Microstory 2800: Life Always Finds a Way

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It’s been another five years. Jande has been working the land with his new family, and he’s happy. For the most part, they have maintained Quiratan’s principles, but a few Eyrenland conventions have been woven into the community too, which is fine. No, it’s good. What happened there was a tragedy, and it’s a good thing to keep their traditions alive. They never needed to be rivals, and he’s glad that they all prosper together now.

Jande and his spouses work in shifts, and it’s not Jande’s shift right now, so he’s in bed alone. A hand has just clamped down over his mouth. He tries to get up, but he’s being pinned down.

“Shh,” comes a voice. It sounds familiar, but he needs to say more. “I’m not going to hurt you, but I don’t want to get caught.” Oh, it’s Dare. He came back apparently. “If I let you go, will you scream? I can’t have you scream. It’s not for me, it’s for them.”

What the hell does that mean, it’s for them? If Jande screams, Dare is gonna kill his whole family? Well, he can’t ask that like this, so he nods.

Dare removes his hand and breathes a sigh of relief. “Okay. Thank you.”

“What did you do to my family? Did you hurt them? Where are they?”

“What? Your family?” Dare questions. “I dunno, they’re working, I guess.”

“You implied that if I screamed, it wouldn’t be bad for you, but for them.”

“Oh, not them,” Dare clarifies. “This has nothing to do with them.” He sighs again. “All right. I’ve been hiding out in a remote region on the other side of the world. I keep moving; people leave me alone, as nomads do. I found something and I don’t know what it means because I’ve not lived here for very long, and I didn’t learn the culture.”

“Wait, you never left Bida? You never sent your consciousness away?” Jande asks.

“No, I just made it look like I did,” Dare explains. “I didn’t want anyone looking for me, and if they did, I wanted them looking in all the wrong places.”

Jande sits up and gestures for the light to turn on, but dim. “Why are you back here, and what does it have to do with me? What did you find?”

“It’s better if I show you. We need to get to the train station. It’s not busy this time of morning.”

“I can’t take the train,” Jande tells him. “I don’t have any energy credits. I mean, I get a small stipend. I could take it if we were just trying to get across Quiratan, or maybe to Mount Pryce, but if we’re going to the other side of the planet, that’s too far for me.”

“Goddammit,” Dare hisses. “I don’t have any transferable energy credits either. A lot of nomads are unbanked, so I wouldn’t be able to give what I have to you.”

“I wouldn’t be able to take it anyway,” Jande says. “It’s part of my punishment. If they let me accept transfers, then I could crowdsource enough to reach normal levels.”

“There’s another way,” Kool says. What Ersence didn’t tell Jande when he was first trying to get into the family was that Priscilla was one of her wives. She is now Jande’s wife too, but she should be in the fields right now, tending to the moon blossoms. “I saw you slinking in, Dare. You’re not as sneaky as you think.”

“What’s your idea?” Jande asks as he’s getting up and putting on his clothes. “And will you help us, or do you have an issue with what’s happening here?”

“I love you, Jande,” Kool says. “I have since you risked your life to save Mayor’s. I would never rat you out. No one in the family would, not even Ridley. As for my idea, Vantu Hidayat’s shuttle still sits in the center of town. Nothing can grow there because of it. People see it as a statue now, but it still runs. He told me as much before he left for some off-world mission.”

“Why would he tell you that?” Jande questions. “I guess I never wondered why he left it just sitting there, now that the threat of ruining Quiratan is a moot point.”

“He feels bad about his part in all this. The search for a superintendent didn’t have to entail everything it did. He had to make up a lot of it, and he regrets it. He didn’t say this, but I think he left it for you. You don’t need energy credits to take it.”

“That goes against the spirit of my assessment,” Jande says. “They didn’t take my credits so my account balance would be zero. They took them so I wouldn’t leave.”

Kool shrugs. “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just giving you an option. The way I see it, that’s not what the assessment order says. It doesn’t bar you from traveling or building. It just takes away the common means of accomplishing those things.”

“How do you know what my assessment order says?” Jande presses.

“As I said,” Kool replies, “I love you. We all read it. No one told you?”

“Hm. No.” Jande still feels a little like an outsider in the family, even though it’s been years, he’s helping raise Ersence and Yazid’s twins, and no one acts like he doesn’t belong. He just sometimes gets this feeling that he’s lived longer than he can recall, so he really just feels like a stranger to this world in general. What happened to him while he was missing for over two years? Should he look into it after all this time?

“Kool, if you can get us on that ship, I can fly it. I may not be able to access every system, but I didn’t darklurk my asteroid home, I kept it moving,” Dare says.

“I can get you on the shuttle,” Kool agrees, “but I’m coming with you.”

Dare wasn’t lying. He has little trouble figuring out how to pilot the shuttle. They take off just as the sun is rising. People surely saw, but they wouldn’t have been able to tell who was on board. Kool went around and informed the rest of the family before departure so there would be no secrets between them, but beyond that, no one should know that Jande is a passenger, at least not for now. It’s unclear what’s going to happen to him when word travels to the wrong people, though, such as the adjudicator.

They’re landing now. Dare eases the shuttle down to the ground, and as they’re descending, they see something on the cliff face through the main viewports. It’s a huge stone monument, with an etching that reads MATEO MATIC MEMORIAL ESCARPMENT. HE LED A LIFE OF LIFTING OTHERS. HERE HE FELL. NOVEMBER 18, 2256. Jande doesn’t know exactly who that is, but he’s clearly the man depicted in the hologram below the words. The mid-23rd century was well into the advancement of immortality technology. Whoever he was, he shouldn’t have had to die. Such a shame.

“Well, this is interesting,” Jande says, “but I’m not sure why you couldn’t have simply taken a photo and messaged me. Am I meant to know this guy?”

“No, this memorial might be a coincidence,” Dare explains. “I suppose I don’t really know that, but it’s not what I wanted to show you.” He opens the back hatch.

The air rushes in. “I know that smell,” Jande says. “Why does it smell like eyren?”

The three of them walk through the shuttle and down the ramp. Before them is a field of uquira, with several uquirapods waddling around. The clearing is wide, but the field is rather small. It looks like it’s just getting started. They stand in awe of it.

Life always finds a way.

Microstory 2799: They Will Get Married After This

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Now that Jande’s speedy trial is over, he has been able to catch up with what else has been going on. Dare left. He quit his job as Axiom of War and ran off. He employed the new induced blind suicide protocol, so there is no record of where he ended up. When that’s used, it bounces the user’s consciousness all over the galaxy for up to a few days before settling on one location, so he could be anywhere by now. He’s likely wanting to go back to his life as a hermit crab, but they may never find out what happened to him. His position and department were shuttered, like their predecessors, the Safety Department. It has since been replaced by the Defense Department. A shortlist of candidates is being vetted for it. Reportedly, no former superintendent candidate is on it, which makes sense. Looking back, that was all a big mistake.

Jande knows now why they didn’t bother firing him as superintendent, or rather impeaching. Firstly, it would make the stain on the history of this planet bigger than it already is. The first and only superintendent has to be removed after barely serving? No, they can’t have that. What they can do, however, is work around him, and quietly cut him out of the decisions. He was annoyed at first, but then he remembered that he never wanted any of this. His parents got in his head, and generated ambition that wasn’t initially there. He can’t believe he let that happen. He just wants to be a farmer.

“That’s this whole thing. They’re calling it rededication.” Ersence also quit her job, but not due to any sort of scandal. She just decided several months into Jande’s disappearance that she didn’t want it anymore. The competition changed her. She doesn’t want to be a leader, and she doesn’t want to hold on to the principles she valued when she was identifying as a Doma Tertian. Most of them don’t anymore.

“They want me to rededicate myself to the community? I can do that.”

“It involves switching to a new body again, even if the one you’re in now technically qualifies. You also have to swear an oath to Quiratan, and...”

“And what?” Jande presses. “If it’s bad, just tell me. I need to know regardless.”

“Someone in your position doesn’t get their own plot,” Ersence goes on. “You have to marry into a family, and they decide your lot. You won’t be head of household, even though you were before.”

“You and I are still married. What does that mean?” Jande asks.

“We were stripped of our status when we started the games,” Ersence begins to explain. “To get back in, I had to marry someone else. Now you’re a dangler.”

Split marriages happen all the time. It’s when someone is married to people who aren’t married to each other. They used to be kind of frowned upon, but it’s not the 22nd century anymore—lol—and there was a time when group marriages weren’t legal, full stop. And before that, you were only allowed to marry someone of the opposite sex! Society eventually realized that restricting other people’s happiness doesn’t make any sense, and the rules were always arbitrary. So now, it’s open. Do whatever you want, as long as it’s consensual. It’s perfectly normal to have a complex family tree. Some might say that it’s a little embarrassing to be a dangler, where you’re only tangential to a family. There’s only a slang term for it, but it’s also common enough in the galaxy.

“Who are they?” Jande asks. “It would be easier for me to stay on the same track, instead of finding some other random family to join.” He would have to divorce Ersence first, so there aren’t any land allocation questions. At least that’s how it worked before.

Ersence nods. “I would be okay with that. I honestly don’t know how the others would feel. It’s more of an arrangement than anything. I care for the young uquirapods in the nursery, getting them used to human interaction, but it’s not like the Quiratan you used to know. Not everyone is a farmer...they don’t have to be anymore. One of them actually works for Defense. He may have an opinion about you. I hardly ever see him.”

“I would like to meet him,” Jande decides, “as well as the others.”

“I can set you up on a date,” Ersence says. “It would be best if it were one on one, I think. He doesn’t like to be ambushed, I know that much about him, so while it might sound better to win over the others first, we should start with him. If he doesn’t accept you, it really doesn’t matter what the others think. Can you handle that?”

“I’ve been on a date before,” Jande replies.

Ersence turns around to get started. “Not like this. Not after what happened.”

It’s not for another three days when Ersence’s other husband, Ridley Forrester has time off enough for a date. They’re at a restaurant at the top of Tiny Tower. It’s called that because it’s only five stories tall, but that makes it the tallest living space structure in the world. There are taller objects, of course, but not for regular usage. Still, it’s a nice view of the valley below. Ridley’s face is so hard and still, if you only saw his head, and someone asked you to guess whether he was the type to wear his uniform at all times, you would say yes. And you would be right.

“Can I ask, what do you do for the Defense Department?” Jande asks.

“I’m Hock Watcher for the Prisoners of War sector,” Ridley answers.

“POWs?” Jande echoes. “Did you hold that role before we even had any, or is that a new position that had to open up because of what happened a couple months ago?”

“I was just Hock Watcher. Then I was promoted when the new sector became necessary. I applied to the original job sixteen years ago, hoping that I would never have anything to do. I wasn’t lazy, mind you, but I wanted to walk into that cell block every day and be completely alone. I wanted the isolation to show me that we rose above our past mistakes.” His passion increases noticeably as he speaks. “I wanted to see...the proof that crime no longer existed. And then they came.” Now he’s tearing up. “They came, and they proved me wrong. I didn’t want the promotion, but I accepted it, because now every day, I need to see that I was wrong. I won’t forget that lesson anytime soon.”

“I’m sorry,” Jande tells him. “I’m sorry for my part in that.” He doesn’t understand it. They came from a distant star, thinking that Bida was responsible for sending the Kugelblitz black holes to them, instead of the truth, which is that both worlds were victims. They don’t feel the same way Ridley does. They believe in death. They’re human, but that’s such an alien concept. You don’t jump into war before you have all the facts. Or rather, according to most Milky Way cultures, you don’t. Who knows what they’ve been through, and why they felt they had to do it this way? They didn’t. A single conversation, and this whole thing could have been cleared up.

Ridley is still teared up. “What you did, Superintendent Ter Avest, was believe the same thing that I did. You believed in the goodness of the universe. Don’t you ever apologize for that. Despite what happened, sir, you are a hero to Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, and I would be honored to one day call you my husband...if you’ll have us.”

Jande breathes, having not expected that response. “Yes.”

Microstory 2798: He’ll Get to Keep His Job

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The air doesn’t smell right. It’s not like Jande hasn’t been in a building like this before, but he doesn’t care for it. In Quiratan, everything smells at least a little like eyren. That’s why people preserve the shells even after they consume the eggs, and they do this all over the galaxy. The courthouse apparently has no need for the aroma. They would rather it smell stale and wooden. But it’s fine. He’ll be fine. He’s just waiting for the final assessment. Both arbitration panels found Jande accountable for endangering the lives and property of Bidans, but the adjudicator has yet to weigh in. She will probably make her assessment soon, and she will probably agree with the panels.

Since it’s quite unlikely that the adjudicator will go against the arbitration panels, the real question is what will actually become of Jande? In the olden days, they would call this the sentencing. Just because you’re determined to be guilty doesn’t mean you know how much time you’ll serve behind bars, or what other particulars there will be. Since what happened is unprecedented, the adjudicator has the freedom to basically do whatever she feels is right to him. His advocate, former superintendent candidate, Mayor Brampston believes that Jande will serve a lifetime in virtual quarantine.

A legal lifetime is still set at 120 years since that is about as long as baseline humans, like Ersence’s people, are expected to live. That’s not too bad. Mayor lobbied for Jande to be able to serve out any VR term on-world instead of on Varkas Reflex. That would allow him to have periodic visits from his loved ones. That’s assuming that’s what even happens to Jande anyway. There are still physical prisons in the universe, as archaic and savage as it may sound. Even that wouldn’t be the worst ever, though. He will accept his fate, whatever it is. He screwed up, and he owns that. He probably shouldn’t have been selected as superintendent. His parents gave him too much credit.

Mayor walks into the lounge. “Your bracelet is about to buzz.”

Jande’s bracelet buzzes.

“They’re ready.” Mayor walks back out and into the courtroom.

Jande follows him and stays standing as the adjudicator walks in, as well as the arbitration panels. Their job is done, but they have a right to witness this.

The adjudicator stands in the center of her alcove. She waits for an uncomfortably long time. “Members of the court, alleger, accused, and audience. Thank you for returning for my assessment. What happened two months ago has never before happened in Milky Way history. Strangers from unknown parts invaded our lands, and attempted to wrest control over them for equally unknown reasons. We were prepared for this eventuality until our defenses were deliberately dismantled.

“The party ultimately responsible for this failure underwent his own trial, and no one here had anything to do with that, except that it led to an investigation into the accused, which has led us here. Superintendent Jande Ter Avest was instrumental in the removal of the arms that could have protected the surface of Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida from those who would do us harm. He did not have the power to make this decision, but it’s clear that he used what power he did have to elicit the response that he deemed appropriate.

“Still, Axiom Finnian could have gone against the Superintendent’s wishes, and who knows where we would be today if he had? In accordance with both arbitration panels, I find the accused responsible for his actions, and I believe substrates and property would have been saved had he behaved differently. That, however, is not the last word. What becomes of Superintendent Ter Avest is what really counts. For the most part, assessments under our system result in either accountable or acquitted, but there are other, rarer, outcomes in order to acknowledge the nuance of a complex society. Life is not black and white, which leaves room for other options.

“Over the centuries, even before our dual-panel system was devised, the collective efforts of humanity, and all vonearthans, have given us precedents for just about anything. As they say, there is nothing new under the sun.” The adjudicator smiles a little. “But as we all know, that aphorism was conceived when there was only one sun. It is vital that we recognize when we have come to a crossroads we have not seen before. The invasion was not on our map. We knew it was a possibility. Millennia of fiction stories showed us as much, but it had never happened before; not like this.

“It is my duty to declare Superintendent Ter Avest neither accountable nor acquitted—but attributed. His actions were clearly morally and ethically wrong. They cost our world time and energy, and they resulted in violence. Even though the accused never could have known what would happen, he clearly left us vulnerable, and we must account for that. Even so, no crime has been proven today, for his actions did not go against the law, because we did not anticipate the tragedy. My hands are tied, and my decision has limitations.

“Superintendent Jande Ter Avest, you will be stripped of whatever energy credits you have earned throughout your life period. They will be distributed to the victims who lost their substrates during the attack. Fortunately, no lives were permanently lost, or I would have you work them off. For a period of one lifetime, you will not earn energy credits either. They will not be redistributed, but simply never dispensed. You will remain in base reality, subject to its physical and social laws, and confined to your quarters, with minimal movement throughout the community on an as-needed basis, which will be determined by law enforcement at a later date. You will continue to serve in your position as the Superintendent as it is not my right to relieve you of your duty.”

He didn’t expect to hear any of this, but especially not this last part. He’s still the Superintendent? That’s quite the surprise. If that was in the original documentation, he would not have read it, because it wouldn’t have felt relevant. But then what the hell is the point, just for formality’s sake? It’s not like the conditions will be squalid. What he needs to do is read up on how they would remove him from office. It sounds like it’s rather difficult, but it also doesn’t sound like that’s what the people want, so maybe he won’t have to worry about it anyway. However it works, it’s not happening today.

The adjudicator goes on, “to conclude these proceedings, I will be making no recommendations regarding the state of your position, and should your job be called into question, if cycled into the case, I will be recusing myself from it. Any questions?”

Jande says nothing. He only shakes his head respectfully.

“Very well. Superintendent Ter Avest, one of the court agents will escort you to the summary room where the adherent will clarify the details of your assessment as soon as we finalize them. The agent will then continue you through processing so your accounts may be updated given your new status on Bida. Good luck in the future.”

Jande does as he’s told. It takes him a day to get through everything, but then he goes home, and everything feels normal...for now.

Microstory 2797: Jande Will Ironically Turn Out to Be Wrong

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Jande is back as superintendent of Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, and everyone seems fine with that. He has a lot of catching up to do, but not much day-to-day work. He has to keep reminding himself that a superintendent is not the primary leader. It’s his job to make sure everyone else is doing their job, and despite recent developments, that works well enough on its own. The governmental structure has been perfected over centuries, though that’s being tested now, leaving Jande with a big decision to make after he gets all the facts. The people needed someone to get them through a tough transition period. It was him briefly, then Tamerlane for a couple years, and now Jande again.

Pryce tells him that he has lost his memories, but that no one knows where Jande was all this time. Something in the back of Jande’s mind, however, is telling him to move on from it, and not investigate, as well as to trust Pryce’s words. The last thing he remembers was having a conversation with Dare, which has apparently been taken way out of context, either by him or by others. But this is not what Jande wanted. He does not approve of it, and he thinks Dare knows that. He thinks Dare took advantage of Jande’s disappearance, and failed to uphold the spirit of the planet’s culture.

Some say that the world is better than before. Quiratan is now even bigger than Eyrenland ever was. Eyren production is holding steady, but it’s still being run by community-minded people, rather than the quota-minded. That’s not really the issue. That’s only a part of what the planet is about. There’s another sentiment, which Jande is inclined to lean more towards. They think that society has changed for the worse. Bida has turned into an isolationistic military state. They’re not forcing people into camps, and demanding to see papers, but it’s not as laid back as it used to be. Jande doesn’t think that this is what Dare had in mind with the weapons array. He hopes not, at least.

It didn’t sound like this was what Dare was going for when Jande warned him about moving forward with the plan to add more weapons to the defense grid. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted to give the platforms the ability to turn around and fire towards the surface. Dare never struck Jande as the militant type, so maybe this is all a misunderstanding. On the other hand, maybe Dare really did always want this since he spent upwards of decades alone in a crabitat. Maybe this makes him feel right at home. What Jande needs are answers, so it’s time for impromptu staff evaluations.

“Forgive me, sir,” Dare begins. “I’m not sure you’re qualified to give me a performance review since you have only been back for a couple of days.”

“It’s not a performance review,” Jande contends. “We’re doing this very much for the reason that I’ve not been here to oversee my people. I want to know what I’ve missed. What have you been up to, Mr. Finnian?”

Dare shakes his head with a scoff and a smile. “I know what you’re here to ask me. I admit, I found a loophole in your directive. You said you would give me permission to modify the defense platforms. You were probably going to qualify that with some kind of stipulation, but you disappeared before you could. I chose to take your words at face value. I couldn’t prove what you might have said afterwards. And since you were gone—and since the superintendent, whoever it is, isn’t actually my boss—I did what I felt was right. I’m sorry if that upsets you now, but I stand by my decision.”

Jande sighs. “I can’t believe that they let you get away with it. People knew my position on the matter. There’s a reason they’re called defense platforms, rather than offensive weapons. You included far too much in the design. It makes us look—”

“It makes us look strong,” Dare interrupts.

“It makes us look weak!” Jande abruptly yells. After a beat, he huffs. “How about a parable? I’ll summarize, so we can get through this quickly. Two soldiers standing side by side. One is armed to the teeth. Multiple firearms. A knife on his hip, and one on his ankle. A sword and even a flamethrower hanging off his back. He’s clutching his rifle, and darting his head and eyes back and forth, scanning for threats. Next to him is the other soldier. He’s wearing his armor, but doesn’t have a single weapon on him. He’s not looking around. He’s not shivering. He’s just...standing there. The second soldier is stronger, Dare, because he’s in a war zone, and he’s not afraid.”

“I would rather the guy with the rifle protect me over the guy with nothing.”

Jande nods. “That’s the hermit in you talking, Dare. You used to live alone in a hollowed-out asteroid. You didn’t even have an atmosphere to protect you, and you didn’t have any friends. All you had were your turrets, and whatever the hell else you installed on the periphery. I don’t blame you for it. You had to protect yourself if you were going to spend years at a time in virtual reality. Maybe some of those simulations even taught you how to fear others. It’s not like that out here in base reality. We don’t do war anymore. It’s...tacky and stupid. It’s passé.

“Teaguardians are bored out of their minds. The only thing that keeps them busy is space colonization. Every new colony demands its own small fleet for emergencies. But even that is slowing down, because we’re running out of room in the stellar neighborhood. Pretty soon, every star within fifty light years will be covered. I suppose I’ve lost track of where I was going with this, but if you look at history, the truth is clear. Since we started settling other planets, vonearthans have stopped fighting. We realized that there was nothing to fight for. The top elements are all over the place. That’s why they’re at the top. No one is coming to hurt us, Dare. Just relax. If you can’t, I will find someone who can...who will dismantle those extraneous weapons you installed.”

“That’s your right,” Dare replies with a sigh. “But you best be careful not to abuse your power. If you expect all axioms to follow your lead, no matter what, then you stop being a superintendent, and you become a tyrannical dictator. Is that what you want?”

Jande leans back in his chair. “You have a good point, Mr. Finnian. I appreciate your concern and warning. I would love to keep you. And as you said, I can’t make you take the weapons down. But please do it anyway—not under threat, but because we want to show our strength and resolve through confidence. We don’t need the guns.”

Over the course of the next several months, the automators remove and recycle the unnecessary parts of the orbital defense platforms. They are kept pointed outwards, and are mostly there to protect the world against meteors and black holes, the latter of which have, thankfully, stopped coming since the initial onslaught.

Shortly after things are put right, according to Jande’s vision of it, a foreign army arrives. They don’t come in ships from outer space. They roll in through what appears to be a wormhole, and begin a ground assault. They actually seem rather familiar to Jande for some reason, like he’s fought them before. The Teaguardians and Bidan military ultimately win, but a lot of good substrates are lost. And Jande ends up on trial.

Microstory 2796: He Will Lose His Memories, But That’s Fine

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Jande reappears exactly where he was standing when Sugar plucked him from the timeline. He’s tired and weak, so he locates the nearest chair, and sits down. It’s not easy. His special suit is designed to withstand attack, not for maneuverability. He doesn’t move from that spot for a few minutes while he catches his breath.

That’s when Tamerlane walks in and sees him. There’s a hint of surprise in his eyes, but it fades fast. “You’re back. Everyone thought you were dead.”

“You recognize me,” Jande says, not as a question since the answer is obvious.

Tamerlane nods as he’s walking forward. He removes the superintendent pin from his jacket, and attempts to hand it over. “I believe this belongs to you.”

“How long have I been gone?” Jande asks.

“A little over two years,” Tamerlane replies.

“You took my job in my absence, and now you’re trying to give it back...no questions asked? That doesn’t sound like you.” He has still not taken the pin.

“You don’t know me that well,” Tamerlane points out.

“I know you better than you think.” Jande sighs and looks away.

“Were you in the past, or the future? Because not every version of me—”

“I know who you are,” Jande interrupts. “It’s fine. You are not the enemy I spent the last forty years fighting. I don’t want my job back. It’s not why I’m here.”

Tamerlane straightens up and drops the pin on the desk. “You were in the future, but if you were here to undo mistakes that have not yet been made, my guess is you would not have needed forty years to try. Something kept you there, and you’re only here now to change one—seemingly minor—thing, which perhaps no one will notice for half a century. You don’t have to tell me what it is, but I can help.”

Jande laughs. “You’re too smart for your own good. Quit pulling that thread.”

“All right,” Tamerlane says sincerely. “I don’t mind being kept in the dark. I’ll even help you with your mission, without all the information. But you should know, I’m not giving that pin back for altruistic reasons. It’s not even yours. You took that when you disappeared so they synthesized a new one. None of that matters. You’re the superintendent. I only take over for the duration you’re unavailable, not permanently.”

Jande smiles up at him. “You’re an expert on substrates and consciousness transference, right? Or was that only some other version of you?”

Tamerlane finds another chair and sits across from Jande. “You need a new one?”

“It’s not that simple,” Jande begins to explain. “You ever heard of brain-locking?”

Tamerlane’s eyes widen as he leans back. “Well, it’s illegal. It’s a form of murder.”

“Not if you do it to yourself, then it’s bodily autonomy,” Jande reasons.

“Why would you do it to yourself?” Tamerlane questions. “If you don’t want to be backed up anymore, then just sever your streams. Brain-locking is dangerous.”

“It was necessary...in the future,” Jande clarifies. “I can’t say much, but something even more illegal than brain-locking is invented, which makes staying in one body the safest path forward. I came back here because I can’t undo it without dying. I was marked, but they can’t find me here. It’s my job to see if you can do it. If you can, others will come. If you can’t, we’ll all die eventually, just as God intended.”

Tamerlane looks into Jande’s eyes as if he can already do a preliminary assessment without any equipment. “I’m sure I can crack it,” he says confidently. “I don’t know what mark this could be, but nothing is irreversible...not to me.” He laughs. “If all else fails, we can brute force it. If you’ll follow me to my lab?”

“I don’t wanna be seen.” Jande reaches his hand out.

“Are you asking me to teleport you there, or for help standing up, old man?”

“Both,” Jande replies plainly.

Tamerlane smiles and nods. He takes Jande’s hand, and jumps them both away.

They land in what indeed looks like a lab, which Jande has plenty of experience with by now. The war was long. It wasn’t full of battle after battle. There were actually relatively few of those overall. It was more about the technology. Once the decoherence tech got out there, it was out there, and people devolved back to how they were when death being permanent was a natural given. The galaxy became a lot more dangerous, and time travel didn’t make it any better. They just ended up in a new timeline with the same shit. Stopping the tech from existing is a fool’s errand. There’s a more subtle way, and tracing the temporal branches took years to comprehend. It was all compartmentalized. Jande doesn’t even know whose job it is to fix it. Just not his.

Tamerlane removes his superintendent coat, and throws on his lab coat as he’s gracefully moving around the machines, turning them on sequentially. “Have a seat in this one right here. I’ll be with you in a moment.” He leaves the room.

Jande unlocks his IMS unit, and steps out of it. He doesn’t leave this thing very often these days—it’s too dangerous—so he feels quite naked, especially in an unfamiliar environment. He knows enough about the future to know, however, that Pryce can be trusted with this. He’s the only one who can be trusted, and is in a position to help. Lots of other people would be more than willing to provide aid, and would be capable of it, but Jande has been told that it could damage the timeline, so he came here.

Tamerlane comes back in with some scary instruments, but they don’t cause any pain as he’s examining Jande. Jande can’t even describe what’s ultimately done to him, but he’s suffered a lot worse discomfort over the last four decades, so this is nothing. After Tamerlane is done, he leaves Jande in the chair and goes back to synthesize the results. When he returns again, he uses a bunch of sciency lingo that, even after all this time, Jande has not bothered to learn. Then he leaves once more to model a treatment.

It isn’t until the next day when Pryce calls Jande back in from his secret quarters. “Okay. I see the mark that they’re talking about. It’s like a release detonator. Right now, whatever future weapon they used on you to destroy your mind won’t work. It’s stuck, but it’s waiting. Think about a bullet that flies out of a gun and hits a shield. The bullet either gets stuck in that shield, or falls to the ground, and now that bullet is pretty much harmless. This is like a bullet that waits until you move your shield out of the way.”

“That is basically how they described it to us. Can you pull the magic bullet out?”

“I can.” Tamerlane inhales and exhales, then adjusts his position so he can talk to Jande more softly. “You know it’s not a real bullet. It’s a signal that’s locking onto your brainwaves. I can save you, but I can’t save the brainwaves. I can move the target into oblivion, so the decoherence still happens, but you technically die. What we’re left with is a different version of you. You would lose...I don’t know how many memories.”

Jande nods. “That’s what our scientists thought.” He stares at the wall. “The others will have to decide for themselves. Let me send a message, and then I want you to do it. I don’t care how many memories I lose. I want to get back to work...in this world.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 3, 2577

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It had been an entire year. Just because this whole area had been destroyed by some kind of bomb, didn’t mean that Olimpia’s brother, Delphinus or Leida were here when it was dropped. She had to keep believing that they were both still alive somewhere because she didn’t think the Miridir Galaxy qualified for the afterlife simulation. It was just too far away, and she felt like she would have received some confirmation about it one way or another by this point.

Olimpia needed answers, so she walked up the ridge a bit and placed herself in front of the forward viewports on the Vellani Ambassador, waving her arms over her head to get their attention. She couldn’t see anyone on the bridge, and it didn’t seem like they were seeing her either. She triple tapped on the comms device implanted behind her ear.

“Global broadcast,” came the voice prompt. “Tap once to cancel... tap twice to begin broadcasting.”

She tapped twice. “This is Olimpia Sangster, broadcasting to all friendlies on Desulforudis, or otherwise within range. Is anyone reading me? Is anyone on our network?” She waited for a response that never came. “This is Olimpia Sangster. I’m marooned on Desulforidus. Can anyone hear me?” She kept broadcasting for the next few minutes, repeating variations of the same plea. She was going to record the message so it would play automatically, but if anyone were there, they would have responded by now. If anyone was going to show up, say, tomorrow, she would no longer be here, and neither would her comms disc.

Olimpia took a breath and looked back up at the ship. “I sure hope you don’t have any anti-teleportation fields up, or whatever.” She shut her eyes and teleported away. When she opened them, she found herself safe and sound on the VA’s bridge. She looked around; no sign of a struggle, but as empty as it appeared from the ground. “Mirage, are you there? Or Thistle, or anyone? Can anyone hear me?”

No response.

“No crew, no AI, no nothin’.” Olimpia went over to the nearest terminal and started trying to find some answers. She was locked out of a lot. She was not a member of the crew, so she didn’t have any of the authorization codes. Surprisingly, however, she did have access to all transit systems, including propulsion, maneuvering, and all three FTL drives. That didn’t make much sense. If you were trying to protect yourself against an intruder, sure, you lock them out of information, but you also shouldn’t let them steal it.

Olimpia sighed again. What she needed was help, and it didn’t look like she was going to find it here. The planet felt quieter than it did yesterday, even though she never actually saw any locals before. She could be the last person alive. It was becoming abundantly clear that the petering war had found a resurgence, and it was probably due to her shutting off the communications jammer in that artificial mountain.

If the crew of this ship was in trouble, she wasn’t going to be able to help here alone. This might be a mistake, but she had to take the risk. Olimpia set the coordinates, fired up the slingdrive, and sent herself back home to Ramosus.

She teleported out of the ship, onto the ground, then off of the ground, and into their common area. She tapped on her comms disc again. “This is Olimpia, I’m back. Is anyone here?”  She waited for a response, shaking her head at the silence. “Come on!” Olimpia checked the logs here. The team’s last away mission was on one of the stellar neighborhood colonies, but they went out on September 30, and returned the next day. They didn’t leave again after that, or if they did, they didn’t go through the bulk.

Olimpia spent the next few hours scouring the planet. She sent messages, threw up flares, and literally looked around. Nothing was missing, nothing was awry, except she was entirely alone, just as she was on Desulforidis. Everyone she cared about was gone now, and she was supposed to believe that was a coincidence? They were millions of light years away, which pointed to a deliberate attack...by a formidable enemy. She could only think of a few who were powerful enough. Others would probably want to, but couldn’t pull it off. Then again, maybe they had found the power.

It still didn’t make much sense. Olimpia may have been separated from her friends, but she was still a part of the group. They were all on the same pattern. Why come after everyone, including those who weren’t on the pattern, but leave her alone? She sat down on the edge of her bed and stared at the wall. They had friends on Castlebourne too, but that was a long ways away, and without a slingdrive array, she wouldn’t be able to return, with help, or without. For now, she had to maintain a presence on Ramosus, because this was the most likely place any of them would show back up, but that didn’t mean she was hopeless. She would just have to take another risk.

The whole reason Ramses started working on a bulk map of the universe was to find a particular party. That didn’t quite work out, and they pivoted their priorities away from it, but Olimpia was desperate. And the map? The map was still tracking their frenemies, as far as Ramses said he could tell. They were trying to leave them alone, but they would have answers, and the means to transport themselves here. It was a pretty long shot that they would, though. She still didn’t understand their motivations.

Olimpia went back out to Ramses’ main lab and did her best to secure the facilities. Unlike on the Ambassador, she did have authorization to access most systems, but she didn’t really know how to work them. She locked out everything she could, placing them behind firewalls only someone on Team Matic would be able to get through, or also maybe someone really clever, armed with advanced tech. Then she opened the bulk map and found the right dot. It was somewhere in the Goldilocks Corridor where the Exin Empire was in the middle of slowly crumbling to dust. Even if these people responded to her, it could take weeks, which for her was one day. Still, she had no choice, so she shot off her message, and went over to a chair to wait it out.

A half hour later, a proximity alert started pinging from the terminal. Olimpia teleported a few meters over to it. A ship was in orbit that was not in Ramses’ database. It wasn’t what Olimpia was expecting, but they were trying to call her. Olimpia composed herself and prepared for the worst. Then she opened up a channel. “This is Olimpia Sangster of the free world, Ramosus. Who am I speaking to?”

“This is Franka Matic of Spiral Station. We received your message.”

“If I let you transport down, what are your intentions? Good or evil?” Olimpia turned her head from the mic and stifled a laugh. Was she serious with that question?

Franka suddenly appeared in the room in front of Olimpia. “Contrary to what you might believe, I love Mateo and Leona. They’re not really my parents, but I still feel a kinship. If they’re in trouble, I want to help. So tell me what you know, I’ll audit your systems, and we’ll figure this out. You can trust me, Madam Sangster.”

Olimpia frowned. “I’m not letting you into anything, especially not after you broke through our defense just to get here. I want some protection, so leave this place, and come back with someone I actually trust. Bring me your uncle.”

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Spaghetti West: Star Wars (Part VII)

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The stage was set. Sugar and Liselot navigated their still unnamed ship to Waizidi, also known as YZ Ceti d. It wasn’t a particularly inspired name for an exoplanet, but not all of them were. There were around 400 billion stars in this galaxy alone. A single individual owning one of them was not unheard of, but it was exceedingly rare this close to the homeworld. YZ Ceti was only about 12 light years from Earth, and should have been allocated to more general colonization efforts. The reason Pribadium was able to get away with it had everything to do with its proximity to Tau Ceti.

Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida was arguably the most important interstellar colony. Proxima Doma was the nearest, but it wasn’t very hospitable. Living there required building domes and other pressurized habitats, and only within a narrow band of habitability. Bida, on the other hand, was Earth’s closest twin. A transitional respiration adapter and a pack of gravity gum, and you were good to go.

YZ Ceti was less than two light years from Tau, which actually lowered its value. Waizidi wasn’t the worst planet around, but it didn’t have a comparable atmosphere, and had the same kind of narrow habitability band as Doma. It took work to survive there—too much work, especially for early settlers with limited technology. It was fine when that was your only choice, but in this case, it would be like driving by a free luxury condo to get to a refrigerator box in the alley. To be sure, had Pribadium not taken it for herself, it would likely be colonized right now, but with a minimal population. Nobody was crying into their milk that it was off limits. Most would not even give it any thought.

“Did you figure it out?” Liselot was pacing the room while Sugar was working.

“No,” Sugar replied. “No answers here.”

“So his sacrifice was for nothing,” one of the Denvers determined. He asked to be present to oversee the procedure, which was a perfectly reasonable demand.

“He didn’t sacrifice anything but a disposable body,” Liselot pointed out. “And I don’t know if you noticed, but since we technically killed one of you, the attacks have stopped.”

Denver!Two shook his head. “When he died, it sent an alert to them. It takes time to verify and update their records, but they will update them, and they will calculate that twenty-two of us are still around. The attacks will restart.”

Sugar stopped operating. She pointed the scalpel at Denver!Two. “Then why don’t we just kill all of you, and place you in virtual storage?”

Denver!Two approached the plasma barrier. He ran his fingers along it, letting it ripple like water. “Because then they’ll run a second tier test, where they’ll determine that our consciousnesses maintain coherence. They know that a dead body doesn’t mean dead. They’re just prioritizing physical substrates until the base reality phase is over.”

“They’re going to great lengths to destroy you,” Liselot pointed out. “Is there any information about them you can give us? Maybe you’re not lying, maybe you just forgot. If we knew where they were, she wouldn’t be cutting into him right now.”

Sugar sighed and went back to the post mortem, but she stopped again right away. “I’m done cutting into him. This is getting us nowhere. It was a bad call.”

Denver held up his hands defensively. “Hey, you wanted us to give you possible countermeasures. You didn’t accept an answer of nothing, so he came up with something. No one promised that it would work.”

Sugar snapped her gloves off and threw them into the hazard bin melodramatically as she stepped towards Denver!Two. “They know when you’re alive. You said it yourself, you’re sending a signal. If a signal is being sent, it can be traced. You just have to know where to look.” She turned her head to face Denver!One’s body again. “The brain is the most logical place to look, followed by the heart.” She stared at it for a moment before facing the second Denver again. “Any other ideas?”

“You think I don’t wanna help?” Denver!Two questioned. “You’re the only one who might have a shot against these people. I want it to stop as much as you. I’ve given you all I got. They’re from your side of the void, they have time tech. That’s all I know. I don’t even know why they hate me so much. I’m important, but I’m not a threat.”

“If they have time tech,” Sugar reasoned, “maybe you are.”

“Ah,” Denver!Two said, nodding his head. “You think I’m Teen Hitler.”

“I never said that,” Sugar volleyed.

“You didn’t have to.”

“Which one was Hitler again?” Liselot asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” Sugar said to her. “For now...I’m gonna turn him back on.” She went over to the terminal and reengaged the virtual interface. “Denver. Denver!One. Come in Denver!One, are you there?”

The bulge in the blanket stirred. A pair of hands reached out and pulled the sheets out of the way. Denver!One started kicking at them aimlessly like a tardigrade stuck between two microscope slides trying to get away from its own waste. He groaned. “Who dares wake the sleeping giant?”

“You’re not real, you don’t need to sleep,” Sugar complained. “Wake up.”

Denver!One groaned again as he gradually lifted his hand. As soon as he snapped his fingers, the bed was gone, he was vertical, and fully dressed, smiling into the camera. “I’m awake, mom, but I’m not going to school today. I need a personal day.”

“I looked at your brain,” Sugar informed him. “I saw nothing. Whatever signal you’re sending, I don’t know where it’s coming from.”

“Well, we tried.” Denver!One snapped his fingers again and generated a beach. He took off his shirt and pants and plopped down into a hammock. “Now, if that’s all...”

“Ambition,” Sugar said simply.

“What’s that now?” Denver!Two asked from his cell.

“That’s what I see when I look in your eyes,” Sugar answered. “Any of your eyes,” she added. “I don’t see someone who would rather lounge about in a simulation than be out there, doing things. There’s something you’re not telling me—something vital, which could blow this whole case wide open. So out with it, or I take control over your sim, and lock you into a Foggy Forest environment forever. No hammocks, no sleeping.”

“Kindness,” Denver!Two said. “Kindness and patience. That’s what we see when we look into your eyes. You wouldn’t torment him like that.”

Sugar turned around and tapped on the interface. Denver!One fell on his ass when the hammock disappeared, along with the beach and water. He was in the middle of the woods. It wasn’t haunted, because ghosts weren’t real, but it looked like it was, and given enough time, it would start to feel that way too. “Kindness for innocents”

“Okay, I’ll tell you,” Denver!One said quickly. “Just put me back.”

“Shut up, Denver,” Denver!Two scolded.

“You’re not the one trapped in here,” Denver!One spat back.

“And whose fault is that?” Denver!Two asked rhetorically.

“Our parents,” Denver!One said. “Valencia Raddle and Omega Parker. They had me, and changed their name so we would all have the same one. I have many enemies of my own, but none which would do what they’re doing. I stay out of Milky Way politics, but my parents didn’t, and their actions followed me to Miridir. They think hurting me will hurt them, which will hurt their true enemy, the Extremus.”

“The Extremus?” Liselot questioned. “The generation ship that left Gatewood 300 years ago.”

“The history is complicated,” Denver!One went on. “A faction broke off, and settled 16,000 light years from the Core Worlds. There was a quiet war, which despite seemingly insurmountable odds, the Exins lost. My parents were instrumental in turning the tide. Don’t ask for details, I don’t have them.”

“The Exin Empire,” Sugar echoed. “So you do know where they are.”

Denver!One shook his head. “No. They’re not in the Goldilocks Empire. I already checked. The empire is fractured, and I believe one new faction has moved off somewhere else. That’s why I came to Bida. I was going to use it as my base of operations while I looked for the Exins, but I...woke the sleeping giant. They started going after me, and at some point, they realized I was a dupe, so they sent more. I really wish I could tell you how they’re finding me.”

“There’s still one question none of this answers,” Sugar began. “Why do it like this? There’s overkill, and then there’s this; it’s ridiculous. Why not just send an assassin to shoot you in the heads? It’s obviously not working, yet they’re still trying?”

“Well, they have not tried in hours,” Liselot pointed out. “Not since we killed one.”

Sugar nodded as she was trying to work through the problem. She looked back at the screen. “You said you didn’t know how they were tracking you, and I didn’t find any means of doing it either. But there is one way that we would not be able to trace back to them because it doesn’t require you to have anything on you but your own mind.”

“What would this be?” Liselot asked.

Sugar remained in her head for a moment. Then she switched off the interface, and strode over to close the physical door to Denver!Two’s cell. She looked at Liselot. “These aren’t the kind of duplicates that you’ve heard of. In your world, if you want to make a copy of yourself, you just clone or bioprint a new body, then Control-C yourself into it. When you do that, you’re just copying the data, and it doesn’t maintain any connection to the original.”

Sugar hurried over to Liselot and teleported them both to her main lab on the other side of the planet. She started turning on the machinery that she needed. “Quantum entanglement, spooky action at a distance; these are the phenomena we use to make faster-than-light communication work, even if you don’t have time travel technology. When Denver copies himself, he doesn’t just make a clone. He pulls a version of himself from a temporary parallel reality, and to reach that microreality, he has to quantum tunnel to it. That leaves a mark.”

“I’m following you for the most part,” Liselot admitted, “but I can’t see where it’s going. What does this all mean?”

Sugar stepped into the recess in the wall and lowered the brainscanner over her head. She pointed. “I need you to push that purple button for me.”

“Okay.” Liselot dutifully went over and pressed the button.

After a few seconds, a figure appeared in the imaging chamber. Pribadium Delgado looked around until she spotted Sugar. “You called? I’m kinda busy.”

“I just needed to check our connection,” Sugar said to her alternate self. “Do you know the range of this thing? I need to find someone else, and they may be farther away. I built the tunneler, but I think you modified it after my last save state.”

“It sends signals through the bulk now,” Pribadium answered. “Unlimited range.”

Sugar smiled. “Perfect. Thank me.”

“I’m welcome!” Pribadium’s image shut off.

“That was who you used to be?” Liselot asked.

“It’s more like I’m who she used to be,” Sugar explained. “Give me a moment.”

Sugar disappeared for a few seconds before returning with Denver!Two. She not-so-gently shoved him into the tunneler. “Don’t move. There are twenty-one more of you in hock that I can use for this, so don’t think I will be afraid to use deadly force.”

Denver looked around. “I don’t know what this is.”

“I know how they’re finding you,” Sugar said, “because I know who they are. I know who he is. He must have a machine not unlike this wherever he is.”

“I don’t understand,” Denver!Two claimed.

“I hope that’s true, or we would have a lot more enemies than we thought.” Sugar reinitiated the tunneler. It took a little doing, because it mostly tried to redirect them to the other twenty-two Denvers on this planet, including the one that was living disembodied in a simulation. Finally, though, she was able to force it to ignore those, and find the one she was looking for.

The imager turned back on. A twenty-fourth Denver showed up. He looked a little surprised to be there, but not shocked or nervous. “Clever girl.”

“You’re trying to kill yourself,” Sugar accused. “Why?”

“Yeah, why?” Denver!Two questioned. He tried to step off of his perch.

“No,” Sugar demanded. “Stay there or we lose the connection.” She approached the newest Denver. “What’s your beef with your alternates?”

The evil Denver shrugged like it was obvious. “They’re my alternates. They threaten my power. There should only be one Denver Strong.”

“But KBHs?” Sugar pressed. “Why go through all this trouble?”

She decided to call him Denver!Zero in her headcanon. Denver!Zero smirked. “Anyone capable of fending off a KBH attack is also a threat. I was trying to kill a billion birds with a hundred stones.”

“It’s not working, you didn’t kill anybody,” Sugar contended.

“Except for innocent plants and animals, like the uquirakind,” Liselot added.

Denver!Zero reached past the hologram’s field of view and retrieved a cup. He sipped it coolly. “I feel nothing, killing a mortal. If you don’t have the good sense to back your mind up remotely, you don’t deserve to live. At worst, I took a hundred years off their lives. That’s nothing to people like us, so who cares? Believe it or not, the KBHs, as you call them, were incredibly easy to send. Every time you push one back, it just goes somewhere else. Then they push it back, and someone pushes it to someone else. It’s like a game of Cosmic Ultimate Frisbee. You were doing my work for me, and they would have succeeded eventually. I’m a patient man.”

“Where are they now?” Liselot asked him. “We’ve not had to push them back for a while.”

“Such an eager beaver.” Denver!Zero laughed. “You want more black holes, I’ll send you more black holes.”

“We want it to stop,” Sugar demanded. “Forever.”

“I understand,” Denver!Zero replied. “How about I send you twenty-three more—no, only twenty-two—I’ll give you a freebie. For every Denver you kill, I’ll take a KBH away. Does that sound fair? Aiming black holes isn’t easy, but I think if I send you that many, one should end up destroying your base.”

“We’re shielded,” Sugar warned.

“We’ll see how well that holds up,” Denver!Zero decided. He turned off the imager.

Denver!Two finally stepped off the perch. “Were you bluffing? Will the shields hold up, or no?”

“Probably not,” Sugar admitted. “Fortunately for you, now that I know what the problem is, I can fix it. I wish you had been more honest earlier. No, I wish you had been honest at all, because you didn’t tell me jack shit.”

They all jumped back to medhock, where Sugar retrieved the drive storing Denver!One’s IDCode. Then they jumped over to regular hock, where the other Denvers were in their respective cells. She evacuated them all back to her ship’s hock. They were not happy about still being locked up, but they couldn’t be trusted.

The KBHs started coming. They appeared from all angles, and started ripping the planets apart. Before Sugar could jam up all quantum signals, one of them clipped the ship, and started unraveling it. They were lucky as hell. It left everyone alive, and all major systems operational. They were just now strung out. Fearing it could get worse, though, she teleported to outside the star system. They watched the Kugelblitz black holes ravage the worlds, pulling them apart, and rendering the entire area uninhabitable, even by modest standards.

“Hm,” Sugar said with a light chuckle.

“What?” Liselot asked.

“It really does look like...spaghetti.”

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