The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 23, 2077 (Part I)

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“It’s nice to see you again too, Commander Parker,” Leona said lightly but confidently.

Julius tried to rub the stress out of his eyes. “Why me? Why is it always me?”

“Because we trust you,” Mateo answered.

Julius shook his head. “You barely know me.”

“That’s the point,” Leona began to explain. “We’re on the run, and the person chasing us knows who our allies are. They don’t know about you.”

“We at least don’t think they know you,” Darko clarified.

“So you’ve put me in danger to avoid endangering people you care about,” Julius criticized. “How kind of you.”

“It’s not like that,” Mateo said. “It’s unlikely that Makarion knows anything about you. We just need a place to lay low for a few decades.”

“I’m not going to be here for a few decades.”

“We’re going to burn that bridge when we get to it,” Leona said.

“I’ll let you stay here for two years,” Julius said plainly. “Then we will reassess.”

“That sounds fair,” Darko jumped in before Leona could protest.

“I suppose,” Julius started to say while he was putting his stuff down in the corner, “that you’ll be needing some food, what with you still being mostly human.”

“Are you not human?” Mateo asked. “Have you turned yourself into a robot?”

“No,” Julius said with a chortle. “Nothing so undignified. I have been upgraded, though. Nanotechnology, synthetic blood, and neural interfaces have made me better, faster, stronger.”

Mateo’s eyes widened. “Like the Six Million Dollar Man.”

“Yes, that is not a bad comparison,” Julius agreed.

“That’s cool,” Mateo said shyly, like a child meeting his hero.

“Some food would be lovely,” Leona said, “as long as it does not raise suspicion.”

“Many people still eat,” Julius confirmed. “And I do too, just not as much. Not everyone is a transhumanist like me, not even all early Martians.”

Julius returned later with some food from the cafeteria. Mateo had expected food cubes—and they certainly weren’t eating organic—but it did still look real food. They crowded around a table meant for only one person and gobbled it down, as if they hadn’t eaten in days. And actually, though they had gotten some food here and there, it had been a long time since a decent meal. He probably would have hated this Martian food before, but now it tasted like heaven.

After they were done with their meal, Mateo sat down in front of Julius so that they could have a talk. He wanted to explain to Julius about his brother, Richard. The Rogue had extracted him just before his death and placed him with Mateo temporarily. They spent months on a lifeboat together, living through the Life of Pi tribulation. He then accompanied Mateo for the Gulliver’s Travels tribulation, later making the ultimate sacrifice when Mateo opened up a portal to Reaver just before his death. It was ironic that Richard was pulled out just before he was blown up only to be blown up in Reaver’s prison cube. But that incident had ended with The Rogue’s death as well, and could very well have saved Mateo and Leona’s life. Richard was instrumental in stopping the Rogue from his games. Though Makarion was still a problem, he was less powerful, and that was not nothing. Mateo felt that Julius had the right to the truth; to understand what really went down. “Do you know what happened to your brother?”

Julius nodded. “He died in an explosion. The vessel was supposed to be unmanned, but Horace Reaver broke the rules. All of these secrets came out years ago. It’s part of history now. I suppose it was just yesterday for you.”

“That’s not the entire story,” Mateo said. “You obviously know that we’re time travelers, and you’ve probably guessed that we’re not the only ones.”

“I’ve met others.”

“Who did you meet?”

“Immediately after you left Luna back in 2036, two more appeared. I didn’t catch their names. They disappeared just as quickly as they had come.”

“Could you describe them?”

“Well, I guess I don’t need to, do I? This is the future afterall.”

Back in 2046, artificial intelligent android, Harrison had used technology to read Mateo’s mind and create a picture of a man he had met in an alternate timeline. They did this so everyone could see what The Cleanser looked like, in case he ever showed up later. That following year, they used the same technology to create composites of Samsonite and Aura’s daughter, who turned out to be Mateo’s old neighbor, Frida. And now in 2076, that technology still existed, and was actually even more sophisticated. Julius reached into his memory archives and generated extremely detailed pseudophotographic frames from when he met two other salmon. He then spliced each of these together to make a movie they could watch on a computer screen. It looked like someone had actually filmed the occasion. All that was missing was the sound, but Julius also had memory of the conversation, and was able to lip sync for them.

This is what happens in the memory splice movie.

“Not again,” Julius says. “I just got rid of you people. Literally ten seconds ago.”

“Where are we?” Makarion asks.

Julius points to the window where they can see Earth.

“Is this the moon?” Vearden asks.

“No, it’s Mars, dipshit,” Julius answers. “I am Commander Parker, King of the Mascos.”

“Who like us have you met?” Makarion asks.

“I dunno, a bunch of people. I didn’t care about their names,” Julius replies.

“Was one of them named Mateo?” Makarion asks.

Julius sighs. “Yeah, I think that’s what they said.”

“Just as I suspected,” Makarion says with a nod.

“Shut up,” Vearden spits.

“We’re jumping into important moments of Mateo’s timestream,” Makarion says. “God, that guy’s so important, and I do not know why.”

“Well, how do we get back?” Vearden demands.

“All we can do is keep trying.” Then Makarion takes Vearden by the cheeks, and they both disappear.

“So Makarion is going after Vearden, just like us. Or he did. Or he will.”

“Damn.” Darko turned away to pace around a little.

“This is not good,” Leona said, even more upset than everyone else.

“No kidding,” Mateo answered.

“No, this is really not good.” Leona shook her head violently. “There’s something I never told you, because I was worried about disrupting the timeline, but I think it’s time I speak up.”

“What is it?” Mateo asked, not wanting to jump to any conclusions.

“This happened to me once,” Leona tried to explain, but she was very shaky. “Makarion and who I now know to be Vearden appeared before me. It could have been just before this, or just after. I obviously didn’t know who he was at the time, but he warned me about paradoxes, and me being genre savvy, I agreed with him that I should keep quiet about it.”

“When was this?” Mateo asked, not upset with her for having kept this from him.

“It was after our kidney transplantation surgery,” she replied, still afraid of the truth. “After the security guards sent you off to the police station, they continued their rounds, and I had a window to sneak out of the warehouse. The two of them jumped into the timestream just before I could. Makarion did seem to recognize me, but I couldn’t really tell. Now it makes sense that he had already met me from his perspective, because he knew exactly what to say to make sure I didn’t say anything about it. I’m a fool.”

“You’re not a fool,” Mateo tried to comfort her. “You did exactly what you should have. That was not pertinent information until now. You understand the timeline better than I do, so I trust that that was the right call. Now is not the time to doubt yourself.”

“It’s just a pattern of behavior. Another time travel protocol has gotten me in trouble. Reaver knew my secret time travel passphrase because I decided to tell him in an alternate timeline. All these rules I’ve set up,” she said through tears, “they’re all garbage!”

“No, they’re not,” Mateo disagreed. “They’re just not perfect. We’re literally dealing with forces beyond our control. The rules are there to protect us, and I believe they’ve served us better than we even realize.”

She didn’t stop crying. “I should have told you. I was angry at you for having killed the Rogue, but I may have just killed us all.”

“You didn’t kill us, Leona,” Mateo said. “Everything is going to be okay. So he knows that we know Julius? He might have known anyway since the original Rogue was aware of our connection to the family. Coming here was always going to be a risk.”

“It sounds like the two of them are uncontrollably jumping through the timestream,” Darko said with authority. “And that they’re somehow tied to Mateo. Makarion might show up out of sheer bad luck, no matter where we ended up going.”

There was a knock at the door. Julius ushered the three of them to the wall and opened it with caution. “Oh my God.”

Makarion’s voice came from the hallway, “my ears were burning.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 15, 2069

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Mateo could not open his eyes, despite knowing that he had to in order to survive. A great roar came from under his ass and vibrated his entire body. Leona’s voice surged into his brain. “Mateo! Mateo! Can you hear me! Wake up! I need you to say the words!”

He struggled to lift his eyelids and began to look around. He was inside of a fishbowl, inside of a very tiny room. He might even call it a pod. Did that make sense? Yes, of course it did. He could remember now that the new Rogue, Makarion was forcing them to reenact a movie from 2015 called The Martian. He started jumping through time before so much as hearing about it, so he hadn’t gotten a chance to watch it back then. Fortunately, Makarion gave them the heads up about it, and let them study it the day before. This wasn’t exactly the safest part of the film, but it was near the end. These reenactments only took place over the course of a few scenes, maybe several, but never the whole thing. Life of Pi had been the most exhausting one, but still only accounted for part of the story.

Because so much of The Martian involved a highly intelligent astronaut who was trained to survive on an inhospitable planet, and knew the technical details of the instruments around him, Mateo and Leona were pretty sure those kinds of things would be cut out. Leona could probably be categorized as a genius, but she was still not cognizant of any machines used to get to, or live on, Mars. And she certainly hadn’t been given enough time to familiarize herself with 2069 technology. Therefore, they assumed their reenactment mission was something any lay person could conceivably carry out. There wasn’t really anything in the movie like that, save maybe growing potatoes. So they had been at a loss as to where in the film this year’s tribulation would begin. There just weren’t any scenes that involved two people. There was only the main character being alone, and then times when he reported to mission control. That is, except for the climax, which included the small number of his crew. But they never thought Makarion would choose that one, because it meant employing actors. Yet, that’s what he did, in a way.

“You’re late!” Leona continued. “You have to say the words, or the MAV will explode, Pilot!”

Mateo thought back to what words she would be talking about. Oh yes, that part in all realistic space movies; the one where someone in mission control reads off all the sections, each one checking in. Recovery; go. Secondary Recovery; go. And her last one was Pilot. “GO!”

A voice he didn’t recognize began to count down from ten. The engines below him increased intensity, and then pushed him off the ground. Was he really on Mars? As he was hurtling towards his death, he recalled research Leona had done about the state of space travel. Mars has had humans on it for many years now, with permanent settlements during about ten of the most recent of them. Most of the residents are scientists, but people are actually starting to move out there with their families, hopeful to build a new world. But a planet with humans on it is not the same as Earth. Most of these settlements are located on the poles, with plenty of space in between for Makarion to stage the reenactment of one of his favorite movies without anyone noticing. Probably. But who was this person who had counted down his blast off. Was she chooser, salmon, or just a regular human? Was she something else? If she was just a regular person, what made her agree to something like this? It must look fishy.

The MAV continued away from where it had come, and begin to swim through the eternal vacuum of space. Screws, washers, and other small objects floated around his head. Yep; he was in space. Again. He didn’t pass out, like in the movie. He probably would have liked to as his fear and anxiety was getting the best of him, but being awake was better since he couldn’t know what would happen next. The Rogue always liked to put in twists on the source material, so that even knowing what was supposed to happen wouldn’t help him. This was already a dangerous mission, so how could things get worse? Well, for the moment, nothing was happening as Mateo waited for Leona and the rest of whatever crew she had to come retrieve him.

“How are you doing, love?” Leona asked through comms.

“I’m fine, I’m awake. Makarion couldn’t have chosen a better part of the movie.”

“I agree.”

“Way I remember it, somebody should be making a bomb right about now. Is everything going according to plan?”

“There is no bomb. We’re just on our way to pick you up. Our vector is fine for it. My guess is that the bomb and other insane components of the film’s original rescue are just too many variables for Makarion to account for.”

“So the twist this time is that things are actually easier?” Mateo asked.

“Hold on.”

“What?” Mateo called, but received no reply. He could hear only static. “Leona, what is it? Tell me. I can handle it.”

“Copy that, Pilot,” Leona finally said. “I’ve just been informed by the crew that we’re going to deliberately stop far enough away from you so that you’ll be forced to do the thing.”

“The thing? I don’t wanna do the thing.”

“I don’t want you to do the thing either, but they insist that you do the thing.”

“Who are these people?”

“Robots. Programmed by Makarion to carry out his orders.”

“Can you reprogram them?”

“Negative.”

Mateo looked around, knowing that every second he let pass would make things more difficult. He just had to resign himself to the fact that he had no choice but to comply with tribulation parameters. “I can’t find anything sharp. If the walls had sharp edges, or something, maybe I could figure it out. But there’s nothing. How am I supposed to do the thing?”

“Is there a fire extinguisher?”

Mateo paused. Did she really just say that? Yes, yes there was. And it was probably an ancient one, at that. Future fire extinguishers could probably fit in the palm of your hand. “So now we’re doing Gravity? That one I did see.”

“Do you have one?”

“Yes, I do.”

“There shouldn’t be,” Leona pointed out. “This is the actual twist.”

“Okay, I can do this,” Mateo said.

“No, wait. I have to run some calculations. You can’t just hold the extinguisher wherever you want, or you’ll spin around endlessly. You have to put it at your center of mass.”

Before too long, though, Leona returned on comms and told him exactly where to hold the fire extinguisher, up against his belly. He hung out of the edge, ran through the Our Father prayer a few times, and then let it ride. He did spin around a few times; maybe a few hundred. But he quickly adjusted his placement, found his groove, and started shooting ever towards the ship above him. It was very tiny, likely so that it wouldn’t be detected by the real people living on Mars. Leona was floating under it, waiting for him to reach her. That meant she was already in her suit and out there when they were discussing fire extinguisher etiquette. So she did those calculations in her head. She really was amazing. He remembered her having said that she was always terrible at grade school math. How exactly had she changed so dramatically? However it was possible, he was grateful for this now. He barreled into her body and held on tightly. They didn’t even have to do the thing where they spin around each other, ever in danger of being pulled apart again.

The robot crew reeled them in together and sealed the airlock. “You can’t imagine how frustrating it’s been suffering these people,” Leona complained. “You’ve been unconscious for most of the day while I’ve been dealing with problem after problem. Nothing in this ship works. I almost wish we had actually done the explosion part.”

“We are going to,” one of the robots said.

“What?”

It entered a sequence into a device on its wrist. They could hear a beeping coming from it, and a number of other places nearby.

“You’re really going to blow up the ship!” Mateo yelled.

“It is our final directive,” it recited.

“What movie is that from?” Leona and Mateo scrambled to put their helmets back on. She entered own sequence on a console on the wall. The airlock reopened and jettisoned them from the ship, just as it was blowing up. The explosion propelled them back towards Mars, and damaged their suits. He could feel the air slipping away from him. Apparently he hadn’t needed something sharp to cut a hole. He should have thought of using an explosion before.

“Were I you!” Mateo yelled into his comms.

“Were I you!” Leona returned.

They continued to scream in fear. Would they keep going towards Mars, far enough to burn up in the atmosphere? Or would they eventually stop? He wished he knew how to science.

The scene changed as outer space transformed into water, and blackness turned to blue. They were lying in a water fountain, still screaming. People were hanging about, looking at them funny. They could see Makarion smiling from the crowd. He winked before turning away and walking off, done with them for now. Mateo played to the crowd and sprayed water out of his mouth, like one of the horses. They laughed at him, clearly happy to see something exciting and spontaneous.

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Microstory 48: Halo

The Halo is a multipurpose device used by all adults in the Core. It is a ring of Amber color, though it can be shaped into other forms by means of stretching. It is typically worn, in ring form, a few inches above the head of its user. It maintains its position via the user’s own telekinetic field but, unlike most objects, does not require constant concentration in order to stay aloft.

The Halo includes many functions, primarily as a computer and as a storage locker. Most people wear bionic conduits that are linked up to the system-wide data network that are fully capable of processing as much information as an external computer. There are times, however, such as when watching an Earthan television show, that a single screen that can be viewed by many people at once is desirable.

Perhaps a Halo’s most used component, though, is the cache. It creates and bridges a connection between the user’s current dimension and a portable and artificial dimension. Because it is artificial, objects inside do not suffer from the radiation of most simplex dimensions. However, Haloes are specifically designed to not allow the storage of still-living organic entities. Any attempt to tamper with a Halo and allow this function is illegal. These laws and safety guards are to prevent people from being able to trap each other in a Halo.

Obviously, it is illegal to use Haloes in the presence of veiled citizens. In one incident in Earth year 1709, a criminal of a mischievous temperament, referred to as a Loki (also based on Earthan mythology, specifically Norse) snuck onto Earth. Having no real knowledge of the planet’s geography, he found himself in a remote area of Romania. Wearing blue and white robes, he walked around a small village, Halo hovering above his head. The villagers worshipped him as the second coming of Jesus Christ, and lavished him with gifts. He was eventually reprimanded by Martian police. They were able to convince the villagers that the man was actually a false prophet who was using witchcraft to mimic the properties of the Lord, and also that they were servants of God, particularly vessels of angels, come to cast out the demon. The villagers wanted to burn him at the stake, however the police were able to remove him with no trouble. Before leaving, the police proclaimed that the village was thereby protected from other such witchcraft and that no witch would be able cross its borders. This was to prevent further witch trials, as were common in those days.Though the village was from then on left to its own devices (as most Earthans are), not one more crime was committed there for the nearly hundred years it survived before its population diminished to nothingness and it vanished into obscurity.

Microstory 35: Cellar Door

In the entire universe, there are only two species. There are many different kinds of humans, some of them “originating” from their own planets. If you ever encounter someone you believe to be an alien, they’re probably just a descendant of a genetically altered human. These come in the form of subspecies (vampires, elves, etc.), tangent species (e.g. dragons), and superspecies (e.g. Martians). The only true alien in the universe is called the Slrdr, and they are a complete evolutionary mistake. God is human, and made us in her image. So how the Slrdr evolved is something we don’t quite understand. But the most interesting part about them is that there are eight genders.

The male and female copulate through a combination of both liquid and pheromone secretion, stimulation, and song. The male deposits his sperm into one opening of the carrier while the female deposits a brood of several hundred ova into the other opening. Most of the several hundred ova will form zygotes, but usually only eight will survive after absorbing other zygotes. The carrier consumes blood orally from the sustainer. The eggs develop over the course of a half year during which the male, female, and carrier will sing. The carrier lays a clutch of eight eggs into a mudflat nest. If there are more or less than eight eggs, a defect or mutation may have occurred. It is not necessarily a problem; any number of things could have happened. The fertilizer sprays a growth hormone onto the clutch. The determiner injects enzymes into each egg that will mix the genes, leading to each individual scion’s gender and general genetic configuration. Each litter will contain one of each gender. All six genetic parents will be accounted for in the genes of the young. The fertilizer and determiner share the responsibility of protecting and watering the nest while singing.

The eggs will hatch after a half year. The young, considered to be one year old, will crawl into the pouch of the marsupial, which gives antibodies and other immunity boosters through its nipples for one year while singing. Marsupials are the largest of the genders, capable of sustaining the lives of two litters (if need be), but only if they consume blood from the sustainer as well. After the scions are fully developed, they will consistently receive milk containing protein, calcium, and other nutrients from the nipples of the giver who will teach them how to sing. Scions begin eating regular adult food after one more year (when they’re three years old). Scions are raised by all of their parents, along with their respective spouses, for five more years during which they will sing together. At eight years of age, children begin more independent lives. The parents will move on to conceive more children. At sixteen years of age, the scions restart the cycle.