Castlebourne Capital Community: Here by Default (Part I)

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The year was 2521. Dreychan didn’t agree that it should be, though. He had the idea to stop tying themselves to the Earthan calendar, and form their own identity. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that popular of an idea, and one of the reasons was that a lot of people living here didn’t have a very decent grasp of the passage of time anyway. On some homeworlds, it wasn’t necessary. They produced what they were indoctrinated to believe should be produced for the Empire, and that was just how things were. You didn’t need to know what day it was. The transport ships would come and grab what they demanded on their own schedule. As long as everyone kept up with quota, everything was fine. They weren’t living in the Goldilocks Corridor anymore, however, and were not subject to the Exin Empire’s rule. They needed to assimilate into this region of space while somehow forming a new, distinctive culture. That was no easy feat, and it wasn’t Dreychan’s job to do that. Perhaps in the future, when the war is over, they will be able to focus on their own self-fulfillment. For now, though, they just needed to survive.

Everyone was arguing over each other, and Dreychan was staying out of it. He didn’t have much choice. They never listened to him anyway. They called it the Council of Old Worlds. Everyone here represented the planet where they once lived, and were elected by their constituent refugees, according to whatever methods they chose. Of course, a ton of people didn’t even understand the concept of voting, so it took some time, and a lot of education, but they all figured it out. Dreychan was different. You might even call it special, but be careful who you say that to, or they’ll laugh you out of the room. He was the only person from his planet who agreed to come to safe harbor on Castlebourne.

Ex-777 was one of the few places where the residents didn’t suffer. They were the ones benefitting from all the labor that the slaves on the other planets performed. The only known world more desirable was Ex-999, or maybe Ex-69, depending on your priorities and proclivities. The rest of the Council hated Dreychan, which he thought was ridiculous. He was the one person who defected. If anything, they should revere him. They escaped to a better world, but for him, it was a lateral move, but not even that, because he was too busy to enjoy all the recreation that Castlebourne had to offer.

Ugh, he should stop feeling sorry for himself. Yes, he was only on the Council by default, and yes, he deserved to have his voice heard anyway, but it wasn’t irrational for them to ignore it. He wasn’t representing anyone, but that was exactly why they did need to listen, because this council shouldn’t exist. They shouldn’t be maintaining their old world connections. They should all become one peoples. How could he get through to them?

“What do you think?”

Dreychan just sat there, and yawned a little.

“Drey,” she urged.

“What? Are you talking to me?” They weren’t usually talking to Dreychan.

“We need your opinion.” What was her name? Ex-777ers were all born with names, but just about everyone else only had a number. It was a way for the Empire to dehumanize its subjects. Once they came here, they were told that they could start using names now, and there were various ways of choosing them. He just couldn’t recall hers right now, which was very bad of him. She was actually quite nice, and didn’t seem to hold the same grudge against Dreychan as the others.

“What was the question?” Dreychan asked awkwardly.

“Oh my God.” Now, Dreychan knew Maaseiah. There was no way he was gonna forget a name like that. The Corridor was 16,000 light years away, and actually predated Earth’s bible times due to time travel, so none of Earth’s religions existed there. This meant that Maaseiah had to do a ton of research to decide on the most obnoxious name he could possibly find. He seemingly wanted to put his delusions of grandeur on full display, and he freakin’ nailed it. “Do you want to be a part of this, or not?”

The lovely woman sighed—Lubiti! That was her name. He didn’t know why she chose it. He was remembering now that she was from Ex-883, which manufactured spaceship shielding plates, and really that was it. “Calm down, Masy.” She always called everyone by a nickname. It was exciting to learn that names could be unique and interesting, and even more exciting to learn that each one came with variations and alternate spellings. She turned to face Dreychan again. “We’re trying to decide whether we want to move Castlebourne closer towards the Core Worlds, or stay out here in the Charter Cloud.” This was a fascinating concept. The closest colonies to Earth were the most cohesive, and the farther out you went, the less familiar the culture and laws became. These were divided into three-dimensional bands. The Charter Cloud wasn’t the farthest, but it was beyond the stellar neighborhood, which meant they were afforded no protection from hostile forces. They had to protect themselves, and the decision was already made to simply leave the area entirely.

“Hrockas needs an answer,” Maaseiah explained. Hrockas literally owned this whole planet himself. He was the one who built the domes, and filled it with all the fun and interesting things to do. He graciously let the refugees live here when they had nowhere else to go. He was even more powerful than the Council. “He said he needed it yesterday, which I suspect was metaphorical, though he might be expecting us to send a message back in time, which we will need to look into. Teemo, write that down.”

Teemo wrote it down. He was from a world with very few refugees, so it was relatively easy for him to be elected the council representative, though unlike Dreychan’s case, the ones who chose to stay behind did so because they were too scared. They were right to be, given Castlebourne’s predicament now.

Dreychan had already thought of this, because he was good at being ahead of the game. He just didn’t have all the facts. “If we move closer in,” he begins, “will we join the neighborhood? Will our status amongst the other worlds change?”

“No,” Lubiti answered.

“So we’ll be...weird. There might be colonies farther out than us who are better protected due to us being an anomaly.”

“I don’t agree with that interpretation,” Maaseiah countered. “To get to one of the other colonies, they might have to pass by us. In fact, I propose we intentionally place our star close to another colony, so we can receive some ancillary protection from them. From what I gather, the Teaguardians volunteer their firepower to protect the colonies. Surely if we ask for help, they will just help us, even if we’re not technically entitled to it. It would be a lot easier if we were only a couple light years away when we ask, though.” Teaguardians were battleships that came from an outpost called Teagarden, which orbited Teegarden’s Star. They evidently didn’t stray far from the root word. They were only obligated to provide protection to the Core Worlds and the stellar neighborhood. Castlebourne didn’t qualify, and it was sounding like it never would, even if they moved themselves closer.

“The whole point of moving our host star is to not have to ask for protection,” Lubiti reasoned. “We’re trying to hide, which is why we should limit the number of people who know where we are. Our location has already been leaked. Let’s not let it leak again, because we don’t know if we’ll be able to move again. Hrockas never told us how it’s going to be accomplished in the first place. It may be a one time thing.” She was so right about that. “Do you agree?” she pressed Dreychan.

“I do,” he said, and not just because she was pretty, and he never did find someone to love on Ex-777. “We must stay in the Charter Cloud. Our anonymity is our greatest strength. We can swing quite far from here, and still stay a hundred and eight light years from Earth. Hell, we could go a little farther.”

“We can’t go farther,” someone else contended. Dreychan didn’t know his name, but he used to work out of Ex-741, which was a giant spaceship manufacturing plant, so he understood all this light year/special relativity stuff. “I mean, we technically could, but we shouldn’t. Castlebourne serves as a recreational hub for the entire colonial sphere. Everyone wants to come here, and the population is rising exponentially. Now, quantum communication allows them to make their connections without knowing our coordinates, but vast distances are more difficult than closer ones. It’s called coherence. Hrockas will not want to make the casting equipment work harder than it has to. If anything, we should get a little bit closer, but I agree that we ought to stay in the Charter Cloud, and mostly move laterally, relative to the Core.”

“We must remember that it is not our call exclusively,” Lubiti jumped back in. “Hrockas is asking for our input, not our decision. He probably will want to move a little closer, but stay in the Cloud, because that’s what gave him the freedom from the establishment. And don’t forget that we have our own defenses. We don’t need the Teaguardians. If the Oaksent finds us again, and we can’t get away, we can fight back. We will fight for our new home.”

“I agree with Biti,” Dreychan said.

“Of course you do,” Maaseiah spat.

Dreychan ignored that outburst. “If for no other reason than to stay in his good graces, we should give Hrockas the answer that he prefers. What is easier on him and whoever has this power to move a sun? What do they want to do?”

“Okay.” Council Chair Rezurah stood up. “I think it’s time for another vote. If we can secure the supermajority right here, I will be able to meet with Hrockas today to determine the particulars. Worst case, we will get back to you tomorrow morning for Council approval. If all goes well, we should be traveling at relativistic speeds by the end of the month. I urge you to vote wisely, as this decision could mean the difference between staying hidden, and being discovered by the enemy. Teemo, you’ll count this time, as you have not done it in a while.” They rotated this responsibility to make it fair, and to make sure that no one would have more than one opportunity to cheat.

The vote went in favor of Lubiti and Dreychan’s plan. Well, it wasn’t really theirs, and very much not his. Around half of the people agreed with it before they even started, and half of the rest had come around. Rezurah went off to her meeting with Hrockas, which she was already late for, and the Council meeting was closed. Dreychan was just going to return to his habitat, as he did every day, but Lubiti stopped him in the hallway. “Hey, a few of us were going to have some fun in 2.5Dome. You interested?”

“I don’t know what that is,” Dreychan responded, when he really should have just politely declined, since he didn’t like anyone who might be going besides her, and he wasn’t really the fun type. All his old peers were surprised that someone chose to give up paradise to become a refugee, but not surprised that it was him. He liked the boring life.

“It’s hard to explain. You just kinda have to see it. Come on!” she encouraged.

He did want to spend more time with her, to maybe see if his sudden feelings were just because she was the only person in the world who would give him the time of day, or if they were more substantial. “Okay. Sure. Why not?”

They sat alone together in a vactrain pod. The others had evidently either already left, or would be meeting up with them later. Despite Lubiti’s mild protests, Dreychan ended up looking through the prospectus for this adventure dome. There was reportedly a time when video games on Earth were so unsophisticated that they were two-dimensional. The player could move up or down or side to side, but no other direction. In fact, a lot of them apparently wouldn’t even let you move your character backwards, if there was something you missed before. The other half dimension was because the playspace was in base reality, so it was still technically 3D. Still, they would be in a very narrow field of play, and had to make it through the level without falling, or being killed by something. Both the prospectus and Lubiti assured him that the dome came with a number of different varieties. Most of this world’s visitors could die and come back to life in new bodies, so they could actually fall into a river of lava and be fine. For people like them, who only had one life to live, the levels were a lot safer, though the reviews promised that they were still fun. Good for her, not great for him.

The train stopped. They stepped off, and approached the counter for registration. “Froenoe, party of three. We already filled out our info, and signed consent forms.”

They did? That was news to Dreychan. He certainly didn’t sign anything. Whatever, he trusted her. But hold on, party of three?

Lubiti sensed his confusion. “It’s better in small groups. The others will be running their own game nearby.”

“Yes, I have you here,” the registration bot said to Lubiti. “Your third is already at the entrance.” He set two green bracelets on the counter between them. “These are your security bands. If you ever run into issues, squeeze that button, and a door will open up on the side wall, where you can step out onto a platform that follows you around the whole time.” Scary, but at least there was a theoretical way out.

“Thanks,” Lubiti said. She took the bands, and then they listened to a little more about how safe it was, that no one has ever been permanently hurt, and all that stuff.

They then took another train to their playspace, where they found none other than Maaseiah waiting for them. That was the most surprising development today. He and Lubiti didn’t seem to like each other, and he really didn’t like Dreychan. “Is he ready?”

“No. That’s the point,” Lubiti replied. Something had changed in her voice. She was no longer smiley and light, but overserious, and maybe a little angry? It was so confusing, Dreychan didn’t understand what was happening.

The three of them stepped through the entrance, and onto the first platform. It was very narrow. They would be able to pass each other, but only if they squeezed by, facing the restrictive walls, one way or another. After the door closed, a third wall slid across in front of it, and then began to make its way towards them. Yes, this was one of the ones that didn’t let you go backwards. Lubiti and Maaseiah walked a few meters forward. There weren’t any obstacles yet. They must have wanted you to get acclimated to the environment first. Shockingly, they exchanged a nod, then pressed their emergency buttons at the same time. Two doors opened up next to them.

“What’s going on?” Dreychan questioned, laughing, trying to sound friendly.

“We can’t trust you,” Maaseiah contended. “We can’t trust you to know where Castlebourne will move to. For all we know, you’re the one who leaked our location in the first place.”

“I didn’t,” Dreychan insisted for the umpteenth time.

“And now you never will.” Lubiti took one step through her special exit.

“You know I have one of those too,” Dreychan reminded them, shaking his green bracelet for them to see. It glowed a little in the dim lighting.

“Press it all you want,” Lubiti replied with a shrug. “I broke it.” She left, as did Maaseiah.

Dreychan pressed his button. He pressed again and again, but she wasn’t lying. There was no escape. The moving wall hit him in the ass, forcing him to move forward. He just stood there, letting it slide him down the path, ready to fall into the next foam pit or water tank. But it wasn’t foam, or water. It was lava. He could actually die here.

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Microstory 2575: Renata Emerges from the Train, and Approaches the Confident Stranger

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Renata emerges from the train, and approaches the confident stranger. She looks him over, and then around the platform as the train races away to pick up new travelers. It looks just like any other station, except the stairs that should lead up to the surface are missing. Instead, a half-flight leads to what looks like a fairly open area. It’s lit by a soft green light. She can hear the activity of other workers, but it’s fairly quiet. “You hijacked my train.”

“No,” the man contends, “you stepped onto my train.”

“A hundred and eighth and Deliverer?”

“That’s just to get you on the right train. But enough about that.” He gestures for her to follow him up the steps. “I will not be telling you my name unless and until you pass the first test. Whether you expected it or not, your entry into this program is determined by a practical test, which you could not have studied for, unlike the written exam that got you here in the first place. We are a secretive organization, obviously, and we’re not going to trust you with those secrets until we find out what you’re made of. In the old days, we would have our candidates sit in a waiting room, where a contrived disaster would strike, and they would have to solve the problem in whatever way they thought was best. They were in no real danger, but they thought they were, so they acted accordingly. Of course, some failed, and some excelled. We’ve since changed tactics.”

“Changed tactics to what?” she asks him.

He holds his hand up in front of the open door, offering her to walk in first, to a room where two other people are waiting. “We decided that it’s okay to warn you that it’s coming.” He places his hand on the handle, and prepares to close it with him still on the outside. “The danger is real, Miss Granger. If you fail, you could die. Good luck, you three.” He shuts the door.

Renata spins back around, and begins to assess the room. The other two were sitting, but now stand and tense up. So many potential threats here. The floor is a metal grate, which could be housing hidden flame-throwers underneath. The vents could release a noxious gas into the air. The sprinkler system on the ceiling could drop caustic acid onto their skin. Or the pipes are just holding water, and that loose wiring hanging from the broken outlet is primed to electrocute them. There’s a cot, a table, two chairs, and a small dresser or nightstand. There’s also a sink, but she doesn’t know if it’s functional yet. They have no idea what’s coming, but protecting themselves from as many things as possible is paramount right now. The other two look like lost little puppies, so she’s gonna have to take charge. “Strip the bed. It looks like we have a fitted sheet, a top sheet, and a pillow case.” She steps over to the sink to test it. Water comes out. It smells fine. It doesn’t sting the back of her hand. It’s room temperature. “Hand them to me.”

The two others do exactly what she says without question.

She runs the sheets under the water, and hands two of them back while she keeps the pillow case. “Drape them over yourselves. Breathe through them in case there’s smoke.”

They comply again.

“Get on the table.” As they’re doing that, Renata checks for poisonous creatures underneath the mattress, then climbs onto the bed. “Okay. Any minute now.” It turns out to be that very minute. They start to hear the screeching of metal. The pipes on the opposite wall begin to shake. A scent wafts over from them, which assaults her senses. She can’t place the smell, though. It reminds her of rotten eggs. What is that? What smells like rotten eggs. The other two begin breathing through the fabric. Whatever the poison is, these sheets are probably not going to do them any good. She drops her pillow case to the floor while she jumps over to one of the chairs. The floor could still be dangerous, so she best not risk it.

Renata hops like a bunny over to the broken outlet. She takes out the gum that her mother gave her, and smirks. They didn’t expect her to have this on her person. She unwraps one stick, and lets it fall, because she only cares about the wrapper. She forms it into a bow-tie shape, and prepares to place it between the wires.  “Stay covered,” she orders. Just as some kind of powdery something or other bursts out of the pipe, she completes the circuit. Electricity surges through the wrapper, and sets it on fire. Knowing that it’s going to burn out before she can use it, she uses it like a match to set the rest of the pack of gum aflame. It’s not going to last long either, but just long enough. She hops off the chair, and onto the nightstand. She holds it up to the sprinkler system, and before the flame can burn out, the water is released. It’s not acid, so that’s good.

She smiles as she watches the water make contact with the powder, assuming that it’s neutralizing it. It doesn’t seem to quite be doing that, though, or at least not good enough. She’s now seeing a gas begin to fill the room. Was it always there, or was the water somehow creating it? Then she starts to cough, as do the other two candidates. It gets worse and worse as she starts to feel like she’s going to die. Then she falls off the nightstand, and lands hard on the floor.

Microstory 2574: Renata Granger Wakes Up Feeling Like a New Person

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Renata Granger wakes up feeling like a new person. The scent of coffee beckons her from the kitchen. That’s funny, she didn’t program the coffee maker to go off this morning. This was a very calculated choice. She doesn’t want her breath to smell, she doesn’t want any stains on her teeth, and she doesn’t want to have to take too many bathroom breaks. In fact, if she could last the whole day not eating, and not drinking fluids, that would be ideal. As far as her new colleagues go, they should think that she’s a machine, who doesn’t need anything but her job, and maybe a gun or two. She wishes that they had already issued her one now when she hears another noise out there, besides the coffee. Someone is in her apartment. Renata quietly slips out of bed, and grabs the baseball bat, which is leaning against the corner for this very situation. It’s more reliable than the cops in this town, and she can be in control of it, so she doesn’t even bother picking up her phone too. She opens the door, making sure to pull up on the knob ever so slightly to make sure that the latch bolt doesn’t scrape against the strike plate. She slinks out of the room. Shit, she forgot to put on clothes. The intruder is gonna have a bittersweet day, whoever he is.

“Mom,” she utters with a frustrated sigh of relief. “There’s a reason I never made you a key, or even told you where I moved to.”

Her mother casually takes the first sip of her coffee. She’s not the least bit fazed by anything that’s happening here. The nudity, the bat, the lack of a key, or a proverbial welcome mat; it all seems perfectly normal to her, which is so her. “No secret or locked door is gonna stop me from getting what I need.” She smiles, impersonating a kind person who might care what happens to her own daughter. “I wanted to see you off on your first day.” They’re not on speaking terms, but Libera Granger has eyes everywhere, so it’s no surprise that word has spread.

“More like, wanted to make sure I didn’t sleep through my alarm.” Renata is not the type to miss an alarm. She deactivated the snooze button on her alarm clock when she was six, and hasn’t looked back since. But her mother is the type to expect everyone around her to let her down, even when they successfully don’t time and time again.

“Clearly I needed to. Look at you, you’re not even dressed yet.”

“It’s four in the morning.”

“Don’t keep them waiting,” Libera says, like she even knows who she’s talking about. “This is the most important job of your life, and the way you hold yourself today sets the tone.”

Renata smirks. “You’re slipping, mother. It’s actually not a job at this point. It’s only training. I’m not even on probation yet; that’s how far I am from a job.”

“I’m sure you’ll do well.” Libera sets her cup down, and takes a pack of gum out of her pocket. “Take this. You’ll certainly need it.”

Renata wants to argue, but if there’s one thing the two of them have in common, it’s the concern for other people’s perception of them. She hates that she inherited this trait, but it was always going to be something, and she certainly doesn’t want to change. So she simply accepts the gift, and slips it into the pocket of her pants, which she laid out over the chair last night.

“Well,” Libera begins before a long pause while she dumps the last bit of her coffee in the sink, and rinses the mug out. “I won’t keep you. Just be careful today. And remember...no one there is your friend.” What a strange thing to say. As far as her mom thinks, Renata is training to be a management consultant. She obviously can’t have any idea that she’ll be working for the National Security Division. They would respond so fast if she blabbed, she probably wouldn’t survive walking out the door this morning. Libera turns towards the door, but stops short. “And invest in some deadlocks, my dear. I could have been anyone.”

That too is a good idea. Renata locks the door behind her mom, and returns to her room to get her mat out. Might as well do some meditation if she’s not gonna be able to fall back asleep. She would go for a run, but then she would need to drink a lot of water, and the bathroom problem has already been established.

She gets sick of it after about 45 minutes, so she cancels her departure reminder, and leaves an hour earlier than she needs to. It’s winter, so it’s still dark outside. She leaves her apartment building, and walks down the street to the subway station. No one else is here, but the train still comes, and she gets on it. They told her to travel to 108th and Deliverer Road. That’s such a weird name for a street, and she’s never heard of it before—it’s clear on the other side of the city—but she’ll only have to change trains once to get there.

It moves for about five minutes before stopping. No, something is wrong. There’s no chance she’s arrived at her first stop already. There’s no announcement as the doors open. It’s dark and eerie on the platform. A man is standing there, wearing all black, hands behind his back. He looks at her with a sense of familiarity that he has not earned. “Welcome, Miss Granger, to the NSD Training Facility. We call it The Depot. You’re right on time.”

Microstory 2573: Successful Panacea Test Subject

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This is a happy story, so don’t worry about it. Unlike most of the test subjects that my former company used to see if the panacea could cure a host of diseases all at once, I was a part of the system the whole time. I’m one of the researchers, and I volunteered myself for the experiment, because I was finally one hundred percent confident in its effectiveness. I helped develop it, so I watched the predictive estimate numbers go up and up and up. That doesn’t mean they were low before. I mean, we weren’t testing on live specimens when the model only showed 10% confidence. By the time I strapped into the chair, we were at 96%. I all but demanded that we do it outside the presence of Mr. Tipton, but they wouldn’t allow it, and I get it. Science isn’t always careful, but people should be. I didn’t need him, though. They injected me with a number of pathogens, which immediately started trying to destroy me. Then they gave me the cure. It worked nearly instantaneously. I felt better, I could breathe again, and my energy was restored. I even felt better than I ever had before. I admit, part of the reason I asked to do it was because I also wanted the money. If the panacea fails, but the subject lives, they get the money. If it fails, and the subject dies, their family is given the money instead. That only happened once, but we obviously don’t like to talk about it. If the procedure succeeds, in addition to the cure itself, you also get three million dollars. I left the program after that, because, well...I had three million dollars, so I’m not sure how many tests they ran afterwards, but I’m guessing they spent a couple hundred million dollars on successes alone. We didn’t have many failures, though, because we were so cautious. I loved my job, but I could see the writing on the wall. It wasn’t going to last forever, so I might as well cash out, and set myself up to be successful in a world that might not have such a great economy anymore. I don’t know if the panacea is going to cause the collapse of civilization, but I know that I’ll be all right either way. I’m buying gold, I’m buying land, I’m buying food. I never thought of myself as a survivalist, but it would be pretty foolish not to. I just wish I could have snagged a few boxes of the prototype cure to keep for myself in case it all does hit the fan. Nah, that would have been too selfish anyway. I’m sure it will all be fine. Let us rejoice! The first lot of the cure ships out next week. Thank you, Landis Tipton, for everything you’ve done for us. You’re done now. You can rest. And hey, if you like underground bunkers and MREs, maybe look me up. You don’t need all those consorts any more.

Microstory 2572: Unsuccessful Panacea Test Subject

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My story is a bad and scary one, so strap in. I have always been a perfectly healthy and fit young man. I work out every single day, I do resistance training, and I eat well. I was lucky enough to be born into a family that both valued health, and understood it. We knew that eating fat doesn’t inherently make you fat, before the word kind of spread about that misinformation. We know that carbs are good for you, if from the right sources (with fiber), and at the right ratios. I know, I’m bragging, but it’s relevant, because I am exactly the test subject that the researchers needed. They wanted someone who didn’t just not need to be cured, but very didn’t need it. For this to work, I had to start out as the perfect specimen. And for lack of a better term, they then...fucked me up. They gave me so many diseases, I can’t remember the number; let alone which ones they were. Not every disease is transmissible like that, but they did their best with what they had. It should have killed me, and nearly did. The lab was located in a building owned by the pharmaceutical company, but that’s not where they conducted this experiment. I was only there for my initial testing. The final phase took place at the hotel, because that’s where Landis is. That’s an important detail, don’t forget it. While they could easily move me anywhere without anyone noticing or caring, they couldn’t move Landis without it being a national news story. A couple of years ago, the man took a fifteen minute walk in the woods with his team, and it dominated the news cycle for 24 hours. So they took me to the hotel, and put me in a room that none of the staff ever went to. It was just me, Landis, my doctors, and his doctors. Not even his personal assistant was there with him, and she follows him around like a tail. I don’t think she knew about it.

Anyway, they sat me in a chair, and pumped me full of poison, at which point I started dying. After they were happy with how much time had passed, they injected me with a prototype of the panacea. It did not work. It may have made things worse. It’s hard to tell, because I was in the most pain I had ever felt in my life. That’s why Landis was there, because while they weren’t sure if the panacea would work, they were fairly confident that he could fix me. Even that wasn’t a guarantee, because no one in the world has ever been sick as much as I was. You can’t naturally get that many diseases, because the first few will probably kill you if it goes any further. But that’s what they wanted. They wanted to understand the scope. Had even Landis not been able to save me, my family would have received the money, but since he was there as a backup plan, I did end up with it. Do you wanna hear the number? It’s 28 million dollars. That’s how much they gave me because the panacea failed. How did they calculate that? I just found out recently, actually, I didn’t know before. I don’t understand it, but they took a number called the VSL, which basically calculates how much an anonymous person’s life is worth. Then they doubled it for good measure. So I’m a millionaire now. My assets are quickly dwindling as I’m giving away more than I’ve saved or invested, but I have more than enough to live comfortably for the rest of my life. The question that haunts me, though, is how many others went through the same thing...and were there any who even Landis couldn’t save?

Microstory 2571: Panacea Researcher

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We’ve done it! We’ve figured it out. After years of grueling research and testing, we have created the ultimate medication. The most difficult part of the process was determining its efficacy on just about every disease out there. This required a ton of samples, and a ton of test subjects. People aren’t aware of this, because our subjects, and their respective medical professionals, each signed an ironclad non-disclosure agreement. This means that Mr. Tipton technically cured even more people than their numbers appear. Here’s what we could have done, and it would have been easier. We could have focused our research on curing one disease at a time, and waited only for approval for that one disease. Then we could have done it for the next. “The FDA today announced its approval for the P-1 drug to be used for testicular cancer. Patients eagerly await the next announcement after this” or some crap like that. It took us five years to finish this out, because we wanted approval for everything all at once. They’ve done studies in psychology, and determined that it’s far easier to wait for something when you’re in a group of others waiting for the same thing. The greatest extension of this is if everyone in the entire world is in the same boat with you. If you keep seeing people get their cure while you’re still waiting, you’re gonna be miserable, and we don’t want that. It would probably worsen your condition overall, as mental wellness has an effect on physical health. Plus, the logistics are easier.

We can package the drug as a true panacea (with some caveats, mostly dealing with conditions of state) without having to direct customers to a giant list of diseases to see if theirs is on it. Oh. It’s on it. We also didn’t want to make a different inhaler for every case. That would have been ridiculous. And yes, it is an inhaler. We kind of always knew that. It isn’t random, there are actually a number of reasons for it. Number one is that anyone can learn how to operate an inhaler with minimal training. Eye drops are about as simple, but people’s reflexes kick in, and they blink. An injection? You can forget about it. Either we trust customers to handle their own needles, or they have to go in to a facility. My boss really wanted something that we could send directly to the end users. Someone suggested a jet injector, but that’s an unjustifiable additional expense for something that you shouldn’t need all the time. The panacea cures whatever you have when you take it, and inoculates you for about a week afterwards. Some people at this company—who I respectfully leave unnamed—wanted the drug to be very limited by dose, and very temporary, so you would have to keep buying more, and more, and more. Fortunately, it doesn’t work like that. It’s pretty much impossible to create a dosage system. You need a certain amount of the particulates for it to be effective, but beyond that, it really doesn’t matter how much of it you take. That’s another reason why inhalers are great, because they’re imprecise, which is okay, unlike other drugs, which require very specific amounts. We can make huge batches of micronized agent, and divide them into our inhalers, without all this extra work of pressing it into tabs, or something. So yeah, it’s ready. We just need to mass produce it. You’re almost home. You’re welcome.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 19, 2532

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It wasn’t really accurate to say that the slingdrive explosion sent the space station to somewhere else in the universe. They were actually not in the universe at all anymore, and in fact may not have even really moved, in the three-dimensional sense. The totality of the cosmos include a seemingly infinite bulk of universes called branes, floating around, occasionally colliding with each other. The stuff that the bulk was made out of was known as bulk energy, but it went by other names. When bulk energy would leak into a brane, it essentially created a tiny new pocket of space, and this phenomenon was once known as dark energy, because scientists couldn’t explain why it was a thing. After settling into a more stable quantum state, it became known as your average, everyday vacuum energy. Each of these leaks caused the universe to expand, which stretched the brane out, which caused it to thin, which caused more leaks. That was why the universe was not only expanding, but why this expansion was accelerating. But if the outside of a brane was bulk energy, and the inside was vacuum energy, and these two things were virtually the same, what was the difference? What was the barrier? What was the membrane part of the brane? Well, it used to be called dark matter, but it was now known to be quintessence. As the fifth fundamental force, quintessence was repulsive, and served as the mirror image to the attractive force of gravity.

Quintessence was there to hold everything together. It didn’t like to touch anything else, but it liked to touch other quintessence. So it naturally formed clumps, like two raindrops sliding down a window, ultimately coalescing into a single, larger drop. This was why 3D space existed, because it was being contained. Without it, matter and energy would just be floating around that bulk as formless blobs at best, inherently at its own equilibrium, and having no reason to make anything of itself. You owe your entire existence to quintessence. But was still dangerous and unforgiving, and despite being so repulsive to baryonic matter, it wasn’t a one-dimensional sheet, but a massive clump with thickness. This was how the slingdrives worked, not by escaping the universe, and then returning to it, but by only piercing one layer of the membrane, and sliding alongside it to a new destination. And if it was possible to get into it, and get out later, it was possible to succeed at the first thing, but fail at the second. It was possible to get stuck. Team Matic, and a few opposing individuals, were stuck. To make matters worse, they weren’t all stuck together. To make matters even worse, they weren’t all stuck with friends.

They were alive, and had been for about a year, but divided, and communication was difficult. The space station was supposed to be a sphere, but it wasn’t like that anymore. It had become unraveled, as if God herself had come by with a grapefruit peeler, and spiraled it out to slurp it up like linguine. Lots of metaphors here, but when there was nothing to do, they came up with such things to occupy their time. When this happened, all pocket dimensions, and other temporal anomalies, burst apart. Reserve water flooded the chambers, dayfruit smoothie spilled out, and slingdrive components broke apart. Everyone had the basics, like carbon scrubbers, food synthesizers, and the power to run them, but they weren’t left with ways to retain their sanity. No inter-sector talking, and no teleportation. Not even their team empathy could penetrate the barrier.

Romana and Franka were alone together in one sector, having to figure out how to be civil with each other, if not sisters. Mateo and A.F. were in another sector, and it took everything they had not to tear each other apart. Marie was all right as she was with Dutch. They met Dutch years ago in another universe. They didn’t really know how he ended up here, but in order to survive, he ended up having to go into stasis with Romana during the period where half the team was in the Goldilocks Corridor, and the other half was on Castlebourne, which had been physically moved to another region of space. Truthfully, they had kind of forgotten about him, and just sort of left him there in his pod. He didn’t seem upset, because no time had passed for him, and he was a pretty easygoing guy. The sector with the most number of people contained Ramses, Angela, and Octavia. They weren’t hostile with one another, but it was rather awkward, and the two members of Team Matic had to learn to get along with this stranger whose alternate selves they didn’t even know very well. Leona and Miracle were trapped in the fifth sector, and that was weird too, but unlike with Mateo and A.F., they weren’t too worried about killing each other. Fittingly, Olimpia was alone again in the final sector. When was this girl gonna catch a break?

The spirals of the space station were not uniform, which meant that some of them were able to see each other some of the time. They didn’t understand why at first, but there were some theories floating around about passing suns, which they tried to share with each other during optimal times. While it didn’t feel like they were moving, they maybe were. It was dark the majority of the time, so the windows showed them absolutely nothing but the black. Periodically, however, light from some unknown source would bounce off of them, allowing them to peak into other sectors. They would leave messages for each other by gluing pieces of paper together into shapes, mostly letters. If they were lucky, they would happen to be there at the right time, and could use hand gestures to convey information. There was no quantum communication, nor even radio signals. These brief moments of connection were the only way for them to know that everyone was still alive and well enough, albeit depressed and pessimistic. The smarties worked through the problem, though they couldn’t do it together, so it was slow-going. They finally thought they had a solution, but it would take coordination.

“Do you have any idea what the hell you’re doing?” A.F. questioned.

Mateo sighed. “My wife was clear on how to do it. I wrote it down.”

“You’re the worst person to be responsible for this.”

“Yes, well, Ramses is in the cargo bay, and Leona is basically in a bathroom.” That was the worst part of all of this. The other sectors had the means to access the sewage lines, but not officially or...pleasantly. Leona and Miracle weren’t actually in a bathroom either, but the stasis chamber was equipped with better access.

“I’m saying that I should do it,” A.F. reasoned.

“I’m not trusting you with it, and I’m taller.”

“Oh, by, like, a centimeter.”

They had done something similar to this before. When trying to escape the kasma—from A.F. and his army—the quintessence was trying to crush them too, or let them crash into it. Olimpia used her magical Sangster Canopy to create extra space in front of them, cutting through the membrane until they were free, and in the greater bulk again. They would come to realize now that she was channeling bulk energy. It wasn’t easy back then, but even harder now. Olimpia’s window appeared visibly the least often, and she reported issues with her umbrella. As it turned out, it needed some power. She had to tap into the fuel cells of the station, which was not something she knew how to do right away. All these little studies, experiments, and instructions were why it had taken months to solidify the plan. It was now finally time to implement it.

Olimpia’s would be the toughest job, but Mateo’s was not voluntary either. Right now, a magnetic field was the only thing preventing the quintessence from crushing them into what Leona was calling proton soup, and that was keeping Mateo up at night. While the field was great, it was also what was trapping them in the membrane. What they needed was to make it spit them out, and that was a delicate and nuanced procedure that he didn’t know if he was prepared for. The field couldn’t simply be switched off. It had to be oscillated and directed, matching progress with Olimpia’s work at creating an opening for them, because there was no way to steer. They still couldn’t talk, so Leona and Ramses came up with a very tight schedule, and taught it to both of them beforehand. If they both started at the right time, and followed the plan correctly, they shouldn’t need to communicate.

He was standing on a ladder, staring at his watch, waiting for the right moment. There was a very small margin of error here. He could start adjusting the field generator a few seconds early, or a few seconds late, but no more than that. He was breathing deliberately now; in through his nose, out through his mouth. He noticed A.F. copying him, but didn’t say anything. Six, five, four, three, two, one, go. Mateo reached up, and tried to connect the wires together. A paralyzing sensation spread throughout his whole body, and sent him flying backwards, onto the hard surface of the floor, but not before slamming his head against the edge of the counter.

Meanwhile, Olimpia was having her own troubles. The blasted umbrella wouldn’t open. There wasn’t a problem with the mechanism, it was just that her hands were sweaty, and she was incredibly nervous. Oh, no. She was late. She was too late! No, she had to just start. If she didn’t get on it, there was no going back. They couldn’t just wait until the next communication window, and try to coordinate again at a later date. There was no way for Mateo to know that she had given up. And if he made his adjustments thinking that she was creating space when she wasn’t, they would all die. Proton soup, she didn’t like the sound of that. Open, open, OPEN! It opened. NOW!

Mateo opened his eyes. Well, he opened them as much as he could. His eyelids were heavy, and were his lashes clinging together like Velcro? His head hurt and felt sticky. He lifted his hand and reached for his neck. Some kind of fluid. Was it blood? Red. Yeah, it was blood. He could surely live, in this superadvanced substrate that Ramses has cloned for him. There was something else wrong, though. He was meant to be doing something. It felt very urgent and important. What was it? He shot up at his waist. “Magnets!”

“Yeah, buddy, I got it,” A.F. replied.

Mateo looked over to see A.F. on his ladder, his arms buried in the ceiling access panel. He didn’t look back over his shoulder, but kept his focus on the wires. If he wasn’t fulfilling the plan, what else would he have been doing? “Are you doing it? Are you doing it right?”

“Yes, I’m not an idiot,” A.F. replied, sighing with annoyance.

“I didn’t know you were paying attention to Leona’s messages.”

“Again, not an idiot. If there were nine other people here with us, I would have expected them to learn the procedure too.”

“Well...I appreciate it.”

“Do you think I wanna die any more than you? You think I wanna kill you so bad that I would sacrifice my own life to do it? I’m not crazy either. I doubt there’s an afterlife simulation relay module anywhere near here.”

“No, probably not.” Mateo massaged the back of his head, knowing that he was risking getting an infection from all the touching, but confident that his body would survive that too. He paused awkwardly. “So...is it going okay?”

“I’m doing what we were told to do, and we’re still alive. Maybe you can look through the windshield to make sure we don’t accidentally pass our turn?”

“I’ll get on it,” Mateo joked back. A.F. wasn’t such a bad guy when he wasn’t trying to kill all of them. They obviously called a truce because it was profoundly irrational for them to try to reenact Hell in the Pacific, but Mateo didn’t know how long that would last after they got out of this mess.

“Right,” A.F. replied quietly.

Mateo suddenly started to hear something. It was a crunching, crackling sound, but only in one ear. He stuck his finger in it, and tried to scratch out the noise. He looked at the tip, worried that blood was pooling in his ear cavity, but it seemed to be okay. It didn’t even quite sound like it was in there, but more behind it. Oh, the comms disc. It had been so long since he had been able to use it. He tried to regulate that instead, standing up, and wobbling around as he searched for a better signal. Voices began to emerge, and become clearer. “Hello?”

“Mateo?” Ramses asked.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“That’s my dad, everybody, he’s here too!” Romana said jovially. 

“Is that the whole roster?” Marie asked.

“Yeah, the whole station is out of the membrane. We’re in realspace now.”

“How is Olimpia?” Mateo asked.

“I’m fine,” Olimpia answered. “I’m still using my umbrella. I’m afraid to let go. I still can’t see anything.”

“A little extra vacuum energy never hurt anybody,” Leona promised. “Nonetheless, you can indeed let go. I assure you, we’re free.”

“Are we still a spiral?” Angela questioned.

“Nothing to be done about that,” Franka said. “My station is a spiral now.” When did she get her own comms disc? She responded too quickly to not have heard it herself.

“I can help you seal up the damaged sectors so the bulkheads open again,” Ramses offered.

“I’m sure I can figure it out on my own,” Franka said.

“So, uh...” A.F. began. “Since you’re talking to people, can I stop futzing with these power crystals?”

“Oh, sorry,” Mateo said, embarrassed. “Can confirm, we’re safe now.”

A.F. let go, and climbed back down the ladder. He took a breath, and stared at his enemy for a moment. Finally, he reached out with a friendly hand.

Mateo looked down at his own. “It’s a little bloody.”

A.F. chuckled. “I’ve been trying to get your blood on my hands for decades. This will have to be good enough, I guess. Let’s call it a draw.” He shook Mateo’s hand.

“I would love to not have to run from you anymore.”

“This doesn’t make us friends.”

“I shouldn’t think so,” Mateo agreed. He took a beat. “What happens now?”

“Now...I leave you in her hands.”

“Whose?”

“Proserpina’s. Good luck.” And with that, A.F. disappeared.

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Extremus: Year 120

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Tinaya and Arqut wake up on the floor. The first thing that she notices is that there is something rather heavy weighing her ankle down. She lifts herself up at the waist and looks down to find a shackle, attached to a chain, attached to another shackle, which is wrapped around her husband’s leg. His clothes keep changing colors. They’re mostly orange, but occasionally flicker to yellow or purple. Hers are doing the same. It apparently worked. They pleaded with the AI in charge of The Buffer to keep them on ice until it was time to be downloaded into new bodies, and finally see the Extremus planet. It didn’t sound like it was working, but something must have changed.

“Oo, I’ve never seen a couple come through here before,” a voice behind them says. It looks like some kind of authority officer, maybe police. His uniform has green and purple stripes, which seems like an odd choice, but who knows how much has changed in the last century?

“We did a lifelink,” Tinaya explains, standing up, and helping Arqut do the same.

“Never heard of it,” the cop says. “I’m sure the judge will know what to do with you, though. Right over there. Lucky you, you’re in the short line.”

“The short line?” Arqut questions when they look over to see a minimum of a few dozen people snaking their way towards an entrance.

“Yeah. As opposed to that one.” The officer points in another direction. It’s hard to parse, but he’s right. Once they realize what they’re even seeing, they realize that the line in the distance has many thousands of people in it, possibly more. The floor curves upwards as if they’re in a centrifugal cylinder of some kind, which they might be.

“A judge? We have to see a judge?” Tinaya asks. “We were to understand if we answered yes, we would be downloaded to new substrates, no questions asked.”

The officer winces and chuckle-scoffs. “Downloaded? You think you’re being resurrected? Ain’t nobody gettin’ resurrected ‘til Pinocchio gets what he wants.”

“Who is Pinocchio?”

“You’ll learn.” The officer waves the back of both of his hands towards them. “Now, shoo. Shoo! The line waits for no one, not even two people sharing a hock chain.”

They step in line. Other people’s clothes are shifting colors too, with that same orange base, but various other colors instead. “I think it’s a caste system,” Tinaya postulates. “We haven’t been judged yet, but maybe the system has some kind of idea of where we belong, so it changes.”

The next person in the queue turns to face them. “Well, which colors are best?”

“No idea,” Tinaya admits. “Probably not orange, though. This endless bureaucracy screams guilty until proven innocent to me, but I could be wrong.”

“No, that’s what I guessed too,” the woman agrees.

“When did you die?” Arqut asks.

“Arqut,” Tinaya scolds. “That’s a sensitive question.

“No, it’s all right,” the woman says sincerely. “It was 2388.”

“Same as us,” Arqut replies. “Admiral Emerita Tinaya Leithe, and I’m Superintendent Arqut Grieves.”

“Oh, interesting. And this is an army you commanded?”

That was a weird question. Their names could have fallen out of the history books over time, but not within the year. That would be crazy. Who could have possibly not heard of the recently deceased Admiral? “Where did you die? Where were you living?” Tinaya presses.

“Proxima Doma, in a dome called New Hertfordshire,” she answers.

Tinaya and Arqut exchange a look. Proxima Doma is a planet in the stellar neighborhood. It is, in fact, the nearest exoplanet to Earth, which is why it’s called that. They’re not in The Extremus Buffer, but somewhere else. This is something, perhaps...universal, maybe the real afterlife?

“Where are you two from?” she goes on.

“We’re on a Wanderer. I mean, we were.” They’re not entirely sure if this is a current term. It’s the closest one that fits their description, since they ought not to give away the truth about time travel and other universes, and all that. A Wanderer refers to a ship that is designed to be the permanent habitat for its residents. Instead of settling somewhere around a star, it flies—or even drifts—somewhat randomly. Star systems being what they are in the way of being predictable and relatively evenly distributed, the Wanderer isn’t looking for strange new worlds. They just are...somewhere out there, often without even any quantum connections to any other worlds. They’re basically hermits, though some communities can be quite large, and they’re not necessarily misanthropic or distrustful of others. Arqut knows the term because that’s what the history books called them before they existed for real, but their last update was a very long time ago, so the concept may have evolved since then, or just changed names.

“Oh, fun!” She seems to be familiar.

“Do you happen to know why our line is so much shorter?” Tinaya asks her.

“We all just died,” she explains, nodding her head. “All those people have been dead a long time, possibly for millennia. Apparently, something has changed with the process and they’re all getting new assignments,” she continues with airquotes. “That must take a long time, but we’re sittin’ pretty because people don’t really die that much anymore.”

“No, they don’t,” Arqut agrees. It’s not exactly true from their vantage point. Everyone on Extremus dies, and while they don’t know how any of them will respond to The Question, it’s not like it is in the stellar neighborhood, where you’re all but crazy if you don’t opt in to virtual immortality. At least that’s how they understand it. Again, their copy of the central archives isn’t up to date.

There’s a commotion behind them, which the woman notices first since she’s already looking that way. It’s growing louder. When they turn to look, they can’t really see what’s going on. They can just tell that the gigantic line, which once was uniform, has now been broken. It’s moving erratically, be it from an attack, or maybe an escape? If there are good assignments or bad assignments, there are probably some who are reluctant to accept their fates. And as they say in the old movies, everybody runs.

And they are running. At first, it’s just a wall of green heading this way, but faces begin to appear. It really does look like they’re trying to escape, which suggests that green is one of the bad colors. “I don’t know what the hell to do here,” the officer says.

“Are they dangerous?” Tinaya asks him.

“They shouldn’t be. Greenies don’t have the best lives here, but they do okay. They should be rejoicing.” Why would people like that be escaping?

A man suddenly appears. He’s wearing a rainbow of colors. So he has all the assignments? What the hell is this place? “I can’t stop them all,” he kind of says to no one before turning to the officer. “Court Agent, Usher all of these people into the courthouse, then close the doors behind you.”

“Yes, sir, Pinocchio, sir,” the agent responds.

It’s then that this Pinocchio fellow notices Tinaya and Arqut, and their orange chain. “Hm. You’re too interesting to be judged by one of the others.” He reaches out and pokes them each in the shoulder. Their clothes stop fluctuating and settle on pink. “It’s only temporary, so don’t get too excited.” Just before the oncoming storm can crash into them, he teleports the three of them away.

They’re standing on a platform in the middle of the ocean now. No structures besides this little wooden dock can be seen before the horizon. Pinocchio steps over a little and bends his knees, materializing a throne just in time before he can hit the floor. He waves his hand, and generates two arm chairs behind Tinaya and Arqut. “Where are you two from? No need to lie about anything, by the way. I can always look it up in your file. I just prefer to have a conversation.”

“The Transgalactic Generation Ship Extremus,” Tinaya replies. Currently roughly 84,000 light years from the stellar neighborhood.”

Pinocchio nods. “Yes, I remember reading about that. It was quite difficult for my predecessor to install the relay station on board without anyone noticing or discovering it later. He has spies everywhere, though.”

“Relay station, sir?” Tinaya asks. They don’t know who this guy is, but it seems prudent to treat him with respect until they have more information.

“Quantum communication is more difficult across vast distances,” Pinocchio begins. “It’s obviously possible, but it’s better to package up whole IDCodes, and keep them intact. Since it doesn’t make sense to mirror you remotely, they installed a dedicated server onboard your ship, which manages the codes, and sends a data burst back to us only when necessary.” He flicks his finger around, and pulls up a hologram, which is blurred from their perspective. “Looks like you died almost two years ago. The farther out you travel, the fewer bursts it delivers. It’s an efficiency constraint.”

“So, we’re not really dead?” Arqut asks.

“In any meaningful sense, no. In the present day, the consciousness mirroring tech we use isn’t that much more sophisticated than the living establishment has already developed on their own. We’re just very, very good at it, and very, very accurate, and we don’t tolerate coherence errors. You’re in a computer simulation, which was first created some eleven thousand years ago. Everyone who has ever died since then has come here. They were assigned levels to determine their lot in afterlife. If you were a good person, you got privileges. If you were really good, you got more. If you were bad, you went to hock, and if you were really bad, you were just erased. I’ve recently taken over responsibility, and I’m making a few changes to the system.”

“The giant line,” Tinaya acknowledges.

“It’s been slow-going, but necessary,” Pinocchio claims. They used this hyperintelligence to judge everyone, and I didn’t like that it was just this one entity. Everyone who is already here needs to be rejudged. It’s a mess, but I promise, it will all be better in the end. The colors are good, I like the colors. It’s the nuance that needs to be reassessed, especially since people aren’t really dying anymore. Like I said, the living have mostly taken over the responsibility of maintaining continuity of consciousness. If anything fails on their end, I’m not sure we should step in as a backup plan anymore. Sounds like overkill to me, to be perfectly ironic.”

Tinaya and Arqut look at each other awkwardly.

Pinocchio glances back at their file on the hologram. “I see that you had the option of being backed up locally instead, and for whatever reason, that failed. Don’t worry, nothing has been decided on that yet. I’m not going to zero you out just because I’m reconsidering the policy. The question is, what level do you deserve, now that you’ve made it here?”

“Is it possible for us to go back?” Tinaya asks hopefully. “Is that one of these colored levels?”

Pinocchio smirks. “Level Eleven, White, Resurrected. It’s incredibly rare, but it has happened. I’ve never done it myself as I’ve been focused on the reassessments. Let’s call it a hiring freeze. I don’t know why I should unfreeze it for you.”

“Our son,” Tinaya starts to explain. “He died a few minutes after us. He was murdered. We have to fix that.”

“It’s more than that,” Arqut adds. “We have to stop his murderer from taking over the ship. The problem is not that he killed Silveon, but that he’s clearing house so he ends up with no opposition. If he succeeds, it could destroy Extremus entirely, and all those souls—even the ones who have already died—will be coming here. But if you’re thinking of changing that policy...”

Pinocchio holds up a hand to stop him. “I appreciate your concern. Typically, I don’t worry about living sociopolitics, but your link to each other has intrigued me, and I am not without mercy. Let’s take a look at his file, and see his status.” He waves his hand again, and changes the hologram. “Silveon Grieves. One hundred and five years old, died on January 5, 2388. Presently...awaiting integration. I’m sorry, he’s already here. He probably would have ended up in line right behind you had that horde not come running for the hills.”

“Who were those people?” Tinaya questions. “Why were they trying to escape? It sounds like green isn’t bad?”

“It’s not, but they’re not supposed to be green. There are people here who have almost as much power as I. Level Ten, Purple, Unrestricted. They can do just about anything they want, and sometimes what they want is to cause chaos. Not everyone was happy that I took over. They didn’t like the simulation’s creator, which would have been good for me, but they adored the woman who took over for him just before me, so that leaves me at a disadvantage.”

“Let us help you,” Tinaya pleads. Make us two of these purple people, and we’ll combat the insurrectionists.”

“Tina,” Arqut says to her, not sure that he agrees, but not sure that he doesn’t.

Pinocchio thinks it over. “You were just asking to be sent back for your son. Now you’re asking to not only stay here, but to be two of the most powerful people in the simulation? Fascinating tactic.”

“Our power is your power,” Tinaya clarifies. “I assume you can always take it away, and unlike the others, we would let you. Since we will do whatever you want, that is not what we get out of it. What we get out of it is you send Silveon back to Extremus. He must be saved, because he can save everyone else. Plus, we wanna talk to him first.”

Pinocchio considers it again, incorporating these new parameters. “I’ll do it, but unpurpling you isn’t as easy as it may sound, so I have one condition.”

“Go ahead,” Tinaya offers, not surprised.

“Your ship, it’s cut off. Your son goes back to prevent it from blowing up, but if it does anyway—or if individuals just die for other reasons—none of your people comes here. Dead is dead is dead is dead.”

Brief pause. Tinaya takes a breath. She shouldn’t have this kind of power. “Deal.”

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