Microstory 1924: Blinking Yellow

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Leonard: Hello. My name is Leonard. How’re you doin’? Need anything? They tell me you don’t drink water. You look a little desiccated. Sorry, that’s my big mouth. Let me just find the button on this remote. There. Now you can see that no one is watching us through the mirror. Then I’ll reach up here to shut this off too. Just so you know, in this universe, when the little slowly blinking light is yellow, that means the camera is on. When it’s solid red, power is running through it, but it’s neither streaming nor recording. That’s how they do things here. I’m not sure if you can relate. Do Ochivari have camera technology? Oh, I saw a little reaction there. You didn’t think I had heard of you, eh? You figured that as long as you stayed quiet—which is probably part of your training—they wouldn’t be able to get any information out of you. It’s a fair assessment. I’m assuming it’s not just that you don’t speak our language. Nah, your reaction tells me you understand me. Honestly, I think you lucked out that these people have profoundly strong anti-torture laws. Don’t you find that fascinating? I find it fascinating. Where I’m from, they passed anti-torture legislation too, but you can get away with it if you’re sneaky. If you get caught, you may go to prison, at worst. Here, you’re subjected to the exact same torture that you inflicted on others, compounded by the number of victims. They don’t think it’s worth it, so that’s why you’re fine. Funny how they extend it to aliens, though, right? Seems like that’s a whole other animal. Then again, they probably have anti-animal abuse laws too, and that’s really all you are. You see, the difference between a human and an animal is that a human can communicate with other intelligent beings at a higher level. We can ask for help, and we can provide help, and we can beg for mercy. You’ve not asked for anything. You’ve not said anything at all. They think you’re just an animal. What do you think of that? Any reaction whatsoever?

Ochivar: *says nothing*

Leonard: Hm. I can see that my predecessors have already attempted to torment you with words. That doesn’t count as torture, by the way. They have zero laws regulating mental and emotional abuse. Where I come from, you can get in serious trouble for that, but the way they figure it here, you should either be strong enough to handle anyone’s harsh words, or you should use such experiences to harden yourself against them, which is why they don’t even feel compelled to protect children from it. How does that make you feel? Do you care for your offspring? How do Ochivari procreate? Do you just spit into a giant cauldron together, and then mix it up until a litter of monsters solidify?

Ochivar: Stop! Stop! Dear Limerick, end my suffering.

Leonard: What’s a Limerick? Is that your god?

Ochivar: What is your second name?

Leonard: *pauses* Miazga.

Ochivar: Leonard Miazga of Universe Unlabeled. I’ve heard of you. Am I seeing your origins? This is the first time you traveled the bulk, isn’t it? Wow. What an honor.

Leonard: You could be making this up. You’re not saying anything that proves you know the first damn thing about who I am.

Ochivar: *leaning forward* Get me the hell out of here, and I’ll give you some proof.

Leonard: *leaning forward too* Now you’re speakin’ my language.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 7, 2398

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Derina Torres accepted the position, though she took it under false pretenses. She believes that she will be working for Angela, and has no idea that Angela has plans to leave. It’s not going to be an immediate transition. Their best estimate for being able to escape this reality is still months away. That gives them plenty of time to make sure that Derina knows what she’s doing, and feels comfortable taking on more responsibility. She won’t be alone, which is what they’re working on today.

It was very important to Angela that the half of her replacement who will be in charge of the business side of things would be a woman. This was a woman-led company from the beginning, and she doesn’t really want to change that, especially not after all the misogynistic bullshit that she and Marie had to go through at their last company. Leona convinced Winona to convince whoever needed convincing to grant her temporary access to the United States Database of Working Individuals, or USDOWI, for short. No matter which world, in which reality, in which universe you go to, the government loves acronyms. Sorting the table of employed people was more complicated than it sounded when Leona first brought it up, but it still only took a day to create her top ten most wanted, and then pare it down to the best candidate. On paper, the best candidate is a man, but Angela is willing to sacrifice perfection for best fit.

Syntyche Söderberg, Soldier of Sustainability is not named for the reason you may think. Sustainability, in this case, does not refer to her feelings on environmental, or even social, responsibility. What she’s known for is dropping into startups and struggling businesses, and fixing whatever is wrong or lacking in them so well that their success lasts indefinitely beyond her departure. Her main competitors boast the same accomplishments, but the persistence of that success is dubious for most, and non-existence for a few. She knows what a company needs to thrive in the marketplace now, and in the future, and she does not accept the job if she thinks that it can’t be done. She stays on an assignment for as long as it takes, which may mean a week of observation and consultation, or a year of running the organization from the top down. If she can’t teach Derina to lead independently, she’ll find her own permanent successor.

Syntyche isn’t famous for her high ethics, but she’s not evil, and she does not allow the abuse of power, or the mistreatment of employees or consumers. Her focus is on profit and growth, which often leads to utilizing cheap materials, and overcharging for finished products, but according to anecdotal reports, she will forgo these objectives in order to conform to the principles of her clients. Well, at least she’ll meet them halfway. Let’s not go crazy here, she has a 92% success rate that she has to maintain.

They’re lucky to have caught her near the end of her current project. If she agrees to the contract, she will be able to begin in two weeks. She had her lawyer look over the paperwork yesterday, and is now sitting across from Angela, Alyssa, and Derina, silently crossing eyes and dotting teas. She takes off her reading glasses. “Where are you going?”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m just contracting you to help us grow.”

Syntyche chuckles, and looks back at the contract. “This binds me to seven months, with an extension to a full year, if necessary.”

“Right,” Angela confirms.

“Extend the extension to two years, and you have a deal.” She holds out her hand.

Microstory 1882: Someone Their Own Size

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I was a wanderer in my youth. I settled down when I got old, and the traveler life was no longer viable. I don’t regret the way I was, and I don’t regret ending it when I did. I don’t care that I can’t afford to be in a nice facility. It’s got a bed, and they feed me twice a day, which is more than I can say for some periods of my past. There was a time when I could go anywhere in the world with no problem. Hiking, hitchhiking, sneaking onto trains; everything was easier before. I suppose I started doing it out of necessity. I had a normal upbringing, and a regular job, but then I lost that job, and couldn’t get a new one, so I sold most of my possessions just to get by, including my car. Once I realized there was nothing left for me there, I skipped town, and began to make my way to other places. Sometimes I found a good job that could have lasted, and sometimes not. If it was the former, I would inevitably quit, and move on anyway. You see, I get bored quite easily. The scenery, the people, the restaurants; I like them when they’re new, but I inevitably eventually lose interest. One time I managed to scrounge up enough cash to get on a boat to the New World. It’s not like I had a dream to make a better life overseas. I just figured things would be different enough, and thus more interesting to me. They weren’t really; things are pretty much the same no matter where you go. But I never went back, because I felt like I was done with Europe by then. I spent a lot of time in the rural parts, which is where our story really begins. My life up to this particular point, and all the time after that, was generic and boring, but I finally got an adventure. I just wish it hadn’t been so bloody. Still, at least I have something to say for myself. I saved lives.

I was wandering through the woods one early afternoon, hoping to find a spot to make camp, when I started to hear a ruckus beyond the trees. It wasn’t my business, but I’ve always been curious—disappointed, ultimately, but curious until I learn the truth. So I kept walking, and found myself overlooking a fighting ring down the hill. It was a huge operation, lookin’ so strange since it was in the middle of nowhere. Three Ring Circus is what they called it, unoriginal as that was. A third of the audience was watching a cock fight, the other third a dog fight, and the final third a human fight. Some people acted like they could smell me—it was weird—they turned around, and gave me the stink eye. A couple of rednecks started to walk up towards me. It was clear that I was unwelcome there. I don’t know how they figured out who was excited for the violence, and who didn’t approve, but they seemed to know right away that I did not like what I was seeing. The humans, I didn’t care about. They made their choices, as far as I was concerned, but the animals were innocent, and were never given any options. I. Went. Crazy. I had been in a number of fights myself over the years. Some places just don’t like strangers, even if you mean them no harm. I was never formally trained, though, so I was kind of surprised at how much I had picked up from experience. I took down the men they sent after me, and then I went after everybody else. Some were afraid of getting caught by the authorities, so they bugged out, but others tried to defend their territory. You might not believe it, but I took on at least twenty men all on my own, including the human fighters whose entire reason for being was hurting others. Once it was over, and I left, having freed the poor creatures, I’m sure the people who ran the show just started back up again, but I still felt satisfied by giving them a taste of their own medicine.

Microstory 1876: Necessary Work

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Gross things don’t bother me, and they never did. I don’t remember how old I was, but there was one time when we walked in to find a dead rodent in our classroom. It was just a single room back in those days, if you can believe it. We all just learned together, I don’t know how we got anything done. Anyway, our teacher was afraid. He probably would have had us conduct our lessons outside that day if it wasn’t the middle of winter. That’s probably why the animal crawled its way in there in the first place. Though I suppose it didn’t do him much good. Something had to be done about it, and I was the only one willing. The other kids stayed away from me starting that day. You would think they would be grateful that I handled it like a champ, but I guess that level of graciousness is just not something you can expect from a child. It doesn’t matter, the ostracization didn’t bother me none. I made it out of my small town. I made a new life for myself in the city. I had a few jobs here and there; all of them fit for a lady, even though that’s not how I would ever characterize myself. One night, I was riding in the passenger seat with the boy who was courting me when a deer ran out into the road, and got herself hit. She was bleeding and convulsing, and like the rodent, something had to be done. Once again, I was the only one capable. I grabbed a tire tool from his truck, and bashed it over the deer’s head to put it out of its misery. And of course, just like before, the guy was more freaked out than appreciative. He drove me back into town, and never called me back. But I didn’t care, because this was how I found my calling.

We left the deer on the side of the road, but I didn’t want it to rot there permanently, so I walked myself to the animal control center. I told the guy what had happened, and he said he would take care of it. It’s not that I didn’t believe him, but I wasn’t sure I trusted him, so I demanded he take me back out there right this very minute. Well, he couldn’t leave the place unoccupied, so I agreed to wait until someone else returned. Then we did go out there. He lamented that I severely undersold how large the animal was, but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I could help him load up the carcass. He said that was against protocol, so I asked him if my being there at all was protocol, so he gave in, and let me help. To my surprise, we drove the thing out to a bird sanctuary, so the meat wouldn’t go to waste. I mean, it wouldn’t have gone to waste in the wild—something would have turned it into its meal—but I liked that they had a way of disposing roadkill responsibly, instead of just tossing it away like garbage. I was sick of being a secretary, so I asked for a job, and as hesitant as the bossman was, my new friend vouched for me, and I started a couple weeks later. I know that it’s not glamorous work, but someone has to do it, so it may as well be me, rather than some poor little thing who retches at the sight of blood and guts. Not everything about the job is like that, though. We would also get calls for animal abuse and neglect, and that was the part that I hated the most. Animals die, it happens, but there is no reason to take responsibility for a helpless creature if you’re not going to treat it right. So I wouldn’t say I loved every minute of my life, but I always felt useful, and I can die happy. I made pretty decent money, and retired with more than enough to support myself, and my family. Well, that’s about all I have to say for myself. I’m sure you were expecting something more interesting, but some of us just do what we can, and try not to make too many mistakes.

Microstory 1873: Disturbing Others

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In my day, in my country, homosexuality wasn’t just frowned upon, it was outright illegal. I’m talking death by a thousand cuts, illegal. While the rest of the world was coming to terms with it—and in some parts, embracing it—mine was strictly against the so-called lifestyle. I didn’t think much about that sort of thing while I was growing up. I just dreamed of having a real family. I was too young to recall my parents, and the people who ran the orphanage either didn’t know anything either, or didn’t care enough to give me an honest answer. One thing I’ll say is that they were not abusive. They gave us very little food, mind you, but I think that was less their fault, and more due to a lack of funding. But they didn’t hurt us, or execute unreasonable punishments, or any of the other things that may become the catalyst for your favorite creepy horror film. I knew about the homophobic thing, but I was so young that it never came up. Until it did. One day, two twin sisters were introduced to us. One thing I remember noticing about them is that they never wanted to be apart. They held hands the entire time, and I’ve since wondered whether that had to do with whatever trauma broke up their family, or if that was just the way they were. One of them happened to be assigned the bunk under me, while the other was right next to her. The problem was, this whole codependence thing didn’t go away just because the lights shut off. That night, they asked me and the girl on the other top bunk to come down, and then they dragged one of them over, so they could sleep right, right next to each other, just like they probably did at home. I remember finding it funny that they didn’t ask, but it didn’t bother me. It didn’t seem to bother the other girl either. The two of us were friendly, but we weren’t friends. Not yet anyway.

The next morning, our surrogate mother came into the room to make sure we were awake. She immediately noticed the joined bunks, and scrunched her nose at it, but she didn’t make the twins put them back as they were. She didn’t even say anything. She probably wasn’t worried about it setting some kind of precedent, and since boys and girls were obviously separated into different rooms, it wasn’t going to cause any other problems as we grew older. I think it didn’t quite occur to her, though, that two unrelated girls were also part of this sleeping dynamic. But seeing her face is what made me realize it was a little weird. But not that weird, right? Well, we made it work. The twins were happy, and I was getting to know my new friend. It was a lot easier to whisper to each other in the middle of the night without disturbing anyone else, so that was a pretty special perk. As you may have guessed, things changed over time. We were both aging, processing hormones, and developing feelings. I honestly can’t say if she ever felt the same way about me as I did about her, and looking back, it might have been best if I had stuck around to find out. But I was so scared, and I was just thinking about myself. I knew that my feelings were real, and they weren’t going away, and the only way I was going to survive was if I left. So that’s what I did. With no money, no connections, I fled the country. It was easier than you would think. Other refugees were fleeing for other reasons, and as long as I always hung around an older woman, people would just assume that we were together. I lived like this for years, crossing borders, and spending some time on the other side before moving on. It wasn’t until I crossed the ocean before I felt comfortable being myself, pursuing my truth, and living without fear.

Microstory 1759: Snake Handler

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When I was back home from college one summer, I had the most profound experience of my life. I was out in the jungle, just trying to get a little exercise, when I came across a sea serpent. Like she was at least somewhat intelligent, she followed me back to the ocean, where she was able to swim freely and safely. As if that wasn’t enough, I slept there that night, and woke up hungry. On my way back to civilization, I found another snake. He was apparently fit for freshwater, and this time, he led me to where I needed to go, which was a diner out in the middle of nowhere. Until this point, I was studying environmental chemistry, but that all changed. I quickly dropped all of the courses I was planning to take that next semester, and switched tracks to herpetology. I wanted to study amphibians and reptiles, particularly snakes, and I got pretty lucky. I was surprised to find that my university offered a herpetology degree, which is rather unusual for it to be so specific. It was hard to change focus, and I did have to stay there for a whole extra year to complete all my courses, but I don’t regret it. Did you know that birds and mammals are technically reptiles? Well, it’s a lot more complicated than it sounds, but it just shows that classifying our world is constantly evolving, and we don’t have everything figured out. I don’t even know all there is to know about snakes, and I know quite a bit. What I’ve realized is that I can commune with them on a level no one else has ever seen. They don’t talk, like they do in those fantasy books, but I can form a bond with them, and gain their trust. I can handle any of the planet’s deadliest snakes, and they will not harm me, because they know that I won’t harm them. I don’t know if I was born with this gift, or developed it later, but it has made me extremely valuable and sought after in my field. My colleagues affectionately call me the snake handler.

Snake venom has the potential to treat numerous diseases, which could save thousands—or maybe even millions—of lives. I’m not the person who comes up with these treatments and cures. The first step in such research is procuring the venom in the first place, and that’s where I come in. Not only can I handle the snake in the lab, but I can find who I’m looking for in their natural habitat with ease. Over time, I’ve honed my hunting skills, which are just as supernatural as my communal bonds. You need a blue Malayan coral snake? I got you covered. What about a South American bushmaster? You know I got you. Anything, anywhere, anytime, I’m your girl. You can’t call it dangerous when I’m around. I have not met a snake that I cannot handle. I travel all over the world, collecting specimens that my clients requested, and delivering them to the labs. I don’t do business with unethical organizations, and I don’t wipe my hands clean after I’m done. I return periodically to check on my snakes, and again, they can’t talk, but I know if they’ve been mistreated. It’s happened a handful of times. I take the snake back, charge them a mishandling fee, and blacklist them in the industry. Most of the time, one or two researchers have been the problem, but I have been known to shut down entire companies for not adhering to my strict rules. If I say they’re bad news, they lose funding. Right now I’m in the Star Mountains, on the trail of a Papuan taipan, when I sense something I’ve never felt before. It’s forcing me on a detour, where I quickly come face to face with a purple snake that I’ve never seen, even in pictures. I think I just discovered a new species. The problem is...I can’t seem to form a bond with it.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 31, 1608

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“This was not a win for you,” The Cleanser argued. “My girl was the one who actually rescued all the people from the boat.”

“My team provided the cuff necessary to complete the task,” The Warrior volleyed. “Your girl would have failed without us.”

“Uh, without us,” Mateo jumped in.

The Cleanser and the Warrior looked at him like he was even more of an idiot than he was.

Mateo held firm. “More specifically, without Leona.”

“Just so I can understand this,” Leona began, “are you two fighting over who manages to save the most people?”

Zeferino laughed. “Yeah, let’s go with that.”

“Ha, yeah,” Anatol agreed.

“Anyway, we agreed no mixing,” Zeferino said. “We’re supposed to be operating within different timelines.”

Anatol shrugged. “I’m still getting a handle on my new powers. I honestly didn’t realize this wasn’t a different reality. You normally do that for us.”

Zeferino seemed content with this response. “Then we’ll call it a draw, and move on to the next one.”

“Okay, but I don’t like your chances with this one,” Anatol said. “She seems...green.”

“I am green,” the young woman agreed.

“Well...” Zeferino began.

“You wanna split the teams again,” Anatol figured.

“I’ve already worked with some of these people,” Zeferino said. “It could be fun.”

“So, what? Three against three?”

“There are seven of them.”

Anatol shrugged again. “I don’t really know why this Olimpia person is here, or what she contributes.”

Olimpia didn’t seem bothered by this remark, and no one wanted to come to her defense, because all it would do was lead her to being just as much of a pawn in their chess game as the rest of them.

Leona cleared her throat pointedly. “There aren’t seven of us, there are six.” There had been this unspoken agreement that everyone would pretty much stay quiet while the gods fought with each other, but Leona hated bad math, and she couldn’t let it go.

Anatol looked around. “Wait, where is Dalton?”

“I didn’t use him for this one,” Zeferino explained. “These two haven’t met yet.”

“What are we doing with the numbers?” Anatol questioned. “Are you bringing him on, or what?”

“Let’s do boy versus girls,” Zeferino suggested. “I have a fourth man to bring on who could be on your team, and that will make them even.”

“Hold on,” Anatol said. “I have to take the guys? They’re all morons.”

“D.B. isn’t that dumb, Anatol.”

“You have Leona and Angela. That’s crazy.”

“You have the primary cuff,” Zeferino returned.

“Well, it doesn’t work without it, does it?”

“You do have two to spare, according to my maths.” Zeferino looked directly at Leona.

“I do. But you still have the dream team,” Anatol reasoned.

“I’ll tell you what, your team can have any powers you want them to have. My team can have none.”

They both thought over the proposal, to make sure there weren’t any issues on either side.

“Deal,” Anatol said.

“Deal,” Zeferino echoed.

They both looked over at the group. No one was preparing to argue or complain. Mateo was smiling.

“What are you thinking?” Anatol asked. “You believe this will give you some kind of advantage?”

Mateo’s smile widened. “Not as of yet, but it will present itself. That’s a major lesson that I don’t think I realized I learned until now. You see, you are so powerful that you can think ten steps ahead. But you always miss one thing.” He used hand gestures for emphasis.

“What’s that?” Zeferino asked.

“You always miss at least one forking path. We’ll play your game. We’ll let you break us up, and compete against each other across two timelines. While we’re doing that...we’ll wait. Despite your immortality, you both possess an obscene amount of impatience, and regularly demonstrate a high capacity for boredom. I give this...nine missions before it all falls apart.”

Zeferino and Anatol smirked, and simultaneously said, “deal.”

Leona, Angela, Olimpia, and newcomer Siria went their own way with the Cleanser. Mateo and Jeremy, meanwhile, went off with the Warrior to meet back up with Dalton, as well as meet some guy named D.B. Mateo was surprised to find out that they were talking about the D.B. Cooper; famed plane hijacker and folk hero. He reportedly made off with $200,000 in 1971, though according to Anatol’s introduction, this was just a ploy to get himself to altitude. His time traveling ability only worked when he was falling from a great height, and he was actually just trying to get home. The Cleanser apparently screwed with his attempt, and forced him so far in the past that this goal would be impossible. He recently spent some time working with Mateo’s once-mother, Laura Gardner, and her partner, Samwise Bellamy. Even though he was still centuries in the past, being in 1608 was sort of a break from that harsh life. There was a reason that most travelers didn’t spend too much time before the 20th century. Toilet paper was a pretty big factor.

“All right,” Anatol began. They were in some kind of salon, or meeting room for rich people, who didn’t want to spend too much time with the less fortunate. Everything was made of leather, or wood. “Now that everyone knows each other, it’s time to begin. Today is May 31, 1608. You are in Timeline One. The ladies are in Timeline Alpha. Most of the time, these timelines won’t be running concurrently, but access to The Parallel has given me the ability to keep one from collapsing under the weight of the other. For now. You’re in a competition. Not only do you have to complete the missions we set before you, but you have to do them better than the other team. Whichever team ends up with the best timeline will get to live on in their timeline. The losing team, on the other hand, will remain in the defunct timeline until such time that it finally does collapse.”

“Wait, what?” Jeremy questioned. “You didn’t say anything about that before.

“Oh, it didn’t need to be said,” Anatol joked. “Zef and I knew that was part of the deal all along. Don’t worry, we’ll be all right. Only the four regular people on the team will die. He and I will get out and survive no matter what.”

“Yeah, we were worried about that,” Mateo said sarcastically. “I guess it’s okay now that we know you two will live.”

“Quite.” Anatol was just going to pretend they were all being genuine. He handed Jeremy a slip of paper. “This first one is pretty straight-forward, just to dip your toes in. They’ll get more complicated as you level up. That is the address of a young boy. Rescue him from his abusive uncle, who ultimately accidentally kills him today. I’m not even gonna give you access to my time power library, because I don’t think you’ll need it. In fact, I’ll be suppressing both Dalton and D.B.’s powers, in case you get any ideas about escape.”

“Thank you,” Mateo said. “You can go now.”

“Very well.” Anatol disappeared.

The four of them looked around at each other. Then they all sat down. “Obviously we can’t do this,” Jeremy decided.

“No, we can’t let them die,” Mateo concurred.

“I don’t understand how this works,” Dalton noted. “When it kills us, will we go to the afterlife simulation?”

“I don’t think so,” Mateo guessed. “The simulation is in whatever timeline wins out over the others. That is, it’s not like it exists outside of time. Every version of it that exists in a collapsing timeline should collapse along with it. Otherwise, everyone would have infinite alternate versions of themselves in there, and I don’t think that’s how it works. We won’t even really die, it will be more like we never existed.”

D.B. nodded understandingly. “What is the afterlife simulation?”

They explained it to him.

“So, if we don’t save the boy,” D.B. said afterwards, “we just have to hope your friends on the other team do? Our version of the boy will be erased from history regardless, but one of them will live on?”

“That’s the way I understand it,” Mateo said.

“I feel a little weird letting him die even though it won’t matter,” D.B. lamented with airquotes.

Mateo nodded. “He said you’re a time traveler. You’re not a time looper, though, right? You create an alternate reality every time.”

“Yes, I see where you’re going with this. I’ve killed an infinite number of people already. I suppose it’s just that I’ve never been asked to save a particular person. My God...” He reached over, and took the paper from Jeremy. “We know his name.”

“The answer is..don’t think about it,” Mateo instructed. “He will be saved. There’s no way Leona doesn’t figure out how to do it in the best way possible.”

Meanwhile, in Timeline Alpha, the girls were sitting around in their own salon, but it looked more island tropical than stuffy cigar club. They were getting to know their new member. Siria was like Angela in that she didn’t have powers, but she knew about it all. She worked at a special place that was simply called The Time Clinic. People with time illnesses were sent there to be treated, or just made comfortable. Her job was primarily that second part, as she didn’t have any medical training, but she also seemed to have a knack for coming up with permanent solutions that helped the patients lead semi-normal lives. Many of the illnesses were the result of the Cleanser’s petty retaliations, which was how she ended up on his shitlist.

They too had decided that they couldn’t let their friends die in the other timeline just to save themselves. Unlike them, though, they realized that the guys would come to the same conclusion, and that the boy would not be saved in any timeline. They sat there for about an hour before someone knocked on the door. When Leona opened it, she didn’t find a person, but there was a movie theatre on the other side. That was about three hundred years too early, so they all walked through, and took their seats. The guys came in from the other entrance shortly thereafter, and found their own seats.

“Did you win?” Mateo asked his wife.

“I didn’t play.”

“Me neither. I was hoping you would. Were you hoping we would?”

Leona shook her head. “No.” She didn’t elaborate.

The house lights dimmed, and the curtains moved. An image came on screen. It turned out to be a trailer for a movie that featured most of the people that were in the auditorium right now. It was about a team of time travelers who very specifically found themselves on a planet a hundred and eight light years from Earth. They had a ship that could only take them a light year at a time, so they had to have adventures with crazy alien cultures in the meantime. It sounded more like a TV show, but either way, the audience couldn’t tell if this was prescience, or a joke. Once it was over, the feature presentation began, but it was shorter than the trailer they just watched. A drunk man was beating a young boy in his room, and ended up taking it too far with a lamp. This was the boy they were meant to save, but didn’t. These were the consequences.

The house lights came back up, and Anatol and Zeferino climbed on stage. “As part of this sneak preview,” the former began, “my co-director and I are hosting a Q and A session. Ask us any questions about...oh, I dunno, why the hell you should agree to participate, and what’s going to happen if you don’t, and...how many innocent people are gonna die?”

They waited. “No?” Zeferino asked. “No one wants to know those things?”

Leona stood up. “I don’t know what you thought you would accomplish by forcing us to become complicit in each other’s deaths, but good people don’t do that. We don’t choose to save ourselves. And if you can’t understand that, you shouldn’t be in charge of an outhouse, let alone all of reality. We’ve all asked you to help us save lives, and in exchange for that, you’re asking for us to kill each other. That’s not a thing, that’s not a thing! You can play it straight, or you can watch us sit here and do nothing. You have the power here, so either do the right thing, or perpetuate this macho psycho-killer bullshit reputation that you’re apparently so afraid to lose, you can’t see that all of your sadistic games are completely goddamn pointless!”

The two of them stood on stage for a moment. Then Anatol reached over, and placed his hand on Zeferino’s shoulder. They disappeared for a second, then returned in different positions. “All right, no games,” Anatol agreed. “One team, one timeline. Save the people we tell you, don’t ask questions, and we’ll let you know what the point of it all is in the end. This is our final offer. Either take it, or we’ll make you wish only half of you had been erased from existence.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, July 13, 2128

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Angela Marie Walton was born in 1784 to a wealthy slaveowner. He wasn’t the cruelest person in the world, but he did own people, and that was wrong in every time period. Angela grew up fascinated by the black people who worked for the family. She liked to watch them, not to remind herself that she was superior, but also not because she felt that they should be treated as equals. She was indoctrinated into the world she lived in, and she had trouble fathoming any world beyond it. She had somewhat contradictory feelings on the matter. It was wrong how African people were taken from their homes, and forced to live somewhere else. But the slaves her father owned today were not Africans. They only knew this country, so they ought to stay. They deserved to be treated well, but they were uneducated, and perhaps they could never be taught to be civilized, so at least this gave them a purpose. They had a roof over their heads, and food to eat, and she rationalized that there was little difference between that, and a freeman who had to work for a living. They weren’t getting paid in coin, but in living resources, so maybe that was good enough.

As Angela grew older, her contradictions started slipping away. She stopped seeing the good in the system, and started focusing more on how broken it was. Life was about choice, and these slaves were fundamentally not given a choice. The fact that they were born into this was not their fault, their lack of education was not their fault; nothing was their fault. She slowly became an abolitionist. But there was a problem. She was still a woman; a girl, actually, and her opinion mattered very little. If she spoke out against the injustices, she could lose everything. What she needed to do was find a husband who felt the same way. She did, in a man named Ed Bolton. He was more outspoken about his sentiments, and she admired him for that. In 1809, she began a courtship, of course, against her fathers wishes. But it didn’t matter, because once she was married, she wouldn’t have to worry about what her father thought, or how he felt. Ed wasn’t the richest man she knew, but he made a decent living, and he would be good to her. Unfortunately, they never made it to their wedding day. On September 9 of that year, Ed Bolton disappeared from his home, and wasn’t seen again for two years.

In the meantime, Angela lost what few privileges she had, and was forced to marry another man. This man was far more cruel to his slaves, and he firmly believed in their inferiority. Angela’s father didn’t even like him all that much, but he felt betrayed by his daughter for the whole Ed Bolton thing, and vindictive towards her, so her husband was her punishment. Her husband was as abusive to Angela as he was to the other humans he owned, and it all came to a head in 1816, when he dealt her a fatal blow. Ed Bolton was returned to the timestream when it happened, and tried to save her, but was unable. Angela’s husband took this as an opportunity to frame Ed for the crime, and when the latter resurfaced yet again five years later, the law swiftly intervened. He disappeared after three weeks, but the true killer was never caught, and Angela was still dead. Fortunately for her, there was life after death, and she spent the next three centuries making up for her past sins, until she was finally promoted to Counselor. Then it ended, when she tried to counsel a group of other time travelers, and it prompted a major demotion.

Over two hundred years after Angela’s death, new life was coming into the world. A woman of unknown identity was giving birth to a baby boy, completely alone. Down the hall, a man named Lowell Benton was killing someone else. The victim had done nothing to Lowell personally, but Lowell had a power. He could see people’s sins. Or rather, he always saw their sins. Whenever he looked at someone, the worst thing they did in their past flashed before his eyes. If he looked at them a second time, the second worst thing they did flashed. The cycle would continue ad nauseum, and the strain from this drove him crazy. It drove him towards murder, because dead bodies didn’t ever show him any visions. Funny he didn’t seem to get the idea to just go live out in the woods somewhere, and avoid people. He decided that being a vigilante was his only option. When he heard the screams of the mother after finishing his last jobs, he became curious. It sounded like she was in pain, but it didn’t sound like someone was purposefully hurting her. He quickly picked her lock, and broke in to find her alone, on the floor, with some towels. The baby was coming, and there was no time to get her to a medical facility. The most surprising thing was that she wasn’t giving him any visions. His theory was that the baby had never sinned, so it was sort of interfering with the signal, but the truth was that being in labor forced her to think of nothing but the pain, and whatever her sins were, they were buried so deep that Lowell couldn’t get to them.

By now, he was used to gross things, and of course, death. With nothing better to do with his night, he knelt down, and helped deliver that baby. And when the mother died by whatever specific cause, he didn’t bother to contact the authorities. He just stood up, and washed his hands. But the baby kept crying, and it was starting to get on Lowell’s nerves. He was about to leave when he caught one more glance of the infant, and felt a calm. He had also never thought to surround himself with babies before, who were the only living humans on the planet without sin. They could give him peace. So he picked up the child, and took it with him on the road. He never did call anyone about the dead mother, so by the time the autopsy confirmed she had died while giving birth, Lowell and the child were so far away, that no one could have made a connection between the two. He spent a week with that baby before growing bored with him. Sure, he was a calming presence, but he would start sinning eventually, and Lowell didn’t want to have to kill him for it. Besides, there were plenty of targets that actually did need killing, and running around with a child was obstructing that cause. He happened to be in Kansas City at the time, so he dropped the kid off at the nearest fire station, and moved on with his life with barely a second thought. The firefighters, meanwhile, named their new charge Jeremy Bearimy.

“Wow, you know a lot about me,” Lowell said. “Every time you talked about Ed, though, you gestured towards this woman right here.”

“I’m Ed,” Téa explained. “I died and was reincarnated as a girl.”

“Oh,” Lowell said. “Gotcha. Except, why would I rescue this Jeremy Bearimy fellow?”

“Weren’t you listening?” Mateo questioned. “He’s the kid you delivered back in 2018.”

“Yeah, so I saved him once. Why do I need to do it again?”

“Yeah,” Mateo realized, “why does he? Why do we need him?”

“You need a team,” Jupiter replied. “This is the one I’ve chosen for you. You’re primary objective is Leona. Once Missy returns from The Fourth Quadrant next year, hers will be Sanaa, Téa’s is Angela, and Lowell’s is J.B.”

“J.B.?” Lowell questioned. “He’s doing the initials thing? Nah, I’m not into that. Jeremy is a fine name, I’ll call him that.”

Jupiter stared at him a moment. “That’s between you and him, I don’t give a shit.”

“Who’s the fifth person?”

“That is your first mission,” Jupiter answered. “Trinity is the new team member who corresponds to Ellie. The problem is, I’m not sure where she is. I figured she would be on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida—”

“Thayla-whatnow?” Lowell interrupted.

Jupiter sighed loudly. “Your first mission is to locate her, and bring her into the fold.” He pointed to their wrists. “You’re limited as to when and where you can do that, though.”

“Wait, what do these things do?” Lowell was an interesting character. He was a bad dude, of course, and he questioned everything anyone asked of him, but he didn’t seem antipathetic to these requests. He both wanted all the information, and didn’t care what those answers were. Nothing was going to stop him from helping, not because he was altruistic, but because he wasn’t doing anything else right now.

“I’ll let Mateo explain. He’s your leader, by the way. He reports to me, but you report to him, and if he tells you to do something, you better do it.”

“Or what?”

Jupiter lifted his primary Cassidy cuff; the one in control of all the others. “Or I’ll switch off your time power dampener, and force you to watch all of my sins. You think the people you’ve killed were bad, you haven’t seen evil like mine.”

Now Lowell shut his mouth, and took a quarter step back.

Jupiter went on, “you are all on Mateo’s original pattern right now. I want him to be on the Bearimy-Matic pattern, however. Fortunately for you, through a loophole, those two components coincide with each other right now. The issue is that this loophole ends in less than three weeks. You have that long to find Trinity, figure out how to break into Tamerlane Pryce’s afterlife simulation, and get at least J.B. out, so he can rejoin the team. Lowell, there are only eleven cuffs total, which means you will be giving yours to him. That’s your motivation. If you fail, you’ll be stuck like this forever. Everyone understand what is expected of you?”

“Yes,” they all replied in perfect unison.

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Microstory 1212: Faustus Lambert

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When the Deathspring came for a seemingly random scattering of Earthan residents, most were unhappy about it, but not as unhappy as one might assume. While the magic portal seemed to take people at random, it often took multiple people within a community sphere; as if it were being controlled by some kind of intelligence. Entire families were swept up, even if they happened to be standing nowhere near one another. The worst losses the refugees felt were the people they loved, but many of their loved ones were taken along with them, so it could have been far worse. This was why—despite how difficult life was on Durus—not everyone lobbied to be transported back to Earth when the opportunity arose. Only a couple hundred people expressed interest in making the journey, and out of those, only about half had come in the Deathspring. The rest were born on Durus, and just didn’t want to live there anymore. Faustus Lambert did not fall into either of these groups. He saw the arrival of the interstellar vessel, The Elizabeth Warren as a means of furthering his own agenda, but its flight plan didn’t matter much to him. He was an entitled prick, to be quite crude, but appropriate and accurate. Durus, Earth; he could live anywhere, as long as there were those who would give him what he wanted most, which was attention. Under the guise of being an advocate for his people, he orchestrated a violent attack on the of the Warren, and demanded they let them tag along as passengers. The truth was, however, that their feelings and desires were of little consequence to him. They were just tools. Faustus didn’t care who his people were. They could be puppy-kickers, Nazis, or serial killers. He just wanted to lead. More to the point, he wanted people to follow him—not because he thought he knew best, but because it made him feel relevant.

Faustus lived a rather comfortable life from the very beginning. He was born male, so he had that going for him. He outright rejected the idea that women were systematically treated unequally, while simultaneously treating women poorly. His beliefs were no less true anywhere than they were on Durus during its phallocratic era. He wasn’t a violent rapist, but unfortunately, that was more problematic in its own way. Had he committed even one assault, it would have at least been possible to arrest him, but he just continued with his life, never breaking the law, but never following the spirit of the law either. He abused his girlfriends psychologically, but too subtly for them to prove anything, even to themselves. He cheated on his partners frequently, and while he didn’t ever do anything with a minor, he sure did like them young. He had an unwritten rule that he couldn’t date anyone over the age of 20. This lasted until he was 35, and could no longer “score” so young, so he raised his limit to 25, but only because he had to. When the public learned that the only ship on the planet capable of transporting more than one person was scheduled to leave within a matter of months, Faustus took his shot to get those precious followers. He quickly changed his tune on a number of sociopolitical causes; pretending to champion women’s rights and Earthan refugee living conditions. Anytime anyone brought up his history of bigotry and misogyny, he simply denied their allegations. Anytime anyone presented proof that he was lying, he doubled down, and claimed that it was nothing more than fake news. Faustus took control of the movement that was trying to get to Earth, and nobody felt like they could fight him on the matter. His new people thought he could get them on that ship, and if that meant they were following a dishonest clown to do it, then so be it. In the end, the majority of the people who wanted to go were allowed in, but all the violent people—the ones who took the crew hostage—were completely excluded, including Faustus himself. He was finally sent to prison for his proven crimes, and this was where he died, alone and unremembered.

Microstory 1172: Annora Ubiña

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When she was a little girl, Annora Ubiña discovered that she could create a very small pocket dimension. Her father called himself a traditionalist, which was really just a fancy way of saying he was abusive. He never physically hit her, but he did a lot of lunging, and towering over her with his huge body. He was loud, and demanded too much of her. He liked to intimidate people; not just women, but he held a high office in the Republic, so no one could do anything about it. She realized right away that she could not let her father, or anyone else, know what she could do, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t use it for protection. Whenever he was in the mood to literally throw his weight around, she would sneak away, and hide in her pocket. At first, there was nothing in there. It was really just a closet-sized space of listless energy. She could carry things with her, however, and leave them there, where they would remain. She became a little thief to furnish her hideout. Anyone who had the inkling that she was the culprit would have no evidence against her...until they did. Over the years, she was able to increase the size of the pocket; not indefinitely, but a little more every year. Unfortunately, this had a side effect of alerting others to its existence. She would later figure out how to shield the pocket’s energy from detection, but not before the authorities found her, and locked her away for her crimes. There was an engineering error in the design of the prison. The architect calculated how many cells he would need, and multiplied that by the width of each to see how wide the building would need to be. He failed to account for the width of the walls between each cell, and instead of correcting this, the construction workers just built fewer cells. This was still not perfect, however, and the last cell in each block ended up being only about twenty inches wide. Until this point, it had only ever been used for storage, but the warden decided it would be a fitting torture of Annora, since it was ironic that now her movements were limited to the extreme. The cell walls were lined with power dampening paint, so there was no escape.

She spent eleven years there before the phallocracy fell, and the Provisional Government took power. Many people, particularly women, had been treated unfairly since the fall of the Mage Protectorate, but their crimes against Annora were of the highest order. In an attempt at reparations, Annora was provided with a settlement that suddenly turned her into one of the wealthiest people on the planet. She lived comfortably for the next decade, not pursuing any further legal action, and just trying to put the whole thing behind her. After all, they had at least gotten her away from her father, and he managed to die of a heart attack before she was released, so she never had to see him again. When the crew of an interstellar ship arrived on a mission to rescue two inhabitants, they found others who wanted to go to Earth as well. Their ship, however, was not anywhere near large enough to fit even a few more of them, so they asked her if she was willing to come as well, and use her now considerably stronger powers to create some extra space. Annora was perfectly happy living on Durus. In fact, she would have quite liked to stay. Things were getting better by the year, and she wanted to be a part of that. But the people on The Elizabeth Warren needed her more, so she agreed to leave. This would turn out to be a fatal mistake, for when she discovered a stowaway on board, his cousin, Jarrett felt it was too risky to let her keep living.

Microstory 1158: Sila Demir

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When Sila Nacar was thirteen years old, she was sold as a wife. All things considered, her husband was a nice man. He treated her kindly, and never abused her, except when he did. He wasn’t violent or cruel, but he did have sex with a child, regardless of Turkey’s stance on child marriage. The fact that they even refer to it as child marriage proves that they know it’s wrong. Before he was even sure Sila was pregnant, her husband decided he wanted a better life for them in the United States, so they immigrated to Oklahoma. It wasn’t the most lenient of states when it came to child brides, but it was a little less racist than some of the others, and he wanted to be insulated on all sides. Sila birthed her first son, Serkan in 2009. Four years later, she was pregnant again, with Alim. Over the years, living in North America changed Sila’s husband worldview. It happened slowly, but steadily. He started to actually change as a person, and the birth of his second son pushed him over the edge. He came from a society where his behavior was socially acceptable, to a degree, but he never thought that women were inferior, or that he was entitled to a young wife. He had rationalized that she wanted to be with him, and it took a long time for him to learn that this was not entirely true. The more he woke up, the more he saw how unhappy she was, and the more he wanted to do something about it. He figured the best thing he could do was to leave. He gave her practically all of his money and encouraged her to move far away from him. He even suggested she legally change her and her sons’ names, so he would not be able to find them. In his mind, this was what was best for the three of them. While he didn’t think he would hurt them if he could find them, he no longer wanted to support the distasteful practice that he once believed in. She was grateful for what he gave her, but didn’t take it that far. She retained his name, trusting that he would stay away, and wanting to honor him for having become a better person. Years later, after both of their children were teenagers, Sila’s husband broke his promise, and found her in Kansas City. He had met someone age-appropriate, but his marriage to her was still technically valid, so he needed a divorce. The judge was disagreeable, and didn’t consider their long estrangement to be good enough reason to grant divorce with only one-party consent. The two of them did not have to reunite with each other, though, as this could all have been done through counsel, but Sila wanted to see him again. They had both grown since then, and she kind of wanted to know how things turned out on his end. She never intended for either of her children to be there when it happened, but life doesn’t always end up how you like it.

Microstory 976: #MeToo Campaign

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This series is meant to be a list of things that I love. I love disco, and chocolate, and Stargate. But I can’t say that I love the #MeToo campaign. It’s on this list because I’m glad that this, and related movements, are finally happening. For too long, women have been silenced. They’ve been expected to do not make waves, and to just move on with their lives. Men are conditioned to believe that they are entitled to their thirst for sex and power, and are charged with chasing those dreams relentlessly. I’m horrified every time I hear a new story about some kind of sexual misconduct, or abuse. Each time sounds like a surprise, but if you read deeper, you find that it’s not a surprise. People knew what this man was doing for a very long, and the only reason we’re hearing about it now is because it’s what’s trending. It’s not that all these twisted men got together, so they could coordinate their attacks. This is a systemic problem that has been going on forever, and it’s the revelations of them that are happening all at once. I once made this morbid joke that the only men I would be shocked to hear about doing something like this are Tom Hanks, Colin Hanks, and Jason Ritter. There are more people out there who aren’t abusers, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to trust in that reality. Like any social media movement, it has not come without its faults, or criticisms. It is unclear to some what the hashtag is supposed to accomplish, besides raising awareness, because awareness does not always breed action. It’s important to recognize that a hashtag, no matter how much it’s spread is not capable of truly transforming society. Each case must be examined independently, and abusers have to experience true accountability for their actions. Judges must stop passing out “get out of jail free” cards because their crime happened in the past, and there’s nothing we can do about it now. Could you imagine if we did that for every crime? “Well, we didn’t catch you before your murdered all those people, but the law says we have to let you go. It’s only illegal if you haven’t done it yet.” The entire justice system, in this country at least, needs to change. Statute of limitations is a legal concept; not a moral one. There is no limit to the amount of pain a traumatic event can cause a survivor. One does not simply get over it because enough time has passed. I can’t use the hashtag myself, because I have never experienced anything like this, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing I can do to help. I can start with #IBelieveHer, and I can continue to listen.

Microstory 941: Sex Workers

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As I believe I’ve said before, though perhaps only in fictional settings, I do not believe the sex industry should be illegal, nor so stigmatized. I often hear people defend their own vices by comparing it to those of others. Despite what the South Park writers would have you believe, being fat is not “just as bad” as smoking. Smoking is a bizarre behavior on its own, but in the end, I don’t care so much what you do to your own body. The issue arises when you do it in public, and you poison other people. Same thing goes for the difference between recreational drugs, and sex. When done wrong, both sex and recreational drugs are bad. They cause friction between loved ones, diseases, and financial hardships. When done wrong, recreational drugs are bad, because they cause friction between loved ones, diseases, and financial hardships. When done right, however, sex is good. It releases pleasurable chemicals in the brain, creates a bond between partners, and in some cases, propagates the species. Yes, there are a lot of bad things attached to the prostitution industry. People are thrown into this life against their will, forced to take drugs to keep them docile, and treated extremely poorly. There’s a lot of violence and blood and abuse that comes with the territory, but it doesn’t have to be this way. I’m not saying that simply making it legal would solve all of its problems. Governments would still have to regulate it, but guess what, the government regulates nearly every other industry anyway, so I’m not asking for anything crazy. Create laws that would protect workers from harm; others that would keep children from all sides of it; and stop making it seem to clients that these people don’t matter. Like the homeless, sex workers are treated like objects, to be used, and if desired, discarded. If they had rights and security, it would be a whole lot harder for someone to not treat them like real people. I don’t know what this all looks like in the long-term. Maybe once most of us have merged our bodies with artificial components, sex won’t seem quite as important, but I know that something has to be done today. People aren’t getting hurt and dying because they’re having sex. They’re getting hurt and dying because they’re not having sex the right way, and because too many oppose proper education, and acceptance. So, let’s hear it for the noble sex workers. I would raise my glass to you, but I don’t do recreational drugs.

Fervor: Escape from 1972 (Part VI)

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“My God, young lady, you look like a whore!” my mother shouts for all the world to hear.

“I beg your pardon,” the woman who was trying to help interrupts, but she’s still being ignored.

“What are you wearing? Why do you look so old? Where did you go?”

I’m fourteen years old, which is only about a year older than my parents expect me to be, but I guess their memory is of me as a twelve-year-old, which is a fairly big difference in a young lady’s development. I’ve had to grow up pretty fast because of the terrible conditions I started in, and when Serkan and Ace took me out of that life, it wasn’t like I started regressing, or anything. I’m still rather mature for my age, and my time in the 21st century has only made me more independent. These two people here may have conceived and raised me—though, there’s no way of knowing whether we’re related to each other, because I’ve yet to see proof of it—but they don’t control me anymore. I scoff at her, and try to walk away.

There’s got to be a way out of here. Okay, let me think. I seem to have the ability to travel through time and space using photographs. That would be fine if I had a picture of 2025, or 1491, but I lost my phone with tons of options from the former, and camera technology didn’t exist as far back as the latter. Hell, I would take it if something could take me back to sometime in the 2020s, as long as it was before the day that I left. No, I’ll even take a week or to after that. Thinking about it even more, I realize that all I really need is a way to get out of what I see now from a shred of newspaper blowing on the ground that it’s no sooner than October of 1972. I would need to find something more current to get an exact date, but that matches up with what I remember about when the famous Blue Marble photo, which I’ve been using as my phone background, was taken.

“Don’t you walk away from me,” my mother spits. By now the other woman has slipped away, not wanting to interfere too much in other people’s lives. I think in the future, people will be less forgiving, because they’ll never know when they’re being watched by video cameras, designed to record social behavior. For the most part, however, a 1972 mother is free to discipline her child however she sees fit.

“Do you have any pictures?”

“What?”

“Like in your purse,” I press. “Or dad, in your wallet? Do you have any picture of me as a baby? Or of anything?”

She’s noticeably thrown off by this, and interprets it as an attack on her character, which it partly is. I’m just looking for a way out. “Well, no, but...”

“Did you look for me? Did you send out a photo of your missing daughter? Or did you just go back home?”

“We haven’t been back home since you disappeared,” my father finally says. He never hit me, but he stayed quiet when my mother did, and maybe that’s just as bad.

“Oh my God, are you still on your ancestry tour? Christ, I had my blood tested. We’re not part African. That was just what your own father told you to excuse himself for being a racist piece of shit. We are British or Irish, though, so you got lucky with that one.”

“Now, you listen here,” my mother begins.

I scoff again, but much louder, as I’m rolling my eyes, and turning away. She grabs my arm. “Let me go.”

“I am your mother, and you will—”

I don’t let her finish. I just narrow my eyes and take a quarter step towards her, my arm fully within her grasp. “If you don’t let me go right now, you’re gonna find out how good 1970s South African medicine is.”

She’s never been scared of me before, and she’s never been scared of anything more than me right now. She releases me, and lets out a whimper so faint, I can’t be sure I didn’t imagine it.

I take a moment to calm down, and try to be as cold as possible. “I left you in Stonehenge because I was done being treated like two chalkboard erasers. I have gone on to see wonders, to meet wonderful people, and to learn new things.” I realize I can’t say anything about being a time traveler, but as I’m speaking, I’m also realizing no time traveler I’ve met has actually said anything about some Time Patrol. Maybe I can tell them the truth, and no one will care. I don’t think I have to, though. “I left because it was best for me, and for you. You never wanted kids, and only did so because you were indoctrinated into a society that expected it of you. I’m pleased to announce that you have fulfilled your obligation. I may have escaped a few years sooner than you expected me to, but I think we all knew it would come to this. I’m not calling the cops, or seeking a journalist to tell my story about your abuse, but I’m also not going home with you. This is my life now, and that is yours. I need to find a newsstand, or maybe a library, so I can make my way out of this country. If you pursue me, in any capacity, I’ll make Lizzie Borden look like Cindy-Lou Who. Are we on the same page?”

They don’t say anything, and I just walk away, not sure who’s more scared of me; my father, my mother, or myself. I do find a newsstand, and discover that it’s the seventh day of December. The latest paper from the states is from the first of the month in New York. I feel like my best option is to at least get back to the states. I don’t know of any time travelers that lived in this time period, except for Detective Bran, who is still a child at this point, but the U.S. still seems like the safest place to go. I pay for the paper, and choose the first headline I see with a picture: Storm Caused Traffic Mishaps.

Maybe that wasn’t really the best one I could use, because I’m suddenly standing in freezing cold weather in late Fall. Several cars are stopped on the wrong side of the road—that is, as long as I’m not still in South Africa. I hear honking and screaming, and the sirens from a trooper. He gets out of his car, and starts rounding up help from other drivers, to get the cars back where they belong. Even though it’s cold as hell, I still have no idea what I’m going to do, so I might as well help too. I get behind one of the cars, and prepare to push. The big strong men also getting ready to push look at me funny. “Call me Rosie the Riveter,” I say to them. One of the men trying to push another car takes off his heavy coat, and gives it to me, which I don’t see as an affront to my feminism. Together, we all get them up the hill, and out of the way. I try to return the coat to the man as he’s getting ready to leave the scene, but he just winks and says I should keep it. He’s older than me, but I don’t get any creepy vibes.

As strange as it must look for a teenage girl to be wandering the highway alone in the middle of the day in November, nobody else gives me any trouble, or offers to help. There’s no telling how long these people were stuck in traffic, but surely they’re all just in a hurry to get home. It was probably mentioned in the article from the paper, but I didn’t bother reading it that closely, and I couldn’t take it with me, because it was run a day in the future. I start walking down highway 20, headed towards civilization, thinking about what I could have done better, confident that I made all the best choices with the cards I was dealt. Goddamn it’s cold, though. If I’m going to be a time traveler, I need to start thinking about not going anywhere without a bag of essentials. I need to keep things like water and cash with me at all times, but the first order of business would be a coat. I stick my hands in the pockets, and find what feels like a piece of paper. I take it out, hoping whatever it is isn’t important to the guy who gave me the coat. It’s a photograph.

At first everything seems normal to me, but then I realize that photos these days aren’t printed on paper like this. You would need a personal computer to do it, which is impossible. Even if you didn’t, the picture itself doesn’t look like anything that exists today. I don’t even know what it is, but it looks like something out of a science fiction movie. I flip the paper over, where it reads, Giant Magellan Telescope, April 4, 2025. “Holy shit!” I can’t help but exclaim out loud. That’s a few days, off but I'll take it. I look behind me, half-expecting the coat’s owner to have followed me there, but the afternoon rush is over, and I’m alone. Worried a time pigeon might come and snatch the picture from my hand, I concentrate on it until my eyes start burning, and I make the jump to the future. Man, that’s a lot easier that I would have thought. In movies, it takes superheroes days to master their powers, if not longer.

I stand and marvel at the telescope for a good long time before someone realizes I don’t belong there, and escorts me off the premises. I discover that I’m in Chile, so I make my way to the nearest internet café. I tell the woman working the counter that I just need a minute to look up directions, and she gladly activates a computer for me to use, free of charge. I try to run a search of J.U. Mithra Labs, but none exists on the internet, which is strange, because I feel like I’ve seen one before. Maybe it’s a weird timey-wimey thing. No matter. I just need a picture of Independence, Missouri, and I’ll figure the rest out later. The most recent I find is a photo that a Local Guide took of some temple with a crazy spire on top, from the fourth of April. Perfect.

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