Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 51 - Haven, Version 4
- Bert-Oliver Boehmer
- Apr 21
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 28
Linuka readied herself for a headache, nausea, and some disorientation.
Nothing, except a small prick on the top of the head, then the virtual landscape appeared in shocking clarity. She looked down her body, familiar features, wearing the ritual robes, clean without the stains she caused, her hands turning, fingers moving. High fidelity avatar, full realism.
The Assembly Members coming here would not be content with some approximate placeholder, it seemed. The environment was not detailed at all, though. She stood on a white floor made from an indiscernible material. Turning her head felt natural, as did scanning the horizon for features. There were none. The white floor stretched endlessly in all directions.
Most streaming system lobbies put the user into a small room, like a basic waiting area with sparse furniture, while the main environment was built in the background. Some spat you into a wide open, endless planetary sky overhead, a basic selection menu hovering in front of your avatar.
This program combined both—in the worst way. Featureless nothing as far as one could see, white overhead ceiling, blending with the floor toward an artificial horizon. The selection menu had been on the seat in the hidden lab room; there was nothing here.
“System, menu,” said Linuka’s avatar, in a perfect rendition of her own voice. The voice sounded calm, but the extreme absence of anything was uncomfortable. She grabbed the robe’s sleeve, just to feel anything. The system rewarded her move with a perfect tactile simulation of thick, soft fabric.
“Haven, version 4,” said a female voice, matter-of-fact, but not unpleasant.
“Main menu,” said Linuka.
Silence.
“Memory selection.”
Nothing. Maybe too specific.
“Selection.”
“Main selection.”
“List memories.”
“Activate memory 317.”
“Anything, you draash system?”
“Haven, version 4.” Even-keel response. Not an interactive audio menu.
Linuka sighed. This system was probably gesture- or motion-secured. Once she used her childhood knowledge of the secret passage, the lab, or the chair had put up no further hurdles. Maybe the last line of security was in here. Many systems require users to walk through a door or portal, but there was nothing here.
Linuka started walking. So natural. The floor looked artificial, but her feet sensed walking on soil, solid and hard, but not 100% rigid. Did the loading process take so long? Maybe this was an environment like no other. Bridge to the multiverse. Maybe she was expecting too much, too quickly.
“System status?” she asked.
“Haven, version 4.”
“Loading status?”
Nothing. ‘System’ was the only prompt this place would react to.
She straightened her lower robe, which got entangled around her legs, not keeping up with her increasing pace. It appeared like her avatar was moving, but the monotony of the surrounding gave no satisfying feedback. At least the ‘uncomfortable robe’ simulation worked perfectly.
“System access.”
“Haven, version 4.” The system voice was patient; Linuka wasn’t.
“User access.”
“Simulation access. Simulation start. Run simulation. Nreedz! Can you do anything?”
‘Memory space 317,’ it had said. Linuka had expected a gateway either to her father’s consciousness or a multi-awareness granting system which used and abused him as a facilitator. Like the poor man they only knew as ‘the observer’.
She stopped. Took a deep breath.
The observer. Severed head, been dead for the ancestors know how long, but nano replicons attached to his brain stem. A clean-slate mind, able to project realities, but no thoughts of his own.
Was her father in the same state? Had he died after all, and had the Assembly recovered his body? Was this open white plane here all that was left of Kel Chaada’s mind?
No.
She continued walking with the longest stride the robe would allow. If her father had escaped the collapsing reality bubble, he would have found his own escape route. At that point, the Assembly was still catching up on reality traversal, and Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa was the only Assembly Member who witnessed it. There was no way the Assembly could have gotten to him. She had tortured her brain, attempting to find a path, no matter how improbable, how esoteric. There had been none. Kel Chaada had either escaped on his own—or not at all.
But where was he? She looked around. And what is this here? What was the point?
“System diagnosis.”
“Haven, version 4.”
“Error status?”
Nothing. Version 4? Not the first; a few experimental iterations, then the Assembly went through great pains to make this place accessible to themselves, and to hide it from her.
She stopped again. The view ahead had not changed. Hide it from her?
Rige Khuksos went to the archives. Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa visited them, too.
Who told her? Did Linuka see these events in adjacent realities? No. Did her allies produce this information, finding credible evidence? No. Rige told her that she went to the archives. Some old initiator told her about Rrupteemaa.
“The archives, child,” they had suggested. Her enemies pointed the way. To lull her senses, they used the ultimate lure. Linuka’s powers might be intricate, but her plans were—and always had been—straightforward. Find the last Diin. She had done that. Find her father.
The Assembly knew. They gave her hints. Subtle. To be discovered. The clever child investigator Linuka would put it together. Weave in people whose world lines had tangled with Kel Chaada’s. The old initiator. Drop her into places intimately knotted to her childhood and—again—to her father. Told her, “He was the 317th immortal,” then dangled a menu screen with the number 317 on it in front of her draash face.
She had pressed the button.
Triggered the trap herself.
She turned around. Which way was back? All directions looked the same; no horizon appeared closer or farther.
Vriishany. She had left the girl mid-ritual, surrounded by Assembly initiators and Assembly members. The girl’s only familiar face, gone, solving the galaxy’s mysteries while vomiting, listening to the sweet hints dropped by an agent of the enemy. Then running off and leaving her alone.
Linuka started running. Magii! She pulled up the lower robes to free her legs.
“System?”
“Haven, version 4.”
“System, exit.”
“Haven, version 4.”
“End user session.”
“End simulation.”
She stopped, out of breath. A perfect simulation, reducing Linuka to her weak mortal essence. Limited body, limited mind. Vriishany. Linuka deserved no better. What a nreedzuu big sister she had been. Clever moves, adopting her cloned aunt, putting her into the Great Chamber of the Assembly, steering galactic politics. It wasn’t her game. Why did she play it?
Naturally, she lost.
The Assembly banished her father, letting him escape to the fringes of the galaxy. He returned with allies the immortals humans could not foresee, and it had cost them two-thirds of their beloved Assembly. They banished Linuka, too. But they would not repeat the mistake they made with Kel Chaada. Linuka’s mind was a weapon they feared; Linuka’s body an asset they couldn’t control. They separated the two. Her helpless body, sitting in a chair in a hidden room inside the deepest vault on this world. Her mind, trapped in a numbing memory space.
“System, exit.”
“Haven, version 4.”
“System, shutdown.”
“Haven, version 4.”
Linuka’s world line. It had led straight into here. She had seen no alternatives. There could be only one reason she didn’t see other outcomes.
She was trapped here. In all realities.
Copyright © 2026 Bert Oliver Boehmer. All rights reserved. No part of this serialized novel may be reproduced, reposted, or distributed in any form without the prior written permission of the author. The creation of any derivative works (including translations, adaptations, or other transformations) is likewise prohibited without permission. The use of any portion of this material for training or developing artificial intelligence or other machine learning models is strictly forbidden.
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