Microstory 2626: The Horse Returned Home, Bringing Several Wild Mares

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August 31, 2526. Thank God for small miracles, the mining facility is fully intact, as is the mass driver itself. They used a lot of power getting there, and they didn’t start out at 100%, so they charge from the local mini-grid. Fortunately, it goes quickly as the geothermal generators are operating at peak performance these days. They spend their downtime getting to know each other better, Breanna and Cash have sex a couple of times, and Sorel enjoys breaks in a virtual oasis. They also prepare for departure, making sure they understand the procedures. The mass driver can fire them out at incredible speeds, including incredibly deadly speeds, so they have to be extra cautious. The pod is equipped with parachutes, but in case those fail, the rover actually has its own too, so they will be able to blow the bolts on the pod midair if they have to.

The world is falling apart, and maybe someone is to blame for that, but ignoring that one little apocalyptic eventuality, technology is fairly reliable, built with redundancies, contingencies, and redundancies. They fire themselves over the mountains and the chasm, and at the exact right time, the chutes deploy. They gently descend to the ground, landing only a few kilometers from the industrial vactrain depot. This is where the refined materials are loaded, and dispatched to the various domes in the northern polar region. Sorel looks at the map and finds their target. “This one.” He points to another spot. “If your hang-gliding friends landed somewhere around here, this is the dome they would have encountered first. But. It’s in a canyon, so there’s a chance they completely missed it, and just kept walking. If you know they don’t have a map, skipping it would be easy to do.”

“Still,” Breanna begins, “it’s the most logical place to start. Would you mind? They have passenger pods here too, so if you would rather go somewhere else, we can part ways.”

He shakes his head. “If this canyon dome is populated, they will be in just as much need of escaping. They could make for great customers. In fact, maybe better, because they’re less safe that close to the chasm than the more northern communities. They might be more willing to leave.”

“Okay, then we go there together,” Cash agrees.

Sorel drives the rover into the vactrain pod, and sends a message to the network AI, stating that they are ready to go. The tube closes up, and the pod slides away. Of course, the trip is a lot shorter than the one that brought them there, but it’s still not instantaneous, so the girls have sex again while Sorel occupies himself in his simulation. Once they finally arrive, the AI announces that it will not be able to let them out exactly at their destination. There is something wrong, and it has been sealed up. Instead, it takes them back up to the surface, and drops them off at the secondary depot, which leads to the outside. It’s farther away, and they will have to make their way down into the canyon from there, but it wouldn’t be so bad if not for the actual reason they have to do that. The main entrance was blocked because the dome....has been destroyed. Well, it has not necessarily been destroyed, but it’s not safe either.

“Holy shit,” Cash says as they are staring over the edge. The shape of the dome is still there, and in fact, may remain intact underneath, but it’s unclear how livable the environment would be inside of it. Molten lava has breached the canyon, some of it already having hardened into rock as it cooled. If the residents are still down there, there’s not likely a way for them to get out. The database doesn’t say a thing about who they are, or how self-sufficient they designed their community. They might be able to survive for millennia, or they need to be rescued today. Whatever the answer, the three of them are not equipped to help. Really, the only question on Breanna and Cash’s minds right now is whether their friends were there when it happened.

“Notus, Calypso, can you hear me?” Breanna asks into her comms. “Shimizu, anyone. Can anyone hear me? Anyone at all.”

Sorel looks down the way. “That hab. It’s for gondola ingress and egress. There might be survivors in there; perhaps your friends, or someone who saw them.”

They walk down there, and it immediately doesn’t look good when they round the corner. The entrance is wide open, exposing the habitat to the hostile outside environment. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any answers, though. They shut the door behind them and repressurize, then get a look around. Cash heads right for the logs. There aren’t any recorded reports, but there is still security footage. She feeds it into the auto-summarization software, and grabs the highlights. They watch when the lava breaches through the walls of the canyon, and heads for the dome. Shortly thereafter, the interior habitat cameras show the lone operator pull his helmet on, and bug out. It doesn’t even look like he warns the residents below what was happening. He just abandoned them. If they were using holographic imagery for their scenery, they might not have seen the lava, and if they didn’t think to include the right sensors—which would, admittedly, be quite odd—they might have sat there in ignorance for hours, or maybe even the last couple of days. They might still not know that they’ve become trapped. There’s no evidence that they tried anything to save themselves.

Cash rolls it back a little. Earlier that day, seven survivors appeared from behind a small mountain. “Oh, it’s gotta be them,” she notes. The operator came out of the habitat, and stood just outside the entrance, using hand gestures, likely talking to their friends. There’s no audio, so they can’t know exactly what he was saying, but the group turned around, and he went back inside alone. He obviously denied them entry, which was a dick move, but it possibly saved their lives.

Breanna lets out a sigh of relief. “So, they didn’t get in. Where did they go?”

“It looks like they went back where they came,” Cash replies, “but the cameras don’t see very far. They could have looped around to the other side of the canyon, or backtracked to the chasm.”

“Why would they do that?” Breanna questions. “There’s nothing for them there.”

“There might be,” Sorel says. He has the map up again as a hologram. “From where you lost them, they went northeast to get here. This area is impassable. It has all sorts of sharp rocks and hidden crevices; very hard to navigate, especially on foot. If they tried to head west, they would have hit that stone forest, and might have ended up all the way back where they came from before finding the trail that goes northwest, around the other side of the forest. Now, they could have skipped all of that if they had instead come towards this gondola station, and gone around the canyon’s east side, but it looks like that asshole didn’t direct them that way.”

“Sorel. We have to go look for them. Can you stay with us just a little bit longer?” Breanna begs.

“I would be happy to. Let’s get back in the rover.”

Microstory 2619: There Are Those Who Know That There is an Easier Way to Escape

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August 24, 2526. The majority of the population of Proxima Doma live in domes. The word doma does not mean dome, so that is not why they called it that, but they do share a linguistic history. The connection is not random, they are still related. The purpose of the colony has always been to serve as a second home for Earthans. Until recently, with the advent of Castlebourne, it was the most heavily populated human settlement outside of the Sol system. They don’t count Glisnia either, because it was reserved predominantly for posthumans, which can explode in population at the whims of its individuals. One person can make a million copies of itself, or child assets, in a matter of days. But that’s not what Doma is about. It’s mostly about the humans. They’re typically transhumanistic themselves, and even virtually immortal, but they still require protection from the outside. And one way to do that is to build in lava tubes.

Lava tubes are very popular on Luna and Mars. That’s because they work very well there, and not so well on Proxima Doma. But they are not impossible, and there are precisely two of them. One is under construction, but the other is the home to hundreds of thousands of people. Well, it used to be. They have since abandoned their precious tube in the evacuation, but unlike most, they didn’t do it by running towards the nearest pole. They escaped using their minds.

“You don’t think they’re coming back?” the upload tech asks.

The lookout looks down at her friend. “They found the nearest spine. I think they’re gonna keep trying to head for the northern pole.”

“On foot?” he asks.

“Eh, doubtful. The reports said those vactrains are non-operational, but there are other means of traveling along the spines and domes, which are harder to break.”

“Should we keep waiting, in case there are other survivors who might be heading our way?”

The lookout turns the periscope southwards. “It is not looking good. If anyone is still alive in that direction, they’re about not to be, either because they’re stubborn or stupid.”

“Or stuck or trapped or confused, or a myriad of other reasons,” the tech offers.

“Regardless,” the lookout begins, “those are probably the last stragglers we’re gonna see. They were looking right at us. They probably can’t tell what we are. From that distance, with only their helmet scopes, we probably just look like generic ninety-degree angles. I think we should go.”

The last remaining herder walks into the room. “What’s the word?”

“We saw a couple of survivors on the surface,” the upload tech relays. “It looks like they were checking us out, but they decided to walk back towards the domes.”

“On foot?” the herder questions.

“That’s what I said.”

The lookout hops off of her perch a few steps at a time. “Did you find anyone during your sweep? What happened to your clothes?”

“Uh, it’s about 95 degrees celsius in some parts out there. I see you’re not exactly wearing a parka either, and this chamber still has working climate control. And no, all clear in my sector. Did any of the other herders find anyone?”

“A few,” the tech answers. “They’re all gone now, however, including the other herders. No one was so stubborn that they absolutely refused. If you didn’t find anyone, we are the last three people in Owl Town.” Owl Town isn’t the official name of the lava tube city, but it’s what everyone calls it. Some tried to get a lava theme going, but most leaned into the tubular aspect. If there had been any other lava tubes being colonized on this planet at the time, they probably wouldn’t have made any sort of connection.

“So, is it time?” the herder presses.

“I would prefer to wait for the next update from the other settlements that are evacuating the same way we are,” the tech explains. “It would be cool if we were the last everywhere; at least out of those who aren’t scrambling for the poles, or already there.”

“Are they all going to the same place?” the herder asks.

“Mostly, since it’s the most happenin’ spot right now,” the tech reports, “but some are going closer, like VR. I can send you there, if you want, or anywhere else with a quantum terminal.” His tablet beeps. “Oh, speaking of which.”

The lookout shakes her head. “No, it’s like you were saying, it’s a popular destination, and it’s that way for a reason. I was considering moving there before all this happened, but I’m glad I stayed to see it end. I mean...sorry, I’m not glad it’s ending, but if it has to end, at least I was here. I was one of the first colonists, and it sounds like I’ll be one of the last.”

The upload tech is looking over the update, and shaking his own head. “I wouldn’t be so sure. “Most of the people who are wanting to transfer have done it already. They’re just waiting on bandwidth. The polar residents, and the refugees that they’re letting in, are showing no intention of leaving like us. Reports indicate that Bungula is refusing to send their elevator platform. Even if some people do want to evacuate, there’s nowhere to go.”

“Why aren’t they doing what we’re doing?” the herder questions, flabbergasted. “I know some people aren’t digitized, but that still leaves a huge number of people who are, but are staying anyway? Do they think Proxima Doma will become habitable again?”

“There’s no reason to think that it won’t be,” the lookout begins. “Think about it, this planet has been here for billions of years, and we’ve been here for a few hundred. We just happened to be on it when it’s being completely destroyed forever? I don’t buy it. This is a cycle. It might be a very long cycle, but if we found a temporal niche to survive in, someone will find one again at a later date. Maybe people shouldn’t leave, or maybe they should plan on returning. That doesn’t sound crazy or dumb to me.”

“So, why aren’t you choosing to stay?” the tech questions.

“Because where we’re going sounds like more fun.”

“Agreed,” the herder says. “Best get on with it. I’ll go first.”

She and the lookout sit down next to each other. “I wanna try that Underbelly dome first,” the latter says as her final words. “See you on the other side in an hour.” She closes her eyes and lets the upload tech send her and the herder to Castlebourne.

The tech sighs. “No...you won’t.” He hits RECORD on his workstation cam. “This is Sorel Arts of Vulcan’s Hollow. If you find this message, I urge you to stop trying to escape to the poles. Nowhere is safe on Proxima Doma. Leave. Just leave. Transmit your consciousness to another world. It is the only logical choice. I’m only staying to convince others to do the same. Sorel Arts...signing off. Vulcan’s Hollow is closed for good.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 10, 2431

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Once everyone was back in the ship, Ramses plotted a course to Ex-42, and launched. As they were standing there, Mateo looked over at Vitalie!324, who seemed to be deep in thought. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, or even what she was feeling, since she wasn’t part of the empathy circle, but he took a guess. “We’re going the wrong way.”

Ramses was taken aback. “Leona, could you check my math?”

“No, your math is fine,” Mateo started to clarify. “I mean, I don’t know that it is, but it always has been. I just mean, I think we’re going to the wrong place. How many populated planets did you say were on the way to Ex-42?”

“Thirty-one,” Leona reminded him.

“That’s thirty-one planets who could all do with a little extra...vitality.”

Vitalie hadn’t been paying that much attention, but she recognized the play on her name. “Wait, what? No, you don’t have to stop at all those other worlds on my account. Let’s go find your bad guy.”

“Hm,” Leona said. “Thirty-one worlds means an extra seven days on our mission. That’s not that big a deal.”

“Well, who knows what you’re gonna run into on the intervening planets?” Vitalie argued. “One of them might end up stopping you from being able to reach it. No, the safest course of action is to go straight there.” She shoved her open hand forwards from her nose.

“It could be a trap,” Angela reasoned. “Maybe that’s not where the archive is at all. Maybe it’s an inescapable prison planet. Going to the other worlds is strategically logical. We can’t lose the information that we have. We can only gain more.”

“That’s true,” Leona agreed. “So we wouldn’t be going just for the other versions of you, Vita. There are other reasons to make stops. Again, it’s a week out of the way.”

“It’s seven years,” Vitalie argued. “I think you lot tend to forget that. Everyone else moves on without you, and a lot can happen in that extra time. Ex-42 might be destroyed by the time we make it there if we go on every detour available. Hell, the Prime Minister might have sent a relativistic kill missile to beat us there.”

Marie shrugged. “If he sent a missile tomorrow, it would beat us there anyway. Hell, he could be on the quantum phone with them right now, instructing them to detonate their self-destruct, and then we would end up the whole twenty-four years too late. Time jumps or not, it’s a risk.”

Mateo placed a hand on Vitalie’s shoulder. “We’ll make one stop every day. There, we’ll resupply, if needed, maybe help a few people, and yes, we’ll also find your alternate self’s stasis pod, and let her out. If not us, then who?”

“Don’t think of it as being selfish,” Olimpia reasoned. “They’re not really you anymore. You’re helping your sisters.” She gestured towards Angela and Marie, who were also alternates of the same person, but now thought of each other as twin sisters.

Vitalie nodded in concession. “Okay. Where are we going instead, then?”

Ramses pulled up the map. “Ex-548. Gah, I can’t figure out the pattern here. It’s buggin’ the shit out of me,” he lamented

“Ex-548 ho!” Mateo declared, standing tall, and pointing towards the back wall.

They all stared at him. Leona glanced over at Ramses, and nodded slightly. Ramses went over to the controls, and altered course. The Goldilocks Corridor was named such that the stars with habitable planets were all laid out in a relatively straight line, so he only had to adjust a little bit.

A year later, they were in orbit over Ex-548. During the interim year, the ship took readings of the surface. No signals were being sent out into space, or within the atmosphere. There were signs of civilization, but no sign of movement. This planet was either abandoned, or the inhabitants were living underground.

“Or they’re all dead,” Olimpia offered.

“Yeah,” Leona agreed. “They could be dead. Mateo, you found Vitalie!908, so I’ll look for her this time. Olimpia, you wanna come with me?”

“Sure,” she answered.

“Hubby, it’s your turn to stay on the ship. Marie, you know enough about this stuff to stay with him in case something goes wrong up here. The rest will go down and see what’s up with what apparently used to be populated areas.”

“There are-slash-were five major settlements here,” Ramses reported. “We can split up, and—”

“Nope,” Leona interrupted. “Ram, Vitalie, and Angela, go together, and stay together. You have the most dangerous job, so I don’t want to shrink the numbers any more than they already are. We’re getting faster at finding the stasis pod, so I’m sure we’ll join you pretty quickly.”

“Ready...” Olimpia began, “...break.”

A couple of hours in, Leona and Olimpia were still trying to triangulate the stasis pod, having underestimated how difficult it would be. In his spare time, Ramses had been trying to figure out how to track them directly, but they weren’t designed to be located like a GPS beacon. It was also possible in this case that word had gotten around about the team’s interference in the goings-on of the Exin Empire that someone decided to dig her up, and do something else with her. Maybe they tossed her into the host star, or just released her, and then shot her in the head. They would keep trying all day either way.

The settlement group was on the ground too, looking for an explanation for why no one seemed to live here anymore. When they were last here, the natives were living under turn of the 21st century Earth conditions, though they weren’t anywhere near that population size. Each settlement was the size of a town small enough for rumors to spread faster than sound, but large enough for a resident to meet someone as an adult who they had never heard of before. They were thousands of kilometers apart, on separate continents. None of the homes appeared to be locked, so they entered a few to get an idea of what may have happened here. There wasn’t any rotten food on the dinner table, or showers left running. There were also no signs of struggle, or hurried packing. Whatever the cause, it wasn’t sudden. The people had time to leave the lights off, and the doors closed. They left on purpose, and based on the level of dust, the computer estimated that it happened about a year ago. The interesting part was that all of the settlements were left in the same state, which meant that they all agreed to leave at the same time. The team just kept looking for answers.

Meanwhile, up on the ship, Mateo and Marie were in realspace, instead of the pocket dimension. They were lying down back to back in the tiny habitable section, admiring the view through the ports. “Hey, are your comms off?” Mateo asked.

“Output is off. Input is in cocktail mode.” Cocktail mode kept the conversations silent for the user unless someone else on the network used any out of a list of preselected keywords, like their names, or emergency.

Mateo didn’t continue right away. “Do you ever think about...?”

“Think about what?”

“Heath?”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, if that’s too sensitive of a topic.”

“No, it’s okay. I know I don’t talk about him enough. I mean he’s still my husband, and I should think about him more. I just...I don’t. I don’t know why. I know we left things in a bad place, but I think if I let myself dwell on it, I’ll see that I’m the bad guy. I left him long before he left me. I was never really committed to that relationship. I just never realized it until he had the courage to walk away. Don’t get me wrong, I still love him, but I’m a part of this team, and he’s not. He never wanted to be. He stayed as long as he did for me, but he has his own life to live. Could we have reconciled, and gotten back together?” She sighed. “Probably. Neither one of us tried very hard, and then we both all but died. It just seemed...like that chapter was over. I wanna be here, with all of you. I have no clue how he feels about it at this point. I hope he’s okay.”

“I hope so too.”

“Sometimes I wish I had just been alone during the four years before you showed up. It would have been easier. No attachments, no complications. I’m not blaming him for anything, but how would things have turned out if we could have just come back together as a team?”

“It could have been worse,” he pointed out. “I mean, I know it would have been worse if you had been alone. If you had ever recovered from that isolation, it still would have weighed on you for the rest of your life. I think, in the end, it was a good thing that you met him, even with the complications. I doubt our shared experience in the Third Rail for that year would have been improved by deleting him from the roster.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” she agreed.

“You’ll see him again. We always do.”

“Really?” She chuckled. “When was the last time you saw—I dunno—your mother, or that nanobot intelligence who tried to kill you near the beginning of your time traveling?”

He laughed with her. “Mirage? It’s been about since back then. I suppose you’re right; we don’t see everyone from our past again.”

“Is everyone on?” Olimpia asked through comms.

Everyone confirmed according to a predetermined order, so they would not talk over one another.

“Jump to our location, including Group Breakthrough. The ship will be fine on its own. There’s no one here. Not anymore.”

Leona and Olimpia were found standing next to Vitalie!548’s stasis pod in the middle of nowhere. It was leaning slightly to the left, open and empty, with dirt and sand piled up inside. “Now we know why it took us so long to find it.”

Ramses nodded. “It’s inactive, which incidentally shrinks its networking capabilities to a smaller radius. No reason to place two empty pods in sync.”

“Why were you able to find it at all?” Angela asked them.

“It’s still powered on, just enough to maintain coherence for this message, of which we only watched the beginning.” Leona reached in, and pressed a button.

At first, nothing happened. Then a hologram of Vitalie appeared from outside of frame, and turned around. She composed herself, running a finger through her hair as if she had intended to edit the very beginning out before uploading the final cut. “My name is Vitalie Crawville. I came to this planet long ago, and placed myself in stasis while I waited for the world to be populated. Unfortunately, someone else got to me before the population could. He overpowered me, and put me back in permanently. At least, I think it was supposed to be permanent. Later, probably due to geological activity, my pod was exposed enough to be discovered by the natives. They figured out how to free me, and I explained to them that my purpose here was to be their Caretaker.

“This was a peaceful world. For the most part, they didn’t need me to take care of them. Yet I stayed, and did what I could. It’s not like I had anywhere else to go. This was my only purpose. As it turned out, I was not the only thing that the Leighstens had found. They were a curious bunch, and as it happens, every inhabited world in this sector contains a hidden central computer, regardless of the level of advancement they are allowed to attain. Apparently, the Leighstens were an early experiment to make sure that the seeding process was viable. I have reason to believe that the godking who did this started a couple of similar experiments before he got it right, so you may encounter those during your travels. Once an experiment was over, he would abandon the project, because to him, the survivors were insignificant. We do not contribute to the Empire in any way, not anymore. I suppose we should be glad that we weren’t simply exterminated. Most of the details that would illuminate the full story were encrypted, but the computer was made to receive some news from other worlds, so we were able to keep up with current events.

“Team Matic, I know that you’re the ones watching this. Only you would have been granted access to this file. Out of concern for the Leighstens’ safety, I have made drastic arrangements for their protection. You will not find us, and more importantly, neither will Bronach Oaksent. Do not look into this matter further. I am doing my job. I am taking care of them. It hurts my heart to say that I would not be able to accomplish this if I didn’t keep them away from you. You are...irritants. You shuffle shit up and you make changes. You do it everywhere you go. Sometimes you succeed, and sometimes...you just make things worse. The Exins will retaliate, and that may result in a scorched policy. Honestly, Oaksent is nothing if not unpredictable. We’re not the only ones getting the news feed. They know you’re here now, and each next world will have one year more than the world before to prepare for your arrival. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do whatever it is you’re trying to do, but I can’t let the Leighstens get caught in the line of fire. Please leave now. This pod will self-destruct in five seconds.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Leona assured the team. “The first thing I did was disable the triggering mechanism. We’ll still blow it up, but I know that Ramses likes to scavenge for parts.”

“No,” Vitalie!324 insisted. She turned away. “Destroy it all please.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 11, 2402

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With Danica gone, the only logical place to seek help from someone in the time traveler underground was at the Salmon Civic Center in Kansas City. The place was deserted when they teleported there yesterday. It didn’t look like anything had gone wrong, more like everyone who worked there just happened to call out sick on the same day. They tried to go to the Great Pyramid of Giza too, but there was no one there either, though that wasn’t surprising, because as important as it was, it wasn’t known for its hubbub. No one could think of any other options for a while until Marie remembered something. “Let’s just reach out to the Delegator.”

“Ah, that guy’s never helpful,” Mateo whined.

“We have to connect to somebody,” Angela contended. “He may not be able to help, but he may know where everyone else is. This is just meant to be a start.”

Mateo sighed as he was stepping over to the industrial synthesizer, which they requested in their unit. “Hey Thistle, build me two sets of Jenga playing blocks please.”

Once the machine was done, they arranged the blocks in the formation of Stonehenge, then Mateo laid the final stone, and uttered the magic words. Nothing happened. Well, not nothing, exactly. They could feel a tug on their skin. The Stonehenge dimension was trying to reach them, but was unable to, for some reason.

“Ugh, I guess we’ll just play a game,” Marie suggested, shaking her head.

“No, there’s one other option at least,” Mateo said. “I didn’t offer it before, not because it would be a worse option, but because it may take some time for me to remember the code. Stonehenge isn’t the easiest thing to build a replica of, but there are tons of photos for reference. This one can only come from memory.”

It took so long for Mateo to remember the special knock that it was early morning the next year. Baudin Murdoch opened the door. “Mister Matic. How long has it been?”

“Hard to tell. Are you the only one left?” Mateo asked.

“Yeah, everyone else is at the meeting.”

“The Edge meeting?” Angela questioned. “I thought that was just for The Shortlist.”

Baudin shook his head. “No, it’s for anyone who didn’t want to end up with a duplicate in another universe.”

“That doesn’t describe you?” Marie asked.

Baudin shrugged. “Not many can do what I do. The way I see it, this new universe is better off with access to my power without the OG salmonverse being S-O-L at the same time. Anyway, come on in, come on in. Let’s have a seat in the lobby.”

They stepped into his office building. The girls had never been here before, so they looked around. “Do we have duplicates?”

Baudin shrugged again. “I don’t know. I suppose so, though.”

“We were led to believe that we were not allowed to attend the meeting.”

“Maybe that’s really where they all are,” Baudin began. “The way I understand it, the entire planet they’re on was protected from that whole thing. I didn’t read the fine print, because I made my decision quite quick.”

Mateo nodded, but needed to readjust the topic of conversation “We need help. Our friend is missing. She’s somewhere in the Sixth Key, but we don’t know where to start, and we don’t have a ship, or know anyone who might be able to get us one. We don’t know where all the other Earths are either, in relation to this one.”

“Did you speak with Stargazer?” Baudin asked.

“We went to the Pyramid, but he wasn’t there. And I only know that because no one was there. We’ve never actually met. Paige told me about him.”

“He’s mapping the new universe,” Baudin said. “I figured he’d stay there, but maybe he needed access to other telescopes, which are all basically doing the same thing. With all the time travelers gone, there’s no one left to help them understand what’s happening. Perhaps that’s why you weren’t invited to the meeting; so that you can do that.” He studied their faces, which were making it clear that they were uninterested in the responsibility. “All right. In that case, I’ll reach out to him for you.” He went behind the reception desk, and started digging through the cabinets and drawers. Finally, he found the remote control, which he used to bring down a screen behind them. They moved so they could get a better look while Baudin turned the projector on too. Using a tablet, he searched for what he was looking for, and then he picked up a microphone.

“Are you going to sing?”

“I’m going to sing,” Baudin answered. “No judgments please. I don’t have to sing well. I just have to sing passionately.” He prepared himself mentally for a moment, and then he switched on the music. “There once was a season of infinite light // When the distance from heaven was not far behind // I was close to You // I was close to You!” He continued the karaoke song, which was evidently called Constellations by Ellie Holcomb. He sang the whole thing, and he did so with the passion he promised, and he actually had a pretty nice voice. “Never alone // Never alone!” When he sang the final line, “out here in the dark” a real darkness consumed them all.

Seconds letter, pinpricks of glory began to appear above them. They formed the shape of a human heart, and once this shape was complete, they fell together from the ceiling, into a three dimensional human silhouette. From this, a man appeared. It must have been Stargazer. “I miss that feeling,” he said as the last of the light dripped from his skin, and faded on the floor like liquid sparks. It seemed to be a pleasant experience. “No one ever calls me anymore. Thank you for the opportunity.”

“Hello, Stargazer. My name is—”

“Mateo Matic. I’ve met a version of you.”

“I see. We were hoping that you could help us. It would seem that the main sequence planets do not possess many time travelers, but if you’re one of them, perhaps you can find a friend of ours? Her name is Olimpia Sangster.”

Stargazer nodded slowly. “Is she a friend?”

“Of course,” Mateo insisted.

Stargazer looked over at Baudin, who nodded. “If he says so, it is so.”

“I have heard the echoes,” Stargazer said as he was staring up at the ceiling. He waved his arm above his face, and transformed it back to the night sky, but this time with more than just the one constellation. “My name is Olimpia Sangster, and I have a normal voice,” he recited. “A fool who refuses to follow their superior only proves why they are the fool, and why their superior is the leader,” he added. “Olimpia Sangster, circa 2371.”

“Those are quotes from her. Where did you hear those?” Angela was nervous.

“She says other things,” Stargazer replied cryptically, “but those are the only times she mentions herself by name.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, she does say O-L-I at one point. I assume she was having to spell it for someone. I don’t know why she stopped in the middle.”

“Explain. Where are you hearing these lines?”

Stargazer looked up with his eyes, and pointed with his whole hand. “The stars. The stars are echoing her words. You can’t hear them?”

“No. We can’t...hear stars. Why are they talking about her?”

Stargazer was confused. “Because she made them. She made half the universe. Someone else made the other half.”

“What the hell do you mean, she made the universe?”

“Just what it literally sounds like.”

“Have you...seen her?” Marie asked him.

Stargazer shook his head. “She only speaks. She speaks from everywhere.”

Ramses suddenly appeared out of nowhere, holding Mateo’s once-rosary again. “Oh, hey. You’re here too? I just left you at your apartment, like, a second ago.”

“That was yesterday,” Mateo told him. “What are you doing? Where is Olimpia?”

“I need him.” Ramses gestured towards Baudin. “It starts and ends with the Superscraper.”

“Hm.” Bauden had never heard the term, but he was intrigued. “Tell me more.” He reached out to Ramses.

“Wait. Where. Is. Olimpia?” Mateo repeated urgently.

“Go to Violkomin.”

“What? Tell us what that is!” Angela pleaded, but it was too late. They were both gone. “Have you heard of this Volkomen place?” she asked Stargazer, mostly because he was the only one left with any answers.

“It’s the edge of the barrier between the two halves of the universe. The stars speak of it as well, but I can’t find it. I will one day”

“Grrr,” Mateo growls. “Then we need to go to the Superscraper. Hopefully we can catch Ramses a third time. Would you be able to take us to the Third Rail Earth?”

“That I can do.” Stargazer raised his arms, bathing them in light. When it receded, they were in the lobby of Leona’s Superscraper in the Nation of Arvazna.

A woman stepped out from behind the reception desk, which Mateo now realized looked a lot like the one in Baudin’s office. This whole building screamed Murdoch architecture, now that he thought about it. Baudin did build it. That made perfect sense. “Hello,” she said politely. “Welcome to Arvazna. Do you need to go through intake?”

“We’re pros,” Mateo replied. “We were looking for our friend, Olimpia. Or Ramses. Have you heard of them?”

“I’m sorry, I’ve not. Are they two of the New Arvaznians?”

“No, I...Alyssa!” Mateo could see her across the way. “Alyssa, there you are!”

“Mateo, you’re back!” She teleported the twenty-five meters to them. “Sorry I had to cut out a couple years ago. As you can see, I had a lot of other work to attend to.”

“You run this place?” Angela asked.

“Mhmm, I do. Someone’s got to help these people with their new powers, patterns, and afflictions.”

“Have you seen Ramses around here?” Marie asked, not caring about that.

“No. Why would he be here? He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“No.”

“Well, sorry.”

“Well, he built this building. I mean, he commissioned the man who built it, Baudin Murdoch.”

“Oh. Well that explains why the auditorium is called Murdoch Hall. I assume he went back in time to do it in secret?”

“Yes.”

“You work here? This place is yours?” Angela asked again, just in a slightly, but not any more helpful, way.

“Yes, I told you that, Ange. Are you okay?”

“You were supposed to be one of us. They know you from the past...the future...whatever. You can’t work here.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Angela. I can’t. This is my responsibility. Even if you stayed to help, I wouldn’t leave. These people need me. The normies are coming after us. We have to protect ourselves.”

“But...fate,” Angela pressed.

“It’s okay,” Mateo assured her. “It’s not meant to be.”

“No, she’s part of the team,” Angela argued. “We need her. We need all the power we can get. We need to find Olimpia, and no one else is left. They all abandoned the main sequence for the other main sequence.”

“I guess we changed things,” Mateo said sadly. “For Alyssa. For all of us.” Everything they knew about the timeline was up in the air. Maybe she was meant to join them on their future adventures, and maybe things will worsen because she chose another path, but they were not in the business of coercion, or even guilt-tripping. “It happens. Marie was never meant to exist, but she does, and I wouldn’t go back to put a stop to it. We’ll just have to find her another way.”

Angela scowled, and crossed her arms.

“Have you heard of...what was that again?” Marie asked Stargazer.

“Violkomin,” he helped.

“Yes, that. Have you heard of that world?” Marie went on.

“Yeah,” Alyssa replied. “The Global Council is sending one of Aldona’s diplomatic ships to meet with them.”

“We need to get on that ship,” Mateo decided.

“I can show you where it will be launching from next year,” Alyssa said, “but I can’t get you a seat. I’m sure they’re all full-up. This is a big deal. They’re trying to stop the Reality Wars. Of course, they don’t know specifically about them, but in these couple of years, there has already been a lot of tension. Everyone’s worried, and they’re hoping that the other half of the universe will help.”

“That’s okay,” Mateo said. “We’ll just teleport into a broom closet, or something.”

“Sounds cramped. Allow me to help you make it bigger. Take Moray with you.”

“Your brother? Does he have a power too?”

“Yes, as does Carlin, but it’s Moray you’ll need. Come on out,” she insisted to the aether. “Come out!” She rolled her eyes, and reached behind an invisible wall right next to her. She pulled Moray into view. At least it looked like him. He also looked about twice the age he did when they last saw him.

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