Microstory 1476: Quantum Love

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In 2148, a girl was born on Durus with the ability to make quantum duplications of people. For some reason, it only worked on people, rather than other objects, so she wouldn’t be able to generate infinite resources for Durus. Not that it mattered, she was a girl, and it was the government’s official position at the time that there was no such thing as a female mage remnant. When she was three years old, her powers manifested for the first time when she accidentally made a copy of her younger brother. This wasn’t the most famous family on the planet, or anything, but people were well aware that the parents had two children; one daughter, and one son. If this twin were to be revealed to the world, people would know that something fishy was up. They considered lying, and claiming that the baby boy had duplicated himself, but he was too young for that to be likely, and he wouldn’t grow up with the ability to prove it. So they kept one of them a secret, and sent him off to live on a farm outside of the city with a family friend. The two versions of this individual lived separately for sixteen years. They didn’t even know about each other, but upon reaching the age of eighteen, the parents, and their farming friends, figured that they were old enough to know each other. What they didn’t consider was the possibility that these two would end up falling in love with each other. The circumstance was unprecedented, but there were plenty of similar situations on Earth, where siblings separated at early ages were reunited. No one here had ever actually seen it happen, but still, their romantic connection was weird. It was very weird. Was it worse, falling in love with an alternate version of one’s self, than it would be for two twins, or even regular siblings? No one could answer that question, but it made people uncomfortable either way. There were protests.

Phineas Hanlin, and Philadelphia Kikkert didn’t really do a whole lot to resist the feelings that were brewing between them. They spent the day together when they first met, and hit it off, as if they were on a date. They easily gave in to their feelings, and started pursuing each other with equal vigor. Their families tried to keep them apart, but there was nothing illegal about it. They wanted to take the two men to court, but the government would not let it continue. It would set a dangerous precedent, they felt, to start deciding who was allowed to be in a relationship with who. The oppressive phallocratic government was over, and they were paranoid about the slippery slope. The fact was that they were two consenting adults, and they were free to be with each other, if they wanted. Incest was only treated as an offense if it would lead to the conception of a child, and as two men, this was impossible, so people would have to get over it. Well, they didn’t. Society shunned them, and marriage officiants refused to let them cement their love in ceremony and contract. They thought about asking the crew of the visiting ship to take them back to Earth with them, but already so many people wanted in on that, and they couldn’t be sure Earth would treat them any better. They had to stay together, and if that meant being alone, then that was what they would do. When Hokusai Gimura joined the crew of the Elizabeth Warren, she stripped her tiny one-person ship for parts. What she left was mostly the skeleton of the vessel, capable of supporting and insulating life in outer space, but not capable of launching off the ground, or propelling itself anywhere. She did fail to remove this extra little feature that halted aging for all those inside, regardless of how long the trip took. Still, Phineas and Philadelphia figured that it was their only option. Now people actually started helping them. No one wanted them to be together, but if they weren’t going to do the right thing, then at least they could do it somewhere else. The community came together, and started repairing Hokusai’s ship. Engineers and mechanics pooled their knowledge, and figured out how to add the right instrumentation to the controls. Paramounts added special upgrades to keep the ship going indefinitely. Wherever they chose to go, Phineas and Philadelphia wouldn’t be able to get there instantaneously, but at least they would be together, and from the Durune’s perspective, at least they wouldn’t be on Durus anymore.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, July 10, 2125

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The pain disappeared in an instant, but Mateo was still lying face down in the dirt. He stood himself up, and looked around. He wasn’t extremely familiar with the topography of Tribulation Island—it wasn’t like he had a favorite leaf—but he could tell that he wasn’t there anymore. It was a lush jungle, though not one he had been to before, as far as he knew. He could see smoke coming from the bottom of the mountain, so with no other options, he started climbing down towards it. Just as he stepped into the clearing, dozens of other people did too. They nearly all looked confused, but were possibly more confused by the fact that Mateo didn’t seem to be. He confidently walked forward, and approached the outdoor amphitheatre they had set up. This wasn’t the first time he was suddenly thrust into a place he didn’t understand, so he needn’t fret. He sat front and center, right before the stage.

Seeing him do this made everyone else feel more comfortable doing the same. With no idea where they were, or what they were doing here, they began to find their own seats, and wait patiently. A woman stuck her head out of the curtain, and kept it tightly around her neck. “Oh, wow,” she said as she was looking them over. Mateo was only able to hear because he was close enough. “You guys are quick.” She watched until everyone had a place to sit. All but one. One man was left standing. “That isn’t right.” She slipped a clipboard through the curtains. “A hundred and forty-seven exactly. Is someone here who shouldn’t be?”

Mateo stood up. “I believe that would be me.”

“Name?” she prompted.

“Mateo Matic.”

She scanned her list. “Date of—of...” she trailed off.

That was fine, Mateo knew what she was asking. He was sure she wouldn’t want to say it out loud until she could go through her whole delicate spiel. “July 9, 2124.”

“Yep, that’s today.”

“I’ll come to you,” he decided. He climbed up on stairs, and followed her backstage. “There’s a reason I’m not on your list. I am a time traveler. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of us.”

“Oh! I thought they were joking. They went over it in training, but...”

He nodded. “It’s okay. My death started millions of years ago, but then a fffffrrr—someone I know pulled me through a portal so I could do die in present day.” Well, he wasn’t a friend.

“I see.” She gritted her teeth, and looked back down at her clipboard, hoping to remember the procedures. “I believe we’re meant to send people like you somewhere else. The Designers will want to speak with you directly. But I don’t know how to...”

“Again, it’s fine. Go ahead and run through your presentation. Those people out there need to know what’s happened to them. We can deal with me later.”

“Are you sure? The orientation process is quite long. People need time to adjust.”

“Really, I’m all right. Go do your thing. I’m here if you need help.”

“You’re very kind.” She took a deep breath, and prepared herself. Then she stepped all the way through the curtain to tell a crowd of people that they were dead.

“He’s dead?”

“I don’t see how he could have survived,” J.B. reported. “It was...it was bad. I’m sorry, this is all my fault.”

Leona stared at the ground a moment. “No, it’s fine. You saw a body, which means he’s still alive. He can’t die. The powers that be won’t let him. I’m sure his consciousness has been transferred back to the lab on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, just like it was last time. He’ll be back any minute.”

Sanaa was staring at Ellie. “No, he won’t.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Leona questioned.

“You gonna tell her, or shall I?” Sanaa asked.

“You can read minds again, can’t you?” Ellie hypothesized.

“Answer the goddamn question.”

“There were two clone bodies,” Ellie explained. “The first one that Mateo used was after his fall from the cliff. The second was after his fall from the hospital. We didn’t grow a third. If his mind was transferred to some other substrate, then we had nothing to do with it.”

“Why didn’t you make more?” Leona questioned. “Why didn’t you make an army of Mateos?”

“Humans aren’t cylons. I’m surprised the powers let us do it even once.”

Leona didn’t cry, or fume. She just kind of looked tired. The truth was she didn’t know what to feel. Mateo had died so many times already, it was a trend. He had always come back, and there was no reason to believe he wouldn’t do it an upteenth time. Anyway, they had a mission to complete, and now it was up to Leona to fulfill their promise to save Vearden. If nothing else, she would see Mateo again after it was over. This was probably the best outcome, because now they’ll be together. “Let’s go. Our window is closing.” She walked off.

They found Vearden alone in the woods. He freely gave them a sample of his blood without asking a single question, because he trusted that they needed it for something important. They returned to The Parallel with it, where a technician was waiting to produce a clone for them. They asked him to program it to grow to maturity after a year, and no sooner. There were ways to expedite the cloning process, but generally speaking, the closer you get to realtime, the more stable the substrate will be, and the longer it will last. They didn’t need this Vearden clone to last very long, but they did need it to be able to bleed and break, so it was just better if they took their time. They wouldn’t be able to use it for another year anyway.

On July 10, 2125, the team returned to the timstream. Leona half-expected Mateo to be waiting for them just outside the AOC, but no such luck. Maybe he really was dead, and it was nearly time to join him. “Are you ready, Ellie?”

“Are you sure about this?” Ellie asked diligently. “A life for a life is...a terrible trade.”

“Mateo had faith in you, and he died before he could prove it. I’ll die proving it for myself.”

“I can’t guarantee that there’s anything on the other side.”

Leona sat down in the chair. “You’re closer to a guarantee than anyone else has ever been able to give. Do it.”

“Anyone else want to object?” Ellie asked the other two.

“They don’t get a vote,” Leona argued.

“Yes, we do. It’s not just about you,” Sanaa fought back. “And no, no objections. We do this together, as long you’re capable of that.”

“I am.”

“What do you mean, together?” Leona questioned.

Without responding, Ellie placed her hands at the Vearden clone’s temples. She concentrated a moment, and then worked her magic, teleporting Leona’s consciousness into its brain. But she wasn’t alone. She woke up in a darkened room, with a facsimile of the hexagonoid table from the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ellie was sitting next to her, with J.B. next to her, and Sanaa next to him.

“Oh my God,” Leona said. “What are you doing here?”

“We’ve all been asked to save Vearden. We’re all here to do just that,” Sanaa explained.

“There was only meant to be one sacrifice,” Leona contended. “It can’t be Mateo, since he already did that, so it has to be me. And J.B., if you’re here, his death will be meaningless.”

“I was told that it was not,” J.B. replied plainly.

“I’m the one with the power,” Ellie told her, “so there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”

“I have your power now too.”

Ellie lifted her hand, palm up. A viewscreen for each of them appeared in the middle of the table, showing them the perspective of the lab from the Vearden clone’s perspective. They could see their respective former bodies, strewn about the floor. “No, you don’t. Nobody’s wearing a Cassidy cuff. Whether he was ready for it or not, Jupiter can’t control us anymore.”

Like always, as if he knew exactly when they were talking about him—which shouldn’t have been possible in this case, because they weren’t talking at all, but communicating telepathically to each other using the same brain—Jupiter appeared. He examined the death and destruction around him for a second before dragging the bodies up to more dignified positions on the couch. He removed their cuffs, and dropped them into his bag. Once he had all of them stored, he took out what appeared to be a bracelet. He held it up in front of the clone’s face. “This was made from Ariadna’s hair. It won’t let you cross any dimensional boundary you want, but it’ll get ya past the merge barrier on Tribulation Island. Give it to the real Vearden when you swap places with him, and tell him how to get back here. I’ll make sure he makes a good life for himself in the Parallel.” He wrapped the bracelet around Clone!Vearden’s wrist. “Godspeed.” He knew. He knew what Mateo was planning to do the whole time.

After Jupiter disappeared, the inhabitants of the clone body took a few hours to learn how to navigate. They were all capable of assuming control over its movements, but it was obviously better if they selected one person for that role. Leona was going to take care of that, while Ellie would be doing the talking. J.B. and Sanaa could therefore just be there for the ride. And the death. When they felt like they were comfortable with this new body, and ready to go, they transitioned back to the main sequence once more, crossed the merge border, and went off in search of the real Vearden Haywood. It didn’t take too terribly long to find him.

He was meant to be out hunting for Lita, who was busy taking care of her daughter, Brooke. Instead, he was wandering the Colosseum replica he built with his partner, Saga a long time ago. He wasn’t particularly surprised to see an alternate version of himself, as he had been through this before. “Why, hello. How are you today?”

“We’re okay,” Ellie said through Clone!Vearden’s mouth. “I mean...I’m okay.” First words, already a mistake.

“Good goin’, genius,” Sanaa snarked telepathically.

Vearden stood there with a dumb smile on his face for a moment. “Well, bye.”

“Wait.” Clone!Vearden grabbed him by the arm.

Vearden looked down at it. “Careful. Time doesn’t like it when you rearrange her furniture.”

Clone!Vearden chuckled. That wasn’t how time worked.

Before they could say anything else, the entrance to the Colosseum replica opened up. A third Vearden walked through it, and closed the door behind him. He looked between the first two. “This is not how I was told it would happen.”

“Vearden!Three, what are you doing here?” Vearden!Two asked. He was from an alternate reality, where he and Saga jumped around in time, changing history, and the future, for the better.

This third Vearden was from this timeline, and he had his own adventures, mostly separate from Saga, of which there were also two versions. “I’m here to take your place, and rescue you.”

“From what? This island? I have to be here. I can’t go until Saga gets back.” At this point, Saga!Two had been removed from the timestream, and what Leona and her friends recently learned was that she was hanging out in the Parallel.

“You’re fated to die,” Clone!Vearden explained. “I’m going to take your place. The both of you are going to leave.”

“Why do I need to be saved?” Vearden!Two questioned. “Why does it matter which one of us dies? I’m not more important than you.”

“You are,” Clone!Vearden insisted. “Look. I’m not really an alternate version of you. I’m a completely different person who is using a clone body, so I can die in your stead. I can do this, because after that, my consciousness will transfer back to my real body, and we will all survive. You’re not more important, you’re just more fragile.”

Vearden!Two looked to Vearden!Three for confirmation, but Vearden!Three didn’t know anything about this either.

Clone!Vearden removed the Traversa Bracelet, and handed it to Vearden!Two, along with a hand drawn map, which J.B. was artistic enough to make for them. It used the campsite as a reference point. “Take these, and go. A friend of ours will help you over there.”

“No,” Vearden!Three said. “I already told Saga that I was coming here to save him.” He took the bracelet, and the map. “I’ll go meet your friend. He’ll go meet his. Is that a problem?”

“If that’s what happened in the original timeline, then...okay,” Clone!Vearden determined. “You have to complete your cycle, close your loop.”

“Great,” Vearden!Two declared, “as long as you’re not lying about being able to survive this.”

“I’m not lying,” Clone!Vearden lied.

“After a few more glances, hoping to suss out any hidden truths about this plan, Vearden!Two relented, and headed through the magical door, presumably back to wherever Vearden!Three had just come from.

Vearden!Three installed the Traversa Bracelet onto his own wrist. “Until we meet again...in the red forest.” He walked off.

Leona then walked off as well, looking for death. She found it.

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Glisnia: The Shorter List (Part VII)

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Porter decided to find Jupiter Rosa, as opposed to Jupiter Fury, even though they were alternate versions of the same person. When he was a child, he discovered his ability to call upon quantum duplicates of himself. Each was from an alternate reality, which was only slightly different than the first. These other worlds only lasted for fractions of a second before collapsing to make way for the reality that was meant to win out, but when accounting for time travel, those few microseconds were enough. Before Jupiter understood what he was doing, there was no telling which Jupiter was the real one. Only one of them truly belonged to this reality, while the other was a visitor, and could be reabsorbed into the primary by a process called quantum assimilation. By the time they figured out which of them was this primary, each Jupiter believed himself to be it. And so the primary decided to let the other live on as his own person. As the years flew by, neither of them could remember which was which anyway. Both of them were good, but Jupiter Rosa was better, because he rejected the influence of their friends, and went on to make his own decisions.

Saxon Parker was another person with alternate versions of himself, though by different means, and so many more. He was part of a massive exploration project, which sought to establish a settlement in every single star system in the entire galaxy. It was called Project Stargate, and though the ships he and his team built were automated, their overseers wanted them to carry a human touch. So Saxon cloned himself well over a million times, so each could keep watch over one of the modular ships. In order to protect causality, Porter was forced to look for Saxon after he underwent this project. She found this to be extremely difficult, and didn’t realize her mistake until after it was made. As it turned out, one of Saxon’s clones developed independent thoughts, and rejected his destiny. He asked to stay where he was, which forced Saxon to take his place. Porter didn’t know this, and accidentally retrieved the clone, instead of the original. He called himself Omega Parker, and he would have to do.

The third member of Katica’s shorter list was a man named Lihtren Uluru. He was born out of a companion endeavor for Project Stargate called Operation Starseed. While the former was designed to allow exploration, communication, and even travel to the Milky Way stars, the latter was created to seed life. Lihtren was born on a planet over sixty thousand light years from Earth and Glisnia, which meant it wouldn’t happen for at least as many years from now, if the timeline hadn’t been altered enough to prevent it. He unjustifiably traveled to Earth, unwillingly went back in time, and unwittingly became immortal. Though he was not as heavily involved in time traveler affairs, and had not gotten himself mixed up with interstellar expansion, his opinion mattered, and Katica figured he would be on her side.

The last member of this new list was a woman called Viana Černý. A long time ago, the world governments began to change. Several of them adopted a new form of democracy with a stronger sense of checks and balances. The state was run by two separate leaders. Each was advised by a separate board of experts, and following this advice, made decisions together, with the guidance of a mediator. Upon coming to some kind of consensus on a given matter, they sent directives to their administrators, which were just as respectively experienced and educated as the advisors, except they were in charge of carrying out the decisions, rather than merely discussing them. The interesting thing about this form of government was that it was scalable. The leaders answered to a population representative congress. One person represented 240 people, while the Senator oversaw 328 of these groups, for a total of 78,720. Larger groups combined with other groups, and reported to higher ranks. And this process could be repeated as needed, like proto-planetary dust coalescing around a star, until the whole world was unified. Whereas before, each nation state had its own government, they were now governed by a single body. Viana was an important member of this whole world government.

She was the Futurology Administrator, and one of the most important singular voices when it came to the interstellar expansion. She helped decide which star system the Earthans would explore, where they would go first, and how they would get there. Because of how much respect she earned around the stellar neighborhood, exoplanet colonists sent her regular updates, even though they were not obliged to. When very few people were made aware of the strange goingson that happened on a new world, she was one of those people. So it was no surprise that she consolidated all of this information, and eventually realized that time travel must exist. She wasn’t meant to know about all that, but once she discovered it, no one could take it away from her. Viana was an intelligent and responsible person, who could be trusted with the truth. She didn’t reveal what she now knew to the neighborhood at large, or even one other person. Katica Petrić felt this integrity entitled her to a spot on The Shorter List, and the right to help come to a decision regarding what kind of technology Glisnia was allowed to have. Katica didn’t think everyone here had earned that.

Hogarth was disallowed from participating in the meeting, which of course, pissed her off. She was the one the Glisnians asked for this, and she wasn’t even part of it anymore? That was total bullshit. She had called the first meeting, and it was a good meeting, and it should be honored. The Shortlist wasn’t something they just came up with one day while they were all hanging around together. It took a lot of time and effort to organize. Hogarth couldn’t help but worry that this new group had no hope of reaching a legitimate decision. Holly Blue was allowed to be in the room where it happened, which made this even more frustrating. Though she accepted the real decision, she would surely fight against it now that she had a second opportunity to do so, and that wasn’t fair. There was no one on the Shorter List which Hogarth felt would be on her side, and fight for her position. Right now, she was sitting in the hallway with Jupiter. “Why are you here?”

“They didn’t tell you? They want me to use my magical powers for an alternative solution to your resource shortage.”

“What can you do?”

“Well, I can access other—”

“No,” Hogarth interrupted, “I know what you can do, but why would that help us?”

“As I was saying,” Jupiter continued, “I can access alternate realities, and retrieve alternate versions of people and objects. Evidently, Katica believes this power can be scaled up for your purposes.”

Hogarth stared at him blankly for a moment. “She wants to steal resources from alternate realities?”

“Alternate uninhabited realities,” Jupiter clarified. “Think about it, if Holly Blue can adapt my power to a machine that siphons materials from an infinite supply of alternate Glisnias, then they will never run out of anything they need.”

“Is that possible?’

Jupiter smiled, and turned to face the opposite wall. “Unequivocally no. I don’t care how powerful I get, or how much of a boost Holly Blue can muster, it won’t be enough. The realities I access are really close to ours. One might be, for instance, exactly like this one, except with one less mosquito. I cannot, sadly, reach far enough into the multiverse to find one which doesn’t have any people in it, and even if I could, you couldn’t siphon enough resources out of it to justify the amount of energy you put into the trying. It’s like fusion power in my time period, the 21st century. Sure, it works, but it takes more energy to run the machine than the machine produces for you.” He indicates the universe around them. “Obviously, people in the future eventually figure out positive fusion energy.” He shook his head. “They won’t ever figure altreal siphoning, though. It can’t be done. So I suppose it’s less like fusion, and more like plugging a surge protector into itself.”

“Holly Blue’s alternate, Weaver invented what she calls a perpetual motion engine, using time technology,” Hogarth argued.

“Well, I don’t know anything about that. Like I said, I’m from the 21st century. Though I doubt that’s really what’s happening. I’m sure it’s a lot more complex than that.”

Hogarth turned to face the wall as well. “Yeah, it is. But if she could do it—if she could figure out altreal siphoning—I won’t fight against it. It would be a lot better than what I proposed.”

“If I’m being honest,” Jupiter began, “I don’t much care for Holly Blue. These future people, they...they don’t know what it’s like. You and I, we’re just a couple of jabronis from Springfield, Kansas.”

“You’re from Springfield?” she questioned.

He turned back to face her. “Of course! All the Springfield Nine are. That’s why we’re called that.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Miss Pudeyonavic, if we weren’t time travelers, I would be three years older than you.”

“It’s Madam Pudeyonavic. I’m married.”

“Why isn’t it Missus?”

“Because Hilde and I didn’t change our names. Madam is what you use for a married woman who still uses her birth name.”

“Who came up with that rule?”

“The Superintendent, I think.”

Lihtren stuck his head out of the door. “Mr. Rosa, we’re ready for you.”

“Not without my associate,” Jupiter contended.

“Who is your associate?”

Jupiter stood up, and offered his hand to Hogarth. “Madam Pudeyonavic.”

Lihtren looked over his shoulder, back into the room, but didn’t say anything to the people in there. “I cannot guarantee this will not be contested. We don’t really have protocols and procedures laid out.”

“Clearly,” Hogarth grumbled.

The two of them stepped into the room, and Jupiter’s decision to include her was indeed contested. There was nothing Katica could do about it, however, since the other three members had no problem with it, and Jupiter was holding all the cards. Hogarth was grateful to have met him. It only took four hundred years.

“We believe, Mr. Rosa, that we can convince you to help us,” Katica began.

“I understand your plan,” Jupiter replied, “and I’m here to tell ya that it ain’t gon’ happen. I’m not powerful enough, you’re not powerful enough. It won’t work.”

“We thought you would say that,” Holly Blue said. “Which is why we brought in some extra help.” She held up what looked like a garage door opener. When she clicked it, Crimson Clover appeared, and it wasn’t alone.

“Hi,” said the stranger. “My name is Ambrose.”

“Ambrosios?” Hogarth questioned. “The mad immortal.”

“No, just Ambrose,” the man corrected. “Ambrose Richardson.”

“He’s a power booster, like Savitri,” Holly Blue revealed proudly.

“I met him during my travels,” Crimson explained.

“Does this change your mind?” Katica asked Jupiter.

Jupiter thought about the offer for a moment. “I’ll consider it, but only if it works; only if he can boost my power enough.”

“That’s fair,” Katica agreed.

“And only if Hogarth is in charge.”

That was less fair. But awesome.

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Microstory 1475: Attack on the Warren

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When the crew of The Elizabeth Warren arrived in 2170, they were here to pick up a few of their friends. They had no intention of taking on any passengers. They also didn’t intend to stay here very long, but it took some time for them to find who they were looking for. After she lost her wife and daughter’s mother due to complications from giving birth, Saga Einarsson hid away from the world, and raised little Étude pretty much on her own. While the crew was conducting their search, some people’s patience were running thin. They missed the boat when the salmon battalion was here, but they would be damned if they were going to let the same thing happen again. The battalion came through a series of portals, which only worked for them. The Warren, on the other hand, was a different story. It could hold anyone. The only question was how many? Well, a lot more than it looked like it could. Saga was able to stay hidden for so long, because she had help from a woman named Annora Ubiña. Annora could create pocket dimensions. These had limited breadth, but they did allow a given space to be extended, to increase its capacity. These pockets required her own internal power to keep them up and running, but they would add some extra room, and the issue with that was that the people of Durus knew about her. Now they felt there was no reason they couldn’t all go with. Well, as stated, Annora’s pockets could only be so large. It was just kind of an arbitrary limitation, and though they were much smaller when she was younger, she wasn’t nearly powerful enough to fit everyone who wanted to go back to Earth, not in the timeframe that they needed.

Some weren’t happy with being told no, so they got together, and formed a faction of those who would stop at nothing to return home, or to Earth for the first time. They called themselves passengers. One good thing was that the unity the salmon battalion was sent to create seemed to have worked. The passengers were composed of Earthans, Durune, paramounts, and regular humans; a healthy mix of all of them. The issue was that some of them were violent, or at least willing to threaten people’s lives to get what they wanted. They knew that two of the crew members didn’t exist in the timestream all the time. They only lived for one day every year, which meant that the Warren could only depart once per year, and if they missed their window, they would just have to wait. This gave the group time to prepare and coordinate. They attacked the crew all at once, even though they were all spread out, and tried to take them hostage. This didn’t work, as the crew carried with them emergency teleporters, which would deliver them directly back to the ship. They weren’t the only teleporters, though. One in particular was on the group’s side, and used his power to abduct poor little Étude, right in front of her mother. So they had hostages on both sides; some in the ship, and one outside of it, and there was no simple way to save everyone. It came to a stalemate, which lasted for the rest of the day, and therefore through the closing of the window. The group didn’t want to back down, and Annora couldn’t simply decide to make space for them, even if she wanted. She didn’t want that, though, because of how nasty the passengers were being. The fact that there wasn’t enough room on the ship to accommodate everyone who wanted to go wasn’t the point. It wouldn’t change, regardless of how the group handled it. But had they asked nicely, at least they could have started this process in good faith. Now the crew was just pissed, as was Annora, and it was a very long time before they could reach an agreement. And that agreement did not include anyone who was directly involved in the attack. They couldn’t be rewarded, and most of them were ultimately arrested for their part. As terrible as the whole ordeal was, it was a good lesson for the Durune to learn. Violence would no longer be tolerated, in any form. New laws were passed to prevent something like this happening again.

Microstory 1474: New Mayor in Town

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The mayor of Aljabara was not the president of the whole planet, but they did enjoy some de facto influence that went beyond the city. When their former mayor was taken to Earth by the salmon battalion, the city knew what to do. They had a long history of special elections, so this would just be one more. Hopefully this sort of thing would end after this one, though. They now had a Constitution, and an easy-to-follow set of protocols for abiding by the law, and making it fair and safe for everyone. A lot of people started up campaigns, but most of them did not procure the necessary minimum signatures to even officially declare their candidacy. Still, there were fourteen people who felt up for the job. Only one of them was a woman. Other women were part of the new government, but none so high up, because they hadn’t before been given the education or experience to make policy. Voters weren’t trying to continue the misogyny; there just weren’t many women who felt comfortable running. Merrill Panders was different. Her father gave her mother a little more leeway when it came to them being alone together. He wouldn’t have approved of his wife educating her child against social conventions, but they were sneaky about it. She taught Merrill everything her mother had taught her. She had learned it from her own mother. They came from a long line of educated girls, who passed their skills on to the next generation; both the knowledge itself, and the expertise to get away with it without the men in their lives knowing. Merril ran to be a member of the president’s cabinet during the last election, but she lost. Now, though, she was famous and popular, and people were ready to hear what she had to say about the future of Aljabara, and Durus as a whole. She quickly became frontrunner. Merrill campaigned well, and kicked butt at every debate. As the list of hopefuls were whittled down one by one, she remained strong, and moved up in the polls. She had some strong competition, however. Her primary opponent’s platform was very similar to hers, and a lot of voters couldn’t decide between the two of them, because it didn’t seem like there would be much of a difference. In the end, however, Merrill nabbed too many of the votes. While women were fully free to vote in the first election for the Democratic Republic, many of them still chose not to. They weren’t used to it, and to be honest, they were a little scared. They were less underconfident and bashful about it by the time 2170 rolled around. Merrill was a good leader, and helped develop Aljabara into a thriving city during her many years as mayor. She was particularly focused on female education, which was no surprise, but wasn’t the only thing that she cared about. She also pioneered technological innovations, hoping to one day match progress with Earth in more ways than just social. She would go down in history as one of the best governmental officials Durus ever saw, and many assumed she would eventually run for president, or some other higher station. She never did, though. She just kept running for mayor, and kept getting reëlected, and Aljabara was better for it.

Microstory 1473: The Warren Arrives

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In 2161, Hokusai arrived on Durus, having traveled there from Earth. For a second, a select few native Durune were excited. This could be an opportunity to return to their roots. By then, however, most people considered Durus to be their home, and as bad as it might have been, they wanted to fight for it, rather than just leave. They did not know much about Earth, but there seemed to be no reason to put it on a pedestal. By 2170, however, these sentiments had shifted, because of the change in population. There were plenty of Earthans there who were unwillingly sucked up by the Deathspring. And they told stories to the Durune about how much the Earth had changed; how much it had improved. Nearly all of the refugees wanted to go back home, but now even some Durune were starting to feel the same way. After having failed to receive help on this front from the salmon battalion, these hopefuls needed a new plan. When a ship called The Elizabeth Warren arrived, hope was sparked once more. Unfortunately, the Warren wasn’t here to rescue all of the refugees. They were there to bring back one person, and her mother. Before she died, Andromeda had a child with her wife, Saga Einarsson, and a donor father named Camden Voss. Both of the latter two came to this planet during the Deathspring, but were kind of just planning to stick around, even after Andromeda’s passing. Étude Einarsson was a special little girl, who was destined to help a lot of people on Earth. She was born to be a Savior, one in a class of salmon whose responsibility it was to save lives by being teleported to people by the omniscient powers that be. The people sent to retrieve her had no choice. They couldn’t leave without her, and they weren’t able to take extras. While the Warren was a lot larger than Hokusai Gimura’s one-seater, it was still only designed for a crew of six. A few more could fit, but it would make it more cramped, and three of those slots were going to be taken by Saga, little Étude, and Camden.  Well, the Durue didn’t entirely understand this, and even those who did didn’t care that much. People were growing antsy, and some were starting to feel entitled. Sure, the ship couldn’t accommodate hundreds of passengers, but that wasn’t relevant. It only needed to hold the one person who felt they deserved it the most, and that person couldn’t care less whether any other person felt that they were the one most deserving instead. It would be a few more years before the ship was ready to go, partially because it took some time to locate the Einarssons, partially because two of their crew members had some strange scheduling issues, but mostly because of an uprising that delayed the departure. Until then, life in Durus became a little heated, and some were worried that the era of peace they thought they had just ushered in wasn’t going to last very long. They needed someone to calm them down. They needed a new mayor of Aljabara.

Microstory 1472: Democracy Prevails

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The nightmare was over. Life wouldn’t be all rainbows and ageless puppies from now on, but at least Durus finally had a real democracy. Everyone over the age of fifteen had a vote, and everyone’s vote was worth the same as everyone else’s. The Earthan refugees and the Durune natives were starting to come together, and consider themselves all part of the same community. People were starting to dig in, and make a decent life for themselves. It wasn’t really over yet, though, until every member of their former military occupiers was gone. It was a great big relief for the world when the majority of the salmon battalion disappeared through their portal. The achievement almost made people forget that some of them wanted to return to Earth as well, and the salmon could try to give them that. So it was an even bigger relief that not all of them had left yet. There were still a couple people there who would be staying to help in any way necessary. Unfortunately, the way they needed help was not possible. Even though the officers had come from Earth, they did not do so using their own agency. They were beholden to the powers that be, and if these mysterious controllers didn’t want the Durune to go back with them, then they weren’t going to go back with them. Hopefuls could even try to literally step through the portal, but nothing would happen. They would just pass right through it, as if the portal were not there at all. Even if the salmon wanted to try to help, there was no telling when and where they would end up on Earth. Their job was to travel throughout time, fighting in wars. They were sometimes given lead time to prepare for a particular battle—what kind of uniforms, and other clothing, they were given to blend in was often a really good clue—but they didn’t ever have much else to go on. There was just no way for the battalion to take any Earth-bounders with them, as much as they may have wished they could. The last of them left in 2170, but they didn’t go alone. One man was chosen to join them, though not by the leader’s decision, or himself. He was conscripted against his will. Fortunately, this man wanted nothing more than to fight for justice throughout all of time. The problem was, now they needed to find a new mayor of Aljabara.

Microstory 1471: Salmon Battalion

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In an alternate timeline, the paramounts on Durus started a war with the regular humans. Most of them didn’t actually believe that those with time powers were superior to those without, but they were tired of the Provisional Government, and they wanted to see real change in their world. They figured creating a common enemy for the native Durune, and the Earthan refugees, to fight would unify them. Well, that part of the plan worked, but the part where they would arbitrarily end the war, and try to form a peaceful union for all, was lost. Some of the paramounts decided they were happy with this new direction. Yeah, people with powers were better, and they ought to be ruling the planet. As one might imagine, this caused a lot of problems, and the sort of fake war transformed into a real one, with plenty of empowered people on both sides. This meant that it would probably end in the total destruction of humanity on the rogue world. Worried this would happen, and not wanting the fighting to continue either way, a time traveling paramount went back to the Deathspring in 2161, and purposefully made sure that he was sent to Earth. Once there, he contacted someone named The Overseer, who was the go-to leader for any major endeavor that involved salmon and choosing ones working together. Salmon were a subspecies of humans who experienced nonlinear time, but lived under the control of a mysterious group called the powers that be, while choosers were people with powers, who could choose to use them at will. They were the Earthan equivalent of paramounts, and they had a pretty reliable network, which could make things happen. One of these groups was called the salmon battalion. It consisted of a few hundred people from all over time and space. They fought in various wars throughout the timeline, turning the tide to their leaders’ will, which was generally to ultimately create peace. Some members fought only in one battle, while others were more long-term participants, and these people cycled in and out of the battalion as necessary. The Overseer was not in charge of the battalion, but she could petition for aid if she felt it was warranted, and the powers that be were obliged to at least consider the request. Though Durus was beyond their scope, they agreed to come set things right. The highest number of simultaneous battalion members transported to Durus, and created a new timeline, which wiped away the formation of the New Crusades. They took control of the government, just for the time being, and started the Salmon Battalion Military State.

Now, this was a scary thing to call it, and though they kept the peace through peaceful means, the battalion did use that fear to keep people in line. They didn’t tolerate violence, or bigotry, or the infringement of people’s rights. They let protestors speak their peace, but most people eventually became glad that the battalion was here. They brought with them people who were experienced with democratic procedures, and though these experts didn’t dictate how the new republic would be set up, they did provide them with a lot of great advice. They helped them figure out what the Durune leaders would be called, and what responsibilities they would have. They helped build the capitol, so the new government would have a place to work out of. They helped set up the 2168 Special Election, so the first administration could star making decisions on their own. And finally, they helped them draft the Constitution, so that everyone would understand what the laws were, and what was expected of them as citizens. To that end, they wanted to ensure that every single person on the planet was considered a full citizen, whether they descended from Earthans who came in 2016, or if they just had arrived in 2161. Everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, disability, age, or temporal status would be treated as an equal, and enjoy the same rights as everyone else. As far as what the paramounts were allowed to do with their time powers, the battalion left that up to the administration, and the people of Durus. Immediately following the special election, which established the leadership until at least 2175, nearly all members of the salmon battalion left Durus, and returned to their respective time periods on Earth, or on to the next mission. Only a few key officers remained behind to tie up loose ends, and answer any lingering questions. In the end, the people were grateful to the battalion for them having been there.