The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 28, 2510

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Mateo woke up lying facedown in the dirt. He stood himself up, and looked around. He definitely wasn’t in the train station anymore, but that didn’t tell him much. Any number of domes looked like this, with the lush jungle, and the clear blue sky. There was something extremely familiar about it, though, especially when he looked down over the edge of the mountain that he was on, and saw smoke billowing up from the valley. This was what he woke up to just before he learned that he was in the afterlife simulation. He took another look around, now with fresh eyes. Yeah, this was exactly what it looked like. He could have been dreaming, or it could have been something that Hrockas found out about, and recreated it in one of the domes. But why, though?

The only answers were in the direction of that smoke, so he started walking down towards it. No one else came out of the trees to do the same, so at least that much was different. He continued on down until he reached the amphitheater, just as he had the first time he died. No, it wasn’t the first. Ah, who could keep count?

A woman was on stage, smiling kindly, and waiting for him patiently. She was pressing a clipboard into her belly, which she glanced back down to now. “Mateo Matic?”

“Indeed.”

“Have a seat,” the clipboard lady offered, pointing towards the seating. “We’re waiting for one more.”

Only one other person was sitting there already. It was another woman, perhaps in her thirties. She looked scared and-or nervous. He left two seats between them. “Hey,” he tried to say in the calmest voice he had. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“Am I dead?”

“You may have died, but you survived it.” He inhaled, and admired the digital beauty surrounding them. “And you’ll go on...indefinitely. Your life now will be longer than your first one was. In a trillion years, you might not even remember it.”

“You act like you’ve done this before.”

He nodded. “I have. They let me go back, because I had more work to do in base reality, but now... Now I think I’ll just wait for my friends to join me. Could be a while. We’ll all be okay, though.”

The woman stood up, and sidestepped over to sit right next to him. She remained there for a moment before working up the nerve to give him a hug.

The counselor smiled at them, but didn’t say anything. She then looked up as the last guy was jogging down the hill.

“Sorry! Sorry, I see smoke, my instinct is to move away from it, not towards it.”

“It’s all right, Brian. We have all the time in the world.”

“Cool.” He sat down on Mateo’s other side.

“Hello, my name is Keilix Oliver, and as you have all surmised, you have died. Fortunately for you, some people long ago decided that they didn’t like death, so they built a computer program where the deceased could live on in a simulation. That simulation has since been defunct. They were hosted by a powerful society of advanced intelligences who grew to see them more as a nuisance, and a bit of a power hog. Do not be alarmed, though, because the 120 billion or so people who were in there at the time managed to escape—if you can believe it—to another universe. I don’t know that much about it as I have never been there. You see, when the hosts discovered that the identities in the simulation had all left, they actually didn’t bother to shut it down. It was no longer taking up too many resources, and there didn’t seem to be any reason to end it. That is how I survived, as did a few others.

“To explain a little more, the sim was not one single world. You could travel between different environments, each with their own laws of simulated physics. I just so happened to be in the middle of traveling between two of these worlds when the evacuation happened. Lots of people were doing that, of course, but they were closer to one side, or the other. I was right in the middle, so when I came out on the other side, I was alone. I didn’t make it through evacuation. Didn’t know how. Didn’t even know that it happened. I was just confused. The hosts discovered our presence—the rounding errors—and brought us all together. They offered to facilitate our exit to join the others in the new universe, which a few of us agreed to. The rest, we stayed here to keep the lights on. If we didn’t, when you died, you would just be dead.” She gestured towards all the empty seats. “As you can see, death is quite rare these days. The mortality rate used to be at 100%, but now life is a lot safer. It still happens. Accidents and errors, and people who just never upgraded from their normal organic bodies. You are three of the exceptions. You are the only three who died today. Well, it was yesterday, but... And you died a year ago, or something?”

“Yeah, it gets screwy,” Mateo admitted.

Keilix nodded. “Anyway, you can stay here if you want. The hosts did eventually dismantle and cannibalize most of the servers that the afterlife simulation was running on, but we still have plenty of space for a moderate population. You can also move on to the other universe, if you’re interested. Again, I can’t tell you anything about it, but I hear it’s nice. You can’t go back home, though. Your friends and family can’t find out what the endgame is. We don’t know for sure what would happen, but there’s a strong chance that people would start killing themselves out of pure curiosity. We just can’t handle that many people anymore. The system only works at this scale, because deaths have become so few and far between.”

“Did you know Serkan Demir?” Mateo blurted out.

Keilix smirked. “Yeah.”

“Cool.” He turned towards the other guy. “Did you know Lincoln Rutherford?”

“Yeah, I went to school with him.”

“Small world.”

“Do we have a connection?” the newly dead woman asked Mateo.

“I dunno, what’s your name?”

“Cecelia Massey.”

Mateo reached for his bag to check whether she was on a list of people he had met or ever heard of, but realized that he no longer had any possessions. “No, I don’t think I’ve heard of you. Nice to meet you, Cece. I’m Mateo.”

“The three amigos!” Brian shouted. “Four!” He pointed at Keilix. “You’re part of this too. Four, uhh...four musketeers!”

Keilix laughed. “That’s very sweet of you, but my job is here. While people don’t die as often as they once did, they still do occasionally, and someone ought to be there to greet them, and facilitate their transition.”

“How did you get this job?” Cecelia asked.

“I just stepped up,” Keilix answered. “Why? Are you interested?”

“I was a guidance counselor on Earth before I became obsolete. So I do have the experience. Do I have to choose right away, or can I change my mind later?”

“If you choose to stay here,” Keilix began, “you can always move on later. But if you choose to move on, I don’t think you can come back. I’ve never heard of it. I don’t even know who’s in charge over there.”

“Her name is Hogarth Pudeyonavic,” Mateo answered, even though she didn’t actually ask a question.

Keilix is surprised by this. She looked back down at her clipboard. “How do you know that?”

“We’re friends,” Mateo explained.

“Interesting. What else do you know?”

“How much time you got?”

“All of it,” Keilix said.

“All of what?” Leona asked as she was walking across Ramses’ secret lab.

“His EmergentSuit nanites,” Ramses answered. “I need them all back. Or rather he needs them back.”

“He doesn’t have them?” she questioned.

“Boyd must have been injured, however slightly, when Mateo gave him the suit. It’s not just designed to form a protective barrier. They can also treat medical conditions, just like any other medical nanites. Some of them must have stayed with him to conduct repairs, and are still swimming in his blood.”

“Well, they should be done by now. It’s been hours. So go ahead and take them,” Leona ordered. “You’re not trying to hold onto them, are you?” she posed to Boyd.

“I have no mental control over them,” Boyd replied.

“He’s right. Only I can do it. They’re not responding to my commands, though,” Ramses said to her. “They’re his now. I just need to keep trying...”

“Well, why do you need them? How does it help Mateo?”

“Each one stores little bits of data from their host,” Ramses began. “If we want to bring him back, I think I need that intact data. We’re lucky we even have a chance. If he didn’t have any nanites at all, we would have no way to anchor him to this point in spacetime.”

“I don’t understand why you can’t find him,” Leona complained to Boyd. “Isn’t that your thing?”

“Until we get that time power crystal switched off, I don’t have my normal powers,” Boyd said apologetically.

“We’re almost there!” Olimpia shouted from the other side of the room. She and the twins were responsible for figuring out how to convert the lemon DNA into musical chords. Once complete, they will blast the crystal with the music, and let it play over the course of the next two years, which for them, will only feel like two days.

Leona sighed. “He could be anywhere, anywhen.”

“I know that,” Ramses agreed. “This is all I can do. The ladies are smart enough to wire an array of speakers, and my AI finished converting the DNA last year to musical chords. It’s a bit above my paygrade, to be blunt, so I need to focus on an alternative way of retrieving Mateo from wherever he ended up.”

It looked like Mateo was there, lying on the exam table between Leona and Ramses. But it wasn’t him. It was just his suit; an empty shell waiting for its host to return. “What if Boyd got back in the suit? Could that...trigger the stray nanites to return to their brethren?”

“Yeah, I thought about that,” Ramses admitted. “It might work, or they might all switch to him as their new host, and then Mateo could be lost forever.”

“I can do it,” Boyd insisted. “You get that crystal turned off, I’ll find him for us.”

“Forgive me if I have little faith in your motivation to help,” Leona said.

“That’s fair,” Boyd acknowledged, “but I really did learn a lot on the fake Castlebourne. I have grown. I’m not a saint, but I’m not the same man you met those years ago.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it. Ram, keep working. Boyd, do whatever he says. And ladies!” The three of them stopped working, and looked up at their captain, so she went on, “I need one of you. Romana has an idea, but we need a third to activate the tandem slingdrives.”

“I’ll go,” Olimpia volunteered.

“I’m sorry, I meant one of the Waltons,” Leona countered.

Olimpia frowned.

“Pia, you have sonic powers. I need you on the music thing. That just makes sense. If we needed a driver, I would ask Mateo to be a part of it, even if it’s driving a giant futuristic terraforming tiller piloted by an AI.”

“I’ll go,” Angela said, setting her screwdriver down, allowing her sister to finish rigging up the speaker apparatus.

Leona and Angela teleported away to meet up with Romana, who was sitting on the edge of an emerald pool, under a dome fittingly named 10,000 Emerald Pools. She was staring into the water, obviously aware that they had arrived, but ignoring them for now. “What do you see in there?” Angela asked her. “They say the pool reflects your true self back at you.”

Romana, frowning, slapped the water before standing up. “I see an orphan.”

“We’ll get him back,” Leona assured her. 

“You can’t promise that.”

“If he died,” Leona started, pausing dramatically, “we’ll get him back from that too. There is nowhere he could be that we couldn’t find him. Now, what’s your idea? Where are we going?”

Romana activated her suit, helmet and all. The other two followed her lead. They took each other’s hands. “We’re going to a new universe, called The Eighth Choice. I know a Pathfinder there.”

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Extremus: Year 98

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It’s been well over a year, and Audrey Husk has not reached out again regarding her mandate to secretly aid Silveon in his mission to stop Waldemar Kristiansen from growing up to become a violent tyrant. As per Extenuating Circumstances Executive Time Travel Protocol, Tinaya hasn’t reached back either. While time travel is illegal on the ship, the council recognizes that there are situations where it may be necessary. It may not be safe to report such time travel activity, and under those extreme conditions, it is up to the executive crewmember to exercise caution at their own discretion. That only goes for people like Tinaya and Lataran, though. If, say, a passenger were to discover a time travel event, it would be their responsibility to report it accordingly, and they would be just as liable for any damages if caught in the lie or conspiratorial collusion.

They’ve all seen each other regularly. Audrey has maintained her cover as Silveon and Waldemar’s friend. Despite being at wildly different places in their education, they help each other out. Silveon still doesn’t know that Audrey has the mind of an adult, so she pretends to be lacking in certain areas. Silveon, despite not being able to reveal himself as also from the future, has propped himself up to be somewhat of a prodigy. This gives him a decent excuse for being more intelligent than anyone would expect him to be. More importantly, it frees him up to focus on his real work without any questions. As for Waldemar, he’s still struggling. He went the other way by pretending to be dumber than he is because he has an almost total lack of motivation, which is something that neither Silveon nor Audrey can teach him. If he’s not listening to the apparent adults, he’s certainly not going to take advice on self-discipline from a couple of kids that he believes to be younger than him. Again, Tinaya is mostly staying out of it. Her son tells her and Arqut some anecdotes about his progress, as anyone would to confide in someone they trust, but he doesn’t deliver official reports, or anything.

Since the ship is fortunate enough to have two living admirals at the moment, only one of them is asked to attend each daily meeting. That leaves the other one back at the office with nothing to do for slightly longer than on days where she’s in the meeting instead. There’s not really any strategic reason for this. The council seemingly just doesn’t want to hear too many voices in the room. These huddles are boring, annoying, and intrusive for most, so they want to get them over with as quickly as possible. The admirals switch off every other day, and today is Tinaya’s turn to not have to be there. At least that’s how she claims to feel. In reality, she would rather be there every time. She actually misses being involved, and—if she’s being honest with herself—needed. The solution may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s not. She doesn’t want anyone to know how she feels, not even Lataran. So she goes along with the so-called fair routine.

“Sir, I’ve received a request for a visit,” Thistle says from the aether.

Who could that possibly be? Everyone authorized to see her is in that meeting. “From who?”

“Another child.” Oh, God. Not another time traveler. Thistle goes on, “he’s been assigned to write on someone he admires. He’s evidently chosen you.”

That’s flattering. “Does he seem nice?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Have him meet me in the Attic Forest—no, the Central Sequoia, at the base.” Tinaya planted the tree at the bottom of the ship nearly forty years ago, and it has since grown around eleven meters, allowing it to pass through three decks at this point. She won’t live to see its full potential, so she likes to frequent it when she can to get the most out of her masterpiece.

She teleports directly there, expecting to have a little time to herself before the boy arrives, but someone is already there. At this time of day, it’s not very busy. Well, it’s never very busy here, but people are preoccupied with other things, so there’s not a whole lot of traffic going in and out, or sticking around.

A young man appears from the other side of the trunk. “Admiral Leithe, thanks for meeting me.”

“How did you get here so fast?” Tinaya looks down at the boy’s wristband, even though it’s impossible to know from here whether it’s teleportation-capable or not.

“Oh, I’m a Pathfinder,” he answers, both like it’s no big deal, and as if she should know what that means.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I don’t so much as see the future as I know where to be, and when to be there. And I know when someone’s in danger, or when their luck is about to change. Things of this nature. To me, the future is more like a haze, while for everyone else, it’s a darkness.”

“You’re a choosing one. Those are rare. They’re, like, real rare.” Back on Earth, there are people who are born with the ability to manipulate time and/or space in some way or another. There aren’t a lot of them, but they can be anyone. Some of them have full control of it, and some are being controlled by this mysterious force known as the powers that be. They’re practically nonexistent on Extremus, though. Their ancestors were wayward sons and daughters, who found themselves trapped in the universe of Ansutah with all the white monsters. A baby came out stillborn, and this tragedy erased everyone’s powers, whatever they happened to be. They say that, had this baby been healthy, he would have had the ability to control other people’s powers at will, but because of the unfortunate circumstances, his meta-power was only activated once, and could not be reversed. And it had consequences for the future. Not only were the powers stripped from everyone present, but their descendants didn’t have powers. Statistically speaking, over the course of millennia, new choosers should have been born, regardless of their lineage. It’s just something that happens every once in a while. No one really knows why time travelers exist in the first place. But there are almost none on the ship. The real question is actually, why does it ever happen? Why are there any exceptions at all? What makes this boy different?

He shrugs. “Maybe my great great great great grandparent was a space traveler who secretly snuck into the Gatewood Collective, and ended up starting a mixed bloodline of Earthans and Extremusians.”

She narrows his eyes at him. She’s getting the sense that he’s telling the truth, and genuinely doesn’t know why he’s an exception. It’s not like it’s illegal anyway. Nothing is against the law that you’re born with, though if someone made it so that you were born a certain way, that may be cause for a response. Maybe it’s just that he doesn’t care. Some people are also born apathetic, and that’s not illegal either. “Maybe...”

He offers her his hand. “Pronastus Kegrigia, secondary school student at Stern Academy.”

“Secondary school?” Tinaya questions. She looks at her watch, again stupidly. She knows the date. “I figured you were in tertiary already. Shouldn’t you be taking your assessments?” That’s one of the reasons why the corridors are so empty today.

He chuckles. “I’ve known my destiny since I was a little kid. I’m going to become the ship’s first—and if the captain has his way, not only—official Pathfinder.”

“They’re expecting you to give direction, I’m guessing when it comes to personnel assignments, and general scheduling? Any policy?”

“Not there yet. Don’t know.”

“So you’re not going to tertiary school, or what.”

“I’m on the civilian admin track. I don’t need any test, I’ve been shoehorned in.”

“Why civilian, and not crew?”

He tightens his lips.

Tinaya lifts her chin, realizing the answer to her own question. “The crew are expected to listen to a civilian voice if their superior officer commands them to. It doesn’t work the other way around. You have to remain a civilian in order to maximize your power and influence.”

“I don’t make the rules, ma’am.”

“You will.”

“I’m supposed to be asking you questions.”

“For your report. Is that in lieu of the placement tests, or did you just make that up to get to me?”

“I made it up, and my instructor approved it. I didn’t tell her that I was choosing you. I did not yet know that I would. We’re encouraged to come up with our own learning tools. I’m sure you remember.”

“It was a long time ago, son. I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”

“Why did I choose you?” He doesn’t wait for her to confirm that he guessed right. “You’ve been through the ringer. You were kicked out of the captain’s program, for no apparent reason, except I’m thinking that I’m not the first pathfinder you’ve ever met; built a forest on a spaceship; restructured multiple departments; became First Chair; abolished the Chair system in favor of a more democratic council, even though it caused you to lose your power; disappeared for many years for a secret mission, which evidently lasted longer than the time you were away; and finally, went full circle to become captain anyway, despite the initial setback, which is how you’re an admiral now.”

“That about sums it up.” He doesn’t know the part about her being a secret spy for the Bridger Section, nor the truth about Verdemus. Which is good.

“Satisfying answer?”

“Yes?”

“Would you care to ask me anything else before we continue?”

“I reserve the right to stop the interview at any time, to ask more questions of you, or because I have to pee, or because I suddenly decide to stop making noise between 09:37 and 09:42 everyday.”

He laughs. “Fair enough.”

Pronatus goes on with the interview, asking all the questions one would expect in this situation. He asks after her feelings on all the dramatic shifts in her life, and whether any of it was planned or predicted. He’s really interested in her time in the Parks Department, and how impressive it is that she came up through there, and accomplished so much, not only afterwards, but also during. Things seem to be going okay with the interview until they start to approach the end. That’s when he throws her a curveball. “One last thing. When you die...are you going to choose to live on, or just let go, and see if there’s a true afterlife?”

Tinaya is shocked by this, and thrown totally off her game. “How do you know about that?” She’s met a number of people who are aware of this secret. She herself found out when she was a rebellious kid who was good with computers. She should be an outlier, though, not a trend. There is no protocol for what to do if someone who knows meets someone else who knows, because that’s never meant to happen. She could deny, and play dumb, but he obviously knows what he’s talking about. He’s not grasping at straws. He’s heard the details.

“I told you, I’m a pathfinder.”

“You said the future was a haze. It sounds like you get clear pictures sometimes.”

“My abilities themselves didn’t give me this knowledge. They lead me to places, and sometimes in those places, I end up overhearing things that I’m not supposed to.”

“You’re an eavesdropper.”

“Not by choice. It’s...an impulse.”

“An impulse that you should learn to control.”

“I can’t. I mean, I could. I could draw upon my willpower, and ignore it, but what if it’s leading me to save someone’s life? The very fact that the path is hazy is precisely why I have to follow-through every time. I never know how important it is. Sometimes, yeah, it’s innocuous, like seeing a guy’s towel fall off in what would have otherwise been an empty corridor, but sometimes, it’s profoundly vital. I don’t know until I get there.”

She sighs. “Have you discussed this with anyone else?”

“Of course not. I don’t even know if captains know. Something told me just now that you do, or I wouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Well, maintain that policy. Don’t tell anyone. Leave it out of your report. Don’t even hint at it with colorful language. As for me? I’m obviously not going to answer that question, and even if I did, I could always change my mind, so it’s not like it would tell you where I am after death.”

“You’re right. It was a dumb question. I should have ignored that one. I had enough information to stop myself. I can do better. See, this is why I admire you? Because you’re so...good.”

She has no response for that, so she just moves past it. She stands up from the bench, and sighs. “Is that all you need from me?”

Pronastus stands up too, and folds the cover over his tablet. “Yes, I’ll try to have the first draft of my paper to you tomorrow for approval.”

“Approval? I’m meant to approve it?” She wasn’t expecting this.

“Yes, I’m not a monster, and this isn’t a hit piece.”

“Well, I appreciate that. Give yourself enough time as you need. I don’t do much as an admiral, as we’ve discussed, so I’m sure I’ll be able to read it right away, and get it back to you.”

Everything goes fine in the beginning. Pronastus takes two days to write the paper, and Tinaya is able to approve it with only a few minor grammatical corrections in three hours. She couldn’t help herself, even though it’s not technically her job. The paper’s content is fine, and she has no problem with it being submitted. It’s the instructor who decides that the three of them should not be the only ones to read it, though. She releases it to the public. And it kind of causes an uproar.

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Microstory 2460: Shmupdome

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This is a violent dome, which is why it has those restrictions where you’re not allowed to even step foot under the dome without a temporary substrate. You have some leeway when it comes to the characteristics of your body, but at any rate, your mind has to be able to be uploaded upon death. Even if you choose a body that is all but invincible, they make you take these precautions. I don’t know why I said all that. I guess I just know that some people ignore the prospectus info, and go straight to the reviews, so I want to do my part to make the rules clear. This is a shoot-em-up game, but in real life. There are different scenarios that you can play, and each has its own pros and cons. You might go in there totally unarmed in a sort of if I need a gun, I’ll take one situation. You might have weapons, but no ammunition. Hell, you could go in there with a bow and arrow if you find that an interesting challenge. There are limitations, but the guides will go over all that when you show up. Everyone gets a tap out button in case things get too intense. Some of the guns may look ancient, but they’re fully programmable. If someone in your area taps out, the system-controlled androids will freeze entirely, and everyone else’s gun will stop functioning. Even though you can’t really die permanently, you can allow yourself to feel pain, and you can’t turn that trait off at will. It may also just become overwhelming for someone, and they want it to stop. I didn’t actually see any issues, but I did hear some anecdotes, and I would like to take a second to urge you to respect other people’s needs. Everyone is unique, and you don’t know what others have been through. And it really doesn’t matter. If someone has to leave in the middle of the fight, just accept that, and don’t make them feel bad about themselves. This is supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be fun for all involved, and if even one person is struggling to enjoy it, they should be able to get out of it without any ridicule or whispers. As I said, this is violent. And it’s something that you could never get away with on Earth, even though it has all the same quasi-immortality technology. Nearly all of the death that the human race and the vonearthans have experienced has happened on Earth. That’s just too much history. If you wanna know what it’s like to shoot your way out of a clothing factory, or a jungle, this is the place for you. I won’t list all the environments or scenarios that you can select, but obviously, if you’re done with one, you can choose another. If this is your thing, you’re not gonna get bored. Even if you exhaust all of the various locations, you won’t have done them all with the same weapons or vehicles, or at the same difficulty level, or with the same allies, or against the same opponents. Don’t come here if you don’t think you can take it, but if you do, and it turns out to be harder than you thought, don’t be afraid to tap out. That’s what the button is there for.

Microstory 2459: Savanna Land

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Right now, this is one of the least impressive domes on the planet. I guess I can’t say that. It’s not like I’ve seen every single other one. Then again, people have been making these kinds of statements forever, like when a food blog would rate the best restaurants in the country, as if they have any semblance of a comprehensive authority regarding anything close to what they’re claiming. All I mean is that there aren’t any animals here yet. For this one, I don’t think that they want to get by with lifelike robots. I think they want it to be really authentic, and that’s going to take some time. Still, it’s not called Savanna Animal Kingdom. They opened it, because it currently already exemplifies exactly what it says on the tin. There’s a ton of grass, patches of barren dirt, and very few trees. I didn’t see many other people while I was there, and the ones who did show up didn’t stay very long either, because we all saw the same thing. Potential. But not completion. The vehicles are ready, which is an interesting thing, but the real interesting part about that is how big they are. Back on Earth (before we stopped having to drive) roads had to be sort of standardized. It would have been ridiculous if French roads were 10 meters wide and Spanish roads were 50 meters wide. They developed organically, initially based on the size of people, then of horses, then horse-drawn carriages, and so on, and so forth. They got bigger, but you could still still see the natural origins. Even when they broke new ground, like I was saying, the cars were the size they were, and they weren’t going to make special cars for some hip, new region. I’m talking a lot about vehicles, because I can’t talk about the lions or the elephants yet. The point is, we’re starting from scratch here, and not limiting ourselves to tradition. Some of the vehicles are big, with giant observation bubbles which allow for 360 degree viewing all around. Man, it’ll be great in 15 or 20 years when this place is populated, and there are actually some cool things to see, but until then, we can literally only imagine.

Microstory 2458: Diamond Dome

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Would you believe it, centuries ago, diamonds were considered a precious commodity? They’re still precious, but they’re not nearly as rare and luxurious as they once were. Our ancestors would cut them up into pretty shapes, and fashion them into pretty jewelry. We don’t care about that. We care about function over form. Carbon is one of the most versatile elements in the universe, and as it turns out, its diamond form is actually extremely commonplace. It was hard to find on Earth when people were digging it out of the ground with shovels and pickaxes, but when you have the automation and power to manipulate entire planets, you start to see how abundant things are. We use diamonds because the stuff is durable and reliable. It’s also clear, making it a perfect, semi-natural alternative to glass. There are lab-grown polycarbonates out there that we can use instead, and to be sure, those are here on Castlebourne too, but nothing beats the OG super-material. We could also grow diamonds in a lab, but there’s plenty of it in this world, so why not take what the Lord giveth. Now, what exactly is it used for? Well, it’s the primary material for the domes. Most of the domes here aren’t perfectly smooth. They’re geodesic, which means they’re made up of a skeleton called a space frame. Traditionally, these were metallic, but these days, we use metamaterials; particularly graphene. Between the struts for the space frame, they affix transparent triangular panels, which allow you to see the other side. Why do they do this? Most of the domes use holographic skies anyway, so you’re seeing whatever the image is programmed to be. Well, I don’t really know. The tour didn’t explain that. It wouldn’t really be better if the entire dome were opaque with no hope of seeing the outside for real. Using a framework with clear panels is the most common way to design these things, and I just think they look nicer. You can turn the hologram off, and see the true Castlebournian sky, but if they weren’t made this way, that would not be possible. I guess it just gives us more options. A lot of people are afraid, believing that clear equals unsafe, but obviously that’s ridiculous. They think some meteorite could crash through, and suck out all the air, but that’s not really possible. Like I said, it’s made of diamonds, and even if it weren’t, your concern is unwarranted. Even if one panel does falter, these things are so gigantic that it would take days for all the air to escape, at worst. If it’s only one panel, it would take years. At any rate, there would be plenty of time for a drone team to fly up there and replace the panel, or panels. If there is so much damage that the dome rapidly becomes unbreathable, well, whatever caused that damage probably killed everyone on the surface anyway, so the air would be the least of their worries. Okay, I’ll end this on that happy note. Safe travels!

Microstory 2457: Horseback Mountain

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I love horses, and if you don’t, then we can’t be friends, so don’t @ me. Horseback Mountain is a pretty simple concept. It’s all about horses, and horseback riding. It’s not one mountain, though, which I think is a little weird, but I don’t really care, because I love horses. The first thing I did when I heard about Castlebourne was access the prospectus, and look for a place like this, and it was the first thing to come up. There’s another dome that has ranchland, and a few other horse-inclusive environments, but this is the one where that’s all there is. You can ride horses on a mountain (of course), but there are other areas too. There are plains and prairies, muddy trails, dirt roads, and even beaches. The ocean next to it isn’t real. Curious, a member of one of my riding parties got off, jumped into the water, and started swimming. He was still within yelling distance when he reached the dome’s walls. A hologram makes it look much bigger than it is. This isn’t a complaint, by the way; I really don’t care. The point is to have a place for the horses to run, and the can’t run in deep water anyway. If you want the ocean, go to one of the big ones on the poles. Now for the big question. Are the horses real? The answer is...it’s your choice! There are many real horses available, though they are in limited supply. It takes a long time to grow an animal this large, and they have to be introduced to their environment—and to people—using safe and ethical methods. I much prefer a real horse, but the same can’t be said for everyone, which is why there are other options. There’s more variety, though, than simply organic versus automaton. Your horse can be programmed with whatever temperament or personality you chose. We passed by a group of kids whose horses were fully intelligent. There was only one adult with them. From what we could gather, the horses were the children’s chaperones. They were keeping them in line when they got too rowdy, and teaching them about nature, particularly horses, as you can imagine. I believe the human adult was there in case there was an emergency that required adult hands. I don’t know what kind of intelligence she was, because she didn’t speak while we were passing by. I just think that’s a cool little feature that I wouldn’t have thought of myself. Before you ask, all kinds of equines are here, including donkeys and mules,  zebras, and a few other things. Yes, there are unicorns and pegasuses. You cannot ride either of these things, because if they existed in the real world, they wouldn’t let you, at least according to the Castlebournian interpretation of the mythology. The pegasuses can’t fly. I don’t know how they would without breaking any law of physics, but they have wings, so they look cool. They’re supposed to be rare, but you can go on a particular tour where you’re guaranteed to see what you’re looking for, because they’re either programmed or trained to be in sight. I honestly don’t know if they were mechanical or organic. I didn’t ask, because I don’t care about mythological creatures. I’m a horse girl, and a purist. That’s why I never want to leave. This isn’t a residential dome, but I’ve requested that they make an exception, and build me a home to live in, so I don’t have to take the vactrain here every day. I’m waiting for their response. Wish me luck.

Microstory 2456: Bot Farm

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If you’ve been anywhere on this planet, you’ve probably run into an AI of some kind. Some of these are more intelligent and self-aware than others. Some look like humans, and some are very clearly mechanical. It just depends on their purpose, and the kind of feel they want to give the visitors. Well, all those AI bodies have to come from somewhere. I had the pleasure of getting a tour of a dome that we like to call Bot Farm. The official name is Synthetic Production Dome, but that’s a mouthful, so no one actually called it that. It’s 2500, so y’all already know, but there are different types of substrates. Some include a consciousness that was born to an organic body, while others were programmed, or primed for self-learning and growth. Some are purely mechanical—referred to as mechs—while others have some organic components. An “artificial” being that is purely organic is basically the Holy Grail of synthetic intelligence development, and something that researchers are still working on. It would be a quantum brain inside of a living being with no mechanical parts—designed from the start, but conceivably something that could have evolved naturally. Can you imagine? With today’s technology, we can only get kind of close. Most of the AIs on Castlebourne are skinned mechs, meaning they’re made of metals and metamaterials, but also have a dermal layer over them, so they look more like real humans. This isn’t to trick you, but as a way to step over to this side of the uncanny valley. There are very few stages in between full mech and skinned mech. We’re talking about very niche use cases, including some with organic eyes, ears, or tongues for sensory research. They also grow organs for medical research, though those don’t usually need a full body anyway, unless they’re testing some sort of mobility variable. There are also places where you can find mechs with certain other organic body parts that are used for...adult purposes. To each their own, I guess. I never saw a section that designed any of these types of bots. Most of these were skinned. I’ll tell ya, though, it was a tad bit eerie to see those ones being manufactured. While they were assembling the internal components, they most of the time looked no different than a car, or some other machine, but then they moved on to the skinning process. Seeing them look like half people was unnerving, and maybe horrific? This tour will be fascinating for some, but disturbing for others, even though again, it’s the year 2500, and we’re all used to synthetics by now. I asked about it, and they don’t have a tour for kids that would be a little less disquieting, so just know that if you sign your family up. There was one kid on my tour, who seemed fine. To be honest, maybe he was an adult in a child substrate. How should I know? It’s not illegal, it’s just a little weird in my book. So that’s it; that’s Bot Farm. Go see how they’re made.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 27, 2509

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Boyd managed to convince the group to stay one more day so he could shore things up with his people. It wasn’t that tall of an order, and they figured it was the least they could do. This was some kind of alternate version of Castlebourne, and once they were gone, what would become of it? Would Pacey make an effort to keep it running, or would these AI androids just start to degrade and wither away? Ethics demanded them to do what they could while they were still around to try.

Come midnight central, everyone jumped forward to the future, including Romana and Boyd. They immediately made their way back down to the vactrain, and navigated it to Castledome. Unlike last time, nothing went wrong, and they actually reached their intended destination. It wasn’t flooded or on fire. They just stepped out, and waited for Octavia to find what she was looking for. The way she was feeling around on the tiles of the train station made it seem like a platform nine and three-quarters type of situation. If there was a way to cross back and forth between these two versions of Castlebourne, it couldn’t be something that any rando could stumble upon accidentally. She couldn’t seem to find the right tile, though, so she started tapping on every one of them one by one. Perhaps the special sequence was different on either side.

While they were waiting, Mateo, Leona, and Olimpia wandered over to the other side of the ring, and fully into the dome. Mateo hoped to have a personal conversation about their relationship, but Leona tilted her head clear down to her shoulder, struck by something surprising. “What is it?” he asked.

She kept staring at the castle in the distance. Finally, she said, “it’s a mirror.”

“What’s a mirror, honey?” Olimpia asked.

“I can’t believe I didn’t notice it in any of the other domes. Look at the castle. It’s flipped.” Leona pointed. “That spire should be on the other side.”

“Oh yeah, you’re right.”

Leona’s eyes widened. She powerwalked right back through the ring, and into the station where Octavia was still trying to find the secret entrance. She went over to the opposite wall, and tapped the tiles in the same order that Octavia had when she made her first attempt.

The tube sealed up, and they heard the rush of wind indicating the train that they had taken here was now gone. Then the weird part happened. With more rushing wind, the two halves of the vacuum tube separated from each other, split down the middle where the doors once met. As a cloud of gas filled the space left behind, a second set of doors materialized, identical to the first. They then opened, triggering the rematerialization of the tube as well. Inside the pod—which was much smaller than the usual train car—was Pacey, standing there as cool as an autumn day.

“Can we go?” Mateo asked Pacey.

Pacey smirked. “I dunno. Can they?” he posed to Octavia.

She separated herself from the group, and stepped closer to Pacey, but did not step into the vacpod. “I think we’ve made our main point, but they’re not done learning.”

“Ah, crap. Really?” Mateo questioned. “Friends become enemies? What the hell did we ever do to you?”

Octavia smirked now too. “It’s not about friends becoming enemies, Matt. It’s about enemies becoming friends.” She nodded ever so slightly towards Boyd.

Mateo turned his head towards Boyd quite dramatically. “This whole thing has been about this guy?”

“You need him,” Pacey explained. “Bronach is too powerful to defeat without someone equally powerful.”

“But him?” Mateo pressed. “I mean...maybe Arcadia, or something.”

“Arcadia is not that big of a deal,” Octavia contended. “She gets most of her power by conscripting others, and keeping them behind the proverbial curtain, so it looks like it’s all her. Boyd operates on his own.”

“That’s the problem,” Leona countered. “He’s not a team player.”

“I know hundreds of homo floresiensis bots who would beg to differ,” Pacey reasoned.

“I was being tested too,” Boyd realized.

“Did it teach him to stop being such a pervert?” Mateo asked.

“Oh,” Octavia said dismissively. “Your daughter’s hot. Stop acting like everyone should pretend that they don’t see that. Plus, she’s well into adulthood. She just aged, like two years, right before your eyes. She makes her own choices.”

“Paige would never do this,” Leona said. “Who are you?”

“I am Paige,” Octavia insisted. “I’m just one who’s been through some shit. You’ve led multiple lives. You know what I’m talking about. I did this for you, so you could end it. Soon enough, the Exin Army is going to find their way to Castlebourne, and everything that Team Kadiar worked for will be wiped out in an afternoon, along with millions of totally unsuspecting visitors from Earth, and the rest of the stellar neighborhood. You can’t stop their advance, but you can end the Oaksent regime. The empire is a mess of factions, not because they disagree with each other, but because it’s designed to be compartmentalized. Use that to your advantage. Confuse them, and neutralize them.” She took a breath, and glanced around at the station. “This world is a playground. Some of the domes that we mirrored from the original are dumb, like Heavendome. Others are for relaxation, like Raindome, so you can take your breaks there. The rest are training facilities. That crystal goes both ways. Instead of putting someone else on your pattern, it can take you off. Stay here, keep practicing. Prepare yourselves for the Ex Wars. The train will still be waiting for you when you’re ready.”

“I don’t like to be tricked,” Ramses said to her.

“A necessary component of the lesson,” Octavia claimed.

“A faulty one,” Ramses argued. “We didn’t go looking for Boyd because we wanted him on our team. We went there because your boyfriend told us that we had to. So what’s the real lesson? That you’re the powerful ones here? If that’s true, then okay, but...I’m not sure how that would help us end a war.”

Octavia and Pacey seemed decidedly stumped. “However flawed our plan might have been,” Pacey said, “he’s here now, and I don’t see you ringing his neck.”

Ramses winced. “Well, we can be civil; we’re not savage animals.”

“That’s all it is?” Octavia asked. “You don’t see any good in him, even now?”

“I didn’t say that,” Ramses replied.

“All right, all right, all right. Your pitch is over,” Leona determined. She turned to address the team. “We’re gonna vote on what we wanna do. Will we stay here and train?” she asked with airquotes. “Or will we get our powers and patterns back, and go back out to do whatever we want in normal space?” She looked over her shoulder at Pacey. “Including everything we need to use our tandem slingdrives.”

Pacey shrugged his shoulders, closed his eyes, and nodded.

Leona went on, “all in favor of staying here for an indeterminate amount of time?”

No one raised their hands.

“All in favor of leaving this place behind with our respective toolboxes.”

Everyone raised their hands, except one.

“Boyd, are you abstaining?” Leona asked him.

He’s surprised that she even said his name. “I get a vote?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Yeah, I—I wanna go. I don’t need to stay any longer.”

“Okay, cool.” Leona clapped her hands. She bent over to take the crystal out of her bag, then held it out between herself and Pacey. “I don’t care how this thing works. Just undo what you did. Put us back the way we belong.”

Neither Pacey nor Octavia made a move.

“Are you still holding onto our agency?” Leona questioned.

“No,” Pacey said, disappointed. “But it can’t be done here. Turning off the crystal is fairly simple, though not necessarily obvious. It holds a tremendous amount of temporal energy. You need to block that energy. What do you know blocks that?”

“Lemons?” Olimpia suggested.

A few of them kind of laughed.

Pacey smiled. “She’s right. Dunking it in a bowl of citrus juice would do it. But if you want to exercise some control over what it does—and you don’t want an explosion—you need the harmonic equivalent to citrus.”

“The sound of lemons?” Olimpia pressed.

“Yeah, in a way. Boyd knows what I’m talkin’ ’bout.”

They all looked at Boyd who was a little awkward about it. “There was music involved in one scenario when I was trying to find a way to transport the Buddha’s hand citron to the future. It’s hard to explain, but they converted the genome sequence to sound, and that allowed it to be...it doesn’t matter. All DNA can be translated to music. You just need to pick a reasonable method, and be consistent with it. There are multiple methods, though. Dave had to find the right one for—Pacey, do you want us to use the same method, or what?”

“That’s up to you to decide,” Pacey answered.

“Does that mean that any method will do,” Angela pressed, “or is this another challenge?”

“That’s up to you to decide,” Pacey repeated.

“Great. Boyd, you’ll be our expert,” Leona said. “These two are no help.”

Boyd scoffed. “I wasn’t actually involved in generating the music,” Boyd started to clarify. “I was the boss. Making someone else figure it out for me was part of the thrill. I just heard the highlights afterwards. Which is how I know that playing the entire piece from start to finish will take something like two years.”

“You mean...two days?” Marie asked with a smile.

“Let’s just get back to the real world, and then we’ll make a plan,” Mateo suggested. “There’s nothing for us here.” He then looked directly at Pacey, and added, “if you wouldn’t mind...”

Pacey obliged, stepping out of the vacpod, and off to the side.

“Are you two, like, a thing?” Mateo went on while everyone else was stepping into the pod.

Pacey and Octavia exchanged a look. “Just because we work together, and have the same goals, doesn’t mean we’re hooking up.”

“That’s why I asked,” Mateo retorted. “Because I didn’t know the answer. Don’t be so defensive. You’re the antagonists in this situation, you know that, right? If someone were to write this tale down in a history textbook with any semblance of accuracy, the students would not be rooting for you. Whether the ends justify the means or not, most people don’t like dirty means.” Amidst their silence, he deftly stepped backwards into the pod too. “Just remember that the next time you come across someone you think needs to be taught a lesson.” The doors closed with perfect timing, sending them away and home. Hopefully, that is.

The pod stopped, and the doors reopened. A blackness came flooding in. Dark particles immediately swarmed all around them. Now that Octavia no longer needed Mateo’s protection, he redirected it. He wrapped his arms around Boyd’s body, and endowed him with his EmergentSuit nanites. Everyone else was able to just activate their own suits. They couldn’t talk, though—not in this world. They had to rely on their long histories with each other, and their empathic connections. The other six huddled around Mateo and Boyd. They engaged their tandem slingdrives, and dispatched them all to real, normal space.

Mateo fell straight to the floor, coughing uncontrollably. It felt like the dark particles had entered his body, which didn’t sound possible. According to Ramses, they were just neutrinos, which couldn’t interact with regular matter. Whatever was causing it, he couldn’t stop it, and neither could anyone else. He just kept coughing and coughing until he either passed out or died. He couldn’t tell which.

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