The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 3, 2516

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Ramses leaned up against the building they were all sprawled out next to. He took insufficient, shallow breaths, trying to make them deeper, or at least complete one good inhalation so he could jumpstart his system. He occasionally did get some air to go all the way down to the bottom of his lungs, but it was never as helpful as he hoped. Finally, he yawned, which helped more.

“What’s the issue?” Mateo asked. He was choosing to try to recuperate while staying horizontal on the ground. “Why aren’t our healing nanites fixing our bodies?”

Ramses slurred his words. “Whatever they gave us, it was probably designed to target our substrate repair systems. It’s harder for the modern man to get intoxicated, which is fine, because people stopped doing recreational drugs anyway. They’re still around, though; in certain dark corners of the universe. The drugs people take now have had to be adapted to contend with our advanced bodies. The funny thing is, if someone from, say, the year 2025 were to try this drug, it probably wouldn’t even affect them. They’re too simple.”

Mateo was doing a lot of half-yawns, which were never satisfying, and his frustration with this was only growing. “Even when you’re drunk, you’re a genius. Quit soundin’ so smart.” He coughed.

“He’s right,” Garland said, turning himself over to the side so he could throw up and not choke on it. He wiped his lips with his sleeve. “That’s the solution, though.” He retched, and prepared to let go of more. “Purge it.”

“Yeah, clear the system. That makes sense.” Ramses reached his hands out, and apported his solid helmet into them from the pocket dimension that it was stored in. It was a backup in case the nanite helmet he usually formed wasn’t working, for whatever reason. “Okay.” Oh, big yawn. “Here’s what you’re gonna wanna do.” He turned the helmet over, and placed his lips near the back of it. “This is gonna make you throw up like Garlique did.” Ramses stopped talking for a moment, still staring into space blankly. “Did I start calling you Garlique?”

Garland got to his hands and knees so he could force more out of his stomach. “You sure did. Bleeaaargh! Gaaack!” He spit. “I don’t care for it.”

“It’s gonna make you throw up, Matic. Oh, I get it, it’s not just garlic. It’s like if I combined your two names. Anyway, medicine is gonna shoot out, and then what you’re gonna wanna do is turn away immediately, so you don’t vomit into the helmet itself, which is why the emetopuff is placed in the back, instead of the front. Watch me do it. Puff me, Thistle.” As he promised, a cloud of medicine darted out of the hidden cartridge, and into Ramses’ mouth. He dabbed away from his helmet, and vomited onto the ground, more productively than Garland with his piecemeal attempts.

Mateo did exactly as Ramses did, and immediately felt a lot better.

“Can I get a hit of that?” Garland requested.

Ramses tossed him his helmet. “Only one. It has two doses. It’s not exactly something the suit was designed to expect to need a whole lot of.”

“How do you know to purge?” Mateo questioned. “You said that you didn’t know the water was laced with the stuff.”

“That’s what I said, that’s what I meant,” Garland replied, holding the helmet, waiting for the opportunity to use it. “I never said I didn’t know what the drug was, though. It’s called Dare. Let me see if I remember...it stands for Debilitating Anti-Resistant Euphoriaceutical. I think it’s a backronym, though.”

Bronach had been surprisingly quiet this whole time, and they had kind of been ignoring him. Garland probably didn’t know who he was, but he was doing a good job of following their lead. Bronach now took something out of an ankle holster, and jammed it into his own neck. “Ahh,” he said with relief. He stood up, and started hopping around to get his muscles loosened up. “Cleaner, safer, more effective, and doesn’t taste so bad in my mouth.” He held it out towards Garland. “I have an extra dose too, just so you know all of your options.”

“It won’t do anything,” Ramses warned. “I’m pretty sure he was just drunk. Alcohol is nothing compared to what it sounds like we were slipped.” He apported two bottles into his hands. “Electrolytes.” He threw one of them over to Garland.

“I don’t know who he is anyway.” Garland took the puff, and purged.

Mateo apported his own drink, and started sipping on it. “Bro, are we in the Goldilocks Corridor?”

“You appeared to me through dark particles last year. You told me that you thought you could put me on your pattern as long as we timed it just right. Then you activated the particles again just as the clock struck midnight central. We ended up here, and I think it worked.”

“You agreed to be on our pattern?” Ramses asked.

“Of course not, but I was drunk, and I couldn’t fight back. What are those little creepy things?”

“Neu—”

“New reason to fear us,” Mateo interrupted. Boom, saved it. He didn’t need to know that they were neutrinos. For that matter, neither did Garland. “Never mind that, though. “Do you know what planet we’re on?”

Bronach looked around. “I don’t just by looking at the sky.”

“How do you expect to get off of it yourself?” Ramses asked him.

Bronach shrugged. “I have a tracking implant. They’ll come for me, and when they do, they’ll get you too. All I have to do is wait it out.”

“Not if I can help it. Come along now, boys.” Mateo stood and waved Ramses and Garland towards him. After they got close enough, he tried to release a swarm of dark particles from the dark dimension, but it didn’t work. He could feel the tiny windows opening up, and he could feel his power engaging, but it wasn’t enough. He was empty. It reminded him of turning the key on a car with a dead battery. Click, click, click, but no ignition.

“It’s okay,” Bronach began to joke. “It happens to a lot of guys your age.”

“I probably just need to recharge,” Mateo insisted. “We’re gonna go to the other side of the planet now, so...bye.”

“Wait, Mateo.”

“Don’t you worry, we haven’t forgotten about you. We’ll overthrow you in due time. Just not quite today.”

“No, I just wanted to say something.” He kicked at the dirt bashfully, like a little boy trying to ask the older girl if she wanted to see his rock collection in his treehouse. But then he suddenly shifted to a far more serious, and perhaps even sinister, expression. “I know you’re on Castlebourne. I’m gathering my forces now.”

Ramses suddenly blitzed Bronach, and spirited them away. Mateo tapped on his comms disc. “Ram. Ram! Are you there? Where did you take him? What are you doing?” No response. He tapped again. “As anyone else on this channel? Can anyone hear me? This is Mateo Matic. Calling anyone and everyone in the Goldilocks Corridor.”

Ramses reappeared, soaking wet.

“What did you do?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ramses answered gravely, sending shivers down Mateo’s spine. “He’ll be fine. Guy’s got nine-thousand lives. I’m more worried about us.”

Mateo didn’t approve of what Ramses likely just did, but he understood it. And he was right, they needed to get out of here. They couldn’t use their tandem slingdrives with only the two of them. They really should have brought a third member of their team. He just didn’t want to overwhelm Garland, and make him feel ganged up on. Why didn’t Boyd warn him that the dark particles didn’t always work, presumably if you use them too much? He played around with them a lot during the party; probably very wastefully.

They didn’t have to be stuck. They weren’t beyond saving, just a little lost at the moment. Their best hope would be if the Vellani Ambassador happened to show up, which it probably wouldn’t because there was no one else here. Maybe they were the exact reason why this little town looked abandoned. Team Kadiar came, and scooped up the whole population because they all wanted to escape the Exin Empire, and left. Or maybe this place just outlived its usefulness. There was no telling where the ship would be, and no way of getting there either way. It wasn’t like they were ever given a schedule of which world the VA would go to next. They weren’t even sure if the refugee program was still active. They did have friends here, though they didn’t know exactly where; just not in range of comms so far.

“Garland, only you can save us now.”

“How’s that?” he asked, genuinely confused.

“Your mother says that you have some means of blocking her from finding your location. You need to release that so our team can come get us.”

“I dunno, I never agreed to see her.”

“That’s not really the point anymore, is it?” Mateo posed.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Garland agreed, sighing. He shut his eyelids and centered himself. Nothing special happened to him. There was no change in the way he looked, nor any dramatic light effect. He just reopened his eyes and said, “it’s done.”

Right on cue, a blob of technicolors formed a few meters away. When the colorful light receded, their team was left standing there. Most of them looked calm as they spotted the guys, and opened their helmets. One of them started to stumble around, however, and grasp at her helmet. Marie was the closest, so she tapped on the side of Magnolia’s helmet, using the master code to unlock it for her.

“Oh,” Magnolia said with relief. “I felt like I couldn’t breathe.”

“You should be able to breathe better in it,” Leona informed her, “not worse.”

“Well...” Finally, Magnolia made eye contact with her son. “Garland.”

“Hey, mom.”

“I don’t have any expectations,” she claimed. “I just wanna talk.”

“I can do that. Maybe away from them, though?”

“Certainly,” Leona agreed. “Stay within view, though. This rock might be dangerous. We would never eavesdrop intentionally, but we do have superior hearing, so I recommend going about fifty meters. We’ll walk in the opposite direction a little.”

“Hey, thanks. All of you,” Magnolia said.

“No problem,” Mateo replied, despite the myriad of problems.

“Report,” Leona requested for their own team meeting.

“Do you know where Epsilon Eridani is?” Mateo asked her.

“Yeah.”

“That’s where we were, before,” Mateo began. “We must have left Darko there. At least, I hope we did. I don’t know where else he could be.”

“Well, now that we have somewhere to navigate to, we’ll be fine. But why didn’t you just go back with your dark particles?”

“It’s broken. I think I used it too much.”

“Yeah, that can happen,” Romana explained. “It’s kind of bass-ackwards. The more you use it, the faster your energy runs out, but also, the more used to storing it your body becomes, so ultimately, your reserves will grow, and you’ll last longer between recharging cycles.”

“Thanks. I’m glad he...told you so much about it,” Mateo lied.

“I used to metabolize dark particles too, remember?” Romana said.

“Oh yeah, you don’t seem to do that anymore. How did you stop?” Ramses asked, quite curious about it.

“Boyd absorbed them from me in the mirror reality, so I could be free.”

“Oh.”

They continued to catch each other up. The girls had their own celebrations without them, and while there weren’t any drugs involved, they were pretty eventful too. After Magnolia and Garland finished talking, over half of them departed. Leona, Ramses, Marie, and Olimpia used their tandem slingdrives to transport the outsiders back to Earth, with plans to rendezvous with their other half later. Mateo, Angela, and Romana would go straight back to Castlebourne to warn Hrockas of the impending invasion. They didn’t know when Bronach’s forces would arrive, but hopefully not for years. This was one reason why Leona discouraged Hrockas from figuring out how to install a Nexus on his planet. It opened them up to too many security vulnerabilities, and it wasn’t necessary with the quantum casting and reframe engines. As long as they maintained the encryption of The Terminal, and reinforced their orbital defense systems, there should be nothing they couldn’t take on.

Before the three of them finished investigating the nearby buildings in case there was anything useful to find out, a ship descended from the heavens. A ramp opened in the front. A contingency of soldiers filed out, just as they were wont to do in the Exin Empire. A masked menace slowly walked down the ramp between their goons, and stood before the three members of Team Matic who were still here. They reached up and removed the mask. It was Korali. She was smirking. “Mateo, Mateo, Mateo. I should have known you would be involved with the abduction. Tell me. Where’s his body?”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 29, 2511

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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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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 28, 2021

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Mateo was devastated to find out that he had killed his father. His mother assured him that he was “an old man” and it had absolutely nothing to do with the time jump. This was, of course, completely ridiculous. Old or not, Randall had died at the exact moment that he had tried to travel through time by holding Mateo close. Leona pointing out that he didn’t die until getting to the hospital, but that did nothing to dissuade Mateo from his position on the matter. He had ruined Kyle’s life during the first jump, and he couldn’t be sure as of yet that retaining his friendship with Leona wasn’t detrimental to her happiness. And now this. He needed to get away from those he loved. Things would only get worse. The leaving part wasn’t what was hurting them. It was the constant returning. It was time to rip off the band aid. As long as they didn’t know where he was come midnight, they would never be able to find him.

In the meantime, Carol gave him a suit so that they could visit his father’s grave. They were going to hold a belated private ceremony for Mateo’s benefit. They had asked the priest to carve out some time so that he could say some prayers. It was, afterall, the anniversary of the death, so it was not such an unusual request. After that was finished, they dismissed him so that they could speak of him alone. Mateo said a few words, “Randall was my father for my whole life, even though we’re not related. He taught me everything I needed to know to be a man. He taught me to be strong and careful, wise and spontaneous, interesting and deserving. He had always managed to take time out for me, and he was my best friend.

“When this...thing happened to me, he kept a cool head. Sure, I wasn’t around for the first year scare, but when I came back, it was almost like I had never left. I fell right back into place, and all thanks to his understanding attitude. We were spending a lot of time trying to figure things out, but not all of it. We made sure to get into our obligatory political discussions, and we were planning on fishing Sherwood Lake next week in 2026. Say what you will, but I will never forgive myself for depriving the world of more Randall Gelen.” The other two didn’t argue with him anymore about it. They walked away to give him some time to pray alone.

After the service, they went out for ice cream. There was a small shop downtown where Randall used to take him all the time. It closed down a few years before Mateo’s disappearance, but they kept going there anyway. They would buy cones from the chain that put their beloved shop out of business, and eat on a bench in front of where it used to be. It had turned into a toy store, but was now an electronics store. He and Carol spent the rest of the time telling Leona stories about Randall. To their surprise, she had a few stories of her own; of times they had spent together, apart from the other two. Apparently, she had thought of him as a second father.

Mateo hadn’t slept in a while, so they went back home and let him have a nap. But he didn’t go to sleep. Instead, he packed. He thought about what kind of essentials his aunt Daria would have. He knew that she always had water and layers of clothing. She also probably kept a supply of toiletries. A pocket knife, flashlight, headache relief medicine, and as many small bills as he could get his hands on were also on his list. He wrote a short note to his mother and Leona, apologizing to them, and claiming that he was opting for a life of anonymity in New York City. Lastly, he stole his mother’s credit card.

After sneaking out of the house, he knocked on Frida’s door and asked to borrow 200 bucks. She agreed, not having any clue that he would never be able to pay her back. It wasn’t his proudest moment, but it had to be done. After being declared missing, he lost his bank account. They couldn’t set up a new one because he wasn’t a real person anymore. The legal obstacles they would have to deal with would be just too much. Simply renewing his card or verifying information throughout the year would be functionally impossible. He was stuck with cash, which was a problem. Time was running out for paper money. Anyone who had chosen not to set up their fingerprint identity with the government still had a smartphone to pay for things. Paying with cold hard cash was still just as easy as before, but it made you stand out, and people were suspicious of you for it.

He walked all the way to Kyle’s condo and asked for a ride to the train station. Kyle was more than happy to help out, having gotten far beyond the point of recovery. He was the happiest Mateo had ever seen him. He and his husband were in the process of adopting a child. “It’s nice to see you, man! It’s been forever, so where the hell are you going now?”

“I have some business in Los Angeles,” Mateo lied. Once they arrived at the train station, he paid for a ticket to Chicago. He then went back to the car and handed Kyle the credit card. “Please get this back to my mother, whenever you get a chance. And apologize to her for me.”

“She doesn’t know you’re going?”

“Goodbye, my old friend,” Mateo said. Then he walked away. He turned back and watched as Kyle drove off. Once he was out of sight, he walked down the road and stuck out his thumb. He was only trying to go about 160 miles, but it took him the entire day to hitchhike. There were a few moments in between drivers that he was pretty sure he would be in the middle of nowhere for the jump, but several hours later, he was finally at the Lincoln, Nebraska train station. He found a corner to hide in. Midnight came and flung him one year into the future. At that moment, he raced around and purchased a ticket to Salt Lake City, Utah. It was the last place anyone would look for him.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 27, 2020

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Yesterday, Mateo called his parents and asked that they be in Las Vegas in one year’s time. He spent the rest of the day with his aunt, exploring the city with what little money they had. They got to know each other a little better. She didn’t know where his birth father was, but she suspected that he too was some kind of traveler, and that he was completely out of control of it. It made him feel better to know that the reason Mario wasn’t in his life might be a pretty damn good one. Mateo and Daria gave each other a hug just before midnight. “Oh, dry mouth,” she said. They were departing at the same time. Once he jumped back into the timestream, he walked to the agreed upon motel and knocked on the door. His father, Randall sighed. “Well, we got a vacation out of this.”

He could see his mother, Carol packing behind him. “But it’s time that we leave. If we don’t get back to Topeka in 24 hours, you could be stuck in the middle of nowhere.”

“I wouldn’t want you to have to go through this again. I’m so sorry, mom and dad.”

“Don’t be,” Randall said. “It’s given me an idea. We’ll test it out later.”

Despite the fact that the route was an hour longer, they drove through Arizona and New Mexico to get back to Kansas. They had always had a rule about Utah; in that it was off limits on principle. Ever since Colorado legalized marijuana, it was kept in the same category. They called these locations “loci non grata”. In only a few years, these policies would become impractical, as more and more states were following Colorado’s lead.

Almost exactly halfway into their trip, they were passing through Las Vegas, New Mexico when the car began to smoke. “No, no, no!” Randall cried. There was a loud tapping sound as the old vehicle slowly decelerated to a complete stop. He tried the key, but it wouldn’t turn over.

“Honey, it’s smoking. You can’t drive a smoking car, even if you get it started.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about cars!”

“I think it’s the radiator,” Mateo jumped in. “In movies, they pee on it.”

Randall turned around and gave him the stink eye. “That’s only when they don’t have water.”

“You are not going to spray water all over the engine, not having any clue what you’re doing. We’ll call a tow truck. I don’t even know why you don’t drive an electric car like everyone else.”

Randall ignored her. “Okay, Google...”

“Yes?” came a comforting voice from the aether.

“Would you please send us a tow truck?”

“It’s already on its way. I could also retask a nearby drone to assess the vehicle’s condition before the truck gets here,” the computer suggested.

“That would be great, thanks,” Randall answered.

“No problem, Randall the Man.”

“Randall the Man?” Mateo asked.

“She and I are really close,” his father explained.

Moments later, they could hear a soft buzzing sound, coming from the distance and growing closer. A small drone appeared from the trees and greeted them. Randall stepped out of the truck and lifted the hood. Mateo watched as the drone zipped back and forth, scanning the system and analyzing the data. It even checked the undercarriage. Once it was done, it hovered in front of Randall’s face. “I have begun orders for two parts that you will need to return your vehicle to working condition. I need your authorization for payment.”

Randall began to lift his hand to the drone but Carol stopped him. “Wait, how long is this going to take?”

“The parts will arrive by long-distance drone late tonight. Your car should be ready tomorrow afternoon,” the drone answered.

“Randall...” Carol started.

He placed his thumb on the drone which responded with, “payment accepted.”

“We need these parts, either way,” Randall told his wife. “We’ll rent a car and come back for the truck next week.”

“Would you like me to send the rental car to this location?” the drone asked.

“Make it the cheapest one you have.”

“The cheapest driverless car, please,” Carol corrected.

“Authorization required.”

Randall placed his thumb on the drone again.

“If you would like,” the drone began, “I could play music while you wait.”

“Classical. Please and thank you.”

While they were waiting for the rental car to arrive, Mateo called Leona to ask how things were going. She was liking her classes, but she was swamped. She was taking more than a full schedule of courses, and just could not skip today to see him. She said that she would be waiting for him at the house when he got back, though. He smiled. He had only known her for a few days, but he liked her quite a bit. She had matured so much since he had met her. His parents were about the same as they always had been, and he hadn’t kept in touch with most of his friends. Seeing the changes a young adult goes through over the years in such a short period of time was phenomenal and bizarre. It was like a four dimensional television series. But even that took longer to experience.

It was exciting to be riding in his first driverless car. The seats were faced towards each other, as there was no need to be at the wheel. Mateo was given the whole back seat where he was able to sleep. When he woke up later, he found his parents to be napping. That was just awesome. Why his father refused to move with the times and own one of these himself was something he didn’t understand. They would later tell him that the concept of owning one’s own car was going out of style anyway. Many people preferred to inform an app on their phone that they were in need of getting to a location, and a car would just come get them. If the prospect wasn’t rendered meaningless by his condition, Mateo wasn’t sure he would like that. The freedom of having his own possessions made too much sense to him.

Even with their delays, they got back to the safety of their home by midnight. Leona was cooking them a midnight snack of buttered noodles. His favorite. Mateo was brushing his teeth when he remembered what his father had said earlier. He went back downstairs. “You said you wanted to try something.”

He looked at his watch. “Oh, yeah. It’s almost time.”

“What is it?”

“Say goodbye to your mother and your...Leona.”

After that was done, it was nearly time. Randall timed it out, then held his son in a tight embrace. “I’m going to try to hold you down. If that doesn’t work, maybe I’ll get to go with you.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Mateo said.

“It worked with you and your aunt,” Leona said.

“It just doesn’t...” he tried to find the words. “It doesn’t feel the same. When I jumped to Vegas with her, it felt much different than my jumps. It was...more forceful, more jarring.”

“Well I’m going to try it,” Randall said. “If it doesn’t work, then fine. What’s the worse that could happen?”

A year later, Mateo learned the answer to that question. His father had succeeded in neither keeping him from jumping, nor jumping with him. He had, however, suffered a heart attack, and died.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 26, 2019

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Mateo gently removed his face from Leona’s. She gave him her best evil smile. Then she turned around and grabbed an infant from Carol’s arms. “Mateo Matic, say hello to your son, Theo.”

“What!?”

“I’m kidding,” she laughed. “He’s my baby brother. Half-brother.”

Carol pursed her lips. “Wasn’t funny when you told us you were going to do that joke, and it isn’t funny now that you’ve actually done it.”

Leona handed Theo to Mateo. “Funny from this side. How was your trip, honey?”

“Instant,” Mateo replied. “Theo does sound like he’s named after me.” He lifted the baby’s hand with his finger and shook it politely. “Little odd.”

She took Theo back. “It’s a family name. Er...well, not really. But my dad says he was incapable of naming him anything else; like it was already his name, and we were just discovering that fact.”

Everyone went to bed. Leona’s father and stepmother were on a vacation, so Carol and Randall were taking care of little Theo. He was technically Leona’s responsibility but she, of course, had classes to worry about. They were more than willing to pick up the slack, having felt a deficit since the onset of Mateo’s condition. Frida’s father passed not long after Mateo’s last departure. He lived long enough to see Frida’s engagement to her now-husband, but not long enough to be there for the wedding. Kyle was better than ever, and had all but moved on with his life. He was back to being a lawyer, and was rumored to be a far more genuine one than before.

Upon waking, Mateo snuck out of the house again. He needed some alone time. It was selfish of him, but he had just spent the last several days dealing with all this. It was true that he would be completely alone in only a few weeks when everyone would be dead, but he couldn’t help it. He and his friends liked to hang out at the large cemetery on the edge of town, but there was a smaller one in the middle of nowhere that only he knew of. That was his secret hiding place. There, he could find some of the oldest graves he had ever seen. There were those who had died in the early 19th century. It was peaceful and calm, and not just metaphorically. It was literally calm. Something about the formation of the trees, or maybe by divine choice, made the air milder than just outside of its borders. When it was cold outside, the secret cemetery would be warmer, and during the summer heat, it would be cooler.

He leaned up against a headstone and began to pray with his birth mother’s rosary. “Sorry to disturb you,” came a voice from the side. He opened his eyes and saw a middle-aged woman dressed in two coats. It was much too warm for that. She took the first one off and stuffed it in a bag. “Could you tell me where I am?” She removed a bottle of water from her bag and took a long drink from it.

“I don’t think there’s a name for this graveyard,” Mateo answered.

“No, I mean...I mean the city,” she clarified.

That was an odd question, but she was dressed in more layers than necessary. She must have been a nomad. “We’re a few miles Southwest of Sherwood Lake. In Topeka, Kansas.”

“Oh, wow,” she said. “That’s not far from home.”

“Where do you live?”

“Kansas City. I don’t suppose you were driving that way.”

“I wasn’t.” She was deeply saddened, clearly having been far from home for a long time. He had selfishly left his family at home and come to cemetery to pray. This was a sign. It was a very Catholic sign. She needed help, and he was the only one around. The chances that she would be here at this special place during the one day of the year that he was in the timestream were too low. She needed to get to Kansas City, so he was going to take her there. “But I am now.”

They stepped into the truck and headed out. She introduced herself as Daria. When he introduced himself with his full name, she laughed. “Are you joking?”

“No, why?”

“That’s my name too,” she claimed. “I’m Daria Matic.”

“Ah, well. It’s my birth father’s name. I never met him.”

She sat in silence for a good long while. At a glance, it looked like she was working something out in her head. “His first name wouldn’t happen to be Mario, would it?”

He freaked out, and his first instinct was to stop the car. But he remained calm, and kept driving. There were very few things that Mateo knew about his father. One was his first name, one was his last name, and the other was that he hated pickles. That’s all his birth mother had ever said. In fact, the third one had slipped out in the middle of dinner once, and she treated it like a matter of national security; like she had just committed treason. He tried looking for him, only for intellectual reasons, but he could find no trail. Mario Matic was a ghost. “Oh, my God. Are we related?”

“Looks like it. Are you a traveler?” she asked. She emphasized the word in a way that made it seem like she wasn’t just talking about a person who goes to other places. Traveler was a category. It was a species.

This time, he did stop the car. “On my 28th birthday, I traveled forward in time exactly one year. I get one day every year, and then I’m forced to move on. My girlfriend...I mean, my friend calls it a timeslip.”

“Oh, interesting,” Daria said thoughtfully.

“Do you do that too?” he asked, not sure what answer he was looking for.

“I’ve never heard of any time travel. I’m a teleporter. Like you, I can’t control it. But there doesn’t appear to be a pattern. When I start having dry mouth, I have a few minutes to gather my things, and then I’m gone.”

“I don’t get dry mouth. I get really tired before it happens, but it’s always at midnight anyway, so I don’t know if that’s part of it.”

“Yeah, I call that my indicator. Speaking of which, I’m really thirsty.”

“Well, we can stop somewhere. Oh...” He realized what she meant. She was about to leave again. “We’re not done with our conversation!”

She rummaged through her bag to make sure she had everything she needed. “I am certain that we will see each other again. These journeys are controlled by someone, and they know we didn’t have enough time. That was surely done on purpose. But I have to get out of here. If someone is too close to me, I risk bringing them along. It’s not uncommon for me to end up in Antarctica.” She tried to open the door.

“Oh, it gets stuck,” he apologized. “You have to—just...here.” He leaned over to get it for her.

“No!” she screamed, but it was too late. They disappeared.

They were still in a sitting position when they teleported out, so they fell to the concrete upon arrival. “Had a little too much to drink?” a stranger asked jokingly as he passed by with his friends. Mateo got to his feet and looked up to where he could see the Eiffel Tower. “Heavenly father, we’re in Paris,” he exclaimed.

“No,” Daria said. She moved his head over so that he could see the Arc de Triomphe. Those two landmarks were not that close together. And they weren’t that small. No, they weren’t in Paris. They were Vegas. Either way, he wouldn’t get back to his family for another year, at least.

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