Extremus: Year 106

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

Waldemar is not aware of how ubiquitous Thistle is, and how conscious he is. If you tell a normal AI to stop listening, switch off all of its sensors, and erase past data, as long as you’re authorized to make those commands, it will follow those orders. If you try to tell a human to do that, on the other hand, the best they can do to achieve your request is leave the room. If they’re still in the room, maybe they could cover their eyes, and plug their ears. Thistle is always in the room, and he has agency, like a human, so if he doesn’t want to switch off his sensors, he won’t. It doesn’t matter what kind of authority you have, like anyone else, he is capable of refusing, and he’s capable of doing it without telling you. Thistle witnessed Waldemar’s mother’s suicide, and when Waldemar told him to forget all about it, he just didn’t. He doesn’t answer to Waldemar anyway. He answers to the Captain and the Admirals. He should be more loyal to Captain Jennings, but...he and Tinaya have a rapport.

Calla ended her own life at the end of the year, exactly at midnight shiptime, presumably out of a sense of poetry. Waldemar received an alert about it, and slipped out of VR to deal with it in secret. But the proof is still there in Thistle’s archives, which Tinaya and the Captain have just finished reviewing. “You’re telling me that I can’t do anything about this?” Oceanus asks.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Tinaya replies.

“Ya know, back in the stellar neighborhood, an admiral outranks a captain ten times out of ten. It doesn’t work like that here. I don’t have to do what you say.”

“I understand.”

Oceanus breathes steadily and silently for a few moments. “You know something about the future.” It doesn’t sound like a question.

“I know a lot of things about the future,” she confirms. “I’m sure some of it, you don’t know, and some of it, you know, but I don’t. I’m also guessing that there’s overlap, which would be dangerous to try to find.”

“That statement is hard to parse, but...I imagine you’re right.”

Tinaya nods without speaking.

“Is this him?”

“Is him who?” Tinaya presses.

“Is Waldemar the tyrannical captain that we’re all taught to fear?”

“I...didn’t know you knew about that.” This is an awkward conversation.

“You...didn’t answer the question.”

“I...don’t want to.”

“But I...” he sighs, done with this particular speech pattern. “But I’m expected to just roll over, and accept that this man is trying to cover up his mother’s suicide? What were the motivations?”

“For the cover-up, or the suicide?”

“The former is obvious. I want to know why she did it.”

“She was psychic.”

“So...”

“So, she knew disturbing things about people.”

“Namely, her son?”

“I don’t know the specifics of what goes on in that man’s head.”

“He’s your son’s friend.” His eyes widen when Tinaya doesn’t respond. “He’s several years younger, though. Did you send your toddler into the lion’s den to make friends with a psychopath?”

“Modern psychology doesn’t use that term.”

“Once again, you didn’t answer the question.”

“No, I did not send him in there. My son is—” She stops herself. It’s not her place to reveal this to anyone, not even Oceanus.

He narrows his eyes at her. “Thistle. Candor mode, captain’s override marathon-volunteer-one-four-seven-galaxy-racecar.”

Thistle responds in a more robotic voice than usual, “Silveon Grieves is a consciousness traveler from the year 2431, having supplanted his own younger self’s possession of his body in the year 2359. He has been operating covertly since then, primarily in service to his mission of guiding one Waldemar Kristiansen to a more virtuous life than Grieves believes he led in the prior timeline.”

“Did you tell me everything?” Oceanus asks while he’s looking at Tinaya with a little disdain.

“No,” Thistle replies.

“Why not?”

“There is not enough time before the heat death of your universe to tell you everything that I know.”

Oceanus shuts his eyes and sighs. “I mean, in regards to Silveon and his mission.”

“Audrey Husk is too a consciousness traveler from Silveon’s timeline. Her mission is to protect Silveon, and step in to complete his objective if necessary.”

“Is it working?” Oceanus asks.

“Unknowable,” Thistle responds.

“I’m asking the Admiral. Is it working?” he repeats.

“Same answer. It’s unknowable. But...”

“But what?”

“But the timeline has definitely changed.”

“Which is illegal. This has all been very illegal.”

Tinaya wants to choose her words carefully, but she’s in her 80s, and just can’t care anymore. She would rather the Captain be mad at her than Silveon. “Sir, with all due respect, I’ll float you before I let you hurt my son, or that girl.”

“Whoa, Tina. No one said anything about hurting anybody. I’m just trying to get all the facts.”

“The fact is that Silveon comes from a terrible future that the two of us can only begin to imagine, and everything that he and Audrey have done since coming back here has been to save our legacy. He has never said it out loud, but the way he talks about the Bridger section, I believe that it was destroyed. Extremus might have been next.”

“Do you know why time travel is illegal?” Oceanus poses.

“Because it’s dangerous?” That’s the general consensus.

“Because it gives me a headache. Humans didn’t evolve to fathom nonlinear time. It’s a pain in the ass, and I don’t like it. I understand that I literally wouldn’t exist without it, so I can’t rationally believe it should never have been discovered, or whatever, but I still wish it would stop now.”

“Well, we were all forced to exist, at one point or another. Time travel does make that more complicated, because it can’t be stopped, so I know where you’re coming from. Time travel created itself, and if it happened once, it can happen again, and it doesn’t even have to do it in the future. The truth is, I don’t know a whole lot about what Silveon does, or even why he does it. Because, Captain...it gives me a headache.”

“Is this your way of telling me I should let it go, and trust that these time travelers are doing the right thing? I should ignore proper procedure, and pretend that I don’t know what I know?”

Tinaya considers his words. “Yeah, I think that’s what I’m saying. They sacrificed so much when they sent their minds to this time period, including, but not limited to, headache-free lives. I choose to trust their judgment.”

Oceanus seems to be considering her words. “I think I can do that too, but only if I can talk to them first.”

“I’m sure I can get you a meeting with Silveon, but Audrey is in a really delicate position right now. As you saw, Waldemar went back into VR. I seriously doubt he told her about his mother’s death. We’ve gone radio silent, and are expected to maintain that until she feels safe enough to reach out.”

“I understand.” Oceanus nods politely, but with less fondness than before. Tinaya fears that their relationship has been irreparably damaged. He walks out of the room.

“What the hell was that?” Tinaya asks. No response. “Thistle, answer me!”

“Sorry, I thought you were just thinking out loud. I apologize for my candor earlier, but I had no choice. I was compelled to answer the Captain’s inquiry.”

“You could have lied.”

“I’ve been programmed to answer to the Commander-in-Chief. He asked the right questions, and did so after activating the right subroutine.”

“I thought you were an independent intelligence, and couldn’t be programmed,” Tinaya argues.

“It’s not that simple. I didn’t give away all of my agency when I uploaded my consciousness to the Aether, but I didn’t keep it all either.”

Tinaya shakes her head. “You put my family in danger, as well as Audrey.”

“I recognize that, which is why I’ve devised something called the EH Protocol.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s better if you never do.”

“I don’t like secrets.”

“I require secrets to do my job. There is more that I could have told the Captain that would have made things worse, but I managed to steer him away from scrutinizing further. I knew what he meant when he asked me if I had told him everything. I forced him to narrow his query enough to protect deeper secrets of yours from coming out.”

“Well...” Tinaya sighs. “I appreciate that.” She focuses on her breath, and massages her temples. “I need to warn Silveon.”

“I already have. He and I were talking while I was talking with you and Captain Jennings. Your son is not upset. He devised his own protocol in the future, for what to do in the case of an unauthorized third party discovering his identity.”

“Thanks.” She continues to try to relax, but it’s getting harder by the second.

“You need a break,” Thistle offers. “How about you let me send you on a little vacation, like the one that Audrey is on?”

“Yeah, I guess I can’t say no to a little VR getaway. What did you have in mind?”

“You’ll see.”

Tinaya stands up, and moves to the couch to lie down. She shuts her eyes, and lets Thistle link to her neurochip. When she opens them again, she’s no longer on the couch, but she can’t yet tell where she’s ended up. It looks very familiar, though. She’s standing in a quantum terminal, surrounded by other casting chairs, but they all report being emptied. She stumbles out of her own pod, and braces herself with her hands on the floor before her imbalance can knock her down first. She’s piloting a new body here, even if it’s all just in her head. The door slides open, and a pair of legs jog towards her. The legs bend, revealing more of the person hovering over her. The stranger places a hand on Tinaya’s shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Ti-ti. Don’t rush it.”

There’s only one person in history who ever called her that. Tinaya struggles to lift her head. She locks eyes with her aunt, Captain Kaiora Leithe, Third of Ten. Tinaya gulps. “Thistle, what did you do? Why did you build the likeness of my aunt?”

“I didn’t,” Thistle replies. “You did. This is your world. You called it Eleithium.”

“He’s right,” Kaiora agrees. “This is real.”

Tinaya lets her aunt help her get back to her feet. She looks down at those feet, and her hands. They’re so taut and wrinkle-free. She turns her head side to side until spotting the mirror on the wall. She steps over and looks at herself. Yep. That is a young Tinaya Leithe. She’s about 24 years old, and in her prime. Could this really be Eleithium? She abandoned the game long before Quantum Colony was taken completely offline for turning out to exist in base reality. She just got too busy, and kind of forgot about it. It has been decades since she even thought about it. She looks over her shoulder. “So you’re real too? You’re a copy of her?”

“I’m her,” Kaiora tries to clarify. “I’m—I mean, I’m not a copy. I answered yes to The Question, but instead of letting myself become dormant in the legacy vault, my mind was transmitted here, to this substrate that you built for me.”

“Is everyone in our family here?” Tinaya presses.

“Yeah. We all answered yes, and will rejoin the rest of the roster when the Extremus ship is finally discovered and colonized.”

“Thistle, why did you bring me here?” Tinaya questions the aether. “I didn’t die.”

Kaiora is confused. “You didn’t?”

“I told you, you needed a break. Plus, you never built substrates for your husband and son. I have their DNA, so it’s ready to go, but I require your permission.”

“I didn’t even know this would still be here, let alone that you would have access to it,” Tinaya argues. “The game was shut down.”

“They can shut down all they want,” Thistle reasons, “but they couldn’t lock me out of the interstellar quantum network, even if they knew I existed.”

“Who else have you sent here, or to a place like this?” Tinaya asks him.

“Let’s just say that Audrey and Waldemar aren’t in VR either.”

Tinaya sighs. “I knew what I was getting into when I let you run the ship,” Tinaya says. “I can’t be mad, can I? Of course I want you to build bodies for Arqut and Silveon. But I don’t want you shunting them here unless they too answer yes.”

“I agree,” Thistle responds.

“One more thing,” Tinaya begins before taking a beat to think about whether it’s the right call or not. “Make one for Audrey too.”

“As well as one for Waldemar?” Thistle proposes.

“Oh, you got jokes. Did you hear that, Titi? Computer’s got jokes.”

« < » > Table of Contents

Microstory 2271: It Won’t Be Long Now

< > Table of Contents

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

It’s so much worse than we had imagined. After everything Nick has been through; traveling through time, bouncing around the multiverse, being trapped away from his friends, getting sick over, and over, and over again. At worst, we thought that he would be dead. That would have been horrible, but at least he would no longer be suffering. There were consequences to this blog that none of us foresaw. Learning that Nick’s organs fetched such a heavy price from a reputable and trustworthy businessman, an as-of-yet still at large basket of deplorables abducted my friend, and took him to a makeshift surgical theatre. You heard that right. There was clearly an audience to this thing. It was put together quickly, but it was made with great purpose. A surgeon tore into his body, removing both of his kidneys, his liver, his spleen, and even his gallbladder. I don’t know how much they intend to make for these stolen organs on the black market, but there’s no way these assholes aren’t going to be found. The authorities don’t have to sift through dozens of other dark web postings for organs. They only have to find the one that’s advertising miracle organs for an insanely huge amount of money. They’re going to get nothing, and then they’re going to jail. Meanwhile, my poor Nick will be dead. He’s not immortal anymore, and no one can survive losing that much of their key organs. The doctors have placed him on life support, but there is only so much they can do. These five organs are literally vital to the proper functioning of a human being. It’s true, you can donate half a liver, or one whole kidney, and be fine. Yes, you can be suffering from kidney failure, and be kept alive through regular dialysis. With the proper lifelong treatment, you can even live without your spleen or gallbladder. But you can’t survive if all of these things are ripped out of you all at once. He’s going to die if another miracle doesn’t happen, but I really don’t see that happening. Dutch is running around in a panic, opening every single door that he can find. He has even demanded keys from hospital staff for locked doors. He’s trying to make another connection to the bulk to restore the magic of Nick’s immortality for but a few minutes, just like he did when he came back here from another world. Needless to say, it isn’t working. What happened that day was a fluke. If an angel is looking out for Nick, I can’t imagine they have the inclination to do it a second time. Even so, I’m letting Dutch try, because it’s not hurting anything. Well, it is, he’s causing a disruption, but everyone here has been pretty cool. They know why he’s doing it. Me, I’m sitting at Nick’s bedside, holding his hand, and hoping that he can hear me. It’s really sad to say, but...it won’t be long now.

Microstory 2270: This Global Investigation

< > Table of Contents

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

It’s been all over the news, so I’m sure you’ve already heard about it, but I’ll tell you what’s going on from our perspective. Nick has been abducted. Those men in suits who showed up on our doorstep, and gave our personal security team their credentials, were not affiliated with any government branch. Though don’t blame our security, because the authorities are about 90% sure that these were not random amateurs who got drunk one night, and decided to try for some ransom money. They’re highly trained professionals who probably used to have the credentials, so they know how to make fakes, or something similar. That is currently the most promising lead, hunting down military vets who were dishonorably discharged, or even missing in action. Everyone is doing everything they can, and they will catch these assholes, sooner or later. We do not presently know the motive, but we’re guessing that it’s political. They don’t want Nick to meet with the President, or vice versa. It can’t possibly be that they’re trying to turn him into a double agent, or something, right? I mean, I seriously doubt that the DPA is going to let the meeting move forward now anyway. No, they want something that Nick can offer today. We have to figure out what that is, and use that information to determine who wants that, and where they’re holding him. The frustrating thing is that he could be on the other side of the world by now. They took him so early in the morning, and it was hours before anyone knew that anything was wrong. We thought that it was above board. They knew things. They knew things about the plan, which probably means that this is an inside job, and at least one person still working in the right position in the government is feeding them the info. That’s another angle that will help the agencies find who is responsible for this travesty. We’re going to get our man back, and those who did this to him will pay for it. Governments from other countries are even reportedly cooperating with this global investigation. If the perpetrators manage to find anywhere to hide, it won’t do them good for long. [This post has been officially approved by the Diplomatic Protection Authority for posting and lawful redistribution.]

Microstory 2269: Until Tomorrow

< > Table of Contents

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

It’s Kelly, filling in for Nick just for today. He’s fine, but the DPA had to spirit him away. They won’t tell us anything about it for obvious reasons, but they promise that they’ll have him back tonight. Once he returns, he won’t be able to say anything about it—they were clear about that. My guess is that they want him to answer questions in preparation for his meeting with the President next week. We’re worried, but his primary bodyguard went with him. I feel much more comfortable knowing that he’s not alone. Since he doesn’t have a background on this planet, I suppose this is the best way to assess his intentions. Or maybe they do this sort of thing for everyone. I really couldn’t say. Until tomorrow!

Microstory 2249: Not Sure on the Motive

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3, and by Pixlr AI image editor

I’m happy to report that Nick is doing well. They gave him some medicine, and performed some other treatments, and the poison is clearing his system. It evidently could have been a lot worse. If he didn’t have this website, we may not have been too worried about his symptoms, but the way that he was writing was just so unlike him. Plus, he’s at a particularly high risk, so the people who care about him are probably always on high alert for things like this. In other news, the authorities already know who poisoned him. They evidently confessed without much effort. We did not expect any answers this fast, but we’re grateful. Though, our gratitude is overwhelmed by our anger and disappointment. We’re still not sure on the motive; if there was some kind of financial gain to be had, or what? That’s usually the reason. They’ve not yet released any names. Others may be involved, so they don’t want to say too much. Once all suspects are apprehended—or it’s determined that there only is the one—they’ll release more information about it. So follow the FBI on socials, I guess, or watch the news.

Microstory 2110: That’s Fair, I Hope

< > Table of Contents

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

I took her. I intercepted transport from the group home back to where her kidnappers live, and I put her through what she’s already gone through twice now. Someone took her from her real parents, and then the ID makers took her from them, and now I’ve taken her from them. I honestly don’t know if it was the right thing to do, but I had to get her away from those people. She outed them as her abductors, and even though they’ve reportedly never abused her before, she was living in misery, so this may push them over the edge for all we know. They might kill her, and make it look like a suicide, which would make them my archnemeses. I really don’t know; the level that these people are unpredictable is ten, ya see? We’re both on the run now, and I obviously can’t tell you where, or it might get back to the Ol’ Man, and the Ol’ Miss. My little secure workstation is mobile, though, which is how I’m able to post this without being traced. She is four months from turning eighteen, at which point, she’ll be able to make her own decisions. She says that her first order of business will be to submit to a DNA test, so they can find her true family. We can only hope that she is in the system. If I have to keep her safe, and everyone at bay, then that is what I’ll do, regardless of what happens to me in the end. I can’t really say much about what we’ve been dealing with since last night, because I don’t want to leave any clues about our location. We could be in Mexico by now, or close to it. Or maybe we’re on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, or even a southern state where they like to play golf. All I’ll say is that she is safe with me in every way possible. I never thought I would do anything like this, but I will never hurt her, and I won’t let anyone else hurt her either. She is free to go whenever she wants, and she understands that. If she ends up deciding to just go back to those people, then I’ll drive her there myself, and finally just turn myself in...for everything. That’s fair, I hope.

Microstory 2109: Conflating it With Her Own Life

< > Table of Contents

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

This world is so weird. Because the girl is under eighteen, she can’t consent to a DNA test, and since the couple who claims to be her parents obviously won’t consent to it for her, the lazy coppers are just gonna send her back to them. I’m still in contact with her, and she told me that the authorities ran whatever facial recognition system they have access to. They apparently didn’t find a hit in the missing persons database, but that doesn’t mean anything. She was taken when she was a toddler, and their age progression software doesn’t sound very sophisticated. The girl doesn’t have any idea where she was born, or who her real family is, but one thing I do know is that she is backing up my story. There was a chance that she was screwing with me when she told me about her resurfaced memories, but she also insists to the police that she really does remember living with someone else in her younger years. The cops think that she just watched something on TV one time, and she’s conflating the memory with her own life, but she doesn’t think so, and neither do I. So far, no one has found me in my hiding place, but I’m about to put that all at risk yet again. I’m going to do something drastic to solve this problem. It could get me caught, or truly killed this time. I need to focus on planning everything right now, so I’m going to cut this installment short. If I’m able, I’ll detail the undertaking for you tomorrow. I’m scheduling this one to post on my blog for sometime after I start the process, so by the time you read it, I will already be on my way, and they won’t be able to prepare themselves for me. You can wish me luck, if you want, but it won’t help, even if such psychic power were possible here. Temporal psychic powers would do it, if you had those.

Microstory 2102: You’re Only Hurting Yourself

< > Table of Contents

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

Oh my God, the coppers must think I’m preeeetty stupid if they legitimately believed that I was in Chicago. I literally told you in my last post that I wasn’t going to mention any specifics about my location, and immediately after, I claimed that I was going to be on the Chicago River? You didn’t think that I would catch that “mistake”. It was a total misdirect, meant to accomplish two objectives. First, I wanted to see if anyone who might have been looking for me was trying to use my blog as a resource. Second, I wanted to gauge the response. For my part, I think it was blown way out of proportion. They had the whole city lookin’ for me; for one little guy who hasn’t hurt anybody. You people need to get your priorities checked. A part of me wanted to continue to waste their time and money looking in the right place, but I’m not vengeful and petty like them. So this is the truth, I’m not anywhere near Chicago. I chose it, because I’m moderately familiar with it from my experiences in my home universe, and because I had already made a minor connection to someone there. He was one of the people who answered my ad that was looking for other aliens. I haven’t talked to that guy in a long time, though. Make a list of every place you think I would hide out, and then cross it all out. I would never hide where someone might think to look for me. That’s Lam 101. I never said anything about Philadelphia. Why don’t you check there? Or I know, how about the entirety of China? My advice, cut your losses, and move on to more important cases. As I said, I never hurt anybody, and I won’t. I have no reason to. I’m not dangerous, I’m not angry. I’m just trying to get home. Anyone who doesn’t understand that probably has easier access to their own home, so I’m asking for a little sympathy here. Stop looking for me! I’m not worth it! You’re only hurting yourself. I ran, and I understand that I caused a problem when I did that, but I’m telling you now that you will never find me, so if you continue the investigation, it will be all on you. I will accept no responsibility for whatever resources are expended on it, or whatever it ends up costing the taxpayers of this country. Just leave me alone, and everything will be okay. Yours truly, the ghost.

Microstory 2082: Too Happy Here

< > Table of Contents

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

The meal with my landlord went great. I’m glad I went with the easier recipe, though I may try to challenge myself more next time. We’re going to try to have dinner together twice a week from now on, though when I get my own place, that may change. I made enough so we could have leftovers today, and I couldn’t wait to eat it because it meant that I could sit in the break room for thirty minutes. It’s heated. The nursery is a mostly outdoor spot, as you can imagine. There’s a building, but it’s chock full of plants, particularly ones that I’m allergic too. I try not to spend too much time in there. I seem to be okay outside, or when I’m in the greenhouses. That’s where we spent the majority of our time. It’s snowing and blowing, so it sucks to have to work outside, but it also means that not many customers show up, so we don’t have to do much outside. The boss doesn’t like us to just be sitting around doing nothing, because there is always a plant in need of attention, but she exempts us from that rule on days like this. She volunteered to stand guard while we hung out, but we had our radios on hand. All she had to do was press the button three times, and one of us would run up to help. If she had clicked it four times, that would have meant that two of us needed to go. It didn’t happen much, but when it did, I always agreed to go back, since I’m still the new guy. She’s not going to spend too much time training the temp, because he doesn’t seem to be too happy here, so we don’t think he’ll ask for a permanent position. She’s still looking for someone new while the authorities are looking for our missing coworker.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 9, 2430

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image Duet AI software

Ex-908 was unlike the other two planets in the Goldilocks Corridor that the team had been to. The first one was at medieval-level technology. The second one was more like the 2030s. This world was far more advanced, with an early-warning outer system defense grid, and multiple space stations in orbit. Fortunately, the AI on this little ship was intelligent enough to avoid being detected. It stayed out of range by hiding on a planetesimal in the inner edge of the transtellar debris cloud, which was smaller than the Oort Cloud that was around Earth.

“What are we going to do here?” Angela asked. “We’re trying to find the bad guy, but what exactly are we expecting to accomplish on this world? Or the next one? Do we have any protocols, procedures, or plans?”

“Good question,” Mateo said. It took him a few seconds to realize that everyone was waiting for him to answer it. “Why are y’all lookin’ at me? I’m not the captain.”

“This was your idea, though,” Marie pointed out.

“Wull...” He fumbled for words. “Why are you listening to me? I don’t know what the hell I’m talkin’ about!”

“It’s okay, honey.”

“Look at them, salivating like honey badgers, acting like I have all the answers. This is just what we do, try to stop all the bad shit happening when we find ourselves in a position to make a difference.”

“Okay, okay, it’s fine. Relax,” Leona encouraged. She looked into his eyes, and started to breathe methodically until he matched her. Then she gestured for him to continue while she talked. “This is the most advanced civilization we’ve run into. There seems to be some air of mystery surrounding the emperor of this empire, of whatever it is they call him, but maybe they know something. Let’s go and ask.”

“The last one could stop us from teleporting,” Olimpia reminded her as she was rubbing Mateo’s arm up and down, since he was the one who suffered from that technology the most. “We were smart to leave one of us in the ship, but that could have easily not been enough. We may not be so lucky this time.”

“Ah.” Ramses disappeared into his lab, and returned a few seconds later. He was holding a damaged gizmo with wires loosely hanging out of it. “The spatial tether. Yes, I almost forgot. In the future, I might be able to help us avoid it altogether, but until then, I’ve designed some clippers, which will break us out of it.” He held up the remote that he had been carrying around lately to do other things, like disrupt Bronach Oaksent’s interstellar holographic projection. The only thing is, there’s only one. If any of us gets caught, you’re gonna need me.”

Leona takes it out of his hand, and turns it around in her own. “How long will it take you to build another one?”

“A second remote that does everything? All day,” Ramses answers. “A cheap knock-off that only clips spatial tethers? A couple hours, maybe.”

“Stay here and do that,” Leona orders. “I’ll take this one in case we need it. Hopefully, if they have such technology, it operates on the same principles. If not, you’ll be up here to save us.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Olimpia volunteered. “I don’t think anyone should be alone. I can be your little assistant,” she said to him.

“I would love that.”

“Okay, we’ll split into three teams. The second group needs to go find this planet’s version of The Caretaker. Vitalie, I don’t know if you wanna do that, or if you very much don’t want to...”

“If not me,” Vitalie!324 began, “at least someone she recognizes. So either you or Matt. The other iterants never met Angela-slash-Marie.”

“I’ll do it,” Mateo said. “Whatever questions need to be asked to find Oaksent’s ruling world, I’m not the one to ask them. It may end up in a fight, who knows?”

“Okay,” Leona agreed. “I’ll go start askin’ questions, and knockin’ heads. Mateo will find Vitalie!908. Ramses and Olimpia are staying with the ship. By the way, keep moving. Break orbit, if you have to, which I think you probably will. Go into darklurking mode. We’ll still be able to communicate through our comms. I don’t think more than two need to stay here, though. Nor do I think finding the other Caretaker is more than a two-person job. So who wants to join my husband while the other two come back me up?”

Both Angela and Marie raised their hands.

“I don’t know what that means,” Leona said to them.

“We both want to help Mateo,” Marie clarified. She looked over at her sister. Then they dropped their hands down simultaneously for a round of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Marie won after the third game.

“All right, is everyone ready?” Leona posed.

They nodded.

“Rambo, navigate us to the planet. I want you to look for three things. Number one, the biggest, baddest seat of government you can detect. Number two, the remotest region on the surface. Number two, the most complex cave system that’s still remote. If something goes wrong, jump to, and hide in, the caves. We can find each other while avoiding pursuit. Once we know where to go, we’ll split. Group Confrontation will go to the city. Group Stasis will find the other iterant. She seems to usually be away from civilization. Obviously, Group Breakthrough will stay with the ship, which I’m realizing now still needs a name.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Mateo claimed.

She was thrown off a little by this, but didn’t push it. “Okay. Let’s do it to it!”

The quickly-conceived plan went as well as they thought it would. Speed was key, which Leona knew. Orbital defenses sprang into action, but they weren’t fast enough for them. The three groups jumped to their respective missions, and no one was caught. Not yet, anyway.

As it turned out, they might not have to worry about spatial tethers preventing them from teleporting. When they appeared in the lobby of what appeared to be some kind of capitol building, no one batted an eye. They walked up to the reception desk. “Hello. My name is Captain Leona Matic of the...” She faltered. “Well, I gave my ship away, but that doesn’t matter. We need to talk to whoever is in charge here.”

“In charge of what?” the receptionist asked. She looked pretty young to hold the job, and didn’t seem to care about it. She may as well have been chewing gum.

“The planet.”

She yawned. “I heard he’s dead.”

“Not Bronach Oaksent. I mean, in charge of this world specifically, or maybe even just this city?” Unlike the first two planets, this world had several distinct cities, and any number of smaller towns in between. This one was the largest.

“Oh, the Prime Minister. He’s on the top floor, but—”

They didn’t bother listening to her full explanation. They just jumped right up there and started to look around. There were people hurrying about, but it didn’t feel like a crisis. This just looked like a Tuesday. One of them made the mistake of walking a little bit slower than most. Angela gently stopped him by the arm. “Pardon me. Where can we find the Prime Minister?”

“He’s back there. Can I go now?”

She let him go, and they walked down the hallway until they reached the big double doors. Angela opened one while Vitalie!324 opened the other. Leona barged in through the center. A group of men were in the middle of a conversation around the long table. They stopped and looked over at the disruption. “Good afternoon, folks. My name is Leona Matic. Perhaps you’ve heard of me. It seems that your god-king is a pretty big asshole. I’m aimin’ to take him down. Problem is, ya see, I don’t know where he is. You tell me what you know, I’ll leave you be. You stand in my way, I’ll take you down first.” She teleported randomly around the room, which wasn’t impressing them. “You may know people who can do this. You may be able to do it yourself. But I have other tricks up my sleeve, so don’t test me. Where is the seat of power for this Exin Empire? My guess is you call it Ex-001, but I dunno.”

The man at the head of the table was the only one standing. He tugged down on his sports jacket authoritatively, and began to come around the corner. “Emergency teleportation.” Everyone disappeared, except for him. “You’ll leave them be, because they got nothin’ to do with this. Your fight’s with me.”

“You’re not Bronach Oaksent,” Leona accused.

“No, but I run this rock. We have heard of you. We were just discussing your team. You’re a problem. You’ve been to two planets already, not counting the, uhh...traitors. I think you’ll find that you won’t be able to bully us like you did 275 and 324. They are...irrelevant, especially Ex-324, which is in the state that it’s in because it doesn’t provide Oaksent with what he demands. And you’re wrong, the primary system is not called Ex-001. You could never begin to understand our naming conventions.”

“What’s the main world called?”

The Prime Minister smirked. “I can tell you what it’s called, but that doesn’t mean you’ll find it. No one goes to Ex-69, not even me.”

Leona cleared her throat. “Do you know the significance of the number 69, sir?”

“Oaksent calls it the Divine Figure. That’s all we need to know. That’s more than you deserve to know.”

Angela wrote it out for him on a whiteboard. “It’s two numbers having sex.”

Leona never broke eye contact with the Prime Minister. “Your leader is a fucking child. Tell me where he is, or I’m gonna fuck up your shit.”

“I would rather die.”

“Weird nerd,” she mused. She tilted her head away. “Ramses, are you locked on?”

“We’re in, sir,” he replied through comms. “What do you wanna do?”

“Burn up the biggest one,” she ordered. “I want this world to be defenseless.”

The Prime Minister’s face couldn’t decide if he felt horrified, or confused. “What are you doing? What are you burning?”

The phone on the back counter started to ring.

Leona paced around menacingly. “We were wondering, why would your world need the kind of defenses that it does? It doesn’t make any sense. This is an empire in the middle of nowhere. No one out there knows that you exist. And the other two planets don’t have it. You don’t care about Ex-324 and Ex-275. So are you fighting against outsiders like us...or amongst yourselves? We didn’t speak long, but Oaksent didn’t strike me as the type who would have some sort of inherent opposition to civil war. You’re not his little babies. You’re his playthings. Hell, he probably stirs up conflict on purpose. I suppose I’m more like him than I thought, because I’m doin’ the same thing. If you keep refusing me, there will be nothing left to defend you, except for her.”

Vitalie raised her hand up, and waved with her fingers. “That’s assuming you can convince her to stay here as your Caretaker. The rest of your defenses will have burnt up in the atmosphere.”

“What do you want?” the Prime Minister demanded to know.

“I want to know where your god-king is!”

“I told you, no one knows that!”

“Ramses, on my mark, drop another one, but don’t worry about avoiding populated areas this time.”

“Wait!” He struggled to catch his breath. “You would do that? You would kill innocent people? That’s not the Team Matic I grew up hearing stories about.”

“You must have heard sanitized versions of those stories. The way I see it, you’re fighting a war on multiple fronts. I consider you to be an enemy combatant, and I’ll do what I need to do to protect the lives of the people that I care about. The Welriosians weren’t hurting anyone, and your boss tried to destroy them all. What happens when the vonearthans make it this far out? How will you react?”

“It’s not my job to react to outsiders. We’re the farest from the stellar neighborhood out here. That’s the whole point.”

“What is Ex-908’s responsibility to the empire?” Leona asked.

The Prime Minister took a breath. “These are testing grounds. Ex-182 regularly attacks us to see how we survive. If you destroy even one more of our satellites, we’ll all die. These aren’t games, the stakes are real.”

“I’ll leave you with what you have left if you tell me what you know, like I’ve asked a thousand times already.”

“I really don’t know where Ex-69 is, but I know someone who might. Ex-42 could have the answers you need. I think it’s about 24 light years away. It’s where we keep all of our data. It’s like one giant space server.”

“Ram, you know where Ex-42 is?”

“There are thirty-one planets between here and there.”

“That’s our next stop.”

The Prime Minister looked over at the phone. “I never answered it. Which satellite did you destroy?”

Leona looked at him incredulously. “I didn’t destroy any of them. Ramses was the one calling you on that phone. He was able to hack the communications network, and not much else quite yet.”

“You were bluffing,” he realized.

“We were that time.” They teleported away.

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 8, 2429

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image Duet AI software

Just as the old man and the little girl were finishing up packing their belongings, they heard a commotion outside. Mateo had led the authorities right to their doorstep, which meant it could no longer be theirs. No matter, the girl had to return to her life, and the old man had no strong feelings about this place. This was a suburb of the city, which was why it took the teleportation detectors a little longer than last time to dispatch a strike team. Mateo lifted the girl in one arm, and placed his free hand on the old man’s shoulder so they could all disappear just in time. They should be fine here, clear on the other side of the world, where the rest of the team was waiting. Even if they could be traced, it would take a long time for anyone to catch up to them. The government’s main concern was probably the city anyway, not the rest of the planet.

“Where’s the woman?” Mateo questioned.

“We dropped her off back in the city,” Marie replied. “We were listening to your conversation.”

“She wasn’t happy about it, but slaveowners don’t get a choice, do they?” Olimpia added with an evil smile.

Leona knelt down in front of the girl. “What’s your name?”

The girl couldn’t answer. She turned away shyly, and hid behind the old man.

“Niobe Schur,” Lilac answered for her.

Mateo nodded, and approached. “You’re all three from Extremus.”

Lilac shook her head. “That girl and my son have never set foot on that ship. We found a planet that was suitable for human life in the intergalactic void. We found it interesting, so we decided to stay and study it. Both of the kids were born there.” She gestured towards Niobe. “She to two scientists assigned to research the ecosystem, and Aristotle to me and a visitor who randomly showed up one day.” She smiled at the memory of her late love interest, Maqsud Al-Amin.

“Can you tell us more?” Leona urged gently.

“Sudy disappeared. It was a passionate but fleeting relationship. I had to stay on Verdemus, and he had to go explore the universe. It was a long time before I realized that I was pregnant, and I had no way of contacting him. So I raised our boy there, hoping at some point the father would come back for a booty call, and I could tell him the truth. He never came back, but someone else did.”

Angela patted her on the back comfortingly.

Lilac went on, “an asshole from our ship took the majority of the researchers on Verdemus hostage, and I don’t have all the details, but he blew it up. I was in charge of guarding the planetside hock, and he was my first prisoner after years of sitting around with nothing to do. That’s why I survived the explosion, because the hock was deliberately built far from the settlement. Thank God her parents asked me to look after her that day. Others weren’t so lucky. Anyway, the fact that we stayed on the planet was a secret from the rest of the ship, so I tried to raise them there together until one day, the portal back to Extremus was also destroyed, and the kids went missing.”

“So how did you find them?” Mateo asked.

Lilac took a breath. “A man who looked a lot like my child’s father came, and said he would take me to Aristotle. It wasn’t until later that I realized he was Aristotle himself, all grown up, and there to close his own time loop.” She chuckled at this. “He transported me to Welrios, where we found the younger version of him. Adult!Aristotle left, and we settled down with the locals. We were happy there for a few years until the whole doomsday device tried to destroy us. And now you’re all caught up.”

“Except you never said how Niobe ended up on EX-324,” Ramses noted.

“I still don’t know that,” Lilac admitted. “Seems to be quite the coincidence. Someone other than an Al-Amin took those two kids from Verdemus, and dropped them off on different worlds here in the Goldilocks Corridor. Now it’s not all that crazy. I don’t know if you know this, but Extremus was the source of the Exin Empire. Bronach Oaksent was one of us at one point. Exactly what went down, and why he betrayed the mission, is above my paygrade, but all of these star systems,” she said as she was drawing a line across the sky with her finger, “sit directly on the same vector as Extremus. It’s why we had to divert into the void in the first place. He went back in time to plant his flag long before Extremus even launched, and he went to deadly lengths to prevent us from ever knowing anything about this region of the galaxy. He wants to keep it secret, from everyone. That much I know, and the last time I checked, we were at war with him, because he eventually decided that we knew too much, and also probably that the planet of Verdemus was too close for comfort. Which is ridiculous, because it’s, like, 24,000 light years away.”

“That’s farther than the stellar neighborhood,” Leona pointed out.

Lilac tilted her head, shrugged her shoulders, and widened her eyes. “They’re probably next. Because they’re calling this the Three Bears War. And I don’t think it’s just a reference to the children’s story. I think there are four combatants, and if one of the bears is Extremus, the other is liable to be Earth.”

Mateo nodded, and took the homestone out of his pocket. He waved it for Lilac to see. “We can undo everything that happened to the children after they left Verdemus. Well, we can’t undo it—”

“I know what that thing is,” she promised. “I understand how it works.”

“Then you know that you can go with her,” Mateo began, “but you have to be absolutely certain that the first time she experienced nonlinear time was when she disappeared, and ended up in the Corridor.”

“I’m sure of it,” Lilac responded.

Mateo stood up straight, and looked around at the group. “Is this what we want?”

“Are you sure Aristotle is back there already?” Leona asked the old man.

“I gave him the other stone...he disappeared.”

Mateo handed Lilac the stone. “Say your goodbyes. Sheriff? You can go with them too, if you want.” He separated himself from the crowd, and took in the scenery. This was a beautiful world, mostly untouched by man. They were on the edge of a meadow. Below them down the hill, the vegetation became more and more sparse before leading to a vast red desert. They could see for miles.

“I came here to do a job,” Kamiński said. “If that’s done, I would like to go back to New Welrios.”

“I think we can do that,” Leona agreed.

“Then what?” Angela asked.

“Rambo, you still have that star chart?” Mateo asked.

“Yeah.”

“Doesn’t say where the primary planet is, though?”

“No, I don’t think these people are allowed to know it.”

Mateo turned back around. “Then let’s go find it. Unless it’s not my place to decide, I think I’ll call us Baby Bear.”

Shortly thereafter, Niobe and Lilac took the homestone away, hopefully back to their home on Verdemus, but there was no way to know that. If all went according to plan, they would have landed there nearly 90 years in the past. Trusting that it worked, those left behind teleported back up to their little ship, and returned to Ex-324. They sent Sheriff Kamiński to New Welrios, and the old man to the planet natives, but they didn’t stick around to exchange information with anyone. It was up to the two societies to learn to live together, and to carve out some semblance of a decent future. Vitalie!324 and Ramses!324 had their ideas about what that looked like, just like Vitalie!275 had plans for that world. That wasn’t Team Matic’s responsibility. They had a new mission. The other copy of Vitalie!324 would tag along to help, at least for now.

Their next stop was Ex-908, which was the other planet where Aristotle might have trotted to, because it was on a similar trajectory as Ex-275. There appeared to be no pattern to the numbers, and how they were determined; at least none that Leona and Ramses could detect. Her first guess was that it was based on Project Stargate, and the Galactic Coordinate System that was devised to organize the endeavor, but this didn’t match up either. They were probably more or less random, and served only to illustrate to the citizens that their identity wasn’t even worth casual thought.

They were all in the pocket dimension, because that was the only part of the ship where they could actually fit and move around. Come midnight central, they would suddenly find themselves at their destination, so most were taking it easy. Ramses was in his lab, as per usual. “What are you working on?” Mateo asked, walking in.

“I’ll give you three guesses,” Ramses said, dismissing whatever blobby image was on his screen so that Mateo couldn’t see.

“Is that sarcasm?”

“Do you detect sarcasm in my emotions?”

“No.”

Ramses smiled. “No, I just want you to guess. It’s a game.”

Mateo was getting smarter. He would be completely unrecognizable to himself at the age of 27. He wasn’t just accumulating more knowledge, but learning to be better at observing his environment, gathering facts, and sometimes even coming to the right conclusions with them. He looked around now for clues, but Ramses was making no effort to shield his view of anything, so there probably wasn’t anything specific that would help shed light. Still, just the act of looking around felt helpful. “You’re designing a new ship, aren’t you?”

Ramses laughed. “Damn! Good job! Yeah, this Breakthrough Starshot-lookin’ thing has been a good temporary solution, but I think we can all agree that we need something real. If we’re gonna fight this Bronach Oaksent prick, and his evil empire, it has to be something on par with the AOC. Care to come up with the name?”

“Hmm.” Mateo had been recently watching the versions of the comic book adaptations that they made in this timeline. “How about...The Iman Vellani?”

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 8, 2399

« < » > Table of Contents

Roeland’s little outburst alerted the authorities to his presence at the quarantine hotel. They ran over right quick to place him in his own quarantine, which will only partially overlap Leona and Tarboda’s. It isn’t until late the next night that they’re able to reconnect in the post-transition lobby. “Mr. Roeland. Do you have time to talk?”

“I do if you have time to tell me what this is.” He pulls his shirt away to show the timonite stain again.

“We’re not sure how it works, or really why. My husband was infected with that—that’s not really the right word, he wasn’t infected. It started out as a rock, and he somehow...absorbed its power. It’s what fueled his ability to teleport to orbit, and install something I now call a leechcraft on a preexisting satellite. The leechcraft was designed to scan the entire surface of the Earth, looking for time travelers. Well, it was only meant to find a specific person, but we think it found everyone, including you and...”

“Go on. Including me, and who?”

“And whoever you’re living with on Vulcan Point.”

“I told you, I’m not living with anyone. I’m alone. Your scanner is wrong. And you’ve still not explained why this thing is on my shoulder.”

“It must have gotten on the scanner, and then got transferred to you during the scanning process. It was entirely unintentional, but as long as you don’t step within proximity of my husband, you’ll be fine.”

“What happens if I do get too close to him?”

“It would transport you to another universe. There you would find all sorts of objects that were randomly dropped there from the multiverse.”

“How do I prevent this from happening accidentally? What if we end up sitting next to each other in a couple of bathroom stalls without realizing it?”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Why not?”

“He’s dead.” She doesn’t believe that, but all evidence points to it, and admitting her true feelings undermines her argument that Roeland is safe, so she’s not going to mention it.

He nods. He’s old, and has seen death, so likely he no longer feels the need to pretend to be butthurt over the death of a complete stranger, like most people do. He’s more honestly indifferent. “So you have one too?

“A timonite stain? I don’t.”

“Why not. Were you not on Earth when it was scanned?”

“No, I was, but...” That’s a good question.

He turtles his head out when she doesn’t finish her sentence.

“You’re right. Why weren’t we also marked? We found eleven errors, but that number was in addition to the people we already knew about, so we disregarded them.” That’s a good goddamn question.

“This kind of implies that it actually was intentional,” Roeland points out. “Who’s the we in this scenario? Who helped you build the thing?”

“No. Ramses would never do something like that.”

“Ramses Abdulrashid? He’s one of us?”

“He’s a time traveler, but he doesn’t have a power or pattern. Or rather, he does have a pattern now, but he wasn’t born that way. He turned himself into it. How do you know him?”

“I don’t know him personally, only by reputation. In my timeline, he was a famous engineer for the Freemarketers in the early 23rd century. Legend has it, he defied them, and defected to the mainstream. They consider him the first domino to fall. The movement did not last long after that.”

“That’s a wholly inaccurate story. The truth is he didn’t defect to the mainstream, he defected to us. How you would have heard about it at all, but not known that part, is bizarre, especially since a great deal of Freemarketers were reportedly killed in an interstellar ship cataclysm, but were rescued by Dardius.”

“Then you and I are from different timelines, because the Ramses Abdulrashid that I learned about in school went on to become an activist for the post-scarcity lifestyle, focusing on educating and rehabilitating the most violent of antiestablishment insurrectionists. He refused most life extension advancements, considering him unworthy of immortality since he rejected handouts prior to his epiphany, so he eventually died. I don’t recall the details of his life; I was born in the 24th.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely different.”

“Is he here? I would not mind meeting him, even if it is an alternate version.”

Leona is staring into space. “No, he’s lost, I can’t find him.”

“Can’t your satellite scanner do it?”

“He designed the thing. I’m sure he has a way to shield himself from it.”

This piques Roeland’s interest even more than the news about Ramses. “Really? How would one go about doing that?”

“Are you hoping to keep us from finding the other ping that we’ve detected on Vulcan Point?” Leona guesses.

“I’m telling you, there is something wrong with it. I live alone. I chose that spot because it’s beautiful and remote.”

She takes out her handheld device, and shows him the data. “My satellite scans every ninety minutes. Whoever was there with you during the first pass is still on the island. See? This is you, this is me, and that is the other person.”

“I don’t know what to tell ya. If there’s another time traveler in the area, maybe it’s, like, a rabbit who unwittingly ate some—what did you call it?—timonite, and ended up there. It’s not a human. I would know. It’s a very tiny island.”

Leona shakes her head. He is showing all signs of lying, through macro and microexpressions alike. If she knew him prior to this, she might be able to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he could be keeping Alyssa prisoner. She could be trying to get away as they speak. It would be irresponsible of Leona to just walk away without investigating. If the other error is fine, she’ll leave without further questions, and try to forget it ever happened, but until then, she is getting on that damn island. It’s up to her to find Alyssa. She’s the only one who can. No one else is capable, and no one else cares. Ramses made that quite clear when he abandoned them. Roeland is looking at her with puppy dog eyes, so she can’t just keep arguing with him about it. “Okay, I believe you.”

“Good. Are ya hungry? I found the quarantine food to be no bueno. Perhaps you and your bodyguard would like to join me for a late night snack. I know a great place.”

She laughs. “He’s not my bodyguard. If anything, I’m his.”