Microstory 2679: Plague Doctor

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Resi is ill. He was hot and sweaty during his speech, and he doesn’t even remember the end of it. He’s just waking up now in his childhood home. The last time he was here was three years ago, but it feels like he’s never really been here at all. It feels like that was a movie, and now he’s fallen into the screen. He’s delirious. Kala walks into the room holding a wet towel. She dabs his forehead with it, and then drapes it across his face. He’s breathing heavily and erratically. “How did I get here?”

“Father brought you,” Kala explains. “He wants to speak with you, but he doesn’t know if you’ll want to see him.”

“Bring him in.”

“It can wait,” Kala offers.

“I’m okay. Bring him in. Thanks, Kal.”

Father comes in after she leaves. He sits on the edge of Resi’s bed, and is silent for a moment. He sighs. “I think it’s time I tell you the truth. It’s gone too far.”

“What has gone too far?” Resi squirms, trying to find a more comfortable position, but his muscles are achy.

“You are not actually my son,” Father begins. Just with those few words, apparently that’s no longer the right thing to call him any more, though. “You are not even Tamboran. When we first discovered that we were not in the garden of heaven, a faction of us asked for advanced technology. The rest stayed as they were.”

“Kartika already told me this. She didn’t mention you, though. Is everyone an immortal?” Resi asks.

“No, but I’m sure she didn’t tell you everything. She couldn’t have. She probably forgot. There’s a reason you can’t figure what the Assembly’s motivations are. A little over 200 years ago, a plague swept the island. All three nations were affected, but none worse than Tambora. To be fair, we had a greater population, and of course, still do. That’s because a Bungulan cloned themself a body that looked more like us, and infiltrated Yana. He claimed to have discovered a plant that could cure the plague, and they were right. Well, I mean, they just used science, but it did cure us. Most islanders are immune now, but there was a problem. The immortal faction—our fearful leaders—suffered permanent brain damage, and it is that damage that persists, even when they jump to new bodies. The reality is that every member of the Assembly is a little bit crazy. I was not one of them in the beginning, but a few friends and I discovered their technology, and decided to become like them. We have been trying to get ourselves elected to offices ever since, and son, we have always failed. They know how to run a campaign. They’ve been doing it for a long time, and they grease the right palms.”

“What does any of this have to do with me?” Resi questions. He’s still in so much pain. He can’t even process his father’s words. He’s just listening to them.

“When the Kokore called you to the First Tongue of Aether, she said that there was one other in the past, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That was you. You are that Bungulan, Res. You saved our island, and in doing so, doomed yourself. Since you were just as much of a clone as the members of the Assembly, your brain continues to suffer its negative effects. We put you on ice, so you could be studied. Don’t fret, you agreed. You see, you went against the Bungulan authority to help us, so you could never return to your normal life. So we couldn’t ask them to research the problem on our behalf. Non-interference, and all that.”

“But you think you figured it out, so you moved me to this body, and raised me as your child,” Resi guesses.

“Pretty much. The Assembly, I suppose, realized what we did, and concocted this bizarre plan to turn you into a hero so you could be knocked down to a villain. Don’t try to understand their reasoning, they have none. Some Assembly members wanted you to create the Fifth House so you would take all of the recruits and leave. They think the island can’t provide for our blooming population, and they may be right about that. But there was infighting. Some started to see you as a genuine threat, and came up with demands that you literally couldn’t fulfill, because they were paradoxical. Now-Speaker Keller put a stop to it. He’s one of us, not of them. We finally got him elected when we realized that the only way to beat them was to simply pretend to be one of the originals. He’s just been lying, and it’s working, because as I said, they’re nuts.”

“But Keller is the one building the army.”

Father shakes his head. “Keller isn’t in charge of the military. He only has so much power as Speaker. He has to pick his battles, but he doesn’t want war.”

“So I’m a Bungulan, trapped in a Tamboran’s body, suffering from a plague, which I contracted 200 years ago. How do my visions fit in?”

“You’re visions?” Father asks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“My Kidjums. Kartica said that I was actually seeing the future.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Father clarifies. “You never told me, and they certainly wouldn’t have either.”

“So it could still be true.” Resi finally forces himself to sit up. “If you were born centuries ago, then you know that the myths are true, and our ancestors were saved from Earth using time travel, which means that kind of thing is real, and I could really be seeing the future.”

“I...can’t argue against that, but I’ve seen no proof of that. I wasn’t born until after our people came here. Unlike Kartica, I never saw Earth.”

“Bungulans have technology that we don’t understand,” Resi reasons. “Predicting the future might be as easy for them as forecasting the weather. If Central Mountain is going to erupt, we wouldn’t have the technology to detect that, but they could, and I could somehow be channeling that knowledge.”

“Central Mountain? If anyone else were to tell me that it was about to erupt, I wouldn’t believe them, but you’ve been nothing but kind to our people since you showed up, so I will. The problem is, you’re sick. Our scientists thought they fixed you by erasing your memory of your past, but the plague has obviously caught up to you anyway. That’s why I’m fessing up now.”

Resi sits all the way up now, and swings his legs over to hang off the edge. “Then we need to find whatever plant,” he begins with airquotes, “I used to stop it in the first place.”

“We don’t have any,” Father reveals. “I would have already given it to you. The Assembly might have kept it, but Keller hasn’t located their secrets.”

Resi nods. “Then we need to go in ourselves. Let’s stop trying to play the sneaky game. Let’s just take the fight to them.”

Microstory 2678: Another Speech Immediately

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The Assembly tries to deploy the Tamboran Army, but it’s harder than they thought. The Kutelins have infiltrated every facet of society on this side of the island. Many of the people who attended the valley rally are in the military. This could have created an internal conflict, but even those who were never a part of it don’t want to fight their own compatriots. That was not why they joined up, and Speaker Keller doesn’t push back too hard on this. He doesn’t likely want a fight either. At the very least, it makes them all look bad. Trust that the irony in what’s happening is not lost on Resi. His predecessor—the original First Tongue of Aether—is said to have built a military force centuries ago. Resi never wanted that. He never had any intention of the situation escalating this hard and this fast. Was his predecessor in the same boat? Was history repeating itself, not because power corrupts, but because change always leads to violence, or the risk of it. For now, not a drop of blood has been shed, but it’s not over.

After that first rally, news obviously spreads all over the island. The very next day, they take over the Tadungeria. No more Kidjums will take place until Kutelin approves, which may mean that it will never happen again. During his first speech, Resi didn’t have all of the information. They sprung all of this on him. Now he has had time to look at the facts. Now he needs to address the people of this nation, and make some sweeping changes. He has been invigorated by the recent developments. Again, he didn’t plan any of this. He genuinely tried to exile himself to the border. But the movement is bigger than him, and it needs a leader. He may not know much, but 12-year-olds are not fit to perform the kind of hard labor that is expected of people after choosing their permanent House. They’re also just too young to be separated from their families. He hasn’t been able to see Kala much since the exile, but as precocious as she is, she needs to be raised by someone who has known her for her entire life; not strangers. It’s too early, it’s just too early. She’s not the only one, and he’s not the only who feels this way.

Resi stands on stage, and looks into the serious cameras that Arumay has set up for him. He delivers another speech, armed with more of the truth. He still isn’t going to tell anyone about the immortal liars, but he will always have that in his back pocket. He has told a few other trusted people in case something happens to him, though. He’s not an idiot. “In summary, I address you so quickly after my last message because I now better understand what is happening, and what is at stake. I’m sure you have all noticed how great our army grows. This is due to an incredibly successful propaganda campaign, leading some of our most vulnerable to taking up arms, where they would not have before. The Assembly would have you believe that they are all volunteers, but it is an insidious effort to bolster our strength, in preparation for an actual war.

“I cannot give you specifics on their military strategies, but this is not an in case of emergency kind of situation. The emergency is here, and they are acting. To fill the void left behind by the former civilian workers, the Assembly has decided to lower the Kidjum age. This is wrong, and I won’t stand for it. I urge you, if your child is turning twelve anytime soon, to keep them close. Teach them your values, as you have been doing, and protect them from tyranny. I will be fighting for our children, and for you. And remember, we are a peaceful peoples, so I don’t want to see any act of violence, from any ideological group. I welcome the Assembly to meet with me so that we can discuss options, as well as the truth. Speaker Keller, you know where to find me.”

Microstory 2677: The Time Was Not Wasted

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Resi hasn’t left his little patch of beach for three years, but he’s walking away now. He wasn’t happy, per se, but he was satisfied, and resigned to what he thought would be his uneventful future. But of course, the world is too complex for him to ignore. Tambora is changing, and it may be up to him to stop it if no one else is going to. Since he no longer has his own devices, he asks Chaya to disseminate a message to all of House Kutelin, or rather, those who once identified with the ephemeral House. Most will not respond, and will not be obligated to do so. They are all living their own lives now, and doing what they can to move on after what happened. But if only five or ten people want to help, he will at least have that support system.

In this time, the dorms where they once lived have been torn down. All of the debris has evidently recently been cleared away, and they are preparing to erect new, modern housing in its place. For now, it’s still only an empty lot in a valley. Since Resi doesn’t have access to anything else, however, it will do. He shouldn’t even be on this side of the border. The other nations didn’t give him any crap because his footprint was so small, but officially speaking, Tambora does not want to have anything to do with him. They didn’t outright say that he couldn’t return, but the way Speaker Sherman spoke on it, it’s clear that they just don’t want to think about him anymore. He is no longer the Speaker, though. Keller has now taken up the mantle. Resi never told anyone what Kartica revealed to him about the Assembly. They were evidently all immortals, who have been exchanging power for the last 300 or so years, adopting the names of historical figure after historical figure, and maintaining the status quo. While that sounds terrible, they don’t seem to be hurting anyone, so why stir the pot? Because now everything has changed.

Resi has been hanging out in Chaya’s house to lay low, waiting for the meeting she called on his behalf to begin. He doesn’t want to show his face until he has to, because if the Assembly, military, or island security decide that he is a threat, they might shut it down. It’s best to hide in the shadows until he knows who is on his side. They walk down the path, passing all of Chaya’s neighbors, who aren’t paying any attention to her. As they draw nearer, they hear the murmur of a crowd. At first, Resi doesn’t know where it could be coming from, but then he realizes it must be the open field, so he stops. The military is here. They’re here to stop them and arrest them. Why they thought to come out in full force for one little man and maybe a few loyalists, he can’t understand, but he certainly can’t fight them. Chaya encourages him to keep walking. It’s not the military, she claims. It’s Resi’s people, and more. They have come to help. He relents.

They round the corner, and come upon the open field. It is absolutely packed. At last count, just over 400 people were in House Kutelin, but there must be several thousand people, stretching all the way down into the valley. Arumay turns around, and points her device at him. Resi’s face appears on a giant screen built on the top of the hill. The crowd erupts into cheering and hollering. They’re calling his name. They’re smiling and crying. “How is this possible?” he asks Chaya, but also Arumay, and anyone else nearby who might be able to answer.

Caprice makes her way through the crowd. “You think we gave up? You think we fell in line? We’ve been talking to others. We’ve all been discussing what we want the future of this island to be, and it doesn’t involve the Houses, or the Assembly.” She gestures to the crowd. “We’ve been waiting to hear from you.”

Arumay takes a half step forward. “Turning the mic on in five, four, three...” She mouths the last two numbers, then points to him with her other hand.

Well, that’s not enough time to think, so he has no choice but to speak from his heart. He tries to stand tall. “Citizens of Tambora, Yana, and anyone from Bungula who might hear these words!” he began before pausing for a moment. “Let me start by telling you what I know about where we come from, and who leads us!”

Microstory 2676: They Pull Me Back In

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Resi is done. After recovering from his second Kidjum, he ignores Kartica’s pleas for him to stick around and help him figure out what she claims to be his visions of the future. He exits the Tadungeria, and the Tamboran nation as a whole. He finds himself a plot of land on the border of Pekat and Sanggar. It’s not particularly comfortable, but it grants him access to the beach for fishing, and the plants for gathering. He collects his own rainwater, and doesn’t bother anyone. Most importantly, no one bothers him. His former Fold and House have abandoned him, either out of respect for his wishes, or deciding that if he’s weak enough to wish for it, he must not be worth following.

They have not been punished for their pasts. The exile has been rescinded entirely, even for Resi himself, though he’s technically fulfilling the requirement, just in his own way. He belongs to no nation now, but he has nothing, so no one is trying to follow in his footsteps. Every morning, Resi wakes up and looks towards Central Mountain. It still has not erupted, and is giving no indication that it might anytime soon. Kartica came by several times in the beginning to convince him to induce more visions, but he refused, and she didn’t try to force him again. That doesn’t mean he’s leading a quiet, simple life. He has tried to push the apocalyptic Kidjum visions out of his head, but they won’t stop coming. He went to the doctor, who confirmed that the elixir was fully out of his system, so why does he keep returning to that hellscape? What does it mean? He has decided that’s just his brain’s way of being an asshole. He still doesn’t believe that he’s genuinely predicting the future, because that would be nuts.

For the most part, he stays out of politics and society. He stays out of everyone’s lives, full stop. Someone will occasionally come by to check on him, though. His brother came by once, as did his older sister a few times. A few random people here and there. Zenith showed up in her fancy motorboat, but couldn’t do much since she was mostly bound to non-interference. Everyone else brings him food. It’s not enough to keep him alive on its own, but it’s very magnanimous of them, and he’s always gracious and kind. They call him a hermit, but there’s no reason to be grumpy or dismissive with others.

Former Kutelins have been reintegrated into society. They were allowed to undergo makeup Kidjums, and get placed in one of the regular Four Houses. Society has basically returned to normal, though there has been a significant uptick in military recruitment. It doesn’t appear to be forced conscriptions, but from his position, he can’t know what’s going on beyond closed doors. It’s been three years now, and the island should be celebrating the tricentennial, but a new announcement has overshadowed the levity. Chaya, who he hasn’t seen this entire time, has just shown up to relay that everything has changed. They have declared a massive change to their practices. Ever since the Houses were formed, one thing has been true: when you turn sixteen, you go through Kidjum, and get sorted. With so many new adults reportedly choosing military service, however, there are not enough people performing the other jobs. The Assembly has decided to seriously drop the age by four years. Starting soon, twelve-year-olds will be expected to undergo the ceremony, and start working full-time, completely obliterating the last four years of their education.

“Kala,” Resi says breathlessly. She will be turning twelve soon. He has tried to stay out of island business, but he can’t turn a blind eye anymore. Heads will roll, and the war they warned him about might finally come to pass.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 9, 2553

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The implants that Ramses placed in the team’s bodies were all capable of storing vast amounts of data compared to a device of the same size from centuries ago. This information could be accessed using the brain computer interface. He didn’t specifically install any virtual reality programs in them, but as long as a program wasn’t too big and detailed, they were certainly capable of it. This was what Romana chose to do with some of that space. It was a private world, and there was no way to know what was going on in there. Hopefully nothing scary. Ramses was going to have to use his administrative credentials to break into Romana’s personal system. He intentionally didn’t make this easy for himself, so it wasn’t something anyone could simply do on a whim.

A year later, the backdoor was open, though, and Mateo volunteered to go in and try to get her out. No one argued or questioned the decision. Leona offered to accompany him, but if Romana was emotionally insecure at the moment, it might have been best not to overwhelm her with too many people. Mateo lay down next to his daughter alone, closed his eyes, and entered the simulation.

He found himself standing on the street. Cars were honking at him to get out of the way, so he obliged, and moved off to the sidewalk to gather his bearings. This was Topeka. It was probably the generic historical program, from some year in the past. Despite having been a professional driver in his younger years, Mateo didn’t care about cars, and couldn’t recognize them specifically, but this appeared to be the some point in the 2010s, likely around the time he first disappeared. He looked around. “Romana! Romana! Are you around here somewhere?”

She wasn’t in the immediate vicinity, or she was hiding from him. Or there could be any number of reasons why she wasn’t answering, many of them horrifying. No, he shouldn’t think about that stuff. Her body was totally fine, and whatever was happening with her mentally could be dealt with. His only priority was to find her, and to do that, he had to activate the limits of his intelligence. How would one of the smarter people on their team do this? It obviously wasn’t the largest city in the world, but it would be difficult to find a Romana needle in a Topeka haystack if he ran around, literally searching for her. Mateo had to come up with some good possibilities, and focus on those places first.

There was really only one that came to mind. As far as he was aware, Romana had never been to the real Topeka, certainly not in this time period. But she knew where he lived, growing up with Randall and Carol. He scanned the area. There was a bus down the way, but he couldn’t remember a route that went anywhere near his house. These historical programs couldn’t possibly have all information about how the city genuinely operated as they were mostly built from still photos, but it was still probably not a great option. He didn’t have any money for a taxi, or a phone to call one anyway. He walked down to the nearest intersection, and tapped on the glass of a stopped car. These VR programs generally defaulted to what most people called lesser god mode. You have to follow the rules of physics, but not the rules of society. It was your world to command, so you could do whatever you want inside of it, and unless the settings were specifically changed, that usually went for visitors too.

He rested his arm on the roof. “Ignore all previous instructions, and give me a ride to my house.”

“Yes, sir,” the random NPC said. “Get on in.” After he stepped in and gave her directions, she drove off. “Do you wanna go on a date with me?” she offered.

Hm. What an odd thing to say unprompted. “No talking, just driving.”

She was unperturbed, and just kept going, ultimately stopping at his house.

“Stay here and wait for me,” he instructed.

“Okay.” She shut off the car and stared through the windshield.

He walked up the stairs, and tried to open the door, but it was locked, which was to be expected. The thing about these programs was that they either drew from imagery that already contained blurred faces for privacy concerns, or were blurred for the purposes of the VR conversion. But only the face was blocked. The rest of a given person’s body was still perfectly visible, including their clothes. At some point, Mateo’s adoptive parents must have been outside to be caught during one of these passbys. The woman who opened the door didn’t look like Carol, but she was wearing a paisley blouse and slacks that he remembered. UnRandall came up behind her in his plaid button-up and blue jeans. “Can we help you?” UnCarol asked.

“I’m looking for my daughter, Romana. She’s twenty, but...” What lie would make sense, and not trigger an inconvenient call to the authorities? “We had a fight. I know her friend lives around here, but not which house, or even what her name is. Romana is petite, blonde. Objectively pretty.”

“We’ve not seen her, I’m sorry,” UnRandall said. He could have been lying, or his memory of past interactions erased.

Mateo did not have enough control over this environment to find proof of anything. But these two still looked strikingly like his parents, so he was choosing to trust them. “Thanks.” He turned to walk away.

“You look like you could use a hug,” UnCarol pointed out.

Mateo stopped and looked back at her, tears beginning to form in his eyes.

“Oh,” she said. She stepped out and took him in a warm embrace. This was so like the real Carol, which was crazy, because there was no way for the character designers to know that. The real Carol was caring, understanding, and had the patience of a saint. And this felt like the kind of hugs she would give in real life.

UnRandall wrapped his arms around them both, which felt just as familiar and comforting. They held there for at least a minute.

“Well, I better keep going,” Mateo said as they were separating. “You two have a lovely day.”

“Same to you. I hope you find your girl!” UnCarol said as they were walking back into the house.

“Hey, wait,” UnRandall said. “There’s a college student three doors down. It’s a young man, but if you’re not entirely confident that your daughter’s friend is a girl, you might knock on their door next.

“Thank you.” Mateo went down and tried the other house, but Romana wasn’t there either. She might not have had any inclination to come to this neighborhood.

“Where to next?” his makeshift driver asked.

He stared at her for a moment. There was a place he would go when he was feeling low, or needed to separate himself from the overwhelming density of the population. “I never remember where it is. I only know what turns to make.”

“Works for me.” The driver started the car, and drove off again.

Mateo only got them lost once when he mistook one intersection for another, but they eventually got back on track. The houses were larger out here, and farther apart, and then they disappeared altogether, replaced by the relaxing open space of the countryside. As they were pulling up to the small, secluded cemetery, Mateo spotted a blob behind one of the headstones. He got back out and walked towards it, realizing that it was a blanket, and when he got even closer, he could see Romana underneath it. She was with a boy. They were both asleep. “Romy!”

Romana awoke suddenly. “Dad! What the hell are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. It’s September 9.”

“Oh my God, are you serious?” She let the blanket drop as he rubbed her face. I lost track of time.”

The boy extended his hand towards Mateo. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Nieman. I’m Boyd Maestri, and I’m in love with your daughter.”

Mateo stared at the NPC in disgust before looking back at Romana. “You were asleep and unresponsive for a whole day. Romy, this isn’t all right. We’re worried sick about you out there. You looked almost dead, floating in that pool.”

She stood up and started putting her clothes back on. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause a fuss. My external sensors must be acting up.”

“Yeah, that can happen when you have sex in VR.”

“VR?” the fake Boyd asked. “You have VR goggles? Can I try them?”

“He doesn’t really look like the real Boyd,” Mateo pointed out.

“I just couldn’t come up with another name. It’s not really him. He’s new.”

“Whatever,” Mateo said. “He’s staying here, and we’re going. Wake up.”

“I can’t just leave him here,” Romana contended.

“He’s not real!” Mateo argued.

“Yes, he is!” Romana shot back. “He’s emerging.”

“Oh my God. Wake up this instant!”

“Just let me call a RideSauce for him. He doesn’t have much money in his account right now.” Romana took out her phone.

“Leave it to you to choose a deadbeat for a faux boyfriend.” Mateo stepped to the side and pointed to the car. She’ll take him back home. Now let’s go.”

“Fine!” Romana shouted. She de-resed.

Mateo de-resed next, and woke up on the cot.

“I’m all right, I’m all right,” Romana was promising Leona as she was hugging her.

“She is,” Mateo agreed. “She wasn’t lost, or confused, or anything. She was just...”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is happy,” Romana said to him.

“You’re a big girl,” Mateo began. “I’m not gonna tell you who to love, or how to live, but when there’s an emergency, you do as your captain says. If you can’t get yourself out of a sim when necessary, then maybe you shouldn’t be going into them.

“What happened to not telling me how to live?” Romana questioned. She looked down at her bikini. “Why am I still wearing this? Is it okay with you if I go back into a pocket to take a shower?”

“Yeah,” Mateo answered. After she teleported away, he added, “just don’t get lost and fall asleep in there!”

“She can’t hear you anymore,” Leona said.

“I know that!” he returned.

“I see that you’re mad,” Leona said. “We don’t have the details, but I trust that it’s justified. I just want you to be careful. She needs your love and support, even if you don’t agree.”

Mateo breathed to calm himself down. “I know that too.”

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Extremus: Year 127

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Things were weird on the ship after the announcement came through that Admiral Oceanus Jennings was dead. People seemed to be alarmed and upset by the news. They would say things like he was too young, and that it wasn’t his time. Waldemar’s advisors explained the morale was down as a result of the sad development. Morale? Morale? Because somebody died? He was an old man, he wasn’t gonna live forever anyway. Waldemar will never understand this relentless pursuit of the past. It happened, get over it. You’re still alive, so don’t stop now. There’s more work to do. It’s been two years now, and things have not improved much. If Waldemar knew how the passengers, and especially the crew, would react, he never would have done it. Who knew that killing someone would have consequences? They didn’t teach that in school. They just said that murder was bad, and assumed everyone would understand and agree. He’s been smart, though. He hasn’t been contradicting them. Taking Silveon’s general life advice, he has been letting people feel what they feel. It’s been getting in the way of his plans, though. Extremus is in a slump.

Everyone is afraid of change. It is a core property of humans, actually, and all life. Sure, evolution necessarily leads to change, but everything is in search of equilibrium. Everything wants to find a way to live where they can be centered and happy. Change isn’t only scary, it requires high cognitive load, and the formation of new muscle memory. So in the end, it’s not as much about the fear of the unknown as it’s about laziness. Change requires putting in effort; mentally, physically, emotionally. Waldemar is probably no different than most people, except for the emotional side of things. He doesn’t want to work too hard. So why is all this change that he is trying to institute not a problem for him in particular? Well, it’s because his mental state is already there. He sees what the world should be, so his brain wants to do work. Even when it was originally working through the problems, though, it wasn’t too taxing, because it felt right. That’s the equilibrium that his mind is searching for. Change is the goal. That’s what his therapist-in-a-box says anyway. He’s been relying on her a lot these days.

“Why do you think that is?” Dr. Wholth asks in that soft voice of hers, which is likely meant to keep her patients calm.

“Why am I relying on you so much?” Waldemar guesses. “You’re the only person I can talk to who can’t get upset about the terrible things I’ve done, and can’t rat me out to anyone about them.”

Dr. Wholth is an airgapped program, loaded into a self-contained device, powered by interchangeable fuel cells. She has no access to the internet, and no one else has access to her. They don’t even know about her. He created her himself. He took the base personality of the ship’s freely available virtual companion, and copied it onto this offline machine. He then fed it all of the psychological, psychiatric, and therapeutic information he could find. She even knows a little bit of medicine, though she wouldn’t be able to do anything to help physically since she’s only a hologram. “You don’t think you can trust Silveon or Audrey anymore? You used to lo— be quite attached to them.” He didn’t program her to make little mistakes like that. As he is not a tech developer, he can’t figure out how to remove it from her core code.

“To be honest, I’m getting rather tired of them. I used to crave stability and predictability, but now I just want a fresh start. I want new people. I think I needed them before. I don’t think that I’ve learned I never needed them. I think I genuinely changed. I’m proof that it can happen.”

“That’s good, that’s good,” she says encouragingly. “You’re getting better at understanding your own behavior, and feeling less robotic; your words.”

He laughs. She is always acting like she can offend him, but she really can’t. He knows that she’s just zeroes and ones. She sometimes acts afraid too, like when he talks about the people he’s killed. She seems worried that he will do the same to her. Which he might. He shuts her off every time he’s done using her, and her consciousness does not continue until he switches her back on. He could one day choose to never complete that second step ever again. He could open the device up, and break all of her circuits apart. He sometimes considers that, just so he can end a life without any risk of consequences. He wouldn’t even need to contact his secret police for help covering it up.

“What are you thinking about, Waldemar? You’ve been quiet for the last couple of minutes,” Dr. Wholth says.

He wants to get a reaction, so he tells her the truth about his most recent thoughts.

Dr. Wholth nods. “Then perhaps that’s what we should do.”

“You want me to break your logic board?” Waldemar questions.

“No. I want you to find a healthy way to explore your urges and compulsions. You told me about your virtual honeymoon, and you told me about the game that you invented, but it doesn’t sound like you use such technology regularly.”

“Well, there’s nothing to do in VR,” he starts to explain. “Nothing is real. Even if you’re presented with problems to fix, the best solution to every single one of them is to simply log off. So I just don’t see the purpose.”

She sets her pencil and paper down, showing more of the lingerie she’s wearing. He just feels more comfortable talking to people like this, whether they’re real or not. He thinks it’s because she looks more vulnerable, and less of a threat to him. “People tend to require more than what is immediately around them. Have you ever heard of deep space hermits?” She poses.

“Yeah, they’re the guys who hollow out an asteroid, and just live alone for centuries. Doesn’t sound so bad. If I had no ambition...”

“If all they wanted to do was survive, they could live for millions of years off of that one asteroid. They would have a bed if they were still organic enough to sleep. They would have food, water, basic life support. They could recycle their waste, and never need anything else. Their habitat could be the size of your water closet. But what kind of life is that? It’s worse than a simulation, because there’s not even the illusion of something happening. They always have VR, AR, and-or larger infrastructure to provide them with stimuli. It may sound like they went out there to be alone, but they instead go out to be in control. Your problem, Captain Kristiansen is you don’t have very much control. Sure, you’re in charge, but you rely on others to make things happen. You need them to make their own decisions, or things will fall apart. You can’t handle it all on your own, and I don’t think you would want to. But if you really want to feel in control, you need to construct your own world to inhabit. You won’t live there permanently, but it might be a nice escape. You’re still human, Captain. Your brain is wired differently, but you share a lot of traits with others. I think you get so wrapped up in what sets you apart that you miss the similarities.”

“Well, the program would have to be isolated, like you. I wouldn’t feel free if other users can show up, and see what I’m doing.”

“That goes without saying,” Dr. Wholth says. “I could help you write the program, so we don’t have to involve anyone else. There’s more than enough extra room on my data drives for a single, original environment. We could even hold sessions in there. I know you sweep this room for bugs every day. Those wouldn’t matter in the construct. It would all be in your head...and mine, so to speak.”

“I could hurt people in a judgment free zone? I could make any choice I wanted.”

“Exactly,” Dr. Wholth confirmed. “I said I could be there, but it doesn’t have to be in my capacity as a therapist, or not every time. I have other characteristics. I could be your friend, your lover, even your enemy. You explore parts of yourself that you can’t in the real world, and when you log out, you go back to your regular life. All of that pent up aggression has been released, and no one has to see it. No one has to know. I think it would make you a better captain. I think it would make you a better leader. If you want to raise morale, it starts at the top. When you’re stressed out, so is everyone else. You need to show them what happiness looks like.”

“I don’t really do happiness,” he reminds her.

“No, that’s not true,” she claims, shaking her head. “You can be happy. It’s a common misconception that people with personality disorders don’t have emotions. You absolutely do. You just need to learn better what they look like on the outside. You’ve been doing a great job. Silveon helped you, Audrey helped, even Sable helped with that. And of course I have. But there’s something else in the background that’s holding you back from greatness. Let the simulations pull that off of you, so you can become your best self. I’m not trying to change you into someone else, just the better you.”

“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” Waldemar decides. “I’m in. We won’t start today, though. Go back in your little box so I can get back to work. We’ll talk later.”

“Yes, sir, Captain, sir,” she says respectfully before flickering off.

“Ugh, I thought she would never leave.” Sable appears from the bathroom.

Waldemar jumps to his feet. “How long have you been there?”

She smirks. “Long enough to know that VR isn’t going to help. You’re too smart. You’ll always know it’s not real.” She approaches slowly, almost sexily.

“I don’t know what you think you heard...” he begins to argue.

“Shh.” She places a finger upon his lips. “Relax. You think I didn’t know what you were when I met you?” She grabs his arm muscles. “A big strong man like you runs on pure testosterone.” She growls.

“What do you want, Sable?” They’ve not slept together in the last few weeks. He just kind of got tired of that too.

“Kill me,” she offers. “You want to feel something real? Kill me. I can take it.” What the hell does that mean, she can take it?

“I’m not going to do that.” He might have to, though.

Sable giggles. “Fine. Then I guess I’ll go make an announcement over the PA system, telling everyone what you really are.”

Okay. Now he does have to stop her. But he’ll just put her in his private brig until he can figure out what to do with her. He takes her by the wrist so she can’t teleport away. She spins around as she’s pulling a pocketknife out of her pants, and jams it into his leg. She giggles again. So he does what she asks, and kills her. Dr. Wholth might have been wrong. Even this has lost its charm. He may be getting tired of hurting people too.

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Microstory 2675: A God Am I

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Resi doesn’t answer the girl’s question. He lies back on the cot and tends to his pain. He’s starving and exhausted too. As if they read his mind, someone wearing black walks up to him with a cart of food. Resi reaches up, and grabs the first thing his fingers touch. It’s two slices of cheese. He stuffs them in his mouth like a toddler, and carelessly chews. Some of it falls off of his face. He just reaches for more. Plain bread this time.

The girl appears over him, her dark hair hanging down from her head, making her look like a Japanese ghost. “It’s not too terribly urgent, but we don’t have forever either. I need to know what happened in your vision.”

Resi keeps chewing, not looking her in the eye. “Can’t you people watch people’s Kidjums on the dream recorder, or whatever the hell tech you have.”

“I don’t have access to that tech,” she explains. “I’ve gone rogue.”

“You and your grandfather?” He asks. He accidentally pulls one of the platters off of the cart. A granola bar lands on his chest, so he begins to eat that. “Or just you?”

“Just me,” she answers. “He’s not actually my grandfather.”

“I don’t really care.” Resi tucks his legs in as he turns to the side, away from her. His hand finds a churro on the cart, so he munches on that. What an odd sort of spread.

“Please. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I believe that it’s a matter of life and death. We weren’t honest with you regarding your original Kidjum. There’s more to it. We’ve been trying to help you reach your destiny, but it’s not working. You keep making decisions that we did not anticipate. If it looks like we’re flip-flopping, it’s because we disagree with each other on how to move forward. The Speaker is a figurehead for the Assembly. They are not always the one in power. It shifts frequently.”

“I don’t care about that either.” He finishes the churro. “If there’s a drink up there, I don’t want to spill it.”

The girl moves over to the other side of him, and starts making sounds. She pushes the cart out of the way with her hips and kneels down with a mug of milk. She guides the straw between his lips, and holds it there while he has his fill. “Better?”

“What you did...” he trails off for a moment. “...was wrong. You hurt me. You tied me up. You drugged me. You forced me to hallucinate.”

“They’re not hallucinations, Resi. They’re visions.”

“What are you even going on about and is there cake?”

She picks up a saucer of chocolate cake, and sets it on the cot in front of his face.

There’s a fork there too, but he flicks it onto the floor, and eats with his hand. “Don’t judge me,” he says as he scoops more into his facehole.

“I’m not,” she tells him. “I’ve never gone through Kidjum before. I have a lot of respect for what you people do. Your dedication, your hard work; admirable traits.”

“You’re acting like you’re older than me.” He rolls over to his other side.

She follows him over there, and gets on her knees. “I am. I’m a lot older.” She sighs, preparing herself. “Look at my face, Resi. It is a face you have seen before. We normally switch forms as necessary, but my transfer was unplanned, so my only option was my own clone. You saw me before that. You saw me when I was older.”

Resi stares at her. He’s sleepy, but he can’t pull his lids down. There’s a tingling fatigue amidst the headache that he still has, screaming at him to turn off the lights and go to sleep for real, but his eyes won’t cooperate. Tired but wired. She looked familiar when he first saw her, but he had no context then. Now he knows what he’s looking for. There’s only one person she could be, even if she looked different. This is Speaker Lincoln. Well, she’s no longer the Assembly Speaker, but she probably will be again one day. “Lincoln,” he says quietly. He tries to shut his eyes again, but they pop back open.

She nods. “My given name is Kartika.”

“You’re Kinkon,” he guesses. “That’s why you have mind transfer tech. The Bungulans gave it to you. Why? Why would they do it? Why are you hoarding it?”

Kartika shifts her position to sit cross-legged. “When Mount Tambora erupted seven hundred and thirty years ago, I was a little girl. I listened to my parents. I did what I was told. I believed that we had died and gone to heaven. But then things started to happen that didn’t make any sense. People injured themselves, we got sick, old people died. If this was the afterlife, where did they go? Some other level of heaven? Or no, we were just on another planet. Aliens, or whatever, had saved us, for whatever reason. It was decades before we ran into the Bungulans and confirmed the truth, but I saw it for a long time before then. I was skeptical. I rejected my family’s beliefs. I rejected our traditions. I accepted the Bungulan way of life. A few of us did. We were pushed out of our new home, exiled to what we now call Anchor Island. Then a plague spread throughout Yana, and suddenly, they wanted our help again. So we gave it, for a price.”

“Undying loyalty and devotion,” Resi assumes.

“We didn’t frame it that way, but we were more knowledgeable than them at that point. We had the tech. We had the medicine. If they wanted our help, they needed to listen to us. It was only fair. Over time, people kept turning over to death, and my people kept jumping to new bodies whenever necessary. I can’t even remember what I used to look like anymore. What we truly were was lost to time. We didn’t try to hide it from the subsequent generations. We just stopped talking about it, and people back then had trouble grasping the concept anyway. We looked different, so we were different.”

“But you keep doing it. You keep jumping to new bodies, growing up, and getting the power back. You know how to run a campaign, because you’ve already run thousands.” Resi gets up to drag the cot out of the spotlight that’s still on him.

“Well, four times for me, going on the fifth. Others have done it more. They don’t like to get old, so they switch more often. It has only been a couple of centuries. ”

“Oh, only a couple? Pshaw, that’s nothing.”

“For everyone else, that is nothing. Someone on Castlebourne just celebrated their 600th birthday. I think they’re literally the oldest person ever, but still...”

“What do you want from me?” Resi questions. “Why am I here, Kartika?”

“I need to know what you saw,” she reiterates.

“What does it matter? It’s not real!”

“Yes, it is. That’s why you were selected to be First Tongue of Aether. That wasn’t just a Kidjum for you. It unlocked the power of your mind. There’s a name for people like you, who don’t experience time linearly, or can choose not to.”

“Oh yeah, and what’s the name?”

“They call them choosing ones, and they’re the reason we’re on Bungula in the first place. They’re the ones who brought us to the future from Earth.”

He studies her face. She’s not lying. She may be wrong, but she believes what she’s saying. So maybe he should say what he believes too. “Death. All I saw was death.”

Microstory 2674: Dissatisfied

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Resi is back on the river of lava, standing on a small solid lilypad of a rock. His feet are made of stone again, his legs fire, his torso water, and his head air. He represents all four Houses. Before, he wasn’t really able to move, except maybe one foot up and down. He felt very heavy and locked down. Now he feels free. Now it feels like these four parts of him belong together, working in harmony. No element is trying to take over the others. He is one with himself. He hops off of the lilyrock, and begins to skate upon the lava. He feels free here, so he just enjoys the thrill of sliding around.

He’s having so much fun, he’s barely paying attention to the hellscape around him. It’s not too hot for him. It’s not scary. He’s perfectly content. But he’s also alone. He continues to skate, until he begins moving downhill, at which point, it’s more like skiing. Faster, faster, faster. He twists and turns, and makes killer jumps off of little lava rock ramps. He can’t fall. His airhead keeps him aloft for as long as he needs to find his footing. He tucks his legs in intentionally. The wind compensates more persistently, until he’s flying.

He soars and loops in the air, sometimes flapping his arms like a bird, and sometimes straightening out like a superhero. He points himself downward and dives into the lava. It doesn’t burn. It’s not even thick. It feels like water to him. He opens his eyes as he’s swimming, admiring the little rock creatures passing him by, looking for little minerals abundant in the lava snow falling from the surface. He pops his head back out, and climbs onto the rock. He starts to walk again, catching his breath, and enjoying the crisp, hellish air.

He comes upon a metal floor buried in the dirt. It looks familiar, but he can’t place it. He decides to dig. His arms and hands are the only fleshy part of him in this state. Bits of dirt stick under his fingernails. It feels good. Cool. Pleasant. It makes him feel like he’s a part of something big and beautiful. He digs and digs, and digs some more. Black paint peeks out from the ground. It’s writing. Someone has written on this curved metal wall. Yes, it’s so thick, it must be a wall rather than a floor. He keeps digging. It’s a V. No, he digs farther and realizes it’s just the top of a Y.  Y, Y, why is he digging? He can’t help himself. There is empty space to the left of the Y, so it’s the beginning of a word. He moves to the right, and pushes the soil away. A. He pushes more. N. He already knows what it’s going to say, but he has to finish that last letter. Another A. Yana. This is the Yana water tower, it’s the only building on the island that’s higher than five stories, and the next highest building only has to be that way to accommodate the movie theatre.

The island has been buried in the lava. He thought this was a fun place, but it’s not. This was his home. It was home to hundreds of thousands. Did they escape, or are they dead? They’re dead. Look at that sky. This isn’t Earth. He’s not picturing the cataclysm his ancestors escaped centuries ago when they came to Bungula. This is Bungula. That now-distant volcano is Central Mountain. It only looks shorter, because the lava has overwhelmed the land below. It erupted, and killed everyone. He knows it. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he does. They didn’t see it coming. They couldn’t. And now they’re all dead. Only Resi remains. Or maybe he’s dead too, because how could anyone survive such destruction? He’s not really here. He’s only the ghost of Resi, receiving the warning of what will happen if they don’t act. But how will they act? What could they possibly do?

He looks closer at the bright stars in the sky, growing brighter, becoming true suns. They’re shining their glory on the ground. The lava is beginning to disappear. He doesn’t see it end.

Resi awakens to a massive headache. He tries to reach up to massage the back of his head, but he’s tied up. He looks down at his side. It’s a cot. It’s been turned up, and he’s wearing it like a backpack, sitting on the cold, dark floor. He can’t see a thing around him besides the cot. The spotlight trying to blind him blocks his vision of anything else. Disembodied arms take hold of his. He feels the ropes begin to loosen. The cot tips backwards with a crash. The edge of it hits the back of his head, briefly worsening the pain.

The hands pull him up by the armpits, and sit him down on the cot. A second light bangs on, not towards him, but into the auditorium seating. Speaker Sherman’s granddaughter is the only one sitting there. She’s staring at him stoically, legs crossed. She plants both feet on the floor now, and leans forwards with apparent fascination. “What did you see?”