The Advancement of Mateo Matic (2020)

A small group of people who experience time at an accelerated rate search for a time-traveling assassin, and deal with the consequences of that assassin’s actions. If you have not already, please read volume 1, volume 2, volume 3, volume 4, and volume 5.

November 27, 2265
“I recognize this,” Mateo said as he was standing beside the spaceship that Pribadium built for them. “You made this?” He gently glided his hand over the hull. “Yes, so we could get back to the future,” she replied...

November 28, 2266
Mateo still needed some time to recover from whatever it was that brought him back here. The jump to the future didn’t help things. Leona was frustrated, because he didn’t appear to have any serious injuries, and there really wasn’t anything she could do...

November 29, 2267
Nerakali smiled when she saw that the Matics had agreed to stay on mission with her. They were ready to do what needed to be done, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have questions...

November 30, 2268
Mateo felt something hit him in the groin. It was clearly meant to wake him up, but even the pain wasn’t enough to stir him...

December 1, 2269
It was still 2268 when Mateo woke up from having been knocked out. He asked what had happened, but no one answered. As he was massaging his head, he struggled to get to his knees, and looked around...

December 2, 2270
Back in the first timeline that Mateo could remember, which people often referred to as Reality 2—even though there were many before it, and many since—his life was pretty normal...

December 3, 2271
Maeto Matic: Oh my God, it’s frickin’ freezing out here.
Leona Matic: Where are we...

December 4, 2272
Nerakali was dead silent after her bombshell about her and Arcadia’s father being the orchestrator of the hundemarke killings. She was never as talkative as her sister, but neither Mateo nor Leona could remember a time when she was speechless...

December 5, 2273
When Mateo was at his own memorial, a lot of things happened. None of it was bad—except for maybe that time he nearly choked The Delegator to death, so he could get Ramses back from the future—but it was important...

December 6, 2274
Most of what Athanaric Fury told them about Erlendr probably wasn’t all that useful. If the killer they were after was some kind of complete mystery, they probably could have used their knowledge of him against him in some way, but a lot of it Nerakali already knew...

December 7, 2275
Mateo immediately regretted bringing Leona and Nerakali back into this. They didn’t know they were going to be suddenly transported underwater, so they didn’t hold their breaths. Nerakali was immortal, so she was fine, but Leona wasn’t moving. She was lying on the ground, and she wasn’t moving...

December 8, 2276
You better make good use of me. Those words continued to repeat themselves over and over again in Mateo’s head. They didn’t know anything about this Jeremy Bearimy fellow, except that he was apparently named after a—no, not a character—but a concept in a TV show; a crazy way of perceiving the passage of time...

December 9, 2277
The new Cassidy cuffs that Ramses made for them didn’t seem to work as they were meant to. It was unclear at first exactly what went wrong...

December 10, 2278
They never did manage to find Holly Blue, or her alternate counterpart, Weaver. Mateo decided, pretty unilaterally, that something had to be done about the Prestons, and that it could not wait, for anything...

April 18, 1992
Mateo was in hiding. What he had done, he thought was unforgivable. He had to be away from Leona, probably forever...

April 19, 1993
Mateo and Ramses woke up at about the same time the next day. They weren’t a hundred percent sure exactly when that would be, but the powers that be seemed to simply hold the pattern, but in this new time period...

March 21, 2015
Something happened to Mateo’s mind when he went through the homeportal. He found himself in the middle of the cemetery he used to frequent with his friends...

May 3, 2028
After Leona exited the homeportal, the first thing she did was look around for Mateo. He was nowhere to be found, so the second thing she did was consult her watch. May 3, 2028. This was the day she disappeared from her old life, and became a time traveler, at least in one reality...

February 10, 2212
Ramses Abdulrashid stepped out of the homeportal. Or, at least that was what he tried to do. Best guess, portals weren’t very good at exiting on moving objects, like this spaceship he was now back on...

March 22, 2016
The Insulator of Life was one of those things that always did what it was meant to do, theoretically through psychic commands. It didn’t have any buttons or switches, or some kind of computer screen...

May 23, 1871
It wasn’t easy, but Arcadia was able to work her replicated body in a matter of minutes. She was still too weak to do very much on her own, but it was nothing that a good meal, and some peaceful rest, wouldn’t be able to solve...

Tuesday, March 26, 2019
It was unclear whether Arcadia overshot their destination by two years, or if she fully intended to arrive back in Fletcher House in 2019. Fortunately, Declan was still living there, and currently attempting to help Nerakali and Serkan remove their Cassidy cuffs...

Tuesday, March 29, 2022
As soon as the final bullet landed in its target, everyone stopped. Two sides of the battle dropped their weapons, and watched Anatol Klugman as he was dying. People were dying all around them, but it was as if they knew this death was different...

Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Declan was going to be vital to their survival in a world with no people, and therefore no civilization. None of the others knew how to build a shelter, or even start a fire without any tools...

Tuesday, April 4, 2028
The first thing they did was let Leona get caught up with her mother, whose last few years of her life were somewhat uneventful. Despite this being a harsh world to live in, there were, at least, no dangerous people around...

Tuesday, April 23, 2047
According to Leona’s calculations, nineteen years was the biggest jump they would ever do on this new pattern, and it would happen a few more times before they caught up with their original timeline...

Tuesday, April 26, 2050
Shortly after Mateo and Sanaa arrived at their final destination, an old woman found them wandering what they could only describe as a thicket...

Tuesday, April 29, 2053
Before anyone could so much as begin to guess what the hell was going on, a pod appeared a few meters away from them, and opened up to reveal what Mateo could only describe as a future-cop...

Tuesday, May 2, 2056
While still in 2053, the group took the AOC to Australia, where they encountered another person from an old timeline...

Tuesday, May 24, 2078
Sanaa was looking around the area with her Cassidy cuff. “Love Kansas City.”

“You do?” Leona questioned? “I didn’t think you had ever been there.”

“No, that’s just what the painting says. I mean, I don’t hate Kansas City. I don’t have any strong feelings about it...

Tuesday, May 27, 2081
Mateo and J.B. were placed in highly advanced medical pods. In a matter of minutes, the minimally invasive nanobots had repaired all of their bodily injuries, and restored them to perfect health...

Tuesday, June 15, 2100
They were happy to confirm the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had become like one giant Cassidy cuff. Anyone inside of it during the jump to the future would be swept along with it...

Wednesday, July 1, 2116
Mateo met with Camden Voss of the IAC, who agreed to send him up to the year 2114. That was about as close as he could get to his people. Other time travelers would have been able to get him closer, but he knew Camden would do it without asking for anything in return, and he just wanted to get as close as possible...

Friday, July 2, 2117
RPS stood for rock, paper, scissors, which was a simple game to play on its own. A player can throw one of the three choices, and can beat or lose to the other player, depending on which one they choose, or draw if both throw the same one...

Sunday, July 3, 2118
Mateo wasn’t sure how they could go about saving Vearden’s life. When it came to time travel, there appeared to be no shortage of possibilities, but a lot of them were out of the question...

Tuesday, July 4, 2119
As they were on their way back to Tribulation Island, Mateo and Ellie came up with a lie. Conventionally, seers were heard, but not seen, so to speak...

Friday, July 5, 2120
Mateo and Leona argued yesterday. The latter demanded to go with the former and Ellie to The Fourth Quadrant, and Mateo wasn’t having it. In the end, she had too many cards to play, what with him constantly abandoning her, and his indiscretion with Cassidy...

Sunday, July 6, 2121
They were standing on the edge of the endeavor to replace old Kansas City with wildlife. It wasn’t quite finished yet. They were only here to make the transition to another parallel reality called the Fourth Quadrant...

Tuesday, July 7, 2122
After Sanaa was done sending her time message through the phone using a fifty-two digit number, Holly Blue appeared. “Boy, am I popular today,” she said...

Thursday, July 8, 2123
Mateo had heard of The Shortlist before. While they were on Glisnia long ago, and many years in the future, Hogarth had explained it all to him. He was evidently an honorary member, while Leona was a full member...

Sunday, July 9, 2124
Mateo, Leona, Ellie, Sanaa, and Jeremy Bearimy were on Tribulation Island, geared up and ready to go. They picked an unpopulated area, to make sure they avoided running into their alternate selves, or even their friends, in the main sequence...

Tuesday, July 10, 2125
The pain disappeared in an instant, but Mateo was still lying face down in the dirt. He stood himself up, and looked around. He wasn’t extremely familiar with the topography of Tribulation Island—it wasn’t like he had a favorite leaf—but he could tell that he wasn’t there anymore...

Thursday, July 11, 2126
Mateo sat on the edge of the stage, and watched the presentation from there. Their moderator was a woman by the name of Angela Walton. She was no angel, though...

Saturday, July 12, 2127
No one in the history of Tamerlane Pryce’s afterlife construct had been assigned Level 11, white. He agreed with the other Designers that people living in the real world would not be ready to learn the truth about what happened to organic entities after death until at least the 25th century...

Tuesday, July 13, 2128
Angela Marie Walton was born in 1784 to a wealthy slaveowner. He wasn’t the cruelest person in the world, but he did own people, and that was wrong in every time period. Angela grew up fascinated by the black people who worked for the family...

Thursday, July 14, 2129
Leona was sitting in the visitor’s room. It looked just like a prison would in the real world, with people talking to their loved ones, some in hushed tones, others not so much...

Saturday, July 15, 2130
They were standing at the top of a very steep set of basement stairs. The lights weren’t on, and Mateo felt a great chill. There was something evil down in that basement, and it was just waiting for the horror movie to enter its second act...

Monday, July 16, 2131
Leona was sitting on a wooden chair against the wall, like a belligerent child who’s been sent to the assistant principal’s office. Pryce’s personal assistant was working away at her desk, pretending to write on a piece of paper with a pencil...

Thursday, July 17, 2132
All prisons and jail centers in The Parallel were quantum locked by design. This prevented someone from simply teleporting out of a holding area, or teleporting in to break someone else out...

Saturday, July 18, 2133
They stayed in Ladytown for the rest of the day, and ate with the residents. The Ladytowners wanted Mateo to stay, so he could help repopulate their town, but that was an awkward request, and it wasn’t really up to him anyway...

Monday, July 19, 2134
They didn’t have time to process the letter Hua managed to get to them before their Cassidy cuffs began to beep. It was not a new transition location, though. An icon of an envelope was bouncing in the corner, indicating that they had a message...

Wednesday, July 20, 2135
The other eight Cassidy cuffs were waiting for Mateo and Leona when they returned to the timeline on July 20, 2135. They were on Earth, having taken up residence in what The Parallel natives referred to as a mobile home...