Microstory 1587: Nonstop

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Prompt

I found a treadmill on the side of the road, and started using it the next day. I could literally see the fat dripping off of my stomach as I was running.

Botner

A dude riding a bike passed me, looked at me, and said, “if you’re on there, you must be a junkie, you can’t be running.” Unfortunately, it took two months of running on that treadmill before my body could actually move again. I was basically incapacitated. I was barely able to stand or walk. But every time I went to the store, or a restaurant, I told people I was a military veteran. That was all I could remember—how to tell people I was in the military and that I had been hurt. People told me I needed to go to the VA for help, and I thought they were right. They were asking me if I was drunk, which at the time I was not. When I went to the VA, they said, “Well, we can’t give you any drugs because you haven’t been diagnosed. You just had your wrist blown off. But if you stop taking the treadmill, you’ll die.” They didn’t know what was going on with my brain. They were just looking at me like, “you’re scaring us. You need to get off of this machine.” That was the most dehumanizing...

Conclusion

...experience of my life, and I felt like crap for lying to people. I had never heard of stolen valor before, but I knew the whole time that it was wrong. I stopped telling the lie, but that wasn’t my most pressing problem. If I spend more than two days off of this treadmill, the fat I lost starts coming back. It comes back fast, like the frost on a windshield when the heater doesn’t work, and all you have is wiper fluid. It doesn’t stop either. When I first tried to take a break, I gained even more weight than I had when I started using the damn thing. Who would do this to me? Who would leave this cursed treadmill out there for anyone to pick up, knowing what it would do? I learn to run twice a day, just to be safe. I don’t have to run several miles, or anything, but I can’t leave it be for too long. It’s like the machine is a pet, and requires frequent attention, or it’ll start chewing up my shoes. I wish that those were the consequences. I would take a closet full of destroyed shoes over this nonstop life of running. The dude on the bike rides back up to my garage during my workout one day. “There’s a way to stop this from happening, you know. You can even keep all that fat off. All you have to do is give the treadmill to someone else.” What is he, the girl from The Ring? No, I’m not doing that, I’m not subjecting someone else to this horror. It ends here. It ends with me. But I’m not running anymore either. I take the treadmill out to the middle of an empty field, douse it with lighter fluid, and set the wretched thing on fire. I hope that ends the curse, but if it doesn’t, at least it won’t be able to hurt anyone else. The next day, the fat starts to return again, and it doesn’t stop. At my peak, I weigh 1,500 pounds. But then a funny thing happens. I start losing the weight again. It just rolls off me, and I have to take it out with the garbage. I’m happy for a while, satisfied that I broke the curse, but then I start to wonder if I did. Maybe the treadmill can’t be destroyed, and some other poor schmuck just happened to find it out in that field.

Microstory 1586: Leave For Dead

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Prompt

I was supposed to be watering my neighbor’s plants while she was out of town, but I completely forgot all week. When I finally get inside, all of her plants are dead...and so is my neighbor.

Botner

I’m not the only person who failed to water her plants. Over the past few months she’s had an extreme decline in her health. As her health deteriorated, she just kind of faded away. She became a shadow of her former self. I had a conversation with her one night that was the last I spoke with her. She said that she didn’t know how much longer she’d last. I think I’ll go visit her again tomorrow to say my goodbyes. I’d be okay with the fact that I don’t remember the woman’s face, but I do remember her voice. She used to sound kind of annoying...but now she sounds like an angel. I’ll call you tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow, Ms. Bailey. Goodbye. RIP Ms. Bailey. I haven’t been writing much lately because I’ve been so busy. Every day I leave work and have to rush home and eat dinner, then rush right back to work until I go to bed. I feel like I’m doing nothing with my life. I wish I could be a professional shopper or a sex addict. I’ve been considering joining a couple of...

Conclusion

...support groups, but I’m too afraid to tell my story. I mean, am I responsible for her death? How long did it take? Was she lying there in pain for an hour? An entire day? Had I gone over there to water her plants like I promised I would, might she still be alive? No one knows what I did; how I neglected her, and I just want to put the whole thing behind me, but the guilt is eating me up. On my way to the funeral, I debate whether I should tell her family what I did, but I’m leaning towards keeping my mouth shut. It won’t help them, and will only serve to assuage my own remorse, and even that probably won’t help anyway. It does no one any good. I check my watch, and the obituary three times, but realize that I’m not early, or in the wrong place. It’s just that I and one other guy are the only ones who have showed up. I ask him how he knew Ms. Bailey, and he tells me that he sold her a lot of indoor plants over the years. “That woman was a serial killer,” he says with a laugh. “She just kept needing to replace them over and over again.” He also says he always enjoyed delivering them to her, even though it wasn’t a service that they provided, because they had such great conversation. He explains that she was agoraphobic, and never left the house, so it is unlikely she ever intended to leave town. It dawns on me that the whole thing was a ruse, and Ms. Bailey just wanted a second person to talk to. I failed her more than I knew.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, August 1, 2147

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Mateo wanted to get better. He wanted to get back to his zen, and he wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere without having it as a goal. Angela was vital to his recovery, and they only needed to meditate and do breathing exercises for a couple hours before he was back to his new normal. He kept a little edge in his heart, though, which he didn’t tell her about. Come the next day, they might need to fight someone, and being able to experience a sense of urgency could be useful. They knew enough about what was going to happen to save lives, but not enough to stop whatever it was they needed saving from, so being prepared to encounter an enemy was only logical. Staying calm and centered was great and all, but it wasn’t the best in all situations. A true master of his self understands this paradox, and knows when to exploit it.

Leona was gone for the rest of the day, and until the next year, but they remained connected through the cuffs. She wasn’t saying much about what she was doing, but reported that everything was fine, and that she was continuing to work on it. The first day of August, 2147 would be their last consecutive day—that is, the last that fell on Mateo and Leona’s original pattern. After this, they would jump over three years, and then another three years, and then another. From here on until whenever the transitions stopped, they were back to the true Bearimy-Matic pattern. Whatever happened today—whatever the consequences—they wouldn’t know what they were for awhile, and that was pretty stressful. Losing an entire year at a time was nerve-racking enough, but a three year jump was ridiculous now that they were so used to the old ways.

They were minutes from the next transition window, and Leona wasn’t back yet. She also hadn’t checked back in for an hour, and everyone was getting worried. “We’ll have to go without her,” Mateo acknowledged.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” Bran said.

“He’s enlightened again, remember?” Aeolia reminded him.

“If we have a chance to save Danica’s life, we have to take it. For now, I’m going to assume Leona is just incommunicado, and not hurt or dead.”

“Her vitals are fine,” Jeremy pointed out.

“See?” Mateo said. “Her vitals are fine. Wait, how do you know what her vitals are?” Jeremy responded right away, but Mateo realized at the same time, “the cuffs. Right, it’s always the cuffs.”

Angela climbed down the steps wearing her action suit.

“Are you coming with us?” Aeolia asked.

“I’m not staying with the ship again,” Angela replied with a sour face. “I’m older than all of you combined.” She looked up into the aether, and started vaguely counting on her fingers. “Well, maybe not...but I’m more skilled than you give me credit for. You hear that I died in the nineteenth century, and act like I would be amazed to encounter a microwave, but the afterlife simulation keeps pace with Earthan technology. I don’t know why, it should be more advanced, if anything, but I guess Pryce stunted development deliberately. Still...” She removed a bouncy ball from her pocket, and threw it down on the floor. It bounced against walls and tables and chairs, eventually ending up kind of heading back towards her, but not really. She reached out and caught it with ease, and without even ever looking at it, like a real life superhero. It was honestly pretty hot. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Is that...?” Bran started to ask.

“Some sort of magic ball?” Angela guessed he was going to ask. Suddenly, a handheld device flew towards her face. She leaned back out of its way, and let it pass her. Then she reached out like before, matched its speed as if soared towards the wall, and snatched it up. “No.” She casually tossed the device back to Jeremy, who was trying to test her. “You can do literally anything in a simulation, and with that freedom, people usually like to play around with physics. But I realized that I could improve myself if I stuck to the worlds that coded natural physics, and practiced skills like that, free from consequences. I can juggle three chainsaws, if you’d like.”

Their cuffs beeped, indicating that the transition window would be opening in one minute. “We don’t have time,” Bran said, disappointed.

“We still don’t have Leona either,” Aeolia stated the obvious.

Right on time, Leona teleported in, holding the hand of a stranger. “Sorry we’re late.”

Jeremy tossed her her action suit, and she caught it as well as Angela, and as if she knew it would be coming.

“Who is this?” Mateo asked.

“None of your goddamn business!” the young girl shouted.

“I know of her from the future,” Leona told them as she was putting on her suit. “I can’t say what she did for my people while she’s here, but if we encounter a portal in The Constant, she’ll be able to close it for us.”

“She doesn’t seem to wanna do that,” Angela noted.

“Like she said, I’m here!”

“She’s just a little bit nasty,” Leona explained. “I did not coerce her into coming, though. She just likes to be difficult.”

“Your face’s butthole was difficult for your mom last night.”

“Lovely.”

With that, the window opened up, and Nerakali defenestrated all of them.

They were still linked to the substitute Savior section, which none of them had ever been to before. They didn’t know how to get out of it, or where to go. They all held out their stun weapons, doing their best to mimic what they had seen on TV, but besides Bran, and apparently Angela, none of them had any real experience with this sort of thing. It was for this reason that Bran took point, though Mateo realized he and Aeolia probably didn’t need a weapon at all. None of them would if they had just taken the time to practice each other’s abilities. Next mission break they got, they would do that.

They continued down the passageways, which proved that this place was much larger than they knew. Before too long, though, things started looking a little more familiar, and Leona was able to lead them to the foyer, which was where Danica was most of the time. They found her at the reception desk, sitting there with a smile, which was weird, because a man in a creepy mask was standing at her flank. “Oh hey, guys. How did you get in here? I never sent out invitations.”

“Who are you?” Mateo demanded to know.

“I’m your cousin..from another timeline.”

“No, I know that, Dani. Who’s that?”

Danica looked over her shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do,” Aeolia said. “He’s another coiner. He doesn’t think we can see him.”

The masked man took a knife out of a sheath, and held it against Danica’s throat. She became frightened, though was still unaware of why. If anyone would naturally be able to see people who had flipped a retgone coin, it should be her, but not even she was immune to its effects. “Mateo, what’s going on? Why am I so scared?”

“What are you doing at that desk,” Leona began, “at that computer?”

“Well, I was just...I dunno, what was I doing?”

“Keep going,” the evil coiner growled.

“Don’t keep going,” Aeolia countered.

“Keep! Going!” the man growled again, but a little louder this time.

“Stop!” Bran ordered. This back and forth was gonna get real old.

“Wait,” Mateo said, hoping to play mediator here. “Tell us what you want.”

“I want..to destroy..everything!

“That’s stupid,” Jeremy couldn’t help but say.

“Keep! Going!” the man repeated.

“Angela,” Mateo began. “Remember that ball game we played earlier?”

“Umm...yes?”

“I would really like to play that again. Like, now.”

Angela took the ball back out, and threw it over to the far wall, where it started bouncing around. Slightly distracted, the man released his grip on Danica for a split second, which was all Mateo needed. He dropped his stun weapon, and pulled out his teleporter pistol so he could shoot Danica with a time bullet. She disappeared before the man could react, and even when he did, it didn’t matter. Both Jeremy and Leona stunned him.

“Tie him up,” Bran barked.

“Where did you send her?” Leona asked Mateo.

“Up to the surface,” he answered. The elevator started rolling, prompting the rest of them to instinctively hold up their weapons again. “Wait”, he said, gently lowering Leona’s. “It’s probably just her, coming back down, and wondering why she’s not where she’s supposed to be.

It was her, but it wasn’t just her. When they doors opened, they found another masked man with another knife against her throat. “Why am I scared, and why do I feel like I can’t move. I don’t understand.”

“Is this the same guy, or a different one?” Jeremy wondered out loud.

Angela stepped forward. “There’s that same scar on his hand. It must be him, just from a different time.”

“I must destroy time travel,” the hostage-taker declared.

“Okay, well...the Constant isn’t, like, the source of time travel, or something,” Mateo tried to explain. Even he knew that.

“But it is connected to it,” the man volleyed. “It can summon every traveler, in every moment, in every timeline.”

“Is this true?” Mateo asked Danica.

“Is what true?” she asked back.

He sighed, and repeated what the man claimed for her benefit.

“What? No, that would be stupid.”

“It’s not a lie!” the man cried.

“Leona?” Mateo asked simply.

“Could something like that exist? I guess, but why would anyone build it? Does it exist, and is it here? I have no clue, but I think he’s just insane.”

“I’ve had enough of this!” the man shouted. “Everyone, shoot yourselves in the head!”

No one moved of course, except for Danica, who desperately tried to break free of him, so she could take one of her friends’ guns, and use it on herself. “That only works when people can’t remember you, idiot,” Aeolia antagonized.

“I’ve had enough of this too!” Angela shouted just as loud as he had. She took a syringe from her pocket.

The man cackled. “Good luck getting that all the way over here before I slit her throat.

“It’s not for you,” Angela said. She jammed it into her own neck. A reddish glow came from under her skin, and threatened to burst through. She began to shake uncontrollably, but it didn’t look like it hurt that much. Suddenly, she was gone, Danica was free from the man’s grasp, and the man was unconscious on the floor, right next to his alternate self. They heard a banging in the kitchen, pots and pans falling from their secure spots.

Mateo rushed over to find Angela crawling on the floor with her arms only, her legs completely limp and useless. “What do I do? Is there an antidote, or treatment?”

She struggled to speak, sounding almost as if she had frostbite, or was terribly shaky and afraid. “W-w-wwhite...r-r-r-re-re-re-remote. Hit.”

Mateo found the remote in her breast pocket. “Hit what? Rewind.”

“N-no-no. Pause.”

Mateo pointed it at her, and did as she requested. She froze in place. He hovered her hands over her body. “Can I touch her, or will I freeze too?”

Most of the group was behind him, watching. He could hear Bran making sounds in the background, presumably from tying up the two coiners. “Yes,” Leona replied. “This kind of time bubble conforms to her shape. Just do it very...slowly.”

Mateo scooped her up gently, and carried her over to the couch. It took him about fifteen minutes, even though it was only about five meters away. “What did she take? Velocity-nine?”

“Similar,” Aeolia answered, “but as you can see, it doesn’t last nearly as long. And it won’t kill her, but she’ll need full medical treatment to repair her cells. We shouldn’t have taken it from the Parallel,” she lamented. “It was only supposed to be used in an emergency, which is why we gave it to the one person we figured we could trust the most with it.”

“It was an emergency,” Mateo determined. “She saved my cousin’s life.”

“She saved my life from what?” Danica questioned.

Jeremy took out an extra cuff, and handed it to her to use temporarily.

Danica immediately went into crisis response mode. “We’ve been compromised. I need everyone out now, so I can reshape the variables.

“We came here to save you,” Leona argued. “Leaving you alone is not an option.”

Danica started to fight it, “you don’t understand—”

“No, you don’t understand. This place is gonna be destroyed.”

“I know,” Danica said calmly. “I’m going to destroy it.”

“What?” Mateo questioned. “No, we fixed it. Just change your passwords, and your locks, and...move on.”

“I can’t do that. In the case of an incursion, the Constant must be destroyed, the Concierge must retire, and a new Concierge must take her place in a new reality.”

“What does it look like when you destroy it?” Mateo continued. “Does it look like everything has been sucked into a black hole?”

“I guess, I’ve never seen it. I just know it happens from time to time, and the only way to protect it is to reshape it.”

Leona looked over at Bran and Aeolia. “You two are from an alternate timeline.”

“Oh.”

“What does retirement mean?” Mateo pressed. “It sounds innocuous, but it could mean death, for all I know.”

“In a way, it is, I suppose,” Danica decided. “We just like to call it quantum assimilation.”

“Guys,” Jeremy jumped in. “Look at the cuffs. It’s 2150 already, and time is moving fast.”

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Big Papa: Gray Power (Part IV)

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Needless to say, changing everything about how the afterlife simulation works by going back in time and rescuing the exceptions isn’t actually my first act as keeper. A lot that happens in this place is automated, and these people are pretty self-sufficient, but they don’t do everything. The job demands I spend a pretty significant amount of time managing the higher level residents. They ask a lot of the program, and while it’s not my responsibility to approve—or even acknowledge—every alteration to the code, I do have to make sure it doesn’t get too crazy. Technically, the Level Tens are Unrestricted, and can do whatever they want, but not all of them can be trusted. Back on Earth, there is and was a group of special choosing ones called the Springfield Nine. Or maybe they’re chosen ones; the truth is unclear. A man by the name of Rothko Ladhiffe was dangerous when he was alive, and he’s dangerous now. He wields far too much power than he deserves, and he’s constantly trying to tear down the establishment. The problem is that he’s capable of realizing his dreams, so I have to combat him at every turn. I’m apparently not allowed to demote him, but I’m seriously considering breaking that rule. They’re my rules now, and though I’ve not changed anything yet, I reserve that right.

The residents accept me as their new leader with no fuss. They’re not particularly ecstatic about it either. I kind of thought they would become joyful—and maybe even start singing—as people did when Dorothy killed the two witches. They don’t seem to be giving it much thought. Like I said, the place pretty much runs itself. As far as I know, it’s the longest-running civilization in history, outlasting all others by an order of magnitude. So it’s no surprise they have it fairly well figured out.

The code automatically has me wearing rainbow-colored clothes. I can change the design and accessories all I want, but I can’t wear fewer than six colors at a time. People want to know who you are, and what you can do. It’s as much for safety as it is for status. Many avoid interacting too much with anyone they see wearing violet, since the Unrestricteds are the only ones capable of killing someone permanently. They don’t want to piss them off, and any experience can take a turn, even if it starts out innocuous or pleasant. For this reason, the Violets are powerful, but generally alone, which probably diminishes the fun of being a Violet in the first place.

Lowell is the only one wearing white, as he is the only person who was resurrected, but has since returned, except for me. Unlike their regard for me, which lacks excitement, they are in such awe of him. They treat him like a king, who can help them, and change their lot in life. He could give them anything. He could upgrade them. Of course Unrestricted people could help them too, but people assume Lowell is better at it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Manipulating the code doesn’t require an advanced computer science degree, but it does demand a level of understanding of how computers work. As a nomadic serial killer in life, who chose his victims by literally looking at them, he never needed a computer. He only ever had a flip phone, and in fact, never figured out how to turn it off. He could never keep track of the charger either, so whenever one died, he would just take another one out of his trunk. They were all burners, so he bought them in bulk, and only used them to order delivery.

Today, he tried to upgrade someone from Yellow to Green, so she could have her own place to live, but he accidentally downgraded her to Orange. It’s taken an executive order from me to get her out of Hock. “Again, please accept my deepest apologies for what you’ve endured.”

“It’s fine,” the victim, Paisley assures me.

“Still, in recompense for your troubles, please allow me to convert you to Level Seven, Elite. I promise you, nothing will go wrong this time. Since I’m new here, I’ll conscript an Unrestricted to do it for me, just to make sure it works.”

“No, really,” Paisley continues. “I can just go back to Limited. It’s fine.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” I say. “It would reflect too poorly on me. I have to do something to remedy this error, so people don’t lose faith in me.”

She smiles kindly. “Okay.”

I look over my shoulder. “Gilbert.”

“Yes, madam, I’m ready.” Gilbert Boyce was a spawn before death, which means he wasn’t born with time powers, but was accidentally transformed by his enemy when that enemy tried to kill him the first time. That moment was so powerful that it actually rewrote Gilbert’s neurology, and turned him into the rarest kind of temporal manipulator. Pryce felt this entitled Gilbert to be an Unrestricted without earning it. The irony is that Gilbert used his power to operate against Pryce by coding a special section of the simulation where Pryce couldn’t detect him. My friends and I used this to formulate our escape plan. Well, they mostly used it. It was my job at the time to stay in the main simulation so I could spoof their respective individual codes, and prevent Pryce from getting suspicious.

“As you wish,” Paisley says respectfully.

Gilbert approaches her, and opens up the virtual toolbox. From there, he simply has to move a slider up or down. He could send her down to Black if he wanted, or even all the way up to his own level. He can’t resurrect her, which is one of the few restrictions that people like him have. He’s only supposed to make her Pink, but instead makes her Level Nine, World-Builder, which is only one level below him. “Whoopsie-doodles,” he says before closing the toolbox, and stepping back. “That can’t be undone.”

Paisley’s clothes turn from orange to gray.

“Yes, it can,” I contend.

“Oh, it can?” He asks, pretending not to know. “Hmm...weird.” He looks over into the aether. “What was that? Yes, I’ll be there right away. Sorry, gotta go. Sorry for my mistake.” He teleports away.

It was absolutely not a mistake, but I feel like it would be even shittier for me to downgrade her yet again, even though Elite is a perfectly acceptable level. Plenty of people here have been living as Elites for thousands of years with no complaints. Not everyone wants to alter the code, and build their own things. I’m not sure whether Paisley is one of these people, or if she’s more like Gilbert, who enjoys having the control.

Paisley looks nervous. “Okay, go ahead, put me right.”

“No,” I determine. “This is what’s happened, and this is how we’ll keep it. You are a world-builder now. I pull up a fake holographic tablet. “Here are the directions to Siva University, where experts will teach you how to code new simulations.”

“I don’t know if I want this.”

“Yes you do.” Lowell steps forward. “I’m good at reading people. You’re thrilled. It’s okay, you don’t have to feel bad about your ambition. I screwed up, and this is for your pain and suffering. Now, go to school so you can do something good with it.”

“Okay,” Paisley says. “Thank you.” She teleports away.

Lowell chuckles. “I can’t wait.”

“For what? To see what worlds she designs?”

“No, for the consequences. When people find out they can be upgraded just for being wrongfully downgraded, they’re gonna start looking for ways to be wrongfully downgraded.”

“Oh shit, I didn’t think of that.” I release a virtual sigh, and massage my virtual forehead. “Call a meeting. Mandatory. I need to speak with all the Unrestricteds. We have to make sure this doesn’t get out of control.”

“Let’s set up the meeting for later today,” Lowell counters. “There’s someone you should speak to first. I think you know who.”

Yes, I do.

I walk into the prison alone. The guards nod cordially as I pass through the barriers like they aren’t even there. I don’t even have to ask for visitation, because they know who I’m here to see. I just walk into the room, and find him waiting there with his personal security detail. “Here so soon?” he asks. “You must be desperate.”

“I just need some advice,” I tell him. “Nothing’s wrong yet, but I’m worried.”

“What have you done?”

“First, how are you doing?”

Pryce leans his head back, but not the rest of his body. “Well, it’s a whole lot less fun in here. Boring, I would say. I’m surviving, though.”

“I can give you pain patches,” I promise, “if you would just accept them.”

“You could also just turn on the violence inhibitors,” he argues.

“I can’t make too many changes too fast. You know this. It would cause psychological problems, even if the changes are objectively superior.”

“I like the pain,” he says. “And I kind of like being in here. Ya know, I spent decades in a real prison before I became the foremost expert in mind transference. It feels a little like home.”

I look over at his guard. Like Gilbert, Nerakali Preston was also a time traveler who was immediately assigned Unrestricted privileges upon her death. Her road to redemption was a long one, and she’s improved so much that she wants to complete some penance to make up for some of the things that she did while she was alive. This is her way of accomplishing that. She shares the cell with Pryce, and can’t leave unless she asks to be released permanently. Until then, she does wear pain patches so she can’t be harmed, and she keeps a close eye on Pryce for me. He’s obviously here for a reason, and I need to know what that reason is before it’s too late. “Report.”

“He doesn’t need pain patches either way,” she explains. “Nobody would dare hurt him. They think this is just some kind of publicity stunt, and that he can walk out of here just as easily as you walked in. They call him Hancock now, like that superhero-angel movie where the titular character does the same thing.”

“Is this true?” I ask him. “Are you Hancocking us?”

“As I recall, he didn’t get out until they let him out. But regardless, no.” He snaps the chest of his shirt. “These are real.” He pounds his fist on the table twice, demonstratively, and not violently. “And I can’t walk through walls.”

I don’t entirely believe him, but I move on. “Did you hear about the woman who was accidentally oranged?”

“Yeah, I saw her. She was only in here for, like, an hour.”

“It was thirty minutes at most,” I correct. “Anyway, I obviously had to fix it, so I called in a favor.”

“Lemme guess...Gilbert Boyce.”

He’s too smart. He’s literally too smart, I wish he were dumber. “Yes. He slid her all the way up to World-Builder.”

“And you’re worried that this is gonna start some trend, where people will find ways to game the system.” Yeah, way too smart.

“Yes, I’m meeting with the Unrestricted people to warn and prepare them for it.”

“Yeah, don’t do that.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“People don’t like to be told what to do, especially people with the power to reject the advice. You’re only gonna remind them just how powerful they are. The entire population is in the hands of a few hundred people. A few hundred people that you can’t control. Do you really want to talk to them about their power? Most are content just making goats that walk upside down midair, and undenary star systems. Don’t be putting ideas in their heads. When Alexander the Great reached Level Ten 700 years ago, I made an off-handed comment about how he could once more destroy civilizations. Asshole went to war, and took down four simulations before MacBeth managed to kill him with Alexander’s own zeroblade. That wasn’t even the worst thing that an Unrestricted has done.”

“What would you do? What would you do with another Alexander the Great if you didn’t have another MacBeth?”

Pryce narrows his eyes. “I told MacBeth how to steal the zeroblade. I had Alexander killed, to protect everyone else from him...and I had someone else do it to protect the system from the inevitable chaos that would result from me doing it myself.”

What he said before was right. Rules are necessary, even when they seem cruel or wrong. I don’t think I misjudged his character, but I’m already starting to see the reasoning behind some of his decisions. The crown is on my head now...and it’s heavy. Maybe I shouldn’t go back in time and save the exceptions. Maybe the consequences are worse than I can fathom now. “I’ve already called the meeting. It would be more suspicious if I cancelled it now.”

Pryce shrugs. “Hold the meeting then. Just say you wanted to acknowledge their status, and assure them that nothing will change. Or promise that the only changes will be better, I guess, I dunno. You can let them ask questions, but steer the conversation away from the incident, if you can. Be careful, though. Some of them are real smart.”

“Are you helping me?” I don’t ask him why are you helping me?, because I don’t know if that’s the case. What I do know is that he’s up to something.”

“I am,” Pryce says. “I want this place to succeed. I want you to succeed. I also want to be part of it, and if that means I have to spend a few centuries in here, I think it’s worth it.”

I leave him to be happy with being in prison, and head towards a special simulation that was designed specifically for Level Tens. No one else can access it, and it’s a cleanroom, where they can’t make alterations to the code. I stop at the entrance, and check my watch. There’s still time, which I should be using to come up with a good opening speech. No, instead of coming up with my own speech, how about I just have Abraham Lincoln write it for me?

< > Entire Story

Microstory 1585: By Accident or Design

< > Table of Contents

Prompt

This is my tenth interview in two weeks. I should be upset that no one’s giving me a job, but I just feel lucky that they’re considering me at all. Usually, I spend months unemployed with nothing to show for it.

Botner

Now, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for a few more days, and pray that somebody who gives a crap notices I’m good at this. The star: I am a self-taught designer/illustrator/graphic designer. I don’t understand people who get a “serious” degree in a field. I have read every comic, watched every movie, and read every graphic novel I could get my hands on. Everything I’ve learned about art, design, and publishing is self-taught. I couldn’t wait to graduate high school because I wanted to be independent and do my own thing. I wanted to be me. I got a job in entertainment instead. The job: I work for myself as a freelance illustrator and designer. I do graphic design work, print advertising for corporate clients, and offer art consulting for print and web-based businesses. I’ve also started an art school for adult animation. I work on a freelance basis or full-time depending on the project. I will accept projects from anywhere in the world. My rate is based on the complexity and size of the...

Conclusion

..never mind, it doesn’t matter. The point is that none of it is going very well. No one wants to come to my random animation school, and I’m not getting enough clients. Freelance is tough out there, and everybody’s got an edge. There’s really no good way to stand out, so I’ve had to admit that my best bet is to make a steady income by working for a company. The HR representative walks into the waiting room, and tells me that she and the team manager are ready. I follow her down the hall, shoulders straight and confident. I’ve lost my enthusiasm, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at me. I have to act like this is my dream job, and I’ve never wanted to do anything more than work here, for these people, especially this one particular person. No one wants to hear that you’re only in it for the money. Everyone is in it for the money, but they pretend to be passionate, so they expect everyone else to suffer under their own façade as well. People are petty like that. Of course, graphic design is indeed my passion, but I’ve never wanted to become a corporate hack, which is why I tried to go it alone. I’m only here because I’m all out of options. Hopefully even my failed entrepreneurship will make me look reliable and worthy, and they won’t consider the time I’ve spent not working for a company to be a gap in employment. Though no one’s actually said it, that’s how I’ve interpreted how the other interviewers have felt. I walk into the room, and sit down. The manager stares at me without saying a word for a good two minutes. “I spend all this time looking for a good candidate, only to have them quit on me a month later for something better,” he finally says. “It seems it doesn’t matter if someone’s a good fit, and I’m wasting energy trying to figure it out ahead of time. If it’s inevitable, I might as well skip all those steps, and get right to the point, so I at least always have someone on board. You’re hired.”

Microstory 1584: Courage

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Prompt

I wake up in a bathtub, covered in ice, and in an immense amount of pain. There is a huge sewn-up incision on my stomach.

Botner

I look at the tiled walls, look at the floor, look at the woman, whose voice I remember but whose face I don’t recognize. “So you’re the doctor, right?” I feel like a fraud.

“Doctor?”

“Doctor.”

“Yes. You won’t help me.”

I’m confused. “How is that even possible?”

“You saved my life.”

“I didn’t know you were still in here.”

She laughs. “You will help me. You have to.”

At the beginning, I was confused by the entire experience. I felt both privileged and like a fraud to be part of it. Then I remembered my PhD and the structure of the experiment that I had been part of. After a while, I came to accept the role that I was being asked to play. This person had incredible amounts of courage, strength and resourcefulness. I knew that I had to do whatever I could to help this person, regardless of whether she could do the same for me. I can remember every second of that night. Everything that transpired is still like a slow-motion film in my head. I remember my partner, Sam calling...

Conclusion

...me up, and saying that I needed to meet her at this motel. She wouldn’t tell me why, and when I got to the room, she wasn’t even here. The last thing I remember, something sharp pierced my neck, and now I’m here. I never thought my life would end like this, but at least I’m doing something good. This doctor may not have taken my organs in the most ethical way, but with them, she can do a lot more good than I ever hoped. There’s something about me—my biology—that makes my organs special. They’ve made great advances in cloning human tissue by studying me, and the time has come for me to die, so they can leap over that last medical science hurdle. I should be mad, but I guess all this was inevitable. They could only do so much without taking me apart. She says she’s going to take the heart next, but that she wanted to thank me for my sacrifice first. Now that I’m too weak to fight it is what she probably really had in mind. For my last few minutes I call Sam, and thank her for setting this all up. I wouldn’t have had the courage to do it myself, so I’m glad someone was there to force my hand. I don’t call my family to tell them I love them. They know, and hearing their voices again would just make it harder. The light dims, and I disappear, but will live on in everyone whose life this technique saves.

Microstory 1583: Gun to My Head

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Prompt

They haven’t tied me to this chair very well. I could probably escape if it weren’t for this gun still trained on my head.

Botner

They had me think about how things could be if I wasn’t such an awful person, how much things could be...if I didn’t care about other people so much. “Now, we all know what this is about.” They lift my head with the gun. “That slut you were seeing.”

“Her name’s Jamie,” I say. “She didn't like the way I was treating her, so she dumped me.”

“Boring,” the soldier says. “She’s a slut. Why do you think you had to go so far as to run away?” He turns my head so he can see my eyes. “Shut up, kid. You really have no sense of shame at all, do you? I don’t like these questions either, you know that.”

“Maybe you should leave.”

“You know I can't do that.”

“Then you better listen, asshole. You know I need a job.”

“No, you don’t. You’re already giving me more hours than I asked for.”

“It’s not the hours.”

“Then what is it?”

“I’m giving you more than I asked for. I’m giving you more money than I asked for. We’re even.”

The other one says, “and how much is this going to cost me, kid?”

Conclusion

“It’s not going to cost you anything,” I tell them both. “Listen, we can all come out of this alive, and on top. You just have to trust me. The plan is solid.”

“If this plan of yours is so great, how come you haven’t done it already?” the one with the gun asks.

“I can’t do it alone,” I explain. “It’s a three-person job. Well, I mean, it’s a two-person job, but it’ll work with the three of us.”

“Hmm,” the one who hasn’t been holding a gun says. Then he takes it out of its holster, and shoots his friend.

“Thanks,” I say. “I know you didn’t do it for me, but I didn’t appreciate him calling my ex a slut.”

Now he’s the one pointing a gun at me. “We’re gonna do this plan of yours, and then we’re gonna split it seventy-thirty.”

“Sixty-forty,” I counter.

“Sixty-five-forty.”

Um. “Deal.”

He finally unties me, and we get going. It’s a little late for the job, I would have rather started earlier, but if I ask him to wait until tomorrow, he’ll think I’m stalling, and just shoot me. In order for this to work, we have to be in two different places—which he should have expected, because that’s kind of the whole point in a two-man job. Still, he’s nervous, and it takes a lot for me to convince him that he can trust me. He can’t, but he doesn’t need to know that. Surprisingly, it’s not all that hard to get him to give me a gun. In fact, it’s a little too easy. I lean up against the wall of the building, and check the magazine. Empty. That explains why he didn’t balk at letting me have it. That’s perfect, though. My plan depends on me not actually being armed. I round the corner, and hold up my gun, but then pretend to realize that there are too many guards for me to handle, so I drop it, and reach for the sky. We’re both caught, and sent to the same prison. I could have called the cops. I could have ratted him out, let him take the fall for it, and made some kind of plea deal. But he would have gotten out eventually, and then he would have come after me. Now, remember, my gun wasn’t loaded, which gets me a lighter sentence, and instead of it being my fault, it’s his, so he won’t be able to blame me for it. I’m out after a year, and he’s still in there.

Microstory 1582: Woman in a Cave

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Prompt

I enter the cave, and find...

Botner

...a woman, sitting on a bed. She watches me with a bored look on her face, and moves a little away from me. I ask, “is this you?” She nods yes. I want to sit down next to her, but something tells me not to. So I say, “it’s me, Celeste.” I say, “is this your cave?” She says, “yeah.” I ask her, “is that your cave?” She nods yes. I ask, “is this your body?” She says, “yeah.” I try to sit down next to her, but I’m not strong enough. So I say, “is this your dead husband?” She nods yes, and holds up her dead husband’s cane. I ask, “is that your dog?” She nods yes. I ask, “is this your cat?” She nods yes. I ask, “is this your pony?” She nods yes. I ask, “is that you?” She nods yes. I try to get near enough to kiss her, but can’t. I know how hard it is for a TOTALLY BOY to kiss a GIRL. (That’s how I refer to myself to my own friends). I can get just about ANYTHING ELSE done, much to Celeste’s chagrin, but kissing is the one thing that I just can’t manage. So I back off a little. She...

Conclusion

...getting a little antsy, so I put the photograph of her and her family away, and sit against the opposite wall, so I don’t make her feel uncomfortable. I take outmy notebook, and start going back over the information I’ve gathered about this place. Legend has it that you can bring your loved ones back to life if you bring their body in here. I nev er truly believed it, but I had to hold out hope that I could one day see my son again. I’m willing to try anything, except for sacrificing someone else’s life for him. I found a cult in Alps that claimed they could do it, but someone else would have to take his place in the afterlife, and neither he nor I would want that. I’ve been studying this cave when I have time for the last seven months, and Celeste is the only one who’s ever been brought back. Others have come, and met nothing but failure and disappointment, so I have to figure out what is different about this one person. Once I feel like she’s ready, I start asking her for more information. It’s not all that easy, because she’s only willing to answer yes/no questions. As it turns out, she can’t ever leave the cave, or she’ll die all over again. Her family comes once a week to check on her, which I find quite strange. If this works with my son, then I’ll find a way to live here with him. I’ll never leave his side as long as he’s back. I decide to try it, because it’s my last hope, and if it doesn’t work, then I will have least done everything I could. I steal the body from the morgue, grateful to my friend who works there. He made sure no one tried to bury the remains, or anything. I take my boy back to the cave, and lay him down in the center. Only a few minutes later, he rises as if he had just woken up from a slightly jarring dream. For a week or so, we’re happy, but then he starts becoming more like Celeste. He loses his ability to carry on a normal conversation, all the way to the point where he can only say yes or no. Still, he’s back, and he understands me, so I stay, and we stay together. A few weeks later, though, things start to get worse. I too can only comprehend true or false now, and if I could, I would ask myself, “is this really living?”