Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Microstory 2273: Skipping Out of the Building

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Against all odds, the organ donor network was able to find two matches for Nick. One person gave him a lobe of their liver, and another one of their kidneys. I couldn’t tell you anything about them, even if I knew myself. They’re not necessarily anonymous, but the information hasn’t been released yet. Some of their respective families may not even know what they did. There was apparently a really short, but really intensive, vetting processing. Normally, a person would have weeks, or even months, to prove that they understand what they’re doing, and what they’re giving up. But in this case, it was an emergency. I wasn’t part of any of that, so I don’t know how it went down, but I’m grateful to them just the same. All three surgeries are now finished, and they’re in recovery. Nick still hasn’t woken up yet. Well, he has, but he hasn’t been at all lucid. During what little time he was somewhat awake, he didn’t seem to really know where he was, or what was going on. It will just take time, but I’m choosing to be optimistic. We’re still not out of the woods, so I’m not going to break out the celebratory balloons just yet, but he has a chance now. We will know more when he wakes up, and he can tell us how he feels. That’s a very important metric that doctors can only guess. They’ll continue to keep him here for quite a while. They still couldn’t do anything about his spleen or gallbladder, so I imagine his hospital time will be on the upper end of the typical estimate. Once he is healthy enough to be discharged, he won’t be skipping out of the building, though. For the next few months, he’ll be in a state of recovery, gradually getting better and stronger. Dutch and I will be with him the whole time. Even though the surgery is over, he’s still opening doors, hoping to speed up the process, but a part of me is worried about that working. If he becomes immortal again, the donors’ sacrifice might seem to mean a little less. I dunno. I guess in that scenario, they still bought him time, and it was still a profound thing to do. I shouldn’t be thinking about any of this. I just need to go back to making sure he wakes up feeling safe and comfortable.

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Microstory 2272: Tested For Compatibility

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People are coming in from all over the country, and maybe even beyond, hoping to donate a lobe of their liver, or a kidney, to Nick. That’s very sweet of all of you, and trust me, I wish it gave us more hope, but he’s in really bad shape. If this were the future, the hospital might be able to hook him up to machines to keep his whole body alive. They could replace every vital body part and organ temporarily until a more permanent solution could be found. I like the way you think. With all these volunteers, there’s surely a perfect match for him somewhere out there. The problem is that it will take too much time to find that person, and in the meantime, Nick’s body is shutting down. He’s being kept alive by the machines that are available today, however, they are limited in scope. I don’t want to discourage you from hope, but what do you want me to say to you? Do you want me to lie, and claim that he’s going to get out of this because he’s survived so much until now? I’m sorry, but I don’t see how we could succeed. They just took too much from him. He probably won’t survive the week, let alone major surgery. From my perspective, I am willing to try, but the donors would be risking their own health on a huge gamble. Believe me, he’ll be the first to promote living donorship. He thinks that it shouldn’t be so stigmatized, that signing up to donate should be an obvious choice that any healthy person should make. The fact of the matter is, though, that we don’t live in that world. We’re not ready for it. Perhaps one day we will. Perhaps this will galvanize society into making changes, not because we’re bad people now, but because we can always improve ourselves. Unfortunately, Nick is not going to be able to benefit from such a world. Like I was saying, the hospital is doing everything they can, and it’s not like I’m stopping people from reaching out to the administrators with their inquiries. I just feel the need to manage your expectations. If this crazy plan works out, it’ll be a miracle, and how many of those does one person get in their life. Dutch and I have already been tested for compatibility, and we’re no good, so it would be up to you. Sadly, I don’t like our odds. His luck and time are both running out.

Monday, November 4, 2024

Microstory 2271: It Won’t Be Long Now

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It’s so much worse than we had imagined. After everything Nick has been through; traveling through time, bouncing around the multiverse, being trapped away from his friends, getting sick over, and over, and over again. At worst, we thought that he would be dead. That would have been horrible, but at least he would no longer be suffering. There were consequences to this blog that none of us foresaw. Learning that Nick’s organs fetched such a heavy price from a reputable and trustworthy businessman, an as-of-yet still at large basket of deplorables abducted my friend, and took him to a makeshift surgical theatre. You heard that right. There was clearly an audience to this thing. It was put together quickly, but it was made with great purpose. A surgeon tore into his body, removing both of his kidneys, his liver, his spleen, and even his gallbladder. I don’t know how much they intend to make for these stolen organs on the black market, but there’s no way these assholes aren’t going to be found. The authorities don’t have to sift through dozens of other dark web postings for organs. They only have to find the one that’s advertising miracle organs for an insanely huge amount of money. They’re going to get nothing, and then they’re going to jail. Meanwhile, my poor Nick will be dead. He’s not immortal anymore, and no one can survive losing that much of their key organs. The doctors have placed him on life support, but there is only so much they can do. These five organs are literally vital to the proper functioning of a human being. It’s true, you can donate half a liver, or one whole kidney, and be fine. Yes, you can be suffering from kidney failure, and be kept alive through regular dialysis. With the proper lifelong treatment, you can even live without your spleen or gallbladder. But you can’t survive if all of these things are ripped out of you all at once. He’s going to die if another miracle doesn’t happen, but I really don’t see that happening. Dutch is running around in a panic, opening every single door that he can find. He has even demanded keys from hospital staff for locked doors. He’s trying to make another connection to the bulk to restore the magic of Nick’s immortality for but a few minutes, just like he did when he came back here from another world. Needless to say, it isn’t working. What happened that day was a fluke. If an angel is looking out for Nick, I can’t imagine they have the inclination to do it a second time. Even so, I’m letting Dutch try, because it’s not hurting anything. Well, it is, he’s causing a disruption, but everyone here has been pretty cool. They know why he’s doing it. Me, I’m sitting at Nick’s bedside, holding his hand, and hoping that he can hear me. It’s really sad to say, but...it won’t be long now.

Sunday, November 3, 2024

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 20, 2472

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Olimpia was so excited and intrigued by Mateo’s apparent ability to make physical contact with a hologram. Did it only work on people, or could he do it with anything? Maybe this power was limited to holographic communication, and not for computer generated images. Centuries ago, scientists in the real world were inspired by the three-dimensional simulations from the Star Trek franchise, The Orville, and other similar scifi stories. They tried to design a real version of it using a combination of magnetic fields, wind, nanobots, and even direct cerebral mind alteration to simply make the user believe that they were touching the hologram. There was actually some promise in the technology, but as fun as it was, it was nothing compared to the kinds of worlds that people were building in immersive virtual simulations. The laws of physics could be broken in such environments, and they demanded a hell of a lot less power to make it work. Real life holodecks continued to exist, but were only as available as demand allowed them to be. Maybe the Vellani Ambassador secretly employed the technology, and Mateo managed to figure out how to access it within the last few minutes? Eh, that seemed unlikely. No, this was something else.
“Guys, something’s happening to me.” Olimpia suddenly felt so dizzy. Everyone peeled their eyes off of Mateo and Oakset to watch her stumble back. Ramses tried to help, but she pushed him away, and tottered away from everyone. Her instincts were telling her to make room for herself.
“She’ll be fine,” Mateo assured them, clearly knowing something important.
Olimpia’s instincts started to make her spin around, erratically at first, but then momentum magically increased, and pushed her around without her having to move her feet anymore. What little she could make out of the room around her faded away behind little dots of darkness, only to be replaced by bright blue sky. She blinked, and teetered around some more, eventually realizing that she was not alone. A few others were around her, wobbling just as badly. She focused her eyes forward at one of them in particular. Was that Mateo? Yes, it was. “Matt!”
“Olimpia?” Mateo questioned, trying to clarify his own eyesight too. “Are we down on the planet?”
“We’re on a mountain.” A man had managed to stagger a few meters away, and was looking over the edge. This did look like a mountain. Below them was the ground, and beyond that, the open ocean.
“Careful, dude,” another guy said. “Wouldn’t want you tumblin’ over.”
“Wouldn’t you?” a woman asked accusatorily.
“Bhulan?”
“Do I know you?” she asked.
“It’s Mateo. Mateo Matic?”
“We haven’t met yet.”
“Well, maybe this is why you hate me in your future.”
“Maybe,” Bhulan acknowledged coldly.
“Do you remember me?” the other guy who Bhulan didn’t seem to like asked.
Mateo took a few deep breaths, and studied his face. “Tau-something. You tried to kill my friends.”
“Bingo. Tauno Nyland...at your service.” He extended his arms, and took a bow.
“Arqut Grieves,” the man who realized where they were announced, “in case anyone wanted to know.”
“Utari Kiswana,” a woman introduced herself.
“Olimpia Sangster.”
A man appeared from the trailing leading down the side of the mountain. “And I am Buddha Maestri!” He walked up to them with a big smile on his face.
“You look like you’re in charge,” Tauno assumed.
“Did you say Buddha?”
“Yes, I did, and I don’t want any complaints about it. The original Buddha was enlightened and powerful; I’m enlightened and powerful. I don’t see the problem, and I don’t care if it offends you. Ya know, that wasn’t his real name either, right? He gave it to himself so everyone would instantly know how important he was.”
“That is..not how that happened,” Olimpia argued.
“I’ve seen you before,” Bhulan said to him. “Not directly, but I’ve seen your effect on the timeline. Honestly, I thought I had negated your existence with a few moves.”
“Uh, uh, life...finds a way,” Buddha replied in the worst impression of Jeff Goldblum anyone had ever heard.
She could not bring herself to accept Buddha as his name. They would probably never learn what his real name was, but it was likely something embarrassing, like Drumpf. She would just have to come up with an alternative herself. She thought about it for entirely too long before it hit her. “Whatever, Buddy.”
“Buddha,” he corrected in an unplaceable accent that was just as offensive as the name he had co-opted.
“Why are we here?” Arqut asked impatiently.
“You don’t know this place?” Buddy asked, gesturing all around. “This is Moku Hoku...Star Island.”
“I know this one,” Tauno jumped in. “Artificial paradise island. Yeah, they pulled magma up from an underwater volcano, and built the whole thing on top of it from scratch. Those narrow beach spokes down there give thousands of people ocean views from their little minimalistic bungalows. Plus they have apartments, resorts, and mountainside homes. It has all sorts of activities, like rock climbing, surfing, hiking. Life’s good here, I hear. Not my style. Not my time.”
“Thanks, Tauno,” Bhulan said sarcastically, even though it was pretty helpful to know that. “Why are we here, Buddy?” Yay, the name was catching on!
Buddy seethed at hearing it once more, but knew that his anger was what the bullies were going for. “You’re here because I call you...The Reality Makers.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Mateo admitted.
“You don’t? Think about it,” Buddy continued. “You killed a man, and a new reality sprouted from it. They called it The Parallel?”
“Yeah, I remember, but I wouldn’t say that—wait,” Mateo interrupted himself. He had never really thought of himself as having made a reality. It was just a consequence of him trying to stop an event in the past that could not be changed without causing a paradox. To prevent it, time generated a parallel reality to sit next to the main sequence. “Well, okay, but...” He trailed off, and looked around. “But that would mean...”
Bhulan exhaled dramatically. “I made the Third Rail. When I tried to destroy the hundemarke, it created a world without time travel.”
“Exactly,” Buddy confirmed.
“Tauno, what did you do?” Mateo asked.
“I made the Fourth Quadrant. I did it on purpose. It remains my greatest accomplishment to this day.”
Mateo looked over at Olimpia. “You made the Sixth Key.”
Olimpia shrunk into herself. She too had never thought of it like that. She was there when it was created, but she didn’t realize that she had actually created it herself. Was that true? It couldn’t be. She didn’t have that kind of power. Right?
“You’ve been quiet. Uhh...Utari, was it?”
“I made the Fifth Division,” she acknowledged. “I wasn’t really trying too. I was trying to fix the past, but it would have meant preventing The Gallery Dimension from existing, and apparently, that wasn’t possible.”
Now everyone directed their attention to Arqut, who was the most confused of all. “Unless something crazy happens in my future, and you took me from the wrong point in time, I have never come close to ever creating anything even somewhat resembling an entire reality. I’m just a guy on a ship.”
“You’re the Superintendent, aren’t you?” Buddy suggested. “You created the main sequence. You’re ultimately responsible for all of the realities.”
Arqut slapped himself in the face, and slid his hand down, almost pulling his eyes, nose, and mouth off. “I’m not The Superintendent. I served as a superintendent for the Void Migration Ship Extremus. It was my job to manage the personnel for both the crew, and the civilian government. I don’t have time magic.”
Buddy was taken aback, but not upset. “Oh. I guess my intel’s a bit off. Even gods are wrong sometimes, aren’t they, eh?” He gently elbowed Bhulan in the arm.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Even if Mr. Grieves were one of us in this regard,” Mateo began, “why would we all be here now? What do you want?”
Buddy started to pace around them with his hands behind his back to try to give off this air of intelligence and self-confidence. “You six...” He glared over at Arqut. “I mean, you five broke the rules. You forced time itself to flow in a new direction. You challenged the status quo, and you won!” he exclaimed in a breathy voice, like an overzealous sports team coach. “I need your juice! So I can get the juice!” He stuck his hand up in the air, activating a holographic image. It appeared to be a fruit, but it was nothing like they had seen before. It was as if an octopus had made a baby with a lemon.
Bhulan’s gaze darted back and forth between the hologram and Buddy’s face. “Are we supposed to know what you’re talking about?”
“It’s called the Buddha’s hand citron. It went extinct over a hundred years ago, and I would like to restore it to its glory. It is a symbol of my power—of my divine right. I must have it back!”
“You’re obviously a time traveler of some kind,” Olimpia pointed out. “Couldn’t you just go back and get it?”
“Citrus doesn’t travel through time, you idiot!”
“Watch your mouth when you’re talking to my girlfriend,” Mateo warned. “I will hit you so hard, juicing will be the only way you’ll ever be able to eat.”
“Girlfriend?” Olimpia asked, shocked.
“Yeah, hasn’t that happened to you yet?” Mateo asked in an awkward mutter. “I guess I don’t know when exactly you came here...”
“No, it has, but we never defined the relationship—” she muttered back.
“Enough!” Buddy cried. “Let me explain. Yes, I could travel back in time, and I could eat all the native citrus I want. But that’s not what I’m asking of you. I’m asking for you to use your power to change the rules.” He pointed at the ground. “I want it here. I want it now.”
“You seem like the kind of guy who wants everything, and is too impotent to do anything about it himself.”
“What did you just say, bitch?” He bull-charged her, and no one else was close enough to stop him.
Mateo instinctively reached out his hands, and something did happen. Buddy’s fruit hologram stopped hovering over his hand, and bonked him right in the face. He was too shocked to react with anything but paralysis and silence.
“Yeah, boiiiiiiiiiiiii!” Olimpia shouted. “I love it when you do that!”
“You’ve seen that before?” Mateo asked her. “What the hell just happened?”
“I’m from a few minutes in your future, depending on how long it takes you to get back to the Ambassador. I still don’t know how it works, though.”
Buddy managed to break out of his trance. He started to stare Mateo down. “You can throw as many holo-fruits at me you want. You will do what I asked.” He started to charge again, but this time for Mateo.
“I don’t think so.” Tauno Nyland waved his arms, transporting them all to some other dimension, or whatever.
They could still see Buddy there on the mountain, but based on how he was looking around, he couldn’t see them. The normal humans were also having a little trouble breathing. It wasn’t life threatening, but this realm wasn’t perfectly suited for life. Mateo and Olimpia pulled their breathing straws out of their suits, and started to share them between Arqut, Bhulan, and Utari. Tauno would have to fend for himself. He could evidently take them anywhere else whenever he wanted.
Meanwhile, back in the main dimension, they could see and hear Buddy cackling like an evil witch. He raised both hands, and started revolving them like he was holding invisible lassos. Dark particles danced away from his skin. At the same time, they overcame the six of them just like they had before, spun them around, and returned them to the mountain. “I’m sorry, did you think that you could leave?”
Utari of the Fifth Division had been rather quiet this whole time, but now she was ready to speak. She menacingly approached Buddy, who laughed at her dismissively. “I don’t know what these people can do, but I assure you that you don’t know what I can do. I am a metachooser. However your time power works, I will turn it on you. You will spin for hours with no respite, or if I so choose, for days until you succumb to thirst. What the history books probably don’t tell you is that I didn’t technically send anyone through time to create the Fifth Division. Someone else was trying to go back home to the Gallery, and I couldn’t let that happen. So I pushed back, and they didn’t survive the battle. If you want your special little citron, we can discuss options, but you won’t be hurting anyone, and you’ll be doing it on my terms. I’m in charge now. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Buddy was terrified.
“Oh, and by the way, Buddha’s hand contains no juice or pulp...you moron.”
He just nodded respectfully.
“Great!” Utari immediately flipped on a fake smile. “With the unpleasantries over, I’m interested in a tour of this island, and maybe a meal. Is anyone else hungry?”

Saturday, November 2, 2024

Extremus: Year 88

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For her first year as Captain, Tinaya lived with a lot of anxiety. It was eating her up from the inside. She was keeping so many secrets, and she just wanted to forget everything. She used to be grateful that at least she wasn’t dealing with a bunch of other tangible problems. Omega and the Verdemusians were protecting them from the war, leaving the Extremus free to continue on its journey. The crew and passengers were getting along, and there weren’t any major crises to solve. Her therapist would say that if she were working through those kinds of captainly issues, she probably wouldn’t have much space in her brain for anxiety, and that might be true. Whatever the case, all of that disappeared the day that her husband, Arqut did. Tinaya didn’t see it herself, but one person happened to be in the corridor with him at the time. He didn’t just blink away, which is the most common form of temporal or spatial travel. No, if he had done that, then the witness probably would have just assumed that he had gone away on purpose.
The way the passerby described it, Arqut was looking rather sweaty. Then he started spinning around like there was a bug on his back, and he was trying to get ahead of it. The witness apparently tried to reach out to help, but missed his opportunity when the spinning seemed to start to happen on its own. He vanished in a haze of dark particles, which gradually faded within seconds. Current temporal engineer Sabine Lebeau had never heard of anything like that before, and it wasn’t in any database that she could find. The uncertainty scared Tinaya more than anything. This was no accident. Someone wanted Arqut, and for the last three months, had yet to return him to her. Unfortunately, her means of investigating were severely limited.
Most people on the ship could not know that he was missing. He disappeared once before, but that was in pursuit of getting Tinaya back. If she admitted that this time was not a planned departure, it would raise too many questions. Only a few people were allowed to know what was going on, and were sworn to secrecy. The witness agreed to his silence in exchange for a minimum on his contribution score. Basically, no matter what he did now, his score would never go below a certain threshold. It was a small price to pay, as long as he didn’t try to use this advantage to become a serial killer, or something. But even if he did, no deal with the captain would protect him from retribution. After that matter was settled, she started to work through the investigation, mostly on her own, though she couldn’t let it interfere with her regular duties either. That would raise questions too. But she wasn’t completely hopeless. She couldn’t make a big fuss about it publicly, or risk other truths coming to light, but there were still ways to conduct this investigation both vigorously and quietly at the same time. She made a list of suspects, and started running down every lead. She started by accusing the Bridgers of having something to do with it, but they denied it, and even let her return to the Bridger section to see for herself. He wasn’t there, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t show up in the future, or hell, the past.
Today is not a good day, though. All of her leads have dried up. She has no one left to talk to, no test left to try. He could be lost forever. It’s worse than it was when she was the one trapped on the outpost planet. She knew where she was, and she knew where Arqut was. The uncertainty; what could she do to remedy that? She’s supposed to be discussing her problems with her therapist at the moment, but instead, she’s retching into the toilet in her stateroom.
How are you doing, Tinaya?” Most people would not be able to just start talking to her like that without waiting for Tinaya to answer first, but some people have special communications privileges, such as medical staff.
Tinaya spits into the bowl. “I’m fine.”
Come back, I need to talk,” Dr. Lebeau requests. That’s right, another Lebeau. Tinaya would normally use the Executive Psychologist for her personal needs, but Sabine introduced her to her sister in order to enact a sort of loophole. While any therapist would respect patient confidentiality, the EP is obligated to report meeting times to the ship’s council, so they can make sure their captain isn’t isn’t showing signs of not being able to handle this job. A private therapist, on the other hand, is under no such obligation. Tinaya can talk to her all she wants, and do so at their joint convenience. Plus, Virve Lebeau already knows many secrets that not even the EP does.
“I’m a little busy.” She spits again.
I can tell. I can help.
“Fine, one second.” Tinaya flushes the toilet, and washes her face. Then she teleports back to Dr. Lebeau’s office. “What is it?”
Dr. Lebeau is holding her watch between her thumb and index finger.
“It’s your watch. Okay, are you scolding me for wasting your time? I’m sorry, next time I’ll use your bathroom, and talk to you about my feelings in between forcing last night’s dinner out of my stomach.”
“No, it’s not about that, Captain.” Dr. Lebeau walks forward, and drapes the watch over her opposite backhand, as if presenting it as a prize for a gameshow. “See these little dots under here?”
Tinaya is confused. “Uh, yeah, those are for blood tests. They spring microneedles to take samples on the fly. Why are you asking me about them?”
“These are necessary when the user doesn’t have any sort of medical implant that could test twenty-four-seven,” Dr. Lebeau goes on. “Obviously, though, you can’t program the watch to poke you whenever it wants. You have to tell it to do it. You have to decide when you’re ready for an update.”
“Are you saying that I have a virus, and I should test myself for it?” She’s still so confused. “Okay, I’ll find out. I think it’s just acid reflux, though. Stress-induced, I’m sure; we can talk about that, if you want.”
“Not a virus. I think you’re pregnant.”
Tinaya chuckles. Then she does it again, but louder. She manages to stop at that, though. “What? I can’t be pregnant, I’m in my sixties!”
“Did you ever go through menopause?” Dr. Lebeau questions.
“I think so.” This isn’t a dumb answer. Thanks to advances in medical science over the centuries, menopause still happens for those who were ever biologically capable of birthing young, but it’s far less pronounced than it was for ancient humans. The same is true for pregnancy and the menstrual cycle as a whole. These conditions are not nearly as uncomfortable as they were back in the day. It’s not that uncommon for people who lived particularly physically rough lives to not even notice that menopause has come and gone for them. If they’ve ever been on advanced chemical or implantable birth control too, it’s really easy to lose track of the cycle due to persistent interference in the body’s natural scheduling.
Dr. Lebeau raises her eyebrows, and looks down at Tinaya’s own watch.
“Y...you want me to test right now? Fine.” She swipes the screen to the appropriate menu, and releases the microneedles. Once it’s done, she self-assuredly bobbles her head a little bit while they wait for the results. After the beep, she takes one look at it, and shows it to the doctor. “See? Look. Pregnant. Pregnant? Fuck.”
“Congratulations,” Dr. Lebeau says to her, rather unconvincingly, one might add.
“I can’t be pregnant.”
“You can. You receive some of the best medical care in the galaxy. Many don’t experience the change until their seventies. You don’t read that in the reports.”
“Virve, I can’t be pregnant. The Captain. Can’t. Be pregnant!”
“There’s no law that says a sitting captain can’t be pregnant. It’s just never happened before,” Dr. Lebeau reminds her.
“For good reason. It splits attention. I must be fully committed to the operations of this vessel, and the safety of its crew and passengers. That is literally my only job.”
“If that’s how you feel about it—”
“I can’t have an abortion either. It’s not illegal, of course, but it’s...unbecoming.”
“Sounds like you’re in a tough spot. I can help you through it, but you have to be willing to explore all options. And you have to be patient, with me, and yourself.”
“Those are my only two options. I mean, what the hell else am I gonna do?” She starts to pace the room. “And yeah, I know, I could put it up for adoption, but that would be scandalous too. That kid will grow up knowing that its mother was just too busy for it, not that she was genuinely incapable of caring for a child. Adoption doesn’t hardly ever happen here, because nobody dies before they’re old! And they don’t have kids after they become old, because that’s nuts! I mean, if Arqut were here, maybe we could make it work together. He could take care of the baby, and even when I’m there, I would be able to teleport at a moment’s notice when duty calls, and I could always argue that that’s an option when anyone tries to criticize me for going through with the pregnancy. But is that enough anyway? Because it’s not just about the perception that my priorities are split. It’s about them actually being split. How can I look out for everyone on the ship, when there are only two people I truly care about? Then again, I am the only Captain who has ever been married at all, so that’s always been a lingering criticism, even though I’ve never heard anyone say that to me, I’m sure that plenty of people feel that way. And now he’s missing, and I can’t even tell anyone about it. I have to claim that he’s on a new mission. But then once people find out that I’m captaining for two, they’re gonna wonder why the father of my child hasn’t come back for his family. Then some are gonna realize the possibility that he’s not the father at all, and there will be a cheating scandal that isn’t even true, but do you think people even care about the truth anymore? That’s all we’ve been talking about; perception, and there’s nothing I can do about that. And either way, this whole thing is gonna get people wondering where Arqut has been this whole time, and they’ll start asking questions, and they’ll all find out that he’s missing, and that we’re been course correcting for decades, and that Verdemus wasn’t destroyed, and why aren’t you trying to call me down!”
“I think you need this outburst,” Dr. Lebeau explains. “It sounds cathartic.”
“Well...” She starts, prepared to argue. “I think you’re right, I appreciate it.”
Captain?” Tinaya’s First Lieutenant asks through her watch.
“What is it, Faiyaz?”
It’s Arqut. He’s back.

Friday, November 1, 2024

Microstory 2270: This Global Investigation

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It’s been all over the news, so I’m sure you’ve already heard about it, but I’ll tell you what’s going on from our perspective. Nick has been abducted. Those men in suits who showed up on our doorstep, and gave our personal security team their credentials, were not affiliated with any government branch. Though don’t blame our security, because the authorities are about 90% sure that these were not random amateurs who got drunk one night, and decided to try for some ransom money. They’re highly trained professionals who probably used to have the credentials, so they know how to make fakes, or something similar. That is currently the most promising lead, hunting down military vets who were dishonorably discharged, or even missing in action. Everyone is doing everything they can, and they will catch these assholes, sooner or later. We do not presently know the motive, but we’re guessing that it’s political. They don’t want Nick to meet with the President, or vice versa. It can’t possibly be that they’re trying to turn him into a double agent, or something, right? I mean, I seriously doubt that the DPA is going to let the meeting move forward now anyway. No, they want something that Nick can offer today. We have to figure out what that is, and use that information to determine who wants that, and where they’re holding him. The frustrating thing is that he could be on the other side of the world by now. They took him so early in the morning, and it was hours before anyone knew that anything was wrong. We thought that it was above board. They knew things. They knew things about the plan, which probably means that this is an inside job, and at least one person still working in the right position in the government is feeding them the info. That’s another angle that will help the agencies find who is responsible for this travesty. We’re going to get our man back, and those who did this to him will pay for it. Governments from other countries are even reportedly cooperating with this global investigation. If the perpetrators manage to find anywhere to hide, it won’t do them good for long. [This post has been officially approved by the Diplomatic Protection Authority for posting and lawful redistribution.]

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Microstory 2269: Until Tomorrow

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It’s Kelly, filling in for Nick just for today. He’s fine, but the DPA had to spirit him away. They won’t tell us anything about it for obvious reasons, but they promise that they’ll have him back tonight. Once he returns, he won’t be able to say anything about it—they were clear about that. My guess is that they want him to answer questions in preparation for his meeting with the President next week. We’re worried, but his primary bodyguard went with him. I feel much more comfortable knowing that he’s not alone. Since he doesn’t have a background on this planet, I suppose this is the best way to assess his intentions. Or maybe they do this sort of thing for everyone. I really couldn’t say. Until tomorrow!

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Microstory 2268: Change is My Status Quo

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Welp, yesterday, while you thought all I was thinking about was my meeting with the President, I was actually out doing volunteer work. I was once again rolling up my sleeves, and building houses with Homes for Humankind. I didn’t tell anyone that I was going to do that, because I didn’t want there to be yet another media frenzy, and I’m happy to report that it worked. I put in the work with everyone else, and for hours, didn’t have to worry about all these threats to my life. My security team was there, but instead of standing around in suits and sunglasses, they wore regular clothes, and volunteered too. All of the other volunteers knew who I was, and who my friends were, but they didn’t give me any crap about it. They didn’t give me preferential treatment, or ask me a bunch of questions. Everyone has a story, and it was nice to listen to other people’s, instead of thinking about my own. Some of them really understand a desire for anonymity, so no one leaked information. Still. I feel lucky that we never got caught. Wow, saying that, it makes it sound like I was doing something wrong. This is stressing me out, seeing threats at every turn. I don’t know that I’ll be able to pull it off again. Is that part of my life just over? Will I never be able to just go out and contribute to my community without it ending up on the news, or having to avoid that by going in disguise? Kelly says that I should accept that my life is different than it used to be, and pointed out that change is my status quo. She’s probably right. I’ve complained about rich people only helping others by donating money, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe that’s all I really can do without simultaneously shifting focus to me instead of the cause.