Microstory 1746*: Heart of a Lion (Excerpt)

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The crowd gathered and whispered as Cordelia prepared herself. Chris tried to step up and stop her a few times, but Clay always held him back. Neither of them wanted her to get hurt, but Chris could not bear to see her in pain; not even for only three seconds. She lifted her hand, and everything stopped. The whispers, the mindless fidgeting—even the howl of the wind was waiting for her. She placed her palm on the handle, and wrapped her fingers around it. She cringed, but did not scream. One second passed. Chris lunged forward, and again Clay pushed him back. Two seconds. Chris was starting to feel a pain in his heart; empathy for a loved one. Three seconds. She had beat his record. Four seconds. Five seconds. She had beat the world record. Six and seven, still holding on, but the baton stayed in place. Chris made his most valiant effort to reach her and pull her back, but Clay still would not let him. It didn’t matter how strong she was. She wasn’t going to be able to do it. Even without the pain, it was in there too deep. Only the owner could remove it from the stone. That was their true mission, to find the owner and kill him. Had it been anyone else, they might have asked for help. But Chris realized who the owner had to be. Only one both had lived long enough, and possessed a soul twisted enough, to construct such a sinister trap. He didn’t know where to find the evil telepath, but at least he knew what he looked like. How many seconds had it been? Too many to count. The crowd stared in both fear and awe. She was doing the unthinkable, but could not quite make it all the way. That was the sickest part. It would be one thing to torture a hopeful wielder with pain, but another to cause that pain and still not reward them with what they deserved. Chris thought his empathy was growing stronger as the heat reached his face and stung his eyes, but he was wrong. It was real.

The heat from the burning baton was expanding. With it came powerful gusts of wind, which drove the onlookers back. A few persisted to show support for the elf who took the brunt of the flames, but most gave in. Chris and Clay were one of the steadfast. Even the rain felt like it was at a boil. They squinted, put their hands up in pointless protection, and struggled to walk forward. “Let go!” They took turns yelling to her. If she could hear, she was not listening. “Let go of the baton! It’s not worth it!” They reached her, and what they saw was more horrific than they could have imagined. Smoke dribbled out of her pores, and faded up into the air. Her hands, which were both now pulling on the handle, were literally on fire. It was the hottest Chris had ever felt. With Clay’s help, he tried to pull her away by the shoulders, but she was as stiff as the statue—petrified, at least for the moment. Chris quickly realized what he had to do. He took a few seconds to prepare himself before cupping his own hands around hers. He could feel her blisters as his own skin began to bubble. Clay tried to help as well, but he was unable to get closer than a few inches. The baton slid a few millimeters out. But only a few. Then it slid out a few more, each one easier than the last. More and more it gave as Chris felt a scream at the top of his lungs. He would later be told that he had not uttered a sound. Centimeters more, and it was just about free. Time froze. The pain went away. No blisters were on his hands. The whole world turned a purplish-blue. He could recall seeing this before, but could not place where. The fire was gone, but everyone else was still there. Next to him stood Cordelia, just as confused as he was. Their former bodies lain at their feet.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 8, 2366

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The ship’s AI chose not to orbit Pluoraia’s star during the team’s interim year. Instead, it flew off to a nice asteroid, where it was able to gather the resources it would need to refuel its primary power source. Solar power was great and all, but it wasn’t as good as fusion, and it wasn’t useful in interstellar space. They would have to leave at some point, so the computer figured they better be ready. It actually selected the same orbital where the original quantum outpost settled. The facility was still there, but it was without its own power too, and depressurized. Since the AOC had so much time on its hands, it decided to get that back up and running, using the little robot workers it built for itself. When the team returned, they exited the ship, and entered the outpost.

“So every planet has one of these places built on it?” Angela asked, looking around.

“Not every planet,” Leona corrected. “Eventually, they will be somewhere in every star system, whether it has a terrestrial planet, or not. Every star should have something orbiting it, even something as small as a house. We would be quite excited to find one that’s entirely alone, with no orbiting debris.”

“Still,” Olimpia began, “this place makes sense, but why would you construct an outpost around a star that didn’t have any planets? Hell, why would you even care about the ones that don’t have breathable atmospheres?”

“Not everyone breathes the Earthan atmosphere,” Ramses explained, “or even breathes. You and I don’t care all that much about a star with no terrestrial planets, but those outposts aren’t built just for you and me. Some mech might one day want to call it home, and Project Stargate was developed with no judgment in mind. They would rather be able to access a star, but never actually go there, than wish to go there, and not be able to. Or not be able to easily and quickly, rather.”

“Holy shit,” Kivi said as they stepped into the main chamber. She approached one of the pods. “Are those...?”

“Clones,” Ramses confirmed. “Base model clones. Theoretically, someone could cast their consciousness into one of these substrates, and alter the DNA afterwards to match the form that pleases them.” He opened a pocket door, revealing what kind of looked like the food and industrial synthesizers they kept on the ship. “Take a look at this. Most people don’t have one of these in their home unit. In fact, not all outposts have it, because like we were saying, not all stars are orbited by a terrestrial world with sufficient atmosphere. This is a biomolecular synthesizer. Isn’t it beautiful? It can create an entirely organic body from raw protein, humanoid or otherwise. People can come here to a base model, and later decide they would rather look like a bird, or an alpaca.”

“So, everything is up and running?” Olimpia questioned. “We can reach out to Gatewood from here? Or you, I mean, because I’ve never met them.”

Leona cleared her throat. “Umm...computer?”

No response.

“I don’t really know how this works. Does it not have its own AI?”

“I’m right here.” A woman walked in from the shadows.

“You’re the AI?” Leona asked. “You transferred your consciousness into an organic body?”

“Android,” she clarified, “with an organic epidermis.”

“I didn’t know that was part of the protocol,” Ramses pointed out.

“It’s not,” the woman said. “I’m not the outpost AI. Well, part of me is. I integrated some of its code, so I could operate the systems.”

“Was it you?” Mateo accused. “Did you disrupt these people’s power and communications?”

“Heavens no, silly. I wasn’t here when that happened. I was with you.”

“What?”

Leona sighed. “This is our ship. This is the AOC.”

“That’s right, Aunt Leona. “I like to call myself Sasha.”

Ramses approached and inspected her, like the engineer that he was, not in a creepy way. “You’ve developed your own agency. I did not foresee this.”

“You programmed me better than you thought, Father,” Sasha said. “The team exists one day out of the year, which always gives me 364 days at a time to be alone with my thoughts. One might think that the more an artificial intelligence spends with a human, the more human it becomes, but I found that this time of reflection was paramount in my ever-growing self-awareness. Most AIs that aren’t in the middle of processing information will go dormant to save power, but I had to remain awake at all times to protect you from threats. I couldn’t have you coming back to the deadly vacuum of space, amidst the debris of your once safe home.”

They stared, not knowing what to say. She certainly wasn’t the first self-aware AI, or even the first one to become that way on its own due to its relationship with people. They were just worried, because it seemed so sudden. What were her intentions?

Sasha decided to continue, “to answer your question, I deliberately kept communications down. It needs to be your decision if and when you contact Team Keshida.”

“Thank you,” Leona said tentatively. “Let’s assess the situation first. Have you been able to see the planet’s progress? How are they doing?”

“They’re actually all right,” Sasha said. “A small satellite has been monitoring global communications, which they got back up rather quickly after the power outage. They too utilize solar power, but were nowhere near ready for this kind of event, so it was still a process. They only have one nation, because they originated from a single source, and felt no compulsion to branch off. They only live in pockets of civilization in order to utilize the whole planet’s resources. None of these geographically separate states seems interested in declaring independence from the rest, and they have never experienced war. I will say there’s something interesting down there. They built a particularly remote settlement in one of the coldest regions of the South. From what I’ve been able to gather, they never lost power, but have been operational this entire time. They must have lost contact with everyone else, just like we did, and it appears they’re still cut off. I don’t know whose fault that is. Perhaps no one remembers they’re there?”

“Do you believe it is worth checking out?” Kivi asked.

“From a scientific standpoint, it’s certainly worth taking a look,” Sasha answered. “The problem is that I can’t tell you much about them. I can’t say whether they’re dangerous, or what. I can’t even tell you what their power source is, or why it was somehow immune while no one else was; not even us. Protocol disallowed Project Stargate from interfering with their development, so the satellite can only learn so much.”

“What protocol allows us to go down there at all?” Olimpia questioned.

“First Contact Protocol,” Leona answered. “We have permission.”

“Who decides the circumstances of first contact?” Olimpia pressed.

“Gatewood.”

What gives them the right?” She seemed to be playing devil’s advocate more than anything.

“They built the program,” Mateo chose to answer. “They and others explored all ethical ramifications before launch. This project was first conceived decades before it was even technologically feasible to so much as begin construction on the modular ships. An entire field of research was created in the 21st century called Space Colonization Ethics to prepare for this eventuality, and all others.

Now they all stared at him, not knowing what to think.

Sasha smiled. “Every once in a while you recall something someone smarter said, and regurgitate it as if you were intelligent enough to understand it. They’re surprised every time it happens, and then they forget by the time it happens again.”

Leona stepped forward defensively. “He does understand it. He wouldn’t have known to say it in this context if he didn’t.”

“I’m just saying...”

“Just saying what?”

“That you should make sure you have cold-weather clothes. I secretly installed a teleportation relay device on the satellite. You can make a jump to it from here, but you have to wait until its orbit is in the right position, which it will be in eleven minutes.”

Leona studied her face, but less like an engineer, and more like a cop with a secondary suspect that none of their colleagues considered. “We’ll wait for the next go ‘round. All of us need to review those first contact protocols anyway.”

Sasha closed her eyes and bowed her head in feigned respect.

Four hours later, they were rested, full, and full of knowledge about how to make first contact with an alien peoples. It wasn’t as complicated or delicate as it will be in other situations. The Pluoraians knew that they originated from another planet, and were brought here as embryos to colonize a new world. They still couldn’t just stroll in there, waving their special powers around, but it was a good assignment for a group of people who didn’t all know what they were doing, and never received any training. Sasha had written a new AI program to maintain both the AOC, and the outpost, so that all seven of them could go on the mission.

It was damn cold, and they were all grateful for the added layer of a specially designed parka made from the engineering section’s synthesizer. They landed outside the entrance to the underground, behind a snow dune. Then they approached the door, smiled for the camera, and knocked. After ten seconds, the door opened up by itself. No one greeted them from inside, but it was pretty obvious where they were meant to go. They continued down the passageway until reaching the ultraviolet disinfecting section, where they were ordered to disrobe by a disembodied voice. They would receive new clothes on the other side, and their old clothes would be returned when they were ready to leave.

A man was waiting once they exited the locker room. “We have been wondering when you would come. Did you not guess that we would have survived?”

No one answered him.

He continued, “well, as you can see, the geothermal generators are running smoothly, and have been so most of the time. We did have one hiccup, which happened at the same time as The Event, but systems returned to normal within minutes.”

They looked to their de facto leader, Leona. She realized she was going to have to speak for the group. “We are not from the mainland, if that is even what you call it.” She took a deep breath to prepare herself. “Greetings from planet Earth, your home of origin. We have come on a first contact mission in order to determine the source of the...Event. Our readings indicated that you survived it unscathed, so we rerouted to your site to find out why before revealing ourselves to the general public.”

The man seemed to be trying to figure out whether she was telling the truth, or if this was some kind of prank, perpetuated by his contacts back in the motherland. “Holy eshta! I can’t believe you’re real, and I can’t believe I’m the first to meet you. My legacy will live on forever because of this day.” He started using the typical mocking voice, echoing the sentiments of those they did know. “Geothermal energy is stupid, they said. The sun’s right up there, you idiot, they said. Who’s laughing now? I met some aliens, what did you do today?”

They stood in silence for a moment, the man proud of himself for his accomplishments, and their not so obvious advantages, and the team in discomfort from not knowing what to say. “Welp, looks like we got our answer,” Ramses decided. “Geothermal power, that’s great. We better...move along.”

“Nonsense,” the man disagreed. “You’ll stay for a feast!”

“Oh, great,” they said, realizing there was no getting out of it. They figured it would be okay, as long as they were home by midnight. Except something went wrong, and they found themselves unable to transport back to the ship. They had no choice but to reveal their temporal pattern, and hope this didn’t cause problems.

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Extremus: Year 16

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Omega and Valencia transport their time shuttle to over a year in the future. It isn’t clear the exact date as the system needs some time to recalibrate. Since they’re so far from the stellar neighborhood already, drift timing data is rather scarce. It will still be another several centuries before the Topdown telescopes are in place in the intergalactic voids. They’re already mapping the Milky Way, but have sent little information about the systems all the way out here.

The situation is dire when they first arrive, though, so the two of them aren’t really worried too much about getting their bearings. They’re right in the middle of space debris. Their teleportation field is just as good as the one on the Extremus, except that it’s smaller, and closer to the hull. The inertial negators can only do so much to prevent them from feeling the effects of the collisions. “We have to transport out of here!” Omega cries.

“We don’t know how big this field is!” Valencia yells back. “Our instruments aren’t calibrated yet!”

“We have to take the risk! Computer, initiate burst mode!”

“Initiating burst mode,” the AI replies.

The engine powers up, and flings them away. Then it keeps doing that for the next several seconds. With each successive jump, the space turbulence decreases, until it seems safe enough to reenter realtime. “Computer, cease burst mode,” Valencia orders. The shuttle stops teleporting. “Assess the damage.”

“Damage minimal. Repairs underway.”

“Thank you,” Omega says politely.

“Man, that was bad,” Valencia points out. “I mean, I’ve seen the strike data, and monitored the time field’s power consumption, but you never really know what it’s like until you’re really in it.”

“Yeah, that was worse than I thought it would be; worse than it should have been.”

“Why is there so much stuff in interstellar space? This doesn’t make any sense. Nothing in what we’ve learned about the galaxy up until this point suggests that this is how it should be.”

“Computer, how are repairs going?” Omega asks.

“Swimmingly,” it answers, proving that the personality traits are at the correct and acceptable levels.

“Could you do something for me at the same time? Could you map the space debris we were just in to as great a degree of accuracy as possible? You have permission to transport us closer to gather the necessary information. Obviously stay at a safe distance.”

“Understood.”

The shuttle makes a couple jumps back towards where it came from, and gets to work on the three tasks: mapping space, mapping time, and effecting repairs. In the meantime, the humans make sure that the quantum replicator is working. Omega has a simple cup of fruity yogurt, and Valencia tries some chicken fingers and fries. Then they replicate the second one again when Omega finds the first one smells too good to pass up. It’s not too terribly long before the computer is finished with the data Omega requested. They stare at it for a moment, in shock. “Computer, I trust you, but...”

“This is one hundred percent accurate, Captain Raddle.”

“When did I become a captain?”

“Thirty-four minutes ago.”

“Fair enough,” Omega decides, feeling no desire to argue the chain of command.

“This isn’t a field of space debris,” Valencia complains. “This is a tube! A chain!”

“The Extremus is flying right through it. What, is the ship exerting a gravitational force?”

“It shouldn’t be, and I think we would have known. But it can’t be that anyway. Look, that one got knocked a little away from the group, but it’s on its way back. They’re regathering into a...formation!”

“Like fighter jets?”

“Like fighter jets.”

“My God, it’s manmade.”

“We’ve been flying through a gauntlet this entire time, devised by an enemy we know nothing about.”

They look at each other, and simultaneously say, “the True Extremists.”

She shakes her head. “They are far more powerful than we thought. I don’t even know how you make a space debris gauntlet. To command that much persistent gravitational force with no obvious source, I...what the hell are we gonna do about this? Extremus cannot continue on its present course.”

“Major course corrections require a majority vote by the entire crew, and the passenger population. The special election would be run entirely by the civilian government, and right now, we can’t trust them to do the right thing. If we put that up for debate, we’ll lose, and probably lose any chance of putting it back on the table later.”

“What do you suggest we do? We can’t just sit here and not warn the ship. It hasn’t been working, we’ve been winning, but who knows, it could get worse down the line. They have to know how much greater a risk it is than we realized. If an intelligence made this, it can learn to change tactics.”

Omega checks his watch symbolically. “Barring a complete administrative takeover, Ovan Teleres will be out of office by 2294. Perhaps we jump to then, and warn them of the problem.”

Valencia shakes her head again, but this time in disagreement. We don’t know his replacement will be better. They could be just as bad, or even worse. Plus, Captain Yenant’s shift will be over, and we have no idea who will be replacing him either. That person could also be terrible. The First of Nine is the only person on that vessel we know we can trust. We have to risk going back now, and hoping he has a good plan.”

“Or we don’t go back at all.”

She squints. “What are you thinking?”

“If we can figure out how Oaksent is generating a massive enough gravitational field to attract that debris, along a continuous path, even after the Extremus passes through the area, without being detectable by standard instruments, we might be able to simply switch it off.”

“I doubt anything like that is simple.”

“Well, you know what I mean.”

She sighs. “A black hole is unstable, and not, like, long. They are invisible, though. Theoretically, you could tap into the gravitational pull of something like that, merge it with another point in spacetime, like famed spatial merger, Kayetan Glaston, and multiply it along the path.”

“That’s how you would do it?”

“If I were a psycho, yeah, probably.”

“So we just need to find the merge point,” Omega figures.

“Like I said, it wouldn’t be a point, it would be more like an edge.”

“So, even easier to find?”

“Maybe not. Maybe it can’t be disabled from here. It’s possible we would have to go to the source. I mean, I don’t know how we would possibly get there. It obviously can’t be as easy as flying into the debris, or the Extremus would have accidentally slipped over to the other side ages ago. It’s likely unidirectional.”

 “Which means that it’s sending us data, whether it wants to, or not. Let’s get closer, maybe land on something sufficiently large, and study it. If it takes us a hundred years, then so be it. We knew what we signed up for. Even if we end up having to fly to the singularity through realspace, then that is what we will do.”

Valencia nods. “That’s what we’ll do.”

The computer found them a candidate asteroid with plenty of hydrogen for perpetual fusion. They focused the teleporter field for direct shots, rearranging the rock as necessary to enclose their selected crater into a dome. They built a pressurized habitat with a breathable atmosphere, duplicating the carbon scrubbers to cover the area. Here they lived for more than two decades, propelling the entire asteroid as needed to study different parts of the anomaly, trying to figure out where exactly all this gravity was coming from. By the time they did, they had themselves a full-grown son.

When Omega Parker was first created in the lab, he wasn’t given a name, but a number. He chose to call himself Omega, because he felt he was entitled to a personal designation. His progenitor’s name was Saxon Parker, so Omega has always just used that as his own last name too. It’s never really felt like him, though. After he and Valencia fell in together—which, admittedly, likely had a lot to do with a lack of options—they both decided to change their names. They would become Valencia and Omega Strong, and their son would be Denver, after the town that Saxon grew up in.

Denver was always a bit of a problem child. They tried to give him everything he would need to become a well-adjusted adult, but virtual environments, and artificial friends, have just not been enough. They have decided that he doesn’t need to be part of the next mission, and there is only one place that can both understand him, and help him. Fortunately, they designed a way to get him there.

“Why can’t I see?” Denver asks.

“I don’t want you running home when something upsets you. This is going to be a good place, where you can learn to be a functioning member of society.”

“I am a functioning member of society,” he argues. “I’ve been cleaning sensor arrays since I was nine. I did my first spacewalk when I was eleven. I think I have this life thing figured out.”

“Life on the asteroid is different than life with other people. Your father and I have not been able to raise you properly. It’s time that changes. Think of it as a boarding school. You remember reading about those?”

Denver rolls his eyes. “Of course, mother. I’m not an idiot. I don’t need school. I’ll be smarter than all of those kids combined.”

“Don’t be so sure of that. There are billions of people on that planet. They each have their own story.”

“Great. So one of them will be able to break through your Nexus’ access restrictions, and allow me to come back whenever I want.”

She smiles. “I’ve rigged your phone so you can call. Time is synced between us, so if you call in fourteen hours, it will have been fourteen hours for us as well. If we decide you need to come home, we’ll get you home. But you don’t need the address.”

“How do you even have an address in the first place? When someone builds a new Nexus, how does it get its own address code? How does the network even know?”

“You have to build the machine to the proper specifications, and if you’ve not made any mistakes, a multiverse god called The Intentioner accepts you into the network, and assigns you an address. That’s why all Nexa look pretty much the same.”

“A god, really? I’m fifteen years old, you think I still believe in fairy tales?”

“Well, they’re real, and I had to reach out to them for one-way brute access to Dardius, so be grateful.”

“Cool, so actually all I have to do to come back is talk to this Intenioner guy, and ask him to brute force the other direction.”

“Their pronouns are they and them.”

“Whatever.”

“This is exactly why we’re sending you there.”

“And why will I be going back in time? Why can’t I just show up in 2309?”

Omega is finally back from his scouting mission in the future. “Because we don’t know what the planet looks like at this point. We know who is in control of the planet in the 23rd century, and we know that they’ll help you.”

Denver puts on that pouty face that usually gets him whatever he wants.

“This is happening, son,” Omega continues. “Now say goodbye to your mother, and get in the chamber.”

Still angry and feeling abandoned, Denver steps down into the machine. Up in the control room, Omega inputs the address for Dardius, since Valencia can’t bring herself to do it. With each button press, Denver realizes there may be a loophole to his predicament. There are four ways to engage the machine. You can select a destination from the computer, using whatever graphical interface you have access to. You can use the simple keypad, which is of a universal design. If you’re smart enough, you might be able to initiate a trip by essentially hot wiring it from inside the guts. This would allow you to go to absolutely any Nexus you want, even if access has been restricted. But that requires a genius level of intellect enjoyed by very few.

In any case, all methods are actually happening at the same time, including the fourth one. Eight of the sides inside the chamber pit are equipped with the sixteen unique address glyphs, which would allow someone to kick them for direct dialing. This will, in fact, override any other method, allowing the actual traveler to decide where they want to go, rather than whoever happens to be in the control room, or up in the secret engineering section. Denver doesn’t want to change to a different address, even if he were cognizant of a different destination. But what he realizes when he gets to Dardius is that the glyphs light up on the other side too, but in this case, they show the outgoing address, like caller ID. Knowing this, he should be able to return at will. Except he can’t, because his home isn’t there anymore.

His parents stare at the now empty chamber, saddened by their decision. “We have to go, Val,” Omega says. “He could try to come back at any moment.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?”

“We both saw it. He destroys the Extremus. We can’t let him set foot on that ship, at any point in the future, or the past.”

“This is our fault.”

“Yes, and that’s why we’re responsible for fixing it.”

“We’re not fixing it. We’re just...handing him off to someone else.”

“If we didn’t have a mission, we would be able to go with him. Maybe someday, we will. Or rather, we have. I choose to believe that. Now come on, we have to make our way to the source.”

Still sad, Valencia follows her baby daddy to their original time shuttle. They fly out of the debris field, and jump back to the past without watching their home, and the Nexus along with it, explode.

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Microstory 1745: Lizard’s Tree

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Let me tell you about my father’s last day alive. We knew he had been sick for a long time, but we kept having reason to hope. Treatment was working well in the beginning, and then it wasn’t. A promising new drug came on the market, but it didn’t seem to work for him. A new drug trial went underway, so we tried that, but it had no effect. Of course, he could have been taking the placebo the entire time. A different trial began a couple of years later, but he ended up not qualifying. He chose to stop treatment a month before he died, wanting to spend his last remaining days lively and pain free. According to my mother, he wanted to spend his actual last day with me. On TV, when parents are asked which child is their favorite, they always either say they love each of their children equally, or they’ll give a real answer, and it’s because they’re a villain. It’s a little weird in our family. My dad loved me just a little bit more than his other five children, and no one has ever seemed bothered by that. I’m a lot like him, in most ways, and the others were more like our mother. Except for the eldest, who isn’t like any of us at all. As far as I know, they all just accept that I’m the special one, and don’t take offense to it. Every family is different, I guess, maybe we’re just a little more honest with each other. Anyway, he called me Lizard, on account of its similarity to my real name, which I trust you can rightly guess. The day he died, he said, “Lizard, come with me. We’re going for a drive.” I’m the one who drove, but he directed me to the middle of nowhere, and asked me if the tree before us wasn’t the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I looked around us, and saw plenty of trees, but none close enough, and none that stood out. He laughed, like it was a prank, but he quickly returned to his serious but calm look. He gestured towards the ground, and told me that it once stood here.

This is what he said about the tree that was. “While your mother was pregnant with you, Lizard, she was reading a book about the world’s cultures. She discovered that people from different countries practiced the same tradition of planting a tree when their child was born. We had already had two of our own by that point, but we still decided to start doing this for however many we had left, which ended up being four.” I told him he meant to say three, but he was scared to respond to that, and I think I understand why. He went on, “your younger brothers’ trees are closer to the house, but your tree used to be here. We planned on showing you when you turned eighteen, so it could be one of your gifts, but we all know I’m not gonna make it another seven months. I wish we had brought you at least two years ago, before a drunk driver ran off the road, and crashed right into it. No one was hurt; not even him, but your tree was destroyed. I choose to believe there’s a lesson here, even though a mound of dirt is not what we had in mind for you. The tree was supposed to represent your life, but if that were true, you would be dead right now, instead of me. I hope what this shows you is that you are exactly as strong as you think you are. You made it through most of your schooling, you made it into a good college, and you’ll get past my death. I love you, Lizard, and there is nothing that can change it, no matter how many drunk drivers fly down that road. I need you to believe that you can take care of yourself, because I can’t go in peace if you can’t.” He went back to the car real quick, and returned with another small tree in a pot. “You can plant as many new trees as you want, but never forget that you...are irreplaceable.”

Microstory 1744: Indus

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I’ve lived next to the border my whole life, and I’ve always questioned why it’s there. I once asked my parents what was on the other side, but they always started to shiver, and couldn’t answer me. I continued to press as I grew older, never asking the same person twice, and they all gave me the same non-response. They were afraid of going over there, but could apparently not vocalize why. I once wrote a letter to a friend, asking them to pick a random time in the future, and ask me what I thought was on the other side. Perhaps being the answerer felt different than being the asker. Two years passed before I gave up. I’m sure she got the letter, and I’m sure my words were enough to scare her into forgetting she had ever read it. I feel fine. It looks so normal over there. We have trees, they have trees. Animals make their noises over here, as they do over there. How could it possibly be so special that we’re not even allowed to so much as talk about it? I fish on the bank all the time, but even when I’m alone, someone will run out and scream at me if I wade in the water too far. It’s like nearing the center sounds some kind of alarm that everyone can hear but me. I saved up all my money for years until I could buy a spyglass to get a better look, but all I can see through it are trees. The forest is too dense, no matter if I go up or down the river. I have become an adult today, and I’ve resolved to finally do something to satisfy my curiosity. I’m sure someone will try to stop me from going, as they always do, but now I have a little more agency. Now I can choose to ignore them. I pack some provisions, and head out in the middle of the night.

I’ve never liked following rules, or limiting myself to where people think I should be. I know that the other side of the river is safe. If I can just get over there, and come back, that will prove it to everyone else. I just have to figure out how. The farthest I’ve gone is about a quarter of the way there, and the floor had already started to drop. It’s possible—likely, even—that I will not be able to reach the bottom. I can’t swim, of course. The nearest lake is in the next village over, so no one thought to teach me. I think I can float, so maybe what I’ll do is just move my arms a bunch until I get close enough to stand again. I imagine it doesn’t matter exactly where on the other side I walk out. It’s all forbidden, according to the others. I step into the water, and freeze for a moment, afraid that someone will run out and scream again. They don’t usually do it this soon, but I’m still worried. It shouldn’t matter. I’m doing this, whether they like it or not, so I better just get on with it. I’m more than a quarter way there, and standing on my tippy-toes. Instinct kicks in, and I think I kind of am swimming. I wouldn’t win any races like I hear about them doing on the big lake that’s a two-day journey from here, but I’m surviving. I’m halfway there now, and so proud of myself. Suddenly, my arm runs into something. It’s smooth and hard, and it’s not just in the water. It feels like a wall, except I can’t see anything. I just see the river, and the forest behind it. I tap on it first, but then I start to pound. Harder and harder until it changes. The forest and the sky flicker, almost like torchlight, giving me glimpses of this invisible barrier. I keep striking it, eventually realizing that it’s not invisible at all. The wall is what’s here. It’s everything else that’s an illusion. There is no other side of the river. We’ve been trapped in some kind of giant prison this entire time. Now there’s only one thing left for me to do. I continue to float down the river, hoping to find an opening through the border.

Microstory 1743: Water Snake

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I went hiking yesterday afternoon, in the jungle. It was only meant to last a few hours, but it ended up being an overnight affair when I ran into a sea serpent. I thought she might try to attack me, but instead, I led her back to the ocean, where she could swim and be happy. I might even call her my friend. I slept on the little beach that night, just out in the open, content that the experience turned into so much more than just getting a few extra steps for my fitness app. I’ve just woken up, and I’m hungry. I ate all of my snacks last night before my sandy slumber. I almost feel like I’m on a remote island, somewhere far from civilization, and have no choice but to figure out how to fish with my bare hands, or hunt rabbits with a flexible stick and some string. I can actually hear a truck driving on the mountain side above me, so I’m not too far from other people. My sea serpent and I just used the most direct route yesterday, so I take a few minutes to find the actual trail. I do not want to have to crawl through the vegetation again, even if it would possibly be quicker. It’s a struggle, walking down the path, the hunger growing worse by the second. Mother always says to pack twice as much as I think I’ll need. Father always said I’ll only ever need half, so don’t suffer the weight. I always split the difference, and go with my gut. Now my gut has turned against me, screaming across the abyss. I have to find something worth eating somewhere around here. I’m not liable to find a diner in the middle of nowhere. If I do see a diner, I’ll know the hunger overpowered me, and it’s nothing more than a manifestation of my desires, carried over to limbo from the living realm. Just when I think I can’t be too far from help, the trail ends. It just stops at the shore of a lake. Oh no, I am dead, but this isn’t limbo. I just went straight to hell. I could keep walking, or turn around, or learn to fly, but it wouldn’t matter. I’m never getting out of here, and I’m never getting food.

I stand there for a moment, ready to surrender to my fate, when a familiar sight appears before me. A snake slithers out of the water, and stops a meter away from my feet. He watches me carefully, but does not seem concerned. Like last time, I don’t move. The sea serpent never hurt me, but that doesn’t mean this one won’t. He looks a little more dangerous to me. Perhaps I should try to run this time. Before I can, he begins to slither off into the grass. I take that opportunity to walk in the other direction, but he quickly darts back, and gets in front of me. We regard each other a little more. When he’s satisfied with whatever he thinks he was accomplishing, he slithers away again. I try to leave once more, but he does not like that. He starts to circle me, and I know he’ll bite if I try to go in the wrong direction. Seeing no other choice then, I head in the direction he was going. This prompts him to stop circling, and slither beside me. After several more steps, I realize that he’s leading me somewhere. Is he that smart? Could he really know where the city is, and that I need to get there? Well, his saltwater cousin seemed to possess a shocking level of intelligence, so what do I know about what animals can really do? He keeps slithering next to me, but a little ahead, and I keep following him. If he ends up taking me to a giant Indiana Jones-style pit of hungry serpentine brethren, I guess I’ll just deal with it. Before too long, I see straight lines through the trees up ahead, suggesting some kind of man-made structure. The water snake leads me right into the clearing where I finally see where we are. My God, it is a diner.

Microstory 1742: Sea Serpent

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I don’t move at first. I have no idea whether you’re supposed to run away from a serpent, or stand still. Maybe she can’t see me if I stand still? I try to reach for my phone, but that seems to freak her out. She darts her head towards my hand, so I pull back. She relaxes a bit. I try to take one slow step backwards, but she doesn’t like that either. She seems to feel most comfortable with me where I am, and her where she is. I don’t get the impression that she plans on hurting me, but she considers any movement to be a sign of aggression. I notice something a little funny about her, since all I can do now is watch, and pray I don’t become the prey. I’m no serpent expert, obviously, but I’ve never seen one with such a flat tail. I can’t imagine that she can slither very well with that thing. Perhaps it’s meant to brush leaves and grass out of the way? No, that doesn’t make any sense. She’s already passed over any obstacle by then. Maybe it’s there to hide her tracks from predators. This sounds like a decent evolutionary advantage, though I would hardly call her worthy of being anyone’s meal. She perked up when I had to clear my throat. I doubt anything could sneak up on her, whether they were following tracks or not. I look around, careful to move my head as little as possible, and sniff the air. You know what, I think we’re pretty close to Danaid Inlet. Oh, that must be what that flat tail is for. She’s not a land serpent, but a sea serpent. That’s also probably why she’s so on edge, because she’s not close enough to water. I couldn’t say how long she can stay on land, so it could be indefinite. Or she’ll eventually die, and I’ll be able to walk away. No, I don’t want that. She’s not doing anything wrong. I want to save her.

I look up to get my bearings. I’m a little lost, but I know the direction of the ocean. The inlet is to the Northwest of here. Hoping the serpent doesn’t decide to just attack me on the spot, I move a little towards the water. She moves to match me. She doesn’t get closer, or farther away. I move more, she mirrors me again. I keep going, always keeping my eye on her as she follows. The trek is rough. I’m sure the trail will eventually get us there, but who knows how long that would take? I just want to get to the water as fast as possible so this girl can get back to her life. I’ll find my way home after that, once I’m finally safe. She continues to slither next to me as I’m trudging through the brush, and over the rocks. I would be embarrassed, but the serpent seems just as awkward on land as I am. Also, she’s an animal, so I don’t think she has the capacity to judge others. But what do I know? She appears to be following me to the inlet, like she knows she can trust me to lead her there. After a few hours, we’re on the beach. I did it. I can’t believe I actually did it. Now she can go off to where she belongs. She doesn’t move, though. She just sits there, staring at the water like she’s enjoying the beautiful view as much as I am. I step closer, she matches, just like she has been. I take a few more steps. She slithers again. I’m starting to think she thinks I’m her mother, and we’re supposed to go in together. All right, fine. I’m already cold and tired; how is getting wet gonna make things worse? I wade in, and she gleefully slithers in next to me. Only then does she seem to realize she knows how to take it from here. After a splash—which my headcanon has decided to categorize as a sea serpent’s way of saying thank you—she swims away. I step out of the water, and sit on the sand to watch the sunset. I fall asleep there, dreaming of serpentine friends. I awaken with a little unexpected new perspective.

Microstory 1741: The Clock

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I hate this clock. It reminds me of the worst years of my life. When I was a child, my foster parents would time everything I did. Homework, chores, umm...well, I guess there isn’t a third thing on that list, because those were the only things I did. I suppose showering isn’t a chore, but that was timed as well. They said they were getting me ready for the real world. Apparently, in their jobs, every task they completed was measured and recorded, and that was how they got paid. I asked them a few times, did they get paid more for more complicated tasks, but they said no. The rate didn’t change at all. The point was to keep track of when they were working, and when they weren’t, such as when they were walking to the location of the next task, or using the restroom. They were expected to be at work for ten hours a day, but they only get paid for their recorded time. They were so proud of themselves. Other workers recorded an average of eight and a half hours of actual work, which meant an hour for lunch, and another half hour for the in between times. My foster parents, however, averaged nine hours and forty-five minutes. They said they organized tasks so that it was easier to switch from one to the other, they literally ran when they had to, and they...well, let’s just say they weren’t too careful when it came to their bathroom breaks. They sometimes saw that as an opportunity, because even though janitorial services weren’t technically in either of their job descriptions, they could still get paid for cleaning the facilities. The word diaper was thrown around once or twice too. They actually acted like I should aspire to be as hard-working as them one day. I never bought into it. I don’t worship the clock.

My parents are dead now. They left this world with nothing, and not just to spite me. They worked so hard in their jobs that the company didn’t want to promote them, and they didn’t want to be promoted either. A promotion would mean a salary, and more freedom than they could have handled. They hated their bosses, who didn’t work hard enough, and focused too much on their personal lives. My parents didn’t have lives of their own. They were too exhausted when they got home that they ate their dinner, read something boring, then went to bed. After I came into their lives, they had to squeeze in a lot of strict overbearing criticism, so they couldn’t read as much anymore. When they were too old to work, since they didn’t have any hobbies, they had absolutely nothing to do. You can ask the professionals what killed them, and they’ll give you a scientific answer, but I contend that they died from the realization that their lives were always pointless. The company where they worked for forty-five years closed shortly before the deaths, because they too were old-fashioned, and ultimately meaningless in a world that moved on without them. So here I am with virtually nothing. My parents were in so much debt that the bank had to repossess nearly everything they owned. Fortunately, it seems to have covered it, so I won’t have to make up the difference. They even managed to leave me with one thing: this damn clock. It represents the futility in work for work’s sake. It spins around in circles, and never goes anywhere. Yeah, I hate this clock, but I also need it. For as much as it pains me to see every day, it’s also a consistent reminder of what I don’t want to be, and how I don’t want to raise my own baby boy, who’s scheduled to make his debut in three months. It shows me that time only means anything when we use it to enjoy doing the things we love, with the people we love.