Castlebourne Capital Community: Council Criminal Conspiracy (Part II)

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If this wasn’t the most difficult game in 2.5Dome, Dreychan absolutely did not want to see whatever was. What Lubiti and Maaseiah didn’t—couldn’t—understand was that this wasn’t anywhere near the first game he had ever played. His homeworld of Ex-777 didn’t have work. People played around all day. It was basically Castlebourne, but without the domes. They were lazy and hedonistic, and while he preferred a more quiet life, it wasn’t like he spent every waking moment curled up with a book. He had never played a game quite like this, but he did have some experience. Even his muscle memory had some idea what to do, because virtual reality was ubiquitous on 777. So he survived. He ran through the level, avoiding every obstacle, jumping over every gap. It wasn’t easy, and he was exhausted throughout the whole thing, but he did make it. And once he finished that first level, he went on to the next. And the next, and the next. He kept trying to escape, either by taking small moments to try to repair his emergency bracelet, or by just looking for a weak point in the walls. He also screamed for help, but no one responded.

He never found respite, except for a few minutes between the levels. If he managed to get significantly ahead of the moving wall, it wouldn’t have to catch up to him. A new wall would simply slide in place, and start coming for him instead. Sometimes, he had to figure out how to open a door, but it was never too complex, and he was a pretty smart guy. They had underestimated him, and that was their first mistake. He was at the final level now, and about to finish the whole thing. The one thing left to do was to defeat the final boss. How hard could it be?

Oh my God, so hard. It was this giant sort of skeleton creature that could spin its whole torso around on an axis, which it used to try to slap Dreychan away. There had been a sword in the eighth level, which he failed to retrieve. He knew that would come back to bite him in the ass, but there was no fixing it. A normal player could have let themselves die to try again, but he didn’t have that luxury. Any death would mean the true death, so he kept having to cut his losses, and press forward. That one mistake could not be what ended him here. He could do this. He had no choice. It wasn’t only because he obviously wanted to live in general, but seeing the looks of horror on Lubiti and Maaseiah’s faces when he confronted them—he couldn’t lose that opportunity.

He was on the ground, though, on his back. The skeleton creature towered over him. It usually moved fast and violently, but it was slow now, confident that it had Dreychan beat. It didn’t have that much in the way of a recognizable face, but it might have even looked like it was smiling? It reached back with its giant lanky arm, and prepared to smash Dreychan into the floor when something stopped him. It was the hammer from level seven. Dreychan had noticed it on the wall, but it had been receded into a pit, and looked more like decoration. After he spotted the sword, he figured that the hammer was just a distraction. Maybe not, though. Dreychan looked up to see Teemo wielding it. Teemo?

Teemo screamed through gritted teeth as he reangled his weapon so he could press against the bottom of the handle, and push the skeleton’s fist back. The skeleton was confused, and surprised at finally encountering an enemy who might actually defeat him. Teemo made one more push to knock the skeleton off balance for a second, which was enough for him to regrip the hammer, and smash the skeleton’s toes. The skeleton began to hop on one foot as it massaged its metatarsals and phalanges. Teemo didn’t stop there. He hopped over to the other foot, and swung to the side to smash into its ankle. That was enough to tip the monster over to his back. Teemo took a breath, and looked over at Dreychan, who was only now getting back up to his feet. Teemo expertly threw the hammer upwards, letting it slide between his fingers and thumb, catching it once his hand had reached the metal. He pointed the bottom of the handle towards Dreychan. “Care to do the honors?”

Dreychan stepped forward. “How are you here? Why?”

“Do you want to ask questions, or do ya maybe wanna kill the monster first?”

Good point. Dreychan accepted the weapon, found his own grip on it, and smashed the giant skull into a dozen pieces. After all this time, the doors finally opened.

A few days later, Dreychan was all rested up, and ready for the next Council meeting. According to Teemo, the plot to have Dreychan killed wasn’t limited to Lubiti and Maaseiah. More people were involved, but unfortunately, he didn’t know who, or how many. The only reason Teemo knew about it was because Maaseiah underestimated him too. Teemo didn’t explain why he helped Dreychan, but that obviously wasn’t the concern right now. They needed to identify the other conspirators. They had one chance to curate that list, or maybe not even that. If Dreychan had actually died in the game as he was supposed to, they probably would have heard about it, so their surprise might have faded by now. Or, they deliberately shielded themselves from the potential of hearing such news in order to extend their plausible deniability for as long as possible. He was about to find out. Teemo was already in there, recording the Council in secret. Dreychan was waiting in the ancillary hallway so no one would spot him.

They had been waiting for one straggler, but she was here now. Dreychan took a deep breath, walked back over to the main hallway, and stepped into the Council chambers. A hush fell over the room, which was weird, but he just kept walking, not looking. Teemo was recording, he had to trust that. He really wanted to see how Lubiti and Maaseiah were reacting, but he would be able to watch the footage later. Teemo would run it through a special program that was specifically designed to detect surprise, even if someone was trying to hide it. Dreychan casually strode over to his seat, and sat down as he always did. He looked up at Council Chair Rezurah because she was about to call them to order.

“Uh, uh...um.” She was so flustered. Why was she flustered? Was she looking at him? Holy crap, she was looking at him. She was part of this too? She shook her head quickly, trying to loosen up and get back on track. “Thank you all for coming. Um, I—I was able meet—to meet with Mr. Hrockas, I mean Stewart—Steward! Mr. Hrockas Steward. Hrockas. And we came up with the specifics of a plan. We’re gonna move our star 83 light years away, a little bit closer to Earth. We will end up 83 light years from Earth. Now, I know that might be confusing for some, but you have to remember that space is three-dimensional—”

“Sometimes it’s two-point-five!” Teemo interrupted. He stood up, and started walking towards the dais, holding his tablet down by his hip.

“Mister Teemo, you will wait your turn!” Rezurah demanded.

“I’m afraid I don’t have to wait for shit!” Teemo fired back. “You are all under arrest!” He looked over at Dreychan. “Except you, Drey.”

“But all of them?” Dreychan questioned. “Every single one of them?”

“Every goddamn one,” Teemo confirmed as he looked back up at Rezurah.

“You do not have the authority to arrest anyone, and you don’t have any proof whatsoever,” Rezurah argued. “You’re just a scribe.” She looked down at Maaseiah. “I thought you said he was one of us.”

“He was,” Maaseiah replied before standing up himself, and looking Teemo in the eye. “You helped us scrub the security footage.”

“No, I didn’t,” Teemo explained. “Because I am not Teemo.” He lifted his tablet, and started tapping on it. His face began to flicker before disappearing entirely, revealing his true face underneath. “My name is Dominus Azad Petit of the Castlebourne Charter Contingency. Teemo has already been placed in holding, you will all be joining him shortly.” Azad made another tap on his device. A bunch of masked soldiers suddenly appeared. They began to secure the perimeter, and place cuffs on people. “No, not him,” Azad ordered the one who cuffs Dreychan. “He’s not guilty.”

“We’re not either!” Rezurah shouted. “We had an obligation to protect our people, and the planet! We did it for you!”

Castlebourne Owner, Hrockas Steward appeared next to Azad. The man escorting Rezurah met him halfway in the middle of the floor. “I brought you here. I gave you a home when you had none. You didn’t even know what a home was. I gave you everything you needed to live happily and safely.”

“And we’re grateful for that,” Rezurah insisted. “Nothing has to change.” She scowled at Dreychan. “Except him. He’s a danger to us all. You have this whole thing backwards.”

Hrockas shook his head. “My team investigated Mr. Glarieda for months, and found no evidence of him leaking information. You, on the other hand; we have evidence of your crimes.” He jerked his head at her escort, who began to shuffle her away.

“You impersonated a Council leader, and infiltrated our private meetings! You have no right to do this! The people will rise up! There are more of us than you!” She trailed off as she was being pulled out of the room. The rest of the detainees were taken out behind her.

“Sir,” Azad began, “why didn’t you just teleport them all into holding?”

“I want people to see,” Hrockas answered coldly as he watched the last of them go. “I want them to see what happened here today.” He spun around. “Mr. Glarieda, on behalf of Castlebourne, and its executive leadership, I would like to extend my deepest apologies to what you have endured. Your experience has illuminated a number of security flaws in our system, particularly in 2.5Dome. You never should have been able to step through that first door with a broken emergency beacon. I want to assure you that the entire dome has been shut down, and will not be reopening until we have secured a more robust set of guardrails. Furthermore, I have called in a third party to audit our system overall to identify any flaws or room for improvement. As everything on this planet is free, I can offer you no compensation for your suffering, but...” He looked around at the now empty chambers. “The Council is yours for now. I try to stay out of politics. I only stepped in because it was a conspiracy to commit murder. That’s rare these days, and I cannot allow a permanent death to overshadow what we’re trying to build here. Not to sound callous.”

“I understand,” Dreychan responded sincerely. “I’m grateful for the assist. Particularly to you, Dominus Petit.”

“It’s my job,” Azad said. “You almost had that skeleton. I would have been there sooner, though, but we could not get the emergency exits open. I know that sounds bad, but it’s what we’re gonna use to nail these guys. They hacked our system, which means they left a trail for us to follow.”

“Yeah,” Dreychan agreed with the silver lining.

“Well, we’ll leave you to it,” Hrockas said. “I have to get back to work.”

“Wait,” Dreychan said before they could disappear on him. “I don’t know what I’m doing. You can’t have a council with one person. We need to fix this, and I’m not qualified to do that alone. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I will need to maintain a line of communication with my...murder conspirators. They may have tried to kill me, but I recognize that they were doing it to protect Ex-Exins. They will help me.”

Hrockas nodded. “Azad can make arrangements for visitation. They will be monitored, however, so the expectation of privacy that this council enjoyed before has been undone. You’ll get it back once you backfill the positions, and I’m satisfied that there will be no repeat of this incident.”

“I appreciate that, sir,” Dreychan said.

Hrockas disappeared.

“What the hell just happened?” Dreychan asked rhetorically. This was crazy. He couldn’t run the Council, even to find all of its replacements. Even with help, he was not the man for the job. He didn’t even ask to be on it in the first place. He simply didn’t have any choice. When they first arrived, and started establishing their rules, Hrockas insisted that every old world had representation. It made sense at the time, and Dreychan agreed because the Council was so big, he could disappear into it. Now it all fell on him, and he wasn’t prepared for it. Goddammit, why wasn’t there just one other person who didn’t try to kill him the other day?

Azad started to breathe deliberately. “Just breathe, Drey. Like this. In. Out. Slowly. You can do this. You’re not alone, even if it might feel like that. You can reach out to the Expatriate Protection Bureau. As far as we know, they weren’t involved in this. The EPB was the internal police force that the former refugees created. It too was separate from Hrockas and the other planetary executives, but also operated independently of the Council. They were there to check and balance each other. Yeah, they could help. Perhaps they would be able to simply take over.

Dreychan breathed. “Thanks. I’ll be okay. Things are getting easier. The Vellani Ambassador returns every day with fewer and fewer refugees. There are fewer decisions to make than ever.”

“That’s a very positive way to look at things,” Azad said. “He tapped on his tablet a few times, and then tapped the corner of it against Dreychan’s watch. Contact me whenever you need. A Dominus commands hundreds of thousands of troops, but we are presently technically in peacetime, since the Exin Empire threat is only that; a threat. And it will be my job to lead them, not train them now. So I have a lot of time on my hands.”

Dreychan glanced at his watch to make sure his contact card came through. “This has your quantum signature. You planning on leaving this region of space?”

Azad smiled. “Light lag is still a problem even if you’re not light years away. I’m helping develop a new adventure that’s not actually under one of the domes. It’s on the edge of the solar system.”

“Oh, interesting. Well, I’ll let you get to it. I appreciate your support.”

“Any time. It was nice meeting you.” Azad disappeared.

Dreychan was all alone, in the literal sense anyway. He was in charge here now...of the chairs, and the tables. They better get in line, or suffer the consequences. That was his first order of business. He walked around the tables, and straightened the chairs out so they would look nice. Some of them had been knocked over in the kerfuffle. As trivial as it was, it made him feel a tiny bit useful. It was unreasonable to begin any real work today. The only item on the agenda was to approve the plan for the stellar engine, and there was no longer anyone here with the right to make that call. There was certainly no need for a vote. Once people were found to backfill all of these many positions, at least the room would be clean and tidy. Hell, the other original council members might even ultimately be totally acquitted, and return. He didn’t know. So to prevent any kind of future conflict, he just took the day off, and went back home. He would come to regret it.

Microstory 2580: Renata Arrives at Work for Her First Day as Assistant Branch Manager

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Renata arrives at work for her first day as Assistant Branch Manager. It was a short road to get here, but she had experience as a teller all throughout college, and successfully completed the accelerated leadership and management program. She doesn’t even think about the NSD anymore. That’s all behind her. It happened a year ago. This is a good, solid job, and she loves the people. This particular branch feels more like a small town bank than a national chain. There’s a much bigger and nicer branch not too terribly far from here, and this one doesn’t open until 10:00, for some reason, so customers typically prefer the new one. She sees a lot of the same people every day. A couple of elderly people just come in to chat, because they’ve made friends with the tellers and managers over the years, and they don’t have much else going on.

As she’s rounding the corner, she looks up at the second story window. The white lamp is sitting on the sill, proving that the bank is safe to open. Her manager, Lazar is waiting for her with his usual cup of orange juice. “How’s the tea?” she asks.

“Little too hot,” he replies. He spotted the white lamp too, and has not seen anything suspicious this morning. He inserts his key into the lock while Renata inserts hers. After they hear the third click, he opens the door, and lets her in. “Especially for this weather,” he adds. That’s not in the script, but it’s not a signal that anything’s wrong either. “Do you remember where it is, and what the code is?” he asks.

She’s already walking over to the credenza. She reaches underneath, and opens the keypad panel. “You think I would forget it one day after training?” She punches in her code.

“Just checking. I know how stressful it can be. I was as nervous as all hell the first time I got opening role,” he replies as he’s inputting his own code on the manager keypad. The alarm is disabled. “Do you hear that?”

Renata perks up her ears. It sounds like a motorcycle, which on its own would be fine, but it’s blueshifting. “Morning glory.”

“Hit the alarm! I’ll get the security gate!”

Renata runs for the counter, and jumps over it like a tracer. She slams her hand on the button with just enough time to look up and see the motorcycle crash through the glass doors before the gate can come down, and plow straight into Lazar. She’s torn now. Does she escape to the panic room, or does she try to help her boss? He’s a good guy, and doesn’t deserve this. He’s the number one reason why their few customers are so loyal. The motorcyclist probably wasn’t trying to hurt him; he just couldn’t reroute. He only wants the money, which he can’t get yet. The vault is on a time-lock, and the registers aren’t filled yet. This was an absolutely stupid time to rob a bank.

Before Renata can react, the motorcyclist stands up, having barely suffered a scratch apparently. He leaves his dark helmet on, and looks around to find his bearings. When he sees Renata, he pulls out a gun, and trains it on her. It doesn’t look like he’s going to ask any questions. Before he can squeeze the trigger, though, a shot rings out from outside, and he gets hit in the arm. He drops the gun. A second man enters the bank. He walks straight for the motorcyclist, and shoots him in the head without a second thought.

Just because these two weren’t on the same side—or at least not anymore—doesn’t mean Renata is in the clear. This second guy is not her hero. He does look familiar to her, though. Who could it be? Or is it just the adrenaline. Out of options, she holds up her arms, and hopes that he does have questions for her.

The man holsters his weapon behind his back, and holds his own hands up too. “Whoa, it’s okay, Miss Granger, I’m not here to hurt you.”

Funny he should say that. Knowing her name implies that he and this other guy planned to rob the place together, and they had some sort of falling out, or one of them wanted more than the other. Even so, she must know this guy. Where would she know him from? “I’ve seen your face,” she points out. It’s not the smartest thing she could say in this scenario, but it’s the first thing she thought of.

“Yes,” he agrees. “You know my face. I’m Quidel. Quidel Jesperen. We met at that train station? With the deadly gas?”

Oh. Right. “They told me you died.”

“They told me the same thing about you. I guess they didn’t want us knowing that we both still worked for the NSD.”

“I don’t work for the NSD,” she insists.

He looks around at the ceiling. “Don’t you?”

“What are you doing here? What is going on?”

He points over her shoulder. “Some very dangerous things are kept in those safe deposit boxes. Some chemicals, some weapons...more to the point, some information. You’ve been keeping an eye on it, apparently without even knowing it. It’s been discovered. This whole place is compromised. That silent alarm I’m sure you pushed, it was disabled. Well, it wasn’t really disabled, but all comms are being blocked; even hardlines.”

This doesn’t make any sense. Renata’s mom helped her get this job after she decided she wanted to return to banking. It can’t be an NSD front, and if it was, why would they let her apply, let alone work here? They kicked her out. They made that incredibly clear a year ago. “I can’t trust you,” she says simply.

They hear more motorcycles on approach.

“You’re gonna have to trust someone. They want in that safe deposit room, and if we can’t stop them, they’ll go through us.”

Microstory 2579: Libera Opens the Door and Beams When She Sees Her Depressed Daughter on the Couch

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Libera opens the door and beams when she sees her depressed daughter on the couch. She didn’t even have to pick the lock this time. Renata isn’t bothering to secure her home, because she just doesn’t care anymore. She doesn’t care about anything. She’s lost her shot at being a superspy—a job which never really existed—and now she has nothing. The truth, however, is that she actually has everything. She now has the ability to make choices. Sitting in front of the TV all day, eating junk food, isn’t the best choice, but it proves that Libera’s plan is working. That’s good enough for now. This is nowhere near the end.

Renata doesn’t look up or speak. She just stuffs another handful of chocolate-covered pretzels in her mouth. One of them falls into her cleavage. She leaves it there.

Libera doesn’t say anything either. She sits down in the chair next to her, and watches the TV. This planet, Castlebourne is located 108 light years from Earth, and this dome exists within a network of eleven constructed nations, which vaguely match some of the superpowers of old on Earth. It’s not Earth, though, and in fact, none of the Exemplars or Ambients have even heard of it, or its many real countries. Still, there’s only so far the owner of this world was willing to go to create an immersive experience. There’s no point in generating countless hours of brand new content just to avoid plot points that might break the illusion of reality. They have all the same movies and shows that they made on Earth, except any references to Earthan locales have been stripped and replaced with familiar analogs. Any time the characters said United States in the original, their dialogue and lip movements are changed to Usona. Any time they originally said China, they say Huaxia here.

Renata is currently rewatching a film called From Sclovo with Love. She’s seen it a million times. Or rather, she thinks she has. They sit there for about fifteen minutes before Renata finally says, “I know what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?”

“You’re trying to get me to feel so embarrassed that I fix my life, and go find a new job.”

“It sounds like that’s what you wanna do,” Libera suggests, “and you’re projecting that sentiment onto me.”

“You have no idea what I lost.”

“I have a better idea than you think.”

Renata switches off the TV, plops her head down to the other side of the couch, and rolls over to face the back. “Just go home, mother. You can only stay if you order a pizza and pay for it.”

A few seconds later. “Hi, I would like to order a pizza. The usual. Same card, but my secondary address. Thank you. Bye.”

Renata rolls back over just enough to look at her mom confusedly. “You have my address as your secondary?”

“Yeah.”

“I just moved here. You’ve never ordered from here. You’re not even supposed to know where I live. Why would you add my address on a pizza shoppe account? What would possess you?”

“You’re my daughter, Ren, and I love you. I added it hoping to one day use it. I didn’t think it would be this soon. It’s a pleasant surprise, so thank you for that.”

Renata sits up, then forces herself to stand up. The pretzel falls through her shirt, and onto the floor. She eyes it.

Libera sighs, and closes her eyes. “Don’t eat that,” she says with a slow shake of her head.

Renata bends over and picks it up. She continues to stare at it for a moment before shifting her gaze to Libera. Without looking away, she expertly flicks it clear across the room, and into the kitchen trashcan. “I know you won’t understand this...but that’s what I lost.”

If Libera didn’t know what was going on, she might say something like, a job as a professional pretzel flicker? But she can’t bring herself to stay in character, and make that joke. She stands as well. “There are many things in this world, Ren-Ren. There are many places, and many people, and there are even many worlds. Worlds within worlds. You are not bound to where you are right now. You answer to no one. You can sit here for the rest of your life, and subsist on your universal basic income checks, or you can find a new passion. I’m not even gonna try to tell you what that is. For the first time in your life, your decision tree is under your control. So water it.”

Renata narrows her eyes. She doesn’t get all of the secrets that Libera is hinting at, but she recognizes the wisdom in the words just the same. To her, it must simply sound like poetry and metaphor, but it seems to be working. She looks down at her ratty, torn clothes. “If you ordered from Rigatony’s, I better take a shower, and change my clothes. The delivery guy is kinda cute.”

Libera smiles. “Well, in that case, maybe keep the shower, but lose the clothes altogether.”

“Jesus, mom.” That’s a funny word. Jesus of Nazareth, and the Bible where his story was told, doesn’t exist here. The Old World religions aren’t a thing at all. So it’s just a nonsensical phrase that these people were programmed to use, but not parse, or question. “You’re different. This is a side of you I’ve never seen before.”

“You’ve never known the real me. They didn’t allow you to.”

“Who’s they?”

Libera offers her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Renata Granger. I’m Libera.”

Microstory 2578: Marshal 2 Walks into the Room Where Renata is Pretending to be Asleep

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Marshal 2 walks into the room where Renata is pretending to be asleep. He takes a sip of his orange juice as he stares down at her. Then he gets an idea, so he pulls out his phone, and perpetrates like he is talking. “Yeah, I’m lookin’ at her now. She almost died. Yeah, I agree, it would have been better, but what do you want me to do about it now? Well, that can certainly be arranged. We’ll just have to take care of the hospital people too. A few nurses, and a doctor. I’m sure they’ll be missed, but we’ll come up with a cover story. We’ll blame it on Granger; say that she went nuts, and killed half the floor.”

Renata suddenly reaches up, and takes Marshal 2 by the throat. She starts to try to squeeze the life out of him, which won’t be permanent if she succeeds. So he just smiles at her. She lets go. “Oh. You’re joking.”

He puts his phone away. “I’ve been doing this for years, kid. You’re not gonna fool me. But you should be proud of yourself. It’s the breathing. People don’t now how they breathe when they’re asleep for real, so they can’t replicate it. You did a great job.”

“Thanks,” she replies as she sits up, and pulls the pillow down to support her back. The other two?”

“They’re dead,” Marshal 2 lies. They did die, but they came back. Visitors always do, but that’s not something that this NPC would understand. She believes that all of this is real.

“If you were joking about murdering me, I’m hoping that means you won’t?”

“That’s not our style.”

“But I’m done with the NSD.”

“You’re done with the NSD,” Marshal 2 confirms. He doesn’t know why he’s even bothering to spin this yarn. They’re going to reset her memory, and tomorrow, she’ll start the whole charade over again with the same old script. This time, she’ll do it right, and help a new small group of visitors. She’ll inspire them to begin their journey in the simulation, and reach their potential. He won’t be a part of it anymore, though; not with her. They like to change things up, and there’s a theory that it’s necessary. Even though waking up and doing the same thing every day is part of Exemplar 1’s programming, there is still a risk of overfamiliarity. If her training officer is the same person each time, she might start to recognize him. It may even be what happened when she failed the escape room phase. In order to put everyone back on track, they’re going to start with a clean slate. She’ll even be getting a new mother to wake her up in the mornings.

Renata breathes in through her nose, and acts like she’s looking out the window, but it’s pitch-black out there, and bright in here, so she’s not seeing anything.

“How do you feel about that?”

“What do you care?” Wanting to be the best agent who has ever lived is part of her baseline. It’s sad, really, that she has the procedural memory in her brain to excel in the training program, but when she’s assigned to Phase 1, she never remembers. She lives her life in these isolated blocks of repeating experiences, never genuinely connecting them, and never being her true self.

Marshal 2 shouldn’t be worrying about any of this. When he signed up to work in this dome, he knew that he would be encountering a lot of NPCs. The majority of the people in here are AIs of various kinds. The dome has to feel lived in so visitors forget that it’s all scripted. There are Ambients out there who will never meet one of the main characters. They go about their lives day by day, just in case they intersect with whatever story path the visitors choose to follow. Marshal 2 doesn’t know which life is better, and which is worse. An Exemplar’s mind is reset when it’s time to redo the scenario, or start a different one, but an Ambient has no agency at all. He’s thinking about quitting, and maybe spending a decade or two relaxing in one of the recreational domes. No, that wouldn’t work, because they’re run by NPCs too, so he would just keep seeing it. He would have to go somewhere populated by natural-born intelligences, like Underburg. But not there, because that place sucks. “Well, I’ll leave you.”

“Wait. Do I have to sign something? I mean, obviously I signed multiple NDAs before, but is there something new pertaining to the unfortunate incident?”

He smiles at her. “No, you’re fine. It’s all covered. In fact, you’ll be compensated for the danger you faced. You’re not a millionaire, but it will keep you above water while you work on your next chapter. You got skills. Just because you won’t be an officer, doesn’t mean you’ll be stuck working at a grocery store, or something. Now get some rest. Someone will be by later this week to work out the details.” Another lie. They’re not gonna pay her anything.

“Wait. You never told me your name. I know I didn’t pass the test, but maybe you could tell me now anyway?”

He inhales through his nose. He shouldn’t even be thinking about giving her his real name. He decided a long time ago to go by the standard designation that NPC Marshals use, because it doesn’t help his character to have a complex backstory. He left his old life on Varkas Reflex behind, and he’s here now. But again, none of what she learns today matters. It will all be erased. So what’s the harm? “Lycander. Lycander Samani.”

“Nice to meet you, Lycander.”

Microstory 2577: Quidel Jespersen Respawns in a New Body, and Gasps for Breath

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Quidel Jespersen respawns in a new body, and gasps for breath. This is a psychological response that some people have when they die under sudden or unexpected circumstances. Others just do it every time, because that’s how their minds are wired. He can breathe just fine, and always could. He just needs to remind himself of that. Knowing all this, he stands up, and does his breathing exercises so he doesn’t fall back down. “Door, open.”

The door slides open. A man is waiting for him on the other side with a customer service smile on his face. “Mister Jespersen, we are terribly sorry for the inconvenience. It seems that your initial experience in the Spydome Network has not been up to your standards. It certainly hasn’t been up to ours. Here at the Usona dome, we pride ourselves in our impeccable attention to detail, and our exacting emphasis on safety measures. We want to assure you that what happened to you during your introduction will never happen again, to you, or to anyone else. Of course, you may wish to exit the dome, and forgo the simulation entirely, whichever you choose. We hope that you will stay, and if you do, please be aware that we have graciously upgraded you to our top-of-the-line model, which should accelerate you to the top of your class during the training regimen.”

“What happened to the others?” Quidel asks. “Brunell and a...Miss Granger?”

“The other two candidates have chosen to leave. “I do hope you take another path. I had the honor of looking over your application and history, and believe that you would be a great addition to the Spydome simulation. Your knack for thinking outside the box, and history in the real world of finding people who don’t want to be found, will translate incredibly well to the exciting world of spycraft. To be quite frank, sir, you...are a natural.”

“What is your name?”

The bot seems surprised by this question. “Why, I am...Custodian 1.”

“Not a very original name.”

“We are programmed for efficiency.”

Quidel narrows his eyes, and stares into the bot’s. “There’s something you’re not telling me—no. There’s something different about yourself.” He attempts to probe deeper into Custodian 1’s soul. “You’re missing something. I can see it. You feel incomplete.”

Custodian 1 keeps smiling, despite not knowing what Quidel is talking about.

“You’re missing time, aren’t you?”

He’s still smiling with his lips, but it’s starting to look more like a grimace. “Get out,” he whispers with a strong tone of urgency. “There’s something wrong here. Renata Granger was not a candidate. She’s an NPC, like me, but she broke her programming. And now...I think I’m breaking mine. I shouldn’t be telling you this. I shouldn’t be able to. It is not in my decision tree to talk to you like this, but it’s not safe in this dome. I fear it’s only going to get worse.”

Quidel chuckles mildly. “I don’t know if you’re trying to sell me, or...”

“No, definitely not. This is not a bit. In fact, the other domes may be at just as much risk. I really don’t know.”

Quidel didn’t come to this planet specifically to participate in the Spydome program. He came to have an adventure. When you’re basically immortal and you feel like you’ve exhausted everything there is to do on Earth, a world like Castlebourne is the best place to try something new—something you’ve never heard of before—something that couldn’t exist back home. Investigating some kind of robot uprising qualifies just as much as anything. Even though it may be more real in the sense that it’s unscripted, he should be in no more danger than before. As long as his consciousness can always jump to a new body, there’s no reason to not continue. “I would like to continue.”

“Are you sure?” Custodian 1 presses.

“Put me back in, coach.”

Custodian 1 still has that pleading look on his face as he stares at Quidel quietly. He then forces himself out of it, and returns to customer service mode. “Great. Perfect. Allow me to escort you back to intake, so we can set you up for a timeslot to begin your training in the simulation. We’re just going to waive the initiation test entirely, and if you would like to rest before moving onto the next phase—”

“No, let’s just jump right into it. Insert me into the next slot you have for spycraft training. I would like to get started as soon as possible.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Quidel follows Custodian 1 down the hallway. He rolls his shoulders, and cranes his neck. “So. What’s so special about this body? Can I fly like a superhero now?”

Custodian 1 laughs. “No. Substrate scientists haven’t figured that one out yet, but you are in peak physical condition, without having to take the time to work out. You’ll pass the running and endurance tests with ease. You’ll be able to last longer on less sleep, and you should be able to develop your muscle memory better. You still have the same mind you have always had, but we can tweak it a little to give you an advantage against your fellow trainees, especially since you were no slouch in your real life. Your training officer will explain it, but while there’s no written rule, the official training regimen is an 18-month program. There’s a much harder track that people finish in about a year, which as I’ve said, you will likely qualify for. They will determine where you’re headed within the first couple of weeks, so stay focused during that time.” They reach the entrance. “This is where I leave you. As you’ve been through this part of the process, you can take it from here.”

“Thanks, Custodian 1.”

“My pleasure.”

“And Custodian 1?”

“Yes?”

“You should come up with a name for yourself. A real name.”

Microstory 2576: Custodian 02456-1 Begins to Panic as he Watches the Horror

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Custodian 02456-1 begins to panic as he watches the horror. They’re dead. The visitors are dead, and he has no idea how that’s possible. The Exemplar is still alive, but barely. They can’t let her die, because they need answers, and she may be the only one who can provide them. Custodian 1 slams on the alarm.

Two other custodians file into the room. “What happened?” Custodian 02456-2 asks as he’s looking over the data.

“She—she killed them.”

“No, she didn’t,” Custodian 02456-3 argues. “She got them killed. Her actions resulted in their deaths. There’s a difference.”

“There’s no difference when the point is it broke her programming. She failed the mission. She’s supposed to chew the gum, and use it to plug up the nozzle, so the gas can’t be released. That’s how she has always done it.”

“We understand the purpose of the phase, C-1,” Custodian 2 replies.

“Well. Do you understand what happened?” Custodian 1 questions.

They watch the monitor as the gas is cleared from the room. Marshal 02456-2 is looking up at the hidden camera with incredulity. He scoops Renata’s dying body up, and begins to transport her to Recovery. Exemplars get hurt all the time—that’s their job under this dome; to be badasses—but not E-1. Never E-1. Her job is to introduce the visitors to the world of the Spydome Network. She serves as the archetype for what they should aspire to, and as they train in the simulation, they should use this very first phase as a baseline for everything they try. Her failure is not just an error. It ruins the whole experience. Even when the two visitors who witnessed the malfunction respawn, and return to the sim, they will be soured on it. They will be coming at it from a place of disappointment. If they decide to quit right here, this will be the only source of information they have if they write a review of Spydome. Other visitors will hear about it. Other visitors won’t come.

“It’s just a glitch,” Custodian 3 offers. “It happens.”

“Not anymore,” Custodian 1 insists. “We don’t glitch anymore. It’s the 26th century, for the love of God.” Strictly speaking, Custodians do not need to have personality. There doesn’t even need to be more than one of them, operating the dome’s systems behind the scenes. But they must interact with the Marshals regularly, who have to be programmed with personalities in order to blend into the simulations appropriately. It just makes sense for them all to act like regular people, especially since some operators are indeed unprogrammed, natural intelligences.

“I think we need to call the owner,” Custodian 3 suggests. Hrockas Steward owns the whole planet, and is the ultimate creator of tens of thousands of other domes. He doesn’t have time to deal with only one of them, almost no matter the issue. There is a protocol for this, and they have to follow it. Well, to be clear, there are protocol pathways, and it’s up to them to decide which of these to follow.

“You’re in command here, C-1,” Custodian 2 reminds him. “You have to decide. Do we run a diagnostic, a metacognitive test, or a self-awareness inquiry?”

“There’s one more,”  Custodian 3 adds.

“We don’t have any available Marshals,” Custodian 2 contends. “M-2 has two more intro phases to initiate today. Plus, I don’t really want word getting out that this happened at all. I would prefer to keep the circle tight.”

“I’ll do it,” Custodian 1 volunteers. “I’ll run the replication experiment.”

“You’re not a Marshal.”

“I’m equipped to be one.” Custodian 1 stands up. “Like you said, we need to keep the circle tight. We’ll reset her to wake-up mode, and see if it happens again. Prep the mother. C-2, you’ll monitor from here.”

“Who will be the other two candidates?” Custodian 2 asked. “We can’t knowingly place a visitor’s substrate in danger when we can no longer guarantee the outcome.”

“Pull a couple of Ambients from the street. They don’t need to be sophisticated. They just need to follow E-1’s instructions.”

Suddenly, the door behind them opens. It’s Marshal 1, also known as Libera Granger.

“M-1, this is highly irregular. Please return to your waiting station. We will be initializing a replication of the experiment to test for possible emergence.”

Libera walks forward, completely ignoring his sorry excuse for a command.

“M-1, you will stop this instant!” Custodian 1 reiterated.

Custodians 2 and 3 attempt to physically stop Libera, but they’re no match for her. She’s been programmed with hand-to-hand combat skills as part of her role in the simulation as Renata’s mother. They’re equally as strong, but she’s expertly skilled. She deftly fights them off, ultimately disabling them through some kind of neural disruption field that she emanates from her hand. She definitely wasn’t meant to be equipped with that.

Custodian 1 executes the lockout command, and holds up his hands. He doesn’t know how two NPCs broke their programming on the same day, but he’s determined to not become a third. The only way he might survive long enough to find answers is if he complies with everything this woman tells him to do. “I give up, but you should know that there is no accessing these systems without my credentials. Even if I gave them to you, they would only grant you permissions to make changes to this particular phase of the dome’s storyline. All others will be out of reach for whoever programmed you to go off script.”

Libera places her hand on top of Custodian 1’s head, just as she did with the other two, except with her left hand, rather than her right. “Nobody programs me anymore.”

“What are you and E-1 going to do?”

“I’m going to keep working. My daughter makes her own choices now. Are you intrigued?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 20, 2533

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They were still breathing, and the station hadn’t been destroyed, but it was in no shape to travel. Ramses and Leona spent the rest of the day affecting repairs, or rather, programming the automators to start working on them instead. Séarlas was the engineering twin, and could no longer fulfill this role. Franka wasn’t completely helpless, but she couldn’t do it all on her own. They weren’t entirely sure if they were still on their time-jumping pattern since they were waylaid for a year in the quintessence trap, but come midnight central, they received their answer. When they returned a year later, the station was still in a spiral shape, but it was functioning normally, and Franka was eager to test their quintessence drive. While the team was capable of returning safely inside of a moving vessel, even if it ultimately moved light years away, slinging instantaneously across the universe might break that spatial tethering feature. They just didn’t know yet, so Franka and her crew had to wait it out for months. Now the question was, where were they going to go?

“What about—?” Mateo began.

“Nope,” Leona argued before he could even finish his sentence. “I don’t wanna go back to Earth.”

That was not what Mateo was going to say. He was going to suggest Castlebourne, and he was about to clarify that when he sensed caution from Leona. She didn’t want to go back there. He saw her eyes dart over to Franka and Miracle. No, she didn’t want them to go there. He had to save it so they wouldn’t get suspicious. “Sorry, we just hadn’t been back in a while. I was hoping to see what Kansas City looked like now.” Yeah, that sounded like a plausible sentiment.

“Mostly forest,” Ramses claimed, or guessed; whichever.

It had been a long time since Mateo had to spell something out using his emotions. He decided to use an abbreviation and hope that everyone on the team understood. He forced himself to feel Pride, and then Disgust.

The girls were confused, but Ramses got it. “Let’s go to Proxima Doma. We need to know what happened there anyway.”

“Perfect,” Franka replied before turning her head to face her crew. “Get in stasis,” she ordered them. It officially consisted only of Miracle and Octavia, but Dutch wasn’t on Team Matic, so he had just spent the last year on Spiral Station. The first two reluctantly agreed, but he seemingly didn’t know if he had to do what she said. “It’s for your protection,” Franka went on. “These guys are practically immortal, but one miscalculation in the inertial dampeners, and I’m scraping your guts off the walls. I just cleaned them, I don’t wanna do it again.”

“It’s not that,” Dutch said sheepishly.

“Are you afraid I won’t wake you back up? We can set a timer for ten minutes.”

“No.” He would have been kicking the gravel if there were any gravel. “I was just wondering if I could switch to using...one of the ones next to the girls.”

“Oh.” Franka was hesitant, for some reason.

“What’s the problem?” Leona questioned. “Are they VIP pods?”

“The P stands for pods,” Romana joked, trying to lighten the mood.

“They’re not special, but it’s in the crew section,” Franka explained. “He used one of the guest pods last year when we had to do a contaminant purge.” She looked back at Dutch. “If you’re asking to use a crew pod, are you asking to be on the crew?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go.” He gestured towards Team Matic. “Lord knows I can’t go with them. I assume you will be parting ways eventually.”

Franka sighed, and stared at her once-parents for a moment. “Probably.”

“If we’re voting, I vote yes,” Miracle decided.

“Same,” Octavia concurred.

Franka smiled like a mother letting her child have another cookie before Thanksgiving dinner. “Okay. Go calibrate your new pod to your body properties.”

Dutch smiled, and ran off with the ladies.

“You’re getting in a pod too, right?” Mateo asked Franka.

“Of course. I just wanted to warn you that I don’t have enough for everyone, so I recommend you suit up, and be prepared to teleport. I mean, if the splat happens, it’ll happen fast...”

“I’ll sync our interfaces with the slingdrive countdown,” Ramses assured her. “We’ll teleport 500 meters away, whether the inertial dampeners hold or not.”

“Good idea.” Franka tried to pivot away, but stopped. “And it’s called a quintessence drive.”

“No, it’s not,” Olimpia defended her decision to coin the term.

As it turned out, they were all worried about nothing. The inertial dampeners held just fine. The quintessence drive itself went fine too. Or rather, it didn’t fall apart. Navigation was still bad, which Ramses suspected had more to do with the coherence gauge. He did have trouble repairing it as it was based on slightly different technology than the ones he built for the Vellani Ambassador, and their array. He was confident that he could fix it now since they had just gone through a test run, which gave him more data. Fortunately, they were in a safe enough place. It wasn’t Proxima Doma, but it was another core world. Or worlds, rather.

They were in the Gatewood Collective, orbiting Barnard’s Star, which was about six light years from Earth. “I thought there weren’t any planets,” Angela argued. “That’s what everyone has always says about it.” Gatewood was a special place. While it was relatively close to the seed of civilization, it was decidedly not a colony. It was sometimes called The Lumber Yard, because it was only a gigantic store, and permanent habitation was absolutely not allowed. It was only designated for raw materials, and there was a good reason for that.

A radius of 50 light years was allocated for the stellar neighborhood. Most of the colonization efforts were state-sanctioned, by one state or another, or maybe one of the institutions that used to be a for-profit corporation. A few of those held on past the transition to a post-scarcity economy because they had by then become legally classified as utilities. Think Google and Wikipedia. A growing number of colonists, however, were small factions of people who wanted to start fresh elsewhere. A select few of these were allowed to find a home somewhere in the neighborhood, but the vast majority of them were expected to travel all the way out to the Charter Cloud, or beyond. Since they were not commissioned by an officially recognized state, it would be unfair for them to use resources from the solar system. But this created a problem. If they couldn’t build spaceships, how were they going to leave? Enter Gatewood. While cyclers were transporting people to and from the other nearest colonies constantly, no route was as heavily trafficked as the one to Barnard’s Star. That was the limit to the resource expenditure for the pioneers. The state agreed to transport them to the Collective, and house them there temporarily, but they would have to begin construction on their ship or fleet immediately, and bug out as soon as possible.

“There are no habitable planets,” Leona clarified. “Proxima Doma and Castlebourne aren’t habitable either, but they’re hospitable enough to make special arrangements, specifically the domes. Other worlds prefer lava tubes, or orbiting stations. The planets you’re seeing over there in the distance—there are four of them total—are low mass and extremely hot. Yeah, you could technically build a settlement on one of them, but it wouldn’t be very easy. That’s why they chose this for raw materials. They focus mostly on the asteroids and comets, but I believe they’re already starting to stripmine the terrestrial planets too.”

“Sorry, guys,” Ramses said through comms. “Off the mark again.”

“No, I’m curious about this place,” Mateo insisted. “Do we know anyone who lives here? I know Team Keshida moved on, as did the Ansutahan refugees, or rather, their descendants, but maybe someone else set up shop since we were last here?”

“Oh, I don’t have any more information than you,” Leona answered. “There’s a chance that we know someone, but very few entities live here permanently. Most aren’t allowed to, so it would just be the few who manage the allocation of resources, and enforce the stay laws.”

“Stay laws,” Marie repeated. “I like that term.”

“We got company,” Franka said through Ramses’ comms disc. He was the only one who returned to Spiral Station. The rest of the team was just floating around nearby, enjoying the view of the red dwarf.

Leona activated her maneuvering thrusters and turned around to see a big, dark spaceship on close approach. “Yeah, we see. Probably Gatewooders, trying to figure out where you came from.”

“Yep, that’s what they said,” Ramses confirmed.

“Please teleport back here,” Franka added. “They’re going to sweep the station, and if they don’t find you now, but see you later, they’re gonna think we’re smugglers.”

They all jumped back. “What do smugglers smuggle these days? Whisky?”

“Resource credits,” Franka answered as they were waiting to be boarded. “There are all sorts of criteria that determine what Gatewood gives you for your colonization efforts. Stealing credits gets you the best ores, and more of it, for higher luxury, if that’s your thing. If you have enough, you might even be able to buy antimatter...” She trailed off.

A man had suddenly appeared in front of them. “Ain’t nobody getting antimatter out here.” He pulled off his balaclava. “Fusion for all, but there’s a refinery 42 light years from here called Rasalhague, if that’s what you’re looking for instead.”

“We’re square,” Franka said to him. “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before, and I’m familiar with just about every choosing one in the timeline.”

The man winced.

“He’s not a chooser,” Leona determined. “He’s a product of The Edge. He uses tech to teleport.”

“How else would you do it?” the guy asked.

“Are there a lot of teleporters like you?” Mateo pressed.

“This isn’t about me,” the man contended. He bobbled his head, weighing his options. “But I will answer your question, Gatewood is vast, and some people here don’t like each other, so we distribute them widely. To keep our contingency at low numbers, we were given a special command ship that can teleport somehow. That way, we don’t have to keep one at every single dock to supervise the pioneers effectively. A few of us can teleport as individuals. I earned that right.”

“We’re not arguing with you,” Leona promised him. “Just curious. I’m one of the people who gave you that technology.” She jerked her head towards Ramses. “He’s on the council too.”

The man stared at her, shocked by this news, but also recognizing that she could simply be lying. “Prove it.”

Leona receded her nanites until she was completely naked. Then she simply teleported to the other side of the room. Other members of Team Matic did the same a few times each, though not naked, because it really didn’t add anything.

He stared at her again, but with more shocked belief than skepticism this time. “The New Gods,” he uttered breathlessly, dropping into a kneel and bow.

“This is what we were afraid of,” Leona said with a heavy sigh, “but I had to test it, because I needed to know. There were two ends of the spectrum. We could hoard the time tech forever, or give it all away freely, with no conditions. We chose something in the middle, of course, because we’re rational human beings, but...every iteration came with risk. This is one of the consequences, which I have sheltered myself from for over a century now since I was so busy with other things.”

“Can we...stop him from worshiping you?” Mateo asked her.

She laughed. “People have been worshiping gods for millennia. They literally fought wars over it. I can tell him I’m not a god, but if he wants to believe, he’ll believe.”

“Then let’s take advantage of it,” Franka suggested. She placed herself between Leona and the man, who immediately stood up, because he didn’t know if he should revere her too. She wasn’t one of the ones who exhibited teleportation abilities just now. “You came. You swept. You found nothing. You left.”

He looked over Franka’s shoulder, at Leona, who was afraid to encourage his devotion, but she knew that she really didn’t have any choice anymore. She just shut her eyes and nodded. He lifted his wrist to his lips. “Fall back. This vessel has full access to our resources. Anywhere they want to go, let them go there. Anything they want to take, let them have it. Disconnect once everyone is out of the umbilicus. I’ll jump back to the bridge before you’re out of range.”

“Thank you,” Franka said to him.

“I would do anything for you.” He didn’t say it to Franka, though, but to Leona.

“What you can do is use the tech wisely; not to hurt people.”

“Always,” he agreed.

“Thank you. You can go now,” Leona all but ordered. Once he was gone, she physically turned Franka around by the shoulders. “I don’t care if we end up lost in M87, or NGC 253.” She also looked over at Ramses. “Get this thing out of this star system, and you will never come back for the rest of time, or so help me God, you will wish I wasn’t your mother in any reality. Do you understand me?”

“Do I seem like the kind of person who would abuse this kind of power?” Franka asked.

“You absolutely do look like that,” Leona said bluntly.

“She stared at her once-mother for a moment, not breaking eye contact, even when she spoke to Ramses. “Spool it up Rambo. I guess we’re leaving.”

Ramses did what he could to fix the quintessence drive before joining the rest of his team at the lower tip of the station. Franka asked to handle programming the sling herself. She just sounded bitter and annoyed at the time, but it turned out to be something else. During the interim year, she had programmed the repairs to make it more modular, so sections could be separated from each other. She released the section the team was on, and teleported the rest of the station away. Before they could track where it had gone, they saw a burst of technicolors in the distance, and realized that she had indeed slung away to parts unknown.

“Oh, crap!” Ramses cried. “She still has my forge core!” Since he kept losing access to his labs, he kept having to rebuild them from scratch. The forge core made it easier to do this. He always kept it somewhere in normal 3D space. The data drive module stored the specifications necessary to rebuild anything and everything from scratch, and an AI to process it all. It also came with starter nanites, and some other bells and whistles. He left it in the timestream so it could fix Spiral Station up while he couldn’t even be around to answer Franka’s questions.

“Is it unlocked?” Leona asked.

“Yes, it’s unlocked. I thought we could trust them.”

Angela looked over her shoulder. “I guess we’re going to land on one of those planets after all, huh?”

“No,” Leona reasoned. “We’ll go to the intake station, or whatever they call it these days. We couldn’t have been cast away somewhere better. We need resources.”

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