Microstory 2443: March 14, 2016

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I came to this dome mostly out of curiosity. Not only does it seem so random and vague, but there’s also no information on it. Most prospectuses in the catalog have a lot of information about what you’re getting into. Even the more secretive ones, like Foggy Forest still give data about temperature and wind patterns, and the types of plantlife that can be found there. It also warns you about how dangerous or troublesome it might be for the younger crowd, or people with heart conditions, or whatever. March 14, 2016 does not have anything. There’s not even a picture associated with it, which was the weirdest part about it. All it shows is the title, and under that, the word “Perfect”. I don’t have a family, or anything going on in my life. I’m guessing that I’ll probably move here on a more permanent basis, so I have plenty of time to explore the other domes. I figured I might as well check this one out, especially since I seem to be the first person to review it. There’s a chance that I was even the first visitor ever? I don’t believe that any other visitor was there at the same time, but it can be hard to tell since the androids just look like people. Though, I will say that no one else seemed confused or weirded out, so I really do think that I was alone. Enough of the build-up, what is March 14, 2016? Well, it appears to be St. Louis, Missouri, presumably the way it looked like on that date. The only reason I say that is because there’s a big arch that looks exactly like the one in the photos. I pulled out my handheld device, and tried to figure out where I was standing at any one time, but nothing seemed to match up. All of the street signs were blank. Almost none of the buildings had signs of any kind, and I’ll get to that here in a bit. First, I wanna tell you that the buildings weren’t real either. They were basically cardboard cutouts, including only the façade. You can walk in them, but be careful with the doors. It’s very unsettling, because there aren’t any interior walls or furniture. It feels like the whole thing is about to come down. Unlike the Kansas City replica dome, this was all fake; not just a replica. Remember when I said that there were androids? Well, not a whole lot of them. They weren’t walking on the sidewalks, or crossing the streets. They weren’t driving the cars—or pretending to drive, anyway, because the vehicles were fake too. They had all congregated in one place. It might sound like a big event or gathering, but that’s not right either. There was a reasonable number of people at a store of some kind, which were common in this time period before they were replaced with free inventoria. Some were wearing blue vests or polo shirts, and name tags, so I’m assuming they worked there. Everyone else was wearing whatever, so they were probably customers. Unlike everywhere else, the store had a sign, but it too was disappointing, because it was just given the generic name of Superstore. The inside was full of stuff; the kind of stuff I’m told would be typical of the age in a store. It had gizmos and gadgets and clothes. People were buying things, and then walking out. Nothing interesting or crazy happened all day. I kind of thought maybe that there was a bombing here, or some kind of attack? Or maybe ghosts would fly out of the walls, and start scaring people. But nothing. Everyone smiled at each other. While no one actually said a word, they behaved as if they were talking to each other. There didn’t appear to be any conflict. At the end of the “day” the store shut down, and hours later, it reopened, and restarted the exact same routine over again. I tried to find any other places of activity, but couldn’t. I did find other Superstore locations, but they weren’t populated. I don’t know what to make of it. Maybe someone else can try it, and see something different.

Microstory 2306: Appreciation for Symmetry

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The end of the year is approaching, and I’m taking stock of my life. All of Nick and Dutch’s final arrangements have been completed. I’ve started the process of getting Nick’s novel published, and beginning to look into who can help me do something with the stage musical. I’m selling the house, and weighing my options when it comes to where I want to live next. I may stay in the Kansas City area, or I may not. One thing I’m still really not sure about is this site. Nick started it at the beginning of the year, and I have only ever taken over when he’s been incapacitated, but should that last forever, now that he can never come back? Do I truly have the right? Would he want me to keep going? He was a man with an appreciation for symmetry. I think ending on December 31 would be poetic in a way that he would like if he were here to do it himself. A lot of people don’t get to live on like this at all. If they die when they’re in the middle of something, it just ends. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. If you have a job, a coworker probably takes over your accounts, and if you have young children, someone raises them for you...at least that’s the hope, anyway. Still, I think it’s time to start thinking about ending this. His story may not technically be over if his legacy moves on, but it still feels like the right thing to do. You’ll always be able to read and reread all 365 posts that will be up by then, as well as everything he wrote on social media. I’m certainly not going to shut the whole thing down. But it was never really mine. Perhaps I’ll start my own blog after this, which chronicles the things that I do next year, and beyond. Or it will too end in a year. I don’t have to decide anything right now, but the deadline is coming up soon, so let me know what you think.

Microstory 2304: Blisteringly Cold

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People have been asking a lot about the Nick and Dutch KC Memorial Forum that’s coming up in the next couple of days, and really, I don’t have that much information about it. There’s a website where you can learn all you need to know. Or it’s a page on the metro website, or something. Please go find out about it from there. I am not organizing it. I compiled a list of everyone Nick and Dutch knew, or rather, everyone I knew that they knew. I left it up to the mayors to have their teams reach out to these people. It’s true that, out of everyone, I was one of the closest to them both, but they each had their relationships outside of this whole thing. Dutch has lived on this planet his whole life, and Nick met a surprisingly high number of people during his short stint. You’ll remember his assistant at the jail, and his parole officer. They knew him in their own way, and while I’m not sure if they’ll be speaking at the Forum, I know that they were at least asked. I will be one of the speakers, and I haven’t updated you on that either, because there’s really nothing to say. You’ll hear it on Saturday along with everyone else. If you live in the area, you may join us on the fairgrounds north of the Missouri River, but we understand if you can’t make it. The weather report says that it’s going to be blisteringly cold. They chose that spot, because it can accommodate a lot of people, but just like the Chicago memorial, you can stream it from the comfort of your home instead. It’s a BYOC (bring your own chair) type of situation, which might deter a few people. Could you imagine if the coordinators had to wrangle up enough chairs for everyone? They don’t even have a headcount. I believe that, all they ask is, if you don’t have a chair—or aren’t willing to sit on the cold ground—to head more towards the back. I don’t think it will be all too long, though. There aren’t a million speakers. Okay, I’ve told you more than I really wanted to take the time to do. Again, if you want details, look it up on the webpage. Thanks.

Microstory 2302: Still Feel So Lonely In Here

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You may have noticed that I’ve not been talking much about the KC memorial at the end of this week. That’s because I’ve had to step back from it. The mayors of KCMO and KCK have been working on it through their own teams. I’m still involved, I answer questions, but I just can’t do too much. I can’t let this all drag on like it has been. I’ll be there, it’s okay, I’ll be there. But I don’t want to be too involved anymore. I realized that I have something else to do before it’s over, which is to do something with Nick and Dutch’s private spaces. Neither of them were big collectors of belongings. I don’t need a moving company to haul stuff away, but I also don’t wanna create a shrine to them, even incidentally. I am thinking about moving, though. This house was already too big for the three of us, and only made sense because of our security team. They’re still here, protecting their one remaining charge, but I still feel so lonely in here. I mean, this whole place reminds me of the two of them anyway, so why would I make myself stick around? That reminds me, I should discuss the elephant in the room. I want to make it clear that I do not blame the security team for what happened. It was a freak accident, no one did anything wrong. Those roads were slick, and I looked it up; they’re not the only ones to suffer from that particular stretch of highway. People think of bodyguards as these supernatural beings with no room for error. They’re still just humans. They’re fallible, and they’re fragile, and they can die. They did die. The firm lost just as many of their people as I did of mine. I’ve always felt that we are commiserating together. So no, I’m not going to fire them, and I’m not going to sue them. It was a terrible tragedy, which I’m choosing to not make worse by seeking some undue form of vengeance.

Microstory 2301: Green Burial

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The remains. I’ve not told you anything about the remains. No, they weren’t at the memorial service. We left them in Kansas City. I decided that I wanted to lay them to rest on a solo mission. In between all the other planning that I’ve done, with the memorial service, and the other memorial service locally, I contacted all the necessary people to do it the way he wanted. One of the first things he told me when we met earlier this year was that he wanted a green burial, which means no casket, no chemicals, no clothing. Your body returns to the Earth in the purest way imaginable, breaks down as fast as possible, and breathes new life into the soil. There are obviously rules about this, like where you can do it, and I got all the permits. I’m not going to tell you where I buried him, but I did it all by myself after signing it out of the funeral home. That part wasn’t by Nick’s request. It’s something that I felt I needed to do alone. Everything else involves other people, so I just made an executive decision that this was the time when I would say goodbye in my own way, and not be around anyone else. I dug the grave, I lowered him down, and I filled it in. I feel that I accomplished something, and now maybe I can move on...maybe. Goodbye, Nick. You meant more than I could ever say.

Microstory 2300: Millions of People

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The place was packed. In case you never found out, the event was catered, that was the surprise from the other day. A counter-serve vegetarian restaurant called Honeypea’s Harvest graciously donated tons of food and labor time for what’s certainly the largest reception I’ve ever been to. They actually started out in the Kansas City area, and their first location that wasn’t in the immediate region was Chicago, so they felt a kinship to us. Nick loved going there, I remember that, but I didn’t think to reach out to them. Our publicity firm did, and we’re very grateful for their assistance. We basically took over the entire Humankind Causeway Center, because we had the auditorium on one end, and then the ballroom for the reception on the other. You can see why I couldn’t tell you about it before, right? You say the word free, and people flock to you, whether they know what you’re giving away or not. There was a limited amount of space and food available, so we couldn’t let the whole world know. As for the service itself, it went pretty well. I told you that I was nervous, and having a full auditorium didn’t help with my nerves, but I pretended that they weren’t there, and that I was still practicing in front of the mirror. I got into a rhythm, and made it through to the other end. I want to thank all who attended, and everyone who logged in to watch the stream. Millions. Millions of people watched it live, and millions more have watched the recording since it ended. I can’t believe we ended up here. When I first met Dutch, he was just this cool guy without a care in the world. And when I met Nick, I honestly thought that he was a little nutty. He was shy, but not shy about telling us who he was, and where he came from. I grew to believe him, and it seems that a lot of you have too. I find it hard to imagine that this many people read his blog, especially now that he’s dead, when they just think it’s this dumb little fictional story. Dare I say most of you are believers? It’s crazy how far he’s come. Even though he’s gone, his legacy continues, through all of you, and through me. I’ll keep sending out posts as long as you keep reading them. I think he would appreciate that. In fact, I bet he would literally say, “I appreciate your support.”

Microstory 2297: Found a Happy Medium

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Yesterday, I announced that the Kansas City Metro’s response to Nick and Dutch’s passing would be a sort of forum where people could come up on stage, and say whatever they were feeling. I didn’t get into the details before, but everyone who asked to do this was going to have to submit an application at least the day prior, explaining what they were going to say. Then, while each speaker was up at the mic, the next one would be experiencing a screening process to make sure that they weren’t planning on doing something inappropriate, like a striptease, or a racist rant. Of course, they could always lie and switch it up once they got their turn, but we believed that we could have made it work. Sadly, most people online did not take to this idea. They thought it was stupid, dangerous, or just totally irrelevant. We hear you, and we see you, so we’ve changed our plans. We’re not going to be doing that, but we’re not going to be doing nothing either. We’ve found a happy medium. The two of them touched many people’s lives while they were on Earth, and their positive impact could be felt everywhere. We are in the process of contacting everyone that they knew while they were here. It is only they who will be speaking at the event. I appreciate all of you speaking out for your truth, and clearing a path for a better concept than we originally had. This has not set our schedule back. We will still be holding the event on Saturday, the 21st. We’re not yet sure where it’s going to be, though. A sports stadium would have a lot of room, but both of them hated sports, so we are sure that we want to do that. Y’all are good at giving advice. Where do you think we should hold it?

Microstory 2296: To Be a Gathering

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I had a meeting today with the Mayor of Kansas City. She regrets that we’re doing the memorial service in Chicago, but she understands, especially since our two cities have such a great relationship with each other. Still, she would like to do something in honor of Nick, and I think that would be fine. We had a lot of trouble figuring out what that might be. He didn’t like parades, and a vigil seems too depressing. We spent most of the day discussing it, taking breaks here and there so she could manage other needs of the city. In the end, we decided that it’s just going to be a gathering where people can come up to the microphone on stage, and talk about whatever they want. It doesn’t even have to have anything to do with the deceased, if they have something else to say. It’s unconventional, and a little strange, and I think Nick would have liked it. Dutch would have, that’s for sure. That guy danced to the beat of his own drum. Don’t worry, we’re going to be screening people throughout, to make sure they’re not offensive or otherwise problematic. It’s going to be a lot to coordinate, but we think that we can be ready by Saturday of next week. There’s a reason we chose that date. This is kind of going to be a Kansas City thing, so if you’re coming from elsewhere, and have made travel arrangements to Chicago, we don’t want it to be too easy to add an extra thing. You are welcome to come, if you want, but it’s mostly just for us. Thanks for your understanding.

Microstory 2263: A Long Road Trip

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In 2008, city planners from Kansas City, and those from Chicago came together with an idea. There were, of course, ways to travel between the two domains, but these pathways weren’t built specifically for this purpose. They twisted and turned to stop at other places, which was fine, but KC and Chicago enjoyed many special political and business relationships with each other, so they wanted something new. They began planning what would eventually come to be known as the Heartland Expressway, with a numbering designation of Interstate-56. It took sixteen years, but that highway is now officially complete, though people have been driving on sections of it for years. A couple of months ago, they held an event that was publicized as the Maiden Voyage of the Heartland Expressway. The current mayor of Kansas City, Missouri drove the roughly seven hours to Chicago with her whole family. Meanwhile, the mayor of Chicago did the same with his own family, stopping in the middle to have lunch with each other in a border town named River City, Illinois. It was a little funny, because the Chicago mayor’s family took too long to get going, and drove a little slower, so they were just a little bit late. His kids are younger, and you know how often they need to stop and get out during long road trips. Once they were finished with their meal, they went their separate ways, and ended up having dinner with each other’s deputy mayors. I’m sure you probably already heard about this, because it was a fun and innocuous story in the midst of all the bad news. It’s just relevant to today, because Kelly, Dutch and I just drove that route. It’s 428 miles from start to finish, which was perfect, because my EV gets about 450 miles to the charge. I wanted to test it out, and also just go somewhere. It was just a day trip, if you can believe it. We left at 5:00 in the morning, spent some time wandering around the city, particularly the pier, and waited for the car to charge up before leaving at around 14:00. We got home fairly late last night, and we were pretty tired, but we’re millionaires, so we didn’t have to worry about going into work today.

Microstory 2153: New Future Business Partners

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My new future business partners have come into town. They decided to fly in a day early to see the city. They’ve never been here before, so I toured them around. I did my best with it anyway, it’s not like I’m some kind of an expert. Not only am I from an alternate version of Kansas City, but I’m just not interested in that sort of thing. Still, I did a little bit of research, and found a local company that specializes in itineraries for tourists. We’re going to have our meeting tomorrow, so this was just something fun before all that. We ended up spending so much time together that we had lunch in the early afternoon, and dinner tonight. That’s why this is posting so late. We stopped for ice cream in between meals, so I’m probably not going to feel great for the next few days. I’m not lactose intolerant, I just tend to go overboard. I’ve never done anything like this before, with people that I’m not related to, I mean. Anytime I’ve traveled, I’ve gone with family, because I never had any friends. It was surreal, socializing with others, but I got through it, and I’m glad that I did. I won’t bore you with the details, or regale you with the juicy ones that we talked about over the meals, because it’s none of your business. I’m sure that I’ll have more that I’ll want to say after our meeting tomorrow, but I’m equally sure that I won’t actually be able to say any of that either. Perhaps in a few months, it will be declassified. Anyway, I’m super tired, so I gotta get to bed. I still have to work in the morning, and am only taking a couple hours for lunch to discuss business matters. This new partnership won’t be interfering with my regular job.

Microstory 2108: My Total Withdrawal

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One thing that the couple who set me up with this untraceable computer cage didn’t realize is that I pay attention to the things that happen around me. I watch the cable guy installing my TV and internet. I watch the cashier ring up my items at the grocery store. I even watch the mail deliverer sort and scan the pieces of mail as they approach my door. There is not a single vending machine, janitor’s closet, ATM, car hood, desktop computer, or anything else like that open that I pass that I don’t inspect to the best of my ability. I’m not very handy, I don’t generally know how things work, but I like to have some idea of what they look like inside, because I’m a curious specimen, but I do not like surprises. I’ll never need to know how to load money into an ATM, and if I do, I would receive the necessary on-the-job training, but I might as well take a look while it’s there in front of me. When they installed all this gear, I took notes, some in my head, but some on a paper receipt from my wallet. When you’re on the run, you can’t trust anyone. I built a replica of their handiwork at a second location, and that’s where I am now, in hiding. The only reason I’ve not been living here the whole time is because I didn’t want to be seen going to and from it, but now that I can’t go back to work, it doesn’t really matter. I still had a little cash left over from my total withdrawal in Kansas City, and I received an advance while I was a janitor, so I’ve been stocking up on supplies in preparation for something like this. I will find a way to pay my employers back, but right now, I need to focus on my survival. I still don’t know if I’m going to stay where I am now, or if I’m going to run again. The ID makers have my fate in their hands, just as I had theirs in mine. I made my choice on what to do with them, and I’ll have to live with that. I just hope that the girl they kidnapped makes her way back to her family. Then it will all have been worth it. Signing off now, from my secret location inside a secret location.

Microstory 2101: I Won’t Live a Lie

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I’m out! I’m hiding from the authorities...somewhere. For obvious reasons, I’m not going to tell anyone where I am. When I first showed up in this universe, I didn’t have any identity, so instead of finding one on the black market, I procured it through the proper channels. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but I’ve ruined it now. I had no choice. I got a parasitic infection, which messed up my brain, and started making me act crazy. After the body doctors cleared it all up, the mind doctors came in, and tried to convince me that everything I’ve been doing and saying has been crazy, and they wanted to keep me there for psychological treatment. The little committee I had to talk to twice before I could be released from the hospital brought up the discrepancy in the timeline. If I was infected in early February, why is it that I’ve been talking about being a bulk traveler on my blog pretty much this entire time? Well, some of them argued that the viral and bacterial infections I had before that could explain all that away. Others argued that maintaining the same symptoms across three completely different infections didn’t make much medical sense, and I don’t know everything that they talked about after I left the room, but in the end, I got out of there. It wasn’t enough, though. I was living around people who didn’t believe me, and didn’t trust me, and I couldn’t stay there anymore. I’ll always be grateful to my landlord, and my boss, and I know that none of this was their fault, but I have my reasons. I spent years pretending to be someone I’m not. I pretended to not be autistic. I pretended to be straight. I pretended to like Blink-182! I won’t do that anymore. I won’t live a lie. Even if I have to sleep in squalor, I’m going to live my truth from now on. So long, Boreverse Kansas City, I’ll never forgive you for the way you treated me. Now more than ever, I know that my only goal in life should be to get the hell out of this universe. Even if I never find my friends again, at least I won’t have to deal with you people anymore. For those of you reading this who are on my side, don’t you worry about me getting caught. I’ve got that covered. Some friends helped me set up a shadow workstation. As long as I always post from the cage, I can’t be traced, and as long as I don’t mention any specifics about my location, I can’t be found. I have to go now. I booked a boat ride on the Chicago River. As I said before, don’t look for me. I’m a ghost.

Microstory 2064: Naïve and Trusting

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I had a phone call with a guy who claimed to also be from another universe, and it was pretty interesting. Out of respect for his privacy, I’m not going to tell you his real name. He hasn’t consented to me talking about him. Though, I think he would kind of be okay with it. How can I put this? He’s the opposite of a conspiracy theorist? He isn’t paranoid about the government, or anything like that. He’s very naïve and trusting, which is why he responded to my ad in the first place. As it turns out, he’s been looking out for any message like mine, which is why he receives the Kansas City Post even though he lives in Chicago, among reportedly tons of others. Surprisingly enough, I’m not one hundred percent certain that he’s not also from another universe. Have you ever heard of the Mandela Effect? Of course you haven’t. You’re too boring to come up with psychology terms like that. Basically it refers to a phenomenon where people believe something is true that is not, like maybe that a particular mascot has always worn a hat, when in fact, the hat never existed. Maybe you remember a character from an old TV show having a brother, when what you’re probably thinking of is an episode where he pretends to be a neighbor’s brother so they can get a discount at the arcade. I just made those up, but you get what I mean. That’s essentially what may or not be happening with my new Chicago friend. He wasn’t talking about all these crazy differences from where he supposedly grew up. There are lots of little differences, like street names, and the biggest companies in the world. All of these can be attributed to poor memory, or more severe mental health issues, but they could also mean he came through Westfall, and for some reason, is aware that it happened. I will need to speak with him more to get a better understanding of what he’s been dealing with. No valid conclusion yet.

Microstory 2023: Kansas

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In September of 2004, my papa had worked for the private submarine company for more than two years, and he had not taken any vacation. His boss, who was his friend, was worried about him, so he asked him to take the time off, or he would lose it. But papa didn’t like to just sit around, doing nothing. He wanted to be accomplishing something. One of the hobbies that he picked up was bicycling. Whenever he had the time, he liked to ride his bike from his house to his sister’s place, which was about 20 miles away. It took him a couple of hours, and it was a workout, and he really enjoyed it. He decided to take his longest ride yet. Instead of just going a few towns over, he wanted to go a few states over. He plotted a route that went all the way from Chicago to Kansas City. What a lot of people don’t know is that there are two Kansas Cities. One is in Missouri and the other is in Kansas, of course. They’re right next to each other, and the one in Missouri is actually larger. He had already been to Missouri, because of his friends who lived in Independence, which is considered part of the whole Kansas City area. The distance from where he started was over 630 miles, and it took him two weeks to ride the entire way! He rode about 45 miles per day, which is pretty impressive, I must say. He couldn’t really explain to me why he chose to go there. He just wanted to. Once he made it to Kansas City, Kansas, he spent one night there. He donated his bicycle to a charity for kids. Then he took a plane back home. I think this was a pretty cool thing that he did, and I’m so proud of him. Maybe one day, I’ll do something like it, but probably not to Kansas City, since it’s 1,700 miles from here!

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 23, 2399

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Vearden has done his best to stay out of all the time travel stuff, just like Arcadia wanted. It’s triggering for her, and he doesn’t like it all that much anymore either. He has occasionally done the team a favor, though, because they’re still friends, and he wants them to be okay. It’s mostly been research, but there have been requests that were a little more involved. He’s not asked for anything from them in return, though, so maybe they owe him. Hopefully they won’t make him resort to pointing that out. Hopefully Leona just does as he asks.

“You want me to make her look like herself?” Leona echoes.

“Can you do it?”

“Yeah, an illusion is an illusion, whether it’s superimposed over me, or someone else. Just give me a second.” Leona thinks back to how she remembers Arcadia. It’s been a long time since she’s seen that face, but she can still picture it pretty well. And anyway, Alyssa’s ability is so powerful that she doesn’t have to recall every single detail. It’s in her brain somewhere, and Arcadia herself is somewhere in time and space, and that’s really all that matters. She’s not magically generating a hologram that looks like someone else. She’s stealing light from somewhere else. “There.” She opens her eyes to see her success. There Arcadia is, lying on the bed before her. She’s still in a coma, but she looks like her old self again.

“Great, thanks,” Vearden says, admiring the real look of the love of his life. “You can go now.”

“Don’t you want to look upon her a little longer?”

“What do you mean? Are you saying this is gonna wear off?”

“It’s going to disappear as soon as I leave,” Leona explains. “I’m sorry, I thought you realized that.”

He stares blankly into space, and sits down. “No, I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I would hold it here permanently if I could, but I can’t figure it out. I know that other illusionists have that power, but if Alyssa’s old body did, I’ve yet to learn it. We never asked her to try it when she was using it.”

“What about her new body?” Vearden goes on. “Would she be able to do it now?”

“She may,” Leona answers as she’s taking out her phone. “There’s still a lot she doesn’t tell us, and she may have just not thought to mention it.” She waits for the phone. “Aly? Can you teleport here? I need to...”

Alyssa appears before Leona can even finish her sentence. “Is everything okay?” She’s looking at Arcadia anxiously.

“It’s all right,” Vearden answers, realizing that she thinks this is a medical issue. “I was just hoping that you could make that permanent.”

“Yeah, of course, I can. Leona, could you...”

“Oh, okay.” Leona drops her illusion so Alyssa can make her own. She does it a lot faster, and doesn’t struggle with it at all.

“When you leave, she’s going to stay like that, right?” Vearden asks.

“Absolutely. I’m the only one who can get rid of it. If she wakes up, and wants to look like the other Leona again, she’ll need me. And if I die before she can do that, she’ll be stuck like this forever. So if you want to see what it’s like to be married to a human-sized mouse, or a monster truck, now’s your chance.”

“Why? Are you going to die?” Leona asks her.

“I...don’t want to be married to a mouse in a monster truck,” Vearden says as he’s admiring his love some more.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Whatever.” He stands there for another minute before looking up at them. “Thank you. Now you can go.”

“Come on, I’ll take you back to New York.” Alyssa offers a hand.

“I have a rental car. The reason I’m in Kansas City is because I had business to attend to in the lab, and I wanted to visit my friends.”

“That’s okay,” Vearden counters. “She can’t talk, and I don’t want to anymore.”

The two of them nod and respectfully leave through the door. Vearden sits down next to Arcadia. He doesn’t want to be married to a mouse, but he would like the chance to marry her. If she would just wake up, maybe he would be able to ask. They actually did discuss it before this happened. These were just preliminary talks; nothing concrete, but he’s confident that it would have ended up in a proposal. Now who knows how she’ll feel when she finally awakens? She may be in a weird sort of limbo dimension between life and death right now, having adventures with a stranger, and falling love with them instead. Vearden falls asleep thinking of a future that may never come to pass.

He doesn’t wake back up until it’s dark so when he tries to stand, and slips on the floor, he can’t see what it is. He tries to make his eyes adjust to the moonlight, but it’s not enough. “Hey, thistle, turn on the lights.” His eyes don’t even have to readjust completely before he can see what it is. Blood. Arcadia is bleeding. He reaches over and slams on the big mauve button. The alarm goes off. An army of nurses rush into the room. “She’s bleeding all over the floor! Something’s wrong.”

The nurses stop and stare.

“It’s her. This is what she’s supposed to look like.”

Two of the nurses start examining her while another checks the equipment. The fourth doesn’t move. “How did you make her look like that?” she asks him.

“It didn’t cause this,” he promises. “It’s a sophisticated hologram...just light.”

“Are you sure?”

“I guess not.”

“Who do you need to call?” she questions.

Vearden fumbles around, looking for his phone. It’s almost dead, but it has enough power for one call. “Leona? Get back here. Now.”

Five seconds later, Leona and Alyssa appear in the corner. “What’s wrong?”

“Take down the illusion,” Vearden demands. “It’s hurting her.”

“Impossible,” Alyssa insists, but still, she waves her arm, and drops the illusion. She looks like Leona again.

The real Leona takes Vearden by the upper arms. “Come on. Let them work.”

“Where’s the doctor?” he asks the head nurse.

“He’s coming,” she replies.

“I can bring him here faster,” Alyssa volunteers. “Where is he?”

“He’s coming,” the nurse repeats.

Dr. Cenric Best comes in right after that, and begins his own examination. He’s being frustratingly quiet about it. He looks very concerned, though. He’s moving his stethoscope around Arcadia’s belly. He’s moving it too much.

“What is it? Can you not find a heartbeat?” Vearden is on the verge of tears.

Now Dr. is just feeling around on Arcadia’s belly. “Nurse, get the echouterograph.”

“What is it? What’s wrong!”

Dr. Best pivots to face Vearden. “I don’t want you to worry. We don’t know what this is yet. I need to do one more test, and then I’ll try to explain it, okay? At this point, I’ll admit that I’m worried about the baby, but I’m not worried about Miss Preston. She’s exhibiting no signs of distress. The blood and amniotic fluid leakage is alarming, but there could be any number of benign causes that I’m not ruling out just yet.” He washes his hands, and then begins the ultrasound.

While that’s going on, Leona makes Vearden sit down, and try to relax. His agitation isn’t helping the situation. These people know what they’re doing. At least they do to an extent. Dr. Best keeps looking over at Vearden and the other three time travelers. He seems rather confused by what he’s seeing on the screen.

“I need an update, Doctor,” Vearden urges.

“Nurse, can you hold the wand in place?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Dr. Best stands up, and removes his gloves. He stands in front of the travelers like a PhD candidate at the beginning of his presentation for the dissertation committee. “I’m going to ask you a few questions, and I want you to answer them in order, so I can get an idea of what’s going on here. Is that okay?”

“Go ahead,” Vearden replies, trying to be patient.

He points to Leona. “She’s not your twin sister, correct?”

“Correct. She’s in the body of my alternate self. The other Leona went through a traumatic experience in her twenties. Someone went back in time and changed it for her. Normally that would erase her from the timestream, and I would replace her, but she was somehow rescued by your world. Then Arcadia’s mind was placed in her body.”

“Okay, that tracks with what I’ve learned of you people. And what, uh...what powers do you have?”

“Well, right now I can create illusions by stealing photons of light from elsewhere in time and space.”

“And can she do that too?” Dr. Best points over at Arcadia.

“No. She doesn’t have any powers.”

He’s confused.

“But she had a pattern,” Leona amends. “She would jump forward in time. At the end of every day, at midnight, she would skip over a whole year. I was like that too.”

“That might explain it,” Dr. Best thinks.

“Explain what?”

“Your baby is gone. It wasn’t born, it wasn’t taken out by a laparysterotomy.” He tries to show them what he’s talking about on the monitor. “It’s just disappeared. Could it have...gone into the future?”

Leona looks nervously at Vearden, but he doesn’t look back. He doesn’t speak.

“Vearden?” Alyssa asks, waving his hand in front of his face.

Dr. Best checks his pupils with a pen light. “I think it’s psychological shock.”

Psychological shock. Sounds about right. His mind probably just can’t figure out what it’s supposed to feel about this. Obviously it feels bad, but it’s feeling all of the bad feelings all at once, and people aren’t built for that. He’s certainly not. “Fuck you all.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 22, 2399

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Labhrás Delaney steps into the apartment behind Winona, and looks around with a frown on his face. It’s small, and it could do with some cleaning, but he’s lived in worse. He did not exactly grow up rich. That’s why he did what he used to do, because he had to. He’s trying to do better now, but he certainly wouldn’t say that he regrets his past transgressions. That’s not true; he literally said that he regrets everything, but he didn’t really mean it. He just knew that the only way he was ever going to get back to the surface of the planet was to tell these people what they wanted to hear. Luckily, lying is his specialty. He steps a little farther into the unit. “What’s this?”

“It’s your new place,” she tells him.

“I thought we were just stopping by to run an errand. You bought this for me?”

“Well, the government did; not me personally, and they rented it. Surprise!”

He shakes his head, looking at the mold on the wall, and incessant leaky faucet.

“Mateo taught me a phrase from his reality. He said that beggars can’t be choosers. This is what’s available. The government’s not going to spring for a penthouse apartment overlooking the water.”

“No, it’s not like that. I thought I would be living closer to my granddaughter.”

“She’s not your granddaughter yet, and I don’t think she thinks of you that way. And anyway, she lives in New York now, and I don’t think that she’ll be coming back anytime soon. There’s something there that cannot be moved.”

“Oh, you gave me access to the news down in the prison. I heard all about it. Which is why I was hoping that you would relocate me there.”

“That’s not a thing,” Winona says apologetically. “We don’t move people around. You began your rehabilitation in KC, because that’s where the person who was in charge of it—i.e. me—needed to be. We only relocate through the witness protection program.”

“I witnessed a murder,” Labhrás discloses.

“Are you talking about your own murder?”

“Would that not count? Hold on, I can think of another crime...”

“I’m sorry, Mister Delaney, but if you don’t want to go back to the black site, this place is your only option. You’ll also need to fulfill the requirements we spoke of. You need to check in regularly, stay sober, earn gainful employment by the end of April—”

“You don’t think this is going to last another month, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Word has spread, Miss Honeycutt. The world is ending.”

“Who did you overhear discussing that?” she questions.

“The guards never told me their names.”

“So it was a guard.”

“Don’t get anyone in trouble on my account.”

She sighs. “Leona is going to reveal herself to the Daltomists, and therefore the whole world, on Friday. The last thing she needs is a presumably dead future relative of hers showing up to make things even more complicated.”

He seems to get it now. He throws his knapsack onto the counter. “Thank you.”

“Try to find some joy here. This is the kind of second chance that no one else has ever received. I’ll come by to take you shopping tomorrow.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 1, 2399

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Mangrove Rocket Three was placed on autopilot, and kept in orbit. Everyone went down to Mangrove One in a drop ship, including good guys, and not so good guys. From here they started going their separate ways. Aldona stayed to continue working on the defense program. A representative from the Naval Fleet flew in from Antarctica to take the Fifth Divisioner away. Tarboda flew everyone else back to Kansas City in his new sleek jet. Fairpoint is being returned to the government black site where he was locked up before. He’ll be joined by Erlendr Preston, Senator Morton, and Labhrás Delaney in a different capacity. The federal government actually has their own reintegration program for some cases, so he’ll stay there in a comfortable and unlocked room, with restricted movements, until he’s ready to rejoin into society. They’ll keep an eye on him even after that, especially Winona, who is overseeing the operation.

Morton declined Leona’s offer to get a hair transplant from Alyssa’s original body. It was kind of a silly idea, and might not have worked how they intended, or even at all. Bridget is staying close by, working with SD6 in some kind of non-field role, and has no intention of maintaining any significant relationship with the team. Speaking of the team, Vearden will be going back to the hospital suite he lives in with Arcadia, whose condition has remained unchanged since his death and resurrection. Everyone else, plus Tarboda, is going to the new lab that they haven’t used in a while.

Leona plans to continue to work with Aldona remotely, but Alyssa has agreed to let her transfer her consciousness to her old body, so she can at least move around on her own. Mateo stops short on their way across the parking lot. “She’s gone.”

“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Heath asks. They got him up to speed on everything, and he hasn’t missed a beat. This whole ordeal has made him miss his wife, though, and he does want to get back to her. He reportedly hopes that she feels the same, even after all this time.

“Leona is gone. It’s just me in here.”

“What happened to her?” Heath presses. “Could she just be, I dunno...asleep?”

“We sleep at the same time.” Mateo searches his mind, trying to find the imaginary line that divides his thoughts from hers, but it’s gone. He’s all alone again.

“That’s my fault,” Alyssa tells him with a sad look on her face.

“What do you mean?” Mateo asks.

“Try to teleport?” she suggests. “Try to teleport over there,” she rephrases.

“Okay.” Mateo tries, but doesn’t go anywhere. He’s puzzled. He tries again, but still nothing. “What’s stopping me?”

“I am,” Alyssa replies.

“How?”

“The Omega Gyroscope,” she clarifies. “I’m its caretaker now.”

“I didn’t think that worked, since it was really meant to be Leona.”

“No, it worked. I’m in charge of it now.”

“But we were able to teleport now, as long as we had access to temporal energy,” Mateo reasons.

“That’s changed,” she explains.

“Well...can you change it back?” Mateo questions.

“I don’t want to,” she claims.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want anyone to have powers. Temporal, psychic, bioenhancements; I want it all to stop.”

“You’ve never expressed this desire before,” Mateo reminds her.

“I never felt it before. I do now.”

“Since when? When they brought you back? Does it have something to do with your new substrate?”

“No,” Alyssa insists. “It wasn’t until after I got back to Earth. I started feeling it on the launch pad, and it only grew stronger the more I stayed, or maybe the closer I got to Kansas City. I don’t know which.”

Mateo shuts his eyes, remembering something. “That little discrepancy they found in your brain. The thing that Ramses and Arcadia didn’t understand. They thought it was maybe Erlendr, or some other invader, but you’ve always had it. You had it when we met you.”

“Yes, that’s what I was thinking. It was a little dormant seed that sprouted just now, presumably because I’ve returned from the past.”

“And because you’re closer to the gyroscope itself. That means you can find it.”

“I don’t want you to find it.” Alyssa sounds almost angry.

“That’s just the psychic seed in you. What do you want?”

“I want you to back off!” She hops away from him like he was about to hit her.

Heath and Tarboda don’t want to be involved. They stay quiet, and stay back.

Mateo steps back too. “Now just think about this. Is that how you would have reacted to me a month ago? Would you be saying these things either?”

“I’m not saying them a month ago. I’m saying them now!”

“I understand that—” He tries to say in a soft voice.

“Don’t condescend to me!” She shouts.

Mateo shrinks, and averts his gaze. He doesn’t know how to handle this situation.

Alyssa sees that she’s overreacting. “I know that I’m different. I know that I shouldn’t feel the way that I do, but I don’t know how to go back to my old self, and I don’t know how to make myself want to.” She runs her hand through her hair anxiously.

Mateo can tell what’s about to happen next. He’s learned to recognize the acute stress response in anyone, and she’s about to run. Fighting didn’t work, so she’s going to switch to flight. If she teleports, which she can probably do as the only exception to the new no powers rule in the world, they may never find her again. He has to make her feel safe here, and remind her that no one is going to hurt her. The seed in her brain may get worse if they do nothing, but it’s certainly not going to get better if they keep pushing it, so for now, it’s worth the risk to just accept her decision, however misguided—and not truly hers—it may be. “It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna do.”

Alyssa looks at him with the expression someone would have if they were tearing up, but no tears are forming. She’s trying to express herself appropriately, but it’s not working. “The last time I tried to meditate, I ended up dying.”

“I wasn’t going to suggest that.”

“That’s what I’m suggesting,” she clarifies. “I’ll fix this. I’ll fix my brain, and then I’ll fix everything else. They’re not going to take away my agency, whoever they are.”

“No, please don’t go,” he pleads.

“It’s okay, Mateo. I just need to be alone.” She disappears.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 15, 2398

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Marie was able to spend one night in the lofts, in the other room of Ramses’ apartment, which looked nothing like the one she shared with Heath, due to the interference from the elevator and stairwell, and because he furnished it quite differently. Still, she was occupying the building where her husband first left her. This was already a sore memory, but it’s been made worse by his final and irreversible death. She had always hoped that he would come home eventually. He never even mentioned the word divorce, but now they will never get that chance. She can’t go back to the condo either, because that’s where he actually died. Her first thought was to go look for her own apartment, but she needs something now, and that is a long and involved process. She doesn’t have time for that.

Fortunately, they still have plenty of money, so Leona suggested that they splurge on a really nice hotel suite. It wasn’t the easiest to find one according to their specific requirements, but once they did, they found it to be available, because it’s so expensive, and it’s off-season for Kansas City tourism. Four bedrooms—two with this reality’s analog to king-sized beds, and two with queen-sized analog—a decent kitchenette, and a luxurious living room, but one glaring omission is a temporal sciences lab. But that’s okay, because this is what Marie needs. They could have just booked four or five rooms separately, but they have grown accustomed to being able to meet with each other spontaneously without running into any strangers. They really prefer a common space that is just theirs, where no one else can come in without their permission. This hotel has a feature that allows them to forgo housekeeping in favor of doing it themselves, which provides them with an extra layer of privacy.

“I still want to live in the AOC, where I belong. I still consider that my true home, even after all the other places I’ve been for the last several centuries.”

“That’s going to be a challenge,” Ramses explains softly. “First we have to find a submarine that can go that deep. Then we have to convince whoever is responsible for it to lend it to us, possibly while having to read them in on time travel. Then Leona and I have to get inside and repair any damage. Then we have to break the surface. Then we have to get into space.”

“Thanks for mansplaining that to me,” Marie snaps back.

“What are we going to do once we’re up there?” Leona asks her. “We wouldn’t be able to land on Earth whenever we wanted or needed to. That ship was designed for low atmosphere launches and landings, and it was later equipped with a teleporter, which we can’t use in this reality. Even if we pack enough resources to last until our best guess at escape, what are we going to do while we’re in orbit, play RPS-101 Plus all day?”

“I don’t need anyone to go up there with me,” Marie contends. You can stay down here, and interrogate Meredarchos, and kill Erlendr, and look for Danica, and do whatever else you feel is necessary.”

“No,” Leona says. “We stay together from now on.”

“That’s not your decision. You’re the captain of the AOC, and if you’re not going to help me get it back, I don’t have to listen to a goddamn word you say. This suite was paid for with my money, so if you think about it, I should be the one in charge!” She storms off, and slams her bedroom door behind her.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 14, 2398

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Marie is back in Kansas City. Arcadia, of all people, is driving her and Vearden from Chicago in a rental, since The Olimpia has finally been destroyed, and a copy of the AOC sank in the ocean. The hospital was stunned by her sudden and miraculous recovery. They couldn’t explain it, but they wanted to. They held her for the better part of three more days, under the guise of needing to keep her under observation. Instead, they were running as many tests as possible, worried that the word would get out to the public. It was Winona who finally freed her using her political wiles.

They’re pulling into the basement garage now to avoid being seen by the new employees on the first floor, who don’t know a single thing about any of this. They’ve been informed that Angela is dead. It seemed easier to put it that way, rather than making up some excuse for why she bolted without so much as a goodbye. Ramses has been on the premises the entire time, and Alyssa has made herself moderately available for questions. Syntyche and Derina haven’t asked for much, and honestly, it’s hard for the team to care all that much about it, given everything that they’re dealing with. Even Angela wouldn’t have wanted to sacrifice her friends’ safety for the sake of the company. Perhaps the chapter is prematurely over. It may be best for them to distance themselves from it, and from society in general.

“I want my ship back.”

“Are you talking about the Olimpia, or the AOC?”

“The AOC,” Marie clarifies. “I know it sank, but did it survive?”

Ramses sighs. “I’ve been thinking about that, if it had tipped over in the water, it probably would have floated. The only reason it sank is because of the reframe engine, which I did not include in my initial designs. It sort of sucked the rest of the vessel under, so I don’t think there was a leak. It should be able to withstand at least fifteen hundred bars, and at an estimated depth of 10,000 meters...” He trails off when Marie, Arcadia, and Vearden look at him funny. “Yes, it probably survived, but getting down there would be a challenge. You could even call it...a deep challenge?”

They don’t get the joke. “I would ask you kindly to do some research on the matter,” Marie requests. I know that the Olimpia could not dive that deep, but maybe there’s a submarine out there somewhere that can, and if the government has any access to it, I will probably ask them, even if it’s the last favor they ever owe me.”

“Hold on,” Vearden begins, “your spaceship is at the bottom of the ocean. Can you just swim up through the water, and then fly into the sky?”

“I won’t know until I get down there,” Ramses replies. “Under ideal conditions, yeah, it could do it. I didn’t design it for a subaqueous launch, but in a pinch, I believe that it could get airborne. I just need to get inside first.”

“Is that where you wanna live?” Vearden asks Marie. “Not here, or the condo?”

“That’s where Heath died,” Marie says. “I don’t ever wanna see that place again.”

“That’s okay,” Ramses tells her.

“I don’t want to live here either. Every corner reminds me of him.”

“We could find somewhere else,” Arcadia suggests. “Living inside of a small spacecraft is going to be conspicuous no matter where we put it.”

“I don’t just wanna live in the ship,” Marie contends. “I wanna live in space.”