Microstory 2786: The First to Fall

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Tamerlane Pryce. That is the name of the mysterious last-minute addition to the candidate pool. Jande knows that name. Everyone on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida knows it, and probably beyond. In the early days of colonization, he was responsible for an ambitious—but ultimately abandoned—planetary project. Back on Earth in the ancient days, they used to have these things called zoos. They locked animals in cages, and let people gawk at them. Over time, various state regulations attempted to make these facilities more and more ethical, and that pattern never really stopped.

Zoos were eventually outlawed, replaced with less harmful methods of using animals as entertainment, but these weren’t all that great either. They were a lot better, but still dangerous, and in some cases, still exploitative. Space colonization sat on the cusp of basically doing away with the animal entertainment industry altogether. It was ultimately replaced with simulated environments, but the early Bidans didn’t know that at the time. They figured the best way not to disturb animals was to pretend to be them.

Pryce was placed in charge of cataloging every species on the planet, and developing the mind transference technology that would allow a user to become whatever creature they wanted, and live amongst the native population. The project didn’t last long. There was such fierce backlash that they shuttered the program, and transitioned the world to a less invasive culture. Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida is what it is today because early settlers were very deliberately trying to avoid Pryce’s vision. They live in harmony with the fauna now. Many believe they owe Pryce everything, but that’s a bit of a stretch. The question is, where has he been all this time?

“I’m not the Pryce you know,” Tamerlane explains as Van is introducing the rest of the contenders. “It would be hard to explain to you, but in your terms, I’m a dupe. I never did what the history books said I did. That was all someone else. But I was informed that I have always been entitled to a piece of the pie, so I’m here now.”

“And finally,” Van announces, “Jande Ter Avest!”

Jande steps forward and waves at the crowd and cameras. What is he doing?

“As you can see folks,” Van goes on, “they’re all very confused. To them, it has only been a few hours. That is by design. We want them to be disoriented. We want them to be a little shaky. It will make them want it more. And what is it they want?”

“Oversight!” the audience yells, as if they rehearsed it, which they probably have.

Jande is getting the feeling that this is not the first episode of this reality show. They probably produced a whole introduction while the candidates were dead.

“Oversight, that’s right!” Van agrees. “They wanna be the fabled Superintendent. Now, lots of cultures have this rank. It scales however high you want. But from what we read in the charter, Bida does things a little differently.” He’s a lot more charismatic than he seemed when Jande first met him. “Most Superintendents are there just in case. They’re all about staffing. If someone gets out of line, and bureaucracy is too slow to correct them, they can step in and push them out. This means that a Superintendent has to be above reproach, so it’s pretty important that deciders get it right.

“It’s even more important for us, because the Bidan Superintendent will have a great deal of responsibilities, and even more power. We’ll get to that as the competition heats up. Hint-hint, wink-wink. But for now, candidates...we need to see where you stand.” He waits a moment. “Seriously, look down. Where do you stand?”

Jande looks down at the floor. A glowing number 1 is now under his feet.

“Say it out loud! Say it proud! Where do you stand!” Van encourages.

Most of the candidates call out their numbers, and they are all weird. They don’t go from 1 to 11. They go as high as 815, which is where Dare Finnian sits.

“This is your qualified rating, or QR. Now, we’re really excited about the QR, because it’s not actually in the charter. It was very vague about this, but we came up with a scoring system between one and eight-fifty. Everyone is starting in a different place, because you all have pasts. As you can see, the Quiratani are ranked significantly higher, but they won’t stay that way for long.” He lowers the mic and looks over at the closest drone camera, which is of a different design than the others. “Can we drop ‘em?”

Part of the floor starts collapsing into nanites, leaving only circular platforms underneath everyone. One of the Eyrenlanders is too far away from his number, and he slips over the edge. He has to grab on for dear life, or he’ll fall to his death.

Dare hops over to Pryce’s platform, then to the Eyrenlander’s, and helps him up.

“Ah, look at that!” Van notes. “They still think they’re friends!” He nods, and looks up at a leaderboard that has appeared in the sky. “Survey says...850! This is a competition, people. If you die, you’re done. There is no helping. There is no empathy. There is no mercy,” he adds in a grittier voice. “Hey, I don’t make the rules.”

Dare jumps back over to his own platform, head literally held high, unashamed.

Van waits for him to finish up. “Okay. That will not be the last time we see someone go over. The first challenge has just about begun. Candidates, I recommend you move to the centermost spot. It’s simple, but deadly. The game is called Still Hunter. The more you move, which doesn’t include blinking, swallowing, or facial tics, the more your platform will fall away. Eventually, you run out of platform, so don’t...move. The challenge doesn’t end until our first death. I’ll give you a few minutes to scratch your itches and do a little stretching, and then we’ll start the clock. Oh, wait, what’s this?”

A woman who is neither Quiratani nor Eyrenlander has jumped off of her platform, and grabbed onto someone else’s shaft. She survived, and is now sliding down.

“Looks like we have a runner,” Van explains. “I’ll have to confer with my associates so we can figure out what we’re gonna do here. In the meantime, I hope you’re all situated, because the clock starts in four, three, two, aaaaaand go!”

Jande does not remember the escape artist’s name, but he’ll learn it because she never leaves the arena. She walks back in an hour later with her head hung low. “They won’t let me quit. I failed to read the fine print.” She goes back to her post to suffer a penalty for trying to leave. She has to stand on one leg for twice as long as she was gone.

The gamemakers probably expected the challenge to last a lot longer than it does, which is what you get for only making it last until the first person falls. One of the cocky Eyrenlanders cannot stop moving. He appears to be particularly not well-suited for a baseline human body. He unwillingly chips away at his platform little by little. It turns to dust and sloughs off in inconsistent volumes. Only five minutes after the attempted quitter’s return, he loses his footing, and plummets to his death.

The competition has taken its first casualty. At the end, Jande has retained his rank, having barely lost any of his platform. Dare, on the other hand, lost none of it at all, and jumped up to second place with a new score of 24. He is the biggest threat now.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 1, 2575

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Olimpia didn’t go straight to Sri Lanka after she came back to Earth. She spent one night in a guest unit in an Egyptian arcology so she could start fresh in the morning. In the room, she laid out all her supplies because she didn’t like the way she had it organized. That was when she discovered Mateo’s rendezvous card for the Snake Island medical facility. He must have slipped it in when she wasn’t looking. It was good for her to have a special place to go if she needed it, but she didn’t think that she actually would.

She and her brother, Delfinus, spent all day in the waiting area. She would think the magical card would have spirited them there during an open slot, and her guess was that it wasn’t that smart, but it turned out, it was just because it wasn’t truly her card. It was a waste of time anyway, because Dr. Hammer specialized in temporal issues. Apparently, Delfinus’ problem was on the psychic level.

That made sense, that it wasn’t really a time power. Olimpia never understood why this world had both time travel and psychic powers, but not any other things, like vampires or talking animals. Why only these two seemingly completely unrelated things? She never got the chance to ask Dr. Hammer about it because she was too busy to see them. Instead, they spoke with her associate, Siria Webb.

Siria took it upon herself to reprogram the rendezvous card to do more than just take them back to where they were before. When they reactivated it, they ended up making a big loop to 2575, but now at an unknown location, seemingly underground. Before them was a door, so Delfinus knocked, because what else would they do?

A twentysomething woman opened the door. “Oh,” she said, gently placing her three middle fingers against her forehead. “Your thoughts are bouncing around his head, and flooding into mine.” She looked at Delfinus. “It must be so much worse for you. Come in, come on in.” She stepped to the side and stood there to close the door herself.

“Delfinus was nervous as he looked around the room. His sister was more used to finding herself in new places, but this was only the second time he had traveled, and so far, he wasn’t a fan. Plus, the bunker was just scary and dark, like this woman wanted people to feel uncomfortable when they came here. He didn’t know, though. He could convert anyone’s thoughts into narration...but not hers. She could block him somehow.”

Olimpia looked over at the psychic. “You see what we’re dealing with, and I’m assuming you know why we’re here, so you already know if you can help us or not.”

“I do, and I will try to help him,” the psychic said, “but it may take some time. He doesn’t have mental wards, but don’t think that means I can easily diagnose him. Imagine a hose. You can’t see inside of it without a light, but even if you have a light, the hose has to be turned off first. His hose is on full blast. All I’m getting is the...the contaminated water, to maintain the analogy. I need to shut it off before I can determine what is contaminating it. I don’t need to ask you if that makes sense, because I already know it does. First step is giving you, Mrs. Matic, your own mental wards.”

“That will stop him from narrating my thoughts,” Olimpia pressed the stranger, “but will it stop you from reading them too, or are you immune to your own powers?”

The psychic smiled. “I’m Leida, and I have no interest in your thoughts.” She gestured around the room. “That’s why I live under a battlefield. I hate my powers because I can’t turn them off. Believe me, giving you wards is more for me than for you.”

“All right, then.” Olimpia stepped towards the stranger. “I’m trusting you.”

“I appreciate this.” Leida pinched her index and thumb together before placing them against Olimpia’s forehead. She increased pressure until Olimpia passed out.

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Spaghetti West: Childhood’s End (Part V)

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The mysterious local ship or space station was wasting time and resources trying to fire on Sugar’s ship. She had no offensive measures of her own, save for the hot pocket, which was currently empty because up until this point, they had no reason to conceal their heat signature. The defensive measures, however? Well, those were stacked to the ceiling. It was designed with an EM shield, a TP field, and a GD yield. The first one was the most common. Every interstellar vessel needed to have it, or compensate for it with an extremely robust—and costly—physical hull. The teleportation field was simple enough, but at the very least, it required knowledge of temporal manipulation in the first place. The geodesic yield was a different story altogether, and these strangers instantly assumed that Sugar’s ship would not be equipped with it.

The first two defensive methods were no match for extremely high-energy particles, which were sometimes known as exotic particles. They were just too small and too fast. Even an endless supply of power would make the task an improbable proposition. There was an entire star system called Toliman, which colonists avoided due to an unusually high concentration of ultra high-energy cosmic rays. To protect against them, you don’t just have to know about time travel, you have to have an intimate understanding of advanced spacetime mechanics.

The GD yield didn’t deflect these particles, it basically just moved out of their way. It warped spacetime around the ship, so that when particles attempted to collide with it, they instead passed around the breadth until reaching the other side. From the particles’ perspective, nothing happened—they simply maintained their respective constant vectors the whole time. This was the best way to handle it without going the transdimensional route because it prevented energy exchange, which would be the inevitable result of any means of deflection. Again, even if you had the power to simply swat the particles away, doing so would generate subatomic reactions that could result in secondary damage, especially at scale from trillions of these collisions.

The first thought these strangers had was to beam them with exotic particles. They didn’t ask questions, they didn’t assess the threat, they just fired. And instead of starting small, they went straight to one that most vessels would be powerless to survive. Whoever these people were, they were not nice, and they were not messing around. Someone would have to do something about that.

Sugar could have just stood there and waited them out, but now she was just pissed off. If they wanted to play dirty, she could get creative.

“So what are you doing?” Liselot asked her after Sugar quickly explained how they were able to protect themselves from the onslaught.

“I’m dialing down the GD yield,” Sugar explained.

“Won’t that hurt us?” Liselot pressed.

“It would,” Sugar said, “if I turned it off entirely, but I’m just creating a few billion collisions, the irony being that if they didn’t ever fire, I wouldn’t have any ammo against them. Until they showed up, we had no reason to mask our heat signature, so the heat shunt was off. I’ve now turned it on, and I’m diverting the energy to it. Once it builds, I’ll purge it and fire right back, targeting their weapons array as a warning. Every time they hit us, we’ll hit them back just as hard, like Sebastian Shaw.”

“Is that a band, errr...?” Liselot asked, trailing off.

Sugar stopped. “Where did you hear that?”

“I told you, I’ve never heard of him.”

“No, that phrase, is that a band, errr. That’s a common time traveler phrase. We say that all the time. I didn’t know it had made its way into the general population.”

“I don’t know that it has,” Liselot replied with a shrug. “It’s just something I said. Is it a secret code, or something?”

Sugar sighed and shook her head. “No. Never mind.” She looked back at her screens. “Hot pocket is full; that was fast.” She leaned over the console. “Unless you have any objections, I’ll fire it.”

“Do what you gotta do,” Liselot encouraged.

Sugar pushed the button. Their own energy beam was released from its hold all at once, hitting the supposed enemy so hard and fast that it didn’t have time to protect itself. That was what happened when engineers designed for offense; they sacrificed defense in service to it. They had diverted all of their power to the energy weapons so that their own EM shield was severely underpowered, and practically useless. In seconds, the weapons were disabled, leaving the strangers as sitting ducks.

A console began to beep. Liselot looked over to it. “I think they’re calling.”

“You’re my comms officer now. Go ahead and open a channel,” Sugar requested.

After Liselot did as she was asked, a woman appeared on the main screen. “This is Supreme Chancellor Gentry Ruvow. We attempted to end your lives quickly and painlessly, but you have chosen the difficult route. Please switch off all defensive and offensive systems, and prepare to be boarded. In exchange, my operatives will no longer make it painless, but we will still make it quick. If you resist or attack again, the full force of the Desulforudisian Guard will descend upon you, and nothing will keep them at bay. Respond now with your surrender.”

Sugar smiled. “Supreme Chancellor, we will not be surrendering—”

Gentry immediately closed the channel. The viewscreen turned black.

“This, kids, is why it’s sometimes necessary to bury the lede.” Sugar sighed. “Okay. The global address system we installed so we could reach out to all of Bida. Do you think you could modify it to address the planet down there, whether they call it Desulforudis, or whatever? I need to work on a few other things.”

“Yeah, if you could do it, I can do it,” Liselot agreed.

Meanwhile, a number of ships launched from their space stations, or even from the surface, all heading towards Sugar and Liselot. They would not be able to take them all on. Orbit was no longer a safe place to be. Sugar didn’t understand what these people had against Tau Ceti, but she was going to find out, no matter how much they resisted.

After a few minutes, Liselot said, “I’ve done it.”

“Great. Just in time.” Sugar flung the hardware identifier code over to Liselot’s workstation. “Route communications to this buoy. It’s equipped with its own miniature hot pocket, and can scramble regular radio waves on a quantum level, so they will not be able to trace it.”

“Where are we gonna be?” Liselot asked as she was uploading the new program, and taking the initiative to launch the buoy.

“On the surface. I have a nice little patch of land picked out for it. Well, it’s a building. Brace for minor atmospheric disturbance.” They didn’t need the equilibrium generator again this time, though entering an atmosphere always did throw off the artificial gravity controls, especially if done so quickly. This planet came with a protective teleportation barrier, but she rather easily bypassed it. The natives still didn’t understand who they were up against, and continued to underestimate the two of them.

In a moment, they were parked on top of the Capitol Building, which was where Ruvow was talking to them from. “Reopen the channel to that asshole first, not the whole planet yet.”

Liselot tapped on her screen, then nodded at Sugar.

“Supreme Chancellor? Supreme Chancellor, are you there?” Sugar asked. “Supreme Chancellor, I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re no longer where we were before. If you attempt to fire on us again, you will literally only be hurting yourselves. I suggest you answer so we can work this out. I realized my mistake when I first responded to you. I tried to be nice. I should have started with...I’m not fuckin’ around! Answer the goddamn phone, or I poison the well with your own people!”

Ruvow’s face reappeared on screen. “You insolent little—”

“No, you’re gonna listen to me now,” Sugar interrupted. “You have been sending us black hole after black hole after black hole, and when we show up to put a stop to it, you don’t even apologize? You just try to kill us? What kind of monster doesn’t even take a second to find out if they’re murdering innocent children on a school trip, or a hospital ship? That’s ignoring all the people you tried to kill on my home planet in the first place. I want an explanation, and I don’t want any more threats out of your little mouth.”

Ruvow narrowed her eyes. “We have not been sending you black holes. You have been sending them to us!” She started out calm before devolving quickly by the end.

Sugar shut her eyes in frustration. “Did you ever think that maybe that wasn’t us, and you should ask us about it first? Again, what kind of monster are you?”

“We don’t ask questions,” Ruvow replied. “If someone invades our space, we destroy them. That is our way. We have established ourselves in this system, and that should be enough. Merely being present makes you a threat. I don’t know if I believe the black hole weapons aren’t from you, but it doesn’t matter. Now exit your vessel and surrender to the operatives who are now surrounding you on the roof.”

Sugar pantomimed turning down the volume, prompting Liselot to do it for real. “I’ve heard of these people...total idiots. I thought we sort of bred them out of the population because they kept putting their hands on hot stoves and eating glass, but I guess some managed to survive long enough to invent the aerosol can.” She glanced over at navigation. “I know where we are now. We’re in another galaxy. My people call it Miridir, but you may know it as Andromeda XXI.”

“That is millions of light years away. How is it colonized?” Liselot questioned.

“It’s a long story,” Sugar began, “but this isn’t Dardius, which is the only planet I’m personally cognizant of as being populated here. I’m guessing this is some kind of offshoot faction from there...isolationists in the dark forest.”

“The dark forest hypothesis was virtually debunked centuries ago. If you want to keep people out of your home, you tell them that it’s your home, you don’t make it look available.”

“I know. Like I said, they’re stupid. But they’re also under attack. If they’re getting their own procession of KBHs, our conjecture of natural causes no longer sounds viable.” It wasn’t just happening to Tau Ceti, which meant the black holes were no accident. Only happening at one location? A tragedy, but at least it followed a plausible natural pattern. Many locations, each only experiencing one black hole? Okay, that would be even more believable because of the randomness. But two systems—constant bombardment? That was a directed attack. Someone wanted to hurt Tau Ceti, as well as the Desulforudisians, and perhaps understanding their common thread would tell them who. Who would have motive to destroy them both when the two worlds were millions of light years apart, and had not even heard of each other?

“Volume back up, please,” Sugar ordered. She looked back at the Supreme Chancellor, who was still sitting there, surprisingly patient. “Someone is attempting to hurt us both. We have a saying where I’m from. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“We have a similar saying. It goes, the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy. I can have more than one enemy, and do. All are enemies.”

“Well, that’s quite a mouthful but... Suit yourself.” Sugar turned her head. “Lise, open a global channel now. I wanna talk to everyone who lives here.”

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Microstory 2785: It’s Actually About the Whole Planet

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As people are activated in their pods one by one, Jande steps up and takes charge. He asks about everyone’s experience. They all had the same one—the exact same one. The room looked the same, the executioners were the same, even the audience sounded identical, save for their loved ones, who were swapped out respectively. Even the loners saw their parents, or someone else they once cared about. It’s unlikely that some were brought here on such short notice. Quantum casting is relatively easy, but people have their own lives, and the real slowdown would be explaining that this was a performative execution, and they should remain stoic the whole time while they watched.

For the most part, the contestants are fine with Jande playing the leader for now. They still think he was part of the operation from minute one, and they’re hoping he will share what he knows. It’s a fine line he’s walking here, letting them think that just enough to keep them cooperative, but not so much that it paints a target on his back.

They’re all wearing their birthday suits, and it’s rather cold in this room. It’s not until the last pod opens that a wall parts in half, revealing a hidden doorway. The other side is a locker room. It’s even colder, but they find clothes. They are t-shirts, shorts, and skirts, but they’re better than nothing. They get dressed, then start to look around for clues. There is nowhere to sit, which is weird for a locker room, and also frustrating because they’re still wobbly from the mind transference process.

Even the pros say it’s hard on them, probably because this is the weakest they have ever been. Jande spent all that time working out because he didn’t know this would happen. He already was in a baseline model. He should have realized that the coordinators don’t just want them to be unenhanced; they want them to be evenly matched. They’re all slender and lanky, but also short now. Everyone is pushing each other to get to the one mirror, but Jande doesn’t spend too much time in front of it. He’s uncomfortable, seeing himself with the same face but a wildly different body.

Ersence is running her fingers along the walls, looking for another seam for a door. She’s doing it carefully and methodically, and hasn’t used the mirror even once.

“What does it matter?” Jande asks her. “Whatever will happen will happen, and we won’t be able to control it. I think we have all seen that by now.”

Ersence doesn’t look away from her work. “We just died, I recall. I don’t like the feeling of being trapped. Everything my people want could be achieved with a rotating habitat. We could plant trees, and fill lakes. We could even have mountains. But a planet just hits harder. I don’t like enclosed spaces. If I can find a way out before these people let me out, then that’s what I’m gonna do, if you don’t mind...husband.”

“You two are married?” It’s the hermit who should not have even known that this competition was happening. “Forgive me, but, what’s the point? Are you just trying to maximize your chances? You have an 18% chance of winning, compared to my 9%?”

“Marriage is different for us,” Jande explains to the hermit. “It can be for love and partnership, but it doesn’t have to be. I mostly needed an employee.”

Ersence is not offended by this, but the hermit looks over as if in anticipation of her sadness. “Well, then I suppose my odds haven’t gone down, so that’s good.”

“Actually, they have,” an Eyrenlander jumps in. “Their odds are not only 18%. Working together gives them an advantage over whatever is coming to us. If we’re asked to push boulders up a hill, each of us is stuck alone, and it may be physically impossible in these raggedy bodies. But if you team up... Same number of people, same number of boulders, but two of us can actually get both of theirs done.”

“I just said, we are not a team,” Jande reminds the asshole Eyrenlander.

“Yeah, you did say that,” the Eyrenlander replies. “The other day, I was in a virtual construct where I told people I was a zookeeper.” He drops down to a whisper. “Wanna know a secret? I’m not really. Zoos don’t exist anymore.”

They stand in silence for a moment before the hermit breathes in and extends his hand towards Ersence. “Anyway, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Dare Finnian, but you can call me Dare.” He shakes Jande’s hand after hers. “Dare Finnian, call me Dare.” He starts going around the room, repeatedly saying the same thing in slightly different ways.

His ice-breaking triggers a massive wave of introductions. They don’t all shake hands, and they definitely don’t provide their life stories, but everyone gets a say. Except for one man. He’s standing off to the side, looking smug, but not making any reaction to anyone else’s words. He’s just standing there like he knows something no one else does.

Jande walks up to the mysterious stranger, who must be the last guy to register for this. “You’ve been quiet, cowboy. You got a name, or what?”

“Or what,” the man responds without blinking.

Jande looks him up and down. “You look a little familiar. Is that your real face?”

“What is real anyway?” Oh, he’s so mysterious and intriguing.

“I’m gonna need a name, sir,” Jande insists. “It’s a safety thing. No one here is anonymous, and I won’t let you be the exception, so out with it.”

“Found it!” Ersence has her hand behind a corner locker. “Here, help me.” A Bidan woman goes over and helps her remove the entire locker from its socket. Without hesitation, Ersence reaches for the recessed toggle and pulls it down.

The entire ceiling cracks in the center. The two halves lift up and away from each other. Simultaneously, the floor pushes the contestants up like an elevator, leaving the walls and lockers behind. The coordinators are truly leaning into the tropes with this thing; it happens in every movie about challengers in a deadly competition.

The floor reaches the surface, but it doesn’t stop. It keeps ascending towards the sky as a crowd of tens of thousands cheer from the stands. Jande just thought this was going to be a low-key, private matter, but it’s a spectacle. Cameras imply that they’re being watched by people all over the world, and maybe beyond. They really are taking a page out of the classics, like Gladiator and The Hunger Games series.

Not too far from their platform, a smaller one rises in tandem. Vantu Hidayat is on it alone, which is who Jande figured would serve as the third-party judge. “Assembled minds and remote viewers, thank you for bearing witness to this occasion! We have been working on this program for the last four months, and have finally reintegrated our candidates into new substrates!”

It’s been four months? It’s already spring, that’s not good.

“I know you’re all anxious to get going, but first, we have to inform the candidates of something we discovered while we were researching the charter!” Van looks over at the larger platform, and lowers his voice. “You believe that you will be competing for the fate of Quiratan, but centuries ago, it served as the first settlement on this planet. The Superintendent position would not oversee only one community. Winning this will place you in a supervisory role over all of Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida.”

Microstory 2784: He is Not Really Going to Die

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Registration is over. After one more person signs up following Ersence, they lock it down. Now the contenders are waiting for their next instructions. They still have no idea what’s in store for them, or when it’s gonna happen. They just go about their day, and go to sleep that night.

The front door creaks open. It’s the 26th century, doors don’t have to creak if you don’t want them to. Jande’s grandfather designed it to do it because that’s how history taught him. Once the world transitioned to a post-scarcity economy, people stopped having to worry about their neighbors much, but Rolof Ter Avest believed in full immersion. They’re not playing a game here, with their intentionally low-tech lives. Protecting the home has been a tried and true practice for millennia, and it doesn’t have to stop here. The creak means someone is using the door. Jande is so intimately familiar with his home that he can even tell when it’s being opened from the inside or out.

Jande is up and out of bed before the intruders can make it more than a few steps into the house. For a split second, he catches sight of Ersence still fast asleep. He reaches over the headboard and unlocks the shotgun. He swings it around and aims it at his bedroom door just as it’s opening. “Halt or catch fire!” Jande orders.

Ersence is startled awake. She curls herself up against the wall, but isn’t scared.

If the first intruder isn’t backed up then they’re stupid, and they deserve to die. Jande has every right to defend that home. Post-scarcity conventions and virtual immortality diminished the need for violence; they didn’t erase the possibility of being attacked anyway. No court would convict him. So once he sees the figure move another centimeter forwards, he fires at it without hesitating.

The enemy twists backwards when they get shot in the shoulder, though they don’t fall over. In response, they lift their undamaged arm and point towards him. An electromagnet spins up, pulling the gun out of Jande’s hand, along with every ferromagnetic object in the room. A pair of hands takes the first figure by the neck and wrenches them backwards to make room in the doorway. The true threat emerges from the hallway. “This is why we came to you last, because we knew you would make noise.”

Jande hears another shot. The speaking intruder’s head jerks backwards before the rest of his body follows and falls on top of the robot. Jande looks over at Ersence.

“Whoever told you to own a gun made out of metal did you a disservice,” Ersence says. “There’s intentional obsolescence, and then there’s willful incompetence.”

Jande reaches out and takes her wrist. “Come along, darling.” He takes her into the bathroom because the window in there is easier to open.

As they’re slipping out, they hear hushed voices nearby, but Jande can’t tell what they’re saying. This is a full-on assault. The Eyrenlanders don’t want to wait for the Superintendent to decide who takes control over the community because they know the five people they registered are gonna lose. Jande just needs to make it over the border where he’ll find asylum with the Mount Pryce-dwellers. From there, he will take back control of his land, and if he’s the last surviving competitor, he’ll automatically be Superintendent by that point anyway. They just have to stay quiet and stay vigila—

A sharp pain starts on the surface of the skin of his neck before sliding in deeper. It’s a needle...not even a jet injector, but a bona fide 5-centimeter-long needle. Arms gently help him down to the ground as the stars above twinkle off. Someone else is sedating Ersence, and there is nothing that either of them can do about it.

Jande wakes up in a reclined wooden chair. His wrists and ankles are strapped down, and there’s an IV line in his arm. Something is attached to his head, but he can’t tell what it is. It’s somehow both spongy and hard at the same time. He is in a dimly lit room, with whirring machines to his left and an electrical box to his right. Before him is a window, and next to it a nondescript door. As the fog lifts from his mind, he starts to realize where he is. This is an execution room, but a hodgepodge of various methods. All that’s missing is the firing squad and the guillotine. He cranes his neck to look up. Oh, no, there’s the guillotine. Well, at least they have all their bases covered.

The door opens. Several men enter solemnly. The curtains fall away, revealing the audience. His parents are there, having returned from their first retirement location on the edge of Eyrenland, where it’s still green and alive. Other Quiratani are sitting around them, hardened looks on their faces. No one is upset by this. They look robotic.

One of the men is wearing a black hood. He walks over to the electrical box lever and rests one hand upon it. Two men in lab coats go over to the machines to push buttons and take notes. A man in a three-piece suit nods once at the guys carrying rifles over their shoulders. They spread out along the wall and aim their weapons at Jande.

The boss man looks over at a landline phone on the wall, consults his watch, then looks back at the phone. This is some sick reenactment shit, and Jande doesn’t appreciate it. It was a savage time in human history when they did this, and yes, he does recognize that murder wasn’t completely illegal for the vast majority of the timeline.

When the phone doesn’t ring, the man sighs and takes a half step towards Jande. “This be your last moment on Earth, son. Do you have any last words?”

Jande chuckles. “Uhh...ai gonplei ste odon? Or...shel kek nem ron.” Yeah, that’s the one. Let’s get this pinnacle of literal overkill over with.

“Ready!” the man in the suit cries.

The electrician tightens his grip on the lever. The firing squad cocks their guns. The lethal injectors turn one last knob.

“Aim!” the man adds.

Jande’s chair turns down so his neck is directly under the guillotine blade.

“Fire!”

A mask appears in Jande’s field of vision. Someone affixes it to his face. The air inside feels different on his tongue and in his nostrils. He breathes deeply as euphoria floods his whole body, and he begins to drift away. His eyelids bounce up and down while he smiles. The electrician never pulls the lever. There is never any tightness in his arm at the injection sites. The gunmen never fire. The guillotine never falls.

Jande awakens yet again, this time in a bioprinting pod. He pushes the lid away and climbs out. He has transferred bodies before, but he’s not as experienced as some are these days. He stumbles around like a newborn fawn. He manages to make it over to the next pod where he finds Ersence’s new body still finishing being printed. As he makes his way around the room, he sees the other nine contenders in varying stages of the printing process. What the fuck was that all about?

Microstory 2783: Strangers to Lovers to Rivals

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It has taken a few weeks, but the Quiratan Council has finally approved what are colloquially being called the Superintendent Games. They’re keeping it quiet, though, because of some very vague language in the original charter. The role is up for grabs by literally anyone in the universe. If they broadcast the news, some rando from a crabitat could come in and order the uquira fields to be destroyed, or the military could use them for strategic purposes. The Eyrenlanders are threat enough, and since they’re paying close attention to what’s happening here, there is no keeping them out of it.

Fortunately, it sounds like the tests will be grueling, and bodily-exclusive, meaning anyone in an enhanced substrate will be required to downgrade to baseline human status. This includes shutting down backup consciousness streams. If you die in the games—and that is absolutely a possibility—you die for good. You’re not even allowed to keep a copy of yourself in storage prior to registration, just so at least one version of you survives. This is a one and done deal, and the majority of hopefuls are not willing to take that risk, especially not since the particulars are not entirely clear. Even with the mortal peril, Jande is not doing this alone. Eight others have opted to vie for the position, including one of those random transtellar people they were worried about. He somehow found out about it from all the way in the galaxy’s Extended Bubble.

While everyone waits for the games, the Doma Tertians have become integrated into the community. Most native families have taken two or three new spouses out of the pool, while Jande has only married Ersence. He didn’t feel he needed any more. A fire started as a result of the black hole on one farm, which wiped out almost all of their fields before it could be contained. While they wait for the soil to renew itself for later in the year, the family has opted to sublet the Ter Avest farm for winter work. It’s a win-win situation for both families, and not nearly the first time something like this has happened, so there was a clear protocol for it. Jande, meanwhile, has been in training.

Despite what detractors might say, Jande doesn’t have any more information about the Superintendent competition than anyone else. The procedures were literally kept locked in a vault. It took a day just to find this vault in the first place, and then a couple more days to figure out how to unlock it.

Anyone who lays eyes on any of the documents that were found inside becomes instantly disqualified from participating. One of the Eyrenlanders broke into council chambers a few days ago, and after some interrogation, admitted that he was trying to steal competition secrets. Everyone assumed from that response that he was looking for a competitive advantage, but Jande pressed further. The intruder eventually confessed that he actually intended to show the plans to all competitors but one, so the games would be over before they even began. That’s not even the main concern right now, though. The most pressing issue is coming in about ninety seconds.

Jande is lying on his back on the bench, pressing the weights up towards the sky. His head is throbbing from the workout, but he’s not done with his set, so he keeps going. His vision sometimes blurs, which would be fine if every time it happened he didn’t start to panic that a black hole was opening up just above the clouds. Whatever, that just raises his heart rate, which is good for him right now. It’s nearly over when his one and only current wife’s face moves in from the side, haloed by Tau Ceti’s sun dog. She knows not to speak when he’s in this state. He finishes and sits up.

“Are you well and done?” She hands him his towel that was hanging on a branch.

Jande breathes and wipes his brow. “I’ll never be done, but I can take a break.”

“Good.” Ersence clears her throat. “We’ve not been married for long, so you don’t know me very well, but one thing you should understand is that I don’t like to waste time. If I have something to tell you, I will tell it, and I won’t be delicate.”

“Marriage isn’t the same here as it is in other places,” Jande begins. “This is an arrangement, we don’t have to get to know each other if you prefer to remain detached.”

“I was hoping you would feel that way,” she says, “because this next part would feel like a betrayal if you thought you were entitled to some level of loyalty.”

Jande forces himself to stop panting so it doesn’t undercut the seriousness of whatever she’s about to say. “This sounds concerning. Get on with it.”

“I have entered the competition,” Ersence reveals. “I want to be Superintendent.”

Jande stands and begins to peel off his sweaty clothes. “I should have known. That’s not a loyalty question, Ersence. It’s about common decency. You had nothing. I took you in, and limited the amount of work you would be doing. Do you have any idea how long it takes to find a spouse the usual way? The compatibility tests can only get you so far. People think they wanna work, right up until about a day and a half after they wake up achy, sore, and unfulfilled. That’s why we typically wait two months before the wedding.” He steps into the shower. “Eleven degrees, two minutes,” he commands.

Ersence shakes her head. “I’ll never get your culture. Do you like tech or not?”

Jande stands under the cold water. “Tech is a tool. Using my voice is a convenience, but it does not save me meaningful effort. Our culture dictates that automation is not to be used as a replacement for labor. No one would categorize taking a shower as work, so it doesn’t go against our principles.” He starts to scrub up.

Ersence watches the neighbors taking a walk along the path. She waves reluctantly. “What were you saying about decency and compatibility?” she questions.

“If you wanna be a contender, I won’t stop you. I understand that you’re trying to do what’s best for your people, but that’s where you and I differ. I’m trying to do what’s best for the land.” The water stops. He grabs his bath towel. “Studies have shown that uquira and uquirapods live happier, and for longer, when eyren are nearby. Does that make sense to you? What essentially boils down to a waste product improves quality of life for a species that didn’t evolve the instinct to do it for themselves. We think the unfertilized eggs that people all over the galaxy consume release a pheromone that their progenitors like. But they need us to plant for them. It’s called a symbiotic relationship.

“I’m fighting to preserve that, whether I have the honor of living here, or not. This is the only planet we have ever found that has as diverse a biosphere as Earth. I’m a part of that, and now so are you. The Eyrenlanders milk it for all it’s worth. What they don’t see is the farmwork is the gift, not the chore that you have to complete to get to the nuggety center. Do you appreciate what I’m saying to you, Ersence?”

“You’re saying that the Eyrenlanders have to be stopped at all costs.”

Jande chuckles. “I’m saying all uquirakind are depending on us to protect them.”

“Well, I didn’t sign up for the animals,” Ersence admits. “I did it for the Doma Tertians, but if I win, you and yours will always have a place here.”

“Let’s both hope it doesn’t come to that. May the best person win.”

Microstory 2782: She Will End Up in Quiratan Too

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The ground is hard and hot under Ersence Tridali’s boots. She didn’t have to go synthesize these for this occasion. She already owned this whole outfit. Ever since her home was destroyed, she’s been prepared to survive in some of the most hostile places. She likes to think of herself and her people as extremophiles, which is all the more impressive because they’re baseline humans, for the most part. The locals, they didn’t want the refugees here, but now they’re all refugees, which she finds poetically just, and incredibly satisfying. They’ve all run away, but the Doma Tertians are sick of running. They were told that they could live here, so that’s exactly what they’re gonna do.

A shuttle flies overhead, and slowly lands several meters away.

“Oh, here we go.” She sighs, which she’s just now realizing she’s been doing on purpose since she returned. She likes the clicking sound her respirator makes.

The hatch peels open and transforms into a ramp. Someone in one of those fancy IMS units comes down. They think they’re better than her because of it. They have all these gadgets and gizmos, but they’re just a waste. All you need is something that isn’t permeable, doesn’t tear, and insulates you from the heat or cold. You don’t need seven layers to make that happen, especially not when one of them is just to read your vitals and make it feel like you’re wearing underwear. The figure approaches and flashes a radio frequency on their chest, extending an invitation for them to talk to each other.

Ersence shakes her head. She grabs the stranger by the shoulders and places her helmet against theirs. “This is how we talk. We don’t need radios.”

“How do you communicate across distances?” a man’s voice questions.

“We like to stay close to one another,” Ersence explains to the idiot.

“This area is unsafe and uninhabitable. Please return to your shuttle and leave.”

“I’m here to survey the land for hospitality,” Ersence explains. “This particular site is too volatile, but some parts are better than others. I’ll find it, and it’s none of your business. We’re not hurting anyone, just leave us alone.”

“It would be morally reprehensible for us to allow you to remain anywhere in what was once Eyrenland,” the man insists. “We must begin installing the heat pumps to expedite the cooling and solidifying process. You cannot be here when that happens.”

“Install whatever you want,” Ersence encourages. “We’ll stay out of your way.”

The man separates their helmets just long enough to shake his head. “The pumps will make this entire landmass impossibly hot while it radiates into space. Even if you had an IMS, you wouldn’t be able to survive on the surface. Nowhere is safe. Please go.”

Man, this guy is not letting up. “Listen, buddy. My people stayed on Doma Tertia even under threat of annihilation from a literal death star. Do you have any idea how hot that world was? We didn’t have a choice but to leave there, but we’re not going to let it happen again. We have become quite accustomed to thriving in harsh environments. Your heat pumps don’t scare us. Leave me alone while I finish my survey.”

When she tries to separate them again, he holds her back. “If you do not leave on your own, history will repeat itself, and you will be forcibly removed. If you were in Gatewood, then you would know that someone is here with teleportation tech. They rescued you once, they can do it again. Even if you got your hands on another shuttle, and came right back here, in seconds, you could be swept up yet again. There is no winning this. I was dispatched to be diplomatic, but this is not our last resort.”

Ersence laughs. “You think we’re not intimately familiar with Sugar Delgado’s ship? It has disappeared from the solar system, probably in an attempt to figure out where those black holes keep coming from. We timed our mission perfectly.”

“The lieutenant, Hidayat; he stayed behind with his own shuttle. He has told us that he will summon you if we ask,” the man claims. “Don’t make him do it. Don’t let yourself be humiliated like that. Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida deals in two currencies: eyren...and reputation. Leave on your own accord. It will be better for you.”

“I don’t like to be threatened,” Ersence tells him.

“It’s not a threat, it is the Bidan way,” he says. “I do have a radio, and I’ll make the call. You have five minutes to pack up your gear, and begin your preflight check.”

“Preflight check,” Ersence echoes. “Preflight check, safety, reputation. You people sure do love to live cautiously. When you’ve been through what we have, you gain a little perspective. You realize how precious life is when you don’t have an extra body to fall back on. You would think someone like me would be safer, but that’s not how the ancestors lived, nor we. Just so you know, we have radios too, which is why I know that the magic shuttle you were talking about is still sitting in the same place it was in that other egg country. I have plenty of time before your threat so much as manifests, especially since you people are so obsessed with your preflight checks.”

Ersence separates their helmets and turns away so she can pack up her things, not because that’s what he wants, but because she has to make another hop to find somewhere better. If they truly are installing heat pumps, that changes the equation. It will determine where she checks next on the search grid. As she’s closing the lid on her ground-penetrating radar, she blinks, and finds herself somewhere entirely different.

Gone is the barren landscape and scattered gas vents. She’s in a grassy prairie on the edge of a town. Next to her is the giant shuttle she was supposed to be worried about. She removes her helmet as a telescopic lift descends from the belly and lands.

Sugar’s lackey, Vantu steps out and approaches. “I was listening to your conversation. I knew you were never gonna give it up. You people never do. You would rather die than admit defeat. It would be admirable if it weren’t so pathetically foolish.”

Ersence scowls, both at the man and the shuttle. “I’m not getting back in that thing, and I’m not going back up into space. None of us is, you can bet on that.”

Van nods. “I’ve been speaking with the locals here. They had a sort of rivalry against Eyrenland. Of course, the latter was orders of magnitude larger and more economically significant, but they had a fundamental difference in philosophies. The Eyrenlanders want to go back to what they were doing, but here. The Quiratani aren’t so enthused. They need warm bodies, not geniuses, so I thought of you!”

She rolls her eyes, choosing not to give him the satisfaction of her taking offense.

Van goes on, “they’ll give you places to live, but since I know you like to be self-sufficient, the abodes don’t come with bells or whistles. Very low tech and low-key. You’ll fit right in, but you have to follow their rules, and their training. Don’t be stubborn and stupid. The reason you went off to try to resettle Eyrenland is because they told you that you couldn’t...like a child. But I know you better than the Bidans, and I know you don’t want anything that belongs to anyone else, so stay here, and build it.”

Some guy walks up to them.

“Ersence Tridali,” Van begins, “allow me to introduce you to Jande Ter Avest.”

Microstory 2781: Oh, He’s Gonna Take the Job

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The atmospheric black hole definitely could have happened at a worse time. The busy season is now over, and many of the crops aren’t growing anyway. The eyren are a year-round event, however. The uquira and uquirapods adapt well to the changing climate, and in fact, as it cools down, there are more chances to plant eyren. The trick is being able to find the clumps amidst the fallen leaves, and later, the precipitation. That takes manpower, or technology, which sort of goes against the community’s practices.

Everyone is struggling. Jande’s story is not unique as many farms suffer attrition. There are tens of billions of organic people in this galaxy, so it’s not hard to find someone willing to take a century out of their lives to farm on Bida, but it’s hard to keep them. Quiratan has shrunk in recent years because of it, mostly with smaller farms being absorbed by neighbors, but a few have shut down entirely. The AKBH, along with the ongoing threat of future singularities, has only expedited the downfall.

Jande has to recruit more people if he wants to keep his culture alive, and not only by finding partners for himself, but also for others. This is the best time to do it. Last season’s dead crops have been tilled back into the land to replenish the nitrogen content, which is best done early so the microbes have time to complete the process before next planting season. It was hard work, but he’s all caught up now, so he can sit down and find more people. But first, his parents want to talk with him.

He’s sitting in front of them now, bouncing his knee impatiently while they half-smile and sip their tea. They have always been like this. Even when there’s a ton of work to do, they drag out the conversation, especially the beginning of it. They come from an era where a legal lifetime was literally about the maximum amount of time a human would live, yet they’re always wasting the minutes on...dramatic effect. “Could we be quite quick?” Jande asks. “I need to get back to the boards.”

“Your father is retired,” his mother begins. “It was unexpected, but it can’t be undone. His body is younger than yours now. How do you feel about that?”

“This is how things are done,” Jande replies. “I knew this was gonna happen one day, I just didn’t know it would be now. He’s been taking it in stride. I mean it, Father, you have accepted your new life admirably. I hope to mimic you when it is my time.”

Mother nods as she’s listening to Jande. “When the shed came down, you were trapped under the entrance. Your body could not move, so you transferred to a bot.”

“You don’t have to recap, we all know what happened,” Jande contends.

“What you don’t know,” Father goes on, “is that we had a forensics expert survey the scene and confirm which of us died first. As I was under a heavy beam in the barn, my body expired instantly. Your body survived long enough for you to induce suicide. For a few seconds, you had inherited the role of Head of Household.”

Jande narrows his eyes, at the both of them, but particularly at his father. “What are you saying, that because of a technicality, I retired immediately after you, and I have no right to continue farming the land? This body is weak. It is not an upgrade. It is not a retirement model, and I have been toiling for the last couple of weeks.”

“Have you noticed the outsider who patrols our perimeter?” Mother asks him.

“You mean the one from the giant metal shuttle, which can be seen even from here?” Jande asks rhetorically. “Yes, I think I did notice him. Why?”

“He’s here to protect us from the Eyrenlanders,” Mother continues. “They want to come in and farm these lands themselves. Meanwhile, you are perusing the network, looking for a spouse or two at a time to fill only a few slots to reach the bare minimum.”

“This is our way,” Jande reminds her. “Quiratan is not an interstellar business. We are family farmers. To work, you must be part of a family. Scale is not the goal.”

“That’s true,” Father agrees. “If the Eyrenlanders were allowed in unconditionally, they would likely expand within the next decade until they reached the same size that Eyrenland was before the black hole showed up and destroyed it.”

Mother places a hand upon her husband’s knee to take the floor. “Perhaps, son, it is time for that. The Eyrenlanders left us alone when they had everything they needed. They were able to provide the eggs for the galaxy’s demand. Now things are different. Now Quiratan has become the single source of authentic eyren. I mentioned the forensics report to give you an easy way out. You retain the honor of not retiring intentionally, but benefit from the accident by accepting it as retirement. No one would blame you for it. We’ll tell them it was your father’s insistence. In his last act as Head of Household, he declared the end of the bloodline, and the end of the farm.”

Jande balls both of his hands into fists and trembles in seething anger, holding himself back from exploding. “You want me to quit, and you have found a bad loophole that, if our ways had been codified into law, would never hold up in court. And you think, after years of raising me to take over your legacy, that I would take this offer?” He stands abruptly. “You do not know me at all, Mother. This farm is mine now. I was going to farm it with you next season, but it is clear that you are planning to retire soon too. So why don’t you just do it and leave? Follow Suki to Castlebourne, or Evers to Varkas Reflex. I will take five, six, seven husbands and wives if that’s what it takes! I’ll not abandon my birthright, and I cannot believe that you of all people would suggest I do!”

His parents stay calm. His father clears his throat. “We were not suggesting that you retire offworld. There is a way for you to gain control over, not only the farm, but all of Quiratan. There is an ancient rank known as the Superintendent. If you reinstitute this role, it would be you who decides who works what farms. Eminent domain, easements, and the like; you would have power over all of it. You would be able to transition Eyrenlanders into more traditional Quiratan obsolescent practices. And once the positions are filled to your satisfaction, you could turn away the excess.”

Jande sits back down. He has spent his whole life learning about this world. He has mostly focused on agriculture, but he studied history as well, and he has never heard of a superintendent. If it’s true, that would be an interesting development. “How would I go about this? Would I walk down main street with the biggest gun, and announce that I’m in charge now, or is there some kind of ceremony or election, or what?” This doesn’t mean he’s gonna do it; he’s just asking questions. There is no harm in asking questions.

Mother smiles, pleased with herself and Father for managing to get through to him. “Superintendents are in charge of elections, placing them above the bureaucracy. There are no guns, and no election. But there is a series of tribulations. It would not be easy, and we would need to find someone to moderate and judge.”

“But, son,” Father begins. “Once you open the floodgates, you will not be able to control what else flows through. Others will surely challenge you for the job.”

Jande nods and relaxes a little in his chair. “Tell me more.”