Microstory 1573: Party of a Lifetime

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Prompt

Last night, I tried to have a few people over to watch the season finale, but more people showed up than I expected, and things got way out of hand.

Botner

I wasn’t prepared for that kind of party. I had food, of course, but no hostess gift, no place to put people, and no clue as to what to expect. The shower gifts in particular were way too much: three washers and dryers, six cell phones, two electric grills, and all sorts of other things. I was scrambling around at the end to get the whole thing wrapped and ready to go before 10:00 PM (when the new episodes of House start!). I have no idea who all came. I’m sure most of my current neighbors, and the ones I invited. In fact, there are four people who are sure to come. I have no clue as to who else was invited. At least, I didn’t think so until after I had left. Maybe those four won’t show up. Maybe they weren’t invited. Maybe they don’t know that there’s a party! I’m going to hope that my neighbors will be polite enough to give me a day or two to have a good, clean-up party before they show up for dinner. There’s something about riding along on the big tractor that is so relaxing. It’s...

Conclusion

...not something I did as a child, even though I grew up on a farm. My father didn’t want me to work in the fields. He always said he worked so hard so he could send me to college, where I would presumably figure out what I wanted to do with my own life. I chose to live in the city, and quickly earned enough money so that he could help him retire, and live nearby. He died a few years ago, and I miss him more than anything. I suppose that’s how the party ended up traveling to the farm, where I finally rode on the tractor. I wanted to honor him, and everyone who showed up for the party wanted that for me too. It was then that I discovered the confusion. I got so wrapped up in planning the event that I made an error on the invitations. I said it was for my finale, and didn’t even bother mentioning the show we would be watching. I still think people should have assumed that it was a show, but word somehow spread that I was dying, and this was my farewell. I dunno, that’s not what I would have thought if I were them. Or if I had, I would have tried to confirm it. I suppose a rumor will just take on a life of its own, and even when people question it, no one will be able to give them a decent answer. So I give all those gifts back, and thank them for their concern, while assuring them that I’m quite all right. Still, it was a nice evening, even if it had a strange reason for being, and I’ll remember it forever.

Microstory 1572: Honest Eyes

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Prompt

My car broke down in the middle of the road, and there was no cell service, so I tried to flag down another car, but the only person who answered was...

Botner

...you guessed it. Joe. He was driving a brand-new Mercedes, and the song on the radio was about partying until dawn. So we went to the Sunset. And that’s when I discovered the first little side effect. Joe isn’t normal. He’s supernaturally enhanced. I knew it at first sight when he was throwing back shots and hooking up with other girls. But I figured it out later; he’s got these—what do they call them—veins in his neck, and when he’s all strung out and drunk, his eyes go silver. You think they do that with meth addicts? I mean, it’s genetic, right? He knows everything about me, because, right after we met, he dug deep into my past, and I was too afraid to tell him my full name, or where I went to high school or if I ever drank vodka in my bedroom as a teenager. Instead, I told him that I grew up in Seattle, and that I was in college, studying journalism, working on a story about SeaTac, the airport outside of Seattle where most of the charter flights go. And then I told...

Conclusion

...him that I worked for a reputable newspaper, which contradicted what I said earlier about being a college student. So he caught me in a lie, but he was fine, he just told me I had to tell him the truth from now on. That’s his power. I don’t know if the first and only lie was what bound me to his demands, but I’ve been telling him every little thought that pops into my head ever since then. There are no secrets between us, at least not from my end. He claims he tells me his own thoughts as well, but they could all be fabrications, or embellishments for all I know, because I’m not the one with a special ability. I’m ashamed to tell Joe that the reason my car broke down was, not because there’s something wrong with it, but because I purposefully let it run out of gas. I honestly don’t know for sure why I did it. I imagine it’s self-sabotage, because I have a really important meeting with my boss tomorrow and I can’t lie to her either. If I tell her I can’t make it because my car doesn’t work, my car has to actually not work. I remember one day in high school when I didn’t feel very well, but could have probably pushed through, and gone to my classes. I didn’t want to, though, so I blasted the air conditioning on what would turn out to be the coldest day of that winter, and then stuffed my face with doughnuts once I arrived. If I was feeling all right before, I sure as hell wasn’t now. Now I really did have to go home, and instead of being able to enjoy my day off, I retched every couple hours, and came this close to accidentally making my mom think I should go to the hospital. Joe says it’s okay...that’s it’s not a problem to lie to other people...that I’m just not allowed to lie to him. I couldn’t if I wanted to, I joke with him, and he responds by turning his eyes silver. “We are now equals,” he tells me, and I think he’s not wrong, because I can feel my own eyes change as well. They’re probably just as silver. “Now you can compel others to be honest. What are you gonna do with that?” I smile, and say, “I’m gonna spread it around. One day, the whole world shall tell the truth.” He smiles back, and then he drives us off to find our first convert.

Microstory 1571: Secret Compartment

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Prompt

I just found this secret compartment in my grandfather’s old oak desk, and inside it was...

Botner

...his driver’s license! He’s never been married, he’s in his 60s, and he’s been married to the same woman for 25 years! How crazy is that? I had a hard time believing that, but there you have it. Here’s the proof. I’ve had many girlfriends over the years, but never an old girlfriend. After my daughter was born last May, a friend of mine called to ask if I could watch her infant daughter for a few days. Of course, I said yes. Then I asked, “do you happen to have an old girlfriend around who can’t have the baby?” We had a blast. The baby and I spent a few nights and weekends together, but we got to see each other the rest of the time. What did we do, you ask? We shopped, we talked, we ate dinner, and we watched movies. We didn’t actually get to do any of those things the whole time, but what we did do was talk for hours and hours on end. It was nice to reconnect after all these years. When I got my first full-time job in 1998, I saved money and...

Conclusion

...was able to hire someone to help me get clean. I had never done drugs before, but the cleaner says the desk must have been lined with some kind of hallucinogenic, perhaps to stop anyone from accessing it. Now that I’m better, and the things I’m saying make any bit of goddamn sense, and don’t contradict each other, I can get back to the driver’s license. At first, I don’t think there’s anything interesting about it, because I saw his current one in his effects after he died. Little by little, I start to notice discrepancies. Firstly, it claims that his birthdate was last year, and that his license won’t be issued until decades from now. That cannot be right, of course. Is there a smudge on the card? I try to wipe it off, then find myself a magnifying glass. No, it says 2020, which is absolutely bizarre. His home address is weird as well. It says he lives—or will live, as it were—at my friend’s house, the one with the infant daughter I just babysat. Only then do I notice the name. The baby’s name is Indra, and my grandfather’s was Darin. Those are anagrams of each other, which is not something I would have realized until seeing it here on the license, paired with the wrong surname. My grandfather was a time traveler. That’s the only explanation. He’ll grow up in the wrong body, undergo gender reassignment surgery, and then at some point, go back to the past, and become my mother’s father. I don’t know why, and I definitely don’t know how, but I know I have to do whatever I can to protect that baby...or I’ll never even exist.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Wednesday, July 29, 2144

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Shortly after they woke up in 2144, their cuffs beeped, indicating that they had a transition window to get to. It was weird, getting back to this kind of mission. This was what they were meant to be doing, but they had just spent so much time on tangents that they had almost forgotten about it. The map was directing them back to Tribulation Island, so they requested Nexus transport, and headed off.

At the resort, they only found one person. The rest had been returned to the main sequence for Mateo and Leona’s wedding. “Mom!” Mateo shouted. He knew this version of her was not exactly his mother, but he didn’t care. He had to hug her. It had been so long since he had seen her. She was surprised at his shock, and not quite as shocked herself, for she had no memory of him as her son, and had only not seen him for a few years. That was nothing in time traveler time.

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” she said, graciously hugging him back.

The window opens up over there in a half hour,” Leona said, pointing. “It’s outgoing.”

Mateo looked at Leona, and then the direction of the window, then at his once-mother, and finally back to Leona. “Nerakali is letting her go to our wedding.”

“You’re getting married?” Aura was shocked at this.

“We already did,” Mateo answered. “This is the past for us. We didn’t know you were there, but...you must have been disguised the whole time.”

Bran stepped forward. “Or invisible.”

“We’ve never tried to borrow your...power?” Leona wasn’t sure whether it was a power, or a time affliction.

“We call it a condition,” Aeolia clarified. “It depends on how you look at it, and how you use it.”

“Who are you talking to?” Aura questioned.

Leona reached into her bag, and retrieved one of the extra Cassidy cuffs. She handed it to her never-mother-in-law. If this works, you could be standing right in front of someone, and they will not be able to see you. Or rather, they will, but they’ll forget you so fast, that it will be like you’re not there at all.”

“Oh, interesting.” Aura put the cuff on without need for further discussion.

“They have to teach us how to do it,” Angela pointed out. “We have about twenty minutes.”

“Okay,” Bran said. “Shouldn’t be too hard since...it happens for us automatically, and we have no control over it, and we’ve never learned anything about it.”

They asked for help from the Nexus technician who greeted them here. They needed someone who wasn’t wearing the cuffs, so they would know when their borrowing of Bran and Aeolia’s condition was working. It took them nearly the whole time they had to get it right, but just in time, the technician stopped acknowledging their presence, and walked off to get back to work, having forgotten why he had left his post in the first place. They each tried to get his attention, but nothing. Jeremy commanded him to walk the rest of the way on all fours, which he complied with, though he didn’t know why. Now that they were right invisible, for all intents and purposes, they ran back to where the map was leading them, and jumped through the transition window together.

They were standing exactly where they were before on the island, but now in the main sequence of realities. To their right, people were walking into the head of the trail that would lead them to the Colosseum replica, where the ceremony would be held. To their left, things were weird. People were waiting in line for their turn at a booth, where someone was handing out hooded robes, but that wasn’t the weird part. They were already obscured, as if they were paintings, and someone had carelessly wiped their faces off with the charcoal. When the person at the front of the line received their robe, and started putting it on, their face was briefly visible until the hood was all the way over their head.

“Don’t look at them,” Leona ordered. “There’s a reason we’re not meant to see who they are, and that reason is probably similar to ours.”

“Well, you don’t need that,” Aeolia said, glad to be contributing to the group.

“We should get them anyway,” Jeremy determined. “What if a cuff runs out of battery, or someone can break through, and takes it off of us. It’s not worth the risk. Better to be redundant than sorry.”

“Good idea, let’s get our own,” Leona said.

They waited in line for a fairly long time. Whenever someone else got in it, they weren’t able to even detect that the seven of them were standing there, so they cut in every time. That was fine, and probably for the best, as this was just for extra protection, and if there weren’t enough robes for everyone, they should wait to be last anyway. As it turned out, they were totally right about that. Only one robe was left after everyone had gone through it, and the booth operator was preparing to close up.

“You take it,” Mateo said to Aura. “If Arcadia catches you, she’ll be pissed, and possibly violent. The rest of us are okay, even Leona.”

“No,” the man at the booth said. “This is for Leona.”

“Wait, you can see us?” Bran asked.

“Yes,” the man replied. “Though not for long. I too flipped the retgone coin, but mine landed on tails. I remember no past, and have no future. All I know right now is that I flipped a coin...and that I’m supposed to hand these things out to those who need them.” He lifted up the last robe, and presented it to Leona. “And that this one belongs to you. I don’t know why I know this, I just know it. Please take it before I forget why I’m here.”

Leona took the robe, and started putting it on. The man with no memory blinked, and looked confused. He didn’t seem to be able to see them anymore. He just left the booth, and wandered off.

“That’s why you don’t flip the coin,” Bran warned. “You might think it sounds awful not being able to be seen by others, but it’s so much worse being alive with no ability to form memories.”

“Come on,” Mateo said. “Let’s go to our wedding for the third time.”

They followed the trail to the Colosseum replica. Pretty much everyone else had found their seats. Most of them were dropped off closer than the beach. Jeremy noticed someone in the crowd. It was the man who saved him as a baby, Lowell Benton. “I would much like to talk to him, if I could. We didn’t get a chance before. I guess I should say, we didn’t take our chance.”

“He looks very confused,” Leona said. “I’ll drop my invisibility for him, and lead him away from the crowd. I don’t actually need to see the ceremony again.”

“I need to,” Aura said.

“Yes,” Mateo said. “You, Bran, Aeolia, and Angela can go find seats. The rest of us will talk to Lowell. We’ll meet back up later.”

“I love you, Mateo,” Aura said. “I’m not supposed to, but I do.”

“I love you too, mom.”

They hugged again, then went their separate ways. Leona figured out how to make Lowell remember her, but kept her robe on, so no one would recognize her. Bran and Aeolia’s condition was an all or nothing kind of thing. They couldn’t control who remembered them, and when. Leona had some control over it because it wasn’t really her condition at all. This was probably why she had to wear the robe, instead of Aura, who had never met Lowell before. She took him aside, and found an isolated part underneath the Colosseum. Mateo recognized it from way back in 2079, when he was forced to watch a bunch of strangers kill each other. This was the room where The Cleanser kept them before the slaughter. That was in an alternate reality, though, and never technically happened, so all those people lived to eventually become his friends. There were surely around her somewhere.

Now that they were safely alone, Leona lifted her hood. “Don’t worry, I’m an alternate version. The Leona who’s supposed to get married has no idea I’m here, and won’t become me for a while. You and I have already met.”

“Right,” Lowell said, but he didn’t look like he believed it.

“We have already met, right?” Leona asked. “I mean, you shouldn’t have received an invitation unless we knew each other. No one here is a stranger, even if we haven’t met them according to our respective personal timelines.”

“Yeah, of course, we know each other. Lona.”

“Who the hell are you?” Leona questioned. “You’re not Lowell.”

The person pretending to be Lowell exhaled sharply. “No, I’m not. Sorry. My name is Dalton Hawk. I am salmon, and I am not possessing your friend on purpose.”

“Okay...” Leona started to say. “So you don’t recognize any of us?”

“Any of who?”

Mateo and Jeremy temporarily deactivated their Cassidy cuffs, placing them on a timer for thirty minutes.

“Uh, no. Sorry, don’t know you. Can you turn invisible?”

“Sort of. We don’t know a Dalton either,” Mateo said. He looked over at Jeremy, who was disappointed about not being able to meet the real Lowell.

“I do.” Arcadia was walking down the ramp. She placed one hand on her hip, and the other on her forehead. “Once I ran into you after the ceremony, which is about to start, I decided to go back in time, and find out if there are any more of you. It turns out, there are. There are four versions of Mateo here, and five of Leona!” She side-eyed Jeremy. “I don’t know who you are, but I’ve only seen one of you, so congratulations on that, I guess. Why do you keep coming back to your own goddamn wedding! You’re only supposed to do it once!”

“Wait, did you say there are five of me?” The version of Leona here was only the third one. And why was Mateo not with her for one of the other two times?

“I don’t care which version of you you are! I just need you to get the fuck out here!” She made one step back towards the ramp, and pointed up to it. “Are you all the people in hoods? I haven’t checked them, because I respect their temporal privacy, but maybe I should!”

“I don’t know who the people in hoods are. Yeah, they could be other versions of us, but either way, you should continue to respect that privacy, because you, of all people, understands what happens when you mess with the timeline!” If there were going to be multiple versions of her, they could call this one Bold!Leona. “Your sister brought us here, and she’s more powerful than you! So you’re gonna let us be, and not make us do some extra challenge, or something, and you’re gonna get the fuck out of here! A lot has changed since we last saw each other, and we are not simpatico.” Presumably by summoning Nerakali’s abilities, Leona suddenly teleported a few meters forward, and promptly pushed Arcadia to her ass. “I’ve changed.”

A seething Arcadia got back up to her feet, and pressed her fist against her mouth. She blew into her palm, and disappeared, but not all at once. An afterimage of her middle finger lingered for a few seconds before fading away.

“Wow,” Jeremy said. “I’m glad we’re on the same side.”

“Am I on the same side?” Dalton asked.

“You are now,” Leona said, taking him by the hand. “Turn your invisibility back on, and teleport to our team’s location. I’ll stay visible, and act as a link to the homines memorias.”

They landed in their seats just as the ceremony was starting. They watched it all yet again, and then afterwards, during the reception, they danced.

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Big Papa: Claims Department (Part I)

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The day has been saved, not because the better side won the battle, but because the more powerful side just gave up. They had given him so much trouble that he got sick of it, and decided to just let them go. He was in charge of over a hundred billion souls, in an afterlife simulation that he built, both long ago, and in the future. Resurrecting a few of them to get them off his back must have sounded like the easier option.

Missy, Tetra, Jeremy, Sanaa, and Angela are standing in a machine called the Nexus, which was capable of delivering them thousands of light years away, back to Earth where they belonged. Three of them have decided that Earth is not where they belong, however. “I’m not going,” Téa announces. “I must return to Tribulation Island in The Parallel, so I may one day be on Tribulation Island in this reality.”

“How will you get there?” I ask, concerned. Traveling between the two parallel realities is not something that just anyone can do. Someone with the power has to open a transition window.

“On my way.” Jupiter Fury is the man capable of opening a window, but he is presently many light years away, and it will take him some time to reach this location. “I’ll get her where she’s goin’.”

“What about you, Ellie?” Tetra asks.

“I’m going back to the matrioshka body,” I reply. “I helped come up with the original concept of the afterlife simulation, and I have to take responsibility for it, even if it means overthrowing the king.” I don’t know everything that went down, but my friends and I were in the midst of coming up with a way to go back in time and rescue every single human from their deaths, then upload their consciousness into a virtual construct, where they would never truly die. I got waylaid by a side mission, and never found out exactly what happened to my friends, but our frenemy, Tamerlane Pryce ended up co-opting the whole thing. He hasn’t done a bad job, but he doesn’t deserve the power, and I already know of a few changes I want to make to the simulation. It’s my birthright, and I’ll fight for it.

“Can I go too?” Lowell offers. Lowell was a serial killer when he was first alive, but he didn’t have the worst reason for it in the world. He was basically a superpowered version of Dexter, who could literally see the bad things that people around him had done. Like it would anyone, it made him crazy, and gave him the compulsion to do something about the things he saw. He sacrificed himself in an attempt to become the inside man in the rescue mission that has ultimately led to my freedom. Pryce gave him a new body, and stripped him of his psychic powers, so I choose to give him the benefit of the doubt, and let him start fresh. “I would really love to help. I need to do something positive with my life now that my curse is gone.”

“I would appreciate the company,” I say sincerely.

“I’ll go to Tribulation Island with Téa,” Missy steps out of the Nexus. “I don’t like the idea of her waiting here alone, and I feel like I’m meant to be there anyway.” She’s right. They both have a destiny, and it continues on that island. It’s located in a galaxy millions of light years from here, on a planet that enjoys a significant human population.

“Then I guess I’ll have to thank you now,” Sanaa says to Missy. The two of them have some kind of ever since unspoken burning hatred of each other, stemming from some incident that neither of them will actually talk about. No one seems to know what started this rivalry, but the irony is why Jupiter chose Missy to be part of the rescue mission. “Which I did, and it’s done, and now we can go. Boot it up, baby!”

“You’re welcome, Miss Karimi.” Missy says. It’s unclear how sincere she’s being.

“Just don’t ever let me see your face ever again. The temporal restraining order is hereby reinstated. Starting...now.”

With that, the Earth-bounders disappear.

Lowell and I then step back in. “Should we make a plan?” Lowell asks.

“Let’s just wing it.” I give him a wink, and an evil grin. Even though he’s trying to turn over a new leaf, I’m glad he’ll be with me, because I don’t plan on being delicate. If I have to take the afterlife sim by force, I will. We jump.

The Nexus technician steps out of her little booth, and approaches us. “You’ve returned. According to the historical records of our species, can I guess that you...forgot something? Perhaps your keys, that appears to be a common one.” She’s human, but a lot has changed since the days of forgetting one’s keys in the bowl by the door, or the refrigerator.

“We need to talk to someone regarding Tamerlane Pryce,” I explain.

“That is beyond my purview.”

“He stole my idea for the afterlife simulation, and he’s using matrioshka body resources to keep it running. I would like to assume operations of the simulation. Do you know who I could speak to about this? I must plead my case to whoever makes such decisions.” Pryce’s work is just a fraction of what the people living here do. The matrioshka body is the largest object in the galaxy. It would cover the distance from the sun to Uranus, and houses two stars that allow it to fly through interstellar space. It also hasn’t been invented yet, so at some point, they figure out how to send the whole thing to the past.

The tech tilts his head to calculate the response. She’s organic, but there’s no telling whether she has any transhumanistic upgrades, and if so, what kind. “Please step back down into the Nexus. I will transport you to the one-gee meeting section, and inform the necessary entity that you will be waiting for them. Time will be running at one-to-one while you remain inside.” The matrioshka body is located extremely close so Sagittarius A*, which is the black hole in the center of the galaxy. Time moves a hell of a lot slower than it does on Earth, but these people obviously have a way to manipulate that as needed.

Lowell and I step back down, and jump to a different part of the body. The egress technician says nothing, but gestures for us to leave the room. It’s clear that we’re meant to follow the hallway lights, which lead us to a beautiful botanical garden. An entity approaches after we enjoy the scenery for a few minutes. “My name is Aaaddffgacar, and I am responsible for Research Approval for Organic Entities. I hear you have a claim?”

“Yes, thank you for meeting with us, Aa...ad...” That’s a hard name to pronounce.

“You may just call me Gacar.”

“Thank you, Gacar. Tamerlane Pryce runs the—or an, if such is the case—afterlife simulation. I’m the one who came up with the idea for it, and I believe I have the right to make decisions for it.”

“If you had to estimate the percentage your ideas were used in how the present-day simulation operates, what would you say?”

“My species is not good at coming up with such numbers,” I say, just to fill time while I come up with something reasonable.

“Twenty percent,” Lowell answers for me.

I give him a quizzical look.

He continues, “five people were involved in the conception and creation of the simulation: Ellie, Trinity, Abigail, Thor, and Abby’s father, Tamerlane. Assuming each contributed equally, that’s twenty percent. Without detailed data on exactly how the sim works, or meeting minutes for the discussions Ellie wasn’t around to participate in, we have to assume all five originators have equal stake. Equal partnership.”

“You are unaware what became of these three other people?” Gacar asks.

“No.” I don’t know if that hurts my case, or helps it.

Gacar considers the facts. “All this time, Pryce has enjoyed full control over his experiment. We have not interfered with this work, and have allocated all processing power that he has demanded. An auditor has been maintained throughout, but does not provide us with the details you seek, nor do we have any knowledge of meeting minutes, as you say. We can speak with this auditor, but if I were you, I would find at least one other founder to support your claims, otherwise, the math could get tricky. Intellectual property is a delicate subject. My species has trouble grasping the concept of an individual claiming ownership over anything, let alone ownership over people’s lives—”

“I claim no ownership over the people’s lives,” I interrupt. “In fact, it is my intention to bestow more free will upon them than Pryce gives.”

“I will reach out to the afterlife simulation auditor. I suggest you find your friends. If you do not, we can proceed with your case, but your claim will be weaker. I make no guarantees, regardless of what evidence you believe you have.”

“Thank you,” I say. “This place is lovely. Are there quarters nearby that we could use?”

“Follow the lights,” Gacar says, then walks away.

“Need some sleep?” Lowell asks nonjudgmentally.

“I prefer a quiet place to work. I’m going to eavesdrop on the conversation my friends had on Lorania after I left, and that’s best done without distractions.”

“Oh, okay.”

“You’ll be there too,” I explain before he starts thinking I want him to leave. “If there aren’t any distractions, then I could focus too hard, and get lost in the soundstream. You can be my anchor.” That’s not a thing, but I want him to feel valued, and involved.

“I’m honored.”

The lights have led us to a luxurious suite, full of everything a human could need to be comfortable. The matrioshka body has existed for thousands of years, and takes whatever resources it needs from whatever system it finds. Two showers, a four-person bathtub, an espresso machine; these all take so much less effort than they did for people in my time period. Whoever designed this section probably barely gave any thought to the logistics or cost, and probably finished the plans within one second. And this particular room has probably literally never been used before. There aren’t a lot of humans here, and the machines, of course, don’t need this kind of stuff.

Lowell sits down at the table. An envelope magically appears before him. “What’s this?” he asks.

“It’s for you,” I explain. “It’s an invitation to Mateo and Leona’s wedding. It happened in 2144.”

“That’s ten years from now,” Lowell says.

“The Mateo you met has already done all that, a while ago. Everyone Mateo or Leona meets, and becomes friends with, will end up at that wedding, whether it’s their past, their future, or a separate universe entirely. You recently became one of those people, so the invitation found you.”

“And I should go?” he questions.

“Yes, Lowell, you should go. Make yourself a nice suit in the industrial synthesizer first, though.”

“All right.” I can tell that he’s pretty nervous about it.

“There are forty-eight thousand people there,” I assure him. “No one will notice you. Just blend in with the crowd.”

I see the relief in his eyes. I help him pick out a suit, and then watch him activate the invitation transporter. He blinks away, and returns immediately. He’s no longer wearing the suit, and he looks rather tired.

“How was it? I never saw you when I was there.”

“I...” he looks around, paranoid. “I don’t remember. Was I gone? What am I wearing?”

“That’s...disconcerting. You don’t remember anything?”

“No, but I feel like time has passed, and I’m exhausted.”

“Sit back down,” I tell him. “I don’t know what happened to you. I can figure it out, but I really want to do my thing first. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll just...be your anchor.”

“Great.” I remove my outer clothing, adjust the bed to a sitting-up position, and get in to begin summoning sounds from the past. It’s 2134, and I need to hear something that happened back in 2118.

“You have to get naked to eavesdrop on the past?”

“No, these clothes are just uncomfortable. I’m tired of wearing them,” I answer.

“I hear bras are pretty uncomfortable too.” He’s joking, but he’s also not.

I unclip my bra. “Very well.” Watching me listen to a conversation that he can’t hear will get boring, so if this is what he wants to pass the time, then whatever. I’m technically tens of thousands of years old, so I don’t care anymore. Plus, the face he makes when I do it—and he’s not sure how to react, because I haven’t actually given him permission to look, but I haven’t said not to either—is priceless. I grin and close my eyes to get to work.

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Microstory 1570: Vatutotew

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Prompt

Some tiny little creature has been living in my utility room, and I know it’s not a mouse. I got a good look at it once, and I saw intelligence behind its eyes.

Botner

I think I’m scared to look at it again, because I don’t want to see just another grisly rat corpse on my kitchen floor. Or to know what it is that has been chewing up my animal crackers. The rats in the basement have been a constant thing. I’ve bought things that deter rodents, and I put small amounts of poison in the walls and floors. It’s always the same: for three weeks, they are gone. Three weeks. Then they come back. The wads of mouse poop in the utility room? I’ve never seen that before. I know I haven't been in the basement for a while. There are doors in the walls leading into the house, I think to keep me from getting killed. I think I should have all of my meals in the kitchen. Not so much for convenience’s sake, but because there are mice. I can’t find my glasses. I have one set, and one set that I am pretty sure they aren’t in. I’m pretty sure that they are in the damn utility room. And, you know what? I know my husband bought another pair of glasses, and I...

Conclusion

...have to wait until my birthday before he’ll give them to me. He probably hid them in the utility room too, which means, if I want to get a better look at the weird creature living in there, I’ll have to go in there first to retrieve the glasses. Even though I won’t be able to see very well, I can still protect myself, with a long-sleeve shirt, and elbow and knee pads. I look like an idiot, but I’m not taking any chances. If it turns out to be a mouse, then fine. If it’s a rat, then not as fine, but I’ll still probably survive. If it’s an evil alien bent on the destruction of the human race, then...then I don’t know, but I’m not going in there unprepared. I have a bat. I slowly crack the door, but then throw it open. It’s easier to see tiny animals when they move, so I would rather it scurry away fast than sneak behind me so I can’t even tell it’s there. Nothing. I see no movement. I lift the laundry basket, nothing moves. I open all of the cabinets, and shine a flashlight in them. Not there either. I open the dryer, but it’s insane to think something that small would exert enough force to get inside. I bend down to check the washer too, confident in the same assessment. It’s in there, staring at me, not like it’s scared, but confused as to why I’m in what it must think is its territory. It looks like a little furry human, gray, with a tail. It turns its head slightly, and looks at me more with one eye, which is something a person would do when sizing somebody up. It is as smart as I thought, or maybe even smarter. Finally, it extends an arm. “My name is Vatutotew,” it says politely. “Have I misidentified this room as abandoned?”

Microstory 1569: Killer Katz

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Prompt

Ever since all of the cats started deliberately killing the humans, I’ve been saving up for a boat, since cats hate water.

Botner

And I finally got one, so I’m very happy and I want to sail. I have a rule that if any other person should read this, they will have a legitimate claim for sole ownership of my blog; as I cannot control other people. The guest, however, claims that they found this post, and they were so amused and amused they decided to check to make sure the ID was legit. If so, I’d like to give a heartfelt thanks. A big red heart to go with it. It’s very warming. I’m amused. This post reminded me a lot of something that happened to my sisters and me when we were very young. We got a kitten when we were maybe two or three. We were out with our family for my grandmother’s birthday. This was before we could actually read, but we were very good at mimicry and my aunt, my dad’s sister, was babysitting us and brought the kitten into the living room for us to see. My sisters and I climbed onto her lap, and when we saw the kitten, we all said “Oh, kitty, kitty, kitty.” She understood what we were saying, and she said “Kitty is a boy cat,” which was very funny to us, since we had thought kitties were a girl cat. We didn't quite grasp that we were actually saying that kitties were also...

Conclusion

...a genderless species. We didn’t understand back then, about gender, and sex, and sexuality, and identity. We had to learn these things as we grew older, which takes time, and time is something we no longer have. I’ve sailed my boat into the middle of the ocean. I don’t want to find an island that’s too close to the mainland, because the cats could continue to evolve. They could develop opposable thumbs, and then they could sail as well. My family wanted me to fight, but I won’t do it. The cats are going to win, because they now literally have nine lives, and they’ve been watching us for thousands of years. We’ve been completely ignorant about their intelligence, and they’ve used that to their advantage. They weren’t just learning our behaviors and weaknesses either. They were around when we were punching in our safe codes, and hiding our keys under the planter. They’re gonna win, and I’m gonna be far from all the destruction. If they ever do find me, it won’t be for a very long time, and hopefully they won’t worry about what I’m doing, because they will have totally taken over the world by then. I anchor my boat, and paddle to the shore of the island. There’s no sign that this has ever been inhabited. It’s small, but it will have plenty to sustain me alone. I smile as I’m breathing in the fresh air. I didn’t abandon my family. They refused to come with. If anything, they abandoned me. I have no guilt about doing what I must to survive. I walk up the beach, and head for the treeline, but I stop when I see something out of the corner of my eye. It’s a panther, or something. We stare at each other for over a minute, and then I swear to God, it grins. More panthers, and other large cats, come out of the jungle.

Microstory 1568: By a Dog

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Prompt

Because of my horrible allergies, I have a poor sense of smell, but I can smell poop and popcorn, and I can’t tell the difference.

Botner

I thought there was popcorn in the seat of the grocery cart, but then I didn’t smell it. The smell was different, like rotten popcorn, but not quite. The smell disappeared about the same time as the smell of poop. He was leaning forward into the cart so he could see the screen and as soon as he heard me, he tried to hold his finger over his nose. I guess the dogs would be more sensitive to dog farts if they were in the cart with you. I’ve heard that border collies can smell out drugs but I wonder about different breeds. Does it depend on the breed? I was a black lab, lab retriever mix, but probably mixed with some other breed since we got her before we started breeding labs. My parents only got me when they already had three dogs, and I was somewhat self-sufficient. I had a job, but mostly I just kept to myself and did my own thing. I used to follow my parents around and go to their bed when they were asleep. I still do that sometimes, but they let me now. I went with them when they went to visit my granny and the park she lives near. I wanted to go home with them but they wouldn’t let me, so I waited for them at the house. I got my mom’s last bite of chicken. I...

Conclusion

...don’t normally get to eat human food, but they each sneak me some when the other isn’t looking. They don’t know that the other one does this, and think it’s just our little secret. That’s fine with me, I get more chicken this way. My friends around the neighborhood often ask me how my owners are, and what it’s like to be me. In fact, they ask me this question every single time that they see me, because they don’t have much in the way of memory. I don’t know why I’m different than the other dogs; why I’m so much smarter, but it is both a blessing, and a curse. My humans regularly walk around without any clothes on, which makes me uncomfortable. I don’t know why, I’m not wearing clothes either, but I guess my fur makes me feel less self-conscious about it if, at least it would if I were them. I sometimes catch myself dreaming of leaving the house, and going off on my own. I would be able to survive just about anything. It’s only my fingerless paws that would make things problematic. Though, I suppose I could teach the humans I meet to understand me, and help me out when I need it. Why would I do that, though? I love my humans. They give me food and water, a nice place to sleep (even if it’s my bed or cage, instead of theirs), and I don’t get as distracted by the crazy smells all over the yard as my friends do. No, I don’t think I would give up my life for anything, even if I do have a little more potential than the average pup.