Log 42

She disembarked from the Klothos, down a small wooden ladder she had retrofitted. It blended in with the trees and the foliage hiding the ship. A roll of papers tucked under her arm, she slowly descended from the forest canopy to the dirt floor, littered with pine needles. The species here were similar to Earth, but smelled different, darker. The leaves were a deeper green, and when you walked between the trees, light shimmered.

I think the trees, the plants, have developed some sort of quantum synthesis here. They seem to shimmer, and…cloak, or communicate. She depressed the button on her watch, as she finished recording her field observations. She looked around again, back toward where the ship was. The branches seemed to wave at her, ushering her back to the safety of her ship while darkness closed in around her. She nodded her head in thanks, unsure as to exactly how sentient these plants were.

Log 14

‘It's not a waste, nothing ever is. Every launch, every failed attempt and successful one, was a cross stitch, binding US to this time, to each other.’ He looked at her from across their bunks. She was writing, furiously, scribbling in her notebook. ‘That's what got US off the ground - Minds like yours. Don't ever stop.’

Log 52

‘What about a Soul Signal, Johnny?’

The captain of Klothos was watching an old program she picked up. Black and white, but apparently there was a series of books and leaflet pamphlets that went along with the show’s signal. Like a manual, almost, the captain mused. The hologram in front of her continued:

‘A Soul Signal, Sal?’

‘Yea. Something to tether US. Make sure we don’t get lost in the afterlife. How to find each other again.’

The captain paused, thinking. This seems familiar.

Log 16

‘Where we at, Johnny?’ asked Sal, turning to her husband. ‘This don’t look like the USA no more.’

‘It ain’t, Sal, at least, not the USA we know - the Original one. We took your ideas, in your in-between life state, when you’s was a Holo. Brilliant, Sal, just like you, only sparkly.’

She smiled in return.

Johnny continued, ‘We applied those ideas - Transfusionic Photonization. We took the ideas from GRID and bunker building, simulation - We’re doing it, Sal, we’re hop-skipping across the Universe. That star system the Transmission was about - The Aporian - It’s our Final destination in a few years.’ He looked at Jimmy, who looked at Susie, ‘Or a few hundred years, give or take.' He turned back to Sally, ‘There’s no way this could’ve been done without you. Look at the schematics.’

Johnny turned a knob or two from their board business meeting room. The surroundings turned into a swing set at a park. And then a Carousel by a highway. ‘It’s got all the renderings, of home. But we’re tucked away, in a little spherical asteroid. Enough spin to mimic gravity, enough people to keep US Alive, and enough velocity to get out of the Milky Way before that Collision with Andromeda. We couldn’t save everyone back home, not physically, anyway, but we saved enough - we can rebuild again, and we can restart. A few other ships like this one got built. Some even bigger, some with ocean renderings and real water in them. It looks just home. It’s got Sky Simulations and everything, the moon, the stars, so we never forget when we came from. The kids might even go a few generations forgettin’ where we are if we don’t tell ‘em.’

Sally held out her hand and squeezed Johnny’s.

Log Minute 3 Seconds 42

She planted each planet with markers. Holographic recorders, set in stone. Databanks that would record everything on a planet, from the first seedlings and her steps there, to generations of Future Descendants. Everything would be beamed back, on asteroids working as satellites: Holographic storage demarcators. When each civilization raised its eyes to the stars, they would see themselves, their history, their lives staring back at them. And when each civilization dug in to the ground, the past, they would find these demarcation lines. Their dead, staring back up at them.

Time almost ended, she thought to herself. I need them to know why they are where they are. And what’s possible. If they learn to work together.

Log 82 c

She pulled up the holograph of a ball she had made, once, a lifetime ago it seemed. She recorded the design and found the coordinates for the nearest planet able to produce a similar object. The plans indicated she made it from vine. I’ll make a quick stop, while I have the time, and drop a few seeds.

Log 29

Graolite she scribbled in to her journal. ‘That's the dream you had?’ she asked him?

‘Yea,’ he dangled his hand down from the bunk on top of hers. She reached up and squeezed it. ‘The ship said it's going to make it farther than it thought we could - generations! Every generation ‘ll have a different genetic profile. The ship said it's going to engineer our food to maximize our nutrition, but to simultaneously extract as many minerals as possible. The furnace, it called it Fornax, is going to synthesize new materials, updating the ship with our raw materials, as we travel.’ He squeezed her hand back.

Log 13

‘What's it doing?’ she asked the computer. The screen flickered and flashed. Entire planets incinerate.

A w a r n i n g the computer typed out on the screen. C o n s e q u e n c e. R e m o v a l o f f u t u r e s u p p l i e s a n d t i m e f r o m E a r t h.

She nodded her thanks to the computer. She'd gotten him off the planet just in time.

Log 52a1a

‘What'd you do? Why won't you let me on board the ship?’

She finally found him. Enough of him anyway. Enough of his particles to make a new one, an approximation. She could alter the size and scale of his next incarnation once they landed in the next world. But this corner of the galaxy was closing and closing fast. She couldn't bring him on board or risk contaminating the vessel. She set the machine to work. ‘Hold tight,’ she said. ‘This won't hurt, it'll tingle, and then it's-’ she left off there. He’d already disintegrated. ‘Did you get the reading?’ she asked the ship.

The lights buzzed in response. His soul onboarded, and his genetic map complete, they could finally leave this sector.

Log 48

‘You know you're my Soul Mate. I know you'll find me anywhere. Any where, any when, with any how.’

She zoomed out. He was her Soul Mate. And she would keep her promise. She would track his soul through every corner of the universe, the way she knew he would track hers. We’ll meet in the middle she mumbled to her self, tracing the ink on her arm. She zoomed back in, using the telescope and satellites as a lensing tool, bouncing light from asteroid to asteroid.

Log 82a

I've managed to collect enough supplies. The ship has managed to forge a redundant Tunnel through the System. A shield of mini GRIDS set up via tiny metallic droids, spherical in nature, with a sizeable electromagnetic field around the ship. It should serve as a gateway prototype. If I can maneuver through the correct sequencing of systems, I should be able to propel the ship far enough until the electromagnetic shielding becomes a self sustaining reaction. When Destination 001 is reached Disembark Protocol will begin.

She finished crawling in her journal. Putting her pen down she took a sip of black tea. Midway Point, she thought. That's all we need.

Log 21

‘I'm collapsing the Ice Shield. They won't be taking our country. You'll have a midpoint pick up before the water surge reaches you. The ship will pick you up.’

It had come to this. The world where their country was born was finally collapsing, under the weight of political pressure and greed. Klothos ran final simulation arcs across the grid set up decades before in preparation of this. Not my land she muttered. She didn't care what they did with the rest of the planet, but they would never have her country.

Log Minute 1

I've started a new series of entries. Each will be a parallel reality recorded in his physical manifestation, uploaded back to the Ship.

Klothos will repeatedly record all data transmissions, while Self-identifying him.

I've sent a Relay of AI Sensors across the known Universe. We should be at each Barrier Pointe soon.

Upon closing the Map, I should have a Final Destination Course plotted through Space and Time

To get him back.

As each Sensor is activated, data will be transmitted. Each world that closes or erases itself needs to be uploaded somewhere.

I should have enough data, soon, to ReRoute His Path, back to Us.

Log 82

It was all here. Transmission after transmission. She sat and waited with Klothos, knowing every new update he sent was another Tether - another place for her to look in TimeSpace for him. It was harder than she thought. As she sat, tethered to her corner of the Universe, he moved - sometimes slowly, sometimes faster than lightning - but they knew it was worth it.

This corner of the Universe was a Dead End, unless he could get enough data and particles back to her, to their child, to their Future - to continue it.

She sat, watching reel after reel relayed by him to the ship. Every moment a new life, it seemed. And just like that, each was gone. A lifetime, a moment. All erased by him. So that he could coordinate a new pathway back to her. A new future for their country.

Log 31.a-c

‘You did it,’ his eyes locked with hers as he spoke. When they looked at each other, a faint ultraviolet light was given off. His was more blue, hers was more purple.

She tersed her lips. ‘This will be harder than you think. Particle densification makes the journey difficult - if you become too tethered to a new timeline-’

‘I won’t. I’ve got your Soul seared in to my Consciousness now.’

And it felt like it - like part of them was Entwined now, part of them that didn’t even exist yet, somewhere, somewhen, out there.

She opened the door to the airlock. And everything went black.

Log 31

‘I did it,’ she said, more calmly than he anticipated. ‘I figured out a way to tether to you.’

He sighed. She had been working on this problem for years, at least, it felt like years.

‘I can extract your consciousness from the ship. I’ve loaded multiple programs and trajectories - your consciousness will remain in tact, but it will manifest differently, based on the particles it is inhabiting. So your languages-’

‘Will alter over place and time?’

She smiled, tersely, ‘Exactly. I’ll load some language models, and project future pathways you can use away from this Wall. If you can tether correctly, if you can find the right pathway back to Earth, you can use Transfusionic Photonization to alter your form and communication methods. You can get back to US, then, and -’ she ended her sentence, knowing he knew the rest of it.

Log 22

The ship began hurtling through space. Everything was different from when he had boarded. The exterior looked like an asteroid, and his crew, all in stasis last he remembered, were carcasses in cargo.

He looked up the logs from everything that happened during and after boarding.

Everything looked different. It was like he was a different person, in a different place. He was even beginning to realize he thought differently - like his mind was speaking a new language.

He looked at the screen in front of him again. The letters, American Script earlier, flickered and altered to a series of lines and pricks, sticks almost, like ancient ogham. It gave him a choice. It would allow him to stay on board, alive, if he actually began to think independently. Or, it would continue on its mission, hurtling to the Sun - there it would alter the reactions in the sun just enough to destroy life on Earth, allowing the ship and its sister ships on the way to Start Again.

Log 19

She pulled up his holometric profile.

She knew his Mind and Body needed to be remodeled, topographically terraformed from the inside out to suit the new permeability of the atmosphere where they’d land, but she needed it to be him. They needed a precognizance of their relationships and data from everywhere and everywhen they’re ever been.

‘So we don’t forget,’ he said, as he had been uploaded into her ship and remodeled into its drive.

Every time she bioprinted a new body and template, he’d ask for a little change. To keep things interesting, so we don’t get bored. But she knew they’d never get bored of each other.

Log 9

She entered his data calculations after he had gone back in stasis. His holonomic projection of consciousness and accrued aggregate brainwave data was enough to help her if she needed it. His metabolism was much too high to remain with her for the duration of Klothos’s journey.

“There,’ she breathed to herself, smiling.

The wormhole didn’t work the way it had been surmised to on Earth. You couldn’t bend space and time without restructuring everything around it. With his calculations, they could use the graphene to relattice everyone’s cellular structure. They would die. But only temporarily. The consciousness could be stored more easily this way, and after a few generations of AI holding their spaghettified place in Quantum Time, they would be able to restructure and reorganize, slowly, at first, but after a few generations, most of the ship wouldn’t even remember the long journey. They would be BioOrganic again, except a few, like her and him.

Log 8

‘You’re familiar with my theorem?’

‘Of course,’ he peered into her eyes.

‘Okay, it’s like that, the data transmission. A holographic overlay. A reflection from the side of the Universe where this Wall is,’ she hushed her voice. ‘It’s mirrored. It transmits. Everything we do is reflected through the HoloPlane. It’s run through a Transmitter. The logarithms are produced. Time lines are assembled. When one outclipses the others-’ she looked at him.

‘It gets transmitted here, we relay the data,’ he paused, nodding. ‘Free Will. They have the choice to transmit new signals and physical acts and decisions. But I assume…’

‘Only so much matter and energy - so negotiations cannot be used as stalling tactics. The Holograph will overlay a physical plane, redirecting the transfer of energy, data, and matter.’

‘It builds a new layer?’

‘Exactly, like a cellular layer of reality.’