The Fifth Division: Mind of Rocks (Part III)

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Storm doesn’t waste any time as the shield protecting her garden begins to falter and fall apart. “Go to Pinesong,” she orders Briar. “Tell him to reinforce that thing as much as possible. He can draw his energy from the tree if he has to.”

“Do you have any weapons?” Ingrid asks after Briar disappears.

“Obviously not,” Storm answers. “This is meant to be a peaceful haven.

“Then I need to speak with the tree,” Ingrid urges.

Storm thinks about it, but only for a moment, because time is of the essence. If these hostile forces breach the gate, they could destroy this whole place without any resistance. The magical memory magnolia could be the only thing standing in their way. “Goswin, I need your help,” she whispers into her shoulder.

Goswin never appears. Ingrid and Killjlir simply find themselves swept away, and transported to the island where the tree stands. They expect the Tamerlane Pryce avatar to appear before them, but he seems to have other ideas. A rounded rectangular portal appears on the trunk. No one comes out and invites them in, but the implication is that that’s what they’re supposed to do. They exchange a look, hold their breaths, and walk over the threshold. The entrance zips up behind them. They’re standing in a circular room now, like a castle tower, though the walls are not made of stone, but wood. It’s shifting through translucency and transparency. They can still see the conflux waters on the outside, and the expansive garden beyond, as well as the trembling dimensional dome in the sky. The tree is big, but it’s not this big. They shouldn’t both be able to stand in here with so much room. This is either just a representation of what it would look like if they really were in the trunk like chipmunks, or they’ve actually been shrunk down into some kind of bizarre parallel dimension.

The Pryce avatar does not appear. Instead, it’s the Angry Fifth Divisioner.

“Do you always take the form of your enemies?” Ingrid asks.

“I take the form of anyone whose essence I have absorbed,” A.F.’s mouth answers. “I do not see this man as my enemy. I do not have enemies.”

“That’s certainly how they see you,” Ingrid argues.

“They cannot kill me,” he replies. “They can only harm my agents.”

“Does this not concern you? Are we...dispensable?”

The tree smiles. “Your bodies are.”

“So we die here, you absorb us, and we just become part of your transcendental oversoul; the wave returning to the ocean.”

“That’s a way you could look at it,” A.F. agrees.

“Hey,” Killjlir interrupts. “Are you going to help us stop this attack, or not?”

“What’s happening is precisely what must.”

“Stop speaking in riddles, and vague nonsense,” Ingrid insists. “Tell us what you want, tell us what they want. Tell us what the Garden Dimension custodians want, what Goswin and his buddies want, what your other human agents want, and what the other leaders of the Sixth Key want. Tell us everything.”

He smiles again, like a seasoned parent, knowing that their youngest will not understand until they’re older. He doesn’t seem annoyed, or frustrated by all the incessant questions. “It doesn’t matter what any of you want. It doesn’t even matter what I want? All that is is what is, and what’s right.”

Both Ingrid and Killjlir roll their eyes.

“You don’t want riddles?” he goes on. “Then let me be perfectly blunt. The garden will be destroyed. It’s the only way.”

“The only way to accomplish what?” Killjlir is just as annoyed at these piecemeal answers. As Ingrid is.

“The only way to save it.”

There’s a loud boom behind them. They look back to see the pocket dimensional dome collapse. At first, a hole forms at the zenith, then the glassy walls recede back towards the ground, uneven, and occasionally trying to go back up, like the bars of a music visualizer. Pinesong is likely still fighting back, but they all fall in the end. The sun shines down on the ground in all its glory.

“This is what you wanted?” Ingrid presses.

The A.F. avatar chuckles. He lifts one hand, and jiggles it to the left. The view outside changes. It’s back to normal. The dimensional barrier seems intact, though it’s so clear and uniform, it’s hard to make out, especially through the wood walls of this weird tree interior dimension. He jiggles his hand again, changing the scene to when the dome is gone, but the garden is mostly gone too. There are a few bushes in the immediate vicinity, but most of it is desert. “The early days.” He shifts the view again. The bushes are burned. Fires rage in the distance. The garden is being destroyed. Another shift, and the outside is a barren wasteland once more, but not because Storm and her people haven’t begun their work yet. Everything has been annihilated. The soot from the fire remains on the branches of the heartiest of plants here, amidst the ash.

“Past and future,” Ingrid decides.

More like possibilities,” A.F. corrects.

“So it can be stopped,” Killjlir determines.

“Of course it can. I’m saying that it shouldn’t. When you look out there, do you see death, or do you see life?”

“Death, obviously.”

“I would imagine,” A.F. says. “I see something different, though. I see potential. I see a new beginning.”

“Are you telling us that this is a prescription burn?” Killjlir questions. “They destroy the old, so that life can begin anew?”

“I’m saying that it’s a necessary evil. To protect the world, we destroy the garden.”

Ingrid shakes her head. “The world out there, in this parallel dimension? Onyx didn’t tell me what it’s like. It’s uncontrolled, though. It’s...unprotected. Random.”

The tree laughs again at the dumb children. “Is that the point of life? To be controlled?” He reaches up to swipe the scene away entirely, flinging the view across the lands—out of the pocket where the garden once stood—somewhere away from its borders. There is life here too, just like the garden, though it’s unstructured, as predicted. Leaves are left unraked; branches unpruned. It’s patchy and random, with brown grass in some spots, apparent volunteers breaking up the flow, and some plants that are just straight up dead. It’s natural, it’s wild, and it’s beautiful.

“This is a copy of Earth, isn’t it, but without buildings, or anything else manmade?” Ingrid asks as she’s looking down at the dirt below.

“This parallel dimension was stuck in the past, about 300 million years prior to the modern day,” the A.F. avatar begins to explain. “The land was combined into a supercontinent known as Pangea. The rest of it, ocean. Little moisture could reach the center of Pangea, leaving it as an arid desert. Only the coastal regions were lush with vegetation. We don’t know what this parallel dimension exists, it just does. The Gardeners specifically chose it so as not to interfere with the delicate ecosystem of a preexisting world. The center of this continent was nothing, just sand and dirt, and they thought that it was up for grabs for this reason. They built a pocket dimension right there, but pocket dimensions don’t have skies. Their atmospheres are artificial, and must be recycled. So they intentionally made the barrier thin, which gives it physical structure within the world around it. The sun can penetrate, as can the air. And so can seeds.” He gestures towards the vegetation outside the tree tower. “They didn’t even realize it, but they were seeding life all over the continent. Every plant that they planted is out here somewhere, surviving in its natural state. Except for the newest specimens, of course, who just haven’t had time to permeate the barrier.”

“So it’s not just a garden dimension anymore. It’s a garden planet,” Killjlir muses.

“It’s the way every world should be. In my honest opinion,” A.F. adds.

Ingrid shakes her head. “You propose that we let the garden be destroyed, because this is all out here anyway? Why wouldn’t our enemies just destroy it too? Set a larger fire, and let it encompass the supercontinent. Couldn’t be too hard.”

“They don’t know it’s here,” the tree claims.

“But they’re coming from the outside,” Ingrid reasons. “They’re on the border. They could easily just...turn around and look.”

“They’re not on the border,” he argues. “They just needed to collapse the barrier, so they could come from their own plane of existence.”

“Well, they’ll see it now,” Killjlir presumes. “Again, they’ll just turn around.”

“Not if they stay near the center. Their plan was to engulf us in flames, and let it spread to the center, but it is vital that they come to the conflux instead, so their view is obstructed. You must lure them to me, and make them set the fire at my feet. They’ll have no choice but to escape interdimensionally, and they will never see what the world truly looks like. That’s why I brought you.”

“Won’t you be destroyed?” Ingrid figures.

“Another necessary evil.” He sighs. “I’m a sentient tree with magical powers. I’ve lived many lifetimes, and seen all of time and space. I’m ready to go.”

“There’s gotta be a better way,” Killjlir hopes.

“If there were, I would see it,” A.F. contends.

Ingrid takes a deep breath. “Take us back to realtime, and realspace. You’ll need to be able to transport us upon request.”

“Done. Easy.” With a wave of his hands, the Memory Magnolia transports them back to the conflux.

They’re standing on the little island again, and they’re not alone. “Andrei. Where are Selma and Ayata?”

“They’re helping everyone escape into the tunnels,” Andrei replies. “Weaver and those other three don’t have their powers anymore, or perhaps just not right now. They have to get out manually, but once they’re safe, they plan to come back to protect the tree. Princess Honeypea says that it’s the most important lifeform out here.”

“No,” Ingrid counters. “We have to let them destroy the tree. Trust me, this is what it wants. Tell your partners to stay where they are, protecting the others. You and Killjlir will stand guard here. Put up a fight, so it doesn’t seem suspicious, but ultimately, let them through.”

“What are you gonna do?” Killjlir asks her.

“I’m bait,” Ingrid answers. “Take me to ‘em, tree guy.” She’s teleported to a tunnel entrance. Ayata is there, fighting off Tamerlane and his partners in hand-to-hand combat. It’s so pedestrian, fighting like this, instead of with powers, or at least guns, but they may be just as restricted as everyone else. “Get back to the tree!” she orders Ayata. “It’s the only thing that matters! As long as it’s standing, they can’t destroy anything!”

Ingrid would sure prefer a gun in this situation, but if the tree wants the garden destroyed, it better be destroyed. That means she can’t just kill all of her opponents right here. Presumably, if these humans don’t get the job done, this First Explorer entity will just find others to do its bidding. After Ayata disappears, Ingrid takes her place in the fight, fending off three attackers at once. They all appear to have impenetrable skin, but they’re untrained and unskilled. She would send them all into the ground if they weren’t superhumanly strong and tough. Still, she keeps going, because that’s what they’re expecting out of her. She can’t just roll over, even though the endgame sounds inevitable. Finally, they manage to punch and kick her enough times for her to reasonably fall to the ground herself, and let them run off.

“Get to the tree. I’ll finish this,” one of the women says. The other two nod, and teleport away. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. The ruse should hold.

Ingrid spits some of the blood out of her mouth as she’s kneeling in the dirt. She extends her hand. “Ingrid Alvarado.”

The enemy shakes her hand. “Iolanta Koval.” She then pulls Ingrid up to her feet. “You have some skill. Could you teach me?”

“You would have to not kill me first.”

“Good point.” Iolanta tilts her head. “I have finally figured out how to stop your little tree god from subverting my temporal suppressive powers. You ain’t goin’ nowhere anymore. You’re standing on your own grave.”

Ingrid takes a breath, and enjoys one final look at the beautiful garden around her. She could have been happy here. “It’s so gorgeous...not the worst place to die. So why are you trying to destroy it?”

She shrugs. “I have no strong feelings about it. This is just what the boss wants.”

“You always do what the boss says?”

“Someone has to lead, someone has to follow. It’s what keeps the trains running on time. Without the chain of command, it’s chaos.”

There’s an explosion a ways away, in the direction of the magnolia tree. The fire is already spreading out from it, and heading their way. They both regard it with different feelings. Iolanta is indifferent. Ingrid is saddened. “That doesn’t look like chaos to you?”

“Let’s call it a controlled burn,” Iolanta decides.

“Yes, let’s.” Hopefully the magnolia used the last of its power to send all of the humans standing there to a safe place, even Killjlir.

Even though they’re both totally exhausted, Iolanta isn’t finished. She takes a pea shooter out of her breast pocket, and points it at Ingrid’s head. She doesn’t get the chance to pull the trigger, though. A gunshot rings out from somewhere, and blood shoots out of her neck. She falls to the ground.

Selma is jogging the rest of the way up from the tunnel entrance, still holding her firearm at the ready. “We have to go.”

“No, I have to make sure that this is done,” Ingrid argues. She’s watching the fire in the distance. It’s coming closer as the flames begin to engulf everything that made this place so beautiful. Necessary evil or not, it’s a damn shame.

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Microstory 2375: Vacuus, October 13, 2179

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Dear Condor,

I trust that you’ve been getting my daily health updates. I think that’s all I’m going to do, just forward my morning vital stats. It’s a lot easier, and the system is already set up for it. Of course, the feature is typically meant for patients to update their doctors, but if it makes you feel better, then I can do it. Yes, I do have other people to help me when I’m having trouble, be it with my health, or anything else. Like I was saying, it takes a village, and we’re a tight-knit group here. Some are closer than others. Some have more friends than me, but overall, I feel like I could count on just about anyone on this base. I’ve been reading about it, and other colonies are facing similar issues, living in these controlled environments. People don’t ever get just a little sick, so when something happens, it runs rampant. No one knows what the solution might be, though I’m guessing that your domes make things a little safer. If you have plant life growing in them, you have bacteria growing on them. All those variables are making illness a real concern, but hopefully, a manageable one. I have been taking vitamins my whole life, which include more than one immunity booster, so that’s always helped me. It’s probably part of what staved the disease off for as long as it had been. Anyway, I’m okay now. Bray has been great, and if you don’t know how to interpret vital sign trends, I’m back to the way I used to be before all this. It was a scare, but I think I can safely say that I’m out of the woods now. You’re right, testing twins for this sort of thing could be a good idea if it weren’t horrific, and we probably weren’t the first to think of it. I’m sure our observers did too. I bet they were indeed studying the physiological differences between us, living in vastly  different environments, or at least they were trying to. We’ve mentioned that it makes little sense, trying to study anything in fraternal twins, but whatever. It’s over now, and we don’t have to worry about those people anymore. I hope you took my advice, and sent a message to Velia. I know that she’s looking forward to it.

Ta-ta for now,

Corinthia

Microstory 2374: Earth, October 7, 2179

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Dear Velia,

My twin sister, Corinthia gave me your contact card. She’s talked about you a little. You’re the one who made the matching outfits that we all wore to our interplanetary birthday party, right? I know you read my open letter to the base, but if you want to talk and get to know each other personally, here’s how you can reach me. Tell me about yourself. I don’t have that much experience with what you do, and have never met anyone with your job. Things are a little different here on Earth these days, but I think they’re becoming more like they are on Vacuus, now that society is coming back. We have garment fabricators like you here, but it was a change for me, wearing new clothes. In the past, when we needed replacements, we had to trade for them at whatever market we came across, or even scavenge them from the ruins of the old world. It’s not really something I thought about a whole lot growing up. We were just trying to survive, and as long as you were protected from the elements, that would have to be good enough. If you were in the midst of the toxic fumes, it really didn’t matter what you were wearing unless it was a hazmat suit, because you weren’t going to make it out there for long. Also, when we were busy traveling the world, we were limited to how much we could carry, which was par for the course for a lot of people at the time, certainly everyone we were dealing with. In some instances, it was a rule based on who you were with, and in others, it was a practical necessity to stay light and unburdened by too many belongings. I’ve only recently begun to collect personal possessions. It just wasn’t worth it before, when I was on the road, and in the air. Before we came to this platform, I only had a few shirts and a couple of pairs of pants. Socks and undergarments were the most precious due to their heavy impact on hygiene. I’m sure there’s more to you than your job. You may not even like clothes. Not everyone gets to work in their preferred field. In case you are into fashion, though, here’s a picture of what I’m wearing today. What do you think?

It’s nice to kind of meet you,

Condor

Microstory 2373: Earth, October 6, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

I’m relieved that you’re feeling better, but I’m still worried about you. What are your message quotas? Maybe you could send me daily updates? Yeah, I’ll always be a week behind, but I’ll feel better if I can count on something coming in every day. Or maybe that would be even more stressful, because what if you’re too busy, or you forget? It might make me start freaking out. I dunno, you decide. I just want you to be okay. Who else do you have in your life besides Bray? Does Velia help too? Is she someone you can rely on when things are rough? It’s so frustrating being so far from each other. Okay, I don’t wanna be too pushy or overprotective. You live your life however you think you should. In school, we learned about the dangers of living in space. They told us how risky it is just being out in the vacuum, and how lower gravity can impact bones and muscles. But they didn’t say anything about the pathogens that do—or more important, don’t—start going around. You’re in such a controlled environment, which sounds like a good thing, but I guess there are consequences. We’re probably going to experience the same thing here on Earth, with our giant dome habitats. Or maybe the giant part is a good thing.  Perhaps they’re big enough where it’s basically like living on Earth before the poison gases. I don’t know anything about this stuff. Have they done studies on it? Do space colonists have weakened immune systems because they’re not exposed to random environmental foreign contaminants, or whatever? Perhaps someone should be comparing twins for this instead of behavioral differences. I shouldn’t say that out loud, give anybody any bright ideas. For all I know, that was part of what they were trying to study in us.

Thinking of you always,

Condor

Microstory 2372: Vacuus, September 29, 2179

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Dear Condor,

Thank you for attaching yours and Pascal’s medical records. That’s really going to help, not only with this one issue, but any other problems that might arise in the future. It’s good to have a full picture of your health. Thank you for being protective of me, but I want you to remember that he’s your father, and I know that he did the best he could with the cards that he was dealt. It was a tough situation that I can’t even begin to imagine. On the ship, the adults had to have a it takes a village mentality, or we never would have survived. I only had one official parent, but I was raised by just about everyone on that tin can way or another. You were just out in the world, where no one really cares about anyone else unless they have some specific reason to. I’m so glad that your father found a way to provide you with the medical care that you needed, despite how shallow it sounds like his pockets were. I would have been heartbroken if mom had told me about you, and when I tried to reach out, I found out that you were dead. We will never meet in person, but at least we get to converse, and that might be thanks to your secret nurse and her laced chicken noodle soup. It’s important to frame it positively. I’m doing fine. I still have symptoms, but it helps to sit still, which is perfect, since that’s how my job works. I do need to get exercise, though, so I walk down the corridors, which Bray helps me with. He still feels guilty, but here’s the way I look at it. Yeah, the STD triggered the epigenetic disease in me, but the doctor says it was better that it happened now, instead of when I’m older. Anything could have caused it to surface, including some age-related conditions, and it would have been much harder for me to recover under those circumstances. I don’t know what the future holds, but he and I are still together. Speaking of which, we have not had any time to get into your open letter to the base. Everyone loved hearing from you. They are aware of how bad things are on Earth, but most of them don’t have any firsthand accounts of what it’s really like. Many of the older people here who left connections behind have found those connections since severed, due to death or outdated information, probably because of the collapse of society. They appreciate hearing from someone, even if it’s not all great. On a personal note, my friend, the garment fabricator, seems to be taking a particular interest in you. Her name is Velia. I’ve attached her contact card in case you want to have a second person to talk to up here. I’m sure she would really love it.

Keeping it light,

Corinthia

Microstory 2371: Earth, September 22, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

I forgot to tell you that the word don’t isn’t in my vocabulary. So to me, all you said was “get mad”. So I got mad. I’m not mad at Bray, as long as you’re not mad at Bray. Are you not mad at Bray? Okay. I just support you. But I am mad at our parents. It seems that every few weeks, we find out this horrifying new secret about our pasts, or our lives. The answer is yes, I was sick. I was apparently very sick as a child. I confronted my father yet again for answers, and he confessed to everything. To his credit, he’s not a doctor, and it didn’t occur to him that you might be suffering from the same condition. We couldn’t afford to visit a doctor back then. Things were bad, the entire industry sector was suffering. There was a huge gap between supply and demand for medical help, and as a result, prices were exorbitant. We could only afford a nurse. He claims that he never lied by telling me that she was a babysitter, so I guess I just grew up assuming that. She wasn’t even a nurse yet either, though, but a nursing student, so she was willing to help for less just for the experience. According to him, she was incredibly kind and helpful, and while he didn’t have the education necessary to assess how she was helping, the results were rather clear. Whenever I was showing signs of my illness again, she slipped me medicine—often hidden in the chicken noodle soup—and then I got better. She had no clue that it was hereditary, however, I’m still mad, because he should have said something recently. He should have made the connection, especially when he was compiling his list of people who might have been responsible for studying the Earth twin. It could have been her, for all we know. We don’t know. Anyway, I’ve looked her up in a database of medical professionals, which I have access to for potential telehealth needs. She’s currently living under a dome in what was once South Africa, before the borders collapsed. I’ve reached out to her, and am awaiting a response. Someone needs to fix this. I have attached a copy of all of my medical records, so you can look for yourself, and give it to your doctor. I also attached our dad’s file, with a signed cover sheet that proves he authorized it. Please take care of yourself. Don’t overdo it.

Love you so much,

Condor

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 10, 2492

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After waiting for the slingdrive to get back to the green, the three members of the impromptu away team returned to Castlebourne. They held an emergency meeting, so they could get all the way through it before the timeslippers disappeared for a year. After this happened, Team Kadiar evidently took care of it, and no longer needed anyone else’s input on the matter. They would be dealing with Korali and her agenda according to their own procedures and mission protocols.

Today, Team Matic was worrying about something else. The rescue missions and beta testing were going fine. The refugees were becoming less anxious about their new lives here, and really trying to dig in; put down some roots. The more people who became comfortable with relaxing, and using the recreational domes, the more it normalized the concept, and the more people who were willing to give it a shot too. They were establishing a new society here, and it was going pretty well. Unfortunately, the grand opening was in more danger than ever. Until recently, it was illegal to cast one’s consciousness to interstellar distances permanently. Doing so would place the onus on someone else to properly handle the traveler’s former body. People were typically willing to take on this responsibility, but that wasn’t enough to make it part of state policy. Those details had since been ironed out, and most restrictions that were limiting Castlebourne’s potential as a destination planet were out of the way. There was one left, though, and it had to do with the power demands of such a distant casting.

“How far are we again?” Olimpia asked.

“We’re 108 light years from Earth, so varying distances from other core colonies,” Hrockas replied. He was really stressed out, and spending all of his time trying to charter the rights to casting at scale. That was what this region of space was called; the Charter Cloud. The Core Colonies belonged to a unified sociopolitical community, and to a lesser extent, the rest of the stellar neighborhood belonged as well. It afforded them certain rights and protections, usage of certain technology, and aid. The charter systems lay beyond this region, but not so far beyond that they were completely on their own. They could request certain assistance, and technological advancements to help them in their development. There were no guarantees, but it was fairly common. Hrockas, for instance, already proved himself to have healthy relationships with the right bureaucrats when he managed to secure an arkship. But now, that was probably what was holding him back. He had already chartered so much, and the government wasn’t convinced that what they were getting out of this relationship was worth letting him charter even more.

Quantum terminals were a marvel of technology, and a major game changer in the pursuit of interstellar colonization. Whereas a ship might take decades or longer to reach its destination, an individual could travel there in a matter of minutes. This technology was what made it worth it to found Castlebourne so far away from the stellar neighborhood, and the entire point of this project. Unfortunately, while spooky action at a distance was harnessed long ago, it wasn’t free. The greater the distance between two quantum computers, the harder it was to maintain coherence, the more energy it took to power communication, and the higher the bandwidth they both needed. This was the source of the government’s reluctance. Sure, they didn’t have a problem with one or two people transferring or surrogating their minds there each day, but Hrockas wanted orders of magnitude more visitors. And the colonies didn’t want to give him what he needed to achieve these objectives.

While he was obviously granted permission to take ownership of the star system well over a century ago, the current administration was now arguing that they had no obligation to provide him his customers. It just took too much power. He was asking for too much. If they didn’t reach an agreement soon, he would not meet his goals. He had been dealing with this for years, but with particular intensity over the course of this last year, but now he was out of ideas.

“What about relay stations?” Mateo suggested. “Like, you cast to a world in between Earth and here, and then maybe another one between here and the first relay. Would that lower the power requirements?”

“It absolutely would,” Hrockas agreed, “but most of the ideal candidates lie within the managed territories. They don’t want to give those up either. I’ve already asked to use the preexisting intermediate quantum terminals as repeaters, but they don’t wanna do that either. Those are the property of their respective colonists, and I have no right to them.”

“Well, what if we built our own?” Olimpia offered. “Star systems are big. Surely there’s enough room for two independent quantum repeaters, or whatever.”

Hrockas nodded, but he was clearly about to slam that idea down too. “Yes, I’ve thought of that, but it would take another century to build here, and fly the full distance. They won’t let me cast an engineering team, or take control of local automators remotely, in order to build these new repeaters in situ. The issue remains, I don’t have rights to those territories, or their resources. For a couple of them, I could probably negotiate with their owners on my own, but that would only work with the colonies closer to me, which doesn’t solve the problem, because even they are too far from the core. I need access to the stars that are under the strongest control of the central government.”

“Did you ask Team Kadiar?” Leona suggested. “They have an FTL ship, don’t you, Captain?” she asked Dubravka.

“I do,” Dubra confirmed, even though everyone knew it was true.

The Vellani Ambassador is busy with their rescue missions. I’m not going to take time away from them for such petty reasons.”

“I wouldn’t call it petty,” Dubra said. “We’ve already discussed the potential for Operation Escape Artist.”

“Don’t talk about that here,” Hrockas requested of her. “I don’t want the others to be made aware of it.” He looked at those not in the know with grave concern.

No one on Team Matic batted an eye. They were curious about what Operation Escape Artist could possibly be, but it was none of their business, so they had no right to look into it, or ask after it.

“I think I can do it...without the VA,” Ramses volunteered.

“Did you build another slingdrive?” Leona questioned, having not yet heard anything about it yet.

“Kind of.” Ramses was hesitant to clarify.

“Explain,” Leona ordered. Then an expression of fear flashed on her face. Mateo knew that she was still doubting her continued role as a captain without a ship.

“It’s not a ship...per se.” Ramses’ eyes darted over to Mateo. “Nor a...slingdrive...per se.” His eyes darted to Mateo once more.

“Oh,” Mateo said. “It’s me? I’m the slingdrive?”

“With a...firmware update, you could be,” Ramses replied.

“Setting aside how impossible what you’re implying sounds like, why would it have to be him?” Leona pressed. “What’s different about him?” Ramses exchanged glances, much to the Captain’s annoyance. “Someone tell me what’s goin’ on.”

“I suppose the secret was going to get out eventually,” Ramses decided.

“Might as well be now.” Mateo stood up, and stepped away from the table. The nanobots that composed his nanosuit were currently thickened out to look just like a regular IMS. This was unnecessary for them to function at optimal efficiency, however, and made them feel bulkier and less streamlined. He now commanded them to thin all over before removing them entirely from some parts of his body. Once he was finished adjusting the layout, it looked like he was wearing a short sleeve spacesuit with shorts instead of pants. Very impractical, but more comfortable.

Leona stood, and began to inspect her husband. “You are much farther along on this project than I thought you were,” Leona was still looking at Mateo, but clearly speaking to Ramses.  “Last I heard, it was nothing more than a dream.” She snapped Mateo’s waistband.

“It’s in alpha testing,” Ramses admitted.

“Well, if he’s survived this long, I suppose it can’t be all bad. But he is not qualified to install quantum repeaters that orbit a star.” Now she looked Ramses in the eye. “You’ll install them in my substrate as well for beta.”

“As you wish,” Ramses agreed.

“This is all very interesting,” Hrockas interjected, “but I don’t have any quantum repeaters. There is nothing we can do this year if one of you six has to do it.”

Leona nodded at him. “Grand opening is 2500. We’ll have it done by then.” She looked down at Ramses again. “Assuming the second upgrade is a viable option.”

“Hogarth taught me a shit-ton last year,” Ramses reminded her. “I believe that I can successfully miniaturize the technology that needs to be miniaturized, and shunt what I can’t into a pocket dimension.”

“These already have pockets,” Mateo revealed. He extended a feeding tube from the choker necklace that he was wearing. Ramses’ original design granted access to the food pocket dimension from an implant that was injected directly in the mouth, but having the dayfruit smoothie suddenly materialize on his tongue proved to be incredibly unsettling. Other people may have no problem with it, and Mateo had no issue with the palate implants for air and water.

“Cool,” Leona said, seemingly unimpressed.

“I can install your suit today,” Ramses promised, “but the upgrade will have to wait until tomorrow. I want to run a few hundred billion more simulations.”

“Do what you gotta do,” Leona instructed.

That was the end of the meeting, so everyone started to leave. Hrockas asked Leona to stay behind, and didn’t have any problem when Mateo and Olimpia chose to stand by her. “I just...”

“Go on,” Leona encouraged.

“I wanted to thank you for all you and your team has done. I started this all alone. I always planned on being alone. But your builder has accelerated construction on all the domes, your engineer deployed planetary defenses the likes of which have never been seen in this sector of the galaxy. Every time I have a problem in need of solvin’, you step up without ever asking anything in return. I don’t know how to repay you. I’m not old enough to remember a time when people exchanged currency for goods, but you are. Do you...want something like that? I hear gold used to be worth a lot. You know there’s a Wild West dome. I built it where it is specifically because there are real gold deposits there.”

“We have no use for money or precious metals either,” Olimpia explained to him.

“Ram uses metals,” Mateo added, “but he would have said something if he were lacking.”

“You don’t have to attempt to pay us in any form,” Leona assured Hrockas. “This is just what we do.” She took a breath, and looked around. “I do believe that our work here may be coming to a close, but we’ll probably continue to use this as a sort of home base, as long as that doesn’t lead to unforeseen consequences. The whole reason Ramses is doing what he’s doing right now is so we can go anywhere we’re needed.”

“Well, I really appreciate you selecting my little world as one of those places where you were needed. My dream is not exactly essential to the advancement of mankind. I didn’t know that anyone needed a refuge until you told me. They weren’t in the original plans either.”

“That’s okay,” Leona comforted. “You didn’t question it when we asked. You just gave us the space. We need to thank you for that.”

Hrockas smiled softly and nodded.

They left the room, and proceeded to Ramses’ secret lab. Leona wasn’t happy that he had been keeping this whole thing from her, but Mateo defended him. He argued that everyone was entitled to at least a little privacy. The team didn’t have many opportunities while spending nearly every day together, so they had to find small corners or moments which belonged only to them. The two of them found theirs. They watched as Leona stripped down, and climbed onto the scary-looking medical chair, just as Mateo had days ago.

Ramses had her read the literature, and then prepared to initiate the machine. “This is gonna look like it hurts...and it does. But it won’t last forever, and she will survive.”

“Do it,” Leona ordered.

Ramses turned it on, and let the laser robot arms start doing their thing. It was more horrifying to see from this angle than it was when Mateo was in the chair. It didn’t help that he was watching his wife tense up in agony. But the man was right, it was over quickly, and the pain began to subside immediately.

Leona stood up, and played with her new nanites a little, releasing them, changing the design of her faux clothing, and pulling them back in. She disappeared, and returned thirty seconds later. “Teleportation is a lot smoother.”

“It’s because you’re lighter,” Ramses explained.

“Me next,” Olimpia volunteered.

Ramses himself was the last to undergo the upgrade treatment. He showed Leona what to do, and how to watch for calibration errors, then he climbed in the chair, and told her to hit the button. It started out just as the others had. The lasers cut into his skin, implanted the gel matrices, then sealed the incisions back up. This was when things changed. The ground shook, and sparks shot out of the machine. The robot arms started uncontrollably swinging every which way. Everyone grabbed one, and tried to hold it in place, so it wouldn’t go wild. It didn’t last very long anyway, though. A web of technicolors enveloped them, and flung them through the spacetime continuum, into the unknown.

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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 well 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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