Ma? Ma?

Djaer paced through a cottage the size of a cathedral. The smell of ammonia stung his nostrils and the wooden boards seemed alive with movements of tiny tubular bodies. Room after room after room faded into darkness.

My son? Where are you?

Ma!

Djaer? It’s so cold in this house.

In his hurry Djaer slipped on something writhing underfoot and knocked something metal off the mantelpiece.

A gentle clang rang out –

Naomi winced as she awkwardly freed the ceremonial waking gong from above Djaer’s contorted face. A minor scuff – nothing serious enough to disturb the slumber of a Meitagenan. She maneuvered the gong from the bed, avoiding protruding spikes with the precision of an acrobat, and out of the room into the waiting mouth of Turbo Trash Chute. The gong slid noiselessly down its gullet and directly into the void. Djaer would never wake again.

As she flipped through the bed’s 100s of highly-calibrated massage modes looking for Ultimate Snoozefest, Naomi wondered if Meitagenans dreamt during hibernation. Probably not, she concluded, observing that Djaer dreamt so much while he was awake there’d be none left in the tank by now.

It’d taken her a couple months to hack access to the ship’s navigation and propulsion, even with the fingers of an Ascenter it was complicated enough to require sustained focus. By now Laila would have met with her counterpart and be well on her way. How she missed her. There was so much time between now and the future, and she was unlikely to ever see her again. To even hear of her again.

She wondered how Laila and the Movement would get on in their quest. She wondered if she would ever know exactly. The book was a powerful call to action, but still, nothing was guaranteed. Maybe Laila was already dead – killed the first time she attempted to impersonate Djaer? Maybe the Movement never find her and are snuffed out like lost little kids? Maybe they’ll take over the galaxy and render that sleeping Meitagenan the last of his kind and Laila survives long enough to live happily ever after... Probably something in between all that.

Still, Naomi did want to see Laila again, despite the chances. She felt alone. She was alone. No Worm she knew of had left the Network before. This was a first.

Time moves so slow, Naomi thought to herself.

It was truly,

scarily

quiet.

UGHGHGHHHH.

Djaer had moved into a deeper sleep, and with that came a snore that was so low in frequency you felt it in your chest more than you heard it with your ears. The throttling vibrations made it hard to be pensive. Naomi moved over to the gently shaking console display that showed the Cloud and zoomed into the model, watching as the grey sphere fragmented.

The galaxy’s largest satellite was in fact a cluster of millions of tiny satellites and inside those was far more information than in the entire Network. The Cloud was the backup, kept safe and isolated from the galaxy should anything ever just possibly happen to go wrong. It didn’t just contain the most recent snapshot of the Network, it contained copies upon copies upon copies dating back to its earliest days, and even contained other valuable information deemed unsuitable for transmission within the Network itself.

UGHGHGHHHH.

Did other Worms live in the Cloud? There were rumours of colonies. Did it have the famous long lost ‘sexiest image to ever exist’ of the Alphorean mayor being a total hunk while on top of a pogo stick? Almost certainly. Naomi would be checking these both out, perks for all her personal efforts, but they weren’t the reason she was headed to the Cloud.

UGHGHGHHHH.

Naomi needed to distract herself from the rumbling. She headed to the viewing window and looked into the hold. It’d only been a couple of months and they’d established a capital C Coven. These were meant to be an assortment of some of the best. Naomi guessed they got a little messed up if their memories weren’t properly defrosted. An intervention was needed. She tapped a button and Matt’s grin appeared on a screen.

“Matt.”

“I want to say... Miss?”

“You definitely don’t. Just call me Naomi.”

“Naomi, how lovely. Charmed to meet you.”

“How many humans are out now, wiggling about down there?”

“49 out, wiggling about,” Matt replied breezily. For a split-second, the tiniest hint of concern shimmered in Naomi’s eyes.

“And the other 18?”

“1 is in, wiggling about. 17 are dead,” Matt added in a sing-song fashion.

She couldn’t lose too many more, but at least she’d built in a little redundancy. She scowled and said, “Well there’s not much room to wiggle in those pods. It doesn’t sound comfortable.”

Matt carried on smiling and didn’t say anything.

“Well are you going to fish that one out?”

“Do you want me to fish that one out, Naomi?”

“What do you think? Yes. That’s why we’re talking about it.”

“Okay. Consider it fished, Naomi.”

She didn’t like how it started adding her name to the end of its replies. It was somehow even more irritating than before.

“Matt, I need you to keep them alive, just this 50. They need to last to the Cloud, so what’s that? Like a thousand years?”

“Certainly, Naomi. And if they make more?”

She felt the floor vibrate for a second.

“Let them have a little civilization, it’s what Djaer would have wanted –” before adding, “But don’t give any life extension stuff to any of their newcomers, let’s keep it simple.”

“Consider it done, Naomi.”

“Thanks Matt. You know, if you had a physical body I wouldn’t hesitate to take my frustration out on it.”

“I know, Miss.”

Naomi just stared into the frozen digital smile.

...I mean, anything else I can do for you today, Naomi?”

She paused for a second. “Yes actually, I think a little present for everyone too.”

***

The 50th pod rose out of the slime. To Marie it looked like it was defying gravity. Through the glass she could make out a person – not frozen – wiggling about. Then the sudden bright light of materialisation.

The door sprung open revealing a rakish figure covered in grime and sweat grasping a pristine book. Even from this distance Marie could make out the cover’s title in all caps: POLITICAL VOID. It somehow seemed familiar.