Microstory 1965: Aggression

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Leonard: Hey. This is a nice jet. How did you swing this? To be honest, I don’t know where our department gets any of its money, full stop.

Reese: The government didn’t have a black budget in your version of the U.S.?

Leonard: Yeah, I guess it did; I just didn’t give it any thought, because I didn’t work for any entity that would use it. So the public doesn’t know how much we spend?

Reese: They don’t know how much we spend, but they know the current pot for the entirety of the black budget, which is eight hundred billion dollars this year.

Leonard: Jesus, that’s a lot.

Reese: Yeah, so that pretty much makes the cost of this jet a rounding error. You don’t ever need to worry about our funding. National Command takes the largest portion, and we’re a part of that. The Office of Special Investigations enjoys both a transparent, and a black budget, because the Director reports directly to the National Commander.

Leonard: I see. Well, anyway, that’s not why I came over here. I wanted to learn about Mississippi before we landed. Everybody groaned when you told them that that’s where the mission would be. Where I’m from, the state suffers from a lot of racism, but it’s certainly not universally despised, like it seems to be here.

Reese: Did your version of the country have legal slavery until the eighteenth century?

Leonard: It actually lasted through the nineteenth century. About halfway through.

Reese: Oh. Well, it didn’t take us quite that long to end it, and preserve the union, though we did not come out of it unscathed. I am no historian, but what I do know is that it came at a cost, and that cost was the state of Mississippi. Even after the U.S. Internal Conflict of the 1790s was declared over, the southern National Commander would not let go. He chose Memphis as his capital, because it was at the border of the three most steadfast secessionists during the war, and the years leading up to it. Because of this, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi refused to accept that the south had lost. They continued to enslave people, and fight against anyone who attempted to put a stop to them. They lost eventually, but the post-war is considered by some to be bloodier than the main conflict. Arkansas and Tennessee finally admitted defeat, and started getting with the program. The southern NatCo and Mississippi did not. They held all of Memphis hostage, and—long story short—the union ultimately gave up and gave in. The city, and some surrounding lands, were absorbed into the half-state, half-independent nation. Again, long story short, it currently exists more as a territory than a state, and did later abolish slavery. You noticed that we crossed over into Colorado and Wyoming on our first mission without issue. Mississippi’s borders have only recently opened up. Until a few years ago, it was no one in, no one out. Now we can move back and forth, but we have to register. This team is technically on a diplomatic mission, which means that only the jet and the pilot registered—they don’t know that you and I specifically are on it—but we’ll have to be careful while there. If anyone we run into finds out that we’re not Mississippians, they may have some feels about it. It’s not illegal, but...

Leonard: Wow. This is a strange world. We had slavery for longer, but we kept the union intact. Though racism has lasted for the better part of two centuries after that.

Reese: I wouldn’t say we have all that much racism. It’s all a matter of perspective.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 24, 2398

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Marie and Heath have gone off to be alone for a while, on a vacation in Gothenburg, Nebraska. It would be a strange choice if not for the fact that it’s the center of the continental United States, due to a variation of the border of Texas and Mexico, as well as parts of the North; notably Maine and Canada. Gothenburg was never known to be a special temporal location, but The Constant was built under Lebanon, which is supposed to be the center of the country, so there’s a chance that there is something there. They might go up to Belle Fourche, South Dakota and Epsie, Montana for similar reasons. Angela is on site at Marie’s job, doing her best to keep her head down, and hoping the whole artificial intelligence thing goes away. It probably won’t, and she’s thinking of quitting. Marie doesn’t act like she ever wants to go back to it, and if they figure out how to escape this world, maybe it won’t matter. As for Kivi, she still exists...for now, and is home by herself. Last night, she took Ramses’ couch, while he slept in a recliner.

Mateo, Leona, and Ramses are standing on the third and topmost floor of a skeleton building. It has all the concrete walls and support structures, plumbing, and electrical systems in place, but none of the interior walls, flooring, or furniture. “I told you to leave them out of it,” Leona argues to Winona when she approaches from the stairs.

“This is not a mission,” Winona claims, hands held up defensively. “It’s just...mission-adjacent.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“We have caught wind of other unusual objects around the world. My team is ready to secure them for you, so that you can study them. You can study them...here.”

“What is this place?”

“It was going to be a research clinic,” Winona begins, “but the company that commissioned it suffered a major recall of one of their drugs, so they went bankrupt, and couldn’t finish it. We got a good deal on it. We’re why the staff at the time of closing ended up with severance packages, instead of missing paychecks.”

“Oh, you’re so noble,” Leona says sarcastically.

Winona scoffs. “I know you don’t like me, but this is a gift. You will have full autonomy, and zero oversight. It will be partially funded privately, but subsidized by the government’s black budget.”

“No, oversight, eh?” Leona questions. “Will you be supplying the digital clocks?” She’s referring to the hidden camera they placed in the room in order to watch Leona try to assess the item they stole from some competing force in Germany. It turned out to be the LIR Map, but fortunately, the clock wasn’t facing the right direction for them to see that. They’re still suspicious of her, even though they searched her person.

“That wasn’t my idea,” Winona says. “I had nothing to do with any of it. I was just in charge of leading the procurement team. I was still out of country when the supposed empty case got to you.”

“It was empty,” Leona lies.

“I believe you,” Winona lies too. She reaches into her bag and pulls out a lava lamp. “This is one of hundreds that we can supply you for security.”

“How are those a form of security?” Mateo asks.

“Randomity,” Ramses says for some weird reason. He’s intrigued by them.

Mateo looks over at Leona, who surprisingly doesn’t know this one.

“That’s right,” Winona confirms. “You generate your own encryptions, using the random fluctuations in these lamps. As a bonus, if you place the lamps in front of your security cameras, you’ll be able to watch for video doctoring. My people and I will not be able to come in and steal your data, nor will anyone else. We won’t even buy the cameras for you. We’ll write you a check.”

“Why are you doing this?” Leona questions. “What’s in it for you?”

“When you figure this out—when you finish your time experiments—I have faith that you will finally read us in, and be honest about who you are, and what you know.”

“What about our prior encounters gives you the impression that that’s true?” Leona presses.

“You haven’t hurt any of us yet. You haven’t attacked us, or exposed my father, or anything. You’ve helped us on a number of occasions, including by continuing your work with fusion power. Leona, we’re allies, whether you realize that, or not. Also remember that we haven’t hurt you either. We kept quiet about the flicker watch, and about how you jumped into a pool of water in Türkiye, and ended up a kilometer away. I admit, our tactics have been shady, and we’ve made you feel cornered, but I would like to change that. Your new identities, your intelligence credentials, and now this lab, have all been attempts to help you. I believe that you will one day recognize as much.”

Leona has no response to this. Winona is making too much sense. They have done things they didn’t want to, but they did do them, and they were never technically forced to. Perhaps one day they’ll build trust. But for now, she’s accepting the lava lamps. “We’ll see, I guess. We’ll see,” she says, not wanting to say nothing at all. She takes the lamp from her, and sets it on the floor.

“What else will you need? You don’t have carte blanche, but you should be sufficiently funded.”

Leona looks at Ramses, who doesn’t have an answer. They both spread out just a little, and look around at the walls and ceiling, blocking the layouts of their dream labs, no doubt. “We’ll have a list to you by the end of the week.”