The window was unlocked! Even better, Mitch didn’t recognize this part of the complex at all. It might be the right place.

“This is it, Diego. The secret to everything. Can I call you Diego?”

On old earth, humans worried a lot about the speed of light. It just seemed so unfair. An entire universe to explore, and we’d never reach more than a few systems in a human lifetime.

“Sir!” Ensign Glorpl-thorp whipped a tentacle to his head, in a crude pantomime of a human salute. “Come quick. We have an emergency.”

Seven men, robed and hooded, stood in a circle. Drawn between them was a seven-pointed star. They chanted in unison, their hands held forward as if pressing against an invisible wall.

It was early in the morning. Far too early for Everett’s liking, but his body felt light and his mind felt sharp. Today was the day he learned the nature of the universe, and that sort of thing tended to wake you up.

Leopold squeezed sideways through a narrow stone gap. Fortunately he’d lost a little weight these last few days. There wasn’t much to eat atop Mt. Icehollow.

“I’ll be honest. This isn’t what I expected.” The new King had enough sense to hush his voice as I led him through the tower. That boded well for our relationship, and for his longevity.

“We could just kill him.” John held up his fingers, pointed like guns. “Bang!”

Ellie drew a line, straight and perfect. She used a yardstick, of course, and a protractor for the angles. Precision was key. She appreciated the old ways more than most, but not enough to risk containment failure.

My brain does this weird thing sometimes. I’ll see something perfectly normal. It’ll be some stupid everyday shit, like two people on a date both staring at their phones. And then, for some reason, I won’t be able to stop thinking about it. I’ll just tell you now that the rest of this story is perfectly fucking normal. But it stuck with me.