Gatewood: Project Stargate (Part IV)

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Six years ago, Kestral and Ishida bid farewell to their briefly-known new friends, Étude and Vitalie. “May the Fourth be with you,” Saxon enthused to them through his comms device, from his doghouse. It was indeed the fourth day of May, according to the present calendar. Way out here, time was a little harder to keep track of. Of course, all three of them were literal geniuses, but they were no longer orbiting the home star, nor paying much attention to the Earthan calendar. Their transhumanistic enhancements allowed them to exercise greater control over their circadian rhythms, so not even the day-night cycle meant much to them. They really only cared about the time when they had a new mission to launch, which was today, six years later.

The year is 2250, and it’s finally time for the main event. Project Stargate. There’s another major project coming up in another ten years, but its endgame won’t happen for millions of years, and there’s a lot less work involved leading up to it. They’re really just waiting for present-day technology to catch up with their needs. Ninety-nine with four more nines tacked on after the decimal point is the fraction of the speed of light humans figure they’re allowed to move. Add one more nine, and experts treat the difference between you and a photon as a rounding error. They assume that to be impossible. Having been introduced to the world of time travelers, Team Keshidon is fully aware that faster-than-light travel is not only possible, but almost kinda common. People like Maqsud Al-Amin jump to other stars without breaking a sweat—other galaxies even. That’s what Project Andromeda is all about. A relatively small and unassuming unmanned vessel will be sent towards the nearest galaxy, joined only by a few backup ships. They’ll be going almost as fast as light without breaking any natural laws. But for now, two nines after the decimal point will have to do.

Project Stargate is the most ambitious thing humanity has ever endeavored. Billions of modules will attempt to reach every single star system in the Milky Way. It’s gonna take a long-ass time, but the majority of vonearthans are essentially immortal now. This gives them a degree of patience previously unfathomable to even the most forward-thinking futurists. The fruits of their labor could come to them more rapidly, however. Experts estimate as much as two percent of the stars in the galaxy are capable of supporting a biological human, and maybe three percent some other form of life. If these numbers sound low, keep in mind there are at least two hundred billion stars total, and probably many more. That’s upwards of a couple billion habitable worlds, some of which are likely to be within only a hundred light years. A respected scientist once noted that the chances of not finding intelligent alien life within 3,000 light years are approaching zero. On the dark side, her partner mused that the chances of finding hostile aliens within 4,000 years are approaching one.

By now, Saxon has been fully relieved of his duties in the doghouse. After many serious conversations, Kestral and Ishida came to accept the idea of Operation Soul Patch. They didn’t entirely agree with it, but their gripes were mostly about being lied to. That was less Saxon’s responsibility, and more due to the direction of Earthan leadership. The three of them are now on Gatewood to do Earth’s bidding, so complaining about their demands is a bit like whining about one’s boss. They could quit at any time, and no one would be able to stop them. They don’t want to do that, though, because they believe in the mission as a whole. The galaxy is full of wonders and secret knowledge, and humanity has a right to that information. They have a right to know what else is out there, and Team Keshidon should just feel lucky to be a vital driving force for that enterprise.

“Are ya gonna act like you did ten years ago?” Ishida asks affectionately.

“Whatever do you mean?” Kestral immediately regrets responding in this way. She does remember her outward anxiety when they were launching the void telescope array. She doesn’t want to prompt any further discussion on the matter. Everything for Project Stargate and Operation Starseed has been checked, double checked, triple checked, and then some. It’s ready to go, and she’s never been more sure of anything in her life, including all those days on Earth when she trusted the sun would come out tomorrow.

While Kestral’s words might sound like she’s willing to joke about her past behavior, Ishida knows her partner better than she knows herself. Kestral doesn’t wanna talk about it, so Ishida drops it. She takes a deep breath and marvels at their craftsmanship. Well, they weren’t the ones who actually built the damn thing. Robots did all the work, but they wouldn’t have been able to pick up a single screw without being programmed, and properly maintained. The countdown has begun. All they’re waiting for now is to watch the vessels head off to the great unknown.

Right now, they’re staring at two turtle shells—also known as quad carriers—floating one on top of the other, the backs of which are facing opposite directions. The initial coordinate system broke the relatively flat galaxy into two planes, each about five hundred light years thick. So, like the two separate telescope arrays, each shell will handle one plane on their own. They’ll separate further, into eight tier droppers, one of which will handle their own planar quadrant. These will break apart into sixty-four arc distributors, then a thousand and twenty-four voussoir splitters, over seventeen thousand rankfile movers, more than a million sector senders, and more than a hundred and forty million seed capsules.

Each of these modules is capable of self-propulsion, to decreasing degrees, but a seed plate will rely primarily on the momentum afforded to it by the capsule that released it. It will only decelerate by the gravity of the celestial bodies in the first star system that it enters. If it needs to increase speed, or alter direction, it will expand its solar sails, or sparingly use maneuvering thrusters.

“Saxon, are all your people in place?” Kestral asks.

Saxon is frowning at his tablet. “Everyone is in stasis, except for one.”

“What’s he doing?”

He taps on the screen a few times. “Anglo one-one-three-two-six-two-two, is there something wrong with your stasis pod?”

“Yes,” Anglo 1132622 answers.

“Can you repair it, or do you need assistance?”

“It is in perfect working order. It is not in need of repair.”

“You said there was something wrong,” Saxon reminds him.

“There is. I don’t wanna get in it. Get me off this ship.”

“Is he claustrophobic?” Ishida asks Saxon, off comms.

“I’m not, so he can’t be.”

“You don’t know that,” Kestral informs him. “He’s an independent being.”

Saxon sighs in frustration. “No. He’s not.” He goes back to the microphone, “Anglo 1132622, please explain.”

“That’s not my name.”

“No, you don’t have a name. That is your designation, though.”

“My name is Omega,” Anglo 1132622 claims.

“Why? Because you happen to be last in designation? That doesn’t mean anything. Your sector isn’t even the farthest from the stellar neighborhood. The numbers are just to tell you apart.”

“You can tell me apart,” Omega begins, “because I’m a different person from all the other clones.”

Now Saxon is getting really upset. “No, you aren’t! You were grown using my DNA. You were given enough mental faculties to put one foot in front of the other, and fix a fucking fuel line. You don’t have any memories, you don’t have any desires, and you don’t have a soul!”

“Calm down, Parker,” Kestral orders.

“I do have a soul!” Omega screams.

“No!” Saxon cries. “You are Anglo one-one-three-two-six-two-two! You have been assigned your sector, and will fulfill your duty. Step into the stasis chamber, activate it, and go to bed! Right now, mister!”

“The Nazis assigned prisoners numbers during the second great war.”

“Who the hell gave him access to the historical records,” Saxon asks rhetorically.

“Parker,” Kestral says, not getting angry herself. “You can’t trust him anymore. If you force him into that pod, and something goes wrong with his ship, he won’t do anything to fix it anyway. He might not even have the sense for self-preservation.”

“I think he’s proven he has a strong instinct for self-preservation,” Ishida argues. “He’s scared, and he doesn’t wanna go.”

“Either way,” Kestral says noncombatively. “He’s an unreliable worker. Quite frankly, we should all be surprised there’s only one dissenting voice, and that he hasn’t appeared to form a rebellion.”

“We don’t have time to make another clone to replace him,” Saxon reminds them. “I’ve been growing them for twelve years. The most successful rapid aging technology is only about six times faster than average development, and I only have access to times four.”

“His ship won’t have an Anglo unit,” Kestral determines.

Saxon scoffs. “We can’t do that.”

“Yes, we can. I wasn’t originally planning to have any clones. I had never even heard the idea before your secret got out.”

“Kestral, he’s in charge of a hundred and twenty-eight capsules.”

She knows this.

“That’s almost thirteen thousand plates!”

She knows this as well.

“Hundreds of thousands of star systems,” he says in a quieter voice, hoping the high number is enough to make them shiver.

“They’ll have to do without him.”

“I can’t accept that.” He drops his arms to his side in exasperation, but he does it with so much force that his tablet falls to the floor. He makes no effort to retrieve it. He can see that Kestral and Ishida aren’t going to help him, and also that there’s not much they can do, even if they tried. “No. I can’t let this project fail. It’s too important.” And with that, he runs off as fast as his legs will take him.

“Are we chasing after him?” Ishida asks.

“I’m not sure where’s he going,” Kestral says with one popped eyebrow.

They watch as an escape pod releases from their observation ship, and heads for the turtle shells.

“He’s going out to force Omega into that chamber,” Ishida notes.

Kestral shakes her head, and opens up a channel. “Saxon, I’m telling you. He won’t do you any good in that sector sender ship. If something goes wrong, yeah, he might fix it to save his life. But he also might sabotage the whole damn thing, and just find somewhere to land. This a pointless pursuit.”

Saxon doesn’t reply.

Kestral is still shaking her head. “Ishida, emergency teleport.”

“I’ve been trying,” Ishida says. “Saxon knows how to block the signal.”

“I’m not talking about him. Get Omega here right now.”

“Really?”

Do it! Parker just docked with his turtle shell.”

“Okay,” Ishida says, desperately trying to make the calculations. It’s easy to teleport someone if they have a location device tailored for that function, but there was no need to design the ships with the feature. She has to figure out exactly where he is, then draw him to them manually. It is not an easy task.

“Ishida, now!”

“I got it!” She presses the execute button.

Omega appears right where Saxon was standing moments ago. He looks around, relieved.

Kestral goes back to her comms. “Parker, Omega is with us. So if you want to talk to him, you’re gonna have to do it here.”

He still doesn’t say anything.

“Parker, you have thirty seconds to get off that ship. I can’t stop the launch.”

Nothing.

“Parker, get the fuck off that thing! You’re gonna be moving at lightspeed in a matter of minutes! You won’t be able to leave if you don’t do it right goddamn now!”

Still nothing.

“Parker!”

“This isn’t Parker,” Saxon finally responds. “It’s Anglo Alpha.”

“What?” Ishida questions.

“He’s the replacement,” Kestral realizes. “Saxon—”

“Anglo Alpha!” he corrects.

“Anglo Alpha. You don’t have to do this. I designed the systems myself, and I designed them to be self-sufficient. You don’t have to be there.”

He waits to say anything more as the seconds drop uncomfortably low, but they can hear him exhale deeply through his nose. “Yes, I do. Omega is a child. Teach him how to be a good person. Don’t let him grow up to be a dick like me.”

“Saxon, come back,” Ishida begs.

“It’s too late,” Kestral says.

“I love you both,” Anglo Alpha says just before blast off. The ships leave so fast, it almost feels like they were never really there.

Omega is staring out the window in horror. “I didn’t mean for him to do this.” He starts tearing up. “I just wanted to live a life.”

Ishida places her hand on his shoulder. “We understand. He gave you that opportunity.”

“Yes, he did,” Kestral agrees. “Don’t waste it.”

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Microstory 1185: Danica Matic

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The Gallery was created to protect inconsistencies that arose when time travelers altered events in the past. Much of what they do and did involved making sure certain peoples were born in the new timeline, even if prior events would have naturally negated their existence. They even sometimes adjusted later life events, so a given individually can develop to serve the Gallery’s needs. There is at least one case, however, when the Gallery specifically targeted someone from one reality, and prevented them from existing in all others. Such is the case with Danica Matic. She was only born once, and in no realities that came after. She was destined to become The Concierge, of a special location on Earth known as The Constant. Her life started out somewhat normal, with her having no idea what she was. She didn’t know her birth parents, but it was never this big mystery she was trying to solve. She assumed her father didn’t know she existed, and her mother abandoned her to live a carefree life. She was adopted by the Salingers, led a happy life, formed healthy relationships, and ended up with a satisfying job as a police detective. One day, she met a man named Mateo, whose last name happened to be the same one she had at birth. She was curious and suspicious, but didn’t jump to any conclusions. It wasn’t the most popular name in the world, but it wasn’t unique either, so it very well could have been a coincidence. After he showed himself to be a time traveler, who only lived for one day every year, she knew they must be related. She had never before considered the possibility that she had temporal abilities, but this encounter just reeked of fate.

Following a trip through a portal, Danica suddenly found herself in something she called an isolation egg. It was an extremely advanced spacebound vessel that was shaped like a chicken egg, and designed for only one person. It contained a bed, a stasis chamber, water, and a universal biomolecular synthesizer, among other essentials, like thousands of years of video and audio entertainment. It could land on some kind of celestial body, extract the elements it required to persist, then move on. She was living in 2029, so this was obviously from the future. The egg was capable of faster-than-light travel, and of sustaining its occupant indefinitely, but Danica didn’t need to go anywhere, and she would not have to stay for long. She watched as other machines arrived, presumably also from the future. They started building something on their own, incredibly quickly. Within the day, an entire structure was out there in the middle of the space dust. The egg piloted itself towards it, and docked. She stepped inside to find what best resembled a hotel. It had a lounge, and a bar, and guest rooms. It had exercise machines, a swimming pool, and closets full of clothes from all eras. It had a garden, food, water, and everything else she, and a hundred of her closest friends, might need to survive for many lifetimes. There she lived for thousands of years, with no interaction with another soul, nor instructions for what she was meant to do. She watched TV and movies, she read books, and she studied. She learned every language, and all the other things too. Eventually, she realized that the windows which once showed her outer space were being covered up. The accretion disk orbiting the sun was slowly forming larger and larger chunks, and were including her new home in that enterprise. A planet was forming around her, gradually increasing its own mass, and gravitational pull. She immediately sought out the entertainment archives, and watched an account of this sort of thing happening in fiction. The vessel in the story survived, and she assumed she would too, so she was able to relax.

Millions of years passed as she remained underground, as she learned everything she could about where she was. She knew every square millimeter of it. She continued to entertain herself, study, and do anything she could to stay busy. Hundreds of millions of years. And billions. She stayed in The Constant, almost entirely alone, for the entire development of Earth, until people evolved, and started showing up, seeking shelter. It was her job to provide them a respite from their travels, then send them back on their way, for missions, or whathaveyou. Again, no one told her to do this, or to do anything. She just figured she was placed there for the responsibility. Pretty soon, she started realizing her knowledge was growing well beyond what she had learned from her research pursuits. She could remember historical events from the outside without having actually gone up to witness them. She could even recall discrepancies from alternate timelines. It is her job to be there for any and all other time travelers. Only she has met every single temporal manipulator in histories, at one point or another, though she is never allowed to leave. The powers that be maintain their control over her, just like they do all other salmon. She was only permitted to set foot outside the Constant once, and that was to pay her last respects to the woman she would come to realize was her mother, in her original timeline, who never willingly abandoned her at all.

Microstory 1184: Andar ‘Jiminy’ Jeffries

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There once was a child who was living in an unsafe environment, being raised by unfit parents. He was forced to feed and entertain himself whenever they were out doing whatever. One day, he was pretending to be in a war. Lucky for the neighborhood, he did not have access to any real firearms, but he did make-do with what he could find strewn about the yard, like tools and pieces of a torn down shed. He started throwing them around, making believe that they were bombs falling to the ground, shrapnel bursting from an explosion, or bullets flying from a gun. One such of these items was a mallet, and he threw it so hard that it soared all the way over the fence, and landed on the head of a four-year-old boy named Andar Jeffries. Andar’s mother rushed him to the hospital, where he was treated for a head injury, and found to be far less hurt than he could have been. He had a particularly strong head, and was healing quickly. It was nothing supernatural, but it was impressive, and fortunate. Andar’s parents might have sought retribution against their neighbors, and even severe punishment for the child, Braeden. Instead, they contacted family services, and began the long and nasty process of taking the neglected boy in as a foster child. Once this process was complete, the Jeffries moved to Kansas City, so they could all start new lives together. Their compassion and magnanimity molded both boys into loving, understanding, and generous people. They became brothers, and never had to see Braeden’s birth parents again. Word somehow got out about what happened, and Andar was given the nickname of Jiminy, since his story was not entirely dissimilar to that of the Talking Cricket’s in The Adventures of Pinocchio. He didn’t care for it much, but no one could ever know this. He was too thoughtful and agreeable to let anyone believe they were doing something he didn’t like. Braeden was the only person he could confide in, and be completely honest with. Not even their mom and dad would be good sources of support, because they would always just suggest he remain helpful and courteous anyway.

Though they were both taught the same values, Andar and Braeden were very different individuals. Braeden was creative and energetic. He continued to leverage his imagination, though now in far healthier ways, but still involving mallet-throwing. He would grow up to work at a place called Wreckreational Therapy, where customers could relieve stress by damaging assorted items. Braeden would come to run the place, and later open three more branches in Kansas and Missouri. Andar, on the other hand, was cool and observant. He preferred to sit quietly with a good book, or engage in an interesting conversation, especially with someone who was smarter than him. His parents were actually concerned for his sedentary lifestyle, and pretty much demanded he exercise, in whatever way he wanted. He decided to become a runner, because it was fairly inexpensive, and easy to start and stop at will. As it turned out, though, he was pretty damn good at it. Before he knew it, he was racing in competitions, and focusing a hell of a long more on it than he ever wanted to. But again, he didn’t feel he could voice his resentment to his loved ones, because he didn’t think they would understand. He quickly became a contender for the City Frenzy, though he would never win, because his heart just wasn’t in it. He never felt that rush that came from victory, or the exhilaration from the competition itself. He only really did anything because it made others feel better. He grew up too, and had to spend some time in regular therapy, as well as his brother’s wreck rooms, to change for the better, and start taking care of himself. He eventually realized he didn’t have to run anymore, and never did in the first place. He dedicated his life to academic pursuits, and eventually became a moral philosophy professor, which is where he found true happiness.

Microstory 1183: Ennis Patton

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Ennis Patton had a tough go of it in his early years. He was born in raised in Springfield, Kansas, beginning in 1991. Shortly after starting classes at Springfield University, his parents went off on vacation, and he was asked to drive back home, and check on the house. It was there that he discovered a mysterious package that automatically teleported itself back to his parents’ stoop whenever he attempted to move it to one of its rightful owners. He had little time to question what was happening before the bomb inside this package exploded, and inflicted severe burns on his skin. He survived the attack, though everyone in the two neighboring houses was killed. The police never solved this crime, and it had a profound impact on applications for employment with the United States Postal Service. Ennis wasn’t scared, though. He would come to apply for a position himself a few years later, and experience what would be just another of many encounters with temporal anomalies. He became obsessed with the possibilities in college, and spent his extra time—as well as time he was meant to be working on school assignments—researching the lore. Even when he wasn’t getting anywhere, he never stopped hunting for answers. He wasn’t just trying to explain what had happened to him, but also wanted to understand how the universe worked in general. He built his own anomaly detector from scratch, which was something no one else had been able to do, except for The Weaver, who had an unfair advantage. There were two primary kinds of temporal manipulators in the world. Some had the ability to control their movements, while others were under control of the powers that be. Understanding of how the PTB operated is minimal, but it would seem their ability to choose salmon was limited. They couldn’t just take whoever they wanted; the individual had to be capable of surviving time travel.

Best guess is that Ennis Patton was neither born a choosing one, nor destined to be a salmon. He would later earn his position simply by proving himself worthy. The powers bestowed upon him his time traveling gifts because they felt he deserved them for what he had been through, and what he had done with his life after learning some of the truth. Or perhaps it was only pity. It is unclear how he was transformed, and whether this could be replicated for anyone else. Ennis became The Courier, tasked with transmitting messages across time and space, for a variety of reasons. Time travelers of all kinds themselves sometimes needed to communicate with each other, but most of his messages were directed towards regular people, who had no idea any of this existed. While salmon like the Saviors and The Kingmaker were responsible for affecting people’s lives directly, there were many cases where a simple written note was enough to put a person on a better path. These letters will self-destruct as soon as they are read, and the recipient’s episodic memory of it having happened will be erased. They will move on with their lives, hopefully heeding the message’s advice, but without being fully aware that the decision is not entirely their own. It is only when such subliminal provocations are not enough that an actual person is dispatched to alter a subject’s actions more substantially. Though exact statistics are hard to come by, it is believed that Ennis Patton is responsible for the betterment of thousands of more lives than most travelers with similar obligations. He is respected and revered amongst his colleagues, and there is an ironically unwritten rule that his work is not to be interfered with; a truth acknowledged by even the most meddlesome of travelers.

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.

« < » > Table of Contents

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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