Microstory 1165: Garen Ashlock

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When Garen Ashlock was in fifth grade, he got into an argument with his schoolteacher. She claimed that George Washington had wooden teeth; a factoid that Garen’s history professor mother had already explained to him was false. He wasn’t a bad student, but when he was right about something, he always needed to make sure everyone around him knew it, and this was one of those times. The fight was really heating up when Garen not so politely suggested she go back to the eighteenth century, and have a look for herself. He was surprised to see her disappear in that moment, but he knew she wasn’t dead, or anything, because he could still feel her. He maintained a transtemporal psychic connection to her while she was in the past, and as easily as he sent her there, he was able to pull her back to present day. Now, most people who have time powers aren’t at too much risk of exposing themselves before they even have a chance to grasp the basics of what they can do, but it has been known to happen. Garen’s actions changed everything about the world forever. Of course, a screaming match between an adult teacher, and an eleven-year-old child, was newsworthy. Several of the other students were filming at the time. The videos went viral, and soon, pretty much everyone knew about the disappearing woman, and enough believed it wasn’t fake. Beaver Haven Prison was designed to contain choosing ones who deliberately failed to keep the truth about time powers a secret, but what Garen did was definitely not on purpose, and the guards are not heartless people. Instead, they sent one of their agents back in time, to the day it happened, and erased the memories of the entire class, except for Garen. The agent also hacked the other kids’ phones, and erased the footage, so it was like none of it happened. Except it did, and it had to. The agent could have gone back even further, and prevented Garen’s power from manifesting in that moment, perhaps by telling him what he was beforehand, but that is not a healthy way to discover such a thing about one’s self. It was best for the reality of those events to stay intact, and only certain people’s memories of them be altered. This was Garen’s moment to learn who he was, and no one had the right to take that away from him completely, because it would inform his future decisions.

Garen moved on with his life, practicing what he could do with the agent’s daughter, who was around his age. He figured out that he himself could not travel through time, but could only send other people. He had to maintain a constant tether to them, so he could bring them back later, or they might be lost in time, and there appeared to be some limit as to how many people he could send to how many different points in time. For the most part, travel through time takes part along multiple realities. As soon as you go back, you create a new timeline, and the one you came from collapses entirely, but Garen’s power was different. Reality still shifted, according to whatever changes his clients were, but since he was connected to them, he retained memories from both, providing him with an interesting perspective that was shared by few others. He did not see it that way, however. To him, this was incredibly boring, because even though he had a sense of what his clients were doing, he wasn’t truly experiencing it himself. He became obsessed with building a crazy life for himself in the present, and the craziest life he could think of involved breaking the law. It wasn’t so much that Garen didn’t have the stomach for a life of crime. He was just a rather incompetent criminal. He wasn’t as bad of a person as he would have others believe, or himself. What he needed was a leader, of really any kind. He found a new family in a group of people looking to do some good in the world, specifically in history. Quivira Boyce could possess other people’s bodies, but could not do so through time. Combining hers with Garen’s ability, however, allowed her to return to the past, and put right what once went wrong. Finally, Garen had a purpose, and that was exciting enough for him.

Microstory 1164: Tyler Bradley

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Tyler Bradley was not always a good person, and he knew this, but he didn’t care. That was his whole problem. He didn’t care much about anything; not really even his family. In reality, he loved his first son, but that son was taken from him, in every way. Escher was exploring the house next door when he became lost in an endless maze of basements, and other rooms. The house held many secrets, and had some sort of control over reality itself. At first, Tyler could remember his son, and desperately searched for him, but eventually, those memories disappeared, and he was left with a damaged soul. He lost interest in his wife, Cheryl, but they stuck together for more than fifteen years, because they were too apathetic to divorce. When his daughter was born, he didn’t care for her as much as he should have, and this was enough to force his wife’s hand. She finally divorced him, took full legal custody of Hogarth, and moved to Topeka. He was a broken man, and it seemed that nothing could be done about it, but then a friend made a suggestion. Kallias Bran was the detective assigned to search for Escher all those years ago. He managed to retain his own memories, and knew that the best thing for Tyler was for him to move. Springfield was doing nothing for him but weighing him down, and since Tyler knew intellectually that he should want to know his daughter, being geographically closer to her was best for everybody. This had an immediate positive effect on him. His mood improved, his motivation returned, and he started getting his life together. Things weren’t repaired overnight, but Cheryl eventually agreed to increase the time he had with his daughter from once a month to once a week. By then, Hogarth was old enough to understand her father, and to appreciate that he really was trying to be a better person. She continued to side with her mother whenever there was a disagreement, but she wasn’t completely against him. Tyler’s relationships with his family were strengthened with each passing year, and though he and Cheryl never got back together, they would later come to describe themselves as friends. Their lives were okay for awhile, until Hogarth disappeared much the same way Escher did the better part of three decades prior, but this time, they could remember their child.

Microstory 1163: Lauren Gardner

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Lauren Gardner was an aimless person who had nothing but potential, according to what her parents always said. She did not feel the same way. She moved out of the house when she was sixteen, but kept attending school. She was pretty popular, so she never didn’t have a place to crash. This behavior continued past graduation, and her friends kept helping her, because it had just become part of routine. She didn’t pay them rent, but she helped out with the chores, and overall, she was a good roommate. She also didn’t stay at any one place for too long, so they usually didn’t feel that she was overstaying her welcome. Her best friend even liked to have her over for the week of his birthday each year. She needed others to pay for her food, and maybe a little alcohol every once in a while, but she wasn’t the most irresponsible, or high maintenance. She was getting by pretty well, and she wasn’t alienating too many people along the way, but that isn’t to say it never happened. The older they all got, the less they tolerated her, and she started seeing the writing on the wall. Even her best friend was kind of trying to move on with his life, and she knew she would not be able to keep this up forever. A part of her came to believe it was possible that time itself sensed this about her life, and made dramatic changes to it against her will. She woke up with a start one morning, and found herself sitting up in bed right next to a woman who looked exactly like her. Literally a couple seconds later, the copy disappeared, as did her friend’s bed guest bed, plummeting her to the floor. Frightened and confused, she stepped out of the room in nothing but her Nirvana t-shirt, and crept down the hallway. A stranger was there with her young daughter. They all screamed, and Lauren ran out of the apartment. By the time she got all the way down the stairs, they too disappeared, along with the rest of the apartment complex, sending her once again falling, but this time, from more than a story in the air.

She didn’t have any broken bones, but she was bleeding, and in quite a bit of pain. She managed to stand up, and walk a few blocks into town. Things looked a little different, but not terribly so. People weren’t dressed the way they should have been, and some of the shops she knew should be there were gone, replaced by something else entirely. She kept walking, and eventually came across a newsstand. Of course, the paper read Wednesday, September 9, 1987. She didn’t know why, and she sure as hell didn’t know how, but she had somehow slipped exactly seven years into the past. As she continued to walk, dodging funny looks from people seeing a girl with no bottoms early in the morning—who they would surely believe was taking the walk of shame—she started working things out in her head. When she woke up in a bed with herself, that was the past, but not this past. No, that must have been some other day. Her friend hadn’t started renting that place until 1992, which was why it all disappeared when she went back even further. The apartment building itself didn’t even exist until late 1989–early 1990, which is why it too disappeared from under her feet. She spent another few hours here until it happened again, and she was suddenly in what she quickly discovered was 1979. She continued to jump backwards in time, progressively further back, and for progressively longer periods. She eventually met Samson and Theodore, but like her, they would not always use the same name. Lauren was upset at first, but then she realized she had always been looking for a purpose in life, and maybe this could be it. It wasn’t like she had any loved ones back in her own time period. The right attitude could make it all worth it. She had new friends now, and together, they had important missions to complete. They came to understand that they were helping make the world a better place, and that was really all they needed.

Microstory 1162: Dave Seidel

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David Seidel was not born with any special time powers. He was just an average human being who couldn’t hold down a job for very long. He had trouble working with people, and wasn’t what multiple unrelated employers would call a team player. He was so happy when the gig economy started really taking off. Almost overnight, he was able to start making money by being self-employed. He would never become a millionaire this way, but it let him make his own schedule, and pay the bills. He was particularly suitable for driving jobs. At first, he was just delivering food, but he wasn’t making enough money that way, so he knew he would have to expand to passengers. Of course, this meant interacting with people, but he soon realized he had a secret weapon. He spoke Icelandic. He spent his summers with his aunt on the other side of the state, because she retired early, and his parents were too busy to watch him, and too poor to send him to camp. He remembers fondly his time over there, but she never explained to him why she taught him a language with only a few hundred thousand speakers. Perhaps she could see the future, and knew it would come in handy one day. It was easy for him to pretend he didn’t speak English, so as to dissuade his passengers from trying to make conversation. All he had to do was say a few random things to get people cheerful, and they would give him a five star rating. It only got him into trouble a few times when they got the bright idea of using a virtual translator. Then he actually had to have a conversation. One woman even used it in secret, and heard Dave spout the random assortment of words that had no semantic meaning. Not only was she cool with what he had done, but she offered him a permanent position, and a literal blank check. He was free to choose his own salary, and that was an opportunity he could not pass up.

The job was not without its risk, however. This woman was named Meliora Reaver. She was born with pretty much every time power there was, and had attempted all of them, except for one. She had never tried to give someone their own power, and wasn’t sure she could do it. It wasn’t exactly a painless procedure, but Dave came out with the ability to teleport. Teleportation is a not uncommon ability, but his version of it was unique. Salmon and choosers are basically subspecies of human, which allows them to experience nonlinear time in practically any way, whether it be by their own hand, or someone else’s. Regular humans are not capable of this, however, and are in danger of contracting time illness. Not only could Dave teleport, he could ferry other people with him, and if they were human, they would not fall ill because of it. This was the perfect power for him to have while under Meliora’s employ. She needed someone who could rescue people in danger from violent choosing ones, and transport them to her Sanctuary on Dardius. She didn’t know what she was doing when she gave him this power, so she couldn’t be so deliberate. It just so happened that he had life experience as a transporter, and that she needed someone with those particular set of skills. She only chose him because she was aware he had worked for a not so great person in an alternate timeline, and maybe needed a little nudge in the right direction. As it turned out, though Dave did not need to become a villain, he also wasn’t likely to become a hero. He treated his job at Sanctuary as just that; a job, and had no strong feelings about the people he was helping. He was neutral about the whole thing, just like had been his whole life. He never considered himself to be special, even though there was no one like him. To him, he was just The Chauffeur.

Microstory 1161: Ida Reyer

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After the death of her husband, Ida Laura Pfeiffer decided to fulfill her dream of becoming an explorer. She went all over the world, from Brazil to Persia; Australia to Oregon. She also jumped through time. In 1851, she found herself in Kansas City when it was still in its very early infancy, and there she met a woman named Holly Blue. Holly Blue was from the future, and after a weeks-long relationship, sort of accidentally admitted to Ida who she really was. Ida asked her to take her with her on trips throughout spacetime, but Holly Blue refused. At this point in her own personal history, she hadn’t yet discovered a way for nontravelers to safely travel through time. Certain people were capable of it, while others would experience terrible medical issues. She later overturned this decision, but it was long after Ida had left Kansas City, and returned to her life. Holly Blue went back to eleven years before they were meant to meet, and rewrote her own history—and Ida’s. She bequested Ida one of her newest, and most valuable inventions, which she called The Compass of Disturbance. Holly Blue disappeared without giving any explanation for why she chose Ida for this give, presumably not wanting to repeat their unfortunate breakup. The compass turned out to be a powerful tool. Its main purpose was to seek out, and stabilize, natural tears in the continuum, which would allow a user to travel through them, even if they wouldn’t otherwise be able to survive the trip unharmed. It had other functions as well, but it took months of trial and error to understand them all. And so Ida began to lead a double life. She spent part of her time exploring the world in her own time period, but part of it elsewhere. She particularly enjoyed going into the far, far future, because life there was just so fundamentally different. In her travels, she encountered others, but they were born to manipulate time, and did not require technology to do so. She learned of special places with unusual temporal properties, and of other objects that regular humans would be able to utilize. She even discovered that there was a way to live forever, given the right ingredients. Unlike her successor, Juan Ponce de León, Ida had no interest in finding immortality water, or in living forever. She wanted to live a full life, partially in the future, and partially in her own time, and she wanted to write about her travels. The reason she kept exploring her own world was so that she could publish her adventures, and build a legacy. That was her way of living forever. She knew it wouldn’t be safe to author her time travel stories, but she kept a fairly detailed diary in the internal memory of the Compass of Disturbance itself. A few years in, she met someone who recommended she go ahead and publish those works, so they could be distributed to people who had the permission to see them. She took her up on that advice, and eventually ended up with a full series on her life that most people in the world would never see, yet it made her more famous than would have been without the books. The woman who suggested she do that was known as The Historian, and anyone wishing to read her work, or those of others like her, could find copies in the library section of her museum on Tribulation Island.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 5, 2243

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The military in the mid-23rd century wasn’t what it used to be. Borders were erased from the map, so there weren’t any good reasons to make war. Well, there was one. Aliens. There was always that chance of an alien horde raining down on humanity in its infancy, but Earth’s expansion beyond its one planet increased those chances dramatically. Every void they crossed pushed them closer to the possibility of encountering some other intelligent species. Even when they were staying within the confines of the solar system, perhaps that would be enough to make watchful extraterrestrials feel threatened. The further vonearthans spread, the more danger they put themselves in.

The military was purely defensive at this point in history. Everything it did was in preparation for what they believed to be the inevitable encounter of the fifth kind. According to what famed explorer, and infamous time explorer, Ida Reyer knew of the future, Earth will master the Oort cloud within the next seven hundred years. They will place sensors and defensive equipment on nearly every single one of the icy planetesimals—of which there were trillions—in the spherical celestial network that encompassed the star system. These will alert the planets and moons to any incoming visitors, assess their threat level, and act accordingly. Until then, however, the worlds had to make do with plain old orbital satellites, and sentry ships.

Each planet and settled moon was given at least one sentry ship, whose sole purpose was to monitor and protect their ward in the case of an emergency. There were rumors of other protective vessels hiding in the remote darkness, but if these existed, they were kept secret for a reason. Seeing as that the extrasolar colony worlds were settled by vonearthans who wanted a new place to live, but not a separation from society, these planets were also given their sentry allotment. In fact, they were provided an extra vessel for emergency evacuations, and generally ran a practice drill once every standard Earthan year. At least, that was what the other colonies did. Varkas Reflex was a heavy world, which made it difficult to launch from. Even for beings who are designed to survive heavier gravity, fuel expenditure from a super-Earth—to put it in Sanaa’s words—is literally a massive bitch.

When Eliseus declared his world’s independence from Earth, in order to protect Hokusai’s artificial gravity technology, he lost Varkas Reflex’ right to military protection. That obviously sounded really bad, but there were a few things that made it all right. Firstly, Wolf 359b was an unexceptional planet, with few natural resources. Secondly, its high surface gravity, though problematic for its inhabitants, also acted to dissuade any would-be invaders from startin’ somethin’, because they would have just as much trouble getting back off. It wouldn’t necessarily be worth the hassle. The most important reason that a loss of military assurances wasn’t that big of a deal was the fact that aliens didn’t exist. Also according to Ida Reyer, the only other evolved beings living in the galaxy wouldn’t be there for at least another few decades, and even then, they would have little motivation to attack...for reasons she deliberately withheld.

Construction was ongoing for the resort and amusement park campus they were calling Varkana, which translated to wolf land. Some people back home were just calling it Wolfland. The automated construction machines were presently in various stages of developing a three-story hotel structure capable of accommodating up to 31,852 guests. If one were to walk from one end to the other, they would have to go about four kilometers. They were also working on five swimming pools, two concert venues, a traditional 2-D movie multiplex, and one roller coaster, just to see how feasible building a full amusement park would be. It was not going well. The speed of the cars weren’t playing nicely with the gravity regulators that Hokusai installed. The engineers really wanted to see how it worked, so they could help figure it out, but she continued to refuse. She was glad Leona was finally back in the timestream, because Loa and Sanaa were not scientists.

“Any ideas?” Hokusai asked.

“Ramses,” Leona answered, knowing that wasn’t enough.

“Is that a band, errr...?”

“Ramses Abdulrashid. He was a Freemarketeer.”

“One of those staunch capitalists who wanted to throw the world back to the dark ages?”

“Basically.”

“What does he have to do with my dimensional gravity regulator?”

“Everything. He was an engineer assigned to The Sharice Davids. Of course, those people couldn’t be trusted, so his power in the department was fairly limited. He managed to survive its explosion, and ended up on Proxima Doma, and then on Bungula. He went with Mateo to Dardius, so I don’t know what came of him, but the point is that he proved himself capable of growth. He became a valued member of our team, and a true friend. He built The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for us.”

“That’s lovely. I’m still not getting the connection.”

“You need to find your version of Ramses on this planet, and ask for their help. I was a really good astrophysicist for the few years after I got my degree, but then I started losing my edge day by day, because I didn’t have time to keep up with the advancements.”

“But you fixed a lot of problems on The Elizabeth Warren when it was on its way to Durus, before Loa and I got on board,” Hokusai pointed out.

“I faked my way through most of it,” Leona admitted. “I wouldn’t have been able to do a damn thing without Missy.”

Hokusai didn’t look enthusiastic about it.

Leona went on, “yes, it’s possible for this technology to fall into the wrong hands. Yes, it’s possible that Beaver Haven will unleash hell on us for letting it happen. And I know you shouldn’t feel safe because you’re human. Horace told me how they locked up their friend to use as leverage once, so I wouldn’t put it past them to do it again. But you are still human, and this is human tech, whether you got it from your exposure to us, or not. The galaxy will survive. And as I was saying, just because you tell one person, doesn’t mean it’s a hundred percent certain they’ll spill the beans. Sanaa hasn’t, and even though I think she’s come a long way, she’s still one of the most volatile people I know.”

I heard that, Sanaa said psychically, but only to Leona.

“You’re eavesdropping on our conversation?” Leona asked, looking up and to the right to show Hokusai that she was having a telepathic conversation.

Cocktail party effect, my friend, Sanaa answered. You say my name, I hear it. Everytime.

“Okay, well...disengage always listening mode,” Leona ordered.

Yeah, Sanaa laughed, okay, boss.

Hokusai continued the conversation without any proof that Leona was finished with her tangent. “I don’t know if there’s anyone like Ramses here.”

“There must be someone,” Leona prodded. “Who do you think might be able to handle it?”

Hokusai seemed to be accepting the fact that someone she already trusted was recommending she find someone else to trust, and she should trust in that. She wasn’t taking the task lightly, though. Leona could practically see the list of names running through Hokusai’s head right now as she sought the perfect candidate.

It’s more of a yearbook than a list, Sanaa specified.

Get out of my head, Sanaa, Leona ordered. And get out of hers.

Fine. Fine.

“Pribadium,” Hokusai finally said.

“Is that a band, errr...?”

“When she was born, her father declared that God had offered the world a new element; a love-based element. Pri means love, plus bid, as in pray or ask. They decided to just call her Pribadium. She’s..quite brilliant, and she’s implied that she already has some idea how my so-called antigravity technology works.”

“Give her a call,” Leona suggested.

She’s already on her way, Sanaa said, apparently to them both.

“What? That wasn’t your place.”

I’m psychic, she reminded them again. My place is everywhere.

They heard the buzzer go off, which was the analog way the other workers got Hokusai’s attention when she was working in the sub-basement.

Hokusai sighed, and then hopped up the stairs, and opened the door.

“I’m sorry, sir,” a fairly young woman apologized. “I just...I had this urge to come here. I didn’t meant to disturb. I know you only get one day every year with your friend here.”

“I told you she was smart,” Hokusai said to Leona.

That’s not impressive, Sanaa said. Lots of people notice that Leona disappears for an entire Earthan year.

“I just heard something,” Pribadium said, frightened. “It’s like it was coming from my head, but not my own thoughts.”

Hokusai reached out, and took her by the shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Come on down; I’ll explain everything to you.”

“That’s okay?” she asked. Man, she really conditioned the Varkans not even think about trying to come in here.”

“Yes, of course,” Hokusai assured her. “I’m reassigning you to work directly with me.”

“Wow.”

Thank you, Hokusai mouthed to Leona. Then she closed the door so they could get back to work.

She said thank you, Sanaa interpreted.

“Thanks. I wouldn’t have puzzled that out all by me onesy.”

As Leona was leaving the construction site, Eight Point Seven was walking up. “Hey, Miss Karimi told me I would find you here.”

“I thought psychics couldn’t talked to droids, and other AIs,” Leona questioned.

“She did it the ol’ fashioned way. I could use your insight with something; that is, if you’re done helping here.”

Leona looked back at the door. “Yeah, my work is done.”

“Good,” Eight Point Seven said as they were heading back to the surface lab, “because I can’t exactly ask anyone else about this. Did you know that Madam Gimura has been asking me to build models and prototypes for the reframe engine?”

“I did not know that.”

“She’s a genius, but I’m faster and more efficient, so she comes up with the idea, but I’ve been the one to physically do the work.”

“It’s not going well?” Leona presumed.

“Well, umm...I wouldn’t say that? It’s more of an unexpected turn of events.”

Leona narrowed her eyes. “What happened?”

“It’s best if I just show you.”

They stepped into the lab, and came face to face with another version of Leona herself.

“I shouldn’t be here,” Present!Leona pointed out.

“It’s okay,” the other Leona promised. “I don’t remember this happening, but I know that we are living in a single timeline. You must..we must erase our memories at some point. Before you become me, you forget everything that happened here today.”

“Go back,” Present!Leona demanded. “Don’t tell me anything about the future. Don’t even tell me when you’re from. Memory wipe or no, I don’t wanna hear it.”

“I wasn’t planning on telling you anything. I came because I need you to help me get back.” She reached into her pocket.

Leona instinctively tensed up. People might think, if they ever ran into an alternate version of themselves, that they would be able to trust that person, but there was no guarantee for that. In fact, it was entirely possible that this Future!Leona was intending to kill her past self, and take her place in this reality. It had been done before; not by herself, but she couldn’t be certain she wasn’t capable of it.

“It’s all right,” Future!Leona said as she slowly revealed a slip of paper from her bra. “This note is in our handwriting. It just says to find pribadium. I’ve never heard of it. Is it an alloy? Is it what we need to get me back to my own time period? Eight Point Seven doesn’t know how it happened, and neither do I. We think the reframe engine from two points in time connected to each other, and pushed me through. It’s basically a time machine already.”

Present!Leona sighed. “Pribadium is a person. I guess, before you erased your own memories, you made sure we would recruit her to help fix this.”

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Bungula: Boarding School (Part VI)

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It isn’t over yet. Mirage secretly amassed an unfathomably large stockpile of seeds, which could be used to plant life on the surface of Bungula. This wasn’t, strictly speaking, illegal, though it did raise a few concerns back on Earth about the amount of resources that were utilized to make this happen. These concerns were quickly erased, however, when the large majority of the public, and governmental leadership, decided that the achievement far outweighed any issues Mirage’s actions may have caused. In fact, they ultimately decided to spend even more resources on it.

There is no true singular leader for Earth. Each geographically bound group of arcologies is governed by its own hierarchy. Any law is decided upon by delegators and administrators, which are supported by a cadre of advisors, debated by a representational congress, and voted in by the people. This is unlike the nations of earlier times. There is no animosity, and no alliances, between arcologies. People live in pockets of civilization, separated by large swaths of wilderness, for the benefit of wildlife, and for the diversity of humanity. That is, they could all live in one gigantic city the size of New Zealand if they wanted to, but that would leave them vulnerable to catastrophe. They only spread out, so any potential disaster wouldn’t be able to just wipe out the entire species. Governments are compartmentalized for the sake of logistics, but all of Earth—with some exceptions—is composed of one peoples.

Administrators for any given department form asymmetrical councils with those in other arcstates in order to make decisions that impact greater populations. They appear and dissolve on an as-needed basis, and are subject to the will of citizens living in all states involved. For instance, the Usonian arcstate might encounter an issue with passenger flights between one of their arcologies, and one of Canada’s. Maybe the flight path takes it too close to that of migrating birds. The relevant Transportation Administrators will get together and solve the problem, and then disband once it’s over. They may never form a council like that again. The largest ever created was made up of certain administrators from all 233 arcstates. Foreign Policy, Trade, Science, Health, Environmental, Agriculture, Transportation, and Futurology all worked together to figure out what they were going to do about the new development on Bungula. Not only were they okay with what Mirage did with the seeds, they wanted to send even more life. They wanted to send animals.

Now, this was a huge debate. How ethical is it to transport animal life from one planet to another? Would you send full grown specimens, embryos, or even just DNA samples? The trip takes about a year and a half from the ship’s perspective, so the former seems impractical. How would the animals fare under different gravity, and different environmental conditions? Fortunately, these debates had been going on for decades now, and though no right answer is precisely possible when it comes to ethical questions like this, the experts did come to a consensus on most of the topics. They had even already talked about what it would be like to do this on Bungla, going so far back that the planet hadn’t even been given a full designation yet. All that was left now was to decide whether to actually implement the damn plan, or if it was better to leave well enough alone. Animals are great and all, but they no longer provide significant sustenance to humans, and for the sake of itself is no good reason to artificially generate an explosion of life on a new world. The fuel expenditure wasn’t even considered a problem here, because the biggest question mark fell at the end of rational morality.

In the end, after a year of discussions—which was quite remarkably fast, given the intensity of the subject matter—Earth reached a conclusion. They would send ark ships to Bungula full of animal embryos for a great number of major species. Right now, they weren’t really worried about the common housefly, or this random protozoa that most people haven’t heard of. But literal lions, tigers, and bears were all on the guest list. The little babies, once born on the surface, would not be capable of surviving alone,  however, so code for AI parents, drawn from all the knowledge of each animal’s behavioral patterns was written to compensate for at least two full generations. Hopefully, a bystander would be able to come across a jaguar in Bungula, and assume it was alive, and not just a robot with fur. While Brooke and Sharice Prieto were planting trillions upon trillions of seeds all over the world, Mirage was writing the AI parent code. She has just finished the last line today, which is good, because it’s 2242, and the first ark ship is almost here. It’s time for them to have their own little debate. What should be done with the colonists? Should they stay, or should they go now?

“I know the Foreign Policy Administrator personally,” Belahkay mentions. They read him into the situation when he basically figured it out on his own. They didn’t give him any details about the specific people they knew with time powers and patterns, but they did explain that there are some people in the world who are capable of experiencing nonlinear time in some fashion. They wouldn’t have exposed their friends either way, but the fact that, out of the three of them, no one was herself a salmon or chooser made it so it wouldn’t have been their place to say too much. He was enthusiastic about it, but clear that he had no intention of telling anyone else. His personality liked exclusivity, so if everyone knew, he wouldn’t be special anymore. Though, maybe a few more people needed to know.

“Great,” Sharice says, not sure why that’s relevant.

Belahkay realizes he needs to explain himself. “He got this job, because he comes from a long line of civil rights activists. And I do mean that. He’s, like, two hundred and eighty years old, which means his parents literally fought for racial equality in the 1960s.”

They weren’t aware of that. The oldest person alive today who doesn’t have time powers is 283. 1959 was the cut-off year for virtual immortality. People born back then were the oldest alive to undergo longevity treatments and transhumanistic upgrades the likes of which Brooke once had that advanced fast enough to keep up with their further aging. Well, a few older people participated in very early reverse aging experiments, but these trials did not go well, and none of them has survived to today.

“Go on,” Mirage presses.

Belahkay nods thankfully. “Administrator Grieves is the most open and welcoming person on this rock. Like I was saying, his family’s experience as activists extends beyond his parents. His great great great grandparents worked on the Underground Railroad, so he knows how to keep a secret. You should tell him about the Tambora refugees. He’ll understand.”

“We can’t just tell everyone we meet about time travel,” Brooke argues. “At a certain point, it gets to be too much to contain.”

“I haven’t seen Eliseus strike you down with a lightning bolt yet,” Belahkay volleys.

“Do you mean Zeus?”

He shrugs. “I’ve heard it both ways.”

“That’s why I said at a certain point,” Brooke reiterates. “Not now does not mean not ever. We have to be careful. You could be the last person they let us tell.”

“Who’s they?” he asks.

“They!” Sharice shouts. “Them!”

It’s a joke that none of them appreciates, but they leave it be.

“Wull...” Belahkay begins, “I’ll tell him.”

“You’re not immune to the danger,” Brooke says.

“I know,” he responds. “I’m willing to risk it, though, and that’s more than you can say right now.”

Brooke and Sharice both look to Mirage for her opinion. “What? I kind of coerced you two into doing any of this. I don’t think I’m the right one to make this decision. I want the refugees to survive. What happens to them after that is not my concern. They’ll be living on borrowed time anyway, so if they learn they’re in the 23rd century, then all right.”

“So, that’s the question, isn’t it?” Brooke poses. “We either tell the colonists about the time traveling refugees, or we risk the refugees finding out about the colonists, and their grand technology. In that second scenario, the colonists also find out where the refugees come from, so it’s lose-lose.”

“It sounds like our only option is to try the first one,” Sharice determines. “That’s why I’ve always hated that song.”

“Which song is this?” Brooke questions.

“Should I Stay Or Should I Go,” Sharice answers. “The lyrics go on to lament that there will be trouble if he goes, but it will be doubled if he stays. Well, obviously you choose the lesser of two evils, and make as little trouble for yourself as possible. That’s not a dilemma. All we can do is be honest with the colonists, and hope it works out. If we really can’t exercise any control over how the refugees’ reappear in the timestream, then that’s the only right choice.”

They sit with this a moment, then they call for help.

“There’s a third option," Administrator Grieves offers. Beaver Haven Prison would probably rather they tell this one person than leak the secret to the whole galaxy.

“We were hoping you would say that,” Belahkay rejoices.

“We can get the colonists off-world, for years on end. Put ‘em to sleep, and say they can come back when it’s safe.”

“What would make it unsafe?” Mirage asks. “Do you suggest we claim the terraformation caused some unforeseeable catastrophe?” She surely didn’t like the idea that history would remember her work as anything but a perfect masterpiece.

“No need,” Admin Grieves assures them. “We already have the puzzle pieces; we just need to put them on the board. Right now, three ark ships are scheduled to arrive within a span of five months. You built us a plan to trick the animals on board into believing their parents are real. The only way you could do that was to program the robot parents to essentially think they are real, correct?”

“Yes,” Mirage confirms. “They won’t know they’re robots. Each bot’s intelligence is equal to what it would be if they were actually whatever animals they’re meant to look and act like. I’m not following your logic, though.”

“You can’t program the animals to live a certain way. You’ve just programmed them to live however it is they should. Perhaps they don’t like where the shuttle dropped them off. Maybe they’ll seek higher ground, or a better water source. Maybe their organic offspring will multiply faster than our studies of the same species of Earth tell us they would, because this is still a different planet, and we don’t know for sure how they’ll function on it.”

“This is all true,” Mirage agrees.

“Humans and other vonearthans are a danger to that. There’s a reason we outlawed zoos a long time ago, and why scientists are investing heavily in human consciousness transference to animal substrates. We don’t want to disturb nature, so let’s tell the colonists that. We’ve realized that the animals may not survive if they’re exposed too quickly to evolved species. We have to let them roam free for a while before we drop back down. We have to understand their migration habits, and respective growth rates, so when we finally do return, we can do so with the least amount of commotion.”

“Will they accept that?” Brooke questions. “Will they all just allow us to send them back up into space, after all they’ve been through? We finally built a self-sustaining habitable world outside Earth, and we’re asking them to be patient?”

“They’ll understand why, because it’s not an unreasonable request. In fact, we should probably do it anyway, refugees or no. I’m not sure how much she thought it through, but an Environmental Advisor from the Kansas City arcstate had concerns about this very thing. I don’t know why she never officially brought the issue to the floor, but it’s a valid concern.”

The four people listening to this idea quietly reflect on it.

“Besides,” Admin Grieves continues, “they’ll be in stasis, as well will everyone they care about. 2243, 2263; it’ll feel like a few moments have passed no matter how long we leave them up there, and it makes little difference to them.”

Belahkay smiles. “I told you to tell him about this, didn’t I? It was a pretty good idea bringing his brilliant mind in on this, eh?”

“Yes,” Brooke acknowledges. “Telling him was a good idea, and telling the colonists the animal preservation story is a better one. I think this could work. I’ve not interacted with these people a whole hell of a lot, but they seem to want to do the right thing. I think they’ll go for it.”

“All right,” Mirage says, determined. “Let’s discuss specifics.”

They made a plan, and followed through. Three years later, the Indonesian refugees suddenly appeared on Bungula, and it turned out to have all been much ado about nothing, because they showed up on a single island not unlike the one they were living on before. The colonists probably could have stayed.

< > Entire Story

Microstory 1160: Athanaric Fury

< > Table of Contents

A long time ago, in a timeline far, far removed from this one, the ubiquity of time travel led to chaos. People who could manipulate time were running around, wreaking havoc throughout the timestream, and no one was powerful enough to stop it...until the gallery dimension was discovered. A group of scientists first came across evidence that this parallel dimension existed in the year 2019, but remember, this was an entirely different reality. They tried to send four volunteers in, but they were unable to make it through. Three died in the attempt. Through further research, they realized that the dimension could only be accessed in one very specific point in time, about nine thousand years ago. A group of 147 traveled back to reach this moment, but overshot by over a hundred years. Since they were from the future, they waited for their time to come in a very well-regulated environment. Their population grew to enormous proportions. When the moment arrived to access this other dimension, there were several thousand of them, who had not interbred with the people of the day. They could not all enter the portal at once without a little help, which was where Athanaric Fury came in. By then, they had discovered a place they would come to know as The Agora. It was a large natural cave found under what would come to be called Easter Island. It was composed of a special type of rock, and inhabited by a special species of glowing worm. Working in harmony, these two things could amplify temporal energy. Athanaric and a man named Baudin Murdoch led the endeavor to carve out an entire amphitheatre here, so that everyone could fit, and then they opened the portal. In one second, everyone inside the Agora was transported to the other dimension. But it was lifeless and uniform, so Baudin then used his powers to construct an even larger structure, where they could live.

They called this place The Gallery, and it was here that they took watch over the timestream. Since they were experiencing time from an outsider’s perspective, they could see both the current timeline, and the previous one, though no others. Whenever  a time traveler created a change, they were cognizant of it, and since these changes could cause significant damage to reality, they used their elevated position to protect the future. One of the first things they did was manipulate reality in such a way as to prevent anyone from going back to the same moment they used to enter the dimension, and accessing it themselves. Unfortunately, they did not foresee the problems this might cause. Eventually, most of the workers grew tired of their responsibilities, and an uprising formed. Nearly every single one of them exited the Gallery, and were never able to return, leaving the timestream vulnerable to paradoxes. Believing this might happen, Athanaric built a secret back-up system. He had the ability to create entire living beings out of raw materials, such as clay or stone. These creations will take an incredibly long time to create, and though he intended to build at least 147, he only ended up with three by the time they were needed. They were known as The Prestons, and they did not come with a warranty. Zeferino, Nerakali, and Arcadia were disloyal, self-serving, and highly corruptible. They too rebelled, and before Athanaric could do anything about it, he was kicked out of the Gallery, and stranded on Earth. Only The Curator remained now, but this is not his story. The Gallery was all but useless without Athanaric. It was his ability that gave it power, and it would soon die without him. He had to come up with an alternative, so he put all his might into a new creation, which he called The Mass. It would travel throughout time and space, cleaning up inconsistencies, and altering people’s perceptions. Once he was done, after millennia of work, Athanaric was finally free to retire.