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Spaghetti West: The Three-Body Problem (Part II)

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When Pribadium Delgado’s father was seven years old, he was staying with his grandparents while his parents went on a boring business trip in Iowa. Valde loved staying over there, especially since they lived two hours away, making it a rare treat. He was particularly close with his grandfather, because he was a young soul. One thing they loved to do was have the grandfather hold Valde’s hands and spin him around like a helicopter. They would do it all the time in the park across the street. Not everyone was happy about it.

A neighbor was fed up with their fun, so she called family services, citing the danger. Of course, this did not constitute abuse or neglect, but it still meant they had to stop, because the grandfather did not want to antagonize this woman. This saddened Valde, so he begged the grandfather to do it again. They knew the busybody would be watching, though, so they decided to give it a shot in the house, and it did not go well.

Their hands slipped from each other, and Valde went flying through the air. His head slammed against the wall, cracking them both open, and giving Valde permanent brain damage. He got through it, and ended up having a fairly happy life, growing up to have a family of his own. He couldn’t be alone with his own kids until they were old enough to kind of take care of themselves, but he wasn’t abusive, just easily distracted. The grandfather, on the other hand, couldn’t deal with the guilt. After years of heavy drinking, he either fell, or jumped off, a cliff. They were never sure which.

Pribadium’s mother was an astrophysicist, which was what got Pribadium interested in science. Her mother always called the tragedy the three-body problem, likening the grandfather, the grandson, and the wall to celestial bodies. She noted the wonder in the universe, and used the story to teach Pribadium a valuable lesson. Well, multiple lessons, really. The first was social and behavioral, which was obvious. The deeper lesson, however, was about gravity.

Outer space was monumentally huge. Most of it was made up of dark energy, which was basically just another word for space. Baryonic matter only took up a small fraction of the composition, yet...objects struck each other all the time. Galaxies were literally colliding. Thanks to gravity. Gravity was responsible for making life possible. It held things together, where otherwise there would just be a bunch of random particles flying individually through empty space. But it was still good to have space. If Valde and his grandfather had been allowed to swing around in the park, they would not have been so restricted, and Valde would not have crashed into a wall.

Now Pribaidum was grown up, and had been for centuries. Her parents were long dead, and she didn’t know where her brother was. She went by Sugar now, and had an entirely new face, in order to distinguish her from the Pribadium native to this time. Even though she had all of Pribadium’s memories up to a point, she sometimes felt like a brand new person. She could be too blunt about things, and even a little emotionally attached. It wasn’t her fault, news didn’t surprise her as much as it did to others. And she always preferred to just get right down to the point.

“A black hole?” Liselot asked. “A stellaris collapsis?”

“No. Planetary-mass; possibly primordial,” Sugar clarified. She had gone ahead and started constructing the defense platforms to orbit Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, but now she was going to have to halt the process and reprogram them. The basic design was just fine, but ablation lasers weren’t going to work for this situation, and they needed a denser solution to the spherical covering problem; probably dynamic.

“Possibly?” Liselot questioned. “What do you mean? What else would it be?”

“It could be a Kugelblitz,” Sugar answered. “Have you never heard of them?”

“I’m an astronomer, of course I have. It’s only recently become feasible for humanity to make one, though. If someone made it, we would have noticed, because in order for it to be passing through our system right now, it would have needed to form practically in our backyard. So unless you’re suggesting aliens are real... Wait, are you suggesting that aliens are real?”

Sugar had to ignore that question. “I need more time to study it. I still don’t know if it’s charged yet. That will tell me how we deal with it. I need to get closer.”

Liselot shook her head in disbelief. “Oh yeah, sure. Get closer to the singularity that just destroyed a moon and a planet in one fell swoop. Have fun, try not to get spaghettified, don’t forget to bring a towel. Will you be home in time for dinner?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll stay a couple hundred kilometers out. We’ll park, fire a few procession probes, and gather the data. Yes, we will be home for this proverbial dinner.”

“I’m coming with you,” Liselot insisted.

“No, that’s okay,” Sugar offered, knowing that it wasn’t really a request.

Liselot winced. “This is my planet, my responsibility. If you kick me off of your ship, I’ll just get my own, and pilot fish my way alongside you. They’re not expensive.”

Van was walking back on the bridge. “Read her in,” he encouraged. “It’s not illegal for non-travelers to know about this stuff, or I wouldn’t know. Read her in.”

Sugar breathed through her nose and considered it. Liselot was correct, this wasn’t their world. They needed help and approval from someone who lived here, and the Axiom of Astronomy was their best option. It already appeared like they could trust her. So Sugar nodded and cleared her throat to be blunt and aggressive again. “Time travel is real. Some people are born with the neurology necessary to hack the universe to manipulate timespace in one way or another. Others, like me—and now you—fell into the time traveler community.”

“Oh, she’s being modest,” Van says. “Sugar here invented her own, unique form of time travel. It’s entirely incompatible with how everyone else does it. Which means it’s protected from their vulnerabilities.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Sugar argued. “I...my brain connected to a primordial knowledge floating around the universe, from a different universe. It’s like—that’s what the cosmic microwave background radiation is. Someone else invented it, I found it.”

“Like transcendentalism?” Liselot asks. “You know that Bidans are essentially transcendentalists, right? We worship knowledge and science.”

“I didn’t give it much thought,” Sugar replied. “I try to stay away from religion.” She paused in a brief silence. “So you’re not freaking about learning the truth about reality. Do you just not believe it?”

Liselot smiled softly. “Many in our culture suspect that it’s real. In the year 2400, the collective knowledge of the known galaxy exploded unpredictably. I mean, just look at how fast a new substrate can be built on Castlebourne, and the artificial gravity on The Tangent. Actually, it must be the reason for the artificial gravity on our planet. Time travel would explain a ton of these leaps in understanding, wouldn’t it? It vindicated a lot of our beliefs about secret a priori knowledge, and now I’m in the inner circle.”

“Hm,” Van says. “I think she’s all right with it.”

“This is what you were afraid to tell me?” Liselot questions. “I’m sure if you spent time in Victorian England, you might be afraid to out yourself, but I think you’ll find if you’re honest with people in the modern world, they’ll be more receptive and calm.”

“It’s more complicated than that. Telling one person isn’t illegal,” Sugar explained. “Telling everyone is, because it’s a unilateral decision which robs others of consent. There’s a prison. If I were to make a broadcast announcement, they would undo that, throw me in prison, and potentially never let me out. I don’t even have to be the one to make that announcement if there’s a risk that you will, or if you go blabbing to your therapist, and they do it.”

“I understand, I know how to keep a secret,” Liselot assured them. “I’m sure there’s a lot more to know, but I’m guessing you needed to quote-unquote read me in because you’re not just gonna throw procession probes at the singularity.”

“Uh, no,” Sugar confirmed. “We’re gonna get a lot closer than I said. This ship was built with transdimensional shielding, which will protect us from the dangers of high gravity, though we could end up experiencing minor time dilation.”

“I’ve experienced relativistic dilation before,” Liselot says. “I went on a cruise around H-Gimura-11 in my youth. Lost eleven years.”

Sugar smirked. “I personally know Hokusai Gimura, from before she discovered HG-11. She was my mentor; introduced me to all of this.”

“Small world,” Liselot decided. “So are we going?”

Sugar looked over at Vantu and nodded lightly.

He teleported the ship away. “Now orbiting S-Delgado-1.”

Sugar rolled her eyes. “We are not calling it that.”

“We have to,” Van reasoned. “You discovered it.”

“If it’s a Kugelblitz,” Sugar argued as she was calibrating the sensors, “That means they discovered it.”

“I don’t see them here,” Van fired back. “We’ve still not proved it yet anyway.”

Sugar shook her head. “Would you just open the exterior spectrometers?”

They ran the sensors and gathered the data, ultimately confirming that it was indeed Kugelblitz. They didn’t know who made it, or where it came from, but now Sugar knew how to deflect it. Unless it was sent here intentionally as a weapon, they could fire ionic pulses at it, and get it to move out of the system. It only took a few weeks to complete the array, and that was all they did. They scrapped the full orbital defense complement, which was something this planet should have had the whole time. A Kugelblitz black hole was more dangerous than a primordial one. They didn’t have time to protect the globe against all threats. They needed to be offensive, and concentrate their efforts in one spot on the celestial firmament.

It took a couple of days for Sugar to be confident that they had pushed the object clear, so it didn’t cause further damage. If they had shot the black hole head on, each shot would have taken an immense amount of energy to make it reverse directions. By constantly striking it on the edge, they conserved that energy, and used it more wisely. They just wanted to change its course enough so that it moved out of Tau Ceti space. Now that that was done, they could focus on the debris from Qishra. That was their ongoing, long term problem, but it was possible to keep them at bay, especially once they did finally cover the sky in those defenses.

The world rejoiced and partied, and Sugar was happy for them, but then something new came up on their sensors. “This is impossible.”

“What is it?” Van asked.

“It’s the black hole. It’s...back.”

“So it is a weapon,” Van determined. “Someone’s controlling it.”

“I don’t see how,” Sugar argued. “We should be able to detect them, and what would be the motive?”

“Should we call Liselot?”

Sugar sighed. “She has a right to know. Just give me one moment to check something.” She frowned at the screens as she waited for her long-range sensors to respond. Her eyes widened when the information came in.

“What? I don’t understand what I’m seeing here.”

Sugar looked up at Van hovering over her shoulder. “That’s what you called S-Delgado-1.”

“Oh, okay.”

“It’s moving away.”

“Oh, so false alarm. We’re good.”

While still staring at him, Sugar reached up and tapped the screen to switch to a different readout. “If we’re sticking with the same naming convention, we might have to name this one S-Delgado-2.”

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Microstory 2770: Pitstop on the Way to Nowhere

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The sun is beginning to disappear. They still don’t have water, but at least it’s cooling down. Elise and Colley don’t know what they’re meant to do here. She has no sense of direction. She was able to think about her people, and teleport to them, but that doesn’t mean she knows where they are. They could be on the other side of the planet right now. Walking in any direction could be taking them farther away. The maze could even be directly under their feet, perhaps several meters down, or several kilometers.

“I didn’t hear, did Miracle say how your power replenishes?” Colley asks.

“No. She said temporal energy was really just time, so maybe I only need to wait until it recharges on its own,” Elise replies. “Before you ask, I can’t tell it’s there. It’s not like I feel a surge of electricity throughout my body, which is now missing. I couldn’t even tell that I could do what I did.” She sighs and sits down. “I don’t know if I should keep trying, or if every time I do, even if it doesn’t work, I drain my battery again.”

“Logic says to wait.” Colley sits down across from her. “Before ambient wireless charging and nanofusion reactors, electronics had to be recharged by leaving it attached to the wall. You weren’t really supposed to use it while that was happening, especially not with older models. I say we sleep on it and try again in the morning.”

Elise shivers. “If we survive the night. I’m already missing that sun.”

Colley nods solemnly. “Yeah, it’s gonna get colder. This pink and black jacket is nice to have for extra covering, but it’s not going to be enough, not for the both of us.”

“We obviously need to share and conserve body heat. Pull your shirt over your head, but don’t take it off. We want to minimize the insulation between us, but we still want insulation around us.” Elise demonstrates what she means with her own shirt, which is difficult with her wings, but she makes it work. “Take off your pants, but keep the belt in the beltloops. Drape the pants behind your back and rebuckle the belt around your waist.” She pulls her adventure shorts off entirely. The same trick won’t help her that much, so she decides to do something else with them. She starts to giggle.

“Oh, funny prank.” Colley’s pants are tied behind him like a low cape. His shirt is stretched behind his neck like a gun holster, but in an awkward, almost sexual way. Elise’s shorts are on his head like a hat since he doesn’t have as much hair.

“No, it’s not a prank,” Elise insists. “It’s funny, but this is what we’re working with.” She opens her wings and quivers them to generate some heat. She lays the extra racing jacket on the sand and lies back on it. “Get on top of me. Come on.”

Colley hesitates, frowning uncomfortably.

“I studied survival,” she reminds him. “I know what I’m doing.”

Colley reluctantly lowers himself upon her and hugs her. He’s gentle at first, but quickly tightens up when his instincts react to the increase in warmth.

Elise envelops him in her wings to complete the seal. She continues to quiver them as they hold each other. It’s working. It’s actually working. They still may not make it through this, but it will not be for lack of trying. The temperature continues to drop.

Colley starts to breathe heavily, which is okay for now. But then he suddenly stops. “I’m sorry. I normally program a governor switch for certain, uhh...physical responses, but this temporary one comes with the standard hardware.”

Elise smiles kindly, but realizes that he can’t see it. She reaches into the extra jacket’s pocket and retrieves the homing beacon, which has a dim light on it. She lays it on her chest and switches it on. “You don’t have to apologize. It’s perfectly normal, and we should be comfortable enough with each other to not feel bad about such things.”

“It’s not that I feel bad, it’s just.” He starts breathing too heavily again.

“Hey,” she whispers. “It’s okay. Shivering can warm you up, but it can also strain your muscles. If you don’t relax too, you’re probably gonna end up with neck pain.”

“I’m sorry,” Colley replies. “This is just a tough situation. Because...you know, with you... I, uh—if it were anyone else on the team, even Miracle, I would still...”

“I mean it,” she tries to comfort, “it’s okay. You can tell me anything.”

“I think I might be falling in love with you,” he finally admits. “And I don’t want you to think it’s about your body, or how we’re situated right now. I’ve been developing feelings this whole time. I mean, we work so well together. We complement each other’s skills, and while we sometimes argue, we don’t fight. I’ve never gotten mad or annoyed at any of you. When I thought you were dead, I was heartbroken. I was worried that even if we found each other on the other side of this, if we didn’t remember any of what we went through, we wouldn’t be able to recapture the magic. We’ve put so much effort into surviving, there’s been no time to really sit with my thoughts, but in this moment...”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Elise tells him. “Not in so many words, but...” She pauses and considers it. She didn’t exactly give up on love, but she has definitely been deprioritizing it for most of her life. It’s no surprise that feelings have sprouted amongst them. Rage eventually explained that she spent months locating the team, and vetted dozens of candidates before settling on the five of them. One of her criteria was a lack of attachments. She didn’t want to take anyone away from a family, because that would become the driving force of their actions, rather than the goal itself. That was probably the right call, but it’s complicating things now. “Let’s ignore the words.”

They kiss. They can’t help themselves. In the movies when people have to share body heat like this, it always happens, and that’s because it’s totally plausible. You can’t be intertwined with someone and not feel something. Hugs release endorphins and other pleasurable chemicals. That is an evolutionary fact. Group that with skin-to-skin contact and a pair of sexy wings, and you have a recipe for a powerful love scene.

They keep kissing, and it starts to feel like this could go even further. Elise unwraps her wings and rolls Colley over to his back so she’s straddling him now. Before anything else can happen, though, a light begins to shine in her face, and it’s not from the beacon that fell in the sand. It looks like a headlight, it’s so bright. She sits up and tries to shield her eyes from it while also trying to discern the shapes behind the light.

“Lower that, Zelda,” Rage instructs. “Jesus. Actually, just put it in lantern mode.”

Zelda does as she’s asked, so now the whole area is illuminated. The entire team is back. They look dirty and exhausted, but they have all survived. Jolanda steps closer with a canteen as Elise is climbing off of Colley, and they’re both standing back up.

Elise takes a few sips first before handing it to Colley. “So you made it out of the maze. Was there an actual monster, or was it something more complicated?”

“Oh, it was a monster,” Minotaur replies. “It was a minotaur. I reasoned with it, and we found our way out. The exit is not that far from where we are now.”

“You thought there might be an interim prize?” Elise goes on. “What was it?”

The other hunters exchange looks with each other. “It’s not exactly a prize,” Rage answers. “It’s more of a challenge which could lead to a prize. It’s a ship. A spaceship.”

Microstory 2769: X Marks the Spot

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Elise instinctively teleports back to Rage holding the jacket that they last saw Minotaur wearing. She’s on the verge of hyperventilating. There were no clues where she found it, at least none which was obvious. She takes Rage by the arm, and jumps back to that spot with her friend in tow. “Over here, guys!” she cries out to the rest of the group.

Together, they start to dig in the sand, looking for any sign of Minotaur, be it evidence they left behind, or—if they were taken—a deliberate clue left behind by their captor. They cover a ground of a few square meters, but there’s nothing. There’s no trapdoor, which would be the most likely explanation, or maybe something less manmade, like a hidden hole. If something had taken them away in the air, someone probably would have seen it. Rage tells everyone to stop digging as she narrows in on Miracle. “This looks like the work of a teleporter. Besides Azad, who else can do it?”

Miracle shakes her head. “There are far too many to list, and remember, we’re generally called time travelers. They could be from the future, or the past, or a parallel timeline. There are too many options to use that knowledge alone to locate them.”

“Well, are any of them bad?” Rage presses. “Do you have...villains?”

“Sure we do,” Miracle confirms. “I...was technically one for a bit, though we tend to use the word antagonist amongst each other because who’s to say which is which?”

“This isn’t helping,” Rage argues. “You’re not giving us anything.”

“I’m sorry,” Miracle begins, but she doesn’t get the chance to finish her thought.

“Can I find them?” Elise interrupts. “Just now, I wanted to jump to Rage, and so that’s where I went, instead of several kilometers away. I didn’t even know exactly where she was, on her hands and knees behind that ridge. I thought about her, and it happened. Could I do that with Minotaur? I don’t wanna try without understanding it.”

Miracle sighs. “Have you ever seen the 12 Monkeys movie, and have you ever seen any of the Back to the Future movies?” she asks weirdly.

“Not recently,” Elise answers. “What’s your point?”

“They follow different rules,” Miracle begins. “In the former, time travel is a contained loop. It’s called predestination. It doesn’t matter what you do, you can’t change things. Whatever happened always happened, and you’re just following a preexisting path, blind and in the wrong order. In the latter, you can change the future, and they, in fact, do it multiple times. Those stories aren’t contradictory because they take place in different universes. They have nothing to do with each other.

“In our universe, there are—well, no, it’s not like there are no rules—it’s that we have all the rules. Can you teleport without being able to see where you’re going, or beyond some distance limitation? I don’t know. We all have our different abilities and restrictions. It’s utter chaos. I can teach you how to try to jump to Mino, but I can’t promise it will work. I can’t even promise you won’t end up kilometers away this time, or dead, stuck halfway through a wall. It’s a crapshoot. Most are born the way that they are, and discover what they can do intuitively. People who are transformed into travelers typically have a harder time. They’re usually older, and have developed more traditional coping mechanisms, which makes their new skills low access.”

“Then you’re not doing it,” Rage decides. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Wait, you could teleport before,” Zelda says to Miracle. “You said that Hrockas couldn’t take that away from you because it was in your mind, not your body.”

Miracle nods. “He figured out how to suppress it when he gave me a new, new body. I’ve already tried since I returned, and have not been able to do anything.”

“Then I’ll do it,” Elise insists. “Before you say anything, Rage, this is my body, my choice. Hrockas just told us that counts here a few hours ago. You can’t stop me.”

“I can’t,” Rage acknowledges, “but I don’t wanna lose you too.”

“Borrowed time, remember?” Elise asks. She faces Miracle. “Tell me what to do.”

“I’m inclined to agree with our fearless leader,” Miracle says. “It’s risky.”

“Then we vote,” Elise offers. “Who here thinks I shouldn’t do it?”

Everyone raises their hand.

“Just kidding, it’s my body! Tell me what to do, or I’ll try it on my own!”

“Very well,” Miracle agrees. “But I’m not responsible for what happens to you.”

Everyone pays close attention when Miracle explains how the process of using teleportation to find someone might work. They’re just as curious, even though they can’t do it themselves. Finally, it’s time to try. Miracle suggests she practice first, but she also said one thing about potentially running out of something called temporal energy, so talk about a risk. Elise closes her eyes as Miracle instructed. At first, she focuses on her whole family, but most of them are already here with her. She only needs to concentrate on one person. She visualizes Minotaur’s face, and considers how they make her feel. It seems that Elise is falling in love. She does realize she keeps thinking that.

The air was hot and dry, but now it’s cool and humid. Though Elise’s eyelids were closed, she could see the light penetrating her skin. Now that’s all gone. She opens them to find herself in darkness, with only red emergency lighting. It’s enough for her to see that she’s not alone, and she can even tell who it is. “Mino.”

Minotaur is startled. They spin around and desperately grab Elise’s mouth. “Shh,” they whisper. “I don’t know how you ended up down here too, but this is a maze...and we are not alone. I’m going to let go of you now, okay? Just whisper.”

Elise nods, and once she’s free, whispers even quieter than Minotaur, right in her ear. “I teleported to find you. Do you know who took you, or where we are?”

“No idea,” Minotaur answers. “I didn’t see who took me. They were totally robed up. I managed to push them off and run away, but not too far, and I couldn’t scream. That’s when I felt the sharp pain in my neck. I was hot before, but then I felt like I was burning up, so I took off my jacket while I was passing out. Then I woke up here. I’ve been trying to navigate the maze this whole time. I figured you were all taken too.”

“I think this is mostly about you,” Elise figures. “There is no way they could have set this all up after they found out that I could teleport. They expected you to find your way out, and for us to find our way to you. We’re cheating. I don’t know if that’s okay. But I’m just gonna go with it. I teleported in, so we can teleport out.”

“No,” Minotaur argues. “There’s something here. The monster is guarding something. Trust me, we want it. I’m glad you’re here, but I don’t want to cheat any further. Let’s play this straight, and find the way to the prize. Are you up for it?”

“We’re a team. We should all do it together.”

“Yeah, if you can gather everyone, then go for it. Just tell them to stay hushed.”

Elise transports most into the maze, but before she can do the same for Colley she evidently runs out of temporal energy, leaving them both stranded on the surface.

Microstory 2768: Next Time on Lost

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Elise thinks that she only passes out for a few seconds. Arms carefully wrap around her body, but she keeps falling. She looks up and sees Azad. He’s looking as cool as ever. It doesn’t last long. The wind somehow causes Elise to accidentally reopen her wings. Before he can save her, Azad loses his grip, and they tumble apart from each other. He teleports again, but doesn’t aim right. Now he’s below her. She’s scared. She doesn’t want to lose these memories. She doesn’t want to go back to not having wings. Her surviving self will not know what she’s missing. She won’t seek to improve herself.

She fights to get back to Azad, but she doesn’t know how to do that. In moves, they tighten themselves up like missiles, but her wings aren’t cooperating. She’s afraid they’re gonna snap off. The ground is coming up fast now. If this doesn’t happen soon, it will be too late. Suddenly, the ground disappears. It transforms into sky. She’s still falling, but now towards the clouds, and slowing down. Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. No, she’s “falling” upwards, and not from flying. Her wings are still out of control. She comes to a complete stop, but only for a second before she reverses. She hasn’t stopped herself from crashing; she has only delayed it. She has to try to recreate whatever just happened. Before she can fall much farther, she concentrates on one word: teleportation. The next moment, she’s standing on the ground, safe and sound.

Azad appears next to her. “How did you just do that?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know that I could,” Elise says truthfully.

“It’s the chrysalis bioprinter,” Miracle determines. “You saw me and Azad teleport, and at least a part of you wanted to try it. It’s the same reason you’re now part moth. Your subconscious mind knows what it wants. This is dangerous stuff, Rocky.”

“Don’t call me that,” Hrockas requests. “And you’re right. It’s why we restrict it.”

“Are you going to take it away now?” Elise asks, trying to display puppy dog eyes.

“We may be struggling to figure out what our laws should be,” Hrockas begins, “all the way out here in the Charter Cloud, but one thing we and the stellar neighborhood can agree upon is that bodily autonomy is non-negotiable. That substrate is yours now. But there is no fundamental difference between teleportation and time travel. And if you’ve seen any movie about time travel, you’ll know the risks. If you find yourself with the ability to go back in time, I urge you to exercise caution. It’s not illegal here, as it is in other cultures, but I’m considering it. It’s only not written into the laws because the general population doesn’t know about it in the first place.”

“And because you would have to draw a line somewhere to allow your boy, Azy here to teleport as needed,” Miracle points out. “Among others,” she adds

“Yes, that’s true,” Hrockas admits. “Now Miss Perkins is in the same boat. Speaking of which...” He looks over at Azad expectingly.

Azad begins to tap on his wrist interface. He then raises his arm and bathes everyone in a rainbowish light. It’s not the kind of rainbow that you would spot from a rainstorm. It’s more like what you would see in an oil puddle. It actually looks a lot like oil, and even feels like it too. After a flash of light, they’re transported to a desert.

Without another word, Hrockas and Telman converge upon Azad. All three of them teleport away, leaving the hunters to figure out the next challenge on their own.

Jolanda stretches her neck up as high as possible and rotates like a periscope. “I don’t see anything. Elise, do you think you could fly up and scout the area?”

“She should not do that,” Miracle argues quickly. “Elise, we don’t know enough about how your wings work. Mine were always specifically designed to be strong and resilient. They only appeared to be delicate, because that was the aesthetic I was going for. For a real moth, this environment would be a death sentence. You have to assume you’re on the brink right now. In fact, how are you feeling? Dehydrated?”

“I’m hot, but okay,” Elise explains. “Maybe I could teleport around instead, unless that’s also sensitive to temperature or other environmental factors.”

“It’s not usually,” Miracle says, “but I could conceive of a salmon with arbitrary limitations. I knew a guy who could only travel in the rain, and once he did, if he wanted to go again, he would have to dry off entirely, and potentially wait for another storm.”

“All right. Whether we’re moths or not, our bodies are gonna die here if we don’t find water and shelter.” Rage inhales and exhales. “Let’s hold off on teleporting for now. There are seven of us. One needs to stay exactly right here. If you want to dig for clues, that wouldn’t be the worst idea, but you could also conserve energy. The other six will pair off, and begin a concentric circle search. One pair should be at 50 meters, one at 100 and one at 150. Once you complete your circle, move out 150 meters, and complete another circle. Does that make sense?”

“Who is going to stay here?” Colley asks. “Elise if her body is more fragile?”

“She shouldn’t be alone,” Miracle warns, “even if it means walking.”

“I agree,” Rage says. “El, you’re with me. Mir and Zelda, Jolanda and Colley. Minotaur, you okay staying alone to be our Touchstone? We don’t have compasses.”

“Fine with me.” Minotaur gets on their knees and starts digging like a dog, shoveling sand between their legs. They’re gonna get tired going that hard for too long.

“Okay,” Rage goes on. “There are dunes, so visibility will be difficult. That’s why Mino is staying. If you think you’re lost, get up high, and look for their racing jacket.

“Here, take mine,” Jolanda offers. “It’s pink and black, so it will be easier to spot.”

“We’ll only do this for three hours,” Rage continues. “At that point, finish your circle, then come back to our Touchstone. When you’re searching, look down, and both ways. Look up every once in a while, in case there’s a drone, or something. Questions? Comments? Concerns?” She claps her hands in the silence. “All right, then let’s get at it.”

Elise and Rage walk for the agreed upon three hours. It’s grueling work. None of them is dressed for this, especially not Elise, who is still mostly naked from having recently been born. The sand is coarse and uncomfortable between her toes, and even hotter than the sun, so there’s no point in her trying to sit down and rest. She doesn’t want to be more of a burden than she already feels. They had to put the hunt on pause just because she died and came back to life. She has already taken so much, she just wants to be helpful, and not ask for anything, like a layer of Rage’s clothing.

They finish their circle and head back. Rage has an excellent sense of direction despite everything looking the same around here. She grows frustrated when she can’t find Mino. Elise tried to keep an eye on them, but they ended up so far down a dune that it became unreasonable to keep backtracking. This has to be where they began, though. They can see the claw marks from where Mino was digging. The other two groups show up after only about twenty minutes, and agree that this has to be it. They’re not lost; Mino is. They’re missing. They spread out once more, but don’t go too far this time, only about ten meters in every direction. Elise finds a pink and black racing jacket.

Microstory 2767: Spread Your Wings and Fly Away

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A former Custodian from the Spydome Network is processing Elise’s upload to a new substrate. His equipment is unlike anything she has ever seen before. Before she died, she was in her tenth body. She usually chose to look about the same as she did before, only sometimes making a tweak or two. Telman says that she can look like anything. When she asks which design software they’re using, he claims that they’re not using any at all. She apparently decides what she wants in her head, and the bioprinter converts it into DNA. She has a hard time believing this, because while brain-computer interfaces are old hat, what he’s describing is a whole different animal. Her brain is not capable of consolidating every single detail. She can only ever conceive of a general idea.

Telman assures her that it will work. The machine doesn’t need her to know exactly what she wants. She just has to have the finished product in mind. The way she sees it, she’s living on borrowed time anyway. They were told that if they died during the hunt, their backup bodies would be reactivated on their behalf, having never received any recent updates. So despite her disbelief, she follows through with the plan. She doesn’t have any hands, she kind of has to let people do whatever they want anyway. She watches as Telman locks her head into the mechanism, and shuts her down.

It’s the reawakening redux, though the process is faster this time. Instead of a pinprick, her consciousness returns just about all at once. She remembers everything leading up to the upload, including the gaps in her memory from before the decapitation. The first thing she does is wiggle her toes. It’s not easy, but that’s because her movement is limited, not because there’s something wrong, or because she doesn’t have any toes. Her memory focuses on one thing, which happened at the beginning of this. She’s in another chrysalis. She wriggles her whole body now, trying to look for down, like she did last time. It feels different, though. It feels...softer, more stringy.

She doesn’t vomit like she did before. She doesn’t feel like she has to. She’s stronger now. Without hardly doing anything, she feels stronger than she ever has her whole life. That’s one thing she shied away from before. Superstrength is a pretty easy characteristic to give a new body, but she never went overboard. It didn’t seem necessary. It could have been really useful centuries ago, but life just isn’t that hard anymore. That’s why they built Castlebourne in the first place, to simulate struggle.

This isn’t much of a struggle. She pulls the fibers apart, but she doesn’t slip out onto her head. She rotates her whole body so she can gently lower herself feet first. She deftly lands on the floor. It’s less gooey than the chrysalis, which may or may not make sense. Looking at it here from the outside, she decides it’s more like a cocoon.

“Oh my God, what is that?” It’s Rage’s voice behind Elise.

Elise turns. As she does, her back and shoulders move in a way that she’s not used to. They’re stiff, a little sore, but not something she won’t get past eventually. Wait, no that’s not it. It’s so much more than that. There is something hanging off of her back. What is that? What the hell is that? “What the hell is that?” She spins, trying to see it.

“Here, there’s a mirror,” Colley explains. He cautiously takes her by both hands.

Elise looks at herself straight on. Her breasts are larger now, but that’s about all that’s changed. Oh, and also her skin is a totally different color, and she has wings!

“That is quite the change,” Zelda points out. “How does it feel?”

Elise turns to see herself in profile. She shrugs her shoulders one after the other and back again until she understands which new muscles she needs to work. The wings extend farther than she thought they would. She has to step away from the wall to open them both. Like her skin, they’re a beautiful cool green and fuzzy. She admires herself, which is not like her, then looks over at the cocoon. “I’m a moth.”

“You’re the Ladymoth,” Minotaur says. “That’s what you said before.”

Hrockas, Azad, and Telman are standing off away from the group. Telman clears his throat. “I hope you’re pleased. If you’re not, that’s why this technology has not yet been made public. People are complex. They may not know what they want.”

“Oh, I want,” Elise says. She giggles as she flaps her wings lightly. She looks around and finds a door near the opposite corner. “Will that take me outside?”

“You want to fly?” Telman guesses. “Already?”

“Maybe you should take a moment to get used to basic movements,” Hrockas suggests. “You wouldn’t want to overdo it. The way the tech works, you are still not streaming anywhere, and we did not save a recent backup of you. If you fall out of the sky and perish, you won’t remember any of this.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Elise says to him. “Door, please.”

Hrockas sighs. “I understand. But before you go launching yourself off the ground, let’s travel to the nearest body of water, so you have a softer place below you.”

Elise accepts his suggestion. It’s not a bad idea for her to learn to walk around with all this mass first. Her body is definitely strong enough to manage it, but it’s teetering a little bit as she gets used to weight distribution. Some of them walk on ahead while others take up the rear. She’s walking beside Miracle for obvious reasons. “Did you use the cocoon to make your wings, or standard accelerated cloning?”

“I used bioprinting,” Miracle explains, “but I don’t have access to this. It’s next level. I hope you know how lucky you are. They use it on the Tangent, but it’s incredibly rare, and most of those people have no imagination. You did quite well.”

Elise flutters her wings a bit, but it’s awkward. She needs practice. “You like it?”

“I’m so jealous,” Miracle replies. “You have an amazing body.”

“Maybe I’ll give you a ride, if I’m capable. Moths are strong in some ways, but not in others. I may be quite fragile. We’ll just have to see.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Miracle insists. “I’ll get my wings back soon enough. I did want to ask, though, why a Luna moth?”

“Okay, we’re here,” Hrockas announces. “Get ready to save her, Azad.”

As everyone is spreading out to watch, Azad checks for threats.

Elise gets into position and prepares herself mentally. She takes a deep breath before looking over at her friend. “Miracle. You asked me why a Luna moth. Because when they fly, they look like this.” She leaps into the air and flaps her wings. She’s not awkward anymore. Her wings are completely in sync, and her navigation is on point. Wherever she wants to go, her body goes. She glides gracefully up, down, and all around. Now Elise understands why Miracle chose it, and she wonders why there aren’t more. There are flying humanoids on Altair, but it should be widespread. This feels like the natural progression of the human experience. She wishes she could share it. She wishes all of her friends could be moths, or have any wings of their own.

Elise flies higher and higher, several kilometers in the air. And then she falls.

Microstory 2766: Winner’s Circle

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It begins as a pinprick of consciousness as Elise becomes acutely aware of the passage of time, even though there are no external stimuli. She isn’t truly thinking about anything. She is only mindful of her own ability to think. At first, she believes there might be a tiny light before her, but it may simply be her imagination...but does she even have an imagination anymore? She tries to come up with other things to occupy her mind, but nothing comes. She can’t even articulate in her head an idea of what ideas she should be able to come up with. No categories of thoughts, no things, no things to do or have done. She is nothing more than a thinking thing. A thinking thing called Elise. So that’s something at least. She is someone. She is a someone with a name, and if she has a name it must mean there are other someones with their own names. But who?

Elise quietly screams at her own brain. Wake up. Think. Think about something, anything. It doesn’t have to be important, it doesn’t have to be major. Don’t just sit here in the silence like a moth in the dark. A moth? What is a moth? It must be something, or she wouldn’t have a word for it. What is a word? What are things? What is anything? Go back to the moth. A moth is...a moth is something that is. It’s something that...flies. It has wings. Flying wings. And hair and eyes. Elise should have eyes. She has seen things before. She has seen moths. She has smelled the hot and cold nights as the weather transitions from summer to autumn. There she goes thinking about more things again. This time, it’s the seasons. There are two others: winter and spring. Spring is her favorite. Tofu is her favorite food. She eats. She is a person. She has a mouth.

She is Elise Perkins and she is in a race. No, an expedition. A quest? No. It’s a hunt. It’s a treasure hunt. She is a treasure hunter. Her name is Elise Perkins, Treasure Hunter. She has a mouth, a nose, and lucky her, two eyes. Also two ears. She’s hearing something. She’s hearing something with her ears. It’s...it’s talking. Other people. Other people with names. She can hear them. She can hear, but she can’t see. Why? Eyelids. She opens. Still dark, but less dark. A hint of light. Light behind...a visor. Her mouth, it doesn’t only eat. It also speaks. It screams. “Help!”

The visor slides away.

“Elise?” someone asks. “Elise, can you hear me? Are you there? Elise!”

“She opens her mouth but the words won’t come. Who said that? It sounded like the way Elise sounded like when she could sound like something. But she doesn’t sound like anything because when she opens her mouth, the words won’t come out.”

“You can’t use your mouth,” a different person claims. “You don’t have an airway anymore. But the helmet can convert your thoughts into sounds. Just think what you want to say, and it will come out. Go ahead and try again,” they encourage.

“Rubber baby buggy bumpers,” the helmet says. “Gina Linetti Spaghetti Confetti.” A face. Elise’s famous two eyes have adjusted to the light and can see when there is something that isn’t light. “That is definitely a face. It’s a very pretty face. She used to know what to call it. Whatever the face’s name, Elise may be falling in love with it.”

The face smiles. “Thank you. My name is Rage. You are Elise Perkins.”

“I know that,” Elise replies. “I am Elise. I have a face. I have a head. Do I have anything else?” She tries to tilt her chin down, but it won’t move. She can’t move at all.

Another person sighs. “You don’t have anything else. You only have a head.”

“Mino? A little more tact?” someone says to the person who has no tact.

“It’s okay,” Elise insists. “I am Elise Perkins, Treasure Hunter, a.k.a Ladymoth. I don’t need anything more than a head, because my head is where I do all my thinking.”

“Do you remember what happened?” the Rage face asks.

“I remember...” Elise begins. “I remember ice.”

“There was ice on the track during the race,” Rage confirms. “You sacrificed yourself so that your friend, Jolanda could make it across the finish line. You managed to defeat the last automated racecar, so she didn’t have to get there quickly. She had time to get out of her car, find your head, and carry it across with her. Now we’re in the winner’s lounge. Only six of us could win. I’m not sure what that means for you yet.”

“We’re not sure what this means for any of us,” Zelda adds. Yes, that’s Zelda.

Elise’s memories are starting to come back to her now. She feels like she’s becoming herself again. They lounge there for about an hour. The normal humans eat while Elise focuses on her recovery. The Custodians are not letting them out of this room, or they would seek medical attention for her. For now, she’s sitting on a snack table. Watching her friends talk is helping a lot. After they’re done eating, she finds that she’s pretty much back to her old self. She is centuries old, so there are a ton of memories that have not yet resurfaced, but they’re not paramount to her core.

While they’re just sitting around doing nothing, the lights begin to flicker. It’s not like a lightbulb is burnt out, though. It’s clearly intentional, like the theatre warning the audience that intermission is over. Out of the corner of her eye, Elise can see the door open, though she’s not at the right angle to see who. She needs her legs back.

“Hello,” comes the voice of a man. She recognizes it, but can’t place it.

“Hello,” Colley says, intentionally positioning himself directly in front of Elise.

“Please, Mister Rochelle.” Hrockas, the owner of the planet. That’s who this is. “Do you honestly believe that I am not cognizant of the severed head you’re keeping on the table? If I didn’t want death survival to be an option, I would not have commissioned those helmets in the first place. The plan was to keep any heads in their comas while the winners moved on, then transfer their consciousnesses to their respective backups so they could recall as much of the hunt as they were here for.”

Colley steps off so Elise can see. “We can’t trust you. You’re not taking her.”

Hrockas nods. “Now that you have reinitialized her, taking her is no longer a decent option. The reason we left you in here for so long is the producers and I needed to figure out how to move forward. The truth is, not anywhere near this many was expected to survive. Some of the bots were easy, but some were hard. You destroyed them all, and through a loophole, managed to keep your entire group together on the other side. It’s impressive, I admit. But the challenge we had planned will no longer work. Funnily enough, however, the challenge reward is now more relevant than ever.”

“Whatever the reward,” Jolanda says, “it’s not worth it if Elise can’t compete.”

Hrockas smiles. “That’s the irony. The sudden death challenge is quite literal. Whoever wins, dies...and will be given a superior substrate. It would be cruel to force you to compete if the one person who genuinely needed it stood no chance. That’s what we had to change. Now it is no longer physical, but a contest of wits. Elise has a shot.”

“I forfeit the challenge,” Colley volunteers immediately.

“That’s fine,” Hrockas says, “but it comes with a penalty for the next challenge.”

The others forfeit too. Elise is getting a new body.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 27, 2571

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When Mateo returned to the timeline the next year, his little ship was sitting on Earth’s moon. It was absolutely not unheard of for an unmanned vessel to show up like that, so no one questioned it. They would have scanned it for threats, then left it alone on the dock. It was particularly believable since it came from Varkas Reflex, where a lot of people no longer had physical bodies. Even if it was from elsewhere, some people lived exactly like that, in their ship’s core memory, with no physical body. He fit right in.

Mateo teleported out of the vessel, and to the middle of space, where he continued to teleport until he was back on Earth, hopefully having never been detected by any sensors. He was now where Topeka once stood. Through the dense canopy of the forest, the nearest arcology rose into the sky. Instead of teleporting there too, he decided to go the rest of the way on foot. Once he passed through the treeline, he saw that there was something different about it. It was much smaller than a normal megastructure. Giant cranebots were either assembling it or disassembling it. No, they were definitely disassembling it. He looked around for someone to query about this, but saw no one.

He jumped to Kansas City instead, where he found a normal tripod, still standing at full attention in the woods. It felt different, though. He couldn’t explain it. It was sort of quieter, maybe? He walked inside, and up to the information kiosk. “Hello. I was just in Topeka, but before that, I was off-world for centuries. They were taking one of the arcologies apart. What can you tell me about that?”

The man smiled, and it did look like an organic man, but there was no way to know these days without asking, which might have been rude. “The global population is decreasing. If you have returned to the homeworld for a permanent stay, you are in the minority. People are leaving. Many are going to Varkas Reflex, still more to Castlebourne. Others go to Gatewood to start their own colonies wherever.”

“And are we happy about this, or sad?” Mateo pressed.

“A bit of both, the informer replied. “It’s the end of an era. Earth was once all there was, of course. Are you old enough to remember that?”

“Vividly,” Mateo answered. “I was born in 1986.”

“Ah. I was born in 1985. Respect your elder, son,” he joked. “Well, it’s bittersweet, but many look back and see this as inevitable. Once we decided to rewild our lands, there was no stopping it. What relative few buildings are left take up space where wildlife cannot grow. The footprint is small, but not zero. Each one taken down adds a slight amount of life back into the world. Pushing those boundaries is an enticing proposition. What if we removed all human presence? What if we returned Earth to the way it was millions of years ago? We’re not specifically trying to go that extreme, but again, a lot of people think it’s trending towards that, whether we like it or not. We still boast the greatest population in the galaxy, but we may not be able to say that forever.”

Mateo looked around the atrium. “It will become a museum. Your population will never reach zero. The lower it goes, the more people will want to come here to see such a low-populated Earth. Which will defeat the purpose, so they’ll leave. Back and forth.”

The informer smiled again. “Like Gaia breathing.”

“Like Gaia breathing,” Mateo echoed in agreement.

“Matt!” he heard Leona’s voice call up to him from behind.

He turned around. “Hello, love. Sorry I had to go.”

Leona caught up to him. “It’s not just you. Romana is leaving too.”

Mateo nodded solemnly. “I thought she might. Is she here too?”

“I’m not even here. I projected my hologram from home. You need to come back.”

“I can’t go alone,” Mateo reasoned. “I only have one, uhh...” He realized the informer was listening to them, so he couldn’t finish that sentence.

Leona nodded. “Rambo had trouble tracking you, so we sent out a remote search party, which led us to VR, which led us to Loa, who told us where you went, so we started another search for you on Earth. Now here I am. Three of us will come get you.”

“Thanks. I love you, and I’m sorry.” He turned back. “Thank you too.”

The informer gently shut his eyes and nodded his head respectfully.

Mateo went outside to a secluded part of the woods. Marie, Olimpia, and Ramses appeared hours later, but not through a sling portal. They simply materialized, which suggested that they went somewhere else first. He chose not to ask about it, in case they were mad. He synced his slingdrive with theirs, and they all went back to Ramosus.

Romana had gathered everyone in the lab already, so they stepped out of the slingdrive chamber, and took a seat with the others. Well, Mateo stayed standing.

“I spoke with Loa,” Romana began. “I know where Boyd is.”

“Did you try to reconnect with him?” Mateo asked her.

“No. She would not have let me, and I probably shouldn’t,” Romana went on. “I’m not going to apologize or tell you that I regret what I did. Perhaps one day I will, but not today, and not here. I have to leave. There are too many hard feelings right now. Things spiraled quickly, and I definitely regret that at least. We were a team, and I put that all at risk. Don’t...interrupt, please. That’s how I feel, and I don’t think I can get better around you. If I try to stay and repair things now, I fear it will only be duct tape.

“The distance is what will bring us back. Distance in space, and in time. I will be back. I don’t know when, but I don’t wanna leave you forever, and I need you to believe that, because it’s true. I’m angry and hurt, but not bitter. Some of the blame belongs to you, some to our various opponents, and of course, I’m responsible for a great deal of it.”

“Where will you go?” Mateo asked. “Sorry if you’ve already answered that.”

“Earth, actually. When Ramses was there, he installed a forge core at an undisclosed location, which will generate a mirror slinglab for us. This will allow anyone to go back and forth without having to be in an array. But I won’t be sticking around the lab. I may not even stay on Earth for very long, and I don’t want any of you to follow. I don’t want you to try to convince me to come home, or even just look out for me. I want to be alone. I have to be alone. I hope you understand, especially you, dad.”

Mateo nodded. He obviously understood why she couldn’t stay here after all this. When she said she would be back, she probably meant it, but would she still feel the same way tomorrow? A week from now? Years into the future? Was this the last time they would see her? “I won’t argue or stop you, I really won’t. You can’t ghost us, though. We need to know that you’re okay. You don’t have to check in every single day—that would be way too much—but we do need proof of life, periodically. Can you do that?”

Romana smiled sadly and nodded. “I can do that. Maybe once a week.”

“Thank you,” Mateo said graciously. “If you need a ship, I left one on the moon.” He handed her his dock token. “I love you. If you can’t say that back right—”

“I love you,” Romana interrupted. “I love all of you. We’ll get through this. I promise.” After hugging them one by one, she stepped into the slingdrive chamber and nodded at Ramses. Once he finished tapping on his console, she disappeared.

“Did you tag her as we discussed,” Leona asked, “so we can always find her?”

Ramses took a very long time to respond. “No.”

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