Microstory 2257: And He Paid It

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The money is in. Our bank account is so full, money is spilling out of it. I mean that in the most literal sense while still not talking about physical cash. Knowing that the funds would be in there by the end of the day, I set an autopayment for a number of various charities, so the full amount was only available for a few minutes before a chunk of it was gone. I’m laughing now, reading all of the replies and comments from readers who were under the impression that I was getting scammed. Oh, so many of you thought that it was never gonna happen; that I was just setting myself up for failure. We kept mentioning all the things we had to do at the bank, and whatever. You were convinced that it was going to come back to bite us in the ass. I suppose I can see where you could have guessed that. In an alternate reality, that’s what would happen; us becoming the victims of a long con. The thing is, though, even though I’m not telling you who commissioned me to give up my specimens, he’s not just some random guy who claimed to have a bunch of money. He’s fully on the books, and can’t run from me. The FBI, and other agencies, were fully aware that this was all happening, and they could have easily gone after him if he hadn’t been on the up and up. I know that a lot of scams work by telling you that they’ll give you a whole lot of money if you just give them a tiny bit up front, and the idea is that they’ll accept the tiny bit, and just run away with it, because to them, it was better than zero. But this guy didn’t ask me for a cent, and like I said, he’s a public figure with a life to lead. Taking my index and bone marrow probably won’t do much for him, especially since as I’ve been trying to tell everyone, they’re not the key to immortality. Risking going to prison by stealing them? That would have been even more absurd. He set the price, and he paid it. He paid it today, and now that business is done. I’m keeping enough of it for the three of us to live comfortably in this house, and to pay my security detail and publicist. Everything else should be spent on things that help the community, and maybe the world.

Microstory 2256: Keep My Mouth Shut

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Last we spoke, I told you that pretty much the only way the authorities would swoop in to clear the crowd off our lawn would be if that crowd got to be too big. They were invasive and annoying, but they weren’t doing anything illegal, and they weren’t technically placing anyone in danger. I was venting to my readers, but some of you took it as a call to action. You flooded the neighborhood for the sole purpose of forcing the cops to shut the whole thing down. They didn’t just remove you from the premises, but everyone, because it otherwise would have been some form of discrimination. I didn’t know that you were going to do that. I didn’t tell you the “loophole” even thinking that that might be a possibility. And it’s not the first time that’s happened. I have to be really careful about what I say to people. They will do things for me without me explicitly asking for it, or having any clue how they’re interpreting my words. Sometimes I just say things about how I’m suffering, or lacking, and they’ll want to fix it. And I never see it coming. When I was fifteen, a few weeks from my birthday, my parents asked me to go on a road trip with them. My aunt was out of the country, but she needed a car when she got back, and she liked a particular make and model. This is something that I knew about her, so I wasn’t the least bit suspicious that something else was up. They asked me to help them make the drive up to, and back from, Minnesota, so I obliged without question. We spent one night in a hotel, and when we woke up, we drove out to a farm where the car was supposedly waiting for us. We saw dogs in big pens, screaming at us for attention. So a farmer was selling their car, and they had a bunch of dogs? Didn’t seem like that big of a deal. We got out, and I was watchings those hounds bark their heads off when the owner came out carrying a little puppy. My parents admired it, and asked me if I would like to hold her too. I loved dogs, so I jumped at the chance. I had that wee furbaby in my arms before they told me that she was mine. She was my early birthday gift. It didn’t occur to me that the trip had anything to do with me, nor that it was weird for there to be a car being sold at a farm that also had dogs.

The point is, Sophie was a total surprise to me. I stopped asking for a dog when I was young, but I would still talk about how much I loved them, and all animals. I never asked for a bunk bed, but I got one around fifth grade, because my parents knew that about me. Again, I have to be so careful about what I say, but being autistic, I don’t ever think that my random musings will have any real impact on the world. It’s caused other problems too. Since I don’t think that way, it makes me less of an attentive person. When someone else talks about how much they would like it if things were a certain way, I hear them, I listen, but I don’t think to help them. The way my brain works, if you want me to know something, then you should say it. You should say it clearly and unambiguously. I sort of have a different idea of rudeness. Well, it’s not different, it’s just not as broad. I don’t notice subtext, and I don’t accept innuendo. Be honest and straightforward. Or don’t. Just be the way that you are, and hope that I take the hint. I probably won’t, but you can hope just the same. And me? I’ll try to keep my mouth shut in case I say something that accidentally prompts a response. We’re just talkin’ here. It’s only a blog. I appreciate what you did for us with the lawn, but don’t worry too much about my needs. I’ll figure it out. And if I ever do need your help, I’ll just ask.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Year 0 EXT

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Leona looked over the new control console that Ramses had installed on the bridge of the Vellani Ambassador. He had revamped the whole thing, instead of simply integrating this new engine that he had fabricated into the old system. He was calling it the quintessence drive. It worked by pushing against the fabric of the universe, which was composed of what was once known as dark matter. Instead of fully piercing the membrane, it only reached through it enough to adjust the temporal properties of the ship. Outside of any universe, time was a spatial dimension, instead of a temporal one, which essentially meant that time didn’t really pass in any humanly fathomable sense. One could travel untold distances in the blink of an eye by stealing energy from the highest dimension possible. Machines like the Crossover and the Transit did this all the time, but they usually did it to travel from one brane to another. All the quintessence drive did was skip over the realspace in one brane, and end up somewhere else much faster than any other vessel in histories. Not even The Globetrotter, Maqsud Al-Amin was as fast. At least that was the idea. They had yet to test it.

“Show of hands, who is willing to risk it?” Ramses asked, now that he had clearly explained the deal.

“That’s not your call,” Leona reminded him. She took a beat before repeating the question herself verbatim.

Everyone raised their hand.

“All right,” Leona decided. “Rambo, this is your thing, so if you say you’ve done the necessary preflight check, I’ll believe you.”

“I’ve done it,” Ramses said. “Navigation is the hardest component, as it always is. I can’t guarantee that we’ll be right on target, but we’ll be close, and we’re not going to be liquified, or turned back into babies, or something.”

“Why would you even bring that up?” Mateo questioned.

“Because it’s not going to happen, it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” He slammed his hand on the physical button that he had incorporated into the console, and declared, “yalla!” That was usually Leona’s line, but it was his language.

A web of technicolor threads appeared on the viewscreens. The bridge offered them a 360 degree view of the outside using exterior cameras. The web continued to spread out, and encompass the whole ship. It closed in on them tightly, like a silkworm forming its cocoon. It didn’t remain in this state for long before it stretched back out into infinity, pulling all of spacetime along with it. The stretching decelerated as the colors faded into oblivion, and for a moment, they saw nothing in the absolute black. Not a single photon of light was making its way towards them. And then the stars blinked into existence as if God had switched them back on. They were there. Well, they were somewhere anyway.

“Report,” Leona ordered.

“PMS is recalibrating,” Ramses replied. Back when researchers were first really contemplating using the galaxy’s pulsars to determine a ship’s relative position in space, they devised the Pulsar Mapping System. By the time people pointed out the unfortunate acronym, it was kind of too late. They did officially change it to the PPS, a.k.a. the Pulsar Positioning System, but a lot of developers preferred the original term specifically for its humor value, and it wasn’t illegal to call it that.

“Just call it the PPS, dude,” Leona suggested.

“What? Oh, yeah.” Ramses watched the screen, gradually falling into a blank face.

Leona could have read it the whole time herself, but it was his job, so she hadn’t bothered. Now she turned her head to check as well, and saw what he was seeing. “Insufficient data. Position indeterminable,” she read.

“What does that mean, we’re too far for it to know?” Marie asked.

“We could be too far from the extent of the pulsar map in three dimensions,” Leona began, “or in four.”

“We may have traveled through time too?” Angela surmised.

“Lee-Lee, your watch,” Mateo pointed out.

“Right, of course.” Her watch could tell her the time no matter where or when she went. It would either default to standard human culture, or reach out to the nearest civilization that was advanced enough to have their own timekeeping standards. If none of these was available, it would display the relative temporal distance from its last known position. “Two thousand, eight hundred and fifteen years.”

“That’s the year, or the...” Olimpia prodded.

“That’s how far back we went,” Leona clarified. “We’re about 350 years before the start of the common era.”

“Can you...plug that into the PMS?” Angela asked, gesturing towards the console. “Or the PPS. Do we know where these pulsar things were back then?”

“We do not,” Ramses answered, shaking his head. “The map doesn’t account for such big time differences. Perhaps a time traveler could make such a map, just for people like us. Because without it, there’s no way to know where we are. There’s no decent way to even measure regular stellar drift in this period. Everything is different. And until we figure it out, we’re not going anywhere. Trying to make another jump would be even more dangerous. I seem to have sorely overestimated my abilities.”

“It’s all right, bro.” Mateo slapped him on the back. “We’re still here in seven pieces, that’s all the matters.”

“I need to run a diagnostic on the rest of the ship’s systems,” Leona said. “If we’re stranded, we need to know if anything’s damaged. Waltons, could you take stock of our inventory?” She placed her hand on Ramses’ shoulder. “Keep working at it. Find Sagittarius A* and at least two neighboring galaxies. Those will not have moved much. It won’t give us our exact location, but we’ll get a better frame of reference.”

“That’s a good idea. Thanks.”

Leona went off to check the other systems, like the reframe engine, and hull integrity. Verdemus was nowhere to be seen, so the new drive had taken them somewhere else, and they needed to understand whether there were any consequences or limitations to that. Angela and Marie went off to see what kind of supplies they had with them. This left the dummies with nothing to do once again.

For the most part, the six of them preferred to be rather close to each other. Their private rooms in the main pocket dimension were small; no one was more than several meters away at any time while they were on the ship. There were times when that was just a little too much. Fortunately, Ramses had built this second pocket altogether, which was used by the delegators during The Rock meetings. Though Ramses was considering upgrading his lab to the entirety of this space, it was presently still completely vacant. There was a bicycle in here, which someone must have requested from the industrial synthesizer in the engineering section. He didn’t think that any of the delegators were allowed to use that without supervision, so maybe they had had it, and someone else on the team had decided that it was okay.

“Got one for me?” Olimpia asked, having followed him inside.

“I don’t think so,” Mateo replied. “We could take turns.” He tilted the bike away from his body, balancing the end of the left handlebar on the tip of his index finger.

She brushed it away with a wave of her hand. “It’s all you, buddy. I don’t even know how to ride.”

Mateo smiled. “Neither did my daughter. I taught her while we were in the Sixth Key. It was a touching moment. Shoulda caught it on camera.”

Olimpia nodded. She was alone in the void during that time. Well, it was technically the future, but they didn’t reunite with her until she had spent some time there, fighting for freedom, and also for what little hope she had left.

He sighed, and looked around. “There’s not really much room. I don’t know how they used it. I guess there’s this hallway that wraps all around. But when you’re learning, you kind of need wide open spaces.”

“It’s fine,” Olimpia replied, sincerely confused. “I wasn’t asking for you to teach me. I don’t need to know how to ride. It’s...” She consulted her forearm interface screen. “...the fucking future.”

He thought about it for a moment, then he leaned the bike back against the wall, and started to leave the pocket. “Come on.” He led her across Delegation Hall, and into their usual pocket. He opened Olimpia’s door, and ushered her inside. “Lie down.”

“For..for what?” she stammered.

He tapped two fingers against the corner of the VR drawer to open it. He took out the headband, and waited patiently. “We can have as much space as we need.” All in all,  they didn’t use the virtual environments that much. They just didn’t really have the time, what with all the running around, fighting bad guys, and saving universes. They were always there, though, and the Ambassador came equipped with a decent number of virtual stacks.

She smiled without showing teeth, and lay down on her back.

“Scooch over.” After she was closer to the wall, he gently placed the band over her head, like a nurse preparing her for a medical procedure. He then reached back into the drawer to retrieve the second band. He lay down next to her, and slipped his on.

They appeared next to each other on the street that ran by Mateo’s childhood home in Topeka. Thanks to satellite imagery, stitched panoramas, and supplemental photographs, the majority of civilization since the late two thousand aughts was available for visiting through the stacks. People were dreaming up virtual worlds every single day. It was pretty much impossible to have a copy of every single one of them, especially since most of the point was for people to come together on a joint server. But these mapping images, which could be scaled to any point since 2007, depending on where you want to go, had become standard issue in every copy of the central archives. This included the street images, ocean views, and sky maps. The idea was to simulate the real world, using a real world physics engine. Anything beyond that was user’s choice. This was what they needed today. Olimpia needed to feel what it would be like if she were sitting on a real bicycle.

They could smell the fresh autumn air, and hear the dogs and leaf blowers in the distance. There was no pollution, or bits of trash on the street, though, so it wasn’t exactly like it was in the real world, but it was an idyllic version of it. This is what things looked like in 2013, not long before Mateo first disappeared.

“Why am I wearing a helmet?” Olimpia questioned.

“For safety,” he answered.

“I can’t die in here,” she reasoned.

“It’s a simulation,” he argued. “We’re simulating it. No, you can’t actually die. Even if we really traveled to Earth, and you fell down, you would barely be hurt in this all but perfect body of yours. But I want you to feel like it was like back when I was learning. Well, I mean, twenty years later, but we don’t have data from 1992.”

“Who taught you?”

Mateo smiled, and looked up at the house. The imagery didn’t contain people unless the user programmed them in. Even then, likeness was difficult to acquire. He couldn’t just conjure up his family out of nothing, and there was no getting the rights to them from here. “My mother. My birth mother. She couldn’t take care of me on her own, but she still wanted to be there for the milestones. She disappeared in ninety-four.”

“I didn’t have much in the way of parents myself,” Olimpia said. “I couldn’t be around people with my voice the way it was before this—” She cut herself off when she looked at her arm, and realized that she had no need for the Cassidy cuff in here. “Well, you know what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah.” He placed one hand underneath the seat, and the other on the handlebar. “Put both feet on the pedals. Don’t worry, I won’t let go.”

“It would be fine if you did, remember?” Olimpia turned her head, and realized how close their faces were. “But please don’t anyway.”

They could smell each other’s breaths. Regardless of what they ate today, they both smelled good in this world. Scientists did studies centuries ago, and while there was no accounting for taste, citrus seemed like a pretty universally appreciated scent, so that was the default in VR. In fact, pink grapefruit was the most common default in most systems. She looked up at him with those eyes.

Scared of whatever the hell was happening, Mateo jumped back, accidentally pushing the bike over in the process. “Holy shit, I’m so sorry.”

Olimpia stood back up, leaving the bike where it was. “I’m fine, my pain sensors are at a very low setting.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that...Leona...”

“I know. I’m not trying to get between you two. But you were just talking about my perfect body, and you have to admit, we’re more alike than you two are.”

“Yeah, because we’re both morons. We could be the progenitors of Idiocracy!”

“I don’t think a moron would know the word progenitor.”

Their comm discs buzzed in the real world. It was from Ramses. “Team, I found something. It’s a planet, and there’s an energy signature coming from it.”

“How far?” Leona asked.

“One hop, one skip, and one jump.”

“Plot a course. Everyone get back to the bridge. I’m pretty sure it’s the Exins.”

Mateo and Olimpia looked at each other awkwardly. “We need to talk, the three of us,” he decided.

“I know.”

They removed their bands, and got out of bed.

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Extremus: Year 85

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This is it. Tinaya and Lataran are going to tell the general public of Extremus that they have maintained a permanent connection to Verdemus. Having a Nexus on the ship was always an option, but the people who first developed the idea of the mission ultimately decided against it for obvious reasons. There was never any law that said they couldn’t build one, probably because doing so takes the intelligence of a lesser god, and the patience of a saint. It was sort of against the spirit of what they’re trying to do here, but since the two they have access to were built for a rescue operation, it’s okay. Things might change in the future, but for now the council says that it’s fine. They have already been briefed on the subject. The braintrust lied to them too, though. They ended up making the claim that, since the two Nexa weren’t constructed by the original designers, they couldn’t be on the network. They could only connect to each other. So people will be able to travel from one to the other, but nowhere else.

With the council’s input, it has been decided that travel will not be a free-for-all. For a period of exactly one year, anyone who wants to visit Verdemus will have to apply to do so. The application that they submit will either be for a temporary stay, or permanent residency. They will have the chance to upgrade or downgrade later, should they change their minds. Some will be excited for the chance to live out their lives on a real planet, only to realize that they don’t really like it there, with all the bugs and everything. Others will go just to see what it’s like, and ultimately fall in love with it. Nothing has to be decided today, but it does have to be decided in 396 days. At that point, the connection will be completely severed. The Verdemusians, both new and old, will have to fend for themselves from then on, and the Extremusians the same. They’re dropping people off, like a bus, and this proverbial bus will not be turning around again. But buses do turn around. They do it all the time, it’s a specific route. So this is not really a good analogy, which is what Tinaya struggled the most with when she was writing her speech. The final draft has her just explaining the situation in no uncertain terms.

They’re going to tell the general population that the Nexa will be destroyed on both ends. What the council believes is that the Nexus will simply be disabled, and can be turned on again for emergencies. What only the small group of the original non-clone, non-secret explosion survivors knows is that the connection will just stay up the whole time, and they’ll be free to move back and forth however they please. They probably won’t do it much, but they’ll at least be able to communicate with each other. Lilac, Aristotle, and Niobe are staying on Verdemus. The latter two feel that it is their home, and the former wants to be with her son. Vaska will be staying too, not only because she isn’t on the Extremus manifest, but also because she wants to keep studying it. Omega and Valencia will be working on Jaunemus for now, but if anyone’s going to be using the Nexa after the one year grace period, it’ll be them. They have important jobs to complete, and they need the leeway to complete them. Tinaya will be staying on Extremus with Arqut, and of course, the Captain will too. Spirit and Belahkay have not yet made a decision, but they’ll surely stay together.

This is a joint presentation, but Lataran will only be responsible for answering questions at the end, since this is just for the crew for now. Tinaya is the one who will be explaining everything. She’s pacing on stage, nervous but using her breathing techniques. The curtain that separates her from the audience is soundproof. She could scream as loud as she pleased, and no one would notice. She almost wants to do this, just to recenter herself. She’s not dealt with the crew much as of late, since her leadership experience has been mostly relegated to the civilian side, and she’s been away for so many years anyway. Very few currently on rotation were there back in the day, so he doesn’t know many of these people.

Tinaya checks her watch, not wanting to be late. The seconds are ticking by, but she still has about twenty of them left, which is more than enough time for her to get over her nerves, and figure this out. Right? Why is she so anxious about it? She’s been around people. Well, in a different way, sure, but not like this. Extremus is a hollow chunk of metal hurtling through space. It has to be a structured well-oiled machine, or everything falls apart, and everyone dies. They had so much more freedom on the planet, and life was a lot more forgiving. Holy shit, how did ten seconds pass so quickly? Okay, get ready. There’s the button to open the curtains. Why isn’t Lataran here with her? Oh yeah, she’s greeting people by the door. That’s stupid, and annoying. The only thing worse than speaking in front of a huge crowd of people is being alone. She needs support. She needs Lataran. “Lataran.”

The Captain’s hand pushes Tinaya’s out of the way just before she can open the curtain. “Don’t push the button. Button is bad.”

“What are you talking about?” Tinaya questions.

“We’re not doing this. Trust me, it’s a bad idea. I’ll explain everything, but we need to get you out of here right now.”

“What about the crew?”

“I’ve sent them back to their assignments,” Lataran replied.

“You have?” A completely different Lataran asks. “That’s news to me.”

“What the hell are you doing back here?” The first Lataran shoves Tinaya behind her as if trying to be a human target.

“Well, one of the new Forest Rangers was running a little late for the presentation when he saw me sneak backstage, and then immediately saw me again at the entrance. I could have teleported, yes, but it didn’t look like that’s where I was headed.”

“Well, shit.” The first Lataran lets go of Tinaya, and holds up her hands defensively. “Now, I know you have to place me in hock, but you should know that I’m not here to hurt anyone. I’m not an impostor. I’m a time traveler.”

“I’m not taking you anywhere,” the second Lataran corrects. “Tinaya is taking both of us, because neither of us can be trusted.”

Tinaya doesn’t move.

“Tiny, that is protocol. You have to assume that we’re both bad guys.”

“She’s right,” the first Lataran says. “I never meant for the two of us to be in a room together. I wanted to get us away from here before I explained why I came back.”

“That’s a great idea,” the second Lataran says. “So stop talking!”

Tinaya removes the magcuff from her belt loop, which is standard issue for all crewmembers, and some key civilians. It’s so thin, she forgets that one is in every pair of pants that she owns. She only has the one, so the two of them will have to share. They look like twin sisters holding hands, but not for long. Tinaya teleports into the hock entrance, and checks them in with the Hock Watcher. He’s totally indifferent to the situation. He quietly locks them up in two separate interrogation rooms, and alerts the council, as well as First and Second Lieutenants. While he’s doing that, Tinaya reaches out to the current crew consul. She’s actually never met Icarus Faulkner, but he’s said to be just the nicest guy in the world.

In these uncertain situations, both copies of the same person will be treated equally until the authority can determine which one of them belongs, and which one doesn’t. But one version of Lataran is claiming to be real, and from this time period, while the other is admitting to being an interloper. So they’re starting with the assumption that both of them are telling the truth, and focusing their efforts on the latter version. Consul Faulker pulls Tinaya’s seat out for her, but doesn’t sit down next to her right away. “Can I get you two anything? Water? Tea?”

Tinaya reaches her hand towards him. “That’s not your job anymore, Consul.”

When he was still young, before he began his apprenticeship, he really did serve as an assistant to an earlier consul. That was so many years ago; he should not be experiencing a conditioned response like this. “It’s quite all right, I’m still standing.”

“We’re both fine,” Tinaya insists.

“She’s right,” Lataran is forced to say when Icarus looks over at her so she can answer for herself.

He finally relents, and takes his own seat. Poor eyesight is virtually a thing of the past. It really just depends on what you define as normal. Almost no one needs to wear lenses. Those who do almost always want some sort of enhanced vision, like telescopic, microscopic, or otherwise augmented. Icarus, however, is legitimately farsighted, and has not elected for corrective surgery, apparently because he doesn’t want to put the surgeon out. Yeah. There is such a thing as being too nice. He puts his reading glasses on, and inspects his tablet. As he goes through his spiel, he skims through the early report, and doesn’t look up at anyone. “This is Consul Icarus Faulkner of the VMS Extremus, sitting with former First Chair, Tinaya Leithe. We are interviewing a purported time traveler who has appeared in the form of current VMS Extremus Captain, Lataran Keen. The interviewee has been magnetically bound to the table, and is being treated respectfully and humanely. She has been offered refreshments, and...” Now he looks up. He quickly taps on the screen. “Do you need to use the restroom?”

“No.”

Tap. “...an opportunity to use the facilities, which she has so far declined.” He leans back in his chair, and carefully adjusts the microexpression detector attached to the one-way mirror behind them. “Okay, here we go.”

Tinaya instinctively holds to the back of his chair in case he tips all the way back.

“Thank you kindly.” He goes back into the formal questioning. “Please state your full name for analysis.”

“Lataran Keen.”

“Middle name included.”

“Don’t have one.”

Icarus looks back at the detector over his reading glasses, which doesn’t really tell him anything, of course, so he looks down at the results on his tablet. “Very well. Are you a time traveler?”

“Indeed.”

“What was your date and time of egress?”

“October 12, 2355 at 15:52.”

“What was the purpose of your journey back in time?”

“To stop the announcement of the true nature of our relationship to Verdemus.”

“Why should this announcement not be made?” he presses.

“It becomes disastrous for both the ship, and the planet. Four months into allowing passengers to visit Verdemus, attacks begin. It starts with individual killings, and quickly escalates into full-on bombings. We believe that a message was recently sent to the Exin Empire, alerting them to the survival of the planet, and its inhabitants.”

“You believe that a spy infiltrated the visitors in order to sabotage whatever harmonious society has, and will have, been established there.”

“That’s correct,” Lataran confirms.

“Do you know for sure that it was one of the visitors?”

“Who else would it be?” Lataran asks, very confused.

“Well, when I was briefed, I was told that there are already thousands of people living there. Clones of Mister Omega Parker?”

“Omega Strong,” Tinaya corrects.

“Apologies. Let the record reflect that I misnamed Omega Strong.”

This sounds like the stupidest thing that Lataran has ever heard. “It wasn’t the clones. They were there for years before the passengers began to show up.”

“I am afraid that you have proven a correlative connection, but not a causal one. That two things occurred in sequence—”

“I understand how logic and causality work,” Lataran interrupts. “Thank you, but I did pass second grade.”

“You will show respect to the Consul,” Tinaya warns.

“I’m sorry,” Lataran says. “I understand that I have not given you enough information. Tinaya, you confiscated a flashdrive from me when I checked in?”

“Is that what that is?” Tinaya asks. “It looks ancient.”

“Intentional obsolescence,” Lataran explains. “For security purposes. Reach out to the Technology Historians Club. They’ll know what to do. It will have all the evidence you need to cancel the announcement. We were wrong. No one can know that Verdemus still stands. We don’t know who we can trust, but someone is not on our side.”

“We’ll review the data you submitted,” Icarus goes on, “and the claims you have made. In the meantime, the other Lataran Keen will remain in hock on the ship, and you will be transported through the Nexus for indefinite detainment on world.” He switches off the recording, and stands up.

“That’s it?” Tinaya asks him. “No more questions?”

“Until the data can be verified,” Icarus begins, “I would not like to contaminate my investigation with more, possibly corrupt, information. I’m sure that we’ll have more to ask once we learn more from that...flashdrive thing.” He begins to leave the room. “I’ll arrange for covert transport. I’ll let you two have a moment for a private goodbye, but Miss Leithe, you are not leaving the ship, and you are not speaking with the other Captain.” He exits the room with a polite nod to the both of them.

Tinaya and the visiting Lataran do say their goodbyes, because it really feels like they’re never going to see each other again. It could be that Lataran’s image has been forever tarnished, and that the real one will be relieved of her position as well.

After a thorough investigation—with the help of time travel experts Omega and Valencia, and the current temporal engineers—it’s determined that the time traveler was telling the truth. The announcement is postponed until further notice. Five months later, though no passengers are ever allowed to visit Verdemus, the murders begin, and the planet falls under attack.

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Microstory 2255: A Public Nuisance

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I’m still recovering, but I’m moving around the house just fine on my own. It hurts, but I’m used to pain, so it’s not the end of the world. This is Nick, by the way. It looks like full payment is going to be transferred into our joint bank account sooner rather than later. With that high of a sum, and the legal things that Kelly told you about before, there’s just some regulatory hurdles to jump through. It’s not like I’m depending on that money to get me through the week, so it’s fine. There are still a bunch of news people on our lawn. Some of them left, disappointed that they would never get an interview from any of us. Others have stuck around, either because they don’t believe us, and that we’ll reward their tenacity, or just to be annoying and disruptive. I’m told that there is nothing that we can do to get them to leave unless they place any of us in danger, or try to breach the walls of the house. Lawns are private property, but when it comes to public interest, camping out on them is some sort of gray area. Again, they can’t do whatever they want, but they can just sit or stand there, and they can keep coming back every day if they want. I suggested that we turn on the lawn sprinklers, but that’s apparently some form of assault and needless escalation. I guess there’s just nothing we can do, except wait them out. Fortunately, it’s nicer in here than out there. It’s only getting colder. There’s one silver lining to this. If the crowd gets to be too big, the police will step in, because then it officially becomes a public nuisance, and maybe even a safety hazard. If they were here to protest, or something, then that would be a lawful assembly, and protected under constitutional rights. But they’re not here together; they’re just here for the same reason—or rather, legally speaking, simply similar reasons. If things do escalate to that point, we may be entitled to some form of authoritative protection. It’s a security risk, not knowing if all those people have decent intentions. There could be a serial killer amongst them for all we know. Our security team is doing all they can, watching them at all times, and securing the perimeter. I’m just going to rest and relax, and hope that things don’t get worse. But just a reminder, the team is also taking note of everyone they see, matching identities, and placing everyone into a blacklist, so your only possible accomplishment could be to be intrusive. You’re not going to get the exclusive story, I can guarantee you that.

Microstory 2254: Not on Our Lawn

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Nick is back home, though he’s still on bedrest. The doctors had no strong feelings about him returning to work this quickly, but I do, so I’m going to do this one more post before I let him get back to it. We have another privacy breach. We didn’t tell anyone which facility that he used for his procedures, but someone leaked the information to the media. Fortunately, our security team caught it early, and hustled us out of there before things got crazy. They weren’t able to stop the leak, but they were still able to protect us from the issues. Of course, that’s not all that was in the leak. People have finally figured out exactly where we live too, which was inevitable. They sell maps in Hollywood to celebrity houses. It’s not hard to determine such things if you really wanna know. So they’re camped out on our lawn, each reporter believing that they’ll gain some sort of access to Nick and/or Dutch. They may start to give interviews at some point in the future, but Nick won’t be talking to anyone while he’s in recovery, and at any rate, it will be on their terms. We’ve taken note of everyone on our lawn right now, and will be deliberately excluding them from any interview potential. Congratulations! You just unknowingly disqualified yourself! Anyone who follows in their footsteps will experience the same barrier. But if you’re not on our lawn, and your superiors have not authorized you to do so at some point, fear not, there are other ways to become disqualified from consideration. You could call us incessantly. You could send an inordinate number of letters to our publicist. You could harass our families, or our friends. You could attempt to infiltrate our past employers, or other places that we have frequented. You could try to hack into our security firm. You could try to kill, or otherwise harm, one of us. You could commit any other crime in pursuit of information regarding our lives and situation. Any of these things will be met with swift justice, and an immediate spot on our growing blacklist. Please note that the above is not an exhaustive list of disqualifications, and we reserve the right to amend our requirements and limitations at any time. All three of us are happy to tell you our stories, but there are appropriate ways to ask for that, and inappropriate ways. It will be up to you to choose your path, but there are consequences to every action. You would do best to not forget that.

Microstory 2253: A Hope and a Dream

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Kelly here. Nick is getting his rest in the hospital. The surgeries went really well, and the buyer is pleased with the results. They’ve transported the specimens to some secret facility, and will be studying them without any input from us. We will never know what becomes of their research, unless someone comes out with a miracle cure in five years that can fix anything. Then we’ll be pretty sure that Nick had something to do with it. He’s on the road to recovery, and will be able to return home shortly. He thought that he may have to stay here for only a couple of days, but we’ll probably keep him for the rest of the week, just so he doesn’t have to deal with the stress of moving around. You’ve all been asking for this, so I suppose I ought to just say it. Nick has authorized me to reveal the amount of money that he received for these surgeries, and after you read it, you won’t question why he went through with it anymore. He’s not greedy, but he thinks that he’ll be able to do a lot of good with it, so he just couldn’t pass on it. We’re still not gonna tell you who we did business with. You may not have heard of him anyway. He’s not one of those uber-wealthy businessmen who dance on stage at their tech bro conferences, and buy newspapers just so they’ll say nice things about them. He’s not a recluse, but he’s discreet, and so are we. But like I said, I’m allowed to tell you how much he paid for Nick’s index and marrow. The final number is 24 million dollars. Yes, 24. Yes, million. It was 24 milly bucks. That’s an insane amount of money, to be paid out in a lump sum by the end of the month. The funny thing about it is that it’s entirely tax free. The buyer knows how to navigate the complexities of tax law, and avoided them by marking it down as an investment in research, pulling it from a particular type of account, and depositing it into another certain type of account that his people helped us set up. I obviously don’t understand it, but I’m sure it will become a matter of public record someday. For now, we have tens of millions of dollars to figure out what to do with. We’ll probably build a few hospitals, and even more free clinics. Might as well help people medically before the research pans out—or more likely—in place of it. He spent his money on a hope and a dream, but we’ll be able to translate that into immediate action. I can’t wait to get started.

Microstory 2252: No Dutch! No Dutch!

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Dear Dudes, Dutch. Doy. I asked to fill in for Nick today, instead of Kelly. It’s not that she couldn’t write it for him, but I’ve been a little bored, and I wanted something to do. I don’t know what we’re gonna do tomorrow, because the hospital still won’t want him working, and his website is his job, so I may write the next one too. We’ll just have to wait and see. If you don’t read his socials, then don’t worry, he’s okay. He’s not back here for a medical issue, but because he had his surgeries. They took out his index, and some of his bone marrow. Funny thing about that first thing, when I went to another universe, the scientists who studied me wanted to see if there were any physiological differences between me and them. They did all sorts of tests...consensually, and discovered that everything was the same. We all got ten fingers, one heart, and two butt cheeks. They also mentioned that the appendix was about the same. And I’m, like, “what the hell is an appendix?” That’s what they call the index. Apparently, their ancestors thought that it was a useless organ that doesn’t do anything. Which is strange, because back then, they also thought that a magical God created humans. Why would they think such an omnipotent entity would think to include something so strange and pointless? Anyway, I just remembered that, and thought it was funny.

Welp, I think I have a little extra time, so maybe I’ll spend the rest of it telling you how I got my name. Most people assume that it’s only a nickname, but no, it’s real. Both in this world, and the other one, learning it has made people chuckle, or hold back chuckles. The Dutch are people from Nederland, or the language that they speak. My family is not from Nederland, nor even the area. Here’s the story. When my father was a child, he used to watch this old television program. Of course, as Nick has pointed out, we don’t have much of a library of fiction on this Earth, but this one was scripted, and said to have been pretty good at the time. I can’t remember what it was called, but in the first season, there was a younger brother in the family. They got rid of him in later seasons without an explanation, but he kind of became synonymous with the show anyway. The character was very protective of his toys and other belongings. Whenever anyone would come into his room, or try to do anything with his stuff, he would yell “no touch! No touch!” But he had this sort of babyish accent, and it sounded more like Dutch than touch. My father, being of about the same age as this kid, started imitating what he saw and heard. He’d walk around the house, yelling that catch phrase over and over again, emphasizing a D sound even more than the actor did. My grandmother tells me that it was annoying, but at least he didn’t really understand what the words were supposed to have meant, so he wasn’t actually ever trying to stop people from touching his stuff. Then he grew up, and forgot about all of this. But years later, as an adult, he watched some old home movies, and saw himself yelling that. His own dad was gone, but his mother was still alive, so he asked her about it, and she explained what that was. So my dad, being the jokester that he is, just started doing it again. He’ll periodically yell, “no Dutch! No Dutch!” usually at very inappropriate times. I think you can guess the rest. It became part of his personality, so when he and his future wife had a kid, naming him Dutch just made sense. I get my brains and good looks from my mother, but I got Aderyn ‘No Dutch’ Haines’ sense of humor. I think it’s a pretty good deal.