The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 18, 2500

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The ladies were gone. Leona, Olimpia, and Romana were on a trip together in the Pacific Northwest, predominantly the Portland area. Mateo could have taken time off of work to go with them, but he wasn’t invited. Instead, he was staying home. Ramses was spending a lot of time here too, hanging out to keep him company. They had planned on playing cards with a couple of driver friends, but both of them fell through, so now it was just the two of them. “You can play cards with just two people,” Mateo reasoned. “You can play with just yourself, if it’s the right game.”

“That’s depressing,” Ramses pointed out. “Let’s just find someone else.”

“This last minute?”

“It’s not a big party; they’ll be able to leave whenever they want to. What about those twins next door?”

“Angela and Marie.” Mateo leaned over in his chair, but couldn’t quite see through the window, so he stood up. It still wasn’t enough, so he just stepped over. “Yeah, they’re out there in their garden. Seems as though that’s all they do.”

“Maybe they would like a break,” Ramses suggested. Maybe they’re always out there hoping a couple of cool guys will invite them to something better.”

“I’ll see.” Mateo walked out of the house, expecting to do this alone, but Ramses was trailing behind him. “Hello, Waltons. Are you free this evening? We got a poker game going, and there are some extra seats at the table.”

Marie and Angela exchanged a look. “Do you have RPS-101?” asked the former.

“Is...that a drink?” Mateo asked.

They laughed. “No,” Angela said. “It’s a game. We have a board, if you think you might like to learn.”

Mateo exchanged a look with Rames, and then shrugged. “Yeah, we’re up for something new. It’ll just be the four of us.”

“Great.” Marie stood up, and started to remove her gardening gloves. “Marie Walton, computer programmer.” She shook Ramses’ hand.

“Computer engineer,” Ramses replied.

“I know.” She smiled.

“I’m an addiction counselor.” Angela shook his hand too.

“There won’t be any drinking,” Mateo explained, worried that maybe she was worried about it.

“It would have been fine if there were,” Angela promised.

The twins wanted to shower first, which was fine, because the gaming table wasn’t set up yet. A half hour later, they showed up with their game board. It was a giant wheel with 101 objects written in the wedges. The entire game was pure chance, with absolutely no strategy involved. One player spun the wheel, and randomly landed on one of the objects. The other player spun next, and if it was better than the first one, they won. It was the most boring thing that Mateo had ever experienced, and he couldn’t understand why they liked it so much. They couldn’t explain it either. They just had this peculiar fascination with it, like there was a secret dimension to the game that they simply hadn’t reached yet. Mateo wasn’t so sure, but he did find himself mysteriously landing on Sponge a lot. Maybe there really was magic to it. Despite this inexplicable intrigue, everyone agreed after a while that it was literally played out. They switched to regular old poker. They had to explain the game to the Waltons first. Well, Ramses did. Mateo knew the hands, but he didn’t understand it on the level that Ramses did. That was why he served as the region’s engineer. Mateo certainly couldn’t do it without him.

After hours of this, they took a break to get up, use the restroom, and scavenge for food. Ramses and Marie ended up in a discussion about their jobs, and it was kind of looking like they were never going to start playing again.

“There’s something I’d like to show you,” Angela said to Mateo. She tilted her head towards the east. “Back at our place.”

“Okay,” he said. Hopefully she wasn’t coming onto him. Managing a three-person relationship was complicated enough. They didn’t need to add a fourth. He followed her back to her house, and into what she called their study.

“Did you know that there are more than two kinds of twins?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you can have identical or fraternal—or in the case of two girls, sororal. You’ve probably heard of this distinction, but there are other variations. Precisely when the egg splits, or whether it was fertilized before the split, or after, makes a difference. There are other factors. You can even have two twins with two separate fathers!”

“Is that what you are?” Mateo asked, not sure where she was going with this.

Angela giggled as she took a file folder out of the top drawer of a desk. “No.” She opened the folder, and folded it under itself before handing it to him. “We’re not sure what we are.”

Mateo looked down at the top piece of paper. “I don’t understand what any of this means. DNA methylation, telomeres...”

“Down at the bottom.” Angela just pointed at the sheet in general.

Mateo read it out loud, “biological markers inconclusively suggest an aging abnormality that places Subject B roughly four years ahead of Subject A. Yeah, I still don’t know what that means.”

“Marie is older than me,” Angela tried to explain, “by four years.”

“How is that possible?”

She shook her head. “We don’t know. It’s not the only weird thing about it. We understand that RPS-101 is stupid and boring, but we wanted to play it with you two to see what would happen. You keep landing on Sponge. I keep landing on Heart. And there’s also the matter of the hemlock.”

“Excuse me?”

“We all drank hemlock.”

“I don’t know much, but I know that that’s toxic.”

“Yeah, it should be. But are you even a little queasy?”

Mateo turned away. “You poisoned me as some sort of test?”

“Do you remember moving here, to your house, I mean?”

“Yeah, of course I do.”

“I don’t. Neither does Marie. We’re just been here forever. All we do is garden.”

“And play Rock, Paper, Scissors, and drink hemlock.”

“Do you feel stronger when you go out in the sun?”

“Lots of people like the sun.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Mateo sighed. “I guess so. Is that not normal?”

“No, it’s not.”

“What does it mean, when you put it all together, that we’re superheroes?”

“Well, we may be super, but we’re not heroes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure your job is very fulfilling, but it can be done by a computer.”

That was a bit of a sore subject. While it was true that RideSauce valued the human touch, his role was also under constant threat of being automated. The only reason they hadn’t pulled the trigger was because customer satisfaction was a reflection of staff satisfaction, which was reportedly tied to their ability to receive help from real humans. If the pendulum ever swung to the opposite direction, even for only a day, his job would be gone so fast, a new tenant would be in his office space by lunch.

Angela took her lab test back, and returned it to the drawer. “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but there’s something going on around here. I feel like nearly everyone around me is fake. There’s a reason we ran these tests on you two. You, your wife, your daughter; they all seem like real people. You seem like the only real people. Everyone else is just sort of...weird. Wouldn’t you say?”

“No,” Mateo argued. “My assistant feels real, as does one of my drivers, Boyd.”

Angela grabbed a notepad from the desk. “Boyd. And what’s your assistant’s name?”

“You’re not going to poison my friends too!”

“Understood, but you only listed two more people. Can you think of anyone besides them?”

“Yeah, my rival...Pacey.”

“Pacey, with an e?”

“You’re not—I mean, you can poison him if you want, I guess. But you stay the hell away from my wife and daughter, you hear me.”

“Well, your daughter wouldn’t be able to survive it.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I dunno. Why did I say that?”

Mateo decided to sit down in one of the guest chairs. “If I’m being honest, there are some things I know or think about the world around me, and the people, which don’t seem true...but do?”

Angela flattened her skirt under her thighs and sat down in the other guest chair. “I think I know what you mean. Leona and I had tea the other day, and she made an off-handed comment about how I was once engaged to a man named Ed. That’s completely untrue, I’ve never been engaged, yet it still somehow felt right. I could picture him in my mind. He was dressed weird, like he lived in a different time.”

“Maybe it’s a past life.” He stood up and laughed as he put his face in his palm. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m even entertaining these scifi ideas. Past lives? That’s not a thing.”

“Aren’t they? We don’t know,” Angela pointed out.

“I designed a spaceship.” The two of them looked over to find Ramses standing in the doorway. “I thought it was just for fun, but...I think it works. I mean, it’s really detailed, right down to how the fuel is injected into the engine.”

“He showed it to me,” Marie said as they were both walking all the way into the room. “I can’t make heads or tails of it, but I can tell that he put a lot of thought into the design. If it wouldn’t work, it’s well-thought out at the very least.”

“We were talking,” Ramses went on. “I’ve never been sick. Neither has she, nor her sister. My memories seem...not fake, but too perfect, like they’ve been carefully curated for my mind.”

“Did she tell you about the poison?” Mateo asked him.

“Yeah,” Ramses said with a nod. “We took it a step further.” He bent over, and unplugged a surge protector from its wall, along with all of the appliances connected to it. “Do you care about this?” he asked Marie.

“No,” she said as she was taking it from him. She pulled it back like a baseball bat, and slammed it straight into Ramses’ face. He didn’t even move. It didn’t seem to hurt at all, and didn’t do any damage whatsoever.

Apparently inspired by the two of them, Angela grabbed a letter opener from the desk, and tried to jam it into Mateo’s neck. It didn’t hurt either, and didn’t break the skin. It did do damage to the opener, though, bending it into a slight curve.

“We are superheroes,” Mateo guessed.

“Or it’s the simulation hypothesis,” Ramses decided.

“Explain that one again?” Mateo asked, jokingly without laughing, because he hadn’t ever heard of it, though it did not sound humorous.

“We’re all living in a computer simulation,” Ramses began. “Usually, it’s used in an attempt to explain the nature of reality itself, and where we all are in general. But in this case, it could just be the explanation for where we are...the four of us.”

“Six,” Marie corrected. “We think Mateo’s family is part of this too.”

“More,” Angela corrected Marie’s correction. She lifted up the notepad. “Mateo came up with a few names of people he interacts with who also appear to be real.” She used airquotes around the last word.

“If we’re just in a computer,” Mateo asked, “how do we get out?”

“Typically?” Ramses asked. “You can’t. You can never really know what’s real, and what’s not. It’s not like the movies, where you can will yourself out of it, or where the developers hid secret powers that let you take control. If the simulation hypothesis is true, we have absolutely no free will. Not only can they shape our world to their liking, but they can adjust our minds as needed. We’re not necessarily real either.”

“So, what do we do?” Angel asked him.

“Our two main choices are to keep our heads down, and hope our creators see fit to at least keep us alive in whatever definition that should be for the simulation. Don’t make waves, don’t rock the boat; just play along.”

“Or we keep bashing each other with office equipment,” Marie offered.

“Or we try to talk to them,” Mateo suggested instead. “I told you, Angela, that my rival, Pacey seems real too. There’s more to it. He actually seems, somehow...more real.”

“You think he’s one of them? An avatar of one of the developers?” Angela figured.

“Might could be,” Mateo said. “But I don’t wanna do anything until my girls come back home. It’s not safe for them here, but it’s not like it’s safe wherever they are now. What if they’re on a different server, or whatever? At least if they come back, I can keep an eye on them.”

“Okay, then we wait to do anything,” Marie said. “They should have a say in whatever decision we make anyway.”

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The Sixth Key: Sleeping Like a Rock (Part V)

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Echo begins to approach Clavia menacingly. She has been lying to him this whole time, and worse than that, manipulating him. All of her lessons were designed to turn him into the person that she wanted him to be. Perhaps he really is some sort of ethereal god-like being, but he’s not a tyrant. She instilled those values in him without him even knowing it, and she’s going to pay.

“Wait,” she says, holding her hand up defensively. “You can’t hurt me.”

“Why not?” Echo asks.

“I am more powerful than you,” she replies.

“Then why did you come here? Why do you need me? What are you after?”

She sighs like she’s relenting. “I’m more powerful than you, but you are still powerful. More to the point, you have power to give.”

“You’ve just been trying to take it? Is that even possible?”

Clavia smiles. “I don’t need the power in my own body,” she says with airquotes. “If I control what you do with it, it’s the same as having it for myself. Now, I’m being honest, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t before. But we’ve barely scratched the surface of your studies. We’ve not had time to get into the fine details of the world. I am what they call the Powers That Be. I am here to help, but I’m still so limited. I’m reliant on selecting human agents to do most things for me. In order to enact real change, I have to unshackle myself from those restrictions. When I do that, I’ll transform into the Power That is All. I came here...to ask for your help...to change the universe for the better.”

“You wanna team up?” Echo questions. “You went about it the wrong way.”

“I see that now.”

“It’s too late.” Echo turns to Hogarth. “I was naïve, and stupid, but I’m awake now, and I better understand my origins. My mother is a woman by the name of Olimpia Sangster. I was hoping to find her.”

“I am familiar with her,” Hogarth replies, “but I don’t know where she is. Last time I saw her, she was on a planet called Castlebourne, but that was years ago from my perspective.”

“I appreciate it. I’ll start there, and continue looking.”

“You can’t leave this planet,” Clavia warns. “I would have gotten us out of here a long time ago if you could. You are an extension of this place. You and it are the only things that exist. That little shuttle of yours, the suit; everything is just something that you contrived in your head to make sense of your reality. But you are really just the planet itself. That’s why you named it Echo.”

Echo was watching her as she talked, but now turns back to Hogarth. “Is this true?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know what you are, or what this place is. I only know that you’re a danger to a lot of people. I’m sorry to say...”

“No, I understand,” Echo admits. He steps away, and hops off the stage. He walks a little ways down the curve of the hill, and begins to survey his domain. He’s the planet. He made the planet. He needed a place to stand, so he came up with something. But that’s not the only kind of thing that people stand on. It never needed to be this big. Most of it is just lifeless desert anyway, it’s not like his brain took the time to intricately fabricate every single blade of grass in every part of the world. He probably did a lot of copying and pasting just to get the basic structure down. If this isn’t real, then it can be anything. He can turn it into something more manageable. He takes a deep breath through his nose, closes his eyes, and sinks down to the ground. He sits there, and focuses, but he doesn’t concentrate. Instead, he lets go. He stops trying to keep this rock alive, and just lets it fold in on itself, not all the way, but into a much smaller shape. In only seconds, all that’s left is the hill, floating in the void, protected by a bubble of air that he controls. He opens his eyes and stands. “I am the god-being,” he says, as if explaining it to Hogarth.

One of Hogarth’s friends hops over to the edge, and glides her finger along the vacuum barrier. It ripples like water, and it kind of looks like she’s tickled by it. “I was wrong, this will not do,” she says. “This is no place for the next Garden Dimension. It’s too unstable and unsafe. We should transplant the tree back where we were going to in the parallel dimension on Earth.”

“I didn’t think this would be the place for the Garden, Princess,” another woman says to her, “but we can’t just transplant a magical tree whenever we want to.”

Princess Honeypea walks over to Echo. “The fruit. Have you tried it?” She tilts her head over to Clavia’s tree.

“She told me that it would be sort of...intimate.”

“That may not have been a lie,” Princess says. “Her tree is different than the one we had before. It may not work the same way, but if it does, it can take you to your mother. Then perhaps you move the tree itself in return.”

Echo goes back up to Clavia. “Can it? Can it find my real mother?”

Clavia takes a moment. “It could take someone to her, but not you. I’m not lying, you can’t leave, no matter how big or small this place is. It’s the void. You were born in the void. You were born of the void. It is here you must stay. You too would require human agents. If you had started out as a normal human like me, you would have one exception, but I’m afraid you’re too tied down.”

“Then what do you want from me?” Echo asks again. “I thought my power would help you lift your own restrictions. I thought that was the point.”

Clavia hesitates to respond. “A child. If we had a child of our own, it would be a million times stronger, and have the ability to leave.”

“The child of two gods,” Echo muses. “Sounds...like a monumentally stupid idea, and a very irresponsible one.” This is getting out of hand, and Echo is more confused than ever. He doesn’t know what to believe anymore. Even though he knows that he can’t trust Clavia, he also can’t trust his own mind. She’s not just been manipulating him, but brainwashing him too. There’s so much up there in his brain. How much of it is just a way for her to control him? He has to get rid of it. He has to get rid of it all.

“Are you okay?” one of the people asks him. “You look sad.”

“I’m dying,” Echo replies.

“That’s not possible,” Clavia decides.

“You’re dying too.”

“What?”

“You’re an amalgam of multiple people, some of which are here today in alternate form.” He gestures towards the group as he’s walking towards her again. “Your primary consciousness is that of a not-so-great person, but that’s just because that was the one that was prepared for it. You wanted to be in charge. I can put someone else in charge.”

“No,” Clavia argues. She looks to others for help. “You’re not gonna let him do this, are you? It’s a violation. No! No!”

Echo doesn’t need to touch her, she can back away as much as he wants. He closes his eyes again, and focuses on her mind. It’s all jumbled in there, with a bunch of conflicting thoughts rattling around. As he’s snaking his way through the amalgam, he realizes that it could be worse. It could be just The First Explorer and no one else. At least the other minds in there have been taming her thirst for power. She probably didn’t count on that, but it means less work for him. It will make it easier for him to do a little bit of rearranging. Just a tweak here, and a modification there. And...go to sleep.

Clavia falls to the grass.

“Is she dead?” Hogarth asks.

“The one you knew as Clavia is, yes,” Echo explains, “but a new being will awaken in her place.” He breathes deeply once more. “The same will go for me.”

“Is that really necessary?” Princess Honeypea questions.

“It’s the only way to be sure,” Echo replies. “When I wake up, I won’t understand any of this. I won’t know any of you. I’m trusting you to teach me; to show me what life is really about, and how to be a good person. Sorry to cut this short, but I hope that we can be friends in the next life.”

“None of us is qualified to do what you ask,” Hogarth contends.

“Like I said, I’m trusting you.” Before anyone can argue any further, Echo shuts his eyes, and erases his whole mind. He too falls to the grass.

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Microstory 2410: Mildome

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This dome is for flowers. It’s a self-sustaining ecosystem, and it’s growing. Here’s the thing, at the moment, it’s mostly just grass in the center of a vast desert. There are pockets of flower gardens here and there, but they are going to spread over the course of the next several decades. This was done intentionally, not because the builders were lazy, or something. It’s all about the pollinators. You got your bees, you got your butterflies and moths, you got your flies. Not houseflies, that’s not what we’re talking about, nor blackflies. Those are gross and annoying. Don’t ask me the exact species of any of these things, I’m not that big of an expert. I just really like flowers. Continuing on, you got your hummingbirds, you got your honeyeaters and sunbirds, you got your bats. I looked it up, there are other animals that are good at pollinating on Earth, but they either don’t have them on this planet, or it’s taking time to engineer them. I doubt that they transported live specimens clear across the interstellar void. I don’t think you can do that legally, unless they qualify as a pet. You know what I learned while I was here? Humans are pollinators too. I don’t just mean that we plant plants. Obviously we do that, but we also have a history of lifting pollen, and carrying it to other places. Isn’t that cool? Well, you can do that under Mildome, if it strikes your fancy. The creators want this space to be the culmination of the hard work of millions of living organisms, including people like you can me. One day, the whole surface will be one giant garden, like a little microcosm of the world. I will be coming back regularly to see how it progresses, but I can’t wait for the “end” result. Of course, it won’t be finished at that point. The pollinators will continue to do what they do best, and this dome will thrive. Without any negative environmental factors, like climate breakdown, there’s nothing standing in its way. That’s something you have to see if you’re here on the planet anyway. Plus, there’s tons of honey, because of the bees. In addition to taking care of them, and learning about them, you can also eat however much honey that you want. If that doesn’t convince you, I suppose nothing will.

Microstory 2409: Mizmaze

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The mizmaze. This is an interesting one. I didn’t know what to expect. They told me how big these domes are, and when they told me that this maze covered the entire surface of one of the domes, I didn’t really believe it. That’s over 1.3 million acres. We’re all from different places, so I can’t really give you a clear frame of reference on the sheer scope of this thing, but it’s the biggest maze ever created. Don’t talk to me about VR, those are self-perpetuating; what we have here is a work of art. So here’s how it works. You walk into the intake building, and tell them that you would like to do a maze. They ask you a bunch of questions, first and foremost being how much time do you have to spend on it? Of course, the entire point is that you don’t know how long it will take to get through, but that’s why they ask you these other questions. They’re about your sense of direction, and your problem-solving skills. How much stamina do you have when you’re walking, how many supplies can you carry with you? Some of these mazes can literally take weeks, even if you’re really good. Remember, the scale. On the longest routes, there are supplies along the way, but you don’t just pick it up from a table. You have to complete tasks to get what you’re after, and you may lose out. Someone else might get it first, or you’ll just lose the minigame. There are mystery boxes which may be good, or bad. There are obstacles in there, which are definitely bad, but you have to get through them, or find another way. Some of it is made of hedge, other parts made of concrete. The mazes here aren’t like the ones that you’re used to. In most mazes, you have to stay on the ground, or you lose, but there are no real rules here. If you can figure out how to climb, go ahead and climb. Your sense of accomplishment is entirely your own. If you say that’s good enough, then it is. People may judge, but whatever. I stayed on the ground, and did the second-hardest route. The hardest ends with a grand prize. You aren’t even told what that is unless you agree to do that one. The walls move with that one, I don’t know how anyone completes it. I never heard about anyone who did, but the droid staff was mostly cagey about it, like just the very idea about whether anyone finished should also be a secret. Mine took just a hair over two weeks. I had to take the tram clear to the other side of the dome to start it, and ended up not too far from the main offices. The routes criss-cross each other, so I was in underground tunnels some of the way. I’m pretty proud of myself. I had trouble locating resources, but I didn’t get too tripped up by the hazards. I think I shouldn’t tell you what they are. It’s all meant to be a surprise for you, and I’m not sure how much variety there is across the board. Highly recommend. If you’re unsure, try a day maze, and if you like it, you can level up.

Microstory 2408: Sportsdome

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Sports. Have you heard of them? Well, I like them. I’m pretty old. I was, in fact, one of the oldest people still physically capable of being upgraded enough to stick around back when life extension was in its relative infancy. I remember taking the train all around the country to see baseball games. I managed to see at least one major league game in every stadium. As the centuries went by, I watched as they faded from popularity. Some of them were outright banned—or effectively neutered—due to laws against violence. Remember hockey? That was basically just an excuse to fight on the ice. The whole act of hitting a puck into a net was more secondary to that urge to express one’s aggression and manhood. I never liked it, but they got it here on Castlebourne. They have every single sport somewhere here. Name one, they got it. Even the really obscure or really old ones that I hadn’t even thought of when I was growing up, still believing that I would die one day. Anyway, I think this dome is pretty cool, and I intend to spend a lot more time here. Unfortunately, nearly all of the players are androids, because we’re still in the early days of this planet, and like I said, sports in general have dimmed in popularity. It’s kind of creepy, because there was this glitch when I first showed up. They weren’t expecting me, and they didn’t sense my presence right away. Obviously, these things aren’t just playing games for no one to watch. They only do it when a visitor is around to see it. So there I was, walking onto the football pitch, and the androids were just standing there, staring into space. Of course, they weren’t staring, they were in dormant mode, but since they’re so lifelike, it looked really scary and unsettling. So that was just a little issue that I think will get worked out if people actually start to come here and see what all this stuff is about! Really try to give it a chance. I know it sounds so quaint. I mean, how interesting could it be to watch 22 people kick a ball back and forth? It’s a lot more nuanced. Just because you’re not in a virtual reality where the rules to some random game some random guy randomly came up with take ten years to learn doesn’t mean it’s not fun to watch. If you swing by, I’m sure we can find you something that you’ll like. For now, I’m going to see what jai alai is like. We didn’t have that when I was a young one.

Microstory 2407: Zombie Dome

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Zombies! Get your zombies here! We got fast zombies, slow zombies, zombies who are still a little bit intelligent, zombies who mindlessly continue on with the jobs that they supposedly had when they were still alive. You choose your environment, and you choose your level of difficulty, and then you just try to survive. They have some pretty crazy scenarios. I love zombies, so I’m biased, but I think you could have an entire planet just designated for this, and it would be great. Here’s what’s interesting about it, and the kind of unique thing about Castlebourne over all. They really lean into the fact that human bodies are completely expendable these days. They put a lot of work into building them for us. They have some fancy new technology that can grow a clone of you in a matter of minutes, I don’t understand it. Or you can choose your own creative avatar—like a bunny, or an iron giant—though that’s not really allowed in Zombie Dome. You’re supposed to be a human running from humanoid zombies. That’s the thing. But here’s a choice I never thought I would get to make. You can turn into a zombie in certain variations. When they bite you, if you don’t die, you continue as one of the undead. They’ll pump you full of drugs, and impair your brain processing. You’ll start walking around trying to bite other people. It’s a trip. I wanted to see what it was like, so I intentionally got bitten. Don’t worry, there are fail-safes in place. No matter how stunted your mind is, there’s always this part of you that is aware that none of this is real, and that you can break out of it if you need to. You can force your real consciousness back to the surface, and start being a normal person again. You’re dead, so you can’t keep playing like that, but you can make your way to an emergency exit, and quit playing. At that point, you can request a respawn into a normal body again, and start all over. I never felt unsafe in there even though that’s the point. It’s true, as I said, I love this stuff, so I kind of went into it really prepared. You might have a different level of preparation, but they’ll take care of you. They won’t let things go too far. Even when you’re still alive, you can put a stop to a zombie attack by uttering your safeword, which you will choose ahead of time. It can’t be too obvious, like, help, or no, stop! but I’ve seen it work. I had a bunch of buddies who were there specifically to test these systems. They chose different safewords at different times, and they always worked. We were there to test the boundaries, and make sure that the safeguards were sufficient, and never faltered. Highly recommended, but bear in mind this is not for everyone. It takes a certain kind of constitution, and most people should know whether it will be good for them or not, and again, if it’s not, you can just leave.

Microstory 2406: Foggy Forest

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This place is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a forest, and there is fog. It’s obviously done on purpose, and while it’s very calculated, it’s also unfinished. The technology necessary for great climate control is there, but it’s still difficult to maintain, and I think some of the processing power is allocated to other regions. This place is great, but it’s not the number one spot on the planet. I saw the fog nozzles sticking out from the ground and the trees a number of times. I’m a gamma tester, and it’s still early, so I’m sure they’ll work out the kinks. They asked me for feedback at the end, so I told them about all this. Actually, they asked me for feedback while I was still there, which I get; they really wanna fix the issues before the real visitors show up. Now let’s talk more about it in an idealized situation. The fog isn’t consistent. Some parts are spookier than others. I’m not sure if there are creepy little monsters lurking in the shadows, but I did get that sense when I went to some of the denser areas. They were pretty tight-lipped about what this was all about. At first, it seems pretty simple. It’s a forest, and there is fog, but maybe there’s more to it? Maybe something lives here. Do you think they finally found aliens? I’m not talking about the microbes we located under the ice on Europa. I mean real aliens that roam around the land and being all sinister and dangerous. I guess they don’t have to be sinister, but everything is dangerous. Maybe I’m just a little bit crazy. That’s what this place does to you, though. It gets in your head, and makes you question your reality. It should be pretty straightforward. It’s a forest, and there is fog. You can go camping, or you can stay in one of the cabins. You don’t even ask to stay in a cabin. If you find shelter, stay there, and if someone else shows up, I guess you have to defend your territory somehow? Like I was saying, there were no instructions, and there don’t seem to be any rules. I dunno, it’s really creepy, but if you can stomach it, I don’t think that anything bad will actually happen to you. You’ll probably be okay. Probably. There’s not much to it. It’s a forest, and there is fog.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 17, 2499

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Mateo and Olimpia were in St. Louis on one of their business trips. There was an issue with the booking, which was forcing them into a single room with a single bed. It was no coincidence that all of the hotels were booked up this week. They weren’t the only game in this town right now. Every ridesourcing company was hoping to strike a deal with St. Louis Metro Transit. They were looking to expand their service to multiple outlying areas, but found the project to be cost-prohibitive on their own. One of the bus drivers moonlighted as a driver for Tractus Rides, and suggested they form some sort of partnership. It was a last mile program, which could help thousands get to their destinations at lower cost than if they had to drive themselves, or use a ridesharing service alone. The executives actually thought it was a good idea, but they didn’t just want to close themselves up to options. Everyone was going to get a shot to pitch their idea. This would be a huge opportunity for RideSauce. While St. Louis fell under Mateo’s purview, he wasn’t in charge of the negotiations, because that was well above his paygrade. If they managed to secure something here, there was a chance that RideSauce would make similar deals in other cities.

Only the higher ups for RideSource were here, but Tractus went a different direction. They decided to secure rooms for their local drivers as well, reportedly to show their enthusiasm for the project, but clearly just to make themselves look stronger. They took all the hotel rooms just so they could walk around with their big swingin’ wieners, and that was annoying. There was nothing that the front desk agent could do, so Mateo was gonna have to swallow his pride, and speak to his archrival. “Pacey,” he greeted with an insincere nod.

“Matthew, what a pleasant surprise.” Pacey Henricksen was essentially Mateo’s equivalent for Tractus in the central midwest, though not exactly. Their organization was structured differently, so he managed more cities, and other divisions in those cities. RideSauce focused on ridesourcing, but Tractus was also in delivery and limousine services. And he knew that Mateo would be here, obviously.

“You took all the rooms.”

Pacey breathed in deeply through his nose and nodded. “We need them.”

“This is a stunt.”

“This is all a stunt,” Pacey argued. “That’s what we’re doing here. How we appear to the client is what matters most.”

“What we can provide to the client is what matters in our eyes,” Mateo countered. “They’ll see that.” He wasn’t really here to get in a fight, but he couldn’t help it.

“We’re bigger, and they need to know how much better we’ll be at scaling operations.”

“Your other divisions are irrelevant. The bus riders aren’t going to be getting in any limos.”

“They might if they pay a premium,” Pacey reasoned.

Mateo laughed. “They’re bus riders,” Mateo emphasized. “They don’t pay premiums. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“We’ll see. Did you need something?”

“We need one of your rooms. They overbooked, so now we’re stuck with one between the two of us.”

Pacey looked over Mateo’s shoulder, at Olimpia. “I don’t see the problem.”

“Put your tongue back in your mouth, you’re not her type.”

“What’s her type?”

“Decent people,” Mateo answered.

Pacey shrugged. “I’m sure she would make an exception.”

“She and I are professionals. You might look into it. Until then, what do I need to do to get one of your rooms?”

Pacey grimaced. “You see, if I give you a room, I’ll be taking it away from someone else, which means they’ll be pairing up instead. That doesn’t really solve the problem, it just shifts it to someone else. You have more experience with that than I do.”

Ugh. Of course he would bring that up again. He always found a way whenever they ran into each other. “For the last time, that driver was not in my area. Just because he was supposed to drive the rider from Sioux Falls to Sioux City doesn’t mean he worked for me. He was registered in South Dakota. I had nothing to do with the failed background check.”

“Well, it speaks to how flippant your company is with safety and security,” Pacey decided.

“The driver worked for you too, he passed your background check just as easily, so don’t give me that bullshit. And unlike me, South Dakota is in your jurisdiction.”

“Well, he wasn’t working for us that night, which is why the judge withheld it as evidence.”

Mateo had no retort, and it was a distraction anyway. “There are only two of us, and as her superior, it would be inappropriate for us to share a room. Pacey. Please. You must know of two people who can bunk up.”

Pacey looked away in thought. “Well...there’s this one driver that I’ve been seeing. I suppose that she and I could share. Your little assistant could sleep in her room instead. We wouldn’t even have to involve the hotel. We’ll just give her a keycard. But if she takes anything from the mini-bar, you’re paying for it.”

“She never would,” Mateo explained. “I’ll ask her if she’s okay with it.”

“Lovely,” Pacey said. “Always glad to assist a colleague.”

Mateo stepped over to talk to Olimpia, who was receptive to the idea. She wasn’t entirely convinced that the original situation was a problem that needed to be fixed, but she didn’t argue. She wouldn’t, though. He needed to get better at reading her, and recognizing that he’s her boss, and that she wouldn’t want to antagonize him. As long as Pacey’s companion stayed in his room, instead of going back to her own, Olimpia should be fine. That wasn’t what happened, though, and they should have known.

“They got in a big fight apparently,” Olimpia said at Mateo’s doorway.

“Come on in,” he said, stepping away.

She rolled her suitcase inside. “She was telling me about it, but I’ve become pretty good at tuning people out. I know what they want to hear when I’m pretending to listen actively, based on tone and pauses in their speech, so I don’t have to absorb the information. I’m sure it was very banal and meaningless. The fact is, she wanted her room back, and I didn’t want to stick around. She said she was fine sharing it with me, because I seemed cool, but I really don’t wanna do that.” She looked around this room. “I was hoping there was a couch, errr...”

“No, the company’s very frugal. I typically don’t care. It doesn’t need to be big, just clean. But you can sleep in the bed, and I’ll be in the tub.”

“I know you, Mateo, you shower at night. I can tell that you already have. The tub is wet.”

He shrugged. “I always bring a swimsuit. I’ll sleep in that.”

“That’s silly. We can share, it’ll be fine.”

Mateo looked down at the bed. “It’s a full, not even a queen. Pacey must have done that on purpose as further punishment.”

“Pacey?” she questioned. “How would he have any control over what room you were assigned?”

Mateo blinked. “I don’t know, how would he?”

Olimpia blinked back. “Can you sleep next to a woman without having sex with her?”

“Yeah, can you? Vice versa, that is?”

She hesitated to answer.

“Olimpia, it’s a simple—” Wait...

She still couldn’t answer, and she didn’t try to backpedal.

No, he couldn’t sleep in the bed with her. He couldn’t even sleep in the tub. He had to get out of here entirely. “You take the bed, I’m gonna hail a RideSauce Hot. They’re almost always SUVs, so I should be able to sleep in the back.”

“That’ll cost you a fortune.”

“Not if we don’t go anywhere,” he contended. “I’ll pay under the table.”

“That is not a service that our company offers.”

“No, but...I’m the boss. I’m sure whoever it is will say yes. That’s the difference between us and Tractus. The drivers know who I am. Nobody who works for Pacey could pick him out of a line up.”

“Mateo, it’ll be fine. I’m not saying that I won’t be able to handle it. I just want to be honest about my feelings.”

“I appreciate that. It would have been real easy for you to say nothing, and let it happen. But I have to nip this in the bud. You’re my employee, and I’m married.”

“Right, which is why I’ll get over it.”

“It’s too complicated. Things are different out there.” He pivoted, and started to gaze out the window at the stars. What did they have to do with anything?

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” Mateo’s phone rang. It was Leona. “Hey, I’m about to go to bed.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing. What would be wrong?”

“I just had this feeling that you’re upset about something. I can’t explain it.”

“Things have gotten a little bit awkward with the hotel rooms, but we’re working it out. I think you just get worried about me when I’m gone.”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Oh, hold on. I’m getting another call.” He switched over without even bothering to see who it was. “Hello?”

“Mateo. This is Angela. Is everything okay?”

“Angela? My neighbor? Why would you think there’s something wrong?”

“Marie and I just started getting this weird feeling.”

A text came in. It was Ramses. Yu ight?

What the hell was going on?

They heard a series of beeps at the door just before it opened. Pacey walked in. He looked disappointed. “I thought you three had an understanding, but it looks like the feelings are a little more complicated, so this whole hotel room gambit isn’t gonna get you where you need to be.”

“What are you talking about?” Mateo demanded to know. “How do you even have a key to get in this room?”

Pacey looked back at the door, and then back to Mateo. “What room?”

“I’m so confused.” Mateo sat down on the edge of the bed, and buried his face in his hands.”

“I know,” Pacey said. “I messed up. I was trying to respect your privacy by only extracting the memories and knowledge that I needed to set up a plausible scenario, but it wasn’t enough. I’m afraid, in order to keep you here, I’m gonna have to go deeper.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Mateo argued.

“I know, and you won’t remember any of this anyway. You and Olimpia will have had sex tonight. That’s how you’ll remember it, and you will have already told Leona about it by the time you wake up. In fact, it will have been weeks ago. She will be fine, and the three of you will move forward with your relationship. Unfortunately, in order to make this work, you’re gonna have to lose the transit contract. I’ll become a weaker antagonist if you don’t.”

Actually, this was starting to make sense. Mateo’s memories were resurfacing. None of this was real. This wasn’t his life. This wasn’t any of their lives. “I know you. You met Leona before. She ran into you in the ka—”

Mateo was nervous. He had never been on a date with two women before. Well, there was that one time, but that was more of a double date where his girlfriend’s friend’s boyfriend flaked out on her. He had never been interested in that other girl. He was interested in Olimpia, and as fate would have it, Leona was interested in her too. She seemed to like them both. This might even go okay. But a first date was a first date, and those were stressful no matter what.

“Are you ready?” Leona asked. “I just need to pick a pair of shoes.”

“Wow. You look beautiful in that.”

“It’ll look better on the floor,” she joked. “Ah, come on, I’m tryna lighten the mood.”

“Is this weird? This seems weird. Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

“It’s almost the 26th century,” Leona began. “Polyamory is in.”

“I know, but...”

“Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Two hot chicks are into you. Just let it happen. If things get messy in the future, we’ll clean it up. No one’s life is gonna get ruined.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“You and I have been through worse,” Leona claimed.

“We’ll see about that.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “But I trust in your judgment. And I love you.”

“Were I you,” she said as he was walking out of the room.

“Were you me what?”

She blinked. “Huh. I don’t know. It’s an idiom, though, isn’t it?”

He shook his head. “No, it isn’t.” But was it?

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