“Now flex... and relax.”

The doctors at Gimbutasville gave me a choice. It turns out my scales and barbs are from the DNA of a particularly endangered reptile from a struggling timeline. The transtemporal organ smugglers get a high price for it, but they’re decimating the population because it’s impossible to grow in a lab.

“Now flex again... and relax.”

The Earth in the timeline it’s from was laid waste from human ecological mismanagement (one of the most common reasons for civilizations deadending). But there are still humans there trying to repair it. They’re part of the cross-temporal network that Gimbutasville supports.

“And flex... and relax.”

The method they’re using to heal their world involves merging with the most endangered species. In each community, a few individuals edit the endangered species’ DNA into their own, actually absorbing and displaying traits from the endangered creatures. Then the community as a whole lives a life centered around repairing the environment from that particular animal’s place in it.

“And one more time flex...”

The doctors are teaching me to control the scales and spines—so I can call them up at will...

“...and relax.”

... or submerge them back under my original epidermis. You can’t even tell they’re there when I hide them.

The doctors had never seen anyone successfully accept the DNA graft from Morgenstern’s Monster—that’s the name for this lizard. “Monster” from how it looks when all its poisoned barbs are extended. And because the poison is deadly.

I can’t wait to stick some into a cross-time poacher. Because I’ve accepted the doctor’s invitation to leave schoool and become part of the group of agents they’ve deployed to utilize this technique in multiple timelines. They call them the Compost Kids.

Wow the doctors at Gimbutasville sure know what they’re doing! Don’t be fooled by the rustic setting—behind the vineries and the graineries they’ve got some serious science going on. Supposedly they’re the most advanced of all the eco-utopias, though they’re sharing their knowledge with the whole network so they can be stronger together.

Anyhoo, they removed the eyeballs from my forearm and all the spleens and livers that weren’t mine and I feel like a million bucks. Ha! Ĝi estas vivo, I guess.

@7mary7 didn’t get the same bill of health as I did, though. She needs some kind of extended gene therapy—which they can do here at Gimbutasville—but it means she’ll miss the ride back to Forever Corps Plaza. She said it’s fine if I go on without her, but she gets to keep @Electric Mummy Head. Which is fine with me! I’m going to give it one more kick in the bowling bag before I go.

The elders at Matriarchal Farms are trying to get in touch with our trip leaders at the Forever Corps, but apparently it's not that easy making a cross-timeline call. Everything's got to be lined up just so or it bounces out to infinity. And they don't quite trust the Time Police.

"So what am I gonna do about these tentacles and spines beneath my skin? And @Hectic Wilson going crazy with those eyeballs squirming in his arms!"

Luckily they're too nice to say things like "Well if you hadn't broken the rules and visited the most depraved parts of the future with a floating @Electric Mummy Head then you wouldn't feel so squirmy!"

Instead, the elders at Matriarchal Farms are sending us to their friends at Gimbutasville, which is another eco-utopia, but with more tech--and especially bio-tech. I guess all these eco-utopias are hooked up in some kind of network...

For a disembodied cybernetic entity, it turns out @Electric Mummy Head isn't that smart. Or maybe he just underestimated us.

After his high-tech transtemporal organ dealer buddies pumped me and @Hectic Wilson full of contraband and restricted GMO organs and tissue, we weren't feeling so hot. @Hectic Wilson's got the eyeballs in his arms, and selection of spleens and livers from a dozen endangered species from all up and down the timestream filling his chest cavity. I've got scales and poisoned barbs hiding just beneath the skin all over my body, not to mention what feels like wings and maybe tentacles in my back. In a word, we're squirmy, to say the least.

But also angry! And when @Electric Mummy Head floated down to take a better look at @Hectic Wilson's tongue, I grabbed him by his Nemes and shoved him into an old bowling bag that was laying around in that dirty makeshift clinic. Seems he's not so powerful when he's zipped up in vinyl. And you punch him a few times.

So we made him take us back to Matriarchal Farms--but the rest of the group has moved on! I guess we missed the bus, and have no idea how to find them. Maybe these utopians can call the Forever Corps for us. Or the Time Police. At this point I just want my body back to normal.

Today we visited the future where everyone sleeps till 11, has a nice brunch, then goes for a walk in the park. They’re waiting for the robot factories to finish building the giant spaceships so they can visit outer space, where they’ll sleep in every day till 11 then go on walks in the terrarium parks inside the ship.

A reminder that all Forever Corps Junior Scouts are required to be present for all Timestream Jumps, and that being AWOL for any jump is grounds for dismissal from the program.

We are on a very strict schedule and failure to make any of our carefully-timed connections could result in the entire group becoming lost in the Timestream.

For this reason, @7mary7 and @Hectic Wilson have been officially removed from the program.

That said, please enjoy our stay on Global Heat Island, and remember to stay hydrated!

Oh no. This is horrific.

I knew we shouldn’t have trusted that @Electric Mummy Head. Turns out he’s sold us to some illegal trans-temporal organ smugglers! Does anybody know the number for the Time Police?

@Hectic Wilson is already on the table, and they’ve implanted a handful of hybrid Mantis Shrimp/Human eyes into his forearm. It is, to say the least, super creepy and very bad. They’ve got me in a hermetic holding cell, and will probably release the gas at any minut....

The Technoscientific Posthuman future certainly has an appeal, and I’m glad that @Electric Mummy Head brought us here, because I’m sure it wasn’t on Ms. Beaton’s itinerary. Too much technology. But it’s so awesome! Basically, you get to live forever and be in two places at once! Or as many places as you can handle. Everybody’s uploaded and so you just think about a place and you’re there.

Mostly people seem to hang out in virtual environments, but you can zap yourself to a femtosatellite off Mars or Saturn if you want. Though I don’t know what the difference would be from just looking at a live feed, since it’s all just simulated sensory input.

I did get to commandeer a rover on Earth and drive it around. Too bad what happened there, but I guess they couldn’t get this posthuman so fast without a ton of quick and dirty technoscience.

Shhhh don't tell but I'm totally playing hooky from Forever Corps. Me and @7mary7, that is, because she wouldn't let me go alone. @Electric Mummy Head promises we'll be back in the communal dorms at Matriarchal Farms a split second after we left though so I'm not worried.

So now we're living it up on the Momo Holiday, which is like a secret cruise ship for the all the coolest time travelers. "You'll see the horrors of a faraway place, meet the architects of law face to face," is what @Electric Mummy Head said, and he wasn't lying! All the dead wood from jungles and cities on fire, everybody smoking cigars, and drinking sooooper old wine and stuff. Not that I'm touching any of that, because we'll get kicked off the trip if we get caught and I'm not 100% sure about @7mary7.

There sure is some freaky stuff on this ship though. Giant fat naked guys on carts getting pulled around by teams of young boys harnessed up with electrodes and hoses, robot assassins, hybrid dog-women... a floating electric mummy head fits right in! I see why he likes it, and I'm so glad we ran into him so he could show us around.

So it’s only been a week, and this is like our seventh straight feminist eco-utopia in a row. The communal farming, the singing and handholding, the puppet show guerrilla street theatre. Not that there’s anything wrong with that—they reversed global warming, ended terrorism and capitalism, saved the world, etc. It’s just all a bit... boring. Ms. Beaton laughs and says lots of people from our time sector have Conflict Addiction, and that taking what we learn back to our time will help bring these futures to fruition.

Meanwhile, it’s another slow night here at Matriarchal Farms. I’m headed over to @Hectic Wilson’s bungalow for a game of Spades. He says there’s somebody he’d like me to meet.