Extremus: Year 40

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All the truths came out after the debacle at Taila March’s broadcast. The passengers knew a little bit about the True Extremists, but there was so much more that Halan, Olindse, and Kaiora chose to keep from the majority. After Nuka Bloch completed their maximum term limit, a new first chair took over, but he didn’t survive the issues that the fake Rita Suárez caused. The December election saw him lose his seat to a man named Jepson Sandor, who quickly pivoted his campaign to a sentiment of governmental transparency. He vowed to combat the opacity that his predecessors supposedly laid between them and the people, as well as the secrecy of the crew. He shot up in popularity overnight, and won by a landslide. Unlike other politicians, he wasn’t talking out his ass either. He began to make real changes to the way the civilian government was run, and then he went after the other side.

For the most part, civilians have no control over the inner workings of running the ship itself, however there are exceptions to this division of power, and it has to do with preventing any one power from overtaking the other. A system of checks and balances would allow a captain to take emergency action if they should find the government becoming unfair or tyrannical. Likewise, the government can do the same, and through a convoluted system of loopholes, First Chair Sandor was able to create an entirely new bridged position. Similar to how the Hock Watcher serves equally both governing bodies, the Ship Superintendent has been given the latitude to make decisions that affect the staffing conditions throughout the whole vessel. He can fire, hire, replace, reassign, or even do away with a position altogether. Again, like the Hock Watcher, the way he was elected-slash-appointed was complicated and drawn out, but once the process began, it could not be stopped. Someone had to get this job, and as much as Kaiora fought it, it was going to happen, so their best bet was to find someone who everyone could trust.

Be not confused about the rank of Ship Superintendent. We are not talking about The Superintendent, who lives in another universe, apparently created all of these individuals as characters, and literally wrote the words you’re reading right now. Hey there. Superintendent Calixte Salmon is just a man who was born on Extremus shortly after it launched, and has always wanted to do something like this. Be not confused about this either. It’s a coincidence that he shares his surname with a subspecies of human who travel through time against their will. Or maybe it’s not so much of a coincidence. There was no one named Salmon when a fairly small group of humans first settled in the universe of Ansutah. Everyone here is descended from them, and the reason there aren’t only a couple hundred names is because over time, people began to choose their own to distance themselves from the original family tree. It made it easier to avoid worrying about committing incest after several generations passed, and it probably wasn’t a problem anymore anyway. It’s possible that someone chose the name on purpose at some point. Such historical records were hard to maintain while the ancestors were trying to hide from the white monsters in caves.

Calixte Salmon has not been given carte blanche to make any changes to the crew that he wants, but neither does he have to get approval for every little thing he does. It is in this gray area where doubt regarding his mandate lives. It’s going to take work for him to convince others that it’s not his job to drain the swamp, or alter the balance of power. He’s not there to change everything, but there is a lot of room for improvement, and finding ways to optimize is exactly what he was appointed to do. The Captain—and the captaincy—are fine, but the rest of the crew needs an overhaul. This is gonna hurt. It’s his first day on the job, and if the looks he’s getting from the crowd as he’s trying to explain his purpose are any indication, he will be met with much resistance. He needs help. It’s unclear whether Captain Leithe is approaching the podium in order to provide him that, or if she’s going to throw him under the bus.

She lowers the microphone, and clears her throat with purpose. “I understand that you’re all upset and concerned. I can’t guarantee that this is going to be easy, but we have been discussing this new dynamic for months. I have not been left out of the loop. If this weren’t the only way to overcome our obstacles, I wouldn’t let it happen. This is the first step towards solving the True Extremist crisis, figuring out whether the faux Rita was part of them, or some other faction, and if it’s the latter, solving that one too. I won’t lie to you. Some people may see their shifts cut short. But what I can promise is that each one of you will enjoy the compensation you always expected at the end of those shifts, whether they ultimately last as long as you expected, or not.” She held up her index finger to add, “with a caveat. He is here to help us, and you are here to help him do that. If any of you resist these changes—to an unreasonable degree at least—you run the risk of not only precipitating the deterioration of our society, but also of losing all of your benefits. I’ll throw you in hock if I have to. If anyone is going to revolt, I will be the one to lead, so as long as I’m okay with the state of things, you automatically know that you’re okay with it too. Pretty easy, knowing that you can relax, and accept reality, isn’t it? So check your attitudes, and follow my orders, as well as the Super’s. Understood?”

The crew lifts their knees and drops their feet back down in a stomp pretty simultaneously, though not perfectly. It’s a formal gesture of respect and attention.

“We’ll work on that, so you don’t embarrass me at our next presentation,” Kaiora says. She steps away from the mic, and nods at her new colleague. “Super.”

“Captain,” he replies. “Thank you.”

She solemnly motions for him to return to the podium.

“Thank you, Captain Leithe,” he repeats for all to hear. “I do understand that you’re all nervous about the upcoming changes, especially since you don’t know what they’re going to be. I want you to know that I haven’t decided anything yet. I’ve not had enough time to conduct a thorough assessment. Still, I may be able to answer some of your questions, so I would like to open up the floor to those. Please raise your hand, and stand once picked by the microdrone, which I control. For all not picked that time, please lower your hands and wait to put them back up until I’m finished providing my answer. Sound fair?”

Dozens of people raise their hands, most of them quite earnestly.

Meanwhile, downstage, Second Lieutenant Lars Callaghan is talking out the side of his mouth to his superior officers. “I know it’s gonna be me.”

“What will be you?” First Lieutenant Corinna Seelen questions.

“I’m gonna get the boot,” he answers.

Kaiora sighs rather loudly. She taps on her watch, and activates a sonic barrier, so they can talk freely without anyone else hearing them. “What are you going on about?”

“It’s the Second Lieutenant curse,” Lars tries to explain. “We always get screwed over.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Corinna presses. “You’re only the second L-T-two this ship has ever seen.”

“Yeah, and look at what happened to the last guy. He’s in hock. I’m next, it’s a pattern.”

“That’s not a pattern,” Kaiora argues. “It’s not even a coincidence yet, because Calixte hasn’t even mentioned you to me. It’s just something that happened, and what happened is not that Ovan Teleres was screwed over. He attacked the crew, so the rank isn’t cursed unless maybe you decide to do something similar. Are you planning something, Callaghan?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then shut the hell up and listen to the Q and A!” She makes a point of showing him her watch as she deactivates the barrier.

They listen quietly for a little bit. Lars nods at the good question about whether Superintendent Salmon is planning on merging crew and passenger responsibilities, or if there would remain a clear distinction. “I just think back to how there was never really supposed to be another lieutenant in the first place, and how Captain Yenant only instituted it in order to try to take Ovan out of power in the first place.”

“You can’t prove that,” Kaiora says legally. “And shh!”

Lars continues to try to take his mind off the future of his rank, but he can’t stand it. After a few minutes, he has to get back to it, “some of the things he says he’s gonna do are things that I’m supposed to be doing.”

Kaiora sighs again, and reactivates the sonic barrier. She also includes a visual time loop, which makes it look to people on the other side like the three of them are still sitting in their respective chairs, and not arguing with each other. She stands up to cover the gap between them, hovering her chest in front of Corinna’s face. “Lars, you are a member of the executive crew. As such, I get last say on what happens to you and your rank. He cannot override any decision of mine when it comes to that.”

“I didn’t know that. Good.”

“No. It’s not good,” she maintains. “Because he doesn’t know you, and probably wouldn’t think to do much with you. But I know you, and I’m pissed at you. You’re annoying, and sometimes you don’t do your job. So I’m thinking about dropping you anyway, just to make this whole process easier. I could probably blame it on him. If you don’t want that to happen, I suggest you keep your mouth shut, keep your head down, and take stock of what value you add to this mission.” She moves her hand through the air to illustrate a vertical spectrum. “Here’s neutral zero, otherwise known as mediocrity. Way up here is going above and beyond people’s expectations of you, especially mine. Down here is dead weight, we gotta throw you out an airlock. At the moment, you’re right here.” She adjusts her hand to slightly above the lowest point on the scale. “I think you know what to do to climb back up, mostly because I’ve told you.”

“Shut up, will do. Right, sir, thank you. Sorry.”

Kaiora sighs one last time, and sits back down. “It’s going to be a little jarring when I take us out of the loop. Time is going to jerk your body to where the audience thinks we were, so they don’t notice we’ve moved.” She raises her arm to look at her watch, but it’s not on the menu that she expected it to be. It looks as though the barrier and loop weren’t put up at all. She slowly lifts her eyes, and looks forward. Calixte has turned, and is leaning against the podium, staring at them. The audience is quiet. “Shit.”

Calixte pushes off, and walks towards them. “I can undo this.”

“Undo what?” Kaiora asks.

“This little interaction,” he clarifies. “I can send all four of our consciousnesses back in time a few moments, so no one else remembers that it happened.”

“That’s an illegal form of temporal manipulation.”

“Not for me.” He shows them his blue retractactable keychain. “They gave me this so I can try out different ways of dismissing a crewmember, in case the first time doesn’t go so great.”

“Then you would just be using it illegally.”

He shrugs. “No one has to know.”

She crosses her arms, and studies his face, hoping to ascertain if he can be trusted, or if this will come back to bite her in the ass. “Fine. Do it.”

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Microstory 1865: True Security

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This is the dumbest story from my life. Maybe that’s not the right word for it. Silly, I suppose. It’s certainly not the kind of thing a person should be thinking about as they’re on the brink of death. A normal person wouldn’t, anyway. I was known in my day as someone with an excellent memory. I didn’t have any supernatural ability, or even a diagnosable condition, like hyperthymesia or an eidetic memory, but I was good. In particular, I never forgot a name, and I never forgot a face. So it was a little jarring when a random woman came up to me in the bread aisle of the grocery store, acting like we were old pals. As she started talking, I was thinking that maybe she was mistaking me for someone else. I hear that sort of thing happens to other people. But while the things she was talking about didn’t make any sense, she used enough keywords for me to think that maybe we did know each other somehow, and I started questioning my confidence in my amazing mental faculties. Maybe I forgot people and things all the time, but they never came up again, so I never had the chance to even realize it. Perhaps this woman was tapping into a weakness that I was too blind to see I had at all. Was she a witch? A god? Was she still talking? I couldn’t understand most of what she was saying, her lips were moving so fast. She didn’t have an accent from my perspective, and she wasn’t mumbling, it was just too fast. I wished I had a little remote that would let me slow her down. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought I would probably just mute her, or turn her off. I didn’t need to talk to this person, except maybe I did, because she knew me, and I needed to know how! Yes, I had a cat when I was a child. No, his name wasn’t Mittens, it was Buttons. My first car? I made one up, because I don’t drive.

I keep trying to listen to her, but then I really did get bored of the “conversation” and wished that I could simply walk away. If I were anywhere else, I might have been able to, but I had this cart full of food. She would probably follow me, and skip the milk this week just so she wouldn’t have to end our little one-sided chat. Of course, I could have left my cart, and proceeded right to the exit, but that would have looked so weird, and again, what if she really did know me, and she tracked me down, and tried to spark a friendship? What was that about my mother’s maiden name? I still couldn’t—oh my God, she’s a scam artist. This woman was trying to get my bank information to steal my identity. Keep in mind that this was in the early days of the internet, so people were still mining for information in the real world. It was still bizarre. Joke’s on her, because of my great memory, all of my security answers were fake. I don’t find it any more difficult to recall a food that isn’t my favorite than one that is. It’s tomatoes, by the way, but I told her pizza, because that’s a normal answer. Then I just keep leading her on with her stupid little questions. I met my spouse in a city I had never been too, and also, I’m not married. The name of my first celebrity crush is an actor that I hate. My astrological sign? Really? I’ve never even seen that question before, and I would never use it, because it’s too easy to find out. I don’t even bother lying to her about that one. She went through so many questions, finding clever ways to sprinkle them in, I was almost impressed. Once she was satisfied, she claimed she had to get going, and we parted ways. It wasn’t until I tried to pay that I discovered my wallet missing. I realized that she wasn’t only probing for security answers. She was also distracting me from a pickpocket.

Microstory 1864: That’s It

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Here’s a story for ya. You can either choose to believe it or not, but I’m telling you, it happened, and it happened to me. My father and his father did not have a good relationship. According to what little my mother was able to relay to me, they fought all the time when he was young, and then they just stopped talking completely. I don’t know what they were so angry at each other over, but whatever it was, it’s the reason I never met my grandfather. When he died, he left no one to go to his funeral, let alone plan it. I decided to take up the responsibility of putting him to rest. Because hey, if my dad wouldn’t tell me what the guy did that was so wrong, he couldn’t expect me to hate him as much as he did. Four hundred bucks gets you a bag of your loved one’s ashes, and that’s pretty much it. I didn’t hold a service, and I didn’t buy a fancy urn. I just kept it in the cardboard box that the guy at the morgue went out of his way to tell me was included free of charge, and walked away with the rest of his personal effects. And when I say effects, I really just mean the one thing. Besides his pajamas—which he died in, and I didn’t want back—the only possession he had was a key around his neck. Per the paperwork, he lived only a few blocks from my childhood home, which makes the whole thing even sadder. I took that key, drove to my grandfather’s house, and unlocked the door. The place was immaculate. No dust, no dirt, no smudges on the windows. It looked like it had just been cleaned, but it couldn’t have, because it was missing the smell of cleaning chemicals. Oh, and everything else. Like the man himself, the only thing in the house was a key, hanging from the chain for the entryway light. I tried it on every interior door, but it didn’t work anywhere. It didn’t even fit. I had to investigate, which was harder back then, because my phone couldn’t magically spit out information about it just by taking a picture, like my grandson’s does. He showed me that once.

I went to three locksmiths until one happened to recognize it. It belonged to a storage facility on the edge of town. Most facilities require that the renter use their own lock, but this particular location prided itself in excellent security. Their keys couldn’t be copied, and you couldn’t use it unless you were already on the list of people allowed to access the unit. Still, I figured I might as well go check it out in case they made an exception. They didn’t have to. Their records showed that I was on the list, as was my grandfather, and nobody else. He left this all for me. Whatever was in there, it must have been pretty special. Was it a pristine collection of rare figurines worth millions? Did he just leave me a chest of actual millions? Could it be a creepy, ominous freezer, inside of which was the dead body of his archnemesis? I just kept thinking of all the amazing things that could be waiting for me, and nothing was even close to what I ended up finding when I opened that roll up door. Was this it? I was about to run back to the office to ask for a flashlight, but the guy who signed me in had followed me, and had one at the ready. I switched it on, and shined it all over the unit. “Any secret entrances?” I asked. No, this was it. Both of the neighboring units were recently emptied, in between renters. This. Was. It. On the floor in the center of the unit was a key, like someone had dropped it without noticing. But it wasn’t just any key. It was the key to my parents’ house. It looked exactly like the one on my keychain. All that anticipation just to learn that my mom had given him access to our house in case of emergency, and he had never used it. That’s it.

Microstory 1863: Magnetic

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I’ve met, and heard about, voldisil before. There seems to be a consensus that each one of them is born with two spirit abilities. One is whatever specific special thing they can do. The other is simply knowing that that’s what they are. If I’m a voldisil, then I only have the first thing, and not the second. I’m not inherently conscious that there’s something different about me, but there must be, right? I mean, no single person can run into this many unusual people over the course of a lifetime. My home life was normal. My parents were normal, my half-brother was normal, my neighbors were normal. In high school, I started asserting my independence, which is very normal. As a result, I began to regularly leave my bubble behind, and met all sorts of—let’s call them quirky—characters. I think the first time I noticed it was when I was in psychology class. I had this thing where I would sit at the desk in the far corner of the room on the first day of school. The more interested I became in the subject, the farther up I would move, sometimes to great annoyance to the students who had already chosen their spots, and wanted to stay there. So it was the second day, and I still didn’t think I would want to move, when another kid sat next to me who I guess skipped the first day of school. He seemed to think that we were kindred spirits, even though we didn’t know each other. His big thing was serial killers. He signed up for that course so he could learn all about them. Fine, whatever; to each their own, but he wouldn’t stop pestering me about it. He wanted us to share in the passion for the topic, and I wasn’t into it. I found it difficult to move on the third day. People knew I did that by then, and even though I went in early to get a different seat, they kicked me out. But he was just the first. The first of many.

I could not go on a single blind date, or even a non blind date, without that date deciding that I wanted to hear their weird ideas, like how the stars weren’t real, and if animals don’t wear clothes, why do humans? One of them didn’t like to eat bread, which I’m sure doesn’t sound too crazy, but for me, it’s a non-starter. I met this one guy at a party who thought that water was trying to talk to us through the bubbling and jetting in fountains. A neighbor of mine when I got my own place kept sleepwalking into my unit. I even had the super change the locks, but that guy always managed to get in. Come to find out, he happened to be a thief, and while he wasn’t trying to steal from me, muscle memory occasionally drove him to break in to any door he saw. When I finally got a job, all of my coworkers were bizarre in their own special ways. I began to wonder if they were hired as part of some charity for flat-earthers and autistic people. I know, that sounds really insensitive, but it made me question my sanity, because if I was saying such things about them, what did others say about me? Were they the normal ones, and I was the weirdo? What if none of those people even existed, and I just made them all up in my padded cell? This continued throughout the rest of my life. I met a lot of regulars, to be sure, but the ratio of people I couldn’t understand or relate to seemed higher than it should be. Well anyway, I don’t think I have any superpowers. I don’t think I’m voldisil. I think it’s either dumb luck, or I’m particularly judgmental, and it’s something I never got over. Or it’s like my mom said, everyone’s a little strange, and part of what makes me unique is my tendency to pick up on people’s special traits. Yeah, that makes me sound kind of nice. I’m gonna go with that. I’m not a crazy person magnet. I’m a niche detector.

Microstory 1862: Full Sets

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It wasn’t that big of a deal when I got started. Back then, we only had three channels, right? So people had to find other ways to entertain themselves. I mean, that sounds like people wished there could be more channels, so they wouldn’t be so bored all the time, but obviously no one was really thinking about that. They took up hobbies that people before them had done. Maybe it was the same old, same old, or maybe it was updated, but nothing is ever really new. It’s always just some kind of new sort of way of doing something that we’ve always done. I got really into collecting things. Our parents traveled a lot, leaving us to be raised mostly by my uncles. It wasn’t weird in those times for rich people to place their children in the hands of others. They didn’t want me and my siblings to get in the way, so we never went with them. Even once we were older, and didn’t need constant attention, we didn’t go on family vacations. In retrospect, my parents were kind of assholes. They were the ones who sent me down the path towards my dark and inescapable habits. They thought they were great, and it was true, we were so excited to see them whenever they finally did show up that we accepted whatever we could get. Ancient Greek coins? Parisian stamps? I’ll take ‘em. A magazine in a language I’ve never heard of, and will never be able to read? Yes, please. Toys, toys, and more toys; sign me up, please and thank you. We loved all the gifts, because they were coming from them, but we would have rather they had just been around more. I wish they could have raised me right, but I doubt they would have done a better job. That brings us to where we are today. My siblings ended up okay, but I never recovered. I took those coins, and those stamps, and those novelty toys, and based my life around them. I began to collect on my own, and like I was saying, it wasn’t a problem until it was a problem.

The word you’re looking for is hoarder. Some people become as such by not being able to get rid of things. They don’t deliberately order magazines just to stack them. They subscribe to a given periodical, and then just keep each one. I’m not like that. I am a discerning hoarder. I have a very particular compulsion. I don’t just want a whole bunch of cats, or even a whole bunch of dead cats. I want sets. I want every size of every color of a given series of highly absorbent towels. I want one of every item in a line of kitchenware from a certain brand. I don’t buy junk at random, and drop it all somewhere in my house. Each one has to belong, so I end up with a comprehensive—and truthfully, beautiful—collection to put on display. Because that’s the whole point, to showcase my collections to others. It’s not my fault that I don’t have a big enough place to do it right. If I lived in a mansion, you wouldn’t think any of this was weird. No, you would walk into my classic English literature room, and see my copy of Tarmides of Egypt, as well as all of his other works, along with his contemporaries. That’s what belongs there. And there’s a room for the stamps, and one for sports balls, and another for a generic license plate from every single unique region in the world, and so on, and so forth. That last one has always been my dream, I don’t actually have a complete set. If I did, I wouldn’t have the space for it, because I can’t afford that mansion. My parents were the ones who were rich, not me. So here I am in my wee little flat, where I look like a crazy person who’s oblivious to the state of her world. Whatever, my great-niece was telling me about haters, and that’s all people are. I regret nothing.

Microstory 1861: The Tarmides of Tasmania

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In the late sixteenth century, a certain famous playwright wrote what would become perhaps his most obscure works. He was two years from death, and didn’t even get to see his final piece performed on stage. Once Tarmides of Egypt finally did make it to the theatre, opening night was riddled with such bad luck that it ruined the show’s future indefinitely. The lead forgot many of his lines, his co-star had to give birth halfway through, forcing them to switch to an understudy. The man who played the grandfather died of a heart attack near the end, and another was impaled when the stage collapsed due to all the weight of the people who ran up to tend to the old man. The injury resulted in death a day later. It was for these reasons that all further showings were cancelled. Years later, a different troupe tried to put on another production, but it went badly too. No one else died on the night, but set pieces fell apart, multiple actors flubbed their lines, and historians believe this to be the probable ground zero for what came to be known as the relatively shortlived Lurch Plague. The play was cursed, according to the superstitious majority of the time, and no one else so much as attempted to produce it again for at least a century. Since then, rumors of further unfortunate events have spread about more recent attempts, but most of these claims remain unsubstantiated. The fact of the matter is that the play has almost certainly been produced dozens of times without any issue, but that’s not a very good story, so most students are taught the melodramatically stretched truth that the curse always takes them in the end. The mystique of this whole thing is only fueled by the subject matter of the play itself.

Tarmides was born in Greece, but the narrative is about him immigrating to Egypt to escape his past, only to find himself at the center of one disaster after another. The playwright was probably trying to demonstrate the futility of life, having become more nihilistic in his latter years, but this depressing lesson is lost to the more sensational idea that he was a prophet, who wrote it in order to prompt destruction in the real world. When I was a young man, a tyrant rose to power, and waged a war against the rural parts of my country. Villages were demolished under the weight of his superior technology. I probably wasn’t truly the only survivor, but again, that’s not sensational enough, so the media billed it that way. I became famous, and an international effort formed in order to relocate me to a safer region of the world. Most of the time, developed world nations fight over who has to take in refugees, but in my case, they fought for the honor. Tasmania won, so that’s where I moved. Shortly thereafter, an undersea earthquake in the Southern Ocean sent a tidal wave to the island, killing thousands of people, and destroying a great deal of the infrastructure. Once again, in order to sell papers, journalists began drawing connections between my arrival, and the completely unrelated and unpredictable natural disaster. Like most regular people, I hadn’t even heard of the play myself at the time, but I soon came to be known as The Tarmides of Tasmania. This nickname followed me for the rest of my life. Whenever an item fell off of the shelf at the grocery store, or I was around when it began to rain, I was blamed for it. There was always someone around who enjoyed pointing it out, especially if something even moderately inconvenient happened to someone else. I lived the rest of my life with this mark, and as much as I don’t want to die, I won’t miss it.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 31, 2389

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Mithridates couldn’t stop laughing when twelve-year-old lookin’ Leona reached out to him from the Suadona to prove that she had gone through with her promise. She just sat there with her emotionless face, waiting patiently for him to get ahold of himself. Finally, he was able to stop and apologize, explaining that it was just so funny, this little girl being so serious and jaded. He then reiterated his own promise to become an agent of peace in this reality. He was the fifth Preston she had met. One stayed an antagonist, though became a little more understated than he was in the beginning. The next ended up one of their greatest friends. The third’s true motivations were never clear, and if Leona was a therapist, she might have diagnosed her with bipolar disorder. The fourth was a much more obvious villain, who literally no one mourned after he was murdered twice.

Mithri appeared to be a villain from the beginning, but other than this body changing bargain, they didn’t really have any proof of anything he had ever done. His lonely planet was where some kind of automated transporter sent them once they entered the galaxy, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he was in charge, or really anything else about him. There was more than one original member of The Fifth Division, and in all this confusion, she had forgotten to ask after them. He smiled, and pretended like he was going to give her an answer, but then just didn’t. He wouldn’t even say anything more about how he grew up while he was in The Gallery dimension, or what his job there was, if anything. He simply thanked her for her cooperation, and ended the call.

Leona placed the Suadona in orbit, and just left it there for the next year. It was unlikely that Mithri would do anything to it, and he would surely protect it in his own way. Trust the devil you know, and all that. Come the next year, she logged herself into the simulation to check on her friends.

“Leona, why do you look like that?” Mateo asked.

“What are you talking about? It’s just...” She looked down at herself. “Oh.”

“Did you do what the Preston guy asked?” Ramses questioned.

This was a mistake. She thought the system would just use her normal avatar, but for some reason, it scanned her current substrate, and drew from that instead. “I had to. Unless he lied, he’s going to help end the conflict and hostility. I think it was worth it.”

“That’s not what we discussed,” Mateo insisted.

“My body, my choice.”

He sighed. “That’s an unfair spin.”

“I get it, you don’t wanna be married to a twelve-year-old.”

“You’re not twelve, you just look like you are. But yeah, it’s weird.”

“Well, it would have been weird if I were married to someone who looked fifteen!” she volleyed.

“Well,” Mateo began, stammering as he tried to continue, “yeah, that...makes sense! Ramses, did you figure out how to do it from your end?”

“Do what?” Leona asked.

“Yes, I have control over my own systems,” Ramses said.

“You’re gonna transfer your minds anyway? The whole point of me doing it is so you don’t have to,” Leona complained.

“We’re not going to let you look like this on your own,” Olimpia reasoned.

“As I’ve already explained, this was my choice.”

“And we respect that,” Marie said, “so respect ours. We’re tired of being in this simulation. It’s boring. Ramses was only allotted so much memory to construct with.”

“I can get you more memory,” Leona said.

“We want to be out in base reality,” Angela clarified. “That’s not something you can argue against.”

She was right. If they wanted to take on new bodies, it was their right to go through with the download. This wasn’t forever for any of them. They could always build even newer substrates, or find a proverter back in the main sequence to fix these ones. She had to concede to their wishes, and help them complete this task. “Fine. Just let me make sure that everything looks good on my end.” Before she could log out, she felt something jerk her whole body. There were different ways to connect to a virtual construct, but the best way to do it was to suppress the user’s physical movements, so that neural commands were sent to the avatar instead. That way one’s real legs didn’t start flailing about when they were really just supposed to be running inside of the program. Still, there was a failsafe to this technology, which allowed that user to feel someone trying to shake them awake, or stabbing them with a knife, or something. Something was what was happening to the ship in base reality, and Leona had to investigate.

“Computer, report!”

“Lightyear engine is offline. Fractional reactors are offline. Low impulse drives are offline. Maneuvering thrusters are offline.”

“I get it, everything’s offline!”

“Interior artificial gravity online. Life support online. Lights are online.” So sassy.

“Are we being attacked!”

“Not anymore.”

“Who was it, and what are they doing now?”

“The Warmaker Training Detachment is presently matching our orbit, and has done nothing since targeting and destroying our propulsion systems.”

“The lightyear engine is offline, but what about the standard teleporter?”

“The teleporter is located in a deep interior section of the ship, and is currently still operational.”

“Make a jump to the surface.”

“Hull integrity is at—”

“It doesn’t matter, we’ll be in the atmosphere by the time it’s ripped apart.”

And ripped apart it was. Though the detachment was obviously only trying to prevent them from escaping, damaging all means of propulsion necessarily meant causing destruction all over the vessel. The Suadona would have survived enough to be towed into the Warmaker, but will never go anywhere on its own without extensive repairs. The fact of the matter is that it was over, and it was time to abandon ship. Fortunately, they had no strong feelings for the cruiseliner.

Leona spun around, hoping to quickly explain the situation to the team, but they were already coming out of their pods. Ramses had transferred their consciousnesses to their replacement substrates. It was pretty creepy, this group of naked minors standing around together. They all sensed the awkwardness. “You’ll get dressed later. Let’s get to the AOC first.”

“Wait!” Ramses ordered.

“We don’t have any time,” Leona argued.

“Exactly,” he agreed. “You can teleport with your mind now. Let’s go.” He disappeared. Apparently, there was no learning curve to their new temporal abilities. They deliberately built Ramses’ lab far from the hull so as to protect it from an attack like this, and they did the same with the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, though they kept them far from each other for similar reasons.

It was a rush, transporting themselves from where they were, right to where they wanted to go. Obviously they had teleported before, but never by sheer force of will. Until now, they had always relied on technology, or other people, but now they were in control. Now they had the power. Ramses had done did good, even if they had to start using these bodies a little too early.

“Hey, we ended up taking some extra power resources, right?” Marie asked.

“Yeah, they’re in storage down in engineering,” Leona answered. “We have more than we ever have before. We won’t need to refuel for a long time now.” She looked up. “Computer!”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Execute escape program Leona-nine-one-one.”

“Initializing decoys,” the computer responded. The central hologram popped up to show them their progress. While Leona was alone in base reality, she didn’t spend that entire time doing nothing. She was busy preparing for this very eventuality. The Suadona was a beautiful thing. It was capable of getting them anywhere in the supercluster in only a few years—or from their perspective, three days. But alongside that, it was big and threatening, and while nowhere near as powerful as the detachments, it could competently hold its own against an enemy. This was why the Warmaker essentially destroyed it without any warning, and why they were far safer just leaving it behind, and returning to their true home. The AOC was small, inconsequential to these people, and easily underestimated. It was not undetectable, however, and the best way to avoid such detection was to confuse all sensors from being able to distinguish it from other things.

Leona designed and built decoys. They were watermelon-sized drones that only served one purpose: emit a hologram that made each one look like a copy of the AOC, and transmit a false signature that also made each appear to be the real AOC. The reframe engine was slow compared to the types of propulsion people in the Fifth Division were used to using, but these decoys should still distract the Warmaker long enough for the team to make their escape, and not be followed.

They watched on their own hologram as the drones teleported themselves to various points in the space surrounding the planet. At random intervals, they then darkbursted in all directions, shutting off their holograms and transmitters at the same time to make it harder for them to be found. While they were doing that, the real AOC was escaping at reframe speed, its crew hoping their opponents never figured out which one they ought to follow.

“Captain Matic?” the computer asked.

“Yes? Are they following us?”

“No, sir, but we picked up a data transmission. It’s a message from the Warmaker.”

“Can they detect us this way?”

“No. Anyone in the area with an antenna would have received it. It’s unencrypted.”

“Play it.”

The battleground hologram disappeared to be replaced with an image of Xerian Oyana. “Crew of the Suadona. I’m sorry it has come to this. In your absence, power has reverted back to us. Against my advice, the others have decided to launch a full scale attack against the Denseterium, and the Fifth Division proper. We detected your presence in orbit over Earth, and I was unable to prevent them from including you in the first shots of this new war. I hope you find a way to survive, and I regret that our relationship deteriorated to a state of hostility. I’ve always admired you, and I appreciate all you did, and tried to do, for the supercluster. If we ever cross paths again, I promise not to be a driving force of opposition, but I can make no such promise when it comes to the other leaders, and their decisions. Please. Be careful, and just go away. Stay safe, and stay out of it. We are not your problem anymore.”

“Did he just say this is Earth?” Angela asked.

“Are we going to do that?” Marie asked at around the same time, barely registering that her alternate was also speaking. “Are we going to heed his advice?”

“Well,” Mateo began, “we’re going to be careful and safe, and we’re going to do our level best to stay out of it, but we can’t go away without getting back in it first. The only way out is through. As far as we know, Dilara Cassano, a.k.a. The Arborist is still on the SWD. If we want to go home, we have to retrieve her.”

“Can we even get to the other detachments?” Olimpia asked. “We’re so far away now, and we’ve lost our lightyear engine.”

Mateo looked over to his wife, who closed her eyes and sighed. “Computer, go back to the site of the attack. Once you’re there...initiate Pilot Fish protocol.”

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Extremus: Year 39

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“Good late night. My name is Taila March, streaming live from a secret section of the ship that you’re not allowed to go to. Pause of laughter. The time is midnight central according to the Earthan clock, on September 12, 2308, and you’re watching Extremus Measures. If you’re under sixteen, maybe you wanna shut your eyes, and cover your ears—or just go to bed—it’s about to get real.”

She walks up and over to her desk, forgoing her usual slew of topical jokes. It’s not the first time she’s done it. She alters the format when she’s going to be discussing some more serious topics. She sits patiently as the band completes its song, pretending to read through notecards and the show’s agenda. She goes on when the music stops, “tonight, we have two very special guests. The first is our very own Captain, Kaiora Leithe. This is a real treat, guys, I hope you’re tuning in. Traditionally, members of the executive crew don’t do civilian streaming, but she wants to clear the air on a few things, so she’s agreed to come talk with us. Second, former First Lieutenant Rita Suárez is here. She returned to the ship about two years ago after having been missing for over thirty years. She’s spoken up a little about what she went through in that time, and has suggested that she didn’t experience the same amount of time apart as we did, but tonight, she says she’s ready to provide us with a bit more information. I hope you all have, and will continue, to show her a warm and caring welcome. As always, this stream is live, and any form of recording is forbidden. We’re off the cuff here; unadulterated, unedited...and sometimes unprofessional, but always respectful.

“That all being said, please welcome my first guest, Captain Kaiora Leithe.”

The studio audience cheers.

Kaiora steps through the curtain, and waves to them as she approaches her chair. It’s true, being on this show is very unorthodox. But it’s not against the law, and as long as she doesn’t reveal any sensitive information, everything should be fine. She’s here to discuss her personal life. As the most famous person on the vessel, she doesn’t have the luxury of privacy. Sure, she has the right to keep some things to herself, but if the captain is going to be dividing her attention between the ship, and a love interest, it’s not outrageous for people to question her competence. She didn’t want to come on here and talk about it, but as the last nine months rolled by, it became clearer that the less she said, the more the public made up about her and Ima. It’s time to take control of the narrative. “Thanks for having me, Miss March.”

“Thanks for agreeing to meet with us, Captain, we’re all very excited.”

“Oh, please, we’ve known each other for over twenty years. Call me Kaiora.”

“Is that true? Do other people who happen to have known you for so long get to be on a first name basis with you?”

“That’s a good point. I suppose it will have to be more of just a you thing.”

“Hear that, kids.” Taila holds her cards to the side of her mouth. “Don’t call her by her name, or it’s off to the hock with ya! Oh, I joke, I joke. But seriously, Captain—Kaiora, you’re here to officially announce a personal romantic relationship, right?”

“Well, I think that ship has sailed,” Kaiora replied. “We’ve been open with everyone since day one. We didn’t hold a press conference, but it’s been out there.”

“But of course, this must have begun before. I mean, you didn’t just fall in love on day one. You had been working together for years.”

“No, it kind of was a sudden thing. The feelings were there, yes, and we exchanged some glances, but neither one of us had anything close to confirmation of mutual attraction. Then, one night, I had a hard conversation with someone else, and I just...felt like I had to take a chance. I raced over to Ima’s office, and we started talking. So it wasn’t love at first sight, but it wasn’t a long courtship either.”

“Is love the right word to use, or no?”

“It’s what we use, but not in the beginning. We both felt it was our responsibility to be honest with the crew and passengers regarding our connection. Not only was it better for the health of the mission, but keeping it secret would have made it—I think—less real, like we weren’t fully committed. So you’ve all been with us as it’s evolved. Though, of course, we do keep some things to ourselves.”

“Of course, of course. Now, you said you had a hard conversation, which somehow inspired you to have this epiphany. Can you tell us anything about that?”

No. She definitely can’t drop Daud’s name, but she doesn’t even want to give the audience a hint about what might have gone down. This isn’t about him, and he deserves to remain anonymous. “That’s internal, and classified,” she states simply, hoping to imply it was just some kind of random crewmember behavioral issue.

“Very well.” Taila clears her throat to continue. “I understand that Dr. Holmes is here with you tonight, but she won’t be coming on stage?”

“No, she has chosen to let me take the reins on this one. She’s here for support, but she prefers to stay off camera. I’m the one who signed up for public scrutiny.”

“Well, that’s true, but that doesn’t mean you’re obligated to appear on screen like this. We all really appreciate the candor. Don’t we?”

The crowd claps at an appropriately subdued volume.

“Lovely. Perfect. Not to cut us off, but it’s time to bring out our second guest. We would like you to stay here, and keep talking, though. And obviously you’re always welcome to come back to the show anytime you want. Is that okay?”

“I blocked the time for it,” Kaiora replies with a half smile. “For tonight, that is.” She recognizes, however, that Taila is ending the interview before getting to the real questions, because it will prompt the audience to complain about it, forcing the Captain to return for a second interview. It’s just a coincidence that this will result in another ratings boost.

“Great, so that will be your new chair,” Taila says, pointing before turning back to the camera. “Crew and passengers of Extremus, please welcome Rita Suárez.”

The audience claps subdutifully again, giving Rita a standing ovation in deference to her. She comes out of the curtains unsmiling, and more slowly. Wearing a flowy, robey sort of outfit, she carefully climbs the two steps, and crawls into the chair like she’s worried it’s going to change shape on her. She had to notice Taila’s attempt to shake her hand, but acts like she doesn’t know what it means.

Truthfully, Kaiora hasn’t been keeping track of Rita’s life back on the ship. She’s really relied on the expertise of the people trained to handle this sort of thing. They never said she was a threat to the mission, so it wasn’t the Captain’s business. Rita hasn’t expressed a desire to be reinstated onto the crew, so the crew hasn’t needed to be involved. Even so, she seems different now, like she’s regressed. According to the limited psychological reports that Kaiora has received, she should have improved more by now. It’s been two and a half years, and nothing she’s heard would suggest she would behave like this.

Taila doesn’t seem to notice, though who knows how well she knew Rita before today? They don’t exactly run in the same circles. “Thank you for coming, Miss Suárez. How are you feeling?”

“I’m great,” Rita says unconvincingly.

“How have you been adjusting to life?”

“It’s been wonderful.” She’s saying the words, but she doesn’t seem to believe them. It feels like she’s reciting from a script.

Now Taila seems to be picking up on the same awkwardness that Kaiora is. “Care to elaborate?”

Rita runs her fingers through her hair as she looks up at the lights, as if she didn’t even hear the question. “No.”

“Okay,” Taila begins, hoping to salvage this interview. “Could you tell us what happened to you after you disappeared back in 2272?”

Rita smiles. “I saw the light.” She’s still literally looking at the lights, which is presumably why she finds her own answer amusing.

“You did? I was to understand that it was a harrowing ordeal, full of constant dangers, and even some near-death experiences.”

“Yeah,” Rita responds lazily. “That’s what happened, but it’s not what happened, ya know.”

“I’m afraid I don’t. I don’t understand.”

“I know.” Now she’s acting like a frustrated and sad child, but not angry. “No one understands. You haven’t seen the light.”

“Rita,” Kaiora steps in. “What’s going on?”

Rita jerks her face around to face the Captain, like she didn’t remember she was sitting next to her. “Everyone’s always calling me that. It’s dreadful, don’t you think? Rita Suárez,” she mocks. “It’s sooo...human.” She’s so disgusted by this.

Kaiora stands up. “Security,” she prompts rather quietly.

Rita stands up too. “Yeah,” Rita agrees. “The more the merrier, as you people would say.” She reaches up to her shoulders, and removes the outer layer of her clothing, revealing a suicide vest. Because of course there’s a suicide vest.

The three members of civilian security rightfully stop, and take a half step back in shocking unison. Without hesitating, Kaiora reaches for her teleporter, and tries to banish Rita off the ship, but she’s unable to. Something’s blocking her. She keeps pressing the button, but it still doesn’t work.

Rita turns around and smirks. “You think I didn’t prepare for that?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“This is exactly what I would do in this situation,” Rita contends. “You don’t even know me.”

“Rita,” Taila tries. “Please.”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Okay, what do you want us to call you?”

“I...” Rita takes hold of what’s most likely the detonator. “...am Oblivion.” She presses the button with her thumb. Instead of her blowing up, though, she just disappears. Was that it? Was it not a bomb at all, but a bizarrely intricate transporter?

Kaiora looks over and sees Daud between cameras B and C. He’s holding a sort of tennis racket sort of thing towards the stage, and panting a little. “Did you do something?” she asks.

“Cut the feed,” Daud demands.

Taila swipes her fingers in front of her neck. The broadcast lights turn off.

“Report,” Kaiora says.

“You remember when we found her?” Daud asks as he approaches. “We finally figured out that she was in another dimension, which only made her appear to be a teeny tiny person?”

“Vividly,” Kaiora recalls. It was a traumatic experience.

He waves the weird racket thing around. “We also figured out how to replicate that.”

“Why? I didn’t give you authorization to conduct such research.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Kaiora says, changing her tune. “You just saved our lives.”

“Why did he need to do that?” Taila questions. “Why would Rita Suárez want to kill the two of us, and herself, and this randomly selected audience?”

It wasn’t her. It was just someone posing as her, so they could gain access to the ship, and move about at the lowest clearance level possible. And to what end? To assassinate the Captain? What would that accomplish, besides ushering in a new captain? If that’s the case, this secret organization—be it new, or still the same old True Extremists—would have to have a candidate in mind who would be more amenable to whatever insane agenda they have. Rita is presumably dead now, so they can’t ask her, but they will have to begin a formal investigation to make sure nothing like it ever happens again. People have always called Kaiora a peacetime captain, but now she’s starting to think that designation will have to be amended.

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