Microstory 1648: Regal Sea Goddess

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Image credit: Greg McFall (NOAA's National Ocean Service)

The penultimate universe I’ll discuss for this series doesn’t have a name, because there isn’t a strong enough defining characteristic. Yes, all relevant stories are about a group of superheroes, who fight against a group of supervillains, but there are many branes like that. The first of the heroes came about in the early 1980s. Her work was relatively shortlived, and her only responsibility was to go against regular criminals. Her decision to become the first would fuel the heroes of tomorrow, and also the villains, who were at first, pretending to be heroes. She basically became an excuse for people to dress up in costumes, conceal their identities, and operate outside of the law. People didn’t know what to think when Sea Goddess showed up on the scene in her colorful frilly outfit, and started fighting crime. They didn’t have the concept of a superhero. Comic books were predominantly about angsty teens, and exceptional athletes. They had heard of vigilantes, though, and they knew that what she was doing was against the law. Still, she seemed to be trying to do some good, so law enforcement just kind of stayed out of her way. They didn’t help her, but they didn’t actively try to apprehend her. It became an unwritten rule that if a cop happened across her that they look the other way, and act like it didn’t happen. Sea Goddess’ real name was Shanti Gideon, and she didn’t have some sad story about why she wanted to clean up the streets. She won a somewhat modest amount of money in the lottery, which allowed her to quit her boring job, and now she didn’t have anything better to do. Superheroing passed the time, and gave her purpose, and most people seemed to appreciate it. Obviously, not everyone.

Sea Goddess named herself for a species of underwater creatures called nudibranchs. She took on characteristics of the animal, primarily by wielding harsh chemicals. One of the chemicals put her victims to sleep, while another just tasted bad, and overwhelmed them to the point where they couldn’t fight anymore. She did have one lethal poison that she only used once as a last resort, and it was her final mission before she disappeared. No one knew what happened to her after that. Some believed that she was murdered in retaliation for the mobster that she killed when she was backed into a corner. Others thought that she was always part of some rival gang, and was reassigned to somewhere else. Most people rightly assumed that she retired, having regretted taking a life, and not being able to make up for it. Instead, she dedicated herself to helping others in more traditional ways, by donating to charity, and volunteering. Her identity was never at risk, and she told no one the truth about who she had been. The police reluctantly pursued the mobster’s killer, but came up with no leads, and eventually just let it turn into a cold case. Even if they thought she deserved to be locked up, no one wanted to be the cop who actually did it. Her legacy lived on after this, but it would be decades before anyone truly followed in her footsteps. A support group for people who had been traumatized, and were now lost in the world, was designed with levels. You level up, you learn more about the organization. The middle levels revealed it to be a source of recruitment for superheroes, but the higher levels revealed that it was actually a front for criminals. Upon realizing this, real superheroes had to rise up, and do everything they could to stop them. Once they did, however it wasn’t like their job was over. New threats came along, and perhaps Sea Goddess would have to come out of hiding.

Microstory 1647: Biological Soulmates

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There are a few different universes that have the same, or similar, rules about this sort of thing, but I’ll only talk about the one. Evolution is a pretty simple concept when you really get down to it. A mutation occurs in an individual specimen. If it doesn’t prevent that individual from surviving, that trait is more likely to be passed down to the next generation. It doesn’t matter if the trait is good or bad. It only has to be good enough to survive in the bloodline (i.e. to not prevent that bloodline from continuing). There are some evolutionary traits that shouldn’t exist, and some have suggested that this is evidence that some higher power is up there, making decisions. I don’t think that’s true, but the universe today is crazy enough to make me doubt my faith in science. When two members of the opposite sex have intercourse for the first time, they will be forever bonded to each other, on multiple levels. They will release chemicals that not only prevent them from producing children with different partners, but also from even having sex with other people. If they try, it will hurt. Two sexually incompatible partners who attempt to join will both be flooded with painful chemicals that flow throughout their bodies, and don’t stop until the sex stops. Other universes have similar compatibility limitations, but don’t take it this far. They can still choose multiple partners, it’s just that they can only produce offspring with their so-called soulmates. Why did evolution come up with this? What could possibly drive such a ridiculous series of traits? Well, the obvious answer is that forcing a single soulmate encourages the family dynamic, which supports the stable upbringing of a child. But is that enough? Apparently so, but it doesn’t make much sense; not according to evolutionary biology.

As I was saying, an evolutionary trait will persist down the bloodline if it doesn’t prevent the bloodline itself from persisting. This should not have happened in this case. The first sign of this incompatibility trait should have been stopped shortly after the mutation appeared. Most animals copulate with multiple partners. They’re all just trying to pass their genetic information onto their descendants. It’s the number one biological imperative. Restricting an individual to one lifelong partner is fine for humans, and a few other animals, but only when it’s a choice, or rather, only when it’s not the only avenue. Most of the time, monogamy is not a very good survival trait, and it doesn’t always support the biological imperative. Sure, perhaps a child is better off being raised consistently by two parents, but evolution isn’t about the survival of an individual. It’s about the continuity of the species as a whole, and math tells us that having a lot of children has been the default tactic for most of evolutionary history. Monogamy only works well when you have options, not when it’s unavoidable. What if the father dies after only producing one child? It’s up to that child to continue the bloodline, and if it also dies, then it’s over. It’s much better if the mother can go find another partner, and give their first child half-siblings. While the original father’s genetic traits may end, at least hers has a chance to go on. All this being said, the arguments against this sort of thing don’t seem to have stopped it from happening to the humans who evolved in this universe, so there must be some significant benefit that I’m not seeing. Despite the bizarre constraints, the residents have been quite successful, and even prosperous.

Microstory 1646: Symbiosis

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Nearly all evolved life is human, or at least based on human DNA, if only a little. There are variants of humans, some of which are created through genetic engineering, but they can also be brought about by minute changes in a given environment across the bulkverse. They actually evolve to be slightly different. They’re still human, but they’re probably genetically incompatible with other humans, and they sometimes have noticeable differences. There’s one noteworthy example I won’t spell out for you, but basically the males of the species keep something inside their bodies, which are usually kept on the outside. They’re able to do this because a component of their blood allows them to regulate temperature more efficiently, and keep different parts of their bodies at different temperatures. It’s a survival trait that appeared as a response to wild external temperature fluctuations, which forced the evolutionary line to prioritize vital organs over extremities. Anyway, that’s not what this story is about. It’s about an entirely different population in an entirely separate universe. First, let me give you a quick overview of symbiosis. A symbiotic relationship happens when two specimens of two unrelated species will live together in some way. This can be as simple as a bird making its nest in a tree without harming the tree, or as horrifying as a parasite that burrows into an insect’s brain, and turns into a zombie. Some forms of symbiosis are good, some are bad, some are necessary, and some are just not a problem. Every human carries with it trillions of bacteria in their microbiome, a lot of which are critical to survival. Without these particular bacteria, the human would die. They process food, and protect the skin. But Nevilereverse takes that a step further, and evolved a version of humans that are host to a much more complex species, which are called the nevileres.

A nevilere is a medium-sized rodent that will live in a hump on the back of the human, just under the neck. The evolutionary road that brought the two species to this point was a long and windy one, but the gist of it is that the nevilere started living in the hump for obvious reasons; as protection against predators, but it also does the same for the human. It can send an electrical signal through the human’s nervous system, which alerts it to nearby danger. Some say this warning is more than just the result of hypervigilance, and is actually prescience, but the science doesn’t fully support that. It doesn’t rule it out either, though. In the modern day, such danger is less of a problem. There are generally no predators lurking in the city streets, waiting to pounce. It does happen, of course, and the would-be victim still benefits from the warning, but for the most part, the relationship has become commensalistic, in that it’s beneficial to one, and not harmful to the other. The relationship remains tight, however. When two people come together to procreate, their respective nevileres will procreate as well, and not long after the human baby is born, the nevilere offspring will be placed inside the baby’s hump. This is interesting, because the baby nevilere will always be the same sex as the human baby, and this will remain true forever, even if the human turns out to be transgender. It will actually spontaneously switch sexes as a response to the change in hormones that the human is producing. This was how the Nevilereversals evolved, and it makes perfect sense to them. A healthy human will love their nevilere. It’s like a pet to them, but the bond can be even stronger, because it will not die until the host dies.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, October 21, 2228

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Now back on Earth once more, the AOC teleported to the transition window, and the crew waited for it to open. When it did, about a dozen men and women were standing there, holding weapons. They were extremely confused, having never seen any form of time travel before. Mateo decided it was best that he approach alone, with his hands up. “We mean you no harm,” he promised. “Why don’t you go ahead and put down those guns? You don’t need them here.”

They quickly retrained their guns on him. “What is this?” one of the men questioned. “Some kind of holo-trick?”

“Not a trick,” Mateo said. “You’re in a different reality. Whatever quarrel you have in the other world, it doesn’t exist here.”

“Bullshit!” he fought back. “Hold steady, boys! They’re just trying to get us to give up!”

“Give up what?” Mateo asked.

“Our land!”

“Who’s trying to take your land?”

“Like you don’t know.”

“Assume I don’t. You ever given anyone the benefit of the doubt before? What if I’m not lying? What if it turns out you’re pointing those things at friends, rather than enemies? How bad would you feel if you pulled the triggers, and you were wrong.”

The man faltered, but did not relent.

“Tell me your story. Perhaps I can help.”

The man waited a moment to respond. Then he eased himself, and held up three fingers. Everyone else lowered their weapons as well, except for three of them. They were clearly a team, since they knew which three his instructions were referring to. They were all dressed differently, though; not wearing uniforms. They didn’t look like soldiers, but farmers. Were they farmers? Was that still a thing? “We’re farmers,” the man explained. “We work at The Last Farm on Earth. Every job—every single job—has been taken over by some robot. We are the last human laborers in the world, and we can’t let go, no matter what you say!”

“I don’t know who’s trying to take your jobs, but I’m not. That’s not me. I’m just here to help. My windows, I don’t control them. They open up, and someone comes through. It’s my job to provide whatever it is they need, so I know how important it is to feel useful.”

“We don’t feel useless. We dig in the dirt with our hands, and we provide for our families, and we like it!”

“I don’t doubt it,” Mateo said. “Keep going. Who were you holding those guns against before the window opened?”

“The government, of course. They want to shut us down. They say we can keep farming in one of those giant towers, but that’s not real farming. That’s more like lab work. We wanna feel the sun on our necks, and the sweat in our eyes, and the bugs on our skin.”

“I get that.” He didn’t. “Why do they want to close the farm?”

“They want to turn it into another nature preserve, as if the world doesn’t already have enough of those already. That’s all there is now! Nowadays, people just live in computers. They don’t struggle. They don’t know the value of work.”

Mateo nodded. Personally, he didn’t care about any of this. Work was dumb, and he always admired the future people for figuring out how to get rid of it. Nerakali probably didn’t open the window to fix their stupid little farming problems. It most likely had something to do with whoever it was they were about to shoot. But still, these people were radicals, and even if he could stop them today, they would take up arms again tomorrow. The transition team wouldn’t be here tomorrow, so the solution had to come now. “All right,” he began. “How much money did you make last season?”

“Money? We don’t have money anymore.”

“Then how are you providing for your family?”

“With the produce that we...produce.”

“Okay. Your only customers are yourselves?”

“No, we distribute to the wandercrafts.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what those are.”

The farmer was taken aback. “They’re hover vehicles that people live in. Instead of arcologies, seasteads, underwater stations, or in space, they fly over the lands, enjoying the beauty of this world.”

“I see, so the establishments provide their own food, but the wandercrafts rely on farms like you to provide.”

“Well, I mean, they can always pop into the nearest arcology for a resupply. And...”

“And what?”

“And we’re the last farm, I told you that.”

“Oh, you did, yeah.” Yeah, Mateo wasn’t really listening to his ranting. “When was the last time a wandercraft came through?”

He mumbled something under his breath.

“I can’t help you if you’re not honest.”

“A year and a half!”

“Jesus, man. You’re not farmers, you’re toilers.”

“It’s just because people don’t—”

“...know the value of work, I get it.” Mateo sighed. Honestly, he tried real hard in the beginning, but his heart wasn’t in this one. It was just so ridiculous, and his mind kept drifting back to his relationship. Things were okay for now. Both of them just wanted to take it slow, and focus on their missions. It looked like that might be coming to an end, however. There just wasn’t a lot of danger in the world anymore, and people like them weren’t so necessary. If a farmers union was their biggest problem, then the main sequencers were probably doing okay too. He spoke into his cuff, “Leona, could you teleport to my location?”

Leona appeared next to him, and the farmers reacted by lifting their weapons once more. She paid them no mind. “Yes, my love?”

“What’s that, uhh....?” Mateo tried to remember. “What was that planet, the first one you went to? When you brought me back to life?”

“Proxima Doma,” she replied.

“And didn’t they have that one dome...?”

“Yeah, the Oblivios live in a special dome, where they think it’s the entire world, and they live like pioneers.”

“Yeah,” Mateo remembered, “you ever heard of that?”

“The Oblivios?” the farmer echoed. “Yeah, we don’t want our memories to be erased.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Mateo asked Leona.

Leona shook her head. “Not in this time period. In the future, there will be other primitive worlds in the stellar neighborhood, but not for a while.”

“Are you immortal?” Mateo asked the farmers.

“No, we’ll die one day, as God intended.”

“You got kids, though.”

“Of course we have kids.” The farmer seemed offended.

“How do they feel about farming?”

“They’ll learn one day, before we die. Our legacy will live on.” He looked proud of the decisions he had made.

Mateo started walking forward with a purpose. “I’m going through the window to take care of this. Please step back, so you don’t get sucked in. We’ll reach out when it’s safe to return.” He didn’t try to contact Nerakali. She was definitely listening at all times. He just kept walking forwards until the window opened up, and delivered him to the main sequence.

Two drones were hovering over the shoulders of a woman. She didn’t seem surprised by his arrival, or by the farmers’ original disappearance. “Greetings. I’m Inês Coleman.”

“I’m here to solve this crisis. I’m pretty sure you were about to die,” Mateo warned.

“That was my guess as well,” Inês agreed.

“Why are you pushing so hard to shut then down?”

“We’re not pushing that hard,” Inês defended. “This is the first time we’ve asked for them to relocate to one of our vertical farms.”

“They don’t want to do that.”

“Yes, I was picking up on that before you transported them to your reality.” Hm. She seemed to understand what he was.

“Just leave them alone. Their kids don’t wanna do this. Their parents will die out, and the era of human labor will officially be over.”

“Yeah, I really just came to make sure they knew all their options. We would love to close this sector. In fact, I’m not allowed to leave this planet until I return the last of the farmland to the wild. I can wait, though. I can wait them out.”

“Very well, so it’s settled.” Mateo turned to go back through the window. “Wait, where do you wanna go?”

“Gatewood,” she answered.

“Are you packed and ready?”

She looked down at herself. “I always have what I need on my person. I’m an elevated human.” Elevated humans were a form of transhumans that focused on biological upgrades, rather than technological implants. They didn’t feel the need to be able to interface with computers, or have superstrength. They just wanted to be able to live pretty much forever, and not worry as much about all the little inconveniences of being a regular human. They could last longer without sleep, rest, or nutrition, but they remained at least a little reliant on such things. They were immune to genetic disorders, and extremely resistant to disease.

“Nerakali, let’s just switch places,” he said into his cuff. “Send the both of us to The Parallel, and return the farmers to their farm in the main sequence.

“Can you really take me to Gatewood?” Inês asked, hope in her eyes. “I know they’re planning a mission there, but it’s classified. We’re all thinking the probe found signs of aliens.”

“I know people.” Mateo assured her. “I can get you there. And no, there aren’t any aliens...yet.”

So Nerakali sent the farmers back to toil in their lands for no reason, and brought Inês through to start a new life. They transported back to Kansas City, where Nerakali opened yet another window, right where some friends were preparing for their mission.

“You want us to take her with us?” Saxon questioned.

“Will that be a problem?” Leona asked.

“It’s a two-person job,” Thor clarified.

“Is there room for a third person?” Leona pressed.

“Space is not the problem,” Saxon replied.

“Then she can go.”

Saxon was suspicious. “What do you know of the future? Is this her destiny?”

“We’re from an alternate reality,” Leona explained. “She wasn’t there before, but she will be this time around.”

“Okay, well we don’t leave for another two and a half years,” Saxon told them.

“That’s fine,” Inês said. “I really appreciate it.”

Thor wasn’t convinced. “You do know that no one lives in the Gatewood Collective, right? We’re meeting up with the only two other people stationed there.”

Mateo smiled. “That’s what you think.”

Thor nodded, knowing it was best he not push the matter. He was different in this reality.

“Good luck,” Mateo said to the trio. “Two to beam up, Madam Preston.”

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Sic Transit...Tempus (Part IV)

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Image credit: NASA / JPL / SSI / Gordan Ugarkovic

Treasure felt bad about holing herself up in her train car, and not doing even a little bit to help them all escape this place, or at least find out where they were. She had all this power, and she should have thought to use it. It just didn’t occur to her that she could do any bit of good for their situation. She was sixteen years old, and had yet to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Explorer was the best that she could figure, because of her bulk traveling abilities, but that wasn’t a job; not really. “I’m sorry,” she felt compelled to say, as they were all making the trek to the front of the train, where the main engines were.

“I hope you’re not worried about it,” Azura said. “You couldn’t have known you would magically be able to activate the computer systems. If anyone should have realized that, it should have been me. Now I realize that the reason the computers worked sometimes is because of residual bulk energy that my body has absorbed. It also explains why it gets less and less reliable each time, as the energy dissolves like nitrogen. You, on the other hand, probably produce bulk energy, which is why you’re able to spontaneously open shatter portals. I’m sure your father does as well.”

“Does that mean I don’t actually need to scream to make it happen? Could I just do it on my own, maybe by punching?”

“It’s possible. I’m no expert, I just have experience. It’s also entirely possible that producing bulk energy isn’t enough, that you need some way to harness it. It could be like visual processing and interpretation. Your brain is the thing that’s capable of processing the light it receives from external sources, but you still need eyes to receive that light. The brain wouldn’t be able to do it on its own. My guess is that your scream is like the organ that can actually use the energy in your body.”

“What’s wrong with my voice now? My neck is healed, but I can’t speak louder than a whisper, let alone scream.”

“You suffer from vocal cord paresis. I patched you up, and your body is healing, but I don’t have the skills or tools to make a sufficient prognosis. So...you might continue to improve. I’m sure there are exercises you can do with your throat that aid recovery, but I’m not cognizant of them, so for now, keep using that tiara, and rest.”

“It’s weird that this tiara was in the medkit,” Treasure pointed out. “Do people get shot in the throat a lot?”

Azura laughed. “That’s not designed for people who can’t speak. Vertean is the primary language in their universe during that time period, but there are a few planets who developed mostly independently, and created their own languages. That tiara lets Olkan communicate with others. It reads brainwaves, instead of translating voices.”

“Who’s Olkan?” Treasure asked.

“That guy right there.” Azura gestured towards one of the men behind them. He didn’t speak English but he recognized his own name, and knew they were talking about him.

“Oh. I should give it back,” Treasure said, hoping to not actually have to do that.

“It’s fine. He knows a little Vertean, and is getting by. He knows you need it more. They’re good people, once you get to know them. We were on the opposite sides of a war that should never have begun, but their cause is not without its merits. I even agree with them on principle, just not with their methods.”

They were finally in engineering. The systems, including the engines, finally booted up, and Treasure could feel the sense of relief in the room. They had been working on this for so long, and now they had hope. They all went their separate ways, and started working at their respective stations. Apparently, Azura taught the Verteans some Maramon, so they could get going. They were all clearly getting stuck, though.

“Okay,” Azura said. “I could use your tiara just temporarily, though. If we interface it with the computer, it will be able to—”

“Translate to their native tongue,” Treasure finished. “Of course.” She removed it from her head, and handed it over. Then she stood in silence, and watched them work. It was then that she realized that one young man was still back by the entrance, not doing anything. He was just watching everyone, like she was. She was about to introduce herself, which she realized she could neither speak, nor understand him. It had only been a few minutes, and it was already getting to be too frustrating. Azura said that it would be about fifteen more minutes before she figured out how to connect the tiara with the computer, so Treasure decided to go grab some water from the dining car. As soon as she crossed the threshold to the next car down, everything shut off. She could hear the cries of irritation in the others. She immediately hopped back in, which powered the systems back up.

“Apparently, you can’t leave if we want to keep these on,” Azura realized. “I was not aware of this either. What did you need?”

Treasure mimed drinking water from a glass.

Azura said something to the boy who wasn’t doing anything, prompting him to leave. Treasure waved her hands in front of her chest. “It’s okay,” Azura said. “That’s what he’s there for. He’s like a roadie, but for soldiers. He carries extra weapons and ammo, and sends messages to other units. The closest thing to it on your world would probably be the quartermaster, but I think I would translate it to Valet, because Quino garners a lot less respect than a quartermaster. He was born on a fairly poor planet, so he doesn’t have all that much education, and he’s meant to just feel lucky he has a purpose in life. Only a couple people here are actual engineers, but the rest are decades old, and have studied lots of different things. He’s closer to your age.”

Treasure frowned. That didn’t sound very fair.

“He’s getting refreshments for all of us,” Azura clarified.

A little while later, another soldier got Azura’s attention, and showed her something on the screen. They exchanged words in their language, and everyone else started listening. Azura sighed, and prepared to explain it all in English. “Okay, so you’re constantly emitting low levels of bulk energy. You, at all times, straddle the dimensional membrane, and let energy pass through freely. Don’t worry, I doubt it’ll cause you any problems, or cause anyone else any problems. Microscopic tears in the membrane form and heal all the time. Most worlds call it dark energy or vacuum energy, and it’s what causes the expansion of their respective universes. It just so happens that your tear never heals. The Transit was designed to run on multiple power systems, and apparently, the guy who stole it removed almost all of them. He couldn’t remove any of the bulk transistors, though, or he would have just destroyed the whole thing. I don’t know why he chose not to do that, but perhaps he knew we would be coming? It would explain why he left the dining car with the food synthesizers intact.”

Treasure tried to ask what that meant for her, but the gestures weren’t conveying the information clearly. Azura noticed that the tiara was done syncing, so she handed it back. “What does this mean?” she asked. “What does it mean for me?”

“It means that we can take this thing wherever we want to go,” Azura said, “as long as you’re with us. To free us from our reliance on you, we would need to replace the other power systems, like the antimatter drives, fusion reactors, and fuel cells. The good news is that that’s totally doable. I can think of three universes off the top of my head that could accommodate our needs.”

“What are you, uhh...what are you gonna do with this thing?” Treasure questioned. She knew what The Transit was. Her parents spoke of it. It was her mother’s intention when she first left her friends to find The Transit, and use it in the oncoming fight against the Ochivari. She and her partner at the time, Zektene switched gears by joining a crew that planned to stop the Ochivari from existing in the first place. This was where they met her dad, Limerick. When their mission failed, they got sidetracked from having to raise their daughter. Surely they would still want this, and surely Treasure had a high claim to it since this was her universe. The problem was that Azura had a higher claim, since it originated in her universe, and that could create some conflict.

Azura was very good at reading people, and understanding subtext. “I’m going to get these people home, and then I’m going to take you home, so your mother and I can fight over who maintains control over it. Yes, I know what her mission was. Yes, I know that this vessel is crucial in the Darning Wars. No, nobody really knows who’s in charge of The Transit Army. It might be her...but it might be me.” She looked next to her at one of the soldiers. “It might be this guy right here.”

“I’m sure it’s not me,” that guy said.

Both Treasure and Azura were surprised by this. “Whoa. Hadron, you speak English? How is that possible?”

“I speak every language in Vertea,” Hadron answered. “I’ve always been very good at picking new ones up quickly. I’ve been studying English and Maramon since we got here, since I’m not good at much else.”

“How, though?” Azura pressed. “I can’t get anything to stay on for more than a few minutes at a time.”

“I’ve been sleeping in the car next to hers.” Hadron pointed to Treasure. “Before you get huffy, I didn’t know that that was why. I figured that particular car happened to have its own power source. I looked through it, though. It only contains entertainment and cultural research. It has no information about the ship itself, so it wouldn’t have done us any good.”

Now someone else got Azura’s attention, and showed her something on her screen. They talked a little bit. The others weren’t that fascinated.

“Hyperion,” Azura said. “It’s a moon around Saturn, and has an orbital period of about twenty-one days, that checks out. It’s very small, and we are presently seven thousand years before the common era. That makes sense too, because the man who put this here didn’t want to have to worry about someone stumbling upon it. Not even a trotter would think to come to a place like this in a time like this.”

Treasure was concerned. “What about communications? If the Maramon computer can tell where we are, does that mean we’re connected to some kind of network?”

“Nah, that’s all gone,” Azura promised. “That’s the first thing we checked. The comms array has been utterly removed. The thieves likely left it in Ansutah, because they wouldn’t have wanted to be tracked either.”

Quino returned with a cart full of drinks and snacks. Everyone took a break to eat. Everyone...but one. The woman who figured out they were on Hyperion chose to keep working at her station. She seemed very determined to figure something else out. Curious, Treasure looked over her shoulder. The woman didn’t seem to mind it. Some of it appeared in Vertean, but it was also still in Maramon. Treasure spoke Maramon quite fluently, but she didn’t read all that well, and the data on the screens was all very technical. It contained a lot of words that Miss Collins wouldn’t have thought to teach her, so she had to make a few assumptions based on her intuition.

“Treasure, what are you seeing over there?” Azura asked after a few minutes.

“She can explain it better,” Treasure replied, “but I think we have to spend another twenty-one days here.”

Azura thought about it. “There’s a little bit of logic to that. You can only enter or leave at a particular moment, and it’s the moment that the time loop first began. That’s why the grenade brought us here exactly when it did.” She translated the explanation into Vertean, so everyone else would understand. They all seemed fine with it. Three weeks wasn’t that long, and they knew that it didn’t matter how long they spent outside of their universe, they could return to any moment, including the one right after the one they left. Of course, they could die before ever making it back, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. As long as the synthesizers kept producing food, they should be safe here.

So they waited. Treasure’s role on the ship was wildly different than it was during the first half of their vacation. Where once she was isolated and unhelpful, now she was vital to the mission. She was getting a lot of exercise, running back and forth from the front of the ship, to the middle, to the back. It felt like punishment, but at least it was keeping her fit. Did this thing have to be so long, though? Most of the cars were designed to accommodate soldiers and their cargo, but three of them were used to keep the ship running. It was modular, as one might expect. Each car was capable of traveling through space on its own, but only the first and last could pierce a portal through the universal membrane. They needed to both be in operational order, to maximize their chances of escaping this universe, and accumulating the right resources. Treasure tried to expand the breadth of her power, but was only ever able to power systems from one car over. One of the crew was a medic, and was able to help her come up with some recovery exercises. She still couldn’t scream, but she was eventually able to speak at a very low volume, which was enough to allow her to return the tiara to Olkan.

When they weren’t maintaining the engines, the crew was taking a page out of Hadron’s book, and learning English. They didn’t do it for Treasure’s benefit alone. Though they were supposedly going back to where they were, they wanted to know the dominant language in the bulkverse, in case something like this ever happened again. While they weren’t all particularly adept at learning languages, most of them were a couple centuries old, and had a lot of experience with gathering new skills. Lifelong education was kind of the defining characteristic of their galaxy. That didn’t mean everyone had access to it, but the longer someone was alive, the more chances they found to add to their repertoire. By the time they left Hyperion, all of them had a working proficiency, and were speaking English exclusively for practice.

When their forty-two days were up, they gathered in the engine car again, and took off.

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Microstory 1645: Omegaverse

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The Omegaverse Earth was totally normal and boring in the beginning. It didn’t even have its own name until a particular object from another universe randomly appeared, and started making changes. It’s called the Omega Gyroscope, and it has the power to do just about anything. It can’t alter multiversal physics, but it can change the proper physics of whatever universe it happens to be in at the time, but only while using the original proper physics as a foundation. Needless to say, it’s incredibly dangerous, and probably best left unused. A not so great person was in pursuit of the Omega Gyroscope, and in order to protect it, this person’s opponent threw it into a portal, hoping to pass it off to someone he knew he could trust. Unfortunately, the portal closed just as the gyroscope was crossing the threshold, which trapped it in the outer bulkverse. It floated around aimlessly for an infinite amount of time, before making its way to the brane that would come to be named for it. Of course, you wouldn’t know how powerful or dangerous the thing was if you looked at it. It’s just this dinky little thing that was never designed to do what it does. It was a regular toy that became imbued with its power afterwards. So it’s not like a cabal of scientists had to get together to study the thing once it was discovered. A random underemployed man on an urban hike after his four hour shift stumbled upon it, and sold it at a pawn shop for a few bucks. It changed hands several times over the years; other pawn shops, attics, storage compartments, an antiques store, and finally a museum. The curator still didn’t know that it had magical powers, but she felt compelled to put it on display, and make up a story about its history. The museum was struggling, you see, and she just needed to get people back in the doors for the real artifacts.

Her plan did not work for the majority of the population, but the Omega Gyroscope has a passive power that only certain people can detect. Some people are just more in tune with their universe. They are not full witches, and probably never will be, but they do have a greater sense of the interconnectedness of reality. When they encounter something as profound as the Omega Gyroscope, they know it. They don’t necessarily know why they feel what they feel, or what it means, but it will most likely leave them with the urge to take ownership over it. The curator’s lie was so good that the gyroscope was heavily secured in its display case, so they couldn’t just steal it, and run away. They conscripted a would-be cop to steal it for them. He had a reputation for doing anything short of murder for the right price, for not asking questions, and for getting the job done quickly and efficiently. This job went south when his former best friend, and current rival, went after him, and foiled the plot. He didn’t get the chance to haul the criminal off to jail, though. The Omega Gyroscope—after all this time—finally reactivated. It turned back time, and changed everything about how the world would develop from there. What followed was a series of adventures, precipitated by persistent use of the gyroscope. Different people kept getting their hands on it, figuring out how it worked, and rewriting reality to their whims, if only subconsciously. One of these alterations resulted in the worst damage to a planet in any local group universe. This forced the Ochivari to forgo the sterility virus, and engage in total warfare. These humans had to die, and in the most violent way possible. But they underestimated their enemy.

Microstory 1644: Fickle Fortune

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Time is pretty complicated, and time travel makes it more complicated. There are those who don’t see linear time, or who have no use for it. Some can go back, some can skip, some can slow it down. Some can enter spatio-temporal dimensions, or even spatial dimensions. Some universes take this to insane levels, like Salmonverse, or parts of the Composite Universe. But there is one general constant, and that is that time still does move forward, one second...at a time. It’s just certain people that are manipulating it, or moving about in some weird way. You can probably kind of see where I’m going with this, and it’s that this universe today is not like that. If you’ve read enough comic books, or listened to/watched soap operas, you’ll notice some funny things going on. One particular superhero was a high school sophomore when he was introduced, and even though later stories could take place after decades, he’ll still be a sophomore. Or maybe they show him in college, but a new writer will come on board, and want to go back to those high school days, and no one in the story will acknowledge these discrepancies. It’s called the sliding timescale, and it’s generally used to maintain the general concept behind a character whilst being able to introduce real-world developments, such as technological advancements, or topical global conflicts. Superhero A didn’t have a cellphone when his first issue came out in the 1950s, but he does in the 2020s, even though he would be an old man by now, if not just dead. The point is that this is done for practical reasons. The artists want to keep the story going, and they want to keep revisiting the same characters, but they don’t want to be stuck in a particular time period, and they don’t really want anyone to die...at least not permanently.

Fickleverse is like that, except it’s real, and the residents are fully aware of it. They’re so aware that it doesn’t even seem strange to them. Time does not flow linearly, and it does not flow at the same rate—or even always in the same direction— for everyone, and this doesn’t generally bother them. Some children stay young for an extended period of time. Others will age too fast, often because some profound moment in their lives has transformed them into a different person, which only the illusion of the passage of time can meaningfully express. For some, they’re still driving around in petrol automobiles, and not presently cognizant of the fact that people in the next town over have hovercars. There are some other consequences too. In other universes, shows and movies will cast actors to pretend to be their character, but something will change, and that role will have to be recast. That will happen in fickleverse too. Your daughter might not just age before your eyes, but may even become a completely different person overnight. She’ll have the same name, and she’ll believe she’s your daughter, and you’ll believe she’s your daughter, but you will notice that she’s not the same daughter you had yesterday. You’ll just accept this, and you’ll love her just as much, because that’s how the world works. The interesting part about this, and how it pertains to the bulkverse, is that it’s unclear how time will affect a visitor, so it’s best to just avoid it. The Ochivari, in particular, can’t make heads or tails of how it works, and what their environmental potential is. Can the world be saved? Are the humans destined to destroy their Earth? When time can go in reverse as easily as it moves forward, there’s no way to know what has happened, let alone what will happen. So they just leave it be, and chalk it up to a hopeless cause.

Microstory 1643: Fighting Fire With Accelerant

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Like a lot of human cultures that manage to evolve, and survive past their early Great Filters, the people on one version of Earth figured out how to defeat death. They did it both biologically, and technologically, which is standard. The outcome wasn’t as favorable as it is for others. While inventing immortality is in no way inevitable, it’s pretty hard to miss unless you’re deliberately trying to avoid it. If you do, there is every chance that you will run up against your next Great Filter, and die out as a species, so be careful. Still, some people don’t think that death is something that should be overcome, and this side of the argument wins about as often as it loses. This is about an Earth where that didn’t happen initially, but it became that way after they already started to walk up the path of immortality, and actually go pretty far along it. Right around the time that scientists and engineers were coming up with the right solutions, the world was suffering sociopolitically. Leaders were being elected in multiple countries who did not have the best interests of the public at heart. Fascists, is what they were, but unlike their predecessors, they were a lot less obvious about it, and a lot more insidious. They started manipulating laws slowly and quietly, so as not to sound any alarms. While they were doing that, they instigated social unrest, which led voters to believe that the secret fascists were their only hope. Eventually, they just did away with voting altogether, first by postponing it due to extenuating circumstances, and then simply refusing to let go of their power. Meanwhile, longevity researchers were allowed to keep working, but when their work was sufficiently complete, there were significant downsides to releasing it.

Once the rich took notice of the new technology, they took control. The wealth disparity increased drastically, raising the richest of people to almost godlike status, and dropping everyone else to ants. It was bad before, where tyrants could pass their unearned power on to the next generation of tyrants, but now the threat was insurmountable, for the original tyrants could conceivably be able to maintain their power literally forever. A great war began, and nearly resulted in the destruction of the human race. They survived, but everything changed. Instead of finally making longevity treatments and upgrades free for public use, the victors simply made all such enhancements illegal. The standard lifespan was eighty years, and it was against the law to live past it, even if one managed to be healthy enough to surpass it. All seventy-nine-year-olds were executed, and many people were executed before that if the new government felt threatened by them in some other way. They weren’t about to let a fascist plutocracy rule the lands again, and their anger clouded them to the fact that the only way to enforce their will was to become the fascists. Anyone who attempted to show them this reality was—you guessed it—executed. Of course, once a given technology exists, you can’t put that toothpaste back in the tube. Another resistance rose up in response to the consequences of the first one. They lost, and were wiped out, but this only served to galvanize a third resistance to try again. They won this time, and were able to make immortality free for all. Unfortunately, when they looked around, they realized that almost everyone was dead, and it didn’t really matter anymore. Most of the few immortals left standing would later find ways to let themselves die, and leave the uninhabitable world behind.