While Steve was slightly disgruntled about having to wait to be, well… not in his situation. He was glad to have some time to think.

He was apparently an Emperor.

Emperor of what? Some might ask, but Steve didn’t need to. He already knew all he needed to.

Being Emperor of anything is a pretty big deal.

He could understand Nuori’s doubts about his capabilities, hell, he probably has a much more pessimistic outlook on himself than she does. But as he was lying here, the thing that struck Steve was not his or Nuori’s doubts. It was that someone didn’t doubt him.

Someone out there decided that through all Human history, Steve was the best choice to lead. The thought made him giddy on the inside, and here, chained to a table, lying in his own excrement, was a man who felt happier than he had in years.

Even if he was only picked because they thought he’d be easy to manipulate, it still meant he was picked. It meant that, at least in some way, his life had been noticeable. If the person who picked him thought he could be controlled and manipulated until being discarded, he would prove them wrong. Oh, he just felt like laughing.

But he couldn’t stop crying.

Relief overwhelmed him. All his life he had been dreaming of what he should do. What he could do. He knew that he was capable. Thought that he could make a difference.

But eventually he had a realization. It hadn’t been a sudden epiphany. No, those rarely mattered.

It had crept upon him ever so softly. Nothing visible, more of an absence. An answer to a question he had never come to terms with, never wanted to ask.

If he was capable of great things, special in some way, why had he never achieved anything?

And it wasn’t just that he had never accomplished his dreams, he understood those could be unrealistic. What burned him! Filled his heart with anger and self loathing!

The knowledge that broke him…

He had never even tried.

After he realized that? Each day he slipped further into despair. One less day to try, one more day he didn’t.

Eventually he stopped caring at all. Somehow that was worse than the despair.

His ship had already sunk. He was going to drown, why try to fight it?

Steve had been so close to going under and now someone had grabbed him and pulled him ashore. For once he had hope, and so, he cried.

It had been so long since his life had purpose.

On that table, Steve made a promise to himself. He wouldn’t let this opportunity go to waste. No matter the cost, he would make himself significant.

He just had to figure out how.

First he needed to understand the way their government and culture worked. He compared himself to a tenth century tribal leader from the asain steppes being transported to the twenty first century and made prime minister of Canada. He knows nothing. Any number of things that seemed innocent to Steve could be seen as horrifying by his new people. It could also be true the other way around but Steve assumed it would be easier to change himself, than to change an entire population.

Secondly, he needed to figure out why things developed the way they did. He’d heard the “People who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it” quote a few times, and he did not want to make any mistakes that were obvious to others.

He needed Nuori, and he needed her willing to help. To hear her tell it, she is one of the few people here who can speak english and, from what she says, she is uninvolved in politics. Her motives are transparent, another point in her favour. To top it all off, her goal involves recording “late Earth history” and there is probably some overlap between that and the Empire’s past.

She was the perfect help for his objectives in every way… probably. He may have been letting the fact that he found her quite attractive cloud his judgement, but hey, that doesn’t necessarily mean none of that is true.

He did need to see if he could find at least one other person who spoke his language though. Follow the principles of trust but verify and make sure Nuori is keeping her end of the bargain. He should never allow himself to become too dependent on any one person. That would be inviting disaster.

He had the basics of a plan, now all he had to do is wait for someone to come in, clean him up, and let him out of these chains.

It would be some time.

------------

Hours later, Steve heard the door being opened. As he turned his head, he saw a man wearing a blue jacketish thing, purple pants and a red tophat pushed into the room. He was then thrown keys, handed a water sprayer, and something that looked like a hollow cylinder. The men outside quickly closed the door.

The man, who Steve assumed had been spontaneously ‘volunteered’ to clean up Steve’s mess, glared at him and said something (probably quite rude) in the Empire’s language.

That was the extent of the conversation between the two, but Steve understood this man’s feelings perfectly well.

Which is why he’d hope to never meet him again.

The first thing the man did was place the cylinder against the wall, after a second there was a small click from behind the wal. The man then attached the hose connected to the water sprayer.

He gave Steve a quick shot to the face (probably just for fun) and then released him from the chains. After Steve got undressed, the man sprayed all of the unfortunate substances off of him. He then gestured to the door, so Steve immediately left the room. He was quite aware that he was still naked but he’d rather run into any number of people like this than annoy that poor soul any longer.

Emperor for a day and he was already making the hard choices.

Luckily for him the people who had brought the cleaner here had left him a pair of sweatpants and a bunnyhug to wear. Once he put on the clothes, he found a folded paper note from Nuori in the right pocket of the bunnyhug.

Steve,

The following is a list of directions for how to get to where I am.

Please follow these EXACT instructions, if you do, you should have no problems finding me.

Alrighty, simple enough.

First, Put your back against the door and turn right.

He turned right and was now looking at the same type of seamless metal wall that was in his room. Absolutely nothing indicated that this part of the wall was any different than the rest.

Take one step forward. Then you’ll need to clearly pronounce the syllables toas-a, dee, fah-to.

After a few unsuccessful attempts he managed to get it correct enough that the wall slid open. As he looked down at the rest of the long, long list, he had the slight premonition that this would not be nearly as simple as he hoped it would be. He could only wonder how long it would take for him to hate Nuori.

Go straight, third tunnel on your right.

As Steve walked forwards he saw passages Everywhere. The ones twisting off left and right didn’t concern him, he’d been in confusing buildings before. The ones going straight up weirded him out but he could deal with it. The huge holes he had to narrowly walk around? The ones that just dropped? Those freaked him out.

He had been holding out hope that he wouldn't have to do anything too crazy when he saw the rope. The directions made it sound like the simplest thing in the world.

Climb rope, take rope with you when finished.

“Fucking seriously?” He looked up in disbelief.

The passage went up seemingly endlessly and yet the rope only went up three meters. Well she probably isn’t trying to kill me. Steve hopefully thought as he grabbed the rope and did his best to climb the wall.

Around two meters up the gravity rapidly switched, and he found himself looking at the floor he was just on. “Seriously, what the fuck?” He imagined himself walking down this hallway. If someone didn’t know the gravity switch happened at the end they would fall face first into the “wall” at the end of this hallway, which is actually the floor of the other hallway.

“It is my imperial prerogative that whoever designed this place needs to be shot.” Steve stated for his personal record, only half joking.

Would it be tyranny? Most definitely! But come on... It’s for public safety's sake!

He was dumbfounded, who would think that this place was a good idea? There are no markings anywhere, each and every wall is the same polished metal. Worst part of all, he had been walking for 15 minutes and had not seen a single person. If someone injured themself here, (which was pretty damn likely), or just got lost, (also very likely!), Steve didn’t know if they’d ever end up being found.

Steve then had to go down a bit later, that put him... parallel to his original tunnel? But the floor was on the right wall of his original direction so when he went right he was parallel with the original tunnel that went up, and then he went up, which was...?

NO

Steve’s brain intelligently decided that processing this information was well beyond its paygrade.

Eventually, he came upon a large open room that, for once, had people in it.The walls were still the same metal, but there were huge sprawling trees that sprouted from both the roof and floor and then intertwined together in the middle. Each of the trees were in a sizable pool of water and those in turn were surrounded by colourful gardens.

There were also market ‘stalls’, Steve thought of them as stalls since he could see the goods from the outside but they were anything but small. Or orderly for that matter. In fact, many of the stall placements he saw happened to be rather insane. One particularly interesting one was in the middle of the gap between the floor and roof, the shopkeep had attached some displays to the intertwined trees and tied rope around himself (it was also attached to a tree). He was floating around his ‘shop’ working on product facing. He sold hats.

There were shops and people also on the ‘roof’, as well as the ‘floor’. While the tunnels were terrible for his sense of direction, this was just insane. Steve supposed he should just be glad that no one was walking on the walls.

After realizing that he had been numbly looking around with his mouth open, Steve looked at Nuori's note and started laughing like a crazy person.

One! One last step Steve! One last possible foray into madness. One more, and then you are free!

Once you are in the plaza, go to the left side and place your hand against the wall. Follow the wall until you find a door. Speak the words “Hello Nuori, I am an idiot” and you will be let in. I changed it so it would also accept your language so it should be fine.

He could see the door she was talking about, the plaza wasn’t that busy. He went up to it, and despite it being open (It’s quite easy to imagine she’s just getting him to say this to make fun of him) he still spoke the words unenthusiastically. He may have gotten some odd looks from the people around him but his newfound doneness quickly murdered his self confidence issues.

As he suspected, nothing happened. Though knowing the safety issues in this deathtrap he might have been spontaneously combusted if he hadn’t said anything and tried to go through anyway.

As he followed the path he came upon a room with a huge amount of people. Luckily for his brain they were all standing on the same surface as him. He couldn't hear anything just outside the room but once he crossed an invisible barrier the sound was deafening. The crowd was electric as they watched two groups of ten people begin to march towards each other within an arena in the center of the room. At the back, there was a man on a stage who was speaking quite vigorously (probably commenting on the fight).

Steve didn't see where Nuori was supposed to be. Thinking back to the note, he realized he must still have to go forwards. Towards the stage? Was this supposed to be his introduction to the people? He wasn’t sure if he liked the idea of implicitly endorsing bloodsp-

No, he was sure he did not like the idea.

If he was to take the stage, he would speak out against it. All his life he had gone down the path of least resistance, went with the flow. It had brought him nothing but self loathing and regret. If he was to be a leader, he must lead! Incite the change he wished to see!

He wouldn’t be the Steve of yesteryear, he would be the new Steve!

EMPEROR STEVE!

As he now confidently strode towards the stage, Emperor Steve calmly surveyed the crowd.

He did not see Nuori, nor did he notice the man who had definitely noticed him.