It Could Happen Here - CZM Book Club : Hermetica, by Alan Lea, Part Four

Episode Date: August 24, 2025

Margaret brings you further along into the tale of Hermetica, the generation ship.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. From IHeart podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio Universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havocetown.

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys, it's AZ Fud. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion. You may even know me as a people's princess. Every week on my new podcast, Fud Around and Find Out, I'll be talking to some special guests

about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. Listen to Fud Around and Find Out, a production of IHart Women's Sports in partnership with unanimous media on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Don't let biased algorithms or degree screens or exclusive professional networks or stereotypes. Don't let anything keep you from discovering the half of the workforce who are stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time to tear the paper ceiling and see the stars beyond it. Find out how you can make stars part of your talent strategy at tear the papersealing.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions

and give you new insight on the people around you. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Cool Zone Media Book Club, Book Club, Book Club, But Club. Hello, and welcome to Cool Zone Media Book Club. The only book club where you don't have to do the reading is I do it for you. I'm your host Margaret Kiljoy, and every week I bring you stories. What kind of stories? Well, it depends on what I feel like bringing you.

Or you all are my captive audience. And I can read you anything I want. That's actually not true. I do have limits. Or I just decide I have good taste. And so nothing I want to read you is outside those limits. I don't know how it works. I don't know how to do my own job.

But I do know how to keep reading you Hermitica by Alan Lee. that's right we are on part four on hermetica well in hermetica but it's also the name of the ship they're on so it's sort of on hermedica too you ever think about that Alan Lee is the science fiction pen name of Peter Gelderlose and you can check out more of Peter's work by looking him up I don't know he was written a lot of books actually and they're pretty interesting and also has a substack that you can check out called Surviving Leviathan and yeah, you might like it. But hermedica, last time on hermedica.

Days lives on a generation ship called hermetica. I already told you that, but things aren't adding up. They found a piece of physical newspaper in the wall that is inconsistent with the history they've been told, particularly around political unrest back on Earth and the details of the ARPV, the acute respiratory passenger virus that keeps everyone on hermetic, in lockdown. And the ship's library can't corroborate everything they were looking for because

some things like ship's schematics are considered classified need to know information after an attack on a different ship, the wiki. Where we last left days, they were taking a walk and witnessed one of their neighbors having a mental breakdown. Half an hour later, Zimp called. Days washed their face and turned on the screen. So how have you been? Fine. Zimp pursed their lips. You sure? Yeah, you know, ups and downs. Anything interesting at work? Oh, I got a patient in Medio. They told me about plants.

That's cool. Have you been looking at the plants on your block? I guess. No more than usual. But you've been interested in the ship, right? Or the journey? I'm just having doubts. It's normal. You know that, right? Yeah. They say that, psychologically, our generation has it the hardest. We never saw Tara.

We probably won't see the next home world. We're stuck yearning for two places that are completely unknown to us. Yeah. So don't be hard on yourself is what I mean. It's okay if you feel down or directionless. The system was made to take that into account. Take as many personal days as you need. Personal days don't help.

Days surprised themselves with the feelings that came up. Zimp blinked, afraid they'd said the wrong thing. I mean, it's Hermetica. It doesn't feel right. It feels like nowhere. What do you mean? I don't know. I mean, Tara, it had all this history, all these things happening. Most of them terrible, yeah, but here, I can't just spend my life waiting for the next block party. There's a lot more than block parties. Days shrugged. You're not gaming, are you? I got sick of it. There's some really good ones. I don't want to hear about it. They cut Zimp off.

Look, I'm not bored. I just... This doesn't feel real. Zimp raised an eyebrow. How's that? Like, traveling through space, leaving the solar system on our way to another star. That's amazing. I'd love to be part of that. You are. I don't think I am.

Zimp paused, taken aback. What do you mean? none of it feels real. Do you think you could explain some more? Days could see that Zimp was troubled by all of this, and they felt bad. They had gone too far, dumping weight on someone else's shoulders. No one else could solve their problems for them. They tried to fix it.

Zimp was a practical person. What was a way to describe their feeling that would present Zimp with a path towards solving it? A path away from the boundless despair days had opened up. It was an abyss that Zimp would be compelled to build a bridge over could never, ever stare down into. An answer appeared, and already the feeling slipped away, digging itself into a deeper territory. Look, I never got to take an advanced education.

I never got into the stuff you and all the others got into. I feel like I've never even been able to touch Hermitica, to be part of the ship. Does that make sense? I need to ground myself, you know? Yeah, Zimps said, face brightening. So how do you do that? I tried to find schematics of hermetica, but they're off limits.

Of course, compartmentalization, NTK. What do you need the schematics for? I don't even know where on the ship I am. I've only seen the tiniest part of it. Well, I know I've seen more than you, but still, I haven't even seen 2% of the whole thing. But that's the new safety for you. If the ship's population has a high interconnectivity, trouble spreads fast.

How do we even know the ship is as big as they say? Days blurted out. How do we know we're even going anywhere? Zimp rocked backwards. That sounds paranoid. Days set their jaw. I'm sorry. I mean, we know Hermetic is huge.

There's millions of people on board. You can talk to all of them, get to know them. Days supposed it was true, though they had never excelled like the others in their cohort, and making friends over a screen. In fact, the only people they had ever called, the only ones they would consider friends, they had met in person.

You know what? I have an idea, Zimp offered. You say you need to feel grounded? Days nodded. I can whip up just for you, a special science experiment. Yeah? What would you say if I told you

I could give you the chance to take a look at hermetica? You'd be my hero. Obviously, I can't get you a permit to go to an observation window or take a spacewalk, but I can let you see the spinning of the giant platform we're on right now. Do I get to be your student for a day? Even better. My students do most of the syllabus through simulations,

but you and I, we can do something hands-on. I'm not allowed to take materials out of the lab, but I bet Zim's head was turning this way and that, looking about their own module off-camera. I can find all the supplies I need for a simple, experiment. Tell me about it, Days pleaded. You'll have to do some homework to understand what you'll see. I promise. So we're on a giant platform attached to a ring that's spinning around Hermeticus core. I know, I know. Right, but that's what generates the pseudo-gravity that keeps us in place. But we can detect the corallus force that correlates with our rotation. Okay, Day said

uncertainly. They understood the principles that Zimp was describing, but not how it would allow them to see Hermetica. Their friend picked up on their skepticism. What that means is that the experiment works, you'll be able to tell which way our platform is rotating. You'll be able to look up into the sky and visualize the axis of that rotation, which in this case is the core of Hermitica itself, and you'll be able to tell which way we're heading. What do you say to that? That would be wonderful. Zimp looked around again. Well, I need to make sure I can design this thing so the results will actually be visible to the naked eye.

They chuckled. The rings have a really low RPM, and I don't want to let you down. So I'm going to get to work on that. I wonder if I can get my hands on some ball bearings. But I'm going to send you some materials a little light reading on inertial forces to get you up to speed.

Pardon the joke. Same time tomorrow, Days asked. Sure, I'll try to have it ready. You're such a sweetheart. nice to see you smile it's true days realized as the screen went black they were smiling you know who else will schedule a science experiment to reassure all your deepest discomforts and then leave you smiling and giddy do you know who else loves to see you smile it's the products and services that support this podcast i know you knew that but i'll tell you anyway

There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged. Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream, a familiar place can look completely alien? Get back, everyone's going to next. And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man,

You must cut out the very heart of him, burn his body, and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town as a warning. From IHeart Podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havoc Town. A new fiction podcast sets in the Bridgewater Audio Universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The devil walks in Aberstown Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion

and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as a people's princess, but now you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, Fud around and find out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life as I try to balance it all. From my travels across the globe

to preparing for another run at the next. with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. You'll even get to have some fun with the fud family. So if you follow me on social media or watch me on TV, you may think you know me.

But this show is the only place where you can really fud around and find out. Listen to Fud Around and Find Out, a production of IHeart Women's Sports and Partnership with Unanimous Media. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York state number, and we own you.

Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly-regulated. regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months. The first night was so overwhelming and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything.

Listen to shock incarceration on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our life. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it.

He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors, and you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases, to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. The next morning, days doubled their exercise routine, and then went in to see some patience. The air on the block broiled and rippled. Neighbors walked by oblivious.

At the health center, they saw the botanist and a developer, a regular. Their sessions dragged on. Days's mind was elsewhere. The patients didn't seem to notice. Back at the module, Days downed an MRE, then called up another one, ate that too. Fidgeted a while, went to the green, sat on a bench beneath the colored bunting, and tried reading. It was an archaic work, full of obsolete pronouns, and strange social relationships, had a hard time following, conflicts that didn't seem to make any sense at all.

This one was about a person named Edna who spent all their days in idleness. First on vacation, now with one lover, now with another, but never happy with anything. It described a society in which everyone seemed to be perpetually running away from one another and at the same time, chained together. Days put the novel down. The air had become a solid thing. What was the conflict in the story? Was Edna just a weak, fatuous person?

That wouldn't make for an interesting tale. Amidst the nebulous anxieties the novel plotted, Days perceived the outlines of another character, unnamed, invisible yet ever-present, filling Edna and all the others with dread. Oppressive and everywhere all at once, like the heat that day. Were there video cameras at the time this novel was written? Days didn't think so. That might explain the fear of,

of being seen all the characters seem to display. But they were sure the novel predated video cameras by half a century. They lifted the portable again, intrigued. Leonce came back into the narrative. Days didn't understand that character at all. They seemed to have no connection whatsoever with Edna, and yet they were bound. Leonsei decided where Edna's children should go.

At one point, they spoke with a doctor about what should be done with Edna, without Edna even being present. but most of the time they were just somewhere else. Did Leonce possess some magical power over Edna? The story made no mention of magic, but perhaps they were supposed to intuit its existence. Primitive literature was often strange like that.

The stiffness of the air continued to build. Hermetica produced a lot of heat. Surely it could not hold. And there it was the first wisp of movement. It would all come falling down now, already was falling even if no one else noticed. Now the story was getting interesting. Edna was speaking with a musician, a pianist.

They had a nice relationship, one that made a little more sense, and the pianist did not seem to be afraid of whomever it was that terrified everyone else so much. Another lick of air ruffled daze's hair. An alert popped up in the corner of the screen. They tapped on it, a PSA. Meteorology has fast-tracked an atmospheric adjustment for this afternoon. the scheduled precipitation event has been upgraded to a class three adjustment.

Citizens are advised to remain in their modules starting at 18H. Days grinned from ear to ear. Called it. There was still another hour before the call with Zimp, in eternity. They suddenly lost their patience with the novel. Portable. Is there an open slot for a jog? It wasn't easy to get a slot on short notice, but in this heat it was possible. Not many other people were out on the block.

There's a 15-minute slot opening up in six minutes. Is that acceptable? Book it! Days went back to the module, changed into track clothes, and went out the door. Keeping a good pace, they went around the block. The full cross, ten times, four kilometers. The portable beeped in paternal consternation a few times on the last lap. They had exceeded their slot, but no one else was showing up to run.

Back in their module, they stripped and threw the clothes in the chute. The shower extracted, and they stepped in, cold water, making them gasp in exhilaration. Once they'd had enough time to get soaked twice over and relish the chill just a little longer, the module chimed in. Shall I switch to hot now? Right on time. Soon the air was steaming and days leaned against the tiled wall in bliss. Can I get another leader? Just steam?

you're close to your limit I'll skip tomorrow just give me another leader please the tight stream of aerated water toggled to a focused bath of steam and days felt time slip away when it was finally over

they moved at an indolent pace toweling off and leisurely picking new clothes as the shower vacked itself and retracted just a few minutes remained before Zimps call days opened the article they had sent scanning through it on their portable.

They kept the wall screen free, black like infinite potential. The article was a useful refresher, all things they had studied before the aptitudes. The image of the examiner popped into their head, the screen at the front of the class, the tension of a ticking clock, a diminishing block of time, and so many questions, too many to answer,

all of them, pointing to the future or closing the way. They had gotten through half the article, Zimp still hadn't called. Days looked up at the wall screen. Nothing, just blackness. Message Zimp. Are we still on? Experiment giving you problems?

Let me know if you want to postpone. They went back to reading. Three minutes later and there was no reply. Call Zimp. Zimp is unavailable, module said after a short pause. Unavailable? Like out of the module without their portable?

Day's could imagine no other form of unavailability. One could always turn off calls, of course, but that simply routed calls straight to message. There's a block. A block? Days wasn't even sure what that meant. Please wait. Now things were downright strange. They wished Snookums were here.

Module, what's... Please wait. Was module frozen? It had never happened before, but it was feasible. Maybe a programming up. grade had caused some functions to go offline. They wondered if that meant they were stuck inside. They were just about to go to the door when the buzzer rang. Days jumped and then, because they could find no explanation for the feeling of dread that

boiled through them, they opened the door. A person they had never seen before, a bit older, with stern eyes, walked in. Hello, Days. Sorry for intruding like this. I'm Emel. I'm a block rep. May I take my mask off? Days made a gesture of polite descent. What's going on? Their mouth went dry as they spoke. I'm sorry to inform you. We've temporarily blocked your communications. Oh, is that what happened? Um, why? You were flagged for circumventing some of the compartmentalization protocols that are integral to the new safety. I'm sure it was an innocent mistake on your part, but I need to give you an evaluation. just to make sure no further procedures are needed.

What? What did I do? You were about to participate in an unauthorized experiment that might have enabled the collection of sensitive information about hermedica in violation of need to know. And do you know who else will aid and a bet? Nope, it's just ads. They just show up. Here they are.

There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged. Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream, a familiar place can look completely alien? Get back everyone! He's going to be next!

And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, You must cut out the very heart of him, burn his body, and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town as a warning. From IHeart Podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havoc Town. A new fiction podcast sets in the Bridgewater Audio Universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The devil walks in Aberstown. Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist.

You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as the people's princess. But now, you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, Fud around and find out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life as I try to balance it all. From my travels across the globe to preparing for another run

at the Natty with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. You'll even get to have some fun with the fud family. So if you follow me on social media or watch me on TV, you may think you know me. But this show is the only place where you can really fud around and find out.

Listen to Fud Around and Find Out, a production of IHeart Women's Sports and Partnership with Unanimous Media. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime.

A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors, and you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases, to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York state number, and we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are shorthy. short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six

months. The first night was so overwhelming, and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Oh, the Coriolis thing?

Days asked. That's right, M.L. replied with a patient smile. How is that a voice? violation. I know it must seem like an innocent inquiry, something that would fall under the hobby statute, but unfortunately, only citizens working in physics are allowed to take measurements related to acceleration, or even the axis of rotation for the life platforms. You understand why we need to compartmentalize, with no exceptions. Remember the wiki. How could days forget the wiki? The history was drilled into the heads of every young cohort on the ship. The Wiki was Hermitka's

sister ship. The two had departed at the same time, heading for the same cluster of stars with the same objective, find and colonize a new home world. But they had been designed according to radically different models. There had been a strong debate in the space program and in the spirit of openness and scientific inquiry. The Terran governments that ran the program agreed to let proponents of the two top models each have a free hand in designing their ships. The wiki was designed according to a completely open source model, with every passenger given full access to all the information and permission to rewrite code and tweak design.

It was billed as a constantly self-correcting work in progress that made maximum usage of the full intellectual resources of the passengers. And it worked well for the first few years, with wiki passengers developing a number of propulsion and life support innovations that hermetica quickly adopted. But as the two ships approached Pluto's orbit, communication cut out. One final transmission warned of an attempted takeover with reports of fighting on the wiki,

and then the entire ship exploded. No one would ever know who the saboteurs were, if they were terrorists or engineers of the cabin fever, if there had been a power struggle between different factions trying to impose their design for the ship. All they knew was the mantra, repeated in classrooms across her medica after the sociocytes ran it through their simulations

and confirmed the systemic flaw. Open source systems are vulnerable to sabotage by disciplined and determined parties. Centralization and compartmentalization are the best way to prevent anarchic power struggles. So, Days asked, We can't do our Coriallis experiment? I'm afraid not.

And days? I need you to tell me what's going on. What do you mean? Their palms got clammy. Your line of questioning, your reasoning for wanting to do the experiment. The recommendation is for a psych evaluation, and you were already flagged the day before for damage to your module. They knew about the wall panel.

Of course they knew. so do they already know what they had discovered? If they did, hiding it would only make things worse. Days went to get the strange sheet. I found this in the wall. The rep pursed their lips as they gripped the sheet, fingers like tweezers. Their look darkened as they scanned the contents of the two articles.

And I imagine you're quite confused. I am. It talks about things that don't make sense, things that don't add up. And that's why you wanted to do an experiment? Well, the experiment was Zimps idea. They don't know anything about the articles, they rushed to add. But I was feeling estranged.

Reading all those things about Tara, you know I did poorly on the aptitudes. You did well on the aptitudes, Emil interrupted. You simply got tracked to an assignment that perhaps you no longer find satisfying. Okay, but what I meant to say is, I've never gotten to work on a system that's an integral part of Hermitica. Yes, I know, Days headed off the next interruption. The human passengers are the most integral system of all, and palliative therapy is a vital part of the whole.

Days recited the PSAs dryly. But Hermetica, it feels unreal for me. The rep did not look pleased with that answer. And why did the sheet exacerbate that feeling? It talks about a virus on Earth, on Terra, the choking sickness. how could the same virus have struck on Terra and on hermetica? We don't know the article refers to the same virus, the rep explained patiently. It could simply be a similar one.

Maybe an ancestral strain was already dormant in human populations when hermetica set out and similar virulent strains evolved in both places. Without a comparative genetic analysis, who's to say? Yes, but how did an article from Terra about things that happened after we already left wind up aboard the ship. The sheet's non-electronic. It didn't get beamed here. The rep held their silence a moment.

A vein on their neck fluttered and bulged. Just because a piece of paper contains a bit of information doesn't mean it's true. I appreciate that you have many questions that seem valid to you. I also appreciate that when faced with a doubt, you had the discretion to not go immediately onto your socials and begin spreading it throughout the ship. nonetheless certain inquiries when they go beyond idle curiosity to achieve a satisfactory answer

require scientific exploration as you know unfortunately our safety demands a compartmentalized approach to avoid putting sensitive information in the open trust the experts but let everyone become an expert emmo repeated the old motto of course no one person can become an expert in everything That's impossible. People have to stick to their field or they risk confusing everybody. So, what are you saying? You found an intriguing piece of a puzzle.

I'll give you that. But you're not the only one. I'm not? No, days. You're not. Everyone else is working on the same puzzle. The physicists are working on propulsion. The biologists are working on life support systems. The designers are working on life support systems.

working on quality and entertainment. My team works on safety, and all of us are working together on the greatest mystery of all. How to sustainably project life into the stars. I play my role, and you play yours. Something they had said stuck with days, you work in safety? I thought you were an interblock rep. Emile's jaw clenched again. They're overlapping fields. Sometimes we have to work together. Now listen to me. You can stick to your assignments and your social circuits. If you feel that your curiosity is related to a capacity that can be trained and put to hermetica's use, I can arrange for you to retake the aptitudes. If you feel like these restrictions are unfair, you can enter into a reconciliation. A reconciliation with whom? Days asked. Who have I harmed?

A reconciliation with the ship's agreements, the rep replied tersely. Days nodded. They could tell arguing would only make things worse. The rep left a short time later. The communications block would be removed after a short period of observation, they had said. They confiscated the sheet with the two articles. What did they call it? The paper.

Days felt wrecked, like they were surrounded with nowhere to go. The confines of the module were oppressive. Tattletale, they growled. It was too much. They wanted to smash the screen to yank out all the wall panels, to pull out the bed and rip off the sheets, to call up MREs and throw them on the floor. The austere face of the examiner came to mind, the damned

aptitudes circumscribing their future. This damn block rep, or whoever they were, it wasn't fair. They had to move. They had to go somewhere. Fortunately, the door opened and let them out into the street. The air was heavy and damp. As they walked towards, the green, boiling, the first drops began to fall. Fat, heavy, cold drops of rain. A precipitation event when all the specialists couldn't get humidity optimally distributed across the ship, and they had to flood a few blocks with a downpour. With all their systems, all their modeling, all their aptitudes, the experts could still not work out the unexpected, the chaotic. Days laughed at them as the rain fell harder. A sudden flash made them jump,

a major electrostatic discharge ripping across the sky. But was it in the sky, the projection? Or was the flash real, a bolt of charged particles equalizing from one end of the platform to the other? They could give no answer. All they could do was look upwards, face full of rain, and wait for another one. And it came, and they felt the light run through them.

Now they were at the green, and the rain was falling so hard it filled their eyes and soaked their clothes. No one else was out. Unthinkable, all the cameras were blinded by the thick sheets of rain. Not even a drone could fly in this downpour. Days was completely alone, and they danced.

The world opened up to them. The shrubs swayed and trembled. The bunting drooped and broke. The benches splattered and endured, and days danced. Generous leaping and joyous pirouettes, their arms outstretched, taking everything as though there were no end

to what could be given. and offering all of themselves in return. They were doing loops around the maypole now, bouncing, spinning circles of endless return. More lightning flashed. The rain pounded on the street like a stampede. The street was full. Days and a million feet arriving, always arriving, endless.

Days was panting. Never had they run so hard. Their mouth was full of rain. Their hair was a river. The rain was in their belly button In the crack of their ass on their eyelashes Between their toes They could hear the world breathing

As the paroxysm eased Days found themselves wandering around the block Everything was newly acquainted Not a single meter of darkened Water Slick Street was the one they had walked down before Spent years walking down These streets belonged to them tonight When the last drizzle subsided

Days returned to their module They shed their soaking clothes and went straight to the far wall. Module surprised reacted late. The bed extracted after they'd already arrived, waiting for it. Had they been expected to towel off first? Now they too were part of the unexpected, a wisp of storm broken off, unvanquished. They smiled fiercely as they dripped into the sheets, rising on the rising cumula of dreams. In the morning, they knew.

Emel had been lying. All of them had been lying. They walked straight out the door, unclothed, fast unbroken, leaving module in the middle of a sentence. They walked up and down the street, looking at the modules, the sky. They did not have Zimps' knack for equations, but surely they could find something, a proof. But all there was were two cross streets and four nodes, no other way out. What had the rep said their choices were? keep to their circuits, retake their aptitudes or a reconciliation? No, they were lying. There were

always other choices. The smaller units were three meters high with a rounded lip and no handhold on the facade. No way a single person could get on top of one. But Days was not a single person. They were a million feet. They were a storm cloud. As neighbors avoided their gaze and hurried onwards towards destinations. Days found themselves in front of the maypole. Hello, dancing partner, they smiled. The maypole kept on pointing towards the sky. Yeah, you're the one, aren't you?

You take me where I need to go. Now if I can just get you to change position. They knew it was possible. They had seen it done. All they needed was an accomplice. Days could only imagine what sort of blocks they had on them all throughout the system by now. A neighbor was rushing along to one of the nodes studiously avoiding Daze's nakedness.

You, they said. Stop. Terrified, the neighbor complied. Days smiled. We need to clear the way for a therapeutic intervention. Tell the block to release this element so we can move it out of the way. Clearly uncomfortable, but seduced by the logic that a therapeutic intervention was indeed in order. The neighbor stepped forward and said in a trembling voice,

Block, we need you to release this poll. Days could almost sense the hesitation. Clearly all kinds of models and algorithms were telling the block this was a terrible idea. But human overrides were given a backdoor precisely for those situations in which the system did not understand which criteria to prioritize. The block relented and the ground panel released its hold on the May pole.

Thanks, Day said pleasantly. You can go. They got a grip on the pole and lowered it down onto their shoulder. It actually didn't weigh that much, despite its height, and they were able to drag it off the green. The day was going perfectly so far. A claxon sounded in the direction of the health center, but Days didn't care. They were humming. They couldn't remember what song.

Arriving at a single-person unit, Days propped the pole against the edge of the roof. It leaned in at an angle that was somewhat steeper than 45 degrees, but still not so steep that they couldn't shake. shimmy up it. And shimmy they did. The medics arrived then, running towards them, but they were most of the way up, and the medics were afraid to dislodge the pole and caused days to fall. Hello, they called, and then they were at the roof. Goodbye. The roof was the same color and texture as the facade. The most remarkable thing about it was, once they walked in a couple

meters, the street disappeared. They were in a completely new place all their own, not in a module, out of doors, but not under the watchful eyes of the street. But they weren't out yet. The adjoining module, family unit, was two meters taller. They were able to gain the roof with a running jump. Now they were higher than they'd ever been in their life and the next destination was already in reach. The module's roof connected with a broad platform,

the roof for the life support and storage facilities that filled up each of the four corners of the block. They ran 30-odd meters, and then they were at the wall. the wall that they had never seen, but always intuited, marking the outer boundary between this block and the next. And it was only a meter higher than the roof where they now stood. Days was nervous. They had not known what they would find here.

In theory, every block was walled off on all six sides, and the only way in or out was through a node. There was a transparent membrane under the sky that allowed for the controlled circulation of air and water. But Days didn't know if the membrane came all the way down to the top of the physical wall, forming a pocket around each block. If they could detach the membrane or tear it.

It turned out to be even easier. There must have been a substantial gap because Days could not see or feel any membrane as they climbed up on the wall. And just like that, they had gotten out of the block. They had made their own choice, their own way out. Days started to run. The top of the wall was broad and flat,

and running was easy. They ran fast. They ran far. They didn't know how many blocks they left behind, and they kept running. The sun was bright and glorious. The wind blew freely. It was all connected, unobstructed. They were sure of that now.

A cumulus clouds swelled up, cast them into shadow. Their skin cooled. The cloud moved on, and immediately the heat and light returned. Tears came to their eyes. The sun was majestic, undeniable. The wind went wherever it pleased. all the colors unfolded themselves from the blue and blinding white. The wall continued as far as they could see.

Every hundred meters they came to an intersection where another wall perpendicular stretched right and left, making the horizon in both directions. But they knew the grid was not on ending, because when they strained to look into that farthest distance, the horizon curled down, not up, but down. They were in a different, place entirely. Their tears flowed freely. The wall passed over another node. How many blocks

are they run past now? Their world had grown infinitely larger. This time they veered to the side. A gentle worrying accompanied them from behind. Now they were running atop modules again, peering over the edge into the street of an unknown block. It might as well have been a foreign country. People were in the street, strangers. They looked up in astonishment. The sky. The sky is real, Days cried at them. The sky is real. The worrying came closer. Days ran on another block atop the modules overlooking another street. Now they were sobbing uncontrollably, joyous, broken. The sky is real. The sky is real. No one knew what to make of the crazy profit on the rooftops. They didn't have to think about it long. The safety drones caught up to

days, four milli amps of current pushed through their skin and into a circuit of muscle and bone by 50,000 volts of electromotive force, and they were on the ground. Dun, dun, dun, that's the end of part four. What's going to happen next? You're going to have to wait a week, unless you listen all at once and wait and binge the whole thing, in which case you don't have to wait. You can just cut ahead now, honestly. got ahead, like, now, now. I'm just going to do plugs here at the end. But if you want to know more

about Alan Lee, the author of Hermetica, you should check out Peter Gelderlose. Peter is P-E-T-E-R, and Gelderlose is G-E-L-O-O-O-S. And that is the name that they write most of there's, he, whatever, if you ever do the thing where you just, like, are theying people so much that you became incapable of remembering that there's gendered pronouns for a second, you can catch Peter by reading his other books and also his substack which is called Surviving Leviathan and I will talk to you next week

on Cool Zone Media Book Club. Oh, I almost forgot. We have our own feed now. That's right. You're like, why would I listen to All I could happen here? I just want to listen to Cool Zone Media Book Club. Well, you can do it

by subscribing to Cool Zone Media Book Club, which is fucking cool. All right. Well, that's cool zone. Fucking cool zone. No, I almost had something, but I don't. I'll just talk to you next week. Bye.

It could happen here as a production of Coolzone Media. For more podcasts from Coolzone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it could happen here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Ah, come on, why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient. Still using yesterday's tech, upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 Carbon,

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That's loveyourmindtay.org. See how much further you can go when you take care of your mental health. This is an IHeart podcast.