Cheyenne was frustrated and confused. She didn’t want to be allowed to stay,
she wanted someone to help her get home. Danica refused to do anything of
the sort, so now no one is happy. Morale is incredibly low, and the place is
getting crowded. She gets tired of the arguing, and ends up ordering
everyone into their stasis pods, with the promise to revive everyone in the
next hundred thousand years, or so. Mateo does not find that acceptable, so
instead of waiting for the door to open, he just teleports out after a
second. Asier is waiting with a gun. “Do you know how to use that thing?”
“I was a cop...in another life,” Asier explains.
“It’s gonna take more than that to stop me,” Mateo explains right back. “I
was a regular human...in a regular life. Now I’m something more.”
Asier winces, but doesn’t falter. He doesn’t know what that means. “What?”
“Y’all knew about my teleportation ability, but not my biological
enhancements? Either your daughter didn’t tell you about them, or she
herself doesn’t know.”
“She tells me everything.”
“Well, go ahead and shoot me. I can’t get hurt as long as I’m in the
Constant.” That’s an exaggeration. “Barring that, I’m going to go wake up
Abigail and Cheyenne, and help them return to their time periods.”
“How do you reckon you’ll do that?” Asier questions. He hasn’t lowered his
gun.
“I know where the time machine is.”
“You knew where it was,” Asier clarifies. “It’s been moved. I don’t
know how far you can teleport, but I doubt you could make the jump, even if
you knew where we put it. Even if you found it, you wouldn’t be able to put
it back together, and even if you did, you wouldn’t know how to operate it.”
“I would argue that if I could figure out how to reassemble it, I could
figure out how to make it work.”
“Probably.”
Mateo takes a half step.
“Don’t wake them up. Bhulan has consulted the Omega Gyroscope. They’re both
meant to stay in there, and you’re meant to go back.”
“How convenient that no one else can consult the gyroscope,” Mateo
mocks with airquotes. “You could make any decision you want, and then just
claim that it’s part of destiny. That’s what religious leaders do to control
the masses.
I prayed on it, and God told me that we should all marry multiple
sixteen-year-old girls each, and have lots of babies for each other to
marry sixteen years from now.”
Asier shakes his head. “Mormonism is not going to exist in this reality.”
Mateo chuckles. “No, you’ll replace it with a hundred new ideologies that
are just as bad.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” Warning him about the future will only make things worse.
“We built a new section. You’ll never find Cheyenne and Abigail either.”
“I really thought that Danica and I were getting better.”
“I’ve been there,” he admits. “You should have known her when she was a
teenager. Now get back in your pod. Please. Before she sees you.”
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