The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 22, 2398

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No waiting, no getting sidetracked. They decide to get to Utah quickly, and start formulating a plan to get Alt!Mateo out of prison. Does he deserve to get out, or will he turn out to be a psychopathic killer? Hard to say, none of them knows him all that well, but they can’t just leave him there either. Most of the team has stayed in Kansas City. Leona and Ramses have a lab to finish, and Angela has her own thing going down on the first floor. Heath managed to convince Marie to stay out of it, for the sake of their marriage, so it’s just Mateo, Kivi, Alt!Leona, and Andile. They don’t know what they’re going to do, but they don’t want to waste time. It’s a two day trip from Kansas City to Provo, Utah, with a stop in the middle in Aurora, Colorado. They can’t take The Olimpia, because it’s still in need of some repair, which Ramses is doing during his free time. He never takes any actual free time. The workload will catch up with him later. It’s mid-afternoon now, and they have made it to their resting place, the McIver house. It looks a lot like their farmhouse in Kansas. Family aesthetics.

“Welcome, welcome,” Alyssa says sincerely, ushering them in.

The eldest boy, Moray begins to help them with their bags, deaf to the protests.

“Thank you for letting us stay with you again,” Mateo says graciously.

“Do you really have business out here,” Alyssa asks, “or are you just making sure we haven’t told anyone about all that stuff in Lebanon.”

“We really do have business. We just needed a place to stay for the night,” Alt!Leona explains. We’ll be out of your hair in the morning.”

“You can stay as long as you need, there’s plenty of room,” Alyssa promises.

“Where are you aunt and uncle?”

“Strawberry Cemetery,” Alyssa answers.

“Oh my God,” Mateo gasps, “what happened?”

“They died,” Alyssa says with a shrug. “It was about sixteen years ago.”

“That timeline doesn’t make much sense,” Kivi argues. “We gave you some money to help you make your way here to live with them much less than sixteen years ago.”

Alyssa shrugs again. “We lied. We were worried that you would try to take us in, or call social services.”

“So whose house is this?”

“It was theirs,” Alyssa claims. “I don’t know how they handle things in the future, where you’re from—”

“Not the future,” Mateo interrupts.

Alyssa just keeps going, “but for us, when the owner of property dies, it passes on to their next of kin, and they’re free to do whatever it is they want with it. We chose to ignore it until a couple of months ago. We have a secret mountain cabin down near Bryce that our grandparents left us too.”

Alt!Leona perks up when she hears that. “How much?”

“How much what?” Alyssa asks.

“How much for the secret cabin?”

“If you wanna use that too,” Alyssa begins, “you can do so for free. We’re not allowed to sell it. I signed a secret will when I was a child.”

“Who asked you to sign this will? Your grandparents?” Alt!Leona asks.

“Yeah,” Alyssa replies.

“Did your parents sign one too?”

“No, they didn’t even know about the cabin.”

“Someone knew a long time ago that we would be coming.” Alt!Leona realizes.

“What makes you say that?” Mateo asks. “Did a seer tell you to look for a mountain cabin, or something?”

“No, it’s not the cabin itself, but where it’s located,” Alt!Leona explains. “Bryce Canyon is where Maqsud Al-amin created the cosmic sextant.”

“How would you know that if you pretty much came straight here after the surgery?” Kivi asks.

“It wasn’t immediately after. I spent a year trying to gather every bit of evidence I could find, in case there was a way to bring him back,” Alt!Leona says, referring to a different Alt!Mateo. “What I found was a book called Hotspots.”

“A Look into Places of Great Power on Earth, and Beyond?” Alyssa asks.

“Where did you hear that title,” Alt!Leona asks her.

Alyssa goes to an old-timey cabinet thing that’s not built into the wall. She unlocks a drawer, and pulls out the book that they’re talking about.

“Where did you find that?” Mateo asks.

“Carlin found it in the cabin,” Alyssa responds. “It...literally doesn’t open.”

Alt!Leona reaches over, and opens it anyway. There must be a special lock on it that only allows time travelers to access it. “This can help us.”

“That’s not all we found,” little Trina exclaims. She takes a rock out of her pocket, and smiles as she shows it to them. It’s a homestone.

Microstory 579: Rangers Assure Public ‘Vampire Uprising’ Unlikely

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For the last few weeks, whispers of a “vampire revolt” have been spread across the country, and the world. For as long as history records it, vampires and humans have been living alongside each other with few issues. Amber humans began sporting their special abilities several centuries ago, while werewolves showed up in the 17th century. Other than a few territorial squabbles, this diversity has not created any significant level of violence or oppression. Not a single major war has been fought over race, even while certain extremist hate groups attempt to instigate them. As far as the general public is concerned, we all accept each other. Whether you survive on blood donations, or you can see in the dark, or you are descended from wolves, we’re all just people. Some believe, however, that one of the fringe factions has decided that enough is enough, and that it’s time to make a change to how society operates. In the central west of the Usonian state of Utah lies one of the sunniest regions in the world. With very little natural covering like trees and mountains, the Canary Desert sounds like the last place one would find a vampir. This is exactly why the Utah Militia, which is run exclusively by vampirs, decided to stake its claim there. With seemingly unlimited funds, the UM imports fresh blood from Idaho, the number one exporter of human blood, every day.  They are said to inject themselves with ten times the recommended human blood dosage for the average adult vampir. They train tirelessly when the sun is at its highest, they are built to live amongst humans in even the most dangerous of environments for their ilk, and their manifesto includes the line that “no human is safe”.

The UM started as a frustrated few, tired of relying on humans to provide for them the necessary dietary requirements for basic survival. It has since morphed into a horde of angry vampirs with a goal of human domination, believing them to be nothing more than walking bags of bloodfood. Conspiracy websites have begun disseminating claims that this hate group has shown uncomfortable signs of escalation, and that they may have found a way to infiltrate the mainstream. Conspiracists cite unverified evidence that the Utah Militia has purchased, or stolen, particularly suspicious products. A specially formulated skin dye has recently hit the market—as of now unapproved by the any nation’s health regulatory body—with the potential to hide any vampir’s natural purplish hue. Supposedly, copious amounts of the lotion has been shipped to a small town near Canary Desert. A product not yet on the market at all, that is still in the testing phases, has also gone missing, with trails reportedly leading to the UM. The as of yet unnamed clothing line, nicknamed The Blood Jacket, is a proprietary medical device researchers hope will one day counteract the effects of the infrared radiation to which vampirs are vulnerable. Though the Vampire Rangers generally provide assistance for other law enforcement agencies, they often take it upon themselves to investigate threats that come from vampirs. They have released an official statement, assuring the public that they are taking every lawful precaution when it comes to the Utah Militia, and also that they have found no evidence that any claim of their intentions to “take over the world” is true. Only time will tell, but if it turns out this group has access to this kind of technology, not even the human isolationists along the equator will be safe from their wrath.

Microstory 549: Bellevue Increasing Scope to Utah

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Back in the early 1990s—and earlier, for that matter—only a select few people know that there existed those with extraordinary abilities. At first, it was only family and friends, with the occasional passerby catching sight of something they weren’t supposed to. In the midst of the great revelation to the rest of the world, the organization responsible for bringing them together was still trying to figure out exactly what it was. They knew that they wanted to be involved with these powerful anomalies, and they knew that they wanted to be leaders in the advancement of science, but something felt missing. As it turns out, what they hadn’t quite found yet were law enforcement, and even public policy. Bellevue became an agency; one designed at first only to protect anomalies, and people from anomaly dangers. The thing about this, though, was that the scope was far too narrow. The number of Bellevue members far exceeded the number of threats, and intensity, of threats. And so, they gradually began increasing their scope. They offered their abilities, knowledge, and skills to other law enforcement organizations. They were working the Confederacy, national investigators, and local orderkeepers. Pretty soon, most of what they were dealing with had little to nothing to do with anomalies. They were simply a force for good, safety, and equality. This is the Bellevue we know today. Most living anomalies are still active members, technological advancement remains their number one priority, but most of the world accepts them as another group of trained professionals exercising authority over the populace. But this does not cover the entire world. There are still some regions that reject their authority, probably the most notable being Utah.

The country of Utah is one of only a handful of nations that are each geographically within the entirety of another. In this case, Utah is as completely surrounded by Usonia, and is just as large as—and in some cases, larger than—other Usonian states. In fact, Utah began as any other state, just one that was more heavily populated by religious followers of Amadesis. However, things have changed a great deal since then. A nuclear explosion here, a war there, total global nuclear disarmament, and the Amadesins were given control over the majority of Utah land. Historically speaking, the Amadesin Utah has been resistant to any interference or interaction with any other country, maintaining a policy of isolationism. Few visitors are ever allowed on Utah soil, and for the most part, that’s how non-Utahan like it. Bellevue has recently taken a stance against this, stating that they no longer accept the idea that anyone living on this planet has the right to ignore anyone else. In a press briefing this morning, they have officially increased their scope to Utah. This does not mean Utah accepts this declaration, but it does force its leadership’s hands, calling upon them to take some level of action in response. They have so far made no move, and it is unclear what they will choose to do, but experts discredit any theory that any act of violence could seriously threaten the strength, and the will, of the Bellevue authority.

Superpowers: The Hegemon (Part I)

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On the eighth day of the eighth month of 1927, the first nuclear weapon was detonated near Black Crook Peak in Utah, Usona. During that period in history, the nation of Amadesis was more outwardly violent. They had secured a relatively large island in the middle of the Pacific ocean, and used their insidious resources to develop an arms program rivaling that of any legitimate country at the time. Though the blast radius was comparatively small at that point, and significantly far from populated areas, there were several casualties. These people happened to be camping, hiking, or just generally enjoying nature within range of detonation.

The Amadesins insisted that they chose that spot, on that day, for the specific reason that no one would die. The Day of No Death was a well-known but mysterious phenomenon that occurred every year. There were a number of ways to subvert death on that day. Bullets will bounce off of bodies, or the guns will jam. An unseen force will slow down falls. Fires will not grow out of control. But for the most part, death is halted by more subtle means, simply by manipulating reality so that no one is ever put in danger. The Amadesins, however, were big on going against the natural order of life, always claiming that they know the right way to do things. Experts ended up concluding that the reason the Amadesins were able to get so close to causing death was because they essentially did not believe in truth.

The dozens of survivors of the blast were left mutated, and in some cases, horribly disfigured. They demanded the Usonan government charge the Amadesin Nation with crimes against humanity, and force them to pay reparations. Unfortunately, Usona was composed of a few dozen independently governed states, and the national government was still in its infancy. Even with the help of its closest allies, they were no match for the Amadesins, who had already proven themselves to be technologically and militaristically more advanced than anyone else. And so, the survivors garnered assistance from private corporations. They stormed the Amadesis island stronghold, and after days of fighting, managed to take it over.

In response to this, the Amadesin Nation attacked Utah with ground troops, and began an occupation. Following years of concentration camps, diplomatic negotiations, and war, boundaries were redrawn. Usona agreed to hand over most of Utah as long as they released the roughly 500,000 non-Amadesin citizens. The neighboring states each took a chunk out of the borders, and left the wastelands to the invaders. Furthermore, the private citizens who had taken control over the original island were left alone, and allowed to form their own nation there.

All of the survivors had been rendered infertile from the radiation, however, one of them was already pregnant at the time of the disaster. She died months later in childbirth, but her son survived. Frederick Stockton showed no signs of damage from the radiation. He appeared to be perfectly healthy. He was a beloved citizen of the new nation of Federama, and though he was not part of its origins, he rose in power quite quickly. By the time he was 20 years old, he had been elected as the head of state, and given the title of Governor. Because of his parents’ eventual deaths, and because of all the pain that the Amadesins—and many others, for that matter—had caused throughout history, he formulated a plan.

Step one of Governor Stockton’s plan was to convince Federama’s allies that he could disarm Pakistan of its nuclear weapons, something India in particular was very interested in doing. But this had to be done in secret, of course. It would be a foreign relations nightmare for any of the other nations to admit that they were involved in such subterfuge. And so Stockton agreed to keep them out of it, and used all of his own resources to achieve his goals.

But they could not just steal or disable the weapons and call it a day. Such an act would cause international tension, but not prevent Pakistan from simply restarting the program. They would also have to destroy all technical documents regarding the bombs, demolish every facility tailored to design or manufacture the bombs, and also kidnap every Pakistani loyalist who was educated and intelligent enough to engineer further bombs. This took some time, and the allies were not privy to the entirety of their plans for Pakistan, let alone the rest of the world.

The attack was executed on a single day after months of spying and gathering intelligence. An assault team stormed the royal palace and made it look like rebels were trying to overthrow the government. Leadership fell into lockdown, and the military was mobilized to key strategic locations, leaving Stockton’s true targets vulnerable. They raided the manufacturing plants, and stole the weapons. They burned the documents and kidnapped the engineers. Overall it was a successful mission. The teams returned having accomplished everything on their lists, and Stockton was satisfied. But this was the easy part. They had taken more from Pakistan than anyone knew they would. Kidnapping was certainly not part of the arrangement, and so there was terrible backlash from the allies. Though the island was on its own lockdown, they allowed The Confederacy to send in the Usonian Ambassador to open up a discussion. The Minister of Foreign Affairs accompanied him.

Ambassador Rakin shook Stockton’s hand and nodded politely. “Governor. This is my translator, Tai Guo. He comes with me even when I’m not speaking to someone in a different language.”

“Is he okay?” Stockton asked.

“He doesn’t know everything. But he is sympathetic to our cause.”

“What about the minister?”

“She is not, but she’s not going anywhere,” Rakin explained. “We might as well speak freely.”

“Then we will proceed, and keep her here.”

“Yes,” Rakin agreed. “But I want details on the mission. I want to make sure that we’ve cleaned Pakistan out completely, and that we learned from any mistakes so that they do not occur during Stage Two. We have reason to believe that China is already gearing up for retaliation.”

“What is this?” the Minister of Foreign Affairs asked, horrified. “What is happening? You’re in on this?”

“I’m terribly sorry, Minister Wilkers,” Rakin said to her sadly. “But you insisted on coming with, and now no one comes in or leaves this island unless they’re on a nuclear assignment.”

Wilkers instinctively looked for the exits, but she knew she was trapped. “You two planned this all along? Why? What is Stage Two? What are you going to do now?”

“Now?” Stockton began with sincerity. “Now for the hard part.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 19, 2043

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“Towering more than a kilometer in the air,” Harrison explained as he manipulated a holographic image, “the Black Crook Suspended Rehabilitation Facility—nicknamed The Platform—was designed to simulate society, but in a controlled environment. Inmates are referred to as residents and are encouraged to contribute to their little civilization in positive ways in order to prove that they can be safely assimilated back into the real world.”

“Black Crook?” Mateo asked. “That sounds racist...even for Utah.”

Harrison pulled the image up to show the mountain underneath the prison. “Black Crook is the name of the peak on which the facility was constructed.”

Leona was all kinds of professional. “Is it a kilometer above the peak, or a kilometer above sea level?”

“Above the peak,” Harrison answered. “It’s almost four kilometers up.” He continued, “a ten-meter wall that curves inward stretches across the entire perimeter. Assuming a resident could climb to the top of it, he would have nowhere to go. An automated defense system keeps track of all air traffic within two kilometers, and will shoot anything that comes within a kilometer with very little warning.”

“What does it matter? The whole state should be a no-fly zone,” Mateo spat.

“They can’t climb down?” Leona asked.

“The platform extends horizontally beyond the carbon nanotubes that keep it aloft. One would have to defy gravity to move across the bottom of the platform for several meters before reaching anything that would take him vertically. But again, automated defenses. Anything passes beyond the wall is shot without warning.”

“Even if you did get down,” Mateo said, “you’d still be in Utah.”

“How many turrets?”

“Three on each side.”

She expertly operated the hologram and looked for flaws. “Would all the turrets react to an escape? Or just the closest ones?”

Harrison sifted through the data. “For individuals? Just the closest ones. If you try to come in with a large enough aircraft, then all hell breaks loose. What are you thinking?”

“The corners,” she said. “You use one of the corners as your point of egress, and you only have two turrets to contend with. Disable those and you can leave.” She skimmed some of the data regarding the turrets. “Do we have details on these? I need specifications if we’re going to take them out.”

Harrison kind of laughed and shook his head. “No, these are just the main turrets. There’s an entire system along the pillars, and all defenses will interpret a parachute as a small aircraft.”

“What about the center?” Leona was not giving up. “What would the turrets do for a parachute in the center of the platform?”

Harrison looked through more data. “Survey says...it would let you onto the platform, but alert the humans. They care less about you getting in, and more about you getting out. Besides, that’s how the prison resupplies; with airdrops. They let pretty much anything but weapons in. The better the platform resembles a city, the closer they are to reaching their goals.”

“But what would we do once we got there?” Mateo pressed her. “Harrison said that parachutes are big enough to get us shot down. We would probably become prisoners.”

“Residents,” Harrison reminded them.

Leona showed her most evil smile. “We’re going to parachute in.” She shook her head deliberately and dramatically. “But we’re not parachuting out.”

Harrison spent the rest of the day retrieving supplies for them at the behest of Leona. Her plan relied on them doing this at the very end of their night. Meanwhile, she studied the prison layouts, tinkered with the holographic images, and designed a virtual world. She and Mateo then immersed themselves in a crude but effective simulation of their escape plan. They tried multiple routes and tactics, modifying the plan to account for hiccups and obstacles.

When they set out late at night, Harrison came up with a major problem that their simulations could not account for, “humans.”

“What about them?”

“Your plan assumes that Horace Reaver will still be at this facility a year from now. But you are meddling in their affairs this year. That gives them 365 days to move him somewhere else, and they will probably do that, just to be safe.”

Leona considered this. “Then we leave him out of it this year.”

“How do we do that? We need him ready to make the jump,” Mateo pointed out.

“Well, he relives days, right? So he already knows what’s going to happen. We’ll make a ruckus. He’ll know that it’s us, but we’ll be sure to avoid him. Then you, Mateo, will plan on finding him next year and pull him to the egress point. But he’ll already know where it is then too. For once, both our pattern and his give us an advantage that no one else has.”

“Reaver is by far the most powerful man there,” Harrison commented. “Even if you avoid him, they will suspect him.”

“That’s true,” Leona said, having no way around it.

“So we find a pawn,” Mateo piped up. “Find the next guy who might have the resources to pull this off. I’ll grab him and convince him that I’ve been sent to get him out. Come midnight, both he and the authorities will think he’s the one involved.”

“That’s kind of dark, Mateo.”

“This is your plan, Leona. And according to your friend Doug—whatever his name was—we have no choice but to do this.”

She exhaled and relented. “Harrison, pull up a list of inmates, I mean residents, and find me a believable scapegoat.”

Harrison did as he was told, despite his reservations. Then they were at their destination, miles in the air. Mateo oscillated between breathing deeply and breathing erratically. He felt a pit in his stomach. This was not the most dangerous thing he had ever experienced, but it was the only one he was going to do on purpose. What made things worse was why they were attempting it. After all Reaver had done, he was going to get his way once more.

Leona reached over and gave him a hug. “I know you don’t want to do this. I don’t either. And I promise, I’ll explain everything. Those words he said to me in the visitors’ room did mean something. They were a code. And there really isn’t any way for him to know them unless I gave them to him. Some part of me trusts him, and I have to trust that part.”

“I get it. I trust all of your parts.”

“Were I you, I would love me too, Mateo.”

“Were I you,” he repeated.

“Magic hour,” Harrison called back. “Time to make the drop!”

Leona turned around and let Mateo strap her back to his chest, and then she opened the hatch. “I’ll tell you when to pull!”

“Okay!” he yelled. And then they slipped out.

The fall was even scarier than when they shot across the sky from space. He hadn’t realized just how much Mirage had slowed them down that night. Upon his love’s command, he pulled the string and let the parachute loose. As they were drifting to their landing spot, an alarm rang out, but it only lasted a few seconds. It was just to let the few guards know that something was out of place. The two quickly disconnected from each other. Leona was about to run off to her mission, but he seized her and pulled her close so that he could give her one last kiss. “Be careful.”

“You too,” she replied. “Use your map. It’ll tell you where our patsy lives.”

“Let’s call him our pledge.”

“Very well.” She checked her watch and ran off to the platform wall.

Mateo ran the other way to look for a man named Gilbert Boyce. He wasn’t quite as rich as Reaver, but he had his friends on the outside, and it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that someone would stage an escape for him. He was already up and awake from the alarms, and standing on his patio. “Mister Boyce. Time to leave!”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’ve been hired to break you out.”

“By whom?”

“I was not given a name. Just clean cash. Let’s go.” He looked at his watch. “We only have ten minutes to get to the far wall.”

Gilbert made no further arguments, jumping down the steps and managing to run faster than his supposed rescuer. They had to zig and zag and hide behind buildings, so that not too many people noticed them, but enough to get the rumors churning.

About halfway there, they ran into Reaver. “What are you doing?” he asked, clearly still not used to being out of control.

“Now be a good boy,” Mateo said to him in a psychopathic voice. “And we might come for you next year.”

Reaver seemed to get the message, and moved off in another direction.

“Are you really going to break him out too?” Gilbert asked.

Mateo scoffed. “Fat chance. That man ruined my mother’s life. I was just trying to get rid of him,” he lied.

They reached Leona who was carefully staring at her watch. “It’s almost time.” She breathed in and out to prepare herself.”

“Are you sure this is the right spot?”

“The wind wants me here.”

“And you’re sure the turrets will shoot your parachute, and not you?”

“No, not really.”

“Le-exi!” Mateo scolded, just about forgetting to use fake names, but catching himself in time.

Her watch’s alarm went off. “Time to go.” She pulled her string and released the parachute. It violently pulled her up towards the wall. The turrets spun around and began to shoot the parachute, but not before she had gotten as high as she needed to.

Using the oldest trick in the book, Mateo pointed behind them. What’s over there?”

Gilbert fell for it and looked for trouble long enough to give Mateo and Leona a chance to jump into the future. But just before, Leona released her parachute and left it in the past. Now in 2044, she fell down about a meter, and caught herself on the curved wall. Gilbert was gone and Reaver was standing in his place. The first part had worked. Now for the hard part.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 18, 2042

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Harrison was assigned to remain with Mateo and Leona indefinitely, which he seemed to have no problem with. He gave the impression that he had grown as impatient with Ulinthra as they had just from five minutes of speaking with her. Last year, he interfaced with the aircraft, tinted the windows, and flew them to Iceland. They spent the rest of the day there as tourists. Harrison remained firmly in position inside of a secret cave for the entire year until they returned and woke from sleep.

“That was a nice vacation,” Mateo said.

“Harrison. Status report.”

“The whereabouts of your family is currently unknown. They have theoretically managed to evade detection for years now. Ulinthra has evidently suffered from a crisis of conscience, and is currently spinning off her subsidiaries, liquidating her assets, and donating vast amounts of money to charity. Your conversation seems to have made a huge impact on her perspective.”

“I didn’t expect her to make such radical moves,” Mateo said honestly. “She barely knows us. Why does she care what we think?”

“I believe you severely underestimate the level of respect you hold over the salmon community,” Harrison said.

“What? I haven’t done anything. Other salmon are running around pulling people out of burning buildings, shaping the future, fixing the past. I’m just...occasionally around.”

Harrison laughed. “People have been telling stories about you two. Remember that others have seen the future and come back. You may have done nothing yet...but you will. And most would argue that donating your kidney to someone you had only known for a couple of weeks was admirable.”

“This is true,” Leona said, knowing that Mateo had no way of responding without losing his humility.

“All right,” Mateo said, anxious to change the subject. “Let’s get to the nitty-gritty. Where’s Reaver? And what might he do next to try and kill us?”

“I doubt that he would be able to do anything from where he is.”

“Is he dead?” Leona asked, with a tad bit more enthusiasm than a well-adjusted person should show.

“No. But he has been incarcerated. He was found guilty on a number of counts after the cascade event years ago. He was left in house arrest, and his movements were severely restricted, but he violated the terms when he ran off to visit Daria.”

“That’s an interesting development.”

“He has been secretly placed in a private maximum security prison in—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Utah,” Harrison finished.

“He said it.”

“We have been monitoring him, but the majority of people are unaware that he is there. We suspect even that other inmates do not know he’s there. Our intel suggests that he has been in solitary confinement this entire time.”

Reaver was in prison, and presumably unable to communicate with his people, but there was no way of knowing whether he had formed relationships with the prison guards. He could be out in a few months, and be ready to cause more trouble for them tomorrow. This was their chance. They knew where he was, they had transportation, and they were as safe from his wrath as they were ever going to get. They had to act. “Take us to Utah.”

“Mateo, no!” Leona cried.

“Yes!”

“I’m not going to take you to the man who has made it his life’s mission to kill you and my boss,” Harrison responded, like it was the dumbest thing he had ever heard.

“We command you to take us.”

“I don’t have to do what you say. I’m an employee; not a slave. If my boss told me to do something I didn’t want to do, I would likely lose my job, but I wouldn’t be bound to it.”

“Robots don’t have to do what their told?”

“I’m not a robot. Where are you getting this? Movies? I’m an artificial intelligence. Big difference.”

“Then we ask you to take us to Utah, Leona said.

“I thought you didn’t want to go,” Mateo said to her.

“Yeah, remind me of that again, and see if you get your way.”

“I’m not going to take you to Utah. That’s final!” Harrison yelled.

Before landing in Utah, Harrison multitasked and coordinated with Reaver loyalists, prison officials, and shady underground people. They were able to get ten minutes alone with him, but they had to go in practically naked and undergo invasive cavity searches so that there was no way for them to sneak anything to him.

They sat at the table across from their enemy, Horace Reaver. He looked at Mateo with disgust, and Leona with bedroom eyes. “Stop looking at her like that.”

“Five more minutes, mom.”

“Stop it!” Leona shouted.

He immediately complied, as if her wish was his command.

Realizing that he was more prone to listening to her than to Mateo, Leona took control of the conversation. “What is your problem with us?”

“I have no problem with you,” he corrected. “My problem is with him.”

“Are you going to keep trying to kill us? We could keep avoiding you and wait you out until you die.” She pretended to look at a watch on her wrist. “It’ll take us a few weeks, but that will be hell for you. For you, it’s twice as long as it is for normal people, and they go crazy waiting for us to come back.”

“I’m not trying to kill you,” he corrected her again. “I’m trying to kill him.”

“I’ve been there. I was certainly in danger as well.”

“When?”

“He brought back a virus from the future that killed his mother, and could have killed me. That was your fault.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about. Are you referring to the 2025 pathogen? That was Mateo?” He snorted and looked over to him. “You idiot.”

“You kidnapped my brother and his mother so that you could lure us to your plane and blow us up, or something.”

“Yeah, or something. You didn’t get on the plane, so how would you know what I was intending to do with you?”

“I could have been in the house when your sleeper cell, Mirage tried to kill him.”

“I programmed that machine to go after him when the rest of the house was empty. You were never in danger.”

“The Kessler cascade! You blew up a space probe so that we would be bombarded by debris, and killed while trying to return to Earth.”

Reaver looked offended. “Hey, that really was an accident, which is why I wasn’t immediately sent to prison. I was just trying to find you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Keyword in space probe is probe,” he over enunciated. “I wasn’t trying hurt you. I just knew that you were somewhere in space, and I was trying to get to you. The cascade was an accident. I promise.”

“The volcano,” Mateo interjected.

“The what?”

“He means the forest fire,” Leona clarified.

“That legit was not me. Sure, I sent my people to pick you up after it, but I didn’t start the fire. Again, I’ve only ever wanted to hurt him. A fire would have been stupid, because I couldn’t guarantee your safety.”

“Why would you care about my safety? Wouldn’t I just be a casualty?”

Reaver paused for half a moment. “That’s all I’m saying. I’ll tell you more next year.” He pretended to look at a watch on his wrist. “Or the year after that, depending on how long it takes you to get me out of here.”

They howled with laughter. “We shall do no such thing.”

“I know you heard me the other day when I told Daria about the the choosing ones. I really do know how to stop them. I know who they are, and I know where they are. Get me out, and we’ll stop this together.”

“Why do some people call them the powers that be, but others the choosing ones?”

“Potato, tomato,” Reaver said simply.

“This is crap. Even if we wanted to, we don’t know how to break people out of prison. We’re a couple of kids from Kansas.”

“You’re exactly who I need. You came in the back way, but this building, and much of the world, is loaded with facial recognition scanners. Nearly the whole population has been scanned into a database or two, many against their will. Except for you. You’re dead. You’re the only ones who can sneak in here without alarms.”

“That’s dumb. They still have guards. They’ll see people they don’t know, and sound the alarms manually.”

“Not likely. It’s mostly automated. Very few humans work here. Look, here’s the deal. My team will provide you with whatever resources you need, and support you however they can. But you have to do this. You’ve already agreed to it. Yesterday. We’ve already had this conversation. You just don’t remember because Ulinthra and I are the only ones who go back and repeat our days. I’m just rehashing our conversation from before. Besides, it’s not like it would be your first prison break.”

“There’s no way for us to know whether you’re telling the truth about us having agreed to this in an alternate timeline,” Leona pointed out.

“There is. Dougnanimous Brintantalus.” He smiled like a creeper. “How would I know that?”

Leona was noticeably upset. “We have to do this, Mateo.”

“What? What the hell is Dougblagablah?”

“We have no choice.”

“I’m not going to break Horace Reaver out of prison. That’s final!” Mateo proclaimed.

At 11:00 PM local time, Mateo and Leona jumped back into the timestream, intending on meeting with Reaver’s loyalists to once more go over the plan to break him out of prison. They learned, however, that he had been moved to a new prison; one ominously called The Platform.

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