Another Life

By Sarena Ulibarri

Finding out who you were in a previous life sounds like fun until you're forced to grapple with the darkness of the past. Galacia Aguirre is Mediator of Otra Vida, a quasi-utopian city on the shores of a human-made lake in Death Valley. She resolves conflicts within their sustainable money-free society, a

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stelliform Press
• Release date: May 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781777682392

Sarena Ulibarri

Sarena Ulibarri is a speculative fiction author and editor from the American Southwest. Her short stories have appeared in Lightspeed, DreamForge, GigaNotoSaurus, Solarpunk Magazine, and elsewhere, and nonfiction essays have appeared in Strange Horizons and Grist. Her novella, Another Life, was published by Stelliform Press in 2023. As an anthologist, she has curated and published several international volumes of optimistic climate fiction: Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers (2018), Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters (2020), and Multispecies Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures (2021).

Book preview

Chapter One

When I arrived on the shaded communal balcony for my building’s weekly potluck, my neighbors were talking about the results of their reincarnation analysis. Cindy Shao dropped a silver disc on the table in front of me before I even had the chance to sit down.

"Galacia, you have to see this."

Everyone shifted around the table to make space for me. I moved an algae lamp aside so I could better see what Cindy was trying to show me. She pushed a button, and a holographic image of a stern-looking man rotated a few inches above the disc. I didn’t recognize the name below his picture, but the death date was a few months before Cindy’s birthday.

You were an old white man?

Cindy threw her head back and laughed. "I know, isn’t it hilarious?"

Here, look at mine, Alex said. Green lights flickered across the balcony as people showed off who they had been. Voices drifted from other buildings, nearly every balcony and patio in the small desert city of Otra Vida alive with discussion and laughter. The lake glinted with the last light of the sun slipping behind jagged peaks, and a carbon capture drone passed through the pink and orange sky.

Cindy’s partner Jackson was one of the few without a silver disc. I loaded my plate, starting with the sun-roasted potato mix in front of him. You didn’t get one?

Jackson held up a hand so he could finish chewing before answering. The records from the Gene Vault only go back about sixty years.

Cindy brushed a finger through the gray part of his beard and he clacked his teeth playfully at her hand. "You’re not sixty. I think he doesn’t have a match because he used to be a house cat."

Maybe that. He held his mason jar of tea up in a mock toast. I don’t believe in it, anyway, he stage-whispered to the rest of us.

Lotta people weren’t recorded in the Gene Vault, Mikki added. Back then, it was just the ones Thomas Ramsey could dupe into it. Mikki’s face darkened the way it always did when that name came up. She took a bite and with her mouth full, she said, At least we know jerks like him are cockroaches now.

Do we know that? I asked. My cousin Diego’s research had moved so fast, and I didn’t see him nearly as frequently as when his dad was alive. This was the most I’d heard about this project.

Mikki shrugged. Diego proved reincarnation is real. Karma probably comes along with that.

"Obviously I got an upgrade, Cindy said. So I must have been the sweetest old white man in the world."

Jackson ducked away from a hornet that buzzed around the table. I doubt karma’s a simple reward and punishment system, though, he said.

The hornet landed on the table and Mikki slammed a napkin onto it, rattling the pots and jars.

Cindy gasped. Mikki, that’s so mean!

What? Mikki held the smashed insect out on the napkin. Cindy squirmed away from it. See, it was Ramsey.

Mikki laughed raucously. Most of the others cast her a disapproving look, but we were used to her crass nature by now. Besides, no one was eager to defend either an invasive hornet or Thomas Ramsey, who was universally known and universally hated, even more than forty years after his death. This was the man who had declared climate change wasn’t worth fixing because he had ships ready to take everyone who could afford a ticket to Planet B. Except it turned out there was no Planet B, and the only ship he had exploded on the launch pad. He’d conned millions of people out of millions of dollars, and the fallout of his scam had led to war, economic collapse, and an urgent overhaul of a carbon-heavy society.

Cindy flapped a hand to get my attention. Galacia, you haven’t gotten yours yet?

What, my past life? I smiled. No, not yet. Too busy, I guess. That was certainly true enough, though when I’d first heard about these reincarnation results, I’d assumed it was some new trend at the Witching House. Now that I knew it was my baby cousin’s newest science project, I was much more intrigued.

Mikki tapped my arm with her elbow. I bet you’re busy. Heard you got a challenger this year.

I swallowed a breaded jalapeño and patted my lips with a cloth napkin. It’s true. Tanner Mendocino has put in his bid to be Mediator.

It was the first time in the twenty years of our city’s existence that anyone had run against me. Back when Otra Vida was founded, an election was as simple as a raising of hands. But nearly two thousand people called this desert valley home now, so we were organizing a more formal process.

Who is that, anyway? Alex asked from down the table. Is he a Petitioner?

Inheritor, Mikki said.

One of the kids? I don’t remember a Tanner.

You probably knew him before he transitioned. He painted that mural on the South Dam.

"Oh, right. Alex nodded and gave an appreciative laugh. He sure had a glow up, didn’t he?"

Well, Cindy said matter-of-factly. "I can’t imagine it will be much of a competition. Everyone loves Galacia. She built Otra Vida."

No, I said, gesturing around the table. All of you built Otra Vida.

But none of us would be here if not for you, Mikki said.

There’s being politely humble, and then there’s denying your legacy. I wrapped an arm around Mikki in a side hug. If nothing else, I said, Tanner’s challenge will give people a second chance to let me know I still speak for them.

Jackson raised his mason jar in a legitimate toast this time. Their way of life wasn’t built for us, so we built another life. It was something I used to say a lot when our community was struggling for stability, and it had become something of an informal motto.

Everyone on the balcony echoed the toast.

Decorative sun divider

Diego’s workspace was near the North Dam, inside what we called the Mobius building. Two elevated wheels connected by a long figure-eight hallway, it was one of Otra Vida’s more unique buildings. Even though I was in a hurry, I couldn’t resist taking the long way, climbing to the green roof first and winding down the spiral ramp into the center of one wheel. The pollinator garden was bursting with flowers. I didn’t know all the native plants, but I recognized the yellow-tipped branches of rabbitbrush, the red bells of globemallow, and the purple spikes of sage.

An Inheritor named Xenia waved at me through the glass door, her tight black ringlets bouncing with her enthusiasm. Small blue butterflies fluttered around her. She pointed excitedly at a plant near the door, and I squinted at it, finally spotting a chrysalis. Normally, I’d take the time to ask her which species it was, and how the butterfly conservation efforts were going. But today, I gave her a smile and a thumbs-up before continuing through the building.

Following the figure-eight hallway, I passed a dozen doors sporting signs from other scientists, either warning to keep out or requesting research help. Many of these scientists were Founders, part of the crew that Diego’s father and I had rounded up when we first piped desalinated sea water into Death Valley. Others were Petitioners, those who had come after the waterline was finished and the city was founded on the shores of our new artificial lake. Diego, now not quite twenty-one, had been the first baby born in Otra Vida, the first of a generation we had dubbed the Inheritors.

I knocked on the door, and Diego answered, positioning half-moon glasses on his nose. A grin lit up his entire face. Galacia! I wrapped his thin frame into a hug. What are you doing here, prima?

I came to find out about this reincarnation thing you’re doing.

Of course, of course. He waved me inside.

The room was brightly lit by sunlight that streamed in through windows that overlooked the lake. Air plants grew in glass bulbs dangling from the ceiling. Diego’s girlfriend Penelope glanced up from her microscope and lifted a hand in greeting. She was a couple of years younger than Diego, but similarly precocious. I’d known her family since the early days of the waterline; they were part of the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe who’d made their home in this desert long before colonizers dubbed it Death Valley. She was tall with lanky tattooed limbs, her sleek black hair pinned in an intricate design. I was always impressed by the elaborate hair styles many of the Inheritors chose, having neither the patience nor the dexterity to do more than a messy bun myself.

Diego had me wash my hands in hot water while he gathered his kit. This is nice, I said when I cozied myself into a recliner next to the desk. Did you bring this back from Los Angeles? He’d been going back and forth to LA for college since he was fifteen.

Hmm? He snapped gloves on. Oh, the chair. It’s 3D printed, if you can believe it.

This? Our industrial printers could do some amazing things, but I’d never known them to create something so soft. I found the button that sent the ottoman board forward, lifting my feet.

Some assembly required, Diego said. "But I will be going to LA next month."

He has a very important meeting with his dissertation advisor, Penelope said.

Are you defending already?

Diego waved a hand dismissively. Oh, no, nothing like that. We’re still in a data collection phase. And rather behind schedule with that. I put out a call for volunteers months ago, but hardly anyone stepped up. But since Penelope had the idea to offer these hologram discs, people keep flocking in.

Diego swabbed my finger with an alcohol pad, but Penelope interrupted him. Diego, take only that which is given.

He dropped my hand. Ah, yes the Gene Vault consent.

Penelope hopped off of her stool and held a silver cylinder in front of my face like a microphone. She had me recite my name and date of birth, then asked, Do you consent to add a digital replica of your genetic record to the Gene Vault, with the understanding that the Gene Vault is an open-source document that may be accessed by anyone on any regional network?

I nodded. Yes, that’s fine.

The cylinder projected a facial recognition scan. Oh, Penelope said. You’re already in the Vault.

I figured, I said. They used to add a record any time someone was arrested.

I’ll still collect the sample, Diego said, so that my own records are consistent.

Penelope took the cylinder back to her microscope by the window. I offered my hand to Diego again. He pricked my finger and guided it so the drops fell onto a blood spot card.

How does this work, anyway?

He set the sample off to the side to dry and pressed gauze to my fingertip. We’ve found distinct markers within the folds of genetic material, created by the individual consciousness inhabiting the body. Over lifetimes, as the consciousness moves between bodies, the genetic material changes, but that imprint remains consistent and unique.

Like a fingerprint of the soul? I asked.

We prefer the term ‘consciousness,’ to reduce theological implications.

He lifted the pad from my finger. Satisfied that the bleeding had stopped, he disposed of the pad and wrapped a narrow bandage around my finger.

I looked toward Penelope, but she was engrossed in cleaning and adjusting her microscope. Diego, you’re talking about reincarnation. There are going to be a thousand theological implications!

Diego leaned casually against the counter. I know. But it’s just physics. And we’re a long way from making any of this public.

Maybe for the larger world, but it was already shaking up Otra Vida. Would people continue to treat their results like a fun novelty, or would it spark some latent fanaticism?

I considered myself firmly agnostic: willing to believe some higher power existed, but unwilling to believe that I’d ever understand it, or that it cared one whit about the movements of my daily life. Though Diego had followed his father’s scientific worldview, his mother was a devout Catholic who might take Diego’s discovery as a direct affront to the Church’s vision of the afterlife.

Rather than poke at that probably tender subject directly, I asked, Okay, so if it’s just physics, where do the souls go between lifetimes?

He frowned at my insistence on the word soul but said, Are you familiar with the theory that the universe is a hologram?

I shrugged and he launched into an explanation about black holes and event horizons, cosmic microwaves and string theory. I smiled at him. His father had always had the tendency to be far too technical, and Diego had clearly inherited that trait himself. Realizing that he’d completely lost me, he looked toward the ceiling, as though sorting through how to explain.

The Cave, Penelope said without looking up from her