Microstory 2408: Sportsdome

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Sports. Have you heard of them? Well, I like them. I’m pretty old. I was, in fact, one of the oldest people still physically capable of being upgraded enough to stick around back when life extension was in its relative infancy. I remember taking the train all around the country to see baseball games. I managed to see at least one major league game in every stadium. As the centuries went by, I watched as they faded from popularity. Some of them were outright banned—or effectively neutered—due to laws against violence. Remember hockey? That was basically just an excuse to fight on the ice. The whole act of hitting a puck into a net was more secondary to that urge to express one’s aggression and manhood. I never liked it, but they got it here on Castlebourne. They have every single sport somewhere here. Name one, they got it. Even the really obscure or really old ones that I hadn’t even thought of when I was growing up, still believing that I would die one day. Anyway, I think this dome is pretty cool, and I intend to spend a lot more time here. Unfortunately, nearly all of the players are androids, because we’re still in the early days of this planet, and like I said, sports in general have dimmed in popularity. It’s kind of creepy, because there was this glitch when I first showed up. They weren’t expecting me, and they didn’t sense my presence right away. Obviously, these things aren’t just playing games for no one to watch. They only do it when a visitor is around to see it. So there I was, walking onto the football pitch, and the androids were just standing there, staring into space. Of course, they weren’t staring, they were in dormant mode, but since they’re so lifelike, it looked really scary and unsettling. So that was just a little issue that I think will get worked out if people actually start to come here and see what all this stuff is about! Really try to give it a chance. I know it sounds so quaint. I mean, how interesting could it be to watch 22 people kick a ball back and forth? It’s a lot more nuanced. Just because you’re not in a virtual reality where the rules to some random game some random guy randomly came up with take ten years to learn doesn’t mean it’s not fun to watch. If you swing by, I’m sure we can find you something that you’ll like. For now, I’m going to see what jai alai is like. We didn’t have that when I was a young one.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: The Rock – Part 1

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Mateo teleported right behind the shooter, and snatched the weapon out of his hands. He then jumped several thousand kilometers away, into outer space, and left it there before returning. He blinked and breathed to get himself back to equilibrium. “Do not shoot my wife again please, nor anyone else.”

“He won’t,” the other masked person claimed. They removed their helmet to reveal herself to be someone they already knew.

“Kalea Akopa,” Leona acknowledged. “I assume there are multiple versions of you, so which are you, and what do you want with us?”

“I want nothing of you,” Kalea replied. “Forgive us for the theatrics. The last I heard, you were mixed up with the Goldilocks Corridor; a place like that can turn a person violent. I needed to see how you would react to violence against you.”

“What’s this Resonant Parallel Coalition?” Marie asked. “That sounds genuinely violent.”

Kalea nodded. “I’m afraid it is.” She sighed deeply. “I am the leader of the Parallel, but I’m not a king. There are too many people to manage, and they like to make their own decisions. Some of them have banded together to prepare for war in the Sixth Key.”

“Yes, we are aware of it,” Mateo explained. “We were going to try to help prevent it, I think, but then we got pretty sidetracked. Has it not begun?”

“We’re staving it off,” Kalea answered before adding, “...for now.”

“Yet you want us to join your little army,” Leona reminded her.

“No, Harbinger Zima wants you to join.” Kalea nodded towards her companion, who had yet to remove his own helmet.

“Harbinger?” Angela questioned simply.

Kalea was afraid to clarify, so she put it off until the last second before the pause in the conversation became too awkward. “He commands roughly 480 billion units. They’ve not started fighting yet, but...”

“Did you say billion with a B?” Mateo asked.

“That’s nothing compared to our total population,” Kalea said.

“It’s not nothing compared to every other military force that could possibly participate in the Reality Wars!” Leona screamed at her.

“As I said, I’m trying to stop it,” Kalea responded calmly. “He and I were in the midst of diplomatic discussions when we were both spirited here.”

Before the discussion could go any further, other people started to pop in out of nowhere. The first one they saw was Carlin McIver, who was much older now, but he was not alone. A teenage girl they didn’t know appeared to be accompanying him. Ellie Underhill showed up too, along with Lowell Benton. Princes Honeypea appeared unexpectedly, as did a bunch of people who the team didn’t recognize. Two of them were either twins, or duplicates of each other, like Angela and Marie. Everyone seemed equally confused, if only by coming to this place specifically, not that they were transported in the first place. The weirdest thing to happen was the giant Memory Magnolia tree from the Garden Dimension. It faded in and out of view, struggling to maintain coherence in this time and place. It never solidified either. Instead, Tamerlane Pryce was standing where it was. He was the only one who acted as if he knew what was going on.

Pryce stepped forward and breathed deeply the recycled air. “Thank you all for coming, and I say that completely sincerely, even though you did not have a choice. Some of you are familiar with this face. The man who originally wore it was named Tamerlane Pryce. I am not this man. I am the humanoid manifestation of the Tree of Life. I chose this form because I had access to it, but if you have any strong feelings for him, please do not put them onto me. I’m just...a ghost.”

The crowd stared at him. “Right,” a woman in full military dress said. “You’re a tree. I suppose that is a flower?” She pointed out Honeypea.

Honeypea did a short little dance full of twirling and bowing. “I am a Horticulturalist. Pleased to meet you all.”

“Why are we here?” It was Ingrid Something. She was the one leader in the Fifth Division who refused to fight for her position in the deadly competition that saw Leona’s entire team get destroyed, which meant that she was the only one not to lose that position when Leona ultimately won. “I think we’re all thinking that.”

The personification of the Magnolia nodded Tamerlane Pryce’s head. He started talking with his hands like he was giving a Ted Talk. “You are on the brink of war. I saw it. The Nucleus saw. Team Matic sees it. I think I can help you put a stop to it, but it’s not going to be fun for you. It’s going to take hard work, diplomacy, and perhaps even your entire lives. You may die here, and in doing so, could save quintillions and quintillions of other people’s lives.”

“Excuse me.” One of the twins stepped towards the Pryce Tree. “What the fuck are you talking about? As far as I know, we are not on the brink of war.”

The Pryce tree nodded again. “You live in something called the main sequence. Your whole reality was copied, along with your alternate self over there, who you have been desperately trying to ignore, because he makes you uncomfortable. It is he who is at the brink of war, as are many others here. But you are not all here for being aggressors. You are here as representatives. One person from each reality, as well a second to serve as their compatriot, has been selected for The Rock Meeting. I’m here representing the interests of life itself, and Princess Honeypea is my second. Pontus here will represent the Nucleus with the aid of his own second, who has not yet been chosen. Ellie and Lowell are here for Fort Underhill. They have already been doing what they can to stop the war from their side of the mid-universe membrane, so I believe that they can continue to help.” He smirked, and looked over at Leona, and the rest of Team Matic. “You think you’re only onlookers, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry?” Leona questioned.

“You think your arrival here is unrelated,” Pryce Tree went on. “You came here on purpose, or so you believe. Make no mistake, you are not getting out of this. You’ll be a part of the discussions as well.”

“Why would we be there?” Leona pressed. “We do not represent any reality, nor any other significant stronghold. We didn’t even bring our ship with us.”

“Yes, we did,” Ramses countered, tapping on his backpack, where the Vellani Ambassador apparently was.

Pryce Tree chuckled. “Why do you think I helped Marie get him back for you? Your ship is vital to the negotiations. We’re going to use it for how it was designed. So go ahead, Mister Abdulrashid...let it out.”

Ramses looked to Leona for guidance, but she could see that she was not the one in charge here. If a magical tree with access to every point in spacetime wanted him to release their ship, then that ship was getting released, regardless of how she felt about it. It was powerful enough to appear to them in the form of an avatar, who knows what else it could do? So he unlocked his pack from its magnetic seal, opened it, and removed the ship. Like Hank Pym, he was carrying it around as if it were nothing more than a scale model. He turned around and hunched over it, probably to input some kind of coded sequence. Then he tossed it out into the vast open space like a paper airplane. Once it was sufficiently far away, it expanded to full size, and landed gently on the floor. Some people were impressed by this, while others weren’t, or were at least trying to act like they had been there. Ramses clicked his special remote to open the main entrance.

“Everyone in,” Pryce Tree ordered.

“And if we refuse?” another stranger offered.

“If you don’t stop this war, you’re never going home, so you can either contribute...or derail it, and stay here forever,” Pryce Tree warned.

“You said that we might die here anyway, as some kind of noble sacrifice,” the stranger reminded the tree.

“If you die for peace, you can come back to life; I can do that. If you die because you refuse to help, you’ll just stay dead, and no one will remember you. Literally. I can do that too.”

They all started to walk up the ramp. Olimpia took it upon herself to lead them in, showing them where Delegation Hall was, as well as the rest of the Ambassador, which was designed with private meeting rooms, a galley, and lounge areas. The rest of the team held back, as did the Magnolia. “We do not need to be part of the negotiations,” Leona insisted. “We’re happy to host, but that is all we can do. The rest is way above our paygrade. None of us is anywhere near qualified to mediate serious discussions.”

“You’re the captain,” the tree began. “You control their movements, their actions, and where the ship goes once it leaves this place. Ramses is the engineer. Olimpia will make a fine Hospitality Manager. The Waltons actually are counselors. They will be directly involved in the discussions.”

Mateo laughed. “Anyone here need a personal driver?”

The tree smiled at him. “You’ll just be around. I didn’t see a point in bringing your entire team in except for you. Where else would you go?”

“Are you kidding me?” Ellie was the last representative to head for the ship. “You have a job here too. You went to every reality before they were absorbed into the Sixth Key. You’ve been to other universes. You know all these people, or they know you.”

“So, what? Everyone on my team boasts the same résumé,” Mateo pointed out.

“But you see it from a different perspective,” Ellie went on. “All of us here; we’re important. People look to us for guidance, for our leadership. We make decisions, and others have to follow them. You are one of those people, and you can speak to their interests better than any of us can. They are the ones we’re fighting for, yet we don’t understand them. I’m sorry, Tree, but representative in this situation is a joke. You can’t boil this impending war down to a couple dozen people. We need more Mateos, not fewer.”

“Hm.” The tree seemed genuinely surprised by this. “That’s a good point. Let’s televise this.” He snapped Pryce’s fingers.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 27, 2448

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Once Ramses was safe and sound in the Garden Dimension with the rest of the team, the Horticulturalists decided that it was time to kick everyone out. Even though the Memory Magnolia had apparently made its own decision about sending Marie to rescue their last remaining member, she was the one who partook in the fruit in the first place. She made that decision, and these were the consequences of it. Everyone else was being kicked out just for being associated with her, and they had no problem with this, because they needed to stay together, and as pleasant as the garden was, it was time to get back to work. Before they left, they warned the Horticulturalists that Bronach Oaksent and the Exin Empire were seemingly trying to get into the garden themselves. Nothing else made sense to explain why Ramses blowing a hole through the hull of Ex-42 would send them down the river towards the Magnolia conflux. If they wanted to protect their specimens from those who would truly harm it, they needed to seriously rethink their defensive strategies.

The Team was now back on Earth. They asked to be returned to the Vellani Ambassador, which was parked and invisible in the Goldilocks Corridor, but no one in the garden was capable of accommodating them. Whatever was indeed responsible for this detour in the first place was located at that end of it. They could try to investigate it themselves, whether the Horticulturalists wanted them to or not, but first, they had to figure out how to get back there. Their first thought was to seek help from Team Keshida on the Jameela Jamil, which could get them to that region of space in under five hours, but they didn’t respond directly. A voicemail message from an apparent quantum autoresponder informed Leona that the JJ was on a mission in the Miridir Galaxy, which was where Dardius was located. Quantum communication allowed FTL signals to reach vast distances, but the technology still had its limits. If they were in Andromeda XXI, they were too far away to talk to in realtime, and once they did receive the message, it would take them a month to return to help, assuming they weren’t too busy there to return at all. They were surely that far away for good reason.

Leona popped her lips several times. “Welp, back to the Nexus?”

“Yeah, the Nexus seems like the right call,” Mateo agreed.

Everyone else seemed amenable, so they teleported to the Pacific Ocean Nexus, directly inside the building, which was still neutrally buoyant just under the surface. “Venus Opsocor, are you there?”

No one responded.

“Venus, can you hear me?” Leona reiterated.

 Still no response.

“You two on the outs?” Ramses asked.

“I’m sure she’s a very busy superintelligent god,” Leona presumed. She walked up the steps, and tried to enter the control room, but the door was locked. She tried to just teleport to the other side of it, but it didn’t work either. Venus was icing her out. She must have wanted her to stay here for some reason. She let out a frustrated sigh, and banged on the door before turning around to go back down the stairs.

A man opened it from the control room, bleary eyed, and trying to block the lights from hitting him. “Can I help you? It’s a little early.”

“Do you live here?” Leona questioned.

“Yeah,” he answered, like he had every right. He blinked a lot, and looked around. “Wait, do I? Where the hell am I? Why am I inside?” He jerked his head around to look back into the control room. “Where is my apartment? Who are you people? What did you do to me!”

“Please try to relax, sir. We did nothing to you. We did not expect to find you here. What is the last thing you remember?”

“Uh, I fell asleep on the couch. My couch, in my home. Now I’m suddenly here. I could have sworn that when I heard you banging, I woke up on my couch too. It was here a second ago. Could someone please tell me what’s going on?”

“I’m going to ask you a few questions, sir, and they may sound weird, but trust me, they’re important. Just answer them honestly. We are not going to harm you, or use anything against you. We’re here to help. What year is it?”

“It’s 2024, dumbass.”

“Sir.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t assume that you’re the bad guy here. I’ve seen this move a million times. A group of people wake up in a cube, or on an island, or a weird building in the woods with a giant window-slash-mirror, where monsters watch you for fun. Or it’s a torture chamber, or a shower stall, or a spaceship, or a lobby in heaven—”

“Sir,” Leona had to repeat yet again. “You’re talking about the You Wake Up in a Room trope. I don’t think that’s really what’s happening. We came here on purpose, we just didn’t expect to find anyone else, and there is a way out. Let’s keep going. We know the year. Where is your apartment? What city?”

“Silver Shade. Silver Shade, Kansas.”

Leona nodded. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s in Mineral County,” the man added.

There was no such place as Mineral County as far as she knew. “I should have asked this before, what’s your name, friend?”

“Baylor. Baylor Alexanderson.”

Leona proceeded to introduce herself, and the rest of the team.

“Those are some interesting names you got there,” Baylor mused. “Do you have any more questions for me, or are we gonna be able to get out of here?”

Leona consulted her watch, even though she had already looked at it as soon as they left the Garden Dimension. “I have some bad news, Baylor, it’s not 2024. It’s 2448, and given the fact that you’re from a city and county that doesn’t exist here, I can only assume that you’re in the wrong world. Given your description of answering what you thought to be your own door, my guess is that you went through the Westfall, though it’s not supposed to take you somewhere this altered. You’re supposed to think that you’re still on the same world. At least that’s how it was explained to me.”

Baylor stared at her for a moment. “What the shit are you goin’ on about?”

“I know it’s disorienting, but I’m still going to do all I can to help you, if Venus would just kindly respond to me!” she increased the volume of her voice, as she looked up towards the Nexus drum. She could never quite tell where Venus’ voice was ever coming from, but it always sounded like it was from above. “Hello?”

“Wait, is this one of those—wadya call it—Voldisil things?” Baylor asked. “Are you a fabled Voldisil?”

“I’ve never heard of that either,” Leona admitted.

“I don’t believe in ‘em,” Baylor explained. “They say that this kid out east can heal people, but I don’t put stock into such rumors. I’m sure it’s all a big hoax. I mean, he charges rich people a ton of money, and then he gives his poor patients some of that money, in addition to healing them? Does that sound right to you?”

“I don’t know, sir, that’s not my world, as I said.”

“Well, if I’ve been sent through the dimensional planes, or whatever, how do I get back? Tell me what to do.”

“You could...try to...close the door?” Leona suggested. She didn’t know how it worked, or whether it could ever be undone.

“Is that a question?”

“I’m not an expert.”

Baylor sighed, tipped an imaginary hat at her, and then closed the door.

She tried to open it again right  away, and was able to this time. Baylor was nowhere to be seen, and the lights inside the control room were starting to come on. “Guys, I think it worked. Or it sent him somewhere totally different.”

“I’m here, Leona,” Venus’ voice answered.

“Venus, how long ago did I ask for you?”

“It has currently been eight point seven seconds.”

“L-O-L.” Mateo laughed at the coincidence.

“It’s been longer than that for me,” Leona told her. “We’ve been interacting with a man we believe to have come through Westfall.”

“I did not register his appearance, but that’s the one thing that could have interfered with my temporal association, and my response,” Venus said.

“That’s okay, I think he’s back home. We were wondering if you could do the same for us. We left our ship in the Goldilocks Corridor, around a planet called Ex-659. Have you heard of that? It’s about 16,000 light years away.”

“I never have,” Venus answered.

“There may or may not be a working Nexus on a planet called Ex-371. You and I spoke while I was there sixteen years ago.”

“I have no recollection of that. Either my memory was purged, or it has not happened to me yet.”

“Okay.” Leona thought about it. “Can you take us to the Dardius Nexus? I have the term sequence.”

“I’m afraid that the Dardius Nexus is presently offline at this point in history.”

“That’s disturbing.” Leona took a deep breath, and centered herself. “Then we have one last option. Could you please send us to the Nucleus?”

“Captain, that’s not safe,” Marie warned.

“It’s the only place I know that can travel such distances, unless you can put us in touch with one of the Al-Amins?”

Marie put her tail between her legs.

“Venus?” Leona went on.

“I have heard of that,” Venus said. “I can send you there, but there is no Nexus there in 2448, so you will not necessarily be in control of where you go next.”

“We rarely are,” Leona responded.

“Step into the cavity, please.”

“We appreciate your support,” Leona said genuinely as she was taking up the rear.

The light rained down from above, and dispatched them to purported the center of the universe. They did not exit to another Nexus, as Venus had explained. They were in the same expansive room that Marie had come to while she was searching for Angela, which they both confirmed. It was mostly empty now. A man started to jog over when he noticed them, but then he suddenly stopped, and continued more slowly. “You came here on purpose,” he said to them, almost accusatorily.

“Yes, it’s only a pit stop,” Leona answered. “We’re trying to get to the Goldilocks Corridor.”

“I’m afraid we don’t take requests here,” he tried to explain. “My name is Intake Coordinator Pontus Flagger. Our only job here is to keep you healthy, fed, and comfortable, until the universe decides where to put you.”

“The universe doesn’t decide anything,” Leona argued. “There must be someone in charge, even if it’s an intelligence beyond our comprehension.”

“Like I said, the universe,” Pontus repeated, as if they were talking about the exact same thing.

Leona sighed. “Have you recorded any patterns? What kind of people come here, where they go, where they’re standing when it happens; that sort of thing.”

“No pattern detected,” Pontus said apologetically. “We’ve been looking for one.”

“How long have you been measuring?” Leona asked.

He acted like that was an impossible question to answer.

“Right. Time.” She looked over at her crew, who were waiting patiently for her guidance. “So, you got a suite for us, or something?”

“Right this way, sir.” Pontus spun around, and began to walk away.

“That won’t be necessary,” came an electronic voice behind all of them. His identity was being masked by an actual mask, as well as a sound distorter. He wasn’t alone either. Thousands of black-clothed stormtrooper types were standing behind him, all pointing their space rifles at the crew. They looked exactly the same, in the same positions, as if there was only one of them, and he had copy-pasted himself over and over again. Maybe that was the truth.

“Funny, I didn’t hear you come in,” Leona said.

“Um, they didn’t,” Pontus replied. “We have alarms for mass arrivals.”

Leona nodded, and lifted a hand. She sent a ripple of light towards the crowd, using her own holo-powers to disrupt and fade the image of the holographic army.

“Shit,” the only enemy there said. He reached over to his wrist, and switched off the ruse. Leona wasn’t quite right. There were actually still two of them, rather than only the one. “I need to regain the higher ground.” He shot Leona right in the chest.

The thing about these special suits being bulletproof was that they prevented most projectiles and energy blasts from piercing the layers. They couldn’t protect the wearer from everything, but they were extremely advanced, and Ramses had already bolstered their strength with a little bit of tinkering. And anyway, Leona fell to her back, and slid across the floor, because the concussive force was still strong, and she wasn’t magnetizing her boots at the time, not that that would have been the safer option.

“You are all now conscripted into the Resonant Parallel Coalition, whether you like it or not,” the shooter demanded in his weird little voice.

Leona stood back up, almost entirely unhurt, and arched her back to get the kinks out. She looked back with the confidence befitting a captain of her calibre. “Oh, no thank you.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 26, 2447

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Olimpia looked like she was about to follow Marie back to the magic tree. “No,” Leona stopped her physically. “It will be much easier for us to protect one in our group for breaking the rules than for us all to have to defend ourselves equally. So just let her go. She’s on her own.”

“Understood,” Marie said back through comms before disabling the connection. She was standing before the tree, as well as Princess Honeypea.

“You have the patience of a hummingbird.”

“I’m as fast as one too.”

Honeypea sighed. “We are obviously all pacifists. This place survives on the goodwill of others. We cannot protect ourselves. We are uncomfortably open for attack.”

“I’m not here to attack you,” Marie insisted. “I just want one fruit. You may see it as an act of aggression, but it is truly one of love. I need to put my family back together.”

Honeypea nodded, and pulled a fruit pod down. “Results not guaranteed.” She reached out to hand it to Marie, then pulled it back at the last second. “We believe this tree has a consciousness of sorts, and if it does, its intentions and motivations are unclear. It could be an amalgam of disparate identities. It might want to kill you for all we know. That’s why we asked for time to study it.”

“I’ll risk it.” She took the pod, pulled one piece of fruit off of it, and tossed it in her mouth. It was an unsettling and unpleasant experience. She expected juices to flow down her tongue when she bit into it, but this was not what happened. First off, it was bitter and oddly spicy, like a combination of paprika and ginger. And instead of juices, fibers spilled out. The insides must have existed in a pocket dimension of their own, or something, because these fibers continued to grow and spread like slime mold. Tendrils reached down her throat, into her lungs, and down her esophagus to her stomach and intestines. They broke through the tissue, and circulated into her blood, her nerves, and even her bones. Her veins popped out and glowed the same brilliant blue as the Magnolia’s leaves. Her hair stood on end, and an energy surged all around her skin. A glow filled her eyes, blinding her to her surroundings, and when it receded, she wasn’t standing on the conflux anymore. She was on the floor of a great indoor expanse, accompanied by a ton of other people, none of which was paying her any mind.

It took her a few seconds to realize that the hundreds of people moving about were mostly duplicates of each other. There were only a handful unique individuals, with dozens of copies scattered about. And a lot of them were part of the crew who stole Angela from them. Yeah, this was the right place. She took one version of Briar by the arm, not worried about hurting him. “Where’s my sister?”

“I didn’t even know you had a sister, Leona.”

Marie was so confused by this, she didn’t even try to stop him when he ran off again. “Leona?” she whispered. What was that gesture that they taught her? The suit could change to any color. Every single pixel could hypothetically be its own shade on the spectrum. But there was also this one particular setting that was different than the others. Remembering how it went, she half-crossed her index and middle fingers so that the former was right under the latter. Then she tapped on the inside of her elbow three times before separating the fingers by a few centimeters, and dragging them both towards her wrist. A mirror appeared all along her forearm. Her eyes were not staring back at her through the reflection. She looked like Leona now. She was holding a holographic impersonation without even realizing. And she couldn’t drop it, even if she wanted to, suggesting that Honeypea was right that the tree was sentient.

She took a deep breath. This made more sense, and she probably should have thought of it herself. None of these people knew who she was, or that they should trust her, but they knew Leona, and they probably all loved her. By the time she could reach out to another one of them to ask after Angela, she felt another pull, and found herself back at the tree.

“How did that go?” Honeypea asked.

Marie reached up to massage her neck. “Whiplash.”

“Interesting, interesting.” Honeypea licked the tip of her pin, and wrote that down in her notepad. “Tell me more.”

Marie was anxious to get back to her search, but she could spare a few minutes. She certainly wasn’t eager to eat another fruit. She explained why, which Honeypea found fascinating, and also helpful. Being able to explain to people how caustic—and perhaps even traumatizing—the experience was could make it easier to discourage others from attempting it themselves. Marie had no problem with this tactic, and would even be prepared to exaggerate the discomfort to prevent a flurry of people from coming to this delicate world, hoping to travel the universe and the timeline. She needed to be able to do this, but she didn’t need anyone else to. Once the brief debrief was over, she reluctantly pulled another piece off, and made a second trip. This time, there was less glowing, but it felt exactly the same, and maybe even hurt a little more? The strain on her body was only going to increase each time.

She pulled a version of Goswin aside, and showed him an image of Angela to ask if he knew where she was, but he had never met her before. Only one copy of this group had taken her away, and it was going to take some time to figure out which. It would be a hell of a lot easier if they stopped moving around so goddamn much! Each time she ate another fruit, and went back, she had to hope she wasn’t talking to someone she had already tried. It happened a couple of times, but the more she went through this, the more she picked up her speed. She asked the question in the most succinct way possible, and she quickly learned that Eight Point Seven was the easiest to get through to, and Briar the worst. He questioned being questioned, but the android always just got to the point. Yes or no, that’s all Marie needed, and some understood that better than others.

Those four main people had the highest number of copies, but there were also others, and she occasionally spoke to these people too, just in case they happened to know something. Their presence amongst the rest was too noticeable not to include them to some degree. One group of four in particular didn’t appear to have any alternates. They lorded over the crowd from a balcony above, and started making proclamations about how they were going to literally move mountains together, or some shit. Marie obviously wasn’t paying much attention to that, and she hoped they wouldn’t pay any attention to her either. She continued to jump back and forth, but started to whisper. “Are you the ones who took Angela?” she asked another one of the Goswins.

“Who?”

“That’s a no.” She turned away to see if she could squeeze in one more.

He stopped her. “Wait. What does she look like?”

She held up her palm to show him the holographic photo. “A core crew was on our ship, and when they left, she disappeared along with them. She’s not here, so they left her somewhere else in spacetime, but if you don’t recognize her, then it wasn’t you.”

He looked at his group. “Let’s find her. Just like Misha.”

They nodded in agreement, and suddenly, Angela was standing next to them. “Oh, thank God,” she exclaimed, hugging who she believed to be Leona.

That was when Lord Tamerlane Pryce noticed that not everyone was listening to his speech, which Marie was sure he thought was pretty damn good. The helpful Goswin tried to explain to him what was going on, so Marie and Angela just decided to shrink away, and try to be as inconspicuous as possible. They held each other tightly, though Angela wouldn’t know that this was for a specific reason. They should have disappeared by now. Something was stopping her, and it was probably her worst fear, which was that she would not be allowed to return to the others. The fruit could only transport one person, with no hangers-on. Still, she hung on, because if they couldn’t go back together, well, then she wouldn’t go back at all. At least Angela wouldn’t be alone anymore.

Tamerlane and the helpful Goswin continued to argue with each other. The Lords had apparently erected some kind of time barrier, which prevented anyone from being able to leave, which explained why no one was trying, despite the fact that they clearly didn’t want to be here. The defiant Goswin was up on the balcony by now. He approached the railing to address the audience. “Do you all wanna be here? Raise your hand if you do.”

A few people actually did raise their hands, apparently into this whole being conscripted for the Reality Wars in the Sixth Key.

“Then be free.” Goswin!Prime swept his hands forward from his chest.

Marie and Angela saw everyone begin to disappear before they too were spirited away, finally to the Garden dimension.

“It worked,” Honeypea noted with a wide smile. “And just in time too.” She nodded down towards the pod. There was only one fruit left.

“Not quite. “I still need Ramses. I made a promise. I just...I don’t know how. Honeypea, I didn’t bring her back. Goswin had to do it for me. This was before he lost his power I guess. How could I get Ramses? Goswin won’t be there this time.”

Honeypea looked for answers in the clouds. “I don’t know. We need time to study it. That’s what I’ve been saying. That’s why we were asking you to wait.”

Marie took a breath, and reached up to turn her comms back on. The real Leona would know what to do. But her finger never made it to her neck. She had to do this herself. She made this choice, and Leona made it clear that she was on her own. Marie turned away, and walked down to thoughtlessly splash one foot in the water several times. Then she walked back up the hill. “Tell my sister where to go, to the others. I can figure this out.” She pulled the last fruit from the pod. “I just need to test it first.”

“There’s no time to test anything!” Honeypea exclaimed, but it was too late.

Marie was home, or at least what passed for a home as she was growing up. If she aimed right—which she expected to have, since she was always right on the money in the Nucleus—this was 1816, following her death at the hands of Milford. She wanted to marry Ed Bolton, but her father had other plans, so she had always partially blamed him, as well as the actual murderer. Plus, there was that whole owning slaves thing that she could never forgive him for.

He walked into the kitchen to find her standing there. “Angela, my precious girl. You’re here. You’re alive.”

She waved her hands in front of her, and sarcastically howled, “I’m a ghooooost!” As he came towards her for a hug, she reached over and grabbed their cast iron kettle. She swung it around, and smacked him right in the jaw, knocking him to the floor. “Black lives matter, bitch.” She had mixed feelings about this word choice.

He was not liable to change his ways from this one short experience, but it felt cathartic on her end, and there was a chance that he would shout her return from the dead on the rooftops, which might land him in an insane asylum, and that would be retribution enough. The Magnolia fruit forced her back to the Garden Dimension. Angela was still there, having presumably been worried about what her sister was doing. Marie dropped the kettle on the ground.

“Is that what I think it is?” Angela asked.

“Yeah. He doesn’t need one this big now that I’m dead.”

“Why did you take it?” she pressed.

Marie interlaced her fingers, and cracked them. “It’s about the same weight as the pocket dimensional generator.” She reached up to harvest another fruit pod.

“No!” Honeypea shouted, in a far more serious tone than she had ever exhibited up until now. “I never said you could take a second fruit! I’m putting my foot down!”

“So am I,” Marie replied calmly. She stepped up, took Princess Honeypea by the shoulders, and teleported her halfway across the dimension, to a random spot, which happened to be in a cluster of delvidians.

“Don’t do this,” Honeypea begged.

Marie didn’t respond. She jumped back to the tree to carry Angela to the inn. Then she went off to her own random spot to avoid detection. She ate one more fruit even though she was quite full, and sent herself to the Vellani Ambassador.

“Marie, where were you guys?” Ramses asked. “What happened? I lost your comms signals. My probes have been looking for you for two years.”

“Get in the pocket dimension,” Angela ordered.

“What?”

“Get in the pocket before it’s too late. I’m taking you back, but you’re too heavy.”

“Well, I need to uninstall it from the door frame first.”

Marie had by now figured out how long she could stay before the fruit called her back, and her time was now up. “I’ll come back in ten minutes. Be ready.” She thought that she would return to where she had last left, but the fruit forced her back to the tree instead. Honeypea was there, and she was not alone. Everyone was there too, including Team Matic, the Horticulturalists, and Goswin’s crew. Most of them were not happy.

Onyx immediately snatched the pod out of her hand. That’s enough of that.”

“Please. I just need one more fruit for one more jump. That’s it! Ramses will be ready to go, and it will be over. Just let me go.”

“You lost all the goodwill that you had,” Storm argued. “You will never be allowed back in this dimension.”

“That’s fine! Just let me go get Ramses first!”

They shook their heads, determined not to change their minds, but the tree had other plans. It began to glow and pulse, and then it sent Marie back to the ship one more time, fruit not required.

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Microstory 2047: Delaware

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Papa struggled with the ALS for many months, doing what the doctors recommended, and trying different medications. Nothing was working, so they decided to go see another doctor. There was a different specialist who lived in Millsboro, Delaware. This is the one who told my fathers that the disease was aggressive. That’s the word I heard my family use a lot: aggressive. It sounds really mean. Some people can live 10 years after they find out that they have ALS, and I wish I could say that my papa was one of them, but he wasn’t. He found out in 2021, and you already know how this story ends. They did everything they could, but that wasn’t much. All they could really do in the end was make him as comfortable as possible. Delaware was not a good trip either. I will probably never go to Pennsylvania or Delaware. I might not even go to North Dakota again. Delaware was the last time that my papa could walk. He had to stay in the wheelchair for the rest of his life. It was hard to see him like that, but I would rather see him like that than not at all.