Microstory 2367: Vacuus, August 28, 2179

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Dear Condor,

I’m not feeling all that well today. I didn’t get much sleep last night, and I think I caught a stomach bug. The doctor has me self-quarantining, which is funny because that’s just how I typically live my daily life anyway. I wanted to respond to you, though, because I received your open letter. I attached the new document with my markups, but you can take them or leave them. If you just sent it to the base how you originally wrote it, it would be fine. I’m not surprised, your letters to me are always very well-written. Overall, I think it looks good. You didn’t say too little, or be too cryptic, but you didn’t overshare either. I would say go for it, if you’re comfortable, but you still have the option of declining the request. It’s not a big deal either way. Though, I do think you should change what you said about people asking questions. I’m willing to take on that role as intermediary. My suggestions are very minor, so it’s up to you whether to accept them. That also goes for whether to even send it or not. I won’t cloud your decision any further. It’s not like people will be mad at me if you decline. Both worlds will keep turning. I feel like I’m repeating myself, and should probably go back to bed. I’m going to be a little bit late with my thoughts on this latest Winfield Files book, but did you notice that we got a few spoilers from the last season of the show? It looks like they jumped a little ahead in the story, which I guess is what happens. The books are only told from the main character’s perspective, but the adaptation has the freedom to explore other people’s perspectives more directly, which has sometimes given us a bit of a sneak peek into what’s to come, before Winfield finds out about it in his own time. I don’t think it’s going to ruin anything, or that we should change our strategy. I just thought I would point it out.

Okay, goodnight,

PS: Are we gonna keep doing PS?

Fluence: Mirage (Part III)

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Goswin wiped the rain from his eyes, and was able to see that this Irene de Vries woman was not alone. A very young child was huddled against her hip. All signs pointed to the fact that this was Briar, but it could also be his son, or his great grandfather, or his eleventh cousin, forty-two times removed. “What year are you from?” Goswin asked. “Oh wait, no. Sorry. I mean, uhh...report.”

Irene smiled. “Trinity used to say that to me all the time. Is that in the time traveler’s handbook, or something?”

“If there’s an actual handbook, I’ve not actually seen it. That’s just what I’ve heard others say. May I ask the boy’s name?”

“It’s Briar.” Confirmed. “Hey, do I know you from somewhere? You look familiar. Have you ever been to the 21st century?”

“Captain!” Behind him, Weaver was power walking up, followed by Eight Point Seven, and Harrison.

“Is Madam Sriav with you?” Goswin asked.

Weaver shook her head. “She didn’t come. We assume she’s still on Lorania.”

“That’s not good,” Goswin mused. “We’ll try to get back to her. Crew, I would like you to meet Irene de Vries, and her son...Briar.”

Eight Point Seven didn’t react, and of course, neither did Harrison. Weaver flinched, but kept it together. Briar was in very, very big trouble, but not yet. Warning Irene that her son would one day become a killer was not going to help. Things could conceivably get better, but they could also get worse. She may decide that the only way to stop this would be to murder her son, and that would not be an okay decision. It wouldn’t work anyway. Briar killed Mateo while he was wearing the hundemarke, which was a special temporal object that created fixed moments in time. No matter how you try to change the past, this will always happen, as will anything inherently necessary to lead up to it. “It’s nice to meet you.” She pulled Goswin towards her, and did her best to whisper in his ear while still being heard through the rain. “We need to get out of here.”

“I know,” he replied.

“If you have to go back to the Middle Way, or whatever it is you did to make this happen a fourth time, then do it again. I don’t care if we end up on the moon. Just get us out of this paradox.”

“Fourth?” Goswin questioned incredulously. “You think I’m the one who took us to Achernar in the first place? You think that this was just something I’ve always been able to do, but the first time I tried was when I was in my 80s?”

“The thought crossed my mind. Maybe you’re salmon.”

“Excuse me?” Irene interjected. “The rain’s starting to come down harder. I really could use some shelter. There’s a cave nearby that we can hide in temporarily.”

“Hey!” a voice shouted to them. “Get the hell away from my mother!” Briar was running towards Goswin as fast as he could, and unlikely preparing to come to a complete stop just to exchange a few choice words. He was in a tackle posture. Fortunately, he didn’t make it that far. Harrison reached out, and lifted him up by his underarms, holding him in the air effortlessly as Briar continued to paddle his feet to no avail. “Let me go!”

“Did he just say mother?” Irene asked, confused and scared.

Goswin waggled his finger at the still struggling Briar. “Stop. Stop! We’re not going to hurt anyone. If you want to protect her, then you will stop moving, and listen to me very carefully.”

Briar went limp, and started to pant.

“Everyone gather around. Not you, Madam de Vries. Please go protect your son.” Once everyone else was in a huddle, Goswin went on. “I have a theory. Briar, are you familiar with any landmark on Earth; anything at all?”

“No, nothing.” Yeah, he had only ever remembered living on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. “Well, except for this.” He held up a photo of Irene in her younger days, smiling in front of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. “It was her favorite place in the world.”

Goswin closed his eyes and sighed. “Okay, I’ve been there too. That’ll work. Think about that place. Think about trying to go there.”

“Why?”

“Would you just do it? The National Museum of Natural History. Think about the museum. Think about visiting there. Don’t think about anything else.”

“Okay, I guess.”

The rain suddenly stopped. They were now in the middle of a grassy park. To one side of them was a giant bosom, and to the other a giant phallus. Behind them stood a red castle, and before them was the target museum, which was the second bosom. This was Washington D.C. all right. They were soaking wet on a bright, sunny day. The tourists around them were confused, and a few of them looked really nervous.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” Goswin admitted. “I just didn’t want us to go back to Bida, and Briar doesn’t have a frame of reference for much on Earth.”

“What is your hypothesis,” Weaver asked, “that he’s the one who brought us?”

“Well, it seems like the only possibility,” Goswin determined.

“We didn’t even see him at the other locations,” Weaver pointed out.

“Excuse me?” A man in overalls had approached Briar. “Could you please step closer to your friends?”

“They’re not my friends,” Briar spit at him.

“That is very much not my point, sir,” the stranger said. “Please step closer to them.” He waited, his patience thinning. “Please,” he repeated. “Thank you,” he added when Briar finally complied.

“What is it you need?” Goswin asked, ready for a fight, even though he was not much for violence.

The stranger held up his hands like he was trying to block the sun from his eyes. He jerked them a centimeter away from each other, which served to freeze everyone around them in place. Time was stopped, or at least moving very slowly. He gradually pushed his right hand forward, and in front of his left hand, which pulled back, and moved in the opposite direction. As he did so, time began to reverse outside of the bubble he had erected for them. They watched as the tourists walked backwards. A child’s scoop of ice cream flew back up to his cone from the ground. Once the scene was back to where he wanted it, he closed his hands into fists, and snapped them against each other, pinky to thumb. The five of them felt a lurch, as if the roller coaster ride were just beginning. The man carefully placed his left fist against his nose, and looked over his hands like a sniper. His arms were shaking, but not like he was struggling, more like it was integral to the process. As he slowly moved his fists away from his face, the scene around them began to blur and fade into blackness. They flew forward, also like a roller coaster. Finally, he opened his hands back up, and separated them, stopping the ride.

They were standing in a desert, the three main pyramids of Giza rippling above a mirage a few kilometers away. The slight distortion from the bubble dissolved, and the warm wind began to blow sand into their eyes and noses. “All right. It’s done.”

“What’s done?” Eight Point Seven questioned.

“You’ve been erased from the timeline. No one who witnessed your arrival in the National Mall remembers that it ever happened, because it didn’t. They’re all going about their day, still clueless about time travelers, and the like.”

“Thank you, Repairman,” Weaver said to him as if they were old friends. Maybe they were.

“When you say, we were erased from time...” Goswin trailed off intentionally.

“You just never showed up there,” the Repairman clarified. “Instead, you transported yourselves to this random spot in the Necropolis. You’ve been here the whole time, and if anyone were to ask a lizard or cactus around here what they saw, that’s what they would say.

“I don’t see any cactuses,” Briar noted.

“Then maybe you don’t have to worry about any witnesses,” the Repairman joked. He paused a moment. “Well, bye.”

“Wait!” Goswin stopped him. “Could you help us again...maybe by telling us what’s happening to us?”

“I wouldn’t know, but I heard you blame everything on this guy,” the Repairman said. “What I’ll tell you is that the ability to transport people from a distance is rather rare. It’s not impossible but...in my experience, when multiple individuals travel together without any of them realizing how or why, it’s not because one of them is doing it on purpose, but because there’s some kind of glue that binds them together.” He made a quarter turn, reached out, and opened an invisible panel in the air. They couldn’t see anything, but they could hear the familiar creak of metal scraping against metal. He reached into it, and took hold of an equally invisible handle, which he pulled down. His figure turned into a black silhouette for a split second before disappearing completely.

They stood there in silence for a few moments. “I have another idea,” Goswin finally said, worried how they would take it.

“A new experiment?” Weaver asked him, intrigued.

“Are you up for it? We have to get a handle on this. I don’t really want to spend the rest of my life randomly jumping from point to point.”

“Let’s hear it,” Eight Point Seven encouraged.

“You can’t,” Goswin replied. “I’m going to write four places down, and keep them compartmentalized. You will each think about your own place, and only that place. If he’s right, and there’s some kind of glue between us, it won’t work, because it will be contradictory.” He pulled out his handheld device, and started writing the locations down. He showed Briar the first one.

“Really?” Briar asked incredulously.

“Don’t. Give it away,” Goswin warned. “It’s a magic trick.”

Briar sighed, upset. He was being expected to think about the cliff where he killed Mateo Matic. It was simultaneously the worst and best place for him. What happened there was probably the worst thing he had ever done, so that meant, now that he had been triggered, he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else, even if he wanted to.

The other three, on the other hand, were going to be thinking about the the west entrance to the primary research facility on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. No one ever went back there, so they shouldn’t have to worry about being seen. Goswin was the only one who knew that he, Weaver, and Eight Point Seven had the same spot in mind. If Briar were the one in charge, it didn’t matter what the others thought of, because they would always end up where he wanted to go instead. “Everyone ready?” Goswin asked. “I guess time travel works on psychic powers, so...everyone think about your respective locations, please, and really, truly, desperately try to actually go there. Don’t think about anything else. It may take a while, I really don’t know.”

They stood there in their huddle for a minute or so without anything happening, the humans struggling with the dust storm that was starting up around them. It did work, though. The sand and sun disappeared to be replaced by a dense forest at twilight. Alien bugs crawled around on a tree next to them, as wingèd ones swarmed in their faces. This was definitely Bida. But it wasn’t the cliff where Briar committed murder, and it wasn’t anywhere near the research facility.

“Whose spot was this?” Eight Point Seven asked.

“No one’s,” Goswin revealed. I don’t know that we’re right about this.”

“Don’t be so hasty,” Weaver said, taking out her own handheld. “I can connect to the satellite now.”

Goswin was worried again about how they would take it. “Briar had the...the cliff. You know the one I mean. The rest of us had the west entrance to Pryce’s lab.”

Weaver peered at him over her device. “Only two places.”

“Yes, it was like a blind study.”

Weaver nodded, and tapped on the screen. She held it in front of his face. “We’re right in the middle.”

“What?” Goswin took it from her, to see what she was talking about.

“Exactly equidistant from the cliff and the building.”

“We split the difference,” Eight Point Seven noted. “The Repairman was right. It’s all of us. Whatever each of us wants, this...force between us tries to come up with something that matches our criteria combined. If you wanted Italian food, and she wanted Chinese, and I wanted French, and he wanted Ethiopian, we would end up at a fusion restaurant.” She started pointing at the members of the group accordingly. “If we wanted to go to the years 1776, 1912, 2024, and 2100, we would show up in 1953.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Goswin said. “Briar wasn’t with us on that void planet, or on Dardius.”

“Wasn’t he?” Weaver prodded.

Briar frowned. “I was hiding. I wasn’t planning on showing myself at all, but then you attacked my mother...”

“No one was attacking her,” Goswin defended. He grunted. “We have to figure out how to get rid of this. It could cause us serious problems. If one of us wants to go to Teagarden, and the rest want to go to Glisnia, are we gonna end up somewhere in the middle of empty space?”

“We can’t do that yet. We have to go back to return Harrison and Madam Sriav to where they belong.”

“That’s true,” Goswin agreed. “Can we all come to a consensus long enough to make that work?”

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Microstory 1998: Vastly Irresponsible Plan

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Leonard: Where is she? She’s not in a jail cell still, is she?

Street Proctor: No, no, no, no, no. She’s in the VIP quarters. She’s perfectly fine.

Leonard: The law station has a VIP room?

Street Proctor: Of course. They don’t on your world? [...] Oh, don’t look so surprised. You told me that you were in the wrong world when we first met, and now you’re some big shot secret agent. It wasn’t hard to figure out that you were actually telling the truth the whole time. I really wanna apologize for how I treated you back then. I was going through some stuff that had nothing to do with you, but it was no excuse for being unprofessional and unhelpful. And I’m not just saying that because you super outrank me now. I’ve been to some seminars, one workshop, and counseling every week.

Leonard: Well, I appreciate you saying that. It’s...very big of you.

Street Proctor: Yeah. Well anyway, your wife is right through here.

Leonard: *steps into the room* Keziah.

Keziah: Leonard. What the hell is happening? Where are we?

Leonard: What is the last thing you remember?

Keziah: I was going to Yuuna’s baby shower. I was driving around, thinking that I was very lost, until I realized that I was actually very, very lost. None of this is familiar. They call this place a law station, instead of a police station. The guy who helped me said he was a proctor, which is nothing I’ve ever heard of either. What is this room all about?

Leonard: Yuuna’s baby shower? That was months ago. That was...that was the day that I disappeared. You and I left our Earth on the same day, but I’ve been here since June.

Keziah: Time travel? We traveled through time? Wait, does this have something to do with your little friend? Where is he? He has to send us back home.

Leonard: It’s not really time travel. It’s that—let’s see, how did he put it—the timestreams for two separate universes have nothing to do with each other. And anyway, I’ve not seen him. I don’t think he had anything to do with it. It’s just something that happens sometimes. In fact, I believe that our link to him is the only reason either of us realizes that there’s something different about this world. There could be others here who  are from different versions of Earth, but don’t even know it.

Keziah: Either way, I wanna go home. Do you have a plan? It’s been months, right?

Leonard: Hold on... *starts to wave a little device all over the room*

Keziah: *turns the sink on* Is that a bug detector?

Leonard: Yes. We’re in the clear, but let’s whisper anyway. I have indeed been working on a plan, but I’ve had trouble enacting it. Number one, if we use the only tools we have at our disposal, we could be dooming our world to profound destruction, so if we try it, I’ll have to kill the alien who transported us right away, but that’s assuming he even took us to the right brane in the first place. And now that you’re here, I’m not sure we can both fit in the portal. Plus...I’ve sort of...built a new little life here.

Keziah: The ink on the divorce papers you texted me to say you signed, sealed, and sent out for delivery isn’t even dry yet. But you met someone, didn’t you?

Leonard: Yes, I did. You would like her.

Keziah: I don’t doubt it. But I still wanna go home. Tell me about this alien.

Microstory 1997: Wild Beasts

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SI Eliot: *sits down across from Reese*

Reese: I thought we agreed to stay on opposite sides of the jet, and never speak to each other again for the rest of our lives.

SI Eliot: Yeah, but I’ve been thinking about what happened at the meeting, though, and I think we should touch base about it.

Reese: Calling that a meeting would be like calling a stampede of wildebeests a casual jog with a few friends. That was one of the most horrifically uncomfortable experiences of my life, and I just wanna forget it ever happened.

SI Eliot: Lower your voice. There could be listening devices on this thing.

Reese: That would just be like Commander Virtue. You’re right, but I don’t care. Let the plane go down. At least that would leave me in peace. I’m still drunk, and now hungover.

SI Eliot: Ha-ha, he’s joking. Commander Virtue is an honorable man, and we are lucky that he lent us one of his aircraft for the trip home.

Reese: *sighs, then takes a device out of his bag* I swept for bugs while you were in the lavatory. You think this is my first time on an unsecured mode of transportation? Please.

SI Eliot: You see, I knew there was a reason you were promoted over me.

Reese: Are you still on that?

SI Eliot: No, I’m... I meant that sincerely. I was bitter before, but I’m over it. Besides, I’m not exactly envious of all the meetings you’re gonna have to have with that man now that you’re a director.

Reese: Oh my God! I wasn’t even thinking about that. I was just relieved to be out of there, I forgot that it’s still not over. It will never be over, will it?

SI Eliot: Not until the next administration.

Reese: When will that be?

SI Eliot: Three years, if he doesn’t secure reëlection, of course.

Reese: Of course. Gah! Hold on. Deputy Director.

SI Eliot: You mean Celandine Robles?

Reese: No. The deputy often accompanies directors on meetings and conference calls. If I made you my deputy instead, you could help me deal with him.

SI Eliot: Oh, no. Have you heard Director Washington complain about him? She hates him too, but she’s never described that kind of craziness before. He’s different around men. He thinks he can be himself, and that we’ll understand. The way I see it, Deputy Robles is your best option on that front, along with all the other fronts.

Reese: That was a test. I needed to know if you were still gunning for my job, and just decided to be nice and underhanded about it.

SI Eliot: If anything, it’s gotten me to seriously consider switching to the private sector.

Reese: Really? You would do that? You’re such a...patriot.

SI Eliot: Well, I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I’ve gotten an offer or too.

Reese: Well, congratulations. Hey, wait, that’s the St. Louis Arch. It’s gigantic.

SI Eliot: What? We shouldn’t be able to see that. Reese, I think we’re landing.

Captain: *through the intercom* Folks, you may have noticed we’re a little off route. No need to worry. We just have to make an emergency landing. I’ll update again soon.

Microstory 1919: Safehouse Social

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Leonard: I won’t help you find the others.

Fugitive Agent: That’s okay.

Leonard: I escaped with them, but I’m not with them. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you where they are...assuming I know that anyway. Which I may not.

Fugitive Agent: I’m not expecting you to tell me anything about them. They’re not my responsibility. I don’t even care that you broke out of jail. I wanted to speak with you for other reasons.

Leonard: And her? What does she want?

Freewoman: I’m just here to support him.

Leonard: Are you one of the street people...the ones who found me? They say you’re part of some sort of group of the formerly incarcerated.

Fugitive Agent: Freemen, they’re called. Or freewomen. I’m new, and still a lawman.

Leonard: I see. Well, anyway, what did you need from me?

Fugitive Agent: *looks at freewoman* The rest of the conversation will have to be in private. I was read in to certain things—

Freewoman: You don’t have to explain. I’ll go.

Fugitive Agent: We’ll talk later, okay?

Freewoman: If you want privacy, I’ll make sure you have it. No one will come near this room. Wait two minutes before you say whatever it is you can’t say in mixed company.

Leonard: [...] It’s been two minutes. Go ahead with your questions.

Fugitive Agent: Yeah, I know. I just don’t know how to start. I spent so much time trying to find you, I didn’t think much about what I was going to say.

Leonard: Well, what makes me so special? Why don’t you care about the other escapees? I’m nobody.

Fugitive Agent: You’re not, though, are you? Okay, I’m just going to say what the deal is. I was just informed of this the other day, but I saw footage of it. I don’t know if it’s real, but it came from the Office of Special Investigations, and they’re not known for their humor. It appeared to be—I don’t wanna say it...

Leonard: Don’t worry. I’ve learned to keep an open mind.

Fugitive Agent: It was an alien. At least I think it was. Maybe it was from another dimension, or maybe it’s been here this whole time, but invisible, so no human has ever seen it before. I don’t know, but it was weird, and it freaked me out—

Leonard: *leans forward in his chair* What did it look like?

Fugitive Agent: Like a bug. I think it had wings. It kind of had a human face, though. I think it can talk, but it has reportedly chosen not to. You don’t sound surprised. What is it? Do you know what it is? Its arrival matches science readings from your arrival. Did you come from the same place? What is it? Who are you? What is it!

Leonard: It sounds like an Ochivar.

Fugitive Agent: An Ochivar. Is that bad? What planet is it from? Where are you from? Are there others? Is this the beginning of a secret invasion?

Leonard: Look, I can tell you what I know, but you’ll have to calm down. It may be bad—it probably is—but let’s not jump to any conclusions. First...tell me everything.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 25, 2398

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They found only one other recognizable name from the comprehensive list of world religions. And it was another major one. Bhulahai was obviously named for timeline mapper, Bhulan Cargill. No one on the team who knew her knew how she could have ended up here, but it’s not that important. The fact is that she’s here, or at least she was, and she either created a religion, or inspired other people to start it, perhaps by performing miracles that would seem mundane to them. That’s probably how they all got started; Pryce turned himself into a sabertooth tiger, and the cavemen who witnessed it started worshiping him as a god. In Bhulan’s case, Bhulahai appears to be a pretty nonviolent religion. It promotes learning from one’s mistakes, and trying to predict the future with high accuracy. That makes sense for someone with the actual ability to do that with real past events.

It’s hard to say much more with just the list itself. It doesn’t necessarily tell them the whole story. Any of these others could lead to the identity of someone else and they just don’t recognize the name, or the name of the religion is simply not shared by the founder or inspiration. They need to do more research on the history of faith in this reality. Things can change a lot over the literal aeons. “Someone is going to have to trace these all the way back to their origin stories,” Mateo realizes.

“I don’t really have time,” Leona laments. “I need to get back to the fusion project. They have been operating independently of me for a long time now. I’m worried what they’ve been up to.”

“I have quite a bit of my own work too,” Ramses says.

Mateo would do it himself, but he’s not quite—what’s the word he’s looking for?—smart enough. “I shouldn’t bother, I would just make mistakes. I think I have an idea of who could handle it, though.”

“Who are you thinking of?” Leona asks. “Angela and Alyssa have the business, and Marie is helping them out while Kivi is in the field, looking for Erlendr and Meredarchos.”

“No, not them.”

Leona thinks she knows who he’s talking about. “Oh, don’t bother the people living at the condo either. They’re not a part of this anymore.”

“No, they made their choices,” Mateo says, smiling. “How quickly you forget the children.” Mateo leaves the lab, and goes up to the residential floor. He takes a quick look in the common area. Finding it empty, he walks back and knocks on the McIver door.

Young Moray answers. “Hi.” He hasn’t been the same since Trina’s memorial service. “My sister isn’t here.” He frowns. “I mean, Alyssa isn’t. Obviously Trina isn’t anywhere at all, since she’s dead.” Yeah, he’s definitely not finished grieving.

Maybe the boy just needs something to take his mind off of what happened. This doesn’t really have anything to do with that. “Is your brother here?”

“Car, it’s for you!” Moray shouts into the apartment as he slides out of the way.

“I’m here for both of you, actually,” Mateo says, stepping into the unit. “Could I have a word?”

Carlin comes out of his room. “Are you kicking us out?”

“Why in the world would I kick you out?”

“I caused a lot of problems yesterday.”

“Those are called feelings,” Mateo clarifies, “not problems. We’re working that out together, and I don’t know exactly how to help you, but I know it doesn’t involve kicking you out on the street.”

“What is this about then?” Carlin questions.

Mateo hands him the tablet. “This is a list of every religion in your world. That’s great and all, but we really need to know more about how they each got started, when and where, and how they evolved over time. We need to know which ones branched off into which others, and get lists of key important historical or mythological figures.”

Carlin peruses the list. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Well, we would like you and Moray to take on this challenge.”

Carlin drops his arms loose. “You want us to do homework?”

It sounds to Mateo like these kids need some structure in their lives. They have had it a little easy since they’ve come to Kansas City in terms of daily life. It hasn’t been easy—they’ve made sacrifices—but Alyssa has a job, and the boys need their own responsibilities. It’s not good for them to do nothing. “Everyone has their assignments. This is really important to us. We need to know who else like us is here, and this research could be the key to finding that out.”

He looks back at the list. Moray comes over to look at it too. “This isn’t just busy work?” Carlin asks.

“Ain’t nobody got time for that.” Mateo assures them. “Four of the most popular faiths in the world were named after people we know personally. One of them is my cousin, and I’ve been looking for her since we fell into this reality.”

Carlin sets the tablet on the dining table. “We’ll do as you asked, but we’ll need some direction on precisely what you’re looking for. Written guidelines would be helpful.”

Mateo nods. “I’ll have Leona draw something up for you. I’m liable to make mistakes, or I might try this project on my own.” He turns to leave the apartment gracefully.

“Hey, Mister Matic?” Carlin stops him somberly. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, and just call me Mateo.” He sends a text message to Leona as he’s leaving the apartment. He then walks downstairs to find Marie.

She’s taking a shift in the security room. “Hey, you wanna get in on this?”

“Nah, I came here to ask you a question. Do you remember when you and I were alone together in the Mariana Trench? Those bug aliens attacked us, and were probably going to kill you until a couple of bulk travelers swooped in and saved us?”

“Yeah, of course,” Marie says. “That was shortly after I joined the team, long before I split in two, so I was still just Angela back then. Why?”

“What was the name of that guy who flew us from the rendezvous moon to the battle staging planet? Do you recall?”

“Yeah, he called himself The Hound, but his real name was...Hunter? No. Hold on...Chase.”

“Chase,” Mateo echoes. “That’s it. Chase what?”

“Chase...Palmer. Why?”

“He’s from another brane, and we didn’t spend much time with him, so I guess I forgot to put him on my running list. Have you ever heard of a religion called Palmeria?”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 30, 2398

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Marie just got back from a hiking trip with her husband, so she’s not having too many problems. Kivi, on the other hand, was literally born less than a week ago, so she doesn’t have a whole lot of experience in the wilderness. “Ow!” She stops walking and instinctively, reaches up to slap herself in the cheek. “That’s blood. I’m bleeding.”

“It’s not only your blood,” Marie tries to tell her, “and it’s just a little.”

“A bug bit me, and you think that it’s totally fine.”

“It’s a hematophage. It only needed a little bit of your blood. We put on that smelly stuff to keep them away.”

“It’s obviously not working.”

“Well, it’s not magic.”

“Why did you say that in a different accent?”

Marie gets going on the trail. “It’s a pop culture reference.”

“You know I won’t get those.”

“I know,” Marie says as she’s getting farther ahead.

“What if it was carrying a disease?”

“It probably wasn’t.”

“Probably?”

“Hurry up! I wanna get there before it gets dark!”

“How do you know where we’re going again?”

“Ramses had a little bit of data from the main sequence in his bag when he came to this reality. Using the AI, he was able to overlay corresponding coordinates to the geography of this world, which we can follow using SatNav.”

“In English?”

“I have a map.”

They continue for another kilometer or so until they hear rushing water. This area is surprisingly remote, while it’s pretty heavily developed in the main sequence. The trek was rough, but they have come to a clearing, where they find a source of water. “Ah, there it is, you were right,” Kivi says with a smile.

Marie zooms in and out of the map. “No, this isn’t right at all.”

“You said we were looking for the Fountain of Youth, and that to me looks like a fountain. I mean, the water isn’t coming out of sculpted horses, but it’s nice enough, I guess.”

“Hold on.” She goes into the overlay code, and checks for errors, to the best of her ability with only a cursory glance. There’s too much data to go over comprehensively right now. “This isn’t gonna do me any good.” She starts to remove her clothes, ultimately keeping her bra and underwear on.

“What if someone else comes?”

Marie looks around. “I see no signs that a single human has ever been in this area ever. It’s pretty well hidden. I’m not worried. Besides, I don’t care.” She wades into the water, which she finds to be lukewarm. It’s not a hot spring, but it’s not freezing either. Perhaps it’s warmed by geothermal energy just a little bit. She walks along the smooth floor, encountering no obstacles or sharp rocks, and approaches the bubbling fountain in the center.” A warmness comes over her, but not physically, just emotionally.

“Can you teleport?” Kivi asks.

“What?” Marie didn’t really hear that. She’s mesmerized by the sight, and can’t think about anything else. It just looks like the work of jets in a hot tub, but there’s something so beautiful and entrancing about it, she can’t look away.

Kivi yells something else from the shore.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 19, 2398

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The LIR Map, yeah, that sounds interesting, but Angela is going through something right now that she feels she can’t talk to anyone about. It was her idea to take Marie’s place at her job, but the situation has turned out to be a house of cards, and she’s worried about ruining the whole thing. At some point, when this all dies down, Marie is going to want to return to her life, and it’s Angela’s responsibility to make sure it still exists when that happens. She thought it was a great idea to use the artificial intelligence that Ramses took from The Constant, but it’s placed her in an awkward position. She thought she was being so clever, carefully utilizing the powerful tool in such a way to prevent others from noticing. Notice, they did. Apparently, her employer has been utilizing an AI of their own. To make sure the code that their programmers write is created by a human, and is not some kind of virus, they scan all submissions. No one is in trouble, but her superiors are very interested in how her code keeps failing the scan tests. They’re just too perfect.

She finishes the video call with the Prime Executive of the company. It’s a pretty big deal. This guy doesn’t normally talk to people like her. She keeps downplaying her work, indicating that she simply spent a lot of time bulking up her library of repeaters, which would explain why her new programs are so sophisticated and bug-free, but he’s not buying it. He can’t force her to do anything, and he’s being really nice and patient about it, but this is why Marie’s life could all just fall apart.

A knock on the door. Heath is on the other side. When did he get home? “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine, why?” Angela replies.

“I couldn’t help but hear part of the conversation. Evidently, you’re doing quite well at Marie’s job?”

As far as she knows, the people on this team don’t lie to each other. Of course, she may just be ignorant about it, and it’s certainly no good reason to lie to them herself, but in this case, she probably has no choice. They have enough on their plates. This is her problem, and she has to fix it, no matter the cost. “Yeah, it’s not that hard once you get the hang of it.”

He’s giving her the same face the exec was when she was trying to lie to him. “It actually sounds like you’re too good at the job.”

“What are you saying, that I’m better than your wife?”

“What?”

“You want I should call her about that? Could I get a quote?”

“What are you talking about? How did this become hostile?”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“No, of course not. What kind of accusation might that be?”

“Just...I need to be alone right now.”

“Okay, that’s fine, I just—”

She closes the door, and leans up against it, trying some breathing exercises. This isn’t going to work. She needs help, even if she gets in trouble for what she tried to do. He’s still standing there when she opens it up again, like he knew she would. “All right. Let me tell you the truth.”

“It’s okay. We’ll figure it out. I have an instinct to help people with your face.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 16, 2398

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Mateo is finally getting out of the hospital today. The detective asked him all sorts of questions about who stabbed him on the street, but Mateo was prepared for this. He came up with a lie about how he didn’t know who she was, or what she wanted. She seemed pleasant enough at first, but when he tried to explain that he didn’t speak German, she grew irritated and impatient. Her anger with him continued until she just took out a knife, and shoved it in his stomach. She must have been wearing gloves, which would explain why only his fingerprints are on the weapon. It was a ridiculous story, but nothing that the authorities could disprove. He obviously wasn’t at fault here. Bystanders they managed to reach out to didn’t say anything that might corroborate his statement, but they didn’t say anything damning either. After all, he’s the one who got injured here, they’re all on his side.

He did make one mistake, though. Most victims of violent attack are known to seek justice after what happened to them. Mateo failed to hound the detective with calls regarding the progress of his investigation, probably because actually finding the forger from Kansas City would make this worse for him. He wanted to get away from her, and get out of whatever mission she had planned for him. He doesn’t want her in jail. She clearly has friends in high places, and they would not take kindly to that development. The self-stabbing wasn’t great for them either, but hardly enough to trigger some kind of retaliation. Even so, it’s not like the detective can arrest him for being too patient.

As it turns out, Ramses screwed everything up. They weren’t able to communicate with each other too much, and only had the opportunity to exchange a few ASL signs. Mateo wanted Ramses to keep an eye on the forger using the tracking device he planted on her, in case she tried to come to the hospital. He didn’t mean for Ramses to go off and infiltrate her little gang of mercenaries, or whatever they are. When Ramses asked the question of stay?, Mateo thought he was offering to stay nearby. Ramses apparently meant to ask whether Mateo wanted to stay. Which, of course he did, he was stabbed! Due to this misunderstanding, Ramses has been missing for the last few days, though according to a recent interaction Leona had with a higher up at her company, he’s not really being held against his will. He’s just Mateo’s substitute, which defeats the whole purpose of the stabbing, but hopefully it will all work out in the end. Time will tell.

For now, Mateo just has to leave before someone else finds out that there’s something unusual about him. He healed from the wound incredibly quickly. It wasn’t superhero before-your-eyes rapid healing, but it was much faster than a normal person should take to recover. He’s only waited this long to skidaddle so that people don’t ask questions. He had an ally in this endeavor. The nurse who was responsible for him most of the time saw how quickly he healed, and protected him so that no one else would see that there was something different about him. Something different indeed, though still not quite up to standards, and perhaps they’ll soon have to do some self testing to expand on what they know so far. So Ramses’ bodies are still working for them, but in a limited capacity. He was so fortunate to have gotten her as a nurse, because someone else probably would have alerted the hierarchy. It’s also a good thing doctors are just as hands-off as anywhere. She wheels him out to the back of the building, where Marie is waiting with a less flashy rental car. But they don’t part ways before sharing contact info.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 15, 2398

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Leona is about to leave after a long day at work when the internal investigator from a couple weeks ago steps into her office. He exhales, lowers her head, and pinches the bridge of her nose, wishing that she had just made her way to the elevator when she had the chance.

“I’m not here to take up your time,” he claims. “In fact, I’m here because I want to give you a heads-up about something that will be happening in the future.”

“What is your authority here again?” Leona asks, not expecting a direct answer.

“Authority Zero.”

“That is a band where I come from.”

“Where I’m from, it’s the freedom to do whatever I want,” he replies.

“Yeah. What do you want?”

“I have a team in Munich as we speak, who have been charged with acquiring a certain object under...shall we say, special circumstances.”

“They’re stealing it.”

“Well, yes...”

“They’re stealing it violently.”

“I can neither confirm, nor deny, the nature of the operation.”

She clears her throat, not wanting to give away the fact that three members of her team are presently in Munich, and they may or may not be involved in all that.”

“There are no more secrets between us,” the Authority Zero Internal Investigator lies. “We know your husband is there. We tapped him for this assignment, but he declined...also violently. We had to come up with an alternative.”

That’s why Ramses isn’t answering his phone. Mateo doesn’t know where he is, but he expressed his theories. “If they get hurt...”

“I take care of my team. I can’t guarantee their safety. We would have to put them in a padded room for that, and even then, nothing is perfect. The point is, Mister Abdulrashid—”

“Abdulrashid.”

“Abdulrashid.”

“Abdulrashid.”

“Abdulrashid.”

“Why can no one in the world pronounce that man’s name?”

“It’s because people in this country are...less enthusiastic about Arabs—”

She interrupts again, “he’s not an Arab, he’s from Egypt.”

“The point is that people around here do not generally associate with people from that part of the world. Pronouncing their words is just not something we find necessary to learn.”

“Ramses hasn’t experienced any racism in this country,” Leona notes.

“There’s a political reason for that. It’s a lot to explain, but people most likely assume he was relocated from the slums as a child. There was a huge push for that a few decades ago. Tens of thousands of children—mostly infants—were rescued from their parents, brought to civilized regions, and assimilated into the culture. Your friend is the right age to have been part of that. It’s interesting he seems to have kept his name, though. That’s not common. Or did he adopt it later out of reallocated loyalty?”

“I knew there were religious issues, but I guess I didn’t realize how widespread the racism was.”

“It’s not racism,” he defends. “It had nothing to do with race. Now, I’m not saying what they did was right, per se, but those kids were living in utter squalor. Their lives are better now. They’re better here. Our culture—across all religions—teaches scientifically proven idealistic life values, which they were lacking in their home country. Again, I didn’t participate in that, but you can’t argue with the results.”

Leona blinks. Racism. What he just described is racism, and he can’t see it. It’s xenophobia too. Because of Marie and Heath, the team was mostly prepared to just live here forever, but every day comes with at least one more reason to get the hell out. “Oh, I certainly can. You give me enough information, I’ll argue until the cows come home.”

“What cows?”

“It’s obviously just an expression. Is that all?”

“Ah, right,” he says. “The object that Mister—uh...what your friend will be securing for us will need to be reverse engineered when it gets here. That’s what you’ll be doing, probably at the start of next week.”

“What is it?”

“You don’t need to know that just yet.”

“Does it pertain to my work, or will it just be a distraction?”

“We hope it will help, actually,” he decides.

He has her by the balls, as Mateo once said. He knows about the team, and he knows about their connection to timey-wimey stuff. Or at least, he knows that they have a connection to something weird. The forger is aware of all this too, and God knows who else. Their only option now is to play ball. It’s the only way to protect Marie. She just has to hope they don’t know about that aspect of their lives. “What’s your name, if not Shady Corporate Authority Zero Interrogator?”

“Honeycutt. Senator Melville Honeycutt.”

Crap, that can’t be good. “It’s nice to formally meet you.” Now she really is going to have to fake being polite to him.

“I assume Leona Matic isn’t your real name?”

She adds more belongings to her bag. “No, it is. We didn’t think there would be anyone we would need to hide from.”

“Why did you need forged papers, then?”

“We required identities, not names.”

“I see.”

“What’s her name, the forger?” she presses, even though she really just wants to leave. “The one who is endangering my friends overseas?”

“Winona. Winona Honeycutt. I call her Winnie.”

Double crap. What is the wife or daughter of a senator doing as a forger in the seedy part of Kansas City? And what is a senator doing interrogating a suspect in what’s meant to be a semi-academic, semi-private laboratory? And how did they find out anything about them in the first place? “If you’re related, then you must know that I’m now pretending to work for SD6, and also that I’m apparently in charge of investigating her forging den?”

He dismisses this with a wave of his hand. “We set it up so that you would become the de facto lead investigator. They won’t find anything at the alleged crime scene, and you won’t implicate my daughter at any rate, will you?”

“No, sir. She’s safe. I just don’t know what to tell the agent and detective. I reached out once to tell them that my lead evaporated, and they have been calling me ever since.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of somethin’. Try to keep them out of it. They’re not part of the inner circle; you are.”

“Very well, sir.” She’s becoming more respectful by the minute. But of course, she still doesn’t trust them, so when she finally makes it home that night, after updating the group chat, she asks Angela to begin running some countermeasures.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 14, 2398

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Upon learning that this reality does not have the same sign language inventory as the main sequence, Marie thought it might be a good idea to teach it to Heath in case they ever needed to communicate with each other on the down low. It was a perfect idea, because under normal circumstances, such a language might not be viable. You either come up with a new language on your own, or somehow find one so dead, no one but you and your people know it. Drawing from a history completely removed from the current timeline is a pretty good workaround. The more the team learns about this world, the stranger it becomes. It makes no sense that the majority of the North Atlantic Isles don’t exist, yet English does. Yet American Sign Language doesn’t. Yet something called North American Sign Language does. Someone has to be making these decisions; mixing and matching parts of reality that they like, and leaving out the ones that they don’t. That begs the question, what the hell do these people have against the United Kingdom? And also, how does everyone in the U.S. explain the fact that the language they use is called English? Where does that word come from?

Anyway, Marie taught the rest of the team a few basic signs once they were sure that their superhuman group empathy was no longer a thing. They all now know the alphabet, even Mateo, and a few other words, like yes, no, and pasteurized milk. That last one is even better, because Louis Pasteur was never born, so these people just call it thermal sterilization. They also don’t have the Global Positioning System, instead opting to call it SatNav, which is ironically, the British term for it! So even if this detective figures out that Mateo is using some form of sign language to communicate with Ramses in the hospital hallway, and even if he somehow recognizes the letters to be G-P-S, he will have no appreciation for their combined meaning, nor be able to follow it as a lead.

Ramses flicks his finger in the air to let Mateo know that he understands, but he does it just as the detective is turning around, because he actually does notice something strange about Mateo’s finger movements, and his gaze. Ramses covers by itching his temple, and looking away coolly. Once he’s confident that the exchange has remained sufficiently secret, he takes out his phone, and logs onto the tracking system. Yes, one tracker is unaccounted for. It’s one of the microdots, and it’s presently on the move, which suggests that it has not fallen off onto the sidewalk. That is the problem with them being so tiny. To be hard to find, they have to be easy to lose.

Ramses makes two fists, but keeps his thumbs and pinkies out. He holds them in front of his stomach, and drops them down. Then he holds his palms upwards to make it a question. Stay?

Mateo makes a gesture, almost like he’s knocking on a door to reply with yes.

The detective sees this motion too, but by the time he turns around once more, Ramses is already walking away to track the location of the microdot. He doesn’t know who has it, or why, so he’s going to have to make a few educated guesses—and he’s going to have to do it all alone, so he doesn’t place Marie in danger—but he’s sure that it will all work out in the end.

By the time he catches up with the dot, it has pretty much stopped for the last ten minutes, suggesting that the target has made it to a destination, and is now moving about minimally. He looks around. This particular building appears abandoned, though none of the ones surrounding it are. It’s a relatively busy part of town. He feels all right just opening the door, and walking inside to do a little recon. He sneaks around slowly and quietly. Just because the dot is still a ways away, doesn’t mean there isn’t someone else closer. This place could have been packed with ne’er do wells, for all he knew. As he draws near, he starts to hear voices talking to each other. He can’t make out what they’re saying, but he can tell that at least one of them is upset. The rest are staying calm, so they’re not arguing against each other, per se. He will have to get closer to hear the conversation. Fortunately, he can make out a few words, so it’s not in German. Mission, contingency, and night shift stick out to him. Unfortunately, that’s all he gets.

He feels a blunt object pressing against the back of his head. He built these new bodies with a sort of spidey-sense, so it’s really annoying how this reality didn’t let him keep it. “Go forward,” the voice behind him demands in a transatlantic accent.

“Move ahead,” Ramses responds, still not complying. “Try to detect it, it’s not too late.”

“Huh?” she questions.

He can feel the gun drift from his head slightly, indicating that she’s loosened a little tension in her hand. He spins around, and pins her wrist to the wall. She tries to punch him in the face, but he blocks it, and kicks her in the chest. As she’s falling to her back, her arm slides out from under his hand, and he manages to snag the gun from her. He doesn’t point it at her on the floor, though, because he knows the ruckus has alerted the others. Instead, he backs up to get himself into a defensible position. The group runs in with their own weapons drawn, preparing to fire, but waiting for the go-ahead from someone.

The forger from Kansas City comes in from behind, not holding a gun. “Mister Abdulrashid.”

“It’s Abdulrashid,” he corrects.

“What did I say?”

“Something stupid.”

She sighs. “Lower your weapons,” she orders her team, all of whom comply immediately, without question. “It looks like we have the substitute we’ve been looking for. Thank you for coming, Mister...”

“Abdulrashid,” one of the men pronounces for her in a perfect accent. It’s nice to hear, even coming from a presumed enemy.

The forger smiles. “This operation is back on,” she announces to her people. She redirects her attention to Ramses. “You’re lucky we don’t need an NMA agent for this one, or we would have had to take Mateo out of the hospital while he was still trying to recover. This one does require skill, though. How are you with a sniper?”