The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 24, 2506

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The door was still open, but Octavia was now on the other side. She looked pretty upset and scared. “Come in! Come in!” she screamed. Mateo heard something behind him too, so he looked over his shoulder. Goddammit, another goddamn monster horde was coming after him. Was this ever going to end? Yeah, right now. He shuffled in through the door, and helped Octavia close it. They could hear the booms as the monsters pounded on it, trying to get through. “I thought they couldn’t cross the perimeter.”

“Rules have changed,” Octavia explained. “I think seeing me walk through this door last year broke something in them. Imagine waking up one day and realizing that you were in a simulation.”

“That literally happened to me, like, a few days ago.”

“Oh. So you know.”

“You’ve been here for the whole year?”

“Yeah,” she answered. They weren’t outside of the dome, per se, but now inside of an antechamber. The border wasn’t a single two dimensional wall, but a complete ring. If they were on the real Castlebourne, this plaza would be used for intake, maintenance, and other meta-purposes. “There’s plenty of food in the kitchen, and I’ve been using this time to find your friends.”

“And did you?”

“Yeah, it hasn’t been easy,” Octavia went on as she was leading him down the corridor. “Obviously, they disappeared last year when you did, so they weren’t anywhere. I couldn’t just command drones to fly around and search for them. Optical cameras aren’t actually all that common. Security and logging systems rely predominantly on other sensors. I had to sift through this past data, looking for anomalies. I believe that I’ve pinpointed them to six domes. Now that you’re all back, we can find out for sure through those few optical cameras on scouting drones. I wanna show you something else first. One of the domes is different. It flagged something that I don’t recognize, and unlike the others, this anomaly appears to have been there during the whole interim year.”

“Oh, no.” Mateo knew what this was. Still, he followed her into a room full of monitors. She pulled up the feed that she was talking about, and confirmed his suspicions. It was Boyd Maestri, a.k.a. Buddha Maestri, a.k.a. Buddy. “Yeah, he’s...I know him.”

“Are you gonna break him out too?”

“I don’t see why I would. Where is this? Is that water, or is there something wrong with the feed?”

“Apparently, it’s Atlantis, so yes, it’s underwater. But it’s not consumed by water; it’s under a dome. But a smooth dome, rather than a geodesic one like they usually are.”

He sighed. “He looks like he’s doing fine, and doesn’t need to be rescued. He’s another bad guy...sort of.”

“Okay, well, he’s alone, so either one of these other domes is doubled up, or I missed one.”

Mateo nodded. “Pacey did say that not all of us would be alone. I thought he was referring to me, which was confirmed when you showed up, but hopefully there are others.”

They sat there for a few minutes, watching the drones hunt for the anomalies in realtime, instead of just old data. They found them. Ramses was in a snowy hell. Leona was in a museum, Angela on a river, and Marie in an old timey settlement of some kind. Oh, Dome for Pioneers, it said that right there at the bottom. Olimpia and Romana were thankfully together, and Pacey couldn’t have picked a better place than a cloud paradise. It was called Heavendome.

“I assume you wanna start with Leona?”

“She looks fine,” Mateo noted. “She’s just looking at the artifacts. Let’s get Ramses out first. It’s literally called Tundradome.”

“I postulate that the vactrain network is just like that door in that you have administrative access to it. I have not been able to leave, not that I had anywhere to go anyway.”

“You could have gone to The Bowl, and commandeered a ship.”

“I don’t know that that exists here. Like I said, this isn’t the real Castlebourne. We may not be in regular space.”

“Still, I appreciate you sticking around. You’re a good friend.” They hugged.

They took the circle line first to get to the vactrain station. It was a series of sealed tubes almost fully underground, which could take passengers anywhere in the world. There were hubs scattered around the globe, where these vactrains switched tracks when necessary, but some tracks had direct routes to each other, just based on proximity. The one between Bloodbourne and Tundradome was one of these connections. Ten minutes later, they were at their destination. According to the drone keeping watch over Ramses, he wasn’t too far from the station, but it was still going to be a little bit of a walk. Mateo and Octavia grabbed parkas from the locker room, and started to put them on, as well as the boots, scarved, and caps.

“Don’t you think it’s a little weird, that Pacey hasn’t done anything to try to stop us?” Paige asked.

“He told us that he didn’t want to mess with our memories too much, or make every choice for us. My theory is that he believes in some level of freewill, and freedom in general. We used our ingenuity to break out of our prison, and break into others, and he likely respects that. He doesn’t have to be our enemy, and he knows that. Or, his purview is limited, and he straight up doesn’t know that we’re here. In case that’s the explanation, let’s be careful and quick.”

They also found snowmobiles near the entrance to the tundra environment, so they drove right out to Ramses’ location, got him on board without a single word, and drove back. That really was easy. “Do you remember who you are?” Mateo asked once they were back inside.

“I remember everything,” Ramses answered.

“Me too.”

“I don’t have any powers, though, which is why I almost died out there.”

“You would be surprised. I materialized a solid knife made out of light in my hand.”

“Good for you,” Ramses murmured.

Mateo laughed. “Let’s get you warmed up. They had hot chocolate in the Bloodbourne intake plaza. I’m guessing that this one does too. It must.”

“Let’s just go,” Ramses requested. “I assume you know where the others are.”

“Leona’s closest,” Octavia answered, “but we will have to go through a conjunction.”

It took longer to get to her than it did to get to Ramses, but they still had plenty of time before next year stole them. She was less than enthusiastic about leaving. She owed her resistance to the fact that she had no clue who they were.

“Who are you? How did you get in here?” she demanded to know.

“Leona, it’s me!”

“I don’t know you, I don’t know Leona.”

“Claudia’s in trouble,” Octavia said, randomly maybe?

“What?”

“She’s hurt, and you know, if she dies, this place dies.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s, umm...on a river,” Ramses improvised.

“Yeah, she was looking for the Rod of Moses.” Octavia cleared her throat, hoping that would work. “The snake bit her.”

“Why is she out in the field?” Leona lamented. “She’s always doing that, still thinks she’s an agent. Wait, the Staff of Moses should be in the religious power aisle.”

“Yeah, it was stolen,” Mateo said, hoping that she would find this believable.”

Leona growled. “Walter’s son.”

“Yeah, we think it was him.” Even Octavia didn’t know enough about whatever this place was all about, but this was working.

“Okay, let’s go.” Leona started to move, but then stopped. “Wait. I still don’t know who you people are.”

“We’re from...Warehouse 14,” Octavia lied. “So...better not ask any questions.”

Leona was still not convinced, so Mateo decided to take a gamble. He held his hand up between them. A holographic daisy sprouted from his palm, and then bloomed to full glory.

She regarded it with all-consuming interest. She didn’t think of anything else but this one light-based flower. She slowly lifted her gaze up to her husband’s face. “Mateo?”

“Are you starting to remember?”

“Yeah.” She looked away to consider it. “Yeah, I remember everything.”

“Triggers,” Ramses realized. “We all need triggers.”

“What was yours?” Mateo asked him.

“The cold,” he said. “My fictional persona was programmed to like the cold. I do not. And that became quite apparent within about three microseconds of being there.”

“Oh, Mateo, I almost lost you.” Leona wrapped her arms around Mateo’s neck to hug, and then kiss, him. She hugged Ramses too. “Paige! You’re here!”

“Octavia.”

Leona held up an index finger. “Got it.” There was a brief pause. “Where are the others? On a river, or was that just a lie to get me to go with you?”

“Angela is the one on the river,” Ramses replied. “It’s on the other side of the planet. The others are more over there too, but in different domes.”

“Which ones?” Leona pressed.

“Dome for Pioneers and Heavendome. Olimpia and Romana are sharing that one.”

“Let’s go to Dome for Pioneers first,” Leona suggested, “even if it’s farther away. It sounds terrible.”

“Hasn’t Marie done that kind of work before?” Olimpia asked as they were starting to leave the warehouse. “She lived in the 1800s.”

“Her father was quite wealthy,” Leona explained. “He literally had slaves do that work instead.”

“Oh.”

They went to Dome for Pioneers first. Marie was even more resistant to leave. They kept trying, but could not figure out her trigger. Nothing they said about her past—her real life—made her remember anything true about herself. As far as she was concerned, she had been born in a cabin twenty miles from here, walked with her family on the Oregon Trail when she was three and four years old, and had lived in this settlement ever since. She wouldn’t budge, and they didn’t want to force her. Not only was she becoming more and more frightened of them the more they insisted, the androids who were programmed to believe that they were other settlers were getting upset too, and very protective of her. Okay, at least they weren’t going to hurt her. The humans switched back to the original plan, and went to see Angela.

Angela was much more open to the idea that none of this was her real life, though she still didn’t want to leave. The way this dome worked was that an upper lake was the source of water to a river, which fed into a lower lake before being evaporated up, and rained back down. It might not have been as conventionally coveted as the Christo-centric interpretation of the afterlife, but it was still gorgeous and pleasant. Still, she said that she felt she could trust them, so she walked through the exit, and got on the vactrain. They then went back to Dome for Pioneers, where the Walton twins served as each other’s trigger. Now they only had one more place to go to collect the whole set. If Angela’s reluctance was any indication, it could be the hardest. Who in their right mind would ever want to leave heaven?

“Oh my God, this place is so boring!” Olimpia complained.

“You have a way out?” Romana asked. “Let’s go!”

“Do you remember us?” Mateo asked them.

“No. What? Why would we remember you? I don’t care who you are. If you have an exit, then point me to it. ¡Ándale!” Olimpia exclaimed.

“Seconded!” Romana agreed.

“Okay, great,” Ramses determined.

They started to walk back towards the elevator, but then Marie stopped them. “Wait, where are we going? Which dome is safe and preferable, or somehow beneficial?”

“Oh,” Mateo said, realizing that they hadn’t actually thought that far ahead yet. “Octavia, how did you get here in the first place?”

The group all looked at her, so she started to recoil a little. “It was a train. I found a line that looked like it didn’t go anywhere. Unlike the others, I think it was interdimensional. I ended up back where I was, but everything was different.”

“Where is this line?” Leona asked her. “You can’t access it from just anywhere?”

Octavia was still nervous. She shifted her focus from person to person. “Castledome. You have to go to Castledome.”

“Which is probably where Pacey is,” Romana lamented.

“It’s where he was,” Octavia agreed. He found me right quick, and took me to Bloodbourne.”

Mateo placed a hand on her shoulder. “Remember what I said with the car, that you had me to help you. That’s still true, but you now you also have them.” He indicated the group. “Castledome won’t be a problem.”

“No,” Leona concurred. “Let’s go.”

They took the vactrain back to the other side of the world, not speaking too much during the ride, but catching each other up a little. Mateo was able to trigger his daughter by recounting the story of when they first met, and Olimpia with a passionate kiss. They now all had a lot of memories that they didn’t have before, including their true pasts, their fabricated lives in Underburg, and the new ones from their respective domes since being separated. Something went wrong with navigation, which sent them on a detour away from Castledome. They ended up in Power Crystal Factor. Leona and Ramses tried to reroute them, but the controls were locked out. Someone wanted them here, almost certainly Pacey. With no other reasonable choice, they stepped off the train, crossed the ring, and walked through the main doors.

Pacey was waiting for them on the main floor. The name was fitting. He was surrounded by crystals of all shapes and colors, forming in their little growth chambers. They were sparkly, beautiful, and a little mesmerizing. Pacey still stole focus, though. He didn’t look mad, and definitely not surprised. He spoke first. “I’ll allow you to leave, but under one condition.”

“What’s that?” Leona asked, stepping forward, and resuming her role as their leader.

Pacey smirked. “All members of your party must be present at the reservation time. We do not seat partial parties.”

“Ah, shit,” Mateo said. “You’re gonna make us go get ‘im.”

“I’m gonna make you go get ‘im,” Pacey confirmed.

Mateo sighed. “And then we can go?”

“And then you can try to figure out how to leave,” Pacey corrected. “Whether you can actually do so is entirely up to you.”

“So that’s a no, you won’t let us.”

“I won’t actively stop you,” Pacey said. “But I won’t help you.”

“Well, at least we know he’s in Atlantis,” Octavia said encouragingly.

“He’s not necessarily there anymore,” Pacey countered. “The Recursiverse Immersive Experience takes the immersive part very seriously. It’s the largest dome network on the planet. It may take you a while, and you won’t have access to any tracking systems, or navigational data. But you might wanna take this.” He pulled one of the nearby crystals out of its slot, and offered it to them.

“What’s this?” Leona asked. It was totally clear while Pacey was holding it, but then it started to change to multiple colors once Leona took hold of it.

“You don’t know?” Pacey asked. “Ramses?”

“Never seen one like it,” Ramses said. “It’s technicolored, though, which is interesting.

Pacey nodded once with the corner of his lips turned down, but not in frown. “You’ll figure it out.” He ushered them back out to the train station.

“We’ll go to Atlantis first, and start on his trail from there,” Mateo suggested. “We’ll get it done faster than you think.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Pacey said as Team Matic was filing into the train car. “Good luck,” he added just before the doors closed.

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The Seventh Stage: Painting Rocks (Part V)

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Echo is standing in front of the blue wall, painting wispy white clouds on it, paying close attention to details. It would look complete to anyone else, but to him, the work is never done. He can always add one more curve...one final flourish.

Clavia walks up to him. “There you are. What are you doing?”

“Painting this wall. It ain’t gonna paint itself,” Echo replies, still watching what he’s doing.

“It’s literally going to paint itself,” she counters.

He smiles. “I know. Sometimes I just need a break to unwind. Like you with your little headplays.”

She nods. “Fair enough.”

“What’s the count?”

“Three thousand, seven hundred and four.”

He drops his elbow, and looks over at her. “Technically at quota. We’re ready for move-in.”

“Like you said, in the technical sense. We still need to figure out how to convince a supermajority to do it, or it’s not really helpful.”

“We also need to figure out how to do it without loading everyone onto a proverbial bus, and driving them here.”

“It’s time to talk to Cedar,” Echo realizes. They have been dreading this day for a long time. They like him, but they don’t know how he’s going to react or respond to this news. There are whispers that the Cloudbearer twins are building something, but no one knows what, and all of their guesses are wrong; though off by varying degrees. Cedar ran his campaign for power on a foundation of intercivilizational unity. He believes that the only way to keep the Reality Wars at bay is if there’s no one to fight against, because everyone is on the same side. The amount of space between people in this universe could tear them apart. It’s the distribution. Cedar is probably gonna have trouble with the distribution.

“Yeah, we have no choice. Do you think he’ll be mad we didn’t read him into the situation earlier?”

“He’s serving as Head Advisor to our parents,” Echo replies. “He was too preoccupied to worry about this. That can be our excuse for keeping it a secret from him.”

“Good idea.” Clavia takes her brother’s hand, and transports them both to what essentially amounts to a holodeck, though on a much grander scale. They’re standing on an island floating in the air. At least, that’s what it looks like to them. It’s just an illusion. The “air” around them is clear purplish water. They can still breathe, of course, and talk just fine. The sky above is much more unambiguously an ocean. It’s upside down. Waves jut down, and spray a sweet misty rain down towards them. Some of it tastes like chocolate, other drops like honey. Their feet are planted firmly on the ground, though they feel like they could float away at any second. All around them are crystalline structures, also purple, since that is the theme. A stream gives way to a waterfall that slips over the edge, and disappears into the oblivion below, though again, it’s just invisible floor. Between them and the sky are giant turtles, swimming around. One of them nods and winked before moving on.

They aren’t alone on this floating island. They summoned Cedar, and are currently patiently waiting for him to get his bearings in this new world. “This breaks the laws of physics,” he notes. “I’m assuming it’s not real?”

“No,” Echo replies. “Our powers do have some limits.”

“You’ve been gone for nearly a month,” Cedar points out.

Clavia smirks. “We’ve been gone longer than that.”

“Framejacking, or temporal acceleration?”

“Both,” Echo answers. Time is moving faster in this universe, so more gets done in a shorter amount of time in comparison to the Sixth Key, but their own minds are also operating at much higher speeds, allowing them to think and act more quickly.

“This is what you’ve been working on?”

Echo laughs. “This took only a few seconds to construct. We got the idea from Castlebourne. Most of the domes on that world are physical, except for the holographic sky. One of them is nearly all holography. You can make it look like anything. We chose this today. Isn’t it cool?”

“Yeah,” Cedar agrees. “What am I doing here, though?”

Echo clears his throat. “What is the number one cause of tension and conflict in the Sixth Key?”

Cedar dismisses his words with a wave of his hand. “Don’t pitch me. Just tell me what you’ve done, and what you want. You’re gonna need to learn this for when you take over in a more meaningful sense. We’re in charge of undecillions of people back home. No one has time to beat around the bush or be polite about it.”

“Very well,” Echo decides. He reaches up and pantomimes pulling a stage curtain open. As he does so, a tear in the hologram appears in the far, far distance. Behind it, they see what looks like regular outerspace, but as the curtains separate even farther, a figure appears. It looks like a big metal statue of a humanoid, or perhaps just a big robot. It’s hard to tell what scale they’re working with here, so Echo has to explain. “Have you ever heard of the matrioshka body?”

“I have,” Cedar confirms. “I went to a sort of school like you did. That’s where the afterlife simulation was housed, before it collapsed, and everyone was transported into Fort Underhill. The Sixth Key shares interdimensional space with them now. I never knew what happened to matrioshka body, though. That it?”

Echo shakes his head. “That. Is MB-3704.”

Cedar laughs. “You made your own? That’s impressive.”

Echo and Clavia exchange a look. “He said it was three-seven-zero-four.”

Cedar is confused, but only for half a second. Then his face drops into a frown. “You made 3700 of these things?”

“Yeah,” Echo says.

Cedar starts to pace around and shake his head, almost in disappointment. “Why? What do they do?”

“Well, they...have people live in them.”

“Who lives in them?”

“No one yet, that’s what we’re asking you for.”

“Asking me for what?” Cedar questions. “I told you, get to the point. Stop trying to be dramatic.”

“We need you to transport everyone from the Sixth Key who wants to live here. Send them all to their new homes...all at once.”

“I can’t do that!” he cries.

“We’re gonna let them consent,” Clavia defends. “We’re not gonna make anyone move, but this will be better, and I think there will be a ton of interest.”

“Think about it,” Echo begins before Cedar can make another argument. “There are hundreds of billions of stars, but we don’t have enough resources for everyone. How is that possible? Because stars radiate a ton of their energy away, even with dyson swarms. Matrioshka brains are more comprehensive, and more efficient. And matrioshka bodies are just stylish and cool.” Honestly, I don’t know why no one ever thought of it before. I thought that was the point of the original matrioshka body, and its successor, Big Papa.” There ought to be far more than two of these in existence. The Parallel was more than capable of doing it, but they chose not to. They still orbited stars. Even the interstellar settlements were quite literally few and far between. Why? Why keep the stars? Aesthetics? Safety? Ethics? Probably all of the above. Or. Echo and Clavia are just that clever.

“That’s not my point. I literally can’t do it. I don’t have that kind of power.”

Echo and Clavia are both confused. “What are you talking about? You already did it. You moved them all from their original realities, to the Sixth Key.”

“No, I didn’t.” He starts to look around on the ground. Guessing at his needs, Echo manifests a chair for him to sit in. Cedar hunches over and stuffs his face in his palms. “That wasn’t me. I didn’t do any of that.”

“What? It had to have happened,” Clavia argues. “Everyone’s there.”

“I’m not saying that it never happened,” Cedar tries to explain. “I’m telling you that I didn’t do it. I have powers, but not like that. That’s insane.”

“Then who did?” Echo asks him.

Cedar looks up to meet Echo’s gaze. “I have no idea. They didn’t tell me. They have to keep it a secret, even from me and my family, even now that it’s done. We were...a misdirect. It’s like sleight of hand. We were the left hand that distracted everyone so no one would see what the right hand was doing. I don’t know if anyone knows who saved everyone during Reconvergence. All I know is that it wasn’t me.” He pauses before adding, “I just took credit, per my instructions.”

Echo and Clavia manifest their own chairs to sit in. They sit there in silence for a good five minutes before Echo decides to speak again. “Time is not linear. If something exists at any moment, it exists in all moments. If you know something about the past, you can change it. Keeping it a secret was smart. Even if someone were to go back and kill you as a child, it wouldn’t stop the creation of the Sixth Key. You’re like a bodyguard, there to take a bullet if one ever comes flying through. That’s how I would have done it if I were there.”

“Maybe you were,” Cedar reasons. “Maybe you two are the ones who created the Sixth Key; you just haven’t done it yet from your own perspectives.”

They exchange another look. Clavia decides to explain. “There’s a small group of people on a planet in the Sixth Key who are aware of what we’ve been up to. Just a few billion people. They were our test group. We’ve already tried to transport them to our new universe. We don’t have that kind of juice either. Stars are easy. Giant metal statues are easy. Moving people? That requires a level of precision that we do not possess; not with hordes anyway. We could probably move them a couple thousand at a time, but that’s all but useless for our needs. That’s a meaningless rounding error compared to the total population.”

“What about Ellie Underhill?” Echo asks after another bout of silence. “I don’t remember how many she transported into Fort Underhill.”

“It was only 120 billion,” Cedar replies. “Not quite a rounding error, but still not good enough. Besides, she gave them all new bodies; it was a whole different animal.”

“So what we’re saying is that we need to find the person who actually did move everyone from the five realities to the Sixth Key. We need them to do it again.” Clavia starts to pace. Finding someone out there in the abstract is not something that she’s ever done before. She always knows who she’s targeting, or roundabouts where they are. This is a mystery individual, who might be in either of two universes—or, hell, maybe neither of them. They could have also done it subconsciously, like how Echo lived before he became self-aware and realized his true potential. Maybe it’s not just one person. Maybe it was a group, or somehow everyone. Maybe through the spirit of survival every single living organism consolidated their untapped collective power into one brilliant miracle. Ugh, Clavia doesn’t know, but you know who would?

“Hey, boys!”

Echo nearly falls out of his chair, but catches himself by spreading his feet apart. He stumbles away from her. “Debra. How did you get out?” She still looks like his sister. She’s still occupying that body, and nothing about it has changed. But Echo knows. He would always know. “What did you do to Clavia?”

“Relax, she’s still in here; on the first stage. She gave me control of the body, because you need me.”

“I need you for what?”

“I can find your mysterious god-being,” Debra spits back like he’s an insignificant little ant on the ground. “I found you, didn’t I? You were alone on a nothing planet in the middle of the universe. I knew exactly where you were. I intuited that you existed in the first place.”

“We can’t trust you,” Echo contends.

“Believe it or not, I’ve changed. Living with those people, doing those plays...it’s changed me. I’m no hero, but I’m not a villain anymore either. Clavia maintains full veto power. She can come back whenever she wants.”

“Prove it. Let me talk to my sister again. And don’t try to trick me, I’ll know.”

“I know.” Debra actually does what is asked of her, and temporarily returns control of the body to Clavia.

“She’s not exactly right,” Clavia says. “She doesn’t need my body, she needs my brain.”

“Can’t you just do it? You have all her power, don’t you?”

“It’s more complicated than that. You would understand if you could be inside my head. You would get it if you could see the construct that I’ve constructed.”

Echo steps forward, and places a hand on each of Clavia’s shoulders. “I bet I can. Show me. I think it’s about time that I meet your little brain buds.”

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Microstory 2440: Heavendome

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No one knows what real heaven is like, or even if it exists. Come to this place recognizing that this is but one specific interpretation. I see these other reviews criticizing it for its Christian-centric roots as if the creators had any obligation to be secular and all-inclusive. If you want to find your own personal idea of heaven, then either build it yourself with your own two hands, or do the same in a virtual environment. I mean, what did you expect, that this would be all for you, or that your concept is the best one, and we should be following that one instead? The point of this dome is to simulate to the best of science’s ability to simulate conditions of a heaven that was purported to be in the clouds. That’s not real, folks. You can’t walk on clouds. I don’t know if real Christians of the past were just dumb enough to not know that clouds aren’t solid objects, or if they thought that God was magic, and he could let you do anything just ‘cause. Still, it’s a powerful image, a cloud city in the sky. How do you even do that? Well, you start with an aerogel matrix that extends the entire area of an upper level of the dome. So it’s solid, but still soft and cushiony, which you would expect a cloud to be if you could somehow walk on it. Below that is a layer of clouds. I’m not sure if they’re real water vapor clinging to the aerogel ceiling, because that would not be out of the realm of possibility. Above the aerogel surface is a dense fog that you wade through. I think that was really important, to suggest that the floor of a magical cloud isn’t just like a bunch of pillows lying next to each other. This fog is supposedly the lighter, whispier cloud “material” (suggesting again, that clouds aren’t condensed water vapor, but some sort of independent stuff that you can grab onto, like cotton). You actually kind of can grab this fog, so I think it’s made of nanites, but you won’t be able to carry it around with you. It sort of melts and drifts away? It’s a funny feeling, you should try it. They really thought it through in a fun way. And to explain, you can push this fog away from you with your hands. And you can push away the lower level of the clouds below you by punching the aerogel surface. That would seem to suggest that the lower level clouds are nanites too, not real. This whole cloud layer is around two kilometers up in the sky, which is where real clouds like this would be. Below that is land. I don’t think it’s a hologram. I think it’s really what the bottom of the dome looks like. I can’t see anyone walking around down there, but I’m wondering if they’ll let people in one day, so there can be two sections. Perhaps you combine Heavendome with two different layers, and the lower one is just regular people who live on “Earth”. Or hey, what about a third layer? The one underground could be a Christo-centric version of Hell. That would be insane. I’m not sure who would go down there, but it could be scary in a fun way, like Bloodbourne. For now, though, we only have Heaven, and that’s good enough. There are other components for ambiance, like rays of light, pearly gates, and “angels” with wings. They’re pretty stunning creatures, and often exhibit traits of a slightly more universal definition of anyone’s heaven...if you know what I mean. They don’t speak, and I don’t think they can really fly, but they really add to the ethereal vibe that they’re trying to evoke here. Overall, I give it a five out of five. It’s not really a place that you live, so you might as well take some time to check it out.

Microstory 2439: Dome for Pioneers

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Ha! Dome for Pioneers. That’s so on the nose. That’s really what it is. You’re almost starting from scratch here. You don’t go all the way back to the beginning, like Paleodome, but you’re not provided with much. Like other lifestyle domes, you’re expected to stay here for an extended period of time, like years; not days, not even months. You’re here to get an idea of what life was like for people in 19th century New World. Everything you need is here, but you have to process it yourself. There’s wooded areas, arid desert, prairies, some small lakes (maybe ponds?) and rocks. They dress you in very simple clothes that look like they’re handmade, but I’m guessing they weren’t really. They give you a metal bucket, a few basic tools, and one wagon per ten or eleven people I think? I don’t remember what they said. If you have too few people, you don’t even get a wagon. There are some cows of some kind wandering around nearby, so if you do get one of the wagons, you have to put those two things together yourself. Good luck, dude, I actually think they’re real cows. While they’re not aggressive, they don’t want you tying ropes to them, and do you even know how to put a cow before a wagon? Didn’t think so. It’s the year 2500, we don’t have to do stuff like that anymore. That’s what’s so interesting about this place. If you wanted to know how the real pioneers survived with what little they had, and while enduring everything they had to, you had to have done your research ahead of time. There is no education here. I understand what they were going for, but that was probably a mistake. There should be a museum where they give you such education, not so you’re better equipped, but so you have a real appreciation for what you’ll experience in the simulation. What were their goals? What mistakes did they make? What kind of class divide was there, if any? I mean, you could turn your lot into a mountain man survivalist situation, and stay there for just as long, but that’s not what the pioneers were trying to do. They were digging in, founding towns, making a legacy for themselves. If people start using it right, given enough time, it’s possible that Dome for Pioneers might have to change its name to Dome for an Extremely Advanced Civilization. All the tools are there, it will just take time for us to relearn how to use them, just like our ancestors did. I think that it’s a really interesting social experiment. I just think it might not accomplish the right goals if management doesn’t guide the narrative in a proper direction. But don’t listen to me, I’m nobody.

Microstory 2438: Raindome

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Oh, this one is interesting. There are two lakes, one of which is higher than the other. They are appropriately named Upper Lake and Lower Lake. I’m a little disappointed at the lack of creativity, but there’s no mistaking it, and it’s not that big of a deal. The water flows from Upper Lake, into a river. Can you guess what it’s called? You’re close, it’s not just River, but Spiral River. This river flows all along the entire perimeter of the dome, and then some. There are bridges all over, so you can step out to your left any time you need, and head for the nearest exit. They’re hidden behind the dome’s immersive hologram, but will illuminate once you get close enough to the wall, so if you get lost, just find the border. You won’t get trapped, I promise you. I say this because someone on my boat did have an issue, and they were struggling to get out. They probably should give you the instructions ahead of time, so that’s a bit of constructive feedback. Let’s get back to the river. You can take all sorts of leisure boats on this thing. Canoes, kayaks, riverboats. You choose whatever you want. You may be with a group, and they may be humans, or NPCs. It really just depends. The river flows out of Upper Lake, and down a steady slope in a spiral. It isn’t perfectly circular, it still meanders a little bit, but if you look at the drone feed above, it still doesn’t look natural. It’s often raining, which is why this isn’t called Lake-Spiral River-Lake Dome. These aren’t the sprinklers that I think they use in Nordome. This is real rain, powered by the process of evaporation and cloud formation above, supplied by all the water that’s around. Since there’s no sun inside the dome, they use extremely precise heating lamps to trigger this evaporation, but they try to keep visitors from seeing it. I suggested to our captain that they should heat the water from below, but he says the physics doesn’t work out all that well, and they would like to put fish in there at some point. That would be cool, I wish they were already there. I hope they don’t have to transport them all from Earth, or we could be waiting for over a hundred years. Here’s what’s amazing about this. You can request a boat that’s completely sealed up, which has its own holographic display. You collectively decide on the apparent environment. You can make it look like it’s raining when it’s not, or not when it is. That was such a great idea. I never would have thought of it myself. And it really works. Anyway, I think you can guess the rest. The river keeps going down the spiral until it reaches Lower Lake in the very center. Keep in mind that while I said there were all sorts of boats, that doesn’t include all boats, full stop. There are no motorboats or personal watercraft. This is meant to be a relaxing environment, not an invigorating adventure. There are plenty of other places for that. Have you tried Polar Tropica? Like, stop complaining. Sorry, it was annoying that our boat ride was delayed because of a belligerent visitor who was demanding them to give him a water jetpack. They literally didn’t have them. Again, that’s not what this is. This is an amazing feat of engineering, and nothing you could get on Earth. It’s against the law to rupture land like that these days. One last thing so you don’t wonder, but you don’t have to be in a boat, or be on it the whole time. You can just get out and relax, maybe have a picnic under a mini-dome where it’s not raining. Don’t be rowdy, though. Just sit back and enjoy it.

Microstory 2437: Warehouse Dome

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This is a big planet, and it needs a lot of stuff. But you don’t just make all the stuff you need, put it where you need it, and walk away. Some stuff gets consumed, while others get worn out. Plus, they’re always expanding, so stuff needs to be added to these new environments. They build the stuff ahead of time, and store it away. I don’t know how many warehouses there are, but there are at least thirteen, and this is one of them. Picture a warehouse with concrete floors, tall shelves, and a bunch of random artifacts. Now multiply that by who knows how much. That’s Warehouse Dome. I have no idea what all these things are for. I’m guessing that there were more appropriate goods in a section that I didn’t see, like dayfruit growers and vactrain seat upholstery. In the area where I was, I saw a set of humming golf clubs, a whole shelf of glass insulators, and a giant vat of purple goo. Tell me what that’s all about. The people I saw there sure wouldn’t. I immediately felt totally accosted by them, like I wasn’t doing my job, or something. I was apparently in the wrong place, and was supposed to be in a different aisle doing inventory? Those idiots thought that I worked there. It didn’t even seem like they expected any visitors in the first place. Like, there was no tour or orientation, not even anyone who seemed to be in charge. They were just really secretive and weird. I was probably not meant to be there at all, but if that’s the case, why did they even let me in in the first place? Can you just go anywhere? Can you go to any dome you want, no matter how much of a threat you are? I heard of one where they keep all the water. Can you just pour some poison into it without even sneaking around, or breaking in? Whatever, it was boring. I perused the objects—like the self-typing old-timey typewriter, and a mirror that had some creepy little girl in it—for a little bit, but then I left. Lock your doors, or put up a sign, or something. Don’t just leave me hanging like that. I don’t see this as my fault. By the way, the above is my name for it. They just called it Warehouse 13. I didn’t bother finding out if the first twelve were just as weird. Then again, maybe the prospectus is broken. It was listed as an adventure dome, despite clearly being logistical, so I don’t even know.

Microstory 2436: Tundradome

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It’s just a big tundra, what do you want from me? It’s even worse than one of the desert domes, because it’s cold. I know, that’s obviously the point, tundras are supposed to be cold. I don’t know what I was expecting, but there’s just nothing here. They don’t even have animals running around, which you would find in a real tundra. I did get the sense that this dome was unfinished, but also not a priority, but there wasn’t anyone around to explain it to me. The vactrain stopped here, I walked through the doors, and I was outside. I went back into the lobby to see if I needed to sign in, or something, but there really wasn’t anyone around. They didn’t even have a help button on the wall. Surely they wouldn’t have let me come here if it was legitimately closed to visitors. There were others who showed up a few minutes after me. We didn’t talk, but they seemed pleased. They stopped a few hundred meters from the entrance, and I guess admired the beauty before them. Then they picked up their gear, and walked away. I assume they went off to camp somewhere, but I don’t know for sure. I doubt they went far, because they were carrying their stuff in their hands, instead of in packs. Listen to me, reviewing the other visitors as if that matters. I should have asked them real quick if maybe I missed something. Like, maybe there’s a different entrance where they went to first, or they messaged someone ahead of time. I could contact customer relations, but I think writing this review is as far as I’m gonna take it. It’s clearly only meant to be a tundra as that’s the name. They’re never going to add activities or adventures, so no matter how much they work on it, I’m never gonna wanna come back. I don’t suggest you do either. If you want to camp, try Foggy Forest. At least they have trees there.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 23, 2505

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Mateo’s nanites were just about done healing him. They prioritized the most life-threatening injuries first before moving on to the less serious damage. So a few cuts and bruises remained, and they hadn’t done anything for the pain yet. Even so, he could now stand up, and get a look around. Octavia still didn’t look concerned, so maybe this was some kind of refuge.

“We need to get moving,” she warned. “I let you recover, but it’s not safe here.”

“Is it safe anywhere?” he asked as he was following her along the stream.

“No,” she conceded. “The horde that was chasing after us can’t follow. Free from oversight, they’ve formed alliances, and divided the land into territories. We’re kind of on a border, so that offers us a little protection, but someone will eventually grow brave enough to cross the line—or hungry enough.”

What did you mean, no oversight?”

“This isn’t the real Castlebourne,” Octavia began to explain. “I don’t know exactly what it is, like an alternate reality, or something, but none of the staff is here. I don’t know who runs it—if it’s Pacey on his own, or if he’s working with someone else—but they don’t keep watch over the safeguards. These monsters are more vicious than they’re supposed to be.”

“How long have you been here?”

“The Vellani Ambassador rescued me and a bunch of others from Ex-486 in 2498. I wasn’t there long before I started hearing how worried the crew was about your whereabouts. I don’t know what they thought was wrong, but they were afraid that something had happened to you. So I agreed to investigate while they continued on with their missions.”

“Well, you found it. You found us.”

“Now, I have,” she agreed. “I found Pacey first, though, and he stuffed me in here so I wouldn’t interfere with his business. I’ve been running for my life ever since.”

“What happens if you die here?” he pressed.

“Nothing good,” she answered simply. “My body isn’t like yours, so I’ve been avoiding everyone. There are some buildings; particularly houses. They’re mostly haunted, but the ghosts have rules, and if you learn them, you can stay safe for a while.” She sighed. “But I think you can help end the madness forever.”

“How’s that?”

She looked around with a face full of paranoia and fatigue. “We’re pretty close to one side of this dome, and I can navigate us there. Unfortunately, once we get there, we’re going to have to walk halfway around the perimeter to reach the exit.”

“There should be more exits than that.”

“Like I said, it’s not the real Castlebourne. Pacey made modifications. There is a way out, but I can’t get through it with you.”

“It takes two to open the door, or something?”

“No, it takes an elite.”

“I’m an elite?”

“Yeah, of course you are. You were in Hrockas’ inner circle, and he hardwired contingencies into the software that should grant you access to any area at any time. The way he sees it, the planet is as much yours as it is his because of how much you contributed to its development. I don’t think that Pacey could have erased all those privileges without breaking the systems entirely. He would have had to reprogram everything from scratch. I’m sure he’s technically capable of doing that, but he’s kind of old school, so doesn’t like AI all that much. He likes to be hands-on, so he deliberately limits the tools in his toolbox.”

“So I can unlock the door, and we can both walk through?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Does he not know that?”

“I don’t know how much he knows about what I know.”

“It could be a trial,” Mateo put forth. “He may want us to escape. Some antagonists want us to stay out of their way, but others want us to stop them, like Thanos is with the Avengers.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“And you can’t teleport, right? Because I can’t. I tried while I was running once I remembered that I should be able to.”

Octavia shook her head. “I don’t have any powers at all. I lost that when I went back in time as September, and created a new timeline. I don’t like to talk about it, but it sets me apart from the other Paiges.”

“You don’t have to,” he assured her. “How dangerous is the border?”

She bobbled her head. “It has its advantages, and disadvantages. The monsters don’t know that they’re in a dome. If you showed one of them the wall, and they were the kind who could talk, they would probably just say, it doesn’t look like anything to me. They’re programmed to stop several meters before it, but they patrol that border, because they can still feel that there’s something weird about it. You’re safe beyond their reach, but there aren’t any resources there. No freshwater, no edible plants. You can take breaks, but you can’t stay.”

“Then let’s grab some supplies along the way. Now you can carry twice as much as before, and I don’t eat much.”

“Some of your powers and abilities are available to you, as you discovered when you jumped off the cliff and survived, but not all of them. If you aren’t hungry already, you will be soon. We need to get to that exit.”

“You seem to know a lot about it; about me.”

“You were part of my investigation,” she clarified. “I had to know who I was looking for. A lot has changed since I last saw you, many iterations of Paige ago.”

“Yeah.”

After nightfall, they finally managed to reach the border. She was right, there was a narrow open space that seemed to circle around the border. The problem was that this meant walking an additional 130 kilometers. Mateo didn’t know how his pattern worked in here. Even if he woke up right at midnight central, there would not be enough time for them to cross that distance before the end of the day. Paige would have to wait a whole year for him to come back, and then they still wouldn’t be able to make it in under 24 hours. Perhaps this plan wasn’t so perfect. There had to be a closer exit, perhaps hidden behind a false wall, or a hologram. As they were sliding their hands along what felt like glass or metal, they started hearing a commotion behind them. They turned around to find a new horde of monsters, about the same size as the one from before. But then more began to appear on the ends, and it eventually felt more like ten times that size. They were just standing there, staring at the two of them menacingly.

Paige’s watch beeped. “Oh, no.”

“What does that mean? Don’t tell me the worst monster comes out at a certain time.”

“No. It’s an hour until midnight central. You’re about to disappear for a year. This was stupid, we should have run straight through the center to the door. Now we’re screwed.”

“Don’t be so sure. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Mateo asked her. “In that clearing over there.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“If I recall correctly, it’s pretty maneuverable.”

“It’s pretty deadly.”

In the 1980s, a horror movie came out that would become a cult classic decades later. It was simply called Seatbelt Killer. Mateo couldn’t remember the exact backstory, but the villain’s origins involved his seatbelt getting stuck while his wife was being violated outside in front of him. He ended up turning the car on, and running over one of the rapists, but when the husband turned to get the other one, the second rapist threw his wife in front of the car, leading him to hitting her instead. The rapist then ran off, eventually getting trapped between the car and a cliff. With nothing left to live for, the husband drove right into him, and over the edge, where they both died. Then he and the car came back to life as a ghost, and started killing the protagonists over the course of the movie. The premise was that he literally couldn’t get out of his car anymore, but you couldn’t escape by going inside, because as a ghost car, it could fit through doorways, down hallways, and even up the stairs. You would think that he would kill rapists, but because he accidentally killed his own wife, the ghost could now only kill rape survivors. There was an implication that he didn’t want to do this, but was...driven to, so to speak. Due to the sensitive nature of the film, they never gave the car a name, but it was entirely fictional. The propmasters apparently manufactured the models from scratch so they wouldn’t have any sort of legal or reputational issues to contend with. But whatever it was, it was here, and Mateo wanted to steal it.

“Mateo...” Octavia began uncomfortably. “I can’t go near that thing.”

He knew what she meant right away, and if she was willing to talk to him about it, this wasn’t the time. “Have you seen the movie?”

“No, but I know the premise, which means I know that I qualify as a target.”

“The Final Girl survives by getting in through the passenger side window, and taking the steering wheel. She didn’t just take control of it, she literally removed it.”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t easy.”

“It’ll be easier for us. She was alone. You have me.”

“But if we take off the steering wheel, we won’t be able to drive either.”

“His weapon is the car itself, his hands are only his means of controlling that. If we get inside, I can control where the car goes, and he can’t hurt you while you’re in the back. We’re not gonna remove the wheel, because unlike the girl in the movie, we need to use it.”

“It sounds risky.”

“It always is. It’s your decision, though. I understand that I don’t understand. But I can tell you that I will protect you, and I’m a damn good driver.”

“Okay. We better come up with a plan fast, because we’re running out of time. Even if you drive as fast as possible, it will take nearly the full hour to get there.”

Mateo nodded, then started to shake his head. “We’re not going around the perimeter. We’re going straight through.”

They hatched their plan, though it wasn’t all that complicated. Octavia came up with the idea to use herself as bait for the Seatbelt Killer, but Mateo wasn’t getting off easy. He was bait as well. While most of the monsters in this dome wanted to kill both or either of them, only a few of them were exclusively attracted to Octavia, based on her profile. They would use this to their advantage. Mateo would lure all of the others away, so Octavia was only contending with one of them. Once it was just her and the car, she would hop over the boundary, back to the safety of the perimeter. This would give her a respite that the characters in the original movie never had. From there, with the driver essentially frozen in place, she could simply climb onto the hood, and slip through the open window. Mateo never saw her accomplish this, but it evidently worked. She drove up next to him while the horde was chasing him through the woods. He dove in the back, and she sped up so fast that no one else was able to keep up.

“We need to get you up front so you can do the steering!” she shouted. She was navigating the terrain pretty well, but still struggling against the driver. He was bound to his seat, but not entirely helpless there. He was still trying to peel her arms away, just as he had the girl in the film. With a bit of ingenuity, this heroine had managed to pry the wheel off of its place, which stole his power from him, and allowed her to escape back through the window. A mid-credits scene suggested that he was about to be successful in finding a workaround by rigging a tire pressure gauge as an ad hoc steering wheel, which may have played out in a sequel, but it was never made. Mateo was a driver, so he watched movies about drivers, even bad ones, and sometimes he read about them too. There was a theory that made the rounds on the message boards that this sequel would have ended with the Final Girl also managing to get in the car, but solving the problem by finally freeing the killer from his eternal seatbelt. Could it be true? The creator never responded to these rumors, but an unverified snippet of the sequel’s script appeared to support the lore. Whether that was how it would have worked in the movies was not the question, though. The question was...was the android who was programmed to believe he was the Seatbelt Killer coded with this solution, or would it only make things worse?

“Do you have a knife?” Mateo asked her. Now that he was inside, he could hold the killer’s arms back, but the guy was really strong. They might not be able to keep him at bay for the duration of the drive.

“What?”

“A pocket knife. Scissors. Anything!”

“No, I don’t have anything like that!” Octavia yelled back. “I didn’t know I was gonna be trapped in the woods for seven years!”

“I need something sharp,” he muttered. Just then, a glow started to form in his right hand. He let go of the killer’s arm to look at it in wonder. The glow consolidated, and began to take shape. Before too long, it was in the form of a knife. And he could feel it in his palm. Somehow, despite Pacey’s restrictions, Mateo’s weird telekinetic hologram powers were back, at least in this one instance. Not taking any chances that it wouldn’t last, Mateo slipped the blade underneath the belt, and with one slice, ripped it right open.

The killer stopped struggling. For a moment, he just sat there in awe. Then he pulled the strap through the loop, opened the door, and tumbled out. Octavia sat there in shock, not even paying attention to where they were going, which was all right, because they were in an open area now, and slowing down quickly.

“Okay. I’ll take it from here.” Mateo climbed over the headrest, and situated himself in the driver’s seat. Then he took off again, free from resistance or distractions.

Now that they were clear of the monsters, their primary struggle was against the clock. In the movie, the car could phase through objects, or even squeeze itself through like a bus out of Harry Potter. That wasn’t possible in the real world, so Mateo just had to negotiate the trees and other obstacles. He kept going though, relying on his great skills, which had only been enhanced during his stint in the Underburg dome. The clock was ticking as they were approaching the part of the wall where Octavia said there was a door. He barreled through the treeline, and onto the perimeter again, almost all the way on the other side of the dome. New monsters were upon them now, but were still bound by that imaginary line.

“How do I open this?” Mateo asked. Before Octavia could answer, he placed a hand on the handle, and heard a buzzing sound. “Hm. Was that it?” He opened it.

Octavia breathed a sigh of relief as her watch was counting down. “Finally.” Four, three, two, one.

Mateo blinked, and it was 2506.

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