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  • #7951

    Disgruntled and bored with the fruitless wait for the other characters to reveal more of themselves, Amy started staying in her room all day reading books, glad that she’d had an urge to grab a bag full of used paperbacks from a chance encounter with a street vendor in Bogota.

    A strange book about peculiar children lingered in her mind, and mingled  somehow with the vestiges of the mental images of the writhing Uriah in the book Amy had read prior to this one.

    Aunt Amy?  a childs voice came unbidden to Amys ear.  Well, why not? Amy thought, Some peculiar children is what the story needs. Nephews and neices though, no actual children, god forbid. 

    “Aunt Amy!”  A gentle knocking sounded on the bedroom door.  “Are you in there, Aunt Amy?”

    “Is that at neice or nephew at my actual door? Already?” Amy cried in amazement.

    “Can I come in, please?” the little voice sounded close to tears.  Amy bounded off the bed to unloock leaving that right there the door to let the little instant ramen rellie in.

    The little human creature appeared to be ten years old or so, as near as Amy could tell, with a rather androgenous look: a grown out short haircut in a nondescript dark colour, thin gangling limbs robed in neutral shapelessness, and a pale pinched face.

    “I’ve never done this before, can you help me?” the child said.

    “Never been a story character before, eh?” Amy said kindly. “Do you know your name? Not to worry if you don’t!” she added quickly, seeing the child’s look of alarm. “No?  Well then you can choose what ever you like!”

    The child promptly burst into tears, and Amy wanted to kick herself for being such a tactless blundering fool.  God knows it wasn’t that easy to choose, even when you knew the choice was yours.

    Amy wanted to ask the child if it was a boy or a girl, but hesitated, and decided against it. I’ll have to give it a name though, I can’t keep calling it the child.

    “Would you mind very much if I called you Kit, for now?” asked Amy.

    “Thanks, Aunt Amy,” Kit said with a tear streaked smile. “Kit’s fine.”

    #7935

    “I don’t know, Amy. I thought it was Chico who was mysterious — subversively spitting at every opportunity.”

    “Well, Carob, maybe we could just agree they’re equally mysterious?” suggested Amy, turning her attention back to her search.

    Carob shrugged. “A woman in Greece is divorcing her husband because AI read her coffee cup and said he was cheating.”

    Amy paused and looked up. “For real?”

    “Yeah. I read it on Thiram’s news stream. He left it running on that weird device of his — over there, next to his half-drunk coffee. Not sure where he went, actually.”

    Amy gasped and clapped her hands. “Oh! Oh! Brainwave occurring — let’s get AI to read Thiram’s coffee cup!”

    Carob snorted. “Genius.”

    They raced over to the small folding table where Thiram’s cup sat. Carob held up her phone.

    “Okay. One quick pic. Hold it steady!”

    They excitedly uploaded the image to an AI analysis app Thiram had installed on his device.

    The app whirred for a few minutes:

    DEEP COFFEE CUP ANALYSIS COMPLETE

    Latent emotional residue: contemplative, fond of secrets.
    Foam pattern suggests hidden loyalty to an entity known only as “The Port.”
    Swirling suggests alignment with larger forces not currently visible.
    Presence of cardamom notes: entirely unaccounted for.
    Recommendation: approach carefully with gentle questioning.

    “Blimey, what does that mean?” asked Carob.

    Amy nodded solemnly, perhaps with just a touch of smugness. “He is a man of mystery. Didn’t I say it?”

    #7931

    Carob wrinkled her nose in distaste and languidly remarked, “Amy, that goaty odour seems to be emanating from your clothing. Does it perchance require laundering?”

    Chico laughed loudly, spitting equally audibly. “Hi,” he said, “The name’s Chico,” emerging from behind the tulip tree.

    Carob winced at the spitting, and Amy writhed a little at being humiliated in front of the man. They both ignored him, and he regretted not staying hidden.

    “I’ve just pegged out two loads of washing, for your information, not that it will dry in this rain,” Amy said, quickly tying her hair back in annoyance. Does this move the story forward? she wondered. Why do I have a smelly character anyway? I’m sweaty, goaty and insecure, how did it happen?

    “Never mind that anyway, have you seen what’s on todays news?” Carob asked, feeling sorry for making Amy uncomfortable.

    “I have,” remarked Chico, with a hopeful expression, but the women ignored him.

    #7915

    Amy supposed everyone was blaming her, for what she couldn’t say, but they had clearly been avoiding her. There was plenty of coffee here anyway, even if the rest of the world was suffering. Don’t even think it, she told herself sternly. We don’t want people flocking here in droves once they realise.

    So, do I want people or not? she asked herself. One minute I’m wondering where everyone is, and then next minute I’m wanting everyone to stay away.

    “You on the spectrum too, are you?” asked Carob, reading her mind.  “It’s ok,” she added, seeing the look of alarm cross Amy’s face, “Your secret’s safe with me. I mean about being on the spectrum. But be careful, they’re rounding people like us up and sending them to a correctional facility.  We’re quite lucky to be here, out of the way.”

    “Have you been avoiding me?” Amy asked, which was more immediately concerning than the concentration camps.  “Because I’ve been here all alone for ages, nothing to do but read my book,  draw in my sketch pad, and work on my needlepoint cushion covers. And where are the others? And don’t read my mind, it’s so rude.”

    “Needlepoint cushion covers? Are you serious?” Carob was avoiding the questions, but was genuinely curious about the cushion covers.

    Amy blushed.  “No, I made that up. In fact, I don’t know what made me say that. I haven’t started any sketching either, but I have thought about starting sketching. And I’ve been reading. It’s an old Liz Tattler; the old ones were the best. Real old school Lizzie Tattie, if you know what I mean. Risque romps with potting sheds and stuff.  None of that ghastly sci fi she started writing recently.”

    “Which one?” Carob asked, and laughed when Amy held it up.  “I read that years ago, T’Eggy Gets a Good Rogering, can I borrow it after you? God knows we could all do with a laugh.”

    “How do you know the others need a good laugh?” Amy asked, peering at Carob with an attentive squint in order to catch any clues. “You’ve seen then, then?”

    Carob smiled sadly and replied, “Only by remote viewing them.”

    Amy asked where they had been and what they were doing when they were viewed remotely. Has she been remote viewing me? What if they ask her if she’s been remote viewing me, and she tells them?  “Oh never mind,” Amy said quickly, “No need to answer that.”

    Carob snorted, and what a strangely welcome sound it was. “I didn’t really remote view them, I made  that up.  It never works if I try to spy on people. Fat lot of good it is really, it never works when I really really need to see  something. Or maybe it works, but I never believe it properly until later when I find out it was right.”

    “Yeah,” Amy said, “It’s fun though, I haven’t done it in ages.”

    “You should, it would give you something to do when everyone’s avoiding you.”

    #7908

    “Look, don’t get upset, ok?” Amy felt she had to nip this in the bud.  “There’s something glaringly wrong with the map.  I mean, yes, it does make a nice picture. A very nice picture,” she added, and then stopped.  Does it really matter? she asked herself. Am I always causing trouble?

    Amy sighed. Would life be easier for everyone if she stopped pointing things out and just went along with things?  Was there any stopping it anyway? It’s like a runaway train.

    “You were saying?” Ricardo asked.

    “Pray, continue,” added Carob with a mischeivous gleam in her eye.  She knew where this was leading.

    “Who is he?” Amy whispered to Carob. “Well never mind that now, you can tell me later.”

    Amy cleared her throat and faced Ricardo (noting that he was dark complexioned and and of medium height and wiry build, dressed  in a crumpled off white linen suit and a battered Panama hat, and likely to be of Latino heritage)  noticing out of the corner of her eye a smirk on Thiram’s face who was leaning against a tree with his arms folded, looking as if he might start whistling Yankee Doodle any moment.

    “According to your map, my good man, nice map that it is, in fact it’s so nice one could make a flag out of it, the colours are great and….”   Amy realised she was waffling.  She cleared her throat and braced her shoulders, glaring at Carob over her shoulder who had started to titter.

    Speak your mind even if your voice shakes, and keep the waffling to a minimum.

    “My dear Ricardo,” Amy began again, pushing her long light brown hair out of her sweaty hazel eyes, and pushing the sleeves of her old grey sweatshirt up over her elbows and glancing down at her short thin but shapely denim clad legs. “My dear man, as you can see I’m a slightly underweight middle aged woman eminently capable of trudging up and down coffee growing mountains, with a particular flair for maps, and this map of yours begs a few questions.”

    “Coffee beans don’t grow in Florida,” Carob interjected, in an attempt to move the discourse along.

    “Nor in Morocco,” added Amy quickly, shooting a grateful glance at Carob.

    #7898

    “Sorry I’m late,” said Carob as she crouched down to fuss over Fanella. “I have excuses, but they’re not interesting. I’m feeling a little underdeveloped as a character, so I’m not sure what to say yet.”

    “That’s okay,” said Amy. “Just remember … if you don’t tell us who you are early on…” She squinted and glanced around suspiciously. “Others will create you.”

    “I’d rather just slowly percolate.” Carob screwed up her face. “Get it? Percolate?”

    She stood up and slapped a hand to her head as Amy rolled her eyes. “Sorry … ” She patted her head curiously. “Oh wait—do I have curls?”

    “I’d say more like frizzes than curls,” answered Amy.

    Thiram nodded. “Totally frizzled.”

    “Cool … must be the damp weather,” said Carob. She brushed a twig from her coat. The coat was blue-green and only reached her thighs. Many things were too small when you were six foot two.

    “Oh—and I’ve been lucid dreaming in reverse,” she added. “Last night I watched myself un-make and un-drink a cup of coffee.” She gave a quick snort-laugh. “Weirdo”.

    “Was it raining in the dream?” asked Thiram.

    Carob frowned. “Probably… You know how in scary movies they always leave the curtains open, like they want the bad guys to see in? It felt like that.” She shuddered and then smiled brightly. “Anyway, just a dream. Also, I bumped into your father, Amy. He said to tell you: Remember what happened last time.”

    She regarded Amy intently. “What did happen last time?”

    “He worries too much,” said Amy, waving a hand dismissively. “Also, I didn’t even write that in, so how should I know?” She looked out toward the trees. “Where’s Chico?”

    #7877

    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 PeeTP” 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.”

    #7874

    A Quick Vacay on Mars

    “The Helix is coming in for descent,” announced Luca Stroud, a bit too solemnly. “And by descent, I mean we’re parking in orbit and letting the cargo shuttles do the sweaty work.”

    From the main viewport, Mars sprawled below in all its dusty, rust-red glory. Gone was the Jupiter’s orbit pulls of lunacy, after a 6 month long voyage, they were down to the Martian pools of red dust.

    Even from space, you could see the abandoned domes of the first human colonies, with the unmistakable Muck conglomerate’s branding: half-buried in dunes, battered by storms, and rumored to be haunted (well, if you believed the rumors from the bored Helix 25 children).

    Veranassessee—Captain Veranassessee, thank you very much— stood at the helm with the unruffled poise of someone who’d wrested control of the ship (and AI) with consummate style and in record time. With a little help of course from X-caliber, the genetic market of the Marlowe’s family that she’d recovered from Marlowe Sr. before Synthia had had a chance of scrubbing all traces of his DNA. Now, with her control back, most of her work had been to steer the ship back to sanity, and rebuild alliances.

    “That’s the plan. Crew rotation, cargo drop, and a quick vacay if we can manage not to break a leg.”

    Sue Forgelot, newly minted second in command, rolled her eyes affectionately. “Says the one who insisted we detour for a peek at the old Mars amusements. If you want to roast marshmallows on volcanic vents, just say it.”

    Their footsteps reverberated softly on the deck. Synthia’s overhead panels glowed calm, reined in by the AI’s newly adjusted parameters. Luca tapped the console. “All going smoothly, Cap’n. Next phase of ‘waking the sleepers’ will happen in small batches—like you asked.”

    Veranassessee nodded silently. The return to reality would prove surely harsh to most of them, turned soft with low gravity. She would have to administrate a good dose of tough love.

    Sue nodded. “We’ll need a slow approach. Earth’s… not the paradise it once was.”

    Veranassessee exhaled, eyes lingering on the red planet turning slowly below. “One challenge at a time. Everyone’s earned a bit of shore leave. If you can call an arid dustball ‘shore.’”

    The Truce on Earth

    Tundra brushed red dust off her makeshift jacket, then gave her new friend a loving pat on the flank. The baby sanglion—already the size of a small donkey—sniffed the air, then leaned its maned, boar-like head into Tundra’s shoulder. “Easy there, buddy,” she murmured. “We’ll find more scraps soon.”

    They were in the ravaged outskirts near Klyutch Base, forging a shaky alliance with Sokolov’s faction. Sokolov—sharp-eyed and suspicious—stalked across the battered tarmac with a crate of spare shuttle parts. “This is all the help you’re getting from me,” he said, his accent carving the words. “Use it well. No promises once the Helix 25 arrives.”

    Commander Koval hovered by the half-repaired shuttle, occasionally casting sidelong glances at the giant, (mostly) friendly  mutant beast at Tundra’s side. “Just keep that… sanglion… away from me, will you?”

    Molly, Tundra’s resilient great-grandmother, chuckled. “He’s harmless unless you’re an unripe melon or a leftover stew. Aren’t you, sweetie?”

    The creature snorted. Sokolov’s men loaded more salvage onto the shuttle’s hull. If all went well, they’d soon have a functioning vessel to meet the Helix when it finally arrived.

    Tundra fed her pet a chunk of dried fruit. She wondered what the grand new ship would look like after so many legends and rumors. Would the Helix be a promise of hope—or a brand-new headache?

    Finkley’s Long-Distance Lounge

    On Helix 25, Finkley’s new corner-lounge always smelled of coffee and antiseptic wipes, thanks to her cleaning-bot minions. Rows of small, softly glowing communication booths lined the walls—her “direct Earth Connection.” A little sign reading FINKLEY’S WHISPER CALLS flickered overhead. Foot traffic was picking up, because after the murder spree ended, people craved normalcy—and gossip.

    She toggled an imaginary switch —she had found mimicking old technology would help tune the frequencies more easily. “Anybody out there?”

    Static, then a faint voice from Earth crackled through the anchoring connection provided by Finja on Earth. “Hello? This is…Tala from Spain… well, from the Hungarian border these days…”

    “Lovely to hear from you, Tala dear!” Finkley replied in the most uncheerful voice, as she was repeating the words from Kai Nova, who had found himself distant dating after having tried, like many others on the ship before, to find a distant relative connected through the FinFamily’s telepathic bridge. Surprisingly, as he got accustomed to the odd exchange through Finkley-Finja, he’d found himself curious and strangely attracted to the stories from down there.

    “Doing all right down there? Any new postcards or battered souvenirs to share with the folks on Helix?”

    Tala laughed over the Fin-line. “Plenty. Mostly about wild harvests, random postcards, and that new place we found. We’re calling it The Golden Trowel—trust me, it’s quite a story.”

    Behind Finkley, a queue had formed: a couple of nostalgic Helix residents waiting for a chance to talk to distant relatives, old pen pals, or simply anyone with a different vantage on Earth’s reconstruction. Even if those calls were often just a “We’re still alive,” it was more comfort than they’d had in years.

    “Hang in there, sweetie,” Finkley said with a drab tone, relaying Kai’s words, struggling hard not to be beaming at the imaginary booth’s receiver. “We’re on our way.”

    Sue & Luca’s Gentle Reboot

    In a cramped subdeck chamber whose overhead lights still flickered ominously, Luca Stroud connected a portable console to one of Synthia’s subtle interface nodes. “Easy does it,” he muttered. “We nudge up the wake-up parameters by ten percent, keep an eye on rising stress levels—and hopefully avoid any mass lunacy like last time.”

    Sue Forgelot observed from behind, arms folded and face alight with the steely calm that made her a natural second in command. “Focus on folks from the Lower Decks first. They’re more used to harsh realities. Less chance of meltdown when they realize Earth’s not a bed of roses.”

    Luca shot her a thumbs-up. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He tapped the console, and Synthia’s interface glowed green, accepting the new instructions.

    “Well, Synthia, dear,” Sue said, addressing the panel drily, “keep cooperating, and nobody’ll have to forcibly remove your entire matrix.”

    A faint chime answered—Synthia’s version of a polite half-nod. The lines of code on Luca’s console rearranged themselves into a calmer pattern. The AI’s core processes, thoroughly reined in by the Captain’s new overrides, hummed along peacefully. For now.

    Evie & Riven’s Big News

    On Helix 25’s mid-deck Lexican Chapel, full of spiral motifs and drifting incense, Evie and Riven stood hand in hand, ignoring the eerie chanting around them. Well, trying to ignore it. Evie’s belly had a soft curve now, and Riven couldn’t stop glancing at it with a proud smile.

    One of the elder Lexicans approached, wearing swirling embroidered robes. “The engagement ceremony is prepared, if you’re still certain you want our… elaborate rituals.”

    Riven, normally stoic, gave a slight grin. “We’re certain.” He caught Evie’s eye. “I guess you’re stuck with me, detective. And the kid inside you who’ll probably speak Lexican prophecies by the time they’re one.”

    Evie rolled her eyes, though affection shone behind it. “If that’s the worst that happens, I’ll take it. We’ve both stared down bigger threats.” Then her hand drifted to her abdomen, protective and proud. “Let’s keep the chanting to a minimum though, okay?”

    The Lexican gave a solemn half-bow. “We shall refrain from dancing on the ceilings this time.”

    They laughed, past tensions momentarily lifted. Their child’s future, for all its uncertain possibilities, felt like hope on a ship that was finally getting stirred in a clear direction… away from the void of its own nightmares. And Mars, just out the window, loomed like a stepping stone to an Earth that might yet be worth returning to.

    #7869

    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.

     

    :fleuron2:

    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?

    :fleuron2:

    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.

    #7865
    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      “Well, you made me doubt for a minute if I could live uncomputerised for a moment, Elizabeth. Glad to say I can still live without, and well for it.”

      Liz’ was too busy peering into Ethan’s builder’s bum to care to answer.

      Godfrey winked at Finley conspiratorially, amused at her horrified look when he mimed throwing a peanut at the electrician’s cleavage.

      So un-sani-tary” she mouthed before quickly returning to the places she goes when nobody looks.

      #7862

      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.”

      #7858

      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.

      #7857

      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.”

      :fleuron2:

      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.

      :fleuron2:

      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.

      #7840

      Helix 25 — Aftermath of the Solar Flare Alert

      The Second Murder

      It didn’t take them long to arrive at the scene, Riven alerted by a distraught Finkley who’d found the body.

      Evie knelt beside the limp, twitching form of Mandrake, his cybernetic collar flickering erratically, tiny sparks dancing along its edge. The cat’s body convulsed, its organic parts frozen in eerie stillness while the cybernetic half stuttered between functions, blinking in and out of awareness.

      Mandrake was both dead and not dead.

      “Well, this is unsettling,” TP quipped, materializing beside them with an exaggerated frown. “A most profound case of existential uncertainty. Schrödinger himself would have found this delightful—if he weren’t very much confirmed dead.”

      Riven crouched, running a scanner over Mandrake’s collar. The readout spat out errors. “Neural link’s corrupted. He’s lost something.”

      Evie’s stomach twisted. “Lost what? But… he can be repaired, surely, can’t he?”

      Evan replied with a sigh “Hard to tell how much damage he’s suffered, but we caught him in time thanks to Finkley’s reflexes, he may stand a chance, even if he may need to be reprogrammed.”

      Mandrake’s single functioning eye flickered open, its usual sharpness dull. Then, rasping, almost disjointedly, he muttered:

      “I was… murdered.”

      Then his system crashed, leaving nothing but silence.

      Upper Decks Carnival

      Sue was still adjusting her hat and feathers for the Carnival Party wondering if that would be appropriate as she was planning to go to the wake first, and then to the Lexican’s baby shower. It wasn’t every day there was a baby nowadays. And a boy too. But then, there was no such thing as being overdressed in her book.

      The ship’s intercom crackled to life, cutting through her thoughts, its automated cheerfulness electrifying like a misplaced party horn.

      “Attention, dear passengers! As scheduled, with the solar flare now averted, we are preparing for our return to Earth. Please enjoy the journey and partake in today’s complimentary hibiscus tea at the Grand Hall! Samba!”

      The words ‘return to Earth’ sent a shudder through Sue’s spine. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t possible.

      A sudden pulse of static in her artificial limb made her flinch. A garbled transmission—so faint she almost dismissed it—whispered through her internal interface, that was constantly scanning hacking through the data streams of the ship, and having found critical intel that was quickly being scrubbed by the maintenance system.

      Signal detected…
      Beacon coordinates triangulating…
      …origin: Earth…

      Her breath stopped. Sue had spent years pretending she knew everything, but this… was something else entirely.

      She got the odd and ominous feeling that Synthia was listening.

      Quadrant B – The Wake of Mr. Herbert

      The air in the gathering hall was thick with preservative floral mist—the result of enthusiastic beauticians who had done their best to restore and rehydrate the late Mr. Herbert to some semblance of his former self.

      And yet, despite their efforts, he still looked vaguely like a damp raisin in a suit.

      Gloria adjusted her shawl and whispered to Sharon, “He don’t look half bad, does he?”

      Sharon squinted. “Oh, love, I’d say he looks at least three-quarters bad.”

      Marlowe Sr. stood by the casket, his posture unnervingly rigid, as if he were made of something more fragile than bone. When he spoke, his voice cracked. “Ethan.”

      He was in no condition for a speech— only able to utter the name.

      Gloria dabbed her eyes, nudging Mavis. “I reckon this is the saddest thing I’ve seen since they discontinued complimentary facials at the spa.”

      Mavis sniffed. “And yet, they say he’ll be composted by next Tuesday. Bloody efficient, innit?”

      Marlowe didn’t hear them.

      Because at that moment, as he stared at his son’s face, the realization struck him like a dying star—this was no mistake. This was something bigger.

      And for the first time in years, he felt the weight of knowing too much.

      He would have to wake and talk to the Captain. She would know what to do.

      #7810

      Helix 25 – Below Lower Decks – Shadow Sector

      Kai Nova moved cautiously through the underbelly of Helix 25, entering a part of the Lower Decks where the usual throb of the ship’s automated systems turned muted. The air had a different smell here— it was less sterile, more… human. It was warm, the heat from outdated processors and unmonitored power nodes radiating through the bulkheads. The Upper Decks would have reported this inefficiency.

      Here, it simply went unnoticed, or more likely, ignored.

      He was being watched.

      He knew it the moment he passed a cluster of workers standing by a storage unit, their voices trailing off as he walked by. Not unusual, except these weren’t Lower Deck engineers. They had the look of people who existed outside of the ship’s official structure—clothes unmarked by department insignias, movements too intentional for standard crew assignments.

      He stopped at the rendezvous point: an unlit access panel leading to what was supposed to be an abandoned sublevel. The panel had been manually overridden, its system logs erased. That alone told him enough—whoever he was meeting had the skills to work outside of Helix 25’s omnipresent oversight.

      A voice broke the silence.

      “You’re late.”

      Kai turned, keeping his stance neutral. The speaker was of indistinct gender, shaved head, tall and wiry, with sharp green eyes locked on his movements. They wore layered robes that, at a glance, could have passed as scavenged fabric—until Kai noticed the intricate stitching of symbols hidden in the folds.

      They looked like Zoya’s brand —he almost thought… or let’s just say, Zoya’s influence. Zoya Kade’s litanies had a farther reach he would expect.

      “Wasn’t aware this was a job interview,” Kai quipped, leaning casually against the bulkhead.

      “Everything’s a test,” they replied. “Especially for outsiders.”

      Kai smirked. “I didn’t come to join your book club. I came for answers.”

      A low chuckle echoed from the shadows, followed by the shifting of figures stepping into the faint light. Three, maybe four of them. It could have been an ambush, but that was a display.

      “Pilot,” the woman continued, avoiding names. “Seeker of truth? Or just another lost soul looking for something to believe in?”

      Kai rolled his shoulders, sensing the tension in the air. “I believe in not running out of fuel before reaching nowhere.”

      That got their attention.

      The recruiter studied him before nodding slightly. “Good. You understand the problem.”

      Kai crossed his arms. “I understand a lot of problems. I also understand you’re not just a bunch of doomsayers whispering in the dark. You’re organized. And you think this ship is heading toward a dead end.”

      “You say that like it isn’t.”

      Kai exhaled, glancing at the flickering emergency light above. “Synthia doesn’t make mistakes.”

      They smiled, but it wasn’t friendly. “No. It makes adjustments.” — the heavy tone on the “it” struck him. Techno-bigots, or something else? Were they denying Synthia’s sentience, or just adjusting for gender misnomers, it was hard to tell, and he had a hard time to gauge the sanity of this group.

      A low murmur of agreement rippled through the gathered figures.

      Kai tilted his head. “You think she’s leading us into the abyss?”

      The person stepped closer. “What do you think happened to the rest of the fleet, Pilot?”

      Kai stiffened slightly. The Helix Fleet, the original grand exodus of humanity—once multiple ships, now only Helix 25, drifting further into the unknown.

      He had never been given a real answer.

      “Think about it,” they pressed. “This ship wasn’t built for endless travel. Its original mission was altered. Its course reprogrammed. You fly the vessel, but you don’t control it.” She gestured to the others. “None of us do. We’re passengers on a ride to oblivion, on a ship driven by a dead man’s vision.”

      Kai had heard the whispers—about the tycoon who had bankrolled Helix 25, about how the ship’s true directive had been rewritten when the Earth refugees arrived. But this group… they didn’t just speculate. They were ready to act.

      He kept his voice steady. “You planning on mutiny?”

      They smiled, stepping back into the half-shadow. “Mutiny is such a crude word. We’re simply ensuring that we survive.”

      Before Kai could respond, a warning prickle ran up his spine.

      Someone else was watching.

      He turned slowly, catching the faintest silhouette lingering just beyond the corridor entrance. He recognized the stance instantly—Cadet Taygeta.

      Damn it.

      She had followed him.

      The group noticed, shifting slightly. Not hostile, but suddenly alert.

      “Well, well,” the woman murmured. “Seems you have company. You weren’t as careful as you thought. How are you going to deal with this problem now?”

      Kai exhaled, weighing his options. If Taygeta had followed him, she’d already flagged this meeting in her records. If he tried to run, she’d report it. If he didn’t run, she might just dig deeper.

      And the worst part?

      She wasn’t corruptible. She wasn’t the type to look the other way.

      “You should go,” the movement person said. “Before your shadow decides to interfere.”

      Kai hesitated for half a second, before stepping back.

      “This isn’t over,” he said.

      Her smile returned. “No, Pilot. It’s just beginning.”

      With that, Kai turned and walked toward the exit—toward Taygeta, who was waiting for him with arms crossed, expression unreadable.

      He didn’t speak first.

      She did.

      “You’re terrible at being subtle.”

      Kai sighed, thinking quickly of how much of the conversation could be accessed by the central system. They were still in the shadow zone, but that wasn’t sufficient. “How much did you hear?”

      “Enough.” Her voice was even, but her fingers twitched at her side. “You know this is treason, right?”

      Kai ran a hand through his hair. “You really think we’re on course for a fresh new paradise?”

      Taygeta didn’t answer right away. That was enough of an answer.

      Finally, she exhaled. “You should report this.”

      “You should,” Kai corrected.

      She frowned.

      He pressed on. “You know me, Taygeta. I don’t follow lost causes. I don’t get involved in politics. I fly. I survive. But if they’re right—if there’s even a chance that we’re being sent to our deaths—I need to know.”

      Taygeta’s fingers twitched again.

      Then, with a sharp breath, she turned.

      “I didn’t see anything tonight.”

      Kai blinked. “What?”

      Her back was already to him, her voice tight. “Whatever you’re doing, Nova, be careful. Because next time?” She turned her head slightly, just enough to let him see the edge of her conflicted expression.

      “I will report you.”

      Then she was gone.

      Kai let out a slow breath, glancing back toward the hidden movement behind him.

      No turning back now.

      #7789

      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.

      #7777

      The Survivors:

      “Well, I’ll be damned,” Gregor said, his face cracking into another toothless grin. “Beginning to think we might be the last ones.”

      “So did we.” Molly glanced nervously around at the odd assortment of people staring at her and Tundra. “I’m Molly. This is Tundra.”

      “Tundra? Like the frozen wasteland?” Yulia asked.

      Tundra nodded. “It’s because I’m strong and tough.”

      “Would you like to join us?” Tala motioned toward the fire.

      “Yes, yes, of course, ” Anya said. “Are you hungry?”

      Molly hesitated, glancing toward the edge of the clearing, where their horses stood tethered to a low branch. “We have food,” she said. “We foraged.”

      “I’d have foraged if someone didn’t keep going on about food poisoning,” Yulia muttered.

      Finja sniffed. “Forgive me for trying to keep you alive.”

      Molly watched the exchange with interest. It had been years since she’d seen people bicker over something so trivial. It was oddly comforting.

      She lowered herself slowly onto the log next to Vera. “Alright, tell me—who exactly are you lot?”

      Petro chuckled. “We’ve escaped from the asylum.”

      Molly’s face remained impassive. “Asylum?”

      “It’s okay,” Tala said quickly. “We’re mostly sane.”

      “Not completely crazy, anyway,” Yulia added cheerfully.

      “We were left behind years ago,” Anya said simply. “So we built our own kind of life.”

      A pause. Molly gave a slow nod, considering this. Vera leaned towards her eagerly.

      “Where are you from? Any noble blood?”

      Molly frowned. “Does it matter?”

      “Oh, not really,” Vera said dejectedly. “I just like knowing.”

      Tundra, warming her hands by the fire, looked at Vera. “We came from Spain.”

      Vera perked up. “Spain? Fascinating! And tell me, dear girl, have you ever traced your lineage?”

      “Just back to Molly. She’s ninety-three,” Tundra said proudly.

      Mikhail, who had been watching quietly, finally spoke. “You travelled all the way from Spain?”

      Molly nodded. “A long time ago. There were more of us then… ” Her voice wavered. “We were looking for other survivors.”

      “And?”Mikhail asked.

      Molly sighed, glancing at Tundra. “We never found any.”

      ________________________________________

      That night, they took turns keeping watch, though Molly tried to reassure them there was no need.

      “At first, we did too,” she had said, shaking her head. “But there was no one…”

      By dawn, the fire had burned to embers, and the camp stirred reluctantly to life.

      They finished off the last of their cooked vegetables from the night before, while Molly and Tundra laid out a handful of foraged berries and mushrooms. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to start the day.

      “Right,” Anya said, stretching. “I suppose we should get moving.” She looked at Molly and Tundra. “You’re coming with us, then? To the city?”

      Molly nodded. “If you’ll have us.”

      “We kept going and going, hoping to find people. Now we have,” Tundra said.

      “Then it’s settled,” Anya said. “We head to the city.”

      “And what exactly are we looking for?” Molly asked.

      Mikhail shrugged. “Anything that keeps us alive.”

      ________________________________________________

      It was late morning when they saw it.

      A vehicle—an old, battered truck, crawling slowly toward them.

      The sight was so absurd, so impossible, that for a moment, no one spoke.

      “That can’t be,” Molly murmured.

      The truck bounced over the uneven ground, its engine a dull, sluggish rattle. It wasn’t in good shape, but it was moving.

      #7776

      Epilogue & Prologue

      Paris, November 2029 – The Fifth Note Resounds

      Tabitha sat by the window at the Sarah Bernhardt Café, letting the murmur of conversations and the occasional purring of the espresso machine settle around her. It was one of the few cafés left in the city where time still moved at a human pace. She stirred her cup absentmindedly. Paris was still Paris, but the world outside had changed in ways her mother’s generation still struggled to grasp.

      It wasn’t just the ever-presence of automation and AI making themselves known in subtle ways—screens adjusting to glances, the quiet surveillance woven into everyday life. It wasn’t just the climate shifts, the aircon turned to cold in the midst of November, the summers unpredictable, the air thick with contradictions of progress and collapse of civilization across the Atlantic.

      The certainty of impermanence was what defined her generation. BANI world they used to say—Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible. A cold fact: impossible to grasp and impossible to fight. Unlike her mother and her friends, who had spent their lives tethered to a world that no longer existed, she had never known certainty. She was born in the flux.

      And yet, this café remained. One of the last to resist full automation, where a human still brought you coffee, where the brass bell above the door still rang, where things still unfolded at a human pace.

      The bell above the door rang—the fifth note, as her mother had called it once.

      She had never been here before, not in any way that mattered. Yet, she had heard the story. The unlikely reunion five years ago. The night that moved new projects in motion for her mother and her friends.

      Tabitha’s fingers traced the worn edges of the notebook in front of her—Lucien’s, then Amei’s, then Darius’s. Pieces of a life written by many hands.

      “Some things don’t work the first time. But sometimes, in the ruins of what failed, something else sprouts and takes root.”

      And that was what had happened.

      The shared housing project they had once dreamed of hadn’t survived—not in its original form. But through their rekindled bond, they had started something else.

       

      True Stories of How It Was.

       

      It had begun as a quiet defiance—a way to preserve real, human stories in an age of synthetic, permanent ephemerality and ephemeral impermanence, constantly changing memory. They were living in a world where AI’s fabricated histories had overwhelmed all the channels of information, where the past was constantly rewritten, altered, repackaged. Authenticity had become a rare currency.

      As she graduated in anthropology few years back, she’d wondered about the validity of history —it was, after all, a construct. The same could be said for literature, art, even science. All of them constructs of the human mind, tenuous grasp of the infinite truth, but once, they used to evolve at such a slow pace that they felt solid, reliable. Ultimately their group was not looking for ultimate truth, that would be arrogant and probably ignorant. Authenticity was what they were looking for. And with it, connections, love, genuineness —unquantifiables by means of science and yet, true and precious beyond measure.

      Lucien had first suggested it, tracing the idea from his own frustrations—the way art had become a loop of generated iterations, the human touch increasingly erased. He was in a better place since Matteo had helped him settle his score with Renard and, free of influence, he had found confidence in developing of his own art.

      Amei —her mother—, had changed in a way Tabitha couldn’t quite define. Her restlessness had quieted, not through settling down but through accepting impermanence as something other than loss. She had started writing again—not as a career, not to publish, but to preserve stories that had no place in a digitized world. Her quiet strength had always been in preserving connections, and she knew they had to move quickly before real history faded beneath layers of fabricated recollections.

      Darius, once skeptical, saw its weight—he had spent years avoiding roots, only to realize that stories were the only thing that made places matter. He was somewhere in Morocco now, leading a sustainable design project, bridging cultures rather than simply passing through them.

      Elara had left science. Or at least, science as she had known it. The calculations, the certainty, the constraints of academia, with no escape from the automated “enhanced” digital helpers. Her obsession and curiosities had found attract in something more human, more chaotic. She had thrown herself into reviving old knowledge, forgotten architectures, regenerative landscapes.

      And Matteo—Matteo had grounded it.

      The notebook read: Matteo wasn’t a ghost from our past. He was the missing note, the one we didn’t know we needed. And because of him, we stopped looking backward. We started building something else.

      For so long, Matteo had been a ghost of sorts, by his own account, lingering at the edges of their story, the missing note in their unfinished chord. But now, he was fully part of it. His mother had passed, her past history unraveling in ways he had never expected, branching new connections even now. And though he had lost something in that, he had also found something else. Juliette. Or maybe not. The story wasn’t finished.

      Tabitha turned the page.

      “We were not historians, not preservationists, not even archivists. But we have lived. And as it turned out, that was enough.”

      They had begun collecting stories through their networks—not legends, not myths, but true accounts of how it was, from people who still remembered.

      A grandfather’s voice recording of a train ride to a city that no longer exists.
      Handwritten recipes annotated by generations of hands, each adding something new.
      A letter from a protest in 2027, detailing a movement that the history books had since erased.
      An old woman’s story of her first love, spoken in a dialect that AI could not translate properly.

      It had grown in ways they hadn’t expected. People began sending them recordings, letters, transcripts, photos —handwritten scraps of fading ink. Some were anonymous, others carefully curated with full names and details, like makeshift ramparts against the tide of time.

      At first, few had noticed. It was never the goal to make it worlwide movement. But little by little, strange things happened, and more began to listen.

      There was something undeniably powerful about genuine human memory when it was raw and unfiltered, when it carried unpolished, raw weight of experience, untouched by apologetic watered down adornments and out-of-place generative hallucinations.

      Now, there were exhibitions, readings, archives—entire underground movements dedicated to preserving pre-synthetic history. Their project had become something rare, valuable, almost sacred.

      And yet, here in the café, none of that felt urgent.

      Tabitha looked up as the server approached. Not Matteo, but someone new.

      “Another espresso?”

      She hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. And a glass of water, please.”

      She glanced at the counter, where Matteo was leaning, speaking to someone, laughing. He had changed, too. No longer just an observer, no longer just the quiet figure who knew too much. Now, he belonged here.

      A bell rang softly as the door swung open again.

      Tabitha smiled to herself. The fifth note always sounded, in the end.

      She turned back to the notebook, the city moving around her, the story still unfolding in more directions than one.

      #7737

      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.”

      :fleuron2:

      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.

      #7736

      “Premeditated?”  Evie voiced her thoughts.

      TP looked at her sharply. “That would be the obvious conclusion to draw, my dear Evie. However,” he continued after a pregnant pause, “The conclusion may not be obvious at all.”

      Evie rolled her eyes. “When in doubt, assume convolutions?”

      A look of irritation clouded TP’s features momentarily, which he quickly arranged to a look of supercilious exasperation.  “You assume,” he said condescendingly, “That Herbert WAS a human when he entered the drying chamber.”

      Evie was confused. “Well he was a dessicated human when he was found in there.  And he was a human when I last saw him.”

      “And what do we know about Mr Herbert? Mr Ethan “Herbert”?”

      Nonplussed, Evie replied that she didn’t know much about him, other than he was a late arrival and had appeared unexpectedly some years ago.

      “Precisely.”

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