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Anonymous Submission 1:
I remember first getting a job as a teen. It's supposed to be this big deal, right? Getting a job, becoming a man. But I hated it. I hated the idea of needing other people, of not being able to fight ourselves.

But then the Transports came. And they didn't make anything better at first. I hated what they stood for. I hated them. But then the missions started, and our world started to shift. I could see we were doing some good. But like any other 19 year old, I was stubborn. I didn't care.

I even tried to stir the hate between our groups. It sounds stupid now, looking back. Everything sounds stupid looking back when you're about to die though.

But there's some good people in the Transports. I remember when I started looking at them differently. See, I've seen enough Transports try and steal from us, take what's ours. It's always been our home, but I met a little girl once coming back from work. She called me mister and gave me half of her cupcake as she told me about her world. It wasn't a happy place. I can't really say it's happy here, but she was.

This little girl reminded me that we're all fighting the UE. That it isn't a Transports vs. Exiles war. It's about saving humanity.

Even if it means my death.

What I'd like to remember most is the bakery on Smith St. The owner always gave me a free biscuit in the mornings. What I wish I'd done was tell my dad I loved him or kissed Julie Sinclair one more time.

I guess I will when this all works out, right? That's all I can really hope for since I'm going to be dead within a day. It honestly hurts to watch all the Transports leave. Some really fought for us, to take us with them. But I guess they have their part.

This is our part.

So long, Exsilium, and God's speed, Transports.


Anonymous Submission 2:
The only way I know how many times history has been rewritten is when I see the records of missions we've sent these people on, but that's all I know. I have no idea who I was before the last mission, or the one before, or who I will be after this. that's why I never left anything for myself to find but it might not be too bad to do it this one time. For the me that gets to see this, I'm not going to write anything about myself, but please remember I was here.


Anonymous Submission 3:
I have no doubts that the one that whoever I may become after this attack will not be the one who sees the Initiative's victory. We are nowhere close. But I pray, somewhere down the line, that there will be a version of me who'll see that day come.


Anonymous Submission 4:
I love you mom.


Anonymous Submission 5:
Even that piece of shit asshole from the research lab wasn't actually too bad so I hope I get to bitch at him again. That picture of his daughter he always had was cute and I wonder where she is.


Anonymous Submission 6:
I don't want to die. I don't want to forget. So please, if anyone sees this, hurry up and win this war or lose it.


Anonymous Submission 7:
[A series of numbers split up by symbols that Vennett and such types would recognize as coordinates in the 3313 fashion. Then plaintext beneath:]
It's buried treasure.


Anonymous Submission 8:
When I realized that these would be my final words... well, I wasn't sure what to put down honestly. I mean what do I really have to say that's important enough to want to immortalize for myself? What words of wisdom can I possibly hope to have that I don't already?

There are things I would change if I could but will I have the chance to change those? The past is the past and I doubt I can correct everything wrong I've ever done. If I could though...

I would forgive my brother. For every mean word when we were kids, for every time he pushed me around, for every time our jokes got to be too much and we were at each other's throats. It was all so petty and our last argument wasn't worth never having the chance to tell him that just because I said what I said didn't mean I loved him less.
He was my baby brother, you know?

I would finally write her that letter. I don't care if she never reads it, she could tear it up for all I care. She probably would... and I can't blame her, not after everything. I can't call her, I can't just talk to her like that. And yet I want her to know despite it all that in a life filled with mistakes, she was the best thing I ever had for that brief moment.

... I guess I had a lot more to say than I thought I would. Imagine that.


Douglas Sullivan:
Wow, I'm not really sure where to begin. I mean, this isn't a lot of time to write down my whole life story here, is it? And hey, it's not like I have anything exciting or memorable to say about my life. I mean, maybe I would if the world hadn't gone to hell but...

Man, look at mess. I guess I'm just rambling on nervously because I'm scared. I don't want to die. I mean, they'll bring us back, right? But what if they don't, that's the real scary part. Other then dying, I mean.

Nah, I'm sure it'll turn out fine, right? And then next time, I'll have something really cool to talk about.


Hyun-Pil Park:
The first time I realized the sheer magnitude of this force it was about pizza. Tanya had brought some in, half cheese half anchovies - she was the pack mule of our cubicle farm. All eight of us got a slice, and I just as we were waiting for ours to cool (or in Brandon's case burning the roofs of our mouths like idiots) some Transports passed by. Pretty human, a boy and a girl, though aggressively fashionable in that way you almost couldn't be sure which was which, and they were giving us this surly look.

I dismissed their attitude as "these teenagers we get, right?" but Deena shook her head and said there was more to it than that. Back in '12 there was a ripple-heavy mission, and ever since then anchovies reigned supreme as meat du jour. Before it was pepperoni, apparently. The records on our tablets backed it up.

I hadn't gone for plain, myself. I took another bite. It tasted like power.



Nancy Nelson:
Sometimes I still feel ashamed that I wouldn't have gotten this far in the Initiative if I didn't want to impress her. She has a boyfriend, of course, as life-defining "she"s tend to do. He doesn't work here.

On the other hand, any job more physically taxing than Nurse Nancy would get the girls going, I guess, and a trainer especially appreciates that stuff. Do you ever realize how much more work it takes her crew to bring the best out of an uncooperative body? Probably not.

I read a few of your medical records where you have actually died before, but you come back stronger. Maybe that will happen to me.



Alice Lee-Johnson:
[A woman's voice, mid-paragraph, jovial in the manner of an eighties comedy but slightly defensive precision:] Yes, I am genuinely worried about the cats. Don't laugh at me-- [A man, not speaking directly into the mic, is laughing. "Cats", he says. She cuts him off a little exasperated--] It was how she and I met, alright? [Having come out with that she settles into warm nostalgia.]

We thought Stanny was a really fat tom and George and I were just eight - wait, it was February so he was seven still - we didn't know science, we were convinced it was feline cancer or something, and so the Johnsons were the only other family in the whole apartment building that actually kept a cat, so it turned out...

[The woman trails off and begins to laugh; the man laughs louder. "You've got to be kidding me."] It's the truth! And by the time that whole thing was straightened out - how to split the litter, names - we were best friends. You know how little girls are.

[Her relation of the past has ended, bringing her back into the somber present. she speaks with the knowledge of death, and the man is silent in respect of this.] I don't care that much if I'm Eve instead of Alice, but there are some things that... I don't know how I could live on, if they were different.


Bob Sampson:
[A man's voice, jocular and grandoise, declares:] Iiiiiii am Bob Sampson the Third ["No you're not", a woman ribs at him from a position not directly into the mic, and he counters sotto voce "oh shut up, they don't know that".] ...and this is my last will and testament.

[Then there are fifteen solid seconds of silence before the woman suggests, a little skeptically but also sympathetic, "Look, we're still recording, do you want to start over..."]

I'm going to, alright! Did you - did you even hear what I just said, Al? This is IT, hell, it's not even a will! I don't get to give Jamie my baseball cards or heirlooms to my kid! It's just- argh!!

[A shift in his voice and words suggests he's addressing the transports now, with an ultimatum.] Don't mess this up, alright? Are any of you kids engineers? You gotta... approach problems logically, you understand. That's why we're here, going with this. Sentimental reasons are great but you got to have the rational oucome.

Okay, that's all I can do for now. Your turn, Alice. Are you seriously still going to do the cats?


Deena Marson (group submission):

[This is a voice recording, all voices belonging to young men and women of what might be "college age" in another time; other words, 18 to 25. Starting with a few seconds of silence before a woman says decisively] Okay... go!

[A man wastes no time getting to the point--] Kick their asses, you hear me?

[His girlfriend chimes in immediately with great enthusiasm.] YEAH!

Get their heads on pikes. [Spoken with a hiss.]

Make the world a better place, [a boy says with a heavy cadence in spite of being the youngest that suggests he will grow up to dub movie trailers.]

Wear their ribcages as hats. [He speaks with lungs ravaged by mustard gas, and the boy next to him lets out a dubious "Uh..."]

[Spoken to follow this with the serenity of Evanna Lynch:] Dance in their blood.

[A girl who probably wanted to be a politician gives a more authoritative suggestion:] Secure our freedom and peace. [This is accepted with a few appreciative "Mmm-hmm" noises, followed by another suggestion:]

Make them see the error of their ways.

[There are three outright "Yeah!" answers. Then after a pause someone pedantically says, like when Liz Lemon accepted her identity as the R.A.] Okay, we've really got to... get back to work.

[The mumbles of agreement and ensuing silence are intensely awkward, considering the heavy knowledge that they aren't going to be doing work a week from this recording, which ends after seven seconds of this agonizing silence.]


Hello. My name is Wei Song, and I am here to tell you this isn't your fault.

You will not be able to see most of us again, and this isn't your fault. You won't be saving us, and this isn't your fault. You can't. There's no way to manipulate time and not cause ripples that change the surface of history in ways too innumerable to count. That's the beauty in time, that's the magnificence in history. You are the outliers that can point, and do, and change, and you won't be saving us.

You'll be giving this world, and your homes, a chance, and that alone, that chance, is enough.

You will not be able to keep us, and this isn't your fault.

Depending on what you decide to do as a group, the face of our Earth will change. Events in history, political movements, natural disasters, good and bad come from even meddling once in the way of events until now. We've seen it before. Those of you here since earlier in the project remember better than any of us can, no matter how we try to preserve our memories so that when the world changes because of what you've done, we remember the way things have been.

That's no longer possible. All of you who are here now will carry this burden as long as you stay stabilized in our home. You are the Givers, the Memory Speakers, the Witnesses to a Thousand Futures. I'm sorry. It's not a burden anyone should bear, but we were too desperate, and too frightened, to find a way to ask. We can't cross over into your worlds.

But the United Earth can.

What the Initiative wants, what drew me to this organization when I grew up and found myself dissatisfied with the way of living I knew, with how complacent and complacently horrific the United Earth was toward people, toward the planet, toward everything that lived or existed, is reassertion of Free Will. We don't seek Utopia. Hundreds of thousands of novels and stories and videograms and artwork have been made to show how the idea of Utopia is flawed. How at it's heart, it's rotten. People are prone to conflict, to great acts of kindness, and great acts of terror. The United Earth wasn't why this world was lost to so much nuclear damage. That was humanity, Humanity as a Collective, working in fear.

The United Earth believes in the idea of Utopia. That there's a perfect state of being, a perfect world, and a perfect place for every creature within it. Everyone is happy, because people aren't allowed to know differently. Emotions and reactions are as controlled as daily, weekly, monthly regimens, more than we've spoken about with you. More than we knew, as outsiders.

Our spies, the few we had left, will still live in the United Earth towns and cities they call home. They'll mourn in private, with a grief greater than any you will know, because this is their home. That's okay. Grief isn't an exercise in outdoing one another. Grief is something we're raging with right now, screaming at, railing against, crying over without tears, accepting, avoiding.

We will die, with the people who are our families, our neighbors, our farmers and lovers and communities. This is the United Earth's response to what we are: people who don't fit into their idea of Perfection.

We are the Imperfect. So forgive us what flaws you may. The Imperfect have brought about Imperfect Warriors, and we can't ask for more.

Those of us that believe in Gods pray. Those of us that believe in Science calculate.

You will not see most of us again, but you will remember. For that, I am sorry. But please, if the words of a doomed man will mean anything, consider what you fight for. Not for us. Not even for this world, though we can thank you with words now we'll never recall later, but for you. For your homes, or the homes of friends. For places you may be going back to, or ones you will never see again with living eyes.

Fight for Freedom. Freedom to make great decisions. Freedom to make terrible ones. Freedom to save the world from humanity, and Freedom to live by making our own choices, and your own choices, in this landscape, and in all the ones we have yet to see.

You will not be able to save us, and that isn't your fault.

But if you choose not to help this world, if you let it founder, if the United Earth perfects it's mechanisms and forces Perfection on every world and universe it touches until something bigger, badder, and more convinced it's right comes along to stop them?

That won't be your fault. But it will be your decision.

May you rest with that in peace.
Wei Song
Repercussions Analyst and History Engineer
Father of Two, Husband of One
Deceased September 30th, 3313
"May we have the courage to change
what we can, and the wisdom to know
what we cannot."



Peter:
I've been told I should write something here, while I sit, waiting for my life to end. Something to remember myself by. Well, me-who-might-be-drastically-changed-me, congrats, you finally asked Meggan out. It's spelled with two G's, I asked. It's important. It only took me, what? Two years of ordering my crappy cup of coffee and sitting on that corner table, staring at her longingly until my lunch break was over.

We were going to go to that nice restaurant. The one with the lobster. The table was booked for seven thirty.

In about ten minutes, there will be no restaurant. No lobster. No Meggan. If by some miracle things return to as they were, remember to ask her out again. Throw in that joke about the counting French cat, that one made her laugh.

And remember it's two G's.



Bob Radhouse:
Okay, yeah. Today is-- You know what? To hell with the date. We're on a final countdown, so the date doesn't matter. Anyway, my last thoughts...

I really don't have anything profound or witty to say because that's not my style. But, you know, I think I'm beginning to understand how the Transports feel being taken from their homes without warning. Not just the fact that this isn't their war. Yeah, we've heard the complaints. But that sudden, shocking loss that what you've known all your life isn't there anymore and there's nothing you can do at the moment to get it back. We have a warning, and it still sucks.

[A long pause.]

Wow. I guess maybe that was a little profound...

Well, I guess that's it. Good luck, guys. I hope everything works out.



Joyce E. Sommers:
The "E" in my name is for "Elaine", so my name is Joyce Elaine--which means "Joyful Light". Well, let me tell you, I don't feel like a happy ray of sunshine at the moment. I feel angry. And scared.

But mostly scared.

I don't want to die. I don't care what anyone says. No one can be prepared for death--not even those who have lived a long time. There's got to be some final struggle involved; some sense of staying on this blasted world for one moment longer...

And this is my struggle. This is me. My final thoughts and my final fight against the reaper. As long as this survives--I'll always be. Just do me a favor and don't erase this, okay?

Thanks.



Cassie Gregor:
People have talked about their life flashing before their eyes when theire lives are in danger, but it's not my life I'm seeing.

It's my daughter's.

Her life has been very brief so far, but please, don't let that be the end of things. PLEASE, I beg of you and the others, don't let my daughter's life end before it's barely begun.

PLEASE.



Rich Townson:
I went with him for one last walk last night. We went down his favorite paths, explored those ones I never had the time to let him go down before. I wish I had the time to do more.

If I get to come back, he's got to too. It's kind of silly getting this emotional but he's been my best friend through everything. He's not much to look at with his shaggy black coat and the one ear that wants to droop... but he's been a good dog.

Tell Jake that if you find him first, okay?


Arla Leighton:
Hello, Arla! It's me, yourself. Breaking your brain, right? I'm positive you don't even remember writing this. There's a very good reason for that, though. You see, I'm about to die. Quite horribly, most likely. But if you're reading this, it means you've gotten a second chance, and I refuse to let you waste it.

It's strange how moments like this really put everything into perspective. You think you can imagine it, but you really can't until it happens. Even explaining everything probably wouldn't make much sense to you. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy that in some other time this didn't happen. I actually think it's better for you to not fully understand this. However, there are a few things I want to make sure you know since otherwise I'll be taking these lessons with me:

- It's okay to focus on other people's well being.
- It's just as important to focus on your own well being, if not more.
- Finish that damn quilt. I do regret never getting around to it.
- I won't name names since someone else could likely read this and I'm positive you'll freak out if I do, but try to take that first step. I can't say if our circumstances made a difference or not, but I think it's worth it. As much as I'd love to give you more details, I don't think you should try to relive something you can't remember, because I guarantee you won't find it as good as I did.
- On that note, take more risks in general. Surprises are great. Even the bad ones. ...No, I'm not drunk, just trust me on this.
- You know that one thing you've secretly wanted to try? Again, someone else could read this and even though I now know it's not worth being a secret, I also know it'll piss you off if I say it. Don't do it. It's really not worth the money, sadly.
- Be glad for every minute you're alive. There might not be another chance next time.
- DON'T PUT ANY OF THIS OFF. I know you have work, but you have more free time than you think.

Have a nice life, and be sure to stick it to the UE for me!

~Arla


Maggie Salisbury:
My daughter gave birth three months ago. It's a mixed blessing, isn't it? One wants life to go on. What is all of it for, if not for our children and grandchildren? And yet I felt a heavy sadness the day my granddaughter was born. In my heart of hearts, I'd prayed that she would come into a world better than this. Despite my entire life's work, despite all of our efforts here, little has changed for my children. The threat has been looming for as long as any of us can remember.

And now I have truly failed them. Soon they will all be dead, having lived entire lives in this grey and poisoned place, and I never did manage to bring them the sunlight that I promised. They never knew, of course, what sort of work their mum was up to all these years. I hoped, foolishly, to make the revelation the day our Transports succeeded in their mission to dismantle the United Earth. But the day never came and tomorrow we die.

I asked my daughter to visit with me today and to bring Daisy, my granddaughter. I managed not to weep as I held that child in my arms. Her last day on Earth. As much as I would not have wished her to know it as it is now, I can't help but feel that it would be better than not knowing life at all. Despite all of the sadness, I do not regret that she was born. I only regret how little there was. How little the world held for her and now how little time is left in it for her.

Time. That is a funny thing, isn't it? We know the physics of it, know that it stretches endlessly in this direction and that, and we have even learned to bend it in our favor. But we cannot simply grant it. We cannot, as the dinosaur's prayer goes, say, 'Just a little more time.' We mortals can only give life to one another, and when it is snatched away from us, time goes on and on without us. Over billions of years, thousands of generations of ancestors passed their life on to us, and there the whole effort ends with our little Daisy. A flash and it's over.

Was it worth it? Living, working… I think I should have spent that time with my daughter. It would have been the safer gamble. Here we've managed to harness all the time in the world, thanks to our Transporter. All the time in the universe but we lose our lives. Yet I do have a prayer. A different one. It goes, 'Just another chance at life.' It is something that our otherworldly travelers can surely grant us, I believe that without a doubt. It is something that a person can do for another person. The evidence is there.


Anna (Information Dispersal):
It's been ten years since my folks cut ties with me after they found out I joined the Initiative. I never regretted that decision, you know. Sure a lot of Transports aren't happy being here but those who have tried to make the best of it, they give me hope. Maybe this is the turning point we needed to win. I'm sad that I won't be around to see that. I wish them luck.


Jamie Alderano, Gen. Technician:
They told us we should write something, because we're all going to die. And they told us not to tell anyone, so I'm not going home after I finish writing this. Because I don't know how I could look my mother in the eye, and not say anything.

I don't really have much by way of a life story. I was born here, 19 years ago. I did okay in school, and I guess that's why the Initiative found me. And they knew someone and I knew someone, and here I ended up.

And that's all. I don't have anything else, really. I've got my mother and my younger brother, and my grandmother, and that's all. Not a friend, not a girlfriend, not a boyfriend - I'm so busy here at work and I can't tell anyone about it, so there's no one else. And none of my family know what I do. So I can't tell them what's happening and I can't see them and say goodbye and there's really nothing I can do. So I'm just going to stay here and work the best I can until the end.

They said to write something you want to remember, because if things go right, we'll get these returned to us. I guess I want to remember to do something else. Something besides working for the Initiative. Make friends. Fall in love. Have a life. If I get that chance.

I hope so.


George (Gen. Mechanic):
I don't know what's harder: repairing holes in walls and freak accidents from the Transports or every single time the UE bombs us. Well, at least a few of them were nice enough to offer food and stuff to say thanks. Okay sure, some of them are a bit weird and maybe didn't see eye-to-eye with us but in weird way, I'm gonna miss them. I always wondered what's it like to see Earth from up there. Damn shame I won't be able to see it myself.



I've never been good at writing my feelings. I wouldn't be in the weapon department if I was good at prose. They told me I needed to write down my feelings and words of goodbyes and nothing's come. I've been staring at this assignment for three goddamn days and I still can't. I'm an old man whose been in an armory until in his last week of life, I'm not about to become a great writer.

So, I think I'll just share a song. If we can't do that, I don't care. This is the song my wife and I danced to at our wedding, and would play at every anniversary for fifty-two years. She died a few years ago, didn't get to write any goodbye messages of any sort. But..I think it fits, I think this can be both our goodbyes.

Knowing I'll be with my wife now, I'm ready to go. She's been waiting for me for too long. They say that we might not exist when history gets changed. But I refuse to believe that. Love like ours doesn't just vanish in thin air. Those time-eggheads can say all they want, we'll be dancing to our song at every anniversary in heaven for centuries to come.

Good luck you guys. The world's in your hands now, I got someone waiting for me. I hope you all will have someone waiting for you too, when all is said and done.

Goodbye,
Thomas & Majorie Hogan

[And there is an audio file attached]

So there are these cats that live outside my place. Stinky, Erik, Harry and Oxford, I call them. Mangy little shits, I think they dive the dumpster or something, mostly. Now I'm not home much, but when I am, they come right on by as soon as they hear me making dinner, the damn things. I didn't even know I could be heard over the noise from the laundromat next door, but cats, right, they've got super-hearing or whatever.

Anyway, mostly I ignore them. I've been trying to save up so I can get myself a nicer place (currently somewhat of an exercise in futility, I know, I can hear you laughing now). I've been on base for a week solid, but yesterday I had to go back for a component and there were, god, all four of them, and a couple of new little ones, too, probably Stinky's litter or something from the way they kept up on her, and I just couldn't--y'know, leave them to starve when it doesn't make a lick of difference if I've got food or not. I just threw everything I had right out into the alley, and holy shit, they multiplied, I swear! I always thought cats were picky, but I guess when you're starving anything'll work.

Hope I didn't make them sick. That'd be a miserable way to spend your last couple of hours, don't you think? Even if you're a cat.

I'm not telling you this to get kudos for my last good deed, or whatever. I'm just telling you this because I think I'd like another chance to throw some food down to those cats, one day, even though I won't even remember this happening.

Kelly Butler
General Mechanic


Magdalene Povich:

Christian, Michael, Rosie, and Gayle:

Being your mother is the greatest reward and adventure I could have ever asked for. I'm so proud of all of you, you've grown up so beautifully. Keep growing and growing...I can't wait to see who you become.

Love,

Mom


Charles M. (Weapons specialist, single, 35 years old):
I'm scared shitless of dying. There, I admit it. And if I could, I'd find a way to sneak on board but I'd probably get caught immediately.

If there's one thing I do regret, it's not proposing to Angela when I had the chance. We could've had a family but I chickened out and she's gone now. I lost track of how many years it's been. Must be because I buried myself into work or something like that. What's done is done though and I can finally see her again soon. Wonder if she'll even recognize me. I have a lot more grey hair compared to back then.

Those Transports better not abuse their weapons or I might have to come back from the dead to kick their asses. I remember hearing Grandad's stories of what it was like back then. I hoped to see something like that but I guess that's not happening after all. Can't blame an old geezer like me for wishing though.
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