The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 14, 2372

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Like all the various shuttles in the Orvilleverse, the Tahani looked like a smaller version of the Jameela Jamil. It was just as exquisite and powerful, but with a lower capacity. The four not-so-qualified people on the team waited until the next year showed up before making the jump to their destination. Or series of jumps, rather. Burst mode topped out at one jump per second, but it was possible to make it go slower to protect the integrity of the engine. The ship was fully capable of piloting itself, which meant no one on board needed to understand how it worked, but it was still safer to be cautious. If something went wrong, there would be no one around to effect repairs. Still, it took them less than a half hour to make their way out of the intergalactic void, and into orbit around a planet called New Earth. When Mateo questioned the unoriginality of the name, the computer informed them that it was just a placeholder until a real name could be conceived.

Operation Starseed was launched alongside Project Stargate in order to plant new human-based life on various exoplanets. There were all sorts of ethical and logistical considerations that dictated which worlds would become part of the program, and which would be left alone. The complexities of this went beyond any single entity, even a general artificial intelligence. Technically, any celestial object capable of accommodating a ship landing on it could be modified to harbor any life necessary. This ruled out stars, blackholes, neutron stars, magnetars, and the like. It did not rule out planets, moons, asteroids, meteoroids, and comets. Even a house-sized object could be terraformed in the loosest sense of the word. Spin gravity and pressurization allowed for just about anything to become habitable. Even so, not every single object was a candidate, again for a multitude of reasons that no single individual understood in its entirety. Every seed plate responsible for its particular region of interstellar space held within it the ingredients for starseeding, but not every one of them will ultimately be activated. It all depended on what Teagarden and Earth decided through their complicated flavor of socio-political and scientific discourse.

New Earth was a perfect candidate for starseeding, because it demanded very little modification. It enjoyed a 0.989 ranking on the Terrestrial Habitability Similarity Index. It didn’t really get better than that without getting as good as Dardius, which they only found in another galaxy. After some thoughtful research, leadership chose New Earth as the home for a special initiative. There were a number of ways they could play it when they seeded life on a world. How involved, and how protective, they were yet again depended on factors no one could hope to comprehend. The people of Pluoraia, for instance, were aware of their alien origins, but were not in communication with the homeworld. That had yet to change, even after Mateo and the team made first contact. Other outposts would not even be that connected. Perhaps the rarest of these would be New Earth protocol. The first generation of humans, which were expected to undergo no genetically adaptive source variant, would be raised by skinjob androids, and once they matured, would be left completely alone. No quantum terminal, no access to historical records, no rumors of space colonization. They would have to come up with their own language, their own customs, their own governing system. If they failed and died out, then they failed and died out, and no one would be allowed to interfere in any way.

No one would be allowed to intervene with the New Earthans—or whatever they ended up calling themselves—unless they became a Class IX Threat, which meant they compromised the prosperity of the entire galaxy. That won’t happen for a long time, if ever. Until then, the B-team was being charged with protecting the future of New Earth from what appeared to be a measly Class VI Threat, while the A-team continued to solve the issue of a Class VIII. That was not to undersell it, though. The first generation of New Earth hadn’t even begun developing in their little gestation pods yet. This wasn’t scheduled to begin for another 27 years or so. Whatever the Quantum Colony players who found this place first were doing now, it could endanger that population. They had to be stopped, and the B-team were the only ones who could do it. The Tahani AI scanned the surface of the planet, and found no signs of technology. That was all relegated to the quantum terminal, which had set up shop on the moon.

“Are we ready,” Mateo posed, “to find out what’s going on?”

“Are you the leader?” Olimpia asked.

“I should be,” Mateo answered in perfect deadpan. “I’m the smartest one here.”

They all tried to hold out as long as they could, but the laughter fell out of them like a waking volcano.

“Between Angela and Kivi,” Mateo went on as he was securing his shoe tighteners.

“No thanks,” Kivi said quickly.

“Nose goes,” Olimpia said to Angela.

“We’re all in charge,” Angela contended. “Let’s just get to the quantum terminal to find out who is here, and what they want.”

“Good idea, boss.” Mateo dropped his face shield, and hovered his hand over his teleporter. He made eye contact with everyone, making sure they were ready to go. They nodded accordingly, and then simultaneously jumped into the facility.

It wasn’t long before they had to use their sonic disruptors. In the next room, several people attacked with projectile weapons. Their bullets never landed where they were meant to. Everyone on the team was wearing a banish-suit. It produced a teleporter field around the wearer. Anything moving at sufficient velocity was instantly transported to the farthest point possible from dense matter. If they were on a planet, that might be the open sky, but here, it meant the vacuum of outer space. Banish-clothing was nothing flashy. As far as the attackers were concerned, their bullets simply missed. Teleportation arrival notwithstanding, the team wasn’t authorized to reveal the truth about salmon and choosers to these people.

Once they were all disabled and unconscious, Mateo was assigned the role of tying them all up to the console. He could say this much about himself, he was the physically strongest in the group, whether that was his only useful attribute, or not. The other three searched the rest of the facility to make sure no one else was here. Then they returned, and waited for the prisoners to wake up.

In the meantime, Kivi got to work on the quantum terminal to see if she could get it back online. Angela was old, and had a lot of experience, but little of it involved computers. They were available in the afterlife simulation, but difficult to learn accurately, since the only reason the art of programming existed was because it was the closest thing people could get to adapting their world to their whims, which the simulation itself provided. It was kind of like sticking your straw in a shot glass that was dropped in a picture. Not really any point to it.

A few hours later, the first of them awakened. They didn’t say a word at first, and neither did the b-team. Mateo watched them, though, to see what information he could gather from their body language. One of the prisoners regarded the b-team with such disgust that he had to be the enforcer of the group. Most of the others couldn’t help but drift their gazes towards one man, while he looked around at them to make sure they were okay. Him. Mateo reached down, and pulled the leader up from his collar. He set him down in a chair, and rolled him away from his friends. “What are you doing in this terminal?”

“This is ours,” the leader guy replied. “What are you doing here?”

“Official business from Teagarden,” Mateo responded.

“Hmph. You don’t look like a strike team. You don’t move like one either.”

“Why would they send a strike team?” Mateo asked. “They don’t want to hurt you. Why did you not return when you were recalled?”

“This is our home now.”

Okay. “What is Quantum Colony?”

“A lie.”

That was probably enough for Mateo to guess that he understood it wasn’t really a game. “Are you aware that the terrestrial planet in this star system has been chosen as the birthbasket of a new race of humans, and is to remain untouched by vonearthans for the foreseeable deep future?” He worked very hard to memorize that argument, so he wouldn’t look like an unqualified idiot.

“If they wanted it to remain untouched, they should have excluded it from the game,” the leader argued with airquotes.

“I do not believe that they were aware of their own plans until it was time to make them. Either way, you broke the rules, you tampered with the quantum terminal. That alone is enough to ban you.”

“Ban us from what, the game? We established that it’s not a game at all. Only morons believed that.” The truth was far easier to glean than Teagarden seemed to have given their players credit for. “We don’t have the right to stay here because we claimed it for some make believe immersion reality game. We have the right, because we got here first, and we established lives here.”

Kivi stopped what she was doing for a moment. “No, you didn’t. The terminal itself was here first, and it didn’t just build itself out of magic, did it? No, it was constructed by an AI, which would have first claim above all others. You had to take this place from it. The fact that it probably didn’t fight back is irrelevant to the property law.”

The leader guy smirked. “I would never fight against my friends.” With that, he split his skull in several parts, revealing gear, wires, and other such computer components inside where his brain would be if he were an organic entity. Once they saw his guts, he closed everything back up. He made no move to free himself from the chains, even though he was surely strong enough to do so.

“Don’t lie to us,” Angela insisted. “Are you the artificial intelligence that landed on this world, and engineered the technology in the solar system, including the quantum terminal, and the satellites?”

“That’s me...self-aware me.”

“I don’t know how to tell if you’re lying,” Angela reasoned.

“I don’t think he is,” Kivi said. “Like Sasha, I’m seeing a record of the AI uploading itself into a mobile substrate. I can’t say that this is it, but...”

“What does it matter if he’s an AI?” Olimpia questioned. “He’s still just a person, and Teagarden says he’s not supposed to be here.”

“They can’t say that,” Kivi began to explain. “Colony law. Realspace travel supersedes all other forms of colonization. Teagarden once communicated with this system using a quantum link. The players, which I assume these other people are, arrived here via quantum cast. Since they came in physical form, their rights would override any orders that Teagarden gave, except that they accepted the terms of service for the Quantum Colony game, which states that all worlds fall under Teagarden jurisdiction, and they don’t actually own anything. That’s how the military was able to recall even people who refused to cast themselves back. But none of that matters, because the AI—whether this man who claims to be said AI is telling the truth, or not—came here on a seed plate via Project Stargate. It came here physically, through real space. If it claims to be capable of expressing its own desires, then it is necessarily capable of experiencing its own desires. Therefore, if it desires to own this solar system, the proverbial flag that it stuck in the ground must be honored. If the four of us had come, and they weren’t here, the planet would have been ours, if we wanted it.”

“So, that’s it? There’s nothing we can do?” Angela asked.

“We can report back to Teagarden, and the government can either fight diplomatically, or start a war,” Kivi said. “That’s not really up to us. They are free to make their own decisions, and the colonists are free to do the same. If we can confirm that this man is telling the truth about his nature, then this inquiry will be over.”

“Okay, how do we do that?” Angela asked.

“Well,” Kivi started. “If he’s eager to prove himself, he’ll use his authorization codes to open the quantum terminal for casting. Then one of our people can cast their consciousness here, and...they’ll know what to do. We are not educated enough for the level of Turing testing that this situation calls for. I assume Leona isn’t either.”

“If I open casting,” the leader argues, “Teagarden will be able to send whoever they want, including an actual strike team.”

“That’s true,” Kivi relented.

“What about...?” Mateo began, not wanting to give anything away, and hoping that Kivi would realize he was suggesting they open another sustained transport closet.

“Out of range,” Kivi apologized. “At least it is if they want to keep the one between the JJ and the AOC open at the same time, which they kind of need to.”

“What about the Tahani?” Olimpia suggested vaguely.

“There are no casting terminals on the ship,” Angela reminded her.

“But there are us,” Olimpia began. “And we’re still wearing these.” She showed them her Cassidy cuff.

Mateo didn’t understand it completely, but he knew what they were saying. “I’ll do it. I’ll switch with Kestral or Ishida.”

“We’ll let them decide that,” Angela said. “You and I will be the ones who go back up there, and apprise them of the situation.”

In the end, Mateo was indeed chosen to make the switch. He was already on the Tahani, and it didn’t really matter. Kestral put on one of the extra Cassidy cuffs, and swapped bodies with him. It was weird for him, being inside of a female substrate. She wasn’t a hundred percent organic, but she sure felt like it. He might need to get used to it too. Something went wrong, and they found themselves unable to switch back.

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Extremus: Year 22

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Olindse Belo and Yitro Moralez were two of the middle of the roadest candidates on the captain’s track. They weren’t great, but they weren’t bad, which made them perfect to serve as Interim Captain and Interim Lieutenant until the first shift ended in four years. Neither of them expected to be chosen for a permanent position on the executive crew, which means it will be easier to expect them to step aside once former Captain Yenant’s real replacement begins the second shift. They understood the situation when they accepted their new positions. They aren’t radicals or tyrants. They’re not particularly popular, nor divisive. They’re fine. They’re just fine, and they should continue to be this way until it’s over. The problem is they’re only good as peacetime leaders. If they find themselves having to make the hard decisions, they may struggle with it. Halan has to take his admiral duties quite seriously, so things don’t fall apart when the True Extremists make their move. And that is coming, there is no way it’s not.

There was a larger reason why Halan and Mercer were asked to abdicate that both of them should have seen coming. As Halan’s parents, and the other elders, were coming up with the plan to form this mission, they decided upon a rule. This would be a generation ship. It was very important to them, and it’s unclear why, but it excluded a lot of hopefuls. People who never wanted to die ended up not being able to come, because they wouldn’t be allowed to undergo longevity treatments. Omega was an exception that they did not foresee, and everyone was very aware that it was the fault of no one on this vessel, so they didn’t complain. Valencia definitely broke the rules when she joined him as a transhumanist, but as a temporal engineer, she enjoyed a level of respect and adoration that would make any captain envious. People just sort of let it go, and when both of them disappeared for a secret mission, they stopped bringing it up.

Old Man broke the rules as well, and turned both Halan and Mercer into transhumanists without them even knowing it. It was their staterooms. He secretly modified their rooms to absorb their consciousnesses in realtime, even when they weren’t in those rooms. Had either of them been in a relationship, and invited their partner to spend a significant enough time in their stateroom, the same would have happened to that hypothetical person. When the two of them were murdered by Ovan, their minds were automatically uploaded to the ship’s computers, preserving them until Dr. Holmes could clone their bodies, and download their minds into them. She claims to have not known this was happening, and only received an alert about their survival a few weeks after they were declared dead. She should have been punished for having gone through with it, but political conversations not even Halan was privy to saved her job. Perhaps she has something on the Consul that has insulated her.

So none of this is Halan or Mercer’s fault, but it doesn’t change the fact that their survival threatens one of the first rules of the Extremus mission. It’s not that the people don’t trust them. It’s more that the executive crew, the legal department, and the civilian government, don’t want people to trust them. If the passengers start getting the idea that maybe it’s okay to break the rule, and become transhumanists, it will cause whatever problems they think could result from the transition. The two of them couldn’t be allowed to remain in power, whether the government and crew thought they were still fit for duty, or not. Belo and Moralez would have to do...for now.

Even after sixteen months, it’s still weird, being on this side of the desk, but Halan has accepted it, and there is no going back now. As the Consul agreed, he’s been much more involved as the Admiral than he let Thatch be. Captain Belo has been incredibly gracious and grateful for it. Her main character flaw is that she lacks self-confidence, and constantly questions her own decisions. The crew and passengers need to see someone who believes that what she says to do is the right call, even if she’s in the wrong. Surprisingly, from a sociological standpoint, people would much rather see a leader who apologizes for their mistakes than one who doesn’t make any, but always plays it safe. On a psychological level, they’re disappointed, but people don’t giveth or taketh away their support based on their personal opinions. They tend to stick with the crowd, and the crowd says take risks.

She’s been doing well, listening to the Admiral’s advice. She relies on it a bit too much, though, and that should probably stop. “I’m glad it’s Friday. I really need to talk. My Second Lieutenant has been so infuriating. He just can’t accept that he’s not in the running for captain anymore. He still thinks he has a chance. I mean, he’s not interim, like me and Yitro, so his job is safe. Not that I feel like I should keep my job. I’m fine with stepping down when it’s time. But he just keeps holding that over my head. So he’s mad that he’ll never be captain, but he basically thinks that he outranks me, because my shift is shorter. It’s like, yeah, it’s shorter, buddy, but it’s still higher. You report to me. I mean, right?” She’s a pretty fast talker too, which some might consider a character flaw, but Halan just sees it as a cute quirk.

“We have to talk.”

“Oh, no,” Olindse says. “Last time you said that, we changed from our daily meetings to these weekly meetings. What, now you only want to hold them once a month? There aren’t enough hours in the day for us to discuss everything that happened from the last month.”

“No,” Halan answers simply.

“Oh, good.”

“We need to stop having regular meetings altogether.”

“What? No. What? No. You can’t abandon me, Not now, I need you. I would have voted for you to stay as captain, if we voted for crew members. I think we can all agree that you’re still pretty much in charge, and I’m just carrying out your orders. I can’t do this without you. I have no clue what I’m doing. I don’t know why my parents put me on the captain’s track. They shouldn’t have done that. It was stupid, it’s stupid. This is stupid.”

“Captain...”

“Please don’t leave me.”

“I’m not leaving you.” He can’t help but laugh a little. “I said we need to stop regular meetings; not meetings, full stop.”

“But you said regular meetings altogether. I heard you. You said—”

“I know what I said, Captain.”

“You don’t have to call me Captain. Just call me Olindse. I keep telling you that. Friends call each other by their first names. We’re friends, right? You said we were friends. I remember that too. You said—”

“Olindse.”

“Right, motor mouth.” She zips her lips shut, and throws away the key.

“I misspoke. I want you to come to me when you’re having problems, but I want you to use better judgment for what qualifies as a problem that you can’t solve on your own. We shouldn’t need to talk every week. I trust that you can handle most issues without assistance now. Last year, Consul Vatal—”

“Consul Vatal.” She spits it out of her mouth like it’s poison. A lot of people were not happy at the announcement that Halan and Mercer were relieved of their positions. The transition would not have been smooth had they selected an interim captain that didn’t agree with the majority on this matter. Both the crew and passengers follow her because she’s genuine and real. When Halan gives her a look, her eyes widen in horror. She starts scanning the floor.

“Don’t look for the key, that’s only a metaphor. Just listen.”

She nods respectfully.

Halan returns to what he was saying, “when Consul Vatal told me he made a short list for backfill, I was concerned. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know if I could trust his judgment. Before I even looked at the list, I figured he probably pooled from the civilian population. I thought he would try to merge the government and crew. The law does not specify who is eligible for the job. Hell, he could have appointed himself. Every single person on that list was studying to become captain, or join the crew in some capacity. I was impressed, but I was most impressed by the order. You and Lieutenant Moralez were literally at the top of it. It’s one of the few things that he and I have actually agreed on over the last few years. You..belong here. You deserve this, and we all believe in you. All you need to do is believe in yourself. Neither I nor he would have allowed you to sit in that seat if we didn’t think you could fill it. When you rely too much on my advice, it’s a bit of a paradox. By not relying on yourself, you’re questioning my decision to appoint you, but if you question that, why are you listening to me at all?”

“Well, when you put it like that...”

“Olindse, I’m here for you, but not every day; not even every week. You never told anyone that you requested these periodic meetings, correct?”

“Yitro knows. Everyone else thinks they were your idea. I call it my apprenticeship.”

“Good. I’m glad that has held up. So what you’ll do now is tell them that you put a stop to it. You made the decision to stop coming to me weekly, and I accepted it. This is important, because it would be rather odd if you were still an apprentice while you had your own apprentice.”

“What do you mean?”

Admiral Yenant presses a button on his teleporter. He retained full teleportation rights when he was promoted, but he technically should have lost his summoning abilities. Only the captain should be capable of transporting someone to their location against that person’s will. The Consul partially let him keep it because he didn’t give it much thought, but also because, in the nineteen years he was captain, Halan never used it once, so he probably wouldn’t abuse it now. Besides, Kaiora knew this was coming. “I’m not sure if you two have met. Captain Olindse Belo, allow me to introduce you to Future Captain, Kaiora Leithe, Third of Ten.” She was supposed to be Second of Nine, but everything changed when Halan became a clone. The whole interim thing has thrown off the math, and this is the change that Halan insisted upon. It was an unpopular choice, but Olindse should feel that she really is an actual captain, and not simply the closest thing they have. It’s about respect. There will now be ten captains, unless something else like this should happen, at which point, it will fall to that day’s leadership to make their own choice.

“Captain,” Olindse says.

“Captain,” Kaiora echoes.

“I didn’t realize the choice had been made.”

“Ehhhhhh,” Halan begins awkwardly, “people don’t really know how we choose captains. There’s been a lot of confusion about it, but in the end, I get to just decide whoever I want. Again, I don’t have to source from the captain’s track. I did, but it was all up to me. Consul Vatal and I—”

“Consul Vatal,” Kaiora says with disgust, mirroring Olindse’s attitude from earlier, even though she wasn’t here for that.

“I think I’m gonna like you,” Olindse says.

“Consul Vatal and I,” Halan repeats himself, “weren’t sure whether the decision should be up to the Interim Captain, or me. We had a long discussion about it, and determined that I was still more qualified.”

“That’s true,” Olindse admits, “but just so you know, I would have made the same decision.”

“I figured.”

“Future Captain Leithe will be shadowing you for the next three years, and that is her official rank. The crew will be expected to show her just as much respect as they will come transition day in 2294.”

“Understood,” Olindse says. “Happy to have you.”

“I appreciate your support,” Kaiora replies.

“Great. Now come in close, the two of you.”

The three of them huddle together, and then Halan teleports them to the mess hall, which has been once again restored to its rightful place as a respite for the crew from the passengers. No one was left to argue against it. Right now, the room is full of key crew members, including Eckhart Mercer, who transitioned to the Bridger section last year; Consul Vatal; Dr. Holmes; and Second Lieutenant Lars Callaghan. He really is annoying. Even now, while everyone is smiling, and congratulating Captain Leithe on her appointment, he’s bitter and scowling. Fortunately, unlike Ovan, Halan doesn’t get the sense that he’s a threat to the safety of this mission. And he does his job well enough, which is what’s really important. After the clapping and hugs are over, the party gets underway, and it goes all night.

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Microstory 1775: Shield Ring

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I think the first hint I had that the stories I was writing were real came in 2010 when an object from my stories fell into my lap. Three years prior, I started working on a story about a group of people with special abilities. My computer contracted a virus at college, and was completely nonfunctional for at least a week, so I had a lot of time on my hands to work on the story manually. Coming up with the characters was the easiest thing to do in this manner, because it didn’t require much research, and it was mostly just a list. I ended up with one character who wasn’t born with abilities, but used found technology to complete her missions. In particular, she wore a ring that protected her from physical attack. It wasn’t something that other people could take from her, and use for themselves. It demanded constant charging from another dimension, so she had to keep injecting herself with something called indigo therapy, which kept her connected to this other dimension. Maybe about a year before my maternal grandfather died, we were at his house, looking through some of his possessions. I found a few things of his that I liked, including a basketball necklace, an Eagle Scout ring, and the shield ring that my character wore. It looked exactly as I described it, and it’s just so unlikely that I had ever seen this thing before. His mother reportedly gave it to him as a gift when he graduated from high school, but it didn’t fit his fingers anymore, so I would have never seen him actually wear it. Still, I figured that it must be a normal ring, and a coincidence, because what else would I think? I started to wear it, and it pretty soon became a part of me. It felt wrong whenever I took it off, so I never did. Remember that this thing was useless on its own, so I was fully capable of jamming my toe, and suffering a paper cut with no intervention. Otherwise, I would have realized what I had long ago. It wasn’t until 2016 that evidence really came to light, and to say the least, it was a shocking revelation. I would have died if not for this little ring. What might have killed me is actually what gave the ring the power it needed to work, and prevent the incident from killing me.

January 18, perhaps the coldest day of the year. I’m up by 6:00, and decide to go for a walk, because I guess I’m insane. I was working as a sorter for a package courier, and while I didn’t work Monday mornings, I was used to being awake that early. I also had a habit of going on urban hikes alone, because I didn’t have my dog yet. I decided to go in a different direction, and essentially let myself get lost. I could always pull up the GPS on my phone if I really needed to find my way back. I ended up at this sort of pond that looked more like a puddle. To my surprise, it wasn’t frozen over. I sat myself on a rock to rest, and enjoy the quiet. And it really was quiet. I couldn’t hear trains in the distance, or cars driving by. The only reason I could tell I was still on Earth was because of the power lines that hung overhead. There was no precipitation, so I still don’t know what happened, but one of those lines snapped, and started flailing about like it was trying to sell me a used car. I leaned back, hoping to avoid getting hit by it, and slipped. I slid and rolled right into the puddle pond. I remember it not feeling cold at all, I imagine because of all the adrenaline flowing through my veins. Hypothermia likely would have gotten me in the end, but I incurred a huge boost in temperature when that powerline decided to land itself in the water, right in front of me. The electricity burst out of it, and tried to wrap itself around my body. I didn’t have time to fear for my life. All that energy found itself channeled to a single point. My ring. My shield ring was absorbing it all for me, stopping it from stopping my heart. The amount of power the ring needed to shield me was exactly as much as it was getting from the powerline. Not knowing whether this would last, however, I didn’t just sit there in awe. I stood up, and got myself out of the water. Then I ran. I ran back to my house the long way around, because the water and the shock damaged my phone beyond repair. I never told anyone what happened to me, and to this day, I cannot find that pond, or the power lines above it.

Microstory 1774: Sculptor

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Thank you for meeting me. I’m sure, after I’m done with my presentation, you’ll see why I deserve this loan, and how big this business can really become. This bank will be pleased with the results, and I’m eager to prove myself. Okay. Parents. What is their job? Well, they’re meant to mould their children into decent members of society, who contribute to the positive good, right? Well, it doesn’t always work out, does it? Sometimes people grow up wrong. It’s not necessarily the parents’ fault, and I doubt I can do anything for those people. There’s something in their psychology or neurology that I am not equipped to handle. My business is designated for the people whose caregivers screwed up somewhere along the way. They made the wrong choices, or taught them bad lessons, or maybe they just weren’t around. These people have a ton of potential, but they’ve not learned to want to reach it, let alone actually reach it. That’s where I come in. I’ve had dozens of boyfriends over the years, and I was about halfway through them when I realized why I kept breaking up with them. I was naturally attracted to the ones you might call projects. They fell into this category of people who were messed up by their childhood, rather than having been born with problems that I’m not qualified to deal with. I fixed them. I fixed them, and then I broke up with them, and moved onto the next. A few months ago, I got curious, so I started looking them all up on social media. Every single one of them is doing great. They didn’t relapse into their old bad habits, but kept their lives going on track. I corrected their behavior, and I have proof right here. Take a look at these posts over the course of the last two years. Now, I know what you’re thinking. How am I going to make money off of this? Who will be my client base? I intend to market to girlfriends, regretful parents, and even friends. It is also not outside the realm of possibility that such unproductive people will want help turning their lives around, and come to me themselves. I’ve spoken with a lot of people already, and many of them have not been able to find help from professionals. Therapists are generally concerned with helping their patients with their internal feelings, and that’s supposed to help their behavior, but I’ve found that they’re not so great at following through with making sure that behavior does indeed change. Their patients sit in a room with them, have their talks, and then they part ways. I’m there, I’m on the frontlines. I will live with these people, and watch them go about their daily lives. I can make suggestions as they become necessary, and I can formulate exercises for them to complete. I already have a name for myself. You can call me The Sculptor, because I carve out all the unwanted character traits, and leave only the pure version of the person that my clients want to be. I’ve thought a lot about this, and I think I have a really clear business plan laid out for you, which you can read at your leisure. Until then, any questions?

Microstory 1773: Scorpion Unifier

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The virus got out. The intergalactic Martian faction that hates us for surviving in this solar system when their ancestors could not, attacked us with the same pathogen that nearly destroyed them millions of years ago. Fortunately, we were not unprepared for that to happen. We had just gotten over a practice run, from a disease that many in our population were resistant to. We were able to learn from our mistakes, and by the time a worse threat showed up, we knew what to do. We knew how to self-quarantine. We knew how to protect our most vulnerable. We knew how to hunt for treatments. We also had a lot of help from a faction of good Martians, who did not want to see life on Earth eradicated. Armed with all of this experience, and these resources, we fought back against the Scorpion Virus. The people who refused to believe in either pandemic didn’t last very long, and the rest of us were able to move on without them. The angry aliens didn’t think we would do so well, so they decided to change tactics. They mounted a full assault, forcing their opponents to come out of the shadows, and help us protect ourselves. We experienced a quantum leap in technology, and had to fight back again. Orbital defenses, interstellar ships, weapons of mass destruction. We did it to survive, but it would come at a great cost. War solves no problems, but it sure can create new ones. We were poised to make both species go extinct. Something had to be done to put a stop to it. Neither side was willing to relent, and that’s when the others showed up. When the virus first came about on Mars, two exodus ships were launched to ensure the continuity of the species. One of them went off to a new galaxy, but the other disappeared without telling the others where they would be going. As it turned out, they remained nearby, on a planet located only a few hundred light years away.

The Milky Way Martians, as they are called to distinguish them, came out of the woodwork about a year ago, and admitted that they had been following the goings on of both of our cultures the entire time. They knew that life evolved on Earth, and they knew what their intergalactic counterparts were up to. They instituted a policy of noninterference, but a new administration decided to take the government in a new direction. They basically demanded we halt all hostilities towards each other, and since they were so much more advanced than both of us combined, we had no real choice. Things have been fine between us ever since, but that is not going to last forever. Calling it a period of peace implies that there will be an end to it. As long as we look at them as other, and they us, neither of us can hope to prosper. The only way to prevent the war is to merge as one. Then there will be no one left to fight. So that is why we’re here. Everyone on this ship has fallen in love with a member of the other species. Through a little bit of genetic miracle work, we can actually have children with each other. We don’t even have to engineer the offspring itself. A simple injection makes a human more Martian, and a Martian more human. We’ve come together in a place of compatibility, and spawned a new species altogether. You’ll never guess how we figured out how to do it. It all comes back to that Scorpion Virus. It’s capable of changing its victim DNA, so we were able to harness that, and use it towards our own goals. I’m asking you to spread the word about us. Tell them. Tell them what you saw here today. Tell them something good has come out of that deadly pathogen. Tell them the war never has to happen.

Microstory 1772: Archer

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I survived, against all odds. A group of men abducted me, and held me captive in a barn. Once they were ready, they released me into the woods, and told me that they would give me a five-minute head start. They expected me to run as far as I could, but I circled back, and stole one of their vehicles. When I look back on that moment, I’m filled with regret at how disappointing and anticlimactic that ordeal was. That was my chance; my chance to see what it feels like to take a life. I wouldn’t have gotten in any trouble for it, and any of them would have deserved it. I only ran, because some idiot left the key in the ignition, and didn’t give me a choice. Had I tried to fight back at that point, it would have looked suspicious. If I had just gone for it, and ended up not liking it, at least I would have known the truth. As it stands, I feel like I don’t know who I am. Am I a killer? Am I no better than those rich bastards who liked to hunt the most dangerous game? I try to move on with my life, but these questions nag at me, and refuse to relent. I wake up one day, and find myself on autopilot. No hope to stop myself, I drive to the prison to visit the ringleader. He acts like he saw this coming. Does he see something in me that no one else does? I ask him why he did it, and what turned him into the kind of person he is. Since I’m not a lawyer, this conversation isn’t privileged, so I have to worry about them listening in. I frame my interrogation like a victim who is trying to get some closure and move past it. I get the sense that he understands why I’m really here, and he frames his responses to help me work through my existential crisis. When the hunt began, someone flung an arrow at my feet, and nearly struck me. As it turns out, this is the guy who did that. He wanted me to know that he had my life in his hands. The arrow, according to him, is the purest weapon history ever came up with. I don’t know what that means, but my attention shifts to it, and I know that I have to find out.

I start learning archery on my own. I don’t want anyone to know what I’m into, so I build a range in my basement all by myself, and let internet videos teach me the basics. From there, it’s just a matter of practicing. I breathe archery, and dream about it. It consumes my whole being, and before I know it, I’m an expert marksman. I keep wondering if I’ll get tired of it, or if I’ll eventually stop feeling the need to continue, but that day never comes. I have to do more. I have to know how far that arrow flies. I feel like a junkie, chasing after something I’ll never get. The difference is that I think I can get it. I think all I need is some better targets. Out of the dozen people who tried to kill me two years ago, one of them got an easy sentence. He cooperated with law enforcement, and basically sealed all the others’ fates. He was apparently new to the crew, so he hadn’t killed anyone yet. He’s the only one not still in prison, so I decide he’ll be my first. I can’t tell you how good it feels when I watch that arrowhead sink into his kidney. It’s like witnessing a miracle; I’m euphoric. The high doesn’t last, and I must find another. Vigilante is not the word I can use for myself, though that would be a fantastic excuse. The truth is that my experience screwed me up more than I realized at first, and I have become obsessed with understanding why those people did what they did. After killing a few random criminals here and there, I determine that I’ve been sloppy and unorganized. If I want to hold onto this feeling, I have to become something new. I form my own crew, but we don’t go after normal people. We go after the rich.

Microstory 1771: Arrow

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I know what they want; what they’re expecting. They have obviously done this before, and they know how it goes, because all of their victims have been predictable. They want to get as deep in the woods as possible as fast as possible. But I don’t know where I am, or how far I am from civilization. I could wind up heading straight for some kind of secondary base camp, where an entire regiment is waiting to finish the job. Things used to be a lot easier for me. I had a pretty cushy life, and I didn’t worry myself with the state of the rest of the world. I’m sure that’s why they chose me, because they’re angry, and I’m an easy target. Well, I’m about to show them just how wrong they are. I am not going to make it easy on them. I’m not going to run as far as I can. I’m going to hide, and find an opportunity to hunt them right back. They’re counting on the fact that I’ve been so sheltered. They think it gives them some kind of advantage over me, like they’re the only ones who are all right with getting their hands dirty. I may have less experience than them, but there has been a darkness inside me since I was a boy, and they just gave me permission to let it out. If I manage to kill any of these people in my pursuit of freedom and safety, no one will blame me for it. It was self-defense. They may have all the weapons, and probably even the skill. But I have something they could never understand: the ability to shut out my feelings, and turn feral. I’m no straight arrow, but I don’t drink all that much, because if I want to lose my inhibitions, all I have to do is let go of my grasp on the moral code that I developed to avoid getting in trouble. That’s the only reason it’s there. I don’t really value human life, and I certainly don’t value these people’s lives. If they want violence tonight, they’ll get it, and they’ll be sorry they asked.

Just as I’m crossing the tree line, an arrow nearly catches me in the ankle. They promised they would wait five minutes before they began the hunt. I don’t think they have their eyes on breaking that promise. They’re clearly a cocky bunch who have no reason to suspect that I might actually survive this. I think that was just one of them showing off his bow and arrow skills. That’s good to know. When I think I’m out of eyesight, I speed up. I run as fast as I can, as far as I can, using up nearly all the energy I can muster at once. Once a minute has passed, I stop. I turn around, and head back towards the barn, but at an angle. I walk slowly and carefully, avoiding every fallen leaf on the ground. I spend the four minutes I have left getting right back to the starting point without alerting anyone to my presence. They’re going to walk straight into the woods, thinking that I’ll be a kilometer away before they catch up to me. I start to hear their voices as I get closer. I can’t tell what they’re saying, but their tone doesn’t sound like they know what’s up. My plan is working. What I’m gonna do is make it back up to the barn, kill whoever they left behind to guard it, steal their weapons, and then go after the rest, one by one. I stay low, and peek around a tree. Hm. I don’t see anyone there at all. Did they really all go off on the hunt? What a bunch of morons. I wait for a moment just in case before bolting towards the barn, getting myself drenched in the floodlights, but not staying visible too long. I find an old pickup truck inside. Perhaps there are some weapons stored in here. There aren’t, but the key is in the ignition. This forces me to admit to myself that they left me with no excuse to fight back and kill people. So I reluctantly get in the truck, and drive to the police station two counties over.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 13, 2371

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A hundred and twenty light years away from Vendelin’s source planet—in the direction of the oncoming Power Vacuum—was a brown dwarf with tons of proto-planetary debris, but no fully coalesced planets. A quantum terminal was installed on an asteroid, but it was never part of the Quantum Colony game. It was available, like all others, but either people had come here, and decided to leave without declaring it their own, or no one had found it yet. The game was not something that most people could have played back in the 21st century. Players weren’t provided a map, or a list of star systems. Unlocking each one required solving a gauntlet of mathematical equations, and calculating the precise location for themselves. Some of these puzzles were naturally relevant, but others were arbitrarily injected into the game to make it more difficult. Because of how much effort went into finding a planet to call their own, many players didn’t bother. There were plenty of public-access worlds that their respective colonists chose to make a hub for interstellar activity. The chances that this system had simply not yet been discovered were pretty high. Leona and Ramses only knew about it, because they were afforded direct access to the complete and unadulterated database of Project Stargate sites.

Seven hundred light years away from both the source planet, and the brown dwarf was a main sequence star being orbited by four gas giants, one icy dwarf planet, and the densest boundary planetesimal cloud any of the smart people in the group had ever heard of. Being so far from Gatewood, Project Stargate had yet to reach it. They only knew about it, because the Project Topdown ships were already mapping the galaxy, even before escaping into the intergalactic void. They didn’t choose it for any specific reason, other than the fact that it was the farthest system they knew about at this point, and its remoteness was key to completing their mission.

While the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was parked on the quantum terminal asteroid around the brown dwarf, Kestral and Ishida’s ship was stationed in the void. The Jameela Jamil was commissioned to replace The Emma González as Team Keshida’s primary mode of transportation since the latter was donated to Étude Einarsson, who needed it to search for her daughter. Goswin, Weaver, and Eight Point Seven were in possession of it last, but they hadn’t heard a peep from them in years, so anything could have happened to it and its crew since then. It was funny that Medley called the AOC the fastest ship in the galaxy. The reframe engine was not something that could be improved. It was capable of moving a vessel at 707 times the speed of light. By its nature, that was the absolute maximum speed. It was based on a limitation hardcoded into the proper physics of the universe. Regardless, theirs was not the only ship with such technology, and the Jameela just surpassed it.

It was elegant, nigh impenetrable, fast, and chock full of time technology. Atterberry pods, Ubiña pockets, disturbance detectors, emergency personal teleporters, debris teleporter field generators, and more, gave it an edge over any contender. It could teleport at the light year range, and maintain hull integrity through burst mode, which was an engineering problem that no one had been able to solve up until now. It could get clear across the Milky Way in two days without having to stop for repairs, or to refuel. It could get to the next galaxy over, Andromeda, in a month. The only fastest way to travel—besides calling upon Maqsud Al-Amin—was the Nexus network, and that wasn’t always available. It wasn’t an argument against the Jameela anyway, as there was a Nexus built into it as well, in case passengers didn’t have days to wait.

During the team’s interim year, Team Keshida actually visited both star systems, and began work on their solution to the Power Vacuum problem. They programmed machines to construct some of the largest objects present-day had to offer. According to the data that they were able to pull from Vendelin’s computers, the energy sucking beam that was threatening to destroy Earth was about the size of a main sequence star. Indeed, its energy came from such a star. He constructed millions of objects around it, and coordinated their motion patterns in such a way to actually drive solar winds in one direction. Basically he built gargantuan bellows to harness plasma, and focus it as a projectile. Once filtered through the muzzle, this energy served as a sort of souped-up electro-magnetic pulse that could be targeted at an enemy’s planet. There appeared to be no means of stopping it, because anything placed in its path would be affected by its power. Fortunately, it wasn’t likely capable of nullifying temporal energy. If they were wrong about that, there really wasn’t anything they could do.

The teleporter rings were not completed yet, which was why they chose a departing site as far as they did, to give this process time. The Power Vacuum would reach it in 2374, but if all went according to plan, it wouldn’t go any farther than that. They were the largest teleporters ever, far outsizing the diameter of the star of origin. The beam should pass right into the entrance, and be instantly transported to the exit, where it would fly out into the void at the speed of light, where it would not be able to harm anyone anymore.

Since the robots were doing all of the work, and would continue doing it after they left the timestream, the humans weren’t all that useful anymore. All the intelligent ones could do was periodically check up on the systems, and make sure everything was going smoothly, and all the not super intelligent ones could do was twiddle their thumbs; maybe play a game of RPS-101 Plus, or two...or eleven.

Olimpia paused the game just before Mateo’s Sponge could doesn’t use her Math to win the round. “I’m sick of this.” It looked like a way to avoid losing again, but she wasn’t wrong. They were all bored. Their situation was serious, but in no way urgent.

Everyone agreed, so they leaned back in their chairs, and ignored the screens for a moment. As they were doing nothing, Ramses climbed down from the upper level, and began to head for the engineering ladder.

“Hey, Ramathorn, anything interesting happening on the Jameela right now?” They had temporarily converted one of the shower rooms to a small teleporter, which allowed them to seamlessly switch from one ship to the other, almost as if they were only on the one ship. This feature was limited in range, and a massive power hog, which was why they were pulling energy from the full-sized fusion reactor that was designated for the quantum terminal, completely bypassing their miniature version. The Jameela had one of this calibre on board, as well as a backup in storage, so this was no problem for them.

“Nope.” He slid downstairs without elaborating.

“Welp,” Angela said, looking at her watch. “That conversation killed about ten seconds of time.”

“What are we going to do now?” Olimpia questioned. She unpaused their game just to let the Sponge attack, and be done with it.

Kivi darted her eyes amongst her friends. “We could...upgrade to a better game?”

“What might that be?” Mateo asked. “I’m not playing 4D Go.”

“No, I’m talking about...” Kivi looked around to make sure they weren’t being spied upon. “...Quantum Colony.”

“We ordered that thing to be shut down,” Mateo exclaimed. He was the one who delivered the order personally.

“It mostly was,” Kivi admitted. “But not completely. A few of the hub worlds are still available, while all of the individually-claimed systems are locked out. Teagarden is currently working on a plan to reveal the whole truth to the populace.”

“I’m sure that won’t take thirty years,” Angela joked.

“What do people do there?” Mateo pressed, “on these hub worlds?”

“Well, they’re building an interplanetary train track on one of them,” Kivi said. She grabbed her tablet, and presumably started looking it up.

“How is that possible?” Angela asked. “I mean, in the afterlife simulation, no big deal, but out here?”

“Oh, it’s possible,” Kivi promised. “It orbits one planet, and then keeps moving out in concentric elliptical circles, eventually linking up with orbital tracks from other planets. Hypothetically, if you were none too worried about time, you could literally walk across a solar system.”

“Why would they bother doing that?” Olimpia asked.

“Quite exclusively, because they can,” Kivi answered. She flung the page up to the central hologram so they could all see it. They were looking at several planets with concentric circles connecting them to one another. Part of the circles were white, while others were red. “The red is planned track, not yet complete.”

Angela regarded it with deep fascination. “How long would it take for the whole train ride?”

“It doesn’t get specific,” Kivi replied, “but it says it would only take a matter of weeks. You can go real fast on very little power.”

“Perhaps we’ll go there when it’s done,” Mateo determined. “We probably shouldn’t go anywhere unless we ask for permission anyway. We’ll just get caught.”

“Sure, we can,” Kivi contended. “No one here is an elected leader.”

“They are our leaders just the same,” Olimpia returned. “A fool who refuses to follow their superior only proves why they are the fool, and why their superior is the leader.”

“Who said that?” Angela asked.

“Olimpia Sangster, circa 2371.”

They laughed. This conversation just killed a couple minutes of time.

Angela consulted her watch again. “It’s too late in the day to do anything now. If we’re gonna go somewhere, we should make it an all-day event, and we should make sure the smarties are aware of it. It’s disrespectful not to.”

“It’s nice to hear you say that.” Kestral and Leona were climbing down the ladder.

“Thanks for the heads up, Olimpia,” Leona said.

“What did you do?”

Olimpia lifted her Cassidy cuff, and tapped a button on the screen, which disengaged the communicator.

“We heard most of what you said,” Kestral clarified.

“I don’t feel bad,” Mateo told her. “Us dum-dums need sumfin to do.”

“It’s fine,” Kestral assured him with a smile. “I think it’s a great idea. Unfortunately, we have to amend the plan slightly. You wouldn’t be going to a hub world. A mission came up, and we are once again the best people for the job.”

“Either we all underestimated the number of Quantum Colony players who were aware that it was more than just a game, or Teagarden has been keeping more from us than we realized,” Leona said.

“Someone else set off another weapon?” Kivi guessed.

“No, but as part of the agreement we made with them, Teagarden had to recall all players, either to their homeworld, or one of those hubs. Only once they were returned could they be locked out of the necessary quantum terminals. Most players complied, because the military didn’t say why they were being recalled, or that everyone was being recalled at the same time, or that they probably wouldn’t ever be allowed to go back. There were a few holdouts, which required an actual contingency to go offworld, and scoop them up.”

“Did one of them fight back?” Mateo asked.

“No, they just did to Teagarden exactly what Teagarden was trying to do to them. They hacked into their own quantum terminal, and blocked all external access. It wasn’t hit by the Power Vacuum; it’s not at all in range; they’re just refusing to come back. Even if we didn’t force their hands, Teagarden still wouldn’t be happy about it. You’re not allowed to tamper with the terminal, or you’re meant to be booted from the game.”

“The point is,” Kestral went on, “we got an FTL ship, we gotta go check it out. I’m sure this is just the next of many requests they give us because of our advantage. It’s part of their strategy until they figure out how to reverse-engineer their own reframe engine.”

“Don’t both our ships need to stay with the teleporter rings?” Angela pointed out.

“They are not the only ships we have,” Kestral said, still with that smile. “Ours is a capital ship, complete with other, smaller ships docked inside of it. The four of you will be taking The Tahani on a recon mission to New Earth...on your own.”

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