The Fifth Division: Rockhead (Part II)

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The people who work in the Garden Dimension are not pleased to learn that Briar de Vries pushed the prisoner down a well, but they let it go when they realize that A.F. is no ordinary man. He’s in a posthuman body, reluctantly gifted to him by the infamous Team Matic. He’s not immortal, but he’s harder to hurt, and quicker to heal. The walls of the well are smooth and wet. It was designed with an ancient aesthetic, but constructed using modern techniques, so it hasn’t experienced any wear and tear. He’s not getting out of there unless he can leap tall buildings in a single bound, or fly on his own power. He’ll survive, but not for long. Briar hasn’t clarified what he thinks his endgame is, but they’re letting him do what he thinks is best, for now.

It’s the next day now, and everyone appears to be up to speed. Hogarth Pudeyonavic’s artificial universe, Fort Underhill predominately houses people who used to be dead. Now Ingrid realizes why they didn’t call it Fort Hogarth, or something. She may have built it, but it was Ellie Underhill who used her immense powers to resurrect 120 billion people from the afterlife virtual simulation they were in, into new substrates in base reality. She evidently did it all at once. The thing about this situation, though, is that there was no longer anywhere for them to go when they died. Their bodies are no more invincible than A.F.’s. Some of them had spent thousands of years in the simulation, having died on Earth in ancient times. To them, coming back to a physical plane of existence wasn’t really a gift, even though the servers they were being stored on were about to be shut down.

Hogarth came up with a solution. It is she who has the power to demolecularize her body, and respawn elsewhere. Someone—it’s unclear who; perhaps Hogarth herself—replicated this ability in everyone. Now they all respawn. It’s relatively rare, because they’re kind of living in a utopia, so it’s not like people are dropping like flies, but it’s a nice contingency. Visitors from Salmonverse can still die in most places in Fort Underhill, but they too are protected as long as they remain in the Crest Hotel, as a safety feature for diplomatic reasons.

Ingrid is looking down the wall at the prisoner. A.F. seems very calm. She can’t fully make out his face this far away, and in this poor lighting, but it kind of looks like contentment from here. She needs to get him out of there. She needs to talk with him herself. This well-centric moral lesson was a stupid idea. There’s a rope here, but it doesn’t feel like it’s sturdy enough to hold a person. It’s just meant to pull up water in a bucket. This unique jail was meant to be relatively self-sufficient. When you water some of the ground on the bottom of the thorny walls, nutrient-rich mushrooms grow in a matter of hours, reportedly providing all the nourishment a prisoner needs.

Killjlir Pike—who Ingrid is convinced made up their own name—walks in from the corridor. Ingrid heard them coming a mile away. As a seasoned warrior, Ingrid knows how to be stealthy. She wasn’t arbitrarily handed the job of running the entire offensive branch of her civilization’s military. She earned it. She earned it in her enemies’ blood, and her own. She sometimes can’t help but sneak up to people, even when surprise is not her intention. Killjlir is the polar opposite. They have no personal experience with war, nor bloodshed of any kind. They were indeed handed their role as leader of their people. The Andromeda Consortium is an incredibly bizarre and dysfunctional web of alliances that always opposed the Detachments, over which Ingrid presided in the Fifth Division parallel reality. These alliances are based on an incomprehensible mess of so-called hierarchies. Two factions can war with each other, and they can recruit allied factions into that, even if there’s a conflict of interest. Literally, one faction will fight this war on both sides. It doesn’t make any sense.

Killjlir’s official title is First Among Us. The Andromedans might be fighting each other every which way, but they all answer to Killjlir. The way the Consortium apparently sees it, the First World is superior to all others. But this doesn’t make sense either. Not only is the First World not the planet where humans originally lived, because that was in the Milky Way, but it’s not even the first planet that was settled in the Andromeda Galaxy. They discovered it something like three hundred years later. They don’t dispute this fact in their history, they just don’t see the problem with using the term. Only a First Worldian can become First Among Us, but that’s the only requirement. Ingrid believes that the successor is chosen due to their attractiveness, but she’s never heard anyone admit that. They don’t have to have any diplomatic experience, or leadership skills, or even basic intelligence. That’s what leads Ingrid to believe that it’s only about superficial qualities, but again, she doesn’t really know. All she knows is that Killjlir is an idiot, and they don’t get along. The sentient tree forced them both to represent the interests of the Fifth Division collaboratively, but it was clear from the beginning that Ingrid was going to have to do all the work.

“What are you doing?” Killjlir asks?

“Getting some water,” Ingrid lies.

“You’re gonna drink water from where there’s a person?”

“What’s it to ya?”

“I can help. Do you want me to help?”

“You don’t know what I may need help with,” Ingrid reasons.

“I bet I do.” They glide over to look down the well. “How’re ya doing down there?”

“Oh, I’m great!” A.F. responds. “How ‘bout you?”

“Hang in there! We’re gonna rescue you!”

“We are?” Ingrid questions.

Killjlir closes their eyes, and shakes their head to silently respond to Ingrid. “Hold your breath!” they call down to A.F. They take a little bottle from their oversized sleeve, pop the cork, and drop the whole thing down the wall.

In an instant, the water shoots up like a geyser. A.F. is sent flying into the ceiling, where he’s impaled on a couple dozen thorns, which hold him in place while the water settles back down. Ingrid is speechless as she sloughs the chemicals off of her body. It’s not just water, but some kind of hyperreactive polymer. She’s never seen it before. “What. The. Fuck!”

Killjlir tilts their head as they’re looking up at A.F. Blood begins dripping down on their faces, which Ingrid is too upset to block, and Killjlir seems curious about it, as if she’s never seen blood before at all. “That was more powerful than I realized.”

“Was that your first kill?” Ingrid asks them.

“No,” A.F. ekes out from the ceiling. “She’s not killed me, I’m fine.” He groans and struggles to move, millimeter by millimeter, until pulling himself back off of enough thorns to let gravity take over. He falls down, smashing his face on the well between them before crash landing on the ground.

“Sorry,” Killjlir says, like their only crime was forgetting a friend’s middle name.

“You’re lucky he’s hard to kill,” Ingrid scolds. “We would have been screwed. And I need to talk to him.”

A.F. laughs as he’s still lying facedown on the dirt. “It’s too late.”

“I knew it,” Ingrid says angrily. “You wanted to be down that damn well. Or at least you didn’t care.”

He rolls himself over, revealing a bloody smile. “Did you really think we didn’t know about respawning? Do you really think that the First Explorer didn’t tell us everything? She’s omniscient!”

“She’s called the First Explorer?” Killjlir asks, with an air of seriousness that Ingrid has never seen in her before. “Tell me, is she called the First Explorer?”

He laughs again. “Yeah.”

Killjlir pulls a dagger out of their other sleeve. Their newfound stoicism has not subsided. They kneel by A.F., and unceremoniously drive the dagger into his neck, through his brain, and out the top of his head.

Ingrid doesn’t know whether she should be impressed, or horrified. Probably both. “Was...that your first kill?”

Killjlir hastily removes most of their elaborate dress, and tosses it down the well. They’re now wearing a sleek and stylish uniform. “Help me.” They bend back down, and lift A.F.’s dead body’s shoulders up.

Still shocked, but following her instincts, Ingrid reaches down and grabs the legs. Together, they bend him at the waist, and throw him back down the well, rear end first. “What are we doing here? What the hell is going on?”

Killjlir takes off their gemstone necklace, sets it down on the edge of the well, and hovers the water bucket over it. “Get ready to run. If you get cut by a thorn, don’t stop. Just keep going. I’ll heal you.” Without another word, they smash the gem with the bucket, and scrape it all down the wall with everything else. There’s an immediate boom, and the ground trembles. The top stones begin to break apart, and crumble into the hole. Killjlir takes Ingrid by the arm, and ushers her out into the corridor. They then quickly let go, and run in front.

Ingrid does get cut as she’s racing down the tunnel behind a person she thought she knew well enough. They have seemingly been faking their entire personality this whole time? Is the same true for the rest of the Andromedans? Are they not as dumb as they come off? Is there a method to their madness that goes beyond anyone’s comprehension? They keep running until they get to the exit, not looking back, but knowing that the bower is collapsing behind them, and getting sucked into the well.

Once they’re free, Killjlir stops suddenly, spins around, and wraps their arms around Ingrid. The wood and thorns continue to be pulled away, as do some leaves, blades of grass, and other plants which happen to be nearby. It tries to pull them down with the debris, but Killjlir is steadfast, digging their heels into the ground more and more the stronger the implosive force becomes. When it’s all over, they’re standing in a barren patch about the size of the thorn barrow that once stood there.

“Can you tell me what happened now?” Ingrid requests as the dust settles.

“That’s what I would like to know.” Leader of this dimension, Storm Avakian is standing next to them, just removing her hand from Briar de Vries’ shoulder, who presumably teleported her here from wherever.

Before anyone else can speak, a thunderous roar screams down at them from the sky. The comfortable minimal sunshine that once blanketed these lands during the day brightens more than it ever has since Ingrid arrived. It’s blinding. The dimensional barrier that Onyx was talking about is flickering as bolts of lightning shoot along the surface. “We’re too late,” Killjlir says. They sigh and look at Storm. “Prepare for war.”

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Microstory 2370: Vacuus, September 13, 2179

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Dear Condor,

I don’t want you to get mad. Let me just say that right at the top, before you read any further. Remember that, DON’T. GET. MAD. I’m glad that I’ve been so busy, so I couldn’t respond to your letter to the base before my private letter from you came through anyway. And I’m glad that you sent it. What I’m not glad about is my current medical condition. I know that you didn’t want details about my love life, but I think the backstory is important, and I feel compelled to be honest about what’s going on with me, because things aren’t great, and I don’t want you to be in the dark. It also might have an impact on you, since there’s an apparent genetic component. Bray and I are going through a tough time. I don’t blame him, but he blames himself. Here’s the part you’re not gonna like. I contracted an STD. On its own, the virus wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Treatment for it is relatively simple and easy to synthesize these days. We’re living here with a small population, so we kind of have these ways of coordinating partnerships. Genetic diversity and health are more important, and harder to come by, on this planet. Anyway, they treated the virus, and I’m free from it now, but it appears that the inflammation awakened something in my body. They’re calling it an epigenetic disease, which I was likely born with. You were telling me about how you used to get sick as a child. Could you give me more details about what your signs and symptoms were? Could you, maybe...ask your father about it too? I don’t want to be pushy, but I think we need to know the truth. If there’s something in our cells that we inherited from him or mom, I think we have a right to that information. I should have asked about this kind of stuff before. I have always lacked my father’s side’s medical history. Mom said she filled out all the forms accordingly, and I trusted that before I learned about you. Those family background records were made when I was a child, and since I’m still using the same doctors as I was before, they haven’t needed updating in that regard, because the past doesn’t change! So I’ve never actually seen the records myself. She could have lied, or she didn’t know enough about Pascal’s family, and just did her best. I have lived my whole life in a controlled environment, which the doctors believe insulated me from developing symptoms before. That would make sense since you were just on Earth, where you would have been exposed to all sorts of chemicals, even before the gases were released. Just tell me anything you can, and anything Pascal says about it, if you can ask him nicely without getting mad.

Don’t be mad,

Corinthia

PS: Don’t be mad.

Microstory 2369: Earth, September 6, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

I was trying to decide how to send this to you. I didn’t want it getting mixed up with the open letter I wrote to the whole base. I really should have sent this first, and the open letter the next day. So, sorry for the delay, and I’m sorry you’re feeling bad. I’m really hoping that you feel better by the time you get this. Actually, I’m hoping you felt better by the time I got your letter about it. I might know of a way to help. When I was still young—so young that I can’t entirely trust my memories of those days. The poisons had not yet destroyed the environment, but things were pretty bad already. I guess I’ve never really gotten into it, but the gases were kind of a breaking point for preexisting struggles all over the world. They were nowhere near the beginning of conflict. That was a hard time for us, but I was oblivious, because I was too young to understand. I was a little hungry some of the time, but not starving, and definitely not neglected. Dad did the best he could to provide for us during a difficult period in history, and that often meant spending time away from me to make money. Since he had to be away so much, a babysitter cared for me. We couldn’t afford much of course, but she must have been willing to do a lot for not very much money. She was so kind to me, I always thought she just enjoyed my company since I was a pretty cute kid. Thinking on it now, though, maybe there was something between them. Maybe she was never a babysitter at all, but a girlfriend. They didn’t tell me her last name, so I can’t look her up, and I’m afraid to ask. I have never otherwise known him to date. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s just that, I was having my own troubles during all that where I was getting sick kind of regularly, and in different ways. Man, maybe I really should ask dad about that to see what was going on. Was I terribly ill, with something concrete and diagnosable? No matter what was wrong, one thing that my caretaker did for me every single time was make me chicken noodle soup. Also looking back at that, I doubt it was even real chicken. However, I still have the recipe, and I’ve attached it here in case you have the right ingredients to supplement what isn’t available. Maybe you have nothing that works. Or maybe you have chicken noodle soup all the time, and I sound like a patronizing doofus. Just...I hope you’re feeling better, and that things are going okay with you, okay? How’s Bray? How was my letter received by your friends? When are you coming down to Earth for a visit?

Take care of yourself,

Condor

Microstory 2368: Earth, September 5, 2179

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Dear Vacuus Base,

My name is Condor Sloane. You may know my twin sister, Corinthia Sloane. When we were still infants, Corinthia and her mother left Earth on a daring mission to explore the unknown darkness that lies beyond the orbits of the sunstruck planets. Corinthia taught me that term to refer to the eight other planets, including Earth. I suppose it still technically fits, because the sun’s rays do technically hit our planet, and our sky is technically illuminated by it. Unfortunately, however, after you left, society broke down as greed overpowered all forms of civil fairness. Corporate espionage was rampant, leading to no one company gaining any innovative advantage over any other. In the past, a fair market encouraged healthy competition—which ideally makes things better for consumers—but certain legislative changes led to loopholes in regulatory oversight. They weren’t competing anymore, they were fighting. They were killing. These Corporate Wars turned blood red, and then a sickly pale green as researchers developed weaponized noxious chemicals to use against their boss’ enemies. No more is the sky as blue and beautiful as you’ve probably seen in images. The surface has been engulfed in a toxic cocktail of poisonous gases. We live in domes, or on the rare mountaintops that rise above the toxin line, frozen but habitable. The good news is that the wars are over. Most of the aggressors from those days are either dead or imprisoned. There are definitely still some out there in hiding, and there is definitely a job that involves bringing them to justice. My father and I came across these bounty hunters from time to time. We were transport coordinators, facilitating relocations between safe zones, across the lethal no-man’s lands that litter most of the world. We helped people find work, and reunite with their families. We met all sorts of interesting folk, and kept up with the goingson of the new society that has bloomed in the wake of the terrible devastation. Now, we live on the ocean. They built one of the domes on top of a giant floating platform. Since the platform has to be so large to accommodate the dome, it’s livable as well, and that’s where our cabin is. We have recently taken on immigrants from a dome in Australia. I managed to snap a photo of it from the outside while we were stopped on the road for some brief maintenance, and attached it here. I think that’s just about all I have to say about that. There are so many details missing, and I’m sure you’ll have questions. Corinthia has agreed to accept them from you, and will compile what she can’t answer herself for me. If necessary, I can write a second letter. Thank you for taking the time to hear a little bit about myself and my world. Stay safe up there, and don’t forget to close the door behind you when you go in or out!

Regards,

Condor

Microstory 2367: Vacuus, August 28, 2179

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Dear Condor,

I’m not feeling all that well today. I didn’t get much sleep last night, and I think I caught a stomach bug. The doctor has me self-quarantining, which is funny because that’s just how I typically live my daily life anyway. I wanted to respond to you, though, because I received your open letter. I attached the new document with my markups, but you can take them or leave them. If you just sent it to the base how you originally wrote it, it would be fine. I’m not surprised, your letters to me are always very well-written. Overall, I think it looks good. You didn’t say too little, or be too cryptic, but you didn’t overshare either. I would say go for it, if you’re comfortable, but you still have the option of declining the request. It’s not a big deal either way. Though, I do think you should change what you said about people asking questions. I’m willing to take on that role as intermediary. My suggestions are very minor, so it’s up to you whether to accept them. That also goes for whether to even send it or not. I won’t cloud your decision any further. It’s not like people will be mad at me if you decline. Both worlds will keep turning. I feel like I’m repeating myself, and should probably go back to bed. I’m going to be a little bit late with my thoughts on this latest Winfield Files book, but did you notice that we got a few spoilers from the last season of the show? It looks like they jumped a little ahead in the story, which I guess is what happens. The books are only told from the main character’s perspective, but the adaptation has the freedom to explore other people’s perspectives more directly, which has sometimes given us a bit of a sneak peek into what’s to come, before Winfield finds out about it in his own time. I don’t think it’s going to ruin anything, or that we should change our strategy. I just thought I would point it out.

Okay, goodnight,

PS: Are we gonna keep doing PS?

Microstory 2366: Earth, August 20, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

Dad told me what he told you, that he was going to take a trip down memory lane, and try to find someone from our past who might have been involved with the research team that was studying me, the Earth twin. He’s actually pretty excited about it, which may not have come across in his letter to you. If you don’t want him to do it, I hope you don’t say anything, because he has other reasons. He’s always needed someone to blame, and while your mom was up there with you on Vacuus, it was easy for him to just be resentful to her. Now that she’s gone, he doesn’t want to speak ill of the dead, nor say anything bad about his daughter’s mother. You were only an idea before, but now you’re a real person, and he wants to respect the woman that he married and once loved...for you. This will be good for him if his little investigation leads to answers, but not so great if he comes up with nothing. Even a tiny sliver of knowledge that he didn’t have before would make it worthwhile, and allow him to stop and let the rest go. If all of his leads hit nothing but deadlines, and he learns nothing new, he’ll never be able to stop. I’ll never be able to convince him. I thought about trying to talk him out of it entirely, so he doesn’t get his hopes up, but that would turn out exactly how I was just saying: no answers, no closure. We have to let him go on this journey; honestly, even if it’s dangerous, which it could be. Right now, he has access to information from here, and he’s sending messages to other settlements. But there may come a day when he decides to venture out into the world, and try to find this guy in person. I don’t know what I’m gonna do then, if there’s anything to do. I’ll keep you updated as much as I can since he doesn’t want to send you another letter unless it’s good—or at least big—news. As far as the request for an open letter from me, I don’t hate the idea, but I wasn’t instantly enthusiastic when I first read your message. Still, I’ve put some thoughts down on paper, and I want your thoughts before we move forward. I’ve attached my first draft of the letter so you can tell me what you think about it—maybe proofread it, and scribble in some notes in the margins. Don’t show it to anyone yet, send it back, and then I’ll make my final decision. I’m still not sure. It’s not a bad idea, it just depends on whether we both think there’s anything worth saying to your friends and neighbors.

Loving this season of The Winfield Files,

Condor

PS: We’ve been talking for a year. Woohoo! Only 35 more to make up.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 9, 2491

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When Team Matic landed on Castlebourne for the second time, they discovered that automators had constructed tens of thousands of dome habitats in Vendelin Blackbourne’s absence. They believed this to be a runaway computer problem, but it turned out that Hrockas was making use of these domes to turn this planet into the number one destination for all vonearthans. Even so, after Ramses halted production in the middle of development, they never restarted building more domes. They decided to focus on the ones that had already been made. After all, 83,838 should be enough to tide over the whole population of the galaxy for decades, if not centuries. That 0.3 dome, which was left unsealed, was the last ever made, and it now served a special purpose. This was now where the Vellani Ambassador landed after each mission. Passengers were unloaded, and moved into a maze of self-contained quarantine habitats. It was here that they remained for a period of forty hours while they were tested for contamination, and to get them acclimated to this world’s surface gravity.

Fortydome was built away from most others, not particularly intentionally, but they were taking advantage of its remoteness to protect the rest of the population. There were only two ways in or out; via the hyperloop, or up through the opening of what the refugees were calling The Bowl. Hrockas was considering changing the official name since it indeed resembled a bowl, and wasn’t technically a dome. At the moment, the Bowl was empty. Team Kadiar deliberately made it so by not executing any missions in the days leading up to Team Matic’s return to the timestream. Number one, it was good to have the whole place cleared out for major cleaning and disinfection protocols, and the original crew may need the ship for their own goals while they were around. This appeared to be the case today.

“They didn’t give you a name?” Leona asked.

“They spoke on behalf of their superior officer,” Romana replied. “They were very cagey about it, but it was quite important to them that Mateo be there on this day, and they insisted that their intentions were pure.”

Leona looked over at her husband, who looked intrigued. “You have heard of lying, right?”

Mateo shrugged. “I’ve heard of taking a leap of faith.”

“I’m not going to stop you from going, but I’m not going with you,” Leona said. “There’s a chance that you won’t even make it on time. Ramses and Hogarth have not yet modified the slingdrive to stay out of the fourth dimension.”

“You’re not gonna stop me, though?” Mateo asked, unconcerned about anything else she mentioned.

Leona looked back at Romana. “The VA is theirs now. We have no alternative. A captain without a ship is no captain at all.”

“You have never been the captain of the vessel,” Mateo reasoned. “You’re captain of a crew. We still need a leader.”

“Everyone’s become so capable,” Leona argued. “You don’t need me anymore.”

“I will never believe that,” Mateo tried to explain.

“I appreciate that. At any rate, if you think you should go, I think so too. “You can’t be alone, though. You might as well feed two birds with one worm, and spend some time with your daughter. There...there’s your order from a bona fide captain.” Leona disappeared.

“I suppose we don’t need an engineer anymore either,” Mateo pointed out.

“No, you don’t,” Mirage agreed from her speakers.

“Still...someone should say it,” he decided. “Yalla.”

Mirage engaged the subfractional engines, and launched into space. Once they were clear of the edges of the dome, she activated the teleporter, and jumped right into orbit. She then fired up the reframe engine, and sent them into interstellar space.

“Wait, why are we going so far away?” Mateo asked. “Can’t we use the slingdrive from anywhere?”

Mirage appeared as a hologram. “There’s a lot of quantum interference from Castlebourne, and I want to get away from the other time travelers. We’ve realized how sensitive it is, so this is protocol. It won’t be long now.”

“What about us?” he pressed. “She and I metabolize temporal energy.”

Romana took off her jacket, and plopped it over the back of a chair as she was walking towards a wall. The door of a standing pod slid open on its own, and she stepped up into it as she spun around 540 degrees like a ballerina. She smiled at her father. “That’s why we’re not gonna be here.” She jerked her head over to what looked like another pod. Before Mateo could walk towards it, he witnessed Romana’s door close back up. She quickly disappeared.

“It’s based on Dubravka’s timeslipping power,” Mirage explained. “She’ll be back in five minutes. “You need to get in yours too.”

Mateo did as he was told, entering his pod, and stepping back out of it what felt like seconds later. They were now orbiting an alien planet, evidently 16,000 light years away. Someone intercepted the Ambassador while they were on a rescue mission last week. They relayed a message containing these coordinates, and reportedly fully agreed to let Tertius erase their memories of the meeting from their minds. Mateo watched it through the floor viewscreens. “I think I’ve been here before.”

“The locals call it Ex-18118,” Mirage revealed, now back to her disembodied self.

“Yeah, I left Korali here. She thought she would be dead by now, but...hopefully that’s not true. If I’m not here to reunite with her, I don’t know who it could be.”

“Her child?” Romana suggested.

“Maybe.” He took a deep breath in preparation. “Exact surface coordinates?” They appeared on screen. “Okay.” He spread his arms wide, and wrapped them around Romana. They stood there in the hug for a few moments before he teleported them down to the rendezvous spot.

They found themselves next to a calming clear pond. This was exactly where he left Korali five decades ago. Did she just never leave? “Thanks for coming.”

It was her, still alive after all this time. She looked just as young as she was when he last saw her. To his knowledge these people didn’t have anti-aging technology or powers. They lived and died, just as people on Earth did in the early 21st century, and before. “How are you...?”

“I’m good.”

“That’s great, but I mean...” He trailed off again.

“I know what you wanted to say. How am I still alive? Still young? Still painfully sexy and gorgeous?” She reached behind her back, and came back with one of the standard codexa that stored the central archives from the stellar neighborhood. There was no way to know whether this one was the core compendium, the grand repository, or the aggregate records. Leona gave her a copy of all three, only leaving the virtual stacks out of Korali’s library. “It’s the compendium,” she said as if reading his mind. “This tells me how to stay practically immortal.”

“That’s possible, all the way out here?”

“As it turns out,” Korali began, “the planets in the Goldilocks Corridor were terraformed with the same plant life that you can find on Earth. I have everything I need, right within a few square kilometers. I just needed the information, which you graciously gave me.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing, just living off of the plant life?”

Korali giggled. “No. I’ve been real busy. Once we felt sufficiently powerful, we left this settlement, and returned to civilization. We staged a coup, and literally took over the whole world. They didn’t have weapons, so it wasn’t even hard.”

“That wasn’t our plan for you.”

“I know, but we had to make changes. We read the aggregate records too. Some interesting stuff in there. As it turns out, Oaksent isn’t special. Everything he made he stole from someone smarter. What he’s done here has been done a million times before, just with some extra scifi shit. Same story, different dick.”

“So you’re against him now? Full-on?”

“I probably hate him more than you do,” Korali contended. “You’re just a visitor. I was actually oppressed. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for opening my eyes to the truth. You didn’t have to, you could have just killed me. That’s what he would have done in your shoes.”

“So, this is some sort of resistance base?” Romana asked.

Korali darts her chin to look at Romana like she didn’t realize she was standing there the whole time. “It’s nice to meet you.” She held out her hand. “Korali Stinger.”

They shook hands. “Security Officer Romana Matic of the Vellani Ambassador.”

“Any relation?”

“I’m his daughter.”

Korali took a moment to absorb the new information. “Hm.” She went back into the conversation. Not exactly.”

“How do you keep them from blowing you out of the sky?” Korali asked.

Korali held the core compendium codex back up. “Like I said, we learned things. Thanks again for that,” she said to Mateo.

He nodded politely.

“Anyway,” Korali went on, “no, we’re not a resistance base, we’re a refuge.”

Both Mateo and Romana were surprised, and suddenly uncomfortable, because it felt like maybe this conversation was a little less friendly than it started. “Oh.”

“Hey, it’s okay. Why are you worried?” Korali laughed. “Do you think I feel threatened by Castlebourne’s involvement in our affairs? Do you think I think there’s not room for the both of us in this galaxy?”

“Is there...” Romana asked, “room?”

“Of course!” Korali replied. “I’m here to ask you for help! Those motherfuckers are constantly attacking us. They don’t even know where you are. This was a great idea when I came up with it, but it’s a lot of goddamn work. You seem to have some magical form of faster-than-light travel that the central archives don’t even speculate about. You show up daily, and leave mysteriously. I think it’s time we retire Ex-18118, and just let you handle it. But I wanna be involved. I’m not planning on retiring myself.”

“Well, that’s out of my hands,” Mateo admitted. “I’m not part of the project. I don’t exist.”

“I’m aware of that,” Korali said. “I asked you here because I told you that I didn’t want us to wait 47 years to see each other again. We obviously failed that, but at least it hasn’t been 48, right?”

“So this is just a social visit?” he asked.

“Pretty much. I’m glad you brought her, though. Are you who I need to speak with?” she asked Romana.

“The rest of the crew didn’t come with us,” Romana answered. “None of us would be able to make such a decision unilaterally.”

“It’s urgent, but I wouldn’t call it an emergency,” Korali determined. “When you’re ready to discuss a partnership, you know where I live. I’m guessing you’re not interested in telling me where you do.”

“Not my call either,” Romana told her.

“We’ll be right back.” Mateo took Romana’s hand, and jumped them back to the ship.

“Mirage, why have you been so quiet?”

“She has technology,” Mirage said as a hologram. “She would be able to hear us.”

“Even though our comms work through bone conduction?” Mateo questioned.

“Even with an inducer,” Mirage began, “there is some sound leakage. She has a device that can detect faint sounds, and greatly amplify them.”

“She’s trying to eavesdrop on us,” Romana noted. “That’s not a good sign. It sounds like she was one of them. Are you sure she’s switched sides?”

“I’m not,” Mateo acknowledged.

“Her allegiances have shifted, but not to us,” Mirage said. “This is a resistance base, not a refuge. I mean, I suppose you could argue that it is, but its purpose is to consolidate control into a new empire.”

“She’s Bronach 2.0?” Mateo shook his head.

“Not from what I can gather. She wants power, like him, but she doesn’t want to oppress people. She believes that Earthan technology and knowledge is the best path forward for the Corridor. She’s probably brought you here so we stop taking all of her people away. You see, every single person we escort to Castlebourne is a potential member of her army. They’re expressing dissatisfaction with their lives, and that’s who she’s been trying to target. They’re the ones that she could theoretically fold into her competing society instead.”

“We’re in her way, but at the same time, she needs us, because Castlebourne currently has over 300,000 people.” Romana started to work it out in her head. “So she won’t attack, but she’s trying to play us.”

“I don’t understand how her strategy will ultimately lead to you transporting people to her planet, but maybe I’m not smart enough,” Mateo said.

“No, I don’t know either,” Mirage said. “She may be intending to change her tune after developing a rapport, and arguing that people from the Goldilocks Corridor belong in the Goldilocks Corridor. I don’t think she knows how far away we are, she may just be guessing that we’re near Earth.”

“This is good to know,” Mateo began, “but I meant what I said down there. This isn’t my decision. We have to go back so you can brief your team.”

“You’re right, but we can’t leave without saying goodbye.”

“I’ll handle that,” Mateo glanced over at the local readout for the slingdrive’s coherence gauge. “Just plot a course to safe territory with the reframe engine so we can wait it out until it’s time to make another jump.”

“Aye, Captain,” Mirage joked.

He smirked, and saluted her.

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The Fifth Division: Hitting Rock Bottom (Part I)

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When Ingrid Alvarado was living in the Fifth Division parallel reality, she managed to work her way up to the rank of Telamon. She was in command of the Offensive Contingency Detachment, leading an army against the opposing force from the Andromeda Galaxy. She was happy with where she was, as were all of her compatriots, though they had complicated relationships with each other. When Team Matic showed up, they didn’t like how the supercluster was being run, and to speak the truth, neither did anyone else, really. Ingrid was proud of the work that she was doing, but she didn’t want to kill her enemies. She didn’t like it. It just seemed so unavoidable, so when Captain Leona Matic tried to take over the entire alliance by force, she knew that she couldn’t surrender. While the others agreed to send champions to their deaths, sure that they would maintain their own power in the end, she held back. When the fight was over, and only one champion remained in the ring, they were shocked to find that that winner was Leona. They had all underestimated her—all but Ingrid.

Leona and her team were wildcards who appeared out of nowhere, and began to resist the establishment pretty much right away. You don’t get that kind of courage from inexperience and a lack of fortitude. Honestly, those guys were dicks, and Ingrid couldn’t help but be pleased with the results. Leona was now in control of the Fifth Division Detachment Alliance, and Ingrid was her number two. But not really. Leona was clearly a rolling stone, so it was only a matter of time before she reached her goals in this corner of the universe, and moved on. This did indeed happen, and Ingrid was placed in full command. With her newfound power, Ingrid signed treaties with the Andromeda Consortium, and the Denseterium, which gave her even more power. She ranked up to become a Superordinate. This novel title turned out to be more important than ever when the five realities collapsed, and every living being was sent to the Sixth Key. They were unexpectedly on the verge of fighting a new war, and The Supercluster was positioned to gain more power than ever, as was Ingrid herself.

The bittersweet truth, however, was that this isn’t what happened. A sentient tree had other ideas. They were forced to negotiate in the Rock Meetings. The sparks of conflict never ignited the flames of war, but Ingrid never managed to wrest control over a whole universe either. That certainly would have been nice to see written in the history books. Even so, what she realized was that she was kind of tired of it all. Leona secretly gave her the gift of virtual immortality, which also came with a side of an immense change of perspective. This shift in her worldview happened gradually as the realities collided, tensions rose, and the diplomatic discussions pressed forth. What was she doing with her life? Why was she so violent? Why did she care so much about control? She was about to give it all up when they were abducted yet again, and trapped on a prison world to prevent them from causing a temporal paradox. But she stuck to her guns, so to speak, and is now striving for a life of peace and harmony. She loves it here in the Garden Dimension. When that same sentient tree asked for volunteers to be “human agents” she shrunk into herself, hoping that no one would volunteer her. She isn’t the only member of the military here, but she’s the only one who has seen any real action. Bariq Medley is a General, but he’s only trained in the theoretical. He doesn’t know what real war is like. His reality was too progressive before he was even born.

Right now, Ingrid is sitting on a bush that somehow grew in the shape of a bench. It’s quite comfortable, actually. The moss that grows on it is very soft, and she was told that it excretes self-cleansing saponins, though she’s not entirely sure what that means. They didn’t really have plants where she lived before. She was aware of them on some planets, but the first time she saw plant life up close was after the transition to the Sixth Key. This will be her first sunset too. “If this is a pocket dimension, how is there a sun here?” she asks. “Is it only a simulation?”

She’s sitting with Onyx Wembley, who has the title of Botanical Orchestrator. He organizes all the plants, in their little sections, making sure that they don’t disturb each other, or compete for nutrients. “It’s not just a pocket dimension, but a parallel dimension as well. There’s a whole world out there. We’re housed in a very thin pocket only so that we can better control the environment. But you could go outside if you wanted; as in, outside outside. That’s why the sun looks kind of hazy. Those aren’t clouds, it’s the mostly transparent dimensional barrier between us and the sky.”

“I see. So that is the real Earthan sun.”

“More like a copy of it,” Onyx clarifies.

She nods, and continues to enjoy the orange and red colors filling the sky now like spilled paint. Magic hour is what they called it. Unfortunately, her joy does not last long. All of the sudden, there’s an explosion out of nowhere. A cloud of particles hovers in the air a few meters from them for a couple seconds before tightening up in the form of a person. She doesn’t know who it is, but as the two of them are standing there, afraid to approach the imploding man, another dust cloud appears farther away. It coalesces into Andrei Orlov. They watch in horror and confusion as more and more people appear out of thin air, scattered randomly about the grounds. She knows a few of them, but not everyone. They all collapse on the grass, and catch their breaths. The last two people are a man Ingrid knew to be from the Fifth Division, and then Selma Eriksen. Both of them are brandishing weapons, though neither is in a position to use it.

Ingrid takes the man’s rifle, and turns it on him. “What’s your name again?”

“That?” Selma asks, chuckling. “That’s Ammo Fucker.”

“Fuck you, bitch! You killed me!”

“You’re not dead yet,” Ingrid explains.

Ayata Seegers runs over from her own explosion site, and reaches down for Selma. “Are you okay? Is your back broken?”

“It was broken?” Ingrid questions.

“I think it was, yeah,” Selma says. She stands up, and hops around. “It’s not anymore, though. Dying cured me.”

“You can’t die in the Crest Hotel,” one of the women Ingrid recognizes says. What was her name? Elmie? “It’s a safety feature. If you are killed, you’ll respawn somewhere else.” She looks around at the Garden. “Though, not wherever we are now.”

“Well, we didn’t know that,” the angry Fifth Divisioner guy argues.

“Clearly,” Andrei fires back. He gives Selma a hug, and then Ayata, and then gives Ayata a short but fervent kiss on the lips.

Everyone who lives or works in the Garden Dimension teleports in, having received Onyx’s emergency message. This includes the four other members of the original team, Arnold, Pinesong, Princess Honeypea, and their leader, Storm. Weaver, Goswin, Eight Point Seven, and Briar show up too.

“I know this man,” Weaver says. “He’s no good. Permission to apprehend him, Storm?”

“Granted,” Storm Avakian agrees.

Briar walks over to the prisoner, and places cuffs on his wrists. “I’ve been where you are before. I can show you where the path to redemption begins, if you let me.”

The prison spits in Briar’s face.

“You’ll get there,” Briar responds, calmly and confidently.

Weaver looks over at Andrei. “Report.”

“It’s a long story, could we sit somewhere?” Andrei requests.

“If you don’t mind, I would like to start interviewing the prisoner?” Ingrid asks Weaver.

Weaver just jerks her head in Storm’s direction.

“What is your interview style?” Storm asks. “Is it more torture, or talking?”

“Definitely talking. Torture has been proven time and time again to be ineffective.”

“Gossy, take her to Thornbower.”

“I’d like to go too, Onyx volunteers.

Goswin smiles. “I can take two at a time just fine.” He grasps both of their hands, and pulls them in close, but doesn’t transport just yet. “Please keep your hands and feet in the ride at all times. There’s a reason it’s called Thornbower. He finally jumps, and Ingrid sees that they weren’t joking around.

They’re standing in a tunnel made out of uncomfortably short trees, arching towards each other above. Vines have woven themselves between them all around. They’re covered in thorns, as are the trunks and branches. The ceiling is high enough to allow any normal-sized person to pass underneath, but it’s still claustrophobic and unsettling. They instinctively lower their heads, and keep an eye out for stray thorns. You cannot be too careful in here. One small step in the wrong direction, and you’ll poke your eye out. Ingrid looks behind them to find that the tunnel is as endless that way as it is the other way. If this is what they use as a jail, it’s totally fitting, and on-brand for them. There might not even be any doors or cells here. There wouldn’t have to be if there’s only one entrance/exit.

“We’ve never had to use this before,” Onyx reveals.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Goswin notes. Only now does he let go of Ingrid and Onyx’s hands, having been allowing them to hold on out of fear.

“That happens,” Ingrid adds. “There’s only a first time for everything that happens; not anything that never does.”

“In an infinite cosmos, there is no such thing as something that doesn’t ever happen,” Goswin muses. He winks before disappearing.

Onyx shivers. “This way.”

As it turns out, the endlessness is nothing but an illusion. What appeared to be a single straight tunnel is a windy maze of confusing and frightening corridors and deadends. It really would be impossible to escape if you were in a hurry. There aren’t any security cameras, and of course no guards, but based on the sounds she could hear, the walls probably weren’t all that thick. She even caught a few glimpses of blue through the branches, suggesting that one could hypothetically subvert the bower altogether, if they were brave enough, or insensitive to pain. It would still be dangerous, though.

They round one last bend, and meet up with Briar and the prisoner. This is a much more open area, furnished with nearly everything a prisoner needs to live. It comes with two armchairs, a hardback chair for a desk, and a really nice wooden bed with a queen-sized mattress. There’s no wired electricity, but there are a few lanterns for when it gets dark. For water, there’s an entire well, which could be a security concern, but there must be some design choices that aren’t obvious just by looking. She’s unsure what they might do for food.

Briar looks over at the other two. “Hold on.” He’s sitting in one of the armchairs, opposite the prisoner, leaning forward to make it a more intimate conversation. “I was raised by my mother on a planet which was otherwise devoid of intelligent life. She died when I was still young, so I raised myself the rest of the way, and I didn’t do a very good job. I killed someone. He hit the rocks on the bottom of the cliff, and bled out...alone. To this day, it remains the greatest regret of my life. The funny part is that his friends went back in time and rescued him, against all odds. That’s when I realized that I was the one on the bottom of that cliff. I was the one who was alone. He survived because people wanted him to, and if I had fallen instead, that would just be the end of it.”

“I’m not alone, I’m part of a team.”

“Are you? Where are they now?”

“They assume I’m dead.”

“So you are alone.”

The prisoner huffs, and turns away.

“Believe it or not, I managed to make friends too, again despite the odds,” Briar goes on with his personal story. “But the only way I was able to do it was to hit rock bottom first. You may think you’re there now, but I’m here to tell you, A.F., that you can always fall farther. All rock bottom really means...is how far you fall before you finally decide to climb your way back up.” Briar leans towards the back of his chair like he’s said something profound, except that’s not all he’s doing. He lifts one leg up, braces it under A.F.’s chair, and kicks it backwards.

A.F. is sent tumbling down the well, screaming for his life...until he hits rock bottom.

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