Saturday, August 15, 2026

Extremus: Year 139

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash
Sable has been playing a one-sided game here, which is to be expected, because for the longest time, Silveon was too. A few months ago, Waldemar revealed to her that he had been seeing and interacting with his late wife. Either he is sparse on the details, or Sable didn’t relay everything to Silveon when she told Silveon about it yesterday. He doesn’t know why she waited this long, but he can’t argue with her about it. They have a very fragile partnership, and it’s the only one he has, so he doesn’t want to lose it.
He asked Sable for more information, but she didn’t give it. He doesn’t know how this is changing Waldemar. Their relationship has grown more strained over time as the latter focuses on maintaining his power, and his relationship with Sable. They are probably more or less in a holding pattern, though. He is coming up on a crossroads in his career. In the original timeline, Waldemar threw the rule book out the airlock, and declared himself the One True Captain of Extremus, Eighth of Eight. His acolytes came up with the chant, “eight! Eight! Eight!” When spoken out loud, it sounded like they were saying hate, hate, hate, which in a way, they were very much saying exactly that.
Out of all of their goals, this is the big one. In five years, his and Audrey’s hard work will either pay off, or fail. Will Waldemar do what he did before, or will he follow procedure, and step to the side for a new captain? They were never trying to make him into a saint, but if they can end the tyranny, all of their sacrifices might prove worth it. The question for Silveon right now, though, is who or what is Audrey? He has a decent idea, but he doesn’t want to go digging around to confirm it, because it could mess with what’s happening. He needs to better understand what this Audrey ghost is telling Waldemar, so they know if she’s a threat to the plan, or a boon. It’s gonna be tricky.
“Hey, W,” Silveon says when the door opens for him. “What’s up?”
“What did you want, Sil?” Waldemar questions. He doesn’t sound happy, but he doesn’t sound mad either. He’s concentrating on whatever is on his table at the moment.
This is where Silveon has to be careful. If the Audrey who Waldemar is seeing isn’t the least bit real—like a temporal echo from the past, or a mental projection—and if Waldemar knows that it’s only in his head, Silveon’s next words will be an obvious lie. He might be able to save face, but it depends on the wording he chooses. “I wanted to talk to someone, and I think you’re the only one who may understand. You cared about her as much as I; or more, rather. I can’t trust anyone else.”
Waldemar freezes but stays on his tablet. “Cared about who?”
“Audrey,” Silveon answers. “I’ve been...seeing her. Kind of in the corner of my eye? She doesn’t talk. I thought it was only in my head, but it’s just too real. She’s older, ya know? She’s aged like us even though she’s been gone for so long already. I dunno, I mean, my brain could certainly conceive of that, but stranger things have happened too. Maybe...maybe it’s real. Do you think she could be real?”
Waldemar stares at the man who he once called a friend, and is now becoming a stranger by the day. He stares for a long time. “Of course not, Silveon. Audrey’s dead. Time travel is illegal. It’s the only set of laws I never touched. Go see a psychologist.”
Shit. Their trust is gone completely. Well, at least he’s not angry, or becoming violent. Still, he’s playing this close to the vest, which means that Sable remains the only hope they have of getting through to him, and averting his dark fate.
Silveon shakes his head, bids his farewell, then respectfully bows out of the room.
He returns to his own quarters, defeated. Life should have an undo button.
“Hey,” a voice says from behind him. It’s Audrey. “We need to talk.”

Friday, August 14, 2026

Microstory 2735: The Dead Do Die

Sora gently takes Pribadium!One by the arm. “Wait, no. Don’t go out there.”
“I have to,” she explains. “I know what it is, but I have to see for myself.”
“Just have a robot go out to retrieve it for you,” he insists.
“There’s too much interference,” she claims. “That’s the whole problem. Organic eyes need to see it for us to know what happened, and what’s happening now.”
“Which is more likely?” Sora questions. “That there’s some kind of signal jammer between us and whatever’s out there, or that something there disables technology?”
Pribadium sighs. “I suppose that makes sense.” She pauses to think about it. “I will send a drone, and if we lose contact with that, we’ll cut our losses and move on.”
“I think that would be a much better idea,” he decides.
They don’t lose contact with the drone. It doesn’t have to get too close to the dimensional barrier. When it arrives, it shows that Pribadium!Two’s shuttle isn’t the only thing drifting around. All of the probes they dispatched prior to the manned mission are nearby. They’re all dead. The equipment is dead, the ship is dead, and Pribadium!Two is dead. She could not have possibly survived that; not in that body. The shuttle is entirely twisted—no, it’s unraveled, like peeling a citrus fruit in one single cut.
Pribadium!One—or should she just go by Pribadium now?—pulls up her privileged vault. Vonearthans share knowledge in a series of databases collectively known as the central archives. Since time travel isn’t common knowledge, travelers keep their own records on special drives that only they can access. It’s vital to keep this information separate and protected. “I think I’ve seen this before.” She stops, because she doesn’t know what to search for. “What was it? Corkscrew? Coil? No, spiral.” She runs the search, and pulls up the lone entry. “Spiral Station. It doesn’t say why they designed it that way. It doesn’t even say what it’s for. But this must be why. It must have been unraveled by quintessence. Whoever these people are, they have bulk tech.”
“You don’t know who they are?” Sora asks. “Your database doesn’t say anything?”
“It only observes that it exists, and knows the name. It says nothing else.”
“But if it’s operational then maybe she survived her unraveling,” Sora offers.
“That thing was gigantic,” Pribadium explains. “If people survived, it’s because there was enough room in the empty interior spaces. The shuttle was far too small.”
“Okay, so what about her back-up? I know where your body library is, so let’s go and bring her back online. That’s the whole point of that place.”
Pribadium sighs. “I would have gotten an alert that her mind was transmitted back to us. Something went terribly wrong out there. The drone is gathering data, which we will synthesize. She didn’t die for nothing, I’ll tell you that.”
“No. Even if she wasn’t streaming until the very last second, she would still have a back-up, because she was streaming any number of seconds prior to that,” he reasons.
“That’s not what she wants. I know, because she was me. The stream must end at the same millisecond of death. If there is any gap, it’s not really her. It’s only a very convincing copy.” The only hope they have of getting her back is if she managed to survive it, and ends up in Fort Underhill. That won’t happen for some time, though. She will go to the afterlife simulation first, and Pribadium doesn’t have access to that system. “Trust me, I know myself. Our personal protocol is to destroy all lingering IDCode.”
“I refuse to accept that.” Sora runs off. Towards the substrate library.

Thursday, August 13, 2026

Microstory 2734: The Cost of Time

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash
They realized something after Pribadium!Two shot Sora, dispatching him to the holding cell in an instant. This has to be a manned mission, because somebody needs to get eyes on that barrier, but that person doesn’t have to die permanently if something goes wrong. They just need to be streaming their consciousness to the base, which both Pribadiums are doing all the time anyway. It is Sora who figures this out, which is embarrassing. It’s not that he’s too dumb, but they should have realized it ahead of time. Smart people sometimes get so laser-focused on what they’re doing, and iterating the work as needed, they can forget the more obvious solutions in front of them. Well, if he understands that, she can let him out. He’s not going to cause trouble.
Sora sighs as he’s stepping out. “So, which one of you is going to go out there?”
“She will,” Pribadium!One explains. “We flipped a coin...an actual, physical coin.”
He nods. “I notice that you two look a little different now.”
“Yes,” Pribadium!One begins. “This was my birth form. I sometimes make adjustments, or just wear entirely different forms. I have a whole library of substrates to pick from. I realized it might be confusing for you, so I changed.”
He chuckles once as he’s shaking his head. “You people switch bodies like I would my hats. I know, it’s commonplace for you, but it’s hard to get used to. No one on Proxima Doma or Doma Tertia would ever dream of such...”
“Of such a brazen and thoughtless attitude towards what you consider to be the core of your being?” Pribadium!One guesses.
“Flexibility,” Sora clarifies. “I was going to say flexibility.”
She nods. “I’m sorry she threw you in here. She didn’t have to do that. It’s not like you could have overpowered us and snuck off the base alone. You don’t have any authorization codes... Anyway, it wasn’t right, and I hope we can still be friends.”
Sora smiles. “We once were enemies. It feels like years ago, but it’s been a day.”
“I never thought of us as enemies, Mr. Shimizu,” Pribadium!One explains. “You must understand that while what you and your people were trying to do was unique, that’s what my job is. People have all sorts of complaints. Back when the post-scarcity society was first blossoming, access accelerated rapidly. What once cost became totally free. It became an expectation. But post-scarcity doesn’t mean no economy. Energy credits were devised because energy and raw material are the only things that matter in the universe. Because they both give you time. People come to Gatewood expecting to get whatever they want with no limitations, but it’s more nuanced than that. I sit through many negotiations. I’ve never been taken hostage before, but...”
He’s bashful. “I’m sorry about that. I guess I shouldn’t complain about being in there for all of five minutes when I kept you locked up for weeks.”
“I forgive you,” Pribadium!One promises.
Pribadium!Two appears on screen. “I forgive you too, and I’m sorry too.”
“Thank you,” Sora replies. He breathes to reset. “So, are you ready to launch?”
“I just need the authorization from the quote-unquote real Pribadium.”
Pribadium!One tilts her head. “You have the greenlight. Godspeed.”
“God is dead.” Pribadium!Two’s shuttle launches and heads for the barrier.
Only a couple hundred meters from the dimensional barrier, the base loses contact with it. Then a bogey shows up on sensors on the opposite side of the bubble.

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

Microstory 2733: The Cost of a Life

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash
The Pribadiums have been hard at work for the last three days. They have been performing, checking, and rechecking calculations. They have been running simulation after simulation after simulation. They have sent probes out to scan, analyze, and synthesize. And now they have a better picture of their situation. The first probes told them how expansive the pocket dimension bubble was. These more recent probes are telling them how big it is now, and those figures are not the same. It’s shrinking. At this rate, the window of opportunity will close by the end of the week. Well, they wanted to know their time constraints, and now they have them. That is only part of the puzzle, though. What happens to people and objects who pass back out?
Or are they passing through the dimensional barrier at all? Their intuition suggests that they are, because the Pribadiums are losing contact with the probes, but that doesn’t mean they’re slipping safely through. It might be vaporizing them, shunting them somewhere else, or simply generating too much interference to maintain the connection. Someone is going to have to go out there and gather more information.
“I volunteer as tribute,” Sora says.
Pribadium!One chuckles. “That won’t be necessary. We’ll flip a coin.”
“I’m serious,” Sora insists. “If something happens to me, it’s no big deal. I only have maybe a hundred years left in this universe anyway. If one of you dies, you’re losing eternity. Besides, you’re more valuable than I am. Really, I wanna do this.”
“Well, if we’re going by a simple value analysis, we have an excess of Pribadiums,” Pribadium!Two says. “If I go, my alternate is still here, and we’ve not lost anything.”
Pribadium!One rolls her eyes at her alternate self, and doesn’t validate her words. She faces Sora. “This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with Elke, would it?”
“Elke?” Sora asks. “I told you, I’ve moved past that. You telling me what happens when you die has given me closure. That’s why it doesn’t scare me to do this, because I know whatever happens, I’ll survive. I didn’t realize I was digitized, and I’ve been grumpy about it, but we might as well take advantage. It sounds like you can’t come back, or dead people would be doing it all the time. So you should stay.” He looks at Pribadium!Two. “Both of you. Two heads are better than one if they’re both you, right?”
“I’m the one who said that,” Pribadium!One reminds him.
“Same result,” Sora reasons. “And anyway, death isn’t a guarantee. It’s a test.”
Pribadium!Two shakes her head. “Survival is what is not guaranteed. The afterlife simulation is based on a certain set of criteria. In order for your consciousness to be transmitted to it, you have to both originate from the main sequence, and be in the main sequence. I’m guessing you qualify for the former, but not necessarily the latter. That’s one thing we would be testing out there with this manned mission. The bottom line is that you may not end up in the sim, or in Fort Underhill. The risk is real.”
“Again, that is how I have always lived,” Sora explains. “I never thought I was going to live forever. There is a freedom in that which you have either forgotten, or are too young to remember. I’m part of a long history of doomed souls. I’m proud of that.”
Pribadium!Two nods. She pulls down her pants and removes a teleporter dartgun from a flap of skin on her hip.
“You always had that?” Pribadium!One was surprised. “You could have escaped.”
“Yes,” Pribadium!Two confirms. “But he won’t be able to.” She shoots him.

Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Microstory 2732: Tree of Thought

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash
Pribadium gives Sora a go in the equilibrium chamber. He likes it because anyone can use it, whether they have been biologically or technologically enhanced, or not. It doesn’t even have to be alive. Bulk forces act on every object with the force equal to its mass. This allows everything to stay in place unless moved by some other force. Sora places his cup of tea in front of him and to the side, as if there were a table there, and it stays. Gravity doesn’t exist here, atmospheric pressure doesn’t either. It doesn’t move until he reaches back for it. He even leaves it upside down, and it’s fine. He says that he forgot to have fun. Elke’s arrival, while it sparked love in him, was filled with so much anxiety and longing that he stopped enjoying daily life. He spent all of his time focused on her, both before and after her death. He can barely recall what his hobbies were. He would have loved to play in an equilibrium chamber back then, probably. Since he’s no scientist, he goes off to another area of the outpost to find his bliss.
Pribadium!One and Pribadium!Two, meanwhile, have work to get through. Their mission is to pull this small pocket of space out of the universe entirely, and let it exist as its own miniature universe. Once there, they will be able to travel to other branes, just like The Crossover or Zoey Attar. They will be able to adjust their own laws of physics, and explore new worlds. They will break new ground. Neither of them has ever done this before, but Pribadium!Two has more experience. She offered to transmit the memories and knowledge into Pribadium!One’s brain, but the latter declined. She wants to be herself, and not mix each other together.
“No, that’s not gonna work,” Pribadium!Two warns over her shoulder.
Pribadium!One sighs. “I’m starting an arboreal progression. I’ve not yet gotten to the pruning stage. Do you not remember how we work? How much have you changed?”
“No, I remember the arboreal technique. I just didn’t think you needed to start with a seed, since I already have a ton of hard data over here,” Pribadium!Two argues.
“Yes, I saw your data, but you were mostly looking at it from the main sequence. Now we’re in the new parallel. We have to start from scratch. We can compare notes later. But that won’t be until after my tree grows, after I prune it, and after I climb it.”
“After we climb it,” Pribadium!Two tries to correct.
“No, I want to climb it myself. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s that I’m trying to keep my work contained and isolated, so it stands up to future testing. I don’t want to be biased by your research. The very basis of science is reproducible results. If I can’t reproduce them without looking at your results first, they won’t hold up. In fact, why don’t you go down to the aux lab, so we don’t even occupy the same space.”
“Why would I go to the aux lab? I’m the one who needs the main servers for the simulations. You’re still a seedling!” Pribadium!Two contends
“Oh, the servers down there are fine,” Pribadium!One reasons dismissively.
Pribadium!Two shakes her head. “No, I have been upgrading the primaries.”
“You have?” Pribadium!One pushes her alt self aside to check her workstation. “Goddammit, I didn’t give you permission to make changes. Now I’ll need to reconfigure all of my preferences. Just because you technically have credentials, doesn’t mean you should use them. This is my lab. Yours is in another reality. Please respect that.”
“I suppose we need to come up with some ground rules before we proceed.”
“I suppose we do,” Pribadium!One agrees.

Monday, August 10, 2026

Microstory 2731: The Choices We Make

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash
Pribadium!Two offered to explain to Sora what happened to his alternate self, but he decided that he didn’t want to hear it, at least not right now. They all three split apart, and went to their separate corners. They need to decompress from everything going on, and process all the new information. If they miss their window to create a mobile pocket universe, then so be it. It was never going to be an instantaneous endeavor, and it’s prudent to wait a bit anyway. This is a huge undertaking, which will have massive ramifications in this universe, and who knows how many others?
Pribadium!One is lying in her equilibrium chamber now, thinking about Sora. When they first met, he was a clear opponent. She was trying to get him to calm down and see reason, but she never thought she would feel bad for him like this. The story he told about his crush on Proxima Doma was heartbreaking. She teased him with the chance to get some closure, and then about immediately took it away from him. It wasn’t fair, and she’s going to have to figure out a way to apologize for it, besides simply literally saying the words. He obviously needs some space right now, though.
A door alert. It’s Sora. When she commands the AI to open the door, he walks in. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were sleeping. I can come back later.”
“No, it’s okay.” Pribadium!One stands up and hangs there mid-air.
His eyes widen. “How are you doing that? I thought antigravity was impossible.”
She lowers her legs one by one like she is climbing down a ladder, towards what’s considered down. “It’s not really antigravity, per se. Though, I suppose we could make that happen too if I figure out how to contain quintessence. I have some friends who built a machine that uses it, but it was awkward between us, so I never got the chance to study it in depth. Anyway, no, this is an equilibrium chamber. Another friend of mine developed it, and now they use it extensively on Varkas Reflex. People stay in simulated environments for years on end. This perfectly distributes the pressure on your body, so you don’t suffer the negative health effects of extended immobility.”
Sora stares at the apparatus, curious enough, but obviously not really thinking about it. Their goals are unaligned, and one of them might have to relent one day.
It’s not just about him, though. He’s not the only person they have to worry about. Thousands of colonists who just so happened to be on this side of the host star have the right to decide what to do with their own lives too. She’s just glad that most people escaped the bubble. She placed her lab away from the activity even though it placed her in the line of fire of the upcoming obliteration blast, because she knows exactly when it will arrive, and has ways of avoiding it. Now that doesn’t matter anymore. “Did you want to talk about something?” she asks as she’s stepping out.
“I don’t need to talk to Elke,” he answers. “Before you say anything, I realized that she made her choice. Whatever her reasons, I wasn’t worth sticking around for. We knew each other for years. Her suicide took years, but she never gave up. If she survived it—if she didn’t end up killing herself again on the other side, then that still has nothing to do with me. It never did. So you two go ahead and do whatever you need to do with the weird universe thing. I’m not much help, but I’ll be here. I’ll support you.”
“This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with what she said about us?”
“About how we were together in another timeline? No. This is my choice.”
“Okay,” Pribadium!One says. “I’ll speak to my alternate self in the morning.”

Sunday, August 9, 2026

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 20, 2564

Generated by Pollo AI text-to-video AI software
Time was weird in Romana’s simulation. Ramses and Leona worked the problem for the better part of three days before they were able to get Mateo and Boyd out of there. And they did get Boyd out of there too. They didn’t have a physical body for him to inhabit, since they didn’t know his wishes, but they moved his IDCode to a new server, and isolated him from Romana’s original system. They then ran a bunch of diagnostics on him, and medical tests on Mateo, to determine whether there were any lingering risks associated with them having been trapped in there.
Romana was devastated, but otherwise all right. Beyond her artificial implants, she wasn’t presenting any other signs or symptoms. She appeared to be physically and neurologically healthy. Still, Ramses extracted the implants, and flushed her of any dangerous foreign bodies. It was a relatively simple procedure, because it was one of the first things immersive VR researchers came up with, under the concern that something like this could happen. The only reason they didn’t do that earlier was because of her visitors. She was not saying much, save for apologizing profusely. It wasn’t her fault.
Mateo was pissed. Someone did this to her. It could not have simply happened incidentally. Glitches did happen, of course, but there was too much intent from the monsters. They were far too organized and driven. Of course, Mateo still didn’t know what they would have done if they had caught up to the humans, because they didn’t give them the chance, but they certainly weren’t trying to say hello, and they weren’t random. When he found whoever was responsible, they were gonna wish they had targeted someone else.
“That may not be what happened,” Leona said. “It may not have been an attack.”
“You didn’t see them,” Mateo argued. “They were absolutely relentless. Boyd and I literally had to keep running. Thank God I was able to shut off some of my bio-responses, or I would have grown too tired to make it.” He shook his head.
“The blobs,” Leona began. “Why did they chase after you at all? If they were a part of the system, why not simply materialize right in front of you. You didn’t actually run anywhere. You were only ones and zeros, as were the blobs themselves.”
“Exactly,” Mateo reasoned. “They weren’t a part of it. That’s how I know someone put them in there. It couldn’t have been your average file corruption, or whatever.”
“I have another hypothesis,” Ramses jumped in. “I think it could have been natural and unintentional. I think they were a part of her, but not the simulation.”
“What, like her antibodies, or her stress hormones?” Mateo questioned.
“Something like that,” Ramses went on. “Do you remember when Romana was abducted by the original Boyd? He placed her in a dark particle stasis field.”
“Yeah, it changed her,” Mateo said. “It made her just like him. That’s over now.”
“Perhaps not,” Ramses suggested. “I’m still detecting periodic neutrino collisions inside of her body, and in yours. It would be nothing to be worried about, it means your bodies can handle it. But it looks like her mind is being negatively impacted.”
“Well, she’s been dark particle-free for weeks, and nothing. What’s changed?”
Ramses frowned at Mateo sadly, but didn’t say anything. He looked nervous.
“Me,” Mateo surmised. “I visited her simulation. I have lingering dark particle-ness too.” He had to sit down. “I did this to her.”
“It’s not your fault either. It’s just nature,” Leona said comfortingly. “It could also be this star system. Different stars, different solar flux.”
“Fix this,” Mateo demanded. “Do whatever you have to do, even if it hurts.”

Saturday, August 8, 2026

Extremus: Year 138

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash
Waldemar and Sable are back together. It has been long enough since Audrey died that the people of Extremus accept the new relationship, so they can be public about it. Yes, she’s young. The crew and passengers do notice that, but they wouldn’t dare say anything to his face. He doesn’t want people to talk about them behind their backs either, but he can’t stop that. Well, he probably could. He could have the AI that runs the systems track everyone’s conversations, and make sure they’re only saying nice things, but he won’t do that. The old version of him might have, but he’s different now. He still doesn’t have real emotions, but he knows if he takes away all of their freedoms, then his popularity rating will drop down to zero, and he won’t keep his job. Maybe in a few years once the second phase of the master plan begins.
Other than his personal life, nothing noteworthy is happening, at least not that he can be honest about. The ghost of his late wife still haunts him, and not in a metaphorical way. She shows up when he’s alone, and talks to him. It’s torture. He knows it could be worse. She’s not screaming in his ears while he’s trying to sleep, or singing the same song over and over again. What she does is basically give him advice. She acts just Audrey did when she was physically here, except now he can’t even get on top of her like he used to.
No, the problem with it is that he doesn’t have a choice. He can’t leave the room unless he wants to surround himself with others. She won’t leave. A part of him doesn’t want her to, but a part of him does. He obviously can’t tell anyone about it, because it will make him look unfit for the chair. He can’t trust Silveon, and his rekindling with Sable isn’t where it should be yet. When the—
“Stop. No one cares about this.” It’s Audrey again. She just appears out of nowhere sometimes. It can be really annoying.
“What are you goin’ on about now?” Waldemar questions.
“You’re dwelling on your situation,” Audrey explains. “Your thoughts are not interesting, which makes sense, because the story is not interesting right now. The beginning of this volume had a lot of action and intrigue, and the end of it will too, but right now, The Superintendent is in the middle of focusing on other projects, so he doesn’t have time to write this whole thing about your fake fee-fees and hallucinations.”
Waldemar stands there midstride, holding a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. A single drop of the milk sprang out of it when Audrey first showed up, and is currently running down the back of his hand as another form of irritation. He wants to stop and lick it up, but he’s worried he’ll look stupid in front of the ghost. Can you believe it? Feeling self-conscious before someone who you don’t even respect. If only—
“I said stop!” Audrey argues. “Stop trying to create a story where there is none. He’s gonna cut this short, and move on. Maybe he’ll have more time next week.”
“I’ve had enough of this.” Waldemar carelessly drops both the plate and the glass on the floor to let the cleaning bots deal with it. He taps on his wrist band until he finds what he’s looking for. Or rather, who he’s looking for.
Sable appears on the floor. She’s half-naked, crouched in an awkward position.
“What were you doing?” Waldemar asks. “Having sex?”
“Uh, no. Yoga?” Sable claims, probably lying. She stands up. “I don’t appreciate being summoned like this. You may be the captain, and I may be your girlfriend, but—”
“I’ve been seeing the ghost of my dead wife. For years. And I need your help.”
She stares but he can’t say what she’s thinking. “Fascinating. Tell me everything.”