Microstory 1595: Monster of the Depths

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Prompt

This is my chance to escape. I want to get away from my problems, and the best way to do that is to fake my death. My SCUBA buddy is distracted by a pretty fish. We’re supposed to stay together, but he’s a flake, so it’ll be a long time before he realizes he can’t find me. I swim away as fast as I can...

Botner

...and think. This is a stupid idea. I can’t just hide. I should have confessed my plan when my family left for Europe and told them my mom made me go to rehab. I’m in trouble. The medics are looking for me. I’m alone, and don’t know where I’m going. I hate swimming. I hate diving. I hate being alone. I hate swimming back up to the surface. I lie here in the water, thinking. I’m still alone. I can’t escape. I have to swim back, but I’m not brave. Maybe swimming around for hours is the stupidest thing ever, but I have no choice. I swim for hours and hours and hours, and finally I can swim no more. I’m exhausted. The medics are waiting for me. I swim back to shore. As I climb out of the water, a monster rises out of the sky. It’s gigantic, and scary. It jumps out of the sky. I scream, and it closes in, and grabs me, and I’m underwater. I’m alone. I try to escape, but I can’t. I am crushed by the monster.

Conclusion

I’m crushed under the pressure. Finally, I reach land. It’s this tiny little island in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t know it was going to be here, but I figured there had to be something. I take a look around, and find no sign that anyone else knows about this place, except for the monster. It hovers over me, and overwhelms me, and won’t let me find happiness. The first thing I do is lie in the sun to get dry. Yes, it’s burning my skin, but I don’t feel I can do anything if I’m soaking wet, and it just feels good. I feel free. I don’t know what I’m going to do with all this scuba gear, it’s not like I can fill the cylinder back up with air, but perhaps it will become useful one day. The snorkel and mask will certainly help with the fishing. Fish, I need food. I need water first. I need fire first. I build the fire pretty quickly, using the skills I picked up in scouts, and from watching a certain survival show on TV. I get the fire going, and then I head out to look for fresh water. The monster follows me there, and follows me back hours later when I finally stumble upon a meager trickle stream. I’m sure there’s something better—that’s probably where this is coming from—but it will do for now. I scoop some up in my aluminum bottle, which was what should have alerted the other divers that I was planning to leave. You can’t drink while you’re underwater. The medics are waiting for me. I stay on my island for over a week, always hoping that the monster will leave me alone, but I guess that would be ironic. I am alone, which is why the monster is here, and it grows larger every day. Like I said, the cylinder is empty, so I could never get back to civilization, even though I’m regretting my decision. Fortunately, my whole plan eventually fails. The helicopter comes, and retrieves me. I’m going to have a hard time explaining how I could have possibly made it as far out as I did, on what air I must have had left, if I hadn’t been trying to get away on purpose. And yet I smile, because I’m going back home, and the monster can’t come with me. But it does. Months pass, years, and it’s still here. I’m surrounded by people, but I still feel alone, trapped in the depths, without enough air to swim out. The monster has become my everything. Not even the medics are waiting for me now.

Microstory 1594: Bugs

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Prompt

I’ve lived in this house for nearly two years now, and it’s just occurred to me that I’ve never seen a single insect or spider in here.

Botner

At least I don’t think I have. They’re so tiny I’d probably just miss them. There’s also a statue of a cat on the coffee table. Can I tell you how many cats I’ve seen in my life? Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but that’s the limit of my memory right now. Mostly because I’m pretty sure there’s not going to be any more cat statues in my life, and because I don’t want to have the fate of my life decided by some damn invisible spider, so whatever happens, happens, I guess. Mother is still asleep in the next room, as she is every morning. I wish I could get away with having her sneak into my room to sleep on my bed with me, but the neighbors think my mom is the meanest mom in the world, so she’s locked in the living room with the remote control and her knitting needles to prove that point. She says I’m not allowed to be out in the house until I’ve gotten a good night’s sleep, but the neighbors say I’ve never gotten a good night’s sleep anyway, so it doesn’t matter. I don’t...

Conclusion

...think it should matter much how much I sleep. I get good grades in school, and I have a lot of friends. Everyone just needs to let me be me, and figure things out on my own. When I grow up, I think I want to be an entomologist. That’s someone who studies insects, in case you don’t know. I learned that when I was in first grade, but not from my first grade teacher, but by myself. I like to learn things on my own, and don’t pay much attention to what the teacher is saying. I don’t understand why school has to be like that, why I can’t decide what I learn, and what I ignore. Sure, everybody needs to know some math, and they need to know how to speak, but beyond that, who cares? I don’t care about social studies, so I shouldn’t have to worry about it. Just like that, my best friend hates bugs, he’s afraid of them, he shouldn’t have to study them like me. I’m growing bored in my room, so I decide to go out in search of these mysteriously absent bugs. I know my family takes care to keep them out, but they can only do so much. I should be able to find at least one. I get down on all fours, and start crawling around the house. My little sister asks me what I’m doing, but doesn’t care about the answer, and my dad doesn’t care enough to even question it. It’s not going well, so I run to the kitchen, and grab the magnifying glass from the junk drawer. I go into every room, but find nothing. I check my own room last. No, nothing in here either. Nothing on the floors, nothing on the walls, nothing on my dresser. Nothing on my desk, nothing in the trash can, nothing on my big brown bed. Wait. Wait, there is something on my bed. There are a lot of somethings. Extremely short tiny things are all over my bed. Hold on. Bugs. Bed. Bed. Bugs. Bed bugs. Oh no. Mother’s not gonna be happy now.

Microstory 1593: Leaving a Legacy

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Prompt

I made a wish on a shooting star, and it actually came true. What I wished for...

Botner

...was to leave a legacy, and I have been living up to that ever since. The next question is...would I want to end it all? Maybe...but I would have to be crazy to give up now. Two hours later, I stood in the yard of my home in the small city of Bandar, in Central Asia, having just made a living pot with my own hands. Would I take up that trade for the rest of my life? No...I don’t want that life. The world needs more good guys like me, like everyone, not more killers. I will never end my life...if the world ends with a bang or a whimper, I will be a happy man. I look back down at the pot of light, illuminated with the fire I made and smile. I know...the world won’t end with a whimper...not any time soon, anyway.

Conclusion

Of course, I won’t see the world end, because I did not wish to live forever. Looking back, that would have probably been the better idea. If I could stick around, I wouldn’t need a legacy, I would just keep going, keep helping people. Only dead people have legacies, and they don’t even get to enjoy them. Still, I think I’ll be okay when I finally do die. I hold onto my newfound love of gardening, and help make the world a better place through it. I plant as many trees as I can. I sell seeds to keep the dream alive, and use it to buy up huge swaths of rainforests, to protect them from the deforestation companies. I’m not a hero, or a god, but I believe I’ve done my part. Perhaps no one will remember my name, but they will enjoy the literal fruits of my labor. They will sit under my trees, and walk amongst them, and watch the wildlife scamper, and crawl, and fly. Further in the future, my trees will die, but will seed the next generation, and my legacy will go on even then. It can’t be stopped. In the end, I’ll never really die, because what I have done is contribute to the persistence of life. No, I won’t be there to see it with my eyes, but I see it with my heart, and when the world finally does end—with that bang, or a whimper—I know I’ll at least have done everything I could to protect it.

Microstory 1592: Literally Can’t Get Out of Bed

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Prompt

I fell asleep in my own bed last night, and I’ve woken up in a stranger’s.

Botner

As I blink and slowly adjust my eyes to the ceiling of the attic room of my new home, I see the bed I’ve been sleeping in isn’t just the bed of my past, but the bed of my future. And I can see that in the corner of the room I’ve been sleeping on for the last two days. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, you dirty rat?”

I open my eyes and recognize the voice coming from my left. I look to the floor, then quickly look up. Shocked, I sit up straight, my jaw gaping. Standing at the edge of the bed is a man in a blood-stained white suit, his black shoes stomping the wood floors of the room, his hands stuffed in his pockets. His black hair hung loose, partially covering his dark eyes, his rough and scuffed shoes seemingly out of place on the soft floors. “I thought you were my husband,” I try to scream, but my mouth has gone dry. My head is dizzy. I can barely see the man standing over me. “Who are you?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead he stares back. I jump to my feet, realizing the...

Conclusion

...immense danger that I’m in. I’m not supposed to be here. He knows it, I know it, and now he knows I know it, and now he knows I’m going to have to do everything I can to get the hell out of here. But first, I must break free. My ankles are chained to the bed post, and since I’m no Houdini, my only hope is to talk my way out of it. I don’t know what this guy wants with me—I never wronged him, as far as I remember, and that’s going to make it much harder. He might not want an apology, but he sure as hell will be pissed off if I can’t acknowledge his pain. Think, I think to myself. Think about the last time you saw him, and try to remember what went down. It was my dog. She pooped on his lawn, and even though I cleaned it up right away, he wasn’t happy. This can’t be what caused him to abduct me, though, is it? That’s an insane overreaction, even if I hadn’t picked it up. No, it has to be something else. That was probably just the proverbial back-breaking straw. What happened before? What is he so upset about? Oh, you know what, maybe he knows. Maybe he’s finally figured out that I’m the one who called the cops on him for having a huge party with strangers in the middle of a pandemic. Yeah, that’s probably it.

Microstory 1591: Everybody Knows

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Prompt

I walk into the warehouse and discover that everyone I have ever known is here...

Botner

...okay, not everyone. All those children that died are haunting me...some are still alive but more haunting than others. I am screaming again, running around and kicking and screaming like a wild animal. But no matter what I do, I am only making myself even more nervous. Every time I scream, I can feel the sharp pains in my body...my bones...my muscles. Every time I try to touch anyone, I only end up hurting myself. “MOOOOMMM!” I scream, standing in front of an old woman wearing a black shirt with blood stains all over it. I run into the woman and sit down on the ground next to her, too scared to cry. I stare at the woman for a long time. I don’t know what is going on, but it looks like she doesn’t want me to scream anymore. “Mommy!” I scream.

“Listen to me. You will find out what you are. But it won’t be easy...I know this,” the woman said. I look at her as she stands up and starts walking away.

“I don’t want to know what I am, mommy...” I say quietly. The woman stops and looks back.

Conclusion

“I am not your mommy.”

She leaves the warehouse, but there are still plenty of people here with me, and they all frighten me. I never realized how comforting I found it to leave all the people I’ve met behind. My elementary school bully, my middle school girlfriend, and the famous second baseman who once signed my baseball, are all in the middle of what must be an uncomfortable conversation. My high school science teacher, and the doctor who delivered me are talking too. I don’t know that I would say I ever really met my doctor, but who knows what kind of weird robot aliens from the future are in control of this, or what their rules are. I never thought I would have to see these people again, and I never wanted to, even those I liked. It’s just weird, they’re supposed to stay in the past. Everyone is pretty much ignoring me. I’m not invisible, but they don’t seem all that interested in asking questions of the man who ties them all together. They don’t want to know why me, or what they’re supposed to be doing, or what’s going to happen. Finally, a young woman walks up to me. I babysat her once a few years ago because there was an emergency at the hospital where both her parents worked, and it was too short notice to get a real sitter. “So,” she begins, “how do you know Mary?”

“Mary? Mary who?” I don’t know a Mary.

“Mary, silly,” she repeats. “Everybody knows Mary. She’s why we’re all here.”

Mary? I look around again, and realize that that’s not my bully, or my girlfriend, or my science teacher. That could be my doctor, for all I know, but I think I only saw his profile picture once. That’s definitely the second baseman, but he probably wouldn’t remember me. And this girl here? I don’t recognize her at all, I was mistaken. I was mistaken about all of these people. They’re all strangers, and none of them is here for me, I have nothing to do with it. A woman appears up on the balcony, and looks over the crowd. She’s shocked, and as frightened of everyone as I was when I first showed up. Oh, that’s Mary. Yeah, I guess I do know her. We met at a bar once, and had a nice conversation, but she rejected my advances. I guess I never bothered to catch her name.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, August 4, 2150

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The clocks were moving about four or five times faster than they should have been. Leona started tapping on her cuff to see if there was any way to fix that. “That pause button you pressed,” she said after apparently discovering no remedy. “It has a wider range than we needed. We’re all frozen now.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jeremy pointed out. “Angela is frozen from our perspective. Time is moving even slower for her?”

“Because I pointed the remote directly at her I guess?” Mateo said.

“Well, we have about six hours before our jump to...” Aeolia began.

“To 2153, Leona filled in. If we don’t break free of this by then, we’ll miss whoever it is we’re meant to transition. We may have already missed our chance.”

“I can’t press this button again,” Mateo said. “Angela is hurt. We need time to help her. More time than we have. We gotta find a way to unpause only us.”

“I can try a few things,” Danica revealed. “Miss Sarai, could you please assist me? The rest of you just keep an eye on her.”

Once Danica and Aeolia were gone, Leona knelt down, and pulled the mask off of the intruder. “I know this man. He’s younger, but it’s definitely him.”

Bran unmasked the other intruder. “This one isn’t younger. He’s about the same age that he was when we last saw him.”

Mateo peeked over at the older version. He never met the guy himself, but Leona and Bran had a hostile encounter with him in 2161. They were trying to retrieve the Escher knob, but he was hoarding it, along with several other temporal objects, under the false belief that they would protect him from the Deathspring.

“The scar on his hand,” Bran noted, “it’s where I shot the lockbox out of his grasp. Why does the younger version have the same scar? That makes no sense. It doesn’t happen for another fifteen years.”

Leona stood up, and checked the older version. Then she went back to the younger one, and cross-checked them a few more times. “It’s not exactly the same. It’s very similar, but...oh my God, he shot himself.”

“Excuse me?” Jeremy questioned.

“He came back in time, found his younger self, and shot him so they would match,” Leona posited, knowing how weird that theory was.

“That’s insane.”

“Uhh...yeah,” Leona agreed. “We don’t know who he is, or what his deal is, but it was clear from the start that he is not well.”

The older version started waking up, so Bran shot him with his stunner. “What are we going to do with him?”

“Can we take him to that time traveler prison?” Jeremy suggested. “Beaver Heaven?”

“Beaver Haven,” Leona corrected. “I’m not sure they would take him. As far as we know, he never threatened to expose us all to the world. The Warden doesn’t care about time criminals unless they risk the secret of the underworld.”

“They made an exception for Reaver and Ulinthra in an alternate timeline,” Mateo reminded her.

“Yes,” she concurred. “But they didn’t place them at the facility. They each got their own special prism, far removed from everyone else.”

“They had to,” Mateo realized. “Because it was against their code. And technically, none of the staff ever worked there. They outsourced the entire thing to distance themselves from it.”

“What does this all mean?” Jeremy asked.

“If we want to keep these two locked up,” Leona decided, “we’ll have to do it ourselves.”

“How do you lock up someone that no one can remember?” Jeremy asked. “Who’s gonna feed them, maintain their cell, or cells?”

“We’ll do it,” Bran decided. “We’ll stay with them until...well, they’ll both die eventually, right? Aeolia and I don’t seem to age, so what’s a few decades?”

“Kallias...” Mateo urged vaguely.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bran urged, less vaguely. “We’ll see each other again at some point. Time ain’t nothin’ but a thang. You may not even remember us.”

When he first started jumping forwards in time, Mateo realized he would have to say goodbye to everyone he loved. This truth has held despite the fact that half his friends are time travelers, and the other half are immortal. Everyone leaves eventually. Leona is the only one who has stuck by him. “If he’s in prison,” she began, “he won’t grow up to attack us in 2161. Even if we let him go, we wouldn’t have even been able to see him. This is a new reality, it has to be. We’ve changed things. What is the world going to be like in the future?”

“That’s not the biggest question,” Mateo said. “The real question is, how do we deal with our alternate versions when we run into them? If they’re not predestined to one day turn into us, what will we do?”

Like an ominous answer from a mysterious God, the lights all shut off at once, following that familiar thump from the main power switch. The darkness lasted about thirty seconds, at which point Mateo discovered Bran to be gone, along with the two versions of the man. Danica walked in from the back alone, and showed no signs that she should have been anything but. No one else seemed to have the sense that they were missing two members of their group. When Mateo checked the stash of Cassidy cuffs, he found all five extras. Not even Danica was still wearing hers, for she only needed it so she could interact with the retgone coiners. Why was he still able to maintain his memory of their friends? What had changed in him that didn’t change for Leona, and for that matter, why not Nerakali?

“Thanks, everyone,” Danica started, “for helping me fix the power.” They did what? What did these people think just happened?

Angela sat up on the couch. “What happened? Why do I feel both energized and tired at the same time?”

“The answer is...don’t think about it,” Mateo said to her. They all seemed cool with this nonexplanation.

Their cuffs beeped. “Well, this was a nice break,” Jeremy said. “We have to get back to it, though. It’s not far from here.” A break?

“Beaver Haven Penitentiary,” Leona noted. “Oh, it’s 2150.”

“What’s the significance of this year?” Mateo questioned.

Danica took this one. “The prison is designed to hold those they deem guilty for the duration of their entire lives, and these people are taken from all over time and space, both the past, and the future. So it doesn’t need to exist throughout all of time. It just needs to be big enough to contain all those people until they die out. Based on minimal turnover, a hundred and sixty-three years is that figure. It will soon be shut down, if it wasn’t already earlier this year.”

“We’re already in the main sequence,” Angela pointed out, “so let’s just go find out what’s happening. I’m not a huge fan of prisons, so I wouldn’t mind seeing one close forever.”

The four of them left Danica and the dimensional destroyer behind, so the former could help the latter get back to wherever it was she belonged. Mateo was the only one acutely aware that they never needed her to do anything for them. The others only had a vague recollection that they recruited her to stop some disaster in The Constant, which apparently never took place. They didn’t know why, and they didn’t wonder about it either. While they were on their way to the prison, Mateo felt like there weren’t enough people in their group, and not just because they suddenly lost two of them. Four was too low a number, but they only ever had more than that for organic reasons. Never before had they attempted to recruit anyone else into the mission, so this was liable to be their current maximum, at least for a while. Again, the three others didn’t seem bothered by this.

They arrived at the prison to find it eerily empty. All the cells were just left open, and it was mostly silent, except for some noises coming from the offices above. They headed for them, and walked into the Warden’s lobby area. “Oh, God,” she said. “What are you people doing here?”

Jeremy checked the time. “Someone is about to be transitioned to an alternate reality from here. Know anyone whose life needs saving?”

She plopped herself on her chair, amongst all the half-packed boxes, and small piles of trash. “There’s one. Have you ever heard of a man by the name of Ambrosios?”

“Yeah.” Mateo looked at his wrist. “He’s dead.”

“Not quite yet. He will be come midnight.”

“You’re executing him?” Leona questioned.

“I can’t keep doing this,” the Warden explained. “I can’t keep the prison open forever. I certainly can’t keep it open for only one immortal.”

“So you’re just gonna kill him?” Leona pressed. “For convenience?”

“He doesn’t wanna be trapped forever. This is best for everyone, including him.” The Warden leaned forward, and rested her elbows on the desk. “Unless you have some way around it? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Who are we talking about?” Jeremy asked.

“A true immortal,” Leona answered. “At least, he should be. They’ve come up with some way of making his power wear off. We never found out how.”

“There’s only one way,” the Warden said. “It has nothing to do with making his immortality wear off.”

“That’s how it was done in the reality where I come from,” Mateo explained.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“I saw his body,” Mateo replied.

The Warden nodded. “Did you see it just once, or did you check in on it after a few years?”

“Wull...I guess it was just once,” Mateo revealed.

“Then he probably wasn’t really dead. There are ways to suppress some aspects of true immortality, but not all of them, and they will eventually come back and survive. Unless...”

“Unless what?” Leona was suspicious.

“Lucius Carlisle has agreed to help us in this matter,” the Warden finally said.

Leona scoffed and shook her head. “You’re gonna make him do that.”

“Like I said, he agreed.”

Leona was in the mood to fustigate. “Lucius Carlise is a good person who does everything he can to do that right thing. And people like you keep exploiting him, and ruining his progress!”

“He agreed.”

“Stop goddamn saying that!”

“It’s okay, Leona,” Lucius said from the doorway. “I’m okay.”

“No!” Leona continued to fight. “We’re not doing this! We’ll take Ambrosios to The Parallel, where they will help him in their own ways. They can probably treat his mental issues.”

“We can’t keep relying on the natives to fix everything for us,” Angela reluctantly reminded her. “They’ve made too many exceptions to their noninterference policy already.”

“I don’t care!” Leona went on, her voice still raised.

Mateo didn’t want to listen to this anymore. He turned around, and took Lucius by the hand. “Come on, we need to talk.”

No one followed them, either because they didn’t guess what Mateo was planning to do, or didn’t notice. He led Lucius down the steps, and into one of the empty cells. Once they were there, he retrieved one of the extra Cassidy cuffs, and handed it to Lucius. “You’re going to teach me how to use your power.”

Lucius regarded the cuff, but didn’t reach for it. “You don’t have to do that. I really am fine.”

“You say that now, but every time you kill someone, a little bit of your soul flakes off. I’ve seen it in your eyes.”

“And that won’t happen to you?”

“I’m an alternate version of Mateo Matic. No, my soul doesn’t matter.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“It does in my case. I know what my options are. At some point, the real Mateo and I are gonna have to make a decision about how to proceed, and I fully intend to...just die.”

“You say that now,” Lucius echoed.

“People always make excuses for me, so when I kill, it’s an aberration. When you kill...” Mateo placed the cuff on Lucius’ wrist, and was met with no protest. “...it’s Tuesday, and a little racist. So you have to avoid it every chance you get. Besides,” he said with a smile. “I can erase people’s memories if I want.”

“Thank you,” Lucius said. “I owe you a favor.”

“This will be the last we see each other.”

“How do you know?”

“I just feel it. You have your destiny, and I have mine. They’re in opposite directions. Now. How do I molecularly teleportize someone?”

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Big Papa: The Beyond (Part V)

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I realize how odd it is that I feel the need to clear my throat while I’m in a simulation. Sure, my body is still in the real world, and I’m hooked up to an access terminal, but I don’t think that’s it. The Designers must have determined that people won’t accept this world if it’s too perfect. They spent their whole lives having to clear their throats on occasion, and it probably made the early adopters uncomfortable not to. We do enjoy some control over such things. It’s possible to make yourself feel hungry, so that the magnificent food—which can be prepared precisely to one’s personal tastes—actually feels satisfying, but if you’re not into food, you can also just disable that code, and always feel full. I would try to find out if there’s a similar feature for having a lump in my throat because I’m nervous about my speech, but I don’t have time to look into it, because I have to...ya know, give the speech. The Level Tens are sitting patiently in their seats, but that patience will run out unless I prove to them I’m not just wasting their time. Gilbert and Nerakali are sitting in chairs up on the stage with me, right next to Lowell. I didn’t ask them to do that, but seeing as I’m not announcing this year’s hottest new phone, it’s appropriate for me to be one in a group, even if they never speak.

“My name is Ellie Underhill, and it’s important that you understand that the first draft of this speech was written by Abraham Lincoln, and proofread by The Superintendent. I tell you this, not to humanize me, but to illustrate just how amazing the worlds you built are. Abraham Lincoln is here, and I met him, and I’m sure many of you have as well. Some of you may not know who I am, but I’m the one who originally conceived the concept of the afterlife simulation. I didn’t design the levels, and I certainly didn’t code the actual framework, but I do feel responsible for all of you, and for everyone else here. Due to time travel, I’m thousands of years old, and what I’ve learned in that time is that death...is fucking bullshit. Side note: Lincoln did not curse in his draft; I added that line myself. Because I want to be clear that the whole reason I thought of this place is that I don’t think death is fair. We didn’t choose it for ourselves, evolution did. And evolution is not a conscious being, like we are, so what gives it the right to make such an important decision? Evolution is all about survival traits, and humanity can transcend that.

“I won’t try to turn you against Tamerlane Pryce. Whatever opinion you have of him is fine. I wasn’t around before, because the time travel I was telling you about held me up, and by the time I returned, things were complicated with the other designers. I’m here now, though, and I’m ready to listen. If you have any ideas of how to improve the system—improvements that you’re not authorized to make yourself—I want you to feel comfortable coming to me. From what I gather, Pryce kept his office door pretty open, and I plan on doing the same.”

“Is it true that he’s in prison?” calls a voice from the audience. There’s a little bit of commotion in response.

“It’s true, yes,” I say, thinking it’s best to be honest. That doesn’t mean I want to make myself look like the bad guy here, so I continue, “but I did not overthrow him, and put him there. I came at this bureaucratically, and he placed himself in that position all on his own. The creation of the simulation did not come without some unplanned, and irreversible, consequences. My friend died, and I confronted him about it. He didn’t kill her on purpose, but nevertheless, she’s gone, and not even the afterlife could save her. He has decided that showing his regret for those events is what’s best for everyone, and I agreed to step into his shoes so that the program can continue to run smoothly. Thank you for that question. I had a little bit more of the speech, but let’s open the floor to any questions, comments, concerns.”

A man stands up. “Hi, my name is Jabez Carpenter. Voted most improved. I know you by reputation, and I for one, am glad at the change in leadership.” He looks around to gauge his approval rating. “I think we can all agree that Pryce was a dick, and he deserves to rot in the hock for the rest of time. Maybe that’s just me, I dunno.”

Maybe three-fourths of the crowd claps and cheers at this. Many of the rest just don’t seem to feel the need to express themselves, but I do notice a not insignificant number of frowny faces. The great thing about being in here is that I can record everything I see, so I’ll analyze the crowd later, and use AI to make a list of everyone I may need to be worried about. It’s a little dystopian, but I have to protect this place. This is not a democracy, and it never has been. I honestly wouldn’t have built it that way, because people are stupid when they get in a mob, and they can’t be trusted. It sounds really pretty on paper, and it’s a nice thing to strive for, but at the end of the day, the king gets it done. I just have to remember to listen to input.

A woman stands up now, and doesn’t introduce herself, but people take notice immediately, and the room grows silent out of deference to her. “What news of The Beyond?”

I sigh, because I’ve never heard of that. Pryce left many things that I will need to learn, but they’re not organized, because he never planned on stepping down. “I’m afraid—and I hope not to lose your confidence for it, but—I don’t know what that is.”

“We don’t either,” the woman explains. She’s not as perturbed about my ignorance as I would have thought. “He’s been teasing its release for the last three hundred or so years, claiming that it’s the next logical step in our species’ development. Species, I believe, refers to dead people, rather than humans in general. He says it’s really exciting.”

I look over to my people. Nerakali shrugs, while Boyce shakes his head. Lowell doesn’t bother showing me he doesn’t know, because he couldn’t. I look back to the audience. “I will look into this for you, and if I can give you more information about it, we will schedule another meeting to discuss. I would like to know, however, is this privileged information, or does everyone in the simulation know about it?”

“Level Nine and above,” the woman replies. “Not even the Architects have heard of it. This is strictly confidential.”

“I appreciate the information,” I say. “Anything else?”

No one has anything, so I close the meeting, and people begin to disperse. I turn to my people. “Pryce is a genius, but the most disorganized person I know. His notes are a mess, and some of it is in code. Could you help me figure out what this beyond is? I’m worried it’s some kind of true death program.”

“It’s not,” comes a voice from behind me. I turn to find a teenage-looking girl standing there, like a student who’s too afraid to ask her question for the whole class to hear.

“You know what it is?”

“Pryce chose me as a world-builder for it. I’m actually the last he appointed before he went into hock, which is why I never got a chance to actually go.”

I look around, paranoid. “Let’s go to my office.”

We teleport to my office, which I chose to place in Gilbert’s special anti-spying section of the simulation that he calls Purple Space. I feel the safest here. The five of us sit around a table to discuss this mysterious new thing. “First off, what’s your name?”

“Aldona, sir. Aldona Calligaris.”

“Please don’t call me sir. We’re equals here.”

Aldona looks at her own gray clothes, and at my rainbow outfit. “Okay.”

I smile, not wanting to make it any more awkward. “What can you tell me?”

“I went through orientation, but never made the jump over, which is good, because I’m the only one capable of telling you about it. Contrary to what you’ve been told thus far, you and your friends are not the first Level Elevens. I don’t have an exact count, but from what I gather, a couple dozen others have been resurrected.”

“Where did they go?” I question.

Aldona continues, “apparently another universe?”

“Wait,” I stop her. “This is important, is it another universe, or another reality?”

“He called it a universe. He also called it a brane.”

I nod. An alternate reality is created when someone goes back in time and changes something about history. Sometimes, the traveler is in a loop, and can’t change anything, but is only fulfilling a predestiny. If they can change something, then the new timeline will replace the old one. There are a few concurrent timelines, which exemplify the true definition of an alternate reality, but the terms are mostly interchangeable. Another brane, however, is something completely different. It has different worlds, and different people, and a completely different history. It may even have different physical laws, and unrecognizable evolution. Any similarities between any two branes are either coincidental, or deliberately generated by whoever created the brane, if it even was created; most of them form naturally. Perhaps the most important difference is that time moves separately in a separate brane. When you exit one, and go to another, unless you have some control over navigation, there’s no telling where in the timeline you’ll end up. There’s no connection between when it is for you in one versus the other. Basic time travel is dangerous enough, but this adds a whole new level of complexity.

“What is he doing with this other brane?” Nerakali asks. When I knew her when she was alive, she decidedly had no experience with other branes, but that was a hell of a long time ago from her perspective. I don’t know what she knows now.

“It’s our future home; a physical universe, where we can start new lives. Once everyone is resurrected, that’s where they’ll go. Supposedly. The best of the best world-builders are promoted, so we can use our skills to terraform actual planets in a non-virtual environment. Once we leave, all memory of our existence is wiped from everyone else’s minds. Even if someone learns of the Beyond, Pryce has always just erased their memories. It’s the only time he will manipulate someone’s agency.”

“How would he get to this other brane?” I ask, not necessarily expecting anyone to be able to answer. “That’s not something just anyone can do. The Superintendent can count on his fingers how many different methods of bulk travel there are. Most people will need a third hand to keep counting, but no more than that.”

“That I don’t know,” Aldona says, needlessly apologetically. “I only know I was meant to meet someone named Hogarth Pudeyonavic once I was resurrected, but I never got to use my whitecard, so...” Yep, Hogarth is one of the ways to travel the bulkverse. It’s time to unplug, so I can find her.

< > Entire Story

Microstory 1590: Isolated

< > Table of Contents

Prompt

I have the ability to feel other people’s pain, but I can’t do anything about it, so I’ve moved out to the middle of nowhere, and plan to avoid people as much as possible.

Botner

Not just to protect myself, but also to help the curse on my life disappear as soon as I can. I’m stuck here, in the middle of nowhere, by my lonesome. No one knows where I am. And that scares me more than I can explain, as it means that they’re all waiting for me to turn up again, and either find me or confront me. I’m not good at hiding things. I have a very bad conscience. It feels as if my chest would burst from the weight of what I’ve been through. But I’m not alone in the house, or in the hills. I have a loving cousin who understands my curse, and who has promised to hide me and help me as much as he can. I have friends, too, who believe in me and who I can talk to about anything. I feel my power is growing, too. I’m seeing power in objects around me that wasn’t there before, and my curse is helping it happen. It’s getting harder to hide. I’m only hiding myself because it’s safer than talking to my neighbors, who think I’m a dangerous psychopath. Even though I’m not. With...

Conclusion

...everything going on in the world right now, I should look quite normal as a hermit, but you know people, they talk. For the last week, my satellite internet has been down, and I don’t know how to fix it myself. I keep trying to force myself to go into town to get some help, but I just can’t do it. It hurts too much. Now that I know how much easier life is when there’s no one around to mess with my feelings and senses, I can’t go back to how it was. I don’t want to spend another minute around another person. My cousin hasn’t attempted to come help me, even though I missed our weekly video chat check-in. He’s given up, as have my friends. I look around the cabin for something to do, but I didn’t bring a whole lot of entertainment with me, because I was intending to stay connected to the world virtually. Another week goes by, and I still haven’t worked up the courage to seek help. I have, however, given the simple life a real shot. My garden is blooming, and I am loving the long walks I take through the woods. Maybe I don’t need the internet at all. Even without my curse forcing me into it, maybe this is the best life I could have asked for. Right now, I’m farther from my home than I ever have been before, and it turns out I’m pretty close to some campgrounds. I hear music in the distance, but there’s only one tent within my pain-sensing range. It must be empty, though, because I’m not feeling any pain, emotional or physical. I turn back, glad that I didn’t run into anyone else, when a woman appears from around the bend, holding a stack of firewood. It’s amazing, I don’t feel anything but serenity, love, and joy from her. I don’t know if that means she isn’t feeling any pain, or there’s just something different about her. I wonder what my life could be life if we were together, just me and her. I would no longer have to be alone, and my curse wouldn’t matter anymore. She smiles at me politely, completely unaware of how incredibly magnificent she is, and how great it feels just to be around her. I can’t tell her, either. She wouldn’t understand, and it would just make her uncomfortable. All I can do is tip my hat, walk past her, and move on with my life without ever seeing her again.