Bill had returned from Venus with a much-expanded worldview. His mind bridge encompassed three of the Bills on Venus and the two remotely working. Those two were on the orbital rebuild of the next ShadowGate, high in polar orbit over Earth but connected via portal for the rebuild. With them, and another ten digitized Bill’s; Bill experienced real hive mind multitasking for the first time.

  His augmented skill couldn’t compare in terms of pure mental ability at all. The augmentation skill mimicked multiple thought streams by utilizing sped-up and segmented thought processes. This was different.

  It was true parallel processing. His paired neural cores actively combined his disparate selves and pooled their memories. His collective productivity doubled and tripled as he could now cross-check his work and synergize with himself.

  Venus's hub roiled with activity as he was departing. All the gates of the centralized gate hub were being moved to isolate and improve their security—layers of distance, physical barriers, nano-scanners, and defensive weapons lined every portal. The gate pairs were now mantraps and wouldn’t pass travelers until they were deemed safe. Even nano-trackers were meticulously analyzed and removed.

  He had returned to the Freedom’s hold invigorated. He had been eager to search out Dr. Vivek to begin work on attempting to restore his crippled clones. Casa had surprised him yet again, by meeting him and having Vivek already onboard the Freedom.

  Bill had thought he had finally caught up to his artificial daughter in capability. He grinned as he understood that she was truly unleashing her full potential now. She quickly excused herself to work on finding the arks, while Bill sat with Vivek to learn what he had missed in the clones’ restoration.

  Casa's mech frame sat in her network control cluster in the front hold of the Freedom. They were still docked at Hera Station shipyard. Her mind churned through the simulations, each attempt to predict the ark’s drift crumbling into failure. Her Space Strider probe couldn’t find the first ark.

  The later arks had the addition of a Bussard Ram-Scoop fusion jet. They pulled down interstellar hydrogen using a large electromagnetic funnel. The density was infinitesimal, but when going at a fraction of light speed it was enough to provide a continuous feed to the fusion jets.

  There had been seven arks in total. The first two, the Enterprise and the Promise, didn’t have Bussard Ramjets. Both were headed in approximately the same region, Proxima Centauri and Alpha Centauri respectively. Casa already had a line of sight on the Bussard-equipped Arks.

  The third and fourth arks were both destined for Barnard’s Star and with their superior constant jet capability; they were much further than the first pair. They were over halfway to their destinations, despite having further to travel.

  Casa had found them early and locked in their locations. Her probe ships were just now arriving at Barnard’s Star and were still scouting the system to set up a base. She wouldn’t hail the ships until she was ready to help them.

  The fifth launch was the Herald of Man, with a target of Wolf 359. Casa had scratched it from her list. It had gone missing only 3 years into its mission in 2096. The sixth was the New Destiny, bound again for Alpha Centauri. That one was almost there.

  When Casa’s Space Strider had arrived at the star and begun building; it’s reconnaissance scan had seen the distant ship’s fusion jet among the stars. The New Destiny had flipped end-over-end and was still decelerating. It would be there in another two years, even if she did nothing to help.

  The seventh ship, the Ethereal that was bound for Wolf, had ended the ark ship projects. The Mercury station laser array, used to provide fuel-free boosting out of Sol, had been sabotaged.

  The laser had purposely been pulsed to foul the ship’s solar sails and then burned through the ship. It had detonated, losing all of its colonists and crew, in a massive explosion. Public funding for exploration had died that day.

  Casa sighed, returning to her first problem ark. It was as if the Enterprise had vanished into the void, coasting through deep space without a trace. The frustration mounted, but she paused, rebuilding her assumptions and recalculating again.

  “Damn it! All our simulations share the same flawed data. The visual feeds from Luna are clear as day, but we’re certain now that beyond the heliopause, interstellar winds have distorted our fix on the arks.”

  “This one is a sleep ship. The colonists are all in hibernation with a skeleton crew cycling in shifts. The propulsion is stopped, saving the remainder for turnover and deceleration. So, no emissions, no signals—it’s like a snowflake lost in a blizzard.” She fumed. Her virtual advisors were arrayed around the data. They all looked to be in similar states of annoyance.

  Tommy, Edison’s virtual form, paced beside her, his arms crossed in frustration. “It’s not just hiding—it’s a ghost. If they’ve shut down everything to conserve energy, they’re practically invisible.”

  “Exactly,” she replied. “None of my simulations are yielding anything. The visual flux is only half the problem. Only having one point of view makes pinning the ship's location accurately almost impossible. No parallax. So, we only have one eye, while looking for that damn snowflake in the damn blizzard.

  “Now that we can finally move fast through space, we could get good distance on our sensing platforms to get a firm fix on any ship’s location in 3D. But without that visual burn, we can’t see anything. Even tiny course errors and corrections add up over the years. The simulations show that it could be hundreds of thousands of kilometers off its ideal route.”

  Rams, or Ramanujan, cut in with his usual calm insight. “Casa, you’re treating this as a present problem, I think. Time itself holds the key, yes? You’re looking for where the ark is… but what if we looked for where it was?”

  “What are you trying to say, Rams?” Casa’s virtual eyes widened. “Wait… of course. Light speed was the issue, but not anymore. We can use it. We can’t see the ark now, but we can see its past. The last major propulsion burn was decades ago, but that light—those emissions—are still traveling outward.”

  Picard, standing with hands behind his back as usual, nodded in agreement. “Very astute observation, Science Officer Ramanujan. The traveling light cone still retains the signal. If we send the striders to the edge of the light cone—far enough away—they’ll catch up to the ark’s final propulsion burn and be able to observe it directly. And we can do it from multiple angles for parallax.” Picard smiled wryly.

  Edison, grinning now, jumped in. “We’ll witness the burn and its trajectory at the time, and from that, we can calculate exactly where the ship is heading!”

  Casa’s frustration dissipated, replaced with sharp clarity. “I’ll send a bunch of striders above and below the galactic ecliptic, about 70 light-years out. They’ll travel to the edge of the light cone and see the ark’s last burn. From there, we’ll have its trajectory nailed down.”

  As she dispatched the commands, the small fleet of space striders began to queue in the Venus probe ship foundry. They only needed her flight plan to initiate their mission through dimensional frames to the distant reaches of space.

  “I’ll have the location soon,” Casa said with renewed confidence. “And meanwhile, our other striders have already established a bridgehead wormhole in the Alpha Centauri system. They’re releasing nano assemblers to bag an asteroid and use it as materials to build a sizable O'Neill habitat for the colonists. Everything’s in motion, but the ark still needs to get there.”

  Picard gave a faint smile, his voice steady. “Well done, Casa. Science Officers Edison and Ramanujan, it seems we’ll have our answer soon enough.”

  Casa paused as she calculated the probe's flight plans. The striders were built for speed, but the limits were clear. It had been tested to handle 81 times the speed of light, fast by any standard, but far too slow for what she needed now. At that pace, it would take 313 days to reach the edge of the impossibly distant light cone. Even exceeding light, 70 light years would take far too long to travel. The ark needed to be found right now.

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  “Three hundred days,” Casa muttered. “I can’t wait that long.”

  Tommy, ever the tinkerer, raised an eyebrow. “You’re thinking of pushing them past their limits, aren’t you?”

  Casa nodded, the gears in her mind turning faster. “The striders were only tested up to 81 times light speed, but the drive curve goes asymptotic. We stopped there more out of concern for control and missing our stellar targets if we went too fast. If I redline the dimensional drives, they could make the journey in less than…a day. The risk of destabilizing the portals is high, though.”

  “Haha. I’ve burned more than a few bulbs in my time searching for the best filament. The research may be largely done, but it’s time to see our real limits with some developmental testing. Nothing tried is nothing gained.”

  Rams, ever cautious, added, “Redlining the portal distortion could cause us to lose our ability to maintain its structural stability. We’ve never pushed them that far.”

  “We don’t have time to play it safe,” Casa countered. “They’re unmanned probes. I can send a fleet, instead of just a few striders. We’ll collect the data on the fly, to refine the portal models. Even if we lose a lot of them, I’ll still learn from it and future portal shifts will become even safer.”

  Picard folded his arms, his voice calm but resolute. “You’re walking a fine line, Casa, but time is of the essence. If the ark drifts too far off course, the bridgehead wormhole and habitat preparations in Alpha Centauri will be useless. Your plan to secure the colonists safely requires that we find them…and quickly if Bill’s concerns require your portals.”

  Her mind was made up. She dispatched the orders to the fleet, preparing the striders for a high-risk jump. “It’s a calculated risk,” she said. “I’ll push them to the edge, but with redundancy and careful data collection. The fleet will arrive at the light cone in less than a day, and we’ll catch that final propulsion burn. I can always make more probes.”

  Tommy cracked a grin. “It’s bold. I like it.”

  “Bold, but necessary, I think.” Rams agreed, running the numbers as the fleet launched.

  “Let’s make it so,” Picard commanded.

  As the striders surged through dimensional frames, their drives strained against the limits of physics, but Casa monitored every fluctuation, every destabilizing ripple in the portal. The data she gathered would improve the system’s resilience—if they survived the jump.

  “They’re holding together,” she murmured, her eyes locked on the data streams. “We’ll have our answer soon.”

  Now, it was only a matter of hours before the fleet would reach the light cone, and they would reveal the trajectory that would lead Casa straight to the Enterprise.

  In the aft hold, Bill paced as Dr. Vivek finished absorbing the results of the last test. The lab’s sterile glow cast long shadows across the pair of pods. Bill stopped before his clones, each suspended in a bath of biotic fluid. He rubbed his temples, frustration evident in the tightness of his voice.

  "Still nothing. Brain repairs are perfect. Synaptic growth looks normal," he muttered, "but they're just... blank."

  Dr. Vivek was hunched over a holo-screen nearby, fingers tapping out commands in quick succession. His brow furrowed in thought as he reviewed the data. “It’s strange. The physical repairs worked, yet mentally...”

  Bill glanced at him, exasperation simmering. “I’ve reviewed all your work. I’ve got a collective of myselves working at ten times normal speed. This should have worked. Are you certain your version of the uplift virus is effective?”

  Vivek hesitated, his fingers stopping mid-tap. He sighed and turned to face Bill. “Bill, I’m fascinated by what you're doing to yourself, but my specific expertise is essential here. You can’t brute force creativity. I’ve never mentioned this, but the uplift…I’ve already performed it on myself, although it wasn’t a full procedure.”

  Bill blinked, caught off-guard. “What?”

  “I did a minor precursor uplift,” Vivek admitted, crossing his arms. “A calculated risk. I needed to push my cognitive boundaries beyond the human standard to make breakthroughs in my work. I’ve undergone three mini-leaps in cognition.”

  Vivek smiled grimly. “Earth regulations are meaningless out here in the belt. Too many people lack full augmentation health care out here. We’ve had instances of newborns with mental deficits. I’ve fixed them all.”

  "Why haven’t I heard about this?” Bill pressed.

  “Please. Why would I invite criticism from the Earth regulators? The entire planet has had its head up its collective ass for the last decade, stifling any attempts at real cognitive therapies.”

  “I understand, I guess. But the Samaritans aren’t like that. You kept this a secret from us?” Bill asked. Dr. Vivek laughed and shook his head.

  "Bill. I did. One of your peers, Alexi Ivanov, came to me fifteen years ago for a full uplift procedure. You’re telling me that he didn’t inform the group?”

  “Ah. I’m not sure. I’d retired and was trying to live a quiet life. Fuck! Miriam didn’t mention any of this. Alexi also retired and built that Labyrinth. He's been secluded and has been playing at creating superior training aids for kids. I don’t think he’s been active in the Samaritans either.” Bill said. Dr. Vivek shrugged and continued.

  “Regardless. This technology works, despite the horror stories Earth regulators like to spout. It’s allowed me to understand things most can’t, but even that doesn’t explain what's happened to your twins. It should have worked.”

  Bill leaned against the console, staring at the pair of clones floating in their pods. “So, you don’t know how to fix them?”

  Vivek shook his. “No, I do know what's wrong. The brain activity is there, all the right patterns and signals. But mentally... they’re not here anymore. Not in the way we understand.”

  Bill’s eyes narrowed, thinking rapidly. “You think it’s the Shadowverse, don’t you? You think they’re still affected by the dimensional exposure.”

  Vivek nodded gravely. “It’s the only explanation that fits. The procedure works. It’s clear they are both viable. Their exposure to the ShadowVerse’s higher-dimensional perception is the only variable that’s different. It could’ve disrupted their very concept of reality. They’re seeing things, existing in ways, that we can’t even begin to perceive.”

  Bill felt a weight settle in his chest. “And what do we do about that?”

  Vivek took a deep breath before answering. “You may need to re-expose them. Bring them back to the Shadowverse. I think it’s the only way to jolt their minds back into alignment. The uplift responds to damage…and stress. It will help bolster their minds to expand and adapt. It's risky, but it might be their only chance. I don’t think it will make their condition any worse.”

  Bill turned to his clones, watching their still, peaceful forms float. His voice was quiet when he finally spoke. “Let’s hope you're right. I’m about to start a war, and this might be a path to success…or failure. Not just for them, but literally everyone.”

  Bill felt off. Unbalanced by the nagging gap in his knowledge about the Shadowverse despite his many missions and explorations. He needed to connect with the Bills on the other side. As he counted off his tasks, he remembered his lone remainder on Earth.

  I need to remedy that. He should be done arranging insurance against Apex by now. Ah, Bo is still exiting Venus’s hub with the Samaritans. This one needs to use personal messaging. I’ve improved security to isolate activities out here from Earth. The last Bill should provide some insight on what Apex is doing. There. Bo can find Gabriel and Gabriel can find…me. Time to scale up. I feel like I could take on the world right now. If I can unlock these last pieces, maybe I can.

  The hiss of the air pumps was the first thing Lieutenant Gavin Reyes heard as he emerged from the dreamless fog of cryo-hibernation. His limbs felt like lead, and the dryness in his mouth was unbearable. Groaning, he sat up in his pod, muscles weak and joints stiff. As the automated systems disengaged his straps, he rubbed his eyes and blinked at the dim lights of the hibernation chamber.

  It had been his turn to wake early this cycle—a routine comms check, standard protocol every few years. His duty was to monitor the broadcasts from Earth, even if they were over a year old.

  “Safety checks first,” he said aloud. He shuffled his way to the nearest panel, fingers clumsy as they activated the console. The familiar hum of the system coming online was oddly comforting, a reminder that while the Enterprise may have been adrift in the vast nothingness of space, the ship was still functioning.

  “Riker. I’m awake. How’s the ship looking?” Reyes asked.

  The console’s hologram emitter fired up and a small avatar of the fictional character, First Officer William Riker, appeared. He snapped out an illusionary chair and spun it around. Straddling it, he sat and answered.

  “All systems are green, LT. The micro-ablation of the forward dust hull that you asked me to track is still within mission safety parameters. Ah…wait one second. Your timing is good. We have an anomaly from the signals cluster. It’s receiving a…local signal. Very powerful, although quite improbable. Maybe a malfunction?” Ricker said.

  "Alright, let's see what we’ve got," Gavin muttered, blinking away the remnants of cryo-sleep.

  The AI Riker was prone to looking for trouble and sometimes blowing small things out of proportion. He was sure it was nothing. His eyes scanned the panel as the receiver pinged through frequencies. A message queued and he opened it. His brow furrowed as the ship’s system decoded the signal.

  Gavin leaned in, puzzled. "What in the hell?"

  It was a real-time message. Opening it had triggered a carrier signal to enable an active communications line. The holo-screen materialized an unexpected...but familiar sight. He stared at the screen in disbelief.

  Picard? The fictional captain from an ancient TV show? Reyes thought as he looked suspiciously at Riker's avatar.

  “Is this some kind of stupid joke?” He asked, getting angry. Star Trek jokes had gone stale in the first month, post-launch onboard the Enterprise. It was considered poor form to pull that shit anymore. Before Riker could respond; the image on the screen spoke, it’s eyes taking in all the details of the bridge around Reyes.

  “Greetings, RUSA Ark Ship Enterprise. Lieutenant…Reyes and my old number one! What a delightful surprise. We are very glad to finally find you. I hope you are doing as well as it appears. It brings me great pleasure to share some good news with you. Your journey is about to get a significant boost.” The avatar said with some satisfaction.

  “We are prepared to help you, and your entire ship, finish your journey as soon as you can wake everyone up. How would you like to see your new home?” Jean Luc Picard smoothly enunciated as the shell-shocked Lieutenant Reyes' jaw dropped.