Microstory 1860: Beater

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I still remember the day my dads bought the truck of my older brother’s dreams. It was a surprise, but papa had to be out of town for the week, so father needed my help to pull it off. I was too young to drive on my own, but we did it anyway, because we lived in a rural area, and nobody cared. Obviously, I drove the old beater from the dealership, not the new one. He then had me hide it behind the barn. When I pointed out that he ought to hide the new one, he just laughed. Of course, my brother was getting the hand-me-down, and father just bought himself a brand new luxury vehicle. But man, my brother took care of that ol’ thing. He scavenged for replacement parts, and installed them himself. He spent every free moment fixing it up until it looked so good, our dads almost wished they could switch. It wasn’t originally designed for off-roading, but by the time he was finished repairing it, it was capable of handling some of the worst terrain. I always admired my brother’s patience and determination, and I loved that truck about as much as he did, though for me, I imagine it had more to do with how much I loved him. He could have used it to drive away from us, but he never didn’t come back. We stayed best friends throughout our whole lives, even after he went to college, even after we met our husbands. We both left the farm, but stayed in town, and ended up at the same retirement home, though I never made it to assisted living, which is where he died. His kids didn’t have any strong feelings about the truck, which was good, because he left it to me in his will. It was good timing too, because everyone figured I had a few months of driving in me before I would have to give it up. But like I said, it won’t come to that.

To honor his memory, I’ve driven up the side of a mountain that most cars can’t survive. They just don’t come with the features they need to hold onto the ground at such steep angles. I believed my brother’s truck—my truck—was well-equipped, and I began to drive up here with no fear. They let me take a small portion of his ashes to spread at my own discretion. This is the perfect place to let a part of him rest. He loved to watch the sun rise and set. From here, he would be able to see both. Unfortunately, I was really more thinking of how good the truck was after it was first restored. It was already old back then, and now, it’s very worn out. Yeah, he kept working on it, but then he got old too, and at some point, there is nothing you can do anymore. It has almost a million miles on it; my God, I really should not be up here. Admittedly, I didn’t think it all the way through—because I’ve also gotten old, and I was never exactly an action hero—it just seemed like a beautiful gesture. I don't scream as I feel the truck tip back past the point of no return. I suppose I’ve been doing this whole life thing for so long that I just generally don’t fear dangerous situations anymore. Still, I don’t have a death wish, so as I’m hanging here, I try to strategize a way out. The problem is, it’s not over. I’ve triggered some kind of landslide that sends me tumbling down, and down, and down. This is when the real beating happens. Rocks fly in through the open window, and attack my face. I’m too weak to keep my arms close against my chest, so they bounce around the steering wheel, stick, and rearview mirror. I can feel my bones cracking, and blood filling up my mouth. I tell you all this, not to gross you out, but to assure you that I don’t interpret any of this as pain. If I had to go out some way, this is at least a funny, tragic story, and I think my brother would have gotten a kick out of it.

Microstory 1859: Life Coach

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When you were a kid, did anyone ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up? I’m sure at least one person did, it’s such a common question. This world is so obsessed with placing value on people based on what they do for work, how hard they work at it, and how far they go because of it. I never put much stock into this, to use a relevant metaphor. If the idea behind it is to make the money you need to live a happy life, then I get it, but work itself has no value. And what should it matter what your actual job is, as long as it’s positive, and you’re generally satisfied with your life—because, or in spite of, it? I was first asked this question when I was pretty young. Most of the kids answered with the usual suspects; astronaut, rockstar, professional athlete. A few others wanted to own their own businesses, but even those were predictable, like an ice cream shop, or a dance studio. I guess that second one’s pretty cool, and if I recall correctly, he actually went on to do that. Me, I had trouble giving my answer. Back then, the phrase life coach wasn’t a thing, so even if I had come up with the term myself, my teacher wouldn’t have been able to understand. It was my dream to help others realize their own dreams, in whatever form that might take. Fortunately, this wasn’t a graded assignment, for if it had been, I surely would have failed, because I just could not explain the idea. Of course now, it’s really easy. You may not garner anyone’s respect if you tell them that’s what you do, but at least they’ll grasp the concept. I’ll tell you, though, that I’m not one of those new age, meditate into the universe, and it will return what you want kind of people. I require my clients to have realistic and clearly defined goals in mind. I can’t promise fame and fortune, but I guarantee reasonable results.

Starting out was really tough, and I relied on my parents’ help to survive while I was getting off the ground. They were more supportive of me than they should have been, but also not blindly accepting. They helped me make it a reality by setting clear expectations for myself. People sometimes say that I was the first life coach, but my mom would have to assume that title, because she coached me on how to coach others. As I said, people back then didn’t know what I was selling, so word of mouth was the only way it got going. My first few clients were women who were looking for a nice man to marry. I didn’t explicitly spurn the idea of just being a matchmaker, but I didn’t want to let that become my whole business. I wanted a diversity of clients. Then I met a guy who changed everything. All he wanted to do was be better at communicating with people. I imagine he would have been diagnosed with a social disorder had he been born later in the timeline. He found it quite difficult to socialize with other people, and to sit for job interviews. He needed to learn basic skills that other people take for granted, and that was perfect, because I had no trouble with those, and I knew I could teach him. He ended up being so good at these things—because he really just needed to slip out of his shell—that he created more and more business for me. I shed my potentially dangerous identity as a matchmaker, and started pulling in all sorts of clients. One of them wanted help finding a trustworthy math tutor for her son. Another needed to raise funds for a guitar, so he could learn to play. I did a lot with education. Back then, you couldn’t just search the internet for a teacher. There’s no end to this story; this is just what I did with my life, and I can go to the big sleep now, fulfilled and grateful to the world.

Microstory 1858: God’s Eye View

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I wasn’t paying attention when I was diagnosed with a terminal disease. That’s really all I caught when the doctor was trying to explain it to me. I wasn’t in shock, or anything, I just didn’t care. I’m going to die in prison, and that’s true whether it happens tomorrow, or ten years from now. If you had asked me yesterday what went wrong with my life, I would have blamed it on the world. I have a mental list of people who have wronged me throughout the years, and to be sure, some of those people deserve to be on it. Maybe even all of them, to some degree, but there’s one name I forgot to include, and it actually ought to be at the top. Me. I should have taken responsibility for my own actions. I should be on it both for the things that I did, and also because I’ve lived in denial of my culpability. Let me explain where this sudden realization is coming from. Government scientists have developed a drug that they hope will help restore the memories and general faculties of people with age-related diseases that cause those kinds of problems. I have no such disease, but they needed a control group, so I’m part of that. As an incarcerated terminal patient, I was the perfect candidate. I didn’t even wait to hear the whole pitch before agreeing to sign the documents. If the experimental medicine they gave me resulted in my death, then as I explained before, it didn’t really matter. I wasn’t sure what to expect as I sat down. I suppose I figured I would get a flood of memories that I had either suppressed, or had just forgotten, because they weren’t very important. If it should work on dementia patients, why wouldn’t it work on me too? That’s not what happened, though. As I’ve said, my memories were fine; probably about as intact as any normal person’s. I didn’t remember anything special, but I got some new perspective.

I was a piece of shit. I treated strangers poorly, and my friends even worse. I alienated everyone who ever cared about me, and I didn’t even realize it. Because they didn’t truly ever leave; our relationships just never totally recovered. I had some pretty crazy ideas about the world too. I made political and economical claims that—now that I think about it—didn’t make any sense. The truth is that I was super uneducated, and to no one’s fault but my own. I went to class, and I took the tests, but I didn’t really care about the material, I didn’t retain it, and I was entirely incapable of drawing reasonable conclusions for new problems. I just didn’t understand a damn thing, but I thought I was so smart. Do you remember saying something stupid when you were a kid, like how the older boys who stole your lunch money would be sorry when you grew up, and were older than them? Or maybe you lied to everyone about climbing up the side of a building. This is what it feels like to look back at my past. I feel like a God, my hindsight is so much better than 20/20 right now. I was so wrong about everything, and I’m incredibly embarrassed of myself. It’s unfair, having this perspective so late in life. I don’t have any time to go back and correct my mistakes. Plus I’m still stuck in here. I won’t go over every epiphany I had while I was on this drug, but I’ll say that the old me wouldn’t care about it. I’m smiling, because even if it doesn’t technically do what it’s meant to, it should still be able to help people. I just need to figure out how to convey this data to the researchers. I’m about to die, I know this much. I don’t think that should stop their research, and I’m worried they will if I don’t manage to explain the results to them before I fade away. I have to get back to the real world. I have to wake up befo—

Microstory 1857: Bad One

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I moved to a new school for fifth grade. My family didn’t move homes, but the district built a brand new primary school, and the zones had to be redrawn, meaning kids were pulled from the surrounding areas who hadn’t been studying together until now. Looking back, I don’t know how my new teacher could not know about our situation ahead of time, but I remember sitting in that classroom—nervous as all hell—and becoming the center of attention without ever wanting to. I’ve never liked crowds, and I don’t like people to stare at me. I feel more comfortable with a small group of friends, so I was already feeling rather uncomfortable, because all of those friends were still at my old school. There I was in the back corner, looking around for any clue as to who might become my friend, when I heard my name being called. Estera Nowicki. I acknowledged my attendance at the same time as another girl. We each turned our head to look at the other. She kindly explained that hers was the name that was called, and I had to explain that that was my name. The teacher looked down at the sheet. There were two of us, which she had apparently assumed to be some kind of typographical error. That was a little funny, but the names weren’t exactly rare. We had a laugh, and then one classmate suggested that one of us go by our middle name, which I said was Aleksandra. The other Estera scoffed. That was her middle name too, I had to be lying. I don’t know how I could have known as much about her without social media to look it up, like some kind of private detective, but she was convinced. It took some questions to the main office to confirm that yes, there were two Estera Aleksandra Nowickis in the same class.

Something had to be done to avoid the confusion. I mean, some of the kids were already confused, and there was probably nothing we could do about that. One boy suggested that we were long lost sisters, which was obviously dumb, because that would mean that our shared parents gave their sororal twins the same exact first and middle names, and then gave one of us away to a couple with the same surname. It was a coincidence, but again, we couldn’t move on without making sure there wouldn’t be any further ambiguity. I would have been perfectly fine going as Aleksandra. Honestly, I always thought it was a bit prettier. Sure, it was hers too, but as long as only I actually used it as my main name, it should’ve been fine. She wasn’t okay with that. As soon as I expressed my idea, she decided that she wanted to use it instead. Annoying, but whatever, I could be the Estera. No, she didn’t like that either. No matter what I said, she just wanted to be difficult, and pretty soon, we all realized that we had spent almost the entire morning on this, and hadn’t learned a single thing yet. I even recommended I go by Dosia, after a famous scientist named Dosia Zajac who I came to admire after presenting a report on her the previous year. The other Estera claimed to like her too, so now she wanted to be known as Dosia. I’m certain that she hadn’t even heard of her until that day, this was getting to be so ridiculous. The teacher—bless her heart—found it impossible to keep control of the classroom. Lines were being drawn. Some favored me, while a few were on her side. But they eventually swayed over to me when they realized how insolent she was being. So the rest of the students came together, and decided that it was no longer our choice what either of us was going to be called. She was given a nickname that probably haunted her for the rest of the life, while I came to be forever known as Good Estera.

Microstory 1856: Civil Servant

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Most of the time, when I was a civil servant, I didn’t feel like I could get anything done. There was so much red tape, and pushback from people who didn’t want to spend any money. The entire purpose of government—even local government—is to use money wisely, not to just hold onto it, and not use it at all. My colleagues kept screaming about wasting taxpayer money, but that’s not what I was trying to do. It’s meant to be for schools, roads, and emergency services. And it’s that last one that always got me into trouble. They wanted to dedicate pretty much our entire budget on law enforcement. Seriously, I think if someone like me wasn’t there to stop them, that’s exactly what they would do. One of them actually believed that there would be no need for any hospitals if cops handled everything before it got to that point. That, of course, doesn’t make any sense; that guy was an idiot. I started out as the City Comptroller. It’s the biggest joke in government. Everyone has the right to vote for it, but no one knows what it is. Fortunately, I was responsible for a fairly well-educated city in that regard, so many people actually did vote for me, and they knew why they were voting for me, instead of one of my opponents. Now, I never thought I would have free reign over the finances, but I thought I would have a stronger voice than I did. The Mayor had all the power, just like the TV shows make it seem. And our mayor was the absolute worst. Slimy, corrupt, impassionate, selfish. So many people tried to get him out of office, but they kept losing. I’m not saying he was rigging the elections, but something fishy was going on, and I decided to get to the bottom of it. Luckily, I just so happened to be a brilliant accountant, and I couldn’t get anywhere with my real duties, so I investigated in secret.

Long story short, he was stealing money. Unlike the movies, he wasn’t lining his own pockets, though, which is interesting. Every cent seemed to be going into his reëlection campaigns. Still wrong, still illegal, but I saw his house, and the car that he drove. He was living a surprisingly modest life. Even so, I had to expose him, and I expected my actions to ruin my life. It didn’t matter, because the people deserved the truth, so if I was going to go down, I would make sure he went down with me. To my surprise, that’s not what happened. The city practically raised me up on their shoulders, I was their hero. He went to jail, and I became the most famous comptroller in the country, which as we’ve established, isn’t saying much. It was an election year, so someone else was going to get the spot soon. So many people suggested that I go for it. Even with him out of the way, there was no guarantee that things were going to get better. It wasn’t like he was the only bad politician in the world. My friends knew that the population could trust me to be competent, faithful, and accountable. All I needed to do was convince everybody else. It wasn’t easy, but I fought a hard campaign, and I did it with a lot less money than my primary opponent. As far as I could tell, he was a pretty decent guy, so after I won, I appointed him as my Deputy Mayor. Together, we were going to change the way our great city was run; most importantly, by reworking the budget to be responsible, reasonable, and fair. Only thing is, we’re not going to get the chance to do that. At first, I think it’s raining on our first public address, but then I touch my face, and realize it’s blood. I look down at my deputy mayor. Headshot, he’s gone. Then I feel a sharp pain in my chest, and I fall down next to him. I shouldn’t have dared to dream.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 30, 2388

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“So, this is a retcon,” Leona figured, totally unimpressed—bored even. “We were told that The Artist built three Preston children, but in fact, there was a fourth. You must have been so evil that the others never talk about you, and blah, blah, blah.”

Mithridates chuckled. “No. I wasn’t built, I was born. You think my parents spent centuries not having any children? I mean, even if they weren’t trying, having at least one kid eventually would have been practically inevitable. They don’t talk about me, not because I was too evil—because we’re all evil—but because they were just ashamed that I left the Gallery Dimensions with the rest of the disgruntled workers, instead of sticking by my family.”

“I see.”

“Besides, as far as I can tell, they so didn’t talk about me, that not even my brother and sisters know that I exist.”

Leona sighed, still bored. “Are you gonna...do your speech?”

“My villain speech where I reveal my dastardly plans?”

“Yeah, that one.”

Mithridates smirked. “Don’t have one.”

“You don’t have a speech, er...?”

“Don’t have a plan.” He started pacing somewhat menacingly. “Have you wondered why I’m bringing all of the star systems together, or why I’m taking so long to do it?”

“We’ve noticed it doesn’t make much sense.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t have to. It’s cra-zy.” With these words, he bobbled his head around, rolled his eyes, and spun his finger around his temple. “The plan is to make everybody think I have a plan.”

“Okay, so no plan, but what’s the objective?”

“To make everybody think I have an objective!” He was so pleased with himself for having come up with a gigantic waste of time.

“Oh, Jesus Christ.”

“It’s pronounced Mithridates,” he countered. “You can call me Mithri, though.”

Leona didn’t want to end up in another battle royale with yet another antagonist. The bad guys always lost, but the team always lost a lot along the way, and she was disinterested in seeing that happen again. If the best option was to jump over all of this, and just move on to the plan to return to the main sequence, that was what she would do. “Look, I’m sure you’re quite happy with—” She stopped talking when she noticed that all the holography was back. The water, the tiny island, the hut; they had all returned. The sky was just a regular blue with one sun, but everything else looked as it did before Mithri dropped the illusion. Baudin’s faux son wasn’t around, though.

Mithri was wearing the same female avatar as before, but she was clothed now. He was walking out of the hut. “Oh, you’re back.”

“Where did I go?” Leona asked, pretty sure she knew the answer to that question.

Mithri checked his watch. “Nowhere. You just disappeared exactly one Earthan year ago. Imagine that.”

She reached over, and desperately tapped on her Cassidy cuff. It was off. It was never off. Something was very wrong.

“Oh, yeah, that technology won’t work here.”

She looked back towards the tooth mountain, in the general direction of the Suadona.

“That technology is fine. Your friends are fine. I’m sure they’ve just been hanging out all year, wondering why you’ve not checked up on them.”

“How do you know so much about us? You didn’t ask me my name, or anything.”

“This.” Mithri grabbed a crystal tablet from a little table. He tapped on it, and presented it to her. She could see a website on the screen, which appeared to be a blog of some kind. The top entry read Extremus: Year 38.

“What is it?”

“It’s the Superintendent’s. This is how he tries to get people to read his shit. Nobody does, of course. Well, not in his universe. The sad irony is that thousands read it in this reality, and billions more in other self-aware universes. Unfortunately, he doesn’t earn page impressions from us. It’s just a mirrored site. You could even call it a quantum mirror?”

“So everything we’ve ever done, you already know.”

“No, not everything. Just what he writes about, and I don’t know how accurate it is. It hasn’t exactly been fact-checked.”

“What are you going to do with me and my friends?”

Mithri yawned deeply. “Nothing. I’ve read enough to know that you’re a non-threat.”

“How do you figure? We’ve fought against a lot of people, and we always win...in the end. Some of them even became our friends.”

“I know, and those enemies of yours have one thing in common.”

She didn’t prompt him to continue. He was going to on his own.

He smiled, recognizing her attempt to take some level of control. “They all tried to defeat you. You were right, when someone fights you, they lose, so all I have to do is not fight. Ya know, there’s this saying in your reality; you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take. This sounds right, but it’s not. You miss zero percent of the shots you don’t take. I mean, can you imagine not running for president of the United States, and then being criticized for not being the president of the United States? That’s so stupid. You should only take the shots you think you might make, and also want to make. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try, or shouldn’t challenge yourself, but come on! You and your team are a behemoth, but an underdog at the same time. I’m not going there. So you tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll just do it, because I don’t care.”

“Because you’re an agent of chaos,” Leona put forth.

“I’m an agent of confusion. Which means, if you stop asking me to do anything I’m doing, it will maintain the status quo, because the status quo is there is no status quo. I can’t lose! It doesn’t matter what you say.”

This sounded like one of those stories where the hero runs into a genocidal artificial intelligence, and the only way to stop it is to force it into some kind of logical paradox. There was an answer that Mithridates didn’t want to hear, and she had to figure out what that could be. What would cause him to lose?

He could see the gears turning in her head. “You’re hunting for a loophole, but I assure you, it doesn’t exist.”

“What if I ask you to kill yourself?” She didn’t really want him to do that, but she needed him to illuminate the boundaries, so she could start with a decent frame of reference.

He shook his head like it was no big deal. He approached his hut, where a relatively sharp bamboo pole was sticking a little too far out. With little hesitation, he shoved himself forward, and let it dig into his neck. Blood dripped down to the sand, followed by the rest of the body. After Leona knelt down to check for a pulse, which she didn’t find, a figure started walking towards her from the mountain. It was Mithri in his own form.

“Was that real, or an illusion?”

“This is like a holodeck,” he explained. “The objects aren’t real, per se, but they are physical, and that body really died. I have mind uploading technology, just like you do. Anything else?”

“Don’t ever hurt anyone ever again.”

He crossed his arms, and looked to the sky as he pondered the demand. “That is a loophole,” he finally decided. “Yeah, I can’t do that one.”

“Because you just like it too much.”

“No, because it’s impossible. I mean, think about someone you love. Mateo, your parents; whoever. You didn’t wanna hurt them, but you did, on a number of occasions. You dated the wrong boy, or you failed a math test. That’s not killing them, or punching them in the face, but it did hurt them. Just because they forgave you for these things, doesn’t mean that pain could be undone. No one can live their life painfree.”

“Fair enough,” Leona agreed.

“I suppose you just need to figure out what you want. If you tell me your objective, I’ll come up with the plan.”

She had to laugh at this, but it did give her the idea she needed. “I want you to become an agent of peace in this reality.”

Now he was laughing. It went on a little too long, actually. He literally slapped his knee. “Have it your way, Mrs. Matic. I’ll become an agent of peace. You’ll pardon me for having to take some time to figure out what that means.” He laughed some more.

She closed her eyes, and tilted her head down respectfully.

“Now it’s my turn.”

“What?”

“Oh, this was a back and forth. You asked me for something, so now I get to ask for something. What, did you think it was gonna be unfair?”

She sighed. “I should have seen this coming, but you should have warned me.”

“You hadn’t asked me to become an agent of peace yet. I was still an agent of confusion, so I didn’t tell you, because that’s confusing.”

“Whatever, Mithri. Get on with it. I’m sure you already have your idea.”

“Two ideas,” he contended. “You asked me to do two things.”

“No, I asked you to do one thing. I asked for a response to a hypothetical about killing yourself. I never actually said to kill yourself.”

He thought about this for a moment. “I’ll allow it. You’re a smart one.”

“I have three timelines of experience to draw upon,” she said.

“I have more than that. What you asked me to do is very complicated, and it’s not going to come without its mistakes. I’m sure you expect something similar from me, but what I’ve learned over the tens of thousands of years is that sometimes simple is best. So I’m not going to ask you to do anything crazy. It’s even going to be something that you weren’t going to do anyway.”

“Just say it.”

“Kill yourself, and immediately transfer your consciousness to the upgraded organic substrate that Ramses engineered for you.”

“It’s not ready yet. She’s only twelve.”

“Yeah, that’s the joke. I thought you were smart.”

“I thought you were an agent of peace. Death isn’t peace.”

He shrugged. “Grace period.”

She frowned, now looking for a different loophole. There didn’t seem to be anything to that. He specified which substrate, so she couldn’t use some android body while she waited for the body to finish developing.

“I’ll give you one alternative.”

“What’s that?” It was probably going to be something even worse.

“Either start using your own new body right now, or make the rest of your team transfer to their own new organic substrates within the year. That will give me enough time to figure out what you even mean by peace. I’m not confident I have the right definition in mind, since I’ve never done it before.”

That was probably better, not worse. They would all be fifteen by that point, which would almost make them look like adults. The prenatal growth hormones and antibodies that they were currently floating in was the only stuff capable of accelerating their aging safely, and without side effects. It wasn’t something they could just inject into themselves afterwards. If they wanted to age after the transfer process was complete, they would need someone’s time powers. The team would surely understand that this was better than her being stuck as a twelve-year-old. Still, they had a right to know. “Let me speak with them first.”

“You can talk all you want, but the timer has already begun. If you jump to the future, or leave this planet in your ship—which will restore function to your Cassidy cuff—then you’ll have no choice but to switch to the alternative. Either you’re a twelve-year-old by the end of the day, or they’re fifteen by the end of the year.”

So Leona began to run. She wanted as much time as possible to figure this out. “It was nice meeting you, Mithri!” she called back, recalling Leona’s Rules of Time Travel number fifteen, don’t antagonize the antagonist.

“It was nice meeting you too!” he replied.

Leona hooked herself up to the computer, and entered the simulation. Her friends were all there. They looked relieved to finally see her. She explained the situation to them.

“Why can’t we just run?” Olimpia asked.

“I don’t know what he’ll do,” Leona replied. “He may just void the deal, but he may come after us.”

“The answer is obvious,” Angela said. “Just transfer us. We can be fifteen, that’s fine. It’s late enough in the timeline that people will understand.”

“Wait, Ramses, can’t you do something about this?” Marie asked.

“Can I accelerate growth after birth?” Ramses assumed. “With some time, yeah, probably. I didn’t invent this technology. I stand on the shoulders of giants, and none of them ever invented forward aging treatment, because it could be used as a weapon, and not much else.”

Leona nodded. “Mateo, you’ve been quiet.”

“Angela’s right, the answer is obvious. He didn’t tell you that you can transfer your mind to another body. He said you had to kill yourself to do it. I’m not okay with that. What we experienced was awful...necessary, but awful. You managed to avoid it, and I would like to keep it that way.”

This was true. They all died to end up here, and she never had to go through the same trauma; at least not for a while. All things being equal, that was the difference, so by the end of the day, Leona’s most recent body was dead, and she looked as she did when she was twelve.

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Extremus: Year 38

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Rita was exhausted as she tried to continue her story, so Kaiora escorted her out of hock, and up to her new cabin. After she slept, Rita was still unable to continue with the story. Explaining as much as she did proved to be more traumatic than she thought it would be. It was tough, reliving the experience. After about a week, she felt comfortable restarting the process, but only with a therapist, who was trained to converse with her in a safe and nonjudgmental environment. Of course, the therapist did not reveal any details to Captain Leithe, or anyone else, but she was able to report that Rita’s truth would not endanger the Extremus mission, or the people. So nobody else had to know anything about it if Rita wasn’t willing to tell them herself. Even so, she could tell them, because others having this knowledge would also not threaten the mission. Until then, they moved on, and slowly reintegrated her into society. She no longer had a responsibility on the crew—nor did she want one. And for the most part, the other passengers weren’t pushy about her giving them answers.

To be honest, Kaiora hasn’t thought much about it for the last 21 months. She wasn’t even born yet when Rita disappeared. And as a Lieutenant, Rita didn’t make too much of a mark on the mission, since she spent so little time on it. She’s important, no doubt, and Kaiora’s glad she’s returned, but if she doesn’t want to talk about it, she doesn’t have to. The Captain has a ship to run, and that’s what she needs to focus on. As interesting as Rita’s tale might be, her therapist was quite clear that it’s not relevant to the ongoing operation of Extremus, so that means it’s personal. And Kaiora doesn’t have time for personal.

The door chirps. A very well dressed Dr. Daud Kreuleck is on the other side of it. “Is there a science awards event tonight?” Kaiora asks him.

He briefly doesn’t realize what she’s talking about. Then he looks down at his garb. “Oh, no. I was...uh, on a date.”

“Oh. Did it...not go well?”

“It went great,” he answers.

Awkward pause.

“But you needed to leave, and come to me for something?”

“I did,” Daud says with a nod. He’s acting really weird, like he’s just on autopilot, and doesn’t know what he’s going to do next. “His name was...”

“His name was what?”

Daud remembers, “Yusef. It was Yusef, sorry. We had a great time. As it turns out, we have a lot in common—”

“Why are you telling me this, Dr. Kreuleck?”

“Can I come in? I would like to come in.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I just was hoping for some privacy.”

“Okay.” Kaiora selects a contact on her wristband. “Lieutenant Seelen, could you please jump to my cabin as soon as possible?”

Corinna appears in the room behind Kaiora. “All right,” the Captain says to the scientist as she’s stepping back. “Come on in.”

“This is privacy?” Daud questions.

“This is what you get when you ask for privacy with a captain who’s in charge of a spaceship of thousands of people.”

“I’m just.” He growls. Then he walks in, and sits down. “Sorry.”

Kaiora sits down across from him. Corinna remains standing off to her Captain’s flank.

Daud takes a breath. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “This is all making me sound like a creep, and that is the furthest from what I mean. I’m trying to tell you that, while the date was perfect, I just kept seeing your face on his head.”

“I thought you were trying to not be creepy,” Kaiora points out.

“I just mean, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Well, that’s understandable. Like I just said, I’m the leader of a ship.” She looks up at Corinna. “I’m sure there’s some kind of psychological complex going on there?”

“Yes, sir,” Corinna agrees insincerely, trying to remain detached from the conversation. She’s not there to listen, but to protect her superior officer. It’s still not clear if that’s necessary, and the longer this goes without an answer, the riskier the situation becomes.

“It’s not because you’re the Captain, I don’t care that you’re the Captain. I mean, of course I care that you’re the Captain. I just mean—it’s you. It’s just you. I care about you. I’m falling for you. There’s chemistry between us, and you can trust that that’s true, because I know chemistry. You have to agree that there’s something between us. You’re nice to everybody, but you’re particularly nice to me. If you could—”

“Daud. Daud, Daud!”

“What?”

“Stop talking.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You keep having to say that.”

“I’mmmm...” He stops himself from the irony.

“Dr. Kreuleck. I am not interested in your company on a nonprofessional level. I respect you as a scientist, and a member of this crew. But I will not be pursuing a relationship. I apologize if anything I did, or said, led you to believe that there was anything between us beyond mutual professional respect.”

Daud can’t stop fidgeting. He’s heartbroken and upset, but he will get over it. This was the best way to break the news to him. It would be so much worse if Kaiora tried to talk about it, or let him down easy. The hard truth was the only way through. He leans his head back against the top of the couch cushion, stuck in a daze. “Could you please just spirit me away to my cabin? I know you don’t use your teleporter for that kind of thing, but—”

Kaiora does as she’s asked. She sighs once he’s gone.

“I thought you did like him?” Corinna reminds her.

“Fleeting thoughts,” Kaiora dismisses. “Besides, it’s not like I can be with anyone, whether I find someone I truly like, or not.”

“Why not?”

“I’m the Captain, as we established.”

“So what?”

“So the captain can’t be in a romantic relationship. It’s a conflict of interest, or something.”

Corinna frowns. She fiddles with her watch, and uses it to project a hologram of the book of Extremus laws. “Show me in here where it says you can’t be in a relationship.”

“Well, it doesn’t explicitly say that, I mean, but come on...”

Corinna closes the book. She wasn’t expecting Kaiora to literally look for the law. Because it’s not in there. It can’t be. “I’m not saying you should go after...that guy, whoever he is. But if you meet someone, or you’ve met someone, don’t let your job get in the way of that. You are entitled to happiness, and having a responsibility doesn’t mean you lose that. Yeah, it’s true that there are some things you can’t have because you’re the leader, like a completely private or anonymous life. Love isn’t one of those things.”

“Halan never pursued anybody,” Kaiora points out.

“Halan is aromantic. That’s why they chose him.”

“Huh?”

“Obviously it’s not the only reason they chose him—or even necessarily the deciding factor—he’s absolutely qualified for the job, but he was a great candidate, because they didn’t want him to be distracted.”

Was that true? That might actually be true. It would have been almost impossible to pass any laws restricting anyone’s right to love and partnership, so they may have decided that their best alternative was to find someone who wasn’t looking for that. “So you’re only proving my point. Whether it’s an actual law, or not, it means I don’t have time for all that.”

“No, because those people aren’t here anymore. They’re all dead. Well, I think that one of them might be still alive, but he wouldn’t matter. That was their sneaky way of protecting the ship’s interests, but they weren’t infallible. You make your own choices, and when it comes to your personal life, no one can stop you from doing whatever the hell you want. Again, I don’t know who that guy was, but do what you want, and don’t fret over other people’s reservations. You’re not Halan Yenant.”

Kaiora takes a moment to think about Corinna’s words. Hoping they’re true, she reaches over, and selects a destination point on her wristband.

“Are you...going to someone?”

“Thanks, Lieutenant. You’ve been a big help.”

“Squee,” Corinna squees.

Kaiora teleports herself to the executive infirmary, specifically the Chief Medical Officer’s office.

Dr. Holmes is staring at some x-rays on the wall, and looking at a chart on her tablet. “Captain, is there a problem?”

Kaiora gently takes the tablet away from Ima, and replaces it with her hand, to get a feel for it at first.

“Captain...”

Kaiora doesn’t say anything. She just holds the doctor’s hand with her own, caressing her thumb carefully.

Ima reaches up with her other hand to match and begins to breathe heavily. “Captain,” she repeats for the third time.

“I would like to kiss you.”

Ima continues to try to steady her breath. “I’m thirty-four years older than you.”

“Is that right?” Kaiora lays her forehead against Ima’s.

“Actually, it’s...thirty-four years...three months, and six days.”

Kaiora doesn’t let Ima pull away. “You’ve calculated it.”

“Yes,” Ima whispers.

“You don’t know the hours and minutes?” she whispers too.

“One hour, eight minutes,” Ima says, barely audibly.

Now Kaiora pulls aways, and backs up a few steps. “I’m going to stand here. Ten seconds after I stop talking, I’m going to pucker my lips, and kiss. That might mean I’m kissing the air, or I’m kissing you. You will have to choose which.”

Unable to last ten seconds, Dr. Ima Holmes lunges forward, and initiates the kiss. They hold it forever before letting go, each taking a half step back again. “Why did you come here?”

“I had to.”

“This isn’t appropriate.” Ima steps back even farther.

“Yes it is.”

“You’re a baby.”

“No I’m not.”

“I mean I saw you as a baby. I didn’t deliver you, but I’m good friends with the doctor who did. I lived so much before you even showed up.”

“I don’t care about any of that.”

“I do.”

“If you thought you couldn’t get past it, you would have let the ten seconds run out.”

“Ten seconds isn’t enough time to make an informed decision.”

“Ten seconds is sometimes all you have, and I don’t know how many ten secondses either of us has left, but I don’t want to spend them unhappy.”

“I’m going to die comparatively soon, whether we pursue this, or not, and you will have a lot of ten secondses without me.”

Kaiora shrugs. “That’s what you did. You had thirty-four years of ten secondses without me. Calculate that.”

“I didn’t know you. I didn’t...know your smell.” She finds herself walking forward again. “I didn’t know how your bouncy brown hair frames your face, or how my heart flutters when you come into the room, but calms when I hear your soft voice. I was so ignorant back then. If this is mutual, and you feel anything for me like I do for you, I don’t want you to lose it, because I know how I would feel if I lost you.”

“I would rather have and lose you than not have you at all. The distance between us feels like a firestorm, and the closer we get, the cooler it becomes.”

“People will talk,” Ima laments.

“I’ll order them not to,” Kaiora jokes, but she’ll do it for real if she has to.

“I won’t be anyone’s secret. If we start something, we have to go public right away. Can you handle that? Can the mission survive that?”

Kaiora doesn’t wait long to answer, “yes.”

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Microstory 1855: Man in the Street

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Once upon a time, I was sitting at a red light, second in line, waiting for it to change, but in no big hurry. A car pulled up behind me, and started to wait too. Before too long, I felt a lurch. I checked my sideview mirror, and saw that he had knocked into my bumper, and he hadn’t even attempted to back away. My dog’s kennel was still in the back, because we had just gone to the dog park the day before, and if I lived with one fatal flaw, it was my procrastination. So I couldn’t see how the other driver was reacting to this with my rearview mirror. I could tell, however, that he wasn’t getting out of the car. There was probably no damage, because he was moving at less than a kilometer an hour, but I still felt obliged to exchange information. So I did get out, and approached him. I could immediately see that something was wrong. His face was pressed up against his steering wheel, and he wasn’t moving. I instinctively started knocking on the window, and trying to open the latch, but he wasn’t responding, and of course, it was locked. Just due to my interference, he slumped down a bit until his head was pressing against the horn. So it was blaring, the light was green, we weren’t moving, and the people behind us were honking too. There was only one lane, so they couldn’t go around. They probably thought we were stupid for not making a right turn, and dealing with this in that empty parking lot. I knew I had to do something; not for those people, but the hurt person in the car. I remembered that my son bought me and my wife both a special tool that could break through car glass. I ran back to retrieve it, and bashed the back window so I could unlock the stranger’s door. I didn’t know what I was going to do. This was just before cell phones, so I couldn’t call for help. I had once learned CPR, but I forgot all but the basic concept behind it, and I wasn’t sure I could pull it off safely.

As I was dragging him out, a motorcycle cop pulled up. He didn’t know what was going on, but he could see the broken window, and the unconscious man in my arms, so he assumed the worst. He pointed his gun at my head, and started screaming at me. It took a surprising amount of effort to convince him that I wasn’t the bad guy here. The man was hurt, and I needed help. After quickly calling for an ambulance on the radio, the police officer actually began to perform CPR, and I stood back to let him do his thing. Meanwhile, the other cars managed to find openings where they could drive on the wrong side of the road, and get around us. It was a slow process, but it was working, and people just needed to have some patience. One driver wasn’t patient. I don’t know if he didn’t see what was happening, or if he didn’t care, but he was going far too fast, and he was uncomfortably close to the line of cars waiting their turn. I had to think fast. I ran past the cop, and the unconscious man on the ground, took hold of the motorcycle, and summoned all the strength in my body to throw it to the ground. The reckless driver slammed right into it, and that was just enough to divert him away from the cop and his patient. I wasn’t so lucky. A piece of shrapnel shot out of the bike, and lodged itself in my chest. The first guy was still hurt, the bad driver wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, so I could see him halfway up on his dashboard. I think some shrapnel hit the cop too, because his forehead was bleeding. And I thought I was probably going to die. Obviously I didn’t. We all survived, and I’m still friends with the man I helped save, and the police officer. The reckless driver found himself going in and out of jail. This wasn’t his only offense.