The Advancement of Mateo Matic: February 8, 2338

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In the year 2008, in one reality, day rewinder, Horace Reaver accidentally killed his best friend, Dardan Lusha. The former was only six years old, and the latter only seven. Knowing he was capable of it, Horace went back in time at the end of the day, and prevented himself from making the same mistake again. This was when he realized that other people only got one shot in their lives, and also when he knew that the two of them could no longer be friends. Dardan moved on with his life, never knowing what had happened to him. But Horace’s future daughter, Meliora knew, and she was worried that Dardan would always be in danger. She built a place called Sanctuary on a planet millions of light years from Earth. Here, normal people who were negatively impacted by time travel could live out the rest of their lives, protected and in peace. A fifteen-year-old Dardan was her first resident, but he was nowhere near its last. Even as travelers continued to change the timeline, Meliora rescued as many people as she could, always starting with Dardan Lusha. In one timeline, soon after him, she agreed to rescue a few more.

Starting with Ramses Abdulrashid, and ending with Jeremy Bearimy, seven more people were brought to the Sanctuary hotel in its very early days. There defeat Anatol Klugman. Though this enemy yet remained, the vacation was over. It was time to leave Sanctuary, and make a jump to over 300 years into the future. Mateo, Leona, and Kivi would be waiting for them to finish this once and for all. It was predetermined that when they arrived in 2338, the final battle would ensue. They could put it off as long as they wanted, but there was no avoiding it altogether. The duel had to take place, and the winner would decide both their own fate, and that of their opponent.

“That’s a beautiful story,” Anatol said in disgust. “Why don’t I remember any of it? I mean, I know how it happened. What I don’t understand is how you managed to overpower me, and let Tertius Valerius manipulate my memories.”

“We didn’t have to overpower you,” Mateo began to explain. “You agreed to forget about the challenge as long as we eventually got to it.”

“Why did I agree to forget about you friends, though?” Anatol pressed. “I still don’t remember those people.”

“We had him take a little bit more from your mind than you agreed upon. We figured you would circumvent the agreement yourself, so we at least wanted to protect them from your wrath.”

“Wait, you’re telling me you were worried I would betray you...so you betrayed me first?”

“Exactly,” Mateo confirmed.

“I know I’m supposed to be mad, but right now, all I feel is respect for your decision,” Anatol admitted.

“Thank you,” Mateo said. “It was actually all my idea. I had to make up for years and years of being all but completely useless, and having to rely on much smarter people.”

Anatol would have done a spit take if he had been drinking. “Do you believe you have accomplished this goal?”

Mateo looked over to his wife, who was on the other side of the sandstone monolith. She was warming up for the duel, supported by their people. Mateo felt bad about The Warrior being alone, and came over to at least clarify what was happening, and why. “Not in the least.”

“Indeed,” Anatol agreed. “Even today she fights for you as champion.”

“She trained for this,” Mateo said. “I never would have made it through that training. She has a knack for learning new things.”

“Do you honestly think that she can beat me? Keep in mind that you are no longer protected by the powers that be, and that I have already demanded Uluru not let anyone else on the battlegrounds. That is the only reason you beat Zeferino Preston, and I will not let you so easily come at me through a loophole.”

“Where is Zeferino, by the way? He was with you at the theatre, and then we never saw him again,” Mateo pointed out.

“I put him back in his reality,” Anatol answered. “He wasn’t fun to work with anymore.”

“Indeed,” Mateo responded simply.

“Is there a point to you being over here?” Anatol questioned.

Mateo placed a hand on his enemy’s shoulder. “Whatever happens today, just know that I still believe in you. I still believe you can be redeemed. All you have to do is take that first step. The second one will be easier, I promise.”

Anatol rolled his shoulder away. “It’s always mind games with you. People think you’re this helpless little moron who hides behind his friends, but I know the truth. I know that you’re the most dangerous of the bunch. But what makes you dangerous isn’t your intellect, or your muscles. It’s your ability to make even the most steadfast of people feel like they’re making a mistake; like you know something that they will never quite understand, not even once the fight is over. I believe that you are an undiagnosed psychopath.”

Mateo chuckled once, like a high school student who knows the middle school student will know better someday. “Catch you on the flippity-flop.”

Unlike the duel he had with The Cleanser those many years ago, there weren’t many people in the audience. Only Leona’s friends would be there to take witness. No other family, no people from their future, no bulkverse travelers. It was a private affair, and it was much simpler, which was why it was taking place on the Uluru rock formation, and not in the Colosseum replica. Uluru, the man, approached the center of the grounds, and began his opening remarks. “This is a physical duel, with swords as exclusive weapons. All temporal powers and patterns are temporarily suspended. Death is not required to indicate defeat, but it is also not against the rules. The winner may spare the loser, but in order to be considered the winner, they must be in a position where a final blow would end the battle, and the loser must be without options. Both of you have been trained...trained under different circumstances, but trained just the same. You know the difference between winning and losing, but if there is a dispute as to who wins, I will step in and make judgment. Does everyone understand?”

The two duelers walked towards him.

“I do.”

“Yes.”

Uluru looked from one to the other, assessing their fitness for the fight, and then he gracefully stepped back. “Have at it.”

The two of them began to clash. Anatol had been training for this sort of thing for more than his entire adult life, which was likely longer than most. They didn’t know if he was immortal, or if he just managed to pack in a whole lot of life during his prime years. He did look older than he did when this first began, but maybe Mateo was just imagining that. No matter what, he was a career fighter—which was what earned him the right to be called The Warrior in the first place—and Leona was not. She only trained for three years; by one of the most skilled fighters in two realities, but practice makes perfect, and Leona’s experience was limited. Still, Anatol was not overconfident, and he did not underestimate his opponent. He went at her with full force, and he clearly respected her. A lot of time travelers were from the past, during a time when women and minorities were considered less than. Yet nearly all of them embraced the wokeness of the future, either because they came to see it as superior, or because they never really bought into the racism and sexism of their day. Dr. Hammer posited that backwards-thinking time travelers necessarily did not exist, because if they were too tied down to the culture of their given day, they would never learn to escape it. Perhaps social responsibility was an important prerequisite. Anatol was evidently no exception, and unfortunately, that only lowered Leona’s chances of winning the duel.

Leona managed to hold her own, though. She just kept striking back, never letting him get any significant advantage over her. They swung and slashed and hit and kicked. The audience could see the fatigue setting in as the battle continued. If a scene in an action film were to go on this long, the audience would grow bored, and probably stop caring who won. They weren’t hopping off of rocks, or sweeping the legs. They were just desperately trying to cut each other with the blades, and never getting close enough. It would seem that Anatol’s advanced age, and Leona’s inexperience, made for quite an even match. Six minutes later, it was still going, which might not have sounded like a long time, but for this kind of combat, it was an eternity.

It was then that Mateo decided to break the rules, and step in. He walked right up to the duelers with his arms up, knowing that either of them could hurt him instead, whether by accident, or with malicious intent. Upon seeing him, they both dropped their weapons, and took a step back from each other. They were both grateful for the break. “Okay, okay, okay.” He smiled, not because it was humorous, but because it was absurd. “What the hell are we doing here?”

Anatol had to speak between breaths. “I made a challenge, and she accepted.”

“That was a long time ago,” Mateo pointed out, “for all of us.”

“Time ain’t nothin’ but a thang,” Anatol replied with the old adage.

Mateo didn’t know what he was going to say, so he just winged it. “The challenge was a duel, which has now taken place. There was no rule about someone needing to win, or how long it needed to go on. So let’s just say it’s done, and move on.”

“Someone needs to win,” Anatol argued, “or how will we decide what happens to the lot of you?”

“Is that really what you want, to be in control of powerless people? Is this the warrior’s way? Is this where you saw your evil plan going? There must be a reason they don’t call you The General, or The Lord High Commander.”

“I haven’t always won my fights,” Anatol began, “but I’ve never had a tie. It cannot end in a tie. This is not football.”

“No, you’re right,” Mateo agreed. “We can’t tie, because in a tie, both teams lose. I’m talking about a win-win situation. You walk away now, and the timeline will remember you as a merciful warrior, who fights with honor. You keep fighting my wife, whether you win or not, you’ll be forever known as a villain, not because she’s a hopeless girl, but because she is indisputably a good person, and everyone loves her.”

“You can’t control that,” Anatol contended. “You can’t decide how people perceive me, especially not in both directions of time.”

“We’ve done it before,” Mateo reminded him. “We restored the reputation of Nerakali Preston, Gilbert Boyce, and Horace Reaver. Hell, I’d like to think we even helped make Zeferino Preston look a little better. The jury’s still out on Arcadia; there are too many conflicting versions of her, and the noblest one doesn’t live in this universe.”

“All I have to do is walk away,” Anatol echoed.

“Might sound too easy to you, but remember where this offer is coming from,” Mateo said. “We are not known for being petty or vengeful, are we?”

“I suppose not.” Anatol considered it for a moment. He had long ago caught his breath, and was standing straight. He could go another round if he needed to, and so could Leona. Chances are, it would last another six minutes, and end just as inconclusively. “Very well.”

The three of them looked over to Uluru, who couldn’t care less about the results for this particular battle, and didn’t seem perturbed by the interruption.

Anatol picked up his sword, and jammed it into a crevice between himself and Leona. Assuming it was her turn to do the same, she followed suit. They shook hands, and then the Warrior dropped his Cassidy cuff, and disappeared. It would be the last time that anyone on the current Matic team would ever see his face.

“Well. That plan worked,” Mateo noted.

“I’m glad you rehearsed the speech,” Leona said, relieved at how well it went.

He didn’t rehearse nothin’. “What do we do now?” he asked. “We didn’t plan anything past the draw, and I imagine it’s only a matter of time before the next antagonist decides it’s their turn to torment us in what they believe to be a new and creative way.”

Leona retrieved her sword, wiped it off, and sheathed it. She picked up the primary cuff too. “Ya know what? I didn’t really like skipping from the 16th century to the 17th, to the 19th, and so on. I grew rather comfortable on the Bearimy-Matic pattern. Let’s put our cuffs on, and go back to that pattern.” She turned, and began walking towards their friends to tell them her idea.

Mateo, meanwhile, reached down and pulled Anatol’s sword out. He turned it up, and admired the craftsmanship. He wasn’t much of a swordsman—or any kind of swordsman at all—but this could come in handy one day.

“Put it down!” Leona ordered without turning back. “You’ll hurt yourself!”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, November 12, 2250

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After the deed was done, Mateo sent a message through the cuffs that he needed to be alone for the rest of the day. He asked the Nexus technician on Varkas Reflex to send him to a random planet in the galaxy. There actually was a setting for that, which let the computer decide where he would go. The world it chose was almost entirely desert. A single artificially constructed oasis supported life for the few people who decided to check the place out. He was the only one there at the time, except for the world’s caretaker, which suggested the Nexus computer knew exactly what he was looking for. It wasn’t that luxurious, so Mateo didn’t feel bad about not inviting his team to be there with him. Apparently, this world was floating around the Milky Way at a pretty great distance from the black hole in the center. This was what made the place so barren, but Mateo didn’t bother listening to the whole explanation, which involved heavy elements, and gravitational disturbances. He just sat in his chair, and tried to think about anything besides the fact that he just murdered another person; and a friend, no less.

Before the day could end, he jumped back to Earth, and rendezvoused with his team on the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He just wanted to put the past behind him, and focus on the fact that Pharrell was right when he claimed that No-one Ever Really Dies, and Nerakali was just having different adventures in the simulation. He still wished that he could erase his people’s memories of what he had done, but unfortunately, what he had done had quite specifically removed brain blending from their inventory of time powers. Hopefully they would never run into another situation where such a thing was called for. The question remained, what were they going to do with their lives from here on out? Were they going to stay on this pattern, and do nothing with that? Would they change to a new pattern? Would they drop it entirely, and start fresh in 2250? Would they return to their respective time periods, or maybe choose some other time period together?

“Well, should we vote on it, or just discuss what everyone wants, and see where we end up?” Leona put forth.

“Yeah, let’s just talk about it,” Angela suggested.

Silence.

“Who wants to go first?” Olimpia broke the ice.

“I’m cool with whatever everyone else wants to do,” Jeremy volunteered.

“Yeah, me too,” and “agreed” were the responses bandied about. It would seem they quite enjoyed helping people transition, but if that was no longer necessary, there wasn’t much reason to do anything else.

“I think we should go back to the past, and continue doing what we do,” Leona began, “whether it’s by transitioning people, or not. We could help the Salmon Runners put right what once went wrong, or join another transition team under Past!Nerakali’s purview. Hell, we could join the salmon battalion, I don’t know.” It actually kind of sounded like she didn’t want to do anything.

Mateo decided to allow her the possibility of doing nothing without making her vocalize it. “Or we could just stay here in The Parallel. I’m sure there’s a planet suited for our whims, where we could live forever, and not worry about responsibility anymore.” It was a selfish offer, but not unwarranted. All of them did deserve it, for what they had been through. Had they not given enough to the worlds already?

The others stood there awkwardly, and did not want to argue.

Mateo still had to be the bad guy. “Okay, let’s do that. We could always go back to a life of service later. Let’s just suppress all patterns, find a nice little planet to call home, and relax for a little bit. Or we could travel. There’s no rush. There’s no rush to do anything.”

“I’m not opposed to this plan,” Jeremy finally agreed. “Like the man said, we can always change our minds later. We have the cuffs, plenty of people here have powers.”

“I can do that,” Angela said.

“Yeah, sure,” Olimpia confirmed.

Leona just nodded. She wanted this more than any of them probably, but was too used to helping people to admit it. That was fine.

“Unfortunately, that’s not how this works,” came a voice from above. A man was climbing down the steps from the upper level.

It took Mateo a hot second to recognize him. They had met him a few times before, but were never close, and there were so many faces to remember these days. “Anatol.” The Warrior. He used to go around the timeline, killing people. Though, time travel being what it was, used to wasn’t a real concept. Which version was this one here?

“Yes, it’s me.”

“I know why you’re here,” Leona said.

“Yes,” Anatol went on. “I have been waiting to come to you for a long time now. Of course, I didn’t have to wait, but I had some other things I wanted to make sure got taken care of, and I didn’t want to cross paths with Nerakali.”

“Who is this?” Jeremy questioned. “Who are you?”

“This is the man that killed Nerakali Preston,” Mateo explained. “I pushed her over the edge of her last life, but he actually dealt the final blow. Now he has her powers. More to the point, he has Jupiter’s powers.”

“That’s right,” Anatol concurred. “I’m here to replace her, after she replaced him.”

“What does that mean?” Leona asked. “What kind of...?” She hesitated to continue.

“What kind of boss am I?” he presumed. “I’m pretty cool, but I do have a different...mission.”

“You’re going to have us kill people, aren’t you?” Mateo assumed.

“I’m going to have you correct the timeline in a way that you’re not used to doing,” Anatol pretended to clarify. “You can call it killing, if you want. I would probably also call it that.”

“I’m not going to be killing anybody,” Olimpia declared.

“The rule is, kill or be killed.” Anatol took a blade out of its sheath. It wasn’t the Sword of Assimilation, but it was just as deadly. “I’m a pretty cool boss...to a point. That...I—that wasn’t meant to be a play on words. But seriously, this is what I’ve decided, so it’s what’s happening. And the sword really is a threat. I have no strong feelings about you people. I’m not sure I know the names of you three there.”

“Well, you probably should know their names if you’re going to boss them around, and threaten their lives,” Leona figured.

“Don’t worry about that,” Mateo said. “He’s not staying.”

“Oh no?” Anatol was confused.

“I challenge you to a duel.”

“Are you serious?” Anatol couldn’t believe it. “Like a...air hockey duel, or something?”

“No. Swords,” Mateo corrected. “I challenge you to a sword duel.”

“That’s stupid, Mateo; I’ll destroy you.”

“Prove it,” Mateo said simply. “You kill me, you get to take the primary cuff, and order my team around. I kill you, and you leave us alone forever.”

Anatol wasn’t going to argue about it anymore. There was no doubt that he could beat Mateo, and there was no getting around this fact. If they were normal people, maybe Mateo could sneak a gun into the duel, and just kill him, and it wouldn’t matter anymore, because the threat would be eliminated. But Anatol couldn’t die, and Mateo didn’t think he could die permanently anymore either, so there seemed to be only one outcome to this story. There was no cheating, and no loophole. Mateo had to magically become the better swordsman, fair and square. “Fine. Deal.”

“Could we have a minute?” Leona requested.

“You can have three hundred and sixty minutes. Meet on Uluru at that time. We’ll transition to the main sequence there. Eat a good lunch. It will be your last.” Anatol disappeared.

“I thought he wasn’t so violent anymore,” Leona said once he was gone. “Didn’t you change him? If he has Nerakali’s powers, he has to be the version of him that changed.”

“He never really changed,” Mateo pointed out. “I think he just started choosing his victims differently.”

“What are you going to do?” Leona asked, shaking her head. “He’s right, you can’t defeat him.”

Mateo smiled. “I don’t have to. There’s not going to be any duel. I just needed to distract him.”

“He’s a time traveler,” Leona argued. “He can’t be distracted. Or rather, it doesn’t matter how long he’s distracted. He can always come back to the past.”

Mateo smirked, and looked around. “I don’t see him, returned from the future to ask me why I never showed up.”

“How are you going to stop him?” Jeremy asked. “Or how did you? Or how have you will?”

“Yeah,” Mateo said. He rested his chin on his palm, and smiled pensively at the corner of the ship. “How did I do that?”

The others looked between him, and the wall he was staring at, but there was nothing there. He never explained what he was talking about, and they quickly dropped the subject. They decided to program their cuffs to suppress all patterns, and keep them in the present moment at all times, at least for now. They then went to what passed for a library in this reality, and searched the directory for a new home. They tried all kinds of search parameters, switching them out when they thought of something better. They only kept the basic criteria, like a regular spherical planet orbiting a yellow dwarf with comparable Earthan surface gravity, and of course, a breathable atmosphere.

“Let’s get away,” Olimpia finally suggested. “Let’s find a remote world, in a distant galaxy, far from the reach of this Warrior guy. Let those be our only requirements.”

The team considered it. “That makes sense,” Leona agreed. “Just because he doesn’t try to get back to us in the past, doesn’t mean he won’t try to show up later.”

Angela typed in what they were looking for. “The farthest inhabited galaxy, which means it has at least one Nexus, is Krovow. Also known as the Sculptor Galaxy, or Silver Coin, or NGC-253, in the main sequence, this spiral galaxy is eleven-point-five-six light years from the Milky Way. The best planet I’m seeing here is called Flindekeldan.”

They looked over her shoulder at the specifications. It seemed a pretty good spot to escape to, if not live there semi-permanently. “We’ll send a message to Ramses,” Mateo said, “and ask him to prevent Anatol from being allowed to use the Nexa. There’s no way he’s traveling eleven light years on his own, unless he kills The Trotter at some point.”

They didn’t waste much time. They jumped the AOC back to the Nexus, gave the technician their coordinates, and asked that they be erased from the computer’s memory after they were gone. The technician agreed, though whether that was good enough was anyone’s guess. The only way to truly know information has been erased is by physically destroying the storage hardware, preferably by dismantling it at the atomic level.

They arrived on the other side just fine, but still, they were nervous. They crept out of the ship carefully, almost expecting Anatol Klugman to be waiting for them, having gone back in time, and arrived in a relativistic ship. It would have taken him over sixteen-thousand years at maximum sublight, but it wasn’t impossible. He wasn’t there, though, and everything seemed all right. The world was a beautiful place, at least it was where they landed, right next to a creek. They weren’t next to the Nexus building. It wasn’t necessary, because the egress window could drop them off wherever; it was just impossible to jump this far without starting at a Nexus. Still, it was kind of strange. The technician would have had to deliberately input slightly altered coordinates, rather than going with the default.

A woman stood before them, waiting patiently for them to climb down. “Greetings. Welcome to Flindekeldan. I am Crucia Heavy, Zora Loncar.”

“That is a Croatian name,” Mateo whispered to Leona.

“Hello, Crucia Heavy, my name is Leona Matic. This is my husband, Mateo Matic, and friends, Jeremy Bearimy, Angela Walton, and Olimpia Sangster. We hope we’re not intruding. We were looking for a new place to live, and this sounded like a great spot.”

Zora smiled. “We know why you are here. Everyone comes here to get away. It’s about as far as you can get without having to settle a new world on your own. That’s why we have no Nexus.”

“There’s no Nexus?” Olimpia questioned. “We can’t go back.”

Zora sighed, satisfied. “No need to. This is your home now. Come. I will show you around.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Monday, July 16, 2131

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Leona was sitting on a wooden chair against the wall, like a belligerent child who’s been sent to the assistant principal’s office. Pryce’s personal assistant was working away at her desk, pretending to write on a piece of paper with a pencil. Without looking up, and as if someone had just sent her a message, she said, “you can go in now.”

“Thank you,” Leona replied. She stood up, and entered Pryce’s office.

It was empty for a good thirty seconds, before his avatar resolved itself before her. He was sitting against the edge of his desk, and regarding her with admiration. “I must say, I’m impressed. You not only got your hands on a zeroblade, but you had the balls to use it.”

Leona made a quizzical face, and looked down at her crotch. “Nope, don’t need those.”

He chuckled. “Quite right.”

“What are ya gonna do with me?”

“I’ma treat you right...girl.”

“The man I killed was exactly like you. I dealt with him quite quickly, so be careful what you say to me.”

“Hey!” He was greatly offended. “I’m an asshole, but I am no rapist. I may be a fun and unpredictable guy most of the time, but I won’t abide that kind of comparison. You understand me?”

“Sir.” Her tone was about as respectful as he was going to get from her

“As for what I’m going to do with you, I honestly don’t know. Murder is incredibly rare in this world. A couple Level 10s have done it, like you, but I’ve let it go, because...they’re my purple people. You’re not a Level 10, so besides the question of how you got your hands on a weapon, I don’t know what you deserve. We are in unprecedented times.”

“You’re right. I’ve been a bad girl. I’m bad code, really. If you don’t get to the root of the problem, I’ll just infect your world, and eventually take the whole thing down. Your only option is to make me a Level 11.”

“If I were drinking, I would do a spit take right there.”

Leona took a flat squircle from her pocket, and placed it on an end table. Then she slid her finger on it, and made a glass of water appear on top of it. “Go for it.”

“A conjure coaster? What else you got?”

Leona acted like she was trying to remember the answer for a second. She stuck her hand back in the pocket, and started digging around. When she pulled it back out, there was nothing in it, but her middle finger was now standing up. “Just this.”

“You remind me of my baby mama.”

“You remind me of—”

“All right, you better not finish that sentence.”

“Are you sure? It’s pretty good...”

“I can turn off your voice, if you’d like. There’s only so much I will let you get away with. At some point, you need to remember that I still run this place, and you’re still just a green Basic bitch.”

Leona stepped forward, so he could tell she too was serious. “There’s only so much I’ll let you get away with. You think you’re powerful because you control life and death, but I know people who control reality. I know people who control the entire damn universe. You’re not as big of a deal to me as you’re used to people thinking you are. You walk around with your rainbow clothes, so people can bow, but you’re just another antagonist in my way, and I always clear my path.”

He nodded like he understood, but remained confident that he had the upper hand. Perhaps he did. He lifted his hand, and used virtual telekinesis to summon the water glass, as well as the conjure coaster. He set the latter down on his desk, and used it to summon the assignment wheel. “Spin the wheel,” he commanded dismissively as he was starting to take a drink of the simulated water.

Leona hesitated.

“Hey, man, you get black, you get black. I’m nothing if not fair.”

“This isn’t fair, you just don’t wanna make the decision yourself.”

“Spin the wheel, or I’ll prove I can make a decision by simply giving you black. The powers that be can’t reach you here.”

Leona approached the wheel, but stopped for a second. “Once or twice?”

He took another sip of the water. “You compared me to a rapist. Once.”

It was time to surrender to fate. Leona bravely reached over, and spun the wheel. Round and round it went, until it landed on the sliver.

“Holy shit!” Pryce exclaimed. “Maybe the PTB really can reach you here. Level 11, twice in a row, what are the odds?”

Leona just stared at him.

He held his breath a few seconds, and then scoffed. “Well, I’m the one who came up with the rules, I have to live by them. If I just did whatever I wanted, this would be hell, and I will not go down in history as the man who invented hell. That is not my living legacy.”

They found Trinity, in a dumpster in one of the midrange low tech circles in 2131. She evidently did not exist anywhere in the timeline on July 15, 2130.  She wouldn’t explain what she was doing there, and no one pressed the matter further, not even Lowell. Vidar left pretty much immediately, and Mateo was relieved he didn’t have to hide the truth about his fated death anymore. Leona surprisingly showed up shortly thereafter, and explained what had happened to her. They were finally back together, but that didn’t mean they weren’t going to save their friends from the afterlife simulation. They still had a responsibility, and it was something they wanted to do either way. Unfortunately, it might not be up to them. Jupiter appeared, and wanted to hold a meeting about it first.

“I don’t see what the problem is,” Missy said. They were crowded around the table in the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which was still in The Parallel.

“There are six of you now, there are ten cuffs.”

“I’m on my original pattern,” Leona tried to explain. “I don’t need a cuff.”

“Everybody needs a cuff. Everybody needs two cuffs, that is,” Jupiter insisted.

“You can’t make a couple more?” Lowell questioned.

“Me? No.”

“We don’t need a team,” Mateo told him. “Leona and I are perfectly capable of doing this on our own. We want to save all of them, including Angela.”

“Hey, I’m still committed to this,” Téa argued.

“Then you can stay, if you want,” Mateo agreed. “I think we all know who can leave, though. He doesn’t wanna be here anyway.”

Everyone looked at Lowell.

“Oh, I’m the asshole?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you weren’t?” Mateo asked, not rhetorically.

“Touché.”

“I suppose he would be the obvious candidate,” Jupiter concurred.

“Whoa.” Lowell seemed offended. “I’m kind of committed to this now too. I think I’d like to see Jeremy again. Might be kind of interesting. I’ve never used my power on someone after this much time has passed.”

“What’s his power?” Leona asked.

“I’ll explain later,” Mateo said before addressing Lowell. “You’re not killing him.”

“I never said I would!” Lowell cried.

“Mr. Fury, if everyone wants to stay, they can stay. If they want to leave, they should be able. Your obsession with controlling this team is starting to look a little thirsty. Leona doesn’t need any cuffs. I don’t need any cuffs, and no one who doesn’t wanna be here should be forced to wear them. I know you’re a good person, let me help you prove it to yourself.”

Jupiter thought it over for a healthy period of time. “All right, I know what to do now.” He retrieved the cuff remover from his bag, and disengaged both of Mateo’s cuffs. “There we go, that’s settled.”

“Wait.” Mateo was confused. “What about the others.”

“Oh, they still need them. I have to keep an eye on them, and this is the best way. They’re off your pattern now, though, so that’s a thing.”

“What the hell is going on?” Leona asked.

“The four of them are going to go save their four friends. Missy is there for Sanaa, Trinity is for Ellie, Lowell for Jeremy, and Téa Angela.”

“What are we gonna be doing?” Mateo asked, referring to himself and Leona.

“You’re going back to your original mission. I brought you into the Parallel to save lives and help people. It’s time you continue.”

“We can still save lives and help people, but let it be our friends first,” Leona begged.

Jupiter shook his head. “No. When Pryce released Leona, it served two purposes; removing her from the list of people who needed to be rescued, and removing her assigned rescuer from the list of people who need to do the rescuing. You two are all good. It’s like you passed the class without taking the final. I’ll just give it to ya. Take the win.”

“What about Jeremy?” Mateo reminded him. “You want him with us to form the Bearimy-Matic pattern. You need this done.”

“And it’ll get done,” Jupiter said. “You two just won’t be the ones doing it. I have faith in these four. In fact, I’ll be there to help them out. I won’t do everything for them, but I’ll give them access to reality-hopping powers, and I’ll guide them as necessary. I’m afraid we are going to require this beautiful ship, however.”

“How will we know who to save, and where to save them?” Leona said, thinking she had him there.

Jupiter smiled, and handed the extra two cuffs to her. “You can each wear one, and be able to take them off at will. They’ll give you directions, and other functions. You can even lend one to someone else, so they tag along with you.” He examined their facial expressions. “I have faith that you won’t run off, and abandon your calling. Please have faith in me that I won’t do that either. I’ll get your people back.”

Mateo had to trust in that. “Thank you, Jupiter.”

Their two cuffs beeped.

“Who are we saving this time?” Leona asked, having decided to trust Jupiter as well.

Jupiter sighed heavily. “Me. You have to save me from myself.” Without another word, he disappeared, taking the other four with him.

“You know exactly what he meant by that?” Mateo asked Leona. “I mean, I have some idea, but do you have any insights?”

“He wants us to stop the younger version of himself from making a mistake,” she figured. “To the older version, it’s probably already happened.”

“Right, but do you know what mistake?”

She placed her cuff around her wrist, and started fiddling with it. “It’s 2131. This is where his friends try to kill Paige. I think it’s our job to stop Jupiter from helping them do this.”

“Then let’s hope it’s already happened, like you said, and all we have to do is close his loop.”

They went off and followed the cuff’s directions to Easter Island, where they found it far easier to access the cave system than it was in the main sequence. They made their way to a corridor where Young!Jupiter was scheduled to come through, and waited. Fifteen minutes later, he appeared, and they spent the rest of the day trying to convince him to do the right thing. He wasn’t hearing any of it, and it was looking like the only thing they could do to change the future past was by force.

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Microstory 1095: Wanda

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Your five minutes are up. If it were up to me, we wouldn’t separate you from Ralph at all, but Della’s worried you’ll start working on an escape together, and we can’t have that. I suppose this is the part where I sit you down and explain our dastardly plans, isn’t it? It looked like Julius was already filling you in on the ritual we’re going to perform today. He wasn’t really meant to do that. But I do want to talk to you, because...well, you’ve talked to just about everyone else in our graduating class, haven’t you? I’m fully on board with this project, but I don’t think we have to be mean to people. The truth is that Gertrude and I really were friends. We lied to the cops, and said that we were all in a group of friends together, but my friendship with Gertrude is a hundred percent real. Homer even had to do some witchy woo to prevent people from realizing they had never even seen us all together before. That was the opposite of the original plan, which was to stay as far from each other socially as possible, so no one would suspect we were the killers. Of course, the whole thing went awry when Viola showed up to stop us, and we had to improvise. You may be asking yourself, why would Wanda sacrifice Gertrude if she liked her? That’s precisely why I had to do it, and also precisely why I hesitated when it came time. You see, Homer claimed that it was only a sacrifice if we were losing something, which makes sense, when you think about it. You can’t really sacrifice a stranger, and expect the universe to be impressed by it. Annoyingly, it appears that this was a total lie as well, and Homer was just doing it to be cruel to his own people. We’re not actually sacrificing someone to the universe, but creating a new balance between life and death, which means the targets could have been anyone. This is where you and Ralph come in. I still don’t love that we have to do it at all, but at least the distance between us will make it easier. I intend to wield one of the holy blades again, and I intend to carry out my mission, without question this time. Even though Homer lied to us, I know that he has a pure soul, and this will herald a better future. Climate change, the refugee crisis, wage disparity, homelessness, disease, racism. These are all human creations, and the only way to fix the lunacy is by accepting the leadership of someone who is not quite human. But Homer can’t do it on his own. He needs more people to be like him, and the six of us are the start of that. Why six? It has nothing to do with the ritual itself, but Sidney apparently came up with that number for strategic purposes. He says, if you want to surround a building with a tactical team, you need a minimum of seven people, so you can box them in on all three dimensional axes. I don’t know exactly where he came up with that, but Homer seemed to agree, which is why he recruited five more people, and stopped there. Anyway, you better prepare yourself. The end is nigh for you, while the beginning of a new day is at hand.

Microstory 1094: Julius

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If it makes you feel any better, I don’t like this any more than you do. I’m not as unfeeling as Clyde, or as twisted as Nannie. I’m just trying to make my life better, and unfortunately, that means yours has to end. When Homer first approached me with his offer, I...well, I just didn’t believe him. But when he showed me what I could do, I still turned him down. I’m not a bad person, Alma, I promise you. I know these chains don’t make it look like that’s true, and I understand there’s no way you and I could ever be friends, but we’re all just doing our best here. Homer explained to me that the universe only exists through balance. There is no way for everyone in the world to be happy; it just doesn’t happen like that. Everyone’s fine with corporate executives firing their minions left and right. They’re fine with protected presidents sending poor soldiers to die in an unjust war. But they get all up in arms when we make a human sacrifice or two. Can you tell me, what exactly is the difference? In all three scenarios, people die, so why is it so much worse what we’re doing? I’ll tell you why, because we and Homer aren’t part of an institution. You’re only allowed to hurt people if you’ve gathered enough others who want to hurt people. Isn’t that sickening? We’re killing two people, while world leaders regularly kill by the thousands, but somehow, we’re the monsters. Priorities, am I right? Well, I’ve been through enough, and I’m not going to take it anymore. This town may accept me as the token gay jock, even though I’m definitely not the only one, but it hasn’t always been like that. I had to learn to filter out a lot of hate when I was a kid, growing up in the deep south. I’m one of those gays who can’t contain it, even if I tried—my mom knew who I was before I even did—so I had a huge target on my back before we moved up here. The only thing that kept me alive was football. You might think my opponents would be too homophobic to even touch me, but they were always itching to knock me down. They underestimated me, though, because I hit them back, and I hit them harder.

We’re not going to sit back and let people come after us anymore, and we’re not going to be silenced. I’m sorry you won’t be around to see it, but Homer is building a better world, with more logical rules. He’s recruited some terrible people to help him, and I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but they won’t be around to see it either. I think we can all agree that there is something seriously wrong with this world, and if our species is going to survive, something has to change. The process is not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be pretty, but it starts today, and I wish you could be proud of what you’re a part of. It’s my job to explain what we’re going to be doing to you, and the first thing you should know is that each one of us went through the same thing...except that your ritual ends differently. First, we have to submerge you in water, and hold you there until but one air bubble remains clinging to your nostril. Then we pull you out, revive you, if we have to, and lather you with mud. We’ll set you on the ground next to a campfire. If you’re up for it, you can be sitting, like Maud was, or you can be lying down, like Gertrude. Homer will then use his wind magic to blow the fire towards your bodies, until the mud hardens. After a little bit of chanting, which I suspect isn’t truly necessary for the ordeal, you will reëmerge from your cocoon a new person. This is where things change from the rituals we experienced. One of us will be chosen to kill you, while another will be chosen to carry out the second sacrifice. We don’t know who that’s going to be yet, but I will almost certainly be chosen. Wanda and Della were chosen last time, while Clyde and Sidney were responsible for protecting the sacred grounds. The girls hesitated, which gave Viola the opportunity to interfere with the ritual. The guys got distracted in an argument, and were unable to stop her. Nannie and I will probably have to wield the holy blades, while Homer takes matters into his own hands, and prevents any Viola-like magician from stopping us this time. Like I was saying, I get that none of this is going to make sense to you, but things are going to get better. If ghosts exists, which it seems like maybe they do, perhaps you’ll even be able to watch humanity’s magnificent transformation from the other side. Hell, we still don’t know what all of Homer’s powers are, so he might even be able to bring you back. Oh, we should stop talking. Wanda’s here with the second sacrifice. I believe that you and Ralph have become friends, right?

Microstory 1049: Shea

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I’m going to tell you my story about Viola, but you’re not going to believe it. You’ve probably heard a lot of miraculous stories about the supernatural things she’s done, but all of them pale in comparison to what she did for me. All of those other things can be explained away. I remember what happened to Warren and the poison sumac when we were younger. That traumatic experience might have changed him for the better. It doesn’t mean she magically transformed his core personality. I know that it did, but it can’t be proven. But six years ago, she healed me in a way so literally that no amount of rationalization can deny it. I actually do have proof. See this here? And this? And these? There’s a reason why I wear long sleeve shirts, even in the summer. I had to suffer through a meeting with my parents, my pastor, my gym teacher, and both principals, to have myself excused from class. I substituted it with rigorous coursework on the history of health and fitness. In a small town, people talk, but no one talked about why I didn’t have to take gym with everyone else, and I’m convinced that that was just one more thing Viola did for me. These scars are not from an accident. They are the result of a heinous act of rageful violence, from an older boy we all now realize was very mentally unstable.

I don’t remember everything from the first day, but I remember her rushing into the room, as if someone had warned her what he was trying to do to me. I never saw her face rightside up, but I remember watching her walk straight up to him with no fear. He was prepared to use force against her as well, but she simply placed her three middle fingers on his forehead, and he fell to the floor. I thought she had somehow killed him, with, like, a poison needle, or something. But it turned out she had just made him go to sleep. Like you, I dismissed this as an exaggerated memory of the ordeal. I didn’t tell anyone what I saw, mostly because my mind was kind of focused on other things at the time, like the invasive rape kit I was in the middle of getting. Three months later, the boy I won’t do the honor of naming, was out of the treatment facility. The judge didn’t feel it was right for him to have to serve any more time than that for a wee little mistake. Well, it’s true, he didn’t rape me again, and as far as I know, he didn’t do it to anyone else either. He did, however, try to kill me in anger. He used a lawn mower, which is why I was hurt in so many places, all over my body. The only reason he didn’t get my face is because he accidentally let go of the safety lever. Once again, she was there. This time, she didn’t take any chances. She placed both hands on his head, and he hasn’t woken up since. The wounds opened me up good, and I should be dead right now, but she wiped them closed, like they were nothing more than packing tape that needed to be flattened out. She told me she could get rid of the scars in a couple weeks, but lots of people had seen them by then, and I didn’t want to expose her. We came up with the lie that when she found me, she drove me to a hospital several towns over, so I wouldn’t run into anyone I know, but that is a lie. And the only reason people believed the lie is because the truth is even crazier. A lot of people owe that woman a lot, but I owe her everything. I only wish I could do what she could. I would have used those powers to bring her back.

Microstory 753: Triadamant

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One to die. One to fight. One to run. Walk under moonlight, stop at the sun. If danger comes for you, remember this pledge. It’s written in blood drawn from your own edge. Protect not each other; that is not your role. Saving the sovereign is your only goal. So it says in the first part of the Pledge of the Resolute. There is a galaxy where this credo codifies the military force that formed upon the beginning of the war with an enemy galaxy. The organization is built in threes. There are three major branches of the military: aidsmanship, defense, and assault. Each soldier carries with them three primary weapons: their gun, their blade, and their body. And each unit is composed of three warriors. They study together at the academy, and train together after full conscription. They eat at the same table, sleep in one bed, and travel together on missions. To see one member of any given triadamant apart from the other two means something is wrong. The idea of maintaining groups of three is an old one, and was not done to protect the group itself. If attacked, hopefully one of them will die before the other two. The survivors do not both start fighting back against the enemy. Instead, one of them will draw upon all their might, fueled by an adrenaline rush—a technique every soldier learns allows this to happen inorganically, if necessary—and keep the enemy distracted. The third will run off and return to the nearest friendly stronghold to warn them of the assault. Of course, this approach was more effective in the days before aerial and orbital battles, when fighting on the ground was the only thing that ever happened. And of course, it was never thought to be totally perfect either. It was always entirely possible for all three members of a triadamant to die before one of them can run away. And it was also possible for an outpost to be attacked by a larger consistency all at once, as opposed to minor ambushes. Yet the sentiment was kept through the centuries as technology advanced warfare. Soldiers still operate within an internally democratic triadamant. And they still use the first line of the Pledge of the Resolute as a battlecry: one to die! One to fight! One to run!

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 19, 2104

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Mateo and Leona both went to the restroom after waking up the morning of 2104. They drank some water, went to the bathroom again, and then they went right back to sleep. Though their bodies had only gone through a single day last year, their minds had experienced hundreds of days with very little rest. And sleep wasn’t so much about rejuvenating the body as much as it was about recalibrating the brain. By the time they woke up again, it was a few hours from their jump to 2105.

The Cleanser jumped in just after they had finished a nice meal with their now extremely large family. Mateo said his goodbyes, and then casually left everyone behind as if he were just a normal person going off to a 9-to-5 job.

“It looks like you’re getting used to this,” the Cleanser noted as they were walking through the woods.

“I have,” Mateo replied. “You made it necessary in the last tribulation.”

“I have received word that a future version of myself promised you that Leona would be left alone. I felt the need yesterday-last-year to assure you to not listen to anyone but me, not even an alternate version. I own you. Do you understand that?”

“I do.” He did.

He seemed a little perturbed to not be getting a fight out of him. “I don’t know if this is some kind of new strategy, but I want to also assure you that it will not work. Even if you submit to my demands, I will not get bored and leave you alone.”

“This is my life now.”

“This is your life now.”

“What’s on the schedule today?”

“A series of tasks. I want you to retrieve something for me. You shall face three deadly challenges. If you survive them, you will be rewarded.”

“Rewarded with what?”

“Immortality.”

Mateo laughed a little. “I don’t need immortality. I’m Catholic.”

“I’m speaking literally. Not everyone qualifies for immortality, and many of those who do not have spent lifetimes trying to find the right ingredients, only to be met with death.”

“Only the worthy can be immortal?”

“That’s right.”

“And it’s a drink?”

“It’s water. But it’s special, taken from a host of different places at different moments in time.”

“And what would I be drinking it out of? A hipster thermos? A mug that says World’s Greatest Dad?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Is it a chalice, is my point.”

“I guess...it certainly won’t be a hipster thermos.”

“What you’re describing is the climax of Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade.”

“No, it’s not,” the Cleanser claimed defensively.

“Three deadly challenges for the righteous, leading to immortality, taken in the form of water from a chalice. That’s The Last Crusade.”

“Fine. I like movies too. Gilbert Boyce is not the only one who watches movies. I’ve seen multiple version of that film, actually. In one reality, Indy’s father stays behind to replace the ancient knight as protector of The Holy Grail.”

“Cool,” Mateo said condescendingly.

“My point is that, just because you’ve seen one version of the movie, doesn’t mean that’s the one you’ll have to recreate.”

“And my point,” Mateo said, stopping, “is that you’re not doing a movie tribulation because you like movies too. You’re doing it because that’s what The Rogue would have done.”

“I’m nothing like the Rogue.”

“You are now. Ever since you killed him, in the way that you did, you’ve adopted some of his characteristics. He’s told me that that is how it works. He spent years as Donald Trump and was more ruthless and twisted than he ever was in that other Rogue body. But then when he left, he changed, and became more like the next person he possessed.”

“I possessed him for seconds, literally. By your logic, his personality should have faded by now either way.”

Mateo shrugged and started walking again. “I don’t have all the answers.”

“No, you certainly don’t. And you would do well to remember it.”

“Is this cave what we’re looking for?” he asked, ready to change the subject.

He yawned and began to crouch down into the rather small opening. “It is.”

They crawled and walked through the cave. The Cleanser held his hand out as the daylight behind them started to fade. He was somehow able to apport fire above his hand without burning himself. Heh. Time, right? Mateo thought to himself.

“We’re almost there.”

“Is that pirate’s chest?”

“Don’t look back, just stay on track.”

“Have you ever considered a career in rap?”

“Been there.” He stopped at the entrance to a second chamber. “This is where we part ways.”

“Ya know, if this is The Last Crusade, you end up following me in there, drinking from the wrong cup, and suffering an excruciating death while a bad actress screams in your arms for no reason at all.”

The Cleanser looked to his left, and then slowly turned to his right. “There’s no one else here. So I guess we’re not doing that part.”

“Very well.”

Fortunately there weren’t any cobwebs to contend with. Mateo wasn’t, strictly speaking, arachnophobic, like one of his grandfathers, but he certainly didn’t like spiders. The main thing that convinced Mateo that the Cleanser was unwillingly holding onto the characteristics of the Rogue—and something he didn’t get to mention to him—was that The Last Crusade was Gilbert’s favorite movie of all time. This was something he had revealed to Mateo and Leona while they were on Easter Island. Either coincidentally, or fittingly, that was also during a quest for immortality. Even more interestingly, that mission actually did end up resulting in Gilbert’s immortality, just not in the way he expected. Mateo wondered if he even ever made the connection, but then realized that the main question here was whether the Cleanser understood these similarities.

About halfway through the passageway, he was stopped by a shirtless man holding a sword. This would be the part in the movie where a rotating blade jumped out and cut off the head of anybody still remaining in standing position. The idea was that you were humbled by the presence of God, and you were supposed to kneel to him. Then you were, for some reason, supposed to do a somersault, because there’s another spinning blade on the floor! Not knowing for sure just how much the Cleanser was expecting him to reenact, Mateo figured he was choosing to be more metaphorical. He decided to forego the somersault, but maintain the humility. He covered his eyes with his arm and knelt down in subservience. “Oh mighty one, please have mercy on me.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Mateo Matic, and I am but a lowly salmon. I pose you no threat.”

“Stand,” the man ordered.

Mateo stood and found the man to be both confused and intrigued.

“What is this place?”

“We are in a cave on Tribulation Island, on a planet that is not Earth.”

“I was not aware that travel to other worlds was possible. This is an interesting development.”

“Are you a choosing one?”

“I am not. I was human, but this sword allows me to steal other people’s powers.” He stepped deeper into the torchlight and widened his arms to show dozens of scars all over his body. “I have a lot of power, but it comes with a price. Though, interstellar travel shall be my greatest achievement.” He reached back and prepared to plunge the weapon into Mateo’s stomach.

“Wait!” Mateo cried. “I can’t travel to other planets. I just happen to be on one right now. Just like you.”

The man stopped. “Oh.” He pretended to wipe sweat from his brow. “Close one, right? I guess you did say you were salmon. Okay, you may pass.”

“Thank you,” Mateo replied, happy to have completed the first challenge. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“They just call me The Warrior.”

“All right, well...please stop killing people. Power isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

He made this face like it was the first time anyone thought to suggest such a thing. He answered genuinely with, “I shall consider it.”

Another man showed up from the aether for the second challenge. He seemed excited to see another person. “Hello, my name is Juan Ponce de León, but I seem to have found myself with the nickname The Navigator. Who are you, and where are we?”

“You’re Ponce de León.”

“Yes?”

“Like from history class?”

“Yes, I have apparently become famous. I admit, I do not relish the idea of eventually returning to my time and facing my death.”

“Maybe you won’t have to, the Fountain of Youth is up ahead.”

“Is it really?” He lifted his compass and examined it. “Huh. So that’s where it’s been taking me.”

“I should say so.”

Ponce de León turned around and began walking through an opening that led to a wide open space. Before them was a stone floor, but unlike in the movie, there were a hell of a lot more of them, and they were all the same clean-cut shape. “Follow in my footsteps exactly,” freaking Ponce de León warned. “This compass will take us where we need to go.” The two new friends made quick work of it, stepping only on the stones that would not fall away and destroy them.

For the third so-called challenge, instead of an optical allusion, part of the ground was just invisible...or in another dimension...or something like that, Leona would be able to explain it. Soon thereafter, they were in the chalice chamber. The Cleanser was waiting for them. “Wow. You did that weird. You were supposed to fight The Warrior, and then steal the Compass of Disturbance. I didn’t think you would befriend these guys.”

“You don’t know me very well,” Mateo said.

“Apparently not.” He clapped his hands together, preparing to sell a used car. “You know what to do. One of these contains the elixir of life. The others are poisoned.”

Ponce de León started looking around, hoping to find the right chalice. He likely wouldn’t have seen the movie, and would have no frame of reference for which one was right.

“It’s this one,” Mateo said, confident but cool. He picked up the most extravagant and heavy chalice there. It was gold, and lined with every kind of gemstone Mateo could recognize.

“Are you sure?” the Cleanser asked. “In the movie, it was the modest clay chalice.”

“Yes, but that was Jesus’ cup. You are not Jesus. You are a douchebag.” He handed it to the Navigator. “Here ya go. One glass of immortality, coming up.”

Ponce de León took the chalice graciously and dipped it into the pool of water. Before he could take a drink, the Cleanser spoke. “There is a catch. If either of you drinks, you will become immortal, and your pattern will cease. You will not be able to travel through time in any way, shape, or form. It’s either this, or that.”

“Leona...”

“Will remain on your pattern,” the Cleanser finished Mateo’s sentence for him. You’ll see her but once a year. You, on the other hand, Ponce, will remain in this time. The Compass will do you no good, and you will never see your wife and children again.” He paused for effect. “Only one of you will be able to have a drink.” He paused again. “You can choose amongst yourselves, but if one of you kills the other first, the drawback will be removed. Navigator, you’ll be able to go home, and Mateo, you’ll be able to give a drink to Leona. Your pattern will be broken, and you’ll never die.” He looked between them with a sinister smile.

Mateo Matic and Juan Ponce de León looked at each other. Then the Navigator dropped the chalice to the ground and they left the cave together.

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