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Mateo brought one of Ramses and Leona’s little leechcraft up into space,
thinking that it could be of some use to them, and he turned out to be
right. Leona deployed it from the vacuum tent, leaving it in their
then-orbit before they went back towards Earth in Mangrove Rocket Eleven. It
is capable of a little station-keeping on its own, but it works best when
latched onto some other satellite. It immediately fell into a decaying
orbit, which means that it will eventually burn up in the atmosphere, but it
will probably be years before that happens. They don’t need it to stay up
there forever. They just want to get an idea of how this mysterious Omega
bubble works.
“Anything?” Mateo asks. It’s late, and they’re back in the Kansas City lab
with Tarboda and Heath, who are both asleep.
Leona takes a sip of her tea. “So far, so good. The bubble has not yet
reached the leechcraft.”
“What does that mean?” he presses. “Did it shrink, or just stay where it
is?”
She takes another sip. “There’s no way to know. If and when the bubble
reaches it, there will be a split second before it shuts off where I might
be able to tell that the bubble is the reason that this happened, and I
didn’t just lose contact with it because of a micrometeoroid, or
interference, or something. We may never be sure where the bubble is, and
where it isn’t. By its very nature, it blocks such observation.” She takes
another sip, and doesn’t even give herself enough time to set the cup down
before she needs yet another.
“What I’m observing right now,” Mateo begins, “is that you need to go to
bed.”
“No, I’m fine. I’m working.”
He points at one of the other screens. “What does this mean here?”
Leona peers at it. “Well, that—that means the big satellite we have up there
is detecting temporal energy. The bubble must be receding. How did I miss
that?”
“Because it’s like I said, you’re too tired.” He kind of paws at her.
“Bzzz!” she exclaims, trying to swat him away like a fly, then takes another
sip.
“What exactly is this you’re drinking?” Mateo picks it up himself, and takes
a tiny sip. “Whoa, this is black tea. If you take any more of this, you’ll
be up all night. Come on.” He gently tries to pull her away from the
machine. “It's time for bed.” He pulls a little harder when she resists.
“Mateo, this development means that I have to stay!”
“The computer is monitoring the bubble’s progress, right? You don’t have to
be here to watch it. You’ve had a long day, and a long few weeks before
that, and a long few months before that, and I could go back to the
beginning of the first timeline you remember, couldn’t I? I know you want to
keep on this, but you could make more mistakes. You don’t want that, do
you?”
“No,” she replies in a nervous little girl voice.
“Go on upstairs,” Mateo urges softly. He starts waving his hand at the
computer like a philistine. “I’ll call you if I see something happen on the
thing.”
Leona nods, and turns away. Just then, the computer beeps. She spins right
back around. “What was that?”
Mateo leans in to read it. “It’s a message...from Alyssa. She wants to meet.”
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