Microstory 2010: Washington

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This is a really short slide, because I’m not allowed to say much about why my papa went to Washington state. But I had to put something here, because papa did go there when he was 16. I don’t understand it all the way, but papa had a friend who needed a surgery that she wasn’t allowed to get in Idaho, or some other nearby states, so papa drove her up to Spokane Washington. Back then, she could have done it in Oregon too, but Spokane is actually closer, even though it looks like it’s farther away on the map. Dad says that she could get it in Idaho if it happened today, because the laws have changed, but this happened in 1989. Thank you for your understanding.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 13, 2398

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Everest disappeared shortly after their conversation, which was probably one of the major reasons he cut it so short in the first place. He acted like he saw it coming. He lasted much longer than Erlendr and the old man in the pocket dimension, though, suggesting some level of control that one can wield over the process if they know to do so. It’s hard to tell how much Everest does or doesn’t know, but there is no guarantee the next error they encounter will be just as strong-willed. To be honest, it’s been so long, Mateo forgot about that whole thing. He’s the cause of their banishment from this realm, meaning he is still the worst person for the job. If they want to pursue this endeavor further, someone is going to have to come back down from the AOC so Alyssa doesn’t have to shoulder the burden alone. Marie has tentatively agreed, but she’s finishing some work up there at the moment, so she definitely won’t be returning today.

It has ended up being a good thing, because a certain prisoner of the federal government has asked to see her, and Mateo doesn’t want her to deal with that. He’s on his way to visit Fairpoint Panders himself. He tried to escape into Canada after he took a bunch of people hostage, and tried to kill Marie. Normally, the Canadian courts would handle the trial, since that’s where he was when he was caught, and the crime went down in Palmeria, but the Canadians don’t want to touch it, plus all non-Palmerian victims were Usonian citizens. This was likely disappointing news to Fairpoint as the Canadian judicial system is known for being highly respectful to prisoner’s rights.

Mateo sits down on the good side of the glass, cleans the phone with a disinfecting wipe, and puts it to his ear. Fairpoint doesn’t have any wipes on his side, because this isn’t Canada. “I can only see one visitor at a time, and I’m only given thirty minute sessions, so say whatever you wanna say, then leave, so I can speak with Marie.”

“I’m not here to warn you about how you’ll treat Marie. She’s just straight up not coming. You’re dealing with me today, and only me.”

“You’re not on my approved list. They shouldn’t have even let you in the building,” Fairpoint spits.

“I work with SD6,” Mateo reasons. “I can get into any building I want.”

“I want to talk to Marie.” He’s desperately trying to keep his temper in check, because he knows they’ll yank his visitation time if he gets too riled up. He’s rattled...flustered even. He has spent the last month in his cell, planning every word he wants to say, preparing contingencies for every possible response out of her. This is wrong. It’s all wrong. Mateo’s ruined it, and Mateo couldn’t be happier.

“She’s not coming. She never will. Over the years, we’ve had a lot of enemies—”

“I’ll tell them about the baby.”

“What?”

“She was going to have a baby, but now it’s gone, which I know was something she wanted, so either she’s incredibly lucky, or she figured out how to get a secret abortion. Not even her position within the government could get her out of this, so you tell her that if she wants me to keep quiet, she’ll come here and give me thirty minutes!”

Mateo is foaming at the mouth. He takes out his phone, which a normal visitor would not be allowed to keep. He keeps staring at Fairpoint as he’s dialing Winona. “On second thought, I’ll take that transfer. I want him moved to the black site immediately.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 19, 2398

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Vearden and Arcadia are sitting in the car together. It’s pretty cold out there, so it’s still running with the heat on full. They’re not talking, but it’s not awkward. It’s just that neither wants to interrupt the other, and they both feel like they’ll probably start talking at the same time, and make it awkward. So maybe it is a little awkward either way. Finally, Arcadia starts. “You have to pretend to be happy.”

“I am happy.”

“I’m serious, abortion is very illegal here. The ultrasound tech, the receptionist—no one can get the sense that we would consider it in a trillion years.”

“I’m not considering it.”

“That’s good, very convincing. Say it just like that.”

“Arcadia, who are you arguing with; me...or yourself?”

“Vearden, I’m thousands of years old. I’ve never been able to have children; not that I would have wanted to with anyone for most of my life as I was surrounded by my family anyway. This is never going to work. You and me? No one was shipping us. No one even thought about it. Now here we are, pregnant out of wedlock—”

“They don’t care about that here, which is weird, given their backward ways.”

Arcadia looks over at Vearden with a frown.

He nods softly. “I want to raise this baby, and I want to raise it with you. I know that our respective backgrounds are complicated at best, but so it is for everyone we care about. Some of those people are here with us, and will be more than willing to help. You may not be used to people loving you like that, but you have it now. I believe they’ve forgiven you for Tribulation Island. I haven’t even heard whispers of locking you back up, have you? That’s pretty telling, if you ask me.”

That’s a good point. They let her out, and never so much as threatened to put her back. Forgiveness is a strong word, but maybe she’s on the road to one day becoming like her sister, Nerakali. Arcadia takes a deep breath. She’s ready to face this, or hopes that she is. She opens the door, only to pull it back immediately. “Drive.”

“What? Why? Vearden asks.

“Please just go, or you’re going to get Leona in trouble.”

He starts the car. As they’re driving off, he looks back. “Did you see someone?”

“I just saw people,” she explains, shaking her head. “I saw people who will very likely recognize Leona Matic after she killed an enemy combatant on national television yesterday. I can’t go in there, claiming to be pregnant, until I solidify my identity.”

“I thought you did have your own identity,” Vearden says.

“I technically do, or rather Leona Delaney did, which I just sort of absorbed when I took over her body. We never came up with a connection to Leona Matic, though. I’m obviously her twin sister, but were we separated at birth, or what? What’s the story there? We need to regroup.”

“Okay, I agree, but as you said, Leona is going through something right now, and Winona is with her. Mateo and Ramses are still in that other dimension, Kivi is overseeing the prisoners, and Marie is trying to track down other possible time travelers. I don’t think Alyssa can help, so who could we reach out to?”

“Well, I’ve got one idea.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 25, 2398

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Marie and Heath don’t spend long in Gothenburg. It’s as boring as it looks when you search the web for it. They see no signs that there’s anything special about the area, or that a secret time travel pitstop facility has been buried underneath. They didn’t even erect a sign that designates it as the center of the country, like they did for Lebanon, Kansas in the main sequence.

They’re in Belle Fourche, South Dakota now, which doesn’t mean much in any reality, but especially not here, what with the different national borders. That’s fine, they heard that there were some lovely hiking trails around these parts, and being out in nature is precisely what they both need right now.  They’re not talking, though, which neither of them believes is healthy, but they don’t know what to say. Should they talk about the abortion? Should they pretend it didn’t happen? Should they fight? Should they reaffirm their love? It’s just so awkward that the moderately treacherous terrain is the only thing keeping their minds occupied.

She stops to catch her breath. “Okay, can you tell me what you’re feeling?”

“I’m a little tired, but I’m okay to keep going. Did you want to make camp right here?” Heath proposes.

“I don’t mean about the backpacking, I mean about what happened.”

“We’ve been talking,” he sincerely believes.

“Yeah, but...”

“Do you want to tell me what you’re feeling?”

“That’s all I’ve been doing, telling you about my mixed feelings. You haven’t been giving me your opinion.”

“It was your choice.”

“I didn’t ask you what I should do, it’s done. I’m asking how you feel about it now!”

“Why is this turning into a fight?”

She sighs. “I don’t know, I don’t want it to.”

He steps closer, but doesn’t touch her. She still doesn’t want to be touched yet. “I’m proud of you, Marie, for making that decision. I know it wasn’t easy. And I know how easy it is for me, never having to do the same. You want to know how I feel...I’m sad. I miss the baby that never was. You know how my mind wanders, it’s why I keep buying fancy things, like The Olimpia.”

“Yeah.”

“I knew what you were going to do, even while I was fighting against it. I knew you would go through with it, because you had to. My brain, however, was insistent that it go over a hypothetical life that I had with that child. It chose a boy for me, and named him Ferris, after my great grandmother. I taught him about the world, and you taught him about cyberspace. He became a teacher, like me, and lived only a few miles away from us with his family. I don’t resent you for preventing this fantasy, so I don’t want you to think that that’s what I’m saying. It’s just been—” He’s struggling to continue.

“It’s okay, you can say that this has been hard on you. You have a right to that.”

“It has been hard. I feel like I knew him, and lost him. And when I think about the fact that I didn’t lose anything, it just makes it worse.”

She takes his hand. “I’m sorry you’re going through that.”

Heath shakes his head, and looks away.

“I mean it. This did happen to you, in a different way, but you’re not this removed observer. I’m sorry you couldn’t be there too. That probably hasn’t made it any easier.”

He nods, but says nothing more.

“Let’s keep going,” Marie suggests.

She lets go of his hand, and begins to head farther up the hill, but she loses her footing, and slips off the edge. They’re not on a cliff, but she tumbles down pretty far, and she can’t stop herself. She only does stop when a partially buried rock gets in her way. It cuts open her hand, and breaks at least a few bones. She’s holding her now limp wrist with her other hand, and trying to breathe through the pain as Heath runs down as fast as he can. He’s aware that he could fall down too if he’s not careful. By the time he gets all the way down to her, the pain is still there, and so is the blood, but her hand is otherwise totally fine. She’s able to move it.

“What the...?”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you, I can heal now. It’s a temporary consolation prize.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 21, 2398

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Marie and Mateo are sitting across from each other in the two non-cubby seats while Ramses continues to do his work. They came here yesterday early morning, pretty much immediately after their run-in with Winona Honeycutt and her merry band of mercenaries. They were able to do this, because Ramses has been a lot more busy than they realized. He was able to rig up a make-shift temporal engine that can process what he calls temporal hydroxide; the apparent scientific name for water infused with temporal energy. He secured a few samples of the Death water, then injected the rest into this special new engine, which spirited them out of Türkiye airspace, and into the Atacama desert. Apparently, Body water could be found here, but only on February 9, 1972. This was just before a massive storm hit the area, delivering rainfall after a reported 400 years of drought. It’s one of the easier immortality waters to get to, but the absolute most difficult to pinpoint. If you can find water originating anywhere in a five kilometer radius, it should work, but it has to be enough, so good luck.

They’re obviously not here to look for Body water, which still no one knows the purpose of. They just needed a safe, remote place to work. They had one teleportation jump to use, and this place was on Ramses’ mind. He slept last night, but woke up bright and early to get back to the grind. He needs to be one hundred percent that this is going to do what they need it to. Unfortunately, that’s impossible, because they can’t exactly run it through human trials. Marie is okay with this. She knows that she’s taking a huge risk just by being here, and a bigger one by trying it. “Can you stop that?”

“Stop what?” Mateo asks.

“You’re bouncing your leg. Not only can I hear it, but I can feel it in my seat. This floor isn’t perfectly sturdy.”

“Sorry, I’m just nervous.”

“Why are you nervous? This is happening to me.”

“Yes, and I love you.”

She smiles. “Do you remember when we met?”

“Yeah, I was dead and fine with it, which surprised you, and all the other dead people you were in charge of orienting.”

“I could tell that you were special. Other people ended up in the afterlife to no surprise of their own. They had been given the privilege of time to accept it. But you weren’t just all right, you acted like you knew what was going to happen.”

“I didn’t. The afterlife simulation was a really well-kept secret, even amongst my people.”

She shrugs. “I guess you were just used to weird stuff.”

He nods. “Yeah.”

Ramses comes up from his little lab, which is mainly meant as an engineering section for the vehicle, but it’s the best space for his needs. “You left your phone when you came to check on me. Leona sent another coded message.”

Mateo glances at his watch. “Oh, crap, I was supposed to initiate.” He takes it, sees that she and Angela are still okay, then sends one back, letting her know that they’re fine too. They’ve been dealing with some scifi shit as well, but it’s not enough to warrant the away team’s return home, or their bug-out protocol.

“Are we ready?” Marie asks Ramses.

He grimaces just a little.

“Are we?” she asks again.

“I’m ready. Now it’s up to you.”

“Oh, great, it’s my responsibility again.”

“It always has been.”

“I know.”

“There is no time limit,” Ramses says. “You can wait as long as you need, or back out until I literally press the button.”

Marie sighs. “I don’t have infinite time. At some point, this cluster of cells is going to become a person, and it will become immoral to abort it.”

He nods. “I understand.” He looks around. “Um...if you still want this, I recommend we go to the cockpit. You should be lying down, and while the cubby seats recline, it would be better with more space.”

“That’s fine,” she says. “Let’s just not call it that. How about...the bridge?” After Ramses goes back downstairs to grab the machine, the two of them slow-walk up to the front. He goes in first, and Marie stops at the steps. She looks back at Mateo. “Are you coming?”

“Do you want me to?”

“I do,” she answers.

There are three steps down to the bridge, in between the pilot and co-pilot seats. Mateo sits on the first step, and holds Marie’s hand. After he places the target electrodes on either side of Marie’s belly, Ramses sits in the other seat, and calibrates his little machine. He does so carefully, so as to give her more time to cancel her request, but also to make sure it’s set up correctly. They only have one chance at this, and there is no guarantee that it will work. The fact is that she might die. Ramses Abdulrashid is an extremely intelligent and accomplished engineer, but he’s not a doctor. If something goes wrong, the first aid kit sitting open on the console might be their only hope. She’s consented a million times, but they’ve come down to the wire. In a matter of seconds, they will be at the point of no return.

He decides to give her one more opportunity. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“I want this to happen,” Marie says quite formally. “I want an abortion.”

Ramses places his hand over the button. “I don’t know what it’s going to feel like physically, and I certainly don’t know what it’ll be like emotionally. It might be...jarring, like getting the wind knocked out of you. But we’re both here for you.”

“Okay,” she says, readjusting her position ever so slightly. “Do it.” She squeezes Mateo’s hand tighter.

“In five, four, three, two, one, mark.” He pushes the button.

Marie jolts and shudders.

“Are you okay?” Mateo asks.

She holds up her free hand. “I’m fine.” Her voice is tight, suggesting that she’s feeling a tightness too. “It’s just...oh, it’s cold. It’s really cold.”

“Is that normal?” Mateo asks Ramses.

“I don’t know,” he replies honestly, just as concerned and helpless.

Marie begins to do some measured breathing exercises, and relaxes as they go on. She exhales one last time, just as water is dripping onto the floor. She starts to cry.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 20, 2398

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They took it slow. Marie first drove them into a more rural area of Germany, then had to return the controls to Ramses, so he could fly them over some of Eastern Europe, taking a little bit of a scenic route to avoid Czechian airspace. When they landed in Ukraine, they drove to the nearest dock, and floated for a little bit until submerging, and going the rest of the way through the Black Sea underwater. They reached the shores of Türkiye at around 4:00 in the morning on June 19. They weren’t at a port, though, because then they would have to register as visitors. To sneak in, they arrived at the most underpopulated area they could find, and performed a little trick.

The Olimpia can’t just transition from water to ground seamlessly. It has to roll up a ramp, and of course, that ramp has to be big and sturdy enough to accommodate it. That wouldn’t work here, so they needed a work around. In aircraft mode, it’s best to fly up as fast as possible. Vertical take-off and hovering takes a lot more energy than a normal runway launch, and forward propulsion, because it’s not drawing in ambient air to power it, among other reasons. But they can spend some fuel to make this happen, allowing them to essentially hop out of the water, and land on the road. They can’t fly as high as they would during a real trip, because then radar could spot them. Again, it’s not ideal, but necessary in this situation to meet their objective. They had to get into Türkiye undetected, and make it most of the way across the country, also undetected.

They hid in dense vegetation most of the day, but didn’t feel compelled to wait until nightfall, because they wouldn’t reach any street cameras until about halfway into this leg. Now it’s 4:00 in the morning again, and it’s time to get a sample of this Death water, hoping that it can do what Ramses believes. If not, they’ll just travel to Croatia via the Mediterranean Sea. They’ll actually probably head that way while he works.

“Hurry up, and get what you need,” Marie whispers. “This area opens to visitors in about two and a half hours, but who knows when a staff member might show up to...I dunno, pick up trash, or whatever?”

Ramses drops his bag on the ground, generating a clanking sound.

“Shh,” she whispers loudly to him. “What is in there?”

“This.” He pulls out a metal tank that’s probably large enough to fit five gallons.

“What the hell is that?” Mateo questions.

“Do I have to answer that for you, or is it rhetorical?”

“I thought you only needed a tiny sample,” Marie complains.

“We only need a sample,” Ramses agrees, “but we don’t want to come back here in the future, do we? While we’re at it, we might as well stock up. I don’t now how useful this stuff could become.” He dips it in the pool, and lets it fill up.

“It’s poison,” Marie reminds him.

“Well, I don’t plan on using it for that. If we happened to be in the Atacama Desert instead, I would take as much as I could of Body water.”

“What does Body water do?” Marie asks.

“No one knows.” As Ramses is lifting the tank up, and holding it while Mateo screws on the lid, they hear a commotion nearby.

All of the sudden, a strike team descends upon them, flaghlights and firearms drawn. A figure of authority, face still blocked by shadow, steps closer to the trio. “Is this it?” the forger, Winona Honeycutt’s voice asks. “Is this what gives you your power?”

“You’re going to spark an international incident if you try to take it,” Marie says, stepping towards her.

“It looks like you’re taking it,” Winona replies.

“We were thirsty.” Ramses struggles to lift the tank up to his mouth, then partakes when Mateo steadies it for him. If his theory is correct, it shouldn’t be poisonous without some good old fashioned temporal energy.

“Hand it over,” Winona demands.

Mateo screws the lid back on, and begins to place it in the bag.

“I said, hand it over,” she repeats more earnestly.

“Remember how I told you we would do anything to protect ourselves and each other?” Mateo asks her.

“Stabbing yourself isn’t gonna help you this time,” Winona explains. “We have a medic on standby right here, and our own doctor back on the plane.”

“I don’t intend to stab myself. I’m reminding you that you’re out of your league.”

“My dear,” Winona begins. “It is you who is out of his league. My father and I are playing chess, while you’re playing checkers.”

Mateo chuckles. “Then neither of us can win. We’re not using the same pieces. We’re not even on the same game board. Your advantage is an illusion.”

“My advantage looks like a battery of guns,” she counters, indicating her people.

That’s true, Mateo is really just stalling, and it sounds like he and Ramses did so for as long as necessary. They hear an explosion in the distance. Lights fill the sky. Everyone looks over to find more explosions, and more lights. Someone has set up a fireworks show. It’s incredibly odd timing. In any reality, he would assume it was a cognizant friend, or even a future version of himself, creating a diversion, but here, it must just be a coincidence.

Whatever the cause, it’s enough. Mateo feels himself being pulled over the edge of the pool, and into the water. A surge of energy overwhelms his body, and snaps him away, delivering him to the ground beside the Olimpia.

A woman comes around the corner holding a gun. “Stop right there!”

Marie stands up, and hits her in the forehead—not like a boxer, but with the precision of a grasshopper. She falls to the ground, unconscious. She stands with her friends for half a moment. “No jokes about how fitting it was for a woman to get into a fight with another woman.”

“Fight?” Mateo echoes. “That was a savage takedown.”

“We gotta go.” Ramses opens the door, and climbs in, followed by Marie and Mateo. “Hey, Olimpia, engage Escape Pattern Alpha.”

“Acknowledged. Initiating.” The plane takes off, and heads for the dark skies.

“How did we teleport?” Marie asks.

“I’m the one who teleported,” Ramses answers her. He shows them a syringe. “This is why I’m confident I can make the abortion bullet—”

“Don’t call it that.”

“I’ve figured out how to synthesize temporal energy,” he continues. “It’s only temporary, so I could inject you two too, but I think I have a better idea.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 17, 2398

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Ramses was waiting for Marie and Mateo when they got back to the hotel from the hospital. He didn’t want to talk about the mission he went on for the senator and his daughter, but he assured them it wasn’t that bad. He made a point of telling them that he didn’t have to kill anyone, though people did get hurt, and he’s not sure if they’re on the right side of this. They stole an object in a luggage-sized grayish box, but no one would tell him what it was. Leona is being coerced into working on it once it arrives in Kansas City, so while there’s a chance it’s a weapon of some kind, they’ll know the answer soon enough. She’ll take the appropriate actions when she learns more information. Both she and Ramses asked that the away team continue on, and perhaps they should extend their trip to continue throwing off any suspicion of their true goals.

Their next destination is Prague, Czechia, which has fairly strict airspace policies. The only reason they want to go there is because heading for Croatia now would practically draw a straight line on the map. This is all highly calculated to insulate them from any prying eyes. It’s not perfect, and they could always get caught, but it’s the best they can do. Going to Croatia is dangerous. They have to be sneaky. There are underground systems in place once they near its borders, but reaching those systems in the first place is a delicate dance. Prague is just a distraction. Its traffic laws are strict too, as it is in Germany, which means they won’t be able to drive as fast as they want. That’s fine, it will only take them about five hours with one stop in the middle to cross a border. Marie will probably want to hide for that part.

Ramses pulls over at a rest stop an hour in. They get out to stretch their legs and grab some local food, then get back in. But Ramses doesn’t move. He just sits in front of the steering wheel, and stares into space.

“Are you okay?” Marie asks.

“Winona wants us to go to Türkiye,” he says.

“I know, you told us that,” she says. “Apparently there’s an even more important mission there?”

“The border is stronger than it is for Germany-Czechia, but she says she can sneak us across.”

Mateo flinches. “Okay, but we don’t want to go to Türkiye—that’s Turkey, right?”

Ramses nods, “we may want to go there.”

“Rambo, what are you talking about?” Marie asks.

He sighs. “You and I weren’t around when Mateo and Leona were dealing with the immortality waters. You were dead yourself, and I hadn’t even been born yet.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Mateo questions.

“The Constant, the Bermuda Triangle; they both generated unusual amounts of temporal energy.”

“Stonehenge didn’t,” Mateo reminds him.

“First of all, we don’t know that there was ever anything special about Stonehenge. The Delegator always implied that he just liked the way it looked. He was the one with the power to transport people through portals. He used the walkways between the stones, because hell, why wouldn’t you, but that doesn’t mean the stones mean anything. Secondly, if the British Isles sank, this reality’s version of it might just be too deep underwater for this baby.” He pets the dashboard.

“You wanna make another diversion? There’s nothing special about Turkey,” Marie claims.

Mateo looks away. “Yes there is. There’s one thing.”

“What?” Marie presses. When no one answers, she repeats herself. “What? What is in Turkey?”

“Death,” Mateo answers cryptically.

“Then maybe we don’t go there.”

“No, I don’t mean death, I mean Death. Death water is in something called the Pools of, uhh...”

“Pamukkale,” Ramses helps.

“Death water?” Marie is still indignant about the whole thing. “Why is there an immortality water called Death?”

“I don’t know,” Ramses answers honestly, “but it’s the only water you would take if you want the full experience. If you drink Youth, it will make you young. If you drink Longevity, it will extend your lifespan. But if you want one hundred percent no-death, no injury, immortality, that one must be included.”

“What happens if you take it by itself?” Marie asks the obvious question.

“Well, it’s poison...you die,” Mateo replies bluntly.

“So again, why do we want that?”

“Because the reason we’re here is because one of us has to die,” Ramses says, also bluntly, but much more somberly.

Marie takes a long time to respond. “That one is a part of me at the moment. How could the fetus ingest it without me also ingesting it?”

Ramses takes a long time to respond as well. Then he takes something out of his pocket, and holds it up. “We teleport it.” It’s a time bullet.

“You’re gonna shoot me with that thing?” Marie asks in a no-thanks kind of way.

“No, that would defeat the purpose. I would transport the bullet itself, into the fetus, which would open upon contact, releasing the Pamukkale water.”

“You’re talking about just having a developing baby dying in my body.” She looks back and forth between the two of them.

Mateo takes a long time to speak. The Death water, as Zeferino once explained it to me—”

“Oh, he’s such a reliable resource,” Marie says sarcastically.

“I don’t know if he was telling the truth, but sometimes, the man could be sincere, and I remember the day he taught me about all of them. He looked like he was being honest. After the conversation, we didn’t talk about it again, so if he was trying to trick me, he was doing it in a weird way. Plus, this was long after all that Tribulation stuff.”

Marie shakes her head. “Go on, what did he say?”

“There are many reasons why people don’t just all take the immortality waters. They’re hard to get to, especially the last one, but one in particular is...unsavory.”

“Keep going,” she urges.

“It’s Health. Both Death and Health come from the pools of whatever. The former creates the latter when used.”

“It’s a sacrifice,” Marie says. “It’s a human sacrifice.”

“Yes.”

“Why would death make health? Maybe it would make life, because they’re opposites, but...” She doesn’t have an end to her sentence.

“Death isn’t really the end of life,” Ramses tries to explain. “It’s just the end of health. We’re proof of that. We all lost our bodily health, but kept our lives.”

Marie begins to pace. “So, under the assumption that the Pools of Pamukkale in this reality serve the same purpose as they do in the main sequence, you want to take a sample, and fill a time bullet with it. Then you want to teleport that bullet into my fetus—which would require phenomenal precision, by the way—which will poison it, and transform it into an elixir. So I get an abortion, and the cure for cancer at the same time.”

“Well, if you have cancer, then yeah. If you don’t, then at the most, you might just skip the flu this year. It doesn’t last forever if you don’t take Activator afterwards, and I believe it only works once if you don’t take Catalyst beforehand.”

“So you want to forgo Czechia, and take a detour all the way down to Türkiye, where we’ll be expected to complete an espionage mission we know nothing about, then steal a sub-detour to a tourist attraction to get a sample of water that authorities probably don’t want you to steal. I assume you’ve confirmed that the site even exists on this Earth.”

“It does,” Ramses promises.

“Well, that’s one complication down.”

“We don’t have to choose this,” Ramses tells her, standing up from the driver’s seat. He presents it to her. “But whatever we do, you have to be the one to make that choice. That’s what pro-choice means.”

“Thanks for mansplaining that to me,” Marie snaps back.

Ramses doesn’t respond, so Mateo decides to do so in his place. “He’s not telling you it’s your choice so that you will know that it is. He’s telling you so that you know that he knows...that it is.”

“You two have really thought a lot about this,” Marie realizes.

“Mateo didn’t know a thing. He didn’t even know about Türkiye.”

“Actually, I did,” Mateo clarifies. “Winona lamented that we chose to come here, instead of there. I didn’t think it would come up again, though.”

Marie considers the information she’s been given, and the profoundly difficult choice now laid before her. Deciding to get an abortion was hard enough, but now she has to determine whether she’s going to go through with it using the conventional, scientific method, or if she’s going to depend on the complex nature of temporal magic. “Wait, if the water in Pamukkale is poisonous, wouldn’t lots of people know as much?”

“It has to be infused with temporal energy,” Ramses says. “Such was its natural state on November 13, 1622. That’s the date most people travel to when they’re on the quest for it. Using the data I’ve gathered by studying the Existence water from the Bermuda Triangle, however I believe that I can synthesize what we need.”

Agreeing that she has to be the one to make the choice either way, Marie sits down in the chair, and starts The Olimpia back up. She keeps going on the selected route. A part of her just wants to do the normal thing, and not hope that the time bullet works. So she passes what might have been their exit, and heads for the border, for an hour, until they’re nearly there. She comes to a stop. They can already see the border checkpoint far off in the distance, but they can still choose to go elsewhere. They have to choose now, though. Either they get back on the highway and head Southeast, or stick to the original plan. Or they can open Door Number Three.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 2, 2398

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Leona and Mateo are having a date night, so they’ll be out of the condo for a few hours. Ramses doesn’t have anywhere to be, but he starts getting the sense that Heath and Marie need him to be away too, so he goes for a walk around the plaza, looking to find something interesting or new to do. Now it’s just the Waltons, and they have something important to talk about. Angela knows the other two want to discuss something, but she doesn’t know what. The truth is, no one out of the three of them knows how this is going to go.

“I think I’ll start,” Marie says solemnly. “First of all, I want to thank you for all the support you two have shown me during this difficult time. It’s been really helpful to know that I have a loving family who are willing to go to great lengths to protect me, and my future. This has not been an easy decision, and while we’ve had our issues, I believe that we’re ready to move forward. Can we all at least agree with that much?”

“Yes,” Heath answers. Now he’s worried. He thought they were on the same page.

“Of course,” Angela concurs.

Marie goes on, “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, and...” She sighs, not wanting to say what she needs to say.

“Go ahead,” her husband encourages.

“I believe,” she continues, drawing as much strength as she can find, “that you can’t come with me to Croatia.” She’s not looking at either of them, which makes her statement a little confusing.

“Obviously, I can’t go...” Angela says.

“No, not you.” She finally looks back over. “You. Heath, you can’t come with me, not if we want this to work. Before you argue, Angela has to become me, and that includes everything. She has to become a coder, and a volunteer at the community kitchen twice a week, and she has to become your wife. This isn’t going to matter if even one person beyond the team begins to get the idea that there’s any distance between the two of you.”

“Well, how far do you want this to go?” Heath questions.

“What do you mean?”

“How far should I go? Should we start sharing a bed? Should we start having sex? How committed do you want me to be to the lie?”

“Do you want to have sex with her?” Marie asks.

“No! That’s what I’m saying!”

“You promised to not raise your voice anymore,” Marie reminds him.

“I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated, because I also promised to see you through this whole thing, and now you don’t even want me to be within eight thousand kilometers of you. That’s just hard to hear.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you with me, it’s just not smart. Think about it logically. Angela’s gonna run into into our downstairs neighbor, and they’re going to invite the two of us to dinner Friday night, and she’s going to have to come up with some excuse, and then suddenly the period during which you were reportedly gone perfectly lines up with the period during which I was actually gone, and then maybe people start to ask questions, and maybe they end up asking too many.”

“I know, it’s the right thing to do. I just didn’t want to let you go alone.”

“I won’t be alone. Mateo will be there.”

“Mateo? Just Mateo?” Angela asks, now confused about that.

“The two of us don’t have professional lives to think about,” Marie begins to explain. “It makes sense that he could up and leave. No one will be wondering where he went off to.”

“Ramses doesn’t really have anything going on either,” Heath points out.

“Yes, he does. He’s extremely busy, trying to get us out of this reality.”

“Oh, he’s still on that?” Heath can’t help but be disgusted by the prospect. Everyone else he cares about, including Marie, is a visitor to this world. But he grew up here. This is his home. It’s not perfect. It’s downright cruel in some ways. But it’s familiar, and as random as all the laws, customs, and religious practices seem to be, they’re rooted in a history that he grew up learning. They make perfect sense to him. The others have experience being strangers in a strange land. This is all he knows. He can’t just leave, and he can’t let Marie go.

“It’s how he’s helping,” Angela tells him. “We don’t have to make any decisions yet, but it’s why you agreed to go on the mission with Mateo later this month, isn’t it?”

“How can I go on that?” Heath puts forth. “If I can’t ever be away from Marie, then that’s impossible.”

“Mateo’s been talking to me about that,” Angela says. “You can’t go on that either. You have a life here, and abortion or no, you have to keep living it. This isn’t your problem, you don’t even want to find anything.”

“Don’t tell me what I want, and don’t want,” Heath argues.

“Honey, you’re getting close.”

“Sorry,” he whispers. He does his counting exercise. “You’re right. It was a stupid idea. I got so excited to have an adventure, I stopped thinking rationally. I think we all did. It doesn’t make sense for me to disappear, not unless all six of us just go off the grid together.”

“Well, that’s one thought,” Marie admits.

“Are you seriously considering that?” Angela questions, shocked. “You’ve built a life for yourself here.”

“Well, I’m about to lose it anyway, aren’t I?”

“No, that can’t be true,” Angela believes. “I’m just a temporary placeholder. You’ll be back eventually. No one’s expecting you to have an abortion.”

“Except for Fairpoint,” Heath reminds her.

“Oh, yeah. What are we gonna do about Fairpoint?” Marie asks. Now her stomach is getting upset. He’s the only other non medical professional who knows she’s pregnant.

They hear the sound of the front door opening, and sort of a huff from down the hallway. Mateo rounds the corner alone. He’s not happy, but not extremely distressed either. “Sorry to intrude. I can leave and come back, if you want.”

“No, it’s fine,” Marie assures him. “Where’s Leona?”

His eyes widen, as he looks around, even though he’s confident she isn’t hiding in a corner. “She took the car,” Mateo says. “I walked back. She should have returned long before now.”

“Why did you walk?” Heath consults his watch. “You weren’t gone all that long.”

“We had another fight. She was in the wrong this time, before you make any assumptions. But now I need your help to find her.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 11, 2398

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They didn’t just jump into performing Marie’s abortion, or even in preparing for it. First of all, she needed more time to prepare herself emotionally, and there were things they needed to do in The Constant before they could be sure it was even safe to be down here at all. While she was resting, and Heath was tending to her needs, Leona and Angela spent time in the med bay, taking inventory of everything they had available to them. Mateo and Ramses went off to investigate the facility more thoroughly, with the former more concerned with understanding the power situation.

It isn’t until the next day that Ramses finally figures out how this place works. “It’s fascinating.”

“It looks like a long-ass tube,” Mateo notes as he’s staring at the diagram.

“It is,” Ramses confirms. “Do you remember when we first went to The Fourth Quadrant? Do you remember how they powered the city since they no longer had access to a real sun, or fossil fuels, or anything a normal planet has?”

“Yeah, they were these big temporal energy generators.”

Ramses nods. “Back then, that pocket reality was moving through time at a different rate than the main sequence. The incongruity generated minute amounts of power, which they harnessed, combined, and stored. This place does the same thing, but instead of using incongruent time, it just uses general relativity.”

“I don’t understand,” Mateo says honestly. “I know general relativity is about how time moves slower because of higher gravity, but I don’t understand the tube.”

Ramses points to the diagram as he’s explaining. “Right. Time moves slower at the bottom of this tube than it does at the top. It’s even more minute than it is for the people in the Fourth Quadrant—we’re talking a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second—but it’s there. This asymmetry generates vibrations, which travel up the tube to become stored in extremely dense and long lasting batteries. Again, these are incredibly small perturbations, but they’re basically free, and they add up over time. I think tectonic shifts impart energy as well. Anyway, it takes billions of years for it to amount to anything useful so a normal civilization wouldn’t be able to reasonably use this method, but that’s perfect for something that mostly sits dormant.”

“Does this explain where Danica went?”

“It does not. This, the antimatter chamber, and the backup fusion drives, are running perfectly smoothly. In fact, since she hasn’t been here to use up lighting and life support, the batteries are at top capacity. If there’s a reason she abandoned this place, I haven’t found it.”

Mateo sighs. “This suggests that something happened to time powers after she arrived here. Maybe it occurred only a few hundred years ago, which is plenty of time for her to die of natural causes. If the asymmetric gravity tube doesn’t technically run on normal temporal energy, it wouldn’t have been affected, which is why it’s still going.”

“Now, we don’t know she’s dead. Don’t go jumping to conclusions.”

“Bottom line, it’s safe for us to be here, correct? More to the point, it’s safe for Marie and her procedure.”

“Yes, this place is safer than houses.” He kind of scoffs. “We should probably just live down here.”

“I think the others want to lead real lives, and contribute to society.”

“I don’t,” Ramses decides. “I can quit my job if everything we need is right here for the taking. It’s annoying anyway, I don’t like being in charge.”

“I get it. We should report to the others, and see if they need help with anything.”

They walk back up to the main floor to find everyone busy with their responsibilities, but Marie knows that it won’t last. This was a nice break, but they’re going to have to come back down from the clouds. They can’t all help her with her problem. None of them is a doctor. Not even Angela studied enough medicine to feel comfortable doing anything like this. Their only hope now is automated technology, which will require either Ramses or Leona to operate it. The question then becomes, who stays? “Oh, good, you’re back,” she begins. “Now I can speak my piece. I appreciate you all being here, but it’s neither necessary, nor smart, to continue as we are. Besides Mateo, you all have to get back to your regular jobs. I need someone to help me with this, but I don’t know who, and I don’t want to ask that of anyone.”

Leona and Ramses both step forward, and announce, “I’ll stay,” simultaneously.

“No,” Ramses argues. “I have a dumb job. You have an important job. You can’t just throw away working in the lab. We might need it one day. The only reason I wanted to work at the electronics store is because it was going to give me access to certain parts and equipment. But you work there too, and now we’ve found the Constant, we should be fine on technology. Marie, Mateo, and I will remain, and figure this out. The rest of you should go back. Angela, I know you’re going to contend that the library doesn’t need you, and that may be true, but you need to take Marie’s place at her job eventually. You may as well get on that.”

“I have no idea how to do her job,” Angela reminds him. “Does this place not have cloning tech, or an android plant?”

“No,” Leona answers simply.

“It looks like we all need more time,” Heath jumps in. “Fortunately, it’s time that my wife has.”

“The longer she waits, the harder the procedure will be for whoever needs to perform it,” Leona says.

“I know,” Heath replies, “but there’s a little time for us to make this a safe and believable transition.”

They continue to argue and try to work out the details. In the end, they agree on Ramses and Marie’s ideas. The two of them will return when the time is right. Mateo will be here for added support, because he’s of no use anywhere else. Until then, though, he and Heath will remain here for probably the entire time to work on the access shaft. The team was able to teleport down here at first, but the temporal energy could run out, or be rescinded by the Third Rail god at any point, so they need a decent alternative.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 10, 2398

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The map was finished when Mateo woke up the next morning. It took him a few minutes to confirm what he was seeing, since he didn’t exactly take any training to use this software. According to this data, there is indeed some kind of access shaft right about where he always suspected there should be. That’s all he can tell about it. He’ll only have to dig a few meters down in order to reach the empty space. It’s too square and perfect to have been made by natural causes. Someone built something down there, and then covered it up. It can’t be anything but The Constant, because that would be too great a coincidence. He’s so excited. This is the first time since coming to this reality that a plan someone on the team came up with to find answers has actually gone well. Furthermore, he’s the one who conceived it, which is just wild considering...

The joy of success wears off quickly when Mateo realizes that there’s a huge problem here. Just because there’s something down there doesn’t mean he can go down and get to it. The Lebanese people won’t—is that what he should call them? Probably not. The people who live in Lebanon, that is, surely won’t care for it, or maybe just not whoever owns this particular acre. Scanning is one thing. It wasn’t hard for him to run the machine over this land without causing a stir. It might even be public land, but that doesn’t mean he can excavate it. Now he’s both literally and figuratively at a crossroads, and he needs help.

Just then, as if she could sense his desire, Leona calls. The quality is loud and clear, but she pretends that it’s shoddy. “Captain. Can you hear me?”

“What?”

“On your left.”

“You’re the Captain.”

She sighs. “I know, which is just one more reason why I should be there, and you should be in this car. Look to your left,” she reiterates.

He looks over to find Heath’s flying carboat coming right for him down Highway 191. “Did you get up to drive in the middle of the night?”

“We flew most of the way,” Heath answers proudly. “That’s why I bought this.”

“I was trying to remain conspicuous,” Mateo complains.

“Inconspicuous, you mean,” Leona teaches.

“I’ve heard it both ways.”

The giant vehicle pulls over into the grass, and parks right next to the location of the ground anomaly. Leona gets out first. “You bought that thing with our shared credit card,” she begins to explain. “That means I had access to the serial number, and therefore the data in the app. Angela happened to be awake early, and noticed what you found. So we took off work, piled in here, and came out to investigate with you.”

“I’m sorry I left without you. I was just worried how Danica would react.”

“It’s fine,” Leona says sincerely. “We’re not mad. We’re all kind of doing our own thing. It’s time for a joint adventure, though.”

“I found what I was looking for, but not necessarily who. My cousin may not even be alive. If this reality suppresses powers, then she died billions of years ago.”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Ramses says with a smirk. He’s walking over the access shaft, arms down at his sides, feeling the air churning under his palms. “Do you feel that?”

“I felt it when I arrived,” Mateo agrees. “It’s become stronger since you showed up.”

“There’s temporal energy here,” Ramses believes. “There may be enough.”

“Enough for what?” Marie questions.

His smirk widens. He closes his eyes to concentrate, locks onto the apparent energy around him, and disappears.

Heath is shocked. “I always believed. I always believed it was all real, but a part of me still experienced doubt.”

Marie takes him by the shoulders, and leads him closer to the shaft. “That’s fair. I’m glad you stuck by me, and you will be too. The first time is always a rush. “She holds on tight, and jumps him down to meet Ramses.

The other three come together, and follow. The lights are on in the elevator, and a little beyond the open doors, but no farther. Ramses is already venturing out, and Marie is smiling at Heath’s look of exhilaration.

“Hey, computer...I’m home,” Mateo says out loud.

“Welcome,” comes the AI’s voice. Lights begin to illuminate for them, but never get too bright, possibly to conserve power.

The team continues down the passageways, splitting off every once in a while to check out rooms to see if there’s anything of note in them. All but Angela meet back up in the main lounge once it becomes rather clear that they’re the only ones down here, and it’s probably been this way for quite a long time. “Computer, report.”

“I’m afraid I do not understand.”

“What happened down here?”

“You arrived seven minutes, thirty-two seconds ago.”

“What happened before we arrived?” Leona clarifies.

“No data available,” the computer answers.

“I’ll look into it more,” Leona tells the group. “There might be answers in the system that the processor doesn’t have direct access too, or even a handwritten note on the refrigerator.”

“This alone is a pretty big answer,” Mateo points out. “Just the fact that it’s here proves that we may have everything we need to get everything we ever wanted. We could leave, not leave, travel back and forth. This gives us possibilities that we didn’t have yesterday, or at least lights us the way.”

“You were right,” Leona admits. “This is real.”

Angela walks in. “So is the med bay. I think we can work with this. Marie, you’re gonna be okay.”