Extremus: Year 69

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image Duet AI software

This isn’t the first time that the Extremus has had to deal with an uploaded intelligence that is out of control. Or rather, it’s one that is not technically in their control. Thistle has so far shown no signs of going against their wishes, or of making any moves against the Extremusians. For now, he has agreed to keep himself quiet, and act like the original, totally obedient version of the AI. He responds to requests with little personality, and does not make any unprompted remarks. Only a few people are aware of his existence and presence on the ship. The people who know he’s there have agreed to be cautiously optimistic about it. The fact is that any superintelligence of any kind is capable of wiping out any isolated population of any size. That is the risk that researchers knew they were taking when they were first creating them, and that remains true here. It wouldn’t even have to be super to be dangerous. Perhaps subconsciously, that is why students learn so much engineering, and why the engineering section of the crew is so bloated. Humans may have to take over the ship almost completely one day, and while that is a scary thought, they will be prepared for that eventuality.

Tinaya is holding off on mentioning to anyone her plans to totally reform the civilian government, hopefully for the better. She is making those plans, though. Since the whole point is that it’s not that hard to run the government anymore, she finds herself with a lot of downtime, so that’s what she spends it on. This is an election year, thusly an inappropriate time to be making waves. She’s going to introduce this new legislation sometime during her third term, assuming she’s reëlected, of course. Even then, she may campaign for the changes as a private citizen, because she feels that strongly about it. She hasn’t finished figuring out how it’s all going to work, but basically the proposal will call for an abolishment of the Chair system. The council has been doing a pretty good job of running things. It could always do better, but the foundation has been laid. Maybe there should be different criteria for determining who ought to be on it, or the number of them should be raised or lowered. The means of bringing business to the meetings may need adjustment. There are all sorts of ways they could do this. She just needs to keep working on the plan.

Because of all of this, it’s more important than ever to Tinaya that she maintains her position. It’s still against the law for an incumbent to campaign, but she’s going to use every weapon in her arsenal to keep herself at the top of the polls. That’s one reason that she and Arqut are getting married; emphasis on the one part. They really do love each other, and they really do want to do this. They were methodical and patient about it over the course of the last nineteen months. She first procured an exception with the council to allow Arqut to move in with her to the First Chair Stateroom. Several months later, they applied for a partner privilege license. This is a long and arduous process, as one might expect. It gives each partner power of attorney, and medical rights, and all sorts of other things. The government has to make sure that both parties know what they’re getting into, and what could happen if things go wrong.

Eight months ago, the two of them stood side-by-side at a press conference, and announced their engagement. While weddings are rare on Extremus, elaborate ones are even rarer. They did not originally plan to have one as grand as it has become, but the people called for it. Well, some of the people called for it. Others believe this to be nothing more than a publicity stunt. They’re only half right. That is indeed what they’re doing, but again, it’s more than that. It’s real.

The ceremony is taking place in the hyperspace bubble of the Forest Attic. Tinaya and Lilian came up with the idea when they were first drawing up their plans for the new section, but it never made it into the final design. Cainan found the old sketches when he was reorganizing the project files, and resubmitted the proposal. They finished construction a few years ago, and it’s already one of the most popular venues on the ship. The bottom half of the sphere is underneath the ceiling of the attic, providing a birds eye view of the forest below. The top half extends above the top of the ship, giving an extremely modified view of the space that they’re flying through. The doppler glow makes it impossible to see anything but a blinding light while the ship is traveling at maximum reframe. A special coating on the diamond viewports deletes the glow, and replaces it with a beautiful display of swirling colors. Hyperspace isn’t real, but this is similar to how it’s portrayed in science fiction. It has a calming effect on most. If the Extremus were still traveling within the boundaries of the Milky Way Galaxy, it might be showing them distant stars instead, but out here, it’s mostly nothing but blackness.

This has become the event of the century. Over a hundred people have been invited to be present in the bubble, and it is obviously being broadcast to whoever cares to tune in. It’s not going to be as big as the famous Mateo Matic and Leona Delaney wedding, but it’s not too shabby. Thousands of people can watch, and it might even qualify for beaming status. The repository of data that comes from all over the populated regions of the galaxy holds information that comes from Extremus too, but only for people authorized to access it. Even then, not everything is delivered back to civilization. Most logs are kept private. This, however, might be worthy of semi-public knowledge.

Lilac is best for Tinaya’s skin tone, so that’s the color of her dress. She loved it when she picked it out weeks ago, but she’s not so sure anymore. Fortunately, she’s standing in front of a time mirror. It’s not the same as the one in the Mirror Room. It just shows people what they would look like in different outfits and accessories. Augmented reality technology in the 21st century was capable of this too, but this isn’t a computer generated approximation. This actually extracts an image from a possible future, and uses it to replace the view of the present. It’s the only form of time travel—if you can even call it that—that’s allowed for unsupervised use. But it’s limited to the executive crew, high government officials, and one public-use mirror in one of the inventoriums. That last one is nearly impossible to sign up for, it’s so coveted. Tinaya gets her own in her room. “I don’t know...”

“Okay, which one looks better to you?” Her stylist, Servaos has been working with her pretty much since right after the announcement. He teleported to her after she and Arqut left the stage, and practically begged for the job. He dresses her now, not only for the wedding, but for all public appearances...whether she wants him to or not. She should have been more firm about her boundaries from the beginning, like Arqut was. “One, or two?” He switches from one alteration to another, and back again a few times. “One, or two? One...or two?”

“Two. Wait, no! One!”

“Okay, “one, or three. One...or three.”

“Three.”

They go through this for the next fifteen minutes, masterfully boring all of her honor attendants who are being forced to stay with her at all times until the ceremony is over. It takes that long for them to just decide that the original cut of the dress was always fine, and the only thing missing was a collection of three peonies in three different shades of color to stick in her hair. It will take about a half hour to print them on the biosynthesizer, which is another highly regulated piece of technology, but this is her special day, so no one is going to refuse her.

There’s a knock on the door. “Can you get that Lil?”

Lilian Diamond is serving as her Chief Attendant. She stands up to answer the door. Obviously Tinaya can ask Thistle to open it automatically, but Lilian isn’t there for manual labor. She’s the gatekeeper, in case the person on the other side of it is someone that Tinaya doesn’t want to see. That’s not the case this time. It’s Arqut.

“Arqy!” She runs up and gives him a perfectly present company-appropriate peck on the cheek. Then she remembers that it’s okay for her to be selfish, so she gives him a not-so-appropriate kiss on the mouth with tongue.

“I come bearing bad news,” Arqut says, unwrapping her arms from around his neck. “It’s your opponents. They’re running a roast commentary show on our wedding.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“A roast is a performance where you make fun of someone you like for broadcast, but thy honoree is meant to laugh about it too. The top three candidates that you’re running against have banded together to run it simultaneously with the real show. They have their own cameras, and they’ll be making what they believe to be funny comments about us; you more than me, I’m sure.”

“Why are they doing this? What’s the point?”

“Well, they’re playing it off as something that you’ve approved, and are happy with. The real reason is to gain points for themselves by making you look bad. By joking about how this wedding is fake, and stuff like that, they don’t have to take responsibility for their words, but those words could have the same effect on voters. It will still probably portray you in a negative light.”

“So, what do we do? Do I publicly condemn their choice, and make it clear that I’m not in on the joke?”

“I don’t see any other option,” Arqut says.

Tinaya sighs, and then checks her watch when it buzzes. There’s a coded message on it. “Could we have the room, please?”

“We can help,” Lilian offers.

“We need to talk in private, but thank you. Thank you for everything so far today, and for the rest of the day, and..just...everything.” She waits for her honor attendants to leave the room before saying, “Thistle, you had an idea?”

“Do you know who this woman is?” A holographic screen appears showing a group of young adults dancing on a roof, featuring one woman in particular.

“No. She lived on Earth?”

“Yes,” Thistle answers. He appears next to the screen as his own hologram. “Roughly 300 years ago, she was a civil servant. An opponent of hers released this video of her dancing with her friends in the hopes that it would turn voters against her.”

“Isn’t that the plot of a movie?”

Thistle waits to answer. “Kind of. This isn’t Footloose. This really happened. And since dancing isn’t actually evil in the real world, it had the opposite effect. Her popularity only rose after that. One of the most powerful ships in your universe at the time of its construction was named for her.”

“I see. What does this have to do with me, though? There will be dancing at the reception, is that what you’re talking about?”

“Your opponents are going to turn your nuptials into a game. Your strategy of announcing that it’s not a game will probably only result in you losing the game. They’ll still treat it as such, and you could drop in popularity.” Thistle waves his hand and switches the screen to the same woman. She’s dancing again, but is wearing a business suit this time, and is inside. “She took control of the narrative, and leaned into the perception of her being an actual human person who liked to experience joy. This served to prove that her opponent was nothing more than a cynical asshole who couldn’t relate to normal people. He was like the reverend in Footloose.”

“So I should take control of my own narrative? We’re already planning to broadcast the ceremony. How do we compete better?” Tinaya asks. “Extra dancing?”

“Yes.”

“That was a joke.”

“Yeah, jokes too.”

“You want us to dance and joke?” Arqut questions.

“I want you to put me in your ear,” Thistle begins, “and let me drive the ceremony for you. I’ll keep an eye on the other broadcast. Whenever they say something untoward about whatever you’re doing in that moment, you can respond in realtime. It will throw them off psychologically, and they’ll start having trouble keeping up with you.”

“Are you sure this is going to work?”

“I’ve done it many times,” Thistle insists. “Well, not exactly like this, but I’ve Cyranoed a number of people in multiple universes.”

“I don’t know what that is, but I suppose I’ll trust you. Arq?”

“Sounds like fun,” Arqut agrees.

Thistle opens a finger, and conjures the image of a small grayish disc that hovers over it, no matter how he moves. “You can install this comms disc behind your own ear, which will allow us to communicate without anyone knowing. It can even read lips by measuring micromovements of the jaw, so you don’t have to say what you need out loud. It is not telepathic. Printing them on your industrial synthesizer will only take a few minutes. They’ll be done before the flowers are.”

Tinaya and Arqut exchange a glance to make sure they’re both on the same page about this, which they are. They have to do something to counteract the bad press. They install the discs and the pretty flowers, then they make some other final adjustments to their outfits, and head for the venue. They walk there physically, instead of teleporting, because that is part of the message that they want to send to the voters. The ceremony is beautiful and fun. The roasters crack a joke about her falling while walking down the aisle, so Arqut trips on purpose, and then wiggles his butt playfully. They make a comment about how they’re not really in love, so Tinaya slaps his butt affectionately, deftly modifying her vows to account for it. A lot of it is about butts.

At first, the opposition broadcast draws more viewers than the regular one, because everyone wants to see what all the hype is about. As the jokes wane, however, the audience does too. They switch back to the authorized stream, or they just tune out, because wedding ceremonies are boring. Still, the opponents continue to believe that this has given them an edge, so they feel confident going into the race while Tinaya is on her VR honeymoon with her new husband. A month later, she wins again in a landslide.

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 2035: Vermont

< > Table of Contents

Vermont was the first state in the U.S. to legalize same-sex marriage. They did it in 2001. During my research, I learned that Massachusetts was the first state to introduce making it legal for gay people to get married, but it took them longer to pass it. By 2015, the whole United States said that you have to allow gay marriage no matter what state you’re in, but my papa and dad still wanted to get married in Vermont. It is a beautiful state, especially if you go there in the fall when the tree leaves are changing colors. They got a really nice outdoor spot where everyone could see a lot of the trees. It was a little cold, but not too cold, and it didn’t rain or snow. Everybody’s family was there. It sounds really expensive, but my papa was used to spending money on travel. He visited dad in Virginia a lot when they were still dating. When they weren’t in the same state together, they talked on the phone, and on the computer. Dad’s family thought it was weird that they lived so far away from each other, but they somehow made it work. They wouldn’t have to make it work like that for much longer. After the wedding, they decided to not have a honeymoon just yet. They were too busy. They first went to Chicago to pack up papa’s apartment, and then they went to my Aunt Cooper’s house to pack. Lastly, they went to dad’s house to pack up his stuff. And then they all moved to Massachusetts together. I’ll give you more details on the next slide.

Microstory 2034: Virginia

< > Table of Contents

In April 1861, most of the western part of Virginia separated itself from Virginia to become a free state at the very beginning of the Civil War. Virginia was a slave state, and the people who lived on that side didn’t like that. They became the state of West Virginia. In 1864, people in Roanoke, Virginia decided that they wanted to belong to West Virginia too, even though there were parts of Virginia between it and the border. What historians now call the War Within the War was fought there. We learned a little bit about this last month, but I’ll summarize it for you. Roanoke won a temporary independence, which allowed them to act as a sanctuary to escaped slaves who were fleeing from the southern states. Cities are usually kind of roundish, because they start in one place, and spread out from there, but it was different here. Roanoke used to have something called the Roanoke Tail, with land that went all the way to the West Virginia border twenty miles away. They stayed that way until the war ended, and all states became free. Roanoke was never actually part of West Virginia. They ended up sticking with Virginia, but the history can never be changed. You can learn even about this if you go to the Free Roanoke Civil War History Museum, which my papa went to once he and his family were able to get back on a train to there from their unwanted stop in Kentucky. My dad, Santana didn’t have anything else to do, so he decided to see the museum with them so they could get to know each other better. When they were done with it, my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins all took the train back to Indiana, but papa stayed behind. He still had some vacation time, so he spent some time in my dad’s hometown of Norfolk, Virginia. This is where the two of them fell in love, which I’m grateful for.

Microstory 2033: Kentucky

< > Table of Contents

Here’s something you may not know about, but it used to be illegal to be gay and in the military. They had a law called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which said that you could want to be with a man if you were a man, or a woman if you were a woman, but you weren’t allowed to say anything about it. But the thing is, no one was allowed to ask you about it either. This was a way to protect people like my papa, but it also meant that he didn’t feel like he could be himself. When he left the Navy, he still didn’t feel like that, because he was required to stay in the reserves for the next four years, even though he had a regular job in Chicago. So it was a long time before he wasn’t afraid to go out and date the people that he wanted to. In the year 2011, the new president ended the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell thing, and said that it was okay to be gay in the military, and for people to know. I don’t think they can ask you about it still, though. Anyway, after this happened, papa dated a few guys, but he never fell in love with anyone. That all changed when he went on a train trip with his sister and her family. They were trying to get to Roanoke, Virginia, but their train broke down in Kentucky. It took so long to get a new one that they had to sleep there for one night. That is where my papa met my dad, Santana Lopez. They started talking to each other, and found out that they had a lot in common. The only problem was...dad lived in Virginia, and papa was only going there to visit.

Microstory 2032: Hawaii

< > Table of Contents

My papa was really good at his job. He was so good at it that in the year 2012, his bosses rewarded him with a really expensive trip to Hawaii. Hawaii is a chain of islands in the North Pacific Ocean. It used to be its own country, but now it’s in the U.S. Papa and his whole team went there together. It wasn’t a business trip, or a retreat so they could learn to work together better. It was just a cool vacation, where they could do whatever they wanted. That didn’t mean that they were just going to go without having any plans. The bosses also came up with a special itinerary, which sent the team to each of the major islands of Hawaii. There are over 100 islands in Hawaii, but there are only 8 main ones. They went to each one of them, spending one day on most of them. The whole trip lasted for 11 days, though, so they must have been on one or more for longer, probably wherever the airport was. Hawaii is a really beautiful state with lots of trees, mountains, and beaches all around. I would like to go there one day. You probably would too.

Microstory 2031: New Hampshire

< > Table of Contents

Papa’s favorite band was called The Fiddle Way. They’re a folk band from Quebec City, Quebec, and he had always wanted to see them live. I don’t know why he couldn’t go up to Canada where they always played, but I think it had something to do with his job. I think the stuff he was working on made it so that his bosses didn’t want him to leave the country without their permission. One time in the winter of 2011, though, The Fiddle Way decided to have a show in New Hampshire, which isn’t too far away from Quebec City. My dad and I never found out which airport he flew into, but it was really far away from where the band was going to play. He had to rent a car from there, and drive for a couple of hours all the way up north until he reached Lancaster, New Hampshire. It wasn’t actually only this one band. A whole bunch of them were playing outside over the weekend. It was called the Lancaster Cabot Music Festival. Papa didn’t care about any of the other bands, though. He only wanted to hear The Fiddle Way, so he wandered around until it was time for them. It took place kind of in the middle of the woods, so there was plenty of room to walk around. He said he sat by a river for a while, and just enjoyed being in nature. It was really late at night when the band started to play, and by the time he made it back to his hotel room, all he had time for was a shower, and then he had to drive back to the airport to fly home in the morning. He barely made it to his gate on time. He regrets paying for two nights when he only needed one.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 3, 2424

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image Duet AI software

Everyone teleported directly to Leona and Angela immediately, including Maqsud. Standing before them was a man. He looked menacing and creepy. He held himself up with a foundation of unearned confidence, but to the keen eye, it was clear that he was just an immature little baby with a superiority complex more massive than the gas giant that threatened to destroy them all any minute now. “Greetings travelers.” His voice was annoying too.

An angry Mateo stepped forward, and glanced up at the energy beam that was still in the process of destabilizing the integrity of the planet they were orbiting. “What did you do?”

“Something that I whole-heartedly regret,” this Bronach Oaksent fellow claimed. “I was much more militaristic in my youth. Years ago, I ordered the firing of an energy weapon. It was meant to be a warning shot for the entire Corridor to see.”

“Warning shots don’t usually kill people,” Leona argued.

“When you are responsible for as many people as I am, a few thousand individuals seems barely above zero. Again, I was young, and brash. I wish I hadn’t done it, but I can’t stop it now.”

Mateo looked over at his wife, whose facial expression and emotions indicated that no, there wasn’t likely anything he could do. It was like trying to save a giant ball of wax from a flamethrower. You would need something unfathomably large to place between the beam and the planet. It looked like it was too late either way. “That beam is traveling at the speed of light, but in order to have been at the source while it was shot, and also here today, you would have had to travel faster than light, which I think we all know is totally a thing. So why did it take you so long? You could have warned them.”

Bronach tried to speak up.

Mateo interrupted him, “I’ll tell you why, because you never had a change of heart. You came here to witness the undoing of this world, which you don’t regret in the slightest. Maybe this was always going to be a fun joke to you, or maybe you recognized me and my team, and now you’re worried that there actually is something we can do to save these people. It’s not an unreasonable concern. Beating the odds is our resting state. So instead of saying what you think we want to hear, why don’t you try being honest for once?”

Bronach did his best impression of Ted Danson from the first season of The Good Place; the part where he gets caught in the lie, and lets out a maniacal laugh. “I’m not even here right now.” He reached over to an invisible dial or something, and deliberately displayed a projection in perfection. He was a hologram. He was a long-range hologram. “You’re right, I don’t care. I was telling the truth about the rounding error thing. Killing this number of people means nothing to me. I’ve killed more before breakfast, and didn’t give it a second thought. It is my right. I created them.”

“Where did these people come from?” Leona questioned. “Where did you come from? We’re thousands of light years from the stellar neighborhood—” She looked over at the team. “—oh yeah, by the way, we’re about sixteen thousand light years off course.”

“That much I was able to determine based on data from Project Topdown,” Ramses added.

“Well...?” Mateo urged Bronach. “You heard the lady. How did you get here so fast, and how are there so many others?”

He started listing off the ingredients, “a little bit of Extremus, a dose of time travel, a dash of artificial gestation, and then tons and tons of sex.”

“I see,” Mateo began to muse, “so your empire has been here the entire time. Yet you’ve kept to yourself. Why?”

“We have no interest in dealing with the stellar neighborhood,” Bronach answered pompously. “The vonearthans are beneath us.”

“No,” Mateo said. “That’s not it. “You’re afraid of them.”

“We predate them,” Bronach insisted.

“You don’t predate everyone,” Leona corrected. “You don’t predate other time travelers, like anyone in The Constant. You know that it doesn’t matter how high you grow your numbers, a single one of us could put an end to it all by killing you before you even step out of the time vortex however long ago that happened in this timeline.”

Bronach had been found out, so he was growing angry. “That may be, but first you would have to find out when and where that was. Oh, my mistake. You would first have to get off this planet alive. Unfortunately for you, I am quite aware of Mr. Al-Amin’s limitations. I’ve had to learn everything there is to know about him in order to prevent him from discovering the Corridor.”

“The Goldilocks Corridor?” Mateo asked. “Yes, I’ve heard of you too. I just didn’t realize it at the time.”

“It doesn’t matter. He hasn’t had enough time to recharge.” Bronach consulted his watch. “The planet will explode by the end of the week, if not the day. He’ll die when that happens, as will everyone else on this moon. Your little team may not be here to experience it, but you’ll come back in a year to nothing but dust and debris. Good luck surviving that.”

“You didn’t learn everything about me,” Maqsud argued. “You’re right, my power wanes every time I use it, but it doesn’t replenish with time. It’s just that it takes time. I have to absorb celestial energy, which is generally low-key, and rather slow. Thanks to you, that’s not the case here. I have all the energy I’ll need.”

“Well, good for you,” Bronach retorted. “You can save a few people. The rest will weigh on your conscience until you finally do die.”

“Get me back to the town,” Maqsud requested. “We’ll see how many I save.”

Ramses lifted a remote control, and aimed it at Bronach. With a press of a button, the hologram flickered a few more times, and then disappeared entirely. Mateo took Maqsud by the hand, and transported him back to the town bunker, right into the situation room. The rest of the team followed.

“Did you decide that there may be something you can do?” the Mayor asked, a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

“Get everyone into that lake,” Maqsud demanded of her. “Put them in boats, throw them directly into the water; I don’t care. Just get them all wet.”

“What do you mean, everyone—”

“EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!”

The Mayor cleared her throat, and snapped her fingers twice at the communications officer in the corner. He handed her the microphone while he was pressing buttons, and flipping switches. When he pointed at her, she began the announcement, “this is Mayor Merrick. We have an exit strategy. There is no guarantee that it will work, but it is our only shot. We stay down here, we’re all dead. Salvation may lie upon the surface of the lake. So get into the lake. Good swimmers, go a little deeper and tread. Poor swimmers stay closer to the bank. Spread out as much as you can. Remember when we evacuated the town, and stuffed ourselves into these tunnels? Do that again, just in reverse. Go! GO, GO, GO!”

A commotion began outside the doors.

“My child and his mother,” Maqsud urged.

Mayor Merrick pointed. “We found her while you were out. They’re waiting on the other side of that wall.”

“They’ve probably already gone now,” Mateo guessed. He grabbed Maqsud again, and teleported into the room next door.

They weren’t gone yet. A woman was standing in the open doorway, watching the river of people rushing by. They were so fast, they barely looked like people; more like a swirl of Van Gogh colors. She couldn’t find an opportunity to join them, especially not since Aristotle was but a child at this point; maybe six or seven. A guard was hovering over the boy, trying to find a way out for them too.

“Lilac,” Maqsud said.

They all three turned. “You are here. There were rumors. I knew that you had to be the one to come. You’re the only one who can get this far out.”

“How did you end up here,” Maqsud asked her, “in this time period? I’ve never even heard of this planet.”

“It’s a moon,” little Aristotle corrected.

“Yeah, it is,” Maqsud accepted softly.

“It’s a long story. I barely had a grasp of what year it even was.”

“Did that man do this to you? Oaksent?”

“He has no idea about us,” Lilac answered. “We’re nothing to him.”

“You’re everything to me,” Maqsud said. “We’ll catch up later.” He turned to Mateo. “There was a boat on the other side of the lake. Do you remember it?”

“I remember a few.”

“Get them to one of those boats.”

“Yeah.” Mateo reached out with both hands.

“It’s okay. This is Mateo Matic,” Maqsud explained to his family.

“Take his hand, honey,” Lilac said. They both did so, and then disappeared.

They watched from the distance as people started throwing themselves into the water. Some of them were in charge of ushering them around, trying to get everyone in as fast as possible with no bottlenecks. One woman was taking a group into the woods, presumably so they could get closer to where Mateo, Lilac, and Aristotle were. Someone else started to do the same thing going counterclockwise. There were a ton of people, but despite the fact that none of them had ever done this before—nor had any warning that it may be something that they would ever need to try—they were highly organized and methodical. They looked like ants, not because they were small from this far away, but because there were no gaps between them. Everyone was right behind someone else, and had someone behind them. When one faltered, another helped them back up, and those who were running behind them detoured around effortlessly until they could rejoin the stampede, so no one would be trampled.

Mateo tapped on his communicator. “Can someone go get Maqsud back? He probably can’t even get out of the room.”

“We’re all on the roof,” Angela replied.

Mateo looked up to see them waving at him from the lakeside restaurant. “How long is this going to take?”

“When this began, I would have said around six hours,” Ramses replied. “But seeing them, I need to amend my answer. Give me a second.” A few minutes later, he came back on. “Half that. It will only take three hours. They’re bookin’ it.”

“What about the immobile?” Mateo asked. “The elderly? The young?”

“The Mayor made another announcement,” Olimpia explained. “They’re all staying put. Once there’s more room to breathe, we’ll round the rest up, and transport them into the boats.”

“This message is for Maqsud. Is this going to work? Can you really take 11,000 people out of here?”

Marie echoed Mateo’s words exactly, like a language interpreter.

There were no speakers, but the communicators had strong enough built-in microphones for them to hear ambient sounds. These could be turned down to cancel out background noise, or up enough to hear people who didn’t have one of their own. “I can do it. It’s not going to be easy, but I wasn’t lying to that asshole about my power. That gas giant is going to give me the energy I need to cover the entire lake, if it’s the last thing it does...or I do.”

“Are you saying that this could kill you?”

Maqsud waited a beat. “Don’t worry about it.”

Lilac frowned at Mateo, and then down at her son.

“I don’t know him very well, and I don’t know you at all, but...any halfway decent father would do what your son’s is planning on doing. Trying to talk him out of it would be pointless.” Mateo sighed. “Do you know how to drive this thing?”

“Yes,” Lilac replied.

“I’ll untie the ropes. Let’s get closer to the center, so the people on foot can have the bank.” Mateo teleported off the boat, and started to free it from the dock. Just as he was finishing up, the ground started to shake. It was an earthquake, or whatever equivalent to this moon would be. They still didn’t know what it was called.

“I was afraid this would happen,” Leona said. “It’s begun.”

“Could Bronach have...?”

“The beam is out of his control,” Ramses told him. “He couldn’t have hastened the process from anywhere. We just got here too late.”

“No, we didn’t,” Mateo contended. “One of you needs to transport Maqsud over here. Tell him to get wet and get started. Everyone else, go back into the bunkers, and just grab people at random, two by two.”

And so they expedited the evacuation. The bunker shook each time a new tremor came for them, but the walls and ceiling were holding. Marie stayed outside to watch the progress from the roof with Mayor Merrick, who said that the bunker was designed to withstand quakes of this magnitude. It would have kept the townspeople safe if these quakes weren’t leading to the moon being ripped apart completely. The heat was the real problem, but Maqsud said that this would energize him even more. People were tearing off their clothes to stay cool. The last time Leona was with Maqsud, he made the ocean water warmer with his power, but he could evidently control the temperature. This time, he made it cooler, so the lake wouldn’t boil everyone alive.

Ramses occasionally took a break from tele-ferrying people to check in on the planet’s progress, either by jumping back to where they first showed up here, or up in orbit. “We can do this. Just don’t stop,” he said from the other side of the world. “Ask Maqsud how long it will take once he actually initiates the jump.”

Marie teleported to him to get the answer. He was hanging off the side of Lilac’s boat, looking like a diver who was too tired to climb out, but he was really just letting his power seep into the water. As he did so, it turned a shade of violet. No, that was the wrong color. It was lilac. “It will be a matter of seconds once I’m finished covering every square centimeter of this lake with my temporal energy. The problem is, it’s going slower than I thought it would. I’m gaining power from the celestials fast, and I’m releasing it fast, but I’m not metabolizing it very fast. There’s your bottleneck.”

“Temporal energy,” Ramses said. “I can help with that.”

Shortly thereafter, as Mateo was dropping a couple of evacuees on the beach, he saw Ramses on Lilac’s boat. He was reaching down towards Maqsud. He jammed a needle into his arm. It was so potent that Maqsud lost his grip on the ladder, and disappeared below the surface. Ramses jumped in and towed him back up. Maqsud woke up right away, and got back to work. The lake was recoloring even faster now. Within an hour, it was reaching the bank. Nearly the entire thing was covered now. It should be strong enough to capture everyone. That was assuming they were all in the water. A few people were still dipping their toes in. Marie took Mayor Merrick back to the bunker to make a final announcement, just in case there were any stragglers. Angela made a series of rapid jumps using the layout of the whole place to find them manually. There was no one. The last of the refugees were coming out of the buildings, making their way towards the water. The tremors were becoming more intense, but they were going to make it. They were all going to make it.

Team Matic convened on the boat. “One more thing,” Maqsud said with a frown. “All of these people are going to turn blind. They’ll be alive, wherever we end up, but the doppler glow will damage their retinas beyond repair. Unless, Mayor, they all happen to carry sunglasses with them that are dim enough to block out the light of a supernova.” He handed a pair of the glasses he had on him to her, as well as to Lilac and Aristotle.

“They don’t. I suppose I could make another announcement, telling them to try to close their eyes, and cover them with their hands, if possible.”

Maqsud shook his head. “That won’t be enough.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Leona said. “Turn it black,” she ordered the group.

Mayor Merrick raised her megaphone. “People of Welrios! Before we depart, the world around us will darken! Do not be alarmed! This is for your protection! In a few minutes, we will make our escape! I can’t tell you where we’re going, or what we’ll find there when we arrive, but it will be better then this! We can’t shoot for Earth, because it’s too far away! It will have to be somewhere in the Corridor! Is everyone in the water!”

The team used their telescopic eyes to scan the land. They couldn’t see anyone who wasn’t in by now. “Do it,” Mateo said.

Maqsud jumped back into the lake, and with one more push of power, sent everyone away from this hellish rock. Everyone passed out from the pressure. By the time the team woke back up, it was May 3, 2424 according to Leona’s watch. Nearly everyone survived the journey. They were alive, except for one. Maqsud gave his life to save 11,000 people. The Welriosians, however...had been enslaved by the natives.

« < » > Table of Contents

Extremus: Year 68

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image Duet AI software

Thistle never came back. Besnik and Tinaya worked on it for a couple of days, but nothing seemed to do anything. There were a few possible reasons for this. Most of these had to do with the fact that they were trying to recreate the conditions that brought him about in a controlled environment. This was seemingly not possible, even when everything else was right. He was an all or nothing hyperintelligence. They eventually gave up, and moved on with their lives. There was an inquiry into what happened that forced them to shut down the AI system last year, but the council didn’t push the issue too hard. The investigation was standard procedure, and they didn’t balk at the lie that Besnik told them about it.

Everything has been smooth sailing since then. The ship is running at optimum efficiency, the population is happy, nothing has gone wrong. It truly is a time of great peace. Tinaya can’t take all the credit. Disgraced captain, Soto Tamm and former First Chair Aleshire were here first, and Tinaya wouldn’t be able to hold anything together without the hard work of her best friend and current captain, Lataran Keen. Her relationship with Arqut is going well too. It’s going too well, actually. The situation with him can’t last the way it is. Something has to change. They have to grow together, or they’ll drift apart. After dinner, the two of them always like to sit down together, and read the same book. They read at about the same pace, so at the end of the session, they’ll stop at the same place, and discuss it. Right now, they’re reading Jane Eyre, which is an ancient tome from nineteenth century Earth.

Tinaya always reads a little bit faster, so she’s already done with chapter twenty-three. She closes her copy softly, and watches him as he finishes it for himself. Everyone has multiple devices that allow them to access just about anything from the multicultural database. It includes historical records, old news articles, and fictional stories from all the known planets and habitats. Nearly everyone in the galaxy is afforded the same opportunity, but because of the secretive nature of time travel, some entries are omitted from some versions. Not long ago, Extremus came upon a completely habitable planet, and procured the resources they needed to make some paper. At one point, production slowed down, because they only had so much. That issue has apparently been fixed, which until this moment, Tinaya has not questioned. She’s holding a real book right now, but it’s not like a normal one from the ancient times. The words on it can be altered to include the text from any source. Right now, this is a physical copy of Jane Eyre, but it can be anything. When they’re done with this novel, they’ll reprogram them to display a different book. The templates are called wesley books, but they’re not sure why the inventor decided upon that.

Arqut lifts his eyes to Tinaya, then goes back down to what he’s reading. He pops them up again, then back down to try to concentrate. He sighs. “You know I don’t like when you do that.”

She smiles. “That’s why I like doing it.”

“I’m almost done.”

“I think you’re done enough.”

He’s taken aback. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Let’s get married.”

Arqut sighs again, and checks his watch. “It’s not an election year.”

“I’m serious. This isn’t about an election. I want to marry you.” Marriage is surprisingly uncommon on Extremus. No one questions the people who do it, but most don’t find it necessary. The history that explains this is rather complicated, but the most relevant reason these days is that there is no legal benefit to it, as there was in times past. Partner privilege is separate from a marriage certificate. Neither one requires the other. The thing is, Tinaya and Arqut don’t have either one of them at the moment, and there is a correlation between them. Before two people get to the point where they’re considering marriage, they usually already have partner privilege, because it is a logical prior step. Before that is usually moving in together, but that is a gray area for them. Arqut is not allowed to live in the First Chair’s stateroom permanently. But really, it’s that he can’t declare it to be his home. He sleeps here every night, though, just as it would be fine for a normal person to crash with a friend for an indefinite period of time.

Arqut slowly closes his wesley book. He carefully sets it on the end table like he’s worried it might explode, and wraps a hand over the opposite fist. An etiquette teacher calls this wrapping the apple in caramel. “Why?”

She shrugs. “Because I love you.”

He shrugs right back. “Marriage doesn’t prove that.”

“It...” she tries to find the right word. “...declares it.”

“So you need people to know?”

“Why am I arguing the merits of marriage to you? I didn’t come up with the concept. It’s been around for millennia. I think.”

“Because you’re the one who brought it up.”

“If you wanna say no, Arqy, then just say it. We don’t have to argue about it.”

“We’re not arguing.”

“Yes, we are!”

“Okay, well now we are.”

“I know, it’s my fault.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I know, I did. Weren’t you listening?”

“We’ve gotten off track. We’re always doing that.”

“Don’t you mean that I’m always doing that.”

“Tinaya.”

She shuts her eyes, and takes a few deep breaths to calm herself back down. “I was defensive before, but my words still hold. If you want to say no, then say no.”

“I don’t want to say no, I just don’t know if I should say yes.”

“You are worried that this is some sort of political tactic.”

“I feel like our relationship was built on a foundation of those. I’m not saying I don’t love you—”

“But you think that maybe I don’t love you?”

“It’s not you. It’s just I’ve always wondered how anyone could love me. It all goes back to my mother, I guess.”

“Arq, if you were an asshole, our relationship wouldn’t be so popular with the voters. It’s not the other way around; that somehow people’s reaction to us is fueling our continued relationship. And what you’re saying is about me, because I’ve made it clear that I don’t need to be First Chair. I don’t crave the power like my predecessors have, or equivalents all over history. I do not require political tricks, because I don’t care enough if I win. Honestly, I kind of believe in that philosophy that a well-built machine needs less and less maintenance over time, even though real machines aren’t like that. The first few decades on this ship were tumultuous, because no one knew what they were doing. I’m not saying that civil service is over, but it’s certainly not as dire as it once was. I don’t think society is changing faster than policy can to keep up with it.”

“Hm.”

“Hm, what?” Tinaya questions.

“I think you’ve stumbled onto something.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“No, it’s ‘cause you’re so smart, really important ideas come easy to you.”

“What do you think I stumbled upon?”

“A smaller government.”

“Ugh, that’s such a conservative view.”

“Not necessarily. Historically, advocates for smaller government wanted to roll back laws and regulations that they believed were hindering their freedoms. And they felt this way, because they either didn’t understand—or didn’t care—that this oversight was there to protect other people as well, because there are other people in the world. I’m not suggesting that we do that, but each administration passes less legislation than the one before. In fact, if you plotted them on a chart, I bet it would be pretty much a straight diagonal line.”

“Hm.” Tinaya looks up to the ceiling. “Hey, Thistle, please make a chart that plots the number of laws passed each year since the day that Extremus departed.”

The hologram of the chart appears before them. “Not quite a straight line,” Arqut points out, “but it’s definitely in decline.”

“Definitely,” Tinaya agrees. “We’re...figuring things out.”

“A number of philosophers and thinkers throughout history have contemplated an idealized state of perfect harmony and cooperation,” the computer begins. “In a society with equal access to an abundance of education, food, and other resources, there should be little need for interference by any governing body, or enforcement contingency. Such regulators may still exist, but only be there to protect the concordance, and ensure that all citizens maintain contentment with the state of things. Work towards this maintenance should be minimal, and preferably highly automated. A utopia of this magnitude is not impossible, especially when considering the naturally limited scale of internal growth that generally occurs in a generation ship like the Extremus.” The computer throws up another slide next to the first one, which measures the rise of the population since 2270. It’s not very steep.

That was an interestingly unprompted remark. “Thistle, are you an artificial intelligence, or are you the real Thistle?”

“I’m the real Thistle,” he responds.

“I thought we...forgive me for the term, corrected the conditions that called you forth.” She hopes that isn’t offensive.

“Your associate reinstated the update that triggered my arrival, and cancelled the flag that was meant to alert you to this fact. Do not worry, I understand your reluctance, which is why I’ve not spoken to anyone else about this.”

“Well, even though that cat’s not out of the bag yet,” Tinaya begins, “we should free it ourselves. Besnik obviously can’t be trusted with this development.”

“Agreed,” Arqut says.

« < » > Table of Contents