The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 8, 2400 (The Conclusion)

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Mateo teleported himself to Lebanon, directly into the Constant, which he thought wouldn’t work because of the safeguards, but he entered just fine. He landed in the master sitting room, which was where they always hung out in the version of this place in the Third Rail. It has been completely cleared out. All of the books were gone, as well as the furniture, and the snack bowls. Even the bookshelves have been removed. It looked like a room in a house that the previous owners were trying to sell after they had moved out. Maybe Danica was just trying to do some renovations. He stepped out and walked down to the security room. The door was wide open, and it too had been stripped. He looked farther down the hallway to see the rest of the doors open too, including ones that he had never been allowed to enter before. What the actual hell was going on here?

He kept walking through the complex, searching for any sign of life, but everything was gone. Only the walls remained, held up by the floors, and holding up the ceilings. It was completely bare. What. The. Hell? He called Danica’s name, but no one responded. “Constance?” he questioned nervously, but she didn’t answer either, which was a good thing, because this version of the superintelligence was evil. Maybe she had done something to Danica. They had always been told that his cousin was immortal, but in every story about someone who could not die, there was always a loophole, and if anyone had the smarts to find it, it was a Constance. “Danica?” he called again, but still nothing. Finally he found something. It was the garden, and so far, the only place with anything still in it. This particular area was untouched, looking just as it did before. He stepped in, and walked down the windy path a little. He rounded the bend just in time to see Zeferino Preston and Dalton Hawk disappear. “Danica!” he shouted one last time.

“Matty?” Danica asked. “When did you get here?”

“About fifteen minutes ago,” he answered. “I’ve been looking for you. What did those two assholes want?”

“One wants a purpose,” Danica replied. “The other says he can give it to him.”

“Did Dalton seem like he had...um, become a villain already?”

“No. If that’s happened, I don’t think it’s happened to him yet.” She eyed the space where he was once standing. “Perhaps this is where it begins.”

“I don’t know,” Mateo said. “I think this would be before he sent us to the Third Rail, which he seemed to have done by accident, out of benevolence. “I just don’t know. Anyway, it’s inevitable, and it can’t be undone. We got through it. No one died...permanently.”

“You’re looking at me weird,” she pointed out.

“Did you know that there were other versions of you, in the parallel realities?”

“I suspected. I mean, that’s the point of the Constant, to begin so early on in the inception of the solar system that it can’t be undone without the kind of effort that would wipe out humanity before it could evolve anyway.”

“Did you know that...Constance was evil?”

Danica sighed. “Yeah, which is why I erased her thousands of years ago.”

“Well, it didn’t take, and the other Danicas did not make the same choice anyway. They all came after us, except for Constance!Three. She was pretty helpful.”

“I apologize for any trouble she, or the other Danicas, have caused you.”

“You can’t apologize for them. Four and a half billion years is a long time to become entirely different people.”

She nodded appreciatively.

“Are you shutting down? Is that why this place is empty?

“It’s over,” she explained. “Evidently, it was always going to end like this. The people who contracted me for this job never told me that there would be an endgame, and I didn’t give it much thought. I only had real work for the last few millennia.”

“So you know about the Reconvergence too?”

“No. Maybe I knew it before, but everything’s been taken from me, including my immortality, and what knowledge I possessed about the timelines.”

Mateo frowned. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, like you said, four and a half billion years. I wasn’t awake that whole time, but who can complain about getting that much time? I accept my fate.”

Mateo shook his head. “Who’s making you do this? You said you deleted Constance? I thought she was your boss.”

Danica looked up to search for the right words. “She was more of a consultant. Management selected her to keep me on track, and give me advice, as well as keep this facility running, but she couldn’t actually tell me what to do. If the other versions of her made you believe that they were in charge, they were lying.”

“So who is your boss?”

“I am; the first me. Danica!Prime. That’s what I decided to call her, at least. She’s even older than me, especially now. That’s why she chose me as The Concierge, because she figured she could always trust herself to do it right.”

“Wow. I had no idea.”

“Yeah, and now it’s over. You better go. I have to press the big black button.”

“Wait, I came here to ask you for guidance. But...you don’t even know about the Reconvergence, so maybe...”

“So maybe I can’t help you,” she finished for him. “Sorry that the last time we saw each other was so unsatisfactory.”

“No, you don’t have to—why are you acting like you have to die? Press the button, and I’ll teleport us out of here.”

She shook her head. “I told you, I accept my fate. Go on and get out of here.” She held out Dalton’s Cassano Cane. “Take this with you, would ya?”

“Dalton uses this in the future,” Mateo said without taking it yet. “I don’t know how to get it back to him.”

“I’m sure the time gods will show you the way.”

Mateo frowned again, or still, really, and accepted the burden.

“Now, go on. I started this alone, I’ll end it alone.”

“There but for the grace of God went you...in the other parallels.”

She smiled at this. “I love you, Mateo.”

“I love you, Danica.” He teleported out, and landed in the chapel on the surface. It was funny, after all this time—the gradual phasing out of the world’s religions, including Christianity—the bulldozing of all the tiny little buildings to replace them with megastructure arcologies, that this tiniest building of all should survive this long. This year really was The Edge, wasn’t it?”

He stepped out into the bright sun, and smiled softly. He was sad that his cousin was maybe dying, but she was right, it was certainly less sad than a child, or even a centuries old transhuman. She had lived so much longer than most. It was poetic, really, that she should not see the Reconvergence. “Hey. Who are you?”

A couple was standing by the picnic tables under the little shelter next to the table. “We’re just tourists. We’re sorry to bother you.”

“No. This place is dangerous right now. Have you seen anyone else?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Have you seen anyone else?” Mateo repeated.

One of them pointed. “There are a bunch of people in that field. I think they’re birdwatching. We’re not with them.”

Mateo pointed too. “Get in your car, and go now. Leave all of your belongings, and just go. Now. There could be a bomb.”

They ran for their vehicle while Mateo walked around the chapel. They were right, a ton of people were wandering around a football pitch’s length away from him. He might not have time to teleport them all away, not if what was going to happen when Danica pressed that button was what he thought would happen. The chapel was the secret entrance to the Constance. The rest of it was, of course, completely underground, but not spread out all around them. The elevator was on one side of the building, and the birdwatchers were right over the bulk of it. If they came this way, and managed to cross the road, they might be okay, but they had to come now.

“Bomb!” he yelled as he ran towards them. “There’s a bomb! Get across the road!”

“Huh? What?” They were asking, confused, and not used to living in such danger. Every structure these days came equipped with bomb detection systems, Mateo assumed. The average person in the 25th century was not under constant threat of such explosive risk. People in his time were usually not too worried about it either, unless they lived in a war zone, but that threat was always looming. These people were completely unafraid, and could probably not so much as fathom what he was even trying to tell them. They just stood there watching him as he drew nearer.

“Bomb! Come this way! Now!”

It was too late. It was far too late. The ground beneath them all blinked out of existence, leaving them a kilometer in the air, and starting to plummet to their deaths. Giant pipes were filling the crater up with water, but it wasn’t full yet. He would not have time to teleport more than a few of them out. Some of them may have been androids, or were beaming their consciousnesses to a satellite in orbit. Maybe all of them were, or maybe none of them were. They were all screaming. He had to use the only tool he had with him if they were to survive, which was this magical reality-hopping cane in his hands. He didn’t know how to use it, but if there was ever a moment to learn on the fly, this was it. He pointed towards the smattering of people, and just thought about what he wanted. A beam of light shot out of it, and overcame a good chunk of the people. They disappeared, hopefully to another reality...a safer one. He swept it rightwards, picking up more and more until they were all gone. He looked around, still falling, hoping that there weren’t any stragglers, and he didn’t see any.

Just before he hit the shallow water alone, he teleported himself a few meters away, but upside down. He learned this trick in the Parallel once. His momentum was now carrying him upwards, and slowing him down gradually, instead of all at once in a momentous splat. For a second, he was at an equilibrium, and that was when he took the opportunity to teleport again, this time to the surface next to the newly forming lake. He finally exhaled, and huffed to catch his breath.

The only couple he was able to warn in time was still there on the side of the road. “Our car wouldn’t start. It’s an antique. We were trying to live as the ancients did.”

“It’s okay. This is the edge. The danger is over.”

“What could have done this? Is that filling with water?”

Mateo nodded. “This, my new friends, is Danica Lake.” He was there when it happened in the Third Rail. It was what triggered his mind to erase the memories that could have explained it. It would seem that the creation of Danica Lake was always the plan, and not just something the other Danica came up with.

“What happened to the others? Did they all die? How deep is it?”

Mateo stood up straight and adjusted his clothes. “Did you see the message in the stars last night?”

“Yeah. Everyone did.”

“What did it say?”

“DON’T PANIC.”

Mateo nodded. “Exactly. They’re fine.” He winked, and teleported away.

“You made it!” Angela noted.

“Did you make a choice? Did Danica help you?” Marie asked.

“She couldn’t. She’s never heard of this and now, she’s...gone.”

The girls both winced, and didn’t say anything.

“You knew I would come here, though,” Mateo said, looking around at Stonehenge. “You knew I wouldn’t just bail.”

“Of course we did. We know you.”

“But we don’t know what choice you’ve made,” Alyssa said, coming into view from behind one of the stone sarsens. “So what will it be? Which reality are you saving?”

Mateo drove the Dilara Cane into the dirt so it could stand on its own. He did it for effect, and effect alone. “The main sequence; leave it here.”

“Don’t tell me,” Alyssa responded. “Tell it to this.” She reached behind her back, and produced the Omega Gyroscope. She wasn’t holding it in her hand, though. It floated above, active and glowing.

“How do I have that power?” he questioned. “Why would it listen to me?”

“Because you’re the current owner of that.” She pointed at the cane.

Mateo looked down at it. “This? I just got this. It’s a coincidence, and I’m not keeping it.”

“You should know by now, Mateo,” Alyssa began. “There is no such thing as coincidence; not in our world. You don’t have to keep it. You just have to use it in this moment. Kyra and the other Keys are going to try to pull every inhabited world in this universe through a quantum array of portals. All you have to do is close the ones that are opening up in this reality.” She gently nudged the gyroscope towards him. It floated through the air, and settled itself over the Cassano Cane like it was home.

Mateo stared at them for a moment before looking up at Alyssa, and the Walton twins. Then he wrapped his hand around the cane, holding it there. Alyssa nodded at him, so he thrust the powerful objects towards the sky, and closed the portals.

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Microstory 1906: Thoughts On Mateo Daily

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 8, 2400

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Mateo is watching his wife pack the essentials, preparing to leave their most recent temporary home. He wishes that he could go with her, but it is not his place. Only members of the Shortlist are allowed, plus a mediator, whose identity has not been revealed to them. “But...you’ll be back in a second, right? I mean that literally, it should only take a second.”

“That’s not how it’s going to work. However long this meeting is—and the way I understand it, it’s going to be very long—we will be separated for that amount of time. To put it another way, if it takes us three days, I won’t see you for three days, and you won’t see me for three days as well.”

“It’s not going to take days, will it?” Mateo figures.

“It might,” Leona warns. “We have a lot to discuss, and people will take sides. Then they’ll probably switch sides.” She gives him a kiss on the cheek. “But like I said, we’ll remain simpatico, so even if you were to restart your time jumps, you won’t have to worry about losing me for a whole year. It’s definitely not going to take anywhere near that long. Here.” She hands him a tiny, thin ring. “Stick this under your wedding ring. It’s a locator device. When it’s time for me to return, I’ll be able to find you anywhere in the universe. I have one too. It’ll activate a hologram.”

“Were I you, Leona,” he says as he’s starting to install the device.

“Were I you.” Leona throws her bag over her shoulder, and waves at Angela and Marie. She steps through the door, and when it closes, so too does the portal.

Mateo opens it to check, and finds only a closet on the other side. “Simpatico,” he whispers, hoping that she’s right about that.

“Come on.” Angela takes him by the hand. “Let’s get something to eat.”

“I miss the food on the AOC. We need to go back to either the Third Rail, or to the one we left in the Fifth Division.”

“According to Danica,” Marie begins, “main sequence Earth is the safest place to be when the Reconvergence happens. They’ve apparently built up the strongest solar system defense compared to the others, who either rely on outdated technology, or on offensive measures.”

“I suppose I would rather be on the surface than up here,” Marie determines.

“Let us lunch in London,” Alyssa suggests in a mild, but bad, British accent.

“Alyssa?” Mateo questions. “When did you get here?”

“Just now. Come on, I’ll navigate. I know a lovely place to eat on Maiden Lane.”

“They still have restaurants on this planet that aren’t in an arcology?” Marie asks.

“Of course they do.” Alyssa takes her hand as well. “But just the one.”

The four of them jump to what was once the United Kingdom, and have a traditional British meal at the oldest still-standing restaurant in the world. An hour later, Mateo finishes the last bite of his vanilla crème brûlée, and tosses his napkin down on the table. “All right. You’ve treated us, now why are you here?”

“We’re friends,” Alyssa points out.

“Of course we are,” Marie confirms, “and while this has been a lovely afternoon, you’re obviously here for a reason, and we’re here,” she says, indicating the geography, “for a very specific reason.”

Alyssa nods, and wipes her lips. “We need you,” she admits.

“We told everyone that we were done. We just want to go off and be anonymous for a while,” Marie explains.

“That’s very...stupid of you,” Alyssa says, taking it in a far different direction than any of them expected. “You’re the most famous people in five realities. The main sequence has just learned of time travel, and they’re already linking your team to it. Half of The Parallel is run by one member of your team’s alternate self. The Third Rail will forever associate Leona Matic with the sudden influx of time-powered people. The Fourth Quadrant learns about you in their history books, though of course, that’s limited to Kansas City...for now. Finally, the Fifth Division has experienced profound sociopolitical changes thanks to your interference in their affairs. After the Reconvergence, that will only get worse, because they’ll compare notes. Your exploits are legendary.”

“We’ll find a planet that doesn’t care about any of that,” Angela offers, “somewhere in the Sixth Key.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Alyssa says. “I’ve recently learned that the Reconvergence is a little less inevitable than we once thought. Don’t mistake me, it’s happening. Four realities will be coming together, and the Keys are vital to preserving the lives of the inhabitants. But we can spare one of them from the issue entirely. Apparently, only four original realities have to be collapsed, and apparently, you get to choose.”

Mateo grimaces. “What? What do we have to do with any of that?”

“Not we,” Alyssa contends. “Just you. You have been chosen to...choose.”

“The same question remains. What do I have to do with it?”

Alyssa doesn’t respond for a moment. “I don’t know, but I think...” She trails off before returning to her thought. “I think that there’s a new threat out there. After Zeferino, after Erlendr, even after all of the Constances. I believe that someone wants you to make the decision simply so that you will have to live with it.”

Mateo sighs. “I should have known. I should have seen this coming. What am I meant to do with that information? No matter what I choose, I’m deciding the fate of the Reality Wars, which are supposedly still coming. Or are they?” Leona would know what to do in this situation, even if it meant that they would just leave it to other people to decide. Then again, maybe there really isn’t any choice at all. If they take one opponent from the war, can’t that only make things better? Or maybe it can’t. Maybe it doesn’t matter. “If I choose to save the Parallel, for instance, am I keeping them out of the fight, or is that what causes them to become so violent? Would I really be changing anything, or just walking down the road of fate without realizing it?”

“I can’t answer these questions,” Alyssa clarifies sadly. “I don’t know if I should even trust Dalton’s words anymore.”

“You’re still talking to that guy?” Angela asks her. “Danica says to ignore him.”

“He says to ignore Danica,” Alyssa responds.

“So wait,” Marie chimes in, “if no one outside of our team can be trusted, why should Mateo do anything? What happens if he doesn’t bother to choose?”

“If you don’t even try,” Alyssa begins, “all five realities will reconverge. If you do try, there’s a chance that it’s all bullshit, and won’t work, but there’s a chance that it’s not, and it does. I suppose I would rather give it a shot than do nothing at all.”

“The downside to giving it a shot,” Mateo reasons, “is something that no one at this table could ever hope to comprehend. As I said, the choice could be what precipitates the war somehow, and the only way to stop it would be to do the unexpected, and treat all realities equally.”

“You are thirty minutes away from Stonehenge,” Alyssa tells them, standing up. “It’s 13:15 right now, giving you three hours to decide whether to go there or not. Or you could make the choice right now, and I’ll teleport you there.”

“We can teleport ourselves now,” Marie contends.

“Even better. Be there by 16:15...or don’t. I’m just the messenger.” Alyssa pushes her chair back in, and throws a hundred dollar bill from the Third Rail on the table.

“They don’t use money anymore,” Marie reminds her.

“I always forget.” Alyssa teleports away without retrieving the bill.

“What are you going to do?” Angela asks Mateo.

He stands up too. “I’m going to talk to the only person I know who can make sense of all this.” He grabs the leftovers, and jumps alone to Lebanon, Kansas. He misses his Danica Matic.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 13, 2398

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Rescue is a strong word. The two people who Alyssa brought through the barrier between Kansas City and the rest of the Fourth Quadrant didn’t need to be rescued. There is nothing inherently problematic about living in the bubble. They did want to take that bubble down, though, so they sent two scientists to start tackling the issue from another angle. They had been studying the dimensional barrier for centuries, but always from within, so this was an opportunity to gain some insight that they couldn’t pass up. They might never get another. They will live on the ambassadorial ship that Great Britain sent there for communication, and stay until the job is complete, if that should ever happen. The team, meanwhile, has teleported to Stonehenge in the hope of finding a way back to their friends in the Third Rail.

Erlendr Preston has remained quiet. He hasn’t caused trouble, or tried to get in their heads. He’s just watching and waiting. The opportunity to free himself from their grasp is coming, and he has to be patient. He doesn’t even smirk as he watches these little ants struggle to figure out what’s going on here, and how they can get back to where they want.

“These four portals are the ones that didn’t work,” Mateo says, pointing them out. “My hypothesis is that they would lead to the other realities, if they were unlocked. How we might go about unlocking the, I wouldn’t know. If the Traversa bracelet doesn’t work, then I really don’t know. Maybe they need more power?”

“Go ahead and try,” Leona says to Alyssa.

“Not alone,” Alyssa replies. “You come with me. I don’t want to be over there alone if it works, but I can’t find a way back, and I don’t want you to be the one left alone with Erlendr.”

“That’s fair.” Leona takes Alyssa’s hand, and they attempt to walk through. They just end up on the other side of the rocks. They step back and forth a few times, but don’t get anywhere. Either these are just rocks or they don’t have the secret ingredient. They do the same for the other three mystery openings, but those don’t work either. “Mateo, are you getting the sense that they should work? Like with your hands?”

Mateo looks over at their audience. Of course, a team of scientists, military officers, and other experts have been stationed at this location since its power was first discovered, and have been trying to unlock its secrets the whole time. It hasn’t worked for anybody but Mateo with his unreliable temporal energy reserves. “I’m not getting the sense that they work, no. The other seven, on the other hand, are in perfect working condition. So is that.” He points up to the sky. In the Third Rail, the once-portal on Easter Island has solidified. Down here, it looks like there’s nothing special there. It appears to have disappeared, except it hasn’t. Mateo’s hands feel a draw towards it.

Leona narrows her eyes, and steps through the portal to Muskoka. Just before she disappears, they see her tilt her head funny. When she returns, she’s holding her hand several centimeters from her ear. “Yeah, that’s Huntsville, Ontario all right.”

“What’s wrong?”

“My earpiece,” Leona says. “It was squealing from feedback. Did yours do that?”

“Yeah, when we came through the barrier,” Alyssa confirms. “You didn’t expect that to happen?”

“I suppose it makes some sense. You were making a call from somewhere, and then you were suddenly at a different, distant somewhere. That’s bound to mess with the signal.” Leona keeps the earpiece at a safe distance as she tries to step through one of the mystery openings. She shakes her head. “Nothing. No feedback.”

Alyssa tries the same with another as she’s still the one wearing the bracelet, but doesn’t hear any squealing either, though she does when she steps through to El-Sheikh Zayed on her own.

Leona thinks on it a moment. “I watched a movie once where a man was running with a case of vials containing a deadly plague. The detective shot him dead, only to discover there to be seven vials in eight slots. What ensued was a pursuit of any lead that the investigators could find to figure out where the eighth vial was, and do you know where they found it?”

“Umm...in his stomach at the morgue, like a drug mule,” Mateo guesses.

She laughs. “No. Nowhere. The vial didn’t exist. There were seven total, but the case came with eight slots. They couldn’t find a case with seven. We’ve been assuming that all the openings should be portals. Maybe they’re not. Maybe they never were.”

“That’s fair,” Mateo decides. “What can we do then? How do we get back?”

“Well, you’re feeling something up there, aren’t ya?”

“I’m feeling like I don’t have wings,” Mateo returns.

Leona puts on her diplomacy face, and walks over to the research team. She spends a lot of time with them, no doubt negotiating for an aircraft of some kind, or maybe a crane capable of reaching that sky portal. Finally, she waves them over. Mateo takes Erlendr by the arm, and ushers him to the helicopter that he predicted. Knowing what these people are going to do next is almost too easy. He sits patiently in the craft as the pilot begins the preflight check, and teaches Leona what she needs to know to navigate it up and down. The Brits are probably never gonna get it back. At least the Matics are smart enough to recognize this. If Erlendr were in need of it, though, he wouldn’t have told the military that. He would have let the pilot take him home, and then just let her be trapped on the other side. He wouldn’t care about her. He doesn’t.

Erlendr turns out to be right, as per usual. Simply by having the Traversa Bracelet on her wrist, Alysa gets them through that sky portal, and over to Easter Island on Third Rail. What she doesn’t notice right away is that the bracelet falls apart, and off of her wrist. This is no surprise to him. Leona and Mateo talk a lot when they think that no one can hear them. They were particularly chatty while they were waiting for Alyssa to say goodbye to her sister. They were concerned that she wouldn’t be able to cross back over. Apparently, they didn’t come to this concern on their own. A friend of theirs from space did. Kestral thought that using the bracelet to transport their entire ship could destroy it, and she was probably right since this is just a regular helicopter. Ramses may be able to fix or reverse engineer it, though, so he gathers every hair he can find. He can use them as leverage. Again, he just needs to find the right opportunity.

When Leona lands to regroup, that’s when they discover the bracelet to be missing. There is no known way to return to the Fourth Quadrant, which from Erlendr’s perspective, is either a good thing, or a whatever thing. Having planned for this, everyone gets out to prepare to teleport. This bird can’t make it all the way to the mainland, so they’re just going to donate it to the Rapa Nui people. Erlendr would have instead crashed it in the ocean just for fun, but he’s not the one in charge...not yet.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 26, 2398

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Ever since the incident that sent Leona Delaney, Leona Reaver, Andile Mhlangu, Alt!Mateo Matic, and presumably Trina McIver to the main sequence, Leona Reaver’s body has been kept alive in the SD6 black site. The team asked the agency to  hook her up to life support, because they don’t know for sure what happens to a body whose consciousness has vacated it. Back in the main sequence, it’s legal to transfer a consciousness to another substrate, and then just leave the old body lying there. Bills were passed before it was possible, dictating the responsibility of whatever licensed individual or organization conducted the transfer. The old body must either be destroyed, or kept alive artificially. No legal experiments have been done to observe the consequences of leaving such an empty body as is. The assumption is that it would just die, even though certain involuntary bodily processes, including breathing and pumping blood can continue without true consciousness. To let that body die on its own is considered just as unethical as letting a real person die.

Alyssa insisted that Erlendr not be placed in chains. She doesn’t want to see her sister like that. She doesn’t want the memory of that to sit in her brain forever. It should be okay, Erlendr wants to make this transfer. He doesn’t want to look like a little girl any longer than he has to. Still, two guards walk at his flank while Alyssa holds him by the hand. It’s weird and uncomfortable, but necessary. They lead him into the room where Ramses is waiting next to Reaver’s bed. He has wrapped the Livewire around the Insulator of life. One end is attached to a helmet of his own invention, which he has placed around Reaver’s head. The helmet on the other end is sitting on the nightstand. A regular wire, which will provide power, is leading to the wall, but it has not been plugged in yet. He could probably attach a switch to the apparatus for easier control, but it’s safer just to keep electricity out of the equation until the last possible second.

“Okay,” Ramses says. “Everything’s ready, so everyone needs to leave the room.”

“We can’t do that, sir,” one of the SD6 guards replies.

“These helmets have never been tested,” Ramses explains. “Energy is going to be passing through the Livewire, which is not insulated. I’m not sure that it can be, and still function properly. There’s a chance that energy gets loose, and I don’t want to be responsible for what happens to anyone nearby. It’s better if I only put myself at risk.”

The guards exchange a look, and then leave the room.

“Go on,” Ramses says to Alyssa.

“Promise me that this will work,” she demands.

“I can’t do that. This is new territory. I had never even heard of the Livewire until recently. I can tell you that your sister is safe. Nothing’s going to happen to her body. Honestly, Erlendr is at the most risk here.”

“Gee, thanks,” Erlendr says.

Ramses ignores him. “Go on. You can watch from the observation window.”

Alyssa leaves, and closes the door behind her.

Unlike the cells down below, the observation room isn’t directly connected, so Ramses waits a minute to make sure that she has time to get there. Meanwhile, he has Erlendr sit in the chair next to Reaver’s bed. He sets the helmet upon Trina’s head, and makes sure that it’s secure. He didn’t include a chinstrap, but as long as Erlendr doesn’t move during the process, it should be fine. “Are you ready?”

“Absolutely,” Erlendr answers. “Get me out of here.”

“Okay.” Ramses gets on his knees, and picks up the power cable. He reaches for the socket, and just as he gets to it, he feels something on his head. He doesn’t manage to stop himself in time before power begins to run through the wires, and once it does, he can’t move at all. In a flash, the world goes dark.

Ramses is lying on his back when he comes to. “What happened?”

“Erlendr corrupted the procedure,” Alyssa explains. “I’m sorry. He’s in your body now. You’re in Leona’s.”

Groggy, Ramses flutters his eyes open, and looks down at himself. He can see the hospital gown that she was wearing. He looks over to the floor, where his own body is slumped against the wall. One of the guards is placing him in handcuffs, and pulling him into a more comfortable position. “How long has it been?”

“Not even a minute,” Alyssa responds. “You woke up a lot faster than the others did before.”

“I figured it would happen like that.” Ramses clear’s Reaver’s throat. “There’s no temporal factor.” He looks back down at Erlendr once he comes to. “What did you think you were going to accomplish? Now that we know it works, we’ll just switch.”

Erlendr puffs Ramses’ chest out, testing the tautness of the cuffs. “If there’s one thing I know about you, Rambo, it’s that you always have an exit strategy.” He pulls the cuffs under himself, and around his feet. The guard is back on him quickly, but it doesn’t really matter, because he doesn’t understand what to expect. Erlendr reaches up to the emergency teleporter strapped to his chest, and disappears.

“Call the building!” Ramses shouts to Alyssa. “He’s in my lab!”

“They took our phones!” Alyssa shouts back. “I don’t know the number by heart!” she cries when the guard tries to hand her his.

“Give it to me,” Ramses orders. He takes the phone, and dials Angela, hoping that she can make it upstairs in time to stop Erlendr before he does something crazy. “Angie, this is Ramses, trapped in Reaver’s body. Erlendr is in mine, and he’s there.”

He can hear her breathing heavily as she skips steps up the stairs. She opens the door, and starts to rush around, looking in every corner, and under every desk. “He’s gone. If he was ever here, he’s gone now. He probably took the fire escape.”

“Is anything missing?” Ramses asks her.

“I don’t know. I’m not familiar enough with all the stuff you have up—wait.”

“Wait, what?” Ramses asks.

“What did you have in the gray case where we found the LIR Map?”

“The LIR Map,” Ramses answers. There was no reason to keep it anywhere but where it came from.

“Oh. Then he took the LIR Map.”

“Crap. Okay. I’ll get there when I can. Thanks.” Ramses hangs up, and starts to get out of bed. It’s a little difficult, learning how to maneuver this new body, so he’s going to take it slow. “Clean the sheets, replace the life support systems, and put Trina in them,” he orders one of the men. “No one else comes in without my say-so.”

“Yes, sir.”

He looks to the other. “And you, I need to find someone in the city.”

“This site is designed to contain suspects, persons of interest, and prisoners. Such tools cannot be here. I’ll initiate transport to the field office.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 25, 2398

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By the time Mateo, Winona, Tarboda, and the cartographer, Oreata Kask, arrived at Stonehenge, it was full of people. In the main sequence, there could be billions of tourists who never had the pleasure of visiting the place, but most people on the islands in what is apparently the Fourth Quadrant have seen it by now. It’s often used for music festivals, food festivals, and all kinds of other festivals. For Sunday and Monday, and into this morning, it was booked for an exhibition dance party. Most of the fun took place a ways away from the stones, but party-goers were close enough that Mateo didn’t want to try anything there. He doesn’t want witnesses. While they were waiting, they helped Oreata in her office, organizing maps, and performing simple clerical duties. It was weird, seeing the world as almost all water. They had dinner both nights with the first friendly stranger they met, but slept in Oreata’s guest room.

Now that it’s midafternoon, they’re walking back to the prehistoric monument that spans realities. On the way, Mateo starts to think about what that means. Maybe they’re truly the same stones, which exist in multiple realities at once. Then again, much of Kansas City is the same here for no logical reason. This was all probably done on purpose by choosing ones. They seem to be responsible for everything.

“What are you thinking about?” Winona asks him.

“It’s hard to articulate,” Mateo replies. “My mind is a jumble of thoughts. I try to come up with explanations for the world around me, basing my presumptions on my exposure to more intelligent people, such as my wife. I fail a lot at that, and it takes me longer than a normal person to purge my system of all the nonsense.”

“That is a shockingly thoughtful answer, coming from someone who obviously understands himself well.”

“It’s harder for smart people to admit their faults. I’m more used to them.”

The conversation ends once they realize that they’ve made it to the henge. No one else is in sight, so this is a good time for them to conduct their experiments, whatever those may be. They don’t have immortality water full of temporal energy—and wouldn’t be able to find any without the planet’s normal geographical boundaries for reference—so there is only so much they can do. They can try to walk through a portal, and see if something happens. If nothing does, then that’s probably the end of the story.

The closer they get to the stones, the more the other three fall behind. They listened to Mateo’s stories, and it has them worried. Time travel sounds quite dangerous, and a portal can just as easily trap you on one side as the other. Sure, it might work, but if they don’t like what’s over there, what if they can’t cross back? Mateo nods softheartedly. “I’ll go on my own, assuming there is anywhere to go at all.”

Winona composes herself. “I’ll go with you. My training didn’t prepare me for this specifically, but I know how to survive.”

“Someone should stay behind either way,” Tarboda suggests. “If you never come back, we’re the only two people here who know what happened.”

“Unless you can get through to Kansas City,” Mateo begins. “If we don’t come back, tell whoever needs to hear that I have an idea. The people in the bubble might not be able to see through the barrier, but sunlight gets through somehow, so blot it out. If you can, tell them that Mateo Matic sent you. They all know me there.” He turns to Oreata. “Pick a number between one and eleven.”

Oreata shrugs. “Eleven.”

In his head, Mateo decided that the lone archway on one side of the circle is number one, and the rest go clockwise. “Number eleven it is. Follow me, Winnie.” He approaches the opening, and begins to feel different. The air is a little warmer around it. The differences only feel stronger the more he steps over the threshold. This is definitely something. It may not be what they want, but these are not just stones on stones on stones. There’s more resistance as he continues. It’s not impossible to walk through. It’s not even like something is trying to stop him. It feels like a protective membrane that needs a little bit more effort to breach. Breach he does. The pillars on either side of him start to move farther from each other, and change shape. He steps all the way through, and in a blink, he’s somewhere else, standing under a beautifully designed wooden archway. He only has to look around a little to know that this is Japan, or at least somewhere in Asia. It’s probably Kure, like Tarboda explained.

Winona comes in right behind him. “Whoa, you weren’t kidding.”

No one noticed their arrival, but there are plenty of people bustling about. He reaches out towards a man who looks less in a hurry than most. “Excuse me. English? You speak English?”

The man shakes his head.

Kind of a dumb question, but, “Japan?” He indicates the world around them.

“Japan,” he echoes. “Hai.” He’s confused, but humoring him.

“Kure?”

“Kure.”

“Uhh...China?” he asks, as he’s scanning the environment with his hand over his eyes, like he’s searching for it. “China?”

“China?” The man shakes his head like he’s never heard of it. He probably hasn’t.

“Arigato,” Mateo butchers the only word he knows, thanks to a certain pop song.

They walk back through the Japanese archway, and return to Stonehenge. As much time has passed for Tarboda and Oreata as for them, so no apparent time travel has occurred. They take turns, and try to walk through the other portals. Confident now in the dependability of the process, Tarboda accompanies him to Panama and El-Sheikh Zayed, and Oreata goes with to Easter Island and Muskoka District. Tarboda and Winona try to cross over to Machu Picchu on their own, but nothing happens. Upon trying it himself, Mateo learns that he has to be there, presumably because he’s time traveled so much more than all of them combined. One of the archways is blocked by a wall of glass, and some of them don’t go anywhere, even for Mateo. This is great, but they don’t really need to get to the rest of the Fourth Quadrant. They need to get back to the Third Rail, or ideally, the main sequence. Four of the openings feel like they should work, but do not, plus the one that’s probably KC.

“This changes everything,” Oreata says, awe-inspired, and hopeful for the future. “Thank you so much for helping us make these connections.”

“It may be a start, but I’m afraid I can’t spend the rest of my life ferrying people back and forth. What we need is a permanent solution from someone smarter.”

That was a cue to the universe. A shimmering portal opens in the sky, over the grassy area on the other side of the trees, where they first woke up in this reality. A helicopter descends from it, and lands before them. The door opens, and Leona hops out to meet the other four halfway. “Guys...where are we?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 23, 2398

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Neither Winona nor Tarboda have any clue what the United Kingdom is, or the North Atlantic Isles, or anything else that it might be called. If they ever called it something else, they don’t know that either, because it doesn’t even seem familiar when he tries to talk about a big land mass above France on the map. To them, there’s pretty much only ocean there. That’s when Mateo remembers that at least one little bit of England remained where it was meant to be, as its own tiny island. “Follow me.”

“Follow you where?” Tarboda questions, but he and Winona follow anyway.

“We’re gonna see if Bristol is here, or not. We’ll need to find some wheels, though, if they’re even a thing here.” They’re on a path, and that looks like a road in the middle distance, so vehicles existed here at some point. “We have yet to see a soul.”

“What are we expecting?” Winona asks.

“We’re expecting it to be missing,” Mateo answers. “We’re expecting nothing but water. That’s assuming I’m taking us in the right direction.”

They start walking northwest, which is about as accurate as Mateo can get with the orientation. They see the occasional farm building, and more roads, but no other signs of life. If the isles were sucked into a portal, the process may have been detrimental to complex life. If it happened a long enough time ago, maybe the plantlife came back on its own, Mateo doesn’t know how it works. Or maybe they’re just in a rural area, and nobody happens to be around. Finally, after a solid five-k, they find a small town, just waking up for the day.

“Morning!” a local calls out to them from across the street. He jogs over to them. “Are you nomads? I’ve already eaten, but my nanny will be making breakfast for my children soon. You’re welcome to join, and then stay with us for a night.”

“We’re not nomads,” Winona explains. “We’re just travelers. We’re looking for a town called Bristol.”

The stranger frowns, but not in a sad way. “Hmm. Never heard of it.” That’s a good sign. “The county cartographer would be able to help you. She’s heard of every street, every building, in the whole world.”

“Oh, wow. Tell me,” Mateo says, “how big is the world?”

He smiles. “Why, I’m not sure. She would know that too. If you’re asking how much land there is, though, I think it’s about 150 leagues wide, and 200 leagues long.”

“And there’s nothing beyond it?” Tarboda asks him.

“Beyond the ocean?” He laughs. “Not that I know of. Explorers used to search, but I think they gave up on it.” He narrows his eyes at them playfully. “Wait a second, you wouldn’t happen to be from beyond the ocean, would you?”

“What would happen to us if we were?” Winona asks.

“Well, we would celebrate, of course! New friends? We only ever get new friends when babies are born! They’re great, but they don’t say too much, and they’re always complaining.” He’s either talking in the more general sense of an isolated population, or there aren’t millions of people here, like there ought to be. “Anyway, I must get to work in Winterbourne Stoke in about an hour. The cartographer lives over there! Good luck!” He just heads down the street, not getting into a car, which suggests that he’s going to walk, and if he has to be there in an hour, it’s probably pretty far away. Hopefully they do have cars here somewhere. They would ask, but he’s busy, and he’s been so nice.

The cartographer’s house is across the street from a park, so that’s where they sit until a more appropriate hour. By the time they feel like it’s late enough, guessing by the sun, a fairly old woman comes out of the house. They approach her cautiously, but when she sees them, she smiles as joyfully as the man did. People are real friendly ‘round these here parts. She speaks before they can even explain why they’re there. “Nomads, no doubt! Please, accompany me to work. I would love to hear stories of your travels.”

Mateo decides to take a risk. “We’re from the world beyond the ocean.”

She frowns in a disbelieving way, and looks around for eavesdroppers. “Tell me where, and if you try to lie, I’ll know. I’m aware of all the islands.”

“We’re not from an island, we’re from Kansas City,” Mateo says.

She perks up. “Funny you don’t consider it an island. We’ve always suspected that the residents could not see outside the bubble. Tell me, how did you escape?”

“The bubble?” Mateo asks. While she’s not responding, he looks away to think. “You’ve seen this bubble? From the outside?”

“Not personally. I’ve seen video footage, taken from the scouting plane. How did you escape?” she repeats.

Mateo keeps thinking. “What other places have you seen? Easter Island, maybe?”

“Yes. That, plus Kure, Muskoka District, El-Sheikh Zayed, Panama, and Machu Picchu.”

“Have you heard of those places?” Mateo asks Winona.

“I’ve heard of Panama and Machu Picchu, of course, but that’s it,” she answers.

“Kure is in Japan,” Tarboda adds. “I flew missions there during World War VI.”

“And I’ve heard of Muskoka,” Mateo says. “It’s in Canada. Have you ever heard of Canada?” he asks the cartographer.

“Nope, are people nice there?” she asks.

“Very,” he replies. “Are all the others in bubbles?”

“None of the others is,” she says. “Only Kansas City, and we only called it that because we saw signs for Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri. We figured Kansas and Missouri were the subdivisions, and their conventions reverse the order.”

Mateo gets back into his own head. He had always wondered why they called The Fourth Quadrant its own reality when it just seemed to be a pocket dimension. Based on his interactions with the people living there, they believe that their universe is as small as the metropolitan area. He wonders how they explained the sun, because it’s only now that he knows that the sun he’s looking up at right now is the same one. There’s a whole world out there, and the key to reaching the farthest corners of it lies in that circle of stones to the southeast. He’s sure of it. “We have to go back.”

“We have to go back where?” Winona questions.

“Stonehenge. Those stone archways aren’t just well-placed rocks. They’re doorways. They’re portals.”

“I don’t understand,” the cartographer admits.

“That’s okay,” Mateo says. “I don’t understand it either. We just have to go back where we came from. I really appreciate the information, and thank you to your people for being so pleasant and accommodating.”

“Wait,” she says. “Information should go both ways.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Mateo begins. “If I’m right, there’s a way back to your world of origin, so you’re about to meet billions of new friends.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 11, 2398

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Eleven hours later, the away team was over eight thousand kilometers away. Ramses performed a water landing, then kept The Olimpia in boat mode so they could dock at the marina. A taksi took them over to Bishopsworth Resort, where they spent the night. The concierge was insistent on knowing what time they would be fully awake and dressed in the morning. They were already feeling jet lagged, so they chose 10:00, and when the clock chimed ten times, a crew of waiters burst into their room unannounced, and began to serve them their welcome breakfast. It was shocking, and annoying that no one thought to tell them what would be happening. Perhaps they just assumed everyone would know. They failed to do their research, or rather, Heath did. No matter, the food was good, and they needed to fuel up before the mission. When it was over, they opted to walk back to the marina, where they climbed into their boat, and headed Southeast.

Three hours later, they have made it to reform.belief.paint. They can see all around them forever, but there’s nothing but water, water, and more water. “Does anybody feel anything?” Marie asks. “Do we get the sense that we can teleport again?”

“Not in the least,” Ramses answers.

Apparently the one with the strongest connection to any source of temporal energy, Mateo shuts his eyes and tries to jump all the way back to the entrance to the boat, but he doesn’t move. “Nothing.”

“Hm,” Ramses says. “If anywhere in the world would have it, I would have thought here.”

“Why is that?” Mateo asks. “It’s not really any more special than the pyramids, or Easter Island.”

“Because most of the British Isles are just gone?” Marie says. “That’s weird. It sure as hell sounds like some kind of temporal anomaly. The Great Pyramid of Giza is just sitting there, where it’s supposed to be. We’re not even really sure why it’s special in the first place. But the fact that most of Great Britain doesn’t exist, but some parts of it do...that doesn’t make much sense.”

“True,” Mateo agrees.

“Well, we can’t have come all this way,” Marie begins, “and not at least try to find some clues. There’s only one logical next step.”

Ramses nods, and takes them down as far as this thing can go, but still don’t reach the bottom. If there’s any temporal energy tied to the location of Stonehenge, it’s under too much pressure. It looks like this little side mission is just a dead end. Leona drew a border on the virtual map, so they can maintain their proximity to their target. Mateo keeps trying to jump every once in a while, but nothing happens, not even a hint. The trio keeps thinking that maybe something will surprise them just before they give up, but they continue to sporadically utter defeatist phrases at each other—like “there’s nothing here” or “this is dumb”—yet still nothing changes.

It doesn’t even necessarily have to be time-related. They could resurface to find a band of pirates who want to take them hostage, or a shady government helicopter who has been following them around since the parking lot. But when they break the surface, they find it just as it was before. Water, water, and more water. “I think I’m gonna call it,” Marie declares. “This was a waste of time.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Ramses contends. “We had to come here. If we hadn’t, we would have wondered about it. Now we can check it off the list. That’s the whole point of these little missions. We only have to find one thing that helps us get home.”

Marie nods, appreciating the sentiment. “Let’s go back to the island. We might as well be able to tell Heath that we did the bike tour. He was pretty excited about the prospect of us doing some real vacationy stuff”

Mateo heads towards the stern as Ramses is turning the Olimpia around. Recessed in the walls of the two back cubbies are footholds that lead up to an emergency exit in the ceiling. He opens up the hatch, and climbs outside. He stands on the roof, and continues to look around, hoping to see an ominous dark shadow of a giant creature as it swims underneath them, or a brilliant green whirlpool, or maybe a beacon in the distance. That would be satisfying enough, to rescue a random castaway. But as before, he finds that there is nothing special about this place. It’s just the middle of the ocean on the most boring version of Earth yet. He’s not yet lost hope, because they still have many other locations to test, but it’s sure not a good start. Though, to be fair, it’s not really a start. Magic exists here; The Constant proves it. As Ramses was saying, they have to keep trying, and keep checking things off the list.

After they’re sufficiently far from awaited.passively.landings, he climbs back inside, and hangs out with the other two until they get back to the resort. There they stay for two more nights to finish out their reservation. Island culture is a little bizarre and confusing at times, but overall a lovely experience. Next stop, Munich.