also being used by Serif as the location of the bridge that could transport them all the way back to their home universe. The protectors were simply too busy with trying to figure out how to get everyone through the bridge to worry about the tree anymore. Something went wrong during an attempt to recreate the power of the Muster Twins, and most of the young men and women who partook in the fruits were either lost to the multiverse, or killed. Only Greer remained, having eaten the yellow fruit, which imbued her with Missy’s original power. She was now able to create bubbles, inside of which time would pass at a slower or faster rate. Knowing it would take some time before the bridge made it all the way to Gatewood in the first place, Greer used her new ability to form a bubble around the entire planet. She linked the passage of time to Serif’s pattern, so that only days would pass inside, while the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made its way through interstellar space on the outside.

“Why would you do that?” Weaver was asking Serif. “If you thought Mateo and Leona would be on their way with the Muster Beacon, why would you try to make one of your own, especially before you had even arrived on Gatewood?”

“I wasn’t responsible for that,” Serif explained. “I am not the leader of the Ansutahan humans, as you can imagine, since I only live for one day every year. Bureaucrats decided that, if the Muster Beacon could be invented once, then surely it could be invented again. I would have stopped them had a I been there. Surprisingly, though no one would call what they did successful, they did come damn close. They harnessed the power of the bridge itself, and used it like a vacuum cleaner, sucking everyone on the island into it. Sadly, most of those people disappeared into the bulkverse, but they were onto something.”

“What?” Mateo asked. “You think we can combine the technology of the bridge vacuum, and the Muster Lighter? You think we may be able to get it to work?”

Serif nodded. “If Miss Blue here helps us, yes I think we can.”

“People have been calling me Weaver, in order to distinguish me from the Holly Blue who belongs in this reality. And I’m not sure that would be such a good idea. I mean, this is alien technology we’re talking about here. The Maramon developed as a society completely independently from the rest of humanity. Even the humans here came up with their own technology, and all of it would be totally incompatible with anything I learned to build on Earth. We don’t even know where the Muster Lighter comes from; perhaps even a third universe. You may have this idea that, as an engineer, I can invent pretty much anything on the fly, but that’s not how this works. I’m going to need time, if it’s even possible. There’s also this belief that everything is possible, if the right people have the right tools, but some dogs just don’t hunt.”

“Time I can give you,” Greer said. “In a panic, I created an Atterberry bubble so big that it encompassed the entire planet. That’s what’s keeping us from suffering years of war. But the war is still going on; it just hasn’t been very long yet. I think...” she trailed off, hesitant of her own convictions.

“Go on,” Serif urged her.

“I think I can pop this bubble, and make a new one. I think I can place all Maramon in a bubble where time moves slower, and put all the humans back in real time. Except for Serif and Mateo. I can’t end your salmon patterns.”

“Speaking of people who can end salmon patterns, any word on that?” Mateo asked Weaver.

Weaver shook her head. “I’ve not been able to get the Nexus replica to take me anywhere since we saw Newt hopelessly trapped in that awful suicide vest. I may be able to get to Durus or Earth at some point, but I assume Dardius has been completely cut off from everyone. They’re on their own now, unless someone like Dave or Maqsud goes out there.”

“How did you know how to build the Nexus?” Mateo asked Kestral and Ishida. “How did you know to do anything when you got to this star system?”

The two of them gave each other this look. “The instructions come to us in dreams,” Ishida answered.

“Shared dreams,” Kestral added. “They don’t tell us what to do, but they tell us how to do things, and we decide whether we want to.”

“So we didn’t know why we might need the centrifugal cylinders, or the Nexus, or—”

Kestral interrupted, “the point is we don’t know how the Nexus works. It’s not like a real Nexus, which if what you say is correct, is from a real universe that we could potentially go to. It was just made to look like that, but it utilizes temporal energy from our universe to travel the stars.”

“We’re still not clear why you need a Nexus at your destination. You should be able to teleport anywhere in the observable universe, as long as you have its coordinates.”

Mateo turned back to Weaver. “Maybe you could use that too.”

“What?” Weaver asked. “The Nexus? You want me to combine whatever powers the Nexus, with the Muster Lighter you brought back from Dardius, with whatever crazy Maramon tech sustains the universe bridge?”

“Greer can give you time to study all three of them. Plus, you have at least two other brilliant engineers helping you out.” He gestured to Kestral and Ishida.

“We would be most excited to work with you,” Ishida agreed.

Kestral was excited too. “The cylinders aren’t finished being built, but we don’t have to maintain them manually. The robots do pretty much everything.”

Weaver sighed. “I will see what I can do, but Miss Thorpe will indeed have to change how this temporal bubble works. I’ll need to be able to go back and forth between our universes without getting stuck.”

“Give me an hour,” Greer requested. “Maybe longer.”

“Done,” Serif said, like a leader. “As for Misters Abdulrashid and Montagne, there are other considerations for this venture. While Weaver finds a way to get everyone here, we’ll need you two to figure out the kind of society they’re going to build. I understand you both have experience in government?”

“I do,” Ramses said.

“Yes,” Goswin said.

“Good. Many of the human leaders got themselves sucked into the bridge vacuum. I obviously can’t lead them, since I’m going to disappear at the end of today, after Greer changes the bubble.” She looked around at the group. Most people had something important to do, but Mateo certainly didn’t. “All right. Break!”

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Proxima Doma: Safety Officer (Part V)

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And so Vitalie becomes The Caretaker of Proxima Doma for the next year. Every day, she and Étude keep track of everything bad that happens on the whole planet. She develops memorization techniques, reminiscent of when Horace Reaver and Ulinthra would do the same nearly two centuries ago. She then sends her own consciousness to the past, and takes over her younger body, relaying the information to Étude. The latter then apports her anywhere she needs to go, so she can save people’s lives. In order to protect their secret, Tertius alters memories of the event for any witnesses. Even if the nature of Vitalie’s assistance wasn’t inexplicable to those witnesses, they didn’t want her developing a reputation. As far as anyone knows, Proxima Doma simply never experiences any fatal, or near-fatal, accidents. After the first year, though, people have started getting suspicious. They can remember spontaneously avoiding dangerous situations, with no real reason. The fact that nothing truly awful ever happens on a colony planet was always bound to get noticed, and this is something the two of them should have predicted. Their wards, as they would come to call them, have no way of knowing anyone was protecting them from the danger, but they still questioned their lives.

A new decision had to be made, which Vitalie and Étude never even considered could possibly become an issue. Even at its peak, the Savior program on Earth was never capable of saving everyone. It was probably technically feasible, but the powers that be were likely never interested in creating a perfect, hundred percent safe, world. Some people still got hurt. They couldn’t be saved, not because it wasn’t possible, but because life doesn’t come without risk. The powers probably assumed humanity could not accept a world where nothing bad ever happened. That didn’t mean they were right, though. It was time for Vitalie and Étude to decide whether they would find a way to go back to the old ways, or just stay the course.

“One of my biggest regrets,” Étude began, “or should I say, many regrets I had, were that I couldn’t save everyone. Even with the Salmon Runners, and the Kingmaker, and the Doorwalkers, and the IAC, and all the other time travelers who used their abilities to protect people, we could not save everyone. There were just too many people on Earth, and the only reason I’m not still doing it, is because a shadow government of people who don’t know what life is like for mere mortals arbitrarily decided it would stop. Yes, Earth is safer now that it ever has been, but safer doesn’t equal safe. People still die needlessly. But we have an opportunity here, to build a better world. The population is small right now. I don’t think we should just keep doing what we’re doing. I think we should scale our operations, as need arises. When the population on this rock starts numbering in the millions, we’ll probably need some help.”

“Is that fair to them, though?” Vitalie argued. “Are we taking something from them by becoming gods? Do they not deserve to do at least some things on their own? Should they not learn to save themselves? This isn’t Earth. They don’t need thousands of years to develop safety protocols. The protocols are already in place; they just need to be better. I’m starting to think they don’t need me at all. I’m starting to think we should quit.” That came out of nowhere. It wasn’t like Vitalie was feeling tired of this work, or didn’t realize what she was getting into. It just kind of dawned on her that it was possible they were doing more harm than good.

“You want to quit?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You kind of did.”

“The whole secret thing makes this strange. These people don’t know anyone’s looking out for them, so they go through life, thinking the risks they’ve been taking weren’t all that risky. They don’t ever learn from bad experiences, because they’re not having any. A species develops, and evolves, according to valuable life lessons. Early humans didn’t take samples of all the plants around them, and study them to find out which ones were edible, and which were poisonous. People died finding out that information, and it was really sad, but now they know what not to do.”

“You’re talking about the Prime Directive.”

“Well, that’s more about not exposing mine and your powers to the people. I don’t care what they know, and don’t know. We’ve been looking at the idea of helping people as meaning literally going out and doing things for them. But there are other ways to help.”

“You’re right, but you need to be careful about where that line of thinking leads. I met a lot of choosing ones who use their abilities for selfish gain, and they’ve done so following some revelation that this is exactly how the world works. They can all logic their way out of any argument against their behavior, because they’ve decided anyone in their position would do the same. I didn’t have a choice when I was Savior, but you do. If you can quit anytime, but don’t, that shows others that we can actually change the way the world works, even if they’re right about it how it is now.”

“That’s a lot of pressure to put on me, Étude.”

“I know, and I didn’t mean to make you feel like you had no choice. If I guilt you into not quitting, then I’m no better than the powers that be. I just think we have a good thing going here, and I don’t want to stop, especially not since our hardest job is about to begin.”

“You’re talking about the Oblivios,” Vitalie guessed.

“Their lives are going to be more difficult than we’ve ever seen. Who knows how many Saviors there were at one time back when humans on Earth were living like the OPPs are going to live.”

“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that, because their arrival actually supports my position. I’ve been reading up on Earthan history, since that’s where everyone here is from. These pioneers are recreating a time in history where couples—as terrible as it sounds—planned to have extra children. Their families were so much larger, only because they felt the need to hedge their bets, and wanted to be prepared for when some of them died.”

Étude nodded solemnly. “Yes, I know about that.”

“They’re going to have an even harder time accepting a world where nothing bad ever happens. It doesn’t matter how much Tertius alters their memories, they’re not going to understand why no one’s ever fallen off a cliffside, or been trapped in a sinkhole. Plus, they’re going to develop religious superstitions, and I don’t want to be a part of that. Can you imagine them worshipping the invisible fairy sa—”

“Savior?” Étude filled in. “You were going to say savior. That’s okay, I realize my place in history unavoidably came with this mystique I can never live down.”

“I’m sorry.”

This was all news to Étude. She thought they had made the right decision, and that Vitalie was on board with it. Had she been miserable this whole time, and was just too polite to say anything? “Why? Why did he tell me to come here? And why did he tell me to pass the torch to another?” She lived her life by the guidance of a man who could see the future. He had never been wrong before, but now she was wondering who was benefiting the most from his advice. The concept of right was a subjective one. “I mean, this was your idea.”

“I know, and I’m not saying I give up. I’m just having doubts.”

Étude needed to find a way to convince Vitalie to get back on track, and let go of these doubts. “Have you ever heard of a safety officer?”

“Like a cop?”

“No. A safety officer is a member of the construction crew who makes sure everyone is working safe. And when something inevitably goes wrong, they’re there to tend to their injuries, and get them more advanced help.”

“Are you saying I’m a fancy safety officer, and I should just treat this as any normal job? I have a special set of skills that no one else does, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it? I have a responsibility to help others as no one else can?”

Okay, Étude wasn’t expecting her friend to jump to the right to her conclusion. She was laying out this whole speech in her head, but would apparently not need most of it. “Companies hire safety officers all the time. Nobody on the crew freaks out, and claims they can take care of themselves.”

“Limited medical training is a far cry from time travel and teleportation,” Vitalie said. “I don’t treat people after they get hurt. I stop them from getting hurt. All I’m saying is maybe they should get hurt. If humans didn’t feel pain, they would constantly hurt themselves, and they would never learn to prevent it, because they wouldn’t be able to see the consequences. Even if only subconsciously, we’re letting these Domanians think they can do  no wrong.”

“I feel like we’re just arguing in circles.”

“Me too.”

“Look. The first of the Oblivios aren’t going to arrive for another few months. For diversification’s sake, colony ships are designed to accommodate a hundred and forty-seven passengers, but there are a lot more Oblivios than that. The first to land are going to live with their memories intact until everyone is here. Just wait until then to decide whether you want to quit or not. Give it one more chance.”

Vitalie wanted to think it through more, but she understood that Étude’s suggestion was not an unreasonable one. She still felt the need to contribute positively to society, and being the Caretaker was currently the best way for her to do that. She agreed to keep going until the Oblivios lost their memories.

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Microstory 1085: Buster

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Viola Woods was my girlfriend for a time. Now that we’ve learned so much about what she really was, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I know she can manipulate time in some way, or perhaps the perception of it, but it still seems like she wasted so much of it on me. I mean, I’m a decent human being, but I’m no prize. My mother says I am, but the truth is that I’m unremarkably average. She couldn’t have been dating me as some kind of project, so she could fix me. She also couldn’t have been dating me so we would be a status couple. I get mostly Bs in school, I’m going to a respectable in-state college, and I know how to catch a ball. You know that, even though you haven’t quite released this interview series, people are already talking about its contents. I’m not so surprised about all the supernatural rumors going around, though I definitely didn’t know about them at the time. I keep racking my brain, trying to come up with some way that she changed my life. I asked her out the first time, and she accepted unenthusiastically. We never did anything, if that’s a question you were dying to ask. She implied that she was asexual, but I don’t actually know if that’s true. We broke up, I think now because she realized she couldn’t be totally honest with me. I was okay; not devastated. It didn’t make me stronger, or give me new perspective. It didn’t inspire me to turn my life around, or find my passion. All in all, I believe she had relatively little impact on me. As egotistical as it sounds, I think I simply didn’t need her help. I suppose it was bound to happen, right? No one can get through life all on their own, but I’m not alone. I have a good support system from my family and friends. I was born into middle class privilege, on the good side of town, but I see what the world is really like outside my bubble. As powerful as she may have been, she wasn’t capable of saving every individual on the planet, so I’m just another one of those people who missed out on her personal attention. I’m nothing special, and I’m totally fine with that. She did a lot of good for a lot of people here, but I guess I’m just the exception to the rule.

Microstory 1084: Milton

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Viola and I were not friends in the way you think friends should be. Before either of us was born, our respective parents were really close. In fact, they all hung out together in high school, and eventually segued into dating each other. I think the four of them had this idea that their children would be just as close—and maybe even start dating too—but the only thing we had in common was them. Our families were famous for our road trips, so I spent a lot of time with her, but we didn’t talk all the much. As far as I know, she didn’t have any hard feelings against me, and I certainly didn’t dislike her. I suppose a part of me resisted getting to know her too well only because it was kind of forced upon us. Despite what you may think, most people don’t get to truly choose their friends. Every two people are brought together by circumstance and geography. Social networking is changing the way that works, of course, but you’re still going to be paired up according to some external entity. In those cases, it’s an algorithm; for us, it was our parents, and our tiny town. A little bit about me, I’m an atheist, and a skeptic. I hear all these stories about her teleporting to far away lands, and rescuing kittens from burning buildings. I tell you, I never saw a hint of anything like that. I don’t know how she would have had time to do any of it, even if she was capable of bending space. She was beautiful, and kind, and generous, but she was still just a girl. I kind of have a problem with this idea that that is somehow not enough. It’s like these people can’t mourn their loss unless the person they lost had something no one else did. A life ended. It doesn’t matter because she was such a great person, or had reported magical powers. It matters because all life is precious. She didn’t deserve it, because no one does. I know it’s not a popular opinion, but I think, if she were around today, she would agree with me. What do you think?