Source Variant: Planet of Hats (Part III)

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Saxon talked a little bit more about Project Stargate, Operation Starseed, and two other interrelated endeavors called Operation Anglo, and Operation Soul Patch. Apparently, Projects are publicly known massive undertakings, while Operations require a little more secrecy, and are often used to support the projects. He evidently cloned himself millions of times, and sent each one of them to a different section of an unfathomably huge ship, which would break apart, and start exploring the galaxy. He was the OG Saxon, however, and was able to exercise a little more independence because of it. Following some research, before the Stargate ship was able to break apart too much, he switched places with one of the random Anglo clones, so that he would be stationed on this planet. According to early synthetical readings, the world that would one day come to be known as Orolak was rated at .982 on the Terrestrial Habitability Similarity Index. A perfect score would have been 1, so this was pretty good.

Saga!Two and Vearden!Three did what they could to help Saxon with his work. For most of the worlds that were being seeded with evolved human-based life, the first generation would be raised by some form of artificial intelligence, but either way, they couldn’t do it on their own. The humans were responsible for maintaining the growth pods while the Orothsew subjects were still in preliminary biological development. Once they were born, they were then responsible for protecting them, and teaching them how to live. They went over the basics: finding food, eating, sleeping, not killing, etc. They didn’t teach them any math or science. They didn’t tell stories of Earth, or explained how it is they came to be. Hell, they didn’t even speak to them, because then the Orothsew would learn English, and they were meant to form their own language. It was only their job to make sure they survived long enough to propagate the species. Once the first phase of their social development was complete, so was the job.

To unwittingly mark the occasion, they open a door to get something to eat, and all three find themselves transitioning to what they soon learn to be a different point in time. Based on stellar drift, it’s almost exactly two hundred years later. They had set up a little village for the first generation of inhabitants several kilometers away from the facility where they were grown, but that facility still existed, and it’s where the humans were living once it was safe to leave the children alone for extended periods of time. The place is still here, just as they left it, but automated systems had buried it underneath a hill, so that it perfectly blended in with the environment. Orothsew progress was still in its infancy, so any exposure to advanced technology could disrupt their continued social development. It’s not quite the Prime Directive from the Star Trek franchise, though. If the powers that be transported all of them to this moment in the future, then it’s obviously for a reason, and that reason probably doesn’t involve too much passively observing from a safe distance.

It does involve some observation, though. They look through the data the facility has been keeping track of since they were gone. The population rose at a predictable and steady rate until something terrible happened eighty-three years ago. An infection spread through the village, and though the villagers had the good sense to isolate all who were showing symptoms of the disease, they didn’t consider quarantining asymptomatic people who might have been exposed to the pathogen. All told, the population took a hit of three hundred and fifty-eight people, but it could have been so much worse. It could have spelled the end of the species, and Saxon has been reluctant to answer what they would have done in that situation. Though, to be fair, if that were to ever happen, the PTB would probably step up, and send them in to stop it. Perhaps that’s why they’re here now. Maybe there’s another disease coming, or some natural disaster that the Orothsew are woefully unprepared for.

Saxon is still looking over the numbers, head in hand. “Five hundred and ninety-one.”

“How many should there be?” Saga!Two asks.

He shakes his head. “Around fifteen hundred. More.”

“This happens,” Vearden!Three assures him. “Humans went through a lot more than this, because they didn’t have us.”

“Yes, they did,” Saxon says.

“What?”

“Huh?” Saxon has gotten lost in his thoughts.

“What do you mean, humans had us?” Saga!Two questions.

“Oh, sorry. Well, I should be clear; they’re a theory. There are some inexplicable anomalies when we look back at the hominid population hundreds of thousands of years ago. Our ancestors survived some things they probably shouldn’t have. These disasters were just shy of being enough to wipe out the species entirely. Humans from what’s considered to be the very first timeline ever supposedly went back in time and saved their own ancestors, thus propelling us towards a more stable population growth rate. If this is true, it’s before the powers that be or The Gallery existed, and the changes they made were so dramatic that not even one individual was born in that timeline, and also in any other since.”

“So, there’s no proof any of this is true,” Vearden!Three says.

Saxon goes back to looking at the data. “No, but there’s strong evidence.”

“You’re human,” Saga!Three says in a non sequitur.

Saxon stops dwelling for a moment again. “Yes, why?”

“Why do you know so much about us? Who taught you all this?”

He chuckles. “You people spend a lot of time talking to each other to get information. Word of mouth is full of errors, lies, and truths lost in translation. I’ve heard so many contradictory claims about who the powers that be are, and what they have to do with the choosing ones. There’s a whole library out there that’s maintained by The Historian. I got access to it, and I did what I do best; I studied my ass off. I’m not saying there are no inaccuracies or biases in those books, but they’re at least based on research. You should be careful when someone tries to tell you what’s going on. They may not be right.”

“Thanks, professor,” Vearden!Three snarks. “I’ll remember that the next time I travel to one of the dozens of other universes I’ve gone to.” It’s true that, after traveling all over the bulkverse in The Crossover, he has a few experiences Saxon could never begin to understand, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things he could learn from the legit astronaut. His advice certainly isn’t unreasonable.

“Vearden,” Saga!Three scolds.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Saxon sighs and moves on. “Well, the disease is over. It ran its course decades ago. I’m looking at atmospheric and seismic readings; I don’t see anything else that gives you a clue what you’re back here to accomplish.”

“What would you be doing if you hadn’t jumped forward two hundred years?” Saga!Three poses. “That is, what would you have been doing for the last couple centuries?”

“I dunno,” Saxon answers, “but I wouldn’t still be here.”

“Oh, no?”

“No, I would have left after the last member of the first generation died, which they already have. Once no one was left alive who was grown in a pod, it would have been up to the remainders to sustain their population unaided. If you do have a job to do here, I’m not sure I should even help you. I didn’t, like, sign an oath, or anything, but I wasn’t meant to stick around forever.”

“So our door cut you off from your job?” Vearden!Three laments.

“I should clarify,” Saxon begins. “Vonearthan intervention ends after the first generation in most cases, including this one. It didn’t have to be me. As soon as I disappeared, automated systems took over.”

“That’s comforting,” Vearden!Three says with an extended nod. “It doesn’t tell us why it is we’re here now, though.”

As if there were a correlation between his words, and what was happening in one of the now several Orothsew villages, an alarm goes off. A live feed from a microdrone disguised as an insect comes up on the main screen. Since none of them speaks the Orothsew language, subtitles appear as well. Two males are fighting in the middle of a crowd. They’re not at full fisticuffs yet, but their argument is as heated as it is petty. It’s over the hand of a mate. One of them will push the other, or knock his hands out of the way. Waggling fingers and rude hand gestures; this is getting bad. But it apparently can’t go further in the here and now. The Orothsew have rules. The duel is scheduled for tomorrow, at high noon. The three humans aren’t sure what a duel in their culture involves, because they don’t mention details during the fight, but one thing the monitoring systems know is that they haven’t invented guns yet, so that’s something.

“We have to stop it,” Saga!Two declares.

“We can’t,” Saxon contends. “We can’t go out there like this. Back when we were teaching the wee babies how to survive, looking human was fine. They didn’t pass that information down to their own children, because they didn’t yet understand. Even if they describe us generations from now, no one will believe in ancient astronauts, just like people on Earth never did. But they’re already developed enough to record quasi-accurate history akin to the Bible. We can’t show our human faces; we just can’t.”

“I can help with that.” A woman walks in from the other room. A human woman. The three of them take a quick glance at each other, but their facial expressions do not suggest that anyone already knows who she is. She tries to shake their hands, but they’re reluctant. “It’s a good thing I’m not easily offended. If my visage makes you nervous, I can always take a form you are more comfortable with.” With no more warning, she suddenly transforms to look exactly like Leona Matic.

“Who are you?” Vearden!Two asks. He’s never met Leona before.

“My name is Alyssa McIver. I’m an illusionist. I can make you see whatever I want you to see...as long as what I want you to see exists at some point in spacetime. I can’t conjure imaginary visions; just superimpose real ones.”

“Could you, then. Umm...?” Saxon was uncomfortable. “Could you go back to your real face?”

She does as she’s asked. “I can help you blend in with the natives. I’ve done it a million times.That was my job almost a thousand years ago on the AOC.”

Now Saxon is interested, and more receptive. “So it’s true; the source variant theory. This is going to keep happening on other worlds.”

“It already has,” Alyssa confirms. “Source variants are fabricating aliens where there would not be aliens naturally. What you’re doing here; infiltrating the natives, and secretly helping to fix their problems? That’s what I and my crew did in the third millennium.”

“What year is it right now?” Vearden!Three asks her.

“Nine-two-seven,” Alyssa replies.

“What? No, I mean by the Earthan calendar.”

“Oh, you mean the old calendar. Three-five-two-seven.”

This freaks him out. “Why do they restart the calendar? Does the world end?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Alyssa says dismissively. “Do you like hats?”

“Alyssa,” Vearden!Three presses. “Does the world end?”

“I’ve taken the liberty of guessing what kind of hats you’ll be more comfortable with.” She removes three hats from her bag, each of a different design. One is a snowcap, the other a driving cap, and the third is something none of them knows enough about hats to designate. “No one will see the hat, of course. It will just make you look like a, uh...”

“Orothsew,” Saxon helps.

“Orothsew,” she echoes. “Yes. When I was on the AOC, I would just maintain the illusions myself, but I’m not sticking around here, so Holly Blue imbued these with my powers.”

They take the hats graciously.

“I do have some more questions,” Vearden!Three says.

“Cool. I gotta go, though. Bye!” She may teleport away at that point, or she just makes herself invisible. Either way, she’s gone.

They’ll probably never know what prompted her to come to the future to help them, but they’re grateful. Now it’s time to go stop that duel. They don’t realize until later how absolutely vital it was that they stop it. Either of their deaths would have caused catastrophic problems later on.

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Microstory 1205: Marcy Calligaris

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Universally belovèd artist, Marcy Calligaris worked really hard at making the people around her feel at ease, no matter who those people were. The only exception to her rule of accommodation was when someone she truly cared about was in danger, then she could go into mama bear mode. Born of an antimatter rocket engineer mother, and a health translator father, Marcy loved to create beautiful things, be that paintings, sculptures, or even sand castles. She was known by those closest to her as someone who could be trusted, and whose temper was always steady. She wasn’t one of those people who had huge anger issues as a child, and had to learn to move to the other extreme. She was, however—throughout her entire life—capable of getting angry, and when that happened, it usually freaked people out. Fortunately, she could always find peace in her creations, and knew this about herself, so she did not take that for granted. She was born at a time beyond money, where every positive member of society was given everything they needed to live contently. As there was more time to pursue so-called unproductive dreams, this new dynamic ultimately led to the genesis of an explosion of artists. Not all of them were good, but they were okay with this, because it gave them joy. Many worked in virtual constructs, building vast and impressive worlds where people’s minds could go and appreciate the intricacies. Marcy was a true artist, and also preferred to work almost exclusively in the physical world. Her pieces could be seen all over the world. She never grew to become famous, but she did have the urge to spread her beauty far and wide. She ended up with a small following of fans, who encouraged each other to go on Marcy Calligaris Visitation Journeys. They would travel to the random locations of Marcy’s art, and visit other sites in the area. These were dentist offices, and elevators, and some museums, so the locations themselves weren’t always all that remarkable, but they loved the adventure. Marcy was appreciative of her fans, but made a point to never meet them in person. She wanted her art to speak for itself, and didn’t want to answer any questions about inspiration, or deeper meaning. Marcy’s modest fame disappeared when she was spirited away from her life, and removed from time itself. During this period, in the corrupted timeline, her fans had no recollection of her existence at all, nor her art. But the art itself was not removed from time. Each piece remained where it was, and no one really wondered where it had come from, or who had created it. When she was finally returned to the timestream, and everyone’s memories came back, enough time had passed that her following had moved on from her. While they could now remember all the fun they had visiting her work, that was a long time ago for them, and fame in the modern world had a short shelf life, because there were just too many people who were doing too many great things, that any market was necessarily saturated. She lived on after this ordeal, and went right back to doing what she did best, though now with a little less notoriety, but of course, it was better than not existing at all.

Microstory 1204: Yeong Raptis

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Though Yeong and Madoc Raptis were twins, they were born on two different days. Yeong is actually three days older than her brother; a fact that neither of them considered relevant to their daily lives. Their mother was full Korean, and their father was half-Greek, half-Welsh, which was why their names had different origins. Of all the source mages, Yeong was the bravest. They all used their powers to fight off the monsters on Durus as best they could, but Yeong’s power wasn’t very offensive. If she wanted to fight the monsters, she pretty much had to do it the old fashioned way. She trained harder than anyone to be able to protect others. She exercised, lifted weights, and studied under the most capable people who happened to be in Springfield when the Deathfall came upon it. She fought those monsters, sometimes with her bare hands, and no one was better at keeping them at bay. Together with Limbani, Yeong came up with the mage games, which would decide who among the normal humans would receive temporal powers. She was a little smarter than Limbani, and had an eye for engineering, so she created the first of the competitions and challenges themselves, and went on to work with the community’s engineers for the next three games. After the mages were selected, she was responsible for continuing to train the winners. She didn’t help them understand or wield their powers, but she did make sure they were up to the task in a more general physical sense. A town mage couldn’t just rely on their time powers alone. They needed to be able to throw down when it was the only option. Some monsters even had the ability to suppress powers. While they weren’t usually in charge of internal human matters, mages were occasionally called in to help keep the peace in the towns, so they also needed to learn some police work. As the daughter of a law enforcement officer, Yeong had the education necessary to help them obtain those skills. She was a good teacher, and a strong leader, so it was fortuitous that she had a way of discovering this about herself, instead of merely becoming a soldier, of which Durus would ultimately have plenty.

Microstory 1203: Alim Demir

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Serkan Demir wasn’t the only runner in the family. Serkan’s younger brother, Alim took to the activity as well, and would easily surpass Serkan in speed. As he was born on June 17, 2013, he was one day too young to register for what should have been his first City Frenzy event in 2025, and had to wait an entire year. Sadly, he would not be able to race then either, however, as the flu disqualified him. He would finally get his chance to prove his might in the tenth annual event, shortly after turning fourteen, and prove it he did. He won that race, and the next three after that, beating his own brother’s record, which would never be broken by anyone else. The event ended after his final win, which didn’t matter to him. Not only did he age out of qualification, but it was time for him to move on with his life anyway. He still loved to run, but what he really wanted to do was become a food engineer. Things were changing as he was growing up. No longer were consumers willing to eat so-called normal food. They wanted their nutrition to be tailored to their needs. They wanted it to taste exactly as they liked it, but also be effortlessly healthy. They didn’t want to kill animals if they didn’t have to, and they didn’t want produce grown with harmful chemicals. Alim didn’t just want to be part of this movement as someone whose body required food. He wanted to help make these changes. Unfortunately, just as it was with the race, Alim’s dreams would have to be put on hold. As he was excitedly preparing for his college courses, life took him in another direction. Though Serkan had made every attempt to shield Alim from the world of temporal manipulators, there was only so much he could accomplish from the shadows. Alim found himself caught in the crossfire of a war between two factions of time travelers, and though his adventures could have landed him right back to the moment he first left, this did not actually happen. He went missing for years, and the whole point of his struggles was to prevent people from changing the past, so had he erased his own disappearance from history, it would have been hypocritical of him. He eventually returned to his life, and following the spread of a believable cover story, was able to resume his track towards higher education. While he would never be fully rid of the world of salmon and choosers, he would be able to follow his dreams, and contribute positively to society. His work—along with that of his contemporaries—would go on to be of great importance to new environmentally-conscious and efficient means of food distribution. It would also support the nutritional needs of more specific industries, such as space travel, and emergency rationing.

Microstory 1202: Jeremiel Sachs

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When the town of Springfield, Kansas went through the Deathfall portal to the rogue planet of Durus, different people had different perspectives on the matter. It was no surprise that a not insignificant number of them believed that they had all been damned to hell. While it would turn out to be untrue in the Biblical sense, it did bear some similarities to the idea of an afterlife of torture and pain. Death and hardship was all around, brought by monsters and killers. It’s a wonder that anyone survived. Tyrannical leader, Smith could see right away that the source mage children were special, and he used his position to garner favor with them. Though they were not even born at the time of the Deathfall, he recognized how important they would become. People would follow their guidance, whether they gave it willingly or not. He needed to not just be on their good side, but to be in control of them. As he predicted, people would come to trust the children’s leadership, though he was no longer around as they grew up. Without his control, the people started developing their own thoughts about the source mages. Many, drawing on their earlier religious beliefs, formed a spiritual dedication to them. They started worshipping them as new gods. Most of the others rejected this blind devotion, but not Jeremiel Sachs. He wanted to be idolized, praised, and gifted. He didn’t just allow them to build a church in his name; he commissioned it. To them, he was the spark of life where there was no other life. They started referring to him as The Flower on the Rock. The other source mages might have had their differences amongst them, but they still maintained an indelible bond. Jeremiel always found himself on the outside of the group, and he had mixed feelings about this. He was the last to be told of any news, and was often not included in important decision-making. He loved his life, but recognized that there was a lot missing. He could have as many followers as there were people on the planet, but he still wouldn’t have any friends.

Of course, there was a scientific explanation for why Jeremiel and his contemporaries had time powers, and why they were able to give powers to others. They weren’t angels or gods or any other form of supernatural creature. They were people who enjoyed an uncommon connection to the metaphysical structure of the universe, and could exploit loopholes within the system. Over the years, the people of Durus began to accept this reality, including those who worshiped in Jeremiel’s church. Still, the loyalists did not stop revering him, because he was still more powerful than anything they could dream of, and that wasn’t going to change, even by logic’s reasoned hand. When the Mage Protectorate fell to the destructive forces of the war with the monsters, the church took a heavy blow. Their gods turned out to be mortal, which again, they knew in their minds, but could not before then accept in their hearts. The church fell into rapid decline after that, until there was no one left to believe. But there was still hope for the movement. After decades of political turmoil, Durus finally found its place in a binary star system. It was stable, self-sufficient, and finally beginning to truly innovate. It had advanced beyond most religions, but no one had yet put forth a clear reason why choosing ones, salmon, mages, and paramounts existed at all. The lingering mystery sparked a new fire, and the religion was revived. Descendants began to worship the source mages once more, with Jeremiel back in the center of it all. The fact that they were long gone only helped this cause, for the intrigue of idols who were completely inaccessible was alluring on its own, like it is in most religions. In just a few short years, the new followers were stronger and more committed than ever. And they were convinced that Jeremiel Sachs was bound to return to them one day. Unlike other superstitious organizations that believed something like this, it was entirely possible that Jeremiel’s followers were right.

Microstory 1201: Ira Park

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Ira Park was one of the good guys. He wasn’t raised to be a good person, so it was something he had to develop on his own by rejecting society’s outlook, particularly on women. He was probably autistic, though the field of psychology was severely lacking on Durus, since people were really just focused on surviving, or on oppressing half the population. Either way, he didn’t see the world in the same way he was expected to, and once his mage remnant time powers manifested, he knew how he was going to help. He had the ability to generate wards over a specified area or building. These protected the rightful owners of the space—which Ira could assign—against all intruders. They prevented unauthorized access using time powers, or just physical force. They were basically magical locks that limited admittance. Needless to say, his skills were in high demand for people looking to protect themselves, or just enjoy a higher level of privacy. At first, Ira worked for anyone who would hire him. He knew he had to develop his reputation, and grow his business, before he could use his powers for good. It was only after a few years that he started secretly protecting the rebel thicket. The thicket was an organization comprised primarily, but not exclusively of women. They fought against the oppressive abuses of the phallo-centric government, and sought a world of political and social equality. They weren’t violent, or even all that loud, which was probably why change came at such a slow pace, but they were not wholly ineffective. Their main responsibility was to rescue and harbor enemies of the state, and abused women who managed to find the courage to leave the men around them. In this capacity, Ira’s warding powers were priceless. He didn’t ask for any form of compensation for these services, and didn’t support the rebellion in any other fashion. Both he and the thicket leaders felt it was prudent for him to do this one wildly valuable thing for them, and nothing else. Any more noise would have painted a target on his back, and made it that much harder for them all to remain secret and hidden. It was of absolute importance that he remain a free man, so he could continue to help him in his best way. Once the phallocracy was toppled, the truth of Ira’s involvement with the thicket came out to the public. He suddenly had a whole bunch of enemies who now understood why the former government never made any headway in putting the rebels down. Unfortunately for them, it wasn’t like they had any means of retaliating. His wards protected his person at all times, so he perpetually walked around with an impenetrable shield. He was only ever rewarded for his noble actions, by people grateful for his bravery in a world that did not always appreciate it. He continued to work as a ward creator, though he could now be much more open about it. His power increased as well, as did the powers of many others, like it was the existence of the corrupt government itself that was keeping them down. He never used his gifts to help criminals, or anyone with known backwards ideas about how the planet should be run. He provided safety and security to a lot of people on Durus, and he did it for next to nothing. They even named a new wildlife reserve after him, located in an area once overwhelmed by thicket. Fittingly, they simply called it Ira Park.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 13, 2251

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After her talk with Eight Point Seven, Leona felt that she needed to get away from people. Fortunately, she had a whole world to explore. Unlike the other exoplanet colonies, Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida was fully hospitable, so her movements didn’t have to be restricted. She could go literally anywhere on the planet, and she didn’t even have to tell anyone. She left a note in the hangar, apologizing for borrowing a skyshuttle, which was a flying vehicle that wasn’t space-capable. Then she disabled all tracking and communication devices, input a somewhat random set of coordinates, and took off. She got a few extra hours of sleep that she didn’t really need while it took her away. When she arrived at her destination, she found herself unimpressed. It was certainly still quite beautiful, but it didn’t do much to alleviate her depression. She didn’t know what she expected to find, but this wasn’t helping. She just started wandering around the forest, not headed in any particular direction. She eventually strayed too far from her landing point, and couldn’t find the shuttle anymore. She was lost, and that was fine, because what did anything matter? She didn’t put much effort into finding her way back, and barely noticed when midnight hit.

With nothing better to do, Leona found a sorry excuse for a cave—which was more just a fixture in the face of a cliff wall—and holed up for a few hours so she could get more sleep that she didn’t need. Now armed with this rest, she called upon her orienteering skills, recalled her memories of where she’d gone, and finally found her way back to the shuttle. It looked a lot different already. Ivy had winded its way through the hatchway, which she had foolishly left open. There were noises coming from inside too, so some kind of creature must have taken up residence. It wasn’t like she had memorized the fauna catalog, so she would have little hope of knowing whether the animal was dangerous or not. She needed to get back to her friends, though, so there was no other choice. She carefully peeked inside, and didn’t find an animal at all; but a human. It was a young man, actually, around her age.

“Oh my God,” she exclaimed on instinct.

He was just as scared to see her, if not more so. He fell back into the control console with a short yelp, and started shaking.

Once the shock was gone, Leona calmed herself down, and tried to look as nonthreatening as possible. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. Do you speak English?”

“No, I don’t,” he answered with complete fluency. He wasn’t being funny; he seemed to legit think he didn’t.

“You appear to speak at least a little of it.”

He thought about this for a moment. “Oh, is that what this is called?”

“It is, yes.”

“Then yes.”

“Are you one of the colonists?” she asked him.

“I don’t know what that is,” he replied.

It sounded like she needed to approach this a different way. “How long have you been living here?”

“Here, exactly?” he pressed rhetorically. “A few months, I s’pose.”

“Where were you living before that?”

He crawled towards the exit, and pointed at a mountain that was probably twenty or twenty-five kilometers away. “I spent most of my life East of Mount De Vries.”

Leona looked back at it. “Who named that mountain?” She didn’t think anyone lived on this continent of Bida at all, let alone taken the time to name geographic features. While they were presently in a highly vegetated valley, most of this was rocky and mountainous. There was obviously life here, but it wasn’t as diverse and interesting as other regions of the world, so the researchers had not yet begun surveying and cataloging it in greater detail.

“My mother named it; after herself.”

“Your name is De Vries?”

He nodded. “Briar De Vries.”

“Where’s your mother now?”

He pointed to the mountain again. “Scattered over the summit. After she died, I performed the resting ritual, and then went out in search of a new place to live. I didn’t want to stay where everything would remind me of her. That was two years ago. Is this your spaceship?”

“It’s not a spaceship,” Leona answered. “It can only fly in the sky.”

He frowned. “The sky isn’t space?”

She shook her head. “Not while there’s still air. Space doesn’t start until there’s no more air.”

“Hm.” It would seem his mother attempted to educate him as much as possible, but there were still some key facts he was missing. Back in civilization, he could look those questions up, but trapped all the way out here surely left him with some significant misconceptions. He appeared to be receptive to new information, though.

“Do you have any idea how you got here, so far away from other people? Do you know that there are other people?” She didn’t want to assume too much.

“Of course I know that,” he said, offended. “They all live back on Earth. This is Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. A woman hired her to help make this world safe for people, but no one lives here yet.” He was talking about Trinity, and her habitability project. His mother must have been pregnant, possibly unbeknownst to Trinity, when she came here. The question was why Trinity just left her here, instead of sending her back home to live out her life? Why was Briar still here now?

She shook her head again. “Your mother was successful. People do live here now. I suppose you wouldn’t have seen any of the landing ships in this hemisphere.”

He widened his eyes. “They’re here?”

“Yes. Thousands of them, with more coming every year.”

“The woman never really said when she was going to bring others. I guess mom thought it would take much longer. That was forty-two years ago.”

“Wait, you’re forty-two?”

“No, it was forty-two years ago when she told me why it is I was born on this planet, but I was fourteen already.”

“You’re fifty-six!” He didn’t look a day over thirty.

“Yes?”

“You’re aging much slower than normal, Briar.”

“Oh, right. Kahaeli root. It doesn’t taste very good, but it keeps you young. Can we go meet the others now?”

“Umm, yeah.” Leona crawled in to start the pre-flight check. It was more important than ever since the vessel had been left exposed and unmaintained for a whole Earthan year. It was worse than she thought, though. Heavy rains must have caused really bad water damage in the circuitry, and it looked like vines had punctured the primary fuel line. There might be enough in the reserves to make it back to Homebase, but this was going to take a lot of work. “I imagine your mother never taught you to be a mechanic, or technician, or something?”

She was a virologist. I wouldn’t know the first thing about flying this, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to fix it. Did I do something wrong by moving in here?”

“No,” she assured him. “If anything, you being here lessened the impact nature had on it. I should have been more careful.”

“Can we not call for help?”

“I disabled communications, like an idiot. I’m kind of going through some stuff right now, and I didn’t want anyone to be able to follow me.”

He had no response to this.

“I can fix it, but it’s going to take some time.”

“How much time?”

That was an awkward answer. “Technically, only a day. But truly...an Earthan year.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t just leave the craft for an entire year while I lived somewhere else. At the end of today, according to how time is measured in a certain zone of Earth, I will jump forward one year. I can work on fixing this for the next several hours, but then I’ll literally disappear, and I won’t be back until 2252. I have no control over this. It’s just how I am.”

He stared at her for a moment. “I have a basic grasp of the idea of time travel. Mother was instantaneously transported here fifteen years prior to the arrival of the probe ship Earth sent to see what the solar system was like. It took that probe thirty-four years to traverse the distance. I don’t understand why it is this happens to you, but I can conceptualize the pattern.

And so Leona got to work fixing the flying machine. She probably could have completed it faster, but she wanted to teach Briar a few things along the way, in case more maintenance was required while she was gone. As she did so, however, she started getting worried that he might take advantage of his new knowledge. What if he was such a quick learner that he affected the rest of repairs, and stranded her there? She would have no way of returning, and no one would have any clue where she was, unless he decided to tell them. When he wasn’t looking, Leona pocketed the drive chip, so she could keep it with her when she made her jump to the future. It was a small but vital component. The shuttle would not fly without it, unless another was synthesized. Since that part of the controls wasn’t broken, she never explained to Briar how it worked, so hopefully he wouldn’t know what to do. In a perfect world, she could trust him to just wait until she came back, but this wasn’t anywhere near that. They had only just met, and there was no telling what kind of person he was.

She stopped working as midnight approached. “I could keep going with these last few things,” she began to explain, “but chances are I wouldn’t be able to get through it, and I don’t really want to be in the middle of it when midnight strikes. I think we’re at a pretty good stopping point. By this time next year, you’ll be at Homebase, where you will finally meet the woman who hired your mom to work here.”

“Trinity is still here?” he questioned.

“Yeah, of course.”

“I don’t wanna meet her.”

“Why not?”

“She ruined my mother’s life.”

Leona frowned. “Briar, why did she not return to Earth?”

“She couldn’t,” he said, as if Leona should have automatically understood that.

“Why not?”

“Against my mother’s advice, Trinity partook in wanderberries. It puts you in a haze, and makes you forget everything that happened to you for an amount of time proportional to the amount of berries that you ate. The way mom tells it, Trinity was so confused that she couldn’t even tell that my mom was there, begging her to take her back to Earth. After hours of trying, Trinity finally just disappeared on her own, and never came back to this region.”

“Well, that sounds like it wasn’t Trinity’s fault. I mean, I’m sure there’s a logical reason she ate the berries; maybe she didn’t know what they would do. And once she was in that state, she was in no condition to help your mother.”

He shook his head slowly. “Wanderberries wear off. She would have become fully lucic two days later, at most, assuming she stopped eating them. She would have remembered everything about her life, including the time she was on the drug. She never came back, Leona. She abandoned us here. Now, I can’t complain about my life. I lived with my best friend until she died two years ago, and I don’t know really know what I’ve been missing. But my mother longed for her, and it made her a little sad, all the time. I won’t forgive Trinity for that.”

“I understand your position,” Leona said to him. “But it’s irrational to make these judgments based on one side of the story. I’m not saying your mom lied, but maybe Trinity has a different perspective. Maybe she really did forget forever, because she also accidentally ate a different type of berry at the same time that your mom didn’t realize. Right there is all the more reason we have to go see her. You need to confront her about it.” Before, she was worried Briar would fix the shuttle and leave her here, but now she was worried he would sabotage it beyond repair, and still leave her here. That wasn’t something she would be able to protect herself against. Maybe she should have refrained from teaching him anything, and just worked doubletime, so they could leave today. It was too late now.

“I guess you’re right. If nothing else, I can yell at her about it.”

“So, you’ll still be here when I come back a year from now?”

“I promise.”

A year later, Leona came back to find the landing zone completely devoid of all shuttles and humans. Somehow, Briar had fixed the ship on his own, and had flown off to who knows where.

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Source Variant: Dandavo Dali Dali (Part II)

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Right now, Saga!Three is on vacation for an indefinite amount of time. Also right now—but in a different universe entirely—Vearden!Two is trying to heal from his injuries. Like his alternate reality counterpart, Vearden was operating The Crossover, but from the machine’s perspective, at a much earlier time. After some crazy adventures, he recently found himself in a universe called the Composite, fighting against a magnetokinetic named Arkan. He was badly hurt, and a teleporter named Zektene attempted to take him to a hospital, but they weren’t able to stay there long. What they didn’t realize was that one of their other enemies, Cain possessed a powerful object capable of blasting them across the multiverse. They weren’t anywhere near him when he set off this device, but that didn’t matter. They were both unwillingly pulled from the hospital, and delivered back to Vearden’s home universe. Fortunately for him, Saga!Three is an experienced medical professional.

She’s just spent the last however many years of her life as Doctor Baxter Sarka’s nurse. He’s a salmon, dispatched by the powers that be to treat other salmon throughout time and space. While she had no obligation to help, she chose to do so, because she felt like it was her personal calling. She’s grateful for the field education she received along the way, because now she needs it more than ever, because she’s the closest thing to a doctor Vearden!Two has at the moment. She starts working right away. None of them has any clue where they are, but there are plenty of medical supplies nearby. She starts barking orders at Zektene, who retrieves exactly what she asks for without question, and helps to the best of her ability. Fifteen minutes later, Saga!Three has done about as much as she can do for him.

“This is Vearden Haywood?” Saga!Three asks.

“Yes, have you heard of him?” Zektene answers and asks.

Saga!Three looks back at him. He’s barely conscious. “We were friends...in another life.”

Zektene doesn’t understand.

“Or so they tell me. I have no recollection of it. It was in a different timeline.”

Now Zektene understands. “Where are we?”

“It looks like some kind of laboratory, though everything is really big. Look at this table. I would need a high-chair to sit here.”

“Yeah, this looks very alien to me. All these objects are somehow both recognizable, but still familiar. Are we in a different universe?”

Saga!Three doesn’t know what she means by that. “Do you mean reality?”

“No.”

Vearden!Two clears his throat, and tries to move.

Saga!Three rushes back over, and holds him in place. “Lie still.”

“I’m home,” Vearden!Two notes. He can barely open his eyes, but he can see enough to know that his best friend, Saga is here. “How did I get home?”

“I don’t know,” Zektene tries to explain. “One minute, I’m teleporting you to a hospital. The next, I see an explosion of colors, and then we’re just suddenly here.”

“I don’t think I can get you back,” Vearden!Two laments. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Zektene says. “I didn’t have anyone back there. I was a girl out of my own time anyway.”

After Saga!Three makes sure that Vearden!Two can start healing on his own, she introduces herself to her new friend, and they decide they need to get a good look around. She didn’t come here on purpose either, and that is a mystery waiting to be solved.

While there are tons of instruments and other tools in the lab, there aren’t any actual chemicals or specimens. It’s like this place was created for a specific purpose, but has not been put to use yet. It’s the cleanest room Saga!Three has ever been in before, so either it’s vacuum sealed, or someone is maintaining it for this hypothetical future use. There’s no evidence that anyone else has ever been here before, though. While they’re examining everything, the door on the opposite wall is calling to her, like every answer they could want is just on the other side. Zektene seems to be feeling the same way about it, so they prepare to defend themselves against a mysterious enemy and open it.

They’re in a much, much larger room now. Stasis pods line the walls in two rows, illuminated only by the light from the lab. Zektene feels the wall behind them, and quickly finds the switch. Yeah, it’s even larger than they realized. There could be two hundred pods in here, but upon a closer look, they see that they’re not housing humans. Monster is perhaps the best word to use, even though their instinct for violence is not yet known.

“Gondilak,” Vearden!Two says. “They’re called Gondilak.”

“Vearden,” Saga!Three complains. “You shouldn’t be up.”

“I’m fine,” he argues. “It was getting really uncomfortable in that position. It feels good to move around a bit. I promise not to run any marathons until at least tomorrow,” he jokes.

“How do you know what the aliens are?” Zektene asks. “I feel like I’ve seen them before, but they don’t look quite right, and that word doesn’t seem right either.”

Vearden!Two slowly steps forward, leaning against objects to maintain balance. “I’ve met them before. The first time I traveled through a door, they were there...” he nods his head towards Saga!Three, “attacking the other version of you.”

“So, what are they doing in stasis pods?” Saga!Three asks. “Are we on a ship?”

Vearden!Two shrugs.

“Maybe we could ask this guy?” Zektene has moved over to one of the other pods. As the other two approach, they see that there’s a perfectly normal human inside of it.

“That’s really weird,” Vearden!Two says. “The last time I checked, the Gondilak weren’t capable of space flight, and they weren’t too keen on humans. I guess maybe they wouldn’t have been able to achieve it unless they shed their racist ideas. I wonder where the Orothsew are.”

Zektene moves to the other side of the pod to see the man from another angle. “What are the Orothsew?”

She must have accidentally activated something, because just then, the human’s pod starts making noises. Its interface monitor lights up with a language they don’t know, and the pod starts to open. “Treda Kestolin Hibesof,” says the automated voice from the computer. “Human presence detected,” it appears to translate to English. It’s a little anticlimactic as they watch the man wake up from suspended animation. It’s not like in the movies where they can jump right out and get to work. It’s a long and drawn out process where fluids are reintroduced to his system, and also spilled onto the floor under him. While it’s happening, Saga!Three redresses one of Vearden’s wounds, and Zektene looks around some more to see if she can find a window.

Finally, the man is awake, and aware of his surroundings. When he sees their faces, his eyes tear up, and then he starts crying. “Oh my God, it’s been so long. Are you really here?”

“We are, yes,” Saga!Three says. She places a comforting hand on his. “What is this place?”

The man looks up and down at the other pods. “Oh, they actually went through with it. Why did they put me here?”

“First off,” Vearden!Two says. “What’s your name?

“Ramses,” he answers as he’s struggling out of his pod. “Ramses Abdulrashid. Do you know what year it is?”

They all three shake their heads.

“Ramses,” Saga!Three presses. “What did they go through with? What is this?”

“Dandavo Dali Dali,” he replies cryptically.

“Is that a band, errrr...?”

“It best translates to Project New Beginning.”

“What does that mean?”

“Onda means new and ondali means beginning, so they do this weird reduplication rule when they put them together.”

“I don’t mean, what does it literally mean,” Saga!Three tries to clarify. “I mean, what is the project for?”

“It’s kind of the Maramon version of Project Starseed.”

“What did you just say?” Vearden!Two questions, horrified.

“That’s it!” Zektene exclaims. “They’re not called Gondilak. They’re Maramon! But they look a little different.”

Ramses practically crawls over to get a good look at one of the other pod people. He thinks over what he sees. “So, they were right. They thought this might happen.” He stands up straighter to realign his spine.

“I don’t care about this,” Vearden!Two bemoans. “If these are, like, evolved from the Maramon, then we have to destroy them.”

“I’ve promised to keep them alive,” Ramses contends. He prepares to tell them a story. “If you’ve heard of the Maramon, then you know how bad they are. What you don’t know is that there was one good group amongst them. These dissenting voices were imprisoned by society, but ultimately rescued by me and my friends. They wanted a homeworld of their own, so I helped them go out on a ship and find it. Almost two centuries after arriving on Kolob, the new civilization was getting worried about experiencing the same problem they did in their original universe. You see, they don’t die; or at least, it’s hard to kill them, and they won’t die of age-related diseases. So their population just keeps growing. Back in Ansutah, they came up with some nasty ways of combating the population crisis, but the Kolobians thought of something different.

“They decided to stop having regular children, but they didn’t mean they didn’t have the drive to create life. That life just needed to be different than they were. They needed to be mortal. Unfortunately, some scientists worked on that a long time ago, and couldn’t figure it out. A mortal Maramon just could not be engineered using the resources that were available to them. Fortunately, things were different in this universe, because they had access to so many new resources. They started scouring the nearest stars, looking for a planet that could give them what they needed. If I’m right about where we are, then I think they may have found it. I’ve been in stasis for who knows how long, so I can’t be sure, but these others may be the genesis of a new species. They should be able to carry on the good-natured Maramon tradition, but also be able to die.”

“So, they’re not really Maramon,” Zektene works through. “They just come from them. They probably don’t even know that.”

“Yes,” Ramses confirms. “They’re based on Maramon DNA, but also on whatever they’re feeding them on the planet we’re on right now. The scientists had a term for that. I can’t recall what it was in their language, but I remember the translation. They called it...the source variant.

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