Microstory 1842: A Human Being Dies

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I used to wish I were a hero. When I was a very young girl, my grandfather took me to the town square. When I say he took me, I mean he stopped by the butcher shop, and let me run off on my own to throw a coin in the fountain. That was pretty normal back then, letting a child go somewhere alone. They knew about bad guys with bad ideas, but it just hadn’t happened often enough to warrant constant monitoring. Have you seen the kids with actual leashes? I mean, there’s being protective, and then there’s whatever that is. I guess I don’t really know their situation. Those kids could have developmental issues that make it impossible to teach them to stay close. Anyway, there I was at the fountain. I remember feeling like there were a lot of people going about their business, or enjoying the park, but when I think back to that day, I think I was completely alone. I must have been, right? Otherwise, someone would have helped me. I threw the coin in the water, closed my eyes, and wished to be a superhero. Thinking that not only would it work, but that it would work immediately, I turned around and began to run. I didn’t even get the chance to jump up and try to fly. I tripped on something pretty quickly, and slammed my face against the cement. I could feel the blood all over me, and the most excruciating pain I ever experienced—before then, and until today. I lay there like that for a moment before flipping over, and getting to my back, which provided just a little bit of relief. I looked up and watched the birds flying overhead, completely oblivious to the fact that a human was in mortal danger down here, and not even trying to teach me how to do what they do. I don’t know how long I was there before my grandfather ran over and scooped me up. “Don’t tell your mother,” he said to me. “We’ll get you cleaned up, and you’ll be okay.” I was indeed okay. But I was changed. I no longer hoped to be any kind of hero. Fact: heroes don’t fall on their faces. Even if they do, they always get up on their own.

That was decades ago, and now I kind of look at it as my origin story. That’s just another delusion, though, and I know that. I’m no hero, I’m just a regular person who saw people in trouble, and felt compelled to help. People do that, and that’s a lesson I learned over the years, though I wasn’t exactly conscious of it; I’m just realizing it in my final moments. Heroes don’t really exist, and they don’t need to. If you see a man get hit by a car while you’re walking to work, you stop and call for emergency services. Our species is ruthless, but we’re also compassionate and cooperative. We would not have survived this long without the instinct to help others. I didn’t think very hard when I saw the bricks fly out of the building they once formed like water from the tap. I didn’t know what it was, and still don’t; perhaps a missile of some kind. The war is supposed to be over, but some just can’t let go. It doesn’t matter why it started falling apart, just that there were innocent lives at stake, and I happened to be walking by. I ran in, and ran up the stairs. I started going through every room, clearing everyone out, and searching for anyone incapable of escaping on their own. I wasn’t the only one, I can tell you that. I saw a few others from the street who had the same idea, and I bet there were more. Fathers escorted sons through windows. Neighbors lifted debris off of neighbors. Everyone who could help was helping. Because that is what we do. When one of us hurts, we’re all worse off for it. No, I don’t die here under this rubble as a hero. I die as a human being capable of empathy, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Microstory 1841: Prank Wars

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I was one of the first people to sign up for a certain video sharing website. At that point, most people were just watching, but I was a content creator. I built my name as a prankster before anybody really knew what the industry would grow into. Of course, secret camera television shows predated my debut, but none of them generated the kind of hits I would end up having. People could watch them over and over again, and they did, because they were hilarious. When copycats started trying to recreate the magic, people would ask me whether that bothered me, and I would tell them honestly that absolutely not! That’s the whole point of the internet, that there’s room for everyone! Yes, they were competition, but you have to understand that, back then, nobody was making money off of the site. Even once they started splitting ad sales with us, it wasn’t much, and it was impossible to tell who was taking your audience. No, I had no problem with my rivals, but trouble came for me anyway. A few years after the beginning, one of those regular old TV shows premiered. They would lure victims to highly controlled environments under false pretenses, let them think something great was going to happen, and then pull the rug out from under them. One time, that was literal. They convinced someone they were going to get a free very expensive rug, coupled with a very expensive remodel of their home, and then actually pulled on the rug they were standing on. It was disgusting. My pranks were never like that. They weren’t mean-spirited. My guests were never victims, and they always walked away with a smile. I hated this show on principle, and I acknowledged as much in a non-prank video on my channel. This caught their attention, and my life was never the same after what they did to me.

I was an awkward kid. Pranks were a way for me to come out of my shell, and express myself. Which was great, but it didn’t really help my real life. Perhaps if I were making them today, it would be different, but again, nascent industry. When a girl started talking to me at a party, I couldn’t believe it, but I wanted to, so I went along with it. She seemed very interested in who I was, and what I did, which was unusual, because for as many fans as I had, girls didn’t care much for it. They didn’t know how light-hearted and fun they were. They always figured I did the same twisted things the TV show did. She said she knew the owner of this house, and invited me to a sort of secret room in a finished attic. I had never done anything with a girl before, so I was nervous, but I didn’t want to waste an opportunity. You can see where this is going. We didn’t get very far before the host of that show ran upstairs, and started laughing at me. He was so ecstatic that I fell for it. How pathetic, how embarrassing. The party wasn’t even real. This whole thing was set up for me, and I could hear them all laughing downstairs. I blew up. I grabbed one of the cameras, and struggled with it for a second, telling the operator that I could either drop it to the floor, and break it, or I could drop both him and the camera. I smashed it, and punched the walls. A security guy tried to tase me, but he missed, so I punched him in the face. I don’t remember what I said, but threats were made, and while I don’t think anyone there took them seriously, the network’s lawyers sure did, because they sounded like money to them. The site banned me for life; my career was ruined, robbing me of the revenue that others now see. Bitter, I decided to finally make good on one of my threats today, but I wish I knew before that the host owns a gun.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 27, 2385

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By the end of the day, Leona piloted the AOC back to the team on the Suadona, leaving Xerian behind to reclaim his birthright on the Security Watchhouse Detachment. When they returned to the timestream a year later, the sky was full of several megastructures, none of which was a matrioshka brain, besides the SWD. The Dominion Defense and Offensive Contingency Detachments were simply gargantuan ships, about the breadth of Australia on three axes. The Warmaker Training Detachment resembled a skyscraper, reminding Mateo of those enemy ships on Firefly and Serenity. The Voidstar Seeker was a Shkadov thruster, or whatever it was they called them here. It was powered by a Stage Theta Ultragiant, though, which were fairly rare, and meant that it was a particularly massive object. The Technological Advancement Detachment was a discworld, which Mateo noted would delight the flat-earthers back home. The Civilian Residential Detachment was a shell world, evidently powered by some kind of black hole in its core. One detachment was reportedly still missing, but Xerian didn’t say what it was, or what form it was in.

“How do we feel about this?” Marie asked.

They were sitting in Ramses’ lab. It was in the safest part of the ship, and a ship module in its own right. The bridge was a great way to admire the megastructures using the viewports, but the holographic ceiling in this room looked just as real, and was backed by a protective hull.

“About what, this meeting?” Leona asked right back.

“Yeah, I mean...we don’t know if they’re the good guys, or not.”

“Oh, they’re not the good guys,” Olimpia explained. “They’re just not as bad as the real bad guys. Xerian promised to end the war, and that is our only concern as of now. What happens after that, we’ll have to deal with it.”

“How do we know that?” Marie pressed. “How do we know they’re the lesser of two evils? How do we know we can trust Xerian?”

Ramses exhaled in a way that implied he wanted to try for an answer. “We know that the supercluster isn’t doing well. The Milky Way is at war with Andromeda. Generally speaking, the worst leadership possible is what takes power in a time of strife. They’re the ones who want war, and benefit from it. The best leadership will seek peace. When we arrived in this reality, the war was raging, suggesting that the people in charge made that happen. If Xerian were worse than them, he probably wouldn’t have needed our help. Just look at us. We’re great and all, but we’re just six people. And when we started, there were only five of us. For the most part, the people who need your help are the underdogs.”

“He may have been an underdog while he was losing his crusade,” Marie reasoned. “Now that he’s gotten a win, though, you can’t call him that anymore, and you have to worry about what his true motives are.”

Ramses tossed a sort of analog to a baby carrot in the air, letting it pass through the image of the CRD, and fall back down into his mouth. While he was still chewing, he responded, “like the woman said, no one’s good. All you can do is hope that things improve, if only slowly. This is a dystopia, as far as we can see. I don’t know if you can get any lower.”

“You can always get lower,” Marie said.

Angela shook her head at this.

“What?” Marie asked her, noticing this.

“It’s just weird. You’re a few days younger than me. It’s not like we’ve spent a bunch of time gaining separate perspectives. Everything you’re saying, I feel like I would say if you didn’t get to it first.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to...”

“Don’t apologize,” Angela insisted. “We’re just going to need some time to figure out how to co-exist.”

“I could leave,” Marie suggested.

“And go where?” Angela wasn’t really asking, because she thought that it was a silly idea. Then again, if she were Marie, she probably would have offered it too.

“Anywhere, just let you live your life.”

Angela stood up from her comfy chair, and approached her alternate self. She reached down, and scrunched up Marie’s face, like an overbearing great aunt. “You are not preventing me from living my life. You’re not a lesser version of me. You’re another one, for now, and soon you’ll just be yourself, and I’ll be myself.”

Marie struggled to turn her head towards the gestational pods. “One of us will be a little bit younger than the other.”

The clones were developing about three times faster than a normal person would. For the most part, slower processing was better, but Ramses didn’t know when they would want to transfer their consciousnesses into them, if ever, so he couldn’t program them to age in realtime. He figured it could take ten days for them to be convinced, which would put their new bodies in their thirties. At the moment, they only looked like three-year-olds.

“Have we all agreed to even do that?” Leona questioned.

“Raise your hand if I could never persuade you to accept the upgrade,” Ramses requested.

No one raised their hand.

“That’s what I like to see. They’re going to be beautiful when they’re finished. Better, faster, stronger. More resilient to damage and disease. You’ll be photosynthetic, and photovoltaic. You’ll be able to hold your breath for days, and survive the vacuum of space for hours. I couldn’t quite figure out telepathy, but we’ll be able to feel each other’s emotions. Plus, there’s a special temporal code that I came up with. If you have to cast your mind remotely, your new body will adjust to your genetic commands almost immediately, so we won’t have to run around as the same base model. You have time to decide, so I don’t wanna argue about it now.”

“I, for one, am here for it,” Mateo promised. “This isn’t my first body, so I have no particular attachment to it. I might as well get an improvement.”

“Did somebody say detachment?” Xerian was here as a hologram.

“Close enough,” Mateo answered.

“Hey, Xeri, how are things going?” Ramses asked.

“They’re surprisingly well,” he answered. “We’ve hit a bit of a wall, but we’ll get there. I really appreciate everything you all did to get us here. I fear it never would have happened without your intervention. Your presence in this reality has been invaluable.”

That seemed to give them all pause. Mateo began to wonder why they were bothering sticking around at all. Xerian was where he needed to be, and seemingly happy with it. They had completed their mission, so wasn’t it time for them to leave—if not to go home, at least to get out of the way? “That’s good to hear. We’re happy to help. If we could just—”

“I was hoping to get your help with something,” Xerian interrupted, trying to pretend that he didn’t hear Mateo begin to ask for help getting out of here. “As I told you in my message, most of the detachments have arrived for a summit. We’re still missing one little guy, though. He knows all of us, and he’s already proven to be unresponsive to our invitations. I think he would be really receptive to your group, though. You’re small, crafty, and clearly have no stake in this fight. Take whatever precautions you feel you need, but you won’t truly need them. He’s a pacifist, so he will do you no harm. The worst thing he’ll do if you try to approach is just run away. Or float, as it were.”

“Who is he?” Leona asked. “What detachment is he on?”

“He’s not on a detachment,” Xerian begins to clarify. “He is the detachment. He’s an artificial intelligence that the Fifth Division designed to calculate the absolutely most efficient path to win a war.”

“If he’s a fieldmarshal—” Angela tried to begin.

“How did you know he was the fieldmarshal?” Xerian interrupted again.

“I—what you’re describing is a fieldmarshal. That’s just the personality type who would be tailored for such a task.”

“Hmm,” Xerian said. “Well, yes, he’s the Rational Fieldmarshal Detachment, and we can’t do it without him.”

“If he’s a fieldmarshal designed to plot the most efficient war strategies, how is he a pacifist?” Angela tried again. “Did something go wrong with his programming?”

“No,” Xerian began, “it went too right. As it turns out, the most efficient way to win a war is to not fight it.”

“That makes sense,” Olimpia concluded. “I could point to any number of philosophers and spiritual leaders from our world who could have told you that. You basically just paraphrased Sun Tzu.”

“I don’t think that’s what Sun Tzu meant,” Leona volleyed. “The RFD doesn’t fight to win. He’s already won, not simply because he’s chosen not to fight, but because having an enemy in the first place automatically means failure.”

“That’s essentially what he argues,” Xerian confirms.

Leona stood up, and approached Xerian’s hologram. “What’s happening is you’re trying to end this war decisively. You’ll be doing it violently, if need be. That is not pacifism, and if what you say of this entity is accurate, it’s not something that he’s going to help you with. There is no point in us bringing him here, because you already know what he’s going to say.”

“That’s...why we need you,” Xerian admitted. “You have a way with words. We could use that on our side. I came for the team, but I really came for you. And Marie. Or Angela.”

“We’re not going to try to convince a pacifist to take up arms.”

“I wasn’t asking for that. We just need him to exercise his voting rights,” Xerian assured them. “We can’t move forward without them.”

Leona smiled at him out of pity.

“We’ll go to him,” Mateo volunteered before she could argue further.

“Matt,” Leona scolded.

“We won’t promise to bring him back, but we’ll go talk to him.”

“Thank you,” Xerian said. “I knew we could count on you. I’ll send you his coordinates. You can take the Suadona. He’s only about 60,000 light years away.”

“What are you doing?” Leona questioned Mateo once Xerian was gone.

“We were just talking about how we don’t know who to trust,” Mateo tried to explain. “It sounds like we just found ‘im.”

“We’ll see,” Marie reminded them.

They input the coordinates, and sped off to their new destination. They slept half the time, and still had eight hours to spare before the lightyear engine stopped at the RFD’s location. Leona and Mateo spent their free time discussing the plan, and were confident in it by the time they found what they were looking for. They couldn’t miss it. There were no stars around, nor planets that the ship detected. Before them was a vaguely spherical cloud of unidentifiable gas larger than Earth’s moon. Lightning arced from one particle to another, on a constant basis, reminiscent of a human brain’s neural synapses. That may have been what they were.

Leona spoke into the microphone on all channels, “Rational Fieldmarshal Detachment, we seek audience with you. Do you consent?”

“I consent to this meeting of minds. My name is Rátfrid. I dwell here in the void, available to provide advice to all who desire it. What is your question, my child?” 

“Are you cognizant of Xerian Oyana, leader of the Security Watchhouse Detachment?”

“I am aware of him,” Rátfrid replied.

“He has asked us to come here for your vote in a matter of war.”

“I abstain.”

“We thought as much,” Leona said. “Instead, could you do something else?”

“What might that be?” Rátfrid asked, intrigued.

“Could you end the war your own way, without a final battle against the Densiterium?”

“I am a seeker of peace, protector of peace, advocate for peace. I cannot force peace upon another...for that would not be peace.”

“How often would you say you give advice, and to how many?” Leona pressed on.

“One or two people come to me every few years,” Rátfrid answered.

“Do you believe your advice has helped the supercluster, or only those individuals?”

He thought he knew what she meant. “Again, I cannot force peace upon another.”

“Because that wouldn’t be peace; yeah, I get it. That’s not what I’m asking you to do. A war is raging across two or more galaxies, and yet you sit here, waiting for the enlightened to come to you. Is there not a better way? Can you not move? Can you not spread your words to those who do not know that they should hear them? Could you not be doing more?”

“Forcing others to hear my words is an act of aggression,” Rátfrid claimed.

“That is a weak interpretation. You’re out here in the middle of nowhere. It took us hours to arrive, and we were already relatively close. I propose a new tactic. I propose you go to the war, and you speak, and you let anyone who might need you stop and listen. You don’t have to force anyone to do anything. Just be more available.”

He waited a moment. “Interesting idea. Please. Tell me more. I consent to listen.”

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Extremus: Year 35

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Omega and Valencia decided that they needed some help. Fortunately, they potentially had that in the form of over a thousand of Omega’s clones. It’s their job to wake up in case something goes wrong with Project Stargate, and while they’re mostly expected to be responsible for things like transferring antimatter from a cracked pod to a replacement, this situation qualifies as a moment of need.

The modular quantum seeder ships were only made as large as they needed to be to get the job done. There are corridors, ventilation shafts, engine rooms, and a few interface consoles, but the majority of the space is taken up by three-meter tall seed capsules. There was simply not enough room for all current clones to convene for a meeting, and it was never the intention to hold such meetings at all anyway. To do this, they had to activate a special virtual construct. Anglo clones were meant to be asleep throughout their respective journeys, but the engineers wanted to be prepared for any eventuality. Bonus, they’ll get some time to wake up and stretch their legs.

Once their minds are all connected to the simulation, Omega and Valencia step on stage, and go over the bullet points.

“So, you think you’re, like, our leader, or something?” one of the Anglos asks.

“That’s not what I said,” Omega defends.

“You think you’re better than us because you have a name,” another guesses.

“No, he thinks he’s better than us because he has a life!” a third counters.

“Please, please,” Valencia says after taking the microphone. “This is not about what Omega did. You have lives, and you have purposes, and those are both under threat. We ask for your help with stopping this. The True Extremists are more powerful than we even know, and they’ve sent some kind of contingency to destroy you. We don’t even know what. We’re not saying he’s your leader. No one is. We have to fight against this together.”

“Are you a girl clone?” a fourth one questions.

“Don’t you worry about who I am.”

“That sounds suspicious.”

“I just mean...ugh.”

“Look,” Omega begins, “a lot has happened since I abandoned the program. Yes, I’ll admit that, I abandoned you. But I did a lot of growing up during all the happenings, and I’m back now to prevent catastrophe. Saxon made us for a reason, and we can’t let him down just because I was the weakest of the bunch.”

“Hey, he’s right!” one of them cries. “Why is this guy on stage! Saxon Parker is our creator! He’s our leader!”

Valencia takes the mic back again. ‘That’s enough with the interruptions! I understand that you’re confused, and I get that you’re mad. But Omega and I are the only ones who can explain to you what is going on, and why these people have to be stopped. I’m sure Saxon is a great guy, but he is not cognizant of the True Extremists. You’re here, and only you can end this.”

The crowd starts to murmur and argue. Who knew that a bunch of people with the same DNA, same basic neural makeup, and same purpose, would have so much to fight about? It’s hard to say what they’re so upset about, because they don’t have any life experience to draw upon, so they probably don’t know either. That must be what it is. They’re scared, because they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re not equipped to make such decisions. Valencia is wrong. As he listens, Omega realizes that this isn’t going to be good enough. These clones are clearly on the front lines, but it doesn’t only affect them. It affects the entire clone population, and they all have the right to decide what to do for themselves. He can’t say exactly why September directed them towards this particular voussoir, but this has to just be where it begins. “I propose a Town Hall.”

They all hush up as if they know what he’s referring to. Valencia wraps her hand around the microphone. “What is that?”

“What is that?” another one of the clones asks for all to hear.

“It’s like a...company-wide meeting. I’m suggesting we enter a joint virtual environment, where everyone can hear the problem, and contribute to the solution.”

“Will Saxon be there?”

“Yes, Saxon is in my pod, so he’ll be there,” Omega promises.

“I think that would be a good idea.” This clone is different. He walks with confidence and independence. Without asking, he climbs on stage, and approaches the duo. “Hi, I’m Anglo 83, and I believe that you stole my body.”

Yitro Moralez’ body is on fire, which is funny, because he’s entirely submerged in some kind of fluid. Oh yeah, it’s probably acid, and probably isn’t all that funny. It’s burning him, but not damaging or destroying his skin cells. It’s like it’s just bad enough to hurt, but not bad enough to call upon death’s comforting touch of painless oblivion. No, he can’t think like that. Death is not the answer to this problem. He just has to get out of this acid vat. He doesn’t know how long he’s been in here, screaming in agony. He can’t even tell which way is up. But even if he could, up doesn’t necessarily mean out.

What’s this in his mouth? Oh that likely helps him breathe. And this on his eyes? Goggles to breathe. And over there? That’s the framing of his pod. And that? Glass. Well, it’s clearness. Is there anything on the other side of the glassic clearness? Hazy figures meandering about, gawking at him, and monitoring his vitals. He doesn’t really know that, but there are definitely people out there, and they know he’s being tortured, whether they’re the ones in charge of the torturing, or not.

What if he pounds on the clearness? Pound. Nothing, it’s too strong. Okay, well what if he pounds again? Pound. No, it’s not gonna do him any good. He’s just wasting time and energy. What does he need energy for? He’s stuck in a vat of acid! The only thing he can do is try to get out of it. That’s true. Carry on. Pound, pound, pound. The figures on the other side of the clearness seem to be reacting to this now.  Yitro imagines that one is assuring the others that the clearness will hold, and can’t break, but after each pound, gulping, and wondering whether this is an accurate statement. He doesn’t want the others to see his doubt, but he wears his emotions on his sleeve, which is why the other guy is pissed off that he was promoted to Head Torturer when he clearly can’t handle his shit. Pound, pound, pound, pound, pound. They back up. The clearness may not be as strong as they originally thought. Maybe they should go run for help. But if they do that, all the other departments will know that the torture team is composed of incompetent people who skimped on the clearness budget so they could have a coffee maker in their breakroom, which they probably don’t even deserve a break room anyway, because they’re are only four people on the team, and they could have just shared with the bioweapon developers.

Pound. That one was weaker, and it took him a long time to try again. Yitro is losing his strength. He’ll have to give up eventually, even if the clearness was bound to break eventually. The acid is doing its job. He’s trapped and being tortured and he’ll never get out of it. Pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, crack! They jump back in unison. Oh yeah, there it is! Now they’re scared, but they’re too scared to do anything about it. It’s time for Yitro to get out of here, if it’s the last thing he does before he passes out. Sure, they may just throw him in another vat of acid, but at least he will have proven himself. At least he’ll have gotten out, and they will never be able to take that away from him. Plus, he’ll just break out of the next one, and the next, and the next. Give him a million vats, and he’ll give you a million broken vats. Pound, crack, pound, crack. Pound, crack, pound, crack, crack. Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, shatter!

Yitro tumbles out with the acid. He isn’t able to watch the hazy figures in the chaos, but he imagines they finally did run away for their lives. The glassic clearness rips into his legs, and while he can feel it, nothing compares to the anguish from burning acid that covers his whole body, and from which there is no escape. Except there was an escape, and he’s just illustrated that.

He recognizes that he can’t just lie here, because then he’s lying on a floor covered in acid, and the whole point is to stop doing that. He gets up, and stumbles around. Jesus, someone should really put a wet floor sign down here. He doesn’t mean to literally be asking Jesus to do that, but as he’s hunting for the exit, he can’t help but imagine an actual man named Jesus tossing things around in his little janitor closet, desperately trying to find the wet floor sign so no one else gets hurt. It’s a funny image, and it’s the only thing keeping Yitro from throwing in the towel. A towel! There’s a towel there. He grabs it, and starts drying the acid off his body, as well as he possibly can. It’s not a towel, but a lab coat, so it’s not very absorbent, but it’s better than nothing.

Lab coat spent, and acid dried mostly from his skin, Yitro keeps on running. Out of the lab, down the corridor, and through the first door he sees. Now a light burns his eyes like a vat of acid. He’s outside, and that’s the sun. Well, it’s a sun. He’s never seen a sun before. Stars, sure, of course. The doppler glow of relativistic travel? Every single day; filtered, obviously. But he’s never stood on the surface of a planet, and looked up at the blue sunlit sky. This. Is. A...time to leave. He can’t afford to stop and admire the beauty of a spherical world with a natural oxygenated, nitrogen-rich atmosphere. Still, he does have a second or two to breathe it in and be thankful that, amidst the torture and threat of death, he still got to see this. No one on Extremus can say as much. The few still alive who could recall Ansutah lived mostly in caves to avoid detection.

“Stop!” A woman is standing several meters away, but closing in. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I just wanna make sure you’re okay. Are you on drugs? What did you take?”

“I didn’t take anything! I was tortured in a vat of acid!”

“Okay, okay. I believe you. What’s your name?” she asks.

“Yitro Moralez.”

“That’s an interesting name.”

“What planet am I on?” When she doesn’t answer, he repeats himself loudly.

“Earth. You’re on Earth, like everyone. Like always.”

“What year?” He sighs and has to repeat himself again, “please, what year?”

“It’s 2022. You’re in Kansas City. Well...Kansas City Metro. And you’re naked out in public, where a child could show up at any moment.”

Shit. Not about being naked, or being in Kansas City. That’s the one saving grace.

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Microstory 1840: Agreement

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Oh, I’ve known about voldisil for quite awhile now. I mean, I didn’t know they were called that, but I knew there were people out there with inhuman abilities. I mean, I didn’t know that there were multiple people, but I knew that there was at least one. If you had told me back then that there were others, I probably would have believed you without proof, but if you had told me that most—or even some—of them were good, I can’t promise I would have believed that. This is the story of a lawyer who wasn’t a lawyer anymore, a friend of a friend, and a race to save my own life. I practiced law for 20 years. I wasn’t a particularly great one, but my skills were enough to live on, and my clients didn’t complain. They knew that they were getting what they paid for, and I was always upfront about my limitations going into every business relationship. I won’t get into why I was disbarred, but while I definitely deserved punishment in some form or another, it should have been another, like maybe a fine. I didn’t have anything to fall back on, but a friend of mine suggested I become a certified nursing assistant like her. It wasn’t too much education, and when I factored in expenses and all the pro bono work I did, it ended up paying about as much as I was getting before. I met a lot more people in my new line of work, which I loved. I was even sad to see them go, even though it meant that they were better, and that was obviously a good thing. I had this one patient who was in it for the long-haul, though, so I got to know him pretty well. He eventually learned that I was educated in law, and asked if I would do him a favor. It wasn’t the first time I gave out free legal advice, and it wasn’t itself illegal. I just had to be clear about my situation. I couldn’t charge for it, and I couldn’t represent them. He said that it was perfect. All I needed to do was look over this extremely long contract for his brother.

The brother had applied for a new job, and it was evidently very hush-hush. They couldn’t even tell him what he was going to be doing until he signed the non-disclosure agreement. All they said was that his résumé came up, and that he was perfect for a new position. So I took the document home, and read over it very carefully. I didn’t want to miss a single word, because it was fascinating how long it was, and I wanted to figure out what this was all about. These days, the length would be standard, but in those days, it was weird. There wasn’t a lot about the company, or even what the job was like. It talked a lot about compensation, and the consequences of insubordination. There was one line near the end that caught my eye. I still remember the words: anyone who reads this contract is subject to its terms, with or without a final signature. Failure to sign after reading this paragraph will result in death. Well, that was me. I read it, and since it was so big, and my patient and his brother knew they wouldn’t understand it, I was the only one who read it. I brushed it off, even though it was really creepy, because all I had to do was pretend I never saw that paragraph. That was how I found out that the supernatural was real. A demon—as I called him, with no better comprehension of spirit powers—just knew that I had read the line, and he started coming after me. What followed were a series of near death experiences, blood sacrifices, and a ton of running. I hate running, and I think he knew that too. In the end, I signed, but my life did not get easier after that. The job was darker and more twisted than I ever could have imagined, and after 75 years of hell, I’m relieved to have finally reached the sweet release of death.

Microstory 1839: Bad Blood

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I donated whole blood every 56 days for decades before I had to stop. Back then, it was legal for a child of at least 14 years in my country to donate. They raised the age up to 16 while I was still 15, but they grandfathered me into it, because I was so dedicated. It was a girl I liked in school who got me into it. She was so pretty, she always wore this big black bow in her hair, and I would have done anything for her. She organized a blood drive, and I was one of the few kids who took her up on it, so we actually did become friends. I thought my tactic was working until she confided in me that she liked girls. We remained close, because I didn’t have a problem with it, and by then, I was already heavily invested in the blood donation thing. I scheduled classes around it, I scheduled my vacations around it. I made sure everyone who ever needed me for anything knew that I wouldn’t be able to help them on particular days. Over time, the donation process became faster and more efficient, so it was easier to schedule other things, but I still had to be careful. If I waited even one extra day for my next appointment, I would feel like I was letting someone down. I felt compelled to maximize my availability. I got to know the people at the clinic. They could count on me to always show up with clean blood. I knew their names, and even hung out with them outside of their work. Meanwhile, I was working in a factory. Do you know those little wheels in the center of computer mouses? You spin them, and it scrolls the elevator on the screen? Yeah, we make those. My boss is literally the one who invented them. Before that, we worked together to make other early computer parts, but she brought me on when she started her own company.

That was when the clinic moved locations. They didn’t move for me. I had inspired my boss to get involved in charity work. Donating a portion of our building to a brand new state-of-the-art clinic was a great way to get the word out about what we do. Everyone loves that kind of mouse, because it makes using a machine so much easier, and we all but monopolized it. Anyway, my life was good for a time. I was making great money, and never had to waver in my commitment to giving blood. One day, in the middle of my recovery cycle, the train I was on went off the rails. Dozens of people died, and the rest of us were very badly injured. We needed blood. We needed a lot of it. I remember thinking that this was going to screw up my schedule for the rest of my life, but as it turned out, that was the least of my problems. A few weeks later, I was doing fine, and eagerly awaiting the day I could get back to giving back. I had a lot to make up for. A lawyer showed up at my door to deliver me some bad news. Apparently, a mixup at a different clinic resulted in the transfusion of blood from a gay man. I’m like, “so the hell what?” Well, he explained that gay people transmitted STDs, so they weren’t allowed to donate blood. Okay, the guy lied on his form, but he didn’t even have a bloodborne disease! Now, you’ll remember that my best friend was a lesbian, and we grew up in the subculture together, because I was an ally. I had experimented a bit myself too, and I didn’t absolutely hate it. I was pissed. I knew that this was a law, but hadn’t thought much about it. I fought and protested, but nothing changed. So many people could die because of an outdated discriminatory law. So I did something foolish. I recorded myself having relations with a man, and sent it to the president of the national organization that ran my clinic. He was appalled, and decided to use his power to ban me for life.

Microstory 1838: Pics or it Didn’t Happen

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I’ve been a professional driver for the last fifty years. I built my career on a spotless record, but just because something isn’t on my record, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I don’t want to relive the worst night of my life, but it’s all I can think about right now as I’m riding in the back of this ambulance. Back in the day, driving was a bit of a man’s world. Women weren’t actively discouraged from such jobs, but they weren’t encouraged either. I didn’t have to fight my way into the industry, but I certainly found it rather difficult to relate to my contemporaries. I didn’t socialize very much with the other students while I was learning, and advancing. I focused on being the best driver I could be, and pretty soon, my hard work paid off. I don’t recall exactly how it happened—I think it was more of a gradual thing; a series of events—but I eventually became known as the professional truck driver with no accidents. I didn’t knock down one cone during my training, and I continued this winning streak over the years, which is when it really mattered, of course. I also didn’t make any such mistakes in my personal life. No speeding tickets, no parking tickets, not even a warning. I was a model citizen, and pretty soon, I was being paid to talk to other people about it. I didn’t think that going ten years without issue was that big of a deal, and I don’t think I was the only one. I wasn’t hired to speak at high schools because I was the only one, though, I guess, but because I lucked into it. In the 1980s, I started driving fewer hours so that driver’s ed teachers could book me to speak to their students. They wanted me to inspire them to become like me, and I knew the whole time that it was kind of a waste. Those kids weren’t planning to get in any accidents. It happens, and my talks weren’t going to stop it.

Still, I kept doing it, because it was decent money, and I was starting a family at the time, so staying in place was better for my schedule anyway. Then one night in 1999, it happened. And this is my confession. I was driving back from a night class. It was geared towards adults who had never learned to drive, nor graduated from high school in the first place. So they were all going for their degree and license at the same time. It was so dark outside, as you might imagine, because not only did the students have to work during the day, but many of them had to take public transportation, so such a class necessitated that it be scheduled fairly late. I was tired, I admit, and looking back, I probably should have called a cab. But I wasn’t intoxicated, so I thought I would be okay. It was snowing and sleeting, so visibility was incredibly low. The windshield wipers may as well have been off for as helpful as they were being that night. I was about to just pull over, and call my husband for help when I heard it. I’ll never forget how far my heart dropped down in my chest when that thump whumped against my bumper. I felt it too, and now, every time I hear a similar sound, I nearly jump out of my seat. I couldn’t believe I did it. I was so stupid. It was my job to teach others to not be reckless, and now I would forever be a hypocrite, and a fraud. I got out of the car and inspected the damage. The grill of my car was fine, so I panicked and rationalized not reporting it. I just got back in, and drove off. No one would have to know. It was one little accident, and it wasn’t worth ruining my career. Even after I retired, I kept my secret, because I didn’t want it to destroy my legacy either. My kids are all accident free, and I would be too if I hadn’t knocked into that damn trash can that one fateful night.

Microstory 1837: Foreign Fighter

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In 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics broke apart into fifteen distinct nations, which thrived independently of each other to varying degrees of success for three decades. Russia was the largest of these by far, and maintained strong political power over the rest of the world. The rest developed their own governmental bodies, and systems of law. In 1994, inspired by these developments, a district of Russia called Sakhaido declared its own independence. Sitting about 400 kilometers from the island of Sakhalin, as a sort of second peninsula branching from the Kamchatka Peninsula, Sakhaido always needed to maintain some level of autonomy in order to function. It once belonged to the Empire of Japan, and still consists of a significant population of Japanese people. The Japanese language is spoken by 24% of the population. Much of the leadership of Russia at the time did not want to let Sakhaido go, since they felt it shouldn’t be necessary, but the president himself did not want to cause any civil unrest, and had to admit that it wasn’t worth using up resources, and damaging their reputation. Sakhaido prospered after that, forming its own democracy, and becoming a hub of international trade amongst the other nations in and around the region. In 2016, a new president of Russia took office, having built his political platform upon strength against both enemies and allies. Russia was meant to be the dominant force in Europe, and he wasn’t happy with the direction his neighbors were going. A few months ago, he decided to attack Sakhaido, but had no intention of stopping there. The rest of the world was going to learn who called the shots, whether he was their official leader, or not. He didn’t need to take Sakhaido over, or any other country. He just needed to make sure that someone was in charge who would do what he wanted. The invasion began.

Nations of the free world condemned the Russian president for his cruel and unwarranted attack on Sakhaido. They made political and economical maneuvers against him, thinking that he would back down when it started causing his people harm. But he didn’t care about his people. They had suffered so much up until now, and they could continue to suffer, as long as he got what he wanted, which was pretty much everything under the sun. The Sakhaidoans held their ground, maintaining a nigh unassailable border between them and the Kamchatka Peninsula, but they could only do so much. They were not prepared for war, they did not have the resources, and they did not have the help. Refugees fled to other countries, nearly all welcomed by Japan, Alaska, and even Usonia, but that didn’t solve the problem of how to save their homeland. Their military force was only so great. They needed additional support. They needed—I believed—people like me. According to my country’s laws, it was not illegal for me to temporarily join the army of another country, as long as the actions I took there weren’t treasonous, and I wasn’t planning on defecting. So that’s what I did. I went across the sea, accepted the gun they put in my hands, and fought for a bunch of innocent people who had never done anything for me. Because I wasn’t just fighting for them. I was fighting for democracy all over the globe, and for justice as a whole. I was fighting for peace. Not everyone was happy with my choice, and I returned home to find no parade, no thanks, no welcome mat. But that was okay, because I know I did the right thing, and this assassin they sent to kill me knows it too, whether he can admit it or not.