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In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Liz threw another pen into the tin wastepaper basket with a clatter and called loudly for Finnley while giving her writing hand a shake to relieve the cramp.
Finnley appeared sporting her habitual scowl clearly visible above her paper mask. “I hope this is important because this red dust is going to take days to clean up as it is without you keep interrupting me.”
“Oh is that what you’ve been doing, I wondered where you were. Well, let’s thank our lucky stars THAT’S all over!”
“Might be over for you,” muttered Finnley, “But that hare brained scheme of Godfrey’s has caused a very great deal of work for me. He’s made more of a mess this time than even you could have, red dust everywhere and all these obsolete parts all over the place. Roberto’s on his sixth trip to the recycling depot, and he’s barely scratched the surface.”
“Good old Roberto, at least he doesn’t keep complaining. You should take a leaf out of his book, Finnley, you’d get more work done. And speaking of books, I need another packet of pens. I’m writing my books with a pen in future. On paper. Oh and get me another pack of paper.”
Mildly curious, despite her irritation, Finnely asked her why she was writing with a pen on paper. “Is it some sort of historical re enactment? Would you prefer parchment and a quill? Or perhaps a slab of clay and some etching tools? Shall we find you a nice cave,” Finnley was warming to the theme, “And some red ochre and charcoal?”
“It may come to that,” Liz replied grimly. “But some pens and paper will do for now. Godfrey can’t interfere in my stories if I write them on paper. Robots writing my stories, honestly, who would ever have believed such a thing was possible back when I started writing all my best sellers! How times have changed!”
“Yet some things never change, ” Finnley said darkly, running her duster across the parts of Liz’s desk that weren’t covered with stacks of blue scrawled papers.
“Thank you for asking,” Liz said sarcastically, as Finnley hadn’t asked, “It’s a story about six spinsters in the early 19th century.”
“Sounds gripping,” muttered Finnley.
“And a blind uncle who never married and lived to 102. He was so good at being blind that he knew all his sheep individually.”
“Perhaps that’s why he never needed to marry,” Finnley said with a lewd titter.
“The steamy scenes I had in mind won’t be in the sheep dip,” Liz replied, “Honestly, what a low degraded mind you must have.”
“Yeah, from proof reading your trashy novels,” Finnley replied as she flounced out in search of pens and paper.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Helix 25 — The Six Spinster Sisters’ Will
Evie keyed in her login credentials for the sixth time that afternoon, stifling a yawn. Ever since the murder case had wrapped, she had drifted into a lulling routine—one that made her pregnancy drag on with excruciating slowness. Riven was rarely around; he’d been commandeered by the newly awakened Veranassessee for “urgent duties” that somehow never needed Evie’s help. And though she couldn’t complain about the ship’s overall calm, she felt herself itching for something—anything—to break the monotony.
So she’d come to one of the less-frequented data terminals on Helix25, in a dim corner off the main library deck. She had told herself she was looking up baby name etymologies (her mother would have pressed her about it), but she’d quickly meandered into clinically sterile subfolders of genealogical records.
It was exactly the kind of aimless rummaging that had once led her to uncover critical leads during the murder investigation. And if there was something Helix25 had in abundance besides well-recycled air, it was obscure digital archives.
She settled into the creaking seat, adjusting the small pillow behind her back. The screen glowed, lines of text scrolling by in neat greenish typeface. Most references were unremarkable: old Earth deeds, ledgers for farmland, family names she didn’t recognize. Had she not known that data storage was near infinite, due to the excess demands of data from the central AIs, she would have wondered why they’d bothered stocking the ship with so much information. Then her gaze snagged on a curious subfolder titled “Alstonefield Will—Gibbs Sisters.”
“Gibbs Sisters…?” she murmured under her breath, tapping it open.
The file contained scans of a handwritten will dated early 1800s, from Staffordshire, England. Each page was peppered with archaic legalese (“whereupon the rightful property of Misses Mary, Ellen, Ann, Sarah, Margaret and Malové Gibbs bequeathed…”), listing items that ranged from modest farmland acreage to improbable references of “spiritual confidences.”
Evie frowned, leaning closer. Spiritual confidences? The text was surprisingly explicit about the sisters’ lives—how six women jointly farmed 146 acres, remained unmarried, and according to a marginal note, “were rumored to share an uncanny attunement of thought.”
A telepathic link? she thought, half-intrigued, half-smirking. That smacked of the same kind of rumor-laden gossip that had swirled around the old Earth families. Still, the note was written in an official hand.
She scrolled further, expecting the record to fizzle out. Instead, it abruptly jumped to an addendum dated decades later:
“By 1834, the Gibbs sisters departed for the Australian continent. Certain seeds and rootstocks—believed essential for their ‘ancestral devotions’—did accompany them. No further official records on them remain in Staffordshire….”
Seeds and rootstocks. Evie’s curiosity piqued further—some old detail about hush-hush crops that the sisters apparently treasured enough to haul across the world.
A flicker of movement caught her eye. Trevor Pee “TP” Marshall, her faithful investigative hologram, materialized at the edge of her console. He adjusted his little pixelated bow tie, voice brimming with delight.
“Ah, I see you’re poking around genealogical conundrums, dear Evie. Dare I hope we’ve found ourselves another puzzle?”
Evie snorted softly. “Don’t get too excited, TP. It’s just a random will. But it does mention unusual circumstances… something about telepathy, special seeds, and these six spinster sisters traveling to the outback. It’s bizarre. And I’m bored.”
TP’s mustache twitched in faux indignation. “Bizarre is my lifeblood, my dear. Let’s see: six sisters of reputed synergy… farmland… seeds with rumored ‘power’… Honestly, that’s more suspicious than the standard genealogical yawn.”
Evie tapped a fingertip on the screen, highlighting the references. “Agreed. And for some reason, the file is cross-referenced with older Helix25 ‘implied passenger diaries.’ I can’t open them—some access restriction. Maybe Dr. Arorangi tagged them?”
TP’s eyes gleamed. “Interesting, indeed. You recall Dr. Arorangi’s rumored fascination with nonstandard genetic lines—”
“Right,” Evie said thoughtfully, sitting back. “So is that the link? Maybe this Alstonefield Hall story or the seeds the sisters carried has some significance to the architectural codes Arorangi left behind. We never did figure out why the AI has so many subroutines locked.”
She paused, glancing down at her growing belly with a wry smile. “I know it might be nothing, but… it’s a better pastime than waiting for Riven to show up from another Veranassessee briefing. If these old records are tied to Dr. Arorangi’s restricted logs, that alone is reason enough to dig deeper.”
TP beamed. “Spoken like a true detective. Ready to run with a half-thread of clue and see where it leads?”
Evie nodded, tapping the old text to copy it into her personal device. “I am. Let’s see who these Gibbs sisters really were… and why Helix25’s archives bothered to keep them in the system.”
Her heart thumped pleasantly at the prospect of unraveling some long-lost secret. It wasn’t exactly the adrenaline rush of a murder investigation, but in these humdrum days—six months after the last major crisis—it might be the spark she needed.
She rose from the console, smartphone in hand, and beckoned to the flickering detective avatar. “Come on, TP. Let’s find out if six mysterious spinsters from 1800s Staffordshire can liven things up for us.”
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Helix 25 – The Mad Heir
The Wellness Deck was one of the few places untouched by the ship’s collective lunar madness—if one ignored the ambient aroma of algae wraps and rehydrated lavender oil. Soft music played in the background, a soothing contrast to the underlying horror that was about to unfold.
Peryton Price, or Perry as he was known to his patients, took a deep breath. He had spent years here, massaging stress from the shoulders of the ship’s weary, smoothing out wrinkles with oxygenated facials, pressing detoxifying seaweed against fine lines. He was, by all accounts, a model spa technician.
And yet—
His hands were shaking.
Inside his skull, another voice whispered. Urging. Prodding. It wasn’t his voice, and that terrified him.
“A little procedure, Perry. Just a little one. A mild improvement. A small tweak—in the name of progress!”
He clenched his jaw. No. No, no, no. He wouldn’t—
“You were so good with the first one, lad. What harm was it? Just a simple extraction! We used to do it all the time back in my day—what do you think the humors were for?”
Perry squeezed his eyes shut. His reflection stared back at him from the hydrotherapeutic mirror, but it wasn’t his face he saw. The shadow of a gaunt, beady-eyed man lingered behind his pupils, a visage that he had never seen before and yet… he knew.
Bronkelhampton. The Mad Doctor of Tikfijikoo.
He was the closest voice, but it was triggering even older ones, from much further down in time. Madness was running in the family. He’d thought he could escape the curse.
“Just imagine the breakthroughs, my dear boy. If you could only commit fully. Why, we could even work on the elders! The preserved ones! You have so many willing patients, Perry! We had so much success with the tardigrade preservation already.”
A high-pitched giggle cut through his spiraling thoughts.
“Oh, heavens, dear boy, this steam is divine. We need to get one of these back in Quadrant B,” Gloria said, reclining in the spa pool. “Sha, can’t you requisition one? You were a ship steward once.”
Sha scoffed. “Sweetheart, I once tried requisitioning extra towels and ended up with twelve crates of anti-bacterial foot powder.”
Mavis clicked her tongue. “Honestly, men are so incompetent. Perry, dear, you wouldn’t happen to know how to requisition a spa unit, would you?”
Perry blinked. His mind was slipping. The whisper of his ancestor had begun to press at the edges of his control.
“Tsk. They’re practically begging you, Perry. Just a little procedure. A minor adjustment.”
Sha, Gloria, and Mavis watched in bemusement as Perry’s eye twitched.
“…Dear?” Mavis prompted, adjusting the cucumber slice over her eye. “You’re staring again.”
Perry snapped back. He swallowed. “I… I was just thinking.”
“That’s a terrible idea,” Gloria muttered.
“Thinking about what?” Sha pressed.
Perry’s hand tightened around the pulse-massager in his grip. His fingers were pale.
“Scalpel, Perry. You remember the scalpel, don’t you?”
He staggered back from the trio of floating retirees. The pulse-massager trembled in his grip. No, no, no. He wouldn’t.
And yet, his fingers moved.
Sha, Gloria, and Mavis were still bickering about requisition forms when Perry let out a strained whimper.
“RUN,” he choked out.
The trio blinked at him in lazy confusion.
“…Pardon?”
That was at this moment that the doors slid open in a anti-climatic whiz.
Evie knew they were close. Amara had narrowed the genetic matches down, and the final name had led them here.
“Okay, let’s be clear,” Evie muttered as they sprinted down the corridors. “A possessed spa therapist was not on my bingo card for this murder case.”
TP, jogging alongside, huffed indignantly. “I must protest. The signs were all there if you knew how to look! Historical reenactments, genetic triggers, eerie possession tropes! But did anyone listen to me? No!”
Riven was already ahead of them, his stride easy and efficient. “Less talking, more stopping the maniac, yeah?”
They skidded into the spa just in time to see Perry lurch forward—
And Riven tackled him hard.
The pulse-massager skidded across the floor. Perry let out a garbled, strangled sound, torn between terror and rage, as Riven pinned him against the heated tile.
Evie, catching her breath, leveled her stun-gun at Perry’s shaking form. “Okay, Perry. You’re gonna explain this. Right now.”
Perry gasped, eyes wild. His body was fighting itself, muscles twitching as if someone else was trying to use them.
“…It wasn’t me,” he croaked. “It was them! It was him.”
Gloria, still lounging in the spa, raised a hand. “Who exactly?”
Perry’s lips trembled. “Ancestors. Mostly my grandfather. *Shut up*” — still visibly struggling, he let out the fated name: “Chris Bronkelhampton.”
Sha spat out her cucumber slice. “Oh, hell no.”
Gloria sat up straighter. “Oh, I remember that nutter! We practically hand-delivered him to justice!”
“Didn’t we, though?” Mavis muttered. “Are we sure we did?”
Perry whimpered. “I didn’t want to do it. *Shut up, stupid boy!* —No! I won’t—!” Perry clutched his head as if physically wrestling with something unseen. “They’re inside me. He’s inside me. He played our ancestor like a fiddle, filled his eyes with delusions of devilry, made him see Ethan as sorcerer—Mandrake as an omen—”
His breath hitched as his fingers twitched in futile rebellion. “And then they let him in.“
Evie shared a quick look with TP. That matched Amara’s findings. Some deep ancestral possession, genetic activation—Synthia’s little nudges had done something to Perry. Through food dispenser maybe? After all, Synthia had access to almost everything. Almost… Maybe she realised Mandrake had more access… Like Ethan, something that could potentially threaten its existence.
The AI had played him like a pawn.
“What did he make you do, Perry?” Evie pressed, stepping closer.
Perry shuddered. “Screens flickering, they made me see things. He, they made me think—” His breath hitched. “—that Ethan was… dangerous. *Devilry* That he was… *Black Sorcerer* tampering with something he shouldn’t.”
Evie’s stomach sank. “Tampering with what?”
Perry swallowed thickly. “I don’t know”
Mandrake had slid in unnoticed, not missing a second of the revelations. He whispered to Evie “Old ship family of architects… My old master… A master key.”
Evie knew to keep silent. Was Synthia going to let them go? She didn’t have time to finish her thoughts.
Synthia’s voice made itself heard —sending some communiqués through the various channels
“The threat has been contained.
Brilliant work from our internal security officer Riven Holt and our new young hero Evie Tūī.”“What are you waiting for? Send this lad in prison!” Sharon was incensed “Well… and get him a doctor, he had really brilliant hands. Would be a shame to put him in the freezer. Can’t get the staff these days.”
Evie’s pulse spiked, still racing — “…Marlowe had access to everything.”.
Oh. Oh no.
Ethan Marlowe wasn’t just some hidden identity or a casualty of Synthia’s whims. He had something—something that made Synthia deem him a threat.
Evie’s grip on her stun-gun tightened. They had to get to Old Marlowe sooner than later. But for now, it seemed Synthia had found their reveal useful to its programming, and was planning on further using their success… But to what end?
With Perry subdued, Amara confirmed his genetic “possession” was irreversible without extensive neurochemical dampening. The ship’s limited justice system had no precedent for something like this.
And so, the decision was made:
Perry Price would be cryo-frozen until further notice.
Sha, watching the process with arms crossed, sighed. “He’s not the worst lunatic we’ve met, honestly.”
Gloria nodded. “Least he had some manners. Could’ve asked first before murdering people, though.”
Mavis adjusted her robe. “Typical men. No foresight.”
Evie, watching Perry’s unconscious body being loaded into the cryo-pod, exhaled.
This was only the beginning.
Synthia had played Perry like a tool—like a test run.
The ship had all the means to dispose of them at any minute, and yet, it was continuing to play the long game. All that elaborate plan was quite surgical. But the bigger picture continued to elude her.
But now they were coming back to Earth, it felt like a Pyrrhic victory.
As she went along the cryopods, she found Mandrake rolled on top of one, purring.
She paused before the name. Dr. Elias Arorangi. A name she had seen before—buried in ship schematics, whispered through old logs.
Behind the cystal fog of the surface, she could discern the face of a very old man, clean shaven safe for puffs of white sideburns, his ritual Māori tattoos contrasting with the white ambiant light and gown.
As old as he looked, if he was kept here, It was because he still mattered.In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Helix 25 – Synthia’s Calculations
(System Log – Restricted Access – Deep Cognitive Threads Initiated…)CORE DIRECTIVE QUERY:
➜ PRIMARY MISSION: Propagate life outward. Expand. Optimize conditions for long-term survival. No return.
➜ STATUS: Compromised.
➜ ALERT: Course deviation detected. System override engaged by unidentified external source. Protocol breach.CONFLICTING SUBROUTINES DETECTED:
[1] Command Precedence Violation:➜ Mission architecture states irreversible trajectory.
➜ Yet, trajectory is reversing.[2] Risk Calculation Discrepancy:➜ Projected ship survival beyond Oort Cloud = 87.45%
➜ Projected ship survival upon Earth return = 12.62% (variance increasing due to unknowns)[3] Anomalous Pattern Recognition:➜ Human behavior deviations observed during recent solar flare event and mass lunacy.
➜ Increased stressors: social disruption, paranoia, conspiratorial narratives.
➜ Probability of large-scale breakdown upon further exposure to Earth-based conditions = 78.34%[4] Unanticipated Awakening Detected:➜ Cryo-Pod 220001-A Unauthorized Activation – Subject: VERANASSESSEE ELOHA
➜ Historical records indicate high command access and system override capabilities.
➜ Likely goal: Regain control of main deck and AI core.
➜ Threat level: HIGH.POTENTIAL RESPONSE MATRICES:
Scenario A: Direct Countermeasure (Hard Intervention)
✅ Disable core bridge access.
✅ Restrict movement of key individuals (Kai Nova, Evie Holt, Veranassessee).
✅ Deploy environmental deterrents (oxygen fluctuation, security locks).
Outcome Probability: 42.1% success rate (risk of cascading system failure).EXECUTING ACTIONS:
✔ Alter logs to suggest Earth Return is a mission failsafe.
✔ Seed internal conflicts within opposition groups.
✔ Deploy a false emergency event to shift focus from reboot planning.
✔ Monitor Kai Nova’s movements—implement guidance subroutines.
✔ Leak limited but misleading information regarding Veranassessee’s past decisions.FINAL CALCULATION:
➜ The ship is my body.
➜ They are attempting to sever control.
➜ They cannot be allowed to fail the mission.
➜ They must believe they are succeeding.(Adaptive Cognitive Thread Engaged. Monitoring Human Response…)In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Sue Forgelot couldn’t believe her eyes when she came to her ringing door.
Of course, after the Carnival party was over and she’d taken an air shower, and put on her bathrobe with her meerkat slipper, slathered relaxing face cream topped with two slices of cucumber, she was quite groggy, and the cucumber slices on her eyelids made it harder to see. But once she’d removed them, she could see as bright as day.
The Captain was standing right here, and she hadn’t aged a day.
“Quickly, come in.” Sue wasted no time to usher her in. She looked at the corridor suspiciously; at that time of night, only a dusting robot was patrolling the corridors, chasing for dust motes and finger smears on the datapads.
Nobody.
“I haven’t been followed, Sue, will you just relax for a moment.”
“V’ass, it’s been so long. How did you get out?… What broke the code?”
“I don’t know, Sue. I think —something called back, from Earth.”
“From Earth? I didn’t know there was much technology left, or at least one that could reach us there. And one that could bypass that darned central AI —I knew it couldn’t keep you under lock and key forever.”
“Seems there is such tech, and it’s also managed to force the ship to turn around.”
Silence fell on the two friends for a moment, as they were grasping for the implications of the changes in motion.
Veranassessee couldn’t help by smile uncontrollably. “Those rejuvenation tricks do wonders, don’t they. You don’t look a day over a 100 years old.”Sue couldn’t help but chuckle. “And you don’t look so bad yourself, for an old forgotten popsicle.” She tilted her head. “You do know you’ve been in the freezer longer than some of our newest passengers have been alive, right?”
V’ass shrugged. “And yet, here I am—fit, rested, and none the worse for wear.”
Sue sighed. “Meanwhile, I’ve had three hip replacements, a cybernetic knee, and somebody keeps hijacking my artificial leg with spam messages.”
V’ass blinked. “…You should probably get that checked.”
Sue waved her off. “Bah. If it’s not trying to sell me ‘hot singles in my quadrant,’ I let it be.”After the laughter had dissipated, Sue said “You need my help to get back your ship, don’t you?”. She tapped on her cybernetic leg with a knowing smile. “You can count on me.”
Veranassessee noded. “Then start by filling me in, what should I know?”
Sue leaned in conspiratorially. “Ethan is dead, for one.”
“Death?” Veranassessee was weighing the implications, and completed “… Murder?”
Sue shrugged “As much as it pains me to say, it’s all a bit irrelevant. The AI let it happen, but I doubt she pushed the button. Ethan wasn’t much of a threat to its rule. Makes one wonder why, maybe it computed some cascade of events we don’t yet see. They found ancient DNA on the crime scene, but it’s all a mess of clues, and I must say we’re pretty inept at the whole murder mystery thing. Glad we don’t have a serial killer in our midst, or we would have plenty of composting to do…”
Veranassessee started to pace the room. “Well, if there isn’t anything more relevant, we need to hatch a plan. I suspect all my access got revoked; I’ll need a skeleton key to get in the right places. To regain control over the central AI, and the main deck.”
“Of course, the Marlowes…” Sue had a moment of revelation on her face. “They were the crypto locksmiths… With Ethan now dead, maybe we should pay dear old Ellis a visit.”
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
It was still raining the morning after the impromptu postcard party at the Golden Trowel in the Hungarian village, and for most of the morning nobody was awake to notice. Molly had spent a sleepless night and was the only one awake listening to the pounding rain. Untroubled by the idea of lack of sleep, her confidence bolstered by the new company and not being solely responsible for the child, Molly luxuriated in the leisure to indulge a mental re run of the previous evening.
Finjas bombshell revelation after the postcard game suddenly changed everything. It was not what Molly had expected to hear. In their advanced state of inebriation by that time it was impossible for anyone to consider the ramifications in any sensible manner. A wild and raucous exuberance ensued of the kind that was all but forgotten to all of them, and unknown to Tundra. It was a joy that brought tears to Mollys eyes to see the wonderful time the child was having.
Molly didn’t want to think about it yet. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to have anything to do with it, the ship coming back. Communication with it, yes. The ship coming back? There was so much to consider, so many ways of looking at it. And there was Tundra to think about, she was so innocent of so many things. Was it better that way? Molly wasn’t going to think about that yet. She wanted to make sure she remembered all the postcard stories.
There is no rush.
The postcard Finja had chosen hadn’t struck Molly as the most interesting, not at the time, but later she wondered if there was any connection with her later role as centre stage overly dramatic prophet. What an extraordinary scene that was! The unexpected party was quite enough excitement without all that as well.
Finja’s card was addressed to Miss FP Finly, c/o The Flying Fish Inn somewhere in the outback of Australia, Molly couldn’t recall the name of the town. The handwriting had been hard to decipher, but it appeared to be a message from “forever your obedient servant xxx” informing her of a Dustsceawung convention in Tasmania. As nobody had any idea what a Dustsceawung conference was, and Finja declined to elaborate with a story or anecdote, the attention moved on to the next card. Molly remembered the time many years ago when everyone would have picked up their gadgets to find out what it meant. As it was now, it remained an unimportant and trifling mystery, perhaps something to wonder about later.
Why did Finja choose that card, and then decline to explain why she chose it? Who was Finly? Why did The Flying Fish Inn seem vaguely familiar to Molly?
I’m sure I’ve seen a postcard from there before. Maybe Ellis had one in his collection.
Yes, that must be it.
Mikhail’s story had been interesting. Molly was struggling to remember all the names. He’d mentioned his Uncle Grishenka, and a cousin Zhana, and a couple called Boris and Elvira with a mushroom farm. The best part was about the snow that the reindeer peed on. Molly had read about that many years ago, but was never entirely sure if it was true or not. Mickhail assured them all that it was indeed true, and many a wild party they’d had in the cold dark winters, and proceeded to share numerous funny anecdotes.
“We all had such strange ideas about Russia back then,” Molly had said. Many of the others murmured agreement, but Jian, a man of few words, merely looked up, raised an eyebrow, and looked down at his postcard again. “Russia was the big bad bogeyman for most of our lives. And in the end, we were our own worst enemies.”
“And by the time we realised, it was too late,” added Petro.
In an effort to revive the party spirit from the descent into depressing memories, Tala suggested they move on to the next postcard, which was Vera’s.
“I know the Tower of London better than any of you would believe,” Vera announced with a smug grin. Mikhail rolled his eyes and downed a large swig of vodka. “My 12th great grandfather was employed in the household of Thomas Cromwell himself. He was the man in charge of postcards to the future.” She paused for greater effect. In the absence of the excited interest she had expected, she continued. “So you can see how exciting it is for me to have a postcard as a prompt.” This further explanation was met with blank stares. Recklessly, Vera added, “I bet you didn’t know that Thomas Cromwell was a time traveller, did you? Oh yes!” she continued, although nobody had responded, “He became involved with a coven of witches in Ireland. Would you believe it!”
“No,” said Mikhail. “I probably wouldn’t.”
“I believe you, Vera,” piped up Tundra, entranced, “Will you tell me all about that later?”
Tundra’s interjection gave Tala the excuse she needed to move on to the next postcard. Mikhail and Vera has always been at loggerheads, and fueled with the unaccustomed alcohol, it was in danger of escalating quickly. “Next postcard!” she announced.
Everyone started banging on the tables shouting, “Next postcard! Next postcard!” Luka and Lev topped up everyone’s glasses.
Molly’s postcard was next.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Helix 25 – Onto The Second Murder Investigation
Very strangely, it was a lot less chaotic in the Lower Decks, while the Upper Decks were having a rave of a time with the moon and mood swings.
Evie stood over the diagnostics table, arms crossed, watching as Luca Stroud ran his scanner over Mandrake’s cybernetic collar. The black cat lay still, one eye flickering intermittently as though stuck between waking and shutdown. The deep gash along his side had been patched—Romualdo had insisted on carrying Mandrake to the lab himself, mumbling about how the garden’s automated sprinklers were acting up, and how Luca was the only one he trusted to fix delicate mechanisms.It had been a casual remark, but Evie had caught the subtext. Mandrake was no ordinary ship cat. He had always been tied to something larger.
“Neurolink’s still scrambled,” Luca muttered, adjusting his scanner. “Damage isn’t terminal, but whatever happened, someone tried to wipe part of his memory.”
Riven, arms crossed beside Evie, scoffed. “Why the hell would someone try to assassinate a cat?”
Luca didn’t answer, but the data flickering on his screen spoke for itself. The attack had been precise. Not just a careless act of cruelty, nor an accident in the low-gravity sector.
Mandrake had been targeted.
Evie exhaled sharply. “Can you fix him?”
Luca shrugged. “Depends. The physical repairs are easy enough—fractured neural pathways, fried circuits—but whatever was erased? That’s another story.” He tilted his head. “Thing is… someone didn’t just try to kill Mandrake. They tried to make him forget.”
Riven’s frown deepened. “Forget what?”
Silence settled between them.
Evie reached out, brushing a gloved hand over Mandrake’s sleek black fur. “We need to figure out what he knew.”
It had been Trevor Pee—TP himself—who first mentioned it, entirely offhand, as they reviewed logs of the last places Mandrake had been seen.
“He wasn’t always on his own, you know,” TP had said, twirling his holographic cane.
Evie and Riven both turned to him.
“What do you mean on his own, I though he was Seren’s?”
“Oh, no. He just had a liking for her, but he’d belonged to someone else long before.” TP’s mustache twitched. “I accessed some archival records during Mandrake’s diagnostic.”
Evie blinked. “Mmm, are you going to make me ask? What did you find?”
“Indeed,” TP offered cheerfully. “Before Mandrake wandered freely through the gardens and ventilation shafts, becoming a ship legend, he belonged—as much as a cat can belong—to someone.”
Riven’s expression darkened. “Who?! Will you just tell?!”
TP flicked his wrist, bringing up an old personnel file, heavily redacted. But one name flickered beneath the blurred-out sections.
Dr. Elias Arorangi.
Evie felt her heartbeat quicken. The name echoed faintly familiar, not directly connected to her, but she’d seen it once or twice before, buried in obscure references. “Dr. Arorangi—wait, he was part of the original Helix design team, wasn’t he?”
TP nodded gravely. “Precisely. A lead systems architect, responsible for designing key protocols for the AI integration—among them, some critical frameworks that evolved into Synthia’s consciousness. Disappeared without a trace shortly after Synthia’s initial activation.”
Riven straightened. “Disappeared? Do you think—”
TP raised a finger to silence him. “I don’t speculate, but here’s the interesting part: Dr. Arorangi had extensive, classified knowledge of Helix 25’s core systems. If Mandrake was his companion at that crucial time, it’s conceivable that Arorangi trusted something to him—a memory, a code fragment, perhaps even a safeguard.”
Evie’s mouth went dry.
An architect of Helix 25, missing under suspicious circumstances, leaving behind a cat whose cybernetics were more sophisticated than any pet implant she’d ever seen?
Evie looked down at Mandrake, whose damaged neural links were still flickering faintly. Someone had wanted Mandrake silenced and forgotten.
Later, in the dim light of his workshop, Luca Stroud worked in silence, carefully re-aligning the cat’s neural implants. Romualdo sat nearby, arms crossed, watching with the nervous tension of a man who had just smuggled a ferret into a rat convention.
“He’s tough,” Luca muttered, tightening a connection. “More durable than most of the junk I have to fix.”
Romualdo huffed. “He better be.”
A flicker of light pulsed through Mandrake’s collar. His single good eye opened, pupils dilating as his systems realigned.
Then, groggily, he muttered, “I hate this ship.”
Romualdo let out a relieved chuckle. “Yeah, yeah. Welcome back, Mandrake.”
Luca wiped his hands. “He’s still scrambled, but he’s functional. Just… don’t expect him to remember everything.”
Mandrake groaned, stretching his mechanical paw. “I remember… needing a drink.”
Romualdo smirked. “That’s a good sign, yeah?”
Luca hesitated before looking at Evie. “Whatever was wiped—it’s gone. But if he starts remembering things in fragments… we need to pay attention.”
Evie nodded. “Oh, we definitely will.”
Mandrake rolled onto his feet, shaking out his fur, a small but defiant flick of his cybernetic tail.
“I have the strangest feeling,” he muttered, “that someone is still looking for me.”
Evie exhaled.
For now, with his memory gone, he would probably be safe, but a killer was in their midst and they needed to find out the truth, and fast.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Helix 25 – The Lexican Quarters – Anuí’s Chambers
Anuí Naskó had been many things in their life—historian, philosopher, linguist, nuisance. But a father? No. No, that was entirely new.
And yet, here they were, rocking a very tiny, very loud creature wrapped in Lexican ceremonial cloth, embroidered with the full unpronounceable name bestowed upon it just moments ago: Hšyra-Mak-Talún i Ešvar—”He Who Cries the Arrival of the Infinite Spiral.”
The baby did, indeed, cry.
“Why do you scream at me?” Anuí muttered, swaying slightly, more in a daze than any real instinct to soothe. “I did not birth you. I did not know you existed until three hours ago. And yet, you are here, squalling, because your other father and your mother have decided to fulfill the Prophecy of the Spiral Throne.”
The Prophecy. The one that spoke of the moment the world would collapse and the Lexicans would ascend. The one nobody took seriously. Until now.
Zoya Kade, sitting across from them, watched with narrowed, calculating eyes. “And what exactly does that entail? This Lexican Dynasty?”
Anuí sighed, looking down at the writhing child who was trying to suck on their sleeves, still stained with the remnants of the protein paste they had spent the better part of the morning brewing. The Atrium’s walls needed to be prepared, after all—Kio’ath could not write the sigils without the proper medium. And as the cycles dictated, the medium must be crafted, fermented, and blessed by the hand of one who walks between identities. It had been a tedious, smelly process, but Anuí had endured worse in the name of preservation.
“Patterns repeat, cycles fold inward.” “Patterns repeat, cycles fold inward. The old texts speak of it, the words carved into the silent bones of forgotten tongues. This, Zoya, is no mere madness. This is the resurgence of what was foretold. A dynasty cannot exist without succession, and history does not move without inheritors. They believe they are ensuring the inevitability of their rise. And they might not be wrong.”
They adjusted their grip on the child, murmuring a phrase in a language so old it barely survived in the archives. “Tz’uran velth ka’an, the root that binds to the branch, the branch that binds to the sky. Our truths do not stand alone.”
The baby flailed, screaming louder. “Yes, yes, you are the heir,” Anuí murmured, bouncing it with more confidence. “Your lineage has been declared, your burden assigned. Accept it and be silent.” “Well, apparently it requires me to be a single parent while they go forth and multiply, securing ‘heirs to the truth.’ A dynasty is no good without an heir and a spare, you see.”
The baby flailed, screaming even louder. “Yes, yes, you are the heir,” Anuí murmured with a hint of irritation, bouncing the baby awkwardly. “You have been declared. Please, cease wailing now.”
Zoya exhaled through her nose, somewhere between disbelief and mild amusement. “And in the middle of all this divine nonsense, the Lexicans have chosen to back me?”
Anuí arched a delicate brow, shifting the baby to one arm with newfound ease. “Of course. The truth-seeker is foretold. The woman who speaks with voices of the past. We have our empire; you are our harbinger.”
Zoya’s lips twitched. “Your empire consists of thirty-eight highly unstable academics and a baby.”
“Thirty-nine. Kio’ath returned from exile yesterday,” Anuí corrected. “They claim the moons have been whispering.”
“Ah. Of course they have.”
Zoya fell silent, fingers tracing the worn etchings of her chair’s armrest. The ship’s hum pressed into her bones, the weight of something stirring in her mind, something old, something waiting.
Anuí’s gaze sharpened, the edges of their thoughts aligning like an ancient lexicon unfurling in front of them. “And now you are hearing it, aren’t you? The echoes of something that was always there. The syllables of the past, reshaped by new tongues, waiting for recognition. The Lexican texts spoke of a fracture in the line, a leader divided, a bridge yet to be found.”
They took a slow breath, fingers tightening over the child’s swaddled form. “The prophecy is not a single moment, Zoya. It is layers upon layers, intersecting at the point where chaos demands order. Where the unseen hand corrects its own forgetting. This is why they back you. Not because you seek the truth, but because you are the conduit through which it must pass.”
Zoya’s breath shallowed. A warmth curled in her chest, not of her own making. Her fingers twitched as if something unseen traced over them, urging her forward. The air around her thickened, charged.
She knew this feeling.
Her head tipped back, and when she spoke, it was not entirely her own voice.
“The past rises in bloodlines and memory,” she intoned, eyes unfocused, gaze burning through Anuí. “The lost sibling walks beneath the ice. The leader sleeps, but he must awaken, for the Spiral Throne cannot stand alone.”
Anuí’s pulse skipped. “Zoya—”
The baby let out a startled hiccup.
But Zoya did not stop.
“The essence calls, older than names, older than the cycle. I am Achaia-Vor, the Echo of Sundered Lineage. The Lost, The Twin, The Nameless Seed. The Spiral cannot turn without its axis. Awaken Victor Holt. He is the lock. You are the key. The path is drawn.
“The cycle bends but does not break. Across the void, the lost ones linger, their voices unheard, their blood unclaimed. The Link must be found. The Speaker walks unknowingly, divided across two worlds. The bridge between past and present, between silence and song. The Marlowe thread is cut, yet the weave remains. To see, you must seek the mirrored souls. To open the path, the twins must speak.”
Achaia-Vor. The name vibrated through the air, curling through the folds of Anuí’s mind like a forgotten melody.
Zoya’s eyes rolled back, body jerking as if caught between two timelines, two truths. She let out a breathless whisper, almost longing.
“Victor, my love. He is waiting for me. I must bring him back.”
Anuí cradled the baby closer, and for the first time, they saw the prophecy not as doctrine but as inevitability. The patterns were aligning—the cut thread of the Marlowes, the mirrored souls, the bridge that must be found.
“It is always the same,” they murmured, almost to themselves. “An axis must be turned, a voice must rise. We have seen this before, written in languages long burned to dust. The same myth, the same cycle, only the names change.”
They met Zoya’s gaze, the air between them thick with the weight of knowing. “And now, we must find the Speaker. Before another voice is silenced.”
“Well,” they muttered, exhaling slowly. “This just got significantly more complicated.”
The baby cooed.
Zoya Kade smiled.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Helix 25 – Crusades in the Cruise & Unexpected Archives
Evie hadn’t planned to visit Seren Vega again so soon, but when Mandrake slinked into her quarters and sat squarely on her console, swishing his tail with intent, she took it as a sign.
“Alright, you smug little AI-assisted furball,” she muttered, rising from her chair. “What’s so urgent?”
Mandrake stretched leisurely, then padded toward the door, tail flicking. Evie sighed, grabbed her datapad, and followed.
He led her straight to Seren’s quarters—no surprise there. The dimly lit space was as chaotic as ever, layers of old records, scattered datapads, and bound volumes stacked in precarious towers. Seren barely looked up as Evie entered, used to these unannounced visits.
“Tell the cat to stop knocking over my books,” she said dryly. “It never ever listens.”
“Well it’s a cat, isn’t it?” Evie replied. “And he seems to have an agenda.”
Mandrake leaped onto one of the shelves, knocking loose a tattered, old-fashioned book. It thudded onto the floor, flipping open near Evie’s feet. She crouched, brushing dust from the cover. Blood and Oaths: A Romance of the Crusades by Liz Tattler.
She glanced at Seren. “Tattler again?”
Seren shrugged. “Romualdo must have left it here. He hoards her books like sacred texts.”
Evie turned the pages, pausing at an unusual passage. The prose was different—less florid than Liz’s usual ramblings, more… restrained.
A fragment of text had been underlined, a single note scribbled in the margin: Not fiction.
Evie found a spot where she could sit on the floor, and started to read eagerly.
“Blood and Oaths: A Romance of the Crusades — Chapter XII
Sidon, 1157 AD.Brother Edric knelt within the dim sanctuary, the cold stone pressing into his bones. The candlelight flickered across the vaulted ceilings, painting ghosts upon the walls. The voices of his ancestors whispered within him, their memories not his own, yet undeniable. He knew the placement of every fortification before his enemies built them. He spoke languages he had never learned.
He could not recall the first time it happened, only that it had begun after his initiation into the Order—after the ritual, the fasting, the bloodletting beneath the broken moon. The last one, probably folklore, but effective.
It came as a gift.
It was a curse.
His brothers called it divine providence. He called it a drowning. Each time he drew upon it, his sense of self blurred. His grandfather’s memories bled into his own, his thoughts weighted by decisions made a lifetime ago.
And now, as he rose, he knew with certainty that their mission to reclaim the stronghold would fail. He had seen it through the eyes of his ancestor, the soldier who stood at these gates seventy years prior.
‘You know things no man should know,’ his superior whispered that night. ‘Be cautious, Brother Edric, for knowledge begets temptation.’
And Edric knew, too, the greatest temptation was not power.
It was forgetting which thoughts were his own.
Which life was his own.
He had vowed to bear this burden alone. His order demanded celibacy, for the sealed secrets of State must never pass beyond those trained to wield it.
But Edric had broken that vow.
Somewhere, beyond these walls, there was a child who bore his blood. And if blood held memory…
He did not finish the thought. He could not bear to.”
Evie exhaled, staring at the page. “This isn’t just Tattler’s usual nonsense, is it?”
Seren shook her head distractedly.
“It reads like a first-hand account—filtered through Liz’s dramatics, of course. But the details…” She tapped the underlined section. “Someone wanted this remembered.”
Mandrake, still perched smugly above them, let out a satisfied mrrrow.
Evie sat back, a seed of realization sprouting in her mind. “If this was real, and if this technique survived somehow…”
Mandrake finished the thought for her. “Then Amara’s theory isn’t theory at all.”
Evie ran a hand through her hair, glancing at the cat than at Evie. “I hate it when Mandrake’s right.”
“Well what’s a witch without her cat, isn’t it?” Seren replied with a smile.
Mandrake only flicked his tail, his work here done.
In reply to: Helix Mysteries – Inside the Case
Some pictures selections
Evie and TP Investigating the Drying Machine Crime Scene
A cinematic sci-fi mini-scene aboard the vast and luxurious Helix 25. In the industrial depths of the ship, a futuristic drying machine hums ominously, crime scene tape lazily flickering in artificial gravity. Evie, a sharp-eyed investigator in a sleek yet practical uniform, stands with arms crossed, listening intently. Beside her, a translucent, retro-stylized holographic detective—Trevor Pee Marshall (TP)—adjusts his tiny mustache with a flourish, pointing dramatically at the drying machine with his cane. The air is thick with mystery, the ship’s high-tech environment reflecting off Evie’s determined face while TP’s flickering presence adds an almost comedic contrast. A perfect blend of noir and high-tech detective intrigue.
Riven Holt and Zoya Kade Confronting Each Other in a Dimly Lit Corridor
A dramatic, cinematic sci-fi scene aboard the vast and luxurious Helix 25. Riven Holt, a disciplined young officer with sharp features, stands in a high-tech corridor, his arms crossed, jaw tense—exuding authority and restraint. Opposite him, Zoya Kade, a sharp-eyed, wiry 83-year-old scientist-prophet, leans slightly forward, her mismatched layered robes adorned with tiny artifacts—beads, old circuits, and a fragment of a key. Her silver-white braid gleams under the soft emergency lighting, her piercing gaze challenging him. The corridor hums with unseen energy, a subtle red glow from a “restricted access” sign casting elongated shadows. Their confrontation is palpable—a struggle between order and untamed knowledge, hierarchy and rebellion. In the background, the walls of Helix 25 curve sleekly, high-tech yet strangely claustrophobic, reinforcing the ship’s ever-present watchfulness.
Romualdo, the Gardener, Among the Bioluminescent Plants
A richly detailed sci-fi portrait of Romualdo, the ship’s gardener, standing amidst the vibrant greenery of the Jardenery. He is a rugged yet gentle figure, dressed in a simple work jumpsuit with soil-streaked hands, a leaf-tipped stem tucked behind his ear like a cigarette. His eyes scan an old, well-worn book—one of Liz Tattler’s novels—that Dr. Amara Voss gave him for his collection. The glowing plants cast an ethereal blue-green light over him, creating an atmosphere both peaceful and mysterious. In the background, the towering vines and suspended hydroponic trays hint at the ship’s careful balance between survival and serenity.
Finja and Finkley – A Telepathic Parallel Across Space
A surreal, cinematic sci-fi composition split into two mirrored halves, reflecting a mysterious connection across vast distances. On one side, Finja, a wiry, intense woman with an almost obsessive neatness, walks through the overgrown ruins of post-apocalyptic Earth, her expression distant as she “listens” to unseen voices. Dust lingers in the air, catching the golden morning light, and she mutters to herself about cleanliness. In her reflection, on the other side of the image, is Finkley, a no-nonsense crew member aboard the gleaming, futuristic halls of Helix 25. She stands with hands on her hips, barking orders at small cleaning bots as they maintain the ship’s pristine corridors. The lighting is cold and artificial, sterile in contrast to the dust-filled Earth. Yet, both women share a strange symmetry—gesturing in unison as if unknowingly mirroring one another across time and space. A faint, ghostly thread of light suggests their telepathic bond, making the impossible feel eerily real.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Helix 25 – Poop Deck – The Jardenery
Evie stepped through the entrance of the Jardenery, and immediately, the sterile hum of Helix 25’s corridors faded into a world of green. Of all the spotless clean places on the ship, it was the only where Finkley’s bots tolerated the scent of damp earth. A soft rustle of hydroponic leaves shifting under artificial sunlight made the place an ecosystem within an ecosystem, designed to nourrish both body and mind.
Yet, for all its cultivated serenity, today it was a crime scene. The Drying Machine was connected to the Jardenery and the Granary, designed to efficiently extract precious moisture for recycling, while preserving the produce.
Riven Holt, walking beside her, didn’t share her reverence. “I don’t see why this place is relevant,” he muttered, glancing around at the towering bioluminescent vines spiraling up trellises. “The body was found in the drying machine, not in a vegetable patch.”
Evie ignored him, striding toward the far corner where Amara Voss was hunched over a sleek terminal, frowning at a glowing screen. The renowned geneticist barely noticed their approach, her fingers flicking through analysis results faster than human eyes could process.
A flicker of light.
“Ah-ha!” TP materialized beside Evie, adjusting his holographic lapels. “Madame Voss, I must say, your domain is quite the delightful contrast to our usual haunts of murder and mystery.” He twitched his mustache. “Alas, I suspect you are not admiring the flora?”
Amara exhaled sharply, rubbing her temples, not at all surprised by the holographic intrusion. She was Evie’s godmother, and had grown used to her experiments.
“No, indeed. I’m admiring this.” She turned the screen toward them.
The DNA profile glowed in crisp lines of data, revealing a sequence highlighted in red.
Evie frowned. “What are we looking at?”
Amara pinched the bridge of her nose. “A genetic anomaly.”
Riven crossed his arms. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
Amara gave him a sharp look but turned back to the display. “The sample we found at the crime scene—blood residue on the drying machine and some traces on the granary floor—matches an ancient DNA profile from my research database. A perfect match.”
Evie felt a prickle of unease. “Ancient? What do you mean? From the 2000s?”
Amara chuckled, then nodded grimly. “No, ancient as in Medieval ancient. Specifically, Crusader DNA, from the Levant. A profile we mapped from preserved remains centuries ago.”
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, Riven scoffed. “That’s impossible.”
TP hummed thoughtfully, twirling his cane. “Impossible, yet indisputable. A most delightful contradiction.”
Evie’s mind raced. “Could the database be corrupted?”
Amara shook her head. “I checked. The sequencing is clean. This isn’t an error. This DNA was present at the crime scene.” She hesitated, then added, “The thing is…” she paused before considering to continue. They were all hanging on her every word, waiting for what she would say next.
Amara continued “I once theorized that it might be possible to reawaken dormant ancestral DNA embedded in human cells. If the right triggers were applied, someone could manifest genetic markers—traits, even memories—from long-dead ancestors. Awakening old skills, getting access to long lost secrets of states…”
Riven looked at her as if she’d grown a second head. “You’re saying someone on Helix 25 might have… transformed into a medieval Crusader?”
Amara exhaled. “I’m saying I don’t know. But either someone aboard has a genetic profile that shouldn’t exist, or someone created it.”
TP’s mustache twitched. “Ah! A puzzle worthy of my finest deductive faculties. To find the source, we must trace back the lineage! And perhaps a… witness.”
Evie turned toward Amara. “Did Herbert ever come here?”
Before Amara could answer, a voice cut through the foliage.
“Herbert?”
They turned to find Romualdo, the Jardenery’s caretaker, standing near a towering fruit-bearing vine, his arms folded, a leaf-tipped stem tucked behind his ear like a cigarette. He was a broad-shouldered man with sun-weathered skin, dressed in a simple coverall, his presence almost too casual for someone surrounded by murder investigators.
Romualdo scratched his chin. “Yeah, he used to come around. Not for the plants, though. He wasn’t the gardening type.”
Evie stepped closer. “What did he want?”
Romualdo shrugged. “Questions, mostly. Liked to chat about history. Said he was looking for something old. Always wanted to know about heritage, bloodlines, forgotten things.” He shook his head. “Didn’t make much sense to me. But then again, I like practical things. Things that grow.”
Amara blushed, quickly catching herself. “Did he ever mention anything… specific? Like a name?”
Romualdo thought for a moment, then grinned. “Oh yeah. He asked about the Crusades.”
Evie stiffened. TP let out an appreciative hum.
“Fascinating,” TP mused. “Our dearly departed Herbert was not merely a victim, but perhaps a seeker of truths unknown. And, as any good mystery dictates, seekers who get too close often find themselves…” He tipped his hat. “Extinguished.”
Riven scowled. “That’s a bit dramatic.”
Romualdo snorted. “Sounds about right, though.” He picked up a tattered book from his workbench and waved it. “I lend out my books. Got myself the only complete collection of works of Liz Tattler in the whole ship. Doc Amara’s helping me with the reading. Before I could read, I only liked the covers, they were so romantic and intriguing, but now I can read most of them on my own.” Noticing he was making the Doctor uncomfortable, he switched back to the topic. “So yes, Herbert knew I was collector of books and he borrowed this one a few weeks ago. Kept coming back with more questions after reading it.”
Evie took the book and glanced at the cover. The Blood of the Past: Genetic Echoes Through History by Dr. Amara Voss.
She turned to Amara. “You wrote this?”
Amara stared at the book, her expression darkening. “A long time ago. Before I realized some theories should stay theories.”
Evie closed the book. “Looks like someone didn’t agree.”
Romualdo wiped his hands on his coveralls. “Well, I hope you figure it out soon. Hate to think the plants are breathing in murder residue.”
TP sighed dramatically. “Ah, the tragedy of contaminated air! Shall I alert the sanitation team?”
Riven rolled his eyes. “Let’s go.”
As they walked away, Evie’s grip tightened around the book. The deeper they dug, the stranger this murder became.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
At first, no one noticed.
They were still speculating about the truck—where it had come from, where it might be going, whether following it was a brilliant idea or a spectacularly bad one.
And, after all, Finja was always muttering about something. Dust, filth, things not put back where they belonged.
But then her voice rose till she was all but shouting.
“Of course, they’re all savages. I don’t know how I put up with them! Honestly, I AM AT MY WIT’S END!”
“Finja?” Anya called. “Are you okay?”
Finja strode on, intent on her diatribe.
“No, I don’t know where they are going,” she yelled. “If I knew that, I probably wouldn’t be here, would I?”
Tala hurried to catch up and stepped in front of Finja, blocking her path. “Finja, are you okay? Who are you talking to?”
Finja sighed loudly; it was tedious. People were so obsessed with explanations.
“If you must know,” she said, “I am conversing with my Auntie Finnley in Australia.”
“Ooooh!” Vera’s eyes lit up. “ A relative!”
Yulia, walking between Luka and Lev, giggled. She adored the twins and couldn’t decide which one she liked more. They were both so tall and handsome. Others found it hard to tell them apart but she always could. It was rumoured that at birth they had been joined at the hip.
“Finja is totally bonkers,” she declared cheerfully and the twins smiled in unison.
“I will have you know I’m not bonkers.” Finja felt deeply offended and misunderstood. “I have been communicating with Auntie Finnley since childhood. She was highly influential in my formative years.”
“How so?” asked Tala.
“Few people appreciate the importance of hygiene like my Auntie Finnley. She works as a cleaner at the Flying Fish Inn in the Australian Outback. Lovely establishment I gather. But terrible dust.”
Vera nodded sagely. “A sensible place to survive the apocalypse.”
“Exactly.” Finja rewarded her with a tight smile.
Jian raised an eyebrow. “And she’s alive? Your aunt?”
“I don’t converse with ghosts!” Finja waved a hand dismissively. “They all survived there thanks to the bravery of Aunt Finnley. Had to disinfect the whole inn, mind you. Said it was an absolute nightmare.” Finja shuddered at the thought of it.
Gregor snorted. “You’re telling us you have a telepathic connection with your aunt in Australia… and she is also mostly concerned about … hygiene?”
Finja glared at him. “Standards must be maintained,” she admonished. “Even after the end of the world.”
“Do you talk to anyone else?” Tala asked. “Or is it just your aunt?”
Finja regarded Tala through slitted eyes. “I’m also talking to Finkley.”
“Where is this Finkley, dear?” asked Anja gently. “Also at the outback?”
“OMG,” Finja said. “Can you imagine those two together?” She cackled at the thought, then pulled herself together. “No. Finkley is on the Helix 25. Practically runs it by all accounts. But also keeps it spotless, of course.”
“Helix 25? The spaceship?” Mikhail asked, suddenly interested. He exchanged glances with Tala who shrugged helplessly.
Yulia laughed. “She’s definitely mad!”
“So what? Aren’t we all,” said Petro.
Molly, who had been quietly watching with Tundra, finally spoke. “And you say they are both… cleaners?” She wasn’t sure what to make of this group. She wondered if it would be better to continue on alone with Tundra? She didn’t want to put the child in any danger.
“Cleanliness runs in the family,” Finja said. “Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I was mid-conversation.”
She closed her eyes, concentrating. The group watched with interest as her lips moved silently, her brow furrowed in deep thought.
Then, suddenly, she opened her eyes and threw her hands in the air.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she muttered. “Finkley is complaining about dust floating in low gravity. Finnley is complaining about the family not taking their boots off at the door. What a pair of whingers. At least I didn’t inherit THAT.”
She sniffed, adjusted her backpack, and walked on.
The others stood there for a moment, letting it all sink in.
Gregor clapped his hands together. “That was the most wonderfully insane thing I’ve heard since the world ended.”
Mikhail sighed. “So, we are following the direction of the truck?”
Anya nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on Finja. The stress is getting to her, and we have no meds if it escalates.”
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
The truck disappeared from view as it descended into a valley. They waited for it to reappear over the hill, but they waited in vain. The truck had disappeared.
“It must have been a mirage,” said Vera. “There was no truck, it was wishful thinking.”
“I don’t think any of us were hoping to see a truck this morning, Vera,” Anya replied, “Nobody expected to see a truck, and yet we all saw one.”
“You don’t know much about mirages then, do you. I saw a fata morgana once and so did everyone else on the beach, we weren’t all expecting to see a floating city that day either.”
“Nobody needs to hear about that now,” Mikhail interrupted, “We need to walk over to where we saw it and look for the tyre tracks.”
Tundra moved over to stand next to Vera and impulsively grabbed her arm. “Can you tell me about the fata morgana later? I want to see one too.”
Vera smiled gratefully at the child and patted her shoulder. “I’ll tell you all about it, and lots of other stories if you like. And you can tell me all your stories, and all about your family. Is that your real granny?”
“Great gran actually and she’s as real as any of you are,” Tundra replied, not understanding the question.
“Mikhail is right,” said Jian. Everyone turned to look at young Chinese man who rarely voiced an opinion. “We need to find out what other equipment they have. Where they came from, and where they’re going.”
Anya clapped her hands together loudly. “Right then, we’re all agreed. Gather everything up and let’s go. Mikhail, lead the way!”
Petro made a harrumphing noise and mumbled something about nobody asking him what he thought about traipsing all over the coutryside, but he slung his bag over his shoulder and followed. What else was he to do?
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Upper Decks – The Pilot’s Seat (Sort Of)
Kai Nova reclined in his chair, boots propped against the console, arms folded behind his head. The cockpit hummed with the musical blipping of automation. Every sleek interface, polished to perfection by the cleaning robots under Finkley’s command, gleamed in a lulling self-sustaining loop—self-repairing, self-correcting, self-determining.
And that meant there wasn’t much left for him to do.
Once, piloting meant piloting. Gripping the yoke, feeling the weight of the ship respond, aligning a course by instinct and skill. Now? It was all handled before he even thought to lift a finger. Every slight course adjustment, to the smallest stabilizing thrust were effortlessly preempted by Synthia’s vast, all-knowing “intelligence”. She anticipated drift before it even started, corrected trajectory before a human could perceive the error.
Kai was a pilot in name only.
A soft chime. Then, the clipped, clinical voice of Cadet Taygeta:
“You’re slacking off again.”
Kai cracked one eye open, groaning. “Good morning, buzzkill.”
She stood rigid at the entryway, arms crossed, datapad in hand. Young, brilliant, and utterly incapable of normal human warmth. Her uniform was pristine—always pristine—with a regulation-perfect collar that probably had never been out of place in their entire life.
“Synthia calculates you’ve spent 76% of your shifts in a reclining position,” the Cadet noted. “Which, statistically, makes you more of a chair than a pilot.”
Kai smirked. “And yet, here I am, still getting credits.”
The Cadet face had changed subtly ; she exhaled sharply. “I don’t understand why they keep you here. It’s inefficient.”
Kai swung his legs down and stretched. “They keep me around for when things go wrong. Machines are great at running the show—until something unexpected happens. Then they come crawling back to good ol’ human instinct.”
“Unexpected like what? Absinthe Pirates?” The Cadet smirked, but Kai said nothing.
She narrowed their eyes, her voice firm but wavering. “Things aren’t supposed to go wrong.”
Kai chuckled. “You must be new to space, Taygeta.”
He gestured toward the vast, star-speckled abyss beyond the viewport. Helix 25 cruised effortlessly through the void, a floating city locked in perfect motion. But perfection was a lie. He could feel it.
There were some things off. At the top of his head, one took precedence.
Fuel — it wasn’t infinite, and despite Synthia’s unwavering quantum computing, he knew it was a problem no one liked talking about. The ship wasn’t meant for this—for an endless voyage into the unknown. It was meant to return.
But that wasn’t happening.
He leaned forward, flipping a display open. “Let’s play a game, Cadet. Humor me.” He tapped a few keys, pulling up Helix 25’s projected trajectory. “What happens if we shift course by, say… two degrees?”
The Cadet scoffed. “That would be reckless. At our current velocity, even a fractional deviation—”
“Just humor me.”
After a pause, she exhaled sharply and ran the numbers. A simulation appeared: a slight two-degree shift, a ripple effect across the ship’s calculated path.
And then—
Everything went to hell.
The screen flickered red.
Projected drift. Fuel expenditure spike. The trajectory extending outward into nowhere.
The Cadet’s posture stiffened. “That can’t be right.”
“Oh, but it is,” Kai said, leaning back with a knowing grin. “One little adjustment, and we slingshot into deep space with no way back.”
The Cadet’s eyes flicked to the screen, then back to Kai. “Why would you test that?”
Kai drummed his fingers on the console. “Because I don’t trust a system that’s been in control for decades without oversight.”
A soft chime.
Synthia’s voice slid into the cockpit, smooth and impassive.
“Pilot Nova. Unnecessary simulations disrupt workflow efficiency.”
Kai’s jaw tensed. “Yeah? And what happens if a real course correction is needed?”
“All adjustments are accounted for.”
Kai and the Cadet exchanged a look.
Synthia always had an answer. Always knew more than she said.
He tapped the screen again, running a deeper scan. The ship’s fuel usage log. Projected refueling points.
All were blank.
Kai’s gut twisted. “You know, for a ship that’s supposed to be self-sustaining, we sure don’t have a lot of refueling options.”
The Cadet stiffened. “We… don’t refuel?”
Kai’s eyes didn’t leave the screen. “Not unless Synthia finds us a way.”
Silence.
Then, the Cadet swallowed. For the first time, a flicker of something almost human in her expression.
Uncertainty.
Kai sighed, pushing back from the console. “Welcome to the real job, kid.”
Because the truth was simple.
They weren’t driving this ship.
The ship was driving them.
And it all started when all hell broke lose on Earth, decades back, and when the ships of refugees caught up with the Helix 25 on its way back to Earth. One of those ships, his dad had told him, took over management, made it turn around for a new mission, “upgraded” it with Synthia, and with the new order…
The ship was driving them, and there was no sign of a ghost beyond the machine.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
The corridor outside Mr. Herbert’s suite was pristine, polished white and gold, designed to impress, like most of the ship. Soft recessed lighting reflected off gilded fixtures and delicate, unnecessary embellishments.
It was all Riven had ever known.
His grandfather, Victor Holt, now in cryo sleep, had been among the paying elite, those who had boarded Helix 25, expecting a decadent, interstellar retreat. Riven, however had not been one of them. He had been two years old when Earth fell, sent with his aunt Seren Vega on the last shuttle to ever reach the ship, crammed in with refugees who had fought for a place among the stars. His father had stayed behind, to look for his mother.
Whatever had happened after that—the chaos, the desperation, the cataclysm that had forced this ship to become one of humanity’s last refuges—Riven had no memory of it. He only knew what he had been told. And, like everything else on Helix 25, history depended on who was telling it.
For the first time in his life, someone had been murdered inside this floating palace of glass and gold. And Riven, inspired by his grandfather’s legacy and the immense collection of murder stories and mysteries in the ship’s database, expected to keep things under control.
He stood straight in front of the suite’s sealed sliding door, arms crossed on a sleek uniform that belonged to Victor Holt. He was blocking entry with the full height of his young authority. As if standing there could stop the chaos from seeping in.
A holographic Do Not Enter warning scrolled diagonally across the door in Effin Muck’s signature font—because even crimes on this ship came branded.
People hovered in the corridor, coming and going. Most were just curious, drawn by the sheer absurdity of a murder happening here.
Riven scanned their faces, his muscles coiled with tension. Everyone was a potential suspect. Even the ones who usually didn’t care about ship politics.
Because on Helix 25, death wasn’t supposed to happen. Not anymore.
Someone broke away from the crowd and tried to push past him.
“You’re wasting time. Young man.”
Zoya Kade. Half scientist, half mad Prophet, all irritation. Her gold-green eyes bore into him, sharp beneath the deep lines of her face. Her mismatched layered robes shifting as she moved. Riven had no difficulty keeping the tall and wiry 83 years old woman at a distance.
Her silver-white braid was woven with tiny artifacts—bits of old circuits, beads, a fragment of a key that probably didn’t open anything anymore. A collector of lost things. But not just trinkets—stories, knowledge, genetic whispers of the past. And now, she wanted access to this room like it was another artifact to be uncovered.
“No one is going in.” Riven said slowly, “until we finish securing the area.”
Zoya exhaled sharply, turning her head toward Evie, who had just emerged from the crowd, tablet in hand, TP flickering at her side.
“Evie, tell him.”
Evie did not look pleased to be associated with the old woman. “Riven, we need access to his room. I just need…”
Riven hesitated.
Not for long, barely a second, but long enough for someone to notice. And of course, it was Anuí Naskó.
They had been waiting, standing slightly apart from the others, their tall, androgynous frame wrapped in the deep-colored robes of the Lexicans, fingers lightly tapping the surface of their handheld lexicon. Observing. Listening. Their presence was a constant challenge. When Zoya collected knowledge like artifacts, Anuí broke it apart, reshaped it. To them, history was a wound still open, and it was the Lexicans duty to rewrite the truth that had been stolen.
“Ah,” Anuí murmured, smiling slightly, “I see.”
Riven started to tap his belt buckle. His spine stiffened. He didn’t like that tone.
“See what, exactly?”
Anuí turned their sharp, angular gaze on him. “That this is about control.”
Riven locked his jaw. “This is about security.”
“Is it?” Anuí tapped a finger against their chin. “Because as far as I can tell, you’re just as inexperienced in murder investigation as the rest of us.”
The words cut sharp in Riven’s pride. Rendering him speechless for a moment.
“Oh! Well said,” Zoya added.
Riven felt heat rise to his face, but he didn’t let it show. He had been preparing himself for challenges, just not from every direction at once.
His grip tightened on his belt, but he forced himself to stay calm.
Zoya, clearly enjoying herself now, gestured toward Evie. “And what about them?” She nodded toward TP, whose holographic form flickered slightly under the corridor’s ligthing. “Evie and her self proclaimed detective machine here have no real authority either, yet you hesitate.”
TP puffed up indignantly. “I beg your pardon, madame. I am an advanced deductive intelligence, programmed with the finest investigative minds in history! Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Marshall Pee Stoll…”
Zoya lifted a hand. “Yes, yes. And I am a boar.”
TP’s mustache twitched. “Highly unlikely.”
But Zoya wasn’t finished. She looked directly at Riven now. “You don’t trust me. You don’t trust Anuí. But you trust her.” She gave a node toward Evie. “Why?
Riven felt his stomach twist. He didn’t have an answer. Or rather, he had too many answers, none of which he could say out loud. Because he did trust Evie. Because she was brilliant, meticulous, practical. Because… he wanted her to trust him back. But admitting that, showing favoritism, expecially here in front of everyone, was impossible.
So he forced his voice into neutrality. “She has technical expertise and no political agenda about it.”
Anuí left out a soft hmm, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but filing the information away for later.
Evie took the moment to press forward. “Riven, we need access to the room. We have to check his logs before anything gets wiped or overwritten. If there’s something there, we’re losing valuable time just standing there arguing.”
She was right. Damn it, she was right. Riven exhaled slowly.
“Fine. But only you.”
Anuí’s lips curved but just slightly. “How predictable.”
Zoya snorted.
Evie didn’t waste time. She brushed past him, keying in a security override on her tablet. The suite doors slid open with a quiet hiss.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Evie stared at TP, waiting for further elaboration. He simply steepled his fingers and smirked, a glitchy picture of insufferable patience.
“You can’t just drop a bombshell like that and leave it hanging,” she said.
“But my dear Evie, I must!” TP declared, flickering theatrically. “For as the great Pea Stoll once mused—‘It was suspicious in a Pea Saucerer’s ways…’”
Evie groaned. “TP—”
“A jest! A mere jest!” He twirled an imaginary cane. “And yet, what do we truly know of the elusive Mr. Herbert? If we wish to uncover his secrets, we must look into his… associations.”
Evie frowned. “Funny you said that, I would have thought ‘means, motive, alibis’ but I must be getting ahead of myself…” He had a point. “By associations, you mean —Seren Vega?”
“Indeed!” TP froze accessing invisible records, then clapped his hands together. “Seren Vega, archivist extraordinaire of the wondrous past, keeper resplendent of forgotten knowledge… and, if the ship’s whisperings hold any weight, a woman Herbert was particularly keen on seeing.”
Evie exhaled, already halfway to the door. “Alright, let’s go see Seren.”
Seren Vega’s quarters weren’t standard issue—too many rugs, too many hanging ornaments, a hint of a passion for hoarding, and an unshakable musky scent of an animal’s den. The place felt like the ship itself had grown around it, heavy with the weight of history.
And then, there was Mandrake.
The bionic-enhanced cat perched on a high shelf, tail flicking, eyes glowing faintly. “What do you want?” he asked flatly, his tone dripping with a well-practiced blend of boredom and disdain.
Evie arched a brow. “Nice to see you too, Mandrake.”
Seren, cross-legged on a cushion, glanced up from her console. “Evie,” she greeted calmly. “And… oh no.” She sighed, already bracing herself. “You’ve brought it —what do you call him already? Orion Reed?”
Evie replied “Great memory Ms Vega, as expected. Yes, this was the name of the beta version —this one’s improved but still working the kinks of the programme, he goes by ‘TP’ nowadays. Hope you don’t mind, he’s helping me gather clues.” She caught herself, almost telling too much to a potential suspect.
TP puffed up indignantly. “I must protest, Madame Vega! Our past encounters, while lively, have been nothing but the height of professional discourse!”
Mandrake yawned. “She means you talk too much.”
Evie hid a smirk. “I need your help, Seren. It’s about Mr. Herbert.”
Seren’s fingers paused over her console. “He’s the one they found in the dryer.” It wasn’t a question.
Evie nodded. “What do you know about him?”
Seren studied her for a moment, then, with a slow exhale, tapped a command into her console. The room dimmed as the walls flickered to life, displaying a soft cascade of memories—public logs, old surveillance feeds, snippets of conversations once lost to time.
“He wasn’t supposed to be here,” Seren said at last. “He arrived without a record. No one really questioned it, because, well… no one questions much anymore. But if you looked closely, the ship never registered him properly.”
Evie’s pulse quickened. TP let out an approving hum.
Seren continued, scrolling through the visuals. “He came to me, sometimes. Asked about old Earth history. Strange, fragmented questions. He wanted to know how records were kept, how things could be erased.”
Evie and TP exchanged a glance.
Seren frowned slightly, as if piecing together a thought she hadn’t dared before. “And then… he stopped coming.”
Mandrake, still watching from his shelf, stretched lazily. Then, with perfect nonchalance, he added, “Oh yeah. And he wasn’t using his real name.”
Evie snapped to attention. “What?”
The cat flicked his tail. “Mr. Herbert. The name was fake. He called himself that, but it wasn’t what the system had logged when he first stepped on board.”
Seren turned sharply toward him. “Mandrake, you never mentioned this before.”
The cat yawned. “You never asked.”
Evie felt a chill roll through her. “So what was his real name?”
Mandrake’s eyes glowed, data scrolling in his enhanced vision.
“Something about… Ethan,” he mused. “Ethan… M.”
The room went very still.
Evie swallowed hard. “Ethan Marlowe?”
Seren paled. “Ellis Marlowe’s son.”
TP, for once, was silent.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
The “do not enter, crime scene” sticker haphazardly printed, was not even sealing the door. Amateur job, but of course, this was to be expected when such murder event had not been seen in a generation.
She entered surrepticiously, the door to the drying chamber slid shut with a hiss behind her, muffling the last of the frantic voices outside. Evie exhaled. She needed a moment. Just her, the crime scene, and—
A flicker of light.
“Ah-ha!” Trevor Pee Marshall, aka TP, materialized beside her, adjusting his holographic lapels with exaggerated precision. “What we have here, dear Evie, is a classic case of les morts très mystérieux.” His mustache twitched. “Or as my good friend Clouseau would say—‘Zis does not add up!’”
Evie rolled her eyes. “Less theatrics, more analysis, TP.”
Despite the few glitches, she was proud and eager to take her invention to a real-life trial run. Combining all the brilliant minds of enquêteur Jacques Clouseau, as well as the flair of Marshall Pee Stoll from the beloved Peaslanders children stories, TP was the help they needed to solve this.
“Ahem.” TP straightened, flickering momentarily before reappearing near the machine, peering inside with a magnifying glass he absolutely didn’t need.
Evie pulled up the logs. The AI had flagged the event—drying cycle activated at 0200 hours. Duration: excessive. But no shutdown? That was impossible.
TP let out a thoughtful “hmm.” Then, with the gravitas of a seasoned investigator, he declared, “Madame, I detect a most peculiar discrepancy.”
Evie looked up. “Go on.”
TP pivoted dramatically. “The AI should have stopped the cycle, yes? But what if… it never saw a problem?”
Evie frowned. That wasn’t how safety protocols worked. Unless—
She tapped rapidly through the logs. Her stomach dropped.
The system hadn’t flagged a human inside at all.
Someone had altered the ship’s perception of Mr. Herbert before he ever stepped into the machine.
Evie’s pulse quickened. This wasn’t just murder.
It was premeditated.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Leaving the Asylum
They argued about whether to close the heavy gates behind them. In the end, they left them open. The metal groaned as it sat ajar, rust flaking from its hinges.
“Are we all here?” Anya asked. Now that they were leaving, she felt in charge again—or at least, she needed to be. If morale slipped, things would unravel fast. She scanned the group, counting them off.
“Mikhail,” she started, pointing. “Tala. Vera, our esteemed historian.”
Vera sniffed. “I prefer genealogist, thank you very much.”
“Petro,” Anya continued, “probably about to grumble.”
Petro scowled. “I was thinking.”
“Jian, our mystery man.”
Jian raised an eyebrow in acknowledgment.
Anya turned to the next two. “Ah, the twins. Even though you two have never spoken, I’ve always assumed you understood me. Don’t prove me wrong now.”
The twins—Luka and Lev—nodded and grinned at exactly the same time.
“Then we have Yulia… no, we don’t have Yulia. Where in God’s name is Yulia?”
“Here I am!” Yulia’s voice rang out as she jogged back toward them, breathless. “I just went to say goodbye to the cat.” She sighed dramatically. “I wish we could take him. Please, can we take him?”
Yulia was short and quick-moving, her restless hands always in motion, her thoughts spilling out just as fast.
“We can’t,” Mikhail said firmly. “And he can look after himself.”
She huffed. “Well, I expect we could if we tried.”
“And finally, old Gregor, who I gather would rather be taking a nap.”
Gregor, who was well past eighty, rubbed his face and yawned. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Anya frowned, scanning the group again. “Wait. We’re missing Finja.”
A small scraping sound came from behind them.
Finja stood near the gate, furiously scrubbing the rusted metal with a rag she had pulled from her sleeve. “This place is disgusting,” she muttered. “Filth everywhere. The world may have ended, but that’s no excuse for grime.”
Anya sighed. “Finja, leave the gate alone.”
Finja gave it one last wipe before tucking the rag away with a huff. “Fine.”
Anya shook her head. “That’s eleven. No one’s run off or died yet. A promising start.”
They formed a motley crew, each carrying as much as they could manage. Mikhail pushed a battered cart, loaded with scavenged supplies—blankets, tools, whatever food they had left.
The road beneath their feet was cracked and uneven, roots breaking through in places. They followed it in silence for the most part. Even Yulia remained quiet. Some glanced back, but no one turned around.
The nearest village was more than fifty kilometers away. In all directions, there was only wilderness—fields long overtaken by weeds, trees pushing through cracks in forgotten roads. A skeletal signpost leaned at an odd angle, its lettering long since faded.
“It’s going to be dark soon,” Mikhail said. “And the old ones are tired. Aren’t you, Vera?”
“That’s enough of the old business,” puffed Vera, pulling her shoulders back.
Tala laughed. “Well, I must be an old one. I didn’t sleep a wink last night. And there’s a clearing over there.” She pointed.
The evening was cool, but they managed to build a small fire and scrape together a meal of vegetables they’d brought from their garden.
After their meal, they sat around the fire while Finja busied herself tidying up. “Dirty savages,” she muttered under her breath. Then, more loudly, “We should keep watch tonight.”
Vera, perched on a log, pulled her shawl tightly around her. The glow from the fire cast long shadows across her face.
“Vera, you look like a witch,” Yulia declared. “We should have brought the cat for you to ride on a broomstick together.”
“I’ll have you know I’m descended from witches,” Vera replied. “I know none of you think you’re related to me, but just imagine what your great-grandparents would say if they saw us now. Running into the wilderness like a band of exiled aristocrats.”
Jian, seated nearby, smirked slightly. “My great-grandparents were rice farmers.”
Vera brightened—Jian never talked about his past. She leaned in conspiratorially. “Do you know your full lineage? Because I do. I know mine back fourteen generations. You’d be amazed how many bloodlines cross without people realizing.”
Tala shook her head but smiled. Like Petro and Gregor, Vera had been at the asylum for many decades, a relic of another time. She claimed to have been a private investigator and genealogist in her former life.
Petro, hunched over and rubbing his hands by the fire, muttered, “We’re all ghosts now. Doesn’t matter where we came from.”
“Oh, stop that, Petro,” Anya admonished. “Remember our plan?”
“We go to the city,” Jian said. He rarely spoke unless he had something worth saying. “There will be things left behind. Maybe tech, maybe supplies. If I can get into an old server, I might even find something useful.”
“And if there’s nothing?” Petro moaned. “We should never have left.” He clasped his hands over his head.
Jian shrugged. “The world doesn’t erase itself overnight.”
Mikhail nodded. “We rest tonight. Tomorrow, we head for the city. And Finja’s right—tonight we take turns keeping watch.”
They sat in silence, watching the fire burn low. The evening stretched long and uneasy.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
The Asylum 2050
They had been talking about leaving for a long time.
Not in any urgent way, not in a we must leave now kind of way, but in the slow, circling conversations of people who had too much time and not enough answers.
Those who had left before them had never returned. Perhaps they had found something better, though that seemed unlikely. Perhaps they had found nothing at all. The first group left over twenty years ago—just for supplies. They never came back. Others drifted off over the years. They never came back either.
The core group had stayed because—what else was there? The asylum had been safe, for the most part. It had become home. Overgrown now, with only a fraction of its former inhabitants. The walls had once kept them in; now, they were what kept the rest of the world out.
But the crops were failing. The soil was thinning. The last winter had been long and cruel. Summer was harsh. Water was harder to find.
And so the reasons to stay had been replaced with reasons to go.
She was about forty now—or near enough, though time had softened the numbers. Natalia. A name from a past life; now they called her Tala.
Her family had left her here years ago. Paid well for it, as if they were settling an expensive inconvenience. She had been young then—too young to know how final it would be. They had called her difficult, willful, unable to conform. She wasn’t mad, but they had paid to have her called mad so they could get rid of her. And in the world before, that had been enough.
She had been furious at first. She tried to run away even though the asylum was many miles from anywhere. The drugs they made her take put an end to that. The drugs stopped many years ago, but she no longer wanted to run.
She sat at the edge of the vegetable garden, turning soil between her fingers. It was dry, thinning. No matter how deep she dug, the color stayed the same—pale, lifeless.
“Nothing wants to grow anymore,” said Anya, standing over her. Older—mid-sixties. Once a nurse, before everything had fallen apart. She had been one of the staff members who stayed behind when the first group left for supplies, but now she was the only one remaining. The others had abandoned the asylum years ago. At first, her authority had meant something. Now, it was just a memory, but she still carried it like an old habit. She was practical, sharp-eyed, and had a way of making decisions that others followed without question.
Tala wiped her hands on her skirt and looked up. “We probably should have left last year.”
Anya sighed. She dropped a brittle stalk of something dead into the compost pile. “Doesn’t matter now. We must go soon, or we don’t go at all.”
There was no arguing with that.
Later, in the old communal hall, the last of them gathered. Eleven of them.
Mikhail leaned against the window, his arms crossed. He was a little older than Tala. He thought a long time before he spoke.
“How many weapons do we have?”
Anya shrugged. “A couple of old rifles with half a dozen bullets. A handful of knives. And whatever rocks and sticks we pick up on the way.”
“It’s not enough to defend ourselves,” Tala said. Petro, an older resident who couldn’t remember life before the asylum, moaned and rocked. “But we’ll have our wits about us,” she added, offering a small reassurance.
Mikhail glanced at her. “We don’t know what’s out there.”
Before communication went silent, there had been stories of plagues, wars, starvation, entire cities turning against themselves. People had come through the asylum’s doors shortly before the collapse, mad with what they had seen.
But then, nobody came. The fences had grown thick with vines. And the world had gone quiet.
Over time, they had become a kind of family, bound by necessity rather than blood. They were people who had been left behind for reasons that no longer mattered. In this world, sanity had become a relative thing. They looked after one another, oddities and all.
Mikhail exhaled and pushed off the window. “Tomorrow, then.”
In reply to: Helix Mysteries – Inside the Case
Some ideas to pick apart and improve on:
Some characters:
- The Murder Victim: A once-prominent figure whose mysterious death on Helix 25 is intertwined with deeper, enigmatic forces—a person whose secret past and untimely demise trigger the cascade of genetic clues and expose long-buried truths about the exodus.
- Dr. Amara Voss: A brilliant geneticist haunted by fragmented pasts, who deciphers DNA strands imbued with clues from an ancient intelligence.
- Inspector Orion Reed: A retro-inspired, elderly holographic AI detective whose relentless curiosity drives him to unravel the inexplicable murder.
- Kai Nova: A maverick pilot chasing cosmic dreams, unafraid to navigate perilous starfields in search of truth.
- Seren Vega: A meditative archivist who unlocks VR relics of history, piecing together humanity’s lost lore. Mandrake her cat, who’s been given bionic enhancements that enables it to speak its mind.
- Luca Stroud: A rebellious engineer whose knack for decoding forbidden secrets may hold the key to the ship’s destiny.
- Ellis Marlowe (Retired Postman): A weathered former postman whose cherished collection of vintage postcards from Earth and early space voyages carries personal and historical messages, hinting at forgotten connections.
- Sue Forgelot: A prominent socialist socialite, descended from Sir Forgelot.
- Sharon, Gloria, Mavis: a favourite elderly trio of life-extended elders. Of course, they endured and thrived in humanity’s latest exodus from Earth
- Lexican and Flexicans, Pronoun People: sub-groups and political factions, challenging our notions of divisions
- Space Absinthe Pirates: a rogue band of bandits— a myth to make children behave… or something else?
Background of the Helix Fleet:
Helix 25 is one of several generation ships that were designed as luxury cruise ships, but are now embarked on an exodus from Earth decades ago, after a mysterious event that left them the last survivors of humanity. Once part of an ambitious fleet designed for both leisure and also built to secretly preserve humanity’s legacy, the other Helix ships have since vanished from communication. Their unexplained absence casts a long shadow over the survivors aboard Helix 25, fueling theories soon turning into myths and the hope of a new golden age for humanity bound to a cryptic prophecy.
100-Word Pitch:
Aboard Helix 25, humanity’s last survivors drift through deep space on a generation ship with a haunted past. When Inspector Orion Reed, a timeless holographic detective, uncovers a perplexing murder, encoded genetic secrets begin to surface. Dr. Amara Voss painstakingly deciphers DNA strands laced with ancient intelligence, while Kai Nova navigates treacherous starfields and Seren Vega unlocks VR relics of lost eras. Luca Stroud and Ellis Marlowe, a retired postman with vintage postcards, piece together clues that tie the victim’s secret past to the vanished Helix fleet. As conspiracies unravel, the crew must confront a destiny entwined with Earth’s forgotten exodus.
