Microstory 1186: Vasanta Gadhavi

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Vasanta Gadhavi loved toys. He was raised to be very materialistic, always looking out for the newest gadget and gizmo. His parents grew up poor, and found money somewhat later in life, so they never wanted their children to ever feel like they couldn’t have whatever they wanted. Vasanta liked to tinker around with electronics, and learned how to build and repair them pretty much on his own. There was really no limit as to what types of things he bought, which meant firearms were included. When he was old enough, he joined the British Army, and ended up working with the enemy in some less than savory ways. He specialized in getting prisoners to talk when they didn’t want to. He continued to use toys to do this, which earned him the nickname of Santa. His brothers often joke that he always had presents for the bad little boys and girls. During the Second Great War, Vasanta found himself in the middle of a deadly battle against Japanese forces. He retained little memory of the event, but he did remember being on the battlefield one second, and then suddenly being safe in a hospital bed the next. In the bed across from his was the Japanese soldier he was trying to kill, and who was trying to kill him. Now, Vasanta had no personal grievance with the enemy soldier, nor the enemy with him. They were both just following orders, and whatever was happening now, it didn’t look like they were meant to keep fighting each other. They did not attempt to communicate with one another, though, as automated machines came through and treated their wounds. Vasanta attempted to leave one time, but when he discovered the door to be locked, he made no further attempt to escape. Anyone with the level of technology he was seeing in the mid-20th century was probably best left unantagonized. Once they were both doing all right, a man came in named Adolphe Sargent. He explained in both English and Japanese that they were reportedly missing in action, according to historical records. They were extracted from the timeline, and transported to the 23rd century, where they would train together in something called the salmon battalion. Again, they had no problem fighting together. Neither of them personally believed in the war they had just come from. But that principle would likely extend to any other war. How could they travel through time, fighting people for reasons that were so profoundly removed from them? Sargent saw this in them during their training, and decided the powers that be who chose them for their new lives had made a mistake. Fortunately, he had some autonomy with how his battalion was run. After all, if he didn’t, then The Emissary might as well lead it himself. He selected Vasanta and his new partner, Rokuro Yamauchi for an elite force within the battalion. They would not be fighting, on either side of a conflict. Instead, they would take part exclusively in rescue missions, pulling innocent people out of dangerous situations, and occasionally delivering a prisoner of war from their cage. Vasanta and Rokuro easily became friends, ultimately teaching each other their native languages. It didn’t seem strange at all that they were once at odds, nor had they been forced to suffer some Hell in the Pacific scenario together. They felt a lot more comfortable with their new lives as rescuers than they ever did as fighters.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 10, 2248

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Located nearly twelve light years from Earth, Tau Ceti enjoyed a strikingly high number of low-mass rocky planets in orbit, but only one of them coalesced satisfactorily within the star’s habitable zone. This planet was named Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, which is Arabic for ostrich egg. Surface gravity was a little higher than Earth’s, but still well within acceptable parameters for an unenhanced human. It had a magnetosphere, liquid water, and oh yeah, a breathable atmosphere. It was the only world within spitting distance known to harbor life on its own, and for that reason, more colonists signed up for the journey than for any other stellar neighbor.

When Leona came back to the timestream, Sanaa was gone, but it looked like she parked The Radiant Lightning in a warehouse. The soothing voice of a young woman she once met was flowing through the internal speakers of the ship, as well as those in the warehouse. As Leona walked towards a small structure built on the floor inside the wide expanse, she could see the broadcaster inside.

“But for those of you who don’t dig polka rap, I got somethin’ for ya that I think you’ll really love. This is from a mid twenty-first century Korea twang band called Alliterative Spoonerism. Here’s their most popular single, What Was Jenkem Used for Again? It’s seventeen minutes long, so I can take a break to talk to my friend, who’s visiting from out of town. I’m DJ Mount Alias, and this...is Salmonverse Radio.”

Leona stepped into the studio just as Ellie Underhill was finishing her segment. “What is this? You broadcast music across time and space?”

“I do, yes,” Ellie replied.

“How come I’ve never heard it before?”

“It’s geared more towards shapers, or displaced salmon who are on long-term missions. They often need a taste of home, or at least modern life. You’ve not really had much need.”

“How long have you been doing this?” Leona asked.

“From my personal timeline, three years. This region of Bida is fairly remote, so we don’t have to worry about interfering with the colonists.”

“We?”

“She means me.” It was Paige Turner. She crossed the room from the other door, and presented her hand. “Hi, I’m an alternate version of Paige Turner Reaver-Demir. You can call me Third!Paige, or Trinity.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Trinity. You’re telling me there’s a second Paige out there I’ve also never met.”

“Well, it’s complicated. The three of us met you back in 2025, when you went back in time to save Brooke Prieto from Tribulation Island. It was only after that moment that we split. It’s this whole thing that involves going back in time to stop myself from killing someone, and then going back in time to try again, because I failed the first time.”

“You’ve been here ever since?” Leona asked.

“For the most part,” Trinity replied. “It’s been about two hundred and thirty-five years, but I wasn’t always alone.”

“I don’t know that your math is right,” Leona questioned. “You said we met in 2025, which means you would have had to go back even further—”

“I technically did,” Trinity interrupted. “I can move faster than light, but light moves at a constant. I teleported here from Earth, which is twelve light years away. So when I was looking at Tau Ceti, I was looking at it as it was twelve years prior. I first appeared on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida in 2013.”

Leona nodded. This was sound logic. “What have you been up to this whole time, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I’ve been terraforming.”

This confused her. “Are you telling me this world is only habitable by your efforts?”

Trinity shook her head. “No, it was habitable, but inedible, and in some places, toxic. I’ve been gradually manipulating the plantlife and water composition to make it so that people can live here carefree.”

Leona didn’t know what to say.

Trinity went on, “you can’t eat everything, but if you do, chances are you’ll be all right. There are no deadly pathogens, or poisonous animals, or anything like that. It’s the closest thing to paradise you’ll find.”

“That’s...amazing. What made you think to do that? And how?”

“I got both the idea, and the technology, from the future. In my timeline, Bida was a terrible place to live. Humans came here with such high hopes, but found themselves profoundly disappointed when they started running chemical tests. Just about everything here would make them sick, if not straight up kill them. All the water had to be filtered to an impractical degree, and it just wasn’t worth it. They abandoned it for centuries until someone got the idea to tailor the ecosystem to human needs.”

“Is that ethical?” Leona asked. “I mean, if life evolved here to be the way it was, did we have the right to change it?”

“It’s not ethical, no,” Trinity agreed. “That’s why I did it myself before a single colonist arrived. That way, vonearthans are free from all moral culpability.”

“Do the colonists know? I mean, I’m sure they don’t realize you exist, but are they aware that the ecosystem was recently altered?”

“Well, they don’t know Barnard’s Star was once orbited by a low-mass rocky planet, so I doubt they’ll figure it out.”

“Huh?”

Trinity didn’t elaborate on that bombshell. “It was going to happen. Unethically terraforming a world isn’t the kind of thing the powers that be would have sent a salmon to correct, and it’s not like there are lots of other choosing ones running around making things better. I could have either exercised some futility in an attempt to prevent the vonearthans from manipulating the properties of life on this world, or I could just do it for them, and save their souls.”

Leona realized it wasn’t her job to police the people around her. Choosing ones and humans alike are always going to be running around, making bad choices. As far as questionable ethics went, at least this was in question, and not so undoubtedly wrong. “I understand, and I appreciate the precarious position you were in.”

“And I appreciate that.”

Leona just wanted to change the subject. “Where are Sanaa and Eight Point Seven?”

“They got stuck on the other side of the planet,” Ellie explained. “They were wanting to be here when you returned, but an unexpected storm appeared, and held them up. Don’t worry, they’ll be fine, but they won’t be back until tomorrow.”

“You don’t have emergency teleporters, or anything?”

Trinity chuckled. “Ellie’s broadcast is the only exception to a rule I came up with. There will be no time powers on this planet while I’m in charge.”

“Are you in charge?” Leona questioned. Surely the colonists wouldn’t know that she had been here for two centuries. They would get that she was an upgraded human with an indefinite lifespan, but they wouldn’t understand how she traveled twelve light years in the early 21st century.

“I’m in charge of all salmon and choosers. They’re welcome to come, but they have to follow my rules. I’m not alone in this position.”

“I don’t mean to argue with you, because I’m totally fine with that. I’m just curious what your rationale is. I don’t know what went through in your timeline.”

“Leona, this is an isolate. Did you not know that?”

“It is? No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah, the colonists who are coming here wish to remain separated from Earth, the rest of the stellar neighborhood, and anywhere else in the galaxy the vonearthans end up traveling to.”

“Oh, wow. I try to keep up with current events, but I never heard anything about that.” Leona must have fallen behind.

“The first colonists left in 2235, and arrived this year,” Trinity began to explain. “On the day of that arrival, the last three exodus ships left Earth, bound for Bida. Once they get here in 2260, no one else will come, ever again.”

“Why?”

“They want a fresh start. They’re not going back to pioneer days, or anything, but they’re hoping to free themselves from humanity’s past. They want to live on a world that hasn’t seen bloody wars, and nuclear bombs, and segregation, and all the other bad things we’ve done in our history.”

“They do realize they can’t escape that, right? No matter how far they go, or how much they cut themselves off from the rest of their people, the past will always remain right where it is.”

“They don’t see it that way.”

Leona wasn’t finished, “if they tell stories of the world that came before, it will continue to impact their lives, and if they don’t, it will probably repeat itself. They can’t win.”

“Again,” Trinity argued, “they don’t see it that way. Anyway, I’m not here to judge them, or poke holes in their logic, and neither are you. I’m here to protect them. What they definitely don’t know is that they can’t control what time travelers do. I can. I don’t want any Kingmakers, or Door-Walkers, or Saviors, or Caretakers. The timeline began on Year One, which is 2248 by the Gregorian calendar, and it will not be manipulated, even to save lives.”

Leona suddenly got real nervous. “You didn’t specifically list me and Mateo—partially because we were never given a cutesy nickname—but should we be on it? I came here on a ship built by a human, retrofitted by another human to be essentially faster-than-light. Mateo is on his way here on a different ship, with two other choosing ones. Unlike other salmon, the powers that be don’t give us definitive missions, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have them. We weren’t explicitly sent here, but they may want us here, just the same.”

Trinity didn’t know where she was going with this. “What’s your point, Leona?”

“What if I’m here to manipulate time, in my own way? What if Mateo will be coming here for the same reason? What do we do about that?”

“If you’re worried you’re going to break my rules, then you should get back in that thing right now, and leave,” Trinity decided.

“I’m not leaving without my husband.”

“I’ll send him your way. You can go to Glisnia, or better yet; YZ Ceti. It’s only a light year and a half away. He’ll be with you in no time.”

“None of YZ’s planets is habitable enough,” Leona contended. She did keep up with some current events. “And Sanaa doesn’t have the resources to orbit a flare star for years on end.”

“You don’t know that Sanaa would want to go with you. She’s agreed to not use her telepathy.”

Leona took a deep breath. “I suppose that’s true. But I also don’t want to do that. Mateo is coming here, and I’m staying put until he does so. One-point-six light years might as well be a million if something goes with either of our ships.”

“I’m not gonna let you interfere with these people’s lives, or their life choices.” Trinity was starting to raise her voice.

Leona matched the new volume. “I don’t think you have a choice. Just think about what the p stands for in PTB.”

“That’s enough!” Ellie’s voice supernaturally boomed throughout the entire warehouse. “Leona, no one’s trying to keep you from Mateo. Trinity, the rules don’t apply to her, or him. They never have, and you won’t be able to change that. You would have to break your own rules, and use your own power, to have any hope of going against the powers.” She stopped talking for a moment, but it was clear she wasn’t finished yet. “Now. Any two versions of you are friends at any point of time, in any reality. Kiss and make up, and I don’t want to hear any more about this. Que sera, sera. The Bidans will survive.”

“Bidians,” Leona and Trinity corrected in unison.

“There,” Ellie said in relief. “The fight is over. And so is the song, which means I have to get back to work. Trinity, perhaps you can give our new guest a tour of the planet?”

“That can be arranged,” Trinity said.

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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.