Extremus: Year 29

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Every day at 16:15, Olindse Belo sits down at her desk, and has herself a cup of tea. She’s done this since she was promoted to admiral, thinking it was the perfect time to not be needed elsewhere. She ended up not being needed much anyway, but it feels right to keep to a routine, so she’s continued doing it. Apparently knowing this about herself, Past!Olindse wrote a note, and then she burned it with a special lighter that Vice Admiral Thatch left in his desk, which she used for a time when she was first trying to figure out her new role on the ship. The lighter is designed to send messages across time and/or space. As the fire destroys the paper, the quantum configuration of that paper—including its text—is logged into an internal data drive. It then transmits the information to the calibrated destination, and rebuilds the message as it was stored. Past!Olindse scheduled this to happen when she knew her future self would be there to see it transpire. Watching the note materialize was as important as the message itself, or Future!Olindse may have had a harder time trusting the authentication.

The note is cryptic and short so as to preserve the secrecy. It simply reads, Extract Thatch pre-illness. Investigate Bridger section. Tell no one else. Authentication code ΔΟ-5456456. Okay. Well, it’s in her own handwriting, so it seems to be legit. She decides to trust her Past!Self, and follow the instructions. It could be a trick, yes, but there’s a bit of logic to it. She can recall once waking up with scattered memories of the previous day. That potentially fractured day was exactly one year ago. If she had her memories erased, for whatever reason, she probably had a pretty good reason for it, and this mysterious note strongly supports her assumption that the procedure was completely consensual.

Time travel is mostly illegal on Extremus. They don’t want anyone to be able to go back and mess things up, or jump to the future, and gather secret information. There are major exceptions to this. The time shuttle, which has been named the Perran Thatch, was specifically designated to do just that. The drones they occasionally send off to mine raw materials on worlds as they pass by don’t work without it. For the most part, though, it can’t be done without risking severe punishment. It’s not really clear why an extraction mirror was installed on the ship in the first place, given that the engineers never intended anyone to manipulate time at all. Perhaps they wanted later captains to be capable of seeking advice from past captains following their deaths, though that does not alleviate the reality-bending dangers of time travel, which is the whole reason it’s usually illegal. Still, it’s the most likely explanation since the only people who are allowed to even enter the extraction room must be a captain or an admiral. Not even a First Lieutenant has authorization. If Corinna so much as attempts to cross the threshold, even accompanied by Captain Leithe herself, she will supposedly endure terrible pain, and a swift banishment to the other side of the ship. Olindse is all but the only person who can do this, and Thatch is the only person she can extract.

She teleports down to the area, and enters her code into the pad. She could have been deauthorized at some point, since she was only ever an interim captain, and isn’t now a full admiral, but Kaiora would have had to make a point of doing that, and it seems unlikely she bothered. Still, she stands there at the entryway in fear, because she’s never tried this before, and precisely how much it hurts for any would-be trespassers is not a matter of record. Finally, she works up the courage, and steps through. She’s fine. It doesn’t hurt, and she’s not spirited away. She closes the door behind her, and walks up to the mirror. Ah, she should have written down the magic words. There’s a particular sequence a user has to say to activate the mirror. In the fictional source material, which is a book written in the 18th century, it seems to actually be magic. In this case, it’s just a passphrase that the creator employed after being inspired by said book. It’s equally important regardless. “Umm...I stand at the door of life and death? Come forward, spirit. Here’s life. Vice Admiral Perran Thatch of the TGS Extremus, smell blood! Smell life! I summon thee!”

Nothing happens.

“Oh, right. Uh.” She takes out her pocket knife, and cuts her finger, wiping it on the glass. Now it finally works. She doesn’t think she uttered the passphrase exactly as she was taught, but it was evidently close enough.

A youngish and healthyish Thatch is sitting at his desk, right hand cupped around a glass of liquor, while his left hand is working the holoscreen. It takes him a moment to realize that Olindse is there. “Am I about to die?”

“Depends. What is the date?”

“October 2, 2286,” he answers.

“Then no, you’re fine. You die of natural causes, but I need you mobile for a mission in the future, so I’m extracting you while I’m sure that’s still the case. I am Vice Admiral Olindse Belo, and you can’t tell anyone about this; not in my present, or yours.”

“Why is there another vice admiral on this ship?” he questions.

“It’s a long story, and by long, I mean classified.”

He sighs deeply, and downs the rest of his drink. “Very well.” He stands up, and walks through the mirror. “What can I do ya fer, Admiral?”

“While we’re both Vice,” Olindse begins, “you’re the only one authorized to enter the Bridger section. I was an interim captain, so while I’m afforded most privileges that come with my promotion, I do not enjoy them all. It was decided that I did not need access to that part of the ship. However, I actually do need to get in, because there’s something fishy going on.”

“Does this have something to do with that god-awful First Chair of the civilian government?” he asks.

“No.”

“Does it have to do with—”

“Please, no questions. This is about me finding answers to protect the future of this vessel; not about you gathering information to leverage against your friends and enemies.”

“Fine, but you’ll owe me.”

“I already paid,” Olindse lies, suggesting that he goes back to his own time, and collects something from her in her past, and if he has to believe that to be agreeable, then she’s not going to try to clarify.

The both of them look around to make sure no one is watching them, which is a little silly since they’re leaving a highly restricted area in order to travel to a different highly restricted area, but it just seems like the right thing to do. They teleport away.

There’s every chance that someone who works in the Bridger section will send them away and report them for access, but they can’t get in trouble for unauthorized access. Thatch has every right to be here, even though he’s supposed to be dead at this point in time, and he has the right to use his discretion to decide Olindse also has a right to be here. At worst, Olindse is stripped of her rank, but seeing as how she doesn’t do much around here, that doesn’t sound like too great of a loss. They won’t file charges, or place her in hock.

“Last chance. Are you sure about this?” Thatch asks as his hand hovers in front of the keypad.

“I need to know,” Olindse replies.

“Okay,” Thatch says. He punches in his code, and the door opens.

They walk inside. No one is there to greet, or protest against, them. That’s not surprising, though, since they deliberately chose to enter through a sort of back door. They carefully peek around the corners, and quietly begin walking towards the stern. They want to find a terminal to connect to that is as far from human activity as possible, because they won’t want any questions until—what the hell is this?

“What the hell is this?” Thatch asks, not expecting Olindse to know.

She answers the obvious, but still doesn’t get it. “Stasis pods.”

“Stasis pods for who?” Thatch continues. “And are they all full?”

She steps over to the terminal, and tries to look up information, but she has no authorization. Thatch has to enter his own codes to access it, but even he’s limited. “Is that...the number of pods, or somebody’s quantum sequence?”

“That is the number of pods,” Thatch confirms. “And that is the number of pods that are in use.”

“They’re the same.”

“Yes.”

“There are 60,000 secret people on this ship?” Olindse presses.

“It looks like it.”

Olindse looks down the deep corridor, knowing that there are more just like it in other subsections. “A quick bit of math in my head, this means that the Bridger section runs quite nearly the entire length of Extremus, and also most of the width.”

Thatch looks around for answers, but he’s really just working through it in his head. “It’s another ship.”

“A ship inside of a ship?”

“Yes,” he says. “We always knew that this was made as a contingency, we just didn’t know the extent. If everything else is destroyed, they’re supposed to be able to move on. And they would do this by physically separating from us.”

“We have 8500 people on this ship right now, and they still outnumber us three and a half to one.”

“I don’t think it’s a competition.”

“Isn’t it, though? I mean, think about it. “What makes them so special? Why do they get to reach the planet, while the rest of us have to die before the ship makes it all the way? This was meant to be a generational vessel. We voted for that. We agreed to it. We did not agree to this.” She turns towards him angrily. “Why have you not been down here before? Why didn’t you know about this?”

“It didn’t seem to be my place. They only gave me access so Halan wouldn’t be the only one outside of the Bridger crew.”

“Oh my God, Admiral Yenant knows about it, and so does my captain!”

“Probably.”

Olindse fumes for a moment, and then composes herself. “How did my past self find out about this, and why didn’t she let herself remember?”

“Wait, your past self?” Thatch questions.

“Yeah, she used your special lighter, and wrote me a note.”

“And then erased her memories?”

“Apparently.”

“Maybe she knew that someone was going to attack her, but couldn’t stop it.”

She was becoming angry again. “Well, she didn’t say that! Maybe if her note had been a little clearer, I would know what she wanted me to do with this information!”

“That would certainly be nice to know,” he agrees. “Why don’t we ask her?”

“Ask my past self?”

He shrugs. “It’s working for me.”

“That seems like it could turn into a bloody mess.”

“I’m just brainstor—” Thatch freezes in place.

As per protocol, Olindse waves her hand in front of his face. He does not react. She looks over to find a portal. Someone who looks exactly like her is on the other side of it, in the extraction room. “Umm, that is the wrong direction,” she complains. “I need answers from the past.”

“Well, you’re going to get them from the future,” Future!Olindse explains. “And you’re going to get them in the future. You’ll need a lot of patience for this one, honey.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Sorry, but this is important,” Future!Olindse says. “In about five seconds, a Bridger is going to walk down here to perform her regular maintenance on some of the pods. She’s going to catch you, and while you eventually learn what you truly came down here to find out, you end up in hock before you can do anything about it.”

“But that’s you, you’re talking about yourself,” Present!Olindse points out.

“Yes, it’s me. I did those things. I got caught. I managed to convince Caldr to sneak me to the extraction room. And unless you want to become me one day, you’ll step through this portal right now, and change the past.”

“That’s illegal,” Present!Olindse states the obvious.

“Sometimes you have to break the law to protect it,” Future!Olindse claims, “but you won’t get that chance if you don’t come now and ask Halan about Operation Nova.”

“But...”

“There’s no time!”

“Time is frozen,” Present!Olindse contends.

“No, it’s not!” Future!Olindse argues. “It’s just going really slow!”

“What about him?”

“Bring him too, and then send him right back to his own time period.”

Present!Olindse takes a breath, and goes over her options, of which there is probably only one. Teleportation does not work down here, or they would have used it to get in. It’s a security measure. “Fine,” she growls. As soon as she takes Thatch by the shoulders, perceived time begins approaching the speed of realtime. Just as she’s pushing him through the portal, she hears the hatch opening up behind them.

“—do what I say.” Thatch tries to finish his sentence. “Why’d you bring us back?”

Olindse looks around for her alternate self, but there’s no one else here. “What was that about me having to do what you say?”

“No, I said, I’m just brainstorming. We don’t have to do what I say.”

“Oh.” But she’s preoccupied by her own confusion. Then it hits her. By coming here, she just erased her future self from the timeline, and replaced her.

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Microstory 1810: Justice Delayed

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I’m a killer. It’s not something that I wanted to be. When someone would ask me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I didn’t tell them that I was hoping to one day become a murderer, and almost get away with it. I never wanted it to happen, but it did, and I figured there was no point fretting over it. I couldn’t change the past, but I could move on with my life, and try to do some good with it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy. You see, the woman I killed—and I won’t tell you why I did it, because it doesn’t matter anymore—had recently experienced relations with a man. That’s why not I killed her, before you get any ideas about jealousy. His connection to her was the only lead the cops had when they were running their investigation, and instead of looking into the truth, they just selected him as their one and only suspect. I’m not a cop. It’s not my job to confess to the crime I committed. I decided that I would let this play out, and accept my fate, whatever that was going to be. I wasn’t going to actively impede their investigation, but I wasn’t going to go out of my way to help them either. Even after the wrong man was convicted, I convinced myself that it wasn’t my fault. Again, it’s not my responsibility to put bad guys away, and leave the innocent alone. They screwed up, and it was all their fault. At least, that’s what I told myself. Subconsciously, I was a wreck. I already felt guilty about the murder itself, but now I had to contend with the fact that an innocent man was behind bars. I could not live with myself. It just kept getting worse by the day. I honestly believe I would have eventually turned myself in.

The wrongfully accused didn’t stop fighting. He insisted that he wasn’t even in the country at the time, and continued trying to prove his alibi. This was great, I thought; he was gonna go free, and they still had no evidence against me. It would turn into a cold case, and the whole thing would just go away on its own. That’s not what happened. They reopened the case, looked deeper into the clues, and finally found me. It’s actually what got that guy out of prison. They wouldn’t let him go until they knew who the perpetrator was, which I recognize is a ridiculous idea, and all those people should be fired for incompetence. I did as I promised, and accepted my punishment. They arrested me, put me through trial, and threw me in prison. I wasn’t in there long before I died, and that’s where things get interesting. What I haven’t told you is that I am voldisil. I have the ability to form profound connections with others. My cat is 34 years old (older than me), because I linked her to my lifeforce 21 years ago. She can’t die until I do, and neither can the man I let rot in prison for four months...unless something unavoidable happens to him. After I was imprisoned, he came to visit me, hoping to get some closure. I was moved by his words, and decided to give him a gift. He was in his late forties, which means he was maybe about halfway done with his life. In contrast, I was in my mid-twenties. Prison being what it is, I would probably die relatively young, but in the meantime, he would last so much longer. Sadly, my ability has its limits. He never got his life back on track, and he’s ended up living on the streets, where the cold can get him. I feel him more clearly now as the faux warmness overtakes our bodies. I’m grateful that, if he had to die, it was this way; quietly. If my cellmate could tell that something was wrong, they would be able to stop it. He would still die, but I wouldn’t. I wish he was going to live longer, but at least I don’t have to live with the guilt anymore.

Microstory 1809: World of Injustice

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I was in prison for four months for a crime that I didn’t commit. That may not sound like very long, but it was more than enough to ruin my life. I could have stayed for one night, and it still would have been devastating. I’m not talking about being a person of interest, or even being arrested. I could have talked that off as a misunderstanding. No, a conviction, and one that was so highly publicized; that was something that I never came back from, even when they found the true culprit, and let me go. Because that was all they did; let me go, and let me fend for myself. I was out of the country when the murder happened. Yes, I knew her, and yes, we had had sex recently, but there is no way I could have done it. It took three months for the authorities to receive the proof! Countries don’t talk to other countries very nicely, especially not back then, or this all would have been resolved in a matter of hours. My alibi was caught on camera, it was completely ridiculous. Even after they received said footage, the police basically said to me, well, if you didn’t do it, then who did? as if it was my responsibility to do their job for them. It wasn’t until they reopened the investigation, and did finally locate him that they set me free. That is not how it works. You don’t keep someone locked up in case you never find the killer just because somebody has to go down for this. I worked really hard to keep my cool, and not become angry about it, because I didn’t want anything to stand in the way of my exit from that wretched place. I did well in the beginning. I remember being so happy as that gate opened, knowing that it meant freedom. I harbored no resentment—not yet. I didn’t know at the time how bad things were about to get...how much worse life would be on the outside, not just in some ways, but all ways.

I would come to find out that I was never exonerated. They literally just escorted me out of prison, and shut it behind me. According to law, I still belonged in there. None of the proper paperwork was filled out; nothing was done officially or correctly. There was a news story about it, with a clear picture of me walking away from the prison, but that was pretty much the only proof I had. The journalist who took that photo actually gave me a ride back to the city, because I didn’t have any other means of transport. My family had all disowned me, and decided to not exonerate me either. It was impossible to convince them that I didn’t get off on some kind of clerical error. I didn’t do it! Well, having sex out of wedlock was enough for them, so they weren’t hearing any of it. Getting a job wasn’t any easier. A background check showed that I was locked up, but didn’t show that I was released. I eventually realized that I needed to keep a copy of that news article on my person at all times. This would give me a few opportunities, but then a coworker would learn who I was, and that would make them uncomfortable. Maybe I didn’t commit the murder, but I was in prison, so I probably did a lot of crimes in there. I didn’t, the other convicts actually weren’t that bad, but no one believed me. There wasn’t an accurate paper trail. I’m surprised I wasn’t rearrested at some point. I guess the warrant was the one thing they did manage to get rid of. Prison was a terrible place, but at least they had to give me a cot. Now I had nothing. I was forced to live on the streets, which is where I die here today. I’m young in terms of years, having aged quickly due to malnutrition, and lack of medical care. I think I’m dying of exposure, specifically, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I die as I lived, trapped in a world of injustice.

Microstory 1808: Only Natural

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I thought that I was born a nomad when I was young, but I didn’t know the meaning of the word. We moved all over the country, for various reasons, usually involving one of my parents getting a better job opportunity, but also sometimes because they needed a change of pace. They eventually grew weary of the grind, and decided that we would live simpler lives. There were six of us kids by then, and a seventh would come later. The two eldest got jobs to help support the family, but none of it was what you might call skilled labor. This was done on purpose, so as to untether us from any one place. We continued to move around, but if anyone in the family—including the youngest kids—asked to move somewhere else, we would. Well, you had to perform a presentation, and plead your case, but this was only shot down twice, and once because there were conflicting requests that just so happened to occur at the same time. I was the middle kid, and had plenty of chances to prompt one of our infamous moves, but I never chose to do so. It didn’t matter to me where we lived, as long as everyone else was happy. Being the one to ask for it just didn’t make any sense for someone who didn’t care either way. I fell in love with the life. I liked meeting people all over the continent, trying new things, and learning new languages. We even went to the U.S. once, but I’m sorry to say nobody liked it, so we returned to Europe after a few months. We spent all of our money on those two trips, but we all appreciated gaining the experience. When I came of age, I was expected to get a job of my own, so I could share in the burden. I did, but then I grew tired of it. I loved my family, but I didn’t want to work. I wanted to keep moving.

My parents and siblings could see that I was unhappy. Some people in this world are just not cut out for work. I was certainly not raised to recognize its inherent value. We only did it because we had to...at least that’s what we thought. They released me from my unwritten contract so I could go explore the world on my own. I went farther than we ever did, to parts of Africa and Asia, and back to the Americas once or twice. I was homeless, but I was happy. You would be surprised what you can do without any money whatsoever, as long as you have no qualms about wild berries and dumpster diving. I kept in touch as best I could in those days, and returned home after two years. I regaled my family with stories of my journey, teaching them a few tricks I picked up along the way. They found themselves to be envious of the true nomadic lifestyle, especially my two younger brothers, who both had jobs of their own now. They too hated it. Only the littlest girl was too young to know what it was like yet, but she didn’t seem very interested in trying. So everyone quit their jobs, and followed me. With my guidance, they figured out how to live with no borders, no constraints. It was so freeing, and I thought I was happy before, but now I was really happy. As technology progressed, it became easier to stay in contact with people, and we discovered that we weren’t the only ones living like this. As nomads, we were obviously very separated from each other, but we still considered ourselves to be part of a community. It is through it that I met my future husband. I can’t believe I found someone who saw the world just as I did. We settled down for a little while so our kids could grow up with a little bit more stability, but when they were old enough to start making their own decisions, they decided they wanted to join our old community. So we went back to being nomads. It’s only natural.

Microstory 1807: Flight Connections

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When I was a child, I dreamed of traveling to far away places. I grew up in a poor village in Algeria, where education was hard to find, and farming was the only way to survive. I was lucky, as my father went to school when he was young, so he had relationships with people in the town. We still only had our little farm, but it was just a tiny bit easier to sell our crops than it was for some of our neighbors. He taught me everything he knew, and would sometimes return from town with books so we could learn new things together. When I was a teenager, I got an opportunity to go to school myself. One of his friends had two older children, who were both out of the house, and he was lonely. He needed someone to help do the chores, and play games with him. It was hard leaving my family behind, but I visited as often as I could, and they sometimes visited me. I didn’t realize until then how much there was about the world that I did not know. The books I had been reading until then were old and outdated. I’m laughing because so were the books at school, but at least they were a little bit more recent. I listened to my teachers, and worked very hard. During the breaks, I traveled to the city, where they had a big library. These books were amazing. I just kept reading, and kept learning. I wanted to go to college in Europe, and the only way I was going to do that is if I proved myself worthy. As lucky as I was to be in this position, we still had no money. Somebody else was going to have to pay for it. Fortunately, I knew someone who could help. The old man I was taking care of met a soldier from Spain during the war. The soldier returned to see how much Algeria had changed. He had money now, and he gave some of it to me.

He helped me get into college in Spain, and paid for most of it. He didn’t have any children of his own, so he felt joy to be able to help someone in that way. I got a job too, so I could help with tuition as much as possible. It was my education, and it was important that I be responsible for it, even though I was getting help from someone else. Let me tell you, I thought I had seen a library before, but nothing compares to the one at the university. I could get lost in those stacks, there were so many books, and there was not enough time to read them. It was there that I discovered my passion for flying. I took a boat to get there from Algeria, because it was cheaper, so I had never flown before, but I wanted to do it. I wanted to know what it felt like to be so high above the mountains. I still could not afford it, but one of my professors saw a book that I was reading on the subject, and told me that her brother was a farmer, like me. His was larger, and the best way to spread fertilizer was to drop it from a plane. He agreed to take me up with him to try it out, and that confirmed it: I loved to fly. Now I knew I had to do it. I still had no money for lessons, so I returned home, and worked on our farm, because my family needed me. I stayed there for years, helping build up my community with my knowledge of irrigation, and access to connections in town. I still wanted to fly, though, and I wouldn’t be happy until I could take lessons. It wasn’t an easy goal to reach, growing up how I did. Everyone in my village thought that I was trying to get away from them, but actually air travel connects us more than anything, before the internet anyway. I wanted to bring the world to my people. By then, there was an airstrip nearby, where I could practice for not very much money. I’m happy to say that I earned my license in under a year. And five years later, I was flying over the ocean.

Microstory 1806: Winning at Life

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I won the lottery. I worked for nearly twenty-five years. It wasn’t backbreaking work, but it wasn’t fun or rewarding either, and it didn’t pay particularly well. I had always wanted to quit. I remember one class in college that required a lot of group discussion. We had a little trouble getting along, so a fellow student suggested we play some team-building games so we would have a better understanding of where our opponents were coming from. One of the questions was what you would do if you won the lottery. Everyone else had all these elaborate plans involving buying sports teams and owning yachts and private jets. I figured I would just take enough to live on, and donate the rest. They weren’t disappointed in this answer, but they wanted me to come up with the kinds of charities I was most interested in. I had to give them a thoughtful answer, and not just be lazy with it. They actually asked me to do homework that no one else had to do so they could follow my logic. I didn’t end up winning the millions of dollars that we talked about during that exercise, but I still held true to my original answer. I saved up enough money, and finally felt fine about being a little frivolous, so I began to spend a little on instant win scratchers. Twenty bucks approximately four times a year. I never exceeded my maximum, and I managed to win a few times, breaking even twice, and making a five dollar profit once. Though, that’s not really a fair assessment—is it—since I spent a lot of cash on losing tickets, so I didn’t truly make anything. Until I did. I finally won big, and it was under unique circumstances. It was because I decided to spend more than usual.

The grocery store where I would always buy the tickets started using a vending machine. You selected which game you wanted to play, inserted your money, and it would spit it out for you automatically. I know, in 2022, that’s not a big deal, but it was special back then. I found out later that mine was the first state to introduce these new machines. I had a little bit of extra cash on me, and it had been a bit longer than usual since the last time I played, so I decided to splurge. It sometimes makes me shiver to think that I almost didn’t do it. I was this close to just sticking to my normal technique. I won $150,000; I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to call my boss right then and tell him that I was going to go in another direction. That was what he had said to me years prior, and he only ultimately hired me because his first candidate turned out to be terrible at the job. I never forgave him for it, and I couldn’t wait to return the favor. I had to wait, though. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe I was on a prank show. I had to be patient and careful. I took my ticket to the lottery offices, confirmed the win, and watched the numbers go up in my bank account. Only then did I quit my job. I wasn’t a millionaire, but I only spent about $1,000 a month, so it lasted me a decade, with a few mediocre investments, and a couple of luxuries just for me. The rest went to charity, as promised. I stopped playing the scratchers, and just enjoyed my hobbies, which were bowling and knitting. Boring, I know, but I liked them. Then the money started running out. It was bound to happen, and I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to return to the workforce. Hopefully employers would agree with my life choice, and not hold it against me. On my way back from my first interview, I stopped by my store, and bought another ticket, spending thirty bucks like last time. Guess what? I won again; this time, for $250,000. Funny enough, I got the job, but I went in another direction.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 20, 2378

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At the end of the day, they jumped to the future, but they left the AOC in reframe time so it could continue on its way for them. They were about halfway through this leg of their journey, and everything seemed to be going smoothly. There was nothing to do but wait until tomorrow. Mateo was playing a game of RPS-101 Plus by himself. Ramses was reading a book, and Leona was teaching Olimpia more about the ship down in engineering. Angela crawled out of her grave chamber after a nap, and plopped herself down at the table. She sat there for a few moments, staring into space with her chin in the palm of her hand. “Can we...?” she trailed off out of boredom.

Mateo paused his game. “Yes?”

“You wouldn’t know.”

Ramses pretended to not have heard.

“Can we...?” she repeated, but still didn’t act like she cared enough to finish. “Can we...?”

“Can we what, Angela? Damn,” Ramses said, fed up. He set his tablet down.

“Can we make a lightyear drive?” She finally asked.

“Like the one that the Jameela Jamil has?”

“Yes.”

“No. Not for the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, anyway. The hull wouldn’t be able to handle the strain.” He hoped this would be the end of it, allowing him to return to his book.

“Can we make the hull stronger?” Angela suggested.

Annoyed. “Maybe, but I don’t have the resources, and I don’t know how to build one. Keep in mind that my education is nearly 200 years out of date, and I was never as smart as Team Keshida. It would be a nice thing to have, and had we not gotten ourselves trapped in this reality, they may have worked something out for us. Why? Are you bored?”

“I’m bored!” she cried adorably. She accidentally made eye contact with Mateo. “I’m not playing that game again.”

“Never?”

“Nuh-var!” she cried adorably again.

“Never have I ever wanted to never play this game again.” Mateo pretended to pick up a glass from the table, and take a sip from it.

“No, you’re supposed to drink if the statement is true for you,” Angela taught.

Mateo pantomimed chugging the rest of the glass. “Whatever!” he shouted, trying to be as cute as her, and failing. He threw it on the ground.

“Is everything okay up there?” Leona shouted from engineering.

“Fine!” Mateo yelled back.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Ramses kept eying his tablet, wondering if someone would ask him another question the second he tried to get back to his book. He was proven right once he finally did make the attempt.

“Why are we in this reality?” Mateo asked.

Ramses waved his hands in front of his chest. “Magic,” he whispered.

“Seriously.”

“Seriously, I don’t know,” Ramses answered. “It’s just something we have to handwave to get by. I understand why this reality was created, and I gather it’s profoundly more advanced than civilization is in the main sequence—maybe even more so than The Parallel—but I can’t tell you why we’re here, or how we get back. I’m not even sure that we want to get back; what do we care?”

“Hm,” Mateo noted.

“I suppose that would be up to the Captain,” Angela decided.

“My ears are burning,” Leona said as she was climbing up the steps.

“We’ve not even talked about whether we would want to get back to the main sequence,” Mateo fills her in, “let alone how we would accomplish such a thing.”

“Hm,” Leona said.

“My words exactly,” Mateo revealed.

“We would have to find someone here who understands how reality works, and if they’re capable of switching us back, they do, or if not, they help us find someone who can.”

“That may be asking a lot,” Olimpia said, coming up from behind her teacher. “We don’t know where we’re going, or who is going to be there when we arrive.”

“We don’t know much,” Leona concurred.

“We just have to take it one day at a time,” Angela said. “One boring day after the last.” She pressed her tough against her bottom lip, crossed here eyes, and bobbled her head around like she was mocking someone, but she was really just condemning the situation itself. How precious.

“What do you want to do, Angela?” Ramses asked. “What would not be boring?”

“An orgy,” she replied, and it was rather hard to tell if she was joking, or not.

“Okay, I’ll tell you what,” Ramses began, “I’ll try to securely access some sort of data network in this reality, and see if there’s any reference to the lightspeed drive. If it’s doable, I’ll program an AI to retrofit our ship with one, along with all the ancillary components necessary to make it safe. Does that sound fair? It doesn’t help with your boredom today, but I might as well.”

“I would much appreciate that,” Angela said. “Wake me up when that happens. I’m going back to bed.” She slipped off her chair like she was drunk, and crawled back over to her grave chamber, dipping over the edge head first, and rolling into it.

“Is she depressed?” Olimpia asked.

“None of us is a licensed psychologist,” Leona pointed out.

“It would make sense,” Mateo reasoned. “You can do literally anything in the afterlife simulation—break any law of physics. We’ve been through a lot since she joined the team, but it may be nothing compared to the adventures she made for herself for 300 years.”

“Let’s stop talking about her behind her back, shall we?” Leona strongly recommended.

“What should we talk about?” Olimpia asked, not suggesting that she disagreed.

“We could start a book club,” Mateo offered, getting the idea from Ramses who once again tried getting back to his own.

“Reading is mostly a quiet experience,” he patronized. “Can any of you handle that?”

“Well, what is it?”

“Infinite Jest,” Ramses answered.

Now they started mocking him.

“Oh, wow!” Olimpia said sarcastically as she pantomimed lifting a cup of tea with her pinky in the air.

“We’re not worthy,” Mateo confessed, fanning Ramses reverently.

Leona had an imaginary drink of her own; an alcoholic one of some kind that she swirled in its glass. “I went to collage.”

“Okay, thanks,” Ramses replied to all this. “I’m going up to read in the airlock. Not sure which door I’ll use when I’m done.”

“Aw, no, come back! We wanna watch you do it. What’s the point of reading that if not to rub it in everyone else’s face?”

“Oh, we are bored, aren’t we?” Olimpia mused.

“We could go over the mass differentials for spike propulsion again,” Leona said.

“No, I’m okay for now,” Olimpia said. It was one thing to be able to begin a troubleshooting process on the ship if something went wrong. It was a whole different thing to comprehend the actual mechanics of antimatter reactions on a serious level.

“Very well. I’m going to go back down and triple check the magnetic containment fields on the antimatter pods,” Leona decided. “You’re always welcome to help.”

They watched her leave. “I’m gonna...go take a midday bath, I guess.”

“Want some company?” Olimpia asked.

What?

“Kidding,” she clarified. “Sort of. We’re all friends now, right?”

“You and Angela both...are...” He didn’t know what he wanted to say. “Bye.”

“Interesting idea.”

Again, what? He actually didn’t leave right away. He had to gather his belongings, and carry them up to the upper level. As he was climbing the steps, Olimpia rang Angela’s trapdoor bell, and crawled in. What was happening there?

Ramses looked like a deer in the headlights when he saw Mateo through the window. Mateo had to smile and lift up his shower caddy to assure his friend that this was not an interruption. Ramses nodded with appreciation.

The AOC may have been a small ship, but it was state-of-the-art when it was first engineered, and it was still in perfect operating condition. The hygiene facilities were particularly nice. Since the vessel was cylindrical, the bathtub wasn’t standard size, but it was close. The water was always hot, and the pressure always on point. It had an excellent filtration system, so it never felt like a waste when they came up here just to relax. Normally, the tub would even already be filled up for him once the AI heard that he was planning to use it. Unfortunately, Mateo completely forgot that the far side shower room was not presently in working order. They had converted it into a single destination portal to better coordinate with the people on the JJ. While they were now in a totally different reality, the room had not yet been converted back to normal. It wasn’t like it was hard to get by with only one shower for five people.

The Jameela Jamil should not have been in range, but somehow it was. Mateo walked through under the assumption that he was about to step into water that had been warmed to his temperature preference, but instead ended up coming out the other portal. The entry room looked just as it had before. This all looked very normal, except supposedly not possible. He opened the door on the other side of the wall, and entered the bridge completely naked to find Team Keshida, along with Sasha and Vendelin.

“Interesting,” Kestral said. “We checked the portal. We could no longer reach you. We also couldn’t locate you anywhere near that brown dwarf. Where have you been all this time?”

“We—we’re in the Fifth Division,” Mateo explained.

“You are, or you were?” Ishida asked to clarify. It wasn’t too terribly surprising that they had heard of it, or that they weren’t surprised by the development itself.

“As far as I know, the AOC is still there,” he answered.

“Is this the first time you tried the portal?” Sasha questioned.

“First time I did,” Mateo replied. “Ramses and Leona took a look at it briefly, but it didn’t seem likely that it was capable of crossing into alternate realities.”

“It shouldn’t be,” Kestral confirmed. “But I don’t suppose you know how you got there in the first place.”

Mateo just shook his head.

“Are you okay?” Sasha asked. “Is everyone safe?”

“We’re fine. The place is a little weird. You?”

“We’re all right,” Ishida said. “Teagarden is still asking us to do things, as we all suspected they would.”

He looked over to Vendelin. “I see you’ve added another member to your team.”

“Blackbourne has been of great use to us,” Kestral divulged. “We’re helping him work through his issues.”

Vendelin sported a sad but hopeful half-smile.

“That’s good,” Mateo said, glad to have apparently made the right choice in saving the man from what appeared to be a much less inviting afterlife simulation.

“What will you do?” Ishida asked. “Do you wanna go get your team, and bring them through the portal? There may be a limit to its use.”

“It may even only be one-way,” Sasha warned.

“I don’t know that we’ll want to leave our ship behind,” Mateo lamented.

“In that case,” Kestral began with a sigh, “you should take this.” She dug into her bag of holding, and removed a circular object that almost looked like it was made of hair. “The Traversa Bracelet. Ariadna agreed to make precisely one of these, and no more. Ramses and Leona will be able to figure out how to incorporate it into the AOC’s drive systems. There is a strong possibility, however, that doing so will vaporize the thing, so you may only get one shot.”

Mateo accepted the bracelet graciously. “I really appreciate it. We may not use it right away, but it will be a vital accessory in the future. I was wondering if I could trouble you for one more thing, though, if it’s not too much.”

“What might that be?” Ishida asked.

“Would you mind maybe, possibly giving me the plans to a lightyear drive?”

“I can do that,” Kestral agreed. “You won’t be able to use it on the AOC, though. It’s far too big and massive. You would need to construct an entirely new ship, which it sounds like you don’t wanna do.”

“I’ll leave that up to the team,” Mateo decided. “Maybe it will still help them boost our current teleporter.”

“Very well. I’ll download the data to a drive.”

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Extremus: Year 28

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Ovan Teleres is the first candidate for Olindse’s little rehabilitation experiment. They decided to stop calling it reintegration, because it suggested an outcome that may never materialize. One day, she hopes to get her mentor, Halan Yenant out of hock, but she can’t go straight for him. She has to play the political game, and begin with someone who has already shown remorse for his actions. In a moment of weakness, he tried to take control of the ship. It was pretty bad, and violent, resulting in the deaths of two people. He has since expressed a desire to repent for his actions, and improve himself. Today was the initial interview for the process. Once the program gets up and running, Olindse will step back, and let Counselor Persephone Falk establish her own therapeutic methods. This is just to make sure Ovan understands what’s going to happen, and why. If his sessions go well, they’ll restart the process with the other two permanent prisoners, along with anyone who ends up being sent here.

“Any further questions?” Olindse asks.

“No, I’m—I feel grateful for this opportunity,” Ovan replies. “I’m ready to begin.”

“That’s good to hear,” Olindse says. “The two of us will coordinate...”

Persephone nods.

Olindse goes on, “and you will probably have your first private session in two days.”

“Not private,” Armelle Lyons says. Head of Security is a weird position here. A shift lasts for eight years, but the end of it does not spell the end of the crewmember’s service to the ship. Armelle worked security before she was selected to run the team, and after she was finished, she went back to being a regular security officer. She will continue on this way until she chooses to retire, which could be any day now. The people who created the shift schedule determined that security could be the most stressful work over the long term, and they didn’t want to force anyone to stick around if they weren’t into it anymore. They wouldn’t be very good at maintaining security if they were burned out or sick of it. You have to prove your stamina to be appointed the leader, but there is still a limit to this.

“Well, we’re still working out the kinks,” Olindse admits, “which is why we’re not starting right away. All patients have the right to privacy, Madam Lyons. We’ll figure out some way to keep you close by without letting you hear what is said in this room.”

Armelle growls.

“Anyway, if that’s it, then I guess we’re done here.” She stands up, and accepts Ovan’s handshake amidst Armelle’s protests. This won’t work without a level of trust, and a handshake is the least that they can offer the prisoners.

Once they leave the cell, Hock Watcher Giordana asks to keep her down here while Armelle escorts Persephone out.

“What is it?” Olindse asks.

“It’s Vatal. He’s asked to speak with you,” Caldr reveals.

“He can wait his turn,” she decides.

“He says it’s time sensitive.”

“It sounds like a trick already.”

“I’ll be right there with you,” he promises. “I’ll magnetize him to the far side.” Every prisoner wears advanced cuffs around their wrists. They serve a number of purposes. They can release a chemical sedative into the bloodstream, or deliver a debilitating electrical shock, or sequester them to a certain area. The latter is used all the time. Cell doors are kept closed and locked when not in use, but they’re not technically necessary. None of them can cross the threshold. A dimensional barrier would just force them back like an extremely powerful wall of wind. Of course, there is also an electromagnet inside the cuffs, which can bind them to one another, or against the back wall. Olindse insisted that this not be done with Ovan, but Dvronen is another story. He’s an incredibly dangerous and intelligent man who hates the ship, and everyone on it. At least Ovan isn’t an evil spy.

“Very well. I’ll give him five minutes, at most.”

They stand before the door. Caldr is wearing his own cuff, which controls all the others. He taps the commands into it, and they hear the familiar clink of metal against metal. Caldr opens the door.

“Is this necessary?” Dvronen asks. He looks so pathetic, trapped there with his hands behind his back. He’s always been so prim and proper; it must be excruciatingly embarrassing, being reduced to this.

“Quite,” Caldr answers.

“What do you want?” Olindse questions.

“Why, Vice Admiral, this is not a good start to your reintegration program.”

“Rehabilitation,” she corrects.

“What did I say?”

“You have four minutes.”

“Is it safe to say that I am the most hated man on the ship?” Dvronen poses.

It’s his time, so if he wants to take the long way ‘round to go nowhere, then fine. “Sure, that sounds about right.”

“What if I told you that what Oaksent did when he took those genesis samples was actually all part of the plan?”

“I would say I know it was all part of the plan. It was his dirty plan. He clearly didn’t do it on a whim.”

Dvronen smirks. “No, I mean it was part of the ship’s mission.”

“The mission, according to who?” she questions.

“It’s whom.”

“Sorry,” she laughs. “I mean, the mission, according to who?”

He looks perturbed. “The Conceptualizers.” The Conceptualizers were a small group of people who originally wanted to leave Gatewood. They started formulating plans before Omega Parker even came to them with the idea for the Extremus ship. As their voices grew louder, their ranks grew too, and they eventually abandoned their collective term. Going by a specific name felt silly and juvenile. Most people didn’t refer to the people who framed the mission as Conceptualizers, but it was occasionally bandied around.

“They came up with the idea of attacking the ship, and trying to kill everyone on it?” That’s hard to believe.

“No, of course not. Their idea predates the Extremus concept. They wanted to seed life all throughout the Milky Way, and in order to compete with Earth, they wanted to do all this deep in the past. When Omega showed up with the new idea, everyone sort of fell in line. Well...not everyone.”

“Bronach Oaksent was not a Conceptualizer,” Olindse argues. “He was too young to have been involved in those discussions.”

Dvronen shakes his head. “He was, but his grandmother wasn’t. She used to let him sit in on their meetings. They talked about a number of different plans, and he was inspired.”

“It doesn’t matter that they talked about interfering with Earth’s Project Stargate, because they didn’t go through with it. They chose Extremus over it.”

“And like I was saying, not everyone agreed with that decision.”

“If that’s true, why did they involve Extremus at all? They could have built their own ship, and left us out of it. As I said, they attacked us, and they didn’t have to.”

“Do you know what’s in the Bridger section?” Dvronen goes on.

“Yeah, the Bridgers, and the samples that Oaksent left behind when he broke in.”

“There’s more. There’s a lot more down there. Maybe you wanna...find out for yourself?”

“I don’t have authorization. Neither do you. Neither did Oaksent.”

“Then you need to talk to someone who does.”

“The Captain is not going to go along with this. Nor should she.”

“You don’t need the Captain from the present day. You don’t even need a captain at all. Most admirals have—and will have—access to the Bridgers, because they will be former full captains. You’re a little different, since you were only interim.”

“Are you expecting me to go talk to a future admiral, or something?”

“There is another, and I don’t mean Yenant. Let’s not get him involved. There’s someone from the past who would be willing to help you. He never went down there, he doesn’t know the truth. But he could have, and he’ll still have authorization, because no one thinks to strip dead people of their access codes.”

“If I go down there and investigate, what are you getting out of it?” Olindse questions.

“I think...when you learn what’s really going on on this vessel, you’ll want to release me from hock. You’ll be on my side at that point.”

She laughs. “Wow, you really believe that, don’t you? Your five minutes were up a long time ago, by the way.”

“See? You’re already starting to like me. Otherwise, you would have been strict about that time limit.”

“Goodbye Dvronen. I’ll see you in a few weeks for the start of your rehabilitation.”

“Go down there, Admiral. Go see for yourself,” Dvronen says as Olindse and Caldr are stepping out of the cell.

Once the door is closed, Caldr tries to release the magnets. She places a hand over his cuff. “No. Leave him like that for a few hours.”

“That’s considered torture, ma’am. It’s against the law.”

Olindse gives him a terrifying look.

“I’ll...fudge the report.”

“That can wait. Meet me in the executive infirmary in thirty minutes.”

“You want me to do what?” Dr. Holmes asks.

“Erase our memories. Mine, his, and Dvronen Vatal’s.”

Dr. Holmes looks over to Caldr, who just lets out a grimace. He kind of understands why it is Olindse is asking for this. “Any particular memories, or do you just want me to take ‘em all?”  This isn’t something that she’s allowed to just do when requested. It’s technically feasible, but there’s this whole protocol.

“Vatal is trying to gain an advantage over me, and I need him to not remember that. I need to not remember it either, or maybe he gets the advantage anyway. The Hock Watcher here was just an innocent bystander.”

“Plus me,” Dr. Holmes adds.

“No, you don’t need to know anything about it,” Olindse reasons.

Dr. Holmes shakes her head. “Actually, I do. In order to delete the right memories, I need to know what they are. I mean, I could take the entire day, but then you’d be, like, what the hell happened to my entire day!” She’s not usually this volatile.

“So, no matter what, someone would have to recall the memories?” Caldr figures.

Dr. Holmes sighs. “No, I could delete the entire procedure from my own mind without risking reversion, since I know how to convince myself to ignore the inconsistencies. I’ve been trained for this. I just don’t know if I should in this case.”

“It’s about the Bridger section,” Olindse explains.

Dr. Holmes takes some time to respond. “What do you know?”

“Too much already. What do you know?”

“About as much.”

“It shouldn’t be very hard,” Olindse assumes, “not for me, nor for Caldr. Vatal is a different story. He deliberately withheld information from us to maintain leverage. We don’t know what else he knows about the Bridgers, but we would certainly love to take that from him too. You see why that’s important, ethical ramifications notwithstanding.”

The doctor folds her arms, and leans back to consider those ethics. There is no obvious answer to this. Getting rid of anything and everything Dvronen knows about the ship that he shouldn’t would surely be a boon for them, but erasing memories without consent lies in shaky territory. It’s not illegal to do on a post-conviction hock prisoner, but it’s not something she takes lightly either. She would feel a lot better about it if someone could order her. A Vice Admiral doesn’t have that power. “The brain doesn’t store memories like a computer does. You would have to walk me through each idea, and tell me what to extract. It’s not a pleasant experience. It’s not painful, but it can be awkward and uncomfortable.”

“I understand.”

“How would you do the same with Vatal?” Caldr asks.

“Him, I would brute force,” Dr. Holmes begins. “I can rip out ancillary memories, and not worry about him experiencing time discrepancies. He’ll know something’s wrong, but he has no legal recourse to gripe about it. We have to be more delicate with you two, because you might make a big stink about me performing a medical procedure on you that you don’t remember. It won’t work if you realize that you’re missing something, and then we could all be in trouble.”

“Do it,” Olindse agrees. She looks over to Caldr, who agrees too, knowing that it has to be this way. “Please.”

They start with Dvronen. That’s the great thing about no one else working in the hock section, it’s easy to be sneaky. Caldr goes next, and then Olindse. Dr. Holmes navigates from the general, and makes her way down to the specific. She removes the conversation with Dvronen, but not the one with Ovan. As far as Olindse’s concerned, she left after the interview, and didn’t do anything else of significance today. She didn’t burn a secret note to herself, or talk to the doctor, or go back down to the hock.

A year later, the secret note reverses entropy, and rematerializes on her desk.

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