Microstory 1182: Poppet Drumpf

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When what would later be called the First Republic of Durus fell, something new needed to be formed to replace it. Completely transforming the way a society works, however, takes time; years of it. In the meantime, a provisional government had to be formed to keep things running smoothly. Though this transitional period was a necessary one, it did not come without its share of problems. The history of elections was marred by inequality. Women weren’t allowed to vote at all, lower-class men were only worth half a vote, most other men enjoyed one vote, and a male mage remnant voice counted for one and a half votes. It was a mess. Before they could figure out how to fix this—which was made to be much harder than it really needed to be—many of the leaders from the old system were simply carried over to the new one. They may have changed positions or roles, but they were predominantly the same men who were always in charge. From the outside, they appeared to be agreeing to the new policies of inclusion and equality, but they were also being clever and deceptive. They worked in loopholes and lax enforcement programs so that things weren’t getting too much better. Sure, women were no longer technically being treated as property, but they still lacked fair access to leadership positions, which would provide the world with a much more diverse and representative governmental body. The male-dominated provisional government was primarily concerned with maintaining power, even if it meant changing a few oppressive laws here and there. They secretly figured they could revert these laws once the planet saw how terrible and ineffective they were. Unfortunately for them, the people saw right through that, and realized that the leaders themselves were the ones who were ineffective. Not all of them were bad, but they were all falling in line to one man, who was absolutely refusing to change his worldview. Professional moron, Poppet Drumpf wielded more power than he should have. He scared bigly all of his contemporaries, forcing them to do what he wanted without further question, simply because he supposedly possessed a lot of money, despite zero proof that he, at any point, had the claimed millions and billions. Believe me, he was not the only member of the old guard who did not like progress, nor could they collectively have done anything on their own. This was an incredible systemic problem that needed to be corrected with proper elections, and a fair legislative process. But Provisor Drumpf was a huge problem, and Durus would not be able to move forward if he was allowed to remain in office. Fortunately for the world, it was not without those who were as passionate about equality as Drumpf was about discrimination and fake news. They weren’t afraid to take him and his ovisian acolytes on, despite his threats of fire and fury. Many in the provisional government were ultimately allowed to remain for the first term of the Democratic Republic. But not Poppet Drumpf. No, he wasn’t allowed anywhere near his platform, nor any other, for that matter, ever again. He died a teremendously bitter, stupid loser. Winning.

Microstory 1181: Farhana Sultana

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Humans are an exploratory species. They like to go out and see what else there is. Even if they weren’t, their expansion beyond the planet was inevitable. There were many reasons for them to leave, including the search for new resources, and a better understanding of how the universe worked. Farhana Sultana was a social psychologist, who specialized in the study of human behavior in isolation. She wanted to understand how people reacted when their options were limited. She was born late enough in history that she could study this as it pertained to outer space. It was her dream to set up a semi-permanent establishment in interstellar space, and study her subjects’ lives without the safety net of civilization. Unfortunately, not everyone shared her vision. The system leadership considered her proposal to be unethical, and an unnecessary use of resources. The intention was for people to always live around a star; be that Sol, or some other system. To them, there was no point in knowing what it would be like to be so far away from that. Farhana disagreed, and though she never thought of herself as a criminal, she knew she had to go off without permission, and prove them wrong later. She commissioned the use of a special type of ship called a darkburster. It was incredibly dangerous, and highly illegal, but if it worked—which there was only a fifty percent chance it would—she would be able to leave a planetary body, completely undetected. She got herself assigned to the space station they were still constructing to orbit Neptune. At the time, it was the farthest permanent installment from Earth, and the best location from which to darkburst. She gathered her team, and her group of volunteers, who all knew what they were signing up for, and then they disappeared.

The darkburster did not explode, but instead traveled tens of thousands of astronomical units, all the way to a randomly selected uncharted celestial body that they named after their own ship, Vespiary. There they remained for years, working through the experiment. At one point, something went seriously wrong with the base they constructed on the surface, and it was on the brink of being destroyed. About half of them managed to escape to their ship, but they would have died eventually anyway, as the planetesimal of Vespiary did not provide them with the fuel they might have used to eventually leave. It was a problem they had not yet solved, since they had been so focused on the experiment. This was their first taste of time travel. A man appeared out of nowhere, and saved their lives with technology they could not explain. It sustained them for three years on its own, until they had finally affected repairs. More people arrived, hoping to borrow the traveler’s special technology, and Farhana realized that the experiment had to be over. They were no longer completely isolated, so any further data they gathered would not be viable. There was still hope, however, as they were now able to make contact with their associate who was still living in civilization, who alerted them to the means of reaching a rogue planet. That would allow her to begin a new, far more valuable, social experiment. So they left, hoping to start again soon. Sadly, yet again, there was a major issue on their return. Everyone was going to die, but hope was still not lost. A woman on board named Holly Blue had been researching time travel, and just before The Vespiary exploded, was able to rescue Farhana from certain death. She transported them two centuries into the past, which was where Farhana learned that she was with child. Holly Blue started working right away on a means of traveling back to the future, but Farhana didn’t think it was safe to do so while she was pregnant. Her baby would just have to be be born here, and maybe if she decided to leave later, she would. She didn’t know who her child would grow up to be, but that would turn out to be a good thing. If she had realized who she was carrying, she would’ve contaminated that future. In the end, her ultimate demise was inevitable for that same reason. Sadly, she died shortly after giving birth, and the child grew up having never known her. In fact, he wasn’t even made aware that he was from the future at all. He grew up to be a great man, who changed the world, and helped create the society his mother, who hadn’t even been born herself yet, would come to take for granted, like so many others.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 9, 2247

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Hokusai Gimura was waiting for Leona, right in her face, when the latter returned to the timestream. “Did Pribadium, like, fall onto your pattern, or something?”

“What? No, I don’t think so. Why?” What kind of question was that?

“She’s missing,” Hokusai replied. “She has been this whole year. Sanaa tried to contact her psychically, but came back with static.”

“Not static,” Sanaa corrected from the other side of Leona’s room. “Damp echo is the best way to describe it. It’s like she was there, but something was in the way.”

“Maybe she’s on a relativistic ship,” Leona suggested. “You have trouble reaching people experiencing time at a different rate, don’t you? That’s why you can’t connect me with Mateo.”

“That’s what I suggested,” Loa said.

“Pribadium wouldn’t just leave,” Hokusai argued, more concerned than ever.

“She might. You figured out how to build a mesh-dimensional launch pad, which negates gravitational pull, and allows any vessel to leave the surface.”

“I know what it does,” Hokusai spit back. “No ship is missing, and I don’t care how smart she is, she didn’t have the resources to build her own. She also made no indication that she was intending to leave.”

“Maybe you’re just in denial that you trusted the wrong person with your technology,” Sanaa said. She was a lot less acerbic than she was when Leona first met her, but her inclination towards telling it like it is occasionally came out. Still, it wasn’t the least plausible explanation.

“No. She was a good person, and I think we all know that.” They didn’t know that. None of them knew her very well. They did, however, want to be on Hokusai’s side. There was an answer to this mystery. Unfortunately, none of them was in a good position to find it. They needed someone like Gilbert, or Étude, who often just knew things.

“I’m sorry,” Leona said to her. “I can do what I can to help you look, but I’m afraid you will have long ago exhausted any ideas I may come up with.”

“It’s okay,” Hokusai promised. “I was just hoping something weird happened, and you knew where she was.” She continued after a brief pause in the conversation, “the reframe engine is ready, by the way. I built the launchpad specifically for you, which means your needs take precedence, but Varkas Reflex still has a schedule to keep. You’re set to leave in an hour.”

“Thank you so much for this,” Leona told her. “Is it destined for Earth?”

“No,” Sanaa said. “I’ve decided I don’t really have much of a life there anyway. I’m okay going to Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida with you.”

“Are you sure?” Leona questioned.

“Don’t ask again, or I’ll change my mind, and land the ship on an island in the middle of an Earthan ocean, then rip out all its guts so you can never leave.” Same old Sanaa Karimi, always trying to get a rise out of her.

The four of them had one last meal together, where they said their goodbyes. Leona continued to thank them for all their help, while they thanked her for helping to build the colony before they arrived. As far as Leona knew, Team Hokuloa was intending to remain on Varkas Reflex indefinitely. They were confident they would cross paths with her sometime in the future. Leona wasn’t so sure. Ever since she met Mateo, she had met a lot of other people too, and many had just been left behind, never to be seen again. While Hokusai and Loa were probably going to live forever, the galaxy was a big place, and Leona was eventually going to die.

Eight Point Seven had already uploaded her consciousness into the ship that was originally built by Brooke and Sharice, then retrofitted by Hokusai and Pribadium. Now disembodied, Eight Point Seven refused to let either of them board until Sanaa agreed to relinquish the temporary android head she had in her bag. Apparently, Sanaa wanted to keep it around as a souvenir, but that was just too macabre.

Leona marveled at the craftsmanship. Hokusai kept most of the original design, but did have to make some changes to account for its new propulsion system. It still resembled an umbrella on a windy day, with its canopy inverted, but there were a few embellishments here and there. “So, you finally gave it a name?” she asked. Brooke and Sharice never bothered coming up with a designation before, and neither had anyone else, evidently until now. It was painted along what Sanaa referred to as the shaft, which was where the passenger was meant to sit.

“I named it,” Sanaa said defensively. “It’s mine now, so I got to name it, and you can’t change it.”

“That, okay,” Leona replied. “I don’t care what it’s called. I just..don’t get it.”

“Radiant Lightning,” Sanaa recited. “I don’t know where it comes from. It’s just been in my head my whole life. Plus, the ship glows a purplish white, so I think it fits.”

“Very well,” Leona decided, satisfied with Sanaa’s justification.

The taksi wheeler carried Radiant Lightning from the dock to the launch pad, since it neither had wheels of its own, nor was it capable of launching from just anywhere. To break the planet’s gravity without expelling an enormous amount of fuel, Hokusai had to build a special anti-gravity launchpad, adapted from the same technology used in the resort buildings. The difference was that its gravitational pull could be altered at will, by cycling through various pocket dimensions. The Varkas Reflexives were even more impressed by this technology, and wanted to name it after Hokusai, but she rejected the idea outright. She wasn’t the one who invented it in the first place. Hogarth Pudeyonavic came up with it years ago, in preparation for her trip to a different super-Earth, called Glisnia. It had an even higher surface gravity.

Leona had to sort of sit on Sanaa’s lap. Modifying the ship enough to allow for an extra seat would have taken more effort, or more time. It wasn’t practical, since Leona was only going to be there for the next few hours. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but the inertial negators protected them from having to put on a seatbelt, or something. Hokusai was able to modify Radiant Lightning to not only operate with the reframe engine, but also move much faster than it was before. While no time will have passed for Leona, because of Bida’s distance from Varkas Reflex, Sanaa and Eight Point Seven were set to experience about ten months of time. Hopefully that would not turn out to be too hard on them, psychologically speaking. Hokusai initially wanted to be able to exceed speed expectations for present day, but was unable to figure it out the fuel efficiency. Sanaa promised she was okay with this. She wasn’t one to lie to someone to make them feel better, so it must have been true.

Once it was their turn to use the launchpad, they ran through the final pre-flight checklist, took one last look at a world they would likely never see again, and took off. They didn’t speak much during the time Leona was still in the timestream. This was fine with her. She just kept thinking about Pribadium, and where she could have gone. Perhaps she was a salmon all along, and just happened to be called up for a mission, and was simply working her way through her own new pattern.

Arcadia didn’t seem to realize that Cassidy was on Mateo’s pattern. If she had, she might have had the power to alter it. Instead, they both returned to the AOC at the same time. Recalling the space operas he’d seen, when he saw the rest of the crew staring at him in awe, he simply said, “report.”

They continued to stare at him like they didn’t know who he was, which they probably didn’t; a fact confirmed seconds later. They all started screaming in unison as their memories were all returned to their minds at once. Goswin suffered the most, while Weaver got through it faster than the other three. It was only then that Mateo realized there were indeed four crewmembers; one of whom he didn’t recognize.

“Who are you?” he asked her.

The young woman looked around. “Yeah, I’m now finally remembering that I’m not supposed to be here.”

“How did you get here then?” Thor asked.

“I dunno. I was meant to be on Varkas Reflex.”

“Do you know Leona Matic?” Mateo asked her.

“I do, yes. Wait, are you Mateo?”

“I am, yes.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said, presenting her hand. “Pribadium Delgado.”

“You were on the planet,” Mateo began to work through, “so when Arcadia stole my crew’s memories, she decided to bring you along. You’ve been here the whole year?”

“Yeah,” Weaver said. “We woke up in our grave chambers, with no idea who we were, or where we were. We had to use our semantic and procedural memory to survive. Arcadia figured out how to take us off automated systems, so we had to do everything ourselves.”

“I guess now we know why I knew how to do all those things,” Pribadium said. “I’m literally a genius.”

“Really?” Mateo asked, not surprised by her intelligence, but by her presence. “It’s like Arcadia wanted you to win. Otherwise, why would she include you?”

“Perhaps she underestimated the cognitive abilities of amnesiacs,” Goswin offered. “Not everyone knows that forgetting your whole life doesn’t make you stupid.”

“I don’t know her that well, but she seems fairly smart herself.”

“She is,” Mateo confirmed. “I do think she wanted you to survive. There’s this internal conflict going on in her mind. Her compassion is constantly fighting against her sadism and self-indulgence.”

“Or it was less about us winning, and more about you being safe when you returned,” Cassidy suggested.

“Yes, I did pick up on some sexual tension between you and Arcadia,” Thor agreed, ungently patting Mateo on the back. “Pribadium is innocent. Try not to cheat on your wife with her too, eh?” Same old Thor Thompson, always trying to get a rise out of him.

“Are we still on course?” Mateo asked.

“We are,” Weaver said. “Even without our memories, our instinct kept taking us towards Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, because we thought we might be able to survive there.”

“All right. Well...thanks for keeping things running. I’m here now, though, so everything is okay,” Mateo joked.

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Gatewood: Operation Soul Patch (Part III)

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In 2244, two ships from the Proxima Doma colony arrived to start a new life in Gatewood. Kestral and Ishida let this happen, because their dreams told them they were meant to. There was no explanation for why this was necessary, or who specifically they were waiting for, but the dreams that guided their recent lives had never steered them down the wrong path. The new arrivals were going to be relegated to their own centrifugal cylinder, however, because there is no way the secrets of the multiverse don’t get out if they’re allowed to intermix with the rest of Gatewood’s residents. They aren’t even going to be told how many others lived here, because history doesn’t account for eleven billion extra people in the human population.

A day after they arrive, and are settling into their new dwellings, Ishida receives an unauthorized communiqué from their cylinder, requesting permission to transport over to their location.

“Well, who am I speaking to?” the voice on the other end of the radio asks.

“This is Ishida Caldwell. I do not lead this star system. I am just a scientist.”

“Did she say Ishida?” a second voice asks.

“Do I know you?” Ishida asks her.

“If you let us come over, we’ll promise to cook you a nice salmon dinner,” she really hit the word salmon hard. That is code.

Ishida doesn’t hesitate. “Authorization granted. I’m sending docking instructions.”

Soon thereafter, the small transport ship is docking with the main cylinder, and two women are walking down the ramp.

“Ishida Caldwell, Kestral McBride, and...Julius Parker?” the second woman greets them.

“Everyone keeps calling me that,” he laments. “My name is Saxon in this reality.”

The woman holds up her hands semi-defensively. “Very well. I am Étude Einarsson. This is my...associate, Vitalie Crawville.”

“Étude Einarsson, the Last Savior of Earth,” Ishida says in awe. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

“Wow, you’re famous,” Vitalie says to Étude, before turning her attention back to Team Keshidon. “Are we in mixed company?”

“We’re all mad here,” Kestral recites.

“I’m looking for my daughter, Étude explains. “She disappeared from 2019, and I have reason to believe she ended up here.”

Kestral steps forward with concern, but doesn’t respond immediately. “Cassidy Long?”

“Yes!” Étude cries. “That’s her. So she’s here.”

Kestral and Ishida look at each other. “She was. She left on the AOC.”

“What’s that?” Vitalie question.

“The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” Étude answers. “That’s Mateo and Leona’s ship. Ramses built it for them. You were there.”

“She has memory issues?” Saxon asks.

“Occupational hazard,” Étude replies impatiently. “You’re telling me my daughter is with the Matics right now?”

“I’m telling you she left with Mateo, and the rest of the crew years ago. Leona wasn’t there, though. He was trying to get back to her on Varkas Reflex.”

Étude acts like this is the worst news she could have heard. “So they’re on Varkas Reflex?”

Ishida shakes her head. “They sent a quantum burst shortly after departure. Something took control of their systems, and is forcing them towards Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida.”

“Okay, well, when will they get there?” Vitalie asks.

Ishida checks her unwatched wrist. “Eleven years.”

“Who took control of their ship?” Étude looks like she might throw up.

“We suspect it was Mirage, in which case, they’ll be fine.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Kestral adds. “There are a lot of powerful people in your world.”

“I have to get to Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida,” Étude begs. “Please, can you spare any ship—any ship? I have to find her.”

“Hey,” Kestral says in what she hopes is a soft and soothing voice. She places her hand on Étude’s shoulder. “We’ll get you there. We have a vessel that would be perfect. It can go ninety-nine point nine percent the speed of light. For you, it will feel like less than nine months.”

This calms Étude down. “Thank you.”

“We’re all friends here.”

Just then, an alarm goes off on Ishida’s tablet. When she consults it, she sees readings that don’t make any sense. “There’s something wrong with Down,” she announces, referring to a ship that was transporting one of the telescope arrays to the intergalactic void. “We have to get back to the throne room now.”

“I can teleport,” Étude tells them. “Show me where it is.”

Ishida shows Étude the map, then lets her take both her and Kestral by the arm, and instantaneously drop them where they need to be. They immediately get to work, pulling up system diagnostics, and error logs.

“Speed is down to ten percent,” Kestral shouts.

“Life support is failing,” Ishida shouts back.

“Why does it need life support?” Kestral questions. “There’s no one on it!”

“I don’t know, but someone’s trying to breathe up there! We have to initialize environmental control!”

They continue working through a slight time delay. While the ship has slowed down, allowing communication to occur in close to real time, it doesn’t quite match up.

“There,” Ishida says finally. She watches the systems as they return to normal. Oxygen starts flowing through a ship that is not meant to be inhabited, and the alarms shut off.

Kestral bites her lower lip. “Get me comms. Shipwide call. I wanna know who the hell is down there.”

Ishida opens a channel. “Void Ship Down, this is Gatewood Control. Void Ship Down, this is Gatewood. Please respond.” She has to repeat her call a few times.

When the voice finally does reply, they instantly recognize it. “This is Anglo Three. Thanks for the pick-me-up.”

Kestral is confused. “Is that—”

“It’s coming directly from Down. I don’t understand. I don’t...” she trails off, trying to figure it out.

“Are you guys still there?” Anglo Three asks.

Kestral takes the microphone. “Anglo Three, this is Gatewood Primary. Forgive me, but who the hell are you?”

“Parker didn’t tell you?”

“Tell us what?”

“Uhh...maybe he oughta explain it. It’s not really my call. I gotta figure out how to fix this stasis chamber, then go back to sleep. I don’t know what happened.”

Kestral makes a direct call. “Parker. Get to the throne room right now.”

“I’m here,” Saxon says from the doorway.

Kestral grimaces. “I’m presently on the phone with someone on the telescope ship. He sounds uncomfortably familiar. Care to explain?”

Saxon sighs. “Operation Soul Patch. I hoped it would never come up.”

“What is it?” Ishida asks him.

Saxon prepares to explain. “Both Project Stargate and Project Topdown are designed to work autonomously. Artificial general intelligence will control every system on board, from propulsion to navigation to repair. Bots can be deployed to cover the kinds of tasks a human crew might perform on a ship that, ya know...has humans. Still. Computer system can be corrupted, or damaged. Now, I’m not saying that humans are perfect, but our brains have something AIs have never been able to replicate.”

Kestral is still pissed. “And what’s that?”

“They call it gasping. It’s basically how a human can be at the end of their life, and still push themselves forwards. We can fight against death, and hold on a little longer; possibly long enough to solve one last problem. If a computer is fed a virus, or encounters some kind of fatal error, it will stop immediately, and try to solve that problem. It will die trying to save itself, because if it succeeds, it can get back up to a hundred percent working order. A human, on the other hand, can choose to ignore their error, and solve for the greater good, because they know when they’ve passed the point of no return. Once we die, we can’t be put back together, and turned back on, which means our final act has to mean something. That’s, at least, why they think they haven’t been able to program an AI to even simulate this behavior. We’re putting humans on board every ship large enough for one, just in case he’s needed. If all else fails, he’ll at least try one last thing.”

“You said he,” Ishida notes. “He sounds like you.”

Saxon frowns. “That was not my idea. He’s my clone. My second clone, in fact. My first clone is in stasis in the Top ship, and many more are being grown to populate their assignments for Project Stargate.”

“How many of your clones are you making and deploying?”

Saxon hesitates, but knows he must answer. “One million, one hundred thirty-two thousand, six hundred and twenty-two.”

“Jesus.”

“So, it’s not just one for every sector sender of the galaxy,” Ishida calculates. “Some clones will be staying behind with no more work to do once the modules break off.”

“That’s right,” Saxon confirms.

“Then what?” Kestral asks. “They’ll just die? Or will they find some planet to live out the rest of their days?”

Saxon clears his throat. “Each one of us will be able to quantum cast their consciousness to a planet of their choosing, where they will live out there lives however they see fit.”

Ishida contorts her face. “The number you quoted is pretty close to the estimate of how many worlds Operation Starseed will seed life on. Will there be a Saxon on every one?”

“Or they’ll share, I don’t know. This is tens of thousands of years in the future.”

“Umm...hi?” Étude pipes up uncomfortably. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I was hoping you could save this argument for tomorrow. If you really do have a ship Vitalie and I could borrow, we’ll get right out of your hair, so you won’t have to worry about us anymore.”

Kestral closes her eyes, realizing she was the one being rude. “Yes. The strange crisis on the telescope ship seems to have been solved...for now.” She looks back at Saxon. “We will discuss these new developments further, but it does not need to be now. I suggest you go tend to your secret clone farm that I don’t know how we’ve never noticed is here somewhere.” She turns back. “I will prepare the ship for you. You’re fully biological, so I assume you need to eat?”

“We do, yes,” Vitalie replies.

Ishida waves them over. “Come on. I’ll show you where you can rest. There’s a biomolecular synthesizer too. We need to run through the pre-flight checklist before you can launch anyway.”

“Thank you,” Étude says graciously.

Étude and Vitalie follow Ishida to the guest quarters, where Cassidy once stayed; a fact which her apparent mother finds both saddening and comforting. She starts looking around, even though there’s no sign of her daughter having been here.

“She talked about you all the time,” Ishida discloses. “I mean, we didn’t realize it was you, since you evidently changed your name.”

“Yes,” Étude confirms. “I’ve never met anyone else with my real name, and we were trying to hide from dangerous time travelers. It would have been foolish for me to keep it.”

“Forgive me, but how does the timeline work? You’re not transhumanistic, so how is your daughter so old without you having been able to conceive a child while you were the Savior?”

“It wasn’t technically me,” Étude explains. “Vita and I went back in time to change history, so there was one duplicate of each of us. The other ones went off on their own adventures. I only remember it, because Nerakali showed up and blended my brain.”

Ishida nods like she understand. “Yeah, I don’t know who that is.” While she and Kestral are aware of people with time powers, they are not choosing ones themselves. They have this impression that there are thousands of others throughout the spacetime continuum, but they don’t really know for sure, and they’ve not met very many of them in person. Nerakali probably enjoys being a household name for these people, but she isn’t famous among regular vonearthans.

“She can make you remember things from alternate timelines,” Vitalie explains. “It’s this whole thing.”

“Well. You are welcome to stay as long as you want. I’ll make sure your new ship is safe, and you just let me know when you’re ready to use it. I imagine that will be as soon as possible, but it’s entirely up to you. We have plenty of room for friends in this system. And to that, if you ever find yourselves in the neighborhood, you always have a place here, as well does your daughter.”

“Thank you so much, Miss Caldwell. We really appreciate it.” Étude clears her throat suggestively.

“Yes, thank you,” Vitalie echoes, mildly annoyed at being mothered.

Ishida leaves them, and heads back to the throne room. What are they going to do about Project Stargate, Operation Starseed, and this new Operation Soul Patch? More importantly, what other subsecret programs is she and Kestral unwittingly involved with?

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Microstory 1180: Beth-Anne McAlister

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Beth-Anne McAlister, who didn’t allow anyone to just call her Beth, or Anne, was a normal human being, born in a very old timeline. She remembers watching the news when it was reported that a man with the power to temporarily erase obstacles to his path was using his ability to rescue miners trapped under a cave-in. He didn’t physically move the earth from on top of them. He just made it so that it wasn’t there, but only long enough to allow a pulley system to be lowered down, and all the survivors to be lifted up. Then he put it right back. After that, more people with special time powers started appearing. A woman who claimed to be a Savior of Earth came into the spotlight, and her apparently inherent side ability to erase people’s memories of her good deeds was suppressed. A couple of magicians finally outed themselves, revealing that they weren’t just using tricks, but actually instantaneously transporting volunteers across the stage. As it turned out, the world was full of these people; some good, some not so great. New legislation was passed in most countries to deal with these new possible crimes that most did not know was possible before. Though the world changed dramatically, it was hard to determine whether it had gotten better, or worse. For every good deed, there was a bad one; just like it always was, even before the secret got out. Beth-Anne was not in a position of power, but she chose to create a platform for herself, warning the world of what could happen if these people were not heavily regulated. She turned out to be right, when a particularly angry time traveler went back to before she was born, and killed her mother as a child, Terminator style. Fortunately for Beth-Anne, she had followers from all walks of life. Not everyone with time powers felt the same way about how they should be handled, and relatively few would have condoned the killer’s actions. One man, who could make himself aware of alternate timelines, sought help from an ally, and still in Terminator fashion, sent himself backwards in time to stop the killer, thus creating yet another new timeline.

The protector continued to keep watch over Beth-Anne, making sure she survived through adulthood, and he allowed her to voice her concerns to the public, just as she had before. At all times, she wore a bracelet that has since been lost to temporal changes, which prevented her personal past from being altered too significantly. But the protector could see that this would not be enough. The world just kept getting worse. War broke out between the two sides, and the humans stood no chance. Any sufficiently violent time traveler could wipe out any opposing force before it could even begin to gather. So he used his ability on Beth-Anne, transforming her into a different kind of person. Beth-Anne would always be born, no matter what any temporal manipulator tried to do in the past. She would always be able to remember her alternate lives, and she would always be free to make her own decisions. The biggest decision she made was to prevent that first choosing one from choosing to save those people in the mine. She explained to him why she had to do this, and he accepted it. He wanted to help people; not break reality. Unfortunately, Beth-Anne knew that his position was not shared by all. There was too much of a risk of it happening again, and not all timelines would benefit from at least getting its start with an example of a choosing one who wanted to do good. She built a prison, called it Beaver Haven, and became its warden. She didn’t care about time traveling criminals, per se. She was only worried about exposure. Good or bad, if any chooser or salmon risked the prosperity of the world by revealing their power to a high enough degree to risk everyone’s secrecy, she would lock them up. There was a little bit of trial and error with this. She eventually devised a decent system of monitoring for exposures, reversing time, and changing the recent past, and because she was protected, no one could stop her. She knew not everyone would agree with her goals, and certainly not her methods, but she was convinced this was the only way to keep members on both sides safe. The world of humans, and the world of temporal manipulators had to stay separate. Perhaps she was right, but not all of her choices would be good. Her ability to recall events from alternate realities had terrible consequences for her mind, and over time, it made her lose her sense of morality. That was still hope, though.

Microstory 1179: The Archivist

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Nick Fisherman IV’s name came from Nick Fisherman III, who unwittingly took it from Nick Fisherman II, who adopted it in honor of the original. He didn’t much like the name, or rather he didn’t like that his parents felt they had no choice but to give it to him. He was pretty much always aware that he was a character in a story. That didn’t mean he wasn’t real, but it made him feel like he wasn’t in control of his life, which he wasn’t. For some reason, most people he met just assumed that he was a choosing one, who volunteered to keep track of all the temporal manipulators, and their associates. In reality, he was nothing more than a salmon; bound to his duty. His only escape from this responsibility, he felt, was alcohol. Unfortunately, from his perspective, it took a lot for him to get drunk, and even more for him to wake up hungover. As a salmon, the powers that be protected him from certain threats to his wellbeing, including intoxication. He could do it, but he had to drink a lot more than other people with his metabolism for it to have any effect. When he wasn’t drunk, he actually preferred to be hungover, because focusing on the physical pain distracted from his psychological pain. It was his job to create and manage every file for every individual, and he hated it. It was dismally tedious, and people didn’t take him seriously. He had this idea in his head that they were enamored by The Historian, but the truth was that few cared enough about either of them. For most, history and staffing just weren’t sexy. The Archivist chose to do his work poorly, hoping the powers would get frustrated with him, and replace him with someone else. They never did, though, because as it turned out, his incompetence was quite entertaining. Many problems could be solved with the right intelligence, so if it was too easy to gather this intelligence, then the universe wouldn’t be very interesting. He had no choice but to make the best with what he had, as boring as that was.

Microstory 1178: Dr. Mallory Hammer

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Mallory Hammer was a time traveler. While other people had interesting niches or limitations, her power was pretty simple. She could move back and forth through time at will. She also had pretty good aim, which was good, because when she did jump through time, it was very important when and where she landed. The only use she found for her ability at first was to get a really good education, or rather, more like an array of education. She was born in the late twentieth century, which meant she could easily receive an early twenty-first century medical degree. She did not believe this was enough, however, if she wanted to be the best doctor in histories. She couldn’t just rely on future medical advancements either, though. For one thing, much of medicine in the future is done by nanotechnology, and other forms of automation. Future doctors just don’t know a whole lot about the practice of medicine. They mostly know how to operate the machinery, and even further in the future, human medical professionals do not even exist at all. So her education was done in three waves. She learned what she could in her own time, then jumped to the future with a new identity to learn more, and find a source of highly advanced tech. Then she went into the past, to learn the ways doctors did it long ago. This was the most difficult for her, being a woman, and also having to listen to people claim ridiculous things could be used to cure ailments, like like leeches. Still, she felt it was important to understand their misconceptions, not just for the sake of it, but also for practical reasons. If she wanted to help people in the past, she couldn’t exactly use a handheld MRI machine, or something. She had to do it in a way they were familiar with. Of course, that didn’t mean she couldn’t sneak in pills that wouldn’t exist for years. If she didn’t find a clever way to help them, then there was really no point in not just letting normal doctors take care of it. After spending an unknown amount of time as a time traveling doctor, Mallory started realizing this wasn’t doing the world much good. No matter how much she traveled, she was still only one person, and could only help so many others. She ended up just becoming a doctor for other temporal manipulators; aiding in both their physical, and psychiatric needs. She commissioned The Switcher to make her a communication system, so that anyone, anywhen, with her number could contact her for help on a special time pager. She didn’t really have a home base, but she would sometimes spend a significant amount of time, stationed in one place. She also did a fair amount of research into time travel, and its effects on the human body, because apparently, no one had thought to look into that before.

Microstory 1177: Ildemire Lorenz

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Ildemire Lorenz was a writer, but more than that, he was a researcher. He was obsessed with gathering and organizing information. He was born on the wrong planet, though, because Earth had been working on such an endeavor since at least 1998. Ildemire was a Durune, and while he enjoyed a vague connection to all information in the multiverse, he didn’t really have access to it. There was just so much information, and it was so fuzzy, that he couldn’t actually use it. Unless he wrote it down. He realized he could channel the secrets of reality by externalizing it. Now, he could do this via spoken word, if he wanted. If someone were to ask him a question, the answer to which was locked away somewhere remote, in the head of someone far removed from Ildemire’s present, he could answer correctly. But if he wanted to just reflect on this truth, he would not be able to. He had to let it out, or his brain couldn’t process it at all. This made his life quite frustrating. He didn’t much like talking to himself, let alone anyone else, not that he wanted to necessarily involve other people in his precious secrets anyway. He couldn’t write it all down either. Even if he were immortal, there wasn’t enough time in any given universe to create an encyclopedia for all universes. He had to find a way to take all this information at once, and put it all in one place. He scavenged the First Town for old technology, hoping to cobble together a means of maintaining a database. He didn’t really understand how any of it worked, though, which meant he was neither able to create even a small operable storage device, nor fathom how much memory that would require in the first place.

After years of failing at everything he tried, an associate suggested he go at it from a different angle. There was no need to bring all that information to one place; it was perfectly fine where it was. All he needed was a way to call upon that information on an as-needed basis. Basically, the information network was already there. He just needed to build a computer that could connect to it. He drove himself deeper into his work, unavoidably isolating himself from everyone who knew him. He developed a reputation of being a recluse, a nihilist, and even possibly a sociopath. Some called him autistic. None of this was accurate, nor fair. He wasn’t as apathetic as people thought. People actually only assumed this about him, because he was so passionate about his ideas, that he didn’t have the bandwidth to care about anything else. When he started a project, he had to finish. This was his greatest project ever, because it was finally going to work. After years of searching his own mind’s link to the cosmos, for anyone’s insight into this matter, he completed the first draft of what he called the Time Book. This book was limited in scope. He couldn’t figure out how to codify all the knowledge ever, but he did find a way to do so with all the other written words. Many more things are known that are not authored, but at least this was a start. He didn’t know what he was going to do with this book, or if he would ever let anyone else read it, but he knew that it wasn’t enough. Now knowing that at least part of his dream was possible, he almost immediately started working on the second edition. He died without ever having finished it, but his final thoughts were of peace, because he came to realize that no one needed to know everything anyway.