The Advancement of Mateo Matic: The Rock – Part 3

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The Rock diplomatic discussions were over. Of course, the various representatives for the five former realities currently living side-by-side in the Sixth Key were going to stay in contact with each other, and diplomacy was never over. Even if they managed to integrate into a single unified peoples, internal conflicts would require constant care and consideration. Everyone was happy and unhappy at the same time, and that was all anyone could ask for when it came to something like this, especially at this incredibly unprecedented scale. The two major issues that they needed to cover were how to distribute resources, and how to organize some sort of joint form of governance. Things could always take any number of steps backwards, but they were ready to deal with that on their own, without any help from Pryce Tree, Team Matic, or the Vellani Ambassador. They found suitable locations in their own universe to handle anything new that came up.

There was only one thing left to do before the team could finally get back to their mission in the Goldilocks Corridor. As soon as the meeting was officially adjourned, Pryce Tree and Princess Honeypea disappeared, as did the delegates from the true main sequence. Everyone else still needed to get back to present day, and to the Sixth Key, or to its membrane twin, Fort Underhill. This other universe was attached to Salmonverse, but it could only be accessed at one location, for security reasons. Even a bulk traveler could not realistically enter the brane from a different spot, as the walls of the membrane were hyperdimensionally thicker than natural ones. For now, there wasn’t much traffic between the two conjoined universes, but that could change in the future, so Hogarth Pudeyonavic was currently erecting a checkpoint station to facilitate border crossings. Until that was finished, they just had to drop their own names to the little guard vessel, and go on through the breach.

Theirs was not the only biverse in the bulk. A few others were linked, like two stars orbiting each other. There were even rumors of a triverse somewhere out there. And when this happened, for whatever reason, the region of equilibrium between them was given a special name. They were now in the kasma. No one on the Ambassador was aware of the difference between the kasma, and any other part of the outer bulk. Perhaps it was an otherwise meaningless distinction, there only to designate its proximity to the connected branes. There was a bit of a lurch as their ship’s inertial dampener array began to recalibrate itself for the difference in environment. In a vacuum, you would be in a constant state of freefall, drawn towards the strongest source of gravity. In an equilibrium, gravity operated at an even distribution, which made it feel like every atom in your body was being pulled in every direction all at once. The strength of this pull wasn’t enough to spaghettify you, but it took some getting used to. That was why the internal dampeners were so necessary. They were taking longer to recalibrate. Hopefully, this would not be a problem on the way back.

“I would think that we would not feel such a thing from our little pocket dimension,” Carlin noted as he was stepping onto the bridge. Everyone else was either in the visitor’s pocket, or sitting around Delegation Hall.

“I wasn’t sure either,” Ramses replied. “I don’t know that much about it. I wish we were spending more time here, so I could take some more thorough readings.”

Olimpia shivered. “We’re spending long enough.” She hadn’t technically been in the kasma before, but was trapped between the two halves of the daughter universe. It too existed outside of the membranes, so it probably operated under the same physics. Her feeling of unease was not out of nowhere, and something that they should have been concerned about going into this final leg of the Rock mission. Fortunately, she lived there for untold time. This trip, however, would only take about an hour and a half.

Leona hugged her from the side with one arm. “We’re almost through.” The kasma was about three AU wide, at least here, which could have been incidental, or deliberate on the creator’s part. The reframe engine did not work inside, and in fact, they were unable to travel at high subfractional speeds. They were maxed out at about the quarter the speed of light. Their attempts to push it faster than that threatened to tear the ship apart at the seams.

They were watching on the viewscreen, but there wasn’t much to see. As they were too close to the nearest brane to view it in its full form, there was almost nothing but utter darkness. A pinprick of light marking their destination into Fort Underhill had appeared, now that they were only several hundred thousand kilometers away, but that was it. They were decelerating for safe entry, but they still would have covered the distance in a matter of minutes. Suddenly, a spacetrain appeared out of nowhere, roughly perpendicular to their vector. It was the Transit, of course.

Leona slammed her hand down onto the shipwide intercom. “Brace for gravity turbulence!” She pulled her hand away so she could slam it down again to the emergency stop button. There weren’t many physical controls on this thing, but that was an important one to include in the design, along with the touchscreens. “Full stop!”

The ship came to a complete stop, though Leona’s cry was her instinct to be safe rather than sorry. If anyone had an open glass of liquid, some of it would have splashed out, but they were otherwise okay. In normal space, a stop was a misnomer, as everything in the universe was in perpetual motion. But they were no longer in the universe, so it was extremely possible to be totally still. They just sat there in the equilibrium, and waited for the Transit to make its own stop in front of them. Everyone looked around. Someone was being recruited for the Transit Army. It could be any one of them, or hell, all of them. Usually, when the Transit appeared, time would stop for all but their target, but no one reported this happening. Everyone stayed in realtime, but perhaps that was a consequence of being in the kasma.

“Unidentified beautiful purple ship, this is Azura of the Transit, please respond.”

Leona opened a direct channel. “Transit, this is Leona Matic of the Vellani Ambassador. Who are you here for?”

A different voice came back after a mic bump, and some feedback. “Leona, this is Saga, but I go by Freya now. I’m looking for my daughter.”

“Does the Transit have anti-teleportation tech?” Leona asked.

“No, it does not,” Azura replied.

“Prepare to be boarded.” Leona switched off comms to address the team. “Olimpia and Angela, please stay with the delegates. Ramses, man the bridge. Mateo and Marie, you’re with me.”

At the last second, Carlin took Mateo in a bear hug to tag along. They were now all four in the Transit, which none of them had ever seen from the inside before. “Not cool, dude,” Mateo complained.

“Sorry, I had to see this,” Carlin responded. “No regrets.”

Leona approached the woman who looked just like Saga, but something shifted in her brain, forcing her to be absolutely certain that she was actually called Freya. In fact, she wasn’t even an Einarsson anymore, but a Hawthorne. Still, they reunited with a hug. Leona then shook the hand of the woman standing next to her. “Azura, I presume?”

Mateo was searching through his handheld device as Azura was nodding. He found what he was searching for. “I thought I recognized the name. I’ve heard it before, and saw you briefly. You’re an agent of the Maramon.” Centuries ago, when Mateo and Leona were separated for a long time, he was trying to rescue billions of human refugees from the universe and planet of Ansutah. During this desperate act, a Maramon broke into the facility, and co-opted the portal machine towards his own ends. Azura was one of the people that he sent off to god knows where. There were other names in this section of his list, including Cain, Abel, Seth, Luluwa, Awan, and Lilith. They were named after characters in the bible, no doubt. Then again, this involved time travel, so which came first, those chickens, or their eggs?

Azura nodded again. “I’m a hybrid, human and Maramon. You’re right, I was sent to spy on Missy Atterberry in Universe Prime, but I abandoned my post immediately. Actually, I abandoned it long before that. I secretly swapped my destination to Universum Originalis, billions of years before Missy would ever show up. I was bred to despise humans, as were my brothers and sisters, but that did not work on most of us. We make our own choices.”

“My daughter trusts her,” Freya explained, “and if Treasure says she’s okay, then I choose to believe as much.”

“Your daughter is Treasure Hawthorne?” Mateo flipped through his list again. “She’s on here too.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Azura said, “but best not give us any information about it. There is little chance that she has yet experienced meeting you in her personal timeline.”

Leona nodded acceptingly, and moved on. “What made you think that Treasure was here?”

“Thack,” Freya answered. “She can witness events in other branes, but not outside of other branes. The last she saw her, Treasure was taking my former ship, the Cormanu out of Salmonverse, but they never exited. Well, they do show up eventually, but Treasure isn’t there, and the ship has been repaired, so that’s some other point in the ship’s timeline. Time, right?”

“So if Treasure left one universe, and never entered another, she has to be in the outer bulk somewhere, including possibly the kasma?”

“That’s right,” Azura confirmed. “We had no idea that you would be here, but we were hoping that you knew something. Have you encountered anything unusual here? Anything at all?”

“No,” Leona answered apologetically. “It’s been smooth sailing. No anomalies detected. Though, we’re not experts on the kasma,” she added per Ramses’ interjection through comms. Yet. He was loving the chance to spend more time here to gather data. They all suffered through an awkward silence for a moment. “Well, we would help you find her if we could, but we have no idea. We actually need to get over to the other side to drop off all of these deleg—” She stopped herself when saw the viewscreen. “Are those readings accurate and in realtime?” she asked.

“Of course they are,” Azura replied.

“Ramses, where’s the aperture? I don’t see it anymore. Are we drifting?”

“Hold, please,” Ramses said, leaving them holding their breaths for a minute. “No, the aperture is gone. They’re both gone actually. I’m only getting faint readings.”

“Don’t bother trying to make it the rest of the way,” came a familiar voice through the Transit’s communication array. It was that angry Fifth Divisioner who kept coming back to irritate them, like a latent disease. He was the herpes of the antagonists world. “My alt closed it on the other side. You’re trapped.”

Freya opened a channel. “This is Freya Hawthorne, Engineer of the Transit. You do realize that we can travel to other universe, right? We don’t need a permanent aperture to fly through.”

“We reinforced the membranes too,” A.F. clarified. “Your little toy train isn’t going anywhere. Some of you will die there. Others will be retrieved shortly.”

“Sir, there may be a chance if we try to breach the cleavage between the two universes, but we have to go now,” one of the Transit crew members claimed. “That’s the main difference between the kasma, and any other region of the outer bulk. It carries the same properties, but is cut off from everything else, as a pond could be just like any other body of water, but still isolated by vast swathes of land.”

“Before you escape,” Leona began, “can you take on some extra passengers?”

Freya turned to her engineer. “Get it ready.” She turned back to Leona. “Get your people over here. You’ll have to leave your ship, though.”

Leona laughed, “no, we won’t. Rambo, get ready to pack up the Ambassador. We’re taking it with us, but I want everyone on board the Transit first, so Waltons and Olimpia, start teleporting them over two by two.”

Mateo jumped back to help with those efforts without being asked.

“There’s plenty of room,” Azura said. “We’ve only recruited a couple of cars worth so far. The problem is, I don’t know where to go.”

“Just take us wherever. We’ll figure out how to at least get back into Salmonverse later, even if that means seeking help from whoever runs the Crossover. I assume they use better tech?”

“Does a smartphone use better tech than a flip phone?” Azura asked rhetorically. “The membrane for Fort Underhill is already too thick for us. That’s how Hogarth designed it. We actually would need that aperture, just as you do.”

Freya’s engineer reported that they were ready to go just as Ramses was reporting that the Ambassador was empty, and ready to be folded into its pocket dimension.

“Come on over!” Leona ordered Ramses.

A minute later, he appeared, grasping the model size of the Ambassador. He was on the floor and unconscious. It would seem that surviving in the equilibrium was not the same as surviving in a vacuum. Mateo scooped him up, and demanded to know where the medical car was. Azura told him, and he teleported away.

Freya pushed the button, and the Transit flew off at the speed of light. According to her engineer, the kasma was like a tube, about three astronomical units apart, but theoretically several dozen AU long. At one of these ends, they theorized that it tapered off so that the branes weren’t technically touching each other, but there might have been a passageway just large enough for them to squeeze through. “We were wrong!” she cried as they drew nearer. “There’s no cleavage! We’re just gonna crash into it!”

“If there’s no space for us to get through,” Olimpia said, pulling the Sangster Canopy out of her bag of holding, and opening it up. “Then I’ll make space.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: The Rock – Part 2

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The Pryce Tree temporarily bestowed the Vellani Ambassador with the power of time travel. Leona could navigate to anywhere or anywhen she chose. His only rule was that they could not stay in the Nucleus, and it was his preference that they go somewhere rather neutral. A region of space under control of one culture or the other could be construed as favoritism. Even a totally uninhabited planet could be claimed by one or another. Totally neutral? Where could that be? After some thought, and consultation with Ramses, they decided that the meeting would take place throughout all of time, and at no particular point in space. Instead of jumping once, and remaining at the destination, they would sail through the timestream at an accelerated rate. They were moving 108,000 times slower than objects outside of the bubble, so for every second that passed for them, thirty hours was passing for everyone else. They were ten billion years in the past, though, so there wasn’t actually anyone out there observing anything. This was about as neutral as it could get since the time period predated the creation of every branching alternate reality.

The hypertime factor was mostly for fun, but it also had a calming effect on the diplomats. The ceiling and floor of Delegation Hall could become completely transparent, allowing them to watch as the stars that they were surrounded by danced around each other. They called it the Stellar Waltz. Whenever anyone was getting stressed out or frustrated, they could just look up or down. Some of them did not care for the Waltz, so they were provided with special glasses that blocked out the view, and made the hull look opaque again. They would occasionally remove these anyway.

Olimpia served as Primary Host. She kept people fed and watered. One person needed a special neck pillow once, and another was colder than everyone else, so she retrieved a blanket. Ramses kept an eye on the ship’s systems, since it was not designed to operate in this manner, but everything was going fine, so he also split his attention to his own projects. Leona was more involved than she ever intended to be. They often demanded her insights, and her help mediating brief disagreements before they escalated. Angela and Marie were there to do that, but some of them had too much respect for the Captain to listen to anyone but her. She found it difficult to explain to some of the delegates that she was not in charge here.

Mateo’s may have been the hardest job of all, though. Pryce Tree provided them with a special AI that could receive and synthesize input from the multitudes of people watching from the Sixth Key. They had a lot to say about the situation themselves, and while it would be quite impossible to field questions, comments, and concerns from individuals, they could pare it down to consensus thoughts. There were still many hundreds of these generated ideas, so Mateo had to read through them, and relay them to the meeting members. No one but others on Team Matic could appreciate how much effort he was putting into this responsibility, so they grew frustrated when he asked for breaks. But the thing was, he wasn’t actually taking the breaks. He was using that time to catch up with the input. It was everyone else who could visit the restroom, or dine on the little cakes that Olimpia made for them using the Biomolecular Synthesizers.

They did take full breaks at the end of every day, for sleep and recharging, to prevent burnout. Each day’s worth of talks lasted for eight or nine hours, which resembled a standard workday on 21st century Earth. They were in the middle of one of these right now. For one hour every evening, the team went into their private pocket dimension to discuss amongst themselves, or to not talk at all. They were getting burned out, and they needed time away from everyone else. No one was allowed to disturb them during this period, but they were also discouraged from doing so at any time outside of the official negotiation sessions. The delegates had their own special pocket dimension. There was relatively low security in there, which could open up the possibility for one delegate to cause harm to another. Yet they were expected to police themselves, and Pryce Tree was able to protect them using his power. If he had to, he could simply transport someone away from someone else. To Team Matic’s knowledge, this had not yet come up, and probably never would. Killing one delegate, for instance, would have little effect on the outcome of this meeting, or the rest of the Sixth Key’s situation. As Ellie explained, there were so many other people in the biverse. Anyone trying to derail these discussions was going to have to work a hell of a lot harder than that.

Ramses, since he wasn’t a part of the talks in any capacity, was able to work at his own pace, so he wasn’t nearly as tired as everyone else. “Why are they calling it The Rock Talks again,” he asked, “because those words rhyme?”

Marie was chewing on her cuticles. “It’s really complicated, but the whole thing is based around rocks. They draw rocks to decide who talks first during a given segment, or for a one-on-debate. They select rocks to indicate their votes unambiguously. They even play games using stone dice when the dilemma appears to be about even on either side, and no one is too passionate about one or the other. They’re not trying to figure out who is entitled to have control over a border river, or something, like historical negotiations have been about. There are millions of little decisions that will add up to a bigger picture, and decide the fate of quintillions of people, and it’s exhausting.”

“The Rock,” Ramses repeated. “How long do you have left?” Their patterns were obviously temporarily disabled, though they didn’t know if that was a side effect of the temporal bubble they were in, or if Pryce Tree had to do something special to keep them on the same path as everyone else at the meeting.

“Are you getting bored?” Leona asked him.

“No, I love this extra time that I have. I’m getting so much done. I’m working on some things that I think you’re gonna be real excited about. I’m worried about you lot.”

“I’m worried about him.” Mateo jerked his chin behind most of the group, where the internal security feed was showing on the wall monitors. Pontus’ second from the Nucleus was pacing in front of the entrance to their pocket. He obviously wanted to ring their doorbell, but he knew that it was against the rules, so he was just stressed out, and probably waiting for the hour to be over.

Leona tapped on her armband. “Berko, what’s up?”

“Nothing. It can wait. I know you need your alone time,” he replied.

“Just spit it out,” Leona urged.

“There’s just a..minor...problem with the walking tree, and the princess, and...where they live.”

She stood up. “I’m coming out.” She headed for the door. “Matty, you’re with me.”

They exited the pocket, and walked down to the other side of Delegation Hall, to the visitor’s pocket. About half the group of delegates were in a crowd in the common area, arguing with each other unintelligibly. A couple of others were sitting in the lounge chairs, not participating, but everyone else was presumably in their respective living quarters. “Silence, please!” Mateo shouted. “Your Captain is here.”

They all fell quiet, and parted the Red Sea to show that they were standing in front of Pryce Tree and Princess Honeypea’s door. It was fully open, but there was a second door after that, which was still closed. “What’s the issue?” Leona asked.

“Those weird people,” the delegate from the true main sequence began. “I caught a glimpse of where they live. It’s bigger on the inside, like the T.A.R.D.I.S.”

“This whole thing is bigger on the inside,” Leona explained. “That’s what a pocket dimension is. You wouldn’t have a bed if it didn’t exist.”

“Right,” the delegate agreed, “but theirs is much, much, bigger. It’s outside, and I could see the horizon.”

Leona nodded. “I’m not surprised that they go home to the Garden Dimension every night. I still don’t understand what the  problem is.”

The delegate sighed shortly. “We’re living in these cramped quarters. I understand that it’s another dimension, or whatever, but we thought there was some kind of limitation. We each only get one room, and we accepted that, but there’s an entire island on the other side of that door. Or maybe even bigger, I don’t know. We just didn’t know that nested dimensions were possible.”

“Of course they’re possible,” Leona confirmed. “But that’s not what this is. That door apparently leads them back home. It’s more like...a stargate.”

“Well, why can’t we live in there?” one of the other delegates questioned, but Leona couldn’t remember who she represented. “There’s so much more space.”

“The Garden Dimension is protected ground,” Mateo answered in Leona’s stead. “We’re not even allowed there.”

“It’s a nature preserve,” Leona added. “Highly protected, highly regulated, highly secure. It’s there to shield plantlife from interference. It’s not a place where people live, except for the few who work there.”

“Well...” the true main sequence delegate stammered, “can’t you make a larger pocket for us anyway? It’s getting tough. The smell. Can’t you smell the smell?”

Leona breathed in, a reflex triggered by his words. There was indeed a stench here, which she had subconsciously commanded her nose to block. Most of these people did not enjoy the same control over their senses, so she could appreciate their struggle. “I’ll ask Ramses to fix the ventilation system. I’m sure that it won’t be that hard, he just wasn’t aware. I am not here to help with the diplomatic discussions. These are the things that I need to know about, so do not hesitate to alert me.” They seemed responsive to this, but she wasn’t done yet. “However, if I catch you trying to break into anyone else’s space, or doing anything else of that nature, there will be consequences. I don’t care what the tree says, I’ll throw you in hock, and I can’t promise that they’ll find a replacement representative, which means your culture may end up being locked out of the benefits of this budding union. Do you all understand me?”

Some of them shrunk away, but they all nodded.

Leona nodded back. “Now get back to your rooms. It’s gonna be a hard day tomorrow, just like it always is. I know I need sleep.”

“That was so sexy,” Mateo whispered as they were walking across the realspace portion of the ship.

“I’m not in the mood, Mateo.”

“No, of course not. Me...me neither.” It had actually been a long time for the two of them. This was stressful for everyone.

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Microstory 2031: New Hampshire

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Papa’s favorite band was called The Fiddle Way. They’re a folk band from Quebec City, Quebec, and he had always wanted to see them live. I don’t know why he couldn’t go up to Canada where they always played, but I think it had something to do with his job. I think the stuff he was working on made it so that his bosses didn’t want him to leave the country without their permission. One time in the winter of 2011, though, The Fiddle Way decided to have a show in New Hampshire, which isn’t too far away from Quebec City. My dad and I never found out which airport he flew into, but it was really far away from where the band was going to play. He had to rent a car from there, and drive for a couple of hours all the way up north until he reached Lancaster, New Hampshire. It wasn’t actually only this one band. A whole bunch of them were playing outside over the weekend. It was called the Lancaster Cabot Music Festival. Papa didn’t care about any of the other bands, though. He only wanted to hear The Fiddle Way, so he wandered around until it was time for them. It took place kind of in the middle of the woods, so there was plenty of room to walk around. He said he sat by a river for a while, and just enjoyed being in nature. It was really late at night when the band started to play, and by the time he made it back to his hotel room, all he had time for was a shower, and then he had to drive back to the airport to fly home in the morning. He barely made it to his gate on time. He regrets paying for two nights when he only needed one.

Microstory 1970: Suspect

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Reese: Anything yet?

Micro: No, man, I’m sorry. These Mississippi systems are crazy. How can I put this? It’s not like they have the best security in the world, it’s more like their protocols are all over the place, it’s impossible to find anything. I don’t understand how anyone makes contact with anyone else. There’s so much data to sift through, and you don’t have the AI systems that I would normally use. These damn redzones are killing me. I haven’t been able to get any more hits for the last two days. If you haven’t found him yet, he may have left the state. If he’s done that, we’re gonna need a new lead.

Reese: Well, it’s okay. Just do your best. I know it’s been a few days; we’ll get there.

Micro: *laughing* Don’t trust people so much. It hasn’t been a few days. It’s been several. When someone screws up, you need to let them know, so they do better.

Reese: That’s exactly what I do. But I don’t like wasting time. You know how well you’re doing. Me reiterating it isn’t gonna make it go faster. Just get it done, Duval.

Micro: Yes, sir. That’s more like it.

Anaïs: Don’t worry about that, Micro. I found him. Here’s a map of our suspect’s most frequent locations. This one is a hotel, but he spends the majority of his time right here. There’s an apartment above the restaurant, so I think that’s where he’s staying.

Reese: Where did you get this?

Anaïs: I can’t tell you that.

Reese: No, I’m sorry; that’s not acceptable. You need to explain yourself right now.

Micro: There ya go. Let ‘er have it.

Reese: Duval, stay out of this.

Anaïs: What’s it matter? This is where he is, whoever he is.

Reese: My people have been looking into this week. Half these locations were already on our radar, because Micro found part of the trail. I’ve had our people fishing around, and they always come back with no bites. You keep disappearing without any assignments, and now you suddenly have all the answers. How did you find out about this apartment? It’s in a redzone, which we just found out about. It’s nearly impossible to trace anyone there. That’s probably why he chose this spot.

Anaïs: Look, I know you’re upset—

Reese: I’m not upset, I’m worried. If this intel is good, then it still needs to be verified. Otherwise, it’s not actionable. I need to know where you got this, and how.

Anaïs: You want it verified? Fine, verify it. Micro, plug these missing waypoints, and see if they match up with whatever else you already have.

Reese: No, no, no. You don’t give orders. I give the orders. Barring that, Leonard is in charge. Now, you’re my tactician, which means that you act when we have somewhere to go. You don’t find us the target in the first place unless I tell you to. Even so, if my people are stepping out, and getting their information from bad places, then we’re in trouble. It means I can’t trust you. Can I trust you, Agent Altimari?

Anaïs: Yes.

Reese: Then prove it.

Anaïs: Okay. I’ll tell you about my past. But not in front of her.

Microstory 1969: Out of the Loop

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SI Eliot: Director? I need to talk to you.

Director Washington: What is it, Hisham? I’m very busy.

SI Eliot: I just tried to call Agent Parsons, and Myka Tennison responded instead.

Director Washington: Okay. That’s normal. She works at DExA as well.

SI Eliot: Yes, but evidently she’s been left in charge, which I did not clear her for. She hasn’t gone through the proper training.

Director Washington: The other agents haven’t even started yet. She’s perfectly capable of holding down the fort during these early days.

SI Eliot: Ah, but why would she need to do that? If Parsons were just on some small errand, I wouldn’t care, but that’s not where he is, is he?

Director Washington: You make it sound, Eliot, that you already know where he is.

SI Eliot: What business do we have in Mississippi?

Director Washington: *finally turning away from her computer* I don’t know how you found out that he was there, but it is no concern of yours.

SI Eliot: It’s not, huh? When we were first conceiving the Department for Exogenic Affairs, it was understood that the staff would report to Parsons, Miazga, and Tennison, and that they would report to me. Then I would report to you, and you to NatCo.

Director Washington: That’s right, Special Investigator. You report to me. And so does everyone else. I don’t have to ask you for permission to do anything.

SI Eliot: I’m not asking to give you my permission, but I can’t do my job if I’m constantly kept out of the loop.

Director Washington: This is one time. How is that constant?

SI Eliot: It’s setting a tone, sir. Like you said, nothing should really be happening in those offices right now, so I hardly understand why anyone would have to leave it for a field operation. If I’m not authorized to know about it, then I deserve to know why.

Director Washington: *standing up* No, you don’t. You are entitled to nothing. Agent Parsons is following my orders, and if there is any reason to read you into the situation, I’ll make the decision, and act accordingly. And we didn’t conceive of anything. DExA is a pet project for the National Commander, and something that he’s been thinking about for longer than he’s been in command. It’s just that we’ve finally given him an excuse to budget for it. If I were you, I would stop asking questions. You have plenty of work to do, so I suggest you go back to your floor, and do it.

SI Eliot: *frowning and thinking* There’s a mole, isn’t there? Or at least there may be.

Director Washington: Goodbye, Mister Eliot.

SI Eliot: You only call me mister when I’m getting too close to the edge of my privilege. Okay. Well, that makes sense. When you’re dealing with this many people, internal investigations are bound to happen. I want you to know that you can count on me, sir. I have nothing to hide, and will be fully cooperative.

Director Washington: If you really mean that, you’ll go back downstairs and drop it.

SI Eliot: Of course. Let me know if you need anything. Remember the skills that put me in this job in the first place. I’m good at getting information out of people.

Director Washington: Thank you, SI Eliot, goodbye.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 18, 2409

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No one came for them. Constance detected an unusual energy draw that came from the Dante, to their mysterious captors, which occurred at exactly midnight central, but other than that, nothing happened. They didn’t even lose much power as a result of whatever that was. Perhaps it was just a strange way of scanning them, because a few minutes later, the cargo hold opened up again, and spit them out unharmed. The ship accelerated to higher speeds, and then disappeared with a reframe engine.

“What the hell was that?” Olimpia questioned.

“No idea,” Leona answered, “but it’s April 18 2409.” She took a pause. “Constance, run a level three diagnostic on all systems.”

“There’s no such thing as a level three diagnostic,” Constance replied. “You made that up.”

“Actually, I can’t take credit.”

“Right away, sir,” Constance said with a slight smile. She went off to complete the task as requested. No sooner was she finished with it, having turned up nothing of interest or concern, did another ship appear out of nowhere. This one was much smaller—and less foreboding—and it responded to their calls.

“Hello, this is the Dardieti Outpost Boyce Shuttle One. Do I have a Mateo Matic on the line?”

“This is Mateo. Go ahead.”

“I’ve been rerouted to find you. It’s taken me a long time, but we received the message you sent out last year. Your presence has been requested on Dardius proper.”

“For what purpose?” Leona asked.

“It has something to do with the future, and your family, or the future of your family,” Boyce One replied. “That’s all I know. I’ve given the message, and confirmed that you’ve received it. Now I really must return to my work. This has been a really...” He mumbled and trailed off a little before remembering to switch off the mic.

“Thank you, Boyce One. If it is required of you, you can let them know that we are on our way, and that we’ll be there as soon as possible. We’re on our pattern.”

He didn’t say anything further, but he surely heard the last message. His little ship flew off in the same direction as the other one, though not at reframe speeds. Dardieti Outpost. How many of those were there, and where? All the way out here, they were nearly three million light years from home. This meant that that was how far Team Matic was going to have to travel to reach it themselves. The Dante wasn’t any more capable of crossing that distance in any reasonable span of time than the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was. With only the reframe engine, it would take them four thousand years. They either needed to reach out to their friends with true faster-than-light capabilities, or a Nexus. Though, the Dante could not fit inside of a Nexus transport cavity, so if they used that method, it would have to be jury-rigged, and they only ever got that to work in the Parallel.

“Does anyone live near the Nexus in Antarctica?” Angela asked.

“No, they abandoned the continent entirely,” Leona explained. “There was a time when people were able to live there because climate breakdown made it more hospitable to humans, but then they started to solve those problems, and made it colder again. They could still survive there if they wanted to, of course, but the population eventually dwindled into nothing. Either way, they weren’t in that region, no.”

“He asked about me,” Mateo pointed out. “Not the rest of you. He didn’t say anything about the rest of the team. I can go alone.”

“We’re not headed to enemy territory, Matty,” Ramses said with a laugh. “We can go. Might as well. I hear it sports some nice vacation spots. I was too busy to partake when I was living there before. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and we won’t be there to solve some kind of crisis.”

“It clearly took years for us to get the message,” Leona reasoned, “and could take us years of real time to arrive. I detected no sense of urgency in the messenger’s voice.”

“Maybe that had more to do with the messenger himself,” Marie reasoned right back. “Just because he wasn’t in a hurry doesn’t mean there is no hurry.”

“True. Dante?” Leona started tapping on the main console. “Teleport to these coordinates please.”

“Teleporting now.”

The darkness of space they could see through the viewscreens was replaced by the brightness of the snow. They opened the hatch, and let in the cold. It was a surreal feeling, knowing that it was profoundly frigid out here, but being basically unfazed by it. Ramses’ 3.0 model substrates were working well for them, and they were already clearly better than the previous model. “Hey, Dante, what’s the exact temperature?”

“It’s negative forty degrees,” Dante responded.

“Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?” Olimpia asked.

Leona and Constance laughed. “Yes.”

“Why is that so funny?” Mateo questioned.

“They’re the same,” Leona explained.

The two of them stared at her.

“They’re the same at that degree,” Constance clarified. “They converge.”

“Got it. Thanks. Now it’s funny.” Not really.

“It’s underground, right?” Marie moves on from the subject. “How do we find it?”

“Hey, Opsocor!” Leona shouted into the wind aimlessly.

They heard the sound of metal against metal behind the Dante. They turned the corner to find a hidden trap door opening for them several meters away. They walked over to it and hopped inside.

“Opsocor, please teleport us to the main floor.”

Nothing happened.

“Wait, we can’t just teleport ourselves?” Angela asked.

“Can you?” Leona asked. “We’re not authorized to do so. The system is quite sophisticated.”

“Maybe it will work for you since you’re the one who got this giant hatch open,” Mateo suggested. “Leona, Queen of the Nexus.”

“That’s not the real problem. If Opsocor can’t do it, maybe she can’t do anything.” Still, she jumped herself away. Ten minutes later, she was knocking on the next hidden trapdoor, which they had to open from this side. They  jumped down to the second level, and then did it again to get to the control room below that.

“Is everything okay?” Ramses asked.

“No,” Leona answered with a sigh. “She’s not responding to me. I don’t know why not. But nothing is turning on either, except for this emergency lighting.”

“I wanted to wait until everyone was here,” Opsocor’s voice came in through the speakers. “I am a prerecorded facsimile of the one you know as Venus Opsocor. I have access control over the system, which allows me to let in anyone for safety concerns, or in your case, to explain what’s happened. This Nexus building has been taken offline. It has been too significantly altered, and therefore automatically removed from the network. It is incapable of transporting anyone anywhere. Do not attempt to—no. Yes, sorry. Shifting response path. You are indeed authorized to make attempts at repair. I am unable to run diagnostic tests, or provide you with any technical specifications, or troubleshooting assistance. Again, this is a prerecorded facsimile with limited response paths. I was not made aware of what has been broken within the system. I am here as a result of whatever those changes were, which you will have to correct yourself if you want to bring the station back to operational standards. Do not attempt to converse with me. I will not respond to any calls. This message will not be repeated. Thank you, and have a nice rest of your life.”

“So essentially,” Marie began, “it’s broken, but the AI doesn’t know how it’s broken, because that message was recorded just in case something like this happened.”

“It’s not an AI, it’s a real person,” Ramses corrected.

“Yeah,” Leona agreed. She got on her hands and knees, and started to get to work on the main computer.

Meanwhile, Mateo was shining his watch light through the observation window, and trying to use his arms to block ambient light from his eyes. “I think I know what’s wrong with it,” he declares.

Leona got up. “You do?”

“Don’t look so surprised. Can you get the lights on in the Nexus chamber? The drum is missing.”

“The drum?” Leona asked, confused.

“I don’t know what it’s called. It’s the giant thing that hangs over the cavity.”

“Uhh...I don’t know how to get the lights on manually.” She opened the door from the control room, and walked down the steps as everyone else followed. She used her light illusion ability to conjure a nano-sun on the ceiling, which illuminated the whole chamber. Mateo was right, it was totally missing. “That’s not a drum, Mateo. That is the Nexus. Everything else is either just the interface to it, or lets you control the rest of the building, like the lights. It’s really the only thing you need, and somebody took it. They took the whole thing out. What’s left doesn’t even look damaged.”

“What should we do?” Constance asked. “I don’t have the data on this thing; I wasn’t allowed, but I’m still smart, so I could help.”

“There’s no way to fix it. It’s like a car without an engine, or a boat without water. There’s nothing to repair. We would have to get it back, or replace it. I wouldn’t know how to build one. She told us that we won’t be able to read the manual, and I’ve seen the guts inside before, but not enough to recreate it from nothing. At this point, our only hope is to call the Jameela Jamil.”

“Okay, we’ll do that,” Mateo decided.

“There’s another option, if we don’t want to bother Team Keshida with this,” Ramses said.

“What would that be?”

“We could try to find the second Nexus on Earth.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 17, 2399

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Of all the least stable regions in the world, one particular small so-called nation located in Central Africa may be the worst. On the borders of Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad lies a terrorist-controlled area that was once split between those four original nations. The historical events that led to this secession are too complicated to spell out in a few paragraphs, but the bottom line is that the terrorists operating there were building out their offensive strategies, and worsening a war that they would ultimately lose, but not before thousands—if not millions—died in the ensuing conflict. The only way the four countries saw to end the bloodshed was to simply let them take formal control over the land and lakes. Their only significant condition was that the terrorists allow anyone living within the new borders to migrate out if they wished.

People fled in all directions, and were accepted as refugees or preexisting citizens in the four countries. They were also accepted in a few farther countries, like Libya, and even Egypt. Hostilities from Fadi have not ceased since the borders were redrawn, but the violence has subsided, and fewer civilians are caught in the crossfire than before. One issue is that only these four countries acknowledge Fadi as an independent state, stifling its voice and influence on the international stage. They also experience extreme sanctions, which limits the resources that they can import. For this reason, they will take payment from anyone for literally any reason. As long as the price is right, they’re willing to agree to any deal. They’ll commit acts of violence against their own people if the result is the persistence of the state as a whole. One resource they have to export are fossil fuels, which some aircraft can use to fly. They don’t require filing flight plans, so many criminals use it as a layover. Fadi will usually ask them to transport goods back and forth for them as part of the deal.

It was hard for SD6 to find the plane that left Dublin Island after it made a stop in the completely inaccessible Fadi, but they think they’ve done it. A plane matching its characteristics was tracked leaving the area, and landing in North Sudan, right on the border with Egypt. Once there, Kivi began to feel a draw even farther northward, suggesting that they are finally on a hot trail to Leona. They still don’t know who took her, why, or what condition she’s in, but she has to be alive, or Kivi wouldn’t be feeling anything. As they drew nearer to Cairo, Kivi realized where they must be headed, and it makes a lot of sense. She and the team were in Egypt once after the whole Birket issue, but were unable to stay and investigate one of the most important locations in the world when it comes to temporal anomalies. From what she recalls, they were going to go back at some point to check out the pyramid, but there were political issues with that, so they placed it on the backburner. Then when they became teleportation-capable, they had sort of forgotten about it. There were other things to worry about by that point.

“There’s someone here,” she says, holding up the portable temporal error detector.”

“Here where?” Alserda asks. She looks around at the crowd enjoying their tours.

“Inside,” Kivi says, nodding towards the pyramid.

“You can’t go inside,” their tactician, Hartwin points out.

“No,” Kivi says. “You’re not allowed to go inside. That doesn’t mean you can’t. Team Matic doesn’t do well with rules.”

“Can you...” They’re in mixed company, so he just mouths the word teleport.

“No.”

“Then when we use the word you, we’re not just talking in generalizations, are we? SD6 has no official jurisdiction on these lands.”

“Perhaps I can help?” Most tack teams have seven members, but this one often travels with a rotating list of eight member consultants. Their guide while in country is a man by the name of Nakia Mounir.

“Do you have that kind of pull?” Alserda asks him.

“Unofficially, no,” Nakia begins, “but my sister’s husband’s brother runs a tourism company for the Nile. I’m sure he has ties to the Great Pyramid.”

“That’s a lot of degrees of separation,” Alserda says.

“Let me try. It can’t hurt to make some calls. Worst that happens, they say no.”

“Go ahead and make your calls.” Alserda turns to admire the craftsmanship. “I’ve always wanted to see inside anyway,” she says, mostly to herself, but loud enough for others to hear.

A few hours later, they have permission to enter the pyramid, but not the entire group. Only two people will be allowed in, and one of them has to be of Egyptian citizenship, so obviously that’s Nakia. “Can you do this?” Alserda asks.

“Me?” Kivi questions. “You or Klein should go in. I don’t have any diplomatic training. Besides, you said you wanted to.”

“You know her best,” the leader reasons. “She needs to see a face that she trusts, not just one she recognizes.”

Kivi holds up the error detector. “Alserda, this thing detects...” She trails off, looking over at Nakia, who has not been read into everything. “Ugh. Time travelers. That’s all it can see. It doesn’t show me how many other people are in there. It doesn’t even tell me that it’s Leona. It could be anybody.”

“They’re only letting in one of us,” Alserda states the obvious. “You’ve had enough training. Stay on radio, and if it goes bad, we’ll breach. I would rather deal with the socio-political fallout of an unsanctioned tactical action than go in there without you. It’s your job to be the Spotter, so enter the pyramid and spot.”

Kivi sighs. “Well, if it’s an order...”

“It definitely is. This is not a voluntary mission.”

Kivi and Nakia make their preparations, then step through the entrance a half hour later. The guard lets them in without seeing any credentials, confident that no one who hasn’t been authorized would so much as attempt it. They’re not wearing full tactical gear, but they’re not dressed in their civies anymore either.

“I wanted to ask you a question,” Nakia whispers as they’re walking through the darkened maze.

“What I said about time travelers?”

“Are we hunting them?”

“No, this is a rescue mission. We didn’t lie about that, we just didn’t tell you everything.”

“Good.”

“Why is that good? You don’t even know who we’re here for.”

“I would always rather be on a rescue mission than a hunt,” Nakia explains.

“Fair enough.” Kivi checks her detector again. They can’t just go straight for the ping. They have to find their way there, and the corridors will probably lead them in the wrong direction many times. They were not provided with the floor plans.

“Please tell me that time travel does not explain how the pyramids were built.”

She waits a beat to answer. “The way I understand it, time travel doesn’t explain how they were built, but it does have something to do with why. It’s a special place, which helps facilitate space travel. I don’t know; they didn’t tell me that much about it.”

“How did you meet them?”

Kivi decides to answer honestly. “I’m one of them. Technically, I’ve never actually done any traveling personally, but my alternates have.”

“So you’re a traveler in other timelines.”

“Other realities, but that’s not why I have alternates. I just do. It’s called spontaneous reemergence. Different versions of me have been, and will be, born in different moments in time. We have different origins and different lives.”

“How did that happen to you?”

She chuckles a little. “That’s how this works. Things just happen. There’s not always a reason to it. Why were you born with dark hair?”

“Genetics.”

“That’s the cause, not the reason.”

“I understand,” he says in a way that suggests he doesn’t. But that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? No one truly understands it. It just is. That’s her whole point.

“We’re closer,” she says. “I think she’s right on the other side of this wall. If we just go that way, I’m sure we’ll find a way in.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Kivi turns around to find Ramses having appeared out of nowhere wearing shorts and a t-shirt. “We’ve been trying to call you.”

“I didn’t wanna be called,” Ramses replies.

“That’s not really your right to decide that.”

“It is.”

“Leona is missing.”

“What?”

“She was taken. We don’t know by who, but she was brought here.”

“I’m the only one here,” Ramses insists.

Kivi isn’t sure that she believes him. She looks down at her detector. The dot that was once on the other side of the wall is now on the other side of them. “Oh my God. We’re been on your trail?”

“I guess. I’m sorry. I thought I successfully shielded myself, but I guess it was only good enough for satellite distances. The portable detector is able to get through.”

“That’s not how I found where you were. It’s just how I pinpointed your exact location. We used detective work to track you from Ireland to Fadi to here, and then my psychic ability to find you in the Cairo area.”

“Uhh...I was never in Ireland, nor Fadi. I teleported straight here after Mateo died. I’ve been here the whole time.”

“So it was Leona,” Kivi figures, “but then our intel went bad, and we followed the wrong third flight.”

“I apologize for pulling you off mission for nothing, but now you know I’m here. I’m never leaving, so if your ability ever takes you this direction again, you’ll know that it’s wrong, so just ignore it, and try again.”

“You’re living...in here?” Nakia asks.

“There’s a modern apartment hidden in here. It took me some time to find the secret entrance, but it’s just as Leona described how it looked in the main sequence.”

Kivi shakes her head. “No, you’re still a part of this. I don’t care if you’re having a midlife crisis, or whatever. I need you to teleport to Leona using your superempathy.”

“I don’t have either of those things,” Ramses counters. “I ran out of juice.”

“Then I’ll get you some more temporal energy,” she argues. “Let’s go!”

“I really want to keep myself out of it now. I’ll just make things worse.”

“I don’t care what you—oh, hold on.” She answers her phone. “Hello?”

“I have Leona on the line for you,” Winona says.

“What? You found her?”

“Kivi?” Leona asks. “Stand down, I’m fine.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 4, 2399

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Mateo and Ramses are still not back yet from dropping the boys off on the AOC. Aldona has not even bothered to think about long-range communications systems, because it’s not priority. They have to build the ships and satellites first, then they can worry about all that stuff. All Leona can do is hope that they wanted to have a longish conversation while going relativistic speeds, and that nothing is actually wrong. She’s been trying to keep her mind busy with her work, but it has not been easy. She’s been distracted, and not even by her husband’s absence. It’s something else. Something has been gnawing at her, and it’s not the loneliness, nor the exhaustion, though both of those have become real problems. No, she’s realized what it is. It’s the Constance!Five android they tucked away in the antarctic. She’s still a threat. She’ll continue to be a threat until she’s gone forever.

Aldona knocks on the door for her two hourly check-in, which she apparently thinks Leona has not noticed. “Hey, what’s up? Could you check these numbers for me?”

Leona accepts the tablet, and gives them a cursory glance. “They look great.”

“You barely looked at them.”

“I’m that good. You are too. Stop asking me for input that you don’t need.”

“Measure twice, cut once,” Aldona muses.

“That’s what the computer is for.”

Aldona sticks the tablet under her armpit, and folds her arms.

“Is there anything else?”

“You want to ask me for something.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Once a day, you ask for something extra. Resources, access to something. We’re nearing the end of the evening, and you’ve not done that yet. So, out with it.”

She stares at her for a few seconds. “Okay, you’re right. I was hoping to borrow one of your rockets.”

“What is it this time?”

“There is something that we need to get into space.”

“Okay. Because...?”

“Because...that’s where the sun is.”

“And what do you need with the sun?”

Leona scrunches up her lips, and shakes her head rapidly. “We may or may not need to allegedly throw something into it.”

“You need to throw something into the sun...like garbage?”

“That’s a word for it.”

Aldona narrows her eyes. “Are you trying to murder someone?”

“That...is a word for that.”

“Talk to me, Leona. Tell me what I need to know.”

“We call her Constance!Five. She can make herself look like anyone. We trapped her in a stasis pod, but it’s only a matter of time before she breaks out.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me this? That’s who’s trying to kill Cedar.”

“I know, but not everyone believes that all’s fair in love and war.”

“If you have a version of Constance, I want it gone. Permission: granted.”