The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Saturday, July 15, 2130

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They were standing at the top of a very steep set of basement stairs. The lights weren’t on, and Mateo felt a great chill. There was something evil down in that basement, and it was just waiting for the horror movie to enter its second act. “What are we doing here?”

“We’re waiting,” Missy didn’t explain.

“Waiting for what?” Lowell asked.

“You don’t need to be here,” Missy answered. “As for you, Mateo, you want to find Trinity, I know the man for the job.”

Mateo thought about it for a second, running through all the usual suspects. “Vidar Wolfe,” he soon realized. “He’s here?”

“Not yet,” she clarified. Then she consulted her watch once more. “Twenty-four seconds.”

“How do you have that accurate of an arrival time?” Téa asked, impressed.

“I have my wily ways,” Missy said.

A few more seconds passed before Vidar appeared from a spacetime breach a few steps down. He wasn’t expecting to be on stairs, so he immediately started falling backwards, and it was unclear whether he was going to tumble down those steps, or back into his own portal. Missy reached out her hand, and caught him in a time bubble, which she gently laid down on the landing below.

Vidar stood up, and nodded, as if she had done nothing more for him but hold open a door. “Thank you. I appreciate your support.”

“You can pay us back with a tracking spell,” Missy said with a single nod of her own.

“I suppose I am honor-bound. Who are you looking for?”

“Trinity Turner,” Mateo replied.

“Does it have to be Trinity, or can it be Quinn, or what?” Vidar asked. “I think I just know where Quinn is.”

“It has to be Trinity,” Mateo confirmed. “Besides, I’ve never met Quinn.”

“All right,” Vidar agreed. “Where did you last see her?”

“We haven’t,” Téa said. “We need to know where she is today, regardless of where that places her in her personal timeline.”

“Okay.” Vidar yawned deeply. “This shouldn’t be too hard, and then I can take a nap, right?”

“Fine with us,” Lowell answered.

Vidar cracked his knuckles. “Gimme a minute.”

Meanwhile, over 25,000 light years away, Leona was being fitted for a new avatar. This one looked like Nerakali—even at its core code—so when she went out into the main simulation world, Pryce wouldn’t know that it was her who caused the prison break.

“Just give me a minute, and you’ll be good to go,” Gilbert said. “Maybe ten.”

“Is this going to work?” Jeremy asked.

“Wait, Jeremy?” Leona questioned.

“Yes, what?”

“I thought you went by J.B.”

“I don’t think so,” Jeremy said, confused.

Gilbert and the real Nerakali were giving each other a look.

“What?” Leona asked them.

“I’ll try to explain,” Nerakali volunteered. “The simulations are run on quantum computers. They’re a little...unpredictable when it comes to time travel. I mean, if someone were to go back in time, and stop you from dying on whatever day you died on, that doesn’t mean the simulation keeps this version of you here, outside of time, or something. It will still save your life, and this reality will be erased. But it’s capable of processing some of the more minor discrepancies. Somebody went back, and changed something about the past, which caused your friend to end up using a different name, and you’re aware of it, because the afterlife simulation is capable of recognizing both quantum states. Jeremy; J.B. They’re from slightly different realities, and your memories are muddled, because the simulation isn’t sure which one is standing before us right now.”

“Did you follow any of that?” Jeremy asked Sanaa softly.

“I wasn’t listening,” she replied to him dismissively. She probably was, and she probably understood it, but she had a reputation of being a rascal, and she had to protect it.

“Don’t worry about it...Jeremy,” Leona said. It wouldn’t be that hard to get used to the new name. This was just how life worked.

“To answer your original question,” Gilbert began, “yes, this is going to work.”

“How will she get Angela out of prison?” Jeremy pressed.

“I cannot make someone else Level 10,” Gilbert explained. “That’s like using one of your three wishes to ask for more wishes. That’s how Pryce put it during my orientation, anyway. I can make her Level 9, though, and she should only need to be an Eight to get out of prison. She can come up with her own plan, but she could construct a bunch of holes in the prison walls, for instance, and just run right in. Or, she could do something more elaborate, and less noticeable, and sneak her out of there. Again, she can do it however she wants.”

“I think I should go with her,” Jeremy offered.

“That’s very kind of you,” Leona said, “but let’s try to minimize the damage here. I’m already not sold on the idea of throwing Nerakali under the bus.”

“It was out of an airlock,” Nerakali corrected, “if you will recall.”

“That might have happened a long enough time ago that it’s funny to you, but for me, it feels like yesterday,” Leona scolded apologetically.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nerakali echoed, then she gasped. “Ah. You look so beautiful.”

Unable to contain herself after the surprising humor, Leona burst out laughing. Gilbert had just put the final touches on his work, and now Leona looked exactly like Nerakali.

“What happens to you when you get her out of the prison?” Jeremy continued. “Her clothes are still orange, aren’t they. Even if she gets out of the building, that doesn’t fix her level.”

Sanaa reached behind her head, and pulled out a giant duffle bag that wouldn’t have been able to hide back there in the real world. “That’s why she’s got this.” She dropped the bag on the table, and pulled out this long plastic-lookin’ thing with a button on one end. “It’s a portable recodifier. This will turn Angela into a Level 1, but before you freak out, it’s only temporary. Pryce is capable of monitoring the actions of anyone in the simulation, except in a few cases, like this little virtual subworld of Gilbert’s that we’re in right now. Level 1s are not in the simulation, though. It’s like tucking your flash drive away in a drawer, and expecting to be able to pull files from it on your computer. You gotta plug it in first. Level 1s still exist, but they’re unplugged.” She waved the recodifier around. “The cool thing about this is that you can unplug her in the prison, and plug her back in once you get back to VioletSpace. Pryce will be able to see you, but he won’t know that you have an Angela in your pocket.”

Leona took it from Sanaa’s hand. “When did you have time to become in charge of supplies?”

“I have my wily ways. Gilbert built them during or interim year, but I came up with the ideas last year, and told him what to do.”

“There are some other goodies in here too,” Gilbert said as he pulled the bag’s opening towards himself with his middle finger. “You might need all of them, or none of them; it depends.”

Gilbert showed her his creations, all of which Sanaa had come up with herself. They accounted for contingency after contingency, and a lot of them were pretty dangerous, even in a virtual world. Full, the bag was impossibly light, and folded in on itself until it was small enough to fit in her back pocket. When she ready ready to go, they realized Jeremy was nowhere to be found, theoretically because he didn’t think this was going to go as well as they planned. They couldn’t blame him for it, but this was kind of how she and Mateo operated. They made half a plan, and then let fate fill in the rest. It always seemed to work out for them. Then again, the powers that be, though highly restrictive, were on their side, and were never looking for them to fail. Pryce was an antagonist, and though he hadn’t zeroed anyone yet—which was a term in here that referred to permanent death—it was likely only a matter of time before their opposition pushed him far enough over that line.

It looked like Sanaa wanted to say something as they were sending Leona off on her mission. She waited patiently until Sanaa reached over, and gave her a hug. “Don’t go getting yourself killed, you asshole.”

“I love you too,” Leona said back.

She stepped out of the secret world, and into the main one. While time travelers weren’t the only ones with Level 10 privileges, they were incredibly rare, and everyone noticed when one walked by. Way the real Nerakali understood it, Trinity and the original designers wanted there to be a way to reward good behavior, and restrict those who misbehaved. The prison definitely existed in their concept, but there were fewer levels above that, and they didn’t agree with each other whether it was ethical to zero anybody, for any reason. Pryce was the one who came up with the color schemes, so people could distinguish themselves from others, and the elites could avoid the dregs. So when Leona started walking through the city center, dressed in royal purple, everyone turned to watch. She ignored them, not so as to keep her head down, but to give off an air of superiority to them. They expected her to be proud of her station, and acting like her regular, humble self would have caused even more of a stir.

She still didn’t really have much of a plan as she was walking, but Jeremy’s disappearance made her realize something about him, and changed everything about what she had already come up with. She quickly took the magic bag out of her pocket, retrieved only one item from it, and attached a quick note to the outside. She then  walked right into the prison, and started opening every door and gate in her path. She didn’t need authorization, or prior notice, or even to sign a check-in sheet. She could go anywhere she wanted. Now, this didn’t mean she was invisible, but that was totally okay. The guards, both NPC and career correctional officers, noticed her just as much as everyone else, and every single one of them felt compelled to alert Tamerlane Pryce to her presence. This was exactly what she wanted. Now a stir was a good thing, because it was just a distraction. Her plan hinged on something she had no control over, but she could mark that down in the half of the plan she didn’t know, and that wasn’t going to stop her from carrying it out. Finally, she had her first target in her sights. It was the NPC guard from when she was here to visit Angela, and case the joint. She had freed him from the prison of his own mind by giving him consciousness, and it was time for him to pay her back.

She covertly slipped the bag out of her pocket, and slipped it into his hand. He would know what to do with it, and the great thing about it was that she didn’t need him to do anything beyond it. His job would be quick and easy, and then the contents of the bag would take care of the rest. Hopefully he wouldn’t squeal later, but even if he did, they would probably be long gone by the time the consequences rained down on them. She continued on, and headed for her final destination. Guards kept their eye on her as she passed, and grew more earnest the deeper she went. She was in a more restricted area now, where the worst of the worst lived that Pryce still didn’t consider despicable enough to zero. Leona would beg to differ on at least one count, but his decision was going to allow her to feed two birds with one worm, or since it involved violence, maybe it should be kill two birds with one stone. No, because she only wanted to kill one of the birds. So she would kill one bird with one stone, so the other could have the one worm all to herself. Did that metaphor make sense?

She was here, but before she entered the room, she dropped the façade, and returned to the avatar that resembled her true self. She decided she wasn’t willing to let her friend get punished for her actions. She opened the door.

“Did you come here to get closure?” he snarked.

Leona stood there and stared at him menacingly. “You’re a rapist.”

He let out an irritated sigh. “She was my wife! You can’t rape your own wife!”

“Yes! You can! And you did! And you’re gonna die for it!”

Maniacal laugh. “Haven’t you heard, Sugar Tits? We’re all dead here.”

Leona took the knife out of her other pocket. “Some more than others.”

“What do you expect to do with that thing? I don’t need pain dampeners. I have complete control over what my mind perceives. I’ve been standing in a field of poppies since you came in.”

Leona spun the handle in her grip. “Then upon poppies you shall die.”

Either she was really committed to the bluff, or the knife wasn’t as harmless as he thought. The truth was that it was a zeroblade. If they got stabbed with this, it wouldn’t matter what level someone was, their consciousness would be extinguished, and there was no coming back from that. Dead is dead..is dead is dead. Erlendr Preston was about to become the first person whose death Leona was directly responsible for, and if it couldn’t be Hitler, at least it was a rapist like this piece of shit.

“You don’t wanna do that.”

“It’s why I’m here.”

“No, I studied your timeline, and I’ve seen your mind. You can’t do this.”

“In a different timeline, a man named Ed was reincarnated as my brother, and started going by the name Theo. He said something to me once that was powerful enough to cross the dimensions. He said, anyone who is physically capable of something is psychologically capable of it. We are all violent. Some are just better at restraining themselves.” She took a deep breath through her nose. “I’m tired of the restraints.” She pulled her elbow back as she stepped towards him, and then she buried the knife in his gut, forcing him to gasp. She creepily placed her mouth at his ear, and whispered, “that’s for Savannah.” She twisted the blade, releasing a whimper from his throat. “That’s for Nerakali.” She gracelessly pulled the knife back out, letting out a scream, and a geyser of blood. “And that’s for Arcadia.” She watched his body begin to blacken and char. “You’ll never hurt anyone ever again.”

He died...for good this time.

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Glisnia: Body Politics (Part XII)

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Hogarth Pudeyonavic was sitting alone in the Judgment Room. Glisnia was designed to be a perfect democracy, or at least as perfect as was possible. Literally everyone had an equal say, or at least it was supposed to be like that. Mekiolenkidasola and Crimson Clover misrepresented how the system worked, leading Hogarth to make decisions that maybe not everyone would have wanted. There was absolutely no law against her and Hilde being human, and no reason that she couldn’t help them if she was. Best guess, Lenkida spun her that lie to get her on the hook. She needed to be told something that would cause her to believe that he somehow spoke for the Glisnians, and was responsible for securing their interests in this matter. The truth was that he probably operated within some rebel faction, which opposed the greater good in some way. She didn’t have all the facts, though, so she needed to be patient. Right now, the Glisnians were here to gather her side of the story, so they could figure out what to do about this mess.

“State your designation, for the record.” It was a dermal mech who was talking to her, but she was channeling the will of everyone. The surface data of literally every single person in this matrioshka brain was being sent to her for processing, except for the opinions of the defendants. When enough of them had a question to ask, she was obligated to ask for them. When even more of them agreed upon a decision, that was the decision they would make, and it would be carried out by individuals like this mech. That was how the government worked, and that was what Lenkida purposefully kept from her. The judge’s name was a hex code as laid out in a fractal pattern, but for the sake of the non-mechs, like Hogarth, she went by Avalhana.

“Hogarth Meridia Pudeyonavic.”

“World of origin.”

“Earth, November 21, 1994.”

“Please only answer the question as it is posed, with no flourishes or extraneous information.”

“Understood.”

“The record will show that the third question was answered, but unasked. Remove the line from the database.”

“Removed,” came a symphony of voices from the aether.

“At what point did you first arrive in Gliese 832 space? Please note that Gliese 832 space refers to the boundary—” Avalhana tried to begin.

“I understand what it means,” Hogarth interrupted. “Just because I’m human, doesn’t mean I’m a total moron. It was 2245.”

“Please refrain from interrupting, and from flourishes and commentary.”

“Look, like I said, you’re talkin’ to a human, which means you’re gonna have to be more flexible. Go on and tell your little mechs that we don’t process data the way you do, and I’m not going to roboticize my speech for the sake of efficiency. We’re all immortal here, who gives a shit how long this takes?”

Avalhana did not respond for a good few minutes, which could be centuries from her perspective. “We will...attempt to reach your level of communication.”

That was needlessly condescending, but okay. “Okay. Next question.”

“When did you first learn that you had the power to spontaneously fabricate multi-solar system-sized objects with little but your own strength and will?” Avalhana asked.

“About a month ago.”

This disturbed her.

“I don’t have an exact timeline for you. As you are well aware, organic beings store associative memory, rather than categorical memory. It is...less efficient, but more beautiful, and I stand by it.”

“Very well. Where did you learn this skill?”

“I didn’t learn it so much as I was accidentally imbued with the power when I absorbed the force of a blast that sent my entire town to a planet that was about one-point-seven-eight light years from Earth.”

She paused again. “There is no planet at such distance.”

“It was a rogue world. It has since moved on.”

“Understood. And you survived on this planet using your, umm...?”

They did not say umm very often, because they were not surprised or stumped very often. “Powers? No, not mine, other people’s. I don’t have the details.”

“There are others like you?”

Now Hogarth was the one to pause, but she knew she had to answer. It was the 25th century, and this wasn’t the first case that suggested that temporal manipulation would be revealed to the rest of the vonearthans sometime in this time period. Many time travelers claimed to have seen it in the future, and many more deliberately avoided traveling this far forward in the timeline, so as not to be caught in some time war. There would not likely be any war, but that didn’t make it perfectly safe. Others didn’t necessarily believe the rumors, but they exercised caution just the same, because people finding out about them was probably ultimately inevitable. “Yes, and before you ask, I don’t know how many, and I don’t know where they all are. We are not a monolith. They can travel through time, and I believe that they are mostly not..in this time, because of people..like you...who threaten..their secrets.”

“Are you at liberty to discuss these matters with us?”

“Who’s to say? There’s a prison for people who spill the beans, but I am about fifty percent sure that this time period is beyond their jurisdiction, for reasons I could not tell you.”

“Understood.” These answers probably altered Avalhana’s questions greatly, so she took a moment to reassess with the population. “Who asked you to build this—as it’s been called—the matrioshka body?”

“Mekiolenkidasola.”

“Was he your only point of contact for this project?”

“There was another, named Crimson Clover. I know that Lenkida lied to me about how much influence he had over this system, but I’m not clear on Crimson’s involvement. He may be almost completely innocent. He didn’t tell me how your government works, but perhaps it simply never came up.”

“We are not cognizant of the truth about him either.” She moved on, “have you ever heard of The Iunta?”

“I have not. Would you be able to explain?”

“They are a small faction within our population that seeks to form a hierarchy of control. We believe that Mekiolenkidasola is a member, and are attempting to ascertain if Crimson is as well, and whether you are.”

“I’m not lying, I’ve never heard that word before. I assume it’s a new formation of junta?”

“Yes.

“I’m sorry to have been involved with them, but I promise you that I was not cognizant of Lenkida’s affiliations, or his group’s existence, let alone their motivations.”

“It if exists, your ignorance would have been established by design.”

“My ignorance does exist.”

She nodded. “Please tell us about your other associates, and whether anyone is missing from this list. Hilde Unger, Ethesh Beridze, Holly Blue, Jupiter Rosa, and another man whose only name here is Richardson.”

“Ambrose Richardson,” Hogarth added. “There are others, but I am not at liberty to discuss them. We have formed a council of sorts called The Shortlist. We determine whether a technological advancement that involves temporal manipulation is safe enough to be developed.”

“Why does this particular group form the council, and why not others?”

“We are the ones capable of these advancements. When we encounter someone else with such knowledge, comprehension, or ability, we place them on the council with us. I hope you understand that I will tell you all you want to know about time powers, but I will do so using generalities, and anecdotes; not specifics, and targeting language.”

“We believe that we can accept that,” Avalhana said. “We recognize the importance of discretion, and unlike humans, we do not possess an entitlement to know the truth about everything. The only question I’m hearing now is...are you a threat to us?”

Hogarth didn’t know the answer, not with any stable level of confidence.

“You may specify, if necessary. Are you, as an individual, a threat to us? Is this Shortlist? Is the greater population of your subspecies?”

“I, personally, am not,” Hogarth began. “Nor is the Shortlist. Like any population, however, there are those who would seek to destroy, improve, control, or otherwise impact that which they encounter. You are something that can be encountered, and I cannot guarantee that no one will attempt to insert themselves into your society, for whatever reasons they have. This is true of anyone, however, and I implore you not to attack any potential threat without diplomacy first, and a clear violation of your rights. I think we all know what the humans fear about your potential. Earthan entertainment is riddled with cautionary tales about fictional artificial intelligences who rise against their creators. I can tell you, however, that I will do everything I can to protect you, just as I would protect others from you.”

“This is a fair analysis,” Avalhana, and the collective, decided. “We will not depend on your protection. We would, however, appreciate your guidance in matters of temporal manipulation, and ask that you remain on Glisnia in order to serve as our liaison to anyone with the same, or similar, abilities.”

“That’s...not what I thought you would say.”

“You were expecting to be exiled or extinguished?”

“I was.”

“That is not how we do things. Had Mekiolenkidasola been honest with you, you would have known that about us.”

“What will happen to him, and Crimson, and my friends who are still here?”

“Your friends will be allowed to stay with you, should they choose. My collective is eager to make you aware that you are not obligated to remain either. You act on our behalf upon your own volition, and you are under no contract to maintain your position for any specified period of time. We do ask, however, that while you are in this position, you endeavor to protect Glisnian interests, and develop a strong enough sense of loyalty in pursuit of this condition.”

Hogarth smiled at the formality. “I can do that. And of Crimson?”

“He will be judged shortly, as you have been.”

“I have one request.”

She extended her hand to offer Hogarth the privilege of continuing. “Lenkida and Crimson are aware of certain details about me and my people, which I would rather remain unknown to all others.”

Avalhana waited to respond as she listened to the collective opinion. “It is our understanding that you possess reasonable technical skills, and would be able to use these skills in order to delete targeted memories from a mechanical entity?”

“Umm...I’m not totally comfortable with that. Can’t you just conduct a preliminary hearing to determine their guilt, and then erase the sensitive memories afterwards? Does every judgment have to include the entire Glisnian collective? I’m all right if one or two other people know some stuff about me, just not everybody.”

They discussed her proposal. “We agree to your terms. We will adjourn for one standard Earthan hour to develop a new plan, and to give the humans time to rest.”

“Thank you.”

Avalhana nodded slightly, but said nothing further.

Hilde was waiting for her in the other room. She was noticeably shaking.

“Hey, hey,” Hogarth said calmingly. “Everything’s fine. We were lied to, but the mechs are not unreasonable people. Nothing’s gonna happen to us.”

“Are you just trying to make me feel better?” Hilde questioned.

“Does that sound like me?”

“No, but—”

“No more butts. We already got two; we don’t need any more. I assure you that we’re good. We can stay here. They even wanna give me a job.”

“You’re joking.”

“Really. I told them about time travel. They’re worried someone else with powers is gonna come along, and they won’t know how to handle it.”

“We are not staying here, Hogarth.”

“You don’t want this for me?”

“There are billions of mechs on this world—station—brain, whatever you call it, and they’re probably going to replicate themselves exponentially to fill out the body that you built them. We can’t be the only humans here, it’s just not safe.”

“It is safe, and you know that it is, because I’m telling you that it is. If something goes wrong, I can jump us out of here at a moment’s notice.”

“You mean you can explode us?”

“I can exploport us.”

Hilde rolled her eyes. That term was not catching on.

Ethesh rolled up. “Yo, is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Hogarth replied. “You can stay here, if you want.”

“Cool,” he said casually.

“Good answer,” Hogarth told him, then switched her attention back to Hilde. “Your turn to try.”

Hilde inhaled and exhaled melodramatically. “I will approximate an acceptance of the situation.”

“Close enough, we’ll get there.”

“What are we gonna do now?” Ethesh asked.

“I have a few ideas,” Hogarth said with a smirk. “We could do with another sun to make it work, though. I’m thinkin’ a yellow dwarf this time.”

“Oh, no.”

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Microstory 1500: Introduction to Poems

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I’m not much of a poet. I wrote several of them in college for my Tumblr, and I can only hope that they were taken down at some point, because I lost my account information, no longer have the email address that was attached to it, and don’t even remember the web address. For as much as I call this a short fiction website, it is a creative writing website. I use a variety of formats, many of which one might call experimental. I’ve done all perspectives, most tenses, blocked dialog, nonfiction, fables, adapted dreams, and even fake news stories. A lot of my work can’t even be considered stories. They’re more anecdotal, where I give a run-down of the things that happened, while avoiding a beginning, middle, and end. Some are part of a series, while others stand alone. I have an ongoing series that I’ve posted pretty much every Sunday since 2015, and associated longer-form multiseries and single series that run on Saturdays. I’ve done everything else that fits in a blog format, so of course I have to do poetry. I don’t know how this is going to go, and I’m really nervous about it. If someone doesn’t like my regular fiction, I can generally take the criticism. When they say the flow is choppy, or the climax was anticlimactic, I can see where they’re coming from. But I don’t know what a good poem looks like, and I certainly don’t know how to replicate that magic. I’ve been through a lot of crap in my life—mostly when it comes to education and employment—but I’ve always had food on the table, a good family, and I’ve never experienced true emotional trauma. I also have shockingly bad memory, annoyingly so.

Several months ago, my dad was telling me about some bullies I had in middle school. I knew they existed, but I don’t really remember the things that they did to me; and not because my fragile mind blocked them out, but because that was all two decades ago, and it’s not important anymore. So if I don’t feel so much pain and strife—if I’ve never been a starving artist, or a soldier, or a victim, or a survivor, what can I say? I can absolutely put my feelings into words, but that’s not what poetry is, is it? Poetry is twisting those words until they become new words on the other side, so when someone tries to translate them back, they become less obvious, and more up to interpretation. How can I hope to move you with the poetry of my life if I don’t even think my own life moves me? Well, if everyone felt like Emily Dickinson, or Edgar Allan Poe, then I suppose everyone would be a poet. The only people who do poetry are probably the only people who should be doing it. So where does that leave me? With the compulsion to do it anyway, even if I don’t belong in this world. But again, how could I possibly accomplish this when I don’t really even have anything to say? I’ve realized that I’ve never had much to say before, but that hasn’t stopped me yet. A lot of writers use fiction to express their ideas, but I usually go a different direction. I use fiction to express other people’s ideas, to tell other people’s stories. I don’t see any reason I can’t do that here too. So as you’re reading this poetry, be gentle with your criticisms, because I’m a newbie, and none of these is from my true self anyway.

Microstory 1499: The End of Durus

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Two hundred years after Savitri became the first human on Durus, the eleventh major form of government, the Solar Democratic Republic officially ended. Technically, it should have ended a long time ago, if not once the rogue world left 70 Ophiuchi space, then certainly when nearly the entire population was evacuated through the Nexus. Survivors, called remainders, ultimately agreed that this most recent event was the greater shift than those others, however. The thirteenth remainder in charge of waking up from stasis, and being available to solve any problems, was a woman by the name of Kyra Torosian. Nothing of note happened for the first few months of her shift. A couple of the pods experienced some power irregularities, but these were simple repairs. None of the Dardieti team were awake at the time, for she was not considered a threat to them. She spent her days zipping throughout the bunkers on a scooter that one of the children left there when he evacuated, and carrying on full conversations with her completely unresponsive friends. They had access to entertainment from Durus, Dardius, and even Earth, but she wasn’t much for that kind of art, so she really just wasted the days away. She was the type of person who could sit in a chair for hours, doing nothing else, and not grow bored. Her mind was just too busy with her imagination for it to matter much what her environment was, as long as it wasn’t uncomfortable, or sometimes even if. One day, Kyra was wandering the halls just outside the Nexus room when she thought she heard it start to power up. Of course, she assumed that someone from Dardius was coming to check on them, so she ran inside, and mentally prepared herself to greet them professionally, and in her words, well-spokenly. She never knew exactly what happened, or whether anyone was actually trying to come through, because it all went wrong. The machine exploded, and sent a wave of energy throughout the entire section.

What no one knew at the time was that the explosion was an accident, and happened to all Nexa in this universe. Because they involve time travel, they didn’t explode all at once, and the damages were not irreparable, but this did cause a number of problems for everyone who needed to use them at certain times. The explosion was powerful, but it was pretty contained, so no one else on Durus was affected, or even immediately made aware that it happened. Kyra would later have to start waking them up, so she could let them know. Obviously, the explosion didn’t kill her, which was a universal result. Others experienced superficial injuries, but nothing serious. What set Kyra apart was that she came from a bloodline of paramounts. While there was never enough temporal energy on Durus for her to have exhibited any powers before, she was genetically predisposed to developing them, and the Nexus explosion was enough to do just that. What was unclear was whether she would have developed the same power under different circumstances, or if the explosion also decided what she could do. Evidence suggested the latter. After waking key remainder leadership, along with the team from Dardius, Kyra went about figuring out who she now was. It was like she became a walking Nexus. When someone touched her, they would be transported to one of the other Nexa, and if someone made the appropriate hyperdimensional metamathematical calculations, they could also transport to her. Unlike regular Nexa, Kyra could also transport herself anywhere in the universe that she wanted; it didn’t even have to be tied to the network. Every time she jumped somewhere, it would recharge her temporal energy, like a perpetual motion engine, and the more she did it, the stronger she became. Over time, she would end up with enough power to move entire planets through the network, which she used to move Durus to its new home. Not even the Nexa could do that. It wouldn’t be there forever, though, because her power continued to grow. The remainders would come to use their unique position to fight a great war against a multiversal threat. Until then, the remainders had to decide how they were going to use this advantage, and whether they would be able to convince any former Durune to return to their homeworld. While they worked on that, they figured they ought to shift to yet another form of government. This one would be called the Kyran Nexus Tempocracy. That was not all, though. The remainders would also decide to change the name of the planet to Torosia, in honor of her.

Microstory 1498: Those Who Stayed Behind

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The Solar Democratic Republic was over, as was the Durune civilization in general, and everyone knew it. Now, accepting this reality was a different matter altogether. Most people agreed to evacuate to Dardius. It was warm, safe, and reliable, and there was no good reason to stay pass up this opportunity to lead happy lives. The only reason humanity survived on Durus this long was because of time powers. Had they never existed, Savitri would have died within minutes of falling into her portal, and everyone after that would have probably lived out their lives in Springfield, Kansas, completely unaware that the rogue planet even existed. Even their regular technology was based on decades of the development of a society that took powers for granted. Living in the underground bunkers—or worse, being stuck in the stasis pods indefinitely—was an irrational way to live, and most people understood that. The rest, well, they held firm. They believed, almost in a spiritual sense, that Durus was destined to go on forever, whether that meant finding a new host star, and spontaneously forming a new atmosphere, or the replenishment of temporal energy, and reëmergence of time powers. They just couldn’t surrender to the fact that there was little to nothing they could do to make life easier on Durus, and that the chances of it happening on its own were negligibly low. The problem was that the chances were not at zero, and that was enough to keep the stubborn people going. For days, they argued their case against the other side. They never tried to stop anyone from leaving, but they felt entitled to stay if that was what they wanted. To prevent this from growing out of control, the government, in one of its last acts while still in charge, created a set of criteria. Only certain people would be allowed to stay, and all others would have to evacuate with everyone who had already left. The most notable requirement was that all remainders—as they were called—would have to be romantically unattached, and be responsible for no children. In the end, 216 people fit the bill.

Some who had already evacuated changed their minds, and wanted to be considered for the same treatment, but they were summarily denied. Transportation through the Nexus was going to be heavily regulated, and that was out of Durus’ hands either way. There would be periodic travel, however, and this required a little help. Dardius had no problem leaving their power source on Durus. They had no shortage of resources, and maintained a strong enough connection to Earth to keep up with technological advancements. They had one major condition, though, and it was non-negotiable. A small Dardieti contingency would be left in the Durus bunkers, and have any veto power when it came to what happened with their technology, or the connection back to their home. The remainders had no problem with this, especially since they would be sleeping in their stasis pods most of the time anyway. They created a system to keep things running. One remainder would wake up from stasis every year, and spend the following year looking after all the others, and tracking the planet’s progress through interstellar space. This system would last for over two centuries before anyone would have to wake back up more than once, though they had no idea how much time would pass before anything interesting happened, so that wasn’t saying much. The Dardieti contingency would each wake up less often, but do so at strategic times. They worked with the government to identify remainders who were at more risk of threatening the system, and would benefit from a little oversight. Most of those types of people were disqualified from the beginning, but everyone was a risk, and anything could happen during a year alone on a dead world. Even though no elected official stayed behind, the remainders insisted on continuing to call themselves the Solar Democratic Republic. It would be like this for twelve years, until a catastrophe leads one remainder down a different path.

Microstory 1497: Evacuation Protocol

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In 2210, the people of Durus voted to begin exploring the Nexus replica network. This was after the decline in temporal energy, but before anyone knew about it. Following careful consideration, more discussions, and training, the first mission was dispatched in 2213. They chose to go to a planet millions of light years from the stellar neighborhood called Dardius, mostly because that was the only location available. They could see evidence that there were other Nexa to visit, but they were locked out of all but the one. They established diplomatic relations with the Dardieti, but both sides were very cautious about their interactions. Dardius was a sanctuary planet, designed to house people who had either survived close encounters with dangerous temporal manipulators, or were at risk of encounters, due to events occurring in alternate realities. These people’s descendants lived here as well, and though they used some time technology of their own, they were very wary of Durus. They also had a very delicate social structure, which relied on rescuing people in the past at very precise moments. They didn’t just extract them from the timeline at random. They developed highly sensitive models to make sure new citizens integrated safely into the system without disrupting it, or being disrupted by it. Durus was a new variable, which Dardius had not accounted for in their models. That didn’t mean they were xenophobic, or hateful, but this was going to be a slow process, which didn’t bother Durus, because they were in no hurry to make any drastic changes to their own system. Before anything of significance could happen, the relationship ended anyway. In 2217, Dardius began having major issues with one of their rescue groups. Their timeline extraction machine malfunctioned, and started quantum duplicating everyone who came through, over and over and over again. This threw off the social balance greatly, and sparked a war. Dardius had no time to deal with Durus, but this would stop being a problem two years later when the Durune realized their time power issues. They could no longer afford to waste energy on intergalactic travel either.

Flashforward several decades, and the time power problem had not been solved. Nor had the regular power problem. It was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the wind turbines on the surface, and they still had no way of powering the Nexus. Fortunately, the Dardieti did. Their war was long over by 2267, and Dardius was essentially under brand new management. The Einarssons wanted to reestablish relations with Durus, so they sent a recon team to find out how the Durune had been doing. They were soon able to provide them with a power source, so they could initiate outgoing transports, but that alone would do them no good. There were still hundreds of thousands of people in the stasis pods who could not exactly be evacuated using traditional means, even with the Nexus in play. It was only designed to accommodate thirty people at a time. There seemed to be a way, however. As Dardius’ best technicians were working with Durus’ best, they found something called an Evacuation Protocol. It was exactly what they were looking for. The machine could still only take thirty people at once, but it would just keep going and going, about once every minute. If they coordinated perfectly, they calculated they could evacuate every single person in a month and a half. Realistically, it would be closer to two months, but that was fine. They were lucky to have found the feature, because it wasn’t immediately apparent to them, and it wasn’t something people would need on a regular basis. Perhaps the machine was somewhat sentient, and knew that this was exactly what they needed to survive. Under the Einarssons, the Dardieti were now less concerned about predictive social harmony models, and more concerned with saving lives. They agreed to evacuate everyone who wanted to move to their planet, which had a stable sun, and abundant resources, without question. Nearly everyone happily agreed to abandon their dead world, because there was little hope of saving it from the void, and they felt that it was just time to let it go. Some did choose to stay behind, however, and they had their reasons.

Microstory 1496: Wayward

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It was 2245. For eleven years, Durus found itself hurtling through interplanetary space, though since there weren’t any other planets in the solar system, it was really just general 70 Ophiuchi space. Now the rogue planet was crossing a threshold, all the way into what experts considered interstellar space. They knew how far they had gone, because they knew how fast they were going, and how far they were from the edge when the sun was effectively destroyed, but they had lost most of their instruments since the catastrophe. Of course, everyone was living underground now. The atmosphere had long since been stripped away. Anyone who needed to go outside did so in vacuum suits that they had to plan, fully engineer, and test before use over the course of only a few months. The wind turbines above were still operational, powering their bunkers using the torrential storms still raging, but they required a hell of a lot more maintenance than they did before. The extremely cold temperatures made it much more difficult for these machines to keep going without constant tending. Fortunately, it wasn’t impossible to accomplish this, as long as they kept a team up there at all times. Children were now being taught almost exclusively only what they needed to know to take up the burden when it became their time. They didn’t learn much history or culture, but fortunately, they were at little risk of falling victim to their old ways. Every second here was now pretty much only about survival, and no one wanted to live past the destruction of the population, so they all made sure to remain inclusive and fair. Many crimes were punishable by a naked surface walk, so it was vanishingly rare. It wasn’t nonexistent, but the government made every attempt to give the people what they needed. There was no reason to steal a certain medication for one’s dying daughter, for instance, because if she wasn’t given the medication, it almost certainly meant it simply didn’t exist. As for that government, the Solar Democratic Republic was still intact. It was composed of the same number of leaders, in the same leadership positions, and they continued to have their rounds of elections every five years, just as it had been since the first Republic.

There were some great things about life underground that could have been quite terrible without the proper planning. For example, food was not a problem, and would probably never be. They knew how to grow produce under less than ideal conditions. They also weren’t at much risk of losing their oxygen, because scientists had been perfecting carbon scrubbing technology since the Mage Protectorate. The real problem was available space. The bunkers were designed to accommodate little more than the population at the time of conception, and they were quickly approaching that limit. They still didn’t know where they were going, or how long it would take for them to get there, and more importantly, how getting there would even help their situation anyway. This world wandered the interstellar void for at least millions of years before humans stepped foot on it, and there was no reason to believe it couldn’t do that again. They needed to buy some time for the right people to come up with a solution, and halt nearly all population growth until then. The Nexus replica was the obvious answer, but could it transport everyone, and how would they power it? It would seem the turbines were not enough for it, because they had already tried connecting it to the grid, and came up short. Even the experts weren’t a hundred percent certain how these machines were powered in the first place, but theirs didn’t seem to be working right now. To give them the time they needed, the people elected to invest heavily in stasis technology, which wasn’t something they had needed until now. A team of researchers was already working on it, but they needed more resources to complete it. It could take decades to figure out fusion technology, just like it did on Earth, so it was worth it to use stasis as a temporary solution. By 2252, nearly everyone was placed in their pods. This had the added benefit of lowering their reliance on the turbines. Now the only people awake were tasked with cracking fusion, or with supporting those elite in various ways.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Thursday, July 14, 2129

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Leona was sitting in the visitor’s room. It looked just like a prison would in the real world, with people talking to their loved ones, some in hushed tones, others not so much. There were a few key differences. Touching was not allowed, and down on Earth, this would be enforced by correctional officers. That wasn’t necessary here, as prisoners were coded to become holographic under certain conditions. They were apparently allowed to touch each other if they wanted to high-five, or engage in a bit of athletic competition, but they would pass right through each other if they tried to fight. In this case, the principle held when it came to this particular section. That was fine for Leona; she didn’t know Angela well enough for human touch to mean anything, but it was heartbreaking to see everyone else make their fruitless attempts.

“Oh, hello.” Angela was being escorted into the room. She was completely chained up, from her ankles to her wrists, and all the way up to a collar around her neck.

“Is that necessary?” Leona asked the guard.

“Ma’am, I’m just an NPC, I can’t make decisions.” That was a strikingly unsettling thing to hear from a computer program.

“I can make decisions,” Leona said authoritatively. “Remove them.”

“Ma’am, like I said, I can only do what I’ve been programmed to do.”

“Then you need new programming.”

“That would be nice.” He was programmed to know that he was just a program, a.k.a. a slave, and Leona could not stand for it.

Leona started tapping on her simulated Cassidy cuff. Pryce had designed it to be exactly like the real ones, and the real ones...could be hacked. “I was saving my first exploit for something important, and I think this counts.” Once she was finished with the sequence, she slid her finger along the interface screen, and flicked it towards the NPC guard.

He blinked, and shook his head. “I feel...lighter. I’m...free.”

“Let’s test that theory,” Leona said. “Remove her chains.”

He took a second to check to make sure his simulated brain was even processing the command properly. Then he took out a key, and started undoing Angela’s chains.

Angela leaned forward as he was working on them, and whispered to Leona, “won’t you get in trouble for that.”

“Pryce wants to see how we survive with what we’ve been given,” Leona began to explain. “It’s a game to him, and he wants to follow his own rules. I’m capable of doing this. Therefore, I am allowed to do it.”

Angela started massaging her own wrists as they sat down together. “I much appreciate it. They’ve kept them on all the time.”

“You’re wearing cuffs too, though, so you’ve been skipping time.”

“Yes,” Angela confirmed. “The other inmates are none too pleased by it. I travel by isolation prints.”

“Isolation prints?”

“Footprints painted on the floor. If you walk on them, no one can harm you, but they’re hard to stay on. I do a lot of hopping and twisting.”

“I thought—I was told that fighting was impossible in here.”

“That’s what they tell the freemen, to make them feel okay about leaving us to rot. There’s a lot of fighting. You can earn sensory patches to stop it from hurting. There’s a woman in here who gets people creature comforts. She has some way to edit code, kind of like your cuff, I guess. Anyway, people pay her in their pain dampeners, so she can’t feel anything she doesn’t want to.”

“Can’t she just hack her own code to conjure pain dampeners anyway?”

“You’re right. Maybe she just wants her customers to give them up. You can’t steal a pain patch.”

Leona sighed. “We’re gonna take care of you. I can’t give you details, because obviously we’re always under surveillance, but you won’t wear orange forever.”

“I’m told that orange is the new black. People laugh when someone says that, but I’m afraid I don’t understand the meaning.”

“It’s a pop culture reference,” Leona told her, “a very old one.”

Angela nodded. “We have books and movies that they made on Earth, but I never spent much time catching up when I was on the outside. I was always just trying to improve my station in afterlife.” She looked around, so she could indicate the general environment. “I shouldn’t have been so obsessed. As soon as I got my indigo clothes, I should have left it at that, and tried to enjoy my life.

Leona shook her head. “This wasn’t you. This was us, and like I was saying, we’re gonna fix it.”

Angela wasn’t getting her hopes up, but she understood that arguing would only lead to Pryce figuring out their plan. He would have it already if Leona and her friends didn’t have a way of communicating with each other outside of his purview. Speaking of which, she ought to be getting back to it, so she could pass along all the details she learned about the prison section of this world. She said her goodbyes, hacked the code with her cuff one more time, so she could give Angela a proper hug, and left with apologies to everyone who just saw her do that.

Leona stepped through the back door of her apartment, and entered VioletSpace. Everyone else was already there, waiting for her, including the creator of this world. He was Level 10 Unrestricted; the highest and rarest level in the entire simulation. He never earned this spot, but was automatically awarded it by Pryce, simply by having had time powers in the real world. He liked to call himself the Purple Pirate, but Leona preferred to use his real name, Gilbert Boyce.

“How are we lookin’?” he prompted.

“It’s awful there,” Leona divulged, “we have to act now.”

“We can’t,” Sanaa said with a shake of her head. “We’re not ready. Boyce has one chance to do something big. Once Pryce figures him out, it’ll be over.”

“Pryce isn’t supposed to be able to demote someone from Level 10,” Ellie argued. “If he gave him the violet clothes, he can’t take them away. That’s how we designed it, so we couldn’t turn on each other.”

“You think he follows those same rules?” Sanaa questioned.

“He follows a set of rules,” Leona compromised. “We can’t be sure which ones he incorporated from before you left the group, and which ones he abandoned. But I will tell you this, I hacked an NPC today, and gave it a directive to go against Pryce’s wishes. The NPC complied, and I just spent an hour in that world with no retaliation.”

“He may be waiting for his moment,” Sanaa warned.

“Wait,” J.B. jumped in. “We don’t know what Mateo is doing on Earth. We can’t do anything until he reconnects, and can safely enter the secret world.” This world was located on a hidden partition of the simulation that siphoned very little power, and was built and run by Gilbert, using his unrestricted access. He was confident that Pryce would have no way of getting into it, at least not virtually. But that didn’t mean he would be shit out of luck, as Sanaa was about to point out.

“As soon as Mateo’s consciousness tries to enter the back door, Pryce is gonna see it, and he’s gonna find the partition, and he’s gonna destroy it. Maybe he can’t turn a Level 10 into a Level 1, but he can sure turn us into a Level 0. He’s physical, guys, don’t forget that. He has his own body, on whatever planet he built this thing on, and he walks around freely. He could destroy every one of the billions of people who live in here with a good, hearty bat.”

“I can get Mateo into this world,” Gilbert assured her. “I just need time. Nothing needs to happen immediately. I’m not saying we wait decades, but maybe Pryce is a little too on edge right now, and we would do better to let him let his guard down before we make our move?”

“Can’t we just get Angela out of prison right now, and hide her in your world before we do whatever it is we’re gonna do to stop Pryce?” Leona suggested.

“I think I could probably swing that,” Gilbert agreed with a nod, “but we have to make some decisions first. Either I go out there myself, and expose myself to the main code, or I convert one or more of you into Level 8, so that you’re powerful enough to break her out of prison. Either way, he sees it happen, and you’ll have to stay in VioletSpace with me and Miss Walton.”

“Madam Walton,” Sanaa corrected. “She married, but kept her original name.”

“Forgive me.”

“I’ll do it,” Leona volunteered.

“You can’t do it,” Ellie contended. “You have to stay in the main world for when Mateo contacts you again.”

“He can talk to you instead. This is important to me. I feel personally responsible for Angela’s situation.”

“We were all there,” Sanaa argued. “We all want her out, and we all want to get back to our lives. This isn’t all on your shoulders, Leona.”

“I have an idea.” None other than Nerakali Preston appeared out of the shadows, and approached their meeting table.

“Nerakali!” Leona exclaimed. “You’re here? When did you die?”

“Twenty-one-oh-seven,” Nerakali answered. “So it was written...so it shall have been done.”

“That’s right,” Leona realized. “You were hundemarked. How long were you able to stave off your inevitable death?”

Nerakali had become a much nicer and better person since they first met her in the 21st century. They didn’t become friends with her until after the date of her death, but like Gilbert Boyce, once they did, they couldn’t think of many they felt they trusted more. The Warrior was utilizing the hundemarke when he killed her in 2107, so nothing could be done to undo it, but that didn’t mean she had to die right away. She literally walked up to her death from the sidewalk, and though she would eventually have to take every single step to meet her destiny, she was always able to time travel somewhere else before each one. Whenever her life was in danger, time itself would send her back to take one more step, because letting her die anywhere other than that house on Tribulation Island would cause a paradox. This version of Nerakali here had already experienced every step, and there was no telling how much she had been through until now. “Every longs,” she joked. “All the long.”

“Well, we can save you,” Gilbert explained. “There’s a way out; a way to be resurrected, and it doesn’t violate hundemarke rules.”

She smiled at him like he was a child who didn’t understand why he couldn’t eat chocolate for every meal. “Not for me. I have a...second destiny.”

“What do you mean?” Leona questioned.

Nerakali reached down and pulled the hundemarke from between her breasts. Of course those were fake breasts, and it was a fake hundemarke, because this was a simulation, and none of it was real. Nothing in here worked unless someone programmed it, and even then, it still could not be considered real.

“So what? That’s just a few bytes of code.”

“I know,” Nerakali agreed. “I wear it as a symbol. I have done everything I wanted to do in the real world, and one day, that will be true of this world. I am going to die. My consciousness will be destroyed permanently. This is how I want it, and helping you save your friend is the next step I take towards that end.”

“No.” Leona couldn’t accept that. “You don’t have to die. Nobody has to die. Tamerlane Pryce may be an asshole, but we have to give him credit for this. He did save everyone in history for thousands of years, and there is no reason to change that. All we’re trying to do is remove him from power, not take down the system.”

“I’m not trying to do that either,” Nerakali promised. “This is a personal decision. Now, let me do this for you.”

“Do what?” Sanaa asked. “Are you going to break Angela out of prison?”

“No, Leona’s going to do that,” Nerakali answered. “It’s what she wants, and I will honor that. It’s the least I could do. I will be burning my own identity in the process, so she doesn’t have to burn hers. Mr. Rogue, recode her avatar. Make her look like me.”

“That won’t be easy,” Gilbert explained. “I mean, I can make her look like anything you want—a taco that poops ice cream—but that will only disguise her against the other residents. She will not be invisible to Pryce, because he doesn’t just see the avatars; he sees their code. Everyone has a unique base code, and messing with that would be tantamount to murder. If you’re not who you’ve become over time, up to this moment, then you’re someone else, and that former you is dead.”

“There’s a way, though,” Nerakali pressed, “without altering her base code. You can engineer something that makes her look like me, even when scrutinized by Pryce himself.”

Gilbert sighed, and took a few beats. “Yeah, it’s possible. Like I said, it won’t be easy, and I can’t just snap my fingers. It will take time, and the fact that you’re skipping interim years makes that more complicated.”

“Then you better get on it,” Nerakali told him. “The longer we wait, the more time The Genius, Mateo Matic has to barge in here and screw everything up.”

It was a little mean, and a little more like the old Nerakali, but it wasn’t entirely accurate, or unfair.

“I will begin immediately,” Gilbert began, “after a vote.”

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