Bungula: Black Stuff (Part II)

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Mirage wanted to allocate a year to run a more detailed survey of Bungula, but Brooke wasn’t happy with these parameters. With that amount of time, even with three highly advanced artificial and upgraded intelligences, you can really only get an idea of what it’s like on the surface. Brooke needed to see below the surface, and deep in the world’s oceans. Life is tricky to find, and even harder to recognize. She demanded they spend no fewer than two years on the project before they started altering the planet’s dynamic conditions. They ended up spending three years on it, just to make sure. Fortunately, Mirage’s plans for terraforming were a lot more sophisticated than the humans would have been able to accomplish. This all had to be a pretty big secret, because if word ever got out that people were using temporal powers in full public view, they risked being sent to Beaver Haven Prison.

Mirage hinted that the way she wanted to terraform Bungula was less advanced than she probably could do it, but they wanted to remain somewhat plausible for this time period. They could theoretically teleport any nearby celestial objects they needed, but residents and scientists would wonder how they hell that got there so fast. There were already going to be enough questions about this process, so Mirage didn’t want to field even more. While teams were surveying the planet, others were constructing the machines and ships they would one day need to get started. At the moment, Mirage had some news for Brooke. Sharice was presently in the far reaches of the solar system, studying a field of icy planetesimals, like those found in Sol’s Oort cloud.

“First things first,” Mirage says. “It’s too cold here. I was thinking about using the second moon to paint the surface hyperblack, which would lower the albedo, but based on the survey you insisted we take, we’ve discovered that this would take far too long.”

“You’re welcome,” Brooke says.

“Yes, thank you. I freely admit this project needs you, which is why I asked you to be part of it in the first place.”

“Well, what else did you have in mind?” Brooke asks.

Mirage grinned. “Mavrophyllic algae.”

“What is that?” I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s a synthetic, algae-like organism created in a laboratory. Except it doesn’t use chlorophyll or photosynthesis to generate energy.”

That doesn’t explain much. “Go ahead and say it. I think I can guess from the morphology of the word, but I don’t want to assume.”

“The organisms feed off of dark matter.”

“And there it is,” Brooke says. “That’s insane.” It should be impossible.

“I assure you, it’s very real.”

“Why have we not heard of it?” Brooke questions.

“Well, technically it doesn’t exist yet, but we can invent it. It grows really fast, and can cover the entire surface in a matter of months. It can also be killed when it gets out of hand.”

“Mirage, if it’s invented in the future, we can’t invent it now. It’ll alter the future.”

“Oh, we’re altering the future all the time. This is a reasonable scientific development that’s going to shock people, but not expose time travelers. No one’s going to be like, we didn’t predict that happening until seven hundred years from now!”

“You’re looking to do this seven hundred years early!” Brooke exclaims. “That’s way too far. No, I won’t allow it.”

“Too bad, it’s done.”

Brooke is offended. “Excuse me?”

“You have the ability to control your involvement in this project, and perhaps even Sharice’s, but I can do what I want. I’ve been assigned the administrator of this place, and I’m free to conduct whatever experiments I deem necessary. I’ve had a team working on this for months. I barely gave them a nudge. They figured most of it out on their own.”

“And you’ve already deployed this stuff?”

“No, it’s still just in the lab, but I can release it without your permission.”

“I can contact Beaver Haven about this. They may not be so happy with you suddenly sending us all to the thirtieth century.”

Mirage laughs. “I thought you might say that, which is why I’ve already spoken with The Warden. She assures me she don’t give a shit. She would have a problem if we were trying it in her time period, but it’s 2229. We both agree, the vonearthans aren’t going to freak out.”

“Can you even mass produce enough of this? I mean, you said it grows fast, but metabolism has its limits.”

Mirage doesn’t seem to want to answer the question.

“Okay, now I’m getting really worried. What’s the problem?”

“You’re right. The lab can’t just create this on its own. It has to start with a base organism...which we found..in the oceans.”

“You found life in the oceans?”

“We found bacteria,” Mirage clarifies.

“You lied about the survey results! What did I say about that?”

“Nothing.”

“Another lie. I told you I would pull the plug if you did something like this, and here we are.”

“The bacteria is going to stay just that,” Mirage tries to assure her. “It’s not going to evolve into complex life.”

“How do you know that?”

“I used a time mirror. It lets you slide back and forth through time, watching how things change. I went billions of years into the future; Bungula remains a lifeless rock.”

“If Bungula remains lifeless,” Brooke points out, “then this project obviously fails.”

Mirage shakes her head. “I removed everything we’re going to do from the equation. I saw the future of this world if we shut down the domes, and left it all alone.”

“Time mirrors don’t have buttons. How did you input those parameters?”

“I’m a genius,” Mirage explains with a fake sigh. “I interfaced with the mirror. Trust me. I waited to say anything until I was sure, because I knew exactly how you would react.”

“Oh, you did?” Brooke asks her rhetorically. “Did you see me in the time mirror too?”

“I would never exploit you like that.”

Brooke shakes her head. “Well, it looks like you’ve already thought this through. Wadya need me for?”

“I don’t need you for this part of the project,” Mirage admits, “but your services will become useful in the future.”

“Well, you won’t be getting it if you do this.”

“I don’t understand what the big deal is. Bacteria don’t have souls. Dark algae is easier to contain than you would think.”

Brooke scoffs. “And what if the kind of organism your scientists created is unlike the kind you witnessed in the future when you were a god?”

“Stop calling me that,” Mirage complains.

Brooke goes on, “what you made could have unforeseen consequences, because if you’re not lying, and you only gave them a nudge, the algae could grow uncontrollably without you realizing it. It’s not necessarily the same black stuff the people in the future invented. This could threaten the lives of the people living here already, and I do consider that my responsibility, whether you’re the administrator, or not.”

“I can use the time mirror again,” Mirage supposes. “Make sure I’m making the right call.”

“You want to mess with the timeline even more? I can’t condone that.”

“There’s just no pleasing you,” Mirage argues. “You worry about what’s going to happen in the future, but you worry about what happens if we find out. You can’t have it both ways.”

“Sure, I can!” Brooke cries. “Time travel is a dangerous thing, which is why it just shouldn’t be done. If you didn’t find dark algae in the future, regular scientists would have come up with it organically. They would have done so with the consideration of ethics, and systems thinking, and it still could have turned out badly.”

“Don’t talk to me about time travel.” Mirage raises her voice as well. “You wouldn’t be here without it. You may be pristinely ungifted, but your entire life has revolved around time powers. Half of the people in your family have powers or patterns. You survived the near-destruction of your ship because of a time bubble, and then the actual destruction of your second ship because of a life-preserving time object, and teleportation! I told you we were going to terraform Bungula three and a half centuries ahead of schedule. What did you think that meant!”

“I don’t know!” Brooke shouts even louder. “It’s not the speed; it’s just...how you’re doing it. You’re messing with a very delicate balance. I just feel like you’re not taking it seriously.”

“You’re the one not taking it seriously. Humanity needs protection, and redundancy. If Earth is destroyed, maybe people can flee to Mars. But what if Mars is destroyed too? We have yet to find an exoplanet with the necessary requirements to sustain life on its own. Even once we do, are we allowed to move there? Is it ethical to interfere with its own development? Terraforming a dead—or mostly dead—world is actually the most ethical option of all. You may be virtually immortal, Miss Prieto, but there are still a lot of vonearthans who will die in a matter of seconds if you open a door on their spaceship. We have to find a way for them to survive beyond the confines of one solar system, in some capacity, or the organics could be wiped out.”

“What do you know?” Brooke presses.

“Quite a bit, of course. To what specifically are you referring?”

“Is something going to happen to Earth and Mars?”

Mirage laughs. “They are never not in danger. When I was trapped in the higher dimension, I didn’t see the future; I saw every possible future. Even with a consciousness as advanced as mine, it was hard to synthesize all the information, but one thing I did learn is that life is always one rusty ladder rung away from death.” She pauses. “Bungula is not humanity’s last and only hope, but it’s important. True aliens don’t exist anywhere in the universe—which is something not even I can explain—but that doesn’t mean The Great Filter doesn’t exist. I know in my proverbial heart that a species that stays on one world is doomed to die out on it. You think it’s a risk to do this, but it’s a greater risk not to. I can’t make you help us, though. I recognize that.”

“This is how I’m helping,” Brooke says. “You don’t really need a pilot. Pilots are just computers these days, and you have loads of those. What you need is someone who questions your every move. I made a mistake with the survey; letting you do it on your own, and it led you to lie to me. I won’t make that mistake again. I will be with you every step of the way, and you’re just going to have to deal with the criticism, because every war ever fought was started because people in power refused to listen to reason.”

“I would appreciate that greatly.”

Brooke simulated a deep, meditative breath. “Now. There’s no life whatsoever on the primary moon, correct.”

“Correct.”

“But there are ice caps.”

“Yeah, why?”

“It’s going to take longer, but I need you to do this for me. I need you to melt the ice, and plant the mavrophyllic algae there first. You can test in a lab all you want, but it’s not going to give you a very good understanding of how a specimen reacts in the field. Test on the moon first, and then we’ll talk about trying it here.”

Mirage nods. “That’s not an unreasonable request.”

Brooke shakes. “I wouldn’t call it a request.”

“No, I suppose not.”

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Microstory 1140: Anatol Klugman

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The Franco-Prussian War began in 1870, following years of complicated tension between the French Empire, and the Kingdom of Prussia. It involved a letter from Spain, border disputes, and as per usual, Russia. Anatol Klugman didn’t care about any of this, though. To him, his kingdom was calling for him to fight for his people, so he answered it. He became a musketeer, and fought with passion and relentlessness. It was on the battlefield that he met Adolphe Sargent, who was as passionate about his own home as he was about Prussia. They fought for several minutes before Anatol gained the upper hand, but before he could deliver the final blow, one of Adolphe’s fellow soldiers appeared out of nowhere, and turned the tables. But those tables just kept turning when the Sword of Assimilation appeared shortly thereafter, just in time to save Anatol’s life. The man who had come to Adolphe’s aid happened to be a time traveler, who was uncontrollably drawn to important events in his family’s history. The sword allowed his powers to be transferred into Anatol’s system permanently. But instead of being drawn to his family, he found himself traveling to other wars that involved Prussia in the past. He felt compelled to continue fighting for his people, but once he was finished with the last one, he was finally free from this pattern. He gained a reputation in the choosing one underworld as a ruthless killer. To temper these rumors, he chose to only steal powers from bad people, and only kill them when it couldn’t be helped. He didn’t enjoy it, but thought it was necessary. He wasn’t simply trying to gain powers for himself, but remove them from people who he felt didn’t deserve them. Once they were in him, they could not be given back, or given to someone else. After years of this, from his perspective, he procured the ability to travel through time in various ways, teleport, and alter people’s memories, among other things. But he was not the only one to survive that first battle, and continue on in the world of temporal manipulators. Adolphe went on to become a major force in the salmon battalion, which traveled throughout time, turning the tide of many wars, for reasons only the powers that be who controlled them could understand. Suddenly, the two of them met once more, and had to decide for themselves how they were going to react. They had both been through a lot since they tried to kill each other. They even discovered that, although they jumped back and forth throughout the timestream, the same amount of time had passed for each of them, so they had that much in common. They had both seen the future, and recognized that their differences from before were a little ridiculous now. They never became great friends, who could trust each other with anything, but they did come to an understanding, and even fought alongside each other, against some truly awful foes.

Microstory 1139: Dar Tresler

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The source mages were a group of people whose time powers are not well understood. The prevailing theory is that they were all in crucial stages of development in their mothers’ wombs when the small town of Springfield, Kansas was transported to the rogue world of Durus during the Deathfall. Ultimately, eleven children were born as a special class of temporal manipulators, who may not have been born without those powers had their circumstances been different. It would seem an unlikely coincidence if they all just happened to be regular choosing ones, and the Deathfall portal had nothing to do with it. Still, no one really knows the truth. Dar Tresler was one of these children, who would grow up to realize that ve did not accept traditional categorization of gender assignment. Ve considered verself to be androgynous, feeling equally feminine and masculine. When the Deathfall occurred, the world was living in 2016, which wasn’t exactly the wokest period of human history, but it was getting there. Dar felt safe. Vis friends, and the town, accepted ver without question, allowing ver to be verself, and be treated with respect. Dar was a motherly/father individual, who cared for the town, even though ve was one of the youngest people there. While Valda saw it as their duty to lead their people in this new world, and Jeremiel was focused more on being revered, Dar wanted to be a teacher. Or rather, ve was concerned more with how well the town learned to live successfully on a planet of monsters, and other dangers, with no way home. Ve became good friends with Lubomir, who had a similar position on priorities. Together, they made sure Springfielders remembered to be kind, even when confronted with their worst darkness. Many wanted to execute the tyrant Smith’s loyalists, for having brought their new society to the brink of destruction, but Dar and Lubomir managed to dissuade them from the violence. When Yeong and Limbani wanted to create the mage games, so they could determine who amongst them deserved powers of their own, Dar was adamant that the contestants be trained beforehand. The competition shouldn’t be about natural talent, but the potential for greatness. People weren’t always happy with Dar’s decisions, but ve would go down in history as the most profoundly influential, once Durus was old enough to appreciate what ve had done for them.

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!”

« < » > Table of Contents

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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