Microstory 1565: The Snow in Texas

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Prompt

It’s been snowing for two weeks straight, which is strange for Texas. I’m starting to think my great aunt is right, and God really is angry with us.

Botner

I hope he gives us a good snowfall to make up for it. In case you haven’t heard, Today’s Church of Christ has put out a press release announcing the “end of days”. The holy-rollers are taking over the white wood chairs. Arguably the biggest “Christian” publication on the planet, Christianity Today, had a front page story yesterday saying that the world is at “the end of days”. In fact, they suggested that it is already here. Well, get a load of this guy: If the Bible is accurate, these are the end times and, if so, Jesus is the only one who can save us from all the evil in the world. The question is, if there are some who don’t believe it, what do they believe? What a perfect way to answer that question: Saint Peter, shut the door. I told you so. I love the idea that God would get that upset with us for going around unregenerate people. But it seems kind of random that the desire for knowledge is a sin? It seems to me that the more involved in the Word of God you are, the...

Conclusion

...less likely you are to accept the diversity in others. There’s a lot of intolerance in organized religion, and I have no interest in being part of it. The snow in Texas has nothing to do with God, or the “end of days”. It’s the climate, and the climate is because of us. People don’t want to admit it; not because they’re stupid, but because doing so would force them to acknowledge that we have not done enough to fix it. We’re leaving lights on, and driving too much, and using too many straws. Things won’t magically get better on their own, but if you lie to yourself, and pretend like there’s nothing you can do about it—that the climate is the way it is exclusively due to natural patterns—then you’re off the hook. You can keep doing whatever it is you’re doing without changing any of your behavior, or making more work for yourself. It’s true that there are a lot of greedy people out there who have no stake in the future. They’re old, and they’ll die soon, and they don’t think they’ll have to worry about the consequences. By helping destroy the environment, they’ve not only doomed the rest of us, but they’ve also built up enough wealth for themselves so that, should the consequences appear while they’re still around, they’re better equipped to deal with them. Ted Cruz is a senator from Texas who rejects the idea of climate breakdown, and he’s made a lot of money upon that platform. Funny enough, he’s completely free from the snow storms ravaging his state. He literally left, and took a nice vacation in sunny Cancún. I wrote the prompt for this installment weeks ago, long before this happened to Texas, which doesn’t prove that I’m prescient, but that this was inevitable, because unlike Cruz, I accept scientific facts as they are. These rich people in power aren’t going to do anything about the environment, because it doesn’t matter to them. This means that it is up to us. We have to remove them from their roles, and elect decent leaders, who believe in the facts, and willingly work towards the greater good, rather than their selfish, unsustainable, despicable priorities.

Microstory 1564: Plantworld

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Prompt

Everyone thought that robots or aliens would take over the world, but no one considered the possibility that sentient plants would grow out of control.

Botner

That’s what this bizarre creature from Tokyo seems to be: a strolling rose that puts us to shame with its round-about conversation, longevity, and willingness to prostrate itself before unsuspecting passersby. The rose, a forget-me-not, started out life as a normal plant in the garden of Urayasu City’s Chuo Ward. Initially, it was a member of the quiet ground cover family, but a sudden surge of excitement occurred among the neighborhood’s residents after a rose began growing up and out of its pot. According to the plant’s owner, the guy who brought home the forget-me-not in the first place, the plant’s red flowers, which were not there before, are supposed to signify good luck. At this point, the standard human reaction would be to marvel at the skill of the plant’s operator, who has apparently decided to use its many complicated arms and legs to celebrate Japan’s 125th year of reign in the world’s foremost soccer league. However, the rose is showing some unpredictable behaviors.

Conclusion

It’s not begging to drink human blood, or inject poison into victims. All its doing is multiplying, so rapidly that it can’t be stopped. Scientists tried to find a way to kill it, but before they made any progress, everything changed. The forget-me-not started to impact the plantlife around it, effectively transforming everything else into an invasive species. The spores get on clothes, and fur, and spread around. Not only do new plants grow from this, but also command nearby plants to do the same. In a matter of weeks, the entire island is covered in plants and flowers. They adapt to grow out of the cracks in buildings, and up through the floors. They thrive in the sun, in arid land, and even in saltwater. In months, all of Asia has been overcome, and the rest of the world will surely follow suit. People start to cut back on the brush as much as possible, to carve out some small area of livable land, but it doesn’t last long. It all grows back. People don’t die off as much as other apocalyptic scenarios would predict. There’s plenty of food to eat now, and it’s possible to just live in the wild, using natural shelters, like trees. So it’s only civilization that falls, while the population itself continues. It’s not as interesting anymore, as any plant or vine will destroy any attempt to establish lines of communication, and it’s also lonely, but we continue. We continue in our little isolated pockets like this, and if anyone came up with a solution to the problem, it wouldn’t be a simple thing to get that information to others. My family and I just decide that this is how life on this planet is, and there’s no way of going back to the way it was before. Then everything changes again. I leave camp for my daily walk alone, and come across a plant I see all over the place. But this one is different. It starts to speak to me. It asks me who I am, and what my intentions are. Soon, all the plants around me are speaking. I run back to camp, and tell my family, but they don’t know what I’m talking about. Only I can communicate with them, and now...it’s my duty to do so.

Microstory 1563: Soup Du Jour

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Prompt

Soup is the worst food that man created. You make the vegetables mushy and wet, and add far too much sodium. I would much rather eat...

Botner

...chicken noodle soup. Soup. The other night I was in a soup craving mood. I have never enjoyed soup in my entire life. I am not very fond of puréed vegetables. Nor do I like garlic or onion or bread and butter. But...my dear husband...one who is far from it...purchased a chicken noodle soup mix for me one day. I figured that since he bought me the soup mix, I should make it myself. So I went and bought the garlic bread from the grocery store and purchased a can of chicken broth...cause soup needs the broth. A little bit of this and a little bit of that, and I am in the soup bliss. I am hoping this soup is more savory than bland. I find that is rarely the case. I read the whole recipe, scrolled down to the soup recipe. Hmm...the whole thing for a cup of soup. I am not a huge fan of whole wheat bread for soup. Unless it is a very smooth chunky bread, the bread does not cling to the soup like it should. I went ahead and sliced up my garlic bread. I sliced a small piece of onion. I let...

Conclusion

...the tears fill up in my eyes. I continued gathering ingredients, and adding them together. I couldn’t see what I was getting, or how much of it, but I didn’t stop. If this soup was going to have onion, then it was going to be authentic, with no spoon in my mouth, or anything. It would turn out as it turned out, I decided. I cooked the whole thing up, and took my first bite. Or should I say, I took a sip, because that’s what I hate about soup; that you drink it, instead of eating it. But it didn’t matter in this case. This soup was the best I ever had, and I know that’s not saying much, but it really was amazing. It’s so good, I want to eat it every night. But I can’t, because the recipe is gone forever. I couldn’t see well through the tears, and no matter how much I try to recreate the magic, I’ll never get it right. It’s over. My love for soup was brief, and now it’s over.

Microstory 1562: Apples to Apples, Dust to Dust

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Prompt

I have sensitive teeth, but I love the taste of fruit, so my own personal hell would be a room full of apples with no applesauce.

Botner

And I am not picky about the flavor, the texture, or even the actual taste of applesauce. I have no idea what sets one applesauce apart from another. I can’t tell the difference between Frosty Paws and the pricier Thompson brands, and I never understood those Velveeta Light Blend applesauces until I realized that they don’t even contain applesauce. The frozen bagged applesauce I bought specifically for ease of quick prepackaging was also made by Thompson’s, and as I did my research, that seemed to be the only one. The last bag I bought had a different look on the box. I asked the clerk about it, and she said, “oh, I can’t remember offhand which brand it is.” Which makes me wonder: which brand should a customer trust? The customer who works in the store, the customer who is savvy and research-savvy enough to see a difference on the box, or the one at the cash register? This is one reason I stopped purchasing “wet” applesauce and started buying the squeezy variety. Before, I had to use a spatula to even break the seal, and then to scrape the spoonful out, which was a Herculean chore. The “seal” that the bag placed over the applesauce as it cooked was just as gross.

Conclusion

I know, I’m getting a little off topic, but it’s important to understand what I’ve gone through if you’re going to follow the story. The other day, I bought applesauce, like I do. It’s a really easy side piece for my breakfast, because it doesn’t take any time to make, and coupled with cereal, I’m full until lunch. It was a different brand this time, because I couldn’t find what I really wanted, but I figured I would try it. It actually tasted really good, but I only had time for one bite before I had to leave the house. My cat retched on the carpet, and I freaked out. I called in sick to work, and just left all my food on the table while we went to the vet. Don’t worry, everything was fine with him, but the weird thing is, when I got home, the applesauce was gone, and inside the bowl was a fully-formed apple. I live alone, and don’t have any family. I don’t even give my neighbors a key for safety, because I don’t know them, and don’t care to. It’s obviously a prank, but I can’t think of who. I toss the apple in the fridge, and move on. The next day, though, I’m curious to see who’s coming into my house. I keep a camera in my cat’s favorite room, to keep an eye on him, but nowhere else. I have to move it from there, and point it at a second bowl of uneaten applesauce. There are too many possible entrances for me to cover all of them, but the dining area is in a central location. I have two computer monitors at work, but only technically need one, so I just keep the second on my camera stream the whole time, and look over every once in a while. I’m surprised to see a new apple in the bowl during one of these glances. I quickly rewind the feed, and am even more shocked to see that no one replaced my applesauce. It just happened. On its own. I watch it transform itself, like it’s somehow reversing entropy. That’s not all that happens, though. When I switch back to live, I find that the bowl itself turns into a mound of clay, and the rug I have rolled up in the corner because it needs to be cleaned turns into a leopard. I was told that it was not made of real leopard fur, which is annoying and terrible, but at least its alive now? It continues. All the walls in my house suddenly become trees, ultimately destroying the camera, so I can’t see what happens next. I bolt out of work without telling my boss, and race back home. Or rather, I race back to the forest that was once my home. It’s spreading, swallowing everything in its path. Frightened of what happens when it hits me, I turn around, and now try to drive away from the onslaught. I don’t make it far before my car literally breaks down, and becomes a hunk of minerals and oil. I climb out of the wreckage, and try to go on foot. This unseen force takes over me too, though. Beams of light shoot out of my skin as I sublimate into a dusty gas, and become a nanostar.

Microstory 1561: One Last Ride Along

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Prompt

I wanted to grow up to become a law enforcement officer right up until I watched a video of a cop literally murdering an innocent black man on the street, and ultimately getting away with it...

Botner

...after abusing the trust of his office, the public, and the justice system. And you can’t unsee something like that. I have an impulse to get back to my kind of gun culture (I have no interest in owning an assault rifle) because I don’t like the mindset that is starting to take hold where guns are the problem when they’re not. We need to get our heads on straight about where this is all going. Please don’t take my desire for peace away because of my prejudices. I have friends who belong to different groups than me and they’re great. But when we lump all those groups into the same population, I don’t want to be part of it. It makes me want to question my own bias a little bit because how can I be anti-gun when I grew up with them? I have a friend who is a responsible gun owner. He owns his own gun, is a hunter, and is an NRA member. We’ve been friends for years and I’ve known him long enough to know his background. He wasn’t raised in a religious environment (he’s raised his children as Jews) but he became religious later in life. He’s still able to function as a Jewish man and raise his children in that environment. He’s a pretty decent guy who hasn’t been in...

Conclusion

...a lot of debates about responsible gun ownership. He avoids them. Like me. I can’t avoid them anymore, though. Not with a new travesty seemingly popping up in the news every day. We need to hold people accountable for their actions, and cops should not be immune to this expectation. Today is going to be awkward. I’m scheduled for another ride along. I live in a large metropolitan area, which means I have a lot of different police stations at my disposal, and I’ve been going to each one of them, to see what a day in the life of an officer is like. They’re more different than you might think, because they each have their own area to cover, and different officers handle the same kind of situation differently. I’ve always loved it, and the more experience I can get before the academy, the better. I don’t know if I can continue to pursue this career, though. I’ve wanted this my whole life, but everything changed when I watched that video. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t change my mind immediately; it’s been the outcome of a long period of self-reflection, discussing it with my parents, and getting input from a black retired police officer who lives three blocks down from us. I thought about cancelling this last ride along—and it really will be the last, as I have seen every other outfit within reasonable distance—but I chose not to. It’s located in a dense urban area, not unlike the one shown in that horrific video. I’ve decided to take this opportunity to ask the hard questions, even if it makes me uncomfortable; even if it makes them uncomfortable. There is still a slight chance that I’ll change my mind back to the uniform, and I’ll be using this as my deciding factor. How this one cop responds to my unapologetically unfiltered questions could sway me one way, or the other. We’ll see...

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Friday, July 27, 2142

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When Ramses Abdulrashid returned to the main sequence in 2140, he had every intention of completing his loop mission. He didn’t have all the facts, though. He knew this time period would be ideal, but that didn’t mean every day would be available and perfect. He discovered that there was too much activity surrounding The Sharice Davids in its hangar. It had not yet been retired, and people were still stationed there, even though there was little chance of it being deployed. He spent the next two years enjoying life in the reality where he grew up. It was nice not to have to run an intergalactic empire. No one asked him to give them powers, or alter the powers they had, or whatever. It was a lovely little vacation, and it was now over.

“You want our help?” Leona asked.

“For old time’s sake,” Ramses offered. “I don’t need it, but it might be cool to get the band back together.”

“Our lead singer is on his solo tour,” Leona informed him.

“Lead singer?” Sanaa questioned.

“It’s a metaphor,” Leona tried to explain.

“No, I get it,” Sanaa confirmed. “But...lead singer? I kind of feel like he’s more the triangle player, or perhaps the tambourine.”

“Ha-ha-ha,” Leona said.

“Well, when is he coming back?” Ramses asked.

“He could have been gone for centuries,” Jeremy reasoned. “He should have been back yesterday-slash-last year.”

“That’s not where his journey has taken him,” Leona reasoned right back.

“He could be dead,” Bran warned.

They all gave him the stink eye.

Bran scoffed. “Oh, like that’s not a possibility.”

“Let’s try to think positively,” Ramses put forth.

“Wait, you can see him?” Angela asked, looking to make sure he wasn’t wearing his own Cassidy cuff.

“Yeah, am I not supposed to?” Ramses wondered.

“It must be your superpowers,” Aeolia figured. “Anyway, we don’t require Mateo to help Ramses with his mission, and Nerakali hasn’t given us one of our own this year. So I’m in, and so is Kallias.”

“It shouldn’t be everybody,” Ramses said, uncomfortable. “It could draw too much attention.”

“Jeremy and Angela, stay with the Imzadi,” Leona ordered politely.

“Are we still calling it that, even though Imzadi is gone?”

Leona ignored the remark, because it didn’t matter. “Sanaa and I can help you engineer whatever it is you need. Bran and Aeolia can stand guard, and keep people away from us. They’re essentially invisible, but are also very...convincing.”

“And what is it we will be doing?” Sanaa asked. “I haven’t agreed to anything.”

“The Sharice Davids. It’s been decommissioned, but will rise again in half a century. I need to get on it now, to install some secret upgrades. It’s called the ol’ Bill and Ted Gambit. I’m going to be on that ship in the future, and in order to save my life, I activated a special kind of temporal displacement drive, but the TDD didn’t exist, as far as anyone was aware. I didn’t even know it was there. I’ve had to remember to go back in time, and build it for myself, but no one can use it before that moment, or a trio of evil future people will know about it, and it won’t work for me.”

“Sheeeeeeee-iiiit,” Sanaa joked. “That’ll ya had to say. Let’s do it.”

“Good luck,” Jeremy called out to them. “The two dum-dums are just gonna play games, and try not to forget how to breathe.”

“Okay, cool!” Leona called back.

“That’s a cool suit ya got there,” a young woman noted. She looked familiar, but Mateo must have only had interesting memories of her.

“Oh, you want it?” he asked as he looked around to figure out how to get out of this thing.

Imzadi’s hologram reappeared. “You have to keep it so you can get home.”

“I’m not worried about it,” Mateo said.

“I am. You may not care to go back, but I do,” Imzadi complained. It was probably getting frustrating dealing with a sociopath. “You’re not a sociopath.”

“I don’t like that you can read my mind,” Mateo said.

“Why? Not boring enough for you?”

“Do you two need some time to squabble alone?”

“No, it’s fine,” Imzadi told him. She pretended to sigh. “We’re here to help. What is the mission?”

“We’re fighting an evil religious organization that controls millions of people,” one of the other young women explained.

“Oo, that could be interesting,” Imzadi said to Mateo.

“You think I’ll get my soul back if I just have a little fun?”

A third woman stepped forward. “You’ve lost your soul? We can get you that.”

“He’s just being metaphorical,” Imzadi clarified.

“Well, maybe you just don’t know. A salorex can manipulate your soul. It should restore your soul, and if not, and the soul doesn’t exist, then no harm done. Hi, I’m Amber. These are my friends, Sheridan, Heather, and Zoey.” Zoey was the one who looked, and now sounded, familiar. “I...I don’t really know these other people.”

Curtis stepped forward as well. “They’re—”

“I don’t care.” Mateo wasn’t interested in hearing the names of a half dozen other people. He was just going to forget them.

“Right,” Curtis said. “No soul, okay.”

Mateo went off with these random people to fight some evil other people called the Thuriamen. He had a real hard time being motivated, which was his whole thing now, but luckily, Imzadi was able to take control of the supersuit. He kept the helmet on the whole time, and sort of just stayed along for the ride. He even nodded off once or twice. If Mateo wasn’t careful, the survivors would go on to tell stories about this day, and turn him into some kind of hero. To prevent this, he insisted that the others start simply referring to the entity in the suit as Imzadi, and leave him out of it completely. They all understood and respected his desire for anonymity, presumably for their own respective reasons.

Once they broke through the stronghold, and gained enough control over the right resources to command the dimensions—as the natives put it—Amber, Zoey, Zoey’s love interest, Seth, and Missy escorted Mateo to some kind of factory, or something. Dubra and Dar’cy wanted to go, but changed their minds, deciding to wait until Mateo could remember how much he cared about them. In the factory, they found golden collars that workers were manufacturing before evacuating to avoid being caught in the crossfire of the war. Now that it was safe, and they were alone, Mateo was able to climb out of the back of the suit, and stretch his legs a bit. Imzadi activated a holographic face in the helmet, and continued to walk around in it.

Amber found a collar that had already gone through quality assurance, and installed it around Mateo’s neck. “Is it comfortable?”

“It is what it is,” Mateo answered.

“Okay.” She got Imzadi’s attention, and pointed to a vault. “The diadems should be locked up in there. Would you be able to break through that?”

“I might be able to short-range teleport into it,” Zoey suggested.

“The door’s too thick,” Seth argued.

“You don’t know that.”

“I got this,” Imzadi assured them. She took hold of the wheel, and put all her strength into turning it. They could hear the insides breaking apart as she was opening it, but that was fine, they didn’t need this to be a functioning vault after this. Once they were finished helping Mateo, they claimed they would destroy all of them. Theoretically, it would restore Mateo’s drive to enjoy life, but that wasn’t what they were designed for. The Thuriamen wanted to literally control the masses, and this was their way of accomplishing that.

The door opened, and Amber went in to retrieve one of the diadems.

“Should you be the one to wear that?” Seth questioned. “Mr. Matic, do you trust her? It seems like you two just met.”

“These things require years of training,” Amber explained. “You can’t just slap it on your head, and start manipulating people on day one.” She slapped it on her head. “Unless you’re a soul psychic.” She closed her eyes.

“It is no coincidence that these things are amber-colored,” Zoey whispered to her boyfriend.

After a minute, Mateo started feeling something. It was a warm comfort around his neck that spread upwards, and started massaging his head. It then went down, and covered the rest of his body. He started waving his arms around, and swinging his legs. It occurred to him that this was dancing. But he wasn’t the one doing it. Amber was controlling his movements.

“Just testing it,” Amber clarified, eyes still closed. “Here we go.” She exhaled deliberately, and got to work fixing his brain.

Mateo didn’t just get his interesting memories back. He also started oscillating between all emotions. Happiness, sadness, anger, rage, love, hate, fear, shame; everything. Some felt bad, but they were all a welcome relief, and the more he got back, the more his memory of not having them felt like torture; like the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Bad feelings were terrible, but they were a part of life, and when he didn’t have them, he was nobody. He was nothing. That was a hell he would wish on no one. He got his memories of orgasms back, and then he had a real one, which might have been embarrassing, but he just felt lucky to be alive again. He also realized that he had met Zoey before. She was at his wedding, and had later transported him back to his home universe, utilizing the suit that he was wearing right now. That was not too long ago from his perspective, but must take place in her future. The suit would need to be cleaned first.

He couldn’t tell exactly how long the process took, but everyone was still standing about where they were when he closed his eyes in ecstasy, so it must not have been too long. Unlike when Nerakali blended someone’s brain, when it was over, he was still sporting a dumb smile, and not screaming at all.

“That looked like fun,” Seth noted. “Can I try next?”

“Shut up,” Zoey said playfully.

“Oh my God, it was great.” Mateo tried to take off the collar, because it was time.

“No, no, no,” Amber warned. “You can’t take it off yourself. This is a mind-control device.” She swept her palm to the side, which served to release the collar. Then she removed the diadem, and set it carefully on the floor. “Imzadi?”

The android walked over, and crushed the evil device underfoot. Mateo threw the collar down, and let her crush that too. It was going to take more than that to destroy the whole institution, but this was a decent start. Imzadi couldn’t read his mind anymore, but she seemed to be thinking the same thing. He smiled at her and nodded. “I don’t need you to get home. You stay here and take care of the rest. These people need you.”

Her hologram face smiled back.

“I would rather get back home in realtime, though. Zoey, where’s your knife?”

“My knife? This thing?” She reached into her boot, and pulled out a pocket knife. It was absolutely not what he was talking about. The thing she used to tear rifts in the spacetime continuum was larger, more frightening, and glorious.

“Oh, you haven’t gotten it yet. I don’t know where you find it, or what. It’ll let you travel the bulkverse.”

“I know what knife you’re talking about.” Seth turned to his girlfriend. “You seem to be able to cross dimensional barriers, but not from scratch. You need to make a hole first. The time knife would do that for you. It’s not useful to anyone else, because the larger the hole you need, the harder it becomes to tear, and then they still have no way to navigate. It’s perfect for you, because your body somehow metabolizes bulk energy.”

“Do you know where this knife is?” Missy asked.

“Missy, why do you only have one arm?” Mateo couldn’t help but ask.

“Why do you have two?” Missy joked.

“I have no clue where the knife is,” Seth answered. “We know someone who does, though. Jacob.”

“I’ll have to worry about that later,” Zoey decided. “There’s a lot I need to do in this universe first.”

Mateo started to disrobe. “Still. You should take this. I imagine future you will need it to survive the hypervacuum of the outer bulkverse.”

“Hypervacuum?” Missy questioned. She laughed.

“Yeah, I assume it’s more of a vacuum than a regular vacuum.”

She laughed harder. “It’s not a vacuum,” she corrected. “It’s an equilibrium.” Whatever that meant.

“Are you going to go back to your universe naked?” Amber asked.

Mateo carefully handed Seth the suit. “Make sure that’s cleaned. I don’t know if it’s dry clean only, or what.” He redirected his attention to Amber. “Might as well. Hashtag-freethenipple.”

Imzadi walked over and turned around, so Mateo could retrieve the homestone from the suit. “Good luck.”

“I’m sure we’ll see each other again.” He lifted the stone up close to his heart, and squeezed it. Nothing happened. He squeezed again. Still nothing.

“We may actually need to find that time knife sooner, rather than later,” Seth suggested. “How do you people feel about musical theatre?”

Before anyone could answer, a silhouette appeared in the middle of their little conversation circle. It slowly gained color, and tuned focus, until Mateo could see that it was none other than Meliora Rutherford.

“Melly?” Amber asked, surprised.

“I got your psychic message,” Meliora said.

“Oh, yeah,” Amber said. “By the way, Mateo, the two of us are now bonded for life. That usually takes time of getting to know each other, but the salorex sped up the process. I’m here if you need to talk...psychically speaking.”

“Cool.”

“I can get us home,” Meliora told Mateo. “It will take time, though. Have you ever meditated before?”

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Exemption Act: The Constant Variable (Part VII)

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Freya separated herself from Diamond Zek and Kivi, and stepped away to pace the room. The both waited for her patiently, while she figured out what she wanted to say. She didn’t want to be mean, but she had to get answers. “Who are you?”

“My name is Kivi Bristol.”

“What are you?”

“I am a chosen one, having been created by an unknown chooser.”

“Why do you seem familiar, but I also get the feeling that we’ve never met?”

“I am bound by a phenomenon called spontaneous quantum reemergence. I come into existence at seemingly random points in spacetime, and disappear just as quickly. Sometimes the people around me are aware of it, and sometimes not. Sometimes I am aware of it, and sometimes I’m not. It’s unclear whether there are multiple versions of me running around the timeline, or if I am one person, being shunted throughout the timeline in a nonlinear order. Someone once called me the constant variable.”

“I have memories of you being a part of this team for two years,” Freya argued.

“Do you, though?”

“Well, yeah, because you...”

Kivi smiled. “My ability does sometimes fabricate memories, but most of the time, it just forces your brain into ignoring the fact that you don’t have memories. I actually didn’t join the team until shortly before we launched.”

“Are you good, or bad?”

“Good. That’s one thing that’s consistent about me. I’m always good.”

“How do we know?”

“Zek is immune to the psychic intrusion.” She held up the diamond a little. “But I am not immune to hers. She would know.”

“Give her to me.” Freya took Diamond Zek from Kivi. She didn’t need to hold her to have a private conversation, but this made it easier to be sure Kivi wasn’t somehow listening in. Is she telling the truth?

She is, Zek confirmed.

Would you know if she weren’t?

I believe so.

Can we trust her?

Can we trust Khuweka, and Landis? Can you trust me?

I would like to think so.

Then that settles it, Zek decided. We will trust Kivi as much as we have anyone else on the team. Do not tell the others what we know. We need to be able to work together, and as far as they are aware, they’ve been learning to do that with Kivi for the past two years. Revealing the truth would undermine the mission.

“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” Freya said out loud.

No, we would not.

Freya handed Diamond Zek back to Kivi. “Like I did, people will start to notice that you’re not capable of communing with Zek without physical contact. I suggest you speed up the psychic bond as much as possible.”

“Very well,” Kivi said graciously. “Thank you.”

Freya took a moment. “What, do you suppose, you’re here for? What are your skills?”

Kivi cleared her throat.

“Be honest,” Freya said, growing suspicious again.

“I’m a lawyer.”

“What?”

“I’ve practiced law on multiple planets,” Kivi answered, worried how she would be received. “I’m not an engineer, or a fighter, or anything else you would expect to find on a battleship.”

“Have you practiced on an alternate future version of Worlon?”

“If I have, I have no memory of it,” Kivi said. “I doubt it, though. They sound pretty universally spiteful of humans.”

“Perhaps you argued against them.” Freya really was trying.

“They would have to have gone up against a pretty formidable enemy for it to lead to nonviolent legal proceedings, rather than some kind of deadly conflict.”

“True.”

“I may have one trick up my sleeve, though.”

“Oh?” Freya was interested.

“I’m romantically linked to Lincoln Rutherford. I don’t have a way to contact him from where I sit, but...that’s something?”

“It certainly is,” Freya agreed. “He knows literally everything, which means he knows where you are right now, which means he could send help if we need it. You may be our backup.”

“So are we cool?” Kivi asked.

“We’re okay...for now.”

A month and a half later, they were finally approaching their destination. It was Freya’s job at this point to read off the specifications for the planet, so everyone knew what they were getting into. A project called Topdown decades ago sent giant telescopes into the intergalactic voids, so they could take measurements of the entire galaxy, but there were some details that were best left to upclose sensors. “It scores a point-nine-two-one on the Terrestrial Habitability Similarity Index, which may sound great, but ninety-five percent is the bare minimum that Operation Starseed will accept when deciding which worlds to plant life on, and which to ignore. Oxygen saturation is one-point-eight times as it is on Earth. I’m not sure if that’s why Ochivari are related to dragonflies, or what, but it certainly tracks. Surface gravity is one-point-four-gee, so we’re all fat now.”

“Signs of intelligent life?” Khuweka posed.

“None that the ship can detect,” Freya responded.

“Mr. Genovese, have you been able to locate a seed plate, or an interstellar ship?”

“Working...” Carbrey said.

“Which are we expecting?” Andraste asked.

“Once he hacks into Project Stargate, we’ll know,” Khuweka explained. “Each plate is responsible for establishing a presence in seven to twenty-eight star systems. There’s no way to know whether Worlon will get the plate, or a ship that the plate builds somewhere else. If it’s a secondary ship, it won’t be here for awhile. Arrival dates are estimates.”

Carbrey nodded his head. “I’m in the system. An automated interstellar probe is scheduled to arrive here in six years.”

“What do we do until then?” Eliana asked.

“We’re not waiting until it shows up,” Khuweka said. “We’re going to meet it head on, and destroy it. Then we’ll take it’s job, and start sending measurements back to Earth ourselves, but they’ll be false.”

“Do we really want to do that?” Diamond Zek asked. “Shouldn’t we just destroy the probe, and keep away from this planet?”

“We need to stop Operation Starseed from coming here with human DNA samples. If we don’t falsify the data, the system will eventually send those samples, whether they come from the nearest seed plate, or the next nearest. This is prime real estate. If we don’t do something to make it think this world is worthless, they’ll just keep sending backups. This whole project is destined to last tens of thousands of years. They’re patient enough to deal with failures, and fully prepared to correct them. Even if that takes thousands of years, they’re still well within their deadline.

“Furthermore, seed plates are the things they built on Gatewood, and dispatched with the gargantuan modular carrier at the start of the project. They’re powered by microfusion reactors, which are incredibly small, and only designed for short bursts of momentum, and maneuverability. A plate only exists to drop down on one orbital or satellite in one solar system. The branching network probe ships, however, are part of the inventory that this seed plate will make once it lands, using the raw material that it finds there. They can be much larger, and thusly support larger reactors. They can afford to spend power on other things, like long-range sensors, and a constant data connection with Earth and Gatewood. If we let that thing get close enough to Worlon to codify its habitability, all will be lost. We have to intercept it.”

Throughout Khuweka’s explanation, Carbrey kept working on the computer. He already understood all of this and knew that he needed to plot an intercept course. According to Freya’s education, finding something in the middle of interstellar space wasn’t as easy to do as fictional representations made it seem. On TV, they just pulled up a screen, and barring any invisibility cloak, every single object within a sufficient range would just be automatically visible. Still, it wasn’t impossible to find something either. Like Khuweka said, the probe was constantly sending data back to the stellar neighborhood, including its own location, relative to nearby celestial objects. He just needed to access that datastream. “I got it.”

“How far away is it?” Khuweka asked

“Roughly six light years. It’s going at maximum relativistic.”

Khuweka just looked over at Eliana.

“She doesn’t need to,” Freya said.

“No, she doesn’t,” Diamond Zek agreed. “We’ve been working on something.” Without even touching them, she was able to teleport everyone to the booster room. They weren’t aware she could do this, but they weren’t shocked either. Her power was growing every week. She would probably reach a limit at some point, and never become a god, or anything, but the light year limit was a thing of the past. “Simulations suggest that I’m up to a parsec,” she announced proudly. “Freya?”

Freya took Diamond Zek from Andraste’s arms, and took her to the back of the booster seat. There, she had engineered a special case for her to be locked in. It connected her to the platform, and kept her secure. Only the eight people in this room would be capable of removing her from her spot, but there wouldn’t likely be much reason to do so anymore. The case also integrated Zek’s consciousness with the ship’s systems, effectively making her the ship itself. Everything was working. All that needed to happen now was a consensus that she be allowed to do this, and a test of the new FTL jump limitation.

They all looked to Khuweka, who looked back at them. “Her superconscious crystalline carbonaceous substrate, her choice.”

Limerick watched as Freya locked Diamond Zek into her new home. “On my world, we have these things called wedding rings. They look like that.”

“Hmm,” Freya noted. “The ring here exists to concentrate Zek’s temporal energy. It does kind of look like a giant wedding ring, though, doesn’t it?”

“Mr. Genovese,” Khuweka said simply, once Zek was fully in place.

Carbrey started tapping on his tablet. “Plotting a lateral course. We’ll still be six light years from the probe, but a parsec from Worlon.”

The engines started up, made their connection with Diamond Zek, and jumped away. Carbrey was notably less panicky than he was the last time. He patiently waited for his tablet to calculate their location. They were exactly where they wanted to be.

Diamond Zek was quite pleased with herself. “I could have gone farther. I probably could have gone twice as far.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Khuweka told her. “For now, a parsec will suffice.” She looked at Freya and Carbrey. “The three of you need to work out how we’re going to do this. I know you already have a plan in mind?”

“Yes.” Freya nodded. “With a precision jump, we can essentially surround the probe, and match its speed. If all goes well, it should be hovering inside a quantum Faraday cage, where it can no longer send a signal back to Earth.”

“Well, actually,” Carbrey began to correct, “it will send its signal, but will do so about five million years in the past. With no quantum receiver on the other end, it will just...disappear.”

“Very well,” Khuweka said. “If you’re sure this will work, make the necessary preparations, thank you.”

Freya and Carbrey did make the necessary preparations, while the other six members of the crew went off to do their own thing. They started building the quantum Faraday cage when they arrived in the Worlon system, but before it could be used, they needed to make sure it was completely ready. There was no room for error here. To that end, they also needed to work out the calculations. The probe ship was traveling towards Worlon at 0.999999c, which was the fastest possible without time powers. The Cormanu was fully capable of reaching this velocity, and in fact would need to already be there when they made their jump. The probe ship would basically suddenly appear inside the Cormanu, and once it did, they would be able to disable it manually, but getting to that point would take a lot of finesse. And extremely high level math.

Within the day, they felt they were ready, and prepared for any eventuality, so it was time to just go for it. Zek first made a jump to about 50,000 astronomical units away from the probe, just to make the final jump easier on her. That was well outside of the probe’s known sensor range for an object of the Cormanu’s mass. They accelerated themselves to max relativistic speed. Early vessels needed time to accelerate, and just as much time to decelerate, but even the humans managed to conceive a workaround that allowed them to reach target velocities almost instantly without turning passengers into mush against the back wall.

The two of them chose to stand just outside the cage when it happened, so they could watch it. They built it a lot larger than they needed to, so there should be no danger from this distance. When Carbrey had just activated the final step for the jump, Limerick walked into the shuttle bay, wanting to see it as well.

“Lim, get over here! It’s dangerous on that side.”

“What?”

Freya ran over to retrieve him. Their calculations were right, but there was always a chance they were off by a meter or two. The probe could theoretically end up on the wrong side of the cage. The signal would still be blocked for long enough to allow them to fix the error, but you wouldn’t want to be standing there when it happened.

“Jumping away,” Zek announced.

“No!”

Something turned out to be massively wrong with their calculations, or something. Freya didn’t have time to form a hypothesis. She and Limerick were being pressed up against the cage. The probe was nowhere to be seen, and the fence was threatening to buckle under the pressure. They couldn’t get off, but perhaps that was the only thing keeping them from being sucked out into the interstellar void. The fence gave way, and sent them hurtling towards the back. The fence on the other side held for a moment, but it too would lose hold.

She fell forward, and landed on her face. On the ground. She was on land. Somehow. In a breathable atmosphere. Limerick was next to her, recovering from his own tumble. What the hell just happened?

< > Entire Story

Microstory 1560: Cheater

< > Table of Contents

Prompt

I’ve never been a cheater, but this test is going to be simultaneously the hardest I’ve taken, and the one that matters the least to my future productivity as a member of society...

Botner

...at least this weekend, anyway. I hope I pass it. Last year, on this day, I got dumped by an asshole. I had just finished my final exam in the morning, and the final exam grading period had just ended, and I was ready to go home. It was finals week, so the academic atmosphere was just setting in, and some of the older graduate students had already started complaining about “how can we be starting the school year already?” and it was such a jaded, stressful, and tragic time to exist in (besides only being nine months into the school year, before adding the first week of summer vacation in). I was sitting in the lounge, and I received a text from an ex-girlfriend. Like I mentioned, I didn’t see it coming, I didn’t suspect that she would take this “joke” to a new level, and I didn’t even tell her to never contact me again. I left it on the front seat of my car, in plain view. I just don’t do well when someone hurts my pride. I know that I don’t deal with rejection well, because my ego is the biggest part of my sense of identity, and when someone uses it against me, I don’t handle it well. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before. When I used to wake up at 4:30 AM, every day, to...

Conclusion

...work at a package sorting facility, there was this guy I was interested in, but I couldn’t tell if he liked men, and we worked on opposite sides of the room, so we never talked. But my girlfriend didn’t like me even looking at him, so we eventually broke up, even though I never actually cheated. After a few minutes, I decide to text my ex back. The message she sent was innocuous enough, just asking me about that Italian restaurant I like, but if she wants to get back together, I need to know that. I’m not saying I’ll go for it, but it’s always better to know, and dating her would be good for my career. As I’m waiting for her reply, the email I’ve really been waiting for comes in. It’s the weird PhD student, who calls himself Answerman. He still lives in the dorms, and has a filing cabinet full of test answers and homework examples. First one’s free, he told me. I guess he thinks he’ll keep me as a client, but I won’t do it. This is a one time thing, and then I’m goin’ legit. I just need to pass this one class, and everything will be fine. He asks to meet on the bottom level of a parking garage, which is a red flag, but I’m desperate. I walk over to the rendezvous, and climb down the stairs. Answerman, is there, along with the dean, who tells me I have two choices. I can either fail this class, and tell everyone I know that Answerman still has the answers, man...or I can be expelled. I realize it’s like a disease. Everyone else was given this same choice, and it’s always a trap. Just then, my ex-girlfriend finally texts back. She does want to get back together. That’s perfect. Her father works for a tech company that doesn’t require degrees, and I already have all the skills I’ll ever need. I tell the dean to go screw himself, then leave the parking garage, so I can announce to the whole world that Answerman is a frickin’ narc.