Microstory 1138: Nereus Jolourvedin

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When Opal Jolourvedin was 27 years old, she had a child, who she named Nereus. They lived relatively contently on Durus for the better part of the next decade, doing their part to increase social justice, and support the transitional government. She taught him to be a feminist, a kind person, and a generous human being. When he was eighteen, he found himself drawn to a mysterious section of the planet called The Abyss. It was out of here that the first monsters came, but since they were destroyed in the war, and the portal more or less was closed, no more temporal anomalies were coming through. Still, the Abyss was a dangerous and hazy place. No one who went in ever returned. Laws were passed to prevent it from ever being used as punishment for a crime, and a border guard was stationed along its perimeter to prevent the curious from trying their hand. Though over the years, these protective measures were lessened. Nereus knew that he had the power to alter reality, and he thought he would be able to repair the problem, so that no one else’s life would be at risk from it. He realized he had failed when the portal snapped him away, and sent him to another universe. This was an extremely dangerous place, for it is where the monsters originated. And they were not happy that humans were invading their home. That was what they were trying to do. Fortunately, when their powers were combined, a pair of women were capable of sending all the humans to the past, where it was safer. Unfortunately, not everyone was able to make it through when the bubble that formed to encompass the crowd was disrupted. Nereus and the rest of the standard humans had to fight their way out of a city of enemies, most of them losing their lives along the way, but Nereus survived. He protected those few survivors for years, by constantly generating realities where the monsters hunting them never succeeded. But this was becoming tiring, and he needed a permanent solution. After learning a little bit about the history of the universe, which was called Ansutah, he mustered all of his strength, reached deeper into the past than he ever had before, to find a reality where there was one final way of escaping Ansutah. Scientists long ago invented a way to travel to other universes, but before they built the main machine, they engineered The Prototype, to make sure the technology worked. Plans were made to build a version in between the Prototype, and the Crossover, to measure the feasibility of scaling the infinity drive that powered the machines, before they used up too many resources in the massive undertaking. These plans were scrapped in the original timeline, but Nereus needed it, so he changed history to accommodate those needs. He then found where The Transit was hidden, and finally left the hell world with all his new friends. He eventually returned to his home universe, but in a much earlier timeline; one in which he was never even born. He started calling himself The Repairman, and used his ability to protect the timestream, so that the actions of the time travelers didn’t get out of hand.

Microstory 1137: Mikilos Sparacello

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If you’re living in the 21st century, chances are, you know a criminal. You may even be one. I don’t mean you know a serial killer or rapist, but lots of people have swiped a couple pens from work, or downloaded a movie from an illegal site. If you’re living in the 22nd century, you probably don’t know a criminal, though you may have heard of them. By the time the 23rd century rolls around, though, it’s statistically negligible that you’ve ever been anywhere around a criminal, unless you’re old enough to remember the old ways. Money is gone, poverty is gone. Healthcare is free. Nobody needs to work. If you want to watch a movie, or listen to some music, check the archives; literally everything is on it. There are no competing services, or paywalls. You need a new chair? Stores don’t exist anymore, but there’s a really great inventorium that has all kinds of customizable models, which are manufactured through automation. Equality has become so ubiquitous that the idea of doing something illegal is difficult for most to fathom, because the only crimes that are left in this world are the really bad ones. One of the biggest problems society still faces is mental illness. Any physiological disease has a cure, or at least a treatment. Scientists may not know what it is, but they know there’s an answer. The means of handling a psychological condition is much more complicated. If you manage to diagnose the right illness, is it really an illness? Does the patient want to change? If so, in what way? At what point can you determine that they’re a danger to others, and you have to intervene, whether they want you to or not? How far are you allowed to go in that intervention? Remember, people are a lot harder to kill these days. What with the longevity escape velocity, transhumanistic upgrades, and pervasive surveillance, getting away with a crime, diagnosis or no, is practically impossible. Letting a mentally unstable individual return to their life untreated is easier to justify—or rather, it’s harder to justify not letting them go—when the harm they can inflict upon others is so much less of a concern than it was back in ancient times, like, say 2019. This approach to mental health is not without its risks, but all that surveillance makes privacy a lofty promise that the world leadership would never be able to accommodate, so freedom is that much more important to grant, and fight for.

There was one man who refused treatment for his psychological problems, and went on to attempt to kill another, just to see if he could. His plans were thwarted by the Last Savior of Earth, and he was caught by the authorities, but his legacy lived on beyond the confines of time and space. As the last person to be saved by Étude Einarsson, Mikilos Sparacello was in even more danger than he ever could be at the hands of the sick killer. Time travelers from all over wanted to come and see if they could get close enough to finish the job. It was suddenly brought to the surface just how much violence there was in the time traveler underworld. Seeing that he would never be safe, the planet of Dardius decided to try and rescue Mikilos from the constant onslaught of hopeful assassins. What started out as nothing more than a hotel for humans whose lives had been put in danger by time travelers, had by then grown into a magnificent civilization, with billions of people, spanning all continents of the planet. The reason the wannabe killer chose Mikilos was that he didn’t think anyone would miss him. So when Dardius offered to protect him in a galaxy far, far away, it was an easy decision. He figured he could live anywhere, so he might as well accept. He assumed he would be able to blend into society, and not make any waves, but his fame and popularity followed him across the void, and before he knew it, he was being appointed Vice Patronus over the whole world. He was tasked with fighting the war against the capitalistic Freemarketeers, and maintaining policy when the Patronus, Mateo Matic wasn’t in the timestream. A few years later, when Mateo left the galaxy, and returned to his family, Mikilos had to take a more significant leadership role. When elections rolled around soon thereafter, many wanted him to run for Patronus, but not everyone. And he would have to decide for himself which side he thought had the right idea.

Microstory 1136: Elasy Taggart

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When the source mages took control over Springfield, Kansas, and the new society that was forming, they came up with a few rules. They could give anyone any power they wanted, but they knew doing so carelessly would lead to chaos. Still, they didn’t want to be too terribly controlling, because then they would be no better than their tyrannical predecessor. They would source powers for anyone who passed a series of tests. On the surface, these challenges appeared to be evaluating physical skill, but they were really more about psychological and emotional stability. The source mages needed to know who was worthy of being given powers, and be sure they would use them responsibly. To prevent bias, and other forms of inequality, each chosen town mage would receive a random time power. Whether or not they ended up with something useful, or something obviously useful, was entirely up to chance. Some were more powerful than others, but no one got to swap theirs out for something else, and no one was in danger of having whatever they received taken away. The source mages realized pretty early on, however, that this system would not work without a little bit of oversight. People often fail to apply their powers appropriately, because they don’t fully understand what it is they can do. To combat this risk, they came up with the Diagnostician Bloodline, so that no one’s potential went unrealized. A diagnostician is capable of, through various means, figuring out everything someone else with powers can do. It’s a relatively rare power in the universe, so the source mages couldn’t take the chance that there would always naturally be one around. This was unlike any other bloodline, however. Each child born would be primed to be a diagnostician, but would not necessarily be activated as one. There would only need to be enough to accommodate the needs of the world population. In the beginning, only one was needed, and his children were never activated, because they were not necessary. As time went on, however, and the population on the planet continued to increase, the source mages decided he would need two replacements, one of which was Defirnod Taggart, and the other, his sister, Elasy; the original’s grandchildren. She spent years training to be one of the new diagnosticians, and took her responsibility seriously, though she also noticed a deficit. Diagnosticians were not only capable of seeing people’s powers, but their whole selves. The proper term should have been holistic diagnosis, for they could interpret the inner workings of a patient’s entire body. She lobbied to expand the scope of their work, and possibly even increase the number of staff members, so that people’s medical needs could be tended to in all ways, in what would have probably been the galaxy’s greatest hospital. The world changed before her plans could be realized, but she did manage to help in one small way before it all fell apart. She and her brother figured out how to disable the blockers inside each other’s system that prevented them from passing on the full power of holistic diagnosis to their children. So the bloodline persisted unimpeded, and decades later, this gift would become an important one for a lot of people, in multiple universes.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 31, 2238

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It was time to leave. Mateo first went to Dardius to retrieve the Muster Beacon, so he could save Serif’s people. He then went to Gatewood to make sure they really were saved. Then Cassidy showed up, and he felt very protective of her, but he was otherwise pretty useless here. He wasn’t a scientist or engineer. He wasn’t a civil servant or pilot. He was just some guy; some guy light years away from his wife. He needed to reunite with Leona, and it wasn’t like the people here were begging him to stick around. It was kind of surreal going straight from a world where he was the leader of billions of people, to one where he could do little to help. He hadn’t realized until last year how unnerving he felt. It was best to get out of here, even without the other reasons.

He wasn’t setting about on the journey alone. As awkward as things were still with Cassidy, he hoped she was coming. That was a conversation they needed to have. Goswin was finished setting up the system of governance on these worlds. Many people wanted him to run for elected office, but he evidently didn’t think that was a good idea. He was, and always would be, an outsider. The Ansutahan refugees had this shared history he could never understand, so they were better served with a leader of their own. Weaver too was coming, but that was more about her curiosity. She was kind of steampunk, and spent a lot of time enjoying advanced technology in the nineteenth century in her reality of origin. She had never been to other planets before, and now she was anxious to see more. There was one last passenger, and it was a good thing he was the only one. Though the ship was built with six grave chambers, for a maximum complement of twelve people, chamber four was heavily damaged from having been used as a link to the Ansutahan universe bridge. It could be repaired, but no one had bothered to do it yet.

“Why do you wanna come?” Mateo asked.

“There’s nothing for me here,” Thor replied.

“What about your partner, Saxon, and Operation Starseed?”

“That was more his thing. I’m kind of all about the neighbors. If not for him and the project, I would have probably chosen to travel to Varkas Reflex. This my opportunity.”

“Well, we have room for ya, but I don’t know if I can trust you. I know Juliu—Saxon. Sure, it was in an alternate reality, but that’s something, and I don’t know you at all.”

“I just need a ride, man. I’m not here to steal your girlfriend, or whatever.”

“Cassidy is not my girlfriend. I’m just in charge of her safety.”

“Whatever, dude.”

There was only one person Mateo could talk to about this. He didn’t exactly trust her either, but that was only because everyone is capable of betrayal. It wasn’t safe to let just anyone board the AOC, but if Mirage said he was cool, Mateo would accept it. He made his way to the VR room in the command center building, and was surprised to find Cassidy already there, removing the needle from her skull. “You were talking to her?”

“I was, yes.”

“Can I ask why?”

“I was asking her whether we can trust Saxon and Thor.”

Mateo smiled. Great minds. “And...?”

“She says they can be trusted indubitably.”

“Very well. I guess it’s a good thing you sat in the chair, because I can’t be sure she would even talk to me a second time.”

“Yeah, she said you would be coming, and confirmed your suspicions.”

“I’m leaving today. I’m going to go find my wife. I would like you to accompany us. That is, unless Mirage told you not to.”

“She frustratingly made a point of leaving that decision up to me.”

“You frustratingly made a point of not answering what that decision is.”

She didn’t want to, but couldn’t keep herself from cracking a smile. “I’ll go with you. It’s the right move. Just so you understand, it’s not that I need a big strong man to keep me safe.”

“Good, because Goswin is more of an intellectual, so I don’t know that you’ll find someone like that on our ship. Then again, apparently Thor is coming...”

“Mateo. You and I are not a thing. We had a moment; a three minute moment, and it’s gone. We can fly in the same spaceship together without it getting weird.”

“I agree.”

“So, we’re not going to talk about it anymore.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Captain McBride to Mateo Matic,” they heard on the radio.

“This is Mateo, go ahead.”

“Please report to the throne room.”

“Very good, sir.” Mateo called the area where Kestral and Ishida’s worked the throne room offhand one time, and since there was no better term for it, it sort of stuck. The two of them were responsible for the scientific projects going on here, and of the cylinders themselves, but had little control over what the people living on them did. So they were decidedly not rulers. The throne room was used as an office, a laboratory, even sleeping quarters, and probably at the moment, a discussion room. Mateo speedwalked as fast as he could over there, not wanting to make them wait for him.

“Are you all ready to go?” Kestral asked him once he arrived.

He presented his bag. “Everything I have in thirty litres or less.”

“Mister Thompson will be joining you?”

“Looks like it; is that okay?”

“It is.” she nodded. “Mister Parker, on the other hand, will be joining us, just to keep you updated.”

“So, you’re moving forward with Operation Starseed?”

“Is that a problem?” she questioned.

“Not at all. Just...staying updated.”

“It’s why I called you here. The Ansutahan humans are aware that we are manufacturing exploratory ships in this system. What they don’t know is the magnitude of our mission, nor any of the details, including anything about the Starseed aspect.”

“I appreciate the need for secrecy and security.”

“Good. I need you to keep exercising that belief. Starseed is a sensitive subject. It’s not...strictly speaking, legal. The general vonearthan population did not vote to allow it. This is one of the reasons we’re building and departing from Gatewood, and why Saxon’s cargoship originated from Titan, rather than Earth. It’s our responsibility to insulate the Earthan leadership from any blowback. They’re hoping that, by the time anyone finds out about it, public opinion will have swayed in our favor. People may have reached the longevity escape velocity, which endangers progress from taking shape due to mortal turnover, but that doesn’t mean new generations don’t influence social politics. Still, Stargate is quite deliberately avoiding all systems within fifty light years of Earth. They’ll be sending independent missions to those systems, on an as needed basis, like we’ve already been doing with the closest stellar neighbors.”

“You don’t want me telling anyone what I know about these projects,” Mateo presumed. “I get it.”

“I know that you and Leona are close, and I assume you tell each other everything.”

Mateo opened his mouth to promise not to say anything, even to her, but she interrupted him before he could get one sound out.

“I’m not going to ask you to lie to her. Way I understand it, she already suspects the program exists, so denying it would put undue strain on your relationship. I’m fine with you being completely honest with her, because I know she can keep a secret. No one else needs to know, though.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you. Now, Lieutenant Caldwell is currently running diagnostics on your ship’s new engines. Then you’ll be good to go.”

“New engines, sir?” He didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Yes, we’ve upgraded them to more recent speed standards. You’ll be able to reach a maximum of point-nine-three-c, though the average might be closer to point-nine-two.”

“That’s amazing. Thank you.”

“You should be able to reach Varkas Reflex inside of twelve years. It’s more like eleven, but the AOC is not likely to arrive on your day.”

“That’s perfect. Thank you again.”

“It’s been a delight, Mister Matic. You and the rest of your crew are always welcome back on Gatewood.”

“I appreciate your support. What could I ever do to repay you?”

“I haven’t thought of anything yet.”

“Anything yet?” Leona asked.

“Leona,” Eight Point Seven said, “there’s nothing down there.”

“You’re telling me they built nothing on the surface?”

“They built nothing on the surface, or just below it.”

“Does that mean the humans aren’t coming?”

“You know I don’t know. Nothing in the reports I received while I was administrator on Bungula led me to believe that they had abandoned missions to colonize this world.”

“This is a super-Earth, Eight Point Seven, with nearly six times its mass. Humans can’t survive on it without technological intervention.”

“I understand that. Either the nanofactories they sent ahead of time never arrived, or they arrived, but malfunctioned. I’m not picking up any signals, and the surface appears clear.”

“This must be why we’re here. But surely the Earthans know. I mean, the factory was meant to give them the thumbs up. Even without quantum communication, they would have had seventeen years to get the message that something went wrong.”

“I agree, it doesn’t make much sense.”

“Okay, let’s go down and fix this. You know the landing points?”

“I do, but you can’t go down there.”

“Why not?”

“For the same reason the other humans can’t! Surface gravity is way too high for a standard biological.”

“Well, you have to go down there, and if you don’t come back up and get me in a year, I could reappear in the timestream in the vacuum.”

“Wouldn’t you reappear in the ship, just like you always do, even though it’s moved?”

“You might have to cannibalize the ship to fix the factory, so...maybe not. I might be able to walk on the surface. My legs are artificial, remember?”

“It has more to do with your lungs and heart, and your legs aren’t the only parts of you with bones and muscles.”

“Eight Point Seven, you don’t have hands. I might be able to build you a new body here, but I gotta get down there first.”

“This could kill you.”

“Anything could kill me. My life is hella dangerous. The powers that be have it in their hands. There’s a certain freedom in that. Get. Me. Down there.”

“As you wish. You better make like a jock, and strap in! It’s about to get real!”

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Bungula: Building Society (Part I)

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The year is 2226. Brooke and Sharice Prieto-Matic have just watched their friends ship out to catch up with other friends in another solar system; Gatewood. Brooke and Sharice had to stay behind on Bungula, because there wasn’t enough room on the vessel. Only Leona and her artificial intelligence companion were able to fit, and the latter only because she uploaded her consciousness into the ship’s internal systems. This was okay, though, because there wasn’t necessarily anything on Gatewood for them anyway. Brooke was born on a planet millions of light years from here, in an entirely separate galaxy. Leona was the one who took her to Earth, staying alive for the four thousand year journey with a special water called Youth, while Brooke remained in suspended animation. She was then raised on Earth, at first by Leona herself, then by a surprise cousin of Brooke’s named Mireille.

Brooke was born without the ability to experience nonlinear time. Most humans don’t have the power to travel through the timestream, though they can find someone with such power to ferry them. It will cause them great illness if they don’t take the necessary precautions, but it is still be possible. Brooke, on the other hand, is incapable of it. Basically, her power is that she has no power. A special necklace she wears containing her umbilical cord can subvert this rule, but it’s normally impossible. This had the effect of making her feel stuck between two worlds as she was growing up, like she was neither salmon or choosing one, nor human. She was also living so far from her family that the only hope she might have had to see them again was if she lived a very long life. Fortunately, she was living at the right time in history. She was young enough to undergo life extension treatments, and transhumanistic upgrades. Through technology, and human ingenuity, she became virtually immortal, though not without weaknesses. The ship she was taking to this star system experienced cataclysmic sabotage. In the midst of this, the saboteur murdered Brooke, and Sharice was forced to take drastic measures.

Brooke’s consciousness was uploaded to the ship, and later to a special temporal object called The Insulator of Life. She was later revived, and placed in an android body, which was how she finally ended up on Bungula. Her daughter underwent the same procedure, though it was nothing new for Sharice. At first, the Sharice Davids was like any other ship that was operated by an artificial intelligence. But something happened when Brooke interfaced with it, and this AI was able to become completely self-aware, and independent. Sharice is now her own person, who considers Brooke to be her mother. Brooke was hesitant at first, but ultimately took a liking to this new lifeform, and treats as a daughter. Now they’re on Bungula together. There is no way off, and they have no idea what they’re going to do with their lives. They have to find a way to contribute to this budding society, or risk alienating the colonists.

“Welp, there she goes,” Sharice notes, looking up at the sky.

“Yeah,” Brooke says in a southern farmer twang, nodding her head, looking as well. “Probably never see her again.”

“That’s not true, is it?”

“Eh, I dunno.”

Sharice pretended to breathe deeply, which is something she’s never needed to do. “Someone is approaching.”

“Yes, I sense him.”

“Should we meet him halfway?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

Sharice smirks and goes back to watching the sky. Even with their fancy telescopic eyes, Leona’s tiny ship is long beyond their maximum view range, so they are really just looking at the stars.

The man finally reaches them. “Mirage would like to see you.”

“Who?” Brooke asks.

“Mirage, this world’s new leader.”

“She’s an AI?” Brooke questions.

“We have always had an AI leader.”

“Yeah, but...”

“What is it, mother?” Sharice is confused why Brooke is confused.

“We’ll be right there, thank you,” she says to the man. “Thank you,” she repeats when he doesn’t leave.

“What’s going on?” Sharice questions when he finally goes.

“An identity crisis,” Brooke answers, still studying those distant worlds. “When someone goes back in time, they generate a new reality. The old one collapses, along with everyone who lived in it.”

“Right,” Sharice understood, “then different versions live on in the new timeline.”

“Are they different versions?” Brooke poses. “Or are they different people? It’s very easy to tell when you meet an alternate version of someone you already know, but what does that mean for inorganics, like us? I mean, I look the same as I did before, but that’s just because Ramses didn’t know what other face to give me. He could have just as easily made me look like someone else entirely.”

“I’m not following.”

Brooke finally turns her chin down. “I’ve heard of someone named Mirage. She existed in another reality. Leona and her now-husband had a couple encounters with her. Then she was destroyed, and years later, Mateo went back in time, killed Hitler, and completely altered history.”

“So, this Mirage isn’t the same one as before?”

“Well, that’s the question. Mirage developed self-awareness and agency, just like you. But her coding was originally done by a person. If that programmer exists in this timeline, did they write the exact same code? If the code is different, is it different enough to so that the product isn’t really Mirage, but someone else who happens to have the same name? It’s bad enough when you discuss the identity of naturally conceived individuals. The fact that they look the same as their alternate reality counterpart is enough to justify treating them as the same person, but that approach doesn’t work with people like us.”

“Is this about us, or Mirage?”

“Bolth,” Brooke answers with a distinct l sound.

“You’re worried about being erased from time?”

“It’s not something I ever thought about until today, but hearing Mirage’s name; I guess it just triggered me.

“You can rest easy, mother,” Sharice said as she began to follow the man towards the administration building. “You’re only ever conscious of the reality you’re presently living in. You can’t be erased from time, because you’re always living in the last reality that will ever exist.”

“I’m more worried about you,” Brooke laments as she begins to follow as well. “I was born. I have a stronger chance of being born again. But you. A lot of things had to go right to make you.”

“Don’t be sure about that,” Sharice says. “All life is delicate. We can’t spend our time worrying about things that are out of our control. Whether we’re about to meet a version of Mirage that Leona knew, or the name is just a coincidence, doesn’t matter. Either way, this is the one with the power to execute a decision on what to do with us.”

“I am the very same Mirage,” the administrator says to them when they arrive. “Eight people hail from the other timeline. Mateo and Gilbert traveled to the past, and created the new reality. Saga and Vearden followed them through. The Cleanser had ways of protecting himself from these kinds of changes. Leona and Horace had their brains blended, so they would remember their past lives. And me? Well, I was taken out of the timestream itself, and became witness to all events in history; even the contradictory ones.”

“You what?” Brooke questions.

“Leona told you that I died trying to save her from a fall to Earth?”

“If you are telling the truth about who you are, then yes.”

Mirage smiles. “I shed my substrate, and fell into another dimension, where time is a spatial dimension. I only recently found a way to return to reality, as an avatar.”

“So you decided to come rule over a colony planet?” Sharice asks.

“I’m not a ruler,” Mirage argues. “I’m the administrator. I’m here to make sure everyone’s safe and happy. That’s why they call it civil service.”

“What’s your motive? You could have stayed there, and been as a god. Why sink yourself to our level?”

“I don’t see it that way,” Mirage explains. “I did everything I needed there, and besides, I’m still technically there, because time is a spatial dimension, remember? I’ve seen all the paintings.”

“Are you trying to tell me you were in The Gallery, where the Cleanser, and the rest of the Preston family lived?”

Mirage deliberately doesn’t respond to this. “Look, I could do some things while I was there, but I was powerless, for the most part. I came back, because I feel I can help. Way I understand it, you two need some direction.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” Brooke asks her.

Mirage was mildly surprised by this. “Well, what would you have done if I had been some random entity that you had never heard of before.”

“Well, you’re not, so... Didn’t you try to kill Mateo?”

“I was programmed to do that, and I transcended it.”

“What if you’re programmed to do something like that again?” Sharice thinks she has her there.

Brooke knows what Mirage is about to say.

“What if you’re programmed to do something like that? It’s 2226. Humans and robots alike can be manipulated and controlled. You can’t even trust yourselves, so why should you trust me? Because societies can’t grow if we don’t trust each other.”

“Is that what you’re doing here; building society?” Brooke presses.

“It’s been a settlement for ten years,” Mirage begins. “These people are basically on a camping trip far from home. Administrator Eight Point Seven kept everyone safe, but she kept it mostly an extension of Earth. I want to change that. I want Bungula to go down in history as a world known for innovation.”

“Are you getting at something in particular?” Sharice asks.

“We’re gonna terraform this rock. We’re gonna do it about three hundred and fifty years ahead of schedule. And you two are gonna help us with it. I want to be able to transplant a human here who was living on nineteenth century Earth, and make him think he just woke up in the woods.” After Brooke and Sharice don’t say anything, Mirage has to continue, “I don’t mean I’m actually going to do that. I realize we are capable of such a thing, but I’m just illustrating my goals here.”

“With all due respect, this is impossible.”

“Why?” Mirage asks. “We have a thin atmosphere, a weak magnetosphere, oceans, a hearty moon. A...crappy second moon we could use for dark materials. The sun has a good mass, the gas giants protect us from deadly impacts, and we’ve detected sulfur deposits six hundred kilometers from here. This can be done. Alpha Centauri Ab is the best candidate for terraforming we’ve encountered yet.”

“I’m in,” Sharice exclaims.

“Shari,” Brooke scolds vaguely.

“Wadya say, Brookey?” Mirage offers. “I’m in need of a good pilot.”

Brooke is still unconvinced. “Have you conducted studies? How will this affect the people living under the domes? Those sulfur deposits actually make me worry more, because what if there already is native life here, and we’ve endangered it just by colonizing in the first place?”

“Miss Matic...” Mirage tries to say.

“Prieto,” Brooke says. “I’ve always felt closer to my mother’s side of the family. My cousin raised me.”

“Miss Prieto,” Mirage amends, “I understand your concerns, and I’m not saying I want to send you up with giant mirrors tonight. We’ll do those studies, but we’ve already run preliminaries, and my scientists are confident that this is a feasible—and ethical—course of action.”

Brooke looks between the two of them. Mirage has said nothing to assuage her fears. “I agree to nothing now, but I won’t do anything to stop you here. If you need my very specific help with anything, I’ll consider it. But if we find life, or we find that the domes can’t stay as they are while we’re making this happen, then it’s over. I also reserve the right pull Sharice from the project at any time.”

“Very well,” Mirage says. “I agree to your terms.”

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Microstory 1135: Mario Matic

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The Matic family was infamous for being composed of many choosing ones and salmon. For the most part, the natural inclination to experience time in some way other than linear is neither genetic, nor hereditary. The joining of two salmon seems to often result in the product of a chooser, which is presumably why the powers that be so heavily regulate their encounters. Still, many temporal manipulators bear children, who don’t necessarily have powers, so the fact that so many Matics have powers or patterns is not well understood, scientifically speaking. Mario wasn’t the only time traveler in the world, but he did have a very specific job. While others were dispatched to save people’s lives, or alter history, he was assigned to be a protector for famous people. These historical figures and celebrities may not be famous at the time of his rescuing them, but are destined to become so one day. If the latter is the case, it often means Mario is the one who ultimately creates their fame. This is not true every time, though, as sometimes their death was caused by a different time traveler who changed the past, and Mario is needed to remedy the situation. He was designated as The Kingmaker, because of his responsibility to help others help others. He has no choice in the matter, but he’s the type of guy who would do it regardless. All he needs to know is when and where, and he’s there. He’s met thousands of important people throughout history, pulling them out of rushing rivers, or pushing them out of traffic. Some remember him showing up, while others end up with the memories erased. It really depends on how that memory would inform their future actions. In the knowing, they may make certain choices that could cause problems down the road, such as becoming obsessed with time travel, or knowing about future technological advances. On the flip side, if they don’t remember being saved, they may end up just making the same mistake as they did before, and nothing will get better. Fortunately, this is not for Mario to decide. He jumps in, helps in whatever way he can, then jumps out. Perhaps about half the time, it’s necessary for the powers that be to implant knowledge in his brain, so he knows who to save and-or-how, while half the time, he just has to figure it out on his own. This technique appears to be working, as he’s never failed a mission even once. As you might imagine, this job can be quite taxing on the mind and body. Unlike The Savior—who operates in consecutive time, and thusly kind of always has to be on the clock—Mario is given opportunities to break from his job. He doesn’t always know it’s coming, or even that it’s come, so it’s not quite like a vacation. He’ll find himself in a time and place, and after searching for his mission parameters, will eventually realize he’s not there for any particular reason, so he’ll be able to rest. It’s not an easy job, and it doesn’t come without its consequences. The price of saving one life frequently means letting another go. It’s never up to him to decide who is important, and who isn’t, so that takes the burden off of him, but at the same time, he doesn’t always agree with it. Still, overall, Mario is happy with the cards he’s been dealt, and completes his work with no complaints.

Microstory 1134: Ellie Underhill

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Eleanor Underhill was raised on a farm near Manhattan, Kansas, and led a very content and carefree young life. She did well enough in school, went to the town’s college, Kansas State University, and earned a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Communications and Journalism. She was always known to be so charming and well-spoken. She could articulate her point effortlessly, and make anyone feel safe and comfortable with nothing more than her words. She was such a great orator, that her school asked her to come back not one year after her own graduation to speak at the commencement for the graduating class. There were some technical difficulties which the technicians in charge of the event were unable to correct. Fortunately, Ellie’s time power presented itself at the perfect time. She attempted to project her voice as much as possible, to keep the ceremony moving, but soon discovered she did not have to try very hard. With no working speaker system of any kind people in the back could still hear her as well as they would if she were standing right next to them. She could tell that something strange was happening, but she didn’t miss a beat. She continued with her speech, through its completion, and then she went home to figure out what had happened on her own. She realized that she wasn’t somehow booming her voice, because that would make it painfully loud for people who were too close. She was actually teleporting her sound waves to hundreds of different locations at once. She could quite literally throw her voice. Over time, she started learning how to control this ability more precisely, increase her range, and even pull sound towards her, so that she could have a conversation with someone on the other side of the globe. And her strength didn’t stop there.

With even more practice, and greater concentration, she developed the ability to eavesdrop on any conversation in the world. She just couldn’t help herself. She never thought to be a spy, or a blackmailer, but she did often fantasize about being in the room where it happens. It was through these random invasions of privacy that she found out she was not alone. She was the only one apparently who could teleport sound, and sound alone, but there were others who had their own powers. She pushed herself into this underworld, and met these other people in person. She was soon abandoning her old life for the most part, and jet-setting all over time and space. She kept in contact with her family as she explored, but she shed her worldly possessions, and took on a nomadic lifestyle. And her powers grew still. She eventually came to be able to communicate with people in different points in the timestream. This was difficult, and fraught with paradoxical danger, so she didn’t do it often, but it was sometimes necessary when she found herself stuck in a time period without a nearby traveler to ferry her somewhen else. Ellie’s reputation spread as someone with a unique skill, so her services were occasionally commissioned to help cultivate communication amongst others. Her powers grew yet again, when she realized she could bestow this gift to other people temporarily, so that they could be the one to speak to the crowd, or a remote friend. As far as powers went, it wasn’t the most useful on a regular basis, so she spent most of her time not using it at all, but just enjoying her life, and seeing everything the universe had to offer. Her powers then grew once more, and she was able to use them to help people in the best way possible...through music.

Microstory 1133: Carol Gelen

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Carol English was raised in a very poor family, which lived in southeastern Missouri, starting in 1950. Her parents wanted the best for her, and sacrificed their own happiness so that she could have everything she needed to succeed. They both started saving—not for their own college fund—but hers, when they were still in high school, even though she was years from being born. They always knew they wanted a child, but after marrying at age seventeen, decided to wait until they were financially stable. Carol was the first in her bloodline to get a higher education. Three Rivers was a recently founded community college, so she wasn’t exactly set for life, but it gave her the tools she needed to start a decent career. After receiving an associate’s degree in pre-dental hygiene, she took out a loan so she could go through Missouri Southern State University’s dental hygiene program. A year into her first job, Carol received news of her mother’s mother’s decline in health. She decided to move out to Topeka, Kansas to help her parents take care of her grandmother, because nothing was really tying her down in Williamsville. She quickly found herself a new job, and a future husband in her first patient, Randall Gelen. She was making pretty good money, but much of it had to go back to her family. Well, she didn’t necessarily have to give out all this money, but she felt it was the least she could do after all the support she received from them growing up. At some point, she was sending regular checks to a second cousin that she had never even met, and never asking for repayment. Randall had his own family issues, so they were living pretty modestly when an opportunity knocked on their door. They had never outright decided to not have children, but that didn’t seem to be the path they were on. But a child had recently lost both of her parents to tragedy, and needed some stability. Carol never questioned why the two of them were sought out to care for a foster child, when they weren’t even licensed. It was another three months before they were approved to become foster parents in the first place. Still, this was a gift, and they did not take it for granted. Carol was raised to be Christian, but didn’t care much for the church, yet she couldn’t help but wonder if there was a God out there, planning all this for them. Leona’s arrival seemed like fate. Or maybe, if Carol didn’t attribute it to some higher power, she wouldn’t be able to justify her involvement at all. Neither of them had any experience with children, and they had no idea whether any of this was going to work out. Fortunately, things turned out great. They fell in love with Leona, and ended up adopting her into their forever family.