Microstory 1401: Premature Fledging

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In 1980, there lived a little girl in Springfield, Kansas named Savitri. She was only three years old at the time, and just barely starting to become aware of herself as an independent being, who was capable of observing and making judgments about her surroundings, and of maintaining memories of the past. She recognized her family, though she was later unable to recall how many siblings she had, but she was pretty sure the number was higher than zero. She couldn’t remember anyone’s names, or her own surname, for that matter. She was playing in the backyard one day when a random tear in the spacetime continuum swallowed her up, and dropped her onto another world. These sorts of temporal anomalies happen all the time, and all over the place, but rarely are they large and stable enough to allow an object to pass through; let alone an entire person. She would come to discover that she was born with a time power, and actually belonged to a special class within the choosing one subspecies called metachoosers. She could boost the power of anyone else with powers, which some have suggested was what caused the rift in her backyard to be so much more accessible than most. When she first arrived on the dark and lifeless rogue planet of Durus, she brought with her a little bit of breathable air, but this did not last long. Once it was depleted, she spent about thirty seconds unable to breathe until the atmosphere kicked in. She didn’t know where it came from, because she was too young to understand how planets had atmospheres anyway, or what they were made of, but she could finally survive, at least for the moment. In the beginning, she was starving. Never before had she been required to prepare her own food, let alone forage for it in the wilderness of an empty planet. Her instincts sent her underground, where she found moss that experts would later figure survived the void of interstellar space through some kind of natural electrolysis process. Of course, she didn’t know any of that. She just hoped the moss was edible. It was. She spent ten years alone on this world, eventually growing old enough to go out and explore more of the planet. She never really could be sure that she wasn’t simply still on Earth, but in some remote pocket of it. Again, she was too young to understand any of this. She lost most of her language, and had to relearn it when the next unsuspecting child finally showed up in 1990. He was four years younger than her, so while he possessed more social experience, he wasn’t that much more capable of survival. He had it easier, though, because throughout the years before his arrival, the planet became host to more and more life. The atmosphere that spread over the surface brought with it seeds that grew into a thicket. No one would have ever called it lush, but it was alive, and it did help Savitri stay alive along with it. This was only the beginning of her story, though.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, April 26, 2050

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Shortly after Mateo and Sanaa arrived at their final destination, an old woman found them wandering what they could only describe as a thicket. The plant life here wasn’t all dead, but it was brown and overgrown. It was all there was as far as they could see. They wouldn’t have been able to hide in it unless they had been lying down, but there was still nothing for miles and miles. It would be strange if this person just stumbled upon them. She probably knew they were coming. She urged them to follow her, and didn’t say a word. It was only after they walked over the slight hill that they found civilization. A small town sat peacefully in the valley. She motioned for them to follow her farther, but did not go in herself after her final instructions to enter some kind of official building near the center of town.

They climbed the steps, and approached the doors. A young woman appeared to be standing guard. “Ecrin?” Mateo asked.

“Indeed,” she replied. He had only met her once, but since she was ageless, that was centuries in her future, so there was no way she knew who he was. Well, she might have known—it was absolutely within the realm of possibility—but it looked like she did not yet recognize him.

“I think we’re meant to save the life of someone on the other side of this door,” Sanaa said to her.

Ecrin was no stranger to time powers, and future-knowledge, so she wasn’t at all surprised by this possibility. She removed a note card from her back pocket, and consulted it. “That’s not on my agenda.”

“We don’t actually know,” Mateo clarified. “We’ve just been sent here by...” The powers that be didn’t have any control over them while they were in The Parallel, but they were back in the main timeline, so who the hell knows who was pulling the strings right now? Still, they were the easiest scapegoat. “By the powers that be,” he finished.

“A guide led us here, but she didn’t speak,” Sanaa added, “so we don’t know her motivations, or purpose.”

Ecrin frowned. “Was she wearing about a hundred more layers than she needed, and not because she looked like a homeless person from the old world, but more like she thought it was fashionable, like ancient times in the old world?”

“Yes,” Mateo confirmed.

“She’s a greeter, not a guide,” Ecrin began. “The PTB do occasionally send us salmon, and she takes it upon herself to track these arrivals, and make sure, no matter what, people like you report to the source mages first.”

“Then we need to talk to the source mages,” Sanaa said. “Thank you.” Mateo didn’t know if these two ever met at some other moment in the timeline, but she must have automatically respected the hell out of Ecrin, because she wasn’t known for being so polite and gracious. Strangers, best friends; Sanaa treated them just a little bit poorly. It wasn’t enough to alienate everyone around her, but it was something those closest to her had to learn to tolerate.

“Most of the source mages are gone,” Ecrin said. “Though, I suppose Kalea will be the most helpful and patient with you anyway. Welcome to Durus.” She opened the door with a backhand, but stayed outside to hold her watchful position. “Up the stairs, third door on your left.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Cabral.” Ah, damn. He wasn’t supposed to know her name. She flinched, but didn’t question it. Again, this sort of thing was commonplace in the world of salmon and choosers, and this whole planet lived in that world.

“Oh.” A young woman clapped her hands together, and opened a wide smile where once there was a regular smile she probably used as her resting face. “I am so happy you are here.”

“Did you know we were coming?” Sanaa asked.

“No,” she said, “but I am always glad to see a couple friendly new faces.”

“How do you know we’re friendly?” Sanaa pressed. She didn’t seem to respect this one quite as much.

“I always just assume that. I find life goes much smoother when I don’t make enemies with people I don’t know.”

“That’s lovely.”

Before they could continue the conversation, they were interrupted by the clanging of metal against metal, followed quickly but a loud crash; maybe an explosion. Then came the footsteps.

“This way,” Kalea ran out of her office, and bolted down the hallway.

Mateo took up the rear, and found the men pursuing them to be gaining ground. They ran all the way down, and into another staircase. Unfortunately, they were met by a second group of angry people at the bottom. This mob dragged them through the lower level, and into an open area. They forced them down to their knees, and ziptied their hands behind their backs. An angry bearded man stood in his leadership position, sword resting against his right shoulder, which he probably figured looked pretty badass. It did not. He scowled. “Where are the other source mages?”

“It’s Tuesday,” Kalea answered. “We don’t work on Tuesdays.”

The leader guy lifted his boot, and kicked Mateo in the chest. “Where are they?”

“You moron. It’s 2050. They’re getting ready for the mage games, which are not held at the capitol.”

“Why aren’t you with them?”

“There’s always at least one of us in the building. I imagine we do that to prevent someone like you from killing us all in one go.”

The man grimaced, threw his blade over to rest it on the back of his neck, balancing it with two hands, and leaned in real close. Man, this dude was just asking to cut himself. “We don’t need to kill you in one go. You’ll do...for now.” He stood back up, and spit on the floor. “Everyone out. I’ll stay here and make sure they don’t contact someone for emergency teleportation.”

“Sir?” one of his minions questioned.

“I die for a great cause. I die for equality. I die for a world where the powerless have powers.”

The minion, tears and all, nodded once out of reverence, and followed the rest of his compatriots out.

“You can’t teleport within these walls,” Kalea spit. “That’s how we designed it. It’s about your safety as much as ours.”

“Still, I think I’ll stick around.” The bearded man removed a black box from his bag, and placed it delicately on the floor.

“Singularity bomb,” Kalea said in an exhale. “Those are illegal.”

“No, d’uh,” he responded. “Ten seconds. Say your prayers to the time gods.”

“What’s that flickering?” Kalea asked, looking around at the walls.

“Oh, no.” Oh, yes, but oh no. Hoping the web video he once watched before he was a time traveler was real, Mateo raised his arms behind his back as high as they could go, then swung them down as hard as he could, and pulled them apart. The ziptie broke, as it was meant to. Just before the flickering gave way to reality—which was just before the bomb was going to go off—he managed to wrap his arms around Sanaa, hoping both of them would be swept into Kalea’s transition window. The building disappeared, leaving them on the cold, moist ground. The town was gone entirely, as was the freedom fighter, and they were surrounded by friends.

“Mateo!” Leona cried. She knelt down, and carefully pulled him off of Sanaa. She kissed him with a huge smile of her own, maintaining the expression as she looked at Sanaa. “And you. Where are you in the timeline?”

“The last time you saw me was the last time I saw you,” Sanaa replied.

“That’s wonderful,” Leona said, helping her friend up from the ground, and turning her attention back to her husband. “We were so worried Jupiter separated you from us forever, just to get a kick out of it.”

“I think he wanted to save Sanaa as well, so he got us to Kalea’s window.”

“Speaking of which,” Kalea said. “What’s a window, and where are we?”

Ramses took it upon himself to get the source mage up to speed, while Leona continued doing the same for Mateo.

“How did you get to this world?” he asked.

“The Cosmic Sextant,” she explained. “Samsonite was in possession of it in 2047. He didn’t know what he had, of course.”

“Samsonite? Does that mean...?”

“Aura and Theo. They were there too.”

“What was happening with them in 2047?” When the two of them were first jumping through time, they ran into his mother, her love interest, and a friend of theirs who was reincarnated as Leona’ younger brother. That was in a completely different reality, though. Mateo later went back in time, and killed Hitler. The butterfly effect from this act both took Mateo out of the timeline, and made it so Theo was instead reincarnated as a girl, named Téa Stendahl. None of them knew who Mateo or Leona were after these changes. “Wait, you said Theo, not Téa.”

“Yes,” Leona said. “They were from what we sometimes call Reality Two.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Sure it does,” Leona said. “The Parallel is a series of alternate realities—not just one of them—which all run parallel to—but independently from—the main series of alternate realities. Neither one directly impacts events in the other. If we were to cross back over, we could end up in any branch that spawned from the main series, rather than the one we just came from.”

“So, dark Reaver could show up,” Mateo supposed. “Or the versions of Carol and Randall who were my parents, rather than yours. Or a different version of you could appear, or me.”

Leona shook her head. “Carol and Randall couldn’t show up, because neither of them would be able to survive into the 2050s. The dates still match up perfectly. It’s April 26, 2050 over there, and it’s April 26, 2050 over here, regardless of which reality it happens to be. That’s what makes them parallel. Yeah, evil Reaver could show up, but we’re quickly coming up on the end of his personal timeline, before he dies. I can’t say what happened in 2047 won’t happen again, but it probably won’t be those people you mentioned. Tell me about you. How did you and Sanaa find each other?”

After Mateo finished telling his side of the story, the larger group came back together to decide what they were going to do. The Cosmic Sextant only operated one-way trips. They would allow any traveler to go anywhere in the observable universe, but they could never take the device with them, which meant, if they wanted to come back, they would have to do it by some other means. No one here was capable of that, and there was no one on this world either, because in this reality, nobody lived on the planet at all. All evidence suggested that they were now stuck here, unless they could figure out how to make the HG Goggles work for this many people.

“Perhaps that’s why I’m here,” Kalea said. She tripped, and almost fell. “Whew, a little faint.”

“Yeah, does the air feel thin?” J.B. asked.

“You stole atmosphere from the other Durus,” Leona began, “just like I believe the Sextant brings some atmosphere with it from Earth. We’re probably running out. We better find a way to get back. Miss Akopa, you said you thought that’s why you were here? I can’t imagine you can jump between planets. Otherwise, you would have traveled freely between Durus and Earth, right?”

“I can’t, no,” Kalea corroborated. “I can give someone else the power to do that, though.”

“Way I understand it,” Holly Blue said, “you’re a source of power, but you can’t choose which power to give someone. It’s like a random lottery.”

Kalea sported a smile-frown. “That’s what we’ve told people, but it’s not entirely true. I can give someone whatever power I want. We don’t always do that, but we do kind of have to make sure that our town mages don’t have the power to—I dunno—see what someone’s face will look like in fifty years. We need them to have real, protective powers, so we kind of control it.” She was hesitant to be telling them all this. “Sorry.”

J.B. looked around to see if everyone was in agreement. “We don’t care about any of your internal politics. That’s fine, we’re not judging you.”

“Oh.” She was pleased and relieved to hear this. “There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?” Holly Blue asked.

“I can’t give powers to someone who already has them, or already has a salmon pattern, for that matter. It only works on regular humans.”

Everyone but Kalea, and Ramses himself, looked over to the one true human in their midst.

“Am I finally gonna get time powers?”

“I think it’s the only way out of this.” Mateo affectionately slapped a firm hand on his best friend’s shoulder. “One of us, gooble gobble, gooble gobble. One of us, one of us.”

“Ramses, is that even what you want?” Leona asked with motherly concern.

He looked at her, and then Mateo, and then to each of the others, to gauge their respective reactions. “Oh, no doubt,” he answered in the flyest voice he could muster.

“All right, cool.” Kalea approached Ramses, and showed him both her palms, obviously suggesting he place his hands in hers. “There’s normally a lot more ceremony when it comes to this, but I think we’ll skip the pageantry. My headache is getting a lot worse.” She inhaled a deep breath from the thin air, and grasped Ramses’ wrists tightly. It took a couple minutes for her to pass whatever magical energy from her body to his.

When it was over, Ramses blinked. “What’d I get? Something cool?”

Kalea smiled at him. “I gave you exactly what we need, and what the world technically already has.”

“And what’s that?” he asked her.

She took him by the wrists again. “Life,” she whispered.

And with that, they both disappeared. They were replaced by a flourishing city. It was highly advanced, with futuristic buildings, and electric cars zipping by them on a newly paved road. This didn’t look like Durus, or Earth, or any planet they had ever been to before. This was new. What had Kalea done to him, and how had she removed Ramses’ Cassidy cuffs without being locked into them herself?

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Varkas Reflex: Force (Part V)

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Iota Leonis was a triple star system located about seventy-nine light years from Earth, but not quite that far from Wolf 359. Iota Leonis B, in particular, was a main sequence star that was not a whole lot different than Earth’s sun, Sol. Because of its distance, it was not considered part of the stellar neighborhood, which was exactly what Hokusai was looking for. Her initial desire was to be alone, at least for the next decade or so. Fortunately, the trip from Varkas Reflex was a lot shorter for her than it would be for most people. It was she who developed a new way of traveling the stars called the reframe engine. The fact that the star was seventy-one light years away meant that it would take seventy-one years to get there. Or rather, that was what everyone outside of the ship felt. Just being inside the ship made time move slower, so that seven decades equaled only thirty-seven days, from a traveler’s perspective. The beauty of the reframe engine, however, made it so that this relative time frame actually equaled the true passage of time. Thirty-seven days for her was thirty-seven days for everyone else, yet she was able to travel seventy-one light years. It was the only form of faster-than-light travel that anyone had come up with on a technological level. Certain time travelers could move much faster, but she hadn’t figured out how to replicate these abilities, and maybe never would.

When people first became virtually immortal, they were able to hold onto their old values and ways of doing things. After all, knowing that they might never die did not yet change how little life they had lived so far. After ten years, the people who had been married for fifty years simply became people who had been married for sixty. But then seventy rolled around, and then eighty, and now things were starting to feel different. By the time the first couple celebrated their hundredth anniversary, the institution was transforming; not into something better or worse, but altered. Of course, individualism being what it was, different couples had different plans. Plenty of married folks were these days enjoying their fourth century of being together, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. Still, there were others who placed limits on their relationships. Instead of letting death do them part, they were agreeing to stay together for a few decades, before moving on to other people. Others kept things up in the air, without worrying too much about what they would do in the future.

Where divorce once marked the end of a bad relationship, it now only signified a transitional period, and former partners often maintained healthy relationships with each other. Some even found themselves separated by light years, and didn’t maintain contact at all, but still remembered their time together fondly. Hokusai and Loa’s relationship was on the complex side of this. They frequently married, separated, divorced, and spent time far away from each other. They always ended up back together eventually, and not because they realized they made a mistake, but because they decided to not be apart anymore, and they were going to stay that way until something changed their minds. Hokusai didn’t ask Loa to come with her to Ileaby, and Loa didn’t offer to. They didn’t divorce either. They were just going to be apart for now, and probably meet back up somewhere else later. They never made any plans, and it wasn’t like they had to. Not everyone in the entire stellar neighborhood was afforded a quantum messenger to allow FTL communication, but Hokusai didn’t need to request one, because she could build one herself in her sleep. So she was able to talk with her wife on a regular basis, though not as frequently as she spoke with her student.

Pribadium Delgado knew a lot about how dimensional gravity worked, but she didn’t know everything, so Hokusai continued to train and mentor her for the last four years. There was even more that they both needed to learn about it. While she was the foremost expert, she had not yet explored all possibilities either. At the moment, they were telepresenting with each other using time technology. This wasn’t just a holographic communication device, like something out of an early Star Wars movie. This was more like a force bond, like something out of a later Star Wars movie. Their two labs—Pribadium’s on Varkas, and Hokusai’s on the Greta Thunberg—were merged together. They could move freely between each other’s areas, but they restricted this level of interaction, since the connection was tenuous. A choosing one named Kayetan Glaston was capable of doing this sort of thing on his own, but Pribadium figured out how to do it herself. Hokusai was so proud of her.

Partially inspired by the speech Gangsta Dazzlemist gave years ago when he first exiled Hokusai, the two of them were presently working on a new technology called the equilibrium drive. This wouldn’t simply be lower or higher gravity, but controlled gravitational force on the molecular level. When you drop an object on a world, it will fall towards the center of that world. Of course, the surface will get in the way, and not let it reach that center, but that’s essentially what gravity is doing. It doesn’t matter how high or low the gravity is, that object will always eventually fall to the ground, unless hindered by an external force, like a hand catching it. Even the artificial lower gravity that Hokusai invented in the first place retains this principle. She can make it easier for a vessel to escape its world’s gravity well, and rise up, but she can’t make the gravity itself propel the ship away. It still requires some kind of fuel. In an attempt at undoing this natural deficiency, the two scientists came up with something new. They all but abandoned the original idea in favor of another. Surely it would come in handy, but it wasn’t the most interesting application. What if an object dropped on a world neither fell to the surface, nor rose up from it, but instead, stayed exactly where it was?

With an equilibrium drive in play, the only objects capable of motion would be the ones in possession of self-propulsion. The most obvious example of this would be a person. Someone standing inside the chamber could climb up the invisible gravity lattice, and stand high above the floor. They would be able to get themselves down, but gravity would never do the work for them. And if they were holding, say, an average plastic basket, only they would be able to make that basket move. If they were to let go, it would just wait for them right in that spot, as if sitting on top a table. Of course, the ultimate goal of this tech would be to imbue individual objects with this equilibrium. The chamber might be a lot of fun, but if you want to take advantage of it, you have to stay inside, and that doesn’t really help if you want to use it in your everyday life. And they couldn’t accomplish this effect simply by turning the whole world into an equilibrium chamber, because not everything should be in equilibrium all the time like urine or a swimming pool. In fact, there seemed to be some issues with prolonged exposure.

“How are you feeling?” Hokusai asked.

“I feel like a puppet now.” Osiris Hadad, whose memories Hokusai had inadvertently erased, never lost his compassion. Though he could remember nothing about his life before the incident, he was still the same person he always was. People explained to him what Hokusai had done, but he was not angry with her about it. He too maintained communication with her across the light years, and they formed a true friendship. He still loved science, and wanted to pursue it, so he had to start from scratch, and get himself educated all over again. In the meantime, he loved helping her and Pribadium with their own research. He was in their equilibrium chamber prototype, so they could observe the long-term effects of the machine.

“It feels like there are strings on your shoulders?” Pribadium asked.

“No, it’s more like there are strings on ever pore of my skin, and they’re each pulling me in different directions.”

The other two were horrified.

“It’s not painful,” he went on. “The imaginary strings aren’t trying to tear me apart. I just don’t feel like I’m standing on anything, which I’m not. So to keep me from falling towards any surface, I guess they have to pull at me with equal force?”

“Yes, that’s how it works,” Hokusai said. “You say that’s uncomfortable?”

“It is now,” Osiris confirmed. “It’s becoming worse as time progresses. I don’t know why. I don’t think it’s changing. I think my body just gets tired of it.”

“The body gets tired of zero-g as well,” Pribadium noted. “Do you feel as if you’re exerting energy, like your body has to be the one in charge of holding in place?”

“I guess,” he said. “I mean, I know the chamber is doing all the work, and my body knows that too. It’s like I’m hanging here, waiting for you to shut off the machine, and if you do that, I have to be ready. I’m braced. That’s the word. I’m braced, in case this doesn’t last very long.”

“No species evolved to exist in true equilibrium,” Hokusai pointed out. “I mean, even zero gravity has its precedent on Earth. We evolved to handle the sensation of falling, and to float in water, but this is something entirely new; something that no one in the entire stellar neighborhood—maybe even the universe—has experienced before. Your body doesn’t know what to do with it.”

“Shoes.” Katica Petrić had walked into the lab.

“Dr. Petrić,” Pribadium said. “This is unexpected. It’s not what it looks like.”

“It looks like you’re using Glaston’s powers as a loophole to allow Hokusai to break her exile,” Katica explained.

“Are you going to tell the council?” Pribadium asked.

Katica laughed. “I’ve known you were doing this the whole time. Gangsta’s known for over a year. What he did, when he exiled you, was more to protect the people of Varkas Reflex from learning the truth about you. As long as you stayed secret, he had no problem with you continuing your work together. He’s actually counting on it. Every breakthrough you have helps the world, quite literally.” She looked up at Osiris, hanging in the equilibrium chamber. “You, however, I did not know about. I should have kept a better eye on you. I thought you were consumed by your studies.”

“Muscle memory,” he replied. “I may not remember how much proverbial baking soda to mix with the proverbial vinegar, but my hands still know how to pour the beakers. My studies go fast; I got time.”

“I see that,” Katica said. She wasn’t happy with his reasoning. She never agreed with the exile ruling, but she still felt protective over her former colleague, and knew that, because of his very condition, he could never truly understand what Hokusai had done to him; what he had lost.

“You said something about shoes?” Pribadium reminded her.

“Yes,” Katica began. “Like when we invented the clothes that lowered gravity for only the user, what you need are shoes that simulate slightly higher gravity. He needs to feel like he’s standing on a surface, even when he’s up there. He can keep climbing, or climb back down, but his inner ear needs to recognize what down even is.”

Hokusai was nodding her head. “Yeah, I think you’re right. We don’t need to make them 1-g, but they need to be higher, or you’ll always feel like you’re stuck in amber.”

“Does this matter?” Osiris questioned. “I thought we wanted to create micro-equilibrium drives, so I can hang my hat in the middle of the air while I’m putting on my coat, or accidentally bump into the coffee table, and not shatter my glass of water.”

“That is what we’re going for,” Prbadium agreed, “but we have to study its effect on the conscious body. If we don’t do it now, people are going to wonder about it later.”

“About a year after I first left Earth in 2017,” Hokusai began, “there were no significant studies on the health benefits of flossing.”

“What’s flossing?” Osiris asked.

“Exactly. Floss was this fine string you stuck in your teeth to clean them.”

“Why didn’t they just crack sonic-cleaning pellets?” he asked.

She chuckled. “They didn’t exist yet. For years, parents would scold their children for not flossing their teeth. Then scientists finally asked, hey wait, does flossing actually work anyway? Turns out, not really. They were better off using regular brushes, and brushing more thoroughly. The people who sold floss told people they needed to buy it, and no one questioned this...until some people did, and the truth came out. Science takes time, and it’s our job as scientists to let that time pass while we do our due diligence. I made a grave error when I erased your memory. I asked a couple questions, then I pushed a button. I should have been more patient, and more considerate. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Then maybe he, in particular, shouldn’t be your guinea pig,” Katica figured.

“No, it’s fine,” Osiris assured her. “I want to do this. I should be contributing to science in my own way at this point. Until I get my knowledge back, this is how I can help.”

Katica nodded her head in understanding. “I hope you know what you’re doing, because you don’t know much beyond that. Anyway, I didn’t come in here to discuss this technology with you. Madam Gimura, your exile has been lifted, if only temporarily. Your planet needs you. I suppose you can just...come with me.”

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Microstory 1400: Durance Introduction

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The history of planet Durus can be broken down into eleven eras, of varying duration, and are mostly based on the forms of government that ran the world in those times. First off, the name itself has complicated origins. It derives from the word endurance, which means lasting, but is often used in the context of prolonged suffering. That’s perfect for this world, because across the decades, its early inhabitants all suffered. No one had it good—even those who had it better—until democracy took hold after nearly two hundred years without it. But still, they endured. The name also comes directly from the root durus, which means hard. This relates to the world’s seemingly insurmountable harshness, and the fact that, when found, the rogue planet was barely more than a lifeless rock, floating through the void. The reason this series is simply called Durance is because that means imprisonment, and many have felt trapped on Durus, what with there being little hope of returning to Earth. The first to become trapped was a three-year-old girl named Savitri, who fell into a portal near her childhood home, and never returned. She spent ten years alone, never knowing her own last name, before the next unsuspecting child experienced a similar trauma. They were then alone together for another ten years until other people started coming through. The first period was retroactively referred to as the Solocracy, which means it was never a form of government at all, but it is said that Savitri commanded the world itself, using her powers to summon supporting life to her proximity. As we’ll discover, that’s not really what happened, but it’s a nice idea. When Escher Bradley appeared at the end of this single-person society, they formed what they called the Twoarchy; a sentiment which remained in historical records, even though the real term should have been Diarchy. Soon after Rothko Ladhiffe showed up, the final era of pre-civilization began, which was called the Triumvirate, though it wasn’t always composed of the same three people.

In the year 2016, the final remnants of the once-great city of Springfield, Kansas fell into the portal during something called the Deathfall, and sealed it up. This was when true society formed, and it did not go well. A tyrant named Smith garnered favor with the right people, and struck fear in the hearts of everyone else, forcing the town to follow his law until his disappearance five years later. There were many dangers in this world; monsters with rarely rational reasons for their destructive behavior, so Smith felt he needed to rule with an iron fist, and consolidate all power unto himself. Insurgents call this the Smithtatorship, which the historical documents support, because Smith himself never bothered naming his reign anyway. The next nine years were a mixed-bag of really bad, just normal bad, and not too terribly bad, but still kind of bad. It’s actually composed of a series of experimental governances, which are collectively known as the Adhocracy. It is only when the source mages, who were born in the months after Deathfall, grew old enough to take power, that things started looking up. They formed the Mage Protectorate, and used their abilities to give those they deemed worthy powers of their own, so they could keep watch over the now multiplying towns. This was a relatively peaceful period, as the monsters now that knew they were no match for the mages. Their patience lasted only sixty years, though, at which point a short war broke out, and sent the world into a dark era called the Interstitial Chaos. There was no significant attempt at a unifying governing body of any kind for these four years, but a lot happened, so it is an era in its own right.

Believing women as a whole to be the true agents of chaos and pain, a group of men took over Durus, and developed what they called The Republic. Detractors called it the Phallocracy, and enduring supporters often retroactively call it the First Republic, to distinguish it from the Democratic Republic that finally formed in 2168. In between these two republics were two short-lived transitional periods, known respectively as the Provisional Government, and the Salmon Battalion Military State. The latter came from Earth to keep things in order when some saw the Provisional Government was taking too long getting over its misogynistic ways. Lastly, the Solar Democratic Republic began in the year 2204. After potentially millions of years without a host star of its own, Durus finally found itself orbiting a binary star system. The name change is symbolic, and not reflective of any true change in government, though some debate whether to consider it the twelfth era. Others say Savitri’s period of solitude shouldn’t be treated as an era on its own either way, but no one is confident in this position. We will be examining various stories in chronological order over the course of the next five months. Each of the eleven or twelve Durune eras will be featured, but installments will not be evenly distributed across them. Here we go.

Microstory 1399: Story

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Seasoned Reporter: This is the interview with Fiore Stern, noted serial killer and terrorist.

Fiore Stern: I am not a terrorist. I’m the one who helped take down the terrorist organization. Get your facts straight.

Seasoned Reporter: You worked for Hemming Fertilizer for three years before you contacted the authorities about their misdealings.

Fiore Stern: That’s right. I was undercover all that time.

Seasoned Reporter: That’s what you said when it happened, but you were later discovered to have personally killed two dozen people. Does that not call your motives regarding the bomb-making company into question?

Fiore Stern: I don’t think it does at all. The two things have nothing to do with each other.

Seasoned Reporter: According to earlier interviews, you knew the entire time what Hemming was in reality. Now, I’m not saying it doesn’t take three years to go undercover, and bring terrorists to justice from the inside. I honestly don’t know how I would do it, let alone how long it would take. But because of these revelations about your private inclinations towards violence, you have to understand that people are going to be suspicious about your role within the company. Some are wondering whether you had always intended to fight against them, or if you simply saw an opportunity, and took it, assuming that no one would scrutinize you about who you really were.

Fiore Stern: I can see where people might start modifying their perception of me. But they have to realize that serial killing and terrorism are two very different ideologies. What I did to those innocent victims was very personal, and I’ve been working with mental health professionals to understand my reasons. It’s a lot more complex than you might think.

Seasoned Reporter: I would never characterize your behavior as simple. No one seems to be arguing that.

Fiore Stern: Yes, but terrorism kind of is simple. These people were angry at the world. The justice they saw, they perceived as injustice. They believed it was their duty to correct society as a whole, and make people afraid to go against them. Now, I’m not at all saying that the terrible things I did were okay. It’s just that Past!Me had very different motivations. He thought he was making art, and subsequently beauty, and he even thought he was creating life. When I put those bodies on display, I surrounded them with plant life, which signified rebirth, and transcendence. Again, I’m completely aware of how wrong that was, but the terrorists couldn’t care less about any of that. I don’t fault people for hating me, or thinking I’m not better than the people who worked for Hemming, but to suggest we fall into the same category is quite negligent, and no psychologist would do that. I just want to make it clear that I didn’t hurt anybody for Hemming. I’ve hurt people, but not for those reasons, and not for them. It’s important to me that the public acknowledges that.

Seasoned Reporter: Okay. You’re both bad, but you’re not the same. Acknowledged.

Fiore Stern: Thank you.

Seasoned Reporter: Let’s move on. Tell me how life in prison has been for you over the course of this last year. Have the other inmates accepted you for what you did to your victims, or do they mistreat you because of what you did to those bomb-makers?

Fiore Stern: I’m actually in protective custody, but a special corner of it. This is where they put the corrupt cops, and snitches, so I interact with people a little, but not much. I’m mostly in solitary confinement.

Seasoned Reporter: And have you found that difficult, being alone all the time?

Fiore Stern: I like it. I don’t much care for people, and I don’t find myself going crazy in there. They gave me a little window, so that’s nice.. I will say this, though, the place could do with a few more plants.

Microstory 1398: Truth

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Advocate: Before we proceed, there are a few things you have to understand about your case. First, we’re not going to be able to convince the arbitration panels, or the general public, that you’re not guilty. I think you’re well aware of that. There’s too much evidence against you, and there’s no evidence that anyone else is actually responsible for your crimes. Does this sound right to you?

Fiore Stern: It is. I have to accept the fact that I’ve been caught. I cannot deny that I killed those people. So if I’m already guilty, what else can we do? What is the point of any of this? Can’t they just lock me up, and walk away?

Advocate: There are still some things to work out, and some things we can do to make your time in prison easier. Even if there weren’t, this is how our system is designed. We can’t just start punishing people without due process. You might be willing to skip trial, but what about the poor nineteen-year-old kid, who just got addicted to drugs? No, it has to be like this, and I’m afraid to tell you that it’s not going to be pleasant. The adherent is going to make you out to be the worst person on the planet. They’re going to make the panels think you deserve nothing better than a hole in the ground, and some slop once a week. As your advocate, it’s my responsibility to prevent that.

Fiore Stern: Okay.

Advocate: To that end, I have to know a few things. First, how many people have you killed, in total, including your colleagues at the bomb-making outfit, and anyone you dispatched for reasons other than your ritualistic killings?

Fiore Stern: I have killed twenty-four people in my life.

Advocate: The authorities found eleven bodies that they can attribute to you, including your psychiatrist. The other ten were put on display, so as to be found. Did you kill others before that, after, or in between?

Fiore Stern: All before. I didn’t decide to come out to the world until I had already killed thirteen people.

Advocate: You started wanting people to know who you were?

Fiore Stern: I wanted people to know me, but I didn’t want them to know who I was. I didn’t want to be caught. I put them on display, so people could enjoy my artwork.

Advocate: Okay, well, maybe don’t say that in court, since we’re not going with an insanity plea strategy. Here’s the problem. The bodies you put on display make you look disturbed. The bodies you kept hidden make you look remorseless. What you need to do is tell the authorities where to find the bodies that they have not yet uncovered. That will go a long way to making you more sympathetic. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but the arbitrationers need to know you’re not using these missing people as leverage, or toying with the world. They need to see you feel remorse.

Fiore Stern: I don’t feel remorse.

Advocate: Yeah, again, don’t say that.

Fiore Stern: Well, I’m kind of all about the truth. That’s why I did what I did in the first place. I want people to see the beauty in death. The reality is that everyone dies, and I consider my subjects to have received the highest honor. I only took a few decades from them anyway, and now, they will never be forgotten. How many other people can say that?

Advocate: This isn’t looking good for you, Mr. Stern. People don’t like it when you say things like that. Do you honestly believe people will buy into that, and that it will help your case?

Fiore Stern: I don’t really care about my case. I’m going to prison for the rest of my life. What difference can you really make? We don’t put people in literal holes in this country. I’ve seen what the worst prisons look like, and I’m prepared for those.

Advocate: It’s not just about the facility itself. It’s about the people in them. Do you know how many people you sent to prison when you took down that terrorist organization?

Fiore Stern: Two hundred and sixteen people worked for them, and are considered to be responsible enough for prosecution.

Advocate: It’s more than that. The company didn’t just make bombs for themselves. They funded their cause with money from their clients. They sold explosives to other groups. Many of those groups are now being watched and investigated, thanks to intel the government received from people you helped arrest directly. Now, a lot of these people end up in special prisons that you probably wouldn’t go to, but not all of them. You could end up in a cell with one of them, and they’re not going to be very happy with you. I can get you to the right prison, with the right protections. You have to be honest, but you also have to be careful with how you frame the narrative.

Fiore Stern: I understand.

Advocate: Good. Now, let’s move on, and start from the very beginning. Who was the first person you killed, and why?

Microstory 1397: Evidence

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Fiore Stern [on audio recording]: Yes, I agree. We should nip it in the bud, lest you poison the world with your claims about me.

Psychiatrist [on audio recording]: Mr. Stern, what are you talking about?

Fiore Stern [on audio recording]: Why don’t you stop recording, and I’ll explain.

Psychiatrist [on audio recording]: Stop. Don’t touch that. Please keep your distance, Mr. Stern. Mr. Stern! If you don’t—

Detective: That was the last recording from your psychiatrist. We couldn’t find a local copy on her computer, so I bet you erased it without realizing her sessions are automatically uploaded to the cloud so her assistant can transcribe them for her later.

Fiore Stern: Why are you playing this audio for me? If you want me to sue the psychiatric practice for breaching my privacy, then okay, I’m in.

Detective: That’s not why you’re here, and you know it. Madam Psychiatrist was killed two days ago. Her assistant happily supplied us with this evidence, because it appears to suggest you killed her to cover up whatever it is you shut off the recording to prevent anyone from finding out about.

Fiore Stern: Well, play the rest of it.

Detective: There is no rest of it. That was it.

Fiore Stern: Oh? So you don’t actually have any evidence that I killed her. All you’ve heard is that my psychiatrist didn’t want me touching her crystal awards, and then some kind of technical malfunction ended the recording.

Detective: You literally ask her to stop recording, and then your voice becomes slightly louder, which suggests you approached the microphone. You’re not going to get me to believe you didn’t turn it off. Now all I have to do is prove that you killed her. And honestly, I don’t really care why you did it; just that you go down for it.

Fiore Stern: This  is exactly what’s wrong with this country. You’re so eager to punish whoever you find first, you end up letting a lot of guilty people walk away unscathed.

Detective: You didn’t seem to hate the authorities very much when you were praising how well they handled your case with that bomb-making organization you worked for.

Fiore Stern: I was playing nice for the cameras, but the truth is that company wasn’t even on anyone’s radar. Hell, the Financial Regulation Commision didn’t even suspect there was something wrong with their books. I only needed the authorities, because I’m not allowed to arrest people. You’re completely incompetent, and totally pointless without people like me.

Detective: I suppose that’s true. I wouldn’t have a job if killers like you didn’t exist.

Fiore Stern: That’s not what I was talking about—I mean, that’s not what I meant, because I’m not a killer, and you have nothing on me.

Detective: I have an adjudicator working on a warrant for your apartment as we speak.

Fiore Stern: Great, I’m happy for ya. All they’ll find is a stack of dishes I wasn’t able to clean before you so rudely forced me to come down to the station, and a bunch of requests for book deals to tell the world my story. When you don’t find anything illegal, I’ll have even more material for a tell-all book. It’ll be a scathing indictment of Usonian Law EnFARCEment.

Detective: The warrant’s just for safety. We didn’t need one to search your greenhouse.

Fiore Stern: What?

Detective: Yeah, we had probable cause. One of our officers saw some splatter on the glass that looked a little like blood.

Fiore Stern: It was paint. I use some of those plants to make art supplies.

Detective: No matter. We couldn’t know for sure. The only way we could run a test to see whether that was true was if we went in, and procured a sample.

Fiore Stern: This will never hold up in court. A little red on the window isn’t enough for probable cause. Besides, I built that greenhouse with my own two hands in the middle of the woods, which means there aren’t any public records of a property, so you couldn’t have known about it unless you broke the law to peek at my GPS history.

Detective: We didn’t need that. Your mother told us where to find it.

Fiore Stern: She doesn’t know anything.

Detective: She’s seen you go out there. She’s worried about you, Mr. Stern. You’ve always been a dark person with a frightening fascination with deadly plants.

Fiore Stern: You can go to hell.

Detective: We have you, Mr. Stern. You don’t have to tell us anything. Everything will come out in court, but you can help your situation if you talk to us now. Start by telling me how your colleagues from the garden team died.

Microstory 1396: Soma

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Psychiatrist: Welcome back, Mr. Stern.

Fiore Stern: Thank you.

Psychiatrist: Tell me how you’ve been feeling this week?

Fiore Stern: I’m still really nervous around other people. I never thought going undercover in a terrorist organization would make me feel like this. I keep seeing people as victims, as if I’m the one who hurt them.

Psychiatrist: Well, that’s understandable. A lot of highly trained people in law enforcement come back out of undercover feeling responsible for the things they did while they were pretending to be someone else.

Fiore Stern: That’s just it, I didn’t have to do anything. All I did was teach people how to reinforce their lawns, and spread fertilizer. If the company had never told me they were terrorists, I would have just been some guy with a normal job. I’m not responsible for the things they did, even while I was working there. They would have been doing that anyway.

Psychiatrist: It’s good that you recognize that intellectually. I would call it the first step towards getting you to a better place in your life. Your conscious brain now just needs to tell your subconscious that, not only did you do nothing wrong, but that you did something amazingly heroic. That’s what these medications should be doing for you. Tell me how they’re going.

Fiore Stern: They’re all right, I guess. I get a little tired of having to remember to take them.

Psychiatrist: They have apps on your phone now that can help you schedule doses. I have one a lot of my patients use that they seem quite pleased with.

Fiore Stern: Yeah, I know. I suppose a part of me still doesn’t like taking them in the first place. I just don’t get why I know I didn’t do anything wrong, but like, the other half of my brain doesn’t? Can’t I just...I dunno, talk to myself, and convince me to be better?

Psychiatrist: That’s kind of what therapy is for, and you said you didn’t feel that was helping. If you would like to start seeing your therapist again, however, I can only see that as a good choice.

Fiore Stern: I didn’t really like her. She didn’t exactly get me, ya know?

Psychiatrist: There are plenty of others. Just like with medication, sometimes it just takes a little experimentation to find someone who’s right for you.

Fiore Stern: Yeah. I probably do need to keep taking your drugs, though. I believe they help me distinguish fact from fiction. When I’m seeing some random person on the street, paralysed in place, and bleeding from their neck, I need the meds to tell me that that’s not real.

Psychiatrist: Yes, it’s important to be able to tell what’s not really there. I have a question about that, though.

Fiore Stern: Okay.

Psychiatrist: You say you see people paralyzed and bleeding? How are they bleeding? Is it flowing from a wound, or does it kind of look like they’re painting with the blood? Do you see burn marks, or—forgive me—dismembered body parts?

Fiore Stern: Wow, you have a sick mind, don’t you, Psychiatrist? It’s pretty normal. The blood is just coming out of them. Now burn marks. Why? Does that say something about my worldview, or my personality?

Psychiatrist: Well, the organization you helped take down for the authorities was a bomb-making outfit, was it not?

Fiore Stern: It was, yes.

Psychiatrist: From what I read, they didn’t—forgive me again—cut people, or anything. Why would you be seeing victims that look like that, if you’re subconscious is feeling responsible for explosions?

Fiore Stern: Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I didn’t think it all the way through. I should have just kept it vague, and told you I saw dead bodies.

Psychiatrist: Mr. Stern, have you been lying to me to score recreational drugs?

Fiore Stern: Ha! Nothing so human, I assure you. What do you take me for, some kind of amateur?

Psychiatrist: Interesting word choice. Does that mean you’re a professional? A professional what?

Fiore Stern: Tell me, Psychiatrist. Do you have any other appointments today?

Psychiatrist: I can clear my schedule, if you really need me to. We should get to the bottom of whatever is going on with you.

Fiore Stern: Yes, I agree. We should nip it in the bud, lest you poison the world with your claims about me.

Psychiatrist: Mr. Stern, what are you talking about?

Fiore Stern: Why don’t you stop recording, and I’ll explain.

Psychiatrist: Stop. Don’t touch that. Please keep your distance, Mr. Stern. Mr. Stern! If you don’t—