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At the end of the day, despite the fact that he was in a computer
simulation, Mateo jumped forward a year. By the time his IDcode returned to
the circuits or whatever, Brian Hiddy had gone off to see what Fort
Underhill was all about, and Cecelia Massey was training to be a counselor.
Mateo told them that he would be disappearing, but Keilix didn’t really
believe it, because it didn’t fall into the category of standard behavior
for the program. But that was how Tamerlane Pryce wanted it when he agreed
to resurrect Mateo, and even though the latter had since moved on to a new
substrate in the physical realm, the rule remained. He only lived for one
day every year, and only a few things could alter that pattern.
“Well, what happens when you move on to the other universe?” Cecelia asked.
“Does it stop then?” Obviously, during the interim year, she was able to get
past the five stages of grief, and come into her own in this new world. She
was more relaxed, more self-confident, and there was just a sparkle in her
eyes. Though, to be fair, that could have been an avatar modification. There
were no limits here. She could make herself look like a cross between a
rabbit and a dog if she so desired.
“No, I stay on my pattern,” Mateo explained. “It doesn’t matter what kind of
body I end up with. It’s how my brain is wired. You rewire it, my pattern
might go away, but then I’m not me anymore.”
“Your brain rewires itself constantly,” Keilix reasoned. “You might be able
to grow out of it one day.”
“I’m sure Pryce thought of that in his design. It’s not like I want to
anyway. My friends are still on this pattern, and if I were to get off of
it, I would be waiting for them for tens of thousands of years, and that’s
assuming they live a normal human life span.”
“But you say you’ve not only been to the afterlife simulation,” Cece began,
“but you also visited Ford Underhill afterwards.”
“Briefly.”
“So your friends can just find you there. This Hogarth woman might even let
you leave, and go right back to them. You said you were friends with her
too, right?”
“More like a family friend.” Mateo shrugged.
“It sounds like your best option is to resurrect a second time,” Keilix
decided. “You’ll be in a different reality, but at least it’s at base
level.”
“That’s true,” Mateo admitted. He lifted his chin and breathed in that
crisp, digital air. “Well, tell me what to do.”
Keilix smiled. “Cece, why don’t you handle this one on your own?”
“Really?”
“He’s a pro. It’ll be a good, safe practice.”
“Thank you.” Cecelia was grateful.
“Is it unsafe?” Mateo asked after saying goodbye to Keilix.
“It’s not, like, physically unsafe,” Cece began to explain. “It’s just a
delicate process. Your mind doesn’t get downloaded into a body the way it
would in the living world. We can’t just plug your IDCode to the right port.
It’ll make more sense when we get to the lake, but you have to be sure that
this is what you want. You have to will yourself over to the other side.”
“Ah. The prebiotic lake needs to know who you are, and what you want.”
She laughed. “She’s right, you’re a pro.
He was less of a pro, and more of a good listener. He never went to this
magical lake before, but Lowell talked about it the last time they saw each
other.
They continued to walk in silence. This was a journey, and a profound one at
that, so the program didn’t involve simply teleporting to their point of
egress, even though that would be easy to implement. Of course, Mateo didn’t
need this experience—it wouldn’t be the first time he came back to life—but
Cece needed the practice as a transition facilitator. It was important that
he let her do this the right way.
They arrived at the lake. It was totally open, but apparently protected by
an invisible force field. Or really, it was just that not everyone could
pass through. It was all just code. “Hey, Sir Bro,” Cecelia casually said to
an old man as they passed by.
Sir Bro was trying to break into the lake area, but that programming was
holding him back every time. He just kept banging his shoulder against it,
and punching it, but it was unclear whether he was feeling any pain, or
what.
Mateo and Cecelia simply passed right through. “I thought the lake would
take anyone who wanted to go. He looks ready to me.”
Cecelia shook her head. “You don’t need to whisper. It doesn’t matter what
he hears. To answer your question, the lake is not the problem. He’s been
banned from Fort Underhill. The color-coded levels you may recall from your
first time here are defunct, but some people have more privileges than
others.”
“Wait.” Mateo stopped. He looked back up the slight incline where the old
man was still trying to force his way in. “Surely Sir Bro is not his
real name.”
Cece giggled. “No, that’s just what he wants us to call him. I can’t
remember what it was, though. It was something stupid, like Broken...or
Braydeck.”
“Bronach?” Mateo questioned.
“Yeah, that’s it! Do you know him too?”
Mateo sighed. “Unfortunately.” He huffed and reluctantly headed back up the
trail. “Can you hear me?”
“Of course I can, Mister Matic,” The Oaksent replied.
“Are you old, or do you just look old?”
“I’ve always been old.”
“How did you end up in this time period? You’re still alive, out there in
the Goldilocks Corridor, as far as I know.”
“That is a quantum duplicate of me,” Bronach explained. “A piss-poor
approximation, if you ask me, in fact.”
“What happens if you get through this obviously 100% impenetrable barrier,
and get back there? Will you and your other self have words? Or worse?”
“He knows that I am the rightful heir to the empire. He’ll step down.”
Mateo looked over his shoulder at Cece, who didn’t know what to make of this
interaction. “Goddammit,” he uttered as he was turning back around. He
reached through the barrier, took Old!Bronach by the elbow, and pulled him
through. “You owe me everything for this.”
“How did you do that?” Cece asked, stunned. “People have actually tried.
They did exactly what you just did, but couldn’t make it work.”
“Being exempt from the rules that everyone else has to follow is sort of my
thing.” Mateo continued to hold onto Bronach as he was dragging him towards
the edgewater. “Do we have to take our clothes off, or something!” he
shouted as they were stepping in.
“You’re not wearing any clothes!” Cece yelled back. That was
technically true.
Mateo turned himself and Bronach around. “What do we do now!”
She stepped down closer so they wouldn’t have to yell anymore. “Wade out
until the water reaches your chin, then just start to float. Whenever you’re
ready...”
“Thanks, Cece,” Mateo replied. “And tell Keilix that I’m going to try to get
a message back here with a little bit more info on what it’s like on the
other side.”
“That’s very kind of you. We’ll be waiting,” she said with a smile.
“We’ve been waiting too long,” Leona said.
“Just be patient,” Romana replied. Since yesterday, the two of them had kind
of flipped their reactions to this situation, with Leona growing ever
anxious, and Romana becoming calmer.
“If she’s a pathfinder—which I had never heard of—shouldn’t our paths have
crossed as soon as we got to this universe? Shouldn’t she have pretty much
been waiting for us?”
“If you hadn’t heard of them before,” Romana began to reason, “how do you
know how they operate?”
“They sound a whole lot like seers to me, and guiding people to the right
place at the right time is their whole function in our society.”
“Perhaps it’s the right place, but not the right time,” Angela determined.
It was a long journey to get here, but it wasn’t too complicated. For the
Rock diplomatic discussions on the Vellani Ambassador, General Bariq Medley
and Judy Schmidt represented the copy of the main sequence that ended up in
the Sixth Key. Due to some events that no one on Team Matic had any details
on, Bariq and Judy ended up fostering two extremely powerful temporal
manipulators. These children grew up, and evidently solved the resource
distribution problem in their galaxy by creating a brand new universe. It
was here that they could spread out, and not worry about who was going to
get what. This was where Leona, Romana, and Angela were now, having crossed
over through an transuniversal aperture conduit that was as well organized
as the border between two countries. They didn’t travel to any place in
particular, upon the advisement of Romana, who said wherever they went, the
pathfinder would find them. She was very confident about this, even though
this pathfinder probably couldn’t be in two places at once, and there were
likely plenty of others who needed her assistance.
So now they were just waiting, unsure if anything was going to go their way,
or if they were wasting time that could be used to find Mateo by other
means. They were alone in this lounge, so whenever anyone happened to walk
by, they would perk up their ears, and hope to see someone who could help.
This time, it was a small group of men, so they slumped back in the couch.
“Hey. Angela. Angela Walton?”
“Yeah. Do I know you?”
“It’s Pável!” the man said. “Pável Románov?”
“Oh, Pasha!” Angela said, standing up. They gave each other a familiar, but
not overly affectionate, hug.
“This woman,” Pável said, looking back at Leona and Romana, as well as his
own friends. “She saved my life. She did it after I was dead!”
“Oh, it wasn’t all that,” Angela insisted.
“No, it was everything. I heard you became a counselor.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, I’m not surprised.” Pável responded. “Before it was her actual job to
help people, she would volunteer to visit orange hockers in an attempt to
rehabilitate them. I tell you, before I met Angie, I was a violent tyrant.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that I was sick in the head. My
insane policies ultimately culminated in my assassination, after which I
basically found myself in hell. I was locked up in a prison. We didn’t
really understand computer simulations back then, but there was
literally no escape. But she came to me, and got me out of it. She fixed me.
And by the time the afterlife realm was taken down, I was a Level Six Plus
Indigo.” He straightened up a bit, and stood there proudly. “I’m living
proof that people can change, but I couldn’t have done it without her.”
“It’s nice to hear that, and it’s nice to see you again,” Angela told him.
“What are you doing here in The Eighth Choice?” Pável asked.
“We’re looking for a friend,” Angela answered. “What are you doing
here? It’s pretty far from Fort Underhill.”
Pável smiled, prouder still. “The leadership from both universes are
developing an immigration program. One day, people will be allowed to move
freely through the conduits, and even establish permanent residency on the
other side from where they were. I have familiarized myself with the design
of the matrioshka bodies over here, and give tours as a sort of liaison.”
“That’s very interesting,” Angela said. “I’m happy for you.”
“Thank you.” Pável looked back at his tourists. “Listen, I better get back
to it, but here’s my quantum identifier. Call me if you’re ever in the
neighborhood.” He beamed his contact information from his wristband to
Angela’s EmergentSuit. She beamed hers back. “It was great seeing you
again.”
“Yeah, same,” she said as he was walking away. “I probably haven’t seen that
guy in over 300 years,” she added after he was out of earshot.
“I think you and Marie need to tell us more about your afterlife,” Leona
decided. “You must have so many stories.”
“I have a few,” Angela acknowledged.
Just then, a woman came around the same corner Pável had. “All right. I’m
ready to go now.”
“Are you the pathfinder?” Leona asked.
“Yes, she is,” Romana said. Now it was her turn to hug. “Leona, Angela. This
is Jessie Falstaff. She’s our pathfinder.”
“Oh, it’s nice to meet you,” Leona said. “Did you wait to come here so
Angela could run into her old friend first?” She gestured in the direction
of where Pável ran off to.
Jessie looked over in that direction on reflex. “I don’t know what you’re
talking about. Pathfinders aren’t seers. We don’t see what’s going to
happen. We more just feel it. My gut told me to be here at this
moment. If you lucked into having an encounter before then, I’m guessing
that’s why I waited, but that’s not something I could have known. I don’t
even know why I’m here now.”
“My husband—her father—is missing. His name is Mateo Matic.”
Jessie had been all right before—comfortable, and ready to help—but now her
face sunk. She frowned, and looked down towards the floor. She also reached
for her torso as if experiencing stomach cramps. “Oh,” she said in a
breathy, strained voice.
“Oh, what?”
The look of horror on Jessie’s face only grew. “I think he’s dead.”
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