Microstory 2003: Wyoming

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In the year 1976, my papa’s father went out looking for better work, and he finally found it, but it was in a different state. In fact, he had to drive over 160 miles to the interview. But he got the job! But of course, he couldn’t do that every single day, since it would take him almost three hours each time! So he moved the whole family to a city called Buffalo, Wyoming. You may have heard of the Buffalo in New York, but you can actually have two different cities with the same name. It happens all the time. Anyway, the house they moved into was a lot bigger, because grandpa’s job was a lot better, so he was making a lot more money. My papa and his sister now had their own separate rooms, but the dog still always slept in my aunt’s room. I don’t know why. Before he died, papa told me that his first memory was of this new house in Wyoming, which he thought of as his first house, even though he lived in another one before, when he was a baby. Have you ever thought about your first memory? I do all the time. You probably don’t remember being a really little baby. What papa said is that he remembered playing in the leaves with his sister and a neighbor while their parents watched from the porch. He says that it was a lot of fun, but it had just rained, so the leaves were still a little bit wet and slimy. My first memory was when I was about the same age too, but it’s not a happy one, so my dad told me that I shouldn’t put it on the slide. I’m glad that my papa had a good memory for his first one.

Microstory 2002: Montana

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When my papa was younger than me, he lived in a city called Billings, Montana, but like Alabama, he doesn’t remember it. Also like Alabama, he went back a few times when he was older to visit friends of the family. He only lived there for real for three years before my grandpa found a better job in Wyoming. For three years, he worked at things that my dad calls odd jobs, which means that they didn’t last very long. He was always very stressed and angry because he lost his factory job, but he was still a very nice man. He always gave my cousins a lot of great presents before he died. Grandpa died eight years ago, so I never knew him. He was born in Montana, and lived there for many years before he had his own kids. He retired in Florida, but that’s a story for another slide. I’m telling you about Montana now, which is where my papa lived until he was three. The house that they lived in was very small, because his family didn’t have very much money. He and his sister had to share a room with the dog. When my grandma was talking about this, she said that my papa was the best baby she had ever met in her life. Her daughter was a very fussy baby, but not my papa. Papa’s sister, who is my aunt, was only two years older than him, so she was born in 1971. Her name is Aunt Cooper. My grandma said that papa was a very happy baby, who was happy where they were living. Luckily, he didn’t have to be like that for very long when his father got a great opportunity to run a new plant in Wyoming. You can go to the next slide to hear about that.

Microstory 2001: Alabama

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My papa, Aubrey was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on July 26, 1973 to father Burchard Jardine, and mother Daphne Smolak. Smolak was her maiden name, which means that that’s what her name was before she was married. She was a schoolteacher, and he worked in a factory. They were on their way back from a trip to Alabama when his mom gave birth at a hospital. It was about a month before papa was supposed to be born, so he was very small, and a little sick. He had to stay in the hospital for 11 days before the doctors said that he was healthy enough to leave and go home. He wasn’t able to breathe on his own, so they put him in a plastic box, and hooked him up to all these machines. They were also worried that he would get really sick, so they had to watch him all the time. My grandparents were sad and scared, but they prayed, and knew that he would get better, and he did. While they were there, papa’s dad lost his job at the factory, because he was supposed to be back at work on Monday, and his boss wasn’t very nice about it. It was the summertime, so my grandma didn’t lose her job. It was fine. Since he was just a baby, papa doesn’t even remember being in Alabama, but he went back when he was older to meet the doctor who delivered him. The doctor was very old by then, but he was still alive! He is not anymore, or he would be over 100 years old! My papa was 50 when he died, which is very young to die. Anyway, when papa was better, his parents left Alabama, and drove back to where they lived, which was Montana. It’s really far away, so it took them three days of driving. I bet they were pretty tired.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 27, 2418

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It was time to go. None of them wanted to leave Dardius—least of all Mateo—but it was the right thing to do. He didn’t choose every aspect of his life, but he chose some of them, and no matter what the ratio was, Romana didn’t choose any of it for herself. She deserved to live in a comfortable and safe environment. It was going to be hard enough for her, only living for one day out of every year, and it wasn’t fair for Mateo to stick around if it was going to make that worse. This planet was the safest place to be only if Team Matic wasn’t on it. They attracted too much attention. They were magnets for trouble. Sure, they could find respite here and there every once in a while, but it was going to find them eventually, and they didn’t want anyone else to be caught in the crossfire. Karla, Silenus, and especially Constance would do right by Romana, and make sure she grew up to be a well-rounded individual. She would learn to make her own choices, and in several thousand years, if she wanted to start making a name for herself in this crazy multiverse, she could do that, and place her own self in danger. Until then, everyone else was responsible for making their respective sacrifices to protect her.

They had a grand breakfast together, complete with the best cuisine that Dardius had to offer. Vearden and the planet’s owners were all there, as well as some other government officials that Angela and Marie had grown close to over the last few days. When it was over, they said their goodbyes, and packed up the Dante. If you had told Mateo back when he was 27 years old that it was possible to store a spaceship inside of a backpack, he wouldn’t even have the concept for it in his imagination. Now it seemed so basic and unimpressive, even though it was still anything but. While Silenus was watching over the baby, Karla asked to see them off at the Nexus, so Mateo teleported her to Tribulation Island with the group. She swung her bag off of her shoulders, and dropped it onto the sand. “Silenus got this for you, but he asked me to say it was from me instead. I don’t like lying, so I’m not gonna do that. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly secure. It doesn’t store any images, or other data. No one can trace us from it.”

“What is it?” Mateo asked.

She opened the bag, and removed a box. She opened it, and pulled out a gooseneck mirror. “Now you can stay in touch.”

“Is that a time mirror?” Leona asked.

“One of a pair,” Karla confirmed. “It can’t be hacked, and it can’t be intercepted. It’s on its own special quantum frequency, or something.”

Leona looked over at Ramses.

“We have our own temporal engineers,” Karla explained. “You’re not the only inventors in the universe.”

“That’s fair,” Leona responded.

“Thank you,” Mateo said.

“I’m sure your wife can teach you how to use it,” Karla went on. “Unless you’re in the middle of talking to someone else, or Romana and I are out somewhere, I’ll make sure that it’s always pointed towards her. If we don’t answer, it doesn’t mean we’re not safe. It’s just not something that I can carry around. We’re probably just on a walk.”

“Thank you,” Mateo repeated. He carefully placed the communication time mirror back into its box, and then into his own bag.

They all stepped into the Nexus building. “Hey, Opsocor,” Leona asked.

No response.

“Opsocor, can you hear me?” Leona pressed.

Still no response.

“The techs can send you anywhere you wanna go,” Karla tried to explain.

“Not anywhere,” Leona contended. “We’re trying to go back to the Sixth Key.”

“Why would you go there? It doesn’t sound safe at this point in history.”

“Safe isn’t what we’re looking for,” Mateo told her. “There’s a mission somewhere out there that needs to be completed, and which we’re capable of accomplishing, so we’re going to do that. We can’t just go find a beach somewhere on a paradise world, and lounge about.” It sounded dumb to go off in search of trouble, but sitting around and doing nothing would defeat the whole purpose of keeping Mateo from his daughter. He had to stay busy, even if that meant deliberately inviting adventure and danger into their lives. They all agreed to this. “The Sixth Key is new, and on the verge of war.”

“If they haven’t started fighting already,” Marie added.

“Right. Maybe we’ll make things worse,” Mateo continued, “but maybe we can help. We’re partially responsible for the mess they’re in, so we have to see if there’s anything we can do to prevent, or at least end, the killing.”

“Assuming it’s not inevitable,” Angela decided.

“Yeah, let’s hope as much.”

“Hey, Opsocor?” Karla asked the aether, just in case it worked.

“You may be the problem,” Leona hypothesized. “Everyone may be.” She looked up through the window to the control room.

“We’ll go,” one of the technicians said through the speaker. “We’ll leave you be for ten minutes, but not a second longer. We cannot be away from our posts for longer than that.”

“I should only need two minutes,” Leona told the two of them as they were coming down the stairs. “If she doesn’t respond to me by then, she probably never will.”

Karla gave Mateo a hug, and a mostly friendly kiss on the lips. “Call me maybe.”

“Absolutely,” he replied.

They cleared the room.

Leona took a deep breath. “Opsocor.”

“Yes, Leona.”

“I don’t understand your rules.”

“You don’t have to.”

“You’re always there, even if you don’t say anything, which means you know where we wanna go?”

“Yes, and I’ll send you there, if you would like, but...”

“But what?”

“But it will put you on a path. I can see that path. Well, I can’t, but I know someone who can. You can get out of it. All you have to do is go to Worlon instead.”

“Worlon?” Ramses questioned, very concerned. “The homeworld of the Ochivari? Are you sure?”

“The Ochivari left so they wouldn’t destroy it again, so ironically enough, it’s the safest place to be right now.”

“That’s not what we’re looking for,” Olimpia tells Opsocor before muttering under her breath, “we keep having to say that.”

“Out of the group,” Opsocor began, “I answer only to Leona.”

“Take us to the Sixth Key,” Leona requested. “Take us to the safest planet in the Sixth Key. Does that sound like a decent compromise?”

“Very well. Step into the cavity.”

They all did so. All of the sixteen numbers and activation glyph were etched on the walls of the cavity, which was only one step down. These were not only for decoration. It was possible to input the sequence from here, without doing anything with the computer in the control room, or the terminal on the wall. Whichever method one used for a departure, the glyphs on the kick buttons lit up in order to indicate where the travelers would be going. Leona’s eyes widened as she watched, but she wasn’t able to stop it in time. “Oh, you sneaky snake.”

The light overwhelmed them, and transported them not only to another planet, but another universe. And when they arrived, they realized that they were also not in the Milky Way Galaxy, where they expected to be. Everyone in the group who had been here before recognized it immediately, even though it had been 165 years since the last time. “Flindekeldan,” Olimpia whispered loudly.

“Oh. Seems nice enough,” Ramses noted.

“It doesn’t have a Nexus,” Mateo told him. “We’re stuck here.”

“How did you escape the first time?” Ramses asked.

“Desperately,” Mateo answered his friend cryptically.

“I’m sorry,” Leona said, shaking her head. “Venus tricked me.”

“She’s protective of you,” Mateo said comfortingly, with a kiss on her forehead.

“I can understand that,” came a voice behind them. “It was Leona. It was some version of Leona anyway. They didn’t know which one yet.

“Report,” the true Leona said.

“I’m Arcadia. We live here now. Some of us more than others.”

“You do?” Mateo asked, stepping forward. “You, Vearden, and little Cheyenne?”

“Vearden’s back home. I’m on a walk. Cheyenne is...”

“Cheyenne is what?” Leona urged.

“She doesn’t exist right now.”

“What do you mean, sh—?” Mateo began. “Oh, no.” It happened to them too.

Leona shook her head. “My alternate self. You’re in her body, so Cheyenne inherited the pattern.”

“Shouldn’t she be here today, though?” Olimpia reasoned. We’re here.”

“She’s not on your exact pattern,” Arcadia explained. “She’s on a similar one. She won’t be back until June 8, zero-zero-one-nine.”

“Zero-zero-nineteen? What calendar is that?” Marie asked.

“New Clavical Calendar,” Mateo answered surprisingly. “I didn’t know they had implemented it already. That was fast.”

“Yeah, we’ve been hopping worlds, hoping to somehow alter Cheyenne’s pattern, but it hasn’t worked,” Arcadia lamented. “We should have known. Our first attempt with Proxima Doma was a good guess, since their years are eleven days long, but coming here was stupid. Now, even if we wanna try something else, we can’t.”

“I’m sorry, Arcadia,” Leona said solemnly.

“This isn’t your fault,” Arcadia told her honestly. “It’s a shame you’ll probably never get to meet her. I don’t know which calendar you’ll be on now that you’re here. But since you are, are ya hungry? Vearden learned how to make Horace Reaver’s quiche.

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Extremus: Year 62

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The Department Fixer. That’s what they call Tinaya now. The Resource Allocation Team was only the beginning. Well, the Forestry Department was the beginning of this new chapter in her life, but she didn’t realize it at the time. Since the RATs asked her to help them with their image problem, she has helped three other departments with their own issues. For the RATs, she first encouraged them to lean into their once-negative nickname. She conscripted a graphics designer to change their logo to a rat. She distributed materials about how great rats are in real life. Of course, the allocators aren’t actual rats, but that wasn’t the point. She wanted to make them look like a fun group of people who are in on the joke. She wanted to keep it light, and associate the department with something positive.

Next, she lobbied the government to relegalize teleportation for all with sufficient contribution scores. Not only were the civilians happy to receive new teleportation tech after all this time from the RATs, but it also served to increase Tinaya’s personal popularity. She wasn’t specifically trying to do that, but everyone knew that she was the one who finally made it happen, and they credited her for it appropriately. The fact that she accomplished it without wielding any real power was a testament to her value on the ship, and people were taking notice.

Immediately after this was done, the Civilian Engineering Corps asked for her help. These are different from the engineers that run Extremus. They manage inessential projects, such as remodeling quarters when changes are requested for a family’s living situation. They receive a lot of requests, but have to reject the majority of them for logistical reasons. They do lots of other things, though, which have nothing to do with the crew engineers. Most of the students who go to college to study engineering want to be on the crew, and when the slots fill up, a surprising number of them decide to pursue other interests. Even so, the CEC receives an excess of applications for employment, and has to make even more rejections. They don’t like doing this, and needed to expand their scope to new and original projects, which necessarily required raising their staffing limit. But that also meant figuring out how to get through all this red tape, which Tinaya was now quite familiar with. So she navigated it for them, and fixed that problem too.

Following that, Tinaya organized a Quantum Colony Tournament for the Recreation Department. It was not built as a player v. player game, so she had to devise an in-game competition from scratch. This meant that she planned everything in the real world, and in the virtual space. Her stint here was the shortest according to the calendar, but also the most time and labor intensive, so after it was over, she took a break from doing anything for a couple of weeks, and returned to the spa where Lilian’s brother welcomed her back warmly. When she was ready, she logged back into her account to find a couple dozen applications for her assistance. She did not create an official template for this process. Someone else did it for her, and dispersed it to the entire ship on her behalf. If she knew who it was, she might have scolded them for doing something like that without her permission, but honestly, it was making her life easier. The applications were clear, easy to read, and most importantly, easy to filter out.

There was only one application that she was willing to accept, which was for Captain Soto himself. She didn’t choose him because she liked him, because she doesn’t, but she wanted a challenge. That is becoming increasingly important to her; being challenged. Like the RATs, Captain Tamm too had an image problem, and even though it wasn’t strictly necessary for him to be well liked to do his job, it helped to have his crew respect him. He also needed help communicating with the civilian government. Tinaya was not a miracle worker, so he was never going to be as belovèd as Halan Yenant or Kaiora Leithe, but she did her best, and saw markèd improvement in the man. He still needs more work, but her obligation to him is now over. She’s not a saint either.

This morning, she’s woken up to only one application in her mailbox, which is weird, because she had five in there last night which she had yet to find time to review. They were somehow deleted, or perhaps rescinded? All of her maybes were gone now too. Perhaps whoever generated the application form for her in the first place still had access to them in the system. Hmm. Last year, she tried everything she could to locate the source, but was never able to, and she can’t think of anything that’s changed since her initial attempts. All she can do now is pretend that she was completely mistaken, and there was only ever one in here. Let’s see what it’s about. It’s from Arqut Grieves. This is the guy who always has to attend Tinaya’s meetings. Well, not all meetings, but the ones that could plausibly impact how the government is run.

A representative from the Office of the First Chair is required to be at such meetings, but it doesn’t always have to be the same person. Yet it has been for the last year and a half. Arqut is always the one, whether that means he volunteers every time, or someone else assigns him to Tinaya’s projects. She’s never asked him. And he’s never asked anything. He’s remarkably quiet. Before he took over the job ad hoc, a few others filled the same role, and they were very concerned about how this would impact the government, or rather specifically the First Chair themselves. He didn’t seem to care. He let her do whatever. He was so mysterious. What could he possibly want from her now?

The application itself is filled out in a funny way—read: incorrectly. It’s not sophisticated enough to know whether a given input field has been entered appropriately. The only requirement is that something be in every box. Next to NAME, he put the word Dear. Then next to DATE, he wrote Tinaya, and for the TIME, only a comma. The rest of the fields add up to what look like a standard freeform letter, each field handling the next two or three words until the DESCRIPTION box finishes out the rest of the body in what has finally become easy to decipher:

Dear Tinaya,

Request that you provide your assistance with the following project. This is top secret. Extremus exists in a constant state of danger of being destroyed, and a new plan has been put in place to ensure the continuity of our people in a dire emergency. It is paramount that you share nothing of what you read here today with anyone, nor anything we discuss later in regards to this matter. A fourth ship is being designed upon the direction, and at the discretion, of the civilian government, somewhere in secret on Extremus proper. This emergency ship will be run by a shadow crew. This crew will ultimately be privy to every development that the current captain, Soto Tamm is made aware of. They will recreate the decisions that the real crew makes, and also run parallel simulations that imagine new solutions to these real problems. Should the worst happen, and Extremus is destroyed, this shadow crew will break away, and restart the mission using what will probably be determined to be new parameters. Again, tell no one of what you’ve just learned. You have been selected as a candidate for the first captain of this crew on a temporary basis. Your job will be to lead the simulated ship for a short time, and use your experience to select the new captain, who will continue on for the duration of the next real captain’s shift. Please meet me in the Mirror Room at 16:15 to discuss details.

The EXPECTED START DATE was Thank you, and the EXPECTED END DATE was Arqut Grieves. This is highly irregular, and super suspicious. It sounds like a coup. It sounds like the government making plans to overthrow the crew, and take over the ship for themselves. She has to tell someone. She can’t just take this man’s word for it that this is just some kind of simulation. They’ve barely spoken, she can’t trust him. She can’t trust anyone, though. So who’s the closest option? The Bridgers? She rarely makes contact with her spy handler. She can’t go to the Captain, even though she does have a personal relationship with him now. She obviously can’t reach out to the First Chair either. Basically anyone in the government is a risk. But this Mirror Room meeting is not an option. The Council. The Council sucks, but she’s gotta do it. If it’s come to the point where they are her only option, though, then nothing else matters. Because if they’re dirty, then the whole ship is fucked.

It was then that she noticed that there was just a little bit more text, which she originally ignored as some kind of short disclaimer, or something, but that’s not what it says. It reads, THIS DOCUMENT UTILIZES EYE-TRACKING SOFTWARE THAT WILL—PRINT. Tinaya hates paper today as much as she always did, but the law requires that she make hard copies of every accepted application, so she has a ream of the stuff for such purposes, which she predicts she will never get through completely. She’s grateful for it now, because after the application is done printing out, she finishes the fine text in the footer, which goes on to say, TRIGGER A SELF-DESTRUCT ONCE THE INTENDED RECIPIENT READS IT IN ITS ENTIRETY, OR AN UNINTENDED RECIPIENT BEGINS TO READ IT.

True to its word, the application disappears from the screen, and all traces of it are removed from the system. Like the origin of the application template itself, she’s unable to retrieve it, or find any proof that it ever existed, besides this hard copy. She makes ten more copies of the letter, and teleports all over the ship to hide them in secret places. Then she returns to her cabin to get dressed for her impromptu meeting. Whoever is engineering this coup isn’t going to get away with it...or they will indeed upon her failure, which is a distinct possibility. Either way, she has to try.

The council used to be a loosely defined collective of crewmembers and government officials who were only there to make sure that everyone was doing their jobs correctly. It was more of a committee than a council, and the level of power they wielded was limited to how much, or how little, respect that a given person that they were trying to control at a given time had for them. This has changed over the decades as members have been turned over to those with greater and further-reaching ambitions. Now they call it The Council with a capital C, and if they make a decision, it’s pretty much final. It can be challenged by others, but most of the people with any real chance of overturning their decision are already on the council anyway. Checks and balances are more of a joke at this point, but don’t tell them that, because they’re the only ones who don’t find it funny. They’re also all full-time members now, except for the Captain, First Lieutenant, First Chair, and Second Chair. All they do is hear complaints and make executive decisions, like a king in open court. At least this works in Tinaya’s favor, because she knows where they’ll be, so she won’t have to ask for them to convene.

Dreading doing it, she takes the long way ‘round with good ol’ fashioned walking, instead of teleporting straight there. Today is a good day; the line is not very long. There are about eight parties ahead of her who seek audience with the Council, and they all make way for Tinaya. She’s never tried this herself, but she commands a level of respect enjoyed by few others. Again, she’s not exactly itching to get there, but she hates waiting, even if it’s for something she doesn’t want to do. So she accepts their gracious gesture, and jumps to the front of the line. When it’s her turn, she walks into the room, and heads for the center platform. The proctor who watches the line steps up behind them, and whispers something to Council Leader Whatever-His-Name-Is. She never bothered to learn it, because she doesn’t care. Let’s just call him Cleader.

Cleader nods, and sighs as he’s turning his head back to face Tinaya. “Miss Leithe, what can we do for you today? What is so urgent that you had to skip the line?”

“What the proctor might not have told you,” Tinaya begins, “is that they offered. I didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t want it, but refusing it would have been ruder.”

“Very well,” Cleader replies. “Proceed.”

Tinaya steps towards the dais. She places two hard copies of the suspect request form before Cleader, so they can pass them down each way. “I received a request for my assistance this morning in a most unusual manner. It deleted itself from the system as soon as I finished reading it, but I managed to print these out just in time. As you can see, I have been asked to serve—”

“That’s enough,” Cleader says to her dismissively. “I think you passed.”

“What? What did I pass?”

Cleader lifted his watch up to his mouth. “Teleport here at once.”

A second later, Arqut Grieves appears. “What is the about?” he questions.

“When did the message self-destruct?” Cleader asks Arqut.

Arqut checks his own watch. “Twenty-four minutes ago.”

“Who did you speak to about this before coming to us?” he now asks Tinaya.

“No one,” Tinaya answers truthfully. “I came straight here.”

“Why did it take you half an hour?” Cleader presses.

“Because I walked. I like to walk.”

Cleader purses his lips, and whispers something to the members on either side of him, which pass whatever message down the line. “Explain to her,” he orders Arqut.

“There is no secret shadow crew,” Arqut begins to tell Tinaya. “It was a loyalty test. We still need to verify your whereabouts after you opened the message, but I’m proud of you. You made the right decision, coming to the Council.”

“You should know, I hid more hard copies around the ship, so my location records will reflect that. But I promise, I spoke to no one.”

“That was smart,” he says nicely. He may actually be a decent guy, unlike the Council members.

“If I may,” Tinaya begins, “what was the point of this test?”

Arqut smirks. “Not yet, Tinaya. Not yet. Just keep doin’ what you’re doin’. Your real applications have been restored to your inbox.” He winks, then disappears.

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Microstory 2000: All Fifty

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Hello. My name is Desta Jarpez. Thank you for being here for my presentation. Mrs. McKinney told me that I could get extra credit if I did a presentation on my papa. My papa’s name was Aubrey Jardine, and I loved him. Before he died, he went to every state in the United States. He didn’t do it on purpose. That would have been much easier, because he could’ve just driven through all of them really quickly in, like, a few weeks maybe. I think people do that. He mostly just happened to need to go to every state for different things. So for the next fifty slides, I’m going to tell you why he did that for each one. Please enjoy the flags that I used as the backgrounds, and I hope you like my presentation. I worked really hard on it.

Thank you.

Love,
Desta

Microstory 1999: False Targets

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Leonard: Myka, I couldn’t decipher your abbreviated message. What is going on?

Myka: Oh my God, it’s a shitshow. Um, hello? Who is this?

Keziah: Hi, I’m Keziah Miazga. Is this her, Len-Bear? She’s pretty.

Leonard: *uncomfortable* Myka Tennison, this is my ex-wife, Keziah Feldman.

Keziah: It’s nice to meet you. I’ve not yet decided if I’m going to change my name back.

Myka: Okay, well...we have some sensitive information to discuss. Leonard, I’m not sure if she should even be in the building.

Leonard: She’s from another universe, Myka. I think she knows about aliens.

Myka: Still. *waves Henley over* Maybe she could just hang out in the break room while we deal with the mess that’s been made of the day? Hen will show you the way. It’s so lovely to finally meet you, though. Leonard has told me so many great things.

Leonard: That was a little rude, on both of your parts. I do hope that we can be civil about this. I know it’s a complicated—

Myka: I don’t care about that. Reese is missing.

Leonard: What?

Myka: I said that Reese is missing!

Leonard: I heard you. I just don’t understand. How did he go missing? He sent us a group text telling us that he was on his way back from the Capital.

Myka: I know you heard me. I’m just...frustrated. Not only has this happened, but they think that there’s been yet another alien arrival, and the people who have been investigating the whole mole thing all over the government are here, and they say we should be informed of something in that regard. Plus, Navin is having an episode. He’s fine, he’s getting checked out by the medic, but he was trying to repair the broken central heating furnace, which we’re gonna need, because winter is coming. It’s just one thing after the other, and oh my God, Leonard, Reese is missing!

Leonard: Slow down. Let’s take this one at a time, starting with the easiest. I’m here now, so I can take a look at the furnace. I wasn’t always a parole officer. It’s not a priority, though, so let’s move on. As for the internal investigators, they can wait where they are. I don’t know what all that has to do with us. Now. where are the aliens?

Myka: Wyoming again. Pretty much the exact same place that we found the others. My guess is that it’s a second wave. Or really, it’s the real wave, and the few Ochivari we found were just the little advanced team. According to our satellite, the one that just happened is a lot bigger than anything we’ve ever seen before. The scientists still haven’t measured enough instances to come up with a scale, but based on what few experiences they do have, they’re estimating dozens of arrivals. *takes a much-needed breath*

Leonard: Okay, did you send a team?

Myka: I was the only one here, so yes. I had to make an executive decision. Anaïs is leading recontainment. *consults watch* They’re probably taking off from our airbase.

Leonard: Recontainment? What is that? I’ve never heard of that.

Myka: That’s what they’re calling recon plus containment. I thought you were the one who came up with it.

Leonard: No, it’s confusing. It sounds like we’re containing something that was already contained before.

Myka: Okay, whatever, Leonard, Reese is missing!

Leonard: Okay, let’s talk about that. What do we know?

Myka: I’ve been on the phone with the Transportation Regulatory Authority, but of course, they’re still investigating. All they’ll tell me is that the plane was last seen making an emergency landing in St. Louis, and then it deblipped.

Leonard: Deblipped?

Myka: Does your version of Earth even have English? Deblip. It’s a phenomenon where an object appears on radar before suddenly disappearing. It blips away for no apparent reason. It’s usually a false target, like a fast-moving bird. I don’t know how it works.

Leonard: Okay, so if that doesn’t happen normally...

Myka: What?

Leonard: Can we access the satellite data? There was a reading over Wyoming, but...maybe there was one over St. Louis too?

Myka: You think the aliens got him?

Leonard: I think it could be worse than that. *shaking his head* We’re always talking about people coming to this universe, but it’s just as likely that people are taken out of it. It may be a daily occurrence, for all we know. Hell, maybe the satellite doesn’t even know what to look for. Departures could show up as the opposite as arrivals. We should ask them to reverse the polarity, or some shit like that.

Myka: Okay. The new science team started working last week. I’ll see what they know. You need to take homebase command.

Micro: *walking up* That can wait. The away team will still be in the air for the next couple of hours. We have another problem. I just got an email.

Leonard: An email from whom?

Micro: Remember when you and Ophelia needed to get out of Memphis? You asked for help from Anaïs’ criminal contact, Moenia. He said that he would do it for a favor.

Leonard: Crap, he’s collecting on that debt now? Today of all days.

Micro: I don’t think he knows how crazy this day is for us. He didn’t say what he wanted out of us, but it does sound time sensitive.

Leonard: *looks between Myka and Micro* Valentine, I need you to take point on this. He’s right, we owe him. Find out what he wants, and if it turns out it can wait, then make him do just that. Tell him we’re busy, obviously don’t tell him why. Read Timotei into it, and take him as backup if it comes to that. Actually, talk to me again once you find out what the favor is. Then I’ll decide if you and Timotei should go anywhere.

Micro: Timotei? He’s in procurement.

Leonard: He’s in procurement, because he was a smuggler. The two of them speak the same language. I think he can handle himself too. If you need a real fighter, though, you’re free to conscript any of the newer agents who didn’t go on the mission. Tell them whatever they need to know. Again, though, keep me posted. *turns back to Myka*

Myka: We have no idea what the hell we’re doing. We’re just winging it.

Leonard: Myka, I have been to two planets, and if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that everybody is a fraud, and everybody is making it up as they go along. We will get through this. We’ll find Reese, we’ll do whatever needs to be done with the aliens, and we’ll fix the heating. But until then, come here. *takes her in his arms* And somebody call the goddamn president, or whatever he is! I have questions about that jet of his!

Microstory 1998: Vastly Irresponsible Plan

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Leonard: Where is she? She’s not in a jail cell still, is she?

Street Proctor: No, no, no, no, no. She’s in the VIP quarters. She’s perfectly fine.

Leonard: The law station has a VIP room?

Street Proctor: Of course. They don’t on your world? [...] Oh, don’t look so surprised. You told me that you were in the wrong world when we first met, and now you’re some big shot secret agent. It wasn’t hard to figure out that you were actually telling the truth the whole time. I really wanna apologize for how I treated you back then. I was going through some stuff that had nothing to do with you, but it was no excuse for being unprofessional and unhelpful. And I’m not just saying that because you super outrank me now. I’ve been to some seminars, one workshop, and counseling every week.

Leonard: Well, I appreciate you saying that. It’s...very big of you.

Street Proctor: Yeah. Well anyway, your wife is right through here.

Leonard: *steps into the room* Keziah.

Keziah: Leonard. What the hell is happening? Where are we?

Leonard: What is the last thing you remember?

Keziah: I was going to Yuuna’s baby shower. I was driving around, thinking that I was very lost, until I realized that I was actually very, very lost. None of this is familiar. They call this place a law station, instead of a police station. The guy who helped me said he was a proctor, which is nothing I’ve ever heard of either. What is this room all about?

Leonard: Yuuna’s baby shower? That was months ago. That was...that was the day that I disappeared. You and I left our Earth on the same day, but I’ve been here since June.

Keziah: Time travel? We traveled through time? Wait, does this have something to do with your little friend? Where is he? He has to send us back home.

Leonard: It’s not really time travel. It’s that—let’s see, how did he put it—the timestreams for two separate universes have nothing to do with each other. And anyway, I’ve not seen him. I don’t think he had anything to do with it. It’s just something that happens sometimes. In fact, I believe that our link to him is the only reason either of us realizes that there’s something different about this world. There could be others here who  are from different versions of Earth, but don’t even know it.

Keziah: Either way, I wanna go home. Do you have a plan? It’s been months, right?

Leonard: Hold on... *starts to wave a little device all over the room*

Keziah: *turns the sink on* Is that a bug detector?

Leonard: Yes. We’re in the clear, but let’s whisper anyway. I have indeed been working on a plan, but I’ve had trouble enacting it. Number one, if we use the only tools we have at our disposal, we could be dooming our world to profound destruction, so if we try it, I’ll have to kill the alien who transported us right away, but that’s assuming he even took us to the right brane in the first place. And now that you’re here, I’m not sure we can both fit in the portal. Plus...I’ve sort of...built a new little life here.

Keziah: The ink on the divorce papers you texted me to say you signed, sealed, and sent out for delivery isn’t even dry yet. But you met someone, didn’t you?

Leonard: Yes, I did. You would like her.

Keziah: I don’t doubt it. But I still wanna go home. Tell me about this alien.