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It wasn’t until the next year that Angela came back. She appeared right in
Mateo and Mateo’s cell, because there wasn’t any sort of teleportation
suppressing technology. She removed her helmet and yawned, then sat down on
the bench between them, but she didn’t say anything.
“Did you find it, the timonite?” Future!Mateo asked her finally.
“Nope. That’s why it took me so long. It’s not there. I looked through that
rock and dust over and over again, and I’m telling you, it doesn’t exist. I
felt like an unlucky contestant on The Amazing Race.”
“You’ve seen that show?” Past!Mateo asked.
“We had TV in the afterlife,” she answered. “We had it before
you did.”
“How the hell did you get in here?” Underkeeper was just walking back in,
having heard their conversation.
“Uh, I teleported?” Angela said, like it was obvious.
“We didn’t know that you could do that,” Underkeeper began. “Can you two do
it as well?”
“Yeah,” Future!Mateo answered.
“So you could have escaped at any time?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t call that an escape. It’s more that we could have left,”
Past!Mateo reasoned.
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Well, we can’t teleport to the stars,” Future!Mateo explained. “Where would
we have gone? These cots are comfortable enough.” He gestured towards them.
Underkeeper persistently rubbed her knuckle against her cheek. “Oh.”
“She did call this a moon, though,” Past!Mateo reminded them all. “There
must be a planet around here. Is it breathable?”
“It is,” Underkeeper admitted. “It once orbited the same host star as
Violkomin, which is located at the aperture to the kasma. Hogarth has since
moved us all to the other side of the universe. We’re as remote as you can
get.”
“Wait.” Angela stands up too, even though she’s tired. “If this whole system
is distant from others, why do you have to live on the moon? Why can’t you
live on the planet instead?”
“This is where we were,” Underkeeper said. “Hogarth didn’t tell us that we
couldn’t travel to the planet, but we do not have the resources to make the
journey. This moon is composed almost exclusively of silicates. We have
found very few metals here. This structure existed before we arrived. That’s
not even the biggest issue, though. There’s no fuel. It is almost completely
devoid of hydrogen, so we can’t build a fusion reactor. We have been
subsisting on the same limited amount of water this entire time, recycling
it over and over again. Trying to separate the elements through electrolysis
could be a fatal waste, so we’ve not bothered to try.”
“Well, if you have suits, we can teleport you to the planet,” Past!Mateo
offers.
“Matt,” Angela scolds.
“What? We’re not gonna help them?” Past!Mateo asked dismissively. “You can
see how inhumane this is.”
“Would you really do this?” Underkeeper asked, hope in her eyes.
“Three steps. Get us our suits and PRUs,” Future!Mateo instructed. “Help us
synthesize a helmet for my alternate self here. Put yourselves in suits.
We’ll jump you all to the planet.”
“How many are there of you?” Angela asked.
“Five Maramon, including one child,” Underkeeper replied. “Four hybrids.”
“Nine total,” Future!Mateo added. “We each can usually only take two at a
time. However, you are, umm...” He trailed off uncomfortably.
“Heavy?” Underkeeper guessed. “I am aware of teleportation mass limits. The
hybrids are light, as is my nephew; it should even out rather nicely. Two
trips wouldn’t be a problem for us, but perhaps for you.”
“With our respective suits, plus any belongings you would like to take with
you, it could add up to more than two,” Angela calculated.
“But that shouldn’t be a problem,” Past!Mateo clarified. “To the planet and
back again is, what, sixty jumps? Each round trip will maybe take a
few minutes.”
Underkeeper went back to her people to discuss the offer, but it was taking
too long, so the three humans just teleported out of their cell, found their
suits, and started their preparations. Whether they had company or not, they
would be leaving today. Past!Mateo kept the helmet since they were not
equipped to synthesize a copy. Future!Mateo would be able to handle the
vacuum for the minute or so long journey down to the planet. One of the
hybrids caught them while they were here. Kalmana, right?” Future!Mateo
asked.
“Balbira,” she corrected.
“Didya hear? It’s moving day.”
“This world,” Balbira began. “This is all the other hybrids and I have ever
known. Lusia will be excited. Aclima will be indifferent. Kalmana will be
suspicious. But they will all...be afraid. You have to understand that we
were not created because the engineer was bored. He made us for a purpose.
He knew that we would escape one day. Mother has been trying to raise us to
subvert his expectations, but some of us have done better with this mandate
than others. I, for one, lean more towards his wishes than hers. Lusia is
obviously on the opposite end of the spectrum. The three of them have been
fighting their true natures. It has not been healthy. If you take us down to
that planet, we will finally have access to the resources that the Maramon
have been yearning for so our purpose can be fulfilled.”
“I hardly think that Hogarth would let that happen,” Past!Mateo determined.
“She left you here for a reason, because it was safe. She would have locked
you up, or exiled you entirely, if she believed that you posed any threat.”
Balbira shook her head. “She is not a god, despite what you may assume since
she built this universe. What I’m trying to tell you is that you cannot help
us. If you do, I will come after you, and you will regret it. I will manage
to convince the other new hybrids to fall in line. That’s my strength, which
I have been resisting for years.”
“That’s your purpose,” Angela asked, “to attack us?”
“Or to attack all humans,” Past!Mateo figured.
“It’s more complicated than that,” Balbira replied. “The old hybrids had
their own specific tasks, which nearly all of them ultimately turned their
backs on. There are subroutines in our brains to prevent that from happening
again. There will be no stopping us. Hogarth left us here out of mercy, but
she doesn’t understand the risk. I’m hoping that you don’t suffer from the
same delusion.”
Future!Mateo sighed, and stepped towards Balbira. “Not helping you despite
our ability to do so will only serve to ensure that you become our
enemies. I, for one, would rather do the right thing today, and hope for the
best tomorrow.”
“Sometimes you have to ignore the consequences,” Angela supported, “even
when you know what they are. What you end up doing to us may be bad, but we
have to worry about what our own actions do to our souls. Death is better
than becoming monsters.”
Balbira absorbed the decision. “Very well.” She switched gears with her
demeanor. “Each one of us has personal belongings, and you have the suits.
We’ll go one at a time, assuming they accept your offer, which they would be
fools not to.” She left briskly.
The group unanimously agreed to the plan. They were leaving a lot behind on
this world, but were taking enough with them to rebuild. All of the Maramon
and all of the hybrids, were capable of surviving the vacuum of space for a
brief period of time, but the child and the hybrids were at most risk, and
they had suits, so they might as well use them. The three teleporters took
them one at a time, as Balbira predicted. After Past!Mateo and Angela both
left with the last of their charges, only one Maramon remained, who
Future!Mateo was assigned. They were waiting for Angela to return with the
shared helmet to make it easier on Future!Mateo. But there would be a delay
regardless. “Then you must all three return, and take it together,” the
Maramon genetic engineer suggested.
“Sir, you said this thing was over, like, 800 kilograms. That is well
outside the mass limitation of all three of us combined. We cannot take it
with us. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to start over with whatever this is when
you get down to the planet. I assume you have the plans for it stored on a
computing device?”
“That is out of the question,” the Maramon argued. This is an extremely
complex design, which requires a very particular environment, and very
particular materials. Building it again will take too long.”
“I thought that you people were immortal.”
“Different universe, different rules. We’ll live for a long time, but not
forever.”
“What is it? What is so important?” Future!Mateo questioned.
The Maramon shut his trap defiantly.
Future!Mateo looked over it. “This looks like a personal pod...except it’s
gigantic. There’s a lot more than is necessary. So either you don’t know how
to miniaturize all the things that humans have been able to do, or it does
more than the average pod does? Am I getting warmer?”
The Maramon crossed his arms, and refused to say more.
Why would he not just say what it was? Because it was something that Mateo
would not approve of. He looked down over his shoulder, kind of in the
direction of their destination planet. Then he looked back at the giant pod,
and back again. “The hybrids. This is how you built them. It’s also a
gestation pod, but one with a unique design to fit your needs. Yes, I
can see why you would not want to part with that.”
“You can leave me here. I no longer require your help. Thank you very much.”
The man would rather be stranded on an airless moon alone than give up his
life’s work, and live with the only family he could hope to keep.
“All right.” Future!Mateo said, clapping his hands with finality. “I can see
that you have become an unwilling participant.” He took the genetic engineer
by the shoulders.” Here we go!” Despite protests, Future!Mateo teleported
them both away.
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