Tangent Futures - Second Chance Short 1 - Time Playing

Fiction by hazyincolour.

In the 22nd century, in between Earth and Mars, there is another civilisation, made up of thousands of orbital habitats. They call this the Second Chance ring. Their origins are a mystery, even to the residents. With energy to matter conversion, capable of meeting their material needs, the old ways of living no longer apply. Gifted an abundance of resources and free time, the inhabitants find new ways to giving meaning to their lives...

The biodome, the few square miles of enclosed sky and natural sunlight on top of a habitat, was especially vibrant this evening. Streamers and torches lit flanking paths. In the middle, a half circle ampitheatre, lanterns, and about a thousand people gathered, sitting on the stone benches, grouped together in places.

They were drinking, eating, smells of fruit and wine, roasted meats, hashish. The conversation slightly hushed, anticipation as fragrant in the air as the food.

Like a biodome festival anywhere in the Second Chance ring.

Yet this one had a noticable difference, and that was the prevalence of togas and tunics.

There was a lot of variety. Short tunics, verging on immodest, gathered roughly at the waist with leather belts. Long, loose, formal togas. Various wools and cottons, the odd inclusion of silk bringing a shimmering contrast. Some dyed, earthy colours mainly, whatever was at hand. On some, threads of gold or silver at the hems.

It was the last chance to wear them for at least a year. Everyone had dressed their best.

It was a warm evening, meant to evoke early Mediterranean summers back on Earth, a long time ago.
"I won't miss the togas," one man said, dabbing at sweat on his brow.
"They look so regal though," replied a woman next to him, though she has worn a short tunic and dodged the sweat issue.

Junia looked around, down the wide streets of her home of the past year. She'd miss it. She'd miss the ampitheatre, the poetry, music, the easy going vibe in the long hot evenings, drinking water or wine from clay cups. Listening to recitals. The stuff that others had penned themselves, the recounting of epics from the time.

Junia had been a baker, a dancer, a courtesan, an advisor to the emperor, three different kinds of merchant.

She laughed to herself. No, these were jobs she'd had. What Junia had been was happy. Not always, or consistently, but enough to have felt like the past year had given more than it had taken.

She'd learned how to write on scroll, how to dance, something she never thought she'd have any time, let alone aptitude for. She'd played at jobs some of the time, done nothing at others. Sometimes the best way to experience a time was to immerse in it totally, others it was best simply to exist in it, to watch it, observe it unfolding.

In truth, the year of the hundred emperors had been a flamboyant pageant of hamminess and sincere overeacting. Removal of historical conditions always changed a history based deep year, but in this case had produced a sort of intense theatric vibe she'd never experienced before. She'd found it endearing.

Going deep was not a historical re-enactment. People in the ring mistook it for this. It was more a sort of themed party. She'd baked for a job, but didn't need to work at it twelve hours a day. She'd traded as a merchant, but hadn't needed to fleece the other side of any transaction. She'd been a courtesan, but never under sexual pressure.

Its critics said it was a whitewashing of something that was best left in its original context. History was a lesson, and doing this diluted what it should be learned. Junia felt differently. What she learned was distorted and inaccurate, sure, but it was out here, around her. It was more like threatre than history.

People go into deep for a lot of reasons. For Junia, she went into it to find out new things about herself, as well as the times she played at. Times had different vibes. The technology of the times shaped the ways of living. It shaped peoples behaviour, and after a few months she found herself acting, thinking, differently to before. It wasn't always what she expected, that was the fun part.

She felt like she was an evolving receptacle of experiences. In those, she found a more rounded, more fulfilled version of herself.

Eventually, she'd stop and go back to the ring. Go play another role outside. Enjoy air conditioning, or not having to bake bread.

Yet a part of Junia always pined for the ancient, for times other than her own. This play acting version of the past was the closest she could get to it. Not everyone who is born to a time is suited to, or natural to it. That itch, that unease in her was what had led her to going deep in the first place. There was a community of that here. Not quite misfits, just people out of time slightly, like they were a little out of phase with their birth time. They were all searching for times that suited them better.

Junia remembered the advice of an old friend, a man who had been on the deep scene since nearly its inception.

It had been the year of the dragon books, and the dragon roared.

That is to say, the twenty people who made up the dragon roared, muffled by the long silk and cotton canopy they proceeded under.

It was the threadfall festival. In front of the dragon, a dozen people threw big string of confetti 'thread' in the air. In the books, thread had been a sort of entity that fed on living matter that fell from the sky, the biggest threat to the inhabitants. Here, it was paper.

There was a whole procession that meandered along the main road, flanked by thatch and wood huts, the occasional stone walled tavern or greater hall. At intervals, the dragon spat out small bursts of flame, singing the thread confetti to the ground in charred spirals.

The dragon was followed by drummers, women in suggestive attire swinging long sticks trailing silk threads, all kinds of dancers. Behind them, leather armoured, almost sullen looking Weyriders, the dragon riders. It was impractical to have them ride the dragons themselves. They seemed aware of this, and faintly embarrassed by it.

The year of the dragon had been a strange one, where the source material had made many concessions, such as to the habitat's lack of fire breathing dragons. Yet it had taken on other qualities and become a sort of intense court drama. A culture that somehow generated massive amounts of intrigue, bitchiness and gossip. Was it because it was, ultimately, a fairly feudal arrangement?

Since it was so feudal, role changes had been frequent and wide ranging, to keep from creating oppressive roles people were stuck in. Junia, known then as Ni'yima, had been a serving girl in a rich household one week, and the next had reversed roles with one of the matriarchs of the same house.

Ni'yama had been a little overwhelmed by this, because the intrigues had somehow developed a life of their own. Ni'yima had come into the position right in the middle of a complicated arrangement of plotting and power relation. She'd felt obliged to carry on the narrative as it was. At the thread festival, she found herself in a role of trying to stop a plot by a rival to extend the tiths and privileges of the dragonriders, the ostensibly highest rank, certainly the most powerful, in the society.

After the thread event there was a great feast in the holding of the presiding house. Ni'yimi sat at the highest table, with thirty other nobles, dragonriders, and honoured guests. Below, everyone else was gathered along long dark trestle tables, and looked to be enjoying themselves immensely. Up here, conversation was stilted and too carefully measured, and people eyed each other suspiciously.

Lord Litoth was at the head of the table, leige lord of the holding. To his right was his brother, Alicath, his great rival. It was said that Alicath had invented, from the tech of the first settlers, some sort of device capable of vapourising thead without the use of a dragon. Ni'yima smiled and thought of the paper thread. It wasn't exactly hard, but okay.

It was said he was planning to use the device to break the domination of the weyrs, the dragons, and their riders.

Ni'yima at first had been fairly comfortable with this idea, but in the past few days had found a lot of to dislike about Alicath and his entourage. She suspected this device would simply change the ruling parties, without addressing the structure. Yet, she'd come into it with the momentum of her predacessor, who supported him. Ni'yima had felt increasingly frustrated the more she had learned.

She was supposed to be for one side, but felt her own feelings go the opposite. What was she supposed to do? In another week or two she wouldn't even be in the position. Was she meant to continue it or avert it? Was it hers to change its course? She presumed it didn't belong to anyone, yet felt this overwhelming sense of role obligation.

She felt oppressed by it, and so far hadn't enjoyed the gravity or the prestige of being in a noble household.
"What's on your mind?" asked the man next to her, one of her oldest friends, going by Lord O'lah.
"Oh... just... hey can I break for a sec?"

Breaking was to suspend character and just talk. It was considered rude to do it without warning. O'lah nodded softly and sipped his wine.
"I can't keep track of all of this court game, and I don't like it.. and I don't like the position I'm supposed to keep..."

He smiled and refilled his glass from a decanter on the table, taking his time, "it's not the side you pick, and it's not that you understand it or not. It's learning how to play it how you want. Like in regular life. You just keep learning, adding to it."
Ni'yima looked confused for a moment, and then smiled. She'd expected an answer, just not so succinct.
"Thank you," she said softly. She hadn't felt like she'd grasped what he meant, but felt it'd be rude to press further, "unbreak."

He laughed to himself and started on some piece of court gossip.

Later that night though, she had understood what he meant. It was a continuing process. It was a gradual addition of experience. You couldn't go deep, find a fully formed self, and take it wholesale back to the ring and live off the interest from your experience. It shaped itself gradually. To be in the ring was just another kind of deep experience. It felt more real simply because of momentum, of its internal gravity. People in the ring didn't, once a year, find a new reality out of a big bag of them and try to live it. The ring was no less arbitrary, it was just stickier.

She'd learned from this and thrown herself into a new position, as an alternative to the Litoth family completely. Every role she played after that in the year of the dragon books was to that end. The idea being of a choice that was neither set of overlords, something that tried to dismantle the feudal system itself. It was absurd, and barely possible in the space of a year, but it had been fun and it'd invigorated Ni'yima's spirit again.

Afterwards, people had said it had livened up a fairly boring court intrigue and given them a better option than either, that it had improved the play significantly. Since that, Ni'yima had tried to always play to what she really wanted, finding as she had that sometimes it had immense, if unknown, beneficial effects on others.

She drifted back to the present, as she heard her voice being called.

"Junia, there you are."

She looked up and smiled.

Aurelia, tall and gracefully dressed, expansively decorated but not excessively. Bangles and earrings in huge hoops that Junia could never pull off. Gemstones set in a gold necklace that caught the torchlight. Tunic in an off white that might have looked ordinary on anyone else gave a simple, elegant background to her jewellery and intense, dark eye makeup.
"I," she sat down intimately close to Junia, "adore this tunic, though," picking up a hem and studying it.
"I found it at the market," Junia felt rising colour in her cheeks, "they were selling a lot of stuff for tonight."
Aurelia's hand stroked it softly, her trailing fingers slipping across Junia's leg, "that's some very nice stitch work. I've not seen it threaded like that before."

She let it go, but her fingers brushed Junia a few moments longer. Junia leaned over and gave her a brief but affectionate kiss.
"I'm glad you found me."
"My favourite place," Aurelia smiled back.
"Where'd you wanna go next?"
"I like the climate, didn't you?" Aurelia replied, "somewhere warm..."
"Dune," Junia suggested, laughing.
Aurelia laughed, "eww, no."

They'd met when Junia had been a dancer. It'd been a warm evening, she remembered, and after a day in the shade keeping out of the heat, the idea of getting bathed, changed into something silky and going to dance for a little while had sounded delightful.

Even if she finished the night drenched in sweat again, it was worth it. Dancing had taken a hold on Junia, at first nervous and awkward, not sure if she could do it at all, but then with time a gradual joy had emerged. She'd found she liked it, and felt she was good at it, and it'd made her want to improve as much as possible. Like it had been a secret character trait in her, now unlocked.

She bathed lazily at the public baths, dressed, and followed the soft sounds of music towards the threatre space.

There'd been confusion about the music at first, and styles in the first few months had varied wildly. Junia's favourite group was playing tonight. They had drums, soft stringed instruments, and a few wind pieces that gave their music a thoughtful, ethereal air. Their music was meandering, repetitive but with long digressions into different areas, more out of a bazaar than a market. To Junia it was dreamy and relaxing. Incense and long baths.

To dance to it was to join the dream. She felt it best to do it slowly, suggestively, like a hashish daydream, whose scent could be found all round the crowd tonight. It was music you flowed to.

She'd smiled and waved at people she knew, accepted a clay cup of mixed herbs and water, sipped heavily at it and took to the stage.

That was when she'd first seen Aurelia. Maybe it was the heat, or the smoke, or the hypnogogic music, the hashish in the air. She was the most beautiful woman Junia had ever seen.

And she was here, dancing, on the stage. On her stage. It was like an invitation. She took a deep breath and accepted, and started to dance. From the first moment they moved together, it was perfect. It was just the two of them.

They never even touched, and they didn't have to. She'd given the best dance of her life, not to the crowd, or even to her, but to them both together. From then, as if the dances had been itself a dozen dates in miniature, they'd been a couple.

Aurelia leaned her head on Junia's shoulder.
"I don't really care what's next, we've had so much fun together," she said quietly.
"We should open a dance school."
"In deep?"
"In deep, in the ring. Wherever."
"You don't wanna... bake bread?"
Junia laughed, "I mean, we could try.. but.. I don't know if we'd be dating if I'd given you a baked roll that night."
"Oh I've tried your baking, you better believe I'd still be here."

She paused. There was an emerging hush that spread from the sides to the centre as the podium stirred. An almost reverent silence, and then a figure in a rich purple toga stepped onto the podium.
"Caesar!"
Shouts and cheers. Caesar stops, looks around, and raises a calming hand.

Caesar was a black woman, short and fat, in her sixties. The crowd cheered wildly. She'd been one of the most popular Caesars this past year, and had been in the post for an unprecedented three weeks. She was charming and pleasant. Her 'palace', more of a moderately sized villa, had given exceptional parties.

Junia watched intently, trying to take in as much as possible, to remember it.

Caesar held out her arms.
"Friends," she said, not having to shout, the acoustics carrying to all corners, "Ro... no... wait... I said I wouldn't do cliches."

She cleared her throat.
"We take the past, and we don't relive it, but instead, through our lived experience, through our actions in it, try and recover it. Our past was often barbaric, and it pleases me greatly that we can reach in and reclaim it. That we can heal it. For our own fun, yes, because that is how the healing process starts. What my hope is that by doing so, we heal some of the wounds that time inflicted."

There's a murmur at this, some cheers, some muttering incredulity. Junia found herself nodding in agreement.

"Please, friends," she held up a calming hand, "indulge an old Caesar in a romantic whim."
She looked around.
"We recover the past to find fun in it, to engage in it as it could be. We transplant the gift of Second Chance on different times and places. We may not be able to change the past, but we can redeem it, even across whole eras of history"

There was less noise this time. It seemed a milder statement. Aurelia giggled to herself, because she knew it wasn't.

"What matters," Caesar continued, "is that, well, you may all judge what matters for yourselves. Take some time, if you may, and decide that. Think about what we did."

In between changeovers was a month period where the biodome was recycled back into the matter scanners and everyone got time to decondition themselves. It was a period of reflection, before another month where the planning stage for the next deep play began.

"Did we all have a good time?" Caesar asked.
Raucous cheering.
"I'm glad," she turned to look from one corner of the threatre to the other, "now, we shall see what's next..." she glanced at an assistant.
"The bag!" someone shouts, joined in by others.
The assistant was holding a large hessian sack.
"Yes," Caesar confirmed, "the bag."

The bag. A sack full of paper pieces. Of names, of places, of times. Of books and old media. There might have been thousands of entries.

There's a hush as she put her hand in. Rummaging for a few seconds, then with a dramatic flourish, Caesar pulled a tiny scroll out of the bag and unfurled it.

The audience, as one, leaned forward slightly.