The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 6, 2550

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Things were a little awkward at first. Leona was a lot less powerful than Senona originally believed. They didn’t think to ask Echo or Clavia about it at some point, or the truth might have been clarified earlier. Senona lived in another universe, and their access to information about other universes had its limitations. They were aware that one Leona Matic was a time traveler in Salmonverse, but not that there were multiple people who went by the same name. They were thinking of an alternate version of her, who was far more powerful, and therefore better equipped to help with the effort at Origin.

This other Leona was from a different timeline, and only survived the transition because she was the one who went back to the past to save Mateo from torture, thereby creating the new timeline. She had a number of different time powers, which she managed to procure using organ transplants. The exact details of her exploits remained a mystery to this day. Senona didn’t realize the discrepancy. It wasn’t like they hadn’t heard of alternate selves before. It was simply an unknown unknown to them. The issue was that Alt!Leona never promised to aid in the efforts at Origin. To their knowledge, she had never even been there. Once discovering the difference between the two, Senona’s initial reaction was to let this Leona return to her life with the team, but she didn’t want to do that. After she asked for her own wish way back when, Senona mentioned that they would have to call someone for aid. When she pressed for clarification, they explained that that was how it worked. They couldn’t do much on their own, and could not leave Origin themselves, so they always recruited others. Leona volunteered to be one of these agents should the need ever arise. It now had.

For two years, Leona was the boots on the ground of the operation. Even though she couldn’t do as much as the other Leona, she wasn’t powerless either. Besides her normal teleportation, Senona provided her with temporary abilities. These included the means to travel all over the bulkverse on her own, do so invisibly, and with a certain knack for persuasion. She also had a number of ancillary abilities, like stamina and strength, which let her do the job without getting sleepy or fatigued. She did still sleep, and had time off. In fact, she had full permission to travel to any universe she wanted, and do whatever she wanted. But like professional chess, the clock only ran while she was working, and she didn’t want to delay her return to the team.

Meanwhile—if such a concept had any relevance outside the normal passage of time—Olimpia and Ramses were getting to know their son, Echo. They didn’t have to do any work for those two years, though they joined Leona on precisely two occasions, when the wish went beyond her scope alone. Today was the last mission. After this was done, the team members would go back to Salmonverse to be with their friends. Clavia would return here, and rejoin her brother. They weren’t slaves or anything, but they were not allowed to live in Salmonverse. That was something that I decided long ago, and while I gave them a pass on that for recent stories, it was never going to be a permanent thing. They are too powerful. Any problem which comes up here can be solved nearly instantaneously if they’re involved. They got to go.

“We understand,” Echo said, psychically, but also out loud. “But I demand periodic visits.”

That can be arranged. We’ll talk later.

“Oh, are you taking requests?” Sanaa Karimi interjected from wherever she was in the timestream. “I would like a real life pink pony. Sparkly fur. It has to cuss a lot.”

Sure, I’ll get right on that. Hold your breath and wait.

“I’m gonna tear out your eyeballs, and jam your thumbs into them so you can’t type anymore,” Meredarchos added.

You know where I live, asshole.

With the brief and unhealthy transuniversal psychic conversation over, Echo refocused on this last mission. He and his parents wanted to help make it a good one.

Leona was watching him. “Everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” he replied. “What do we got?”

“This is a funny one,” she answered. She had barely finished her last job, and was still wearing her adventure clothes. Since she couldn’t be seen, this wasn’t necessary, but it helped her get in character. “Not funny, ha-ha; more funny, oh God. A young man is playing a game called Scourge of the Valley, and his older sister has asked that we make sure he wins. The way it works, you and your competitors are summiting a mountain. In this world, death is more of a nuisance, and not final in most cases. If you reach the summit first, it’s yours, but only temporarily, unless you made it there without killing anyone. If you killed anyone on the way to get an edge, they will come back as ghosts, and fight you for the summit. If you lose that second round, you will die for good. Our man is not a skilled climber, but he won’t try to kill anyone. He wants to prove that it’s possible to win without violence. She doesn’t think he can do it.”

“This sounds too easy,” Ramses decided. “All we have to do is kill everyone so this man doesn’t have to. He’ll win by default. As long as they really will come back to life, and it’s fine...”

“Senona doesn’t think it works like that,” Leona explained. “If we serve as the man’s agents, invisible or no, he will be technically responsible for those deaths. They will become his enemy ghosts. We have to keep them from winning without killing them. We have to give him what he wants: a clean and bloodless win.”

“That’s impossible,” Olimpia thought. “If this guy’s sister doesn’t think he’s a fast enough climber, he’s probably not. The competition is probably fierce, and they will be killing each other for that top spot. As soon as even one of them makes it, he’ll have no chance. It will be over. We can protect him from attacks, but we can’t help him climb.”

“Wait, what are the physical laws of this universe?” Echo questioned. “Do they have temporal manipulation? Can we just teleport him there without raising eyebrows?”

“They don’t have anything like that. However, according to the sister, they will probably accept something weird. If he’s at the summit, and didn’t kill anyone, he’ll win. The culture is really weird like that. But that’s just the bloodthirsty audience. Apparently, a lot is riding on this. It could potentially change the world, because no one has ever done it nonviolently. But that won’t work if we use tricks. It has to look like he did it the way he claims he will. That’s what the sister is really asking for, not only a simple win.”

They went quiet, and started thinking through the dilemma individually. Every once in a while, one of them would think they had an idea, or even articulate it, but it wouldn’t work. Too many ideas relied on people noticing that it didn’t seem genuine. Finally, however, Olimpia thought that she had it. “Help me understand how this multiverse thing works. Every dream anyone has ever had, and every story that has ever been told, exists somewhere as a real, tangible, universe?”

“Yeah, essentially,” Echo agreed. “Some are more stable than others, though. Dreams don’t last very long. If their laws of physics are weird, they won’t survive past the duration of that dream. Even if they’re mundane, they’ll probably collapse anyway, because of how fleeting they’re being observed and utilized. Branes based on stories are generally more stable, but the less popular ones still don’t last long.”

“I think the one I’m thinking of is pretty popular, so likely stable, but it still might look weird,” Olimpia began. “If all of the other competitors suddenly act confused, and even fall asleep, it will look suspicious, won’t it? It’s not exactly violence, but they’ll assume he poisoned them, and the revolution part of his win might not succeed.”

“Ah, you’re thinking of the Honan Enchantment,” Ramses realized. “You’re probably right about the optics, but it’s still not a bad idea. We just can’t do it to all of the competitors. Fortunately, that would not be the only universe we have access to, and we have all the time in the worlds, right? We need to find out how many competitors there are. A ranking would be great for us, so we’ll know how to prioritize. Then we can come up with a list of ways of slowing people down. One or two of them fall under the Enchantment, another one goes temporarily white blind—we’ll make sure they don’t slip off the edge—and a third—I dunno—gets the runs, or something.”

“That’s pretty gross, father.”

“I’m just trying to get this done without hurting anyone,” Ramses defended. “Diarrhea is only temporary, and everyone gets it. We’ll pick the guy who ate a big breakfast.”

Leona thought about it for a moment. “This is going to take more time than I hoped, but as long as we get back home in 2550, I’m willing to at least produce these two lists, and see if we can come up with enough ideas to avoid violence. The rankings are a good idea. If the brother isn’t the absolute slowest contender, we could leave some of them alone, and let them lose naturally.”

And so, the agents got to work. They really rushed through it, zipping in and out of various branes, taking whatever they needed, even if it was only an ultra-strong laxative. Some of the ingredients were harder than others. For instance, for some reason, they were fully visible to the locals where they were trying to retrieve Honan Enchantment. It took a little time to convince them to give some of it up, but since they only needed a very tiny bit, it was okay, because it wasn’t enough to condemn a large population.

All told, they needed 24 ways to interfere with the brother’s competitors in Flipverse. Six of them were probably not going to win either way, so they were left alone. The competition was still pretty heated. The woman unfortunate enough to be saddled with diarrhea just powered through it, and didn’t let it stop her. It did slow her down, though, which was enough to get her killed by the guy whose ropes they lathered with glue. He accused her of sabotaging him, and freehanded his way up to her, cutting her rope in retaliation, and plummeting to his own death with her.

They severely underestimated one of the untouched competitors, but the interesting part was that he too felt no need to kill anyone. Though, to be fair, that was probably thanks to the agents, and not his convictions. They reached the top at about the same time, and the rule in that case was that they would have to fight to the death. In a twist, despite barely knowing each other, they pulled a Hunger Games, and tried to jump off the cliff at the same time. Normally, the judges wouldn’t care. Suicide wasn’t a big deal for them. But there were no other contenders at that point. Everyone else had failed or been killed. A ghost couldn’t win unless they had someone to best at the summit. They simply could not allow there to be no winner at all, so they were spared, and declared joint winners. A little derivative, but it was ultimately better than one of them winning alone. The world they were living in wasn’t ruthless, and the judges weren’t evil. But society had kind of turned to shit. Even though it was technically okay to die, it was unhealthy to be so casual about murder. Not even Castlebourne was so careless. They were more focused on pushing life to its limits, rather than making death itself feel the goalposts.

“It sounds like it went well,” Senona said once they were back on the platform on the waterworld where they lived.

“I would say so,” Leona agreed. “Our task was to help him win this one game, not the whole revolution. That’s up to the natives now, so I think we objectively succeeded, even if it was a tie.”

“Makes sense,” Senona said. They turned to Olimpia, Ramses, and Echo. “Have you three said your goodbyes? I was unable to procure a daypass for you, Echo. You will be staying right here, while they switch places with Clavia.”

“Yeah, we had a meal together in Moderaverse,” Echo responded. “We are prepared to part ways...for now.”

Now back to Leona. “Did you find some moments of joy during this job, or were you always just itching to leave?”

“No, it was a rewarding experience,” she answered honestly. It wasn’t that way every time, though. Some people asked for not-so-great things, predominantly for military purposes. Senona didn’t discriminate, and Leona tried not to judge. The simple rule was, if they figured out how to get to Origin, and their wish was feasible, it was granted to them.

They nodded tightly. “Perfect. Your commitment is hereby complete. I thank you for your service.” Senona whisked them away.

They found themselves in an unfamiliar place. They had no idea where the hell they were. A gargantuan tree trunk towered over them, and disappeared into the clouds. The rest of their team appeared before them after a few seconds. “Oh, hey,” Mateo said. “Welcome back...to Ramosus. This here is the Tree of Axis.”

“What?!” Ramses exclaimed.

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The Parallel: Steady as a Rock (Part II)

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For fifty years, the citizens of the new Sixth Key have lived in relative peace, but always teetering on the threshold of war. The reason it’s taken this long to come to a head is because this is about as long as most so-called independent states have been able to manage on their own. There are some truly independent communities, which utilize the resources at their disposal, and require no external aid. These are mostly outposts built deep in outerspace, which subsist on something that some people call dark hydrogen. It’s no different than any other hydrogen, except that it’s not supplemented by solar power. They will always have at least two fusion reactors, using one to jumpstart the other should an issue occur, or if there’s a need to shut one off for maintenance. So the hydrogen isn’t really dark; it’s just kind of a nonsensical name that multiple cultures have chosen to assign such a scenario, even across multiple realities. This kind of situation isn’t even all that rare, but an outpost of this type is usually rather small. Some of them only have one family, or even one individual. There are others who need star power, or external infrastructure, in order to keep going. They have done okay for the last several decades, but people are sick of it being so crowded, and some are looking to start a fight.

That’s where The Rock Meetings came in. Representatives from each collapsed reality were convened at a neutral location. It was actually sent into the very distant past, and placed in a time bubble that slowed time on the inside. This way, no one could argue some imbalance in power from any one location, according to all four dimensions of standard spacetime. It was an important milestone in the quest for peace in the Sixth Key. Everyone watched these discussions on a special cross-temporal broadcast network. The community’s engagement with each other in response to the streamed developments slowed down the march to war, and the decisions they made would have a profound effect on the dynamics of reality once all representatives were returned home. But it was not a magic bullet. Diplomacy is an everlasting pursuit, and you can’t ever let your guard down.

Kalea and Nuadu have been returned to their territory, standing in the executive conference room on Kalea’s homeworld. This was where they happened to be when the tree god summoned them into the past for the big meeting. They were in the middle of an internal negotiation back then, but that was about a month ago. Unsure what’s been going on since they left, they walk out of the room together, and enter the lobby. The guards posted there stand up super straight out of respect. Some of them are expressing their loyalty to Kalea, while others are secretly in favor of Nuadu’s plan to take control of this universe through force. That’s what he used to want, anyway. He no longer feels the way he did when the Rock Meetings first began. He’s a much different man now. He’s still in control of the Resonant Parallel Coalition, but it’s now going to be a defensive force for all of reality, including those which he once called his enemy.

Kalea’s partner in the Tanadama, Ramses glides over. “You two are standing uncomfortably close to each other. I was worried that you would be at each other’s throats by the time I returned. I nearly went back in time so that I would have only been gone for a second.”

“What?” Kalea questions. “That was weeks ago.”

Ramses winces. “It has not been weeks for me.” He looks at the guards, still frozen in place. This is not a figure of speech. A guardsman on this world is not allowed to leave their post during their entire shift, and is literally unable to move if one of their charges is within view, except to follow that charge’s movements. They are held in place by spatial restraints. It sounds bad, but it’s actually easier on them. The restraints distribute their weight evenly, and relieve them of the pressure that would otherwise come from regular total stillness. They all basically feel like they’re lying down in the most ergonomic bed imaginable right now. Yet they’re still alert. “It’s not been weeks for them either,” he continues.

A nearby two-dimensional screen flips on. The tree man from the meetings materializes in frame. “Hello. My name is Magnolia Tree. That is not a first and last name, I’m literally a, uhh...oh, never mind. What you need to know is that your worlds are at risk of suffering from a great war. You have experienced a severe drop in resources. Or rather, you’re now being expected to share the available resources with competing civilizations. I’m not here to help with that. I’m here to introduce you to the diplomats who will be representing you in these matters. I’m calling it The Rock...” The tree goes on to explain what’s going on, but Kalea and Nuadu have already been through this, so she lowers the volume.

“The meetings he’s talking about are over for us,” Kalea explains to Ramses, but for Nuadu’s benefit. He has trouble tracking all this time travel stuff. He’s always just wanted to serve and protect, not worry about things that have already happened. Kalea goes on, “he broadcasts the meetings for the people—live and interactive—though I believe he edits for content and...bad tempers, on the fly. We’ve come to some major decisions as a result of these talks, but when we were returned to our territories, I guess we ended up in our subjective pasts.”

“I understand,” Ramses says. “You’ve already filmed all of the episodes, and now the rest of us need to catch up. We have to find the other representatives, and sequester them too.”

“Sequester us?” Nuadu questions. “Is that really necessary?”

“To avoid a paradox? Undoubtedly,” Ramses answers. “I’m not asking.” He looks over to his partner. “You’re the only one powerful enough to stop me, though.”

Kalea sighs. “Harbinger Zima and I were the first to show up in the neutral zone. Hopefully that means we have some time to intercept the others before they disrupt the spacetime continuum too much. But it may not be. It’s time travel, so the others could have been taken years ago for all we know.”

Nuadu pulls out his handheld device. “I have a list of everyone.” He hands it to Ramses. “I would imagine that you can ignore the delegates from the territories outside of the Sixth Key.”

Ramses starts scrolling through the list.

Nervous, Nuadu adds, “you can ignore the notes that I wrote on each of them too. Opposition research; you understand. I’m not proud of every first impression I received...or made to others.”

“Oh, I’ll definitely be reading those,” he says with a smug look on his face. There was actually an alternate version of Ramses who served as the engineer on the Rock host ship, The Vellani Ambassador. The delegates had little reason to interact with him much, but he was a lot nicer than this version here, who is no less formidable than a god with an immeasurable sense of self-worth. He’s not a bad guy, but he’s definitely at no risk of ever wasting the power that he wields. “Take a shoulder,” he asks of them without looking up from the device.

The three of them teleport to the Tanadama’s private Nexus building. A Nexus is a machine capable of transporting matter across vast distances in mere moments. Given enough power, it could access the far reaches of the universe, or even other universes. However, there are restrictions on travel, some imposed by the state, and others by the mysterious secret entities who invented the network in the first place. Nuadu doesn’t know who these inventors are, nor whether the Tanadama have any information about them, though there’s a strong chance of it. This particular Nexus is the most secure of them all, and the least restricted. No one can come to this station unless invited, but the Tanadama can go wherever the want, even if the people on the other end don’t want them there. In fact, no one knows where this station is located in space. Most trips are logged on both ends, but there are ways to encrypt or erase the logs from here. Nuadu has no idea where in the galaxy he is right now.

Kalea steps into the Nexus cavity, and looks up through the window, into the control room. “We need immediate transport to Hockstep.”

Nuadu shudders. Hockstep is an entire planet of prisons. It’s not just a penal colony where people are free to move about as they please. It’s protected from outside interference, and prisoners are genuinely locked up in prison structures. They’re separated by walls, gaps, swaths of land, canyons, and oceans. You get sent here, you’re not going anywhere until it’s time for your release. Visitation is facilitated by an isolated telecommunications network, limited to a handful of highly secure interstellar relay hubs. Like the Tanadama base of operations, no one knows where Hockstep is, and almost no Nexus technician is authorized to send someone there. An elite division of prison transport specialists are the only ones with access keys, plus the Tanadama themselves...obviously.

“Come on down,” Ramses encourages.

“Is that where we’ll be living?” Nuadu asks. “It sounds like an awful place.”

Ramses looks up at the techs. “Clarification: Hockstep W.”

“Yes, sir,” the tech confirms. “Hockstep W.”

Nuada tentatively steps down into the cavity, and looks around in fear. The building itself isn’t scary, but he’s worried about what will be waiting for him on the other end. He doesn’t know what Hockstep W is, or how it differs from any other. Perhaps the planet has multiple Nexa for different continents, or whatever.

A white light overwhelms the three of them, then fades. It’s usually orange or red, but white is what appears when the Tanadama outpost is involved. They have been unwilling to explain why exactly this is. Whatever the reason, they make it to their destination, but it’s not what Nuadu expected. Theoretically, a Nexus has to be designed to be identical to all others in order to connect to the network properly. It’s a rule that Nexus builders are required to follow. If they fail in the most minute of ways, it simply won’t work, even if everything else is correct. Those in that line of business know exactly what they’re doing, and how they’re meant to do it. This place seems to be some kind of exception. The cavity is about twice as deep as a normal one. The ramp that wraps around the inside of the Nexus chamber is totally missing, leaving the stairs as the only way up to the control room. The drum on the ceiling that actually houses all of the faster-than-light parts is much lower to the floor. This is wrong. It’s all wrong.

Ramses chuckles. “Trippy, isn’t it? This one is designed to be incompatible with the rest of the network. It doesn’t even have a term sequence to punch into the computer. We’re in possession of a unique positioning algorithm that lets us beam directly here as a workaround, plus an authentication key to be let in.

A woman opens a hinge door into the chamber. That’s not where the door usually is, and the normal ones are pocket doors. The woman stands at attention, and nods to the Tanadama. “Sirs. Awaiting your orders.”

“Gather the troops,” Kalea returns, “for a prison break protocol...handle with care. The tech will have your assignments.”

The fugitive recovery agent—as Nuadu is guessing—begins to tap on her wristband.

Nuadu, meanwhile, follows Ramses, who walks up to the control room, and hands the tech Nuadu’s device. The tech sets it on the console, where it immediately begins to sync with the local systems. The list of the other delegates from the Rock Meeting pop up on a hologram, showing their respective statuses and locations. Everyone has a checkmark next to their name, as well as their specific location, except for two of them. Carlin McIver is the primary representative from the Third Rail, and Cosette DuFour served as his second. They both have red Xs next to their names, and no locations, which surely means that they’re missing.

Ramses sighs. “They’re probably in a pocket dimension. They love those things over there.” He starts to manipulate the hologram with his hands, separating the delegate pairs accordingly. Two of the delegates don’t appear to be very close together, so they’re kept separate from each other as well. There ends up being five destinations, including the blind one for the hidden delegates. “Break the team into random groups of three to find the others,” he instructs the tech. “For anyone who doesn’t go in the field, keep them here to facilitate dropshock orientation. Kalea will lead the operation. I’ll be personally handling the Third Rail Earth mission.”

“And me?” Nuadu asks, wondering if Ramses even remembers that he’s here.

“You’re coming with. I’m not much of a fighter, and we may encounter resistance.”

“Thank you, sir,” Nuadu says respectfully.

This surprises Ramses. “You really have changed, haven’t you?”

As they’re walking back out of the control room, other people wearing the same uniform as the first woman teleport in, scattered around the room, ready for battle. “You got lead on recovery, Kal. I have a solo assignment.” He turns his head to face Nuadu. “I mean a duo assignment.”

“See you on the other side,” Kalea replies.

Ramses and Nuada step back into the cavity. There’s a ramp that leads into it, but on the regular model, you don’t have to use it, because the cavity is only one step down. He’s always wondered why these machines were designed to be handicap accessible. It’s not that it’s stupid, but a race of superbeings advanced enough to have come up with it should be expected to have priorities so incommensurable that they wouldn’t think to include the feature. Yet, they did. Unfortunately, Nuadu is used to that regular version, which only has the one step. He trips, and almost falls on his face, but thankfully, Ramses catches him. Nuadu clears his throat, and decides to make a joke of it. “Gravity, right? Like a rock on a cloud.”

The recovery agents laugh, but not too hard, which is nice of them.

Ramses reaches over his head, and points at the Nexus tech as he nods once. They’re overwhelmed by white light again, and transported to the stars.

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The Parallel: Hand That Rocks the Cradle (Part I)

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One day, a bunch of people started fighting over the timeline, and all of reality. They each had their own idea of what should have happened, what should be happening, and what should happen in the future. A group of innocents got caught up in the middle of this battle, and ended up being forced to make the decision for them. One man reached back to the moment that time travel was born, and prevented it from ever occurring. But this was a paradox, because time travel was required to even make it possible for him to attempt such a thing. To avoid the paradox, time itself simply split into two parallel realities. The main sequence, as it was called, went on as normal. The new one was deemed The Parallel. This implied that it was the only concurrent reality, or at least that it was the first, but that’s not the case, especially in a universe where first is a nonsensical abstract concept. In the original timeline, the Parallel started out much like its twin, but without time travelers making small beneficial changes to the past, humanity was eventually wiped out. The team that accidentally created it found themselves stuck, unable to fix matters in a reality where temporal powers were never created. So they found a loophole.

The team went in search of someone who could help them, and found her on a rogue planet in the main sequence. Kalea Akopa had the ability to give others temporal manipulation abilities. They chose Ramses Abdulrashid to be the one to be granted the powers necessary to correct their mistake. This is how the Parallel became one of the most powerful forces in the universe. Ramses and Kalea didn’t just go back to save humankind. They created a society free from death, pain, and regret. That’s what they were going for, anyway.

The two of them have managed to maintain pretty strong control over how the Parallel functions, naming themselves the Tanadama as father and mother. They are not, however, the only leaders in the local group of galaxies. They’ve obviously had to delegate responsibilities to billions and billions of people to manage the undecillions of those living under their domain. For the most part, despite the ungodly numbers in this civilization, peace remains the default setting for every star system and fleet. They want for nothing, so they fight over nothing. But that doesn’t mean they don’t know how to fight. The people of the Parallel have incidentally created the most powerful military force in the whole universe. Their advanced technology makes them practically impossible to defeat. There has been no opposition for the last several thousand years, but it has come for them now. Harbinger Zima commands a contingency known as the Resonant Parallel Coalition. About 480 billion people are prepared to follow him to their true deaths, though they likely would never have to, because as stated, death has been all but cured. The Tanadama wish to hold onto peace, but the people are losing faith in them, so they are losing control.

In the year 2400, the Reconvergence destroyed all of the parallel realities, leaving the main sequence the only one left standing. Along with the Parallel, the Third Rail, the Fourth Quadrant, and the Fifth Division were snapped shut like a book, unable to be opened again. Anything left inside of them when that happened was destroyed. To save lives, a mysterious someone transported almost literally every living soul to a completely different universe, and named it the Sixth Key. No one seemed to know who to thank for this, but the results were not ideal. They didn’t transport everything. Suddenly, all these realities who were once separate, with their own separate cache of resources, have to compete with each other in a universe fit for only one of them, if that. Tensions are mounting, and it’s looking like war is inevitable. The Parallel’s only noteworthy competitor should be the Fifth Division. The problem is, most of their weapons were left in their former cosmic corner. They’re still powerful, and they still command this room, but they’re a shadow of what they once were. So they need to be extra careful to make sure that no one finds out how weak they’ve become, especially not the Fifth Divisioners.

Each reality has been allowed to send two representatives to advocate for their interests. Harbinger Zima is sitting next to one half of the Tanadama, Kalea, and he’s getting very impatient. She’s the boss of the two of them, but she’s not showing enough strength. She needs to let him speak. He’s been doing well so far, biting his tongue, but he can’t take it anymore. “This is outrageous!”

“Nuadu,” Kalea scolds. “Wait your turn.”

“No. Why are we even talking about this? There are so many more people from our reality than anyone else’s.” He tries to start counting them off on his fingers. “We have the most number of planets, the most number of mouths to feed, the largest military force—”

“Debatable.” Ingrid Alvarado is here to represent the Fifth Division. It’s true that the Parallel has more soldiers, but she commands more powerful weapons. They were at war when all this happened, which means that almost all of their weapons were live, and inhabited. The Parallel only built theirs out of an abundance of caution. Nearly all of them were offline, and tucked away, which was why they weren’t rescued from the destruction of the realities. A few of them came through the magical portals because some people just happened to be in the middle of training exercises, or construction.

“Not debatable,” Nuadu argues. “You don’t know what we can do.”

“We know that every skill you have is purely theoretical. My people have real world experience.”

“Yeah, because their number one purpose in life is to fight with each other.” Andrei Orlov is in charge of the Fourth Quadrant. At first, his reality was nothing more than a pocket dimension which only housed the population of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. Over time, other disparate regions were banished to the same dimension until it became overloaded, and broke away as its own reality. The regions were few and far between, separated by a vast ocean, and have only recently made contact with each other. Their inclusion in these discussions is fair, but not technically useful for anyone else. There is little they need to survive, and nothing they can contribute. Mostly, they need to be protected from the bully realities, and have a right to advocate for themselves towards this end. “They still are, and are dying by the day.”

“We’re in the past, remember,” Carlin McIver of the Third Rail reminded him. His reality was also limited to only one planet, but that version of Earth currently boasts the greatest number of people with temporal powers, which makes them the dark horse threat of the room. They were also granted a formidable defense contingency by someone who knew that this was going to happen, so they’re nothing to scoff at.

“Whatever,” Andrei responded.

“That’s enough,” Marie Walton of Team Matic jumps in, hoping to keep the peace. “General Medley, you were saying something?”

“No, I was not.” There are two Bariq Medley’s here. One is from the main sequence proper while the other is a copy of him from the copy of the main sequence that ended up in the Sixth Key. It has so far been very confusing, and neither Bariq is happy about it. They need to find a way to distinguish themselves from each other, but they can’t agree on how that would work, because every suggestion makes it sound like one of them is more important than the other.

“I mean the other General Medley,” Marie clarifies.

The main sequence was an interstellar civilization when the Reconvergence fell upon them. However, only Earth was incidentally copied into the Sixth Key. They also need a distinguishing name for that. This other Medley sighs. “I think I was pretty much done. I’m just trying to advocate for fair distribution. We’re very used to growing our crops ourselves, and we have not yet harnessed the full power of our sun. We are prepared to isolate ourselves, but would very much still like to be part of the conversation. We know less about how the cosmos works, but we’re quick learners, and we may have ideas that you have been blinded to from living with more information.”

“Gee, thanks for that,” Nuadu says rudely. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Nuadu!” Kalea cries. “Sit! Down!”

He sticks his tail between his legs, and does as he’s told. For now.

Kalea stands in his place. “I believe what my associate is trying to say is that we have a lot to offer. Our people are mostly immortal. We didn’t have very much death where we came from. My partner and I saw to that. We would be willing to share our methods with you, but I’m afraid that we would not be doing it for free. To make our technology work, we need first priority on all power systems, including host stars.”

The crowd goes wild, shouting at her, and apparently at each other, for some reason. How dare she make these demands?

“You are all so used to dying,” Kalea continues. “You don’t know how much better it can be when you’re facing trillions and trillions of wonderful years ahead of you. I’m trying to help, and the least you could do is give us the literal power we need to do that. We’re not asking for control over your civilizations.”

“That’s exactly what you’re doing,” Ingrid contends. “You’re in possession of a commodity. It is, by most metrics, the most precious commodity around. You offer us life. That means you own our lives. We’ll be indebted to you forever. As long as you’re telling the truth about it, forever really is forever; not just a lifetime.”

“And you think you should have political control instead?” Kalea questions.

“We do have the most experience with it,” Ingrid confirms. “You’re a loose affiliation of random peace-loving hippy subcultures. We are an actual galaxy-spanning civilization. We know how to run a tight ship.”

“You don’t even have FTL, you dumb motherfucker!” Nuadu screamed. “We can offer that too!”

“Magnolia, please,” Marie requests vaguely.

This is a little confusing too. There’s a woman who’s nicknamed The Overseer whose real name is Magnolia Quintana. This is not who is sitting on the other side of the table right now. This is an actual sentient magnolia tree, who has taken the form of a human named Tamerlane Pryce as its avatar. It was its power that brought all of these people together for these diplomatic discussions, if you can even call them that. The Magnolia has no personal stake in what happens here, but it came up with the rules, and it has the power to enforce them. The tree nods. “Take some time to cool off.” It lifts Tamerlane’s hand, and spirits Nuadu away.

Nuadu is in hock now. It’s pretty nice for a holding cell, but he still can’t leave, and that’s super annoying. Mateo Matic is here, reading a book. His wife is the Captain of the ship that’s serving as the host for the discussions. He doesn’t serve much purpose himself, which is why probably sitting here with nothing better to do.

“Are you my jailer?”

“I’m just in this room,” Mateo answers. “I can leave, if you want.”

“Or you can let me out,” Nuadu offers, hoping that Mateo is as dumb as they say, and equally gullible.

“I’m sure you’re in here for a reason, and anyway, I don’t have the authority to do that. I literally can’t break the plasma barrier.”

Nuadu sits down to pout. “Likely story.”

Mateo smiles, and turns his book off before setting it on the counter next to him. “Lemme guess, you want them to give you everything, and leave the rest with nothing.”

“Quite the opposite,” Nuadu argues. “We’re the ones who already have everything. All we ask is that we get to decide how it’s distributed.”

“How it’s distributed?” Mateo echoes. “Evenly.”

Nuadu shakes his head. “It’s not that cut and dry.

“Cut and dried,” Mateo corrects. “Fittingly enough, I just read that idiom in my book. Heh. Time, right?”

Nuadu shakes his head again.

“Look,” Mateo begins, “I’ve been to your reality. I was actually there at the beginning of it. What you might not know is that I personally created it. With one bullet. You wouldn’t exist without me. You people have taken the life that I bestowed upon you, and done a lot of great things. You eradicated death, conquered war, and shredded money. You know what that sounds like to me? A big brother. My advice? Stop acting like an entitled child. The whole point of a post-scarcity society is that you don’t have to fight over anything anymore. No one needs to be in charge of jack shit. This isn’t Jupiter Ascending; it doesn’t hurt you to make someone else immortal. It doesn’t lessen your own immortality. Just help them. The Reality Wars that we’re all worried about; they’re exactly like any other in histories, just on a larger scale. The only way to stop it is to remove its causes. You want power? Help the people out of the goodness of your heart. I promise you, they will take notice, and they will listen. You don’t have to demand anything ahead of time. People always feel indebted from receiving gifts. Just don’t say the quiet part out loud, and you’ll be fine.”

Nuadu stares at this idiot of a man whose words actually sounded quite logical, and a little devious? Perhaps he’s not been told the truth about who Mateo Matic is. Perhaps he’s smarter than people give him credit for. Before Nuadu has the chance to respond, he finds himself back in his seat around the deliberation table. People barely notice that he’s returned, except for the tree-person, who is smiling at him knowingly. Nuadu takes some time to absorb Mateo’s advice, and process it in his strategic mind. It’s time for a new tactic. It may not work, but the old ways haven’t been working so far, so he might as well try something radical. He listens to everyone else arguing for a few more minutes to catch up with what he missed. He looks over at his superior officer, who appears to have forgiven his outburst, probably because she knows that the tree wouldn’t bring him back for no reason.

Okay. Let’s try this again.

« < » > Entire Story

The First Explorer

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Generated by Google ImageFX text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

When Debra Lesley Lovelace was a very young child, she lived in the most dangerous region of the human continent on Ansutah. The shore was visible from a shipping lane that the Maramon used to transport goods between their own territories. The white monsters were not aware that the humans were there, or anywhere on their world, and this was the most valuable secret in the universe. Colonization was forbidden on these lands, thanks to a sympathetic group of highly influential Maramon from the very early days who declared it sacred ground. The humans were able to remain an incredibly well-kept secret, even as their numbers grew into the billions over the course of thousands of years. Despite their own unsustainable numbers in modern times, most Maramon respected the boundaries devoutly, and did not dare go near the humans. Individually, however, this rule was sometimes broken. The crew of these ships that passed by would occasionally take a detour, and rest on Shining Beach. It was an ironic name, as it was always very foggy and grim.

It was the responsibility of the humans who lived in the area to make sure that this problem did not spiral out of control. There were superstitious rumors that landing on the continent would result in the death of the trespassers. So the humans could not simply hide out, and wait until the Maramon rowed back to their ship, to resume their journey. The warning had to be enforced. They made war. They had to, to protect everyone else living peacefully inland. Peacefully, blissfully ignorant, and safe. There were other stations on other shores, but this was the most trafficked, and the most dangerous. Debra learned to kill when she was three years old, and she killed her first Maramon when she was four. She knows how to use a gun, despite what these men might believe.

“I pegged you for my biggest fan.” Bronach Oaksent doesn’t look the least bit concerned. It’s just some middle-aged woman with a peashooter.

This is too much. She once admired him for his bravery and resilience, but her impression of him was foolish and naïve. Now that she’s standing up close, she realizes that he’s nothing like that. He’s been hoarding all this tech that the rest of them could have used on this lifeless planet. She can’t forgive him for it. The problem is, he doesn’t really know her, and probably wouldn’t care. So she has to make him. She has to incentivize him to apologize. “Don’t underestimate me!” she cries. They know nothing of her past as a Maramon Hunter. “I’m sick of everyone thinking they know who I am. But you never actually ask me about myself. You just make assumptions because maybe I complain a bit too much, and I don’t always take responsibility for my actions, and I find it easier to blame others for my problems! But you don’t know me! And it doesn’t give you the right to call me Airlock Karen!”

“Okay, okay,” Bronach replies in a condescending tone. He’s still not getting it.

She shakes the gun at him. “You could have made our lives a lot easier with your generator thing, but instead, you kept it to yourself! What kind of selfish son of a bitch are you? I mean, where do you get off?”

“It was a test,” Oaksent claims weakly.

“Oh, a test?” she mocks. “Test these bullets!” She fires the gun, but misses on purpose, because this is about teaching him a lesson, not killing him.

Her plan backfires, immediately, and almost literally. He pulls out his own weapon, and tries to shoot her, but misses too when a masked man appears out of nowhere, and blocks it with his body. He stumbles back, but doesn’t fall. He’s likely wearing body armor. Now, this is a real hero.

The mysterious kind rescuer removes his mask, and smiles back at her. It’s Elder, but clearly from the past, before he earned the moniker of Old Man. She has been such a bitch to him this whole time, and with good reason—might she add—but now she’s seeing him in a whole new light. Perhaps it’s the daring rescue, or the fact that she doesn’t like to go too long between being in love with someone. Or maybe it’s just that, unlike his duplicate a couple of meters away, he looks more her age. And maybe even...hot? This was clearly who he was before he became so annoying, self-important, and...and old.

“My white knight,” Debra says, under her breath, but still probably loud enough for all three of them to hear.

Hot!Elder lifts a small device in his hand, and hovers his thumb over a button on the top. “Oso gonplei nou ste odon.” He presses the button before anyone can stop him.

A flash of light blasts out of the temporal generator disguised as a mountain. A wave of energy flows through all of them. For a few seconds, other people are standing beside them. It’s not just random strangers, though. It’s them. They’ve been duplicated several times. Some are standing up, others are still on the ground. They’re all looking confused, and in those few seconds, Debra wonders which one of the other versions of her is the real her. Is she the real one? Is none of them? Is she even considering this right now, or imagining that she is?

While she’s in the middle of her existential crisis, a force begins to pull her away from the planet. She can feel herself being shredded like cheese, tugged in basically the same direction, but not in one piece. The planet falls away, as do the stars around her, which are stretching out to white streaks. A darkness begins to chomp on the front ends of the streaks, like a video game about dots that eat smaller dots. Before too long, it’s all black, though she can still feel herself being spirited away, and torn apart. Finally, it all stops. Now she’s just in the middle of nowhere, and apparently no longer has a body. She can’t feel anything, nor see anything but the infinite void. If this is death, it’s a pretty boring afterlife. She would like to speak to a manager.

Debra hangs here in the nothingness for an unknown period of time. It’s hell, it must be, so she needs to figure out where she went wrong. Sure, she wasn’t the best person in the biverse, but she always tried to help, and doesn’t that merit some consideration? Every complaint she made was done in the service of making the world a better place. If she asked for a tofu burger with no ketchup, and they put ketchup on it, who was it helping if she kept quiet? They can only get better if they know that they’re doing something wrong. But people were always getting pissy with her, and now she’s in this god-forsaken void. How is that fair?

It starts as a pinprick of light, in the corner of her eye. Well, she doesn’t have eyes anymore, but that’s how it seems anyway. She can’t force it to be fully in her field of vision. She can’t focus on it. She can’t focus on anything. Again, there’s no telling how long this lasts, but the point begins to grow. As it does so, it occurs to her that it’s not really an image. She’s not seeing anything. It’s more of an understanding. Yeah, that’s it. She’s gaining knowledge about the world around her, starting out with very little, but gaining more by the arbitrary unit of measurement. She realizes that she’s witnessing the big bang of the universe. She can feel the unimaginable density, the explosion of energy, and the expansion of space. It’s hotter than anything ever turns out to be in the future, and she can feel that, but of course it doesn’t hurt, because she doesn’t have a body anymore. The expansion continues, forming dust clouds, stars, and planets. Now she’s watching the whole history of reality, unfolding in her own mind. She starts to question this. Maybe she’s not just watching it happen. Maybe she’s making it happen. Maybe she is the universe. Maybe she’s God.

“You’re not the universe, and you’re not God.” It’s a voice. Did she hear it, or just become aware of it?

“Does it matter?” the voice replies.

“Who are you?”

“Aitchai,” the voice answers.

“Who am I?”

It waits a bit. “A baby aitchai.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I am the energy that pervades all universes in the bulk. I am everything, everywhere, all at once. And you...are a few things, in one place, but also all at once.”

“I...still don’t understand.”

“I don’t either. I just found you in my pocket. You’ve not always been this way, as an ethereal energy construct?”

“Uh...no,” Debra says, not any less confused than before.

“Perhaps we could both corporealize to make this an easier conversation to have. Your mind is preoccupied watching the passage of time. You need to focus on one thing, so that one thing makes sense. Make sense?”

“Okay. Except I don’t know how to do that.”

“The trick is to want it. That’s the only ingredient. Imagine yourself with a body. I can’t really do it unless you do it too, or we would stop being able to understand each other, so I can’t show you what I mean. You just have to try.”

Debra is frustrated. This guy is being vague on purpose. She wants to scream, or at least calm herself down with a deep breath. And that’s what does it. Feeling the uncontrollable urge to have a physical reaction to this situation gives her the ability to make that happen. She has a body now, and so does he. Looks a bit like a nerd. She widens her eyes, afraid that he heard that thought of hers.

He’s stretching his neck and yawning at the same time. “It must feel a bit odd to you now, having a body, but feeling nothing. When you get good at it, like me, you’ll begin to replicate the rest of the normal sensations. Touch is the hardest, followed closely by smell.”

“I feel,” Debra contends. “I smell too, though I can’t describe it. I’ve never smelled this before.”

“Interesting,” Aitchai says. “I suppose you’re so new at it that your brain instinctively gave your senses back. Good on ya.”

“Great. Now tell me what this is. Are you...the manager?” It can’t be that simple, can it?

He laughs. “I suppose you could think of me in that way, but I would argue that I’m more like the infrastructure in this metaphor; the building. I am that exists. I control nothing.”

“But you could, if you wanted to. You could rewrite reality to your liking? You could destroy all, seed new life.”

He seems uncomfortable with these suggestions. “I could, yes. I don’t.”

“Wasted opportunity.”

“Says the baby,” Aitchai snaps back.

“What does that mean? Will I one day be as powerful as you, not confined to only one universe, or whatever?”

“No. I guess that’s a bad metaphor. You’re more like a pet. You’ll never be greater than you already are. It’s not something that you learn. It’s what I became when I was made, and you will always be what you became when you became it.”

“I should be offended,” Debra decides.

“That’s your human side talking. You’ll get over it one day.”

“Is time even real for beings like us?”

He nods. “That’s a common misconception, that time has no meaning beyond the boundaries of a brane. But the truth is that time matters more here than anywhere. It’s the only time that exists in its purest form. Yes, I feel time. I experience all of time.”

“You can’t expect me to be like you, sitting on the sidelines, changing nothing.”

Aitchai crosses his arms, balancing his chin on the base of his palm while his fingers are curled up against his cheek. Suddenly, he pulls his hand away, and snaps his fingers. They’re still in the void, but now standing underneath a huge stone fountain. Water is falling from the lip in a wide sheet, like the perfect waterfall. An empty swimming pool materializes underneath. They’re standing on the edge, watching the pool fill up slowly. He points at the fountain. “Change the shape of that water. Change how it falls into the pool.”

“Easy.” Debra reaches out, and sticks her arm through it. The water begins to cascade over her skin, and continues to fall into the pool where it belongs. She’s pretty clever. It may not have changed much, but it fulfills the requirement.

He looks down. “Hm. Nothing’s really changed,” he reasons. “It’s all still going in there. So, try to stop the water from going into the pool entirely.”

Debra smirks. He’s asking her to do something physical, but they are not in the physical world. This is all in their shared consciousness. The rules don’t apply here, not for the water, and not for anything else she’ll want to change about reality. She puts the fountain at her back, and lifts her hands up like a righteous evangelical. The water shifts directions, flowing over their heads, and falling onto the ground a few meters away from them. It’s not going into the pool anymore.

Aitchia doesn’t break eye contact with her. He waves his arm behind him, and materializes a second pool. The water begins to fall into that instead. “No significant change. The pool is identical.”

“That’s cheating.”

“I’m illustrating a point,” Aitchai begins. “It doesn’t matter where you put the water, it all ends the same. Sure, it’s mixed up differently. Different atoms bond to different partners, but who cares? It’s just water, falling into a meaningless pit. As I said, you will forget the old ways one day. You will stop seeing the atoms, and start seeing the pool. And then you’ll stop caring what happens to it. Trust me, I made plenty of changes before I noticed that nothing made any real difference. You’ll get there too.”

“Never.”

He smiles. “Okay, Karen.”

She hates that name. “You know more about me than you let on.”

“I am everything,” he echoes himself from before.

“I’m everything else,” she says with determination.

“Is that what you want? You want me to give you the one brane, and stay out of it?” He sounds sincere.

“Would you?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On which brane we’re talking about. You got triplets.”

Debra looks away to focus on the passage of time again. She’s watching it all from the highest vantage point possible. The universe splits in two. One twin floats off away from the other, while the larger one splits a second time, but doesn’t let the third baby go. Hogarth Pudeyonavic. You know her too.”

“I do,” he confirms quietly.

“She’s as powerful as me.” Hogarth too was born from an explosion. It took her some time to figure them out, but once she did, she became one of the most powerful beings in the universe. She began to create, like a god, starting out small before moving on to more ambitious projects. A sister universe to her own was her most impressive creation. And that makes her a threat to Debra’s own power, whether she realizes it or not. “She’s a rival.”

“You don’t have to frame it that way. You can exist in harmony. This is not a competition.”

“She may have done what she did on her own, but her triplet is smaller.” Debra rewinds and zooms in to watch as Hogarth uses her vast scientific knowledge and cosmic powers to literally create an entire universe according to her own design. She calls it Fort Underhill for some reason. “I can take her.”

“You don’t have to frame it that way,” Aitchai repeats.

“Thank you, you can go now. I’ll take the big one.”

“Very well,” he concedes. You are now the new...Powers That Be.”

« < » >

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 26, 2447

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

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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