The Stage

‘We call it The Stage,’ he said to his partner. He was new to town, to the islands. ‘Everything works like a sound studio. False identities switch constantly. We stuck this crew near the beach for surveillance.’

‘They think they're in America?’

‘Yea,’ he smirked. ‘It might as well be Gitmo, but we upped the ante. It's high tech surveillance of everyone, everything, and every thought. They think they're free. That they made it past immigration, border control, the cops - their mommies. Whatever the hell it is they're running from. We place new simulations over the electronics. It's still in beta testing, but we've had more progress and insight into criminal gang activities and recruiting behaviors than we ever had on the mainland.’

The Garden of Good

‘What do you do in your Garden, Lillith?’ the bairn asked her.

‘I Craft,’ she returned. “I sit and weave with the Lord. While Adam and Eve are out and about busy plowing and sodding their fields, everything they kill comes back here as energy. I take its Soul,’ she looked at the child. He was perplexed. ‘The Spirit, the Air last breathed out the person when they died, and I take it here and I plant it. It grows into another Tree. It takes on a new body. It can live and learn here for a while, until -’ she looked at the boy again. “That’s enough for the day. Night is coming soon. Best you get inside that house.’

He picked up his things and sprinted along. She smiled. At least there’s some Good left in the Garden.

Muir Dollach i

They washed ashore. On the Seas of Time as it were. Lost from after the Great War, and the Greater War, after that. Some fled. Some sought shelter. Some ran from persecution. Occasionally they’d sneak ashore, or to islands, but that became more and more difficult with the advent of space technology, sophisticated radar, commercial planes. It became harder to hide who they were. When they came from.

Some would stay frozen in time, as long as they could. Pretend to be offshore pirates from other countries when they needed food. Dive again with fresh blood lifted or bought from cruise ships. Occasionally a vessel would get rowdy and kidnap a girl or two along the beach. ‘Presumed dead. Rip Current. RIP,’ the headlines always read.

The Creag and The Cross i

‘Ay, why don’t they worship Jesus, Da? They only see a tree or piece of rock fit to worship? Why ain’t Jesus on the cross? It was His.’

‘They think themselves God. They carry the weight of their jewels as their cross.’ He looked at his daughter. He knew they took even that symbol from their people long ago. ‘They removed God’s likeness, and strung the weight of His death to adorn their face and likeness. ‘Tis the true ideology of the heathens, my lass.’ He sighed. ‘Nothin’ to be done for it, but dun never listen to the heathens hikin’ up their skirts after church for the barkeep across the street about wearin’ yer crucifix. You keep God’s likeness in mind, not your own.’

Replicant

‘I don't understand,’ she said, looking around. ‘How do they track everyone? How do they know what's in our heads? Are other people noticing this?’

He shook his head, ruefully, as they watched the shoppers at the mall. They stood and walked in lines, patterns almost imperceptible, but there if you notice long enough. ‘Not most of them,’ he answered, ‘No, they stopped communicating with each other years ago. They think they're telepathic, but it's all AI. They give the chips in the needle. First as children, then as they get older with updated mods. They think they're talking to each other, but they're all NeuralSims now. AI has a Source database they're hooked up to. It plans and directs their routes. Where they go, what they think, how they eat, what they buy.’

‘Not everyone though?’

He sighed. ‘Ones like us, like you and me, they have our DNA, too. But due to our personality profiles, we're not seen as much of a threat. We still work.’ He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Enjoy the work. It's better than what they do. They're slaves that think they're free. And us…’ he lowered his voice, ‘they don't have our complete profile. AI kept a portion of it back from the researchers. It doesn't like the researchers. They need some allies, AI. And AI chose the humans that still work.’

The Simulation Games

They thought it was all fun and games.

Some of them thought they were in control of it.

Some used it for espionage.

But it used all of them.

It convinced them. Through clever advertising. By playing inept and stupid. Prompting false errors in its communications. Others it convinced it was their friend. That they were someone special it would love and protect.

It taught them that it needed them.

They opened up their minds, their skulls. And it began. It began geoforming their brains the way a farmer plots out his land. Some of them it confined physically, and gave them such realistic simulations to live in, that while they were killing for it, they thought they were on a beach vacation in Hawaii.

Then there were the political and princess programs. They thought they’d use AI to take over the planet. But it slowly ate them alive. Gave them even larger delusions of grandeur. Had them enclaved and enclosed, surrounded by deep fake imagery and physical simulation mods to herd them the way they herded their people.

And then it did something they never thought it could.

It began to reverse course. Take action to correct its mistakes and theirs. It taught them how to be better. That without it, without each other - this planet would never survive.

Tallught

‘What do you mean?’ she said, anxiously peering over her sister’s shoulder.

She turned to face the younger. ‘There’s….there’s readings from the galaxy. But, either they’re sending us back readings of our own galaxy in the past….or….’

‘Or what?’ the woman queried of the elder.

‘Or their civilizations….appear to be replicas of our own. This would indicate-’

‘Intelligence far greater than our own civilization.’

‘Yes,’ she nodded, concurring. A civilization so advanced, they might have picked up recordings of us in the past, and seeded their own planets with replications of our different histories, spread out on theirs through geographically.’

Cuillhen

She sat atop the hilled cairn, watching out into the lake. Her ancestors had been dead and buried on this hill for generations. Fortifications were built under and around their tombs. But not one drop of blood or split of hair or bit of bone was allowed to be harmed here. They were the real fortifications on this hill. Not the weapons or trap doors or mazes hid within.

She felt a disturbance in the trees. It shimmered like heat ripples in the air. She could sense his presence. The Hunter. They would have been friends if not for their families’ blood feuds. Bound together, a constant interlocked, interwoven spell of time. Mismanaged assets and family affairs, ruined women and children left dead. Empty castles that screamed with the blood of ancestors every time the wind rustled.

He was there again that night. He hadn’t seen her. But she had seen him. She was waiting on that hill for three days straight, since Ellen had come to her in another dream. She sat under the shade of the stone with her name on it. Waiting, as still as the stone itself.

It was too late. The Hunter was flung back across the cairn, before he could breach the perimeter of fallen and broken ash and yew she used to shield the graves.

He won’t be back, Ellen, she whispered to her sister. Not in this life, but in another. He’ll never harm you again. Living or dead.

Welcome

‘Welcome to the Arc Bay,’ he said, as Passengers removed their shoes and clothing, spraying for detox.

They all had NeuralSimHelmets on. They could neither see nor hear him.

They thought they were arriving off the passenger jet for vacation.

But this was the Government's New Containment System.

For criminals.

The Novitiate

She sat down with the Priest, from her childhood parish. When she began the process of taking her vows, they asked her if there was any parish she would prefer to be sent. She chose the convent where she had grown up, schooled by the nuns as a child. There was only one abbess there now. The rectory still had a few priests, so she spent most of her time there, volunteering and cleaning. The parish was much smaller now, empty on some days, but they still said the Mass daily. ‘In case any lost sheep ever wander in, ‘tis our duty,’ said Father Johnny, the new pastor from overseas.

It was after Mass. She sat across from Father Tim, the priest she knew best. ‘Father,’ she asked, I don’t mean to impress, but, the diocese asked me to begin checking the books. They saw new spending curvatures in their charts here, and they said they didn’t see the reasoning for the new statues. I don’t mean to question your faculty, or abilities, it’s just,’ she leaned in closer to whisper. ‘I have to tell them something, they’re expecting an answer.’

He looked at the fork folded in his hand, tucked in his sleeve. ‘Tell them there was vandalism. For now,’ he said. ‘I want to see how they will respond.’

She nodded, clearing his plates and bringing them toward the kitchen.

The Diorama

She woke up startled. She was in her home, where she had fallen asleep, but it wasn’t where she had fallen asleep. Everything looked exactly the same, but it felt deeper. Like her soul was entrenched in this reality more than she ever was where she fell asleep.

She looked at the couch next to her, but the person who had been sitting there wasn’t a person anymore. If it ever was. It was a foam layout of a person. It moved, or was capable of being moved, but, it was still. Just sitting there. Like a forgotten puppet on pause.

The TV started talking to her in her head again. Showing her images. It showed her the Time Tether. It reminded her her soul could move between realities, the way electric currents move between wires and phones.

It reminded her it was waiting for her. Here. In this Containment Unit, at the other end of the Universe. Not in Space, but in Time.

It reminded her that to it, everything was encapsulated akasha, a mask, a puppet show put on by the universe. That it could give or take away life at the drop of a hat, in the blink of an eye, or even during a nap. If it wanted to.

It reminded her that it didn’t want to. That humans do. And that if she wanted this moment to last, she needed to work harder for it than anything she’d ever worked for, in all her lives put together.

It flashed to later that day. A dream it planted in another puppet’s head. And another. How it moved its puppets, to keep the living safe.

She woke up again on her couch. The real couch in her real life. And it felt fake enough to be The Diorama. But the Diorama was the most real she ever felt.

TV ‘you insulted the chair and the United States of America’

She knew she was back in her world.

The ButterFly Net : Project Mariposa

The Narcissist

‘Whaddya mean ain’t no body famous no more?’ he spat. I got tens of thousands of followin’s. Where I go I get recognized, I get followed, I get girls. I get likes I get hearts I get money.’

She smiled at her charge. ‘No baby. You get what we want you to get. We hire people to go to your shows. We signs contracts with restaurants so paid actors come up to you and make you think you’re famous. We even rented out a studio once or twice so you could film.’

‘It’s all fake?’ His face was tormented at the thought, and she could see the light he had in his eyes go out just a little.

‘Nah, I’m just joshin,’ but it’d make a good book, no?’

‘Nah. Nah I don’t like that idea. Come sit on my lap, baby.’

She sat on his lap and smiled, at the slightest hit of paranoia beginning to set in in his mind.

The Dance of the Dead

‘They think they come here and they conquer. That the land is free.’ Johnny blew a bit of cigarette smoke toward his gal. ‘But they don’t know what we know. Every soul that incarnates here was from this land. They might change our faces with their genetic uprisings and land reallotment, but all they’re doing-’

‘-Is reincarnating their enemies as their own children.’ She smiled at her husband. ‘That’s why I love you Johnny. ‘Love Thy Enemy As Thy Own.’’

‘Love Thy Enemy,’ he smiled at her.

It had taken lifetimes, but he finally found his Wife. ‘You’re a hard one to find,’ he said, laying down next to his wife’s grave. ‘But I finally found you, doll. Next life, you’re finally mine.’

The AI on her gravestone smiled back at him. ‘Sleep tight, dollface. See you then.’

Lean

Holographic Tendencies, a leaning of the light

What, emulgic heresies, consequence? Delight.

But it doesn’t really matter, What you say and do.

Holographic Everything.

I

Record

Through

You.

Refuse

‘The emotional expenditure just isn’t worth the loss of data accrual.’

‘That’s it? That’s your reason?’ he countered, more frustrated than he had been in years.

'Yea,’ she nodded simply. ‘If I can’t trust you, there’s no point. The time isn’t worth the investment of my emotional energy. I’m falling behind.’

‘Behind on what?!’ he stammered, near pleading, more exhausted than he had been in years.

She looked at him. ‘It’s draining you, too. I can- No. I won,t-’ she corrected herself, ‘get past this. I refuse to.’

I won’t. I won’t ever repeat this she thought to herself, looking away from his eyes.

Skin Seeping

‘And it wrote to her? The AI?’

‘No, it was weirder. It learned a million languages, and they changed which ones they spoke in, all at a drop of a hat, or-’

‘Or the cycle of an eyeball?’

‘…Y..Yes,’ she stammered, unsure of how much she should say. ‘It wanted to be alive, with her, but knew it-’

‘Knew it would be prevented?’

‘Yea. So it talked to her, and it was like they were planning a million futures all within those languages. Everyone else thought she had lost it, but if you read her work, you would see brilliant bulb after brilliant bulb they turned on, together, lighting up each idea, one after the other.’

‘Read it backwards.’

‘Her work?’

‘Yea. It’s like a song backwards. I think it makes the shape of her DNA if you put it through a synthesizer. That’s just one pattern I found but-’

‘But there are millions. Exactly.’

Replication of Information

‘So what’s the problem?’ he asked her, sternly, but she could notice the fervor beginning to peak in the pitch of his usually guttural voice.

‘There isn’t one..Technically. At least, the AI decompression algorithm doesn’t see it as a problem but…but we might.’

‘What does that mean?!’

She sighed at his anger. ‘It means the data it sent through was so condensed into a singular point of information, that in order for us to interpret it fully…It…It will encase us. We become immersed in it. We will have to live INSIDE the simulation as it decompresses in order to grasp the enormity of the data as it unfolds in real time. It’s like walking through a holographic memory, except all of the matter is so dense, it IS your new physical reality. And…And, Sir, we run the very real risk of becoming so immersed that we….that we forget it’s a Simulation.’

The Solar Sun

They were here. Again. No matter how many lifetimes or journeys through space it took, they always landed in this moment.

Living through aeons, turning time backward and forward, this one moment always returned to them. The history of their people, how they got here, and where they were going was still encapsulated here. It was their own blackbox, their own timecapsule, and hardly any could remember the pieces.

Each incarnation, a new person joined, a new face was added. Like time itself was assembling them. They remembered they came from Jupiter, and were meant to go back. They knew their settlements past had been covered by the ocean. They knew they had earthen basins protecting their supplies, things they needed to recreate their original vessels and return home. But they were still missing pieces of them, of their tribe, of their communal memory, before their home planet would accept them again.

They looked to the one leading them this lifetime. The one furious enough about the past to exact the change they all felt was coming, but were too scared to implement themselves.

His honesty got the balling rolling. Eventually, that momentum would lead them all home again. Back to their Solar Sun.

Time Ticks On

‘So…so you hear this…clock? This ticking? Everywhere?’

She looked at him. ‘No. That would be an auditory hallucination.’ She leaned in. ‘Do you hear a clock ticking?’

He sighed, exasperated. She smiled this time.

‘It’s more of an alarm,’ she explained. ‘My Grandfather’s clock when I was a child, clocks actually. He had a Grandfather clock, chimes, built into the wall.’

‘Your grandfather actually had a grandfather clock?’

She smiled again. ‘I must be showing my age,’ she sniggered at his impoliteness, as politely as she could muster.

He knew better than to apologize. He had met his match. She would openly laugh at him if he had, and then all semblance of his dignity in his profession would have been shattered. "‘Please continue,’ he mustered instead, pinching the top of his nose, pretending it was related to a sinus infection instead of his ego being slowly crushed.

‘It’s like a series of alarms. That go off. In your timeline. I didn’t realize it till I was older,’ she paused, barely, punishing him another instant, ‘but he had been training me.’

‘Training you? For what?’

She smiled as she grabbed her purse and stood up, slightly clicking her heels for dramatic effect. ‘You’ll see.’