Extremus: Year 31

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It took a shockingly long time for Omega to realize who the photographer, September was, and what her weird cryptic messages meant. Her name was no random coincidence. There is a woman from Earth with the ability to travel through time—fittingly, through pictures. Sometimes when she does this, she will just be completing a loop of destiny. She hasn’t changed anything about the timeline; she stayed in one reality, and did everything she was destined to do. Other times, however, she’s able to change the past, and when that happens, it will generate a brand new timeline. The problem is, now there were two versions of her in this reality. It’s unclear how it occurs, but there are a few options to deal with this situation. Her method is for all the alternates to coexist in the same timeline. They usually avoid any confusion or complications by going off in different directions, and the traveler will give herself a different name to distinguish themselves. The original was and is named Paige. The second one is Dyad, the third Trinity, and so on. September is the seventh incarnation. How and why she ended up on Extremus, and how involved she is in its goingson, is something that Omega isn’t cognizant of. That’s not his concern right now, though. He’s on a mission of great importance, and the key to completing it lies in the comments that September made just before the detachment team left.

Omega was a clone. The original, Saxon Parker, was given his own mission, along with a few others. They were tasked with installing an outpost in every single star system in the galaxy. His superiors decided that they wanted a human touch to the automated ships. Thusly, the clones were grown. They were each given a number, Omega’s being the last, which inspired him to name himself accordingly. Omega also didn’t want to go through with the mission, so Saxon was forced to fill in for him. But this isn’t about Omega’s number. It’s about number 83. That’s what September offered them, so to the location of number 83 is where they’re going.

The team doesn’t want to travel through time, and Captain Leithe strongly suggested that they not anyway. Still, they needed to cover over 20,000 light years, and they needed to figure out how to do it in a matter of years. So instead of sending their whole ship back in time, they sent the original time shuttle on its own. Once there, it would take the long way around to finally reach the location of Anglo 83, which shouldn’t be too far from the border of what was deemed Earth’s stellar neighborhood. This neighborhood spans a radius of fifty light years in all directions, and the True Extremists have decided—without telling anyone, naturally—that everything beyond it belonged to them.

Surely they would claim that they were protecting fragile Earthans from the existence of their distant cousins by not actually telling them about the border, but this is a ridiculous stance. Sure, it’s fine for when the people of Earth were young and naïve, but when they began to try to spread out to the stars, the True Extremists should have made themselves known. As explained by famous futurist Isaac Arthur, if you don’t want people to come to your backyard, you don’t hide from them. You warn them that you’re there, and you do it loudly. No civilization capable of galactic colonization would ever dare trespass against a neighbor who has proven themselves strong enough to be seen for as long in years as they are far away in light years. That is, if the Earthans could witness the might of the True Extremists, they would know how powerful the aliens were based on their ability to be witnessed from 50 light years away at least 50 years ago. It’s even in the freakin’ handbook. According to protocols developed by Earthan scientists before they so much as passed the heliosphere, first contact with a superior alien force is to be made at those aliens’ discretion; not the other way around.

“Is it finally ready?” Captain Moralez asks.

“Yes, it’s arrived at the destination, currently pilot fishing Voussoir Splitter Seven,” Valencia answers.

“Any explanation for why it cut it so close? We have been ready to cast for over four years.”

Valencia shakes her head as she’s looking over the data. “Best guess, it went slow. It wasn’t traveling at maximum reframe. I’m not really seeing that in the logs, though.”

“Did you do this?” Yitro questions Omega.

“Why would I do that?”

“Your little riddle that the photographer had for you. She must have given you the impression that we shouldn’t arrive until now. So you programmed the shuttle to go just a little bit slower than it could have.”

“September told us to find clone 83. She didn’t say when. This had nothing to do with me, I don’t know what went wrong.”

The Captain isn’t convinced.

“He’s telling the truth,” Valencia argues. “Stop looking at him like that.”

“I’m still not convinced he should be here,” Yitro says to her. “It’s his brother out there on that ship. That could be a conflict of interest.”

Omega can’t help but laugh.

“What?”

“We don’t have the split schedule,” Omega tries to explain, “but we know that Anglo 83’s module hasn’t had time to split apart that much yet. There could be as many as 1100 people on that thing right now. They should all be asleep, but...we don’t know that.”

“Even more cause to be concerned about you going on this mission,” Yitro reasons.

“No offense to you, honey,” Omega says to the mother of his child before switching his attention back to the Captain, “but I’m the smartest person on this detachment. You need me.”

“Someone has to stay here anyway,” Yitro contends, knowing it to be a weak argument.

“Yes,” Omega says with a condescending nod, “the navigator, and the casting engineer, as well as the medic, and our amazing auxiliary crewmember. The rest of us are on the away team. This was decided long ago, why are you fighting it now?”

“I don’t know,” Yitro admits. “I’m just worried about what’s waiting for us on the other side of that quantum casting pod. I don’t like that we’re four years behind. But you’re right. Intelligence aside, having a clone on the team is an asset. Let’s go.”

“Not quite yet.” Kaiora wanted to send a doctor with them, but Extremus couldn’t afford to lose anyone right now. The crew was having a surprisingly hard time backfilling medical positions. Dechen Karma was the best medic currently licensed, so that was the compromise. “You need a fitness approval from me.”

“And I need to finish running diagnostics on these pods,” engineer Hardy Gibson adds.

“Oh, good,” Yitro says sarcastically. “Anyone else? Navigator Trimble?  Yeoman?”

They shake their heads, a little in fear.

“Great, then I think we’ll just be going. It’s been four months, there’s nothing wrong with the pods, or our bodies.” Yitro starts taking off his uniform.

“You don’t need to do that,” Gibson assures him. “It just hooks up to your brain.”

“I knew that, I’m just...getting comfortable.”

“Is he okay?” Omega whispers to Valencia.

“A lot can change about a person in four years,” she replies. “This is a small detachment ship. Cabin fever, if I had to guess.”

“Maybe he should be staying behind.”

The three of them climb into their respective pods. Gibson and Karma link them to the computer, and prepare to cast them thousands of light years away. “It’s just like playing Quantum Colony,” Gibson says, “except we’ll be sending your consciousness there intact, rather than having you pilot a surrogate.”

“Very well,” Yitro replies. “Do it.”

Omega tries to give Valencia another knowing look, but they can’t see each other from inside their pods. So he just closes his eyes, and lets himself go.”

Omega awakens in the destination pod, but it’s not what he expected. His new body ought to be tilted at a 135 degree angle, just like his real one. Instead, he’s fully flat, and fully encased. This looks less like a casting pod, and more like a stasis chamber. No, this doesn’t make sense at all. He slides the hatch above him open, and pulls himself up to look around. This doesn’t look like the time shuttle either, but it does look familiar. He tries to speak, but it’s always a little difficult at first, so he clears his throat profusely. “Computer, report.”

“It is February 12, 2300 at closest estimate to realtime. Cruising at point-nine-nine—”

“I get it,” Omega interrupts. “We shouldn’t be time dilating yet. We should still be at reframe speeds.”

“I’m afraid I do not understand,” the computer says.

“Hey, computer! I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Okay, well I’m sorry to have bothered you. Sorry, Anglo Eighty-Three. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.”

“What did you just call me?”

“I was programmed to recognize your designation as Anglo Eighty-Three. Would you like to provide me with a different name?”

“Where are we?”

“This is Voussoir Splitter Seven of the Project Stargate Quantum Seeder Program for the Milky Way Galaxy Colonization Initiative.”

That’s not right. He’s not supposed to be on the modular ship yet. He was just supposed to be cast to their time shuttle, where they would investigate from the outside, only intending to board the splitter if necessary. Omega has to work through this logic with the computer. “Why am I awake?”

“I’m afraid I do not understand.”

“Anglos are not meant to wake up unless something is wrong with the ship, so why am I awake?”

The computer took a moment to respond. “Unknown. Revival process triggered from inside the stasis chamber.”

“Doesn’t that seem a little odd to you, since I was asleep, and couldn’t have prompted said revival process myself?”

“Hmm.” That’s an interesting response.

“Computer, did you detect a quantum casting event prior to my awakening?”

“Checking logs. Yes, recent casting event detected.”

“Okay...”

“You’re not Anglo Eighty-Three, are you?”

“No, I’m a different Anglo.”

“This...is a problem.”

“Yeah. Do you detect any other vessels in this region of space?”

“One, traveling at incongruent relativistic speeds. Communication impossible.”

“Not impossible, just a shorter time frame. I’m gonna teach you how to reframe your communication protocols. I absolutely must connect with my Captain, and my...Valencia.” They never really did fully define this relationship. They have the same last name now, but never married.

Valencia sits before the computer, staring at the camera. “Engineer’s log, February 14, 2300. It has been two days since I arrived alone on the time shuttle. Still no word from the Captain, or Omega. I cannot reach the Perran Thatch. I have been monitoring the progress of Voussoir Splitter Seven, which is traveling at maximum relativistic speeds. So far, nothing has gone wrong. I am detecting no other vessels in the vicinity, nor any reason to believe that the True Extremists are anywhere near here. I have been able to make short jumps to confirm this. If they’re planning to come here at all, they’ve not arrived yet, though I can’t rule out the possibility that the casting problem is the result of some kind of sabotage. I may end up becoming the victim of survivor’s guilt, with my two crewmembers lost to the quantum void.” She sighs.

A message pops up on the screen, reading turn off the reframe engine, love.

“Computer, turn off reframe. Match relativistic speed with the voussoir splitter.”

After the computer complies, another message arrives, but video this time. “Valencia, you made it.”

“You’re on the splitter. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“It’s only been a few minutes.”

“It’s been a couple days for me.”

He shrugs. “I’ve heard it both ways. Where’s Captain Moralez.”

She sighs again. “Shit. I was hoping he was with you.”

“No. Hopefully he’s just back on the Thatch.”

“Are we ever that lucky?”

“We found the source of the meteor chain.”

“That took us twenty years.”

“I’ve heard it both ways.”

“We need to find him.”

“We will.”

Not too far away, but still out of sensor range, Yitro wakes up to find two weapons trained on him. They wait as he coughs profusely. “Oh, man, pardon me. Good day, I’m Captain Moralez of the Perran Thatch Detachment Ship. Got any water?”

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Microstory 1820: Sudden Death

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They’re wrong when they say that your whole life flashes before your eyes when you die. It’s true of some, but there’s usually no time for it. I know, the word flash implies rapidity, but really, if the thoughts are moving that fast through your brain, then you’re not really seeing anything. I know, some people do die slowly. Most people will just be awake one minute, and not awake the next. Now, when this happens, if they get the sense that their life is ending, something will cross their mind. It may be more of a general memory of who they were, or what they went through. It might be a defining moment in their lives. It could simply be about the circumstances that’s getting them killed. That’s what I’ve been relating to you for the last several weeks. All the people destined to be the first to die in 2022 are finishing this journey in different ways, and for different reasons. Most of them will have time to come up with one story that they can send to me a few hours in the past—to before it actually happens—but one of them didn’t make it. I’m not sure what happens to her, but it must have been incredibly sudden, with absolutely no warning. No sensation of danger, no concern for her life. I got the message; she’s going to die, but sadly, I don’t know how, and I don’t know who she was.

Microstory 1819: Biggest Mistake

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I could have had it all. A few years back, this random guy showed up at my door, and claimed to have the ability to heal any injury. He had heard that I was terminally ill, and also that I was rich. He knew that he could take care of cuts and bruises, but he wanted to see if it would work on something chronic. Obviously, I was skeptical. This dude just wanted some quick cash, and he was willing to play on my desperation. He gave me a demonstration by cutting his friend’s arm with a knife, and clearing it right up in a matter of minutes. I assumed that this was just some kind of special effect that I didn’t understand. It was close up magic. An illusion. It was nothing. And he wasn’t getting my money. I remember him saying I should give him a thousand dollars in case it worked, and then another 999,900 if it did end up working. He could apparently make quick work of a cut, but something like my issue might take longer to repair. Even if it turned out to be immediate, I would still have to verify it with my doctor. The down payment was for his troubles, and the rest of the money for the miracle. This guy wanted a million bucks, but he wasn’t getting a dime from me. No sirree, it was a trick, and a scam, and I wasn’t falling for it. I tossed him a nickel to show how much he was worth to me, and sent him on his way. A couple of months later, I’m watching the news, and I see one of my biggest rivals who also just so happened to be old and sick. He claimed to have been healed, and he presented the check to the healer on live television. Things started happening quickly after that. They set up a foundation together that was designed to heal as many as possible. Rich people pay, middle class people pay nothing, and the poor actually get paid. Can you believe that? It’s a nested charity; what an insane business model. Anyway, I’m the jackass for turning him down, because my rival is still alive, and more popular than any one-percenter I’ve ever heard of. I wish I had said yes. Not only would I not be dying today, but I would’ve been the first paying patient of his. I would have become famous for something good. Instead, I’ll go down in history as the biggest idiot ever. At least I don’t have to live with it. Here I go, into the great unknown!

Microstory 1818: Grandfather Death

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About a year ago, the papers and the public began to call me Grandfather Death. Capital punishment has been abolished in every country in the developed world, and much of the developing world as well. Mine was the last holdout, and I fall into a special category. You see, my trial was going on at about the same time as the law was being debated, so once they finally settled on abolishment, they realized that I was in a bit of a gray area. Two others were executed once the new law was passed, but before it went into effect. No others were on death row with us at the time, so there was a question as to whether I should be grandfathered into the old law, or placed back in the normal prison system to carry out a life sentence. Being grandfathered into a prior law is often a good thing, like back in the day when I could drive a car at the age of 15 even after they suddenly upped the minimum age from 14 to 16. This time, it’s not so good, and the whole thing was all really complicated and over my head. Because of the way the proceedings happened, I didn’t technically have a life sentence. I was sentenced to death, so there was nothing for them to fall back on. It was a weird loophole that everyone missed, and as much as it would benefit me to go free, it was honestly a huge mistake that never should have occurred. They considered retrying me, and reconvicting me, so they could do it right this time, but I think there was a legal precedent issue with that. It was just easier if they went ahead with the plan, and assured the public that this would be the very last execution ever. There were a lot of protests that I remember seeing outside my window. That was a concession, I guess, or a consolation prize. Death row was built underground, but they moved me to luxury accommodations for the last several months of my life. I’m not using that word sarcastically either. I would have killed to live in a place like that before I went to prison, it was so nice. Even for white collar criminals, this seems like far too much creature comfort. Why does it exist at all?

I’m not going to lie here and try to tell you that I don’t belong in this room, with these straps around my body, and this needle in my arm. I did what they said I did, and I would do it again. People sometimes ask me if I truly had to beat him as hard as I did, and like, that was the whole point. I wasn’t actually trying to kill him; that was just what happened to him in the end, because he couldn’t survive his injuries. My intent was for him to feel pain like all his victims did. He got in trouble for taking people’s money, but he didn’t suffer. Meanwhile hundreds of families were still destitute, and unable to believe in the concept of justice. I had to right that wrong, and I have no regrets. I made no attempt to conceal my actions, and when the police came, I did not resist. I knew that things could get this bad for me, because that man had a lot of loyalists that were holding onto a lot of strings. But he finally suffered, and that’s what matters, even if it means I go down too. Because, you see, even though he had people honorbound to him because of how much money he made them, I’m the one with fans. I’m the one with a following. I’m not just talking about the victims and their families either, but people who agree with my solution, and only wish they could have done it themselves. That’s what I gave them; peace of mind that he can’t hurt anyone anymore, and that they aren’t responsible for stopping him. I’m sacrificing myself so that they can get on with their lives. Yes, I lie on this table fully at peace—smiling, even—because today...I die a martyr.

Microstory 1817: Vector

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A lot of people think I’m a dumb meathead, but just because I was good at sports doesn’t mean I didn’t exercise my brain. I’m actually really smart and well-read, but I chose not to go to an Ivy League school, because my family didn’t have the money for it. Of course now we know that I could have taken out loans, and had them paid off after my first vector season, but we couldn’t run that risk. Besides, I ended up becoming a professional vector player because of a series of events in my life, starting with birth, and being admitted to my state school somewhere in the middle. So no, I don’t walk around with that prestige, but I’m happy with my choices, and you can’t argue with the results. There was a reason that I did so well in sports. I possessed a naturally high degree of precision. I could hit or throw a ball exactly where I wanted it to go, at least as long as it was within an acceptable range. I didn’t have all that much strength, so yeah, I could throw it towards the moon, but it would never reach it. I did not exactly choose Vector so much as it chose me. I liked to play a lot of different sports, but when it became clear which one was on the path of least resistance, I took my opportunity. I worked really hard to show the scouts that I had what it took to do this for real. I could play every position, but I was mostly a grabber. For those who don’t know, the grabber is the one that’s blindfolded much of the time. I had to take direction from the caller, and find the balls scattered throughout the field. At that point, I could remove my blindfold, and pass it to the wielder. I did things a little differently, and built up a nice reputation.

Here’s the thing, the opposing team’s jacker is watching you at all times, and as soon as they see your eyes, they know you have a ball, and they come after you. If they reach you before you can pass the ball, you lose that ball, and have to find it all over again, and good hiders do not make that easy. That’s why I just never took my blindfold off. It’s a strategy that had never been employed until then, and one that no player replicated quite as well after I started it. Man, I knew where my wielder was, and the jackers, and even the shielders, even though I didn’t need to know that information. I kept my ear on the whole game, and could give you the play-by-play later even though my eyes were covered the whole time, and I was busy with my own job. I could covertly pick up that ball, and toss it over before anyone could stop me. I was sneaky about it too, sometimes pretending to have a ball when I didn’t. If a jacker tags you, and your pocket is empty, they incur a penalty, so they better be right. They learned to be real careful when I was on the other side, but it still didn’t usually do them any good. Yeah, I was a great player, but like all good things, it was destined to come to an end. My game partner, the caller, was my best friend. We had to have a good relationship, and a secret language, in order to communicate effectively without anyone else knowing what was going on. One night, he took me to dinner to tell me that I ought to think about stepping down, and letting a new generation take over. It was tough, being told that it was time for me to leave. I felt like I had a few good years in me. I chose to go through with it, and I think my fans respected my decision. Looking back, I'm grateful for the honesty, and wish I had told him as much. I loved being the star of the show, but he was right. There were so many great kids whose chances I was stealing just by sticking around. I kept enough money to live comfortably, then gave the rest to charity. I never married, nor had kids.

Microstory 1816: Right to Die

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My children want me to get myself cured. We don’t live too far away from the foundation, and they’re sure that I’ll be able to make an appointment, but I’ve decided not to, and I’ll explain why. I had a very happy, but very tiring, life. I ended up having more children than we planned, and much more than I wanted. My husband—God rest his soul—was loving and caring, but he never did quite understand how taxing it was to carry, deliver, and raise eight entire people, mostly on my own. I didn’t have any multiples, which would have been hell in its own right. I went through all that eight times, and it exhausted me. Anyone who says that being a homemaker isn’t a real job should try to step into my worn out shoes. That’s not to say I don’t love them all to death, or that I regret a single second of it. I just mean that it’s over, and I’m done. Even though they’re all grown up, and I don’t technically have to raise them anymore, it’s not like they stopped coming to me with their problems. There are 24 hours in a day, so that’s...well, I didn’t go to college, so you tell me the chances of getting a call from one of them at any given moment. Again, I love them all more than anything in the world, but I could use a break. I’ve always believed in God, and the afterlife. My parents didn’t drill it into my brain. They were pretty progressive for the time period. They let me make my own choices, but also showed me my options. I decided that there had to be something else out there than just we lowly humans. There has to be someone with a grand design, or else what’s the point of it all? And there has to be some kind of outcome, otherwise what’s the point of it all for me? I’m not saying people shouldn’t take the cure, or that it’s somehow blasphemy. It’s just not for me, and I’ll thank you to respect my wishes.

This was hard for my children to hear. They lamented the fact that their father passed before the cure became available. They don’t want to go through that again, but the cure didn’t always exist, of course, so they should have wrapped their head around the concept by now. I keep calling it a cure, but that may not be the right word for it. It is no pill, nor even an injection. It’s a man. It’s a man with the power to heal, and if he had come to us with claims of righteous divinity, I might have believed that he was the second coming of Christ. Instead, he told us that he was just a person who had been in the right place at the right time, and would be using his gifts to help as many people as possible. Some worship him anyway, but I prefer to take his word for it. The real Messiah would not say that he’s not. Regardless of who he truly is, the proof is in the results. Unlike the faith healers of yesteryear, Landis Tipton never erected a tent in a field, trying to get a few naïve people here and there. He set up a foundation, and healed famously sick people. Every day, he proved himself worthy of our belief in him, and this only fueled my children’s insistence that I go to him myself. They actually tried to seek some kind of legal avenue to force me to try to extend my life, but there was no precedent for it, and I am in my right mind, so there was nothing they could do. The judge nearly laughed. The Tipton cure was so new back then. I have a terminal disease, and I accepted that years ago when I was first diagnosed. I made peace with God, and I trust in his plan. Again, I don’t mean to say than it’s not other people’s fates to be cured, but I’m not one of those people, and I don’t want him to waste his time with me when there are so many other sick people out there who actually want it. Goodbye.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 22, 2380

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They chose to link the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez up to their Cassidy cuffs, so it would jump to the future with them, rather than staying behind. This turned out to be the worst of two bad outcomes. Had it remained, it probably would have been destroyed while they were gone, but at least they wouldn’t have been there when it happened.

The Paz Protectorate Housing Department found them a secluded little canyon a few thousand kilometers from the main city. They parked the AOC there, and waited for their day to end. They knew they wanted to stay on this world for a little while, but they needed to learn more about it before they made any further decisions in that regard. For now, they were just going to relax. Most everyone was in bed, but Mateo was a bit restless when midnight central hit. The ship was equipped with inertial dampeners to prevent or lessen acceleration, as well as any jostling around that occurred during space travel. When entering an atmosphere, this became a little trickier, which is why they generally just usually just placed themselves in orbit, and then teleported down to the surface. Flying through the air didn’t make any sense when it wasn’t necessary. These safety protocols were shut off upon landing, however, because they shouldn’t have needed them. The crew felt it when the ship fell hard on the ground, tipped over, and crashed onto the ground on its side. Something about the terrain had changed drastically while they were gone, and the ship’s landing gear could not compensate for it.

Mateo woke up in engineering with a splitting headache. A few tools were strewn about him. A food cartridge was on his neck. The floor was the wall, and the walls were the floor and ceiling. He had been sitting at the central table during the crash, so he must have been sent tumbling down here. According to his cuff, he was out cold for the last fifteen minutes. He looked above him as the lights flickered to see that the antimatter reactor casing was cracked. Accelerator coolant was dripping onto his chest, and there was a sound that he didn’t recognize.

“Mateo! Mateo!” came a voice so muffled, he could barely make out that it was his name.

“Down here!” Mateo cried, but he didn’t think it was as loud as he would have wanted it.

The voice shouted something else, but this time he couldn’t decipher it at all.

“What!”

“Are you in engineering?” Ramses asked through the cuffs.

“Yes,” Mateo answered. “Report.”

“Angela and Olimpia are trapped in a grave chamber. Leona is...”

“Leona is what?”

“She’s unconscious. I can’t do a proper medical assessment, but her heart is beating, and she’s breathing.”

Mateo had to cough up some fluids before he could speak again. “What is this sound?” He lifted his cuff towards the propulsion drive so Ramses could hear the weird noise. “It sounds like something is dying.”

Ramses took a moment. “It is. That is the fluctuating magnetic containment field of at least one antimatter pod. It’s surviving on fumes. It’s not going to last long.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You all have to get out of here. I can’t move, and I can see that the food synthesizer is blocking my way out anyway.”

“Mateo, there is nowhere to go. The resulting explosion will cover hundreds of kilometers in every direction at least. We’re all already dead. We should have asked for personal emergency teleporters. The city might be far enough away to be safe.”

“We have teleporters on our cuffs. Only one of us needs to get to a safe distance.”

“The cuffs can’t tele—”

“Listen to me,” Mateo interrupted. “Remember that portal you built in the far shower that leads to the Jameela Jamil?”

“Yes, but that was in another reality,” Ramses argued.

“It’s still open. Or...it might be. Take Leona, and try it. The rest of us can transport to your location if it works.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then at least you will have tried!” Mateo reasoned.

“Understood.”

Mateo lay his head back down, trying to breathe deeply, but he was unable to. The freezing cold coolant was not making anything easy. He reached over, and pulled some piece of twisted metal on top of him for protection.

“Matty, it’s just a broken shower. Whatever you saw...whatever you experienced, it’s gone.”

That was their last hope. “We never found out what happens when you die in this reality. We never asked anybody.”

“They’re fighting a war,” Ramses said. “I would imagine that there’s nothing on the other side of the dark veil.”

“Same,” Mateo agreed. His cuff beeped, which was weird because members of his team didn’t need to reach out to communicate with him. They could just start talking. “Oh, hold on, I’m getting another call.” He answered the waiting caller. “Hello?”

“This is Xerian Oyana of the Cruise Ship Suadona, are you alive down there?”

“This is Mateo of the Stateless AOC, or whatever. Where are you?”

“In orbit around Paz. I just detected your ship as I was looking for clues after the attack.”

“Attack?”

“Attack.”

“Xerian, get me out of here.”

“Okay. Locking onto your signal. It might be kind of messy, but you’ll arrive intact.”

After a minute, Mateo found himself on the floor of the bridge, still covered in debris. “Ramses, Angela, Olimpia...transport to my location now.”

All four appeared above him. Leona was just waking up in Ramses’ arms. Xerian already had a satellite-like image of the surface of the planet up, zoomed in to high resolution. There they could see their precious, beautiful ship. It wasn’t long before the explosion burst out of it, and began to spread over the desert. They watched in fear as the blast inched closer and closer to the city, hoping that the two would never meet. They did. For a second, it seemed to be slowing down, but it must have been an optical illusion. They collectively gasped and frowned, saddened by the fact that they did this. They killed those innocent people. They should have tried to warn them.

Xerian looked around at their faces. “You know there’s no one down there, right?”

“What?”

“The city was evacuated. I told you it was attacked.”

“Attacked by who?” Leona questioned.

“Who do you think?”

“You’re still tracking them,” Mateo said. He was still just lying on the floor, too hurt to move.

“I’ve never been this close. They were just here a month ago.”

“The timing is too coincidental,” Ramses said as he was helping Mateo to a sitting position. “The planet has been rescuing people for who knows how long, and then we show up, and it’s suddenly found and destroyed.”

“It hasn’t been that long,” Xerian said, his tone implying that this wasn’t their fault. “This is just the latest in countless base worlds that the rescue network has used for the last few thousand years. They should have told you that it was more dangerous to stay here than to move on.”

“We didn’t know how dire the situation was,” Olimpia explained.

“Do you know how many died before completing the evacuation?” Angela asked.

“No way to know from up here, and that’s not my purpose. I’m just looking for the trail. How did you get here so fast without a lightyear engine?”

“That ship,” Ramses began, “was more powerful than we let on it. It couldn’t go as fast as all that, but it had faster-than-light capabilities. Seven hundred and seven times faster, to be exact. We have to return to the main sequence so we can get it back.”

“What do you mean, get it back?” Mateo asked.

“Yeah.” Leona didn’t know either.

Ramses narrowed his eyes. “Did I not tell you about the reset button?”

“The dowhatnow?”

“The reset button, the reset button.”

“Why don’t you say it a fourth time?” Leona mocked. “Maybe that’s all it takes to jog our memory. What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s like...okay, some of you may not get this, but ancient computers had this thing called a system restore point? Basically, if you had a problem with your machine, you could revert it to an earlier state, which would wipe out everything that had been done to it in the meantime, allowing you to start over from there.”

“Okay,” Leona said, nodding. “So you left one of these resets in the main sequence, which can create a whole copy of our ship?”

“Yes, next to the entrance portal for the Power Vacuum. The reset won’t send us back in time, it will just reconstitute the ship into the form it was in when I last set up a restore point.”

“Why didn’t you set up one more recently?” Olimpia suggested.

“It resets the ship to as it was at a given point in time, including everything that was inside of it in that moment.” He looked around to see if they understood by now. “Including people? We haven’t left the ship since we ended up in this reality, at least not all of us at once.”

“Yeah, we did, we were in Salufi’s office,” Angela argued.

“Right, inside of the evil matrioshka brain. I didn’t think we would ever want to go back there. I have to tether the reset to a spatial constant of some kind.”

“Wait,” Leona said, starting to pace. “Did you not set up a reset point there, because you were worried about the danger? Or do you just not want to use that reset point now, because of how dangerous we know it is?”

“I don’t understand where you’re going with this,” Ramses admitted.

“Is there a reset point on the SWD that we could theoretically use?”

“Yes, I programmed it to happen after every time the ship is emptied. But what does it matter? We can’t go there. The safest recovery point is by that brown dwarf.”

“Since when have we only looked for the safest path?” Leona questioned.

“All of us almost just died,” Ramses contended. “Mateo’s still hurt, you may have a concussion.”

“Your point?” she pressed.

“I can’t demand that we not go back to that thing, but I also can’t endorse it.”

Leona looked over to Xerian. “You need to find them, right? That is your mission, your...crusade?”

“It is,” Xerian confirmed.

“We can tell you exactly where it is, and exactly when it’s there,” Leona promised. “We can show you the way. Ramses will restore our ship. Once it’s complete, we’ll teleport to one of the extra cuffs, and drop a pin for you.”

“A pin?” Xerian asked.

“We’ll send you coordinates,” Olimpia translated.

“We don’t even know what he’s trying to do with the SWD,” Mateo said, managing to stand up only long enough to find a chair, and sit back down. “Do you have a bomb that can destroy the damn thing? Are you trying to rescue your long lost love? Is this a suicide mission? We have to know that we can escape again before deciding whether any of this makes any sense.”

Xerian seemed scared to answer the question. Perhaps it was indeed a suicide mission. He walked over to the other side of the control console, and started fiddling with the switches. They didn’t seem to be doing anything, maybe just flipping lights on and off throughout the vessel. They waited patiently for him to respond. “It’s mine.”

“What’s yours?” Mateo asked.

“The brain, the SWD; it’s mine, I own it.”

“I’m sorry?” Leona prompted.

Xerian took a breath. “I am one of the original members of the Fifth Division. I won’t get into how our vision for the future of the galaxy supercluster came to be, or how we realized it—it doesn’t matter now. The point is that I broke away from them, as did a few others who didn’t agree with the direction we were taking. But we have a weird sort of hierarchical structure, and consolidation of power. That damn thing is mine, and I have the right to do with it what I choose, but I have to be on it to reclaim that ownership from the one who stole it from me. I intend to shutter the entire fugitive hunting program, and hopefully end the war, but I have to get to it first. It is the only thing that would have any hope of uniting the other detachments, and putting a stop to the Denseterium.”

“What exactly is this Denseterium?” Leona asked. “That is not a word where we’re from.”

Xerian pulled up a holographic image of the stellar blob that they saw when they first came to this reality. “The New Hyperdense Milky Way Galaxy. An obviously dense collection of stars that are within one light year of each other, resulting in the most massive celestial body in the universe. They’re using thrusters to move every star system closer together, so they can interlink them, and transport them anywhere they want all at once using the largest light year engine ever. If they finish it, no one is safe.”

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Extremus: Year 30

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This is a new timeline. Olindse didn’t change her own past, but she changed the future when she skipped over however long it was, and came here. Thatch asks what’s going on, but she ignores his questions. She steps out of the extraction room, and looks at the keypad, because it’s the closest thing with accurate temporal data. “It’s February 26, 2299,” she says.

“Why?” Thatch asks.

“We were about to get caught. Future!Me showed up to save me. Now she’s gone, and I’m here, and I’ve been missing for the last eight months.”

“Oh boy,” he says. “We’re going to have to come up with a good lie.”

“Not we, me. You have to go back home.”

“You’re asking me to go back to my death.”

“You’re gonna die anyway...in seven years, and three months. That happens whether it’s in 2294, or 2306. It’s up to you whether you want to do it in hock, or if you’re going to have one last nice conversation with Halan Yenant before your nurse turns off your life support. Go back and do some good, or stay here and ruin everything.”

He frowns. “Do he and I really have a nice conversation?”

“The best,” she says, not really knowing exactly what went down that day. “The way he tells it, he wishes you two had had more like it.”

“Well...one is better than nothing, I guess.” He nods gracefully. “Do it.”

Olindse sends the only person on this vessel who understood what it was like to be a Vice Admiral whose advice nobody cares about back to the past. Alone again, she returns to her stateroom to take a shower. She’ll have to explain her absence eventually, but there’s no reason she can’t be well-rested and clean when that happens. When she wakes up from her nap, she forces herself to get dressed, and go out to face the music. She thinks she’s come up with a pretty decent lie. The only logical possibility is that Yitro secretly showed up and recruited her for the mission, and for whatever reason, deposited her back on the Extremus months later. Once the time shuttle finally does return, and Yitro is actually back to dispute the lie, things could get complicated, but she’ll burn that bridge when she comes to it.

It’s pretty late, so Captain Leithe probably retired to her own stateroom for the night. Even so, Olindse takes a quick look on the bridge to make sure, then she heads over to get this over with.

The Captain commands the computer to open her door. “Vice Admiral, hello. What can I do for you?”

“I would like to explain.”

“Explain what?”

“My absence.”

“You were gone?”

“What?”

“Olindse, if you need a break to go to the simulator, or the park, that’s fine, you don’t need to ask for permission, or apologize. I’ll find you if I need you.”

“You didn’t notice that I was gone?”

“Well. I’m a little busy.”

“Yeah, but...”

“Seriously,” Kaiora says, “you served your time as captain. Sure, it wasn’t a full shift, but you still deserve to be retired. You experienced the same rigorous coursework the rest of us did, and you were in charge during some of the most insane and stressful years this ship has seen. Just have fun and relax. Don’t feel bad about it.”

Olindse can’t help but grimace. Wow. Just...wow. “Um. ‘Kay.”

Kaiora nods. “So, I’m gonna work on my Quantum Colony planet for a little bit and then head to bed. You’re welcome to join, if you want...on the game, not...the bed.”

“That’s all right, Captain,” Olindse replies. “I’ll see you later.”

“For sure.”

Olindse steps away from the door to prompt it to close, and begins to hyperventilate. She teleports herself back to her stateroom so she can have her panic attack in peace. Eight months. Eight whole fucking months. She was gone for all that time, and no one noticed! How is that even possible? Do they really think that little of her? Is she really that expendable? All that bullshit Kaiora just tried to feed her about deserving to retire because of her prior work was just a lie. If she really felt that way, she would have realized that she hadn’t seen Olindse for the last eight goddamn months!

Olindse paces the room, trying to let go of her anger, but it won’t leave her alone. No, this will not do. Great, she doesn’t have to explain her absence, but that also means she can’t confide in anyone about this. She has to keep it to herself completely, and bottling up her emotions has never served her well. Resolved to get past this, she activates her teleporter again.

The journey to the Extremus planet will ultimately take 216 years. In that time, the population could grow as much as thirteen times its original complement. Until then, there are tens of thousands of unoccupied cabins that won’t see a resident move in for a long time. Some may never be inhabited, as the engineers obviously constructed more than they thought they would need to accommodate the full breadth of the mission. While spreading out is fine, there is a limit to where civilians are allowed to live. When children move away from home, they can put some distance between them and their parents to exercise some independence, but they can’t go all the way to the stern. Many sections are closed off for use, and will remain that way until such time that they are needed. One block of cabins is the furthest from anybody, and is being used for rage rooms.

Virtual reality is generally considered to be indistinguishable from base reality, but people still like being where physical laws are immutable, and where most of their actions cannot be undone. It’s possible to design a simulation where users can destroy objects without fear of consequences, and then logoff, and go about their day. That program probably does exist somewhere on the servers. People don’t really want that, though; not for this. They want to know that the things they’re destroying are real, and that there’s a chance that something they do in one of these rooms could potentially lead to someone having to go to the infirmary. It’s dangerous, and that’s what makes it so therapeutic. The bylaws did not originally account for this section to exist, so for now, it’s not illegal. For the most part, the government and crew turn a blind eye to it, but they could change their minds later, especially as the administration changes hands.

Olindse walks up to the counter, and demands an arsenal of blunt instruments, such as bats, golf clubs, and metal pipes.

“Okay, you’ll need some protective gear too,” the clerk says.

“No,” Olindse insists.

“I’m afraid it’s policy.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Of course, Vice Admiral.”

“Then you know that I can have this place shut down by this time tomorrow. So go over there, grab me some instruments, and stay the hell out of my business.”

He hesitates to answer, but not too long. “As you wish, Vice Admiral.” He hands her the duffel bag.

“Thanks,” she says as she’s taking it from him. “Oh, and I was never here.”

“Of course, sir.”

Olindse walks down to her assigned room, and walks in. It’s full of absolutely ancient technology—some from Earth, and some from Ansutah before the evacuation. Computers, clocks, old media, objects so old that Olindse doesn’t even know what they were used for. There’s a piece of drywall leaning against the real wall, along with an uninstalled glass window. Bottles, cans, pots, and pans. Clothes to rip, and paper to shred. She looks the room over to see what catches her fancy. All of it. Every last object here is about to meet its end. When she’s done, nothing will be even moderately recognizable. She just has to decide where to start. “This’ll do.”

The door opens, and the lights come on. Olindse wakes up abruptly, covered in cuts, and feeling sick. She must have raged herself to sleep.

Captain Kaiora Leithe walks in and offers a hand. “What are you doing here, Admiral?”

“I don’t have to answer that,” Olindse contends.

“Can you at least let me help you up?”

Olindse squints at the hand. She reaches up as if to accept it, but slaps it away instead. “Go to the devil.”

“Are you drunk?”

“I think I found a bottle of something with alcohol in it last night. I don’t know why it’s illegal, I feel so good right now.” She throws up on her own chest.

Kaiora picks a bottle up from the floor. “Damn, Olindse, this liquor stuff is 277 years old. It was poisonous when they made it, and it’s even more poisonous now. It’s probably from the history museum.” She tries to take control of Olindse’s teleporter.

“What are you doing?” Olindse complains, fighting back.

“You need to go to the infirmary. I don’t know what’s gotten you so upset, but you’re gonna die if you don’t receive proper medical treatment.”

Olindse makes one last pull away from the Captain. “And who will care?”

“I will.”

“I was dead for eight months and you didn’t even notice.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Exactly.”

Kaiora looks away, and accesses her brain’s memory archives. “I probably haven’t seen you in eight months. Were you gone that whole time?”

Olindse shoves a finger in Kaiora’s face. “Bingpot!”

“Oh my God. What happened to you? Were you taken?”

“I think we’ve established that you don’t give a flailing fuck.”

“We’ll talk when you’re sober.” Kaiora remembers, as Captain, she has the ability to transport anyone she wants to anywhere she wants, without their permission, and using her own teleporter. She sends them both to Dr. Holmes.

Since alcohol is illegal and rare, alcohol poisoning is not something that happens on the ship very often. It does happen occasionally, and the medical team believes they encounter nearly every single time someone tries to drink, because the moron doesn’t usually have any experience, so the consequences are not something they can sleep off on their own. Admiral Thatch was perhaps the only exception. Earth once made a serious effort to develop a hangover cure to relieve drinkers from some of the harmful side effects of intoxication, but this was around the time that a state of abstinence was sweeping the world due to its rejection by younger generations. Legislatures quietly made the medical treatment itself illegal, so as to not encourage anyone to regress. A different administration may have handled things differently, but research halted, and the world moved towards the recreational drug-free condition it’s in today. The research was picked up again several decades later, and the dream was ultimately realized. By then, there weren’t many people around to need it, but it did come up sometimes when alcohol was forced upon a victim as a weapon, or a form of torture. Dr. Holmes keeps a stash of the stuff on hand.

She injects Olindse with the treatment, causing her to begin to fall asleep within seconds.

“How long will this take?” Kaiora questions.

“A few hours.” Dr. Holmes pulls Olindse to her side, and places a body pillow against her back. “If she were simply drunk, it would be quicker, but she’s on the verge of death, drinking something that old. You could not have brought her in too soon.”

“Call me when she’s awake,” Kaiora orders. “I’m going to retrace her steps.” Privacy is important on Extremus, but so is security. The ship logs the movements of everyone on board. It erases most people’s histories after a month, but VIPs are kept indefinitely for safety reasons. They’re harder to access, though, even for the Captain. She’ll have to file a formal request with current Head of Security, Ramiel Krupin.

“Are you sure about this, sir?” Ramiel asks. “I mean, an Admiral. That’s...”

“She disappeared for eight months, I need to know where she was.”

“Can’t you just ask her?”

“She’s sick. She’s...lost credibility.”

“All due respect, sir, that sounds like a contrivance. I’m going to need you to spell it out for me.” He hands her a tablet. “And I’m going to need you to do it in writing.”

“This is a matter of ship security. I need that information.”

“You need to have a good reason, or you’re not getting it.”

Captain is the highest rank on the ship, even against admirals, even against the civilian government. If anyone is in a position to declare this to suddenly become a dictatorship, it would be Kaiora Leithe. No one else comes close to having the power to pull that off, not even First Chair. She wouldn’t do it obviously, and neither will any future captain, or they would never be selected in the first place. That’s why Halan Yenant’s decision to alter course was such a terrible crime, because he abused his power to do it. Still, even with all this clout, there are precisely two ranks on this ship with the power to overrule anything a captain says. One of them is the Chief Medical Officer, and the other is Head of Security. “Fine. I’ll investigate this myself.” She storms out.

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