The Advancement of Mateo Matic (2022)

March 17, 2375
It was happening again. The ship just experienced a sudden loss of power. Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as last time. Instead of returning to the timestream after a year, they were here when it happened, which meant there was still enough breathable air to keep them from dying within the next few...

March 18, 2376
A message popped up on the table hologram, showing a series of symbols that Mateo did not recognize, as well as diagrams and graphs. Leona and Ramses squinted their eyes and studied them for a moment. Angela and Olimpia tried to do the same...

March 19, 2377
“Ramses, dark mode!” Leona ordered.
The ship became a darklurker. All nonessential systems were powered down to make themselves as undetectable as possible. Mateo decided to climb up to the upper level, which was the only place with regular viewports...

March 20, 2378
At the end of the day, they jumped to the future, but they left the AOC in reframe time so it could continue on its way for them. They were about halfway through this leg of their journey, and everything seemed to be going smoothly. There was nothing to do but wait until tomorrow...

March 21, 2379
The Cassidy cuffs that they were still wearing—even though everyone on the team was bound to the same pattern, and no longer needed an unnatural way to stay connected—came with a lot of handy features, including a teleporter. They could not simply transport to wherever they wanted, though...

March 22, 2380
They chose to link the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez up to their Cassidy cuffs, so it would jump to the future with them, rather than staying behind. This turned out to be the worst of two bad outcomes. Had it remained, it probably would have been destroyed while they were gone...


March 23, 2381
They told Xerian everything—well, not everything—about who they were. They just told him enough for him to understand why they were going to disappear at the end of the day, and not return for another original Earthan year. They also told him about the reframe engine...

March 24, 2382
According to the AOC’s sensors, there was no life support in the hangar bay. It even detected a little bit of dust, suggesting that this entire section had been abandoned for years. One would think that an army of automated systems could maintain it even if it wasn’t in use, but perhaps that demanded too many resources...

March 25, 2383
Mateo and Marie made their way to the nearest library, which wasn’t all that near to where they were. They walked, took a sort of subway transport, stepped on a teleporter pad, took another subway, and walked a little more. The library was gigantic; large enough to fit millions of books...

March 26, 2384
The security doofus didn’t teleport them to the Asylum Sector, but a quick look at the realtime watch showed that they were at least no longer in the time bubble. Mateo glanced around and sighed. “All right, you can go now. I’ll find my own way there...

March 27, 2385
By the end of the day, Leona piloted the AOC back to the team on the Suadona, leaving Xerian behind to reclaim his birthright on the Security Watchhouse Detachment. When they returned to the timestream a year later, the sky was full of several megastructures, none of which was a matrioshka brain...

March 28, 2386
Rátfrid was an astounding entity, composed of something that he referred to as computronium gas. Disparate particles maintained cohesion with an electromagnetic field, and communicated with one another much like neural synapses, as Leona had surmised...

March 29, 2387
The man who Mateo was forced to kill was reportedly not stupid, but he was more of a follower, and easily manipulated. He had agreed to, upon winning the battle, return power of the other detachments to their rightful leaders. He was used to being told what to do...

March 30, 2388
“So, this is a retcon,” Leona figured, totally unimpressed—bored even. “We were told that The Artist built three Preston children, but in fact, there was a fourth. You must have been so evil that the others never talk about you, and blah, blah, blah...

March 31, 2389
Mithridates couldn’t stop laughing when twelve-year-old lookin’ Leona reached out to him from the Suadona to prove that she had gone through with her promise. She just sat there with her emotionless face, waiting patiently for him to get ahold of himself...

April 1, 2390
There is no stealth in space. If you’re generating power, then you’re generating heat. There is nowhere to dump all that heat, except to radiate it away, which others can detect. According to Ramses’ research, some ships in this reality can shunt it to another dimension, but on its own, this takes a lot of energy...

April 2, 2391
The Technological Advancement Detachment. Obviously this was where all the scientists were kept, along with their scientific studies. It was impossible for a disc world to exist in nature, despite what flat-earthers would tell you...

Boltzmann Brane
The men continued to struggle against each other. Mateo and the team’s visions started coming back to them until it was clear enough for them to see that most of them didn’t recognize the fighters. Mateo did. One was part of Lucius’ group in the universe where he got his soul back...

April 4, 2393
Mateo looked at his wife, who was seething with anger. He was worried she was about to jump up and tackle this McCord girl, or whatever her name was. Thack seemed as lost as him, but then it apparently dawned on her. “Oh. Oh, that’s right. I forgot you went to their universe once...

April 5, 2394
Skylar led the team into the building, and up the elevators, which was a tight squeeze with her bodyguards. As the sister of the apparent leader of the entire metropolis, it was understandable that she needed to be protected...

April 6, 2395
Dalton Hawk looked different. Sure, his face was the same, and he was at about the same age as he was when they last saw him, but he held himself differently. He stood up straighter, which made it all the more interesting that he was also carrying a cane...

April 7, 2396
As soon as Mateo and Ramses jumped to April 7, 2396—or what passed for the date in this reality—the friend detector alerted them to the relative proximity of one of their people. They didn’t know which reality they were in, or who it was, but Mateo couldn’t help but feel hopeful that it would turn out to be Leona...

April 8, 2397
They waited until it was closer to midnight central before making their move, using the time to get a little rest, and fill Angela in on what she missed. Mateo and Angela started punching and kicking the door, occasionally looking out the little food opening to make sure no one was coming to stop them...

April 9, 2398
They teleported into the portal just as the time hit midnight, which they hoped would confuse the jump enough to send them where they wanted to go. This way they didn’t have to wait an entire year for something to go wrong with the reality hopper, and extraction mirror...

»Mateo Daily 2022
[The team has fallen off of their pattern, and lost all of their bioupgrades. They must navigate a new reality full of friends and enemies—both old and new—new dangers, and new mysteries, as the story continues on a daily basis...]

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