The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 11, 2555

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Ramses had something else to show them, which he had evidently been working on at the same time as Operation Starframe. That was on the moon. This was down on the planet, in their main, branch-themed, dome. It felt like he invented something new every day, so while he wanted to show them, it wasn’t done with any fanfare. He just summoned them all to one his labs, and showed him the new thing. “It’s a slingdrive pad. Or a slingpad. Or something like that. Instead of you taking the whole thing with you, it just sends you to the destination alone. Since it’s ground-based, it doesn’t need a coherence gauge. It always has as much power as it needs. We will still need our arrays to come back, or go somewhere else, but this will let us do that instantly, instead of waiting for our own gauges to recharge. They stay topped up for the first trip.” It was pretty big, much larger than they would need for just the seven of them, even if they each had to return with two guests.

Perfect, they had themselves a real operation. Now they only needed to figure out how they would determine where they were needed. The galaxy hadn’t gotten any harder. Their top candidate was the Goldilocks Corridor, but that was a delicate situation. They had that treaty, and while individual interference didn’t technically go against it, they didn’t want to complicate matters too much. They could leave that all to Team Kadiar. “Great,” Mateo said. “Thank you. We’ll be able to breathe easier, knowing we have a full tank of gas every time we go out. The question is, where are we going?”

Romana separated herself from the audience, and stood next to Ramses. “I took the liberty of compiling a list of candidates.” She flung the data to their devices. “There aren’t any specific needs that we know about, but it’s time we ignore the stellar neighborhood for the most part, especially the Core Worlds. They’re mostly doing fine on their own as they have plenty of infrastructure and systems in place. It’s the 26th century. Colonists have made a lot of claims in the Charter Cloud, but many don’t have very useful charters. They benefit from almost no protection or emergency services. They’re also pretty deep into the Extended Bubble, which were given no resources, except for what they could afford from Gatewood. We don’t know who is out there, or what they’re lacking, but if anyone could use our help, it’s them. I know I’m the navigator, but I’m asking for your input. Should we throw a dart and pick one?”

Leona stopped looking at the spreadsheet. “I don’t care how you do it. You choose one, and send us there. I’ll even let you select the team. It could be all of us, or only three. You can put yourself on it, or not. It’s all up to you today. We’re all ready, right?”

They all nodded in agreement. They were itching to be productive.

Romana was pleased. “All right.” She swiped through her lower arm interface. “Okay. This colony is called Tartarus, which I find both interesting, but also worrisome enough to maybe investigate in case there’s something weird going on? It’s 290 light years from Earth so they don’t have to follow any rules. The colonists were set to arrive a few days ago.” She turned to Ramses. “Do you need to stay to monitor the equipment?”

“Nope,” he answered. “I’ve already tested it with a bunch of probes. “It’s ready.”

“Lovely,” Romana said. “Then we’ll all go. Boot ‘n’ rally.”

They arrived to find that it was either named ironically, or something got lost in translation. It was incredibly cold, snowy, and windy. And for some reason their suits wouldn’t work, so they didn’t have access to their slingdrives either. They were stuck here. No one else was around.

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Extremus: Year 129

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Audrey Husk is sitting in hock. Yes, that’s right, that’s what she’s calling it. That’s what everyone calls it. No one uses the new terminology that Waldemar instituted, except to his face. It’s a new problem in this timeline. He didn’t do that before, because he didn’t have anyone trying to steer him in a different direction. The language policing was a way to exert his control when more destructive ways were off limits to him. Those barriers are breaking down, though. Audrey and Silveon’s hold over him has been slowly eroding, and his true nature is coming out. They didn’t want to believe it. They wanted to believe that anyone could be a positively contributing member of society, no matter their brain chemistry. But she is beginning to doubt that. She has to, because if she maintains her philosophy of seeing the good in everyone then it means the reason their plan didn’t work was either because they had a bad plan, or they didn’t execute it well.

Either way, it’s over now. She’s done fighting. Or rather, she’s done not fighting, because this subtle psychic driving bullshit is not working. Out of all the contingencies they came up with, none of them involved being an outspoken detractor or enemy. They thought he needed to be finessed. But that just encourages him. Everything they’ve done has encouraged him. She’s glad she’s in here now. It has given her multiple chances to give him a piece of her mind without fear of repercussions. She’s already at the lowest point in her life. The only place to go from here, other than up, is death. She doesn’t welcome it, but at least she won’t actually die. She’ll spend some time in the buffer, then she’ll answer yes to the question, and wait on ice for ninety to a hundred years. When she gets back, Waldemar’s reign will be over. He may have revived too by then, but he will have gone down in history as a terrible captain, so she won’t be alone anymore. That’s the future she wants to see. She might prefer it. She may go that route anyway.

 Silveon walks casually into her cell like he’s just come home from work.

“What are you doing here?” Audrey questions. “You are going to get caught.”

“Master codes, remember?” Silveon reminds her. “I didn’t only unlock the doors. I also took care of the security system.” He holds his hand out towards her.

“What are you doing? What is that? You want me to go with you? Where would we go? We’re on a ship, there is no escape. That’s why I didn’t use the master codes to break out last year. You think I didn’t memorize what I needed just in case?”

“I think you told me you had a plan, and I’ve been waiting for you to fulfill it, but you’ve not done a single thing, so now we’re doing it my way. Let’s go,” he insists.

Audrey shakes her head, and turns her body away from his offering hand. “No. I have been moving forward with my plan. I’ve been arguing with Waldemar. I don’t mean I’ve been trying to get him to see the light. I’ve been calling him an asshole, and a tyrant, and really letting him have it. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him about you, or say anything about the future. I just acted like a bitter ex-wife, which is basically what I am.”

“Aud. You’re going to die in here. You’re going to die in hock, and there was another way. Let me send you to Verdemus. He will never find out. You can even—”

“Don’t say it.” Audrey closes her eyes and breathes. “Don’t...don’t even say her name. She is being cared for, and I can’t leave. Please respect my wishes.”

Silveon agrees and leaves, but then he comes back when she’s sleeping, knocks her out with a drug, and drags her to the mini-Nexus in Admiral Hall. She will never forgive him for this violation.

She wakes up on the green grass outside. Green!Audrey is the one who helps her wake up. “Welcome home. Would you like to meet your daughter, Silvia?”

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Microstory 2685: We Have More Time Than We Thought

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Resi flies through the tunnel in his mind, searching for the vision that he’s meant to see. He spends more time in here than usual. So much passes him by, but it’s too quick for him to have any time to tell what other events he’s missing. He just keeps going and going and going until he sees it. Central Mountain. Framed in a circle like a painting on the wall. It’s terrifying. Smoke is billowing up into the air. Lava is rolling down the sides. People are dying. He can’t see that much detail yet, but he’s getting the feeling. It’s at the end of the line. This is the last thing that will ever happen to anyone on Yana. The painting grows larger as he draws near, and then he passes through the portal. Now he’s flying through the air. Unlike his other vision of this tragic fate, he’s not composed of the elements. He’s just a regular guy. A regular guy who can fly.

The still image begins to move in slow-motion, making it even more horrifying than it already was. Now he really can see the people dying on the ground as the ash overwhelms them. Bungulan aircraft are frantically flying in, trying to save as many as they can, but they won’t get anywhere near everyone. Catastrophe has struck, and the question is, is this what happens if Resi doesn’t report the truth to the island, or is it inevitable? Will people simply not believe him, or will he not even get the message out in time? He remembers Kartica in the caldera with him. She has that satellite phone. He has to make that call, or tell her so she can make it. That is, if he can trust her.

Resi doesn’t have enough information, but he can feel himself waking up. His body is stirring where it lies on the ground. He’s melting into the rock. He really will die, so he has to get this done before he takes that last breath. What he really needs is the date. He needs specific information when he makes that call. There’s a boat on the coast, taking evacuees in. Surely there’s a date there somewhere. He dives down towards the surface, and lands on the deck. No one can see him, because he’s not really here. They’re frantically scattered about, some using devices, but no one keeps still long enough for him to see a date. Don’t they know that he needs this? Don’t they know he can stop it?

He has to get to the bridge. It will have computers there. He dashes up and passes right through the wall like a ghost. As the vision is beginning to collapse, he gets only one decent look in the upper right corner of the nearest screen, but it doesn’t make much sense. The day and month are both fine. It’s the year that doesn’t make the least bit of sense. The number is weird and wrong; it can’t be right. He has to look around for something else. Maybe there was an EMP, and it screwed up all of the electronics?

He wakes with a start, not having had the chance to find any more clues to understand what it means. Still, it’s all he has to go on. He feels like he’s moments from death. “Pho—phone,” he ekes out, reaching his hand up aimlessly. He turns his head to find Kartica lying on her stomach next to him, probably as close to death as he is.

She fights to open her eyes. She reaches behind her back and pulls the phone off of the clip. She lifts it into the air, and starts swinging it around, delirious and confused, maybe seeing double vision. Their hands dance around each other for several seconds before they finally make contact.

Resi selects Caprice’s contact card, and tells the system to call her in whatever way will work. If point-to-point communication is best, do that. She answers, demanding to know where he and Kartica are, but there’s no time. “August 7, 0045.” She’s flummoxed. “That’s the date of the eruption. August 7, 0045.” He dies.

Microstory 2684: Whoops

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Resi is walking across the jagged rock at the bottom of the caldera now, dodging these scary vents in the ground. He did not pay attention in school when they discussed this stuff. Again, it wasn’t important for his future, and the teachers didn’t think so either, so they didn’t get mad when students didn’t do great on science assignments. It is freezing cold, though, except for those gases. They make him cough, and gave him a huge headache. The center. He has to reach the absolute center. It’s poetic, right? That makes the most sense. So he just keeps moving forward. He kind of has to. Whenever he tries to stop, the rubber soles of his shoes begin to melt. It doesn’t feel too hot here, except when he touches the ground with his hand. God, it’s so weird. This place is weird.

Being this close, it certainly feels like the thing could explode at any moment. The air is still, but there’s a vibration all around. To be fair, he could be imagining it. If all these gases are toxic, it would explain the headaches, and the little bit of giggling that he thinks he’s doing. He can’t remember. He just keeps walking, heading for that big dream vision in the sky. Maybe he should walk faster, lest he die before he gets there.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” a voice asks from behind him.

“The time gods?” Resi asks, looking up. “Is that you?”

“It’s Kartica, you idiot!” she scolds, catching up to him. She is hard to hear with that banana over her face. Banana? Bandana. It’s either really smart, or totally useless.

“What’s the big deal? What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” she fires back at him. “You’re going to get yourself killed. You don’t have any protection whatsoever.”

“Yeah, I do. I have a coat on.” He tries to show her. “Oh. Well, it was on a minute ago.” Oh, that’s right. It was too green, so he took it off. “And anyway, I’m still on the hunt for that vision. This is the one place we’ve not yet tried.”

“How did you expect to get back if it kills you first?” Kartica presses.

“I was going to call you guys and tell you what I saw. I had it all planned out. I was going to detail my vision to you, and then at the very last second, with my dying breath, I would start my final sentence, and then not be able to finish it.”

“You planned on failing?”

“It was gonna bring you three together, and together, you would figure out what the last few words were gonna be, and save the day at the very last second.”

“Quite a few very last seconds you have there, Res. And, um, tell me. How were you going to call us without a phone?” She holds up Caprice’s satellite phone.

He pats his chest and hips. “Oh. Whoops.”

“Whoops?” she echoes. “Just the fate of our island on the line, and whoops? Resi, you’re already sick on top of the toxic fumes this place has to offer. And that’s on top of you just not being that bright of a person in the first place. You are the worst person to do this job, you’re just all we got. So please, lean on your friends.”

“Are you my friend?” Resi asks. “Because I seem to recall you infiltrating my House, trying to make us look bad, and then trying to frame me for your murder.”

“That was the old me,” she insists.

“Wait, shut up!”

“What?”

“Shut up, shut up!” he urges. “I’m getting a vision.” He falls to the ground.

Microstory 2683: Desperate Remedies

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It’s been seven days. The hike was grueling, especially for Resi, who is not doing very well. He’s run out of medicine. It was supposed to last him a few weeks, but he took a little more than the recommended dose each time, and now he can’t even synthesize more. But this is it. This is his moment. If we can predict exactly when this volcano erupts, it will be worth it. He can die if he has to. Chaya, Caprice, and even Kartica will walk back down, warn the Bungulan scientist when it’s going to happen, and then they can craft their magical technology into a solution. The problem is, so far, he’s not seen anything. They stopped a few more times than they absolutely had to so he could take a nap. He needed the rest and recovery period, but he was also always hoping to trigger a new vision. Nothing came to him. Not even a hint. Every once in a while, Chaya would do something totally unexpected, like throw a fruit at him. One time, she tore off all of her clothes. Or rather, she was going to. He stopped her. Because he saw that she was planning on it. Which was great. Not only could he save her the trouble, but it also proves that changing the future is possible. They have to stop that volcano.

They’re on the rim of the caldera now, in the process of walking around the entire circumference. They’re moving even slower now; again, because Resi can’t keep pace, and because he’s trying to see something meaningful. Nothing is doing anything. He’s starting to think he made the whole thing up. Yes, he has visions of the future, but maybe this one is just a dream. Maybe that’s just what the Kidjum elixir does to his brain. Both things can be true at the same time without it being this complex web of connections. “Well, ladies, I don’t think this is doing us any good. I hope you at least see it as a good way to make your daily steps, because nothing else has come of it.”

They’re all breathing heavily, and nodding. They don’t want to agree with that assessment, but there’s no reasonable alternative. It hasn’t helped anything. Kartica drops her pack, and starts looking for something in it. “There’s one more thing we can try.” She takes her hand back out, coming back with a black box. She opens it, and as she does, dry ice vapor seeps out of the gap. Inside is one vial of Kidjum elixir.

“You told me not to take that stuff again,” Resi reminds her. “You said it was too dangerous.” He can’t admit that she was right to bring it. It only makes sense.

“It is,” she confirms. “But you look desperate, and honestly, so am I. You also look like you might not survive the night, so if you’re willing to take the risk, I am too.”

“Don’t do this,” Caprice urges. “She’s wrong. You will survive the night, and when we wake up in the morning, we’ll take the fast trail back down. If we think you won’t be able to handle it, we can call for a helicopter ride.”

“How would we do that?” Chaya questions.

“With this satellite phone.” She takes it out of her pack. The thing is giant, probably to accommodate a huge power source, so it never requires charging, and to make it harder to break. “I have a direct line to the Bungulans. I had to, it isn’t safe.”

Caprice and Kartica start arguing with each other, but Resi interrupts them. “I’ll decide.” He takes the sat phone, and then the box. “Let’s all have some dinner, then go to bed. “Okay?” He doesn’t get a response. “Okay?” He adds, “okay,” when they nod.

That night, he sneaks out of the tent he’s been sharing with Chaya, puts his shoes back on, and then begins the descent into the caldera. That’s where his visions are waiting for him. He knows it.

Microstory 2682: Seeing The Whole Thing

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Resi can see the future, there is no longer any doubt in his heart about that. The problem is that, no matter how hard he tries, he has been unable to return to the vision he twice had of the eruption of Central Mountain. Brooke has her special techy spaceship, which she used to study the volcano, which said that nothing about it suggests it’s going to become active anytime soon. That is more worrisome than anything, because if Brooke is right, and Resi is also right, then something insane and unpredictable is going to happen that changes the equation. The trick is determining what that might be, and Resi thinks he may know why the answer isn’t coming to him. As of now, all of his predictions are sourced from past and present data. They’re still supernatural, for lack of a better term, but he’s not just randomly pulling information that doesn’t exist yet. He has to anchor it to something that is real. He doesn’t have to be physically touching an object to know what’s going to become of it, but it sure helps.

The fact is, Resi has nothing been very close to the mountain before. It just hasn’t been a meaningful aspect of his life. The higher you go, the less arable the land is. He’s not one for backpacking. Some class projects have involved hiking it, or even climbing all the way to the summit, but he never ended up doing that. That seems to be something that has to happen now. Brooke offered him a ride to the top, but that might not be enough. What if the problem happens lower down, and just causes the eruption up top? What if there are clues along the way? She pointed out that there is too much acreage to cover, and he agreed, but he has to start somewhere, and it can’t be at the end. That’s what’s blocking his understanding of this terrible future. He keeps trying to skip to the end. Of course, that’s what it sounds like fortune-telling is, but again, he doesn’t think he can just tap a future date, and jump to it. He thinks he has to fast-forward. He doesn’t have to sit through it all in real time, but he does have to see it all. So he’s going on a trek. He’s finally going to see what all the fuss is about.

Brooke is gone now. She has other things to do with her life outside of Yana, and outside of Bungula. She charges him to keep quiet about what he learned about her, which will not be hard, because she hardly told him anything. He’s not going to be alone, though. Caprice and Chaya are both coming. They don’t think that they’re going to have any apocalyptic visions, too, but they want to help, and it’s safer for him to not be alone. If something bad happens, someone may need to call for rescue. They’re only a few kilometers into the journey. They’ve not even reached the switchbacks yet when Chaya informs them that someone has been following them the whole time.

“Okay!” Resi says quite loudly. “Spread out! Shoot anyone but each other!”

“No! Don’t do that!” Kartica comes out with her arms up.

“I was never going to. Don’t you know me yet?” Resi questions.

“I dunno, you may have changed, man,” Kartica points out.

“Why are you here?” Resi presses. “You weren’t invited.

“I know, but you need me. You’re going the wrong way.”

Caprice looks up. “I think we can see where the mountain is.”

“Yes, you’re going towards the mountain, and you’ll even be on a trail, but it won’t be the right trail,” Kartica insists. “The mountain...is basically a cone. If you’re trying to see the whole thing, the switchbacks will only keep you to one side of it.”

“What makes you think we’re trying to see the whole thing?” Resi asks her.

“Please.” Kartica is offended. “I’ve not taken my eye off of you since we met. I can show you where to go. It will give you a clearer picture. I want this more than anyone. I want it more than you. You were hesitant before, when I begged you to tell me what was going to happen. Don’t leave me out of it. Please.”

Resi stands there thinking about it. He takes a swig of his special medicine. It still isn’t curing him, but it’s treating his symptoms. It’s keeping him vertical. Unfortunately, he believes he may be experiencing diminishing returns, and it will stop doing anything at all, probably sooner than later. “Fine, you can help. But try not to commit suicide on the way, okay?”

“I couldn’t if I wanted to,” Kartica claimed. “They locked me out of the respawn system. If I die, that’s it for me.”

Foreshadowing.

Microstory 2681: Final Exam

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Brooke will not tell Resi Brooks anything about the rescue that she and her friends pulled off centuries ago. She doesn’t even admit that she’s a time traveler. She says that she can help Resi get a handle on his visions, and that is what she does. They work together for weeks. She doesn’t give him a cure for what ails him, but she provides him with treatments that are better than what Yana has to offer on its own. It’s actually better that he not be too active in the world while he’s working on his mental ability. There are too many distractions, and he has to focus. She first teaches him how to meditate. That’s really all the Kidjum elixir does. It drops a person into a relaxed, unconscious state so it can access deeper truths about the dreamer’s psyche. The drug is an easy shortcut, and its side effects might actually be detrimental to the process.

Brooke asks Resi to start with small things. He’s meant to predict things that will probably happen anyway, like the outside temperature that the forecast already predicted, and always predicts with accuracy. This will reinforce his knowledge of the world, and reward his brain for saying something correct. Over time, she asks for more and more uncertain predictions, like the daily harvest yield in the south fields, or the results of an ancient singing competition show which Resi had never seen before. He gets them right too, but it’s still not too surprising, because yields are fairly steady, and we all knew Miki was gonna win season eleven. So far, though, Brooke has only asked him questions about specific things. She has driven him towards a prediction. The hardest part will be when she simply tells him to come up with something new.

He doesn’t think he’s ready for that yet. He’s still not entirely sure that he really has this ability. But she convinces him to try because if the first time he proves it is when the Central Mountain volcano explodes, then they’re all going to have a bad time. He has to start with something that’s still small, but impossible for him to have known just by recognizing past patterns, or relying on other systems. It has to be so isolated and bizarre that it can’t be true until it is. She sits him down, and has him close his eyes. She tells him to focus on the future, and forget everything he knows about everything else. The past does not exist, and it never will. The only thing that matters is what is to come. He’s also supposed to breathe. In, out. In, out. Her voice fades away as she continues the usual instructions. He keeps following them, trying to see something which does not exist, but is inevitable. He sees a tunnel, but it’s not real. It’s only a conduit to a higher plane of reality. It’s his way to seeing the future. He propels himself forwards, becoming one with the tunnel, and preparing himself for the other side, when an image he has never seen before finally comes to light.

He reaches the end. It’s small, and it looks like it’s moving fast, but to him, it’s in slow motion. It’s kind of grayish, or maybe even gold? It’s hard to tell with the light from the visionscape itself. He tries to look at it from a different angle, but a second image slips into view behind it. This one is also metal, but of a more complex design. It’s still covered in shadow, and hard to make out. So he moves closer. Closer, closer, closer. It’s...it’s a gun. Resi wakes up from the vision, and dives to the side just as he hears the shot. He feels the rush of wind as the bullet passes him within centimeters at most. “What the hell was that?” he asks, trying to put his heart back in his chest.

Brooke puts the gun into her jacket. “That was the final exam. In case you didn’t notice, you passed.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 10, 2554

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Today was the day of the launch. Ramses’ automators had constructed 121 million Outriders, and he was ready to let them go. Team Keshida had built billion of modules for Project Stargate, but that was designed to spread to every star system in the galaxy. That wasn’t necessary here. They only needed enough to get to every region for now. They still hadn’t come up with a specific reason for Operation Starframe, but perhaps something would come up sometime in the next 108 years when the farthest ones settled at their posts. They were obviously avoiding the stellar neighborhood, and every system beyond that which was also colonized, or soon enough would be.

Ramses wasn’t sending the Outriders via rockets or launch loops. He was teleporting them away, but using a very specific method. There were different types of teleportation. Momentum was sometimes conserved and sometimes not—depending on how you applied the pressure—but going the other way by adding momentum? That was more difficult to pull off, though still easier than having to include so much gravity in the calculations. This allowed him to grant a boost to each Outrider, so it wouldn’t have to rely solely on its own fuel, but also limited the amount of infrastructure he had to build. He could dispatch hundreds of them at a time using this technique. This would take a few days, but enough of them would go out today that he could monitor the situation, and trust that it would continue to go smoothly.

Mateo, Leona, and Olimpia were lying on a bed under a room-sized glass dome on the moon. They were watching the Outriders disappear from their launch pads. Each one gave off a burst of light. Ramses intentionally programmed them to have different colors, so the visual was more spectacular. Their little dome was projecting an augmented reality, which was zoomed into space a little so they could see the exit bursts as well before the Outrider entered reframe speeds, and disappeared entirely.

They were enjoying the quiet when Sanaa Karimi’s face suddenly appeared on screen. “Can you see me now?”

“Sanaa, what’s wrong?” Leona asked.

“Nothing,” Sanaa replied, though the image quality was bad. She was pixelating, echoing, and skipping. “Except for this connection. I was told you had a pyramid.”

“We do. We had to chop off the top, though,” Leona replied. “It opened us up to unwanted visitors.”

“Whatever. Look, The Superintendent reached out to me. He’s trying to write today’s story, but nothing is coming to his mind. He knows that Operation Starframe, or whatever, is happening today, but it doesn’t lead to anything interesting. So he’s going to cut this short. He’s evidently really busy working on something called...” She paused to check her notes on her tablet. “...The Last Refuge. It’s eating up all of his time, and he thinks that you will be fine without him for at least another week.”

“What does that mean for us?” Mateo questioned.

“He says you should talk with your daughter, but that the audience doesn’t need to see it. It’s time for you to accept her choices so she can move past her loneliness arc. The story can’t restart until then, and it’s boring until it does. I’m bored with it already.” She looked upwards. “Anything else, oh Wide One?” She waited. “Yeah, I did mean wise, sorry.” More waiting. “Yeah, I’m sure you’re working very hard at your diet. Can I get back to my life now?” One final pause. “Okay.” She looked back at the camera. “Bye.”

They all sighed and went back to stargazing until Olimpia said, “ya know, they killed God on Supernatural, and the world didn’t end.”

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