The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 11, 2369

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The soldiers escorted the team out of the conference room, and down to the nearest hock. Even Kennedy was forced to go, though they were redirected somewhere else, presumably because the military didn’t know if they could be trusted, but they wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. Nobody padded them down, or recorded their information. They just stuffed them in the cell, and walked away. One guard was left behind to keep an eye on them, and that was exactly what she did. She literally stared at the lot of them the entire time. Mateo didn’t ever catch her blink once, leading him to believe that she was some kind of transhuman, who had other ways of moisturizing her eyeballs. It’s the little things, really. Science fiction has all these grand plans about gargantuan spaceships, and ubiquitous renewable power, but the tiny inconveniences are so often overlooked, because they’re not sexy, or impressive.

Leona looked at the LED tattoo timekeeper on her wrist. “Has anyone tried to go back?”

Hrockas abashedly raised his hand. “I’ve tried. It didn’t work. Sorry, I wasn’t really intending on abandoning you here, but...”

“It’s fine, Hrockas,” Leona said. “They obviously have some kind of signal jammer that’s preventing us from casting back to our real bodies.”

“Of course the hock has that,” the guard agreed.

“What’s your name?”

“Infinity,” she answered.

“Infinity, how long do you reckon they’ll keep us here?”

“Reckon?” Infinity echoed. “Depends on how far back in the past you’re from, m’lady.”

“Three hundred and forty years,” Leona responded plainly, not expecting her to believe it. She turned to the group. “Honestly, I don’t know what happens to us at midnight.  I don’t know if these bodies disappear, or if our real bodies do, and leave us behind, or if our connection to them is permanently broken. Maybe we’ll automatically cast back when it happens? I wish I could give you some answers.”

“The most likely answer,” Ramses began, “is that you and Mateo jump. Not only did Pryce program your bodies with your original salmon pattern, but I’m fairly certain that there is a neurological link as well. The rest of us will probably stay here, while our bodies go with you, because they’re still wearing cuffs, leaving us to wait at least another year to get them back. I don’t think the cuffs are sophisticated enough to account for that neurological component.”

“I would go with them too,” Angela revealed.

“What?” Leona questioned.

“Yeah, Pryce programmed my post-resurrection body to be just like yours. Did I never mention that?”

Leona and Mateo shook their heads. “No.”

“Yeah, I’m full-on one of you,” she explained.

“Oh.” Was that good or bad? Angela needed to decide that for herself, and her facial expression was not giving it away.

“Should we be talking about any of this?” Olimpia asked. “What with the cameras, and Infinity standing right there.”

Leona sighed. “I just can’t care anymore. We’re thirty years out from The Edge. Whatever, close enough.”

“This is the military,” Kivi reminded them. “They know how to keep secrets. It’s entirely possible that the timeline already accounts for all of Teagarden knowing about us for three decades before the general population finds out.”

Leona sighed again. “I guess we just sit and wait.”

“What happens to me while you’re gone?” Hrockas asked, still nervous.

“Probably torture,” Ramses answered unapologetically.

Several hours later, they received their answer, and it was a weird one. They did not simply return to their bodies, but their bodies came to them. They blinked, and found themselves in the same cell they were in before, but their base models were collapsed on the floor next to them, and their consciousnesses were back where they belonged. They looked like themselves again. Infinity was still watching them, almost like she didn’t see a difference. Perhaps she had also suppressed the facial recognition software in her brain, or was born with prosopagnosia. No, that didn’t matter. There were now twice as many people in here. Even Hrockas transferred back, which was weird, and didn’t make any sense. Infinity nodded at them for a moment before lifting her watch to her lips, and speaking into it, “they’re back.”

Leona approached the bars, and took hold of two of them, like any good falsely imprisoned person. “Who are you talking to?”

“Someone who demands to know what hell is going on.”

A man in formal military dress opened the door and walked in with the thick air of authority. He cleared his throat, and sized them up. “My name is General Bariq Medley. We have been waiting for this for a standard Earthan year.” He opened an arm toward the door. “Come on in.”

Kennedy walked in reluctantly. “I’m sorry. I told them everything I knew. They have...sophisticated ways of getting people to communicate.”

“Hey, Kennedy...” Leona said before a long pause. “Don’t worry about it.” She looked back at Medley, and conceded to the truth. “So now you know, General, that our...bodies...somehow...transport back to us...spontaneously? I don’t really know what happened, actually. Perhaps you can explain.”

“That’s something that you don’t need to worry about,” Medley replied.

“Your ship is here, and she teleported you back,” Kennedy managed to spit out quickly, scared that it might be their last words.

He was mad, but not in an I’m going to kill you kind of way; just a we’ll talk about your punishment after dinner. Wash your hands first kind of way. He seemed relieved that the talk would go faster now that he didn’t have to dance around the truth. “Well, I was going to lead up to that after getting a few more answers, but fine, I’ll show you my cards. Kennedy explained to us what she could, and we pieced together more from others we discovered within our ranks who you apparently call...humans?”

“You’re not all humans—it’s an outdated term—but yes, because muggles was taken,” Leona said.

“I suppose that outdated is a relative term for people like you anyway. I must say that I’m impressed, managing to hide yourselves from the general population for...”

“Literally billions of years,” Leona filled in with a smile.

“I’m only eighty-three years old, I might have figured it out on my own had I been around back then.”

“Sure.”

Medley cleared his throat again. “As Kennedy was trying to say, your ship showed up two months ago. We have some pretty smart people. They didn’t come up with our plan; they came up with yours. After careful thought and discussion, we figured out what was going to happen. Your ship’s AI was going to teleport your bodies down to wherever your consciousnesses were. I assume it’s not like Star Trek, and she couldn’t simply lock on to your location,” He said with airquotes. “Our quantum casting system comes with a subroutine that defaults every consciousness to its primary substrate if it comes within a hundred meters of the substrate that it’s been cast into. Why do we do this? Well, I’m not sure it matters anymore. In fact, I think it’s probably stupid, and I don’t remember the last time it even came up, but it’s a carryover from a very old version of the technology. We’ve all seen a mirror before, but early test subjects found it to be...eerie, standing next to their old bodies. It was moderately uncomfortable for some, and freaked others out completely. Developers decided that never the selves shall meet. Again, things are different now, but no one thought to delete that subroutine, because casters are generally either separated by light years, or their old bodies are destroyed en route to the upgrade. I’m not sure how Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida handles it.” He gave room for someone to have some kind of reaction.

No one said a word. Hrockas coughed, which was weird, because he was the only one still wearing a cloned body, and those didn’t suffer the same daily bodily limitations as normal people.

Medley went on, “knowing all this, your ship teleported your bodies down to the cell, which are tagged. Your consciousnesses, which we kept dormant for the last year, then reverted to those tagged bodies. I’m sure your ship intended to teleport you out, but there’s one thing she didn’t know, so she couldn’t do it immediately.”

“She didn’t know how long it would take,” Leona guessed.

“That’s right,” Medley confirmed. “She had to leave you down here for a few minutes, just to make sure it worked. That was more than enough time for our forces to disable it, board it, and commandeer it.” He shrugged. “Even if you had transported back, we would still have you in custody.”

“For what?” Leona prompted.

“A mission,” Medley said.

“What mission?”

“The mission you were on before you came here. We wanna know what happened on Pluoraia, and several other star systems in the neighborhood.”

“It’s still happening?” Leona asked rhetorically. “You’ve lost contact with other worlds?”

“Yes. Pluoraia wasn’t even the first. We were keeping the bug quiet, because admitting it existed would probably lead us down the path of admitting that Quantum Colony is all real, and not just a game. We were not prepared to do that, that’s our bad. Now we need you to fix it.”

“Why us?” Leona asked, not trusting him. “You don’t know anything about us personally. Kennedy couldn’t have told you that.”

“We’re not in the business of stealing spaceships, and yours appears to be the fastest in the galaxy. As far as we can tell, the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez flies the flag of Proxima Doma. We would ask them for guidance, but something tells us that not even they know what you are.”

“I’ve never met a single Proxima Domanian in my life,” Leona disclosed. Étude and Vitalie didn’t count. “Do you even know where we’re going?”

“We do not know exactly where the Source is,” Medley admittted. “But we know that it’s being controlled from a system a hundred and eight light years from Earth. Our number one priority is to protect The Seed and The Heart of Civilization, at the cost of all other worlds, if need be.”

“Okay...”

“The Power Vacuum is moving at light speed, in a beam. It doesn’t spread out in all directions. It’s been targeted at Earth. We believe that Pluoraia was just...in the way. It will arrive in 2418, taking other systems with it in the meantime, including the Gatewood Collective. Now that I think about it, I’m guessing you know who lives there. It’s always been above my paygrade.”

“No one lives there now, they abandoned it,” Leona replied truthfully.

He nodded, tabling that for a later discussion. “Since it’s a beam, you can fly around it, and still get there in time. We know you have redundant power sources, and according to the data that my boarding party has been transmitting to my brain this entire time, you’ve even already gone through it, and survived.”

Leona took everyone’s vital signs real quick. They all nodded their agreeance to the proposal. “We’ll do it, under a few conditions, the first one being you get the fuck off my ship.”

General Medley tilted his brainchip down. “Done. Anything else.”

“Yeah,” Mateo finally spoke up after saying nothing the whole time. “Shut the game down right now.”

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Extremus: Year 19

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It’s been a week since the new administration took over governing responsibilities within the passenger population. Ovan has not been doing too well with it. He was extremely excited when he first decided to switch over to the crew, and become the first Second Lieutenant. This excitement waned soon after they announced his choice, and revealed to all that he would no longer be Passenger First Chair. Many were happy for him, but others saw it as a betrayal. He wasn’t open about how much he hated the crew, but his most loyal followers were well aware of his position. He now looked like a traitor, so they immediately turned their backs on him. He figured he would be able to hold onto them no matter what cause he fought for, but that was a gross miscalculation. As far as he’s aware, his former loyalists all lost interest in the movement, and have forgotten all about it. It’s hard to tell what they’re thinking, or what they’re doing, because the passengers don’t talk to him as much as they used to.

Still, Ovan tried to remain positive, and was hopeful that his new position would grant him the power he would need to execute real change on this vessel. The induction ceremony they threw for him was well-planned, but not very many people showed up, so it was a disappointment. Those who came didn’t seem to show that they felt the same way about it, but he expected gobs of fans, all cheering him on. Perhaps he never really had any fans at all. Perhaps they only voted for him in the first place because he was different, and not because they agreed with his political positions. Perhaps he’s been wholly delusional regarding his status amongst the people.

Still, Ovan tried to remain positive. He read up on the bylaws, and figured out what his duties were. They didn’t say much about what a second lieutenant was responsible for, but he assumed that would be a good thing. If they didn’t specifically spell out what he was allowed to do, then they also couldn’t preclude him from deciding what his own limitations were. If he was clever, maybe he didn’t have to stop being the ad hoc passenger chair. It’s not like the crew are really this completely separate group that doesn’t interact with the passengers at all. They can make decisions too, and if he could ingratiate himself with the new administration, he might be able to be the power behind the throne, so to speak. Unfortunately, his former Second Chair, who took over for him as First Chair, would have nothing to do with him. They weren’t friends, but they had grown accustomed to each other. According to election procedures, the runner up in any major election automatically secures the leadership role immediately below the one they were going for. Then, if their superior can—and chooses to—run again as an incumbent, the subordinate maintains their job as a running mate, instead of being replaced by whoever loses. Harper seemed content in this role, but he has turned out to just be another power-hungry asshole who was more than happy to fill his seat.

Still, Ovan tried to remain positive. He wouldn’t necessarily have to suck up to Harper for too long, because the election was coming up, and someone else could be elected. Yes, Kondo Harper swiftly announced that he would run for election, but that didn’t mean he was going to win. After all, he lost his first attempt at the election six years ago, so hopefully the electorate would remember that. Once a loser, always a loser, Ovan always says. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. Mother-effing Kondo Harper won his second official campaign, and became the third passenger chair of Extremus. This jerk could actually lead the passengers for the next twelve years, and due to Ovan’s premature abdication of the throne, he could potentially be the longest-lasting passenger chair ever. That would be unbearable, knowing that Kondo-Freaking-Harper might outlast Ovan ‘Rockstar’ Teleres. The history books would not be suitable as toilet paper if that’s what they ended up saying.

Still, Ovan must remain positive.

Right now, he’s sitting in the Consigliere Irenaeus Corten’s office. He’s an advisor to the government—more often than not, the higher executives—and was largely responsible for making this entire mission happen, and for advocating for passenger rights. The captain has the Admiralty, and the first chair has the Consigliere program. At some point, Corten will retire, and personally appoint a replacement. The assumption is that he’ll choose from the pool of still-living former chairs, but there are no laws regarding this. Technically, he could select a nonverbal baby to succeed him, and no one would be able to stop him. Word is he’s going to be retiring in the next couple of years. That’s why it’s so important for Ovan to meet with him. He’s already made the decision to get his chair back, but if that doesn’t work, he’s still planning to quit the crew, and he needs something to look forward to.

Irenaeus walks in from his cabin. “Mr. Teleres, I will say that this meeting is highly irregular. Or should I say, Lieutenant Teleres.”

“No, please, call me mister. Actually, I would rather you call me...Chair.”

Irenaeus laughs. “Don’t hold your breath.”

“I’m stepping down,” Ovan claims. “And I’m running for reëlection.”

“You’re trying to get back into civil service? After eight months? Is that even legal?”

“You tell me, you wrote the laws.”

He was clearly just being ornery. He leans back a little, and sighs. “It is.”

Ovan smiles like a politician. “Can I count on your vote?” This is something that the consigliere can’t do. This is exclusively an advisory position, and he sacrificed his official voice when he took the job. He’s the only person on the entire ship who can’t vote under any circumstances, in fact. Even Admiral Thatch can vote on crew matters.

“I imagine you mean my support?”

“It would go a long way.”

“I dunno anymore. Harper doesn’t listen to me, not like you did.”

“All the more reason to get him out. Work with me here, Irena.”

“Same old Ovan, always plotting.”

“I’m a shark, I can’t stop. I took this job because I thought it would give me more power.”

“If you had asked me before you accepted it, I would have told you not to do it. I can’t believe those two morons managed to trick you into it. I thought I taught you better.”

“They didn’t trick me! I just...didn’t know what a second lieutenant was.”

“That’s exactly what tricking means!”

“Well, I have time to get out, and I’m asking for your help. I’m not gonna go through with it if I have nowhere to go. At least second lieutenant is a title.”

“Ovan, I can’t guarantee you the first chair position. Harper has a lot of clout now. I probably couldn’t even get you a mailman job.”

“There is something you can guarantee me.”

The Consigliere knows what Ovan means by that, and he’s quite plainly not happy about it. Again, it’s not a real law, but there’s an unwritten rule that you do not ask to be considered for his replacement. It’s considered bad form, but Ovan’s desperate. The conversation has been rather light until now, but Irenaeus’ face changes dramatically.

Ovan quickly jumps back in, “before you say anything, remember that I didn’t actually ask anything of you.”

“I know what you want. Just speak freely.”

This feels like another trick, but he has to do something. Everything he’s tried has failed. He shouldn’t have been so focused on destroying the crew. It has proven to be his downfall. But the thing about falling is that you can always get back up. Ovan has to get back up, and keep fighting. “I am the best man for the job. No, I didn’t serve as long as Ebner, and I may not be as popular right now as Harper, but since when does any of that matter? I didn’t have any experience when I ran in the first place, but I think I proved more than capable of being a strong and powerful leader. And the consigliere job has never been about popularity.”

“No, it’s about respect, and you don’t have much left.”

“Well, just because you lose respect, doesn’t mean you can’t get it back. Let me show you I can get it back.”

“How would you do it? I can’t appoint you if you’re on the crew, so you would have to quit now without having one foot on the dock. You’re probably gonna get wet before you reach land again. You said you were a shark, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you swim.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sort of lost in this metaphor.”

Irenaeus rephrases, “how will you fare with no official power? How much can you control the population if you’re one of them; if you’re just another idiot passenger, with a tiny cabin, and no teleportation privileges. Your boy, Yavo managed to steal the mess hall from the crew, and gave it to the civilians. He was nobody, but he still took what he wanted.”

“He did that on my orders.”

He responds quickly, “but the people didn’t know that! They respect him, because he told them to, not because you did! I need to see you do something like that yourself. If you want the seat from under my ass, you have to show me you can take it...by taking something else first. We’ll call it an audition.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“It’s your job to figure that out...and it’s your job to get it done. Quit the crew, go back to the passenger section, and then climb out of your hole with your bare hands. Then—and only then—will I entertain the idea of selecting you to backfill my job after I retire.” He holds up an index finger. “Or...stay where you are, and take what you want from that side of the ship. I honestly don’t care which. Just between you and me, I haven’t so much as started writing a short list of potential replacements. I don’t even know when I’m gonna step down, if ever. There’s no law that says I can’t die in this office.”

Ovan leads a moment of silence, soaking in the Consigliere’s words of wisdom, and thinking about what he wants to do. They just sit in their chairs, staring at each other. After five minutes, without speaking, Ovan stands up and leaves. Irenaeus doesn’t say anything either.

He heads to the bridge, where both Captain Halan Yenant, and First Lieutenant Mercer happen to be. There are no viewports here, because if you tried to look outside, all you would see is the blinding doppler glow of maximum sublight reframe speeds. Instead, most of the screens before them are relaying ship critical information, like power levels, heat dispersion, and life support systems. The center screen is different, though. It’s presently showing the Second Lieutenant’s avatar in a video game called Quantum Colony. He’s been trying to get the Captain into it, but the latter remains disinterested. Ovan must admit that the two of them have been cordial with him. Despite the trick that put him in this position in the first place, he hasn’t felt rejected or excluded by any of the crew. They appear to be professional and welcoming. Perhaps he misjudged all of these back in the day. He’ll have to remember that when he’s Captain.

“Lieutenant Teleres,” Halan begins. “You’re here just in time to watch Mercer show me yet another thing in the Delta Tri system that I don’t give a shit about.”

“Interesting,” Ovan lies. He too doesn’t give a shit about any of this. He steps over to the security guard presently assigned to the bridge, who’s as engrossed in the game as anyone else. Quickly, but carefully, Ovan removes the guard’s sidearm, and before anyone can do anything about it, shoots both Mercer and Halan in the head. Then, to protect himself, he holds the gun against Admiral Thatch’s head. He’s been assigned to run the stupid lights, so Ovan doesn’t feel threatened by him, but everyone else would be really butthurt if he died, so he’s a good hostage. “Everyone get the hell out of here right now. I feel like I don’t have to tell you the consequences of not complying. Am I wrong?”

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Microstory 1760: Ouruana

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Depending on who you ask, Orion and his accessories are composed of eighteen major star systems. These are the ones that make up the shape of the constellation, and aren’t just in the vicinity somewhere. His belt is the most famous component, but he also has a sword, a shield, and a club. As my ancestors were looking up at the stars, they saw these images, and used them to help navigate the world; in particular, the oceans. Their movements were predictable, and reliable. Way back then, they believed that the stars in any given constellation were close to one another, but of course, we now know that they aren’t. Some of  them are a couple hundred light years from our point of origin, which is Earth, and some are well over a thousand. Still, my peoples were reportedly mesmerized by Orion, and saw no reason to not create a relationship amongst the individual stars that are not there naturally. When the Earthans began to spread out to the stars, a special group of colonists decided to focus exclusively on the stars in this one constellation. Now, centuries later, every one of the major systems has been settled, and falls under the rule of the Ouruanan Empire. Not all systems came with terrestrial planets, so in those cases, we built them ourselves. That has been my job for my entire adult life, to help construct an entirely artificial world orbiting π6 Orionis. As a planetscaper—as we’re called—my reward will be my own home on the colony, free of charge, and a steady income for the rest of my life. It won’t be glamorous, but I can find a new job if I want to, and upgrade later. I’m not sure about that yet. I’m a simple man, so I don’t need much, and just the excitement of knowing that I’m partially responsible for the land beneath my feet may be enough for me.

I’m in a stadium of thousands. Our leaders are about to announce if we’re considered done yet. Of course, we’ll continue to build as our population grows, but at some point, they have to decide that we’re officially on a real planet, and not still in the main phase of the process. “Thank you all for coming,” the Foreman begins. “I know you have all been eagerly awaiting the results of our assessment. Can we call this a finished planet, or is there more work to be done? Obviously, the work is never over, so what you’re really asking is, can you retire? I’m pleased to announce that your efforts have not been in vain, and that the main phase is indeed complete.” The crowd cheers, grateful to finally live their lives on a fully constructed world. Most of us probably won’t set one more foot on a spacecraft or space station. We’re ready to breathe an atmosphere held in place by gravity, and swim in the lakes. The Foreman holds up his hand, instructing us to quiet down. “Unfortunately, I’m not sure you’ll want to live here anymore. You can, if you want—it’s your choice—but it’s not going to last you very long. As you know, we are at war with the Taurans. The Emperor is interested in testing a new weapon that his top researchers have devised that is capable of destroying an entire planet in a matter of minutes. Due to the interstellar rules of engagement, we are only allowed to test weapons in our own territory, lest we want to incur the wrath of the Constellation Alliance. They’ve chosen our humble planet as their target. Destruction is scheduled for two years from now. We apologize for the inconvenience.” Two years, huh? That’s more than enough time for me to perfect my orbital defense satellites. If they want to test that weapon, they’ll have to go against me. The Ouranans may be going to war with itself.

Microstory 1759: Snake Handler

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When I was back home from college one summer, I had the most profound experience of my life. I was out in the jungle, just trying to get a little exercise, when I came across a sea serpent. Like she was at least somewhat intelligent, she followed me back to the ocean, where she was able to swim freely and safely. As if that wasn’t enough, I slept there that night, and woke up hungry. On my way back to civilization, I found another snake. He was apparently fit for freshwater, and this time, he led me to where I needed to go, which was a diner out in the middle of nowhere. Until this point, I was studying environmental chemistry, but that all changed. I quickly dropped all of the courses I was planning to take that next semester, and switched tracks to herpetology. I wanted to study amphibians and reptiles, particularly snakes, and I got pretty lucky. I was surprised to find that my university offered a herpetology degree, which is rather unusual for it to be so specific. It was hard to change focus, and I did have to stay there for a whole extra year to complete all my courses, but I don’t regret it. Did you know that birds and mammals are technically reptiles? Well, it’s a lot more complicated than it sounds, but it just shows that classifying our world is constantly evolving, and we don’t have everything figured out. I don’t even know all there is to know about snakes, and I know quite a bit. What I’ve realized is that I can commune with them on a level no one else has ever seen. They don’t talk, like they do in those fantasy books, but I can form a bond with them, and gain their trust. I can handle any of the planet’s deadliest snakes, and they will not harm me, because they know that I won’t harm them. I don’t know if I was born with this gift, or developed it later, but it has made me extremely valuable and sought after in my field. My colleagues affectionately call me the snake handler.

Snake venom has the potential to treat numerous diseases, which could save thousands—or maybe even millions—of lives. I’m not the person who comes up with these treatments and cures. The first step in such research is procuring the venom in the first place, and that’s where I come in. Not only can I handle the snake in the lab, but I can find who I’m looking for in their natural habitat with ease. Over time, I’ve honed my hunting skills, which are just as supernatural as my communal bonds. You need a blue Malayan coral snake? I got you covered. What about a South American bushmaster? You know I got you. Anything, anywhere, anytime, I’m your girl. You can’t call it dangerous when I’m around. I have not met a snake that I cannot handle. I travel all over the world, collecting specimens that my clients requested, and delivering them to the labs. I don’t do business with unethical organizations, and I don’t wipe my hands clean after I’m done. I return periodically to check on my snakes, and again, they can’t talk, but I know if they’ve been mistreated. It’s happened a handful of times. I take the snake back, charge them a mishandling fee, and blacklist them in the industry. Most of the time, one or two researchers have been the problem, but I have been known to shut down entire companies for not adhering to my strict rules. If I say they’re bad news, they lose funding. Right now I’m in the Star Mountains, on the trail of a Papuan taipan, when I sense something I’ve never felt before. It’s forcing me on a detour, where I quickly come face to face with a purple snake that I’ve never seen, even in pictures. I think I just discovered a new species. The problem is...I can’t seem to form a bond with it.

Microstory 1758: Octant Rule

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Growing up, I had seven friends. We all moved to the brand new neighborhood at around the same time, but we were of all different ages. We decided to call ourselves the Octant, and didn’t realize until we were older that the word octet made much more sense. By then, the name was established, and changing it would have felt strange. Besides, it’s unique to us, so I think it’s for the best. You think you’ve heard this story before. You think we’ll have some dark secret about something bad we found one summer, or that time we killed a drifter. Nothing like that happened when we were kids. We had our ups, and our downs, but for the most part, our lives were unremarkable. I will say that, while I wouldn’t call any of us nerds, we did have a shared interest in understanding. Or perhaps it was more about the younger ones wanting to maintain relationships with the older ones. They would teach us the things they learned in school, so that when we got to that point in our respective educations, we already knew a lot. It wasn’t enough for any of us to skip a grade—well, one of us did, but she probably would have done that anyway—but it did help make school a little easier. It did not come without its downsides. We learned about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree in elementary school, but our eldest explained that this was a lie, and our teachers did not like being contradicted. In the end, growing up together isn’t even the most interesting part about us, though. How our relationships managed to hold together like welded metal is what’s really interesting here. We still have each other’s backs. I would never call us evil, but we don’t always use our positions for good either. I’m the worst.

We each developed our own interests, and these led us down our career paths. We’ve helped each other along the way, and not just the elders for the younger ones. When I say we, however, I should really be saying they. They all have their lives together, and I’ve always been the odd man out. Two are in law enforcement; one being a cop, and the other a federal agent. Two joined the military; one stayed in, and the other leveraged his experience and clout to go into politics. The last three are a corporate executive, a lawyer, and a doctor. They’re all in positions of power, and I’m just an underemployed nobody that the others should have started to ignore years ago. Underemployed may be the wrong word to use too, because I’m actually not qualified for anything better than the odd jobs I’ve found. They’ve had to help me out of so many jams, I can’t count. I’ve been driven to crime on numerous occasions, but have rarely suffered consequences. I’m reckless and stupid, but I’ve always had the best medical care in the world, and I get it for free. The CEO keeps trying to give me a job in her IT department, but I don’t want to disappoint her, so it’s easier for her to just give me money whenever I desperately need it. I’ve done so many dumb things, even as an adult, yet I remain inside of the Octant. I’ve never even heard whispers of them kicking me out, or simply ghosting me. I really wish I could just find some way to pay them back, and contribute to the group. I mean, I’ll never be President of the United States, but maybe I can infiltrate a street gang or cult, or...I dunno, carry extra ammo for a secret elite antiterrorist strike team? That’s a bit of a stretch, but there has to be something I can do to show them that their efforts haven’t been wasted, and that I appreciate all they’ve done for me. I suppose I have enough time to think before my lawyer returns from vacation to get me out of jail again.

Microstory 1757: Norma’s Kitchen in a Box

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Marjorie Norma did not invent 3D printing, but she was instrumental in standardizing it. And when her competitors came for blood, she ended up on top, because she still had the best product, and brand loyalty. The science of additive manufacturing was still in its infancy when she started working on it as a pet project. She knew that speed and sophistication were going to progress on their own, and that all she had to do was keep up with it. She was focused on how people would begin using such things in their home. This meant that industrial synthesizers, and biomedical synthesizers would be less useful to most customers than food synthesizers. For the most part, she found that the current machines were either very large, or very small. Many of them were designed with a specific result in mind, or had unfortunate limitations. If people were going to place these things in their homes, they needed to be versatile, and be capable of making more than just a single pastry at a time. It was never going to transition from a novelty item for people with a disposable income to a ubiquitous household appliance, unless anyone could download any program, and print anything. She got her idea when she walked into her kitchen one day, and looked around. By the entrance was the refrigerator. It took up the most space, and it wasn’t always full. She also had a stove/oven combo, above which her husband had installed a microwave oven. Then there was a sink, and a dishwasher. She owned a fairly small kitchen, and she made pretty good use of the space, but she wasn’t much of a cook, and neither was anyone else in the house. What if she could put everything together, or almost everything? She kept looking back at that fridge. Yes, it was the largest, but it was also the most important. A lot of foods don’t require any cooking, but they all require storage, unless you want to go to the store every day. Some people do that, but it’s not very efficient, and that lifestyle isn’t marketable. There was a solution, and she could find it.

She used that refrigerator as the basis for her new design, knowing that most living spaces were capable of accommodating it. Some units were only large enough for a mini-fridge, but people who lived in such places already knew how to make sacrifices. The top of her design was a water tank. It didn’t necessarily fit in every space, but it would be optional, and customers could connect a waterline either way, just like they would for that refrigerator. Under that would be where the cartridges went. Here she took inspiration from the toner bottles in the copy room down the hall from her office. For the synthesization cavity, she found herself limited by the dimensions of everything else, but it was still larger than the capacity of any standard oven, so that was more than enough. Since the cavity is where her users would be retrieving their food, they couldn’t put this on the floor, but at a reasonable height, which meant everything below it could be dedicated to storage. She chose to include a utensil drawer, and then an extra cartridge cabinet. All told, she figured that a fully stocked synthesizer could feed one person for about six months. Her original model did not include a dishwasher, but later ones did, allowing customers to keep almost an entire kitchen in the space of a refrigerator. It could be programmed to make just about anything, cool food, heat food, and supply water. What more could a normal person need? Well, they needed tools, and they needed organ and tissue replacements. She started to work on those machines next.

Microstory 1756: Bee of Paradise

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I’ve moved past the most traumatic experience of my life, and I’ve been able to reach some semblance of normalcy. I can’t say that it no longer affects me, but it at least no longer consumes me. I have prosthetic feet now, and while I can’t feel sensations down there anymore, I can walk just fine. I don’t even tell people my situation anymore, because it’s not relevant, and they can’t tell. I’m happy now. I have a better job than before, with better benefits. My boss calls me her busy bee, so she forced me to take a vacation, which is why I’ve agreed to this island getaway. I still find it rather difficult to trust others, which is one reason I’ve come alone, but I decided that I’m okay with that. This is about recharging my batteries, and remembering what I want out of life. It goes well at first, but then I start to get a bad feeling as I’m walking around the resort, and my excursions. I can’t point to an actual reason for my spidey senses sounding sirens, but I don’t think I’m imagining it. There is an evolutionary advantage to detecting the presence of a potential threat even when you can’t pin it down. Something or someone is out there who doesn’t want to be seen.  They’re watching me, and making me nervous. I keep telling myself that I might just be paranoid, but the sirens don’t go away. I really don’t think I’m making this up. I can’t ask for help, of course, because what is who going to do? The staff isn’t qualified to suss out a hypothetical stalker, and the police never help. I have no proof, just my instincts. I try to shrug it off, but the feeling grows worse, and I catch a glimpse of a shadow every once in a while. Finally, I cancel all of the activities I had planned for one day, and lock myself in the room. It’s not enough.

Presumably having decided he’s ready to show himself, my stalker breaks down the door, and enters my room. I didn’t come with pepper spray, or anything, so I’m helpless to fight him off. I head for the balcony, but I’m on the eleventh floor, so I don’t know where I thought I was going with that. It’s him. It’s the one who abducted me from my own home, and burned my feet so badly that they had to amputate both of them. They said they caught him, and he committed suicide by cop. How could they have been so wrong? Did they not look for evidence after the incident? Did they just assume they shot the right guy, and let it go? Who did they actually shoot? Obviously I shouldn’t be worrying about any of this right now; I just need to get away from him. I don’t know how he found me. I don’t even know what he wants with me, or how he knows me. But I know it’s the same man, and I know I can’t just run away. I won’t let him hurt me again, though. I’m going to fight back. I’m going to fight back hard. Not doing that before has been my greatest regret, and while I can’t go back in time and change it, I can do better this time. First, I scream. No one comes running before he manages to cover my mouth with his gloved hand, but that doesn’t mean they never will. It’s the off-season, but there are plenty of other guests here, and hopefully they’re not all at the bonfire. My attacker is stronger, so it’s not hard for him to overpower me, gag me, and start dragging me down the emergency stairs. My right foot gets caught on the edge of a step, and falls off, which gives me an idea. When we’re on a landing, I swing my left leg up, and take hold of my remaining foot. Hitting him once in the face is enough to get him to let go. Then I start bashing him over and over again until he stops moving. Only then does someone come to my rescue, but it’s too late. This time, I’m here to make sure he’s dead.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 10, 2368

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Hrockas and the Quantum Colony moderator, whose name was Sjualotl, were able to hang out in the quantum terminal in the Pluoraia system for a year without anyone getting suspicious, since disappearing for as long was not uncommon in this time period. They didn’t like it, but to them, it was less of a violation of their rights, and more of a medium-level inconvenience. Now, try to hold them for another year, and things could get dicey. Fortunately for them, the situation should be resolved by then. When the team returned to the timestream after their interim year, they immediately prepared to cast themselves to their next destination, which would hopefully give them answers as to what this whole rat maze immersion game was all about, and whether it was ends-justify-the-means understandable, or totally nefarious.

Teagarden was a terrestrial planet of comparable surface gravity to Earth. It orbited its red dwarf host star in a matter of days. Teegarden’s Star was named after one of its discoverers, and this obviously inspired the planet’s name too, like many other colony worlds in the stellar neighborhood. There was technically a second terrestrial planet in the same system, but it was far less hospitable than Teagarden, so it was reserved primarily for resource mining. Make no mistake, like nearly every other damn exoplanet in the neighborhood, Teagarden was not naturally habitable either; its Terrestrial Habitability Similarity Index rating being far below something that people called open sky standards, which was exactly as it sounded. If you couldn’t stand on the surface without a vacuum suit and breathe on your own, it didn’t have an open sky. Teagarden was a particularly poor candidate for geoengineering, which meant it would probably never have an open sky. As far as the neighborhood radius went, only Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida fell into the first class, though with enormous caveats, while Bungula was the only one in the second. Planets like Pluoraia were far, few between, and coveted.

Teagarden’s population was complicated. It was not open for colonization, but limited to those selected, or approved, for very specific purposes. Colony was probably a strong word for it, and perhaps should have always been called an outpost. Notably, it was designated predominantly for military personnel. This military was unlike anything Earth had in previous eras. There were no more nation states, paramilitary operations, separatist radicals, or corporate security firms. There was the greater good, and there was the individual, and the only time any sort of authority was called to action was if one threatened the other, or themselves internally. As of yet, no two planets harbored any hostile sentiments towards each other, but that was not outside the realm of possibility. The Teagarden Fleet was created in order to be ready to quell any such eventuality, should it ever come to pass. That was why they built it on another planet; so that it did not appear to have any preference over any one world. Technically, soldiers were being trained to fight against some kind of alien threat as well, but a few of the higher ups had relationships with time travelers, who assured them that true aliens did not exist.

“Is that all?” Olimpia asked once the presentation was over.

“I hope not, this is fascinating,” Angela said.

“I think that’s all you need to know to get your answers,” Sjualotl said. She was being a cooperative hostage, and God willing, not lying.

“Well, we need to know how they’re going to react when we show up,” Leona said.

“I can help with that,” Ramses said.

“Something that Team Keshida told you in one of your secret correspondences, no doubt,” Mateo sort of joked.

“They weren’t secret, I just didn’t mention them,” Ramses defended himself. “I figured you weren’t telling me about your conversations either; not just that you weren’t having them. And no, not with Keshida. Hokusai and Loa, they also had relationships with Teagarden, and the Earthan government. There’s a protocol for making contact, which will allow us to jump the line, and speak directly to someone who knows what we are, and what we do.” He didn’t say anything else.

“Okay,” Leona urged. “What’s the protocol?”

“Oh, these three don’t need to know it.” Ramses gestured towards Sasha, Hrockas, and Sjualotl.

“Oh, honey, I was in charge of your communications, I know everything already,” Sasha said.

“Fine, those two.”

“Agreed,” Mateo said, defending Ramses too. “You’ll take point on this one.”

Angela took a half step towards Sjualotl. “This is all great..as long as she’s being honest with us, and people with guns don’t kill us as soon as we wake up in the pods on the other side.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Kivi revealed. “I’ve been there. Well...one of me has.”

“Anything to elaborate on?” Leona asked.

“Nah, I wasn’t there long,” Kivi answered.

“Anyway,” Ramses began, “if they do shoot us, our minds will just revert to our real bodies. There’s a difference between an avatar cast, and a full cast.”

“That’s, um—uhh,” Sjualotl said before regretting even making a peep.

“What?” Leona demanded. “Tell us.”

“A long time ago there was this movie called Surrogates,” Sjualotl continued, knowing that backpedaling now would just make things worse for her.

“I just watched that,” Olimpia said in excitement. “This will be the first time my consciousness has ever occupied another body, so it seemed fitting.”

Mateo looked over at Ramses, unsure whether he had ever done it either.

His friend picked up on his psychic message, and nodded his head. He was from what Mateo would call the future, but not this far down the timeline. He must have done it for some reason other than visiting another planet.

“Well, there’s a plot point in that movie where someone has a weapon that can kill casters. It doesn’t just kill the surrogate body, but the mind of the person who is occupying it at the time. Teagarden has that, and no one else knows, and I probably shouldn’t be telling you.”

Angela shook her head to dismiss the concern. “So, if we’re killed in the Matrix, we die in real life. How is that any worse than the risks we take every single day?”

“She has a good point,” Mateo said.

Sjualotl shrugged it off. “Okay.”

“All right, on that note, Sasha...?” She clapped her hands once. “Load the program.”

The six of them cast their consciousnesses to avatar substrates in one of Teagarden’s many quantum terminals. They normally wouldn’t be able to get past the access restrictions, but Ramses knew how to break through as part of that protocol Hokuloa taught him. When they woke up in the pods, just as Angela warned, people with guns had those guns trained on each one of their heads. They instinctively held up their hands to show themselves as a non-threat.

Ramses was coolest of all. “Dougnanimous Brintantalus,” he uttered with feeling. Mateo wasn’t sure why he could tell that it was Ramses, since they were all now wearing the exact same base model, but when he looked at him, he just knew that it couldn’t be anyone else.

“Oh my God,” Leona whispered to herself. Her influence upon the timeline stretched further than she ever considered possible.

Some of the soldiers twitched, and some of them didn’t, but they all fell down like they were dead.

“What did you do to them?” Olimpia asked. She knelt down and checked one’s pulse. “She’s dead.”

“The body is empty,” Ramses clarified. “She’s not dead. She’s just in her own body, and asleep.”

“I didn’t come up with that trust password with the intention of it being used as a weapon,” Leona argued.

“And it’s not a weapon,” Ramses retorted. “Did you notice some of them twitched? Those people were cast back to their bodies, and placed under a deep sleep, while the others were already in their own bodies, so they fell asleep right here. But everybody’s fine, and we’re not gonna get caught.”

“Why didn’t anything happen to us?” Olimpia questioned.

“Because I helped load the transfer program,” Ramses replied. “The six of us are immune.”

“Seven.” A seventh base model crawled out of a pod, and like everyone else, Mateo could just tell that it was Hrockas.

“What are you doing here?” Leona asked.

“I want answers too,” Hrockas claimed. “I’m not like Sjualotl, I didn’t know what was going on. If I had, I wouldn’t have played the game. Please, just let me help you figure this out.”

Leona was about to argue, but Mateo felt compelled to speak first. “We have a shorthand, and we trust each other, so just stay out of our way, and do everything we say. If any one of the six of us gives you an order, you just do it, okay?”

“I can do that,” Hrockas said.

“Now,” Mateo went on, “how long does it take for our DNA to change our new bodies to reflect what we actually look like?”

“If we had uploaded our genetic information to the program,” Ramses began, “a few days.”

“Okay, well...fine. Where to next?”

“I know who we should reach out to,” Kivi said. “Follow me, but allow me to get my bearings first as I was here physically before, and never had to visit the casting room.”

Kivi and Ramses consulted each other, and looked for the right path. They led the team in the wrong direction a few times, but eventually found the right place. It was the office of a nonbinary coordinator named Kennedy Avantan. Kivi knocked, and then whispered that she ought to do the talking. Kennedy opened it, and displayed no reaction to their arrival, because they looked like a set of identical septuplets. “I’m Kivi Bristol.”

“Wait here,” Kennedy said. They closed the door for a moment before returning with what looked strikingly like a noninvasive thermometer. They scanned Kivi’s eye with it, and assessed the results. “Okay, come on in.”

Their main office was not large enough for all of them, so Kennedy led them to another door, where a conference room sat empty. Everyone took their place around the table.

“What are you doing here in a base model?” Kennedy asked. “Where are you?”

“Pluoraia.”

Kennedy took a moment to think about it, but wasn’t sure they were familiar. They took out a tablet and searched for it. “Is one of you Hrockas Elindir?”

Hrockas raised his hand.

“So you’ve become aware of the program,” Kennedy rightly assumed.

“Kennedy,” Kivi started, “I came to you for help, because I thought you would be a good point of contact. I didn’t believe you would have anything to do with this Quantum Colony game that toys with people’s lives.”

“That was not my idea,” Kennedy insisted. “Only a handful of us are involved in the program. Only we know what the game really is. Many in the braintrust—I suppose you could call it—wanted QC to be limited to uninhabited planets. But there was this whole debate about what inhabited even means. If we find microbes, is that okay? What about vegetation? Where’s the line? I mean, most people understand that there’s a pretty big line between a planet with life on it, and a planet with intelligent and evolved life on it, but those were nuances that some of us were not willing to entertain. In the end, the other side won, and we decided to let players visit worlds that are part of Operation Starseed. They did agree to draw the line at truly alien populations, but...” They sort of stared into space with disappointment. “...we’ve not found any of those, as I’m sure you’re all aware. I imagine the rest of you are time travelers, like Kivi?”

“We are,” Leona replied. “Does everyone in this braintrust know about us?”

“No, just me and one other person,” Kennedy replied. “It’s rather a coincidence that the two secrets intersect in this office. There’s probably another time travel-aware person on this planet who also happens to be privy to military secrets that I know nothing about.”

“Okay,” Leona said. “Let’s get back to what matters. What’s the point of the program? Artificial intelligences were sent to all of the colonies to build quantum terminals, and other structures. Why do you need anyone to cast their consciousnesses to these worlds, be they aware of the truth, or not?”

“Why do we need any crew on colony ships? Why am I in the position I’m in? Why does any human, or descendant of humans, do anything ever? We don’t have to work anymore. AIs and robots could handle literally everything for us. But if we were to take that route, we wouldn’t be anything but children. We sent people to the colonies, because that’s what the colonies are for.”

“I thought they weren’t colonies,” Leona contended, “but outposts.”

“Again, what’s the point of an outpost if no one goes there. Look, let me try to explain it another way.” They considered their argument. “Every AI that we sent on a seed plate for Project Stargate had a singular directive. Land on an orbital, build certain structures, synthesize data, and then just go dormant. None of them is creative, none of them has an explorer’s spirit. They do the work they’re programmed to do, and can only overcome obstacles that get in the way of their goals. They don’t try new things, and come up with interesting ideas. The people in Quantum Colony have picked up where the AIs leave off. One player is constructing a Dyson swarm with a design that none of us would have thought of.” She indicated herself, plus all of her colleagues. “Another is altering the orbit of a super-terrestrial to both shed mass, and lower its surface gravity, and put it within its host star’s habitable zone. The game is a way to attract people to whom it never would have occurred to work in these fields. They’re figuring it out, because—aside from the Starseed worlds—there aren’t many consequences for their actions. If we had told them it was real, they would hold back, and not take risks.”

“Someone took a big risk, and it got people killed,” Leona said accusingly.

“What are you talking about?” Kennedy probably didn’t know what happened to Pluoraia. They only read the surface information about it on their tablet.

Before anyone could answer them, more people with guns burst into the conference room, and surrounded them. “I didn’t think they would catch us this quickly,” Ramses lamented.

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